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Subject: ninny's Persons of the day

Written By: ninny on 12/08/09 at 10:06 am

The word of the day...Hourglass
An hourglass is a device that was used to measure the passing of an hour. It has two round glass sections linked by a narrow channel, and contains sand which takes an hour to flow from the top section into the lower one.
http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk8/neon_vampire/Words/Life/hourglass.gif
http://i887.photobucket.com/albums/ac80/TwilightxGirl27/hourglasswatcheravatarbytxg.png
http://i610.photobucket.com/albums/tt188/Catholic_Vampire/Hourglass.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd259/gobbleinwoods/hourglass.jpg
http://i680.photobucket.com/albums/vv164/cbustamante47807/Hourglass.jpg
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc219/knownasmax/hourglass.jpg
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k217/trinimade/Hourglass.jpg
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k290/loowit/Hourglass.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v615/thenah/hourglass.jpg

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/08/09 at 10:10 am

The birthday of the day...Greg Allman
Gregory Lenoir Allman (born December 8, 1947 in Nashville, Tennessee), known as Gregg Allman (sometimes spelled Greg Allman), is a rock and blues singer, keyboardist, guitarist and songwriter, best known as a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band. He was inducted with the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and personally received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 2006. His distinctive Southern-accented voice placed him in 70th place in Rolling Stone Magazines list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time".
In the mid- to late-1960s, the Allmans played in a series of bands including The Escorts and Allman Joys, mostly playing around the Southeastern United States. Toward the end of the decade, The Allman Joys relocated to Los Angeles, California, and were signed to Liberty Records, which renamed them The Hour Glass. Strongly controlled by the label, the group produced a pair of psychedelic blues albums. All the players were deeply dissatisfied with the results; Duane Allman in particular spoke bitterly of the Hour Glass' output. The label, impressed with Gregg Allman's vocal abilities and abilities as a keyboardist, placed him on at least an equal level as his elder brother, which in turn began to be problematic for the brothers' relationship.
Formation of The Allman Brothers Band
Main article: The Allman Brothers Band

After its second album, The Hour Glass broke up and Duane Allman returned to the South, playing sessions at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. In a short time, he assembled the group that would become The Allman Brothers Band - Duane and Dickey Betts on guitars, Berry Oakley on bass guitar, and Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny "Jaimoe" Johanson on drums. Liberty Records still believed that Gregg Allman had more potential as a solo act, and allowed the rest of The Hour Glass to leave on condition that Allman stay in California to record for them. He quickly grew miserable with this arrangement, and when Duane called from Jacksonville, Florida in March 1969 to say that he had assembled a band that needed a singer, Gregg jumped at the opportunity. He had long wanted to play the Hammond Organ, and was given one immediately upon joining the band, which he had to learn to play in a hurry. He has played the Hammond B-3 and handled much of the lead vocal and songwriting duties for the band (when it has been together), along with occasional piano and guitar contributions, ever since.
Solo career

After the untimely death of Duane Allman, by the mid-1970s, Gregg Allman carved out a solo career. His first album, Laid Back, was released in 1973 to a positive critical reception.

It included a couple of reworked Allman Brothers songs, such as a horn-laden, swampy version of "Midnight Rider" (one of the band's most famous songs) that made it to #19 on the Billboard singles chart, and originals like "Queen of Hearts", which Allman and the band felt did not quite fit the Allman Brothers sound. There are also a few cover songs on the record, such as the traditional gospel number "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" and an acclaimed take on former California roommate Jackson Browne's song "These Days."
Allman in 2006 Photo: Andrea Klein

Allman's solo career has continued intermittently throughout the subsequent decades, sometimes touring when the Allman Brothers Band is off the road. Generally, these solo efforts - first with the Gregg Allman Band, and later with Gregg Allman & Friends - eschew lengthy guitar solos and cast Allman more in the mode of his favorite soul singers. The bands often include a horn section and are more groove-oriented. The template of mixing originals with reworked Allman Brothers songs and covers of blues, R&B, and soul songs remains in place.

Allman's biggest hit single came in 1987 with "I'm No Angel", from the album of the same name. The album went on to be certified Gold for 500,000 copies sold and led to a renewed interest in Allman and to a reformation of the Allman Brothers Band less than three years later.

Allman has also made guest appearances on albums and concert videos by a wide variety of other artists, including a concert DVD celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of The Radiators, playing Midnight Rider with that band.

As an actor, Allman had roles in the films Rush Week (1989) and Rush (1991), as well as in a couple of episodes of the TV series Superboy. He also had a brief speaking cameo in the Family Guy episode "Let's Go to the Hop".


When Allman was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame on September 16, 2006, he was introduced by Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue and performed "Oncoming Traffic", "Melissa", and "Georgia on My Mind" solo and then ended with "Midnight Rider", backed by fellow inductees Bill Berry, Peter Buck, and Mike Mills from R.E.M. at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.
http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee257/vaughanchristy/GregAllman.jpg
http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww291/drtomtom/Gregg-Allman-1.jpg
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u320/Drea2up/SRV/srv8-30gregallman.jpg
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll33/BDRecords/AllmanWoman.jpg

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/08/09 at 10:12 am

the co-birthdays of the day...Kim Basinger
Kimila Ann "Kim" Basinger (pronounced /ˈbeɪsɪŋər/ BAY-sing-ər, often mispronounced /ˈbæsɪndʒər/ bass-in-jər; born December 8, 1953) is an American film actress and former fashion model.

Following her role as a Bond girl in Never Say Never Again (1983), Basinger received a Golden Globe nomination for her work in The Natural (1984). She won an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award as best supporting actress for her performance in L.A. Confidential (1997). Her film work includes major roles in Batman (1989) and 8 Mile (2002).
Not long after penning the Ford deal, Basinger was on the cover of numerous magazines. She appeared in hundreds of ads throughout the early 1970s, most notably appearing as the Breck Shampoo girl. In the meantime, she alternated between modeling work and attending acting classes at the prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse as well as performing in various Greenwich Village clubs.

In 1976, after a five-year stint as a cover girl, Basinger decided to put her modeling career on hold and move to Los Angeles to begin a career in acting. After appearing in small parts on a few TV shows such as Starsky and Hutch and Charlie's Angels, her first starring role was a made-for-TV movie, Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold (1978) in which she played a small town girl who goes to Hollywood to become an actress and winds up becoming a famous centerfold for a men's magazine. She was then cast as a prostitute in From Here to Eternity (1979), in which she starred alongside Natalie Wood. Basinger played the same character in a 13-episode TV spinoff. She made her feature film debut in Hard Country (1981) with Jan Michael Vincent, followed by Mother Lode (1982) with Charlton Heston.

Basinger's breakout role was as a Bond girl, Domino Petachi in Never Say Never Again (1983), starring opposite Sean Connery. She did a nude pictorial for Playboy to promote her role in the Bond film in 1983. Basinger said the Playboy appearance led to good opportunities, such as Barry Levinson's The Natural (1984), co-starring Robert Redford, for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination as Best Supporting Actress. She starred opposite Mickey Rourke in the sexually provocative film 9½ Weeks (1986), which was a flop upon release. Oscar-winning writer-director Robert Benton cast her in the title role for the film Nadine (1987) with Jeff Bridges.

Basinger then played Vicki Vale in the blockbuster hit Batman (1989). Sean Young was originally cast as Vicki, but dropped out due to an injury prior to filming. Tim Burton recommended Michelle Pfeiffer to replace Young, but Pfeiffer was doing The Fabulous Baker Boys at the time. (Pfeiffer would be cast as Catwoman in Batman Returns.) After interviewing with Burton, Basinger was accepted and cast.

Directors repeated her in their films, such as Blake Edwards for The Man Who Loved Women (1983) and Blind Date (1987), as well as Robert Altman for Fool for Love (1985) and Prêt-à-Porter (1994). Other films made during that period were the comedies My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988) and Wayne's World 2 (1993).

In 1992, Basinger was the guest vocalist on a re-recorded version of Was (Not Was)'s "Shake Your Head", which also featured Ozzy Osbourne on vocals, and reached the UK Top 5. In the video for Tom Petty's 1993 song "Mary Jane's Last Dance", Basinger played the role of a deceased woman Petty brings home from the morgue for a dinner date, dressing her in a wedding gown. Later, Petty is shown carrying her to a rocky shore and throwing her into the sea. In a macabre ending, she is seen floating in the water with her eyes open.

Basinger scaled back her work for most of the 1990s to take care of her family. In 1997, she then starred as a sophisticated call girl alongside Russell Crowe in the neo-noir drama L.A. Confidential. This performance earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, as well as the Golden Globe and Screen Actor's Guild Award. The film's director, Curtis Hanson, would cast her once more as Eminem's troubled mother in the hit film 8 Mile (2002). More recently, she appeared mostly in television and independent films, with the exceptions of the mainstream thrillers Cellular (2004) and The Sentinel (2006). Basinger appeared in the 2008 film While She Was Out. Her 2009 film, The Informers, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2009. Her next film, The Burning Plain, was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2008 and at the Savannah Film Festival in October 2008. It is slated for wide release in 2009.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1981 Hard Country Jodie
1982 Mother Lode Andrea Spalding
1983 Never Say Never Again Domino Petachi
The Man Who Loved Women Louise Carr
1984 The Natural Memo Paris Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
1985 Fool for Love May
1986 9½ Weeks Elizabeth
No Mercy Michele Duval
1987 Blind Date Nadia Gates
Nadine Nadine Hightower
1988 My Stepmother Is an Alien Celeste Martin Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actress
1989 Batman Vicki Vale Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
1991 The Marrying Man Vicki Anderson
1992 Final Analysis Heather Evans Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable Female
Cool World Holli Would Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable Female
The Real McCoy Karen McCoy
1993 Wayne's World 2 Honey Horné
Mary Jane's Last Dance music video for Tom Petty
1994 A Century of Cinema Herself documentary
The Getaway Carol McCoy Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable Female
Ready to Wear (Prêt-à-Porter) Kitty Potter
1997 L.A. Confidential Lynn Bracken Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role - Motion Picture
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
2000 I Dreamed of Africa Kuki Gallmann
Bless the Child Maggie O'Connor
2002 8 Mile Stephanie Smith
People I Know Victoria Gray
2004 The Door in the Floor Marion Cole
Elvis Has Left the Building Harmony Jones
Cellular Jessica Martin Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
2006 The Sentinel 1st Lady Sarah Ballentine
2007 Even Money Carol Carver
2008 While She Was Out Della Myers
2009 The Informers Laura Sloan
The Burning Plain Gina
2010 The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud Louise St. Cloud
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o67/luvearest/basinger.jpg
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k14/ronewc/1-ACTORS_ACTRESSES/basingerkim-a.jpg

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/08/09 at 10:15 am

* James Galway
Sir James Galway OBE (born December 8, 1939) is a Northern Ireland–born virtuoso flutist from Belfast, nicknamed "The Man With the Golden Flute". Following in the footsteps of Jean-Pierre Rampal, he became one of the first flute players to establish an international career as a soloist.
After his education time he spent 15 years as an orchestral player. Galway played with the Philharmonia Orchestra as it rose to prominence in the 1950s.

He then played with Sadler's Wells Opera, Covent Garden Opera, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He auditioned for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Herbert von Karajan, and was principal flute of that orchestra from 1969 to 1975. To Karajan's surprise and dismay, after a period of some disagreement, "Jimmy" Galway decided that he would leave to pursue a solo career.

In addition to his performances of the standard classical repertoire, he features contemporary music in his programs, including new flute works commissioned by and for him by composers including David Amram, Malcolm Arnold, William Bolcom, John Corigliano, Dave Heath, Lowell Liebermann and Joaquín Rodrigo. The album "In Ireland" by "James Galway and the Chieftains" reached number 32 in the UK album charts in 1987.

He still performs regularly and is one of the world's most well-known flute players.

He is Principal Guest Conductor of the London Mozart Players, based at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon, South London.

Most recently, Galway has performed for the Academy Award-winning ensemble recording the soundtracks of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy, composed by Howard Shore.

In June 2008, Galway was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame along with Liza Minnelli and B. B. King.

He currently performs on Nagahara flutes, as well as some Muramatsu Flutes.
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c340/BlakePerry/Galway.gif
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh315/emiburger/jamesgalway.gif

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/08/09 at 12:36 pm


The word of the day...Hourglass
An hourglass is a device that was used to measure the passing of an hour. It has two round glass sections linked by a narrow channel, and contains sand which takes an hour to flow from the top section into the lower one.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0UYIfdgNzU

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/08/09 at 12:36 pm


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0UYIfdgNzU
One of my favourite videos.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/08/09 at 12:40 pm


* James Galway
Sir James Galway OBE (born December 8, 1939) is a Northern Ireland–born virtuoso flutist from Belfast, nicknamed "The Man With the Golden Flute". Following in the footsteps of Jean-Pierre Rampal, he became one of the first flute players to establish an international career as a soloist.
After his education time he spent 15 years as an orchestral player. Galway played with the Philharmonia Orchestra as it rose to prominence in the 1950s.

He then played with Sadler's Wells Opera, Covent Garden Opera, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He auditioned for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Herbert von Karajan, and was principal flute of that orchestra from 1969 to 1975. To Karajan's surprise and dismay, after a period of some disagreement, "Jimmy" Galway decided that he would leave to pursue a solo career.

In addition to his performances of the standard classical repertoire, he features contemporary music in his programs, including new flute works commissioned by and for him by composers including David Amram, Malcolm Arnold, William Bolcom, John Corigliano, Dave Heath, Lowell Liebermann and Joaquín Rodrigo. The album "In Ireland" by "James Galway and the Chieftains" reached number 32 in the UK album charts in 1987.

He still performs regularly and is one of the world's most well-known flute players.

He is Principal Guest Conductor of the London Mozart Players, based at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon, South London.

Most recently, Galway has performed for the Academy Award-winning ensemble recording the soundtracks of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy, composed by Howard Shore.

In June 2008, Galway was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame along with Liza Minnelli and B. B. King.

He currently performs on Nagahara flutes, as well as some Muramatsu Flutes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkUpto_ohEc

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/08/09 at 12:40 pm


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkUpto_ohEc
In his younger days.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/08/09 at 12:41 pm


In his younger days.
In 1978.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 12/08/09 at 12:42 pm

9 1/2 weeks was such an interesting film when it came out.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/08/09 at 12:43 pm


9 1/2 weeks was such an interesting film when it came out.
That is another film I have not seen.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 12/08/09 at 1:14 pm


9 1/2 weeks was such an interesting film when it came out.



I have a copy of it on VHS.



Cat

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/08/09 at 1:16 pm



I have a copy of it on VHS.



Cat
I hope you still have a VHS player.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/08/09 at 1:19 pm


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkUpto_ohEc

Very nice :)

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/08/09 at 1:22 pm


9 1/2 weeks was such an interesting film when it came out.

I don't remember to much about it other than it was erotic and I think Mickey Rourke was in it..Gosh it stinks to get old and forget things. >:(

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/08/09 at 1:23 pm


Very nice :)
I have always like that song by John Denver.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/08/09 at 1:29 pm


I have always like that song by John Denver.

Yes it is such a lovely song.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/08/09 at 1:31 pm


Yes it is such a lovely song.
Allegedly written in 15 minutes.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/08/09 at 1:35 pm


Allegedly written in 15 minutes.

Really, I guess you can write something good that fast. Just the lyrics or the music also?

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/08/09 at 1:36 pm


Really, I guess you can write something good that fast. Just the lyrics or the music also?
Once the flow of the tune and words happen, there you are.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/08/09 at 1:37 pm


Really, I guess you can write something good that fast. Just the lyrics or the music also?
On wiki:

""Annie's Song" was written as an ode to Denver's then-wife, Annie Denver (née Martell). Denver "wrote this song in about ten-and-a-half minutes one day on a ski lift" to the top of Bell Mountain in Aspen, Colorado, as the physical exhilaration of having "just skied down a very difficult run" and the feeling of total immersion in the beauty of the colors and sounds that filled all senses inspired him to think about his wife."

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/08/09 at 1:38 pm


On wiki:

""Annie's Song" was written as an ode to Denver's then-wife, Annie Denver (née Martell). Denver "wrote this song in about ten-and-a-half minutes one day on a ski lift" to the top of Bell Mountain in Aspen, Colorado, as the physical exhilaration of having "just skied down a very difficult run" and the feeling of total immersion in the beauty of the colors and sounds that filled all senses inspired him to think about his wife."

Wiki has it as ten-and-a-half minutes one.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/08/09 at 1:44 pm


Wiki has it as ten-and-a-half minutes one.

They both were a thing of beauty for him (his wife & the mountains)

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/08/09 at 1:48 pm


They both were a thing of beauty for him (his wife & the mountains)
It was nature that inspired John Denver.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/08/09 at 1:49 pm


It was nature that inspired John Denver.
All though he did not write "Mother Nature's Son.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/08/09 at 1:53 pm


All though he did not write "Mother Nature's Son.

Good Beatles song covered by the following:
Covers and mashups

    * Ramsey Lewis covered the song and used it as the title of his 1968 album Mother Nature's Son. The album includes other songs from The Beatles.
    * Harry Nilsson covered the song in 1969.
    * John Denver covered the song and after his death it became the title of a biography of Denver by John Collis.
    * Gryphon (band) covered the song in 1974 on the album Raindance.
    * Sheryl Crow covered it for the movie I Am Sam.
    * Danger Mouse included a sample of the song in his "mashup" version of the Jay-Z song "December 4th".
    * DJ Reset used it along with Slick Rick's La-Di-Da-Di for the "mashup" song "Mother Nature's Rick".
    * Glay covered the song on their 2007 single "Ashes".
    * Brad Mehldau covered the song in a medley on his album Largo.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 12/08/09 at 1:53 pm


I hope you still have a VHS player.



Of course-several of them.



Cat

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/08/09 at 1:57 pm


Good Beatles song covered by the following:
Covers and mashups

    * Ramsey Lewis covered the song and used it as the title of his 1968 album Mother Nature's Son. The album includes other songs from The Beatles.
    * Harry Nilsson covered the song in 1969.
    * John Denver covered the song and after his death it became the title of a biography of Denver by John Collis.
    * Gryphon (band) covered the song in 1974 on the album Raindance.
    * Sheryl Crow covered it for the movie I Am Sam.
    * Danger Mouse included a sample of the song in his "mashup" version of the Jay-Z song "December 4th".
    * DJ Reset used it along with Slick Rick's La-Di-Da-Di for the "mashup" song "Mother Nature's Rick".
    * Glay covered the song on their 2007 single "Ashes".
    * Brad Mehldau covered the song in a medley on his album Largo.

I must hear the Harry Nilsson version. I may have it already on WMP.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/08/09 at 2:44 pm


I must hear the Harry Nilsson version. I may have it already on WMP.
I do have it and I am listening to it right now.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/08/09 at 2:46 pm


I do have it and I am listening to it right now.
Very charming.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 12/08/09 at 3:16 pm

Kim Basinger had an hourglass figure. I have never seen 9½ weeks..... :(

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 12/08/09 at 4:26 pm


Kim Basinger had an hourglass figure. I have never seen 9½ weeks..... :(



WHAT?!?? Don't you know that is a cult classic?



Cat

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 12/08/09 at 5:45 pm


I have always like that song by John Denver.

Pretty song, beautiful.


WHAT?!?? Don't you know that is a cult classic?
Cat

Yup, it was. When it came out I was in University and all the guys just LOVED that movie...and the girls liked Mickey Rourke. He has changed a lot.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/08/09 at 6:55 pm

James Gallaway was on Sesame Street.

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 12/08/09 at 11:06 pm



WHAT?!?? Don't you know that is a cult classic?



Cat


My wife didn't want me to watch it........and I ALWAYS do as I'm asked!  ::)

Subject: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 12/08/09 at 11:37 pm


My wife didn't want me to watch it........and I ALWAYS do as I'm asked!  ::)

I guess there's a first for everything  ;)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/09/09 at 12:53 am


Very charming.

What version do you like the best?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 12/09/09 at 1:14 am

Hey....it's a brand new thread!!!!  :o

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 12/09/09 at 1:15 am


Hey....it's a brand new thread!!!!  :o

Lots of new threads. Tam has been busy.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/09/09 at 6:18 am


Hey....it's a brand new thread!!!!  :o

Lots of new threads. Tam has been busy.

Yes she has.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/09/09 at 6:19 am

Photobucket is under maintence..so the word of the day will be late.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/09/09 at 7:02 am


Photobucket is under maintence..so the word of the day will be late.


Ok,I'll be here for the waiting.  :)


Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/09/09 at 7:08 am

The wait is over
The word of the day...Notes
#
A note is a short letter. N-COUNT

    *
      Synonym
      message

    *
      Stevens wrote him a note asking him to come to his apartment.
    *
      I'll have to leave a note for Karen. + 'for' communication; @; written; informal

#
A note is something that you write down to remind yourself of something. N-COUNT

    *
      I knew that if I didn't make a note I would lose the thought so I asked to borrow a pen or pencil.
    *
      Take notes during the consultation as the final written report is very concise. communication @; written; referential

#
In a book or article, a note is a short piece of additional information. N-COUNT

    *
      See Note 16 on page p. 223.
    *
      ...`Exiles' by James Joyce, edited with an Introduction and notes by J C C Mays. communication; @; written; information; educational

#
A note is a short document that has to be signed by someone and that gives official information about something. N-COUNT with supp

    *
      Since Mr Bennett was going to need some time off work, he asked for a sick note.
    *
      I've got half a ton of gravel in the lorry but he won't sign my delivery note. communication; @; written; official; documentation

#
You can refer to a banknote as a note. N-COUNT Britain

    *
      They exchange traveller's cheques at a different rate from notes.
    *
      ...a five pound note. commerce; @; money

#
In music, a note is the sound of a particular pitch, or a written symbol representing this sound. N-COUNT usu with supp

    *
      She has a deep voice and doesn't even try for the high notes.
    *
      If the note of D is sounded on a harp, all the corresponding D strings of other octaves will likewise resonate.
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa181/The_Coast/img004.jpg
http://i960.photobucket.com/albums/ae81/Saltwaterdiver/i6l9bt.gif
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/09/09 at 7:10 am

got to jot down some notes.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/09/09 at 7:11 am

The birthday of the day...Judi Dench
Dame Judith Olivia "Judi" Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA (born 9 December 1934), is an English film, stage and television actress.

She made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she played in several of William Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. She branched into film work, and won a BAFTA Award as Most Promising Newcomer, however most of her work during this period was in theatre. Not generally known as a singer, she drew strong reviews for her leading role in the musical Cabaret in 1968.

During the next two decades, she established herself as one of the most significant British theatre performers, working for the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company. In television, she achieved success during this period, in the series A Fine Romance from 1981 until 1984 and in 1992 began a continuing role in the television romantic comedy series As Time Goes By.

Her film appearances had been infrequent until she was cast as M in GoldenEye (1995), a role she has played in each James Bond film since. She received several notable film awards for her role as Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown (1997), and has since been acclaimed for her work in such films as Shakespeare in Love (1998), Chocolat (2000), Iris (2001), Mrs Henderson Presents (2005) and Notes on a Scandal (2006), and the television production The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (2001).

Regarded by critics as one of the greatest actresses of the post-war period, and frequently named as the leading British actress in polls, Dench has received many award nominations for her acting in theatre, film and television; her awards include ten BAFTAs, seven Laurence Olivier Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Golden Globes, an Academy Award, and a Tony Award.

She was married to the actor Michael Williams from 1971 until his death in 2001. They are the parents of the actress Finty Williams.
1968, she was offered the role of Sally Bowles in the musical Cabaret. As Sheridan Morley later reported: "At first she thought they were joking. She had never done a musical and she has an unusual croaky voice which sounds as if she has a permanent cold. So frightened was she of singing in public that she auditioned from the wings, leaving the pianists alone on stage". But when it opened at the Palace Theatre in February 1968, Frank Marcus, reviewing for Plays and Players, commented that: "She sings well. The title song in particular is projected with great feeling."

After a long run in Cabaret, she rejoined the RSC making numerous appearances with the company in Stratford and London for nearly twenty years, winning several best actress awards. Among her roles with the RSC, she was the Duchess in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi in 1971. In the Stratford 1976 season, and then at the Aldwych in 1977, she gave two comedy performances, first in Trevor Nunn's musical staging of The Comedy of Errors as Adriana, then partnered with Donald Sinden as Beatrice and Benedick in John Barton's "British Raj" revival of Much Ado About Nothing. As Bernard Levin wrote in The Sunday Times: "...demonstrating once more that she is a comic actress of consummate skill, perhaps the very best we have."

But one of her most notable achievements with the RSC was her performance as Lady Macbeth in 1976. Nunn's acclaimed production of Macbeth was first staged with a minimalist design at The Other Place theatre in Stratford. Its small round stage focused attention on the psychological dynamics of the characters, and both Ian McKellen in the title role, and Dench, received exceptionally favourable notices. "If this is not great acting I don't know what is", wrote Michael Billington in The Guardian. "It will astonish me if the performance is matched by any in this actress's generation", commented J C Trewin in The Lady. The production transferred to London, opening at the Donmar Warehouse in September 1977, and was adapted for television, later released on VHS and DVD. Dench won the SWET Best Actress Award in 1977.

She had a romantic role in the BBC television film Langrishe, Go Down (1978), with Jeremy Irons and a screenplay by Harold Pinter from the Aidan Higgins novel, directed by David Jones, in which she played one of three spinster sisters living in a fading Irish mansion in the Waterford countryside.

Dench made her debut as a director in 1988 with the Renaissance Theatre Company's touring season, Renaissance Shakespeare on the Road, co-produced with the Birmingham Rep, and ending with a three month repertory programme at the Phoenix Theatre in London. Dench's contribution was a staging of Much Ado About Nothing, set in the Napoleonic era, which starred Kenneth Branagh and Samantha Bond as Benedick and Beatrice. In the same season, Geraldine McEwan and Derek Jacobi also made their directorial debuts.

She has made numerous appearances in the West End including the role of Miss Trant in the 1974 musical version of The Good Companions at Her Majesty's Theatre. In 1981, Dench was due to play the title role of Grizabella in the original production of Cats, but was forced to pull out due to a torn Achilles tendon, leaving Elaine Paige to play the role. She has acted with the National Theatre in London where, in September 1995, she played Desiree Armfeldt in a major revival of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, for which she won an Olivier Award.
Popular success

In 1995, she took over the role of M (James Bond's boss) with the James Bond film series, starting with GoldenEye. She is the only actor from Pierce Brosnan's Bond films to remain in the franchise. She has appeared in Casino Royale (2006) and its direct sequel Quantum of Solace (2008).

She has won multiple awards for performances on the London stage, including a record six Laurence Olivier Awards. She also won the Tony Award for her 1999 Broadway performance in the role of Esme Allen in David Hare's Amy's View. Alongside her numerous award winning performances, she has also managed to take on the role of Director for a number of stage productions. Dench won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as Elizabeth I in the film Shakespeare in Love.

Judi Dench has frequently appeared with her close friend Geoffrey Palmer. They co-starred in the series As Time Goes By, where she played Jean Pargetter, becoming Jean Hardcastle after she married Lionel Hardcastle. The program spanned nine seasons. They also worked together on the films Mrs. Brown and Tomorrow Never Dies, both filmed in 1997. Dench has also lent her voice to many animated characters, narrations, and various other voice work. She plays the role of "Miss Lilly" in the children's animated series Angelina Ballerina (alongside her daughter, Finty Williams, as the voice of Angelina) and as Mrs. Calloway in the Disney animated film Home on the Range. She has narrated various classical music recordings (notably Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Britten's Canticles-The Heart of the Matter), and has appeared in numerous BBC radio broadcasts as well as commercials. Her many television appearances include lead roles in the series A Fine Romance and As Time Goes By. In the U.S., As Time Goes By has been repeated on PBS and on BBC America.
Recent years

Dench returned to the West End stage in April 2006 in Hay Fever alongside Peter Bowles, Belinda Lang and Kim Medcalf. She finished off 2006 with the role of Mistress Quickly in the RSC's new musical The Merry Wives, a version of The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Dench's more recent film career has garnered six Academy Award nominations in nine years for Mrs. Brown in 1997; her Oscar-winning turn as Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love in 1998; for Chocolat in 2000; for the lead role of writer Iris Murdoch in Iris in 2001 (with Kate Winslet playing her as a younger woman); for Mrs Henderson Presents (a romanticised history of the Windmill Theatre) in 2005; and for 2006's Notes on a Scandal, a film for which she received critical acclaim, including Golden Globe, Academy Award, BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild nominations.

In 2007 the BBC issued The Judi Dench Collection, DVDs of eight television dramas: Talking to a Stranger quartet (1966), Keep an Eye on Amélie (1973), The Cherry Orchard (1981), Going Gently (1981), Ghosts (with Kenneth Branagh and Michael Gambon, 1987), Make and Break (with Robert Hardy, 1987), Can You Hear Me Thinking? (co-starring with her husband, Michael Williams, 1990) and Absolute Hell (1991).

Dench, as Miss Matty Jenkins, co-starred with Eileen Atkins, Michael Gambon, Imelda Staunton and Francesca Annis, in the BBC One five-part series Cranford. The series began transmission in the UK in November 2007, and on the BBC's U.S. producing partner station WGBH (PBS Boston) in spring 2008.

Dench became the voice for the narration for the updated Walt Disney World Epcot attraction Spaceship Earth in February 2008.

In February 2008, she was named as the first official patron of the York Youth Mysteries 2008, a project to allow young people to explore the York Mystery Plays through dance, film-making and circus. This culminated on 21 June with a day of city centre performances in York.

She worked on the 22nd Bond adventure Quantum Of Solace and reprised her role as M.

She is interested in horse racing and in partnership with her chauffeur Bryan Agar owns a four-year-old horse, "Smokey Oakey", who won the 2008 Brigadier Gerard Stakes.

She returns to the West End from 13 March-23 May 2009 in Yukio Mishima's Madame De Sade, directed by Michael Grandage as part of the Donmar season at Wyndham's Theatre. In February 2010, she will play Titania in Peter Hall's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Rose Theatre Kingston Upon Thames, with Titania being seen as a portrait of Elizabeth I of England in her later years
ilmography
Year Film Role Notes
1964 The Third Secret Miss Humphries
1965 Four in the Morning Wife BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles
A Study in Terror Sally
He Who Rides a Tiger Joanne
1968 A Midsummer Night's Dream Titania
1973 Luther Katherine
1974 Dead Cert Laura Davidson
1978 Langrishe, Go Down Imogen Langrishe (BBC TV film)
1985 The Angelic Conversation (narrator)
Wetherby Marcia Pilborough Nomination — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
A Room with a View Eleanor Lavish BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
1987 84 Charing Cross Road Nora Doel Nomination — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
1988 A Handful of Dust Mrs. Beaver BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
1989 Henry V Mistress Quickly
Behaving Badly Bridget Mayor Channel 4 television serial
1995 Jack and Sarah Margaret
GoldenEye M
1996 Hamlet Hecuba
1997 Mrs. Brown Queen Victoria BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
BAFTA Scotland Award for Best Actress in a Film
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
London Film Critics Circle Award for British Actress of the Year
Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Nomination — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nomination — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Tomorrow Never Dies M
1998 Shakespeare in Love Queen Elizabeth Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nomination — Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nomination — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture
Nomination — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
1999 Tea with Mussolini Arabella
The World Is Not Enough M
2000 Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (narrator) (documentary)
The Last of the Blonde Bombshells Elizabeth (TV)
Chocolat Armande Voizin Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
Nomination — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nomination — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Nomination — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture
2001 Iris Iris Murdoch BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
London Film Critics Circle Award for British Actress of the Year
Nomination — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nomination — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Nomination — Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
Nomination — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
The Shipping News Agnis Hamm Nomination — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Nomination — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
2002 The Importance of Being Earnest Lady Augusta Bracknell
Die Another Day M
2003 Bugs! (narrator) (short subject)
2004 Home on the Range Mrs. Caloway (voice)
The Chronicles of Riddick Aereon
Ladies in Lavender Ursula Widdington
2005 Pride & Prejudice Lady Catherine de Bourgh
Mrs Henderson Presents Mrs. Laura Henderson Nomination — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nomination — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nomination — British Independent Film Award for Best Actress
Nomination — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nomination — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Nomination — London Film Critics Circle Award for British Actress of the Year
Nomination — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
2006 Doogal (narrator)
Casino Royale M Nominated — National Movie Award for Best Actress
Notes on a Scandal Barbara Covett British Independent Film Award for Best Actress
Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actress
Nomination — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nomination — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nomination — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nomination — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nomination — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Nomination — London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Nomination — London Film Critics Circle Award for British Actress of the Year
Nomination — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
Nomination — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Nomination — Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
2007 Go Inside to Greet the Light (narrator)
2008 Quantum of Solace M
2009 Rage Mona Carvell
Nine Liliane La Fleur post-production
2011 Bond 23 M pre-production
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/09/09 at 7:13 am

The co-birthday's of the day...Beau Bridges
Lloyd Vernet “Beau” Bridges III (born December 9, 1941) is an American actor
ridges was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of actor Lloyd Bridges and his college sweetheart, Dorothy Bridges (née Simpson). He was nicknamed "Beau" by his mother and father after Ashley Wilkes's son in Gone with the Wind, the book they were reading at the time. He has two younger brothers, Garrett and Jeff, and one younger sister, Lucinda. His brother Garrett died of sudden infant death syndrome on August 3, 1948. He has shared a close relationship with Jeff, to whom he acted as a surrogate father during his earlier life when their father was busy with work. He and his siblings were raised in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles. In 1989, he starred opposite his brother in perhaps his best known role, as one of The Fabulous Baker Boys.

In 1949, Bridges played a secondary juvenile role in the movie The Red Pony. Wanting to be a basketball star, however, he played his freshman year at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and later transferred to the University of Hawaii.

In the 1962-1963 television season, Bridges, along with his brother, Jeff, appeared on their father's CBS anthology series, The Lloyd Bridges Show.

In the 1993-1994 television season, Bridges appeared again with his father in the 15-episode CBS comedy/western series, Harts of the West, set at a dude ranch in Nevada. The cast also included Harley Jane Kozak as Beau's wife, Alison Hart, and Sean Murray as older son Zane Grey Hart.

In 1995, Bridges starred with his father Lloyd and son Dylan in the two-part pilot episode of the Showtime science fiction series, The Outer Limits. In 1998, he starred as Judge Bob Gibbs in the one-season Maximum Bob on ABC. He had a recurring role in the Showtime series Beggars and Choosers (1999-2000).

In 2001, he guest-starred as Daniel McFarland, the stepfather of Jack McFarland, in two episodes of the NBC sitcom Will & Grace. From 2002 to 2003, he took on the role of Senator Tom Gage, newly-appointed Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in over 30 episodes of the drama series The Agency. In January 2005, he was cast as Major General Hank Landry, the new commander of Stargate Command in Stargate SG-1. He has also played the character in five episodes of the spin-off series Stargate Atlantis.

In November 2005, he guest-starred as Carl Hickey, the father of the title character in the hit NBC Comedy My Name Is Earl. Bridges's character has since become recurring. Bridges received a 2007 Emmy Award nomination for his performance.

On February 8, 2009, he won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album. He, along with Cynthia Nixon and Blair Underwood, read Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth."

In 2009, he guest-starred as Eli Scruggs on the 100th episode of Desperate Housewives and received an Emmy Award nomination for his performance.
Filmography

    * Force of Evil (1948)
    * The Eleventh Hour episode Cannibal Plants, They Eat You Alive (1964)
    * Combat! episode The Short Day Of Private Putnam (1964)
    * Village of the Giants (1965)
    * The Incident (1967)
    * For Love of Ivy (1968)
    * Gaily, Gaily (1969)
    * The Landlord (1970)
    * Hammersmith Is Out (1972)
    * Child's Play (1972)
    * Lovin' Molly (1974)
    * The Other Side of the Mountain (1975)
    * Swashbuckler (1976)
    * Two-Minute Warning (1976)
    * One Summer Love (1976)
    * Dragonfly (1976) aka One Summer Love
    * The Four Feathers (1977)
    * Greased Lightning (1977)
    * The President's Mistress (1978)
    * The Runner Stumbles (1979)
    * Norma Rae (1979)
    * The Fifth Musketeer (1979)
    * Silver Dream Racer (1980)
    * Night Crossing (1981)
    * Honky Tonk Freeway (1981)
    * Love Child (1982)
    * Witness for the Prosecution (1982)
    * Heart Like a Wheel (1983)
    * The Hotel New Hampshire (1984)
    * Alice in Wonderland (1985)
    * The Thanksgiving Promise (1986)
    * The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989)
    * The Iron Triangle (1989)
    * Signs of Life (1989)
    * Everybody's Baby: The Rescue of Jessica McClure (1989)
    * The Wizard (1989)
    * Daddy's Dyin': Who's Got the Will? (1990)
    * Without Warning: The James Brady Story (1991)
    * Married to It (1991)
    * Sidekicks (1992)
    * The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom (1993)
    * The Man with Three Wives (1993)
    * Million Dollar Babies (1994)
    * Kissinger & Nixon (1995)
    * A Stranger To Love (1996) (Made for TV movie)
    * Jerry Maguire (1996)
    * Hidden in America (1996)
    * Nightjohn (1996)
    * The Second Civil War (1997)
    * Rocket Man (1997)
    * Maximum Bob (1998)
    * P.T. Barnum (1999)
    * Inherit the Wind (1999)
    * Common Ground (2000)
    * Sordid Lives (2000)
    * Voyage of the Unicorn (2001)
    * We Were the Mulvaneys (2002)
    * Sightings: Heartland Ghosts (2002)
    * The Agency (2002-2003)
    * Out of the Ashes (2003)
    * Debating Robert Lee (2004)
    * Evel Knievel (2004)
    * 10.5 (2004)
    * Smile (2005)
    * The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005)
    * Into the West (2005)
    * Stargate SG-1 (2005-2007)
    * Stargate: Atlantis (2005-2006)
    * My Name Is Earl (2005-2008)
    * 10.5: Apocalypse (2006)
    * The Good German (2006)
    * I-See-You.Com (2006)
    * American Dad! (2005-2006) (voice)
    * Charlotte's Web (2006)
    * Spinning Into Butter (2007)
    * Stargate: The Ark of Truth (2008)
    * Stargate: Continuum (2008)
    * Max Payne (2008)
    * Americanizing Shelley (2008)
    * Desperate Housewives (2009)
    * Don't Fade Away (2009)
    * The Closer (2009)
    * Columbus Circle (2010)
    * My Girlfriend's Boyfriend (2010)


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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/09/09 at 7:15 am

Beau Bridges is great,He's a good actor.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/09/09 at 7:17 am

* Donny Osmond
Donald Clark "Donny" Osmond (born December 9, 1957) is an American singer, musician, actor and former teen idol. Osmond has also been a talk show and game show host, record producer, race car driver, and author. He is known for being half of the brother-sister singing act Donny & Marie and a member of the "Osmond Brothers" singing group. From 1991-1997 he played Joseph in the Canadian production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, impressed by his talents and the show's long run, chose Osmond to do the film version in 1999. On November 24, 2009, he was crowned Dancing with the Stars champion
After seeing the Osmond Brothers (Alan, Wayne, Merrill, and Jay) perform at Disneyland as a barbershop quartet, Andy Williams asked the boys to audition for The Andy Williams Show. They soon became regulars on the show and gained popularity quickly. Donny made his debut on the show at the age of 5 singing "You Are My Sunshine". The brothers continued to perform on the show throughout the 1960s along with their brother Jimmy and sister Marie.

Donny became a teen idol in the early 1970s as a solo singer, in addition to playing with his older brothers. He, Bobby Sherman, and David Cassidy were the biggest "Cover Boy" pop stars for Tiger Beat magazine in the early 1970s. He had his first solo hit with "Sweet and Innocent", which peaked at #7 in the U.S. in 1971. His solo songs "Go Away Little Girl" (1971) (#1 in the U.S.), "Puppy Love" (U.S. #3), and "Hey Girl/I Knew You When" (U.S. #9) (1972) vaulted him into international fame. The fame was further advanced by his appearance on the "Here's Lucy" show, where he sang "Too Young" to Lucille Ball's niece, played by Eve Plumb, and sang with Lucie Arnaz ("I'll Never Fall In Love Again").
Comeback: 1989 — 1990

In the 1980s, Osmond re-invented himself as a solo vocal artist and abandoned the earlier television show image crafted to appeal to young viewers. He made an unlikely appearance as one of several celebrities and unknowns auditioning to sing for guitarist Jeff Beck in the video for Beck's 1985 single "Ambitious", followed in 1986 by an equally unlikely cameo in the animated Luis Cardenas music video Runaway. He spent several years as a performer, before collaborating with Peter Gabriel and returning to the US charts in 1989 with the song "Soldier of Love" and its follow-up "Sacred Emotion". The campaign to market "Soldier Of Love" received considerable airplay with the singer being presented as a 'mystery artist', before his identity was later revealed.

Donny was often reluctant to perform his earliest songs, in particular "Go Away Little Girl", but was convinced to sing the song live for KLOS-FM's 'Mark & Brian Christmas Show' on December 21, 1990.
Current music career: 1991 — present

Osmond was the guest vocalist on Dweezil Zappa's star-studded version of the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" which appeared on Zappa's 1991 album Confessions. The song also included guitar solos from Zakk Wylde, Steve Lukather, Warren DeMartini, Nuno Bettencourt, and Tim Pierce.

In the 2000s, he released a Christmas album, an album of his favorite Broadway songs, and a compilation of popular love songs. In 2004, he returned to the UK Top 10 for the first time as a solo artist since 1973, with the George Benson-sampling "Breeze On By", co-written with former teen idol Gary Barlow, from the 1990s UK boy band Take That, reaching number 8.
In the mid 1970s, he and Marie co-hosted an episode of the "Mike Douglas Show", and were then were offered a show of their own, "The Donny & Marie Show", a television variety series which aired on ABC between 1976 and 1979.

Donny also co-hosted together in 20 years. Though ratings were high and they were nominated for an award as best talk show, the series was canceled. In a 1999 episode featuring Jefferson Starship promoting their album Windows Of Heaven, the hosts performed a rendition of Volunteers live with the band.
Other hosting opportunities

Osmond went on to host Pyramid, a syndicated television game show that ran two seasons in the US, from 2002-2004, and a British version of Pyramid on Challenge in 2007.

Osmond returned to ABC as host of The Great American Dream Vote, a prime-time reality/game show that debuted in March, 2007. After earning lackluster ratings in its first two episodes, the program was cancelled.

Osmond hosted the British version of the game show Identity on BBC Two during the daytime.

On April 11, 2008 Osmond also hosted the 2008 Miss USA pageant along with his sister Marie from Las Vegas.

Osmond appeared on Entertainment Tonight as a commentator covering the ABC show Dancing With the Stars during his sister Marie's run as a contestant on the 5th season of the American version of the popular show in Fall of 2007. He was seen at week 7 of the competition in tears in the audience watching Marie do a rumba after his and Marie's father passed away.
Musical theater

His first foray into Broadway musical theater was the lead role in a revival of the 1904 George M. Cohan show Little Johnny Jones. Osmond replaced another former teen idol, David Cassidy, who received negative reviews while the show was on its pre-Broadway tour. After 29 previews and only 1 performance, the show closed on March 21, 1982.

Osmond found success in musical theater through much of the 1990s when he starred in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for over 2,000 performances. During his performances for the musical, he suffered from Social Anxiety Disorder, which caused him to feel light-headed and extremely nervous during his performances.

He returned to Broadway on September 19, 2006, in the role of Gaston in Disney's Beauty And The Beast. He was scheduled to perform for nine weeks but due to popular demand he extended his run through December 24. Liz Smith of the New York Post wrote "I am here to tell you he is charmingly campy, good-looking and grand as the villain "Gaston," patterned after our old friend Elvis and noting "Donny is divine". On July 29, 2007, Osmond played Gaston again for the final performance of Beauty And The Beast.
Film

In the animated television series Johnny Bravo, Osmond voiced himself as a recurring character. He has also done guest spots on numerous other television shows such as "Friends", "Diagnosis Murder", and Hannah Montana. He also appeared in a Pepsi Twist commercial during the Super Bowl with his sister, Marie, and Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne.

In 1998, Donny Osmond was chosen to be the singing voice of Shang in Walt Disney's Mulan. He sang "I'll Make A Man Out Of You". Andrew Lloyd Webber asked the singer to do his movie version of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat saying, "to me there is no better selection".

Osmond remarked in an interview recently that with his movie appearance on College Road Trip and upcoming appearances on two Disney Channel shows he would coming about full circle since he and his family were discovered by Walt Disney.

Osmond appears in the music video of "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "White & Nerdy". The song is a parody of Chamillionaire's "Ridin'"; Osmond's role is analogous to that of Krayzie Bone's role in the original video. Yankovic asked Osmond to appear because "if you have to have a white and nerdy icon in your video, like who else do you go for?"
Dancing with the Stars

Donny and his partner Kym won season 9 of Dancing with the Stars. Donny and his dance partner Kym Johnson were crowned the champions on November 24, 2009.
Week
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Still nice looking (in my opinion)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/09/09 at 7:18 am

At 52,still looks as good as he did back then.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 12/09/09 at 11:06 am

I have never been a big Donny Osmond fan but he was OUTSTANDING in Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. If you haven't seen the video of it, I HIGHLY recommend it. Besides Donny looks VERY buff in it.  ;)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpJvUrSd_2k



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/09/09 at 12:45 pm

New topic now located!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/09/09 at 12:46 pm


James Gallaway was on Sesame Street.
James Gallaway is someone else.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/09/09 at 12:50 pm


I have never been a big Donny Osmond fan but he was OUTSTANDING in Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. If you haven't seen the video of it, I HIGHLY recommend it. Besides Donny looks VERY buff in it.  ;)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpJvUrSd_2k



Cat
We have the DVD of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat somewhere.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/09/09 at 2:28 pm

One Bad Apple is a favorite of mine.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 12/09/09 at 3:22 pm

I actually like ALL of your people of the day Janine...  Always thought Donny O was very talented.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/09/09 at 4:48 pm


I actually like ALL of your people of the day Janine...   Always thought Donny O was very talented.

Thanks :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 12/09/09 at 7:12 pm

When the Osmonds became famous at the same time as the Jackson ( more or less), I preferred the Jacksons at the time.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/10/09 at 5:27 am

The word of the day... Sleuth
   *
         o
           A sleuth is a detective. N-COUNT old-fashioned

Web definitions

   *
         o spy: watch, observe, or inquire secretly
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w197/oilgun/sleuth.jpg
http://i898.photobucket.com/albums/ac186/Number6pb/sleuth.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v623/ashields07/sleuth.jpg
http://i417.photobucket.com/albums/pp257/brightsleuth1/Sleuth.gif
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb65/kalstella/Movie/Sleuth.jpg
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a378/killer_ewok/SleuthCustom.jpg
http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n160/xerxes669/sleuth_700_with_info.gif
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj217/scoutingsue/07ndconvprogram2.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/10/09 at 5:30 am

The birthday of the day...Kenneth Branagh
Kenneth Charles Branagh (born 10 December, 1960) is a Northern Irish actor and film director.
Branagh achieved some early measure of success in his native Northern Ireland for his role as the title character in the BBC's Play for Today trilogy known as the Billy Plays (1982-84), written by Graham Reid and set in Belfast.

He received acclaim in the UK for his stage performances, first winning the 1982 SWET Award for Best Newcomer, for his role as Judd in Julian Mitchell's Another Country, immediately after leaving RADA. Branagh was part of the 'new wave’ of actors to emerge from the Academy. Others included Jonathan Pryce, Juliet Stevenson, Alan Rickman, Anton Lesser, Bruce Payne and Fiona Shaw. He and David Parfitt founded the Renaissance Theatre Company in 1987, following success with several productions on the London 'Fringe', including Branagh's full-scale production of Romeo and Juliet at the Lyric Studio, co-starring with Samantha Bond. The first major Renaissance production was Branagh's Christmas 1987 staging of Twelfth Night at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, starring Richard Briers as Malvolio and Frances Barber as Viola, and with an original score by Scottish actor, musician and composer Patrick Doyle, who two years later was to compose the music for Branagh's film adaptation of Henry V. This Twelfth Night was later adapted for television and is now available on DVD.

Branagh became a major presence in the media and on the British stage when Renaissance collaborated with Birmingham Rep for a 1988 touring season of three Shakespeare plays under the umbrella title of Renaissance Shakespeare on the Road, which also played a repertory season at the Phoenix Theatre in London. It featured directorial debuts for Judi Dench with Much Ado About Nothing (starring Branagh and Emma Thompson as Benedick and Beatrice), Geraldine McEwan with As You Like It, and Derek Jacobi directing Branagh in the title role in Hamlet, with Sophie Thompson as Ophelia. Critic Milton Shulman of the London Evening Standard wrote: "On the positive side Branagh has the vitality of Olivier, the passion of Gielgud, the assurance of Guinness, to mention but three famous actors who have essayed the role. On the negative side, he has not got the magnetism of Olivier, nor the mellifluous voice quality of Gielgud nor the intelligence of Guinness."

A year later in 1989 Branagh co-starred with Emma Thompson in the Renaissance revival of Look Back in Anger. Judi Dench directed both the theatre and television productions, presented first in Belfast then at the London Coliseum and Lyric Theatre.

More recently, in 2002, Branagh starred at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield as Richard III. In 2003 he starred in the Royal National Theatre's production of David Mamet's Edmond. Branagh directed The Play What I Wrote in England in 2001 and directed a Broadway production in 2003. From September to November 2008, Branagh appeared at Wyndham's Theatre as the title character in the Donmar West End revival of Anton Chekhov's Ivanov in a new version by Tom Stoppard. His performance was lauded as the "performance of the year" by several critics. It won him the Critics' Circle Award for Best Male Performance but did not get him a Laurence Olivier Award nomination, to the surprise of critics.
Film work
Branagh at the Roma Fiction Fest in July 2009, where he was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award

Branagh is probably best known for his film adaptations of William Shakespeare, beginning with Henry V (1989), followed by Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Hamlet (1996), Love's Labour's Lost (2000) and As You Like It (2006). As You Like It premiered in theatres in Europe, but was sent directly to television in the U.S., where it had its U.S. premiere on HBO in August 2007. Although Branagh played Iago in the 1995 film version of Othello, he did not direct the film; it was directed by Oliver Parker. Othello is the one Shakespeare film that Branagh has appeared in which he was directed by someone else.

Notable non-Shakespeare films that Branagh has appeared in include Dead Again (1991) and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), both of which he also directed, Wild Wild West (1999), Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) and Valkyrie (2008). He starred as Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). He also recently played the Minister, Dormandy, (a parody of PMG Tony Benn) in the film The Boat That Rocked (2009). From 1989 to 1996 Branagh mostly directed his own films, but the commercial and critical failure of Love's Labour's Lost ended his directorial career for a time. Branagh has returned to directing again in recent years, most recently with the thriller Sleuth (2007), a remake of the 1972 film. At a Film promotion for Valkyrie, Branagh confirmed he would be directing, Thor a film based on Marvel superhero. Thor, starring Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston is tentatively set to start filming in January 2010 for a 2011 release.

Branagh has narrated several audio books, such as The Magician's Nephew by C. S. Lewis.
Television

Branagh has also been involved in several made-for-TV films. Among his most acclaimed portrayals is that of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the film Warm Springs (2005), for which he received an Emmy Award nomination. Though the film received 16 Emmy nominations, winning five (including Best Made-For-Television Film), Branagh did not win the award for his portrayal. He did though, receive an Emmy for his portryal of SS leader Reinhard Heydrich in the TV film Conspiracy (2001), a depiction of the Wannsee Conference, where Nazi officials decided on the Final Solution. In 2002 Branagh starred in the two-part television movie Shackleton, a dramatization of the 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition's battle for survival, for which he was nominated for a BAFTA award and an Emmy. Branagh also narrated the BBC documentaries Walking With Dinosaurs, Walking With Beasts and Walking With Monsters.

Branagh filmed three feature-length adaptations of Henning Mankell's best-selling Wallander crime novels for the BBC in mid-2008. Branagh plays the eponymous Inspector Kurt Wallander and also serves as the executive producer of the series. The three films were broadcast on BBC One in November and December 2008. Branagh won the award for best actor at the 35th Broadcasting Press Guild Television and Radio Awards (2009). It was his first major television award win in the UK. The highest accolade though was when he received his first BAFTA TV on 26 April 2009 for the British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series . For his performance in the episode One Step Behind, he was nominated in the Outstanding Actor, Miniseries or Movie category of the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards. The role has also gained him a nomination for Best Actor at the 2009 Crime Thriller Awards.

He is set to star as Matthew Shardlake in a BBC commissioned adaptation of C.J. Sansoms' Tudor crime novel 'Dissolution', which is in the final stages of negotiation.
Branagh has been nominated for four Academy Awards. His first two nominations were for Henry V (one each for directing and acting). He also received similar BAFTA Award nominations for his film work, winning one for his direction. His first BAFTA TV award came in April 2009, for Best Drama Series (Wallander). Branagh's two other Academy Award nominations were for the 1992 film short subject Swan Song and for his work on the screenplay of Hamlet in 1996. Branagh has co-starred several times with actress Emma Thompson, to whom he was married from 1989 to 1995. They appeared together in Look Back In Anger, Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Dead Again, and Peter's Friends.

He is Honorary President of NICVA (the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action). He received an honorary Doctorate in Literature from Queen's University of Belfast in 1990. He is also a patron for the charity Over The Wall.

In 1994, Branagh declined an appointment as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

Branagh was the youngest actor to receive the Golden Quill (also known as the Gielgud Award) in 2000.

He remains, up until this date, the only British or non-American actor nominated for Oscars for acting, writing and directing and one of seven actors to have achieved this honour. The other six are Orson Welles, Woody Allen, Warren Beatty, George Clooney, John Huston and John Cassavetes.

On 10 July, 2009, Branagh was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the RomaFictionFest.
Filmography
Actor

   * To the Lighthouse (1983) (television) as Charles Tansley
   * Ghosts (1986) (television) as Oswald
   * Fortunes of War (1987) (television)
   * A Month in the Country (1987) as James Moon
   * High Season (1988) as Rick
   * Look Back In Anger (1989) as Jimmy Porter
   * Henry V (1989) as Henry V
   * Dead Again (1991) as Roman Strauss and Mike Church
   * Peter's Friends (1992) as Andrew Benson
   * Swing Kids (1993) as Herr Knopp, Gestapo (uncredited)
   * Much Ado About Nothing (1993) as Benedick
   * Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) as Dr. Victor Frankenstein
   * Othello (1995) as Iago
   * Hamlet (1996) as Hamlet
   * The Gingerbread Man (1998) as Rick Magruder
   * The Theory of Flight (1998) as Richard
   * Alien Love Triangle (1998) (short)
   * The Proposition (1998) as Father Michael McKinnon



   * The Dance of Shiva (1998) (short) as Col. Evans
   * Celebrity (1998) as Lee Simon
   * Wild Wild West (1999) as Dr. Arliss Loveless
   * The Periwig-Maker (1999) (short) (voice) as Periwig-maker
   * The Road to El Dorado (2000) (voice) as Miguel
   * Love's Labour's Lost (2000) as Berowne
   * Conspiracy (2001) (television) as Reinhard Heydrich
   * Schneider's 2nd Stage (2001) (short) as Joseph Barnett
   * Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) as A. O. Neville
   * How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog (2002) as Peter McGowan
   * Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) as Professor Gilderoy Lockhart
   * Shackleton (television) (2002) as Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton
   * Five Children and It (2004) as Uncle Albert
   * Warm Springs (television) (2005) as Franklin D. Roosevelt
   * Valkyrie (2008) as Henning von Tresckow
   * Wallander (television) (2008) as Kurt Wallander
   * The Boat That Rocked (2009) as Minister Dormandy

Director

   * Henry V (1989)
   * Dead Again (1991)
   * Swan Song (1992, short) starring John Gielgud
   * Peter's Friends (1992)
   * Much Ado About Nothing (1993)
   * Frankenstein (1994)
   * A Midwinter's Tale (1996)
   * Hamlet (1996)
   * Love's Labour's Lost (2000)
   * Listening (2003 short)
   * The Magic Flute (2006)
   * As You Like It (2006)
   * Sleuth (2007)
   * Thor (2011)

Narrator

   * Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood (Six-part TV special) (1996)
   * Great Composers (TV mini-series) (1997)
   * Cold War (CNN TV series) (1998)
   * The Making of Walking with Dinosaurs (UK version) (TV series) (1999)
   * Walking with Dinosaurs (UK version) (TV series) (1999)
   * The Science of Walking with Beasts (Australia) (Two-part TV special) (2001)
   * The Ballad of Big Al (UK version) (TV special) (2001)
   * Walking with Beasts (UK version) (TV series) (2001)
   * Walking with Monsters: Life Before Dinosaurs (TV series) (2005)
   * Goebbels-Experiment, Das (Documentary) (2005)

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b48/DJDS2124/My%20Loves/Actors/Kenneth%20Branagh/kenneth.jpg
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa273/GoldenDragon13/aussie.jpg
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g218/ALICIA_ORWELL/KennethBranagh.gif
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/Frankfurter4444/KennethBranagh.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/10/09 at 5:33 am

The co-birthday's of the day...Michael Clarke Duncan
Michael Clarke Duncan (born December 10, 1957) is an American actor, best known for his breakout role as John Coffey in The Green Mile, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.
Duncan took other security jobs while in Los Angeles while trying to get some acting work in commercials. During this time, worked as a bodyguard for celebrities like Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Jamie Foxx, LL Cool J, and Notorious B.I.G. all the while doing bit parts in television and films. A friend was covering for Duncan the night that Notorious B.I.G. was killed. This was the reason for Duncan to quit this line of work. In 1998, Duncan was cast as Bear in the film Armageddon, where he struck up a friendship with castmate Bruce Willis. It was Bruce Willis' influence that helped him to get his breakout role as John Coffey in the Frank Darabont-directed The Green Mile, a role which netted him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture.

Duncan then was cast in a string of films that helped to establish him as a star: The Whole Nine Yards, Planet of the Apes, The Scorpion King (where he starred alongside his friend, The Rock), The Island and Daredevil as Wilson Fisk, aka The Kingpin. The Kingpin is, by appearance, an overweight corporate head that takes the name Wilson Fisk, but in fact he is the sole person running organized crime. Duncan signed on for the role in January 2002, though he had been attached far earlier. When Duncan was cast, he weighed 290 pounds. He was asked to gain 40 pounds for the role in order to fit the physique of Kingpin. In order to do this, he would lift weights for 30 minutes a day, and power-lifted with one or two reps a day, as well as eating whatever he wanted. Despite this, Duncan's biggest concern was that he is black, whilst Kingpin has always been portrayed as white. He spoke on the fan's loyalty to the source material by saying "they watch movies to say, 'Hey, that's not like the comic book.' But I want them to get past that and just see the movie for what it is and see me for what I am—an actor." In July 2006, Duncan showed interest in returning for the role of the Kingpin, but stated that he would not be willing to gain weight as he felt "comfortable" being down to 270 pounds. However, he jokingly showed willingness to change his mind if he was offered $20 million. Duncan suggested that the character is portrayed to have been training a lot in jail in order to become faster in combat against Daredevil, also working as a way to fit his weight loss into the story.

Duncan has also provided his voice for a number of roles including Brother Bear, The Land Before Time XI: Invasion of the Tinysauruses, Quiznos commercials, and the video games Demon Stone, SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs, The Suffering: Ties That Bind, Saints Row, and Soldier of Fortune, with his most recent role being God of War II, where he provides the voice of Atlas, the Titan condemned by Zeus to stand at the western edge of the earth and hold up the sky on his shoulders. He reprised his role as the Kingpin in Spider-Man: The New Animated Series.

In 2005, he starred in the film Sin City (again alongside Bruce Willis) as Manute, a powerful mobster. Duncan appeared in a minor role in the 2006 movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and he voiced the role of the villain Massive in the Loonatics Unleashed. In 2006, he voiced the role of Numbuh 26 in the animated movie Codename: Kids Next Door: Operation ZERO. He played Balrog in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li and voiced the prison commander in Kung Fu Panda.

He has also guest starred in numerous television shows. He appeared in an episode of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody "Benchwarmers" as Zack's basketball coach, Coach Little. In 2005, Duncan guest-starred in a first-season episode of CSI: NY. He appeared as "Colt" in the second-season premiere of Chuck, "Chuck Versus The First Date". In November he appeared as a guest star on the CBS show Two and a Half Men.
Filmography
Year Movie Role Notes
1995 Friday Craps Player (uncredited)
1997 Back in Business Huge Guard
1998 Caught Up BB
The Players Club Bodyguard
Bulworth Bouncer
Armageddon Bear
A Night at the Roxbury Bouncer
1999 Breakfast of Champions Eli
Underground Comedy Movie Gay Virgin
The Green Mile John Coffey
2000 The Whole Nine Yards Franklin 'Frankie Figs' Figueroa
2001 See Spot Run Murdoch
Cats & Dogs Sam
They Call Me Sirr Coach Griffin
Planet of the Apes Attar
2002 The Scorpion King Balthazar
2003 Daredevil Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin
Brother Bear Tug
Spider-Man: The New Animated Series Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin Reprised his role from Daredevil
2004 D.E.B.S. Mr. Phipps
George and the Dragon Tarik
The Land Before Time XI: Invasion of the Tinysauruses Big Daddy
Pursued Franklin
2005 The Golden Blaze Thomas Tatum/Quake
Racing Stripes Clydesdale
Sin City Manute
The Producers Accountant (Scene later cut.)
Dinotopia: Quest for the Ruby Sunstone Stinktooth
The Island Starkweather
2006 Air Buddies The Wolf
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby Lucius Washington
Brother Bear 2 Tug
School for Scoundrels Lesher
2007 The Last Mimzy Nathaniel Broadman
American Crude Spinks
One Way The General
God of War II Atlas
Slipstream Mort / Phil
2008 Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins Otis
Kung Fu Panda Commander Vachir
Delgo Elder Marley
2009 The Slammin' Salmon Cleon 'Slammin' Salmon
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li Balrog
2010 The Story The Dealer
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/Frankfurter4444/MichaelClarkeDuncan.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h267/Caribloo/Great%20Movies/Great%20Actors/DuncanMichaelClarke.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/10/09 at 7:00 am


The word of the day... Sleuth
    *
          o
            A sleuth is a detective. N-COUNT old-fashioned

Web definitions

    *
          o spy: watch, observe, or inquire secretly
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w197/oilgun/sleuth.jpg
http://i898.photobucket.com/albums/ac186/Number6pb/sleuth.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v623/ashields07/sleuth.jpg
http://i417.photobucket.com/albums/pp257/brightsleuth1/Sleuth.gif
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb65/kalstella/Movie/Sleuth.jpg
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb187/LizzyP1_photos/DSCN0042.jpg
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a378/killer_ewok/SleuthCustom.jpg
http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n160/xerxes669/sleuth_700_with_info.gif
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj217/scoutingsue/07ndconvprogram2.jpg




http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3174/2998110480_675b0a8878.jpg


Sherlock Hemlock

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 12/10/09 at 10:23 am


When the Osmonds became famous at the same time as the Jackson ( more or less), I preferred the Jacksons at the time.



Me, too. couldn't stand the Osmond Brothers. Couldn't stand Jimmy.  8-P  I always liked Marie-I like the song Paper Roses (her first hit). And yeah, I did watch the Donny & Marie show.  :-[



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/10/09 at 12:08 pm



Me, too. couldn't stand the Osmond Brothers. Couldn't stand Jimmy.  8-P  I always liked Marie-I like the song Paper Roses (her first hit). And yeah, I did watch the Donny & Marie show.  :-[



Cat

I liked more songs by The Jacksons. I did like Paper Roses by Marie, and watched The Donny and Marie show.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/10/09 at 2:08 pm


The word of the day... Sleuth
    *
          o
            A sleuth is a detective. N-COUNT old-fashioned

Web definitions

    *
          o spy: watch, observe, or inquire secretly
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w197/oilgun/sleuth.jpg
http://i898.photobucket.com/albums/ac186/Number6pb/sleuth.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v623/ashields07/sleuth.jpg
http://i417.photobucket.com/albums/pp257/brightsleuth1/Sleuth.gif
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb65/kalstella/Movie/Sleuth.jpg
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb187/LizzyP1_photos/DSCN0042.jpg
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a378/killer_ewok/SleuthCustom.jpg
http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n160/xerxes669/sleuth_700_with_info.gif
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj217/scoutingsue/07ndconvprogram2.jpg

I understand the remake with Jude Law was very bad.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/10/09 at 2:43 pm


I understand the remake with Jude Law was very bad.

I never saw it.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/10/09 at 3:15 pm


I never saw it.
I do not wish to see it.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 12/10/09 at 7:16 pm

Very nice, Ninny. Thanks for sharing.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/10/09 at 7:19 pm

I always like detectives.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/10/09 at 10:27 pm


Very nice, Ninny. Thanks for sharing.  :)

I'm glad you liked it. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/11/09 at 4:39 am

The word or phrase of the day...Pajama Party
Pajama party or Sleepover may refer to the following:

    * Sleepover, an overnight party
http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg65/selector13/pajama_party.jpg
http://i421.photobucket.com/albums/pp293/EDUK8R3373/pajama_party.jpg
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj216/Jussbeinmee_2008/pajama.png
http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/tt84/brunopaualusa/pajama_party.jpg
http://i473.photobucket.com/albums/rr92/Niknak38/DSCF3551.jpg
http://i496.photobucket.com/albums/rr325/kclingafelter/PICT0009.jpg
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk167/stpatrick88/Copyofschoolpics20.jpg
http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg311/strangelittlegirl76/000_1936.jpg
http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc50/babygirl4445/ayparty039.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/11/09 at 4:45 am

The birthday of the day...Terri Garr
Terry Ann "Teri" Garr (born December 11, 1944) is an American actress and comedienne.
Early in her career she was sometimes credited as Terri Garr, Terry Garr, Teri Hope, or Terry Carr. Garr's movie debut was as an extra in 1963's A Swingin' Affair. She started out as a background dancer in uncredited roles for youth-oriented films like Pajama Party, a beach party film, The T.A.M.I. Show, and nine Elvis Presley features. Her first speaking role was a one-line appearance as a damsel in distress in The Monkees film Head written by Jack Nicholson. In 1974 she got her first significant film role in Francis Ford Coppola's critically acclaimed The Conversation.

She made her career breakthrough in the Mel Brooks hit comedy Young Frankenstein (1974). She then went on to appear in a string of highly successful films, often playing a housewife, in both comedies and dramas. Her most popular films include Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Oh, God! (1977), The Black Stallion (1979), One From The Heart (1982) and Mr. Mom (1983). In 1982 she was nominated for an Academy Award for her supporting role as Dustin Hoffman's actress friend in Tootsie.

Since the late 1960s she has appeared frequently on television. She, along with friend Toni Basil, began as go-go dancers on several musical variety shows such as Shindig! and Hullabaloo. In 1967 Garr made two appearances on Batman and one appearance on The Andy Griffith Show. In 1968 she was in two episodes of It Takes a Thief and a part in the Star Trek episode "Assignment: Earth". This was a backdoor pilot for a proposed series in which she would have co-starred, but the series did not sell.

In the early 1970s she was a regular cast member on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour dancing and acting in comedy sketches. She also had a recurring role as a ditzy policewoman on McCloud, and appeared on M*A*S*H, The Bob Newhart Show, and Barnaby Jones, among others. She hosted Saturday Night Live in 1980, 1983, and 1985 and was a frequent visitor on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. As a recurring guest on Late Night with David Letterman, she was renowned for her unscripted banter with personal friend David Letterman, who once goaded her into showering in his office while the camera rolled. She landed a role as recurring character Phoebe Buffay Sr. in Friends, playing the estranged birth mother of Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow).

For over four decades, she has appeared in a variety of television commercials, including a 1970 Safeguard ad with then-unknowns Penny Marshall and Tom Selleck. Often complaining on talk shows about being typecast in housewife roles, she nonetheless used her image to promote many household products (coffee, Band-Aid, Glade air-fresheners, etc.) in countless commercials over the years.
n October 2002, Garr publicly confirmed that she was battling multiple sclerosis. After years of uncertainty and secrecy surrounding her diagnosis, Garr explained her reasons for deciding to go public: "I'm telling my story for the first time, so I can help people. I can help people know they aren't alone, and tell them there are reasons to be optimistic because today treatment options are available". In recent interviews, she has commented that she first started noticing symptoms while in New York filming Tootsie. For the next few years, as acting jobs brought her to various locations around the world, she continued to see different doctors in different cities, until she finally found a doctor that correctly diagnosed her as having MS.

Since Garr announced that she has MS, she has become a leading advocate in raising awareness for the condition and the latest treatments for it. She is a National Ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and National Chair for the Society's Women Against MS program (WAMS). WAMS is a nationwide education and fundraising program that helps to increase the public's awareness of MS and the National MS Society while acknowledging and encouraging the advancement of women philanthropists. In November 2005, Garr was honored as the society’s Ambassador of the Year. This honor had been given only four times since the society was founded.

She is the mother of an adopted daughter and resides in Los Angeles. On December 21, 2006, she suffered a brain aneurysm in her home; her 13-year-old daughter called 911 when she couldn't wake her up from a nap. Following surgery, her publicist Heidi Schaeffer said she expected Garr to make a full recovery. She appeared on Late Show with David Letterman on June 19, 2008, without need of a wheelchair, and just as sharp and witty as always. She was on the show to promote Expired, a movie in which she plays twins. Garr sold her Los Angeles-area house in June 2008.
Academy awards nomination

Academy Award

    * 1983: Nominated for "Best Supporting Actress" in Tootsie

Filmography
Features

    * A Swingin' Affair (1963)
    * Fun in Acapulco (1963), backup dancer
    * Kissin' Cousins (1964), backup dancer
    * Viva Las Vegas (1964), backup dancer
    * What a Way to Go! (1964), backup dancer
    * Roustabout (1964), backup dancer
    * Pajama Party (1964), backup dancer
    * The T.A.M.I. Show (1964), backup dancer
    * John Goldfarb, Please Come Home (1965)
    * Red Line 7000 (1965)
    * The Cool Ones (1967)
    * Clambake (1967), backup dancer
    * For Pete's Sake (1968)
    * Maryjane (1968)
    * Head (1968), first speaking role
    * Changes (1969)
    * The Moonshine War (1970)
    * The Conversation (1974)
    * Young Frankenstein (1974)
    * Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976)
    * Oh, God! (1977)
    * Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
    * Mr. Mike's Mondo Video (1979)
    * The Black Stallion (1979)
    * Java Junkie (1979)
    * Witches' Brew (1979)
    * Honky Tonk Freeway (1981)
    * One from the Heart (1982)
    * The Escape Artist (1982)
    * Tootsie (1982)
    * The Sting II (1983)
    * The Black Stallion Returns (1983)
    * Mr. Mom (1983)
    * Firstborn (1984)



    * To Catch a King (1984)
    * After Hours (1985)
    * Miracles (1986)
    * Full Moon in Blue Water (1988)
    * Out Cold (1989)
    * Let It Ride (1989)
    * Short Time (1990)
    * A Quiet Little Neighborhood, a Perfect Little Murder (1990)
    * Waiting for the Light (1990)
    * Adventures in Wonderland (1991)
    * The Player (1992)
    * Mom and Dad Save the World (1992)
    * Dumb and Dumber (1994)
    * Ready to Wear (1994)
    * Perfect Alibi (1995)
    * Michael (1996)
    * The Definite Maybe (1997)
    * Changing Habits (1997)
    * A Simple Wish (1997)
    * Nightscream (1997)
    * Kill the Man (1999)
    * Dick (1999)
    * The Sky Is Falling (2000)
    * Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000) (voice) (direct-to-video)
    * Ghost World (2001)
    * Life Without Dick (2002)
    * Searching for Debra Winger (2002) (documentary)
    * Aloha, Scooby-Doo! (2005) (voice) (direct-to-video)
    * A Taste of Jupiter (2005)
    * Unaccompanied Minors (2006)
    * Let It Ride (2006) (documentary)
    * Expired (2007)
    * Kabluey (2007)

Short subjects

    * Where Is the Bus? (1966)
    * The Absent-Minded Waiter (1977)
    * Java Junkie (1979), shown on Saturday Night Live
    * Save the Rabbits (1994)
    * God Out the Window (2007)
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc185/sallyiscool_mph/treigarr.jpg
http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg318/etb4/terigarr9.jpg
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee99/kirleyface/Teri%20Garr/068.png
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn111/pauldybus/garrteri04-1-1.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/11/09 at 4:49 am

The co-birthdays of the day...Rita Moreno
Rita Moreno (born December 11, 1931) is a Puerto Rican singer, dancer and actress. She is the first and only Hispanic and one of ten performers who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony and at the time the second Puerto Rican to win an Academy Award
In 1961, Moreno landed the role of Anita in Robert Wise's film adaptation of Leonard Bernstein's and Stephen Sondheim's groundbreaking Broadway musical, West Side Story, which was played by Chita Rivera on Broadway. Moreno won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for that role. Moreno went on to be the first actress (and the first Hispanic) to win an Emmy (1977), a Grammy(1972), an Oscar (1962) and a Tony (1975). In 1985, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago.
Other Roles

Besides appearing in Singin' in the Rain, The King and I, Summer and Smoke (1961), West Side Story, The Night of the Following Day (1968) and Carnal Knowledge in (1971), Moreno appeared on the PBS children's series The Electric Company in the 1970s, most notably as Millie the Helper. In fact, it was Moreno who screamed the show's opening line, "HEY, YOU GUYS!" She also had roles as the naughty little girl Pandora, and as "Otto", the very short-tempered director. Moreno appeared in the family variety series The Muppet Show, and she made other guest appearances on television series such as The Rockford Files, The Love Boat, The Cosby Show, George Lopez, The Golden Girls, and Miami Vice. She was also a regular on the short-lived sitcom version of Nine to Five (based on the film hit) during the early 1980s.
Broadway and television

Moreno's Broadway credits include The Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Gantry, The Ritz, for which she won the 1975 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, and the female version of The Odd Couple. In 1993 she was invited to perform at President Bill Clinton's inauguration and later that month was asked to perform at the White House. During the mid 1990s, Moreno provided the voice of Carmen Sandiego on the animated Fox show Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?

In the late 1990s, she gained exposure to a new generation of viewers when she played Sister Pete, a nun trained as a psychologist in the popular HBO series, Oz. She made a guest appearance on The Nanny as Coach Stone, Maggie's (Nicholle Tom) tyrannical gym teacher, whom Fran Fine (Fran Drescher) also remembered from her school as Ms. Wickavich.
Performing in the 21st century

Moreno continues to be active on stage and screen. In 2006, she portrayed Amanda Wingfield in Berkeley Repertory Theatre's revival of The Glass Menagerie. She was seen on Law and Order: Criminal Intent as the dying mother of Detective Goren. She was a regular on the short-lived TV series Cane, which starred Jimmy Smits and Hector Elizondo.
Among Moreno's awards and recognitions are the following:

    * Academy Award as the Best Supporting Actress "West Side Story" (1961)
    * Golden Globe Award as the Best Supporting Actress "West Side Story" (1961)
    * "The Joseph Jefferson Award" Best Chicago Theatre Actress (1968)
    * Grammy Award The Electric Company Album (1972)
    * Tony Award Best Featured Actress, "The Ritz" (1975)
    * Emmy Award for Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program (1977)
    * Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress - Drama Series (1978)
    * "The Golden Apple" Cue Magazine Award
    * Library of Congress Living Legends Award, April 2000
    * "The Sarah Siddons Awards" for her portrayal of Olive Madison in the female version of the Odd Couple
    * "Special Recognition Award" from the International Latin Music Hall of Fame (2001)
    * "Presidential Medal of Freedom" from President George W. Bush in June 2004
    * Rita Moreno has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7083 Hollywood Blvd.
    * On December 5, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Moreno into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.

Filmography
Film
Year Film Role Other notes
1950 So Young So Bad Dolores Guererro as Rosita Moreno
The Toast of New Orleans Tina
Pagan Love Song Terru
1952 The Ring Lucy Gomez
Singin' in the Rain Zelda Zanders
The Fabulous Señorita Manuela Rodríguez
Cattle Town Queli
1953 Fort Vengeance Bridget Fitzgibbon
Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation Soubrette uncredited
Latin Lovers Christina
El Alaméin Jara
1954 Jivaro Maroa
The Yellow Tomahawk Honey Bear
Garden of Evil Cantina Singer
1955 Untamed Julia
Seven Cities of Gold Ula
1956 The Lieutenant Wore Skirts Sandra Roberts
The King and I Tuptim
The Vagabond King Huguette
1957 The Deerslayer Hetty Hutter
1960 This Rebel Breed Lola Montalvo
1961 West Side Story Anita Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Golden Globe
Summer and Smoke Rosa Zacharias
1963 Cry of Battle Sisa
1968 The Night of the Following Day Vi
1969 Popi Lupe
Marlowe Dolores Gonzáles
1971 Carnal Knowledge Louise
1976 The Ritz Googie Gomez Nominated - BAFTA Award
Nominated - Golden Globe
1977 Voodoo Passion
1978 The Boss' Son Esther Rose
1980 Happy Birthday, Gemini Lucille Pompi
1981 The Four Seasons Claudia Zimmer
1991 Age Isn't Everything Rita
1993 Italian Movie Isabella
1994 I Like It Like That Rosaria Linares
1995 Carmen Miranda: Bananas Is My Business Herself documentary
Angus Madame Rulenska
1998 Slums of Beverly Hills Belle Abromowitz Nominated - ALMA Award
1999 Carlo's Wake Angela Torello
The Puerto Ricans: Our American Story Herself documentary
2000 Blue Moon Maggie
2001 Piñero Miguel's Mother
2003 Casa de los Babys Señora Muñoz
Beyond Borders: John Sayles in Mexico Herself documentary
2004 King of the Corner Inez
2006 Play It By Ear Ruth
Television
Year Title Role Other notes
1958 Father Knows Best
Chanthini, an exchange student
from India episode: Fair Exchange (24 Nov 1958)
1971 – 1977 The Electric Company Carmela
Otto The Director
Pandora the Little Girl, Millie the Helper 780 episodes
1974 Dominic's Dream Anita Bente
Out to Lunch Various Nominated - Emmy Award
1976 The Muppet Show Herself Episode #1.5 - Emmy Award
1978 The Rockford Files Rita Capkovic 3 episodes
Emmy Award - For episode "The Paper Palace"
Nominated - Emmy Award - For episode "Rosendahl and Gilda Stern are Dead".
1979 Anatomy of a Seduction Nina
The Muppets Go Hollywood Herself/Host Special
1981 Evita Perón Renata Riguel
1982 – 1983 9 to 5 Violet Newstead Nominated - Emmy Award; Nominated - Golden Globe
1982 Working Waitress
Portrait of a Showgirl Rosella DeLeon Nominated - Emmy Award
1989 – 1990 B.L. Stryker Kimberly Baskin 2 episodes
1994 The Nanny Miss Wickervich/Mrs. Stone Episode - The Gym Teacher
1994 – 1998 Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? Carmen Sandiego voice
1994 – 1995 The Cosby Mysteries Angie Corea 2 episodes
1995 The Wharf Rat Mom
1997 – 2003 Oz Sister Peter Marie Reimondo 44 episodes
ALMA Award - 1998, 1999, 2002
Nominated - ALMA Award - 2000, 2001
1998 The Spree Irma Kelly
1999 Resurrection Mimi
2004 Copshop Mary Alice
2005 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Mildred Quintana Episode - "Night"
Law & Order: Trial by Jury Mildred Quintana Episode - "Day"
2006 – 2007 Law & Order: Criminal Intent Frances Goren 3 episodes: "Endgame"
"The War at Home"
"Brother's Keeper"
2007 The George Lopez Show Luisa Diaz Episode - "George Testi-Lies for Benny"
Ugly Betty Aunt Mirta Episode - "A Tree Grows in Guadalajara"
Cane Amalia Duque 13 episodes
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn187/lupisima/RitaMoreno.jpg
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f218/SteveFrame/AMC/rita_moreno.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/11/09 at 6:36 am


The co-birthdays of the day...Rita Moreno
Rita Moreno (born December 11, 1931) is a Puerto Rican singer, dancer and actress. She is the first and only Hispanic and one of ten performers who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony and at the time the second Puerto Rican to win an Academy Award
In 1961, Moreno landed the role of Anita in Robert Wise's film adaptation of Leonard Bernstein's and Stephen Sondheim's groundbreaking Broadway musical, West Side Story, which was played by Chita Rivera on Broadway. Moreno won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for that role. Moreno went on to be the first actress (and the first Hispanic) to win an Emmy (1977), a Grammy(1972), an Oscar (1962) and a Tony (1975). In 1985, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago.
Other Roles

Besides appearing in Singin' in the Rain, The King and I, Summer and Smoke (1961), West Side Story, The Night of the Following Day (1968) and Carnal Knowledge in (1971), Moreno appeared on the PBS children's series The Electric Company in the 1970s, most notably as Millie the Helper. In fact, it was Moreno who screamed the show's opening line, "HEY, YOU GUYS!" She also had roles as the naughty little girl Pandora, and as "Otto", the very short-tempered director. Moreno appeared in the family variety series The Muppet Show, and she made other guest appearances on television series such as The Rockford Files, The Love Boat, The Cosby Show, George Lopez, The Golden Girls, and Miami Vice. She was also a regular on the short-lived sitcom version of Nine to Five (based on the film hit) during the early 1980s.
Broadway and television

Moreno's Broadway credits include The Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Gantry, The Ritz, for which she won the 1975 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, and the female version of The Odd Couple. In 1993 she was invited to perform at President Bill Clinton's inauguration and later that month was asked to perform at the White House. During the mid 1990s, Moreno provided the voice of Carmen Sandiego on the animated Fox show Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?

In the late 1990s, she gained exposure to a new generation of viewers when she played Sister Pete, a nun trained as a psychologist in the popular HBO series, Oz. She made a guest appearance on The Nanny as Coach Stone, Maggie's (Nicholle Tom) tyrannical gym teacher, whom Fran Fine (Fran Drescher) also remembered from her school as Ms. Wickavich.
Performing in the 21st century

Moreno continues to be active on stage and screen. In 2006, she portrayed Amanda Wingfield in Berkeley Repertory Theatre's revival of The Glass Menagerie. She was seen on Law and Order: Criminal Intent as the dying mother of Detective Goren. She was a regular on the short-lived TV series Cane, which starred Jimmy Smits and Hector Elizondo.
Among Moreno's awards and recognitions are the following:

    * Academy Award as the Best Supporting Actress "West Side Story" (1961)
    * Golden Globe Award as the Best Supporting Actress "West Side Story" (1961)
    * "The Joseph Jefferson Award" Best Chicago Theatre Actress (1968)
    * Grammy Award The Electric Company Album (1972)
    * Tony Award Best Featured Actress, "The Ritz" (1975)
    * Emmy Award for Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program (1977)
    * Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress - Drama Series (1978)
    * "The Golden Apple" Cue Magazine Award
    * Library of Congress Living Legends Award, April 2000
    * "The Sarah Siddons Awards" for her portrayal of Olive Madison in the female version of the Odd Couple
    * "Special Recognition Award" from the International Latin Music Hall of Fame (2001)
    * "Presidential Medal of Freedom" from President George W. Bush in June 2004
    * Rita Moreno has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7083 Hollywood Blvd.
    * On December 5, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Moreno into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.

Filmography
Film
Year Film Role Other notes
1950 So Young So Bad Dolores Guererro as Rosita Moreno
The Toast of New Orleans Tina
Pagan Love Song Terru
1952 The Ring Lucy Gomez
Singin' in the Rain Zelda Zanders
The Fabulous Señorita Manuela Rodríguez
Cattle Town Queli
1953 Fort Vengeance Bridget Fitzgibbon
Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation Soubrette uncredited
Latin Lovers Christina
El Alaméin Jara
1954 Jivaro Maroa
The Yellow Tomahawk Honey Bear
Garden of Evil Cantina Singer
1955 Untamed Julia
Seven Cities of Gold Ula
1956 The Lieutenant Wore Skirts Sandra Roberts
The King and I Tuptim
The Vagabond King Huguette
1957 The Deerslayer Hetty Hutter
1960 This Rebel Breed Lola Montalvo
1961 West Side Story Anita Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Golden Globe
Summer and Smoke Rosa Zacharias
1963 Cry of Battle Sisa
1968 The Night of the Following Day Vi
1969 Popi Lupe
Marlowe Dolores Gonzáles
1971 Carnal Knowledge Louise
1976 The Ritz Googie Gomez Nominated - BAFTA Award
Nominated - Golden Globe
1977 Voodoo Passion
1978 The Boss' Son Esther Rose
1980 Happy Birthday, Gemini Lucille Pompi
1981 The Four Seasons Claudia Zimmer
1991 Age Isn't Everything Rita
1993 Italian Movie Isabella
1994 I Like It Like That Rosaria Linares
1995 Carmen Miranda: Bananas Is My Business Herself documentary
Angus Madame Rulenska
1998 Slums of Beverly Hills Belle Abromowitz Nominated - ALMA Award
1999 Carlo's Wake Angela Torello
The Puerto Ricans: Our American Story Herself documentary
2000 Blue Moon Maggie
2001 Piñero Miguel's Mother
2003 Casa de los Babys Señora Muñoz
Beyond Borders: John Sayles in Mexico Herself documentary
2004 King of the Corner Inez
2006 Play It By Ear Ruth
Television
Year Title Role Other notes
1958 Father Knows Best
Chanthini, an exchange student
from India episode: Fair Exchange (24 Nov 1958)
1971 – 1977 The Electric Company Carmela
Otto The Director
Pandora the Little Girl, Millie the Helper 780 episodes
1974 Dominic's Dream Anita Bente
Out to Lunch Various Nominated - Emmy Award
1976 The Muppet Show Herself Episode #1.5 - Emmy Award
1978 The Rockford Files Rita Capkovic 3 episodes
Emmy Award - For episode "The Paper Palace"
Nominated - Emmy Award - For episode "Rosendahl and Gilda Stern are Dead".
1979 Anatomy of a Seduction Nina
The Muppets Go Hollywood Herself/Host Special
1981 Evita Perón Renata Riguel
1982 – 1983 9 to 5 Violet Newstead Nominated - Emmy Award; Nominated - Golden Globe
1982 Working Waitress
Portrait of a Showgirl Rosella DeLeon Nominated - Emmy Award
1989 – 1990 B.L. Stryker Kimberly Baskin 2 episodes
1994 The Nanny Miss Wickervich/Mrs. Stone Episode - The Gym Teacher
1994 – 1998 Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? Carmen Sandiego voice
1994 – 1995 The Cosby Mysteries Angie Corea 2 episodes
1995 The Wharf Rat Mom
1997 – 2003 Oz Sister Peter Marie Reimondo 44 episodes
ALMA Award - 1998, 1999, 2002
Nominated - ALMA Award - 2000, 2001
1998 The Spree Irma Kelly
1999 Resurrection Mimi
2004 Copshop Mary Alice
2005 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Mildred Quintana Episode - "Night"
Law & Order: Trial by Jury Mildred Quintana Episode - "Day"
2006 – 2007 Law & Order: Criminal Intent Frances Goren 3 episodes: "Endgame"
"The War at Home"
"Brother's Keeper"
2007 The George Lopez Show Luisa Diaz Episode - "George Testi-Lies for Benny"
Ugly Betty Aunt Mirta Episode - "A Tree Grows in Guadalajara"
Cane Amalia Duque 13 episodes
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn187/lupisima/RitaMoreno.jpg
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f218/SteveFrame/AMC/rita_moreno.jpg




http://static.squidoo.com/resize/squidoo_images/-1/draft_lens2190933module11710041photo_1222311649pandora-rita-moreno.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 12/11/09 at 10:54 am

I love Terri Garr and I absolutely adore Rita Moreno. She is an exceptional talent. Of course I'm sure everyone knows how I feel about Puerto Ricans.  ;)



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/11/09 at 1:03 pm


The word of the day... Sleuth
    *
          o
            A sleuth is a detective. N-COUNT old-fashioned

Web definitions

    *
          o spy: watch, observe, or inquire secretly

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiNHe7BUqhc

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/11/09 at 4:29 pm


I love Terri Garr and I absolutely adore Rita Moreno. She is an exceptional talent. Of course I'm sure everyone knows how I feel about Puerto Ricans.  ;)



Cat

Both are great talents.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 12/11/09 at 6:55 pm


I love Terri Garr and I absolutely adore Rita Moreno. She is an exceptional talent. Of course I'm sure everyone knows how I feel about Puerto Ricans.  ;)



Cat



I was just watching a clip of her singing 'America' on youtube last night!  She was fabulous....

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/11/09 at 6:56 pm

Electric Company was my favorite children's show. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/12/09 at 5:43 am

The word of the day...Vegetarian
eater of fruits and grains and nuts; someone who eats no meat or fish or (often) any animal products
http://i576.photobucket.com/albums/ss206/getatmic/IMG_1168.jpg
http://i934.photobucket.com/albums/ad181/MsLeeLowe/Food2007.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p317/rainbowx3warrior/vegetarian.jpg
http://i575.photobucket.com/albums/ss195/omgitsshyann/112709135745.jpg
http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee14/mayrajcc/mayra01.jpg
http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn152/keithashlee/Picture101.jpg
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm114/clair179/vegetarian.jpg
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee141/Lauren4792/vegetarian.jpg
http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb154/helsonsu/vegetarians_taste_better.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/12/09 at 5:48 am

the birthday of the day...Bob Barker
Robert William "Bob" Barker (born December 12, 1923) is an American former television game show host. He is best known for hosting CBS' The Price Is Right from 1972-2007, making it the longest-running daytime game show in North American television history. After holding the job for 35 years and having been in television for 50 years, Barker retired in June 2007.
The Price Is Right (1972–2007)

On September 4, 1972, Barker began his most famous assignment hosting the CBS revival of The Price is Right. In the 35 years of the CBS version, he has become far more associated with the series than first host Bill Cullen was with the 1956–1965 original. In September 1977, he hosted the last three seasons of the syndicated nighttime version, originally hosted by Dennis James.

On October 15, 1987, Barker did what other MCs almost never did: renounced hair dye and allowed his hair to go gray. Fellow hosts Monty Hall, Alex Trebek, and Richard Dawson would do the same in the late 1980s.

In 2006, The Price Is Right celebrated 35 consecutive years on the air. It is the longest-running game show of all time in North America. Overall, in daytime programming (excluding Saturday and Sunday), The Price Is Right is ranked sixth among the longest-continuing daytime television programs (NBC's Today ranks the longest, followed by four daytime soap operas: Guiding Light, As the World Turns, General Hospital, and Days of our Lives), and moved into fifth in September 2009 after Guiding Light aired its final episode on CBS. It has won its time slot (11:00 a.m. Eastern) for the past 25 years with its closest competitor (currently ABC's The View) normally getting about half of TPIR's ratings.
Search Wikinews Wikinews has related news: Bob Barker to retire as host of U.S. gameshow The Price Is Right

On October 31, 2006, Barker made his announcement that he would retire from The Price Is Right in June 2007. However, Barker has revealed that FremantleMedia, the company that owns the show, had been looking for a successor in the last two to three years, and also that he had considered retirement for a while, but he had so much fun that he continued to do the show. He taped his final episode on June 6, 2007, with the show airing twice on June 15. The first airing was in the show's normal daytime slot and the second airing was in primetime as the lead-in to the Daytime Emmy Awards. Repeat episodes from Barker's final season continued to air until October 12, 2007, ending with a repeat of his final episode. On July 23 it was announced that comedian Drew Carey would take Barker's place as the new host for the show beginning on October 15, 2007.

During Barker's tenure as host, three pricing games were introduced that used his name: Barker's Bargain Bar, Barker's Marker$ and Trader Bob. Of the three, none are actively played on the show – Trader Bob was retired from the show in 1985, Barker's Marker$ was renamed following Barker's retirement, and subsequently retired, and Barker's Bargain Bar has been disassembled, and is currently on hiatus.

Barker made a guest appearance on the show for an episode that aired on April 16, 2009 to promote his new autobiography, Priceless Memories. He appeared in the Showcase round at the end of the show
Barker became a vegetarian in 1979. That same year, he began promoting animal rights. Barker began ending some episodes (later every episode) of The Price is Right with the phrase: "Help control the pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered." Even after he retired, Drew Carey continued his signature sign-off. He was named national spokesman for "Be Kind to Animals Week" in May 1985. On A&E's Biography program, he credited his wife, Dorothy Jo, with causing him to become more aware of animal rights and becoming a vegetarian, because she had done so. Bob remarked that Dorothy Jo was way ahead of her time as far as animal rights were concerned and that shortly after her death in October, 1981, he took up animal rights in order to keep doing something that she had done. Fellow game show hosts Jack Barry and Bert Convy eventually followed Barker's lead in promoting animal rights on the air.

Barker hosted the Miss USA/Universe Pageants from 1967 to 1987. In 1987, he requested the removal of fur prizes and stepped down as host when those in charge of the pageant refused.

Bob Barker's DJ&T Foundation has contributed millions of dollars to fund animal rescue and park facilities all over the country. He worked closely with Betty White as an advocate for animal rights. However in 2009, reports indicated that Barker threatened to not attend the 2009 Game Show Awards, where he was to receive a lifetime achievement award, because White would be attending. The reason for the conflict, according to the report, was over the proper treatment of an elephant at the Los Angeles Zoo. White instead did not attend and pre-recorded her comments that she was scheduled to make about Mark Goodson.

In June 2009, Barker wrote Chief Michell Hicks of the Cherokee asking that their reservation's bear exhibit be closed. On July 28, 2009, he visited the reservation and saw one of the three zoos, calling the bears' living situation "inhumane". PETA set up the visit after Barker heard from Florida congressman Bill Young, whose wife had been "appalled" by what she saw. Annette Tarnowski, the tribe's attorney general, said a federal inspector had found nothing wrong in May 2009 at two of the zoos, and that the tribe had dealt with the few violations at the third. Hicks made no promises and threatened to ban PETA if they made more trouble.
Longevity records

Barker set a longevity record as holding a weekday T.V. job continuously for 51 years, which included his years on Truth or Consequences. Only sportscaster Vin Scully, who is four years younger than Barker, has held a job longer than Barker in the American entertainment industry, albeit a seasonal job and not a daily one. (Orion Samuelson is slated to pass Barker in 2010.)

Barker has also had the second-longest run as the host of a single entertainment broadcast show (sports excluded), only a few months short of Don McNeill, who spent 35½ years as host of Don McNeill's Breakfast Club.

Barker, who was 83½ years old at the time of his retirement, holds the record of being the oldest man ever to host a regularly scheduled television game show and the oldest man ever to host a weekday television program since the inception of American network television. Barker also hosted/appeared on a five-day-a-week television program longer than anyone else in the history of television.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/12/09 at 5:57 am

The co-birthday of the day...Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick (born December 12, 1940) is an American singer, actress, activist, United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, former United States Ambassador of Health, and humanitarian. She is best known for her partnership with songwriters and producers Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

According to Billboard magazine and Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955-2009 book, Dionne Warwick ranks as the 30th most popular hit maker of the entire the rock era based upon the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles Charts. She also ranks as one of the 10 all-time biggest Easy Listening/Adult Contemporary hit makers of all time.
The mid 1960s to early 1970s became an even more successful time period for Warwick, who saw a string of Gold selling albums and Top 20 and Top 10 hit singles. "Message to Michael", a Bacharach-David composition that the duo was certain was a "man's song", became a top 10 hit for Warwick in May 1966. The January 1967 LP Here Where There Is Love was her first RIAA certified Gold Album and featured "Alfie", and two 1966 hits "Trains and Boats and Planes", and "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself". "Alfie" had become a radio hit when disc jockeys across the nation began to play the album cut early in 1967. "Alfie" was released as the "B" side of a Bacharach/David ballad, "The Beginning of Loneliness" in which charted in the Hot 100. Disc jockeys flipped the single and made it a double-sided hit. Bacharach had been contracted to produce "Alfie" for the Michael Caine film of the same name and wanted Dionne Warwick to sing the tune but the British producers wanted a British subject to cut the tune. Cilla Black was selected to record the song, and her version peaked at #95 upon its release in the USA. A cover version by Cher used in the USA prints of the film peaked at #33. In the UK and Australia, Black's version was a Top 10 hit. In a 1983 concert appearance televised on PBS, Warwick states she was the 43rd person to record "Alfie", at Bacharach's insistence, who felt Dionne could make it a big hit. Warwick, at first, balked at recording the tune and asked Bacharach "How many more versions of Alfie do you need?" to which Bacharach replied "Just one more, yours." Bacharach took Warwick into the studio with his new arrangement and cut the tune the way he wanted it to be, which she nailed in one take. Warwick's version peaked at #15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on both the R&B Chart and the AC Charts. Warwick performed the song at the Academy Awards in 1967. Today, "Alfie" is considered a signature song for Warwick.

Later that same year, Warwick earned her first RIAA Gold Single for US sales of over one million units for the single "I Say a Little Prayer" (from her album The Windows of the World). When disc jockeys across the nation began to play the track from the album in the fall of 1967 and demanded its release as a single, Florence Greenberg, President of Scepter Records, complied and "I Say a Little Prayer" became Warwick's biggest US hit to that point, reaching #4 on the US and Canadian Charts and # 8 on the R & B Charts. Aretha Franklin would cover the tune a year later and hit US #10. The tune was also the first RIAA certified USA million seller for Bacharach-David.

Her follow-up to "I Say a Little Prayer","(Theme from) Valley of the Dolls", was unusual in several respects. It was not written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, it was the "B" side of her "I Say a Little Prayer" single, and it was a song that she almost didn't record. While the film version of Valley of the Dolls was being made, actress Barbara Parkins suggested that Warwick be considered to sing the film's theme song, written by songwriting team Andre and Dory Previn. The song was to be recorded by Judy Garland, who was fired from the film. Warwick performed the song, and when the film became a success in the early weeks of 1968, disc jockeys flipped the single and made the single one of the biggest double-sided hits of the rock era and another million seller. At the time, RIAA rules allowed only one side of a double-sided hit single to be certified as Gold, but Scepter awarded Warwick an "in-house award" to recognize "(Theme from) Valley of the Dolls" as a million selling tune.

Warwick had re-recorded a Pat Williams-arranged version of the theme at A&R Studios in New York because contractual restrictions would not allow the Warwick version from the film to be included in the 20th Century-Fox soundtrack LP. The LP Dionne Warwick in Valley of the Dolls, released in early 1968 and containing the re-recorded version of the movie theme (#2–4 weeks), "Do You Know the Way to San Jose" and several new Bacharach-David compositions, hit the #6 position on the Billboard Hot 100 Album Chart and would remain on the chart for over a year. The film soundtrack LP, sans Warwick vocals, failed to impress the public, while Dionne Warwick in Valley of the Dolls earned an RIAA Gold certification.

The single "Do You Know the Way to San Jose", an international million seller and a Top 10 hit in several countries, including the UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Japan and Mexico, was also a double sided hit with the "B" side "Let Me Be Lonely" charting at #79.

More hits ("Promises, Promises"-#19 1968; "Who Is Gonna Love Me"-#32 1968 with "B" side "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me" becoming another double sided hit, "I'll Never Fall In Love Again"-#6 1969; "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling"-#15 1969; "This Girl's In Love With You"-#7 1969; "Make It Easy On Yourself"-#37 1970; "Who Is Gonna Love Me"-#33 1968; "The April Fools"-#37 1969 (from the film of the same name); "Let Me Go To Him"-#32 1970; "Paper Mache"-#43 1970; The Green Grass Starts to Grow"-#43-1971) followed into 1971. Warwick's final Bacharach/David penned single was March 1971's "Who Gets the Guy" and her final "official" Scepter single release was "He's Moving On" backed with "Amanda" both from the soundtrack of the motion picture adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's The Love Machine. Other Scepter LPs certified RIAA Gold include Dionne Warwick's Golden Hits Part 1 released in 1967 and The Dionne Warwicke Story: A Decade of Gold released in 1971. By the end of 1971, Dionne Warwick had sold an estimated thirty-five million singles and albums internationally in less than nine years and more than 16 million singles in the USA alone. Exact figures of Warwick's sales are unknown, and probably underestimated, due to Scepter Records lax accounting policies and the company policy of not submitting recordings for RIAA audit. Dionne Warwick became the first Scepter artist to request RIAA audits of her recordings in 1967 with the release of "I Say A Little Prayer".
Warwick won her second Grammy Award for the 1970 album "I'll Never Fall In Love Again"

On Wednesday, September 17, 1969, CBS Television aired Dionne Warwick's first television special entitled "The Dionne Warwick Chevy Special." Dionne's guests were Burt Bacharach, George Kirby, Glen Campbell, and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Warwick had become the priority act of Scepter Records, according to the website "The Scepter Records Story" and Luther Dixon in a 2002 A&E Biography of Burt Bacharach, with the release of "Anyone Who Had a Heart" in 1963. In 1971, Dionne Warwick left the family atmosphere of Scepter Records for Warner Bros. Records for what was at the time the most lucrative recording contract ever given a female vocalist according to Variety. Warwick's last LP for Scepter was the aforementioned soundtrack for the motion picture The Love Machine (in which she appeared in an uncredited cameo), released in July 1971. In 1975, Bacharach/David sued Scepter Records for an accurate accounting of royalties due the team from Warwick and labelmate B. J. Thomas recordings and was awarded almost $600,000 and the rights to all Bacharach/David recordings on the Scepter label. The label, with the defection of Warwick to Warner Bros. Records, filed for bankruptcy in 1975 and was sold to Springboard International Records in 1976.

Following her signing with Warners, with Bacharach and David as writers and producers Dionne returned to A&R Studios in late 1971 to begin recording her first album for the new label, the self-titled album Dionne (not to be confused with her later Arista debut album) in January 1972. The album peaked at #57 on the Billboard Hot 100 Album Chart. In 1972, Burt Bacharach and Hal David scored and wrote the tunes for the motion picture Lost Horizon. The film was panned by the critics, and in the fallout from the film, the songwriting duo decided to terminate their working relationship. The breakup left Dionne devoid of their services as her producers and songwriters. Dionne was contractually obligated to fulfill her contract with Warners without Bacharach and David and she would team with a variety of producers during her tenure with the label.

Faced with the prospect of being sued by Warner Bros. Records due to the breakup of Bacharach/David and their failure to honor their contract with Dionne, she filed a $5.5 million lawsuit against her former partners for breach of contract. The suit was settled out of court in 1979 for $5 million including the rights to all Warwick recordings produced by Bacharach and David.

Warwick, for years an aficionado of psychic phenomena, was advised by famed astrologer Linda Goodman in 1971 to add a small "e" to her last name, making Warwick "WARWICKe" for good luck and to recognize her married name and her spouse, actor and drummer William " Bill" Elliott. Goodman convinced Warwick that the extra small "e" would add a vibration needed to balance her last name and bring her even more good fortune in her marriage and her professional life. The extra "e", according to Dionne "was the worst thing I could have done in retrospect, and in 1975 I finally got rid of that damn "e" and became "Dionne Warwick" again."
With the move to Arista Records and the release of "I'll Never Love This Way Again" (a tune written by Richard Kerr and Will Jennings and first recorded by Cheryl Ladd in 1978) in 1979, Dionne was again enjoying top success on the charts. The song was produced by Barry Manilow. The accompanying album Dionne—not to be confused with the Warner Bros. Records album of the same name—was her first and only disc to go Platinum in the US. She had been personally signed and guided by the label's founder Clive Davis, who stated to Dionne "You may be ready to give the business up, but the business is not ready to give you up." Dionne's followup was another huge hit. "Deja Vu" was written by Isaac Hayes and Adrienne Anderson. In 1980, Dionne was nominated for the NARAS Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female for "I'll Never Love This Way Again" and Best R&B Performance, Female for "Déjà Vu". Dionne became the first artist in the history of the awards to win in both categories the same year. Her followup album, 1980's No Night So Long featured the title track written by Richard Kerr and Will Jennings which became a major hit and the album peaked at #23 on the Billboard Hot 100 Albums Chart and #22 on the Billboard Hot R & B Albums Chart.
"Heartbreaker" an Arista album from 1982, earned Warwick another RIAA certified Gold Album and the title tune became an international smash hit.

In January 1980, while under contract to Arista Records, Dionne Warwick hosted a two-hour TV special called Solid Gold '79. This was adapted into the weekly one-hour show Solid Gold, which she hosted throughout 1980 and 1981 and again in 1985-86.

After a top forty hit recorded in early 1982 with her friend and fellow musical legend Johnny Mathis—the Jay Graydon-produced "Friends in Love" from the album of the same name—Warwick's next big hit later that same year was her full-length collaboration with Barry Gibb of The Bee Gees for the album Heartbreaker. The song "Heartbreaker" became one of Dionne's biggest international hits, peaking on Billboard's Hot 100 at #10 in January 1983 and #1 AC in the USA and #2 in the UK. Internationally, the tune was also a smash in continential Europe, Australia, Japan, South Africa, Canada, and Asia. The title track was taken from the album of the same name which sold over 3 million internationally and earned Dionne an RIAA USA gold record award for the album. The album peaked at #25 on the Hot 100 Album Chart, #13 on the R&B Chart and #3 in the UK. Dionne stated to Wesley Hyatt in his The Billboard Book of Number One Adult Contemporary Hits that she was not fond of "Heartbreaker" but recorded the tune because she trusted The Bee Gees' judgment that it would be a hit. The project came about when Clive Davis was attending his aunt's wedding in Florida and spoke with Barry Gibb. Barry mentioned that he had always been a fan of Dionne's and Clive arranged for Dionne and The Bee Gees to discuss a project. Dionne and the brothers Gibb hit it off and the album and the title single were released in October 1982.

In 1983, Dionne released another notable album titled How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye which was produced by Luther Vandross. Their collaboration had been a lifelong dream of Vandross, who had maintained that he wanted to work with Warwick, Aretha Franklin, and Diana Ross. The album's most successful single was the title track, "How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye", a duet with Warwick, which peaked at #27 on the Billboard Hot 100. The second single, the Dance-pop song "Got a Date", became a moderate hit on the R&B chart. The album peaked at Number 57 on the Billboard 200 album chart and Number 19 on the R&B chart. Of note was a reunion with The Shirelles on Warwick's cover of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow". Warwick would not release another studio album until two years later, 1984's Finder of Lost Loves—an album that would reunite her with both Barry Manilow and Burt Bacharach, who was now writing with his new lyricist partner and wife, Carole Bayer Sager.

In 1985, Warwick contributed her voice to the Multi-Grammy award winning charity song: We Are the World, along with vocalists like Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Tina Turner and Diana Ross.
Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer-Sager, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder and Elton John, "That's What Friends Are For", 1985

In 1985, Warwick recorded the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR) benefit single "That's What Friends Are For" alongside Gladys Knight, Elton John, and Stevie Wonder. The single, credited to "Dionne and Friends" raised over three million dollars for that cause. The tune peaked at #1 for four weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1986. In 1988, the Washington Post wrote: So working against AIDS, especially after years of raising money for work on many blood-related diseases such as sickle-cell anemia, seemed the right thing to do. "You have to be granite not to want to help people with AIDS, because the devastation that it causes is so painful to see. I was so hurt to see my friend die with such agony," Warwick remembers. "I am tired of hurting and it does hurt." The single won the performers the NARAS Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, as well as Song of the Year for its writers, Bacharach and Bayer Sager. It also was ranked by Billboard magazine as the most popular song of 1986. With this single, Warwick also released her second most successful album of the decade, titled Friends.

In July 1987, Dionne scored another Billboard Top 20 pop hit (#12) and Top 10 R&B chart hit (and #1 AC hit) with the song, "Love Power", a duet with Jeffrey Osborne. This song, another written by Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager, was featured in Warwick's album Reservations for Two. The album's title song, a duet with Kashif, was also a moderate hit. Other artists featured on the album included Smokey Robinson and June Pointer.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/12/09 at 7:03 am


the birthday of the day...Bob Barker
Robert William "Bob" Barker (born December 12, 1923) is an American former television game show host. He is best known for hosting CBS' The Price Is Right from 1972-2007, making it the longest-running daytime game show in North American television history. After holding the job for 35 years and having been in television for 50 years, Barker retired in June 2007.
The Price Is Right (1972–2007)

On September 4, 1972, Barker began his most famous assignment hosting the CBS revival of The Price is Right. In the 35 years of the CBS version, he has become far more associated with the series than first host Bill Cullen was with the 1956–1965 original. In September 1977, he hosted the last three seasons of the syndicated nighttime version, originally hosted by Dennis James.

On October 15, 1987, Barker did what other MCs almost never did: renounced hair dye and allowed his hair to go gray. Fellow hosts Monty Hall, Alex Trebek, and Richard Dawson would do the same in the late 1980s.

In 2006, The Price Is Right celebrated 35 consecutive years on the air. It is the longest-running game show of all time in North America. Overall, in daytime programming (excluding Saturday and Sunday), The Price Is Right is ranked sixth among the longest-continuing daytime television programs (NBC's Today ranks the longest, followed by four daytime soap operas: Guiding Light, As the World Turns, General Hospital, and Days of our Lives), and moved into fifth in September 2009 after Guiding Light aired its final episode on CBS. It has won its time slot (11:00 a.m. Eastern) for the past 25 years with its closest competitor (currently ABC's The View) normally getting about half of TPIR's ratings.
Search Wikinews Wikinews has related news: Bob Barker to retire as host of U.S. gameshow The Price Is Right

On October 31, 2006, Barker made his announcement that he would retire from The Price Is Right in June 2007. However, Barker has revealed that FremantleMedia, the company that owns the show, had been looking for a successor in the last two to three years, and also that he had considered retirement for a while, but he had so much fun that he continued to do the show. He taped his final episode on June 6, 2007, with the show airing twice on June 15. The first airing was in the show's normal daytime slot and the second airing was in primetime as the lead-in to the Daytime Emmy Awards. Repeat episodes from Barker's final season continued to air until October 12, 2007, ending with a repeat of his final episode. On July 23 it was announced that comedian Drew Carey would take Barker's place as the new host for the show beginning on October 15, 2007.

During Barker's tenure as host, three pricing games were introduced that used his name: Barker's Bargain Bar, Barker's Marker$ and Trader Bob. Of the three, none are actively played on the show – Trader Bob was retired from the show in 1985, Barker's Marker$ was renamed following Barker's retirement, and subsequently retired, and Barker's Bargain Bar has been disassembled, and is currently on hiatus.

Barker made a guest appearance on the show for an episode that aired on April 16, 2009 to promote his new autobiography, Priceless Memories. He appeared in the Showcase round at the end of the show
Barker became a vegetarian in 1979. That same year, he began promoting animal rights. Barker began ending some episodes (later every episode) of The Price is Right with the phrase: "Help control the pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered." Even after he retired, Drew Carey continued his signature sign-off. He was named national spokesman for "Be Kind to Animals Week" in May 1985. On A&E's Biography program, he credited his wife, Dorothy Jo, with causing him to become more aware of animal rights and becoming a vegetarian, because she had done so. Bob remarked that Dorothy Jo was way ahead of her time as far as animal rights were concerned and that shortly after her death in October, 1981, he took up animal rights in order to keep doing something that she had done. Fellow game show hosts Jack Barry and Bert Convy eventually followed Barker's lead in promoting animal rights on the air.

Barker hosted the Miss USA/Universe Pageants from 1967 to 1987. In 1987, he requested the removal of fur prizes and stepped down as host when those in charge of the pageant refused.

Bob Barker's DJ&T Foundation has contributed millions of dollars to fund animal rescue and park facilities all over the country. He worked closely with Betty White as an advocate for animal rights. However in 2009, reports indicated that Barker threatened to not attend the 2009 Game Show Awards, where he was to receive a lifetime achievement award, because White would be attending. The reason for the conflict, according to the report, was over the proper treatment of an elephant at the Los Angeles Zoo. White instead did not attend and pre-recorded her comments that she was scheduled to make about Mark Goodson.

In June 2009, Barker wrote Chief Michell Hicks of the Cherokee asking that their reservation's bear exhibit be closed. On July 28, 2009, he visited the reservation and saw one of the three zoos, calling the bears' living situation "inhumane". PETA set up the visit after Barker heard from Florida congressman Bill Young, whose wife had been "appalled" by what she saw. Annette Tarnowski, the tribe's attorney general, said a federal inspector had found nothing wrong in May 2009 at two of the zoos, and that the tribe had dealt with the few violations at the third. Hicks made no promises and threatened to ban PETA if they made more trouble.
Longevity records

Barker set a longevity record as holding a weekday T.V. job continuously for 51 years, which included his years on Truth or Consequences. Only sportscaster Vin Scully, who is four years younger than Barker, has held a job longer than Barker in the American entertainment industry, albeit a seasonal job and not a daily one. (Orion Samuelson is slated to pass Barker in 2010.)

Barker has also had the second-longest run as the host of a single entertainment broadcast show (sports excluded), only a few months short of Don McNeill, who spent 35½ years as host of Don McNeill's Breakfast Club.

Barker, who was 83½ years old at the time of his retirement, holds the record of being the oldest man ever to host a regularly scheduled television game show and the oldest man ever to host a weekday television program since the inception of American network television. Barker also hosted/appeared on a five-day-a-week television program longer than anyone else in the history of television.
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I liked him better with his jet black hair.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/13/09 at 2:27 am

Something tells me I did not look here yeserday.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/13/09 at 2:30 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAdcgouhmHY

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/13/09 at 5:03 am


Something tells me I did not look here yeserday.

I wondered about that.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/13/09 at 5:09 am

The word or phrase of the day...Chimney sweep
A chimney sweep is a person who cleans chimneys for a living.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/13/09 at 5:15 am

The birthday of the day...Dick Van Dyke
Richard Wayne “Dick” Van Dyke (born December 13, 1925) is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer with a career spanning six decades. He is best known for his starring roles in the films Bye Bye Birdie, Mary Poppins, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and the television series The Dick Van Dyke Show and Diagnosis Murder.
Dick Van Dyke's start in television was with WDSU-TV New Orleans Channel 6 (NBC), first as a single comedian and later as emcee of a comedy program. Van Dyke's first network TV appearance was on The Phil Silvers Show in the 1957–1958 season.

Van Dyke starred in the situation comedy The Dick Van Dyke Show from 1961 to 1966 in which he portrayed a comedy writer named Rob Petrie. Complementing Van Dyke was a veteran cast of comedic actors including Rose Marie, Morey Amsterdam, Jerry Paris, Carl Reiner (as Alan Brady), as well as a newcomer to television Mary Tyler Moore, who portrayed Rob's wife Laura Petrie. He won three Emmy Awards as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and the series received four Emmy Awards as Outstanding Comedy Series. From 1971 to 1974, Van Dyke starred in an unrelated sitcom called The New Dick Van Dyke Show in which he portrayed a local television talk show host. He received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance, but the show was less successful than its predecessor, and was cancelled after three seasons.

In the 1970s, Van Dyke hosted his own hour-long variety show called Van Dyke & Company on NBC. It aired between September and December 1976. When Carol Burnett's main foil Harvey Korman quit her long-running variety series in 1977, Van Dyke took his place. This was the first time he played second banana on television and there were very few comedic sparks between Van Dyke and Burnett. He left after three months. From 1993 to 2001, Van Dyke portrayed Dr. Mark Sloan in the long-running television series Diagnosis Murder, a medical drama; son Barry co-starred. A 2004 special of The Dick Van Dyke Show titled The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited was heavily promoted as the first new episode of the classic series to be shown in thirty-eight years. Van Dyke and his surviving cast members recreated their roles; the program was roundly panned by critics.

Van Dyke has made many guest appearances on other television programs throughout his lengthy career.
Film career

Van Dyke began his film career by reprising his stage role in the film version of Bye Bye Birdie (1963). Despite his unhappiness with the adaptation because the focus differed from the stage version, the film was a success. That same year, Van Dyke was cast in two roles as the chimney sweep Bert and the chairman of the bank in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins (1964). To film his scenes as the chairman, he was heavily costumed to look much older, and was credited in that role as "Nackvid Keyd" (at the end of the credits, the letters unscramble into "Dick Van Dyke"). Van Dyke's attempt at a cockney accent was cited as one of the worst film accents in a 2003 poll by Empire magazine. Mary Poppins was nonetheless successful upon release and its enduring appeal has made it one of the most famous films in cinematic history. "Chim Chim Cher-ee", one of the songs that Van Dyke performed in Mary Poppins, won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for the Sherman Brothers, the film's songwriting duo.

Many of the comedy films in which Van Dyke starred throughout the 1960s were relatively unsuccessful, including What a Way to Go!, Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N., Fitzwilly, The Art of Love, Never a Dull Moment, and Divorce American Style. The musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), which co-starred Sally Ann Howes and reunited Van Dyke with the Sherman Brothers, was widely popular in Europe, but did not make an impact elsewhere.
n 1969, Van Dyke appeared in the dramedy The Comic, written and directed by Carl Reiner. Van Dyke portrayed a self-destructive silent-film era comedian who struggles with alcoholism, depression and his own rampant ego. Reiner wrote the film especially for Van Dyke, who often spoke of his admiration for silent film era comedians such as Charlie Chaplin and his hero Stan Laurel. He also began starring in a series of commercials as a spokesperson for Kodak.

In 1973, Van Dyke voiced his animated likeness for the October 27, 1973 installment of Hanna-Barbera's The New Scooby-Doo Movies, "Scooby-Doo Meets Dick Van Dyke", the series' final first-run episode. The following year, Van Dyke received an Emmy Award nomination for his role as an alcoholic businessman in the television movie The Morning After (1974). Van Dyke revealed after its release that he had recently overcome a real-life drinking problem. That same year, he portrayed a murdering photographer on an episode of Columbo.

Van Dyke returned to comedy in 1976 with the sketch comedy show Van Dyke and Company, which co-starred Andy Kaufman and Super Dave Osborne. Despite being cancelled after three months, the show won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy-Variety Series. For the next decade, he appeared mostly in low-rated TV movies. One exception was an atypical role as a murdering judge on the first episode of the TV series Matlock in 1986 starring Andy Griffith. In 1989, he guest-starred on the NBC comedy series The Golden Girls, portraying a lover of Beatrice Arthur's character. This role earned him his first Emmy Award nomination since 1977.

In 1990, Van Dyke, whose usual role had been the amiable hero, took a small but villainous turn as the crooked D.A. Fletcher in Warren Beatty's film Dick Tracy. The reviews he received for Tracy led him to star in a series of TV movies on CBS that became the foundation for his popular television drama Diagnosis Murder, which ran from 1993 to 2001. He first portrayed the character Dr. Mark Sloan in an episode of Jake and the Fatman. He continued to find television work after the show ended, including a dramatically and critically successful performance of The Gin Game, produced for television in 2003, that reunited him with Mary Tyler Moore. In 2003, he portrayed a doctor on Scrubs, and in 2006, he guest-starred as college professor Dr. Jonathan Maxwell for a series of Murder 101 mystery films on the Hallmark Channel.

Van Dyke returned to motion pictures in 2006 with Curious George as Mr. Bloomsberry and as Cecil Fredericks in the Ben Stiller film Night at the Museum. He reprised the role in a cameo for the sequel, "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" but it was cut from the film. It can be found in the special features on the DVD release.
Stage

    * The Girls Against the Boys (November 2, 1959 – November 14, 1959)
    * Bye Bye Birdie (April 14, 1960 – October 7, 1961) (left the show when it moved to the Shubert Theatre)
    * The Music Man (June 5, 1980 – June 22, 1980) (Revival)
    * Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life (guest star from January 24, 2006 – January 26, 2006)

Filmography

    * Bye Bye Birdie (1963)
    * What a Way to Go! (1964)
    * Mary Poppins (1964)
    * The Art of Love (1965)
    * Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. (1966)
    * Divorce American Style (1967)
    * Fitzwilly (1967)
    * Never a Dull Moment (1968)
    * Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)
    * Some Kind of a Nut (1969)



    * The Comic (1969)
    * Cold Turkey (1971)
    * Tubby the Tuba (1976)
    * The Runner Stumbles (1979)
    * Dick Tracy (1990)
    * Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) (cameo)
    * Batman: New Times (2005)
    * Curious George (2006)
    * Night at the Museum (2006)

Television

    * The Morning Show (1955) (host)
    * CBS Cartoon Theater (1956)
    * The Chevy Showroom Starring Andy Williams (1958)
    * Mother's Day (1958–1959)
    * Laugh Line (1959) (canceled after 3 months)
    * The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966)
    * Dick Van Dyke and the Other Woman (1969)
    * Dick Van Dyke Meets Bill Cosby (1970)
    * The New Dick Van Dyke Show (1971–1974)
    * Julie and Dick at Covent Garden (1974)
    * The Morning After (1974)
    * Columbo: Negative Reaction (1974)
    * Van Dyke and Company (1976)
    * The Carol Burnett Show (cast member in 1977)
    * Supertrain (1979)
    * True Life Stories (1981)
    * The Country Girl (1982)
    * Drop-Out Father (1982)
    * Wrong Way Kid (1983) (voice)
    * Found Money (1983)
    * Breakfast with Les and Bess (1985)
    * Strong Medicine (1986)
    * Ghost of a Chance (1987)



    * The Van Dyke Show (1988)
    * Matlock (1990)
    * Daughters of Privilege (1991)
    * The House on Sycamore Street (1992)
    * The Town That Santa Forgot (1993) (voice)
    * A Twist of the Knife (1993)
    * Becker (1999) (Becker's father)
    * Diagnosis Murder (1993–2001)
    * Paul O'Grady Does America (2003)
    * A Town Without Pity (2002)
    * Without Warning (2002)
    * Sabrina the Teenage Witch (2000)
    * The Gin Game (2003)
    * The Alan Brady Show (2003) (voice)
    * The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited (2004)
    * Scrubs (2004)
    * Murder 101 (2006–2008)

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/13/09 at 5:18 am

The co-birthdays of the day Christopher Plummer
Christopher Plummer, CC (born December 13, 1929) is a Canadian theatre, film and television actor. In a career that spans over five decades and includes substantial roles in film, television, and theatre, Plummer is perhaps best known for the role of Captain Georg von Trapp in The Sound of Music. His most recent film roles include the Disney–Pixar 2009 film Up as Charles Muntz, the Shane Acker production 9 as 1 and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus as Doctor Parnassus.
Plummer's eclectic career on screen began in 1958 when Sidney Lumet cast him as a young writer in Stage Struck. Since then he has appeared in a vast number of notable films which include The Man Who Would Be King, The Fall of the Roman Empire, Jesus of Nazareth, The Return of the Pink Panther, Battle of Britain, Waterloo, The Silent Partner, Dragnet, Shadow Dancing, Inside Daisy Clover, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Malcolm X, Dolores Claiborne, Wolf, Twelve Monkeys, Murder by Decree, Somewhere in Time and Syriana.

One of Plummer's most critically acclaimed roles was that of television journalist Mike Wallace in Michael Mann's Oscar-nominated The Insider, for which he won Boston, Los Angeles, and National Society of Film Critics Awards for 'Best Supporting Actor'; he was also nominated for Chicago and Las Vegas Film Critics Awards, as well as a Satellite Award. Predicions of an Oscar nomination circulated, but such recogniton never came.

Other recent successes include his roles as Dr. Rosen in Ron Howard's Academy Award winning A Beautiful Mind, Arthur Case in Spike Lee's 2006 film Inside Man, and the philosopher Aristotle in Alexander, alongside Colin Farrell. In 2004, Plummer played John Adams Gates in National Treasure.

Owing to the box office success and continued popularity of The Sound of Music (1965), Plummer is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Captain Von Trapp, a role he reportedly disliked.

Plummer has also done some voice work, such as his role of the villainous Grand Duke of Owls in Rock-a-Doodle, the antagonistic Charles Muntz in Up and the elder leader 1 in the Tim Burton-produced action/sci-fi film 9.
Television

Among his television appearances, which number almost a hundred, are the Emmy-winning BBC production Hamlet at Elsinore, the five-time Emmy winning The Thorn Birds, the Emmy-winning Nuremberg, the Emmy-winning Little Moon of Alban and the Emmy-winning Moneychangers.

He co-starred in American Tragedy as F. Lee Bailey (for which he received a Golden Globe Nomination), and appeared in Four Minute Mile, Miracle Planet, and a documentary by Ric Burns' about Eugene O’Neill. He received an Emmy nomination for his performance in Our Fathers and reunited with Julie Andrews for a television production of On Golden Pond. He also played Herod Antipas in the miniseries, Jesus of Nazareth and was the narrator for The Gospel of John. He also co-starred with Gregory Peck in The Scarlet and The Black.

He narrated the animated television series Madeline as well as the animated television series David the Gnome.

Plummer has also written for the stage, television and the concert-hall. Plummer and Sir Neville Marriner rearranged Shakespeare’s Henry V with Sir William Walton’s music as a concert piece. They recorded the work with Marriner's chamber orchestra the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

He performed it and other works with the New York Philharmonic and symphony orchestras of London, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Ohio, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax. With Marriner he made his Carnegie Hall debut in his own arrangements of Mendelssohn’s incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Honours and awards
Plummer at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival

Plummer has won many honours in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Austria. He was the first winner of Canada's Genie Award, for Best Actor in Murder by Decree (1980) and has received three other Genie nominations. Plummer has won two Tony Awards (from seven nominations), and two Emmy Awards (six nominations) in the United States, and Great Britain's Evening Standard Award.

In 1968 he was invested as Companion of the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honour. In 2001 he received the Canadian Governor General's Lifetime Achievement Award. He was made an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts at New York's Juilliard School and has received honorary doctorates from the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, McGill University, the University of Western Ontario, the University of Ottawa, and most recently the University of Guelph. Plummer was inducted into the American Theatre's Hall of Fame in 1986 and into Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto in 1997.

His awards include the following:

    * London Evening Standard Award as Best Actor (1961), for his portrayal of King Henry II in the stage play, Becket
    * Genie Award (1980), for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in Murder by Decree
    * Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical (1974), for his lead role in Cyrano
    * Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play (1997), for his lead role in Barrymore
    * Emmy Award (1976), as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series for Arthur Hailey's The Moneychangers
    * Emmy Award (1994), for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for his work on the Family Channel's Madeline children's series
    * Edwin Booth Lifetime Achievement Award (1997)
    * Jason Robards Award for Excellence in Theatre (2002)
    * Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award (1999) for The Insider
    * Boston Society of Film Critics Award (1999) for The Insider
Filmography

    * Stage Struck (1958)
    * Wind Across the Everglades (1958)
    * A Doll's House (1959) (TV)
    * Playdate (1961) TV series
    * Cyrano de Bergerac (1962) (TV)
    * The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
    * Hamlet at Elsinore (1964) (TV)
    * The Sound of Music (1965)
    * Inside Daisy Clover (1966)
    * Triple Cross, original title: La Fantastique histoire vraie d'Eddie Chapman (1966)
    * The Night of the Generals (1967)
    * Oedipus the King (1967)
    * Nobody Runs Forever (aka The High Commissioner) (1968)
    * Battle of Britain (1969)
    * The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1969)
    * Lock Up Your Daughters! (1969)
    * Waterloo (1970)
    * Don Juan in Hell (1971) (TV)
    * The Pyx (1973)
    * After the Fall (1974) (TV)
    * The Happy Prince (1974)
    * The Spiral Staircase (1975)
    * The Return of the Pink Panther (1975)
    * Conduct Unbecoming (1975)
    * The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
    * Sarajevski atentat (1975)
    * Aces High (1976)
    * Arthur Hailey's the Moneychangers (1976) TV miniseries
    * Jesus of Nazareth (1977)
    * Uppdraget (1977)
    * The Disappearance (1977)
    * Silver Blaze (1977) (TV)
    * The Silent Partner (1978)
    * International Velvet (1978)
    * Starcrash (1979)
    * Murder by Decree (1979)
    * Riel (1979) (TV)
    * Hanover Street (1979)
    * Desperate Voyage (1980) (TV)
    * The Shadow Box (1980) (TV)
    * Somewhere in Time (1980)
    * When the Circus Came to Town (1981) (TV)
    * Dial M for Murder (1981)
    * Eyewitness (1981)
    * The Amateur (1981)
    * Little Gloria... Happy at Last (1982) (TV)
    * The Scarlet and the Black (1983) (TV)
    * The Thorn Birds (1983) TV miniseries
    * Prototype (1983) (TV)
    * Lily in Love (1984)
    * Dreamscape (1984)
    * Highpoint (1984)
    * Terror in the Aisles (1984)
    * Ordeal by Innocence (1984)
    * Játszani kell (1985)
    * The World of David the Gnome (1985) TV series
    * Rumpelstiltskin (1985) Animated TV film
    * The Boy in Blue (1986)
    * Crossings (1986) TV miniseries
    * The Boss' Wife (1986)
    * An American Tail (1986) (voice)
    * Spearfield's Daughter (1986) TV miniseries
    * Nosferatu a Venezia (1986)
    * Dragnet (1987)
    * A Hazard of Hearts (1987) (TV)
    * The Man Who Planted Trees (1987)
    * The Gnomes' Great Adventure (1987)
    * Light Years (1988) (voice)
    * Shadow Dancing (1988)
    * I Love N.Y. (1988)
    * Souvenir (1989)
    * Nabokov on Kafka (1989) (TV)
    * Mindfield (1989)
    * Kingsgate (1989)



    * Where the Heart Is (1990)
    * A Ghost in Monte Carlo (1990) (TV)
    * Red Blooded American Girl (1990)
    * Money (1990)
    * Madeline (1990) TV series (voice)
    * Counterstrike (1990) TV series
    * Firehead (1991)
    * Young Catherine (1991) (TV)
    * A Marriage: Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz (1991) (TV)
    * Rock-a-Doodle (1991) (voice)
    * Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
    * Berlin Lady (1991) TV miniseries
    * The First Circle (1991) (TV)
    * Secrets (1992) (TV)
    * Impolite (1992)
    * Malcolm X (1992)
    * Liar's Edge (1992) (TV)
    * Sidney Sheldon's A Stranger in the Mirror (1993) (TV)
    * The Little Crooked Christmas Tree (1993) (TV) (voice)
    * Wolf (1994)
    * Crackerjack (1994)
    * Dolores Claiborne (1995)
    * Harrison Bergeron (1995) (TV)
    * 12 Monkeys (1995)
    * We the Jury (1996) (TV)
    * Skeletons (1996)
    * The Conspiracy of Fear (1996) (TV)
    * The Arrow (1997) (TV)
    * Babes in Toyland (1997) (voice)
    * Winchell (1998) (TV)
    * Hidden Agenda (1998)
    * The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow (1998)
    * The Clown at Midnight (1998)
    * Celebrate the Century (1999) TV miniseries
    * Madeline: Lost in Paris (1999) (voice)
    * The Insider (1999)
    * Nuremberg (2000) TV miniseries
    * The Dinosaur Hunter (2000)
    * Possessed (2000) (TV)
    * American Tragedy (2000) (TV)
    * Dracula 2000 (2000)
    * Star Trek: Klingon Academy (2000) (VG)
    * Leo's Journey (2001) (TV)
    * On Golden Pond (2001) (TV)
    * Lucky Break (2001)
    * Blackheart (2001)
    * A Beautiful Mind (2001)
    * Full Disclosure (2001) (V)
    * Night Flight (2002) (TV)
    * Ararat (2002)
    * Agent of Influence (2002) (TV)
    * Nicholas Nickleby (2002)
    * Tma (2002)
    * Blizzard (2003)
    * The Gospel of John (2003) (voice)
    * Cold Creek Manor (2003)
    * National Treasure (2004)
    * Alexander (2004)
    * Our Fathers (2005) (TV)
    * Must Love Dogs (2005)
    * Syriana (2005)
    * The New World (2005)
    * Inside Man (2006)
    * The Lake House (2006)
    * Man in the Chair (2007)
    * Closing the Ring (2007)
    * Emotional Arithmetic (2007)
    * Already Dead (2007)
    * The Summit (2008) TV miniseries
    * Caesar and Cleaopatra (2009)
    * Up (2009) (voice)
    * My Dog Tulip (2009) (voice)
    * 9 (2009) (voice)
    * The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)

Upcoming

    * The Last Station (2009)
    * Priest (2010)
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/13/09 at 5:21 am

* Ted Nugent
Theodore Anthony "Ted" Nugent (born December 13, 1948) is an American hard rock guitarist and vocalist from Detroit, Michigan. He originally gained fame as the lead guitarist of The Amboy Dukes. He is also noted for his vocal conservative political views and his ardent defense of hunting, conservation, unrestricted gun-ownership and anti-drug/alcohol abuse activism.
Nugent dropped the Amboy Dukes band name for good in 1975, and signed to Epic Records. Derek St. Holmes (guitar, vocals), Rob Grange (bass) and Clifford Davies (drums) were the primary additional band members for his classic 1970s multi-platinum albums: Ted Nugent (1975), Free-for-All (1976) and Cat Scratch Fever (1977). These albums produced the popular radio anthems "Hey Baby," "Stranglehold," "Dog Eat Dog" and "Cat Scratch Fever." This band lineup toured extensively, also releasing the multi-platinum live album Double Live Gonzo!, until its breakup in 1978 when St. Holmes and Grange departed. St. Holmes was replaced by Charlie Huhn and Grange by Dave Kiswiney. Davies finally left around 1982 after staying on to record Weekend Warriors (1978), State of Shock (1979), Scream Dream (1980) and Intensities in 10 Cities (1981).

On July 8, 1979, Ted was on the rock radio program King Biscuit Flower Hour. This was the original broadcast of Ted's performance of Live at Hammersmith '79 which had been recorded during the second set of a sold-out night at London's Hammersmith Odeon in 1979. An album of this program, however, was not released until 1997.

During this era, Nugent was notable for his frequent declarations that he did not drink alcoholic beverages or smoke tobacco or marijuana. In an interview for VH1's Behind The Music, Nugent said this was due to his father having sternly reprimanded him when he came home smelling of alcohol after a night of drinking. This was an unusual stance for a major rock performer of the 1970s, and Nugent has been cited as an important early influence on the straight edge movement, which disavows drinking and recreational drug use.
Damn Yankees
Ted Nugent live in 2007

During the period of 1982-86, Nugent released a series of moderately successful solo albums. Near the end of the 1980s, he formed the supergroup Damn Yankees, with Jack Blades (bass/vocals, formerly of Night Ranger), Tommy Shaw (guitar/vocals, formerly of Styx) and Michael Cartellone (drums/vocals). Damn Yankees (1990) was a hit, selling 5 million albums, thanks in no small part to the smash-hit power ballad "High Enough." The video for this song featured Nugent in a priest's collar, and later in a zebra-striped cape during the guitar solo. It also saw the first appearance of his famous 'WhackMaster' hat.
Back to solo

Returning to a solo career, Nugent released Spirit of the Wild in 1995, his best-reviewed album in quite some time. This album also marked the return of Derek St. Holmes to Nugent's studio band. A series of archival releases also came out in the 1990s, keeping Nugent's name in the national consciousness. He also began hosting a radio show in Detroit and took ownership in several hunting-related businesses. He created TV shows for several networks; Wanted: Ted or Alive on Versus, Ted Nugent Spirit of the Wild on PBS and The Outdoor Channel, as well as Surviving Nugent and Supergroup-Damnocracy on VH1.

Ted Nugent appears on David Crowder Band's 2007 release, Remedy, playing guitar on the song "We Won't Be Quiet
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/13/09 at 5:24 am

* Steve Buscemi

Steven Vincent "Steve" Buscemi (pronounced /bʊˈʃɛmi/, boo-SHEM-ee; born December 13, 1957) is an American actor, writer and film director.
Buscemi is an associate member of the experimental theater company The Wooster Group. Buscemi’s first film appearance was in the 1986 Parting Glances, in which he played Nick, a young man stricken with AIDS. He also was in Slaves of New York in 1988, and Tales from the Darkside, a 1990 film with three segments. Buscemi starred in the first, playing Bellingham, a college student who orders a mummy and unleashes it on fellow college students played by Christian Slater and Julianne Moore.

During 1990, Buscemi had a couple of additional crime roles. He played the henchman of Laurence Fishburne named Test Tube in Abel Ferrara’s King of New York, and played Mink in the Coen Brothers Millers Crossing. This marked the first of six of the Coen Brothers' films in which Buscemi appeared.

In 1991 he played the bellboy, Chet, in the Coen Brothers film, Barton Fink. His first lead role was in 1992, where he played Adolpho Rollo in Alexandre Rockwell's In the Soup. Then he finally came to public attention for playing Mr. Pink in Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 film, Reservoir Dogs.
Steve Buscemi in 1996

Buscemi's most notable character roles include Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs, Garland Greene in Con Air, Rockhound in Armageddon, Donny in The Big Lebowski and Carl Showalter in Fargo. Although usually a supporting actor, he has had critical success as a lead actor, particularly in his role as Seymour in Ghost World. Buscemi often plays characters that are neurotic and paranoid. He has appeared in a number of films by the Coen Brothers, in which he tends to die in a grisly, prolonged or unexpected manner. He frequently provides comic relief in Adam Sandler films such as Billy Madison, The Wedding Singer, Big Daddy and Mr. Deeds. Buscemi also starred with Sandler (as brothers) in Airheads alongside Brendan Fraser. Buscemi also played a nemesis to Sandler and Kevin James in the comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. He also has worked with Tim Burton, Quentin Tarantino, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Jim Jarmusch, The Coen Brothers, and Robert Rodriguez on various occasions.

In 2003, Buscemi made a brief celebrity guest appearance as himself on the long-running Fox animated television show The Simpsons in the episode "Brake My Wife, Please". Most recently, Buscemi provided the voice for Dwight, a bank robber who Marge promises to visit in jail if he turns himself in to the authorities. This episode, entitled "I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", originally aired on October 14, 2007.

In 2004, Buscemi joined the cast of The Sopranos as Tony Soprano's cousin and childhood friend, Tony Blundetto. Buscemi had previously contributed to the show as director of the third season episode "Pine Barrens" (one of the most critically-acclaimed episodes of the series). He appeared in the third episode of Season 6, as a doorman in heaven (portrayed as a country club) in Tony Soprano's dream. He returned to direct the episodes "In Camelot", the seventh episode of season five, and "Mr. & Mrs. John Sacrimoni Request...", the fifth episode of Season 6.

In 1995, Buscemi played suspected cop-shooter Gordon Pratt in the episode "End Game" at the end of a three-episode arc of Homicide: Life on the Street. He also had a role as Phil Hickle, Ellen's father and older Pete's guidance counselor, in The Adventures of Pete and Pete, as well as guest-starring in Miami Vice in 1986. Buscemi was rumored to be considered for the role of The Scarecrow in Joel Schumacher's proposed fifth installment of the Batman franchise, Batman Triumphant, before Warner Bros. cancelled the project.

In 2004, Buscemi appeared in the music video for Joe Strummer's cover of the Bob Marley track "Redemption Song". The video is shot after Strummer's death, and Buscemi appears alongside of a graffiti portrait of Strummer.
Directing

Buscemi has worked extensively as a writer-director since making his debut feature during the 1990s. His directional credits include:

    * Trees Lounge (1996)
    * Animal Factory (2000)
    * Lonesome Jim (2005)
    * Interview (2007)

In addition to feature films, he directed episodes of the television shows Homicide: Life on the Street and The Sopranos, as well as two episodes of HBO's prison-drama series Oz, entitled "U.S. Male" and "Cuts Like a Knife". He also directed an episode of 30 Rock, entitled "Retreat to Move Forward". He has also directed episodes four, five, seven and eight from Season 1 of Showtime's Nurse Jackie.

Whilst scouting a location for a film, Buscemi visited the Philadelphia Eastern State Penitentiary. He found the building so interesting that he later provided the majority of the narration for the audio tour there.
Filmography
Year Film Role Other notes
1986 Parting Glances Nick
1987 Kiss Daddy Goodnight Johnny
1988 Call Me Switchblade
Heart of Midnight Eddy
1989 Slaves of New York Wilfredo
Mystery Train Charlie the Barber Nominated: Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actor
Lonesome Dove (TV) Luke
New York Stories
1990 Tales from the Darkside: The Movie Bellingham (Segment "Lot 249")
King of New York Test Tube
Miller's Crossing Mink
1991 Barton Fink Chet
1992 In the Soup Aldolpho Rollo
Reservoir Dogs Mr. Pink Won: Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actor
CrissCross Drug Dealer
1993 Twenty Bucks Frank
Rising Sun Willy 'the Weasel' Wilhelm
The Adventures of Pete & Pete (TV) Phil Hickle
Ed And His Dead Mother Ed Chilton
1994 The Search for One-eye Jimmy Ed Hoyt
The Hudsucker Proxy Beatnik Barman at Ann's 440
Airheads Rex
Pulp Fiction Buddy Holly
The Last Outlaw (TV) Former Confederate soldier and outlaw Philo
1995 Billy Madison Danny McGrath Uncredited
Living in Oblivion Nick Reve
Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead Mister Shhh
Desperado Buscemi
1996 Fargo Carl Showalter Nominated: Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture - Drama
Escape from L.A. Map to the Stars Eddie
Trees Lounge Tommy Also writer and director
Nominated: Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature (shared with Chris Hanley and Brad Wyman)
Nominated: Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay
1997 Con Air Garland 'The Marietta Mangler' Greene
1998 The Big Lebowski Theodore Donald 'Donny' Kerabatsos
Divine Trash Himself
The Impostors Happy Franks
The Wedding Singer David 'Dave' Veltri Uncredited
Armageddon Rockhound
1999 Big Daddy Homeless Guy
2000 28 Days Cornell Shaw
Animal Factory A.R. Hosspack Also director
2001 Ghost World Seymour Won: Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
Won: Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actor
Won:New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor
Won: Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated: American Film Institute Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated: Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within Officer Neil Voice
The Grey Zone 'Hesch' Abramowics
Love in the Time of Money Martin Kunkle
Domestic Disturbance Ray Coleman
Monsters, Inc. Randall Boggs Voice
2002 Mr. Deeds Crazy Eyes
13 Moons Bananas The Clown
The Laramie Project Doc O'Conner
Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams Romero
2003 Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over Romero
Coffee and Cigarettes Waiter (Segment "Twins")
Big Fish Norther Winslow
2002-2006 The Sopranos (TV) Tony Blundetto / Man Nominated: Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series (2001)
Nominated: Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor - Drama Series (2004)
2004 Home on the Range Wesley Voice
2005 Lonesome Jim Director
The Island James McCord
2006 Art School Confidential Broadway Bob D'Annunzio Uncredited
Monster House Nebbercracker Voice
Charlotte's Web Templeton the Rat Voice
Dust to Dust: The Health Effects of 9/11 (TV) Narrator
2007 I Think I Love My Wife George Sianidis
Paris, je t'aime The tourist (segment 'Tuileries')
Interview Pierre Peters Also director
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry Clint Fitzer
The Simpsons episode I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (TV) Dwight Voice
Delirious Les Galantine
Romance & Cigarettes Angelo
30 Rock (TV) Lenny Wosniak Nominated: Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor - Comedy Series (2008)
2008 ER (TV) Mr. Masterson
Igor Scamper Voice
2009 Rage Frank
John Rabe Dr. Robert Wilson Nominated: German Film Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (2008)
G-Force Bucky (voice)
The Messenger Dale Martin
Saint John of Las Vegas John post-production
Handsome Harry Thomas Kelley post-production
2010 Saint John of Las Vegas John Alighieri
Youth in Revolt George Twisp post-production
Pete Smalls Is Dead post-production
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/13/09 at 5:27 am

* Jamie Foxx
Eric Marlon Bishop (born December 13, 1967), professionally known as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, stand-up comedian, and singer. For his work in the film Ray, Foxx won the Academy Award and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award for Best Actor. He has also won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a musical/comedy and has been nominated for several Grammy Awards.
After accepting a girlfriend's dare, Foxx told jokes and did impressions at a comedy club's open mic night in 1989. When he found that female comedians were often called first to perform, he changed his name to Jamie Foxx, feeling that it was an ambiguous enough name to disallow any biases. He chose his surname as a tribute to comedian Redd Foxx.

Foxx joined the cast of In Living Color in 1991 and subsequently played a recurring role in the comedy-drama sitcom Roc. From 1996 to 2001, Foxx starred in his own sitcom The Jamie Foxx Show, and in 1992 he made his film debut.
Film career
Foxx's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Foxx made his film debut in the 1992 comedy Toys. His first dramatic role came in Oliver Stone's 1999 film Any Given Sunday, where he portrayed a hard-partying American football player. He was cast in the role in part because of his background as a football player. Foxx has since evolved into a respected dramatic actor. Following Any Given Sunday, Foxx was featured as taxi driver Max Durocher in the film Collateral alongside Tom Cruise, for which he received outstanding reviews and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His standout performance, however, was his portrayal of Ray Charles in the biopic Ray (2004), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Foxx is the second male in history to receive two acting Oscar nominations in the same year for two different movies, Collateral and Ray. The only other male actor to achieve this was Al Pacino. In 2005, Foxx was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Following these successes, Foxx appeared in Jarhead, Miami Vice, and Dreamgirls, which were box-office hits, and lifted his profile even higher as a bankable star in Hollywood. 2007 brought him the lead role in the film The Kingdom opposite Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner and Ashraf Barhom.

In September 2007, Foxx was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He said, upon receiving the honor, " one of the most amazing days of my life."

In May 2009 Foxx played the lead role in the dramatic film The Soloist.
Music career
Foxx and Kanye West performing "Gold Digger"

Foxx began piano lessons at age five. In 1994, Foxx released an album (on the Fox record label) entitled Peep This. His music career shifted into a higher gear when, in 2004, he was featured on rapper Twista's song, "Slow Jamz", which also featured Kanye West. The song reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, as well as number three on the UK singles chart. Foxx's second collaboration with Kanye West, "Gold Digger," in which he sang the "I Got a Woman" Ray Charles-influenced hook, went straight to number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and remained there for 10 weeks. In 2005, Foxx was featured on the single "Georgia" by Atlanta rappers Ludacris and Field Mob. The song sampled Ray Charles' hit "Georgia on My Mind."

Foxx released his second studio album,Unpredictable in December 2005. It debuted at number two, selling 598,000 copies in its first week. The following week, the album rose to number one, selling an additional 200,000 copies. To date, the album has sold 1.98 million copies in the United States, and was certified double Platinum by the RIAA. The album also charted on the UK Albums Chart, where it peaked at number nine. Foxx became the fourth artist to have won an Academy Award for an acting role and to have achieved a number-one record album in the US. (The other three to accomplish this feat were Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Barbra Streisand.) Foxx's first single from the album, the title track "Unpredictable" (featuring Ludacris), samples "Wildflower" by New Birth. The song peaked inside the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and also made the UK top 20 singles chart. The second US single from the album was "DJ Play a Love Song," which reunited Foxx with Twista. In the UK, however, the second single was "Extravaganza," which saw Foxx once again collaborate with Kanye West. He was not, however, featured in the song's music video.

At the 2006 Black Entertainment Television (BET) Awards, Foxx won Best Duet/Collaboration with Kanye West for "Gold Digger" and tied with Mary J. Blige's "Be Without You" for Video of the year. On December 8, 2006, Foxx received four Grammy nominations, which included Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for Love Changes featuring Mary J. Blige, Best R&B Album for Unpredictable, Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for Georgia by Ludacris & Field Mob featuring Jamie Foxx, and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for Unpredictable featuring Ludacris.

On January 22, 2007, Foxx was on Sirius Satellite Radio, announcing his new channel The Foxxhole. The channel features comedy and music primarily by African-American performers, and features much of Foxx's own material as well. The Jamie Foxx Show, a talk-radio program, airs Friday evenings on The Foxxhole, and features Johnny Mack, Speedy, Claudia Jordan, The Poetess, and Lewis Dix as his co-hosts. Guests include popular musicians, actors, and fellow comedians.

He recorded a song with country superstars Rascal Flatts entitled "She Goes All the Way" for their album, Still Feels Good. Foxx also performed background vocals for artist/songwriter Tank. He and The-Dream are featured on Plies' "Please Excuse My Hands." He also appeared on the remix of Ne-Yo's "Miss Independent" entitled "She Got Her Own." The track also features Fabolous. Foxx then collaborated with rapper The Game on the track "Around The World."

Foxx released his third album titled Intuition featuring such artists as Kanye West, T.I., Lil Wayne, and T-Pain. The album's first single, "Just Like Me" featuring T.I., was promoted by a video directed by Brett Ratner and featuring an appearance by Taraji P. Henson. The second single "Blame It" featured T-Pain and became a top 5 single on the Billboard Hot 100 and a number-one single on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The "Blame It" music video, directed by Hype Williams, features cameo appearances by Forest Whitaker, Samuel L. Jackson, Ron Howard, Quincy Jones, and Jake Gyllenhaal, among others. Foxx was also featured on T.I.'s single "Live in the Sky" from the album King.

On April 6, 2009 Foxx performed the George Strait song "You Look So Good in Love" at the George Strait Artist of the Decade All-Star Concert. Foxx has been a fan of country music for many years.

Foxx will release his fourth album, "Body", on February 2, 2010.. The first single is "Speak French".
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1992 Toys Baker
1996 The Truth About Cats & Dogs Ed
The Great White Hype Hassan El Ruk'n
1997 Booty Call Bunz
1998 The Players Club Blue
1999 Held Up Michael
Any Given Sunday Willie Beamen Nominated — BET Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Male Performance
2000 Bait Alvin Sanders
2001 Date from Heaven
Ali Drew 'Bundini' Brown BET Award for Best Supporting Actor
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
2003 Shade Larry Jennings
2004 Breakin' All the Rules Quincy Watson Nominated — BET Award for Best Actor, Musical or Comedy
Collateral Max BET Award for Best Supporting Actor
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Nominated — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Nominated — NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
Nominated — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
Ray Ray Charles Academy Award for Best Actor
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
BET Award for Best Actor
Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor
London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
National Board of Review Award for Best Actor
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor
Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor
Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Seattle Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Best Male Performance
Nominated — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story Tookie BET Award for Best Actor, Network/Cable Television
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special
Satellite Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
Nominated — Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Male
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
2005 Stealth Lt. Henry Purcell
Jarhead Staff Sgt. Sykes Nominated — Black Movie Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor
2006 Miami Vice Ricardo Tubbs
Dreamgirls Curtis Taylor, Jr. Nominated — BET Award for Best Actor
Nominated — NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2007 The Kingdom Ronald Fleury
2009 The Soloist Nathaniel Ayers
Law Abiding Citizen Nick Rice
2010 Valentine's Day Kelvin Briggs Post-production
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/13/09 at 6:50 am

I think Jamie Foxx is such a talented actor.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/13/09 at 11:38 am


I think Jamie Foxx is such a talented actor.  :)
How many times nominated?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 12/13/09 at 3:10 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzbdIa0FCtc




Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/13/09 at 3:11 pm


How many times nominated?

I see at least 4 movies that he was in that he was nominated for an award.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/13/09 at 3:18 pm


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzbdIa0FCtc




Cat

I loved that movie when I was younger, but when I watched it a few years back I just couldn't get into it. :-\\

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/13/09 at 3:22 pm


I loved that movie when I was younger, but when I watched it a few years back I just couldn't get into it. :-\\
Guaranteed to be on over the holiday season.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/13/09 at 6:58 pm


Guaranteed to be on over the holiday season.

I knew it was during the holiday season when I saw it, I just couldn't remember if it was Christmas or Easter.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/13/09 at 7:09 pm


I see at least 4 movies that he was in that he was nominated for an award.


What about The Jamie Foxx Show was that nominated?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: coqueta83 on 12/13/09 at 7:39 pm

Happy belated Birthday, Bob Barker!!! O0  8)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/14/09 at 4:38 am

The word of the day...worker
a person who works at a specific occupation; "he is a good worker"
sterile member of a colony of social insects that forages for food and cares for the larvae
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu147/ongxangrom/Picture062.jpg
http://i814.photobucket.com/albums/zz67/jdwandassociates/TWBLogoSealBrownBoldResized-1.jpg
http://i722.photobucket.com/albums/ww225/SAMARION359/103_0242.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p311/BROTHERBOB1228/PLACES/1099829New-York-Construction-Worker.jpg
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s194/boydlion/JBC%20Airguns/JBC%20Pistol/IMG_5248.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b377/lonelyjew/worker.jpg
http://i522.photobucket.com/albums/w343/wkforce/depressed_worker.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h259/kafumbly/ants/Heteroponeraworkerant.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/14/09 at 4:42 am

The birthday of the day...Patty Duke
Anna Marie "Patty" Duke (born December 14, 1946) is an American actress of stage, film, and television. She was able to make the rare successful transition from child star (winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at age 16) to award-winning adult actress. She was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild (1985 to 1988).

Duke was diagnosed with bipolar disorder or manic depression in 1982, and since then has devoted most of her time to advocating and educating the public on mental health issues.
ne of Duke's first acting jobs was on the soap opera The Brighter Day, in the late 1950s. She also appeared in print ads and in television commercials. At the age of twelve, Duke appeared on The $64,000 Question and won $32,000. Three years later, it was revealed that the game show was rigged and she was called to testify before a congressional panel.

Duke's first major role was playing Helen Keller (with Anne Bancroft as Annie Sullivan) in the Broadway play The Miracle Worker, which ran for nearly two years (October, 1959 - July, 1961). Midway through the production-run, her name was placed above the title on the marquee.

The play was subsequently made into a 1962 film, for which Duke received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. At 16, Duke was the youngest person at that time to receive an Academy Award in a competitive category. Duke then appeared with Laurence Olivier and George C. Scott in a TV production of The Power and the Glory (1961). In a 1979 television movie of "The Miracle Worker", Duke played Sullivan.

In 1963, Duke landed her own series The Patty Duke Show, in which she played both main characters: Patty Lane, an American teenager occasionally getting into minor trouble in school and at home; and her 'prim and proper' "identical cousin" from Scotland, Cathy Lane. The show featured co-stars William Schallert as Patty Lane's father, Jean Byron as her mother, Paul O'Keefe as her brother and Eddie Applegate as her boyfriend, Richard. The show had some guest stars such as Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, Paul Lynde, Sal Mineo, and the show appeared on TV for three seasons and earned Duke an Emmy Award nomination.

Despite the success of her career, Duke was deeply unhappy during her teenage years. Efforts were taken by the Rosses to portray her as a normal teenager, but Duke has indicated in her memoirs that she was a virtual prisoner of them and had little control over her own life and earnings. The Rosses kept control over Duke and her mother by allowing them only a small amount of money to survive on. The Rosses also began providing Duke with alcohol and prescription drugs when she was 13, which led to substance abuse problems later on (as an adult, Duke accused both John and Ethel Ross of sexual abuse). Upon turning 18, Duke became free of the Rosses, only to find that they had squandered most of her earnings.

In 1967, with The Patty Duke Show cancelled, Duke attempted to leave her childhood success behind and begin her adult acting career by playing Neely O'Hara in Valley of the Dolls. The film was a box office success, but audiences and critics had a difficult time accepting all-American-teenager Duke as an alcoholic, drug-addicted singing star. While the film has since become a camp (style) classic (due in large part to Duke's over-the-top performance), it almost ruined her career at the time. She won a Golden Globe for Me, Natalie in 1969, which also featured Al Pacino in his screen debut, but the film was a failure at the box office. She finally made a comeback with the 1970 television movie My Sweet Charlie. Her sensitive portrayal of a pregnant teenager on the run won Duke her first Emmy Award, but her infamous acceptance speech was rambling, angry, and disjointed. This led many in the industry to believe she was using drugs. In fact, Duke was suffering from mania, a part of bipolar disorder, which went undiagnosed until 1982.

She received her second Emmy for the TV miniseries, Captains and the Kings in 1977, and her third in 1980 for a TV version of The Miracle Worker in which she played Annie Sullivan to Melissa Gilbert's Helen Keller.
2000s

In 2002, Duke returned to New York to appear as Aunt Eller in a revival of Oklahoma!. She returned again in 2005 to attend a memorial service for her former co-star and actress from The Miracle Worker, Anne Bancroft, who had died of uterine cancer earlier in the year.

On November 2, 2004, it was announced that Duke would undergo single bypass surgery in Idaho, which was successful.

On October 4, 2007, Duke appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, talking about her bipolar disorder to a guest, advising the guest to seek out a support group.

In early 2009, Duke reprised her role(s) as Patty Lane/Cathy Lane in PSAs for The Social Security Administration for retiring online.

On March 24, 2009, she replaced Carol Kane as Madame Morrible in the San Francisco production of the musical Wicked. She will remain with the production until March 28, 2010.

On July 20, 2009, Duke was given a tribute in her honor at The Castro Theatre in San Francisco entitled "Sparkle, Patty, Sparkle!" During the evening, Duke met and posed for pictures with over one thousand fans and was interviewed on stage by comic Bruce Vilanch. In addition to showing clips from her long career, Duke's 1967 film Valley of the Dolls was screened at the end of the evening. The event sold out the 1400 seat theater.
Singing

Duke had a successful singing career, garnering several Top 40 hits such as "Don't Just Stand There" in 1965, and "Dona Dona" in 1968. She performed the second song on The Ed Sullivan Show. Also during 1968, she had appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and after George Jessel's comic appearance, she was introduced and sang an old Irish song, "Danny Boy". She also sang songs on such shows as Shindig!, Kraft Musica Hall, The Mike Douglas Show, and The Merv Griffin Show. She had a hit song in her 1965 feature film, Billie, and sang on the soundtrack of the 1966 feature film, The Daydreamer, in which she voiced the character of Thumbelina.
Selected filmography
Film
Year Film Role Notes
1958 Country Music Holiday Sis Brand
The Goddess Emily Ann Faulkner, age 8
1959 4D Man Marjorie Sutherland
Happy Anniversary Debbie Walters
1962 The Miracle Worker Helen Keller Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated - Golden Globe
1965 Billie Billie Carol
1966 The Daydreamer Thumbelina Voice
1967 Think Twentieth Herself Short Subject
Valley of the Dolls Neely O'Hara
1969 Me, Natalie Natalie Miller Golden Globe for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1970 My Sweet Charlie Marlene Chambers Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
1972 You'll Like My Mother Francesca Kinsolving
1978 The Swarm Rita
1982 By Design Helen
1986 Willy/Milly Doris Niceman Alternative titles: I Was a Teenage Boy
Something Special
1992 Prelude to a Kiss Mrs. Boyle
1999 Kimberly Dr. Feinstenberger Alternative title: Daddy Who?
2005 Bigger Than the Sky Mrs. Keene/Earlene
2008 The Four Children of Tander Welch Susan Metler
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1963-1966 The Patty Duke Show Patty Lane/Cathy Lane 104 episodes
Nominated - Emmy Award; Nominated - Golden Globe
1976 Captains and the Kings Bernadette Hennessey Armagh Miniseries
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
1979 The Miracle Worker Annie Sullivan Television movie
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
1981 The Violation of Sarah McDavid Sarah McDavid Television movie
1982 It Takes Two Molly Quinn Television series
1985 Hail To The Chief President Julia Mansfield Television series
1987 Fight for Life Shirley Abrams Television movie
1987 Karen's Song Karen Matthews Television series
1991 A Killer Among Friends Jean Monroe Television movie
1998 The Patty Duke Show: Still Rockin' in Brooklyn Heights Patty Lane/Cathy Lane MacAllister Television movie
1998-2003 Touched by an Angel Jean 3 episodes
1999 A Season for Miracles Angel Television movie
2004 Judging Amy Valerie Bing 1 episode
2006 Falling in Love with the Girl Next Door Bridget Connelly Television movie
2009 Love Finds a Home Mary Watson Television movie
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/14/09 at 4:49 am

The co-birthday of the day...Dee Wallace - Stone
Dee Wallace-Stone (born December 14, 1948) is an American motion picture and television actress. She is perhaps best known for her roles in several popular films. These include the starring role as Elliot's separated mother in the Steven Spielberg film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), her widest seen role. She also played key roles in popular cult films The Hills Have Eyes (1977) and The Howling (1981) and appeared in The Stepford Wives in 1975 and 10 (1979). In total, she has appeared in more than 85 films.
Career

Wallace-Stone appeared in the television series Together We Stand (1986 — 1987) and the syndicated The New Lassie (1989 — 1992). In the latter series, she appeared with her husband Christopher Stone, with whom she also co-starred in Cujo (1983).

Wallace-Stone remains popularly known for her horror film roles. She has appeared at many horror film conventions and has a reputation for being very kind and generous with her many admirers and fans. She has also opened an acting studio to mentor young actors. Her husband died suddenly in 1995 of a heart attack while filming The Frighteners in New Zealand. Coincidentally The Frighteners told the story of a series of bizarre, inexplicable heart attack-related deaths.

Wallace-Stone starred in Rob Zombie's re-imagining of Halloween. She played Cynthia Strode, Laurie Strode's adoptive mother. Next, she appears in the horror film The Ocean and the western Between the Sand and the Sky.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/14/09 at 5:45 am


The word of the day...worker
a person who works at a specific occupation; "he is a good worker"
sterile member of a colony of social insects that forages for food and cares for the larvae
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu147/ongxangrom/Picture062.jpg
http://i814.photobucket.com/albums/zz67/jdwandassociates/TWBLogoSealBrownBoldResized-1.jpg
http://i722.photobucket.com/albums/ww225/SAMARION359/103_0242.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p311/BROTHERBOB1228/PLACES/1099829New-York-Construction-Worker.jpg
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s194/boydlion/JBC%20Airguns/JBC%20Pistol/IMG_5248.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b377/lonelyjew/worker.jpg
http://i522.photobucket.com/albums/w343/wkforce/depressed_worker.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h259/kafumbly/ants/Heteroponeraworkerant.jpg


I'm a worker. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 12/14/09 at 10:51 am

I have read Patty Duke's autobiography "Call Me Anna". Pretty incredible. It was so sad how the Rosses abused her and affected her throughout her life. She has made a remarkable recovery. I admire her greatly. Some things this bio leaves out is that fact that she dated Desi Arnez Jr. (which Lucille Ball was NOT happy with) and that she is the mother of Sean (Sam from Lord of the Rings) & Mackenzie Astin with John Astin (of Addams Family fame).

I remember the movie Billie and loved it as a kid. I have a copy of it that I haven't watched-because it used to be my sister's and will be hard for me to watch it.  :\'(  My sister "Dawg" said that was the last movie she watched with our sister when she handed it to me. I hope someday I will be able to watch it.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/15/09 at 6:28 am

The word of the day...Heartbeat
Your heartbeat is the regular movement of your heart as it pumps blood around your body.
http://i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq79/Senorita_Sexy_13/realheart.gif
http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg264/addison2341/close.gif
http://i418.photobucket.com/albums/pp263/kaly_pooh/heartbeat.jpg
http://i555.photobucket.com/albums/jj469/Randanyale24/PROPRANDI20090106075034524.jpg
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u291/caitefnlyn/beat.jpg
http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv314/erikarificbrowner/heart.jpg
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff308/kelly5510/jjpg.jpg
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii290/ekaj379/beat.gif

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/15/09 at 6:32 am

The birthday of the day...Don Johnson
Don Johnson (born Donnie Wayne Johnson; December 15, 1949) is an American actor known for his work in television and film. Johnson made his screen debut in the 1970 film The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart, but it wouldn't be until 1984 that Johnson would land his defining role. He played the lead role of Sonny Crockett in the 1980s TV cop series, Miami Vice, which led him to huge success and fame. He also played the lead role in the 1990s cop series, Nash Bridges. Johnson is a Golden Globe winning actor for his role in Miami Vice, a winner of the APBA Offshore World Cup, and has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In addition to being an actor, he is also a singer, songwriter, producer, and director
Johnson studied drama at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. His first major role was in the 1969 Los Angeles stage production of Fortune and Men's Eyes in which he played Smitty, the lead role. This exposure led to the quickly forgotten 1970 film The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart. He continued to work on stage, film and television without breaking out into stardom. His notable films from this period were Zachariah (1971), The Harrad Experiment (1973), Lollipop and Roses (1974), and A Boy and His Dog (1975).
Miami Vice

After years of struggling to establish himself as a TV actor (in such fare as Revenge of the Stepford Wives) and a string of failed pilots which were never followed by an actual TV series, in September 1984, Johnson's fortunes changed when he landed a starring role as Sonny Crockett in the cop series, Miami Vice. In this role, Johnson played an undercover police detective. He typically wore thousand dollar Versace and Hugo Boss suits over pastel cotton t-shirts, drove a Ferrari 365 GTS/4 Daytona...really a retooled 81 corvette (later a Ferrari Testarossa) and lived on a 42-foot (13 m) yacht with his pet alligator Elvis. Miami Vice was noted for its revolutionary use of music, cinematography, and imagery as well as a more glitzy take on the police drama genre.

In between seasons, Don Johnson gained further renown through several TV miniseries, such as the 1985 TV remake of The Long, Hot Summer.
Nash Bridges

Johnson later starred in the 1996-2001 drama Nash Bridges with Cheech Marin, Jaime P. Gomez and Jodi Lyn O'Keefe. Johnson played the title role of Nash Bridges, a detective for the San Francisco Police Department. In Nash Bridges Johnson was again paired with a flashy convertible car, this time an electric yellow 1971 Plymouth Barracuda.
2000s

In the fall of 2005, he briefly starred in The WB courtroom television drama show Just Legal as a jaded lawyer with a very young and idealistic protegé/partner (Jay Baruchel); the show was canceled in October 2005 after just three episodes aired. In January 2007, Johnson began a run in the London West End production of Guys and Dolls as Nathan Detroit.

Don Johnson also has a role in the Norwegian comedy Lange Flate Ballær 2 ("Long Flat Balls II"), directed by Harald Zwart. The movie was launched March 14, 2008 in Norway, with Johnson making an appearance at the premiere. He continues his career as actor in several new movies, as well as celebrity appearances at county fairs.
Music

Johnson released two albums of pop music in the 1980s, one in 1986 and the other in 1989. His single "Heartbeat", the title track from his first album, reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Previously, Johnson worked with Gregg Allman and Dickie Betts of the Allman Brothers, co-writing the songs "Blind Love" and "Can't Take It with You" with Dickie Betts, which appeared on their 1979 album, Enlightened Rogues.http://i780.photobucket.com/albums/yy81/Dew17_bucket/donjohnson.jpg
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/15/09 at 6:35 am

The co-birthday of the day...Tim Conway
Thomas Daniel "Tim" Conway (born December 15, 1933) is an American comedian and actor, primarily known for his roles in sitcoms, films and television. Conway is best-known for his roles as Ernest Borgnine's inept second-in-command officer, Ensign Charles Parker, in the popular 1960s WWII sitcom, McHale's Navy, and for co-starring alongside Carol Burnett on The Carol Burnett Show.
After graduating from Bowling Green State University, he joined the Army, following which he took a job answering mail for a Cleveland radio station, where he went on to become a writer in the promotional department. In 1956, Conway moved to New York City, where he auditioned for, at the urging of comedic actress Rose Marie, and gained a spot on NBC's The Steve Allen Show as a regular player. Conway continued on the show for two seasons.

McHale's Navy

Conway gained a national following from his role as the bumbling, naive Ensign Charles Parker, Executive Officer of the PT-73 in the 1960s sitcom McHale's Navy with actors Ernest Borgnine, and the late Joe Flynn. In addition to Flynn, he also got along well with series' lead, Ernest Borgnine, and had a wonderful on- and off-screen chemistry. As of 2009, Conway is still best friends with Borgnine, in fact, Conway mentioned in an interview that he lives not too far away from his mentor. Afterwards, he starred in a string of series. 1967's Rango starred Conway as an incompetent Texas Ranger.

The Tim Conway Show

In the 1970s, The Tim Conway Show paired Tim with Joe Flynn of McHale's Navy in a sitcom set in the confined set of a DC-3. Having "nowhere to run", this pressurized situation was ideal for the fast repartee of the lead actors. Tim got his own hour-long variety show, oddly named "The Tim Conway Razzle Dazzle Hour," which, as his other series had, folded quickly. Typical of his self-effacing humor, he ordered his car's license plate to reflect the usual duration of a Conway TV series: "13 WEEKS."

Conway was often paired with fellow funnyman Don Knotts in family films from Disney, including the popular The Apple Dumpling Gang series. In 1983, he starred in Ace Crawford, Private Eye, a parody of detective shows; it only lasted five episodes.

The Carol Burnett Show

Conway is probably best known for his work on The Carol Burnett Show where his unscripted antics often caused his fellow players to fall out of character by bursting out in laughter. For example, in a sketch where Conway and Harvey Korman are having a swordfight duel in medieval garb, Korman appears to run him through. Conway pulls the thin sword "out", looks at it as if it were a dipstick, and remarks, "Hmm... down a quart!" and Korman convulses. Such guffaws became so common that, whenever Conway did a sketch with Korman, cast members would place bets on how long it would take for Korman to break up.

On many episodes of the show, Conway would have Ernie Anderson in the audience and Carol would ask him to stand up and take a bow, without explanation, as if he were a famous celebrity beyond his Cleveland bailiwick.

Conway's work on the show earned him five Emmy Awards. Two of Conway's memorable characters on the Burnett Show were:

    * "The Old Man," whose shaggy white hair, slow speech, and shuffling gait ran counter to the much needed energy levels of the various occupations he was usually found in. His comic inability to get said jobs done — usually with slapstick results to himself, and with many an ad-lib — would both frustrate and 'break up' his fellow sketch performers.
    * "Mr. Tudball," a Swedish-American businessman whose intentions of running a 'ship-shape' office were usually sunk by the bored indifference of his secretary, "Mrs. Whiggins" (Burnett). Conway's stereotypical Swedish accent (especially when frustrated) added to the humor; for example, his attempts to pronounce his secretary's name came out as "Mrs. Ah-huh-whiggins". He would also use this accent for other characters, such as an inept dentist.

Conway could also get results with no dialogue, as in a sketch in which he played a tired businessman seeking restful sleep in his hotel — and pestered by a housefly, created only by a sound effect and Conway's gazing after it. After much struggle, he manages to get the fly out of the room through the window; after returning to bed, he hears a persistent knock on his door, gets up to answer it, and opens the door, letting the fly (who was doing the knocking) back in.

Another well-remembered skit, also without a word from Conway, featured him playing Simba, the lion raised by humans then released to the wild (seen in the film Born Free). Conway, told of the upcoming eviction from the comfortable home, caused Burnett and Korman to break up with an interminable process of packing to leave.

A prime example of his ability to make his co-stars laugh uncontrollably involved Lyle Waggoner as a captured American airman, with Conway as a stereotypical blond-haired Gestapo agent charged with his interrogation. Stating that "the Fuhrer" had taken particular interest, Conway produces a small Hitler handpuppet. With Conway providing a falsetto voice, the puppet suggests that singing might relax Waggoner's character to the point he is willing to talk. In a long, drawn-out fashion, the Hitler puppet sings "I've Been Working On the Railroad", and with each passing verse, Waggoner loses more of his composure, finally laughing hysterically when puppet-Hitler screeches, "FEE-FI-Fiddely-I-O!"

In the final season of the show, Conway produced one of his most hilarious ad libs during a family sketch. Playing the character of Mickey Hart, Conway reminisces about seeing a pair of Siamese elephants during a trip to the zoo, describing how they were connected at the trunk and the sound they made. Once Burnett gained her composure she turned to Vicki Lawrence to help get the script moving again, to which Lawrence quipped, "are you sure that little asshole is through?", causing Burnett to grab her mouth in shock and both Conway and Dick Van Dyke to fall to the floor in laughter.
Dorf

Conway's more recent work includes a series of satirical how-to videos in which he plays a diminutive, dark-haired Scandinavian known as Dorf (a variation on "dwarf"), reprising his goofy Mr. Tudball accent. The Dorf character first appeared in the 1987 film Dorf on Golf and has since appeared in seven other films on a variety of sports from baseball to auto racing. Dorf on Golf was remastered for DVD in 2007.
Other roles

Conway has guest starred such programs as ABC's Coach and Channing, the latter a drama about college life in the early 1960s. He starred in such films as The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) as Gangster Amos Tucker. Conway continues to appear in movies and has cameo appearances in TV series; most of these appearances showcase his comedic talent. Currently, Tim voices the character "Barnacle Boy" in a recurring role on the popular Nickelodeon cartoon sictom SpongeBob SquarePants; in this role, he is once again paired up as the sidekick to his old McHale's Navy co-star, Ernest Borgnine (who voices Mermaid Man, the "mentor" of Barnacle Boy). He appeared several times on the sitcom Married... With Children portraying Ephraim Wanker, the hillbilly father of Peg Bundy. Conway has also guest starred occasionally on the CBS sitcom Yes Dear, playing Tom Warner, the father of Anthony Clark's stuffy character, Greg, with Conway's old Carol Burnett Show co-star Vicki Lawrence playing his wife, Greg's overbearing mother. Conway appeared in animated form in a guest shot in the October 6, 1973 episode of The New Scooby Doo Movies, "The Spirited Spooked Sports Show." In 2003, he returned to television on the short-lived WB Network comedy, On The Spot. For Max Lucado's animated cartoon Hermie and Friends he provides the voice of the title character in all eight episodes so far. He has also appeared in The Simpsons.

During The Biography Channel's biography of Conway, Borgnine referred to Conway as "a credit to his profession" and Burnett said words to the effect that Conway's talent for comedy was only outstripped by his genuine kindness and good nature.

A fan of thoroughbred horse racing, and an occasional racehorse owner, Tim Conway is a co-founder, Vice President, and member of the Board of Directors of the Don MacBeth Memorial Jockey Fund.

Conway created a Collector's Edition DVD of new comedy sketches with friend, Harvey Korman; titled Together Again (2006), available on his official Web site.

Conway won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his role as Bucky Bright in the 30 Rock episode "Subway Hero", which initially aired on April 17, 2008.

He voiced Freddy Frog and other characters in Garfield's Fun Fest.

On his 75th birthday, Conway was interviewed as a guest on The Bonnie Hunt Show and given a surprise cake by Bob Newhart.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/15/09 at 3:09 pm


The birthday of the day...Don Johnson
Don Johnson (born Donnie Wayne Johnson; December 15, 1949) is an American actor known for his work in television and film. Johnson made his screen debut in the 1970 film The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart, but it wouldn't be until 1984 that Johnson would land his defining role. He played the lead role of Sonny Crockett in the 1980s TV cop series, Miami Vice, which led him to huge success and fame. He also played the lead role in the 1990s cop series, Nash Bridges. Johnson is a Golden Globe winning actor for his role in Miami Vice, a winner of the APBA Offshore World Cup, and has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In addition to being an actor, he is also a singer, songwriter, producer, and director
Johnson studied drama at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. His first major role was in the 1969 Los Angeles stage production of Fortune and Men's Eyes in which he played Smitty, the lead role. This exposure led to the quickly forgotten 1970 film The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart. He continued to work on stage, film and television without breaking out into stardom. His notable films from this period were Zachariah (1971), The Harrad Experiment (1973), Lollipop and Roses (1974), and A Boy and His Dog (1975).
Miami Vice

After years of struggling to establish himself as a TV actor (in such fare as Revenge of the Stepford Wives) and a string of failed pilots which were never followed by an actual TV series, in September 1984, Johnson's fortunes changed when he landed a starring role as Sonny Crockett in the cop series, Miami Vice. In this role, Johnson played an undercover police detective. He typically wore thousand dollar Versace and Hugo Boss suits over pastel cotton t-shirts, drove a Ferrari 365 GTS/4 Daytona...really a retooled 81 corvette (later a Ferrari Testarossa) and lived on a 42-foot (13 m) yacht with his pet alligator Elvis. Miami Vice was noted for its revolutionary use of music, cinematography, and imagery as well as a more glitzy take on the police drama genre.

In between seasons, Don Johnson gained further renown through several TV miniseries, such as the 1985 TV remake of The Long, Hot Summer.
Nash Bridges

Johnson later starred in the 1996-2001 drama Nash Bridges with Cheech Marin, Jaime P. Gomez and Jodi Lyn O'Keefe. Johnson played the title role of Nash Bridges, a detective for the San Francisco Police Department. In Nash Bridges Johnson was again paired with a flashy convertible car, this time an electric yellow 1971 Plymouth Barracuda.
2000s

In the fall of 2005, he briefly starred in The WB courtroom television drama show Just Legal as a jaded lawyer with a very young and idealistic protegé/partner (Jay Baruchel); the show was canceled in October 2005 after just three episodes aired. In January 2007, Johnson began a run in the London West End production of Guys and Dolls as Nathan Detroit.

Don Johnson also has a role in the Norwegian comedy Lange Flate Ballær 2 ("Long Flat Balls II"), directed by Harald Zwart. The movie was launched March 14, 2008 in Norway, with Johnson making an appearance at the premiere. He continues his career as actor in several new movies, as well as celebrity appearances at county fairs.
Music

Johnson released two albums of pop music in the 1980s, one in 1986 and the other in 1989. His single "Heartbeat", the title track from his first album, reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Previously, Johnson worked with Gregg Allman and Dickie Betts of the Allman Brothers, co-writing the songs "Blind Love" and "Can't Take It with You" with Dickie Betts, which appeared on their 1979 album, Enlightened Rogues.
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and Heartbeat was just a one hit wonder in 1986.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/15/09 at 4:15 pm



and Heartbeat was just a one hit wonder in 1986.

Yes it was.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 12/15/09 at 4:16 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gggcZvvZLeo


Gotta love the bell bottoms & platform shoes.  :D :D ;D ;D ;D




Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/16/09 at 5:17 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gggcZvvZLeo


Gotta love the bell bottoms & platform shoes.  :D :D ;D ;D ;D




Cat

Missy and I both love this song :)..Thanks Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/16/09 at 5:22 am

The word of the day...Hill
A hill is an area of land that is higher than the land that surrounds it.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/16/09 at 5:25 am

The birthday of the day...Steven Bochco
Steven Ronald Bochco (born December 16, 1943) is an American television producer and writer. He has developed a number of popular television hits including Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, and NYPD Blue, as well as some notable flops such as Cop Rock.
Career

Bochco went to work for Universal Pictures as a writer and then story editor on Ironside, Columbo, McMillan and Wife and the short-lived Lorne Greene and Ben Murphy series, Griff, as well as Delvecchio and The Invisible Man. He wrote the screenplay for the 1968 TV movie The Counterfeit Killer and worked on Silent Running (1972) and Double Indemnity (1973). He left Universal in 1978 to go to MTM Enterprises where he had greater scope for producing. His first effort there was the short-lived CBS police drama Paris, notable as the first show on which James Earl Jones played a lead role.

He achieved major success for NBC with the police drama Hill Street Blues. It ran from 1981 to 1987 and Bochco was credited as co-creator and also wrote and produced. The series also garnered considerable critical acclaim and many awards, and was nominated for a total of 98 Emmy Awards throughout its run. Bochco was fired from MTM in 1985 following the failure of Bay City Blues (1983).

Bochco moved to 20th Century Fox (which now owns the MTM library) where he co-created and produced L.A. Law (1986–1994) which aired on NBC. This series was also widely acclaimed and a regular award winner, but also achieved far higher ratings success than Hill Street Blues had enjoyed.

In 1987, Bochco co-created the half-hour dramedy Hooperman which starred John Ritter but was canceled after two seasons, despite Bochco offering to take over direct day-to-day control of a third season. Hooperman was part of a lucrative deal with ABC in 1987 to create and produce ten new TV series, which prompted Bochco to form Steven Bochco Productions. From this deal came Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989–1993) and the 1990 musical flop Cop Rock, which combined straight police drama with live-action Broadway singing and dancing. It was one of his most high-profile failures. In 1992, Bochco created an animated television series, Capitol Critters, along with Nat Mauldin and Michael Wagner.

After a lull, Bochco co-created the long-running NYPD Blue (1993–2005) with David Milch. Initially controversial at the time, the show was created with the express intention of changing the nature of network one-hour drama to compete with the more adult fare broadcast on cable networks. Other projects in this period that failed to take off include Murder One (1995–1997), Brooklyn South (1997), City of Angels (2000), Philly (2001), and Over There (2005). All five shows failed to match Bochco's earlier success though Murder One and Over There garnered critical praise and have developed cult followings.

In 2005, Bochco took charge of Commander in Chief (2005–2006) which was the creation of Rod Lurie and brought in a new writing team. However, in spring 2006, he left the show because of conflicts with ABC, and shortly afterward the program was canceled. Bochco described his experience on the show as "horrible." In 2006 Bochco produced a pilot ABC show, Hollis and Rae, and was reported at the same time to be developing a baseball drama and another legal drama for ABC in partnership with Chris Gerolmo.

It was announced in March 2007 that he has taken his first steps into internet TV with the 44-episode Cafe Confidential, each episode being 60-seconds of unscripted "confessions" by members of the public. Yet another legal drama entitled Raising the Bar is in production for TNT, this time in partnership with David Feige. Ten episodes were initially ordered by the network, and a further 15 were ordered for a second season in 2009.

According to an interview with Bochco published in September 2007, he is now winding down his involvement with network television, feeling that his tastes and current fashions in TV drama no longer coincide. "The network executives stay the same age and I keep getting older and it creates a different kind of relationship. When I was doing my stuff at NBC with Brandon (Tartikoff) and Hill Street, we were contemporaries," says Bochco. "When I sit down (now), they're sitting in a room with someone who's old enough to be their father and I'm not sure they want to sit in a room with their fathers."

Bochco has recently argued that the new home for quality prime time drama is cable, where "the atmosphere is far friendlier and the creative environment more conducive to doing original work", and that "most of what's passing for primetime drama these days isn't very good."

His impact on the nature of American prime time network television drama is considerable: prior to Hill Street Blues it was rare for American straight drama shows to have story arcs, i.e. several stories running over many episodes (with the exception of prime time soap operas such as Dallas). It was also rare to have a large regular cast. The structure of the modern "ensemble" television drama comes from Bochco who many regard as having changed the "language" of television drama.
Personal life

He married actress Barbara Bosson in 1969, who appeared as a regular on Hill Street Blues. They had two children before divorcing in 1997. He is currently married to Dayna Kalins (m. August 12, 2000). His son, Jesse Bochco, by his first wife, was a producer/director on NYPD Blue and directed the pilot episode of Raising the Bar. Jesse Bochco also appeared as Captain Furillo's son, Frank Jr. (with Bosson playing his mother) on Hill Street Blues, as well as a director in his own right. Jesse has directed several episodes of his father's shows, including NYPD Blue, Philly, Over There and Raising the Bar.
Awards
Emmy Awards

    * 1981 Outstanding Drama Series, for Hill Street Blues
    * 1981 Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series, for Hill Street Blues, "Hill Street Station" (premiere episode)
    * 1982 Outstanding Drama Series, for Hill Street Blues
    * 1982 Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series, for Hill Street Blues, "Freedom's Last Stand"
    * 1983 Outstanding Drama Series, for Hill Street Blues
    * 1984 Outstanding Drama Series, for Hill Street Blues
    * 1987 Outstanding Drama Series, for L.A. Law
    * 1987 Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series, for L.A. Law, "The Venus Butterfly"
    * 1989 Outstanding Drama Series, for L.A. Law
    * 1995 Outstanding Drama Series, for NYPD Blue

Humanitas Prize

    * 1981 60-minute Category, for Hill Street Blues
    * 1999 90-Minute Category, for NYPD Blue

Edgar Awards

    * 1982 Best Episode in a TV Series Teleplay, for Hill Street Blues, "Hill Street Station"
    * 1995 Best Episode in a TV Series Teleplay, for NYPD Blue, "Simone Says"

Directors Guild of America

    * 1999 Diversity Award

Writers Guild of America

    * 1994 Laurel Award for TV Writing Achievement

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/16/09 at 5:27 am

The co-birthdays of the day...Liv Johanne Ullmann (born 16 December 1938) is a Norwegian actress and film director, as well as one of the muses of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. A winner of the Golden Globe, Ullmann has also been nominated for both the Palme d'Or and twice for the Academy Award and the BAFTA Award.
She played lead in nine films by Bergman. A psychological actress, she was the object of critical acclaim during the 1960s and 1970s (awards include three Best Actress prizes from the National Society of Film Critics, two from the National Board of Review, a threesome from the New York Film Critics Circle, and one Golden Globe as well as a LAFCA honor).

Her work with Bergman, especially in Scenes from a Marriage, turned her into a 1970s feminist and cultural icon, as well as one of the most respected actresses. In addition, her Nordic red-blond looks fit the 1970s vogue. Ullmann was nominated twice for an Academy Award (for The Emigrants and Face to Face), and published two autobiographies (Changing and Choices) while out of work in the late 1970s. At this time Ullmann appeared with Laurence Olivier in Richard Attenborough's A Bridge Too Far (1977).

Two of Ullmann's flops were musical adaptations of classic works. The film version of Lost Horizon was a critical and commercial disaster, and the Broadway production of I Remember Mama underwent numerous revisions during a long preview period, then closed after 108 performances.

Ullmann has been a film director (notably with Bergman drama Faithless) and reprised her role from Scenes from a Marriage in 2003's Saraband, Bergman's final telemovie. Faithless was close to being awarded the Golden Palm and Best Actress at Cannes Film Festival, but it and the female lead (Swedish actress Lena Endre) lost out to Dancer in the Dark and Björk's performance in it.

Ullmann chaired the jury of Cannes Film Festival in 2002. She introduced her daughter, Linn Ullmann, to the audience with the words: "Here comes the woman whom Ingmar Bergman loves the most". Her daughter was about to receive the Prize of Honour on her famous father's behalf. In 2006 Ullmann gave up a dream of making a film based on Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's play "A Doll's House". According to her, the Norwegian Film Fund worked against her and writer Kjetil Bjørnstad. Australian actress Cate Blanchett and British actress Kate Winslet were intended for lead roles in the movie.

Ullmann narrated the Canada/Norway co-produced animated short film The Danish Poet, which won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film at the 79th Academy Awards in 2007. She was the recipient of The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence.

Ullmann is currently directing actress Cate Blanchett in A Streetcar Named Desire (play) at the Sydney Theatre Company in Australia. The play's premiere will be in September 2009 and conclude in October 2009, and the production began on December 1, 2009 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the United States.
Private life

In addition to Norwegian, Ullmann speaks Swedish, English and other European languages. She is a UNICEF goodwill ambassador and has traveled widely for the organization. She is also co-founder and honorary chair of the Women's Refugee Commission. In 2005, King Harald V of Norway made Ullmann a Commander with Star of the Order of St Olav. In 2006, she received a Ph.D. honoris causa from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Ullmann has been married and divorced twice. Her first marriage was to Dr Hans Jacob Stang, a Norwegian psychiatrist, whom she divorced in 1965. According to her biographer, Ketil Bjørnstad, the marriage was marred by infidelities on both sides. In the 1980s, she married Boston real estate developer Donald Saunders, whom she divorced in 1995. Nevertheless, in 2007 the couple still lived together.

She has one child, Linn Ullmann, fathered by Ingmar Bergman according to her autobiography Changing in 1977 but born while Ullmann was married to Stang. Ullmann has two grandchildren, a boy and a girl, of her daughter's two marriages.
Filmography
As actress
Year Film Role Notes
1966 Persona Elisabeth Vogler
1968 Shame Eva Rosenberg Guldbagge Award for Best Actress
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress
Hour of the Wolf Alma Borg National Board of Review Award for Best Actress
1969 The Passion of Anna Anna Fromm
1971 The Emigrants Kristina Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
The Night Visitor Ester Jenks
1972 Cries and Whispers Maria (and her mother) New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Pope Joan Pope Joan
1973 Scenes from a Marriage Marianne David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actress
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
40 Carats Ann Stanley Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Lost Horizon Katherine
1974 Zandy's Bride Hannah Lund
The Abdication Queen Kristina
1976 Face to Face Dr. Jenny Isaksson Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
National Board of Review Award for Best Actress
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1977 The Serpent's Egg Manuela Rosenberg
A Bridge Too Far Kate Ter Horst
1978 Autumn Sonata Eva David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actress
1984 The Bay Boy Mrs. Campbell
1987 Gaby: A True Story Sari
Farewell Moscow David di Donatello for Best Actress
1988 La amiga María San Sebastián International Film Festival Award for Best Actress
1989 The Rose Garden Gabriele Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1991 Mindwalk Sonia Hoffman
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes Narrator (voice)
1992 The Long Shadow Katherine
1994 Drømspel Ticket Seller
Zorn Emma Zorn (TV)
2003 Saraband Marianne (TV)
2006 The Danish Poet Narrator (voice)
2008 Through a Glass, Darkly Grandmother
As director
Year Film Notes
1992 Sofie Montreal World Film Festival Special Grand Prize of the Jury
Montreal World Film Festival Prize of the Ecumenical Jury
Montreal World Film Festival Most Popular Film
1995 Kristin Lavransdatter (from the novel by Sigrid Undset)
1996 Private Confessions Nominated — Chicago International Film Festival Gold Hugo
Screened at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival
2000 Faithless Amanda Ecumenical Film Award
Goya Award for Best European Film
Nominated - Palme d'Or, 2000 Cannes Film Festival
Nominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Director
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/16/09 at 5:30 am

* Benjamin Bratt
Benjamin Bratt (born December 16, 1963) is an American actor. He is most famous for his role as Rey Curtis on the TV series Law & Order; and his appearances in the movies Blood in Blood Out, Miss Congeniality, Traffic, and Piñero. He currently stars on the A&E Network drama The Cleaner.
Bratt's best-known role has been that of Det. Rey Curtis on the television show Law & Order. In 1999, he was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his work on the series. His more popular films include Miss Congeniality, Blood in Blood out and Traffic. On June 23, 2009, Bratt appeared on The View to promote The Cleaner. He also appeared in an episode of the hit series Charmed as a demon.

On October 14, 2009, it was announced that Benjamin Bratt will guest-star on ABC's hit comedy, Modern Family, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Bratt will play the ex-husband of Sofia Vergara's Gloria.

On October 23, it was announced that Bratt will return as Detective Reynaldo Curtis on Law & Order, TVGuide.com has confirmed. Curtis reunited with his former boss, Lt. Anita van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson), which aired on December 11, 2009. Bratt was nominated for a best supporting actor Emmy for the role in 1999. After four seasons, he left the show that same year to pursue a film career.
Awards and nominations

>ALMA Awards

2009 Category: Best Actor in Drama (Year in Television) for The Cleaner (2008) (TV)

2002 Category: Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture for Pinero (2001)

1999 Category: Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series for Law & Order (1990)

1999 Category: Outstanding Actor in Made-for-Television Movie or Mini-Series for Exiled (1998) (TV Movie)

1998 Category: Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series for Law & Order (1990)

>Blockbuster Entertainment Awards

2001 Category: Favorite Supporting Actor - Comedy for Miss Congeniality (2000)

>Emmy Awards

1999 Category: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for Law & Order (1990)

>Imagen Foundation Awards

2009 Category: Best Actor - Television for The Cleaner (2008) (TV)

>NCLR Bravo Awards

1996 Category: Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series for Law & Order (1990)

>PRISM Awards

2009 Category: Performance in a Drama Series Multi-Episode Storyline for The Cleaner (2008) (TV)

>Razzie Awards

2005 Category: Worst Screen Couple for Catwoman (2004) shared with Halle Berry; Sharon Stone

2001 Category: Worst Screen Couple for The Next Best Thing (2000) shared with Madonna; Rupert Everett

>Screen Actors Guild Awards

2001 Category: Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a Theatrical Motion Picture for Traffic (2000) shared with Steven Bauer; James Brolin; Don Cheadle

2000 Category: Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series for Law & Order (1990) shared with Angie Harmon; Steven Hill; Jesse L. Martin

1999 Category: Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series for Law & Order (1990) shared with Angie Harmon; Steven Hill; Carey Lowell

1998 Category: Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series for Law & Order (1990) shared with Steven Hill; Carey Lowell; S. Epatha Merkerson

1997 Category: Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series for Law & Order (1990) shared with Jill Hennessy; Steven Hill; Carey Lowell

1996 Category: Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series for Law & Order (1990) shared with Jill Hennessy; Steven Hill; S. Epatha Merkerson
Filmography
Movies

    * One Good Cop (1991)
    * Shadowhunter (TV ) (1993)
    * Demolition Man (1993)
    * Blood In Blood Out (1993)
    * Clear and Present Danger (1994)
    * Texas (1994)
    * The River Wild (1994)
    * Follow Me Home (1996)
    * Exiled: A Law & Order Movie (1998) (TV)
    * The Next Best Thing (2000)
    * Red Planet (2000)
    * Miss Congeniality (2000)
    * Traffic (2000)
    * After the Storm (2001)
    * Piñero (2001)
    * Abandon (2002)
    * The Woodsman (2004)
    * Catwoman (2004)
    * Thumbsucker (2005)
    * The Great Raid (2005)
    * Love in the Time of Cholera (2008)
    * Trucker (2008)
    * La Mission (2009)
    * Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) (voice of Manny)

Television series

    * Nasty Boys (1989-1990)
    * Law & Order (1990, 1995-1999 & 2009)
    * E-Ring (2005)
    * The Andromeda Strain (2008 miniseries)
    * The Cleaner (2008-2009)
    * We Shall Remain (2009)
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/16/09 at 5:45 am

I feel over the hill.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/16/09 at 12:31 pm


I feel over the hill.

I am ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/16/09 at 1:12 pm


The word of the day...worker
a person who works at a specific occupation; "he is a good worker"
sterile member of a colony of social insects that forages for food and cares for the larvae
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Yeap!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/16/09 at 4:47 pm

There's also Benny Hill.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/17/09 at 4:38 am

The word or phrase of the day...Shooting Star(s)
A shooting star is a piece of rock or metal that burns very brightly when it enters the Earth's atmosphere from space, and is seen from Earth as a bright star travelling very fast across the sky.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/17/09 at 4:42 am

The birthday of the day...Paul Rodgers
Paul Bernard Rodgers, born 17 December 1949, is an English rock singer-songwriter best known for being a member of Free and Bad Company. Both bands experienced international success in the 1970s. Before establishing a career as a solo artist, he was also a member of The Firm and The Law. He has recently toured and recorded with Queen. Rodgers goes by the nickname "The Voice". He is ranked number 55 on Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Singers of All Time".
Rodgers was born in the northern English town of Middlesbrough. He played bass (he later moved onto vocals) in local band The Roadrunners, which just before leaving Middlesbrough for the London music scene changed its name to The Wildflowers. Other members of this band were Micky Moody (later of Whitesnake) and Bruce Thomas (later of Elvis Costello and The Attractions). Rodgers appeared on the British music scene in 1968 as singer/songwriter for bluesy rockers Free. In 1970, they shot up the international radio charts with "All Right Now", which Rodgers wrote with the group's bassist Andy Fraser. It was a number one hit in more than 20 territories and recognised by ASCAP in 1990 for receiving more than a million radio plays in the US alone. The song played a pivotal role in introducing Rodgers's stylistic metier, while helping to establish the sound of the British blues/rock invasion. At the time, Free and Led Zeppelin were the biggest grossing British acts. Free released four top five albums with a combination of blues, ballads and rock. The Multi Million Award was given to Paul Rodgers in 2000 by the British Music Industry when "All Right Now" passed two million radio plays in the UK.
1970s: Bad Company
Main article: Bad Company

Rodgers formed his next band, Bad Company, with Mick Ralphs, former guitarist of Mott the Hoople. Rodgers said: "Mick and I were trying to come up with names for the band. When I called him and said 'Bad Company', he dropped the phone."

Bad Company toured successfully from 1973 to 1982, and had several hits such as "Feel Like Making Love", "Can't Get Enough", "Shooting Star", "Bad Company", and "Run With The Pack". Rodgers also showcased his instrumental talents on several tracks: "Bad Company" and "Run With The Pack" featured him on piano; "Rock And Roll Fantasy" on guitar; and on the ballad "Seagull" Rodgers played all of the instruments. Bad Company earned six platinum albums until Rodgers left in 1982 at the height of their fame to spend time with his young family.
1980s

In the early 1980s, it was rumoured that Rodgers would sing with The Rossington-Collins Band (made of up the survivors of Lynyrd Skynyrd), In October 1983, Rodgers released his first solo LP Cut Loose. He composed all of the music and played all of the instruments. The album peaked at a disappointing number 135 on the Billboard's Pop Albums chart.

When his friend Jimmy Page started to come around to his house, guitar in hand and Led Zeppelin at an end, the duo's first live pairing was on the US ARMS (Action Research into Multiple Sclerosis) Tour (rock music's first big charity fundraiser) which had first been mooted by Eric Clapton and, besides Rodgers and Page, would include Jeff Beck, Joe Cocker, Steve Winwood and others. The inspiration behind ARMS had been former Small Faces/Faces member Ronnie Lane's own struggle with M.S. This led to Rodgers and Page's further teaming in the group The Firm , which resulted in two albums and two tours. Both Firm world tours managed only average attendance. Despite being panned by critics The Firm's two albums, The Firm and Mean Business, achieved moderate sales success and produced the radio hits "Radioactive" on which Rodgers played the guitar solo, "Satisfaction Guaranteed", and, in the UK, "All The King's Horses".
1990s

The Law, Rodgers's 1991 musical venture with former The Who and Faces drummer Kenney Jones, produced Billboard's number one AOR chart hit "Laying Down The Law" written by Rodgers, but the album peaked at number 126 on the Billboard's Pop Albums chart. A never-released second album can be found on the bootleg market. The album is often referred to as The Law II.

Rodgers acknowledged the influence of Jimi Hendrix by collaborating with Slash, Hendrix's Band Of Gypsys (Buddy Miles and Billy Cox) and recorded the track "I Don't Live Today", on the Hendrix tribute album In From The Storm. Then Rodgers teamed with Journey guitarist Neal Schon and released The Hendrix Set, a live 5-track CD, recorded in 1993 with Rodgers' interpretations of Hendrix songs. A Canadian and US tour followed.

His Grammy-nominated solo CD, Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute to Muddy Waters was released in 1993. Rodgers wrote the title track and was backed by guitarists Brian May, Gary Moore, David Gilmour, Jeff Beck, Steve Miller, Buddy Guy, Richie Sambora, Brian Setzer, Slash & Trevor Rabin to name a few.

For Woodstock's 25th anniversary in 1994, Rodgers pulled together drummer Jason Bonham, bassist Andy Fraser (from Free), guitarists Slash and Schon at the last moment to perform as the Paul Rodgers Rock and Blues Revue.

In 1995 he formed a new band consisting of Jaz Lochrie on bass, Jimmy Copley on drums and Geoff Whitheorn on guitar. The band (The Paul Rodgers Band) toured extensively in Europe, USA and in the UK until 1998 and spawned three albums - Now, Live and Electric.

New studio album of 1997, Now to be re-released as a part of his first double CD set, Now and Live charted internationally in the top 30. The single "Soul Of Love" remained in rotation on more than 86 US radio stations for six months. His 1997 world tour included Russia, Japan, Canada, USA, UK, Germany, France, Romania, Bulgaria, Israel, Brazil, Greece and Argentina.

Rodgers and Bad Company hit Billboard's US BDS charts with the number one single "Hey, Hey" in 1999, one of four new tracks off Bad Company's The Original Bad Company Anthology. The second single release, Rodgers's "Hammer Of Love", reached number two. For the first time in 20 years, all the original members of Bad Company toured the USA.
2000-present

Rodgers focused on his solo career in 2000 and released Electric, his 6th solo CD. In its debut week, the single "Drifters" was US rock radio's number one on the Most Added FMQB Hot Trax list, number two on Most Added R&R Rock and number three on Most Added Album Net Power Cuts. "Drifters" remained in the top 10 for eight weeks on Billboard's Rock charts. That year, he played sold-out concerts in England, Scotland, Australia, United States and Canada. After his appearance on TV's Late Show with David Letterman in New York, he met and jammed with B.B. King. Rodgers said: "The thrill was definitely not gone... for me. B.B. is a blues giant." That same year, Paul Rodgers, Jimmie Vaughan, Levon Helm, bluesmen Hubert Sumlin, Johnnie Johnson, James Cotton and others performed a sold out concert in Cleveland as a Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute to Muddy Waters.

The spring of 2001, Rodgers returned to Australia, England and Scotland for the second run of sold-out shows. That summer he toured the US with Bad Company.

Paul Rodgers and Bad Company released their first live CD and DVD Merchants of Cool in 2002. It included all the hits and a new single "Joe Fabulous" penned by Rodgers which hit number one at Classic Rock Radio and Top 20 on mainstream rock radio in the USA. In its debut week, the DVD sales sound scanned at number three Canada, and number four in the US. The Joe Fabulous Tour kicked off in the USA and sold out in the UK. While in London, Rodgers performed with Jeff Beck at the Royal Festival Hall. Rodgers was invited by long-time fan Tony Blair to perform at the Labour Party Conference. "I had the entire Labour Party singing the chorus of "Wishing Well", a song I wrote and shared with Free, ...'love in a peaceful world'. 'Love in a peaceful world'... over and over and over hoping the words would sink in but we went to war" recalled Rodgers. Twice in 2002, Rodgers performed on Britain's TV show Top of the Pops 2.

In 2003, Rodgers toured as a solo artist for the first time in two years playing 25 exclusive US dates. In his solo band are guitarist Howard Leese (Heart), bassist Lynn Sorensen and drummer Jeff Kathan. BBC TV/radio host Jools Holland invited Rodgers to record "I Told The Truth" for Holland's album Small World Big Band. The CD also featured Eric Clapton, Ronnie Wood, Peter Gabriel, Michael McDonald, Ringo Starr and others. This led to Rodgers performing two sold-out nights at London's Royal Albert Hall with Holland and his 18-piece rhythm and blues orchestra, and several UK TV appearances.He also appeared with Jeff Beck, performing some songs from Beck's back catalogue (along with several other notable musicians, including John Mclaughlin, Roger Waters and the White Stripes) for part of a week-long series of charity concerts put on by Jeff Beck at the Royal Festival Hall in London.

In autumn 2004, Rodgers took part in an all-star line-up of some of the world's greatest guitarists and thousands of fans gathered at London's Wembley Arena to celebrate the 50th birthday of the Fender Stratocaster guitar. In 2005, he took part in the 50th anniversary celebration of the Four Tops.

Early in 2004, Rodgers joined Mitch Mitchell and Billy Cox (Hendrix's Cry of Love), Buddy Guy, Joe Satriani, Kid Rock's Kenny Olson, Alice in Chain's Jerry Cantrell, Double Trouble, Indigenous, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and blues legend Hubert Sumlin (Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters) and performed three sold-out shows in Seattle, Portland and San Francisco as "Experience Hendrix". Once again, Rodgers only played 25 concerts in the USA and Canada. He performed at Wembley for the fiftieth anniversary celebration for the Fender Stratocaster, along with David Gilmour who played Strat #001, Ronnie Wood, Brian May, Joe Walsh, Gary Moore, Rodgers sang and played a custom designed Jaguar Fender Strat. Rodgers was invited by The Four Tops to be part of their fiftieth anniversary TV/DVD concert celebration at Motown's Opera House and performed alongside Aretha Franklin, Dennis Edwards & The Temptations Revue, Sam Moore, Mary Wilson, Ashford and Simpson and The Four Tops. "The call from THE TOPS' Duke Fakir just about knocked me out. I've been a fan since I was a boy and had no idea that they even knew I existed!" exclaimed Rodgers. For years the media and fellow musicians have referred to Rodgers as "The Voice"'. But The Four Tops' Duke Fakir says, "Paul Rodgers is the soul of Rock!"
Paul Rodgers and Queen at the NEC, Birmingham, 6 May 2005.

In late 2004, after a successful live television performance, two of the four members of the British rock group Queen proposed a collaboration with Rodgers, in which he would sing lead vocals on a European tour. Rodgers thus joined Brian May and Roger Taylor (former bassist John Deacon retired in the late 1990s), with the group billed as Queen + Paul Rodgers and they subsequently toured worldwide in 2005 and 2006. The participants clearly stated, including on Brian May's own website, "that Rodgers would be "featured with" Queen as: "Queen + Paul Rodgers", not replacing the late Freddie Mercury". The group subsequently released a live album with songs from Queen, Bad Company and Free, called Return of the Champions, and a DVD of the same name. Both featured live recordings from their Sheffield Hallam FM Arena concert on 9 May 2005. The DVD features "Imagine" from Hyde Park. "For one glorious summer" opined music critic Sean Michaels "we were all Paul Rodgers".. Another DVD was released in 2006 from a live performance in Japan, called Super Live in Japan.

Queen + Paul Rodgers also released a single featuring "Reaching Out", "Tie Your Mother Down" and "Fat Bottomed Girls".

The summer of 2006 saw Rodgers again focused on his solo career with a world tour, which commenced in Austin Texas, U.S. in June, then on to Japan, finishing in Glasgow, Scotland, in October 2006.

On 15 August 2006, Brian May confirmed through his website that "Queen + Paul Rodgers" will begin producing a new studio album beginning in October, to be recorded at Roger Taylor's home.

In April 2007 Rodgers released a live album of his 2006 tour, recorded in Glasgow, Scotland 13 October 2006, with a DVD of the same show released the following month.

On 27-28 December 2007, Rodgers surprised many by joining the Trans-Siberian Orchestra during their Winter 2007 Tour in Houston, Texas and Dallas, Texas. Unannounced, he joined the band at the end of their show to sing "Bad Company" and "All Right Now".

Rogers was a judge for the 6th and 7th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists.

On 27 June 2008 Rodgers and Queen performed at the Concert for Nelson Mandela to celebrate Mandela's 90th birthday.

On 14 May 2009, Paul announced he was ending his 5 year long collaboration with Queen, although did not rule out the possibility of working with them again.

On 17 November 2009, it was announced Paul would join the other surviving members of Bad Company for an 8 date U.K. tour in April 2010.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/17/09 at 5:20 am

The co-birthdays of the day...Bill Pullman
William James "Bill" Pullman (born December 17, 1953) is an American film, television, and stage actor.
During the 1980s, he primarily worked with theatre companies around New York and Los Angeles, California. His first prominent movie role was in the film Ruthless People (which starred Danny DeVito and Bette Midler). Other notable films included the lead in Spaceballs (1987), The Serpent and the Rainbow (opposite Zakes Mokae), While You Were Sleeping (1995), Independence Day (1996), and Lost Highway (1997). Pullman continues to act in both theatre and in movies, independent and big budget. His more recent films have been The Grudge and Scary Movie 4 (the latter ironically heavily spoofing The Grudge though Pullman's part spoofed The Village).

From February 2001 until February 2002, Pullman starred with Mercedes Ruehl, in Edward Albee's play The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? on Broadway. The play won several awards: 2002 Tony Award for Best Play; 2002 Drama Desk Award Outstanding New Play; 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Pullman was nominated, but did not win, the 2002 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Actor in a Play. He starred as Dr. Richard Massey in the End of Days miniseries, Revelations.He may co-star with Val Kilmer in the new Lewis and Clark movie, if it ever materializes. Pullman starred in Edward Albee's Peter and Jerry, at Off-Broadway's Second Stage Theatre in New York. Pullman received a second Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Play for Peter and Jerry in 2008.

In addition to acting, Pullman is a creative writer. His first play, Expedition 6, is about the International Space Station mission Expedition 6 that was in orbit at the time that the Space Shuttle Columbia was destroyed on reentry, grounding the U.S. space shuttle program, which was to provide the vehicle for the crew's return to earth. The play opened at San Francisco's Magic Theater in September 2007.

Most recently, Pullman joined the cast of Peacock starring opposite Susan Sarandon, Cillian Murphy, Ellen Page and Josh Lucas. Filming will take place in Des Moines, Iowa. He will appear on Broadway in a production of David Mamet's Oleanna, co-starring Julia Stiles.

Pullman is also a Jury Member for the digital studio Filmaka, a platform for undiscovered filmmakers to show their work to industry professionals.
Personal life

Pullman is married to Tamara Hurwitz, and has three children, daughter Maesa (born 1988), and sons Jack (born 1989), and Lewis (born 1993).

Jack Pullman, a student at Warren Wilson College near Asheville, was arrested for assault and possessing moonshine on October 27, 2008.

He lost his sense of smell in college after an injury left him in a coma for two days.

Pullman is an avid bird watcher and co-owns a resort in Paradise Valley, AZ with Mike Tyson to house Tyson's 350 pigeons.

Pullman co-owns a cattle ranch with his brother in Montana, near the town of Whitheall, where he lives part-time.

American cultural critic Greil Marcus used Pullman as a major piece of his argument in the book The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice. In the chapter entitled "American Berserk: Bill Pullman's Face", Marcus argued that many different aspects of American culture could be clearly seen in Pullman's facial expressions in various films.

On May 24, 2008, Pullman was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he received his graduate degree.
Filmography

    * Ruthless People (1986) - Earl Mott
    * Spaceballs (1987) - Lone Starr
    * The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) - Dennis Alan
    * Rocket Gibraltar (1988) - Crow Black
    * The Accidental Tourist (1988) - Julian
    * Cold Feet (1989) - Buck Latham
    * Brain Dead (1990) - Dr. Rex Martin
    * The Peter North Story (1990) - Peter North
    * Sibling Rivalry (1990) - Nicholas Meany
    * Going Under (1990) - Capt. Biff Banner
    * Bright Angel (1991) - Bob
    * Liebestraum (1991) - Paul Kessler
    * Newsies (1992) - Bryan Denton
    * A League of Their Own (1992) - Bob Hinson
    * Crazy in Love (1992) (TV) - Nick Symonds
    * Singles (1992) - Doctor Jamison
    * Nervous Ticks (1992) - York Daley
    * Sommersby (1993) - Orin Meecham
    * Sleepless in Seattle (1993) - Walter
    * Malice (1993) - Andy Safian
    * Mr. Jones (1993) (uncredited) - Construction Site Foreman
    * The Favor (1994) - Peter
    * Wyatt Earp (1994) - Ed Masterson
    * The Last Seduction (1994) - Clay Gregory
    * While You Were Sleeping (1995) - Jack Callaghan
    * Casper (1995) - Dr. James Harvey
    * Mr. Wrong (1996) - Whitman Crawford
    * Independence Day (1996) - President Thomas J. Whitmore
    * Mistrial (1996) (TV) - Steve Donohue
    * Lost Highway (1997) - Fred Madison
    * The End of Violence (1997) - Mike Max
    * Merry Christmas, George Bailey (1997) (TV) - George Bailey
    * Zero Effect (1998) - Daryl Zero
    * Lake Placid (1999) - Jack Wells
    * Brokedown Palace (1999) - 'Yankee' Hank Green
    * History Is Made at Night (1999) - Harry Howe/Ernie Halliday
    * The Virginian (2000) (TV) - The Virginian
    * The Guilty (2000) - Callum Crane
    * Titan A.E. (2000) (voice) - Capt. Joseph Korso
    * Lucky Numbers (2000) - Det. Pat Lakewood
    * Opening the Tombs of the Golden Mummies: Live (2000) (TV) - Co-Host
    * A Man Is Mostly Water (2001) - Parking Fascist
    * Ignition (2001) - Conor Gallagher
    * Igby Goes Down (2002) - Jason Slocumb
    * 29 Palms (2002) - The Ticket Clerk
    * Rick (2003) - Rick
    * Tiger Cruise (2004) (TV) - Cmdr. Dolan
    * The Grudge (2004) - Peter Kirk
    * Dear Wendy (2005) - Officer Krugsby
    * Revelations (2005) television Series - Richard Massey
    * Scary Movie 4 (2006) - Henry Hale
    * Alien Autopsy (2006) - Morgan Banner
    * Nobel Son (2007) - Max Mariner
    * You Kill Me (2007) - Dave
    * Surveillance (2008) - Sam Hallaway
    * Bottle Shock (2008) - Jim Barrett
    * Phoebe in Wonderland (2008) - Peter Lichten
    * Your Name Here (2008) - William J. Frick
    * Peacock (2009) - TBA
    * Kerosene Cowboys (2009)
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/17/09 at 5:25 am

* Giovanni Ribisi
Giovanni Ribisi (born December 17, 1974) is an American actor. His film credits include Saving Private Ryan, Lost in Translation and more recently, Public Enemies and Avatar .
Ribisi began his career in network television with recurring and guest roles on a number of shows, including The New Leave It to Beaver, "Married With Children", The Wonder Years and My Two Dads. He entered the public eye with a prominent performance in The X-Files episode "D.P.O." (an episode that also starred Jack Black), as well as with his recurring role as Frank Jr., the brother of Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow) on Friends. More recently, he has appeared in multiple episodes of My Name Is Earl, earning a 2007 Emmy nomination for his performance on the series.

Ribisi has appeared on the video of British band Keane's single "Crystal Ball", which was released worldwide on August 21, 2006. He appeared with Winona Ryder and John C. Reilly in Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's music video "Talk About the Blues". In September 2008, he appeared twice on the HBO comedy series Entourage.
Personal life

Ribisi was married to Mariah O'Brien from March 18, 1997 through November 3, 2001; the couple had a daughter, Lucia, born in December 1997 and named after the doomed heroine in the Donizetti opera, Lucia di Lammermoor.

Ribisi is an active Scientologist, and participated in the gala opening of Scientology's controversial "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death" Museum in December 2005. His twin sister, Marissa, is also a Scientologist and is married to Scientologist indie-rocker Beck.
Filmography
Film
Year Film/TV Role Notes
1983 Still the Beaver Duffy Guthrie TV
1988-1999 My Two Dads Cory Kupkus TV
1990-1991 Blossom Mitchell TV
1991-1992 Davis Rules Skinner Buckley TV
1993 The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom Pete Reyes TV
The Wonder Years Jeff Bilings TV
The Commish Joey Burke TV
Family Album Elvis DeMattis TV
1994 Walker, Texas Ranger Tony Kingston TV
Ellen Cashier TV
1995 The Outpost Scott
1996-2004 Friends Frank Buffay, Jr. TV
1996 SubUrbia Jeff
1997 First Love, Last Rites Joey
The Postman Bandit 20
1998 Saving Private Ryan T-5 Medic Irwin Wade
1999 The Other Sister Daniel McMann
2000 Boiler Room Seth Davis
The Gift Buddy Cole
Gone in Sixty Seconds Kip Raines
2001 According to Spencer Louis
2002 Heaven Filippo
2003 Basic Kendall
Cold Mountain Junior
I Love Your Work Gray Evans
Lost in Translation John
Masked and Anonymous Soldier
2004 Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow Dexter "Dex" Dearborn
Flight of the Phoenix Elliott
2005 The Big White Ted
2006 10th & Wolf Joey
The Dead Girl Rudy
The Dog Problem Solo
2007 Gardener of Eden Vic
Perfect Stranger Miles Haley
2008 Spirit of the Forest Cebolo
2009 Avatar Parker Selfridge
Public Enemies Alvin Karpis
2010 Columbus Circle (post-production) Detective Paul Giardello
Middle Men Wayne Beering
The Other Side (in production) Sean Splinter
The Rum Diary (post-production) Moberg
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* Marissa Ribisi
Santina Marissa Ribisi (born December 17, 1974) is an American actress.
Ribisi's first major role was in the 1993 film Dazed and Confused. She wrote and acted in the film Some Girl in 1998, and has had roles in the films True Crime, The Brady Bunch Movie, Pleasantville, and Don's Plum. She has also appeared in television shows such as Felicity, Friends, Grace Under Fire and Watching Ellie, as well as the TV miniseries Tales of the City.

In October 2007, Ribisi launched a fashion line, Whitley Kros, with partner Sophia Banks.
Personal life

She married Beck Hansen in April 2004, shortly before giving birth to their son, Cosimo Henri. The couple's second child, daughter Tuesday, was born in 2007.

Like her husband, she is a Scientologist.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/17/09 at 5:29 am

* Milla Jovovich
Milla Jovovich (born Milica Nataša Jovović Serbian: Милица Наташа Јововић/Milica Jovović; December 17, 1975) is a Ukrainian-born American model, actress, musician, and fashion designer. Over her career, she has appeared in a number of science fiction and action themed films, for which music channel VH1 has referred to her as the "reigning queen of kick-butt".

Jovovich began modeling at eleven, when Richard Avedon featured her in Revlon's "Most Unforgettable Women in the World" advertisements, and she continued her career with other notable campaigns for L'Oréal cosmetics, Banana Republic, Christian Dior, Donna Karan, and Versace. In 1988, she had her first professional acting role in the television film The Night Train to Kathmandu, and later that year she appeared in her first feature film, Two Moon Junction. Following more small television appearances like the "Fair Exchange" (1989) and a 1989 role as a french girl (she was 14 at the time then) on a Married with Children episode and film roles, she gained notoriety with the romance film Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991), the sequel to The Blue Lagoon. She appeared in 1993's Dazed and Confused alongside Ben Affleck and Matthew McConaughey. Jovovich then acted alongside Bruce Willis in the science fiction film The Fifth Element (1997), and later played the title role in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999). In 2002, she starred in the video game adaptation Resident Evil, which spawned three sequels: Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007) and Resident Evil: Afterlife (2011).

In addition to her modeling and acting career, Jovovich released a critically acclaimed musical album, The Divine Comedy in 1994. She continues to release demos for other songs on her official website and contributes to film soundtracks as well; Jovovich has yet to release another album. In 2003, she and model Carmen Hawk created the clothing line Jovovich-Hawk, which ceased operations in early 2008. In its third season prior to its demise, the pieces could be found at Fred Segal in Los Angeles, Harvey Nichols, and over 50 stores around the world. Jovovich also has her own production company, Creature Entertainment
Jovovich's mother had "raised to be a movie star" and in 1985, enrolled Jovovich in the Professional Actors school in California. In 1988, she appeared in her first professional role in the made for television film The Night Train to Kathmandu as Lily McLeod. Later that year she made her debut in a theatrically released picture with a small role, as Samantha Delongpre, in the romantic thriller Two Moon Junction. Following roles on the television series Paradise (1988) and Parker Lewis Can't Lose (1990), Jovovich was cast as the lead as Lilli Hargrave in Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991). This sequel to The Blue Lagoon (1980) placed her opposite Brian Krause. Return to the Blue Lagoon led to comparisons between her and child model-turned-actress, Brooke Shields (who had starred in the original) – Jovovich was often called by press the "Slavic Brooke Shields". The role also gained her controversy, much like Shields gained in The Blue Lagoon, for appearing nude at a young age. For her portrayal of Lili, Jovovich was nominated for both "Best Young Actress Starring in a Motion Picture" at the 1991 Young Artist Awards, and "Worst New Star" at the 1991 Golden Raspberry Awards.

In 1992, Jovovich co-starred with Christian Slater in the comedy Kuffs. Later that year, she portrayed Mildred Harris in the Charlie Chaplin biographical film Chaplin. 1993 saw Jovovich in the Richard Linklater cult film Dazed and Confused, in which she played Michelle Burroughs, on screen girlfriend to Pickford (played by her then real life boyfriend Shawn Andrews). Jovovich was heavily featured in the promotional material for the film, however, upon the film's release, she was upset to find her role was considerably trimmed from the original script. The bulk of Jovovich's role was to be shot on the last day of filming, however, she was misinformed of the date, and ultimately had one line in the film, "No", in addition to singing a line from "The Alien Song" from her album, The Divine Comedy. Discouraged, she took a hiatus from acting roles, during which time she moved to Europe and began focusing on a music career.
Breakthrough (1997-2001)

Jovovich returned to acting in 1997 with a lead in the Luc Besson directed science fiction action film The Fifth Element, alongside Bruce Willis and Gary Oldman. She portrayed Leeloo, an alien who was the "supreme being". Jovovich said she "worked like hell: no band practice, no clubs, no pot, nothing" to acquire the role and impress Besson, whom she later married on December 14, 1997, but divorced in 1999. She took part in eight months of acting classes and karate practice prior to filming. Jovovich also co-created and mastered an over 400-word alien language for her role. She wore a costume that came to be known as the "ACE-bandage" costume, a revealing body suit made of medical bandages designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier. The Fifth Element was selected as the opening film for the 1997 Cannes Film Festival and its worldwide box office gross was over $263 million, more than three times its budget of $80 million. The Fifth Element was often praised for its visual style and unique costumes, and film reviewer James Berardinelli, explained "Jovovich makes an impression, although her effectiveness has little to do with acting and less to do with dialogue". Jovovich was nominated for "Favorite Female Newcomer" at the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards and "Best Fight" at the MTV Movie Awards. Jovovich's portrayal of Leeloo garnered a video game and a planned action figure, but the figure was never released due to licensing problems. In a 2003 interview, Jovovich said Leeloo was her favorite role to portray.

In 1998, Jovovich had a role in the Spike Lee drama He Got Game as abused prostitute Dakota Burns, appearing with Denzel Washington and Ray Allen. In 1999, she appeared in the music video for the song If You Can't Say No by Lenny Kravitz. In 1999, Jovovich returned to the action genre playing the title role in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, reuniting her with director Luc Besson. She was featured in armor throughout several extensive battle scenes, and cut her hair to a short length for the role. Jovovich received generally good reviews for her performance, although she also received a Razzie Award nomination for "Worst Actress". The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc did moderately well at the box office, gaining $66 million worldwide. Afterwards, in 2000, Jovovich appeared as the troubled Eloise in The Million Dollar Hotel, a film based on a concept story by Bono of the band U2 and Nicholas Klein. Directed by Wim Wenders, Jovovich starred alongside Jeremy Davies and Mel Gibson, in addition to providing vocals on the film's soundtrack. Afterwards, she portrayed bar owner, Lucia, in the British western film The Claim (2000), and the evil Katinka in the celebrity cameo laced comedy Zoolander (2001).
International success (2002-2006)

In 2002, Jovovich starred in the horror/action film Resident Evil, released in the United States on March 15, 2002. Based on the CAPCOM video game series of the same name, she portrayed Alice, the film's heroine who fights a legion of zombies created by the evil Umbrella Corporation. Jovovich had accepted the role of Alice because she and her brother had been fans of the video game franchise, saying, "It was exciting for me just watching him play, I could sit for 5 hours and we would sit all day and play this game." Jovovich had performed all the stunts required in the film, save for a scene that would involve her jumping to a cement platform, which her management deemed too dangerous, and had trained in karate, kickboxing, and combat-training. The film was commercially successful, grossing $17 million on its opening weekend, and gaining $40 million domestically and $102 million worldwide. Later, she portrayed the manipulative gang wife Erin in No Good Deed (2002), Nadine in the romantic comedy You Stupid Man (2002), punk rocker Fangora ("Fanny") in Dummy (2003), and provided a guest voice on the television series King of the Hill. The role of Fangora in Dummy, allowed Jovovich to act in film with Oscar-winning Adrien Brody, who was a friend prior to filming. Jovovich found it easy to identify with this role because she felt Fangora, as opposed to previous characters, possessed similar qualities to the actress' own life.

In 2004, Jovovich reprised the role of Alice in the sequel to Resident Evil, Resident Evil: Apocalypse. The role required her to do fight training for three hours a day, in addition to the three months prior to filming in which she had "gun training, martial arts, everything". Apocalypse received even more negative reactions from the critics than the first film. Following the release of the film, Jovovich was unhappy with the results and director Alexander Witt's effort. She noted during an interview that year that her large action films take care of the commercial part of her career, while she acts in "independent little films that never come out" to appease her artistic side, and "It's a good balance". The following year, she was featured in Gore Vidal's faux trailer remake of Caligula, as Drusilla. In 2006, Jovovich's film, the science fiction/action thriller Ultraviolet, was released on March 3. She played the title role of Violet Song jat Shariff, a role that also involved heavily choreographed fight sequences and Gun Kata, a fictional martial art combining statistical analysis and gunplay. It was not screened for critics, but when reviewed, it was critically panned, grossing $31 million worldwide. That year Jovovich also starred in .45, as Kat, the revenge driven girlfriend of an illegal gun and drug dealer with English actor and DJ Matt Maurice.
Recent and future roles (2007-present)

In 2007, Jovovich reprised her role as Alice in Resident Evil: Extinction, the third of the Resident Evil series. The film grossed an estimated US$24 million in 2,828 theaters on its opening weekend, topping the box office gross for that week. It opened stronger than its predecessor, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, which opened with $23 million in 3,284 theaters (over 450 more theaters than Extinction). In a March 2006 interview, Jovovich said that she would not appear in another action film "for a long time", expressing a desire to portray more diverse roles, but she added that talks of another sequel in the Resident Evil franchise were a "real possibility". According to the March 9' issue of interview magazine, Milla has hinted that she will indeed be back to reprise her role as "Alice" in the fourth installment. During a trip to Chateau Marmont, Jovovich told paparazzi that she was going to start shooting "number 4" at the end of the year, hinting at the fourth Resident Evil film.

Jovovich was set to portray Amalia Bezhetskaya in Azazel in 2007, however, with the announcement of her pregnancy early that year, the film was postponed until Summer 2008. Also in 2009, Jovovich starred in David Twohy's A Perfect Getaway with Kiele Sanchez, Timothy Olyphant, and Steve Zahn. The film is a thriller about a newlywed couple (Milla and Zahn) on their honeymoon in Hawaii. Filming began Spring 2008.

Jovovich is set to play Lucetta, the wife of a jailed arsonist (played by Edward Norton) in Stone, a psychological thriller starring Robert De Niro. Filming began in May 2009 at the recently closed Southern Michigan Correctional Facility in Jackson, Michigan.

Jovovich played the part of Dr. Abigail Tyler in the sci-fi thriller The Fourth Kind and will star in the psychological thriller Faces in the Crowd, which is written and directed by Julien Magnat; in the latter film, she plays the survivor of a serial killer’s attack that leaves her suffering from a condition called prosopagnosia, which renders her unable to recognize faces.

Jovovich will return for her role as Alice, in the fourth movie of the Resident Evil series Afterlife, who is directed by her husband Paul W. S. Anderson
Filmography
Year Film Role Other notes
1988 Two Moon Junction Samantha Delongpre
1991 Return to the Blue Lagoon Lilli Hargrave
1992 Kuffs Maya Carlton
Chaplin Mildred Harris
1993 Dazed and Confused Michelle Burroughs
1997 The Fifth Element Leeloo
1998 He Got Game Dakota Burns
1999 The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc Joan of Arc
2000 The Claim Lucia Limited release
2001 The Million Dollar Hotel Eloise Limited release
Zoolander Katinka Ingabogovinanana
2002 Resident Evil Alice
You Stupid Man Nadine
2003 Dummy Fangora "Fanny" Gurkel Limited release
No Good Deed Erin
2004 Resident Evil: Apocalypse Alice
2005 Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal's Caligula Drusilla Short film
2006 Ultraviolet Violet Song jat Shariff
2007 .45 Kat
Resident Evil: Extinction Alice
2008 The Palermo Shooting Herself
2009 A Perfect Getaway Cydney Anderson
The Fourth Kind Dr Abigal Tyler
Azazel Amalia Bezhetskaya in production
2010 Stone Lucetta in production
Resident Evil: Afterlife Alice in production; shooting began Sept. 2009
Faces in the Crowd Isabel Shooting March 2010
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 12/17/09 at 5:37 am

Some of those shooting star pics are cool!  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/17/09 at 5:40 am


The word or phrase of the day...Shooting Star(s)
A shooting star is a piece of rock or metal that burns very brightly when it enters the Earth's atmosphere from space, and is seen from Earth as a bright star travelling very fast across the sky.
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd52/ardiyanavita/Tattoo%20Pictures/shooting-star-tattoos.jpg
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http://i1008.photobucket.com/albums/af202/aliasharina/illusions/shutnstar.jpg
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/xx295/pickandrock/IMG_9282.jpg
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn58/coreyphagist/star.jpg
http://i465.photobucket.com/albums/rr20/ctina08/Shadow%20Hearts/Shadow%20Hearts%201/Stuff/tomeoftheshootingstar.jpg
http://i897.photobucket.com/albums/ac177/zaco324/shooting_star.jpg
http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh220/baileymarie1793/shooting_star.jpg



I saved one of her pics as background wallpaper. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/17/09 at 6:19 am


Some of those shooting star pics are cool!  :)

Thanks :)

I saved one of her pics as background wallpaper. :)

I thought you might. ;)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 12/17/09 at 1:16 pm


* Giovanni Ribisi
Giovanni Ribisi (born December 17, 1974) is an American actor. His film credits include Saving Private Ryan, Lost in Translation and more recently, Public Enemies and Avatar .
Ribisi began his career in network television with recurring and guest roles on a number of shows, including The New Leave It to Beaver, "Married With Children", The Wonder Years and My Two Dads. He entered the public eye with a prominent performance in The X-Files episode "D.P.O." (an episode that also starred Jack Black), as well as with his recurring role as Frank Jr., the brother of Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow) on Friends. More recently, he has appeared in multiple episodes of My Name Is Earl, earning a 2007 Emmy nomination for his performance on the series.

Ribisi has appeared on the video of British band Keane's single "Crystal Ball", which was released worldwide on August 21, 2006. He appeared with Winona Ryder and John C. Reilly in Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's music video "Talk About the Blues". In September 2008, he appeared twice on the HBO comedy series Entourage.
Personal life

Ribisi was married to Mariah O'Brien from March 18, 1997 through November 3, 2001; the couple had a daughter, Lucia, born in December 1997 and named after the doomed heroine in the Donizetti opera, Lucia di Lammermoor.

Ribisi is an active Scientologist, and participated in the gala opening of Scientology's controversial "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death" Museum in December 2005. His twin sister, Marissa, is also a Scientologist and is married to Scientologist indie-rocker Beck.
Filmography
Film
Year Film/TV Role Notes
1983 Still the Beaver Duffy Guthrie TV
1988-1999 My Two Dads Cory Kupkus TV
1990-1991 Blossom Mitchell TV
1991-1992 Davis Rules Skinner Buckley TV
1993 The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom Pete Reyes TV
The Wonder Years Jeff Bilings TV
The Commish Joey Burke TV
Family Album Elvis DeMattis TV
1994 Walker, Texas Ranger Tony Kingston TV
Ellen Cashier TV
1995 The Outpost Scott
1996-2004 Friends Frank Buffay, Jr. TV
1996 SubUrbia Jeff
1997 First Love, Last Rites Joey
The Postman Bandit 20
1998 Saving Private Ryan T-5 Medic Irwin Wade
1999 The Other Sister Daniel McMann
2000 Boiler Room Seth Davis
The Gift Buddy Cole
Gone in Sixty Seconds Kip Raines
2001 According to Spencer Louis
2002 Heaven Filippo
2003 Basic Kendall
Cold Mountain Junior
I Love Your Work Gray Evans
Lost in Translation John
Masked and Anonymous Soldier
2004 Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow Dexter "Dex" Dearborn
Flight of the Phoenix Elliott
2005 The Big White Ted
2006 10th & Wolf Joey
The Dead Girl Rudy
The Dog Problem Solo
2007 Gardener of Eden Vic
Perfect Stranger Miles Haley
2008 Spirit of the Forest Cebolo
2009 Avatar Parker Selfridge
Public Enemies Alvin Karpis
2010 Columbus Circle (post-production) Detective Paul Giardello
Middle Men Wayne Beering
The Other Side (in production) Sean Splinter
The Rum Diary (post-production) Moberg
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* Marissa Ribisi
Santina Marissa Ribisi (born December 17, 1974) is an American actress.
Ribisi's first major role was in the 1993 film Dazed and Confused. She wrote and acted in the film Some Girl in 1998, and has had roles in the films True Crime, The Brady Bunch Movie, Pleasantville, and Don's Plum. She has also appeared in television shows such as Felicity, Friends, Grace Under Fire and Watching Ellie, as well as the TV miniseries Tales of the City.

In October 2007, Ribisi launched a fashion line, Whitley Kros, with partner Sophia Banks.
Personal life

She married Beck Hansen in April 2004, shortly before giving birth to their son, Cosimo Henri. The couple's second child, daughter Tuesday, was born in 2007.

Like her husband, she is a Scientologist.
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j92/thebrokenspoons/beck_ribisi180.jpg
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j92/thebrokenspoons/D67167.jpg

I remember him on "The Wonder Years"

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/17/09 at 1:17 pm


Thanks :)I thought you might. ;)



such beautiful pics,they're gorgeous. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/18/09 at 5:34 am

The word of the day...Park
A park is a public area of land with grass and trees, usually in a town, where people go in order to relax and enjoy themselves.
When you park a vehicle or park somewhere, you drive the vehicle into a position where it can stay for a period of time, and leave it there.
http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy186/FindingTheLight/Sets/Outside/Park.jpg
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http://i618.photobucket.com/albums/tt265/Samurai-66/Autumn%20Album/Park.jpg
http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr270/helloskylar26/SANY3670.jpg
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad294/groupiesslovemee/park.jpg
http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh219/emilie101_photos/Picture021.jpg
http://i746.photobucket.com/albums/xx107/buckrunprimitive/PICS109.jpg
http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff185/juan147_02/southparkseason1full.jpg
http://i825.photobucket.com/albums/zz173/sandyaabed/creative_park.jpg
http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/pp360/scjones44/158.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/18/09 at 5:39 am

The birthday of the day...Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg, KBE (born December 18, 1946) is an American film director, screenwriter, and film producer. In a career spanning over four decades, Spielberg's films have touched on many themes and genres. Spielberg's early sci-fi and adventure films sometimes centering on children, were seen as an archetype of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years his films began addressing such issues as The Holocaust, slavery, war and terrorism.

Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for 1993's Schindler's List and 1998's Saving Private Ryan. Four of Spielberg's films, Jaws (1975), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and Jurassic Park (1993), broke box office records, each becoming the highest-grossing film made at the time. To date, the unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $8.5 billion worldwide. Forbes magazine places Spielberg's personal net worth at $3.0 billion. In 2006, Premiere listed him as the most powerful and influential figure in the motion picture industry. Time listed him as one of the 100 Most Important People of the Century. At the end of the twentieth century, Life named him the most influential person of his generation.
Rejecting offers to direct Jaws 2, King Kong and Superman, Spielberg and actor Richard Dreyfuss re-convened to work on a film about UFOs, which became Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). One of the rare films both written and directed by Spielberg, Close Encounters was a critical and box office hit, giving Spielberg his first Best Director nomination from the Academy as well as earning six other Academy Awards nominations. It won Oscars in two categories (Cinematography, Vilmos Zsigmond, and a Special Achievement Award for Sound Effects Editing, Frank E. Warner). This second blockbuster helped to secure Spielberg's rise. His next film, 1941, a big-budgeted World War II farce wasn't nearly as successful and though it grossed over $92.4 million dollars worldwide (and did make a small profit for co-producing studios Columbia and Universal) it was seen as a disappointment, mainly with the critics. It has since become a cult classic thanks to television showings and home video releases.

Spielberg then revisited his Close Encounters project and, with financial backing from Columbia Pictures, released Close Encounters: The Special Edition in 1980. For this, Spielberg fixed some of the flaws he thought impeded the original 1977 version of the film and also, at the behest of Columbia, and as a condition of Spielberg revising the film, shot additional footage showing the audience the interior of the mothership seen at the end of the film (a decision Spielberg would later regret as he felt the interior of the mothership should have remained a mystery). Nevertheless, the re-release was a moderate success, while the 2001 DVD release of the film restored the original ending.

Next, Spielberg teamed with Star Wars creator and friend George Lucas on an action adventure film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first of the Indiana Jones films. The archaeologist and adventurer hero Indiana Jones was played by Harrison Ford (whom Lucas had previously cast in his Star Wars films as Han Solo). The film was considered a homage to the cliffhanger serials of the Golden Age of Hollywood. It became the biggest film at the box office in 1981, and the recipient of numerous Oscar nominations including Best Director (Spielberg's second nomination) and Best Picture (the second Spielberg film to be nominated for Best Picture). Raiders is still considered a landmark example of the action genre.
Steven Spielberg with President Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan after a showing of E.T. at the White House

A year later, Spielberg returned to the science fiction genre with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It was the story of a young boy and the alien whom he befriends, who was accidentally left behind by his people and is trying to get back home to outer space. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial went on to become the top-grossing film of all time. E.T. was also nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director.

Between 1982 and 1985, Spielberg produced three high-grossing films: Poltergeist (for which he also co-wrote the screenplay), a big-screen adaptation of The Twilight Zone (for which he directed the segment "Kick The Can"), and The Goonies (Spielberg, executive producer, also wrote the story on which the screenplay was based).

His next directorial feature was the Raiders prequel Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Teaming up once again with Lucas and Ford, the film was plagued with uncertainty for the material and script. This film and the Spielberg-produced Gremlins led to the creation of the PG-13 rating due to the high level of violence in films targeted at younger audiences. In spite of this, Temple of Doom is rated PG by the MPAA, even though it is the darkest and, possibly, most violent "Indy" film yet. Nonetheless, the film was still a huge blockbuster hit in 1984. It was on this project that Spielberg also met his future wife, actress Kate Capshaw.

In 1985, Spielberg released The Color Purple, an adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, about a generation of empowered African-American women during depression-era America. Starring Whoopi Goldberg and future talk-show superstar Oprah Winfrey, the film was a box office smash and critics hailed Spielberg's successful foray into the dramatic genre. Roger Ebert proclaimed it the best film of the year and later entered it into his Great Films archive. The film received eleven Academy Award nominations, including two for Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey. However, much to the surprise of many, Spielberg did not get a Best Director nomination. The Color Purple is the second of two Spielberg films not to be scored by John Williams, the first being Duel.

In 1987, as China began opening to the world, Spielberg shot the first American film in Shanghai since the 1930s, an adaptation of J. G. Ballard's autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun, starring John Malkovich and a young Christian Bale. The film garnered much praise from critics and was nominated for several Oscars, but did not yield substantial box office revenues. Reviewer Andrew Sarris called it the best film of the year and later included it among the best films of the decade.

After two forays into more serious dramatic films, Spielberg then directed the third Indiana Jones film, 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Once again teaming up with Lucas and Ford, Spielberg also cast actor Sean Connery in a supporting role as Indy's father. The film earned generally positive reviews and was another box office success, becoming the highest grossing film worldwide that year; its total box office receipts even topped those of Tim Burton's much-anticipated film Batman, which had been the bigger hit domestically. Also in 1989, he re-united with actor Richard Dreyfuss for the romantic comedy-drama Always, about a daredevil pilot who extinguishes forest fires. Spielberg's first romantic film, Always was only a moderate success and had mixed reviews.

In 1991, Spielberg directed Hook, about a middle-aged Peter Pan, played by Robin Williams, who returns to Neverland. Despite innumerable rewrites and creative changes coupled with mixed reviews, the film made over $300 million worldwide (from a $70 million budget).

In 1993, Spielberg returned to the adventure genre with the film version of Michael Crichton's novel Jurassic Park, about a theme park with genetically engineered dinosaurs. With revolutionary special effects provided by friend George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic company, the film would eventually become the highest grossing film of all time (at the worldwide box office) with $914.7 million. This would be the third time that one of Spielberg's films became the highest grossing film ever.

Spielberg's next film, Schindler's List, was based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a man who risked his life to save 1,100 people from The Holocaust. Schindler's List earned Spielberg his first Academy Award for Best Director (it also won Best Picture). With the film a huge success at the box office, Spielberg used the profits to set up the Shoah Foundation, a non-profit organization that archives filmed testimony of the Holocaust survivors. In 1997 the American Film Institute listed it among the 10 Greatest American Films ever Made (#9) which moved up to (#8) when the list was remade in 2007.
Since 1997
Spielberg in 1990

In 1994, Spielberg took a hiatus from directing to spend more time with his family and build his new studio, DreamWorks, with partners Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. In 1997, he helmed the sequel to 1993's Jurassic Park with The Lost World: Jurassic Park, which generated over $832 million worldwide despite mixed reviews, and was the second biggest hit of 1997 behind James Cameron's Titanic (which topped the original Jurassic Park to become the new recordholder for box office receipts).

His next film, Amistad, was based on a true story (like Schindler's List), specifically about an African slave rebellion. Despite decent reviews from critics, it did not do well at the box office. Spielberg released Amistad under DreamWorks Pictures, which issued all of his films from Amistad until Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in May 2008 (see below).

In 1998, Spielberg re-visited Close Encounters yet again, this time for a more definitive 137-minute "Collector's Edition" that puts more emphasis on the original 1977 release, while adding some elements of the previous 1980 "Special Edition," but deleting the latter version's "Mothership Finale," which Spielberg regretted shooting in the first place, feeling it should have remained ambiguous in the minds of viewers.

His next theatrical release in that same year was the World War II film Saving Private Ryan, about a group of U.S. soldiers led by Capt. Miller (Tom Hanks) who try to bring home a paratrooper missing in France, whose three brothers were killed in action. The film was a huge box office success, grossing over $481 million worldwide and was the biggest film of the year at the U.S./domestic box office. Spielberg won his second Academy Award for his direction. The film's graphic, realistic depiction of combat violence influenced later war films such as Black Hawk Down and Enemy at the Gates. The film was also the first major hit for DreamWorks, which co-produced the film with Paramount Pictures (as such, it was Spielberg's first release from the latter that was not part of the Indiana Jones series). Later, Spielberg and Hanks presented a TV mini-series based on Stephen Ambrose's book Band of Brothers. The ten-part HBO mini-series follows Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division's 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. The series won a number of awards at the Golden Globes and the Emmys.

In 2001, Spielberg filmed fellow director and friend Stanley Kubrick's final project, A.I. Artificial Intelligence which Kubrick was unable to begin during his lifetime. A futuristic film about a humanoid android longing for love, A.I. featured groundbreaking visual effects and a multi-layered, allegorical storyline, adapted by Spielberg himself.

Spielberg and actor Tom Cruise collaborated for the first time for the futuristic neo-noir Minority Report, based upon the sci-fi short story written by Philip K. Dick about a Washington, D.C., police captain who has been foreseen to murder a man he has not yet met. The film received strong reviews with the review tallying website Rotten Tomatoes reporting that 199 out of the 217 reviews they tallied were positive. The film was praised as a futuristic homage to film noir, with its intelligent premise and "whodunit" structure. The film earned over $358 million worldwide. Roger Ebert, who named it the best film of 2002, praised its breathtaking vision of the future as well as for the way Spielberg blended CGI with live-action.

Spielberg's 2002 film Catch Me If You Can is about the daring adventures of a youthful con artist (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). It earned Christopher Walken an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The film is known for John Williams' score and its unique title sequence. It was a hit both commercially and critically.

Spielberg collaborated again with Tom Hanks along with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Stanley Tucci in 2004's The Terminal, a warm-hearted comedy about a man of Eastern European descent who is stranded in an airport. It received mixed reviews but performed relatively well at the box office. In 2005, Empire magazine ranked Spielberg number one on a list of the greatest film directors of all time.

Also in 2005, Spielberg directed a modern adaptation of War of the Worlds (a co-production of Paramount and DreamWorks), based on the H. G. Wells book of the same name (Spielberg had been a huge fan of the book and the original 1953 film). It starred Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning, and, as with past Spielberg films, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) provided the visual effects. Unlike E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which depicted friendly alien visitors, War of the Worlds featured violent invaders. The film was another huge box office smash, grossing over $591 million worldwide.

Spielberg's film Munich, about the events following the 1972 Munich Massacre of Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games, was his second film essaying Jewish relations in the world (the first being Schindler's List). The film is based on Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team, a book by Canadian journalist George Jonas The film received strong critical praise, but underperformed at the U.S. and world box-office; it remains one of Spielberg's most controversial films to date. Munich received five Academy Awards nominations, including Best Picture, Film Editing, Original Music Score (by John Williams), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director for Spielberg. It was Spielberg's sixth Best Director nomination and fifth Best Picture nomination.

Spielberg directed Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which wrapped filming in October 2007 and was released on May 22, 2008. This was his first film not to be released by DreamWorks since 1997. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, and has performed very well in theaters. As of June 30, 2008, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has grossed $315 million domestically, and over $786 million worldwide.
Films

This is a table of films that Steven Spielberg has been involved in. The lists below will eventually be incorporated into this table.
Year Film Credited as
Director Producer Writer Actor Role
1964 Firelight Yes Yes
1968 Amblin' Yes Yes
1971 Duel Yes
1974 The Sugarland Express Yes
1975 Jaws Yes Yes Voice of the radio respondent on the Orca's radio.
1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind Yes Yes
1978 I Wanna Hold Your Hand Yes
1979 1941 Yes
1980 The Blues Brothers Yes Cook County Assessor's Office Clerk
Used Cars Yes
1981 Continental Divide Yes
Raiders of the Lost Ark Yes
1982 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Yes Yes
Poltergeist Yes Yes Yes
1983 Twilight Zone: The Movie Yes Yes
1984 Gremlins Yes Yes Man in Electric Wheelchair
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Yes
Room 666 Yes Himself
1985 Back to the Future Yes
The Color Purple Yes
The Goonies Yes Yes
Young Sherlock Holmes Yes
1986 An American Tail Yes
The Money Pit Yes
1987 *batteries not included Yes
Empire of the Sun Yes Yes
Harry and the Hendersons Yes
Innerspace Yes
1988 The Land Before Time Yes
Who Framed Roger Rabbit Yes
1989 Always Yes Yes
Back to the Future Part II Yes
Dad Yes
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Yes
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Yes
1990 Arachnophobia Yes
Back to the Future Part III Yes
Gremlins 2: The New Batch Yes
Joe Versus the Volcano Yes
Roller Coaster Rabbit Yes
1991 A Wish for Wings That Work Yes
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West Yes
Cape Fear Yes
Hook Yes
Listen Up!: The Lives of Quincy Jones Yes Himself
Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation Yes
1992 The Magical World of Chuck Jones Yes Himself
1993 Jurassic Park Yes Yes
Schindler's List Yes Yes
We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story Yes
1994 The Flintstones Yes
1995 Casper Yes
Survivors of the Holocaust Yes
1996 AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards: Clint Eastwood Yes Himself
Balto Yes
The Universal Story Yes Himself
Twister Yes
1997 Amistad Yes Yes
Men in Black Yes
The Lost World: Jurassic Park Yes
1998 Saving Private Ryan Yes Yes
The Last Days Yes
The Mask of Zorro Yes
Deep Impact Yes
Invasion America Yes
1999 Forever Hollywood Yes Himself
The Last Movie: Stanley Kubrick & "Eyes Wide Shut" Yes Himself
Wakko's Wish Yes
2000 Chuck Jones: Extremes and Inbetweens - A Life in Animation Yes
Shooting War Yes
2001 A.I. Artificial Intelligence Yes Yes Yes
Jurassic Park III Yes
Price for Peace: From Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki Yes
Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures Yes Himself
Vanilla Sky Yes Guest at David Aames' Party
2002 Austin Powers in Goldmember Yes Himself
Catch Me If You Can Yes Yes
Men in Black II Yes
Minority Report Yes
2003 Double Dare Yes Himself
2004 Cecil B. DeMille: American Epic Yes Himself
Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust Yes Himself
The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing Yes Himself
The Terminal Yes Yes
2005 Boffo! Tinseltown's Bombs and Blockbusters Yes Himself
Memoirs of a Geisha Yes
Munich Yes Yes
The Legend of Zorro Yes
War of the Worlds Yes
Directed by John Ford Yes Himself
2006 Flags of Our Fathers Yes
I Only Wanted to Live Yes
Letters from Iwo Jima Yes
Monster House Yes
Searching for Orson Yes
The Shark Is Still Working Yes Himself
2007 Fog City Mavericks: The Filmmakers of San Francisco Yes Himself
Spielberg on Spielberg Yes Himself
Disturbia Yes
Transformers Yes
2008 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Yes
Eagle Eye Yes
2009 The Trial of the Chicago 7 Yes
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Yes
The Lovely Bones Yes
2010 Hereafter Yes
2011 Lincoln Yes Yes
When Worlds Collide Yes
The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn Yes Yes
Interstellar Yes Yes
Year Film Director Producer Writer Actor Role
Highest-grossing films

This is a list of the top 10 highest domestic-grossing films in which Spielberg has written, directed, or acted, according to Box Office Mojo. This does not include films in which he had a minor role, or appeared as a cameo, according to the same site. Spielberg's films have grossed domestically a total of more than $3.5 billion, with an average of $156 million per film.
Rank Title Lifetime gross (US$)
1 E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial 435 million
2 Jurassic Park 357 million
3 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 317 million
4 Jaws 260 million
5 Raiders of the Lost Ark 242 million
6 War of the Worlds 234 million
7 The Lost World: Jurassic Park 229 million
8 Saving Private Ryan 217 million
9 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 197 million
10 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom 180 million
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/18/09 at 5:42 am

The co-birthdays...Keith Richards
Keith Richards (born 18 December 1943) is an English guitarist, songwriter, singer, record producer and a founding member of The Rolling Stones. As a guitarist, Richards is mostly known for his innovative rhythm playing. In 2003 he was ranked 10th on Rolling Stone magazine's "Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". With songwriting partner and Rolling Stones lead vocalist Mick Jagger, Richards has written and recorded hundreds of songs, fourteen of which are listed by Rolling Stone magazine among the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
Richards's guitar playing shows his fascination with chords and rhythm; he conspicuously avoids flamboyant virtuosity, which he calls "the fastest-gun-in-the-west sort of thing".

Chuck Berry has been a constant inspiration for Richards. His first band Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys played many Berry numbers, and Jagger and Richards were largely responsible for bringing Berry and Bo Diddley covers into The Rolling Stones' early repertoire. Jimmy Reed and Muddy Waters records were another early source of inspiration, and the basis for the style of interwoven lead and rhythm guitar that Richards developed with Brian Jones. In the late 1960s, Brian Jones's declining interest in guitar left Richards to record all of the guitar parts on many tracks, including slide guitar, which had been Jones's speciality in the band's early years. Jones's replacement guitarist Mick Taylor worked with The Rolling Stones from 1969 to 1974, and Taylor's virtuosity at lead guitar led to a much more pronounced separation between lead and rhythm guitar roles, notably onstage. In 1975 Taylor was replaced by Ronnie Wood, marking a return to the style of guitar interplay that he and Richards call "the ancient art of weaving".

During the 1967/68 break in the Rolling Stones' touring, Richards began experimenting with open tunings. These tunings were most commonly used for slide guitar, but Richards explored their use in rhythm playing, developing an innovative and distinctive style of syncopated and ringing I-IV chording that can be heard on "Street Fighting Man" and "Start Me Up". Although he also frequently uses standard tuning, he particularly favours a five-string variant of open G tuning (borrowed from Don Everly of the Everly Brothers), using GDGBD unencumbered by a low 6th string. Several of his Telecasters are tuned this way (see the "Guitars" section below), and this tuning is prominent on numerous Rolling Stones tracks, including "Honky Tonk Women", "Brown Sugar" and "Start Me Up".

Richards considers acoustic guitar to be the basis for his playing, and has said: "Every guitar player should play acoustic at home. No matter what else you do, if you don't keep up your acoustic work you're never going to get the full potential out of an electric, because you lose that touch." Richards's acoustic guitar is featured on tracks throughout the Rolling Stones' career, including hits like "Not Fade Away", "Brown Sugar", "Beast of Burden" and "Almost Hear You Sigh". All the guitars on the studio version of "Street Fighting Man" are Richards on acoustic, distorted by overloading a small cassette recorder microphone, a technique also used on "Jumping Jack Flash".

Richards has described his role in the Rolling Stones as "oiling the machinery". Ian Stewart called him the musical leader of the Rolling Stones, and both Bill Wyman and Ronnie Wood have noted that while other rock & roll bands follow the drummer's timing, the Rolling Stones follow Richards. "I'm not putting down Charlie in any way for doing this," Wyman stated in 1978, "but onstage you have to follow Keith. You have no way of not following him."
Vocals
Keith Richards at Duke University (2005)

Richards's backing vocals appear on every Rolling Stones album; and on most albums since Between the Buttons (1967), he has sung lead or co-lead on at least one track (see list below). Richards views the vocal training he got in his choirboy days as part of his professional arsenal, and has said of his own singing: "It's not the most beautiful voice in the world anymore, but the Queen liked it, when it was at its best ... It's not been my job, singing, but to me, if you're gonna write songs, you've got to know how to sing."

On stage, Richards began taking a regular lead-vocal turn in 1972, singing "Happy" (from the album Exile on Main Street). "Happy" has become one of Richards's "signature songs", featured on most Rolling Stones tours ever since, as well as on both of Richards's solo tours. From 1972 to 1982, Richards routinely took one lead-vocal turn during Rolling Stones concerts; since 1989 he has normally sung lead on two numbers per show. Each of the band's studio albums since Dirty Work (1986) have also featured Richards's lead vocals on at least two tracks. During concerts on the two final legs (autumn 2006 and summer 2007) of The Rolling Stones' Bigger Bang Tour, Richards set his guitar aside to sing his 1969 ballad "You Got the Silver" without self-accompaniment. Prior to that he had occasionally switched from guitar to keyboards in concert, but these concerts were the first time since his choirboy days that Richards appeared on stage armed with only his voice.
Other instruments

Richards has played bass on about two dozen Rolling Stones studio recordings, from "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?" (1966) through "Infamy" (2005). One unusual instance was when he and Bill Wyman joined forces to play the bowed double bass on "Ruby Tuesday" (1967) – Wyman did the fingerboard work while Richards manned the bow. The rest of Richards's bass-playing contributions have been on bass guitar, on tracks including "Jumpin' Jack Flash" (1968), "Sympathy for the Devil" (1968), "Live With Me" (1969), "Before They Make Me Run" (1978), "Sleep Tonight" (1986) and "Brand New Car" (1994). He has occasionally played bass on stage, including The Dirty Mac performance in 1968 (see "Recordings with other artists", below) and on "Sympathy for the Devil" at a Rolling Stones concert at Madison Square Garden in June 1975.

Richards's keyboard playing has also been featured on several Rolling Stones tracks, including "She Smiled Sweetly" (1967), "Memory Motel" (1976), "All About You" (1980), "Thru and Thru" (1994) and "This Place Is Empty" (2005), among others. He sometimes composes on piano – "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?" and "Let's Spend the Night Together" are two early examples; and he's said of his keyboard playing: "Maybe I'm a little more accomplished now – to me it's just a way of getting out of always using one instrument to write." Richards played keyboards on stage at two 1974 concerts with Ronnie Wood, and on The New Barbarians' tour in 1979; and 1977 and 1981 studio sessions featuring his piano and vocals have been well documented, though never officially released.

Richards has also contributed percussion to a few Rolling Stones tracks, including the floor tom on "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and bicycle spokes on "Continental Drift" (1989).
Songwriting

Richards and Jagger collaborated on songs in 1963, following the nearby example of the Beatles' Lennon/McCartney and the encouragement of Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham, who saw little future for a cover band. The earliest Jagger/Richards collaborations were recorded by other artists, including Gene Pitney, whose rendition of "That Girl Belongs to Yesterday" was their first top-ten single in the UK. Richards recalls: "We were writing these terrible pop songs that were becoming Top 10 hits. ... They had nothing to do with us, except we wrote 'em."

The Rolling Stones' first top-ten hit with a Jagger/Richards original was "The Last Time" (1965); "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" (also 1965) was their first international #1 recording. (Richards has stated that the "Satisfaction" riff came to him in his sleep; he woke up just long enough to record it on a cassette player by his bed.) Since Aftermath (1966) most Rolling Stones albums have consisted mainly of Jagger/Richards originals. Their songs reflect the influence of blues, R&B, rock & roll, pop, soul, gospel and country, as well as forays into psychedelia and Dylanesque social commentary. Their work in the 1970s and beyond has incorporated elements of funk, disco, reggae and punk. Richards has also written and recorded slow torchy ballads, such as "All About You" (1980).

In his solo career, Richards has often shared co-writing credits with drummer and co-producer Steve Jordan. Richards has said: "I've always thought songs written by two people are better than those written by one. You get another angle on it."

Richards has frequently stated that he feels less like a creator than a conduit when writing songs: "I don't have that God aspect about it. I prefer to think of myself as an antenna. There's only one song, and Adam and Eve wrote it; the rest is a variation on a theme."

Richards was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1993. According to britishhitsongwriters.com he is the twenty-fifth most successful songwriter in UK singles chart history, based on the number of weeks that compositions he has cowritten have spent on the charts.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/18/09 at 5:42 am


The word of the day...Park
A park is a public area of land with grass and trees, usually in a town, where people go in order to relax and enjoy themselves.
When you park a vehicle or park somewhere, you drive the vehicle into a position where it can stay for a period of time, and leave it there.
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There's the song Rock Creek Park.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/18/09 at 5:46 am

* Ray Liotta
Raymond Liotta (born December 18, 1955) is an American actor, best known for his portrayal of Henry Hill in the crime-drama Goodfellas, directed by Martin Scorsese. He has won an Emmy Award and been nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
One of Liotta's earliest roles was as Joey Perrini on the soap opera Another World. He appeared on the show from 1978 to 1981. He infamously made his film debut sexually assaulting Pia Zadora with a garden hose in the cult classic The Lonely Lady. In 1987, he earned his first Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of volatile ex-con Ray Sinclair in Jonathan Demme's film Something Wild (1986). In 1990, Liotta portrayed real-life mobster Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese's film Goodfellas. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Liotta would earn more critical praise for his turn in James Mangold's film Cop Land, starring alongside Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel.

In addition to his film roles, Liotta portrayed legendary singer Frank Sinatra in the 1998 TV movie The Rat Pack (for which he received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination) and provided the voice of Tommy Vercetti for the 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. That same year he appeared as Det. Lt. Henry Oak in the Joe Carnahan–directed film Narc, receiving an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Male. He also narrated Inside the Mafia for the National Geographic Channel in 2005. Liotta had a memorable guest appearance that year on the television drama ER playing Charlie Metcalf in the episode "Time of Death". The role earned him an Emmy for "Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series". Liotta would later spoof himself and his Emmy win in Bee Movie. He starred in the 2006 CBS television series Smith, which was pulled from the schedule after only three episodes had aired. He later appeared in Smokin' Aces (reuniting with Narc director Joe Carnahan), portraying an FBI agent named Donald Carruthers in one of the lead roles. He appeared with John Travolta in the movie Wild Hogs and with Johnny Depp in the 2001 film Blow, portraying the father of drug dealer George Jung.

Liotta has appeared in Battle in Seattle as the city's mayor and in Hero Wanted playing a detective alongside Cuba Gooding Jr.. He was also in Crossing Over, co-starring Harrison Ford. Liotta played Detective Harrison in the 2009 Jody Hill comedy Observe and Report as Seth Rogen's nemesis from the local police. He told ABC's Good Morning America in 2001 that he was offered the role of Tony Soprano by series creator David Chase but turned it down to focus on movies.
Filmography
Film
Year Film Role Notes
1983 The Lonely Lady Joe Heron
1986 Something Wild Ray Sinclair Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
1988 Arena Brains The Artist Short film
Dominick and Eugene Eugene 'Gino' Luciano
1989 Field of Dreams Shoeless Joe Jackson
1990 Goodfellas Henry Hill
1992 Article 99 Dr. Richard Sturgess
Unlawful Entry Officer Pete Davis Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Best Villain
1994 No Escape Capt. J.T. Robbins
Corrina, Corrina Manny Singer
1995 Operation Dumbo Drop Capt. T.C. Doyle
1996 Unforgettable Dr. David Krane
1997 Turbulence Ryan Weaver
Cop Land Det. Gary 'Figgsy' Figgis
1998 Phoenix Harry Collin
Forever Mine Mark Brice
1999 Muppets From Space Gate guard #1
2000 Pilgrim Jack
A Rumor of Angels Nathan Neubauer
2001 Hannibal Paul Krendler
Heartbreakers Dean Cummano
Blow Fred Jung
2002 Narc Det. Lt. Henry Oak Nominated — Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male
Nominated — Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor
John Q Chief Gus Monroe
Ticker FBI Agent Short film
2003 Identity Rhodes
2004 The Last Shot Jack Devine
Control Lee Ray Oliver Direct-to-Video Release
2005 Revolver Macha
2006 Comeback Season Walter Pearce
2007 Slow Burn Ford Cole
Even Money Tom Carver
Smokin' Aces Donald Carruthers
Wild Hogs Jack
Bee Movie Himself Voice Role
2008 Local Color John Talia Sr.
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale Gallian
Battle in Seattle Mayor Jim Tobin
Hero Wanted Det. Terry Subcott
Chasing 3000 Adult Mickey
2009 Crossing Over Cole Frankel
Powder Blue Jack Doheny
Observe and Report Det. Harrison
La Linea Mark Shields awaiting release
Ticket Out Jim post-production
Snowmen Reggie Kirkfield awaiting release
2010 Youth in Revolt Lance Wescott awaiting release
Crazy on the Outside post-production
13 post-production
Date Night Joe Miletto post-production
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1978–1981 Another World Joey Perrini #2
1980 Hardhat and Legs Family CBS TV-Movie
1983 St. Elsewhere Murray "Episode: Rain"
Casablanca Sacha
1984 Mike Hammer Tony Cable "Episode: Kill Devil"
1985 Our Family Honor Officer Ed Santini
1990 Women and Men: Stories of Seduction Jerry Damon HBO TV-Movie
1991 Women & Men 2: In Love There Are No Rules Martin Meadows HBO TV-Movie
1995 Frasier Bob "Episode: Frasier Grinch"
1998 The Rat Pack Frank Sinatra Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
2001 Family Guy Zack Episode: Brian Does Hollywood
2001, 2002 Just Shoot Me Himself Episode: Christmas? Christmas!
Episode: Liotta? Liotta!
2002 Point of Origin John Leonard Orr/Aaron HBO TV-Movie
2004 ER Charlie Metcalf "Episode: Time of Death"
Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor – Drama Series
Prism Award for Best Performance in a Drama Series Episode
2006–2007 Smith Bobby Stevens
2008 WhoBob WhatPants? Tevor TV special
Video games
Year Title Role Notes
2002 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Tommy Vercetti G-Phoria Award for Best Male Voice Performance
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/18/09 at 5:50 am

** Brad Pitt


William Bradley "Brad" Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. He has been cited as one of the world's most attractive men, a label that entices the media to report on his off-screen life. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one.

Pitt began his acting career with television guest appearances which included a role on the CBS soap opera Dallas in 1987; later gaining recognition as the cowboy hitchhiker who seduces Geena Davis's character in the 1991 road movie Thelma & Louise. Pitt's first leading roles in big-budget productions came with A River Runs Through It (1992) and Interview with the Vampire (1994). He was cast opposite Anthony Hopkins in the 1994 drama Legends of the Fall which earned him his first Golden Globe nomination. In 1995, he gave critically acclaimed performances in the crime thriller Seven and the science fiction film Twelve Monkeys, the latter earning him a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and an Academy Award nomination. Four years later in 1999, Pitt starred in the cult hit Fight Club. Subsequently in 2001, he starred in the major international hit Ocean's Eleven and its sequels Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007). He has had his biggest commercial successes with Troy (2004) and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005). Pitt received his second Academy Award nomination for his performance in the title role in the 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Following a high-profile relationship with actress Gwyneth Paltrow, Pitt was married to actress Jennifer Aniston for five years. As of 2009, he lives with actress Angelina Jolie in a relationship that has attracted worldwide media attention. He and Jolie have three adopted children, Maddox, Zahara, and Pax, and have also given birth to three biological children, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne. Pitt owns a production company named Plan B Entertainment, which produced the 2007 Academy Award winner for Best Picture, The Departed, among other films. Since beginning his relationship with Jolie, he has become increasingly involved in social issues both in the United States and internationally.
The year 1994 marked a significant turning point in Pitt's career. Starring as vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac in the feature film Interview with the Vampire, based upon Anne Rice's 1976 novel of the same name, Pitt was part of an ensemble cast that included Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst, Christian Slater, and Antonio Banderas. Despite winning two MTV Movie Awards at the 1995 ceremony, his performance was not well-received. According to the Dallas Observer, "Brad Pitt ... is a large part of the problem . When directors play up his cocky, hunkish, folksy side ... he's a joy to watch. But there's nothing about him that suggests inner torment or even self-awareness, which makes him a boring Louis."
A side view of a Caucasian male, who is facing to the left, with light brown hair. He is wearing a black suit and tie with a white shirt. Another Caucasian male, also wearing a suit, is visible in the background.
Pitt was named Sexiest Man Alive by People in 1995 and 2000.

Following the release of Interview with the Vampire, Pitt starred in Legends of the Fall in 1994, a film set during the first four decades of the twentieth century. Pitt portrayed Tristan Ludlow, son of Colonel William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins), a role from which Pitt garnered his first Golden Globe Award nomination in the category for Best Actor. Aidan Quinn and Henry Thomas co-starred as Pitt's brothers. The film received mixed reception, but many film critics complimented Pitt's performance. Janet Maslin of The New York Times said, "Pitt's diffident mix of acting and attitude works to such heartthrob perfection it's a shame the film's superficiality gets in his way." The Deseret News predicted that Legends of the Fall would "further cement big-screen, romantic leading-man status".

In 1995, he starred alongside Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow in the crime film Seven as the police detective David Mills who hunts a serial killer portrayed by Kevin Spacey. Pitt accepted the role as he believed "it was a great movie" and would further expand his "acting horizons," though another consideration was Pitt's desire to move on from "this 'pretty boy' thing of mine had gotten out of hand and play someone with flaws". Variety was complimentary of Pitt's role, saying that "this is screen acting at its best. Pitt turns in a determined, energetic, creditable job as the eager young detective." The film received positive reviews and earned $327 million at the international box office.

Following the success of Seven, Pitt played the supporting role of Jeffrey Goines in Terry Gilliam's 1995 science-fiction film Twelve Monkeys, which received predominantly positive reviews, with Pitt praised in particular. Janet Maslin of the New York Times stated that Twelve Monkeys was "fierce and disturbing" and remarked on Pitt's performance as "giving a startlingly frenzied performance", concluding that he "electrifies Jeffrey with a weird magnetism that becomes important later in the film." Pitt won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film and received his first Academy Award nomination.

The following year, Pitt had a role in the 1996 legal drama Sleepers, based on the Lorenzo Carcaterra's novel of the same title. The film received mixed reviews. In the 1997 movie The Devil's Own, Pitt starred, opposite Harrison Ford, as the Irish Republican Army terrorist Rory Devany, a role for which Pitt was required to learn an Irish accent. In that same year, he took on the main role of Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer in the Jean Jacques Annaud film Seven Years in Tibet. Pitt trained for months for the role, which demanded significant mountain climbing and trekking practice, part of which included rock climbing in California and the European Alps with his co-star David Thewlis.

Pitt played the leading role in Meet Joe Black in 1998. He portrayed a personification of death inhabiting the body of a young man in order to learn what it is like to be human. The film received ambivalent reviews, and Pitt's performance was often criticized. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle concluded: "It's not just that Pitt's performance is bad. It hurts. Watching Pitt struggle, with inert face and glazed eyes, to make an audience believe that he knows all the mysteries of death and eternity is painful."
1999–2003

In 1999, Pitt portrayed Tyler Durden, a straight-shooting and charismatic mastermind in Fight Club, a film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel of the same name, directed by David Fincher. In preparation for the role, Pitt took lessons in boxing, taekwondo, and grappling, while, for the cosmetics of the part, Pitt voluntarily had pieces of his front teeth removed, which were restored on conclusion of filming. During promotion for Fight Club, Pitt said the film "is not necessarily 'take your aggressions out on someone else.' The idea is just to get in there, have an experience, take a punch more importantly and see how you come out on the other end." Fight Club premiered at the 1999 Venice International Film Festival and, despite the film's polarized reception, Pitt was praised by critics for his performance. According to Paul Clinton of CNN, "Pitt has proved he's not afraid of experimentation, and this time it pays off" while Variety remarked upon Pitt's ability to be "cool, charismatic and more dynamically physical, perhaps than his breakthrough role in Thelma and Louise". In spite of the reviews and worse-than-expected box office performance, Fight Club became a cult classic after its DVD release in 2000.
An image of five Caucasian men and one Caucasian woman posing in front of a blue curtain. Four of the men and the woman are wearing leather coats and jeans, while the man on the far left is wearing a trench coat and jeans.
Pitt, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Julia Roberts, cast of Ocean's Eleven and director Steven Soderbergh in December 2001

After Fight Club, Pitt was cast as an Irish Gypsy boxer with a barely intelligible accent in Guy Ritchie's 2000 gangster film Snatch, a performance which drew both criticism and praise for Pitt. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said Pitt was "ideally cast as an Irishman whose accent is so thick even Brits can't understand him. The picture also trades on our past associations with Pitt. For years Pitt was shackled by roles that called for brooding introspection, but recently he has found his calling in black comic outrageousness and flashy extroversion."

The following year, Pitt starred opposite Julia Roberts in the romantic comedy The Mexican, a film that garnered negative reception, though enjoyed success at the box office. Pitt's next acting role was in the 2001 Cold War thriller Spy Game, a film which grossed $143 million worldwide. Pitt portrayed an operative of the CIA's Special Activities Division, alongside Robert Redford, who played his mentor. Salon.com enjoyed the film, though felt that neither Pitt nor Redford provided "much of an emotional connection for the audience". On November 22, 2001, Pitt made a guest appearance in the eighth season of the television series Friends, in which he portrayed a man with a grudge against Jennifer Aniston's character; Pitt was, at the time, married to Aniston. For this performance he was nominated for an Emmy Award in the category for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. In December 2001, Pitt had the role of Rusty Ryan in the heist film Ocean's Eleven, a remake of the 1960s Rat Pack film of the same name, joining an ensemble cast which included George Clooney, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, and Julia Roberts. Ocean's Eleven, well-received by critics, was successful at the box office, earning $450 million worldwide.

In February 2002, Pitt appeared in two episodes of MTV's reality series Jackass. In the first episode he and several cast members ran wild through the streets of Los Angeles in gorilla suits and, in a later episode, took part in a staged abduction of himself. In the same year, Pitt had a cameo role in George Clooney's directorial debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. He took on his first voice-acting roles in 2003, lending his voice to the titular character of the DreamWorks animated film Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas and Boomhauer's brother, Patch, in an episode of the animated television series King of the Hill.
2004–present

Pitt had two major film roles in 2004, starring as Achilles in Troy and, for the second time, as Rusty Ryan in Ocean's Twelve. Prior to the filming of Troy, based on the Iliad, Pitt spent six months sword training, later injuring his Achilles tendon on set, which delayed production for several weeks. Troy was the highest grossing film of Pitt's career to the end of 2008, earning $497 million- $364 million outside the U.S. and only $133 million domestically. Stephen Hunter of The Washington Times wrote that "in a role that requires larger-than-life dimensions, he is pretty terrific." The success of Ocean's Eleven in 2001 led Pitt to return for the 2004 sequel, Ocean's Twelve, which earned $362 million worldwide and a role in which Pitt and Clooney were reported to "have the best male chemistry since Paul Newman and Robert Redford", according to Paul Clinton of CNN.

2005 saw Pitt star in the action comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith, directed by Doug Liman, in which a bored married couple discover that each is an assassin set to kill the other, with Pitt as John Smith opposite Angelina Jolie's Jane Smith. The film, earning $478 million worldwide, making it one of the biggest hits of 2005, received reasonable reviews but was generally lauded for the chemistry between the two. The Star Tribune noting that "while the story feels haphazard, the movie gets by on gregarious charm, galloping energy and the stars' thermonuclear screen chemistry."
A Caucasian with light brown hair, blue eyes and a short brown beard, in front of a turquoise background. He is wearing a white shirt and white hat.
Pitt at the premiere of Burn After Reading in 2008

Pitt's next feature film, Alejandro González Iñárritu's multi-narrative drama Babel had him appearing with Cate Blanchett in 2006. Pitt's performance in the film was well-received by critics, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer believed that he was "credible" and gave the film "visibility". Pitt later said he regarded this as "one of the best decisions of film career". The film was screened at a special presentation at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and was later featured at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. Babel won the Golden Globe Award for Best Drama, and Pitt received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In total, the film garnered seven Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations.

Reprising his role as Rusty Ryan for a second time, Pitt starred in 2007's Ocean's Thirteen, while not as lucrative as the first two films, the sequel earned $311 million at the international box office. Pitt's next film role was American outlaw Jesse James in the 2007 Western drama The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, adapted from Ron Hansen's 1983 novel of the same name. Directed by Andrew Dominik and produced by Pitt's company Plan B, the film premiered at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, with Pitt playing a "scary and charismatic" role, according to Lewis Beale of Film Journal International, and earning Pitt the Volpi Cup award for Best Actor in Venice. Although Pitt attended the festival to promote the film, he left early after being attacked by a fan who pushed through his bodyguards. He eventually collected the award one year later at the 2008 festival.

Pitt's next appearance was in the 2008 black comedy Burn After Reading, his first collaboration with the Coen brothers. The film received a positive reception from critics- The Guardian calling it "a tightly wound, slickly plotted spy comedy", noting that Pitt's performance was one of the funniest. He was later cast as Benjamin Button, the lead in David Fincher's 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a loosely adapted version of the 1921 short story of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story follows a man who is born an octogenarian and ages in reverse, with Pitt's "sensitive performance" making Benjamin Button a "timeless masterpiece," according to Michael Sragow of the The Baltimore Sun. The performance earned Pitt his first Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, as well as a fourth Golden Globe and second Academy Award nomination, with the film itself receiving a total of thirteen Academy Award nominations and grossing $329 million worldwide.

After 2008, Pitt's work has included a leading role in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, released in August 2009 at a special presentation at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, as Lieutenant Aldo Raine, an American resistance fighter battling Nazis in German-occupied France. The film was positively recieved by critics and grossed $311 million worldwide. In addition, Pitt is set to appear in the drama The Tree of Life directed by Terrence Malick, co-starring alongside Sean Penn and has signed on to appear in the Lost City of Z, based on the book of the same name by David Grann, in which he will play a British explorer searching for a mysterious Amazonian civilization.
Filmography
Actor
Year Film Role Notes
1987 No Way Out Officer at party
No Man's Land Waiter
Less Than Zero Partygoer
Growing Pains Jeff TV series (two episodes: "Who's Zoomin' Who?" and "Feet of Clay" )
Dallas Randy TV series (four episodes)
1988 21 Jump Street Peter TV series (one episode: "Best Years of Your Life")
1989 Happy Together Brian
Cutting Class Dwight Ingalls
Head of the Class Chuck TV series (one episode: "Partners")
Freddy's Nightmares Rick Austin TV series (one episode: "Black Tickets")
1990 The Image Cameraman TV movie
Too Young to Die? Billy Canton TV movie
Glory Days Walker Lovejoy TV series (six episodes)
1991 Across the Tracks Joe Maloney
Thelma & Louise J.D.
Johnny Suede Johnny Suede
1992 Contact Cox
Cool World Detective Frank Harris
A River Runs Through It Paul Maclean
1993 Kalifornia Early Grayce
True Romance Floyd
1994 The Favor Elliott Fowler
Interview with the Vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Male
MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable Male
Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo shared with Tom Cruise
Nominated – Saturn Award for Best Actor
Legends of the Fall Tristan Ludlow Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1995 Seven David Mills MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable Male
Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo shared with Morgan Freeman
Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Male
Twelve Monkeys Jeffrey Goines Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated – Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Male Performance
1996 Sleepers Michael Sullivan
1997 The Devil's Own Francis "Frankie" Austin McQuire/Rory Devaney
Seven Years in Tibet Heinrich Harrer
The Dark Side of the Sun Rick
1998 Meet Joe Black Joe Black/Man in the Coffee Shop
1999 Fight Club Tyler Durden
Being John Malkovich Himself Cameo
2000 Snatch Mickey O'Neil Nominated – Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture
2001 The Mexican Jerry Welbach
Spy Game Tom Bishop
Ocean's Eleven Rusty Ryan Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Team
Nominated – Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast
Friends Will Colbert TV series (one episode: "The One with the Rumor")
Nominated – Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series
2002 Full Frontal Himself
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind Brad, Bachelor #1
2003 Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas Sinbad Voice actor
Abby Singer Himself Cameo
2004 Troy Achilles Teen Choice Awards for Choice Movie Actor, Drama/Action Adventure
Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Fight shared with Eric Bana
Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Male
Ocean's Twelve Rusty Ryan Nominated – Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast
2005 Mr. & Mrs. Smith John Smith MTV Movie Award for Best Fight shared with Angelina Jolie
Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss shared with Angelina Jolie
2006 Babel Richard Gotham Award for Best Ensemble Cast
Palm Springs International Film Festival for Best Cast
Nominated – Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Nominated – Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture
Nominated – Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2007 Ocean's Thirteen Rusty Ryan
The Assassination of Jesse James
by the Coward Robert Ford Jesse James Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup Best Actor
2008 Burn After Reading Chad Feldheimer Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Benjamin Button Nominated – Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated – Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Nominated – Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast
Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
Nominated – Saturn Award for Best Actor
Nominated – Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Nominated – Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
2009 Inglourious Basterds Lt. Aldo Raine Nominated – Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast
Nominated – Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2010 The Tree of Life Mr. O'Brien post-production
The Lost City of Z Col. Percy Fawcett pre-production
MegaMind Metro-Man pre-production
http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/qq86/michelle_050/brad_pitt.jpg
http://i390.photobucket.com/albums/oo345/nbanu/Brad_Pitt.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/18/09 at 5:53 am



There's the song Rock Creek Park.

Never heard of it
There also Itchycoo Park.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJzcF0v1eOE#

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/18/09 at 6:24 am

* OOPS I missed...Christina Aguilera
Christina María Aguilera (born December 18, 1980) is an American pop musician. Aguilera first appeared on national television in 1990 as a contestant on the Star Search program, and went on to star in Disney Channel's television series The New Mickey Mouse Club from 1993–1994. Aguilera signed to RCA Records after recording "Reflection" for the film Mulan. She came to prominence following her debut album Christina Aguilera (1999), which was a commercial success spawning three number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100. A Latin pop album, Mi Reflejo (2001), and several collaborations followed which garnered Aguilera worldwide success, though she was displeased with her lack of input in her music and image.

After parting from her management, Aguilera took creative control over her second studio album, Stripped (2002), which received mixed reviews produced substantial sales and was elected as the 13th album of the decade of 2000s the magazine Rolling Stone. The second single, "Beautiful", was a commercial success, was elected as the 14th single of the decade of 2000s the magazine Rolling Stone and sustained the album's sales amidst controversy over Aguilera's sexual image. Aguilera's third studio album, Back to Basics (2006), included elements of soul, jazz, and blues music, and was released to positive critical reception.

Aside from being known for her vocal ability, music videos and ever-changing image, musically, she includes themes of dealing with public scrutiny, her childhood, and female empowerment in her music. Apart from her work in music, she has also dedicated much of her time as a philanthropist for charities, human rights and world issues. Aguilera's work has earned her numerous awards, including four Grammy Awards and one Latin Grammy Award, amongst eighteen nominations. She has become one of the most successful recording artists of the decade, selling more than 43 million records worldwide
n 1998, Aguilera sang the High "E" in full voice (and again on the song "Candyman" from her Back To Basics album for a full 8 seconds) (E5) on a cover of Whitney Houston's "Run to You" which she recorded with a tape recorder in her bathroom. She was then selected to record the song "Reflection" for the Disney production of Mulan (1998). Recording "Reflection" led to Aguilera earning a contract with RCA Records the same week. "Reflection" peaked within the top twenty on the Adult Contemporary Singles Chart, and it was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for "Best Original Song" in 1998. Under the exclusive representation of Steve Kurtz, Aguilera's self-titled debut album Christina Aguilera was released on August 24, 1999. It reached the top of the Billboard 200 and Canadian album charts, selling eight million copies in the U.S. and over seventeen million copies worldwide. The album is also included in the Top 100 Albums of All Time list of The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) based on US sales. Her singles "Genie in a Bottle", "What a Girl Wants" and "Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You)" topped the Billboard Hot 100 during 1999 and 2000, and "I Turn to You" reached #3. According to the album's songwriters, Aguilera wanted to display the range and audacity in her voice during the promotion of the album, and performed acoustic sets and appeared on television shows accompanied only by a piano. She ended the year on MTV's New Year's Special, as she performed and was MTV's first artist of the millennium. At the 42nd Grammy Awards Aguilera received a Best Female Pop Vocal Performance Grammy nomination for "Genie in a Bottle" and despite earlier predictions, she won the award Grammy Award for Best New Artist.

Aguilera's manager Kurtz told MTV that Christina was talking about recording a Spanish-language album even before she recorded her debut album. In 2000 Aguilera started recording with producer Rudy Pérez in Miami. Later in 2000, Aguilera, first emphasized her Latin heritage by releasing her first Spanish album, Mi Reflejo on September 12, 2000. This album contained Spanish versions of songs from her English debut as well as new Spanish tracks. Though some criticized Aguilera for trying to cash in on the Latin music boom at the time. According to Pérez, Aguilera was only semi-fluent, while recording. She understood the language, because she has grown up with her father, who is a native of Ecuador. He added "Her Latin roots are undeniable". The album peaked at #27 on the Billboard 200 and went number one on the Billboard Latin charts for a record 20 weeks. In 2001, it won Aguilera a Latin Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Album. The album went Gold in the US. She also won the World Music Award as the best selling Latin artist that year. Aguilera also released a Christmas album on October 24, 2000 called My Kind of Christmas. It peaked at #28 on the Billboard 200, and has been certified Platinum in the US. Ricky Martin asked Aguilera to duet with him on the track "Nobody Wants to Be Lonely" from his album Sound Loaded; released in 2001 as the album's second single. The single reached number one on the World Chart.

In 2001, Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mýa, and Pink were chosen to remake Labelle's 1975 single "Lady Marmalade" for the film Moulin Rouge! and its soundtrack. The single Missy Elliott produced hit number one on the Hot 100 for five weeks and was the most successful airplay-only single in history. It also reached number one in eleven other countries amd earned all four performers a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. Aguilera's appearance in the music video was compared to that of Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider. The video won two MTV Video Music Awards including Video of the Year in 2001, where Aguilera accepted the award saying, "I guess the big hair paid off."

That year a single emerged into record stores called "Just Be Free", one of the demos Aguilera recorded when she was around fifteen years old. When RCA Records discovered the single, they advised fans not to purchase it. Months later, Warlock Records was set to release Just Be Free, an album which contains the demo tracks. Aguilera filed a breach of contract and unfair competition suit against Warlock and the album's producers to block the release. Instead, the two parties came to a settlement to release the album. Aguilera lent out her name, likeness and image for an unspecified amount of damages. Many of the details of the lawsuit remain confidential. When the album was released in August 2001, it had a photograph of Aguilera when she was fifteen years old.

Although Aguilera's debut album was very well received, she was dissatisfied with the music and image her management had created for her. Aguilera was marketed as a bubblegum pop singer because of the genre's upward financial trend. She mentioned plans of her next album to have much more depth, both musically and lyrically. Aguilera's views of Steve Kurtz's influence in matters of the singer's creative direction, the role of being her exclusive personal manager and overscheduling had in part caused her to seek legal means of terminating their management contract. She revealed while recording her then upcoming album, "I was being overworked. You find out that someone you thought was a friend is stealing money behind your back, and it's heartbreaking. I put faith in the people around me, and unfortunately, it bit me in the butt." Kurtz was terminated and Irving Azoff was hired as her new manager.
2002–2003: Stripped era

On October 29, 2002, after much delay, Aguilera's second full-length English album, Stripped, was released, selling more than 330,000 copies in the first week and peaking at #2 on the Billboard 200. Unlike previous work, the album showcased Aguilera's raunchier side. The majority of Stripped was co-written by Aguilera (who had recently signed a global music publishing contract with BMG Music Publishing), and was influenced by many different subjects and music styles, including contemporary R&B, gospel, soul, balladry, pop rock, and hip hop. The majority of the album was produced by Scott Storch and singer-songwriter Linda Perry who produced her more personal records. Rockwilder and singer Alicia Keys also contributed a track each. Upon initial release, the album was very well-received by critics, although Aguilera's vocals were overlooked as she began to cultivate a more sexually provocative image. After the release of the album, she took part in photoshoots for magazines, many of these photographs featured her nude or semi-nude. Her cover for Rolling Stone, featured the singer only wearing boots and a well-placed electric guitar. It was during this time Aguilera referred to herself as "Xtina", even getting a tattoo of her nickname on the back of her neck and several piercings.
Aguilera performing during the Justified/Stripped Tour.

Initially, the raunchy image had a negative effect on Aguilera in the U.S., especially after the release of her controversial "Dirrty" music video. She denied that this change was a matter of publicity, claiming that the image better reflected her true personality than did the image she cultivated back in 1999. While the video for "Dirrty" became very popular on MTV, it disappointed on the U.S. singles chart. However, the single was a hit worldwide, reaching number one in the UK and Ireland. The second single, "Beautiful" received critical praise. The classically influenced ballad reached number one in several countries and peaked at #2 in the US. "Beautiful" earned Aguilera the Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Three more singles ("Fighter", "Can't Hold Us Down" featuring Lil' Kim, "The Voice Within") were released in the following two years and were hits that helped the album stay on the charts for the next two years. Stripped stayed on the U.S. and UK album charts well into 2004, and went on to be certified four-times platinum in the U.S. with over thirteen million copies sold worldwide. It appeared at number ten on Billboard's year-end album chart. Kelly Clarkson's second single "Miss Independent" was co-written by Aguilera, having been half-finished for Stripped.

Aguilera joined Justin Timberlake that June on the final leg of his international Justified tour, held in the U.S. This portion of the tour became a co-headliner called the Justified/Stripped Tour. In August, an overhead lighting grid collapsed from the ceiling of the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, causing major damage to the sound and video equipment below. Because the collapse occurred hours before the show, only a few stagehands were injured, but a few shows were cancelled or postponed. In the fourth quarter of that year, Aguilera continued to tour internationally without Timberlake, and changed the name of the tour to the "Stripped World Tour". She also dyed her hair black. It was one of the top-grossing tours of that year, and sold out most of its venues. Rolling Stone readers named it the best tour of the year. That same year she hosted the 2003 MTV Europe Music Awards and was a special guest performer with the Pussycat Dolls' dance troupe performing at the Roxy Theatre and Viper Room in Los Angeles. She also appeared on a Maxim spread alongside them, her second Maxim cover that year set record sales for the issue making it the top selling issue to date. By the end of the year she topped the annual Hot 100 list later saying, "We had fun working with certain clothes, or the lack thereof."

After much delay, Aguilera's first DVD live-recording from a concert tour, Stripped Live in the UK, was released in November 2004. In light of the tour's success, another U.S. tour was scheduled to begin in mid-2004 with a new theme. The tour however was scrapped because of the vocal cord injuries Aguilera suffered shortly before the tour's opening date. In a tribute to Madonna's performance at the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards, Aguilera performed a kiss with the singer-actress at the 2003 edition of the ceremony in August. The incident occurred during the opening performance of Madonna's songs "Like a Virgin" and "Hollywood" with fellow popstar Britney Spears.
2004–2007: Artistic development and Back to Basics

Aguilera later decided to embrace a more mature image; this move was met with more praise than criticism, with articles using punch lines such as "From Crass to Class." She eventually dyed her hair cherry blonde and recorded a jingle, "Hello", for a Mercedes-Benz ad. Shortly after, she dyed her hair flaxen blonde and cut it short, and took on a Marilyn Monroe look; she is one of the main proponents (along with Dita Von Teese, Gwen Stefani, and Ashley Judd) in bringing back the 1920s-1940s Hollywood glamour look.

In late summer 2004, Aguilera released two singles. The first, "Car Wash", was a remake of the Rose Royce disco song recorded as a collaboration with rapper Missy Elliott for the soundtrack to the film Shark Tale. The second song was also a collaboration, but this time as a second single from one of Nelly's double-release albums, Sweat, titled "Tilt Ya Head Back". Both singles failed commercially in the U.S., but did considerably better in other parts of the world. Aguilera collaborated with jazz artist Herbie Hancock on a cover of Leon Russell's "A Song for You" recorded for Hancock's album Possibilities, released in August 2005. Aguilera and Hancock were later nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. She helped open the 50th Anniversary for Disneyland performing "When You Wish upon a Star", and she also collaborated with Andrea Bocelli on the song "Somos Novios" for his album Amore.

Aguilera's third English studio album, Back to Basics, released August 15, 2006, debuted at #1 in the U.S., the U.K. and eleven other countries. Aguilera described the double CD as "a throwback to the 20s, 30s, and 40s-style jazz, blues, and feel-good soul music, but with a modern twist." The album received generally positive reviews, although many critics commented on the album's length saying, "At one disc, this would have been nothing short of masterful." The critically acclaimed lead single "Ain't No Other Man" was a substantial success, reaching #2 on the World Chart, #6 in the U.S., and #2 in U.K. Producers on the album included DJ Premier, Kwamé, Linda Perry, and Mark Ronson. One track, "F.U.S.S.", was written as a response to the animosity between Aguilera and her former producer Scott Storch. In an interview she said, "That's a way of burying my experience with him. When I tried to work with him again, he made uncalled-for demands. It was disappointing that someone would get affected like that." She co-wrote all the album's tracks and was the executive producer. The follow-up singles did very well in different regions, "Hurt" in Europe and "Candyman" in the Pacific. She co-directed both music videos, the former with Floria Sigismondi who directed her "Fighter" video, and the latter, "Candyman", with director/photographer Matthew Rolston which was inspired by The Andrews Sisters. According to Sony BMG, Back to Basics has sold nearly five million units worldwide.
Aguilera performing in her Back To Basics Tour.

In late 2006 Aguilera collaborated with Sean "Diddy" Combs on a track, titled "Tell Me", from his album Press Play. She also began the "Back to Basics Tour" in Europe followed by a 41-date North American tour in early 2007. After this, she toured Asia and Australia, where it was supposed to end on August 3, however she canceled her dates in Melbourne and her final two in Auckland due to an illness. Her extravagant arena tour included cabaret, three-ring circus and juke joint sets and 10 piece costumes designed by Roberto Cavalli. The tour grossed nearly $50 million by the end of the year in North America and several millions worldwide in her Europe and Australia dates. It was the most successful US tour by a female in 2007. In early 2008, she released her concert DVD Back to Basics: Live and Down Under.

At the 49th Grammy Awards, Aguilera again won the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "Ain't No Other Man". She made a noteworthy performance at the ceremony paying tribute to James Brown with her rendition of his song "It's a Man's Man's Man's World". In January 2007, she was named the 19th richest woman in entertainment by Forbes, with a net worth of US$60 million.

Aguilera performed "Steppin' Out With My Baby" with Tony Bennett on his NBC special Tony Bennett: An American Classic and on Saturday Night Live. They performed at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards where both specials received Emmys. "Steppin' Out" was nominated for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards.
2008–present: Keeps Gettin' Better and forthcoming album

In 2008 Aguilera was featured on the soundtrack to the film, Shine a Light, from a live recording of the song "Live With Me" with the Rolling Stones. The film's soundtrack was released on April 1, 2008. To commemorate Aguilera's ten years in the music industry, RCA Records released, Keeps Gettin' Better: A Decade of Hits on November 11, 2008 exclusively at Target stores in the US. The greatest hits included her first three number one singles, and other songs released from her previous three albums. "Lady Marmalade" and several Spanish singles from Mi Reflejo were included in the worldwide releases. The album's lead single, "Keeps Gettin' Better" was premiered at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards and was her highest debut peaking at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100. Aguilera was one of Billboard's Top 20 Artists of the Decade in their year-end charts.

Australian singer-songwriter Sia, was one of the first of confirmed producers for her forthcoming album. The following year she launched her online radio station which is part of Clear Channel's iheartradio revealing details about her upcoming projects. There she revealed that she worked with M.I.A., Santigold and Ladytron adding, "The overall versatility of this record is truly something special for me. The result was just crazy magic. There truly is something for everyone to enjoy on the record." She also worked with Goldfrapp and Tricky Stewart who revealed that the album is finished adding, “She’s mixing it up again. She’s singing R&B again, she’s doing pop. She’s doing it all, but she’s found a way to make it all meet in the middle because she’s so many different things. She’s a real serious musician.” He also revealed that the album is set for release next year due to her upcoming musical film, Burlesque set for filming this year. He and producer Danja will also contribute to the film's soundtrack.
http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/ad66/Animeloveronimeem/Christina-Aguilera.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/18/09 at 3:36 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkXh4kRTBVk

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 12/18/09 at 7:24 pm

Can a man look any worse than Keith Richards (and still be alive)? :o

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 12/18/09 at 10:41 pm


Can a man look any worse than Keith Richards (and still be alive)? :o

How we will be able to tell if he's dead?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/19/09 at 2:41 am


How we will be able to tell if he's dead?

Rigor Mortis ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/19/09 at 2:47 am

The word of the day ...Roots
#
The roots of a plant are the parts of it that grow under the ground. N-COUNT usu pl

    *
      ...the twisted roots of an apple tree.

#
If you root a plant or cutting or if it roots, roots form on the bottom of its stem and it starts to grow. VERB V-ERG

    *
      Most plants will root in about six to eight weeks. V
    *
      Root the cuttings in a heated propagator. V n

#
Root vegetables or root crops are grown for their roots which are large and can be eaten. ADJ ADJ n

    *
      ...root crops such as carrots and potatoes.

#
The root of a hair or tooth is the part of it that is underneath the skin. N-COUNT

    *
      ...decay around the roots of teeth. + 'of'
    *
      ...wax strips which remove hairs cleanly from the root.

#
You can refer to the place or culture that a person or their family comes from as their roots. N-PLURAL usu poss N

    *
      Synonym
      origins

    *
      I am proud of my Brazilian roots.
    *
      It's 21 years since she first moved to Britain from the Lebanon, but she hasn't forgotten her roots.

#
Roots is used to refer to pop music, especially reggae, that is strongly influenced by the traditional music of the culture that it originally came from. N-UNCOUNT oft N n

    *
      ...superb roots reggae by the likes of Little Roy and Wailing Souls.

#
You can refer to the cause of a problem or of an unpleasant situation as the root of it or the roots of it. N-COUNT usu 'the' N 'of' n

    *
      We got to the root of the problem. + 'of'
    *
      This lack of recognition was at the root of the dispute.
    *
      His sense of guilt had its roots in his childhood loss of his younger sister.
    *
      They were treating symptoms and not the root cause.

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/19/09 at 2:50 am

The birthday of the day...Cicely Tyson
Cicely Tyson (born December 19, 1933) is an American actress. A successful stage actress, Tyson is also known for appearances in the film Sounder and the television specials The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and Roots.
Tyson was discovered by a photographer for Ebony magazine, and became a popular fashion model. Her first film was an uncredited role in Carib Gold in 1957, but she went on to do television - the celebrated series East Side/West Side and the long-running soap opera The Guiding Light. In 1961, Tyson appeared in the original cast of French playwright Jean Genet's The Blacks, the longest running Off-Broadway non-musical of the decade, running for 1,408 performances. The original cast also featured James Earl Jones, Roscoe Lee Browne, Louis Gossett, Jr., Godfrey Cambridge, Maya Angelou and Charles Gordone. She appeared with Sammy Davis, Jr. in the film A Man Called Adam (1966) and starred in the film version of Graham Greene's The Comedians (1967). Tyson had a featured role in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968) and was in a segment of the movie Roots.
The handprints of Cicely Tyson in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.

In 1972, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the critically acclaimed Sounder. In 1974 she won two Emmy Awards for The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Other acclaimed television roles included Roots, King, in which she portrayed Coretta Scott King, The Marva Collins Story, When No One Would Listen and Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All for which she received her third Emmy Award. In her 1994-1995 television series Sweet Justice, Tyson portrayed a feisty, unorthodox Southern attorney named Carrie Grace Battle, a character she shaped by consulting with and shadowing the legendary Washington, DC civil rights and criminal defense lawyer Dovey Johnson Roundtree. In 2005, Tyson co-starred in the movies Because of Winn-Dixie and Diary of a Mad Black Woman. The same year she was honored by Oprah Winfrey at her Legends Ball.

The Cicely Tyson School of Performing and Fine Arts, a magnet school in East Orange, New Jersey, was renamed in her honor. She plays an active part in supporting the school, which serves one of New Jersey's most underprivileged African-American communities.
Credits
Film
Year Film Role Notes
1959 Odds Against Tomorrow Jazz Club bartender
The Last Angry Man (1959) Girl Left on Porch (uncredited)
1966 A Man Called Adam Claudia Ferguson
1967 The Comedians Marie Therese
1968 The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Portia
1972 Sounder Rebecca Morgan Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
National Board of Review Award for Best Actress
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1976 The Blue Bird Tylette, The Cat
The River Niger Mattie Williams
1978 A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich Sweets
1979 The Concorde: Airport '79 Elaine
1981 Bustin' Loose Vivian Perry
1991 Fried Green Tomatoes Sipsey
1997 Hoodlum Stephanie St. Clair Nominated — Acapulco Black Film Festival Award for Best Actress
Nominated — NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
2001 The Double Dutch Divas! Herself (short subject) (uncredited)
2005 Because of Winn-Dixie Gloria
Diary of a Mad Black Woman Myrtle NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
Nominated — BET Comedy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Theatrical Film
Nominated — Black Movie Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Madea's Family Reunion Myrtle
2006 Fat Rose and Squeaky Celine
Idlewild Mother Hopkins
2007 Rwanda Rising Voice of Jeanette Nyirabagarwa (documentary)
Television
Year Title Role Notes
Frontiers of Faith Tony "The Bitter Cup"
1962 The Nurses Betty Ann Warner "Frieda"
1963 Naked City "Howard Running Bear Is a Turtle"
1963-1964 East Side/West Side (26 episodes)
1965 Slattery's People Sarah Brookman "Question: Who You Taking to the Main Event, Eddie?"
1965-1966 I Spy Princess Amara
Vickie Harmon Episode "So Long, Patrick Henry"
Episode "Trial by Treehouse"
1966 Guiding Light Martha Frazier
1967 Cowboy in Africa Julie Anderson Episode "Tomorrow on the Wind"
Judd for the Defense Lucille Evans Episode "Commitment"
1968-1969 The F.B.I. Julie Harmon
Lainey Harber Episode "The Enemies"
Episode "Silent Partners"
1969 Medical Center Susan Wiley Episode "The Last 10 Yards"
The Courtship of Eddie's Father Betty Kelly Episode "Guess Who's Coming for Lunch"
1970 Gunsmoke Rachel Biggs Episode "The Scavengers"
Mission: Impossible Alma Ross Episode "Death Squad"
The Bill Cosby Show Mildred Hermosa Episode "Blind Date"
Here Come the Brides Princess Lucenda Episode "A Bride for Obie Brown"
1971 Insight Episode "The Bird of the Mast"
Marriage: Year One Emma Teasley (unsold pilot)
Neighbors
1972 Emergency! Mrs. Johnson Episode "Crash"
Wednesday Night Out
1974 The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman Jane Pittman Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
Emmy Award for Actress of the Year - Special
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Free to Be… You and Me Herself
1976 Just an Old Sweet Song Priscilla Simmons
1977 Roots Binta (miniseries)
Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
Wilma Blanche Rudolph
1978 King Coretta Scott King (miniseries)
Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
A Woman Called Moses Harriet Ross Tubman
1981 The Marva Collins Story Marva Collins NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special
Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
1982 Benny's Place Odessa
1985 Playing with Fire Carol Phillips
1986 Intimate Encounters Dr. Claire Dalton
Acceptable Risks Janet Framm
Samaritan: The Mitch Snyder Story Muriel NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special
1989 The Women of Brewster Place Mrs. Browne
1990 The Kid Who Loved Christmas Etta
B.L. Stryker Ruth Hastings Episode "Winner Takes All"
Heat Wave Ruthana Richardson CableACE Award for Actress in a Movie or Miniseries
1991 Clippers Donna (unsold pilot)
1992 Duplicates Dr. Randolph
When No One Would Listen Sarah
1993 House of Secrets Evangeline
1994 Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All Castralia, Marsden Family House Slave/Maid Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
Nominated — NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
1994-1995 Sweet Justice Carrie Grace Battle Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Drama Series
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series
1996 The Road to Galveston Jordan Roosevelt NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special
Lone Star Film & Television Award for Best TV Actress
Nominated — CableACE Award for Actress in a Movie or Miniseries
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
1997 Bridge of Time Guardian
Riot Maggie (segment "Homecoming Day")
Nominated — CableACE Award for Supporting Actress in a Movie or Miniseries
Ms. Scrooge Ms. Ebenita Scrooge
1998 Always Outnumbered Luvia
Mama Flora's Family Mama Flora NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special
1999 A Lesson Before Dying Tante Lou Black Reel Award for Network/Cable - Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
Nominated — NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special
Aftershock: Earthquake in New York Emily Lincoln
2000 Touched by an Angel Abby Episode "Living the Rest of My Life"
The Outer Limits Justice Gretchen Parkhurst Episode "Final Appeal"
2001 Jewel Cathedral
2002 The Rosa Parks Story Leona Edwards McCauley Black Reel Award for Network/Cable - Best Supporting Actress
2005 Higglytown Heroes Great Aunt Shirley Hero Episode "Wayne's 100 Special Somethings"
2009 Relative Stranger Pearl
Law and Order: SVU Ondine Burdett Episode "Hell"
Theatre
Year Production Role Theatre Notes
1959 Jolly's Progress Jolly (understudy) Longacre Theatre
1960 The Cool World Girl Eugene O'Neill Theatre
1961 The Blacks: A Clown Show Stephanie Virtue Diop St. Mark's Playhouse
1962 Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright Celeste Chipley
Adelaide Smith (understudy) Booth Theatre
1963 The Blue Boy in Black Joan Masque Theatre
Trumpets of the Lord Rev. Marion Alexander Astor Place Theatre
1966 A Hand Is on the Gate Performer Longacre Theatre
1968 Carry Me Back to Morningside Heights Myrna Jessup John Golden Theatre
1969 To Be Young, Gifted and Black Various Cherry Lane Theatre
Trumpets of the Lord Rev. Marion Alexander Brooks Atkinson Theatre
1983 The Corn is Green Miss Moffat Lunt-Fontaine Theatre
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/19/09 at 2:54 am

The co-birthdays of the day...Alyssa Milano
Alyssa Jayne Milano (born December 19, 1972) is an American actress and former singer. Her acting career began after she appeared in the Broadway show Annie. Her childhood role as Samantha Micelli in the sitcom Who's the Boss? made her famous. Her eight-year stint as Phoebe Halliwell on the supernatural series Charmed brought her a new round of fame.

She has a female sports apparel line, Touch. ilano began her career at eight when she won a part in an open audition for a national tour of Annie. She appeared in television commercials and off-Broadway productions.

At eleven, she earned her first major role in the TV show Who's the Boss?, alongside Tony Danza, Judith Light, Danny Pintauro, and Katherine Helmond. She starred as Samantha Micelli, the daughter of Danza's character, Tony Micelli. When Milano won the role, her family relocated from Staten Island to Hollywood.

She produced a teen workout video in 1988 called Teen Steam. In 1985, Milano was in the film Commando as Jenny Matrix, who was John Matrix (Arnold Schwarzenegger)'s daughter. A few years later this film was shown in Japan, prompting a producer to offer Milano a five-album record deal.

On stage, she starred in Tender Offer, a one-act play written by Wendy Wasserstein, All Night Long by American playwright John O'Keefe, and the first American musical adaptation of Jane Eyre. She returned to the theater in 1991, when she starred in and produced a Los Angeles production of Butterflies Are Free.
Transforming from child actress to adult actress

At the beginning of her career, Milano was known mainly for her role on Who's the Boss? (1984–1992). She tried to shed her "nice girl" image by appearing in several films targeted at adults, such as Casualties of Love: The Long Island Lolita Story (1993), Embrace of the Vampire (1994), Deadly Sins (1995), and Poison Ivy II: Lily (1996), where she starred opposite Johnathon Schaech and Xander Berkeley.
Recent roles

Milano portrayed Jennifer Mancini on Melrose Place (1997–1998), Meg Winston in Spin City, and most notably as Phoebe Halliwell on the eight-year run of the popular series Charmed (1998–2006). Milano and close friend Holly Marie Combs became producers for Charmed during the show's fifth season.

She played the role of Eva Savelot in MCI's 1-800-COLLECT commercials. In 2007, Milano filmed a pilot for ABC entitled Reinventing the Wheelers. The series was not picked up for the 2007–2008 season, but instead, Milano appeared in ten episodes of the show My Name Is Earl. This reunited her with Jaime Pressly, who guest-starred in the two-part Season 5 premiere of Charmed, "A Witch's Tail".

Milano's commercial work includes appearing in the "Josie" music video by Blink-182; and 2007 television ads/commercials for Veet and Sheer Cover.

Milano was part of TBS's special coverage installment Hot Corner for the 2007 Major League Baseball playoffs. She reported at Fenway Park during the ALDS between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. She also reported at Chase Field during the NLCS between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies.

Milano starred in the 2008 film Pathology alongside Milo Ventimiglia and was then cast in a television sitcom, Single with Parents, which was pulled prior to production.

On March 20, 2009, it was announced that Milano would provide a voice for the upcoming Ghostbusters: The Video Game.

On March 24, 2009, her book on her baseball fandom, Safe At Home: Confessions of a Baseball Fanatic, was released. Milano has signed on to star in and produce My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, a romantic comedy in which she plays a woman with a relationship dilemma.
Personal life

Milano has dyslexia. In an interview in 2004, Milano explained how she deals with the disorder:

   "I've stumbled over words while reading from teleprompters. Sir John Gielgud, whom I worked with on The Canterville Ghost years ago, gave me great advice. When I asked how he memorized his monologues, he said, 'I write them down.' I use that method to this day. It not only familiarizes me with the words, it makes them my own."
Milano was appointed Founding Ambassador for the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, to which she donated $250,000. The Global Network is an alliance formed to advocate and mobilize resources in the fight to control neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). Milano will work to raise awareness of NTDs by educating the mainstream media and general public of the plight faced by the one billion people who are afflicted by NTDs, and the importance in controlling and preventing this global health crisis.

Milano is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for the United States. She traveled to India, as well as Angola, to work with UNICEF field officers there. In the fall of 2004, she participated in UNICEF's "Trick or Treat" campaign as an official spokesperson. She raised approximately $50,000 for South African women and children with AIDS by selling her own and a school's photo work. In support of PETA, she appeared in an advertisement for them, advocating vegetarianism, in a dress made entirely of vegetables.

In honor of her 37th birthday (December 19, 2009), Milano ran an online fundraising campaign for Charity:Water. Her original goal was to raise $25,000, but a donation from her husband put her over the $75,000 mark on December 18. The fundraiser is scheduled to run until December 26.
Filmography
Films
Year Film Role Notes
1984 Old Enough Diane
1985 Commando Jenny Matrix Nominated - Young Artist Award - Exceptional Performance by a Young Actress Starring in a Feature Film - Comedy or Drama
1986 The Canterville Ghost Jennifer Canterville TV movie
1988 Crash Course Vanessa Crawford TV movie aka Driving Academy
Dance 'til Dawn Shelley Sheridan Nominated - Young Artist Award - Best Young Actress in a Special, Pilot, Movie of the Week, or Miniseries
1989 Speed Zone! Lurleen aka Cannonball Fever
1992 Little Sister Diana
Where the Day Takes You Kimmy
1993 The Webbers Fan TV movie
Conflict of Interest Eve
Casualties of Love: The Long Island Lolita Story Amy Fisher TV movie
Candles in the Dark Sylvia Velliste TV movie
1994 Confessions of a Sorority Girl Rita Summers TV movie
Double Dragon Marian Delario/Power Corps Chief
1995 Deadly Sins Cristina
Embrace of the Vampire Charlotte Wells
The Surrogate Amy Winslow TV movie
1996 Jimmy Zip Francesca Short Film
Poison Ivy II: Lily Lily Leonetti
Fear Margo Masse
Glory Daze Chelsea
To Brave Alaska Denise Harris TV movie
Public Enemies Amaryllis
1997 Below Utopia Susanne
Hugo Pool Hugo Dugay
1998 Goldrush: A Real Life Alaskan Adventure Frances Ella 'Fizzy' Fitz TV movie
2001 Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure Angel Nominated - Annie Award - Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting by a Female Performer in an Animated Feature Production
Diamond Hunters Tracey Van der Byl TV movie
2002 Buying the Cow Amy
Kiss the Bride Amy Kayne
2003 Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star Cyndi
2005 Dinotopia: Quest for the Ruby Sunstone 26 Voice
2007 The Blue Hour Allegra
2008 Wisegal Patty Montanari TV movie
Pathology Gwen Williamson
2010 My Girlfriend's Boyfriend Jesse Young Currently in post-Production
also credited as producer
TV series
Year Title Role Seasons Notes
1984–92 Who's the Boss? Samantha Micelli 1–8 Young Artist Award - Best Young Supporting Actress in a Television Series (1986)
Exceptional Performance by a Young Actress, Starring in a Television, Comedy or Drama Series (1986)
Best Young Female Superstar in Television (1988)
Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards - Favorite TV Actress (1988, 1989)
Blimp Award - Favorite TV Actress (1990)
1997–98 Melrose Place Jennifer Mancini 6 & 7 Left after only 7 episodes in Season 7 to take a lead role on the WB show Charmed.
1998–06 Charmed Phoebe Halliwell 1–8 She and Holly Marie Combs became producers at the beginning of season 5.
Nominated - Blimp Award - Favorite TV Actress (2005)
Nominated - Teen Choice Awards - TV - Choice Actress (2006)
2007 Reinventing the Wheelers Annie TV pilot
2008 Single with Parents Lou TV pilot
2010 Romantically Challenged Rebecca Thomas Slated to air during the mid-season of 2010
TV appearances
Year Title Role Episode title Notes
1990 Série rose "Softly from Paris" Season 4, episode 1
The American Film Institute Presents: TV or Not TV?
1995 The Outer Limits Hannah Valesic "Caught in the Act" Season 1, episode 16
1997-2001 Spin City Meg Winston "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" Season 2, episode 11
"Rain on My Charades" Season 5, episode 17
1998 Fantasy Island Gina Williams "Superfriends" Season 1, episode 2
2004 The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius April Gorlock "Win, Lose and Kaboom" Voice, season 2
2001 Family Guy Herself "Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington" Season 3, episode 3
2007-2008 My Name Is Earl Billie Cunningham — Recurring in Season 3, episodes 6-22.
2009 Castle Kyra Blaine "A Rose for Everafter"
Discography
The discography of American pop singer Alyssa Milano includes four studio albums, two compilations, and eleven singles. These albums were only commercially available in Japan, with the exception of one single that was only available in France and a charity single that was available in the US.
Studio albums
Year Information Peak positions
JPN
1989 Look in My Heart

   * First Studio Album
   * Released: March 25, 1989
   * Formats: Vinyl, Cassette, CD


68
1989 Alyssa

   * Second Studio Album
   * Released: October 25, 1989
   * Formats: Vinyl, Cassette, CD


15
1991 Locked Inside a Dream

   * Third Studio Album
   * Released: May 21, 1991
   * Formats: Vinyl, Cassette, CD


19
1992 Do You See Me?

   * Fourth Studio Album
   * Released: September 18, 1992
   * Formats: Vinyl, Cassette, CD


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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/19/09 at 2:58 am

* Jake Gyllenhaal
Jacob Benjamin "Jake" Gyllenhaal (pronounced /ˈdʒɪlənhɑːl/; born December 19, 1980) is an American actor. The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal began acting at age ten. He has appeared in diverse roles since his first lead role in 1999's October Sky, followed by the 2001 indie cult hit Donnie Darko, in which he played a psychologically troubled teen and onscreen brother to his real-life sister, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. In the 2004 blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow he portrayed a student caught in a cataclysmic global cooling event, alongside Dennis Quaid as his father. He then played against type as a frustrated Marine in Jarhead (2005). The same year, he won critical acclaim as Jack Twist in the film Brokeback Mountain opposite Heath Ledger.

Gyllenhaal has become an activist, promoting various political and social causes. He appeared in Rock the Vote advertising, campaigned for the Democratic Party in the 2004 election, and promoted environmental causes and the American Civil Liberties Union.
During childhood, Gyllenhaal had regular exposure to filmmaking due to his family's deep ties to the industry. As an 11-year-old he made his acting debut as Billy Crystal's son in the 1991 comedy film City Slickers. His parents did not allow him to appear in the 1992 film The Mighty Ducks because it would have required him leaving home for two months. In subsequent years, his parents allowed him to audition for parts, but regularly forbade him to take them if he were chosen. He was allowed to appear in his father's films several times. Gyllenhaal appeared in the 1993 film A Dangerous Woman (along with sister Maggie); in "Bop Gun" a 1994 episode of Homicide: Life on the Street; and in the 1998 comedy Homegrown. Along with their mother, Jake and Maggie appeared in two episodes of Molto Mario, an Italian cooking show on the Food Network. Prior to his senior year in high school, the only other film not directed by his father in which Gyllenhaal was allowed to perform was the 1993 film Josh and S.A.M., a little-known children's adventure.

Gyllenhaal graduated from the Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles in 1998, then attended Columbia University, where his sister was a senior and from which his mother had graduated, to study Eastern religions and philosophy. Gyllenhaal dropped out after two years to concentrate on acting, but has expressed intentions to eventually finish his degree. Gyllenhaal's first lead role was in October Sky, Joe Johnston's 1999 adaptation of the Homer Hickam autobiography Rocket Boys, in which he portrayed a young man from West Virginia striving to win a science scholarship to avoid becoming a coal miner. The film earned $32 million and was described in the Sacramento News and Review as Gyllenhaal's "breakout performance."
From Donnie Darko to the London stage

Donnie Darko, Gyllenhaal's second major film, was not a box office success upon its initial 2001 release, but eventually became a cult favorite. The film, directed by Richard Kelly, is set in 1988 and stars Gyllenhaal as a troubled teenager who, after narrowly escaping death, experiences visions of a 6 foot (1.8 m) tall rabbit named Frank who tells him that the world is coming to an end. Gyllenhaal's performance was well-received by critics; Gary Mairs of culturevulture.net claimed that "Gyllenhaal manages the difficult trick of seeming both blandly normal and profoundly disturbed, often within the same scene."
Gyllenhaal as Donnie Darko

After the critical success of Donnie Darko, Gyllenhaal's next role was as the lead character in 2002's Highway, a film ignored by audiences and critics alike. His performance was described by one critic as "silly, cliched and straight to video." Gyllenhaal had more success starring opposite Jennifer Aniston in The Good Girl, which premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival; he also starred in Lovely & Amazing with Catherine Keener. In both films he plays an unstable character who begins a reckless affair with an older woman. Gyllenhaal later described these as "teenager in transition" roles. Gyllenhaal later starred in the Touchstone Pictures romantic comedy Bubble Boy, which was loosely based on the story of David Vetter. The film portrays the title character's adventures as he pursues the love of his life before she marries the wrong man. The film was panned by critics, with one calling it an "empty-headed, chaotic, utterly tasteless atrocity".

Following Bubble Boy, Gyllenhaal starred opposite Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon and Ellen Pompeo in Moonlight Mile, as a young man coping with the death of his fiancée and the grief of her parents. The story, which received mixed reviews, is loosely based on writer/director Brad Silberling's personal experiences following the murder of girlfriend Rebecca Schaeffer.

Gyllenhaal was almost cast as Spider-Man for Spider-Man 2 due to director Sam Raimi's concerns about original Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire`s health. Maguire recovered, however, and the sequel was shot without Gyllenhaal. Instead, Gyllenhaal starred in the blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow in 2004, co-starring Dennis Quaid as his father.

In his theatrical debut Gyllenhaal starred on the London stage in Kenneth Lonergan's revival of This is Our Youth. Gyllenhaal said, "Every actor I look up to has done theatre work, so I knew I had to give it a try." The play, which had been a critical sensation on Broadway, ran for eight weeks in London's West End. Gyllenhaal received favorable critical reviews and an Evening Standard Theatre Award in the category "Outstanding Newcomer."
Brokeback Mountain and after

2005 was a prolific year for Gyllenhaal, who starred in the critically praised films Proof, Jarhead, and Brokeback Mountain. In Proof, featuring Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins, Gyllenhaal played a graduate student in mathematics who tries to convince Paltrow's character to publish a revolutionary proof to a problem puzzling the mathematicians' community. In Jarhead, Gyllenhaal played against his usual "sensitive yet disturbed" type by displaying an aggressive masculinity as a violent U.S. Marine during the first Gulf War. He also auditioned to be Batman for one of the biggest blockbusters Batman Begins and came close to getting the role but Christian Bale was ultimately chosen for it.
Gyllenhaal (right) in the movie poster for Brokeback Mountain

In Brokeback Mountain, Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger play young men who meet as sheep herders and embark upon a sexual relationship that begins in the summer of 1963 and continues until the death of Gyllenhaal's character in 1981. The film was often referred to in the media with the shorthand phrase "the gay cowboy movie," though there was differing opinion on the sexual orientation of the characters. The film won the Golden Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival. The film went on to win four Golden Globe Awards, four British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards, and three Academy Awards. Gyllenhaal was nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Supporting Actor for his performance, but lost to George Clooney for Syriana. Gyllenhaal also won the Best Supporting Actor BAFTA for the same role and received a Best Supporting Actor nomination and Best Film Ensemble nomination from the Screen Actors Guild. Also for Brokeback Mountain, he and Ledger won an MTV Movie Award for "Best Kiss" in 2006. Shortly after the 2006 Academy Awards, Gyllenhaal was invited to join the Academy in recognition of his acting career. Most recently, Gyllenhaal was awarded the 2006 Young Artist Award for Artistic Excellence by The Americans for the Arts National Arts Awards for his role.

Gyllenhaal expressed mixed feelings about the experience of being directed by Ang Lee in Brokeback Mountain, but generally had more praise than criticism for Lee's directing style. While complaining of the way Lee tended to disconnect with his actors once filming began, Gyllenhaal praised his encouraging direction of the actors and sensitive approach to the material. At the Directors Guild of America Awards on January 28, 2006, Gyllenhaal also praised Lee for "his humbleness and his respect for everyone around him."

When asked about his kissing scenes with Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, Gyllenhaal said, "As an actor, I think we need to embrace the times we feel most uncomfortable." When asked about the more intimate scenes with Ledger, Gyllenhaal likened them to "doing a sex scene with a woman I'm not particularly attracted to." Following the release of Brokeback Mountain, rumors circulated regarding the actor's sexual orientation. When asked about such gossip during an interview, Gyllenhaal said:
“ You know it's flattering when there's a rumor that says I'm bisexual. It means I can play more kinds of roles. I'm open to whatever people want to call me. I've never really been attracted to men sexually, but I don't think I would be afraid of it if it happened.
Gyllenhaal attending the premiere of Proof in 2005.

Gyllenhaal narrated the 2005 short animated film The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, based on Mordicai Gerstein's book of the same name about Philippe Petit's famous stunt. In January 2007, as host of Saturday Night Live, he put on a sparkly evening dress and sang "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from the musical Dreamgirls for his opening monologue, dedicating the song to his "unique fan base... the fans of Brokeback."

In 2007, Gyllenhaal starred in David Fincher's Zodiac, which was based on a true story. He played Robert Graysmith, a San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist and author of two books about the Zodiac serial killer. Gyllenhaal starred opposite Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin, and Reese Witherspoon in the October 2007 release Rendition, a Gavin Hood-directed political thriller about the U.S. policy of extraordinary rendition. In 2009, he appeared with Tobey Maguire in Jim Sheridan's remake of Susanne Bier's 2004 Danish language film Brothers. His upcoming roles include the comedy Nailed, which he filmed in South Carolina with Jessica Biel, and Doug Liman's as yet untitled film about the race for lunar colonization.

Internationally viewed as a sex symbol, Gyllenhaal was named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People" in 2006. He was also listed in People's "Hottest Bachelors of 2006". In response to mainstream press lists like these, thousands of gay and bisexual men were polled for the 2007 and 2008 "AfterElton.com Hot 100 List." Gyllenhaal was ranked at #1 in both consecutive years. He was ranked at #2 on the Gay Wired Magazine poll of male actors who have played gay characters in movies.

On the show Entourage, Gyllenhaal, though not featured on screen, was the replacement for Vincent Chase in Aquaman 2 after Chase was fired. This was likely a reference to Spider-Man 2, when Gyllenhaal almost replaced Tobey Maguire.

On May 20, 2008 it was announced that Gyllenhaal will play the lead role in the movie adaptation of the video game Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Production has started and the film has a current release date of May 28, 2010.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1991 City Slickers Danny Robbins
1993 Josh and S.A.M. Leon
A Dangerous Woman Edward as Jacob Gyllenhaal
1998 Homegrown Jake/Blue Kahan
1999 October Sky Homer Hickam Jr.
2001 Donnie Darko Donald J. "Donnie" Darko
Bubble Boy Jimmy Livingston
Lovely & Amazing Jordan
2002 Highway Pilot Kelson
Moonlight Mile Joe Nast
The Good Girl Thomas 'Holden' Worther
2003 Abby Singer Himself (Cameo)
2004 The Day After Tomorrow Sam Hall
2005 Brokeback Mountain Jack Twist
Jarhead Anthony Swofford ("Swoff")
Proof Harold 'Hal' Dobbs
2007 Zodiac Robert Graysmith
Rendition Douglas Freeman
2009 Brothers Tommy Cahill
Nailed Howard Birdwell
2010 Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Prince Dastan
Damn Yankees Joe Hardy
Love and Other Drugs
Awards
Year Group Award Result Film
2002 Young Hollywood Awards Breakthrough Performance - Male Won
Independent Spirit Awards Best Male Lead Nominated Donnie Darko
2003 Chlotrudis Awards Best Actor Won
DVD Exclusive Awards DVD Premiere Award, Best Actor Nominated Highway
Teen Choice Awards Choice Movie Breakout Star - Male Nominated The Good Girl
2005 National Board of Review Best Supporting Actor Won Brokeback Mountain
2006 MTV Movie Awards Best Performance Won
Best Kiss Won
Screen Actors Guild Awards Best Supporting Actor Nominated
Best Ensemble Nominated
Critics' Choice Award Best Supporting Actor Nominated
BAFTA Awards Best Supporting Actor Won
Palm Springs International Film Festival Achievement-Actor Award Won
Academy Awards Best Supporting Actor Nominated
Satellite Awards Outstanding Supporting Actor Nominated
Outstanding Lead Actor Nominated Jarhead
National Arts Awards Young Artist Award for Artistic Excellence Won
2008 Teen Choice Awards Choice Movie Actor: Drama Nominated Rendition
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/19/09 at 3:00 am

* Kristy Swanson
Kristen Nöel "Kristy" Swanson (born December 19, 1969) is an American actress best known for playing Buffy Summers in the 1992 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Swanson started in TV advertising roles, and went on to make several one-off appearances in TV series such as Cagney and Lacey and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In 1986, she debuted on the big screen in two John Hughes films: Pretty In Pink, in a non-speaking role, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off as a character who announces a convoluted excuse for Ferris' absence in class. Her first starring role was later in 1986, in Wes Craven's Deadly Friend as Samantha - "the girl next door." The next year she played Cathy in the adaptation of V. C. Andrews' best-seller Flowers in the Attic.

By 1990, Swanson had made many television appearances, including multiple appearances in Knots Landing (1987-1988), Nightingales (1989), her first starring role in a TV series, although it only lasted a season, and a short-lived Burt Reynolds vehicle called B.L. Stryker (1989).

Throughout the '90s, she centered mostly in films. She played the title role in the 1992 movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which was a box office bomb but had a profitable rental life. She appeared in both starring and supporting roles in movies such as Hot Shots!, The Program, The Chase, or her most critically acclaimed role, that of Kristen Connor, a student discovering her sexuality in John Singleton's Higher Learning. She also appeared in the film adaptation of the comic-book The Phantom and the dark comedy 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag with Joe Pesci. Most of these films failed at the box office, and she reverted to TV work in the late '90s.

In the 1998-1999 season of Early Edition, Swanson played Erica Paget, a love interest of the main character, Gary Hobson. In 1999 Swanson played Vanessa, the girlfriend of Adam Sandler in the movie Big Daddy. In 2000, she returned to a television series, as the star of Grapevine, a revamp of a 1992 TV series. It was cancelled after 5 episodes.

Swanson posed nude for Playboy magazine in November 2002 in a cover-featured pictorial. She appeared in and won the 2006 FOX television program Skating with Celebrities, partnered with Lloyd Eisler.

On May 8, 2007, Swanson appeared in the Law and Order: Criminal Intent episode "Bombshell", playing a fictionalized variation on Anna Nicole Smith.

In 2007, she became a spokesperson of the Medifast diet. In the following year, she guest-starred in 3 episodes of the lesbian web series 3Way.

In July 2009 she filmed the film What If..., co-starring Kevin Sorbo and Debby Ryan, scheduled for a 2010 Valentine's Day DVD release.

She is currently filming the film "A Root Beer Christmas" in Utah.
Personal life

Swanson was born in Mission Viejo, California, the daughter of physical education teachers Rosemary and Robert Swanson. She has Swedish ancestry.

Swanson married her Skating With Celebrities partner, Lloyd Eisler, on February 7, 2009 in San Luis Obispo. Their first child, a son named Magnus, was born on February 16, 2007. They currently reside in Santa Clarita, California.
Filmography

Movies
Year Title Role Notes
2010 A Root Beer Christmas Currently filming
2010 What If... Wendy Walker
2009 The Closer Kaitlyn Short film
2006 Living Death Elizabeth Harris
2006 The Black Hole Shannon Muir TV movie
2005 Six Months Later Linda Short film
2005 Forbidden Secrets Alexandra Kent Lambeth TV movie
2005 Bound by Lies Laura Cross
2003 Silence Julia Craig
2003 Red Water Kelli Raymond TV movie
2001 Zebra Lounge Louise Bauer
2001 Soul Assassin Tessa Jansen
2000 Dude, Where's My Car? Christie Boner
2000 Meeting Daddy Laurel Lee
1999 Big Daddy Vanessa
1999 Supreme Sanction Jenna TV movie
1998 Pleasantville Concerned "Colored" Girl Uncredited
1998 Ground Control Julie Albrecht
1997 Bad To The Bone Francesca Wells TV movie
1997 Tinseltown Nikki Randall
1997 Lover Girl Darlene Ferrari
1997 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag Laurie Bennett
1996 Marshal Law Lilly Nelson TV movie
1996 The Phantom Diana Palmer
1995 Higher Learning Kristen Connor
1994 Getting In Kirby Watts
1994 The Chase Natalie Voss
1993 The Program Camille Shafer
1993 The Chili Con Carne Club Julie Short film
1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Buffy Summers
1992 Highway to Hell Rachel Clark
1991 Hot Shots! Kowalski
1991 Mannequin: On the Move Jessie
1990 Diving In Terry Hopkins
1990 Dream Trap Sue Halloran
1988 Nightingales Becky Granger TV movie
1987 Flowers in the Attic Cathy Dollanganger
1987 Not Quite Human Erin Jeffries TV movie
1987 Juarez Cathy Dodge TV movie
1986 Deadly Friend Samantha Pringle
1986 Ferris Bueller's Day Off Simone Adamley
1986 Mr. Boogedy Jennifer Davis TV movie
1986 Miracle of the Heart: A Boy's Town Story Stephanie Gamble TV movie
1986 Pretty in Pink Duckette

Series
Year Series Role Episodes
2008 3Way Leslie Lapdalulu 3 episodes
2007 Law & Order: Criminal Intent Lorelei Mailer 1 episode
2004 CSI: Miami Roxanne Price 1 episode
2003 Just Shoot Me! Allison Cavanaugh 1 episode
2000 Grapevine Susan Crawford 5 episodes
1998-99 Early Edition Erica Paget 20 episodes
1989 B.L. Stryker Lynn Ellingsworth 2 episodes
1989 Nightingales Becky Granger 13 episodes
1987-88 Knots Landing Jody Campbell 5 episodes
1987 Growing Pains Rhonda 1 episode
1986 Valerie Linda Perkins 1 episode
1986 Alfred Hitchcock Presents Female Student #2 1 episode
1985 Cagney & Lacey Stephanie Brandon 1 episode
1985 Call to Glory 2 episodes
1984 It's Your Move Laura 1 episode
Awards and nominations

Wins

   * 1989: Young Artist Award for Best Young Actress in a Horror or Mystery Motion Picture - Flowers In The Attic

Nominations

   * 1988: Young Artist Award for Best Young Female Superstar in Motion Pictures - Deadly Friend
   * 1987: Young Artist Award for Exceptional Young Actress Starring in a Television Special or Movie of the Week - Mr. Boogedy
   * 1986: Young Artist Award for Best Young Actress - Guest in a Television Series - Cagney & Lacey episode "On The Street"

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/19/09 at 3:01 am

I'll catch up later.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/19/09 at 6:43 am


I'll catch up later.

There's a lot..I got carried away :-[

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/19/09 at 6:56 am


The birthday of the day...Cicely Tyson
Cicely Tyson (born December 19, 1933) is an American actress. A successful stage actress, Tyson is also known for appearances in the film Sounder and the television specials The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and Roots.
Tyson was discovered by a photographer for Ebony magazine, and became a popular fashion model. Her first film was an uncredited role in Carib Gold in 1957, but she went on to do television - the celebrated series East Side/West Side and the long-running soap opera The Guiding Light. In 1961, Tyson appeared in the original cast of French playwright Jean Genet's The Blacks, the longest running Off-Broadway non-musical of the decade, running for 1,408 performances. The original cast also featured James Earl Jones, Roscoe Lee Browne, Louis Gossett, Jr., Godfrey Cambridge, Maya Angelou and Charles Gordone. She appeared with Sammy Davis, Jr. in the film A Man Called Adam (1966) and starred in the film version of Graham Greene's The Comedians (1967). Tyson had a featured role in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968) and was in a segment of the movie Roots.
The handprints of Cicely Tyson in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.

In 1972, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the critically acclaimed Sounder. In 1974 she won two Emmy Awards for The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Other acclaimed television roles included Roots, King, in which she portrayed Coretta Scott King, The Marva Collins Story, When No One Would Listen and Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All for which she received her third Emmy Award. In her 1994-1995 television series Sweet Justice, Tyson portrayed a feisty, unorthodox Southern attorney named Carrie Grace Battle, a character she shaped by consulting with and shadowing the legendary Washington, DC civil rights and criminal defense lawyer Dovey Johnson Roundtree. In 2005, Tyson co-starred in the movies Because of Winn-Dixie and Diary of a Mad Black Woman. The same year she was honored by Oprah Winfrey at her Legends Ball.

The Cicely Tyson School of Performing and Fine Arts, a magnet school in East Orange, New Jersey, was renamed in her honor. She plays an active part in supporting the school, which serves one of New Jersey's most underprivileged African-American communities.
Credits
Film
Year Film Role Notes
1959 Odds Against Tomorrow Jazz Club bartender
The Last Angry Man (1959) Girl Left on Porch (uncredited)
1966 A Man Called Adam Claudia Ferguson
1967 The Comedians Marie Therese
1968 The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Portia
1972 Sounder Rebecca Morgan Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
National Board of Review Award for Best Actress
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1976 The Blue Bird Tylette, The Cat
The River Niger Mattie Williams
1978 A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich Sweets
1979 The Concorde: Airport '79 Elaine
1981 Bustin' Loose Vivian Perry
1991 Fried Green Tomatoes Sipsey
1997 Hoodlum Stephanie St. Clair Nominated — Acapulco Black Film Festival Award for Best Actress
Nominated — NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
2001 The Double Dutch Divas! Herself (short subject) (uncredited)
2005 Because of Winn-Dixie Gloria
Diary of a Mad Black Woman Myrtle NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture
Nominated — BET Comedy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Theatrical Film
Nominated — Black Movie Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Madea's Family Reunion Myrtle
2006 Fat Rose and Squeaky Celine
Idlewild Mother Hopkins
2007 Rwanda Rising Voice of Jeanette Nyirabagarwa (documentary)
Television
Year Title Role Notes
Frontiers of Faith Tony "The Bitter Cup"
1962 The Nurses Betty Ann Warner "Frieda"
1963 Naked City "Howard Running Bear Is a Turtle"
1963-1964 East Side/West Side (26 episodes)
1965 Slattery's People Sarah Brookman "Question: Who You Taking to the Main Event, Eddie?"
1965-1966 I Spy Princess Amara
Vickie Harmon Episode "So Long, Patrick Henry"
Episode "Trial by Treehouse"
1966 Guiding Light Martha Frazier
1967 Cowboy in Africa Julie Anderson Episode "Tomorrow on the Wind"
Judd for the Defense Lucille Evans Episode "Commitment"
1968-1969 The F.B.I. Julie Harmon
Lainey Harber Episode "The Enemies"
Episode "Silent Partners"
1969 Medical Center Susan Wiley Episode "The Last 10 Yards"
The Courtship of Eddie's Father Betty Kelly Episode "Guess Who's Coming for Lunch"
1970 Gunsmoke Rachel Biggs Episode "The Scavengers"
Mission: Impossible Alma Ross Episode "Death Squad"
The Bill Cosby Show Mildred Hermosa Episode "Blind Date"
Here Come the Brides Princess Lucenda Episode "A Bride for Obie Brown"
1971 Insight Episode "The Bird of the Mast"
Marriage: Year One Emma Teasley (unsold pilot)
Neighbors
1972 Emergency! Mrs. Johnson Episode "Crash"
Wednesday Night Out
1974 The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman Jane Pittman Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
Emmy Award for Actress of the Year - Special
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Free to Be… You and Me Herself
1976 Just an Old Sweet Song Priscilla Simmons
1977 Roots Binta (miniseries)
Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
Wilma Blanche Rudolph
1978 King Coretta Scott King (miniseries)
Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
A Woman Called Moses Harriet Ross Tubman
1981 The Marva Collins Story Marva Collins NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special
Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
1982 Benny's Place Odessa
1985 Playing with Fire Carol Phillips
1986 Intimate Encounters Dr. Claire Dalton
Acceptable Risks Janet Framm
Samaritan: The Mitch Snyder Story Muriel NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special
1989 The Women of Brewster Place Mrs. Browne
1990 The Kid Who Loved Christmas Etta
B.L. Stryker Ruth Hastings Episode "Winner Takes All"
Heat Wave Ruthana Richardson CableACE Award for Actress in a Movie or Miniseries
1991 Clippers Donna (unsold pilot)
1992 Duplicates Dr. Randolph
When No One Would Listen Sarah
1993 House of Secrets Evangeline
1994 Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All Castralia, Marsden Family House Slave/Maid Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
Nominated — NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
1994-1995 Sweet Justice Carrie Grace Battle Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Drama Series
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series
1996 The Road to Galveston Jordan Roosevelt NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special
Lone Star Film & Television Award for Best TV Actress
Nominated — CableACE Award for Actress in a Movie or Miniseries
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
1997 Bridge of Time Guardian
Riot Maggie (segment "Homecoming Day")
Nominated — CableACE Award for Supporting Actress in a Movie or Miniseries
Ms. Scrooge Ms. Ebenita Scrooge
1998 Always Outnumbered Luvia
Mama Flora's Family Mama Flora NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special
1999 A Lesson Before Dying Tante Lou Black Reel Award for Network/Cable - Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
Nominated — NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special
Aftershock: Earthquake in New York Emily Lincoln
2000 Touched by an Angel Abby Episode "Living the Rest of My Life"
The Outer Limits Justice Gretchen Parkhurst Episode "Final Appeal"
2001 Jewel Cathedral
2002 The Rosa Parks Story Leona Edwards McCauley Black Reel Award for Network/Cable - Best Supporting Actress
2005 Higglytown Heroes Great Aunt Shirley Hero Episode "Wayne's 100 Special Somethings"
2009 Relative Stranger Pearl
Law and Order: SVU Ondine Burdett Episode "Hell"
Theatre
Year Production Role Theatre Notes
1959 Jolly's Progress Jolly (understudy) Longacre Theatre
1960 The Cool World Girl Eugene O'Neill Theatre
1961 The Blacks: A Clown Show Stephanie Virtue Diop St. Mark's Playhouse
1962 Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright Celeste Chipley
Adelaide Smith (understudy) Booth Theatre
1963 The Blue Boy in Black Joan Masque Theatre
Trumpets of the Lord Rev. Marion Alexander Astor Place Theatre
1966 A Hand Is on the Gate Performer Longacre Theatre
1968 Carry Me Back to Morningside Heights Myrna Jessup John Golden Theatre
1969 To Be Young, Gifted and Black Various Cherry Lane Theatre
Trumpets of the Lord Rev. Marion Alexander Brooks Atkinson Theatre
1983 The Corn is Green Miss Moffat Lunt-Fontaine Theatre
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Isn't she's Mike Tyson's Mother?  ???

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/19/09 at 8:14 am



Isn't she's Mike Tyson's Mother?  ???

Umm No.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/20/09 at 4:56 am

The word of the day...Dwarf
#
If one person or thing is dwarfed by another, the second is so much bigger than the first that it makes them look very small. VERB

    *
      His figure is dwarfed by the huge red McDonald's sign. 'be' V-ed
    *
      The U.S. air travel market dwarfs that of Britain. V n

#
Dwarf is used to describe a particular kind of star which is quite small and not very bright. N-COUNT with supp

    *
      ...a white dwarf star.
    *
      ...a red dwarf.

#
Dwarf is used to describe varieties or species of plants and animals which are much smaller than the usual size for their kind. ADJ ADJ n

    *
      ...dwarf shrubs.

#
In children's stories, a dwarf is an imaginary creature that is like a small man. Dwarfs often have magical powers. N-COUNT
#
In former times, people who were much smaller than normal were called dwarfs.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/20/09 at 4:59 am

The birthday of the day...Jenny Agutter
Jennifer Ann Agutter (born 20 December 1952) is a BAFTA- and Emmy award-winning English actress best known in recent years for her role as Tessa Phillips in the British TV drama series Spooks (broadcast on American PBS television and released on DVD in the US under the title MI-5). She is also known for playing Alex Price in An American Werewolf in London, Jessica 6 in Logan's Run, and Jill Mason in Equus.
Agutter first came to the attention of television audiences as Kirsty in the twice a week BBC soap "The Newcomers". Kirsty was the daughter of the new Managing Director, but could only appear during the school holidays and was listed in the credits as "Jennifer". Later, she appeared as Roberta in the BBC children's drama series of The Railway Children, and went on to play the same part in Lionel Jeffries' 1970 film of the book. Her quality of ingenuousness had led to an earlier more serious role in the thriller I Start Counting (1969). She also won an Emmy for her television role as Fritha in the Hallmark Hall of Fame production of The Snow Goose (1971). Agutter continued a transition to adult roles in Walkabout (1971), playing a teenage schoolgirl who was lost in the Australian outback with her younger brother. She first auditioned for the role in 1967 but funding problems delayed filming until 1969. The delay in production meant Agutter was 16 at the time of filming, and the director took advantage of her new legal status by including nude scenes in the film. Among them was a five-minute skinny-dipping scene, which was cut from the original US release. She commented during an interview at the 2005 Bradford Film Festival at the National Media Museum that she was shocked by the film's explicitness when she first viewed it, but is still on good terms with director Nicolas Roeg.

Agutter moved to Hollywood at 21 and appeared in a number of films over the next decade, including The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Logan's Run (1976), Equus (1977), Sweet William (1980), and An American Werewolf in London (1981). Since 1990, Agutter has deliberately focused on the upbringing of her son and much of her work focused away from film and television work and rather involved audio recordings and supporting various charities, notably the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, of which she is a patron (she is also a carrier of the disease). Nonetheless, she had a guest role in Series 6 of Red Dwarf, and appeared in the TV series TECX, The All New Alexei Sayle Show, and And The Beat Goes On. In 2000, she made her third appearance in a production of The Railway Children, produced by Carlton TV and this time playing the role of the mother. In 2002, Agutter featured in the BBC television series Spooks and in 2007, she starred in the first episode of the new series of David Jason's ITV television series Diamond Geezer. In 2007, she also guest-starred in the Doctor Who audio drama The Bride of Peladon.

Agutter enjoys an unusual and enduring popularity among the generation of men who grew up watching her films, first as a child actress and then as an adult. She puts this down to the fact that having grown up with the films, audiences have come to relate to her characters through their own personal experiences. She believes that the innocence of the characters she played in her earlier films combined with the costumes and nudity in some of her later adult roles such as Logan's Run (1976), Equus (1977) and An American Werewolf in London (1981) are "perfect fantasy fodder".
Personal life

Agutter remained single during her many years of residence in Los Angeles, and it has been reported she never lived with a man until she was married. In 1989 while attending an arts festival in Bath she met Johan Tham, a Swedish hotelier who at the time was a director of Cliveden Hotel in Buckinghamshire. In 1990, she became pregnant by Tham and they subsequently married on 4 August of that year. Their son Jonathan was born on 25 December 1990. They live in Camberwell, London. For many years Agutter, a great admirer of Cornwall, has owned a second home on The Lizard, the most southerly point on the English mainland.
Filmography
Filmography
Year Title Format Role Other notes
1964 East of Sudan Film Debut aged 11
1966 A Man Could Get Killed Film Linda Frazier
1968 Gates to Paradise Film Maud
Star! Film Pamela Roper
1969 I Start Counting Film Wynne
1970 The Railway Children Film Bobbie Waterbury
The Great Inimitable Mr. Dickens TV Film
1971 Walkabout Film Girl
1972 Shelley Television Mary Shelley BBC series
1976 Logan's Run Film Jessica 6
The Eagle Has Landed Film Molly Prior
1977 Equus Film Jill Mason
1978 China 9, Liberty 37 Film Catherine Sebanek
The Riddle of the Sands Film Clara
1980 Sweet William Film Ann Walton
1981 Othello Film Desdemona
An American Werewolf in London Film Nurse Alex Price
1984 Secret Places Film Miss Lowrie
1985 Love's Labour's Lost Television Rosaline
Magnum, P.I. Television Krista Villeroch
1987 Dark Tower Film Carolyn Page
1990 Child's Play 2 Film Joanne Simpson
Darkman Film Burn Doctor uncredited cameo
1993 Red Dwarf Television Prof. Mamet
2000 The Railway Children Television Mother ITV
2001 The Parole Officer Film Victor's Wife
2002 At Dawning Escaping woman
Spooks Television Tessa Phillips
2004 Number One Longing, Number Two Regret Film Kenosha
The Alan Clark Diaries Television Jane Clark BBC TV series
2005 New Tricks, Season 2, Episode 1 Television Yvonne Barrie BBC TV Series
2007 Diamond Geezer Television Vanessa ITV series
Irina Palm Television
2008 The Invisibles Television Barbara Riley BBC TV series
2009 Monday Monday Television Jenny Mountfield ITV1 TV series
Awards

    * BAFTA: Best Supporting Actress 1978 - Equus
    * Emmy: Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in Drama 1972 - The Snow Goose
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/20/09 at 5:05 am

The co-birthday of the day...Dick Wolf
Richard Anthony Wolf (born December 20, 1946), usually billed as simply Dick Wolf, is an American Emmy Award-winning producer, specializing in crime dramas such as Miami Vice and the Law & Order franchise.
olf worked as an advertising copywriter at Benton & Bowles creating commercials for Crest toothpaste, all the while writing screenplays in the hopes of a film career. It was at this time that he briefly collaborated on a screenplay with Oliver Stone, who was also a struggling screenwriter at the time. He moved to Los Angeles after a few years and had three screenplays produced; one of these films, Masquerade starring Rob Lowe and Meg Tilly, was well received. He started his television career as a staff writer on Hill Street Blues and was nominated for his first Emmy for an episode on which he was the only writer. He moved from there to Miami Vice where he was a supervising producer.

Wolf's Law & Order is the second-longest-running dramatic show in television history, making it one of television's most successful franchises. The show has been picked up for a record-tying 20th season by NBC, beginning September 25, 2009. It has been nominated for the most consecutive Emmy Awards of any primetime drama series. Wolf serves as creator and executive producer of the three current Law & Order drama series from Wolf Films and NBC Universal Television – Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and Law & Order: UK. A third spinoff of the original franchise, Law & Order: Trial by Jury, was cancelled after its first season. In addition, he was the creator and executive producer of NBC's courtroom reality series Crime & Punishment, which chronicled real-life cases prosecuted by the San Diego District Attorney’s office.

Wolf's company also produced Twin Towers, the 2003 Academy Award-winning Short Documentary about two brothers, one a policeman and the other a fireman, who lost their lives in the line of duty on September 11, 2001. Currently, Wolf is involved with the production of a theatrical film that will document the popular rock group The Doors.

Wolf's personal honors include the Award of Excellence from the Banff Television Festival, the 2002 Creative Achievement Award from NATPE; the Anti-Defamation League’s Distinguished Entertainment Industry Award, the Leadership and Inspiration Award from the Entertainment Industries Council, the Governor’s Award by the New York Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the 1997 achievement award from the Caucus for Producers, Writers, and Directors, the 1998 Television Showman of the Year Award from the Publicist’s Guild of America, the 2002 Tribute from the Museum of Television and Radio, and a 2003 Special Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America.

Wolf is also an Honorary Consul general of Monaco and is actively involved in the principality’s prestigious annual Television Festival, and is its primary liaison with the entertainment community.

On March 29, 2007, Wolf received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7040 Hollywood Boulevard.

In addition to having been a classmate of former President George W. Bush, Wolf was the employer of Fred Thompson, who sought the Republican nomination for president in 2008 with help of the national attention he gained playing the district attorney on Law & Order. Wolf supported Thompson in his bid, as he did Bush's, as it has been reported that he contributed money to Thompson even before he officially announced he was runnin
Credits

    * Skateboard (1978)
    * Miami Vice (1984-1989) TV Series
    * No Man's Land (1987)
    * Masquerade (1988)
    * Gideon Oliver (1989) TV Series
    * Christine Cromwell (1989) TV Series
    * Nasty Boys (1990) TV Series
    * H.E.L.P. (1990) TV Series
    * Law & Order (1990-present) TV Series
    * School Ties (1992)
    * Mann & Machine (1992) TV Series
    * The Human Factor (1992) TV Series
    * South Beach (1993) TV Series
    * New York Undercover (1994-1998) TV Series
    * The Wright Verdicts (1995) TV Series
    * Swift Justice (1996) TV Series
    * Feds (1997) TV Series
    * Players (1997-1998) TV Series
    * Exiled: A Law & Order Movie (1998) (TV)
    * The Invisible Man (1998) (TV)
    * Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999-present) TV Series
    * D.C. (2000) TV Series
    * Deadline (2000-2001) TV Series
    * Arrest & Trial (2000) TV Series
    * Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001-present) TV Series
    * Crime & Punishment (2002-2004) TV Series
    * Twin Towers (2003)
    * Dragnet (2003) TV Series
    * Law & Order: Trial by Jury (2005) TV Series
    * Conviction (2006) TV Series
    * Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007)
    * Paris Enquêtes Criminelles (2007)
    * Law & Order: UK (2009-present) TV Series

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/20/09 at 5:08 am

* Alan Parsons
Alan Parsons (born 20 December 1948) is a British audio engineer, musician, and record producer. He was involved with the production of several successful albums, including The Beatles' Abbey Road and Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon for which Pink Floyd credit him as an important contributor. Parsons' own group, The Alan Parsons Project, as well as his subsequent solo recordings, have also been successful commercially.In October 1967, at age 18, Parsons went to work as an assistant engineer at Abbey Road Studios, where he earned his first credit on the LP, Abbey Road. He became a regular there, engineering such projects as Paul McCartney's Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway, five albums by The Hollies, and Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, for which he received his first Grammy Award nomination. He was known for doing more than what would normally be considered the scope of a recording engineer’s duties. He considered himself to be a recording director, likening his contribution to recordings to what Stanley Kubrick contributed to film. This is apparent in his work with Al Stewart's Year of the Cat, where Parsons added the saxophone part and transformed the original folk concept into the jazz-influenced ballad that put Al Stewart onto the charts. It is also heard in Parsons’ influence on the Hollies’ He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother and The Air That I Breathe, sharp departures from their popular 1960s hits Stay, Just One Look, Stop! Stop! Stop! or Bus Stop. Parsons was also known to have swapped shifts during the engineering of The Dark Side of the Moon so he could work entirely on the project.

Parsons also produced three albums by Pilot, a Scottish pop rock band consisting of Ian Bairnson on guitar, Stuart Tosh on drums, and David Paton on lead vocals, guitars, and on bass. Their hits included "January" and "Magic".

Apparently inspired by his influential contribution to Stewart’s work, he initiated The Alan Parsons Project with producer and songwriter (and occasional singer) Eric Woolfson in 1975. The Project consisted of a revolving group of studio musicians and vocalists, most notably the members of Pilot and (on the first album) the members of American rock band Ambrosia. Unlike most rock groups, the Alan Parsons Project rarely performed live, although they did release a number of music videos. After releasing ten albums, the Project terminated after 1987, and Parsons continues to release work in his own name and in collaboration with other musicians; Parsons and his band now regularly tour many parts of the World.

Although an accomplished vocalist, keyboardist, bassist, guitarist and flautist, Parsons sang infrequent and incidental parts on his albums. While his keyboard playing was very audible on the Alan Parsons Project albums, very few recordings feature his flute. During the late 1990s, Parsons career travelled an interesting full circle, having started out in the music industry at the World famous Abbey Road Studios in London as an assistant engineer in the late 1960s, he briefly returned to run the studio in its entirety, a role he reportedly managed to combine with the demands of a hectic performing and recording schedule, Parsons also continued with his selective production work for other bands.

Of all his collaborations, guitarist Ian Bairnson worked with Parsons the longest, including Parsons' post-Woolfson albums, Try Anything Once, On Air, and The Time Machine.

As well as receiving gold and platinum awards from many nations, Parsons has received ten Grammy Award nominations for engineering and production. In 2007 he received a nomination for Best Surround Sound Album for A Valid Path.

The Project’s song, "Sirius", has been used for years by sports teams such as the Nebraska Cornhuskers, Pittsburgh Steelers, New Orleans Saints, Chicago Bulls, Phoenix Suns, Kansas City Chiefs, VfB Stuttgart and Leinster Rugby as background music for their home team player introductions. (In addition, the song the Bulls use as background music for the visiting team introductions is Pink Floyd’s "On the Run", from The Dark Side of the Moon, engineered by Parsons). "Sirius" was also used by professional wrestler Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat as his theme music during his first stint in the World Wrestling Federation during the 1980s. The song was used in the 2000 Michael Jordan film Michael Jordan to the Max, as well as the 2009 animated film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. In 2008, the song was featured as part of a Dr. Pepper soda commercial, featuring Julius Erving.

In May 2005, Parsons appeared at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, California, to mix front-of-house sound for Southern California-based Pink Floyd tribute band Which One’s Pink? and their performance of The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety.

Indie band Grandaddy made a promotional CD with the track “Alan Parsons in a Winter Wonderland”.

Since 2003 he has toured under a revised name, The Alan Parsons Live Project (with Woolfson’s permission). The globe-trotting band features guitarist Godfrey Townsend, drummer Steve Murphy, keyboardist Manny Focarazzo, and bass guitarist John Montagna. The 2004-2005 shows offered vocalist P. J. Olsson’s track "More Lost Without You", while the later 2006 shows presented The Crystal Method-featured "We Play the Game" and opened with "Return to Tunguska" along with successes spanning the Project years.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/20/09 at 5:29 am


The birthday of the day...Jenny Agutter
Jennifer Ann Agutter (born 20 December 1952) is a BAFTA- and Emmy award-winning English actress best known in recent years for her role as Tessa Phillips in the British TV drama series Spooks (broadcast on American PBS television and released on DVD in the US under the title MI-5). She is also known for playing Alex Price in An American Werewolf in London, Jessica 6 in Logan's Run, and Jill Mason in Equus.
Agutter first came to the attention of television audiences as Kirsty in the twice a week BBC soap "The Newcomers". Kirsty was the daughter of the new Managing Director, but could only appear during the school holidays and was listed in the credits as "Jennifer". Later, she appeared as Roberta in the BBC children's drama series of The Railway Children, and went on to play the same part in Lionel Jeffries' 1970 film of the book. Her quality of ingenuousness had led to an earlier more serious role in the thriller I Start Counting (1969). She also won an Emmy for her television role as Fritha in the Hallmark Hall of Fame production of The Snow Goose (1971). Agutter continued a transition to adult roles in Walkabout (1971), playing a teenage schoolgirl who was lost in the Australian outback with her younger brother. She first auditioned for the role in 1967 but funding problems delayed filming until 1969. The delay in production meant Agutter was 16 at the time of filming, and the director took advantage of her new legal status by including nude scenes in the film. Among them was a five-minute skinny-dipping scene, which was cut from the original US release. She commented during an interview at the 2005 Bradford Film Festival at the National Media Museum that she was shocked by the film's explicitness when she first viewed it, but is still on good terms with director Nicolas Roeg.

Agutter moved to Hollywood at 21 and appeared in a number of films over the next decade, including The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Logan's Run (1976), Equus (1977), Sweet William (1980), and An American Werewolf in London (1981). Since 1990, Agutter has deliberately focused on the upbringing of her son and much of her work focused away from film and television work and rather involved audio recordings and supporting various charities, notably the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, of which she is a patron (she is also a carrier of the disease). Nonetheless, she had a guest role in Series 6 of Red Dwarf, and appeared in the TV series TECX, The All New Alexei Sayle Show, and And The Beat Goes On. In 2000, she made her third appearance in a production of The Railway Children, produced by Carlton TV and this time playing the role of the mother. In 2002, Agutter featured in the BBC television series Spooks and in 2007, she starred in the first episode of the new series of David Jason's ITV television series Diamond Geezer. In 2007, she also guest-starred in the Doctor Who audio drama The Bride of Peladon.

Agutter enjoys an unusual and enduring popularity among the generation of men who grew up watching her films, first as a child actress and then as an adult. She puts this down to the fact that having grown up with the films, audiences have come to relate to her characters through their own personal experiences. She believes that the innocence of the characters she played in her earlier films combined with the costumes and nudity in some of her later adult roles such as Logan's Run (1976), Equus (1977) and An American Werewolf in London (1981) are "perfect fantasy fodder".
Personal life

Agutter remained single during her many years of residence in Los Angeles, and it has been reported she never lived with a man until she was married. In 1989 while attending an arts festival in Bath she met Johan Tham, a Swedish hotelier who at the time was a director of Cliveden Hotel in Buckinghamshire. In 1990, she became pregnant by Tham and they subsequently married on 4 August of that year. Their son Jonathan was born on 25 December 1990. They live in Camberwell, London. For many years Agutter, a great admirer of Cornwall, has owned a second home on The Lizard, the most southerly point on the English mainland.
Filmography
Filmography
Year Title Format Role Other notes
1964 East of Sudan Film Debut aged 11
1966 A Man Could Get Killed Film Linda Frazier
1968 Gates to Paradise Film Maud
Star! Film Pamela Roper
1969 I Start Counting Film Wynne
1970 The Railway Children Film Bobbie Waterbury
The Great Inimitable Mr. Dickens TV Film
1971 Walkabout Film Girl
1972 Shelley Television Mary Shelley BBC series
1976 Logan's Run Film Jessica 6
The Eagle Has Landed Film Molly Prior
1977 Equus Film Jill Mason
1978 China 9, Liberty 37 Film Catherine Sebanek
The Riddle of the Sands Film Clara
1980 Sweet William Film Ann Walton
1981 Othello Film Desdemona
An American Werewolf in London Film Nurse Alex Price
1984 Secret Places Film Miss Lowrie
1985 Love's Labour's Lost Television Rosaline
Magnum, P.I. Television Krista Villeroch
1987 Dark Tower Film Carolyn Page
1990 Child's Play 2 Film Joanne Simpson
Darkman Film Burn Doctor uncredited cameo
1993 Red Dwarf Television Prof. Mamet
2000 The Railway Children Television Mother ITV
2001 The Parole Officer Film Victor's Wife
2002 At Dawning Escaping woman
Spooks Television Tessa Phillips
2004 Number One Longing, Number Two Regret Film Kenosha
The Alan Clark Diaries Television Jane Clark BBC TV series
2005 New Tricks, Season 2, Episode 1 Television Yvonne Barrie BBC TV Series
2007 Diamond Geezer Television Vanessa ITV series
Irina Palm Television
2008 The Invisibles Television Barbara Riley BBC TV series
2009 Monday Monday Television Jenny Mountfield ITV1 TV series
Awards

    * BAFTA: Best Supporting Actress 1978 - Equus
    * Emmy: Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in Drama 1972 - The Snow Goose
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Walkabout, now there is a good film!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 12/20/09 at 6:22 am

I like Jenny Agutter in Logan's Run. Nice bio, Ninny. Thanks for sharing.  8-P

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: danootaandme on 12/20/09 at 6:25 am

I have always appreciated Jenny Agutter and think she is one of the great under-appreciated talents in the industry

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/20/09 at 6:54 am

Didn't Alan Parsons Project sing "Eye In the Sky"? ???

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/20/09 at 9:03 am


Walkabout, now there is a good film!

I like Jenny Agutter in Logan's Run. Nice bio, Ninny. Thanks for sharing.  8-P

I have always appreciated Jenny Agutter and think she is one of the great under-appreciated talents in the industry

Thanks, I wasn't even sure if anybody would recognize her name.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/20/09 at 9:05 am


Didn't Alan Parsons Project sing "Eye In the Sky"? ???

Yes they did :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMAGwMAXTpU#
For your listening enjoyment.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 12/20/09 at 12:06 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrWQdQmJU7I



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/20/09 at 12:36 pm


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrWQdQmJU7I



Cat

Thanks Cat :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/20/09 at 1:45 pm


Yes they did :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMAGwMAXTpU#
For your listening enjoyment.



Thanks Ninny.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/20/09 at 2:39 pm



Thanks Ninny.   :)

Your Welcome :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 12/20/09 at 2:42 pm


Thanks, I wasn't even sure if anybody would recognize her name.


Not recognize her name?  ... Are you kidding?  ;D  I was one of those males who grew up watching her films and just may have fantasied about her on occasion!  ::)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/20/09 at 8:53 pm


Not recognize her name?  ... Are you kidding?  ;D  I was one of those males who grew up watching her films and just may have fantasied about her on occasion!  ::)

I thought there was one member here who may have mentioned that he liked her before ;)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 12/20/09 at 10:49 pm


Not recognize her name?  ... Are you kidding?  ;D  I was one of those males who grew up watching her films and just may have fantasied about her on occasion!  ::)

I agree with gibbo.
Jenny Agutter, she was quite good looking. Didn't fantasize, but did some window shopping  ;)
Logan's run, American Werewolf in London..

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/21/09 at 6:48 am

The word of the day...Snake
#
A snake is a long, thin reptile without legs. N-COUNT
#
Something that snakes in a particular direction goes in that direction in a line with a lot of bends.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/21/09 at 6:52 am

The birthday of the day...Samuel l. Jackson
Samuel Leroy Jackson (born December 21, 1948) is an American film and television actor. After Jackson became involved with the Civil Rights Movement, he moved on to acting in theater at Morehouse College, and then, films. He had several small roles, before meeting his mentor, Morgan Freeman, and the director Spike Lee. In 1991, after gaining critical acclaim for his role in Jungle Fever, he joined the casts of more films, including Goodfellas, Patriot Games, Amos & Andrew, True Romance and Jurassic Park. In 1994, he was cast as Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction, where he received several award nominations and critical acclaim.

Jackson has since appeared in over 100 films including Die Hard with a Vengeance, The 51st State, Jackie Brown, Unbreakable, The Incredibles, Black Snake Moan, Snakes on a Plane, as well as the Star Wars prequel trilogy and small roles in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 2 and Inglourious Basterds. Jackson's many roles have made him one of the highest grossing actors at the box office. Jackson has won multiple awards throughout his career and has been portrayed in various forms of media including films, television series, and songs. In 1980, Jackson married Latanya Richardson, with whom he has one daughter, Zoe.
After the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Jackson attended the funeral in Atlanta as one of the ushers. Jackson then flew to Memphis to join an equal rights protest march. In a Parade interview Jackson revealed: "I was angry about the assassination, but I wasn’t shocked by it. I knew that change was going to take something different — not sit-ins, not peaceful coexistence." In 1969, Jackson and several other students held members of the Morehouse College board of trustees (including a nearby Martin Luther King, Sr.) hostage on the campus, demanding reform in the school's curriculum and governance. The college eventually agreed to change its policy, but Jackson was charged with and eventually convicted of unlawful confinement, a second-degree felony. Jackson was then suspended for two years for his criminal record and his actions (although he would later return to the college to earn his Bachelor of Arts in Drama in 1972). While he was expelled, Jackson was employed as a social worker in Los Angeles. Jackson decided to remain in Atlanta, where he met with Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, and others active in the Black Power movement. Jackson revealed in the same Parade interview that he began to feel empowered with his involvement in the movement, especially when the group began buying guns. However, before Jackson could become involved with any significant armed confrontation, his mother sent him to Los Angeles after the FBI told her that he would die within a year if he remained with the Black Power movement.
Acting career
1970s – 1980s
"Casting black actors is still strange for Hollywood. Denzel gets the offer first. Then it's Danny Glover, Forest Whitaker and Wesley Snipes. Right now, I'm the next one on the list."
—Jackson reacting to his new fame in 1993.

Jackson initially went to Morehouse College to major in Architecture, but decided to change his major to Drama after taking a public speaking class and appearing in a version of The Threepenny Opera. Jackson began acting in multiple plays, including Home and A Soldier's Play. He appeared in several TV films, and made his feature film debut in the blaxploitation film Together for Days (1972). After these initial roles, Jackson proceeded to move from Atlanta to New York City in 1976 and spent the next decade appearing in stage plays such as The Piano Lesson and Two Trains Running, which both premiered at the Yale Repertory Theater. At this point in his early career, Jackson developed alcoholism and cocaine addictions, resulting in him being unable to proceed with the two plays as they continued to Broadway (actors Charles S. Dutton and Anthony Chisholm took his place). Throughout his early film career, mainly in minimal roles in films such as Coming to America and various TV films, Jackson was mentored by Morgan Freeman. After a 1981 performance in the play A Soldier's Play, Jackson was introduced to director Spike Lee who would later include him in small roles for the films School Daze (1988) and Do the Right Thing (1989). He also played a minor role in the 1990 Martin Scorsese film Goodfellas as real-life Mafia associate Stacks Edwards and also worked as a stand-in on The Cosby Show for Bill Cosby.
1990s

After completing these films, Jackson's cocaine addiction worsened. By this point he was using crack and had overdosed. As a result, his family entered him into a New York rehab clinic. When he successfully completed rehab, Jackson appeared in Jungle Fever, as a crack cocaine addict, a role which Jackson called cathartic as he was recovering from his addiction. The film was so acclaimed that the 1991 Cannes Film Festival awarded a special "Supporting Actor" award just for him. After this role, Jackson became involved with multiple films, including Strictly Business, Juice, Patriot Games, and then moved on to two comedies: National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 (his first starring role) and Amos & Andrew. Jackson then worked with director Steven Spielberg in Jurassic Park.

After a turn as the criminal Big Don in the 1993 Tarantino-penned True Romance directed by Tony Scott Jackson played his breakout role of Jules in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction in 1994, the role which made him internationally recognised. For this performance, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as well as a Golden Globe nomination and a BAFTA Best Supporting Actor award win.

With a succession of unsuccessful films such as Kiss of Death, The Great White Hype, and Losing Isaiah, Jackson began to receive poor reviews from critics who had praised his performance in Pulp Fiction. This ended with his involvement in the two successful box office films A Time To Kill, where he depicted a father who is put on trial for killing two men who raped his daughter, and Die Hard with a Vengeance, starring alongside Bruce Willis in the third installment of the Die Hard series. For A Time to Kill, Jackson earned a NAACP Image for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture and a Golden Globe nomination for a Best Supporting Actor.

Quickly becoming a box office star, Jackson continued with three starring roles in 1997. In 187 he played a dedicated teacher with a terrible secret. He received an Independent Spirit award for Best First Feature alongside first-time writer/director Kasi Lemmons in the drama Eve's Bayou, for which he also served as executive producer. He joined up again with director Quentin Tarantino and received a Berlin Film Festival Silver Bear for Best Actor and a fourth Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of arms merchant Ordell Robbie in Jackie Brown. In 1998, he worked with other established actors such as Sharon Stone and Dustin Hoffman in Sphere and Kevin Spacey in The Negotiator, playing a hostage negotiator who resorts to taking hostages himself when he is falsely accused of murder and embezzlement. In 1999, Jackson starred in the horror film Deep Blue Sea, and as Jedi Master Mace Windu in George Lucas' Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. In an interview, Jackson claimed that he did not have a chance to read the script for the film and did not learn he was playing the character Mace Windu until he was fitted for his costume (he later said that he was eager to accept any role, just for the chance to be a part of the Star Wars saga).
2000s
Jackson's handprints in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.

On June 13, 2000, Jackson was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame which can be found at 7018 Hollywood Blvd. He began the next decade in his film career as a Marine colonel put on trial in Rules of Engagement, co-starred with Bruce Willis for a third time in the supernatural thriller Unbreakable, and starred in the 2000 remake of the 1971 film Shaft. Jackson's sole film in 2001 was The Caveman's Valentine, where he plays a homeless musician in a murder thriller. The film was directed by Kasi Lemmons, who previously worked with Jackson in Eve's Bayou. In 2002, he played a recovering alcoholic attempting to keep custody of his kids while fighting a battle of wits with Ben Affleck's character in Changing Lanes. He returned for Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, increasing his role from a small role to a supporting role. Mace Windu's purple lightsaber in the film was the result of Jackson's suggestion; he wanted to be sure that his character would stand out in a crowded battle scene. Jackson then acted as a NSA agent alongside Vin Diesel in xXx and a kilt-wearing drug dealer in Formula 51. In 2003, Jackson again worked with John Travolta in Basic and then as a police sergeant alongside Colin Farrell in the television show remake S.W.A.T. In 2004, Jackson played a mentor to Ashley Judd in the thriller Twisted, and lent his voice to the computer-animated film The Incredibles as the superhero Frozone. Jackson once again appeared in a Tarantino film, by cameoing in Kill Bill, Vol. 2.

In 2005, he began with the sports drama, Coach Carter, where he played a coach (based on the actual coach Ken Carter) dedicated to teaching his players that education is more important than basketball. Jackson also returned for two sequels: XXX: State of the Union, this time commanding Ice Cube, and the final Star Wars prequel film, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. His last film for 2005 was The Man alongside comedian Eugene Levy. On November 4, 2005, he was presented with the Hawaii International Film Festival Achievement in Acting Award.

On January 30, 2006, Jackson was honored with a hand and footprint ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theater; he is the seventh African American and 191st actor to be recognized in this manner. He next starred opposite of actress Julianne Moore in the box office bomb Freedomland, where he depicted a police detective attempting to help a mother find her abducted child, while quelling a citywide race riot. Jackson's second film of the year, Snakes on a Plane, gained cult film status months before it was released based on its title and cast. Jackson's decision to star in the film was solely based on the title. To build anticipation for the film, he also cameoed in the 2006 music video Snakes on a Plane (Bring It) by Cobra Starship. On December 2, Jackson won the German Bambi Award for International Film, based on his many film contributions. On December 15, 2006, Jackson starred in Home of the Brave, as a doctor returning home from the Iraq War.

On January 30, 2007, Jackson was featured as narrator in Bob Saget's direct-to-DVD Farce of the Penguins. The film was a spoof of the box office success March of the Penguins (which was narrated by Morgan Freeman). Also in 2007, he portrayed a blues player who imprisons a young woman (Christina Ricci) addicted to sex in Black Snake Moan, and the horror film 1408, an adaptation of the Stephen King short story. In 2008, Jackson reprised his role of Mace Windu in the CGI film, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, followed by Lakeview Terrace where he played a racist cop who terrorizes an interracial couple. In November of the same year, he starred along with Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes (who both died prior to the film's release) in Soul Men. In 2008, he portrayed the villain, The Octopus, in the film The Spirit, and in 2009 he narrated several scenes in Inglourious Basterds.

Throughout Jackson's career, he has appeared in many films alongside mainstream rappers. These include Tupac Shakur (Juice), Queen Latifah (Juice/Sphere), Method Man (One Eight Seven), LL Cool J (Deep Blue Sea/S.W.A.T.), Busta Rhymes (Shaft), Eve (xXx), Ice Cube (xXx: State of the Union), Xzibit (xXx: State of the Union), David Banner (Black Snake Moan), and 50 Cent (Home of the Brave). Additionally, Jackson has appeared in four films with actor Bruce Willis (National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1, Pulp Fiction, Die Hard with a Vengeance, and Unbreakable) and the actors were slated to work together in Black Water Transit before both dropped out.
Filmography
Year Film Role Director Notes
1972 Together for Days Stan Michael Schultz First feature film for Jackson and Schultz.
1978 The Trial of the Moke
1981 Ragtime Gang Member No. 2 Milos Forman
1987 Eddie Murphy Raw Eddie's uncle Robert Townsend In a sketch that precedes concert footage.
Uncle Tom's Cabin]]
1988 Coming to America Hold-Up Man John Landis
School Daze Leeds Spike Lee
1989 Do the Right Thing Mister Señor Love Daddy Spike Lee
The Exorcist III Blind Dream Man William Peter Blatty, Paul Baxley
Sea of Love Black Guy Harold Becker
Dead Man Out Calvin Fredricks
1990 Goodfellas Parnell Steven "Stacks" Edwards Martin Scorsese
Mo' Better Blues Madlock Spike Lee
Def by Temptation Minister Garth James Bond III
Betsy's Wedding Taxi Dispatcher Alan Alda
A Shock to the System Ulysses Jan Egleson
The Return of Superfly Nate Cabot Sig Shore
1991 Strictly Business Monroe Kevin Hooks
Jungle Fever Gator Purify Spike Lee
1992 Juice Trip Ernest Dickerson
Patriot Games LCDR Robby Jackson Phillip Noyce
White Sands Greg Meeker Roger Donaldson
Jumpin' at the Boneyard Mr. Simpson Jeff Stanzler
Johnny Suede B-Bop Tom Di Cillo
Fathers & Sons Marshall Paul Mones
1993 True Romance Big Don Tony Scott
Menace II Society Tat Lawson Hughes brothers
Loaded Weapon 1 Sgt. Wes Luger Gene Quintano, Charles Picerni Sr.
Amos & Andrew Andrew Sterling E. Max Frye
Jurassic Park John Raymond Arnold Steven Spielberg
The Meteor Man Dre Robert Townsend
1994 Fresh Sam Boaz Yakin
Pulp Fiction Jules Winnfield Quentin Tarantino
Against The Wall Jamaal John Frankenheimer Television movie.
The New Age Dale Michael Tolkin
Hail Caesar Mailman Anthony Michael Hall Cameo.
Assault at West Point: The Court-Martial of Johnson Whittaker Richard Theodore Greener
1995 Kiss of Death Calvin Hart Barbet Schroede
Die Hard with a Vengeance Zeus Carver John McTiernan
Losing Isaiah Kadar Lewis Stephen Gyllenhaal
Fluke Rumbo Carlo Carlei Voice.
Shaquille O'Neal: Larger than Life Narrator
1996 The Great White Hype Rev. Fred Sultan Reginald Hudlin
A Time to Kill Carl Lee Hailey Joel Schumacher
The Long Kiss Goodnight Mitch Henessey Renny Harlin
Hard Eight Jimmy Paul Thomas Anderson
Trees Lounge Wendell Steve Buscemi
Teens and Guns: Preventing Violence For use in schools.
The Search for One-eye Jimmy Colonel Ron Sam Henry Kass
1997 One Eight Seven Trevor Garfield Kevin Reynolds
Eve's Bayou Louis Batiste Kasi Lemmons Debut as a producer.
Jackie Brown Ordell Robbie Quentin Tarantino
Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
The Directors: John Frankenheimer Robert J. Emery
1998 Sphere Harry Adams Barry Levinson
The Negotiator Lt. Danny Roman F. Gary Gray
The Red Violin Charles Morritz Francois Girard
Out of Sight Con man Steven Soderbergh Uncredited cameo
1999 Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Mace Windu George Lucas
Deep Blue Sea Russell Franklin Renny Harlin
Forever Hollywood Todd McCarthy, Arnold Glassman
2000 Rules of Engagement Col. Terry L. Childers William Friedkin
Shaft John Shaft John Singleton
Unbreakable Elijah Price M. Night Shyamalan
2001 The Caveman's Valentine Romulus Ledbetter Kasi Lemmons Executive producer.
2002 Changing Lanes Doyle Gipson Roger Michell
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones Mace Windu George Lucas
xXx Agent Augustus Gibbons Rob Cohen
The 51st State (Formula 51) Elmo McElroy Ronny Yu
Fighting for Freedom: Revolution & Civil War Narrator
The Art of Action: Martial Arts in the Movies Host
Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives Ed Bell
2003 Basic Sergeant Nathan West John McTiernan
S.W.A.T. Sgt. Dan 'Hondo' Harrelson Clark Johnson
No Good Deed Jack Friar Bob Rafelson
2004 Twisted John Mills Philip Kaufman
Kill Bill Vol.2 Rufus Quentin Tarantino
The Incredibles Lucius Best/Frozone Brad Bird Voice.
In My Country Langston Whitfield John Boorman
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson Jack Johnson Voice.
The N-Word Himself Todd Williams
2005 Coach Carter Coach Ken Carter Thomas Carter
xXx: State of the Union Agent Augustus Gibbons Lee Tamahori
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith Mace Windu George Lucas
The Man Derrick Vann Les Mayfield
2006 Freedomland Lorenzo Council Joe Roth
Snakes on a Plane Neville Flynn David R. Ellis
Home of the Brave Will Marsh Irwin Winkler
Honor Deferred Narrator
2007 Farce of the Penguins Narrator Bob Saget Voice.
Black Snake Moan Lazarus Woods Craig Brewer Also sang on the soundtrack.
1408 Gerald Olin Mikael Håfström
Resurrecting the Champ Bob Satterfield Rod Lurie
Cleaner Tom Cutler Renny Harlin
Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story Narrator John Walker
Stax 50th Anniversary Concert David Leonard
2008 Jumper Agent Roland Cox Doug Liman
Iron Man Nick Fury Jon Favreau Uncredited cameo.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars Mace Windu Dave Filoni Voice.
Lakeview Terrace Abel Turner Neil LaBute
Soul Men Louis Hinds Malcolm D. Lee
The Spirit The Octopus Frank Miller
2009 Mother and Child Paul Rodrigo García
Astro Boy Zog David Bowers Voice only.
Inglourious Basterds Narrator Quentin Tarantino Voice only, uncredited.
Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey Fear Harry Kloor, Dan St. Pierre Voice only, post-production.
Blown Julian Lezard Martha Fiennes Pre-production.
Vengeance: A Love Story John Dromoor Harold Becker Pre-Production.
2010 Unthinkable TBA Gregor Jordan Completed.
Iron Man 2 Nick Fury Jon Favreau Post-production.
The Other Guys Adam McKay Filming.
xXx: The Return of Xander Cage Agent Augustus Gibbons Pre-production.
2011 Thor Nick Fury Kenneth Branagh Pre-production.
Running Wild TBA Kevin Kerslake Pre-Production.
The First Avenger: Captain America Nick Fury Joe Johnston Announced.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/21/09 at 6:55 am

The co-birthdays of the day...Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda (born December 21, 1937) is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou and, excluding a 15 year hiatus, has appeared in films ever since. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other awards and nominations. She announced her retirement from acting in 1991, but returned to film in 2005 with Monster in Law, and later Georgia Rule, released in 2007. She also produced and starred in several exercise videos released between 1982 and 1995.

Fonda has been an activist for many political causes, one of the most notable and controversial of which was her opposition to the Vietnam War. She has also protested the Iraq War and violence against women. She describes herself as a liberal and a feminist. Since 2001, Fonda has been a Christian. She published an autobiography in 2005 and currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia.
Her stage work in the late 1950s laid the foundation for her film career in the 1960s. She averaged almost two movies a year throughout the decade, starting in 1960 with Tall Story, in which she recreated one of her Broadway roles as a college cheerleader pursuing a basketball star, played by Anthony Perkins. Period of Adjustment and Walk on the Wild Side followed in 1962. In Walk on the Wild Side, Fonda played a prostitute, and earned a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer.

In 1963, she appeared in Sunday in New York. Newsday called her "the loveliest and most gifted of all our new young actresses". However, she also had her detractors—in the same year, the Harvard Lampoon named her the "Year's Worst Actress". Fonda's career breakthrough came with Cat Ballou (1965), in which she played a schoolmarm turned outlaw. This comedy Western received five Oscar nominations and was one of the year's top ten films at the box office. It was considered by many to have been the film that brought Fonda to stardom at the age of twenty-eight. After this came the comedies Any Wednesday (1966) and Barefoot in the Park (1967), the latter co-starring Robert Redford.
Roger Vadim and Jane Fonda (then married) near their home in Malibu, from Look Magazine, May 13, 1969, photo by Douglas Kirkland

In 1968, she played the lead role in the science fiction spoof Barbarella, which established her status as a sex symbol. In contrast, the tragedy They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) won her critical acclaim, and she earned her first Oscar nomination for the role. Fonda was very selective by the end of the 1960s, turning down lead roles in Rosemary's Baby and Bonnie and Clyde.
1970s

Fonda won her first Academy Award for Best Actress in 1971, again playing a prostitute, the gamine Bree Daniels, in the murder mystery Klute. She won her second Oscar in 1978 for Coming Home, the story of a disabled Vietnam War veteran's difficulty in re-entering civilian life.

Between Klute in 1971 and Fun With Dick and Jane in 1977, Fonda did not have a major film success, even though she appeared in films such as A Doll's House (1973), Steelyard Blues and The Blue Bird (1976). From comments ascribed to her in interviews, some have inferred that she personally blamed the situation on anger at her outspoken political views - "I can't say I was blacklisted, but I was greylisted." However, in her 2005 autobiography, My Life So Far, she categorically rejected such simplification. "The suggestion is that because of my actions against the war my career had been destroyed ... But the truth is that my career, far from being destroyed after the war, flourished with a vigor it had not previously enjoyed." From her own point of view, her absence from the silver screen was related more to the fact that her political activism provided a new focus in her life. By the same token her return to acting with a series of 'issue-driven' films was a reflection of this new focus. "When I hear admonitions ... warning outspoken actors to remember 'what happened to Jane Fonda back in the seventies', this has me scratching my head: And what would that be...?"

In 1972, Fonda starred as a reporter alongside Yves Montand in Jean-Luc Godard's and Jean-Pierre Gorin's film Tout va bien. The film's directors then made Letter to Jane, in which the two spent nearly an hour discussing a news photograph of Fonda.

Through her production company, IPC Films, she produced films that helped return her to star status. The 1977 comedy film Fun With Dick and Jane is generally considered her "comeback" picture. She also received positive reviews and an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of playwright Lillian Hellman in the 1977 film Julia. During this period, Fonda announced that she would make films only that focused on important issues, and she generally stuck to her word. She turned down An Unmarried Woman because she felt the part was not relevant. She followed with popular and successful films such as The China Syndrome (1979), about a cover-up of an accident in a nuclear power plant; and The Electric Horseman (1979) with her previous co-star, Robert Redford.
1980s

In 1980, Fonda starred in Nine to Five with Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton. The film was a commercial and box office success. Fonda had long wanted to work with her father, hoping it would help their strained relationship. She achieved this goal when she purchased the screen rights to the play On Golden Pond specifically for her father and herself. The film, which also starred Katharine Hepburn, brought Henry Fonda his only Academy Award for Best Actor, which Jane accepted on his behalf, as he was ill and home bound. He died five months later.

Fonda continued appearing in feature films throughout the 1980s, most notably in the role of Dr Martha Livingston in Agnes of God. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of an alcoholic murder suspect in the 1986 thriller The Morning After. She ended the decade by appearing in Old Gringo. This was followed by the romantic drama Stanley & Iris (1990), which would be her final film for 15 years.
In a 1988 interview with Barbara Walters, Fonda expressed regret for some of her comments and actions, stating:

    "I would like to say something, not just to Vietnam veterans in New England, but to men who were in Vietnam, who I hurt, or whose pain I caused to deepen because of things that I said or did. I was trying to help end the killing and the war, but there were times when I was thoughtless and careless about it and I'm very sorry that I hurt them. And I want to apologize to them and their families. I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me in an anti-aircraft gun, which looks like I was trying to shoot at American planes. It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanized such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless..."

In a 60 Minutes interview on March 31, 2005, Fonda reiterated that she had no regrets about her trip to North Vietnam in 1972, with the exception of the anti-aircraft gun photo. She stated that the incident was a "betrayal" of American forces and of the "country that gave me privilege". Fonda said, "The image of Jane Fonda, Barbarella, Henry Fonda's daughter ... sitting on an enemy aircraft gun was a betrayal ... the largest lapse of judgment that I can even imagine." She later distinguished between regret over the use of her image as propaganda and pride for her anti-war activism: "There are hundreds of American delegations that had met with the POWs. Both sides were using the POWs for propaganda... It's not something that I will apologize for." Fonda said she had no regrets about the broadcasts she made on Radio Hanoi, something she asked the North Vietnamese to do: "Our government was lying to us and men were dying because of it, and I felt I had to do anything that I could to expose the lies and help end the war."
Feminist causes

Fonda has been a longtime supporter of feminist causes, including V-Day, a movement to stop violence against women, inspired by the off-Broadway hit The Vagina Monologues, of which she is an honorary chairperson. She was present at their first summit in 2002, bringing together founder Eve Ensler, Afghan women oppressed by the Taliban, and a Kenyan activist campaigning to save girls from genital mutilation.
Jane Fonda in the lobby of the theater immediately after the conclusion of the telecast of the 62nd Academy Awards (Ted Turner is holding Jane's arm), March 26, 1990

In 2001, Fonda established the Jane Fonda Center for Adolescent Reproductive Health at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia; the goal of the center is to prevent adolescent pregnancy through training and program development.

On February 16, 2004, Fonda led a march through Ciudad Juárez, with Sally Field, Eve Ensler, and other women, urging Mexico to provide sufficient resources to newly appointed officials helping investigate the murders of hundreds of women in the rough border city.

Fonda strongly feels that many gender stereotypes are damaging to individuals of both genders and thus, in 2004, she served as a mentor to the first ever all-transsexual cast of The Vagina Monologues.

In the days before the Swedish election on September 17, 2006, Fonda went to Sweden to support the new political party Feministiskt initiativ in their election campaign.

In My Life So Far, Fonda says that she considers patriarchy to be harmful to men as well as women. She also states that for many years, she feared to call herself a feminist, because she believed that all feminists were "anti-male". But now, with her increased understanding of patriarchy, she feels that feminism is beneficial to both men and women, and states that she "still loves men". She states that when she divorced Ted Turner, she felt like she had also divorced the world of patriarchy, and was very happy to have done so.
Native Americans

Fonda went to Seattle, Washington in 1970 to support a group of Native Americans who were led by Bernie Whitebear. The group had occupied part of the grounds of Fort Lawton, which was in the process of being surplussed by the United States Army and turned into a park. The group was attempting to secure a land base where they could establish services for the sizable local Urban Indian population. Fonda went to help the endeavor because she felt "Indians had a right to part of the land that was originally all theirs." The endeavor succeeded and the Daybreak Star Cultural Center was constructed in the city's Discovery Park.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1960 Tall Story June Ryder
1962 Walk on the Wild Side Kitty Twist
The Chapman Report Kathleen Barclay
Period of Adjustment Isabel Haverstick Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress
1963 In the Cool of the Day Christine Bonner
Sunday in New York Eileen Tyler
1964 Les Félins (Joy House, The Love Cage) Melinda
La Ronde (Circle of Love) Sophie
1965 Cat Ballou Catherine 'Cat' Ballou Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1966 The Chase Anna Reeves
La Curée (The Game Is Over) Renee Saccard
Any Wednesday Ellen Gordon Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1967 Hurry Sundown Julie Ann Warren
Barefoot in the Park Corie Bratter Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress
1968 Spirits of the Dead Contessa Frederica
Barbarella Barbarella
1969 They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Gloria Beatty Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1971 Klute Bree Daniels Academy Award for Best Actress
Fotogramas de Plata for Best Foreign Movie Performer
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
1972 Tout va bien Suzanne
1973 Steelyard Blues Iris Caine
A Doll's House Nora Helmer
Golden Globe Henrietta Award, World Film Favorite - Female
1976 The Blue Bird The Night
1977 Fun with Dick and Jane Jane Harper
Julia Lillian Hellman BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
David di Donatello for Best Foreign Actress
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
1978 Coming Home Sally Hyde Academy Award for Best Actress
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Comes a Horseman Ella Connors
California Suite Hannah Warren
Golden Globe Henrietta Award, World Film Favorite - Female
1979 The China Syndrome Kimberly Wells BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — American Movie Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
The Electric Horseman Alice 'Hallie' Martin
Golden Globe Henrietta Award, World Film Favorite - Female
1980 Nine to Five Judy Bernly
1981 On Golden Pond Chelsea Thayer Wayne American Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture
Rollover Lee Winters
1984 The Dollmaker Gertie Nevels Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film
Terror in the Aisles archival footage
1985 Agnes of God Dr. Martha Livingston
1986 The Morning After Alex Sternbergen Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
1989 Old Gringo Harriet Winslow
1990 Stanley & Iris Iris Estelle King
2002 Searching for Debra Winger Herself
2003 V-Day: Until the Violence Stops Herself
2005 Monster-in-Law Viola Fields
2007 Georgia Rule Georgia Randall
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/21/09 at 6:58 am

* Keifer Sutherland
Kiefer William Fredrick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland (born 21 December 1966) is a British-born Canadian actor, best known for his portrayal of Jack Bauer on the Fox thriller drama series 24. He is an Emmy Award- and Golden Globe award-winner. He is the son of actor Donald Sutherland.
Stand By Me was the first film Sutherland made in the United States. As of 2008, Sutherland has appeared in more than 70 films, most notably The Lost Boys, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, A Few Good Men, Flatliners, Young Guns, The Vanishing, The Three Musketeers, Stand by Me, Eye for an Eye, Dark City, To End All Wars and A Time To Kill, The Sentinel and Mirrors. In 2005, Sutherland was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto, where both of his parents have also been inducted. Sutherland was also the first Inside the Actors Studio guest to be the child of a former guest; his father, Donald, appeared on the show in 1998. Sutherland was featured on the cover of the April 2006 edition of Rolling Stone, in an article entitled "Alone in the Dark with Kiefer Sutherland". The article began with Sutherland revealing his interest to be killed off in 24. However, he stated, "Don't get me wrong. I love what I do." It also revealed that he devotes 10 months a year working on 24.

He has starred in Japanese commercials for Calorie Mate, performing a parody of his Jack Bauer character. Sutherland also provides voiceovers for the current ad campaign for the Ford Motor Company of Canada. In mid-2006, he voiced the Apple Computer advertisement announcing the inclusion of Intel chips in their Macintosh computer line. He also voices the introduction to NHL games on the Versus network in the U.S. Recently, he has starred in Argentine TV commercials for Citroën C4 sedan. He has recently done voice-over for a commercial for Bank of America's "Keep the Change" program. He voiced Sgt. Roebuck in Treyarch's video game Call of Duty: World at War.

Sutherland will executive produce the two-hour pilot of Phenomenon. Maggie Murphy will also be an executive producer for the show. The Sci Fi Channel ordered a script to be written. The show revolves around a mysterious young female prodigy who leads a crack team of experts in investigating odd and supernatural anomalies of nature. Sutherland is currently the top celebrity producer of The 1 Second Film.

As a big fan, he also narrated "The Feeling On Ice" documentary that was included on UK band The Feeling's DVD "The Feeling: Come Home". Recently he voiced the words of a character in the movie "Monsters vs. Aliens".

In 2009, he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
24
Kiefer Sutherland signs an autograph at Green Hill conference in 2007

Since 2001, Sutherland is most widely associated with the role of Jack Bauer, on the critically acclaimed television series 24. After being nominated four times for the "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series" Primetime Emmy Award, Sutherland won the award in 2006 for his role in 24's fifth season. His father, Donald, was also an Emmy winner; he won an Emmy award for his role in Citizen X in 1996. In the opening skit of the 2006 Primetime Emmy Awards, Sutherland made an appearance as his 24 character, Jack Bauer. He was also nominated for Best actor in a Drama Television Series in the 2007 Golden Globe Awards for 24. According to his latest contract, his salary of $40 million for three seasons of the show make him the highest-earning actor on television. Sutherland constantly emphasizes that the show is merely "entertainment." Patrick Finnegan visited the set of 24 in February 2007 to urge the show's makers to reduce the number of torture scenes and Sutherland accepted an invitation from the U.S. military to tell West Point cadets it is wrong to torture prisoners. In an interview with OK! Magazine, Howard Gordon tells that it would be an "unbearable loss" if they killed off Sutherland's character.

On 24 March 2009, Sutherland reported to the Associated Press that he will be back for an 8th season.
Filmography
Acting
Year Film Role Notes
1983 Max Dugan Returns Bill Appeared alongside his father, Donald Sutherland
1984 The Bay Boy Donald Campbell
1985 Amazing Stories Static Series
1986 Brotherhood of Justice Victor
Trapped in Silence Kevin Richter Series
Stand by Me Ace Merrill
At Close Range Tim
1987 Crazy Moon Brooks
Promised Land Danny
The Lost Boys David
The Killing Time The Stranger
1988 Bright Lights, Big City Tad Allagash
Young Guns Josiah Gordon 'Doc' Scurlock
1969 Scott Denny
1989 Renegades Buster McHenry
1990 Young Guns II Josiah Gordon 'Doc' Scurlock
Flatliners Nelson
Chicago Joe and the Showgirl Karl Hulten
The Nutcracker Prince The Nutcracker Prince Voice
Flashback John Buckner
1992 Article 99 Dr. Peter Morgan
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me Sam Stanley
A Few Good Men Lt. Jonathan James Kendrick
1993 Last Light Denver Bayliss
The Three Musketeers Athos
The Vanishing Jeff Harriman
1994 The Cowboy Way Sonny Gilstrap
1996 Eye for an Eye Robert Doob
Freeway Bob Wolverton
A Time to Kill Freddie Lee Cobb Appeared alongside his father, Donald Sutherland
1997 Armitage III: Poly-Matrix Ross Sylibus Voice
Truth or Consequences, N.M. Curtis Freley
1998 Dark City Dr. Daniel Schreber
A Soldier's Sweetheart Rat Kiley
Break Up John Box
Ground Control Jack Harris
1999 Eye of the Killer Detective Michael "Mick" Hayden
Watership Down Hickory Series; voice for three episodes of season 2 only
2000 Beat William S. Burroughs
Woman Wanted Wendell Goddard
Picking Up the Pieces Bobo
The Right Temptation Michael Farrow-Smith
2001 Cowboy Up Hank Braxton
To End All Wars Lt. Jim Reardon
2001–present 24 Jack Bauer Series
2002 Dead Heat Phally
Desert Saints Arthur Banks
Behind the Red Door Roy
2003 Phone Booth The Caller Theatrical release was delayed due to the Beltway sniper attacks in October 2002.
The Land Before Time X Bron Voice
Paradise Found Paul Gauguin
2004 Taking Lives Hart
NASCAR 3D: The IMAX Experience Narrator
2005 The Flight That Fought Back Narrator TV movie
River Queen Doyle
2006 I Trust You to Kill Me Himself
The Sentinel David Breckinridge
The Wild Samson the Lion Voice
2006–7 The Simpsons The Colonel; Jack Bauer Series; voice in "G.I. (Annoyed Grunt)" and "24 Minutes"
2007 Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight Raistlin Majere Voice
2008 Mirrors Ben Carson
Call of Duty: World at War Sgt. Roebuck Video game; voice
Corner Gas Himself "Final Countdown"
24: Redemption Jack Bauer TV movie
2009 Monsters vs. Aliens Gen. W.R. Monger Voice
2010 Twelve Lionel Filming
Directing
Year Film Notes
1993 Last Light TV movie
1995 Fallen Angels Series; 1 episode
1997 Truth or Consequences, N.M.
2000 Woman Wanted
2008 Broken Music video
Little Toy Gun Music video
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/21/09 at 7:03 am

* Ray Romano
Raymond Albert "Ray" Romano (born December 21, 1957) is an Emmy Award-winning American actor, writer, and stand-up comedian, best known for his roles on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond and in the Ice Age film series.His early comedy career started when he competed in the Johnnie Walker Comedy Search in 1989 and included many outlets such as Comedy Central, where he had been a recurring guest voice on the show Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist. He also was a contestant on Star Search in the stand-up comedy category. He was originally cast to play Joe on the American television sitcom NewsRadio, but was fired, to be replaced by Joe Rogan. He then appeared on Late Show with David Letterman doing his stand up routine which formed his ties with CBS. Shortly thereafter, he became the star of his own show, Everybody Loves Raymond on CBS, that featured a cast and format more suitable to Romano's brand of humor.

Romano and his comedian friend Kevin James starred in the salesman comedy Grilled, as two guys of the same profession who are both very desperate to land a big sale. Romano was featured on a 2000 episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, on which he won US$125,000 for the NYPD's D.A.R.E. Unit. His older brother, Richard Romano (born in 1956) is a sergeant with the NYPD. He also has a younger brother, Robert Romano (born 1965).

In 2001, Romano was named one of E!'s top twenty entertainers of the year. In the same year, he was featured with his brother (a teacher at a school in Long Island) on a New York Police Department recruiting poster. In 2004, he became the highest paid television actor in history for his role of Raymond on CBS's Everybody Loves Raymond. It was later revealed on E! that he had broken another record by his show having the highest revenue, at US$3.9 billion.

On December 13, 2003, Romano was featured as a special guest star, sending a birthday card to Bob Barker in his eightieth-birthday bash on the seventh "Million Dollar Spectacular" special of the long-running daytime CBS series The Price Is Right.

Romano was the subject of the documentary film 95 Miles to Go. The film documents Romano's road-trip for a series of gigs across the south of the United States. The film was released in theaters on April 7, 2006 by ThinkFilm. In August 2006, Romano was interviewed in front of a live audience at UCLA by fellow stand-up veteran, David Steinberg, for an episode of Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg. The program first aired on the TV Land network in March 2007.

Romano is set to return to TV with a new dramedy for TNT in 2009 called Men of a Certain Age, which he co-created with former Everybody Loves Raymond writer Mike Royce.
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* Jane Kaczmarek
Jane Frances Kaczmarek (born December 21, 1955) is an American actress. She is best known for playing the character of Lois on the television series Malcolm in the Middle. She lives in San Marino, California.
Kaczmarek, a Polish American, was born in Greendale, Wisconsin, the daughter of Evelyn, a teacher, and Edward Kaczmarek, a defense department worker. She majored in theater at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She later studied at the Yale School of Drama for her graduate degree and was a part of its theater company. She has had several Broadway hits, including Lost In Yonkers and Raised In Captivity, where she won an LA Drama Critics’ Award. Her first television role was that of Margie Spoletto on For Lovers Only (1982). Her first major role was that of Linda Bauer on Equal Justice from 1990-1991.

Kaczmarek has also appeared in over forty television roles, the most notable including:

    * Connie Lehman in "The Paper Chase: The Second Year" and "The Paper Chase: The Third Year" (1983-1984)
    * Maureen Culter, girlfriend of Martin Crane (John Mahoney) on Frasier in "Police Story" (052 - 1996) and "Dad Loves Sherry, the Boys Just Whine" (082 - 1997)
    * Janet Rudman on Law & Order in "Censure" (414 - 1994)
    * "David's Mom", mother of David (Tobey Maguire) and Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) in Pleasantville (1998)
    * Carol Anderson, biological mother of Julie Emrick on Felicity in 5 episodes (1999-2000)
    * Holly in five episodes of Cybill (1996-1997)
    * Helene Thompson in three episodes of Party of Five (1995-1999)
    * Lois, mother of Malcolm (Frankie Muniz), Reese (Justin Berfield), Francis (Christopher Masterson), Dewey (Erik Per Sullivan), and baby Jamie, and wife of Hal (Bryan Cranston) in 151 episodes of Malcolm in the Middle from 2000 to 2006
    * Trudy Kessler, Courtroom Judge in 25 episodes of Raising the Bar from 2008 to 2009
    * the voice of Judge Constance Harm in several episodes of The Simpsons from 2001 to present.

Malcolm in the Middle

In 2000, Kaczmarek was cast to play Lois in the FOX mid-season replacement Malcolm in the Middle. TV Guide dubbed her role in the series as a "true breakout; a female Homer Simpson", and critics hailed her for her comic talents. Later, Kaczmarek would credit the show for bringing out her comedic side, claiming, " I couldn’t even get auditions for comedies. I played very unfunny people."

Kaczmarek was nominated seven times for an Emmy for her performance on the show, one for every year. She also earned three Golden Globe nominations and two Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations, was honored with a Television Critics Association Award in 2000 and 2001, plus an American Comedy Award and a Family Television Award in 2001.
Awards and nominations

Golden Globe Awards:

    *
          o 2001 - Best Actress TV Series Comedy - Malcolm In The Middle (nominated)
          o 2002 - Best Actress TV Series Comedy - Malcolm In The Middle (nominated)
          o 2003 - Best Actress TV Series Comedy - Malcolm In The Middle (nominated)

Emmy Awards:

    *
          o 2000 - Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series - Malcolm In The Middle (nominated)
          o 2001 - Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series - Malcolm In The Middle (nominated)
          o 2002 - Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series - Malcolm In The Middle (nominated)
          o 2003 - Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series - Malcolm In The Middle (nominated)
          o 2004 - Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series - Malcolm In The Middle (nominated)
          o 2005 - Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series - Malcolm In The Middle (nominated)
          o 2006 - Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series - Malcolm In The Middle (nominated)

Screen Actors Guild Awards:

    *
          o 2001 - Outstanding Performance By A Female Actor In A Comedy Series - Malcolm In The Middle (nominated)
          o 2003 - Outstanding Performance By A Female Actor In A Comedy Series - Malcolm In The Middle (nominated)

Satellite Awards:

    *
          o 2002 - Best Performance By An Actress In A Series Comedy Or Musical - Malcolm In The Middle (nominated)
          o 2004 - Best Performance By An Actress In A Series Comedy Or Musical - Malcolm In The Middle

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 12/21/09 at 11:53 am

I was looking for a video of Richard Pryor doing his joke about snakes making you run into trees but I couldn't find it.  :\'( :\'( :\'(



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 12/21/09 at 2:57 pm

That Snakes on a Plane was a really bad movie.  ;D  I liked Jane Fonda's early movies despite her controversial period.

I see you manged to get both Sutherland's (father and son) into pics... ;) That must have been when they did Klute together...

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/21/09 at 4:08 pm


That Snakes on a Plane was a really bad movie.  ;D  I liked Jane Fonda's early movies despite her controversial period.

I see you manged to get both Sutherland's (father and son) into pics... ;) That must have been when they did Klute together...

I never saw Snakes on a Plane..I could take or leave Jane Fonda (I did like On Golden Pond)....And once in a while I can be clever,or just be lucky ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/21/09 at 4:31 pm

There's Also Jake "The Snake" Roberts.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/22/09 at 6:28 am


There's Also Jake "The Snake" Roberts.

I remember him

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/22/09 at 6:33 am

The word of the day...Gardener
#
A gardener is a person who is paid to work in someone else's garden. N-COUNT
#
A gardener is someone who enjoys working in their own garden growing flowers or vegetables.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/22/09 at 6:36 am

The birthday of the day...Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, known simply as Ralph Fiennes (pronounced /ˈreɪf ˈfaɪnz/; born 22 December 1962), is an English actor. He has appeared in films such as Schindler's List, The English Patient, In Bruges, The Constant Gardener, Strange Days, Maid in Manhattan and the Harry Potter films. Most recently he appeared in The Hurt Locker. Fiennes has won a Tony Award and has been nominated twice for Academy Awards. In 2001, Fiennes received the William Shakespeare Award from the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Fiennes is a UNICEF UK ambassador Fiennes trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He began his career at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park and, also during the late 1980s, the National Theatre before becoming a star in the Royal Shakespeare Company. Fiennes first worked on screen in 1990 and then made his film debut in 1992 as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights opposite Juliette Binoche, for which he received substantial acclaim and praise throughout Europe.

1993 was his "breakout year". He had a major role in the very controversial Peter Greenaway film The Baby of Mâcon with Julia Ormond. Though the film was poorly received, Fiennes' career suffered no lasting consequences, and later that year he became known internationally for portraying the amoral Nazi concentration camp commandant Amon Goeth in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List. For this he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He did not win the Oscar, but did win the Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award for the role. His portrayal as Göth also earned him a spot on the American Film Institute's list of top 50 movie villains.

In 1994, he portrayed American academic Charles Van Doren in Quiz Show, and in 1996 was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the World War II epic romance The English Patient. Fiennes' work has ranged from thrillers (Red Dragon) to animated Biblical epic (The Prince of Egypt) to campy nostalgia (The Avengers) to romantic comedy (Maid in Manhattan) and offbeat dramedy (Oscar and Lucinda).

Fiennes was cast as Lord Voldemort in the 2005 fantasy film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and has retained this role for both Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which will be released in two parts in 2010 and 2011. However, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, as Voldemort appeared as an 11 year-old, he was played by Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, Fiennes' nephew.

The Constant Gardener was released in 2005 with Fiennes in the title role. The film is set in the slums of Kibera and Loiyangalani, Kenya. The situation affected the crew to the extent that they set up the Constant Gardener Trust in order to provide basic education around these villages. Fiennes is a patron of the charity. His 2007 performance in the play Faith Healer gained him a nomination for a 2006 Tony Award.

In 2008 he reteamed with frequent collaborator director Jonathan Kent to play the title role in Sophocles' Oedipus the King at the National Theatre in London. He will also appear in a 2010 West End revival of Uncle Vanya. Also, he played the Duke of Devonshire in The Duchess (2008).

In February 2009 he was the special guest of the Belgrade's Film Festival FEST. He plans to make a movie in Serbian capital of Belgrade in 2010 after a Shakespeare book. His plans to do it in 2009 are prolonged because of the economic crisis in the world. He also reunited with Kathryn Bigelow for her Iraq War opus, The Hurt Locker in 2009, appearing as an English mercenary.
Fiennes in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in 2003 during his visit as a UNICEF UK ambassador.
Personal life

Fiennes met actress Alex Kingston while both were students at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. After dating for ten years, they married in 1993. However, they divorced in 1997. In 1995, Fiennes started dating Francesca Annis, an actress 18 years his senior, who played his mother in Hamlet. In February 2006 the couple separated after tabloid reports revealed that Fiennes had had an affair with Romanian singer Cornelia Crisan
Selected filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1990 A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia T. E. Lawrence TV
1992 Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights Heathcliff
1993 The Baby of Mâcon The Bishop's son
Schindler's List Amon Göth BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor
Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
London Film Critics' Circle Award for Best British Actor
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
1994 Quiz Show Charles Van Doren
1995 Strange Days Lenny Nero Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actor
1996 The English Patient Count László de Almássy Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
1997 Oscar and Lucinda Oscar Hopkins
1998 The Avengers John Steed
The Prince of Egypt Ramesses II (voice)
1999 Sunshine Ignatz Sonnenschein/Adam Sors/Ivan Sors European Film Award for Best European Actor
Onegin Evgeny Onegin
The End of the Affair Maurice Bendrix Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — London Film Critics' Circle Award for Best British Actor
2000 The Miracle Maker Jesus Christ (voice)
2002 Spider Spider Nominated — European Film Award for Best European Actor
Nominated — London Film Critics' Circle Award for Best British Actor
The Good Thief Tony Angel (uncredited)
Red Dragon Francis Dolarhyde
Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor
Maid in Manhattan Christopher Marshall
2005 The Chumscrubber Mayor Michael Ebbs
Chromophobia Stephen Tulloch
The Constant Gardener Justin Quayle Evening Standards British Film Award for Best Actor
London Film Critics' Circle Award for Best British Actor
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit Victor Quartermaine (voice)
The White Countess Todd Jackson
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Lord Voldemort
2006 Land of the Blind Joe
2007 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Lord Voldemort
Bernard and Doris Bernard Lafferty Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
2008 In Bruges Harry Waters Nominated — British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actor
The Duchess William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire Nominated — British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Nominated — London Film Critics' Circle Award for Best British Actor
The Reader Older Michael Berg
2009 The Hurt Locker Contractor Team Leader
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Lord Voldemort (appears in archive footage only)
2010 Cemetery Junction Mr Kendrick filming
Clash of the Titans Hades filming
Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang Lord Gray filming
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I Lord Voldemort post-production
Coriolanus Coriolanus pre-production
2011 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II Lord Voldemort filming
Stage

    * Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (1985) - Role: Curio - Directed by Richard Digby Day - New Shakespeare Company - Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London
    * A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (1985) - Role: Cobweb - Directed by Toby Robertson - New Shakespeare Company - Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London
    * A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (1986) - Role: Lysander - Directed by David Conville and Emma Freud - New Shakespeare Company - Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London and New Shakespeare Company's European Tour
    * Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (1986) - Role: Romeo - Directed by Declan Donnellan - New Shakespeare Company - Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London
    * Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello (1987) - Role: Son - Directed by Michael Rudman - National Theatre's Olivier Theatre, London
    * Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (1987) - Role: Arkady Nikolayevich Kirsanov - Directed by Michael Rudman - National Theatre's Lyttelton Theatre, London
    * Ting Tang Mine by Nick Darke (1987) - Role: Lisha Ball - Directed by Michael Rudman - National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre, London
    * Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare (1988) - Role: Claudio - Directed by Di Trevis - Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
    * The Plantagenets: Henry VI, The Rise of Edward IV, Richard III His Death by William Shakespeare (1988-1989) - Role: Henry VI, ghost of Henry VI - Directed by Adrian Noble - Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon and Barbican Theatre, London
    * King John (1989) by William Shakespeare - Role: Dauphin - Directed by Deborah Warner - The Other Place Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon and The Pit Theatre, London
    * The Man Who Came to Dinner by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman (1989) - Role: Bert Jefferson - Directed by Ron Gene Saks - The Royal Shakespeare Company - Barbican Theatre, London
    * Playing with Trains by Stephen Poliakoff (1989) - Role: Gant - Directed by Ron Daniels - The Royal Shakespeare Company - The Pit Theatre, London
    * Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare (1990) - Role: Troilus - Directed by Sam Mendes - The Royal Shakespeare Company - Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
    * King Lear by William Shakespeare (1990) - Role: Edmund - Directed by Nicholas Hytner - The Royal Shakespeare Company - Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
    * Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare (1991) - Role: Berowne - Directed by Terry Hands - The Royal Shakespeare Company - Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon and Barbican Theatre, London
    * Hamlet by William Shakespeare (1995) - Role: Hamlet, with Francesca Annis as Gertrude - Directed by Jonathan Kent - The Almeida Theatre Company - Hackney Empire, London and Belasco Theatre on Broadway, NY
    * Ivanov by Anton Chekhov translated by David Hare (February-April 1997) - Role: Ivanov - Directed by Jonathan Kent - The Almeida Theatre Company - Almeida Theatre, London
    * Coriolanus by William Shakespeare (2000) - Role: Coriolanus - Directed by Jonathan Kent - The Almeida Theatre Company - Gainsborough Film Studios in Shoreditch, London and BAM Harvey Theatre in Brooklyn, New York City
    * Richard II by William Shakespeare (2000) - Role: Richard II - Directed by Jonathan Kent - The Almeida Theatre Company - Gainsborough Film Studios in Shoreditch, London and BAM Harvey Theatre in Brooklyn, New York City
    * The Play What I Wrote by Hamish McColl, Sean Foley and Eddie Braben (2001) - Role: Sir Ralph Fiennes - Directed by Kenneth Branagh - The Duo The Right Size - Wyndham's Theatre, West End
    * The Talking Cure by Christopher Hampton (2003) - Role: Carl Jung - Directed by Howard Davies - National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre, London
    * Brand by Henrik Ibsen (2003) - Role: Brand - Directed by Adrian Noble - The Royal Shakespeare Company - Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon and Theatre Royal Haymarket, West End
    * Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (2005) - Role: Mark Anthony - Directed by Deborah Warner - Barbican Centre, London & tour
    * Faith Healer by Brian Friel (2006) - Role: Frank Hardy - Directed by Jonathan Kent - Gate Theatre, Dublin and Booth Theatre on Broadway, New York City
    * First Love by Samuel Beckett - Sydney Festival 2007
    * God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza (2008) - Role: Alain Reille - Gielgud Theatre, West End
    * Oedipus the King by Sophocles (2008) - Role: Oedipus - National Theatre, London

Selected television credits

    * Prime Suspect (1991)

Selected other projects, contributions

    * When Love Speaks (2002, EMI Classics) - "Sonnet 129" ("Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame")

Awards and nominations

Awards

    * 1993 - New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor - Schindler's List
    * 1994 - BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Schindler's List
    * 1994 - NSFC Award, DFWFCA Award, and CFCA Award for Best Supporting Actor - Schindler's List
    * 1995 - ALFS Award for British Actor of the Year - Schindler's List
    * 1995 - Tony Award for Best Actor - Hamlet
    * 1999 - European Film Award for Best Actor - Sunshine
    * 2005 - Krzysztof Kieślowski Award for his body of work as a thespian
    * 2006 - Honorary Fellowship of UCD Dramatic Society for services to theatre
    * 2007 - Spike TV's 2007 Scream Awards for Most Vile Villain - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
    * 2007 - The James Joyce Award of the Literary and Historical Society.

Nominations

    * 1994 - Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor - Schindler's List
    * 1994 - Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture - Schindler's List
    * 1994 - MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance - Schindler's List
    * 1996 - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast - The English Patient
    * 1997 - Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role - The English Patient
    * 1997 - BAFTA Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role - The English Patient
    * 1997 - Golden Globe and Satellite Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama - The English Patient
    * 1999 - Annie Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production - The Prince of Egypt
    * 2000 - BAFTA Film Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role - The End of the Affair
    * 2000 - Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role - Sunshine
    * 2001 - ALFS Award for British Actor of the Year - The End of the Affair
    * 2003 - Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor - Red Dragon
    * 2003 - Teen Choice Award - Choice Movie Liplock (shared with Jennifer Lopez) - Maid in Manhattan
    * 2006 - BAFTA Award - Best Actor - The Constant Gardener
    * 2006 - Annie Awards - Best Voice/Animation - Wallace & Gromit - Curse of the Were-Rabbit
    * 2006 - MTV Movie Awards - Best Villain - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
    * 2008 - Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - The Duchess

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/22/09 at 6:40 am

The co-birthdays of the day...Diane Sawyer

Diane Sawyer (born December 22, 1945) is an American television journalist for the ABC News division of the ABC network. On December 21, 2009, she began anchoring World News with Diane Sawyer, the network's flagship news program.

Until December 11, 2009, Sawyer was a long-time co-anchor of ABC News's morning news program, Good Morning America (GMA).

In 2001 she was named one of the thirty most-powerful women in America by the Ladies' Home Journal. In 2007 she ranked 62nd on "Forbes Magazine's List of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women".  Sawyer was a local television news reporter and weather girl for WLKY-TV in Louisville.

In 1970, White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler hired her to serve in the administration of U.S. President Richard Nixon. Sawyer continued through Nixon's resignation from the presidency in 1974 and worked on the Nixon-Ford transition team in 1974–1975, after which she decamped with Nixon to California and helped him write his memoirs, published in 1978. She also helped prepare Nixon for his famous set of television interviews with journalist David Frost in 1977.

Years later, Sawyer would be suspected to be Deep Throat, the source of leaks of classified information to journalist Bob Woodward during the Watergate scandal. In 2005 Deep Throat was identified as W. Mark Felt but prior to that, Rabbi Baruch Korff, a longtime Nixon confidant and defender known as "Nixon's rabbi," said on his deathbed that he believed Sawyer was Deep Throat. Sawyer laughed it off, and she was one of six people to request and receive a public denial from Woodward.

In 1978, Sawyer joined CBS News as a political correspondent and became a co-anchor, with Bill Kurtis, of the CBS Morning News in 1981. In 1984, she became a correspondent for 60 Minutes, a CBS News investigative television newsmagazine; she remained for five years.

In 1989, she moved to ABC News to co-anchor Primetime Live, a newsmagazine, with Sam Donaldson. From 1998 to 2000, she would become a co-anchor for ABC's 20/20, also a newsmagazine, co-anchoring on Wednesdays with Donaldson and on Sundays with Barbara Walters.

In 1999, Sawyer returned to morning news, under a lucrative contract, as the co-anchor of GMA with Charles Gibson. The assignment was putatively temporary, but her success in the position, measured by a close in the gap with front-runner Today, NBC News's morning program, sustained her in the position far longer than anticipated.

On September 2, 2009, she was announced as the successor to Gibson, who retired as ABC World News anchor on Friday, December 18, 2009. She left GMA on December 11, 2009, and was scheduled to become the ABC World News anchor in January 2010. However, on December 1, 2009, The New York Times reported that instead of moving to ABC World News in January 2010, Sawyer will start on December 21, 2009, three days after Gibson's departure . Along with Katie Couric of CBS News, two of the three network news anchors on broadcast television will be women.
Career timeline

    * 1984–1989 — 60 Minutes correspondent
    * 1989–1998; since 2000 — Primetime Live co-anchor
    * 1998–2000 — 20/20 co-anchor
    * January 1999–December 11, 2009 — Good Morning America co-anchor
    * December 21, 2009 — ABC World News anchor

Notable interviews (selected)



Sawyer has interviewed many political figures including U.S. Presidents George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. She conducted the first interview with U.S. President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton after his first election to the presidency in 1992.

On February 12, 2007, she interviewed Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Her interview with President of Iraq Saddam Hussein was his first Western television interview in a decade.

She has also interviewed:

    * Fidel Castro, President of Cuba
    * Robert McNamara, U.S. Secretary of Defense
    * Manuel Noriega, general and the military dictator of Panama from 1983 to 1989
    * Nancy Pelosi, the first female Speaker of the United States House of Representatives



    * Nancy Reagan, First Lady
    * Hyman G. Rickover, U.S. Admiral
    * Antonin Scalia, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice

She was allowed to take a special tour of North Korea.

From the entertainment world, Sawyer has interviewed — especially as a host of GMA:

    * Clay Aiken, singer (interviewed twice)
    * Bobby Brown, singer
    * Ellen DeGeneres, comedienne (after DeGeneres came out as a lesbian)
    * Dixie Chicks, country-music group
    * Michael J. Fox, actor
    * Mel Gibson, actor
    * Whitney Houston, singer



    * Michael Jackson, singer
    * Madonna, singer
    * Roman Polanski, director
    * Lisa Marie Presley, singer–songwriter
    * Rihanna, singer
    * Britney Spears, singer

Sawyer also interviewed drug king pin Rayful Edmond III of Washington, D.C., in 1989 and once again in 1997 on 60 Minutes.
Personal life

On April 29, 1988, she and Mike Nichols, a film director, were married; they have no children. Nichols has Daisy (born 1974), Max (born 1964), and Jenny (born 1977) from his three previous marriages. Sawyer had previously had relationships with Frank Gannon, a Nixon aide; and Richard Holbrooke, a U.S diplomat
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/22/09 at 6:45 am

* Héctor Elizondo....Héctor Elizondo (born December 22, 1936) is a Golden Globe–nominated and Emmy Award–winning American actor. Born in New York, Elizondo excelled in sports and later contemplated becoming an educator. He took dancing classes. Elizondo's first major role was that of "God" in a play for which he won an Obie award. Since then Elizondo has participated in over 80 movies and has made numerous television appearances...From 1962 to 1963, Elizondo studied dance at the Ballet Arts Company at Carnegie Hall and in 1963 he landed parts in two Off-Broadway shows: Kill the One-Eyed Man and The Great White Hope. His first major success came when he played "God" in guise of a Puerto Rican steam room attendant in the play Steambath. Elizondo won an Obie award for his performance. Many of his roles involve playing a friend or sympathizer to the lead character. As a voice-actor, he played Bane, one of the more aggressively themed characters in Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman. In 1974, Elizondo played against type as ex-mafioso-turned-subway hijacker "Mr. Grey" in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.

In the 1980s, Elizondo befriended Garry Marshall; Marshall was impressed with his talent and it was to become a lifelong friendship, which would bring benefits for both. Their first movie together was Young Doctors in Love. In some of the movies in which Elizondo appeared, he went uncredited and he would not have minded staying that way for the movie Pretty Woman, however it was Marshall who insisted on crediting him. His role in Pretty Woman only lasted 10 minutes, but it led to his receiving a Golden Globe nomination. Elizondo has participated in over 80 movies and 12 of them have been Marshall's. In 1999, he guest-starred in Runaway Bride as "Fisher" the husband of the male protagonist's ex.

In 2001, he was featured in the short-lived television drama Kate Brasher and portrayed security head Joe in the movie The Princess Diaries, a role he reprised in the 2004 sequel, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement.

He is probably best known to the television audience as Dr. Phillip Watters on the CBS television series Chicago Hope created by well known television creator David E. Kelley. He has won both an Emmy and ALMA award and was nominated for a Satellite Award and several SAG Awards for playing this role. He's also the only person to stay on the show for its entire original run.

On April 30, 2008, it was announced by USA Network that Elizondo will become Adrian Monk's new therapist, Dr. Neven Bell, on their award-winning series Monk. Elizondo replaced actor Stanley Kamel, who died suddenly on April 8, 2008.
Personal life

Elizondo has been married three times. He has a son from his first marriage. Elizondo is currently married to Carolee Campbell, his wife since 1969.
Filmography
Film
Year Film Role Other notes
1963 The Fat Black Pussycat
1969 The Vixens Inspector
1970 The Landlord Hector
1971 Valdez Is Coming Mexican Rider
Born to Win Vivian
1972 Deadhead Miles Bad Character
Pocket Money Juan
Stand Up and Be Counted Lou Kellerman
1974 The Taking of Pelham One Two Three Grey
1975 Report to the Commissioner Captain D'Angelo
1976 Diary of the Dead Stan
1977 Thieves Man Below
1979 Cuba Capt. Raphael Ramirez
1980 American Gigolo Det. Sunday
1981 The Fan Police Insp. Raphael Andrews
1982 Young Doctors in Love Angelo/Angela Bonafetti
1984 The Flamingo Kid Arthur Willis
1985 Private Resort The Maestro
1987 Overboard Garbage Scow Skipper Uncredited
1988 "Astronomy" Short film
Beaches Judge Uncredited
1989 Leviathan G.P. Cobb
1990 Pretty Woman Bernard Thompson
Taking Care of Business Warden Toolman
1991 Final Approach Dr. Dio Gottlieb
Necessary Roughness Coach Ed Gennero
Frankie and Johnny Nick
1992 There Goes the Neighborhood Norman Rutledge
Samantha Walter
1993 Being Human Dom Paulo
1994 Backstreet Justice Steve Donovan
Beverly Hills Cop III Jon Flint
Getting Even with Dad Lt. Romayko
Exit to Eden Dr. Martin Helifax
1995 Perfect Alibi Det. Ryker
1996 Dear God Vladek Vidov
1997 Turbulence Lt. Aldo Hines
1999 The Other Sister Ernie
Entropy The Chairman
Runaway Bride Fisher
2001 Tortilla Soup Martin Naranjo
The Princess Diaries Joe
How High Bill the Crew Coach
2003 Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman Bane Release Direct-to-Video
2004 Raising Helen Mickey Massey Uncredited
The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement Joe
2006 I-See-You.Com Greg Rishwain
The Celestine Prophecy Cardinal Sebastian
2007 Music Within Ben Padrow
Georgia Rule Izzy
Love in the Time of Cholera Don Leo
2010 Valentine's Day Edgar post-production
Through the Eyes of a Son: The Lou Rawls Story Nick Venet pre-production
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1967 The Edge of Night Dimitri
1969 The Jackie Gleason Show Episode: The Honeymooners - Mexican Hat Trick
1971 The Impatient Heart Mr. Hernandez TV-Movie
1972 All in the Family Carlos Mendoza Episode: "The Elevator Story"
1973, 1976 Kojak Det. Nick Ferro
Carl Dettrow Episode: "Web of Death"
Episode: "A Need to Know"
1974 Maude Cop Episode: "Speed Trap"
1975 Baretta Jerry Damon Episode: "The Fire Man"
Columbo: A Case of Immunity Hassan Salah TV-Movie
1975, 1978 The Rockford Files John Micelli
Frank Falcone Episode: "Say Goodbye to Jennifer" and "A Good Clean Bust with Sequel Rights"
1976 Popi Abraham Rodriguez 11 episodes
Wanted: The Sundance Woman Pancho Villa TV-Movie
1978 The Dain Curse Ben Feeney TV-Movie
The Eddie Capra Mysteries Episode: "Dying Declaration"
1980 Freebie and the Bean Det. Sgt. Dan 'Bean' Delgado 7 episodes
1982 Medal of Honor Rag TV-Movie
Bret Maverick Mr. Gomez Episode: "The Hidalgo Thing"
Honeyboy Emilio Ramirez TV-Movie
1983 Feel the Heat Monkey Moreno
Casablanca Capt. Louis Renault 5 episodes
Woman of San Quentin Capt. Mike Reyes TV-Movie
1984 a.k.a. Pablo Jose Sanchez/Shapiro 6 episodes
Hill Street Blues Insp. Joe Keenan Episode: "Ewe and Me, Babe"
1985 Murder: My Reason of Insanity Ben Haggarty TV-Movie
Out of the Darkness Father George TV-Movie
Foley Square Jesse Steinberg 14 episodes
1986 Courage Nick Miraldo TV-Movie
Amazing Stories Meadows Episode: "Life on Death Row"
Matlock Det. Joe Peters Episode: "The Cop"
1987 Tales from the Hollywood Hills: Natica Jackson Morris King TV-Movie
Night Heat Episode: "The Kid"
Down and Out in Beverly Hills Dave Whiteman 13 episodes
1988 Addicted to His Love Det. Currigan TV-Movie
1989 Kojak: Ariana Edson Saunders TV-Movie
The Equalizer Episode: "Past Imperfect"
Your Mother Wears Combat Boots Sergeant Burke TV-Movie
1990 Sparks: The Price of Passion Vic Ramos TV-Movie
Dark Avenger Capt. David Strauss TV-Pilot
Forgotten Prisoners: The Amnesty Files Hasan Demir TV-Movie
1991 Chains of Gold Lt. Ortega TV-Movie
Finding the Way Home Ruben TV-Movie
1991–1993 The Pirates of Dark Water loz Voice
21 episodes
1992 The Burden of Proof Alejandro 'Sandy' Stern Miniseries
Fish Police Don Calamari Voice
Episode: "Beauty's Only Fin Deep"
Mrs. Cage Lt. Angel TV-Movie
1993 Jonny's Golden Quest Voice
TV-Movie
Tales from the Crypt Leo Burn Episode: "As Ye Sow"
Animaniacs Stradivarius Voice
Segment: "The Cat and the Fiddle"
1994 Picket Fences Dr. Phillip Watters Episode: "Rebels with Causes"
1994, 1995 Aladdin Malcho Voice
Episodes: "The Return of Malcho" and "While the City Snoozes"
1994–2000 Chicago Hope Dr. Phillip Watters 141 episodes
1995 Batman: The Animated Series Sheldon Fallbrook Voice
Episode: "The Terrible Trio"
Jonny Quest vs. The Cyber Insects Attacama Voice
TV-Movie
1996 Gargoyles Zafiro Voice
Episode: "The Green"
1997 Borrowed Hearts Javier Del Campo TV-Movie
1998 Mikhail Baryshnikov 's Stories from My Childhood Voice
Episode: "Ivan and His Magic Pony"
Early Edition Dr. Phillip Watters Episode: "Mum's the Word"
Safe House Dr. Simon TV-Movie
2001 Kate Brasher Joe Almeida 6 episodes
2001–2004 American Experience Narrator Episodes: "Zoot Suit Riots" and "Remember the Alamo"
2002 Fidel Eddie Chibas Miniseries
The West Wing Dr. Dalton Millgate Episode: "Dead Irish Writers"
Street Time Fariz Hammoud Episodes: "No Excuses", "Betrayal" and "Reversal of Fortune"
What's New, Scooby-Doo? Dr. Guitirrez Voice
Episode: "3-D Struction"
2003 The Dating Experiment Narrator
Without a Trace Father Henry Stevens Episode: "Revelations"
Miracles Father 'Poppi' Calero 4 episodes
2004 Century City Martin Constable 9 episodes
Jack & Bobby Gerald Cruz Episode: "Chess Lessons"
2004, 2005, 2006 Justice League Lt. Kragger Voice
Episodes: "Starcrossed (1-3)", "Hunter's Moon" and "Ancient History"
2006 Avatar: The Last Airbender Wan Shi Tong Voice
Episode: "The Library"
2007 Cane Pancho Duque 13 episodes
2007, 2009 Grey's Anatomy Carlos Torres Episodes: "My Favorite Mistake", "Sweet Surrender" and "Invasion"
2008–2009 Monk Dr. Neven Bell
Awards and nominations

ALMA Awards

    * 1998: Nominated, "Outstanding Individual Performance in a Television Series in a Crossover Role" - Chicago Hope
    * 1998: Nominated, "Outstanding Individual Performance in a Television Series in a Crossover Role" - Turbulence
    * 1998: Won, "Outstanding Actor in a Made-for-Television Movie or Mini-Series" - Borrowed Hearts
    * 1999: Nominated, "Outstanding Individual Performance in a Television Series in a Crossover Role" - Chicago Hope
    * 2000: Nominated, "Outstanding Actor in a Feature Film" - Runaway Bride
    * 2000: Won, "Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series" - Chicago Hope
    * 2002: Nominated, "Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture" - Tortilla Soup

Emmy Awards

    * 1992: Nominated, "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Special" - Mrs. Cage
    * 1995: Nominated, "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series" - Chicago Hope
    * 1996: Nominated, "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series" - Chicago Hope
    * 1997: Won, "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series" - Chicago Hope
    * 1998: Nominated, "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series" - Chicago Hope

Golden Globe Awards

    * 1991: Nominated, "Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture" - Pretty Woman

Imagen Foundation Awards

    * 2005: Nominated, "Best Supporting Actor in a Film" - The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement

NCLR Bravo Awards

    * 1996: Nominated, "Outstanding Television Series Actor in a Crossover Role" - Chicago Hope

Satellite Awards

    * 1997: Nominated, "Best Performance By an Actor in a Television Drama Series" - Chicago Hope

SAG Awards

    * 1995: Nominated, "Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series" - Chicago Hope
    * 1997: Nominated, "Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series" - Chicago Hope
    * 1998: Nominated, "Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series" - Chicago Hope

Temecula Valley International Film Festival

    * 2006: Won, "Lifetime Achievement Award"
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/22/09 at 6:50 am

* Robin Gibb..Robin Hugh Gibb CBE (born 22 December 1949) is a singer and songwriter. He is best known as a member of the singing/songwriting trio the Bee Gees, cofounded with his twin brother Maurice Gibb (1949-2003), and elder brother Barry.

Born on Isle of Man, to English parents, the trio started their musical career in Australia, and found major success when they returned to England. With record sales estimated in excess of 100 million, the Bee Gees became one of the most successful pop groups of all time. Robin Gibb is the fifth most successful songwriter in UK chart history based on the number of weeks his compositions have spent on the chart...Traditionally, Robin's role in the group has been that of lead singer, for which he vied constantly with his elder brother Barry Gibb during the group's first period of British success in the late 1960s. This eventually resulted in Robin leaving the group to begin a solo career after his song "Lamplight" was relegated to the 'B' side of Barry's "First of May". Meanwhile, there were rumours of drug problems, and his parents threatened to have him made a ward of court (the UK age of majority at that time being 21, and Robin then only 19).

Although initially successful, with a number 2 hit, "Saved by the Bell", his album, Robin's Reign, was less successful and he found that being a solo artist was less than satisfying. He reunited with his brothers, who had disbanded the Bee Gees in search of their own solo careers, when Robert Stigwood created RSO records in 1970. The initial post-reunion albums Two Years On, Trafalgar and To Whom It May Concern suggested that the rift had not totally healed, with an element of split songwriting teams, Barry on the one hand and Robin and Maurice on the other together with different music publishers, in contrast to a uniform construction before the split. Only when they relocated to Los Angeles to record Life In A Tin Can did it appear that they were as one on disk. Upon reinventing themselves with "Blue-Eyed Soul" the Bee Gees went on to their second period of phenomenal success in the disco-era late 1970s.

He also made an appearance on the Sesame Street Fever album, singing on the title track, then doing a song for Oscar the Grouch called "Trash", along with speaking on at least one other song.

While continuing in the group, Robin also promoted his solo career, and during the 1980s he released three further solo albums (How Old Are You, Secret Agent, and Walls Have Eyes) which were more successful in Continental Europe than in the UK or USA. However, his 1984 single "Boys Do Fall in Love" did reach the Billboard top 40.

In the same week as his twin brother Maurice's sudden death, Robin's next solo album, Magnet, was released in Germany on 27 January 2003 (Label: SPV), and worldwide shortly afterwards. It features the old Bee Gees classic "Wish You Were Here" in a new acoustic version. The lead single, "Please" has coincidental lyrics about "loss". With Maurice's death, his two surviving brothers Robin and Barry announced that they would no longer perform as the Bee Gees.

Robin has recently sung the vocals to the opening titles to "The Dame Edna Treatment".

On May 18, 2008, Robin released the song "Alan Freeman Days" in tribute of Australian DJ Alan Freeman. The song was mainly issued as a download only track although a promotional CD was issued by Academy Recordings. In December of the same year that song was followed by yet another downloadable song entitled "Wing and a prayer" which although it shares the same name as a song the Bee Gees issued on their 1989 One album is actually a reworking of the song "Sing Slowly Sisters" that had remained unreleased since 1970. A week later Robin issued yet another song as a download, "Ellan Vannin (Home Coming Mix)", featuring the King Williams College Choir from the Isle of Man.

A new solo album entitled 50 St Catherine's Drive, originally scheduled for release in 2008, remains unreleased. In August of 2009 a brief 50-second clip of "Instant Love" from said album appeared as a preview. The song itself is a collaboration with his son Robin-John and a second version featuring Robin-John on vocals appears in a short film called "Bloodtype: The Search" in which Robin-John appears
In 1968 Gibb married Molly Hullis, a secretary in Robert Stigwood's organisation. The couple had survived the Hither Green rail crash, which killed 49 people on the 5th November 1967. They have two children, Spencer and Melissa, but they eventually divorced in 1980 after years of living separate lives, with Robin almost permanently in the USA and Molly remaining in the UK.

Gibb's second wife, Dwina Murphy Gibb, is an author and an artist. She is interested in druidry and is a follower of the Brahma Kumaris. The couple have a son, Robin-John. Robin and Dwina divide their time among the Isle of Man, Miami, and Thame in Oxfordshire.

On November 4 2008, at the private Portland Hospital in London, Robin and Dwina's housekeeper, 33 year old Claire Yang, gave birth to Robin's child, Snow Evelyn Robin Juliet Gibb. Friends report Dwina feeling furious and betrayed.

Dwina ordered the woman, who had enjoyed an eight year relationship with the singer, out of their mansion home but Robin paid for refurbished farmhouse accommodation for the mother and baby girl close by in Oxfordshire.
Awards

In 1994, Robin Gibb was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and in 1997 the Bee Gees were inducted as a group into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Robin was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2001/2002 New Year's Honours List, along with his brothers Maurice and Barry. The official presentation ceremony at Buckingham Palace was delayed until 2004 owing to Maurice's death.

Robin and Barry Gibb both received Honorary Degrees of Doctor of Music from The University of Manchester in May 2004.

On 10th July 2009, both Robin and Barry were made Freemen of the Borough of Douglas. The award, was also bestowed posthumously on Maurice, therefore confirming the freedom of the town of their birth to all three brothers.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/22/09 at 3:22 pm

I think Robin Gibb had a tremendous voice.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/23/09 at 5:02 am


I think Robin Gibb had a tremendous voice.

Yes both him & Barry.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/23/09 at 5:29 am

The word of the day...Children
    *
          o
            Children is the plural of child.

Related phrases

    *
      child
      A child is a human being who is not yet an adult.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/23/09 at 5:33 am

The birthday of the day...Susan Lucci
Susan Victoria Lucci (born December 23, 1946) is an American actress, best known for portraying iconic character Erica Kane on the daytime drama All My Children. Lucci has been called "Daytime's Leading Lady" by TV Guide, with New York Times and Los Angeles Times citing her as the highest-paid actor in daytime television. In the past, her salary has been reported as over $1 million a year.
Lucci is best known for playing the larger-than-life diva Erica Kane on the ABC television soap opera All My Children, on which she has appeared since the show's inception on January 5, 1970. She and Ray MacDonnell, who plays her former father-in-law, Dr. Joe Martin, are the only original cast members left on the show today. Lucci's long tenure on the show has made her an iconic presence on daytime; she is closely identified with both the role of Erica and with daytime television itself.

Lucci was nominated for the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series Emmy for her work on All My Children almost every year since 1978. When Lucci didn't win the award after several consecutive nominations, her image in the media began to be lampooned, as she became notoriously synonymous with never winning an Emmy. NBC's Saturday Night Live exploited this by asking her to host an episode (unusual for a daytime serial actor), where her monologue parodied the cast, crew, and even stagehands carrying Emmys of their own in her presence. In addition, she appeared in a 1989 television commercial for the sugar substitute "Sweet One," intended to portray her as the opposite of her villainess character, yet throwing one of Erica Kane's characteristic tantrums, shouting "11 years without an Emmy! What does a person have to do around here to get an Emmy?"

After 18 failed nominations, it came as a shock to both her and the viewing audience when she finally won in 1999. When presenter Shemar Moore announced Lucci's name, the audience erupted in a standing ovation, lasting several minutes. As the sobbing actress took to the stage, cameras caught All My Children co-stars Kelly Ripa and Marcy Walker weeping openly, along with long-time supporter, actress and television host Rosie O'Donnell. Actor Ingo Rademacher was seen bowing in the aisles and talk show host Oprah Winfrey rushing the stage cheering from the wings. Lucci's win and subsequent teary-eyed speech made headline news on television and in print for several weeks thereafter.
Primetime television and film

Lucci has appeared in a number of television shows and television films. In 1990, she began a series of guest spots on the popular nighttime soap opera Dallas. She hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live in October of that year; in one skit, she appeared as Erica Kane competing on a game show.

In 1995, Lucci appeared in the Lifetime television film Ebbie. This film was an updated version of the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol. Lucci played a Scrooge-like department store owner visited by Marley and the three ghosts on Christmas. Critics praised her performance, and the film has become a holiday favorite.
Dancing with the Stars

Lucci competed in Season 7 of Dancing with the Stars with dance partner Tony Dovolani. Lucci said that Dancing had asked her to appear before, but she had turned it down in part because of the travel it would require (Dancing tapes in Los Angeles, while All My Children tapes in New York). She changed her mind, though, in part because of the experience of fellow All My Children star Cameron Mathison, who finished fifth in season 5. She was voted off the show on November 5, 2008, finishing sixth in the competition.
Lucci's father, Victor, was a first-generation American. Phyllis Diller, contrary to various internet rumors, is not her mother. Lucci has been married since September 13, 1969 to Austrian businessman Helmut Huber. They are the parents of soap opera actress Liza Huber (who played Gwen Hotchkiss on the daytime serial Passions until that series' cancellation by NBC in September 2007) and Andreas Huber, an aspiring professional golfer. She became a grandmother when her daughter, Liza, gave birth on December 23, 2006 — Lucci's 60th birthday. The baby was named Royce Alexander. Liza gave birth to Lucci's second grandchild, Brendan, on August 16, 2008.
Awards
Won

    * Daytime Emmy Awards: 1999, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for All My Children
    * Gracie Allen Awards: (2005) Outstanding Female Lead in a Daytime Drama for All My Children
    * Women in Film Lucy Awards: (1994) Lucy Award
    * Soap Opera Digest Awards
          o (2003) SOAPnet Diamond Award - For Glittering Excellence in Daytime Television
          o (1993) Soap Opera Digest Award Outstanding Lead Actress for All My Children
          o (1988) Soap Opera Digest Award Editor's Choice

    * People's Choice Awards: (1992) People’s Choice Award
    * Crystal Apple Awards: (1994) Crystal Apple Award
    * American Academy of Achievement Awards: (1991)

    * Made in NY Awards: (2005) MINY

Nominated
Daytime Emmy Awards

Nominations: (1978, 1981-1993, 1995-1999, 2001-2002) Daytime Emmy: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for All My Children. Lucci holds the record for repeat nominations in one category, having been nominated a total of 21 times for this award but only won once.
Other awards

    * Soap Opera Digest Awards
          o (2005) Soap Opera Digest Award Favorite Couple for All My Children

-Shared with Walt Willey

    *
          o (1992) Soap Opera Digest Award 'Best Love Story: Daytime or Prime Time

-Shared with Walt Willey

    *
          o (1989) Soap Opera Digest Award Favorite Super Couple: Daytime for All My Children

-Shared with Larkin Malloy

    *
          o (1986) Soap Opera Digest Award Outstanding Contribution by an Actor/Actress to the Form of Continuing Drama who is currently on a Daytime Serial for All My Children

TV/Guest roles

    * All My Children (Erica Kane: 1970-Present)
    * That's So Raven (Ms. Romano: 2005)
    * Hope and Faith (Jacqueline Karr: 2004)
    * Blood on Her Hands (Isabelle Collins: 1998)
    * Seduced and Betrayed (Victoria Landers: 1995)
    * Ebbie (Elizabeth 'Ebbie' Scrooge: 1995)
    * French Silk (Claire Laurent: 1994)
    * Between Love and Hate (Vivian Conrad: 1993)
    * Double Edge (Maggie Dutton/Carmen Moore: 1992)
    * The Woman Who Sinned (Victoria Robeson: 1991)
    * Dallas (Hillary Taylor/Faux Sheila Foley: 1990-1991)
    * The Bride in Black (Rose D'Amore-Malloy: 1990)
    * Lady Mobster (Laurel Castle: 1988)
    * Haunted by Her Past (aka Secret Passions) (Karen Beckett: 1987)
    * Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (Darya Romanoff: 1986)
    * Mafia Princess (Antoinette Giancana: 1986)
    * The Fall Guy (Veronica Remy: 1984)
    * Invitation to Hell (Jessica Jones: 1984)
    * Fantasy Island (Gina Edwards: 1983)
    * The Love Boat (Paula: 1982)
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/23/09 at 5:37 am

The co-birthdays of the day...Eddie Vedder
Eddie Vedder (born Edward Louis Severson III; December 23, 1964) is an American musician and singer-songwriter who serves as the lead vocalist and one of three guitarists for the American rock band Pearl Jam. Vedder left the Southern California music scene and moved to Seattle, Washington in 1990 to join Pearl Jam where he rose to fame amid the grunge movement of the early 1990s. He is notable for his "golden baritone" vocal style, and is considered a cultural icon of alternative rock. He has also been involved in other music outside of Pearl Jam, including soundtrack work and contributions to albums by other artists. In 2007, Vedder released his first solo album as a soundtrack for the film Into the Wild. Pearl Jam was formed in 1990 by Ament, Gossard, and McCready, who then recruited Vedder and drummer Dave Krusen. The band originally took the name Mookie Blaylock, but was forced to change it when the band signed to Epic Records in 1991. After the recording sessions for Ten were completed, Krusen left Pearl Jam in May 1991. Krusen was replaced by Matt Chamberlain, who had previously played with Edie Brickell & New Bohemians. After playing only a handful of shows, one of which was filmed for the "Alive" video, Chamberlain left to join the Saturday Night Live band. As his replacement, Chamberlain suggested Dave Abbruzzese, who joined the group and played the rest of Pearl Jam's live shows supporting the Ten album.

Ten broke the band into the mainstream, and became one of the best selling alternative albums of the 1990s. The band found itself amidst the sudden popularity and attention given to the Seattle music scene and the genre known as grunge. The single "Jeremy" received Grammy Award nominations for Best Rock Song and Best Hard Rock Performance in 1993. Pearl Jam received four awards at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards for its music video for "Jeremy", including Video of the Year and Best Group Video. Ten was ranked number 207 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and "Jeremy" was ranked number 11 on VH1's list of the 100 greatest songs of the '90s.
Eddie Vedder appeared on the cover of the October 25, 1993 issue of Time, as part of the feature article discussing the rising popularity of the grunge movement. Vedder had declined to participate, and was upset with the magazine about the cover.

Following an intense touring schedule, the band went into the studio to record what would become its second studio album, Vs., released in 1993. Upon its release, Vs. set at the time the record for most copies of an album sold in a week, and spent five weeks at number one on the Billboard 200. Vs. was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Album in 1995. From Vs., the song "Daughter" received a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and the song "Go" received a Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance.

Feeling the pressures of success, with much of the burden of Pearl Jam's popularity falling on Vedder, the band decided to decrease the level of promotion for its albums, including refusing to release music videos. Vedder's issue with fame came from what he stated as "what happens when a lot of these people start thinking you can change their lives or save their lives or whatever and create these impossible fudgein' expectations that in the end just start tearing you apart." In 1994, the band began a much-publicized boycott of Ticketmaster, which lasted for three years and limited the band's ability to tour in the United States. During the mid-1990s, Vedder faced what he called a "pretty intense stalker problem." Vedder would refer to the issue in the song "Lukin" from No Code.

Later that same year the band released its third studio album, Vitalogy, which became the band's third straight album to reach multi-platinum status. It was at this time that Vedder began to be featured more on rhythm guitar. Many of the songs on Vitalogy appear to be based by Vedder around the pressures of fame. The album received Grammy nominations for Album of the Year and Best Rock Album in 1996. Vitalogy was ranked number 492 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The lead single "Spin the Black Circle" won a Grammy Award in 1996 for Best Hard Rock Performance. Although Abbruzzese performed on the album Vitalogy, he was fired in August 1994, four months before the album was released. The band cited political differences between Abbruzzese and the other members; for example, he disagreed with the Ticketmaster boycott. He was replaced by Jack Irons, a close friend of Vedder and the former and original drummer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Regarding the approach Pearl Jam took after its initial success, Vedder stated, "We've had the luxury of writing our own job description...and that description has basically been cut down to just one line: make music." The band subsequently released No Code in 1996 and Yield in 1998. In 1998, prior to Pearl Jam's U.S. Yield Tour, Irons left the band due to dissatisfaction with touring. Pearl Jam enlisted former Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron as Irons' replacement on an initially temporary basis, but he soon became a permanent replacement for Irons. "Do the Evolution" (from Yield) received a Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance. In 1998, Pearl Jam recorded "Last Kiss", a cover of a 1960s ballad made famous by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers. It was released on the band's 1998 fan club Christmas single; however, by popular demand, the cover was released to the public as a single in 1999. "Last Kiss" peaked at number two on the Billboard charts and became the band's highest-charting single.

In 2000, the band released its sixth studio album, Binaural, and initiated a successful and ongoing series of official bootlegs. The band released seventy-two such live albums in 2000 and 2001, and set a record for most albums to debut in the Billboard 200 at the same time. "Grievance" (from Binaural) received a Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance. The band released its seventh studio album, Riot Act, in 2002. Pearl Jam's contribution to the 2003 film, Big Fish, "Man of the Hour", was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 2004. The band's eighth studio album, the eponymous Pearl Jam, was released in 2006. The band released its ninth studio album, Backspacer, in 2009.

On Pearl Jam records, Vedder uses the pseudonym "Jerome Turner" for his non-musical (usually design and artwork) contributions. He has also at times used the pseudonym of "Wes C. Addle" ("West Seattle").
Collaborations

In addition to playing with Pearl Jam and Temple of the Dog, Vedder has performed or recorded with numerous well-known artists. He has appeared on albums by The Who, Ramones, Neil Young, Neil Finn, Bad Religion, Mark Seymour, Cat Power, Mike Watt, Fastbacks, Wellwater Conspiracy, Jack Irons, and John Doe, and has also recorded with The Strokes, Nusrat Fathe Ali Khan, The Supersuckers, Susan Sarandon, and Zeke. In the months of June and July 2006, Vedder made live performances jamming with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, singing on many tracks, including lead vocals on "The Waiting" and backing vocals on "American Girl". Vedder performed three songs with the remaining members of The Doors at the 1993 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. He also performed with R.E.M. at the 2007 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Vedder made a guest appearance at the Ramones' last show on August 6, 1996 at the Palace in Hollywood.
Other work

Vedder had a brief acting cameo in the 1992 movie, Singles, along with Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam. He appeared as himself, playing drums in lead actor Matt Dillon's backing band, Citizen Dick. He was also interviewed for the 1996 grunge documentary, Hype!. He appears in the 2003 Ramones documentary, End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones. In 2007, he made a cameo as himself in the comedy film, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. He appears in the 2007 Tom Petty documentary, Runnin' Down a Dream, the 2008 political documentary, Slacker Uprising, and the 2009 Howard Zinn documentary, The People Speak.

Vedder is known for his outspoken left-wing social and political views. Discussing his views on current issues in the United States, Vedder said, "People on death row, the treatment of animals, women's right to choose. So much in America is based on religious fundamentalist Christianity. Grow up! This is the modern world!"

In 1992, Spin printed an article by Vedder, entitled "Reclamation", which detailed his views on abortion. Vedder was outspoken in support of Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader in 2000, and Pearl Jam played a series of concerts on the 2004 Vote for Change tour, supporting the candidacy of John Kerry for U.S. President. Vedder told Rolling Stone magazine, "I supported Ralph Nader in 2000, but it's a time of crisis. We have to get a new administration in." Vedder supported the candidacy of Barack Obama in 2008.

In his spare time, Vedder is a surfer and active in surf-related conservation efforts, most notably The Surfrider Foundation. Vedder shows his support for environmental activism by sporting an Earth First! tattoo on his right calf. The logo is of a monkey wrench crossed with a stone hammer. Vedder is also a vegetarian.

Vedder is a longtime and outspoken supporter for the Free the West Memphis 3 movement, a cause that advocates the release of three teenagers (now in their 30's) who were convicted in 1994 of the gruesome murders of three little boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. In an interview with Larry King on December 19, 2007, Damien Echols, who is on death row for the murders, said that Vedder has been the "greatest friend a person could have" and that the two of them have collaborated on songs while he is in prison. The song "Army Reserve" on Pearl Jam's 2006 self-titled album features a lyrical collaboration between Vedder and Echols.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/23/09 at 5:40 am

* Adrian Belew...Adrian Belew (born Robert Steven Belew, December 23, 1949, in Covington, Kentucky) is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He is perhaps best known for his work as a member of the progressive rock group King Crimson (which he has fronted since 1981) and for his unusual approach to guitar playing, which features bizarre electronic tones, unorthodox playing techniques and a wide variety of sonic effects (including guitar-based impressions of animals, birds, insects, vehicles and mechanical sound).

Widely recognized as an "incredibly versatile player, Belew has released a number of solo albums for Island Records and Atlantic Records which blend Beatles-inspired pop-rock with more experimental fare. In addition to King Crimson, he is a member of the more straightforward pop band The Bears and fronted his own band, Gaga, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He has also worked extensively as a session musician, most famously with Talking Heads, David Bowie, Caifanes, Frank Zappa, and Nine Inch Nails.

In addition to his readily recognisable guitar sounds, Belew is noted for the distinct, nasal, sometimes manic feel of his vocals. His singing voice is often compared to that of Talking Heads singer David Byrne (an easy comparison after his early 80's work with that band).

His 2005 single "Beat Box Guitar" was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Rock Instrumental Performance category.

Belew has recently moved into instrument design, collaborating with Parker Guitars to help design his own Parker Fly signature guitar.
Not inclined to formal music study, he was nonetheless a quick developer and rapidly became a high-school guitar hero. Mostly teaching himself by listening to records, Belew was ignorant of the studio trickery and sound manipulation used to create particular guitar lines, and so found ways of replicating them himself manually using unusual playing techniques and a growing interest in effects and treatments. As he matured as a player and mastered various playing styles, Belew gradually became preoccupied with finding his own sound rather than "sounding like everybody else". He eventually found his own style by applying himself to making his guitar mimic sound effects - car horns, animal noises, industrial sound - and applying those sounds to relatively standard songs. (While Belew is frequently tagged as an "experimental" guitarist, he has a firm attachment to the relatively traditional song which is rare among such musicians).

In the mid-1970s (and having now formally changed his first name to "Adrian", a name he had always liked and wanted to use), Belew moved to Nashville to pursue a full-time career as a professional musician. By 1977, he was playing with the regionally-popular cover band Sweetheart, but wondering whether (at age 27) he had missed his chance to make a living with original music.
Work with Frank Zappa (1977-1978)

In 1977, while playing at a Sweetheart gig in Nashville, Belew was discovered by singer/guitarist/composer Frank Zappa, who'd been tipped off regarding the band's talents by his chauffeur. Zappa approached Belew and discussed auditioning him for an upcoming tour, although he did not make good on this offer for the best part of a year, during which time Sweetheart split up. Once the formal invitation came, Belew flew out to Los Angeles and found himself auditioning alongside more formally-trained musicians. Believing that he'd messed up his first audition, Belew persuaded Zappa to give him a second one. Zappa was impressed enough to hire Belew on a handshake deal for a year.

Belew toured with the Zappa band and appeared on Zappa's controversial 1979 album Sheik Yerbouti - most notably performing a Bob Dylan impersonation on the song "Flakes". He also appeared in Zappa's 1979 concert film Baby Snakes. Belew describes his year in Zappa's band as a "crash course" in music theory due to Zappa's rigorous rehearsals and often technically demanding music: "I went to the Frank Zappa School of Rock."
Work with David Bowie (1979)

After seeing a Zappa concert, art-rock star David Bowie offered to hire Belew once the Zappa tour was finished. Belew then played on Bowie's "Heroes" tour in 1978, recorded for the double live album Stage, and contributed to Bowie's next album, Lodger (the latter produced by Brian Eno). (Twelve years later, he would return to working with Bowie, acting as musical director on the 1990 Sound+Vision Tour, while also playing guitar and singing.)
Talking Heads, Gaga and beginning of solo career (1979-1982)

By now a frequent visitor to New York City, Belew became friends with the up-and-coming new wave/art-rock band Talking Heads. Invited to join the band onstage for performances of their signature song "Psycho Killer", Belew impressed them with his wild and unorthodox guitar soloing and became an infrequent guest performer on occasional live concerts.

In 1980, Belew formed a new band, Gaga, for which he served as the primary songwriter, vocalist, guitarist and (via backing tapes) drummer. In July of that year, Gaga was invited to open several New York-area concerts for guitarist Robert Fripp's band The League of Gentlemen.

At the same time, Belew had been tapped by both Talking Heads and their producer Brian Eno to add guitar solos to several tracks on their new album Dream Attack (eventually renamed Remain in Light). Belew was subsequently added to the expanded nine-piece Talking Heads live band for the subsequent tours in late 1980 and early 1981 (documented in the second half of the band's 1982 live album The Name of This Band is Talking Heads). Belew's involvement with Talking Heads extended to playing on a variety of side projects: Jerry Harrison's solo album The Red and the Black, several tracks on David Byrne's soundtrack to the Twyla Tharp dance piece The Catherine Wheel and most notably the debut album by Tom Tom Club (the spin-off project by Talking Heads rhythm section Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz), for which Belew performed on most of the tracks (even performing the entire instrumentation for the track 'L'Elephant').

At the time, the internal relationships in Talking Heads were particularly strained. Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz approached Belew together with the suggestion that he should replace Byrne as the band's frontman - an offer which Belew politely turned down.

By now Belew's rising profile had gained him a solo record contract with Island Records. Members of Gaga joined Belew in Compass Point, Nassau (where the Tom Tom Club album was being recorded) and backed him on a set of parallel sessions which would result in Belew's first solo album, 1982's Lone Rhino.
King Crimson (1981-present)
Main article: King Crimson

In 1981, having been impressed by Belew's work with Gaga and David Bowie, Robert Fripp (former leader of the pioneering progressive rock group King Crimson) asked Belew to join a new four-piece band called Discipline as singer and second guitarist. Belew agreed to join, provided that he be allowed to continue the pursuit of his solo career. The band was completed by the former King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford and the New York session ace Tony Levin on bass and Chapman Stick. While on tour in 1981, Discipline reconfigured itself as a new formation of King Crimson. This made Belew the first guitarist to play alongside Fripp in the group, and also the first King Crimson singer to write all his own lyrics.

In spite of several splits or hiatuses in group existence (1985-1993, 2004-2008, and arguably 1997-1999), Belew has retained his position as King Crimson frontman ever since (despite a period in the early 1990s during which Fripp unsuccessfully approached singer David Sylvian for the position in a new version of the band). Belew has also participated in some of the ProjeKcts, a series of instrumental and experimental King Crimson side projects, predominantly playing electronic drums. King Crimson has used Belew's studio outside Mount Juliet, Tennessee, for rehearsals and recording since 2000.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/23/09 at 6:52 am


The word of the day...Children
    *
          o
            Children is the plural of child.

Related phrases

    *
      child
      A child is a human being who is not yet an adult.
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I use to be a child myself.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 12/23/09 at 11:23 am


Yes both him & Barry.

Bee gees were quite popular in the late 70s. They sang some wonderful songs.
Sadly, we don't see that kind of talent today.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/23/09 at 2:39 pm


I use to be a child myself.

No do say ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/23/09 at 2:45 pm


Bee gees were quite popular in the late 70s. They sang some wonderful songs.
Sadly, we don't see that kind of talent today.




Today's singers don't have much talent,unfortunately.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/23/09 at 3:41 pm



Today's singers don't have much talent,unfortunately.

That's for sure.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 12/23/09 at 4:08 pm



Today's singers don't have much talent,unfortunately.

Where did all the talent go? Have all the good songs already been written?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/23/09 at 9:55 pm


Where did all the talent go? Have all the good songs already been written?



Probably so. :(

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/24/09 at 2:58 am

The word of the day...Kitchen
kitchen is a room that is used for cooking and for household jobs such as washing dishes.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/24/09 at 3:02 am

The birthday of the day...Mary Higgins Clark
Mary Higgins Clark, née Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins (born December 24, 1927 in the Bronx, New York), is an American author of suspense novels. Each of her forty-two books have been a bestseller in the United States and various European countries, and all of her novels remain in print as of 2007, with her debut suspense novel, Where Are The Children, in its seventy-fifth printing.

Clark began writing at an early age. After several years working as a secretary and copy editor, Clark spent a year as a stewardess for Pan-American Airlines before leaving her job to marry and start a family. She supplemented the family's income by writing short stories. After her husband died in 1959, Clark worked for many years writing four-minute radio scripts, until her agent convinced her to try writing novels. Her debut novel, a fictionalized account of the life of George Washington, did not sell well, and she decided to leverage her love of mystery/suspense novels. Her suspense novels became very popular, and as of 2007 her books have sold more than 80 million copies in the United States alone.

Her daughter, Carol Higgins Clark, is also a suspense writer.
Clark's initial contract to be a radio scriptwriter obligated her to write 65 four-minute programs for the Portrait of a Patriot series. Her work was good enough that she was soon asked to write two other radio series. This experience of fitting an entire sketch into four minutes taught Clark how to write cleanly and succinctly, traits that are incredibly important to a suspense novel, which must advance the plot with every paragraph. Despite the security offered by her new job, money was tight in the beginning as she strove to raise five children aged five to thirteen alone. For their first Christmas without Warren, Clark's only gifts to her children were personalized poems describing the things she wished she could have purchased for them.

By the late 1960s, the short story market had collapsed. The Saturday Evening Post, which in 1960 named Clark's short story "Beauty Contest at Buckingham" one of their ten best of the year, had decided to stop publishing fiction, and many of the popular ladies magazines were focusing on self-help articles instead. Because her short stories were no longer able to find a publisher, Clark's agent suggested that she try writing a full-length novel. Leveraging her research and experience with the Portraits of a Patriot series, Clark spent the next three years writing a fictionalized account of the relationship between George and Martha Washington. The book did sell, and although the advance was small, it gave Clark confidence that she could indeed finish a full-length book and find a publisher. The novel "was remaindered as it came off the press," and, to make matters worse, four months after the publication of the novel, Clark's mother Nora Higgins died.
Entering the Suspense Genre (1970-1980)

To ensure that her children would not have to struggle financially, Clark was determined that they should have good educations. To provide a good example she entered Fordham University at Lincoln Center in 1971, graduating summa cum laude in 1979, with a B.A. in philosophy. Her children followed her example. The two eldest, Marilyn and Warren, have become judges, and Patty works at the Mercantile Exchange in New York City. David is the president and CEO of Talk Marketing Enterprises, Inc, and Carol has authored many popular suspense novels.

During this time Clark became increasingly frustrated with her employer, and, although two of her children were partially dependent on her for their college tuition, she quit her job and joined two of her former colleagues in forming their own company to write and market radio scripts. To scrape up the $5000 she needed to start the business, Clark was forced to pawn her engagement ring, and, for the eight months it took the company to become profitable, she did not receive a salary, further straining the family finances.
Where Are the Children? book cover

Clark continued writing even during these hard times. Encouraged by her agent to try writing another book, Clark returned to the suspense stories that she loved as a child and which had provided her first success as a short story writer. While she was in the midst of writing the story, her younger brother Johnny died, leaving her the sole surviving member of her family. To temporarily forget her heartache, Clark threw herself into her writing, and soon finished the novel.

Very quickly after the novel, Where are the Children? was completed, Simon and Schuster agreed to purchase it for the relatively small sum of $3000. Three months later, in July 1974, Clark received word that the paperback rights for the novel had sold for one hundred thousand dollars. For the first time in many years she had no immediate financial worries.

Where Are the Children? became a bestseller and was favorably reviewed. Two years after its publication Clark sold her second suspense novel for $1.5 million.
Additional Adventures (1981-present)

In 1981, Clark happened to be in Washington, D.C. the day President Ronald Reagan was shot. Because she had a press pass she was able to join the media waiting to hear the President's prognosis. When the doctor finally arrived to start the press conference, Clark was one of the few people chosen to ask a question.
Second Marriage

Clark dated throughout her widowhood, and underwent a "disastrous" marriage in 1978 that was annulled several years later. In 1996, she remarried, to John J. Conheeney, the retired CEO of Merrill Lynch Futures, after they were introduced by her daughter, Patty. The couple lives in Saddle River, New Jersey and also have homes in Manhattan, Spring Lake, New Jersey, and Dennis, Massachusetts.
Other Writing Genres

Clark's debut novel about George Washington, Aspire to the Heavens was retitled Mount Vernon Love Story and rereleased in 2002, the same year as her autobiography, Kitchen Privileges, which relied heavily on the journals she has kept all of her life. In 2006 Clark announced that she would be fulfilling one of her dreams by publishing her first children's book. Ghost Ship was published by Simon and Schuster, who have also published her suspense novels.

She has also written several Christmas themed mystery novels with her daughter, Carol Higgins Clark. Although popular with readers, some critics have complained that the books are of lesser qaulity than the bulk of Mary's work, partly because the tone is much lighter than her solo output.
Writing Success

As of 2007, Clark has written twenty-four suspense novels, which have sold over 80 million copies in the United States. All of her suspense novels have been best-sellers, and as of 2007 all are still in print, including Where are the Children?, which is in its 75th printing. In 2001, the hardcover edition of Clark's On the Street Where You Live was Number One on the New York Times Hardcover Bestseller list at the same time that the paperback version of her novel Before I Say Good-bye reached Number One on the New York Times Paperback Besteller list. Her books are also number one bestsellers in France, and have earned her the distinction of being named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in France in 2000. She has also been honored in France with the Grand Prix de Literature Policier (1980) and the Deauville Film Festival Literary Award (1999).

Known as "The Queen of Suspense", Clark is a "master plotter" who has the ability to slowly draw out the tension while making the reader think everyone is guilty. Her novels feature strong, independent young women who find themselves in the midst of a problem that they must solve with their own courage and intelligence. The heroines come across as real people who make sensible decisions, which makes it easier for readers, who sometimes think " "that could have happened to me, or to my to daughter," to relate to the situations. Clark's books are written for adults, yet because she chooses not to include explicit sex or violence in her stories, they have become popular with children as young as twelve.

Many of the books deal with crimes involving children or with telepathy. While Clark is well aware that many people claiming to be psychics are behaving fraudulently, she believes that she has met people with genuine ESP powers. Clark's mother, on looking at a photo of her eighteen year old son in his brand new Navy dress blues told her daughter that "He has death in his eyes," and the young man died shortly after. A psychic Clark visited just as her second novel, Where Are the Children, was being published in paperback told her that she would become very famous and make a great deal of money. Although at the time she laughed off the prediction, the following week her novel reached the bestseller lists and she sold the movie rights shortly after, truly launching her career.
Work Habits

Before beginning the actual writing of her books, Clark prefers to develop an outline and perhaps detailed character biographies. Each chapter is continuously revised as she writes, so that when she is ready to move on to the next chapter, the current chapter is considered done and is sent directly to her editor. By the time the editor receives the last chapter, the book is primarily done.

Creativity abounds in Clark's office, a tower-like room featuring skylights and windows, located on the third floor of her house. Every morning after a light breakfast, Clark arrives in her office around 8 a.m. and works until about 2 pm, unless she is near the end of her book, when she might extend her schedule to work up to 17 hours per day. Once a year Clark lectures on a cruise ship, allowing her to travel and to do some writing in a more novel location.
Recognition

Clark has won numerous awards for her writing. In addition to those previously referenced, she has won the Horatio Alger Award (1997) and the Passionists' Ethics in Literature Award (2002), as well as the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University Spirit of Achievement Award (1994) and the National Arts Club's Gold Medal in Education (1994). She has been awarded eighteen honorary doctorates, including one from her alma mater, Fordham University.

Her success has also been recognized by groups representing her heritage. The American-Irish Historical Society granted her the Gold Medal of Honor in 1993, and in 2001 she won the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. She has also been named a Bronx Legend (1999).

Clark has served as the Chairman of the International Crime Congress in 1988 and was the 1987 president of the Mystery Writers of America. For many years she also served on the Board of Directors of the Mystery Writers of America. Simon and Schuster, which have published all of Clark's novels and in the late 1990s signed her to a $64-million, four book contract, have funded the Mary Higgins Clark Award, given by the Mystery Writers of America to authors of suspense fiction for each of the ten years between 2001 and 2011. The announcement that an award would be given in her honor was made at the 55th Annual Edgar Allan Poe Awards, where Clark was inducted as a Grand Master.

Her devotion to her religion has also been widely recognized. In the highest honor that can be offered to a layperson by the Pope, Clark has been made a Dame of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, and has also been honored as a Dame of Malta and a Dame of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem. The Franciscan Friars have given her a Graymoor Award (1999) and she has been awarded a Christopher Life Achievement Award. Clark also serves as a board member for the Catholic Communal Fund and as a member of the Board of Governors at Hackensack Hospital.
Bibliography
Fiction

    * 1968 Aspire To The Heavens (reissued in 2000 as Mount Vernon Love Story)
    * 1975 Where Are The Children?
    * 1977 A Stranger is Watching
    * 1980 The Cradle Will Fall
    * 1982 A Cry in the Night
    * 1984 Stillwatch
    * 1987 Weep No More, My Lady
    * 1989 While My Pretty One Sleeps
    * 1989 The Anastasia Syndrome and Other Stories
    * 1990 Voices in the Coal Bin (short story, only available as an audio book with Carol Higgins Clark's That's the Ticket)
    * 1991 Loves Music, Loves to Dance
    * 1992 All Around the Town
    * 1993 I'll Be Seeing You
    * 1993 Death on the Cape and Other Stories
    * 1993 Milk Run and Stowaway (Two stories. Like Voices in the Coal Bin, never officially published out of anthologies)
    * 1994 Remember Me
    * 1994 The Lottery Winner and Other Stories
    * 1995 Let Me Call You Sweetheart
    * 1995 Silent Night
    * 1996 Moonlight Becomes You
    * 1996 My Gal Sunday: Henry and Sunday Stories
    * 1997 Pretend You Don't See Her
    * 1998 You Belong to Me
    * 1998 All Through The Night
    * 1999 We'll Meet Again
    * 2000 Before I Say Good-Bye
    * 2000 Deck the Halls (with daughter Carol Higgins Clark)
    * 2001 On The Street Where You Live
    * 2001 He Sees You When You're Sleeping (with daughter Carol Higgins Clark)
    * 2002 Daddy's Little Girl
    * 2003 The Second Time Around
    * 2004 Nighttime Is My Time
    * 2004 The Christmas Thief (with daughter Carol Higgins Clark)
    * 2004 You Belong to Me
    * 2005 No Place Like Home
    * 2006 Two Little Girls in Blue
    * 2006 Santa Cruise (with daughter Carol Higgins Clark)
    * 2007 Ghost Ship: A Cape Cod Story
    * 2007 I Heard That Song Before
    * 2008 Where Are You Now?
    * 2008 Dashing Through the Snow (with daughter Carol Higgins Clark)
    * 2009 Just Take My Heart

Non-Fiction

    * 1993 Mother (with Amy Tan and Maya Angelou)
    * 2001 Kitchen Privileges, A Memoir'

Movie adaptations

    * 1982 A Stranger Is Watching
    * 1986 Where Are The Children?
    * 2002 We'll Meet Again
    * 2002 Lucky Day

Television adaptations

    * 1983 The Cradle Will Fall
    * 1987 Stillwatch
    * 1992 Weep No More, My Lady
    * 1992 Double Vision
    * 1992 A Cry in the Night (starring daughter Carol Higgins Clark)
    * 1992 Terror Stalks the Class Reunion
    * 1995 Remember Me (Clark appears as the character Mary)
    * 1997 Let Me Call You Sweetheart
    * 1997 While My Pretty One Sleeps (Clark appears as the character Mary)
    * 1998 Moonlight Becomes You
    * 2001 You Belong to Me
    * 2001 Loves Music, Loves to Dance
    * 2002 He Sees You When You're Sleeping (directed by David Winning)
    * 2002 Pretend You Don't See Her
    * 2002 Lucky Day
    * 2002 Haven't We Met Before?
    * 2002 All Around The Town
    * 2004 I'll Be Seeing You
    * 2004 Before I Say Good-Bye
    * 2004 Try to Remember
    * 2005 The Cradle Will Fall
    * 2005 A Crime of Passion

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/24/09 at 3:07 am

The co-birthday of the day...Ricky Martin

Enrique Martín Morales (born December 24, 1971), better known by his stage name Ricky Martin, is a Grammy Award- and Latin Grammy Award- winning, Puerto Rican pop singer who rose to fame, first as a member of the Latin boy band Menudo, then as a solo artist since 1991.

His career has spanned over three decades and has sold more than 60 million albums worldwide. He is the founder of Ricky Martín Foundation (in Spanish Fundación Ricky Martin) a non-profit charity organization.

In 2008, he became a single father of twin boys, Matteo and Valentino.
Ricky Martin rose to fame when boy a member of the Latin American boy band Menudo after which he became a solo artist in 1990. He is considered a major star in the world of Latin Pop and is considered to have opened the doors for some of his fellow (Latin American singers).
Solo work

After completing high school, Martin left San Juan and moved to New York City. Later, Martin moved to Cancún where he started acting, first in theater productions, and then in a soap opera ("telenovela") titled Alcanzar Una Estrella II (Reach for a Star 2). A film based on the series was produced in which Martin played "Pablo," earning a Heraldo Award in 1993.

While acting in Mexico, Martin was signed to Sony Discos, the company's Latin imprint, in 1990. He released his first solo album, the Spanish-language Ricky Martin, in 1991, which included the single "Fuego Contra Fuego." The hit release earned gold records in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Puerto Rico, and the United States, and he performed a string of sold-out concert dates across South America.

In 1993, Martin released his second solo album, Me Amarás, which sold more than a million copies worldwide.

In 1994, he moved to Los Angeles, California. He received a role as bartender and singer (Miguel Morez) in the American soap opera General Hospital.

In 1995, Martin refocused on his music career through his third album, A Medio Vivir. With this album, Martin made a shift from formulaic hit ballads to a more risky fusion of music centered around traditional Latin sounds. With the hit "Maria", which epitomizes this new sound. "Maria" broke Martin into Europe through Spain. With the ballad "Te Extraño, Te Olvido, Te Amo", Martin began his expansion from Latin American and Spanish-speaking audiences to the European and Asian markets.
Broadway

After the conclusion of a worldwide tour, Martin returned to New York to appear in a Broadway production for the first time. He played the romantic lead, Marius Pontmercy, in Les Miserables.

While on Broadway, Martin returned to the studio and recorded his fourth album, Vuelve, which was certified platinum by the RIAA and went on to sell eight million copies worldwide. He was chosen to sing the anthem of the 1998 FIFA World Cup, the famous hit "The Cup of Life"/"La Copa de la Vida", that reached number one on the charts in 60 countries.
Crossover to English

After several years as a major star in Spanish-speaking countries, Martin prepared his first English album in 1999. The self-titled album contained material by producers such as Desmond Child, Diane Warren, William Orbit, George Noriega and his longtime childhood friend (producer/singer) Robi Draco Rosa. The album also featured special guests Madonna (on the Spanish-English duet "Be Careful (Cuidado con mi Corazón)") and Meja (Private Emotion). As Turkey was one of the countries where Martin's popularity was at its peak, he sang the song with Sertab Erener, Turkish winner of the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest, instead of Meja in Turkish versions of the album.

The first and most prominent single was "Livin' la Vida Loca," which reached number one in many countries around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, France, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Guatemala, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, and South Africa. He followed up with the hit "She's All I Ever Had" which peaked at #2 on The Billboard Hot 100. This album became one of the top-selling albums of 1999, and was certified 7 times platinum, selling over 22 million copies worldwide to date.

After the success of Ricky Martin, a new English-language album, Sound Loaded, was released in November 2000. Though the album did debut in the top ten (number four), it failed to reach number one. Three singles were released from Sound Loaded: the first was "She Bangs," which was followed by a duet with Christina Aguilera called "Nobody Wants to Be Lonely". Unlike the first two singles released from Ricky Martin, neither of the first two singles from this album reached the U.S. Top Ten on Billboard's Hot 100; they reached twelve and thirteen respectively. The third single, "Loaded" reached ninety-seven on Billboard's Hot 100. Sound Loaded eventually sold two million copies in the USA.

In 2001, Martin released a Spanish Greatest Hits album entitled La Historia, which went to number one in the Latin Charts and stayed there for five weeks. The album contained reworkings of two of his early songs Fuego contra fuego and El amor de mi vida. In the same year, he released his English greatest hits album, The Best of Ricky Martin, which went on to sell over one million copies. The album contained no new material save for two remixes of the track Amor. Both remixes were released to radio in some European countries and a single was also released.

In 2003, Martin released a new Spanish album "Almas del Silencio" ("Souls of Silence"). The first single, "Tal Vez", went to number one on the Latin Charts and stayed there for twelve weeks. He said of the new album: "I really needed to go back to focus, to my center, to the beginning. I had the need to search within, and really dig deep, and find those emotions that, because of the adrenaline and the euphoria that I lived for a couple of years, were probably sabotaged." Almas del Silencio debuted at number twelve on the Billboard 200, reached number one on the Latin Albums charts and stayed there for six weeks. The next singles, "Jaleo" and "Y Todo Queda en Nada", reached number one on the Latin Charts, and the album sold more than 1 million copies worldwide .

On October 11, 2005 Martin released his first English language album since 2000's Sound Loaded and the tenth album of his career. Most of the songs on the album, called Life, were co-written by Martin. He commented on the album: "I was really in touch with my emotions. I think this album is very multi-layered, just like life is. It's about feeling anger. It's about feeling joy. It's about feeling uncertainty. It's about feeling. And all my emotions are part of this production." The album debuted at number six on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. The first single from the album was "I Don't Care"/"Qué Más Da", featuring guest appearances by Fat Joe, Amerie and drummer Joseph Quevedo "Joey Q".

Another single was released "Drop It on Me", which did not chart. Soon after, Martin announced his Latin American tour called Una Noche con Ricky Martin/One Night Only, promoting his latest album Life. Starting in Latin America, the tour premiered on November 15 in Mexico City. After finishing the first leg of the tour (which included Latin America and the U.S.), he released his next single, "It's Alright" (Spanish version: "Déjate Llevar"). A different version appeared in France, which included additional vocals by French R&B singer M. Pokora. The song went to number 4 in France.

Martin performed at the 2006 Winter Olympics Closing Ceremony in Turin. A few days later, he announced the second leg of his world tour (which included Europe and Africa) called One Night Only/Una Noche Con Ricky Martin World Tour. The second leg started on April 21 in Manchester, U.K., and ended on June 3 in Tel Aviv, Israel, including shows that sold-out in two hours (Italy and Finland). In addition, he performed at the World Cup Fan Party in Berlin (Brandenburger Tor) on June 7, 2006, and at Lebanon's Beiteddine Festival on May 27 at the BIEL seafront hall in Beirut and on May 28 in Egypt , his first concerts in the Arab world following a promise to Queen Noor on his 2005 visit to the Arab Conference in Jordan. During this visit, he recorded an Arabic/Spanglish version of "Drop It on Me", "Enta Omri" with Arabic pop star Cheb Mami. An anticipated 8 month tour ended early due to a lack of advertising.

In 2007, Martin began a international promotional tour titled Blanco y Negro which included a performance at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum and concluded with a presentation at the Madison Square Garden on October 14, 2007

In 2008, Martin released a greatest hits album entitled Ricky Martin 17.
Wiki letter w.svg This section requires expansion.

On June 2009, the singer announced he was working on a new studio album, the first since 2005's 'Life'. The album, which will feature tracks in both English and Spanish, is expected to be ready for spring of 2010, with a first single releasing near the beginning of the year. His collaborators include producer Lester Mendez, who has penned hits for everyone from Nelly Furtado to Carlos Santana. It would be his 9th studio album and his 11th album overall.

The singer also announced through his Twitter account that he's currently penning a book, although the content of said book is still unknown.
MTV Diary and MTV Unplugged

MTV aired "MTV Diary: Ricky Martin" in November 2006, showcasing scenes from the "One Night Only" tour, on the road and onstage. MTV Latin America and MTV Tr3́s co-produced the "Ricky Martin MTV Unplugged" show to be taped in Miami on August 17, 2006 and premiered on MTV Latin America, MTV Tr3́s and MTV Puerto Rico in October 2006.

"Ricky Martin MTV Unplugged" was released by Sony BMG on November 7, 2006 in both separate CD and DVD formats, and in May 2007, was re-released together in a CD/DVD combo-package. Available exclusively at Wal-Mart with the original CD purchase is a separate Ricky Martin DVD titled "Making of Ricky Martin MTV Unplugged", which includes a 40 minute behind the scenes documentary and the music video to "Tu Recuerdo". (It should be noted the music video for "Tu Recuerdo" is just an extracted live performance of the song from MTV Unplugged.)

The first single of the album, "Tu Recuerdo", featuring La Mari from Chambao, reached number one on the U.S. Latin Charts. The album debuted at number one on the U.S. Latin Charts and number thirty-eight on Billboard 200.

This album includes Puerto Rican influences, particularly "Tu Recuerdo" (based mainly on a Puerto Rican "aguinaldo jíbaro", and finishing with an "aguinaldo orocoveño") and "Pégate", a Puerto Rican plena. Christian Nieves plays the Puerto Rican cuatro on both tracks. Viento de agua and Joseph Quevedo played the plena drums in "Pégate".
Personal life
Ricky Martin at a Puerto Rican Day annual parade in New York City.

Martin has been nominated one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World by People magazine and its sister magazine People en Español in 2000 and 2006 respectively.

In the past Ricky stated he was in love with Mexican TV host Rebecca de Alba, with whom he had an off and on again relationship for over 14 years. They even talked of starting a family together. And at one point Ricky Martin planned on proposing. However with the release of "Life", Martin confirmed he and De Alba had parted ways.

During the Livin' la Vida Loca era, Martin's personal life went under the microscope due to his large gay following and he was constantly questioned about his sexual orientation. Neither avoiding the questions nor answering that he is straight stopped the gay rumors. In the magazine Plus 7 Days he said: "I am a modern man, live a full life, do not feel any barriers inside myself," Ricky says. "I perceive the contemporary world as an open forum, where nothing is taboo except criminal activity. If I were gay, why not admit it? ... I am a normal man. I love women and sex. I am a real hot-blooded Puerto Rican, but I have never been attracted by sex with a man."

In The Sunday Express on the gay rumors Martin said: "What are you going to do? I don't have a problem with homosexuality. I'm gay-friendly—I'm not gay."

In August 2008, Ricky became the father of twin boys. The babies were delivered via gestational surrogacy and were already a few weeks old. At the time of the press release, the children were already under Ricky's full-time care. On December 10, 2008, Martin told People magazine that the boys are named Matteo and Valentino. Martin's rep released a statement after the twins' birth, saying, "Ricky is elated to begin this new chapter in his life as a parent and will be spending the remainder of the year out of the public spotlight in order to spend time with his children."

In June 2009, Martin spoke about his sexuality in an interview with Hispanic magazine TV Aqui, reportedly hinting that he was bisexual. He stated that his "heart could belong to a woman or a man". Later reports refuted this as a publicity stunt by TV Aqui. The reliable gay publication The Advocate revealed in an article "Ricky Martin Coming Out A Lie": "Last week, via a leaked cover line and a vague Twitter post, Puerto Rican magazine TV Aqui suggested that Ricky Martin had inched toward the closet door in its latest issue by saying his heart “could belong to a man or a woman. Now, with the issue on newsstands, it turns out the magazine cover text and Twitter post were nothing more than a ploy to get people to buy the magazine -- because that isn’t what he said at all. In translated text of the video footage, Martin says: "Eh, the heart of Ricky Martin? Look, whether it has or doesn't have a male owner or a female owner, I have never spoken about that topic, so don't…"
Humanitarian work
Main article: Ricky Martín Foundation

Martin is the founder of Fundación Ricky Martin (English: Ricky Martín Foundation), a non-profit organization. Among the events promoted by the foundation was a summer camp, which included Martin's personal participation.

Martin has been honored with many accolades for his humanitarian efforts including

    * The Leadership in the Arts Award
    * Billboard's Spirit of Hope Award
    * The Alma Award
    * Vanguard Award
    * International Humanitarian Award by the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children.
    * Hispanic Heritage Award for his humanitarian work through the Sabera Foundation in rescuing three orphan girls from the streets of Calcutta (September 2002)

Ricky Martin has also collaborated with the International Organization for Migration on the "Llama y Vive" (Call and Live), a campaign which is aimed to facilitate prevention of human trafficking, protection of the youngest victims of child trafficking, and prosecution of the traffickers. For his work against human trafficking, the U.S. State Department named Martin one of its "Heroes in Ending Modern-Day Slavery" in 2005.
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk192/Kaulitz_2008/ricky-martin.jpg
http://i618.photobucket.com/albums/tt266/vgomesvictor/0290681B.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/24/09 at 5:50 am


The word of the day...Children
    *
          o
            Children is the plural of child.

Related phrases

    *
      child
      A child is a human being who is not yet an adult.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6pphVs8bF0

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/24/09 at 5:53 am


* Robin Gibb..Robin Hugh Gibb CBE (born 22 December 1949) is a singer and songwriter. He is best known as a member of the singing/songwriting trio the Bee Gees, cofounded with his twin brother Maurice Gibb (1949-2003), and elder brother Barry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6pphVs8bF0
Quick Quiz Question...

What is the link between Teach Your Children by Crosby Stills & Nash and The Bee Gees?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/24/09 at 6:57 am


The co-birthday of the day...Ricky Martin

Enrique Martín Morales (born December 24, 1971), better known by his stage name Ricky Martin, is a Grammy Award- and Latin Grammy Award- winning, Puerto Rican pop singer who rose to fame, first as a member of the Latin boy band Menudo, then as a solo artist since 1991.

His career has spanned over three decades and has sold more than 60 million albums worldwide. He is the founder of Ricky Martín Foundation (in Spanish Fundación Ricky Martin) a non-profit charity organization.

In 2008, he became a single father of twin boys, Matteo and Valentino.
Ricky Martin rose to fame when boy a member of the Latin American boy band Menudo after which he became a solo artist in 1990. He is considered a major star in the world of Latin Pop and is considered to have opened the doors for some of his fellow (Latin American singers).
Solo work

After completing high school, Martin left San Juan and moved to New York City. Later, Martin moved to Cancún where he started acting, first in theater productions, and then in a soap opera ("telenovela") titled Alcanzar Una Estrella II (Reach for a Star 2). A film based on the series was produced in which Martin played "Pablo," earning a Heraldo Award in 1993.

While acting in Mexico, Martin was signed to Sony Discos, the company's Latin imprint, in 1990. He released his first solo album, the Spanish-language Ricky Martin, in 1991, which included the single "Fuego Contra Fuego." The hit release earned gold records in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Puerto Rico, and the United States, and he performed a string of sold-out concert dates across South America.

In 1993, Martin released his second solo album, Me Amarás, which sold more than a million copies worldwide.

In 1994, he moved to Los Angeles, California. He received a role as bartender and singer (Miguel Morez) in the American soap opera General Hospital.

In 1995, Martin refocused on his music career through his third album, A Medio Vivir. With this album, Martin made a shift from formulaic hit ballads to a more risky fusion of music centered around traditional Latin sounds. With the hit "Maria", which epitomizes this new sound. "Maria" broke Martin into Europe through Spain. With the ballad "Te Extraño, Te Olvido, Te Amo", Martin began his expansion from Latin American and Spanish-speaking audiences to the European and Asian markets.
Broadway

After the conclusion of a worldwide tour, Martin returned to New York to appear in a Broadway production for the first time. He played the romantic lead, Marius Pontmercy, in Les Miserables.

While on Broadway, Martin returned to the studio and recorded his fourth album, Vuelve, which was certified platinum by the RIAA and went on to sell eight million copies worldwide. He was chosen to sing the anthem of the 1998 FIFA World Cup, the famous hit "The Cup of Life"/"La Copa de la Vida", that reached number one on the charts in 60 countries.
Crossover to English

After several years as a major star in Spanish-speaking countries, Martin prepared his first English album in 1999. The self-titled album contained material by producers such as Desmond Child, Diane Warren, William Orbit, George Noriega and his longtime childhood friend (producer/singer) Robi Draco Rosa. The album also featured special guests Madonna (on the Spanish-English duet "Be Careful (Cuidado con mi Corazón)") and Meja (Private Emotion). As Turkey was one of the countries where Martin's popularity was at its peak, he sang the song with Sertab Erener, Turkish winner of the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest, instead of Meja in Turkish versions of the album.

The first and most prominent single was "Livin' la Vida Loca," which reached number one in many countries around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, France, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Guatemala, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, and South Africa. He followed up with the hit "She's All I Ever Had" which peaked at #2 on The Billboard Hot 100. This album became one of the top-selling albums of 1999, and was certified 7 times platinum, selling over 22 million copies worldwide to date.

After the success of Ricky Martin, a new English-language album, Sound Loaded, was released in November 2000. Though the album did debut in the top ten (number four), it failed to reach number one. Three singles were released from Sound Loaded: the first was "She Bangs," which was followed by a duet with Christina Aguilera called "Nobody Wants to Be Lonely". Unlike the first two singles released from Ricky Martin, neither of the first two singles from this album reached the U.S. Top Ten on Billboard's Hot 100; they reached twelve and thirteen respectively. The third single, "Loaded" reached ninety-seven on Billboard's Hot 100. Sound Loaded eventually sold two million copies in the USA.

In 2001, Martin released a Spanish Greatest Hits album entitled La Historia, which went to number one in the Latin Charts and stayed there for five weeks. The album contained reworkings of two of his early songs Fuego contra fuego and El amor de mi vida. In the same year, he released his English greatest hits album, The Best of Ricky Martin, which went on to sell over one million copies. The album contained no new material save for two remixes of the track Amor. Both remixes were released to radio in some European countries and a single was also released.

In 2003, Martin released a new Spanish album "Almas del Silencio" ("Souls of Silence"). The first single, "Tal Vez", went to number one on the Latin Charts and stayed there for twelve weeks. He said of the new album: "I really needed to go back to focus, to my center, to the beginning. I had the need to search within, and really dig deep, and find those emotions that, because of the adrenaline and the euphoria that I lived for a couple of years, were probably sabotaged." Almas del Silencio debuted at number twelve on the Billboard 200, reached number one on the Latin Albums charts and stayed there for six weeks. The next singles, "Jaleo" and "Y Todo Queda en Nada", reached number one on the Latin Charts, and the album sold more than 1 million copies worldwide .

On October 11, 2005 Martin released his first English language album since 2000's Sound Loaded and the tenth album of his career. Most of the songs on the album, called Life, were co-written by Martin. He commented on the album: "I was really in touch with my emotions. I think this album is very multi-layered, just like life is. It's about feeling anger. It's about feeling joy. It's about feeling uncertainty. It's about feeling. And all my emotions are part of this production." The album debuted at number six on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. The first single from the album was "I Don't Care"/"Qué Más Da", featuring guest appearances by Fat Joe, Amerie and drummer Joseph Quevedo "Joey Q".

Another single was released "Drop It on Me", which did not chart. Soon after, Martin announced his Latin American tour called Una Noche con Ricky Martin/One Night Only, promoting his latest album Life. Starting in Latin America, the tour premiered on November 15 in Mexico City. After finishing the first leg of the tour (which included Latin America and the U.S.), he released his next single, "It's Alright" (Spanish version: "Déjate Llevar"). A different version appeared in France, which included additional vocals by French R&B singer M. Pokora. The song went to number 4 in France.

Martin performed at the 2006 Winter Olympics Closing Ceremony in Turin. A few days later, he announced the second leg of his world tour (which included Europe and Africa) called One Night Only/Una Noche Con Ricky Martin World Tour. The second leg started on April 21 in Manchester, U.K., and ended on June 3 in Tel Aviv, Israel, including shows that sold-out in two hours (Italy and Finland). In addition, he performed at the World Cup Fan Party in Berlin (Brandenburger Tor) on June 7, 2006, and at Lebanon's Beiteddine Festival on May 27 at the BIEL seafront hall in Beirut and on May 28 in Egypt , his first concerts in the Arab world following a promise to Queen Noor on his 2005 visit to the Arab Conference in Jordan. During this visit, he recorded an Arabic/Spanglish version of "Drop It on Me", "Enta Omri" with Arabic pop star Cheb Mami. An anticipated 8 month tour ended early due to a lack of advertising.

In 2007, Martin began a international promotional tour titled Blanco y Negro which included a performance at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum and concluded with a presentation at the Madison Square Garden on October 14, 2007

In 2008, Martin released a greatest hits album entitled Ricky Martin 17.
Wiki letter w.svg This section requires expansion.

On June 2009, the singer announced he was working on a new studio album, the first since 2005's 'Life'. The album, which will feature tracks in both English and Spanish, is expected to be ready for spring of 2010, with a first single releasing near the beginning of the year. His collaborators include producer Lester Mendez, who has penned hits for everyone from Nelly Furtado to Carlos Santana. It would be his 9th studio album and his 11th album overall.

The singer also announced through his Twitter account that he's currently penning a book, although the content of said book is still unknown.
MTV Diary and MTV Unplugged

MTV aired "MTV Diary: Ricky Martin" in November 2006, showcasing scenes from the "One Night Only" tour, on the road and onstage. MTV Latin America and MTV Tr3́s co-produced the "Ricky Martin MTV Unplugged" show to be taped in Miami on August 17, 2006 and premiered on MTV Latin America, MTV Tr3́s and MTV Puerto Rico in October 2006.

"Ricky Martin MTV Unplugged" was released by Sony BMG on November 7, 2006 in both separate CD and DVD formats, and in May 2007, was re-released together in a CD/DVD combo-package. Available exclusively at Wal-Mart with the original CD purchase is a separate Ricky Martin DVD titled "Making of Ricky Martin MTV Unplugged", which includes a 40 minute behind the scenes documentary and the music video to "Tu Recuerdo". (It should be noted the music video for "Tu Recuerdo" is just an extracted live performance of the song from MTV Unplugged.)

The first single of the album, "Tu Recuerdo", featuring La Mari from Chambao, reached number one on the U.S. Latin Charts. The album debuted at number one on the U.S. Latin Charts and number thirty-eight on Billboard 200.

This album includes Puerto Rican influences, particularly "Tu Recuerdo" (based mainly on a Puerto Rican "aguinaldo jíbaro", and finishing with an "aguinaldo orocoveño") and "Pégate", a Puerto Rican plena. Christian Nieves plays the Puerto Rican cuatro on both tracks. Viento de agua and Joseph Quevedo played the plena drums in "Pégate".
Personal life
Ricky Martin at a Puerto Rican Day annual parade in New York City.

Martin has been nominated one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World by People magazine and its sister magazine People en Español in 2000 and 2006 respectively.

In the past Ricky stated he was in love with Mexican TV host Rebecca de Alba, with whom he had an off and on again relationship for over 14 years. They even talked of starting a family together. And at one point Ricky Martin planned on proposing. However with the release of "Life", Martin confirmed he and De Alba had parted ways.

During the Livin' la Vida Loca era, Martin's personal life went under the microscope due to his large gay following and he was constantly questioned about his sexual orientation. Neither avoiding the questions nor answering that he is straight stopped the gay rumors. In the magazine Plus 7 Days he said: "I am a modern man, live a full life, do not feel any barriers inside myself," Ricky says. "I perceive the contemporary world as an open forum, where nothing is taboo except criminal activity. If I were gay, why not admit it? ... I am a normal man. I love women and sex. I am a real hot-blooded Puerto Rican, but I have never been attracted by sex with a man."

In The Sunday Express on the gay rumors Martin said: "What are you going to do? I don't have a problem with homosexuality. I'm gay-friendly—I'm not gay."

In August 2008, Ricky became the father of twin boys. The babies were delivered via gestational surrogacy and were already a few weeks old. At the time of the press release, the children were already under Ricky's full-time care. On December 10, 2008, Martin told People magazine that the boys are named Matteo and Valentino. Martin's rep released a statement after the twins' birth, saying, "Ricky is elated to begin this new chapter in his life as a parent and will be spending the remainder of the year out of the public spotlight in order to spend time with his children."

In June 2009, Martin spoke about his sexuality in an interview with Hispanic magazine TV Aqui, reportedly hinting that he was bisexual. He stated that his "heart could belong to a woman or a man". Later reports refuted this as a publicity stunt by TV Aqui. The reliable gay publication The Advocate revealed in an article "Ricky Martin Coming Out A Lie": "Last week, via a leaked cover line and a vague Twitter post, Puerto Rican magazine TV Aqui suggested that Ricky Martin had inched toward the closet door in its latest issue by saying his heart “could belong to a man or a woman. Now, with the issue on newsstands, it turns out the magazine cover text and Twitter post were nothing more than a ploy to get people to buy the magazine -- because that isn’t what he said at all. In translated text of the video footage, Martin says: "Eh, the heart of Ricky Martin? Look, whether it has or doesn't have a male owner or a female owner, I have never spoken about that topic, so don't…"
Humanitarian work
Main article: Ricky Martín Foundation

Martin is the founder of Fundación Ricky Martin (English: Ricky Martín Foundation), a non-profit organization. Among the events promoted by the foundation was a summer camp, which included Martin's personal participation.

Martin has been honored with many accolades for his humanitarian efforts including

    * The Leadership in the Arts Award
    * Billboard's Spirit of Hope Award
    * The Alma Award
    * Vanguard Award
    * International Humanitarian Award by the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children.
    * Hispanic Heritage Award for his humanitarian work through the Sabera Foundation in rescuing three orphan girls from the streets of Calcutta (September 2002)

Ricky Martin has also collaborated with the International Organization for Migration on the "Llama y Vive" (Call and Live), a campaign which is aimed to facilitate prevention of human trafficking, protection of the youngest victims of child trafficking, and prosecution of the traffickers. For his work against human trafficking, the U.S. State Department named Martin one of its "Heroes in Ending Modern-Day Slavery" in 2005.
http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk192/Kaulitz_2008/ricky-martin.jpg
http://i618.photobucket.com/albums/tt266/vgomesvictor/0290681B.jpg


I liked him better with Menudo.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 12/24/09 at 7:27 am

Nice job as usual, Ninny. Thanks for posting.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 12/24/09 at 12:24 pm


The word of the day...Kitchen
kitchen is a room that is used for cooking and for household jobs such as washing dishes.
http://i976.photobucket.com/albums/ae243/daryl_039/kitchen.jpg
http://i793.photobucket.com/albums/yy220/corinnagallagher/DSC02429JPG.jpg
http://i822.photobucket.com/albums/zz149/cinemaniac7147/Apartment%20Photos/Kitchen.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l6/jenjen81388/New%20House/Kitchen.jpg
http://i956.photobucket.com/albums/ae44/nik2202/40thBirthdayPictures018.jpg
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj215/Titanpb/George011.jpg
http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx318/animalmotherstemple/DSC01793.jpg
http://i763.photobucket.com/albums/xx274/DustinCavanaugh/CIMG2017.jpg



How appropriate considering we are trying to put our kitchen back together after the disastrous remodeling.



The co-birthday of the day...Ricky Martin

Enrique Martín Morales (born December 24, 1971), better known by his stage name Ricky Martin, is a Grammy Award- and Latin Grammy Award- winning, Puerto Rican pop singer who rose to fame, first as a member of the Latin boy band Menudo, then as a solo artist since 1991.

His career has spanned over three decades and has sold more than 60 million albums worldwide. He is the founder of Ricky Martín Foundation (in Spanish Fundación Ricky Martin) a non-profit charity organization.

In 2008, he became a single father of twin boys, Matteo and Valentino.
Ricky Martin rose to fame when boy a member of the Latin American boy band Menudo after which he became a solo artist in 1990. He is considered a major star in the world of Latin Pop and is considered to have opened the doors for some of his fellow (Latin American singers).
Solo work

After completing high school, Martin left San Juan and moved to New York City. Later, Martin moved to Cancún where he started acting, first in theater productions, and then in a soap opera ("telenovela") titled Alcanzar Una Estrella II (Reach for a Star 2). A film based on the series was produced in which Martin played "Pablo," earning a Heraldo Award in 1993.

While acting in Mexico, Martin was signed to Sony Discos, the company's Latin imprint, in 1990. He released his first solo album, the Spanish-language Ricky Martin, in 1991, which included the single "Fuego Contra Fuego." The hit release earned gold records in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Puerto Rico, and the United States, and he performed a string of sold-out concert dates across South America.

In 1993, Martin released his second solo album, Me Amarás, which sold more than a million copies worldwide.

In 1994, he moved to Los Angeles, California. He received a role as bartender and singer (Miguel Morez) in the American soap opera General Hospital.

In 1995, Martin refocused on his music career through his third album, A Medio Vivir. With this album, Martin made a shift from formulaic hit ballads to a more risky fusion of music centered around traditional Latin sounds. With the hit "Maria", which epitomizes this new sound. "Maria" broke Martin into Europe through Spain. With the ballad "Te Extraño, Te Olvido, Te Amo", Martin began his expansion from Latin American and Spanish-speaking audiences to the European and Asian markets.
Broadway

After the conclusion of a worldwide tour, Martin returned to New York to appear in a Broadway production for the first time. He played the romantic lead, Marius Pontmercy, in Les Miserables.

While on Broadway, Martin returned to the studio and recorded his fourth album, Vuelve, which was certified platinum by the RIAA and went on to sell eight million copies worldwide. He was chosen to sing the anthem of the 1998 FIFA World Cup, the famous hit "The Cup of Life"/"La Copa de la Vida", that reached number one on the charts in 60 countries.
Crossover to English

After several years as a major star in Spanish-speaking countries, Martin prepared his first English album in 1999. The self-titled album contained material by producers such as Desmond Child, Diane Warren, William Orbit, George Noriega and his longtime childhood friend (producer/singer) Robi Draco Rosa. The album also featured special guests Madonna (on the Spanish-English duet "Be Careful (Cuidado con mi Corazón)") and Meja (Private Emotion). As Turkey was one of the countries where Martin's popularity was at its peak, he sang the song with Sertab Erener, Turkish winner of the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest, instead of Meja in Turkish versions of the album.

The first and most prominent single was "Livin' la Vida Loca," which reached number one in many countries around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, France, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Guatemala, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, and South Africa. He followed up with the hit "She's All I Ever Had" which peaked at #2 on The Billboard Hot 100. This album became one of the top-selling albums of 1999, and was certified 7 times platinum, selling over 22 million copies worldwide to date.

After the success of Ricky Martin, a new English-language album, Sound Loaded, was released in November 2000. Though the album did debut in the top ten (number four), it failed to reach number one. Three singles were released from Sound Loaded: the first was "She Bangs," which was followed by a duet with Christina Aguilera called "Nobody Wants to Be Lonely". Unlike the first two singles released from Ricky Martin, neither of the first two singles from this album reached the U.S. Top Ten on Billboard's Hot 100; they reached twelve and thirteen respectively. The third single, "Loaded" reached ninety-seven on Billboard's Hot 100. Sound Loaded eventually sold two million copies in the USA.

In 2001, Martin released a Spanish Greatest Hits album entitled La Historia, which went to number one in the Latin Charts and stayed there for five weeks. The album contained reworkings of two of his early songs Fuego contra fuego and El amor de mi vida. In the same year, he released his English greatest hits album, The Best of Ricky Martin, which went on to sell over one million copies. The album contained no new material save for two remixes of the track Amor. Both remixes were released to radio in some European countries and a single was also released.

In 2003, Martin released a new Spanish album "Almas del Silencio" ("Souls of Silence"). The first single, "Tal Vez", went to number one on the Latin Charts and stayed there for twelve weeks. He said of the new album: "I really needed to go back to focus, to my center, to the beginning. I had the need to search within, and really dig deep, and find those emotions that, because of the adrenaline and the euphoria that I lived for a couple of years, were probably sabotaged." Almas del Silencio debuted at number twelve on the Billboard 200, reached number one on the Latin Albums charts and stayed there for six weeks. The next singles, "Jaleo" and "Y Todo Queda en Nada", reached number one on the Latin Charts, and the album sold more than 1 million copies worldwide .

On October 11, 2005 Martin released his first English language album since 2000's Sound Loaded and the tenth album of his career. Most of the songs on the album, called Life, were co-written by Martin. He commented on the album: "I was really in touch with my emotions. I think this album is very multi-layered, just like life is. It's about feeling anger. It's about feeling joy. It's about feeling uncertainty. It's about feeling. And all my emotions are part of this production." The album debuted at number six on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. The first single from the album was "I Don't Care"/"Qué Más Da", featuring guest appearances by Fat Joe, Amerie and drummer Joseph Quevedo "Joey Q".

Another single was released "Drop It on Me", which did not chart. Soon after, Martin announced his Latin American tour called Una Noche con Ricky Martin/One Night Only, promoting his latest album Life. Starting in Latin America, the tour premiered on November 15 in Mexico City. After finishing the first leg of the tour (which included Latin America and the U.S.), he released his next single, "It's Alright" (Spanish version: "Déjate Llevar"). A different version appeared in France, which included additional vocals by French R&B singer M. Pokora. The song went to number 4 in France.

Martin performed at the 2006 Winter Olympics Closing Ceremony in Turin. A few days later, he announced the second leg of his world tour (which included Europe and Africa) called One Night Only/Una Noche Con Ricky Martin World Tour. The second leg started on April 21 in Manchester, U.K., and ended on June 3 in Tel Aviv, Israel, including shows that sold-out in two hours (Italy and Finland). In addition, he performed at the World Cup Fan Party in Berlin (Brandenburger Tor) on June 7, 2006, and at Lebanon's Beiteddine Festival on May 27 at the BIEL seafront hall in Beirut and on May 28 in Egypt , his first concerts in the Arab world following a promise to Queen Noor on his 2005 visit to the Arab Conference in Jordan. During this visit, he recorded an Arabic/Spanglish version of "Drop It on Me", "Enta Omri" with Arabic pop star Cheb Mami. An anticipated 8 month tour ended early due to a lack of advertising.

In 2007, Martin began a international promotional tour titled Blanco y Negro which included a performance at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum and concluded with a presentation at the Madison Square Garden on October 14, 2007

In 2008, Martin released a greatest hits album entitled Ricky Martin 17.
Wiki letter w.svg This section requires expansion.

On June 2009, the singer announced he was working on a new studio album, the first since 2005's 'Life'. The album, which will feature tracks in both English and Spanish, is expected to be ready for spring of 2010, with a first single releasing near the beginning of the year. His collaborators include producer Lester Mendez, who has penned hits for everyone from Nelly Furtado to Carlos Santana. It would be his 9th studio album and his 11th album overall.

The singer also announced through his Twitter account that he's currently penning a book, although the content of said book is still unknown.
MTV Diary and MTV Unplugged

MTV aired "MTV Diary: Ricky Martin" in November 2006, showcasing scenes from the "One Night Only" tour, on the road and onstage. MTV Latin America and MTV Tr3́s co-produced the "Ricky Martin MTV Unplugged" show to be taped in Miami on August 17, 2006 and premiered on MTV Latin America, MTV Tr3́s and MTV Puerto Rico in October 2006.

"Ricky Martin MTV Unplugged" was released by Sony BMG on November 7, 2006 in both separate CD and DVD formats, and in May 2007, was re-released together in a CD/DVD combo-package. Available exclusively at Wal-Mart with the original CD purchase is a separate Ricky Martin DVD titled "Making of Ricky Martin MTV Unplugged", which includes a 40 minute behind the scenes documentary and the music video to "Tu Recuerdo". (It should be noted the music video for "Tu Recuerdo" is just an extracted live performance of the song from MTV Unplugged.)

The first single of the album, "Tu Recuerdo", featuring La Mari from Chambao, reached number one on the U.S. Latin Charts. The album debuted at number one on the U.S. Latin Charts and number thirty-eight on Billboard 200.

This album includes Puerto Rican influences, particularly "Tu Recuerdo" (based mainly on a Puerto Rican "aguinaldo jíbaro", and finishing with an "aguinaldo orocoveño") and "Pégate", a Puerto Rican plena. Christian Nieves plays the Puerto Rican cuatro on both tracks. Viento de agua and Joseph Quevedo played the plena drums in "Pégate".
Personal life
Ricky Martin at a Puerto Rican Day annual parade in New York City.

Martin has been nominated one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World by People magazine and its sister magazine People en Español in 2000 and 2006 respectively.

In the past Ricky stated he was in love with Mexican TV host Rebecca de Alba, with whom he had an off and on again relationship for over 14 years. They even talked of starting a family together. And at one point Ricky Martin planned on proposing. However with the release of "Life", Martin confirmed he and De Alba had parted ways.

During the Livin' la Vida Loca era, Martin's personal life went under the microscope due to his large gay following and he was constantly questioned about his sexual orientation. Neither avoiding the questions nor answering that he is straight stopped the gay rumors. In the magazine Plus 7 Days he said: "I am a modern man, live a full life, do not feel any barriers inside myself," Ricky says. "I perceive the contemporary world as an open forum, where nothing is taboo except criminal activity. If I were gay, why not admit it? ... I am a normal man. I love women and sex. I am a real hot-blooded Puerto Rican, but I have never been attracted by sex with a man."

In The Sunday Express on the gay rumors Martin said: "What are you going to do? I don't have a problem with homosexuality. I'm gay-friendly—I'm not gay."

In August 2008, Ricky became the father of twin boys. The babies were delivered via gestational surrogacy and were already a few weeks old. At the time of the press release, the children were already under Ricky's full-time care. On December 10, 2008, Martin told People magazine that the boys are named Matteo and Valentino. Martin's rep released a statement after the twins' birth, saying, "Ricky is elated to begin this new chapter in his life as a parent and will be spending the remainder of the year out of the public spotlight in order to spend time with his children."

In June 2009, Martin spoke about his sexuality in an interview with Hispanic magazine TV Aqui, reportedly hinting that he was bisexual. He stated that his "heart could belong to a woman or a man". Later reports refuted this as a publicity stunt by TV Aqui. The reliable gay publication The Advocate revealed in an article "Ricky Martin Coming Out A Lie": "Last week, via a leaked cover line and a vague Twitter post, Puerto Rican magazine TV Aqui suggested that Ricky Martin had inched toward the closet door in its latest issue by saying his heart “could belong to a man or a woman. Now, with the issue on newsstands, it turns out the magazine cover text and Twitter post were nothing more than a ploy to get people to buy the magazine -- because that isn’t what he said at all. In translated text of the video footage, Martin says: "Eh, the heart of Ricky Martin? Look, whether it has or doesn't have a male owner or a female owner, I have never spoken about that topic, so don't…"
Humanitarian work
Main article: Ricky Martín Foundation

Martin is the founder of Fundación Ricky Martin (English: Ricky Martín Foundation), a non-profit organization. Among the events promoted by the foundation was a summer camp, which included Martin's personal participation.

Martin has been honored with many accolades for his humanitarian efforts including

    * The Leadership in the Arts Award
    * Billboard's Spirit of Hope Award
    * The Alma Award
    * Vanguard Award
    * International Humanitarian Award by the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children.
    * Hispanic Heritage Award for his humanitarian work through the Sabera Foundation in rescuing three orphan girls from the streets of Calcutta (September 2002)

Ricky Martin has also collaborated with the International Organization for Migration on the "Llama y Vive" (Call and Live), a campaign which is aimed to facilitate prevention of human trafficking, protection of the youngest victims of child trafficking, and prosecution of the traffickers. For his work against human trafficking, the U.S. State Department named Martin one of its "Heroes in Ending Modern-Day Slavery" in 2005.
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First saw Ricky Martin on General Hospital. Can you say "YUM"? Of course I'm sure people know how I feel about Puerto Rican men.  ;)



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 12/24/09 at 1:30 pm


Quick Quiz Question...

What is the link between Teach Your Children by Crosby Stills & Nash and The Bee Gees?

I know the Bee gees also had a song called "Teach your chldren'

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/24/09 at 1:31 pm


I know the Bee gees also had a song called "Teach your chldren'
That is not the answer I am thinking of.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 12/24/09 at 1:32 pm


That is not the answer I am thinking of.

Both are 3 man bands?
Bee Gees had a song "Children of the world"

Am I getting closer?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/24/09 at 7:11 pm

Who remembers old school menudo?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/25/09 at 4:01 am



How appropriate considering we are trying to put our kitchen back together after the disastrous remodeling.




First saw Ricky Martin on General Hospital. Can you say "YUM"? Of course I'm sure people know how I feel about Puerto Rican men.  ;)



Cat

I hope the kitchen comes out fine..No do tell you love Puerto Rican men ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/25/09 at 4:01 am


Nice job as usual, Ninny. Thanks for posting.  :)

Glad you liked it. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/25/09 at 4:11 am

The word or phrase of the day...Merry Christmas
used as a greeting at Christmas to say that you hope that somebody has an enjoyable holiday
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/25/09 at 4:15 am

The birthday of the day...Sissy Spacek
Mary Elizabeth "Sissy" Spacek (born December 25, 1949) is an American actress and singer. Her screen debut was in the 1972 film Prime Cut co-starring Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman.

In the 1970s, she began starring in critically-acclaimed films directed by Terrence Malick, Brian de Palma and Robert Altman. Her performance as the blood-spattered title character in de Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie made her famous. She is one of the very few actresses ever nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in a horror film (Carrie).

In 1980, she won the Best Actress Oscar for her role as country star Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter. She has been nominated a total of 6 times. Spacek is known mainly as a dramatic actress, but has also made comedies. The films Spacek has starred in have earned over $700 million world wide.  Spacek started out as a country singer, recording one single ("John, You've Gone Too Far This Time"), about John Lennon, an expression of her shock over the Two Virgins cover under the name 'Rainbo'. With the help of her cousin, actor Rip Torn, she was able to enroll in Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio and then the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York City.
1970s

Her first credited role was in the 1972 cult classic Prime Cut, in which she played Poppy, a young girl sold into sexual slavery. This was a striking debut, Spacek demonstrating her capacity for combining intense sexuality with a child-like blankness, a characteristic that would mark almost all of her work in the seventies. This role led to TV work which included a small role in The Waltons, where she uttered the well known line "When are you going to stop being John Boy and start being John Man?". But her landmark role of this period and the role that brought her to international attention, came in 1973: Holly in Terrence Malick's Badlands. As Holly, the 15-year old, baton-twirling girlfriend of mass-murderer Kit (played by Martin Sheen), Spacek gave a memorable and sinister performance. Narrating the film's grotesque events in almost comically-listless monotone, Holly is a truly bewildering character, apparently devoid of shock, sentiment, or the capacity for an appropriate response to anything. Spacek has described Badlands as the "most incredible" experience of her career. It was on the set of Badlands that Spacek met art director Jack Fisk, whom she would soon marry.

Spacek's iconic and career-defining role came in 1976 with Brian De Palma's Carrie, in which she played Carrie White, a universally bullied and despised teenager with telekinetic powers. Spacek's fragile beauty and painfully vulnerable charm made Carrie a far more sympathetic character than the character in Stephen King's original novel, and her performance is blistering in its emotional honesty. Yet, incredibly, Spacek had to work hard to persuade director de Palma to engage her for the role, set as he was on an alternative actress, whose identity remains to this day shrouded in mystery. Rubbing Vaseline into her hair, and donning an old sailor-dress her mother had made for her as a child, Spacek turned up to the audition with the odds stacked against her, but blew her competition out of the water. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in the film. (Veteran actress Piper Laurie, who played Carrie's religiously maniacal mother Margaret White, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.)

After Carrie Spacek played the small but amusing role of topless house-keeper Linda Murray in Alan Rudolph's bizarre ensemble piece Welcome to LA (1976), but cemented her reputation as one of the best actresses in independent cinema in Robert Altman's 1977 classic 3 Women. As Pinky Rose, the literally vacant waif who will suck the soul out of Shelley Duvall's tragically superficial Millie Lammoreaux, Spacek would reveal an astonishing range, shifting from quasi-retarded child-oaf to glamorously brittle queen bitch within the film's first hour. Altman himself was deeply impressed by her performance, stating: 'She's remarkable, one of the top actresses I've ever worked with. Her resources are like a deep well.' Meanwhile, de Palma now enthused: 'Sissy's a phantom. She has this mysterious way of slipping into a part, letting it take over her. She's got a wider range than any young actress I know.' Spacek also helped to finance then-brother-in-law David Lynch's directorial debut, the instantaneous art-house/horror classic Eraserhead (1976), and is thanked for her trouble in the credits of that film.

In 1979's Heart Beat, Spacek played the debonair socialite Carolyn Cassady, slipping (under the influence of John Heard's Jack Kerouac and Nick Nolte's Neal Cassady) into a frustrating combination of drudgery and (mild) debauchery. The film was not a hit, but emerges as a minor gem, insightful into the hypocrisies of 1950s United States and the disappointments of failed transgression.
1980s

Spacek began the decade with an Oscar in 1980 for Coal Miner's Daughter, in which she played country music star Loretta Lynn. Film critic Roger Ebert credited the success that was Coal Miner's Daughter, "to the performance by Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn. With the same sort of magical chemistry she's shown before, when she played the high school kid in Carrie, Spacek at twenty-nine has the ability to appear to be almost any age onscreen. Here she ages from about fourteen to somewhere in her thirties, always looks the age, and never seems to be wearing makeup."
The handprints of Sissy Spacek in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.

Spacek was also nominated for a Grammy Award for her singing on that film's soundtrack album. She followed this with her own country album, Hangin' Up My Heart in 1983; the album spawned one hit single, "Lonely But Only For You," a song written by K.T. Oslin which reached #15 on the Billboard Country chart.

The 1980s were a solid decade for Spacek. She consolidated her position as one of Hollywood's leading actresses, even if the disquieting 'edge' of her seventies persona was dulled somewhat. She starred alongside Jack Lemmon in Costa-Gavras's political thriller Missing (1982), Mel Gibson in the rural drama The River (1984), and Diane Keaton and Jessica Lange in 1986's Crimes of the Heart. She was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for all of these roles. Other notable performances of the decade included poignant star turns in husband Jack Fisk's directorial debut Raggedy Man (1981), and opposite Anne Bancroft in the harrowing suicide drama 'Night Mother (1986). She also showed her lighter side by agreeing to play the voice of the brain in the Steve Martin comedy The Man with Two Brains (1983). By the end of 1986 Spacek retired to her farm in Virginia to raise her children and would not appear in another film until 1990.
1990s

The 1990s saw Spacek slowly come back to Hollywood, after her self-imposed hiatus. She had a supporting role as Kevin Costner's wife in Oliver Stone's JFK (1991), she made a number of comedies, TV movies, and the occasional interesting film. Most notable were her hilarious turn as the villainous Verena Talbo in 1995's whimsical but underrated ensemble piece The Grass Harp (which reunited her with both Piper Laurie and Jack Lemmon), a fiercely sympathetic supporting performance (opposite Nick Nolte again) as the waitress Margie Fogg in Paul Schrader's terrifying father-son psychodrama Affliction (1997), and a brilliant study in middle-aged, stuttering low confidence, as Rose Straight in David Lynch's charming family epic The Straight Story (1999).
2000s

The last decade has seen Spacek excel in a number of film roles. In 2001, she was nominated again for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in Todd Field's In the Bedroom. New York Times film critic Stephen Holden said of her work in the film:

   "Ms. Spacek's performance is as devastating as it is unflashy. With the slight tightening of her neck muscles and a downward twitch of her mouth, she conveys her character's relentlessness, then balances it with enough sweetness to make Ruth seem entirely human. It is one of Ms. Spacek's greatest performances.

Her portrayal of a grieving mother consumed by revenge, Ruth Fowler, won extraordinary praise and garnered the New York and Los Angeles Film Critics Awards for Best Actress.

Other notable performances of this decade include her moving portrayal of quietly unfaithful wife Ruth in Rodrigo Garcia's incredible feminist L.A.-based puzzle Nine Lives (2005), and a recent turn as a woman suffering from Alzheimer's in the television movie Pictures of Hollis Woods (2007). In 2008, Spacek had a cameo appearance in the Christmas movie Four Christmases (2008) and a lead role in the independent drama, Lake City (2008).

Spacek joined the HBO drama Big Love for a multi-episode arc as a powerful Washington, D.C., lobbyist.
Personal life

Spacek married production designer Jack Fisk in 1974. Fisk directed her in the films Raggedy Man and Violets Are Blue and was Oscar-nominated for his production design in 2007's There Will Be Blood. They have two daughters, Schuyler Fisk and Madison Fisk. Schuyler has appeared in several film roles, and is now pursuing a career as a singer. Spacek and her family live on a horse ranch near Charlottesville, Virginia. She is also an ardent crusader for women's rights.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1970 Trash Girl extra at bar uncredited
1972 Prime Cut Poppy
1973 The Girls of Huntington House Sara TV film
Badlands Holly Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer
1974 Ginger in the Morning Ginger TV film
The Migrants Wanda Trimpin
1975 Katherine Katherine Alman TV film (also known as The Radical)
1976 Carrie Carrie White National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Welcome to L.A. Linda Murray
1977 3 Women Pinky Rose New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress
1978 Verna: U.S.O. Girl Verna Vane TV film
1980 Coal Miner's Daughter Loretta Lynn Academy Award for Best Actress
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
National Board of Review Award for Best Actress
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Heart Beat Carolyn Cassady
1981 Raggedy Man Nita Longley Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1982 Missing Beth Horman Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1983 The Man with Two Brains Anne Uumellmahaye voice (uncredited)
1984 The River Mae Garvey Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Terror in the Aisles archival footage
1985 Marie Marie Ragghianti
1986 Violets Are Blue Augusta 'Gussie' Sawyer
'night, Mother Jessie Cates
Crimes of the Heart Rebeca 'Babe'/'Becky' Magrath Botrelle Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
1990 The Long Walk Home Miriam Thompson
1991 Hard Promises Christine Ann Coalter
JFK Liz Garrison
1992 A Private Matter Sherri Finkbine TV film
1994 A Place for Annie Susan Lansing TV film
Trading Mom aka "The Mommy Market" Mrs. Mommy Martin; Mama, Snappy French;
Mom, the Nature-Hiker; Natasha, the Circus Performer
1995 The Good Old Boys Spring Renfro Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
The Grass Harp Verena Talbo
Streets of Laredo Lorena Parker TV mini-series
1996 Beyond the Call Pam O'Brien TV film
If These Walls Could Talk Barbara Barrows (segment "1974") TV film
1997 Affliction Margie Fogg
1999 Blast from the Past Helen Thomas Webber Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
The Straight Story Rose 'Rosie' Straight Nominated — Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
2000 Songs in Ordinary Time Marie Fermoyle TV film
2001 In the Bedroom Ruth Fowler AFI Actress of the Year
Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Female
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Chlotrudis Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Midwives Sibyl Danforth Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
2002 Last Call Zelda Fitzgerald Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film
Tuck Everlasting Mae Tuck Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
2004 A Home at the End of the World Alice Glover
2005 Nine Lives Ruth Locarno International Film Festival Award for Best Actress Ensemble
The Ring Two Evelyn
North Country Alice Aimes
2006 An American Haunting Lucy Bell
Summer Running: The Race to Cure Breast Cancer Mrs. Flora Good
2007 Gray Matters Sydney
Hot Rod Marie Powell
Pictures of Hollis Woods Josie Cahill Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film
2008 Lake City Maggie
Four Christmases Paula (Brad's Mom)
2009 Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People Narrator TV mini-series
Get Low For People

Unknow
Discography
Albums
Year Album US Country Label
1983 Hangin' Up My Heart 17 Atlantic
Singles
Year Single Chart Positions Album
US Country US CAN Country
1980 "Coal Miner's Daughter" 24 — 7 Coal Miner's Daughter (Soundtrack)
"Back in Baby's Arms" — — 71
1983 "Lonely But Only for You" 15 110 13 Hangin' Up My Heart
1984 "If I Can Just Get Through the Night" 57 — 41
"If You Could Obly see Me Now 79 - -
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/25/09 at 4:19 am

The co-birthday of the day...Jimmy Buffett...James William "Jimmy" Buffett (born December 25, 1946) is a singer, songwriter, author, businessman, and recently a movie producer best known for his "island escapism" lifestyle and music including hits such as "Margaritaville" (No. 234 on RIAA's list of "Songs of the Century"), and "Come Monday". He has a devoted base of fans known as "Parrotheads". His band is called the Coral Reefer Band.

Aside from his career in music, Buffett is also a best-selling writer and is involved in two restaurant chains named after two of his best known songs, "Cheeseburger in Paradise" and "Margaritaville". He owns the Margaritaville Cafe restaurant chain and co-developed the Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant concept with OSI Restaurant Partners (parent of Outback Steakhouse), which operates the chain under a licensing agreement with Buffett.Buffett began his musical career in Nashville, Tennessee during the late 1960s as a country artist and recorded his first album, the folk rock Down to Earth, in 1970. During this time Buffett could be frequently found busking for tourists in New Orleans. Country music singer Jerry Jeff Walker took him to Key West on a busking expedition. Buffett then moved to Key West and began establishing the easy-going beach bum persona for which he is known. Following this move, Buffett combined country, folk, and pop music with coastal as well as tropical lyrical themes for a sound sometimes called "gulf and western." 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.

Buffett's third album was the 1973 A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean. A1A followed in 1974, Havana Daydreamin' appeared in 1976, followed by 1977's Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes, which featured the breakthrough hit song "Margaritaville". Many fans believe Buffett's best work was represented by these earlier albums ( COBO-Church of Buffett, Orthodox re the canon)

With the untimely death of friend and mentor Jim Croce in September 1973, ABC Dunhill tapped Buffett to fill his space. Earlier, Buffett had visited Croce's farm in Pennsylvania and met with Croce in Florida (see Jimmy Buffett "The Man from Margaritaville Revealed" - Steve Eng page 144 and "Jimmy Buffett Scrap Book" by Mark Humphrey page 120)

During the 1980s, Buffett made far more money off his tours than albums and became known as a popular concert draw. He released a series of albums during the following twenty years, primarily to his devoted audience, and also branched into writing and merchandising. In 1985, Buffett opened the first of the "Margaritaville" restaurants in Key West, bringing new visibility and life to the Margaritaville name. During the 1980s Buffett played at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. He briefly changed the name of the band from "Coral Reefers" to the "Coral Reef Band" to suit the HLS&R's request as they thought "Reefers" was a drug related reference. HLS&R is a charity event that provides student grants to children and young adults that compete in agriculture contests (FFA).

Two of the more out-of-character albums were Christmas Island, a collection of Christmas songs, and Parakeets, a collection of Buffett songs sung by children and containing "cleaned-up" lyrics (like "a cold root beer" instead of "a cold draft beer").

In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk to create a short-lived musical based on Wouk's novel, Don't Stop the Carnival. Broadway showed little interest in the play, ( post the failure of Paul Simon's The Capeman) and it only ran for six weeks in Miami. He released the soundtrack for 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 of any kind for his music in his 30 year 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 three-decade career.

Buffett continues to tour throughout the year although he has shifted recently to a more relaxed schedule of around 20–30 dates, and rarely on back-to-back nights, preferring to play only on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, thus the title of his 1999 live album Buffett Live — Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays. Purchasing tickets is difficult with most of his concerts selling out in minutes.

In the summer of 2005 Buffett teamed up with Sirius radio and introduced channel 31: Radio Margaritaville, and as of November 2008 is also on XM radio channel 55. Until this point Radio Margaritaville was solely an online channel. The channel broadcasts from the Margaritaville restaurant at Universal CityWalk in Orlando, Florida. The channel is still available online at RadioMargaritaville.com.

In August 2006, he released the album Take The Weather With You. The song "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On" on this album refers to 2005's Hurricane Katrina. Also on the album he pays tribute to Merle Haggard with his rendition of "Silver Wings" and covers, with Mark Knopfler playing on the track, "Whoop De Doo."

Of the over 30 albums Jimmy Buffett has released, as of October 2007, he has 8 Gold Albums and 9 Platinum or Multi Platinum Albums. In 2003 Buffett won his first ever Country Music Award (CMA) for his song "It's 5 O'clock Somewhere" with Alan Jackson, and was nominated again in 2007 for the CMA Event of the Year Award for his song "Hey Good Lookin" which featured Alan Jackson and George Strait.

On December 8, 2009, Jimmy Buffett released his 28th studio album entitled Buffet Hotel.
Writing
Jimmy Buffett at the Miami Book Fair International of 1989

Buffett has written three No. 1 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 book A Pirate Looks At Fifty went straight to No. 1 on the New York Times Bestseller non-fiction list, making him one of seven authors in that list's history to have reached No. 1 on both the fiction and non-fiction lists. The other six authors who have accomplished this are Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, William Styron, Irving Wallace, Dr. Seuss and Mitch Albom.

Buffett also co-wrote two children's books, The Jolly Mon and Trouble Dolls, with his eldest daughter, Savannah Jane Buffett. The original hard cover release of the The Jolly Mon included a cassette tape recording of him and Savannah Jane 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 May 13, 2008.

Buffett is currently writing a follow-up to his autobiography A Pirate Looks At Fifty, which he says may take up to ten years to write and complete. s 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 free, but he also paid for the concertgoers' tequila and beer.

In addition, many Parrothead club activities are focused on charity work, although Buffett is not directly involved with them.
Controversy

The earliest controversy with Buffett was his recording of "God's Own Drunk" found on the album Living and Dying in ¾ 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 monologue 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. They got an injunction against Buffett which prevented him from performing the song until the lawsuit was settled or resolved. So, in 1986 when Buffett would get to the part of his show where he would normally perform "God's Own Drunk," he would say that he still isn't 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 as being greedy and tells them to "kiss his ass."

On October 6, 2006, it was reported that Buffett had been detained by French custom 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 Vitamin B supplement known as Foltx.

This was not the first time Buffett had been assumed to be carrying drugs. In January 1996 his Grumman HU-16 airplane nicknamed "Hemisphere Dancer" was shot at by Jamaican police who believed the craft to be smuggling marijuana. The aircraft sustained minimal damage. On board the plane with Buffett were U2's Bono, 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.

On February 4, 2001, he was ejected from the American Airlines Arena in Miami during a Miami Heat/New York Knicks basketball game for cursing. After the game, referee Joe Forte said that he ordered the singer 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."

However, Forte apparently didn't know who he'd just removed from the arena. Heat coach Pat Riley tried to explain who Buffett was to Forte and was censured himself because the referee thought Riley was insulting him by asking if he'd ever been a "Parrothead," the nickname for Buffett fanatics.

Though Buffett didn't comment immediately after the incident, he did appear on The Today Show three days later and talked with Matt Lauer about the ejection.
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f186/ande9837/Jimmy-Buffet.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r183/cliffainley/buffet.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/25/09 at 4:23 am

* Annie Lennox...Annie Lennox (born 25 December 1954) is a Scottish musician and recording artist. Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, Lennox showed aptitude in music when she was a child and later studied classical music at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She began her recording career as a member of the British pop band The Tourists, and subsequently formed the synth pop duo Eurythmics with former bandmate David A. Stewart. The duo gained international prominence over the course of the 1980s with singles such as "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" and "Here Comes the Rain Again".

In the 1990s, Lennox embarked on a solo career beginning with her debut Diva (1992), which produced the hit singles "Why" and "Walking on Broken Glass". In 2004, she won both the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Into the West", written for the original soundtrack to the feature film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Following the release of her fourth studio album Songs of Mass Destruction (2007), Lennox released her first compilation album The Annie Lennox Collection in 2009.

In addition to her career as a musician, Lennox is also a political and social activist, leading such events as an anti-war rally in London on 3 January 2009 in response to the conflict in Gaza. She also objected to the unauthorised use of the 1999 Eurythmics song "I Saved the World Today" in an election broadcast for Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

Known as a pop culture icon for her distinctive contralto vocals and visual performances, Lennox has been named "The Greatest White Soul Singer Alive" by VH1 and one of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time by Rolling Stone magazine. She has earned the distinction of 'most successful female British artist in UK music history' due to her global commercial success since the early 1980s. Including her work within Eurythmics, Lennox is one of the world's best-selling music artists, having sold over 80 million records worldwide.
Between 1977 and 1980, Lennox was the lead singer of The Tourists, a moderately successful British pop band and her first collaboration with Dave Stewart. During the time they were in The Tourists, Stewart and Lennox were involved in a relationship, though this had ended by the time they formed Eurythmics.

Lennox and Stewart's second collaboration, the 1980s synthpop duo Eurythmics, resulted in her most notable fame, as the duo's alto, soul-tinged lead singer. Early in Eurythmics' career, Lennox was known for her androgyny, wearing suits and once impersonating Elvis Presley. Eurythmics released a long line of singles in the 1980s, including "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)", "Here Comes the Rain Again","Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves", "Who's That Girl?", "Would I Lie to You?", "There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)", "Missionary Man", "You Have Placed a Chill in My Heart", "Thorn in My Side", "The Miracle of Love" and "Don't Ask Me Why", among others. Though Eurythmics never officially disbanded, Lennox made a fairly clear break from Stewart in 1990. Thereafter, she began a long and equally-successful solo career.

Lennox and Stewart reconvened Eurythmics in the late 1990s with the album Peace, their first album of new material in ten years. A subsequent concert tour was completed, with profits going to Greenpeace. Lennox and Stewart later collaborated on two new pieces for their 2005 Eurythmics compilation album, Ultimate Collection, of which "I've Got a Life" was released as a single in October 2005. The promotional video for the song features Lennox and Stewart performing in the present day, with images of past Eurythmics videos playing on television screens behind them. Lennox also appears in a man's suit with a cane, reminiscent of her "Sweet Dreams" video image from 1983. The single peaked at number fourteen in the UK singles chart and was a number-one U.S. Dance hit.

Lennox has received eight BRIT Awards, the most of any female artist. Four of the awards were given during her time with Eurythmics, and another was given to the duo for Outstanding Contribution to Music in 1999. The closest any other female artist has come to this record is Dido, with four awards.

From the beginning of her career, Lennox has experimented with her image - both as an artist and as a woman. She matured as a public figure in the late 20th century, just as MTV and the medium of video were becoming the obvious vehicles for selling contemporary popular music. She has managed her image astutely, both as a means of interpreting and marketing her music; this was most obviously (and expertly) emphasised in the music video for "Little Bird" in 1992, in which many Lennox lookalikes were featured...all dressed as her many different personae from past videos - both solo and Eurythmics eras.
Solo work
Early solo work

Though it was produced by Dave Stewart, the 1988 single with Al Green, "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" (a cover version of Jackie DeShannon's 1969 hit), was recorded for the soundtrack of the movie Scrooged. Credited to Lennox and Green, it therefore can be considered her first release outside a band identity. This one-off single peaked at #2 on the US Adult Contemporary chart, #9 US Hot 100 and was a top 40 hit in the UK. Lennox performed the song, "Everytime We Say Goodbye," a Cole Porter song, that same year for a cameo appearance in the Derek Jarman film Edward II. She then made a memorable appearance with David Bowie and the surviving members of Queen at 1992's Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at London's Wembley Stadium, performing "Under Pressure".
Diva (1992)
Ending her long association with Stephen Lipson, Lennox's fourth solo album, Songs of Mass Destruction, was recorded in Los Angeles, California, with veteran producer Glen Ballard (known for the production of Alanis Morissette's album, Jagged Little Pill). The album was mixed in Miami, Florida, by Grammy Award-winner Tom Lord-Alge. It was released on 1 October 2007, and is the last studio album of Lennox's contract with BMG. It peaked at #7 in the UK and #9 in the US. The album's first single was "Dark Road", released on 24 September 2007.

Lennox stated that she believed the album consisted of "twelve strong, powerful, really emotive songs that people can connect to." If she achieves that, she says, "I can feel proud of , no matter if it sells ten copies or 50 million."

Lennox described it as "a dark album, but the world is a dark place. It's fraught, it's turbulent. Most people's lives are underscored with dramas of all kinds: there's ups, there's downs - the flickering candle." She added, "Half the people are drinking or drugging themselves to numb it. A lot of people are in pain."

One song on the album, "Sing", is a collaboration between Lennox and 23 prominent female artists: Anastacia, Isobel Campbell, Dido, Céline Dion, Melissa Etheridge, Fergie, Beth Gibbons, Faith Hill, Angelique Kidjo, Beverley Knight, Gladys Knight, k.d. lang, Madonna, Sarah McLachlan, Beth Orton, Pink, Kelis, Bonnie Raitt, Shakira, Shingai Shoniwa, Joss Stone, Sugababes, KT Tunstall, and Martha Wainwright. Included among the group are TAC activist members own vocal group known as "The Generics", whose CD of music inspired Lennox to make "Sing".

To promote Songs of Mass Destruction, Lennox embarked on a primarily North American tour called "Annie Lennox Sings", which she announced on 13 September 2007. Lasting throughout October and November, 2007, the tour included 18 stops: San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Boulder, Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Washington, D.C., Nashville, Atlanta, Miami, New York City (two dates), Philadelphia, and Boston. The venues generally were at medium-size theatres, except in New York, where one of the dates was a United Nations fundraiser at midtown restaurant Cipriani. This was the third solo tour of Lennox's career, though she has yet to tour her home country as a solo artist.

Retailer Barnes & Noble has an exclusive version of the album which contains two bonus tracks: an acoustic version of "Dark Road" and a new song, "Don't Take Me Down." Barnes & Noble's version also contains a second disc with the music video of "Dark Road" and audio commentary by Lennox about each song on the album. Artist Carina Round accompanied Lennox on the tour as an opener, promoting her third album, Slow Motion Addict.
The Annie Lennox Collection (2009)

Finishing out her contract with Sony BMG, Lennox released the compilation album The Annie Lennox Collection. Initially intended for release in September 2008, the release date was pushed back several months to allow Lennox to recuperate from a back injury. The compilation was eventually released in the US on 17 February 2009, and in the UK and Europe on 9 March 2009. Included on the tracklisting are songs from her four solo albums, one from the Bram Stoker's Dracula soundtrack, and two new songs. One of these is a cover of Ash's single, "Shining Light", for which a music video has been produced and features Lennox playing all the parts of the band. The single became Lennox's first UK top 40 solo hit since 1995, peaking at #39. The other is a cover of a song by the English band Keane, originally the B-side of their first single in 2000. Lennox renamed the song from its original title "Closer Now" to "Pattern Of My Life". The track was released as the second single (download only), in the UK on 24 May 2009. A limited 3-disc edition of the album included a DVD compilation featuring most of Lennox's solo videos since 1992, and also features a second CD of rarer songs including a version of R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts" with Alicia Keys and Lennox's Oscar winning "Into the West" from the third Lord of the Rings film.

The album entered the UK album chart at #2 and remained in the top 10 for seven weeks. It is Lennox's fifth top 10 solo album and fourth Top 3 album. The collection debuted and subsequently peaked at #34 on the US Top 200 Billboard Album chart.
Departure from Sony BMG and future

Lennox's recording contract with Sony BMG concluded with the release of "Songs Of Mass Destruction" and her subsequent retrospective album "The Collection", and much was made in the press in late 2007/early 2008 about the apparent animosity between Lennox and the record company. Lennox stated that while on a trip to South Africa in December 2007 to appear at the 46664 campaign in Johannesburg, the regional company office of the label failed to return phone calls and e-mails she made to them for three weeks, and had completely failed to promote the Sing project as planned. Upon her return to the UK, Lennox met with the head of Sony BMG UK, Ged Docherty, who was "mortified" by the problems she had encountered with the South African branch. However the debacle (partly fuelled when Lennox's dissatisfaction with the South African office was made public on her blog) led to press reports falsely stating that she was being dropped by Sony BMG. The record company themselves quickly refuted the rumour stating that Lennox's contract had merely been fulfilled and that they hoped she would consider remaining with them. The British Daily Mirror newspaper subsequently printed a retraction of its story about her being dropped by the label.
Gay icon

Like many strong females in the public eye, Lennox has garnered a prominent following by members of the LGBT community. According to The Advocate, "er distinctive voice and provocative stage persona have made Lennox a longtime gay icon." With Eurythmics' music videos earning regular rotation on MTV in the early 1980s, Lennox took part in the shaping of popular culture alongside other gay icons such as Boy George, Madonna, Morrissey, and Michael Stipe.
AIDS activism

In 1990, Lennox recorded a version of Cole Porter's "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" for the Cole Porter tribute album Red Hot + Blue, a benefit for AIDS awareness. A video was also produced.

Her song 'Sing' was subsequently born out of Lennox's involvement with Nelson Mandela's 46664 campaign and Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), both of which are human rights groups which seek education and health care for those affected by the HIV AIDS virus. Lennox established a 'Sing' website to promote her activities in support of AIDS awareness issues.

Lennox opened the 2009 Edinburgh Festival of Politics with a stinging attack on Pope Benedict XVI’s approach to HIV/AIDS prevention in Africa. She said that the Pope’s denunciation of condoms on his recent tour of Africa had caused “tremendous harm” and she criticised the Roman Catholic Church for causing widespread confusion on the continent. Lennox also condemned the media’s obessesion with "celebrity culture" for keeping the AIDS pandemic off the front page. In an attempt to counter this, during her address, she wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "HIV positive". Lennox wore similar T-shirts at the 25th Anniversary Rock & Roll Hall of Fame concert at Madison Square Garden on 30 October 2009, and again while appearing on The Graham Norton Show on 30 November 2009 (where she performed the new song "Full Steam", a duet with with singer David Gray).
Lennox has received a variety of major awards during her career:

American Music Awards

    * 2008 - AMA Award of Merit for her work and her humanitarian efforts

Academy Awards

    * 2004 - Best Original Song (for "Into The West")

Grammy Awards

    * 1984 - Best New Artist (Eurythmics) (nominated)
    * 1986 - Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal (Eurythmics) for "Would I Lie to You?" (nominated)
    * 1987 - Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal (Eurythmics) for "Missionary Man"
    * 1993 - Album Of The Year for Diva (nominated)
    * 1993 - Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for Diva (nominated)
    * 1993 - Best Music Video - Long Form for Diva
    * 1996 - Best Pop Album for Medusa (nominated)
    * 1996 - Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "No More I Love You's"
    * 2004 - Best Pop Album for Bare (nominated)
    * 2005 - Best Song Written For A Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media for "Into The West"

(dates listed above refer to year the awards ceremony was held; all recordings were released previous year to ceremony date)

BRIT Awards

    * 1984 - Best British Female Artist
    * 1986 - Best British Female Artist
    * 1989 - Best British Female Artist
    * 1990 - Best British Female Artist
    * 1993 - Best British Female Solo Artist
    * 1993 - Best British Album (for Diva)
    * 1996 - Best British Female Solo Artist
    * 1999 - Outstanding Contribution to British Music (Eurythmics)

Golden Globe Awards

    * 2004 - Best Original Song - Motion Picture (for "Into The West")

Honorary degrees

    * 2009 - Honorary Degree at the University of Edinburgh (awarded 20th October 2009), in recognition of her work on HIV/AIDS, and her success as a recorded artist.

Other Awards

    * 2002 - Billboard Century Award by Billboard

Other work

    * Lennox became patron of the Master's Course in Humanitarian and Development Practice for Oxford Brookes University, Oxford in 2006. A spokesperson said that the university was "delighted that as a long-term supporter of human rights and social justice campaigns Ms Lennox has agreed to act as patron for its unique MA programme."
    * Lennox has been an active humanitarian throughout her career. During 1999's "Peacetour" for the Eurythmics album Peace, she and Dave Stewart gave all their profits to Amnesty International and Greenpeace.
    * Annie Lennox supports the Burma Campaign UK, an NGO that addresses the suffering in Burma and promotes democratisation.
    * On 25 April 2007, Lennox performed "Bridge over Troubled Water" during the American Idol "Idol Gives Back" fundraising drive.
    * On 11 December the same year she performed on the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway together with a variety of artists, which was broadcast to over 100 countries.
    * She performed at the 'Freddie Mercury Tribute' concert just after his death, singing 'Under Pressure' with David Bowie.
    * In September 2007, Lennox founded the SING Campaign, a global charity aimed at bringing attention and relief to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. Inspired by a speech given in South Africa on the subject by Nelson Mandela, Lennox recorded a song and music video called "SING" to launch the effort.
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s301/patwonnacott/annie_lennox.jpg
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 12/25/09 at 4:36 am

Wonderful Bios & photos, Ninny. You've outdone yourself again. Thanks for posting and Merry Christmas!!!! :) :) :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/25/09 at 6:56 am


* Annie Lennox...Annie Lennox (born 25 December 1954) is a Scottish musician and recording artist. Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, Lennox showed aptitude in music when she was a child and later studied classical music at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She began her recording career as a member of the British pop band The Tourists, and subsequently formed the synth pop duo Eurythmics with former bandmate David A. Stewart. The duo gained international prominence over the course of the 1980s with singles such as "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" and "Here Comes the Rain Again".

In the 1990s, Lennox embarked on a solo career beginning with her debut Diva (1992), which produced the hit singles "Why" and "Walking on Broken Glass". In 2004, she won both the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Into the West", written for the original soundtrack to the feature film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Following the release of her fourth studio album Songs of Mass Destruction (2007), Lennox released her first compilation album The Annie Lennox Collection in 2009.

In addition to her career as a musician, Lennox is also a political and social activist, leading such events as an anti-war rally in London on 3 January 2009 in response to the conflict in Gaza. She also objected to the unauthorised use of the 1999 Eurythmics song "I Saved the World Today" in an election broadcast for Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

Known as a pop culture icon for her distinctive contralto vocals and visual performances, Lennox has been named "The Greatest White Soul Singer Alive" by VH1 and one of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time by Rolling Stone magazine. She has earned the distinction of 'most successful female British artist in UK music history' due to her global commercial success since the early 1980s. Including her work within Eurythmics, Lennox is one of the world's best-selling music artists, having sold over 80 million records worldwide.
Between 1977 and 1980, Lennox was the lead singer of The Tourists, a moderately successful British pop band and her first collaboration with Dave Stewart. During the time they were in The Tourists, Stewart and Lennox were involved in a relationship, though this had ended by the time they formed Eurythmics.

Lennox and Stewart's second collaboration, the 1980s synthpop duo Eurythmics, resulted in her most notable fame, as the duo's alto, soul-tinged lead singer. Early in Eurythmics' career, Lennox was known for her androgyny, wearing suits and once impersonating Elvis Presley. Eurythmics released a long line of singles in the 1980s, including "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)", "Here Comes the Rain Again","Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves", "Who's That Girl?", "Would I Lie to You?", "There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)", "Missionary Man", "You Have Placed a Chill in My Heart", "Thorn in My Side", "The Miracle of Love" and "Don't Ask Me Why", among others. Though Eurythmics never officially disbanded, Lennox made a fairly clear break from Stewart in 1990. Thereafter, she began a long and equally-successful solo career.

Lennox and Stewart reconvened Eurythmics in the late 1990s with the album Peace, their first album of new material in ten years. A subsequent concert tour was completed, with profits going to Greenpeace. Lennox and Stewart later collaborated on two new pieces for their 2005 Eurythmics compilation album, Ultimate Collection, of which "I've Got a Life" was released as a single in October 2005. The promotional video for the song features Lennox and Stewart performing in the present day, with images of past Eurythmics videos playing on television screens behind them. Lennox also appears in a man's suit with a cane, reminiscent of her "Sweet Dreams" video image from 1983. The single peaked at number fourteen in the UK singles chart and was a number-one U.S. Dance hit.

Lennox has received eight BRIT Awards, the most of any female artist. Four of the awards were given during her time with Eurythmics, and another was given to the duo for Outstanding Contribution to Music in 1999. The closest any other female artist has come to this record is Dido, with four awards.

From the beginning of her career, Lennox has experimented with her image - both as an artist and as a woman. She matured as a public figure in the late 20th century, just as MTV and the medium of video were becoming the obvious vehicles for selling contemporary popular music. She has managed her image astutely, both as a means of interpreting and marketing her music; this was most obviously (and expertly) emphasised in the music video for "Little Bird" in 1992, in which many Lennox lookalikes were featured...all dressed as her many different personae from past videos - both solo and Eurythmics eras.
Solo work
Early solo work

Though it was produced by Dave Stewart, the 1988 single with Al Green, "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" (a cover version of Jackie DeShannon's 1969 hit), was recorded for the soundtrack of the movie Scrooged. Credited to Lennox and Green, it therefore can be considered her first release outside a band identity. This one-off single peaked at #2 on the US Adult Contemporary chart, #9 US Hot 100 and was a top 40 hit in the UK. Lennox performed the song, "Everytime We Say Goodbye," a Cole Porter song, that same year for a cameo appearance in the Derek Jarman film Edward II. She then made a memorable appearance with David Bowie and the surviving members of Queen at 1992's Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at London's Wembley Stadium, performing "Under Pressure".
Diva (1992)
Ending her long association with Stephen Lipson, Lennox's fourth solo album, Songs of Mass Destruction, was recorded in Los Angeles, California, with veteran producer Glen Ballard (known for the production of Alanis Morissette's album, Jagged Little Pill). The album was mixed in Miami, Florida, by Grammy Award-winner Tom Lord-Alge. It was released on 1 October 2007, and is the last studio album of Lennox's contract with BMG. It peaked at #7 in the UK and #9 in the US. The album's first single was "Dark Road", released on 24 September 2007.

Lennox stated that she believed the album consisted of "twelve strong, powerful, really emotive songs that people can connect to." If she achieves that, she says, "I can feel proud of , no matter if it sells ten copies or 50 million."

Lennox described it as "a dark album, but the world is a dark place. It's fraught, it's turbulent. Most people's lives are underscored with dramas of all kinds: there's ups, there's downs - the flickering candle." She added, "Half the people are drinking or drugging themselves to numb it. A lot of people are in pain."

One song on the album, "Sing", is a collaboration between Lennox and 23 prominent female artists: Anastacia, Isobel Campbell, Dido, Céline Dion, Melissa Etheridge, Fergie, Beth Gibbons, Faith Hill, Angelique Kidjo, Beverley Knight, Gladys Knight, k.d. lang, Madonna, Sarah McLachlan, Beth Orton, Pink, Kelis, Bonnie Raitt, Shakira, Shingai Shoniwa, Joss Stone, Sugababes, KT Tunstall, and Martha Wainwright. Included among the group are TAC activist members own vocal group known as "The Generics", whose CD of music inspired Lennox to make "Sing".

To promote Songs of Mass Destruction, Lennox embarked on a primarily North American tour called "Annie Lennox Sings", which she announced on 13 September 2007. Lasting throughout October and November, 2007, the tour included 18 stops: San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Boulder, Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Washington, D.C., Nashville, Atlanta, Miami, New York City (two dates), Philadelphia, and Boston. The venues generally were at medium-size theatres, except in New York, where one of the dates was a United Nations fundraiser at midtown restaurant Cipriani. This was the third solo tour of Lennox's career, though she has yet to tour her home country as a solo artist.

Retailer Barnes & Noble has an exclusive version of the album which contains two bonus tracks: an acoustic version of "Dark Road" and a new song, "Don't Take Me Down." Barnes & Noble's version also contains a second disc with the music video of "Dark Road" and audio commentary by Lennox about each song on the album. Artist Carina Round accompanied Lennox on the tour as an opener, promoting her third album, Slow Motion Addict.
The Annie Lennox Collection (2009)

Finishing out her contract with Sony BMG, Lennox released the compilation album The Annie Lennox Collection. Initially intended for release in September 2008, the release date was pushed back several months to allow Lennox to recuperate from a back injury. The compilation was eventually released in the US on 17 February 2009, and in the UK and Europe on 9 March 2009. Included on the tracklisting are songs from her four solo albums, one from the Bram Stoker's Dracula soundtrack, and two new songs. One of these is a cover of Ash's single, "Shining Light", for which a music video has been produced and features Lennox playing all the parts of the band. The single became Lennox's first UK top 40 solo hit since 1995, peaking at #39. The other is a cover of a song by the English band Keane, originally the B-side of their first single in 2000. Lennox renamed the song from its original title "Closer Now" to "Pattern Of My Life". The track was released as the second single (download only), in the UK on 24 May 2009. A limited 3-disc edition of the album included a DVD compilation featuring most of Lennox's solo videos since 1992, and also features a second CD of rarer songs including a version of R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts" with Alicia Keys and Lennox's Oscar winning "Into the West" from the third Lord of the Rings film.

The album entered the UK album chart at #2 and remained in the top 10 for seven weeks. It is Lennox's fifth top 10 solo album and fourth Top 3 album. The collection debuted and subsequently peaked at #34 on the US Top 200 Billboard Album chart.
Departure from Sony BMG and future

Lennox's recording contract with Sony BMG concluded with the release of "Songs Of Mass Destruction" and her subsequent retrospective album "The Collection", and much was made in the press in late 2007/early 2008 about the apparent animosity between Lennox and the record company. Lennox stated that while on a trip to South Africa in December 2007 to appear at the 46664 campaign in Johannesburg, the regional company office of the label failed to return phone calls and e-mails she made to them for three weeks, and had completely failed to promote the Sing project as planned. Upon her return to the UK, Lennox met with the head of Sony BMG UK, Ged Docherty, who was "mortified" by the problems she had encountered with the South African branch. However the debacle (partly fuelled when Lennox's dissatisfaction with the South African office was made public on her blog) led to press reports falsely stating that she was being dropped by Sony BMG. The record company themselves quickly refuted the rumour stating that Lennox's contract had merely been fulfilled and that they hoped she would consider remaining with them. The British Daily Mirror newspaper subsequently printed a retraction of its story about her being dropped by the label.
Gay icon

Like many strong females in the public eye, Lennox has garnered a prominent following by members of the LGBT community. According to The Advocate, "er distinctive voice and provocative stage persona have made Lennox a longtime gay icon." With Eurythmics' music videos earning regular rotation on MTV in the early 1980s, Lennox took part in the shaping of popular culture alongside other gay icons such as Boy George, Madonna, Morrissey, and Michael Stipe.
AIDS activism

In 1990, Lennox recorded a version of Cole Porter's "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" for the Cole Porter tribute album Red Hot + Blue, a benefit for AIDS awareness. A video was also produced.

Her song 'Sing' was subsequently born out of Lennox's involvement with Nelson Mandela's 46664 campaign and Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), both of which are human rights groups which seek education and health care for those affected by the HIV AIDS virus. Lennox established a 'Sing' website to promote her activities in support of AIDS awareness issues.

Lennox opened the 2009 Edinburgh Festival of Politics with a stinging attack on Pope Benedict XVI’s approach to HIV/AIDS prevention in Africa. She said that the Pope’s denunciation of condoms on his recent tour of Africa had caused “tremendous harm” and she criticised the Roman Catholic Church for causing widespread confusion on the continent. Lennox also condemned the media’s obessesion with "celebrity culture" for keeping the AIDS pandemic off the front page. In an attempt to counter this, during her address, she wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "HIV positive". Lennox wore similar T-shirts at the 25th Anniversary Rock & Roll Hall of Fame concert at Madison Square Garden on 30 October 2009, and again while appearing on The Graham Norton Show on 30 November 2009 (where she performed the new song "Full Steam", a duet with with singer David Gray).
Lennox has received a variety of major awards during her career:

American Music Awards

   * 2008 - AMA Award of Merit for her work and her humanitarian efforts

Academy Awards

   * 2004 - Best Original Song (for "Into The West")

Grammy Awards

   * 1984 - Best New Artist (Eurythmics) (nominated)
   * 1986 - Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal (Eurythmics) for "Would I Lie to You?" (nominated)
   * 1987 - Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal (Eurythmics) for "Missionary Man"
   * 1993 - Album Of The Year for Diva (nominated)
   * 1993 - Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for Diva (nominated)
   * 1993 - Best Music Video - Long Form for Diva
   * 1996 - Best Pop Album for Medusa (nominated)
   * 1996 - Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "No More I Love You's"
   * 2004 - Best Pop Album for Bare (nominated)
   * 2005 - Best Song Written For A Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media for "Into The West"

(dates listed above refer to year the awards ceremony was held; all recordings were released previous year to ceremony date)

BRIT Awards

   * 1984 - Best British Female Artist
   * 1986 - Best British Female Artist
   * 1989 - Best British Female Artist
   * 1990 - Best British Female Artist
   * 1993 - Best British Female Solo Artist
   * 1993 - Best British Album (for Diva)
   * 1996 - Best British Female Solo Artist
   * 1999 - Outstanding Contribution to British Music (Eurythmics)

Golden Globe Awards

   * 2004 - Best Original Song - Motion Picture (for "Into The West")

Honorary degrees

   * 2009 - Honorary Degree at the University of Edinburgh (awarded 20th October 2009), in recognition of her work on HIV/AIDS, and her success as a recorded artist.

Other Awards

   * 2002 - Billboard Century Award by Billboard

Other work

   * Lennox became patron of the Master's Course in Humanitarian and Development Practice for Oxford Brookes University, Oxford in 2006. A spokesperson said that the university was "delighted that as a long-term supporter of human rights and social justice campaigns Ms Lennox has agreed to act as patron for its unique MA programme."
   * Lennox has been an active humanitarian throughout her career. During 1999's "Peacetour" for the Eurythmics album Peace, she and Dave Stewart gave all their profits to Amnesty International and Greenpeace.
   * Annie Lennox supports the Burma Campaign UK, an NGO that addresses the suffering in Burma and promotes democratisation.
   * On 25 April 2007, Lennox performed "Bridge over Troubled Water" during the American Idol "Idol Gives Back" fundraising drive.
   * On 11 December the same year she performed on the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway together with a variety of artists, which was broadcast to over 100 countries.
   * She performed at the 'Freddie Mercury Tribute' concert just after his death, singing 'Under Pressure' with David Bowie.
   * In September 2007, Lennox founded the SING Campaign, a global charity aimed at bringing attention and relief to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa. Inspired by a speech given in South Africa on the subject by Nelson Mandela, Lennox recorded a song and music video called "SING" to launch the effort.
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I remember Annie Lennox with that wild orange hair she had in the 80's.http://astrologyexpressed.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/al.jpg  :o

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/25/09 at 2:03 pm


Wonderful Bios & photos, Ninny. You've outdone yourself again. Thanks for posting and Merry Christmas!!!! :) :) :)

Your Welcome..Merry Christmas :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/25/09 at 2:04 pm


I remember Annie Lennox with that wild orange hair she had in the 80's.http://astrologyexpressed.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/al.jpg  :o

Oh yes the orange hair,I remember it well ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/25/09 at 3:15 pm

If that wasn't 80's I don't know what was.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 12/25/09 at 4:44 pm

Merry Christmas Janine (and all)... :)

Annie Lennox (and The Eurythmics) were one of my favourite band's in the 80's....I just love her voice!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 12/25/09 at 4:47 pm


Merry Christmas Janine (and all)... :)

Annie Lennox (and The Eurythmics) were one of my favourite band's in the 80's....I just love her voice!

Yup, great band

If that wasn't 80's I don't know what was.

Howard, this is one of your best posts ever. You got that right!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/25/09 at 5:00 pm


Merry Christmas Janine (and all)... :)

Annie Lennox (and The Eurythmics) were one of my favourite band's in the 80's....I just love her voice!

Merry Christmas..Annie has a great voice :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/26/09 at 3:49 am

The word or phrase of the day...Boxing Day
Boxing Day is a bank and public holiday in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, Greenland, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Nigeria and countries in the Commonwealth of Nations with a mainly Christian population. In South Africa this public holiday is now known as the Day of Goodwill. Though it is not an official holiday in the United States, the name "Boxing Day" for the day after Christmas has some currency among Americans, particularly those that live near the Canada – United States border.The name derives from the tradition of giving seasonal gifts, on the day after Christmas, to less wealthy people and social inferiors, which was later extended to various workpeople such as labourers and servants.

The traditional recorded celebration of Boxing Day has long included giving money and other gifts to charitable institutions, the needy and people in service positions. The European tradition has been dated to the Middle Ages, but the exact origin is unknown and there are some claims that it goes back to the late Roman/early Christian era.

In the United Kingdom it certainly became a custom of the nineteenth century Victorians for tradesmen to collect their 'Christmas boxes' or gifts in return for good and reliable service throughout the year on the day after Christmas.

The establishment of Boxing Day as a defined public Holiday under the legislation that created the UK's Bank Holidays started the separation of 'Boxing Day' from the 'Feast of St Stephen' and today it is almost entirely a secular holiday with a tradition of shopping and post Christmas sales starting.
Public holiday

Boxing Day is traditionally celebrated on 26 December, St. Stephen's Day, the day after Christmas Day. Unlike St. Stephen's Day, Boxing Day is a secular holiday but is always on 26 December: the public holiday is generally moved to the following Monday if 26 December is a Saturday. If 25 December is a Saturday or Sunday then both the Monday and Tuesday may be public holidays. However, the date of observance of Boxing Day varies between countries.

In Ireland—when it was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland—the UK's Bank Holidays Act 1871 established the feast day of St Stephen as a non-moveable public holiday on 26 December. Since Partition, the name "Boxing Day" is used only by the authorities in Northern Ireland (which remained part of the United Kingdom). There, Boxing Day is a moveable public holiday in line with the rest of the United Kingdom.

The Banking and Financial Dealings Act of 1971 established "Boxing Day" as a public holiday in Scotland. In the Australian state of South Australia, 26 December is a public holiday known as Proclamation Day
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/26/09 at 3:54 am

The birthday of the day...John Walsh
John Walsh (born December 26, 1945) is the host of the TV show America's Most Wanted. Walsh is known for his anti-crime activism, which he became involved with following the murder of his son, Adam, in 1981. Twenty-seven years later on December 16, 2008, the now deceased serial killer Ottis Toole was named as the killer of Walsh's son...In the summer of 1979, Walsh was a partner in a hotel management company in Hollywood, Florida. He and his wife, Revé, had a six-year-old son, Adam. On July 27, 1981, Adam was abducted from a Sears department store at the Hollywood Mall, across from the Hollywood Police station. Revé had dropped Adam off in the Sears toy department while she looked for a lamp. When she returned about 7 minutes later, Adam was missing. Police records in Adam's case released in 1996 show that a 17-year-old security guard asked four boys to leave the department store. Adam is believed to have been one of them. Sixteen days after the abduction, his severed head was found in a drainage canal more than 120 miles away from home. His other remains were never recovered.

Many names had been mentioned in connection to the case in the nearly three decades since the murder, but that of serial killer Ottis Toole most persistently nagged detectives. John Walsh had long said he believed that Toole, a drifter, was responsible for the crime, saying investigators found a pair of green shorts and a sandal similar to what Adam was wearing at Toole's home in Jacksonville, Florida. In January 2007, deceased serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer fell under suspicion for the murder of Adam. This speculation was discounted by Walsh in an America's Most Wanted statement on February 6, 2007.

The Walsh family soon began a campaign to help missing and exploited children. Despite bureaucratic and legislative problems, John and Revé's efforts eventually led to the creation of the Missing Children Act of 1982 and the Missing Children's Assistance Act of 1984.

The prime suspect in Adam's abduction and murder, Toole, who died in prison in 1996 while serving a life sentence for other crimes, was officially identified as the killer on December 16, 2008 by the Hollywood Police Department, and the case was considered closed. Over the years, Toole had twice confessed to the killing, but both times he later recanted his admissions. In addition to the Walsh murder, Toole had claimed responsibility for hundreds of other murders, but police determined that most of these confessions were lies. John Walsh was told by Toole's niece that her uncle confessed on his deathbed in prison that he killed Adam.
Aftermath

Following the crime, the Walsh family founded the Adam Walsh Child Resource Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to legislative reform. The centers, originally located in West Palm Beach, Florida; Columbia, South Carolina; Orange County, California; and Rochester, New York; merged with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), where John Walsh serves on the Board of Directors.

Today, Walsh continues to testify before Congress and state legislatures on crime, missing children and victims' rights issues. His latest efforts include lobbying for a Constitutional amendment for victims' rights.

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act (Pub.L. 109-248) was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on July 27, 2006 following a two-year journey through the United States Congress and was intensely lobbied for by Walsh and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Primarily, it focuses on a national sex offender registry, tough penalties for not registering as a sex offender following release into society, and access by citizens to state websites that track sex offenders.

By the late 1980s, many malls, department stores, supermarkets, and other such retailers have adopted what is known as a "Code Adam," a movement first made by Wal Mart stores in the southeastern United States. A "Code Adam" is announced when a child is missing in a store or if a child is found by a store employee or patron. If the child is lost or missing, all doors are to be locked and a store employee is posted at every exit, while a description of the child is generally broadcast over the intercom system. "Code Adam" as a term has become synonymous with a missing child, and is a predecessor to an "Amber Alert," which serves as a system of broadcast-driven community notification.
Career in television

John and Revé Walsh were portrayed by actors Daniel J. Travanti and JoBeth Williams in Adam, a 1983 NBC television movie dramatizing the days following Adam's disappearance. The real Walshs appeared at the end of the broadcast to publicize photographs of other children who had vanished but were still missing. Later, a sequel called Adam: His Song Continues was produced and aired.
John Walsh presents a fugitive on America's Most Wanted

Walsh has also been the host of the FOX television show America's Most Wanted since 1988. He was selected as host after the completion of the program's pilot and a lengthy search. By that time, Walsh was already well known because of the murder of his son and his subsequent actions to help missing and exploited children. Walsh continues to host the show, which is now the longest-running show of any kind in FOX history and has contributed to the capture of more than 1,000 fugitives.

Walsh was host of The John Walsh Show, a daily daytime talk show which aired in syndication (mostly on NBC stations, as NBC produced the series) from 2002 to 2004.

In July 2005, Walsh attempted to assist the family of missing teen Natalee Holloway. Walsh was critical of the Aruban crime investigation and, along with television personality Dr. Phil, urged Americans to boycott Aruba. Walsh was a special guest on an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired on August 14, 2005. The episode visited the home of Colleen Nick, who is the parent of Morgan Nick (disappeared in 1995, still missing). Walsh has featured the Morgan Nick case on America's Most Wanted several times.
Family

After the murder of Adam, the Walshes had three more children: Meghan, Callahan, and Hayden.

Meghan was born a year after Adam was murdered. Revé Walsh told local newspapers at the time that "there is no substitute for Adam." She also said "Meghan will make me miss Adam more. He always wanted a sister." Meghan is currently an artist and resides in New York City.

Callahan was born in 1985, and is currently attending college in Florida, majoring in business, and is involved in music projects. He has considered following in his father's footsteps in television broadcasting and as a political advocate for children.

Hayden (born 1995) is the youngest child. He attends school and somtimes accompanies his father when filming TV shows, including America's Most Wanted. On the July 27, 2006 show of Larry King Live, Larry King said that Hayden resembled Adam.
Tributes

In 2002, rapper Bizzy Bone of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony wrote a song for the show (AMW) and dedicated it to Adam and John Walsh, encouraging abduction survivors not to keep their abductions a secret, as Bizzy Bone did after being abducted in the early 1980s.

On August 16, 2006, John Walsh's hometown of Auburn, New York named a street after him.

In 2005, John Walsh appeared as himself in Outsiders #18 (January 2005), a comic book series published by DC Comics. In the story, written by Judd Winick, Walsh aided the eponymous superhero team in going public on America's Most Wanted with information regarding a child slave trader, which eventually led to a solid lead gained from the tips that poured in.

For a few years in the early 1990s, due to his presence on the Fox network, Walsh also appeared on their Saturday morning educational kids segments, Totally For Kids. Walsh would appear with the segments' usual roster of child actors to help illustrate scenarios in which children could often be in danger, and the solutions they could seek. Subjects ranged from encounters with strangers to child abuse. Most installments Walsh appeared in culminated with reminder to dial 911 in an emergency, showing a kid dressed up in a phone costume.

A punk rock band from Cincinnati, Ohio, named itself "John Walsh" in order to spread a positive message to teens. With lyrics such as "the speeding criminal is the coward," and "Don't spend the years being hurt / Don't spend your life loving jerks," they tackle themes from domestic violence to drunk driving.

In October 2008, John Walsh was awarded the Operation Kids 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award. for his dedication to protecting children and to raise funds for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which Walsh co-founded with his wife.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/26/09 at 3:57 am

The co-birthday of the day...Lars Ulrich
Lars Ulrich (born December 26, 1963) is a Danish drummer best known as one of the founders of American heavy metal band Metallica. He was born in Gentofte, Denmark to an upper-middle class family. A tennis prodigy in his youth, Ulrich moved to Los Angeles, California at age seventeen to pursue his training, but instead of playing tennis, he ended up as a drummer. After publishing an advertisement in a local Los Angeles newspaper called The Recycler, he met James Hetfield and formed Metallica..Lars' father, Torben Ulrich, who was an acclaimed tennis pro from the late 1940s into the early 1980s, was also a musician, playing jazz with giants such as Stan Getz and Miles Davis; legendary saxophonist Dexter Gordon was Ulrich's godfather. In February 1973, Torben Ulrich obtained five passes for five of his friends to a Deep Purple concert that was being held in the same Copenhagen stadium as one of his tournaments. When it was discovered that one of the friends could not go, their ticket was handed over to the nine year-old Lars. The young Ulrich found himself mesmerized by the performance, buying the band's Fireball album the very next day. The concert and the album had a considerable impact on Ulrich, inspiring his entrance into the world of rock and roll and later on, heavy metal. As a result of his newfound interest in music, he received his first drum kit from his grandmother at the age of twelve, a Ludwig. Lars' original goal and reason for moving to America was to play tennis, but the plan was later changed when he formed Metallica.

Later on in life, in 1981, Lars discovered a British heavy metal band called Diamond Head. He was so excited about their style of music after getting hold of their 1980 debut Lightning to the Nations that he traveled all the way from San Francisco to London in order to see the band perform live at the Woolwich Odeon. However, the young Lars had not planned the trip out particularly well and was left without anywhere to stay after the gig. Still, he managed to meet the band backstage and explain the lengths he had taken to see them. The band warmed to him and lead guitarist Brian Tatler let him stay with him in Birmingham, where Lars spent the next few weeks touring with the band. Lars still remains a big fan of the band and even helped mix their Best Of album.
Lars spitting water on his fans during a show in London, 15 September 2008.

In the same year Lars met James Hetfield in Downey, California and formed the thrash metal band Metallica. He got the name "Metallica" from a friend, Ron Quintana, who was thinking up names for a heavy metal magazine he was starting up, and Metallica was one of the options, the other being "Metal Mania". Lars encouraged him to pick Metal Mania, and kept the name Metallica for himself. He became known as a pioneer of fast thrash drum beats, featured on many of Metallica's early songs, such as "Metal Militia" from Kill 'Em All, "Fight Fire With Fire" from Ride the Lightning, "Battery" from Master of Puppets and "Dyers Eve" from ...And Justice for All. He has since been considerably influential due to both the popularity of his band, as well as his limited drum techniques, such as the double bass in the song "One" (...And Justice for All) and the opening of "Enter Sandman" (Metallica / "The Black Album"). Since the release of Metallica, Ulrich adopted a more focused and precise style of drumming, and reduced his kit from a 9-piece to a 7-piece.
Personal life

Ulrich has been married twice. His first marriage was in 1988 to Debbie Jones, a British woman he met on tour, but they were divorced in 1990 because of Ulrich's constant absence while touring and recording The Black Album. His second marriage was to Skylar Satenstein, an emergency medicine physician, from 1997 to 2004. They had two sons, Myles (b. August 5, 1998) and Layne (b. May 6, 2001). Satenstein was the inspiration for "Skylar", the love interest for Will Hunting (Matt Damon) in the movie Good Will Hunting, as Satenstein and Damon dated during college. Ulrich and Satenstein divorced in March 2004.

Ulrich has dated Danish actress Connie Nielsen since late 2003, early 2004 and the couple had their first child, Bryce Thadeus Ulrich-Nielsen, born in San Francisco on May 21, 2007. Nielsen also has another son named Sebastian (b. 1990).

Ulrich is a noted collector of art. His father, Torben, was also very fond of art and paintings, so Ulrich grew up surrounded by art and music, and both have always been a part of his life. After founding Metallica, he began visiting museums and art galleries during the band's long periods on the road. In an interview from 2002 Ulrich said: "I felt I could lose myself in art and get away from the music world. It became this great hiding place."

In 2008, in an interview with Stereo Warning, he said: "We had art all over the house when I was growing up. It's been a passion of mine for 20-25 years. It's one area where I can go and be myself. It's not about being in Metallica or being the drummer in a rock band. I'm accepted for who I am in the art circles. I love going into artist spaces and galleries and auction houses. It's great because it has absolutely nothing to do with Metallica. It's my place of sanctuary."

When he and the rest of Metallica were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, Ulrich was the first Danish person to receive the honor.
In popular culture

Ulrich's involvement in the conflict with Napster was parodied in "Christian Rock Hard", an episode of the satirical animated TV series South Park. In the episode, the children are taught not to download illegally because multi-millionaires like Ulrich now have to wait a little longer to buy extravagant things (also, when Kyle has his "weekly epiphany" and proclaims that bands should be about music, the artists react with "we're just about the money," with Ulrich nodding). Other such references can be found in the "Weird Al" Yankovic song "Don't Download This Song" and the MC Lars song "Hurricane Fresh".

Lars made a brief appearance on the Linkin Park live DVD, Live in Texas, dressed up as a green-fisted bunny man during their performance of "From the Inside".

Lars is featured, along with the other Metallica members, in the film The Darwin Awards. He portrays himself at a concert when two of the film's characters are involved in a freak accident as the band performs on stage.

Lars also appears with his band Metallica in the Simpsons episode "The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer".

Lars also made an appearance on the television show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.

Lars made an appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show on April 27, 2009.

Lars made an appearance on the Iron Maiden film Flight 666.

Lars made an appearance in the film Anvil! The Story of Anvil.

Lars made an appearance on the Sam Dunn film Global Metal.

Lars is said to be the greatest metal drummer of all time by "Dr. Gregory House" in the episode "Known Unknowns".

Lars has also been announced to have a cameo in Guns N' Roses' new video "Better", which is yet to be released.
Equipment

Ulrich endorses Tama Drums (where he is one of the few endorsees to have a full signature drum kit), Zildjian Cymbals and Remo Drumheads. He is rarely, if ever, seen without these brands onstage. He has, however, been known to use a mixture of brands when recording in the studio, including Ludwig Drums, Gretsch Drums and Sabian Cymbals. Ulrich was an endorser of Calato Regal Tip drumsticks, but changed to Easton Ahead in 1994. Tama Drums has produced two Lars Ulrich Signature Snare drums, one with a steel shell (with diamond plate-like finish) and another made out of bell brass which currently is Tama's most expensive snare drum on the regular catalogue. Both snare drums measure 14x6.5".
Current tour kit (2008–2009)

    * Drums – Tama Starclassic Maple, LU Magnetic Orange
          o 10"×8" Tom
          o 12"×10" Tom
          o 16"×14" Floor Tom
          o 16"×16" Floor Tom
          o 22"×16" Bass Drum (×2)
          o 14"×6.5" Lars Ulrich Signature Snare Drum
                + Note: Ulrich uses the standard Lars Ulrich Signature LU1465 snare live on tour (diamond plate), while he uses both the LU1465 and LU1465BB (bell brass) in the studio, depending on what type of sound he wants.

    * Cymbals – Zildjian
          o 14" Z Custom Dyno Beat Hi-Hats
          o 19" A Custom Projection Crash
          o 18" A Custom Projection Crash (×2)
          o 17" A Custom Projection Crash
          o 18" Oriental China Trash
          o 20" Oriental China Trash
                + Note: Ulrich will occasionally use a 20" A Custom Ping Ride when playing live.

    * Drumheads - Remo
          o Toms — Coated Emperor | Clear Ambassador
          o Bass — Clear Powerstroke 3 | Ebony Powerstroke 3
          o Snare — Coated Controlled Sound (black dot on reverse) | Clear Hazy Ambassador

    * Hardware - Tama and Drum Workshop
          o Tama IronCobra Power-Glide Single Pedal (×2)
          o Tama IronCobra Lever-Glide Hi-Hat Stand
          o Tama Roadpro Cymbal Stand w/Counterweight (×3)
          o Tama Roadpro Cymbal Stand (×2)
          o Tama Roadpro Double Tom Stand
          o Tama Roadpro Snare Stand
          o Tama Cymbal Holder (×2)
          o Tama Multi-Clamp (×2)
          o Tama Hi-Hat Attachment
          o Tama Ergo-Rider Drum Throne
          o DW Drop-Lock Hi-Hat Clutch

    * Other
          o Ahead Lars Ulrich Signature 16-1/4" length, .595" diameter

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/26/09 at 4:00 am

* Jared Leto..Jared Leto (born December 26, 1971) is an American actor and musician. He has appeared in films such as Fight Club, Girl, Interrupted, Panic Room, American Psycho, Requiem for a Dream, and Chapter 27. He is lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist and main-songwriter for the American rock band 30 Seconds to Mars. In 1992, Leto moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in music, but also accepted some part-time acting roles. Two years later, he landed a role in the TV show My So-Called Life in which he played Jordan Catalano, opposite Claire Danes. After the show ended in 1995, Leto acted in several films such as How to Make an American Quilt, Girl, Interrupted, Urban Legend, The Thin Red Line, Prefontaine and Fight Club.

However, it was his portrayal of heroin addict Harry Goldfarb in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream in the year 2000, that garnered him more critical praise. The same year he portrayed a misfortuned yuppie colleague of Christian Bale's Patrick Bateman, in Mary Harron's American Psycho. After that, he returned with David Fincher for Panic Room, then teamed up with Jake Gyllenhaal in Highway in 2002, then acted opposite Colin Farrell in Oliver Stone's Alexander, and later with Nicolas Cage in Lord of War.

Leto is a vegan and especially mentions this in interviews where he talked about his increase of weight for the film Chapter 27 (starring alongside Lindsay Lohan) in which he plays John Lennon's killer, Mark David Chapman. He gained more than 60 pounds for this role.

He is set to star in the film Mr. Nobody playing the role of the eponymous Nemo Nobody. The film is set to be released in 2010.
Music
Main article: 30 Seconds to Mars

Aside from his film career, Jared Leto is the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist and sole songwriter of the band 30 Seconds to Mars. He started the band in 1998 with his brother, Shannon Leto, who is the band's drummer. The band has released three full-length albums: the eponymous debut 30 Seconds to Mars, 2005's A Beautiful Lie and 2009's This Is War. They began opening for other bands and started their first headlining tour, Forever Night Never Day, in March 2006. In May 2007, the band started touring Europe as the opening act for Linkin Park. In August 2008, Virgin Records filed a $30 million lawsuit against Jared and 30 Seconds to Mars, claiming the band refused to deliver three albums as required by its contract. According to the lawsuit, the band "repudiated" a 1999 contract in July. In late April 2009 the lawsuit with EMI was annulled and 30 Seconds To Mars decided to re-sign with Virgin Records. Their third album This Is War was released on December 8, 2009, while the first single, "Kings and Queens" premiered Tuesday, October 6, 2009.

Leto directed the videos for the songs "The Kill", "From Yesterday" and "Kings & Queens" under the alias of Bartholomew Cubbins , and "A Beautiful Lie" under the alias of Angakok Panipaq.

For most shows, Leto uses either one of two custom-made Steve McSwain guitars, a white one called "Pythagoras" or a black one called "Artemis". The guitars: one a baritone and the other with a 25 1/2" scale length, have the image of a gryphon which he drew for McSwain. Occasionally he plays a white Gibson SG 61' Reissue as seen in the video for "A Beautiful Lie". Jared also plays a Gibson Maestro acoustic guitar for acoustic performances. Jared uses Mesa/Boogie amps, more specifically the Triple Rectifier model and matches them with Mesa/Boogie speaker cabinets as well.

Leto has cited how the De Havilland Law from decades ago was instrumental in resolving the band’s contract issues and how Olivia de Havilland, the Gone With the Wind actress, helped in a roundabout way.

Recently, the band collaborated with rapper Kanye West on the song Hurricane from their latest album This Is War.
   * Leto got the award for "Prince of Darkness" at the Fuse Fangoria Chainsaw Awards. (Aired October 28, 2006).
   * Leto received an award for Breakthrough Crossover Artist given at the 6th Annual Hollywood Life Awards held in December 2006.

Filmography
Year Movie Character Notes
1994 My So-Called Life Jordan Catalano TV show Brother Shannon Leto also has a minor role in some episodes
Cool and the Crazy Michael
1995 How to Make an American Quilt Beck
1996 The Last of the High Kings (Summer Fling) Frankie Griffin Learned to speak with Irish accent
1997 Prefontaine Steve Prefontaine
Switchback Lane Dixon
1998 Basil Basil
Urban Legend Paul Gardener
The Thin Red Line Second Lieutenant Whyte
1999 Black and White Casey
Fight Club Angelface Had platinum Blonde hair for role
Girl, Interrupted Tobias "Toby" Jacobs
2000 American Psycho Paul Allen
Sunset Strip Glen Walker
Requiem for a Dream Harry Goldfarb Lost 28 pounds for this role.
2002 Panic Room Junior
Highway Jack Hayes Brother Shannon Leto has a role in this movie as well
2003 Phone Booth Actor uncredited cameo
2004 Alexander Hephaestion
2005 Lord of War Vitaly Orlov Learned Russian for this role.
2006 Lonely Hearts Raymond Fernandez
2007 Chapter 27 Mark David Chapman Gained 62 pounds for this role, with Lindsay Lohan.
2010 Mr. Nobody Nemo Nobody
Discography
Main article: 30 Seconds to Mars discography

   * 2002 - 30 Seconds to Mars
   * 2005 - A Beautiful Lie
   * 2009 - This Is War
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/26/09 at 6:52 am


The word or phrase of the day...Boxing Day
Boxing Day is a bank and public holiday in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, Greenland, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Nigeria and countries in the Commonwealth of Nations with a mainly Christian population. In South Africa this public holiday is now known as the Day of Goodwill. Though it is not an official holiday in the United States, the name "Boxing Day" for the day after Christmas has some currency among Americans, particularly those that live near the Canada – United States border.The name derives from the tradition of giving seasonal gifts, on the day after Christmas, to less wealthy people and social inferiors, which was later extended to various workpeople such as labourers and servants.

The traditional recorded celebration of Boxing Day has long included giving money and other gifts to charitable institutions, the needy and people in service positions. The European tradition has been dated to the Middle Ages, but the exact origin is unknown and there are some claims that it goes back to the late Roman/early Christian era.

In the United Kingdom it certainly became a custom of the nineteenth century Victorians for tradesmen to collect their 'Christmas boxes' or gifts in return for good and reliable service throughout the year on the day after Christmas.

The establishment of Boxing Day as a defined public Holiday under the legislation that created the UK's Bank Holidays started the separation of 'Boxing Day' from the 'Feast of St Stephen' and today it is almost entirely a secular holiday with a tradition of shopping and post Christmas sales starting.
Public holiday

Boxing Day is traditionally celebrated on 26 December, St. Stephen's Day, the day after Christmas Day. Unlike St. Stephen's Day, Boxing Day is a secular holiday but is always on 26 December: the public holiday is generally moved to the following Monday if 26 December is a Saturday. If 25 December is a Saturday or Sunday then both the Monday and Tuesday may be public holidays. However, the date of observance of Boxing Day varies between countries.

In Ireland—when it was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland—the UK's Bank Holidays Act 1871 established the feast day of St Stephen as a non-moveable public holiday on 26 December. Since Partition, the name "Boxing Day" is used only by the authorities in Northern Ireland (which remained part of the United Kingdom). There, Boxing Day is a moveable public holiday in line with the rest of the United Kingdom.

The Banking and Financial Dealings Act of 1971 established "Boxing Day" as a public holiday in Scotland. In the Australian state of South Australia, 26 December is a public holiday known as Proclamation Day
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Do they actually go boxing on that day?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/26/09 at 7:02 am


Do they actually go boxing on that day?

I think they go out and buy & exchange more gifts..Like give gifts to the needy and maybe the postal worker or maybe someone like you at the supermarket.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/26/09 at 7:05 am


I think they go out and buy & exchange more gifts..Like give gifts to the needy and maybe the postal worker or maybe someone like you at the supermarket.


like Salvation Army and City Harvest?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/26/09 at 3:07 pm


like Salvation Army and City Harvest?

Could be. I'm sure someone like Phil,Frank or Peter would know.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/26/09 at 3:17 pm


Both are 3 man bands?
Bee Gees had a song "Children of the world"

Am I getting closer?
Try again

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 12/26/09 at 6:14 pm


Try again


Ummm.... Maurice's wife is related to Graham Nash.  Okay...I just made that up...but it might be true!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/26/09 at 6:50 pm

Didn't Jared Leto portray John Lennon's killer in a film a year or so ago? ???

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 12/26/09 at 7:18 pm

Interesting as usual. Thanks for sharing, Ninny.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/26/09 at 8:21 pm


Didn't Jared Leto portray John Lennon's killer in a film a year or so ago? ???

Yep..Chapter 27    Mark David Chapman    Gained 62 pounds for this role, with Lindsay Lohan.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/26/09 at 8:30 pm


Interesting as usual. Thanks for sharing, Ninny.

Thanks a lot :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 12/26/09 at 10:41 pm


Ummm.... Maurice's wife is related to Graham Nash.  Okay...I just made that up...but it might be true!


I know the answer. None of their wives had affairs with Tiger Woods. :D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 12/27/09 at 2:18 am


I know the answer. None of their wives had affairs with Tiger Woods. :D


It just hasn't come out yet.... ;)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/27/09 at 2:20 am


The word or phrase of the day...Boxing Day

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c365/honkhonk99/darkjedi/webhunt_winter2007/boxingday.jpg

He He!!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/27/09 at 5:31 am

The word of the day...Kwanzaa
Kwanzaa is a weeklong celebration held in the United States honoring universal African heritage and culture, marked by participants lighting a kinara (candle holder). It is observed from December 26 to January 1 each year, primarily in the United States.

Kwanzaa consists of seven days of celebration, featuring activities such as candle-lighting and libations, and culminating in a feast and gift giving. It was created by Ron Karenga and was first celebrated from December 26, 1966 to January 1, 1967.
Ron Karenga created Kwanzaa in 1966 as the first specifically African American holiday. Although the historical Juneteenth African American holiday had been celebrated since 1867, Karenga said his goal was to "give Blacks an alternative to the existing holiday and give Blacks an opportunity to celebrate themselves and history, rather than simply imitate the practice of the dominant society." The name Kwanzaa derives from the Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza, meaning first fruits of the harvest. The choice of Swahili, an East African language, reflects its status as a symbol of Pan-Africanism, especially in the 1960s.

Kwanzaa is a celebration that has its roots in the black nationalist movement of the 1960s, and was established as a means to help African Americans reconnect with their African cultural and historical heritage by uniting in meditation and study of African traditions and common humanist principles.

The first Kwanzaa stamp was issued by the United States Postal Service on October 22, 1997, with artwork by Synthia Saint James. In 2004, a second Kwanzaa stamp, designed by Daniel Minter, was issued; this has seven figures in colorful robes symbolizing the seven principles.

During the early years of Kwanzaa, Karenga said that it was meant to be an alternative to Christmas, that Jesus was psychotic, and that Christianity was a white religion that black people should shun. However, as Kwanzaa gained mainstream adherents, Karenga altered his position so that practicing Christians would not be alienated, then stating in the 1997 Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community, and Culture, "Kwanzaa was not created to give people an alternative to their own religion or religious holiday."

The origins of Kwanzaa are not secret and are openly acknowledged by those promoting the holiday. Many Christian African Americans who celebrate Kwanzaa do so in addition to observing Christmas.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/27/09 at 5:36 am

The birthday of the day...John Amos
John Amos (born December 27, 1939) is an American actor and former football player. His television work includes roles on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Good Times, the miniseries Roots, and a recurring role in The West Wing. He has also appeared on Broadway and in numerous motion pictures in a career that spans four decades. He has received nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and NAACP Image Award.  John Amos (born December 27, 1939) is an American actor and former football player. His television work includes roles on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Good Times, the miniseries Roots, and a recurring role in The West Wing. He has also appeared on Broadway and in numerous motion pictures in a career that spans four decades. He has received nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and NAACP Image Award.Amos is perhaps best known for playing characters Gordy Howard--weatherman on The Mary Tyler Moore Show from 1970 until 1973--James Evans, Sr., the sporadically-employed husband of Florida Evans--appearing three times on the sitcom Maude before continuing the role in 57 episodes of Good Times from 1974 to 1976. While playing an chronically unemployed father of three on the show, in real life Amos is only eight years older than the actor who played his oldest son: Jimmie Walker, and nearly 19 years younger than his screen wife, Esther Rolle. Amos, much like series' co-star Rolle, wanted to portray a positive image of an African American family, struggling against the odds in the ghetto of Chicago, but saw the premise slighted by lighter comedy, and expressed dissatisfaction. Unhappy with the scripts and tension with producers, he quit the show after the third season. His character James Evans died in a car accident in the first episode of the fourth season, and the series continued without him.
Other television roles

Amos was part of the Emmy award winning cast on the miniseries Roots, playing the adult Kunta Kinte in 1977. He also portrayed Captain Dolan on television show Hunter from 1984 to 1985. He co-starred in the CBS police drama The District, and guest-starred on a number of other television programs including The Cosby Show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, In the House, The A-Team, and Martin as Sgt. Hamilton Strawn (Tommy's father). He was a frequent guest on The West Wing, portraying Admiral Percy Fitzwallace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He played a pilot, Buzz Washington, in a remote Alaskan town in the ABC series, Men in Trees. He also appeared in a Season 1 episode of "Touched by An Angel," although he was credited as Jon (not John) Amos. Most recently, he guest starred on USA Network's original drama/comedy Psych. Amos costarred with Anthony Anderson in the TV series All About the Andersons in 2003 and made an appearance on My Name Is Earl in September 2008.

Stage
Amos is the writer and producer of Halley's Comet, a critically acclaimed one-man play that he performs around the world.

Projects In Development
Back In Shape With John Amos and T and Gangs At Sea.
Film roles

Amos has had roles in several films, such as Coming to America, Vanishing Point, The Beastmaster and Die Hard 2. He also starred in Let's Do It Again (1975) as Kansas City Mack with Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier. Amos was also featured in the movie The World's Greatest Athlete with Tim Conway and Jan-Michael Vincent. He was also in Ice Cube's and Dr. Dre's video for Natural Born Killaz and played a police officer in The Players Club. Amos also co-starred with Sylvester Stallone in the 1989 movie Lock Up. In 2006 he played Jud in Dr. Dolittle.Amos has the distinction of winning more TV Land Awards than anyone, taking home trophies for his roles on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Good Times and the TV miniseries Roots.

Actor and humanitarian John Amos, an outstanding graduate of East Orange High School and the recipient of New Jersey Education Association's (NJEA) 2009 Award for Excellence. The award is granted to New Jersey public school graduates who have demonstrated exceptional leadership in their fields of expertise.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/27/09 at 5:41 am

The co-birthday of the day...Agnes Nixon
Agnes Nixon (born Agnes Eckhardt; December 10, 1927) is an American writer and producer.

She attended Northwestern University where she was a member of Alpha Chi Omega sorority.

She is best known as the creator of soap operas such as One Life to Live and All My Children. Having a key role in the production of these programs, she was either executive producer or consulting producer for both shows for many years: on One Life to Live from 1968 to 1975, and All My Children from 1970 to 1981. She continued to write the program with Wisner Washam until 1983, and again with him from 1988 to 1992, continuing on as a consultant in recurring capacities until 2000. From 1970 until 1992, every episode of All My Children was written by either Agnes Nixon or her protégé Wisner Washam (her role with One Life to Live was more limited once she surrendered the day-to-day aspects of the show in 1975).

Because of her long career and the number of successful shows she has created or been a part of, she is often termed the "Queen" of the modern soap opera. Her creations and her writing have had the most effect on modern audiences, second only to her mentor Irna Phillips.
Nixon began her career in soaps working for Irna Phillips. Phillips' other protégé around that time was William J. Bell, who also went on to become a noted writer in his own right.

Under Phillips' tutelage, she was a writer on As the World Turns, and was head writer for Search for Tomorrow, Guiding Light and, notably, on Another World, where she created the character of Rachel, an early prototype of one of her more lasting creations, Erica Kane.

During her time on Guiding Light, Nixon is believed to have written the first medical-related storyline on a soap opera. A friend of Nixon's had died from cervical cancer, and Nixon wanted to do something to educate women about getting a Pap smear. She wrote it into Guiding Light by having the lead character, Bert Bauer, encounter a cancer scare. This storyline aired in 1962; Nixon had to work around some difficulties of getting this storyline to air, as she could not make use of the words “cancer,” “uterus,” and “Pap test”. However, after this storyline the number of women who took a Pap smear surged dramatically . In 2002 she received a special Sentinel for Health "pioneer award" for her work on Guiding Light.

When she left Another World, she left the tutelage of Phillips (and the restrictions of sponsor Procter & Gamble) to create her own shows.
One Life to Live

By the mid 1960s, Nixon had created the bible for what would become All My Children. ABC executives passed on the program, but asked her to create a show that would reflect a more "contemporary" tone; that creation was One Life to Live. Nixon, "tired of the restraints imposed by the WASPy, non-controversial nature of daytime drama, presented the network with a startingly original premise and cast of characters. Although the show was built along the classic soap formula of a rich family and a poor family, One Life to Live emphasized the ethnic and socioeconomic diversity of the people of Llanview, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia."

Premiering in 1968, One Life to Live initially reflected changing social structures and attitudes. The first few years of the show were rich in issue stories and characters including Jewish characters, Polish-American families, and the first African-American leads, Carla Gray (Ellen Holly), and Ed Hall (Al Freeman, Jr.). Gray's story, for example, had her develop from a character who was passing as white to one who embodied black pride, with white and black loves along the way, to antagonize racists. One Life to Live has been called "the most peculiarly American of soap operas: the first serial to present a vast array of ethnic types, broad comic situations, a constant emphasis on social issues, and strong male characters."

On July 21, 2008, Nixon appeared on One Life to Live for its 40th anniversary.
All My Children

With the success of One Life to Live, Nixon was given the greenlight for All My Children, which began as a half-hour soap opera in 1970.

The show was successful from its beginning, combining its study of social clashes with acting talent including Ruth Warrick and Rosemary Prinz. Nixon helmed the writing team for over a decade, until 1983.

It is on All My Children that Nixon had the most impact; her long tenure as writer helped shaped the show and its characters. She again introduced many social issues into storylines, including the anti-war movement, homosexuality, the AIDS epidemic, and daytime's first abortion by a major character, in this case Erica Kane. (In a controversial move, the storyline was undone in 2006 and Erica's fetus was revealed to have lived and implanted into a surrogate, a procedure that is medically impossible.)
All My Children was a half-hour show for the first seven years of its run, and virtually none of those episodes exist. ABC erased the tapes of those early episodes so the tapes could be reused. When ABC went to Nixon and said that they wanted her to expand the show to an hour, one of her conditions was that the tapes of the show would be archived and preserved by the network. Episodes began to be saved in 1976, while All My Children expanded to an hour on April 25, 1977.
    * She was inducted into the Soap Opera Hall of Fame at a Planet Hollywood restaurant in 1994.
    * She received the Trustees Award for Continued Excellence from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 1981.
    * At one point, Nixon raised eyebrows and caused a great deal of upset in the writers' circle by her adamant refusal to join the Writers Guild of America. As the executive producers of her shows she feared that a writers' strike would force her to stop her writing activities, but still be required to produce the show. In spite of this, she has won five Writers Guild of America Awards for Best Written Daytime Serial.
    * Primetime Emmy: Outstanding Program Achievement in Daytime Drama - One Life to Live- shared with Doris Quinlan.

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/27/09 at 6:04 am


The word of the day...Kwanzaa
Kwanzaa is a weeklong celebration held in the United States honoring universal African heritage and culture, marked by participants lighting a kinara (candle holder). It is observed from December 26 to January 1 each year, primarily in the United States.

Kwanzaa consists of seven days of celebration, featuring activities such as candle-lighting and libations, and culminating in a feast and gift giving. It was created by Ron Karenga and was first celebrated from December 26, 1966 to January 1, 1967.
Ron Karenga created Kwanzaa in 1966 as the first specifically African American holiday. Although the historical Juneteenth African American holiday had been celebrated since 1867, Karenga said his goal was to "give Blacks an alternative to the existing holiday and give Blacks an opportunity to celebrate themselves and history, rather than simply imitate the practice of the dominant society." The name Kwanzaa derives from the Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza, meaning first fruits of the harvest. The choice of Swahili, an East African language, reflects its status as a symbol of Pan-Africanism, especially in the 1960s.

Kwanzaa is a celebration that has its roots in the black nationalist movement of the 1960s, and was established as a means to help African Americans reconnect with their African cultural and historical heritage by uniting in meditation and study of African traditions and common humanist principles.

The first Kwanzaa stamp was issued by the United States Postal Service on October 22, 1997, with artwork by Synthia Saint James. In 2004, a second Kwanzaa stamp, designed by Daniel Minter, was issued; this has seven figures in colorful robes symbolizing the seven principles.

During the early years of Kwanzaa, Karenga said that it was meant to be an alternative to Christmas, that Jesus was psychotic, and that Christianity was a white religion that black people should shun. However, as Kwanzaa gained mainstream adherents, Karenga altered his position so that practicing Christians would not be alienated, then stating in the 1997 Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community, and Culture, "Kwanzaa was not created to give people an alternative to their own religion or religious holiday."

The origins of Kwanzaa are not secret and are openly acknowledged by those promoting the holiday. Many Christian African Americans who celebrate Kwanzaa do so in addition to observing Christmas.

Can I find a song with this word......

No.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/27/09 at 6:06 am


Can I find a song with this word......

No.
But in the meantime!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k13AsNCgdM

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/27/09 at 7:00 am


The birthday of the day...John Amos
John Amos (born December 27, 1939) is an American actor and former football player. His television work includes roles on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Good Times, the miniseries Roots, and a recurring role in The West Wing. He has also appeared on Broadway and in numerous motion pictures in a career that spans four decades. He has received nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and NAACP Image Award.  John Amos (born December 27, 1939) is an American actor and former football player. His television work includes roles on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Good Times, the miniseries Roots, and a recurring role in The West Wing. He has also appeared on Broadway and in numerous motion pictures in a career that spans four decades. He has received nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and NAACP Image Award.Amos is perhaps best known for playing characters Gordy Howard--weatherman on The Mary Tyler Moore Show from 1970 until 1973--James Evans, Sr., the sporadically-employed husband of Florida Evans--appearing three times on the sitcom Maude before continuing the role in 57 episodes of Good Times from 1974 to 1976. While playing an chronically unemployed father of three on the show, in real life Amos is only eight years older than the actor who played his oldest son: Jimmie Walker, and nearly 19 years younger than his screen wife, Esther Rolle. Amos, much like series' co-star Rolle, wanted to portray a positive image of an African American family, struggling against the odds in the ghetto of Chicago, but saw the premise slighted by lighter comedy, and expressed dissatisfaction. Unhappy with the scripts and tension with producers, he quit the show after the third season. His character James Evans died in a car accident in the first episode of the fourth season, and the series continued without him.
Other television roles

Amos was part of the Emmy award winning cast on the miniseries Roots, playing the adult Kunta Kinte in 1977. He also portrayed Captain Dolan on television show Hunter from 1984 to 1985. He co-starred in the CBS police drama The District, and guest-starred on a number of other television programs including The Cosby Show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, In the House, The A-Team, and Martin as Sgt. Hamilton Strawn (Tommy's father). He was a frequent guest on The West Wing, portraying Admiral Percy Fitzwallace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He played a pilot, Buzz Washington, in a remote Alaskan town in the ABC series, Men in Trees. He also appeared in a Season 1 episode of "Touched by An Angel," although he was credited as Jon (not John) Amos. Most recently, he guest starred on USA Network's original drama/comedy Psych. Amos costarred with Anthony Anderson in the TV series All About the Andersons in 2003 and made an appearance on My Name Is Earl in September 2008.

Stage
Amos is the writer and producer of Halley's Comet, a critically acclaimed one-man play that he performs around the world.

Projects In Development
Back In Shape With John Amos and T and Gangs At Sea.
Film roles

Amos has had roles in several films, such as Coming to America, Vanishing Point, The Beastmaster and Die Hard 2. He also starred in Let's Do It Again (1975) as Kansas City Mack with Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier. Amos was also featured in the movie The World's Greatest Athlete with Tim Conway and Jan-Michael Vincent. He was also in Ice Cube's and Dr. Dre's video for Natural Born Killaz and played a police officer in The Players Club. Amos also co-starred with Sylvester Stallone in the 1989 movie Lock Up. In 2006 he played Jud in Dr. Dolittle.Amos has the distinction of winning more TV Land Awards than anyone, taking home trophies for his roles on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Good Times and the TV miniseries Roots.

Actor and humanitarian John Amos, an outstanding graduate of East Orange High School and the recipient of New Jersey Education Association's (NJEA) 2009 Award for Excellence. The award is granted to New Jersey public school graduates who have demonstrated exceptional leadership in their fields of expertise.
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John Amos is a legend.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/28/09 at 5:35 am

The word of the day...Training
Training is the process of learning the skills that you need for a particular job or activity.
Training is physical exercise that you do regularly in order to keep fit or to prepare for an activity such as a race
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/28/09 at 5:36 am

There's also vocational training.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/28/09 at 6:01 am

The birthday of the day...Denzel Washington
Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. (born December 28, 1954) is an American actor, screenwriter, director and film producer. He has garnered much critical acclaim for his work in film since the 1990s, including for his portrayals of real-life figures, such as Steve Biko, Malcolm X, Rubin Carter, Melvin B. Tolson, Frank Lucas and Herman Boone.

Washington has been awarded three Golden Globe awards and two Academy Awards for his work. He is notable as the second African American man (after Sidney Poitier) to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, which he received for his role in the 2001 film Training Day


His big break came when he starred in the popular television hospital drama, St. Elsewhere from 1982 to 1988. He was one of a few actors to appear on the series for its entire six-year run. In 1987, after appearing in several minor television, film and stage roles, such as "Carbon Copy" in 1981, A Soldier's Story" in 1984 ,"Hard Lessons" in 1986 and "Power"in the same year. Washington starred as South African Anti-Apartheid political activist Steve Biko in Richard Attenborough's Cry Freedom, a role for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In 1989, Washington won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for playing a defiant, self-possessed ex-slave in the film Glory.

Malcolm X transformed Washington's career, turning him, practically overnight, into one of Hollywood's most respected actors. He turned down several similar roles, such as an offer to play Martin Luther King, Jr., because he wanted to avoid being typecast. The next year, in 1993, he took another risk in his career by playing Joe Miller, the homophobic lawyer of a homosexual man with AIDS in the movie Philadelphia starring Tom Hanks. During the early and mid 1990s, Washington became a renowned Hollywood leading man, starring in several successful thrillers, including The Pelican Brief and Crimson Tide, as well as in comedy Much Ado About Nothing and alongside legendary singer Whitney Houston in the romantic drama The Preacher's Wife.

While filming the 1995 film Virtuosity, Washington refused to kiss his white female co-star, Kelly Lynch, during a romantic scene between their characters. During an interview, Lynch stated that while she wanted to, "Denzel felt very strongly about it. I felt there is no problem with interracial romance. But Denzel felt strongly that the white males, who were the target audience of this movie, would not want to see him kiss a white woman." Lynch further stated, "That's a shame. I feel badly about it. I keep thinking that the world's changed, but it hasn't changed quick enough." A similar situation occurred during the filming of The Pelican Brief when Julia Roberts expressed in an interview her desire to have her character in the film engaged in a romantic relationship with Washington's character.

In 1999, Washington starred in The Hurricane, a movie about boxer Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, whose conviction for triple murder was overturned after he had spent almost 20 years in prison. Various newspaper articles have suggested that the controversy over the film's accuracy may have cost Washington the Oscar for which he was nominated. Washington did receive a Golden Globe Award in 2000 and a 'Silberner Bär' (Silver Berlin Bear) at the Berlin International Film Festival for the role.

He also presented the Arthur Ashe ESPY Award to Loretta Claiborne for her courage. He appeared as himself in the end of The Loretta Claiborne Story movie. Washington has been cited as an example of human physical attractiveness due to the symmetry of his facial feature
In 2000, Washington appeared in the Disney film, Remember the Titans, which grossed over $100 million at the United States box office. He was nominated and won an Oscar for Best Actor for his next film, the 2001 cop thriller, Training Day, as Det. Alonzo Harris, a rogue LAPD cop with questionable law-enforcement tactics. The role was a much-acclaimed change-of-pace for the actor, who was known for playing many heroic leads. Washington was the second African-American performer ever to win an Academy Award in the category of Best Actor, the first being Sidney Poitier, who happened to receive an Honorary Academy Award the same night that Washington won for Best Actor. Washington holds the record for most Oscar nominations by an actor of African descent; so far he has earned five.

After appearing in 2002's box office success, the health care-themed John Q., Washington directed his first film, a well-reviewed drama called Antwone Fisher, in which he also co-starred.

Between 2003 and 2004, Washington appeared in a series of thrillers that performed generally well at the box office, including Out of Time, Man on Fire, and The Manchurian Candidate. In 2006 he starred in Inside Man, a Spike Lee-directed bank heist thriller co-starring Jodie Foster and Clive Owen, and Déjà Vu released in November 2006.

In 2007, he co-starred with Russell Crowe in American Gangster. Later, Denzel directed and starred in the drama The Great Debaters with Forest Whitaker. Washington next appeared as New York City subway security chief Walter Garber in The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, a remake of the '70s thriller, The Taking of Pelham One, Two Three, opposite John Travolta and directed by Tony Scott; the film opened in June 2009.
1981 Carbon Copy Roger Porter
1984 License to Kill Martin Sawyer
A Soldier's Story Pfc. Melvin Peterson
1986 Hard Lessons George McKenna
Power Arnold Billings NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
1987 Cry Freedom Steve Biko Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1989 The Mighty Quinn Xavier Quinn
For Queen and Country Reuben James Festival du Film Policier de Cognac Award for Best Actor
Glory Pvt. Trip Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor
1990 Heart Condition Napoleon Stone
Mo' Better Blues Bleek Gilliam
1991 Ricochet Nick Styles
1992 Mississippi Masala Demetrius Williams NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
Malcolm X Malcolm X Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Male
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
Silver Bear for Best Actor
Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1993 Much Ado About Nothing Don Pedro of Aragon
The Pelican Brief Gray Grantham Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable Male
Philadelphia Joe Miller Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo shared with Tom Hanks
1995 Crimson Tide Lt. Commander Ron Hunter NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
Crimson Tide Lt. Commander Ron Hunter NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Male
Virtuosity Lt. Parker Barnes
Devil in a Blue Dress Easy Rawlins
1996 Courage Under Fire Lt. Colonel Nathaniel Serling NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
Lone Star Film & Television Award for Best Actor
Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
The Preacher's Wife Dudley
1998 Fallen Detective John Hobbes
He Got Game Jake Shuttlesworth Nominated — Acapulco Black Film Festival Award for Best Actor
Nominated — NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
The Siege Special Agent Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard FBI
1999 The Bone Collector Lincoln Rhyme
The Hurricane Rubin "Hurricane" Carter Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
Black Reel Award for Best Actor
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
Silver Bear for Best Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
2000 Remember the Titans Coach Herman Boone BET Award for Best Actor
Black Reel Award for Best Actor
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
The Loretta Claiborne Story Himself
2001 Training Day Detective Alonzo Harris Academy Award for Best Actor
American Film Institute Award for Actor of the Year - Male - Movies
Black Reel Award for Best Actor
Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
MTV Movie Award for Best Villain
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
Nominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
2002 John Q John Quincy Archibald Nominated — Black Reel Award for Best Actor
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
Antwone Fisher Dr. Jerome Davenport also as director
Black Reel Award for Best Director
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture
Producers Guild of America Stanley Kramer Award
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Director
Nominated — Black Reel Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Director
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Director
2003 Out of Time Police Chief Matthias Lee Whitlock Nominated — Black Reel Award for Best Actor
Nominated — NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
2004 Man on Fire John Creasy Nominated — NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
The Manchurian Candidate Major Ben Marco
BET Award for Best Actor
2006 Inside Man Detective Keith Frazier Nominated — Black Movie Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Black Reel Award for Best Actor
Nominated — NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
Déjà Vu Special Agent Doug Carlin
Nominated — BET Award for Best Actor
2007 American Gangster Frank Lucas Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Male
Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Best Villain
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
The Great Debaters Melvin B. Tolson also as director
Christopher Award for Best Feature Film
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture
Nominated — NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Director
2009 The Taking of Pelham 123 Walter Garber
2010 The Book of Eli Eli
Unstoppable
Inside Man 2 Det. Keith Frazier
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/28/09 at 6:03 am


The word of the day...Training
Training is the process of learning the skills that you need for a particular job or activity.
Training is physical exercise that you do regularly in order to keep fit or to prepare for an activity such as a race

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk160/vernebbell/Decorated%20images/Recruit%20Training/P1000182.jpg

Is that our bus in the background?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/28/09 at 6:06 am

The co-birthday of the day...John Legend..John Stephens (born December 28, 1978), better known by his stage name John Legend, is an American recording artist, musician and actor. He is the recipient of six Grammy Awards, and in 2007, he received the special Starlight award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Prior to the release of his debut album, Legend's career gained momentum through a series of successful collaborations with multiple established artists. Legend added his voice to those of other artists, assisting in them reaching chart-topper hits. He lent his voice to that of Kanye West, on Slum Village's "Selfish", and Dilated Peoples' "This Way". Other artists included Jay-Z's "Encore", and sang backing vocals on Alicia Keys' 2003 song "You Don't Know My Name" and Fort Minor's "High Road." Legend played piano on Lauryn Hill's "Everything Is Everything".  Legend released his debut album, Get Lifted, in December 2004. It debuted at number seven on the Billboard 200, selling 116,000 copies in its first week. It sold 2.1 million copies in the United States and was certified Platinum by the RIAA; it sold three million copies worldwide. The album produced two singles: "Ordinary People" (US and UK top 30) went straight to number one and "Used to Love U" (US top 100, UK top 30).
2006–2007: Once Again

The first single from his second album, Once Again, was "Save Room". The album was released October 24, 2006, and boasts production from Kanye West, Raphael Saadiq, and will.i.am. In an interview with MTV, Legend said that this album contained his favorite song that he had written to date, entitled "Again." He said he came up with the idea for the song and wrote some of it while sitting on a subway. He stated that the song was also the inspiration for the album's title.

In August 2006, Legend appeared in an episode of Sesame Street. He performed a song entitled "It Feels Good When You Sing a Song", a duet with Hoots the Owl. He also performed during the pregame show of Super Bowl XL in Detroit and the halftime show at the 2006 NBA All-Star Game.
2008–present: Evolver

Legend released his third studio album Evolver, in October 2008. Rapper Andre 3000 of OutKast is featured on the first single of the album on a song titled "Green Light". "It's going to be a surprise for a lot of John Legend fans, because it is a lot more upbeat than John is — than people think John is," Andre insisted. "I was actually happy to hear it. This is a cool John Legend song". The next single from Evolver was confirmed as "Everybody Knows".

Speaking in July 2008 to noted UK R&B writer Pete Lewis of the award-winning "Blues & Soul", Legend explained his reasons for titling the album 'Evolver': "Well I think people sometimes come to expect certain things from certain artists. They expect you to kind of stay in the same place you were at when you started out. Whereas I feel I want my career to be defined by the fact that I'm NOT gonna stay in the same place, and that I'm always gonna try new things and experiment. So, as I think this album represents a manifestation of that, I came up with the tile 'Evolver'."
Collaborations

   * In 2005, he was featured in the Fort Minor song "High Road".
   * In 2006, he is also featured in Sérgio Mendes's collaboration album, Timeless. Legend sang "Please Baby Don't". Additionally, He collaborated with Jay-z (for his Kingdome Come album) for the song "Do U Wanna Ride".
   * In 2007, John lent his vocals for the Rich Boy track "Ghetto Rich".
   * John Legend collaborated with Colombian Rock artist Juanes at the 2008 Latin Grammys. Legend sang in Spanish along with Juanes, on the bilingual version of the song "Si tu estas ahi" also known as "If You Are Out There".
   * He is featured in the Black Eyed Peas song, "Like That". The song "Ordinary People" was originally meant to be for a Black Eyed Peas project, but Legend decided to keep it for himself and recorded the song after he had been signed to Columbia Records.
   * Legend was working with Michael Jackson on a future album. In a Dutch interview with reporter Tom Theunisz he was asked about this collaboration. His response was that he had written one song for the upcoming album, but was unsure about whether Jackson would be using it.
   * Legend also sang "The Girl is Mine" and the national anthem along with Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report.
   * Legend is featured on the sixth track, "Heartbreaker", of MSTRKRFT's second album Fist of God.
   * He collaborated with Fergie for her song "Finally" on her 2006 debut album "The Dutchess".
   * Legend is featured in T.I.'s song "Slide Show" on his album Paper Trail. A music video for "Slide Show" was released on August 10, 2009, featuring a video collage; it is unknown as of yet, however, if it is an official single.
   * He is also featured in the song "Magnificent" by Rick Ross. The music video has cameo appearances from DJ Khaled saying and wearing "We the Best!!", Birdman, Ace Hood, Triple C's, and Special Ed. It was released on March 3, 2009, and it was directed by music video director Gil Green. It was filmed at Gulfstream Park Racetrack in Hallandale Beach, Florida.
   * Legend also collaborated with Reggae legend Buju Banton on the track 'Can't Be My Lover'. The track is one of the biggest mixes of R&B and Reggae/Dancehall in years.
   * In 2009, Legend recorded a duet with Brazilian singer Ana Carolina called "Entre Olhares". He sings in English, and she sings in Portuguese.
   * In the Summer of 2009, he record a duet with ex-member of Sin Bandera, Noel Schajris, called "No Importa" (It Doesn't Matter). He sings in English and Spanish.
   * John Legend plans to collaborate with british born talent Stefan Vitalis, to produce a soulful and dynamic record.

Music videos and acting career

John Legend's cover of Stevie Wonder's 1974 hit song Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing appeared in Will Smith/Eva Mendes' Hitch (film) and on the soundtrack of the movie.

The 2007 video for his single, "P.D.A. (We Just Don't Care)", features Alexandre Rodrigues and Melvin Bragg from the critically acclaimed film, City of God.

Legend's songs in movies:

   * "Refuge" appears on the soundtrack to the 2006 film The Second Chance.
   * "Dare to Dream" is in the 2007 movie Pride.
   * "Someday" is part of the soundtrack to the 2007 film August Rush.

Legend has a minor, non-speaking role in the 2008 movie Soul Men where he plays the deceased lead singer of a fictitious soul group that includes Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac.
   * He performed "God Bless America" during the 7th inning stretch at the 2006 Major League Baseball All Star Game in Pittsburgh, PA.

   * He appeared on the season finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm, singing a cover of You Don't Know Me. He also appeared on an episode of the television series "Las Vegas" in February 2007 performing his single "Save Room" solo at the end of the episode.

   * In 2007, he performed with John Mayer and Corinne Bailey-Rae at the Grammy Awards. He later appeared with Bailey Rae in several live performances.

   * Legend appears in a recent commercial for a Lexus SUV, in which Legend is shown listening to Nina Simone's "Backlash Blues" (recorded live in Paris, 1968, on The Great Show LP) and describing his experience with the music. He is also notable for performing closing music in many of Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs' keynote presentations.

   * In January 2008, he sang in a video for Barack Obama produced by Will.I.Am called "Yes We Can".

   * Legend performed "America The Beautiful" at WrestleMania XXIV on Sunday March 30, 2008 at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Florida .

   * In a 2008 Target commercial, Legend performed a piece of his song "Slow Dance" to pitch his new album "available exclusively at Target." The commercial was shown during online streaming episodes of NBC programs.

   * Legend performed several numbers live in front of hundreds of thousands of fans during the July 4, 2008 celebration on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia.

   * Legend performed at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver in September 2008.

   * Legend appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher on October 31, 2008. He was a member of the panel and performed "If You're Out There" at the end of the show.

   * Legend appeared on CNN Heroes 2008, which was taped November 22, 2008, and was televised November 27, 2008.

   * John Legend appeared to perform the song in duet with Colombian rock singer Juanes during the 9th Annual Latin Grammy Awards at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas on November 13, 2008. The version they performed was sang mostly in Spanish by both singers, with only a few lines in English.

   * On Sunday, January 18, 2009, he performed at the We Are One:The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial, singing James Taylor's "Shower the People" with James Taylor and Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland.

   * On Friday, February 13, 2009, he was a guest and performed on the The Ellen DeGeneres Show. John performed his song, "Everybody Knows" from his album, Evolver.
   * Legend performed at the 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition Launch party at LAX in Las Vegas on February 12, 2009.
   * Legend performed at the 2009 NBA All-Star Game Halftime show on February 15, 2009
   * John Legend made an appearance on 106 & Park, and brought his new video "Everybody Knows" on Feb. 18, 2009.
   * Legend performed at the 81st Academy Awards on February 22, 2009, singing Down to Earth (Peter Gabriel song) nominated for Best Original Song
   * On an episode of The Colbert Report which aired March 7, 2008, Legend performed "The Girl Is Mine" with Stephen Colbert. It was a remake of the Michael Jackson/Paul McCartney hit. Legend returned to The Colbert Report on April 14, 2008, performing "The Star-Spangled Banner" with Stephen Colbert, opening the show's week in Philadelphia. He later appeared in Colbert's Christmas special A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All, where he performed an ode to nutmeg.

   * On Sunday, May 17, 2009, Legend was the commencement speaker for the University of Pennsylvania's 2009 graduation ceremonies. Amy Goodman happened to be in the audience, and she televised the speech the following Tuesday, May 19, 2009 on Democracy Now!..

   * On Friday, June 12, 2009 Legend co-hosted ESPN's Mike and Mike in the Morning on the ESPN2/ESPN Radio simulcast with Mike Greenberg. Legend sat in for Mike Golic.

Charities and endorsements
Legend performs during the first night of the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado.

On 7 July 2007, Legend participated in the Live Earth concert in London, performing "Ordinary People". On July 8, 2007, he participated in the Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, with India.Arie. On July 11, 2007, he participated in the Jazz Open Festival in Stuttgart, Germany, with Amy Winehouse.

On September 21, 2008, Legend performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London, UK in conjunction with the Peace One Day concert. He sang Green Light, and If You're Out There.

Legend recently launched The Show Me Campaign, through which his fans are encouraged to donate funds toward improving the living situations and prospects of victims of extreme poverty in Mbola, Tanzania. Legend, in early 2008, began touring with Professor Jeff Sachs of Columbia University's Earth Institute to promote sustainable development as an achievable goal.

Legend returned to his hometown of Springfield, Ohio on Christmas Eve 2007 for a "Coming Home Christmas Benefit Concert" in the auditorium of North High School. The performance featured several local talent from Springfield, including Legend's younger brother Vaughn Anthony Stephens who helped organize the concert. The performance also featured a tribute to Jason Collier and proceeds went to a scholarship fund set up in his name for local high schoolers.

Legend is currently a spokesperson for Bailey's alcoholic beverage. He also spoke on behalf of The Polka Dotz at Milwaukee's 2008 German Fest.
Legend performed and spoke at his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, on behalf of the Barack Obama Presidential campaign in April 2008. He later performed "If You're Out There" from the album Evolver and a duet of Will.i.am's "Yes we can" at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado.

Legend performed a half-hour set list in support of Barack Obama in his hometown of Springfield, as well as at The Ohio State University and Wright State University campuses on September 29, 2008.

Legend will contribute a share of the proceeds of some tickets for his August 13, 2009 concert at Madison Square Garden to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/28/09 at 6:08 am


Is that our bus in the background?

I know I'm out of shape and could use some training ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/28/09 at 6:10 am


I know I'm out of shape and could use some training ;D
We all need some training after the holiday season.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/28/09 at 6:12 am

* Edgar Winter..Edgar Holland Winter (born December 28, 1946, in Beaumont, Texas) is an American musician. Edgar is a multi-instrumentalist, performing on the keyboards, and as a vocalist, saxophonist and percussionist, well-versed in jazz, blues and rock. He was most successful in the 1970s with his band The Edgar Winter Group. He is easily recognized by his albinism.
As teens Edgar and his elder brother Johnny Winter began performing together at local establishments such as Tom's Fish Camp. The two played in R&B and blues groups; Johnny and the Jammers, The Crystaliers, and The Black Plague. By the time he was of college age Edgar had become competent on keyboards, saxophone, bass, guitar and drums. In 1969, Winter appeared with Johnny for two songs ("I Can't Stand It" and "Tobacco Road") at the Woodstock Festival.

After recording with his brother, Edgar was signed to his own Epic Records contract in 1970 and recorded two R&B flavored albums, Entrance and Edgar Winter's White Trash. In 1972 he formed The Edgar Winter Group which included Dan Hartman, Ronnie Montrose and Chuck Ruff. It was with this band that he had his biggest successes: first with the album They Only Come Out at Night (1972) which featured the #1 hit instrumental "Frankenstein" which pioneered the use of the synthesizer as a lead instrument. During the performances, Winter showed his virtuosity performing on the keyboards, synthesizer, trumpet, and drums, all within the confines of the single song on stage. The song reached number one in the U.S. in May 1973 and the top 15 single "Free Ride"; which reached number 14 that same year, then the album Shock Treatment which featured the song "Easy Street."
Winter playing saxophone 2006 in Winter Park, Florida

The preponderance of vocals and songwriting by Hartman on Shock Treatment led to the release of Jasmine Nightdreams (1975) with all vocals by Winter. It was nominally a solo album, but it used the same personnel as the Edgar Winter Group. A full band album followed, the Edgar Winter Group with Rick Derringer, featuring songs and vocals by Derringer.

Success was waning, however, and Edgar teamed with brother Johnny for a live album of blues and early rock classics, including "Harlem Shuffle" (later a revival hit for the Rolling Stones). The album, Together (1976) also fell below expectations, so the White Trash was reformed. In 1977, they recorded Recycled, and toured as an opening act to support the album. The tour was cut short by a tragic plane crash, which killed some members of the tour's headliner, Lynyrd Skynyrd. This was followed by two solo albums, an attempt at literate disco on the Edgar Winter Album and a return to 1970s rock with Standing on Rock, in 1981. Since then there have been more obscure solo albums and session work, namely with David Lee Roth on Crazy from the Heat in 1985, which included a cover version of the song "Easy Street".

With over 20 albums and many television and radio appearances both to promote his music and to give his opinion on everything politically incorrect, Edgar Winter's music is solidly in the popular vein. Winter's 1970s albums are bluesier than his later albums, but there are blues tunes like "Big City Woman" on his 1990 album Not a Kid Anymore. In 2005, "Frankenstein" was featured in the PlayStation 2 music video game Guitar Hero. It has also been covered by Gary Hoey on the 2003 album Wake Up Call, as well as by Derek Sherinian on his album Inertia. "Free Ride" is the main song used in the Disney/Pixar video game Cars, a video game spin off of the animated film of the same name, the initial guitar riff is used on the menu screens and the full song is featured during game play.

In 2006, Winter joined Hamish Stuart, Rod Argent, Richard Marx, Billy Squier, and Sheila E touring with Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band. In 2008, he appeared in the 10th All-Starr Band with Colin Hay, Billy Squier, Hamish Stuart, first timer Gary Wright and, on drums, Gregg Bissonette. Winter is a Scientologist. He has appeared in at least seven issues of the Church of Scientology magazine Celebrity between 1995 and 2005, which list the Scientology courses that he has completed.

Winter also produced, arranged, and performed on the album Mission Earth (1986). This album's words and music were written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard is said to have left detailed instructions and audio tapes for the musicians and producers to follow when making the album. Edgar described Mission Earth as "both a return to rock’s primal roots and yet highly experimental." Winter had glowing words for Hubbard when he wrote, "Ron's technical insight of the recording process was outstanding." Winter also described Hubbard's delineation of counter-rhythm in rock as something "which was nothing short of phenomenal, particularly inasmuch as it had then been entirely unexplored and only later heard in the African-based rhythms of Paul Simon's work, some five years after Ron’s analysis.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/28/09 at 6:13 am


We all need some training after the holiday season.

So true and there still is New Years Eve Parties to go to.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/28/09 at 6:16 am


So true and there still is New Years Eve Parties to go to.
Maybe training after the New Years Eve Parties.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/28/09 at 6:16 am


Maybe training after the New Years Eve Parties.

Sounds good :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 12/28/09 at 6:19 am


Sounds good :)
But lets enjoy the holiday season first.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/28/09 at 5:01 pm


But lets enjoy the holiday season first.


We all do.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 12/28/09 at 6:56 pm

Very nice bios. Thanks for sharing, Ninny.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 12/28/09 at 11:49 pm

Training?  This is my favourite training skit...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnSeKHnB_k8

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/29/09 at 2:39 am


Very nice bios. Thanks for sharing, Ninny.  :)

Thanks :)

Training?  This is my favourite training skit...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnSeKHnB_k8

Very nice :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/29/09 at 2:47 am

The word of the day...Cowboy
A cowboy is a male character in a western
A cowboy is a man employed to look after cattle in North America, especially in former times.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/29/09 at 2:52 am

The birthday of the day...Jon Voight
Jonathan Vincent "Jon" Voight (born December 29, 1938) is an American film and television actor. He came to prominence at the end of the 1960s, with a performance as a would-be hustler in 1969's Best Picture winner, Midnight Cowboy, for which he earned his first Academy Award nomination. Throughout the following decades, Voight built his reputation with an array of challenging roles, appearing in such landmark films as Deliverance (1972), and Coming Home (1978), for which he received an Academy Award for Best Actor. Voight's portrayal of sportscaster/journalist Howard Cosell, in the 2001 biopic Ali, earned critical raves and his fourth Oscar nomination. He starred in the seventh season of 24 as the villain Jonas Hodges.

Voight is the father of actress Angelina Jolie and actor James Haven, as well as brother of singer-songwriter Chip Taylor and geologist Barry Voight.
In 1969, Voight was cast in the groundbreaking Midnight Cowboy, a film that would make his career. Voight played Joe Buck, a naïve male hustler from Texas, adrift in New York City. He comes under the tutelage of Dustin Hoffman's Ratso Rizzo, a tubercular petty thief and con artist. The film explored late sixties New York and the development of an unlikely, but poignant friendship between the two main characters. Directed by John Schlesinger and based on a novel by James Leo Herlihy, the film struck a chord with critics. Because of its controversial themes, the film was released with an X rating and would make history by being the only X-rated feature to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Both Voight and co-star Hoffman were nominated for Best Actor but lost out to John Wayne, star of that year's True Grit.

In 1970 Voight appeared in Mike Nichols' adaptation of Catch-22, and re-teamed with director Paul Williams to star in The Revolutionary, as a left wing college student struggling with his conscience.

Voight appeared in 1972's Deliverance, directed by John Boorman, from a script that poet James Dickey had helped to adapt from his novel of the same name. The story of a canoe trip gone awry in a feral, backwoods America. The film and the performances of Voight and co-star Burt Reynolds received great critical acclaim and were popular with audiences.

On 12 December 1971 Voight married model and actress Marcheline Bertrand. Their son James Haven was born in 1973, followed by daughter Angelina Jolie in 1975. Both children would go on to enter the film business, James as an actor and writer, and Angelina as a movie star in her own right. Angelina went on to receive three Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and an Academy Award. She is also the Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency.

Voight played a directionless young boxer in 1973's The All American Boy, then appeared in the 1974 film, Conrack, directed by Martin Ritt. Based on Pat Conroy's autobiographical novel The Water Is Wide, Voight portrayed the title character, an idealistic young schoolteacher sent to teach underprivileged black children on a remote South Carolina island. The same year he appeared in The Odessa File, based on Frederick Forsyth's thriller, playing a young German journalist who discovers a conspiracy to protect former Nazis still operating within Germany. This film first teamed him with the actor-director Maximilian Schell, for whom Voight would appear in 1976's End of the Game, a psychological thriller based on a story by Swiss novelist and playwright, Friedrich Dürrenmatt.

In 1978, Voight portrayed the paraplegic Vietnam veteran Luke Martin in Hal Ashby's film Coming Home. Voight, who was awarded Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival, for his portrait of an embittered paraplegic, reportedly based on real-life Vietnam veteran-turned-anti-war activist Ron Kovic, with whom Fonda falls in love. The film included a much-talked-about love scene between the two. Jane Fonda won her second Best Actress award for her role, and Voight won for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Voight's marriage to Marcheline Bertrand failed in 1978. The following year, Voight once again put on boxing gloves, starring in 1979's remake of the 1931 Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper vehicle, The Champ, with Voight playing the part of an alcoholic ex-heavyweight and a young Rick Schroder playing the role of his adoring son. The film was an international success, but less popular with American audiences.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1969 Midnight Cowboy Joe Buck BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer
Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1970 The Revolutionary "A" Adapted from the novel by Hans Koning
1970 Catch-22 1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder
1972 Deliverance Ed Gentry Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1974 The ODESSA File Peter Miller
Conrack Pat Conroy
1975 End of the Game Walter Tschanz
1978 Coming Home Luke Martin Academy Award for Best Actor
Best Actor Award (Cannes Film Festival)
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
National Board of Review Award for Best Actor
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
1979 The Champ Billy Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1982 Lookin' to Get Out Alex Kovac Co-writer
1983 Table for Five J.P. Tannen
1985 Runaway Train Oscar "Manny" Manheim Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
1986 Desert Bloom Jack Chismore
1989 Eternity Edward/James Co-writer
1991 Chernobyl: The Final Warning Dr. Robert Peter Gale (TV)
1992 The Last of His Tribe Professor Alfred Kroeber CableACE Award for Actor in a Movie or Miniseries
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
The Rainbow Warrior Peter Willcox
1995 Heat Nate
Tin Soldier Yarik Director
1996 Mission: Impossible James Phelps
1997 The Rainmaker Leo F. Drummond Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Rosewood John Wright
Anaconda Paul Sarone
U Turn Blind Man
Most Wanted Gen. Adam Woodward, alias Lt. Col. Grant Casey
1998 Enemy of the State Thomas Brian Reynolds
The General Ned Kenny
1999 Varsity Blues Coach Bud Kilmer
A Dog of Flanders Michel La Grande
Noah's Ark Noah
2001 Zoolander Larry Zoolander
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider Lord Richard Croft
Pearl Harbor Franklin D. Roosevelt
Ali Howard Cosell Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Uprising Maj. Gen. Jürgen Stroop Nominated — Emmy Award for Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story Siggy (Sigfried Mannheim) Television mini-series
2003 Holes Mr. Sir
2004 The Five People You Meet in Heaven Eddie Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
National Treasure Patrick Gates
SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2 Bill Biscane/Kane Nominated - Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor
The Manchurian Candidate Senator Thomas Jordan
The Karate Dog Hamilton Cage Executive Producer
2005 Pope John Paul II John Paul II Nominated — Emmy Award for Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
2006 The Legend of Simon Conjurer Dr. Crazx
Glory Road Adolph Rupp
2007 Transformers Secretary of Defense John Keller
September Dawn Jacob Samuelson
Bratz Principal Dimly
National Treasure: Book of Secrets Patrick Gates
2008 Pride and Glory Francis Tierney Sr.
An American Carol George Washington
Tropic Thunder Himself Cameo appearance
24: Redemption Jonas Hodges (TV)
Four Christmases Creighton
2009 24 Jonas Hodges (TV)
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/29/09 at 2:55 am

The co-birthday..Jude Law
David Jude Heyworth Law (born 29 December 1972) is an English actor, film producer and director.

He began acting with the National Youth Music Theatre in 1987, and had his first television role in 1989. After starring in films directed by Andrew Niccol, Clint Eastwood and David Cronenberg, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1999 for his performance in Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley. In 2000 he won a Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award for his work in the film. In 2003, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in another Minghella film, Cold Mountain.

In 2006, he was one of the top ten most bankable movie stars in Hollywood. In 2007, he received an Honorary César and he was named a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government
In 1987 Law began acting with National Youth Music Theatre. He played various roles in the Edinburgh Fringe-awarded play The Ragged Child. One of his first major stage roles was Foxtrot Darling in Philip Ridley's The Fastest Clock In The Universe. Law went on to appear as Michael in the West End production of Jean Cocteau's tragicomedy Les parents terribles, directed by Sean Mathias. For this play he was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Newcomer, and he received the Ian Charleson Award for Outstanding Newcomer.

Following a title change to Indiscretions, the play was reworked and transferred to Broadway in 1995, where Law acted opposite Kathleen Turner, Roger Rees and Cynthia Nixon. This role earned him a Tony Award nomination and the Theatre World Award. In 1989, Law got his first television role in a movie based on the Beatrix Potter children's book, The Tailor of Gloucester. After minor roles in British television, including a two-year stint in the Granada TV soap opera Families and the leading role in the BFI /Channel 4 short "The Crane", Law had his breakthrough with the British crime drama Shopping, which also featured his future wife Sadie Frost.

In 1997, he became more widely known with his role in the Oscar Wilde bio-pic Wilde. Law won the "Most Promising Newcomer" award from the Evening Standard British Film Awards for his role as Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas, the glamorous lover of Stephen Fry's Oscar Wilde. In Andrew Niccol's science fiction film Gattaca he played the role of a disabled former swimming star living in a eugenics-obsessed dystopia. In Clint Eastwood's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil he played the role of the ill-fated hustler murdered by an art dealer, played by Kevin Spacey. He also played a mob hitman in Sam Mendes's 1930s period drama Road to Perdition.
2000s

Law was one of the Top Ten 2006 A-list of the most bankable movie stars in Hollywood, following the criteria of James Ulmer in the Ulmer Scale. On 1 March 2007, he was honoured with the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres conferred by the French government, in recognition of his contribution to World Cinema Arts. He was named a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. He has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Talented Mr. Ripley in 1999, and then again for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Cold Mountain in 2003. Both films were directed by Anthony Minghella.

For The Talented Mr. Ripley he learned to play saxophone and earned a MTV Movie Award nomination with Matt Damon and Fiorello for performing the song "Tu vuò fà l'americano" by Renato Carosone and Nicola Salerno. He learned ballet dancing for the film Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001).

Law, an admirer of Laurence Olivier, used the actor's image in the 2004 film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Using computer graphics, footage of the young Olivier was merged into the film, playing Dr. Totenkopf, a mysterious scientific genius and supervillain.

He portrayed the title character in Alfie, the remake of Bill Naughton's 1966 film, playing the role originated by Michael Caine. He took on another of Caine's earlier roles in the 2007 film Sleuth adapted by Nobel Laureate in Literature Harold Pinter, while Caine played the role originated by Sir Laurence Olivier.

Law is one of three actors who took over the role of actor Heath Ledger in Terry Gilliam's film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. He had this to say about the role:

    "I have always loved Terry Gilliam's films. Their heart, their soul, their mind, always inventive, touching, funny and relevant. When I got the call, it was a double tug. I liked Heath very much as a man and admired him as an actor. To help finish his final piece of work was a tribute I felt compelled to make. To help Terry finish his film was an honour paid to a man I adore. I had a great time on the job. Though we were all there in remembrance, Heath's heart pushed us with great lightness to the finish."

Along with Law, actors Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell portray "three separate dimensions in the film." He appeared opposite Forest Whitaker in the dark sci-fi comedy Repo Men! and as Dr. Watson in Guy Ritchie's adaption of Sherlock Holmes, alongside Robert Downey, Jr. and Rachel McAdams. Law stars as a celebrity supermodel in the film Rage.
Hamlet

In May 2009, Law returned to the London stage to portray the title role in Shakespeare's Hamlet at the Donmar Warehouse West End season at Wyndham's Theatre. The BBC reported "a fine and solid performance" but included other reviews of Law's interpretation that were mixed. There was a further run of the production at Elsinore Castle in Denmark from 25-30 August 2009. In September 2009 the production transferred to the Broadhurst Theatre in New York. Again, the critics failed to agree on the merit of Law's interpretation: London's Daily Mail found only positive reviews, but The Washington Post felt that the much-anticipated performance was "highly disappointing
In 2004, Law launched a campaign to raise £2.5 million towards the Young Vic Theatre's £12.5 million redevelopment project. He is currently Chair of the Young Vic committee and has said that he is proud to help make the Young Vic "a nurturing bed" for young directors. He is an enthusiastic football fan and a supporter of the English football club Tottenham Hotspur. In 2006, he joined Robbie Williams in the "Soccer Aid" celebrity football match to benefit UNICEF.

In 2006, he starred in an anthology of Samuel Beckett readings and performances directed by director Anthony Minghella. With the Beckett Gala Evening at the Reading Town Hall, more than £22,000 was donated for the Macmillan Cancer Support. Also in 2006, Frost and Law directed a Shakespeare play in a South African orphanage. He travelled to Durban with Frost and their children in order to help children who have lost their parents to AIDS. In July 2007, as patron of the charity, he helped kick off the month-long tour of the AIDS-themed musical Thula Sizwe by The Young Zulu Warriors. Also in 2007, he encouraged the Friends of the Earth/The Big Ask campaign, asking British Government to take action against climate change.

Law does charity work for organizations such as Make Poverty History, the Rhys Daniels Trust, and the WAVE Trauma Centre. He supports the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Pride of Britain Awards.

He is the chair of the Music For Tomorrow Foundation to help rebuild Katrina-devastated New Orleans.

Jude Law is an ambassador of HRH The Prince of Wales' Children and the Arts Foundation. He supports Breast Cancer Care, and in December 2008 he supported the Willow Foundation with a small canvas for their campaign Stars on Canvas. In April 2009 he supported the charity Education Africa with the gift of a mask he had painted and signed himself. The campaign was launched on eBay by Education Africa.

Stars including Dame Judi Dench and Jude Law have helped save St Stephen's Church in Hampstead. The celebrities supported the campaign, which raised £4.5 million to refurbish the Victorian church in north London. The building reopened in March 2009 as an arts and community centre
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1989 The Tailor of Gloucester Sam, Mayor's Stableboy (TV)
1990 Families Nathan Thompson (TV)
1991 The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes Joe Barnes (TV)
1992 The Crane Young Man
1993 The Marshal Bruno (TV)
1994 Shopping Billy
1996 I Love You, I Love You Not Ethan
1997 Bent Stormtrooper
Wilde Lord Alfred Douglas Evening Standard British Film Award — Most Promising Newcomer
Gattaca Jerome Eugene Morrow
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Billy Carl Hanson
1998 Music From Another Room Danny
Final Cut Jude
The Wisdom of Crocodiles Steven Grlscz aka Immortality
1999 eXistenZ Ted Pikul
Presence of Mind Secretary
The Talented Mr. Ripley Dickie Greenleaf BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Supporting Actor - Suspense
Santa Fe Film Festival Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Empire Award — Best British Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Nominated — London Critics Circle Film Award — British Supporting Actor of the Year
Nominated — MTV Movie Award — Best Musical Performance
Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Teen Choice Award — Film Choice Breakout Performance
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Tube Tales (director) "A Bird in the Hand"
2000 Love, Honour and Obey Jude
Happy M'Gee Tony M'Gee
2001 Enemy at the Gates Vasily Zaitsev Nominated — European Film Award Audience Award for Best Actor
Artificial Intelligence: A.I. Gigolo Joe Nominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Nominated — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor
2002 Road to Perdition Harlen Maguire Nominated — Empire Award for Best British Actor
Nominated — London Film Critics Circle Awards for Best British Supporting Actor
Nominated — Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor
2003 Cold Mountain W. P. Inman Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Empire Award for Best British Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — IFTA Award – People's Choice Award for Best International Actor
Nominated — London Film Critics Circle Awards for Best British Actor
Nominated — MTV Movie Award — Best Trans-Atlantic Breakthrough Performer
Nominated — Golden Satellite Award - Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama
2004 I ♥ Huckabees Brad Stand
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow Sky Captain / Joseph Sullivan Also Producer
Nominated — MTV Movie Award - Best Kiss shared with Gwyneth Paltrow
Nominated — Visual Effects Society Awards 2004 - Outstanding Performance by an Actor or Actress in a Visual Effects Film
Alfie Alfie
Closer Dan National Board of Review Award for Best Cast
Nominated — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast
The Aviator Errol Flynn Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events Lemony Snicket Voice
ShoWest Convention /ShoWest Award — Male Star of the Year
Nominated — People's Choice Award — Favorite Leading Man
2006 All the King's Men Jack Burden
Breaking & Entering Will Francis
The Holiday Graham Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss shared with Cameron Diaz
2007 My Blueberry Nights Jeremy
Sleuth Milo Tindle Also producer
2009 Rage Minx
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Tony (2nd transformation)
Sherlock Holmes Dr. Watson
2010 Repo Men Remy, a repo man
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/29/09 at 2:59 am

* Mary Tyler Moore..Mary Tyler Moore (born December 29, 1936) is an American actress, primarily known for her roles in television sitcoms.

Moore is best known for The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–1977), in which she starred as Mary Richards, a 30-something single woman who worked as a local news producer in Minneapolis, and for her earlier role as Dick Van Dyke's wife on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966). She also appeared in a number of films, most notably 1980's Ordinary People, in which she played a role that was the polar opposite of the television characters she had portrayed, and for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

Moore has also been active in charity work and various political causes, particularly on behalf of Animal rights and Diabetes mellitus type 1.
At the age of 17, Moore aspired to be a dancer. She started her career as "Happy Hotpoint", a tiny elf dancing on Hotpoint appliances in TV commercials during the 1950s series Ozzie and Harriet. She filmed 39 TV spots in five days, ultimately earning about $6,000 from the first job of her career. Her time as "Happy Hotpoint" ended when it became difficult to conceal her pregnancy in the dancing elf costume.

Moore anonymously modelled on the covers of a number of record albums and auditioned for the role of the older daughter of Danny Thomas for his long-running hit TV show, but was turned down. Much later, Thomas explained that "no daughter of mine could have that nose." Moore's first regular television role was as a telephone receptionist on the show Richard Diamond, Private Detective; in that series, only her legs were shown and voice heard. About this time, she guest starred on John Cassavetes's NBC detective series Johnny Staccato. In 1960, she guest starred in two episodes, "The O'Mara's Ladies" and "All The O'Mara's Horses", of the William Bendix-Doug McClure NBC western series, Overland Trail. Several months later, she appeared in the first episode, entitled "One Blonde Too Many", of NBC one-season The Tab Hunter Show, a sitcom starring the former teen idol as a bachelor cartoonist.

In 1961, Moore appeared in several bit parts in movies and on television, including Bourbon Street Beat, 77 Sunset Strip, Surfside Six, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Steve Canyon, Hawaiian Eye, and Lock Up in 1961 where a woman named Laura helped save her from prison.

In 1961, Carl Reiner cast her in The Dick Van Dyke Show, an acclaimed weekly series based on Reiner's own life and career as a writer for Sid Caesar's television variety show, telling the cast from the outset that it would run no more than five years. The show was produced by Danny Thomas's company, and Thomas himself recommended her. He remembered Mary as "the girl with three names" whom he had turned down earlier. Moore's energetic comic performances as Van Dyke's character's wife, begun at age 24 (hence she was 11 years Van Dyke's junior), made both the actress and her signature tight capri pants extremely popular, and she became internationally famous. When she won an Emmy award for her portrayal of Laura Petrie, she said, through her tears, quite incorrectly, "I know this will never happen again!"

In 1970, after having appeared earlier in a pivotal one-hour musical special called "Dick Van Dyke and the Other Woman", Moore and husband Grant Tinker successfully pitched a sitcom centered on Moore to CBS. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was a half-hour newsroom sitcom featuring Ed Asner as her gruff boss Lou Grant, a character that would later be spun off into an hour-long dramatic series. The premise of the single working woman's life, alternating during the program between work and home, became a television staple that would often be used in the future. After six years of ratings in the top 20, the show slipped to number #39 during its seventh season. Producers argued for its cancellation due to its falling ratings, afraid that the show's legacy might be damaged if it were renewed for another season. To the surprise of the entire cast including Mary Tyler Moore herself, it was announced that they would soon be filming their final episode. After the announcement, the series finished strongly and the final show was the most watched show during the week it aired. The series had become a touchpoint of the Women's Movement because it was one of the first to show, in a serious way, an independent working woman.

After a brief respite, Moore threw herself into a completely different genre. She attempted two failed variety series in a row: Mary, which featured David Letterman, Michael Keaton, Swoosie Kurtz and Dick Shawn in the supporting cast and lasted three episodes, which was re-tooled as The Mary Tyler Moore Hour, a backstage show within a show, with Mary portraying a TV star putting on a variety show. To arouse curiosity and nostalgic feelings, Dick Van Dyke appeared as her guest, but the program was canceled within three months. About this time, she also made a one-off musical/variety special for CBS, titled Mary's Incredible Dream, which featured John Ritter, among others. It did poorly in the ratings and, according to Moore, was never repeated and will likely never be aired again due to legal problems surrounding the show.

In the 1985-86 season, she returned to CBS in a series titled "Mary", which suffered from poor reviews, sagging ratings, and internal strife within the production crew. According to Moore, she asked CBS to pull the show, as she was unhappy with the direction of the program and the producers.

She also starred in the short-lived "warmedy", Annie McGuire, in 1988.

In the mid-1990s, she had a cameo and a guest starring role as herself on two episodes of Ellen. She subsequently also guest starred on Ellen DeGeneres's next TV show, The Ellen Show, in 2001.

In 2004, Moore reunited with her Dick Van Dyke Show castmates for a reunion "episode" called The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited. In August 2005, Moore guest-starred as Christine St. George, a high-strung host of a fictional TV show on three episodes of Fox sitcom That '70s Show. Moore's scenes were shot on the same soundstage where The Mary Tyler Moore Show was filmed in the 1970s.
Theatre

Moore appeared in several Broadway plays. She starred in Whose Life Is It Anyway with James Naughton, which opened on Broadway at the Royale Theatre on February 24, 1980 and ran for 96 performances, and in Sweet Sue, which opened at the Music Box Theatre (transferred to the Royale Theatre) on Jan. 8, 1988 and ran for 164 performances. She was the star of a new musical version of Breakfast at Tiffany's in December 1966, but the show, titled Holly Golightly, was a notorious flop that closed out-of-town before reaching Broadway. An urban legend has it that when Mary, as Holly, announced that she miscarried her baby, the audience applauded.

She appeared in previews of the Neil Simon play Rose's Dilemma at the off-Broadway Manhattan Theatre Club in December 2003 but was fired before the show opened, because she was not able to learn her lines.

During the 1980s, Moore and her production company produced five plays: Noises Off, The Octette Bridge Club, Joe Egg, Benefactors, and Safe Sex.
Movies

Moore made her film debut in 1961's X-15. She subsequently appeared in a string of 1960s films (after signing an exclusive contract with Universal Pictures), including 1967's Thoroughly Modern Millie with Julie Andrews and 1968's What's So Bad About Feeling Good? and Don't Just Stand There!. In 1969 she starred opposite Elvis Presley as a nun in Change of Habit. Moore's future television castmate Ed Asner also appeared in that film (as a cop). After that film's disappointing reviews and reception at the box office, Mary returned to television, and did not appear in another theatrical film for the next eleven years.

Moore was nominated for the Best Actress for 1980's Ordinary People. Other feature film credits include Six Weeks, Just Between Friends, Flirting with Disaster, Keys to Tulsa, Labor Pains and Cheats.

Moore has appeared in a number of telefilms, such as Like Mother, Like Son: The Strange Story of Sante and Kenny Kimes, Run a Crooked Mile, Heartsounds, The Gin Game (based on the Broadway play; it reunited her with Dick Van Dyke again), Mary and Rhoda, Lincoln (as Mary Todd Lincoln), Finnegan Begin Again, The Best Year, Miss Lettie and Me, Stolen Babies and Payback.
In addition to her acting work, Moore is the International Chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International. In this role, she has used her fame to help raise funds and raise awareness of diabetes mellitus type 1, which she has, almost losing her vision and at least one limb to the disease.

In 2007, in honor of Moore's dedication to the Foundation, JDRF created the "Forever Moore" research initiative which will support JDRF's Academic Research and Development and JDRF's Clinical Development Program. The program works on translating basic research advances into new treatments and technologies for those living with type 1 diabetes.

She also adopted a Golden Retriever puppy from Yankee Golden Retriever Rescue in Hudson, Massachusetts. She also is an animal rights activist and promoted her cause on the Ellen DeGeneres sitcom Ellen. She has worked for animal rights for many years. On the subject of fur, she has said, "Behind every beautiful fur, there is a story. It is a bloody, barbaric story."

She is also a co-founder of Broadway Barks, an annual animal adopt-a-thon held in New York City. Moore and friend Bernadette Peters work to make New York City a no-kill city and to promote adopting animals from shelters.

In honor of her father, George Tyler Moore, who was a life-long American Civil War enthusiast, in 1995 Moore donated funds to acquire an historic structure in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, for Shepherd College (now Shepherd University) to be used as a center for Civil War studies. The center, named the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War is housed in the historic Conrad Shindler house (ca. 1795), which is named in honor of her great, great, great-grandfather, who owned the structure from 1815-52. Moore also contributed to the renovation of the house used as headquarters during 1861-1862 by Major General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. Use of the house had been offered to Jackson by its owner, Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Tilghman Moore, commander of the 4th Virginia Infantry and a great-grandfather of Mary Tyler Moore.

Moore supports embryonic stem cell research. When President George W. Bush announced that he would veto the Senate's bill supporting the research, she said, "This is an intelligent human being with a heart, and I don't see how much longer he can deny those aspects of himself.
Filmography
Television

    * Richard Diamond, Private Detective
    * The Tab Hunter Show (1960), guest star in first episode
    * The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1966)
    * The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-1977)
    * Rhoda (1974-1978)
    * Phyllis (1976-1977)
    * How To Survive the '70s (special) (1978)
    * Mary (1978)
    * First, You Cry (1978)
    * The Mary Tyler Moore Hour (1979)
    * Heartsounds (1984)
    * Finnegan Begin Again (1985)
    * Mary (1985-1986)
    * Lincoln (1988)
    * Annie McGuire (1988)
    * The Last Best Year (1990)
    * Thanksgiving Day (TV series) (1990)
    * Stolen Babies (1993)



    * New York News (1995)
    * Stolen Memories: Secrets from the Rose Garden (1996)
    * Ellen (1996)
    * Payback (1997)
    * Good as Gold (2000)
    * Mary and Rhoda (2000)
    * Like Mother, Like Son: The Strange Story of Sante and Kenny Kimes (2001)
    * The Ellen Show (2001)
    * Miss Lettie and Me (2002)
    * The Gin Game (2003)
    * Blessings (TV movie) (2003)
    * The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited (2004)
    * Snow Wonder (2005)
    * That '70s Show (2006)
    * Lipstick Jungle (2008)
    * Oprah (May 19, 2008)
    * "Good Morning America" (March 31, 2009)

Film
Year Film Role Notes
1958 Once Upon a Horse... Dance Hall Girl (uncredited)
1961 X-15 Pamela Stewart
1967 Thoroughly Modern Millie Miss Dorothy Brown
1968 What's So Bad About Feeling Good? Liz
Don't Just Stand There! Martine Randall
1969 Run a Crooked Mile Elizabeth Sutton (TV)
Change of Habit Sister Michelle Gallagher
1980 Ordinary People Beth Jarrett Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
1982 Six Weeks Charlotte Dreyfus
1986 Just Between Friends Holly Davis
1996 Flirting with Disaster Pearl Coplin Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actress
The Blue Arrow Granny Rose (voice)
1997 Keys to Tulsa Cynthia Boudreau
1998 Reno Finds Her Mom Herself
2000 Labor Pains Esther Raymond
2002 Cheats Mrs. Stark
2009 Against The Current Mom
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll262/BullsEyeRadio/100B3110.jpg
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f121/onelatham/mary7.gif

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/29/09 at 6:50 am


The word of the day...Cowboy
A cowboy is a male character in a western
A cowboy is a man employed to look after cattle in North America, especially in former times.
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa42/shylena035/cowboy.jpg
http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j308/dee_p_2006/1217092024b.jpg
http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu231/cobach_tkt_tj/Noviembre090193.jpg
http://i601.photobucket.com/albums/tt97/FireflyWine/cowboy1.jpg
http://i818.photobucket.com/albums/zz110/greeneyedgirlaz/cowboycactus2.jpg
http://i802.photobucket.com/albums/yy303/sbachali/Scrapbooking/SPJJ118-Cowboy.jpg
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa316/erin_pretender13/country/1759139vewm6k4hqd.gif
http://i584.photobucket.com/albums/ss283/miklamx/CSS%20Cowboy%20Images/bullpen3.jpg
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm109/oklahomacountry/Thinkinaboutyou.jpg



http://dontdatethatdude.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/naked-cowboy2.jpg

don't forget The Naked Cowboy. ;)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/29/09 at 8:52 am



http://dontdatethatdude.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/naked-cowboy2.jpg

don't forget The Naked Cowboy. ;)

But he's not naked ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/29/09 at 2:55 pm


But he's not naked ;D


But he's in his tighty whities.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/29/09 at 7:14 pm


But he's in his tighty whities.

Yes he is :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 12/29/09 at 7:22 pm

I've always been a fan of Mary Tyler-Moore but never knew half the things about her you mentioned in her bio, Nnny. Nice job. thanks for posting.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 12/30/09 at 3:13 am



http://dontdatethatdude.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/naked-cowboy2.jpg

don't forget The Naked Cowboy. ;)


Sounds like Howard is missing Sir Billzy... ;)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/30/09 at 4:44 am


Sounds like Howard is missing Sir Billzy... ;)

LOL ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/30/09 at 4:48 am

The word of the day...Golfer
A golfer is a person who plays golf for pleasure or as a profession.
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l69/YuehanSione/Tonga/5_400.jpg
http://i562.photobucket.com/albums/ss67/whothefeck/golfer.jpg
http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m178/lynscards/golfer.jpg
http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u261/bnevius/golfer.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj94/Susyt_photos/golfer.jpg
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff232/yellowhampster/golfer.jpg
http://i748.photobucket.com/albums/xx128/nickie111/GOLFER.jpg
http://i681.photobucket.com/albums/vv177/jacnetpub/Golfer.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/30/09 at 5:00 am

The birthday of the day...Tiger Woods
Eldrick Tont Woods (born December 30, 1975), better known as Tiger Woods, is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. Currently the World No. 1, he was the highest-paid professional athlete in 2008, having earned an estimated $110 million from winnings and endorsements.

Woods has won 14 professional major golf championships, the second highest of any male player, and 71 PGA Tour events, third all time. He has more career major wins and career PGA Tour wins than any other active golfer. He is the youngest player to achieve the career Grand Slam, and the youngest and fastest to win 50 tournaments on tour. Additionally, Woods is the second golfer to have achieved a career grand slam three times along with Jack Nicklaus. Woods has won 16 World Golf Championships and has won at least one event each of the 11 years they have been in existence.

Woods has held the number one position in the world rankings for the most consecutive weeks and for the greatest total number of weeks. He has been awarded PGA Player of the Year a record ten times, the Byron Nelson Award for lowest adjusted scoring average a record eight times, and has the record of leading the money list in nine different seasons. He has been named Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year a record-tying four times, and is the only person to be named Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year more than once.

Since his record-breaking win at the 1997 Masters Tournament, golf's increased popularity is attributed to Woods' presence. He is credited for dramatically increasing prize money in golf, generating interest in new audiences as the first non-white person to win the Masters, and for drawing the largest TV audiences in golf history. He has been named "Athlete of the Decade" by the Associated Press in December 2009.

On December 11, 2009, Woods announced an indefinite leave from professional golf to focus on his marriage after his past infidelities came to light
With the announcement "Hello world," Tiger Woods became a professional golfer in August 1996, and signed endorsement deals worth $40 million from Nike, Inc. and $20 million from Titleist. He played his first round of professional golf at the Greater Milwaukee Open, tying for 60th place, but went on to win two events in the next three months to qualify for the Tour Championship. For his efforts, Woods was named Sports Illustrated's 1996 Sportsman of the Year and PGA Tour Rookie of the Year. He began his tradition of wearing a red shirt during the final round of tournaments, a link to his college days at Stanford and a color he believes symbolizes aggression and assertiveness.

The following April, Woods won his first major with a score of 18 under par, The Masters, by a record margin of 12 strokes, becoming the youngest Masters winner and the first African American to do so. He set a total of 20 Masters records and tied 6 others. He won another three PGA Tour events that year, and on June 15, 1997, in only his 42nd week as a professional, rose to number one in the Official World Golf Rankings, the fastest-ever ascent to world No. 1. He was named PGA Player of the Year, the first golfer to win the award the year following his rookie season.

While expectations for Woods were high, his form faded in the second half of 1997, and in 1998 he only won one PGA Tour event. He answered critics of his "slump" and what seemed to be wavering form by maintaining he was undergoing extensive swing changes with his coach, Butch Harmon, and was hoping to do better in the future.
1999–2002: Slams

In June 1999, Woods won the Memorial Tournament, a victory that marked the beginning of one of the greatest sustained periods of dominance in the history of men's golf. He completed his 1999 campaign by winning his last four starts—including the PGA Championship—and finished the season with eight wins, a feat not achieved in the past 25 years. He was voted PGA Tour Player of the Year and Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year for the second time in three years.

Woods started 2000 with his fifth consecutive victory and began a record-setting season, where he would win three consecutive majors, nine PGA Tour events, and set or tie 27 Tour records. He went on to capture his sixth consecutive victory at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am with a comeback for the ages. Trailing by seven strokes with seven holes to play, he finished eagle-birdie-par-birdie for a 64 and a two-stroke victory. His six consecutive wins were the most since Ben Hogan in 1948 and only five behind Byron Nelson's record of eleven in a row. In the 2000 U.S. Open, he broke or tied a total of nine U.S. Open records with his 15-shot win, including Old Tom Morris's record for the largest victory margin ever in a major championship, which had stood since 1862, and became the Tour's all-time career money leader. He led by a record 10 strokes going into the final round, and Sports Illustrated called it "the greatest performance in golf history." In the 2000 Open Championship at St Andrews, which he won by eight strokes, he set the record for lowest score to par (−19) in any major tournament, and he holds at least a share of that record in all four major championships. At 24, he became the youngest golfer to achieve the Career Grand Slam.

Woods's major championship streak was seriously threatened at the 2000 PGA Championship, however, when Bob May went head-to-head with Woods on Sunday at Valhalla Golf Club. Woods played the last twelve holes of regulation seven under par, and won a three-hole playoff with a birdie on the first hole and pars on the next two. He joined Ben Hogan (1953) as the only other player to win three professional majors in one season. Three weeks later, he won his third straight start on Tour at the Bell Canadian Open, becoming only the second man after Lee Trevino in 1971 to win the Triple Crown of Golf (U.S., British, and Canadian Opens) in one year. Of the twenty events he entered in 2000, he finished in the top three fourteen times. His adjusted scoring average of 67.79 and his actual scoring average of 68.17 were the lowest in PGA Tour history, besting his own record of 68.43 in 1999 and Byron Nelson's average of 68.33 in 1945. He was named the 2000 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year, becoming the first and only athlete to be honored twice. Woods was ranked as the twelfth best golfer of all time by Golf Digest magazine just four years after he turned professional.

The following season, Woods continued dominating. His 2001 Masters Tournament win marked the only time within the era of the modern Grand Slam that any player has been the holder of all four major championship titles at the same time, a feat now known as the "Tiger Slam." It is not viewed as a true Grand Slam, however, because it was not achieved in a calendar year. Surprisingly, he was not a factor in the three remaining majors of the year, but finished with the most PGA Tour wins in the season, with five. In 2002, he started off strong, joining Nick Faldo (1989–90) and Jack Nicklaus (1965–66) as the only men to have won back-to-back Masters Tournaments.

Two months later, Woods was the only player under par at the U.S. Open, and resurrected buzz about the calendar Grand Slam, which had eluded him in 2000. All eyes were on Woods at the Open Championship, but his third round score of 81 ended Grand Slam hopes. At the PGA Championship, he nearly repeated his 2000 feat of winning three majors in one year, but bogeys at the thirteenth and fourteenth holes in the final round cost him the championship by one stroke. Nonetheless, he took home the money title, Vardon Trophy, and Player of the Year honors for the fourth year in a row.
2003–04: Swing adjustments
Woods putting at Torrey Pines during a practice round at the 108th U.S. Open

The next phase of Woods's career saw him remain among the top competitors on the tour, but lose his dominating edge. He did not win a major in 2003 or 2004, falling to second in the PGA Tour money list in 2003 and fourth in 2004. In September 2004, his record streak of 264 consecutive weeks as the world's top-ranked golfer came to an end at the Deutsche Bank Championship, when Vijay Singh won and overtook Woods in the Official World Golf Rankings.

Many commentators were puzzled by Woods's "slump," offering explanations that ranged from his rift with swing coach Butch Harmon to his marriage. At the same time, he let it be known that he was again working on changes to his swing, this time in hopes of reducing the wear and tear on his surgically repaired left knee, which was subjected to severe stress in the 1998–2003 version of his swing. Again, he anticipated that once the adjustments were complete, he would return to his previous form.
2005–2007: Resurgence

In the 2005 season, Woods quickly returned to his winning ways. He won the Buick Invitational in January and in March he outplayed Phil Mickelson to win the Ford Championship at Doral and temporarily return to the Official World Golf Rankings number one position (Singh displaced him once again two weeks later). In April, he finally broke his "drought" in the majors by winning the 2005 Masters Tournament in a playoff, which regained him the number one spot in the World Rankings. Singh and Woods swapped the #1 position several times over the next couple of months, but by early July Woods had reclaimed the top spot for good, propelled further by a victory at the 2005 Open Championship, a win that gave him his 10th major. He went on to win six official money events on the PGA Tour in 2005, topping the money list for the sixth time in his career. His 2005 wins also included two at the World Golf Championships.
Woods on the green at The Masters in 2006.

For Woods, the year 2006 was markedly different from 2005. While he began just as dominantly (winning the first two PGA tournaments he entered on the year) and was in the hunt for his fifth Masters championship in April, he never mounted a Sunday charge to defend his title, allowing Phil Mickelson to claim the green jacket.

Then, on May 3, 2006, Woods's father, mentor and inspiration, Earl, died after a lengthy battle with prostate cancer. Woods took a nine-week hiatus from the PGA Tour to be with his family. When he returned for the 2006 U.S. Open, the rust was evident—he missed the cut at Winged Foot, the first time he had missed the cut at a major as a professional, and ended his record-tying streak of 39 consecutive cuts made at majors. Still, a tie for second at the Western Open just three weeks later showed him poised to defend his Open crown at Hoylake.

At the 2006 Open Championship, Woods almost exclusively used long irons off the tee (he hit driver only one time the entire week—the 16th hole of the first round), he missed just four fairways all week (hitting the fairway 92 percent of the time), and his score of −18 to par (three eagles, nineteen birdies, 43 pars, and seven bogeys) was just one off of his major championship record −19, set at St Andrews in 2000. The victory was an emotional one for Woods, who dedicated his play to his father's memory.

Four weeks later at the 2006 PGA Championship, Woods again won in dominating fashion, making only three bogeys, tying the record for fewest in a major. He finished the tournament at 18-under-par, equaling the to-par record in the PGA that he shares with Bob May from 2000. In August 2006, he won his 50th professional tournament at the Buick Open—and at the age of thirty years and seven months, he became the youngest golfer to do so. He ended the year by winning six consecutive PGA Tour events, and won the three most prestigious awards given by the PGA Tour (Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Byron Nelson Awards) in the same year for a record seventh time.

At the close of his first eleven seasons, Woods's 54 wins and 12 major wins had surpassed the all time eleven-season PGA Tour total win record of 51 (set by Byron Nelson) and total majors record of 11 (set by Jack Nicklaus). He was named Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year for a record-tying fourth time.

Woods and tennis star Roger Federer, who share a major sponsor, first met at the 2006 U.S. Open tennis final. Since then, they have attended each other's events and have voiced their mutual appreciation for each other's talents.

Woods began 2007 with a two-stroke victory at the Buick Invitational for his third straight win at the event and his seventh consecutive win on the PGA Tour. The victory marked the fifth time he had won his first tournament of the season. With this win, he became the third man (after Jack Nicklaus and Sam Snead) to win at least five times in three different events on the PGA Tour (his two other events are the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and WGC-CA Championship). He earned his second victory of the year at the WGC-CA Championship for his third consecutive and sixth win overall at the event. With this victory, he became the first player to have three consecutive victories in five different events.

At the 2007 Masters Tournament, Woods was in the final group on the last day of a major for the thirteenth time in his career, but unlike the previous twelve occasions, he was unable to come away with the win. He finished tied for second two strokes behind winner Zach Johnson.
Tiger Woods drives the ball down range at the inaugural Earl Woods Memorial Pro-Am Tournament, part of the AT&T National PGA Tour event, July 2007.

Woods earned his third victory of the season by two strokes at the Wachovia Championship, the 24th different PGA Tour tournament he won. He has collected at least three wins in a season nine times in his 12-year career. At the U.S. Open, he was in the final group for the fourth consecutive major championship, but began the day two strokes back and finished tied for second once again. His streak of never having come from behind to win on the final day of a major continued.

In search of a record-tying third consecutive Open Championship, Woods fell out of contention with a second-round 75, and never mounted a charge over the weekend. Although his putting was solid (he sank a 90-footer in the first round), his iron play held him back. "I wasn't hitting the ball as close as I needed to all week," he said, after he finished tied for twelfth, five strokes off the pace.

In early August, Woods won his record 14th World Golf Championships event at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational by 8 strokes for his third consecutive and sixth victory overall at the event. He became the first golfer to win the same event three straight times on two different occasions (1999-2001) and (2005-2007). The following week, he won his second straight PGA Championship by defeating Woody Austin by two strokes. He became the first golfer to win the PGA Championship in back-to-back seasons on two different occasions: 1999-2000 and 2006-2007. He became the second golfer, after Sam Snead, to have won at least five events on the PGA Tour in eight different seasons.

Woods earned his 60th PGA Tour victory at the BMW Championship by shooting a course record 63 in the final round to win by two strokes. He sank a fifty-foot putt in the final round and missed only two fairways on the weekend. He led the field in most birdies for the tournament, and ranked in the top five in driving accuracy, driving distance, putts per round, putts per green, and greens in regulation. Woods finished his 2007 season with a runaway victory at the Tour Championship to capture his fourth title in his last five starts of the year. He became the only two-time winner of the event, and the champion of the inaugural FedEx Cup. In his 16 starts on Tour in 2007, his adjusted scoring average was 67.79, matching his own record set in 2000. His substantial leads over the second, third, and fourth players were similar in 2000 (1.46 (Phil Mickelson), 1.52 (Ernie Els), 1.66 (David Duval)) and 2007 (1.50 (Els), 1.51 (Justin Rose), 1.60 (Steve Stricker)).
2008: Injury-shortened season

Woods started the 2008 season with an eight-stroke victory at the Buick Invitational. The win marked his 62nd PGA Tour victory, tying him with Arnold Palmer for fourth on the all time list. This marked his sixth victory at the event, the sixth time he has begun the PGA Tour season with a victory, and his third PGA Tour win in a row. The following week, he was trailing by four strokes going into the final round of the Dubai Desert Classic, but made six birdies on the back nine for a dramatic one-stroke victory. He took home his 15th World Golf Championships event at the Accenture Match Play Championship with a record-breaking 8 & 7 victory in the final.

In his next event, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Woods got off to a slow start, finishing the first round at even par and tied for 34th place. After finishing the third round in a five-way tie for first place, he completed his fifth consecutive PGA Tour victory with a dramatic 24-foot putt on the 18th hole to defeat Bart Bryant by a stroke. It was also his fifth career victory in this event. Geoff Ogilvy stopped Woods's run at the WGC-CA Championship, a tournament Woods had won in each of the previous three years. He remains the only golfer to have had more than one streak of at least five straight wins on the PGA Tour.

Despite bold predictions that Woods might again challenge for the Grand Slam, he did not mount a serious charge at the 2008 Masters Tournament, struggling with his putter through each round. He would still finish alone in second, three strokes behind the champion, Trevor Immelman. On April 15, 2008, he underwent his third left knee arthroscopic surgery in Park City, Utah, and missed two months on the PGA Tour. The first surgery he had was in 1994 when he had a benign tumor removed and the second in December 2002. He was named Men's Fitness's Fittest Athlete in the June/July 2008 issue.
Tiger Woods walks off the 8th green at Torrey Pines during a practice round at the 2008 U.S. Open

Woods returned for the 2008 U.S. Open in one of the most anticipated golfing groupings in history between him, Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott, the top three golfers in the world. Woods struggled the first day on the course, notching a double bogey on his first hole. He would end the round at +1 (72), four shots off the lead. He scored -3 (68) his second day, still paired with Mickelson, managing 5 birdies, 1 eagle and 4 bogeys. On the third day of the tournament, he started off with a double bogey once again and was trailing by 5 shots with six holes to play. However, he finished the round by making 2 eagle putts, a combined 100 feet (30 m) in length, and a chip-in birdie to take a one shot lead into the final round. His final putt assured that he would be in the final group for the sixth time in the last eight major championships.

On Sunday, June 15, Woods began the day with another double bogey, and trailed Rocco Mediate by one stroke after 71 holes. He winced after several of his tee shots, and sometimes made an effort to keep weight off of his left foot. Woods was behind by one stroke when he reached the final hole. Left with a 12-foot putt for birdie, he made the shot to force an 18-hole playoff with Mediate on Monday. Despite leading by as many as three strokes at one point in the playoff, Woods again dropped back and needed to birdie the 18th to force sudden death with Mediate, and did so. Woods made par on the first sudden death hole; Mediate subsequently missed his par putt, giving Woods his 14th major championship. After the tournament, Mediate said "This guy does things that are just not normal by any stretch of the imagination," and Kenny Perry added, "he beat everybody on one leg."

Two days after winning the U.S. Open, Woods announced that he would be required to undergo reconstructive anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) surgery on his left knee and would miss the remainder of the 2008 golf season including the final two major championships: The Open Championship, and the PGA Championship. Woods also revealed that he had been playing for at least 10 months with a torn ligament in his left knee, and sustained a double stress fracture in his left tibia while rehabbing after the surgery he had after the Masters. Publications throughout the world asserted his U.S. Open victory as "epic" and praised his efforts especially after learning of the extent of his knee injury. Woods called it "My greatest ever championship - the best of the 14 because of all the things that have gone on over the past week."

Woods' absence from the remainder of the season caused PGA Tour TV ratings to decline. Overall viewership for the second half of the 2008 season saw a 46.8 percent decline as compared to 2007.
2009: Returning to the PGA Tour

Called "one of the most anticipated returns in sports" by the Associated Press, Woods' first PGA Tour event after an eight month layoff came at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship. He lost to Tim Clark in the second round. His first stroke play event was the WGC-CA Championship at Doral where he finished 9th (-11). Woods won his first title of the year at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, where he was five strokes behind Sean O'Hair entering the final round. Woods shot a final round 67 and made a 16-foot birdie putt at the final hole to defeat O'Hair by one stroke. Afterwards, he would continue to perform consistently. At The Masters, he finished sixth, four strokes behind eventual winner Ángel Cabrera. Then, despite having the 18-hole lead at the Quail Hollow Championship, he finished two strokes behind Sean O'Hair. At The Players Championship, he played in the final grouping on Sunday, but finished eighth.

Woods won his second event of 2009 at the Memorial Tournament. He trailed by four shots after three rounds but shot a final round 65, which included two consecutive birdies to end the tournament. The win was Woods' fourth at the event. Woods won his third event of the 2009 season on July 5 at the AT&T National, an event hosted by Woods himself. However, for the third time going into a 2009 major, Woods failed to capitalize on his preceding win. Instead, at the 2009 Open Championship, he missed the cut for only the second time in a major championship since turning professional.

On August 2, Woods captured the Buick Open for his fourth win of the season, a three-shot victory over three other players. After firing an opening-round 71 that put him in 95th place and outside of the cutline, Woods responded with a second-round 63, nine-under par, that vaulted him into contention. A third-round 65 put him atop the leaderboard and he coasted to victory with a final-round 69 for a 20-under 268 four-round total. This was the biggest turnaround pro victory to date.

Woods won his 70th career event the following week at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. He went head-to-head against Pádraig Harrington on Sunday until the 16th, where Harrington made a triple bogey 8 on the par 5 and Woods made birdie. Tiger went on to win the event by 4 strokes over Harrington and Robert Allenby.

At the 2009 PGA Championship, Woods shot a 5-under 67 to take the lead after the first round. He remained leader or co-leader through the second and third rounds. Going into the final round, Woods had a 2 stroke lead at 8-under. However, at the 68th hole, Woods was overtaken for the first time atop the leaderboard by Yang Yong-eun. Yang eventually won the tournament by three strokes over Woods who finished second. It marked the first time that Woods would fail to win a major when leading or co-leading after 54 holes and the first time he had lost any tournament on American soil when leading by more than one shot. It also meant that Woods would end the year without a major for the first time since 2004.

Woods won his 71st career title at the BMW Championship. The win moved him to first place in the FedEx Cup standings going into the final playoff event. It was his fifth win at the BMW Championship (including three wins as the Western Open) and marked the fifth time he had won an event five or more times in his career on the PGA Tour. Woods finished second at The Tour Championship to win his second FedEx Cup title.

At the 2009 Presidents Cup, Woods had an impressive and equally spectacular performance in which he won all five of his matches at the event. He joined his friend Mark O'Meara, who won all five of his matches at the 1996 Presidents Cup, and Shigeki Maruyama, who accomplished this feat in the 1998 Presidents Cup. In all three instances, their respective teams won the competition. Woods was paired with Steve Stricker all four rounds of the competition in foursomes and four-ball. On the first day of foursomes, they won 6 and 4 over the team of Ryo Ishikawa and Geoff Ogilvy. In Friday's match of four-ball, they won over the team of Ángel Cabrera and Geoff Ogilvy, 5 and 3. On Saturday, they beat the team of Tim Clark and Mike Weir after trailing for most of the match by winning the 17th and 18th holes to win 1-up in morning foursomes, and in the afternoon four-ball they defeated the team of Ryo Ishikawa and Y. E. Yang by the score of 4 and 2. In the singles match, Woods was paired with his nemesis from the 2009 PGA Championship, Yang. Yang grabbed the quick 1-up lead on the first hole, but on the third hole lost the lead and Woods went onto win the match by a score of 6 and 5. In addition, Woods was the one who clinched the Cup for the United States, which was his first time ever in his career he had the honor and opportunity to do this in a team event competition.

In November 2009, Woods was paid $3.3 million to play in the JBWere Masters, held at Kingston Heath in Melbourne, Australia from November 12 to 15. The event was sold out for the first time. He went on to win at 14 under par, two strokes over Australian Greg Chalmers, marking his 38th European Tour win and his first win of the PGA Tour of Australasia.
Woods has established several charitable and youth projects.

   * The Tiger Woods Foundation: The Tiger Woods Foundation was established in 1996 by Woods and his father Earl. It focuses on projects for children. Initially these comprised golf clinics (aimed especially at disadvantaged children), and a grant program. Further activities added since then include university scholarships, an association with Target House at St. Jude Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee; the Start Something character development program, which reached one million participants by 2003; and the Tiger Woods Learning Center. The Tiger Woods Foundation recently has teamed up with the PGA Tour to create a new PGA tour event that will take place in the nation's capital (Washington, D.C.) beginning in July, 2007.
   * In The City Golf Clinics and Festivals: Since 1997, the Tiger Woods Foundation has conducted junior golf clinics across the country. The Foundation began the “In the City” golf clinic program in 2003. The first three clinics were held in Indio, California, Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, and were targeted to all youth, ages 7–17, and their families. Each three-day event features golf lessons on Thursday and Friday of clinic week and a free community festival on Saturday. Host cities invite 15 junior golfers to participate in the annual Tiger Woods Foundation Youth Clinic. This three-day junior golf event includes tickets to Disney Resorts, a junior golf clinic, and an exhibition by Tiger Woods.
   * Tiger Woods Learning Center: This is a 35,000-square-foot (3,300 m2) educational facility in Anaheim, California which opened in February 2006. It is expected to be used by several thousand students each year in grades 4 to 12. The center features seven classrooms, extensive multi-media facilities and an outdoor golf teaching area.
   * Tiger Jam: An annual fundraising concert which has raised over $10 million for the Tiger Woods Foundation. Past performers at Tiger Jam include Sting, Bon Jovi and Stevie Wonder.
   * Chevron World Challenge: An annual off-season charity golf tournament. The event carries generous prize money, and in 2007 Woods donated his $1.35 million first-place check to his Learning Center.
   * Tiger Woods Foundation National Junior Golf Team: An eighteen member team which competes in the annual Junior World Golf Championships.

Woods has also participated in charity work for his current caddy, Steve Williams. On April 24, 2006 Woods won an auto racing event that benefited the Steve Williams Foundation to raise funds to provide sporting careers for disadvantaged youth
   * PGA Tour wins (71)
   * European Tour wins (38)
   * Japan Golf Tour wins (2)
   * Asian Tour wins (1)
   * PGA Tour of Australasia wins (1)
   * Other professional wins (15)
   * Amateur wins (21)

Major championships
Wins (14)


   * Complete through the 2009 season.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/30/09 at 5:04 am

The co-birthday of the day...Davey Jones
Davy Jones (born David Thomas Jones 30 December 1945) is an English pop singer-songwriter and actor best known as a member of The Monkees. Jones was born in Manchester, England on 30 December 1945. He lost his mother to emphysema when he was 14 years old. His father had hopes for him as a jockey, and just after his mother died, his father sent him to live with Basil Foster to train. Basil was approached by a friend who worked in the theatre on the West End of London during casting. Basil said, "I've got the kid." Jones then became more interested in being in show business. As a teenager he appeared on British TV soap operas, including Coronation Street. He appeared to great acclaim in the musical Oliver! as the Artful Dodger, playing the role both in London and on Broadway and was nominated for a Tony Award. On 9 February 1964, he appeared with the Broadway cast of Oliver on the Ed Sullivan show, the same episode on which The Beatles made their first appearance. Jones says of that night, "I watched the Beatles from the side of the stage, I saw the girls going crazy, and I said to myself, this is it, I want a piece of that."

Ward Sylvester of Screen Gems (then the television division of Columbia Pictures) signed Jones to a contract, following his Ed Sullivan appearance. A pair of American television appearances followed, in episodes of Ben Casey and The Farmer's Daughter. He also recorded a single and album for Colpix Records, which charted but weren't huge hits.

From 1965 to 1971, Jones was a member of The Monkees, a pop-rock group formed expressly for a TV show of the same name. With Screen Gems producing the series, Jones was shortlisted for auditions, as he was the only Monkee who was signed to a deal with the studio, but still had to meet producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider's standards.

He appeared in one episode of The Brady Bunch and in two episodes of Love, American Style. He also appeared, in animated form, on an episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies plus Spongebob Squarepants in Spongebob Vs. The Big One as himself.

As a Monkee, Jones sang lead vocals on many of the group's songs, including "I Wanna Be Free" and "Daydream Believer." After the show went off the air and the group disbanded, he continued to perform solo, later joining with fellow-Monkee Micky Dolenz and songwriters Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart as a short-lived group called Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart.

He guest-starred as himself on the TV Show Sabrina The Teenage Witch and sang Daydream Believer to Sabrina.

In 1978 he appeared with Micky Dolenz in Harry Nilsson's play The Point at the Mermaid Theatre in London. Jones as Oblio and Dolenz as The Count. Also, Jones makes a cameo appearance as himself in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "SpongeBob vs. The Big One" (his appearance was meant to be a pun on Davy Jones' Locker).

In recent years, Jones performed with his former bandmates in reunion tours and appeared in several productions of Oliver! as Fagin. He continued to race horses with some success in his native England, while residing in Beavertown, Pennsylvania, United States. He owns and races horses in the United States and served as a commercial spokesman for Colonial Downs racetrack in Virginia. He has a residence in Stuart, Florida.

In April 2006, Jones recorded the single "Your Personal Penguin," written by children's author Sandra Boynton, as a companion piece to her new board book of the same title. On 1 November 2007, the Boynton book and CD titled "Blue Moo" was released. Davy is featured in the book and on the CD, singing "Your Personal Penguin" and has become a close friend of Boynton as a result of the project. In 2007 Jones also recorded the theme for a campy movie comedy called Sexina: Popstar PI.

Jones also performed in the 2009 Flower Power Concert Series during Epcot's Flower and Garden Festival.

In December 2008, Yahoo Music named Davy Jones #1 teen idol of all time. In 2009 Jones was rated second in a list of 10 best teen idols compiled by Fox News.

In October 2009, Jones put to rest any rumours concerning a Monkees' reunion, stating he has no desire to work with the band. "It's not a case of dollars and cents. It's a case of satisfying yourself," said Jones. "I don't have anything to prove. The Monkees proved it for me."
Singles
Date Label/Catalog # Titles (A-side / B-side) Billboard Top Singles Cashbox Notes
??/1965 Colpix CP-764 Dream Girl / Take Me To Paradise
-

-
Credited as "David Jones."
??/1965 Colpix CP-784 What Are We Going To Do? / This Bouquet
93

94
Credited as "Mr. David Jones."
??/1965 Colpix CP-793 The Girl From Chelsea / Theme For A New Love
-

-
Credited as "David Jones."
04/1971 Bell 986 Do It In The Name Of Love / Lady Jane
-

-
By Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones. Released as by "The Monkees" in some countries, this is technically the group's last single during their original run, although by this point they had lost the rights to the name.
06/1971 Bell 45-111 Rainy Jane / Welcome To My Love
52

32

10/1971 Bell 45-136 I Really Love You / Sittin' In The Apple Tree
-

98

11/1971 Bell 45-159 Girl / Take My Love
-

-

01/1972 Bell 45-178 I'll Believe In You / Road To Love
-

-

??/1972 MGM K14458 You're A Lady / Who Was It
-

-

??/1973 MGM K14524 Rubberene / Rubberene
-

-
This single was released as a promo copy only.
05/1978 Warner Brothers 17161 (Hey Ra Ra Ra) Happy Birthday Mickey Mouse / You Don't Have To Be A Country Boy To Sing A Country Song
-

-
Issued in England only to commemorate Mickey Mouse's 50th Birthday
05/1981 Japan JAS-2007 It's Now / How Do You Know
-

-
Released in Japan only.
06/1981 Japan JAS-2010 Dance Gypsy / Can She Do It (Like She Dances)
-

-
Released in Japan only.
03/1982 Pioneer K-1517 Sixteen (Baby, You'll Soon Be Sixteen) / Baby, Hold Out
-

-
Released in Japan only.
12/1984 No Label JJ2001 I'll Love You Forever / When I Look Back On Christmas
-

-
Released in England only.
??/1987 Powderworks 374 After Your Heart / Hippy Hippy Shake
-

-
Released in Australia only.

NOTES: Jones recorded two singles with former Monkee Micky Dolenz and songwriters Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart under the group name "Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart" on Capitol Records in 1975. They were "I Remember The Feeling"/"You & I" (Capitol 4180) and "I Love You (And I'm Glad That I Said It)"/"Savin' My Love For You" (Capitol 4271). Jones also released a single with Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork in 1976 titled "Christmas Is My Time of Year" / "White Christmas" (Christmas CDS-700/701) which saw a rerelease in 1986 (Christmas CDS-702/703). Lastly, Jones had an EP release in the UK with Micky Dolenz culling tracks from their performance in Harry Nilsson's "The Point!" performance in London in 1978: "Lifeline" (Jones) / "It's A Jungle Out There" (Dolenz) / "Gotta Get Up" (Jones & Dolenz). It was released as MCA 348.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/30/09 at 5:13 am

* Michael Nesmith..Robert Michael Nesmith (December 30, 1942) is an American musician, songwriter, actor, producer, novelist, businessman, and philanthropist, perhaps best known for his time in the musical group The Monkees and on the TV series of the same name. Michael Nesmith is notable as a songwriter, including "Different Drum" sung by Linda Ronstadt with the Stone Poneys, as well as executive producer of the cult film Repo Man. In 1981 Nesmith won the first Grammy Award given for Video of the Year for his hour-long Elephant Parts. From 1965 to early 1970, Nesmith and Jones were members of the pop rock band The Monkees, created for the television situation comedy of the same name. The only Monkee to learn of the audition from the famous press advertisement asking for "four insane boys", Nesmith won his role largely by appearing blasé when he auditioned. He further distinguished himself by carrying a bag of laundry to be done on the way home, and wearing a wool cap to keep his hair out of his eyes, riding his motorcycle to the audition. Producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider remembered "Wool Hat", and called Nesmith back.

Once he was cast, Screen Gems bought his songs so they could be used in the show. Many of the songs Nesmith wrote for The Monkees, such as "The Girl I Knew Somewhere", "Mary, Mary", and "Listen to the Band" became minor hits. One song he wrote, "You Just May Be The One", is in mixed meter, interspersing 5/4 bars into an otherwise 4/4 structure.

The Gretsch guitar company built a one-off natural finish 12-string electric guitar for Nesmith when he was performing with The Monkees (Gretsch had a promotional deal with the group). He earlier played a customized Gretsch twelve-string, which had originally been a six-string model.

As with the other Monkees, Nesmith came to be frustrated by the manufactured image of the whole project. He was permitted to write and produce two songs per album, and his music was frequently featured in episodes of the series.

The Monkees succeeded in ousting supervisor Don Kirshner (with Nesmith punching a hole in a wall, to make a point with Kirshner and attorney Herb Moelis), and took control of their records and song choices, but they worked as a four-man group on only one album. The band never overcame the credibility problems they faced when word spread that they had not played on their first records (at Nesmith's instigation, calling the band's first non-studio press conference, where he called More of The Monkees "probably the worst record in the history of the world"). However, their singles and albums continued to sell well, until the disastrous release of Head.

Nesmith's last Monkees commitment was a Kool-Aid commercial, in April 1970. With the band's fortunes continuing to fall, Nesmith asked to be released from his contract, and had to pay a default: "I had three years left... at $150,000 a year," which he had to pay back. He continued to feel the financial bite for years afterwards, telling Playboy in 1980 "I had to start telling little tales to the tax man while they were putting tags on the furniture.". Indeed, while Nesmith had continued to produce his compositions with the Monkees, he withheld many of the songs from the final Monkees' albums, only to release them on his post-Monkees solo records.
Later career
Further information: Pacific Arts Corporation

As he prepared for his exit from The Monkees, Nesmith was approached by John Ware of The Corvettes, a band that featured Nesmith's friend John London (who played on some of the earliest pre-Monkees Nesmith 45s as well as numerous Monkees sessions) and had 45s produced by Nesmith for the Dot label in 1969. Ware wanted Nesmith to put together a band. Nesmith said he would be interested only if noted pedal steel player Orville "Red" Rhodes would be a part of the project, and a long musical partnership was born that would continue until Rhodes' untimely death in 1995. The new band was christened Michael Nesmith and the First National Band and went on to record three albums for RCA Records in 1970.

Nesmith has been considered one of the pioneers of country-rock (along with Gram Parsons) and had moderate commercial success with the First National Band. Their second single, Joanne hit #21 on the Billboard chart & #17 on Cashbox, with the follow-up "Silver Moon" making #42 Billboard/#28 Cashbox. Two more singles charted ("Nevada Fighter" #70 Billboard/#73 Cashbox & "Propinquity" #95 Cashbox) and the first two LP's charted in the lower regions of the Billboard album chart. No clear answer has ever been given for the band's breakup, the albums they recorded remain on par with the Flying Burrito Brothers, Poco and New Riders of the Purple Sage as some of the best country-rock music.

Nesmith followed up with the Second National Band, a band that besides Nesmith, consisted of Michael Cohen (keyboards and Moog), Johnny Meeks (bass), Jack Panelli (drums) and the always present Orville Rhodes (pedal steel), as well as an appearance by singer, musician, and songwriter José Feliciano (conga drums). The album, Tantamount to Treason, Volume I, was a commercial and critical disaster. Nesmith then recorded And The Hits Just Keep On Comin', featuring only him on guitar and Red Rhodes on pedal steel.

Nesmith got more heavily involved in producing, and was given a label of his own through Elektra Records, Countryside. It featured a number of artists that were produced by Nesmith, including Garland Frady and Red Rhodes. The staff band at Countryside also helped Nesmith on his next, and last, RCA album, Pretty Much Your Standard Ranch Stash.

In the mid-1970s Nesmith briefly collaborated as a songwriter with Linda Hargrove, resulting in the tune "I've Never Loved Anyone More", a hit for Lynn Anderson and recorded by many others, as well as the songs "Winonah" and "If You Will Walk With Me" which were both recorded by Hargrove. Of all three songs, only "Winonah" was recorded by Nesmith himself. During this same period, Nesmith started his multimedia company Pacific Arts, which initially put out audio records, 8-tracks and cassettes, followed in 1981 with "video records." Nesmith recorded a number of LPs for his label, and had a moderate worldwide hit in 1977 with his song "Rio", the single taken from the album From A Radio Engine To The Photon Wing.

During this time, Nesmith created a video clip for "Rio" which, in a roundabout way, helped spur Nesmith's creation of a television program called Pop Clips for the Nickelodeon cable network. In 1980, Nesmith's Pop Clips was sold to Time Warner/Amex consortium. Time Warner/Amex developed Pop Clips into the MTV network. Nesmith's single "Cruisin'" was the first video of the MTV generation. Nesmith also won the first Grammy Award (1981) given for Video of the Year for his hour-long Elephant Parts and also had a short-lived series on NBC inspired by the video called "Michael Nesmith in Television Parts". Television Parts concept however included many other artists who were unknown at the time but who went on to become major stars in their own right. Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Garry Shandling, Whoopi Goldberg, Arsenio Hall all became well known artists after their appearances on Nesmith's show. The basic concept of the show was to have comics render their stand-up routines into short comedy films much like the ones in Elephant Parts. Nesmith assembled writers Jack Handy, William Martin, John Levenstein, and Michael Kaplan; Directors William Dear (who had directed Elephant Parts) and Alan Myerson, and Producer Ward Sylvester to create the show. The half hour show show ran for 8 episodes in the summer of 1985 on NBC Thursday nights in prime time.

Pacific Arts Video became a pioneer in the home video market, producing and distributing a wide variety of videotaped programs. Pacific Arts Video eventually ceased operations after an acrimonious contract dispute with PBS over home video licensing rights and payments for several series, including Ken Burns' The Civil War. The dispute escalated into a law suit that went to jury trial in Federal Court in Los Angeles. On February 3, 1999, a jury awarded Nesmith and his company Pacific Arts $48.875 million dollars in compensatory and punitive damages, prompting his widely-quoted comment, "It's like finding your grandmother stealing your stereo. You're happy to get your stereo back, but it's sad to find out your grandmother is a thief." PBS appealed the ruling, but the appeal never reached the court, and a settlement was reached with the amount paid to Pacifc Arts and Nesmith results kept confidential.

He was the executive producer for the movies Repo Man, Tapeheads, and Timerider, as well as his own solo recording and film projects. In 1998, Nesmith published his first novel, The Long Sandy Hair of Neftoon Zamora. His latest album, Rays was released on April 4, 2006.

During the 1990s, Nesmith, as Trustee and President of the Gihon foundation, hosted the Council on Ideas, a gathering of intellectuals from different fields who were asked to identify the most important issues of their day and publish the result. The Gihon ceased the program in 2000 and started a new Program for the Performing Arts.

In 1992, Nesmith undertook a concert tour of North America to promote the CD release of his RCA solo albums (although he included the song "Rio", from the album From a Radio Engine to the Photon Wing. The concert tour ended at the Britt Festival in Oregon. A video, Live at the Britt Festival, and a CD, Live at the Britt Festival were released capturing the 1992 concert .

In 1995, he reunited with the Monkees to record their last studio album (and first to feature all four since Head) titled Justus, released in 1996. He also wrote and directed a Monkees television special, and briefly toured the UK with the band in 1997.

Nesmith's first novel "The Long Sandy Hair of Neftoon Zamora" was developed originally as an online project and was later published as a hard cover book by St Martin's Press. Nesmith's second novel "The America Gene" was released in July, 2009 as an online download from Videoranch.com.

Nesmith spent a decade as a board of trustees member, nominating member and vice-chair of the American Film Institute and is currently President and chairman of the board of trustees of the Gihon Foundation.

Nesmith's current project is Videoranch 3D, a virtual environment on the internet that hosts live performances at various virtual venues inside the Ranch. He performed live inside Videoranch 3D on May 25, 2009. (http://www.videoranch.com/html/musicrise.html)

In the early 1980s, Nesmith teamed up with satirist P.J. O'Rourke to ride his vehicle Timerider in the annual Baja 1000 roadrace. This is chronicled in O'Rourke's 2009 book Driving Like Crazy.
U.S. Singles
Date Label/Catalog # Titles (A-side / B-side) Billboard Top Singles Cashbox Billboard Adult Contemp Notes
1963 Highness HN-13 Wanderin' / Well Well
-

-

-
Credited as "Mike Nesmith." Vanity pressing.
1963 Omnibus 239 How Can You Kiss Me / Just A Little Love
-

-

-
Credited as "Mike & John & Bill." John London is the bassist, later of Nesmith's First National Band. Bill Sleeper is the drummer. (The trio broke up when Sleeper was drafted into the US Army.)
01/1966 Edan 1001 Just A Little Love / Curson Terrace
-

-

-
A-side is same as Omnibus 239. B-side is credited to "Mike & Tony" and has no Nesmith involvement.
10/1965 Colpix CP-787 The New Recruit / A Journey With Michael Blessing
-

-

-
Credited to "Michael Blessing."
01/1966 Colpix CP-792 Until It's Time For You To Go / What Seems To Be The Trouble Officer
-

-

-
Credited to "Michael Blessing."
04/1966 RCA 47-8807 Do Not Ask For Love / Buttermilk
-

-

-
Credited to "The New Society." A-side has no Nesmith involvement. B-side was verified by Bill Chadwick, member of the group, as having Nesmith as a background vocalist.
07/1968 Dot 45-17152 Tapioca Tundra / Don't Cry Now
-

-

-
Credited to "The Wichita Train Whistle." Group was created and led by Nesmith, though he does not appear on the recordings as either musician or vocalist. "Don't Cry Now" is edited from LP version.
07/1970 RCA 47-9853 Little Red Rider / Rose City Chimes
-

-

-
Credited to "Michael Nesmith and the First National Band."
08/1970 RCA 74-0368 "Joanne"/ One Rose
21

17

6
Credited to "Michael Nesmith and the First National Band."
11/1970 RCA 74-0399 Silver Moon / Lady of the Valley
42

28

7
Credited to "Michael Nesmith and the First National Band."
04/1971 RCA 74-0453 Nevada Fighter / Here I Am
70

73

-
Credited to "Michael Nesmith and the First National Band." Issued with picture sleeve.
06/1971 RCA 74-0491 Texas Morning / Tumbling Tumbleweeds
-

-

-
Credited to "Michael Nesmith and the First National Band." Single released as promo with both songs on B-side and "Texas" only on A-side with release #SPS-45-263.
06/1971 RCA 74-0540 I've Just Begun To Care (Propinquity) / Only Bound
-

95

-
Credited to "Michael Nesmith and the First National Band."
01/1972 RCA 74-0629 Mama Rocker / Lazy Lady
-

-

-
Credited to "Michael Nesmith and the Second National Band." "Mama Rocker" is faded out early versus LP version.
08/1972 RCA 74-0804 Roll With The Flow / Keep On
-

-

-
"Roll With The Flow" is edited from LP version.
1976 RCA 447-0868 Joanne / Silver Moon
-

-

-
Reissue credited to "Michael Nesmith and the First National Band." Early pressings on red label, later pressings on black label.
03/1977 Pacific Arts WIP6373 Rio / Life, The Unsuspecting Captive
-

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-

06/1978 Pacific Arts PAC-101 Roll With The Flow / I've Just Begun To Care
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Both songs are edited from the LP versions.
1978? Pacific Arts PAC-104 Rio / Casablanca Moonlight
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Issued with picture sleeve.
06/1979 Pacific Arts PAC-106 Magic / Dance
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08/1979 Pacific Arts PAC-108 Cruisin' / Horserace
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1998 Collectibles COL-4759 Joanne / Silver Moon
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/30/09 at 5:28 am

* Jeff Lynne..Jeffrey Lynne (born 30 December 1947 in Shard End, Birmingham) is a two-time Ivor Novello Award recipient and Grammy Award-winning English songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, guitarist, and record producer who gained fame as the leader of Electric Light Orchestra and was a co-founder and member of The Traveling Wilburys. Lynne has produced recordings for artists such as The Beatles, Brian Wilson, Roy Orbison, Del Shannon and Tom Petty. He has co-written songs with Petty and also with George Harrison whose 1987 album Cloud Nine was co-produced by Lynne and Harrison. His compositions include "Evil Woman", "Telephone Line", "Livin' Thing", "Mr. Blue Sky", "Don't Bring Me Down" and "Sweet Talkin' Woman".

In 2008, The Washington Times named Lynne the fourth greatest record producer in music history..Lynne contributed songs to The Move's last two albums while formulating, with Roy Wood and Bev Bevan, a band built around a fusion of rock and European classical music, a project which would eventually become the highly successful Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). Problems led to Wood's departure in 1972, after the band's eponymous first album, leaving Jeff Lynne as the band's dominant creative force. Thereafter followed a succession of band personnel changes and increasingly popular albums: 1973's ELO II and On The Third Day, 1974's Eldorado and 1975's Face the Music.
Electric Light Orchestra (1973) On the Third Day US album cover.

By A New World Record, Lynne had almost completely abandoned the roots of the group for a dense and unique pop-rock sound mixed with studio strings and layered vocals and tight, catchy pop singles. Jeff Lynne's now almost complete creative dominance as producer, songwriter, arranger, lead singer and guitarist could make ELO appear to be an almost solo effort. However, the ELO sound and the focus of Lynne's writing was also indelibly shaped by Louis Clark's co-arranging (notably the large string sections), Bev Bevan's driving, primitivist drumming, and Richard Tandy's integration of then-novel keyboard technology.

The pinnacle of ELO's chart success and worldwide popularity was the expansive 1977 double album Out of the Blue, which was largely conceived in a Swiss chalet during a two-week writing marathon. The band's 1978 world tour featured an elaborate "space ship" set and laser light show. In order to recreate the complex instrumental textures of their albums, the band used pre-recorded supplemental backing tracks in live performances. Although that practice has now become commonplace, it caused considerable derision in the press of the time. Jeff Lynne has often stated that he prefers the creative environment of the studio to the rigours and tedium of touring.

In 1979, Lynne followed up the success of Out of the Blue with Discovery, an album primarily associated with its two disco-flavored singles ("Shine a Little Love" and "Last Train to London") and with a title that was a word play on "disco" and "very" . However, the remaining seven non-disco tracks on the album reflected Lynne's range as a pop-rock songwriter, including a heavy, mid-tempo rock anthem ("Don't Bring Me Down") that, despite its use of a drum loop, could be considered the antithesis of disco. In an April 2008 interview, Lynne fondly recalled his forays into dance music:
“ I love the force of disco. I love the freedom it gave me to make a different rhythms across it. I enjoyed that really steady driving beat. Just steady as a rock. I’ve always liked that simplicity in the bass drum.

In 1979, Lynne rejected an offer for ELO to headline the Knebworth Concert in the UK, allowing Led Zeppelin to headline instead.

In the absence of any touring to support Discovery, Lynne had time to contribute five tracks to the soundtrack for the 1980 movie musical Xanadu (film). The score yielded a pair of top-40 singles, with "Xanadu" reaching number one in the UK. Nevertheless, Lynne was not integrated into the development of the film and his material subsequently had only superficial attachment to the plot. Despite its later resurgence as a cult favourite, Xanadu performed weakly at the box-office. Lynne subsequently disavowed his limited contribution to the project, although he later re-recorded the title song (with his lead vocal) for the 2000 box-set Flashback. In 2007, the film was loosely adapted into a successful Broadway musical, incorporating almost all of the songs from the original film, and also using two other ELO hits: Strange Magic and Evil Woman.

In 1981, Lynne took the band in a somewhat different direction with the science-fiction themed album Time, reaching number one for two weeks in the UK, producing the second Top 3 single in less than two years, jettisoning the strings in favour of heavily synthesised textures. Following a marginally successful tour, Lynne kept this general approach with 1983's Secret Messages and a final contractually-obligated ELO album Balance of Power in 1986. Although ELO could still get a hit single into the Top 40, Lynne is assumed to have tired of the artistic constraints and promotional demands imposed by the ELO concept. Lynne discusses the contractually-obligated nature of the final albums on the short interview included with the 'Zoom' DVD. With only three remaining official members (Lynne, Bevan and Tandy) and the trending of pop music toward a new generation of video-friendly acts, ELO had run its course and Lynne began devoting his full energy to producing.

During his time in the Electric Light Orchestra, Lynne did manage to release a few recordings under his own name. In 1976, Lynne covered The Beatles songs "With a Little Help from My Friends" and "Nowhere Man" for All This and World War II. In 1977, Lynne released his first ever solo single, the disco-flavoured "Doin' That Crazy Thing"/"Goin' Down To Rio". Despite ELO's high profile at that time, it received little airplay and failed to chart. In 1984 Lynne and ELO keyboardist Richard Tandy contributed two original songs "Video!" and "Let It Run" to the film Electric Dreams (he also provided a third song, "Sooner or Later", which was released as the b-side of "Video!"). Lynne also wrote the song "The Story of Me" which was recorded by the Everly Brothers on their comeback album EB84.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/30/09 at 6:54 am


Sounds like Howard is missing Sir Billzy... ;)


NOPE! :P

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/30/09 at 6:57 am

Now it looks like he's spending time with Rachel Uchitel.  ::)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 12/30/09 at 7:36 am


I've always been a fan of Mary Tyler-Moore but never knew half the things about her you mentioned in her bio, Nnny. Nice job. thanks for posting.  :)


I really enjoyed The Mary Tyler Moore Show!  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 12/30/09 at 7:38 am

That bio on Mike Nesmith made for interesting reading.

Jeff Lynne ... one of the all time greats. He had a purple patch with hose songs mentioned in the bio ("Evil Woman", "Telephone Line", "Livin' Thing", "Mr. Blue Sky", "Don't Bring Me Down" and "Sweet Talkin' Woman").  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/30/09 at 8:33 am


I really enjoyed The Mary Tyler Moore Show!  :)

As did I. :)

That bio on Mike Nesmith made for interesting reading.

Jeff Lynne ... one of the all time greats. He had a purple patch with hose songs mentioned in the bio ("Evil Woman", "Telephone Line", "Livin' Thing", "Mr. Blue Sky", "Don't Bring Me Down" and "Sweet Talkin' Woman").  :)

I was thinking it was too much reading, but if you read it..I guess not
ELO had some great songs. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/30/09 at 8:36 am


Now it looks like he's spending time with Rachel Uchitel.  ::)

Doing the party scene together.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 12/30/09 at 12:10 pm

I met Davey Jones. My mother was working at a theatre and he was one of the actors (preforming in the play The Boyfriend along with Mary Jo Catlett from Differ't Strokes fame as well as other stuff). My mother introduced me to him. She told him that I wanted to go into acting. We shook hands and he asked me about it and I was totally speechless.  :-[  My mother had a big cast party at our house and he was supposed to come to it but didn't.  :\'( :\'( :\'(  I could say that I felt like Marcia Brady but that didn't happen. But Mary Jo Catlett did. I still have her autograph somewhere. I don't think I got Davey's.



BTW, Mike Nesmith was the driving force behind the formation of a little channel called MTV.




Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 12/30/09 at 12:28 pm


I met Davey Jones. My mother was working at a theatre and he was one of the actors (preforming in the play The Boyfriend along with Mary Jo Catlett from Differ't Strokes fame as well as other stuff). My mother introduced me to him. She told him that I wanted to go into acting. We shook hands and he asked me about it and I was totally speechless.  :-
As did I. :)I was thinking it was too much reading, but if you read it..I guess not
ELO had some great songs. :)


E.L.O, one of the better 70s bands. Telephone Line, Evil woman, Can't get it out of my head...good stuff.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/30/09 at 12:30 pm


I met Davey Jones. My mother was working at a theatre and he was one of the actors (preforming in the play The Boyfriend along with Mary Jo Catlett from Differ't Strokes fame as well as other stuff). My mother introduced me to him. She told him that I wanted to go into acting. We shook hands and he asked me about it and I was totally speechless.  :-[  My mother had a big cast party at our house and he was supposed to come to it but didn't.  :\'( :\'( :\'(  I could say that I felt like Marcia Brady but that didn't happen. But Mary Jo Catlett did. I still have her autograph somewhere. I don't think I got Davey's.



BTW, Mike Nesmith was the driving force behind the formation of a little channel called MTV.




Cat

Wow that is real interesting :) I know I would be nervous meeting anyone famous. Mary Jo was she the second housekeeper?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 12/30/09 at 1:05 pm


Wow that is real interesting :) I know I would be nervous meeting anyone famous. Mary Jo was she the second housekeeper?



Yup-she was. She was also on M*A*S*H (the Nurses episode where Margaret started crying to the nurses because they never offered her a lousy cup of coffee), on the old Black Flag commercials as well as the "Spirit of the first turkey lovers." I think she also does a voice on Spongebob.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/30/09 at 6:58 pm

Jeff Lynne was also with Traveling Wilburys.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 12/30/09 at 7:39 pm

I'm a big fan of E.L.O. and enjoyed the bio on Jeff Lynne. Thanks for posting, Ninny.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/31/09 at 5:24 am


Jeff Lynne was also with Traveling Wilburys.

Yes he was,with Tom Petty, George Harrison,Roy Orbison & Bob Dylan

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/31/09 at 5:25 am


I'm a big fan of E.L.O. and enjoyed the bio on Jeff Lynne. Thanks for posting, Ninny.  :)

I've always enjoyed their music. Glad you enjoyed it :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/31/09 at 5:30 am

The word of the day...Ventriloquist
A ventriloquist is someone who can speak without moving their lips and who entertains people by making their words appear to be spoken by a puppet
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/31/09 at 5:34 am

The birthday of the day...Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, CBE (born 31 December 1937) is a Welsh film, stage and television actor. Considered to be one of film's greatest living actors, he is known for his portrayal of cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, its sequel, Hannibal, and its prequel, Red Dragon. Other prominent film credits include Magic, The Elephant Man, 84 Charing Cross Road, Dracula, Legends of the Fall, The Remains of the Day, Amistad, Nixon and Fracture. Hopkins was born and raised in Wales, and became a U.S. citizen on 12 April 2000. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003 and was made a Fellow of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2008.
In 1965, after several years in repertory, he was spotted by Sir Laurence Olivier, who invited him to join the Royal National Theatre. Hopkins became Olivier's understudy, and filled in when Olivier was struck with appendicitis during a production of August Strindberg's The Dance of Death. Olivier later noted in his memoir, Confessions of an Actor, that, "A new young actor in the company of exceptional promise named Anthony Hopkins was understudying me and walked away with the part of Edgar like a cat with a mouse between its teeth."

Despite his success at the National, Hopkins tired of repeating the same roles nightly and yearned to be in movies. In 1968, he got his break in The Lion in Winter playing Richard I, along with Peter O'Toole, Katharine Hepburn, and future James Bond star Timothy Dalton, who played Philip II of France.

Although Hopkins continued in theatre (most notably at the National Theatre as Lambert Le Roux in Pravda by David Hare and Howard Brenton and as Antony in Antony and Cleopatra opposite Judi Dench as well as in the Broadway production of Peter Shaffer's Equus, directed by John Dexter) he gradually moved away from it to become more established as a television and film actor. He made his small-screen debut in a 1967 BBC broadcast of A Flea in Her Ear. He has since gone on to enjoy a long career, winning many plaudits and awards for his performances. Hopkins was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1987, and a Knight Bachelor in 1993 In 1996, Hopkins was awarded an honorary fellowship from the University of Wales, Lampeter.

Hopkins has stated that his role as Burt Munro, whom he portrayed in his 2005 film The World's Fastest Indian, was his favourite. He also asserted that Munro was the easiest role that he had played because both men have a similar outlook on life.

In 2006, Hopkins was the recipient of the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement. In 2008, he received the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award.

Hopkins is set to portray Odin, the father of Thor, in the upcoming film adaptation of Marvel Comics' Thor.
Acting style

Hopkins is renowned for his preparation for roles. He has confessed in interviews that once he has committed to a project, he will go over his lines as many times as is needed (sometimes upwards of 200) until the lines sound natural to him, so that he can "do it without thinking". This leads to an almost casual style of delivery that belies the amount of groundwork done beforehand. While it can allow for some careful improvisation, it has also brought him into conflict with the occasional director who departs from the script, or demands what the actor views as an excessive number of takes. Hopkins has stated that after he is finished with a scene, he simply discards the lines, not remembering them later on. This is unlike others who usually remember their lines from a film even years later. Richard Attenborough, who has directed Hopkins on five occasions, found himself going to great lengths during the filming of Shadowlands (1993) to accommodate the differing approaches of his two stars (Hopkins and Debra Winger), who shared many scenes. Whereas Hopkins liked to keep rehearsals to a minimum, preferring the spontaneity of a fresh take, Winger rehearsed continuously. To allow for this, Attenborough stood in for Hopkins during Winger's rehearsals, only bringing him in for the last one before a take. The director praised Hopkins for "this extraordinary ability to make you believe when you hear him that it is the very first time he has ever said that line. It's an incredible gift."

In addition, Hopkins is a gifted mimic, adept at turning his native Welsh accent into whatever is required by a character. He duplicated the voice of his late mentor, Laurence Olivier, for additional scenes in Spartacus in its 1991 restoration. His interview on the 1998 relaunch edition of the British TV talk show Parkinson featured an impersonation of comedian Tommy Cooper.
Hannibal Lecter

Hopkins' most famous role is as the cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1992, opposite Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling, who won for Best Actress. The film won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. It is the shortest lead performance to win an Oscar, as Hopkins only appears on screen for little over sixteen minutes. Hopkins reprised his role as Lecter twice (Hannibal in 2001, Red Dragon in 2002). His original portrayal of the character in The Silence of the Lambs has been labelled by the American Film Institute as the number-one film villain. At the time he was offered the role, Hopkins was making a return to the London stage, performing in M. Butterfly. He had come back to Britain after living for a number of years in Hollywood, having all but given up on a career there, saying, "Well that part of my life's over; it's a chapter closed. I suppose I'll just have to settle for being a respectable actor poncing around the West End and doing respectable BBC work for the rest of my life."

Hopkins played the iconic villain in adaptations of the first three of the Lecter novels by Thomas Harris. The author was reportedly very pleased with Hopkins' portrayal of his antagonist. However, Hopkins stated that Red Dragon would feature his final performance as the character, and that he would not reprise even a narrative role in the latest addition to the series, Hannibal Rising.
Hopkins is a talented pianist. In 1986, he released a single called "Distant Star". It peaked at #75 in the UK charts. In 2007, he announced he would retire temporarily from the screen to tour around the world. Hopkins has also written music for the concert hall, in collaboration with Stephen Barton as orchestrator. These compositions include The Masque of Time, given its world premiere with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in October 2008, and Schizoid Salsa.

In 1996, Hopkins directed his first film, August, an adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya set in Wales. His first screenplay, an experimental drama called Slipstream, which he also directed and scored, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007.

Hopkins is a fan of the BBC sitcom Only Fools and Horses, and once remarked in an interview how he would love to appear in the series. Writer John Sullivan saw the interview, and with Hopkins in mind created the character Danny Driscoll, a local villain. However, filming of the new series coincided with the filming of The Silence of the Lambs, making Hopkins unavailable. The role instead went to his friend Roy Marsden.

Hopkins has played many famous historical and fictional characters including:

    * John Quincy Adams (Amistad, 1997)
    * Pierre Bezukhov (War and Peace, 1972)
    * William Bligh (The Bounty, 1984)
    * Donald Campbell (Across the Lake, 1988)
    * Count Galeazzo Ciano (Mussolini and I, 1985)
    * Charles Dickens (The Great Inimitable Mr. Dickens, 1970)
    * John Frost (A Bridge Too Far, 1977)
    * Bruno Hauptmann (The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, 1976)
    * Abraham Van Helsing (Bram Stoker's Dracula, 1992)
    * Adolf Hitler (The Bunker, 1981)
    * Hrothgar (Beowulf, 2007)
    * Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (The Road to Wellville (film), 1994)
    * Dr. Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs, 1991)
      (Hannibal, 2001) (Red Dragon, 2002)
    * C. S. Lewis (Shadowlands (film), 1993)



    * David Lloyd George (Young Winston, 1972)
    * Marcus Crassus (Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of Spartacus, 1992)
    * Burt Munro (The World's Fastest Indian, 2005)
    * Richard Nixon (Nixon, 1995)
    * Iago (Othello, 1981)
    * Paul the Apostle (Peter and Paul, 1981)
    * Pablo Picasso (Surviving Picasso, 1996)
    * Ptolemy I Soter (Alexander, 2004)
    * Quasimodo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1982)
    * Yitzak Rabin (Victory at Entebbe, 1976)
    * Richard Lionheart (The Lion in Winter, 1968)
    * Titus Andronicus (Titus, 1999)
    * Frederick Treves (The Elephant Man, 1980)
    * Don Diego de la Vega/Zorro (The Mask of Zorro, 1998)

Awards

Besides his win for The Silence of the Lambs, Hopkins has been Oscar-nominated for The Remains of the Day (1993), Nixon (1995) and Amistad (1997).

Hopkins won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in 1973 for his performance as Pierre Bezukhov in the BBC's production of War and Peace, and additionally for The Silence of the Lambs and Shadowlands. He received nominations in the same category for Magic and The Remains of the Day and as Best Supporting Actor for The Lion in Winter.

He won Emmy Awards for his roles in The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case and The Bunker, and was Emmy-nominated for The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Great Expectations. He won the directing and the acting award, both for Slipstream, at Switzerland's Locarno International Film Festival.

Hopkins became a Fellow of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) at the Orange British Academy Film Awards in February 2008.

In 1979 Anthony Hopkins became an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, London.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1967 A Flea in Her Ear Etienne Plucheux TV
The White Bus Brechtian
1968 The Lion in Winter Richard Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
1969 The Looking Glass War John Avery
Hamlet Claudius
Department S Greg Halliday TV
1970 The Great Inimitable Mr. Dickens Charles Dickens Television film
Hearts and Flowers Bob TV – Play for Today
Nominated — British Academy Television Award for Best Actor
1971 When Eight Bells Toll Philip Calvert
1972 Young Winston David Lloyd George
War and Peace Pierre Bezukhov British Academy Television Award for Best Actor
A Doll's House Torvald Helmer
1974 The Girl from Petrovka Kostya
QB VII Dr. Adam Kelno
Juggernaut Supt. John McCleod
All Creatures Great and Small Siegfried Farnon TV
The Childhood Friend Alexander Tashkov TV – Play for Today
1976 Dark Victory Dr. Michael Grant TV
The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case Bruno Richard Hauptmann Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
Victory at Entebbe Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
1977 A Bridge Too Far Lt. Col. John D. Frost
Audrey Rose Elliot Hoover Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actor
1978 Magic Charles "Corky" Withers/Voice of Fats Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
International Velvet Captain Johnson
1979 Mayflower: The Pilgrims' Adventure Capt. Jones TV
1980 The Elephant Man Dr. Frederick Treves
A Change of Seasons Adam Evans
1981 The Bunker Adolf Hitler Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
Peter and Paul Paul of Tarsus TV
Othello Othello TV
1982 The Hunchback of Notre Dame Quasimodo TV
Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
1983 A Married Man John Strickland TV
1984 The Bounty Lieutenant William Bligh
1985 Hollywood Wives Neil Gray TV
Arch of Triumph Dr. Ravic TV
Guilty Conscience Arthur Jamison TV
Mussolini and I Count Galeazzo Ciano TV
CableACE Award for Actor in a Movie or Miniseries
The Good Father Bill Hooper
1987 84 Charing Cross Road Frank Doel Moscow International Film Festival Award for Best Actor
1988 The Dawning Angus Barrie
Across the Lake Donald Campbell CBE TV
A Chorus of Disapproval Dafydd Ap Llewellyn
The Tenth Man Jean Louis Chavel Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
1989 Great Expectations Abel Magwitch TV miniseries
Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
1990 Desperate Hours Tim Comell
1991 The Silence of the Lambs Dr. Hannibal Lecter Academy Award for Best Actor
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor
Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
Sant Jordi Award for Best Foreign Actor
Saturn Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
One Man's War Joel TV
1992 Freejack Ian McCandless
Spotswood Errol Wallace
Howards End Henry J. Wilcox
Bram Stoker's Dracula Professor Abraham Van Helsing Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor
Chaplin George Hayden
1993 The Trial The Priest
The Innocent Bob Glass
The Remains of the Day James Stevens David di Donatello for Best Foreign Actor
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor also for Shadowlands
National Board of Review Award for Best Actor also for Shadowlands
Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor also for Shadowlands
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
Shadowlands Jack Lewis BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor also for The Remains of the Day
National Board of Review Award for Best Actor also for The Remains of the Day
Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor also for The Remains of the Day
1994 The Road to Wellville Dr. John Harvey Kellogg
Legends of the Fall Col. William Ludlow Western Heritage Awards — Bronze Wrangler for Theatrical Motion Picture shared with Edward Zwick (director), William D. Wittliff (writer/producer) and Brad Pitt (principal actor)
1995 Nixon Richard Nixon Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
1996 August Ieuan Davies also directed, composed score
Surviving Picasso Pablo Picasso
1997 The Edge Charles Morse
Amistad John Quincy Adams Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Nominated — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
1998 The Mask of Zorro Don Diego de la Vega / Zorro
Meet Joe Black William Parrish Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actor
1999 Instinct Ethan Powell
Titus Titus Andronicus Nominated — London Film Critics Circle Award for British Actor of the Year
2000 Mission: Impossible II Mission Commander Swanbeck uncredited
The Grinch The Narrator Voice
2001 Hannibal Dr. Hannibal Lecter Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actor
Hearts in Atlantis Ted Brautigan
2002 Bad Company Officer Oakes
Red Dragon Dr. Hannibal Lecter
2003 The Human Stain Coleman Silk Hollywood Film Festival Award for Outstanding Achievement in Acting - Male Performer
2004 Alexander Ptolemy I Soter
2005 Proof Robert
The World's Fastest Indian Burt Munro New Zealand Screen Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
2006 Bobby John Hollywood Film Festival Award for Ensemble of the Year
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
All the King's Men Judge Irwin
2007 The Devil and Daniel Webster Daniel Webster TV
Slipstream Felix Bonhoeffer
Fracture Theodore "Ted" Crawford
Beowulf Hrothgar
The City of Your Final Destination Adam
2008 Where I Stand: The Hank Greenspun Story Hank Greenspun Voice
Immutable Dream of Snow Lion
2009 Bare Knuckles Xavier Jonas
2010 The Wolfman Sir John Talbot post-production
You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger filming
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/31/09 at 5:37 am

The co-birthday...Ben Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE (born Krishna Pandit Bhanji, 31 December 1943) is an English actor. He has won Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Kingsley's first film role was a supporting turn in Fear Is the Key, released in 1972. Kingsley continued starring in bit roles in both film and television, including a role as Ron Jenkins on the soap opera Coronation Street from 1966 to 1967 and regular appearances as a defence counsel in the long-running British legal programme Crown Court. In 1975 he starred as Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the BBCs historical drama The Love School. He found fame only years later, starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the Academy Award-winning film Gandhi in 1982, his best-known role to date. The audience also agreed with the critics, and Gandhi was a box-office success. Kingsley won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal.
Kingsley at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival

Kingsley has since appeared in a variety of roles. His credits included the films Turtle Diary, Maurice, Pascali's Island, Without a Clue (as Dr. Watson alongside Michael Caine's Sherlock Holmes), Suspect Zero, Bugsy, which led to an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, Sneakers, Dave, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Schindler's List, Silas Marner, Death and the Maiden, Sexy Beast, for which he received another Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and House of Sand and Fog, which led to yet another Oscar nomination for Best Actor. He won a Crystal Globe award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2001.

In 1997, he provided voice talent for the video game Ceremony of Innocence. In July 2006, he received an Emmy nomination for his performance in the made-for-TV film Mrs. Harris, in which he played famed cardiologist Herman Tarnower, who was murdered by his jilted lover, Jean Harris. Later that year, Kingsley appeared in an episode of The Sopranos entitled "Luxury Lounge", playing himself. In the show, Christopher Moltisanti and Carmine Lupertazzi offer him a role in the fictional slasher film "Cleaver", which he turns down. Lupertazzi offers him the role on the basis of Kingsley's real-life performance in Sexy Beast. In 2007, Kingsley appeared as a Polish American mobster in the Mafia comedy You Kill Me, and a Middle Eastern oil minister in War, Inc. Kingsley was asked to play Vulture in Spider-Man 3, but was cut out of the storyline.

Kingsley announced SBK-Pictures is bringing the story of the Native American Conley Sisters to the big screen in Whispers Like Thunder. Kingsley will be playing the role of Charles Curtis, the first part-Native American to become vice-president of the United States.
Honours

Kingsley was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000. He was knighted in the 2001 New Years Honours list. On promotional material for the 2006 film Lucky Number Slevin, Kingsley was referred to as "Sir Ben Kingsley." At first, the actor was singled out for some criticism, as such titles had generally come to be omitted from professional credits by that time. It was claimed that the inclusion of "Sir" was a mistake by a studio executive.

His demand to be called 'Sir' was documented by the BBC, to some criticism. Since then, Kingsley appears to have altered his stance; credits for his latest films refer to him only as 'Ben Kingsley'. Penelope Cruz was unsure what to call him during the filming of Elegy as someone had told her she needed to refer to him as "Sir Ben". One day it slipped out as such, and she called him that for the rest of the shoot.

In 1984, he won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word or Nonmusical Recording for The Words of Gandhi. He was awarded the Indian civilian honor Padma Shri in 1985.

In addition, in 2008, Kingsley was awarded the "Cinema for Peace Honorary Award", for the portrayal of the humanitarian role-models Simon Wiesenthal, Itzhak Stern and Gandhi.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1982 Gandhi Mohandas Gandhi film debut
Academy Award for Best Actor
1983 Betrayal Robert the film version of Harold Pinter's play
1985 Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe Silas Marner
Harem Selim
1986 Turtle Diary William Snow screenplay by Harold Pinter
1987 The Secret of the Sahara (TV) Sholomon
Maurice Lasker-Jones
1988 Pascali's Island Basil Pascali
Without a Clue Dr. John Watson
Testimony - The Story of Shostakovich Dmitri Shostakovich
1989 Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story Simon Wiesenthal
1990 The 5th Monkey Cunda
1991 Bugsy Meyer Lansky Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor
1992 Sneakers Cosmo
Freddie as F.R.O.7 Freddie The Frog Voice
1993 Searching for Bobby Fischer Bruce Pandolfini
Dave Vice President Gary Nance
Schindler's List Itzhak Stern
1994 Death and the Maiden Dr. Roberto Miranda
1995 Species Xavier Fitch
Joseph Potiphar
Moses Moses
1996 Twelfth Night Feste from the play by William Shakespeare
1997 Weapons of Mass Distraction (TV) Julian Messenger
The Assignment Amos
1998 The Tale of Sweeney Todd (TV) Sweeney Todd Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Best Actor
1999 Alice in Wonderland (TV) Major Caterpillar
The Confession Harry Fertig
2000 What Planet Are YOU From? Graydon
Rules of Engagement Ambassador Mourain
Islam: Empire of Faith Narrator voice only
2001 Anne Frank: The Whole Story Otto Frank Won Screen Actor's Guild Award
Sexy Beast Don Logan Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor
AI: Artificial Intelligence Specialist voice
2002 The Triumph of Love Hermocrates Marivaux's play
Tuck Everlasting Man in the Yellow Suit
2003 House of Sand and Fog Massoud Behrani Academy Award nomination for Best Actor
2004 Thunderbirds "The Hood" loosely based on the super-marionation programme created by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson
Suspect Zero Benjamin O'Ryan
2005 A Sound of Thunder Charles Hatton
Oliver Twist Fagin
Mrs. Harris Herman Tarnower
BloodRayne Kagan
2006 The Sopranos (TV) Appearance as himself Season 6, Episode 72 - "Luxury Lounge"
Lucky Number Slevin The Rabbi
2007 You Kill Me Frank Falenczyk
The Last Legion Ambrosinus
The Ten Commandments Narrator (voice)
2008 Elegy David Kepesh
War, Inc. Walken
The Love Guru Guru Tugginmypudha
The Wackness Dr. Squires
Transsiberian Grinko
China's Stolen Children Narrator (voice)
Fifty Dead Men Walking Fergus
2009 Noah's Ark: The New Beginning Narrator (voice) post-production
Whispers Like Thunder Vice President Charles Curtis pre-production
Teen Patti Perci Trachtenberg post-production
Journey to Mecca Narrator (voice)
2010 Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Nizam post-production
Shutter Island Dr. John Cawley post-production
2011 Taj Shah Jahan pre-production
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/31/09 at 5:39 am


The word of the day...Ventriloquist
A ventriloquist is someone who can speak without moving their lips and who entertains people by making their words appear to be spoken by a puppet
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Don't forget Waylan Flowers And Madam.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/31/09 at 5:41 am

*Val Kilmer..Val Edward Kilmer (born December 31, 1959) is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer became popular in the mid-1980s after a string of appearances in comedy films, starting with Top Secret! (1984), then the cult classic Real Genius (1985), as well as blockbuster action films, including a role in Top Gun and a lead role in Willow.

During the 1990s, Kilmer gained critical respect after a string of films that were also commercially successful, including his roles as Jim Morrison in The Doors, Doc Holliday in 1993's Tombstone, Batman in 1995's Batman Forever, Chris Shiherlis in 1995's Heat and Simon Templar in 1997's The Saint. During the early 2000s, Kilmer appeared in several well-received roles, including The Salton Sea, Spartan, and supporting performances in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Alexander and as the voice of KITT in Knight Rider.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1984 Top Secret! Nick Rivers Film debut
1985 Real Genius Chris Knight
1986 Top Gun Lt. Tom 'Iceman' Kazanski
The Murders in the Rue Morgue Phillipe Huron TV film
1987 The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains Robert Eliot Burns/Eliot Roberts TV film
CableACE Award for Best Actor in a Movie or Miniseries
1988 Willow Madmartigan
1989 Billy the Kid William Bonney
Kill Me Again Jack Andrews
1991 The Doors Jim Morrison Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Male
1992 Thunderheart Ray Levoi
1993 The Real McCoy J.T. Barker
Tombstone Doc Holliday Based on a true story
Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable Male
Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Male
True Romance Mentor
1995 Batman Forever Bruce Wayne/Batman Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable Male also for Heat
Heat Chris Shiherlis Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Most Desirable Male also for Batman Forever
Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor
Wings of Courage Jean Mermoz IMAX Film
1996 The Island of Dr Moreau Montgomery
The Ghost and the Darkness Col. John Henry Patterson Based on a true story
Dead Girl Dr. Dark
1997 The Saint Simon Templar
1998 The Prince of Egypt Moses/God Voice-over
1999 At First Sight Virgil 'Virg' Adamson
Joe the King Bob Henry
2000 Pollock Willem de Kooning
Red Planet Robby Gallagher
2002 The Salton Sea Danny Parker/ Tom Van Allen Limited release
Prism Award for Best Performance in a Theatrical Feature Film
Hard Cash FBI Agent Mark C. Cornell a.k.a. Run for the Money
2003 Wonderland John Holmes Based on the Wonderland Murders
The Missing Lt. Jim Ducharme
Blind Horizon Frank Kavanaugh
Masked and Anonymous Animal Wrangler
2004 Entourage The Sherpa Episode: "The Script and the Sherpa"
Spartan Robert Scott
Stateside Staff Sergeant Skeer
Alexander Philip
George and the Dragon El Cabillo uncredited
2005 Mindhunters Jake Harris
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Perry Van Shrike/"Gay Perry" Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture
Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor
2006 Summer Love The Wanted Man a.k.a. Dead Man's Bounty
Moscow Zero Andrey
10th & Wolf Murtha
Played Dillon
Déjà Vu Agent Andrew Pryzwarra
The Ten Commandments: The Musical Moses
2007 Have Dreams, Will Travel Henderson
Numb3rs Mason Lancer Episode: "Trust Metric"
2008 Comanche Moon Inish Scull TV mini-series based on the book
Knight Rider voice of KITT TV film based on 1980s TV series
Conspiracy MacPherson direct-to-video
Felon John Smith
Delgo Bogardus voice only
2:22 Maz
Columbus Day John
XIII Mongoose based on Belgian comic book XIII
2008 - 2009 Knight Rider voice of KITT TV series based on the 2008 TV film
2009 The Chaos Experiment Jimmy a.k.a. The Steam Experiment
Streets of Blood Detective Andy Devereaux
American Cowslip Todd Inglebrink
The Thaw Dr. David Kruipen
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans Stevie Pruit
Hardwired Virgil
Fake Identity TBA awaiting release
Mr. Nobody The Stranger post-production
2010 Provinces of Night Warren Bloodworth post-production
The Irishman Joe Manditski post-production
MacGruber (I_am_a_loser_who_has_no_respect_for_women)h post-production
Tales of an Ancient Empire Rollo filming
Georgia Dutch Journalist filming
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http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u35/_Michael_Selene_/Val_Kilmer.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/31/09 at 5:41 am

Val Kilmer is fantastic.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/31/09 at 5:46 am

*Donna Summer..Donna Summer (born LaDonna Adrian Gaines; December 31, 1948) is an American singer and songwriter who gained prominence during the disco era of music, earning the title "The Queen of Disco".

Summer was trained as a gospel singer before her introduction to the music industry and has always been known for her "powerhouse" vocal delivery. Though she is most notable for her disco hits, Summer's repertoire has expanded to include contemporary R&B, rock, pop, and gospel. Summer is one of the most successful recording artists of the 1970s and was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums hit number one on the Billboard charts. She also became the first female artist to have four number-one singles in a thirteen-month period. Summer's website claims that she has sold more than 130 million records worldwide n 1978 Summer acted in the film Thank God It's Friday and released the single "Last Dance". The song brought Summer her third Gold US million-selling single, reaching number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and resulting in her first Grammy win. Written by the late Paul Jabara—who also co-wrote "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)"—Jabara took home the Oscar after the song was nominated for Song Of The Year. Summer also recorded a side-long version of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je t'aime... moi non plus" which was very similar in style to "Love to Love You, Baby", initially shelved and later released as a part of the Thank God It's Friday soundtrack.

That same year, Summer released her first live album, entitled Live And More. This was Summer's first Top 10 - as well as #1 album - and her first to reach sales of a million, earning Platinum status. Live And More replaced Linda Ronstadt's Living In The USA at #1 on Billboard's album chart. It included her first #1 American Pop single, a cover of the Jimmy Webb-penned "MacArthur Park" - another Gold-certified US single - originally made famous by the late actor-singer Richard Harris. The studio part of the album included the tracks "One Of A Kind" and "Heaven Knows" which also featured vocals by Joe "Bean" Esposito of the Brooklyn Dreams (group member Bruce Sudano would later become romantically involved with Summer). "Heaven Knows" became another Gold Million seller in the US and another Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 reaching number four.

Summer was a guest artist on KISS bassist Gene Simmons's 1978 eponymous solo album, on the track "Burning Up With Fever".
Bad Girls and the break from disco

In 1979, Summer released the landmark double album Bad Girls. Unusual for a disco album, it mixed rock, funk, blues and soul to electronic beats. It yielded two consecutive singles reaching Platinum status with sales of two million each: the number-one one hits "Hot Stuff" and "Bad Girls". The number-two hit "Dim All The Lights" would go Gold as another million seller. "Bad Girls" also became Summer's first number-one song on Billboard's R&B singles chart. With U.S. record sales at an all-time apex in 1979, Summer had a run of five straight U.S. Gold singles (three of which went on to Platinum status) that year alone. The single "Hot Stuff" won Summer a second Grammy, winning the first ever award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. (Interestingly, the Grammys had a Best Disco Recording Award only once, in 1980, won by Gloria Gaynor for "I Will Survive".)

Bad Girls became Summer's second number-one double album and the most successful album of her entire career, eventually selling over three million copies in the U.S. Summer and Bruce Sudano grew closer during the making of this album and became engaged. During this period, Summer had two songs in the top three of Billboard's Hot 100 during the same week, with "Bad Girls" and "Hot Stuff". Just a few months later, she accomplished the same feat again, with "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" and "Dim All the Lights". During the summer of 1979, she played eight sold-out nights at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles.

Summer's first compilation album, On The Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes 1 & 2, was a global smash and her third straight number-one U.S. double album, also going on to sell over two million copies in the U.S. With this, Summer became the first artist to have three consecutive U.S. number-one double albums. The album also contained two new tracks — "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)", the Platinum-selling number-one duet with Barbra Streisand, and the Grammy-nominated Top-5 U.S. Gold hit "On the Radio", a song written for the film Foxes. The Streisand-Summer duet was her fourth and final number-one pop hit in the U.S. — and her fourth number-one single in thirteen months.

Disagreements between Summer and Casablanca Records led to her exit from the label in 1980. Summer was offered a very lucrative deal by David Geffen and became the first artist to be signed to his new Geffen label in 1980.
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* Burton Cummings...Burton Cummings, OC OM (born December 31, 1947) is a Canadian musician and songwriter. He was the lead singer and frequent keyboardist for the Canadian rock band The Guess Who. During his 10 years in The Guess Who, from 1965 to 1975, he sang and wrote or co-wrote many songs including "American Woman," "No Time," "Share the Land," "Hand Me Down World," "Undun," "Laughing," "Star Baby", "New Mother Nature," and "These Eyes." His solo career includes many Canadian singles including "Stand Tall", "My Own Way to Rock" and "You Saved My Soul".  In 1969, The Guess Who scored an international hit with "These Eyes", co-written by Cummings and guitarist Randy Bachman. It was followed up by hit "Laughing", again written by Cummings and Bachman. Another Guess Who song "Undun" featured Cummings on a jazzy flute solo. In 1970, the band hit No. 1 in Canada with "American Woman."

Ultimately, personal issues between Cummings and bandmate Randy Bachman – partially ignited by Bachman's deepening Mormon religious beliefs—caused a rift in the band. Bachman left and went on to form the band Brave Belt with former Guess Who mate Chad Allan, and later Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

Cummings became the band's leader and recorded songs that included: "Share the Land," "Hand Me Down World," "Albert Flasher," "Rain Dance," "Sour Suite," "Glamour Boy," "Star Baby" and "Clap for the Wolfman."
Going Solo

In 1975, after 10 years, Cummings left The Guess Who to become a solo artist and the group disbanded. One of his first projects included providing back-up vocals on Eric Carmen's second solo LP, Boats Against the Current, including "She Did It."

Cummings' subsequent solo hits in Canada included "Stand Tall" (also his biggest American hit, peaking at #10), "I'm Scared," "Break it to Them Gently," and "Fine State of Affairs." Cummings charted outside Canada with "Stand Tall" and "You Saved My Soul." His Dream of a Child album released in 1978 was the biggest Canadian album in history at that time. Cummings released a total of eight solo albums and collections from 1976 to 1990. In 1997 he released a live compilation album of his solo performances entitled Up Close and Alone.

Cummings became a resident of Sherman Oaks, California, and began writing and singing for films in the late 1970s. He currently winters in California and returns to Winnipeg in the summer, living in Canada throughout autumn. Besides his music, Cummings purchased Winnipeg's "Salisbury House" restaurant chain with manager Lorne Saifer and is an avid comic book collector.
The Guess Who returns

In 2000, Cummings, Bachman and original drummer Garry Peterson toured as The Guess Who. Bassist Jim Kale played one show and former Guess Who sidemen Donnie McDougall and Bill Wallace re-joined the line-up through the remainder of the tour in Canada and later in the U.S. The reformed The Guess Who toured with Cummings from 2000 through to the summer of 2003. In 2001, Cummings and the rest of The Guess Who received honorary doctorates at Brandon University in Brandon, Manitoba. Cummings was also made a member of the Order of Manitoba. In 2003, the band played at the so-called "SARSstock" concert in Toronto.
Bachman-Cummings

Cummings plays occasional shows with Randy Bachman as The Bachman-Cummings Band, featuring The Carpet Frogs, a band from Toronto and makes occasional appearances at various Canadian casinos as a solo performer. The Bachman-Cummings Band have released a compilation album titled the Bachman-Cummings Song Book featuring songs from The Guess Who, Bachman-Turner Overdrive and Cummings' solo career. They have also released an album titled The Thunderbird Trax, which is an album that Cummings and Bachman recorded in Bachman's toolshed in British Columbia in 1987. Previously unreleased until 2006, it was made available exclusively at Bachman-Cummings concerts, and is now available on the Bachman-Cummings website.

The Bachman-Cummings First Time Around CBC TV Special was released on DVD in November 2006 on the Sony BMG label. In June 2007, Bachman and Cummings released an album titled Jukebox that covered various songs from the 1960s that influenced them. A follow-up album to Jukebox as well as a television special have also been discussed
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 12/31/09 at 5:47 am


*Donna Summer..Donna Summer (born LaDonna Adrian Gaines; December 31, 1948) is an American singer and songwriter who gained prominence during the disco era of music, earning the title "The Queen of Disco".

Summer was trained as a gospel singer before her introduction to the music industry and has always been known for her "powerhouse" vocal delivery. Though she is most notable for her disco hits, Summer's repertoire has expanded to include contemporary R&B, rock, pop, and gospel. Summer is one of the most successful recording artists of the 1970s and was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums hit number one on the Billboard charts. She also became the first female artist to have four number-one singles in a thirteen-month period. Summer's website claims that she has sold more than 130 million records worldwide n 1978 Summer acted in the film Thank God It's Friday and released the single "Last Dance". The song brought Summer her third Gold US million-selling single, reaching number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and resulting in her first Grammy win. Written by the late Paul Jabara—who also co-wrote "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)"—Jabara took home the Oscar after the song was nominated for Song Of The Year. Summer also recorded a side-long version of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je t'aime... moi non plus" which was very similar in style to "Love to Love You, Baby", initially shelved and later released as a part of the Thank God It's Friday soundtrack.

That same year, Summer released her first live album, entitled Live And More. This was Summer's first Top 10 - as well as #1 album - and her first to reach sales of a million, earning Platinum status. Live And More replaced Linda Ronstadt's Living In The USA at #1 on Billboard's album chart. It included her first #1 American Pop single, a cover of the Jimmy Webb-penned "MacArthur Park" - another Gold-certified US single - originally made famous by the late actor-singer Richard Harris. The studio part of the album included the tracks "One Of A Kind" and "Heaven Knows" which also featured vocals by Joe "Bean" Esposito of the Brooklyn Dreams (group member Bruce Sudano would later become romantically involved with Summer). "Heaven Knows" became another Gold Million seller in the US and another Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 reaching number four.

Summer was a guest artist on KISS bassist Gene Simmons's 1978 eponymous solo album, on the track "Burning Up With Fever".
Bad Girls and the break from disco

In 1979, Summer released the landmark double album Bad Girls. Unusual for a disco album, it mixed rock, funk, blues and soul to electronic beats. It yielded two consecutive singles reaching Platinum status with sales of two million each: the number-one one hits "Hot Stuff" and "Bad Girls". The number-two hit "Dim All The Lights" would go Gold as another million seller. "Bad Girls" also became Summer's first number-one song on Billboard's R&B singles chart. With U.S. record sales at an all-time apex in 1979, Summer had a run of five straight U.S. Gold singles (three of which went on to Platinum status) that year alone. The single "Hot Stuff" won Summer a second Grammy, winning the first ever award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. (Interestingly, the Grammys had a Best Disco Recording Award only once, in 1980, won by Gloria Gaynor for "I Will Survive".)

Bad Girls became Summer's second number-one double album and the most successful album of her entire career, eventually selling over three million copies in the U.S. Summer and Bruce Sudano grew closer during the making of this album and became engaged. During this period, Summer had two songs in the top three of Billboard's Hot 100 during the same week, with "Bad Girls" and "Hot Stuff". Just a few months later, she accomplished the same feat again, with "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" and "Dim All the Lights". During the summer of 1979, she played eight sold-out nights at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles.

Summer's first compilation album, On The Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes 1 & 2, was a global smash and her third straight number-one U.S. double album, also going on to sell over two million copies in the U.S. With this, Summer became the first artist to have three consecutive U.S. number-one double albums. The album also contained two new tracks — "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)", the Platinum-selling number-one duet with Barbra Streisand, and the Grammy-nominated Top-5 U.S. Gold hit "On the Radio", a song written for the film Foxes. The Streisand-Summer duet was her fourth and final number-one pop hit in the U.S. — and her fourth number-one single in thirteen months.

Disagreements between Summer and Casablanca Records led to her exit from the label in 1980. Summer was offered a very lucrative deal by David Geffen and became the first artist to be signed to his new Geffen label in 1980.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p14/speedyclick/donna.jpg
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb224/devotion_album/Donna/donna_2008e.jpg


* Burton Cummings...Burton Cummings, OC OM (born December 31, 1947) is a Canadian musician and songwriter. He was the lead singer and frequent keyboardist for the Canadian rock band The Guess Who. During his 10 years in The Guess Who, from 1965 to 1975, he sang and wrote or co-wrote many songs including "American Woman," "No Time," "Share the Land," "Hand Me Down World," "Undun," "Laughing," "Star Baby", "New Mother Nature," and "These Eyes." His solo career includes many Canadian singles including "Stand Tall", "My Own Way to Rock" and "You Saved My Soul".  In 1969, The Guess Who scored an international hit with "These Eyes", co-written by Cummings and guitarist Randy Bachman. It was followed up by hit "Laughing", again written by Cummings and Bachman. Another Guess Who song "Undun" featured Cummings on a jazzy flute solo. In 1970, the band hit No. 1 in Canada with "American Woman."

Ultimately, personal issues between Cummings and bandmate Randy Bachman – partially ignited by Bachman's deepening Mormon religious beliefs—caused a rift in the band. Bachman left and went on to form the band Brave Belt with former Guess Who mate Chad Allan, and later Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

Cummings became the band's leader and recorded songs that included: "Share the Land," "Hand Me Down World," "Albert Flasher," "Rain Dance," "Sour Suite," "Glamour Boy," "Star Baby" and "Clap for the Wolfman."
Going Solo

In 1975, after 10 years, Cummings left The Guess Who to become a solo artist and the group disbanded. One of his first projects included providing back-up vocals on Eric Carmen's second solo LP, Boats Against the Current, including "She Did It."

Cummings' subsequent solo hits in Canada included "Stand Tall" (also his biggest American hit, peaking at #10), "I'm Scared," "Break it to Them Gently," and "Fine State of Affairs." Cummings charted outside Canada with "Stand Tall" and "You Saved My Soul." His Dream of a Child album released in 1978 was the biggest Canadian album in history at that time. Cummings released a total of eight solo albums and collections from 1976 to 1990. In 1997 he released a live compilation album of his solo performances entitled Up Close and Alone.

Cummings became a resident of Sherman Oaks, California, and began writing and singing for films in the late 1970s. He currently winters in California and returns to Winnipeg in the summer, living in Canada throughout autumn. Besides his music, Cummings purchased Winnipeg's "Salisbury House" restaurant chain with manager Lorne Saifer and is an avid comic book collector.
The Guess Who returns

In 2000, Cummings, Bachman and original drummer Garry Peterson toured as The Guess Who. Bassist Jim Kale played one show and former Guess Who sidemen Donnie McDougall and Bill Wallace re-joined the line-up through the remainder of the tour in Canada and later in the U.S. The reformed The Guess Who toured with Cummings from 2000 through to the summer of 2003. In 2001, Cummings and the rest of The Guess Who received honorary doctorates at Brandon University in Brandon, Manitoba. Cummings was also made a member of the Order of Manitoba. In 2003, the band played at the so-called "SARSstock" concert in Toronto.
Bachman-Cummings

Cummings plays occasional shows with Randy Bachman as The Bachman-Cummings Band, featuring The Carpet Frogs, a band from Toronto and makes occasional appearances at various Canadian casinos as a solo performer. The Bachman-Cummings Band have released a compilation album titled the Bachman-Cummings Song Book featuring songs from The Guess Who, Bachman-Turner Overdrive and Cummings' solo career. They have also released an album titled The Thunderbird Trax, which is an album that Cummings and Bachman recorded in Bachman's toolshed in British Columbia in 1987. Previously unreleased until 2006, it was made available exclusively at Bachman-Cummings concerts, and is now available on the Bachman-Cummings website.

The Bachman-Cummings First Time Around CBC TV Special was released on DVD in November 2006 on the Sony BMG label. In June 2007, Bachman and Cummings released an album titled Jukebox that covered various songs from the 1960s that influenced them. A follow-up album to Jukebox as well as a television special have also been discussed
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b120/jinxfur/BurtonCummingsCanadaday20081.jpg
http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss113/7jcg7/BurtonCummings.jpg


Donna Summer is great,love her music a lot.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/31/09 at 5:48 am


Val Kilmer is fantastic.

He has had a lot of great roles :)


Donna Summer is great,love her music a lot.  :)

I thought you did :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 12/31/09 at 12:12 pm

I have one word to say about Val Kilmer-YUM!  :D ;D ;D ;D



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 12/31/09 at 12:15 pm


I have one word to say about Val Kilmer-YUM!  :D ;D ;D ;D



Cat

Good word ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/01/10 at 2:40 am


The word of the day...Ventriloquist
A ventriloquist is someone who can speak without moving their lips and who entertains people by making their words appear to be spoken by a puppet
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t14/kitlika/ventriloquist.gif
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m301/OAKLEYRETAIL/Retail%20Assault%202008/RetailAssault2008101.jpg
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn185/gwar2d2/IAmBatman%20customs/Ventriloquist.jpg
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e18/spraggero1/Ventriloquist.jpg
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb201/pavementarian/ramdas.jpg
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w193/Irk-portfolio/vent1.jpg
http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll54/pink_hippo_photos/comedy-ventriloquist-2.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu51/666gravedancer666/dummie8.jpg
http://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu341/WillsonPhotography/_AWW4037.jpg
http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr139/HDSCOLLECTIBLES/IMG_4686.jpg
I once saw a topless ventriloquist act on stage. I never saw hte lips move.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/01/10 at 5:49 am

The word of the day...Sea
The sea is the salty water that covers about three-quarters of the Earth's surface.
http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff330/Lily_Lyrics/sea-side1.jpg
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab360/luizageorgiana/mare.jpg
http://i565.photobucket.com/albums/ss93/denise960/DSC00322.jpg
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h99/WishayKillie/DSCF0110.jpg
http://i857.photobucket.com/albums/ab133/crazyhayzie69/035.jpg
http://i940.photobucket.com/albums/ad248/KLDsPhotography/Objects/Riggsandwhatnot001.jpg
http://i565.photobucket.com/albums/ss93/denise960/DSC00334.jpg
http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/ab78/lov_890/39698927_b12f98786d.gif

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/01/10 at 5:54 am

For 2010 we are going to do a birthday & a person of the day.
I also thought if Phil wanted to pick someone he could,also Frank & Peter could pick people from Canada & Australia that I may not know.
If anyone has any input let me know. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/01/10 at 5:56 am

The birthday of the day...Frank Langella
Frank A. Langella, Jr. (born January 1, 1938) is an American stage and film actor. His Tonys include two for Best Featured Actor in a Play for Edward Albee's Seascape (1975), and Ivan Turgenev's Fortune's Fool (2002), and for Best Leading Actor in a Play for his performance as Richard Nixon in Peter Morgan's Frost/Nixon (2008). Langella was nominated for two other Best Leading Actor in a Play Tonys; first in 1978 for the Edward Gorey-designed revival of Bram Stoker's Dracula and again in 2004 for Stephen Belber's Match.
Langella made his first foray on stage in New York in William Gibson's A Cry of Players, playing a young, highly fictionalized William Shakespeare, opposite Anne Bancroft at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theatre in 1968, and won film fame in two 1970 films: Mel Brooks' The Twelve Chairs and Frank Perry's Diary of a Mad Housewife, being nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer for the latter. Langella won his first Tony Award for his performance in Edward Albee's Seascape and 1975 and was nominated for another for what may have been the performance for which he was best known for in the early part of his career: the title role of the 1977 Broadway production of Dracula. Despite his initial misgivings about continuing to play the role, he was persuaded to star opposite Laurence Olivier in the subsequent film version directed by John Badham.

He eschewed the career of a traditional film star by always making the stage the focal point of his career, appearing on Broadway in such plays as Sherlock's Last Case, Strindberg's The Father (winning a Drama Desk Award), Match (Tony Award nomination), and Fortune's Fool, for which he won a second Tony Award.

But Langella would continue to juggle film and television with his stage work, playing Sherlock Holmes in an HBO adaptation (1981) of William Gillette's famous stage play. He repeated the role on Broadway in 1987 in Charles Marowitz's play Sherlock's Last Case. That same year, Langella would also portray the villain Skeletor in Masters of the Universe. In 1988, Langella co-starred in the movie And God Created Woman. In 1993 he made a memorable three-episode appearance on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as the devious Jaro Essa. He also appeared as Al Baker in "Dominance", a 2003 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and had a recurring role as Pino in the 2005 short-lived sitcom Kitchen Confidential. On film, he played Claire Quilty in Adrian Lyne's adaptation of Lolita and appeared as a villainous pirate in the summer 1995 release Cutthroat Island. His film work also includes roles in George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) as former CBS chief executive William S. Paley and Bryan Singer's Superman Returns (2006) as Daily Planet editor Perry White. Langella received critical acclaim as well as the Boston Society of Film Critics Award in 2007 for his sensitive portrayal of an elderly novelist in Starting Out in the Evening.

He was cast as Richard M. Nixon in Peter Morgan's Frost/Nixon, which received enthusiastic reviews during a run at the Donmar Warehouse and Gielgud Theatre in London before moving to New York's Bernard B. Jacobs Theater in April 2007, culminating in Langella's third Tony Award. He reprised the role of Nixon in the 2008 film Frost/Nixon, directed by Ron Howard. He received Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, and BAFTA nominations for Best Actor for his performance. He was also nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Actor category for the role, losing to Sean Penn's performance in Milk.

In 2000 he played the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in a musical version of A Christmas Carol at Madison Square Garden. He has also appeared in notable off-Broadway productions, including in the title role of Robert Kalfin's Chelsea Theater Center production of The Prince of Homburg, which was filmed by PBS for the Theatre in America series. He recently starred as Sir Thomas More in the 2008 Broadway revival of A Man for All Seasons, which finished its limited run in December.

In late 2009, he starred alongside Cameron Diaz and re-united with Superman Returns co-star James Marsden in the Richard Kelly film The Box.

Langella stars 2010 in the drama-thriller Unknown White Male, which is directed by Jaume-Collet-Serra.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1970 Diary of a Mad Housewife George Prager National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor also for The Twelve Chairs
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer - Male
The Twelve Chairs Ostap Bender National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor also for Diary of a Mad Housewife
1971 The Deadly Trap Philippe
1972 The Wrath of God De La Plata
1974 The Mark of Zorro Don Diego de la Vega / Zorro
1979 Dracula Count Dracula
1981 Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes
Sphinx Akmed Khazzan
1987 Masters of the Universe Skeletor
1988 And God Created Woman James Tiernan
1991 True Identity Leland Carver
1992 1492: Conquest of Paradise Santangel
1993 Body of Evidence Jeffrey Roston
Dave White House Chief of Staff Bob Alexander
1994 Brainscan Detective Hayden
Doomsday Gun Gerald Bull
Junior Noah Banes
1995 Cutthroat Island Dawg Brown
1996 Eddie Wild Bill Burgess
The Greatest Pharaohs Himself
1997 Lolita Clare Quilty
1998 Small Soldiers Archer (voice)
1999 The Ninth Gate Boris Balkan
2001 Sweet November Edgar Price
The Beast Jackson Burns
2004 House of D Reverend Duncan
The Novice Father Tew
2005 Back in the Day Lt. Bill Hudson
Now You See It... Max
Sweet William Professor Driskoll
Good Night, and Good Luck. William S. Paley Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2006 Superman Returns Perry White
10.5 Apocalypse Dr. Earl Hill
2007 Starting Out in the Evening Leonard Schiller Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Male
Nominated — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
2008 The Caller Jimmy Stevens
Frost/Nixon Richard M. Nixon Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — London Film Critics' Circle Award for Actor of the Year
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
The Tale of Despereaux the Mayor (voice only)
2009 The Box Arlington Steward
2010 All Good Things TBA Completed
Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps Lewis Zabel Post-Production
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http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg112/vinniciusp/Fevereiro%202009/04langella.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/01/10 at 6:00 am

The person of the day...Shirley Chisholm
Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm (November 30, 1924 – January 1, 2005) was an American politician, educator, and author. She was a Congresswoman, representing New York's 12th Congressional District for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. In 1968, she became the first black woman elected to Congress. On January 25, 1972, she became the first major-party black candidate for President of the United States and the first woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination (Margaret Chase Smith had previously run for the Republican presidential nomination). She received 152 first-ballot votes at the 1972 Democratic National Convention.
n 1964, Chisholm ran for and was elected to the New York State Legislature. In 1968, she ran as the Democratic candidate for New York's 12th District congressional seat and was elected to the House of Representatives. Defeating Republican candidate James Farmer, Chisholm became the first black woman elected to Congress. Chisholm joined the Congressional Black Caucus in 1969 as one of its founding members.

As a freshman, Chisholm was assigned to the House Agricultural Committee. Given her urban district, she felt the placement was irrelevant to her constituents and shocked many by asking for reassignment. She was then placed on the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Soon after, she voted for Hale Boggs as House Majority Leader over John Conyers. As a reward for her support, Boggs assigned her to the much-prized Education and Labor Committee, which was her preferred committee. She was the third highest-ranking member of this committee when she retired from Congress.

All those Chisholm hired for her office were women, half of them black. Chisholm said that during her New York legislative career, she had faced much more discrimination because she was a woman than because she was black.

In the 1972 U.S. presidential election, she made a bid for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. George McGovern won the nomination in a hotly contested set of primary elections, with Chisholm campaigning in 12 states and winning 28 delegates during the primary process. At the 1972 Democratic National Convention, as a symbolic gesture, McGovern opponent Hubert H. Humphrey released his black delegates to Chisholm, giving her a total of 152 first-ballot votes for the nomination. Chisholm's base of support was ethnically diverse and included the National Organization for Women. Chisholm said she ran for the office "in spite of hopeless odds... to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo." Among the volunteers who were inspired by her campaign was Barbara Lee, who continued to be politically active and was elected as a congresswoman 25 years later. Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem attempted to run as Chisholm delegates in New York.

Chisholm created controversy when she visited rival and ideological opposite George Wallace in the hospital soon after his shooting in May 1972, during the 1972 presidential primary campaign. Several years later, when Chisholm worked on a bill to give domestic workers the right to a minimum wage, Wallace helped gain votes of enough Southern congressmen to push the legislation through the House.

From 1977 to 1981, during the 95th Congress and 96th Congress, Chisholm was elected to a position in the House Democratic leadership, as Secretary of the House Democratic Caucus.

Throughout her tenure in Congress, Chisholm worked to improve opportunities for inner-city residents. She was a vocal opponent of the draft and supported spending increases for education, health care and other social services, and reductions in military spending.
Shirley Chisholm (center) with Congressman Edolphus Towns (left) and his wife, Gwen Towns (right)

She announced her retirement from Congress in 1982. Her seat was won by a fellow Democrat, Major Owens, in 1983. After leaving Congress, Chisholm was named to the Purington Chair at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. She taught there for four years. She also lectured frequently as a public speaker.
In 1975, Chisholm was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree by Smith College.

In 1993, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Shirley Chisholm on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i226/PopTart_2006/Hail%20Eris/dubyapaloozer/chisholm.jpg
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http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f281/thegirlthatplayshardball39/ShirleyChisholm1.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/01/10 at 6:13 am


The word of the day...Sea
The sea is the salty water that covers about three-quarters of the Earth's surface.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd_nopTFuZA

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/01/10 at 6:14 am


For 2010 we are going to do a birthday & a person of the day.
I also thought if Phil wanted to pick someone he could,also Frank & Peter could pick people from Canada & Australia that I may not know.
If anyone has any input let me know. :)
Good Idea, but I may not be able to contribute everyday.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/01/10 at 8:35 am


Good Idea, but I may not be able to contribute everyday.

What ever you can do would be appreciated :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/01/10 at 8:39 am


What ever you can do would be appreciated :)
here goes!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/01/10 at 8:46 am

British person of the day...Paul Lawrie

Paul Stewart Lawrie MBE (born 1 January 1969) is a Scottish professional golfer who is best known for winning The Open Championship in 1999.

CAREER
Lawrie was born in Aberdeen. He turned professional in 1986 and became a member of the European Tour in 1992. He performed steadily without doing much to draw attention to himself, aside from a 6th place finish in the 1993 Open Championship. In his first seven seasons his only top 50 finish on the Order of Merit came in 1996 when he was 21st. However he also finished in the top 100 in all but one of the other six seasons, and picked up a debut tour win at the 1996 Catalan Open.

Lawrie's career was transformed in 1999. After winning the Qatar Masters, which is a European Tour event, early in the season, he went on to win the 1999 Open Championship at Carnoustie in July. This was the Open where the Frenchman Jean Van de Velde famously threw away a three-shot lead on the final hole. Lawrie won a four-hole playoff against Van de Velde and the American Justin Leonard. An unusual aspect of Lawrie's victory was that he was neither leader or co-leader at any time during his regulation 72 holes, only moving into a share of the lead when the leaders came back to him after he had completed his final round. Also, Lawrie came back from the largest third-round deficit ever faced by a major championship winner; going into the final day, he trailed the leader, Van de Velde, by 10 shots. This is also the record for the biggest final-round comeback on the PGA Tour.

After his major championship victory, Lawrie's game shifted to a higher level without quite moving him into the global elite group of golfers. He finished 9th on the European Tour Order of Merit in 1999, 6th in 2001, when he captured the lucrative Dunhill Links Championship, and 10th in 2002, when he won his fifth European Tour title at the Wales Open.

After winning the Open, Lawrie was a member of the PGA Tour for several seasons, while also continuing to compete on the European Tour. He enjoyed little success in the U.S. and when his five year major championship exemption expired at the end of the 2004 season, he lost his PGA Tour card.

European Tour wins (5)
 
1999 Qatar Masters, The Open Championship
2001 Dunhill Links Championship
2002 Celtic Manor Resort Wales Open

Other professional wins
1990 Scottish Assistants Championship
1992 UAP Under 25s Championship, Scottish Brewers Championship
2002 Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Match Play Championship

Lawrie was the last European player to win a major until 2007, when that drought was ended by Pádraig Harrington of Ireland in The Open Championship.

Paul Lawrie achieved an albatross in the final round of the 2009 Open Championship.

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm66/Phil_O-Sopher/Paul_Lawrie_Claret_Jug.jpg

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm66/Phil_O-Sopher/paul-lawrie-burn.jpg



Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/01/10 at 9:04 am


The word of the day...Sea
The sea is the salty water that covers about three-quarters of the Earth's surface.
http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff330/Lily_Lyrics/sea-side1.jpg
http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab360/luizageorgiana/mare.jpg
http://i565.photobucket.com/albums/ss93/denise960/DSC00322.jpg
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h99/WishayKillie/DSCF0110.jpg
http://i857.photobucket.com/albums/ab133/crazyhayzie69/035.jpg
http://i940.photobucket.com/albums/ad248/KLDsPhotography/Objects/Riggsandwhatnot001.jpg
http://i565.photobucket.com/albums/ss93/denise960/DSC00334.jpg
http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/ab78/lov_890/39698927_b12f98786d.gif


There's also Sea of Love.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/01/10 at 12:14 pm


British person of the day...Paul Lawrie

Paul Stewart Lawrie MBE (born 1 January 1969) is a Scottish professional golfer who is best known for winning The Open Championship in 1999.

CAREER
Lawrie was born in Aberdeen. He turned professional in 1986 and became a member of the European Tour in 1992. He performed steadily without doing much to draw attention to himself, aside from a 6th place finish in the 1993 Open Championship. In his first seven seasons his only top 50 finish on the Order of Merit came in 1996 when he was 21st. However he also finished in the top 100 in all but one of the other six seasons, and picked up a debut tour win at the 1996 Catalan Open.

Lawrie's career was transformed in 1999. After winning the Qatar Masters, which is a European Tour event, early in the season, he went on to win the 1999 Open Championship at Carnoustie in July. This was the Open where the Frenchman Jean Van de Velde famously threw away a three-shot lead on the final hole. Lawrie won a four-hole playoff against Van de Velde and the American Justin Leonard. An unusual aspect of Lawrie's victory was that he was neither leader or co-leader at any time during his regulation 72 holes, only moving into a share of the lead when the leaders came back to him after he had completed his final round. Also, Lawrie came back from the largest third-round deficit ever faced by a major championship winner; going into the final day, he trailed the leader, Van de Velde, by 10 shots. This is also the record for the biggest final-round comeback on the PGA Tour.

After his major championship victory, Lawrie's game shifted to a higher level without quite moving him into the global elite group of golfers. He finished 9th on the European Tour Order of Merit in 1999, 6th in 2001, when he captured the lucrative Dunhill Links Championship, and 10th in 2002, when he won his fifth European Tour title at the Wales Open.

After winning the Open, Lawrie was a member of the PGA Tour for several seasons, while also continuing to compete on the European Tour. He enjoyed little success in the U.S. and when his five year major championship exemption expired at the end of the 2004 season, he lost his PGA Tour card.

European Tour wins (5)
 
1999 Qatar Masters, The Open Championship
2001 Dunhill Links Championship
2002 Celtic Manor Resort Wales Open

Other professional wins
1990 Scottish Assistants Championship
1992 UAP Under 25s Championship, Scottish Brewers Championship
2002 Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Match Play Championship

Lawrie was the last European player to win a major until 2007, when that drought was ended by Pádraig Harrington of Ireland in The Open Championship.

Paul Lawrie achieved an albatross in the final round of the 2009 Open Championship.

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm66/Phil_O-Sopher/Paul_Lawrie_Claret_Jug.jpg

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm66/Phil_O-Sopher/paul-lawrie-burn.jpg





Very nice,Thanks Phil :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/01/10 at 12:26 pm


For 2010 we are going to do a birthday & a person of the day.
I also thought if Phil wanted to pick someone he could,also Frank & Peter could pick people from Canada & Australia that I may not know.
If anyone has any input let me know. :)

Frank  may post one from time to time. Hopefully they won;t all be hockey players! ;)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 01/01/10 at 12:33 pm

Nice photos of the sea, Ninny. Thanks for posting and Happy New Year!  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/01/10 at 1:45 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9-026ZCKR8




Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/01/10 at 1:48 pm


Frank  may post one from time to time. Hopefully they won;t all be hockey players! ;)
I could learn my Hockey players now ?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/01/10 at 3:20 pm


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9-026ZCKR8




Cat


This must've been from the 80's.^

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/01/10 at 4:44 pm


Nice photos of the sea, Ninny. Thanks for posting and Happy New Year!  :)

Happy New Year..I'm glad you enjoy the posts :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/01/10 at 4:45 pm


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9-026ZCKR8




Cat

Thanks Cat, I love this song :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/01/10 at 4:47 pm


This must've been from the 80's.^

1984

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/02/10 at 5:45 am

The word of the day...Radio
Radio is the broadcasting of programmes for the public to listen to, by sending out signals from a transmitter.
http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss121/yamir240/7.jpg
http://i562.photobucket.com/albums/ss63/Escursionista/b7aeddf2380aeb91ee5f9d258fa9ca7d.jpg
http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk100/danielbwr/requestba2.jpg
http://i492.photobucket.com/albums/rr289/eliza6_18/SS850744.jpg
http://i524.photobucket.com/albums/cc326/morenoee/IMG_0125.jpg
http://i630.photobucket.com/albums/uu23/gopherburger/CHIP.jpg
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e287/zerepdivad/FordSatRadio.jpg
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg219/Memphis1935/IMG_0001-34.jpg
http://i402.photobucket.com/albums/pp108/foxhunter351/Henry%20Radio%203K/HenryRadio3KRFDeckRestoration001-1.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/02/10 at 5:49 am

The birthday of the day...Cuba Gooding Jr.
Cuba M. Gooding, Jr. (born January 2, 1968) is an American actor. He is best known for his Academy Award-winning portrayal as Rod Tidwell in Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire (1996) and his critically acclaimed performance as Tré Styles in John Singleton's Boyz n the Hood (1991). His first job as a professional entertainer was as a breakdancer performing with singer Lionel Richie at the closing ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. After high school, Gooding studied Japanese martial arts for three years, before turning his focus toward acting. Early on, he landed guest starring roles on shows like Hill Street Blues (1981) and MacGyver (1985). His first major role was in the John Singleton's box office surprise and critical hit Boyz n the Hood (1991). He followed this success with roles in major films like A Few Good Men (film), Men of Honor (2000), Lightning Jack (1994), and Outbreak (1995).

In 1996, he was cast as an arrogant football player on the brink of a career-ending injury in Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire (1996). The film became a huge box office smash and earned him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. His "Show Me The Money" line in the film became a nationwide catchphrase. In 1997 he had a notable supporting role in As Good As It Gets (1997). The next several years, his films were inconsistently successful. He has also appeared in a series of films which were not as critically or commercially successful, such as Boat Trip (2002), Norbit (2006), and Daddy Day Camp (2007), all of which had either received extremely negative reviews or performed poorly at the box office. Gooding received brief acclaim for his cameo as Nickie Barnes in American Gangster. In 2002, he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2007, he appeared in a television commercial for Hanes underwear, alongside Michael Jordan.
Filmography
Year Film Role Other notes
1988 Coming to America Barber Shop Customer
1989 Judgement Night Officer Alvarez
Sing Stanley
1991 Boyz n the Hood Tré Styles
1992 Gladiator Abraham Lincoln Haines
A Few Good Men Cpl. Carl Hammaker
1993 Daybreak Torch (Stephen Tolkin)
Judgment Night Mike Peterson
1994 Lightning Jack Ben Doyle
1995 Outbreak Maj. Salt
The Tuskegee Airmen Billy Roberts
Losing Isaiah Eddie Hughes
1996 Jerry Maguire Rod Tidwell Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award
1997 As Good as It Gets Frank Sachs
Do Me a Favor Liquor Store Clerk
1998 What Dreams May Come Albert Lewis
A Murder of Crows Lawson Russel Produced by Derek Broes
1999 Instinct Theo Caulder
Chill Factor Arlo
2000 Men of Honor BM2/Chief/Senior Chief Carl Brashear
2001 Pearl Harbor Petty Officer Doris Miller
Rat Race Owen Templeton
Zoolander Himself
In the Shadows Draven
2002 Snow Dogs Theodore "Ted" Brooks
2003 Boat Trip Jerry Robinson
The Fighting Temptations Darrin Hill
Radio James Robert "Radio" Kennedy
2004 Home on the Range Buck voice-over
2005 Dirty Salim Adel
Shadowboxer Mikey
2006 End Game Alex Thomas
Lightfield's Home Videos
2007 Norbit Deion Hughes
What Love Is Tom
Daddy Day Camp Charlie Hinton
American Gangster Leroy Barnes
The Land Before Time XIII: The Wisdom of Friends Loofah voice-over
2008 Hero Wanted Liam Case
Harold Cromer
Linewatch Michael Dixon
The Way of War David Wolfe
2009 Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story Ben Carson TV film
Lies & Illusions Isaac
The Devil's Tomb Mack
Wrong Turn at Tahoe Joshua
Hardwired Luke Gibson
2010 Red Tails TBA
Ticking Clock Lewis Hicks
Hit List Jonas Archer
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t132/howard1024/cuba.jpg
http://i607.photobucket.com/albums/tt152/deads1972/cubagoodingjr.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t202/mathuisland/CubaGoodingJr3.jpg
http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k82/FButts07/Cuba.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/02/10 at 5:51 am


The birthday of the day...Cuba Gooding Jr.
Cuba M. Gooding, Jr. (born January 2, 1968) is an American actor. He is best known for his Academy Award-winning portrayal as Rod Tidwell in Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire (1996) and his critically acclaimed performance as Tré Styles in John Singleton's Boyz n the Hood (1991). His first job as a professional entertainer was as a breakdancer performing with singer Lionel Richie at the closing ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. After high school, Gooding studied Japanese martial arts for three years, before turning his focus toward acting. Early on, he landed guest starring roles on shows like Hill Street Blues (1981) and MacGyver (1985). His first major role was in the John Singleton's box office surprise and critical hit Boyz n the Hood (1991). He followed this success with roles in major films like A Few Good Men (film), Men of Honor (2000), Lightning Jack (1994), and Outbreak (1995).

In 1996, he was cast as an arrogant football player on the brink of a career-ending injury in Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire (1996). The film became a huge box office smash and earned him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. His "Show Me The Money" line in the film became a nationwide catchphrase. In 1997 he had a notable supporting role in As Good As It Gets (1997). The next several years, his films were inconsistently successful. He has also appeared in a series of films which were not as critically or commercially successful, such as Boat Trip (2002), Norbit (2006), and Daddy Day Camp (2007), all of which had either received extremely negative reviews or performed poorly at the box office. Gooding received brief acclaim for his cameo as Nickie Barnes in American Gangster. In 2002, he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2007, he appeared in a television commercial for Hanes underwear, alongside Michael Jordan.
Filmography
Year Film Role Other notes
1988 Coming to America Barber Shop Customer
1989 Judgement Night Officer Alvarez
Sing Stanley
1991 Boyz n the Hood Tré Styles
1992 Gladiator Abraham Lincoln Haines
A Few Good Men Cpl. Carl Hammaker
1993 Daybreak Torch (Stephen Tolkin)
Judgment Night Mike Peterson
1994 Lightning Jack Ben Doyle
1995 Outbreak Maj. Salt
The Tuskegee Airmen Billy Roberts
Losing Isaiah Eddie Hughes
1996 Jerry Maguire Rod Tidwell Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award
1997 As Good as It Gets Frank Sachs
Do Me a Favor Liquor Store Clerk
1998 What Dreams May Come Albert Lewis
A Murder of Crows Lawson Russel Produced by Derek Broes
1999 Instinct Theo Caulder
Chill Factor Arlo
2000 Men of Honor BM2/Chief/Senior Chief Carl Brashear
2001 Pearl Harbor Petty Officer Doris Miller
Rat Race Owen Templeton
Zoolander Himself
In the Shadows Draven
2002 Snow Dogs Theodore "Ted" Brooks
2003 Boat Trip Jerry Robinson
The Fighting Temptations Darrin Hill
Radio James Robert "Radio" Kennedy
2004 Home on the Range Buck voice-over
2005 Dirty Salim Adel
Shadowboxer Mikey
2006 End Game Alex Thomas
Lightfield's Home Videos
2007 Norbit Deion Hughes
What Love Is Tom
Daddy Day Camp Charlie Hinton
American Gangster Leroy Barnes
The Land Before Time XIII: The Wisdom of Friends Loofah voice-over
2008 Hero Wanted Liam Case
Harold Cromer
Linewatch Michael Dixon
The Way of War David Wolfe
2009 Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story Ben Carson TV film
Lies & Illusions Isaac
The Devil's Tomb Mack
Wrong Turn at Tahoe Joshua
Hardwired Luke Gibson
2010 Red Tails TBA
Ticking Clock Lewis Hicks
Hit List Jonas Archer
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t132/howard1024/cuba.jpg
http://i607.photobucket.com/albums/tt152/deads1972/cubagoodingjr.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t202/mathuisland/CubaGoodingJr3.jpg
http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k82/FButts07/Cuba.jpg



and his father Cuba Gooding is part of a group.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/02/10 at 5:54 am

The person of the day...Una Merkel
Una Merkel (December 10, 1903 – January 2, 1986) was an American film actress.

Merkel resembled the popular actress Lillian Gish, and her resemblance allowed her to begin her career as a stand-in for Gish in 1920's Way Down East (she also did stand-in work for Gish in 1928's The Wind). She appeared in a few films during the silent era, including the two-reel Love's Old Sweet Song (1923) filmed by Lee DeForest in his Phonofilm sound-on-film process. However, she spent most of her time in New York City working on Broadway. Merkel returned to Hollywood and achieved her greatest success with the advent of "talkies".

She played Ann Rutledge in the film Abraham Lincoln (1930) directed by D. W. Griffith. During the 1930s, Merkel became a popular second lead in a number of films, usually playing the wisecracking best friend of the heroine, supporting actresses such as Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, Loretta Young, and Dorothy Lamour. With her kewpie doll looks, combined with a strong Southern accent and wry line delivery, she enlivened scores of films of the era and worked with most of the stars of the period.

Merkel was an MGM contract player from 1932 to 1938, appearing in as many as twelve films in a year, often on loan-out to other studios. She was also often cast as leading lady to a number of comedians in their starring pictures, including Jack Benny, Harold Lloyd, and Charles Butterworth.

One of her most famous roles was in the Western Destry Rides Again (1939) in which her character, Lillibelle, gets into a famous "cat-fight" with Frenchie (Marlene Dietrich) over the possession of her husband's trousers, won by Frenchie in a crooked card game. She played the elder daughter to the W. C. Fields character, Egbert Sousé in the 1940 film The Bank Dick.

In the classic musical 42nd Street (1933), Merkel played a streetwise showgirl who was Ginger Rogers's best friend. In the famous "Shuffle Off To Buffalo" number, Merkel and Rogers both sing the immortal lyric, "Matrimony is baloney. She'll be wanting alimony in a year or so. / Still they go and shuffle, shuffle off to Buffalo."

She appeared in both the 1934 and the 1952 film versions of The Merry Widow, playing different roles in each.

Merkel's film career went into decline during the 1940s and although she continued working, it was in much smaller productions. In 1950 she was leading lady to William Bendix in a baseball comedy Kill the Umpire which was a surprise hit. She made a comeback as a middle-aged woman playing mothers and maiden aunts, and in 1956 won a Tony Award for her role on Broadway in The Ponder Heart. She had a major part in the MGM 1959 film, The Mating Game as Paul Douglas's wife and Debbie Reynolds's mother, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Summer and Smoke (1961).

Merkel, whose final film role was in the Elvis Presley film Spinout (1966), has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to Motion Pictures, at 6230 Hollywood Boulevard. She died in Los Angeles, California, aged 82, of undisclosed causes.
Filmography
Features

    * Way Down East (1920)
    * The Fifth Horseman (1924)
    * Abraham Lincoln (1930)
    * The Eyes of the World (1930)
    * The Bat Whispers (1930)
    * Command Performance (1930)
    * Don't Bet on Women (1931)
    * Six Cylinder Love (1931)
    * Daddy Long Legs (1931)
    * The Maltese Falcon (1931)
    * The Bargain (1931)
    * Wicked (1931)
    * The Secret Witness (1931)
    * Private Lives (1931)
    * She Wanted a Millionaire (1932)
    * Impatient Maiden (1932)
    * Man Wanted (1932)
    * Huddle (1932)
    * Red-Headed Woman (1932)
    * They Call It Sin (1932)
    * Men Are Such Fools (1932)
    * Whistling in the Dark (1933)
    * 42nd Street (1933)
    * The Secret of Madame Blanche (1933)
    * Clear All Wires! (1933)
    * Reunion in Vienna (1933)
    * Midnight Mary (1933)
    * Her First Mate (1933)
    * Broadway to Hollywood (1933)
    * Beauty for Sale (1933)
    * Bombshell (1933)
    * Day of Reckoning (1933)
    * The Women in His Life (1933)
    * This Side of Heaven (1934)
    * Murder in the Private Car (1934)
    * Paris Interlude (1934)
    * The Cat's-Paw (1934)
    * Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back (1934)
    * Have a Heart (1934)
    * The Merry Widow (1934)
    * Evelyn Prentice (1934)
    * Biography of a Bachelor Girl (1935)
    * The Night Is Young (1935)
    * One New York Night (1935)
    * Baby Face Harrington (1935)
    * Murder in the Fleet (1935)
    * Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935)
    * It's in the Air (1935)
    * Riffraff (1936)
    * Speed (1936)
    * We Went to College (1936)
    * Born to Dance (1936)
    * Don't Tell the Wife (1937)
    * The Good Old Soak (1937)
    * Saratoga (1937)
    * Checkers (1937)
    * True Confession (1937)
    * Four Girls in White (1939)
    * Some Like It Hot (1939)
    * On Borrowed Time (1939)
    * Destry Rides Again (1939)
    * Comin' Round the Mountain (1940)
    * Sandy Gets Her Man (1940)
    * The Bank Dick (1940)
    * Double Date (1941)
    * Road to Zanzibar (1941)
    * Cracked Nuts (1941)
    * The Mad Doctor of Market Street (1942)
    * Twin Beds (1942)
    * This Is the Army (1943)
    * Sweethearts of the U.S.A. (1944)
    * It's a Joke, Son! (1947)
    * The Bride Goes Wild (1948)
    * Man from Texas (1948)
    * Kill the Umpire (1950)
    * My Blue Heaven (1950)
    * Emergency Wedding (1950)
    * Rich, Young and Pretty (1951)
    * A Millionaire for Christy (1951)
    * Golden Girl (1951)
    * With a Song in My Heart (1952)
    * The Merry Widow (1952)
    * I Love Melvin (1953)
    * The Kentuckian (1955)
    * The Kettles in the Ozarks (1956)
    * Bundle of Joy (1956)
    * The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957)
    * The Girl Most Likely (1957)
    * The Mating Game (1959)
    * The Parent Trap (1961)
    * Summer and Smoke (1961)
    * Summer Magic (1963)
    * A Tiger Walks (1964)
    * Spinout (1966)

Short subjects

    * Love's Old Sweet Song (1923)
    * Menu (1933)
    * Hollywood Goes to Town (1938)
    * Quack Service (1943)
    * To Heir Is Human (1944)
http://i661.photobucket.com/albums/uu333/roberttaylorfan/photos/public/studios-ground-4-unamerkel.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v11/thelastflower/Colorized%20Pictures/unamerkelcolorized.jpg
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f257/tallulahbankhead/movie%20stars/unamerkel.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/02/10 at 7:44 am


The word of the day...Radio
Radio is the broadcasting of programmes for the public to listen to, by sending out signals from a transmitter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwuy4hHO3YQ

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/02/10 at 10:53 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwuy4hHO3YQ

Classic :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/02/10 at 11:54 am



http://i562.photobucket.com/albums/ss63/Escursionista/b7aeddf2380aeb91ee5f9d258fa9ca7d.jpg





I think I had one like this-or really close to it.




http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t132/howard1024/cuba.jpg
http://i607.photobucket.com/albums/tt152/deads1972/cubagoodingjr.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t202/mathuisland/CubaGoodingJr3.jpg
http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k82/FButts07/Cuba.jpg



Another YUM!



The person of the day...Una Merkel
Una Merkel (December 10, 1903 – January 2, 1986) was an American film actress.

Merkel resembled the popular actress Lillian Gish, and her resemblance allowed her to begin her career as a stand-in for Gish in 1920's Way Down East (she also did stand-in work for Gish in 1928's The Wind).



Way Down East was filmed in Vermont. There is a scene where Lillian Gish had to put her hand in the icy water. Because of that, she had trouble with that hand until her dying day.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/02/10 at 12:24 pm


Classic :)
Do you know who it is playing the keyboards for this song?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/02/10 at 12:25 pm


The word of the day...Radio
Radio is the broadcasting of programmes for the public to listen to, by sending out signals from a transmitter.
http://i562.photobucket.com/albums/ss63/Escursionista/b7aeddf2380aeb91ee5f9d258fa9ca7d.jpg
http://www.art-deco-shop.com/gallery/images/0009_large.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/02/10 at 12:27 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEI4U5KyAS0

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/02/10 at 3:24 pm

I remember transistor radios.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/02/10 at 3:25 pm


I remember transistor radios.
My transistor radio has been long gone.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/02/10 at 3:32 pm


My transistor radio has been long gone.


now time for Ipods.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/02/10 at 3:38 pm


now time for Ipods.
I do not poccess one.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/02/10 at 3:39 pm


I do not poccess one.


me neither.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/02/10 at 4:17 pm


My transistor radio has been long gone.

Mine too.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/02/10 at 4:17 pm


me neither.

Nor do I.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/02/10 at 4:19 pm

I am stuck for a British person of the day, I will try again tomorrow.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/02/10 at 5:07 pm


me neither.

me neither.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/02/10 at 5:08 pm


me neither.
Is it a generation thing?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/02/10 at 5:13 pm


Is it a generation thing?

Not necessarily.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 01/02/10 at 5:18 pm

I still have my transistor radio. It's in the garage. I don't think I will ever part with it.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 01/02/10 at 11:44 pm

Australian's born on 2 January..

Germaine Greer  (I personally believe this woman to be as mad as a hatter and I have never liked her).

Germaine Greer (born 29 January 1939) is an Australian-born writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century.

Greer's ideas have created controversy ever since her book The Female Eunuch became an international best-seller in 1970, turning her into a household name and bringing her both adulation and opposition. She is also the author of many other books including, Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility (1984); The Change: Women, Ageing and the Menopause (1991) and Shakespeare's Wife (2007). She currently serves as Professor Emeritus of English Literature and Comparative Studies at the University of Warwick.

Germaine Greer has defined her goal as 'women's liberation' as distinct from 'equality with men'.

Later career

In 1989, Greer was appointed as a special lecturer and fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge, but resigned after attracting negative publicity in 1996 for her actions regarding Dr. Rachael Padman, a transsexual colleague. Greer unsuccessfully opposed Padman's election to a fellowship, on the grounds that Padman had been born male, and Newnham was a women's college. A 25 June 1997 article by Clare Longrigg in The Guardian about the incident, entitled "A Sister with No Fellow Feeling", disappeared from websites on the instruction of the newspaper's lawyers.

Over the years Greer has continued to self-identify as an anarchist or a Marxist. In her books she has dealt very little with political labels of this type, but has reaffirmed her position in interviews. For example, she stated on ABC Television in 2008 that "I ought to confess I suppose that I'm a Marxist. I think that reality comes first and ideology comes second," and elaborated later in the program to a question on whether feminism was the only successful revolution of the 20th century saying:

    "The difficulty for me is that I believe in permanent revolution. I believe that once you change the power structure and you get an oligarchy that is trying to keep itself in power, you have all the illiberal features of the previous regime. What has to keep on happening is a constant process of criticism, renewal, protest and so forth."

Speaking on an interview for 3CR (an Australian community radio), also in 2008, she described herself as "an old anarchist" and reaffirmed that opposition to "hierarchy and capitalism" were at the centre of her politics.

Greer is now retired but retains her position as Professor Emeritus in the Department of English Literature and Comparative Studies at the University of Warwick, Coventry.

http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/qq338/keziagriffin/greer2.jpghttp://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k84/chootles/germaine.jpghttp://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s1/Seanchai-peg/Album%20II/germaine_greer.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 01/02/10 at 11:47 pm

My Australian of the day is:

Stephanie Gilmore.

Stephanie Gilmore is a professional surfer on the Foster's ASP Women's World Tour. She was born in Murwillumbah, New South Wales, Australia on January 29, 1988 and currently resides in Tweed Heads, New South Wales, Australia.

Gilmore's life as a surfer began at age 10 when she stood on a bodyboard. By age 17 she was entering world tour events as a wildcard competitor, which paid off with a victory at the 2005 Roxy Pro Gold Coast. In her next season she won another wildcard event, the 2006 Havaianas Beachley Classic. Gilmore's success on the WQS (World Qualifying Series) tour qualified her for the 2007 Foster's ASP Women's World Tour and she did not disappoint. She won 4 events and claimed the 2007 World Title.

Steph is the daughter of Jeff and Tracy Gilmore, and has two older sisters named Whitney and Bonnie.

Although the 2007 season was Gilmore's rookie year, she captured the Foster's ASP Women's World Title. The title race came down to the final event of the season, the Billabong Pro Maui. She won three events in 2007 to enter the Billabong Pro Maui, and ranked first place in the final event. Gilmore needed a better result than former world champion Sofia Mulanovich and sophomore Silvana Lima, and won the title when both rivals bowed out before her. Gilmore quickly celebrated her title win and then went on to also win the event.
Career Victories

    * 2009
          o Roxy Pro Gold Coast - Australia
          o World Championship Title

    * 2008
          o Billabong Pro - Hawaii
          o Rip Curl Pro Mademoiselle - France
          o Movistar Classic Mancora - Peru
          o Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach - Australia
          o Roxy Pro Sunset Beach - Oahu, Hawaii
          o World Championship Title

    * 2007
          o Billabong Pro - Hawaii
          o Mancora Peru Classic - Peru
          o NAB Beachley Classic - Australia
          o Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach - Australia
          o World Championship Title

    * 2006
          o Havaianas Beachley Classic - Australia (wildcard competitor)

    * 2005
          o Roxy Pro Gold Coast - Australia (wildcard competitor)
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f184/charihoballer23/Stephanie-Gilmore-001Gal.jpghttp://i425.photobucket.com/albums/pp334/rachybum1995/stephanie-gilmore.jpghttp://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z21/coreybeth8/stephanie_gilmore_wideweb__430x321.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 01/02/10 at 11:49 pm

It feels a bit strange posting about the 2 January when it is 3 January here.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/02/10 at 11:55 pm


It feels a bit strange posting about the 2 January when it is 3 January here.

I think you can post for Jan 3. I will shortly.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 01/02/10 at 11:59 pm


I think you can post for Jan 3. I will shortly.


It's nearly 4.00 pm here.... ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/03/10 at 12:03 am

The person of the day...Bobby Hull

Robert Marvin "Golden Jet" Hull, OC (born January 3, 1939) is a retired Canadian ice hockey player. He is regarded as one of the greatest ice hockey players of all time and perhaps the greatest left winger to ever play the game. Hull was famous for his blonde hair, blinding skating speed, and having the fastest shot, earning him the nickname "the Golden Jet". He possessed the most feared slapshot of his day. In his 23 years in the National Hockey League and World Hockey Association, he played for the Chicago Black Hawks, Winnipeg Jets and Hartford Whalers.

On March 12, 1966, he became the first NHLer to score more than 50 goals in a season, surpassing Maurice Richard and Bernie Geoffrion's hallowed mark of 50 goals.

His slapshot was once clocked at 118.3 mph (190.4 km/h)  (hardest ever clocked) and he could skate 29.7 mph (47.8 km/h
Hull was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983. Bobby is one of the most famous hockey platers ever. His son Brett was also a hockey superstar.

Awards and achievements

Art Ross Trophy winner (1960, 1962, and 1966)
NHL First All-Star Team Left Wing (1960, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, and 1972)
Stanley Cup championship (1961)
NHL Second All-Star Team Left Wing (1963 and 1971)
Hart Memorial Trophy winner (1965 and 1966)
Lady Byng Memorial Trophy winner (1965)
Lester Patrick Trophy winner (1969)


http://www.artknowledgenews.com/files2008/BobbyHull.jpg
http://i.cdn.turner.com/sivault/multimedia/photo_gallery/0903/this.day.sports.history.march12/images/bobby-hull.jpg
http://i.cdn.turner.com/sivault/si_online/covers/images/1968/0212_large.jpg
http://www.hockeyforum.com/photopost/data/2/1961_BOBBY_HULL_WITH_STANLEY_CUP.bmp

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/03/10 at 1:34 am

British Person of the day.....George Martin

Sir George Henry Martin CBE (3 January 1926) is a British record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"—a title that he owes to his work as producer of all but one of The Beatles' original records, as well as playing piano on some of The Beatles tracks—and is considered one of the greatest record producers of all time.

In 1965 he established the Associated Independent Recording (AIR) Studios. Although officially retired, he is still the chairman of the AIR board.

In recognition of his services to the music industry and popular culture, he was made a Knight Bachelor in 1996. He is the father of producer Giles Martin, and actor Gregory Paul Martin.

Awards and recognition
Academy Award 1964 - Nomination Scoring of Music (for A Hard Day's Night (film))
Grammy Award 1967 - Best Contemporary Album (as producer of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)
Grammy Award 1967 - Album Of The Year (as producer of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)
Grammy Award 1973 - Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) (as arranger of 'Live and Let Die')
BRIT Awards 1977 - Best British Producer (of the past 25 years)
BRIT Awards 1984 - Outstanding Contribution To Music
Grammy Award 1993 - Best Musical Show Album (as producer of 'The Who's Tommy')
Grammy Award 2007 - Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media, producer together with Giles Martin, of The Beatles album Love
Grammy Award 2007 - Best Surround Sound Album, producer together with Giles Martin, of The Beatles album Lovehttp://johnniecraig.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/sir_george_martin.jpg

http://www.gibson.com/Files/aaFeaturesImages/george%20martin%20and%20the%20beatles.jpg

http://www.morethings.com/music/beatles/images/george_martin/george-martin_paul-mccartney_richard-starkey.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/03/10 at 3:30 am


My Australian of the day is:

Stephanie Gilmore.

Stephanie Gilmore is a professional surfer on the Foster's ASP Women's World Tour. She was born in Murwillumbah, New South Wales, Australia on January 29, 1988 and currently resides in Tweed Heads, New South Wales, Australia.

Gilmore's life as a surfer began at age 10 when she stood on a bodyboard. By age 17 she was entering world tour events as a wildcard competitor, which paid off with a victory at the 2005 Roxy Pro Gold Coast. In her next season she won another wildcard event, the 2006 Havaianas Beachley Classic. Gilmore's success on the WQS (World Qualifying Series) tour qualified her for the 2007 Foster's ASP Women's World Tour and she did not disappoint. She won 4 events and claimed the 2007 World Title.

Steph is the daughter of Jeff and Tracy Gilmore, and has two older sisters named Whitney and Bonnie.

Although the 2007 season was Gilmore's rookie year, she captured the Foster's ASP Women's World Title. The title race came down to the final event of the season, the Billabong Pro Maui. She won three events in 2007 to enter the Billabong Pro Maui, and ranked first place in the final event. Gilmore needed a better result than former world champion Sofia Mulanovich and sophomore Silvana Lima, and won the title when both rivals bowed out before her. Gilmore quickly celebrated her title win and then went on to also win the event.
Career Victories

    * 2009
          o Roxy Pro Gold Coast - Australia
          o World Championship Title

    * 2008
          o Billabong Pro - Hawaii
          o Rip Curl Pro Mademoiselle - France
          o Movistar Classic Mancora - Peru
          o Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach - Australia
          o Roxy Pro Sunset Beach - Oahu, Hawaii
          o World Championship Title

    * 2007
          o Billabong Pro - Hawaii
          o Mancora Peru Classic - Peru
          o NAB Beachley Classic - Australia
          o Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach - Australia
          o World Championship Title

    * 2006
          o Havaianas Beachley Classic - Australia (wildcard competitor)

    * 2005
          o Roxy Pro Gold Coast - Australia (wildcard competitor)
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f184/charihoballer23/Stephanie-Gilmore-001Gal.jpghttp://i425.photobucket.com/albums/pp334/rachybum1995/stephanie-gilmore.jpghttp://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z21/coreybeth8/stephanie_gilmore_wideweb__430x321.jpg

That was real interesting. Surfing is something I would never attempt to do.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/03/10 at 3:31 am


The person of the day...Bobby Hull

Robert Marvin "Golden Jet" Hull, OC (born January 3, 1939) is a retired Canadian ice hockey player. He is regarded as one of the greatest ice hockey players of all time and perhaps the greatest left winger to ever play the game. Hull was famous for his blonde hair, blinding skating speed, and having the fastest shot, earning him the nickname "the Golden Jet". He possessed the most feared slapshot of his day. In his 23 years in the National Hockey League and World Hockey Association, he played for the Chicago Black Hawks, Winnipeg Jets and Hartford Whalers.

On March 12, 1966, he became the first NHLer to score more than 50 goals in a season, surpassing Maurice Richard and Bernie Geoffrion's hallowed mark of 50 goals.

His slapshot was once clocked at 118.3 mph (190.4 km/h)  (hardest ever clocked) and he could skate 29.7 mph (47.8 km/h
Hull was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983. Bobby is one of the most famous hockey platers ever. His son Brett was also a hockey superstar.

Awards and achievements

Art Ross Trophy winner (1960, 1962, and 1966)
NHL First All-Star Team Left Wing (1960, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, and 1972)
Stanley Cup championship (1961)
NHL Second All-Star Team Left Wing (1963 and 1971)
Hart Memorial Trophy winner (1965 and 1966)
Lady Byng Memorial Trophy winner (1965)
Lester Patrick Trophy winner (1969)


http://www.artknowledgenews.com/files2008/BobbyHull.jpg
http://i.cdn.turner.com/sivault/multimedia/photo_gallery/0903/this.day.sports.history.march12/images/bobby-hull.jpg
http://i.cdn.turner.com/sivault/si_online/covers/images/1968/0212_large.jpg
http://www.hockeyforum.com/photopost/data/2/1961_BOBBY_HULL_WITH_STANLEY_CUP.bmp



I saw his name and I thought, I know who Frank is going to do ;D..One of the all-time great hockey players :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/03/10 at 3:34 am


British Person of the day.....George Martin

Sir George Henry Martin CBE (3 January 1926) is a British record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"—a title that he owes to his work as producer of all but one of The Beatles' original records, as well as playing piano on some of The Beatles tracks—and is considered one of the greatest record producers of all time.

In 1965 he established the Associated Independent Recording (AIR) Studios. Although officially retired, he is still the chairman of the AIR board.

In recognition of his services to the music industry and popular culture, he was made a Knight Bachelor in 1996. He is the father of producer Giles Martin, and actor Gregory Paul Martin.

Awards and recognition
Academy Award 1964 - Nomination Scoring of Music (for A Hard Day's Night (film))
Grammy Award 1967 - Best Contemporary Album (as producer of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)
Grammy Award 1967 - Album Of The Year (as producer of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)
Grammy Award 1973 - Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) (as arranger of 'Live and Let Die')
BRIT Awards 1977 - Best British Producer (of the past 25 years)
BRIT Awards 1984 - Outstanding Contribution To Music
Grammy Award 1993 - Best Musical Show Album (as producer of 'The Who's Tommy')
Grammy Award 2007 - Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media, producer together with Giles Martin, of The Beatles album Love
Grammy Award 2007 - Best Surround Sound Album, producer together with Giles Martin, of The Beatles album Lovehttp://johnniecraig.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/sir_george_martin.jpg

http://www.gibson.com/Files/aaFeaturesImages/george%20martin%20and%20the%20beatles.jpg

http://www.morethings.com/music/beatles/images/george_martin/george-martin_paul-mccartney_richard-starkey.jpg

Thanks Phil, George had a profound effect in our music history. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/03/10 at 3:42 am

The word of the day...Buffalo
#
A buffalo is a wild animal like a large cow with horns that curve upwards. Buffalo are usually found in southern and eastern Africa. N-COUNT animal
#
A buffalo is the same as a water buffalo. N-COUNT animal
#
A buffalo is the same as a bison.
http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt273/xJennx426/momscamera205.jpg
http://i791.photobucket.com/albums/yy195/cbrummel/P1010206.jpg
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f399/Sensrookie/Rookies%20FT/2007-08/0708HotProspects181.jpg
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w188/komuuk/mudwallowing.jpg
http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/pp352/HorsesRAwesum/Breyerfest%202009/DSC03306.jpg
http://i406.photobucket.com/albums/pp141/kyleiiiix3/buffaaalobilll.jpg
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o265/scotthisey/buffalo.jpg
http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd221/nativestock/CSCL-14.jpg
http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx264/gregbishere/Football%20PC%20/Buffalo%20Bills/009-1.jpg
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z251/KellyKyra/Winter%20Weather%20Christmas%202009/IMG_1726.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/03/10 at 3:44 am


Australian's born on 2 January..

Germaine Greer  (I personally believe this woman to be as mad as a hatter and I have never liked her).

Germaine Greer (born 29 January 1939) is an Australian-born writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century.

Greer's ideas have created controversy ever since her book The Female Eunuch became an international best-seller in 1970, turning her into a household name and bringing her both adulation and opposition. She is also the author of many other books including, Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility (1984); The Change: Women, Ageing and the Menopause (1991) and Shakespeare's Wife (2007). She currently serves as Professor Emeritus of English Literature and Comparative Studies at the University of Warwick.

Germaine Greer has defined her goal as 'women's liberation' as distinct from 'equality with men'.

Later career

In 1989, Greer was appointed as a special lecturer and fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge, but resigned after attracting negative publicity in 1996 for her actions regarding Dr. Rachael Padman, a transsexual colleague. Greer unsuccessfully opposed Padman's election to a fellowship, on the grounds that Padman had been born male, and Newnham was a women's college. A 25 June 1997 article by Clare Longrigg in The Guardian about the incident, entitled "A Sister with No Fellow Feeling", disappeared from websites on the instruction of the newspaper's lawyers.

Over the years Greer has continued to self-identify as an anarchist or a Marxist. In her books she has dealt very little with political labels of this type, but has reaffirmed her position in interviews. For example, she stated on ABC Television in 2008 that "I ought to confess I suppose that I'm a Marxist. I think that reality comes first and ideology comes second," and elaborated later in the program to a question on whether feminism was the only successful revolution of the 20th century saying:

    "The difficulty for me is that I believe in permanent revolution. I believe that once you change the power structure and you get an oligarchy that is trying to keep itself in power, you have all the illiberal features of the previous regime. What has to keep on happening is a constant process of criticism, renewal, protest and so forth."

Speaking on an interview for 3CR (an Australian community radio), also in 2008, she described herself as "an old anarchist" and reaffirmed that opposition to "hierarchy and capitalism" were at the centre of her politics.

Greer is now retired but retains her position as Professor Emeritus in the Department of English Literature and Comparative Studies at the University of Warwick, Coventry.

http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/qq338/keziagriffin/greer2.jpghttp://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k84/chootles/germaine.jpghttp://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s1/Seanchai-peg/Album%20II/germaine_greer.jpg

She sounds like a complex lady.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/03/10 at 3:50 am

The birthday of the day...Stephen Stills
Stephen Arthur Stills (born January 3, 1945; Dallas, Texas) is an American guitarist and singer/songwriter best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash (and Young). He has performed on a professional level in several other bands as well as maintaining a solo career at the same time. Stills was ranked #28 in Rolling Stone Magazine's 2003 list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Stills, Furay, and Young reunited in Los Angeles and formed the core of Buffalo Springfield. Legend has it that Stills and Furay recognized Young's converted hearse on the streets of LA and flagged him down, a meeting described in the recent solo track "Round the Bend". The band would release three albums (Buffalo Springfield, Buffalo Springfield Again, and Last Time Around) and one hit single (Stills' "For What It's Worth") before disbanding.

Stills' guitar playing continually evolved. Early on, it displayed sources in generic rock and roll, blues, and country music, as well as the chordings familiar in the acoustic-folk music scene. Soon Stills' playing showed the influence of his friend Jimi Hendrix and also sometimes the rhythms and riffs of various kinds of Latin music. Stills is notorious for experimenting with the guitar itself. This includes such things as soaking strings in barbecue sauce or flipping pickups to mimic Hendrix playing a right-handed guitar left-handed. He is also known for using unconventional tunings, particularly when performing acoustically. He is also adept at piano, organ and bass and plays some drums. "Stephen had a vision", Nash says. "David and I let him run with it". Stills played nearly every instrument on Crosby, Stills and Nash, earning the nickname Captain Manyhands from Rolling Stone.

During the disintegration of Buffalo Springfield, Stills joined up with ex-Byrd David Crosby and ex-Hollie Graham Nash to form the supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash. Cass Elliot invited Graham Nash over to meet Stills and David Crosby at the home of well known folk musician and painter Joni Mitchell, who painted several artworks of the three. Mitchell also contributed the artwork seen on the cover of the CSNY collection album So Far, released in 1974. The cover photo pictured on the trio's first (self-titled) album in 1969 was taken on the back porch of a house in West Hollywood which was torn down the next day. Stills overdubbed much of the musical backing himself for the first Crosby, Stills, and Nash album with only Dallas Taylor's drums and some rhythm guitar from Crosby and Nash. Neil Young was added for their second album, and the group became Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Despite several breakups and reformations, CSN (and sometimes CSNY) still record and tour to this day.

Having played at the Monterey Pop Festival with Buffalo Springfield, and both Woodstock and Altamont with CSNY, Stills performed at all three of the iconic rock festivals of the 1960s.
Solo years

In the wake of CSNY's success, all four members recorded solo albums. In 1970, Stills released his eponymous album debut which featured guests Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix (on what was possibly his last recording before he died), "Mama" Cass Elliot, Booker T Jones and Ringo Starr (credited only as "Richie") as well as contributions from various members of the CSNY band. It provided Stills with the hit single "Love The One You're With" as well as the concert favorite "Black Queen." Stills followed this with Stephen Stills 2, which featured "Change Partners." Even though the song was written before CSN formed, Nash saw it as a metaphor for the many relationships in CSNY, while Stills viewed the band as something much less bland and repetitive.

The next year, Stills teamed up with ex-Byrd Chris Hillman and several CSNY sidemen to form the band Manassas. With Manassas Stills recorded the self-titled double album Manassas. The album was a mixture of blues, folk and Latin music divided into different sections, and is considered by many to be one of Stills' best albums.

During a Manassas tour in France, Stills met and married French singer-songwriter Veronique Sanson. Then he switched to Columbia Records, where he recorded two albums: Stills in 1975 and Illegal Stills, a pun on his name, in 1976. The former record found Stills in an uncharacteristically joyful mood; his marriage was going well, his son Chris had just been born, and he was happy living in Colorado. "To Mama From Christopher and the Old Man" was an exceptionally optimistic view of his new family.
Woodstock Reunion, September 7, 1979
Parr Meadows, Ridge, NY Photo: Bob Sanderson

In 1976, Stills attempted a reunion with Neil Young. At one point, Long May You Run was slated to be a CSNY record, but when Crosby and Nash left to fulfill recording and touring obligations, according to both David and Graham the other pair wiped their vocals from the recordings, as Stills and Young decided to go on without their erstwhile partners as The Stills-Young Band. However, Young would leave midway through the resulting tour due to an apparent throat infection. Stills was contractually bound to finish the tour, which he did, but upon returning home, his wife announced she wanted a divorce and wished to move back to France. Stills reunited with Crosby and Nash shortly afterwards, thanks to the efforts of Nash's future wife Susan, who got Nash to forgive Stills for wiping the Crosby and Nash vocals from Long May You Run. This led to the semi-permanent CSN reunion of 1977, which has persisted even though all three have released solo records since then.

In 1979 he travelled to Havana, Cuba, to participate in the historic Havana Jam festival that took place between 2-4 March, alongside Weather Report, the CBS Jazz All-Stars, the Trio of Doom, Fania All-Stars, Billy Swan, Bonnie Bramlett, Mike Finnegan, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and Billy Joel, plus an array of Cuban artists such as Irakere, with whom he toured the US after the Havana concerts. His performance is captured on Ernesto Juan Castellanos's documentary Havana Jam '79.

Although Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young had difficulties with their differing individual goals, egos, and musical styles, in the early 1983 Daylight Again DVD from the 1982 CSN tour, Stills introduced the song, "Wasted on the Way", commenting that there were "three buddies who didn't know how to talk to one another for years"... finally 'making friends' getting rich, and it being good". Unfortunately, according to Crosby's biography, it was his lowest point in his crack cocaine addiction which left him nearly bankrupt, in prison without funds for a time.

In 1997, Stills became the first person to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice in the same night for his work with CSN and the Buffalo Springfield. Fender guitars crafted a custom guitar and presented it to Stills to commemorate the occasion, this Fender Telecaster style guitar bears an inscription on the neck plate.

2005 saw Stills release Man Alive!, his first solo offering in 14 years. Although not troubling the chart compilers on either side of the Atlantic, the record was critically well received and is regarded by many fans as his best since the mid seventies.

Throughout 2006 and 2007, Stills toured regularly as a solo artist with "The Quartet", which consisted of drummer Joe Vitale, either Mike Finnegan or Todd Caldwell on keyboards, and either Kevin McCormick or Kenny Pasarelli on bass. Often a long acoustic solo section of the show would feature songs rarely played and showcase agile fingerstyle playing in standard and altered tunings. Stills toured Europe as a solo artist for the first time during October 2008.
Discography
With Buffalo Springfield
Date of release Title Recording dates Peak Billboard chart position RIAA Certification
December 1966

Buffalo Springfield

June - September 1966

#80

November 18, 1967

Buffalo Springfield Again

January - September 1967

#44

July 18, 1968

Last Time Around

February 1967 - May 1968

#42

March 1969

The Best of … Retrospective
(compilation)

June 1966 - April 1968

#42

Platinum
1973

Buffalo Springfield (Collection)
(compilation)

June 1966 - May 1968

-

July 17, 2001

Buffalo Springfield (box set)
(compilation)

June 1966 - May 1968

#194

With Bloomfield/Kooper/Stills
Date of release

Title

Peak Billboard chart position

RIAA Certification
July 22, 1968

Super Session

#12

Gold


With Crosby, Stills & Nash (& Young)
Date of release Title Recording dates Peak Billboard chart position RIAA Certification
May 29, 1969 Crosby, Stills & Nash June 26, 1968 - April 3, 1969 #6 4x Multi-Platinum
March 11, 1970 Déjà Vu July - December 1969 #1 7x Multi-Platinum
April 7, 1971 Four Way Street June 2–July 5, 1970 #1 4x Multi-Platinum
August 19, 1974 So Far
(compilation) 1969-1970 #1 6x Multi-Platinum
June 17 1977 CSN 1976-77 #2 4x Multi-Platinum
June 21, 1982 Daylight Again 1980-1981 #8 Platinum
August 19, 1983 Replay
(compilation) June 6, 1983 #122 -
November 3, 1988 American Dream May 3, 1988 - September 16, 1988 #16 Platinum
June 11, 1990 Live It Up February 1, 1986 - February 5, 1990 #57 -
October 1991 CSN (box set) June 26, 1968 - April 3, 1990 #109 -
August 16, 1994 After The Storm January 27, 1994 - July 1, 1994 #98 -
October 26, 1999 Looking Forward 1996 - 1999 #26 -
March 14, 2005 Greatest Hits 1969-1999 #24
July 22, 2008 Déjà Vu Live 2006 - -
With The Stills-Young Band
Date of release

Title

Recording dates

Peak Billboard chart position

RIAA Certification

""
September 10, 1976

Long May You Run
with Stephen Stills
and the Stills-Young Band

February 16 - June 7, 1976

#26

Gold
Solo albums
Date of release

Title

Peak Billboard chart position

RIAA / CRIA Certifications

Label

Information
November 16, 1970

Stephen Stills

#3

Gold

Atlantic

Studio
June 30, 1971

Stephen Stills 2

#8

Gold

Atlantic

April 12, 1972

Manassas

#4

Gold

Atlantic

April 23, 1973

Down the Road

#7

-

Atlantic

June 1975

Stills

#22

-

Columbia

December 1975

Stephen Stills Live

#42

-

Atlantic

Live
March 1976

Illegal Stills

#30

-

Columbia

Studio
December 1976

Still Stills: The Best of Stephen Stills

#127

-

Atlantic

Compilation
September 1978

Thoroughfare Gap

#83

-

Columbia

Studio
July 1984

Right By You

#75

-

Atlantic

September 1991

Stills Alone

-

-

Vision/Gold Hill

November 2003

Turnin' Back The Pages

-

-

Columbia

Compilation
August 2005

Man Alive!

-

-

Titan/Pyramid

Studio
July 2007

Just Roll Tape

-

-

Eyewall/Rhino

Compilation
September 2009

Pieces

-

-

Rhino/Atlantic

October 2009

Live at Shepherd's Bush

-

-

Rhino

Live
http://i596.photobucket.com/albums/tt41/Mypostergallery/os0160.jpg
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff93/sugarcubes_inmytea/Crosby_Stills_Nash_And_Young.gif
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k56/Crowder_02/Great%20Guitarists%202/8372.jpg
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b158/LlamaArse/stephenstills.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/03/10 at 3:54 am

The person of the day...Joy Adamson
Joy Adamson (20 January 1910 in Troppau, Austrian Silesia – 3 January 1980) was a naturalist and author, best known for her book, Born Free, which described her experiences in raising Elsa from cub to lioness. The book Born Free was an international bestseller and printed in several languages and it was made into an Academy Award-winning movie with the same title, Born Free. In addition to these major achievements, Joy was an accomplished artist and many of her paintings are displayed in a museum in Nairobi, Kenya.
Joy Adamson is best known for her conservation effort with Elsa the Lioness. In 1956, George Adamson, then game warden of the Northern Frontier District in Kenya, in the course of his job, shot and killed a lioness as she charged him and another man. He did not realize until later that the lioness was protecting her cubs and nearby were found the lioness' three cubs, which he took home to raise. The cubs did not eat for two days, but soon they were thriving. Early on, George attended to their physical needs, while Joy Adamson and her pet Pati, a rock hyrax, raised them. Joy was completely devoted to the cubs from the beginning. After six months, it became apparent that three growing cubs were too much for the Adamsons and their staff. The two larger cubs, Lustica and the Big One, were sent to a zoo in Rotterdam, but the third, Elsa, the Adamsons kept and remained attached to.

The Adamsons decided to set Elsa free rather than send her to a zoo. They spent many months training her to hunt and survive on her own and were successful in the end: Elsa became the first lioness released successfully, the first to have contact after release, and the first known to have cubs. The Adamsons did their best to keep their distance from the cubs so they would remain wild, but they got close enough to photograph them. Elsa would actually stand between the humans and the cubs if she felt her human friends were getting too close.

After Elsa’s death in January 1961, which was brought on by a disease from a tick bite, the Adamsons worked to rescue young Jespah, Gopa, and Little Elsa from possible execution. Without their mother to feed and guide them, the cubs had become a nuisance, killing livestock and angering the locals. The cubs were always somewhat aloof from their mother’s foster parents, so getting them near enough to capture was a challenge. George constructed three identical cage traps, and after much waiting, the three were captured and transported to neighboring country Tanzania, where they were promised a home at a national park. In The Story of Elsa, a compilation of the books about Elsa, Adamson wrote: "My heart was with them wherever they were. But it was also with these two lions here in front of us; and as I watched this beautiful pair, I realized how all the characteristics of our cubs were inherent in them. Indeed, in every lion I saw during our searches I recognized the intrinsic nature of Elsa, Jespah, Gopa and Little Elsa, the spirit of all the magnificent lions in Africa."

In the 1960s, she lived at Elsamere on the shores of Lake Naivasha. Elsamere is now an Education Center and visitors to Kenya can stay there and visit local wildlife.
Writer and celebrity

Using her own notes and George’s journals, Joy Adamson wrote the book Born Free. She submitted it to a number of publishers before it was bought by Harvill Press, part of HarperCollins, and published in 1960, the year it became a number-one New York Times bestseller. The success of the book was largely due not just to the captivating story of Elsa, but to the dozens of photographs of her. Readers had pictures of many of the events of Elsa’s life leading up to her release, and they found the whole story enchanting. All subsequent books by both George and Joy would be filled with photographs.

Born Free received largely favorable reviews from critics who were as spellbound as the public. The Adamsons became known the world over. Adamson, who had worked closely with publishers in order to properly promote the book, was not surprised by its success. She would spend the rest of her life earning money for wildlife, thanks to the popularity of Born Free. It was followed by Living Free, which is about Elsa as a mother to her cubs, and Forever Free, which tells of the release of Jespah, Gopa and Little Elsa. She was generous in some ways- all of the proceeds from the books went to fund conservation projects- but she did not share any of the proceeds with George, from whom she separated, though he was a driving force behind Elsa's release and though his journals formed the basis for Born Free.

The 1966 film Born Free, starring husband-and-wife actors Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna and filmed in the bush over the course of many months, was a worldwide hit. The stars got to know the real Adamsons, and the couples remained friends for life, working for wildlife causes. Travers and McKenna decided to do all of their own scenes with the lions in the film in order to recreate the close relationship that Joy and George Adamson had with Elsa, a serious commitment and risk on the actors’ part, but one that made the film more realistic. Perhaps the most important thing about the filming of Born Free is that some of the lions used for the film gained the same freedom Elsa had. This story was told in a documentary produced by Bill Travers titled The Lions Are Free which was made available on DVD in the United Kingdom in 2005.

The film, which went on to win two Academy Awards, both for music, is a family classic and true to the spirit of Elsa. Six years later, Susan Hampshire took over the role of Joy Adamson in Living Free, a film based on the third “Elsa book,” Forever Free.
On 3 January 1980, in Shaba National Reserve in Kenya, Joy Adamson's body was discovered by her assistant, Peter Morson (sometimes reported as Pieter Mawson). He mistakenly assumed that she had been killed by a lion, and this was what was initially reported by the media. Her two former husbands as well as George were alive at the time of her death; Von Klarwill and George Adamson came to the memorial service, but Bally preferred to keep his feelings private and said his goodbyes at the mortuary.

Further police investigation found that Adamson's wounds were too sharp and bloodless to have been caused by an animal, and concluded that she was murdered with a sharp instrument. Paul Nakware Ekai, a discharged labourer formerly employed by Adamson, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison, escaping capital punishment by hanging because the judge ruled that he was a minor when the crime was committed.

George Adamson was murdered nine years later, in 1989, near his camp in Kora National Park, while rushing to the aid of a tourist who was being attacked by poachers. George is credited with saving the tourist's life, but his act of bravery cost him his own.
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn178/polen_89/za%20saitove/Joy_Adamson_Sitting_And_Pippa_BW_Cr.jpg
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x98/melbah/JoyandElsa.jpg
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e42/naturekitty/elsa3.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/03/10 at 7:00 am


The word of the day...Buffalo
#
A buffalo is a wild animal like a large cow with horns that curve upwards. Buffalo are usually found in southern and eastern Africa. N-COUNT animal
#
A buffalo is the same as a water buffalo. N-COUNT animal
#
A buffalo is the same as a bison.
http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt273/xJennx426/momscamera205.jpg
http://i791.photobucket.com/albums/yy195/cbrummel/P1010206.jpg
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f399/Sensrookie/Rookies%20FT/2007-08/0708HotProspects181.jpg
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w188/komuuk/mudwallowing.jpg
http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/pp352/HorsesRAwesum/Breyerfest%202009/DSC03306.jpg
http://i406.photobucket.com/albums/pp141/kyleiiiix3/buffaaalobilll.jpg
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o265/scotthisey/buffalo.jpg
http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd221/nativestock/CSCL-14.jpg
http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx264/gregbishere/Football%20PC%20/Buffalo%20Bills/009-1.jpg
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z251/KellyKyra/Winter%20Weather%20Christmas%202009/IMG_1726.jpg


Don't forget Buffalo wings.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/03/10 at 8:05 am


Don't forget Buffalo wings.

Very good Howie :)
http://i335.photobucket.com/albums/m473/chanfan56/wings.gif

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 01/03/10 at 6:44 pm

Nice bios. Thanks for posting, Ninny.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/03/10 at 7:00 pm


Very good Howie :)
http://i335.photobucket.com/albums/m473/chanfan56/wings.gif


But they are very spicy.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/03/10 at 7:15 pm


Nice bios. Thanks for posting, Ninny.  :)

Thanks Vinny :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/03/10 at 7:17 pm


But they are very spicy.

To spicy for me..I like them sweet & sour or BBQ.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/03/10 at 7:17 pm

Buffalo Springfield.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/03/10 at 7:17 pm


To spicy for me..I like them sweet & sour or BBQ.


I'm used to spicy.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 01/04/10 at 2:30 am


Very good Howie :)
http://i335.photobucket.com/albums/m473/chanfan56/wings.gif


But why are they called 'Buffalo wings? :-\\

They look delicious.... :-*

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/04/10 at 4:33 am


Buffalo Springfield.

Yep that's where i got the word of the day.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/04/10 at 4:35 am


But why are they called 'Buffalo wings? :-\\

They look delicious.... :-*

They were first made in Buffalo,NY :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/04/10 at 4:50 am

The word of the day...Caddy(Caddie)
In golf, a caddie is a person who carries golf clubs and other equipment for a player
A tea caddy is a small tin in which you keep tea.
A Cadillac car
In computer hardware, a caddy refers to a sheath used to hold some media. If the media is a hard disk drive

http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz268/WalterMoores/Misc/regencysarcophagusteacaddy166.jpg
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa237/mkriendeau/IMGP0038-1.jpg
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv212/yardsale2780/aaa.jpg
http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae129/pakngahman/1a775db9.jpg
http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w258/pldarek99/c7745a69.jpg
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n289/btienzo/2009/JB%20Golf/IMG_1709.jpg
http://i468.photobucket.com/albums/rr44/Glade_Springs/Golf/06.jpg
http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn242/tanker49_2008/vehicle%20conversions/mikescars009.jpg
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc224/Airfilter_01/vegyes/59Caddy.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj160/cowie69/caddy.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/04/10 at 4:54 am

The birthday of the day...Dyan Cannon
Dyan Cannon (born Samille Diane Friesen; January 4, 1937) is an American film and television actress, director, screenwriter, editor, and producer. annon made her screen debut in 1960 in The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond, however her small screen debut was in a late 1950s roles was as Mona Elliott, with fellow guest star Franchot Tone, in the episode "The Man Behind the Man" of the 1964 CBS drama, The Reporter, with Harry Guardino in the title role. She also made appearances on 77 Sunset Strip, the perennial western series Gunsmoke, The Untouchables and the syndicated Two Faces West in the 1960 episode entitled "Sheriff of the Town".

In 1969, Cannon starred with an ensemble cast led by Natalie Wood in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, a film about sexual revolution in which she played Alice. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film, as well as two Golden Globe nominations. Most of Cannon's later roles in the 1970s were less-successful, although she did receive a Best Actress Golden Globe nomination for Such Good Friends (1971). In addition, she became the first Oscar-nominated actress to be nominated in the Best Short Film, Live Action Category for Number One (1976), a project which Cannon produced, directed, wrote and edited. It was a story about adolescent sexual curiosity. In 1978, Cannon starred in Revenge of the Pink Panther. That same year, she appeared opposite Warren Beatty, Julie Christie and James Mason in Heaven Can Wait. This performance earned her a second Oscar nomination and also won her a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.

In 1976, she hosted Saturday Night Live during its first season. She was a guest in the fourth season of The Muppet Show in 1979.

In the 1980s, Cannon, who is also a singer/songwriter, appeared in Honeysuckle Rose (1980) with Willie Nelson, Deathtrap (1982) with Christopher Reeve and Michael Caine, Caddyshack II (1988) and has starred in several TV movies.

In the 1990s, she appeared on the popular television shows Diagnosis Murder and The Practice, as well as being a semi-regular on Ally McBeal. She made appearances in films such as That Darn Cat (1997), 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (1997), Out to Sea (1997) with the duo Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, and Kangaroo Jack (2003). She also starred on the short-lived sitcom Three Sisters (2001-2002). In 2005 she appeared in Boynton Beach Club, a movie about aging Floridians who have just lost their spouses.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1960 The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond Dixie
This Rebel Breed Wiggles (as Diane Cannon)
1969 Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice Alice Henderson New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress
1971 Doctors' Wives Lorrie Dellman
The Anderson Tapes Ingrid
The Love Machine Judith Austin
The Burglars Lena
Such Good Friends Julie Messinger Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1973 Shamus Alexis Montaigne
The Last of Sheila Christine
1974 Child Under a Leaf Domino
1976 Number One Matt's mother Writer, director, producer, film editor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film
1978 Heaven Can Wait Julia Farnsworth Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture
Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Revenge of the Pink Panther Simone Legree
1980 Honeysuckle Rose Viv Bonham
Coast to Coast Madie Levrington
1982 Deathtrap Myra Bruhl
Author! Author! Alice Detroit
1988 Rock & Roll Mom Annie Hackett (TV)
She's Having a Baby Herself (uncredited)
Caddyshack II Elizabeth Pearce
1990 The End of Innocence Stephanie (also director and writer)
1991 Jailbirds Rosie LaCroix (TV)
1992 Christmas in Connecticut Elizabeth Blane (TV)
1993 The Pickle Ellen Stone
1997 Allie & Me Karen Schneider
That Darn Cat Mrs. Flint
8 Heads in a Duffel Bag Annette Bennett
Out to Sea Liz LaBreche
1997-2000 Ally McBeal Jennifer 'Whipper' Cone (17 episodes)
1998 The Sender Gina Fairfax
1999 Kiss of a Stranger Leslie
2003 Kangaroo Jack Anna Carbone
2004 After the Sunset Herself at the Basketball Game (uncredited)
2006 Boynton Beach Club Lois
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k14/ronewc/1-ACTORS_ACTRESSES/cannondyan-a.jpg
http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l168/bacoplely/Celebrity/179f5e98.jpg
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k62/cinemorgue/Ca/Cannon/Cannon-D-Deathtrap01.jpg
http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb311/CopperTop4X4/Celebrities/th7f21552e.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/04/10 at 5:00 am

The person of the day...T.S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot (September 26, 1888–January 4, 1965) was an Anglo/American poet, playwright, and literary critic, arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. His first notable publication, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, begun in February 1910 and published in Chicago in June 1915, is regarded as a masterpiece of the modernist movement. It was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including Gerontion (1920), The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930), Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939), and Four Quartets (1945). He is also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Cocktail Party (1949). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Order of Merit in 1948.

Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and was educated at Harvard University. After graduating in 1909, he studied philosophy at the University of Paris for a year, then won a scholarship to Merton College, Oxford in 1914, becoming a British citizen when he was 39. "y poetry has obviously more in common with my distinguished contemporaries in America than with anything written in my generation in England," he said of his nationality and its role in his work. "It wouldn't be what it is, and I imagine it wouldn't be so good ... if I'd been born in England, and it wouldn't be what it is if I'd stayed in America. It's a combination of things. But in its sources, in its emotional springs, it comes from America For a poet of his stature, Eliot produced a relatively small amount of poetry. He was aware of this early in his career. He wrote to J. H. Woods, one of his former Harvard professors, that, "My reputation in London is built upon one small volume of verse, and is kept up by printing two or three more poems in a year. The only thing that matters is that these should be perfect in their kind, so that each should be an event."

Typically, Eliot first published his poems individually in periodicals or in small books or pamphlets, and then collected them in books. His first collection was Prufrock and Other Observations (1917). In 1920, he published more poems in Ara Vos Prec (London) and Poems: 1920 (New York). These had the same poems (in a different order) except that "Ode" in the British edition was replaced with "Hysteria" in the American edition. In 1925, he collected The Waste Land and the poems in Prufrock and Poems into one volume and added The Hollow Men to form Poems: 1909–1925. From then on, he updated this work as Collected Poems. Exceptions are Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939), a collection of light verse; Poems Written in Early Youth, posthumously published in 1967 and consisting mainly of poems published 1907–1910 in The Harvard Advocate,, and Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909–1917, material Eliot never intended to have published, which appeared posthumously in 1997.

Of his nationality and its role in his work Eliot said: "y poetry has obviously more in common with my distinguished contemporaries in America than with anything written in my generation in England." He added: "It wouldn't be what it is, and I imagine it wouldn't be so good ... if I'd been born in England, and it wouldn't be what it is if I'd stayed in America. It's a combination of things. But in its sources, in its emotional springs, it comes from America."
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Main article: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

In 1915 Ezra Pound, overseas editor of Poetry magazine, recommended to Harriet Monroe, the magazine's founder, that she publish "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". Although the character Prufrock seems to be middle-aged, Eliot wrote most of the poem when he was only 22. Its now-famous opening lines, comparing the evening sky to "a patient etherised upon a table," were considered shocking and offensive, especially at a time when Georgian Poetry was hailed for its derivations of the 19th century Romantic Poets. The poem follows the conscious experience of a man, Prufrock (relayed in the "stream of consciousness" form characteristic of the Modernists), lamenting his physical and intellectual inertia, the lost opportunities in his life and lack of spiritual progress, with the recurrent theme of carnal love unattained. Critical opinion is divided as to whether the narrator leaves his residence during the course of the narration. The locations described can be interpreted either as actual physical experiences, mental recollections, or even as symbolic images from the sub-conscious mind, as, for example, in the refrain "In the room the women come and go." The poem's structure was heavily influenced by Eliot's extensive reading of Dante Alighieri, in the Italian, and refers to a number of literary works, including Hamlet and those of the French Symbolists.

Its reception in London can be gauged from an unsigned review in The Times Literary Supplement on June 21, 1917: "The fact that these things occurred to the mind of Mr Eliot is surely of the very smallest importance to anyone, even to himself. They certainly have no relation to poetry…"
The Waste Land
Main article: The Waste Land

In October 1922 Eliot published The Waste Land in The Criterion. It was composed during a period of personal difficulty for Eliot—his marriage was failing, and both he and Vivien were suffering from nervous disorders. The poem is often read as a representation of the disillusionment of the post-war generation. That year Eliot lived in Lausanne, Switzerland to take a treatment and to convalesce from a break-down. There he wrote the final section, "What the Thunder Said," which contains frequent references to mountains. Before the poem's publication as a book in December 1922, Eliot distanced himself from its vision of despair. On November 15, 1922, he wrote to Richard Aldington, saying, "As for The Waste Land, that is a thing of the past so far as I am concerned and I am now feeling toward a new form and style." The poem is known for its obscure nature—its slippage between satire and prophecy; its abrupt changes of speaker, location, and time; its elegiac but intimidating summoning up of a vast and dissonant range of cultures and literatures. Despite this, it has become a touchstone of modern literature, a poetic counterpart to a novel published in the same year, James Joyce's Ulysses. Among its best-known phrases are "April is the cruellest month", "I will show you fear in a handful of dust"; and "Shantih shantih shantih," the Sanskrit word that ends the poem.
The Hollow Men
Main articles: The Hollow Men and The Hollow Men in popular culture

The Hollow Men appeared in 1925. For the critic Edmund Wilson, it marked "the nadir of the phase of despair and desolation given such effective expression in The Waste Land." It is Eliot's major poem of the late twenties. Similar to other work, its themes are overlapping and fragmentary: post-war Europe under the Treaty of Versailles (which Eliot despised: compare Gerontion); the difficulty of hope and religious conversion; and Eliot's failed marriage.

Allen Tate perceived a shift in Eliot's method, writing that, "The mythologies disappear altogether in The Hollow Men." This is a striking claim for a poem as indebted to Dante as anything else in Eliot’s early work, to say little of the modern English mythology—the ‘Old Guy ’ of the Gunpowder Plot—or the colonial and agrarian mythos of Joseph Conrad and James George Frazer, which, at least for reasons of textual history, echo in The Waste Land. The "continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity" that is so characteristic of his mythical method remained in fine form. The Hollow Men contains some of Eliot's most famous lines, most notably its conclusion:

    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    Not with a bang but a whimper.

Ash Wednesday
Main article: Ash Wednesday (poem)

Ash Wednesday is the first long poem written by Eliot after his 1927 conversion to Anglicanism. Published in 1930, it deals with the struggle that ensues when one who has lacked faith acquires it. Sometimes referred to as Eliot's "conversion poem," it is richly but ambiguously allusive, and deals with the aspiration to move from spiritual barrenness to hope for human salvation, inspired by Dante's Purgatorio. The style is different from the poetry that predates his conversion. Ash Wednesday and the poems that followed had a more casual, melodic, and contemplative method.

Many critics were particularly enthusiastic about it. Edwin Muir maintained that it is one of the most moving poems Eliot wrote, and perhaps the "most perfect," though it was not well-received by everyone. The poem's groundwork of orthodox Christianity discomfited many of the more secular literati.
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
Main article: Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

In 1930, he published a book of light verse, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, "Old Possum" being Ezra Pound's nickname for him. This first edition had an illustration of the author on the cover. In 1954, the composer Alan Rawsthorne set six of the poems for speaker and orchestra, in a work entitled Practical Cats. After Eliot's death, it became the basis of the musical, Cats, by Andrew Lloyd Webber.Main articles: Murder in the Cathedral, The Rock (play), The Family Reunion, The Cocktail Party, The Confidential Clerk, and The Elder Statesman

With the important exception of his magnum opus Four Quartets, Eliot directed much of his creative energies after Ash Wednesday to writing plays in verse, mostly comedies or plays with redemptive endings. He was long a critic and admirer of Elizabethan and Jacobean verse drama; witness his allusions to Webster, Thomas Middleton, William Shakespeare and Thomas Kyd in The Waste Land. In a 1933 lecture he said: "Every poet would like, I fancy, to be able to think that he had some direct social utility. ... He would like to be something of a popular entertainer, and be able to think his own thoughts behind a tragic or a comic mask. He would like to convey the pleasures of poetry, not only to a larger audience, but to larger groups of people collectively; and the theatre is the best place in which to do it."

After The Waste Land (1922), he wrote that he was "now feeling toward a new form and style." One project he had in mind was writing a play in verse with a jazz tempo featuring Sweeney, a character who had appeared in a number of his poems. Eliot did not finish it. He did publish separately two pieces of what he had written. The two, Fragment of a Prologue (1926) and Fragment of an Agon (1927) were published together in 1932 as Sweeney Agonistes. Although Eliot noted that this was not intended to be a one-act play, it is sometimes performed as one.

A pageant play by Eliot called The Rock was performed in 1934 for the benefit for churches in the Diocese of London. Much of it was a collaborative effort; Eliot accepted credit only for the authorship of one scene and the choruses. George Bell, the Bishop of Chichester, had been instrumental in connecting Eliot with producer E. Martin Browne for the production of The Rock, and later asked Eliot to write another play for the Canterbury Festival in 1935. This one, Murder in the Cathedral, concerning the death of the martyr, Thomas Becket, was more under Eliot's control. After this, he worked on commercial plays for more general audiences: The Family Reunion (1939), The Cocktail Party (1949), The Confidential Clerk, (1953) and The Elder Statesman (1958). The Broadway production in New York of The Cocktail Party received the 1950 Tony Award for Best Play.
Eliot also made significant contributions to the field of literary criticism, strongly influencing the school of New Criticism. While somewhat self-deprecating and minimizing of his work—he once said his criticism was merely a “by-product” of his “private poetry-workshop”—Eliot is considered by some to be one of the greatest literary critics of the 20th century. The critic William Empson once said, "I do not know for certain how much of my own mind invented, let alone how much of it is a reaction against him or indeed a consequence of misreading him. He is a very penetrating influence, perhaps not unlike the east wind."

In his critical essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” Eliot argues that art must be understood not in a vacuum, but in the context of previous pieces of art: “In a peculiar sense ... must inevitably be judged by the standards of the past.” This essay was one of the most important works of the school of New Criticism. Specifically, it introduced the idea that the value of one work of art must be viewed in the context of all previous work, a “simultaneous order” or works. Also important to New Criticism was the idea—as articulated in Eliot’s essay "Hamlet and His Problems”—of an “objective correlative,” which posits a connection among the words of the text and events, states of mind, and experiences. This notion concedes that a poem means what it says, but suggests that there can be a non-subjective judgment based on different readers’ different—but perhaps corollary—interpretations of a work.

More generally, New Critics took a cue from Eliot in regards to his “‘classical’ ideals and his religious thought; his attention to the poetry and drama of the early seventeenth century; his deprecation of the Romantics, especially Shelley; his proposition that good poems constitute ‘not a turning loose of emotion but an escape from emotion'; and his insistence that ‘poets…at present must be difficult.’”

Eliot’s essays were a major factor in the revival of interest in the metaphysical poets. Eliot particularly praised the metaphysical poets' ability to show experience as both psychological and sensual, while at the same time infusing this portrayal with—in Eliot's view—wit and uniqueness. Eliot's essay "The Metaphysical Poets," along with giving new significance and attention to metaphysical poetry, introduced his now well-known definition of "unified sensibility," which is considered by some to mean the same thing as the term "metaphysical."

His 1922 poem The Waste Land—which at the time of its publication, many critics believed to be a joke or hoax—also can be better understood in light of his work as a critic. He had argued that a poet must write “programmatic criticism"; that is, a poet should write to advance his own interests rather than to advance “historical scholarship". Viewed from Eliot's critical lens, The Waste Land likely shows his personal despair about World War I rather than an objective historical understanding of it.

In 1958, the Archbishop of Canterbury appointed Eliot to a commission that produced The Revised Psalter (1963). A harsh critic of Eliot's, C. S. Lewis, was also a member of the commission, where their antagonism turned into a friendship
http://i726.photobucket.com/albums/ww263/rjbarryiv/writers/eliot.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i41/bn4md1/TS_Elliot.jpg
http://i498.photobucket.com/albums/rr345/Poehlein416/Tseliot.jpg
http://i842.photobucket.com/albums/zz349/bamboozlem/essentialeliot.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 01/04/10 at 5:28 am

I first saw Dyan Cannon in Bob, Carol, Ted & Alice .... I was only 18 and it certainly made an impact. After that film Dyan Cannon and Natalie Wood were two of my favourite actresses!  ::)

http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x174/followfocus/Tony%20Nigro/2009/11/2009-11-18-MotW-Bob-and-Carol-and-T.jpghttp://i351.photobucket.com/albums/q474/gibbo4/bcta.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/04/10 at 6:42 am


The word of the day...Caddy(Caddie)
In golf, a caddie is a person who carries golf clubs and other equipment for a player
A tea caddy is a small tin in which you keep tea.
A Cadillac car
In computer hardware, a caddy refers to a sheath used to hold some media. If the media is a hard disk drive

http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz268/WalterMoores/Misc/regencysarcophagusteacaddy166.jpg
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa237/mkriendeau/IMGP0038-1.jpg
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv212/yardsale2780/aaa.jpg
http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae129/pakngahman/1a775db9.jpg
http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w258/pldarek99/c7745a69.jpg
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n289/btienzo/2009/JB%20Golf/IMG_1709.jpg
http://i468.photobucket.com/albums/rr44/Glade_Springs/Golf/06.jpg
http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn242/tanker49_2008/vehicle%20conversions/mikescars009.jpg
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc224/Airfilter_01/vegyes/59Caddy.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj160/cowie69/caddy.jpg


I assumed it was Chevy Chase's birthday when I saw the word of the day Caddy.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/04/10 at 7:47 am


I first saw Dyan Cannon in Bob, Carol, Ted & Alice .... I was only 18 and it certainly made an impact. After that film Dyan Cannon and Natalie Wood were two of my favourite actresses!  ::)

http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x174/followfocus/Tony%20Nigro/2009/11/2009-11-18-MotW-Bob-and-Carol-and-T.jpghttp://i351.photobucket.com/albums/q474/gibbo4/bcta.jpg

Thanks for the pics. Peter.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/04/10 at 7:49 am


I assumed it was Chevy Chase's birthday when I saw the word of the day Caddy.

That would of been a good guess :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/04/10 at 12:09 pm

Macavity  - The Mystery Cat
By T.S. Eliot


Macavity's a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw--
For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime--Macavity's not there!

Macavity, Macavity, there's no on like Macavity,
He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.
His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,
And when you reach the scene of crime--Macavity's not there!
You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air--
But I tell you once and once again, Macavity's not there!

Macavity's a ginger cat, he's very tall and thin;
You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in.
His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly doomed;
His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed.
He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake;
And when you think he's half asleep, he's always wide awake.

Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
For he's a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity.
You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square--
But when a crime's discovered, then Macavity's not there!

He's outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)
And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard's.
And when the larder's looted, or the jewel-case is rifled,
Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke's been stifled,
Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair--
Ay, there's the wonder of the thing! Macavity's not there!

And when the Foreign Office finds a Treaty's gone astray,
Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way,
There may be a scap of paper in the hall or on the stair--
But it's useless of investigate--Macavity's not there!
And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:
"It must have been Macavity!"--but he's a mile away.
You'll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs,
Or engaged in doing complicated long division sums.

Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macacity,
There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.
He always has an alibit, or one or two to spare:
And whatever time the deed took place--MACAVITY WASN'T THERE!
And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known
(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)
Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time
Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbjXHP7XifA




Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/04/10 at 1:52 pm


The word of the day...Caddy(Caddie)
In golf, a caddie is a person who carries golf clubs and other equipment for a player
A tea caddy is a small tin in which you keep tea.
A Cadillac car
In computer hardware, a caddy refers to a sheath used to hold some media. If the media is a hard disk drive

A tea caddy for me!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/04/10 at 1:53 pm


The word of the day...Caddy(Caddie)
In golf, a caddie is a person who carries golf clubs and other equipment for a player
A tea caddy is a small tin in which you keep tea.
A Cadillac car
In computer hardware, a caddy refers to a sheath used to hold some media. If the media is a hard disk drive

http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz268/WalterMoores/Misc/regencysarcophagusteacaddy166.jpg
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa237/mkriendeau/IMGP0038-1.jpg
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv212/yardsale2780/aaa.jpg
http://i964.photobucket.com/albums/ae129/pakngahman/1a775db9.jpg
http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w258/pldarek99/c7745a69.jpg
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n289/btienzo/2009/JB%20Golf/IMG_1709.jpg
http://i468.photobucket.com/albums/rr44/Glade_Springs/Golf/06.jpg
http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn242/tanker49_2008/vehicle%20conversions/mikescars009.jpg
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc224/Airfilter_01/vegyes/59Caddy.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj160/cowie69/caddy.jpg
Which brings us back to Paul Lawrie.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/04/10 at 3:15 pm


Macavity  - The Mystery Cat
By T.S. Eliot


Macavity's a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw--
For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime--Macavity's not there!

Macavity, Macavity, there's no on like Macavity,
He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.
His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,
And when you reach the scene of crime--Macavity's not there!
You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air--
But I tell you once and once again, Macavity's not there!

Macavity's a ginger cat, he's very tall and thin;
You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in.
His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly doomed;
His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed.
He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake;
And when you think he's half asleep, he's always wide awake.

Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
For he's a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity.
You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square--
But when a crime's discovered, then Macavity's not there!

He's outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)
And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard's.
And when the larder's looted, or the jewel-case is rifled,
Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke's been stifled,
Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair--
Ay, there's the wonder of the thing! Macavity's not there!

And when the Foreign Office finds a Treaty's gone astray,
Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way,
There may be a scap of paper in the hall or on the stair--
But it's useless of investigate--Macavity's not there!
And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:
"It must have been Macavity!"--but he's a mile away.
You'll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs,
Or engaged in doing complicated long division sums.

Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macacity,
There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.
He always has an alibit, or one or two to spare:
And whatever time the deed took place--MACAVITY WASN'T THERE!
And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known
(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)
Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time
Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbjXHP7XifA




Cat



Thanks for sharing..most cats are mysterious ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/04/10 at 3:16 pm


A tea caddy for me!

I never knew there was such a thing until I looked the word up.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/04/10 at 3:18 pm


I never knew there was such a thing until I looked the word up.
It is a common household accessory over here.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/04/10 at 3:20 pm


It is a common household accessory over here.

I see they come in assorted shapes and sizes.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/04/10 at 3:25 pm


I assumed it was Chevy Chase's birthday when I saw the word of the day Caddy.

I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not

I first saw Dyan Cannon in Bob, Carol, Ted & Alice .... I was only 18 and it certainly made an impact. After that film Dyan Cannon and Natalie Wood were two of my favourite actresses!  ::)

http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x174/followfocus/Tony%20Nigro/2009/11/2009-11-18-MotW-Bob-and-Carol-and-T.jpghttp://i351.photobucket.com/albums/q474/gibbo4/bcta.jpg

Yes, Natalie And Dyan were 2 of my faves from that time period as well.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/04/10 at 3:25 pm


I see they come in assorted shapes and sizes.
And can become collector's items.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/04/10 at 3:54 pm


I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not


I used to live near Chevy Chase-the city, not the person.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/04/10 at 4:04 pm



I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not


I used to live near Chevy Chase-the city, not the person.



Cat

Whenever I think of Chevy Chase, I always remember Emily Litella, Gilda Radner's character on SNL.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/04/10 at 4:10 pm


Whenever I think of Chevy Chase, I always remember Emily Litella, Gilda Radner's character on SNL.  :)



That's different, Chedder Cheese. Nevermind.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/04/10 at 4:14 pm



That's different, Chedder Cheese. Nevermind.



Cat

The good old days..and his clumsy imitations of Prez Ford.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/04/10 at 7:00 pm


That would of been a good guess :)


When was his birthday?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/05/10 at 7:17 am


When was his birthday?

October 8th

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/05/10 at 7:25 am

The word of the day...Lonesome
Someone who is lonesome is unhappy because they do not have any friends or do not have anyone to talk to
A lonesome place is one which very few people come to and which is a long way from places where people live.
http://i424.photobucket.com/albums/pp326/blihzzzARD/W1.jpg
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z127/maerivitz/lonesome.jpg
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh292/xoxogossipgirll/lonesome.jpg
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj281/sundayofthisweek/IMG_0018.jpg
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g236/ivisionsofhope/Lonesome.jpg
http://i452.photobucket.com/albums/qq247/JulieT814/Lonesome.jpg
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac21/linmitch/bvnbv.jpg
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i88/joseroxs/loneliness.jpg
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll30/fairybitch420/th232539cri51qns3d.gif

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/05/10 at 7:29 am

The birthday of the day...Robert Duvall
Robert Selden Duvall (born January 5, 1931) is an American actor and director. He has won an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards.

He began his career appearing in theatre during the late 1950s, moving into small to supporting television and film roles during the early 1960s in such works as To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and Captain Newman, M.D. (1963). He started to land much larger roles during the early 1970s with movies like MASH (1970) and THX 1138 (1971). This was followed by a series of critical successes: The Godfather (1972), The Godfather Part II (1974), Network (1976), The Great Santini (1979), Apocalypse Now (1979), and True Confessions (1981).

Since then Duvall has remained an important presence in both film and television with such productions as Tender Mercies (1983), The Natural (1984), Colors (1988), Lonesome Dove (1989), Stalin (1992), The Man Who Captured Eichmann (1996), The Apostle (1997), A Civil Action (1998), Gods and Generals (2003) and Broken Trail (2006)
Duvall began his career in the theatre, making his professional debut Off-Broadway at the Gate Theatre as Frank Gardner in George Bernard Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession on June 25, 1958. Other notable early theatre credits include the role of Doug in the premiere of Michael Shurtleff's Call Me By My Rightful Name in 1961 and the role of Bob Smith in the premiere of William Snyder's The Days and Nights of BeeBee Fenstermaker in 1962, both at Off-Broadway theatres. He won an Obie Award in 1965 for his performance of Eddie in Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge at the Sheridan Square Playhouse; a production directed by Ulu Grosbard and Dustin Hoffman. The following year he made his Broadway debut as Harry Roat, Jr in Frederick Knott's Wait Until Dark.

In 1959, Duvall made his first television appearance on Armstrong Circle Theatre in the episode The Jailbreak. He appeared regularly on television as a guest actor during the 1960s, often in action, suspense, detective, or crime dramas. His appearances during this time include performances on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Naked City, The Untouchables, Route 66, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, The Fugitive, T.H.E. Cat, and The Mod Squad to name just a few.

Duvall's screen debut was as Boo Radley in the critically acclaimed To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). He was cast in the film on the recommendation of screenwriter Horton Foote, who met Duvall at Neighborhood Playhouse during a 1957 production of Foote's play, The Midnight Caller. Foote, who would collaborate with Duvall many more times over the course of their careers, said he believed Duvall had a particular love of common people and ability to infuse fascinating revelations into his roles. Foote has described Duvall as "our number one actor."

After To Kill a Mockingbird, Duvall appeared in a number of films during the 1960s, mostly in mid sized parts but also in a few larger supporting roles. Some of his more notable appearances include the role of Capt. Paul Cabot Winston in Captain Newman, M.D. (1963), Chiz in Countdown (1968), Gordon in The Rain People (1969), and the notorious malefactor "Lucky" Ned Pepper in True Grit (1969), in which he engaged in a climactic shootout with John Wayne's Rooster Cogburn on horseback.
Mid career: 1970-1989

Duvall became an important presence in American films beginning in the 1970s. He drew a considerable amount of attention in 1970 for his portrayal of Major Frank Burns in the film MASH and for his portrayal of the title role in the cult classic THX 1138 in 1971. His first major critical success were came portraying consigliere (family counsel) Tom Hagen in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974). The former film earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

He received another Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor and won both a BAFTA Award and Golden Globe Award for his role as Lt. Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now (1979). His line "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" from Apocalypse Now is now regarded as iconic in cinema history. The full text is as follows:

    You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. But the smell! You know - that gasoline smell... the whole hill! Smelled like... victory.
    (Pause)
    Some day this war is going to end...

Duvall received a BAFTA Award nomination for his portrayal of television executive Frank Hackett in the critically acclaimed film Network (1976) and garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role in The Great Santini (1979) as the hard-boiled Marine and overbearing parent Lt. Col. "Bull" Meechum. The latter role was loosely based on a world-famous Marine aviator, Colonel Donald Conroy. He also portrayed United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower is the television miniseries Ike (1979).

In 1977 Duvall returned to Broadway to appear as Walter Cole in David Mamet's American Buffalo. For his performance he received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Play. To date, Duvall has not returned to the New York stage.
"You can't concoct or push ahead something other than what you have at that moment as yourself, as that character. It's you at that moment in time. ... Between action and cut, it's a nice world, but you can't force that any more than you can force it in life.."
—Robert Duvall on acting

Duvall continued to appear in important films during the 1980s, including the roles of cynical sportswriter Max Mercy in The Natural (1984) and Los Angeles police officer Bob Hodges in Colors (1988). He won an Oscar for Best Actor as country western singer Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies (1983). Foote was rumored to have written the part for Duvall, who had always wanted to play a country singer and contributed ideas for the character. Foote denied this, claiming he found it too constraining to write roles for specific actors, but he did hope Duvall would be cast. Duvall was said to have written the music, but the actor said he wrote only a few "background, secondary songs." Duvall did do his own singing, insisting it be added to his contract that he sing the songs himself; Duvall said, "What's the point if you're not going to do your own (singing)? They're just going to dub somebody else? I mean, there's no point to that."

Actress Tess Harper, who co-starred, said Duvall inhabited the character so fully that she only got to know Mac Sledge and not Duvall himself. Director Bruce Beresford, too, said the transformation was so believable to him that he could feel his skin crawling up the back of his neck the first day of filming with Duvall. Beresford said of the actor, "Duvall has the ability to completely inhabit the person he's acting. He totally and utterly becomes that person to a degree which is uncanny." Nevertheless, Duvall and Beresford did not get along well during the production and often clashed during filming, including one day in which Beresford walked off the set in frustration.

In 1989, Duvall appeared in the landmark mini-series Lonesome Dove in the role of Augustus "Gus" McCrae. He has stated in several forums, including CBS Sunday Morning, that this particular role was his personal favorite. He won a Golden Globe Award and earned an Emmy Award nomination. For his role as a former Texas Ranger peace officer, Duvall was trained in the use of Walker revolvers by the Texas marksman Joe Bowman.
Later career: 1990-present
President George W. Bush stands with recipients of the 2005 National Medal of Arts on November 9, 2005, in the Oval Office. Among those recognized for their outstanding contributions to the arts were, from left: Leonard Garment, Louis Auchincloss, Paquito D'Rivera, James De Preist, Tina Ramirez, Robert Duvall, and Ollie Johnston.

Duvall has maintained a busy film career, sometimes appearing in as many as four in one year. He received Oscar nominations for his portrayals of evangelical preacher Euliss "Sonny" Dewey in The Apostle (1997) — a film he also wrote and directed — and lawyer Jerome Facher in A Civil Action (1998).

He directed Assassination Tango (2002), a thriller about one of his favorite hobbies, tango. He portrayed General Robert E. Lee in Gods and Generals in 2003 and is actually a relative of the Confederate general.

Other roles during this period that displayed the actor's wide range included that of a retiring cop in Falling Down (1992), a Hispanic barber in Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993), a New York tabloid editor in The Paper (1994), a rural doctor in Phenomenon (1996), an astronaut in Deep Impact (1998), a trail boss in Open Range (2003), a soccer coach in the comedy Kicking & Screaming (2005), a Las Vegas poker champion in Lucky You and a New York police captain in We Own the Night (both 2007).

He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on September 18, 2003.

Duvall has periodically worked in television during the last two decades. He won a Golden Globe and garnered an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in the 1992 television movie Stalin. He was nominated for an Emmy again in 1997 for portraying Adolf Eichmann in The Man Who Captured Eichmann. In 2006, he won an Emmy for the role of Prentice "Print" Ritter in the revisionist Western miniseries Broken Trail.

In 2005, Duvall was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President George W. Bush at the White House.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1959 Armstrong Circle Theatre Berks Season #10, Episode #2, "The Jailbreak"
1960 Armstrong Circle Theatre Season #10, Episode #16, "Positive Identification"
Playhouse 90 Season #4, Episode #8, "John Brown's Raid"
1961 The Defenders Al Rogart Season #1, Episode #12, "Perjury"
Great Ghost Tales William Wilson Season #1, Episode #1, "William Wilson"
Shannon Joey Nolan Season #1, Episode #10, "The Big Fish"
Cain's Hundred Tom Nugent Season #1, Episode #6, "King of the Mountain"
Route 66 Roman Season #1, Episode #25, "The Newborn"
Route 66 Arnie Season #2, Episode #4, "Birdcage on My Foot"
Naked City Lewis Nunda Season #2, Episode #13, "A Hole in the City"
1962 To Kill a Mockingbird Arthur "Boo" Radley
Naked City L. Francis 'Frank' Childe Season #3, Episode #23, "The One Marked Hot Gives Cold "
Naked City Johnny Meigs Season #4, Episode #6, "Five Cranks for Winter... Ten Cranks for Spring"
Naked City Barney Sonners Season #4, Episode #8, "Torment Him Much and Hold Him Long "
1963 The Untouchables Eddie Moon Season #4, Episode #17, "Blues for a Gone Goose"
The Defenders Luke Jackson Season #2, Episode #24, "Metamorphosis"
Route 66 Lee Winters Season #3, Episode #18, "Suppose I Said I Was the Queen of Spain"
The Twilight Zone Charley Parkes Season #4, Episode #8, "Miniature"
The Virginian Johnny Keel Season #1, Episode #24, "The Golden Door"
Stoney Burke Joby Pierce Season #1, Episode #23, "Joby"
Arrest and Trial Morton Ware Season #1, Episode #10, "The Quality of Justice"
The Fugitive Eric Christian Season #1, Episode #4, "Never Wave Goodbye"
Captain Newman, M.D. Capt. Paul Cabot Winston
1964 The Lieutenant Season #1, Episode #25, "Man with an Edge"
Kraft Suspense Theatre Harvey Farnsworth Season #1, Episode #22, "Portrait of an Unknown Man"
The Outer Limits Adam Ballard Episodes #42, 43, "The Inheritors"
The Outer Limits Louis Mace Episode #31, "The Chameleon"
1965 Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea Zar Season #1, Episode #20, "The Invaders"
Combat! Karl Season #3, Episode #16, "The Enemy"
The Defenders Bill Andrews Season #4, Episode #30, "Only a Child"
The Fugitive Leslie Sessions Season #2, Episode #16, "Brass Ring"
Nightmare in the Sun Motorcyclist
1966 Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre Frank Reeser Season #3, Episode #15, "Guilty or Not Guilty"
The F.B.I. Johnny Albin Season #2, Episode #5, "The Scourge"
Combat! Peter Halsman Season #5, Episode #14, "Cry for Help"
Hawk Dick Season #1, Episode #6, "The Theory of the Innocent Bystander"
Felony Squad Albie Froehlich Season #1, Episode #8, "Death of a Dream"
Shane Tom Gary Season #1, Episode #9, "Poor Tom's A-Cold"
T.H.E. Cat Scorpio Season #1, Episode #9, "Crossing at Destino Bay"
Fame Is the Name of the Game Eddie Franchot
The Chase Edwin Stewart
1967 The Time Tunnel Raul Nimon Season #1, Episode #24, "Chase Through Time"
Cimarron Strip Joe Wyman Season #1, Episode #18, "The Roarer"
The Wild Wild West Dr. Horace Humphries Season #3, Episode #10, "The Night of the Falcon "
The F.B.I. Ernie Milden Season #2, Episode #25-26, "The Executioners"
T.H.E. Cat Laurent Season #1, Episode #24, "The Long Chase"
Combat! Michel Season #5, Episode #25, "The Partisan"
Cosa Nostra, Arch Enemy of the FBI Ernie Milden
1968 Flesh and Blood Howard
CBS Playhouse Dr. Margolin Season #2, Episode #1, "The People Next Door"
Run for Your Life Richard Fletcher Season #3, Episode #19, "The Killing Scene"
Judd, for the Defense Raymond Cane Season #1, Episode #24, "Square House"
The F.B.I. Joseph Troy Season #4, Episode #9, "The Harvest"
The Detective Nestor
Countdown Chiz
Bullitt Cab driver
1969 The Mod Squad Matt Jenkins Season #1, Episode #23, "Keep the Faith, Baby"
The F.B.I. Gerald Wilson Season #5, Episode #2, "Nightmare Road"
True Grit Ned Pepper
The Rain People Gordon
1970 M*A*S*H Frank Burns
The Revolutionary Despard
1971 THX 1138 THX 1138
Lawman Vernon Adams
1972 The Godfather Tom Hagen New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid Jesse James
Tomorrow Jackson Fentry
Joe Kidd Frank Harlan
1973 The Outfit Earl Macklin
Badge 373 Eddie Ryan
Lady Ice Ford Pierce
1974 The Conversation The Director uncredited
The Godfather: Part II Tom Hagen
1975 The Killer Elite George Hanson
Breakout Jay Wagner
1976 The Eagle Has Landed Oberst Max Radl
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution Dr. Watson
Network Frank Hackett Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
1977 The Greatest Bill McDonald
1978 Ike: The War Years Dwight D. Eisenhower
Invasion of the Body Snatchers Priest on swing uncredited
The Betsy Loren Hardeman III
1979 Ike Dwight D. Eisenhower TV mini-series
Apocalypse Now Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
The Great Santini Bull Meechum Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
1981 True Confessions Thomas Spellacy Venice Film Festival Pasinetti Cup for Best Actor
The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper Gruen
1983 Tender Mercies Mac Sledge Academy Award for Best Actor
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
The Terry Fox Story Bill Vigars Nominated — CableACE Award for Best Actor in a Dramatic Presentation
Angelo My Love n/a Director
1984 The Stone Boy Joe Hillerman
The Natural Max Mercy
1986 Let's Get Harry Norman Shrike
Belizaire the Cajun The Preacher
Waylon Jennings: America Doctor
The Lightship Calvin Caspary Venice Film Festival Pasinetti Cup for Best Actor
1987 Hotel Colonial Roberto Carrasco
1988 Colors Officer Bob Hodges
1989 Lonesome Dove Augustus "Gus" McCrae Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
1990 A Show of Force Howard
Days of Thunder Harry Hogge
The Handmaid's Tale The Commander
1991 Rambling Rose Daddy Hilyer Nominated — Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Male
Convicts Soll
1992 Stalin Josef Stalin Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
Newsies Joseph Pulitzer
La Peste Joseph Grand
1993 Falling Down Prendergast
Wrestling Ernest Hemingway Walter
Geronimo: An American Legend Al Sieber
1994 The Paper Bernie White
1995 Something to Talk About Wyly King
The Stars Fell on Henrietta Mr. Cox
The Scarlet Letter Roger Chillingworth
1996 Sling Blade Karl's father Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
The Man Who Captured Eichmann Adolf Eichmann Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
A Family Thing Earl Pilcher Jr.
Phenomenon Doc Brunder
1997 The Apostle Euliss 'Sonny' Dewey — The Apostle E.F. Writer/Director
Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Male
Independent Spirit Award for Best Director
Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor
Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
Society of Texas Film Critics Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
1998 The Gingerbread Man Dixon Doss
A Civil Action Jerome Facher Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture
Deep Impact Capt. Spurgeon 'Fish' Tanner
Saturday Night Live various Season #23, Episode #14, hosted by Garth Brooks
2000 Gone in 60 Seconds Otto Halliwell
The 6th Day Dr. Griffin Weir
A Shot at Glory Gordon McLeod
2002 John Q Lt. Frank Grimes
Assassination Tango John J. Anderson Writer/Director
2003 Gods and Generals Gen. Robert E. Lee
Secondhand Lions Hub
Open Range Boss Spearman
2005 American Experience Narrator Season #17, Episode #10, "The Carter Family: Will the Circle"
Kicking & Screaming Buck Weston
Thank You for Smoking Doak "The Captain" Boykin
2006 Broken Trail Prentice "Print" Ritter Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
2007 Lucky You Mr. Cheever
We Own the Night Albert Grusinsky
2008 Four Christmases Howard
2009 Crazy Heart Wayne Kramer (post-production)
The Road Old Man
2010 Get Low (post-production)


Awards
Academy Awards
Year Category Film Result
1998 Best Supporting Actor A Civil Action Nominated
1997 Best Leading Actor The Apostle Nominated
1983 Best Leading Actor Tender Mercies Won
1980 Best Leading Actor The Great Santini Nominated
1979 Best Supporting Actor Apocalypse Now Nominated
1972 Best Supporting Actor The Godfather Nominated
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee163/genhandgrenade42/Duvall.jpg
http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/tt248/Richlee86/robertduvall.jpg
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh179/ronni3298/robertduvall.jpg
http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q33/debicogburn/Media%20Stuff/My%20Favorite%20Celebs%20and%20Characters/duvall.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/05/10 at 7:33 am

The person of the day...Arthur Kennedy
Arthur Kennedy (February 17, 1914 – January 5, 1990) was an American stage and film actor.
Kennedy got his break when he was discovered by James Cagney. His first film role was of Cagney's younger brother in City for Conquest in 1940. He portrayed heroic and villainous characters equally, appearing in Western films and police dramas. He also portrayed a surgeon in 1966's Fantastic Voyage.

He starred in several well-received films from the late 1940s to the 1960s, including High Sierra, They Died with Their Boots On, Boomerang, Champion, The Window, The Glass Menagerie, Bright Victory, Bend of the River, The Lusty Men, Rancho Notorious, The Desperate Hours, Lawrence of Arabia, The Man from Laramie, Trial, Peyton Place, Some Came Running, A Summer Place and Elmer Gantry.

He appeared both on the stage and screen, receiving a Tony Award for the role of Biff Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949). Kennedy also inaugurated three other major characters in Miller plays: Chris Keller in All My Sons (1947), John Proctor in The Crucible (1953), and Walter Franz in The Price (1968).
Oscar nominations

He and Claude Rains share the record of four losing nominations for the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. He also received a nomination for Best Actor, in Bright Victory (1951).
Year Award Film Winner
1949 Best Supporting Actor Champion Dean Jagger – Twelve O'Clock High
1951 Best Actor Bright Victory Humphrey Bogart – The African Queen
1955 Best Supporting Actor Trial Jack Lemmon – Mister Roberts
1957 Best Supporting Actor Peyton Place Red Buttons – Sayonara
1958 Best Supporting Actor Some Came Running Burl Ives – The Big Country
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v306/jetdogy/SEPARATED_AT_BIRTH/PAGE_06/13-kieferkennedy.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/05/10 at 2:52 pm

"You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. But the smell! You know - that gasoline smell... the whole hill! Smelled like... victory."

Classic line from a classic film.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/05/10 at 4:29 pm


The person of the day...Arthur Kennedy
Arthur Kennedy (February 17, 1914 – January 5, 1990) was an American stage and film actor.
Kennedy got his break when he was discovered by James Cagney. His first film role was of Cagney's younger brother in City for Conquest in 1940. He portrayed heroic and villainous characters equally, appearing in Western films and police dramas. He also portrayed a surgeon in 1966's Fantastic Voyage.

He starred in several well-received films from the late 1940s to the 1960s, including High Sierra, They Died with Their Boots On, Boomerang, Champion, The Window, The Glass Menagerie, Bright Victory, Bend of the River, The Lusty Men, Rancho Notorious, The Desperate Hours, Lawrence of Arabia, The Man from Laramie, Trial, Peyton Place, Some Came Running, A Summer Place and Elmer Gantry.

He appeared both on the stage and screen, receiving a Tony Award for the role of Biff Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949). Kennedy also inaugurated three other major characters in Miller plays: Chris Keller in All My Sons (1947), John Proctor in The Crucible (1953), and Walter Franz in The Price (1968).
Oscar nominations

He and Claude Rains share the record of four losing nominations for the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. He also received a nomination for Best Actor, in Bright Victory (1951).
Year Award Film Winner
1949 Best Supporting Actor Champion Dean Jagger – Twelve O'Clock High
1951 Best Actor Bright Victory Humphrey Bogart – The African Queen
1955 Best Supporting Actor Trial Jack Lemmon – Mister Roberts
1957 Best Supporting Actor Peyton Place Red Buttons – Sayonara
1958 Best Supporting Actor Some Came Running Burl Ives – The Big Country
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the similarity is uncanny.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/05/10 at 4:33 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrojFR7jM9E



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/05/10 at 4:34 pm

Lonesome Dove.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/05/10 at 5:13 pm


"You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. But the smell! You know - that gasoline smell... the whole hill! Smelled like... victory."

Classic line from a classic film.

Yep ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/05/10 at 5:13 pm


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrojFR7jM9E



Cat

Excellent song :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/05/10 at 5:14 pm


the similarity is uncanny.

I know it's weird

Lonesome Dove.

My inspiration for the word of the day :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 01/05/10 at 7:30 pm

Nice bio on Arthur Kennedy, Ninny. I've always felt he was underated. Thanks for posting.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/06/10 at 5:29 am


Nice bio on Arthur Kennedy, Ninny. I've always felt he was underated. Thanks for posting.  :)

Thanks Vinny, I didn't know if too many people knew who he was.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/06/10 at 5:44 am

The word or phrase of the day...LPGA
The LPGA, in full the Ladies Professional Golf Association, is an American organization for female professional golfers. The organization, whose headquarters are in Daytona Beach, Florida, is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of weekly golf tournaments for elite female golfers from around the world that runs from February to December each year. In 2009, total prize money on the LPGA Tour was just under $47.6 million, a decrease of over $12 million from 2008, and there were 28 total official events, down from 34 in 2008. The 2010 season will see a further reduction in events, with 24 officially announced in November 2009, although the LPGA left open the possibility of one or two more events being added before the 2010 season begins.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/06/10 at 5:49 am

The birthday of the day...Nancy Lopez
Nancy Lopez (born January 6, 1957) is an American professional golfer. She became a member of the LPGA Tour in 1977 and won 48 LPGA Tour events during her LPGA career, including three major championships.In 1978, her first full season on the LPGA Tour, Lopez won nine tournaments, including at one stretch, five tournaments in a row. She appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated, won the Vare Trophy for lowest scoring average, LPGA Rookie of the Year, Player of the Year and was named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year. She won another eight times in 1979. She won multiple times in each year from 1980 to 1984, although she played only half-seasons in 1983 and 1984 due to the birth of her first child.

Playing full time again in 1985, Lopez posted five wins, five seconds and five thirds, won the money title, the scoring title and the Player of the Year Award. She was also named Associate Press Female Athlete of the Year for a second time. She played only four tournaments in 1986, when her second daughter was born. But came back to win multiple times in 1987-89 - three times each in 1988 and 1989 - and once again won Player of the Year honors in 1988. Her schedule was curtailed again in the early 1990s when her third daughter was born. In 1992 she won twice. She continued to play short schedules - from 11 to 18 tournaments - through 2002, then in 2003 cut back to just a half dozen or fewer events a year.

Although considered one of the greats in the history of women's golf, and the best player from the late '70s to late '80s, Lopez did not win many majors and never won the U.S. Women's Open. She finished second at the U.S. Women's Open four times, the last coming in 1997 when she became the first golfer to score in the 60s for all four rounds, yet she still lost to Alison Nicholas. Her three major championships all came at the LPGA Championship, in 1978, 1985, and 1989.

Lopez was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1987. She was a member of the United States Solheim Cup team in 1990 and was captain of the team in 2005. She retired from regular tournament play in 2002, and then attempted a return in 2007 and 2008. In her return season, she played six tournaments, failed to make the cut in any of the tournaments and only broke 80 in three of the 12 rounds. In 2008 she played in three events, with a low score of 76, never making the cut.

Lopez is the only woman to win LPGA Rookie of the Year, Player of the Year, and the Vare Trophy in the same season (1978). Her company, Nancy Lopez Golf, makes a full line of women's clubs and accessories. She also does occasional television commentary. Her husband, Ray Knight, is a former All-Star baseball player.
Amateur wins

this list may be incomplete

    * 1969 New Mexico Women's Amateur
    * 1970 New Mexico Women's Amateur
    * 1971 New Mexico Women's Amateur
    * 1972 U.S. Girl's Junior, Wonen's Western Junior
    * 1973 Wonen's Western Junior
    * 1974 U.S. Girl's Junior, Wonen's Western Junior
    * 1975 Mexican Amateur
    * 1976 AIAW National Championship, Women's Western Amateur, Women's Trans National Amateur

LPGA Tour wins (48)

    * 1978 (9) Bent Tree Classic, Sunstar Classic, Greater Baltimore Classic, Coca-Cola Classic, Golden Lights Championship, LPGA Championship, Bankers Trust Classic, Colgate European Open, Colgate Far East Open
    * 1979 (8) Sunstar Classic, Sahara National Pro-Am, Women's International, Coca-Cola Classic, Golden Lights Championship, Lady Keystone Open, Colgate European Open, Mary Kay Classic
    * 1980 (3) Women's Kemper Open, The Sarah Coventry, Rail Charity Golf Classic
    * 1981 (3) Arizona Copper Classic, Colgate Dinah Shore, The Sarah Coventry
    * 1982 (2) J&B Scotch Pro-Am, Mazda Japan Classic
    * 1983 (2) Elizabeth Arden Classic, J&B Scotch Pro-Am
    * 1984 (2) Uniden LPGA Invitational, Chevrolet World Championship of Women's Golf
    * 1985 (5) Chrysler-Plymouth Classic, LPGA Championship, Mazda Hall of Fame Championship, Henredon Classic, Portland PING Championship
    * 1987 (2) Sarasota Classic, PING Cellular One LPGA Golf Championship
    * 1988 (3) Mazda Classic, Ai Star/Centinela Hospital Classic, Chrysler-Plymouth Classic
    * 1989 (3) LPGA Championship, Atlantic City Classic, Nippon Travel-MBS Classic
    * 1990 (1) MBS LPGA Classic
    * 1991 (1) Sara Lee Classic
    * 1992 (2) Rail Charity Golf Classic, PING Cellular One LPGA Golf Championship
    * 1993 (1) Youngstown-Warren LPGA Classic
    * 1997 (1) Chick-fil-A Charity Championship

LPGA Majors are shown in bold.

    Note: Lopez won the Colgate Dinah Shore (now known as the Kraft Nabisco Championship) before it became a major championship.

Other wins

    * 1980 JCPenney Mixed Team Classic (with Curtis Strange)
    * 1987 Mazda Champions (with Miller Barber)

Major championships
Wins (3)
Year Championship Winning Score
1978 LPGA Championship 275 (-13)
1985 LPGA Championship 275 (-15)
1989 LPGA Championship 274 (-14)
Results in LPGA majors
Tournament 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980
Kraft Nabisco Championship ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
LPGA Championship DNP DNP DNP DNP 1 T10 T19
U.S. Women's Open T18 T2LA CUT 2 T9 T11 T7
du Maurier Classic ... ... ... ... ... 2 T6
Tournament 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990
Kraft Nabisco Championship ... ... T6 T16 T11 DNP T33 T5 T18 CUT
LPGA Championship T5 T35 T21 T14 1 DNP T28 T24 1 T14
U.S. Women's Open WD T7 DNP T35 T4 DNP T21 T12 2 T14
du Maurier Classic T2 T9 WD T8 DNP DNP T21 T45 9 DNP
Tournament 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
Kraft Nabisco Championship T30 CUT T8 T9 T3 T15 T23 T13 T21 T43
LPGA Championship DNP T18 T25 WD T18 T18 T37 T44 WD T65
U.S. Women's Open DNP T16 T7 T35 T28 CUT 2 CUT CUT T46
du Maurier Classic DNP DNP DNP T22 DNP T2 DNP T27 DNP DNP
Tournament 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Kraft Nabisco Championship T63 CUT CUT WD CUT DNP DNP
LPGA Championship CUT CUT CUT CUT DNP DNP DNP
U.S. Women's Open CUT CUT DNP DNP DNP DNP DNP
Women's British Open ^ DNP DNP DNP DNP DNP DNP DNP

^ The Women's British Open replaced the du Maurier Classic as an LPGA major in 2001.
LA = Low Amateur
DNP = did not play.
CUT = missed the half=way cut.
"T" = tied
WD = withdrew
Green background for a win. Yellow background for a top-10 finish.
See also

    * Golfers with most LPGA Tour wins
    * Golfers with most LPGA major championship wins

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/06/10 at 5:52 am

The person of the day...Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (pronounced /gɪˈlɛspi/; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, singer, and composer.

Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz. He taught and influenced many other musicians, including trumpeters Miles Davis, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Arturo Sandoval, Lee Morgan, and John Faddis.

In addition to featuring in the epochal moments in bebop, he was instrumental in founding Afro-Cuban jazz, the modern jazz version of what early-jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton referred to as the "Spanish Tinge". Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and gifted improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic complexity previously unknown in jazz. Dizzy's beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, his scat singing, his bent horn, pouched cheeks and his light-hearted personality were essential in popularizing bebop. Dizzy's first professional job was with the Frank Fairfax Orchestra in 1935, after which he joined the respective orchestras of Edgar Hayes and Teddy Hill, essentially replacing Roy Eldridge as first trumpet in 1937. Teddy Hill’s band was where Dizzy Gillespie made his first recording, King Porter Stomp. At this time Dizzy met a young woman named Lorraine from the Apollo Theatre, whom he married in 1940. They remained married until his death in 1993. Dizzy stayed with Teddy Hill’s band for a year, then left and free-lanced with numerous other bands. In 1939, Dizzy joined Cab Calloway's orchestra, with which he recorded one of his earliest compositions, the instrumental Pickin' the Cabbage, in 1940. (Originally released on Paradiddle, a 78rpm backed with a co-composition with Cozy Cole, Calloway's drummer at the time, on the Vocalion label, #5467).

Dizzy left Calloway in late 1941 over a notorious incident with a knife. Calloway did not like how Dizzy played his music, nor did he like the humor that Dizzy gave his performances. Calloway even went so far as to call Dizzy’s music “Chinese Music”. During a performance one night Calloway was playing a solo when one of his band members hit him in the back with a spitball. Calloway was very angry and accused Dizzy first. Dizzy said that he did not throw the spitball and both musicians started arguing. The argument got so bad that Dizzy actually pulled out his weapon.

During his time in Calloway's band, Dizzy Gillespie started writing big band music for bandleaders like Woody Herman and Jimmy Dorsey. He then freelanced with a few bands - most notably Ella Fitzgerald's orchestra, composed of members of the late Chick Webb's band, in 1942.

In 1943, Dizzy joined the Earl Hines orchestra. The legendary big band of Billy Eckstine gave his unusual harmonies a better setting and it was as a member of Eckstine's band that he was reunited with Parker, a fellow member of Hines' more conventional band. In 1945, Dizzy left Eckstine's band because he wanted to play with a small combo. A "small combo" typically comprised no more than five musicians, playing the trumpet, saxophone, piano, bass and drums.
The rise of bebop

Bebop was known as the first modern jazz style. However, it was unpopular in the beginning and was not viewed as positively as swing music was. Bebop was seen as an outgrowth of swing, not a revolution. Swing introducted a diversity of new musicians in the bebop era like Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke, Oscar Pettiford, and Gillespie. Through these musicians, a new vocabulary of musical phrases was created. With Charlie Parker, Gillespie jammed at famous jazz clubs like Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House, where the first seeds of bebop were planted. Charlie Parker's system also held methods of adding chords to existing chord progressions and implying additional chords within the improvised lines.

Gillespie compositions like "Groovin' High", "Woody n' You", "Salt Peanuts", and "A Night in Tunisia". sounded radically different, harmonically and rhythmically, from the Swing music popular at the time. Written in 1942, while Gillespie was playing with Earl Hines' band, the song is noted for have a feature that is common in today's music, a non-walking bass line. The song also displays Afro-Cuban rhythms. One of their first (and greatest) small-group performances together was only issued in 2005: a concert in New York's Town Hall on June 22, 1945. Gillespie taught many of the young musicians on 52nd Street, like Miles Davis and Max Roach, about the new style of jazz. After a lengthy gig at Billy Berg's club in Los Angeles, which left most of the audience ambivalent or hostile towards the new music, the band broke up. Unlike Parker, who was content to play in small groups and be an occasional featured soloist in big bands, Gillespie aimed to lead a big band himself; his first, unsuccessful, attempt to do this was in 1945.

After his work with Parker, Gillespie led other small combos (including ones with Milt Jackson, John Coltrane, Lalo Schifrin, Ray Brown, Kenny Clarke, James Moody, J.J. Johnson, and Yusef Lateef) and finally put together his first successful big band. Dizzy Gillespie and his band tried to popularize bop and make Dizzy Gillespie a symbol of the new music. He also appeared frequently as a soloist with Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic. He also headlined the 1946 independently-produced musical revue film Jivin' in Be-Bop.

In 1948 Dizzy was involved in a traffic accident when the bicycle he was riding was bumped by an automobile. He was slightly injured, and found that he could no longer hit the B-flat above high C. He won the case, but the jury awarded him only $1000, in view of his high earnings up to that point.

In 1956 he organized a band to go on a State Department tour of the Middle East and earned the nickname "the Ambassador of Jazz". During this time, he also continued to lead a big band that performed throughout the United States and featured musicians including Pee Wee Moore and others. This band recorded a live album at the 1957 Newport jazz festival that featured Mary Lou Williams as a guest artist on piano.
Afro-Cuban music

In the late 1940s, Gillespie was also involved in the movement called Afro-Cuban music, bringing Latin and African elements to greater prominence in jazz and even pop music, particularly salsa. Afro-Cuban jazz is based on traditional Cuban rhythms. Dizzy Gillespie was introduced to Chano Pozo in 1947 by Mario Bauza, a Latin jazz trumpet player. Chano Pozo became Gillespie's conga drummer for his band. Dizzy Gilespie also worked with Mario Bauza in New York jazz clubs on 52nd street and several famous dance clubs such as Palladium and the Apollo Theater in Harlem. They played together in the Chick Webb band and Cab Calloway's band, where Gillespie and Bauza became life-long friends. Dizzy helped develop and mature the Afro-Cuban jazz style.

Afro-Cuban jazz was considered bebop-oriented, and some musicians classified it as a modern style or swing. Afro-Cuban jazz was successful because it never decreased in popularity and it always attracted people to dance to its unique rhythms. Gillespie's most famous contributions to Afro-Cuban music are the compositions "Manteca" and "Tin Tin Deo" (both co-written with Chano Pozo); he was responsible for commissioning George Russell's "Cubano Be, Cubano Bop", which featured the great but ill-fated Cuban conga player, Chano Pozo. In 1977, Gillespie discovered Arturo Sandoval while researching music during a tour of Cuba.
Later years and death
Dizzy Gillespie at Nambassa festival 1981.
Credit: Nambassa Trust and Peter Terry http://www.nambassa.com

Unlike his contemporary Miles Davis, Gillespie essentially remained true to the bebop style for the rest of his career.

In 1960, he was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.

In 1964 the artist put himself forward as a presidential candidate. He promised that if he were elected, the White House would be renamed "The Blues House," and a cabinet composed of Duke Ellington, (Secretary of State); Miles Davis, (Director of the CIA); Max Roach, (Secretary of Defense); Charles Mingus, (Secretary of Peace); Ray Charles, (Librarian of Congress); Louis Armstrong, (Secretary of Agriculture); Mary Lou Williams, (Ambassador to the Vatican); Thelonious Monk, (Travelling Ambassador) and Malcolm X, (Attorney General). He said his running mate would be Phyllis Diller.

Gillespie published his autobiography, To Be or Not to Bop, in 1979.

Gillespie was a vocal fixture in many of John Hubley and Faith Hubley's animated films, such as The Hole, The Hat, and Voyage to Next.

In the 1980s, Dizzy Gillespie led the United Nation Orchestra. For three years Flora Purim toured with the Orchestra and she credits Gillespie with evolving her understanding of jazz after being in the field for over two decades. David Sánchez also toured with the group and was also greatly influenced by Gillespie. Both artists later were nominated for Grammy awards. Gillespie also had a guest appearance on The Cosby Show as well as Sesame Street and The Muppet Show.

In 1982, Dizzy Gillespie had a cameo on Stevie Wonder's hit "Do I Do". Gillespie's tone gradually faded in the last years in life, and his performances often focused more on his proteges such as Arturo Sandoval and Jon Faddis; his good-humoured comedic routines became more and more a part of his live act.
Dizzy Gillespie with drummer Bill Stewart at 1984 Stanford Jazz Workshop

In 1988, Gillespie had worked with Canadian flautist and saxophonist Moe Koffman on their prestigious album Oo Pop a Da. He did fast scat vocals on the title track and a couple of the other tracks were played only on trumpet.

In 1989 Gillespie gave 300 performances in 27 countries, appeared in 100 U.S. cities in 31 states and the District of Columbia, headlined three television specials, performed with two symphonies, and recorded four albums. He was also crowned a traditional chief in Nigeria, received the Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres -- France's most prestigious cultural award—was named regent professor by the University of California, and received his fourteenth honorary doctoral degree, this one from the Berklee College of Music. In addition, he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award the same year. The next year, at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts ceremonies celebrating the centennial of American jazz, Gillespie received the Kennedy Center Honors Award and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Duke Ellington Award for 50 years of achievement as a composer, performer, and bandleader. In 1993 he received the Polar Music Prize in Sweden.
Dizzy Gillespie with the Italian singer Sergio Caputo.

November 26, 1992 at Carnegie Hall in New York, following the Second Bahá'í World Congress was Dizzy's 75th birthday concert and his offering to the celebration of the centenary of the passing of Bahá'u'lláh. Gillespie was to appear at Carnegie Hall for the 33rd time. The line-up included: Jon Faddis, Marvin "Doc" Holladay, James Moody, Paquito D'Rivera, and the Mike Longo Trio with Ben Brown on bass and Mickey Roker on drums. But Gillespie didn't make it because he was in bed suffering from cancer of the pancreas. "But the musicians played their real hearts out for him, no doubt suspecting that he would not play again. Each musician gave tribute to their friend, this great soul and innovator in the world of jazz."

Gillespie also starred in a film called The Winter in Lisbon released in 2004. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7057 Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood section of the City of Los Angeles. He is honored by the December 31, 2006 - A Jazz New Year's Eve: Freddy Cole & the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

A longtime resident of Corona, Queens, he died of pancreatic cancer January 6, 1993, aged 75, and was buried in the Flushing Cemetery, Queens, New York. Mike Longo delivered a eulogy at his funeral. He was also with Gillespie on the night he died, along with Jon Faddis and a select few others.

At the time of his death, Dizzy Gillespie was survived by his widow, Lorraine Willis Gillespie; a daughter, jazz singer Jeanie Bryson; and a grandson, Radji Birks Bryson-Barrett. Gillespie had two funerals. One was a Bahá'í funeral at his request, at which his closest friends and colleagues attended. The second was at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York open to the public.

Dizzy Gillespie, a Bahá'í since 1970, was one of the most famous adherents of the Bahá'í Faith which helped him make sense of his position in a succession of trumpeters as well as turning his life from knife-carrying roughneck to global citizen, and from alcohol to soul force, in the words of author Nat Hentoff, who knew Gillespie for forty years. He is often called the Bahá'í Jazz Ambassador. He is honored with weekly jazz sessions at the New York Bahá'í Center
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/06/10 at 6:55 am

Dizzy always had that ability to blow and his cheeks would get big.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/06/10 at 7:28 am


Dizzy always had that ability to blow and his cheeks would get big.

I noticed that in his pictures.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/06/10 at 2:51 pm


I noticed that in his pictures.


How did he learn to do that?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/06/10 at 3:00 pm


How did he learn to do that?

I guess experience :-\\

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/06/10 at 3:08 pm

I remember he was on an episode of Cosby Show.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/06/10 at 3:42 pm


I remember he was on an episode of Cosby Show.

I almost forgot that.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/06/10 at 3:59 pm

I remember him on the Muppet Show.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/07/10 at 6:01 am


I remember him on the Muppet Show.



Cat

Now that I did forget about :-[

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/07/10 at 6:10 am

The word of the day...Ghost
A ghost is the spirit of a dead person that someone believes they can see or feel.
The ghost of something, especially of something bad that has happened, is the memory of it.
If there is a ghost of something, that thing is so faint or weak that it hardly exists.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/07/10 at 6:14 am

The birthday of the day...Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage (born Nicolas Kim Coppola; January 7, 1964) is an American actor.

Cage pursued acting as a career, making his debut on television in 1981. Cage has been featured in "bad boy" roles, and has won awards, beginning in 1989 with his Independent Spirit Award, an Academy Award for Best Actor for his lead role in Leaving Las Vegas, and his most recent Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor in 2002 for Adaptation.

Cage has appeared in over 60 films including Face/Off (1997), Ghost Rider (2007), and National Treasure (2004). Cage has been married three times: to Patricia Arquette, Lisa Marie Presley, and Alice Kim Cage, his current wife.
n order to avoid the appearance of nepotism as the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, he changed his name early in his career from Nicolas Coppola to Nicolas Cage, inspired in part by the Marvel Comics superhero Luke Cage. Since his minor role in the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High, with Sean Penn, Cage has appeared in a wide range of films, both mainstream and offbeat. He tried out for the role of Dallas Winston in his uncle's film The Outsiders, based on S.E. Hinton's novel, but lost to Matt Dillon. He was also in Coppola's films Rumble Fish and Peggy Sue Got Married.

Other Cage roles included appearances in the acclaimed 1987 romantic-comedy Moonstruck, also starring Cher; The Coen Brothers cult-classic comedy Raising Arizona; David Lynch's 1990 offbeat film Wild at Heart; a lead role in Martin Scorsese's 1999 New York City paramedic drama Bringing Out the Dead; and Ridley Scott's 2003 quirky drama Matchstick Men, in which he played an agoraphobic, mysophobic, obsessive-compulsive con artist with a tic disorder.

Cage has been nominated twice for an Academy Award, winning once for his performance as a suicidal alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas. His other nomination was for his portrayal of real-life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and Kaufman's fictional twin Donald in Adaptation. Despite these successes, most of his lower-profile films have performed poorly at the box office compared to his mainstream action/adventure roles. The suspense thriller 8mm (1999) was not a box office success, but is now considered a cult film. He took the lead role in the 2001 film Captain Corelli's Mandolin and learned to play the mandolin from scratch for the part. In 2005, two offbeat films he headlined, Lord of War and The Weather Man, failed to find a significant audience despite nationwide releases and good reviews for his acting in those roles. Poor reviews for The Wicker Man resulted in low box office sales. The much criticized Ghost Rider (2007), based on the Marvel Comics character, was a significant hit, earning more than $45 million (the top earner) during its opening weekend and over $208 million worldwide through the weekend ending on March 25, 2007. Also in 2007, he starred in Next, which shares the concept of a glimpse into an alternate timeline with The Family Man (2000).

Most of Cage's movies that have achieved financial success were in the action/adventure genre. In his second-highest grossing film to date, National Treasure, he plays an eccentric historian who goes on a dangerous adventure to find treasure hidden by the Founding Fathers of the United States. Other action hits include The Rock, in which Cage plays a young FBI chemical weapons expert who infiltrates Alcatraz Island in hopes of neutralizing a terrorist threat, Face/Off, a John Woo film where he plays both a hero and a villain, and World Trade Center, director Oliver Stone's film regarding the September 11, 2001 attacks. He had a small but notable role as the Chinese criminal mastermind Dr. Fu Manchu in Rob Zombie's fake trailer Werewolf Women of the S.S. from the B-movie double feature Grindhouse.

In recent years, Cage made his directorial debut with Sonny, a low-budget drama starring James Franco as a male prostitute whose mother (Brenda Blethyn) serves as his pimp. Cage had a small role in the grim film, which received poor reviews and a short run in a limited number of theatres. Cage's producing career includes Shadow of the Vampire, the first film from Saturn Films.

In early December 2006, Cage announced at the Bahamas International Film Festival that he planned to curtail his future acting endeavors in order to pursue other interests. On the The Dresden Files for the Sci-Fi Channel, Cage is listed as the executive producer. Cage said:

    I feel I've made a lot of movies already and I want to start exploring other opportunities that I can apply myself to, whether it's writing or other interests that I may develop.

In November 2007, Cage was spotted backstage at a Ring of Honor wrestling show in New York City researching his role for the The Wrestler. Ultimately, Nicolas Cage was replaced in "The Wrestler" with Mickey Rourke, in a role that has earned a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for Rourke.

Wrestler Director Darren Aronofsky, in an interview with slashfilm.com, said of Cage's replacement that:

    Nic was a complete gentleman, and he understood that my heart was with Mickey and he stepped aside. I have so much respect for Nic Cage as an actor and I think it really could have worked with Nic but ... you know, Nic was incredibly supportive of Mickey and he is old friends with Mickey and really wanted to help with this opportunity, so he pulled himself out of the race.

In 2008, Cage appeared as Joe, a contract killer who undergoes a change of heart while on a work outing in Bangkok, in the film Bangkok Dangerous. The film is shot by the Pang Brothers and has a distinct South-East Asian flavor.

In 2009, Cage starred in sci-fi thriller Knowing, directed by Alex Proyas. In the film, he plays an MIT professor who examines the contents of a time capsule unearthed at his son's elementary school. Startling predictions found inside the capsule that have already come true lead him to believe the world is going to end at the close of the week, and that he and his son are somehow involved in the destruction. The film received mainly negative reviews but was the box office winner on its opening weekend.

Also in 2009, Cage appeared in the film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, directed by acclaimed German director Werner Herzog. He portrayed a corrupt police officer with gambling, drug and alcohol addictions. This film reunited Cage with Eva Mendes, who played his love interest in Ghost Rider.

Cage will star in the period piece Season of the Witch, playing a 14th-century knight transporting a girl accused of causing the Black Plague to a monastery, and The Sorcerer's Apprentice, in which he will play the sorcerer.

It is rumored that he will star in National Treasure 3, which has a possible release date as early as 2011. He would again take the role of Benjamin Gates, a cryptologist-turned-treasure hunter.
Praise and criticism

The acting work of Cage has been praised by influential film critic Roger Ebert who writes, in his "Great Movies" essay about the film Adaptation., that:

    There are often lists of the great living male movie stars: De Niro, Nicholson and Pacino, usually. How often do you see the name of Nicolas Cage? He should always be up there. He's daring and fearless in his choice of roles, and unafraid to crawl out on a limb, saw it off and remain suspended in air. No one else can project inner trembling so effectively.... He always seems so earnest. However improbable his character, he never winks at the audience. He is committed to the character with every atom and plays him as if he were him.

Roger Ebert, in response to mixed reviews of Knowing and their focus on criticizing Cage, wrote an article in which he defends both Cage as an actor and the movie which, in stark contrast to other critics, Ebert gave 4/4 stars.

Despite such praise, Cage has his detractors. Cage is often criticized for choosing to star in thrillers and/or big-budget action-adventure movies. Many feel that, in recent years, he has abandoned altogether any desire to star in smaller character-driven dramas, the type of film that initially garnered him praise. Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman wrote an article in March 2009, after the debut of Knowing accusing Cage of such "selling out" In the article, titled "Nicolas Cage: Artist or hack? The choice is his", Gleiberman calls Cage out to return to dramas as opposed to high-paying blockbusters.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1980 Brubaker Extra Uncredited
1981 Best Of Times Nicholas
1982 Fast Times at Ridgemont High Brad's Bud
1983 The Outsiders cameo in rumble scene Uncredited
Valley Girl Randy
Rumble Fish Smokey
1984 Racing with the Moon Nicky and Bud
The Cotton Club Vincent Dwyer
Birdy Sergeant Al Columbato
1986 The Boy in Blue Ned Hanlan
Peggy Sue Got Married Charlie Bodell
1987 Raising Arizona H. I. McDunnough
Moonstruck Ronny Cammareri Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1988 Never on Tuesday Man In Red Sports Car
1989 Vampire's Kiss Peter Leow Festival de Cine de Sitges Award for Best Actor Tied with Sir Michael Gambon for The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989)
Nominated — Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Male
1990 Tempo di uccidere Enrico Silvestri
Fire Birds Jake Preston aka Wings of the Apache
Wild at Heart Sailor
Zandalee Johnny
1992 Honeymoon in Vegas Jack Singer Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1993 Amos & Andrew Amos Odell
Deadfall Eddie
1994 A Century of Cinema Himself
Red Rock West Michael Williams
Guarding Tess Doug Chesnic
It Could Happen to You Charlie Lang
Trapped in Paradise Bill Firpo
1995 Kiss of Death Little Junior Brown
Leaving Las Vegas Ben Sanderson Academy Award for Best Actor
Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor
Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
National Board of Review Award for Best Actor
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
San Sebastián International Film Festival Silver Seashell
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Chlotrudis Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Male
Nominated — London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
1996 The Rock Dr. Stanley Goodspeed
1997 Con Air Cameron Poe
Face/Off Castor Troy/Sean Archer Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actor
1998 City of Angels Seth
Snake Eyes Rick Santoro
1999 8mm Tom Welles
Bringing Out the Dead Frank Pierce
2000 Gone in Sixty Seconds Randall "Memphis" Raines
The Family Man Jack Campbell
Welcome to Hollywood Himself
2001 Italian Soldiers Himself
Captain Corelli's Mandolin Captain Antonio Corelli
Christmas Carol: The Movie Jacob Marley Voice
2002 Windtalkers Sgt. Joe Enders
Adaptation. Charlie and Donald Kaufman Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Chlotrudis Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Nominated — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Sonny Acid Yellow Director
Nominated — Deauville Film Festival Grand Prix du jury
2003 Matchstick Men Roy Waller
2004 National Treasure Benjamin Gates
2005 Lord of War Yuri Orlov
The Weather Man David Spritz
2006 The Ant Bully Zoc Voice
The Wicker Man Edward Malus
World Trade Center John McLoughlin
2007 Ghost Rider Ghost Rider/Johnny Blaze
Grindhouse Dr. Fu Manchu Segment Werewolf Women of the S.S.
Next Cris Johnson
National Treasure: Book of Secrets Benjamin Gates
2008 Bangkok Dangerous Joe
2009 Knowing Professor Jonathan "John" Koestler
G-Force Speckles the Mole Voice
Astro Boy Dr. Tenma Voice
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans The Lieutenant
2010 Season of the Witch Lavey post-production
Kick-Ass Damon Macready/ Big Daddy post-production
The Sorcerer's Apprentice Balthazar Blake post-production
http://i521.photobucket.com/albums/w331/poli_66/cage-1.jpg
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/07/10 at 6:18 am

The person of the day...Trevor Howard
Trevor Howard (29 September 1913 – 7 January 1988), born Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith, was an English film, stage and television actor. oward moved back to the theatre in The Recruiting Officer (1943), where he met the actress Helen Cherry; they married in 1944 and stayed together until Howard's death in 1988; they had no children.

A short part in one of the best British war films, The Way Ahead (1944), provided an entry into the cinema. This was followed by The Way to the Stars (1945), which led to the role for which Howard is probably best remembered, the doctor in the 1945 film Brief Encounter illicitly involved with Celia Johnson's housewife. Directed by David Lean, the film won an award at the Cannes Film Festival and considerable critical acclaim for Howard. Next came two successful Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat thrillers, I See a Dark Stranger (1945) and Green for Danger (1946), followed by They Made Me a Fugitive (1947), to which the roots of British realism in cinema can be traced. In 1947, he was invited by Laurence Olivier to play Petruchio in an Old Vic production of The Taming of the Shrew. Despite The Times declaring, "We can remember no better Petruchio", the opportunity of working again with David Lean, in The Passionate Friends (1949), drew Howard back to film and, although he had a solid reputation as a theatre actor, his dislike of long runs, and the attractions of travel afforded by film, convinced him to concentrate on cinema from this point. The Passionate Friends though, in which Howard played a similar character to Alec in Brief Encounter also featured Ann Todd and Claude Rains, but was not successful.

Howard's film reputation was secured in The Third Man (1949). As Major Calloway, he played the character type with which he became most associated, the slightly dry, slightly crusty, but capable British military officer. He also starred in The Key, (1958; based on a Jan de Hartog novel), for which he received the best actor award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and Sons and Lovers, (1960), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Another notable film was The Heart of the Matter (1953), from another Graham Greene story.

Over time Howard easily shifted to being one of England's finest character actors. Howard's later works included such films as Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), Father Goose (1964), Morituri (1965), Von Ryan's Express (1965), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), Battle of Britain (1969), Ryan's Daughter (1970), Superman (1978), and Gandhi (1982). The Dawning (1988) was his final film. One of his strangest films, and one he took great delight in, was Vivian Stanshall's 1980 Sir Henry at Rawlinson End in which he played the title role.

In television, Howard began to find more substantial roles. In 1962, he played Løvborg in Hedda Gabler, her former love, with Ingrid Bergman. He won an Emmy award the following year as Disraeli in The Invincible Mr Disraeli. In the 1970s, he played an abbot in the ITV Saturday Night Theatre production of Catholics (1973). He received an Emmy nomination in 1975 for his role as Abbé Faria in a television version of The Count of Monte Cristo. The decade ended with him reunited with Celia Johnson in Staying On (1980), an adaptation of Paul Scott's sequel to his Raj Quartet novels.

The 1980s saw a revival of Howard's career as a film actor. The role of a Cheyenne Indian in Windwalker (1980) revitalized his acting. He continued with cameo roles, including Judge Broomfield in Gandhi (1982). His final films were White Mischief and The Dawning, both released in 1988.

Howard did not abandon the theatre altogether in 1947, returning to the stage on occasion, most notably as Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard (1954) and the captain in The Father (1964). His last appearance on the British stage was in Waltz of the Toreadors in 1974.

Throughout his film career Howard insisted that all of his contracts held a clause excusing him from work whenever a cricket Test Match was being played.
Howard was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Sons and Lovers (1960). He won one BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for The Key (1958) and was nominated four more times. He won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie for Hallmark Hall of Fame: Invincible Mr. Disraeli in 1963 and received two other nominations, one as a lead and the other as a supporting actor. He also got three Golden Globe Award nominations.

A British government document leaked to the Sunday Times in 2003 shows that Howard was among almost 300 celebrities to decline honors.
Partial filmography

    * The Way Ahead (1944)
    * Brief Encounter (1945)
    * The Way to the Stars (1945)
    * I See a Dark Stranger (1946)
    * Green for Danger (1946)
    * They Made Me a Fugitive (1947)
    * So Well Remembered (1947)
    * The Passionate Friends (1949)
    * The Third Man (1949)
    * Odette (1950)
    * The Clouded Yellow (1951)
    * Outcast of the Islands (1952)
    * The Gift Horse (1952)
    * The Heart of the Matter (1953)
    * The Cockleshell Heroes (1955)
    * Run for the Sun (1956)
    * Around the World in Eighty Days (1956)
    * Interpol (1957)
    * Manuela (1957)
    * The Key (1958)
    * The Roots of Heaven (1958)
    * Sons and Lovers (1960)
    * The Lion (1962)
    * Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
    * Father Goose (1964)
    * Operation Crossbow (1965)
    * Von Ryan's Express (1965)
    * Morituri (1965)
    * The Liquidator (1965)
    * The Poppy Is Also a Flower (1966)
    * Triple Cross (1966)
    * Pretty Polly (1967)
    * The Long Duel (1967)
    * The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968)
    * Battle of Britain (1969)
    * Ryan's Daughter (1970)
    * Kidnapped (1971)
    * Mary, Queen of Scots (1972)
    * The Offence (1972)
    * Pope Joan (1972)
    * Ludwig (1972)
    * A Doll's House (1973) (TV)
    * 11 Harrowhouse (1974)
    * Persecution (1974)
    * The Count of Monte Cristo (1975) (TV)
    * Conduct Unbecoming (1975)
    * Aces High (1976)
    * Albino (1976)
    * The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977)
    * Superman (1978)
    * Meteor (1979)
    * The Sea Wolves (1980)
    * Windwalker (1980)
    * Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (1980)
    * Light Years Away, also known as Les Années lumière (1981)
    * The Missionary (1982)
    * Gandhi (1982)
    * Sword of the Valiant (1984)
    * Time After Time (1986)
    * Shaka Zulu (1986)
    * The Dawning (1988)
    * The Unholy (1988)

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk119/lint_clouds/Harvest%20Lily/Trevor_Howard.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l28/spidermanblue/LEAN/bfi-00m-lvi.jpg
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r283/Eye81u812/TrevorHoward.gif

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/07/10 at 6:46 am


The word of the day...Ghost
A ghost is the spirit of a dead person that someone believes they can see or feel.
The ghost of something, especially of something bad that has happened, is the memory of it.
If there is a ghost of something, that thing is so faint or weak that it hardly exists.
http://i594.photobucket.com/albums/tt26/MaffMoose/img020.jpg
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj173/geraldean_2008/emilysghost.jpg
http://i573.photobucket.com/albums/ss171/gunl/NortonGhost2003.jpg
http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z31/snowwhiteangel2006/misc/ghost_stairs.gif
http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m176/niascissorhands/ghost_teengaecryingboy.jpg
http://i940.photobucket.com/albums/ad248/MoonshineVision/PICT0017.jpg
http://i681.photobucket.com/albums/vv175/xxGothicxxBeautyxx/ghost_adventure.jpg
http://i704.photobucket.com/albums/ww47/SaralondeDreamcatcher/Halloween/ghosts.gif
http://i525.photobucket.com/albums/cc335/TERRORIZEme/creepy/skeletons/ghost.gif


I'm taking a guess, Patrick Swayze's or Demi Moore's Birthday? ???

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/07/10 at 8:22 am


I'm taking a guess, Patrick Swayze's or Demi Moore's Birthday? ???

No, It's Nicolas Cage(Ghost Rider)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/07/10 at 11:45 am

I liked Nicholas Cage in "Raising Arizona"
Likes that film in general.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/07/10 at 12:28 pm


I liked Nicholas Cage in "Raising Arizona"
Likes that film in general.

I like quite a few of his movies :)
I discovered while doing his profile that he doesn't use the h in his name I thought it was Nicholas ,but it is actually Nicolas :-\\

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/07/10 at 12:32 pm

One of my favorite shows.


http://www.syfy.com/ghosthunters/




Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/07/10 at 1:16 pm


One of my favorite shows.


http://www.syfy.com/ghosthunters/




Cat

I've seen preview, but have never checked it out.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 01/07/10 at 4:01 pm

Not a big fan of Nicholas Cage...but enjoyed the National Treasure movies. Could actually take the whole family (no sex and no swearing)!!  :o

Trevor Howard was a great actor. First saw him in The Third Man (great movie)....and then later on in Mutiny On The Bounty.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/07/10 at 4:08 pm


Not a big fan of Nicholas Cage...but enjoyed the National Treasure movies. Could actually take the whole family (no sex and no swearing)!!  :o





I agree with you on that.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 01/07/10 at 4:10 pm



I agree with you on that.



Cat


I appreciate you agreeing with me at least once per year!  I guess your obligations have now been fulfilled!  ;)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/07/10 at 6:53 pm


I liked Nicholas Cage in "Raising Arizona"
Likes that film in general.


The Weatherman was my favorite.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/08/10 at 6:58 am


Not a big fan of Nicholas Cage...but enjoyed the National Treasure movies. Could actually take the whole family (no sex and no swearing)!!  :o

Trevor Howard was a great actor. First saw him in The Third Man (great movie)....and then later on in Mutiny On The Bounty.

I love the National treasure movies :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/08/10 at 7:04 am

The word of the day...Spider
A spider is a small creature with eight legs. Most types of spider make structures called webs in which they catch insects for food
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z111/charlottesweb54/Spiders.png
http://i335.photobucket.com/albums/m458/AwayToTheSky/spiderfcgood3.jpg
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p4/T-DAME/spiders.jpg
http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z277/nicholspeyton/spiders.jpg
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t245/dukeofdisc/Spiders.jpg
http://i626.photobucket.com/albums/tt341/tkwi/spiders.jpg
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h112/maryhochschild/spiders.jpg
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj179/Jenn_2186/Spiders.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/08/10 at 7:07 am

Spiderman's birthday,I'm guessing?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/08/10 at 7:08 am

The birthday of the day...David Bowie
David Bowie (pronounced /ˈboʊ.iː/, BOH-ee; born David Robert Jones, 8 January 1947) is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. Active in five decades of popular music and frequently reinventing his music and image, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. He has been cited as an influence by many musicians and is known for his distinctive voice and the intellectual depth of his work.

Although he released an album (David Bowie) and several singles earlier, David Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in the autumn of 1969, when the song "Space Oddity" reached the top five of the UK Singles Chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era as the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single "Starman" and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona epitomised a career often marked by musical innovation, reinvention and striking visual presentation.

In 1975, Bowie achieved his first major American crossover success with the number-one single "Fame", co-written with John Lennon, and the hit album Young Americans, which the singer identified as "plastic soul". The sound constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees. He then confounded the expectations of both his record label and his American audiences by recording the minimalist album Low (1977)—the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno over the next two years. The so-called "Berlin Trilogy" albums all reached the UK top five and garnered lasting critical praise.

After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes" and its parent album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). He paired with Queen for the 1981 UK chart-topping single "Under Pressure", but reached a commercial peak in 1983 with the album Let's Dance, which yielded the hit singles "Let's Dance", "China Girl", and "Modern Love". Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including blue-eyed soul, industrial, adult contemporary, and jungle. His last recorded album was Reality (2003), which was supported by the 2003-2004 Reality Tour.

In the BBC's 2002 poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, Bowie ranked 29. Throughout his career he has sold an estimated 136 million albums, and ranks among the ten best-selling acts in UK pop history. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him 39th on their list of the 100 Greatest Rock Artists of All Time and the 23rd best singer of all time
Bowie's first flirtation with fame came in 1969 with his single "Space Oddity," written the previous year but recorded and released to coincide with the first moon landing. This ballad told the story of Major Tom, an astronaut who becomes lost in space, though it has also been interpreted as an allegory for taking drugs. It became a Top 5 UK hit. Bowie put the finishing touches to the track while living with Mary Finnigan as her lodger. Finnigan and Bowie joined forces with Christina Ostrom and the late Barrie Jackson to run a Folk Club on Sunday nights at The Three Tuns pub in Beckenham High Street, south London. This soon morphed into the Beckenham Arts Lab and became extremely popular. In August 1969, The Arts Lab hosted a Free Festival in a local park, later immortalised by Bowie in his song "Memory of a Free Festival". In 1969 and 1970, "Space Oddity" was used by the BBC during both its Apollo 11 moon landing coverage and its coverage of Apollo 13.

The corresponding album, his second, was released in November 1969 and originally titled David Bowie, which caused some confusion as both of Bowie's first and second albums were released with that name in the UK. In the US the same album originally bore the title Man of Words, Man of Music to overcome that confusion. In 1972, the album was re-released on both sides of the Atlantic by RCA Records as Space Oddity, the title it has kept ever since.

In 1970, Bowie released his third album, The Man Who Sold the World, rejecting the acoustic guitar sound of the previous album and replacing it with the heavy rock backing provided by Mick Ronson, who would be a major collaborator through to 1973. Much of the album resembles British heavy metal music of the period, but the album provided some unusual musical detours, such as the title track's use of Latin sounds and rhythms. The original UK cover of the album showed Bowie in a dress, an early example of his androgynous appearance. In the US, the album was originally released in a cartoonish cover that did not feature Bowie.

His next record, Hunky Dory in 1971, saw the partial return of the fey pop singer of "Space Oddity", with light fare such as the droll "Kooks". Elsewhere, the album explored more serious themes on tracks such as "Oh! You Pretty Things" (a song taken to UK number twelve by Herman's Hermits' Peter Noone in 1971), the semi-autobiographical "The Bewlay Brothers", and the Buddhist-influenced "Quicksand". Lyrically, the young songwriter also paid unusually direct homage to his influences with "Song for Bob Dylan", "Andy Warhol", and "Queen Bitch", which Bowie's somewhat cryptic liner notes indicate as a Velvet Underground pastiche. As with the single "Changes", Hunky Dory was not a big hit but it laid the groundwork for the move that would shortly lift Bowie into the first rank of stars, giving him four top-ten albums and eight top ten singles in the UK in eighteen months between 1972 and 1973.

Bowie further explored his androgynous persona in June 1972 with the seminal concept album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which presents a world destined to end in five years and tells the story of the ultimate rock star, Ziggy Stardust. The album's sound combined the hard rock elements of The Man Who Sold the World with the lighter experimental rock of Hunky Dory and the fast-paced glam rock pioneered by Marc Bolan's T. Rex. Many of the album's songs have become rock classics, including "Ziggy Stardust," "Moonage Daydream," "Rock & Roll Suicide" and "Suffragette City."

The Ziggy Stardust character became the basis for Bowie's first large-scale tour beginning in 1972, where he donned his famous flaming red mullet and wild outfits, designed by Kansai Yamamoto. The tour featured a three-piece band representing The Spiders from Mars: Ronson on guitar, Trevor Bolder on bass, and Mick Woodmansey on drums. This was Bowie’s first tour to visit the US, making his first appearance on 22 September 1972 at Music Hall in Cleveland, Ohio. The album made number five in the UK on the strength of the number ten placing of the single "Starman". Their success made Bowie a star, and soon the six-month-old Hunky Dory eclipsed Ziggy Stardust, when it peaked at number three on the UK chart. At the same time the non-album single "John, I’m Only Dancing" (not released in the US until 1979) peaked at UK number twelve, and "All the Young Dudes", a song he had given to, and produced for, Mott the Hoople, made UK number three.

Around the same time Bowie began promoting and producing his rock and roll heroes, two of whom he met at the popular New York hangout Max's Kansas City: former Velvet Underground singer Lou Reed, whose solo breakthrough Transformer was produced by Bowie and Ronson; and Iggy Pop, whose band, The Stooges, signed with Bowie's management, MainMan Productions, to record their third album, Raw Power. Though he was not present for the tracking of the album, Bowie later performed its much-debated mix. Bowie sang back-up vocals on both Reed's Transformer, and Iggy's The Idiot.

The Spiders From Mars came together again on Aladdin Sane, released in April 1973 and his first number one album in the UK. Described by Bowie as "Ziggy goes to America", all the new songs were written on ship, bus or trains during the first leg of his US Ziggy Stardust tour. The album's cover, featuring Bowie shirtless with Ziggy hair and a red, black, and blue lightning bolt across his face, has been described as being as "startling as rock covers ever got." Aladdin Sane included the UK number two hit "The Jean Genie", the UK number three hit "Drive-In Saturday", and a rendition of The Rolling Stones' "Let's Spend the Night Together". Mike Garson joined Bowie to play piano on this album, and his solo on the title track has been cited as one of the album's highlights.

Bowie's later Ziggy shows, which included songs from both Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, as well as a few earlier tracks like "Changes" and "The Width of a Circle", were ultra-theatrical affairs filled with shocking stage moments, such as Bowie stripping down to a sumo wrestling loincloth or simulating oral sex with Ronson's guitar. Bowie toured and gave press conferences as Ziggy before a dramatic and abrupt on-stage "retirement" at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973. His announcement—"Of all the shows on this tour, this particular show will remain with us the longest, because not only is it the last show of the tour, but it's the last show that we'll ever do. Thank you."—was preserved in a live recording of the show, filmed by D. A. Pennebaker and belatedly released under the title Ziggy Stardust - The Motion Picture in 1983 after many years circulating as an audio bootleg.

Pin Ups, a collection of covers of his 1960s favourites, was released in October 1973, spawning a UK number three hit in "Sorrow" and itself peaking at number one, making David Bowie the best-selling act of 1973 in the UK. By this time, Bowie had broken up the Spiders from Mars and was attempting to move on from his Ziggy persona. Bowie's own back catalogue was now highly sought: The Man Who Sold the World had been re-released in 1972 along with the second David Bowie album (Space Oddity). Hunky Dory's "Life on Mars?" was released as a single in 1973 and made number three in the UK, the same year Bowie's novelty record from 1967, "The Laughing Gnome", hit number six.
n 1980, Bowie's style retrogressed, integrating the lessons learnt on Low, Heroes, and Lodger while expanding upon them with chart success. Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) included the number one hit "Ashes to Ashes", featuring the textural work of guitar-synthesist Chuck Hammer, and revisiting the character of Major Tom from "Space Oddity". The imagery Bowie used in the song's music video gave international exposure to the underground New Romantic movement and, with many of the followers of this phase being devotees, Bowie visited the London club "Blitz"—the main New Romantic hangout—to recruit several of the regulars (including Steve Strange of the band Visage) to act in the video, renowned as being one of the most innovative of all time.

While Scary Monsters utilised principles that Bowie had learned in the Berlin era, it was considered by critics to be far more direct musically and lyrically, reflecting the transformation Bowie had gone through during his time in Germany and Europe. By 1980 Bowie had divorced his wife Angie, stopped the drug use of the "Thin White Duke" era, and radically changed his concept of the way music should be written. The album had a hard rock edge that included conspicuous guitar contributions from King Crimson's Robert Fripp, The Who's Pete Townshend, and Television's Tom Verlaine. As "Ashes to Ashes" hit number one on the UK charts, Bowie opened a three-month run on Broadway starring in The Elephant Man on 23 September 1980.

In 1981, Queen released "Under Pressure", co-written and performed with Bowie. The song was a hit and became Bowie's third UK number one single. In the same year Bowie made a cameo appearance in the German movie Christiane F. Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo, the real-life story of a 13 year-old girl in Berlin who becomes addicted to heroin and ends up prostituting herself. Bowie is credited with "special cooperation" in the credits and his music features prominently in the movie. The soundtrack was released in 1982 and contained a version of "Heroes" sung partially in German that had previously been included on the German pressing of its parent album. The same year Bowie appeared in the BBC's adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's play Baal. Coinciding with transmission of the film, a five-track EP of songs from the play was released as David Bowie in Bertolt Brecht's Baal, recorded at Hansa by the Wall the previous September. It would mark Bowie’s final new release on RCA, as 1983 saw him change record labels from RCA to EMI America. In April 1982, Bowie released "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" with Giorgio Moroder, for director Paul Schrader's film Cat People.
David Bowie on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Bowie scored his first truly commercial blockbuster with Let's Dance in 1983, a slick dance album co-produced by Chic's Nile Rodgers. The title track went to number one in the United States and United Kingdom. The album also featured the singles "Modern Love" and "China Girl", the latter causing something of a stir due to its suggestive promotional video. "China Girl" was a remake of a song which Bowie co-wrote several years earlier with Iggy Pop, who recorded it for The Idiot. In an interview by Kurt Loder, Bowie revealed that the motivation for recording "China Girl" was to help out his friend Iggy Pop financially, contributing to Bowie's history of support for musicians he admired. Let's Dance was also notable as a stepping stone for the career of the late Texan guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, who played on the album and was to have supported Bowie on the consequent Serious Moonlight Tour. Vaughan, however, never joined the tour after various disputes with Bowie. Vaughan was replaced by the Bowie tour veteran Earl Slick. Frank and George Simms from The Simms Brothers Band appeared as backing vocalists for the tour.

Bowie's next album was originally planned to be a live album recorded on the Serious Moonlight Tour, but EMI demanded another studio album instead. The resulting album, 1984's Tonight, was also dance-oriented, featuring collaborations with Tina Turner and Iggy Pop, as well as various covers, including one of The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows". The album bore the transatlantic Top Ten hit "Blue Jean" whose complete video — the 21-minute short film "Jazzin' for Blue Jean" - reflected Bowie's long-standing interest in combining music with drama. This video would win Bowie his only Grammy to date, for Best Short Form Music Video. It also featured "Loving the Alien", a remix of which was a minor hit in 1985. The album also has a pair of dance rewrites of "Neighborhood Threat" and "Tonight", old songs Bowie wrote with Iggy Pop which had originally appeared on Lust for Life.

In 1985, Bowie performed several of his greatest hits at Wembley for Live Aid. At the end of his set, which comprised "Rebel Rebel", "TVC 15", "Modern Love" and 'Heroes', he introduced a film of the Ethiopian famine, for which the event was raising funds, which was set to the song "Drive" by The Cars. At the event, the video to a fundraising single was premièred – Bowie performing a duet with Mick Jagger on a version of "Dancing in the Street", which quickly went to number one on release. In the same year Bowie worked with the Pat Metheny Group on the song "This Is Not America", which was featured in the film The Falcon and the Snowman. This song was the centrepiece of the album, a collaboration intended to underline the espionage thriller's central themes of alienation and disaffection.
Bowie performing in 1987

In 1986, Bowie contributed several songs to as well as acted in the film Absolute Beginners. The movie was not well reviewed but Bowie's theme song rose to number two in the UK charts. He also took a role in the 1986 Jim Henson film Labyrinth, as Jareth, the Goblin King who steals the baby brother of a girl named Sarah (played by Jennifer Connelly), in order to turn him into a goblin. Bowie wrote five songs for the film, the script of which was partially written by Monty Python's Terry Jones.

Bowie's final solo album of the 80s was 1987's Never Let Me Down, where he ditched the light sound of his two earlier albums, instead offering harder rock with an industrial/techno dance edge. The album, which peaked at number six in the UK, contained hit singles "Day-In, Day-Out", "Time Will Crawl", and "Never Let Me Down". Bowie himself later described it as "my nadir" and "an awful album".

Bowie decided to tour again in 1987, supporting the Never Let Me Down album. The Glass Spider Tour was preceded by nine promotional press shows before the 86-concert tour actually started on 30 May 1987. In addition to the actual band, that included Peter Frampton on lead guitar, five dancers appeared on stage for almost the entire duration of each concert. Taped pieces of dialogue were also performed by Bowie and the dancers in the middle of songs, creating an overtly theatrical effect. Several visual gimmicks were also recreated from Bowie's earlier tours. Critics of the tour described it as overproduced and claimed it pandered to then-current stadium rock trends in its special effects and dancing. However, fans that saw the shows from the Glass Spider Tour were treated to many of Bowie's classics and rarities, in addition to the newer material.
Main article: David Bowie discography

   * David Bowie (1967)
   * Space Oddity (1969)
   * The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
   * Hunky Dory (1971)
   * The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
   * Aladdin Sane (1973)
   * Pin Ups (1973)
   * Diamond Dogs (1974)
   * Young Americans (1975)
   * Station to Station (1976)
   * Low (1977)
   * "Heroes" (1977)
   * Lodger (1979)
   * Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)
   * Let's Dance (1983)
   * Tonight (1984)
   * Never Let Me Down (1987)
   * Black Tie White Noise (1993)
   * The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
   * 1. Outside (1995)
   * Earthling (1997)
   * 'Hours...' (1999)
   * Heathen (2002)
   * Reality (2003)


In August 1988, Bowie portrayed Pontius Pilate in the Martin Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/08/10 at 7:12 am

The person of the day...Terry-Thomas
Thomas Terry Hoar-Stevens (14 July 1911 – 8 January 1990) was a distinctive English comic actor, known as Terry-Thomas. He was famous for his portrayal of disreputable members of the upper classes, especially cads, with a "toothbrush" moustache, the trademark gap in his front teeth, cigarette holder, smoking jacket, and catch-phrases such as "What an absolute shower!" and "Good show!
Initially billed as Thomas (or Thos) Stevens, he considered the stage name Thomas Terry, but fearing that this might be taken as an attempt to pass himself off as a relation of the actress Ellen Terry, he reversed this to Terry Thomas. In 1948, he affected a hyphen between the two names in order to be more distinctive, largely to stop people calling him "Mr. Thomas" (which he disliked) and, according to biographer Graham McCann, "because it felt right".
Career

He played a variety of exuberant, malevolent and silly characters during the 1960s, and became famous for his humorous portrayal of the archetypal English upper-class cad and bounder. (Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines; Monte Carlo or Bust; How Sweet It Is!; Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon). In the 1970s he reprised his character from the first two of the films above along with Eric Sykes to make high quality cinema and TV advertisements for Benson and Hedges cigarettes.

In 1966, he played a notable but very different role as an RAF airman travelling through occupied France – and nicknamed "Big Moustache" by his French helpers – in the French film La Grande Vadrouille, which for over forty years remained the most successful film in the history of cinema in France.
Filmography

    * Once in a Million (1935)
    * Rhythm in the Air (1936)
    * Sam Goes Shopping (1939)
    * For Freedom (1940)
    * If You Don't Save Paper (1948) (short) as Shop Assistant
    * A Date with a Dream (1948)
    * Melody Club (1949) as Freddy Forrester
    * What's Cooking (1951) (short) as Husband
    * The Green Man (1956)
    * Private's Progress (1956) as Major Hitchcock
    * Lucky Jim (1957)
    * Brothers in Law (1957)
    * The Naked Truth (1957) as Lord Mayley
    * Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957) as Captain Romney Carlton-Ricketts
    * Happy is the Bride (1958) as Policeman
    * Tom Thumb (1958) as Ivan
    * I'm All Right Jack (1959) reprising the role of Major Hitchcock
    * Carlton-Browne of the FO (1959)
    * Too Many Crooks (1959) as Billy Gordon
    * Make Mine Mink (1960) as Major Albert Rayne
    * School for Scoundrels (1960)
    * A Matter of WHO (1961) as Bannister
    * His and Hers (1961) as Reggie Blake
    * Operation Snatch (1962) as Lt. 'Piggy' Wigg
    * The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962)
    * Bachelor Flat (1962) as Professor Bruce Patterson
    * Kill or Cure (1962) as Jerry Barkey-Rynde
    * It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) as Lt. Col. J. Algernon Hawthorne
    * The Mouse on the Moon (1963) as Spender
    * The Wild Affair (1965) as Godfrey Deane
    * You Must Be Joking! (1965) Major Foskett
    * Strange Bedfellows (1965)
    * How to Murder Your Wife (1965) as Charles
    * Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) as Sir Percy Ware-Armitage
    * The Sandwich Man (1966) as Scoutmaster
    * The Daydreamer (1966) as Brigadier Zachary Zilch
    * Our Man in Marrakesh (1966) as El Caid
    * La Grande Vadrouille (1966) as Sir Reginald
    * Top Crack (1966)
    * Munster, Go Home! (1966) as Cousin Freddie Munster
    * Se Tutte le Donne del Mondo (1966) as James
    * Dr. Coppelius (1966)
    * Jules Verne's Rocket to the Moon (1967) as Captain Sir Harry Washington-Smythe
    * Arabella (1967) as the hotel manager
    * Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (1967)
    * A Guide for the Married Man (1967) as Technical Advisor
    * The Perils of Pauline (1967) as Sten Martin
    * Arriva Dorellik (1967) as Commissario Green
    * Seven Times Seven (1968)
    * Diabolik (1968) as the Minister of Finance
    * How Sweet It Is! (1968) as Gilbert Tilly
    * Sette volte sette (1968) as Police Inspector
    * Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? (1968) as Ladislaus Walichek
    * Monte Carlo or Bust (1969) as Sir Cuthbert Ware-Armitage, son of Sir Percy of Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines
    * It's Your Move (1969) as Il direttore Dorgeant
    * 2000 Years Later (1969) as Goodwyn
    * 12 + 1 (1969) as Albert
    * Arthur!Arthur! (1969)
    * Mur de l'Atlantique, Le (1970) as Perry
    * The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
    * Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)
    * The Cherry Picker (1972) as Appleby
    * Special London Bridge Special (1972) as Bus Conductor
    * Robin Hood (1973), as the voice of Sir Hiss (who had a gap between his teeth similar to Terry-Thomas)
    * The Vault of Horror (1973) as Critchit
    * Eroi, Gli (1973) as John Cooper
    * Side by Side (1975) as Max Nugget
    * Spanish Fly (1975) as Sir Percy De Courcy
    * The Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones (1976)
    * The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977)
    * The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978), his last film role

http://i325.photobucket.com/albums/k362/heyzeus79/terry_thomas.jpg
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/08/10 at 7:12 am


Spiderman's birthday,I'm guessing?

David Bowie..Spiders From Mars

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/08/10 at 10:30 am

Another one of my photos.


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3002/2958870997_c967c275ba.jpg



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/08/10 at 6:59 pm


The birthday of the day...David Bowie
David Bowie (pronounced /ˈboʊ.iː/, BOH-ee; born David Robert Jones, 8 January 1947) is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. Active in five decades of popular music and frequently reinventing his music and image, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. He has been cited as an influence by many musicians and is known for his distinctive voice and the intellectual depth of his work.

Although he released an album (David Bowie) and several singles earlier, David Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in the autumn of 1969, when the song "Space Oddity" reached the top five of the UK Singles Chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era as the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single "Starman" and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona epitomised a career often marked by musical innovation, reinvention and striking visual presentation.

In 1975, Bowie achieved his first major American crossover success with the number-one single "Fame", co-written with John Lennon, and the hit album Young Americans, which the singer identified as "plastic soul". The sound constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees. He then confounded the expectations of both his record label and his American audiences by recording the minimalist album Low (1977)—the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno over the next two years. The so-called "Berlin Trilogy" albums all reached the UK top five and garnered lasting critical praise.

After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes" and its parent album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). He paired with Queen for the 1981 UK chart-topping single "Under Pressure", but reached a commercial peak in 1983 with the album Let's Dance, which yielded the hit singles "Let's Dance", "China Girl", and "Modern Love". Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including blue-eyed soul, industrial, adult contemporary, and jungle. His last recorded album was Reality (2003), which was supported by the 2003-2004 Reality Tour.

In the BBC's 2002 poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, Bowie ranked 29. Throughout his career he has sold an estimated 136 million albums, and ranks among the ten best-selling acts in UK pop history. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him 39th on their list of the 100 Greatest Rock Artists of All Time and the 23rd best singer of all time
Bowie's first flirtation with fame came in 1969 with his single "Space Oddity," written the previous year but recorded and released to coincide with the first moon landing. This ballad told the story of Major Tom, an astronaut who becomes lost in space, though it has also been interpreted as an allegory for taking drugs. It became a Top 5 UK hit. Bowie put the finishing touches to the track while living with Mary Finnigan as her lodger. Finnigan and Bowie joined forces with Christina Ostrom and the late Barrie Jackson to run a Folk Club on Sunday nights at The Three Tuns pub in Beckenham High Street, south London. This soon morphed into the Beckenham Arts Lab and became extremely popular. In August 1969, The Arts Lab hosted a Free Festival in a local park, later immortalised by Bowie in his song "Memory of a Free Festival". In 1969 and 1970, "Space Oddity" was used by the BBC during both its Apollo 11 moon landing coverage and its coverage of Apollo 13.

The corresponding album, his second, was released in November 1969 and originally titled David Bowie, which caused some confusion as both of Bowie's first and second albums were released with that name in the UK. In the US the same album originally bore the title Man of Words, Man of Music to overcome that confusion. In 1972, the album was re-released on both sides of the Atlantic by RCA Records as Space Oddity, the title it has kept ever since.

In 1970, Bowie released his third album, The Man Who Sold the World, rejecting the acoustic guitar sound of the previous album and replacing it with the heavy rock backing provided by Mick Ronson, who would be a major collaborator through to 1973. Much of the album resembles British heavy metal music of the period, but the album provided some unusual musical detours, such as the title track's use of Latin sounds and rhythms. The original UK cover of the album showed Bowie in a dress, an early example of his androgynous appearance. In the US, the album was originally released in a cartoonish cover that did not feature Bowie.

His next record, Hunky Dory in 1971, saw the partial return of the fey pop singer of "Space Oddity", with light fare such as the droll "Kooks". Elsewhere, the album explored more serious themes on tracks such as "Oh! You Pretty Things" (a song taken to UK number twelve by Herman's Hermits' Peter Noone in 1971), the semi-autobiographical "The Bewlay Brothers", and the Buddhist-influenced "Quicksand". Lyrically, the young songwriter also paid unusually direct homage to his influences with "Song for Bob Dylan", "Andy Warhol", and "Queen Bitch", which Bowie's somewhat cryptic liner notes indicate as a Velvet Underground pastiche. As with the single "Changes", Hunky Dory was not a big hit but it laid the groundwork for the move that would shortly lift Bowie into the first rank of stars, giving him four top-ten albums and eight top ten singles in the UK in eighteen months between 1972 and 1973.

Bowie further explored his androgynous persona in June 1972 with the seminal concept album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which presents a world destined to end in five years and tells the story of the ultimate rock star, Ziggy Stardust. The album's sound combined the hard rock elements of The Man Who Sold the World with the lighter experimental rock of Hunky Dory and the fast-paced glam rock pioneered by Marc Bolan's T. Rex. Many of the album's songs have become rock classics, including "Ziggy Stardust," "Moonage Daydream," "Rock & Roll Suicide" and "Suffragette City."

The Ziggy Stardust character became the basis for Bowie's first large-scale tour beginning in 1972, where he donned his famous flaming red mullet and wild outfits, designed by Kansai Yamamoto. The tour featured a three-piece band representing The Spiders from Mars: Ronson on guitar, Trevor Bolder on bass, and Mick Woodmansey on drums. This was Bowie’s first tour to visit the US, making his first appearance on 22 September 1972 at Music Hall in Cleveland, Ohio. The album made number five in the UK on the strength of the number ten placing of the single "Starman". Their success made Bowie a star, and soon the six-month-old Hunky Dory eclipsed Ziggy Stardust, when it peaked at number three on the UK chart. At the same time the non-album single "John, I’m Only Dancing" (not released in the US until 1979) peaked at UK number twelve, and "All the Young Dudes", a song he had given to, and produced for, Mott the Hoople, made UK number three.

Around the same time Bowie began promoting and producing his rock and roll heroes, two of whom he met at the popular New York hangout Max's Kansas City: former Velvet Underground singer Lou Reed, whose solo breakthrough Transformer was produced by Bowie and Ronson; and Iggy Pop, whose band, The Stooges, signed with Bowie's management, MainMan Productions, to record their third album, Raw Power. Though he was not present for the tracking of the album, Bowie later performed its much-debated mix. Bowie sang back-up vocals on both Reed's Transformer, and Iggy's The Idiot.

The Spiders From Mars came together again on Aladdin Sane, released in April 1973 and his first number one album in the UK. Described by Bowie as "Ziggy goes to America", all the new songs were written on ship, bus or trains during the first leg of his US Ziggy Stardust tour. The album's cover, featuring Bowie shirtless with Ziggy hair and a red, black, and blue lightning bolt across his face, has been described as being as "startling as rock covers ever got." Aladdin Sane included the UK number two hit "The Jean Genie", the UK number three hit "Drive-In Saturday", and a rendition of The Rolling Stones' "Let's Spend the Night Together". Mike Garson joined Bowie to play piano on this album, and his solo on the title track has been cited as one of the album's highlights.

Bowie's later Ziggy shows, which included songs from both Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, as well as a few earlier tracks like "Changes" and "The Width of a Circle", were ultra-theatrical affairs filled with shocking stage moments, such as Bowie stripping down to a sumo wrestling loincloth or simulating oral sex with Ronson's guitar. Bowie toured and gave press conferences as Ziggy before a dramatic and abrupt on-stage "retirement" at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973. His announcement—"Of all the shows on this tour, this particular show will remain with us the longest, because not only is it the last show of the tour, but it's the last show that we'll ever do. Thank you."—was preserved in a live recording of the show, filmed by D. A. Pennebaker and belatedly released under the title Ziggy Stardust - The Motion Picture in 1983 after many years circulating as an audio bootleg.

Pin Ups, a collection of covers of his 1960s favourites, was released in October 1973, spawning a UK number three hit in "Sorrow" and itself peaking at number one, making David Bowie the best-selling act of 1973 in the UK. By this time, Bowie had broken up the Spiders from Mars and was attempting to move on from his Ziggy persona. Bowie's own back catalogue was now highly sought: The Man Who Sold the World had been re-released in 1972 along with the second David Bowie album (Space Oddity). Hunky Dory's "Life on Mars?" was released as a single in 1973 and made number three in the UK, the same year Bowie's novelty record from 1967, "The Laughing Gnome", hit number six.
n 1980, Bowie's style retrogressed, integrating the lessons learnt on Low, Heroes, and Lodger while expanding upon them with chart success. Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) included the number one hit "Ashes to Ashes", featuring the textural work of guitar-synthesist Chuck Hammer, and revisiting the character of Major Tom from "Space Oddity". The imagery Bowie used in the song's music video gave international exposure to the underground New Romantic movement and, with many of the followers of this phase being devotees, Bowie visited the London club "Blitz"—the main New Romantic hangout—to recruit several of the regulars (including Steve Strange of the band Visage) to act in the video, renowned as being one of the most innovative of all time.

While Scary Monsters utilised principles that Bowie had learned in the Berlin era, it was considered by critics to be far more direct musically and lyrically, reflecting the transformation Bowie had gone through during his time in Germany and Europe. By 1980 Bowie had divorced his wife Angie, stopped the drug use of the "Thin White Duke" era, and radically changed his concept of the way music should be written. The album had a hard rock edge that included conspicuous guitar contributions from King Crimson's Robert Fripp, The Who's Pete Townshend, and Television's Tom Verlaine. As "Ashes to Ashes" hit number one on the UK charts, Bowie opened a three-month run on Broadway starring in The Elephant Man on 23 September 1980.

In 1981, Queen released "Under Pressure", co-written and performed with Bowie. The song was a hit and became Bowie's third UK number one single. In the same year Bowie made a cameo appearance in the German movie Christiane F. Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo, the real-life story of a 13 year-old girl in Berlin who becomes addicted to heroin and ends up prostituting herself. Bowie is credited with "special cooperation" in the credits and his music features prominently in the movie. The soundtrack was released in 1982 and contained a version of "Heroes" sung partially in German that had previously been included on the German pressing of its parent album. The same year Bowie appeared in the BBC's adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's play Baal. Coinciding with transmission of the film, a five-track EP of songs from the play was released as David Bowie in Bertolt Brecht's Baal, recorded at Hansa by the Wall the previous September. It would mark Bowie’s final new release on RCA, as 1983 saw him change record labels from RCA to EMI America. In April 1982, Bowie released "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" with Giorgio Moroder, for director Paul Schrader's film Cat People.
David Bowie on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Bowie scored his first truly commercial blockbuster with Let's Dance in 1983, a slick dance album co-produced by Chic's Nile Rodgers. The title track went to number one in the United States and United Kingdom. The album also featured the singles "Modern Love" and "China Girl", the latter causing something of a stir due to its suggestive promotional video. "China Girl" was a remake of a song which Bowie co-wrote several years earlier with Iggy Pop, who recorded it for The Idiot. In an interview by Kurt Loder, Bowie revealed that the motivation for recording "China Girl" was to help out his friend Iggy Pop financially, contributing to Bowie's history of support for musicians he admired. Let's Dance was also notable as a stepping stone for the career of the late Texan guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, who played on the album and was to have supported Bowie on the consequent Serious Moonlight Tour. Vaughan, however, never joined the tour after various disputes with Bowie. Vaughan was replaced by the Bowie tour veteran Earl Slick. Frank and George Simms from The Simms Brothers Band appeared as backing vocalists for the tour.

Bowie's next album was originally planned to be a live album recorded on the Serious Moonlight Tour, but EMI demanded another studio album instead. The resulting album, 1984's Tonight, was also dance-oriented, featuring collaborations with Tina Turner and Iggy Pop, as well as various covers, including one of The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows". The album bore the transatlantic Top Ten hit "Blue Jean" whose complete video — the 21-minute short film "Jazzin' for Blue Jean" - reflected Bowie's long-standing interest in combining music with drama. This video would win Bowie his only Grammy to date, for Best Short Form Music Video. It also featured "Loving the Alien", a remix of which was a minor hit in 1985. The album also has a pair of dance rewrites of "Neighborhood Threat" and "Tonight", old songs Bowie wrote with Iggy Pop which had originally appeared on Lust for Life.

In 1985, Bowie performed several of his greatest hits at Wembley for Live Aid. At the end of his set, which comprised "Rebel Rebel", "TVC 15", "Modern Love" and 'Heroes', he introduced a film of the Ethiopian famine, for which the event was raising funds, which was set to the song "Drive" by The Cars. At the event, the video to a fundraising single was premièred – Bowie performing a duet with Mick Jagger on a version of "Dancing in the Street", which quickly went to number one on release. In the same year Bowie worked with the Pat Metheny Group on the song "This Is Not America", which was featured in the film The Falcon and the Snowman. This song was the centrepiece of the album, a collaboration intended to underline the espionage thriller's central themes of alienation and disaffection.
Bowie performing in 1987

In 1986, Bowie contributed several songs to as well as acted in the film Absolute Beginners. The movie was not well reviewed but Bowie's theme song rose to number two in the UK charts. He also took a role in the 1986 Jim Henson film Labyrinth, as Jareth, the Goblin King who steals the baby brother of a girl named Sarah (played by Jennifer Connelly), in order to turn him into a goblin. Bowie wrote five songs for the film, the script of which was partially written by Monty Python's Terry Jones.

Bowie's final solo album of the 80s was 1987's Never Let Me Down, where he ditched the light sound of his two earlier albums, instead offering harder rock with an industrial/techno dance edge. The album, which peaked at number six in the UK, contained hit singles "Day-In, Day-Out", "Time Will Crawl", and "Never Let Me Down". Bowie himself later described it as "my nadir" and "an awful album".

Bowie decided to tour again in 1987, supporting the Never Let Me Down album. The Glass Spider Tour was preceded by nine promotional press shows before the 86-concert tour actually started on 30 May 1987. In addition to the actual band, that included Peter Frampton on lead guitar, five dancers appeared on stage for almost the entire duration of each concert. Taped pieces of dialogue were also performed by Bowie and the dancers in the middle of songs, creating an overtly theatrical effect. Several visual gimmicks were also recreated from Bowie's earlier tours. Critics of the tour described it as overproduced and claimed it pandered to then-current stadium rock trends in its special effects and dancing. However, fans that saw the shows from the Glass Spider Tour were treated to many of Bowie's classics and rarities, in addition to the newer material.
Main article: David Bowie discography

   * David Bowie (1967)
   * Space Oddity (1969)
   * The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
   * Hunky Dory (1971)
   * The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
   * Aladdin Sane (1973)
   * Pin Ups (1973)
   * Diamond Dogs (1974)
   * Young Americans (1975)
   * Station to Station (1976)
   * Low (1977)
   * "Heroes" (1977)
   * Lodger (1979)
   * Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)
   * Let's Dance (1983)
   * Tonight (1984)
   * Never Let Me Down (1987)
   * Black Tie White Noise (1993)
   * The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
   * 1. Outside (1995)
   * Earthling (1997)
   * 'Hours...' (1999)
   * Heathen (2002)
   * Reality (2003)


In August 1988, Bowie portrayed Pontius Pilate in the Martin Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ.
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David Bowie is great.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 01/08/10 at 7:16 pm

I loved Terry-Thomas in the Vault of Horror even though his character got what he deserved. Nice Bio, Ninny. Thanks for posting.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/08/10 at 7:26 pm


I loved Terry-Thomas in the Vault of Horror even though his character got what he deserved. Nice Bio, Ninny. Thanks for posting.

Your Welcome, Vinny :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/09/10 at 4:49 am

The word of the day...Stairway
A stairway is a staircase or a flight of steps, inside or outside a building.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/09/10 at 4:54 am


I love the National treasure movies :)
I now have number 2 to watch on DVD.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/09/10 at 4:56 am

The birthday of the day...Jimmy Page
James Patrick Page OBE (born 9 January 1944) is an English guitarist, songwriter and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.

Page has been described as "unquestionably one of the all-time most influential, important, and versatile guitarists and songwriters in rock history". In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Page #9 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, once as a member of The Yardbirds (1992) and once as a member of Led Zeppelin (1995).While still a student, Page would often jam on stage at The Marquee with bands such as Cyril Davies' All Stars, Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated and with guitarists Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. He was spotted one night by John Gibb of Brian Howard & The Silhouettes, who asked him to help record a number of singles for Columbia Graphophone Company, including "The Worrying Kind". It wasn't until an offer from Mike Leander of Decca Records that Page was to receive regular studio work. His first session for the label was the recording "Diamonds" by Jet Harris and Tony Meehan, which went to Number 1 on the singles chart in early 1963.

After brief stints with Carter-Lewis and the Southerners, Mike Hurst and the Method, and Mickey Finn and the Blue Men, Page committed himself to full-time session work. As a session guitarist he was known as 'Little Jim' so there was no confusion with Big Jim Sullivan. Page was mainly called in to sessions as "insurance" in instances when a replacement or second guitarist was required by the recording artist. "It was usually myself and a drummer", he explained, "though they never mention the drummer these days, just me ... Anyone needing a guitarist either went to Big Jim or myself"

Page was the favoured session guitarist of producer Shel Talmy, and therefore he ended up doing session work on songs for The Who and The Kinks as a direct result of the Talmy connection. Page's studio output in 1964 included Marianne Faithfull's "As Tears Go By", The Nashville Teens' "Tobacco Road", The Rolling Stones' "Heart of Stone" (released on Metamorphosis), Van Morrison & Them's "Baby Please Don't Go" and "Here Comes the Night", Dave Berry's "The Crying Game" and "My Baby Left Me", and Brenda Lee's "Is It True". Under the auspices of producer Talmy, Page contributed to The Kinks' 1964 debut album and he sat in on the sessions for The Who's first single "I Can't Explain" (although Pete Townshend was reluctant to allow Page's contribution on the final recording, Page did play on the B-side "Bald Headed Woman".)

In 1965 Page was hired by Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham to act as house producer and A&R man for the newly-formed Immediate Records label, which also allowed him to play on and/or produce tracks by John Mayall, Nico, Chris Farlowe, Twice as Much and Eric Clapton. Page also formed a brief songwriting partnership with then romantic interest, Jackie DeShannon. He also composed and recorded songs for the John Williams (not the classical guitarist) album The Maureeny Wishful Album with Big Jim Sullivan. Page worked as session musician on the Al Stewart album Love Chronicles in 1969, and played guitar on five tracks of Joe Cocker's debut album, With a Little Help from My Friends.

When questioned about which songs he played on, especially ones where there exists some controversy as to what his exact role was, Page often points out that it is hard to remember exactly what he did given the huge number of sessions he was playing at the time.

Although Page recorded with many notable musicians, many of these early tracks are only available through bootlegged copies, several of which were released by the Led Zeppelin fan club in the late 1970s. One of the rarest of these is the early jam session featuring Jimmy Page playing with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, featuring a cover of "Little Queen of Spades" by Robert Johnson. Several songs which featured Page's involvement were compiled on the twin album release: James Patrick Page: Session Man Volume One and James Patrick Page: Session Man Volume Two.

Page decided to leave studio work when the increasing influence of Stax Records on popular music led to the greater incorporation of brass and orchestral arrangements into recordings at the expense of guitars. However, he has stated that his time as a session player served as extremely good schooling for his development as a musician:

   My session work was invaluable. At one point I was playing at least three sessions a day, six days a week! And I rarely ever knew in advance what I was going to be playing. But I learned things even on my worst sessions -- and believe me, I played on some horrendous things. I finally called it quits after I started getting calls to do Muzak. I decided I couldn't live that life anymore; it was getting too silly. I guess it was destiny that a week after I quit doing sessions Paul Samwell-Smith left The Yardbirds, and I was able to take his place. But being a session musician was good fun in the beginning -- the studio discipline was great. They'd just count the song off, and you couldn't make any mistakes.

The Yardbirds
Main article: The Yardbirds
The Yardbirds, 1966. Clockwise from left: Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Keith Relf, Jim McCarty, and Chris Dreja.

In late 1964, Page was approached about the possibility of replacing Eric Clapton in The Yardbirds, but he declined the offer out of loyalty to his friend. In February 1965 Clapton quit the Yardbirds, and Page was formally offered Clapton's spot, but because he was unwilling to give up his lucrative career as a session musician, and because he was still worried about his health under touring conditions, he suggested his friend, Jeff Beck. On 16 May 1966, drummer Keith Moon, bass player John Paul Jones, keyboardist Nicky Hopkins, Jeff Beck and Page recorded "Beck's Bolero" in London's IBC Studios. The experience gave Page an idea to form a new supergroup featuring Beck, along with The Who's John Entwistle on bass and Keith Moon on drums. However, the lack of a quality vocalist and contractual problems prevented the project from getting off the ground. During this time, Moon suggested the name "Lead Zeppelin" for the first time, after Entwistle commented that the proceedings would take to the air like a lead balloon.

Within weeks, Page attended a Yardbirds concert at Oxford. After the show he went backstage where Paul Samwell-Smith announced that he was leaving the group. Page offered to replace Samwell-Smith and this was accepted by the group. He initially played electric bass with the Yardbirds before finally switching to twin lead guitar with Beck when Chris Dreja moved to bass. The musical potential of the line-up was scuttled, however, by interpersonal conflicts caused by constant touring and a lack of commercial success, although they released one single, "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago". (While Page and Jeff Beck played together in The Yardbirds, the trio of Page, Beck and Clapton never played in the original group at the same time. The three guitarists did appear on stage together at the ARMS charity concerts in 1983.)

After Beck's departure, the Yardbirds remained a quartet. They recorded one album with Page on lead guitar, Little Games. The album received indifferent reviews and was not a commercial success, peaking at only number 80 on the Billboard Music Charts. Though their studio sound was fairly commercial at the time, the band's live performances were just the opposite, becoming heavier and more experimental. These concerts featured musical aspects that Page would later perfect with Led Zeppelin, most notably performances of "Dazed and Confused".

After the departure of Keith Relf and Jim McCarty in 1968, Page reconfigured the group with a new line-up to fulfill unfinished tour dates in Scandinavia. As he said:

   Once decided not to continue, then I was going to continue. And shift the whole thing up a notch ... The whole thing was putting a group together and actually being able to play together. There were a lot of virtuoso musicians around at the time who didn't gel as a band. That was the key: to find a band that was going to fire on all cylinders.

To this end, Page recruited vocalist Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham, and he was also contacted by John Paul Jones who asked to join. During the Scandinavian tour the new group appeared as "The New Yardbirds", but soon recalled the old joke by Keith Moon and John Entwistle. Page stuck with that name to use for his new band. Peter Grant changed it to "Led Zeppelin", to avoid a mispronunciation of "Leed Zeppelin."
Led Zeppelin
Main article: Led Zeppelin

Page has explained that he had a very specific idea in mind as to what he wanted Led Zeppelin to be, from the very beginning:

   I had a lot of ideas from my days with The Yardbirds. The Yardbirds allowed me to improvise a lot in live performance and I started building a textbook of ideas that I eventually used in Zeppelin. In addition to those ideas, I wanted to add acoustic textures. Ultimately, I wanted Zeppelin to be a marriage of blues, hard rock and acoustic music topped with heavy choruses -- a combination that had never been done before. Lots of light and shade in the music
For the recording of most of Led Zeppelin material from Led Zeppelin's second album onwards, Page used a Gibson Les Paul guitar with Marshall amplification. During the studio sessions for Led Zeppelin, and later for recording the guitar solo in "Stairway to Heaven", he used a Fender Telecaster (a gift from Jeff Beck). He also used a Danelectro 3021, mainly for slide guitar parts. He usually recorded in studio with a Vox AC30, Fender, and Orange amplification. His use of the Sola Sound Tone Bender Professional MKII fuzzbox ("How Many More Times"), slide guitar ("You Shook Me", "Dancing Days", "In My Time of Dying", "What Is and What Should Never Be"), pedal steel guitar ("Your Time Is Gonna Come", "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You", "Tangerine", "That's the Way" and for effect at the very end of "Over the Hills and Far Away"), and acoustic guitar ("Gallows Pole", "Going To California", "Bron-Yr-Aur", "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp") also demonstrated his versatility and creativity as a composer.

Page is famous for playing his guitar with a violin bow, as on the live versions of the songs "Dazed and Confused" and "How Many More Times". This was a technique he developed during his session days, although he was not the first guitarist to use a bow, since Eddie Phillips of The Creation had done so prior to Page. On MTV's Led Zeppelin Rockumentary, Page said that he obtained the idea of playing the guitar with a bow from David McCallum, Sr. who was also a session musician. Page used his Fender Telecaster and later his Gibson Les Paul for his bow solos.

On a number of Led Zeppelin songs Page experimented with feedback devices and a theremin. He used a Wah-wah pedal, both in the traditional method of rocking the pedal back and forth as done by Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, but also by simply leaving the pedal fully forward to enhance the treble. The latter technique was used on the solos for "Communication Breakdown" and "Whole Lotta Love," while the former was mostly seen in live performances.
Music production techniques

Page is credited for the innovations in sound recording he brought to the studio during the years he was a member of Led Zeppelin, many of which he had initially developed as a session musician. He developed a reputation for employing effects in new ways and trying out different methods of using microphones and amplification. During the late 1960s, most British music producers placed microphones directly in front of amplifiers and drums, resulting in the sometimes "tinny" sound of the recordings of the era. Page commented to Guitar World magazine that he felt the drum sounds of the day in particular "sounded like cardboard boxes." Instead, Page was a fan of 1950s recording techniques, Sun Studios being a particular favourite. In the same Guitar World interview, Page remarked, "Recording used to be a science", and " used to have a maxim: distance equals depth." Taking this maxim to heart, Page developed the idea of placing an additional microphone some distance from the amplifier (as much as twenty feet) and then recording the balance between the two. By adopting this technique, Page became one of the first British producers to record a band's "ambient sound" - the distance of a note's time-lag from one end of the room to the other.

For the recording of several Led Zeppelin tracks, such as "Whole Lotta Love" and "You Shook Me", Page additionally utilised "reverse echo" - a technique which he claims to have invented himself while with The Yardbirds (he had originally developed the method when recording the 1967 single "Ten Little Indians"). This production technique involved hearing the echo before the main sound instead of after it, achieved by turning the tape over and employing the echo on a spare track, then turning the tape back over again to get the echo preceding the signal.

Page has stated that, as producer, he deliberately changed the audio engineers on Led Zeppelin albums, from Glyn Johns for the first album, to Eddie Kramer for Led Zeppelin II, to Andy Johns for Led Zeppelin III and later albums. He explained that "I consciously kept changing engineers because I didn't want people to think that they were responsible for our sound. I wanted people to know it was me."

John Paul Jones has acknowledged Page's production techniques as being a key component of the success of Led Zeppelin:

   The backwards echo stuff a lot of the microphone techniques were just inspired. Using distance-miking… and small amplifiers. Everybody thinks we go in the studio with huge walls of amplifiers, but doesn’t. He uses a really small amplifier and he just mikes it up really well, so that it fits into a sonic picture.

In an interview Page himself gave to Guitar World magazine in 1993, he remarked on his work as a producer:

   Many people think of me as just a riff guitarist, but I think of myself in broader terms... As a producer I would like to be remembered as someone who was able to sustain a band of unquestionable individual talent, and push it to the forefront during its working career. I think I really captured the best of our output, growth, change and maturity on tape -- the multifaceted gem that is Led Zeppelin.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/09/10 at 4:57 am


I now have number 2 to watch on DVD.

I wish I did, Missy took our DVD player to a girl's house and now that girl claims it is buried in storage. >:(

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/09/10 at 4:58 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNc5o9TU0t0

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/09/10 at 5:00 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPOIy4Kb9M4

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/09/10 at 5:01 am

The person of the day...John Gilbert
ohn Gilbert (July 10, 1895 – January 9, 1936) was an American actor and a major star of the silent film era.

Known as "the great lover", he rivaled even Rudolph Valentino as a box office draw. Though he was often cited as one of the high profile examples of an actor who was unsuccessful in making the transition to talkies, his decline as a star in fact had to do with studio politics and money and not the sound of his screen voice. According to the actress Eleanor Boardman and others, a fight between Louis B. Mayer and Gilbert erupted at what was to be his marriage to Greta Garbo, for which she failed to turn up, when Mayer made a snide remark. Gilbert promptly knocked his boss down, for which Mayer swore he'd get even. Gilbert's daughter has alleged that Mayer then proceeded to sabotage the recording of his voice by increasing the treble; giving direction of his films to an inexperienced director who was on narcotic pain medication; refusing him good scripts, such as 1930's The Dawn Patrol which directors wanted to star him in; and editing his projects to ruin his films. Born John Cecil Pringle in Logan, Utah to stock company actor parents, he struggled through a childhood of abuse and neglect before moving to Hollywood as a teenager. He first found work as an extra with the Thomas Ince Studios, and soon became a favorite of Maurice Tourneur, who also hired him to write and direct several pictures. He quickly rose through the ranks, building his reputation as an actor in such films as Heart o' the Hills with Mary Pickford. In 1921, Gilbert signed a three year contract with Fox Film Corporation, where he was cast as a romantic leading man. Some of his films for Fox include Monte Cristo, an adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo; St. Elmo, an adaptation of a popular book of the period; The Wolf Man, not a horror film, the story of a man who believes he murdered his fiancee's brother while drunk and many others. At the time, Gilbert did not sport his famous mustache, which made his features more uneven and a little less handsome, and Fox plainly did not realize what huge potential he had.

In 1924, he moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he became a full-fledged star with such high-profile films as His Hour directed by King Vidor and written by Elinor Glyn; He Who Gets Slapped (1924), co-starring Lon Chaney, Sr. and Norma Shearer, and directed by Victor Sjöström; and The Merry Widow (1925) directed by Erich von Stroheim and co-starring Mae Murray. In 1925, Gilbert was once again directed by Vidor in the war epic The Big Parade, which became the second highest grossing silent film. His performance in this film made him a major star. The following year, Vidor reunited Gilbert with two of his co-stars from that picture, Renée Adorée and Karl Dane, for the film La Bohème which also starred Lillian Gish.

Gilbert married the successful film actress Leatrice Joy in 1922. The union produced a daughter, Leatrice Gilbert Fountain, but the tempestuous marriage only lasted two years. The couple divorced in 1924, with Joy charging that Gilbert was a compulsive philanderer.

In 1926, Gilbert made Flesh and the Devil, his first film with Greta Garbo. They soon began a very public relationship, much to the delight of their fans. Gilbert planned to marry her, but Garbo changed her mind and never showed up for the ceremony. Despite their rocky off-screen relationship, they continued to generate box-office revenue for the studio, and MGM paired them in two more silents Love (1927), a modern adaptation of Anna Karenina, and A Woman of Affairs (1928). The former film was slyly advertised by MGM as "Garbo and Gilbert in Love."
Career decline

Throughout his time at MGM, Gilbert frequently clashed with studio head Louis B. Mayer over creative, social and financial matters. One crucial event occurred on September 8, 1926. While guests were waiting for Garbo to show up for a proposed double wedding ceremony - Garbo and Gilbert with the director King Vidor and his fiancee, actress Eleanor Boardman - Mayer allegedly made a crude remark about Garbo to the distraught Gilbert that caused him to fly into a rage and he physically attacked the mogul. Rumor had it that after that event, Gilbert's career began its downward slide. This story has been disputed by some historians, despite its having been reported over a period of twenty years by one major eyewitness, the other bride, Eleanor Boardman who described Mayer's final look at Gilbert as "terrifying". Gilbert did have a powerful supporter in production head Irving Thalberg. The two were old friends and Thalberg made efforts to reinvigorate Gilbert's career, but Thalberg's failing health probably limited such efforts.

With the coming of sound, Gilbert first spoke in the film His Glorious Night, in which his voice allegedly recorded in a high-pitched tone that made audiences giggle. He spoke again in the all-talking musical Hollywood Revue of 1929, appearing in a Romeo and Juliet Technicolor sequence along with Norma Shearer in which they first played the part straight and then modernized it. Reviewers for the film did not note any problems with Gilbert's voice at this time and, in fact, some praised it. A documentary, The Dawn of Sound: How the Movies Learned to Talk (2007), demonstrates that with improved recording equipment Gilbert's voice was suitably deep.

According to film reviews of the day, audiences actually laughed at Gilbert's overly ardent love-making in His Glorious Night. In one scene, Gilbert keeps kissing his leading lady (Catherine Dale Owen) while saying over and over again "I love you". This scene was famously later parodied in the MGM musical Singin' in the Rain (1952) where a preview of the fictional The Dueling Cavalier flops disastrously. Director King Vidor stated that Rudolph Valentino, Gilbert's main rival in the 1920s for romantic leads, probably would have suffered the same fate in the talkie era, had he lived.

His Glorious Night has never been shown on television by Turner Entertainment because MGM sold the rights to Paramount for a remake, and Universal - which owns the rights to all pre-1948 Paramount films - has not done anything with it. He appeared in 1931's The Phantom of Paris, a project designed for Lon Chaney to star in until his death from cancer in 1930.

In 1932 MGM made the film Downstairs from Gilbert's original story, in which Gilbert played against type as a scheming, blackmailing chauffeur. The film was well received by critics, but did nothing to restore Gilbert's popularity. Shortly after making the film he married co-star Virginia Bruce; the couple divorced in 1934.

Gilbert starred opposite Garbo for the last time in Queen Christina directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Garbo was top-billed and Gilbert's name beneath the title. The picture failed to revive his career, with his next film, The Captain Hates the Sea, being his last.
Gilbert has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1755 Vine Street and in 1994, he was honoured with his image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.
Selected filmography

   * The Coward (1915) uncredited, directed by Reginald Barker and Thomas H. Ince
   * Hell's Hinges (1916) uncredited, directed by Charles Swickard, William S. Hart and Clifford Smith
   * The Apostle of Vengeance (1916) directed by William S. Hart and Clifford Smith
   * Heart o' the Hills (1919) directed by Joseph De Grasse and Sidney Franklin
   * Cameo Kirby (1923) directed by John Ford
   * He Who Gets Slapped (1924) directed by Victor Sjöström
   * His Hour (1924) directed by King Vidor
   * The Snob (1924) directed by Monta Bell
   * The Wife of the Centaur (1924) directed by King Vidor
   * The Wolf Man directed by Edmund Mortimer
   * The Merry Widow (1925) directed by Erich von Stroheim
   * The Big Parade (1925) directed by King Vidor
   * Ben-Hur (1925)
   * Bardelys the Magnificent (1926)
   * La Bohème (1926) with Lillian Gish
   * Flesh and the Devil (1926) with Greta Garbo
   * Love (1927) with Greta Garbo
   * The Show (1927) with Lionel Barrymore
   * Twelve Miles Out (1927) with Joan Crawford
   * A Woman of Affairs (1928) with Greta Garbo
   * Desert Nights (1929)
   * The Phantom of Paris (1931)
   * Downstairs (1932)
   * Fast Workers (1933)
   * Queen Christina (1933) with Greta Garbo, directed by Rouben Mamoulian
   * The Captain Hates The Sea (1934) with the cast of the Three Stooges

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/stahr_monroe/Matinee%20idols/John.jpg
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j1/aappleton218/classicmisc1/Actors01/gilbert.jpg
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j1/aappleton218/classicmisc1/Actors01/johngilbert.jpg
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh200/tnguitargrl/1060222409_l.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/09/10 at 5:59 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNc5o9TU0t0

This was the first time I heard this version :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/09/10 at 7:15 am


This was the first time I heard this version :)
Rodrigo y Gabriela have been play on the online radio station I listen to for some time now, and now are beginning to hit the UK.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/09/10 at 7:19 am

Stairway To Heaven,a great song. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/09/10 at 7:20 am


Stairway To Heaven,a great song. :)
Good song to do in kare-oke!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/09/10 at 7:23 am


Good song to do in kare-oke!


That's if you know the lyrics.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/09/10 at 7:26 am


That's if you know the lyrics.
When singing kare-oke the lyrics on screen to read.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/09/10 at 7:27 am


When singing kare-oke the lyrics on screen to read.


if you can sing good.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/09/10 at 7:28 am


if you can sing good.
It helps.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/09/10 at 7:28 am


It helps.


helps to sound like Jimmy Page.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/09/10 at 7:31 am


helps to sound like Jimmy Page.
That does not matter.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/09/10 at 7:33 am


That does not matter.


you're right.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/09/10 at 7:36 am


you're right.
Just sing in your own style

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/09/10 at 7:46 am


Just sing in your own style



word of advice.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/09/10 at 8:47 am


Stairway To Heaven,a great song. :)

Probably in my top 3 songs of all time :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/09/10 at 11:55 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPOIy4Kb9M4



I have heard that version before. I must confess, I think it is pretty good.  :D ;D ;D ;D



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/09/10 at 6:51 pm


Probably in my top 3 songs of all time :)



any others?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/09/10 at 7:04 pm



any others?

One of my favorites is Bridge Over Troubled Water- Simon & Garfunkel.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 01/09/10 at 7:23 pm

love the staircases. Thanks for posting, Ninny.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/10/10 at 1:35 am


The word of the day...Stairway
A stairway is a staircase or a flight of steps, inside or outside a building.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/Annex%20-%20Stewart,%20James%20%28Vertigo%29_01.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/10/10 at 1:42 am

British person of the day: Rod Stewart

Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE (born 10 January 1945) is a British singer-songwriter born and raised in London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English lineage.

With his distinctive raspy singing voice, Stewart came to prominence in the late 1960s and early '70s with The Jeff Beck Group and then Faces. He launched his solo career in 1969 with his debut album An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down (US: The Rod Stewart Album). His work with The Jeff Beck Group and Faces proved to be influential on the formation of the heavy metal and punk rock genres, respectively. Both bands were also pioneers of blues-rock.

With his career in its fifth decade, Stewart has achieved numerous solo hit singles worldwide, most notably in the UK, where he has garnered six consecutive number one albums and his tally of 62 hit singles include 31 that reached the top 10, six of which gained the number one position. He has had 16 top ten singles in the USA, with four of these reaching number one. He was voted at #33 in Q Magazine's list of the top 100 Greatest Singers of all time.

Awards and recognition:
    * Awarded CBE in 2007 New Year's Honours.
    * Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, 2005, Stardust ... The Great American Songbook Volume III
    * Diamond Award of World Music Awards show for over 100 million records sold worldwide, 2001.
    * Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1994
    * Inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame, 2006
    * "Bar none, he's the best singer I've heard in rock 'n' roll. He's also the greatest white soul singer." —Elton John on Rod Stewart
    * "Is this a white guy? You are kidding me!!" Chuck Berry commented when asked what he thought about Stewart's cover of Sweet Little Rock & Roller in an interview by the Belgian Rock magazine Humo in 1975.
    * Rod Stewart played to the largest concert crowd ever, with 3.5 million fans in attendance. This was at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the 1994 New Year’s Eve celebrations.
    * According to Stewart, soul legend James Brown called him music's "best white soul singer" in September 2006

List of bands:
During his career, Rod Stewart has been a member of a number of groups including:
    * Jimmy Powell and the Five Dimensions (1963)
    * The Hoochie Coochie Men (1964–1965)
    * Soul Agents (1965-1966)
    * Shotgun Express (1966)
    * The Jeff Beck Group (1966–1969)
    * Faces (1969–1975)

Discography: Rod Stewart discography

Stewart's album and single sales total have been variously estimated as more than 100 million, or at 200 million, in either case earning him a place on the list of best-selling music artists.

UK/US number one albums
    * 1971 Every Picture Tells a Story (UK / US)
    * 1972 Never a Dull Moment (UK )
    * 1973 Sing It Again Rod (UK )
    * 1974 Smiler (UK )
    * 1975 Atlantic Crossing (UK )
    * 1976 A Night on the Town (UK )
    * 1977 Foot Loose & Fancy Free (UK / US)
    * 1978 Blondes Have More Fun (US )
    * 1979 Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 (UK )
    * 2004 Stardust: the Great American Songbook 3 (US )
    * 2006 Still the Same... Great Rock Classics of Our Time (US )
    * 2009 Soulbook

UK/US number one singles
    * 1971 "Maggie May" / "Reason to Believe" (UK/US)
    * 1972 "You Wear It Well" (UK)
    * 1975 "Sailing" (UK)
    * 1976 "Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright)" (US)
    * 1977 "I Don't Want to Talk About It" / "The First Cut Is the Deepest" (UK)
    * 1978 "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" (UK, US)
    * 1983 "Baby Jane" (UK)
    * 1990 "Downtown Train" (US Adult Contemporary)
    * 1990 "This Old Heart of Mine" with Ronald Isley (US Adult Contemporary)
    * 1993 "All for Love" (US) (featuring Bryan Adams and Sting, first appearing on the official soundtrack from the movie "The Three Musketeers")
    * 1993 "Have I Told You Lately" (US Adult Contemporary)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0002X94Y8.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/famecrawler/2009/06/rod-stewart-family.jpg
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/07_01/RodStewartTH_486x608.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/10/10 at 1:46 am


British person of the day: Rod Stewart

Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE (born 10 January 1945) is a British singer-songwriter born and raised in London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English lineage.

With his distinctive raspy singing voice, Stewart came to prominence in the late 1960s and early '70s with The Jeff Beck Group and then Faces. He launched his solo career in 1969 with his debut album An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down (US: The Rod Stewart Album). His work with The Jeff Beck Group and Faces proved to be influential on the formation of the heavy metal and punk rock genres, respectively. Both bands were also pioneers of blues-rock.

With his career in its fifth decade, Stewart has achieved numerous solo hit singles worldwide, most notably in the UK, where he has garnered six consecutive number one albums and his tally of 62 hit singles include 31 that reached the top 10, six of which gained the number one position. He has had 16 top ten singles in the USA, with four of these reaching number one. He was voted at #33 in Q Magazine's list of the top 100 Greatest Singers of all time.

Awards and recognition:
    * Awarded CBE in 2007 New Year's Honours.
    * Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, 2005, Stardust ... The Great American Songbook Volume III
    * Diamond Award of World Music Awards show for over 100 million records sold worldwide, 2001.
    * Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1994
    * Inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame, 2006
    * "Bar none, he's the best singer I've heard in rock 'n' roll. He's also the greatest white soul singer." —Elton John on Rod Stewart
    * "Is this a white guy? You are kidding me!!" Chuck Berry commented when asked what he thought about Stewart's cover of Sweet Little Rock & Roller in an interview by the Belgian Rock magazine Humo in 1975.
    * Rod Stewart played to the largest concert crowd ever, with 3.5 million fans in attendance. This was at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the 1994 New Year’s Eve celebrations.
    * According to Stewart, soul legend James Brown called him music's "best white soul singer" in September 2006

List of bands:
During his career, Rod Stewart has been a member of a number of groups including:
    * Jimmy Powell and the Five Dimensions (1963)
    * The Hoochie Coochie Men (1964–1965)
    * Soul Agents (1965-1966)
    * Shotgun Express (1966)
    * The Jeff Beck Group (1966–1969)
    * Faces (1969–1975)

Discography: Rod Stewart discography

Stewart's album and single sales total have been variously estimated as more than 100 million, or at 200 million, in either case earning him a place on the list of best-selling music artists.

UK/US number one albums
    * 1971 Every Picture Tells a Story (UK / US)
    * 1972 Never a Dull Moment (UK )
    * 1973 Sing It Again Rod (UK )
    * 1974 Smiler (UK )
    * 1975 Atlantic Crossing (UK )
    * 1976 A Night on the Town (UK )
    * 1977 Foot Loose & Fancy Free (UK / US)
    * 1978 Blondes Have More Fun (US )
    * 1979 Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 (UK )
    * 2004 Stardust: the Great American Songbook 3 (US )
    * 2006 Still the Same... Great Rock Classics of Our Time (US )
    * 2009 Soulbook

UK/US number one singles
    * 1971 "Maggie May" / "Reason to Believe" (UK/US)
    * 1972 "You Wear It Well" (UK)
    * 1975 "Sailing" (UK)
    * 1976 "Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright)" (US)
    * 1977 "I Don't Want to Talk About It" / "The First Cut Is the Deepest" (UK)
    * 1978 "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" (UK, US)
    * 1983 "Baby Jane" (UK)
    * 1990 "Downtown Train" (US Adult Contemporary)
    * 1990 "This Old Heart of Mine" with Ronald Isley (US Adult Contemporary)
    * 1993 "All for Love" (US) (featuring Bryan Adams and Sting, first appearing on the official soundtrack from the movie "The Three Musketeers")
    * 1993 "Have I Told You Lately" (US Adult Contemporary)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0002X94Y8.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/famecrawler/2009/06/rod-stewart-family.jpg
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/07_01/RodStewartTH_486x608.jpg

In fact it his 65th bithday today, he become a pensioner (he can reitre!)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/10/10 at 1:47 am


In fact it his 65th bithday today, he become a pensioner (he can reitre!)
Do Yah Think I'm Sixty!

Nah! You're 65!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/10/10 at 6:08 am

The word of the day...Ice
Ice is frozen water.
If you ice a cake, you cover it with icing.
An ice is an ice cream.
http://i873.photobucket.com/albums/ab297/towelcakeshop/icecream.jpg
http://i326.photobucket.com/albums/k402/CandyApple_015_2008/ice.jpg
http://i666.photobucket.com/albums/vv24/unique_latina2009/ice.jpg
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj304/angeljunk/icefish10040.jpg
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll285/GTO_Judge/0104101149a.jpg
http://i559.photobucket.com/albums/ss40/fashline/akebonoiceshvr.jpg
http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/tt105/nj_ganga/cross/DSCF1167.jpg
http://i816.photobucket.com/albums/zz83/BananaManda12/BannerforBreakTheIce.jpg
http://i1010.photobucket.com/albums/af223/rikiternadi/smirnoff-ice.jpg
http://i818.photobucket.com/albums/zz107/ArtOfSeeking/icesculpture15.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/10/10 at 6:09 am


love the staircases. Thanks for posting, Ninny.  :)

Your Welcome.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/10/10 at 6:10 am


http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/Annex%20-%20Stewart,%20James%20%28Vertigo%29_01.jpg

Classic :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/10/10 at 6:11 am


British person of the day: Rod Stewart

Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE (born 10 January 1945) is a British singer-songwriter born and raised in London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English lineage.

With his distinctive raspy singing voice, Stewart came to prominence in the late 1960s and early '70s with The Jeff Beck Group and then Faces. He launched his solo career in 1969 with his debut album An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down (US: The Rod Stewart Album). His work with The Jeff Beck Group and Faces proved to be influential on the formation of the heavy metal and punk rock genres, respectively. Both bands were also pioneers of blues-rock.

With his career in its fifth decade, Stewart has achieved numerous solo hit singles worldwide, most notably in the UK, where he has garnered six consecutive number one albums and his tally of 62 hit singles include 31 that reached the top 10, six of which gained the number one position. He has had 16 top ten singles in the USA, with four of these reaching number one. He was voted at #33 in Q Magazine's list of the top 100 Greatest Singers of all time.

Awards and recognition:
    * Awarded CBE in 2007 New Year's Honours.
    * Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, 2005, Stardust ... The Great American Songbook Volume III
    * Diamond Award of World Music Awards show for over 100 million records sold worldwide, 2001.
    * Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1994
    * Inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame, 2006
    * "Bar none, he's the best singer I've heard in rock 'n' roll. He's also the greatest white soul singer." —Elton John on Rod Stewart
    * "Is this a white guy? You are kidding me!!" Chuck Berry commented when asked what he thought about Stewart's cover of Sweet Little Rock & Roller in an interview by the Belgian Rock magazine Humo in 1975.
    * Rod Stewart played to the largest concert crowd ever, with 3.5 million fans in attendance. This was at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the 1994 New Year’s Eve celebrations.
    * According to Stewart, soul legend James Brown called him music's "best white soul singer" in September 2006

List of bands:
During his career, Rod Stewart has been a member of a number of groups including:
    * Jimmy Powell and the Five Dimensions (1963)
    * The Hoochie Coochie Men (1964–1965)
    * Soul Agents (1965-1966)
    * Shotgun Express (1966)
    * The Jeff Beck Group (1966–1969)
    * Faces (1969–1975)

Discography: Rod Stewart discography

Stewart's album and single sales total have been variously estimated as more than 100 million, or at 200 million, in either case earning him a place on the list of best-selling music artists.

UK/US number one albums
    * 1971 Every Picture Tells a Story (UK / US)
    * 1972 Never a Dull Moment (UK )
    * 1973 Sing It Again Rod (UK )
    * 1974 Smiler (UK )
    * 1975 Atlantic Crossing (UK )
    * 1976 A Night on the Town (UK )
    * 1977 Foot Loose & Fancy Free (UK / US)
    * 1978 Blondes Have More Fun (US )
    * 1979 Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 (UK )
    * 2004 Stardust: the Great American Songbook 3 (US )
    * 2006 Still the Same... Great Rock Classics of Our Time (US )
    * 2009 Soulbook

UK/US number one singles
    * 1971 "Maggie May" / "Reason to Believe" (UK/US)
    * 1972 "You Wear It Well" (UK)
    * 1975 "Sailing" (UK)
    * 1976 "Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright)" (US)
    * 1977 "I Don't Want to Talk About It" / "The First Cut Is the Deepest" (UK)
    * 1978 "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" (UK, US)
    * 1983 "Baby Jane" (UK)
    * 1990 "Downtown Train" (US Adult Contemporary)
    * 1990 "This Old Heart of Mine" with Ronald Isley (US Adult Contemporary)
    * 1993 "All for Love" (US) (featuring Bryan Adams and Sting, first appearing on the official soundtrack from the movie "The Three Musketeers")
    * 1993 "Have I Told You Lately" (US Adult Contemporary)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0002X94Y8.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/famecrawler/2009/06/rod-stewart-family.jpg
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/07_01/RodStewartTH_486x608.jpg


Very good choice,if you hadn't picked him I was going to. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/10/10 at 6:16 am

The birthday of the day...Pat Benatar
Pat Benatar (born January 10, 1953) is a four-time Grammy Award-winning American singer best known for her mezzo-soprano vocal range and establishing herself as one of rock's top vocalists and one of music's top-selling female artists with hit songs such as "Love Is a Battlefield", "Hit Me with Your Best Shot", "We Belong" and "Heartbreaker".

Benatar is one of the top-selling female artists of all-time, and one of the 1980s Top Platinum Album Recipients, according to the Recording Industry Association of America with two RIAA-certified Multi-Platinum albums and five RIAA-certified Platinum albums, plus three RIAA-certified Gold albums and 19 Top 40 singles to her credit.

In addition, Benatar is the first female artist featured on MTV, and her music video, You Better Run, is the second video aired by the network following its debut with The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" Patricia Mae Andrzejewski was born in Greenpoint, Brooklyn to Andrew and Mildred Andrzejewski, a sheet-metal worker and a beautician. Her family moved to Lindenhurst, New York on Long Island, when she was 3 years old. I have wonderful childhood memories of picking berries in the "woods" by our house, driving to the "docks" on the South Bay to get freshly harvested clams, she recounted once.

Patti (as she was known) became interested in theater and began voice lessons, singing at Daniel Street Elementary School her first solo, a song called “It Must Be Spring,” at age eight. She said, "As a kid, I sang at any choir, any denomination, anywhere I could." At Lindenhurst Senior High School (1967-71), Benatar participated in musical theater, playing Queen Guinevere in the school production of Camelot, marching in the homecoming parade, singing at the annual Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony, and performing a solo of "The Christmas Song" on a holiday recording of the Lindenhurst High School Choir her senior year.

Benatar was cut off from the rock scene in nearby Manhattan though because her parents were "ridiculously strict - I was allowed to go to symphonies, opera and theater but I couldn't go to clubs. Her musical training was strictly classical and theatrical. She said, "I was singing Puccini and West Side Story but I spent every afternoon after school with my little transistor radio listening to the Rolling Stones..."

Training as a coloratura and accepted to The Juilliard School, Benatar surprised family, friends and teachers by deciding a classical career was not for her and pursued health education at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. At 19, after one year at Stony Brook, she dropped out to marry her high school sweetheart Dennis Benatar, an army draftee who trained at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and then served with the Army Security Agency at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, before being stationed at Fort Lee, Virginia. Specialist (E-4) Dennis Benatar was stationed there for three years, and Pat worked as a bank teller in Richmond, Virginia.

In 1973, Benatar quit her job as a bank teller to pursue a singing career after being inspired by a Liza Minnelli concert she saw in Richmond. She got a job as a singing waitress at a flapper-esque nightclub named The Roaring Twenties and got a gig singing in lounge band Coxon's Army, a regular at Sam Miller's basement club. The band garnered enough attention to be the subject of a never-aired PBS special, and the band's bassist Roger Capps also would go on to be the original bass player for the Pat Benatar Band. The period also yielded Benatar's first and only single until her eventual 1979 debut on Chrysalis Records: "Day Gig" (1974), Trace Records, written and produced by Coxon's Army band leader Phil Coxon and locally released in Richmond. Her big break came in 1975 at an amateur night at the renowned comedy club Catch a Rising Star in New York. Her rousing rendition of Judy Garland's "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody" earned her a call back by club owner Rick Newman, who would become her manager. Benatar said:

    I came in from Virginia one night. I had straight red hair and I wore a dress. I sang a Judy Garland song and I don’t know what happened, I never sang in New York before in my life, even though I grew up there, everybody just went crazy. I didn't do anything spectacular. I don’t know what happened, it was just one of those magical things. came right in and said, 'Let's talk about you playing here some more...' Newman said, 'It was 2:45 in the morning. We had 30 performers and she was about #27. I was on the other side of the room drinking with some friends--then I suddenly heard this voice!'

The couple headed back to New York following Dennis' discharge from the army, and Benatar went on to be a regular member at Catch A Rising Star for close to three years, until signing a record contract. Catch A Rising Star was not the only break Benatar got in 1975. She landed the part of Zephyr in Harry Chapin's futuristic rock musical, The Zinger. Benatar's first foray into rock. The production, which debuted on March 19, 1976, at the Performing Arts Foundation's (PAF) Playhouse in Huntington Station, Long Island, ran for a month and also featured Beverly D'Angelo and Christine Lahti. Benatar noted: "I was 22 by the time I started to sing rock, so at first I was very conscious of technique and I was overly technical. That proved to be inhibiting so it was a disadvantage until I began to sing intuitively. That’s the only way to sing rock – from your gut level feelings. It's the instinct that the best singers have."

Halloween 1977 proved a pivotal night in Benatar's early, spandexed stage persona. Rather than change out of the vampire costume she had worn to a Greenwich Village cafe party that evening, she went on-stage wearing black tights, black eyeliner and a short black top. Despite performing her usual array of songs, she received a standing ovation. Benatar has said that "he crowd was always polite, but this time they went out of their minds. It was the same songs, sung the same way, and I thought, 'Oh my god ... t's these clothes and this makeup!'"

Between appearances at Catch A Rising Star and recording commercial jingles for Pepsi Cola and a number of regional concerns, she headlined New York City’s famous Tramps nightclub from March 29 - April 1, 1978, where her performance impressed representatives from several record companies. She was signed to Chrysalis Records by founder Terry Ellis the following week."There was a long period of three years, when I spent my time taking demo tapes around and being rejected by one record company after another. Then just two days after the debut concert with the band, we were signed to a record contract..." Recorded in June and July 1979, Benatar debuted the week of August 27, 1979 with the release of I Need A Lover from the album In the Heat of the Night. She said, "My album was the last of a bunch by female singers to come out so I was told not to expect much, even though Mike Chapman was producing."

She won an unprecedented four consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Female Rock Performance from 1980 to 1983 for Crimes of Passion, "Fire and Ice", "Shadows of the Night", and "Love Is a Battlefield". Of the ten Grammy Award ceremonies in the 1980s, Benatar was nominated for Best Female Rock Performance eight times, including for "Invincible" in 1985, "Sex as a Weapon" in 1986, "All Fired Up" in 1988 and in 1989 for "Let's Stay Together".

Benatar also earned Grammy Award nominations in 1985 for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female with "We Belong" and in 1986 for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Duo or Group as a member of Artists United Against Apartheid for their single, "Sun City". Benatar is also the winner of three American Music Awards: Favorite Female Pop/Rock Vocalist of 1981 and 1983, and Favorite Female Pop/Rock Video Artist of 1985. Benatar was twice named Rolling Stone magazine's Favorite Female Vocalist, and Billboard magazine ranks her as the most successful female rock vocalist of all time based on overall record sales and the number of hit songs and their charted positions.

Pat Benatar was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame at the Second Induction Award Ceremony and Fundraising Gala held October 30, 2008. In her acceptance letter, she said, “My upbringing, and the values and ideals I learned back in my hometown kept me grounded. I never forget that a small town girl from Lindenhurst, LI actually got the chance to live her dreams.”
Family

Pat and Dennis Benatar divorced in 1979. Pat and band leader/lead guitarist Neil "Spyder" Giraldo married on February 20, 1982. They have two daughters, Haley Egeana (born February 16, 1985) and Hana Juliana (born March 12, 1994).
Benatar's debut album In the Heat of the Night was released in October 1979, and reached #12. It established Benatar as a new force in rock. Producer Mike Chapman, who had worked with Blondie and The Knack, broke his vow not to take on any new artists when he heard Benatar's demo tape. Chapman personally produced three tracks on the album, while his long-time engineer and now independent producer, Peter Coleman (who also supervised Nick Gilder) oversaw the rest. In addition, Chapman and his partner, Nicky Chinn, wrote three original songs for the LP, in addition to a rearranged version of a song they wrote for Sweet, "No You Don't". The album also featured two songs written by Roger Capps and Benatar, as well as "I Need a Lover" written by John Mellencamp, "Don't Let It Show" written by Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson. The album would be Benatar's first RIAA certified platinum album.
Crimes of Passion

In August 1980, Benatar released her second and most popular LP, Crimes of Passion, featuring her signature song "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" along with the controversial song Hell is for Children, which was inspired by reading a series of articles in the New York Times about child abuse in America. "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" (U.S. #9) was her first single to break the U.S. Top 10 and eventually sold more than 1 million copies (at that time, gold status) in the United States alone. The album peaked at U.S. #2 in January 1981 for 6 consecutive weeks (behind Yoko Ono and John Lennon's Double Fantasy) and eventually sold over 5 million copies, and a month later, Benatar won her first Grammy Award for "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance" of 1980. Other singles released from Crimes of Passion were "Treat Me Right" (US #18) and the Rascal's cover, "You Better Run" (US #42), which gained some later notoriety when it was the second music video ever played on MTV, after the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star". The album also featured a changed-tempo cover of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights. Produced by Keith Olsen, Crimes of Passion remained on the US album charts for 93 weeks and in the top 10 for more than six months, eventually becoming her second consecutive platinum certification by the RIAA. In October 1980, Benatar (along with future husband Neil Giraldo) graced the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
Although billed as a solo artist, Benatar recorded and toured with a consistent set of band members over most of her career, who contributed greatly to the writing and producing of songs and are recognizable characters on album photos and in many of her music videos.

    * Neil "Spyder" Giraldo (incorrectly spelled as "Geraldo" in early liner notes/credits) is the distinctive lead guitarist of the band and has performed on all of Benatar's albums. Born in Cleveland on December 29, 1955, Giraldo began playing the guitar at 6-years-old and learned to play the piano at age 12. Giraldo performed in Rick Derringer's touring band before working with Benatar, appearing in a possible bootleg entitled Derringer Live At The Paradise Theater Boston, Massachusetts, July 7, 1978 (UPC 672627400428). Giraldo's appearance on the video for Benatar's "You Better Run" distinguished him as the first guitarist on MTV. The video, the second ever aired on MTV, followed The Buggles, who had no guitar player. In addition to playing lead guitar, Giraldo is credited with composing and producing much of Benatar's work. Giraldo's first outside production credit was on John Waite's debut album Ignition. He has also given a helping musical hand to artists such as The Del-Lords, Rick Springfield, and Kenny Loggins. In addition, Giraldo was the musical composer for the 2005 movie Smile starring Beau Bridges, Linda Hamilton, Sean Astin and directed by Jeffrey Kramer. The soundtrack features an original song by Giraldo and Scott Kempner of The Del-Lords, appearing as The Paradise Brothers, titled "Beautiful Something." Proceeds from the movie go to Operation Smile. The Paradise Brothers also contributed a cover of "Light Of Day" for a Bruce Springsteen Tribute album.
    * Myron Grombacher, who played with Neil in Rick Derringer's touring band, is drummer on nine of Benatar's original albums and has numerous writing credits. Myron is easily recognizable in the music videos, particularly as the mad dentist in Get Nervous.
    * Charlie Giordano performed keyboard duties on five albums, and is identifiable by his glasses and distinctive array of berets, blazers and 80s-style ties. In 2007, he replaced the late Danny Federici in the E Street Band.
    * Mick Mahan is the band's bassist and has performed with Benatar since 1995. The original bassist, Roger Capps, was replaced by Donnie Nossov on Tropico, and then later by Frank Linx.
    * Scott Sheets is credited on rhythm guitar on the first three albums.

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e214/bmcgarry/pat_benatar.gif
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http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e318/gothprincessclair/8_Pat_Benatar_pba021.jpg
http://i551.photobucket.com/albums/ii472/bernieBsc/music/bentar3.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/10/10 at 6:20 am

The person of the day...Paul Lynde
Paul Edward Lynde (June 13, 1926 – January 10, 1982) was an American comedian and actor. A noted character actor, Lynde was well known for his roles as Uncle Arthur on Bewitched and Harry McAfee, the befuddled father in Bye Bye Birdie. He was also the regular "center square" guest on the game show, Hollywood Squares, from 1968 to 1981.
Paul Lynde was born in Mount Vernon, Ohio, and studied drama at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where his fellow students included Cloris Leachman, Charlotte Rae, Patricia Neal, Jeffrey Hunter and Claude Akins. At Northwestern University, he joined the Upsilon chapter of Phi Kappa Sigma and is listed amongst the most famous members of the fraternity. He graduated in 1948 and moved to New York City, where he initially worked as a stand-up comic.
Career

Lynde made his Broadway debut in the hit revue New Faces of 1952 in which he co-starred with fellow newcomers Eartha Kitt, Alice Ghostley, and Carol Lawrence. In his monologue from that revue, the "Trip of the Month Club," Lynde portrayed a man on crutches recounting his misadventures on the African safari he took with his late wife. The show was filmed and released as New Faces in 1954.

After the revue's run, Lynde co-starred in the short-lived sitcom Stanley opposite Buddy Hackett and Carol Burnett, both of whom were also starting out their careers in show business. In 1960, Lynde returned to Broadway when he was cast as the father in Bye Bye Birdie. He reprised the role in the play's film adaptation, which was released in 1963 and co-starred Dick Van Dyke, Janet Leigh, and Ann-Margret.

Over the years, Lynde made regular appearances on sitcoms such as The Phil Silvers Show, The Munsters, and I Dream of Jeannie, and variety shows such as The Perry Como Show and The Dean Martin Show. Lynde first appeared in episode 26 of Bewitched, "Driving is the Only Way to Fly", as Samantha's driving instructor Harold Harold, before taking on the recurring role of Uncle Arthur, Endora's brother. He was a frequent guest on the Donny and Marie Osmond Show.

Lynde also did extensive voice work on animated cartoons, particularly those of Hanna-Barbera Productions. His most notable roles included Sylvester Sneakly ("The Hooded Claw") in The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, Mildew Wolf from It's the Wolf (a segment of Cattanooga Cats), and Pertwee from Where's Huddles?. He also voiced the role of Templeton the gluttonous rat in the animated feature Charlotte's Web. Lynde's sardonic inflections added a dimension to such lines as the sly, drawn-out whine, "What's in it for meeee?" Lynde's trademark voice is popular among impressionists. In the 1999 animated Queer Duck the character Bi-Polar Bear (voiced by Billy West) speaks with an imitation of Lynde's voice.

In 1972, Lynde starred in the short-lived ABC sitcom, The Paul Lynde Show, playing an uptight attorney and father at odds with his liberal-minded son-in-law. The series was canceled after only one season. The network then "transferred" Lynde to another comedy series that had debuted in 1972, Temperatures Rising, for the 1973 season, but his presence in the cast did not help flagging ratings and this series, too, was not renewed. The series’ failure reportedly exacerbated Lynde’s pre-existing drinking problem, which led to numerous run-ins with the law and frequent arrests for public intoxication.
Hollywood Squares

In 1966, Lynde debuted on the fledgling game show Hollywood Squares and quickly became its iconic guest. Eventually he assumed a permanent spot as the "center square," a move which ensured that he would be called upon by contestants at least once in almost every round. Though the producers' decision, Universal Studios tour guides told a different tale during the 1970’s. They claimed that Lynde was deathly afraid of earthquakes, and after a taping was interrupted by tremors, he was told by engineers that the center square was the safest.

It was on Hollywood Squares that Lynde was best able to showcase his comedic talents with short, salty one-liners. Many of these gags were thinly-veiled allusions to his homosexuality. Asked "You're the world's most popular fruit. What are you?", Lynde replied, "Humble." In response to the question "How many men on a hockey team?" Lynde quipped, "About half."

Others relied on double entendre, an alleged fondness for deviant behaviors, or dealt with "touchy" subject matter for 1970s television. Examples include:

    Q: What is said to be wasted on the young?
    Lynde: A whipping.

    Q: Paul, what profession is the most common for prostitutes after they retire?
    Lynde: Smuggling.

The show made a habit of asking Lynde about fairy tales and children's stories, making Lynde's punchlines all the more inappropriate. On one episode, Lynde humorously suggested that the Lewis Carroll character Alice was the one to say "I'm late! I'm late!" rather than the White Rabbit, "...and her mother is just sick about it." On another, Lynde claimed that, in The Wizard of Oz, what the Scarecrow really wanted was for the Tin Man to notice him.

Even the more generic punchlines were often punched up by Lynde's trademark snickering delivery. Asked "What is the most abused and neglected part of the body?" Lynde said, "Well, mine may be abused, but it certainly isn't neglected."

Lynde left the show in 1979 after thirteen seasons, but returned for the 1980-81 season.
Personal life

In 1965, Lynde was involved in an accident where his lover, a young actor, fell to his death from the window of their hotel room in San Francisco's Sir Francis Drake Hotel. The two had been drinking for hours before 24-year-old James "Bing" Davidson slipped and fell eight stories, an event witnessed by two policemen. Even though the scandal did not ruin his career, the incident offered insight into the precarious life of drinking and partying that Lynde enjoyed.
Death

Lynde was found dead in his Beverly Hills, California, home by friend Paul Barresi on Monday, January 11, 1982. The coroner ruled the death a heart attack. It has been suggested that he might have been dead for two days, but his death appears in most references as having occurred on January 10, 1982.

Lynde's cremated remains are interred in a cemetery near his hometown of Mt. Vernon, OH, at Amity Cemetery, in Amity, OH. He is buried next to his brother Johnny, and his sister Helen. It is also reported that Lynde lies near ill-fated sweetheart James "Bing" Davidson in Amity Cemetery, but this has been unconfirmed.
Legacy

Paul Lynde's popularity has continued after his death. According to cartoon creator/voice actor Seth McFarlane, the voice of Roger the Alien on the Fox television show American Dad! was modelled after him. The voice and humor of Queer Duck character Bi-Polar Bear (voiced by Ren & Stimpy and Futurama actor Billy West), is also done in the style of Paul Lynde.

Actor/Comedian Michael Airington also plays Paul Lynde in the show Oh My Goodness it's Paul Lynde. He plays him in An Evening with Paul Lynde recreating Lynde's 1976 live show and in Off Center: The Paul Lynde Show. Airington Licenses the rights from the Paul Lynde Estate.
Filmography
Television

    * The Red Buttons Show (1955)
    * Stanley (1956–1957)
    * The Perry Como Show (1961–1963)
    * The Munsters (1964)
    * Bewitched (1965) (1966–1971)
    * The Hollywood Squares (1968–1981)
    * Dean Martin Presents the Golddiggers (1968–1969)
    * The Cattanooga Cats (1969–1971) (voice)
    * Love, American Style (1969-1974)
    * The Perils of Penelope Pitstop (1969–1971) (voice)
    * Gidget Grows Up (1969)
    * Where's Huddles (1970) (voice)
    * Gidget Gets Married (1972)
    * I Dream of Jeannie (1966–1968)
    * The Paul Lynde Show (1972–1973)
    * The New Temperatures Rising Show (1973–1974)
    * The Paul Lynde Halloween Special (1976)
    * Donny & Marie (1975)
    * 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1977)
    * Paul Lynde at the Movies (1979)


Film

    * New Faces (1954) (also writer)
    * Son of Flubber (1963)
    * Bye Bye Birdie (1963)
    * Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963)
    * For Those Who Think Young (1964)
    * Send Me No Flowers (1964)
    * Beach Blanket Bingo (1965)
    * The Glass Bottom Boat (1966)
    * How Sweet It Is! (1968)
    * Charlotte's Web (1973) (voice)
    * Journey Back to Oz (1974) (voice)
    * Hugo the Hippo (1975) (voice)
    * Rabbit Test (1978)
    * The Villain (1979)
http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh20/hikelady/PaulLynde.jpg
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n273/Ziggy869/paul-lynde-02-4-19-4.jpg
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http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l29/Michaelnla3/Paul%20Lynde/NEWPOSTCARDFRI9pmplshow.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/10/10 at 6:20 am


Very good choice,if you hadn't picked him I was going to. :)
I was worried that you may had prepared for him.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/10/10 at 6:23 am


The word of the day...Ice
Ice is frozen water.
If you ice a cake, you cover it with icing.
An ice is an ice cream.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rog8ou-ZepE

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/10/10 at 6:23 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rog8ou-ZepE
Plagiarist!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/10/10 at 6:25 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A7tLVIsuNw

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/10/10 at 6:33 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A7tLVIsuNw

So hillarious ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/10/10 at 6:34 am


So hillarious ;D
It cheered me up for the day!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/10/10 at 6:35 am


Plagiarist!

Did David Bowie or Queen ever get any money from that?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/10/10 at 6:35 am


It cheered me up for the day!

Me too :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/10/10 at 6:36 am


Did David Bowie or Queen ever get any money from that?
I need to research on that.

Paul would know.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/10/10 at 6:39 am


Did David Bowie or Queen ever get any money from that?
"Ice Ice Baby" samples the bassline of "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie, who did not initially receive songwriting credit or royalties until after it had become a hit.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/10/10 at 6:55 am

Rod Stewart will never retire.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/10/10 at 7:08 am


Rod Stewart will never retire.
His voice will go on.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/10/10 at 7:09 am


His voice will go on.


still has had the same hairdo for 20 years.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/10/10 at 7:10 am


still has had the same hairdo for 20 years.
His hair has survived.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/10/10 at 7:10 am


"Ice Ice Baby" samples the bassline of "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie, who did not initially receive songwriting credit or royalties until after it had become a hit.

They  had to sue first...I believe.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/10/10 at 7:11 am


His hair has survived.

Must be a turn on for all those young ladies ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/10/10 at 7:11 am


His hair has survived.


how does he do that?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/10/10 at 7:12 am


how does he do that?
....keeps in a cardboard box?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/10/10 at 7:13 am


....keeps in a cardboard box?


or tons of hairspray.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/10/10 at 7:16 am


or tons of hairspray.
Hair gel?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/10/10 at 7:16 am


Hair gel?


that could be his trick.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/10/10 at 7:21 am


that could be his trick.
Is there any long term effects in continually using hair gel?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/10/10 at 7:29 am


Is there any long term effects in continually using hair gel?


dry hair or flakes.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/10/10 at 7:37 am


dry hair or flakes.
We need a hair care expert here.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 01/10/10 at 9:04 am

Thanks for the bio's on Pat Benatar and Paul Lynde, Ninny. I have always been a fan of Lynde's and was fortunate enough to see Benatar in concert. She was wonderful and so are you.  :) Great job!  :) :) :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/10/10 at 9:32 am


Thanks for the bio's on Pat Benatar and Paul Lynde, Ninny. I have always been a fan of Lynde's and was fortunate enough to see Benatar in concert. She was wonderful and so are you.  :) Great job!  :) :) :)

Thanks Vinny, I've always been a fan of both myself. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/10/10 at 9:33 am


....keeps in a cardboard box?

Like a wig ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/10/10 at 1:02 pm

One of my sisters had a crush on Rod Stewart. I don't know if she still does-probably.

I LOVE Pat Benatar. I love her Crimes of Passion album. That was one of the albums I played the most in my senior year of high school.

As a kid, I had a gerbil named Paul Lynde.  :D ;D ;D ;D  Seriously. He was the voice of the rat in the movie Charlotte's Web and a gerbil was close to a rat so I named him (or was it a her?  :-\\ :D ;D ;D ) Paul Lynde. I named the other one after my best friend.  ;D ;D ;D



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/10/10 at 1:41 pm


One of my sisters had a crush on Rod Stewart. I don't know if she still does-probably.

I LOVE Pat Benatar. I love her Crimes of Passion album. That was one of the albums I played the most in my senior year of high school.

As a kid, I had a gerbil named Paul Lynde.  :D ;D ;D ;D   Seriously. He was the voice of the rat in the movie Charlotte's Web and a gerbil was close to a rat so I named him (or was it a her?  :-\\ :D ;D ;D ) Paul Lynde. I named the other one after my best friend.  ;D ;D ;D



Cat

Crimes of Passion, great  songs like Hell Is for Children, Treat Me Right,You Better Run & Hit Me With Your Best Shot.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/10/10 at 1:49 pm


Crimes of Passion, great  songs like Hell Is for Children, Treat Me Right,You Better Run & Hit Me With Your Best Shot.



I like some of the lesser known songs: I'm Gonna Follow You, Out A Touch, and of course, Wuthering Heights.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 01/10/10 at 6:18 pm

Pat and Paul eh? Both wonderful in their own way!

My kids think Paul Lynde is freaking hilarious. They see him in episodes of I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched (where I bought the DVD's)...

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/10/10 at 6:42 pm


We need a hair care expert here.


Sy Sperling?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/10/10 at 6:42 pm

My favorite is Infatuation.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/10/10 at 11:58 pm

Pat Benatar...loved her songs and she was so hot back in the very early 80s. Hell Is for Children, Treat Me Right, You Better Run. Hit Me With Your Best Shot, We belong, Love is a battlefield.

Paul Lynde. Hilarious man. Center man in Hollywood Squares. Cartoon voices.

2 great celebs!
Thanks ninny!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/11/10 at 12:04 am

Canadian Person of the day

Sir John Alexander Macdonald,

Born January 11,1815 , died June 6, 1891 was the first Prime Minister of Canada and the dominant figure of Canadian Confederation. Macdonald's tenure in office spanned 18 years, making him the second longest serving Prime Minister of Canada. He is the only Canadian Prime Minister to win six majority governments. He was the major proponent of a national railway, the Canadian Pacific Railway, completed in 1885, linking Canada from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. He won praise for having helped forge a nation of sprawling geographic size, with two diverse European colonial origins, numerous Aboriginal nations, and a multiplicity of cultural backgrounds and political views.

Queen Victoria knighted John A. Macdonald for playing an integral role in bringing about Confederation. His appointment as a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George was announced at the birth of the Dominion, July 1, 1867. An election was held in August which put Macdonald and his Conservative party into power.

http://www.glasel.org/gopherhole/JaMAC.jpg


Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/11/10 at 5:11 am



I like some of the lesser known songs: I'm Gonna Follow You, Out A Touch, and of course, Wuthering Heights.



Cat

You can't go wrong with her music.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/11/10 at 5:12 am


Pat and Paul eh? Both wonderful in their own way!

My kids think Paul Lynde is freaking hilarious. They see him in episodes of I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched (where I bought the DVD's)...


Pat Benatar...loved her songs and she was so hot back in the very early 80s. Hell Is for Children, Treat Me Right, You Better Run. Hit Me With Your Best Shot, We belong, Love is a battlefield.

Paul Lynde. Hilarious man. Center man in Hollywood Squares. Cartoon voices.

2 great celebs!
Thanks ninny!


I know Paul Lynde was a comic genius, he made Hollywood Squares.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/11/10 at 5:14 am


Canadian Person of the day

Sir John Alexander Macdonald,

Born January 11,1815 , died June 6, 1891 was the first Prime Minister of Canada and the dominant figure of Canadian Confederation. Macdonald's tenure in office spanned 18 years, making him the second longest serving Prime Minister of Canada. He is the only Canadian Prime Minister to win six majority governments. He was the major proponent of a national railway, the Canadian Pacific Railway, completed in 1885, linking Canada from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. He won praise for having helped forge a nation of sprawling geographic size, with two diverse European colonial origins, numerous Aboriginal nations, and a multiplicity of cultural backgrounds and political views.

Queen Victoria knighted John A. Macdonald for playing an integral role in bringing about Confederation. His appointment as a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George was announced at the birth of the Dominion, July 1, 1867. An election was held in August which put Macdonald and his Conservative party into power.

http://www.glasel.org/gopherhole/JaMAC.jpg




Thanks for the bio, it's nice to learn new things.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/11/10 at 5:23 am

The Word of the day...Crest
    *
      The crest of a hill or a wave is the top of it.
          o
            If you say that you are on the crest of a wave, you mean that you are feeling very happy and confident because things are going well for you.
                +
                  The band are riding on the crest of a wave with the worldwide success of their number-one-selling single.
    *
      When someone crests a hill, they reach the top of it.
          o
            The first wave of marchers crested the hill.
    *
      A bird's crest is a group of upright feathers on the top of its head.
          o
            Both birds had a dark blue crest.
    *
      A crest is a design that is the symbol of a noble family, a town, or an organization.
          o
            On the wall is the family crest.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/11/10 at 5:27 am

The birthday of the day...Rod Taylor
Rodney Sturt "Rod" Taylor (born January 11, 1930) is an Australian-born actor. Born in Lidcombe, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, Taylor was the only child of William Sturt Taylor, a steel construction contractor and commercial artist, and the former Mona Thompson, a writer of plays and children's books. His middle name comes from his great-great grand uncle, Captain Charles Sturt, a famous British explorer of outback Australia in the 1800s.

He attended Sydney Technical and Fine Arts College before deciding to become an actor upon seeing Laurence Olivier in an Old Vic touring production in Australia. After acquiring radio and stage experience in Australia (his radio work included a stint on Blue Hills), Taylor moved to the United States in 1954, where he became a leading man in feature films of the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1955, Taylor guest-starred in the third episode entitled "The Argonauts" of the first hour-long western television series, Cheyenne, an ABC program starring Clint Walker. Taylor and Edward Andrews played gold seekers Clancy and Duncan, respectively, who are best of friends until they strike it rich, only to see Native Americans release their gold dust to the wind.

In the 1960-1961 television season, Taylor starred as foreign correspondent Glenn Evans in the ABC dramatic series Hong Kong. His principal co-star was Lloyd Bochner. The program faced stiff competition on Wednesday evenings from NBC's Wagon Train.

In 1961, Taylor guest-starred on Marilyn Maxwell's short-lived ABC series Bus Stop. In 1962, he starred in an episode of The DuPont Show of the Week (NBC) entitled The Ordeal of Dr. Shannon, an adaptation of A. J. Cronin's novel, Shannon's Way.

Equally adept at light comedy and drama, Taylor's best-known films are the H.G. Wells science-fiction classic The Time Machine (1960) and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). In the latter, Taylor starred as Mitch Brenner, a man whose town and family home in Northern California come under attack from flocks of angry black birds for no discernible reason.

His other films include Sunday in New York, Fate is the Hunter, 36 Hours, Young Cassidy, The Glass Bottom Boat, Darker Than Amber, The Picture Show Man, and Cry of the Innocent.

Prior to that, Taylor had broken into Hollywood with small roles in big pictures like Giant (1956), Raintree County (1957) and Separate Tables (1958).

Taylor was reportedly up for the role of Caucasian martial artist Roper in the Bruce Lee vehicle Enter the Dragon. The 1973 film was directed by Robert Clouse, who had also directed Taylor in 1970's Darker Than Amber. However, Taylor was supposedly deemed too tall for the part, and the role went to John Saxon.

In the 1970s, Taylor turned again to television. He starred in 1971's Bearcats! on CBS and in The Oregon Trail on NBC in 1976. He appeared in 30 episodes of Falcon Crest as well as multiple episodes of Murder, She Wrote and Walker, Texas Ranger.

In 1993, Taylor hosted the documentary Time Machine: The Journey Back, directed by Clyde Lucas. At the end of the special came a mini-sequel, written by David Duncan, the original writer of the George Pal classic. Taylor recreated his role as George, reuniting him with Filby (Alan Young).

Inglourious Basterds from director Quentin Tarantino in 2009 featured Taylor as British prime minister Winston Churchill.

Married to third wife Carol Kikumura, Taylor is the father of former CNN financial reporter Felicia Taylor (born 1964), from an earlier marriage. A life-long artist, he had homes in southern California and in Australia.
Partial filmography

    * King of the Coral Sea (1953) (film debut)
    * Long John Silver (1954)
    * Top Gun (1955)
    * World Without End (1956)
    * The Catered Affair (1956)
    * Giant (1956)
    * Raintree County (1957)
    * Separate Tables (1958)
    * Ask Any Girl (1959)
    * The Time Machine (1960)
    * One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) (voice-Pongo)
    * The Birds (1963)
    * A Gathering of Eagles (1963)
    * The V.I.P.s (1963)
    * Sunday in New York (1963)
    * Fate Is the Hunter (1964)
    * 36 Hours (1965)
    * Young Cassidy (1965)
    * The Liquidator (1965)
    * Do Not Disturb (1965)
    * The Glass Bottom Boat (1966)
    * Hotel (1967)



    * Chuka (1967)
    * Dark of the Sun (a.k.a. The Mercenaries) (1968)
    * The High Commissioner (a.k.a. Nobody Runs Forever) (1968)
    * Zabriskie Point (1970)
    * Darker Than Amber (1970), as Travis McGee
    * Powderkeg (1971) (TV)
    * Family Flight (1972) (TV)
    * The Train Robbers (1973)
    * Trader Horn (1973)
    * The Deadly Trackers (1973)
    * A Matter of Wife... And Death (1976)
    * The Oregon Trail (1976) (TV)
    * The Picture Show Man (1977)
    * Cry of the Innocent (1980)
    * A Time to Die (1982)
    * Terror in the Aisles (1984)
    * Time Machine: The Journey Back (1993) (documentary)
    * Point of Betrayal (1995)
    * Welcome to Woop Woop (1998)
    * The Warlord: Battle for the Galaxy (1998) (TV)
    * KAW (2007) (TV)
    * Inglourious Basterds (2009)

TV shows

Taylor has had several lead roles in television, from the early 1960s to the early 2000s. Among his TV shows are

    * The Twilight Zone (1959, CBS)
    * Hong Kong with co-star Lloyd Bochner (1960, ABC)
    * Bearcats! (1971, CBS)
    * The Oregon Trail as Evan Thorpe, a widower taking his three children from their Illinois farm to the Pacific Northwest by way of the Oregon Trail (1977, NBC)
    * Masquerade (1983)
    * Outlaws (1986)

Among semi-regular appearances or multiple episodes:

    * Playhouse 90
    * General Electric Theater
    * Walker, Texas Ranger
    * Murder She Wrote
    * Falcon Crest
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/11/10 at 5:32 am

The person of the day...Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet of the naturalist movement, although in several poems he displays elements of the previous romantic and enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.

While he regarded himself primarily as a poet who composed novels mainly for financial gain, during his lifetime he was much better known for his novels which earned him a reputation as a great novelist. The bulk of his fictional works, initially published as serials in magazines, were set in the semi-fictional land of Wessex (based on the Dorchester region where he grew up) and explored tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances.

Hardy's poetry, first published in his 50s, has come to be as well-regarded as his novels and has had a significant influence over modern English poetry, especially after The Movement poets of the 1950s and 1960s cited Hardy as a major figure.
Hardy's first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, finished by 1867, failed to find a publisher and Hardy destroyed the manuscript so only parts of the novel remain. He was encouraged to try again by his mentor and friend, Victorian poet and novelist George Meredith. Desperate Remedies (1871) and Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) were published anonymously. In 1873 A Pair of Blue Eyes, a novel drawing on Hardy's courtship of his first wife, was published under his own name. The term "cliffhanger" is considered to have originated with the serialized version of this story (which was published in Tinsley's Magazine between September 1872 and July 1873) in which Henry Knight, one of the protagonists, is left literally hanging off a cliff.

Hardy said that he first introduced Wessex in Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), his next novel. It was successful enough for Hardy to give up architectural work and pursue a literary career. Over the next twenty-five years Hardy produced ten more novels.

The Hardys moved from London to Yeovil and then to Sturminster Newton, where he wrote The Return of the Native (1878). In 1885, they moved for a last time, to Max Gate, a house outside Dorchester designed by Hardy and built by his brother. There he wrote The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), The Woodlanders (1887) and Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), the last of which attracted criticism for its sympathetic portrayal of a "fallen woman" and was initially refused publication. Its subtitle, A Pure Woman: Faithfully Presented, was intended to raise the eyebrows of the Victorian middle-classes.

Jude the Obscure, published in 1895, met with even stronger negative outcries from the Victorian public for its frank treatment of sex, and was often referred to as "Jude the Obscene". Heavily criticised for its apparent attack on the institution of marriage through the presentation of such concepts as erotolepsy, the book caused further strain on Hardy's already difficult marriage because Emma Hardy was concerned that Jude the Obscure would be read as autobiographical. Some booksellers sold the novel in brown paper bags, and the Bishop of Wakefield is reputed to have burnt his copy. In his postscript of 1912, Hardy humorously referred to this incident as part of the career of the book: "After these verdicts from the press its next misfortune was to be burnt by a bishop — probably in his despair at not being able to burn me".

Despite this criticism, Hardy had become a celebrity in English literature by the 1900s, with several highly successful novels behind him, yet he felt disgust at the public reception of two of his greatest works and gave up writing fiction altogether.
Literary themes

Although he wrote a great deal of poetry, most of it went unpublished until after 1898, thus Hardy is best remembered for the series of novels and short stories he wrote between 1871 and 1895. His novels are set in the imaginary world of Wessex, a large area of south and south-west England, using the name of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom that covered the area. Hardy was part of two worlds. He had a deep emotional bond with the rural way of life which he had known as a child, but he was also aware of the changes which were under way and the current social problems, from the innovations in agriculture — he captured the epoch just before the Industrial Revolution changed the English countryside — to the unfairness and hypocrisy of Victorian sexual behaviour.

Hardy critiques certain social constraints that hindered the lives of those living in the 19th century. Considered a Victorian Realist writer, Hardy examines the social constraints that are part of the Victorian status quo, suggesting these rules hinder the lives of all involved and ultimately lead to unhappiness. In Two on a Tower, Hardy seeks to take a stand against these rules and sets up a story against the backdrop of social structure by creating a story of love that crosses the boundaries of class. The reader is forced to consider disposing of the conventions set up for love. Nineteenth-century society enforces these conventions, and societal pressure ensures conformity. Swithin St Cleeve's idealism pits him against contemporary social constraints. He is a self-willed individual set up against the coercive strictures of social rules and mores.
“ In a novel structured around contrasts, the main opposition is between Swithin St Cleeve and Lady Viviette Constantine, who are presented as binary figures in a series of ways: aristocratic and lower class, youthful and mature, single and married, fair and dark, religious and agnostic…she is also deeply conventional, absurdly wishing to conceal their marriage until Swithin has achieved social status through his scientific work, which gives rise to uncontrolled ironies and tragic-comic misunderstandings (Harvey 108). ”

Hardy’s stories take into consideration the events of life and their effects. Fate plays a significant role as the thematic basis for many of his novels. Characters are constantly encountering crossroads, which are symbolic of a point of opportunity and transition. Far From the Madding Crowd tells a tale of lives that are constructed by chance. “Had Bathsheba not sent the valentine, had Fanny not missed her wedding, for example, the story would have taken an entirely different path.” Once things have been put into motion, they will play out. Hardy's characters are in the grips of an overwhelming fate.

Hardy paints a vivid picture of rural life in the 19th century, with all its joys and suffering, as a fatalistic world full of superstition and injustice. His heroes and heroines are often alienated from society and are rarely readmitted. He tends to emphasise the impersonal and, generally, negative powers of fate over the mainly working class people he represents in his novels. Hardy exhibits in his books elemental passion, deep instinct, and the human will struggling against fatal and ill-comprehended laws, a victim also of unforeseeable change. Tess of the d'Urbervilles, for example, ends with:
“ Justice was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Æschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess. And the d'Urberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing. The two speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued to wave silently. As soon as they had strength they arose, joined hands again, and went on. ”

In particular, Hardy's novel Jude the Obscure is full of the sense of crisis of the later Victorian period (as witnessed in Matthew Arnold's 'Dover Beach'). It describes the tragedy of two new social types, Jude Fawley, a working man who attempts to educate himself, and his lover and cousin, Sue Bridehead, who represents the 'new woman' of the 1890s.

His mastery, as both an author and poet, lies in the creation of natural surroundings making discoveries through close observation and acute sensitiveness. He notices the smallest and most delicate details, yet he can also paint vast landscapes of his own Wessex in melancholy or noble moods. (His eye for poignant detail — such as the spreading bloodstain on the ceiling at the end of Tess of the d'Urbervilles and little Jude's suicide note — often came from clippings from newspaper reports of real events).
Poetry

    For the full text of several poems, see the External links section

In 1898 Hardy published his first volume of poetry, Wessex Poems, a collection of poems written over 30 years. Hardy claimed poetry as his first love, and published collections until his death in 1928. Although not as well received by his contemporaries as his novels, Hardy's poetry has been applauded considerably in recent years, in part because of the influence on Philip Larkin who included many of Hardy's poems in the edition of the Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse that Larkin edited in 1973.

In a recent biography on Hardy, Claire Tomalin argues that Hardy became a truly great English poet after the death of his first wife, Emma, beginning with the elegies he wrote in her memory, calling these poems, "one of the finest and strangest celebrations of the dead in English poetry."

Most of his poems deal with themes of disappointment in love and life, and mankind's long struggle against indifference to human suffering. Some, like "The Darkling Thrush" and "An August Midnight", appear as poems about writing poetry, because the nature mentioned in them gives Hardy the inspiration to write those. A vein of regret tinges his often seemingly banal themes. His compositions range in style from the three-volume epic closet drama The Dynasts to smaller, and often hopeful or even cheerful ballads of the moment such as the little-known "The Children and Sir Nameless", a comic poem inspired by the tombs of the Martyns, builders of Athelhampton. A particularly strong theme in the Wessex Poems is the long shadow that the Napoleonic Wars cast over the nineteenth century, for example, in "The Sergeant's Song" and "Leipzig", and the way those memories wind through the English landscape and its inhabitants.

A few of Hardy's poems, such as "The Blinded Bird" (a melancholy polemic against the sport of vinkenzetting), display his love of the natural world and his firm stance against animal cruelty, exhibited in his antivivisectionist views and his membership in the RSPCA.

Composers who have set Hardy's text to music include Gerald Finzi, who produced six song-cycles for poems by Hardy, Benjamin Britten, who based his song-cycle Winter Words on Hardy's poetry, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst. Holst also based one of his last orchestral works, Egdon Heath, on Hardy's work. Composer Lee Hoiby's setting of "The Darkling Thrush" became the basis of the multimedia opera Darkling and Timothy Takach, a graduate of St. Olaf, has also put "The Darkling Thrush" into arrangement for a four-part mixed choir.
Works
Prose

Hardy divided his novels and collected short stories into three classes:

Novels of Character and Environment

    * The Poor Man and the Lady (1867, unpublished and lost)
    * Under the Greenwood Tree (1872)
    * Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)
    * The Return of the Native (1878)
    * The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)
    * The Woodlanders (1887)
    * Wessex Tales (1888, a collection of short stories)
    * Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)
    * Life's Little Ironies (1894, a collection of short stories)
    * Jude the Obscure (1895)

Romances and Fantasies

    * A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873)
    * The Trumpet-Major (1880)
    * Two on a Tower (1882)
    * A Group of Noble Dames (1891, a collection of short stories)
    * The Well-Beloved (1897) (first published as a serial from 1892)

Novels of Ingenuity

    * Desperate Remedies (1871)
    * The Hand of Ethelberta (1876)
    * A Laodicean (1881)

Hardy also produced a number of minor tales and a collaborative novel, The Spectre of the Real (1894). An additional short-story collection, beyond the ones mentioned above, is A Changed Man and Other Tales (1913). His works have been collected as the 24-volume Wessex Edition (1912–1913) and the 37-volume Mellstock Edition (1919–1920). His largely self-written biography appears under his second wife's name in two volumes from 1928–1930, as The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1840–1891 and The Later Years of Thomas Hardy, 1892–1928, now published in a critical one-volume edition as The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy, edited by Michael Millgate (1984).

Short stories (with date of first publication)

    * "How I Built Myself A House" (1865)
    * "Destiny and a Blue Cloak" (1874)
    * "The Thieves Who Couldn't Stop Sneezing" (1877)
    * "The Duchess of Hamptonshire" (1878)
    * "The Distracted Preacher" (1879)
    * "Fellow-Townsmen" (1880)
    * "The Honourable Laura" (1881)
    * "What The Shepherd Saw" (1881)
    * "A Tradition of Eighteen Hundred and Four" (1882)
    * "The Three Strangers" (1883)
    * "The Romantic Adventures Of A Milkmaid" (1883)
    * "Interlopers At The Knap" (1884)
    * "A Mere Interlude" (1885) (republished in Penguin Great Loves series)
    * "A Tryst At An Ancient Earthwork" (1885)
    * "Alicia's Diary" (1887)
    * "The Waiting Supper" (1887-88)
    * "The Withered Arm" (1888)
    * "A Tragedy Of Two Ambitions" (1888)
    * "The First Countess of Wessex" (1889)
    * "Anna, Lady Baxby" (1890)
    * "The Lady Icenway" (1890)
    * "Lady Mottisfont" (1890)
    * "The Lady Penelope" (1890)
    * "The Marchioness of Stonehenge" (1890)
    * "Squire Petrick's Lady" (1890)
    * "Barbara Of The House Of Grebe" (1890)
    * "The Melancholy Hussar of The German Legion" (1890)
    * "Absent-Mindedness in a Parish Choir" (1891)



    * "The Winters And The Palmleys" (1891)
    * "For Conscience' Sake" (1891)
    * "Incident in Mr. Crookhill's Life"(1891)
    * "The Doctor's Legend" (1891)
    * "Andrey Satchel and the Parson and Clerk" (1891)
    * "The History of the Hardcomes" (1891)
    * "Netty Sargent's Copyhold" (1891)
    * "On The Western Circuit" (1891)
    * "A Few Crusted Characters: Introduction" (1891)
    * "The Superstitious Man's Story" (1891)
    * "Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver" (1891)
    * "To Please His Wife" (1891)
    * "The Son's Veto" (1891)
    * "Old Andrey's Experience as a Musician" (1891)
    * "Our Exploits At West Poley" (1892-93)
    * "Master John Horseleigh, Knight" (1893)
    * "The Fiddler of the Reels" (1893)
    * "An Imaginative Woman" (1894)
    * "The Spectre of the Real" (1894)
    * "A Committee-Man of 'The Terror'" (1896)
    * "The Duke's Reappearance" (1896)
    * "The Grave By The Handpost" (1897)
    * "A Changed Man" (1900)
    * "Enter a Dragoon" (1900)
    * "Blue Jimmy: The Horse Stealer" (1911)
    * "Old Mrs. Chundle" (1929)
    * "The Unconquerable"(1992)

Poetry

    * The Photograph (1890)
    * Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1898)
    * Poems of the Past and Present (1901)
    * The Man He Killed (1902)
    * Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses (1909)
    * The Voice (1912)
    * Satires of Circumstance (1914)
    * Moments of Vision (1917)
    * Collected Poems (1919)
    * Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other Verses (1922)
    * Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles (1925)
    * Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres (1928)
    * The Complete Poems (Macmillan, 1976)
    * Selected Poems (Edited by Harry Thomas, Penguin, 1993)
    * Hardy: Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets, 1995)
    * Thomas Hardy: Selected Poetry and Nonfictional Prose (St. Martin's Press, 1996)
    * Selected Poems (Edited by Robert Mezey, Penguin, 1998)
    * Thomas Hardy: The Complete Poems (Edited by James Gibson, Palgrave, 2001)

Drama

    * The Dynasts (verse drama)
          o The Dynasts, Part 1 (1904)
          o The Dynasts, Part 2 (1906)
          o The Dynasts, Part 3 (1908)
    * The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall at Tintagel in Lyonnesse (1923) (one-act play)

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/11/10 at 5:41 am

Don't forget The toothpaste Crest. ;)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 01/11/10 at 6:23 am

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Qzd9HIsRWeA/RwpmilbEugI/AAAAAAAABfY/P-eden9-rY8/s400/Rod+Taylor.jpghttp://www.richardsimpkin.com.au/Australian-Legends/ROD-TAYLOR.jpg
Rod Taylor then and Rod Taylor now. It's amazing how much he's changed in appearance. I know he's older now but some actors like Kirk Douglas and Sean Connery are still recognizable in their senior years. I would never have known the third pic was Taylor had I came accross it by accident. Nice Bio on Taylor, Ninny. Thanks for sharing.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/11/10 at 11:36 am


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Qzd9HIsRWeA/RwpmilbEugI/AAAAAAAABfY/P-eden9-rY8/s400/Rod+Taylor.jpghttp://www.richardsimpkin.com.au/Australian-Legends/ROD-TAYLOR.jpg
Rod Taylor then and Rod Taylor now. It's amazing how much he's changed in appearance. I know he's older now but some actors like Kirk Douglas and Sean Connery are still recognizable in their senior years. I would never have known the third pic was Taylor had I came accross it by accident. Nice Bio on Taylor, Ninny. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the pics Vinny, I was looking for a pic of him that was current. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 01/11/10 at 12:23 pm


Thanks for the pics Vinny, I was looking for a pic of him that was current. :)

My pleasure.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/11/10 at 3:03 pm

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Crest_toothpaste.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/11/10 at 4:50 pm


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Crest_toothpaste.jpg

Nice :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/12/10 at 4:52 am

The word of the day...Imposter
Someone who is an impostor is dishonestly pretending to be someone else in order to gain an advantage
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/12/10 at 4:56 am

The birthday of the day...Oliver Platt
Oliver Platt (born January 12, 1960) is a Canadian-born American stage, film, and television actor.
Platt makes his decisions about accepting acting roles based on the role being "different from what I just did...I do have to be interested in the role". After Married to the Mob, he appeared in Working Girl (1988), Flatliners (1990), The Three Musketeers (1993), A Time to Kill (1996) and Bulworth (1998). In 1998, Platt and Stanley Tucci played two deadbeat actors who improvise with unsuspecting strangers in The Impostors. Tucci and Platt developed the characters while working on a play at Yale University in 1988, Tucci later completing the screenplay and directing the film.

In 1999, Platt played the wealthy and eccentric crocodile enthusiast Hector in David E. Kelley's Lake Placid, alongside Bill Pullman and Bridget Fonda. Platt described Hector as "pretty abrasive and obnoxious at times, but, I hope, he has a way of growing on you. I think David originally thought of him as a great white hunter sort of guy, but when I signed on for the role he sort of wrote him in a different direction."

The short-lived drama Deadline provided Platt's first lead role on television. Created by Dick Wolf, who also created Law & Order, Deadline focused on the lives of newspaper journalists in New York City. Platt starred as Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Wallace Benton, an "unlikely hero". The strong cast, which also included Bebe Neuwirth and Hope Davis, could not compensate for sub-standard writing and the series was soon canceled. After Deadline's failure, Platt avoided work on television until he read a script for The West Wing and signed on for a guest role. He received an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of no-nonsense White House Counsel Oliver Babish, brought in during season two to compile a defense for President Bartlet and others who covered up his non-disclosure of multiple sclerosis.

His role in the television series Huff as Russell Tupper from 2004 to 2006 was well-received, especially by creator Robert Lowry, who said, "Oliver plays an alcoholic, drug-addicted, sexaholic, workaholic, womanizing misogynist who is adorable. I don't know any actor who could do that. I originally saw Russell as a blond stud, but when I saw what Oliver could do, I realized how much better, richer, and less predictable he was than my idea of the character...Oliver is very committed to the idea that story and dialogue be character-driven and unique". Platt's work was nominated for two Emmy awards and a Golden Globe.

In 2005, Platt acted in Harold Ramis's film The Ice Harvest as an unhappy businessman with a trophy wife and two stepchildren who becomes involved with a friend who has stolen $2 million from a Mafia boss. He also played a lard merchant named Papprizzio in Lasse Hallstrom's Casanova, who competes with Casanova (Heath Ledger) for marriage to Francesca (Sienna Miller). Platt won the New York Film Critics Online Award for best supporting actor for his role in Casanova.
Oliver Platt greets fans outside the Nederlander Theatre in Manhattan after a performance of Guys and Dolls on February 21, 2009.

A Broadway production named Shining City was Platt's Broadway debut in 2006. The play was set in Dublin, and Platt's role was the tortured protagonist, John. Shining City's director said, "There is one word to describe Oliver. It's 'humanity.' He's got that everyman quality. He's a contradictory human being with flaws and strengths. And he's loveable. He can simultaneously make you laugh and break your heart. Oliver has brought to the role of John what I expected and more: tremendous inventiveness and sensitivity." Platt visited Dublin to prepare for the role and ensure his performance was authentic. He was nominated for a Tony award for "Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play".

In 2007, Platt played the part of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner in the ESPN mini-series The Bronx is Burning. Platt signed onto the project after John Turturro was confirmed as Billy Martin, because, "This thing lives or dies by that portrayal… I think it's great casting. God knows he has the intensity." Platt starred in the pilot episode of The Thick of It, a remake of the British show of the same name in 2007. The series was not picked up by ABC.

Platt recently starred as Nathan Detroit, alongside Lauren Graham as Miss Adelaide, in the Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls which began performances at the Nederlander Theatre on February 3, 2009 and officially opened on March 1, 2009. The production closed on June 14, 2009 after 113 performances.

Platt starred as the White House Chief of Staff Carl Anheuser in Roland Emmerich's 2012, a disaster film released November 13, 2009.
Personal life

Platt married Mary Camilla Bonsal Campbell (known as Camilla) in September 1992 at the First Congregational Church in Kittery Point, Maine. He now focuses on film and television more than theater because, "I've got a wife and three kids, so film is just the most viable thing for me right now. I still love the theater, but the commitment in time and energy to do live theater is so great, and, frankly, the financial rewards are just not as attractive. When you have a family, you have to think about those things." One of Platt's daughters is named Lily, and is fourteen. Platt has an open plane ticket when filming so he can return home frequently, because his family does not accompany him to filming locations.

Tufts University considered offering their Light on the Hill award to Platt in 2008, which is given to distinguished alumni. Tufts Community Union President Neil DiBiase said Platt was unable to make it to Tufts that semester, and they "would rather wait to find a better opportunity for him to come to campus when his schedule is more available. The point of the award is to get alumni back to campus." The 2008 award was instead given to Jeff Kindler, chief executive of pharmaceutical company Pfizer.

Oliver's older brother Adam is a restaurant critic for New York Magazine. Both attended the American School in Japan.
Filmography
Films
Year Film Role Notes
1988 Married to the Mob Ed Benitez
Working Girl Lutz
1989 Crusoe Mr. Newby
1990 Flatliners Randy Steckle
1992 Beethoven Harvey
Diggstown Fitz
1993 Indecent Proposal Jeremy
The Three Musketeers Porthos
Benny & Joon Eric
1995 Funny Bones Tommy Fawkes
Tall Tale Paul Bunyan
The Infiltrator Yaron
1996 Executive Decision Dennis Cahill
A Time to Kill Harry Rex Vonner
1998 Dangerous Beauty Maffio Venier
Bulworth Dennis Murphy
The Impostors Maurice
Dr. Dolittle Dr. Mark Weller
Simon Birch Ben Goodrich
1999 Lake Placid Hector Cyr
Three to Tango Peter Steinberg
Bicentennial Man Rupert Burns
2000 Ready to Rumble Jimmy King
Gun Shy Fulvio Nesstra
2001 Don't Say a Word Dr. Louis Sachs
2002 Liberty Stands Still Victor Wallace
Ash Wednesday Moran
2003 Pieces of April Jim Burns
Hope Springs Doug Reed
2004 Kinsey Herman Wells
2005 The Ice Harvest Pete
Casanova Paprizzio
2007 The Ten Marc Jacobson
Martian Child Jeff
2008 Frost/Nixon Bob Zelnick Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2009 Wonder Woman Hades Voice Only
Year One High Priest
Please Give TBA
2012 Carl Anheuser
Television
Year Show Role Notes
2000—2001 Deadline Wallace Benton
2001, 2005 The West Wing White House Counsel Oliver Babish Emmy nomination: "Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series" (2001)
2003—2007 Queens Supreme Judge Jack Moran
2004—2006 Huff Russell Tupper Emmy nominations: "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series" (2005 and 2006),
Golden Globe nomination: "Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for Television" (2005)
2007 The Thick of It Malcolm Tucker TV pilot
The Bronx Is Burning George Steinbrenner Screen Actors Guild Award nomination: "Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries" (2008)
2007—2008 Nip/Tuck Freddy Prune Emmy nomination: "Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series" (2008)
2009 Bored to Death Richard Antrem
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/12/10 at 5:01 am

The person of the day...Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976), was an English crime writer of novels, short stories and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but is best remembered for her 80 detective novels and her successful West End theatre plays. Her works, particularly those featuring detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple, have given her the title the 'Queen of Crime' and made her one of the most important and innovative writers in the development of the genre.

Christie has been referred to by the Guinness Book of World Records as the best-selling writer of books of all time and the best-selling writer of any kind, along with William Shakespeare. Only the Bible is known to have outsold her collected sales of roughly four billion copies of novels. UNESCO states that she is currently the most translated individual author in the world with only the collective corporate works of Walt Disney Productions surpassing her. Christie's books have been translated into at least 56 languages.

Her stage play The Mousetrap holds the record for the longest initial run in the world: it opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London on 25 November 1952 and as of 2009 is still running after more than 23,000 performances. In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master Award, and in the same year, Witness for the Prosecution was given an Edgar Award by the MWA, for Best Play. Most of her books and short stories have been filmed, some many times over (Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile and 4.50 From Paddington for instance), and many have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics.

In 1968, Booker Books, a subsidiary of the agri-industrial conglomerate Booker-McConnell, bought a 51 percent stake in Agatha Christie Limited, the private company that Christie had set up for tax purposes. Booker later increased its stake to 64 percent. In 1998, Booker sold its shares to Chorion, a company whose portfolio also includes the literary estates of Enid Blyton and Dennis Wheatley.

In 2004, a 5,000-word story entitled "The Incident of the Dog's Ball" was found in the attic of the author's daughter. It was published in Britain in September 2009. On November 10, 2009, Reuters announced that the story will be published by The Strand Magazine
Agatha Christie's first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 and introduced the long-running character detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 33 of Christie's novels and 54 short stories.

Her other well known character, Miss Marple, was introduced in The Tuesday Night Club in 1927 (short story), and was based on women like Christie's grandmother and her "cronies".

During the Second World War, Christie wrote two novels, Curtain and Sleeping Murder, intended as the last cases of these two great detectives, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple, respectively. Both books were sealed in a bank vault for over thirty years, and were released for publication by Christie only at the end of her life, when she realized that she could not write any more novels. These publications came on the heels of the success of the film version of Murder on the Orient Express in 1974.

Like Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes, Christie was to become increasingly tired of her detective, Poirot. In fact, by the end of the 1930s, Christie confided to her diary that she was finding Poirot “insufferable," and by the 1960s she felt that he was "an ego-centric creep." However, unlike Conan Doyle, Christie resisted the temptation to kill her detective off while he was still popular. She saw herself as an entertainer whose job was to produce what the public liked, and the public liked Poirot.

In contrast, Christie was fond of Miss Marple. However, it is interesting to note that the Belgian detective’s titles outnumber the Marple titles by more than two to one. This is largely because Christie wrote numerous Poirot novels early in her career, while The Murder at the Vicarage remained the sole Marple novel until the 1940s.

Christie never wrote a novel or short story featuring both Poirot and Miss Marple. In a recording, recently re-discovered and released in 2008, Christie revealed the reason for this: "Hercule Poirot, a complete egoist, would not like being taught his business or having suggestions made to him by an elderly spinster lady".

Poirot is the only fictional character to have been given an obituary in The New York Times, following the publication of Curtain in 1975.

Following the great success of Curtain, Christie gave permission for the release of Sleeping Murder sometime in 1976, but died in January 1976 before the book could be released. This may explain some of the inconsistencies compared to the rest of the Marple series — for example, Colonel Arthur Bantry, husband of Miss Marple's friend, Dolly, is still alive and well in Sleeping Murder despite the fact he is noted as having died in books published earlier. It may be that Christie simply did not have time to revise the manuscript before she died. Miss Marple fared better than Poirot, since after solving the mystery in Sleeping Murder she returns home to her regular life in St. Mary Mead.

On an edition of Desert Island Discs in 2007, Brian Aldiss claimed that Agatha Christie told him that she wrote her books up to the last chapter, and then decided who the most unlikely suspect was. She would then go back and make the necessary changes to "frame" that person. The evidence of Christie's working methods, as described by successive biographers, contradicts this claim.
Formula and plot devices

Almost all of Agatha Christie’s books are whodunits, focusing on the English middle and upper classes. Usually, the detective either stumbles across the murder or is called upon by an old acquaintance, who is somehow involved. Gradually, the detective interrogates each suspect, examines the scene of the crime and makes a note of each clue, so readers can analyze it and be allowed a fair chance of solving the mystery themselves. Then, about halfway through, or sometimes even during the final act, one of the suspects usually dies, often because they have inadvertently deduced the killer's identity and need silencing. In a few of her novels, including Death Comes as the End and And Then There Were None, there are multiple victims. Finally, the detective organizes a meeting of all the suspects and slowly denounces the guilty party, exposing several unrelated secrets along the way, sometimes over the course of thirty or so pages. The murders are often extremely ingenious, involving some convoluted piece of deception. Christie’s stories are also known for their taut atmosphere and strong psychological suspense, developed from the deliberately slow pace of her prose.

Twice, the murderer surprisingly turns out to be the narrator of the story.

In four stories, Christie allows the murderer to escape justice (and in the case of the last three, implicitly almost approves of their crimes); these are The Witness for the Prosecution, Murder on the Orient Express, Curtain and The Unexpected Guest. After the dénouement of Taken at the Flood, her sleuth Poirot has the guilty party arrested for the lesser crime of manslaughter. (When Christie adapted Witness into a stage play, she lengthened the ending so that the murderer was also killed.) There are also numerous instances where the killer is not brought to justice in the legal sense but instead dies (death usually being presented as a more 'sympathetic' outcome), for example Death on the Nile, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Crooked House, Appointment with Death and The Hollow. In some cases this is with the collusion of the detective involved. Five Little Pigs, and arguably Ordeal by Innocence, end with the question of whether formal justice will be done unresolved.
Critical reception

Agatha Christie was revered as a master of suspense, plotting, and characterization by most of her contemporaries and, even today, her stories have received glowing reviews in most literary circles. Fellow crime writer Anthony Berkeley Cox was an admitted fan of her work, once saying that nobody can write an Agatha Christie novel but the authoress herself.

However, she does have her detractors, most notably the American novelist Raymond Chandler, who criticised her in his book, The Simple Art of Murder, and the American literary critic Edmund Wilson, who was dismissive of Christie and the detective fiction genre generally in his New Yorker essay, "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?".
Stereotyping

Christie occasionally inserted stereotyped descriptions of characters into her work, particularly before the end of the Second World War (when such attitudes were more commonly expressed publicly), and particularly in regard to Italians, Jews, and non-Europeans generally. For example, in the first editions of the collection The Mysterious Mr Quin (1930), in the short story "The Soul of the Croupier," she described "Hebraic men with hook-noses wearing rather flamboyant jewellery"; in later editions the passage was edited to describe "sallow men" wearing same.
Portrayals

Christie has been portrayed on a number of occasions in film and television.

Several biographical programs have been made, such as the 2004 BBC television program entitled Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures, in which she is portrayed by Olivia Williams, Anna Massey, and Bonnie Wright.

Christie has also been portrayed fictionally. Some of these have explored and offered accounts of Christie's disappearance in 1926, including the 1979 film Agatha (with Vanessa Redgrave) and the Doctor Who episode "The Unicorn and the Wasp" (with Fenella Woolgar). Others, such as 1980 Hungarian film, Kojak Budapesten (not to be confused with the 1986 comedy by the same name) create their own scenarios involving Christie's criminal skill. In the 1986 TV play, Murder by the Book, Christie herself (Peggy Ashcroft) murdered one of her fictional-turned-real characters, Poirot.

Christie has also been parodied on screen, such as in the film Murder by Indecision, which featured the character "Agatha Crispy".
List of works

See List of works by Agatha Christie
Other works based on Christie's books and plays
Plays adapted into novels by Charles Osborne

    * 1998 Black Coffee
    * 1999 The Unexpected Guest
    * 2000 Spider's Web

Plays adapted by other authors

    * 1928 Alibi (dramatized by Michael Morton from the novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd)
    * 1936 Love from a Stranger (play) (dramatized by Frank Vosper from the short story Philomel Cottage)
    * 1939 Tea for Three (dramatized by Margery Vosper from the short story Accident)
    * 1940 Peril at End House (dramatized from her novel by Arnold Ridley)
    * 1949 Murder at the Vicarage (dramatized from the novel by Moie Charles and Barbara Toy)
    * 1977 Murder at the Vicarage (dramatized from the novel by Leslie Darbon)
    * 1981 Cards on the Table (dramatized from the novel by Leslie Darbon)
    * 1993 Murder is Easy (dramatized from the novel by Clive Exton)
    * 2005 And Then There Were None (dramatized from the novel by Kevin Elyot)

Movie Adaptations
Year Title Story Based On Other Notes
1928 "The Passing Of Mr. Quin" The Coming of Mr. Quin First Christie film adaptation.
1929 "Die Abenteurer G.m.b.H." The Secret Adversary First Christie foreign film adaptation. German adaptation of The Secret Adversary
1931 "Alibi" The stage play Alibi and the novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd First Christie film adaptation to feature Hercule Poirot.
1931 "Black Coffee" Black Coffee None.
1932 "Le Coffret de Laque" Black Coffee French adaptation of Black Coffee.
1934 "Lord Edgware Dies" Lord Edgware Dies None.
1937 "Love from a Stranger" The stage play Love from a Stranger and the short story Philomel Cottage Released in the US as A Night of Terror.
1945 "And Then There Were None" The stage play And Then There Were None and the novel And Then There Were None First Christie film adaptation of And Then There Were None.
1947 "Love from a Stranger" The stage play Love from a Stranger and the short story Philomel Cottage Released in the UK as A Stranger Walked In.
1957 "Witness for the Prosecution" The stage play Witness for the Prosecution and the short story The Witness for the Prosecution None.
1960 "The Spider's Web" Spider's Web None.
1961 "Murder, She Said" 4.50 From Paddington First Christie film adaptation to feature Miss Marple.
1963 "Murder at the Gallop" After the Funeral None.
1964 "Murder Most Foul" Mrs. McGinty's Dead None.
1964 "Murder Ahoy!" None An original movie not based on any book, although it borrows some elements of They Do It With Mirrors.
1965 "Gumnaam" And Then There Were None Uncredited adaptation of And Then There Were None.
1965 "Ten Little Indians" The stage play And Then There Were None and the novel And Then There Were None None.
1965 "The Alphabet Murders" The A.B.C. Murders None.
1972 "Endless Night" Endless Night None.
1974 "Murder on the Orient Express" Murder on the Orient Express None.
1974 "And Then There Were None" The stage play And Then There Were None and the novel And Then There Were None Released in the US as Ten Little Indians.
1978 "Death on the Nile" The stage play Murder on the Nile and the novel Death on the Nile None.
1980 "The Mirror Crack'd" The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side None.
1982 "Evil Under the Sun" Evil Under the Sun None.
1985 "Ordeal by Innocence" Ordeal by Innocence None.
1987 "Desyat Negrityat" The stage play And Then There Were None and the novel And Then There Were None Russian film adaptation of And Then There Were None.
1988 "Appointment With Death" The stage play Appointment with Death and the novel Appointment with Death None.
1989 "Ten Little Indians" The stage play And Then There Were None and the novel And Then There Were None None.
1995 "Innocent Lies" Towards Zero None.
2005 "Mon petit doigt m'a dit..." By the Pricking of My Thumbs French adaptation of By the Pricking of My Thumbs.
2007 "L'Heure zéro" Towards Zero French adaptation of Towards Zero.
2008 "Le crime est notre affaire" 4.50 From Paddington French adaptation of 4.50 From Paddington

v • d • e
Miss Marple Murder films
Films
Murder, She Said  · Murder at the Gallop  · Murder Most Foul  · Murder Ahoy!  · The Alphabet Murders
Novels
4.50 from Paddington  · After the Funeral  · Mrs. McGinty's Dead
Television Adaptations

    * 1938 Love from a Stranger (TV) (Based on the stage play of the same name from the short story Philomel Cottage)
    * 1947 Love from a Stranger (TV)
    * 1949 Ten Little Indians
    * 1959 Ten Little Indians
    * 1970 The Murder at the Vicarage
    * 1980 Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
    * 1982 Spider's Web (TV)
    * 1982 The Seven Dials Mystery
    * 1982 The Agatha Christie Hour
    * 1982 Murder is Easy
    * 1982 The Witness for the Prosecution
    * 1983 The Secret Adversary
    * 1983 Partners in Crime
    * 1983 A Caribbean Mystery
    * 1983 Sparkling Cyanide
    * 1984 The Body in the Library
    * 1985 Murder with Mirrors
    * 1985 The Moving Finger
    * 1985 A Murder is Announced
    * 1985 A Pocket Full of Rye
    * 1985 Thirteen at Dinner
    * 1986 Dead Man's Folly
    * 1986 Murder in Three Acts
    * 1986 The Murder at the Vicarage
    * 1987 Sleeping Murder
    * 1987 At Bertram's Hotel
    * 1987 Nemesis
    * 1987 4.50 from Paddington
    * 1989 The Man in the Brown Suit
    * 1989 A Caribbean Mystery
    * 1991 They Do It with Mirrors
    * 1992 The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
    * 1997 The Pale Horse
    * 2001 Murder on the Orient Express
    * 2003 Sparkling Cyanide'
    * 2004 The Body in the Library
    * 2004 The Murder at the Vicarage
    * 2004 4.50 from Paddington
    * 2005 A Murder is Announced
    * 2005 Sleeping Murder
    * 2006 The Moving Finger
    * 2006 By the Pricking of My Thumbs
    * 2006 The Sittaford Mystery
    * 2007 Hercule Poirot's Christmas (A French film adaptation)
    * 2007 Towards Zero
    * 2007 Nemesis
    * 2007 At Bertram's Hotel
    * 2007 Ordeal by Innocence
    * 2008 A Pocket Full of Rye
    * 2008 Murder Is Easy
    * 2008 Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
    * 2008 They Do It with Mirrors
    * 2009 The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

Agatha Christie's Poirot television series

Episodes include:

    * 1990 Peril at End House
    * 1990 The Mysterious Affair at Styles
    * 1994 Hercule Poirot's Christmas
    * 1995 Murder on the Links
    * 1995 Hickory Dickory Dock
    * 1996 Dumb Witness
    * 2000 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
    * 2000 Lord Edgware Dies
    * 2001 Evil Under the Sun
    * 2001 Murder in Mesopotamia
    * 2004 Five Little Pigs
    * 2004 Death on the Nile
    * 2004 Sad Cypress
    * 2004 The Hollow
    * 2005 The Mystery of the Blue Train
    * 2005 Cards on the Table
    * 2005 After the Funeral
    * 2006 Taken at the Flood
    * 2008 Mrs. McGinty's Dead
    * 2008 Cat Among the Pigeons
    * 2008 Third Girl
    * 2008 Appointment with Death
    * 2009 The Clocks
    * 2009 Three Act Tragedy

Graphic novels

Euro Comics India began issuing a series of graphic novel adaptations of Christie's work in 2007.

    * 2007 The Murder on the Links Adapted by François Rivière, Illustrated by Marc Piskic
    * 2007 Murder on the Orient Express Adapted by François Rivière, Illustrated by Solidor (Jean-François Miniac).
    * 2007 Death on the Nile Adapted by Francois Riviere, Illustrated by Solidor (Jean-François Miniac)
    * 2007 The Secret of Chimneys Adapted by François Rivière, Illustrated by Laurence Suhner
    * 2007 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Adapted and illustrated by Bruno Lachard
    * 2007 The Mystery of the Blue Train Adapted and illustrated by Marc Piskic
    * 2007 The Man in the Brown Suit Adapted and illustrated by Alain Paillou
    * 2007 The Big Four Adapted by Hichot and illustrated by Bairi
    * 2007 The Secret Adversary Adapted by François Rivière and illustrated by Frank Leclercq
    * 2007 The Murder at the Vicarage Adapted and illustrated by "Norma"
    * 2007 Murder in Mesopotamia Adapted by François Rivière and illustrated by Chandre
    * 2007 And Then There Were None Adapted by François Rivière and illustrated by Frank Leclercq
    * 2007 Endless Night Adapted by Francois Rivière and illustrated by Frank Leclercq
    * 2008 Ordeal by Innocence Adapted and illustrated by Chandre
    * 2008 Hallowe'en Party Adapted and illustrated by Chandre

HarperCollins independently began issuing this series also in 2007.

In addition to the titles issued the following titles are also planned for release:

    * 2008 Peril at End House Adapted by Thierry Jollet and illustrated by Didier Quella-Guyot
    * 2009 Dumb Witness Adapted and illustrated by "Marek"

Video games

    * 1988 The Scoop (published by Spinnaker Software and Telarium) (PC)
    * 2005 Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None (PC and Wii in 2008).
    * 2006 Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express (PC and Wii in 2009)
    * 2007 Agathe Christie: Death on the Nile (I-Spy" hidden-object game) (PC)
    * 2007 Agatha Christie: Evil Under the Sun (PC and Wii in 2008)
    * 2008 Agatha Christie: Peril at End House (I-Spy" hidden-object game)
    * 2009 Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders (DS)
    * 2009 Agatha Christie: Dead Man's Folly (PC)

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/12/10 at 6:43 am


The birthday of the day...Oliver Platt
Oliver Platt (born January 12, 1960) is a Canadian-born American stage, film, and television actor.
Platt makes his decisions about accepting acting roles based on the role being "different from what I just did...I do have to be interested in the role". After Married to the Mob, he appeared in Working Girl (1988), Flatliners (1990), The Three Musketeers (1993), A Time to Kill (1996) and Bulworth (1998). In 1998, Platt and Stanley Tucci played two deadbeat actors who improvise with unsuspecting strangers in The Impostors. Tucci and Platt developed the characters while working on a play at Yale University in 1988, Tucci later completing the screenplay and directing the film.

In 1999, Platt played the wealthy and eccentric crocodile enthusiast Hector in David E. Kelley's Lake Placid, alongside Bill Pullman and Bridget Fonda. Platt described Hector as "pretty abrasive and obnoxious at times, but, I hope, he has a way of growing on you. I think David originally thought of him as a great white hunter sort of guy, but when I signed on for the role he sort of wrote him in a different direction."

The short-lived drama Deadline provided Platt's first lead role on television. Created by Dick Wolf, who also created Law & Order, Deadline focused on the lives of newspaper journalists in New York City. Platt starred as Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Wallace Benton, an "unlikely hero". The strong cast, which also included Bebe Neuwirth and Hope Davis, could not compensate for sub-standard writing and the series was soon canceled. After Deadline's failure, Platt avoided work on television until he read a script for The West Wing and signed on for a guest role. He received an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of no-nonsense White House Counsel Oliver Babish, brought in during season two to compile a defense for President Bartlet and others who covered up his non-disclosure of multiple sclerosis.

His role in the television series Huff as Russell Tupper from 2004 to 2006 was well-received, especially by creator Robert Lowry, who said, "Oliver plays an alcoholic, drug-addicted, sexaholic, workaholic, womanizing misogynist who is adorable. I don't know any actor who could do that. I originally saw Russell as a blond stud, but when I saw what Oliver could do, I realized how much better, richer, and less predictable he was than my idea of the character...Oliver is very committed to the idea that story and dialogue be character-driven and unique". Platt's work was nominated for two Emmy awards and a Golden Globe.

In 2005, Platt acted in Harold Ramis's film The Ice Harvest as an unhappy businessman with a trophy wife and two stepchildren who becomes involved with a friend who has stolen $2 million from a Mafia boss. He also played a lard merchant named Papprizzio in Lasse Hallstrom's Casanova, who competes with Casanova (Heath Ledger) for marriage to Francesca (Sienna Miller). Platt won the New York Film Critics Online Award for best supporting actor for his role in Casanova.
Oliver Platt greets fans outside the Nederlander Theatre in Manhattan after a performance of Guys and Dolls on February 21, 2009.

A Broadway production named Shining City was Platt's Broadway debut in 2006. The play was set in Dublin, and Platt's role was the tortured protagonist, John. Shining City's director said, "There is one word to describe Oliver. It's 'humanity.' He's got that everyman quality. He's a contradictory human being with flaws and strengths. And he's loveable. He can simultaneously make you laugh and break your heart. Oliver has brought to the role of John what I expected and more: tremendous inventiveness and sensitivity." Platt visited Dublin to prepare for the role and ensure his performance was authentic. He was nominated for a Tony award for "Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play".

In 2007, Platt played the part of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner in the ESPN mini-series The Bronx is Burning. Platt signed onto the project after John Turturro was confirmed as Billy Martin, because, "This thing lives or dies by that portrayal… I think it's great casting. God knows he has the intensity." Platt starred in the pilot episode of The Thick of It, a remake of the British show of the same name in 2007. The series was not picked up by ABC.

Platt recently starred as Nathan Detroit, alongside Lauren Graham as Miss Adelaide, in the Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls which began performances at the Nederlander Theatre on February 3, 2009 and officially opened on March 1, 2009. The production closed on June 14, 2009 after 113 performances.

Platt starred as the White House Chief of Staff Carl Anheuser in Roland Emmerich's 2012, a disaster film released November 13, 2009.
Personal life

Platt married Mary Camilla Bonsal Campbell (known as Camilla) in September 1992 at the First Congregational Church in Kittery Point, Maine. He now focuses on film and television more than theater because, "I've got a wife and three kids, so film is just the most viable thing for me right now. I still love the theater, but the commitment in time and energy to do live theater is so great, and, frankly, the financial rewards are just not as attractive. When you have a family, you have to think about those things." One of Platt's daughters is named Lily, and is fourteen. Platt has an open plane ticket when filming so he can return home frequently, because his family does not accompany him to filming locations.

Tufts University considered offering their Light on the Hill award to Platt in 2008, which is given to distinguished alumni. Tufts Community Union President Neil DiBiase said Platt was unable to make it to Tufts that semester, and they "would rather wait to find a better opportunity for him to come to campus when his schedule is more available. The point of the award is to get alumni back to campus." The 2008 award was instead given to Jeff Kindler, chief executive of pharmaceutical company Pfizer.

Oliver's older brother Adam is a restaurant critic for New York Magazine. Both attended the American School in Japan.
Filmography
Films
Year Film Role Notes
1988 Married to the Mob Ed Benitez
Working Girl Lutz
1989 Crusoe Mr. Newby
1990 Flatliners Randy Steckle
1992 Beethoven Harvey
Diggstown Fitz
1993 Indecent Proposal Jeremy
The Three Musketeers Porthos
Benny & Joon Eric
1995 Funny Bones Tommy Fawkes
Tall Tale Paul Bunyan
The Infiltrator Yaron
1996 Executive Decision Dennis Cahill
A Time to Kill Harry Rex Vonner
1998 Dangerous Beauty Maffio Venier
Bulworth Dennis Murphy
The Impostors Maurice
Dr. Dolittle Dr. Mark Weller
Simon Birch Ben Goodrich
1999 Lake Placid Hector Cyr
Three to Tango Peter Steinberg
Bicentennial Man Rupert Burns
2000 Ready to Rumble Jimmy King
Gun Shy Fulvio Nesstra
2001 Don't Say a Word Dr. Louis Sachs
2002 Liberty Stands Still Victor Wallace
Ash Wednesday Moran
2003 Pieces of April Jim Burns
Hope Springs Doug Reed
2004 Kinsey Herman Wells
2005 The Ice Harvest Pete
Casanova Paprizzio
2007 The Ten Marc Jacobson
Martian Child Jeff
2008 Frost/Nixon Bob Zelnick Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2009 Wonder Woman Hades Voice Only
Year One High Priest
Please Give TBA
2012 Carl Anheuser
Television
Year Show Role Notes
2000—2001 Deadline Wallace Benton
2001, 2005 The West Wing White House Counsel Oliver Babish Emmy nomination: "Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series" (2001)
2003—2007 Queens Supreme Judge Jack Moran
2004—2006 Huff Russell Tupper Emmy nominations: "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series" (2005 and 2006),
Golden Globe nomination: "Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for Television" (2005)
2007 The Thick of It Malcolm Tucker TV pilot
The Bronx Is Burning George Steinbrenner Screen Actors Guild Award nomination: "Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries" (2008)
2007—2008 Nip/Tuck Freddy Prune Emmy nomination: "Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series" (2008)
2009 Bored to Death Richard Antrem
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He's a good actor.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/12/10 at 9:12 am


He's a good actor.

Yes he is

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/12/10 at 4:57 pm

I have read many Agatha Christie books, both in English and French.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/13/10 at 6:10 am


I have read many Agatha Christie books, both in English and French.

I've read a few..only in English.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/13/10 at 6:15 am

The word of the day...Enchanted
    *
      placed under a spell(= magic words that have special powers)
          o
            an enchanted forest/kingdom
    *
      filled with great pleasure formal
          o
            He was enchanted to see her again after so long.
          o
            The children were enchanted with the present.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/13/10 at 6:18 am

The birthday of the day...Patrick Dempsey
Patrick Galen Dempsey (born January 13, 1966) is an American actor and race car driver, known for his role as neurosurgeon Dr. Derek Shepherd ("McDreamy") on the medical drama Grey's Anatomy. He has also recently appeared in several films, including Sweet Home Alabama, The Emperor's Club, Freedom Writers, Enchanted and Made of Honor.
Dempsey was discovered by an invitation to audition for a role in the stage production of Torch Song Trilogy. His audition was successful, and he spent the following four months touring with the company in San Francisco. Dempsey also appeared on MTV on a show Overnight Success by Teri DeSario, where he dances and juggles. He followed this with another tour, Brighton Beach Memoirs, in the lead role, which was directed by Gene Saks. Dempsey has also made notable appearances in the stage productions of On Golden Pond, with the Maine Acting Company, and as Timmy (the Martin Sheen role) in a 1991 Off-Broadway revival of The Subject Was Roses co-starring with John Mahoney and Dana Ivey at the Roundabout Theatre in New York.

Dempsey's first major feature film role was at age 21 with Beverly D'Angelo in the movie In The Mood, the real life WW2 story about Ellsworth Wisecarver who had relationships with older married women which created a national uproar. This was followed by the teen comedy Can't Buy Me Love in 1987 with actress Amanda Peterson and Some Girls with Jennifer Connelly in 1988. In 1989, he had the lead role in the film Loverboy with actress Kirstie Alley and Happy Together with actress Helen Slater. Although the teen comedy and romance roles led to Dempsey being somewhat typecast for a time, he was able to avoid playing the same character as his career progressed.
1990s and 2000s
Dempsey presenting Made of Honor in Madrid

Dempsey made a number of featured appearances in television in the 1990s; he was cast several times in pilots that were not picked up for a full season, including lead roles in the TV versions of the films The Player and About A Boy. However he received good reviews as he portrayed real-life mob boss, Meyer Lansky in 1991, when Mobsters was put on the screen. His first major television role was a recurring role as Will's closeted sportscaster boyfriend on Will & Grace. He went on to play the role of Aaron Brooks, Lily & Judy's psychologically unbalanced brother, on Once & Again. Dempsey received an Emmy nomination in 2001 as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for the role of Aaron. In 1993 he was convincing as a young John F. Kennedy in the 2-part TV mini-series JFK: Reckless Youth. In 2004, he co-starred in the highly acclaimed HBO production, Iron Jawed Angels, opposite Hilary Swank and Anjelica Huston. He also appeared as special guest star in The Practice for 3 episodes finale season (8x13-8x15), as a married man who murdered his lover.

Dempsey had a high-profile role as one of the suitors for Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama. He also had a role as Detective Kincaid on Scream 3. He is expected to return in a possible Scream 4. Dempsey's most recent roles include the 2007 Disney film Enchanted, and the Paramount Pictures film Freedom Writers where he reunites with his Iron Jawed Angels co-star Hilary Swank. He also voiced the character Kenai in Brother Bear 2.

More recently, Dempsey has starred in Made of Honor as Tom.

Patrick Dempsey and Eric Dane are bound for the same big-screen project, joining the estimable ensemble for the romantic comedy Valentine's Day. The Garry Marshall-directed film follows five interconnecting stories about Los Angelinos anticipating (or in some cases dreading) the holiday of love.

He has acquired the rights to the prize-winning novel The Art of Racing in the Rain and will produce and star in the screen version. The film will go into production in 2010.
Grey's Anatomy
Main article: Grey's Anatomy

Dempsey has received significant public attention for his role as Dr. Derek Shepherd in the drama Grey's Anatomy. Prior to landing the role of Derek Shepherd, Dempsey auditioned for the role of Dr. Gregory House on another medical show, House. Initially a midseason replacement, the show was very well received and has become a highly rated program. Media attention has been focused on Dempsey's character Derek, often referred to as "McDreamy", for his sex appeal, and the character's romance with intern Meredith Grey (played by Ellen Pompeo). Also in a one-off episode of Private Practice, playing the same character as in Grey's Anatomy.

Dempsey was nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Drama at the 2007 Golden Globes for the role. In 2006 Dempsey signed a contract with ABC raising his salary to $225,000 per episode. His success on the show has led to him becoming a spokesman for Mazda and a model for Versace. He has also been the spokesman for several recent State Farm advertisements. In November 2008 he launched an Avon fragrance named Unscripted, and due to its success a second fragrance named Patrick Dempsey 2 was launched in November 2009.

Patrick Dempsey has the same birthday as Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes. Dempsey is four years older than Rhimes making his birthday the 13th of January 1966, whilst Rhimes was born on that date in 1970.
Personal Life
Dempsey at the 2008 Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona

He has been married twice. In 1987, he married actress and acting coach Rocky Parker, who appeared with Dempsey in the film In the Mood. The couple divorced in 1994.

On July 31, 1999, Dempsey married Delux Beauty founder Jillian Fink. The couple have three children: a daughter, Talula Fyfe, born on February 20, 2002, and twin sons Darby Galen and Sullivan Patrick, born on February 1, 2007. The family resides in Los Angeles and also have homes in Maine and Texas.

Dempsey was diagnosed with dyslexia at age 12. As a result, it is necessary for him to memorize all his lines in order to perform, even for auditions where he was unlikely to get the part.
n 1997, Dempsey's mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She was treated for the disease and had two relapses and had it treated another two times. In response to his mother's bouts with cancer, Dempsey helped start the Patrick Dempsey Center in his home town of Lewiston, Maine. In October of 2009 Dempsey introduced the first Dempsey Challenge, registration was closed after reaching the goal of 3,500 cyclists, runners and walkers. The event raised more than one million dollars for the center and will become an annual event in the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine area.
Filmography
Film
Year Film Role Notes
1985 The Stuff Underground Stuff buyer #2
Heaven Help Us Corbet
1986 Meatballs III: Summer Job Rudy
1987 Can't Buy Me Love Ronald Miller Young Artist Award for Best Young Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy
In the Mood Ellsworth 'Sonny' Wisecarver
1988 Some Girls Michael
In a Shallow Grave Daventry Limited release
1989 Loverboy Randy Bodek
Happy Together Christopher Wooden
1990 Coupe de Ville Robert 'Bobby' Libner
1991 Mobsters Meyer Lansky
Run Charlie Farrow
1993 Bank Robber Billy
1994 With Honors Everett Calloway
Ava's Magical Adventure Jeffrey
1995 Outbreak Jimbo Scott
1997 Hugo Pool Floyd Gaylen Limited release
1998 Denial Sam
The Treat Mike Jonathan Gems film
There's No Fish Food in Heaven The Stranger aka Life in the Fast Lane
1999 Me and Will Fast Eddie
2000 Scream 3 Det. Mark Kincaid
2002 Sweet Home Alabama Andrew Hennings (Melanie's fiance)
The Emperor's Club Older Louis Masoudi
2006 Brother Bear 2 Kenai voice only
Shade Paul Parker Short film
2007 Freedom Writers Scott Casey
Enchanted Robert Philip Nominated— MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss (with Amy Adams)
2008 Made of Honor Tom Bailey
2010 Valentine's Day Harrison Copeland
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1986 A Fighting Choice Kellin Taylor TV movie
Fast Times Mike Damone Television series
1989 The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! The Plant 1 episode
1990 The General Motors Playwrights Theater 1 episode "Merry Christmas, Baby"
1993 For Better and for Worse Robert Faldo TV movie
JFK: Reckless Youth John F. Kennedy Miniseries
1995 Bloodknot Tom TV movie
1996 The Right to Remain Silent Tom Harris TV movie
A Season in Purgatory Harrison Burns Miniseries
1997 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Pierre Arronax Miniseries
The Escape Clayton TV movie
The Player Griffin Mill TV movie
1998 The Bible: Jeremiah Jeremiah TV movie
Crime and Punishment Rodya Raskolnikov
2000 Will and Grace Matthew 2000-2001 (3 episodes)
2000 Once and Again Aaron Brooks 2000-2002 (4 episodes)
Nominated - Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series
2001 Blonde Cass Miniseries
2003 Lucky 7 Peter Connor
Karen Sisco Carl 1 episode
About a Boy Carl TV movie
2004 Iron Jawed Angels Ben Weissman TV movie
The Practice Dr. Paul Stewart 3 episodes
2005 Grey's Anatomy Derek Shepherd 2005-present (110 episodes)
Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Cast in a Drama Series (2006)
People's Choice Award for Favorite Male TV Star (2007, 2008)
Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series (2005, 2006)
Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Cast in a Drama Series (2006, 2008)
Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series (2005)
Nomination - People's Choice Award for Favorite Male TV Star (2009)
2009 Private Practice Derek Shepherd TV episode ("The Ex-Life")
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/13/10 at 6:23 am

The person of the day...James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish writer and poet, widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Along with Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner, Joyce is a key figure in the development of the modernist novel. He is best known for his landmark novel Ulysses (1922). Other major works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939).

Although most of his adult life was spent outside the country, Joyce's Irish experiences are essential to his writings and provide all of the settings for his fiction and much of their subject matter. In particular, his rocky early relationship with the Irish Catholic Church is reflected by a similar conflict in his character Stephen Dedalus, who appears in two of his novels. His fictional universe is firmly rooted in Dublin and reflects his family life and the events and friends (and enemies) from his school and college days; Ulysses is set with precision in the real streets and alleyways of the city. As the result of the combination of this attention to one place and his voluntary exile in continental Europe, most notably in Paris, Joyce paradoxically became both one of the most cosmopolitan yet most regionally focused of all the English language writers of his time.
Major works
Dubliners
Main article: Dubliners
Title page saying 'DUBLINERS BY JAMES JOYCE', then a colophon, then 'LONDON / GRANT RICHARDS LTD. / PUBLISHERS'.
The title page of the first edition of Dubliners

Joyce's Irish experiences constitute an essential element of his writings, and provide all of the settings for his fiction and much of its subject matter. His early volume of short stories, Dubliners, is a penetrating analysis of the stagnation and paralysis of Dublin society. The stories incorporate epiphanies, a word used particularly by Joyce, by which he meant a sudden consciousness of the "soul" of a thing. The final and most famous story in the collection, "The Dead", was directed by John Huston as his last feature film in 1987.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Main article: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a nearly complete rewrite of the abandoned novel Stephen Hero. Joyce partially destroyed the original manuscript in a fit of rage during an argument with Nora, who asserted that it would never be published. A Künstlerroman, or story of the personal development of an artist, Portrait is a heavily biographical coming-of-age novel in which Joyce depicts a conflicted young man's gradual growth into artistic self-consciousness. The main character, Stephen Dedalus, is in many ways based upon Joyce himself. Some hints of the techniques Joyce frequently employed in later works, such as stream of consciousness, interior monologue, and references to a character's psychic reality rather than to his external surroundings, are evident throughout this novel. Joseph Strick directed a film of the book in 1977 starring Luke Johnston, Bosco Hogan, T.P. McKenna and John Gielgud.
Exiles and poetry
Main articles: Pomes Penyeach and Chamber Music (book)

Despite early interest in the theatre, Joyce published only one play, Exiles, begun shortly after the outbreak of World War I in 1914 and published in 1918. A study of a husband and wife relationship, the play looks back to The Dead (the final story in Dubliners) and forward to Ulysses, which Joyce began around the time of the play's composition.

Joyce also published a number of books of poetry. His first mature published work was the satirical broadside "The Holy Office" (1904), in which he proclaimed himself to be the superior of many prominent members of the Celtic revival. His first full-length poetry collection Chamber Music (referring, Joyce explained, to the sound of urine hitting the side of a chamber pot) consisted of 36 short lyrics. This publication led to his inclusion in the Imagist Anthology, edited by Ezra Pound, who was a champion of Joyce's work. Other poetry Joyce published in his lifetime includes "Gas From A Burner" (1912), Pomes Penyeach (1927) and "Ecce Puer" (written in 1932 to mark the birth of his grandson and the recent death of his father). It was published in Collected Poems (1936).
Ulysses
Main article: Ulysses (novel)
Page saying 'ULYSSES by JAMES JOYCE will be published in the Autumn of 1921 by "SHAKESPEARE AND COMPANY" — SYLVIA BEACH — 8, RUE DUPUYTREN, PARIS — VIe'
Announcement of the initial publication of Ulysses.

As he was completing work on Dubliners in 1906, Joyce considered adding another story featuring a Jewish advertising canvasser called Leopold Bloom under the title Ulysses. Although he did not pursue the idea further at the time, he eventually commenced work on a novel using both the title and basic premise in 1914. The writing was completed in October, 1921. Three more months were devoted to working on the proofs of the book before Joyce halted work shortly before his self-imposed deadline, his 40th birthday (2 February 1922).

Thanks to Ezra Pound, serial publication of the novel in the magazine The Little Review began in 1918. This magazine was edited by Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, with the backing of John Quinn, a New York attorney with an interest in contemporary experimental art and literature. Unfortunately, this publication encountered censorship problems in the United States; serialization was halted in 1920 when the editors were convicted of publishing obscenity. The novel was not published in the United States until 1933.

At least partly because of this controversy, Joyce found it difficult to get a publisher to accept the book, but it was published in 1922 by Sylvia Beach from her well-known Rive Gauche bookshop, Shakespeare and Company. An English edition published the same year by Joyce's patron, Harriet Shaw Weaver, ran into further difficulties with the United States authorities, and 500 copies that were shipped to the States were seized and possibly destroyed. The following year, John Rodker produced a print run of 500 more intended to replace the missing copies, but these were burned by English customs at Folkestone. A further consequence of the novel's ambiguous legal status as a banned book was that a number of "bootleg" versions appeared, most notably a number of pirate versions from the publisher Samuel Roth. In 1928, a court injunction against Roth was obtained and he ceased publication.

With the appearance of both Ulysses and T. S. Eliot's poem, The Waste Land, 1922 was a key year in the history of English-language literary modernism. In Ulysses, Joyce employs stream of consciousness, parody, jokes, and virtually every other literary technique to present his characters. The action of the novel, which takes place in a single day, 16 June 1904, sets the characters and incidents of the Odyssey of Homer in modern Dublin and represents Odysseus (Ulysses), Penelope and Telemachus in the characters of Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, parodically contrasted with their lofty models. The book explores various areas of Dublin life, dwelling on its squalor and monotony. Nevertheless, the book is also an affectionately detailed study of the city, and Joyce claimed that if Dublin were to be destroyed in some catastrophe it could be rebuilt, brick by brick, using his work as a model. In order to achieve this level of accuracy, Joyce used the 1904 edition of Thom's Directory—a work that listed the owners and/or tenants of every residential and commercial property in the city. He also bombarded friends still living there with requests for information and clarification.

The book consists of 18 chapters, each covering roughly one hour of the day, beginning around 8 a.m. and ending some time after 2 a.m. the following morning. Each chapter employs its own literary style, and parodies a specific episode in Homer's Odyssey. Furthermore, each chapter is associated with a specific colour, art or science, and bodily organ. This combination of kaleidoscopic writing with an extreme formal schematic structure renders the book a major contribution to the development of 20th-century modernist literature. The use of classical mythology as an organizing framework, the near-obsessive focus on external detail, and the occurrence of significant action within the minds of characters have also contributed to the development of literary modernism. Nevertheless, Joyce complained that, "I may have oversystematised Ulysses," and played down the mythic correspondences by eliminating the chapter titles that had been taken from Homer.
Finnegans Wake
Main article: Finnegans Wake
Front and back of a specimen £10 note. Joyce's face covers the right third of the front. The back has an anonymous ancient face and says 'CENTRAL BANK OF IRELAND'.
Joyce as depicted on the Irish £10 banknote, issued 1993–2002

Having completed work on Ulysses, Joyce was so exhausted that he did not write a line of prose for a year. On 10 March 1923 he informed a patron, Harriet Weaver: "Yesterday I wrote two pages—the first I have since the final Yes of Ulysses. Having found a pen, with some difficulty I copied them out in a large handwriting on a double sheet of foolscap so that I could read them. Il lupo perde il pelo ma non il vizio, the Italians say. The wolf may lose his skin but not his vice or the leopard cannot change his spots". Thus was born a text that became known, first, as Work in Progress and later Finnegans Wake.

By 1926 Joyce had completed the first two parts of the book. In that year, he met Eugene and Maria Jolas who offered to serialise the book in their magazine transition. For the next few years, Joyce worked rapidly on the new book, but in the 1930s, progress slowed considerably. This was due to a number of factors, including the death of his father in 1931, concern over the mental health of his daughter Lucia and his own health problems, including failing eyesight. Much of the work was done with the assistance of younger admirers, including Samuel Beckett. For some years, Joyce nursed the eccentric plan of turning over the book to his friend James Stephens to complete, on the grounds that Stephens was born in the same hospital as Joyce exactly one week later, and shared the first name of both Joyce and of Joyce's fictional alter-ego (this is one example of Joyce's numerous superstitions).

Reaction to the work was mixed, including negative comment from early supporters of Joyce's work, such as Pound and the author's brother Stanislaus Joyce. In order to counteract this hostile reception, a book of essays by supporters of the new work, including Beckett, William Carlos Williams and others was organised and published in 1929 under the title Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress. At his 47th birthday party at the Jolases' home, Joyce revealed the final title of the work and Finnegans Wake was published in book form on 4 May 1939.

Joyce's method of stream of consciousness, literary allusions and free dream associations was pushed to the limit in Finnegans Wake, which abandoned all conventions of plot and character construction and is written in a peculiar and obscure language, based mainly on complex multi-level puns. This approach is similar to, but far more extensive than that used by Lewis Carroll in Jabberwocky. If Ulysses is a day in the life of a city, the Wake is a night and partakes of the logic of dreams. This has led many readers and critics to apply Joyce's oft-quoted description in the Wake of Ulysses as his "usylessly unreadable Blue Book of Eccles" to the Wake itself. However, readers have been able to reach a consensus about the central cast of characters and general plot.

Much of the wordplay in the book stems from the use of multilingual puns which draw on a wide range of languages. The role played by Beckett and other assistants included collating words from these languages on cards for Joyce to use and, as Joyce's eyesight worsened, of writing the text from the author's dictation.

The view of history propounded in this text is very strongly influenced by Giambattista Vico, and the metaphysics of Giordano Bruno of Nola are important to the interplay of the "characters". Vico propounded a cyclical view of history, in which civilisation rose from chaos, passed through theocratic, aristocratic, and democratic phases, and then lapsed back into chaos. The most obvious example of the influence of Vico's cyclical theory of history is to be found in the opening and closing words of the book. Finnegans Wake opens with the words "riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs." ("vicus" is a pun on Vico) and ends "A way a lone a last a loved a long the". In other words, the book ends with the beginning of a sentence and begins with the end of the same sentence, turning the book into one great cycle. Indeed, Joyce said that the ideal reader of the Wake would suffer from "ideal insomnia" and, on completing the book, would turn to page one and start again, and so on in an endless cycle of reading.
Legacy
Bronze statue of Joyce standing in a coat and broadbrimmed hat. His head is cocked looking up, his left leg is crossed over his right, his right hand holds a cane, and his left is in his pants pocket, with the left part of his coat tucked back.
Statue of James Joyce on North Earl Street, Dublin

Joyce's work has been subject to intense scrutiny by scholars of all types. He has also been an important influence on writers and scholars as diverse as Samuel Beckett, Jorge Luis Borges, Flann O'Brien, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Salman Rushdie, Robert Anton Wilson, and Joseph Campbell. Ulysses has been called "a demonstration and summation of the entire movement".

Some scholars, most notably Vladimir Nabokov, have mixed feelings on his work, often championing some of his fiction while condemning other works. In Nabokov's opinion, Ulysses was brilliant, Finnegans Wake horrible—an attitude Jorge Luis Borges shared. In recent years, literary theory has embraced Joyce's innovation and ambition.

Joyce's influence is also evident in fields other than literature. The phrase "Three Quarks for Muster Mark" in Joyce's Finnegans Wake is often called the source of the physicists' word "quark", the name of one of the main kinds of elementary particles, proposed by the physicist Murray Gell-Mann. The French philosopher Jacques Derrida has written a book on the use of language in Ulysses, and the American philosopher Donald Davidson has written similarly on Finnegans Wake in comparison with Lewis Carroll. Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan used Joyce's writings to explain his concept of the sinthome. According to Lacan, Joyce's writing is the supplementary cord which kept Joyce from psychosis.

The work and life of Joyce is celebrated annually on 16 June, Bloomsday, in Dublin and in an increasing number of cities worldwide.

In 1999, Time Magazine named Joyce one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, and stated; "Joyce ... revolutionized 20th century fiction". In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Ulysses No. 1, and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man No. 3, on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
Works

    * Chamber Music (1907, poems)
    * Dubliners (1914, short story collection)
    * A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916, novel)
    * Exiles (1918, play)
    * Ulysses (1922, novel)
    * Pomes Penyeach (1927, poems)
    * Collected Poems (1936, poems)
    * Finnegans Wake (1939, novel)

Posthumous publications

    * Stephen Hero (precursor to A Portrait; written 1904–06, published 1944)
    * Giacomo Joyce (written 1907, published 1968)
    * Letters of James Joyce Vol. 1 (Ed. Stuart Gilbert, 1957)
    * The Critical Writings of James Joyce (Eds. Ellsworth Mason and Richard Ellman, 1959)
    * Letters of James Joyce Vol. 2 (Ed. Ricard Ellman, 1966)
    * Letters of James Joyce Vol. 3 (Ed. Ricard Ellman, 1966)
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/13/10 at 3:00 pm


The birthday of the day...Patrick Dempsey
Patrick Galen Dempsey (born January 13, 1966) is an American actor and race car driver, known for his role as neurosurgeon Dr. Derek Shepherd ("McDreamy") on the medical drama Grey's Anatomy. He has also recently appeared in several films, including Sweet Home Alabama, The Emperor's Club, Freedom Writers, Enchanted and Made of Honor.
Dempsey was discovered by an invitation to audition for a role in the stage production of Torch Song Trilogy. His audition was successful, and he spent the following four months touring with the company in San Francisco. Dempsey also appeared on MTV on a show Overnight Success by Teri DeSario, where he dances and juggles. He followed this with another tour, Brighton Beach Memoirs, in the lead role, which was directed by Gene Saks. Dempsey has also made notable appearances in the stage productions of On Golden Pond, with the Maine Acting Company, and as Timmy (the Martin Sheen role) in a 1991 Off-Broadway revival of The Subject Was Roses co-starring with John Mahoney and Dana Ivey at the Roundabout Theatre in New York.

Dempsey's first major feature film role was at age 21 with Beverly D'Angelo in the movie In The Mood, the real life WW2 story about Ellsworth Wisecarver who had relationships with older married women which created a national uproar. This was followed by the teen comedy Can't Buy Me Love in 1987 with actress Amanda Peterson and Some Girls with Jennifer Connelly in 1988. In 1989, he had the lead role in the film Loverboy with actress Kirstie Alley and Happy Together with actress Helen Slater. Although the teen comedy and romance roles led to Dempsey being somewhat typecast for a time, he was able to avoid playing the same character as his career progressed.
1990s and 2000s
Dempsey presenting Made of Honor in Madrid

Dempsey made a number of featured appearances in television in the 1990s; he was cast several times in pilots that were not picked up for a full season, including lead roles in the TV versions of the films The Player and About A Boy. However he received good reviews as he portrayed real-life mob boss, Meyer Lansky in 1991, when Mobsters was put on the screen. His first major television role was a recurring role as Will's closeted sportscaster boyfriend on Will & Grace. He went on to play the role of Aaron Brooks, Lily & Judy's psychologically unbalanced brother, on Once & Again. Dempsey received an Emmy nomination in 2001 as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for the role of Aaron. In 1993 he was convincing as a young John F. Kennedy in the 2-part TV mini-series JFK: Reckless Youth. In 2004, he co-starred in the highly acclaimed HBO production, Iron Jawed Angels, opposite Hilary Swank and Anjelica Huston. He also appeared as special guest star in The Practice for 3 episodes finale season (8x13-8x15), as a married man who murdered his lover.

Dempsey had a high-profile role as one of the suitors for Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama. He also had a role as Detective Kincaid on Scream 3. He is expected to return in a possible Scream 4. Dempsey's most recent roles include the 2007 Disney film Enchanted, and the Paramount Pictures film Freedom Writers where he reunites with his Iron Jawed Angels co-star Hilary Swank. He also voiced the character Kenai in Brother Bear 2.

More recently, Dempsey has starred in Made of Honor as Tom.

Patrick Dempsey and Eric Dane are bound for the same big-screen project, joining the estimable ensemble for the romantic comedy Valentine's Day. The Garry Marshall-directed film follows five interconnecting stories about Los Angelinos anticipating (or in some cases dreading) the holiday of love.

He has acquired the rights to the prize-winning novel The Art of Racing in the Rain and will produce and star in the screen version. The film will go into production in 2010.
Grey's Anatomy
Main article: Grey's Anatomy

Dempsey has received significant public attention for his role as Dr. Derek Shepherd in the drama Grey's Anatomy. Prior to landing the role of Derek Shepherd, Dempsey auditioned for the role of Dr. Gregory House on another medical show, House. Initially a midseason replacement, the show was very well received and has become a highly rated program. Media attention has been focused on Dempsey's character Derek, often referred to as "McDreamy", for his sex appeal, and the character's romance with intern Meredith Grey (played by Ellen Pompeo). Also in a one-off episode of Private Practice, playing the same character as in Grey's Anatomy.

Dempsey was nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Drama at the 2007 Golden Globes for the role. In 2006 Dempsey signed a contract with ABC raising his salary to $225,000 per episode. His success on the show has led to him becoming a spokesman for Mazda and a model for Versace. He has also been the spokesman for several recent State Farm advertisements. In November 2008 he launched an Avon fragrance named Unscripted, and due to its success a second fragrance named Patrick Dempsey 2 was launched in November 2009.

Patrick Dempsey has the same birthday as Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes. Dempsey is four years older than Rhimes making his birthday the 13th of January 1966, whilst Rhimes was born on that date in 1970.
Personal Life
Dempsey at the 2008 Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona

He has been married twice. In 1987, he married actress and acting coach Rocky Parker, who appeared with Dempsey in the film In the Mood. The couple divorced in 1994.

On July 31, 1999, Dempsey married Delux Beauty founder Jillian Fink. The couple have three children: a daughter, Talula Fyfe, born on February 20, 2002, and twin sons Darby Galen and Sullivan Patrick, born on February 1, 2007. The family resides in Los Angeles and also have homes in Maine and Texas.

Dempsey was diagnosed with dyslexia at age 12. As a result, it is necessary for him to memorize all his lines in order to perform, even for auditions where he was unlikely to get the part.
n 1997, Dempsey's mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She was treated for the disease and had two relapses and had it treated another two times. In response to his mother's bouts with cancer, Dempsey helped start the Patrick Dempsey Center in his home town of Lewiston, Maine. In October of 2009 Dempsey introduced the first Dempsey Challenge, registration was closed after reaching the goal of 3,500 cyclists, runners and walkers. The event raised more than one million dollars for the center and will become an annual event in the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine area.
Filmography
Film
Year Film Role Notes
1985 The Stuff Underground Stuff buyer #2
Heaven Help Us Corbet
1986 Meatballs III: Summer Job Rudy
1987 Can't Buy Me Love Ronald Miller Young Artist Award for Best Young Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy
In the Mood Ellsworth 'Sonny' Wisecarver
1988 Some Girls Michael
In a Shallow Grave Daventry Limited release
1989 Loverboy Randy Bodek
Happy Together Christopher Wooden
1990 Coupe de Ville Robert 'Bobby' Libner
1991 Mobsters Meyer Lansky
Run Charlie Farrow
1993 Bank Robber Billy
1994 With Honors Everett Calloway
Ava's Magical Adventure Jeffrey
1995 Outbreak Jimbo Scott
1997 Hugo Pool Floyd Gaylen Limited release
1998 Denial Sam
The Treat Mike Jonathan Gems film
There's No Fish Food in Heaven The Stranger aka Life in the Fast Lane
1999 Me and Will Fast Eddie
2000 Scream 3 Det. Mark Kincaid
2002 Sweet Home Alabama Andrew Hennings (Melanie's fiance)
The Emperor's Club Older Louis Masoudi
2006 Brother Bear 2 Kenai voice only
Shade Paul Parker Short film
2007 Freedom Writers Scott Casey
Enchanted Robert Philip Nominated— MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss (with Amy Adams)
2008 Made of Honor Tom Bailey
2010 Valentine's Day Harrison Copeland
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1986 A Fighting Choice Kellin Taylor TV movie
Fast Times Mike Damone Television series
1989 The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! The Plant 1 episode
1990 The General Motors Playwrights Theater 1 episode "Merry Christmas, Baby"
1993 For Better and for Worse Robert Faldo TV movie
JFK: Reckless Youth John F. Kennedy Miniseries
1995 Bloodknot Tom TV movie
1996 The Right to Remain Silent Tom Harris TV movie
A Season in Purgatory Harrison Burns Miniseries
1997 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Pierre Arronax Miniseries
The Escape Clayton TV movie
The Player Griffin Mill TV movie
1998 The Bible: Jeremiah Jeremiah TV movie
Crime and Punishment Rodya Raskolnikov
2000 Will and Grace Matthew 2000-2001 (3 episodes)
2000 Once and Again Aaron Brooks 2000-2002 (4 episodes)
Nominated - Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series
2001 Blonde Cass Miniseries
2003 Lucky 7 Peter Connor
Karen Sisco Carl 1 episode
About a Boy Carl TV movie
2004 Iron Jawed Angels Ben Weissman TV movie
The Practice Dr. Paul Stewart 3 episodes
2005 Grey's Anatomy Derek Shepherd 2005-present (110 episodes)
Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Cast in a Drama Series (2006)
People's Choice Award for Favorite Male TV Star (2007, 2008)
Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series (2005, 2006)
Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Cast in a Drama Series (2006, 2008)
Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series (2005)
Nomination - People's Choice Award for Favorite Male TV Star (2009)
2009 Private Practice Derek Shepherd TV episode ("The Ex-Life")
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A very fine actor.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/14/10 at 6:07 am

The word of the day...Inferno
If you refer to a fire as an inferno, you mean that it is burning fiercely and causing great destruction
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/14/10 at 6:10 am

The birthday of the day...Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway (born January 14, 1941) is an American actress.

Dunaway won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Network (1976) after receiving previous nominations for the critically acclaimed films Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Chinatown (1974). She has starred in a variety of films, including The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Little Big Man (1970), The Towering Inferno (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), Mommie Dearest (1981).
Dunaway appeared on Broadway in 1962 as the daughter of Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons. Her first screen role was in 1967 in The Happening. In 1967, she was in Hurry Sundown, but that same year, she gained the leading female role in Bonnie and Clyde opposite Warren Beatty, which earned her an Oscar nomination. She also starred in 1968 with Steve McQueen in the caper film The Thomas Crown Affair (and had a small role in the 1999 remake with the same title with Pierce Brosnan).
Dunaway being interviewed by Army Archerd on the red carpet at the 60th Annual Academy Awards, April 11, 1988.

It was in the 1970s that she began to stretch her acting abilities in such films as Three Days of the Condor, Little Big Man, Chinatown, The Three/Four Musketeers, Eyes of Laura Mars, and Network, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress as the scheming TV executive Diana Christensen. She worked with such leading men as Dustin Hoffman, Charlton Heston, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Tommy Lee Jones, Jack Nicholson, and Robert Duvall.

In the 1980s, although her performances did not waver, the parts grew less compelling. Dunaway would later blame Mommie Dearest (1981) for ruining her career as a leading lady. She received a Razzie Award for Worst Actress, and the critic's despised the film, although the film grossed a moderate $19 million in its first release and was one of the top 30 grossing films of the year. In 1987 she was nominated for Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama for her performance in Barfly with Mickey Rourke. In a later movie, Don Juan DeMarco (1995), Dunaway co-starred with Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando.
Faye Dunaway at the ceremony Emmy Award 1994

Dunaway starred in the 1986 made-for-television movie Beverly Hills Madam opposite Melody Anderson, Donna Dixon, Terry Farrell and Robin Givens. In 1993, Dunaway briefly starred in a sitcom with Robert Urich, "It Had to Be You". Dunaway won an Emmy for a 1994 role as a murderer in "It's All in the Game," an episode of the long-running mystery series Columbo.

In 1996, she toured nationally with the stage play Master Class. The story about opera singer Maria Callas was very powerful and well received. Dunaway bought the rights to the Terrence McNally play for possible film development.

In 2006, Dunaway played a character named Lois O'Neill in the sixth season of the crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. She served as a judge on the 2005 reality show The Starlet, which sought, American Idol-style, to find the next young actress with the potential to become a major star. In the spring of 2007, the direct-to-DVD movie release of Rain, based on the novel by V. C. Andrews and starring Dunaway, was released. In 2009 Dunaway stars in film The Bait by Polish film director and producer Dariusz Zawiślak. The Bait is a contemporary version of a drama Balladyna by Polish 19th - century poet Juliusz Słowacki.

Dunaway has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard, which was awarded on October 2, 1996.
Personal life

Dunaway has been married twice, from 1974 to 1979 to Peter Wolf, the lead singer of the rock group The J. Geils Band, and from 1984 to 1987 to Terry O'Neill, a British photographer. She and O'Neill have one child, Liam O'Neill (born 1980). In 2003, despite Dunaway's earlier claims that she had given birth to Liam, Terry revealed that Liam was adopted.

Dunaway is an adult convert to Roman Catholicism.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1967 Hurry Sundown Lou McDowell Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles also for Bonnie and Clyde
The Happening Sandy
Bonnie and Clyde Bonnie Parker Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles also for Hurry Sundown
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1968 The Thomas Crown Affair Vicki Anderson
Amanti Julia
1969 The Extraordinary Seaman Jennifer Winslow
The Arrangement Gwen
A Place for Lovers Julia
1970 Little Big Man Mrs. Louise Pendrake
Puzzle of a Downfall Child Lou Andreas Sand Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1971 The Deadly Trap Jill
Doc Katie Elder
1973 Oklahoma Crude Lena Doyle
The Three Musketeers Milady de Winter
1974 Chinatown Evelyn Cross Mulwray Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
The Towering Inferno Susan Franklin
The Four Musketeers Milady de Winter
1975 Three Days of the Condor Kathy Hale Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1976 Network Diana Christensen Academy Award for Best Actress
David di Donatello for Best Foreign Actress
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Voyage of the Damned Denise Kreisler
1978 Eyes of Laura Mars Laura Mars
1979 The Champ Annie
1980 The First Deadly Sin Barbara Delaney
1981 Mommie Dearest Joan Crawford Razzie Award for Worst Actress
Evita Peron Evita Peron
1983 The Wicked Lady Lady Barbara Skelton
1984 Ordeal by Innocence Rachel Argyle
Supergirl Selena
Ellis Island Maud Charteris Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film
Terror in the Aisles archival footage
1985 Thirteen at Dinner Jane Wilkinson
1986 Raspberry Ripple Matron + "M"
1987 Barfly Wanda Wilcox Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1988 Midnight Crossing Helen Barton
The Gamble Countess Matilda Von Wallenstein La Partita
Burning Secret Mrs. Sonya Tuchman
1989 Frames from the Edge Herself documentary
On a Moonlit Night Mrs. Colbert In una notte di chiaro di luna
Wait Until Spring, Bandini Mrs. Hildegarde
1990 The Handmaid's Tale Serena Joy
The Two Jakes Evelyn Mulwray voice only
1991 Scorchers Thais
1992 Double Edge Faye Milano Lahav Hatzui
1993 Arizona Dream Elaine Stalker
The Temp Charlene Towne
1995 Unzipped Herself – uncredited Documentary
Don Juan DeMarco Marilyn Mickler
Drunks Becky
1996 Dunston Checks In Mrs. Dubrow
Albino Alligator Janet Boudreaux
The Chamber Lee Cayhall Bowen
1997 In Praise of Older Women Condesa
The Twilight of the Golds Phyllis Gold Nominated — CableACE Award for Supporting Actress in a Movie or Miniseries
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
Rebecca Mrs. van Hopper TV miniseries
1998 Gia Wilhelmina Cooper Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Series, Miniseries or Television Film
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film
1999 Love Lies Bleeding Josephine Butler
The Thomas Crown Affair The Psychiatrist
The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc Yolande of Aragon
2000 The Yards Kitty Olchin
Stanley's Gig Leila
Running Mates Meg Gable Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film
2001 Yellow Bird Aurora Beavis Short subject – also director
Festival in Cannes Herself Cameo
2002 Mid-Century Blue/Mother
Changing Hearts Betty Miller
The Rules of Attraction Mrs. Eve Denton
Man of Faith Mae West
2003 Blind Horizon Ms. K
2004 Last Goodbye Sean Winston
El Padrino Atty. Gen. Navarro
Jennifer's Shadow Mary Ellen Cassi
2005 Ghosts Never Sleep Kathleen Dolan
2006 Cut Off Marilyn Burton
Love Hollywood Style God
Rain Isabel Hudson
2007 Cougar Club Edith Birnbaum
Say It in Russian Jacqueline de Rossy
The Gene Generation Josephine Hayden
2008 Flick Lieutenant Annie McKenzie
La Rabbia Madre
2009 Dr. Fugazzi Detective Rowland
Midnight Bayou Odette Lifetime made-for-TV movie
Caroline & The Magic Stone Filomena
Balladyna Dr Ash USA-Poland co-production
Guest appearances
Dunaway & Mirosław Baka - Balladyna

    * Grey's Anatomy - Season 5, Episode 16 "An Honest Mistake" as Dr. Margaret Campbell (2009)
    * CSI: Crime Scene Investigation "Kiss-Kiss, Bye-Bye" January 26, 2006
    * Alias "The Abduction" (2002); "A Higher Echelon" (2003); "The Getaway" (2003), as Ariana Kane
    * Soul Food - Season 3, Episode 1 - "Tonight at Noon" (2002)
    * Road to Avonlea - Season 6, Episode 76 - "What a Tangled Web We Weave" (1995)
    * Columbo: It's All in the Game (1993), as Lauren Staton
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/14/10 at 6:13 am

The person of the day...Uta Hagen
Uta Thyra Hagen (12 June 1919 – 14 January 2004) was a three-time Tony Award winning German-born American actress. She originated the role of Martha in the 1963 Broadway premiere of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee (who called her "a profoundly truthful actress"). Hagen was on the Hollywood blacklist, in part because of her association with Paul Robeson, and this curtailed film opportunities, focusing her perforce on New York theatre. She later became a highly influential acting teacher at New York's Herbert Berghof Studio and authored a best-selling acting text, Respect for Acting. She was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981.
Hagen was cast, early on, as Ophelia by the actress-manager Eva LeGallienne. From there, Hagen went on to play the leading ingenue role of Nina in a Broadway production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull which featured Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. It was 1938; Hagen was just 18. The New York Times' critic Brooks Atkinson hailed her Nina as "grace and aspiration incarnate". She would go on to play George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan (1951) on Broadway, and Desdemona in a production which toured and played Broadway, featuring Paul Robeson as Shakespeare's Othello and her then-husband Jose Ferrer as Iago. She took over the role of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire for the national tour, which was directed not by Elia Kazan who had directed the Broadway production but by Harold Clurman. Hagen had had a revelatory experience when she first worked with Clurman in 1947. In Respect for Acting, she credited her discoveries with Clurman as the springboard for what she would later explore with her husband Herbert Berghof: "how to find a true technique of acting, how to make a character flow through me". She played Blanche (on the road and on Broadway) opposite at least four different Stanley Kowalskis, including Anthony Quinn and Marlon Brando. Through interviews with her and contemporary criticism, the report is that Hagen's Blanche refocused the audience's sympathies with Blanche rather than with Stanley (where the Brando/Kazan production had leaned). Primarily noted for stage roles, Hagen won her first Tony Award in 1951 for her performance as the self-sacrificing wife Georgie in Clifford Odets' The Country Girl. She won again in 1963 for originating the role of the "I-wear-the-pants-in-this-family-because-somebody's-got-to" Martha in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. (An original cast recording was made of this show.) In 1981 she was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame and in 1999 received a "Special Lifetime Achievement Tony Award".

Although she appeared in some movies, because of the Hollywood blacklist she had more limited output in film and on television, not making her cinematic debut until 1972. She would later comment about being blacklisted, "that fact kept me pure".

Although Hagen played characters with German accents in both of her best-known Hollywood films, The Boys from Brazil, in which her scene is with Laurence Olivier, and The Other, she had simply assumed the accent for those roles (Hagen was raised in Wisconsin). She was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award as "Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series" for her performance on the television soap opera One Life to Live.

She taught at HB Studio, a well-known New York City acting school on a cobblestone, tree-shaded street in the West Village. She began there in 1947, and married its co-founder, Herbert Berghof, on January 25, 1957. Later in her life, Hagen undertook a return to the stage, earning accolades for leading roles in Mrs. Warren's Profession (1985), Collected Stories, and Mrs. Klein. After Berghof's death in 1990 she became the school's chairperson.

Hagen was an influential acting teacher who taught, among others, Matthew Broderick, Christine Lahti, Jason Robards, Sigourney Weaver, Liza Minnelli, Whoopi Goldberg, Jack Lemmon, Charles Nelson Reilly, Manu Tupou, Debbie Allen and Al Pacino. She was a voice coach to Judy Garland, teaching a German accent, for the picture Judgment at Nuremberg. Garland's performance earned her an Academy Award nomination.

She also wrote Respect for Acting (1973) and A Challenge for the Actor (1991), which advocate realistic acting (as opposed to pre-determined "formalistic" acting). In her mode of realism, the actor puts his own psyche to use in finding identification with the role," trusting that a form will result. In Respect for Acting, Hagen credited director Harold Clurman with a turn-around in her perspective on acting:

    "In 1947, I worked in a play under the direction of Harold Clurman. He opened a new world in the professional theatre for me. He took away my 'tricks'. He imposed no line readings, no gestures, no positions on the actors. At first I floundered badly because for many years I had become accustomed to using specific outer directions as the material from which to construct the mask for my character, the mask behind which I would hide throughout the performance. Mr Clurman refused to accept a mask. He demanded ME in the role. My love of acting was slowly reawakened as I began to deal with a strange new technique of evolving in the character. I was not allowed to begin with, or concern myself at any time with, a preconceived form. I was assured that a form would result from the work we were doing."

Hagen later "disassociated" herself from her first book, Respect for Acting. In Challenge for the Actor she redefined a term which she had initially called "substitution", an esoteric technique for alchemizing elements of an actor's life with his/her character work, calling it "transference" instead. Though Hagen wrote that the actor should identify the character they play with feelings and circumstances from their (the actor's) own life, she also makes clear that

    "Thoughts and feelings are suspended in a vacuum unless they instigate and feed the selected actions, and it is the characters' actions which reveal the character in the play."

Respect for Acting is used as a textbook for many college acting classes. She also wrote a 1976 cookbook, Love for Cooking. In 2002, she was awarded the National Medal of the Arts by President George W. Bush at a ceremony held at the White House.
Personal life

She married José Ferrer in 1938, with whom she had a daughter, Leticia (Lettie) Ferrer, an actor in New York City. They divorced in 1948 partially because of her affair with her Othello co-star Paul Robeson, an affair which was long concealed. She was married to the actor and teacher and director Herbert Berghof from 1957 until his death in 1990. At his death, she said, "You know, we were partners in our work, in everything. We did everything together. Very few people understand what that kind of a loss is like."
Work
Stage

    * The Seagull - 1938
    * The Happiest Days - 1939
    * Key Largo - 1939
    * Vickie - 1942
    * Othello - 1943
    * The Whole World Over - 1947
    * A Streetcar Named Desire - 1947
    * The Country Girl - 1950
    * Saint Joan - 1951
    * In Any Language - 1952
    * The Magic and The Loss - 1954
    * Island of Goats - 1955
    * Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - 1962
    * The Cherry Orchard - 1968
    * You Never Can Tell - 1986
    * Charlotte - 1980
    * Mrs. Klein - 1995
    * Collected Stories - 1998


Film

    * The Other - 1972
    * The Boys from Brazil - 1978
    * A Doctor's Story - 1984
    * Reversal of Fortune - 1990
    * Limón: A Life Beyond Words - 2001

Television

    * Victory - 1945
    * A Month in the Country - 1959
    * The Day Before Sunday - 1970
    * Seasonal Differences - 1987
    * The Sunset Gang - 1991
    * Oz - 1999

See also

    * Stanislavski
    * Mikhail Chekhov
    * Lee Strasberg
    * Stella Adler
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/14/10 at 6:54 am


The word of the day...Inferno
If you refer to a fire as an inferno, you mean that it is burning fiercely and causing great destruction
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Now that's fire.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/14/10 at 8:22 am


Now that's fire.

Hot Hot Hot ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/14/10 at 11:09 am


The birthday of the day...Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway (born January 14, 1941) is an American actress.

Dunaway won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Network (1976) after receiving previous nominations for the critically acclaimed films Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Chinatown (1974). She has starred in a variety of films, including The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Little Big Man (1970), The Towering Inferno (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), Mommie Dearest (1981).
Dunaway appeared on Broadway in 1962 as the daughter of Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons. Her first screen role was in 1967 in The Happening. In 1967, she was in Hurry Sundown, but that same year, she gained the leading female role in Bonnie and Clyde opposite Warren Beatty, which earned her an Oscar nomination. She also starred in 1968 with Steve McQueen in the caper film The Thomas Crown Affair (and had a small role in the 1999 remake with the same title with Pierce Brosnan).
Dunaway being interviewed by Army Archerd on the red carpet at the 60th Annual Academy Awards, April 11, 1988.

It was in the 1970s that she began to stretch her acting abilities in such films as Three Days of the Condor, Little Big Man, Chinatown, The Three/Four Musketeers, Eyes of Laura Mars, and Network, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress as the scheming TV executive Diana Christensen. She worked with such leading men as Dustin Hoffman, Charlton Heston, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Tommy Lee Jones, Jack Nicholson, and Robert Duvall.

In the 1980s, although her performances did not waver, the parts grew less compelling. Dunaway would later blame Mommie Dearest (1981) for ruining her career as a leading lady. She received a Razzie Award for Worst Actress, and the critic's despised the film, although the film grossed a moderate $19 million in its first release and was one of the top 30 grossing films of the year. In 1987 she was nominated for Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama for her performance in Barfly with Mickey Rourke. In a later movie, Don Juan DeMarco (1995), Dunaway co-starred with Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando.
Faye Dunaway at the ceremony Emmy Award 1994

Dunaway starred in the 1986 made-for-television movie Beverly Hills Madam opposite Melody Anderson, Donna Dixon, Terry Farrell and Robin Givens. In 1993, Dunaway briefly starred in a sitcom with Robert Urich, "It Had to Be You". Dunaway won an Emmy for a 1994 role as a murderer in "It's All in the Game," an episode of the long-running mystery series Columbo.

In 1996, she toured nationally with the stage play Master Class. The story about opera singer Maria Callas was very powerful and well received. Dunaway bought the rights to the Terrence McNally play for possible film development.

In 2006, Dunaway played a character named Lois O'Neill in the sixth season of the crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. She served as a judge on the 2005 reality show The Starlet, which sought, American Idol-style, to find the next young actress with the potential to become a major star. In the spring of 2007, the direct-to-DVD movie release of Rain, based on the novel by V. C. Andrews and starring Dunaway, was released. In 2009 Dunaway stars in film The Bait by Polish film director and producer Dariusz Zawiślak. The Bait is a contemporary version of a drama Balladyna by Polish 19th - century poet Juliusz Słowacki.

Dunaway has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard, which was awarded on October 2, 1996.
Personal life

Dunaway has been married twice, from 1974 to 1979 to Peter Wolf, the lead singer of the rock group The J. Geils Band, and from 1984 to 1987 to Terry O'Neill, a British photographer. She and O'Neill have one child, Liam O'Neill (born 1980). In 2003, despite Dunaway's earlier claims that she had given birth to Liam, Terry revealed that Liam was adopted.

Dunaway is an adult convert to Roman Catholicism.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1967 Hurry Sundown Lou McDowell Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles also for Bonnie and Clyde
The Happening Sandy
Bonnie and Clyde Bonnie Parker Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles also for Hurry Sundown
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1968 The Thomas Crown Affair Vicki Anderson
Amanti Julia
1969 The Extraordinary Seaman Jennifer Winslow
The Arrangement Gwen
A Place for Lovers Julia
1970 Little Big Man Mrs. Louise Pendrake
Puzzle of a Downfall Child Lou Andreas Sand Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1971 The Deadly Trap Jill
Doc Katie Elder
1973 Oklahoma Crude Lena Doyle
The Three Musketeers Milady de Winter
1974 Chinatown Evelyn Cross Mulwray Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
The Towering Inferno Susan Franklin
The Four Musketeers Milady de Winter
1975 Three Days of the Condor Kathy Hale Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1976 Network Diana Christensen Academy Award for Best Actress
David di Donatello for Best Foreign Actress
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Voyage of the Damned Denise Kreisler
1978 Eyes of Laura Mars Laura Mars
1979 The Champ Annie
1980 The First Deadly Sin Barbara Delaney
1981 Mommie Dearest Joan Crawford Razzie Award for Worst Actress
Evita Peron Evita Peron
1983 The Wicked Lady Lady Barbara Skelton
1984 Ordeal by Innocence Rachel Argyle
Supergirl Selena
Ellis Island Maud Charteris Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film
Terror in the Aisles archival footage
1985 Thirteen at Dinner Jane Wilkinson
1986 Raspberry Ripple Matron + "M"
1987 Barfly Wanda Wilcox Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1988 Midnight Crossing Helen Barton
The Gamble Countess Matilda Von Wallenstein La Partita
Burning Secret Mrs. Sonya Tuchman
1989 Frames from the Edge Herself documentary
On a Moonlit Night Mrs. Colbert In una notte di chiaro di luna
Wait Until Spring, Bandini Mrs. Hildegarde
1990 The Handmaid's Tale Serena Joy
The Two Jakes Evelyn Mulwray voice only
1991 Scorchers Thais
1992 Double Edge Faye Milano Lahav Hatzui
1993 Arizona Dream Elaine Stalker
The Temp Charlene Towne
1995 Unzipped Herself – uncredited Documentary
Don Juan DeMarco Marilyn Mickler
Drunks Becky
1996 Dunston Checks In Mrs. Dubrow
Albino Alligator Janet Boudreaux
The Chamber Lee Cayhall Bowen
1997 In Praise of Older Women Condesa
The Twilight of the Golds Phyllis Gold Nominated — CableACE Award for Supporting Actress in a Movie or Miniseries
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
Rebecca Mrs. van Hopper TV miniseries
1998 Gia Wilhelmina Cooper Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Series, Miniseries or Television Film
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film
1999 Love Lies Bleeding Josephine Butler
The Thomas Crown Affair The Psychiatrist
The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc Yolande of Aragon
2000 The Yards Kitty Olchin
Stanley's Gig Leila
Running Mates Meg Gable Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film
2001 Yellow Bird Aurora Beavis Short subject – also director
Festival in Cannes Herself Cameo
2002 Mid-Century Blue/Mother
Changing Hearts Betty Miller
The Rules of Attraction Mrs. Eve Denton
Man of Faith Mae West
2003 Blind Horizon Ms. K
2004 Last Goodbye Sean Winston
El Padrino Atty. Gen. Navarro
Jennifer's Shadow Mary Ellen Cassi
2005 Ghosts Never Sleep Kathleen Dolan
2006 Cut Off Marilyn Burton
Love Hollywood Style God
Rain Isabel Hudson
2007 Cougar Club Edith Birnbaum
Say It in Russian Jacqueline de Rossy
The Gene Generation Josephine Hayden
2008 Flick Lieutenant Annie McKenzie
La Rabbia Madre
2009 Dr. Fugazzi Detective Rowland
Midnight Bayou Odette Lifetime made-for-TV movie
Caroline & The Magic Stone Filomena
Balladyna Dr Ash USA-Poland co-production
Guest appearances
Dunaway & Mirosław Baka - Balladyna

    * Grey's Anatomy - Season 5, Episode 16 "An Honest Mistake" as Dr. Margaret Campbell (2009)
    * CSI: Crime Scene Investigation "Kiss-Kiss, Bye-Bye" January 26, 2006
    * Alias "The Abduction" (2002); "A Higher Echelon" (2003); "The Getaway" (2003), as Ariana Kane
    * Soul Food - Season 3, Episode 1 - "Tonight at Noon" (2002)
    * Road to Avonlea - Season 6, Episode 76 - "What a Tangled Web We Weave" (1995)
    * Columbo: It's All in the Game (1993), as Lauren Staton
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I use to have a huge crush on her back in the 70s in such films as Bonnie and Clyde, Network, The happening, Thomas Crown Affair, Chinatown, Towering inferno, little big man. Lovely eyes, cheeks and lips.
She was hot back then.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/14/10 at 11:28 am


I use to have a huge crush on her back in the 70s in such films as Bonnie and Clyde, Network, The happening, Thomas Crown Affair, Chinatown, Towering inferno, little big man. Lovely eyes, cheeks and lips.
She was hot back then.

Yes she was nice looking in her younger years.I mainly remember her from Bonnie & Clyde and Chinatown.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 01/14/10 at 5:28 pm


I use to have a huge crush on her back in the 70s in such films as Bonnie and Clyde, Network, The happening, Thomas Crown Affair, Chinatown, Towering inferno, little big man. Lovely eyes, cheeks and lips.
She was hot back then.


Same for me...

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/14/10 at 6:32 pm


Same for me...

http://drnorth.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/faye-dunaway-bonnie-and-clyde.jpg
http://cinematicpassions.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/dunaway-faye-photo-xxl-faye-dunaway-6220471.jpg

A few more for gibbo.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 01/14/10 at 6:58 pm


http://drnorth.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/faye-dunaway-bonnie-and-clyde.jpg
http://cinematicpassions.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/dunaway-faye-photo-xxl-faye-dunaway-6220471.jpg

A few more for gibbo.



...and bonnie pics they were too.  ;)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/14/10 at 6:58 pm


http://drnorth.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/faye-dunaway-bonnie-and-clyde.jpg
http://cinematicpassions.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/dunaway-faye-photo-xxl-faye-dunaway-6220471.jpg

A few more for gibbo.



What film was she famous for?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/14/10 at 7:00 pm


What film was she famous for?

read a few posts above

Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown, Network...

...and bonnie pics they were too.  ;)

yes, Bonnie pics :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/14/10 at 7:01 pm


read a few posts above

Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown, Network...yes, Bonnie pics :)


Thanks,I just did.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/15/10 at 5:37 am

The word or phrase of the day...Ice Cream
#
Ice cream is a very cold sweet food which is made from frozen cream or a substance like cream and has a flavour such as vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry. N-VAR N-MASS

    *
      I'll get you some ice cream.
    *
      ...vanilla ice cream. food and drink

#
An ice cream is an amount of ice cream sold in a small container or a cone made of thin biscuit. N-COUNT

    *
      Do you want an ice cream?
    *
      They stuffed themselves with ice creams, chocolate and lollies.
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http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx22/a_ruth/DSCF0883.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/15/10 at 5:40 am

The birthday of the day...Captain Beefheart
Don Van Vliet (pronounced /vliːt/; born Don Glen Vliet, January 15, 1941) is an American musician, songwriter and painter, best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work was mainly conducted with a rotating assembly of musicians called The Magic Band, which was active between the mid-1960s and the early 1980s. Van Vliet was chiefly a singer and harmonica player, occasionally playing saxophone, bass clarinet and keyboards. His most characteristic compositions feature an odd mixture of shifting time signatures, atonal melodies, rhythmically complex and dissonant guitar playing, and surreal, non sequitur lyrics. Van Vliet himself was noted for his dictatorial approach to his musicians and his enigmatic persona and relationship with the public, which culminated in his retirement from music and a "new" career as an artist.

Beefheart's early output was rooted in blues-rock, first releasing and drawing attention with the album Safe as Milk in 1967. He however soon began to draw on and innovatively incorporate additional influences, often in competition and occasional collaboration with his childhood friend Frank Zappa. His most critically acclaimed albums, Trout Mask Replica (1969) and Lick My Decals Off, Baby (1970), iconoclastically take cues from free jazz, avant-garde and contemporary experimental composition. Frustrated with a lack of commercial success after seven studio albums, and fed up with Van Vliet's paranoia and authoritarianism, the group disbanded in 1974. After a brief flirtation with more conventional rock music — resulting in two albums that he has since disowned — Van Vliet formed a new Magic Band with a group of younger musicians and produced three albums, Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (1978), Doc at the Radar Station (1980) and Ice Cream for Crow (1982), that revisited the eccentricities of his earlier work. While never achieving mainstream commercial success, he has been described as "one of modern music's true innovators" with a "singular body of work virtually unrivalled in its daring and fluid creativity". Van Vliet's music later attracted a devoted following and his influence on fellow musicians, particularly those of the punk, post-punk and New Wave movements, later alternative rock, has been described as "incalculable."

Van Vliet retired from music in the mid-1980s to devote himself to a flourishing and now highly successful career in painting, and he has since made few public appearances. His interest in art dates back to a childhood talent for sculpture. Van Vliet's work, which has been described as modernist, neo-primitive and abstract expressionist, has been exhibited in several countries.
The Magic Band and first records, 1962-1969

Some time after Vliet began using the "Captain Beefheart" stage moniker, during his early collaborations with Frank Zappa, Vic Mortenson and others, the character was sketched out in more fanciful detail. Mortenson explains that "Captain Beefheart was supposed to be a magical character. His thing is he would drink the Pepsi Cola and he could make magic things happen, he could appear or disappear. I told Frank, 'Hey, wouldn't it be cool if Captain Beefheart had a Magic Band, and wherever he went, if he wanted the band to appear, he would take a drink of Pepsi, and BINGO there's the band right behind him, 'jukin'?" Vliet was enamoured with the idea, and soon began inviting musicians to join the Magic Band, which became an extension of the "Captain Beefheart" persona.

In early 1965 he was contacted by Alex Snouffer, a local Lancaster rhythm and blues guitarist. Together they assembled the first professional Magic Band. It was at this point that Don Vliet became Don Van Vliet, whilst Alex Snouffer became Alex St. Claire. The first Magic Band was completed with Doug Moon (guitar), Jerry Handley (bass), and Mortenson (drums), the latter soon replaced by Paul Blakely. Doug Moon later left the band due to Van Vliet's developing experimentalism, which he described as "hinting of things to come".

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band signed to A&M and released two 1966 singles, a version of Bo Diddley's "Diddy Wah Diddy," followed by "Moonchild," which was written by David Gates. Both were hits in Los Angeles. The band played music venues that catered to underground artists, such as the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.

Sometime in 1966 demos of what became the Safe as Milk material were submitted to A&M. Jerry Moss (the "M" in A&M) reportedly described the new direction as "too negative" and the band was dropped from the label. By the end of 1966 they were signed to Buddah Records and John French had joined on drums. French had the patience required to translate Van Vliet's musical ideas (often expressed by whistling or banging on the piano) for the other players. In French's absence this role was taken over by Bill Harkleroad.

The Safe as Milk material needed much more work, and 20-year-old guitar prodigy Ry Cooder was asked to help. They began recording in spring 1967, with Richard Perry producing (his first job as producer). Cooder left shortly after recording the album, which was released in September 1967. Among those who took notice were The Beatles; John Lennon and Paul McCartney were known as great admirers of Beefheart. Lennon displayed two of the album's promotional bumper stickers in the sunroom at his home. Later the Beatles planned to sign Beefheart to their experimental Zapple label (plans that were scrapped after Allen Klein took over the group's management).

It was January 27, 1968, that saw one Beefheart's most memorable live performances, when he and The Magic Band performed a set in the middle of Cannes Beach, California. They were then set to audition to play at the 1968 Monterey Pop Festival, an event that saw him suffer severe anxiety attacks in the weeks beforehand. He was able to compose himself on the day of the performance; when the band began to play "Electricity", however, Van Vliet froze, straightened his tie, then walked backwards, fell off the ten-foot stage, and landed directly on top on the manager. It was this that made Ry Cooder decide he could no longer work with Van Vliet.

In August, guitarist Jeff Cotton was recruited and by November the Snouffer/Cotton/Handley/French line-up began recording for the second album. It is said to have been intended to be a double album called It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper, with one disc recorded live (or live in the studio). What finally emerged in October 1968 was Strictly Personal, released on producer Bob Krasnow's Blue Thumb Records. After the album was released Van Vliet initiated through interviews a myth which alleged that the tapes of the album had been remixed by Krasnow without the band's knowledge, and further, that he had ruined it by adding modish psychedelic effects, particularly phasing. This is included as fact in Jason Ankeny's Allmusic biography. Stewart Mason in his Allmusic review of the album itself would describe it as a "terrific album" and a "fascinating, underrated release", "every bit the equal of Safe as Milk and Trout Mask Replica". Langdon Winner of Rolling Stone would call Strictly Personal "an excellent album. The guitars of the Magic Band mercilessly bend and stretch notes in a way that suggests that the world of music has wobbled clear off its axis." With the lyrics demonstrating "Beefheart's ability to juxtapose delightful humor with frightening insights". This was also the period in which Van Vliet furthered his own mythology through interviews. Earlier recordings of two of the Strictly Personal songs and two other songs were released by Buddah in 1971 under the title Mirror Man. The original release bore a sleeve note claiming that the material had been recorded "one night in Los Angeles in 1965". This was a ruse to circumvent possible copyright issues; the material was actually recorded in November and December 1967.

During his first trip to England in January 1968, Captain Beefheart was briefly represented by mod icon Peter Meaden, an early manager of The Who. The Captain and his band members were initially denied entry to the United Kingdom, because of improper paperwork. After returning to Germany for a few days, the group was permitted to re-enter the UK. By this time, they had terminated their association with Meaden. Alex St. Claire left the band in June 1968 after their return from the European tour and was replaced by teenager Bill Harkleroad. Handley also left the band a few weeks later.
Trout Mask Replica, 1969

Critically acclaimed as Van Vliet's magnum opus, Trout Mask Replica was released in June 1969 on Frank Zappa's newly formed Straight Records label. By this time, the Magic Band had enlisted bassist Mark Boston, a friend of French and Harkleroad. Van Vliet had also begun assigning nicknames to his band members, so Harkleroad became "Zoot Horn Rollo", and Boston became "Rockette Morton", while John French assumed the name "Drumbo", and Jeff Cotton became "Antennae Jimmy Semens". The group rehearsed Van Vliet's difficult compositions for eight months, living communally in conditions drummer John French described as "cult-like". According to Vliet, the 28 songs on the album were quickly written in roughly eight hours, though band members have stated that he worked on the compositions for roughly 3 weeks using a piano as his writing tool. It took the band about eight months to actually mold the songs into shape.

Trout Mask Replica displayed a wide variety of genres, including blues, avant-garde, experimental music, and rock. The relentless practice prior to recording blended the music into an iconoclastic whole of contrapuntal tempos, featuring slide guitar, polyrhythmic drumming, and honking saxophone and bass clarinet. Van Vliet's vocals range from his signature Howlin' Wolf-inspired growl to frenzied falsetto to laconic, casual ramblings. The instrumental backing was effectively recorded live in the studio, while Van Vliet overdubbed most of the vocals in only partial synch with the music by hearing the slight sound leakage through the studio window.

Van Vliet used the ensuing publicity, particularly with a 1970 Rolling Stone interview with Langdon Winner, to promulgate a number of myths which have subsequently been quoted as fact. Winner's article stated, for instance, that neither Van Vliet nor the members of the Magic Band ever took drugs, but guitarist Bill Harkleroad later refuted this. Van Vliet claimed to have taught both Harkleroad and bassist Mark Boston to play their instruments from scratch; in fact the pair were already accomplished musicians before joining the band. Last, Van Vliet claimed to have gone a year and half without sleeping. When asked how this was possible, he replied to have only eaten fruit.

Critic Steve Huey of Allmusic writes that the album's influence "was felt more in spirit than in direct copycatting, as a catalyst rather than a literal musical starting point. However, its inspiring reimagining of what was possible in a rock context laid the groundwork for countless experiments in rock surrealism to follow, especially during the punk and New Wave era." In 2003, the album was ranked fifty-eighth by Rolling Stone in their list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: "On first listen, Trout Mask Replica sounds like raw Delta blues", with Beefheart "singing and ranting and reciting poetry over fractured guitar licks. But the seeming sonic chaos is an illusion -- to construct the songs, the Magic Band rehearsed twelve hours a day for months on end in a house with the windows blacked out. (Producer Frank Zappa was then able to record most of the album in less than five hours.) Tracks such as "Ella Guru" and "My Human Gets Me Blues" are the direct predecessors of modern musical primitives such as Tom Waits and PJ Harvey".
Later recordings, 1970-1982

Lick My Decals Off, Baby (1970) continued in a similarly experimental vein. The album was Van Vliet's most commercially successful in the United Kingdom, spending twenty weeks on the UK Albums Chart, peaking at number 20. An early promotional music video was made of its title song, and a bizarre television commercial was also filmed that included excerpts from "Woe-Is-uh-Me-Bop," silent footage of masked Magic Band members using kitchen utensils as musical instruments, and Beefheart kicking over a bowl of what appears to be porridge onto a dividing stripe in the middle of a road. The video was rarely played but was accepted into the Museum of Modern Art, where it has been used in several programs. The LP sees the addition of Art Tripp III to the band, who had joined from the Mothers of Invention, playing drums and marimba. Lick My Decals Off, Baby was the first record on which the band were credited as "The Magic Band", rather than "His Magic Band"; journalist Irwin Chusid interprets this change as "a grudging concession of its members' at least semiautonomous humanity."
Van Vliet in 1974 performing as Beefheart

The next two records, The Spotlight Kid (simply credited to "Captain Beefheart") and Clear Spot (credited to "Captain Beefheart And The Magic Band"), both released in 1972, were much more conventional. In 1974, immediately after the recording of Unconditionally Guaranteed—an album which continued the trend towards a more commercial sound heard on several of the Clear Spot tracks—The Magic Band, which had by then coalesced around the core of Art Tripp III, Alex St. Clair, Bill Harkleroad and Rockette Morton, decided they could no longer work with Van Vliet, who was by all accounts a severe taskmaster. They left to form Mallard. Van Vliet quickly formed a new Magic Band of musicians who had no experience with his music and in fact had never heard it. Having no knowledge of the previous Magic Band style they simply improvised what they thought would go with each song, played much slicker versions that have been described as "bar band" versions of Beefheart's songs. A negative review described this incarnation of the Magic Band as the "Tragic Band," a term that has stuck over the years. The one album they recorded, Bluejeans & Moonbeams (1974) has, like its predecessor Unconditionally Guaranteed, a completely different, almost soft-rock, sound from any other Beefheart record. Neither was well received; drummer Art Tripp recalled that when he and the original Magic Band listened to Unconditionally Guaranteed that they "were horrified. As we listened, it was as though each song was worse than the one which preceded it." Beefheart later disowned both albums, calling them "horrible and vulgar", asking that they not be considered part of his musical output and urging fans who bought them to "take copies back for a refund".

The friendship between Frank Zappa and Van Vliet over the years was sometimes expressed in the form of rivalry as musicians drifted back and forth between Van Vliet and Zappa's respective groups. Their collaborative work can be found on the 1975 album Bongo Fury, along with Zappa rarity collections The Lost Episodes (1996) and Mystery Disc (1996). Particularly notable is Beefheart's vocal on "Willie the Pimp" from Zappa's otherwise instrumental album Hot Rats (1969).

From 1975 to 1977 there were no new records (the original version of Bat Chain Puller was recorded in 1976 but has never been released). In 1978 a completely new band was formed (consisting of Richard Redus, Jeff Moris Tepper, Bruce Fowler, Eric Drew Feldman and Robert Williams). These were from a younger generation of musicians eager to work with him and extremely capable of playing his music. In several cases they had been fans for years, and had learned his music from records.

Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller), released in 1978, was largely regarded as a return to form. Described by Ned Ragget of Allmusic to "be manna from heaven for those feeling Beefheart had lost his way on his two Mercury albums". Doc at the Radar Station (1980) helped establish Beefheart's late resurgence as possibly the most consistently creative period of his musical career. Released by Virgin records during the post-punk scene, the music was again accessible by a younger more receptive audience. Van Vliet said at this period, "I'm doing a non-hypnotic music to break up the catatonic state... and I think there is one right now." Steve Huey of Allmusic would cite the album as being "generally acclaimed as the strongest album of his comeback, and by some as his best since Trout Mask Replica", "even if the Captain's voice isn't quite what it once was, Doc at the Radar Station is an excellent, focused consolidation of Beefheart's past and then-present".

In this period, Van Vliet made two appearances on David Letterman's late night television program on NBC, and also performed on Saturday Night Live. The final Beefheart record, Ice Cream for Crow (1982), was recorded with Gary Lucas (who was also Van Vliet's manager), Jeff Moris Tepper, Richard Snyder and Cliff Martinez. This line-up made a video to promote the title track which was rejected by MTV for being "too weird." However, that video was included in the Letterman broadcast on NBC-TV. Soon after, Van Vliet retired from music and established a new career as a painter.
Artistic career, 1982 to present

In the mid 1980s, Van Vliet became somewhat reclusive and abandoned music, stating he could make far more money painting. He was initially dismissed by some critics as "another rock musician dabbling in art for ego's sake". Over the years, however, his work began receiving positive attention. His artwork, like his music, has been seen as extreme and innovative, it commands high prices, some paintings of up to $25,000.
Cross Poked Shadow of a Crow No. 1 (1990)
Rolled Roots Gnarled Like Rakers (1985)

In the early 1980s Van Vliet established an association with the Michael Werner Gallery. Eric Feldman stated later in an interview that at that time Michael Werner told Van Vliet he would need to stop playing music if he wanted to be respected as a painter. Gordon Veneklasen, one of the gallery's directors in 1995 described Van Vliet as an "incredible painter" whose work "doesn't really look like anybody else's work but his own." Van Vliet has been described as a modernist, primitivist and an abstract expressionist. Morgan Falconer of Artforum concurs mentioning both a "neo-primitivist aesthetic" and further stating that his work is influenced by the CoBrA painters. The resemblance to the CoBrA painters is also recognized by art critic Roberto Ohrt. Some have compared it to the work of Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline and Francis Bacon.

According to Dr. John Lane, director of the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco in 1997, although Van Vliet's work has associations with mainstream abstract expressionist painting, more importantly he is a self-taught artist and his painting "has that same kind of edge the music has." Van Vliet has stated of his own work, "I'm trying to turn myself inside out on the canvas. I'm trying to completely bare what I think at that moment" and has stated of precedent influences that there are none. "I just paint like I paint and that's enough influence."

Exhibits in 2007 of his paintings through the late 1990s at both the Anton Kern and Michael Werner Galleries of New York City received favorable reviews, the most recent of which was in 2008. Falconer stated the recent exhibitions show "evidence of a serious, committed artist."
Personal life

Van Vliet is last known to reside in Valhala, a small community near the Mojave Desert, in a mobile home with his wife Janet "Jan" Van Vliet. It was claimed that he stopped painting in the late 1990s. Around that time, it became publicly known that he had become wheelchair-bound and was suffering from a debilitating long-term illness. Cited and considered to most likely be multiple sclerosis. A 2007 interview with Van Vliet through email by Anthony Haden-Guest however, showed him to still be active artistically.

One of Van Vliet's few public appearances since his retirement from music is in the 1993 short documentary Some Yo Yo Stuff by filmmaker Anton Corbijn, described as an "observation of his observations". Around 13 minutes long and shot entirely in black and white, the film shows a noticeably weakened and dysarthric Van Vliet at his residence in California, reading poetry, and philosophically discussing his life, environment, music and art. In 2003 he appeared on the compilation album Where We Live: Stand for What You Stand On: A Benefit CD for EarthJustice singing a version of "Happy Birthday To You" retitled "Happy Earthday". The track is 35 seconds long and was recorded over the telephone.
Legacy

Van Vliet has been the subject of at least one documentary, the BBC's 1997 The Artist Formerly Known As Captain Beefheart., which was narrated by BBC disc jockey John Peel. The Magic Band, fronted by John French, with Denny Walley, Mark Boston and Gary Lucas, reformed without Van Vliet in 2003; and in 2005 toured the UK, playing a selection of small venues. John Peel was initially skeptical about the reformed Magic Band. He played a live recording of the band recorded at the 2003 All Tomorrows Parties festival on his show. After playing their set Peel couldn't speak and had to play a record to regain his composure. A year or so later the band did a live session for Peel. The band released two albums. Back To The Front was released on London the based ATP Recordings in 2003. 21st Century Mirror Men, followed in 2005. After playing over 30 shows throughout the United Kingdom and Europe, and just one in the United States, the band concluded their activities in 2006.
Influence

John Peel stated, "If there has ever been such a thing as a genius in the history of popular music, it's Beefheart... I heard echoes of his music in some of the records I listened to last week and I'll hear more echoes in records that I listen to this week." Describing him as a "psychedelic shaman who frequently bullied his musicians and sometimes alarmed his fans; Don somehow remained one of rock's great innocents". Many artists have cited Van Vliet as an influence, beginning with the Edgar Broughton Band, who covered "Dropout Boogie" (mixed with The Shadows' "Apache") as early as 1970. More notable were those emerging during the early days of punk rock, such as the Clash and John Lydon of the Sex Pistols, later of the post-punk band Public Image Ltd. This influence has seen Van Vliet often cited as a protopunk musician.

Cartoonist and writer Matt Groening tells of listening to Trout Mask Replica at the age of 15 and thinking "that it was the worst thing I'd ever heard. I said to myself, they're not even trying! It was just a sloppy cacophony. Then I listened to it a couple more times, because I couldn't believe Frank Zappa could do this to me - and because a double album cost a lot of money. About the third time, I realised they were doing it on purpose; they meant it to sound exactly this way. About the sixth or seventh time, it clicked in, and I thought it was the greatest album I'd ever heard."

Van Vliet's influence on the post-punk bands was demonstrated by Magazine's recording of "I Love You You Big Dummy" in 1978 and the tribute album Fast 'n' Bulbous - A Tribute to Captain Beefheart in 1988, featuring the likes of artists such as the Dog Faced Hermans, The Scientists, The Membranes, Simon Fisher Turner, That Petrol Emotion, the Primevals, The Mock Turtles, XTC, and Sonic Youth, who included a cover of Beefheart's "Electricity" as a bonus track on the deluxe edition of their critically acclaimed album Daydream Nation. The Minutemen were great fans of Beefheart, and were arguably among the few to effectively synthesize his music with their own, especially in their early output, which featured disjointed guitar and irregular, galloping rhythms. Michael Azerrad describes The Minutemen's early as "highly caffeinated Captain Beefheart running down James Brown tunes", and notes that Beefheart was the group's "idol". Mark E. Smith of The Fall would also acknowledge his admiration of Beefheart.

Tom Waits' shift in artistic direction, starting with 1983's Swordfishtrombones, was, Waits claims, a result of his wife introducing him to Van Vliet's music. Guitarist John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers has also cited Van Vliet as a prominent influence on the band's 1991 album Blood Sugar Sex Magik as well as his debut solo album Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt (1994) and stated that during his drug-induced absence, after leaving the Red Hot Chili Peppers, he "would paint and listen to Trout Mask Replica." Black Francis of the Pixies would cite Beefheart's The Spotlight Kid as one of the albums he listened to predominately when first writing songs for the band, citing influence and admiration of Van Vliet generally. Kurt Cobain of Nirvana would also acknowledge the influence of Van Vliet. The White Stripes in 2000 released a 7'' tribute single, Party of Special Things to Do, containing covers of Beefheart's "Party of Special Things to Do", "China Pig" and "Ashtray Heart". Franz Ferdinand cited Beefheart's 1980 album Doc At The Radar Station as a strong influence on their second LP, You Could Have It So Much Better. Placebo briefly named themselves Ashtray Heart, after the track on Doc at the Radar Station; the band's album Battle for the Sun contains a track called "Ashtray Heart". Joan Osborne covered Beefheart's "(His) Eyes are a Blue Million Miles," which appears on Early Recordings. She cites Van Vliet as one of her influences.
Discography
Main article: Captain Beefheart discography

    * Safe as Milk (1967)
    * Strictly Personal (1968)
    * Trout Mask Replica (1969)
    * Lick My Decals Off, Baby (1970)
    * Mirror Man (1971)
    * The Spotlight Kid (1972)



    * Clear Spot (1972)
    * Unconditionally Guaranteed (1974)
    * Bluejeans & Moonbeams (1974)
    * Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) (1978)
    * Doc at the Radar Station (1980)
    * Ice Cream for Crow (1982)
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/15/10 at 5:49 am

The person of the day...Harry Nilsson
Harry Edward Nilsson III (June 15, 1941 — January 15, 1994) was an American songwriter, singer, pianist, and guitarist who achieved the height of his fame during the 1960s and 1970s. For most of his recordings, he did not use his first name, and was credited only as Nilsson. Among Nilsson's best-known recordings are "Without You", "Jump into the Fire", "Everybody's Talkin'" and "Coconut".

Nilsson's personal and musical style is best described as witty and idiosyncratic, yet always he was a consummate pop craftsman much in demand especially in the late 1960s. He garnered many critical and commercial successes, including two Grammy Awards and two Top 10 singles, despite his tendency to switch styles from one album to the next and his generally iconoclastic decision-making.
Nilsson signed with RCA Victor in 1966 and released an album the following year, Pandemonium Shadow Show, which was a critical (if not commercial) success. Music industry insiders were impressed both with the songwriting and with Nilsson's pure-toned, multi-octave vocals. One such insider was The Beatles press officer Derek Taylor, who bought an entire box of copies of the album to share this new sound with others. With a major-label release, and continued songwriting success (most notably with The Monkees, who had a hit with Nilsson's "Cuddly Toy," after meeting him through their producer Chip Douglas), Nilsson finally felt secure enough in the music business to quit his job with the bank. Monkees member Micky Dolenz maintained a close friendship until Nilsson's death in 1994.

Some of the albums from Derek Taylor's box eventually ended up with the Beatles themselves, who quickly became Nilsson fans. This may have been helped by the track "You Can't Do That", in which Nilsson covered one Beatles song but added 22 others in the multi-tracked background vocals. When John Lennon and Paul McCartney held a press conference in 1968 to announce the formation of Apple Corps, John was asked to name his favorite American artist. He replied, "Nilsson". Paul was then asked to name his favorite American group. He replied, "Nilsson".

Aided by the Beatles' praise, "You Can't Do That" became a minor hit in the US, and a top 10 hit in Canada.

When RCA had asked if there was anything special he wanted as a signing premium, Nilsson asked for his own office at RCA, being used to working out of one. In the weeks after the Apple press conference, Nilsson's office phone began ringing constantly, with offers and requests for interviews and inquiries about his performing schedule. Nilsson usually answered the calls himself, surprising the callers, and answered questions candidly. (He recalled years later the flow of a typical conversation: "When did you play last?" "I didn't." "Where have you played before?" "I haven't." "When will you be playing next?" "I don't.") Nilsson acquired a manager, who steered him into a handful of TV guest appearances, and a brief run of stage performances in Europe set up by RCA. He disliked the experiences he had, though, and decided to stick to the recording studio. He later admitted this was a huge mistake on his part.

Once John Lennon called and praised Pandemonium Shadow Show, which he had listened to in a 36-hour marathon. Paul McCartney called later, also expressing his admiration. Nilsson was disappointed that he didn't receive a call from Ringo Starr or George Harrison, but shortly after a message came, inviting him to London to meet the Beatles, watch them at work, and possibly sign with Apple Corps.

Pandemonium Shadow Show was followed in 1968 by Aerial Ballet, an album that included Nilsson's rendition of Fred Neil's song "Everybody's Talkin'". A minor US hit at the time of release (and a top 40 hit in Canada), the song would become extremely popular a year later when it was featured in the film Midnight Cowboy, and it would earn Nilsson his first Grammy Award. The song would also become Nilsson's first US top 10 hit, reaching #6, and his first Canadian #1.

Aerial Ballet also contained Nilsson's version of his own composition, One, which was later taken to the top 5 of the US charts by Three Dog Night. Nilsson was also commissioned at this time to write and perform the theme song for the ABC television series The Courtship of Eddie's Father. The result, "Best Friend", was very popular, but Nilsson never released the song on record; an alternate version, "Girlfriend", did appear on the 1995 Personal Best anthology. Late in 1968, The Monkees' notorious experimental film Head premiered, featuring a memorable song-and-dance sequence with Davy Jones and Toni Basil performing Nilsson's composition "Daddy's Song." (This is followed by Frank Zappa's cameo as "The Critic," who dismisses the 1920s-style tune as "pretty white.")

With the success of Nilsson's RCA recordings, Tower re-issued or re-packaged many of their early Nilsson recordings in various formats. All of these re-issues failed to chart, including a 1969 single "Good Times".
Chart success

Nilsson's next album, Harry (1969), was his first to hit the charts, and also provided a Top 40 single with "I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City" (written as a contender for the theme to Midnight Cowboy), but used instead in the Sophia Loren movie La Mortadella (1971) (USA title: Lady Liberty). While the album still presented Nilsson as primarily a songwriter, his astute choice of cover material included, this time, a song by a then-little-known composer named Randy Newman, "Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear." Nilsson was so impressed with Newman's talent that he devoted his entire next album to Newman compositions, with Newman himself playing piano behind Nilsson's multi-tracked vocals. The result, Nilsson Sings Newman (1970), was commercially disappointing but was named Record of the Year by Stereo Review magazine and provided momentum to Newman's career.

Nilsson's next project was an animated film, The Point!, created with animation director Fred Wolf, and broadcast on ABC television on February 2, 1971, as an "ABC Movie of the Week." Nilsson's album of songs from The Point! was well received, and it spawned a hit single, "Me and My Arrow."

Later that year, Nilsson went to England with producer Richard Perry to record what became the most successful album of his career. Nilsson Schmilsson yielded three very stylistically different hit singles. The first was a cover of Badfinger's song "Without You" (by Pete Ham and Tom Evans), featuring a highly emotional arrangement and soaring vocals to match, a performance that was rewarded with Nilsson's second Grammy Award.

The second single was "Coconut", a novelty calypso number featuring three characters (the narrator, the sister, and the doctor) all sung in different voices by Nilsson. The song is best remembered for its chorus lyric, "Put de lime in de coconut, and drink 'em both up." Also notable is that the entire song is played using one chord, C 7th. Coconut was featured in Episode 81 (October 25, 1973) of the Flip Wilson Show. The song has since been featured in many other films and commercials. It was also used in a comedy skit on The Muppet Show, which featured Kermit the Frog in a hospital bed. The song was also used during the end credits of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs.

The third single, "Jump into the Fire", was raucous, screaming rock and roll, including a drum solo by Derek and the Dominos' Jim Gordon and a bass detuning by Herbie Flowers. The song was famously used during the "Sunday, May 11, 1980", sequence in the film Goodfellas.

Nilsson followed quickly with Son of Schmilsson (1972), released while its predecessor was still in the charts. Besides the problem of competing with himself, Nilsson's decision to give free rein to his bawdiness and bluntness on this release alienated some of his earlier, more conservative fan base. With lyrics like "I sang my balls off for you, baby", "Roll the world over / And give her a kiss and a feel", and the notorious "You're breaking my heart / You're tearing it apart / So fudge you", Nilsson had traveled far afield from his earlier work. Still, the album did well, and the single "Spaceman" was a Top 40 hit. However, the follow-up single "Remember (Christmas)" stalled at #53. A third single, the tongue-in-cheek C&W send up "Joy", was issued on RCA's country imprint Green and credited to Buck Earle, but it failed to chart.
The maverick

This disregard for commercialism in favor of artistic satisfaction showed itself in Nilsson's next release, A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night (1973). Performing a selection of pop standards by the likes of Irving Berlin, Kalmar and Ruby, Nilsson sang in front of an orchestra arranged and conducted by veteran Gordon Jenkins in sessions produced by Derek Taylor. While the sessions showcased a talented singer in one of his best performances, this musical endeavor did not do particularly well commercially. The session was filmed, and was broadcast as a television special by the BBC in the UK.

1973 found Nilsson back in California, and when John Lennon moved there during his separation from Yoko Ono, the two musicians rekindled their earlier friendship. Lennon was intent upon producing Nilsson's next album, much to Nilsson's delight. However, their time together in California became known much more for heavy drinking and drug use than it did for musical collaboration. In a widely publicized incident, they were ejected from the Troubadour nightclub in West Hollywood for drunken heckling of the Smothers Brothers. Both men also caused property damage during binges, with Lennon trashing a bedroom in Lou Adler's house, and Nilsson throwing a bottle through a thirty-foot hotel window.

To make matters worse, Nilsson ruptured a vocal cord during the sessions for this album, but he hid the injury due to fear that Lennon would call a halt to the production. The resulting album was Pussy Cats. In an effort to clean up, Lennon, Nilsson and Ringo Starr first rented a house together, then Lennon and Nilsson left for New York.

After the relative failure of his latest two albums, RCA Records considered dropping Nilsson's contract. In a show of friendship, Lennon accompanied Nilsson to negotiations, and both intimated to RCA that Lennon and Starr might want to sign with them, once their Apple Records contracts with EMI expired in 1975, but wouldn't be interested if Nilsson were no longer with the label. RCA took the hint and re-signed Nilsson (adding a bonus clause, to apply to each new album completed), but neither Lennon nor Starr switched to RCA.

Nilsson's voice had mostly recovered by his next release, Duit on Mon Dei (1975), but neither it nor its follow-ups, Sandman and …That's the Way It Is (both 1976) met with chart success. Finally, Nilsson recorded what he later considered to be his favorite album, 1977's Knnillssonn. With his voice strong again, and his songs exploring musical territory reminiscent of Harry or The Point!, Nilsson had every right to expect Knnillssonn to be a comeback album. RCA Victor seemed to agree, and promised Nilsson a substantial marketing campaign for the album. However, the death of Elvis Presley caused RCA Victor to ignore everything except meeting demand for Presley's back catalog, and the promised marketing push never happened. This, combined with RCA Victor releasing a Nilsson Greatest Hits collection without consulting him, prompted Nilsson to leave the label.
London flat

Nilsson's 1970s London flat in the building at 12 Curzon Street on the edge of Mayfair, was a two-bedroom apartment decorated by the design company that ex-Beatle Ringo Starr and Robin Cruikshank owned at that time. Nilsson cumulatively spent several years at the flat, which was located near Apple Records, the Playboy Club, Tramps disco and the homes of friends and business associates. Nilsson's work and interests took him to the U.S. for extended periods, and while he was away he lent his place to numerous musician friends. During one of his absences, ex-Mamas and Papas singer Cass Elliot and a few members of her tour group stayed at the flat while she performed solo at the London Palladium, headlining with her Torch Songs and "Don't Call Me Mama Anymore." Following a strenuous performance with encores, Elliot returned to the flat to relax and sleep and was discovered in one of the bedrooms, dead of heart failure, on July 29, 1974.

On September 7, 1978, The Who's drummer Keith Moon returned to the same room in the flat after a night out, and died from an overdose of chlormethiazole, a prescribed anti-alcohol drug. Nilsson, distraught over another friend's death in his flat, and having little need for the property, sold it to Moon's bandmate Pete Townshend and consolidated his life in Los Angeles.
Winding down

Nilsson's musical work after leaving RCA Victor was sporadic. He wrote a musical, Zapata, with Perry Botkin, Jr., libretto by Allan Katz, which was produced and directed by longtime friend Bert Convy. The show was mounted at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut, but never had another production. He wrote all the songs for Robert Altman's movie-musical Popeye (1980), the score of which met with unfavorable reviews. Nilsson's Popeye compositions included several songs that were representative of Nilsson's acclaimed "Point" era, such as "Everything is Food" and "Sweethaven". He recorded one more album, Flash Harry co-produced by Bruce Robb (producer) and Steve Cropper, which was released in the UK but not in the USA. However, Nilsson increasingly began referring to himself as a "retired musician".

Nilsson was profoundly affected by the murder of his close friend John Lennon on December 8, 1980. He joined the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and overcame his preference for privacy to make appearances for gun control fundraising.

After a long hiatus from the studio, Nilsson started recording sporadically once again in the mid to late 1980s. Most of these recordings were commissioned songs for movies or television shows. One notable exception was his work on a Yoko Ono Lennon tribute album, "Every Man Has A Woman" (1984) (Polydor); another was a cover of "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" recorded for Hal Willner's 1988 tribute album Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films. Nilsson donated his performance royalties from the song to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

In 1991, the Disney CD For Our Children, a compilation of children's music performed by celebrities to benefit the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, included Nilsson's original composition Blanket for a Sail, recorded at the Shandaliza Recording Studio in Los Angeles.

In 1985 Nilsson set up a production company, Hawkeye, to oversee the various film, TV and multimedia projects he was involved in. He appointed his friend, satirist and screenwriter Terry Southern as one of the principals, and they collaborated on a number of screenplays including Obits (a Citizen Kane style story about a journalist investigating an obituary notice) and The Telephone, a one-hander about an unhinged unemployed actor.

The Telephone was virtually the only Hawkeye project that made it to the screen. It had been written with Robin Williams in mind but he turned it down; comedian-actress Whoopi Goldberg then signed on, with Southern's friend Rip Torn directing, but the project was troubled. Torn battled with Goldberg, who interfered in the production and constantly digressed from the script during shooting, and Torn was forced to plead with her to perform takes that stuck to the screenplay. Torn, Southern and Nilsson put together their own version of the film, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival in early 1988, but it was overtaken by the "official" version from the studio, and this version premiered to poor reviews in late January 1988. The project reportedly had some later success when adapted as a theatre piece in Germany.

In 1990 Hawkeye collapsed and Nilsson found himself in a dire financial situation after it was discovered that his financial adviser Cindy Sims had betrayed his trust and embezzled all the funds he had earned as a recording artist. The Nilssons were left with $300 in the bank and a mountain of debt, while Sims served less than two years for her crimes and was released from prison in 1994 without making restitution.

After the death of John Lennon, he began to appear at Beatlefest conventions to raise money for gun control and he would get on stage with the Beatlefest house band "Liverpool" to either sing some of his own songs or "Give Peace a Chance." Nilsson made his last concert appearance September 1, 1992, when he joined Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band on stage at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada to sing "Without You" with Todd Rundgren handling the high notes. Afterwards, an emotional Ringo Starr embraced Nilsson on stage.

Nilsson's health had deteriorated, and he suffered a massive heart attack in 1993. After surviving that, he began pressing his old label, RCA, to release a boxed-set retrospective of his career, and resumed recording, attempting to complete one final album. He finished the vocal tracks for the album on January 15, 1994, with producer Mark Hudson who still holds the tapes of that session, and then died that night of heart failure in Agoura Hills, California. The following year, the 2-CD anthology he worked on with RCA, Personal Best, was released.
Legacy

Nilsson was survived by his third wife, Una (née O'Keeffe), and their six children, and one son from an earlier marriage. His wife discussed both John Lennon and Nilsson in the film The U.S. vs. John Lennon, which opened September 15 2006. Nilsson himself is the subject of a 2006 documentary, Who is Harry Nilsson? (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him) produced by David Leaf and John Schienfeld. The film was screened in 2006 at the Seattle International Film Festival and the Santa Barbara Film Festival. In August 2006, the film received its Los Angeles premiere when it was screened at the 7th Annual Mods & Rockers Film Festival followed by a panel discussion about Nilsson featuring the filmmakers and his good friends producer Richard Perry and attorney/executive producer Lee Blackman.

In 2006, Harry Nilsson's first grandchild, a boy, was born in California.

In May 2005 WPS1 art radio played tribute to Nilsson with curator Sherrie Fell and brother and sister hosts Bernadette and Harry O'Reilly.

As of November 2008, Nilsson's final album, tentatively titled Papa's Got a Brown New Robe (produced by Mark Hudson) has not been released, though several demos from the album are available on promotional CDs and online.
Discography
Albums

    * Hollywood Dreamer (Recorded In 1962)
    * Spotlight on Nilsson (1966) (Tower Records)
    * Pandemonium Shadow Show (1967) (RCA Records)
    * Aerial Ballet (1968) (RCA Records)
    * Skidoo (soundtrack) (1968) (RCA Records)
    * Harry (1969) (RCA Records), US #120
    * Rock n Roll Nilsson (1969) (Pickwick Records)- reissue of Spotlight on Nilsson
    * Nilsson Sings Newman (1970)
    * The Point! (1971) (RCA Records), US #25
    * Aerial Pandemonium Ballet (1971), US #149
    * Nilsson Schmilsson (1971), US #3
    * Son of Schmilsson (1972) (RCA Records), US #12
    * A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night (1973) (RCA Records), US #46
    * Son of Dracula (1974) (RCA Records), US #106
    * Pussy Cats (1974) (RCA Records), US #60
    * A Toot and a Snore in '74 (1974) (John Lennon & Paul McCartney also featuring Stevie Wonder and Harry Nilsson) - a 30 minute studio bootleg
    * Duit on Mon Dei (1975) (RCA Records), US #141
    * Sandman (1976) (RCA Records), US #111
    * …That's the Way It Is (1976) (RCA Records), US #158
    * Knnillssonn (1977) (RCA Records), US #108
    * Flash Harry (1980) (not released in USA) (Mercury Records)
    * Early Tymes (1982) (CBS Records)
    * A touch more Schmilsson in the night (1988) (BMG Records)
    * Harry Nilsson - All Time Greatest Hits(1989), US #140
    * Personal Best: The Harry Nilsson Anthology (1995) (RCA Records)
    * Nilsson: Greatest Hits (2002) (RCA Records)
    * Everybody's Talkin': The Very Best of Harry Nilsson (2006) (Legacy Recordings)

Compilations

    * Performed "Silver Horse", "Dream Love" & "Loneliness" on 'Every Man Has a Woman' (Songs of Yoko Ono), 1984 (one of various artists).
    * Performed Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah on Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films, 1988 (one of various artists).

Singles

As Bo Pete:

    * 1964: Baa Baa Blacksheep
    * 1964: Do You Wanna (Have Some Fun)

As Johnny Niles:

    * 1964: Donna I Understand

As Nilsson:

    * 1964: Sixteen Tons (Tower 103)
    * 1965: You Can't Take Your Love Away From Me (Tower 136)
    * 1965: The Path That Leads To Trouble (Tower 165)
    * 1966: She's Yours (Tower 244)
    * 1967: Without Her
    * 1967: You Can't Do That (US #122, Canada #10)
    * 1967: River Deep - Mountain High (Canadian release only)
    * 1967: Good Old Desk (European release only)
    * 1968: One
    * 1968: Everybody's Talkin' (initial release -- US #113, Canada #35)
    * 1969: I Will Take You There
    * 1969: Everybody's Talkin' (re-release -- US #6, US A/C #2, Canada #1, Canada A/C #1, UK #23)
    * 1969: Good Times
    * 1969: Maybe
    * 1969: I Guess The Lord Must Be In New York City (US #34, US A/C #7, Canada #25, Canada A/C #3)
    * 1970: Waiting (US A/C #40, Canada A/C #31)
    * 1970: Caroline
    * 1970: Down To The Valley (Canada #80)
    * 1971: Me And My Arrow (US #34, US A/C #3, Canada #23, Canada A/C #17)
    * 1971: Without You (US #1, US A/C #1, Canada #1, Canada A/C #24, UK #1)
    * 1972: Jump Into The Fire (US #27, Canada #16)
    * 1972: Coconut (US #8, Canada #5, UK #42)
    * 1972: Spaceman (US #23, Canada #12)
    * 1972: Remember (Christmas) (US #53, US A/C #21, Canada #57, Canada A/C #14)
    * 1973: As Time Goes By (US #86, US A/C #35, Canada A/C #87)
    * 1974: Daybreak (US #39, US A/C #37, Canada #15, Canada A/C #17)
    * 1974: Many Rivers To Cross (US #109, Canada #82, Canada A/C #43)
    * 1974: Subterranean Homesick Blues
    * 1974: Save The Last Dance For Me (UK release only)
    * 1974: Don't Forget Me
    * 1975: A Love Like Yours (Nilsson & Cher)
    * 1975: Kojak Columbo
    * 1976: Something True (UK release only)
    * 1976: Sail Away
    * 1976: Just One Look/Baby I'm Yours (medley), duet with former Supreme Lynda Laurence (UK release only)
    * 1977: Who Done It?
    * 1977: All I Think About Is You (UK #43)
    * 1977: Lean On Me (UK release only)
    * 1978: Ain't It Kinda Wonderful
    * 1980: I Don't Need You (UK release only)
    * 1980: Rain (UK release only)
    * 1982: With A Bullet (only available to attendees of Beatlefest '82)
    * 1984: Loneliness

as Buck Earle:

    * 1972: Joy
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http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d66/wundrboi/Harry_Nilsson_publicity_photo.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/bryanclopton/Harry1-1.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l32/Fred_Fred_Wednesday/The%20Monkees/nilssonandmick.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/15/10 at 6:54 am

I love Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/15/10 at 8:58 am


I love Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream.  :)

Yum, I like Mint Chocolate Chip, Butter Pecan & Chocolate Almond.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/15/10 at 10:11 am


The person of the day...Harry Nilsson
Harry Edward Nilsson III (June 15, 1941 — January 15, 1994) was an American songwriter, singer, pianist, and guitarist who achieved the height of his fame during the 1960s and 1970s. For most of his recordings, he did not use his first name, and was credited only as Nilsson. Among Nilsson's best-known recordings are "Without You", "Jump into the Fire", "Everybody's Talkin'" and "Coconut".

Nilsson's personal and musical style is best described as witty and idiosyncratic, yet always he was a consummate pop craftsman much in demand especially in the late 1960s. He garnered many critical and commercial successes, including two Grammy Awards and two Top 10 singles, despite his tendency to switch styles from one album to the next and his generally iconoclastic decision-making.
Nilsson signed with RCA Victor in 1966 and released an album the following year, Pandemonium Shadow Show, which was a critical (if not commercial) success. Music industry insiders were impressed both with the songwriting and with Nilsson's pure-toned, multi-octave vocals. One such insider was The Beatles press officer Derek Taylor, who bought an entire box of copies of the album to share this new sound with others. With a major-label release, and continued songwriting success (most notably with The Monkees, who had a hit with Nilsson's "Cuddly Toy," after meeting him through their producer Chip Douglas), Nilsson finally felt secure enough in the music business to quit his job with the bank. Monkees member Micky Dolenz maintained a close friendship until Nilsson's death in 1994.

Some of the albums from Derek Taylor's box eventually ended up with the Beatles themselves, who quickly became Nilsson fans. This may have been helped by the track "You Can't Do That", in which Nilsson covered one Beatles song but added 22 others in the multi-tracked background vocals. When John Lennon and Paul McCartney held a press conference in 1968 to announce the formation of Apple Corps, John was asked to name his favorite American artist. He replied, "Nilsson". Paul was then asked to name his favorite American group. He replied, "Nilsson".

Aided by the Beatles' praise, "You Can't Do That" became a minor hit in the US, and a top 10 hit in Canada.

When RCA had asked if there was anything special he wanted as a signing premium, Nilsson asked for his own office at RCA, being used to working out of one. In the weeks after the Apple press conference, Nilsson's office phone began ringing constantly, with offers and requests for interviews and inquiries about his performing schedule. Nilsson usually answered the calls himself, surprising the callers, and answered questions candidly. (He recalled years later the flow of a typical conversation: "When did you play last?" "I didn't." "Where have you played before?" "I haven't." "When will you be playing next?" "I don't.") Nilsson acquired a manager, who steered him into a handful of TV guest appearances, and a brief run of stage performances in Europe set up by RCA. He disliked the experiences he had, though, and decided to stick to the recording studio. He later admitted this was a huge mistake on his part.

Once John Lennon called and praised Pandemonium Shadow Show, which he had listened to in a 36-hour marathon. Paul McCartney called later, also expressing his admiration. Nilsson was disappointed that he didn't receive a call from Ringo Starr or George Harrison, but shortly after a message came, inviting him to London to meet the Beatles, watch them at work, and possibly sign with Apple Corps.

Pandemonium Shadow Show was followed in 1968 by Aerial Ballet, an album that included Nilsson's rendition of Fred Neil's song "Everybody's Talkin'". A minor US hit at the time of release (and a top 40 hit in Canada), the song would become extremely popular a year later when it was featured in the film Midnight Cowboy, and it would earn Nilsson his first Grammy Award. The song would also become Nilsson's first US top 10 hit, reaching #6, and his first Canadian #1.

Aerial Ballet also contained Nilsson's version of his own composition, One, which was later taken to the top 5 of the US charts by Three Dog Night. Nilsson was also commissioned at this time to write and perform the theme song for the ABC television series The Courtship of Eddie's Father. The result, "Best Friend", was very popular, but Nilsson never released the song on record; an alternate version, "Girlfriend", did appear on the 1995 Personal Best anthology. Late in 1968, The Monkees' notorious experimental film Head premiered, featuring a memorable song-and-dance sequence with Davy Jones and Toni Basil performing Nilsson's composition "Daddy's Song." (This is followed by Frank Zappa's cameo as "The Critic," who dismisses the 1920s-style tune as "pretty white.")

With the success of Nilsson's RCA recordings, Tower re-issued or re-packaged many of their early Nilsson recordings in various formats. All of these re-issues failed to chart, including a 1969 single "Good Times".
Chart success

Nilsson's next album, Harry (1969), was his first to hit the charts, and also provided a Top 40 single with "I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City" (written as a contender for the theme to Midnight Cowboy), but used instead in the Sophia Loren movie La Mortadella (1971) (USA title: Lady Liberty). While the album still presented Nilsson as primarily a songwriter, his astute choice of cover material included, this time, a song by a then-little-known composer named Randy Newman, "Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear." Nilsson was so impressed with Newman's talent that he devoted his entire next album to Newman compositions, with Newman himself playing piano behind Nilsson's multi-tracked vocals. The result, Nilsson Sings Newman (1970), was commercially disappointing but was named Record of the Year by Stereo Review magazine and provided momentum to Newman's career.

Nilsson's next project was an animated film, The Point!, created with animation director Fred Wolf, and broadcast on ABC television on February 2, 1971, as an "ABC Movie of the Week." Nilsson's album of songs from The Point! was well received, and it spawned a hit single, "Me and My Arrow."

Later that year, Nilsson went to England with producer Richard Perry to record what became the most successful album of his career. Nilsson Schmilsson yielded three very stylistically different hit singles. The first was a cover of Badfinger's song "Without You" (by Pete Ham and Tom Evans), featuring a highly emotional arrangement and soaring vocals to match, a performance that was rewarded with Nilsson's second Grammy Award.

The second single was "Coconut", a novelty calypso number featuring three characters (the narrator, the sister, and the doctor) all sung in different voices by Nilsson. The song is best remembered for its chorus lyric, "Put de lime in de coconut, and drink 'em both up." Also notable is that the entire song is played using one chord, C 7th. Coconut was featured in Episode 81 (October 25, 1973) of the Flip Wilson Show. The song has since been featured in many other films and commercials. It was also used in a comedy skit on The Muppet Show, which featured Kermit the Frog in a hospital bed. The song was also used during the end credits of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs.

The third single, "Jump into the Fire", was raucous, screaming rock and roll, including a drum solo by Derek and the Dominos' Jim Gordon and a bass detuning by Herbie Flowers. The song was famously used during the "Sunday, May 11, 1980", sequence in the film Goodfellas.

Nilsson followed quickly with Son of Schmilsson (1972), released while its predecessor was still in the charts. Besides the problem of competing with himself, Nilsson's decision to give free rein to his bawdiness and bluntness on this release alienated some of his earlier, more conservative fan base. With lyrics like "I sang my balls off for you, baby", "Roll the world over / And give her a kiss and a feel", and the notorious "You're breaking my heart / You're tearing it apart / So fudge you", Nilsson had traveled far afield from his earlier work. Still, the album did well, and the single "Spaceman" was a Top 40 hit. However, the follow-up single "Remember (Christmas)" stalled at #53. A third single, the tongue-in-cheek C&W send up "Joy", was issued on RCA's country imprint Green and credited to Buck Earle, but it failed to chart.
The maverick

This disregard for commercialism in favor of artistic satisfaction showed itself in Nilsson's next release, A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night (1973). Performing a selection of pop standards by the likes of Irving Berlin, Kalmar and Ruby, Nilsson sang in front of an orchestra arranged and conducted by veteran Gordon Jenkins in sessions produced by Derek Taylor. While the sessions showcased a talented singer in one of his best performances, this musical endeavor did not do particularly well commercially. The session was filmed, and was broadcast as a television special by the BBC in the UK.

1973 found Nilsson back in California, and when John Lennon moved there during his separation from Yoko Ono, the two musicians rekindled their earlier friendship. Lennon was intent upon producing Nilsson's next album, much to Nilsson's delight. However, their time together in California became known much more for heavy drinking and drug use than it did for musical collaboration. In a widely publicized incident, they were ejected from the Troubadour nightclub in West Hollywood for drunken heckling of the Smothers Brothers. Both men also caused property damage during binges, with Lennon trashing a bedroom in Lou Adler's house, and Nilsson throwing a bottle through a thirty-foot hotel window.

To make matters worse, Nilsson ruptured a vocal cord during the sessions for this album, but he hid the injury due to fear that Lennon would call a halt to the production. The resulting album was Pussy Cats. In an effort to clean up, Lennon, Nilsson and Ringo Starr first rented a house together, then Lennon and Nilsson left for New York.

After the relative failure of his latest two albums, RCA Records considered dropping Nilsson's contract. In a show of friendship, Lennon accompanied Nilsson to negotiations, and both intimated to RCA that Lennon and Starr might want to sign with them, once their Apple Records contracts with EMI expired in 1975, but wouldn't be interested if Nilsson were no longer with the label. RCA took the hint and re-signed Nilsson (adding a bonus clause, to apply to each new album completed), but neither Lennon nor Starr switched to RCA.

Nilsson's voice had mostly recovered by his next release, Duit on Mon Dei (1975), but neither it nor its follow-ups, Sandman and …That's the Way It Is (both 1976) met with chart success. Finally, Nilsson recorded what he later considered to be his favorite album, 1977's Knnillssonn. With his voice strong again, and his songs exploring musical territory reminiscent of Harry or The Point!, Nilsson had every right to expect Knnillssonn to be a comeback album. RCA Victor seemed to agree, and promised Nilsson a substantial marketing campaign for the album. However, the death of Elvis Presley caused RCA Victor to ignore everything except meeting demand for Presley's back catalog, and the promised marketing push never happened. This, combined with RCA Victor releasing a Nilsson Greatest Hits collection without consulting him, prompted Nilsson to leave the label.
London flat

Nilsson's 1970s London flat in the building at 12 Curzon Street on the edge of Mayfair, was a two-bedroom apartment decorated by the design company that ex-Beatle Ringo Starr and Robin Cruikshank owned at that time. Nilsson cumulatively spent several years at the flat, which was located near Apple Records, the Playboy Club, Tramps disco and the homes of friends and business associates. Nilsson's work and interests took him to the U.S. for extended periods, and while he was away he lent his place to numerous musician friends. During one of his absences, ex-Mamas and Papas singer Cass Elliot and a few members of her tour group stayed at the flat while she performed solo at the London Palladium, headlining with her Torch Songs and "Don't Call Me Mama Anymore." Following a strenuous performance with encores, Elliot returned to the flat to relax and sleep and was discovered in one of the bedrooms, dead of heart failure, on July 29, 1974.

On September 7, 1978, The Who's drummer Keith Moon returned to the same room in the flat after a night out, and died from an overdose of chlormethiazole, a prescribed anti-alcohol drug. Nilsson, distraught over another friend's death in his flat, and having little need for the property, sold it to Moon's bandmate Pete Townshend and consolidated his life in Los Angeles.
Winding down

Nilsson's musical work after leaving RCA Victor was sporadic. He wrote a musical, Zapata, with Perry Botkin, Jr., libretto by Allan Katz, which was produced and directed by longtime friend Bert Convy. The show was mounted at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut, but never had another production. He wrote all the songs for Robert Altman's movie-musical Popeye (1980), the score of which met with unfavorable reviews. Nilsson's Popeye compositions included several songs that were representative of Nilsson's acclaimed "Point" era, such as "Everything is Food" and "Sweethaven". He recorded one more album, Flash Harry co-produced by Bruce Robb (producer) and Steve Cropper, which was released in the UK but not in the USA. However, Nilsson increasingly began referring to himself as a "retired musician".

Nilsson was profoundly affected by the murder of his close friend John Lennon on December 8, 1980. He joined the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and overcame his preference for privacy to make appearances for gun control fundraising.

After a long hiatus from the studio, Nilsson started recording sporadically once again in the mid to late 1980s. Most of these recordings were commissioned songs for movies or television shows. One notable exception was his work on a Yoko Ono Lennon tribute album, "Every Man Has A Woman" (1984) (Polydor); another was a cover of "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" recorded for Hal Willner's 1988 tribute album Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films. Nilsson donated his performance royalties from the song to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

In 1991, the Disney CD For Our Children, a compilation of children's music performed by celebrities to benefit the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, included Nilsson's original composition Blanket for a Sail, recorded at the Shandaliza Recording Studio in Los Angeles.

In 1985 Nilsson set up a production company, Hawkeye, to oversee the various film, TV and multimedia projects he was involved in. He appointed his friend, satirist and screenwriter Terry Southern as one of the principals, and they collaborated on a number of screenplays including Obits (a Citizen Kane style story about a journalist investigating an obituary notice) and The Telephone, a one-hander about an unhinged unemployed actor.

The Telephone was virtually the only Hawkeye project that made it to the screen. It had been written with Robin Williams in mind but he turned it down; comedian-actress Whoopi Goldberg then signed on, with Southern's friend Rip Torn directing, but the project was troubled. Torn battled with Goldberg, who interfered in the production and constantly digressed from the script during shooting, and Torn was forced to plead with her to perform takes that stuck to the screenplay. Torn, Southern and Nilsson put together their own version of the film, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival in early 1988, but it was overtaken by the "official" version from the studio, and this version premiered to poor reviews in late January 1988. The project reportedly had some later success when adapted as a theatre piece in Germany.

In 1990 Hawkeye collapsed and Nilsson found himself in a dire financial situation after it was discovered that his financial adviser Cindy Sims had betrayed his trust and embezzled all the funds he had earned as a recording artist. The Nilssons were left with $300 in the bank and a mountain of debt, while Sims served less than two years for her crimes and was released from prison in 1994 without making restitution.

After the death of John Lennon, he began to appear at Beatlefest conventions to raise money for gun control and he would get on stage with the Beatlefest house band "Liverpool" to either sing some of his own songs or "Give Peace a Chance." Nilsson made his last concert appearance September 1, 1992, when he joined Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band on stage at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada to sing "Without You" with Todd Rundgren handling the high notes. Afterwards, an emotional Ringo Starr embraced Nilsson on stage.

Nilsson's health had deteriorated, and he suffered a massive heart attack in 1993. After surviving that, he began pressing his old label, RCA, to release a boxed-set retrospective of his career, and resumed recording, attempting to complete one final album. He finished the vocal tracks for the album on January 15, 1994, with producer Mark Hudson who still holds the tapes of that session, and then died that night of heart failure in Agoura Hills, California. The following year, the 2-CD anthology he worked on with RCA, Personal Best, was released.
Legacy

Nilsson was survived by his third wife, Una (née O'Keeffe), and their six children, and one son from an earlier marriage. His wife discussed both John Lennon and Nilsson in the film The U.S. vs. John Lennon, which opened September 15 2006. Nilsson himself is the subject of a 2006 documentary, Who is Harry Nilsson? (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him) produced by David Leaf and John Schienfeld. The film was screened in 2006 at the Seattle International Film Festival and the Santa Barbara Film Festival. In August 2006, the film received its Los Angeles premiere when it was screened at the 7th Annual Mods & Rockers Film Festival followed by a panel discussion about Nilsson featuring the filmmakers and his good friends producer Richard Perry and attorney/executive producer Lee Blackman.

In 2006, Harry Nilsson's first grandchild, a boy, was born in California.

In May 2005 WPS1 art radio played tribute to Nilsson with curator Sherrie Fell and brother and sister hosts Bernadette and Harry O'Reilly.

As of November 2008, Nilsson's final album, tentatively titled Papa's Got a Brown New Robe (produced by Mark Hudson) has not been released, though several demos from the album are available on promotional CDs and online.
Discography
Albums

    * Hollywood Dreamer (Recorded In 1962)
    * Spotlight on Nilsson (1966) (Tower Records)
    * Pandemonium Shadow Show (1967) (RCA Records)
    * Aerial Ballet (1968) (RCA Records)
    * Skidoo (soundtrack) (1968) (RCA Records)
    * Harry (1969) (RCA Records), US #120
    * Rock n Roll Nilsson (1969) (Pickwick Records)- reissue of Spotlight on Nilsson
    * Nilsson Sings Newman (1970)
    * The Point! (1971) (RCA Records), US #25
    * Aerial Pandemonium Ballet (1971), US #149
    * Nilsson Schmilsson (1971), US #3
    * Son of Schmilsson (1972) (RCA Records), US #12
    * A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night (1973) (RCA Records), US #46
    * Son of Dracula (1974) (RCA Records), US #106
    * Pussy Cats (1974) (RCA Records), US #60
    * A Toot and a Snore in '74 (1974) (John Lennon & Paul McCartney also featuring Stevie Wonder and Harry Nilsson) - a 30 minute studio bootleg
    * Duit on Mon Dei (1975) (RCA Records), US #141
    * Sandman (1976) (RCA Records), US #111
    * …That's the Way It Is (1976) (RCA Records), US #158
    * Knnillssonn (1977) (RCA Records), US #108
    * Flash Harry (1980) (not released in USA) (Mercury Records)
    * Early Tymes (1982) (CBS Records)
    * A touch more Schmilsson in the night (1988) (BMG Records)
    * Harry Nilsson - All Time Greatest Hits(1989), US #140
    * Personal Best: The Harry Nilsson Anthology (1995) (RCA Records)
    * Nilsson: Greatest Hits (2002) (RCA Records)
    * Everybody's Talkin': The Very Best of Harry Nilsson (2006) (Legacy Recordings)

Compilations

    * Performed "Silver Horse", "Dream Love" & "Loneliness" on 'Every Man Has a Woman' (Songs of Yoko Ono), 1984 (one of various artists).
    * Performed Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah on Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films, 1988 (one of various artists).

Singles

As Bo Pete:

    * 1964: Baa Baa Blacksheep
    * 1964: Do You Wanna (Have Some Fun)

As Johnny Niles:

    * 1964: Donna I Understand

As Nilsson:

    * 1964: Sixteen Tons (Tower 103)
    * 1965: You Can't Take Your Love Away From Me (Tower 136)
    * 1965: The Path That Leads To Trouble (Tower 165)
    * 1966: She's Yours (Tower 244)
    * 1967: Without Her
    * 1967: You Can't Do That (US #122, Canada #10)
    * 1967: River Deep - Mountain High (Canadian release only)
    * 1967: Good Old Desk (European release only)
    * 1968: One
    * 1968: Everybody's Talkin' (initial release -- US #113, Canada #35)
    * 1969: I Will Take You There
    * 1969: Everybody's Talkin' (re-release -- US #6, US A/C #2, Canada #1, Canada A/C #1, UK #23)
    * 1969: Good Times
    * 1969: Maybe
    * 1969: I Guess The Lord Must Be In New York City (US #34, US A/C #7, Canada #25, Canada A/C #3)
    * 1970: Waiting (US A/C #40, Canada A/C #31)
    * 1970: Caroline
    * 1970: Down To The Valley (Canada #80)
    * 1971: Me And My Arrow (US #34, US A/C #3, Canada #23, Canada A/C #17)
    * 1971: Without You (US #1, US A/C #1, Canada #1, Canada A/C #24, UK #1)
    * 1972: Jump Into The Fire (US #27, Canada #16)
    * 1972: Coconut (US #8, Canada #5, UK #42)
    * 1972: Spaceman (US #23, Canada #12)
    * 1972: Remember (Christmas) (US #53, US A/C #21, Canada #57, Canada A/C #14)
    * 1973: As Time Goes By (US #86, US A/C #35, Canada A/C #87)
    * 1974: Daybreak (US #39, US A/C #37, Canada #15, Canada A/C #17)
    * 1974: Many Rivers To Cross (US #109, Canada #82, Canada A/C #43)
    * 1974: Subterranean Homesick Blues
    * 1974: Save The Last Dance For Me (UK release only)
    * 1974: Don't Forget Me
    * 1975: A Love Like Yours (Nilsson & Cher)
    * 1975: Kojak Columbo
    * 1976: Something True (UK release only)
    * 1976: Sail Away
    * 1976: Just One Look/Baby I'm Yours (medley), duet with former Supreme Lynda Laurence (UK release only)
    * 1977: Who Done It?
    * 1977: All I Think About Is You (UK #43)
    * 1977: Lean On Me (UK release only)
    * 1978: Ain't It Kinda Wonderful
    * 1980: I Don't Need You (UK release only)
    * 1980: Rain (UK release only)
    * 1982: With A Bullet (only available to attendees of Beatlefest '82)
    * 1984: Loneliness

as Buck Earle:

    * 1972: Joy
http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n426/ladygrinningsoul88/nilsson2006125-01_1138188591.jpg
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d66/wundrboi/Harry_Nilsson_publicity_photo.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/bryanclopton/Harry1-1.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l32/Fred_Fred_Wednesday/The%20Monkees/nilssonandmick.jpg



I LOVE Harry Nilsson. One of my favs of his is the Puppy Song.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIg8CTRu7e8



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/15/10 at 10:27 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I04uD371-fI

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/15/10 at 10:27 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I04uD371-fI
My favourite Harry Nillsoon track.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/15/10 at 12:00 pm

Thanks for sharing Cat & Phil :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/15/10 at 12:04 pm

Harry was a very talented man.
"Without you" is a classic.

I also like "The most beautiful world in the world", 1941, Living without you, Remember (Christmas), girlfriend, good old desk...Everybodys' talkin'...so many nice songs.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/15/10 at 12:28 pm


Harry was a very talented man.
"Without you" is a classic.

I also like "The most beautiful world in the world", 1941, Living without you, Remember (Christmas), girlfriend, good old desk...Everybodys' talkin'...so many nice songs.



There is also the song "You're Breaking My Heart."  ;) :D ;D ;D


Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/15/10 at 2:46 pm

I also like Neapolitan.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/15/10 at 5:10 pm



There is also the song "You're Breaking My Heart."  ;) :D ;D ;D


Cat

That's a good song. :D .except you are pretty shocked when you hear it for the fist time.
"You're breaking my heart, You're tearing it apart, so..."

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/15/10 at 11:54 pm


The person of the day...Harry Nilsson
Harry Edward Nilsson III (June 15, 1941 — January 15, 1994) was an American songwriter, singer, pianist, and guitarist who achieved the height of his fame during the 1960s and 1970s. For most of his recordings, he did not use his first name, and was credited only as Nilsson. Among Nilsson's best-known recordings are "Without You", "Jump into the Fire", "Everybody's Talkin'" and "Coconut".

Nilsson's personal and musical style is best described as witty and idiosyncratic, yet always he was a consummate pop craftsman much in demand especially in the late 1960s. He garnered many critical and commercial successes, including two Grammy Awards and two Top 10 singles, despite his tendency to switch styles from one album to the next and his generally iconoclastic decision-making.
Nilsson signed with RCA Victor in 1966 and released an album the following year, Pandemonium Shadow Show, which was a critical (if not commercial) success. Music industry insiders were impressed both with the songwriting and with Nilsson's pure-toned, multi-octave vocals. One such insider was The Beatles press officer Derek Taylor, who bought an entire box of copies of the album to share this new sound with others. With a major-label release, and continued songwriting success (most notably with The Monkees, who had a hit with Nilsson's "Cuddly Toy," after meeting him through their producer Chip Douglas), Nilsson finally felt secure enough in the music business to quit his job with the bank. Monkees member Micky Dolenz maintained a close friendship until Nilsson's death in 1994.

Some of the albums from Derek Taylor's box eventually ended up with the Beatles themselves, who quickly became Nilsson fans. This may have been helped by the track "You Can't Do That", in which Nilsson covered one Beatles song but added 22 others in the multi-tracked background vocals. When John Lennon and Paul McCartney held a press conference in 1968 to announce the formation of Apple Corps, John was asked to name his favorite American artist. He replied, "Nilsson". Paul was then asked to name his favorite American group. He replied, "Nilsson".

Aided by the Beatles' praise, "You Can't Do That" became a minor hit in the US, and a top 10 hit in Canada.

When RCA had asked if there was anything special he wanted as a signing premium, Nilsson asked for his own office at RCA, being used to working out of one. In the weeks after the Apple press conference, Nilsson's office phone began ringing constantly, with offers and requests for interviews and inquiries about his performing schedule. Nilsson usually answered the calls himself, surprising the callers, and answered questions candidly. (He recalled years later the flow of a typical conversation: "When did you play last?" "I didn't." "Where have you played before?" "I haven't." "When will you be playing next?" "I don't.") Nilsson acquired a manager, who steered him into a handful of TV guest appearances, and a brief run of stage performances in Europe set up by RCA. He disliked the experiences he had, though, and decided to stick to the recording studio. He later admitted this was a huge mistake on his part.

Once John Lennon called and praised Pandemonium Shadow Show, which he had listened to in a 36-hour marathon. Paul McCartney called later, also expressing his admiration. Nilsson was disappointed that he didn't receive a call from Ringo Starr or George Harrison, but shortly after a message came, inviting him to London to meet the Beatles, watch them at work, and possibly sign with Apple Corps.

Pandemonium Shadow Show was followed in 1968 by Aerial Ballet, an album that included Nilsson's rendition of Fred Neil's song "Everybody's Talkin'". A minor US hit at the time of release (and a top 40 hit in Canada), the song would become extremely popular a year later when it was featured in the film Midnight Cowboy, and it would earn Nilsson his first Grammy Award. The song would also become Nilsson's first US top 10 hit, reaching #6, and his first Canadian #1.

Aerial Ballet also contained Nilsson's version of his own composition, One, which was later taken to the top 5 of the US charts by Three Dog Night. Nilsson was also commissioned at this time to write and perform the theme song for the ABC television series The Courtship of Eddie's Father. The result, "Best Friend", was very popular, but Nilsson never released the song on record; an alternate version, "Girlfriend", did appear on the 1995 Personal Best anthology. Late in 1968, The Monkees' notorious experimental film Head premiered, featuring a memorable song-and-dance sequence with Davy Jones and Toni Basil performing Nilsson's composition "Daddy's Song." (This is followed by Frank Zappa's cameo as "The Critic," who dismisses the 1920s-style tune as "pretty white.")

With the success of Nilsson's RCA recordings, Tower re-issued or re-packaged many of their early Nilsson recordings in various formats. All of these re-issues failed to chart, including a 1969 single "Good Times".
Chart success

Nilsson's next album, Harry (1969), was his first to hit the charts, and also provided a Top 40 single with "I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City" (written as a contender for the theme to Midnight Cowboy), but used instead in the Sophia Loren movie La Mortadella (1971) (USA title: Lady Liberty). While the album still presented Nilsson as primarily a songwriter, his astute choice of cover material included, this time, a song by a then-little-known composer named Randy Newman, "Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear." Nilsson was so impressed with Newman's talent that he devoted his entire next album to Newman compositions, with Newman himself playing piano behind Nilsson's multi-tracked vocals. The result, Nilsson Sings Newman (1970), was commercially disappointing but was named Record of the Year by Stereo Review magazine and provided momentum to Newman's career.

Nilsson's next project was an animated film, The Point!, created with animation director Fred Wolf, and broadcast on ABC television on February 2, 1971, as an "ABC Movie of the Week." Nilsson's album of songs from The Point! was well received, and it spawned a hit single, "Me and My Arrow."

Later that year, Nilsson went to England with producer Richard Perry to record what became the most successful album of his career. Nilsson Schmilsson yielded three very stylistically different hit singles. The first was a cover of Badfinger's song "Without You" (by Pete Ham and Tom Evans), featuring a highly emotional arrangement and soaring vocals to match, a performance that was rewarded with Nilsson's second Grammy Award.

The second single was "Coconut", a novelty calypso number featuring three characters (the narrator, the sister, and the doctor) all sung in different voices by Nilsson. The song is best remembered for its chorus lyric, "Put de lime in de coconut, and drink 'em both up." Also notable is that the entire song is played using one chord, C 7th. Coconut was featured in Episode 81 (October 25, 1973) of the Flip Wilson Show. The song has since been featured in many other films and commercials. It was also used in a comedy skit on The Muppet Show, which featured Kermit the Frog in a hospital bed. The song was also used during the end credits of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs.

The third single, "Jump into the Fire", was raucous, screaming rock and roll, including a drum solo by Derek and the Dominos' Jim Gordon and a bass detuning by Herbie Flowers. The song was famously used during the "Sunday, May 11, 1980", sequence in the film Goodfellas.

Nilsson followed quickly with Son of Schmilsson (1972), released while its predecessor was still in the charts. Besides the problem of competing with himself, Nilsson's decision to give free rein to his bawdiness and bluntness on this release alienated some of his earlier, more conservative fan base. With lyrics like "I sang my balls off for you, baby", "Roll the world over / And give her a kiss and a feel", and the notorious "You're breaking my heart / You're tearing it apart / So fudge you", Nilsson had traveled far afield from his earlier work. Still, the album did well, and the single "Spaceman" was a Top 40 hit. However, the follow-up single "Remember (Christmas)" stalled at #53. A third single, the tongue-in-cheek C&W send up "Joy", was issued on RCA's country imprint Green and credited to Buck Earle, but it failed to chart.
The maverick

This disregard for commercialism in favor of artistic satisfaction showed itself in Nilsson's next release, A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night (1973). Performing a selection of pop standards by the likes of Irving Berlin, Kalmar and Ruby, Nilsson sang in front of an orchestra arranged and conducted by veteran Gordon Jenkins in sessions produced by Derek Taylor. While the sessions showcased a talented singer in one of his best performances, this musical endeavor did not do particularly well commercially. The session was filmed, and was broadcast as a television special by the BBC in the UK.

1973 found Nilsson back in California, and when John Lennon moved there during his separation from Yoko Ono, the two musicians rekindled their earlier friendship. Lennon was intent upon producing Nilsson's next album, much to Nilsson's delight. However, their time together in California became known much more for heavy drinking and drug use than it did for musical collaboration. In a widely publicized incident, they were ejected from the Troubadour nightclub in West Hollywood for drunken heckling of the Smothers Brothers. Both men also caused property damage during binges, with Lennon trashing a bedroom in Lou Adler's house, and Nilsson throwing a bottle through a thirty-foot hotel window.

To make matters worse, Nilsson ruptured a vocal cord during the sessions for this album, but he hid the injury due to fear that Lennon would call a halt to the production. The resulting album was Pussy Cats. In an effort to clean up, Lennon, Nilsson and Ringo Starr first rented a house together, then Lennon and Nilsson left for New York.

After the relative failure of his latest two albums, RCA Records considered dropping Nilsson's contract. In a show of friendship, Lennon accompanied Nilsson to negotiations, and both intimated to RCA that Lennon and Starr might want to sign with them, once their Apple Records contracts with EMI expired in 1975, but wouldn't be interested if Nilsson were no longer with the label. RCA took the hint and re-signed Nilsson (adding a bonus clause, to apply to each new album completed), but neither Lennon nor Starr switched to RCA.

Nilsson's voice had mostly recovered by his next release, Duit on Mon Dei (1975), but neither it nor its follow-ups, Sandman and …That's the Way It Is (both 1976) met with chart success. Finally, Nilsson recorded what he later considered to be his favorite album, 1977's Knnillssonn. With his voice strong again, and his songs exploring musical territory reminiscent of Harry or The Point!, Nilsson had every right to expect Knnillssonn to be a comeback album. RCA Victor seemed to agree, and promised Nilsson a substantial marketing campaign for the album. However, the death of Elvis Presley caused RCA Victor to ignore everything except meeting demand for Presley's back catalog, and the promised marketing push never happened. This, combined with RCA Victor releasing a Nilsson Greatest Hits collection without consulting him, prompted Nilsson to leave the label.
London flat

Nilsson's 1970s London flat in the building at 12 Curzon Street on the edge of Mayfair, was a two-bedroom apartment decorated by the design company that ex-Beatle Ringo Starr and Robin Cruikshank owned at that time. Nilsson cumulatively spent several years at the flat, which was located near Apple Records, the Playboy Club, Tramps disco and the homes of friends and business associates. Nilsson's work and interests took him to the U.S. for extended periods, and while he was away he lent his place to numerous musician friends. During one of his absences, ex-Mamas and Papas singer Cass Elliot and a few members of her tour group stayed at the flat while she performed solo at the London Palladium, headlining with her Torch Songs and "Don't Call Me Mama Anymore." Following a strenuous performance with encores, Elliot returned to the flat to relax and sleep and was discovered in one of the bedrooms, dead of heart failure, on July 29, 1974.

On September 7, 1978, The Who's drummer Keith Moon returned to the same room in the flat after a night out, and died from an overdose of chlormethiazole, a prescribed anti-alcohol drug. Nilsson, distraught over another friend's death in his flat, and having little need for the property, sold it to Moon's bandmate Pete Townshend and consolidated his life in Los Angeles.
Winding down

Nilsson's musical work after leaving RCA Victor was sporadic. He wrote a musical, Zapata, with Perry Botkin, Jr., libretto by Allan Katz, which was produced and directed by longtime friend Bert Convy. The show was mounted at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut, but never had another production. He wrote all the songs for Robert Altman's movie-musical Popeye (1980), the score of which met with unfavorable reviews. Nilsson's Popeye compositions included several songs that were representative of Nilsson's acclaimed "Point" era, such as "Everything is Food" and "Sweethaven". He recorded one more album, Flash Harry co-produced by Bruce Robb (producer) and Steve Cropper, which was released in the UK but not in the USA. However, Nilsson increasingly began referring to himself as a "retired musician".

Nilsson was profoundly affected by the murder of his close friend John Lennon on December 8, 1980. He joined the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and overcame his preference for privacy to make appearances for gun control fundraising.

After a long hiatus from the studio, Nilsson started recording sporadically once again in the mid to late 1980s. Most of these recordings were commissioned songs for movies or television shows. One notable exception was his work on a Yoko Ono Lennon tribute album, "Every Man Has A Woman" (1984) (Polydor); another was a cover of "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" recorded for Hal Willner's 1988 tribute album Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films. Nilsson donated his performance royalties from the song to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

In 1991, the Disney CD For Our Children, a compilation of children's music performed by celebrities to benefit the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, included Nilsson's original composition Blanket for a Sail, recorded at the Shandaliza Recording Studio in Los Angeles.

In 1985 Nilsson set up a production company, Hawkeye, to oversee the various film, TV and multimedia projects he was involved in. He appointed his friend, satirist and screenwriter Terry Southern as one of the principals, and they collaborated on a number of screenplays including Obits (a Citizen Kane style story about a journalist investigating an obituary notice) and The Telephone, a one-hander about an unhinged unemployed actor.

The Telephone was virtually the only Hawkeye project that made it to the screen. It had been written with Robin Williams in mind but he turned it down; comedian-actress Whoopi Goldberg then signed on, with Southern's friend Rip Torn directing, but the project was troubled. Torn battled with Goldberg, who interfered in the production and constantly digressed from the script during shooting, and Torn was forced to plead with her to perform takes that stuck to the screenplay. Torn, Southern and Nilsson put together their own version of the film, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival in early 1988, but it was overtaken by the "official" version from the studio, and this version premiered to poor reviews in late January 1988. The project reportedly had some later success when adapted as a theatre piece in Germany.

In 1990 Hawkeye collapsed and Nilsson found himself in a dire financial situation after it was discovered that his financial adviser Cindy Sims had betrayed his trust and embezzled all the funds he had earned as a recording artist. The Nilssons were left with $300 in the bank and a mountain of debt, while Sims served less than two years for her crimes and was released from prison in 1994 without making restitution.

After the death of John Lennon, he began to appear at Beatlefest conventions to raise money for gun control and he would get on stage with the Beatlefest house band "Liverpool" to either sing some of his own songs or "Give Peace a Chance." Nilsson made his last concert appearance September 1, 1992, when he joined Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band on stage at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada to sing "Without You" with Todd Rundgren handling the high notes. Afterwards, an emotional Ringo Starr embraced Nilsson on stage.

Nilsson's health had deteriorated, and he suffered a massive heart attack in 1993. After surviving that, he began pressing his old label, RCA, to release a boxed-set retrospective of his career, and resumed recording, attempting to complete one final album. He finished the vocal tracks for the album on January 15, 1994, with producer Mark Hudson who still holds the tapes of that session, and then died that night of heart failure in Agoura Hills, California. The following year, the 2-CD anthology he worked on with RCA, Personal Best, was released.
Legacy

Nilsson was survived by his third wife, Una (née O'Keeffe), and their six children, and one son from an earlier marriage. His wife discussed both John Lennon and Nilsson in the film The U.S. vs. John Lennon, which opened September 15 2006. Nilsson himself is the subject of a 2006 documentary, Who is Harry Nilsson? (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him) produced by David Leaf and John Schienfeld. The film was screened in 2006 at the Seattle International Film Festival and the Santa Barbara Film Festival. In August 2006, the film received its Los Angeles premiere when it was screened at the 7th Annual Mods & Rockers Film Festival followed by a panel discussion about Nilsson featuring the filmmakers and his good friends producer Richard Perry and attorney/executive producer Lee Blackman.

In 2006, Harry Nilsson's first grandchild, a boy, was born in California.

In May 2005 WPS1 art radio played tribute to Nilsson with curator Sherrie Fell and brother and sister hosts Bernadette and Harry O'Reilly.

As of November 2008, Nilsson's final album, tentatively titled Papa's Got a Brown New Robe (produced by Mark Hudson) has not been released, though several demos from the album are available on promotional CDs and online.
Discography
Albums

    * Hollywood Dreamer (Recorded In 1962)
    * Spotlight on Nilsson (1966) (Tower Records)
    * Pandemonium Shadow Show (1967) (RCA Records)
    * Aerial Ballet (1968) (RCA Records)
    * Skidoo (soundtrack) (1968) (RCA Records)
    * Harry (1969) (RCA Records), US #120
    * Rock n Roll Nilsson (1969) (Pickwick Records)- reissue of Spotlight on Nilsson
    * Nilsson Sings Newman (1970)
    * The Point! (1971) (RCA Records), US #25
    * Aerial Pandemonium Ballet (1971), US #149
    * Nilsson Schmilsson (1971), US #3
    * Son of Schmilsson (1972) (RCA Records), US #12
    * A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night (1973) (RCA Records), US #46
    * Son of Dracula (1974) (RCA Records), US #106
    * Pussy Cats (1974) (RCA Records), US #60
    * A Toot and a Snore in '74 (1974) (John Lennon & Paul McCartney also featuring Stevie Wonder and Harry Nilsson) - a 30 minute studio bootleg
    * Duit on Mon Dei (1975) (RCA Records), US #141
    * Sandman (1976) (RCA Records), US #111
    * …That's the Way It Is (1976) (RCA Records), US #158
    * Knnillssonn (1977) (RCA Records), US #108
    * Flash Harry (1980) (not released in USA) (Mercury Records)
    * Early Tymes (1982) (CBS Records)
    * A touch more Schmilsson in the night (1988) (BMG Records)
    * Harry Nilsson - All Time Greatest Hits(1989), US #140
    * Personal Best: The Harry Nilsson Anthology (1995) (RCA Records)
    * Nilsson: Greatest Hits (2002) (RCA Records)
    * Everybody's Talkin': The Very Best of Harry Nilsson (2006) (Legacy Recordings)

Compilations

    * Performed "Silver Horse", "Dream Love" & "Loneliness" on 'Every Man Has a Woman' (Songs of Yoko Ono), 1984 (one of various artists).
    * Performed Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah on Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films, 1988 (one of various artists).

Singles

As Bo Pete:

    * 1964: Baa Baa Blacksheep
    * 1964: Do You Wanna (Have Some Fun)

As Johnny Niles:

    * 1964: Donna I Understand

As Nilsson:

    * 1964: Sixteen Tons (Tower 103)
    * 1965: You Can't Take Your Love Away From Me (Tower 136)
    * 1965: The Path That Leads To Trouble (Tower 165)
    * 1966: She's Yours (Tower 244)
    * 1967: Without Her
    * 1967: You Can't Do That (US #122, Canada #10)
    * 1967: River Deep - Mountain High (Canadian release only)
    * 1967: Good Old Desk (European release only)
    * 1968: One
    * 1968: Everybody's Talkin' (initial release -- US #113, Canada #35)
    * 1969: I Will Take You There
    * 1969: Everybody's Talkin' (re-release -- US #6, US A/C #2, Canada #1, Canada A/C #1, UK #23)
    * 1969: Good Times
    * 1969: Maybe
    * 1969: I Guess The Lord Must Be In New York City (US #34, US A/C #7, Canada #25, Canada A/C #3)
    * 1970: Waiting (US A/C #40, Canada A/C #31)
    * 1970: Caroline
    * 1970: Down To The Valley (Canada #80)
    * 1971: Me And My Arrow (US #34, US A/C #3, Canada #23, Canada A/C #17)
    * 1971: Without You (US #1, US A/C #1, Canada #1, Canada A/C #24, UK #1)
    * 1972: Jump Into The Fire (US #27, Canada #16)
    * 1972: Coconut (US #8, Canada #5, UK #42)
    * 1972: Spaceman (US #23, Canada #12)
    * 1972: Remember (Christmas) (US #53, US A/C #21, Canada #57, Canada A/C #14)
    * 1973: As Time Goes By (US #86, US A/C #35, Canada A/C #87)
    * 1974: Daybreak (US #39, US A/C #37, Canada #15, Canada A/C #17)
    * 1974: Many Rivers To Cross (US #109, Canada #82, Canada A/C #43)
    * 1974: Subterranean Homesick Blues
    * 1974: Save The Last Dance For Me (UK release only)
    * 1974: Don't Forget Me
    * 1975: A Love Like Yours (Nilsson & Cher)
    * 1975: Kojak Columbo
    * 1976: Something True (UK release only)
    * 1976: Sail Away
    * 1976: Just One Look/Baby I'm Yours (medley), duet with former Supreme Lynda Laurence (UK release only)
    * 1977: Who Done It?
    * 1977: All I Think About Is You (UK #43)
    * 1977: Lean On Me (UK release only)
    * 1978: Ain't It Kinda Wonderful
    * 1980: I Don't Need You (UK release only)
    * 1980: Rain (UK release only)
    * 1982: With A Bullet (only available to attendees of Beatlefest '82)
    * 1984: Loneliness

as Buck Earle:

    * 1972: Joy
http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n426/ladygrinningsoul88/nilsson2006125-01_1138188591.jpg
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d66/wundrboi/Harry_Nilsson_publicity_photo.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/bryanclopton/Harry1-1.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l32/Fred_Fred_Wednesday/The%20Monkees/nilssonandmick.jpg
Harry Nilsson died at the same address as Keith Moon.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 01/16/10 at 12:54 am



I LOVE Harry Nilsson. One of my favs of his is the Puppy Song.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIg8CTRu7e8



Cat


Ditto... :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/16/10 at 6:48 am

The word of the day...Fog
#
When there is fog, there are tiny drops of water in the air which form a thick cloud and make it difficult to see things. N-VAR

    *
      The crash happened in thick fog.
    *
      These ocean fogs can last for days.

#
A fog is an unpleasant cloud of something such as smoke inside a building or room. N-SING

    *
      ...a fog of stale cigarette smoke. + 'of'

#
You can use fog to refer to a situation which stops people from being able to notice things, understand things, or think clearly. N-SING oft 'in' N

    *
      The most basic facts about him are lost in a fog of mythology. + 'of'
    *
      Synchronizing these attacks may be difficult in the fog of war. + 'of'
    *
      His mind was in a fog when he finally got up.

#
If a window, mirror, or other glass surface fogs or is fogged, it becomes covered with very small drops of water so that you cannot see things clearly through it or in it. V-ERG

    *
      The windows fogged immediately. V
    *
      Water had fogged his diving mask and he couldn't remember how to clear it. V n
    *
      The car windows were fogged with vapor
http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg18/littlequeenie_photo/Nature/Fog.jpg
http://i629.photobucket.com/albums/uu12/brude2000/4U2/fog_xlg.jpg
http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac285/southernpoint/barr-fog.jpg
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f199/HoldfastOrganicGardening/Sample/Swamp.jpg
http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss214/DropDeadBianca/Decorated%20images/MyspacePhotos002.jpg
http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/xxXJCSRXxx/274.jpg
http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l177/fuzzyedges_album/fogontesk.jpg
http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg3/personalcheeseit/Cars/Shadow/100_0172.jpg
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv220/supertala/PIC_0047.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/16/10 at 6:53 am

The birthday of the day...John Carpenter
John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an Academy Award winning, American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, composer, and occasional actor. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres, his name is most commonly associated with horror and science fiction. His first major film as director, Dark Star (1974), was a sci-fi black comedy that he cowrote with Dan O'Bannon (who later went on to write Alien, borrowing freely from much of Dark Star). The film reportedly cost only $60,000 and was difficult to make as both Carpenter and O'Bannon completed the film by multitasking, with Carpenter doing the musical score as well as the writing, producing and directing, while O'Bannon acted in the film and did the special effects (which caught the attention of George Lucas who hired him to do work on the special effects for Star Wars). Carpenter's efforts did not go unnoticed as much of Hollywood marveled at his filmmaking abilities within the confines of a shoestring budget.

Carpenter's next film was Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), a low-budget thriller influenced by the films of Howard Hawks, particularly Rio Bravo. As with Dark Star, Carpenter was responsible for many aspects of the film's creation. He not only wrote, directed and scored it, but also edited the film under the pseudonym "John T. Chance" (the name of John Wayne's character in Rio Bravo). Carpenter has said that he considers Assault on Precinct 13 to have been his first real film because it was the first movie that he shot on a schedule. The film was also significant because it marked the first time Carpenter worked with Debra Hill, who played prominently in the making of some of Carpenter's most important films.

Working within the limitations of a $100,000 budget, Carpenter assembled a main cast that consisted of experienced but relatively obscure actors. The two leads were Austin Stoker, who had appeared previously in science fiction, disaster and blaxploitation films, and Darwin Joston, who had worked primarily in television and had once been Carpenter's next-door neighbor.

The film was originally released in the United States to mixed critical reviews and lackluster box-office earnings, but after it was screened at the 1977 London Film Festival, it became a critical and commercial success in Europe and is often credited with launching Carpenter's career. The film subsequently received a critical reassessment in the United States, where it is now generally regarded as one of the best exploitation films of the 1970s.

A long forgotten, but still very note worthy film that Carpenter both wrote and directed was the Lauren Hutton thriller Someone's Watching Me! (aka High Rise) in 1978, a very busy year for the director. This made-for-television movie tells a very simplistic, yet rather effective tale of a single, working woman who, shortly after arriving in L.A., discovers that she is gradually being stalked and constantly observed by an unseen predator in the high rise building across from her apartment. Though a made-for-television film, Someone's Watching Me! does stand out from others of the period. Borrowing heavily from Hitchcock classics, Carpenter slowly builds the suspense and intrigue before the final confrontation ensues, making the most out of the theory that what one can't see is far more interesting than what is shown on the screen. Although it has never received much attention, it's interesting to draw some parallels between the story, concept, and visuals in this film with those featured in the director's next immediate production, Halloween.

Halloween (1978) was a smash hit on release and helped give birth to the slasher film genre. Originally an idea suggested by producer Irwin Yablans (entitled The Babysitter Murders), who envisioned a film about babysitters being menaced by a stalker, Carpenter took the idea and another suggestion from Yablans that it take place during Halloween and developed a story. Carpenter said of the basic concept: "Halloween night. It has never been the theme in a film. My idea was to do an old haunted house movie." The film was written by Carpenter and Debra Hill with Carpenter admitting that the film was inspired by both Dario Argento's Suspiria and William Friedkin's The Exorcist.

Carpenter again worked with a relatively small budget, $320,000. The film grossed over $65 million initially, making it one of the most successful independent films of all time.

Carpenter relied upon taut suspense rather than the excessive gore that would define later slasher films in order to make the menacing nature of the main character, Michael Myers, more palpable. At times, Carpenter has described Halloween in terms that appeared to directly contradict the more thoughtful, nuanced approach to horror that he actually used, such as: "True crass exploitation. I decided to make a film I would love to have seen as a kid, full of cheap tricks like a haunted house at a fair where you walk down the corridor and things jump out at you." The film has often been cited as an allegory on the virtue of sexual purity and the danger of casual sex, although Carpenter has explained that this was not his intent: "It has been suggested that I was making some kind of moral statement. Believe me, I'm not. In Halloween, I viewed the characters as simply normal teenagers." Of the later slasher films that largely mimicked Carpenter's work on Halloween, few have met with the same critical success.

In addition to the film's critical and commercial success, Carpenter's self-composed "Halloween Theme" remains a recognizable film music theme to this day.

In 1979, John Carpenter began what was to be the first of several collaborations with actor Kurt Russell when he directed the TV movie Elvis. The made-for-TV movie was a smash hit with viewers and critics, and was also released as a feature film in cinemas outside the U. S. and revived the career of Russell, who was a child actor in the 1960s.
1980s: Continued commercial success

Carpenter followed up the success of Halloween with The Fog (1980), a ghostly revenge tale (co-written by Hill) inspired by horror comics such as Tales from the Crypt and by The Crawling Eye, a 1958 movie about monsters hiding in clouds.

Completing The Fog was an unusually difficult process for Carpenter. After viewing a rough cut of the film, he was dissatisfied with the result. For the only time in his filmmaking career, he had to devise a way to salvage a nearly finished film that did not meet his standards. In order to make the movie more coherent and frightening, Carpenter shot additional footage that included a number of new scenes. Approximately one-third of the finished film is the newer footage.

Despite production problems and mostly negative critical reception, The Fog was another commercial success for Carpenter. The film was made on a budget of $1,000,000, but it grossed over $21,000,000 in the United States alone. Carpenter has said that The Fog is not his favorite film, although he considers it a "minor horror classic".

Carpenter immediately followed The Fog with the science-fiction adventure Escape from New York (1981), which quickly picked up large cult and mainstream audiences as well as critical acclaim.

His next film, The Thing (1982), is notable for its high production values, including innovative special effects by Rob Bottin, special visual effects by matte artist Albert Whitlock, a score by Ennio Morricone and a cast including rising star Kurt Russell and respected character actors such as Wilford Brimley, Richard Dysart, Keith David, and Richard Masur. The Thing was made with a budget of $15,000,000, Carpenter's largest up to that point, and distributed by Universal Pictures.

Although Carpenter's film was ostensibly a remake of the 1951 Howard Hawks film, The Thing from Another World, Carpenter's version is more faithful to the John W. Campbell, Jr. short story, Who Goes There?, upon which both films were based. Moreover, unlike the Hawks film, The Thing has a dark, pessimistic tone and a bleak ending, which didn't appeal to audiences in the summer of 1982, when it was released in the wake of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Consequently, it did not perform well commercially and was Carpenter's first financial failure. Later, the movie found new life in the home video and cable markets, and it is now widely regarded as one of the best horror films and remakes ever made.

Carpenter's next film, Christine, was the 1983 adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name. The story revolves around a high-school nerd named Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon) who buys a junked 1958 Plymouth Fury which turns out to have supernatural powers. As Cunningham restores and rebuilds the car, he becomes unnaturally obsessed with it, with deadly consequences. Christine did respectable business upon its release and was received well by critics; however, Carpenter has been quoted as saying he directed the film because it was the only thing offered to him at the time.

One of the high points in Carpenter's career came in 1984 with the release of Starman, a film that was critically praised but was only a moderate commercial success. Produced by Michael Douglas, the script was well received by Columbia Pictures, which chose it over the script for E.T. and prompted Steven Spielberg to go to Universal Pictures. Douglas chose Carpenter to be the director because of his reputation as an action director who could also convey strong emotion. Starman was favorably reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, New York Times and LA Weekly and described by Carpenter as a film he envisioned as a romantic comedy similar to It Happened One Night only with a space alien. The film received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Jeff Bridges' portrayal of Starman and received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Musical Score for Jack Nitzsche.

After seeing footage of Starman, the executive producer of the Superman movie series, Ilya Salkind, offered Carpenter the chance to direct the latest Alexander–Ilya Salkind fantasy epic Santa Claus: The Movie. Salkind made the offer to Carpenter over lunch at The Ritz, and while he loved the idea of breaking from his normal traditions and directing a children's fantasy movie, he requested 24 hours to think over the offer. The next day he had drawn up a list of requirements should he direct the movie; they were: 100 percent creative control, the right to take over scriptwriting duties, being able to co-compose the movie's musical score, total editorial control, the casting of Brian Dennehey as Santa Claus and a $5 million signing-on fee (the same amount that the movie's star Dudley Moore was receiving). Team Salkind were nonplussed by his demands and withdrew their offer for him to direct. Carpenter told Empire magazine ten years later that he wished he'd been less demanding and made the movie because he liked the idea so much and it would have changed critics' views on his limitations as a director.

Following the box office failure of his big-budget action–comedy Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Carpenter struggled to get films financed. He returned to making lower budget films such as Prince of Darkness (1987), a film influenced by the BBC series Quatermass. Although some of the films from this time did pick up a cult audience, he never again realized his mass-market potential.
1990s: Criticism and commercial decline

His 1990s career is characterized by a number of notable misfires: Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992), Village of the Damned (1995) and Escape From L.A. (1996) are examples of films that were critical and box office failures. Notable from this decade is:

    * In the Mouth of Madness (1995), yet another Lovecraftian homage, which did not do well either at the box-office or with critics.
    * Vampires (1998) starred James Woods as the leader of a band of vampire hunters in league with the Catholic Church.

2000s–present: Remakes and Masters of Horror

2001 saw the release of Ghosts of Mars and Carpenter's reputation remains strong; his earlier films are considered classics and (because they have continued to perform well on home video) several have been subjected to big budget remakes. 2005 saw remakes of Assault on Precinct 13 and The Fog, the latter being produced by Carpenter himself, though in an interview he defined his involvement as, "I come in and say hello to everybody. Go home."

More recently, Rob Zombie has produced and directed Halloween, a re-imagining of John Carpenter's 1978 film. It was released in 2007, and spawned a sequel two years later.

Carpenter returned to the director's chair in 2005 for an episode of Showtime's Masters of Horror series as one of the thirteen filmmakers involved in the first season. His episode, Cigarette Burns, aired to generally positive reviews, and positive reactions from Carpenter fans, many of whom regard it as on par with his earlier horror classics. He has since contributed another original episode for the show's second season entitled "Pro-Life", about a young girl who is raped and impregnated by a demon and wants to have an abortion, but whose efforts are halted by her religious fanatic, gun-toting father and her three brothers.

A remake of Escape from New York was planned starring Gerard Butler as Snake Plissken but he has since turned the role down.

In February 2009, It was announced that Carpenter has planned for his newest project, called The Ward, starring Amber Heard. It will be his first movie since 2001's Ghosts of Mars.
Techniques

His films are characterized by minimalist lighting and photography, static cameras, use of steadicam, and distinctive synthesized scores (usually self-composed). He describes himself as having been influenced by Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Nigel Kneale and The Twilight Zone.

With the exception of The Thing, Starman, and Memoirs of an Invisible Man, he has scored all of his films (though some are collaborations), most famously the themes from Halloween and Assault on Precinct 13. His music is generally synthesized with accompaniment from piano and atmospherics.

Carpenter is a big fan of widescreen, and all of his theatrical movies (with the exception of Dark Star) have been filmed in anamorphic with an aspect ratio 2.35:1.
Legacy

With a career that has spanned over thirty years, John Carpenter has attained a reputation as a respected independent filmmaker. Although some of Carpenter's films have not been commercially or critically successful upon initial theatrical release, Carpenter has developed a large cult following through home video releases of his films. Many of his films, most notably The Thing, have been rediscovered on VHS, laserdisc and DVD and have since been embraced by many fans - interesting, as The Thing was initially Carpenter's first big setback. The film was considered excessively dark, did not do well at the box office and Rob Bottin's effects were considered too grotesque for a mainstream audience. Retrospectively, the film has gained much critical appreciation.

Four years later, Big Trouble in Little China was also poorly received by audiences and critics alike, an eclectic mix of genres that was years ahead of its time. This film, like The Thing, found its audience on VHS and DVD years after its theatrical release.

Many of Carpenter's films have been re-released on DVD as special editions with numerous bonus features. Examples of such are: the collector's editions of Halloween, Escape From New York, Christine,The Thing, Assault on Precinct 13, Big Trouble In Little China and The Fog. Some have been re-issued recently with a new anamorphic widescreen transfer. In the UK, several of Carpenter's films have been released on DVD with audio commentary by Carpenter and his stars (They Live, with actor/wrestler Roddy Piper, Starman with actor Jeff Bridges and Prince of Darkness with actor Peter Jason) that have not been released in the United States .

In recent years, Carpenter has been the subject of the documentary film John Carpenter: The Man and His Movies, and his status as a respected filmmaker has been reinforced by American Cinematheque's 2002 retrospective of his films. Moreover, in 2006, the United States Library of Congress deemed Halloween to be "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Films
Year Film Credited as
Director Producer Writer Composer Actor Role
1970 The Resurrection of Broncho Billy Yes Yes
1974 Dark Star Yes Yes Yes Yes
1976 Assault on Precinct 13 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Gang Member
1978 Eyes of Laura Mars Yes
Halloween Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Voice of Paul
1980 The Fog Yes Yes Yes Yes Bennett
1981 Escape from New York Yes Yes Yes
Halloween II Yes Yes Yes
1982 The Thing Yes Yes Norwegian in video footage
Halloween III: Season of the Witch Yes Yes
1983 Christine Yes Yes
1984 The Philadelphia Experiment Yes
Starman Yes Yes Man in helicopter
1986 Big Trouble in Little China Yes Yes Yes Yes Worker in Chinatown
Black Moon Rising Yes Yes
The Boy Who Could Fly Yes Coupe de Villes band member
1987 Prince of Darkness Yes Yes Yes
1988 They Live Yes Yes Yes
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers Yes
1992 Memoirs of an Invisible Man Yes Yes Helicopter pilot
1993 The Silence of the Hams Yes Trench coat man
1995 In the Mouth of Madness Yes Yes
Village of the Damned Yes Yes Yes Man at gas station phone
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers Yes
1996 Escape from L.A. Yes Yes Yes
1998 Vampires Yes Yes
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later Yes
2001 Ghosts of Mars Yes Yes Yes
Vampires: Los Muertos Yes
2002 Halloween: Resurrection Yes
2005 Assault on Precinct 13 Yes
The Fog Yes Yes
2007 Halloween Yes
2010 The Ward Yes
2011 Fangland Yes
Year Film Director Producer Writer Composer Actor Role
Credited as

^  I Credited as editor.
^  II Uncredited acting role.
^  III Theme music only.
Highest-grossing films

This is a list of the top 10 highest domestic-grossing films in which Carpenter has directed according to Box Office Mojo. Carpenter's films have grossed domestically a total of more than $282 million, with an average of $18 million per film.
Rank Title Lifetime gross (US$)
1 Halloween 47 million
2 Starman 28 million
3 Halloween II 25.5 million
4 Escape From L.A. 25.4 million
5 Escape From New York 25.2 million
6 The Fog 21.3 million
7 Christine 21.0 million
8 Vampires 20 million
9 Memoirs of an Invisible Man 14.3 million
10 Prince of Darkness 14.1 million
Television
Year Title Credit
1978 Zuma Beach Writer
Someone's Watching Me! Director, writer
1979 Better Late Than Never Writer
Elvis Director
1990 El Diablo Writer
1991 Blood River Writer
1993 Body Bags Director, producer, composer, actor
1999 Silent Predators Writer
2005 Cigarette Burns Director
2006 Pro-Life Director
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/w_cowart/john_carpenter.jpg
http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh238/iPodBaldasar/Carpenter.jpg
http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa95/pauerboys/jcarp.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y117/phearinc/youcantwin-37.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/16/10 at 6:56 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVCDZaApwV8

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/16/10 at 6:59 am

The person of the day...Andrew Wyeth
Andrew Newell Wyeth (surname pronounced /ˈwаɪɛθ/; July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009) was a visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century and was sometimes referred to as the "Painter of the People," due to his work's popularity with the American public.

In his art, Wyeth's favorite subjects were the land and people around him, both in his hometown of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and at his summer home in Cushing, Maine.

One of the most well-known images in 20th-century American art is his painting, Christina's World, currently in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Dividing his time between Pennsylvania and Maine, Wyeth maintained a realist painting style for over fifty years. He gravitated to several identifiable landscape subjects and models. In 1958, Andrew and Betsy Wyeth purchased and restored "The Mill," a group of 18th-century buildings that appeared often in his work, including Night Sleeper (1979). His solitary walks were the primary means of inspiration for his landscapes. He developed an extraordinary intimacy with the land and sea and strove for a spiritual understanding based on history and unspoken emotion. He typically created dozens of studies on a subject in pencil or loosely brushed watercolor before executing a finished painting, either in watercolor, drybrush (a watercolor style in which the water is squeezed from the brush), or egg tempera.

When Christina Olsen died in the winter of 1969, Wyeth refocused his artistic attention upon Siri Erickson, capturing her naked innocence in Indian Summer (1970). It was a prelude to the Helga paintings.
Helga paintings

In 1986, extensive coverage was given to the revelation of a series of 247 studies of Wyeth's neighbour, the Prussian-born Helga Testorf, painted over the period 1971–85 without the knowledge of either Wyeth's wife or John Testorf, Helga's husband. Helga is a musician, baker, caregiver, and friend of the Wyeths; she met Wyeth when she was attending to Karl Kuerner. She had never modeled before, but quickly became comfortable with the long periods of posing, during which she was observed and painted in intimate detail. The Helga pictures are not an obvious psychological study of the subject, but more an extensive study of her physical landscape set within Wyeth's customary landscapes. She is nearly always unsmiling and passive; yet, within those deliberate limitations, Wyeth manages to convey subtle qualities of character and mood, as he does in many of his best portraits. This extensive study of one subject studied in differing contexts and emotional states is unique in American art.

In 1986, millionaire Leonard E.B. Andrews purchased almost the entire collection, preserving it intact. A very few Helga paintings had already been given away to friends, including the famous Lovers, which had been given as a gift to Wyeth's wife.

The works were exhibited at the National Gallery of Art in 1987 and in a coast-to-coast tour. The Helga works were briefly owned by a private Japanese industrialist, who had agreed to allow additional exhibitions. Since then the collection has returned to the U.S. and has been split up, contrary to the original intentions of many to keep the collection together, and pieces are in many public and private collections. In March 2002, Wyeth painted Gone, his last Helga picture, and it joined the collection on recent tours between 2002–06.
Critical reaction
Late Fall, watercolor on paper, 67.3cm × 47cm, 1981, by Andrew Wyeth.

Wyeth's art has long been controversial. As a representational artist, Wyeth's paintings have sharply contrasted with abstraction, which gained currency in American art in the middle of the 20th century.

Museum exhibitions of Wyeth's paintings have set attendance records, but many art critics have been critical of his work. Peter Schjeldahl, art critic for The Village Voice, derided his paintings as "Formulaic stuff, not very effective even as illustrational 'realism.' " Common criticisms are that Wyeth's art verges on illustration and that his rural subject matter is sentimental.

Admirers of Wyeth's art believe that his paintings, in addition to sometimes displaying overt beauty, contain strong emotional currents, symbolic content, and underlying abstraction. Most observers of his art agree that he is skilled at handling the media of egg tempera (which uses egg yolk as its medium) and watercolor. Wyeth avoided using traditional oil paints. His use of light and shadow let the subjects illuminate the canvas. His paintings and titles suggest sound, as is implied in many paintings, including Distant Thunder (1961) and Spring Fed (1967).

A close friend and student of Wyeth, Bo Bartlett, commented on Wyeth’s reaction to criticism during an interview with Brian Sherwin in 2008: "People only make you swerve. I won’t show anybody anything I’m working on. If they hate it, it’s a bad thing, and if they like it, it’s a bad thing. An artist has to be ingrown to be any good."
Museum collections

Andrew Wyeth's work is in the collections of most major American museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Cincinnati Art Museum; the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the National Gallery of Art; the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City; the Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock; and the White House, in Washington, DC. Especially large collections of Wyeth's art are in the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania; the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine; and the Greenville County Museum of Art in Greenville, South Carolina. A major retrospective of Andrew Wyeth's work was presented at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from March 29, 2006 to July 16, 2006.
Honors and awards
Andrew Wyeth (right) receiving the National Medal of Arts from George W. Bush in 2007.

Wyeth was the recipient of numerous honorary degrees. He received the 2007 National Medal of Arts. In 1963, Andrew Wyeth became the first painter to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1977, he became the first American artist since John Singer Sargent elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts. In 1980, Wyeth became the first living American artist to be elected to Britain's Royal Academy. In 1987, Wyeth received a D.F.A. from Bates College. On November 9, 1988, Wyeth received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the United States legislature.
Death

On January 16, 2009, Andrew Wyeth died in his sleep at his home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, after a brief illness. He was 91 years old.
Influence on pop culture

Wyeth was often referenced by cartoonist Charles M. Schulz (a longtime admirer) in his comic strip, Peanuts. In one strip, the character Snoopy was presented with a bill for "psychiatric help" (20¢) and states, "I refuse to sell my Andrew Wyeth." In another strip, Snoopy's prized Van Gogh painting is burned in a fire, and he replaces it with an Andrew Wyeth. Fred Rogers, of the PBS television series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, had an Andrew Wyeth painting in the entryway of the studio home, readily seen as he entered and exited.

Tom Duffield, the production designer for the American remake of The Ring (2002), drew inspiration from Wyeth's paintings for the look of the film. M. Night Shyamalan based his movie The Village on paintings by Andrew Wyeth. The Village was filmed in Chadds Ford, not far from Wyeth's studio. Director Philip Ridley has stated that his 1990 film The Reflecting Skin is heavily inspired by the paintings of Andrew Wyeth in its visual style.

The Helga series of paintings became the inspiration for the 1987 Album Man of Colours by the Australian band Icehouse.

In the 90's television series Step by Step, Wyeth's painting "Master Bedroom" can be seen in the Foster's living room.

The Japanese television series Asheesha No Kita Yoshio main characters are bound by a book featuring Wyeth's work, the painting Christina's World is shown especially often.
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e330/clintorama/AndrewWyeth.jpg
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh187/1zuzax1/FACES%20AND%20FIGURES/andrew_wyeth_portrait.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e130/coenhead/Baseball%20Trip%202007/Baseball2007038.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k150/jojobearauburn/Permanent%20Store%20Pics/Latest%20Permanent%20Store%20Pics/IMG_9657.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/16/10 at 7:00 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVCDZaApwV8

Nice.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/16/10 at 7:01 am


Nice.
Today, it is a rainy day in London Town

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/16/10 at 7:28 am


The person of the day...Andrew Wyeth
Andrew Newell Wyeth (surname pronounced /ˈwаɪɛθ/; July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009) was a visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century and was sometimes referred to as the "Painter of the People," due to his work's popularity with the American public.

In his art, Wyeth's favorite subjects were the land and people around him, both in his hometown of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and at his summer home in Cushing, Maine.

One of the most well-known images in 20th-century American art is his painting, Christina's World, currently in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Dividing his time between Pennsylvania and Maine, Wyeth maintained a realist painting style for over fifty years. He gravitated to several identifiable landscape subjects and models. In 1958, Andrew and Betsy Wyeth purchased and restored "The Mill," a group of 18th-century buildings that appeared often in his work, including Night Sleeper (1979). His solitary walks were the primary means of inspiration for his landscapes. He developed an extraordinary intimacy with the land and sea and strove for a spiritual understanding based on history and unspoken emotion. He typically created dozens of studies on a subject in pencil or loosely brushed watercolor before executing a finished painting, either in watercolor, drybrush (a watercolor style in which the water is squeezed from the brush), or egg tempera.

When Christina Olsen died in the winter of 1969, Wyeth refocused his artistic attention upon Siri Erickson, capturing her naked innocence in Indian Summer (1970). It was a prelude to the Helga paintings.
Helga paintings

In 1986, extensive coverage was given to the revelation of a series of 247 studies of Wyeth's neighbour, the Prussian-born Helga Testorf, painted over the period 1971–85 without the knowledge of either Wyeth's wife or John Testorf, Helga's husband. Helga is a musician, baker, caregiver, and friend of the Wyeths; she met Wyeth when she was attending to Karl Kuerner. She had never modeled before, but quickly became comfortable with the long periods of posing, during which she was observed and painted in intimate detail. The Helga pictures are not an obvious psychological study of the subject, but more an extensive study of her physical landscape set within Wyeth's customary landscapes. She is nearly always unsmiling and passive; yet, within those deliberate limitations, Wyeth manages to convey subtle qualities of character and mood, as he does in many of his best portraits. This extensive study of one subject studied in differing contexts and emotional states is unique in American art.

In 1986, millionaire Leonard E.B. Andrews purchased almost the entire collection, preserving it intact. A very few Helga paintings had already been given away to friends, including the famous Lovers, which had been given as a gift to Wyeth's wife.

The works were exhibited at the National Gallery of Art in 1987 and in a coast-to-coast tour. The Helga works were briefly owned by a private Japanese industrialist, who had agreed to allow additional exhibitions. Since then the collection has returned to the U.S. and has been split up, contrary to the original intentions of many to keep the collection together, and pieces are in many public and private collections. In March 2002, Wyeth painted Gone, his last Helga picture, and it joined the collection on recent tours between 2002–06.
Critical reaction
Late Fall, watercolor on paper, 67.3cm × 47cm, 1981, by Andrew Wyeth.

Wyeth's art has long been controversial. As a representational artist, Wyeth's paintings have sharply contrasted with abstraction, which gained currency in American art in the middle of the 20th century.

Museum exhibitions of Wyeth's paintings have set attendance records, but many art critics have been critical of his work. Peter Schjeldahl, art critic for The Village Voice, derided his paintings as "Formulaic stuff, not very effective even as illustrational 'realism.' " Common criticisms are that Wyeth's art verges on illustration and that his rural subject matter is sentimental.

Admirers of Wyeth's art believe that his paintings, in addition to sometimes displaying overt beauty, contain strong emotional currents, symbolic content, and underlying abstraction. Most observers of his art agree that he is skilled at handling the media of egg tempera (which uses egg yolk as its medium) and watercolor. Wyeth avoided using traditional oil paints. His use of light and shadow let the subjects illuminate the canvas. His paintings and titles suggest sound, as is implied in many paintings, including Distant Thunder (1961) and Spring Fed (1967).

A close friend and student of Wyeth, Bo Bartlett, commented on Wyeth’s reaction to criticism during an interview with Brian Sherwin in 2008: "People only make you swerve. I won’t show anybody anything I’m working on. If they hate it, it’s a bad thing, and if they like it, it’s a bad thing. An artist has to be ingrown to be any good."
Museum collections

Andrew Wyeth's work is in the collections of most major American museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Cincinnati Art Museum; the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the National Gallery of Art; the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City; the Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock; and the White House, in Washington, DC. Especially large collections of Wyeth's art are in the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania; the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine; and the Greenville County Museum of Art in Greenville, South Carolina. A major retrospective of Andrew Wyeth's work was presented at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from March 29, 2006 to July 16, 2006.
Honors and awards
Andrew Wyeth (right) receiving the National Medal of Arts from George W. Bush in 2007.

Wyeth was the recipient of numerous honorary degrees. He received the 2007 National Medal of Arts. In 1963, Andrew Wyeth became the first painter to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1977, he became the first American artist since John Singer Sargent elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts. In 1980, Wyeth became the first living American artist to be elected to Britain's Royal Academy. In 1987, Wyeth received a D.F.A. from Bates College. On November 9, 1988, Wyeth received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the United States legislature.
Death

On January 16, 2009, Andrew Wyeth died in his sleep at his home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, after a brief illness. He was 91 years old.
Influence on pop culture

Wyeth was often referenced by cartoonist Charles M. Schulz (a longtime admirer) in his comic strip, Peanuts. In one strip, the character Snoopy was presented with a bill for "psychiatric help" (20¢) and states, "I refuse to sell my Andrew Wyeth." In another strip, Snoopy's prized Van Gogh painting is burned in a fire, and he replaces it with an Andrew Wyeth. Fred Rogers, of the PBS television series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, had an Andrew Wyeth painting in the entryway of the studio home, readily seen as he entered and exited.

Tom Duffield, the production designer for the American remake of The Ring (2002), drew inspiration from Wyeth's paintings for the look of the film. M. Night Shyamalan based his movie The Village on paintings by Andrew Wyeth. The Village was filmed in Chadds Ford, not far from Wyeth's studio. Director Philip Ridley has stated that his 1990 film The Reflecting Skin is heavily inspired by the paintings of Andrew Wyeth in its visual style.

The Helga series of paintings became the inspiration for the 1987 Album Man of Colours by the Australian band Icehouse.

In the 90's television series Step by Step, Wyeth's painting "Master Bedroom" can be seen in the Foster's living room.

The Japanese television series Asheesha No Kita Yoshio main characters are bound by a book featuring Wyeth's work, the painting Christina's World is shown especially often.
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e330/clintorama/AndrewWyeth.jpg
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh187/1zuzax1/FACES%20AND%20FIGURES/andrew_wyeth_portrait.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e130/coenhead/Baseball%20Trip%202007/Baseball2007038.jpg
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k150/jojobearauburn/Permanent%20Store%20Pics/Latest%20Permanent%20Store%20Pics/IMG_9657.jpg



His paintings always reminded me of Norman Rockwell's. A few years ago, we had a poster with one of his paintings and at first I thought it WAS Norman's but it wasn't. They both had the same style, I think. 



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/16/10 at 3:03 pm


The word of the day...Fog
#
When there is fog, there are tiny drops of water in the air which form a thick cloud and make it difficult to see things. N-VAR

    *
      The crash happened in thick fog.
    *
      These ocean fogs can last for days.

#
A fog is an unpleasant cloud of something such as smoke inside a building or room. N-SING

    *
      ...a fog of stale cigarette smoke. + 'of'

#
You can use fog to refer to a situation which stops people from being able to notice things, understand things, or think clearly. N-SING oft 'in' N

    *
      The most basic facts about him are lost in a fog of mythology. + 'of'
    *
      Synchronizing these attacks may be difficult in the fog of war. + 'of'
    *
      His mind was in a fog when he finally got up.

#
If a window, mirror, or other glass surface fogs or is fogged, it becomes covered with very small drops of water so that you cannot see things clearly through it or in it. V-ERG

    *
      The windows fogged immediately. V
    *
      Water had fogged his diving mask and he couldn't remember how to clear it. V n
    *
      The car windows were fogged with vapor
http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg18/littlequeenie_photo/Nature/Fog.jpg
http://i629.photobucket.com/albums/uu12/brude2000/4U2/fog_xlg.jpg
http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac285/southernpoint/barr-fog.jpg
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f199/HoldfastOrganicGardening/Sample/Swamp.jpg
http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss214/DropDeadBianca/Decorated%20images/MyspacePhotos002.jpg
http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww32/xxXJCSRXxx/274.jpg
http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l177/fuzzyedges_album/fogontesk.jpg
http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg3/personalcheeseit/Cars/Shadow/100_0172.jpg
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv220/supertala/PIC_0047.jpg



fog happens on a rainy day.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/17/10 at 3:56 am

The word of the day...Lion
 


      A lion is a large wild member of the cat family that is found in Africa. Lions have yellowish fur, and male lions have long hair on their head and neck.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e36/DrKearse/lion.jpg
http://i934.photobucket.com/albums/ad184/luzfigueira/lion-2.jpg
http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/ww251/animedragon33/Cats/Lion---Fierce.jpg
http://i934.photobucket.com/albums/ad184/luzfigueira/lion-5.jpg
http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/ww251/animedragon33/Cats/lion-female.jpg
http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll211/gabban18/lion-king_4.jpg
http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo48/bigbreastedbenbow/SANY0342.jpg
http://i1019.photobucket.com/albums/af314/angiehill_bucket/SDC10243.jpg
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr213/iztabby/mominRussia019.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/17/10 at 3:59 am

The birthday of the day...James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones (born January 17, 1931) is an American actor of stage and screen, well known for his deep basso voice. To modern audiences, he is known for providing the voice of Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise.
Jones had his acting career beginnings at the Ramsdell Theatre in Manistee, Michigan. In 1953 he was a stage carpenter. During the 1955–1957 seasons he was an actor and stage manager. He performed his first portrayal of Shakespeare’s Othello in this theater in 1955.

His first film role was as a young and trim Lt. Lothar Zogg, the B-52 bombardier in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb in 1964, which was more famous for the work of Peter Sellers and Slim Pickens. His first big role came with his portrayal of boxer Jack Jefferson in the film version of the Broadway play The Great White Hope, which was based on the life of boxer Jack Johnson. For his role, Jones was nominated Best Actor by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, making him the second African-American male performer (following Sidney Poitier) to receive a nomination.

In 1969, Jones participated in making test films for a proposed children's television series called Sesame Street; these shorts, combined with animated segments, were shown to groups of children to gauge the effectiveness of the then-groundbreaking Sesame Street format. As cited by production notes included in the DVD release Sesame Street: Old School 1969-1974, the short that had the greatest impact with test audiences was one showing bald-headed Jones counting slowly to ten. This and other segments featuring Jones were eventually aired as part of the Sesame Street series itself when it debuted later in 1969 and Jones is often cited as the first celebrity guest on that series, although a segment with Carol Burnett was the first to actually be broadcast.

In the early 1970s, James appeared with Diahann Carroll in a film called Claudine, the story of a woman who raises her six children alone after two failed marriages and one "almost" marriage. Ruppert, played by Jones, is a garbage man who has deep problems of his own. The couple somehow overcomes each other's pride and stubbornness and gets married.
Darth Vader

He has appeared in many roles since, but is well known as the voice of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy. Darth Vader was portrayed in costume by David Prowse in the original trilogy, with Jones dubbing Vader's dialogue in postproduction due to Prowse's strong West Country accent being unsuitable for the role. At his own request, he was originally uncredited for the release of the first two films (he would later be credited for the two in the 1997 re-release):
“ When Linda Blair did the girl in The Exorcist, they hired Mercedes McCambridge to do the voice of the devil coming out of her. And there was controversy as to whether Mercedes should get credit. I was one who thought no, she was just special effects. So when it came to Darth Vader, I said, no I'm just special effects. But it became so identified that by the third one, I thought, OK I've been denying it, I've been saying it sounds like the uncola nut guy Holder. Geoffrey Holder! ... But for the third one, I said OK, I'll let them put my name on it.

Although uncredited, Jones' voice is briefly heard as Darth Vader at the conclusion of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. When specifically asked whether he had supplied the voice, possibly from a previous recording, Jones told New York Newsday: "You'd have to ask Lucas about that. I don't know." However, on the issue of the voice, the commentary on the DVD release states that, while it will always be uncredited, any true Star Wars fan "should know the answer".

Over the years, Jones reprised his role as the voice of Vader several times: He is credited in the movie Robots with the voice of Darth Vader from a voice module. Playing the king of Zamunda in the comedy Coming to America, he echoed four Darth Vader phrases. He also vocally appeared as Vader in the comedy film The Benchwarmers and the video games Monopoly Star Wars and Star Wars: The Interactive Video Board Game. Jones' voice is also used for the Jedi Training academy attraction at Disneyland MGM.
Other voiceover work

His other voice roles include Mufasa in the 1994 film Disney animated blockbuster The Lion King, and its sequel, The Lion King II: Simba's Pride. Archived audio from the former has been used in the Square Enix and Disney crossover game Kingdom Hearts II. He also voiced the Emperor of the Night in Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night. He also has done the CNN tagline, "This is CNN"; the opening for NBC's coverage of the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics; "the Big PI in the Sky" (God) in the computer game Under a Killing Moon; a Claymation film about The Creation; and several guest spots on The Simpsons.
Notable film roles

Jones played the older version of author Alex Haley, in the television mini-series Roots: The Next Generations; the villain Thulsa Doom, in Conan the Barbarian; the character Terence Mann, in the baseball film Field of Dreams; the feared neighbour and owner of the dog Hercules in The Sandlot; King Jaffe Joffer, in Coming to America; Reverend Stephen Kumalo, in Cry, The Beloved Country; and Admiral James Greer, in The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, and Clear and Present Danger. He also made a cameo appearance in a penultimate episodes of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.
Notable stage roles

Jones is an accomplished stage actor as well; he has won Tony awards in 1969 for The Great White Hope and in 1987 for Fences. Othello, King Lear, Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Abhorson in Measure for Measure, and Claudius in Hamlet are Shakespearean roles he has played. He received Kennedy Center Honors in 2002.

In February 2008, he began starring on Broadway as Big Daddy in a limited-run, all-African-American production of Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Debbie Allen and mounted at the Broadhurst Theatre.

In November 2009, James reprised the role of Big Daddy in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof at the Novello Theatre in London's West End. This production also stars Sanaa Lathan as Maggie, Phylicia Rashad as Big Mamma, and Adrian Lester as Brick.
Other work

His other works include his portrayal of GDI's commanding general James Solomon in Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, a starring role in the television program Under One Roof as widowed police officer Neb Langston for which he received an Emmy nomination, and television and radio advertising for Verizon Business DSL and Verizon Online DSL from Verizon Communications.

Jones appeared in the 1963-1964 television season in an episode of ABC's drama series about college life, Channing starring Jason Evers and Henry Jones. He appeared on the soap opera Guiding Light. He portrayed Thad Green on Mathnet, a parody of Dragnet.

He has played lead characters on television in three series. First, he appeared on the short-lived CBS police drama Paris, which aired during Fall 1979. That show was notable as the first program on which Steven Bochco served as executive producer. The second show aired on ABC between 1990 and 1992, the first season being titled Gabriel's Fire and the second (after a format revision) Pros and Cons. In both formats of that show, Jones played a former policeman wrongly convicted for murder who, upon his release from prison, became a private eye. In 1995, Jones starred in Under One Roof, as Neb Langston, a widowed African-American police officer sharing his home in Seattle with his daughter, his married son and children and Neb's newly adopted son. The show was a mid-season replacement and lasted only six weeks.

In 1986, Jones played a Harvard law professor in the movie Soul Man, with C. Thomas Howell and Rae Dawn Chong. From 1989 to 1993, Jones served as the host of the children's TV series Long Ago and Far Away.

In 1990, Jones did a voiceover for the Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror", in which he was the narrator for the Simpsons' version of Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven". In 1992, Jones was often seen as the host on the video tele-monitor for the Sea World resort in Orlando, Florida. In 1996, James guest starred in the CBS drama Touched by an Angel as the Angels of Angels in the episode "Clipped Wings". In 1998, Jones starred in the widely acclaimed syndicated program An American Moment (created by James R. Kirk and Ninth Wave Productions). Jones took over the role left by Charles Kuralt, upon Kuralt's death. He has guest-starred on such sitcoms as NBC's Frasier and Will & Grace, and the WB drama Everwood. Jones also lent his voice for a narrative part in the Adam Sandler comedy, Click, released in June 2006. His voice is also used to create an audio version of the King James New Testament.

On April 7, 2005, James Earl Jones and Leslie Uggams headed the cast in an African-American Broadway revival version of On Golden Pond, directed by Leonard Foglia and produced by Jeffrey Finn.

On December 15, 2008, Jones made a guest appearance on the sitcom Two and a Half Men.

On October 5, 2009, Jones made a guest appearance on the television series House playing African dictator Antipas Dibala.
Personal life

Jones has been married to actress Cecilia Hart since 1982. They have one child, Flynn Earl Jones. He was previously married to American actress/singer Julienne Marie (born March 21, 1933, Toledo, Ohio); they had no children.

Coincidentally, both of Jones' wives had played Desdemona to Jones' Othello.

Jones was given a key to the city in Detroit, Michigan.
Awards

Academy Awards

    * 1971 Best Actor in a Leading Role - The Great White Hope (Nominated)

Emmy Awards

    * 1964 Outstanding Lead Actor - Miniseries or a Movie/East Side/West Side (Nominated)
    * 1990 Outstanding Supporting Actor - Miniseries or a Movie/By Dawn's Early Light (Nominated)
    * 1991 Outstanding Lead Actor - Drama Series/Gabriel's Fire
    * 1991 Outstanding Supporting Actor - Miniseries or a Movie/Heat Wave
    * 1994 Outstanding Guest Actor - Drama Series/Picket Fences (Nominated)
    * 1995 Outstanding Supporting Actor - Drama Series/Under One Roof (Nominated)
    * 1997 Outstanding Guest Actor - Comedy Series/Frasier (Nominated)
    * 1999 Outstanding Performer - Children's Special
    * 2004 Outstanding Guest Actor - Drama Series/Everwood (Nominated)

Golden Globe Awards

    * 1971 New Star of the Year - Actor/The Great White Hope
    * 1971 Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama/The Great White Hope (Nominated)
    * 1975 Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy/Claudine (Nominated)
    * 1991 Best Actor in a Drama Series/Gabriel's Fire (Nominated)
    * 1992 Best Actor in a Drama Series/Pros and Cons (Nominated)

Independent Spirit Awards

    * 1987 Best Supporting Male/Matewan (Nominated)

Screen Actors Guild Awards

    * 1996 Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role/Cry, the Beloved Country (Nominated)
    * 2009 Life Achievement Award

Tony Awards

    * 1969 Best Leading Actor in a Play/The Great White Hope
    * 1987 Best Leading Actor in a Play/Fences
    * 2005 Best Leading Actor in a Play/On Golden Pond (Nominated)

Other Awards

    * 1991 Common Wealth Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Dramatic Arts

Filmography

    * Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
    * The Comedians in Africa (1967)
    * The Comedians (1967)
    * End of the Road (1970)
    * King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis (1970)
    * The Great White Hope (1970)
    * Malcolm X (1972)
    * The Man (1972)
    * Claudine (1974)
    * The Cay (1974 one-hour TV drama)
    * The UFO Incident (1975 TV-movie)
    * The River Niger (1976)
    * The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976)
    * Swashbuckler (1976)
    * Deadly Hero (1976)
    * The Greatest (1977)
    * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) (voice)
    * Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
    * The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977)
    * A Piece of the Action (1977)
    * Jesus of Nazareth (1977)
    * Black Theatre: The Making of a Movement (1978)
    * Star Wars Christmas Special (1978 TV special) (voice)
    * Roots: The Next Generations (1979 TV miniseries)
    * Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (voice)
    * Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (1980 TV miniseries)
    * The Creation (1981)
    * The Bushido Blade (1981)
    * The Flight of Dragons (1982) (voice)
    * Conan the Barbarian (1982)
    * Blood Tide (1982)
    * Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983) (voice)
    * Allen Boesak: Choosing for Justice (1984)
    * City Limits (1985)
    * Soul Man (1986)
    * Gardens of Stone (1987)
    * Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1987)



    * My Little Girl (1987)
    * Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987) (voice)
    * Matewan (1987)
    * Terrorgram (1988) (voice)
    * Coming to America (1988)
    * Three Fugitives (1989)
    * Field of Dreams (1989)
    * Best of the Best (1989)
    * By Dawn's Early Light (1990)
    * Convicts (1990)
    * The Hunt for Red October (1990)
    * A World Alive (1990)
    * The Ambulance (1990)
    * Grim Prairie Tales (1990)
    * Heatwave (1990)
    * True Identity (1991)
    * Scorchers (1991)
    * The Second Coming (1992)
    * Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama (1992)
    * Patriot Games (1992)
    * Freddie the Frog (1992)
    * Sneakers (1992)
    * Dreamrider (1993)
    * Sommersby (1993)
    * The Sandlot (1993)
    * Excessive Force (1993)
    * The Meteor Man (1993)
    * Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult (1994)
    * Africa: The Serengeti (1994)
    * Clean Slate (1994)
    * The Vernon Johns Story (1994)
    * The Lion King (1994) (voice)
    * Clear and Present Danger (1994)
    * Countdown to Freedom: 10 Days That Changed South Africa (1994)
    * Jefferson in Paris (1995)
    * Judge Dredd (1995)
    * Cry, The Beloved Country (1995)
    * A Family Thing (1996)



    * Looking for Richard (1996)
    * Good Luck (1996)
    * Gang Related (1997)
    * What the Deaf Man Heard (1997)
    * New York... Come Visit the World (1998)
    * Primary Colors (1998) (voice)
    * Merlin (1998) (voice)
    * The Lion King II: Simba's Pride (1998 direct-to-DVD) (voice)
    * Summer's End (1999)
    * Our Friend, Martin (1999) (voice)
    * On the Q.T. (1999)
    * Undercover Angel (1999)
    * The Annihilation of Fish (1999)
    * Fantasia 2000 (1999)
    * Tiberian Sun (1999 video game cut scene)
    * Ennis' Gift (2000)
    * Antietam: A Documentary Drama (2000)
    * The Papp Project (2001)
    * Black Indians: An American Story (2001)
    * Finder's Fee (2001)
    * Recess Christmas: Miracle on Third Street (2001)
    * Muhammad Ali: Through the Eyes of the World (2001)
    * Disney's American Legends (2002)
    * The Great Year (2004)
    * Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (2004)
    * Robots (2005) (voice)
    * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005) (voice)
    * The Reading Room (2005)
    * The Sandlot 2 (2005)
    * Malcolm X: Prince of Islam documentary (2006) (narration only)
    * Kingdom Hearts II (2006) (archived audio, voice)
    * The Benchwarmers (2006) (voice)
    * Scary Movie 4 (2006)
    * Click (2006) (voice) (As Himself)
    * The Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy (2006)
    * Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (2008)
    * Jack and the Beanstalk (2008) (voice)
    * Disneyland Hollywood Studios (2008) (voice)
    * Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey (2009) (voice)
    * Earth (2009) (voice)
    * House (2009) Dibala
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/17/10 at 4:07 am

The person of the day...Richard Crenna
Richard Donald Crenna (30 November 1926 – 17 January 2003) was a Emmy award winning American film, television and radio actor and director. He starred in such motion pictures as The Sand Pebbles, Wait Until Dark, Body Heat, Rambo (First Blood – Rambo III), Hot Shots! Part Deux, and The Flamingo Kid. He played Walter Denton in the CBS radio and television series Our Miss Brooks and Luke McCoy in the ABC and CBS sitcom The Real McCoys (1957-1963). He was on the rare political dramatic series Slattery's People on CBS. He was Colonel Trautman in the Rambo films. He was also known to have bore a great resemblance to another actor Cliff Robertson.
Crenna got his acting start on radio, appearing in My Favorite Husband, Boy Scout Jamboree, A Date With Judy, The Great Gildersleeve, and Our Miss Brooks. He remained with the cast of the latter show when it moved to television.

He guest starred on I Love Lucy with Janet Waldo and on NBC's 1955-1956 Frontier anthology series in the lead role of the episode entitled "The Ten Days of John Leslie".

When Our Miss Brooks, starring Eve Arden, underwent a change in format - his character Walter Denton was omitted - Crenna joined The Real McCoys. Kathleen Nolan was cast as his young wife, Kate McCoy; they lived on a southern California farm with Grandpa Amos McCoy, played by Walter Brennan. In the last season, 1962-1963, The Real McCoys was shortened to The McCoys, moved from ABC to CBS, and switched from Thursday to Sunday evening. Moreover, Nolan's character died on screen. The widower Luke McCoy then began to court a neighbor, Louise Howard, played by actress Janet De Gore.

Crenna won an Emmy and a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in the title role of the film The Rape of Richard Beck.

Crenna portrayed California state senator James Slattery in the TV series Slattery's People and received two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Individual Achievements in Entertainment (1965) and for Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Series (1965). He was also nominated in 1965 for a Golden Globe for Best TV Star - Male for the same role. During the 1970s Crenna continued to appear in popular western movies such as Catlow, Breakheart Pass, and A Man Called Noon.

Crenna is perhaps best known today for his role as John Rambo's ex-commanding Officer "Colonel Sam Trautman" in the first three Rambo films, a role he only received after Kirk Douglas left the production a day into the shoot of the first film. He also spoofed the role in Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993) as an homage to his Rambo character. Crenna appeared as Lt. Frank Janek in seven TV movies 1985-94. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6714 Hollywood Blvd. Crenna was also the inspiration for Col Roy Cambell a character in the Metal Gear Solid series.
Death

Crenna contracted pancreatic cancer but died of heart failure at the age of 76. He was cremated. At the time of his death he had a recurring role in the CBS series Judging Amy. On the show his passing was acknowledged by the death of the character that he portrayed.

Crenna's son Richard Anthony Crenna is also an actor.
Filmography

    * Let's Dance (1950)
    * Red Skies of Montana (1952)
    * The Pride of St. Louis (1952)
    * It Grows on Trees (1952)
    * Our Miss Brooks (1956)
    * Over-Exposed (1956)
    * Ann-Margret: Made in Paris (1965) (short subject)
    * John Goldfarb, Please Come Home (1965)
    * Made in Paris (1966)
    * The Sand Pebbles (1966)
    * Wait Until Dark (1967)
    * Star! (1968)
    * Midas Run (1969)
    * Marooned (1969)
    * Doctors' Wives (1971)
    * The Deserter (1971)



    * Red Sky at Morning (1971)
    * Catlow (1971)
    * Un Flic (Fr. aka "Dirty Money" (1972)
    * The Man Called Noon (1973)
    * Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973)
    * Breakheart Pass (1975)
    * The Evil (1978)
    * Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978)
    * Wild Horse Hank (1979)
    * Stone Cold Dead (1979)
    * Death Ship (1980)
    * Body Heat (1981)
    * First Blood (1982)
    * Table for Five (1983)
    * The Flamingo Kid (1984)
    * Terror in the Aisles (1984) (documentary)
      (archival footage)
    * The Rape of Richard Beck (1985)



    * Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)
    * Summer Rental (1985)
    * Rambo III (1988)
    * Leviathan (1989)
    * Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993)
    * A Pyromaniac's Love Story (1995)
    * Jade (1995)
    * Sabrina (1995)
    * 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1997)
    * Wrongfully Accused (1998)
    * Judging Amy (1999)
    * By Dawn's Early Light (2000)
    * Darkness at High Noon: The Carl Foreman Documents (2002) (documentary) (narrator)

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/17/10 at 6:43 am


The birthday of the day...James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones (born January 17, 1931) is an American actor of stage and screen, well known for his deep basso voice. To modern audiences, he is known for providing the voice of Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise.
Jones had his acting career beginnings at the Ramsdell Theatre in Manistee, Michigan. In 1953 he was a stage carpenter. During the 1955–1957 seasons he was an actor and stage manager. He performed his first portrayal of Shakespeare’s Othello in this theater in 1955.

His first film role was as a young and trim Lt. Lothar Zogg, the B-52 bombardier in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb in 1964, which was more famous for the work of Peter Sellers and Slim Pickens. His first big role came with his portrayal of boxer Jack Jefferson in the film version of the Broadway play The Great White Hope, which was based on the life of boxer Jack Johnson. For his role, Jones was nominated Best Actor by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, making him the second African-American male performer (following Sidney Poitier) to receive a nomination.

In 1969, Jones participated in making test films for a proposed children's television series called Sesame Street; these shorts, combined with animated segments, were shown to groups of children to gauge the effectiveness of the then-groundbreaking Sesame Street format. As cited by production notes included in the DVD release Sesame Street: Old School 1969-1974, the short that had the greatest impact with test audiences was one showing bald-headed Jones counting slowly to ten. This and other segments featuring Jones were eventually aired as part of the Sesame Street series itself when it debuted later in 1969 and Jones is often cited as the first celebrity guest on that series, although a segment with Carol Burnett was the first to actually be broadcast.

In the early 1970s, James appeared with Diahann Carroll in a film called Claudine, the story of a woman who raises her six children alone after two failed marriages and one "almost" marriage. Ruppert, played by Jones, is a garbage man who has deep problems of his own. The couple somehow overcomes each other's pride and stubbornness and gets married.
Darth Vader

He has appeared in many roles since, but is well known as the voice of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy. Darth Vader was portrayed in costume by David Prowse in the original trilogy, with Jones dubbing Vader's dialogue in postproduction due to Prowse's strong West Country accent being unsuitable for the role. At his own request, he was originally uncredited for the release of the first two films (he would later be credited for the two in the 1997 re-release):
“ When Linda Blair did the girl in The Exorcist, they hired Mercedes McCambridge to do the voice of the devil coming out of her. And there was controversy as to whether Mercedes should get credit. I was one who thought no, she was just special effects. So when it came to Darth Vader, I said, no I'm just special effects. But it became so identified that by the third one, I thought, OK I've been denying it, I've been saying it sounds like the uncola nut guy Holder. Geoffrey Holder! ... But for the third one, I said OK, I'll let them put my name on it.

Although uncredited, Jones' voice is briefly heard as Darth Vader at the conclusion of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. When specifically asked whether he had supplied the voice, possibly from a previous recording, Jones told New York Newsday: "You'd have to ask Lucas about that. I don't know." However, on the issue of the voice, the commentary on the DVD release states that, while it will always be uncredited, any true Star Wars fan "should know the answer".

Over the years, Jones reprised his role as the voice of Vader several times: He is credited in the movie Robots with the voice of Darth Vader from a voice module. Playing the king of Zamunda in the comedy Coming to America, he echoed four Darth Vader phrases. He also vocally appeared as Vader in the comedy film The Benchwarmers and the video games Monopoly Star Wars and Star Wars: The Interactive Video Board Game. Jones' voice is also used for the Jedi Training academy attraction at Disneyland MGM.
Other voiceover work

His other voice roles include Mufasa in the 1994 film Disney animated blockbuster The Lion King, and its sequel, The Lion King II: Simba's Pride. Archived audio from the former has been used in the Square Enix and Disney crossover game Kingdom Hearts II. He also voiced the Emperor of the Night in Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night. He also has done the CNN tagline, "This is CNN"; the opening for NBC's coverage of the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics; "the Big PI in the Sky" (God) in the computer game Under a Killing Moon; a Claymation film about The Creation; and several guest spots on The Simpsons.
Notable film roles

Jones played the older version of author Alex Haley, in the television mini-series Roots: The Next Generations; the villain Thulsa Doom, in Conan the Barbarian; the character Terence Mann, in the baseball film Field of Dreams; the feared neighbour and owner of the dog Hercules in The Sandlot; King Jaffe Joffer, in Coming to America; Reverend Stephen Kumalo, in Cry, The Beloved Country; and Admiral James Greer, in The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, and Clear and Present Danger. He also made a cameo appearance in a penultimate episodes of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.
Notable stage roles

Jones is an accomplished stage actor as well; he has won Tony awards in 1969 for The Great White Hope and in 1987 for Fences. Othello, King Lear, Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Abhorson in Measure for Measure, and Claudius in Hamlet are Shakespearean roles he has played. He received Kennedy Center Honors in 2002.

In February 2008, he began starring on Broadway as Big Daddy in a limited-run, all-African-American production of Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Debbie Allen and mounted at the Broadhurst Theatre.

In November 2009, James reprised the role of Big Daddy in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof at the Novello Theatre in London's West End. This production also stars Sanaa Lathan as Maggie, Phylicia Rashad as Big Mamma, and Adrian Lester as Brick.
Other work

His other works include his portrayal of GDI's commanding general James Solomon in Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, a starring role in the television program Under One Roof as widowed police officer Neb Langston for which he received an Emmy nomination, and television and radio advertising for Verizon Business DSL and Verizon Online DSL from Verizon Communications.

Jones appeared in the 1963-1964 television season in an episode of ABC's drama series about college life, Channing starring Jason Evers and Henry Jones. He appeared on the soap opera Guiding Light. He portrayed Thad Green on Mathnet, a parody of Dragnet.

He has played lead characters on television in three series. First, he appeared on the short-lived CBS police drama Paris, which aired during Fall 1979. That show was notable as the first program on which Steven Bochco served as executive producer. The second show aired on ABC between 1990 and 1992, the first season being titled Gabriel's Fire and the second (after a format revision) Pros and Cons. In both formats of that show, Jones played a former policeman wrongly convicted for murder who, upon his release from prison, became a private eye. In 1995, Jones starred in Under One Roof, as Neb Langston, a widowed African-American police officer sharing his home in Seattle with his daughter, his married son and children and Neb's newly adopted son. The show was a mid-season replacement and lasted only six weeks.

In 1986, Jones played a Harvard law professor in the movie Soul Man, with C. Thomas Howell and Rae Dawn Chong. From 1989 to 1993, Jones served as the host of the children's TV series Long Ago and Far Away.

In 1990, Jones did a voiceover for the Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror", in which he was the narrator for the Simpsons' version of Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven". In 1992, Jones was often seen as the host on the video tele-monitor for the Sea World resort in Orlando, Florida. In 1996, James guest starred in the CBS drama Touched by an Angel as the Angels of Angels in the episode "Clipped Wings". In 1998, Jones starred in the widely acclaimed syndicated program An American Moment (created by James R. Kirk and Ninth Wave Productions). Jones took over the role left by Charles Kuralt, upon Kuralt's death. He has guest-starred on such sitcoms as NBC's Frasier and Will & Grace, and the WB drama Everwood. Jones also lent his voice for a narrative part in the Adam Sandler comedy, Click, released in June 2006. His voice is also used to create an audio version of the King James New Testament.

On April 7, 2005, James Earl Jones and Leslie Uggams headed the cast in an African-American Broadway revival version of On Golden Pond, directed by Leonard Foglia and produced by Jeffrey Finn.

On December 15, 2008, Jones made a guest appearance on the sitcom Two and a Half Men.

On October 5, 2009, Jones made a guest appearance on the television series House playing African dictator Antipas Dibala.
Personal life

Jones has been married to actress Cecilia Hart since 1982. They have one child, Flynn Earl Jones. He was previously married to American actress/singer Julienne Marie (born March 21, 1933, Toledo, Ohio); they had no children.

Coincidentally, both of Jones' wives had played Desdemona to Jones' Othello.

Jones was given a key to the city in Detroit, Michigan.
Awards

Academy Awards

    * 1971 Best Actor in a Leading Role - The Great White Hope (Nominated)

Emmy Awards

    * 1964 Outstanding Lead Actor - Miniseries or a Movie/East Side/West Side (Nominated)
    * 1990 Outstanding Supporting Actor - Miniseries or a Movie/By Dawn's Early Light (Nominated)
    * 1991 Outstanding Lead Actor - Drama Series/Gabriel's Fire
    * 1991 Outstanding Supporting Actor - Miniseries or a Movie/Heat Wave
    * 1994 Outstanding Guest Actor - Drama Series/Picket Fences (Nominated)
    * 1995 Outstanding Supporting Actor - Drama Series/Under One Roof (Nominated)
    * 1997 Outstanding Guest Actor - Comedy Series/Frasier (Nominated)
    * 1999 Outstanding Performer - Children's Special
    * 2004 Outstanding Guest Actor - Drama Series/Everwood (Nominated)

Golden Globe Awards

    * 1971 New Star of the Year - Actor/The Great White Hope
    * 1971 Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama/The Great White Hope (Nominated)
    * 1975 Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy/Claudine (Nominated)
    * 1991 Best Actor in a Drama Series/Gabriel's Fire (Nominated)
    * 1992 Best Actor in a Drama Series/Pros and Cons (Nominated)

Independent Spirit Awards

    * 1987 Best Supporting Male/Matewan (Nominated)

Screen Actors Guild Awards

    * 1996 Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role/Cry, the Beloved Country (Nominated)
    * 2009 Life Achievement Award

Tony Awards

    * 1969 Best Leading Actor in a Play/The Great White Hope
    * 1987 Best Leading Actor in a Play/Fences
    * 2005 Best Leading Actor in a Play/On Golden Pond (Nominated)

Other Awards

    * 1991 Common Wealth Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Dramatic Arts

Filmography

    * Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
    * The Comedians in Africa (1967)
    * The Comedians (1967)
    * End of the Road (1970)
    * King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis (1970)
    * The Great White Hope (1970)
    * Malcolm X (1972)
    * The Man (1972)
    * Claudine (1974)
    * The Cay (1974 one-hour TV drama)
    * The UFO Incident (1975 TV-movie)
    * The River Niger (1976)
    * The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976)
    * Swashbuckler (1976)
    * Deadly Hero (1976)
    * The Greatest (1977)
    * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) (voice)
    * Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
    * The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977)
    * A Piece of the Action (1977)
    * Jesus of Nazareth (1977)
    * Black Theatre: The Making of a Movement (1978)
    * Star Wars Christmas Special (1978 TV special) (voice)
    * Roots: The Next Generations (1979 TV miniseries)
    * Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (voice)
    * Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (1980 TV miniseries)
    * The Creation (1981)
    * The Bushido Blade (1981)
    * The Flight of Dragons (1982) (voice)
    * Conan the Barbarian (1982)
    * Blood Tide (1982)
    * Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983) (voice)
    * Allen Boesak: Choosing for Justice (1984)
    * City Limits (1985)
    * Soul Man (1986)
    * Gardens of Stone (1987)
    * Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1987)



    * My Little Girl (1987)
    * Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987) (voice)
    * Matewan (1987)
    * Terrorgram (1988) (voice)
    * Coming to America (1988)
    * Three Fugitives (1989)
    * Field of Dreams (1989)
    * Best of the Best (1989)
    * By Dawn's Early Light (1990)
    * Convicts (1990)
    * The Hunt for Red October (1990)
    * A World Alive (1990)
    * The Ambulance (1990)
    * Grim Prairie Tales (1990)
    * Heatwave (1990)
    * True Identity (1991)
    * Scorchers (1991)
    * The Second Coming (1992)
    * Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama (1992)
    * Patriot Games (1992)
    * Freddie the Frog (1992)
    * Sneakers (1992)
    * Dreamrider (1993)
    * Sommersby (1993)
    * The Sandlot (1993)
    * Excessive Force (1993)
    * The Meteor Man (1993)
    * Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult (1994)
    * Africa: The Serengeti (1994)
    * Clean Slate (1994)
    * The Vernon Johns Story (1994)
    * The Lion King (1994) (voice)
    * Clear and Present Danger (1994)
    * Countdown to Freedom: 10 Days That Changed South Africa (1994)
    * Jefferson in Paris (1995)
    * Judge Dredd (1995)
    * Cry, The Beloved Country (1995)
    * A Family Thing (1996)



    * Looking for Richard (1996)
    * Good Luck (1996)
    * Gang Related (1997)
    * What the Deaf Man Heard (1997)
    * New York... Come Visit the World (1998)
    * Primary Colors (1998) (voice)
    * Merlin (1998) (voice)
    * The Lion King II: Simba's Pride (1998 direct-to-DVD) (voice)
    * Summer's End (1999)
    * Our Friend, Martin (1999) (voice)
    * On the Q.T. (1999)
    * Undercover Angel (1999)
    * The Annihilation of Fish (1999)
    * Fantasia 2000 (1999)
    * Tiberian Sun (1999 video game cut scene)
    * Ennis' Gift (2000)
    * Antietam: A Documentary Drama (2000)
    * The Papp Project (2001)
    * Black Indians: An American Story (2001)
    * Finder's Fee (2001)
    * Recess Christmas: Miracle on Third Street (2001)
    * Muhammad Ali: Through the Eyes of the World (2001)
    * Disney's American Legends (2002)
    * The Great Year (2004)
    * Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (2004)
    * Robots (2005) (voice)
    * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005) (voice)
    * The Reading Room (2005)
    * The Sandlot 2 (2005)
    * Malcolm X: Prince of Islam documentary (2006) (narration only)
    * Kingdom Hearts II (2006) (archived audio, voice)
    * The Benchwarmers (2006) (voice)
    * Scary Movie 4 (2006)
    * Click (2006) (voice) (As Himself)
    * The Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy (2006)
    * Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (2008)
    * Jack and the Beanstalk (2008) (voice)
    * Disneyland Hollywood Studios (2008) (voice)
    * Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey (2009) (voice)
    * Earth (2009) (voice)
    * House (2009) Dibala
http://i444.photobucket.com/albums/qq166/briansmith2009/Actors/044JamesEJones.jpg
http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q116/ualineman/JamesEarlJone.jpg
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p188/mcmilkman666/jamessmall.jpg
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc73/hancocks_2007/tmp7.jpg


He is a legend.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/17/10 at 6:44 am


The word of the day...Lion
 


      A lion is a large wild member of the cat family that is found in Africa. Lions have yellowish fur, and male lions have long hair on their head and neck.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e36/DrKearse/lion.jpg
http://i934.photobucket.com/albums/ad184/luzfigueira/lion-2.jpg
http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/ww251/animedragon33/Cats/Lion---Fierce.jpg
http://i934.photobucket.com/albums/ad184/luzfigueira/lion-5.jpg
http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/ww251/animedragon33/Cats/lion-female.jpg
http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll211/gabban18/lion-king_4.jpg
http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo48/bigbreastedbenbow/SANY0342.jpg
http://i1019.photobucket.com/albums/af314/angiehill_bucket/SDC10243.jpg
http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr213/iztabby/mominRussia019.jpg


http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/cowardlylion.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/17/10 at 7:14 am


http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/cowardlylion.jpg

The cowardly lion, how did I forget him.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/17/10 at 7:15 am


He is a legend.  :)

Yes he is.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/17/10 at 7:18 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTkgAL-bxVY

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/17/10 at 8:24 am

Not only is James Earl Jones a fabulous actor and has a great voice, I think he has a WONDERFUL smile. I just love his smile.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/17/10 at 10:15 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTkgAL-bxVY

It wouldn't play :\'(

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/17/10 at 10:16 am


Not only is James Earl Jones a fabulous actor and has a great voice, I think he has a WONDERFUL smile. I just love his smile.



Cat

He is a very unique gentleman.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/17/10 at 10:18 am


It wouldn't play :\'(
It played on the main YouTube website.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/17/10 at 2:12 pm


It played on the main YouTube website.

I just listened to it Thanks.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/17/10 at 7:12 pm

Lions are kings of the jungle.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/18/10 at 12:40 am

British Person of the Day: A. A. Milne

Alan Alexander Milne (18 January 1882 – 31 January 1956) was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work.

Life

A. A. Milne was born in Kilburn, London, England to parents John Vine Milne and Sarah Maria (née Heginbotham) and grew up at Henley House School, 6/7 Mortimer Road (now Crescent), Kilburn, London, a small independent school run by his father. One of his teachers was H. G. Wells who taught there in 1889–90. Milne attended Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied on a mathematics scholarship. While there, he edited and wrote for Granta, a student magazine. He collaborated with his brother Kenneth and their articles appeared over the initials AKM. Milne's work came to the attention of the leading British humour magazine Punch, where Milne was to become a contributor and later an assistant editor.

Milne joined the British Army in World War I and served as an officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and later, after a debilitating illness, the Royal Corps of Signals. After the war, he wrote a denunciation of war titled Peace with Honour (1934), which he retracted somewhat with 1940's War with Honour. During World War II, Milne was one of the most prominent critics of English humour writer P. G. Wodehouse, who was captured at his country home in France by the Nazis and imprisoned for a year. Wodehouse made radio broadcasts about his internment, which were broadcast from Berlin. Although the lighthearted broadcasts made fun of the Germans, Milne accused Wodehouse of committing an act of near treason by cooperating with his country's enemy. Wodehouse got some revenge on his former friend by creating fatuous parodies of the Christopher Robin poems in some of his later stories, and claiming that Milne "was probably jealous of all other writers.... But I loved his stuff."

He married Dorothy "Daphne" de Sélincourt in 1913, and their only son, Christopher Robin Milne, was born in 1920. In 1925, A. A. Milne bought a country home, Cotchford Farm, in Hartfield, East Sussex. During World War II, A. A. Milne was Captain of the Home Guard in Hartfield & Forest Row, insisting on being plain 'Mr. Milne' to the members of his platoon. He retired to the farm after a stroke and brain surgery in 1952 left him an invalid and by August 1953 "he seemed very old and disenchanted".

Literary career
1903 to 1925

After graduating from Cambridge in 1903, A. A. Milne contributed humorous verse and whimsical essays to the British humour magazine Punch, joining the staff in 1906 and becoming an assistant editor.

During this period he published 18 plays and 3 novels, including the murder mystery The Red House Mystery (1922). His son was born in August 1920 and in 1924 Milne produced a collection of children's poems When We Were Very Young, which were illustrated by Punch staff cartoonist E. H. Shepard. A collection of short stories for children Gallery of Children, and other stories that became part of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, were first published in 1925.

Looking back on this period (in 1926) Milne observed that when he told his agent that he was going to write a detective story, he was told that what the country wanted from a "Punch humorist" was a humorous story; when two years later he said he was writing nursery rhymes, his agent and publisher were convinced he should write another detective story; and after another two years he was being told that writing a detective story would be in the worst of taste given the demand for children's books. He concluded that "the only excuse which I have yet discovered for writing anything is that I want to write it; and I should be as proud to be delivered of a Telephone Directory con amore as I should be ashamed to create a Blank Verse Tragedy at the bidding of others."

1926 to 1928

Milne is most famous for his two Pooh books about a boy named Christopher Robin after his son, and various characters inspired by his son's stuffed animals, most notably the bear named Winnie-the-Pooh. Christopher Robin Milne's stuffed bear, originally named "Edward", was renamed "Winnie-the-Pooh" after a Canadian black bear named Winnie (after Winnipeg), which was used as a military mascot in World War I, and left to London Zoo during the war. "The pooh" comes from a swan called "Pooh". E. H. Shepard illustrated the original Pooh books, using his own son's teddy, Growler ("a magnificent bear"), as the model. Christopher Robin Milne's own toys are now under glass in New York.

Winnie-the-Pooh was published in 1926, followed by The House at Pooh Corner in 1928. A second collection of nursery rhymes, Now We Are Six, was published in 1927. All three books were illustrated by E. H. Shepard. Milne also published four plays in this period. He also "gallantly stepped forward" to contribute a quarter of the costs of dramatising P. G. Wodehouse's A Damsel in Distress.

1929 onwards

The success of his children's books was to become a source of considerable annoyance to Milne, whose self-avowed aim was to write whatever he pleased and who had, until then, found a ready audience for each change of direction: he had freed pre-war Punch from its ponderous facetiousness; he had made a considerable reputation as a playwright (like his idol J. M. Barrie) on both sides of the Atlantic; he had produced a witty piece of detective writing in The Red House Mystery (although this was severely criticised by Raymond Chandler for the implausibility of its plot). But once Milne had, in his own words, "said goodbye to all that in 70,000 words" (the approximate length of his four principal children's books), he had no intention of producing any reworkings lacking in originality, given that one of the sources of inspiration, his son, was growing older.

His reception remained warmer in America than Britain, and he continued to publish novels and short stories, but by the late 1930s the audience for Milne's grown-up writing had largely vanished: he observed bitterly in his autobiography that a critic had said that the hero of his latest play ("God help it") was simply "Christopher Robin grown up...what an obsession with me children are become!".

Even his old literary home, Punch, where the When We Were Very Young verses had first appeared, was ultimately to reject him, as Christopher Milne details in his autobiography The Enchanted Places, although Methuen continued to publish whatever Milne wrote, including the long poem 'The Norman Church' and an assembly of articles entitled Year In, Year Out (which Milne likened to a benefit night for the author).

He also adapted Kenneth Grahame's novel The Wind in the Willows for the stage as Toad of Toad Hall. The title was an implicit admission that such chapters as Chapter 7, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn", could not survive translation to the theatre. A special introduction written by Milne is included in some editions of Grahame's novel.

Several of Milne's children's poems were set to music by the composer Harold Fraser-Simson. His poems have been parodied many times, including with the books When We Were Rather Older and Now We Are Sixty.

After Milne's death, his widow sold the rights to the Pooh characters to the Walt Disney Company, which has made a number of Pooh cartoon movies, as well as a large amount of Pooh-related merchandise.

Royalties from the Pooh characters paid by Disney to the Royal Literary Fund, part-owner of the Pooh copyright, provide the income used to run the Fund's Fellowship Scheme, placing professional writers in U.K. universities.

Works
Novels

    * Lovers in London (1905) (Some consider this more of a short story collection; Milne didn't like it and considered The Day's Play as his first book.)
    * Once on a Time (1917)
    * Mr. Pim (1921) (A novelisation of his play Mr. Pim Passes By (1919))
    * The Red House Mystery (1922)
    * Two People (1931) (Inside jacket claims this is Milne's first attempt at a novel.)
    * Four Days' Wonder (1933)
    * Chloe Marr (1946)

Non-fiction

    * Peace With Honour (1934)
    * It's Too Late Now: The Autobiography of a Writer (1939)
    * War With Honour (1940)
    * Year In, Year Out (1952) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)

Punch articles

    * The Day's Play (1910)
    * Once a Week (1914)
    * The Holiday Round (1912)
    * The Sunny Side (1921)
    * Those Were the Days (1929)

Selections of newspaper articles and introductions to books by others

    * The Chronicles of Clovis by "Saki" (1911)
    * Not That It Matters (1920)
    * By Way of Introduction (1929)

Story collections for children

    * Gallery of Children (1925)
    * Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)
    * The House at Pooh Corner (1928) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)
    * Short Stories

Story collections

    * A Table Near the Band (1950)

Poetry

    * For the Luncheon Interval
    * When We Were Very Young (1924) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)
    * Now We Are Six (1927) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)
    * Behind the Lines (1940)
    * The Norman Church (1948)

Plays

Milne wrote over 25 plays, including:

    * Wurzel-Flummery (1917)
    * Belinda (1918)
    * The Boy Comes Home (1918)
    * Make-Believe (1918) (children's play)
    * The Camberley Triangle (1919)
    * Mr. Pim Passes By (1919)
    * The Red Feathers (1920)
    * The Romantic Age (1920)
    * The Stepmother (1920)
    * The Truth about Blayds (1920)
    * The Dover Road (1921)
    * The Lucky One (1922)
    * The Artist: A Duologue (1923)
    * Give Me Yesterday (1923) (a.k.a. Success in the U.K.)
    * The Great Broxopp (1923)
    * Ariadne (1924)
    * The Man in the Bowler Hat: A Terribly Exciting Affair (1924)
    * To Have the Honour (1924)
    * Portrait of a Gentleman in Slippers (1926)
    * Success (1926)
    * Miss Marlow at Play (1927)
    * The Fourth Wall or The Perfect Alibi (1928)
    * The Ivory Door (1929)
    * Toad of Toad Hall (1929) (adaptation of The Wind in the Willows)
    * Michael and Mary (1930)
    * Other People's Lives (1933) (a.k.a. They Don't Mean Any Harm)
    * Miss Elizabeth Bennet (1936)
    * Sarah Simple (1937)
    * Gentleman Unknown (1938)
    * The General Takes Off His Helmet (1939) in The Queen's Book of the Red Cross
    * The Ugly Duckling (1946)
    * Before the Flood (1951)

http://blog.syracuse.com/shelflife/2008/01/milne.jpg

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/19845241.jpg
A A Milne memorial plaque in Ashdown Forest

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/18/10 at 7:02 am


British Person of the Day: A. A. Milne

Alan Alexander Milne (18 January 1882 – 31 January 1956) was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work.

Life

A. A. Milne was born in Kilburn, London, England to parents John Vine Milne and Sarah Maria (née Heginbotham) and grew up at Henley House School, 6/7 Mortimer Road (now Crescent), Kilburn, London, a small independent school run by his father. One of his teachers was H. G. Wells who taught there in 1889–90. Milne attended Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied on a mathematics scholarship. While there, he edited and wrote for Granta, a student magazine. He collaborated with his brother Kenneth and their articles appeared over the initials AKM. Milne's work came to the attention of the leading British humour magazine Punch, where Milne was to become a contributor and later an assistant editor.

Milne joined the British Army in World War I and served as an officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and later, after a debilitating illness, the Royal Corps of Signals. After the war, he wrote a denunciation of war titled Peace with Honour (1934), which he retracted somewhat with 1940's War with Honour. During World War II, Milne was one of the most prominent critics of English humour writer P. G. Wodehouse, who was captured at his country home in France by the Nazis and imprisoned for a year. Wodehouse made radio broadcasts about his internment, which were broadcast from Berlin. Although the lighthearted broadcasts made fun of the Germans, Milne accused Wodehouse of committing an act of near treason by cooperating with his country's enemy. Wodehouse got some revenge on his former friend by creating fatuous parodies of the Christopher Robin poems in some of his later stories, and claiming that Milne "was probably jealous of all other writers.... But I loved his stuff."

He married Dorothy "Daphne" de Sélincourt in 1913, and their only son, Christopher Robin Milne, was born in 1920. In 1925, A. A. Milne bought a country home, Cotchford Farm, in Hartfield, East Sussex. During World War II, A. A. Milne was Captain of the Home Guard in Hartfield & Forest Row, insisting on being plain 'Mr. Milne' to the members of his platoon. He retired to the farm after a stroke and brain surgery in 1952 left him an invalid and by August 1953 "he seemed very old and disenchanted".

Literary career
1903 to 1925

After graduating from Cambridge in 1903, A. A. Milne contributed humorous verse and whimsical essays to the British humour magazine Punch, joining the staff in 1906 and becoming an assistant editor.

During this period he published 18 plays and 3 novels, including the murder mystery The Red House Mystery (1922). His son was born in August 1920 and in 1924 Milne produced a collection of children's poems When We Were Very Young, which were illustrated by Punch staff cartoonist E. H. Shepard. A collection of short stories for children Gallery of Children, and other stories that became part of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, were first published in 1925.

Looking back on this period (in 1926) Milne observed that when he told his agent that he was going to write a detective story, he was told that what the country wanted from a "Punch humorist" was a humorous story; when two years later he said he was writing nursery rhymes, his agent and publisher were convinced he should write another detective story; and after another two years he was being told that writing a detective story would be in the worst of taste given the demand for children's books. He concluded that "the only excuse which I have yet discovered for writing anything is that I want to write it; and I should be as proud to be delivered of a Telephone Directory con amore as I should be ashamed to create a Blank Verse Tragedy at the bidding of others."

1926 to 1928

Milne is most famous for his two Pooh books about a boy named Christopher Robin after his son, and various characters inspired by his son's stuffed animals, most notably the bear named Winnie-the-Pooh. Christopher Robin Milne's stuffed bear, originally named "Edward", was renamed "Winnie-the-Pooh" after a Canadian black bear named Winnie (after Winnipeg), which was used as a military mascot in World War I, and left to London Zoo during the war. "The pooh" comes from a swan called "Pooh". E. H. Shepard illustrated the original Pooh books, using his own son's teddy, Growler ("a magnificent bear"), as the model. Christopher Robin Milne's own toys are now under glass in New York.

Winnie-the-Pooh was published in 1926, followed by The House at Pooh Corner in 1928. A second collection of nursery rhymes, Now We Are Six, was published in 1927. All three books were illustrated by E. H. Shepard. Milne also published four plays in this period. He also "gallantly stepped forward" to contribute a quarter of the costs of dramatising P. G. Wodehouse's A Damsel in Distress.

1929 onwards

The success of his children's books was to become a source of considerable annoyance to Milne, whose self-avowed aim was to write whatever he pleased and who had, until then, found a ready audience for each change of direction: he had freed pre-war Punch from its ponderous facetiousness; he had made a considerable reputation as a playwright (like his idol J. M. Barrie) on both sides of the Atlantic; he had produced a witty piece of detective writing in The Red House Mystery (although this was severely criticised by Raymond Chandler for the implausibility of its plot). But once Milne had, in his own words, "said goodbye to all that in 70,000 words" (the approximate length of his four principal children's books), he had no intention of producing any reworkings lacking in originality, given that one of the sources of inspiration, his son, was growing older.

His reception remained warmer in America than Britain, and he continued to publish novels and short stories, but by the late 1930s the audience for Milne's grown-up writing had largely vanished: he observed bitterly in his autobiography that a critic had said that the hero of his latest play ("God help it") was simply "Christopher Robin grown up...what an obsession with me children are become!".

Even his old literary home, Punch, where the When We Were Very Young verses had first appeared, was ultimately to reject him, as Christopher Milne details in his autobiography The Enchanted Places, although Methuen continued to publish whatever Milne wrote, including the long poem 'The Norman Church' and an assembly of articles entitled Year In, Year Out (which Milne likened to a benefit night for the author).

He also adapted Kenneth Grahame's novel The Wind in the Willows for the stage as Toad of Toad Hall. The title was an implicit admission that such chapters as Chapter 7, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn", could not survive translation to the theatre. A special introduction written by Milne is included in some editions of Grahame's novel.

Several of Milne's children's poems were set to music by the composer Harold Fraser-Simson. His poems have been parodied many times, including with the books When We Were Rather Older and Now We Are Sixty.

After Milne's death, his widow sold the rights to the Pooh characters to the Walt Disney Company, which has made a number of Pooh cartoon movies, as well as a large amount of Pooh-related merchandise.

Royalties from the Pooh characters paid by Disney to the Royal Literary Fund, part-owner of the Pooh copyright, provide the income used to run the Fund's Fellowship Scheme, placing professional writers in U.K. universities.

Works
Novels

    * Lovers in London (1905) (Some consider this more of a short story collection; Milne didn't like it and considered The Day's Play as his first book.)
    * Once on a Time (1917)
    * Mr. Pim (1921) (A novelisation of his play Mr. Pim Passes By (1919))
    * The Red House Mystery (1922)
    * Two People (1931) (Inside jacket claims this is Milne's first attempt at a novel.)
    * Four Days' Wonder (1933)
    * Chloe Marr (1946)

Non-fiction

    * Peace With Honour (1934)
    * It's Too Late Now: The Autobiography of a Writer (1939)
    * War With Honour (1940)
    * Year In, Year Out (1952) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)

Punch articles

    * The Day's Play (1910)
    * Once a Week (1914)
    * The Holiday Round (1912)
    * The Sunny Side (1921)
    * Those Were the Days (1929)

Selections of newspaper articles and introductions to books by others

    * The Chronicles of Clovis by "Saki" (1911)
    * Not That It Matters (1920)
    * By Way of Introduction (1929)

Story collections for children

    * Gallery of Children (1925)
    * Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)
    * The House at Pooh Corner (1928) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)
    * Short Stories

Story collections

    * A Table Near the Band (1950)

Poetry

    * For the Luncheon Interval
    * When We Were Very Young (1924) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)
    * Now We Are Six (1927) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)
    * Behind the Lines (1940)
    * The Norman Church (1948)

Plays

Milne wrote over 25 plays, including:

    * Wurzel-Flummery (1917)
    * Belinda (1918)
    * The Boy Comes Home (1918)
    * Make-Believe (1918) (children's play)
    * The Camberley Triangle (1919)
    * Mr. Pim Passes By (1919)
    * The Red Feathers (1920)
    * The Romantic Age (1920)
    * The Stepmother (1920)
    * The Truth about Blayds (1920)
    * The Dover Road (1921)
    * The Lucky One (1922)
    * The Artist: A Duologue (1923)
    * Give Me Yesterday (1923) (a.k.a. Success in the U.K.)
    * The Great Broxopp (1923)
    * Ariadne (1924)
    * The Man in the Bowler Hat: A Terribly Exciting Affair (1924)
    * To Have the Honour (1924)
    * Portrait of a Gentleman in Slippers (1926)
    * Success (1926)
    * Miss Marlow at Play (1927)
    * The Fourth Wall or The Perfect Alibi (1928)
    * The Ivory Door (1929)
    * Toad of Toad Hall (1929) (adaptation of The Wind in the Willows)
    * Michael and Mary (1930)
    * Other People's Lives (1933) (a.k.a. They Don't Mean Any Harm)
    * Miss Elizabeth Bennet (1936)
    * Sarah Simple (1937)
    * Gentleman Unknown (1938)
    * The General Takes Off His Helmet (1939) in The Queen's Book of the Red Cross
    * The Ugly Duckling (1946)
    * Before the Flood (1951)

http://blog.syracuse.com/shelflife/2008/01/milne.jpg

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/19845241.jpg
A A Milne memorial plaque in Ashdown Forest



I was going around singing the Winnie The Pooh song 
Winnie the Pooh
Winnie the Pooh
Tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff
He's Winnie the Pooh
Winnie the Pooh
Willy nilly silly old bear :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/18/10 at 7:08 am

The word of the day...Rent
If you rent something, you regularly pay its owner a sum of money in order to be able to have it and use it yourself
If you rent something to someone, you let them have it and use it in exchange for a sum of money which they pay you regularly.
Rent is the amount of money that you pay regularly to use a house, flat, or piece of land.
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f335/mackzekerule/RENT/RENT-2-1.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f335/mackzekerule/RENT/rent.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b104/master_of_one/RENT/92.png
http://i795.photobucket.com/albums/yy239/ParksideBrentwood/Flyers/ApartmentForRent1.jpg
http://i758.photobucket.com/albums/xx229/Raisa94/Greennewlyrenaptforrent.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b104/master_of_one/Iconses/4dea41a2.gif
http://i770.photobucket.com/albums/xx348/michael_crisson/2010%20BCS%20National%20Championship/100_2241.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/18/10 at 7:11 am

The birthday of the day...Jesse L. Martin
Jesse Lamont Martin (born Jesse Lamont Watkins; January 18, 1969) is an American theatre, film, and television actor, best known for originating the role of Tom Collins in Rent and as Det. Ed Green in the NBC series Law & Order.
Stage work

After graduation, Martin toured the states with John Houseman's The Acting Company. He appeared in Shakespeare's Rock-in-Roles at the Actors Theatre of Louisville and The Butcher's Daughter at the Cleveland Playhouse, and returned to Manhattan to perform in local theatre, soap operas, and commercials. Finding that auditions, regional theater, and bit parts were no way to support himself, Martin waited tables at several restaurants around the city. He was literally serving a pizza when his appearance on CBS's Guiding Light aired in the same eatery. While the show aired, the whole waitstaff gathered around the bar television to cheer his performance. Often, during the dinner rush, he broke out in song. When he gave his customers their dinner checks, he told them to "keep it, because someday I'll be famous!" Many of his coworkers in the restaurants continue to follow his career and are considered his early "fan club".

Martin made his Broadway debut in Timon of Athens, and then performed in The Government Inspector with Lainie Kazan. While employed at the Moondance Diner, he met the playwright Jonathan Larson, who also worked on the restaurant's staff. In 1996, Larson's musical Rent took the theatre world by storm, with Martin in the part of gay computer geek/philosophy professor Tom Collins. The 1990s update of Puccini's La Bohème earned six Drama Desk Awards, five Obie Awards, four Tony Awards, and the Pulitzer Prize.
Television

Martin soon landed roles on Fox's short-lived 413 Hope St. and Eric Bross' independent film Restaurant (1998). Ally McBeal's creator, David E. Kelley, attended Rent's Broadway premiere and remembered Martin when the show needed a new boyfriend for Calista Flockhart's Ally. Martin's performance as Dr. Greg Butters on Ally McBeal caught David Duchovny's eye, who then cast Martin as a baseball-playing alien in a 1999 episode of The X-Files titled "The Unnatural" that Duchovny wrote and directed.

While still shooting Ally McBeal, Martin heard rumours that actor Benjamin Bratt planned to leave the cast of Law & Order. Martin had tried out for the show years before and won the minor role of a car-radio thief named Earl the Hamster, but decided to wait for a bigger part. With the opportunity presenting itself, Martin approached Law & Order producer Dick Wolf regarding the opening. Wolf hoped to cast him, and upon hearing that CBS and Fox both offered Martin development deals, he gave the actor the part without an audition.

From 1999 to 2008, he played Det. Ed Green on Law & Order. He had a brief hiatus at the end of the 2004–2005 season while he was filming the movie adaptation of Rent in which he reprised the role of Tom Collins. Martin's character was the first detective to be promoted from junior to senior partner. Martin's final episode of Law & Order aired April 23, 2008, as he was replaced by Anthony Anderson. Martin returned to NBC a year later, as the co-star of The Philanthropist.
Future work

Currently in development is Sexual Healing, a film about the last years of singer Marvin Gaye's life. Martin plans to both produce and star in the film. The film, directed by Lauren Goodman, is in pre-production as of 2008.
Stage work

    * Timon of Athens (Broadway premiere) - "Alcibiades' Officer" and "Second Masseur" (1993)
    * The Government Inspector (revival) - Abdulin (1994)
    * Rent - Tom Collins (1996)
    * Bright Lights Big City (Off-Broadway) - Tad

Filmography
Year Film/television Role Other notes
1995 & 1998 New York Undercover Mustapha (1995 episode: "All In The Family") and Kaylen (1998 episode: "Going Native") TV series
1997 413 Hope St. Antonio Collins TV series
Ally McBeal Dr. Greg Butters TV Series
1998 Restaurant Quincy
1999 The X-Files Josh Exley TV Series (Episode 6x19, "The Unnatural")
Deep in My Heart Don Williams TV series
1999–2008 Law & Order Det. Edward Green Regular:198 Episodes (left briefly during the end of the 2004–2005 season)
2002 Buring House of Love Andre Anderson
2003 Season of Youth
2004 A Christmas Carol Ghost of Christmas Present TV movie
2005 Rent Tom Collins repeated his Off-Broadway and Broadway role along with five other original cast members
2008 A Muppet Christmas: Letters to Santa A Postal Worker cameo, TV Movie
Sexual Healing Marvin Gaye Producer and starring actor, in production as of 2007
http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w9/kharadiva/jesselmartin.jpg
http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z221/likethembald/JesseLMartin.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v670/punkrockprincess08/Jesse%20L%20Martin/RENTTheApollo016-vi.jpg
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll293/AUTUMNSKYS24/saudah2/lo1.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/18/10 at 7:15 am

The person of the day...Al Waxman
Albert Samuel Waxman, CM, O.Ont (March 2, 1935 – January 18, 2001) was a Canadian actor and director of over 1000 productions on radio, television, film, and stage. He is best known for his starring roles in the television series King of Kensington (CBC) and Cagney & Lacey (CBS).
Waxman's career began at the age of twelve on CBC radio but it wasn't until 1975, when he began playing the role of Larry King on CBC's King of Kensington (1975-1980), that he became a Canadian icon.

In the 1980 award winning film Atlantic City starring Burt Lancaster, Waxman appeared as a rich cocaine buyer with a seemingly endless amount of cash.

During the 1980s Waxman starred as the gruff but endearing Lt Bert Samuels in the highly successful CBS television drama Cagney & Lacey (1981-1989).

During the 1990s Waxman appeared in a variety of films and television shows but began spending more time acting and directing in the theatre. He was also a founding member of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television.

In 1997 he was awarded the best actor Gemini Award for his performance in the television film Net Worth.

Waxman also appeared at the Stratford Festival, beginning with his critically acclaimed performance as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman in 1997. He also directed a memorable Anne Frank at the Stratford Festival in 2000. He was to return to Stratford for his highly anticipated portrayal of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice in 2001. In the wake of Waxman's death one month before rehearsals were to begin Paul Soles accepted the part of Shylock and the play was performed in honour of Waxman.

His last television role was as celestial Judge Othneil in Twice in a Lifetime(1999-2001). The last episode on which he worked right up until the afternoon before his elective heart bypass surgery was about a man, popular in his community, who needed routine bypass surgery but died during the operation. Although some sections of the episode were rewritten, at the end of this final episode Waxman's character is asked rhetorically 'why do the good die young' to which he has no answer. He's then told 'you were quite a warrior'. His response - not merely the end of the episode, but one of Waxman's last lines ever recorded, and spoken with a smile of resignation from the heavens - was: 'I had my day'.

Throughout his career he responded to the need for his services in community work and was involved with charitable causes from coast to coast. He was spokesperson for organisations such as United Appeal, United Jewish Appeal, Israel Bonds, Variety Club, the Muscular Dystrophy Telethons, and Big Brothers (for which he also became an honorary member). From June 1979 to June 1981 he was the National Campaign Chairman for the Canadian Cancer Society, and from 1988-1989 he was an official spokesperson for the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Ontario.

Al Waxman was accorded many tributes for his volunteer and philanthropic work. In 1978 he was honoured with the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal. In 1989 he was the recipient of the B'nai Brith of Canada Humanitarian Award. In 1996 Waxman was inducted into the Order of Ontario and in 1997 into the Order of Canada. In 1998 he was given the Earle Grey Award for lifetime achievement in Canadian television. A statue erected for his popularity as a Canadian star actor, director, and humanitarian stands in Kensington Market. The inscription in front of it reads 'There's lots to do down the road, there's always more. Trust your gut instincts. In small matters trust your mind, but in the important decisions of life - trust your heart.'
Death

He died in Toronto during heart surgery on January 18, 2001, at the age of 65. His unexpected passing sent shock waves through the media and across the country that admired him as much for his charity and his indefatigable spirit as for the enormous body of work that he had achieved over his career. The Toronto neighbourhood that his starring role in King of Kensington made famous, Kensington Market, erected a memorial to Waxman following his death.
Fan club

Musician Jaymz Bee of the Bee People, (prior to his work with The Look People, The Royal Jelly Orchestra and various projects) was a founder of the Al Waxman Fan Club. The Fan Club began in 1984 following the heyday of the King of Kensington television show. Bee, his associates Clay Tyson (son of Ian and Sylvia), Bazl Salazar, Bruce J. Scott and artist Max MacDonald would host parties and write songs in honour of Waxman. They even created a dance called "The Waxman Wiggle". Some other Bee People songtitles included: "Have Al Instead", "Al or Nothing", "UniversAl" and "Puff, The Waxman Poodle". While the Fan Club initially appeared to be a publicity stunt, this led to a long and successful association between Jaymz Bee and Al Waxman. Waxman attended some of the Fan Club events as organised by Bee, most of which raised money for charities such as The Canadian Cancer Foundation and Big Brother. Bee attended Waxman's funeral, and joined with his Fan Club to hold a wake in Toronto on 25 January 2001. They had a New Orleans-style funeral march with a jazz band and paraded from The Cameron House to Kensington Market where they recorded his hit TV theme song with Vezi Tayeb at Kensington Sound. The AWFC boasted over 1,000 card carrying members and while the bulk of members were from Toronto, some were as far away as Japan and Africa. President Bee received a terse reply from Buckingham Palace however, notifying him that The Queen does not "join a fan club". Al Waxman realized over the years that this organization, while appearing tongue in cheek, was a group of bonafide fans who enjoyed celebrating "the King of Canada". Members of the now dormant AWFC can still be seen wandering through Kensington Market to shake the hand of the Al Waxman statue that resides there.
Filmography
Movies

    * 1959: Sun In My Eyes
    * 1962: The War Lover
    * 1963: The Victors
    * 1968: Isabel
    * 1970: The Last Act of Martin Weston
    * 1974: Vengeance is Mine
    * 1975: The Clown Murders
    * 1975: My Pleasure is my Business
    * 1979: Wild Horse Hank
    * 1980: Atlantic City
    * 1980: Double Negative
    * 1981: Heavy Metal (voice only)
    * 1981: Tulips
    * 1982: Class of '84
    * 1983: Spasms
    * 1987: Meatballs III
    * 1988: Switching Channels
    * 1989: Collision Course
    * 1989: Malarek
    * 1989: Millennium
    * 1990: Mob Story
    * 1991: Cerro Torre: Scream of Stone
    * 1991: The Hitman
    * 1991: White Light
    * 1992: Live Wire
    * 1992: The Diamond Fleece
    * 1993: Operation Golden Phoenix
    * 1995: Iron Eagle IV
    * 1996: Bogus
    * 1997: The Assignment
    * 1997: Critical Care
    * 1998: At the End of the Day: The Sue Rodriguez Story
    * 1998: Summer's End
    * 1999: The Hurricane

Television series

    * 1975-1980: King of Kensington
    * 1981: Circus International
    * 1982-1988: Cagney & Lacey
    * 1990-1991: Missing Treasures
    * 1997: Simply Wine and Cheese
    * 1999-2001: Twice in a Lifetime

Television Appearances

    * 1965: For the People
    * 1969: Adventures in Rainbow Country
    * 1979, 1983-1984: The Littlest Hobo
    * 1985: Night Heat
    * 1986: Philip Marlowe, Private Eye
    * 1988: My Secret Identity
    * 1988: Street Legal
    * 1988-1989: Alfred Hitchcock Presents
    * 1989: Hard Time on Planet Earth
    * 1989: Murder, She Wrote
    * 1993: Sweating Bullets
    * 1994: They Eat Horses, Don't They?
    * 1996: Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
    * 1998: Due South
    * 1998: Twitch City
    * 1998-2000: Power Play

Television specials

    * 1961: The Hired Gun
    * 1963: Man in the Middle
    * 1967: Do Not Fold, Staple, Or Spindle, Or Mutilate
    * 1967: Counter Etiquette. Part 1
    * 1970: The Last Act of Martin Weston
    * 1971: When Michael Calls
    * 1972: The Sloane Affair
    * 1974: A Star is Lost!
    * 1979: Please Don't Eat the Planet (voice only)
    * 1979: Intergalactic Thanksgiving (voice only)
    * 1981: Cagney & Lacey (pilot TV movie)
    * 1988: The Return of Ben Casey
    * 1990: Maggie's Secret
    * 1990: Back to the Beanstalk
    * 1991: I Still Dream of Jeannie
    * 1992: Quiet Killer
    * 1992: The Diamond Fleece
    * 1992: Teamster Boss: The Jackie Presser Story
    * 1992: The Trial of Red Riding Hood
    * 1994: Cagney & Lacey: The Return
    * 1994: Web of Deceit
    * 1994: I Know My Son Is Alive
    * 1994: Death Junction
    * 1995: Net Worth
    * 1995: The Shamrock Conspiracy
    * 1996: Gotti
    * 1996: Holiday Affair
    * 1997: Rescuers: Stories of Courage
    * 1998: Naked City: A Killer at Christmas
    * 1999: In the Company of Spies (TV-1999)
    * 1999: A Saintly Switch
    * 1999: Unforgettable: 100 Years Remembered
    * 2000: The Ride
    * 2000: The Thin Blue Lie
    * 2000: Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (released posthumously)
    * 2000: What Makes a Family (released posthumously)
    * 2000: Messiah From Montreal (released posthumously)

*I can't find a pic on Photobucket

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/18/10 at 7:27 am

When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five,
I was just alive.
But now I am Six,
I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.



        -A. A. Milne

This is one of my favorite Milne poems. (Had to get Granddaughter #1 this book on her last birthday since she turned 6. I will probably get it for Granddaughter #2 for her birthday since she will be turning 6 this year.)


Good choice, Philip.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/18/10 at 4:47 pm

I remember Al Waxman.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/18/10 at 9:57 pm


The person of the day...Al Waxman
Albert Samuel Waxman, CM, O.Ont (March 2, 1935 – January 18, 2001) was a Canadian actor and director of over 1000 productions on radio, television, film, and stage. He is best known for his starring roles in the television series King of Kensington (CBC) and Cagney & Lacey (CBS).
Waxman's career began at the age of twelve on CBC radio but it wasn't until 1975, when he began playing the role of Larry King on CBC's King of Kensington (1975-1980), that he became a Canadian icon.

In the 1980 award winning film Atlantic City starring Burt Lancaster, Waxman appeared as a rich cocaine buyer with a seemingly endless amount of cash.

During the 1980s Waxman starred as the gruff but endearing Lt Bert Samuels in the highly successful CBS television drama Caegney & Lacey (1981-1989).

During the 1990s Waxman appeared in a variety of films and television shows but began spending more time acting and directing in the theatre. He was also a founding member of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television.

In 1997 he was awarded the best actor Gemini Award for his performance in the television film Net Worth.

Waxman also appeared at the Stratford Festival, beginning with his critically acclaimed performance as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman in 1997. He also directed a memorable Anne Frank at the Stratford Festival in 2000. He was to return to Stratford for his highly anticipated portrayal of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice in 2001. In the wake of Waxman's death one month before rehearsals were to begin Paul Soles accepted the part of Shylock and the play was performed in honour of Waxman.

His last television role was as celestial Judge Othneil in Twice in a Lifetime(1999-2001). The last episode on which he worked right up until the afternoon before his elective heart bypass surgery was about a man, popular in his community, who needed routine bypass surgery but died during the operation. Although some sections of the episode were rewritten, at the end of this final episode Waxman's character is asked rhetorically 'why do the good die young' to which he has no answer. He's then told 'you were quite a warrior'. His response - not merely the end of the episode, but one of Waxman's last lines ever recorded, and spoken with a smile of resignation from the heavens - was: 'I had my day'.

Throughout his career he responded to the need for his services in community work and was involved with charitable causes from coast to coast. He was spokesperson for organisations such as United Appeal, United Jewish Appeal, Israel Bonds, Variety Club, the Muscular Dystrophy Telethons, and Big Brothers (for which he also became an honorary member). From June 1979 to June 1981 he was the National Campaign Chairman for the Canadian Cancer Society, and from 1988-1989 he was an official spokesperson for the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Ontario.

Al Waxman was accorded many tributes for his volunteer and philanthropic work. In 1978 he was honoured with the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal. In 1989 he was the recipient of the B'nai Brith of Canada Humanitarian Award. In 1996 Waxman was inducted into the Order of Ontario and in 1997 into the Order of Canada. In 1998 he was given the Earle Grey Award for lifetime achievement in Canadian television. A statue erected for his popularity as a Canadian star actor, director, and humanitarian stands in Kensington Market. The inscription in front of it reads 'There's lots to do down the road, there's always more. Trust your gut instincts. In small matters trust your mind, but in the important decisions of life - trust your heart.'
Death

He died in Toronto during heart surgery on January 18, 2001, at the age of 65. His unexpected passing sent shock waves through the media and across the country that admired him as much for his charity and his indefatigable spirit as for the enormous body of work that he had achieved over his career. The Toronto neighbourhood that his starring role in King of Kensington made famous, Kensington Market, erected a memorial to Waxman following his death.
Fan club

Musician Jaymz Bee of the Bee People, (prior to his work with The Look People, The Royal Jelly Orchestra and various projects) was a founder of the Al Waxman Fan Club. The Fan Club began in 1984 following the heyday of the King of Kensington television show. Bee, his associates Clay Tyson (son of Ian and Sylvia), Bazl Salazar, Bruce J. Scott and artist Max MacDonald would host parties and write songs in honour of Waxman. They even created a dance called "The Waxman Wiggle". Some other Bee People songtitles included: "Have Al Instead", "Al or Nothing", "UniversAl" and "Puff, The Waxman Poodle". While the Fan Club initially appeared to be a publicity stunt, this led to a long and successful association between Jaymz Bee and Al Waxman. Waxman attended some of the Fan Club events as organised by Bee, most of which raised money for charities such as The Canadian Cancer Foundation and Big Brother. Bee attended Waxman's funeral, and joined with his Fan Club to hold a wake in Toronto on 25 January 2001. They had a New Orleans-style funeral march with a jazz band and paraded from The Cameron House to Kensington Market where they recorded his hit TV theme song with Vezi Tayeb at Kensington Sound. The AWFC boasted over 1,000 card carrying members and while the bulk of members were from Toronto, some were as far away as Japan and Africa. President Bee received a terse reply from Buckingham Palace however, notifying him that The Queen does not "join a fan club". Al Waxman realized over the years that this organization, while appearing tongue in cheek, was a group of bonafide fans who enjoyed celebrating "the King of Canada". Members of the now dormant AWFC can still be seen wandering through Kensington Market to shake the hand of the Al Waxman statue that resides there.
Filmography
Movies

    * 1959: Sun In My Eyes
    * 1962: The War Lover
    * 1963: The Victors
    * 1968: Isabel
    * 1970: The Last Act of Martin Weston
    * 1974: Vengeance is Mine
    * 1975: The Clown Murders
    * 1975: My Pleasure is my Business
    * 1979: Wild Horse Hank
    * 1980: Atlantic City
    * 1980: Double Negative
    * 1981: Heavy Metal (voice only)
    * 1981: Tulips
    * 1982: Class of '84
    * 1983: Spasms
    * 1987: Meatballs III
    * 1988: Switching Channels
    * 1989: Collision Course
    * 1989: Malarek
    * 1989: Millennium
    * 1990: Mob Story
    * 1991: Cerro Torre: Scream of Stone
    * 1991: The Hitman
    * 1991: White Light
    * 1992: Live Wire
    * 1992: The Diamond Fleece
    * 1993: Operation Golden Phoenix
    * 1995: Iron Eagle IV
    * 1996: Bogus
    * 1997: The Assignment
    * 1997: Critical Care
    * 1998: At the End of the Day: The Sue Rodriguez Story
    * 1998: Summer's End
    * 1999: The Hurricane

Television series

    * 1975-1980: King of Kensington
    * 1981: Circus International
    * 1982-1988: Cagney & Lacey
    * 1990-1991: Missing Treasures
    * 1997: Simply Wine and Cheese
    * 1999-2001: Twice in a Lifetime

Television Appearances

    * 1965: For the People
    * 1969: Adventures in Rainbow Country
    * 1979, 1983-1984: The Littlest Hobo
    * 1985: Night Heat
    * 1986: Philip Marlowe, Private Eye
    * 1988: My Secret Identity
    * 1988: Street Legal
    * 1988-1989: Alfred Hitchcock Presents
    * 1989: Hard Time on Planet Earth
    * 1989: Murder, She Wrote
    * 1993: Sweating Bullets
    * 1994: They Eat Horses, Don't They?
    * 1996: Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
    * 1998: Due South
    * 1998: Twitch City
    * 1998-2000: Power Play

Television specials

    * 1961: The Hired Gun
    * 1963: Man in the Middle
    * 1967: Do Not Fold, Staple, Or Spindle, Or Mutilate
    * 1967: Counter Etiquette. Part 1
    * 1970: The Last Act of Martin Weston
    * 1971: When Michael Calls
    * 1972: The Sloane Affair
    * 1974: A Star is Lost!
    * 1979: Please Don't Eat the Planet (voice only)
    * 1979: Intergalactic Thanksgiving (voice only)
    * 1981: Cagney & Lacey (pilot TV movie)
    * 1988: The Return of Ben Casey
    * 1990: Maggie's Secret
    * 1990: Back to the Beanstalk
    * 1991: I Still Dream of Jeannie
    * 1992: Quiet Killer
    * 1992: The Diamond Fleece
    * 1992: Teamster Boss: The Jackie Presser Story
    * 1992: The Trial of Red Riding Hood
    * 1994: Cagney & Lacey: The Return
    * 1994: Web of Deceit
    * 1994: I Know My Son Is Alive
    * 1994: Death Junction
    * 1995: Net Worth
    * 1995: The Shamrock Conspiracy
    * 1996: Gotti
    * 1996: Holiday Affair
    * 1997: Rescuers: Stories of Courage
    * 1998: Naked City: A Killer at Christmas
    * 1999: In the Company of Spies (TV-1999)
    * 1999: A Saintly Switch
    * 1999: Unforgettable: 100 Years Remembered
    * 2000: The Ride
    * 2000: The Thin Blue Lie
    * 2000: Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (released posthumously)
    * 2000: What Makes a Family (released posthumously)
    * 2000: Messiah From Montreal (released posthumously)

*I can't find a pic on Photobucket

The King of Kensington!
Used to watch that show.

Mike Myers ( as a teen) once made a guest appearance on that show, In Canada.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/19/10 at 12:26 am

British Person of the Day: Matthew Webb

Captain Matthew Webb (19 January 1848–24 July 1883) was the first person to swim the English Channel without the use of artificial aids. On 25 August 1875 he swam from Dover to Calais in less than 22 hours.

Early life and career

He was born at Dawley in Shropshire, one of twelve children of a Coalbrookdale doctor. He joined the merchant navy and served a three-year apprenticeship with Rathbone Brothers of Liverpool.

Whilst serving as second mate on the Cunard Line ship Russia, travelling from New York to Liverpool, he attempted to rescue a man overboard by diving into the sea in the mid-Atlantic. The man was never found, but Webb's daring won him an award of £100 and the Stanhope Medal, and made him a hero of the British press.

English Channel swimming record

In 1873 Webb was serving as captain of the steamship Emerald when he read an account of the failed attempt by J. B. Johnson to swim the English Channel. He became inspired to try himself, and left his job to begin training, first at Lambeth Baths, then in the cold waters of the Thames and the English Channel.

On 12 August 1875 he made his first cross-Channel swimming attempt, but strong winds and poor sea conditions forced him to abandon the swim.

On 24 August 1875 he began a second swim by diving in from the Admiralty Pier at Dover. Backed by three chase boats and smeared in porpoise oil, he set off into the ebb tide at a steady breaststroke. Despite stings from jellyfish and strong currents off Cap Gris Nez which prevented him reaching the shore for five hours, finally, after 21 hours and 45 minutes, he landed near Calais—the first successful cross-channel swim. His zig-zag course across the Channel was over 39 miles (64 km) long.

Later life

After his record swim Captain Webb basked in national and international adulation, and followed a career as a professional swimmer. He licensed his name for merchandising such as commemorative pottery, and wrote a book called The Art of Swimming. A brand of matches was named after him. He participated in exhibition swimming matches and stunts such as floating in a tank of water for 128 hours.

On 27 April 1880 he married Madeline Kate Chaddock, and they had two children, Matthew and Helen.

His final stunt was to be a dangerous swim through the Whirlpool Rapids below Niagara Falls, a feat many observers considered suicidal. Although Webb failed in an attempt at raising interest in funding the event, on 24 July 1883 he jumped into the river from a small boat located near the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge and began his swim. Accounts of the time indicate that in all likelihood Webb successfully survived the first part of the swim, but died in the section of the river located near the entrance to the whirlpool. Webb was interred in Oakwood Cemetery, Niagara Falls, New York.

In 1909, Webb's elder brother Thomas unveiled a memorial in Dawley. On it reads the short inscription: "Nothing great is easy." The memorial was taken away for repair after a lorry collided with it in February 2009. The landmark memorial was returned after full restoration and was hoisted back onto its plinth in Dawley High Street in October 2009.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/shropshire/features/2003/08/images/webb_credit_museum_270.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/19/10 at 4:30 am


British Person of the Day: Matthew Webb

Captain Matthew Webb (19 January 1848–24 July 1883) was the first person to swim the English Channel without the use of artificial aids. On 25 August 1875 he swam from Dover to Calais in less than 22 hours.

Early life and career

He was born at Dawley in Shropshire, one of twelve children of a Coalbrookdale doctor. He joined the merchant navy and served a three-year apprenticeship with Rathbone Brothers of Liverpool.

Whilst serving as second mate on the Cunard Line ship Russia, travelling from New York to Liverpool, he attempted to rescue a man overboard by diving into the sea in the mid-Atlantic. The man was never found, but Webb's daring won him an award of £100 and the Stanhope Medal, and made him a hero of the British press.

English Channel swimming record

In 1873 Webb was serving as captain of the steamship Emerald when he read an account of the failed attempt by J. B. Johnson to swim the English Channel. He became inspired to try himself, and left his job to begin training, first at Lambeth Baths, then in the cold waters of the Thames and the English Channel.

On 12 August 1875 he made his first cross-Channel swimming attempt, but strong winds and poor sea conditions forced him to abandon the swim.

On 24 August 1875 he began a second swim by diving in from the Admiralty Pier at Dover. Backed by three chase boats and smeared in porpoise oil, he set off into the ebb tide at a steady breaststroke. Despite stings from jellyfish and strong currents off Cap Gris Nez which prevented him reaching the shore for five hours, finally, after 21 hours and 45 minutes, he landed near Calais—the first successful cross-channel swim. His zig-zag course across the Channel was over 39 miles (64 km) long.

Later life

After his record swim Captain Webb basked in national and international adulation, and followed a career as a professional swimmer. He licensed his name for merchandising such as commemorative pottery, and wrote a book called The Art of Swimming. A brand of matches was named after him. He participated in exhibition swimming matches and stunts such as floating in a tank of water for 128 hours.

On 27 April 1880 he married Madeline Kate Chaddock, and they had two children, Matthew and Helen.

His final stunt was to be a dangerous swim through the Whirlpool Rapids below Niagara Falls, a feat many observers considered suicidal. Although Webb failed in an attempt at raising interest in funding the event, on 24 July 1883 he jumped into the river from a small boat located near the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge and began his swim. Accounts of the time indicate that in all likelihood Webb successfully survived the first part of the swim, but died in the section of the river located near the entrance to the whirlpool. Webb was interred in Oakwood Cemetery, Niagara Falls, New York.

In 1909, Webb's elder brother Thomas unveiled a memorial in Dawley. On it reads the short inscription: "Nothing great is easy." The memorial was taken away for repair after a lorry collided with it in February 2009. The landmark memorial was returned after full restoration and was hoisted back onto its plinth in Dawley High Street in October 2009.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/shropshire/features/2003/08/images/webb_credit_museum_270.jpg


Very interesting. Thanks Phil.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/19/10 at 4:41 am

The word of the day...Coat
A coat is a piece of clothing with long sleeves which you wear over your other clothes when you go outside.
An animal's coat is the fur or hair on its body
If you coat something with a substance or in a substance, you cover it with a thin layer of the substance.
A coat of paint or varnish is a thin layer of it on a surface.
http://i858.photobucket.com/albums/ab144/qqmickey/20100111101154843833308.jpg
http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g11/duckdog98604/ColumbiaCoat.jpg
http://i928.photobucket.com/albums/ad127/427SC/DSCN2257.jpg
http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo195/czmmvc/coat.jpg
http://i584.photobucket.com/albums/ss283/notshai/coat/IMG_3725.jpg
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm95/MrsAlyssaCullen/trench.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v280/Splatter_c4/johnny.jpg
http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn125/dyingbull/Raffles_Institution_Coat_of_Arms.png
http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn144/sturmmd/P1000119sm.jpg
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj312/tomglibbery/coat1.jpg
http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u126/eawslinky/pubichare.jpg
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb13/Clue_in/BashkirCurly.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/19/10 at 4:43 am


Very interesting. Thanks Phil.
For me he is an undiscovered hero that has been lost to history.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/19/10 at 4:46 am

The birthday of the day...Dolly Parton
Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best-known for her work in country music.

In the four-and-a-half decades since her national-chart début, she remains one of the most-successful female artists in the history of the country genre which garnered her the title of 'The Queen of Country Music', with twenty-five number-one singles, and a record forty-one top-10 country albums. She has the distinction of having performed on a top-five country hit in each of the last five decades and is tied with Reba McEntire as the only country artists with No. 1 singles in four consecutive decades.

She is known for her distinctive soprano, sometimes bawdy humor, flamboyant dress sense and voluptuous figure.
n 1967, Parton was asked to join the weekly country-music, syndicated-television program The Porter Wagoner Show, hosted by Porter Wagoner, replacing Norma Jean, one of the most popular country female vocalists at the time, who was newly married and semi-retiring.

Initially, Wagoner's audience was reluctant to warm to Parton and chanted for Norma Jean, but with Wagoner's assistance, she was accepted. Wagoner convinced his label, RCA Victor, to also sign Parton. The label decided to protect their investment by releasing her first single as a duet with Wagoner. The duo's first single, "The Last Thing on My Mind," reached the country Top Ten early in 1968, launching a six-year streak of virtually uninterrupted Top-Ten singles.

Parton's first solo single for RCA, "Just Because I'm a Woman", was released in the summer of 1968 and was a moderate hit, reaching number seventeen. For the remainder of the decade, none of her solo efforts – even "In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)," which would later become a standard – were as successful as her duets. The duo was named Vocal Group of the Year in 1968 by the Country Music Association, but Parton's solo records were continually ignored. Wagoner and Parton were both frustrated by her lack of solo success, because he had a significant financial stake in her future – as of 1969, he was her co-producer and owned nearly half of the publishing company Owepar.

By 1970, both Parton and Wagoner had grown frustrated by her lack of solo chart success, and Porter had her sing Jimmie Rodgers' "Mule Skinner Blues," a gimmick that worked. The record shot to number three on the charts, followed closely by her first number-one single, "Joshua." For the next two years, she had a number of solo hits – including her signature song "Coat of Many Colors" (number four, 1971) – in addition to her duets. Though she had successful singles, none of them were blockbusters until "Jolene" reached number one in early 1974. Parton stopped traveling with Wagoner after its release, yet she continued to appear on television and sing duets with him until 1976.

She stayed with the Wagoner Show and continued to record duets with him for seven years, then made a break to become a solo artist. In 1974, her song, "I Will Always Love You" (written about her professional break from Wagoner), was released and went to number one on the country-music charts. Around the same time, Elvis Presley indicated that he wanted to cover the song. Parton was interested until Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, told her that she would have to sign over half of the publishing rights if Presley recorded the song (as was the standard procedure for songs he recorded). Parton refused and that decision is credited with helping to make her many millions of dollars in royalties from the song over the years. It was decisions like these, in fact, that caused her to be called "The Iron Butterfly" in show-business circles.
1977–1986: Branching out into pop music

From 1974 to 1980, she consistently charted in the country Top 10, with no fewer than eight singles reaching number one. Parton had her own syndicated-television variety show, Dolly! (1976–1977), and by 1977 had gained the right to produce her own albums, which immediately resulted in diverse efforts like 1977's New Harvest ... First Gathering. In addition to her own hits during the late 1970s, many artists, from Rose Maddox and Kitty Wells to Olivia Newton-John, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt, covered her songs, and her siblings Randy and Stella had recording contracts of their own.

Parton later had commercial success as a pop singer, as well as an actress. Her 1977 album, Here You Come Again, was her first million-seller, and its title track ("Here You Come Again") became her first top-ten single on the pop charts (reaching number three); many of her subsequent singles charted on both pop and country charts, simultaneously. Her albums during this period were developed specifically for pop-crossover success.

In 1978 Parton won a Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for her Here You Come Again album. Following that title track's success, she had further pop hits with "Two Doors Down", "Heartbreaker" (both 1978), "Baby I'm Burning" and "You're the Only One" (both 1979), all of which charted in the pop singles Top 40, and all of which also topped the country-singles chart. On April 3, 1978, Parton performed with Cher on television in Cher... Special in the "Musical Battle to Save Cher's Soul Medley". Parton was dressed in white and, with a team of brightly clad singers, portrayed an angelic host while punk band The Tubes, dressed in black leather and performing "Mondo Bondage", battled to send Cher's soul into eternal damnation.

Parton's commercial success continued to grow during 1980, with three number-one hits in a row: the Donna Summer-written "Starting Over Again," "Old Flames Can't Hold a Candle to You", and "9 to 5."

With less time to spend songwriting as she focused on a burgeoning film career, during the early 1980s Parton recorded a larger percentage of material from noted pop songwriters, such as Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Rupert Holmes, Gary Portnoy and Carole Bayer Sager.
Parton in Honolulu, Hawaii, 1983.

"9 to 5", the theme song to the feature film Nine to Five (1980) Parton starred in along with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, not only reached number one on the country charts, but also number one on the pop and the adult-contemporary charts, giving her a triple-number-one hit. Parton became one of the few female country singers to have a number-one single on the country and pop charts simultaneously. It also received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.

Parton's singles continued to appear consistently in the country Top 10: between 1981 and 1985, she had 12 Top 10 hits; half of those were number-one singles. Parton continued to make inroads on the pop charts as well with a re-recorded version of "I Will Always Love You" from the feature film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) scraping the Top 50 that year and her duet with Kenny Rogers, "Islands in the Stream" (written by the Bee Gees and produced by Barry Gibb), spent two weeks at number one in 1983.

Most of her albums were dominated by the adult-contemporary pop songs like "Islands in the Stream," and it had been years since she had sung straightforward country. She also continued to explore new business and entertainment ventures such as her Dollywood theme park, that opened in 1986 in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Her record sales were still relatively strong, however, with "Save the Last Dance for Me", "Tennessee Homesick Blues" (both 1984); "Real Love" (another duet with Kenny Rogers), "Don't Call it Love" (both 1985); and "Think About Love" (1986) all reaching the country-singles Top 10. ("Tennessee Homesick Blues" and "Think About Love" reached number one. "Real Love" also reached number one on the country-singles chart and also became a modest pop-crossover hit). However, RCA Records didn't renew her contract after it expired that year, and she signed with CBS Records in 1987.
1987–1994: Return to country roots

Along with Harris and Ronstadt, she released the decade-in-the-making Trio (1987) to critical acclaim. The album strongly revitalized Parton's temporarily stalled music career, spending five weeks at number one on Billboard's Country Albums chart, selling several million copies and producing four Top 10 country hits including Phil Spector's "To Know Him Is to Love Him", which went to number one. Trio won the Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. In 1987, she revived her television variety show, Dolly

After a further attempt at pop success with 1987's critically and commercially disappointing Rainbow, Parton refocused on recording country material. White Limozeen (1989) produced two number-one hits in "Why'd You Come in Here Lookin' Like That" and "Yellow Roses." Although it looked like Parton's career had been revived, it was actually just a brief revival before contemporary country music came in the early 1990s and moved all veteran artists out of the charts.

A duet with Ricky Van Shelton, "Rockin' Years" (1991) reached number one but Parton's greatest commercial fortune of the decade came when Whitney Houston recorded "I Will Always Love You" for the soundtrack of the feature film The Bodyguard (1992); both the single and the album were massively successful.

She recorded "The Day I Fall In Love" as a duet with James Ingram for the feature film Beethoven's 2nd (1993). The songwriters (Sager, Ingram, and Clif Mangess) were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Parton and Ingram performed the song on the awards telecast.

Similar to her earlier collabrative album with Harris and Ronstadt, Parton recorded Honky Tonk Angels (1994) with Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. It was certified a Gold Album by the Recording Industry Association of America and helped revive both Wynette's and Lynn's careers.
Since 1995: career today

In 1995 Parton re-recorded "I Will Always Love You" as a duet with Vince Gill on her album Something Special for which they won the Country Music Association's Vocal Event of the Year Award.

A second and more-contemporary collaboration with Harris and Ronstadt, Trio II (1999), was released and its cover of Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" won a Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Parton was also inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999.

She recorded a series of critically acclaimed bluegrass albums, beginning with The Grass Is Blue (1999), winning a Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album, and Little Sparrow (2001), with its cover of Collective Soul's "Shine" winning a Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. The third, Halos & Horns (2002) included a bluegrass version of the Led Zeppelin classic "Stairway to Heaven".

Parton released Those Were The Days (2005), her interpretation of hits from the folk-rock era of the late 1960s through the early 1970s. It featured such classics as John Lennon's "Imagine", Cat Stevens's "Where Do the Children Play?", Tommy James's "Crimson and Clover", and Pete Seeger's anti-war song "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?".

Parton earned her second Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song for "Travelin' Thru", which she wrote specifically for the feature film Transamerica (2005). Because of the song's nature of accepting a transgender woman without judgment, Parton received death threats. She also returned to number one on the country charts later in 2005 by lending her distinctive harmonies to the Brad Paisley ballad, "When I Get Where I'm Goin'".

In September 2007, Parton released her first single from her own record company, Dolly Records, entitled, "Better Get to Livin'", which eventually peaked at number forty-eight on the Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart.

Her latest studio album, "Backwoods Barbie", released February 26, 2008, reached number two on the country charts. The album's début at number seventeen on the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart has been the highest in her career. The title track and video was released in February 2009. The title song was written as part of her score for 9 to 5: The Musical, an adaptation of her feature film Nine to Five.

After the sudden death of Michael Jackson, whom Parton knew personally, she released a video in which she somberly told of her feelings on Jackson and his death.

On October 27, 2009, Parton released a 4-CD box set entitled "Dolly" which features 99 songs and spans most of her career. She is now set to release her second live DVD and album, "Live From London" in October 2009 which was filmed during her sold out 2008 concerts at London's 02 Arena. She is also currently working on a dance album, "Dance with Dolly", of which she has said should be released very soon.
Parton is a hugely successful songwriter, having begun by writing country-music songs with strong elements of folk music, based upon her upbringing in humble mountain surroundings, and reflecting her family's evangelical-Christian background. Her songs "Coat of Many Colors", "I Will Always Love You" and "Jolene" have become classics in the field, as have a number of others. As a songwriter, she is also regarded as one of country music's most-gifted storytellers, with many of her narrative songs based on persons and events from her childhood. Parton has listed almost 600 songs with Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) to date and has earned 37 BMI awards for her material. In 2001, she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

In a 2009 interview with CNN's Larry King Live, Parton indicated that she had written "at least 3,000" songs, having written seriously since the age of seven. Parton went on to say that she writes something every day, be it a song or an idea.
Compositions in films and television and covers

Parton's songwriting has been featured prominently in several films.

In addition to the title song for Nine to Five (1980), she also recorded a second version of "I Will Always Love You" for The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982); the second version proved to be another number-one country hit and also managed to reach the pop charts going to number 53 in the U.S.

"I Will Always Love You" has been covered by many country artists, including Ronstadt, on Prisoner In Disguise (1975); Kenny Rogers, on Vote for Love (1996); and LeAnn Rimes, on Unchained Melody: The Early Years (1997). Whitney Houston performed it on The Bodyguard (1992) film soundtrack and her version became the best-selling hit ever both written and performed by a female vocalist, with worldwide sales of over twelve million copies.

As a songwriter, Parton has twice been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, for "9 to 5" (1980) and "Travelin' Thru" (2005). "Travelin' Thru" did win as Best Original Song award at the Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards (2005). The song was also nominated for both the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song (2005) and the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award (also known as the Critics' Choice Awards) for Best Song (2005).

A cover version of "Love Is Like A Butterfly", recorded by singer Clare Torry, was used as the theme music for the British TV show Butterflies.
American Idol appearance

The music-competition, reality-television show American Idol (since 2002) has weekly themes and the April 1–2, 2008, episodes' theme was "Dolly Parton Songs" with the nine then-remaining contestants each singing a Parton composition. Parton participated as a "guest mentor" to the contestants and also performed "Jesus and Gravity" (from Backwoods Barbie and released as a single in March 2008) receiving a standing ovation from the studio audience.
9 to 5: The Musical
Main article: 9 to 5: The Musical

Parton wrote the score (and Patricia Resnick wrote the book) for 9 to 5: The Musical, a musical-theatre adaptation of Parton's feature film Nine to Five (1980). The musical ran at the Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, California, in Fall 2008.

It opened on Broadway at the Marquis Theatre in New York City, New York, on April 30, 2009, to mixed reviews. The title track of her Backwoods Barbie (2008), was written for the musical's character Doralee.

Developing the musical was not an overnight process. According to a broadcast of the public-radio program Studio 360 (October 29, 2005), in October 2005 Parton was in the midst of composing the songs for a Broadway musical-theatre adaptation of the film. In late June 2007, 9 to 5: the Musical was read for industry presentations. The readings starred Megan Hilty, Allison Janney, Stephanie J. Block, Bebe Neuwirth and Marc Kudisch.
Musician

Parton plays the autoharp, banjo, drums, dulcimer, fiddle, guitar, harmonica, pennywhistle and piano. She began composing songs at the age of four, her mother often writing down the music as she heard Parton singing around the house. Parton often describes her talent as having "the gift of rhyme".
Acting career

During the mid-1970s, Parton wanted to expand her audience base. Although her first attempt, the television variety show Dolly! (1976–1977), had high ratings, it lasted only one season, with Parton requesting to be released from her contract because of the stress it was causing her vocal cords. (She later tried a second television variety show, also entitled Dolly (1987–1988); it also lasted only one season.)
Film

In her first feature film she portrayed a secretary in a co-starring role with Fonda and Tomlin in Nine to Five (1980). Parton received Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and New Star Of The Year – Actress.

She also wrote and recorded the biggest solo hit of her career with the film's title song. It received a nomination for Academy Award for Best Song along with a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Song. Released as a single, the song won two Grammy Awards: Best Female Country Vocal Performance and Best Country Song. The song also reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and in was placed number 78 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years... 100 Songs" list released in 2004. Parton was also named Top Female Box Office Star by the Motion Picture Herald in both 1981 and 1982.

Parton's second film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), earned her a second Golden Globe nomination for Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

She followed with Rhinestone (1984), co-starring Sylvester Stallone, and Steel Magnolias (1989), with an ensemble cast.

The last leading role for Parton was portraying a plainspoken radio-program host (with listeners telephoning in to share their problems) in Straight Talk (1992), opposite James Woods.

She played an overprotective mother in Frank McKlusky, C.I. (2002) with Dave Sheridan, Cameron Richardson and Randy Quaid.

Parton played herself in a cameo appearance in The Beverly Hillbillies (1993) (an adaptation of the long-running television situation comedy of the same name) and also in Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005) (the sequel to Sandra Bullock's earlier Miss Congeniality (2000)).

She was featured in The Book Lady (2008) a documentary about her campaign for children’s literacy and she was expecting to repeat her television role as Hannah's godmother in Hannah Montana: The Movie (2008) but the character was omitted from the final screenplay.
Television

In addition to her performing appearances on the Wagoner Show in the 1960s and into the 1970s; her two self-titled television variety shows in the 1970s and 1980s; and on American Idol in 2001 and other guest appearances, Parton has also acted in television roles. In 1979 she received an Emmy award nomination as "Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Variety Program" for her guest appearance in a Cher special.

She starred in the television movie Smoky Mountain Christmas (1986); Unlikely Angel (1996), portraying an angel sent back to earth following a deadly car crash; and Blue Valley Songbird (1999), where her character lives through her music.

Parton has also done voice work for animation for television series, playing herself in the Alvin & the Chipmunks (episode "Urban Chipmunk", 1983) and the character Katrina Eloise "Murph" Murphy in The Magic School Bus (episode "The Family Holiday Special", 1994).

Dolly guest starred on an episode of Designing Women (episode "The First Day of the Last Decade of the Entire Twentieth Century") as herself, the guardian movie star of Charlene's baby. She also appeared in the situation comedy series Reba (episode "Reba's Rules of Real Estate") portraying a real-estate agency owner, and on The Simpsons (episode "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday", 1999).

She also made cameo appearances on the Disney Channel as "Aunt Dolly" visiting Hannah and her family in the fellow Tennessean Miley Cyrus's series Hannah Montana (episodes "Good Golly, Miss Dolly", 2006, and "I Will Always Loathe You", 2007). The role came about because of her real-life relationship as Cyrus's godmother.
Since the mid-1980s Parton has supported many charitable efforts, particularly in the area of literacy, primarily through her Dollywood Foundation.
Dolly Parton's Imagination Library

Her literacy program, "Dolly Parton's Imagination Library", a part of the Dollywood Foundation, mails one book per month to each enrolled child from the time of their birth until they enter kindergarten. It began in Sevier County but has now been replicated in 566 counties across thirty-six U.S. states (as well as in Canada). In December 2007 it expanded to Europe with the South Yorkshire town of Rotherham, United Kingdom, being the first British locality to receive the books.

The program distributes more than 2.5 million free books to children annually.

In 2006 Parton published a cookbook Dolly's Dixie Fixin's: Love, Laughter and Lots of Good Food. The net profits support the Dollywood Foundation.
Other philanthropy

Dollywood has also been noted for bringing jobs and tax revenues to a previously depressed region.

She has also worked to raise money on behalf of several other causes, including the American Red Cross and a number of HIV/AIDS-related charities.

In December 2006, Parton pledged $500,000 toward a proposed $90-million hospital and cancer center to be constructed in Sevierville in the name of Dr. Robert F. Thomas, the physician who delivered her; she also announced plans for a benefit concert to raise additional funds for the project. The concert went ahead playing to about 8,000 people.

In May 2009, Parton gave the Graduating Commencement Address at the University of Tennessee. Her speech was about her life lessons, and she encouraged the graduates to never stop dreaming.
Awards and honors

Parton is one of the most-honored female country performers of all time. The Record Industry Association of America has certified 25 of her single or album releases as either Gold Record, Platinum Record or Multi-Platinum Record. She has had 26 songs reach number one on the Billboard country charts, a record for a female artist. She has 42 career-top-10 country albums, a record for any artist, and 110 career-charted singles over the past 40 years. All inclusive sales of singles, albums, hits collections, paid digital downloads and compilation usage during Parton's career have reportedly topped 100 million records around the world.
Parton during a reception for The Kennedy Center honorees in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on December 3, 2006.

She has received seven Grammy Awards and a total of 45 Grammy Award nominations. At the American Music Awards she has won three awards, but has received 18 nominations. At the Country Music Association, she has received 10 awards and 42 nominations. At the Academy of Country Music, she has won seven awards and 39 nominations. She is one of only six female artists (including Reba McEntire, Barbara Mandrell, Shania Twain, Loretta Lynn, and Taylor Swift), to win the Country Music Association's highest honor, Entertainer of the Year (1978). She has also been nominated for two Academy Awards and a Tony Award.

She was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording in 1984, located at 6712 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California; a star on the Nashville Star Walk for Grammy winners; and a bronze sculpture on the courthouse lawn in Sevierville. She has called that statue of herself in her hometown "the greatest honor," because it came from the people who knew her.

Parton was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 1969, and in 1986 was named one of Ms. Magazine's Women of the Year. In 1986, Parton was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 1999, Parton received country music's highest honor, an induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. She received an honorary doctorate degree from Carson-Newman College (Jefferson City, Tennessee) in 1990. This was followed by induction into the National Academy of Popular Music/Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2001. In 2002, Parton ranked number four in CMT's 40 Greatest Women of Country Music.

She was honored in 2003 with a tribute album called Just Because I'm a Woman: Songs of Dolly Parton. The artists who recorded versions of Parton's songs included Melissa Etheridge ("I Will Always Love You"), Alison Krauss ("9 to 5"), Twain ("Coat of Many Colors"), Me'Shell NdegéOcello ("Two Doors Down"), Norah Jones ("The Grass is Blue"), and Sinéad O'Connor ("Dagger Through the Heart"); Parton herself contributed a rerecording of the title song, originally the title song for her first RCA album in 1968. Parton was awarded the Living Legend Medal by the U.S. Library of Congress on April 14, 2004, for her contributions to the cultural heritage of the United States.

This was followed in 2005 with the National Medal of Arts, the highest honor given by the U.S. government for excellence in the arts and is presented by the U.S. President.

On December 3, 2006, Parton received the Kennedy Center Honors from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for her lifetime of contributions to the arts. Other 2006 honorees included Zubin Mehta, Steven Spielberg, Smokey Robinson and Andrew Lloyd Webber. During the show, some of country music's biggest names came to show their admiration. Carrie Underwood performed Parton's hit "Islands in the Stream" with Rogers, Parton's original duet partner. Krauss performed "Jolene" and duetted "Coat of Many Colors" with Twain. McEntire and Reese Witherspoon also came to pay tribute.
Philanthropy-related honors

In 2003, her efforts to preserve the bald eagle through the American Eagle Foundation's sanctuary at Dollywood earned her the Partnership Award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Parton received the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Smithsonian Institution at a ceremony in Nashville on November 8, 2007.

For her work in literacy, Parton has received various awards including:

   * Association of American Publishers - AAP Honors Award (2000)
   * Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval (2001) (the first time the seal had been awarded to a person)
   * American Association of School Administrators - Galaxy Award (2002)
   * National State Teachers of the Year - Chasing Rainbows Award (2002)
   * Parents as Teachers National Center - Child and Family Advocacy Award (2003)

On May 8, 2009, Parton gave the commencement speech at the commencement ceremony in Knoxville, Tennessee, for the University of Tennessee, Knoxville's College of Arts and Sciences. During the ceremony she received an honorary degree, a doctorate of humane and musical letters, from the university. It was only the second honorary degree to be given by the university and in presenting the degree, the university's chancellor, Jimmy G. Cheek, said, "Because of her career not just as a musician and entertainer, but for her role as a cultural ambassador, philanthropist and lifelong advocate for education, it is fitting that she be honored with an honorary degree from the flagship educational institution of her home state."
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/19/10 at 4:47 am


For me he is an undiscovered hero that has been lost to history.

I know what you mean, I sometimes think I should go back more to find the person of the day.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/19/10 at 4:47 am


The word of the day...Coat
A coat is a piece of clothing with long sleeves which you wear over your other clothes when you go outside.
An animal's coat is the fur or hair on its body
If you coat something with a substance or in a substance, you cover it with a thin layer of the substance.
A coat of paint or varnish is a thin layer of it on a surface.
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Youtube is....

...Service Unavailable

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/19/10 at 4:50 am


Youtube is....

...Service Unavailable
Through Google Videos (on youTube)

Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/19/10 at 4:52 am

The person of the day...Wilson Pickett
Wilson Pickett (March 18, 1941 – January 19, 2006) was an American R&B/rock and roll and soul singer and songwriter known for his raw, raspy, passionate vocal delivery.

A major figure in the development of American soul music, Pickett recorded over 50 songs which made the US R&B charts, and frequently crossed over to the pop charts as well. Among his best known hits are "In The Midnight Hour" (which he co-wrote), "Land of 1,000 Dances", "Mustang Sally", and "Funky Broadway".

The impact of Pickett's songwriting and recording led to his 1991 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Pickett's Atlantic career began with a self-produced single, "I'm Gonna Cry", which stalled at a lowly #124 on the national charts. Looking to boost Pickett's chart chances, Atlantic next paired him with famed producer Bert Berns and established songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. With this team, Pickett recorded "Come Home Baby," a pop duet with New Orleans singer Tammi Lynn, but this single failed to chart completely.

Pickett's breakthrough came at Stax Records' recording studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where he recorded his third Atlantic single, "In the Midnight Hour" (1965), perhaps his best-remembered hit, peaking at #1 R&B, #21 pop {US}, and #12 hit {UK}.

The genesis of "In the Midnight Hour" was a recording session on May 12, 1965, in which producer Jerry Wexler worked out a powerful rhythm track with studio musicians Steve Cropper and Al Jackson of the Stax Records house band, which also included bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn. (Stax keyboard player Booker T. Jones, who usually played with Dunn, Cropper and Jackson as Booker T. & the MG's, did not play on any of the Pickett studio sessions.) Wexler said to Cropper and Jackson, "Why don't you pick up on this thing here?" He performed a dance step. Cropper later explained in an interview that Wexler told them that "this was the way the kids were dancing; they were putting the accent on two. Basically, we'd been one-beat-accenters with an afterbeat; it was like 'boom dah,' but here this was a thing that went 'um-chaw,' just the reverse as far as the accent goes." The song that resulted from this encounter established Pickett as a star, and also gave Atlantic Records a bona fide hit.
Stax/Fame years (1965-67)

Pickett recorded three sessions at Stax in May and October 1965, and was joined by keyboardist Isaac Hayes for the October sessions. In addition to "In the Midnight Hour," Pickett's 1965 recordings included the singles "Don't Fight It," (#4 R&B, #53 pop) "634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A,)" (#1 R&B, #13 pop) and "Ninety-Nine and A Half (Won't Do)" (#13 R&B, #53 pop). All but "634-5789" were original compositions Pickett co-wrote with Eddie Floyd and/or Steve Cropper; "634-5789" was credited to Cropper and Floyd alone. All of these recordings are considered soul classics, and show a range of different styles, from the hard-driving "Midnight Hour" and "Don't Fight It," to the more overtly gospel-influenced "Ninety-Nine and A Half" (which borrowed its title from a gospel standard recorded by The Ward Singers) and the pop-soul of "634-5789".

For his next sessions, Pickett would not return to Stax; the label's owner, Jim Stewart, banned all outside productions in December, 1965. As a result, Wexler took Pickett to Fame studios, another recording studio with an even closer association to Atlantic Records. Located in a converted tobacco warehouse in nearby Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Fame was very influential in shaping soul music, and Pickett recorded some of his biggest hits there. This included the highest-charting version ever of the kinetic "Land of 1,000 Dances", which became Pickett's third R&B #1, and his biggest ever pop hit, peaking at #6. The song had previously been a hit for the song's writer, Chris Kenner, and Mexican-American band Cannibal & the Headhunters.

Other big hits from this era in Pickett's career included two other covers: Mack Rice's "Mustang Sally," (#6 R&B, #23 pop), and Dyke & the Blazers' "Funky Broadway," (another R&B #1 for Pickett, as well as #8 pop). The band heard on almost all of Pickett's Fame recordings included keyboardist Spooner Oldham and drummer Roger Hawkins.
Later Atlantic years (1967-1972)

Towards the end of 1967, Pickett began recording at American Studios in Memphis with producers Tom Dowd and Tommy Cogbill, and also began recording numerous songs by Bobby Womack. The songs "I'm In Love," "Jealous Love," "I've Come A Long Way," "I'm A Midnight Mover," (a Pickett/Womack co-write), and "I Found A True Love" were all Womack-penned hits for Pickett in 1967 and 1968. "I'm In Love" was also a return to the soul ballad genre for Pickett; he would continue to record a mixture of ballads, soul and funk for the rest of his career. Pickett also recorded work by other writers during this era; Rodger Collins' "She's Looking Good" and a cover of the traditional blues standard "Stagger Lee" were also top 40 Pickett hits recorded at American in 1967/68. Womack was the guitarist on all these recordings.

Pickett returned to Fame Studios in late 1968 and early 1969, where he worked with a band that featured guitarist Duane Allman, as well as Muscle Shoals stalwart Hawkins and newly recruited bassist David Hood. A #16 pop hit cover of The Beatles' "Hey Jude" came from these Fame sessions, as well as the minor hits "Mini-Skirt Minnie" and "Hey Joe".

Late 1969 found Pickett at Criteria Studios in Miami. Hit covers of The Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On" (#16 R&B, #92 Pop) and The Archies' "Sugar Sugar" (#4 R&B, #25 Pop), as well as the Pickett original "She Said Yes" (#20 R&B, #68 Pop) came from these sessions.

Pickett then teamed up with established Philadelphia-based hitmakers Gamble and Huff for the 1970 album Wilson Pickett In Philadelphia, which featured his next two hit singles, the funk-oriented "Get Me Back On Time, Engine Number 9" (#3 R&B, #14 Pop) and the pop number "Don't Let The Green Grass Fool You" (#2 R&B, #17 Pop).

Following these two big hits, Pickett returned to Muscle Shoals and the Muscle Shoals band, featuring Hood, Hawkins and Tippy Armstrong. This line-up recorded Pickett's fifth and last R&B #1 hit, "Don't Knock My Love, Pt. 1", which also peaked at #13 on the pop charts in 1971. Two further hits followed in '71: "Call My Name, I'll Be There" (#10 R&B, #52 Pop) and "Fire and Water" (#2 R&B, #24 Pop), a cover of a song by Free.

Pickett recorded several tracks in 1972 for a planned new album on Atlantic, but after the single "Funk Factory" reached #11 R&B and #58 pop in June of 1972, he left Atlantic for RCA Records. His final Atlantic single, a cover of Randy Newman's "Mama Told Me Not To Come," was actually culled from Pickett's 1971 album Don't Knock My Love.
Post-Atlantic recording career

Pickett continued to record with some success on the R&B charts for RCA in 1973 and 1974, scoring four top 30 R&B hits with "Mr. Magic Man", "Take a Closer Look at the Woman You're With", "International Playboy" and "Soft Soul Boogie Woogie". However, he was no longer crossing over to the pop charts with any regularity, as none of these songs hit higher than #90 on the Billboard Hot 100.

As the decade continued, the advent of disco put Pickett's soul-based musical style out of step with the then-current trends in R&B, and in pop music in general. In 1975, with Pickett's once-prominent chart career on the wane, RCA dropped Pickett from the label.

Pickett continued to record sporadically with several labels over the following decades, occasionally making the lower to mid-range of the R&B charts. However, after 1974, he never had another pop hit. His last record was issued in 1999, although he remained fairly active on the touring front until he became ill in 2004.
Personal life and honors

Outside of music, Pickett's personal life was troubled. Even in his 1960s heyday, Pickett's friends found him to be temperamental and preoccupied with guns; Don Covay described him as "young and wild". Then in 1987, as his recording career was drying up, Pickett was given two years' probation and fined $1,000 for carrying a loaded shotgun in his car. In 1991, he was arrested for allegedly yelling death threats while driving a car over the mayor's front lawn in Englewood, New Jersey. The following year, he was charged with assaulting his girlfriend.

In 1993, Pickett was involved in an accident where he struck an 86-year-old pedestrian, Pepe Ruiz, with his car in Englewood. Ruiz, who helped organize the New York animation union, died later that year. Pickett pled guilty to drunken driving charges and received a reduced sentence of one year in jail and five years probation. Pickett had been previously convicted of various drug offenses.

Throughout the 1990s, despite his personal troubles, Pickett was continually honored for his contributions to music. In addition to being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, his music was prominently featured in the film The Commitments, with Pickett as an off-screen character. In 1993, he was honored with a Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.

Pickett was also a popular songwriter, as songs he wrote were recorded by artists like Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, the Grateful Dead, Booker T. & the MGs, Genesis, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Hootie & the Blowfish, Echo & the Bunnymen, Roxy Music, Bruce Springsteen, Los Lobos, The Jam and Ani DiFranco, among others.

Several years after his release from jail, Pickett returned to the studio and received a Grammy nomination for the 1999 album It's Harder Now. The comeback also resulted in his being honored as Soul/Blues Male Artist of the Year by the Blues Foundation in Memphis. It's Harder Now was voted Comeback Blues Album of the Year and Soul/Blues Album of the Year.

In 2003, he co-starred in the D.A. Pennebaker-directed documentary "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of both the 2002 Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals. In 2003, Pickett was also a judge for the 2nd annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers. In 2005, Wilson Pickett was inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame. His classic recording of "Mustang Sally" was voted a Legendary Michigan Song in 2007.

Pickett spent the twilight of his career playing dozens of concert dates a year until 2004, when he began suffering from health problems. While in the hospital, he returned to his spiritual roots and told his sister that he wanted to record a gospel album. But, sadly, he never recovered.
Death

Pickett died of a heart attack January 19, 2006 in the hospital near his Ashburn, Virginia home and was buried in Louisville, Kentucky. Pickett's long-time friend, Little Richard, spoke about him and preached briefly at the funeral. Pickett spent many years in Louisville when his mother moved there from Alabama. He is considered an honorary son of the city. His funeral procession was flanked by well wishers welcoming him home.

He was remembered on March 20, 2006, at NYC's B.B. King Blues Club with performances by the Commitments, his long-term backing band the Midnight Movers, soul singer Bruce "Big Daddy" Wayne, and Southside Johnny Lyon in front of an audience that included many members of his family, including two brothers.
Discography
Singles
Release date Title Chart positions
US Hot 100 US R&B UK
1962 "If You Need Me" #64 #30
1963 "It's Too Late" #49 #7
"I'm Down to My Last Heartbreak" #95 #27
"My Heart Belongs to You" (reissue charted in 1965) #109
1964 "I'm Gonna Cry" #124
"Come Home Baby"
1965 "In the Midnight Hour" #21 #1 #12
"Don't Fight It" #53 #4 #29
1966 "634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.)" #13 #1 #36
"Ninety Nine and a Half (Won't Do)" #53 #13
"Land of 1000 Dances" #6 #1 #22
"Mustang Sally" #23 #6 #28
1967 "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" #29 #19
"I Found a Love - Pt. 1" #32 #6
"You Can't Stand Alone" (A-Side) #70 #26
→ "Soul Dance Number Three" (B-Side) #55 #10
"Funky Broadway" #8 #1 #43
"I'm in Love" (A-Side) #45 #4
→ "Stag-O-Lee" (B-Side) #22 #13
1968 "Jealous Love" (A-Side) #50 #18
→ "I've Come a Long Way" (B-Side) #101 #46
"She's Looking Good" #15 #7
"I'm a Midnight Mover" #24 #6 #38
"I Found a True Love" #42 #11
"A Man and a Half" #42 #20
"Hey Jude" #23 #13 #16
1969 "Mini-skirt Minnie" #50 #19
"Born to Be Wild" #64 #41
"Hey Joe" #59 #29
"You Keep Me Hangin' On" #92 #16
1970 "Sugar, Sugar" (A-Side) #25 #4
→ "Cole, Cooke, and Redding" (B-Side) #91 #11
"She Said Yes" #68 #20
"Get Me Back On Time, Engine Number 9" #14 #3
1971 "Don't Let the Green Grass Fool You" #17 #2
"Don't Knock My Love - Pt. 1" #13 #1
"Call My Name, I'll Be There" #52 #10
"Fire and Water" #24 #2
1972 "Funk Factory" #58 #11
"Mama Told Me Not To Come" #99 #16
1973 "Mr. Magic Man" #98 #16
"Take a Closer Look at the Woman You're With" #90 #17
"International Playboy" #104 #30
1974 "Soft Soul Boogie Woogie" #103 #20
"Take Your Pleasure Where You Find It" #68
"I Was Too Nice"
1975 "The Best Part of A Man" #26
1976 "Love Will Keep Us Together" #69
1977 "Love Dagger"
1978 "Who Turned You On" #59
"Groovin'" #94
1979 "I Want You" #41
1980 "Live With Me" #95
1981 "Ain't Gonna Give You No More"
"Back On The Right Track"
1987 "Don't Turn Away" #74
"In the Midnight Hour" (re-recording) #62
1988 "Love Never Let Me Down"
Albums

   * In The Midnight Hour (1965, Atlantic) US: #107
   * The Exciting Wilson Pickett (1966) US: #21
   * The Best Of Wilson Pickett (1967) US: #35
   * The Wicked Pickett (1967) US: #42
   * The Sound Of Wilson Pickett (1967) US: #54
   * I'm In Love (1967) US: #70
   * The Midnight Mover (1968) US: #91
   * Hey Jude (1968) US: #97
   * Wilson Pickett In Philadelphia (1970) US: #64
   * Right On (1970) US: #197
   * The Best Of Wilson Pickett, Vol. II (1971) US: #73
   * Don't Knock My Love (1972) US: #132
   * Mr. Magic Man (1973, RCA) US: #187
   * Wilson Pickett's Greatest Hits (1973) US: #178
   * Miz Lena's Boy (1973, RCA)
   * Pickett In The Pocket (1974, RCA)
   * Live In Japan (1974, RCA)
   * Join Me And Let's Be Free (1975, RCA)
   * Chocolate Mountain (1976, Wicked)
   * Funky Situation (1978, Big Tree)
   * I Want You (1979, EMI)
   * Right Track (1981, EMI)
   * American Soul Man (1987, Motown)
   * A Man And A Half: The Best Of Wilson Pickett (1992, Rhino/Atlantic)
   * It's Harder Now (Bullseye Blues 1999)
   * Live And Burnin' - Stockholm '69 (Soulsville 2009)
   * Live In Germany 1968 (Crypt Records 2009)
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/19/10 at 4:52 am


The birthday of the day...Dolly Parton
Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best-known for her work in country music.

In the four-and-a-half decades since her national-chart début, she remains one of the most-successful female artists in the history of the country genre which garnered her the title of 'The Queen of Country Music', with twenty-five number-one singles, and a record forty-one top-10 country albums. She has the distinction of having performed on a top-five country hit in each of the last five decades and is tied with Reba McEntire as the only country artists with No. 1 singles in four consecutive decades.

She is known for her distinctive soprano, sometimes bawdy humor, flamboyant dress sense and voluptuous figure.
n 1967, Parton was asked to join the weekly country-music, syndicated-television program The Porter Wagoner Show, hosted by Porter Wagoner, replacing Norma Jean, one of the most popular country female vocalists at the time, who was newly married and semi-retiring.

Initially, Wagoner's audience was reluctant to warm to Parton and chanted for Norma Jean, but with Wagoner's assistance, she was accepted. Wagoner convinced his label, RCA Victor, to also sign Parton. The label decided to protect their investment by releasing her first single as a duet with Wagoner. The duo's first single, "The Last Thing on My Mind," reached the country Top Ten early in 1968, launching a six-year streak of virtually uninterrupted Top-Ten singles.

Parton's first solo single for RCA, "Just Because I'm a Woman", was released in the summer of 1968 and was a moderate hit, reaching number seventeen. For the remainder of the decade, none of her solo efforts – even "In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)," which would later become a standard – were as successful as her duets. The duo was named Vocal Group of the Year in 1968 by the Country Music Association, but Parton's solo records were continually ignored. Wagoner and Parton were both frustrated by her lack of solo success, because he had a significant financial stake in her future – as of 1969, he was her co-producer and owned nearly half of the publishing company Owepar.

By 1970, both Parton and Wagoner had grown frustrated by her lack of solo chart success, and Porter had her sing Jimmie Rodgers' "Mule Skinner Blues," a gimmick that worked. The record shot to number three on the charts, followed closely by her first number-one single, "Joshua." For the next two years, she had a number of solo hits – including her signature song "Coat of Many Colors" (number four, 1971) – in addition to her duets. Though she had successful singles, none of them were blockbusters until "Jolene" reached number one in early 1974. Parton stopped traveling with Wagoner after its release, yet she continued to appear on television and sing duets with him until 1976.

She stayed with the Wagoner Show and continued to record duets with him for seven years, then made a break to become a solo artist. In 1974, her song, "I Will Always Love You" (written about her professional break from Wagoner), was released and went to number one on the country-music charts. Around the same time, Elvis Presley indicated that he wanted to cover the song. Parton was interested until Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, told her that she would have to sign over half of the publishing rights if Presley recorded the song (as was the standard procedure for songs he recorded). Parton refused and that decision is credited with helping to make her many millions of dollars in royalties from the song over the years. It was decisions like these, in fact, that caused her to be called "The Iron Butterfly" in show-business circles.
1977–1986: Branching out into pop music

From 1974 to 1980, she consistently charted in the country Top 10, with no fewer than eight singles reaching number one. Parton had her own syndicated-television variety show, Dolly! (1976–1977), and by 1977 had gained the right to produce her own albums, which immediately resulted in diverse efforts like 1977's New Harvest ... First Gathering. In addition to her own hits during the late 1970s, many artists, from Rose Maddox and Kitty Wells to Olivia Newton-John, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt, covered her songs, and her siblings Randy and Stella had recording contracts of their own.

Parton later had commercial success as a pop singer, as well as an actress. Her 1977 album, Here You Come Again, was her first million-seller, and its title track ("Here You Come Again") became her first top-ten single on the pop charts (reaching number three); many of her subsequent singles charted on both pop and country charts, simultaneously. Her albums during this period were developed specifically for pop-crossover success.

In 1978 Parton won a Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for her Here You Come Again album. Following that title track's success, she had further pop hits with "Two Doors Down", "Heartbreaker" (both 1978), "Baby I'm Burning" and "You're the Only One" (both 1979), all of which charted in the pop singles Top 40, and all of which also topped the country-singles chart. On April 3, 1978, Parton performed with Cher on television in Cher... Special in the "Musical Battle to Save Cher's Soul Medley". Parton was dressed in white and, with a team of brightly clad singers, portrayed an angelic host while punk band The Tubes, dressed in black leather and performing "Mondo Bondage", battled to send Cher's soul into eternal damnation.

Parton's commercial success continued to grow during 1980, with three number-one hits in a row: the Donna Summer-written "Starting Over Again," "Old Flames Can't Hold a Candle to You", and "9 to 5."

With less time to spend songwriting as she focused on a burgeoning film career, during the early 1980s Parton recorded a larger percentage of material from noted pop songwriters, such as Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Rupert Holmes, Gary Portnoy and Carole Bayer Sager.
Parton in Honolulu, Hawaii, 1983.

"9 to 5", the theme song to the feature film Nine to Five (1980) Parton starred in along with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, not only reached number one on the country charts, but also number one on the pop and the adult-contemporary charts, giving her a triple-number-one hit. Parton became one of the few female country singers to have a number-one single on the country and pop charts simultaneously. It also received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.

Parton's singles continued to appear consistently in the country Top 10: between 1981 and 1985, she had 12 Top 10 hits; half of those were number-one singles. Parton continued to make inroads on the pop charts as well with a re-recorded version of "I Will Always Love You" from the feature film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) scraping the Top 50 that year and her duet with Kenny Rogers, "Islands in the Stream" (written by the Bee Gees and produced by Barry Gibb), spent two weeks at number one in 1983.

Most of her albums were dominated by the adult-contemporary pop songs like "Islands in the Stream," and it had been years since she had sung straightforward country. She also continued to explore new business and entertainment ventures such as her Dollywood theme park, that opened in 1986 in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Her record sales were still relatively strong, however, with "Save the Last Dance for Me", "Tennessee Homesick Blues" (both 1984); "Real Love" (another duet with Kenny Rogers), "Don't Call it Love" (both 1985); and "Think About Love" (1986) all reaching the country-singles Top 10. ("Tennessee Homesick Blues" and "Think About Love" reached number one. "Real Love" also reached number one on the country-singles chart and also became a modest pop-crossover hit). However, RCA Records didn't renew her contract after it expired that year, and she signed with CBS Records in 1987.
1987–1994: Return to country roots

Along with Harris and Ronstadt, she released the decade-in-the-making Trio (1987) to critical acclaim. The album strongly revitalized Parton's temporarily stalled music career, spending five weeks at number one on Billboard's Country Albums chart, selling several million copies and producing four Top 10 country hits including Phil Spector's "To Know Him Is to Love Him", which went to number one. Trio won the Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. In 1987, she revived her television variety show, Dolly

After a further attempt at pop success with 1987's critically and commercially disappointing Rainbow, Parton refocused on recording country material. White Limozeen (1989) produced two number-one hits in "Why'd You Come in Here Lookin' Like That" and "Yellow Roses." Although it looked like Parton's career had been revived, it was actually just a brief revival before contemporary country music came in the early 1990s and moved all veteran artists out of the charts.

A duet with Ricky Van Shelton, "Rockin' Years" (1991) reached number one but Parton's greatest commercial fortune of the decade came when Whitney Houston recorded "I Will Always Love You" for the soundtrack of the feature film The Bodyguard (1992); both the single and the album were massively successful.

She recorded "The Day I Fall In Love" as a duet with James Ingram for the feature film Beethoven's 2nd (1993). The songwriters (Sager, Ingram, and Clif Mangess) were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Parton and Ingram performed the song on the awards telecast.

Similar to her earlier collabrative album with Harris and Ronstadt, Parton recorded Honky Tonk Angels (1994) with Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. It was certified a Gold Album by the Recording Industry Association of America and helped revive both Wynette's and Lynn's careers.
Since 1995: career today

In 1995 Parton re-recorded "I Will Always Love You" as a duet with Vince Gill on her album Something Special for which they won the Country Music Association's Vocal Event of the Year Award.

A second and more-contemporary collaboration with Harris and Ronstadt, Trio II (1999), was released and its cover of Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" won a Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Parton was also inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999.

She recorded a series of critically acclaimed bluegrass albums, beginning with The Grass Is Blue (1999), winning a Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album, and Little Sparrow (2001), with its cover of Collective Soul's "Shine" winning a Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. The third, Halos & Horns (2002) included a bluegrass version of the Led Zeppelin classic "Stairway to Heaven".

Parton released Those Were The Days (2005), her interpretation of hits from the folk-rock era of the late 1960s through the early 1970s. It featured such classics as John Lennon's "Imagine", Cat Stevens's "Where Do the Children Play?", Tommy James's "Crimson and Clover", and Pete Seeger's anti-war song "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?".

Parton earned her second Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song for "Travelin' Thru", which she wrote specifically for the feature film Transamerica (2005). Because of the song's nature of accepting a transgender woman without judgment, Parton received death threats. She also returned to number one on the country charts later in 2005 by lending her distinctive harmonies to the Brad Paisley ballad, "When I Get Where I'm Goin'".

In September 2007, Parton released her first single from her own record company, Dolly Records, entitled, "Better Get to Livin'", which eventually peaked at number forty-eight on the Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart.

Her latest studio album, "Backwoods Barbie", released February 26, 2008, reached number two on the country charts. The album's début at number seventeen on the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart has been the highest in her career. The title track and video was released in February 2009. The title song was written as part of her score for 9 to 5: The Musical, an adaptation of her feature film Nine to Five.

After the sudden death of Michael Jackson, whom Parton knew personally, she released a video in which she somberly told of her feelings on Jackson and his death.

On October 27, 2009, Parton released a 4-CD box set entitled "Dolly" which features 99 songs and spans most of her career. She is now set to release her second live DVD and album, "Live From London" in October 2009 which was filmed during her sold out 2008 concerts at London's 02 Arena. She is also currently working on a dance album, "Dance with Dolly", of which she has said should be released very soon.
Parton is a hugely successful songwriter, having begun by writing country-music songs with strong elements of folk music, based upon her upbringing in humble mountain surroundings, and reflecting her family's evangelical-Christian background. Her songs "Coat of Many Colors", "I Will Always Love You" and "Jolene" have become classics in the field, as have a number of others. As a songwriter, she is also regarded as one of country music's most-gifted storytellers, with many of her narrative songs based on persons and events from her childhood. Parton has listed almost 600 songs with Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) to date and has earned 37 BMI awards for her material. In 2001, she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

In a 2009 interview with CNN's Larry King Live, Parton indicated that she had written "at least 3,000" songs, having written seriously since the age of seven. Parton went on to say that she writes something every day, be it a song or an idea.
Compositions in films and television and covers

Parton's songwriting has been featured prominently in several films.

In addition to the title song for Nine to Five (1980), she also recorded a second version of "I Will Always Love You" for The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982); the second version proved to be another number-one country hit and also managed to reach the pop charts going to number 53 in the U.S.

"I Will Always Love You" has been covered by many country artists, including Ronstadt, on Prisoner In Disguise (1975); Kenny Rogers, on Vote for Love (1996); and LeAnn Rimes, on Unchained Melody: The Early Years (1997). Whitney Houston performed it on The Bodyguard (1992) film soundtrack and her version became the best-selling hit ever both written and performed by a female vocalist, with worldwide sales of over twelve million copies.

As a songwriter, Parton has twice been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, for "9 to 5" (1980) and "Travelin' Thru" (2005). "Travelin' Thru" did win as Best Original Song award at the Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards (2005). The song was also nominated for both the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song (2005) and the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award (also known as the Critics' Choice Awards) for Best Song (2005).

A cover version of "Love Is Like A Butterfly", recorded by singer Clare Torry, was used as the theme music for the British TV show Butterflies.
American Idol appearance

The music-competition, reality-television show American Idol (since 2002) has weekly themes and the April 1–2, 2008, episodes' theme was "Dolly Parton Songs" with the nine then-remaining contestants each singing a Parton composition. Parton participated as a "guest mentor" to the contestants and also performed "Jesus and Gravity" (from Backwoods Barbie and released as a single in March 2008) receiving a standing ovation from the studio audience.
9 to 5: The Musical
Main article: 9 to 5: The Musical

Parton wrote the score (and Patricia Resnick wrote the book) for 9 to 5: The Musical, a musical-theatre adaptation of Parton's feature film Nine to Five (1980). The musical ran at the Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, California, in Fall 2008.

It opened on Broadway at the Marquis Theatre in New York City, New York, on April 30, 2009, to mixed reviews. The title track of her Backwoods Barbie (2008), was written for the musical's character Doralee.

Developing the musical was not an overnight process. According to a broadcast of the public-radio program Studio 360 (October 29, 2005), in October 2005 Parton was in the midst of composing the songs for a Broadway musical-theatre adaptation of the film. In late June 2007, 9 to 5: the Musical was read for industry presentations. The readings starred Megan Hilty, Allison Janney, Stephanie J. Block, Bebe Neuwirth and Marc Kudisch.
Musician

Parton plays the autoharp, banjo, drums, dulcimer, fiddle, guitar, harmonica, pennywhistle and piano. She began composing songs at the age of four, her mother often writing down the music as she heard Parton singing around the house. Parton often describes her talent as having "the gift of rhyme".
Acting career

During the mid-1970s, Parton wanted to expand her audience base. Although her first attempt, the television variety show Dolly! (1976–1977), had high ratings, it lasted only one season, with Parton requesting to be released from her contract because of the stress it was causing her vocal cords. (She later tried a second television variety show, also entitled Dolly (1987–1988); it also lasted only one season.)
Film

In her first feature film she portrayed a secretary in a co-starring role with Fonda and Tomlin in Nine to Five (1980). Parton received Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and New Star Of The Year – Actress.

She also wrote and recorded the biggest solo hit of her career with the film's title song. It received a nomination for Academy Award for Best Song along with a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Song. Released as a single, the song won two Grammy Awards: Best Female Country Vocal Performance and Best Country Song. The song also reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and in was placed number 78 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years... 100 Songs" list released in 2004. Parton was also named Top Female Box Office Star by the Motion Picture Herald in both 1981 and 1982.

Parton's second film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), earned her a second Golden Globe nomination for Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

She followed with Rhinestone (1984), co-starring Sylvester Stallone, and Steel Magnolias (1989), with an ensemble cast.

The last leading role for Parton was portraying a plainspoken radio-program host (with listeners telephoning in to share their problems) in Straight Talk (1992), opposite James Woods.

She played an overprotective mother in Frank McKlusky, C.I. (2002) with Dave Sheridan, Cameron Richardson and Randy Quaid.

Parton played herself in a cameo appearance in The Beverly Hillbillies (1993) (an adaptation of the long-running television situation comedy of the same name) and also in Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005) (the sequel to Sandra Bullock's earlier Miss Congeniality (2000)).

She was featured in The Book Lady (2008) a documentary about her campaign for children’s literacy and she was expecting to repeat her television role as Hannah's godmother in Hannah Montana: The Movie (2008) but the character was omitted from the final screenplay.
Television

In addition to her performing appearances on the Wagoner Show in the 1960s and into the 1970s; her two self-titled television variety shows in the 1970s and 1980s; and on American Idol in 2001 and other guest appearances, Parton has also acted in television roles. In 1979 she received an Emmy award nomination as "Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Variety Program" for her guest appearance in a Cher special.

She starred in the television movie Smoky Mountain Christmas (1986); Unlikely Angel (1996), portraying an angel sent back to earth following a deadly car crash; and Blue Valley Songbird (1999), where her character lives through her music.

Parton has also done voice work for animation for television series, playing herself in the Alvin & the Chipmunks (episode "Urban Chipmunk", 1983) and the character Katrina Eloise "Murph" Murphy in The Magic School Bus (episode "The Family Holiday Special", 1994).

Dolly guest starred on an episode of Designing Women (episode "The First Day of the Last Decade of the Entire Twentieth Century") as herself, the guardian movie star of Charlene's baby. She also appeared in the situation comedy series Reba (episode "Reba's Rules of Real Estate") portraying a real-estate agency owner, and on The Simpsons (episode "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday", 1999).

She also made cameo appearances on the Disney Channel as "Aunt Dolly" visiting Hannah and her family in the fellow Tennessean Miley Cyrus's series Hannah Montana (episodes "Good Golly, Miss Dolly", 2006, and "I Will Always Loathe You", 2007). The role came about because of her real-life relationship as Cyrus's godmother.
Since the mid-1980s Parton has supported many charitable efforts, particularly in the area of literacy, primarily through her Dollywood Foundation.
Dolly Parton's Imagination Library

Her literacy program, "Dolly Parton's Imagination Library", a part of the Dollywood Foundation, mails one book per month to each enrolled child from the time of their birth until they enter kindergarten. It began in Sevier County but has now been replicated in 566 counties across thirty-six U.S. states (as well as in Canada). In December 2007 it expanded to Europe with the South Yorkshire town of Rotherham, United Kingdom, being the first British locality to receive the books.

The program distributes more than 2.5 million free books to children annually.

In 2006 Parton published a cookbook Dolly's Dixie Fixin's: Love, Laughter and Lots of Good Food. The net profits support the Dollywood Foundation.
Other philanthropy

Dollywood has also been noted for bringing jobs and tax revenues to a previously depressed region.

She has also worked to raise money on behalf of several other causes, including the American Red Cross and a number of HIV/AIDS-related charities.

In December 2006, Parton pledged $500,000 toward a proposed $90-million hospital and cancer center to be constructed in Sevierville in the name of Dr. Robert F. Thomas, the physician who delivered her; she also announced plans for a benefit concert to raise additional funds for the project. The concert went ahead playing to about 8,000 people.

In May 2009, Parton gave the Graduating Commencement Address at the University of Tennessee. Her speech was about her life lessons, and she encouraged the graduates to never stop dreaming.
Awards and honors

Parton is one of the most-honored female country performers of all time. The Record Industry Association of America has certified 25 of her single or album releases as either Gold Record, Platinum Record or Multi-Platinum Record. She has had 26 songs reach number one on the Billboard country charts, a record for a female artist. She has 42 career-top-10 country albums, a record for any artist, and 110 career-charted singles over the past 40 years. All inclusive sales of singles, albums, hits collections, paid digital downloads and compilation usage during Parton's career have reportedly topped 100 million records around the world.
Parton during a reception for The Kennedy Center honorees in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on December 3, 2006.

She has received seven Grammy Awards and a total of 45 Grammy Award nominations. At the American Music Awards she has won three awards, but has received 18 nominations. At the Country Music Association, she has received 10 awards and 42 nominations. At the Academy of Country Music, she has won seven awards and 39 nominations. She is one of only six female artists (including Reba McEntire, Barbara Mandrell, Shania Twain, Loretta Lynn, and Taylor Swift), to win the Country Music Association's highest honor, Entertainer of the Year (1978). She has also been nominated for two Academy Awards and a Tony Award.

She was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording in 1984, located at 6712 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California; a star on the Nashville Star Walk for Grammy winners; and a bronze sculpture on the courthouse lawn in Sevierville. She has called that statue of herself in her hometown "the greatest honor," because it came from the people who knew her.

Parton was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 1969, and in 1986 was named one of Ms. Magazine's Women of the Year. In 1986, Parton was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 1999, Parton received country music's highest honor, an induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. She received an honorary doctorate degree from Carson-Newman College (Jefferson City, Tennessee) in 1990. This was followed by induction into the National Academy of Popular Music/Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2001. In 2002, Parton ranked number four in CMT's 40 Greatest Women of Country Music.

She was honored in 2003 with a tribute album called Just Because I'm a Woman: Songs of Dolly Parton. The artists who recorded versions of Parton's songs included Melissa Etheridge ("I Will Always Love You"), Alison Krauss ("9 to 5"), Twain ("Coat of Many Colors"), Me'Shell NdegéOcello ("Two Doors Down"), Norah Jones ("The Grass is Blue"), and Sinéad O'Connor ("Dagger Through the Heart"); Parton herself contributed a rerecording of the title song, originally the title song for her first RCA album in 1968. Parton was awarded the Living Legend Medal by the U.S. Library of Congress on April 14, 2004, for her contributions to the cultural heritage of the United States.

This was followed in 2005 with the National Medal of Arts, the highest honor given by the U.S. government for excellence in the arts and is presented by the U.S. President.

On December 3, 2006, Parton received the Kennedy Center Honors from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for her lifetime of contributions to the arts. Other 2006 honorees included Zubin Mehta, Steven Spielberg, Smokey Robinson and Andrew Lloyd Webber. During the show, some of country music's biggest names came to show their admiration. Carrie Underwood performed Parton's hit "Islands in the Stream" with Rogers, Parton's original duet partner. Krauss performed "Jolene" and duetted "Coat of Many Colors" with Twain. McEntire and Reese Witherspoon also came to pay tribute.
Philanthropy-related honors

In 2003, her efforts to preserve the bald eagle through the American Eagle Foundation's sanctuary at Dollywood earned her the Partnership Award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Parton received the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Smithsonian Institution at a ceremony in Nashville on November 8, 2007.

For her work in literacy, Parton has received various awards including:

   * Association of American Publishers - AAP Honors Award (2000)
   * Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval (2001) (the first time the seal had been awarded to a person)
   * American Association of School Administrators - Galaxy Award (2002)
   * National State Teachers of the Year - Chasing Rainbows Award (2002)
   * Parents as Teachers National Center - Child and Family Advocacy Award (2003)

On May 8, 2009, Parton gave the commencement speech at the commencement ceremony in Knoxville, Tennessee, for the University of Tennessee, Knoxville's College of Arts and Sciences. During the ceremony she received an honorary degree, a doctorate of humane and musical letters, from the university. It was only the second honorary degree to be given by the university and in presenting the degree, the university's chancellor, Jimmy G. Cheek, said, "Because of her career not just as a musician and entertainer, but for her role as a cultural ambassador, philanthropist and lifelong advocate for education, it is fitting that she be honored with an honorary degree from the flagship educational institution of her home state."
Her original version(which she wrote) of I Will Always Love you is the only version of the song I will listen to.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/19/10 at 4:54 am


Through Google Videos (on youTube)

Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat



I hate to admit it, but this is the first time I ever saw this. :(

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/19/10 at 4:56 am

Dolly Parton's Coat Of Many Colors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1zJzr-kWsI#

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/19/10 at 4:59 am


Dolly Parton's Coat Of Many Colors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1zJzr-kWsI#
Wonderful!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/19/10 at 5:02 am


I hate to admit it, but this is the first time I ever saw this. :(
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is the first musical produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, over the it has grown from a production to be preformed at schools by schoolchildren, to a full blown musical on Broadway and the West End.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/19/10 at 6:51 am

Islands In The Stream with Kenny Rogers (1983)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/19/10 at 6:52 am


The person of the day...Wilson Pickett
Wilson Pickett (March 18, 1941 – January 19, 2006) was an American R&B/rock and roll and soul singer and songwriter known for his raw, raspy, passionate vocal delivery.

A major figure in the development of American soul music, Pickett recorded over 50 songs which made the US R&B charts, and frequently crossed over to the pop charts as well. Among his best known hits are "In The Midnight Hour" (which he co-wrote), "Land of 1,000 Dances", "Mustang Sally", and "Funky Broadway".

The impact of Pickett's songwriting and recording led to his 1991 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Pickett's Atlantic career began with a self-produced single, "I'm Gonna Cry", which stalled at a lowly #124 on the national charts. Looking to boost Pickett's chart chances, Atlantic next paired him with famed producer Bert Berns and established songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. With this team, Pickett recorded "Come Home Baby," a pop duet with New Orleans singer Tammi Lynn, but this single failed to chart completely.

Pickett's breakthrough came at Stax Records' recording studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where he recorded his third Atlantic single, "In the Midnight Hour" (1965), perhaps his best-remembered hit, peaking at #1 R&B, #21 pop {US}, and #12 hit {UK}.

The genesis of "In the Midnight Hour" was a recording session on May 12, 1965, in which producer Jerry Wexler worked out a powerful rhythm track with studio musicians Steve Cropper and Al Jackson of the Stax Records house band, which also included bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn. (Stax keyboard player Booker T. Jones, who usually played with Dunn, Cropper and Jackson as Booker T. & the MG's, did not play on any of the Pickett studio sessions.) Wexler said to Cropper and Jackson, "Why don't you pick up on this thing here?" He performed a dance step. Cropper later explained in an interview that Wexler told them that "this was the way the kids were dancing; they were putting the accent on two. Basically, we'd been one-beat-accenters with an afterbeat; it was like 'boom dah,' but here this was a thing that went 'um-chaw,' just the reverse as far as the accent goes." The song that resulted from this encounter established Pickett as a star, and also gave Atlantic Records a bona fide hit.
Stax/Fame years (1965-67)

Pickett recorded three sessions at Stax in May and October 1965, and was joined by keyboardist Isaac Hayes for the October sessions. In addition to "In the Midnight Hour," Pickett's 1965 recordings included the singles "Don't Fight It," (#4 R&B, #53 pop) "634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A,)" (#1 R&B, #13 pop) and "Ninety-Nine and A Half (Won't Do)" (#13 R&B, #53 pop). All but "634-5789" were original compositions Pickett co-wrote with Eddie Floyd and/or Steve Cropper; "634-5789" was credited to Cropper and Floyd alone. All of these recordings are considered soul classics, and show a range of different styles, from the hard-driving "Midnight Hour" and "Don't Fight It," to the more overtly gospel-influenced "Ninety-Nine and A Half" (which borrowed its title from a gospel standard recorded by The Ward Singers) and the pop-soul of "634-5789".

For his next sessions, Pickett would not return to Stax; the label's owner, Jim Stewart, banned all outside productions in December, 1965. As a result, Wexler took Pickett to Fame studios, another recording studio with an even closer association to Atlantic Records. Located in a converted tobacco warehouse in nearby Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Fame was very influential in shaping soul music, and Pickett recorded some of his biggest hits there. This included the highest-charting version ever of the kinetic "Land of 1,000 Dances", which became Pickett's third R&B #1, and his biggest ever pop hit, peaking at #6. The song had previously been a hit for the song's writer, Chris Kenner, and Mexican-American band Cannibal & the Headhunters.

Other big hits from this era in Pickett's career included two other covers: Mack Rice's "Mustang Sally," (#6 R&B, #23 pop), and Dyke & the Blazers' "Funky Broadway," (another R&B #1 for Pickett, as well as #8 pop). The band heard on almost all of Pickett's Fame recordings included keyboardist Spooner Oldham and drummer Roger Hawkins.
Later Atlantic years (1967-1972)

Towards the end of 1967, Pickett began recording at American Studios in Memphis with producers Tom Dowd and Tommy Cogbill, and also began recording numerous songs by Bobby Womack. The songs "I'm In Love," "Jealous Love," "I've Come A Long Way," "I'm A Midnight Mover," (a Pickett/Womack co-write), and "I Found A True Love" were all Womack-penned hits for Pickett in 1967 and 1968. "I'm In Love" was also a return to the soul ballad genre for Pickett; he would continue to record a mixture of ballads, soul and funk for the rest of his career. Pickett also recorded work by other writers during this era; Rodger Collins' "She's Looking Good" and a cover of the traditional blues standard "Stagger Lee" were also top 40 Pickett hits recorded at American in 1967/68. Womack was the guitarist on all these recordings.

Pickett returned to Fame Studios in late 1968 and early 1969, where he worked with a band that featured guitarist Duane Allman, as well as Muscle Shoals stalwart Hawkins and newly recruited bassist David Hood. A #16 pop hit cover of The Beatles' "Hey Jude" came from these Fame sessions, as well as the minor hits "Mini-Skirt Minnie" and "Hey Joe".

Late 1969 found Pickett at Criteria Studios in Miami. Hit covers of The Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On" (#16 R&B, #92 Pop) and The Archies' "Sugar Sugar" (#4 R&B, #25 Pop), as well as the Pickett original "She Said Yes" (#20 R&B, #68 Pop) came from these sessions.

Pickett then teamed up with established Philadelphia-based hitmakers Gamble and Huff for the 1970 album Wilson Pickett In Philadelphia, which featured his next two hit singles, the funk-oriented "Get Me Back On Time, Engine Number 9" (#3 R&B, #14 Pop) and the pop number "Don't Let The Green Grass Fool You" (#2 R&B, #17 Pop).

Following these two big hits, Pickett returned to Muscle Shoals and the Muscle Shoals band, featuring Hood, Hawkins and Tippy Armstrong. This line-up recorded Pickett's fifth and last R&B #1 hit, "Don't Knock My Love, Pt. 1", which also peaked at #13 on the pop charts in 1971. Two further hits followed in '71: "Call My Name, I'll Be There" (#10 R&B, #52 Pop) and "Fire and Water" (#2 R&B, #24 Pop), a cover of a song by Free.

Pickett recorded several tracks in 1972 for a planned new album on Atlantic, but after the single "Funk Factory" reached #11 R&B and #58 pop in June of 1972, he left Atlantic for RCA Records. His final Atlantic single, a cover of Randy Newman's "Mama Told Me Not To Come," was actually culled from Pickett's 1971 album Don't Knock My Love.
Post-Atlantic recording career

Pickett continued to record with some success on the R&B charts for RCA in 1973 and 1974, scoring four top 30 R&B hits with "Mr. Magic Man", "Take a Closer Look at the Woman You're With", "International Playboy" and "Soft Soul Boogie Woogie". However, he was no longer crossing over to the pop charts with any regularity, as none of these songs hit higher than #90 on the Billboard Hot 100.

As the decade continued, the advent of disco put Pickett's soul-based musical style out of step with the then-current trends in R&B, and in pop music in general. In 1975, with Pickett's once-prominent chart career on the wane, RCA dropped Pickett from the label.

Pickett continued to record sporadically with several labels over the following decades, occasionally making the lower to mid-range of the R&B charts. However, after 1974, he never had another pop hit. His last record was issued in 1999, although he remained fairly active on the touring front until he became ill in 2004.
Personal life and honors

Outside of music, Pickett's personal life was troubled. Even in his 1960s heyday, Pickett's friends found him to be temperamental and preoccupied with guns; Don Covay described him as "young and wild". Then in 1987, as his recording career was drying up, Pickett was given two years' probation and fined $1,000 for carrying a loaded shotgun in his car. In 1991, he was arrested for allegedly yelling death threats while driving a car over the mayor's front lawn in Englewood, New Jersey. The following year, he was charged with assaulting his girlfriend.

In 1993, Pickett was involved in an accident where he struck an 86-year-old pedestrian, Pepe Ruiz, with his car in Englewood. Ruiz, who helped organize the New York animation union, died later that year. Pickett pled guilty to drunken driving charges and received a reduced sentence of one year in jail and five years probation. Pickett had been previously convicted of various drug offenses.

Throughout the 1990s, despite his personal troubles, Pickett was continually honored for his contributions to music. In addition to being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, his music was prominently featured in the film The Commitments, with Pickett as an off-screen character. In 1993, he was honored with a Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.

Pickett was also a popular songwriter, as songs he wrote were recorded by artists like Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, the Grateful Dead, Booker T. & the MGs, Genesis, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Hootie & the Blowfish, Echo & the Bunnymen, Roxy Music, Bruce Springsteen, Los Lobos, The Jam and Ani DiFranco, among others.

Several years after his release from jail, Pickett returned to the studio and received a Grammy nomination for the 1999 album It's Harder Now. The comeback also resulted in his being honored as Soul/Blues Male Artist of the Year by the Blues Foundation in Memphis. It's Harder Now was voted Comeback Blues Album of the Year and Soul/Blues Album of the Year.

In 2003, he co-starred in the D.A. Pennebaker-directed documentary "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of both the 2002 Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals. In 2003, Pickett was also a judge for the 2nd annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers. In 2005, Wilson Pickett was inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame. His classic recording of "Mustang Sally" was voted a Legendary Michigan Song in 2007.

Pickett spent the twilight of his career playing dozens of concert dates a year until 2004, when he began suffering from health problems. While in the hospital, he returned to his spiritual roots and told his sister that he wanted to record a gospel album. But, sadly, he never recovered.
Death

Pickett died of a heart attack January 19, 2006 in the hospital near his Ashburn, Virginia home and was buried in Louisville, Kentucky. Pickett's long-time friend, Little Richard, spoke about him and preached briefly at the funeral. Pickett spent many years in Louisville when his mother moved there from Alabama. He is considered an honorary son of the city. His funeral procession was flanked by well wishers welcoming him home.

He was remembered on March 20, 2006, at NYC's B.B. King Blues Club with performances by the Commitments, his long-term backing band the Midnight Movers, soul singer Bruce "Big Daddy" Wayne, and Southside Johnny Lyon in front of an audience that included many members of his family, including two brothers.
Discography
Singles
Release date Title Chart positions
US Hot 100 US R&B UK
1962 "If You Need Me" #64 #30
1963 "It's Too Late" #49 #7
"I'm Down to My Last Heartbreak" #95 #27
"My Heart Belongs to You" (reissue charted in 1965) #109
1964 "I'm Gonna Cry" #124
"Come Home Baby"
1965 "In the Midnight Hour" #21 #1 #12
"Don't Fight It" #53 #4 #29
1966 "634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.)" #13 #1 #36
"Ninety Nine and a Half (Won't Do)" #53 #13
"Land of 1000 Dances" #6 #1 #22
"Mustang Sally" #23 #6 #28
1967 "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" #29 #19
"I Found a Love - Pt. 1" #32 #6
"You Can't Stand Alone" (A-Side) #70 #26
→ "Soul Dance Number Three" (B-Side) #55 #10
"Funky Broadway" #8 #1 #43
"I'm in Love" (A-Side) #45 #4
→ "Stag-O-Lee" (B-Side) #22 #13
1968 "Jealous Love" (A-Side) #50 #18
→ "I've Come a Long Way" (B-Side) #101 #46
"She's Looking Good" #15 #7
"I'm a Midnight Mover" #24 #6 #38
"I Found a True Love" #42 #11
"A Man and a Half" #42 #20
"Hey Jude" #23 #13 #16
1969 "Mini-skirt Minnie" #50 #19
"Born to Be Wild" #64 #41
"Hey Joe" #59 #29
"You Keep Me Hangin' On" #92 #16
1970 "Sugar, Sugar" (A-Side) #25 #4
→ "Cole, Cooke, and Redding" (B-Side) #91 #11
"She Said Yes" #68 #20
"Get Me Back On Time, Engine Number 9" #14 #3
1971 "Don't Let the Green Grass Fool You" #17 #2
"Don't Knock My Love - Pt. 1" #13 #1
"Call My Name, I'll Be There" #52 #10
"Fire and Water" #24 #2
1972 "Funk Factory" #58 #11
"Mama Told Me Not To Come" #99 #16
1973 "Mr. Magic Man" #98 #16
"Take a Closer Look at the Woman You're With" #90 #17
"International Playboy" #104 #30
1974 "Soft Soul Boogie Woogie" #103 #20
"Take Your Pleasure Where You Find It" #68
"I Was Too Nice"
1975 "The Best Part of A Man" #26
1976 "Love Will Keep Us Together" #69
1977 "Love Dagger"
1978 "Who Turned You On" #59
"Groovin'" #94
1979 "I Want You" #41
1980 "Live With Me" #95
1981 "Ain't Gonna Give You No More"
"Back On The Right Track"
1987 "Don't Turn Away" #74
"In the Midnight Hour" (re-recording) #62
1988 "Love Never Let Me Down"
Albums

   * In The Midnight Hour (1965, Atlantic) US: #107
   * The Exciting Wilson Pickett (1966) US: #21
   * The Best Of Wilson Pickett (1967) US: #35
   * The Wicked Pickett (1967) US: #42
   * The Sound Of Wilson Pickett (1967) US: #54
   * I'm In Love (1967) US: #70
   * The Midnight Mover (1968) US: #91
   * Hey Jude (1968) US: #97
   * Wilson Pickett In Philadelphia (1970) US: #64
   * Right On (1970) US: #197
   * The Best Of Wilson Pickett, Vol. II (1971) US: #73
   * Don't Knock My Love (1972) US: #132
   * Mr. Magic Man (1973, RCA) US: #187
   * Wilson Pickett's Greatest Hits (1973) US: #178
   * Miz Lena's Boy (1973, RCA)
   * Pickett In The Pocket (1974, RCA)
   * Live In Japan (1974, RCA)
   * Join Me And Let's Be Free (1975, RCA)
   * Chocolate Mountain (1976, Wicked)
   * Funky Situation (1978, Big Tree)
   * I Want You (1979, EMI)
   * Right Track (1981, EMI)
   * American Soul Man (1987, Motown)
   * A Man And A Half: The Best Of Wilson Pickett (1992, Rhino/Atlantic)
   * It's Harder Now (Bullseye Blues 1999)
   * Live And Burnin' - Stockholm '69 (Soulsville 2009)
   * Live In Germany 1968 (Crypt Records 2009)
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he died too soon.  :(

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/19/10 at 7:33 am


Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is the first musical produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, over the it has grown from a production to be preformed at schools by schoolchildren, to a full blown musical on Broadway and the West End.



I have a recording of the VERY, VERY first recording of it. I think it came out in 1970? 71? or so. I knew most of the songs from it before most people had ever really heard about it.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/19/10 at 9:23 am


he died too soon.  :(

Yes he did :\'(

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/19/10 at 3:25 pm

I'm suprised at Dolly's age,she still has those big breasts. :o

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/19/10 at 6:34 pm


I'm suprised at Dolly's age,she still has those big breasts. :o

Really I didn't notice :D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 01/19/10 at 8:34 pm

I've always loved Dolly. Thanks for the Bio, Ninny.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/19/10 at 9:26 pm


I've always loved Dolly. Thanks for the Bio, Ninny.  :)

I'm glad you liked it Vinny :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/20/10 at 5:06 am

The word of the day...Peak(s)
The peak of a process or an activity is the point at which it is at its strongest, most successful, or most fully developed.
When something peaks, it reaches its highest value or its highest level.
Peak times are the times when there is most demand for something or most use of something
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/20/10 at 5:10 am

The birthday of the day...David Lynch
David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker and visual artist. Over a lengthy career, Lynch has employed a distinctive and unorthodox approach to narrative filmmaking (dubbed Lynchian), which has become instantly recognizable to many audiences and critics worldwide. Lynch's films are known for surreal, nightmarish and dreamlike images and meticulously crafted sound design. Lynch's work often depicts a seedy underside of small town America (particularly Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks), or sprawling California metropolises (Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and his latest release, Inland Empire). Beginning with his experimental film school feature Eraserhead (1977), he has maintained a strong cult following despite inconsistent commercial success.

Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director, for his films The Elephant Man (1980), Blue Velvet (1986), and Mulholland Drive (2001), and has also received a screenplay Academy Award nomination for The Elephant Man. Lynch has twice won France's César Award for Best Foreign Film, the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and a Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival. The French government awarded him with the Legion of Honor, the country's top civilian honor, as Chevalier in 2002 then Officier in 2007, whilst that same year, The Guardian described Lynch as "the most important director of this era"
n 1971, Lynch moved to Los Angeles, California to study for a Master of Fine Arts degree at the AFI Conservatory. At the Conservatory, Lynch began working on his first feature-length film, Eraserhead, using a $10,000 grant from the AFI. The grant did not provide enough money to complete the film and, due to lack of a sufficient budget, Eraserhead was filmed intermittently until 1977. Lynch used money from friends and family, including boyhood friend Jack Fisk, a production designer and the husband of actress Sissy Spacek, and even took a paper route to finish it. A stark and enigmatic film, Eraserhead tells the story of a quiet young man (Jack Nance) living in an industrial wasteland, whose girlfriend gives birth to a constantly crying mutant baby. Lynch has referred to Eraserhead as "my Philadelphia story", meaning it reflects all of the dangerous and fearful elements he encountered while studying and living in Philadelphia. He said "this feeling left its traces deep down inside me. And when it came out again, it became Eraserhead".

The final film was initially judged to be almost unreleasable, but thanks to the efforts of the Elgin Theater distributor Ben Barenholtz, it became an instant cult classic and was a staple of midnight movie showings for the next decade. It was also a critical success, launching Lynch to the forefront of avant-garde filmmaking. The acclaimed film maker Stanley Kubrick said that it was one of his all-time favorite films. It cemented the team of actors and technicians who would continue to define the texture of his work for years to come, including cinematographer Frederick Elmes, sound designer Alan Splet, and actor Jack Nance. Meanwhile, Lynch continued producing short films, and during "a brief lull in the filming of Eraserhead" had produced The Amputee in 1974, revolving around a woman with stumps for limbs (Catherine Coulson) who has them washed by a doctor, played by Lynch himself.
Rise to prominence (1980–1986)
David Lynch on the set of Blue Velvet with the film's main actor Kyle MacLachlan.

Eraserhead brought Lynch to the attention of producer Mel Brooks, who hired him to direct 1980's The Elephant Man, a biopic of deformed Victorian era figure Joseph Merrick (John Hurt). Lynch brought his own distinct surrealist approach to the film, filming it in black and white, although it has still been described as "one of the most conventional" of his films. The Elephant Man was a huge commercial success, and earned eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay nods for Lynch. It also established his place as a commercially viable, if somewhat dark and unconventional, Hollywood director. George Lucas, a fan of Eraserhead, offered Lynch the opportunity to direct Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, which he refused, feeling that it would be more Lucas' vision than his own. Meanwhile in 1983 he began the writing and drawing of a comic strip, The Angriest Dog in the World, which featured unchanging graphics alongside cryptic philosophical references. It ran from 1983 until 1992 in the Village Voice, Creative Loafing and other tabloid and alternative publications.

Afterwards, Lynch agreed to direct a big-budget adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune for Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis's De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, on the condition that DEG release a second Lynch project, over which the director would have complete creative control. Although De Laurentiis hoped it would be the next Star Wars, Lynch's Dune (1984) was a critical and commercial dud; it cost $45 million to make, and grossed a mere $27.4 million domestically. Later on, Universal Studios released an "extended cut" of the film for syndicated television; this contained almost an hour of cutting-room-floor footage and new narration. Such was not representative of Lynch's intentions, but the studio considered it more comprehensible than the original two hour version. Lynch objected to these changes and had his name struck from the extended cut, which has "Alan Smithee" credited as the director and "Judas Booth" (a pseudonym which Lynch himself invented, inspired by his own feelings of betrayal) as the screenwriter. The three hour version has since been released on video worldwide.

Lynch's second De Laurentiis-financed project was 1986's Blue Velvet, the story of a college student (Kyle MacLachlan) who discovers his small, idealistic hometown hides a dark side after investigating a severed ear that he found in a field. The film featured performances from Isabella Rossellini as a tormented lounge singer and Dennis Hopper as a crude, psychopathic criminal. Although Lynch had found success previously with The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet's controversy with audiences and critics introduced him into the mainstream, and became a huge critical and moderate commercial success. Thus, the film earned Lynch his second Academy Award nomination for Best Director. The content of the film and its artistic merit drew much controversy from audiences and critics alike in 1986 and onwards. Blue Velvet introduced several common elements of his work, including abused women, the dark underbelly of small towns, and unconventional uses of vintage songs. Bobby Vinton's "Blue Velvet" and Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" are both featured in unconventional ways. It was also the first time Lynch worked with composer Angelo Badalamenti, who would contribute to all of his future full-length films except Inland Empire. Woody Allen, whose film Hannah and Her Sisters was nominated for Best Picture, said that Blue Velvet was his favorite film of the year.
The transition to television (1987–1996)
Lynch at the 1990 Emmy Awards ceremony.

In the late 1980s, Lynch moved from producing films to focusing on television, directing a short film entitled The Cowboy and the Frenchman in 1989 for French television, before meeting the producer Mark Frost, with whom he would go on to collaborate with on a number of projects. Initially, Lynch and Frost planned to create a surreal comedy named One Saliva Bubble, but it never materialised. Instead they created a show entitled Twin Peaks, a drama series set in a small Washington where the popular high school student Laura Palmer has been raped and murdered. To investigate, the FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) is called in, eventually unearthing the secrets of many town residents and the supernatural nature of the murder. Lynch himself directed only six episodes of the series, including the feature-length pilot, which debuted on the ABC Network on April 8, 1990. Lynch himself later starred in several episodes of the series as the FBI agent Graham Cole. Twin Peaks gradually rose from cult hit to cultural phenomenon, and because of its originality and success remains one of the most well-known television series of the decade. Catch phrases from the show entered the culture and parodies of it were seen on Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons. Lynch appeared on the cover of Time magazine largely because of the success of the series.

However, Lynch clashed with the ABC Network on several matters, particularly whether or not to reveal Laura Palmer's killer. The network insisted that the revelation be made during the second season but Lynch wanted the mystery to last as long as the series. Lynch soon became disenchanted with the series, and, as a result, many cast members complained of feeling abandoned. Later he stated that he and Frost had never intended to ever reveal the identity of Laura's killer, that ABC forced him to reveal the culprit prematurely, and that agreeing to do so is one of his biggest professional regrets. Twin Peaks suffered a severe ratings drop and was canceled in 1991. Still, Lynch scripted a prequel to the series about the last seven days in the life of Laura Palmer.

Meanwhile, whilst Twin Peaks was in production, the Brooklyn Academy of Music asked Lynch and Badalementi to create a theatrical piece which would only be performed twice at their academy in New York City in 1989 as a part of the New Music America Festival. The result was Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Broken Hearted, which starred such frequent Lynch collaborators as Laura Dern, Nicolas Cage and Michael J. Anderson as well as containing five songs sung by Julee Cruise. David Lynch produced a 50-minute video of the performance in 1990. Following this, Lynch returned to making feature films, after his friend, Monty Montgomery offered him the chance to adapt Barry Gifford's novel, Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula into a film. Lynch agreed, with the result being Wild at Heart, a crime and road movie starring Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern. Despite receiving a muted response from American critics and viewers, it won the Palme d'Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.

Without Frost this time, he decided to revisit Twin Peaks, making the prequal film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me in 1992. The film was a commercial and critical failure in the United States, although was a hit in Japan and British critic Mark Kermode has hailed the film as Lynch's "masterpiece". Meanwhile, Lynch continued working on a series of television shows with Mark Frost. After Twin Peaks, they produced a series of documentaries entitled American Chronicles (1990) which examined life across the United States, the comedy series On the Air (1992), which was cancelled after only three episodes had aired, and the three-episode HBO mini-series Hotel Room (1993) about events that happened in the same hotel room but at different dates in time.
Return to cinema and digital work (1997-2006)
Lynch speaking at an Amazon.com reception in January 2007.

Following his unsuccesful television ventures since Twin Peaks, Lynch returned to making feature films. In 1997 he released the non-linear, noiresque Lost Highway, co-written by Barry Gifford and starring Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette. The film failed commercially and received a mixed response from critics. However, thanks in part to a soundtrack featuring David Bowie, Marilyn Manson, Rammstein, Nine Inch Nails and The Smashing Pumpkins, it helped gain Lynch a new audience of Generation X viewers. Lost Highway was followed in 1999 with the G-rated, Disney-produced The Straight Story, written and edited by Mary Sweeney, which was, on the surface, a simple and humble movie telling the true story of Iowan Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth), who rides a lawnmower to Wisconsin to make peace with his ailing brother, played by Harry Dean Stanton. As Le Blanc and Odell stated, the plot made it "seem as far removed from Lynch's earlier works as could be imagined, but in fact right from the very opening, this is entirely his film - a surreal road movie". The film garnered positive reviews and reached a new audience for its director.

The same year, Lynch approached ABC once again with an idea for a television drama. The network gave Lynch the go-ahead to shoot a two-hour pilot for the series Mulholland Drive, but disputes over content and running time led to the project being shelved indefinitely. However, with seven million dollars from the French production company StudioCanal, Lynch completed the pilot as a film, Mulholland Drive. The film is a non-linear narrative surrealist tale of the dark side of Hollywood and stars Naomi Watts, Laura Harring and Justin Theroux. The film performed relatively well at the box office worldwide and was a critical success, earning Lynch a Best Director prize at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival (shared with Joel Coen for The Man Who Wasn't There) and a Best Director award from the New York Film Critics Association.

With the onset of popularity of the internet, Lynch decided to utlilise this new medium, releasing several new series that he had created exclusively on his website, davidlynch.com. In 2002, he created a series of online shorts entitled Dumbland. Intentionally crude both in content and execution, the eight-episode series was later released on DVD. The same year, Lynch released a surreal sitcom via his website - Rabbits, which revolved around a family of humanoid rabbits. Later, he showed his experiments with Digital Video in the form of the Japanese-style horror short Darkened Room.

In 2006, Lynch's latest feature film, Inland Empire was released, being the longest of Lynch's films at almost three hours long. Like Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway before it, the film did not fit to a narrative structure, and starred Lynch regulars Laura Dern, Harry Dean Stanton, and Justin Theroux, with cameos by Naomi Watts and Laura Harring (voices of Suzie and Jane Rabbit), and a performance by Jeremy Irons. Lynch described the piece as "a mystery about a woman in trouble". In an effort to promote the film, Lynch made appearances with a cow and a placard bearing the slogan "Without cheese there would be no Inland Empire".
Documentaries and animation (2007-)

In 2008, Lynch announced that he was working on a road documentary "about his dialogues with regular folk on the meaning of life," with traveling companions including singer Donovan and physicist John Hagelin, two prominent members of the Transcendental Meditation movement.

Lynch currently has two films in production, both of which differ in content from his previous work. One of these is an animation entitled Snootworld, and the other is a documentary on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi consisting of interviews with people who knew him
Filmography
Features
Year Film Oscars BAFTA Golden Globe
Nominations Wins Nominations Wins Nominations Wins
1977 Eraserhead
1980 The Elephant Man 8 7 3 4
1984 Dune 1
1986 Blue Velvet 1 2
1990 Wild at Heart 1 1 1
1992 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
1997 Lost Highway
1999 The Straight Story 1 2
2001 Mulholland Drive 1 2 1 4
2006 Inland Empire
Short films

    * Six Men Getting Sick (1966) - available on The Short Films of David Lynch DVD
    * Absurd Encounter with Fear (1967) - available on The Lime Green Set DVD
    * Fictitious Anacin Commercial (1967) - available on The Lime Green Set DVD
    * The Alphabet (1968) - available on The Short Films of David Lynch DVD
    * The Grandmother (1970) - available on The Short Films of David Lynch DVD
    * The Amputee (1974) - available on The Short Films of David Lynch DVD
    * The Cowboy and the Frenchman (1988) - available on The Short Films of David Lynch DVD
    * Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Broken Hearted (1990) - available on The Lime Green Set DVD
    * Premonitions Following an Evil Deed (1995) - available on The Short Films of David Lynch DVD
    * Darkened Room (2002) - available on the Dynamic 1 DVD
    * Ballerina (2006) - available on the Inland Empire DVD
    * Boat (2007) - available on the Dynamic 1 DVD
    * Bug Crawls (2007) - available on the Dynamic 1 DVD
    * Scissors (2008) - available on The Lime Green Set DVD

Television series
Year  ↓ Series  ↓ Episodes  ↓
1990-1991 Twin Peaks 30
1992 On the Air 7
1993 Hotel Room 3
Online series
Year  ↓ Series  ↓ Episodes  ↓ Available on DVD  ↓
2002 Rabbits The Lime Green Set DVD
2002 Dumbland 8 The Lime Green Set DVD
Out Yonder The Lime Green Set DVD
2009 Interview Project
Music videos
Year  ↓ Song  ↓ Musician  ↓
1982 "I Predict" Sparks
2009 "Shot in the Back of the Head" Moby
Other

In October, 2008, the OMMA Video Conference, Jen Gregono, chief content officer at On Networks, announced that her company signed Lynch to a webisode series based on his book, Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness and Creativity.

In June 2009, Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse released an album called Dark Night of the Soul, with a 100+ page booklet with visuals by Lynch. The album contained complete packaging and a blank CD because of some dispute with the record label. The artists involved implied that consumers can get the music online and just burn the blank CD provided.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/20/10 at 5:39 am

The person of the day...Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn (4 May 1929(1929-05-04) – 20 January 1993) was a British actress and humanitarian.

Born in Ixelles, Belgium as Audrey Kathleen Ruston, Hepburn spent her childhood chiefly in the Netherlands, including German-occupied Arnhem, Netherlands, during the Second World War (1939-1945). She studied ballet in Arnhem and then moved to London in 1948, where she continued to train in ballet and worked as a photographer's model. She appeared in a handful of European films before starring in the 1951 Broadway play Gigi. Hepburn played the lead female role in Roman Holiday (1953), winning an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for her performance. She also won a Tony Award for her performance in Ondine (1954).

Hepburn became one of the most successful film actresses in the world and performed with such notable leading men as Gregory Peck, Rex Harrison, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Henry Fonda, William Holden, Fred Astaire, Peter O'Toole, and Albert Finney. She won BAFTA Awards for her performances in The Nun's Story (1959) and Charade (1963), and received Academy Award nominations for Sabrina (1954), The Nun's Story (1959), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and Wait Until Dark (1967).

She starred as Eliza Doolittle in the film version of My Fair Lady (1964), becoming only the third actor to receive $1,000,000 for a film role. From 1968 to 1975 she took a break from film-making, mostly to spend more time with her two sons. In 1976 she starred with Sean Connery in Robin and Marian. In 1989 she made her last film appearance in Steven Spielberg's Always.

Her war-time experiences inspired her passion for humanitarian work, and although she had worked for UNICEF since the 1950s, during her later life she dedicated much of her time and energy to the organization. From 1988 until 1992, she worked in some of the most profoundly disadvantaged communities of Africa, South America and Asia. In 1992, Hepburn was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. In 1999, she was ranked as the third greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute.
epburn's first role in a motion picture was in the British film One Wild Oat in which she played a hotel receptionist. She played several more minor roles in Young Wives' Tale, Laughter in Paradise, The Lavender Hill Mob, and Monte Carlo Baby.

During the filming of Monte Carlo Baby Hepburn was chosen to play the lead character in the Broadway play Gigi, which opened on 24 November, 1951, at the Fulton Theatre and ran for 219 performances. The writer Colette, when she first saw Hepburn, reportedly said "Voilà! There's our Gigi!" She won a Theatre World Award for her performance. Hepburn's first significant film performance was in the Thorold Dickinson film Secret People (1952), in which she played a prodigious ballerina. Hepburn did all of her own dancing scenes.
From Hepburn's Roman Holiday screen test which was also used in the promotional trailer for the film.

Her first starring role was with Gregory Peck in the Italian-set Roman Holiday (1952). Producers initially wanted Elizabeth Taylor for the role, but director William Wyler was so impressed by Hepburn's screen test (the camera was left on and candid footage of Hepburn relaxing and answering questions, unaware that she was still being filmed, displayed her talents), that he cast her in the lead. Wyler said, "She had everything I was looking for: charm, innocence and talent. She also was very funny. She was absolutely enchanting, and we said, 'That's the girl!'"

The movie was to have had Gregory Peck's name above the title in large font with "Introducing Audrey Hepburn" beneath. After filming had been completed, Peck called his agent and, predicting correctly that Hepburn would win the Academy Award for Best Actress, had the billing changed so that her name also appeared before the title in type as large as his.

Hepburn and Peck bonded during filming, and there were rumours that they were romantically involved; both denied it. Hepburn, however, added, "Actually, you have to be a little bit in love with your leading man and vice versa. If you're going to portray love, you have to feel it. You can't do it any other way. But you don't carry it beyond the set." Because of the instant celebrity that came with Roman Holiday, Hepburn's illustration was placed on the 7 September, 1953, cover of TIME.

Hepburn's performance received much critical praise. A. H. Weiler noted in The New York Times, "Although she is not precisely a newcomer to films, Audrey Hepburn, the British actress who is being starred for the first time as Princess Ann, is a slender, elfin, and wistful beauty, alternately regal and childlike in her profound appreciation of newly-found, simple pleasures and love. Although she bravely smiles her acknowledgment of the end of that affair, she remains a pitifully lonely figure facing a stuffy future." Hepburn would later call Roman Holiday her dearest movie, because it was the one that made her a star.

After filming Roman Holiday for four months, Hepburn returned to New York and performed in Gigi for eight months. The play was performed in Los Angeles and San Francisco in its last month.

She was signed to a seven-picture contract with Paramount with twelve months in between films to allow her time for stage work.
Hollywood stardom
Hepburn in War and Peace (1956)

After Roman Holiday, she filmed Billy Wilder's Sabrina with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden. Hepburn was sent to a then young and upcoming fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy to decide on her wardrobe.

When told that "Miss Hepburn" was coming to see him, Givenchy expected to see Katharine. He was disappointed and told her that he didn't have much time for her, but Hepburn asked for just a few minutes to pick out a few pieces for Sabrina. Shortly after, Givenchy and Hepburn developed a lasting friendship, and she was often a muse for many of his designs. They formed a lifelong friendship and partnership.

During the filming of Sabrina, Hepburn and the already-married Holden became romantically involved and she hoped to marry him and have children. She broke off the relationship when Holden revealed that he had undergone a vasectomy.

In 1954, Hepburn returned to the stage to play the water sprite in Ondine in a performance with Mel Ferrer, whom she would marry later in the year. During the run of the play, Hepburn was awarded the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actress and the Academy Award, both for Roman Holiday. Six weeks after receiving the Oscar, Hepburn was awarded the Tony Award for Best Actress for Ondine. Audrey Hepburn is one of only three actresses to receive a Best Actress Oscar and Best Actress Tony in the same year (the others were Shirley Booth and Ellen Burstyn).

By the mid-1950s, Hepburn was not only one of the biggest motion picture stars in Hollywood, but also a major fashion influence. Her gamine and elfin appearance and widely recognized sense of chic were both admired and imitated. In 1955, she was awarded the Golden Globe for World Film Favorite - Female.

Having become one of Hollywood's most popular box-office attractions, Hepburn co-starred with actors such as Humphrey Bogart in Sabrina, Henry Fonda in War and Peace, Fred Astaire in Funny Face, William Holden in Paris When It Sizzles, Maurice Chevalier and Gary Cooper in Love in the Afternoon, Anthony Perkins in Green Mansions, Burt Lancaster and Lillian Gish in The Unforgiven, Shirley MacLaine and James Garner in The Children's Hour, George Peppard in Breakfast at Tiffany's, Cary Grant in Charade, Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, Peter O'Toole in How to Steal a Million and Sean Connery in Robin and Marian.
from Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

Rex Harrison called Audrey Hepburn his favourite leading lady, although he initially felt she was badly miscast as Eliza Dolittle in My Fair Lady (many accounts indicate that she became great friends with British actress and dancer Kay Kendall, who was Harrison's wife); Cary Grant loved to humour her and once said, "All I want for Christmas is another picture with Audrey Hepburn;" and Gregory Peck became a lifelong friend.

After her death, Peck went on camera and tearfully recited her favourite poem, "Unending Love" by Rabindranath Tagore.

A common perception of the time was that Bogart and Hepburn did not get along. However, Hepburn has been quoted as saying, "Sometimes it's the so-called 'tough guys' that are the most tender hearted, as Bogey was with me."

Funny Face in 1957 was one of Hepburn's favourites because she got to dance with Fred Astaire. Then in 1959's The Nun's Story came one of her most daring roles. Films in Review stated: "Her performance will forever silence those who have thought her less an actress than a symbol of the sophisticated child/woman. Her portrayal of Sister Luke is one of the great performances of the screen.".

Otto Frank even asked her to play his daughter Anne's onscreen counterpart in the 1959 film The Diary of Anne Frank, but Hepburn, who was born the same year as Anne was almost 30 years old, and felt too old to play a teenager. The role was eventually given to Millie Perkins.

Hepburn's Holly Golightly in 1961's Breakfast at Tiffany's became an iconic character in American cinema. She called the role "the jazziest of my career". Asked about the acting challenge of the role, she replied, "I'm an introvert. Playing the extroverted girl was the hardest thing I ever did." In the film, she wore trendy clothing designed by herself and Givenchy, and added blonde streaks to her brown hair, a look that she would keep off-screen as well.
Hepburn in a scene from the comic thriller Charade (1963).

In 1963, Hepburn starred in Charade, her first and only film with Cary Grant, who had previously withdrawn from the starring roles in Roman Holiday and Sabrina. He was sensitive as to their age difference and requested a script change so that Hepburn's character would be the one to romantically pursue his.

Released after Charade was Paris When It Sizzles, a film that paired Hepburn with William Holden, who nearly ten years before had been her leading man in Sabrina. The film, called "marshmallow-weight hokum", was "uniformly panned"; Behind the scenes, the set was plagued with problems: Holden tried without success to rekindle a romance with the now-married actress; that, combined with his alcoholism made the situation a challenge for the production. Hepburn did not help matters: after principal photography began, she demanded the dismissal of cinematographer Claude Renoir after seeing what she felt were unflattering dailies. Superstitious, she insisted on dressing room 55 because that was her lucky number (she had dressing room 55 for Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany’s). She insisted that Givenchy, her long-time designer, be given a credit in the film for her perfume.

In 1964, Hepburn starred in My Fair Lady which was said to be the most anticipated movie since Gone with the Wind.

Hepburn was cast as Eliza Doolittle instead of Julie Andrews, who had originated the role on Broadway, but had no film experience as yet. The decision not to cast Andrews was made before Hepburn was chosen. Hepburn initially refused the role and asked Jack Warner to give it to Andrews, but when informed that it would either be her or Elizabeth Taylor, who was also vying for the part, she accepted the role.

The casting of a non-singer in the lead role of a major musical proved to be very controversial. Several critics felt that Hepburn was not believable as a Cockney flower girl, and that at 35 she was rather old for the part since Eliza was supposed to be about 20. However, according to an article in Soundstage magazine, "Everyone agreed that if Julie Andrews was not to be in the film, Audrey Hepburn was the perfect choice."

Hepburn recorded vocals, but was later told that her vocals would be replaced by Marni Nixon. She walked off the set but returned early the next day to apologize for her "wicked" behaviour. Footage of several songs with Hepburn's original vocals still exist and have been included in documentaries and the DVD release of the film, though to date, only Nixon's renditions have been released on LP and CD.

Some of her original vocals remained in the film: a section of "Just You Wait" and one line of the verse to "I Could Have Danced All Night". When asked about the dubbing of an actress with such distinctive vocal tones, Hepburn frowned and said, "You could tell, couldn't you? And there was Rex, recording all his songs as he acted ... next time —" She bit her lip to keep from saying any more.

Aside from the dubbing, many critics agreed that Hepburn's performance was excellent. Gene Ringgold said, "Audrey Hepburn is magnificent. She is Eliza for the ages."

The controversy over Hepburn's casting reached its height at the 1964–65 Academy Awards season, when Hepburn was not nominated for best actress while Andrews was, for Mary Poppins. The media tried to play up a rivalry between the two actresses as the ceremony approached, even though both women denied any such bad feelings existed and got along well. Andrews won the award.

Two for the Road was a non-linear and innovative movie about divorce. Director Stanley Donen said that Hepburn was more free and happy than he had ever seen her, and he credited that to Albert Finney.

Wait Until Dark in 1967 was a difficult film. It was an edgy thriller in which Hepburn played the part of a blind woman being terrorized. In addition, it was produced by Mel Ferrer and filmed on the brink of their divorce. Hepburn is said to have lost fifteen pounds under the stress. On the bright side, she found co-star Richard Crenna to be very funny, and she had a lot to laugh about with director Terence Young. They both joked that he had shelled his favorite star 23 years before; he had been a British Army tank commander during the Battle of Arnhem. Hepburn's performance was nominated for an Academy Award.
oon after Hepburn's final film role, she was appointed a goodwill ambassador to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Grateful for her own good fortune after enduring the German occupation as a child, she dedicated the remainder of her life to helping impoverished children in the poorest nations. Hepburn's travels were made easier by her wide knowledge of languages; she spoke French, Italian, English, Dutch, and Spanish.

Though she had done work for UNICEF in the 1950s, starting in 1954 with radio presentations, this was a much higher level of dedication. Those close to her say that the thoughts of dying, helpless children consumed her for the rest of her life. Her first field mission was to Ethiopia in 1988. She visited an orphanage in Mek'ele that housed 500 starving children and had UNICEF send food. Of the trip, she said, "I have a broken heart. I feel desperate. I can't stand the idea that two million people are in imminent danger of starving to death, many of them children, not because there isn't tons of food sitting in the northern port of Shoa. It can't be distributed. Last spring, Red Cross and UNICEF workers were ordered out of the northern provinces because of two simultaneous civil wars... I went into rebel country and saw mothers and their children who had walked for ten days, even three weeks, looking for food, settling onto the desert floor into makeshift camps where they may die. Horrible. That image is too much for me. The 'Third World' is a term I don't like very much, because we're all one world. I want people to know that the largest part of humanity is suffering."
In 1992, President George H. W. Bush presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work with UNICEF, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded her The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her contribution to humanity. This was awarded posthumously, with her son accepting on her behalf.
In 1992, when Hepburn returned to Switzerland from her visit to Somalia, she began to feel abdominal pains. She went to specialists and received inconclusive results, so she decided to have it examined while on a trip to Los Angeles in October.

On 1 November, doctors performed a laparoscopy and discovered abdominal cancer that had spread from her appendix. It had grown slowly over several years, and metastasized not as a tumor, but as a thin coating encasing over her small intestine. The doctors performed surgery and then put Hepburn through 5-fluorouracil Leucovorin chemotherapy. A few days later, she had an obstruction. Medication was not enough to dull the pain, so on 1 December, she had a second surgery. After one hour, the surgeon decided that the cancer had spread too far and could not be removed.

Because Hepburn was unable to fly on a commercial aircraft, Givenchy arranged for Rachel Lambert "Bunny" Mellon to send her private Gulfstream jet, filled with flowers, to take Hepburn from California to Switzerland. Hepburn died of cancer on 20 January 1993, in Tolochenaz, Vaud, Switzerland, and was interred there.

At the time of her death, she was involved with Robert Wolders, a Dutch actor who was the widower of film star Merle Oberon. She had met Wolders through a friend, in the later stage of her marriage to Dotti. After Hepburn's divorce was final, she and Wolders started their lives together, although they never married. In 1989, after nine years with him, she called them the happiest years of her life. "Took me long enough", she said in an interview with Barbara Walters. Walters then asked why they never married. Hepburn replied that they were married, just not formally
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1948 Nederlands in 7 lessen Airline Stewardess Documentary (English: Dutch in Seven Lessons)
1951 One Wild Oat Hotel receptionist
Laughter in Paradise Cigarette girl
Monte Carlo Baby Linda Farell Discovered by French novelist Colette during filming and cast as Gigi for the Broadway play
Young Wives' Tale Eve Lester
The Lavender Hill Mob Chiquita
1952 The Secret People Nora Brentano
Nous irons à Monte Carlo Melissa Walter French version of Monte Carlo Baby (English: We Will Go to Monte Carlo)
1953 Roman Holiday Princess Ann Academy Award for Best Actress
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1954 Sabrina Sabrina Fairchild Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
1956 War and Peace Natasha Rostova Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1957 Funny Face Jo Stockton
Love in the Afternoon Ariane Chavasse/Thin Girl Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1959 Green Mansions Rima Directed by Mel Ferrer
The Nun's Story Sister Luke (Gabrielle van der Mal) BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1960 The Unforgiven Rachel Zachary
1961 Breakfast at Tiffany's Holly Golightly Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
The Children's Hour Karen Wright
1963 Charade Regina "Reggie" Lampert BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1964 Paris When It Sizzles Gabrielle Simpson
My Fair Lady Eliza Doolittle Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1966 How to Steal a Million Nicole Bonnet
1967 Two for the Road Joanna Wallace Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Wait Until Dark Susy Hendrix Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1976 Robin and Marian Lady Marian
1979 Bloodline Elizabeth Roffe Her only R-rated film
1981 They All Laughed Angela Niotes
1989 Always Hap
Television and theatre
Year Film Role Notes
1949 High Button Shoes Chorus Girl Musical Theatre
Sauce Tartare Chorus Girl Musical Theatre
1950 Sauce Piquante Featured Player Musical Theatre
1951 Gigi Gigi Opened on Broadway at the Fulton Theatre, 24 November 1951.
Theatre World Award
1952 CBS Television Workshop Episode entitled "Rainy Day at Paradise Junction"
1954 Ondine Water Nymph Opened on Broadway, 18 February - 26 June, co-starring Mel Ferrer
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
1957 Mayerling Maria Vetsera Producers' Showcase live production. Costarring Mel Ferrer as Prince Rudolf. Released theatrically in Europe.
1987 Love Among Thieves Baroness Caroline DuLac Television movie.
1993 Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn Herself PBS miniseries;
Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement - Informational Programming
Awards and honors
The handprints of Audrey Hepburn in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.

She won the 1953 Academy Award for Best Actress for Roman Holiday. She was nominated for Best Actress four more times; for Sabrina, The Nun's Story, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and Wait Until Dark. She was not nominated for her performance as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, one of her most acclaimed performances. For her 1967 nomination, the Academy chose her performance in Wait Until Dark over her critically acclaimed performance in Two for the Road. She lost to Katharine Hepburn (in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner). Audrey Hepburn is one of the few people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony Award.

    * Academy Award: Best Actress for Roman Holiday (1954) and posthumously The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (1993).
    * Golden Globe award: Best Motion Picture Actress for Roman Holiday (1954).
    * Tony Award: Best Actress for Ondine (1954) and Special Achievement award (1968).
    * Grammy Award: Best Spoken Word Album for Children (1993) for Audrey Hepburn's Enchanted Tales (posthumous).
    * Emmy Award: Outstanding Individual Achievement - Informational Programming (1993) for the "Flower Gardens" episode of her documentary series, Gardens of the World (posthumous).

Hepburn won the Henrietta Award in 1955 for the world's favourite actress, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1990 and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1992. Hepburn was posthumously awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award later in 1993.

In December 1992, one month before her death, Hepburn received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work in UNICEF. This is one of the two highest awards a civilian can receive in the United States. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1652 Vine Street.

In 2003, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp illustrated by Michael J. Deas honouring her as a Hollywood legend and humanitarian. It has a drawing of her which is based on a publicity photo from the movie Sabrina. Hepburn is one of the few non-Americans to be so honoured. As well, in 2008, Canada Post issued a series of stamps based on the work of Yousuf Karsh, one of which was a portrait of Hepburn.

Hepburn was only one of two people to wear the Tiffany Diamond, the other being Mrs. Sheldon Whitheouse at the 1957 Tiffany Ball. Hepburn was a member of the International Best Dressed List and elevated into its Hall of Fame in 1961.

She was posthumously awarded the The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for her humanitarian work. She received a posthumous Grammy Award for her spoken word recording, Audrey Hepburn's Enchanted Tales in 1994, and in the same year, won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement for Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn, thereby becoming one of a few people to receive an Academy, Emmy, Grammy and Tony award.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/20/10 at 6:43 am


The person of the day...Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn (4 May 1929(1929-05-04) – 20 January 1993) was a British actress and humanitarian.

Born in Ixelles, Belgium as Audrey Kathleen Ruston, Hepburn spent her childhood chiefly in the Netherlands, including German-occupied Arnhem, Netherlands, during the Second World War (1939-1945). She studied ballet in Arnhem and then moved to London in 1948, where she continued to train in ballet and worked as a photographer's model. She appeared in a handful of European films before starring in the 1951 Broadway play Gigi. Hepburn played the lead female role in Roman Holiday (1953), winning an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for her performance. She also won a Tony Award for her performance in Ondine (1954).

Hepburn became one of the most successful film actresses in the world and performed with such notable leading men as Gregory Peck, Rex Harrison, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Henry Fonda, William Holden, Fred Astaire, Peter O'Toole, and Albert Finney. She won BAFTA Awards for her performances in The Nun's Story (1959) and Charade (1963), and received Academy Award nominations for Sabrina (1954), The Nun's Story (1959), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and Wait Until Dark (1967).

She starred as Eliza Doolittle in the film version of My Fair Lady (1964), becoming only the third actor to receive $1,000,000 for a film role. From 1968 to 1975 she took a break from film-making, mostly to spend more time with her two sons. In 1976 she starred with Sean Connery in Robin and Marian. In 1989 she made her last film appearance in Steven Spielberg's Always.

Her war-time experiences inspired her passion for humanitarian work, and although she had worked for UNICEF since the 1950s, during her later life she dedicated much of her time and energy to the organization. From 1988 until 1992, she worked in some of the most profoundly disadvantaged communities of Africa, South America and Asia. In 1992, Hepburn was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. In 1999, she was ranked as the third greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute.
epburn's first role in a motion picture was in the British film One Wild Oat in which she played a hotel receptionist. She played several more minor roles in Young Wives' Tale, Laughter in Paradise, The Lavender Hill Mob, and Monte Carlo Baby.

During the filming of Monte Carlo Baby Hepburn was chosen to play the lead character in the Broadway play Gigi, which opened on 24 November, 1951, at the Fulton Theatre and ran for 219 performances. The writer Colette, when she first saw Hepburn, reportedly said "Voilà! There's our Gigi!" She won a Theatre World Award for her performance. Hepburn's first significant film performance was in the Thorold Dickinson film Secret People (1952), in which she played a prodigious ballerina. Hepburn did all of her own dancing scenes.
From Hepburn's Roman Holiday screen test which was also used in the promotional trailer for the film.

Her first starring role was with Gregory Peck in the Italian-set Roman Holiday (1952). Producers initially wanted Elizabeth Taylor for the role, but director William Wyler was so impressed by Hepburn's screen test (the camera was left on and candid footage of Hepburn relaxing and answering questions, unaware that she was still being filmed, displayed her talents), that he cast her in the lead. Wyler said, "She had everything I was looking for: charm, innocence and talent. She also was very funny. She was absolutely enchanting, and we said, 'That's the girl!'"

The movie was to have had Gregory Peck's name above the title in large font with "Introducing Audrey Hepburn" beneath. After filming had been completed, Peck called his agent and, predicting correctly that Hepburn would win the Academy Award for Best Actress, had the billing changed so that her name also appeared before the title in type as large as his.

Hepburn and Peck bonded during filming, and there were rumours that they were romantically involved; both denied it. Hepburn, however, added, "Actually, you have to be a little bit in love with your leading man and vice versa. If you're going to portray love, you have to feel it. You can't do it any other way. But you don't carry it beyond the set." Because of the instant celebrity that came with Roman Holiday, Hepburn's illustration was placed on the 7 September, 1953, cover of TIME.

Hepburn's performance received much critical praise. A. H. Weiler noted in The New York Times, "Although she is not precisely a newcomer to films, Audrey Hepburn, the British actress who is being starred for the first time as Princess Ann, is a slender, elfin, and wistful beauty, alternately regal and childlike in her profound appreciation of newly-found, simple pleasures and love. Although she bravely smiles her acknowledgment of the end of that affair, she remains a pitifully lonely figure facing a stuffy future." Hepburn would later call Roman Holiday her dearest movie, because it was the one that made her a star.

After filming Roman Holiday for four months, Hepburn returned to New York and performed in Gigi for eight months. The play was performed in Los Angeles and San Francisco in its last month.

She was signed to a seven-picture contract with Paramount with twelve months in between films to allow her time for stage work.
Hollywood stardom
Hepburn in War and Peace (1956)

After Roman Holiday, she filmed Billy Wilder's Sabrina with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden. Hepburn was sent to a then young and upcoming fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy to decide on her wardrobe.

When told that "Miss Hepburn" was coming to see him, Givenchy expected to see Katharine. He was disappointed and told her that he didn't have much time for her, but Hepburn asked for just a few minutes to pick out a few pieces for Sabrina. Shortly after, Givenchy and Hepburn developed a lasting friendship, and she was often a muse for many of his designs. They formed a lifelong friendship and partnership.

During the filming of Sabrina, Hepburn and the already-married Holden became romantically involved and she hoped to marry him and have children. She broke off the relationship when Holden revealed that he had undergone a vasectomy.

In 1954, Hepburn returned to the stage to play the water sprite in Ondine in a performance with Mel Ferrer, whom she would marry later in the year. During the run of the play, Hepburn was awarded the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actress and the Academy Award, both for Roman Holiday. Six weeks after receiving the Oscar, Hepburn was awarded the Tony Award for Best Actress for Ondine. Audrey Hepburn is one of only three actresses to receive a Best Actress Oscar and Best Actress Tony in the same year (the others were Shirley Booth and Ellen Burstyn).

By the mid-1950s, Hepburn was not only one of the biggest motion picture stars in Hollywood, but also a major fashion influence. Her gamine and elfin appearance and widely recognized sense of chic were both admired and imitated. In 1955, she was awarded the Golden Globe for World Film Favorite - Female.

Having become one of Hollywood's most popular box-office attractions, Hepburn co-starred with actors such as Humphrey Bogart in Sabrina, Henry Fonda in War and Peace, Fred Astaire in Funny Face, William Holden in Paris When It Sizzles, Maurice Chevalier and Gary Cooper in Love in the Afternoon, Anthony Perkins in Green Mansions, Burt Lancaster and Lillian Gish in The Unforgiven, Shirley MacLaine and James Garner in The Children's Hour, George Peppard in Breakfast at Tiffany's, Cary Grant in Charade, Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, Peter O'Toole in How to Steal a Million and Sean Connery in Robin and Marian.
from Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

Rex Harrison called Audrey Hepburn his favourite leading lady, although he initially felt she was badly miscast as Eliza Dolittle in My Fair Lady (many accounts indicate that she became great friends with British actress and dancer Kay Kendall, who was Harrison's wife); Cary Grant loved to humour her and once said, "All I want for Christmas is another picture with Audrey Hepburn;" and Gregory Peck became a lifelong friend.

After her death, Peck went on camera and tearfully recited her favourite poem, "Unending Love" by Rabindranath Tagore.

A common perception of the time was that Bogart and Hepburn did not get along. However, Hepburn has been quoted as saying, "Sometimes it's the so-called 'tough guys' that are the most tender hearted, as Bogey was with me."

Funny Face in 1957 was one of Hepburn's favourites because she got to dance with Fred Astaire. Then in 1959's The Nun's Story came one of her most daring roles. Films in Review stated: "Her performance will forever silence those who have thought her less an actress than a symbol of the sophisticated child/woman. Her portrayal of Sister Luke is one of the great performances of the screen.".

Otto Frank even asked her to play his daughter Anne's onscreen counterpart in the 1959 film The Diary of Anne Frank, but Hepburn, who was born the same year as Anne was almost 30 years old, and felt too old to play a teenager. The role was eventually given to Millie Perkins.

Hepburn's Holly Golightly in 1961's Breakfast at Tiffany's became an iconic character in American cinema. She called the role "the jazziest of my career". Asked about the acting challenge of the role, she replied, "I'm an introvert. Playing the extroverted girl was the hardest thing I ever did." In the film, she wore trendy clothing designed by herself and Givenchy, and added blonde streaks to her brown hair, a look that she would keep off-screen as well.
Hepburn in a scene from the comic thriller Charade (1963).

In 1963, Hepburn starred in Charade, her first and only film with Cary Grant, who had previously withdrawn from the starring roles in Roman Holiday and Sabrina. He was sensitive as to their age difference and requested a script change so that Hepburn's character would be the one to romantically pursue his.

Released after Charade was Paris When It Sizzles, a film that paired Hepburn with William Holden, who nearly ten years before had been her leading man in Sabrina. The film, called "marshmallow-weight hokum", was "uniformly panned"; Behind the scenes, the set was plagued with problems: Holden tried without success to rekindle a romance with the now-married actress; that, combined with his alcoholism made the situation a challenge for the production. Hepburn did not help matters: after principal photography began, she demanded the dismissal of cinematographer Claude Renoir after seeing what she felt were unflattering dailies. Superstitious, she insisted on dressing room 55 because that was her lucky number (she had dressing room 55 for Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany’s). She insisted that Givenchy, her long-time designer, be given a credit in the film for her perfume.

In 1964, Hepburn starred in My Fair Lady which was said to be the most anticipated movie since Gone with the Wind.

Hepburn was cast as Eliza Doolittle instead of Julie Andrews, who had originated the role on Broadway, but had no film experience as yet. The decision not to cast Andrews was made before Hepburn was chosen. Hepburn initially refused the role and asked Jack Warner to give it to Andrews, but when informed that it would either be her or Elizabeth Taylor, who was also vying for the part, she accepted the role.

The casting of a non-singer in the lead role of a major musical proved to be very controversial. Several critics felt that Hepburn was not believable as a Cockney flower girl, and that at 35 she was rather old for the part since Eliza was supposed to be about 20. However, according to an article in Soundstage magazine, "Everyone agreed that if Julie Andrews was not to be in the film, Audrey Hepburn was the perfect choice."

Hepburn recorded vocals, but was later told that her vocals would be replaced by Marni Nixon. She walked off the set but returned early the next day to apologize for her "wicked" behaviour. Footage of several songs with Hepburn's original vocals still exist and have been included in documentaries and the DVD release of the film, though to date, only Nixon's renditions have been released on LP and CD.

Some of her original vocals remained in the film: a section of "Just You Wait" and one line of the verse to "I Could Have Danced All Night". When asked about the dubbing of an actress with such distinctive vocal tones, Hepburn frowned and said, "You could tell, couldn't you? And there was Rex, recording all his songs as he acted ... next time —" She bit her lip to keep from saying any more.

Aside from the dubbing, many critics agreed that Hepburn's performance was excellent. Gene Ringgold said, "Audrey Hepburn is magnificent. She is Eliza for the ages."

The controversy over Hepburn's casting reached its height at the 1964–65 Academy Awards season, when Hepburn was not nominated for best actress while Andrews was, for Mary Poppins. The media tried to play up a rivalry between the two actresses as the ceremony approached, even though both women denied any such bad feelings existed and got along well. Andrews won the award.

Two for the Road was a non-linear and innovative movie about divorce. Director Stanley Donen said that Hepburn was more free and happy than he had ever seen her, and he credited that to Albert Finney.

Wait Until Dark in 1967 was a difficult film. It was an edgy thriller in which Hepburn played the part of a blind woman being terrorized. In addition, it was produced by Mel Ferrer and filmed on the brink of their divorce. Hepburn is said to have lost fifteen pounds under the stress. On the bright side, she found co-star Richard Crenna to be very funny, and she had a lot to laugh about with director Terence Young. They both joked that he had shelled his favorite star 23 years before; he had been a British Army tank commander during the Battle of Arnhem. Hepburn's performance was nominated for an Academy Award.
oon after Hepburn's final film role, she was appointed a goodwill ambassador to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Grateful for her own good fortune after enduring the German occupation as a child, she dedicated the remainder of her life to helping impoverished children in the poorest nations. Hepburn's travels were made easier by her wide knowledge of languages; she spoke French, Italian, English, Dutch, and Spanish.

Though she had done work for UNICEF in the 1950s, starting in 1954 with radio presentations, this was a much higher level of dedication. Those close to her say that the thoughts of dying, helpless children consumed her for the rest of her life. Her first field mission was to Ethiopia in 1988. She visited an orphanage in Mek'ele that housed 500 starving children and had UNICEF send food. Of the trip, she said, "I have a broken heart. I feel desperate. I can't stand the idea that two million people are in imminent danger of starving to death, many of them children, not because there isn't tons of food sitting in the northern port of Shoa. It can't be distributed. Last spring, Red Cross and UNICEF workers were ordered out of the northern provinces because of two simultaneous civil wars... I went into rebel country and saw mothers and their children who had walked for ten days, even three weeks, looking for food, settling onto the desert floor into makeshift camps where they may die. Horrible. That image is too much for me. The 'Third World' is a term I don't like very much, because we're all one world. I want people to know that the largest part of humanity is suffering."
In 1992, President George H. W. Bush presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work with UNICEF, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded her The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her contribution to humanity. This was awarded posthumously, with her son accepting on her behalf.
In 1992, when Hepburn returned to Switzerland from her visit to Somalia, she began to feel abdominal pains. She went to specialists and received inconclusive results, so she decided to have it examined while on a trip to Los Angeles in October.

On 1 November, doctors performed a laparoscopy and discovered abdominal cancer that had spread from her appendix. It had grown slowly over several years, and metastasized not as a tumor, but as a thin coating encasing over her small intestine. The doctors performed surgery and then put Hepburn through 5-fluorouracil Leucovorin chemotherapy. A few days later, she had an obstruction. Medication was not enough to dull the pain, so on 1 December, she had a second surgery. After one hour, the surgeon decided that the cancer had spread too far and could not be removed.

Because Hepburn was unable to fly on a commercial aircraft, Givenchy arranged for Rachel Lambert "Bunny" Mellon to send her private Gulfstream jet, filled with flowers, to take Hepburn from California to Switzerland. Hepburn died of cancer on 20 January 1993, in Tolochenaz, Vaud, Switzerland, and was interred there.

At the time of her death, she was involved with Robert Wolders, a Dutch actor who was the widower of film star Merle Oberon. She had met Wolders through a friend, in the later stage of her marriage to Dotti. After Hepburn's divorce was final, she and Wolders started their lives together, although they never married. In 1989, after nine years with him, she called them the happiest years of her life. "Took me long enough", she said in an interview with Barbara Walters. Walters then asked why they never married. Hepburn replied that they were married, just not formally
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1948 Nederlands in 7 lessen Airline Stewardess Documentary (English: Dutch in Seven Lessons)
1951 One Wild Oat Hotel receptionist
Laughter in Paradise Cigarette girl
Monte Carlo Baby Linda Farell Discovered by French novelist Colette during filming and cast as Gigi for the Broadway play
Young Wives' Tale Eve Lester
The Lavender Hill Mob Chiquita
1952 The Secret People Nora Brentano
Nous irons à Monte Carlo Melissa Walter French version of Monte Carlo Baby (English: We Will Go to Monte Carlo)
1953 Roman Holiday Princess Ann Academy Award for Best Actress
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1954 Sabrina Sabrina Fairchild Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
1956 War and Peace Natasha Rostova Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1957 Funny Face Jo Stockton
Love in the Afternoon Ariane Chavasse/Thin Girl Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1959 Green Mansions Rima Directed by Mel Ferrer
The Nun's Story Sister Luke (Gabrielle van der Mal) BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1960 The Unforgiven Rachel Zachary
1961 Breakfast at Tiffany's Holly Golightly Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
The Children's Hour Karen Wright
1963 Charade Regina "Reggie" Lampert BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1964 Paris When It Sizzles Gabrielle Simpson
My Fair Lady Eliza Doolittle Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1966 How to Steal a Million Nicole Bonnet
1967 Two for the Road Joanna Wallace Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Wait Until Dark Susy Hendrix Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1976 Robin and Marian Lady Marian
1979 Bloodline Elizabeth Roffe Her only R-rated film
1981 They All Laughed Angela Niotes
1989 Always Hap
Television and theatre
Year Film Role Notes
1949 High Button Shoes Chorus Girl Musical Theatre
Sauce Tartare Chorus Girl Musical Theatre
1950 Sauce Piquante Featured Player Musical Theatre
1951 Gigi Gigi Opened on Broadway at the Fulton Theatre, 24 November 1951.
Theatre World Award
1952 CBS Television Workshop Episode entitled "Rainy Day at Paradise Junction"
1954 Ondine Water Nymph Opened on Broadway, 18 February - 26 June, co-starring Mel Ferrer
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
1957 Mayerling Maria Vetsera Producers' Showcase live production. Costarring Mel Ferrer as Prince Rudolf. Released theatrically in Europe.
1987 Love Among Thieves Baroness Caroline DuLac Television movie.
1993 Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn Herself PBS miniseries;
Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement - Informational Programming
Awards and honors
The handprints of Audrey Hepburn in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.

She won the 1953 Academy Award for Best Actress for Roman Holiday. She was nominated for Best Actress four more times; for Sabrina, The Nun's Story, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and Wait Until Dark. She was not nominated for her performance as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, one of her most acclaimed performances. For her 1967 nomination, the Academy chose her performance in Wait Until Dark over her critically acclaimed performance in Two for the Road. She lost to Katharine Hepburn (in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner). Audrey Hepburn is one of the few people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony Award.

    * Academy Award: Best Actress for Roman Holiday (1954) and posthumously The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (1993).
    * Golden Globe award: Best Motion Picture Actress for Roman Holiday (1954).
    * Tony Award: Best Actress for Ondine (1954) and Special Achievement award (1968).
    * Grammy Award: Best Spoken Word Album for Children (1993) for Audrey Hepburn's Enchanted Tales (posthumous).
    * Emmy Award: Outstanding Individual Achievement - Informational Programming (1993) for the "Flower Gardens" episode of her documentary series, Gardens of the World (posthumous).

Hepburn won the Henrietta Award in 1955 for the world's favourite actress, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1990 and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1992. Hepburn was posthumously awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award later in 1993.

In December 1992, one month before her death, Hepburn received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work in UNICEF. This is one of the two highest awards a civilian can receive in the United States. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1652 Vine Street.

In 2003, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp illustrated by Michael J. Deas honouring her as a Hollywood legend and humanitarian. It has a drawing of her which is based on a publicity photo from the movie Sabrina. Hepburn is one of the few non-Americans to be so honoured. As well, in 2008, Canada Post issued a series of stamps based on the work of Yousuf Karsh, one of which was a portrait of Hepburn.

Hepburn was only one of two people to wear the Tiffany Diamond, the other being Mrs. Sheldon Whitheouse at the 1957 Tiffany Ball. Hepburn was a member of the International Best Dressed List and elevated into its Hall of Fame in 1961.

She was posthumously awarded the The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for her humanitarian work. She received a posthumous Grammy Award for her spoken word recording, Audrey Hepburn's Enchanted Tales in 1994, and in the same year, won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement for Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn, thereby becoming one of a few people to receive an Academy, Emmy, Grammy and Tony award.
http://i774.photobucket.com/albums/yy24/retropop/Audrey%20Hepburn/audreyhepburn-19a59a8f1f9ec80935566.jpg
http://i774.photobucket.com/albums/yy24/retropop/Audrey%20Hepburn/audreyhepburn-63741349e5d12be9a5432.jpg
http://i366.photobucket.com/albums/oo108/ArmandDuval/audrey-hepburn-1086.jpg
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn168/tiny_tink_pics/audreysotiny.jpg


such a fine actress. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/20/10 at 6:54 am


The birthday of the day...David Lynch
David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker and visual artist. Over a lengthy career, Lynch has employed a distinctive and unorthodox approach to narrative filmmaking (dubbed Lynchian), which has become instantly recognizable to many audiences and critics worldwide. Lynch's films are known for surreal, nightmarish and dreamlike images and meticulously crafted sound design. Lynch's work often depicts a seedy underside of small town America (particularly Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks), or sprawling California metropolises (Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and his latest release, Inland Empire). Beginning with his experimental film school feature Eraserhead (1977), he has maintained a strong cult following despite inconsistent commercial success.

Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director, for his films The Elephant Man (1980), Blue Velvet (1986), and Mulholland Drive (2001), and has also received a screenplay Academy Award nomination for The Elephant Man. Lynch has twice won France's César Award for Best Foreign Film, the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and a Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival. The French government awarded him with the Legion of Honor, the country's top civilian honor, as Chevalier in 2002 then Officier in 2007, whilst that same year, The Guardian described Lynch as "the most important director of this era"
n 1971, Lynch moved to Los Angeles, California to study for a Master of Fine Arts degree at the AFI Conservatory. At the Conservatory, Lynch began working on his first feature-length film, Eraserhead, using a $10,000 grant from the AFI. The grant did not provide enough money to complete the film and, due to lack of a sufficient budget, Eraserhead was filmed intermittently until 1977. Lynch used money from friends and family, including boyhood friend Jack Fisk, a production designer and the husband of actress Sissy Spacek, and even took a paper route to finish it. A stark and enigmatic film, Eraserhead tells the story of a quiet young man (Jack Nance) living in an industrial wasteland, whose girlfriend gives birth to a constantly crying mutant baby. Lynch has referred to Eraserhead as "my Philadelphia story", meaning it reflects all of the dangerous and fearful elements he encountered while studying and living in Philadelphia. He said "this feeling left its traces deep down inside me. And when it came out again, it became Eraserhead".

The final film was initially judged to be almost unreleasable, but thanks to the efforts of the Elgin Theater distributor Ben Barenholtz, it became an instant cult classic and was a staple of midnight movie showings for the next decade. It was also a critical success, launching Lynch to the forefront of avant-garde filmmaking. The acclaimed film maker Stanley Kubrick said that it was one of his all-time favorite films. It cemented the team of actors and technicians who would continue to define the texture of his work for years to come, including cinematographer Frederick Elmes, sound designer Alan Splet, and actor Jack Nance. Meanwhile, Lynch continued producing short films, and during "a brief lull in the filming of Eraserhead" had produced The Amputee in 1974, revolving around a woman with stumps for limbs (Catherine Coulson) who has them washed by a doctor, played by Lynch himself.
Rise to prominence (1980–1986)
David Lynch on the set of Blue Velvet with the film's main actor Kyle MacLachlan.

Eraserhead brought Lynch to the attention of producer Mel Brooks, who hired him to direct 1980's The Elephant Man, a biopic of deformed Victorian era figure Joseph Merrick (John Hurt). Lynch brought his own distinct surrealist approach to the film, filming it in black and white, although it has still been described as "one of the most conventional" of his films. The Elephant Man was a huge commercial success, and earned eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay nods for Lynch. It also established his place as a commercially viable, if somewhat dark and unconventional, Hollywood director. George Lucas, a fan of Eraserhead, offered Lynch the opportunity to direct Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, which he refused, feeling that it would be more Lucas' vision than his own. Meanwhile in 1983 he began the writing and drawing of a comic strip, The Angriest Dog in the World, which featured unchanging graphics alongside cryptic philosophical references. It ran from 1983 until 1992 in the Village Voice, Creative Loafing and other tabloid and alternative publications.

Afterwards, Lynch agreed to direct a big-budget adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune for Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis's De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, on the condition that DEG release a second Lynch project, over which the director would have complete creative control. Although De Laurentiis hoped it would be the next Star Wars, Lynch's Dune (1984) was a critical and commercial dud; it cost $45 million to make, and grossed a mere $27.4 million domestically. Later on, Universal Studios released an "extended cut" of the film for syndicated television; this contained almost an hour of cutting-room-floor footage and new narration. Such was not representative of Lynch's intentions, but the studio considered it more comprehensible than the original two hour version. Lynch objected to these changes and had his name struck from the extended cut, which has "Alan Smithee" credited as the director and "Judas Booth" (a pseudonym which Lynch himself invented, inspired by his own feelings of betrayal) as the screenwriter. The three hour version has since been released on video worldwide.

Lynch's second De Laurentiis-financed project was 1986's Blue Velvet, the story of a college student (Kyle MacLachlan) who discovers his small, idealistic hometown hides a dark side after investigating a severed ear that he found in a field. The film featured performances from Isabella Rossellini as a tormented lounge singer and Dennis Hopper as a crude, psychopathic criminal. Although Lynch had found success previously with The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet's controversy with audiences and critics introduced him into the mainstream, and became a huge critical and moderate commercial success. Thus, the film earned Lynch his second Academy Award nomination for Best Director. The content of the film and its artistic merit drew much controversy from audiences and critics alike in 1986 and onwards. Blue Velvet introduced several common elements of his work, including abused women, the dark underbelly of small towns, and unconventional uses of vintage songs. Bobby Vinton's "Blue Velvet" and Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" are both featured in unconventional ways. It was also the first time Lynch worked with composer Angelo Badalamenti, who would contribute to all of his future full-length films except Inland Empire. Woody Allen, whose film Hannah and Her Sisters was nominated for Best Picture, said that Blue Velvet was his favorite film of the year.
The transition to television (1987–1996)
Lynch at the 1990 Emmy Awards ceremony.

In the late 1980s, Lynch moved from producing films to focusing on television, directing a short film entitled The Cowboy and the Frenchman in 1989 for French television, before meeting the producer Mark Frost, with whom he would go on to collaborate with on a number of projects. Initially, Lynch and Frost planned to create a surreal comedy named One Saliva Bubble, but it never materialised. Instead they created a show entitled Twin Peaks, a drama series set in a small Washington where the popular high school student Laura Palmer has been raped and murdered. To investigate, the FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) is called in, eventually unearthing the secrets of many town residents and the supernatural nature of the murder. Lynch himself directed only six episodes of the series, including the feature-length pilot, which debuted on the ABC Network on April 8, 1990. Lynch himself later starred in several episodes of the series as the FBI agent Graham Cole. Twin Peaks gradually rose from cult hit to cultural phenomenon, and because of its originality and success remains one of the most well-known television series of the decade. Catch phrases from the show entered the culture and parodies of it were seen on Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons. Lynch appeared on the cover of Time magazine largely because of the success of the series.

However, Lynch clashed with the ABC Network on several matters, particularly whether or not to reveal Laura Palmer's killer. The network insisted that the revelation be made during the second season but Lynch wanted the mystery to last as long as the series. Lynch soon became disenchanted with the series, and, as a result, many cast members complained of feeling abandoned. Later he stated that he and Frost had never intended to ever reveal the identity of Laura's killer, that ABC forced him to reveal the culprit prematurely, and that agreeing to do so is one of his biggest professional regrets. Twin Peaks suffered a severe ratings drop and was canceled in 1991. Still, Lynch scripted a prequel to the series about the last seven days in the life of Laura Palmer.

Meanwhile, whilst Twin Peaks was in production, the Brooklyn Academy of Music asked Lynch and Badalementi to create a theatrical piece which would only be performed twice at their academy in New York City in 1989 as a part of the New Music America Festival. The result was Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Broken Hearted, which starred such frequent Lynch collaborators as Laura Dern, Nicolas Cage and Michael J. Anderson as well as containing five songs sung by Julee Cruise. David Lynch produced a 50-minute video of the performance in 1990. Following this, Lynch returned to making feature films, after his friend, Monty Montgomery offered him the chance to adapt Barry Gifford's novel, Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula into a film. Lynch agreed, with the result being Wild at Heart, a crime and road movie starring Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern. Despite receiving a muted response from American critics and viewers, it won the Palme d'Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.

Without Frost this time, he decided to revisit Twin Peaks, making the prequal film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me in 1992. The film was a commercial and critical failure in the United States, although was a hit in Japan and British critic Mark Kermode has hailed the film as Lynch's "masterpiece". Meanwhile, Lynch continued working on a series of television shows with Mark Frost. After Twin Peaks, they produced a series of documentaries entitled American Chronicles (1990) which examined life across the United States, the comedy series On the Air (1992), which was cancelled after only three episodes had aired, and the three-episode HBO mini-series Hotel Room (1993) about events that happened in the same hotel room but at different dates in time.
Return to cinema and digital work (1997-2006)
Lynch speaking at an Amazon.com reception in January 2007.

Following his unsuccesful television ventures since Twin Peaks, Lynch returned to making feature films. In 1997 he released the non-linear, noiresque Lost Highway, co-written by Barry Gifford and starring Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette. The film failed commercially and received a mixed response from critics. However, thanks in part to a soundtrack featuring David Bowie, Marilyn Manson, Rammstein, Nine Inch Nails and The Smashing Pumpkins, it helped gain Lynch a new audience of Generation X viewers. Lost Highway was followed in 1999 with the G-rated, Disney-produced The Straight Story, written and edited by Mary Sweeney, which was, on the surface, a simple and humble movie telling the true story of Iowan Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth), who rides a lawnmower to Wisconsin to make peace with his ailing brother, played by Harry Dean Stanton. As Le Blanc and Odell stated, the plot made it "seem as far removed from Lynch's earlier works as could be imagined, but in fact right from the very opening, this is entirely his film - a surreal road movie". The film garnered positive reviews and reached a new audience for its director.

The same year, Lynch approached ABC once again with an idea for a television drama. The network gave Lynch the go-ahead to shoot a two-hour pilot for the series Mulholland Drive, but disputes over content and running time led to the project being shelved indefinitely. However, with seven million dollars from the French production company StudioCanal, Lynch completed the pilot as a film, Mulholland Drive. The film is a non-linear narrative surrealist tale of the dark side of Hollywood and stars Naomi Watts, Laura Harring and Justin Theroux. The film performed relatively well at the box office worldwide and was a critical success, earning Lynch a Best Director prize at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival (shared with Joel Coen for The Man Who Wasn't There) and a Best Director award from the New York Film Critics Association.

With the onset of popularity of the internet, Lynch decided to utlilise this new medium, releasing several new series that he had created exclusively on his website, davidlynch.com. In 2002, he created a series of online shorts entitled Dumbland. Intentionally crude both in content and execution, the eight-episode series was later released on DVD. The same year, Lynch released a surreal sitcom via his website - Rabbits, which revolved around a family of humanoid rabbits. Later, he showed his experiments with Digital Video in the form of the Japanese-style horror short Darkened Room.

In 2006, Lynch's latest feature film, Inland Empire was released, being the longest of Lynch's films at almost three hours long. Like Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway before it, the film did not fit to a narrative structure, and starred Lynch regulars Laura Dern, Harry Dean Stanton, and Justin Theroux, with cameos by Naomi Watts and Laura Harring (voices of Suzie and Jane Rabbit), and a performance by Jeremy Irons. Lynch described the piece as "a mystery about a woman in trouble". In an effort to promote the film, Lynch made appearances with a cow and a placard bearing the slogan "Without cheese there would be no Inland Empire".
Documentaries and animation (2007-)

In 2008, Lynch announced that he was working on a road documentary "about his dialogues with regular folk on the meaning of life," with traveling companions including singer Donovan and physicist John Hagelin, two prominent members of the Transcendental Meditation movement.

Lynch currently has two films in production, both of which differ in content from his previous work. One of these is an animation entitled Snootworld, and the other is a documentary on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi consisting of interviews with people who knew him
Filmography
Features
Year Film Oscars BAFTA Golden Globe
Nominations Wins Nominations Wins Nominations Wins
1977 Eraserhead
1980 The Elephant Man 8 7 3 4
1984 Dune 1
1986 Blue Velvet 1 2
1990 Wild at Heart 1 1 1
1992 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
1997 Lost Highway
1999 The Straight Story 1 2
2001 Mulholland Drive 1 2 1 4
2006 Inland Empire
Short films

    * Six Men Getting Sick (1966) - available on The Short Films of David Lynch DVD
    * Absurd Encounter with Fear (1967) - available on The Lime Green Set DVD
    * Fictitious Anacin Commercial (1967) - available on The Lime Green Set DVD
    * The Alphabet (1968) - available on The Short Films of David Lynch DVD
    * The Grandmother (1970) - available on The Short Films of David Lynch DVD
    * The Amputee (1974) - available on The Short Films of David Lynch DVD
    * The Cowboy and the Frenchman (1988) - available on The Short Films of David Lynch DVD
    * Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Broken Hearted (1990) - available on The Lime Green Set DVD
    * Premonitions Following an Evil Deed (1995) - available on The Short Films of David Lynch DVD
    * Darkened Room (2002) - available on the Dynamic 1 DVD
    * Ballerina (2006) - available on the Inland Empire DVD
    * Boat (2007) - available on the Dynamic 1 DVD
    * Bug Crawls (2007) - available on the Dynamic 1 DVD
    * Scissors (2008) - available on The Lime Green Set DVD

Television series
Year  ↓ Series  ↓ Episodes  ↓
1990-1991 Twin Peaks 30
1992 On the Air 7
1993 Hotel Room 3
Online series
Year  ↓ Series  ↓ Episodes  ↓ Available on DVD  ↓
2002 Rabbits The Lime Green Set DVD
2002 Dumbland 8 The Lime Green Set DVD
Out Yonder The Lime Green Set DVD
2009 Interview Project
Music videos
Year  ↓ Song  ↓ Musician  ↓
1982 "I Predict" Sparks
2009 "Shot in the Back of the Head" Moby
Other

In October, 2008, the OMMA Video Conference, Jen Gregono, chief content officer at On Networks, announced that her company signed Lynch to a webisode series based on his book, Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness and Creativity.

In June 2009, Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse released an album called Dark Night of the Soul, with a 100+ page booklet with visuals by Lynch. The album contained complete packaging and a blank CD because of some dispute with the record label. The artists involved implied that consumers can get the music online and just burn the blank CD provided.

He directed The Elephant Man, one of my all time favourites.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/20/10 at 7:37 am

British Person of the Day: Tom Baker

Thomas Stewart "Tom" Baker (born 20 January 1934) is an English actor. He is best known for playing the fourth incarnation of the Doctor in the science fiction television series Doctor Who, a role he played from 1974 to 1981, and for being the narrator of the comedy series Little Britain. He now lives in Rye, East Sussex, England.

Early life

Baker was born in Scotland Road, Liverpool, the son of Mary Jane (née Fleming), a cleaner, and John Stewart Baker, a sailor who was rarely at home. Baker was raised in a working class Catholic and Jewish family. He left school at 15 to become a novice monk and remained in the monastic life for six years, but left after losing his faith, and did his National Service in the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving for two years from 1955 until 1957. At the same time he took up acting, at first as a hobby.

Career

In 1971, Baker got his first big break with the role of Rasputin in the film Nicholas and Alexandra. He also appeared nude in Pier Paolo Pasolini's version of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales (I Racconti di Canterbury), released in 1972, as a younger husband of the Wife of Bath.

Doctor Who (1974–1981)

In 1974, Baker took on the role of the Doctor from Jon Pertwee. He was recommended to producer Barry Letts by the BBC's Head of Serials, Bill Slater, who had directed Baker in Play of the Month. Impressed by Baker on meeting him, Letts was convinced he was right for the part after seeing his performance in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Baker was working on a construction site at the time, as acting jobs were scarce. Initially he was dubbed "Boiler Suit Tom" by the media, as he had been supplied for a press conference with some old studio set clothes to replace his modest garments.

He quickly made the part his own. As the Doctor, his eccentric style of dress and speech — particularly his trademark long scarf and fondness for jelly babies — made him an immediately recognisable figure, and he quickly caught the viewing public's imagination. Baker played the Doctor for seven consecutive seasons over a seven-year period, making him the longest-serving actor in the part on-screen. Baker himself suggested many aspects of the Fourth Doctor's personality. The distinctive scarf came about by accident: James Acheson, the costume designer, had provided far more wool than was necessary to the knitter, Begonia Pope, and Ms. Pope knitted all the wool she was given; it was Baker who suggested that he wear the resulting — ridiculously over-long — scarf.

The incarnation played by Baker is often regarded as the most popular of the Doctors. In polls conducted by Doctor Who Magazine, Baker has lost the "Best Doctor" category only twice: once to Sylvester McCoy in 1990, and once to David Tennant in 2006.

Tom Baker is not known to be directly related to Colin Baker, who played the Sixth Doctor in Doctor Who, nor to Bob Baker, the script-writer for many of the series' episodes.

Baker's sense of humour is like that of the character he played. When asked how he felt about having a star named after him, Baker quipped, "I'm over the moon!" In a poll published by BBC Homes and Antiques magazine in January 2006, Baker was voted the fourth most eccentric star. He was beaten by Björk, Chris Eubank and David Icke.

He continues to be associated with the Doctor, appearing on documentaries such as The Story of Doctor Who and Doctor Who Confidential and giving interviews about his time on the programme. He reappeared as the Doctor for the 1993 charity special Dimensions in Time and audio for the PC game Destiny of the Doctors. He gets interviewed often in documentaries on the extras of Doctor Who DVD releases from his era as the Doctor and has recorded DVD commentaries for many of the stories.

In a 2004 interview regarding the series' revival, Baker suggested that he be cast as the Master. In a 2006 interview with The Sun newspaper, he claims that he has not watched any episodes of the new series because he "just can't be bothered". In June 2006, Baker once again expressed interest in the role in a guest column for Radio Times, noting that he "did watch a little bit of the new Doctor Who and I think the new fella, Tennant, is excellent."

While Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann have all reprised their roles for audio adventures produced since the 1990s by Big Finish (and sometimes the BBC) Baker had until 2009 declined to voice the Doctor, saying he hadn't seen a script he liked. However, in July 2009, the BBC announced that Baker would return to the role for a series of five audio dramas, co-starring Richard Franklin as Captain Mike Yates, which would begin release in September. The five audios comprise a single linked story under the banner title Hornets' Nest, written by well-known author Paul Magrs. Baker has also filmed inserts for a video release of the unfinished Shada and also provided narration for several BBC audio releases of old Doctor Who stories.

More recently, Baker has been involved in the reading of old Target novelisations in the BBC Audio range of talking books, "Doctor Who (Classic Novels)". Doctor Who and the Giant Robot was the first release in the range read by Baker, released on 5 November 2007, followed by Baker reading Doctor Who and the Brain of Morbius'(released 4 February 2008), Doctor Who and the Creature from the Pit (released on 7 April 2008) and Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars (released 14 August 2008).

In October 2009, Baker was interviewed for BBC Radio 4’s Last Word to pay tribute to the deceased former Doctor Who producer Barry Letts. He described Letts, who originally cast him in the role, as “the big link in changing my entire life”.

Little Britain

After his work on Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World, in 2001 Baker was cast as a similar narrator of Little Britain on BBC Radio 4, and remained in the role when it transferred to television. Baker has suggested that he was chosen for the part in Little Britain due to his popularity with Walliams and Lucas, part of the generation to whom he is the favourite Doctor. "I am now being employed by the children who grew up watching me" he said in a recent DVD commentary. His eccentric voice-overs include such comments as "The Conservative Party is my favourite political party, after Labour and the Lib Dems", and "If people in Britain want to buy a pet, they go to a pet shop. If they want to buy a pet shop, they go to a pet shop shop. If they want to buy a pet shop shop, then they're just being silly." On the Little Britain Abroad special he remarked " In Paris, Anne is paying a visit to the Louvre. At my age I'm up all night visiting the Louvre". Another trademark of Little Britain's narration is the deadpan quotation of old rap lyrics, usually in the opening credit sequence. Songs like Salt n Pepa's "Push It" and House of Pain's "Jump Around" have so far received the Tom Baker treatment.

On 17 November 2005, to mark the start of Series 3 of Little Britain, Baker read the continuity announcements on BBC One from 1900 to 2130 GMT. The scripts were written by the same writers as Little Britain (David Walliams and Matt Lucas) and Baker assumed his Little Britain persona. He used lines such as "Hello, tellyviewers. You're watching the BBC One!" and "In half an hour, Jenny Dickens's classic serial Bleak House. But first let's see what the poor people are up to in the first of two visits this evening to the EastEnders."

Film

Baker also appeared in the 1971 film Nicholas and Alexandra as Grigori Rasputin. He was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards for his performance, one for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and another for Best Newcomer.

Baker appeared as Moore, an artist whose paintings are imbued with voodoo power, in The Vault of Horror (1973), the sequel to Tales from the Crypt (1972); as Koura, the villainous sorcerer, in Ray Harryhausen's The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973); and as Halvarth, the Elven healer, in Dungeons & Dragons (2000). In the late 1990s, it was reported that Baker was a candidate for the role of Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings films. Baker has since stated that he was only approached for "a role" in the film, and when told that it would mean spending months away in New Zealand, he turned down the offer.

Voice acting

Baker has appeared in various radio productions, including a role as "Britain's most celebrated criminal barrister", Sir Edward Marshall-Hall in John Mortimer Presents the Trials of Marshall Hall (1996), and a part in the 2001 BBC Radio 4 version of The Thirty-nine Steps as Sir Walter Bullivant. He guest starred in The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (a pastiche series written by Bert Coules) in the 2002 episode "The Saviour of Cripplegate Square".

From 2000 to 2005 Tom voiced the character Max Bear in the Channel 4 (UK) Max Bear Productions animated series. More recently, he voiced the role of the villain ZeeBad in the 2005 computer-animated film version of The Magic Roundabout.

He is also the narrator of the new children's computer animation series The Beeps which is shown on Five's Milkshake!

He is also the voice artist in the "Fords of Winsford" advert.

In the BBC audio play of John Le Carré's The Russia House, he played the main character, Barley Blair.

He also narrated the popular children's acclaimed TV series Tales of Aesop on BBC which is a series based on Aesop's Fables with beautiful puppet animation.

Video games

Baker also returned to star as the Fourth Doctor in the video game Destiny of the Doctors in 1997. His voice has also featured in Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior (2003), Cold Winter (2005) and Little Britain: The Video Game (2007).

Works

Filmography


    * 1971 - Nicholas and Alexandra as Grigori Rasputin
    * 1973 - The Vault of Horror - Moore
    * 1973 - The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) - Koura
    * 1974 - Frankenstein - The True Story (1974) - Ship's Captain
    * 2000 - Dungeons & Dragons (2000)

Television

    * late 1970s - four episodes of the BBC2 series Late Night Story and in each episode, read an eerie tale involving the theme of childhood. Episodes ran for fifteen minutes and were aired before the station closed for the night. One episode entitled Sredni Vashtar by Saki was scheduled to start the second series, but went unscreened due to a writer's strike.
    * 1974-1981 - Doctor Who - The Fourth Doctor
    * 1982 - BBC version of The Hound of the Baskervilles - Sherlock Holmes
    * 1984 - Remington Steele - Interpol agent Anatole Blaylock
    * 1986 - BBC adaptation of The Life and Loves of a She-Devil - Father Ferguson
    * 1986 - Blackadder II - episode "Potato" - Captain Redbeard Rum
    * 1990 -The Silver Chair (1990) - Puddleglum
    * 1990 - Douglas Adams's futurology documentary Hyperland - Software Agent
    * 1992 - Cluedo - Professor Plum
    * 1992-1995 - Medics - Professor Geoffrey Hoyt
    * 2000 - revival of Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) - Wyvern
    * 2004-2005 - Monarch of the Glen - Donald MacDonald
    * 2007 - Marple - episode Towards Zero - Frederick Treves
    *  ? - ? "Little Britain USA & Little Britain - Narrator

http://thebadplus.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/07/08/baker.jpg

http://www.blockbuster.co.uk/bbimages/UK/Glossy/November06/TomBakerBlog/TomBaker1.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/20/10 at 7:45 am


The word of the day...Peak(s)
The peak of a process or an activity is the point at which it is at its strongest, most successful, or most fully developed.
When something peaks, it reaches its highest value or its highest level.
Peak times are the times when there is most demand for something or most use of something
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I thought Dolly Parton was the birthday person of the day-YESTERDAY!!  :D :D ;D ;D ;D



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/20/10 at 8:12 am


such a fine actress. :)

Yes a rare talent.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/20/10 at 8:16 am


British Person of the Day: Tom Baker

Thomas Stewart "Tom" Baker (born 20 January 1934) is an English actor. He is best known for playing the fourth incarnation of the Doctor in the science fiction television series Doctor Who, a role he played from 1974 to 1981, and for being the narrator of the comedy series Little Britain. He now lives in Rye, East Sussex, England.

Early life

Baker was born in Scotland Road, Liverpool, the son of Mary Jane (née Fleming), a cleaner, and John Stewart Baker, a sailor who was rarely at home. Baker was raised in a working class Catholic and Jewish family. He left school at 15 to become a novice monk and remained in the monastic life for six years, but left after losing his faith, and did his National Service in the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving for two years from 1955 until 1957. At the same time he took up acting, at first as a hobby.

Career

In 1971, Baker got his first big break with the role of Rasputin in the film Nicholas and Alexandra. He also appeared nude in Pier Paolo Pasolini's version of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales (I Racconti di Canterbury), released in 1972, as a younger husband of the Wife of Bath.

Doctor Who (1974–1981)

In 1974, Baker took on the role of the Doctor from Jon Pertwee. He was recommended to producer Barry Letts by the BBC's Head of Serials, Bill Slater, who had directed Baker in Play of the Month. Impressed by Baker on meeting him, Letts was convinced he was right for the part after seeing his performance in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Baker was working on a construction site at the time, as acting jobs were scarce. Initially he was dubbed "Boiler Suit Tom" by the media, as he had been supplied for a press conference with some old studio set clothes to replace his modest garments.

He quickly made the part his own. As the Doctor, his eccentric style of dress and speech — particularly his trademark long scarf and fondness for jelly babies — made him an immediately recognisable figure, and he quickly caught the viewing public's imagination. Baker played the Doctor for seven consecutive seasons over a seven-year period, making him the longest-serving actor in the part on-screen. Baker himself suggested many aspects of the Fourth Doctor's personality. The distinctive scarf came about by accident: James Acheson, the costume designer, had provided far more wool than was necessary to the knitter, Begonia Pope, and Ms. Pope knitted all the wool she was given; it was Baker who suggested that he wear the resulting — ridiculously over-long — scarf.

The incarnation played by Baker is often regarded as the most popular of the Doctors. In polls conducted by Doctor Who Magazine, Baker has lost the "Best Doctor" category only twice: once to Sylvester McCoy in 1990, and once to David Tennant in 2006.

Tom Baker is not known to be directly related to Colin Baker, who played the Sixth Doctor in Doctor Who, nor to Bob Baker, the script-writer for many of the series' episodes.

Baker's sense of humour is like that of the character he played. When asked how he felt about having a star named after him, Baker quipped, "I'm over the moon!" In a poll published by BBC Homes and Antiques magazine in January 2006, Baker was voted the fourth most eccentric star. He was beaten by Björk, Chris Eubank and David Icke.

He continues to be associated with the Doctor, appearing on documentaries such as The Story of Doctor Who and Doctor Who Confidential and giving interviews about his time on the programme. He reappeared as the Doctor for the 1993 charity special Dimensions in Time and audio for the PC game Destiny of the Doctors. He gets interviewed often in documentaries on the extras of Doctor Who DVD releases from his era as the Doctor and has recorded DVD commentaries for many of the stories.

In a 2004 interview regarding the series' revival, Baker suggested that he be cast as the Master. In a 2006 interview with The Sun newspaper, he claims that he has not watched any episodes of the new series because he "just can't be bothered". In June 2006, Baker once again expressed interest in the role in a guest column for Radio Times, noting that he "did watch a little bit of the new Doctor Who and I think the new fella, Tennant, is excellent."

While Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann have all reprised their roles for audio adventures produced since the 1990s by Big Finish (and sometimes the BBC) Baker had until 2009 declined to voice the Doctor, saying he hadn't seen a script he liked. However, in July 2009, the BBC announced that Baker would return to the role for a series of five audio dramas, co-starring Richard Franklin as Captain Mike Yates, which would begin release in September. The five audios comprise a single linked story under the banner title Hornets' Nest, written by well-known author Paul Magrs. Baker has also filmed inserts for a video release of the unfinished Shada and also provided narration for several BBC audio releases of old Doctor Who stories.

More recently, Baker has been involved in the reading of old Target novelisations in the BBC Audio range of talking books, "Doctor Who (Classic Novels)". Doctor Who and the Giant Robot was the first release in the range read by Baker, released on 5 November 2007, followed by Baker reading Doctor Who and the Brain of Morbius'(released 4 February 2008), Doctor Who and the Creature from the Pit (released on 7 April 2008) and Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars (released 14 August 2008).

In October 2009, Baker was interviewed for BBC Radio 4’s Last Word to pay tribute to the deceased former Doctor Who producer Barry Letts. He described Letts, who originally cast him in the role, as “the big link in changing my entire life”.

Little Britain

After his work on Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World, in 2001 Baker was cast as a similar narrator of Little Britain on BBC Radio 4, and remained in the role when it transferred to television. Baker has suggested that he was chosen for the part in Little Britain due to his popularity with Walliams and Lucas, part of the generation to whom he is the favourite Doctor. "I am now being employed by the children who grew up watching me" he said in a recent DVD commentary. His eccentric voice-overs include such comments as "The Conservative Party is my favourite political party, after Labour and the Lib Dems", and "If people in Britain want to buy a pet, they go to a pet shop. If they want to buy a pet shop, they go to a pet shop shop. If they want to buy a pet shop shop, then they're just being silly." On the Little Britain Abroad special he remarked " In Paris, Anne is paying a visit to the Louvre. At my age I'm up all night visiting the Louvre". Another trademark of Little Britain's narration is the deadpan quotation of old rap lyrics, usually in the opening credit sequence. Songs like Salt n Pepa's "Push It" and House of Pain's "Jump Around" have so far received the Tom Baker treatment.

On 17 November 2005, to mark the start of Series 3 of Little Britain, Baker read the continuity announcements on BBC One from 1900 to 2130 GMT. The scripts were written by the same writers as Little Britain (David Walliams and Matt Lucas) and Baker assumed his Little Britain persona. He used lines such as "Hello, tellyviewers. You're watching the BBC One!" and "In half an hour, Jenny Dickens's classic serial Bleak House. But first let's see what the poor people are up to in the first of two visits this evening to the EastEnders."

Film

Baker also appeared in the 1971 film Nicholas and Alexandra as Grigori Rasputin. He was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards for his performance, one for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and another for Best Newcomer.

Baker appeared as Moore, an artist whose paintings are imbued with voodoo power, in The Vault of Horror (1973), the sequel to Tales from the Crypt (1972); as Koura, the villainous sorcerer, in Ray Harryhausen's The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973); and as Halvarth, the Elven healer, in Dungeons & Dragons (2000). In the late 1990s, it was reported that Baker was a candidate for the role of Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings films. Baker has since stated that he was only approached for "a role" in the film, and when told that it would mean spending months away in New Zealand, he turned down the offer.

Voice acting

Baker has appeared in various radio productions, including a role as "Britain's most celebrated criminal barrister", Sir Edward Marshall-Hall in John Mortimer Presents the Trials of Marshall Hall (1996), and a part in the 2001 BBC Radio 4 version of The Thirty-nine Steps as Sir Walter Bullivant. He guest starred in The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (a pastiche series written by Bert Coules) in the 2002 episode "The Saviour of Cripplegate Square".

From 2000 to 2005 Tom voiced the character Max Bear in the Channel 4 (UK) Max Bear Productions animated series. More recently, he voiced the role of the villain ZeeBad in the 2005 computer-animated film version of The Magic Roundabout.

He is also the narrator of the new children's computer animation series The Beeps which is shown on Five's Milkshake!

He is also the voice artist in the "Fords of Winsford" advert.

In the BBC audio play of John Le Carré's The Russia House, he played the main character, Barley Blair.

He also narrated the popular children's acclaimed TV series Tales of Aesop on BBC which is a series based on Aesop's Fables with beautiful puppet animation.

Video games

Baker also returned to star as the Fourth Doctor in the video game Destiny of the Doctors in 1997. His voice has also featured in Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior (2003), Cold Winter (2005) and Little Britain: The Video Game (2007).

Works

Filmography


    * 1971 - Nicholas and Alexandra as Grigori Rasputin
    * 1973 - The Vault of Horror - Moore
    * 1973 - The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) - Koura
    * 1974 - Frankenstein - The True Story (1974) - Ship's Captain
    * 2000 - Dungeons & Dragons (2000)

Television

    * late 1970s - four episodes of the BBC2 series Late Night Story and in each episode, read an eerie tale involving the theme of childhood. Episodes ran for fifteen minutes and were aired before the station closed for the night. One episode entitled Sredni Vashtar by Saki was scheduled to start the second series, but went unscreened due to a writer's strike.
    * 1974-1981 - Doctor Who - The Fourth Doctor
    * 1982 - BBC version of The Hound of the Baskervilles - Sherlock Holmes
    * 1984 - Remington Steele - Interpol agent Anatole Blaylock
    * 1986 - BBC adaptation of The Life and Loves of a She-Devil - Father Ferguson
    * 1986 - Blackadder II - episode "Potato" - Captain Redbeard Rum
    * 1990 -The Silver Chair (1990) - Puddleglum
    * 1990 - Douglas Adams's futurology documentary Hyperland - Software Agent
    * 1992 - Cluedo - Professor Plum
    * 1992-1995 - Medics - Professor Geoffrey Hoyt
    * 2000 - revival of Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) - Wyvern
    * 2004-2005 - Monarch of the Glen - Donald MacDonald
    * 2007 - Marple - episode Towards Zero - Frederick Treves
    *  ? - ? "Little Britain USA & Little Britain - Narrator

http://thebadplus.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/07/08/baker.jpg

http://www.blockbuster.co.uk/bbimages/UK/Glossy/November06/TomBakerBlog/TomBaker1.jpg


I always loved his Doctor Who :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/20/10 at 8:16 am



I thought Dolly Parton was the birthday person of the day-YESTERDAY!!  :D :D ;D ;D ;D



Cat

;D ;D ;D that's a good one.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/21/10 at 3:08 am

British Person of the Day: Benny Hill

Alfred Hawthorne "Benny" Hill (21 January 1924 – 19 April 1992) was an English comedian, actor and singer, notable for his long-running television programme The Benny Hill Show.

Beginnings

Alfred Hill was born in Southampton and grew up in Wilton Road, Upper Shirley, where he and his brother attended Taunton's School. During World War II, Hill was one of the students evacuated with the school to Bournemouth School, East Way, Bournemouth. After leaving Bournemouth School, Hill worked variously as a milkman in Eastleigh, a bridge operator, a driver and a drummer before he finally got a foot in the door of the entertainment industry by becoming an assistant stage manager. Inspired by the 'star comedians' of British music hall shows, Hill set out to make his mark in show business. For the stage, he changed his first name to 'Benny', in homage to his favourite comedian, Jack Benny. Hill began appearing at working men's clubs and Masonic dinners before graduating to nightclub and theatre jobs. Hill auditioned for Soho's famed Windmill Theatre (home of Revudeville, a popular show of singers, comedians and nude girls), but he was not hired. Benny's first job in professional theatre as a performer was as Reg Varney's straight man, beating a then unknown Peter Sellers for the role.

Private life

Hill had only a few friends, although colleagues insist he was never lonely but content with his own company. He never married, although he did propose to three women—one the daughter of a British writer—but was rejected by all three. Although he owned the family home in Southampton he never owned his own home in London, nor a car, preferring to rent, first a large double apartment in Queensgate, London, for 26 years until 1986, and then a small flat in Teddington, within walking distance of the studios of Thames Television where he taped his shows. His mother died in 1976 aged 82 and Benny kept the family house at 22 Westrow Gardens in Southampton as a shrine to her, not changing anything. Before his move to Teddington, whilst looking for somewhere else to live in the Richmond area of London, he lived at 22 Westrow Gardens. Travelling was the luxury he permitted himself. Hill became a first-degree Francophile, enjoying frequent visits to Marseille. Until the 1980s, he could enjoy anonymity in France's outdoor cafés, public transport, and socialising with local women. Besides mastering French, he could also speak enough German, Dutch and Italian for travel purposes. Hill's overseas holidays were often gathering missions for comedy material, some inspired by foreign surroundings, or borrowed from regional acts.

Early career

Between the end of the war and the dawn of television, Hill worked as a radio performer. His first appearance on television was in 1949 in Hi There. He continued to work intermittently until his career took off with The Benny Hill Show in 1955 on BBC Television. Recurring players on his show during the BBC years included Patricia Hayes, Jeremy Hawk, Peter Vernon, Ronnie Brody, and his co-writer from the mid-1950s to early 1960s, Dave Freeman. He remained mostly with the BBC through to 1968, except for a few sojourns with ITV station ATV between 1957 and 1960 and again in 1967. He also had a short-lived radio programme, Benny Hill Time, on BBC Radio's Light Programme from 1964 to 1966. In addition, he attempted a sitcom anthology, Benny Hill, which ran for three series from 1962 to 1963, in which he played a different character in each episode. In 1964, he played Nick Bottom in an all-star TV film production of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Films and recordings

Benny Hill's film credits include parts in nine films including Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965); Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), in which he played the relatively straight role of the Toymaker; The Italian Job (1969); and, finally, a clip-show film spin-off of his early Thames shows (1969–73), called The Best of Benny Hill (1974). Hill's audio recordings include "Gather in the Mushrooms", (1961), "Pepys Diary", (1961), "Transistor Radio" (1961), "Harvest of Love" (1963), and "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)" (1971). He also appeared in the 1986 video of the song "Anything She Does" by the band Genesis. Hill's song, "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)," on the Best of Benny Hill album made the UK chart as Christmas number one single in 1971. A link to the lyrics is provided in the External Links section of this article.

The Benny Hill Show

In 1969, his show moved from the BBC to Thames Television, where The Benny Hill Show remained until cancellation in 1989, with an erratic schedule of one-hour specials.

The most common running gag in Benny Hill's shows was the closing sequence, which was literally a "running gag" in that it featured various members of the cast chasing Benny Hill and usually featured scantily-clad women as part of the chase, along with other stock comedy characters such as policemen, vicars, old ladies, and so on. This was commonly filmed using stop motion and time-lapse techniques for comic effect, and included other comic devices such as characters running off one side of the screen and reappearing running on from the other. The tune used in all the chases, "Yaketty Sax", is commonly referred to as "The Benny Hill Theme". It has been used as a form of parody in many ways by television shows and a small number of films. The Wachowskis used the same style (and musical theme) in a scene in the film V for Vendetta (2006). It also appears in the cult movie The Gods Must Be Crazy.

Reflecting opinion of the time within certain quarters the 1980s alternative comedian Ben Elton denounced him as a "dirty old man, tearing the clothes off nubile girls". The Independent newspaper opined the vendetta was "like watching an elderly uncle being kicked to death by young thugs". Elton later claimed his comment was taken out of context.

In response to such claims his close friend and producer Dennis Kirkland said it was the women who chased Hill in anger for undressing them, all of which was done accidentally by some ridiculous means. An article on 27 May 2006 in The Independent quoted Hill and Dennis Kirkland as saying they believed this misrepresentation demonstrated critics could not have watched his programmes.

In a documentary on Benny Hill, the former head of entertainment at Thames TV who had cancelled the show, John Howard Davies, stated there were three reasons why he did so: "...the audiences were going down, the programme was costing a vast amount of money, and he (Benny) was looking tired." Benny was devastated by the loss of his show.

US producer Don Taffner heard of Benny's plight and in 1991 produced a new show complete with Benny and his usual team, called Benny Hill's World Tour.

Death

Hill's health began to decline in the mid 1980s. He suffered heart problems, and on 11 February 1992, doctors told him he needed to lose 2 stone of his 17 stone body and recommended a heart bypass. He declined and was diagnosed a week later with renal failure. Benny Hill died on or about 19 April 1992, Easter weekend, alone in his flat at 7 Fairwater House, Twickenham Road, Teddington, South West London, at the age of 68. On 21 April, neighbours called the police, who then found Hill, deceased, sitting in his armchair in front of the television. Ironically on the day Hill purportedly died, a new contract arrived in the post from Central Independent Television. He died of natural causes. His death nearly coincided with that of Frankie Howerd, who had died at the age of 75, on 18 April 1992, only one day before Hill's death.

Hill was buried at Hollybrook Cemetery near his birthplace in Southampton on 28 April, 1992. In October 1992, following rumours that he was buried with large amounts of gold jewellery, an attempt was made by thieves to exhume his body. However, when authorities looked into his open coffin the following morning, there was no treasure. Consequently, only the culprits or the first officer on the scene know whether anything valuable was inside. Hill was reburied with a new coffin lid and a solid slab across the top of the grave.

In Hill's will, he left his estimated £10 million (GBP) estate to his late parents. Next in line were his brother Leonard and sister Diana, both of whom were also dead. This left his seven nieces and nephews, among whom the money was divided.

http://www.mjukvara.se/blogg/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Benny-Hill.jpg

http://www.virginmedia.com/images/funny_songs_benny_hill.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/21/10 at 3:11 am


British Person of the Day: Benny Hill

Alfred Hawthorne "Benny" Hill (21 January 1924 – 19 April 1992) was an English comedian, actor and singer, notable for his long-running television programme The Benny Hill Show.

Beginnings

Alfred Hill was born in Southampton and grew up in Wilton Road, Upper Shirley, where he and his brother attended Taunton's School. During World War II, Hill was one of the students evacuated with the school to Bournemouth School, East Way, Bournemouth. After leaving Bournemouth School, Hill worked variously as a milkman in Eastleigh, a bridge operator, a driver and a drummer before he finally got a foot in the door of the entertainment industry by becoming an assistant stage manager. Inspired by the 'star comedians' of British music hall shows, Hill set out to make his mark in show business. For the stage, he changed his first name to 'Benny', in homage to his favourite comedian, Jack Benny. Hill began appearing at working men's clubs and Masonic dinners before graduating to nightclub and theatre jobs. Hill auditioned for Soho's famed Windmill Theatre (home of Revudeville, a popular show of singers, comedians and nude girls), but he was not hired. Benny's first job in professional theatre as a performer was as Reg Varney's straight man, beating a then unknown Peter Sellers for the role.

Private life

Hill had only a few friends, although colleagues insist he was never lonely but content with his own company. He never married, although he did propose to three women—one the daughter of a British writer—but was rejected by all three. Although he owned the family home in Southampton he never owned his own home in London, nor a car, preferring to rent, first a large double apartment in Queensgate, London, for 26 years until 1986, and then a small flat in Teddington, within walking distance of the studios of Thames Television where he taped his shows. His mother died in 1976 aged 82 and Benny kept the family house at 22 Westrow Gardens in Southampton as a shrine to her, not changing anything. Before his move to Teddington, whilst looking for somewhere else to live in the Richmond area of London, he lived at 22 Westrow Gardens. Travelling was the luxury he permitted himself. Hill became a first-degree Francophile, enjoying frequent visits to Marseille. Until the 1980s, he could enjoy anonymity in France's outdoor cafés, public transport, and socialising with local women. Besides mastering French, he could also speak enough German, Dutch and Italian for travel purposes. Hill's overseas holidays were often gathering missions for comedy material, some inspired by foreign surroundings, or borrowed from regional acts.

Early career

Between the end of the war and the dawn of television, Hill worked as a radio performer. His first appearance on television was in 1949 in Hi There. He continued to work intermittently until his career took off with The Benny Hill Show in 1955 on BBC Television. Recurring players on his show during the BBC years included Patricia Hayes, Jeremy Hawk, Peter Vernon, Ronnie Brody, and his co-writer from the mid-1950s to early 1960s, Dave Freeman. He remained mostly with the BBC through to 1968, except for a few sojourns with ITV station ATV between 1957 and 1960 and again in 1967. He also had a short-lived radio programme, Benny Hill Time, on BBC Radio's Light Programme from 1964 to 1966. In addition, he attempted a sitcom anthology, Benny Hill, which ran for three series from 1962 to 1963, in which he played a different character in each episode. In 1964, he played Nick Bottom in an all-star TV film production of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Films and recordings

Benny Hill's film credits include parts in nine films including Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965); Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), in which he played the relatively straight role of the Toymaker; The Italian Job (1969); and, finally, a clip-show film spin-off of his early Thames shows (1969–73), called The Best of Benny Hill (1974). Hill's audio recordings include "Gather in the Mushrooms", (1961), "Pepys Diary", (1961), "Transistor Radio" (1961), "Harvest of Love" (1963), and "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)" (1971). He also appeared in the 1986 video of the song "Anything She Does" by the band Genesis. Hill's song, "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)," on the Best of Benny Hill album made the UK chart as Christmas number one single in 1971. A link to the lyrics is provided in the External Links section of this article.

The Benny Hill Show

In 1969, his show moved from the BBC to Thames Television, where The Benny Hill Show remained until cancellation in 1989, with an erratic schedule of one-hour specials.

The most common running gag in Benny Hill's shows was the closing sequence, which was literally a "running gag" in that it featured various members of the cast chasing Benny Hill and usually featured scantily-clad women as part of the chase, along with other stock comedy characters such as policemen, vicars, old ladies, and so on. This was commonly filmed using stop motion and time-lapse techniques for comic effect, and included other comic devices such as characters running off one side of the screen and reappearing running on from the other. The tune used in all the chases, "Yaketty Sax", is commonly referred to as "The Benny Hill Theme". It has been used as a form of parody in many ways by television shows and a small number of films. The Wachowskis used the same style (and musical theme) in a scene in the film V for Vendetta (2006). It also appears in the cult movie The Gods Must Be Crazy.

Reflecting opinion of the time within certain quarters the 1980s alternative comedian Ben Elton denounced him as a "dirty old man, tearing the clothes off nubile girls". The Independent newspaper opined the vendetta was "like watching an elderly uncle being kicked to death by young thugs". Elton later claimed his comment was taken out of context.

In response to such claims his close friend and producer Dennis Kirkland said it was the women who chased Hill in anger for undressing them, all of which was done accidentally by some ridiculous means. An article on 27 May 2006 in The Independent quoted Hill and Dennis Kirkland as saying they believed this misrepresentation demonstrated critics could not have watched his programmes.

In a documentary on Benny Hill, the former head of entertainment at Thames TV who had cancelled the show, John Howard Davies, stated there were three reasons why he did so: "...the audiences were going down, the programme was costing a vast amount of money, and he (Benny) was looking tired." Benny was devastated by the loss of his show.

US producer Don Taffner heard of Benny's plight and in 1991 produced a new show complete with Benny and his usual team, called Benny Hill's World Tour.

Death

Hill's health began to decline in the mid 1980s. He suffered heart problems, and on 11 February 1992, doctors told him he needed to lose 2 stone of his 17 stone body and recommended a heart bypass. He declined and was diagnosed a week later with renal failure. Benny Hill died on or about 19 April 1992, Easter weekend, alone in his flat at 7 Fairwater House, Twickenham Road, Teddington, South West London, at the age of 68. On 21 April, neighbours called the police, who then found Hill, deceased, sitting in his armchair in front of the television. Ironically on the day Hill purportedly died, a new contract arrived in the post from Central Independent Television. He died of natural causes. His death nearly coincided with that of Frankie Howerd, who had died at the age of 75, on 18 April 1992, only one day before Hill's death.

Hill was buried at Hollybrook Cemetery near his birthplace in Southampton on 28 April, 1992. In October 1992, following rumours that he was buried with large amounts of gold jewellery, an attempt was made by thieves to exhume his body. However, when authorities looked into his open coffin the following morning, there was no treasure. Consequently, only the culprits or the first officer on the scene know whether anything valuable was inside. Hill was reburied with a new coffin lid and a solid slab across the top of the grave.

In Hill's will, he left his estimated £10 million (GBP) estate to his late parents. Next in line were his brother Leonard and sister Diana, both of whom were also dead. This left his seven nieces and nephews, among whom the money was divided.

http://www.mjukvara.se/blogg/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Benny-Hill.jpg

http://www.virginmedia.com/images/funny_songs_benny_hill.jpg
I cannot locate a good video for Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/21/10 at 6:10 am


British Person of the Day: Benny Hill

Alfred Hawthorne "Benny" Hill (21 January 1924 – 19 April 1992) was an English comedian, actor and singer, notable for his long-running television programme The Benny Hill Show.

Beginnings

Alfred Hill was born in Southampton and grew up in Wilton Road, Upper Shirley, where he and his brother attended Taunton's School. During World War II, Hill was one of the students evacuated with the school to Bournemouth School, East Way, Bournemouth. After leaving Bournemouth School, Hill worked variously as a milkman in Eastleigh, a bridge operator, a driver and a drummer before he finally got a foot in the door of the entertainment industry by becoming an assistant stage manager. Inspired by the 'star comedians' of British music hall shows, Hill set out to make his mark in show business. For the stage, he changed his first name to 'Benny', in homage to his favourite comedian, Jack Benny. Hill began appearing at working men's clubs and Masonic dinners before graduating to nightclub and theatre jobs. Hill auditioned for Soho's famed Windmill Theatre (home of Revudeville, a popular show of singers, comedians and nude girls), but he was not hired. Benny's first job in professional theatre as a performer was as Reg Varney's straight man, beating a then unknown Peter Sellers for the role.

Private life

Hill had only a few friends, although colleagues insist he was never lonely but content with his own company. He never married, although he did propose to three women—one the daughter of a British writer—but was rejected by all three. Although he owned the family home in Southampton he never owned his own home in London, nor a car, preferring to rent, first a large double apartment in Queensgate, London, for 26 years until 1986, and then a small flat in Teddington, within walking distance of the studios of Thames Television where he taped his shows. His mother died in 1976 aged 82 and Benny kept the family house at 22 Westrow Gardens in Southampton as a shrine to her, not changing anything. Before his move to Teddington, whilst looking for somewhere else to live in the Richmond area of London, he lived at 22 Westrow Gardens. Travelling was the luxury he permitted himself. Hill became a first-degree Francophile, enjoying frequent visits to Marseille. Until the 1980s, he could enjoy anonymity in France's outdoor cafés, public transport, and socialising with local women. Besides mastering French, he could also speak enough German, Dutch and Italian for travel purposes. Hill's overseas holidays were often gathering missions for comedy material, some inspired by foreign surroundings, or borrowed from regional acts.

Early career

Between the end of the war and the dawn of television, Hill worked as a radio performer. His first appearance on television was in 1949 in Hi There. He continued to work intermittently until his career took off with The Benny Hill Show in 1955 on BBC Television. Recurring players on his show during the BBC years included Patricia Hayes, Jeremy Hawk, Peter Vernon, Ronnie Brody, and his co-writer from the mid-1950s to early 1960s, Dave Freeman. He remained mostly with the BBC through to 1968, except for a few sojourns with ITV station ATV between 1957 and 1960 and again in 1967. He also had a short-lived radio programme, Benny Hill Time, on BBC Radio's Light Programme from 1964 to 1966. In addition, he attempted a sitcom anthology, Benny Hill, which ran for three series from 1962 to 1963, in which he played a different character in each episode. In 1964, he played Nick Bottom in an all-star TV film production of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Films and recordings

Benny Hill's film credits include parts in nine films including Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965); Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), in which he played the relatively straight role of the Toymaker; The Italian Job (1969); and, finally, a clip-show film spin-off of his early Thames shows (1969–73), called The Best of Benny Hill (1974). Hill's audio recordings include "Gather in the Mushrooms", (1961), "Pepys Diary", (1961), "Transistor Radio" (1961), "Harvest of Love" (1963), and "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)" (1971). He also appeared in the 1986 video of the song "Anything She Does" by the band Genesis. Hill's song, "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)," on the Best of Benny Hill album made the UK chart as Christmas number one single in 1971. A link to the lyrics is provided in the External Links section of this article.

The Benny Hill Show

In 1969, his show moved from the BBC to Thames Television, where The Benny Hill Show remained until cancellation in 1989, with an erratic schedule of one-hour specials.

The most common running gag in Benny Hill's shows was the closing sequence, which was literally a "running gag" in that it featured various members of the cast chasing Benny Hill and usually featured scantily-clad women as part of the chase, along with other stock comedy characters such as policemen, vicars, old ladies, and so on. This was commonly filmed using stop motion and time-lapse techniques for comic effect, and included other comic devices such as characters running off one side of the screen and reappearing running on from the other. The tune used in all the chases, "Yaketty Sax", is commonly referred to as "The Benny Hill Theme". It has been used as a form of parody in many ways by television shows and a small number of films. The Wachowskis used the same style (and musical theme) in a scene in the film V for Vendetta (2006). It also appears in the cult movie The Gods Must Be Crazy.

Reflecting opinion of the time within certain quarters the 1980s alternative comedian Ben Elton denounced him as a "dirty old man, tearing the clothes off nubile girls". The Independent newspaper opined the vendetta was "like watching an elderly uncle being kicked to death by young thugs". Elton later claimed his comment was taken out of context.

In response to such claims his close friend and producer Dennis Kirkland said it was the women who chased Hill in anger for undressing them, all of which was done accidentally by some ridiculous means. An article on 27 May 2006 in The Independent quoted Hill and Dennis Kirkland as saying they believed this misrepresentation demonstrated critics could not have watched his programmes.

In a documentary on Benny Hill, the former head of entertainment at Thames TV who had cancelled the show, John Howard Davies, stated there were three reasons why he did so: "...the audiences were going down, the programme was costing a vast amount of money, and he (Benny) was looking tired." Benny was devastated by the loss of his show.

US producer Don Taffner heard of Benny's plight and in 1991 produced a new show complete with Benny and his usual team, called Benny Hill's World Tour.

Death

Hill's health began to decline in the mid 1980s. He suffered heart problems, and on 11 February 1992, doctors told him he needed to lose 2 stone of his 17 stone body and recommended a heart bypass. He declined and was diagnosed a week later with renal failure. Benny Hill died on or about 19 April 1992, Easter weekend, alone in his flat at 7 Fairwater House, Twickenham Road, Teddington, South West London, at the age of 68. On 21 April, neighbours called the police, who then found Hill, deceased, sitting in his armchair in front of the television. Ironically on the day Hill purportedly died, a new contract arrived in the post from Central Independent Television. He died of natural causes. His death nearly coincided with that of Frankie Howerd, who had died at the age of 75, on 18 April 1992, only one day before Hill's death.

Hill was buried at Hollybrook Cemetery near his birthplace in Southampton on 28 April, 1992. In October 1992, following rumours that he was buried with large amounts of gold jewellery, an attempt was made by thieves to exhume his body. However, when authorities looked into his open coffin the following morning, there was no treasure. Consequently, only the culprits or the first officer on the scene know whether anything valuable was inside. Hill was reburied with a new coffin lid and a solid slab across the top of the grave.

In Hill's will, he left his estimated £10 million (GBP) estate to his late parents. Next in line were his brother Leonard and sister Diana, both of whom were also dead. This left his seven nieces and nephews, among whom the money was divided.

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Classic simply classic. Both my dad & my husband enjoy him.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/21/10 at 6:15 am

The word of the day...Tourist
A tourist is a person who is visiting a place for pleasure and interest, especially when they are on holiday.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/21/10 at 6:18 am

The birthday of the day...Geena Davis
Virginia Elizabeth "Geena" Davis (born January 21, 1956) is an Academy Awards winning American actress, film producer, writer, former fashion model, and a women's Olympics archery team semi-finalist.After graduating, Davis served as a window mannequin for Ann Taylor until signing with New York's Zoli modelling agency in 1979. Davis auditioned for roles in many popular movies, including The Terminator’s Sarah Connor, which went to Linda Hamilton. She was working as a model when director Sydney Pollack spotted her and cast her in Tootsie (1982) as a soap opera actress. She followed this up with the part of Wendy Killain in the short-lived television series Buffalo Bill, which aired from June, 1983, to March, 1984. She also wrote the Buffalo Bill episode entitled "Miss WBFL." During the run of Buffalo Bill, In 1983, Geena also appeared as Grace Fallon in an episode of Knight Rider (1982 TV series) entitled "K.I.T.T the Cat". Her television credits from the mid-1980's also include one episode of Riptide, two episodes of Family Ties, and an episode of Remington Steele. This was followed up by a series of her own, Sara, which lasted thirteen episodes.

Davis made her film breakthrough with Fletch, in 1985. This was followed by larger roles in The Fly and Beetlejuice. She received an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Accidental Tourist (1988), and a Best Actress nomination for her role in Thelma and Louise (1991). Davis replaced Debra Winger in the role of Dottie in A League of Their Own (1992) and received a Best Actress Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance. She then co-starred in Hero alongside Dustin Hoffman and Andy Garcia. Following this, Davis teamed up with then-husband Renny Harlin for the films Cutthroat Island and The Long Kiss Goodnight. She and Harlin co-produced the films. Davis was nominated for Saturn Awards for her performances as Samantha/Charlie in The Long Kiss Goodnight., and as Eleanor Little in Stuart Little, a role she reprised in 2002, and again in 2005.

In 2000-2001, Davis starred in the short-lived sitcom The Geena Davis Show. In early 2004, she guest-starred as Grace Adler's sister, Janet, on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace. She most recently starred in the ABC television series Commander in Chief as the first female President of the United States. This role garnered her a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama Series in 2006, and she also was nominated for an Emmy Award and a SAG Award for Outstanding Female Actor in a Drama Series.
Davis was married to Richard Emmolo (March 25, 1982 – February 26, 1983); actor Jeff Goldblum, with whom she co-starred in three films, Transylvania 6-5000, The Fly and Earth Girls Are Easy (1987 – 1990); and Renny Harlin, who directed her in Cutthroat Island and The Long Kiss Goodnight (1993 – 1998). On September 1, 2001, Davis married Iranian American plastic surgeon Reza Jarrahy MD. They have three children: daughter Alizeh Keshvar (born April 10, 2002) and fraternal twin boys Kian William Jarrahy and Kaiis Steven Jarrahy on May 6, 2004.

Davis is 6 feet (1.83 m) tall and is a member of American Mensa, the society of persons with IQs in the statistical top 2%, with an IQ of 140.
Activism
The handprints of Geena Davis in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.

Davis is fronting the Women's Sports Foundation campaign Geena Takes Aim in support of Title IX — an Act of Congress focusing on equality in sports opportunities, now expanded to prohibit gender discrimination in United States' educational institutions.

In 2004, while watching children’s television programs and videos with her daughter, Davis noticed what she thought was an imbalance in the ratio of male to female characters. From that starting point, Davis went on to sponsor the largest research project ever undertaken on gender in children’s entertainment (resulting in 4 discrete studies, including one on children’s television) at the Annenberg School for Communication of University of Southern California. The study, directed by Dr. Stacy Smith, shows that there are nearly 3 males to every 1 female character in the nearly 400 G, PG, PG-13, and R-Rated movies the undergraduate team of Annenberg students coded.

In 2005, Davis teamed up with the non-profit group Dads and Daughters to launch a venture dedicated to balancing the number of male and female characters in children's TV and movie programming.

Davis launched The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2007. The Institute’s first focus is an on-the ground program that works collaboratively with the entertainment industry to dramatically increase the presence of female characters in media aimed at children and to reduce stereotyping of both males and females.

For her work in this field she received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Bates College in May 2009.
Geena Davis speaking at Bates College on May 31, 2009.
Sports

Davis states that she wasn't an athlete growing up, and that her introduction to archery was in 1997, two years prior to her tryouts.

Geena Davis was one of 300 women competing, in July 1999, for a semifinals berth in the US Olympic archery team, to participate in the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics. She placed 24th of 300 and did not qualify for the team, but participated as a wild-card entry in the Sydney International Golden Arrow competition.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1982 Tootsie April Page
1985 Fletch
Transylvania 6-5000 Odette
1986 The Fly Veronica Quaife Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actress
1988 Beetlejuice Barbara Maitland
Earth Girls Are Easy Valerie Gail
The Accidental Tourist Muriel Pritchett Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1990 Quick Change Phyllis Potter
1991 Thelma & Louise Thelma Yvonne Dickinson Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress
David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actress shared with Susan Sarandon
National Board of Review Award for Best Actress tied with Susan Sarandon
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
1992 A League of Their Own Dottie Hinson Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Hero Gale Gayley
1993 Princess Scargo and the Birthday Pumpkin Narrator (voice) short subject
1994 Angie Angie Scacciapensieri
Speechless Julia Mann also producer
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1995 Cutthroat Island Morgan Adams
1996 The Long Kiss Goodnight Samantha Caine / Charly Baltimore also producer
Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actress
1999 Stuart Little Mrs. Eleanor Little Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
2002 Stuart Little 2 Mrs. Eleanor Little
2006 Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild Mrs. Eleanor Little voice
2009 Accidents Happen Gloria Conway
Television work
Year Film Role Notes
1983-1984 Buffalo Bill Wendy Killian
1983 Knight Rider Grace Fallon Guest star, "K.I.T.T. The Cat" (Season 2, Episode 6)
1984 Family Ties Karen Nicholson Guest star, two episodes
1984 Riptide Dr. Melba Bozinsky Guest star, "Raiders of the Lost Sub" (Season 1, Episode 12)
1985 Sara Sara McKenna Cancelled after a few months
Secret Weapons Tamara Reshevsky/Brenda
Remington Steele Sandy Dalrymple "Steele in the Chips" (Season 3, Episode 20)
2000-2001 The Geena Davis Show Teddie Cochran
2003 Will & Grace Grace's Sister
2005-2006 Commander in Chief President Mackenzie Allen Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama
Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Drama Series
2008-present Link's Future Mrs. Diane Bolton Season 3-present
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/21/10 at 6:23 am

The person of the day...Peggy Lee
Peggy Lee (May 26, 1920 – January 21, 2002) was an award-winning American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer and actress. From her beginnings as a vocalist on local radio, to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, to forging her own sophisticated persona, Lee evolved into a multi-faceted artist and performer, writing music for films, acting, creating conceptual record albums encompassing poetry, jazz, chamber pop, art songs, and other genres in a career that spanned nearly seven decades.
In early 1942, Lee had her first #1 hit, "Somebody Else Is Taking My Place," followed by 1943's "Why Don't You Do Right?" (originally sung by Lil Green), which sold over a million copies and made her famous. She sang with Goodman in two 1943 films, Stage Door Canteen and The Powers Girl.

In March 1943, Lee married Dave Barbour, the guitarist in Goodman's band. Peggy said, "David joined Benny's band and there was a ruling that no one should fraternize with the girl singer. But I fell in love with David the first time I heard him play, and so I married him. Benny then fired David, so I quit, too. Benny and I made up, although David didn't play with him anymore. Benny stuck to his rule. I think that's not too bad a rule, but you can't help falling in love with somebody."

When Lee and Barbour left the band, the idea was that he would work in the studios and she would keep house and raise their daughter, Nicki. But she drifted back towards songwriting and occasional recording sessions for the fledgling Capitol Records in 1947, for whom she produced a long string of hits, many of them with lyrics and music by Lee and Barbour, including "I Don't Know Enough About You" and "It's a Good Day" (1948). With the release of the smash-hit #1-selling record of 1947, "Mañana," her "retirement" was over.

In 1948, she joined Perry Como and Jo Stafford as one of the rotating hosts of the NBC Radio musical program Chesterfield Supper Club. She was also a regular on NBC's Jimmy Durante Show during the 1938-48 season.

She left Capitol for a few years in the early 1940s, but returned in 1943. She is most famous for her cover version of the Little Willie John hit "Fever", to which she added her own, uncopyrighted lyrics ("Romeo loved Juliet," "Captain Smith and Pocahontas") and her rendition of Leiber and Stoller's "Is That All There Is?" Her relationship with the Capitol label spanned almost three decades, aside from her brief but artistically rich detour (1952-1956) at Decca Records, where she recorded one of her most acclaimed albums Black Coffee (1956). While recording for Decca, Lee had hit singles with the songs "Lover" and "Mr. Wonderful."

She first came to prominence in the 1940s with her #1 hits Somebody Is Taking Your Place and Mañana, having a string of successful albums and top 10 hits in three consecutive decades. However, Peggy Lee is today internationally recognized for her signature song "Fever". Lee was also an accomplished actress, starring in the hit movies The Jazz Singer, Disney's Lady and the Tramp and Pete Kelly's Blues, for which she received the Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Peggy Lee is also widely regarded as one of the most influential jazz vocalists of all time, being cited as a mentor to diverse artists such as; Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Paul McCartney, Bette Midler, Madonna and Dusty Springfield.

In her 60-year-long career, Peggy was the recipient of three Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, an Academy Award nomination, The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Award; the Presidents Award, the Ella Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Living Legacy Award, from the Women's International Center. In 1999 Peggy Lee was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Songwriting

She was also known as a songwriter with such hits as the songs from the Disney movie Lady and the Tramp, for which she also supplied the singing and speaking voices of four characters. Her many songwriting collaborators, in addition to Barbour, included Laurindo Almeida, Harold Arlen, Sonny Burke, Cy Coleman, Gene DiNovi, Duke Ellington, Dave Grusin, Dick Hazard, Quincy Jones, Francis Lai, Jack Marshall, Johnny Mandel, Marian McPartland, Willard Robison, Lalo Schifrin, Hubie Wheeler, guitarist Johnny Pisano and Victor Young.

She wrote the lyrics for "I Don't Know Enough About You", "It's A Good Day", composed by Dave Barbour, "I'm Gonna Go Fishin'", composed with Duke Ellington, "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter", the no.1 hit "Manana (Is Soon Enough For Me)", "Bless You (For The Good That's In You)" with Mel Torme, "What More Can a Woman Do?", "Don't Be Mean to Baby", "New York City Ghost" with Victor Young, "You Was Right, Baby", "Just an Old Love of Mine", "Everything's Movin' Too Fast", "The Shining Sea", "He's A Tramp", "The Siamese Cat Song", "There Will Be Another Spring", "Johnny Guitar" with Victor Young, "Sans Souci" with Sonny Burke, "So What's New?", "Don't Smoke in Bed", "I Love Being Here With You", "Happy With the Blues" with Harold Arlen, "Where Can I Go Without You?", "Things Are Swingin'", "Then Was Then" with Cy Coleman, and many others. The first song that Peggy Lee composed was "Little Fool", published in 1941. "What More Can a Woman Do?" was recorded by Sarah Vaughan with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. "Manana (Is Soon Enough For Me)" was no.1 for 9 weeks on the Billboard singles chart in 1948, from the week of March 13 to May 8. She also added some lyrics ("Romeo loved Juliet", "Captain Smith and Pocahontas") to her signature song, "Fever".

During a time when youths began turning to rock'n'roll, she was one of the mainstays of Capitol recordings. She was the first of the "old guard" to recognize this new genre, as is evident in her recordings of the Beatles, Randy Newman, Carole King, James Taylor and other up-and-coming songwriters. From 1957 until her final disc for the company in 1972, she routinely produced a steady stream of two or three albums per year which usually included standards (often arranged in a style quite different from the original), her own compositions, and material from young artists.
Acting career

Lee also acted in several films. In 1952, she played opposite Danny Thomas in a remake of the early Al Jolson film, The Jazz Singer. In 1955, she played a despondent, alcoholic blues singer in Pete Kelly's Blues (1955), for which she was nominated for an Oscar. In 1955, she did the speaking and singing voices for multiple characters in Disney's Lady and the Tramp movie. Specifically, she played the human Darling (in the very beginning), the dog Peg, and the two Siamese cats Si and Am. In 1957, Lee guest starred on the short-lived ABC variety program, The Guy Mitchell Show.

In the early 1990s, she retained famed entertainment attorney Neil Papiano, who, on her behalf, successfully sued Disney for royalties on Lady and the Tramp. Lee's lawsuit claimed that she was due royalties for video tapes, a technology that did not exist when she agreed to write and perform for Disney.

Never afraid to fight for what she believed in, Lee passionately insisted that musicians be equitably compensated for their work. Although she realized litigation had taken a toll on her health, Lee often quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson on the topic: "God's will will not be made manifest by cowards."

She also successfully sued MCA/Decca with the assistance of noted entertainment attorney, Cy Godfrey.
Personal life

Lee was married four times; each marriage ended in divorce:

    * 1) Musician Dave Barbour (1943-1951); daughter Nicki Lee Foster (born 1943)
    * 2) Actor Brad Dexter (1953)
    * 3) Actor Dewey Martin (1956-1958)
    * 4) Actor Jack Del Rio (1964-1965)

Retirement and death

She continued to perform into the 1990s, sometimes in a wheelchair, and still mesmerized audiences and critics alike. After years of poor health, Lee died of complications from diabetes and a heart attack at the age of 81. She is survived by Nicki Lee Foster, her daughter with Barbour. She is interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles' Westwood neighborhood. On her marker in a garden setting is inscribed, "Music is my life's breath."
Legacy
Academy Awards memoriam omission

She was not featured in Memoriam Tribute during the Academy Awards ceremony. When her family requested she be featured in the following year's ceremony, the Academy stated they did not honor requests and Lee was omitted because her contribution to film and her legacy were not deemed significant enough. The Lee family pointed out that, although she had been omitted, R&B singer/actress Aaliyah, who died a few months earlier, was included though having been in only one moderately successful film, Romeo Must Die (Queen of the Damned had yet to be released). The Academy provided no comment on the oversight.
Awards

Lee was nominated for 12 Grammy Awards, winning Best Contemporary Vocal Performance for her 1969 hit "Is That All There Is?" In 1995 she was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Lee is a recipient of the state of North Dakota's Roughrider Award; the Pied Piper Award from The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP); the Presidents Award, from the Songwriters Guild of America; the Ella Award for Lifetime Achievement, from the Society of Singers; and the Living Legacy Award, from the Women's International Center. In 1999 she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Carnegie Hall tribute

In 2003, "There'll Be Another Spring: A Tribute to Miss Peggy Lee" was held at Carnegie Hall. Produced by recording artist Richard Barone, the sold-out event included performances by Cy Coleman, Debbie Harry, Nancy Sinatra, Rita Moreno, Marian McPartland, Chris Connor, Petula Clark and many others. In 2004, Barone brought the event to the Hollywood Bowl and Chicago's Ravinia Festival, with expanded casts including Maureen McGovern, Jack Jones, and Bea Arthur. The Carnegie Hall concert was broadcast as on NPR's "Jazz Set."
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/21/10 at 6:28 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VscVP_Gt_s&feature=related#

Peggy Lee..Is That All There Is



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYxoAJ3Boyc&feature=related#


Peggy Lee ..Fever

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/21/10 at 6:44 am


British Person of the Day: Benny Hill

Alfred Hawthorne "Benny" Hill (21 January 1924 – 19 April 1992) was an English comedian, actor and singer, notable for his long-running television programme The Benny Hill Show.

Beginnings

Alfred Hill was born in Southampton and grew up in Wilton Road, Upper Shirley, where he and his brother attended Taunton's School. During World War II, Hill was one of the students evacuated with the school to Bournemouth School, East Way, Bournemouth. After leaving Bournemouth School, Hill worked variously as a milkman in Eastleigh, a bridge operator, a driver and a drummer before he finally got a foot in the door of the entertainment industry by becoming an assistant stage manager. Inspired by the 'star comedians' of British music hall shows, Hill set out to make his mark in show business. For the stage, he changed his first name to 'Benny', in homage to his favourite comedian, Jack Benny. Hill began appearing at working men's clubs and Masonic dinners before graduating to nightclub and theatre jobs. Hill auditioned for Soho's famed Windmill Theatre (home of Revudeville, a popular show of singers, comedians and nude girls), but he was not hired. Benny's first job in professional theatre as a performer was as Reg Varney's straight man, beating a then unknown Peter Sellers for the role.

Private life

Hill had only a few friends, although colleagues insist he was never lonely but content with his own company. He never married, although he did propose to three women—one the daughter of a British writer—but was rejected by all three. Although he owned the family home in Southampton he never owned his own home in London, nor a car, preferring to rent, first a large double apartment in Queensgate, London, for 26 years until 1986, and then a small flat in Teddington, within walking distance of the studios of Thames Television where he taped his shows. His mother died in 1976 aged 82 and Benny kept the family house at 22 Westrow Gardens in Southampton as a shrine to her, not changing anything. Before his move to Teddington, whilst looking for somewhere else to live in the Richmond area of London, he lived at 22 Westrow Gardens. Travelling was the luxury he permitted himself. Hill became a first-degree Francophile, enjoying frequent visits to Marseille. Until the 1980s, he could enjoy anonymity in France's outdoor cafés, public transport, and socialising with local women. Besides mastering French, he could also speak enough German, Dutch and Italian for travel purposes. Hill's overseas holidays were often gathering missions for comedy material, some inspired by foreign surroundings, or borrowed from regional acts.

Early career

Between the end of the war and the dawn of television, Hill worked as a radio performer. His first appearance on television was in 1949 in Hi There. He continued to work intermittently until his career took off with The Benny Hill Show in 1955 on BBC Television. Recurring players on his show during the BBC years included Patricia Hayes, Jeremy Hawk, Peter Vernon, Ronnie Brody, and his co-writer from the mid-1950s to early 1960s, Dave Freeman. He remained mostly with the BBC through to 1968, except for a few sojourns with ITV station ATV between 1957 and 1960 and again in 1967. He also had a short-lived radio programme, Benny Hill Time, on BBC Radio's Light Programme from 1964 to 1966. In addition, he attempted a sitcom anthology, Benny Hill, which ran for three series from 1962 to 1963, in which he played a different character in each episode. In 1964, he played Nick Bottom in an all-star TV film production of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Films and recordings

Benny Hill's film credits include parts in nine films including Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965); Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), in which he played the relatively straight role of the Toymaker; The Italian Job (1969); and, finally, a clip-show film spin-off of his early Thames shows (1969–73), called The Best of Benny Hill (1974). Hill's audio recordings include "Gather in the Mushrooms", (1961), "Pepys Diary", (1961), "Transistor Radio" (1961), "Harvest of Love" (1963), and "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)" (1971). He also appeared in the 1986 video of the song "Anything She Does" by the band Genesis. Hill's song, "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West)," on the Best of Benny Hill album made the UK chart as Christmas number one single in 1971. A link to the lyrics is provided in the External Links section of this article.

The Benny Hill Show

In 1969, his show moved from the BBC to Thames Television, where The Benny Hill Show remained until cancellation in 1989, with an erratic schedule of one-hour specials.

The most common running gag in Benny Hill's shows was the closing sequence, which was literally a "running gag" in that it featured various members of the cast chasing Benny Hill and usually featured scantily-clad women as part of the chase, along with other stock comedy characters such as policemen, vicars, old ladies, and so on. This was commonly filmed using stop motion and time-lapse techniques for comic effect, and included other comic devices such as characters running off one side of the screen and reappearing running on from the other. The tune used in all the chases, "Yaketty Sax", is commonly referred to as "The Benny Hill Theme". It has been used as a form of parody in many ways by television shows and a small number of films. The Wachowskis used the same style (and musical theme) in a scene in the film V for Vendetta (2006). It also appears in the cult movie The Gods Must Be Crazy.

Reflecting opinion of the time within certain quarters the 1980s alternative comedian Ben Elton denounced him as a "dirty old man, tearing the clothes off nubile girls". The Independent newspaper opined the vendetta was "like watching an elderly uncle being kicked to death by young thugs". Elton later claimed his comment was taken out of context.

In response to such claims his close friend and producer Dennis Kirkland said it was the women who chased Hill in anger for undressing them, all of which was done accidentally by some ridiculous means. An article on 27 May 2006 in The Independent quoted Hill and Dennis Kirkland as saying they believed this misrepresentation demonstrated critics could not have watched his programmes.

In a documentary on Benny Hill, the former head of entertainment at Thames TV who had cancelled the show, John Howard Davies, stated there were three reasons why he did so: "...the audiences were going down, the programme was costing a vast amount of money, and he (Benny) was looking tired." Benny was devastated by the loss of his show.

US producer Don Taffner heard of Benny's plight and in 1991 produced a new show complete with Benny and his usual team, called Benny Hill's World Tour.

Death

Hill's health began to decline in the mid 1980s. He suffered heart problems, and on 11 February 1992, doctors told him he needed to lose 2 stone of his 17 stone body and recommended a heart bypass. He declined and was diagnosed a week later with renal failure. Benny Hill died on or about 19 April 1992, Easter weekend, alone in his flat at 7 Fairwater House, Twickenham Road, Teddington, South West London, at the age of 68. On 21 April, neighbours called the police, who then found Hill, deceased, sitting in his armchair in front of the television. Ironically on the day Hill purportedly died, a new contract arrived in the post from Central Independent Television. He died of natural causes. His death nearly coincided with that of Frankie Howerd, who had died at the age of 75, on 18 April 1992, only one day before Hill's death.

Hill was buried at Hollybrook Cemetery near his birthplace in Southampton on 28 April, 1992. In October 1992, following rumours that he was buried with large amounts of gold jewellery, an attempt was made by thieves to exhume his body. However, when authorities looked into his open coffin the following morning, there was no treasure. Consequently, only the culprits or the first officer on the scene know whether anything valuable was inside. Hill was reburied with a new coffin lid and a solid slab across the top of the grave.

In Hill's will, he left his estimated £10 million (GBP) estate to his late parents. Next in line were his brother Leonard and sister Diana, both of whom were also dead. This left his seven nieces and nephews, among whom the money was divided.

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I used to watch The Benny Hill Show on Channel 9 here in New York back in the 80's,such a classic show. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/21/10 at 6:45 am





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYxoAJ3Boyc&feature=related#


Peggy Lee ..Fever
One of my fav songs.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/21/10 at 6:47 am


Classic simply classic. Both my dad & my husband enjoy him.
My early comedy viewing was Benny Hill, so in one sense I grew up with him.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/21/10 at 6:47 am


One of my fav songs.


such a sweet song.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/21/10 at 6:48 am


My early comedy viewing was Benny Hill, so in one sense I grew up with him.



and his crazy antics.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/21/10 at 11:08 pm

British Person of the Day: Alf Ramsey

Sir Alfred Ernest "Alf" Ramsey (22 January 1920 – 28 April 1999) was an English footballer and manager of the English national football team from 1963 to 1974. His greatest achievement was winning the 1966 World Cup with England on 30 July 1966. They also came third in the 1968 European Championship and reached the quarter-final stage of the 1970 World Cup and the 1972 European Championship under his management. He was knighted in 1967 in recognition of England's World Cup glory the previous year.

As a player, he had been capped 32 times between 1948 and 1954, scoring three goals, and was part of the Tottenham Hotspur team which in 1951 became the first English team to be champions of the top flight a year after promotion.

Between the end of his playing career and his appointment as England manager, Ramsey was Ipswich Town manager for eight years, taking them from the Third Division to the top of the First Division in that time.

His final job in football was manager of Birmingham City, which he left in March 1978.

Playing career

Ramsey was born in Dagenham, Essex. Having been a gifted amateur as a pupil and as a player for his army regiment, he played for Portsmouth in the London War League in 1942 before moving to Southampton from 1943 to 1949 (since 1944 as a professional), and Tottenham Hotspur after that. He was very successful with Spurs, playing as a right-back in more than 250 cup and league games, and in 1948 made his England debut against Switzerland; he went on to captain his country three times. His last game for England was the 6-3 defeat by Hungary in November 1953, in which he scored a penalty. As a player Ramsey was considered slow: but had excellent positional sense, read the game better than most, had awareness, strength, and excellent distribution for a defender. He was also a specialist penalty kick taker; his coolness and ability to anticipate the goalkeeper earning him the nickname, The General.

Managerial career
Ipswich Town

He retired from playing in 1955 to become manager of Ipswich Town. He guided the Suffolk-based side to third place in the Third Division South in his debut season, the side scoring 106 goals in the 46 league fixtures. Ramsey's second season in charge led to the division title, Ipswich's second at that level, and promotion to the Second Division.

The Suffolk-based side established themselves at the Second Division level for the following three seasons with mid-table finishes. Ramsey also managed his side to moderate success in the FA Cup, reaching the Fifth Round in the 1958-59 season. After three seasons of mid-table finishes, the fourth brought further success to Portman Road as Ramsey guided the Blues to the Second Division title and into the top flight for the first time in the club's history.

Ramsey's Ipswich achieved unprecedented success the following season as he led his side to the Championship in their debut season at the top level. The side had been tipped by virtually all contemporary football pundits and journalists for relegation at the start of the season, making the achievement arguably one of the most remarkable in the history of the League.

Alf Ramsey's tactical astuteness, working with a squad of solid but not outstanding players, baffled and astonished the illustrious football clubs against whom Ipswich were playing. Ramsey had found the style he would take to the England job the following April; choosing players to fit his system on the pitch. He left Ipswich Town in April 1963 having guided them from the Third Division South to the very top of English football.

England

He was appointed England manager in 1963 and immediately caused a stir when he predicted that England would win the next World Cup, which was to be held in England in 1966. This was a bold statement to make, as England's performance on the international stage had been poor up to that point. The World Cup started in 1930: but England refused to participate until 1950, when they suffered an embarrassing defeat at the hands of the U.S.A. When Ramsey took over, he demanded complete control over squad selections. Before Ramsey, Walter Winterbottom had been manager, but selections and other decisions were often carried out by board committees and so forth. When Ramsey took over all of these duties, it led to him being referred to as 'England's first proper manager'.

Ramsey was a firm but fair manager and was often regarded as difficult by the press. He ran a strict regime with his players and made sure that no-one felt that they enjoyed special status, star player or not. In May 1964, after a number of players failed to show up for a meeting in a hotel about a forthcoming tour, amongst them Jimmy Greaves, Bobby Moore and Bobby Charlton, they eventually returned to their rooms to discover their passports left on their beds. His strict regime didn't suit everyone but the players with real talent and respect for the game responded well to them and had great respect for Ramsey. Very few of those who played for Ramsey spoke ill of him. In the preparations for the 1966 World Cup, Ramsey made sure that no player was confident of a place in the final 22, which resulted in players performing at their highest level. His decision to appoint a young Bobby Moore as captain also showed Ramsey's ability to see great potential in young players. Another one of his abilities was as a master tactician: a quality that he had first shown with his reading of the game as a player. When it came to tactics, Ramsey had revolutionary ideas.

The 1966 World Cup

With his final squad chosen, Ramsey set about winning the World Cup for England. The first group game was against Uruguay and despite an array of attacking talent upfront including Jimmy Greaves and Roger Hunt, England were held to a 0-0 draw. Ramsey's statement made three years earlier was looking in doubt now: but he remained calm and still experimenting when his side faced Mexico in the next game. Ramsey was using the 4-3-3 system and for each of the group games used a winger, John Connelly against Uruguay, Terry Paine against Mexico and Ian Callaghan against France.

Ramsey dropped Alan Ball and John Connelly and brought in Martin Peters, whose advanced style of play as a midfielder matched just the qualities Ramsey looked for in his system, and Terry Paine. England beat Mexico 2-0 and faced France in their last group match. England went on to beat France 2-0 with Ian Callaghan replacing Terry Paine securing qualification to the knockout rounds. Two difficult situations arose from the final group match, however. After making a vicious tackle and being cautioned, midfielder Nobby Stiles came under flack from the top FIFA officials, who called for Ramsey to drop him from the side. Ramsey was having none of it, and firmly told the FA to inform FIFA that either Stiles would remain in his team or Ramsey himself would resign. Another bad tackle was committed during that match, resulting in Tottenham striker (and one of England's most prolific goal-scorers) Jimmy Greaves being injured and sidelined for the next few matches. Despite having more experienced strikers in his side, Ramsey selected young Geoff Hurst as Greaves's replacement, once again seeing potential in the young West Ham forward. The France match also marked Ramsey's final game with a winger. After it, he dropped Ian Callaghan from his side and brought back Alan Ball to strengthen the midfield.

For the knockout stages, England's first opponents were a notoriously rough Argentina side. Ramsey once again showed his tactical awareness, and, now he was no longer using wingers, he decided to switch from 4-3-3 to 4-4-2. With Ball and Peters operating on the flanks, the midfield now boasted Nobby Stiles and Bobby Charlton in the centre. After a violent quarter-final (where the Argentine captain Antonio Rattin refused to leave the field after being sent off), England scraped a 1-0 win thanks to Geoff Hurst latching onto a beautiful cross from Martin Peters and heading home a goal. Ramsey came under flack when he stopped his players swapping shirts with the Argentinians in protest at their dirty play and was then reported to have described Argentinian players as "animals".

In the semi-final, England faced a fluent and skillful Portuguese side containing the tournament’s top goal-scorer Eusébio. However, England won a 2-1 victory in a memorable match which saw them concede their first goal of the competition from the penalty spot. Ramsey had found the perfect defensive formula that went unchanged throughout the entire tournament.

On 30 July 1966, Ramsey's promise was fulfilled as England became the World Champions by beating West Germany in a thrilling final. A lot of Ramsey's tactics and decisions proved their worth in this final. Ramsey came under pressure to restore the fit-again Jimmy Greaves to the side: but he stuck to his guns and kept faith with Greaves's replacement, Geoff Hurst, who was to thoroughly vindicate Ramsey's judgement by scoring a hat-trick in a 4-2 win (after extra time) at Wembley. Filling his side with a good balance of experience and youth proved vital when the gruelling final went to extra time. The youth in the team powered England through extra time. A particular example of this was Alan Ball who, at 21, was the youngest player in the England side. Even in extra time, he never showed signs of tiredness and never stopped running - famously setting up Hurst's controversial second goal, as well as having a few chances himself. Even as the match ended with Geoff Hurst scoring England’s fourth goal, Ball was still running down the pitch in case Hurst needed assistance. Rather than a cross from Hurst, Ball was greeted by a number of England fans running onto the pitch who, thinking that the game was already over, had already started celebrating England's victory.

Ramsey remained his usual self during the celebrations: not joining in, but rather opting to let his players soak up their achievement. With his boldly-made promise now fulfilled, Ramsey had proved that the 4-4-2 system could work and had assembled an England team that could compete on the highest level due to physical fitness and good tactics. He remains exemplary as to this day and is the only England manager ever to have won the World Cup.

1966-1970

Despite famously losing to Scotland 3-2 at home in the qualifying competition, England still qualified for the 1968 European Championship, only to lose out in a 1-0 defeat by Yugoslavia in the semi-finals. England had to settle for third place after beating the Soviet Union.

1970-1974

The fortunes of Ramsey's England declined in the 1970s. They entered the 1970 World Cup as one of the favourites and many people thought their squad superior to that of 1966, but having qualified for the later stages after a memorable match against Brazil when Gordon Banks made his famous save from Pele's header, they lost to the Germans 3-2 in the quarter-finals, after having been in the lead 2-0 with only twenty minutes remaining. The blame was put partly on Sir Alf's cautious tactics and partly on the stand-in goalkeeper, Chelsea's Peter Bonetti.

The early 70s saw failure in the 1972 European Championships (again to the Germans), and in a heartbreaking world cup qualifier against Poland at Wembley in October 1973, England failed to qualify for the World Cup. Again while Ramsey's tactics were partly to blame (his inappropriate, mistimed substitutions, for example), England had also been spectacularly denied a win over that would have secured their place by a mixture of poor finishing and incredible goalkeeping from Poland's Jan Tomaszewski. A few months later, Sir Alf was sacked by the FA, many of whose officials had long held apparent grudges against England's finest ever manager. Leo McKinstry has said "England's most successful manager would have had a legacy fit for a hero had it not been for the malevolence of the FA chief Harold Thompson".

Later life and death

The later stages of his career were as a Board director and caretaker manager of Birmingham City and then as technical advisor to Panathinaikos between 1979 and 1980. He also appeared, in illustrated form, in the Roy of the Rovers comic, when he took over as caretaker manager of Melchester Rovers while Roy himself was in a coma. Sir Alf also had a sporadic column in the Daily Mirror in the late 1980s and early 1990s, his thoughts written down by Nigel Clarke.

Sir Alf Ramsey suffered a massive stroke on 9 June 1998, during the 1998 World Cup. By this stage was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He died less than a year later, in a nursing home, on 28 April 1999, at the age of 79 from a heart attack, along with Prostate Cancer.

Honours

As a player


Tottenham Hotspur

    * Second Division Title winner: 1949–50
    * First Division Title winner: 1950–51
    * FA Community Shield winner: 1951

As a manager

Ipswich Town

    * Third Division (South) Title winner: 1956–57
    * Second Division Title winner: 1960–61
    * First Division Title winner: 1961–62
    * FA Charity Shield runner-up: 1962

England

    * FIFA World Cup winner: 1966
    * UEFA European Championships third place: 1968

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/22/10 at 1:36 am

Canadian person of the day: Mike Bossy

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Michael Dean Bossy (born January 22, 1957 in Montreal, Quebec) is a former Canadian ice hockey player who played for the New York Islanders for his entire career and was part of their four-year reign as Stanley Cup champions in the early 1980s. Known for his powerful shot, he was among the league's goal scoring leaders and considered one of the greatest bona-fide snipers of the game. His career was cut short by injuries.

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Bossy scored a then-record 53 goals as a rookie in the 1977–78 season, won the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year, and was named a Second Team All-Star.  In 1980–81, Bossy scored 50 goals in the first 50 games of the season, the first to do so since the great Maurice Richard thirty-six years earlier. Richard was on hand to congratulate Bossy for achieving that milestone.

In the 1980–81 NHL season, he scored 50 goals in the first 50 games of the season. He also recorded nine hat tricks that season, establishing an NHL-record (broken by Gretzky in 1981–82 with 10). Bossy also set a record for goals in a season and playoffs combined with a total of 85, breaking Reggie Leach's record of 80 in 1975-76.  In 1982, Bossy set scoring records for right-wingers with 83 assists and 147 points in 80 games. These would stand until the 1995–96 season when Jaromir Jagr broke both records with 87 assists and 149 points, in what was an 82-game schedule.

Bossy earned the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 1982, and scored 17 goals in three straight playoffs -- 1981, 1982, and 1983 -- the only player ever to do so. In reaching the Stanley Cup Finals five times, between 1980 and 1984, Bossy scored 69 goals. By contrast, in Gretzky's five Stanley Cup Finals playoffs during his peak years with the Edmonton Oilers, he scored 59 goals.

He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1991. His #22 jersey was retired by the Islanders on March 3, 1992. In 1998, he was ranked number 20 on The Hockey News' list of the 100 Greatest Hockey Players, despite having an injury-shortened career.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/22/10 at 5:52 am

Thanks Phil & Frank for those 2 great bios. They were 2 guys I knew nothing about, but now do.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/22/10 at 5:54 am


Thanks Phil & Frank for those 2 great bios. They were 2 guys I knew nothing about, but now do.
Alf Ramsay is treated as a national hero!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/22/10 at 5:58 am

The word of the day...Orchard
An orchard is an area of land on which fruit trees are grown.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/22/10 at 6:02 am

The birthday of the day...Diane Lane
Diane Lane (born January 22, 1965) is an American film actress born and raised in New York City. Lane made her screen debut in George Roy Hill's 1979 film A Little Romance, starring opposite Laurence Olivier. Soon after, she was featured on the cover of Time.

Lane has had a movie career spanning across three decades and has appeared in several notable films, including Unfaithful in 2002, which earned her Academy Award, Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. Lane is also well known for her 2003 film Under the Tuscan Sun.

Timothy Hutton, Christopher Atkins, Matt Dillon were among the actors Lane dated during the 1980s, and later rock star Jon Bon Jovi. She was married to Christopher Lambert, and they had a daughter, Eleanor Jasmine Lambert. The couple were divorced following a prolonged separation in 1994, and she married actor Josh Brolin on August 15, 2004.
Lane's maternal grandmother, Eleanor Scott, was a three-times married Pentecostal preacher of the Apostolic denomination, and Lane was influenced by the theatricality of her grandmother's sermons. Lane began acting professionally at the age of six at the La MaMa Experimental Theater Club in New York, where she appeared in an acclaimed production of Medea. At 12 she had a role in Joseph Papp's production of The Cherry Orchard with Meryl Streep. Also at this time, Lane was enrolled in an accelerated program at Hunter College High School and was put on notice when her grades suffered from her busy schedule. At 13 years old, she turned down a role in Runaways on Broadway to make her feature film debut opposite Laurence Olivier in A Little Romance. At 14 years old, Lane was featured on the cover of Time, which declared her one of Hollywood's "Whiz Kids."

One of few child actors to make a successful transition into adult roles, Lane made a hit with audiences in the back-to-back cult films The Outsiders, starring with future movie stars Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, Emilio Esteves and Patrick Swayze, and Rumble Fish, starring Dillon, Mickey Rourke, and Nicolas Cage. Subsequently, Andy Warhol proclaimed Lane, "the undisputed female lead of Hollywood's new rat pack." However, the two films that could have catapulted her to star status, Streets of Fire (she turned down Splash and Risky Business for this film) and The Cotton Club, were both commercial and critical failures, and her career languished as a result. After The Cotton Club, Lane dropped out of the movie business and lived with her mother in Georgia.

Lane returned to the business to make The Big Town and Lady Beware, but it was not until 1989's popular and critically acclaimed TV mini-series Lonesome Dove that Lane made another big impression on a sizable audience. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for the role. She also enjoyed positive reviews for her performance in the independent film My New Gun, which was well received at the Cannes Film Festival. She went on to appear as actress Paulette Goddard in Sir Richard Attenborough's big-budget biopic of Charles Chaplin, Chaplin.

Lane won further praise for her role in 1999's A Walk on the Moon, opposite Viggo Mortensen. One reviewer wrote, "Lane, after years in post-teenaged-career limbo, is meltingly effective." The film's director Tony Goldwyn and producer Dustin Hoffman wanted Lane for the role of housewife Pearl even though she did not look or sound Jewish. Goldwyn said of the actress, "There's also this potentially volcanic sexuality that is in no way self-conscious or opportunistic. I thought all those things mattered more than her looking Jewish." Lane earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Female Lead. At this time, she was interested in making a film about actress Jean Seberg in which she would play Seberg.

In 2002, Lane starred in Unfaithful, a drama film directed by Adrian Lyne adapted from the French film The Unfaithful Wife. Lane played a housewife who indulges in an adulterous fling with a mysterious book dealer. The film featured several sex scenes. Lyne's repeated takes for these scenes were very demanding for the actors involved, especially for Lane, who had to be emotionally and physically fit for the duration. Unfaithful received mostly mixed to negative reviews, though Lane earned widespread praise for her performance. Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman said, "Lane, in the most urgent performance of her career, is a revelation. The play of lust, romance, degradation, and guilt on her face is the movie's real story". She followed that film up with Under the Tuscan Sun, based on the best-selling book by Frances Mayes.

Lane, in 2008, reunited with Richard Gere for the movie Nights in Rodanthe. It is the third movie Gere and Lane filmed together. The film is based on the novel of the same title by Nicholas Sparks. Lane also starred in Jumper, and Untraceable in the same year. Her latest film is Killshot with Mickey Rourke, which was given a limited theatrical release before being released on DVD in 2009.

In 2008, Lane expressed frustration with being typecast and is "gunning for something that's not so sympathetic. I need to be a bitch, and I need to be in a comedy. I've decided. No more Miss Nice Guy". The actress has even contemplated quitting acting and spending more time with her family if she is unable to get these kinds of roles. She said in an interview, "I can't do anything official. My agents won't let me. Between you and me, I don't have anything else coming out".

In 2009, it was announced that Lane will star in Secretariat, a Disney film about the relationship between the 1973 Triple Crown-winning racehorse and his owner, Penny Chenery, whom the actress will be portraying.
Awards

Four days before the New York Film Critics Circle's vote in 2002, Lane was given a career tribute by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. A day before that, Lyne held a dinner for the actress at the Four Seasons Hotel. Critics and award voters were invited to both. She went on to win the National Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Circle awards and was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Actress. In 2003, she was named ShoWest's 2003 Female Star of the Year.

Lane ranked at #79 on VH1's 100 Greatest Kid Stars. She was ranked #45 on AskMen.com's Top 99 Most Desirable Women in 2005, #85 in 2006 and #98 in 2007.
Personal life
Lane with husband Josh Brolin in December 2009

In the early 1980s, Lane dated actors Timothy Hutton, Christopher Atkins, Matt Dillon, and later rock star Jon Bon Jovi. Lane met actor Christopher Lambert in Paris while promoting The Cotton Club in 1984. They had a brief affair and split up. They met again two years later in Rome to make a film together, entitled After the Rain, and in two weeks they were a couple again. Lane and Lambert married in October 1988 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. They had a daughter, Eleanor Jasmine Lambert (born September 5, 1993), and were divorced following a prolonged separation in 1994. While making Judge Dredd in 1995, Lane began dating the film's director, Danny Cannon.

Lane became engaged to actor Josh Brolin in July 2003 and they were married on August 15, 2004. On December 20 of that year, she called police after an altercation with him, and he was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery. Lane declined to press charges, however, and the couple's spokesperson described the incident as a "misunderstanding".
Filmography
Year Film Role Other notes
1979 A Little Romance Lauren King
1980 Touched by Love Karen aka To Elvis, with Love
1981 Great Performances Charity Royall TV (1 episode)
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains Corinne Burns
Cattle Annie and Little Britches Jenny (Little Britches)
Child Bride of Short Creek Jessica Rae Jacobs TV
1982 National Lampoon Goes to the Movies Liza
Six Pack Breezy
Miss All-American Beauty Sally Butterfield TV
1983 The Outsiders Sherri 'Cherry' Valance
Rumble Fish Patty
1984 Streets of Fire Ellen Aim
The Cotton Club Vera Cicero
1987 Lady Beware Katya Yarno
The Big Town Lorry Dane
1988 Priceless Beauty China
Lonesome Dove Lorena Wood TV miniseries
1990 Vital Signs Gina Wyler
Descending Angel Irina Stroia TV
1992 Knight Moves Kathy Sheppard
My New Gun Debbie Bender
The Setting Sun Cho Renko
Chaplin Paulette Goddard
1993 Indian Summer Jahnvi
Fallen Angels Bernette Stone TV (1 episode)
1994 Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All Lucy Honicut Marsden TV
1995 A Streetcar Named Desire Stella TV
Judge Dredd Judge Hershey
1996 Wild Bill Susannah Moore
Jack Karen Powell
Mad Dog Time Grace Everly aka Trigger Happy (UK)
1997 The Only Thrill Katherine Fitzsimmons
Murder at 1600 Agent Nina Chance
1998 Gunshy Melissa
Grace & Glorie Gloria TV
1999 A Walk on the Moon Pearl Kantrowitz Nominated — Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead
Nominated — Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
2000 My Dog Skip Ellen Morris
The Virginian Molly Stark TV
The Perfect Storm Christina Cotter
2001 Hardball Elizabeth Wilkes
The Glass House Erin Glass
2002 Unfaithful Connie Sumner National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Actress
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Actress - Motion Picture
2003 Under the Tuscan Sun Frances Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Nominated — Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
2005 Fierce People Liz Earl
Must Love Dogs Sarah Nolan
2006 Hollywoodland Toni Mannix
2008 Untraceable Jennifer Marsh
Jumper Mary Rice
Nights in Rodanthe Adrienne Willis
2009 Killshot Carmen Colson
2010 Secretariat Penny Chenery
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/22/10 at 6:07 am

The person of the day...Ann Miller
Johnnie Lucille Ann Collier, better known as Ann Miller (April 12, 1923 – January 22, 2004) was an American singer, dancer and actress.
At the age of 13 Miller had been hired as a dancer in the "Black Cat Club" in San Francisco (she had told them she was 18). It was there she was discovered by Lucille Ball and talent scout/comic Benny Rubin. This led Miller to be given a contract with RKO in 1936 at the age of 13 (she had also told them she was 18) and she remained there until 1940. The following year, Miller was offered a contract at Columbia Pictures. She finally hit her mark (starting in the late 1940s and Early 1950s ) in her roles in MGM musicals such as Kiss Me Kate, Easter Parade, and On the Town.

Miller popularized pantyhose in the 1940s as a solution to the problem of continual torn stockings during the filming of dance production numbers. The common practice had been to sew hosiery to briefs worn by Miller. If torn, the entire garment had to be removed and resewn with a new pair. At Miller's request, hosiery was manufactured for her as a single pantyhose.

Miller was famed for her speed in tap dancing. Studio publicists concocted press releases claiming she could tap 500 times per minute, but in truth, the sound of ultra-fast "500" taps was looped in later. Because the stage floors were slick and slippery, she actually danced in shoes with rubber soles. Later she would loop the sound of the taps while watching the film and actually dancing on a "tap board" to match her steps in the film.

In 1970, satirist Stan Freberg, father of the funny commercial, used Miller and her tap-dancing skills in a television commercial for "Great American Soups." Miller initially plays a housewife asked by her "husband" what she's prepared for dinner. She throws off her house frock to reveal a sequined dance outfit, and the kitchen set splits open to reveal a huge Hollywood stage, showcasing a giant can of soup, atop which Miller sings and dances, accompanied by a double chorus line. At the end of the commercial, she returns to the kitchen set, where the husband character exclaims, "Why do you have to make such a big production out of everything?" According to Freberg, the commercial cost so much to produce that little money was left in the advertising budget to purchase airtime for it. The commercial can be seen on the video accompanying Freberg's boxed set release, "The Tip of the Freberg."

She was known, especially later in her career, for her distinctive appearance, which reflected a studio-era ideal of glamor: massive black bouffant hair, heavy makeup with a slash of crimson lipstick, and fashions that emphasized her lithe figure and long dancer's legs. Her film career effectively ended in 1956 as the studio system lost steam to television, but she remained active in the theatre and on television. She starred on Broadway in the musical "Mame" in 1969, in which she wowed the audience in a tap number created just for her. In 1979 she astounded audiences in the Broadway show Sugar Babies with fellow MGM veteran Mickey Rooney, which toured the United States extensively after its Broadway run. In 1983 she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre.

She appeared in a special 1982 episode of The Love Boat, joined by fellow showbiz legends Ethel Merman, Carol Channing, Della Reese, Van Johnson, and Cab Calloway in a storyline that cast them as older relatives of the show's regular characters. In 2001 she took her last role, playing Coco in auteur director David Lynch's critically acclaimed Mulholland Drive. Her last stage performance was a 1998 production of Stephen Sondheim's Follies, in which she played the hardboiled survivor Carlotta Campion and received rave reviews for her rendition of the anthemic "I'm Still Here".
Miller with Betty Garrett (left) and Vera-Ellen (right) in On the Town (1949)

Miller also performed a guest appearance on Home Improvement as a dance instructor to Tim and Jill. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Ann Miller has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6914 Hollywood Blvd.

Miller was parodied on Saturday Night Live. She was played by Molly Shannon as a talk show host, with Debbie Reynolds (played by Cheri Oteri), on a show called Leg Up.

She died at the age of 80 from cancer, which had metastasized to her lungs, and was interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
Filmography
Features
1934

1935

1936

1937



1938





1940



1941


1942


1943


1944
Anne of Green Gables

The Good Fairy

The Devil on Horseback

New Faces of 1937
The Life of the Party
Stage Door

Radio City Revels
Having Wonderful Time
You Can't Take It with You
Room Service
Tarnished Angel

Too Many Girls
Hit Parade of 1941
Melody Ranch

Time Out for Rhythm
Go West, Young Lady

True to the Army
Priorities on Parade

Reveille with Beverly
What's Buzzin', Cousin?

Hey, Rookie
Jam Session
Carolina Blues
  1945


1946

1948


1949

1950

1951


1952

1953


1954

1955

1956


1976

1994


2001

2003

2004
Eadie Was a Lady
Eve Knew Her Apples

The Thrill of Brazil

Easter Parade
The Kissing Bandit

On the Town

Watch the Birdie

Texas Carnival
Two Tickets to Broadway

Lovely to Look At

Small Town Girl
Kiss Me Kate (1953)

Deep in My Heart

Hit the Deck

The Opposite Sex
The Great American Pastime

Won Ton Ton

A Century of Cinema ♦
That's Entertainment! III

Mulholland Drive

Broadway: The Golden Age ♦

Goodnight, We Love You ♦

    ♦ Documentary

Short subjects
1941

Meet the Stars #8:
  Stars Past and Present
Screen Snapshots
  Series 21, No. 1   1949

Some of the Best
Mighty Manhattan,
  New York's Wonder City'
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc17/aquamal/AnnMiller2.jpg
http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg268/OSWALDO-05718766/HOLLYWOOD%20STARS/Ann-Miller.jpg
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k14/ronewc/1-ACTORS_ACTRESSES/millerann4ws.jpg
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r125/Lovely_Ishtar/Ann%20Miller/annmiller1.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/22/10 at 6:58 am


The word of the day...Orchard
An orchard is an area of land on which fruit trees are grown.
http://i658.photobucket.com/albums/uu303/southsoundtree/P1030805.jpg
http://i658.photobucket.com/albums/uu303/southsoundtree/P1030804.jpg
http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo193/lodgepix/Advertisers/OrchardCountry1.jpg
http://i603.photobucket.com/albums/tt120/TrilliumFae/NH%20Wilderness/92309018.jpg
http://i589.photobucket.com/albums/ss339/Frankie_Alamo/Horses%20etc%20in%20the%20snow%20-%20UK/IMG_3742.jpg
http://i855.photobucket.com/albums/ab112/HiddenRelicJamz/Posters%20and%20Promotional/OrchardLounge12-28-09Front.jpg
http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff159/chdo833/1019071325b.jpg
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm34/aliciamlokey3/106.jpg




really love the pictures Ninny once in a while I use them as background wallpaper. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/22/10 at 7:36 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB_YKpo3qA8


Ok, so it is not Diane Lane singing but I still love it.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/22/10 at 7:56 am




really love the pictures Ninny once in a while I use them as background wallpaper. :)

I'm glad you like them Howie. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/22/10 at 8:03 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB_YKpo3qA8


Ok, so it is not Diane Lane singing but I still love it.



Cat

Nice, I see that Jim Steinman who wrote songs for Meatloaf, wrote the song.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/22/10 at 8:40 am


Nice, I see that Jim Steinman who wrote songs for Meatloaf, wrote the song.



That is obvious-at least to me. I can spot a Jim Steinman song a mile away. I watched SOF not to long ago for the first time in YEARS (maybe even decades). When that song came on, I said, "That HAS to be Jim Steinman." I was right. Yeah, most of his songs sound the same but I still love them.


Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/22/10 at 12:40 pm



That is obvious-at least to me. I can spot a Jim Steinman song a mile away. I watched SOF not to long ago for the first time in YEARS (maybe even decades). When that song came on, I said, "That HAS to be Jim Steinman." I was right. Yeah, most of his songs sound the same but I still love them.


Cat

Totally agree with ya on that. Can spot a Steinman song a mile (or kilometer here in Canada) away.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/22/10 at 3:05 pm


The person of the day...Ann Miller
Johnnie Lucille Ann Collier, better known as Ann Miller (April 12, 1923 – January 22, 2004) was an American singer, dancer and actress.
At the age of 13 Miller had been hired as a dancer in the "Black Cat Club" in San Francisco (she had told them she was 18). It was there she was discovered by Lucille Ball and talent scout/comic Benny Rubin. This led Miller to be given a contract with RKO in 1936 at the age of 13 (she had also told them she was 18) and she remained there until 1940. The following year, Miller was offered a contract at Columbia Pictures. She finally hit her mark (starting in the late 1940s and Early 1950s ) in her roles in MGM musicals such as Kiss Me Kate, Easter Parade, and On the Town.

Miller popularized pantyhose in the 1940s as a solution to the problem of continual torn stockings during the filming of dance production numbers. The common practice had been to sew hosiery to briefs worn by Miller. If torn, the entire garment had to be removed and resewn with a new pair. At Miller's request, hosiery was manufactured for her as a single pantyhose.

Miller was famed for her speed in tap dancing. Studio publicists concocted press releases claiming she could tap 500 times per minute, but in truth, the sound of ultra-fast "500" taps was looped in later. Because the stage floors were slick and slippery, she actually danced in shoes with rubber soles. Later she would loop the sound of the taps while watching the film and actually dancing on a "tap board" to match her steps in the film.

In 1970, satirist Stan Freberg, father of the funny commercial, used Miller and her tap-dancing skills in a television commercial for "Great American Soups." Miller initially plays a housewife asked by her "husband" what she's prepared for dinner. She throws off her house frock to reveal a sequined dance outfit, and the kitchen set splits open to reveal a huge Hollywood stage, showcasing a giant can of soup, atop which Miller sings and dances, accompanied by a double chorus line. At the end of the commercial, she returns to the kitchen set, where the husband character exclaims, "Why do you have to make such a big production out of everything?" According to Freberg, the commercial cost so much to produce that little money was left in the advertising budget to purchase airtime for it. The commercial can be seen on the video accompanying Freberg's boxed set release, "The Tip of the Freberg."

She was known, especially later in her career, for her distinctive appearance, which reflected a studio-era ideal of glamor: massive black bouffant hair, heavy makeup with a slash of crimson lipstick, and fashions that emphasized her lithe figure and long dancer's legs. Her film career effectively ended in 1956 as the studio system lost steam to television, but she remained active in the theatre and on television. She starred on Broadway in the musical "Mame" in 1969, in which she wowed the audience in a tap number created just for her. In 1979 she astounded audiences in the Broadway show Sugar Babies with fellow MGM veteran Mickey Rooney, which toured the United States extensively after its Broadway run. In 1983 she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre.

She appeared in a special 1982 episode of The Love Boat, joined by fellow showbiz legends Ethel Merman, Carol Channing, Della Reese, Van Johnson, and Cab Calloway in a storyline that cast them as older relatives of the show's regular characters. In 2001 she took her last role, playing Coco in auteur director David Lynch's critically acclaimed Mulholland Drive. Her last stage performance was a 1998 production of Stephen Sondheim's Follies, in which she played the hardboiled survivor Carlotta Campion and received rave reviews for her rendition of the anthemic "I'm Still Here".
Miller with Betty Garrett (left) and Vera-Ellen (right) in On the Town (1949)

Miller also performed a guest appearance on Home Improvement as a dance instructor to Tim and Jill. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Ann Miller has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6914 Hollywood Blvd.

Miller was parodied on Saturday Night Live. She was played by Molly Shannon as a talk show host, with Debbie Reynolds (played by Cheri Oteri), on a show called Leg Up.

She died at the age of 80 from cancer, which had metastasized to her lungs, and was interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
Filmography
Features
1934

1935

1936

1937



1938





1940



1941


1942


1943


1944
Anne of Green Gables

The Good Fairy

The Devil on Horseback

New Faces of 1937
The Life of the Party
Stage Door

Radio City Revels
Having Wonderful Time
You Can't Take It with You
Room Service
Tarnished Angel

Too Many Girls
Hit Parade of 1941
Melody Ranch

Time Out for Rhythm
Go West, Young Lady

True to the Army
Priorities on Parade

Reveille with Beverly
What's Buzzin', Cousin?

Hey, Rookie
Jam Session
Carolina Blues
  1945


1946

1948


1949

1950

1951


1952

1953


1954

1955

1956


1976

1994


2001

2003

2004
Eadie Was a Lady
Eve Knew Her Apples

The Thrill of Brazil

Easter Parade
The Kissing Bandit

On the Town

Watch the Birdie

Texas Carnival
Two Tickets to Broadway

Lovely to Look At

Small Town Girl
Kiss Me Kate (1953)

Deep in My Heart

Hit the Deck

The Opposite Sex
The Great American Pastime

Won Ton Ton

A Century of Cinema ♦
That's Entertainment! III

Mulholland Drive

Broadway: The Golden Age ♦

Goodnight, We Love You ♦

    ♦ Documentary

Short subjects
1941

Meet the Stars #8:
  Stars Past and Present
Screen Snapshots
  Series 21, No. 1   1949

Some of the Best
Mighty Manhattan,
  New York's Wonder City'
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc17/aquamal/AnnMiller2.jpg
http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg268/OSWALDO-05718766/HOLLYWOOD%20STARS/Ann-Miller.jpg
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k14/ronewc/1-ACTORS_ACTRESSES/millerann4ws.jpg
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r125/Lovely_Ishtar/Ann%20Miller/annmiller1.jpg


I remember on The episode of Home Improvement.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/23/10 at 5:08 am

The word of the day...Firehouse
fire station: a station housing fire apparatus and firemen
http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo195/333peh/Batavia%20Photo%20Visit%202009/FireHouse.jpg
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i265/powerbyaj/2010SpyderScavengerHunt/P1130021.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v241/aaron9732/Picture182.jpg
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn95/lttldevl0/channingjanflyeropenjamprintver.jpg
http://i468.photobucket.com/albums/rr41/firehousepinball/CL/FHPB.jpg
http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s91/MeganEndres/firehouse.gif
http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc10/ramtownfireco/firehouse.gif
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m112/SHFD1949/firehouse.jpg
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj223/kristinekempf/firehouse.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/23/10 at 5:11 am

The birthday of the day...Richard Dean Anderson
Richard Dean Anderson (born January 23, 1950) is an American television and film actor, producer and composer. He began his television career in 1976 as Dr. Jeff Webber in the American soap opera series General Hospital, then rose to prominence as the lead actor in the television series MacGyver (1985–1992). Anderson later appeared in films, including Through the Eyes of a Killer (1992), Pandora's Clock (1996) and Firehouse (1997).

In 1997, Anderson returned to television as the lead actor of the series Stargate SG-1, a spin-off of the 1994 film Stargate, directed by Roland Emmerich. He played the lead from 1997–2005 and had a recurring role from 2005-07. He was also featured as a guest actor in the American animation show, The Simpsons in the episode "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore". Since 1997, the only film Anderson has starred in is Stargate: Continuum released in 2008 as a spin-off film after Stargate SG-1 was cancelled in 2007. He also appears in the follow-up Stargate series Stargate: Atlantis and Stargate: Universe (as Lieutenant General Jack O'Neill).
Anderson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Stuart Jay Anderson (died in 2003) and Jocelyn Rhae Carter and was the oldest of four brothers. He has Scottish, German, and Norwegian ancestry. He grew up in Roseville, Minnesota and attended Ramsey High School. As a kid, Anderson wanted to become a professional hockey player; this dream was shattered when he broke both his arms. Anderson developed an early interest in music, art and acting. For a short time he tried to become a jazz musician. Eventually he studied to become an actor at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio and later at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota but dropped out before he received his degree because he felt "listless". Right after his junior year in high school, Anderson participated with friends in a cross-country bike ride from Minnesota to Alaska. He then moved to San Francisco, then New York, then moved permanently to Los Angeles. At the start he was making a living with juggling among other things.

Anderson's first role was in the American soap opera, General Hospital as Dr. Jeff Webber from 1976 to 1981. In 1982-1983 He starred as Adam in the CBS television series Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (based very loosely on the movie of the same name). In the 1983-1984 season, he played Lieutenant Simon Adams on the 22-week Dennis Weaver series Emerald Point N.A.S. on CBS, stealing away Celia Warren (Susan Dey), the wife of naval lawyer Jack Warren (Charles Frank). Anderson then played Tony Kaiser in the acclaimed TV movie Ordinary Heroes, which aired in 1986.

Anderson came to fame in the lead role of Angus MacGyver in the hit television series MacGyver, which lasted from 1985 to 1992 and was highly successful throughout its 7-year run. He would go on to produce two follow-up movies to MacGyver, in 1994. After the cancellation of MacGyver, Anderson stated "MacGyver was seven years of being in virtually every frame that was shot and having absolutely no life at all."

In 1995 he co-starred with John de Lancie in Legend, a comic series of only twelve episodes about a dime novel writer within the Wild West who against his will has to play the role of his own fictional character. Originally written as a TV movie, with the decision to make Legend a series, the original teleplay became the two-hour pilot episode. Anderson was applauded for his roles as Ernest Pratt and Nicodemus Legend by many critics, most notably John Connor from The New York Times. Two episodes of MacGyver released in 1990 ("Serenity" (Season 5, Episode 12) and "MacGyver's Women" (Season 6, Episode 8) ) featured Wild Wild West storylines with a style foreshadowing that of the quirky Legend.
Later career
Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Richard Dean Anderson

From 1997 to 2005, Anderson starred as Jack O'Neill in Stargate SG-1, based on the movie Stargate starring Kurt Russell and James Spader. John Symes president of Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer (MGM) called Anderson himself and asked him if he wanted a part in the series. Anderson watched the Stargate film over and over again and came to the conclusion that the film had "great potential" and signed a contract with the Stargate producers. Anderson agreed to become involved with the project if his character was allowed significantly more comedic leeway than Kurt Russell's character in the feature film. He also requested Stargate SG-1 to be more of an ensemble show, so that he would not be carrying the plot alone as on MacGyver. In season eight, he chose to have his character "promoted" to base commander on Don S. Davis's advice. This enabled the late Davis to retire from acting due to his ailing health, and Anderson to take over the smaller role which involved far less on-location shooting so that he could spend more time with his young daughter. The following season, Anderson terminated his status as star and producer of Stargate SG-1 opting to make several guest appearances per season instead, allowing his sizable role to be filled by veteran actors Ben Browder (replacing Anderson as field commander), Claudia Black (replacing Anderson as the comic relief) and Emmy nominee Beau Bridges (replacing Anderson as Base commander).
Anderson at an event with Air Force personnel.

At the Air Force Association's 57th Annual Air Force Anniversary Dinner in Washington, D.C., on September 14, 2004, then-Air Force Chief-of-Staff, General John P. Jumper. presented Anderson with an award because of his role as star and executive producer of Stargate SG-1, a series which portrayed the Air Force in a positive light from its premiere. Anderson was also made an honorary Air Force brigadier general.

A great fan of the television show The Simpsons, which he had continually referenced during his time on SG-1, Anderson was invited in 2005 to guest star on the show. He voiced himself in an episode called "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore" in which he is kidnapped by Selma and Patty Bouvier, Marge Simpson's sisters, his MacGyver character having been their longstanding heartthrob. Dan Castellaneta, the voice actor who portrays Homer Simpson (among other characters), made a guest appearance on Stargate SG-1 ("Citizen Joe") and, in describing his unnatural ability to see the life events of Jack O'Neill, made reference to O'Neill's fondness for The Simpsons.

Anderson briefly reprised his role as Angus MacGyver in 2006 when he appeared in a MasterCard commercial during Super Bowl XL. While the plot follows the "MacGyver Formula", it is somewhat satirical of the series, showing unlikely if not impossible solutions to the obstacles faced by Anderson's character (in one shot, he cuts through a thick rope with a pine-scented air freshener). The official MasterCard website for the commercial refers to it as "the Return of MacGyver".

Lee David Zlotoff the creator of MacGyver, announced on May 3, 2008, that a MacGyver film was in production. Anderson has expressed interest in revisiting his role, however there is no word on who will be playing the role of MacGyver in the film.

Anderson cameoed as Angus MacGyver in what seemed to be a Saturday Night Live advertisement parody featuring the show's recurring character MacGruber (portrayed by Will Forte), but was rather a real commercial for both Saturday Night Live and Pepsi, in which the titular character becomes obsessed with the soft drink. This aired three times during the January 31, 2009 SNL broadcast, and the second part aired again during Super Bowl XLIII on the following day.

Anderson has also played the role of General Jack O'Neill in Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe which first aired in October 2009.
Producer and composer career

Anderson composed a song for a soundtrack for MacGyver. He has served as an executive producer only in the five shows in which he has acted himself: MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis, MacGyver: Trail to Doomsday, Stargate SG-1, Firehouse and From Stargate to Atlantis: Sci Fi Lowdown. Anderson composed the song "Eau d'Leo" for the MacGyver episode "The Negotiator".

Together with Michael Greenburg, Anderson created the Gekko Film Corporation. The company was involved with Stargate SG-1, producing every episode from 1997-2007 with the exception of 2006. The company itself has served as Anderson backing agency.
Personal life

Anderson has divided time between Vancouver, Los Angeles, and northern Minnesota. Never married, Anderson has one child with Apryl Prose, who gave birth to their daughter Wylie Quinn Annarose Anderson, on August 2, 1998. They split a few years later. Anderson left Stargate SG-1 because he wanted to spend more time with his daughter:
“ "Being a father, well, I don't know if this is a change, but it makes me want to get out of here faster. Get off the clock. Just 'cause the baby is my reason for living, my reason for coming to work." ”

Anderson has supported Waterkeeper Alliance, an organization trying to stop water pollution. Anderson is a member of the Board of Trustees for Challengers Boys and Girls Club, a youth organization established in 1968 with the help of MacGyver producer Stephen Downing. He received the 1995 Celebrity Award from the Make-a-Wish Foundation because of his commitment to the foundation. He is also a supporter for various Sclerosis Society non-profit organizations and has done several public service announcements to show his support for the various organizations. Anderson is an avid supporter of the Special Olympics and was one of many speakers at the 1991 opening ceremonies. In recent years, he has helped several environmental organizations around the world. He is a member of Board of Advisors of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and has worked with the members of Earth Rivers Expeditions to Produce River Project.
Filmography
Starring roles
Year Title Role Other notes
1976 General Hospital Dr. Jeff Webber (1976–1981) TV Series
1982 Young Doctors in Love Drug Dealer (uncredited)
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers Adam McFadden (1982–1983) TV Series
1983 Emerald Point N.A.S. Navy Lt. Simon Adams TV Series
DC CAB Bad Guy
1985-1992 MacGyver Angus MacGyver (1985–1992) TV Series
1986 Ordinary Heroes Tony Kaiser
Odd Jobs Spud
1992 In the Eyes of a Stranger Jack Rourke TV
Through the Eyes of a Killer Ray Bellano TV
1994 MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis Angus MacGyver TV
Beyond Betrayal Bradley Matthews TV
MacGyver: Trail to Doomsday Angus MacGyver TV
1995 Legend Ernest Pratt/Nicodemus Legend TV Series
Past the Bleachers Bill Parish TV
1996 Pandora's Clock Capt. James Holland TV
1997 Fallout: A Post-Nuclear Role-Playing Game Mayor Killian Darkwater (voice) Video Game
Firehouse Lt. Michael Brooks TV
1997–2005 Stargate SG-1 Colonel/Brigadier General/Major General Jack O'Neill (USAF) (1997–2005) (recurring 2005-2007) TV Series
2005 Stargate SG-1: The Alliance (Cancelled) AF Brigadier General Jack O'Neill (voice) Video Game
2006 MasterCard Super Bowl XL Commercial Angus MacGyver (never explicitly identified) TV Commercial
2008 Stargate: Continuum Major General Jack O'Neill, USAF Direct-to-DVD Movie
2009 Pepsi "MacGruber" Super Bowl XLIII Commercial MacGyver (named in spot#1, alluded in spots 2 and 3) TV Commercial
TBA Stargate: Revolution Lieutenant General Jack O'Neill, USAF Direct-to-DVD Movie
Guest-starring roles
Year Title Role Episode
1981 The Facts of Life Brian Parker 2.16 "Brian and Sylvia"
Today's F.B.I. Andy McFey "The Fugitive"
1982 The Love Boat Carter Randall 5.24 "Isaac Gets Physical/She Brought Her Mother Along/Cold Feet"
1990 The Arsenio Hall Show Himself
The Joan Rivers Show Himself
1991 The Joan Rivers Show Himself
The Arsenio Hall Show Himself
1992 The Arsenio Hall Show Himself
1996 Late Night with Conan O'Brien Himself
1997 Newton's Apple Himself
1998 Late Night with Conan O'Brien Himself
2000 Donny & Marie Himself
The Martin Short Show Himself
National Geographic Explorer Himself "North America's Last True Wilderness"
2004 The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn Himself
Stargate Atlantis Brigadier General Jack O'Neill, USAF 1.1 "Rising (Part 1)"
2005 Stargate SG-1 Major General Jack O'Neill, USAF 9.1 "Avalon (Part 1)"
Stargate SG-1 Major General Jack O'Neill, USAF z9.3 "Origin"
2006 The Simpsons Himself (voice) 17.17 "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore"
Stargate SG-1 Major General Jack O'Neill, USAF 10.6 "200"
Stargate Atlantis Major General Jack O'Neill, USAF 3.6 "The Real World"
Stargate Atlantis Major General Jack O'Neill, USAF 3.10/3.11 "The Return"
2007 Stargate SG-1 Major General Jack O'Neill, USAF 10.14 "The Shroud"
2009 Stargate Universe Lt. General Jack O'Neill, USAF 1.01 "Air", 1.07 "Earth"
Producer
Year Title Role Other notes
1994 MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis Executive Producer TV
MacGyver: Trail to Doomsday Executive Producer TV
1997 Stargate SG-1 Executive Producer TV Series
Firehouse Executive Producer TV
2004 From Stargate to Atlantis: Sci Fi Lowdown Executive Producer TV
Composer
Year Title Other notes
1988 MacGyver TV Series (song "Eau d'Leo" in episode "The Negotiator")
http://i740.photobucket.com/albums/xx42/rda_bandwidth/firehouse/Firehouse042.jpg
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l52/Jellyman_87/RDA.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y147/RayTheBishie/bio1.jpg
http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg122/mawilson78/mcgyver.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/23/10 at 5:15 am

The person of the day...Freddie Bartholomew
Freddie Bartholomew (March 28, 1924 – January 23, 1992) was a British child actor, popular in 1930s Hollywood films.

Born in London, England, Bartholomew was abandoned by his parents while a baby, and was raised in London by his aunt, whose name he took. While visiting the United States, Bartholomew was reportedly seen by film producer David O. Selznick who was soon to film Charles Dickens' David Copperfield (1935). Selznick had already cast American boy David Holt in the role, but after meeting Bartholomew realised that the character would benefit from being played by a British actor. The all-star film was a success and Bartholomew was cast in a succession of prestigious film productions with some of the most popular stars of the day.

Among his successes of the 1930s were Anna Karenina (1935), with Greta Garbo and Fredric March, Professional Soldier (1935) with Gloria Stuart, Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936) with Dolores Costello, Lloyds of London (1937) with Madeleine Carroll and Tyrone Power, and Captains Courageous (1937) with Spencer Tracy.

By this time Bartholomew's success and level of fame had caused his parents to attempt to gain custody of him. A protracted legal battle saw much of the wealth Bartholomew had amassed spent on legal fees. He continued acting into the 1940s but was much less popular as a teenaged actor, and by the early 1950s had retired from film.

He established a career in advertising and distanced himself from Hollywood. Bartholomew was said to have been bitter over his lost fortune and his experiences in Hollywood, but by the early 1980s he was working as a producer for the soap opera As The World Turns. Shortly before his death he allowed an interview for the television documentary MGM: When the Lion Roars (1992).

He died from heart failure and emphysema in Sarasota, Florida, at the age of 67.

Bartholomew has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contribution to motion pictures, at 6667 Hollywood Boulevard.
Filmography

    * Toyland (1930)
    * Strip, Strip, Hooray (1931)
    * Fascination (1931)
    * Lily Christine (1932) (uncredited)
    * The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger (1935)
    * Anna Karenina (1935)
    * Professional Soldier (1935)
    * David Copperfield (1935)
    * Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936)
    * The Devil is a Sissy (1936)
    * Lloyd's of London (1936)
    * Captains Courageous (1937)
    * Kidnapped (1938)
    * Lord Jeff (1938)
    * Listen, Darling (1938)
    * The Spirit of Culver (1939)
    * Two Bright Boys (1939)
    * Swiss Family Robinson (1940)
    * Tom Brown's School Days (1940)
    * Naval Academy (1941)
    * Cadets on Parade (1942)
    * A Yank at Eton (1942)
    * Junior Army (1942)
    * The Town Went Wild (1944)
    * St. Benny the Dip (1951)

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/23/10 at 5:39 am


The birthday of the day...Richard Dean Anderson
Richard Dean Anderson (born January 23, 1950) is an American television and film actor, producer and composer. He began his television career in 1976 as Dr. Jeff Webber in the American soap opera series General Hospital, then rose to prominence as the lead actor in the television series MacGyver (1985–1992). Anderson later appeared in films, including Through the Eyes of a Killer (1992), Pandora's Clock (1996) and Firehouse (1997).

In 1997, Anderson returned to television as the lead actor of the series Stargate SG-1, a spin-off of the 1994 film Stargate, directed by Roland Emmerich. He played the lead from 1997–2005 and had a recurring role from 2005-07. He was also featured as a guest actor in the American animation show, The Simpsons in the episode "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore". Since 1997, the only film Anderson has starred in is Stargate: Continuum released in 2008 as a spin-off film after Stargate SG-1 was cancelled in 2007. He also appears in the follow-up Stargate series Stargate: Atlantis and Stargate: Universe (as Lieutenant General Jack O'Neill).
Anderson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Stuart Jay Anderson (died in 2003) and Jocelyn Rhae Carter and was the oldest of four brothers. He has Scottish, German, and Norwegian ancestry. He grew up in Roseville, Minnesota and attended Ramsey High School. As a kid, Anderson wanted to become a professional hockey player; this dream was shattered when he broke both his arms. Anderson developed an early interest in music, art and acting. For a short time he tried to become a jazz musician. Eventually he studied to become an actor at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio and later at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota but dropped out before he received his degree because he felt "listless". Right after his junior year in high school, Anderson participated with friends in a cross-country bike ride from Minnesota to Alaska. He then moved to San Francisco, then New York, then moved permanently to Los Angeles. At the start he was making a living with juggling among other things.

Anderson's first role was in the American soap opera, General Hospital as Dr. Jeff Webber from 1976 to 1981. In 1982-1983 He starred as Adam in the CBS television series Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (based very loosely on the movie of the same name). In the 1983-1984 season, he played Lieutenant Simon Adams on the 22-week Dennis Weaver series Emerald Point N.A.S. on CBS, stealing away Celia Warren (Susan Dey), the wife of naval lawyer Jack Warren (Charles Frank). Anderson then played Tony Kaiser in the acclaimed TV movie Ordinary Heroes, which aired in 1986.

Anderson came to fame in the lead role of Angus MacGyver in the hit television series MacGyver, which lasted from 1985 to 1992 and was highly successful throughout its 7-year run. He would go on to produce two follow-up movies to MacGyver, in 1994. After the cancellation of MacGyver, Anderson stated "MacGyver was seven years of being in virtually every frame that was shot and having absolutely no life at all."

In 1995 he co-starred with John de Lancie in Legend, a comic series of only twelve episodes about a dime novel writer within the Wild West who against his will has to play the role of his own fictional character. Originally written as a TV movie, with the decision to make Legend a series, the original teleplay became the two-hour pilot episode. Anderson was applauded for his roles as Ernest Pratt and Nicodemus Legend by many critics, most notably John Connor from The New York Times. Two episodes of MacGyver released in 1990 ("Serenity" (Season 5, Episode 12) and "MacGyver's Women" (Season 6, Episode 8) ) featured Wild Wild West storylines with a style foreshadowing that of the quirky Legend.
Later career
Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Richard Dean Anderson

From 1997 to 2005, Anderson starred as Jack O'Neill in Stargate SG-1, based on the movie Stargate starring Kurt Russell and James Spader. John Symes president of Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer (MGM) called Anderson himself and asked him if he wanted a part in the series. Anderson watched the Stargate film over and over again and came to the conclusion that the film had "great potential" and signed a contract with the Stargate producers. Anderson agreed to become involved with the project if his character was allowed significantly more comedic leeway than Kurt Russell's character in the feature film. He also requested Stargate SG-1 to be more of an ensemble show, so that he would not be carrying the plot alone as on MacGyver. In season eight, he chose to have his character "promoted" to base commander on Don S. Davis's advice. This enabled the late Davis to retire from acting due to his ailing health, and Anderson to take over the smaller role which involved far less on-location shooting so that he could spend more time with his young daughter. The following season, Anderson terminated his status as star and producer of Stargate SG-1 opting to make several guest appearances per season instead, allowing his sizable role to be filled by veteran actors Ben Browder (replacing Anderson as field commander), Claudia Black (replacing Anderson as the comic relief) and Emmy nominee Beau Bridges (replacing Anderson as Base commander).
Anderson at an event with Air Force personnel.

At the Air Force Association's 57th Annual Air Force Anniversary Dinner in Washington, D.C., on September 14, 2004, then-Air Force Chief-of-Staff, General John P. Jumper. presented Anderson with an award because of his role as star and executive producer of Stargate SG-1, a series which portrayed the Air Force in a positive light from its premiere. Anderson was also made an honorary Air Force brigadier general.

A great fan of the television show The Simpsons, which he had continually referenced during his time on SG-1, Anderson was invited in 2005 to guest star on the show. He voiced himself in an episode called "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore" in which he is kidnapped by Selma and Patty Bouvier, Marge Simpson's sisters, his MacGyver character having been their longstanding heartthrob. Dan Castellaneta, the voice actor who portrays Homer Simpson (among other characters), made a guest appearance on Stargate SG-1 ("Citizen Joe") and, in describing his unnatural ability to see the life events of Jack O'Neill, made reference to O'Neill's fondness for The Simpsons.

Anderson briefly reprised his role as Angus MacGyver in 2006 when he appeared in a MasterCard commercial during Super Bowl XL. While the plot follows the "MacGyver Formula", it is somewhat satirical of the series, showing unlikely if not impossible solutions to the obstacles faced by Anderson's character (in one shot, he cuts through a thick rope with a pine-scented air freshener). The official MasterCard website for the commercial refers to it as "the Return of MacGyver".

Lee David Zlotoff the creator of MacGyver, announced on May 3, 2008, that a MacGyver film was in production. Anderson has expressed interest in revisiting his role, however there is no word on who will be playing the role of MacGyver in the film.

Anderson cameoed as Angus MacGyver in what seemed to be a Saturday Night Live advertisement parody featuring the show's recurring character MacGruber (portrayed by Will Forte), but was rather a real commercial for both Saturday Night Live and Pepsi, in which the titular character becomes obsessed with the soft drink. This aired three times during the January 31, 2009 SNL broadcast, and the second part aired again during Super Bowl XLIII on the following day.

Anderson has also played the role of General Jack O'Neill in Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe which first aired in October 2009.
Producer and composer career

Anderson composed a song for a soundtrack for MacGyver. He has served as an executive producer only in the five shows in which he has acted himself: MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis, MacGyver: Trail to Doomsday, Stargate SG-1, Firehouse and From Stargate to Atlantis: Sci Fi Lowdown. Anderson composed the song "Eau d'Leo" for the MacGyver episode "The Negotiator".

Together with Michael Greenburg, Anderson created the Gekko Film Corporation. The company was involved with Stargate SG-1, producing every episode from 1997-2007 with the exception of 2006. The company itself has served as Anderson backing agency.
Personal life

Anderson has divided time between Vancouver, Los Angeles, and northern Minnesota. Never married, Anderson has one child with Apryl Prose, who gave birth to their daughter Wylie Quinn Annarose Anderson, on August 2, 1998. They split a few years later. Anderson left Stargate SG-1 because he wanted to spend more time with his daughter:
“ "Being a father, well, I don't know if this is a change, but it makes me want to get out of here faster. Get off the clock. Just 'cause the baby is my reason for living, my reason for coming to work." ”

Anderson has supported Waterkeeper Alliance, an organization trying to stop water pollution. Anderson is a member of the Board of Trustees for Challengers Boys and Girls Club, a youth organization established in 1968 with the help of MacGyver producer Stephen Downing. He received the 1995 Celebrity Award from the Make-a-Wish Foundation because of his commitment to the foundation. He is also a supporter for various Sclerosis Society non-profit organizations and has done several public service announcements to show his support for the various organizations. Anderson is an avid supporter of the Special Olympics and was one of many speakers at the 1991 opening ceremonies. In recent years, he has helped several environmental organizations around the world. He is a member of Board of Advisors of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and has worked with the members of Earth Rivers Expeditions to Produce River Project.
Filmography
Starring roles
Year Title Role Other notes
1976 General Hospital Dr. Jeff Webber (1976–1981) TV Series
1982 Young Doctors in Love Drug Dealer (uncredited)
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers Adam McFadden (1982–1983) TV Series
1983 Emerald Point N.A.S. Navy Lt. Simon Adams TV Series
DC CAB Bad Guy
1985-1992 MacGyver Angus MacGyver (1985–1992) TV Series
1986 Ordinary Heroes Tony Kaiser
Odd Jobs Spud
1992 In the Eyes of a Stranger Jack Rourke TV
Through the Eyes of a Killer Ray Bellano TV
1994 MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis Angus MacGyver TV
Beyond Betrayal Bradley Matthews TV
MacGyver: Trail to Doomsday Angus MacGyver TV
1995 Legend Ernest Pratt/Nicodemus Legend TV Series
Past the Bleachers Bill Parish TV
1996 Pandora's Clock Capt. James Holland TV
1997 Fallout: A Post-Nuclear Role-Playing Game Mayor Killian Darkwater (voice) Video Game
Firehouse Lt. Michael Brooks TV
1997–2005 Stargate SG-1 Colonel/Brigadier General/Major General Jack O'Neill (USAF) (1997–2005) (recurring 2005-2007) TV Series
2005 Stargate SG-1: The Alliance (Cancelled) AF Brigadier General Jack O'Neill (voice) Video Game
2006 MasterCard Super Bowl XL Commercial Angus MacGyver (never explicitly identified) TV Commercial
2008 Stargate: Continuum Major General Jack O'Neill, USAF Direct-to-DVD Movie
2009 Pepsi "MacGruber" Super Bowl XLIII Commercial MacGyver (named in spot#1, alluded in spots 2 and 3) TV Commercial
TBA Stargate: Revolution Lieutenant General Jack O'Neill, USAF Direct-to-DVD Movie
Guest-starring roles
Year Title Role Episode
1981 The Facts of Life Brian Parker 2.16 "Brian and Sylvia"
Today's F.B.I. Andy McFey "The Fugitive"
1982 The Love Boat Carter Randall 5.24 "Isaac Gets Physical/She Brought Her Mother Along/Cold Feet"
1990 The Arsenio Hall Show Himself
The Joan Rivers Show Himself
1991 The Joan Rivers Show Himself
The Arsenio Hall Show Himself
1992 The Arsenio Hall Show Himself
1996 Late Night with Conan O'Brien Himself
1997 Newton's Apple Himself
1998 Late Night with Conan O'Brien Himself
2000 Donny & Marie Himself
The Martin Short Show Himself
National Geographic Explorer Himself "North America's Last True Wilderness"
2004 The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn Himself
Stargate Atlantis Brigadier General Jack O'Neill, USAF 1.1 "Rising (Part 1)"
2005 Stargate SG-1 Major General Jack O'Neill, USAF 9.1 "Avalon (Part 1)"
Stargate SG-1 Major General Jack O'Neill, USAF z9.3 "Origin"
2006 The Simpsons Himself (voice) 17.17 "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore"
Stargate SG-1 Major General Jack O'Neill, USAF 10.6 "200"
Stargate Atlantis Major General Jack O'Neill, USAF 3.6 "The Real World"
Stargate Atlantis Major General Jack O'Neill, USAF 3.10/3.11 "The Return"
2007 Stargate SG-1 Major General Jack O'Neill, USAF 10.14 "The Shroud"
2009 Stargate Universe Lt. General Jack O'Neill, USAF 1.01 "Air", 1.07 "Earth"
Producer
Year Title Role Other notes
1994 MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis Executive Producer TV
MacGyver: Trail to Doomsday Executive Producer TV
1997 Stargate SG-1 Executive Producer TV Series
Firehouse Executive Producer TV
2004 From Stargate to Atlantis: Sci Fi Lowdown Executive Producer TV
Composer
Year Title Other notes
1988 MacGyver TV Series (song "Eau d'Leo" in episode "The Negotiator")
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I remember him on MacGyver.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/23/10 at 7:55 am

The firehouse in Ponce, PR

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/32/41774619_e0b3eb7625.jpg?v=0


This is NOT my photo. I have yet to get a good shot of this building.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/23/10 at 8:03 am


The firehouse in Ponce, PR

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/32/41774619_e0b3eb7625.jpg?v=0


This is NOT my photo. I have yet to get a good shot of this building.



Cat

That's a nice looking firehouse.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/24/10 at 3:10 am

The word of the day...Fool
If you call someone a fool, you are indicating that you think they are not at all sensible and show a lack of good judgment.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/24/10 at 3:13 am

The birthday of the day...Aaron Neville
Aaron Neville (born January 24, 1941 in New Orleans, Louisiana) is an American soul and R&B singer. He made his debut in 1966 with the hit single "Tell It Like It Is", a Number One hit on the Billboard R&B charts. Neville did not chart again, however, until 1989, when he collaborated with Linda Ronstadt on three consecutive duets: "Don't Know Much", "All My Life", and "When Something Is Wrong with My Baby", of which the first two reached Number One on the Adult Contemporary charts. Neville has released more than 20 singles, including three Number Ones on the Adult Contemporary format, and a fourth on the R&B format.
Aaron Neville has had a career as a solo artist and as one of The Neville Brothers. Of mixed African American and Native American heritage, his music also features Cajun and Creole influences.

Neville first came to public recognition with "Tell It Like It Is" which topped Billboard's R&B chart for five weeks in 1967. It also reached #2 on the Hot 100. A remake of the song was a Top 10 Pop hit for the Rock group Heart featuring Ann and Nancy Wilson in 1981.

In 1989 Neville teamed up with Linda Ronstadt on the album Cry Like A Rainstorm - Howl Like The Wind. Among the duets recorded for the disc were the #1 Grammy-winning hits "Don't Know Much" and "All My Life". "Don't Know Much" was certified Gold while the album was certified Triple Platinum for US sales of more than 3 million.

His other hits have included "Everybody Plays the Fool", his successful 1991 cover of the 1972 Main Ingredient song, that reached #8 on the Hot 100; "Don't Take Away My Heaven", "Hercules" and "Can't Stop My Heart From Loving You (The Rain Song)." Neville's biggest solo successes have been on the Adult Contemporary chart, where "Don't Know Much," "All My Life," and "Everybody Plays the Fool" all reached Number One.

In August 2005 his home in Eastern New Orleans was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina; he evacuated to Memphis, Tennessee before the hurricane hit. He moved to Nashville after the storm, and had yet to return to the city as of early 2008, causing the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival to temporarily change its tradition of having the Neville Brothers close the festival. However, the Neville Brothers, including Aaron, returned for the 2008 Jazzfest, which returned to its traditional seven-day format for the first time since Katrina. Neville is in the process of moving back to the New Orleans area, namely the North Shore city of Covington. Neville performed Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1927" during NBC's A Concert for Hurricane Relief on September 2, 2005.

Aaron signed to SonyBMG's new Burgundy Records label in late 2005 and recorded an album of songs by Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Sam Cooke and others for Bring It on Home…The Soul Classics, released on September 19, 2006. The album, produced by Stewart Levine, features collaborations between Neville and Chaka Khan, Mavis Staples, Chris Botti, David Sanborn, Art Neville, and others. The album's first single was a remake of The Impressions' 1963 classic "It's All Right."
Aaron Neville with his distinctive mole visible above his right eye (1990)

Neville's career has included work for television, movies and sporting events. Neville sang the National Anthem in the movie The Fan starring Robert De Niro and Wesley Snipes. He also sang the anthem at the WWF's SummerSlam 1993 and at WCW Spring Stampede in 1994. Neville sang the theme music to the children's TV series Fisher-Price Little People. He also sang a new version of "Cotton," for Cotton, Inc. which was introduced during the 1992 Summer Olympics. In 1988 he recorded "Mickey Mouse March" for Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films, one of Various Artists. In 2006, Neville sang "The Star-Spangled Banner", alongside Queen Of Soul Aretha Franklin and Dr. John on keyboard at Super Bowl XL in Detroit, Michigan. In addition, Neville (along with brothers Art and Cyril) did background vocals for the songs "Great Heart", "Bring Back the Magic", "Homemade Music", "My Barracuda", and "Smart Woman (in a Real Short Skirt)" on Jimmy Buffett's Hot Water, released in 1988.

On October 27, 2006, Neville made a guest appearance on an episode of the soap opera The Young and the Restless. He sang "Stand By Me" and "Ain't No Sunshine", from his new album, Bring It on Home…The Soul Classics. In 2008 Aaron released Gold, which includes two CDs of his hits.

Neville's oldest son Ivan is also a musician and released an album, If My Ancestors Could See Me Now, in 1988, which yielded a Top 40 hit with "Not Just Another Girl." Ivan has also performed with the Rolling Stones and Bonnie Raitt, and played bass for Keith Richards on his first solo tour. Ivan then assembled his own band (Ivan Neville's Dumpstphunk)which tours and frequently appears in New Orleans.

Aaron's third son, Jason, is a vocalist and rap artist who has performed with his father and with the Neville Brothers, notably at the 2009 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Aaron Neville is an inductee of the Delta Music Museum Hall of Fame in Ferriday.

In 2009, Aaron Neville, along with the Mt. Zion Mass Choir, released a version of the song “A Change Is Gonna Come” on the compilation album Oh Happy Day.
Spiritual life

Neville is a Roman Catholic with a devotion to St. Jude, to whom he has credited his success and survival. He wears a St. Jude Medal as a left earring.
Discography
Studio albums
Year Album Chart Positions Certifications Label
US R&B US Christian US Gospel US Jazz US CAN US CAN
1965 Tell It Like It Is — — — — — — — — Par-Lo Records
1986 Orchid in the Storm — — — — — — — — Rhino
1991 Warm Your Heart 62 — — — 44 25 Platinum Gold A&M
1993 The Grand Tour — — — — 37 — Platinum Gold
Aaron Neville's Soulful Christmas — — — — 36 — Platinum Gold
1995 The Tattooed Heart 50 — — — 64 — Gold —
1997 To Make Me Who I Am 73 — — — 188 — — —
2000 Devotion — 28 7 — — — — — Chordant
2002 Humdinger — — — — — — — — EMI
2003 Believe — 14 2 — 191 — — — Telit
Nature Boy: The Standards Album 85 — — 1 — — — — Verve
2005 Gospel Roots — — — — — — — — Chordant
2005 Christmas Prayer 74 14 3 — — — — — EMI Gospel
2006 Mojo Soul — — — — — — — — Music Avenue
Bring It On Home... The Soul Classics 20 — — — 37 — — — Burgundy
Singles
Year Single Chart Positions Album
US US AC US R&B US Country CAN CAN AC CAN Country
1960 "Over You" 111 — 21 — — — — Singles only
1966 "Tell It Like It Is" 2 1 1 — — 2 —
1967 "She Took You for a Ride" 92 — — — — — —
1989 "Don't Know Much" (w/ Linda Ronstadt) 2 1 — — 4 1 — Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind
(Linda Ronstadt album)
1990 "All My Life" (w/ Linda Ronstadt) 11 1 — — 10 1 —
"When Something Is Wrong with My Baby" (w/ Linda Ronstadt) 78 5 — — 29 — —
1991 "Everybody Plays the Fool" 8 1 — — 19 — — Warm Your Heart
"Somewhere Somebody" — 6 — — 43 15 —
1992 "Close Your Eyes" (w/ Linda Ronstadt) — — — — 90 — —
1993 "Don't Take Away My Heaven" 56 4 — — 17 12 — The Grand Tour
"The Grand Tour" 90 — — 38 — — 58
"Don't Fall Apart on Me Tonight" — 26 — — 37 — —
1994 "I Owe You One" — — — — 51 29 —
"I Fall to Pieces" (w/ Trisha Yearwood) — — — 72 — — — Rhythm, Country and Blues
"Even If My Heart Would Break" (w/ Kenny G.) 122 — — — — — — The Bodyguard soundtrack
"Betcha By Golly, Wow" — — — — 32 — — The Grand Tour
1995 "Can't Stop My Heart from Loving You (The Rain Song)" 99 23 — — — — — The Tattooed Heart
"For the Good Times" — — — — — — —
1996 "Use Me" — — 93 — — — —
"Crazy Love" (w/ Robbie Robertson) — 25 — — — — — Phenomenon (soundtrack)
"That's What My Love Is For" (w/ Anne Murray) — — — — — 15 — Anne Murray (Anne Murray album)
1997 "Say What's in My Heart" — 26 — — — — — To Make Me Who I Am
2006 "It's All Right"A — 28 — — — — — Bring It On Home... The Soul Classics

    * A"It's All Right" peaked at #12 on Hot Contemporary Jazz Songs.

Compilations

    * Love Songs (2003)
    * Gold(2008)
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/24/10 at 3:22 am

The person of the day...Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British politician known chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II. He served as Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, historian, writer, and artist. He was the only British Prime Minister to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature and the first person to be recognised as an Honorary Citizen of the United States.

During his army career, Churchill saw military action in India, in the Sudan and the Second Boer War. He gained fame and notoriety as a war correspondent and through contemporary books he wrote describing the campaigns. He also served briefly in the British Army on the Western Front in World War I, commanding the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers.

At the forefront of the political scene for almost fifty years, he held many political and cabinet positions. Before the First World War, he served as President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary and First Lord of the Admiralty as part of the Asquith Liberal government. During the war he continued as First Lord of the Admiralty until the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign caused his departure from government. He returned as Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air. In the interwar years, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Conservative government.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, Churchill was again appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain on 10 May 1940, he became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and led Britain to victory against the Axis powers. Churchill was always noted for his speeches, which became a great inspiration to the British people and embattled Allied forces.

After losing the 1945 election, he became Leader of the Opposition. In 1951, he again became Prime Minister before finally retiring in 1955. Upon his death, the Queen granted him the honour of a state funeral, which saw one of the largest assemblies of statesmen in the world.
Winston is back"

After the outbreak of World War II, on 3 September 1939 the day Britain declared war on Germany, Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and a member of the War Cabinet, just as he had been during the first part of World War I. When they were informed, the Board of the Admiralty sent a signal to the Fleet: "Winston is back". In this job, he proved to be one of the highest-profile ministers during the so-called "Phoney War", when the only noticeable action was at sea. Churchill advocated the pre-emptive occupation of the neutral Norwegian iron-ore port of Narvik and the iron mines in Kiruna, Sweden, early in the war. However, Chamberlain and the rest of the War Cabinet disagreed, and the operation was delayed until the successful German invasion of Norway.
Churchill wears a helmet during an air raid warning in the Battle of Britain in 1940
Bitter beginnings of the war
See also: Attack on Mers-el-Kébir

On 10 May 1940, hours before the German invasion of France by a lightning advance through the Low Countries, it became clear that, following failure in Norway, the country had no confidence in Chamberlain's prosecution of the war and so Chamberlain resigned. The commonly accepted version of events states that Lord Halifax turned down the post of Prime Minister because he believed he could not govern effectively as a member of the House of Lords instead of the House of Commons. Although the Prime Minister does not traditionally advise the King on the former's successor, Chamberlain wanted someone who would command the support of all three major parties in the House of Commons. A meeting between Chamberlain, Halifax, Churchill and David Margesson, the government Chief Whip, led to the recommendation of Churchill, and, as a constitutional monarch, George VI asked Churchill to be Prime Minister and to form an all-party government. Churchill's first act was to write to Chamberlain to thank him for his support.
Churchill takes aim with a Sten submachine gun in June 1941. The man in the pin-striped suit and trilby on Churchill's left is his bodyguard, Walter H. Thompson

Churchill had been among the first to recognise the growing threat of Hitler long before the outset of the Second World War, and his warnings had gone largely unheeded. Although there was an element of British public and political sentiment favouring negotiated peace with a clearly ascendant Germany, among them the Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax, Churchill nonetheless refused to consider an armistice with Hitler's Germany. His use of rhetoric hardened public opinion against a peaceful resolution and prepared the British for a long war. Coining the general term for the upcoming battle, Churchill stated in his "finest hour" speech to the House of Commons on 18 June 1940, "I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin." By refusing an armistice with Germany, Churchill kept resistance alive in the British Empire and created the basis for the later Allied counter-attacks of 1942–45, with Britain serving as a platform for the supply of Soviet Union and the liberation of Western Europe.

In response to previous criticisms that there had been no clear single minister in charge of the prosecution of the war, Churchill created and took the additional position of Minister of Defence. He immediately put his friend and confidant, the industrialist and newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook, in charge of aircraft production. It was Beaverbrook's business acumen that allowed Britain to quickly gear up aircraft production and engineering that eventually made the difference in the war.
Winston Churchill walks through the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, 1941

Churchill's speeches were a great inspiration to the embattled British. His first speech as Prime Minister was the famous "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat". He followed that closely with two other equally famous ones, given just before the Battle of Britain. One included the words:

    ... we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

The other:

    Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour'.

Churchill with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Field Marshal Alan Brooke, 1944

At the height of the Battle of Britain, his bracing survey of the situation included the memorable line "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few", which engendered the enduring nickname The Few for the RAF fighter pilots who won it. One of his most memorable war speeches came on 10 November 1942 at the Lord Mayor's Luncheon at Mansion House in London, in response to the Allied victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein. Churchill stated:

    This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Without having much in the way of sustenance or good news to offer the British people, he took a political risk in deliberately choosing to emphasise the dangers instead.

"Rhetorical power", wrote Churchill, "is neither wholly bestowed, nor wholly acquired, but cultivated." Not all were impressed by his oratory. Robert Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia and himself a gifted phrase-maker, said of Churchill during World War II: "His real tyrant is the glittering phrase so attractive to his mind that awkward facts have to give way." Another associate wrote: "He is... the slave of the words which his mind forms about ideas.... And he can convince himself of almost every truth if it is once allowed thus to start on its wild career through his rhetorical machinery."
Relations with the United States
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Churchill at the Cairo Conference in 1943

Churchill's good relationship with Franklin D. Roosevelt secured vital food, oil and munitions via the North Atlantic shipping routes. It was for this reason that Churchill was relieved when Roosevelt was re-elected in 1940. Upon re-election, Roosevelt immediately set about implementing a new method of providing military hardware and shipping to Britain without the need for monetary payment. Put simply, Roosevelt persuaded Congress that repayment for this immensely costly service would take the form of defending the US; and so Lend-lease was born. Churchill had 12 strategic conferences with Roosevelt which covered the Atlantic Charter, Europe first strategy, the Declaration by the United Nations and other war policies. After Pearl Harbor was attacked, Churchill's first thought in anticipation of US help was, "We have won the war!" On 26 December 1941, Churchill addressed a joint meeting of the US Congress, asking of Germany and Japan, "What kind of people do they think we are?" Churchill initiated the Special Operations Executive (SOE) under Hugh Dalton's Ministry of Economic Warfare, which established, conducted and fostered covert, subversive and partisan operations in occupied territories with notable success; and also the Commandos which established the pattern for most of the world's current Special Forces. The Russians referred to him as the "British Bulldog".

Churchill's health was fragile, as shown by a mild heart attack he suffered in December 1941 at the White House and also in December 1943 when he contracted pneumonia. Despite this, he travelled over 100,000 miles (160,000 km) throughout the war to meet other national leaders. For security, he usually travelled using the alias Colonel Warden.

Churchill was party to treaties that would redraw post-World War II European and Asian boundaries. These were discussed as early as 1943. At the Second Quebec Conference in 1944 he drafted and, together with US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, signed a toned-down version of the original Morgenthau Plan, in which they pledged to convert Germany after its unconditional surrender "into a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in its character." Proposals for European boundaries and settlements were officially agreed to by Harry S. Truman, Churchill, and Stalin at Potsdam. Churchill's strong relationship with Harry Truman was also of great significance to both countries. While he clearly regretted the loss of his close friend and counterpart Roosevelt, Churchill was enormously supportive of Truman in his first days in office, calling him, "the type of leader the world needs when it needs him most."
Relations with the Soviet Union
Churchill secretly meets with President Ismet Inönü at the Yenice Station 15 miles (24 km) outside of Adana in south-east Turkey, on 30 January 1943

When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Winston Churchill, a vehement anti-Communist, famously stated "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons," regarding his policy toward Stalin. Soon, British supplies and tanks were flowing to help the Soviet Union.

The settlement concerning the borders of Poland, that is, the boundary between Poland and the Soviet Union and between Germany and Poland, was viewed as a betrayal in Poland during the post-war years, as it was established against the views of the Polish government in exile. It was Winston Churchill, who tried to motivate Mikołajczyk, who was Prime Minister of the Polish government in exile, to accept Stalin's wishes, but Mikołajczyk refused. Churchill was convinced that the only way to alleviate tensions between the two populations was the transfer of people, to match the national borders.

As he expounded in the House of Commons on 15 December 1944, "Expulsion is the method which, insofar as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble... A clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed by these transferences, which are more possible in modern conditions." However the resulting expulsions of Germans were carried out in a way which resulted in much hardship and, according to a 1966 report by the West German Ministry of Refugees and Displaced Persons, the death of over 2.1 million. Churchill opposed the effective annexation of Poland by the Soviet Union and wrote bitterly about it in his books, but he was unable to prevent it at the conferences.
Winston Churchill at the Yalta Conference, with Roosevelt and Stalin beside him

During October 1944, he and Eden were in Moscow to meet with the Russian leadership. At this point, Russian forces were beginning to advance into various eastern European countries. Churchill held the view that until everything was formally and properly worked out at the Yalta conference, there had to be a temporary, war-time, working agreement with regard to who would run what. The most significant of these meetings were held on 9 October 1944 in the Kremlin between Churchill and Stalin. During the meeting, Poland and the Balkan problems were discussed. Churchill recounted his speech to Stalin on the day:

    Let us settle about our affairs in the Balkans. Your armies are in Rumania and Bulgaria. We have interests, missions, and agents there. Don't let us get at cross-purposes in small ways. So far as Britain and Russia are concerned, how would it do for you to have ninety per cent predominance in Rumania, for us to have ninety per cent of the say in Greece, and go fifty-fifty about Yugoslavia?

Stalin agreed to this Percentages Agreement, ticking a piece of paper as he heard the translation. In 1958, five years after the recount of this meeting was published (in The Second World War), authorities of the Soviet denied that Stalin accepted the "imperialist proposal".

One of the conclusions of the Yalta Conference was that the Allies would return all Soviet citizens that found themselves in the Allied zone to the Soviet Union. This immediately affected the Soviet prisoners of war liberated by the Allies, but was also extended to all Eastern European refugees. Solzhenitsyn called the Operation Keelhaul "the last secret of World War II." The operation decided the fate of up to two million post-war refugees fleeing eastern Europe.
Dresden bombings controversy
Main article: Bombing of Dresden in World War II
Historical footage of the destruction of Dresden, February 1945

Between 13 February and 15 February 1945, British and the US bombers attacked the German city of Dresden, which was crowded with German wounded and refugees. Because of the cultural importance of the city, and of the number of civilian casualties close to the end of the war, this remains one of the most controversial Western Allied actions of the war. Following the bombing Churchill stated in a top secret telegram:

    It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed... I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives such as oil and communications behind the immediate battle-zone, rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton destruction, however impressive.

On reflection, under pressure from the Chiefs of Staff and in response to the views expressed by Sir Charles Portal (Chief of the Air Staff,) and Arthur Harris (AOC-in-C of RAF Bomber Command), among others, Churchill withdrew his memo and issued a new one. This final version of the memo completed on 1 April 1945, stated:

    It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of the so called 'area-bombing' of German cities should be reviewed from the point of view of our own interests. If we come into control of an entirely ruined land, there will be a great shortage of accommodation for ourselves and our allies... We must see to it that our attacks do no more harm to ourselves in the long run than they do to the enemy's war effort.

Ultimately, responsibility for the British part of the attack lay with Churchill, which is why he has been criticised for allowing the bombings to happen. The German historian Jörg Friedrich, claims that "Winston Churchill's decision to bomb a shattered Germany between January and May 1945 was a war crime" and writing in 2006 the philosopher A. C. Grayling questioned the whole strategic bombing campaign by the RAF presenting the argument that although it was not a war crime it was a moral crime and undermines the Allies contention that they fought a just war. On the other hand, it has also been asserted that Churchill's involvement in the bombing of Dresden was based on the strategic and tactical aspects of winning the war. The destruction of Dresden, while immense, was designed to expedite the defeat of Germany. As the historian Max Hastings said in an article subtitled, "the Allied Bombing of Dresden": "I believe it is wrong to describe strategic bombing as a war crime, for this might be held to suggest some moral equivalence with the deeds of the Nazis. Bombing represented a sincere, albeit mistaken, attempt to bring about Germany's military defeat." Furthermore British historian, Frederick Taylor asserts that "All sides bombed each other's cities during the war. Half a million Soviet citizens, for example, died from German bombing during the invasion and occupation of Russia. That's roughly equivalent to the number of German citizens who died from Allied raids. But the Allied bombing campaign was attached to military operations and ceased as soon as military operations ceased."
The Second World War ends
Churchill waves to crowds in Whitheall on the day he broadcast to the nation that the war with Germany had been won, 8 May 1945.

In June 1944, the Allied Forces invaded Normandy and pushed the Nazi forces back into Germany on a broad front over the coming year. After being attacked on three fronts by the Allies, and in spite of Allied failures, such as Operation Market Garden, and German counter-attacks, including the Battle of the Bulge, Germany was eventually defeated. On 7 May 1945 at the SHAEF headquarters in Rheims the Allies accepted Germany's surrender. On the same day in a BBC news flash John Snagge announced that 8 May would be Victory in Europe Day. On Victory in Europe Day, Churchill broadcast to the nation that Germany had surrendered and that a final cease fire on all fronts in Europe would come into effect at one minute past midnight that night. Afterwards Churchill told a huge crowd in Whitheall: "This is your victory." The people shouted: "No, it is yours", and Churchill then conducted them in the singing of Land of Hope and Glory. In the evening he made another broadcast to the nation asserting the defeat of Japan in the coming months. The Japanese later surrendered on 15 August 1945.

As Europe celebrated peace at the end of six years of war, Churchill was concerning on the possibility that the celebrations would soon be brutally interrupted. He concluded that the UK and the US must prepare for the Red Army ignoring previously agreed frontiers and agreements in Europe "to impose upon Russia the will of the United States and the British Empire." According to the Operation Unthinkable plan ordered by Churchill and developed by the British Armed Forces, the Third World War could have started on 1 July 1945 with a sudden attack against the allied Soviet troops. The plan was rejected by the British Chiefs of Staff Committee as militarily unfeasible. However this decision didn't stop the further development of the war plans: with the beginning of an arms race, the militarily unfeasible Third World War developed instead into the Cold War doctrine.
Return to government and the decline of the British Empire

After the General Election of 1951, Churchill again became Prime Minister. His third government—after the wartime national government and the brief caretaker government of 1945—lasted until his resignation in 1955. His domestic priorities in his last government were overshadowed by a series of foreign policy crises, which were partly the result of the continued decline of British military and imperial prestige and power. Being a strong proponent of Britain as an international power, Churchill would often meet such moments with direct action. One example was his dispatch of British troops to Kenya to deal with the Mau Mau rebellion. Trying to retain what he could of the Empire, he once stated that, "I will not preside over a dismemberment."
War in Malaya

This was followed by events which became known as the Malayan Emergency. In Malaya, a rebellion against British rule had been in progress since 1948. Once again, Churchill's government inherited a crisis, and Churchill chose to use direct military action against those in rebellion while attempting to build an alliance with those who were not. While the rebellion was slowly being defeated, it was equally clear that colonial rule from Britain was no longer sustainable.
Relations with the United States

Churchill also devoted much of his time in office to Anglo-American relations and although Churchill did not always agree with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Churchill attempted to maintain the Special Relationship with the United States. He made four official transatlantic visits to America during his second term as Prime Minister.
The series of strokes

Churchill had suffered a mild stroke while on holiday in the south of France in the summer of 1949. In June 1953, when he was 78, Churchill suffered a more severe stroke at 10 Downing Street. News of this was kept from the public and from Parliament, who were told that Churchill was suffering from exhaustion. He went to his country home, Chartwell, to recuperate from the effects of the stroke which had affected his speech and ability to walk. He returned to public life in October to make a speech at a Conservative Party conference at Margate. However, aware that he was slowing down both physically and mentally, Churchill retired as Prime Minister in 1955 and was succeeded by Anthony Eden. He suffered another mild stroke in February 1956.
Retirement and death
Churchill spent much of his retirement at his home Chartwell in Kent. He purchased it in 1922 after his daughter Mary was born.

Elizabeth II offered to create Churchill Duke of London, but this was declined due to the objections of his son Randolph, who would have inherited the title on his father's death. After leaving the premiership, Churchill spent less time in parliament until he stood down at the 1964 General Election. As a mere "back-bencher," Churchill spent most of his retirement at Chartwell and at his home in Hyde Park Gate, in London. In the 1959 General Election Churchill's majority fell by more than a thousand, since many young voters in his constituency did not support an 85-year-old who could only enter the House of Commons in a wheelchair. As his mental and physical faculties decayed, he began to lose the battle he had fought for so long against the "black dog" of depression. There was speculation that Churchill may have had Alzheimer's disease in his last years, although others maintain that his reduced mental capacity was merely the result of a series of strokes. In 1963, US President John F. Kennedy, acting under authorisation granted by an Act of Congress, proclaimed him an Honorary Citizen of the United States, but he was unable to attend the White House ceremony. On 15 January 1965, Churchill suffered a severe stroke that left him gravely ill. He died at his home nine days later, at age 90, on the morning of Sunday 24 January 1965, coincidentally 70 years to the day after his father's death.
Funeral
Churchill's grave at St Martin's Church, Bladon

By decree of the Queen, his body lay in state for three days and a state funeral service was held at St Paul's Cathedral. As his coffin passed down the Thames from Tower Pier to Festival Pier on the Havengore, dockers lowered their crane jibs in a salute. The Royal Artillery fired a 19-gun salute (as head of government), and the RAF staged a fly-by of sixteen English Electric Lightning fighters. The coffin was then taken the short distance to Waterloo Station where it was loaded onto a specially prepared and painted carriage as part of the funeral train for its rail journey to Bladon. The funeral also saw one of the largest assemblages of statesmen in the world. The funeral train of Pullman coaches carrying his family mourners was hauled by Bulleid Pacific steam locomotive No. 34051 "Winston Churchill". In the fields along the route, and at the stations through which the train passed, thousands stood in silence to pay their last respects. At Churchill's request, he was buried in the family plot at St Martin's Church, Bladon, near Woodstock, not far from his birthplace at Blenheim Palace. Churchill's funeral van – Southern Railway Van S2464S – is now part of a preservation project with the Swanage Railway having been repatriated to the UK in 2007 from the USA where it was exported in 1965
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/24/10 at 3:23 am

ninny, up early today?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/24/10 at 3:24 am


The word of the day...Fool
If you call someone a fool, you are indicating that you think they are not at all sensible and show a lack of good judgment.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKZHwf5q22g

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/24/10 at 3:26 am


The person of the day...Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British politician known chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II. He served as Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, historian, writer, and artist. He was the only British Prime Minister to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature and the first person to be recognised as an Honorary Citizen of the United States.

During his army career, Churchill saw military action in India, in the Sudan and the Second Boer War. He gained fame and notoriety as a war correspondent and through contemporary books he wrote describing the campaigns. He also served briefly in the British Army on the Western Front in World War I, commanding the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers.

At the forefront of the political scene for almost fifty years, he held many political and cabinet positions. Before the First World War, he served as President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary and First Lord of the Admiralty as part of the Asquith Liberal government. During the war he continued as First Lord of the Admiralty until the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign caused his departure from government. He returned as Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air. In the interwar years, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Conservative government.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, Churchill was again appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain on 10 May 1940, he became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and led Britain to victory against the Axis powers. Churchill was always noted for his speeches, which became a great inspiration to the British people and embattled Allied forces.

After losing the 1945 election, he became Leader of the Opposition. In 1951, he again became Prime Minister before finally retiring in 1955. Upon his death, the Queen granted him the honour of a state funeral, which saw one of the largest assemblies of statesmen in the world.
Winston is back"

After the outbreak of World War II, on 3 September 1939 the day Britain declared war on Germany, Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and a member of the War Cabinet, just as he had been during the first part of World War I. When they were informed, the Board of the Admiralty sent a signal to the Fleet: "Winston is back". In this job, he proved to be one of the highest-profile ministers during the so-called "Phoney War", when the only noticeable action was at sea. Churchill advocated the pre-emptive occupation of the neutral Norwegian iron-ore port of Narvik and the iron mines in Kiruna, Sweden, early in the war. However, Chamberlain and the rest of the War Cabinet disagreed, and the operation was delayed until the successful German invasion of Norway.
Churchill wears a helmet during an air raid warning in the Battle of Britain in 1940
Bitter beginnings of the war
See also: Attack on Mers-el-Kébir

On 10 May 1940, hours before the German invasion of France by a lightning advance through the Low Countries, it became clear that, following failure in Norway, the country had no confidence in Chamberlain's prosecution of the war and so Chamberlain resigned. The commonly accepted version of events states that Lord Halifax turned down the post of Prime Minister because he believed he could not govern effectively as a member of the House of Lords instead of the House of Commons. Although the Prime Minister does not traditionally advise the King on the former's successor, Chamberlain wanted someone who would command the support of all three major parties in the House of Commons. A meeting between Chamberlain, Halifax, Churchill and David Margesson, the government Chief Whip, led to the recommendation of Churchill, and, as a constitutional monarch, George VI asked Churchill to be Prime Minister and to form an all-party government. Churchill's first act was to write to Chamberlain to thank him for his support.
Churchill takes aim with a Sten submachine gun in June 1941. The man in the pin-striped suit and trilby on Churchill's left is his bodyguard, Walter H. Thompson

Churchill had been among the first to recognise the growing threat of Hitler long before the outset of the Second World War, and his warnings had gone largely unheeded. Although there was an element of British public and political sentiment favouring negotiated peace with a clearly ascendant Germany, among them the Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax, Churchill nonetheless refused to consider an armistice with Hitler's Germany. His use of rhetoric hardened public opinion against a peaceful resolution and prepared the British for a long war. Coining the general term for the upcoming battle, Churchill stated in his "finest hour" speech to the House of Commons on 18 June 1940, "I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin." By refusing an armistice with Germany, Churchill kept resistance alive in the British Empire and created the basis for the later Allied counter-attacks of 1942–45, with Britain serving as a platform for the supply of Soviet Union and the liberation of Western Europe.

In response to previous criticisms that there had been no clear single minister in charge of the prosecution of the war, Churchill created and took the additional position of Minister of Defence. He immediately put his friend and confidant, the industrialist and newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook, in charge of aircraft production. It was Beaverbrook's business acumen that allowed Britain to quickly gear up aircraft production and engineering that eventually made the difference in the war.
Winston Churchill walks through the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, 1941

Churchill's speeches were a great inspiration to the embattled British. His first speech as Prime Minister was the famous "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat". He followed that closely with two other equally famous ones, given just before the Battle of Britain. One included the words:

    ... we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

The other:

    Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour'.

Churchill with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Field Marshal Alan Brooke, 1944

At the height of the Battle of Britain, his bracing survey of the situation included the memorable line "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few", which engendered the enduring nickname The Few for the RAF fighter pilots who won it. One of his most memorable war speeches came on 10 November 1942 at the Lord Mayor's Luncheon at Mansion House in London, in response to the Allied victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein. Churchill stated:

    This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Without having much in the way of sustenance or good news to offer the British people, he took a political risk in deliberately choosing to emphasise the dangers instead.

"Rhetorical power", wrote Churchill, "is neither wholly bestowed, nor wholly acquired, but cultivated." Not all were impressed by his oratory. Robert Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia and himself a gifted phrase-maker, said of Churchill during World War II: "His real tyrant is the glittering phrase so attractive to his mind that awkward facts have to give way." Another associate wrote: "He is... the slave of the words which his mind forms about ideas.... And he can convince himself of almost every truth if it is once allowed thus to start on its wild career through his rhetorical machinery."
Relations with the United States
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Churchill at the Cairo Conference in 1943

Churchill's good relationship with Franklin D. Roosevelt secured vital food, oil and munitions via the North Atlantic shipping routes. It was for this reason that Churchill was relieved when Roosevelt was re-elected in 1940. Upon re-election, Roosevelt immediately set about implementing a new method of providing military hardware and shipping to Britain without the need for monetary payment. Put simply, Roosevelt persuaded Congress that repayment for this immensely costly service would take the form of defending the US; and so Lend-lease was born. Churchill had 12 strategic conferences with Roosevelt which covered the Atlantic Charter, Europe first strategy, the Declaration by the United Nations and other war policies. After Pearl Harbor was attacked, Churchill's first thought in anticipation of US help was, "We have won the war!" On 26 December 1941, Churchill addressed a joint meeting of the US Congress, asking of Germany and Japan, "What kind of people do they think we are?" Churchill initiated the Special Operations Executive (SOE) under Hugh Dalton's Ministry of Economic Warfare, which established, conducted and fostered covert, subversive and partisan operations in occupied territories with notable success; and also the Commandos which established the pattern for most of the world's current Special Forces. The Russians referred to him as the "British Bulldog".

Churchill's health was fragile, as shown by a mild heart attack he suffered in December 1941 at the White House and also in December 1943 when he contracted pneumonia. Despite this, he travelled over 100,000 miles (160,000 km) throughout the war to meet other national leaders. For security, he usually travelled using the alias Colonel Warden.

Churchill was party to treaties that would redraw post-World War II European and Asian boundaries. These were discussed as early as 1943. At the Second Quebec Conference in 1944 he drafted and, together with US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, signed a toned-down version of the original Morgenthau Plan, in which they pledged to convert Germany after its unconditional surrender "into a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in its character." Proposals for European boundaries and settlements were officially agreed to by Harry S. Truman, Churchill, and Stalin at Potsdam. Churchill's strong relationship with Harry Truman was also of great significance to both countries. While he clearly regretted the loss of his close friend and counterpart Roosevelt, Churchill was enormously supportive of Truman in his first days in office, calling him, "the type of leader the world needs when it needs him most."
Relations with the Soviet Union
Churchill secretly meets with President Ismet Inönü at the Yenice Station 15 miles (24 km) outside of Adana in south-east Turkey, on 30 January 1943

When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Winston Churchill, a vehement anti-Communist, famously stated "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons," regarding his policy toward Stalin. Soon, British supplies and tanks were flowing to help the Soviet Union.

The settlement concerning the borders of Poland, that is, the boundary between Poland and the Soviet Union and between Germany and Poland, was viewed as a betrayal in Poland during the post-war years, as it was established against the views of the Polish government in exile. It was Winston Churchill, who tried to motivate Mikołajczyk, who was Prime Minister of the Polish government in exile, to accept Stalin's wishes, but Mikołajczyk refused. Churchill was convinced that the only way to alleviate tensions between the two populations was the transfer of people, to match the national borders.

As he expounded in the House of Commons on 15 December 1944, "Expulsion is the method which, insofar as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble... A clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed by these transferences, which are more possible in modern conditions." However the resulting expulsions of Germans were carried out in a way which resulted in much hardship and, according to a 1966 report by the West German Ministry of Refugees and Displaced Persons, the death of over 2.1 million. Churchill opposed the effective annexation of Poland by the Soviet Union and wrote bitterly about it in his books, but he was unable to prevent it at the conferences.
Winston Churchill at the Yalta Conference, with Roosevelt and Stalin beside him

During October 1944, he and Eden were in Moscow to meet with the Russian leadership. At this point, Russian forces were beginning to advance into various eastern European countries. Churchill held the view that until everything was formally and properly worked out at the Yalta conference, there had to be a temporary, war-time, working agreement with regard to who would run what. The most significant of these meetings were held on 9 October 1944 in the Kremlin between Churchill and Stalin. During the meeting, Poland and the Balkan problems were discussed. Churchill recounted his speech to Stalin on the day:

    Let us settle about our affairs in the Balkans. Your armies are in Rumania and Bulgaria. We have interests, missions, and agents there. Don't let us get at cross-purposes in small ways. So far as Britain and Russia are concerned, how would it do for you to have ninety per cent predominance in Rumania, for us to have ninety per cent of the say in Greece, and go fifty-fifty about Yugoslavia?

Stalin agreed to this Percentages Agreement, ticking a piece of paper as he heard the translation. In 1958, five years after the recount of this meeting was published (in The Second World War), authorities of the Soviet denied that Stalin accepted the "imperialist proposal".

One of the conclusions of the Yalta Conference was that the Allies would return all Soviet citizens that found themselves in the Allied zone to the Soviet Union. This immediately affected the Soviet prisoners of war liberated by the Allies, but was also extended to all Eastern European refugees. Solzhenitsyn called the Operation Keelhaul "the last secret of World War II." The operation decided the fate of up to two million post-war refugees fleeing eastern Europe.
Dresden bombings controversy
Main article: Bombing of Dresden in World War II
Historical footage of the destruction of Dresden, February 1945

Between 13 February and 15 February 1945, British and the US bombers attacked the German city of Dresden, which was crowded with German wounded and refugees. Because of the cultural importance of the city, and of the number of civilian casualties close to the end of the war, this remains one of the most controversial Western Allied actions of the war. Following the bombing Churchill stated in a top secret telegram:

    It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed... I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives such as oil and communications behind the immediate battle-zone, rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton destruction, however impressive.

On reflection, under pressure from the Chiefs of Staff and in response to the views expressed by Sir Charles Portal (Chief of the Air Staff,) and Arthur Harris (AOC-in-C of RAF Bomber Command), among others, Churchill withdrew his memo and issued a new one. This final version of the memo completed on 1 April 1945, stated:

    It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of the so called 'area-bombing' of German cities should be reviewed from the point of view of our own interests. If we come into control of an entirely ruined land, there will be a great shortage of accommodation for ourselves and our allies... We must see to it that our attacks do no more harm to ourselves in the long run than they do to the enemy's war effort.

Ultimately, responsibility for the British part of the attack lay with Churchill, which is why he has been criticised for allowing the bombings to happen. The German historian Jörg Friedrich, claims that "Winston Churchill's decision to bomb a shattered Germany between January and May 1945 was a war crime" and writing in 2006 the philosopher A. C. Grayling questioned the whole strategic bombing campaign by the RAF presenting the argument that although it was not a war crime it was a moral crime and undermines the Allies contention that they fought a just war. On the other hand, it has also been asserted that Churchill's involvement in the bombing of Dresden was based on the strategic and tactical aspects of winning the war. The destruction of Dresden, while immense, was designed to expedite the defeat of Germany. As the historian Max Hastings said in an article subtitled, "the Allied Bombing of Dresden": "I believe it is wrong to describe strategic bombing as a war crime, for this might be held to suggest some moral equivalence with the deeds of the Nazis. Bombing represented a sincere, albeit mistaken, attempt to bring about Germany's military defeat." Furthermore British historian, Frederick Taylor asserts that "All sides bombed each other's cities during the war. Half a million Soviet citizens, for example, died from German bombing during the invasion and occupation of Russia. That's roughly equivalent to the number of German citizens who died from Allied raids. But the Allied bombing campaign was attached to military operations and ceased as soon as military operations ceased."
The Second World War ends
Churchill waves to crowds in Whitheall on the day he broadcast to the nation that the war with Germany had been won, 8 May 1945.

In June 1944, the Allied Forces invaded Normandy and pushed the Nazi forces back into Germany on a broad front over the coming year. After being attacked on three fronts by the Allies, and in spite of Allied failures, such as Operation Market Garden, and German counter-attacks, including the Battle of the Bulge, Germany was eventually defeated. On 7 May 1945 at the SHAEF headquarters in Rheims the Allies accepted Germany's surrender. On the same day in a BBC news flash John Snagge announced that 8 May would be Victory in Europe Day. On Victory in Europe Day, Churchill broadcast to the nation that Germany had surrendered and that a final cease fire on all fronts in Europe would come into effect at one minute past midnight that night. Afterwards Churchill told a huge crowd in Whitheall: "This is your victory." The people shouted: "No, it is yours", and Churchill then conducted them in the singing of Land of Hope and Glory. In the evening he made another broadcast to the nation asserting the defeat of Japan in the coming months. The Japanese later surrendered on 15 August 1945.

As Europe celebrated peace at the end of six years of war, Churchill was concerning on the possibility that the celebrations would soon be brutally interrupted. He concluded that the UK and the US must prepare for the Red Army ignoring previously agreed frontiers and agreements in Europe "to impose upon Russia the will of the United States and the British Empire." According to the Operation Unthinkable plan ordered by Churchill and developed by the British Armed Forces, the Third World War could have started on 1 July 1945 with a sudden attack against the allied Soviet troops. The plan was rejected by the British Chiefs of Staff Committee as militarily unfeasible. However this decision didn't stop the further development of the war plans: with the beginning of an arms race, the militarily unfeasible Third World War developed instead into the Cold War doctrine.
Return to government and the decline of the British Empire

After the General Election of 1951, Churchill again became Prime Minister. His third government—after the wartime national government and the brief caretaker government of 1945—lasted until his resignation in 1955. His domestic priorities in his last government were overshadowed by a series of foreign policy crises, which were partly the result of the continued decline of British military and imperial prestige and power. Being a strong proponent of Britain as an international power, Churchill would often meet such moments with direct action. One example was his dispatch of British troops to Kenya to deal with the Mau Mau rebellion. Trying to retain what he could of the Empire, he once stated that, "I will not preside over a dismemberment."
War in Malaya

This was followed by events which became known as the Malayan Emergency. In Malaya, a rebellion against British rule had been in progress since 1948. Once again, Churchill's government inherited a crisis, and Churchill chose to use direct military action against those in rebellion while attempting to build an alliance with those who were not. While the rebellion was slowly being defeated, it was equally clear that colonial rule from Britain was no longer sustainable.
Relations with the United States

Churchill also devoted much of his time in office to Anglo-American relations and although Churchill did not always agree with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Churchill attempted to maintain the Special Relationship with the United States. He made four official transatlantic visits to America during his second term as Prime Minister.
The series of strokes

Churchill had suffered a mild stroke while on holiday in the south of France in the summer of 1949. In June 1953, when he was 78, Churchill suffered a more severe stroke at 10 Downing Street. News of this was kept from the public and from Parliament, who were told that Churchill was suffering from exhaustion. He went to his country home, Chartwell, to recuperate from the effects of the stroke which had affected his speech and ability to walk. He returned to public life in October to make a speech at a Conservative Party conference at Margate. However, aware that he was slowing down both physically and mentally, Churchill retired as Prime Minister in 1955 and was succeeded by Anthony Eden. He suffered another mild stroke in February 1956.
Retirement and death
Churchill spent much of his retirement at his home Chartwell in Kent. He purchased it in 1922 after his daughter Mary was born.

Elizabeth II offered to create Churchill Duke of London, but this was declined due to the objections of his son Randolph, who would have inherited the title on his father's death. After leaving the premiership, Churchill spent less time in parliament until he stood down at the 1964 General Election. As a mere "back-bencher," Churchill spent most of his retirement at Chartwell and at his home in Hyde Park Gate, in London. In the 1959 General Election Churchill's majority fell by more than a thousand, since many young voters in his constituency did not support an 85-year-old who could only enter the House of Commons in a wheelchair. As his mental and physical faculties decayed, he began to lose the battle he had fought for so long against the "black dog" of depression. There was speculation that Churchill may have had Alzheimer's disease in his last years, although others maintain that his reduced mental capacity was merely the result of a series of strokes. In 1963, US President John F. Kennedy, acting under authorisation granted by an Act of Congress, proclaimed him an Honorary Citizen of the United States, but he was unable to attend the White House ceremony. On 15 January 1965, Churchill suffered a severe stroke that left him gravely ill. He died at his home nine days later, at age 90, on the morning of Sunday 24 January 1965, coincidentally 70 years to the day after his father's death.
Funeral
Churchill's grave at St Martin's Church, Bladon

By decree of the Queen, his body lay in state for three days and a state funeral service was held at St Paul's Cathedral. As his coffin passed down the Thames from Tower Pier to Festival Pier on the Havengore, dockers lowered their crane jibs in a salute. The Royal Artillery fired a 19-gun salute (as head of government), and the RAF staged a fly-by of sixteen English Electric Lightning fighters. The coffin was then taken the short distance to Waterloo Station where it was loaded onto a specially prepared and painted carriage as part of the funeral train for its rail journey to Bladon. The funeral also saw one of the largest assemblages of statesmen in the world. The funeral train of Pullman coaches carrying his family mourners was hauled by Bulleid Pacific steam locomotive No. 34051 "Winston Churchill". In the fields along the route, and at the stations through which the train passed, thousands stood in silence to pay their last respects. At Churchill's request, he was buried in the family plot at St Martin's Church, Bladon, near Woodstock, not far from his birthplace at Blenheim Palace. Churchill's funeral van – Southern Railway Van S2464S – is now part of a preservation project with the Swanage Railway having been repatriated to the UK in 2007 from the USA where it was exported in 1965
I was seven years at the time of the death of Winston Churchill, and I do remember the ocassion of his funeral well.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/24/10 at 3:37 am


ninny, up early today?

Yeah, but I'm going back to bed for a while.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/24/10 at 3:40 am


I was seven years at the time of the death of Winston Churchill, and I do remember the ocassion of his funeral well.

There was quite a lot of information on him that I left out, because your only allowed so many words. I'm hoping that it was OK.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/24/10 at 3:40 am


Yeah, but I'm going back to bed for a while.
I feeling I know all to well.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/24/10 at 3:42 am


There was quite a lot of information on him that I left out, because your only allowed so many words. I'm hoping that it was OK.
It does well we with me.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/24/10 at 5:36 am


The birthday of the day...Aaron Neville
Aaron Neville (born January 24, 1941 in New Orleans, Louisiana) is an American soul and R&B singer. He made his debut in 1966 with the hit single "Tell It Like It Is", a Number One hit on the Billboard R&B charts. Neville did not chart again, however, until 1989, when he collaborated with Linda Ronstadt on three consecutive duets: "Don't Know Much", "All My Life", and "When Something Is Wrong with My Baby", of which the first two reached Number One on the Adult Contemporary charts. Neville has released more than 20 singles, including three Number Ones on the Adult Contemporary format, and a fourth on the R&B format.
Aaron Neville has had a career as a solo artist and as one of The Neville Brothers. Of mixed African American and Native American heritage, his music also features Cajun and Creole influences.

Neville first came to public recognition with "Tell It Like It Is" which topped Billboard's R&B chart for five weeks in 1967. It also reached #2 on the Hot 100. A remake of the song was a Top 10 Pop hit for the Rock group Heart featuring Ann and Nancy Wilson in 1981.

In 1989 Neville teamed up with Linda Ronstadt on the album Cry Like A Rainstorm - Howl Like The Wind. Among the duets recorded for the disc were the #1 Grammy-winning hits "Don't Know Much" and "All My Life". "Don't Know Much" was certified Gold while the album was certified Triple Platinum for US sales of more than 3 million.

His other hits have included "Everybody Plays the Fool", his successful 1991 cover of the 1972 Main Ingredient song, that reached #8 on the Hot 100; "Don't Take Away My Heaven", "Hercules" and "Can't Stop My Heart From Loving You (The Rain Song)." Neville's biggest solo successes have been on the Adult Contemporary chart, where "Don't Know Much," "All My Life," and "Everybody Plays the Fool" all reached Number One.

In August 2005 his home in Eastern New Orleans was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina; he evacuated to Memphis, Tennessee before the hurricane hit. He moved to Nashville after the storm, and had yet to return to the city as of early 2008, causing the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival to temporarily change its tradition of having the Neville Brothers close the festival. However, the Neville Brothers, including Aaron, returned for the 2008 Jazzfest, which returned to its traditional seven-day format for the first time since Katrina. Neville is in the process of moving back to the New Orleans area, namely the North Shore city of Covington. Neville performed Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1927" during NBC's A Concert for Hurricane Relief on September 2, 2005.

Aaron signed to SonyBMG's new Burgundy Records label in late 2005 and recorded an album of songs by Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Sam Cooke and others for Bring It on Home…The Soul Classics, released on September 19, 2006. The album, produced by Stewart Levine, features collaborations between Neville and Chaka Khan, Mavis Staples, Chris Botti, David Sanborn, Art Neville, and others. The album's first single was a remake of The Impressions' 1963 classic "It's All Right."
Aaron Neville with his distinctive mole visible above his right eye (1990)

Neville's career has included work for television, movies and sporting events. Neville sang the National Anthem in the movie The Fan starring Robert De Niro and Wesley Snipes. He also sang the anthem at the WWF's SummerSlam 1993 and at WCW Spring Stampede in 1994. Neville sang the theme music to the children's TV series Fisher-Price Little People. He also sang a new version of "Cotton," for Cotton, Inc. which was introduced during the 1992 Summer Olympics. In 1988 he recorded "Mickey Mouse March" for Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films, one of Various Artists. In 2006, Neville sang "The Star-Spangled Banner", alongside Queen Of Soul Aretha Franklin and Dr. John on keyboard at Super Bowl XL in Detroit, Michigan. In addition, Neville (along with brothers Art and Cyril) did background vocals for the songs "Great Heart", "Bring Back the Magic", "Homemade Music", "My Barracuda", and "Smart Woman (in a Real Short Skirt)" on Jimmy Buffett's Hot Water, released in 1988.

On October 27, 2006, Neville made a guest appearance on an episode of the soap opera The Young and the Restless. He sang "Stand By Me" and "Ain't No Sunshine", from his new album, Bring It on Home…The Soul Classics. In 2008 Aaron released Gold, which includes two CDs of his hits.

Neville's oldest son Ivan is also a musician and released an album, If My Ancestors Could See Me Now, in 1988, which yielded a Top 40 hit with "Not Just Another Girl." Ivan has also performed with the Rolling Stones and Bonnie Raitt, and played bass for Keith Richards on his first solo tour. Ivan then assembled his own band (Ivan Neville's Dumpstphunk)which tours and frequently appears in New Orleans.

Aaron's third son, Jason, is a vocalist and rap artist who has performed with his father and with the Neville Brothers, notably at the 2009 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Aaron Neville is an inductee of the Delta Music Museum Hall of Fame in Ferriday.

In 2009, Aaron Neville, along with the Mt. Zion Mass Choir, released a version of the song “A Change Is Gonna Come” on the compilation album Oh Happy Day.
Spiritual life

Neville is a Roman Catholic with a devotion to St. Jude, to whom he has credited his success and survival. He wears a St. Jude Medal as a left earring.
Discography
Studio albums
Year Album Chart Positions Certifications Label
US R&B US Christian US Gospel US Jazz US CAN US CAN
1965 Tell It Like It Is — — — — — — — — Par-Lo Records
1986 Orchid in the Storm — — — — — — — — Rhino
1991 Warm Your Heart 62 — — — 44 25 Platinum Gold A&M
1993 The Grand Tour — — — — 37 — Platinum Gold
Aaron Neville's Soulful Christmas — — — — 36 — Platinum Gold
1995 The Tattooed Heart 50 — — — 64 — Gold —
1997 To Make Me Who I Am 73 — — — 188 — — —
2000 Devotion — 28 7 — — — — — Chordant
2002 Humdinger — — — — — — — — EMI
2003 Believe — 14 2 — 191 — — — Telit
Nature Boy: The Standards Album 85 — — 1 — — — — Verve
2005 Gospel Roots — — — — — — — — Chordant
2005 Christmas Prayer 74 14 3 — — — — — EMI Gospel
2006 Mojo Soul — — — — — — — — Music Avenue
Bring It On Home... The Soul Classics 20 — — — 37 — — — Burgundy
Singles
Year Single Chart Positions Album
US US AC US R&B US Country CAN CAN AC CAN Country
1960 "Over You" 111 — 21 — — — — Singles only
1966 "Tell It Like It Is" 2 1 1 — — 2 —
1967 "She Took You for a Ride" 92 — — — — — —
1989 "Don't Know Much" (w/ Linda Ronstadt) 2 1 — — 4 1 — Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind
(Linda Ronstadt album)
1990 "All My Life" (w/ Linda Ronstadt) 11 1 — — 10 1 —
"When Something Is Wrong with My Baby" (w/ Linda Ronstadt) 78 5 — — 29 — —
1991 "Everybody Plays the Fool" 8 1 — — 19 — — Warm Your Heart
"Somewhere Somebody" — 6 — — 43 15 —
1992 "Close Your Eyes" (w/ Linda Ronstadt) — — — — 90 — —
1993 "Don't Take Away My Heaven" 56 4 — — 17 12 — The Grand Tour
"The Grand Tour" 90 — — 38 — — 58
"Don't Fall Apart on Me Tonight" — 26 — — 37 — —
1994 "I Owe You One" — — — — 51 29 —
"I Fall to Pieces" (w/ Trisha Yearwood) — — — 72 — — — Rhythm, Country and Blues
"Even If My Heart Would Break" (w/ Kenny G.) 122 — — — — — — The Bodyguard soundtrack
"Betcha By Golly, Wow" — — — — 32 — — The Grand Tour
1995 "Can't Stop My Heart from Loving You (The Rain Song)" 99 23 — — — — — The Tattooed Heart
"For the Good Times" — — — — — — —
1996 "Use Me" — — 93 — — — —
"Crazy Love" (w/ Robbie Robertson) — 25 — — — — — Phenomenon (soundtrack)
"That's What My Love Is For" (w/ Anne Murray) — — — — — 15 — Anne Murray (Anne Murray album)
1997 "Say What's in My Heart" — 26 — — — — — To Make Me Who I Am
2006 "It's All Right"A — 28 — — — — — Bring It On Home... The Soul Classics

    * A"It's All Right" peaked at #12 on Hot Contemporary Jazz Songs.

Compilations

    * Love Songs (2003)
    * Gold(2008)
http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x99/samuraipizzacriss/aaron_neville.jpg
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p82/sabrinanorman/AaronNeville.jpg
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m70/funnyguy308/Arm-Aaron-Neville-Tell-Like.jpg
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o165/painted_klown/Neville.jpg


Aaron Neville is great,especially his brothers too.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/24/10 at 5:37 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soO0CMnU9Bo

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/24/10 at 5:38 am

His brothers were funk related music.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/24/10 at 5:39 am


His brothers were funk related music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcbbOYcEz88

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/24/10 at 5:41 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcbbOYcEz88


They also had songs from the mid 70's on.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/24/10 at 6:08 am


Aaron Neville is great,especially his brothers too.  :)

I need to listen more to their music.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/24/10 at 6:42 am


They also had songs from the mid 70's on.
In the UK The Neville Brothers had their hits in 1989 and 1990.

1989  With God On Our Side #47 
1990  Bird On A Wire #72

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/24/10 at 3:33 pm


In the UK The Neville Brothers had their hits in 1989 and 1990.

1989  With God On Our Side #47 
1990  Bird On A Wire #72



plus songs from the mid 70's and on.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/25/10 at 5:26 am

The word of the day...Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower containing a powerful flashing lamp that is built on the coast or on a small island. Lighthouses are used to guide ships or to warn them of danger.
http://i910.photobucket.com/albums/ac309/acal0111/Lighthouse.jpg
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/tt236/emarmabasa/The_Lighthouse.jpg
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g282/Caboobie_uk/crafts/lighthouse.jpg
http://i548.photobucket.com/albums/ii349/Mobey650/Lighthouse.jpg
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg240/LaGambler4/SNOW%20GLOBES/lighthouse.gif
http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/ac125/Pensacolalighthouse/pensacolabarbeacon.jpg
http://i756.photobucket.com/albums/xx208/peepclicker/Places/584.jpg
http://i968.photobucket.com/albums/ae167/normajeantenn/bookends/bookendskinkadecoa2.jpg
http://i892.photobucket.com/albums/ac125/Pensacolalighthouse/canstruction200920STOA.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/25/10 at 5:30 am

The person born today...Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf (born Stephen; 25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941) was an English novelist, essayist, diarist, epistler, publisher, feminist, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.

During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929), with its famous dictum, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
Woolf began writing professionally in 1905, initially for the Times Literary Supplement with a journalistic piece about Haworth, home of the Brontë family. Her first novel, The Voyage Out, was published in 1915 by her half-brother's imprint, Gerald Duckworth and Company Ltd.

This novel was originally entitled Melymbrosia, but Woolf repeatedly changed the draft. An earlier version of The Voyage Out has been reconstructed by Woolf scholar Louise DeSalvo and is now available to the public under the intended title. DeSalvo argues that many of the changes Woolf made in the text were in response to changes in her own life.
Lytton Strachey and Virginia Woolf at Garsington, 1923.

Woolf went on to publish novels and essays as a public intellectual to both critical and popular success. Much of her work was self-published through the Hogarth Press. She has been hailed as one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century and one of the foremost modernists.

Woolf is considered one of the greatest innovators in the English language. In her works she experimented with stream-of-consciousness and the underlying psychological as well as emotional motives of characters. Woolf's reputation declined sharply after World War II, but her eminence was re-established with the surge of Feminist criticism in the 1970s.

Her work was criticised for epitomizing the narrow world of the upper-middle class English intelligentsia. Some critics judged it to be lacking in universality and depth, without the power to communicate anything of emotional or ethical relevance to the disillusioned common reader, weary of the 1920s aesthetes. She was also criticized by some as an anti-semite, despite her being happily married to a Jewish man. This anti-semitism is drawn from the fact that she often wrote of Jewish characters in stereotypical archetypes and generalizations. The overwhelming and rising 1920s and 30s anti-semitism had an unavoidable influence on Virginia Woolf. She wrote in her diary, "I do not like the Jewish voice; I do not like the Jewish laugh." However, in a 1930 letter to the composer, Ethel Smyth, quoted in Nigel Nicolson's biography,Virginia Woolf, she recollects her boasts of Leonard's Jewishness confirming her snobbish tendencies, "How I hated marrying a Jew- What a snob I was, for they have immense vitality." In another letter to her dear friend Ethel Smyth, Virginia gives a scathing denunciation of Christianity, pointing to its self-righteous "egotism" and stating "my Jew has more religion in one toe nail--more human love, in one hair." Virginia and her husband Leonard Woolf actually hated and feared 1930s fascism with its anti-semitism knowing they were on Hitler's blacklist. Her 1938 book Three Guineas was an indictment of fascism.

Virginia Woolf's peculiarities as a fiction writer have tended to obscure her central strength: Woolf is arguably the major lyrical novelist in the English language. Her novels are highly experimental: a narrative, frequently uneventful and commonplace, is refracted—and sometimes almost dissolved—in the characters' receptive consciousness. Intense lyricism and stylistic virtuosity fuse to create a world overabundant with auditory and visual impressions.

The intensity of Virginia Woolf's poetic vision elevates the ordinary, sometimes banal settings - often wartime environments - of most of her novels. For example, Mrs Dalloway (1925) centres on the efforts of Clarissa Dalloway, a middle-aged society woman, to organize a party, even as her life is paralleled with that of Septimus Warren Smith, a working-class veteran who has returned from the First World War bearing deep psychological scars.

To the Lighthouse (1927) is set on two days ten years apart. The plot centers around the Ramsay family's anticipation of and reflection upon a visit to a lighthouse and the connected familial tensions. One of the primary themes of the novel is the struggle in the creative process that beset painter Lily Briscoe while she struggles to paint in the midst of the family drama. The novel is also a meditation upon the lives of a nation's inhabitants in the midst of war, and of the people left behind. It also explores the passage of time, and how women are forced by society to allow men to take emotional strength from them.

Orlando (1928) has a different quality from all Virginia Woolf's other novels suggested by its subtitle, "A Biography", as it attempts to represent the character of a real person and is dedicated to Vita Sackville-West. It was meant to console Vita for being a girl and for the loss of her ancestral home, though it is also a satirical treatment of Vita and her work. In Orlando the techniques of historical biographers are being ridiculed; the character of a pompous biographer is being assumed in order for it to be mocked.

The Waves (1931) presents a group of six friends whose reflections, which are closer to recitatives than to interior monologues proper, create a wave-like atmosphere that is more akin to a prose poem than to a plot-centered novel.

Her last work, Between the Acts (1941) sums up and magnifies Woolf's chief preoccupations: the transformation of life through art, sexual ambivalence, and meditation on the themes of flux of time and life, presented simultaneously as corrosion and rejuvenation—all set in a highly imaginative and symbolic narrative encompassing almost all of English history. This book is the most lyrical of all her works, not only in feeling but in style being chiefly written in verse.

While nowhere near a simple recapitulation of the coterie's ideals, Woolf's work can be understood as consistently in dialogue with Bloomsbury, particularly its tendency (informed by G.E. Moore, among others) towards doctrinaire rationalism.

Her works have been translated into over 50 languages, by writers of the calibre of Jorge Luis Borges and Marguerite Yourcenar.
Modern scholarship and interpretations

Recently, studies of Virginia Woolf have focused on feminist and lesbian themes in her work, such as in the 1997 collection of critical essays, Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings, edited by Eileen Barrett and Patricia Cramer. More controversially, Louise A. DeSalvo reads most of Woolf's life and career through the lens of the incestuous sexual abuse Woolf experienced as a young woman in her 1989 book Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on her Life and Work.

Woolf's fiction is also studied for its insight into shell shock, war, class, and modern British society. Her best-known nonfiction works, A Room of One's Own (1929) and Three Guineas (1938), examine the difficulties female writers and intellectuals face because men hold disproportionate legal and economic power, and the future of women in education and society.

Irene Coates's book Who's Afraid of Leonard Woolf: A Case for the Sanity of Virginia Woolf takes the position that Leonard Woolf's treatment of his wife encouraged her ill health and ultimately was responsible for her death. The position, which is not accepted by Leonard's family, is extensively researched and fills in some of the gaps in the traditional account of Virginia Woolf's life. In contrast, Victoria Glendinning's book Leonard Woolf: A Biography, which is even more extensively researched and supported by contemporaneous writings, argues that Leonard Woolf was not only very supportive of his wife, but enabled her to live as long as she did by providing her with the life and atmosphere she needed to live and write. Accounts of Virginia's supposed anti-semitism (Leonard was a secular Jew) are not only taken out of historical context but greatly exaggerated. Virginia's own diaries support this view of the Woolfs' marriage.

Though at least one biography of Virginia Woolf appeared in her lifetime, the first authoritative study of her life was published in 1972 by her nephew, Quentin Bell.

In 1992, Thomas Caramagno published the book The Flight of the Mind: Virginia Woolf's Art and Manic-Depressive Illness."

Hermione Lee's 1996 biography Virginia Woolf provides a thorough and authoritative examination of Woolf's life and work.

In 2001 Louise DeSalvo and Mitchell A. Leaska edited The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. Julia Briggs's Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life, published in 2005, is the most recent examination of Woolf's life. It focuses on Woolf's writing, including her novels and her commentary on the creative process, to illuminate her life. Thomas Szasz's book My Madness Saved Me: The Madness and Marriage of Virginia Woolf (ISBN 0-7658-0321-6) was published in 2006.

Rita Martin’s play Flores no me pongan (2006) considers Woolf's last minutes of life in order to debate polemical issues such as bisexuality, Jewishness, and war. Written in Spanish, the play was performed in Miami under the direction of actress Miriam Bermudez.
In films

    * Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was an American play (1962) by Edward Albee and film (1966) directed by Mike Nichols (screenplay by Ernest Lehman adapted from the play). Virginia Woolf does not appear as a character. According to the playwright, the title of the play — which is about a dysfunctional university married couple — refers to an academic joke about "who's afraid of living life without false illusions".
    * Virginia Woolf is a character in the film The Hours (2002). She is portrayed by Nicole Kidman.

Bibliography
See also: Bibliography of Virginia Woolf
Novels

    * The Voyage Out (1915)
    * Night and Day (1919)
    * Jacob's Room (1922)
    * Mrs Dalloway (1925)
    * To the Lighthouse (1927)
    * Orlando (1928)
    * The Waves (1931)
    * The Years (1937)
    * Between the Acts (1941)

Short story collections

    * Kew Gardens (1919)
    * Monday or Tuesday (1921)
    * The New Dress (1924)
    * A Haunted House and Other Short Stories (1944)
    * Mrs Dalloway's Party (1973)
    * The Complete Shorter Fiction (1985)

"Biographies"

Virginia Woolf published three books to which she gave the subtitle "A Biography":

    * Orlando: A Biography (1928, usually characterised Novel, inspired by the life of Vita Sackville-West)
    * Flush: A Biography (1933, more explicitly cross-genre: fiction as "stream of consciousness" tale by Flush, a dog; non-fiction in the sense of telling the story of the owner of the dog, Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
    * Roger Fry: A Biography (1940, usually characterised non-fiction, however: " novelistic skills worked against her talent as a biographer, for her impressionistic observations jostled uncomfortably with the simultaneous need to marshall a multitude of facts.")

Non-fiction books

    * Modern Fiction (1919)
    * The Common Reader (1925)
    * A Room of One's Own (1929)
    * On Being Ill (1930)
    * The London Scene (1931)
    * The Common Reader: Second Series (1932)
    * Three Guineas (1938)
    * The Death of the Moth and Other Essays (1942)
    * The Moment and Other Essays (1947)
    * The Captain's Death Bed And Other Essays (1950)
    * Granite and Rainbow (1958)
    * Books and Portraits (1978)
    * Women And Writing (1979)
    * Collected Essays (four volumes)

Drama

    * Freshwater: A Comedy (performed in 1923, revised in 1935, and published in 1976)

Autobiographical writings and diaries

    * A Writer’s Diary (1953) - Extracts from the complete diary
    * Moments of Being (1976)
    * A Moment's Liberty: the shorter diary (1990)
    * The Diary of Virginia Woolf (five volumes) - Diary of Virginia Woolf from 1915 to 1941
    * Passionate Apprentice: The Early Journals, 1897-1909 (1990)
    * Travels With Virginia Woolf (1993) - Greek travel diary of Virginia Woolf, edited by Jan Morris
    * The Platform of Time: Memoirs of Family and Friends, Expanded Edition, edited by S. P. Rosenbaum (London, Hesperus, 2008)

Letters

    * Congenial Spirits: The Selected Letters (1993)
    * The Letters of Virginia Woolf 1888-1941 (six volumes, 1975–1980)
    * Paper Darts: The Illustrated Letters of Virginia Woolf (1991)

Prefaces, contributions

    * Selections Autobiographical and Imaginative from the Works of George Gissing ed. Alfred C. Gissing, with an introduction by Virginia Woolf (London & New York, 1929)

Biographies

    * Virginia Woolf by Nigel Nicolson. New York, Penguin Group. 2000
    * Virginia Woolf: A Biography by Quentin Bell. New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972; Revised editions 1990, 1996
    * "Vanessa and Virginia" by Susan Sellers (Two Ravens, 2008; Harcourt 2009)
    * The Unknown Virginia Woolf by Roger Poole. Cambridge UP, 1978.
    * The Invisible Presence: Virginia Woolf and the Mother-Daughter Relationship by Ellen Bayuk Rosenman. Louisiana State University Press, 1986.
    * Virginia Woolf and the politics of style, by Pamela J. Transue. SUNY Press, 1986. ISBN 0887062865.
    * The Victorian heritage of Virginia Woolf: the external world in her novels, by Janis M. Paul. Pilgrim Books, 1987. ISBN 0937664731.
    * Virginia Woolf's To the lighthouse, by Harold Bloom. Chelsea House, 1988. ISBN 1555460348.
    * Virginia Woolf: the frames of art and life, by C. Ruth Miller. Macmillan, 1988. ISBN 0333448804.
    * Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work by Louise DeSalvo. Boston: Little Brown, 1989
    * A Virginia Woolf Chronology by Edward Bishop. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1989.
    * A Very Close Conspiracy: Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf by Jane Dunn. Boston: Little, Brown, 1990
    * Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Life by Lyndall Gordon. New York: Norton, 1984; 1991.
    * Virginia Woolf and war, by Mark Hussey. Syracuse University Press, 1991. ISBN 0815625375.
    * The Flight of the Mind: Virginia Woolf's Art and Manic-Depressive Illness by Thomas D. Caramago. Berkeley: U of California Press, 1992
    * Virginia Woolf by James King. NY: W.W. Norton, 1994.
    * Art and Affection: A Life of Virginia Woolf by Panthea Reid. New York: Oxford UP, 1996.
    * Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee. New York: Knopf, 1997.
    * Granite and Rainbow: The Hidden Life of Virginia Woolf by Mitchell Leaska. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.
    * The Feminist Aesthetics of Virginia Woolf, by Jane Goldman. Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521794587.
    * Virginia Woolf and the nineteenth-century domestic novel, by Emily Blair. SUNY Press, 2002. ISBN 0791471195.
    * Virginia Woolf: becoming a writer, by Katherine Dalsimer. Yale University Press, 2002. ISBN 0300092083.
    * Virginia Woolf: The Will to Create as a Woman by Ruth Gruber. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2005
    * My Madness Saved Me: The Madness and Marriage of Virginia Woolf by Thomas Szasz, 2006
    * Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life, by Julia Briggs. Harcourt, 2006. ISBN 0156032295.
    * The Bedside, Bathtub and Armchair Companion to Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury by Sarah M. Hall, Continuum Publishing, 2007
    * Virginia Woolf and the Visible World, by Emily Dalgarno. Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN 0521033608,.
    * A Life of One's Own: A Guide to Better Living through the Work and Wisdom of Virginia Woolf by Ilana Simons, New York: Penguin Press, 2007
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/25/10 at 5:37 am

The person who died on this day...Ava Gardner
Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress.

She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared in supporting roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers (1946). She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in Mogambo (1953). She appeared in several popular films during the 1950s, and received BAFTA Award nominations for her performances in Bhowani Junction (1956), On the Beach (1959) and The Night of the Iguana (1964).

She is listed as one of the American Film Institute's greatest stars of all time
In 1941, a Loews Theatres legal clerk, Barnard "Barney" Duhan, spotted Gardner's photo in Tarr's studio. At the time, Duhan often posed as an MGM talent scout to meet girls, using the fact that MGM was a subsidiary of Loews. Duhan entered Tarr's and tried to get Gardner's number, but was rebuffed by the receptionist. Duhan made the offhand comment, "Somebody should send her info to MGM", and the Tarrs did so immediately. Shortly after, Gardner, who at the time was a student at Atlantic Christian College, traveled to New York to be interviewed at MGM's New York office. She was offered a standard contract by MGM, and left school for Hollywood in 1941 with her sister Bappie accompanying her. MGM's first order of business was to provide her a voice coach, as her Carolina drawl was nearly incomprehensible to them.
Oscar nomination

Gardner was nominated for an Academy Award for Mogambo (1953); the award was won by Audrey Hepburn for Roman Holiday. Her performance as Maxine Faulk in The Night of the Iguana (1964), was well reviewed, and she was nominated a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe.

Other films include The Hucksters (1947), Showboat (1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), 1954's The Barefoot Contessa (which some consider to be Gardner's "signature film" which mirrored her real life custom of going barefoot), Bhowani Junction (1956), The Sun Also Rises in which she played party-girl Brett Ashley (1957), and the film version of Neville Shute's best-selling On the Beach, co-starring Gregory Peck. Off-camera, she could be witty and pithy, as in her assessment of director John Ford, who directed Mogambo ("The meanest man on earth. Thoroughly evil. Adored him!")
Later life

In 1966, Gardner briefly sought the role of Mrs. Robinson in Mike Nichols' The Graduate (1967). She reportedly called Nichols and said, "I want to see you! I want to talk about this Graduate thing!" Nichols never seriously considered her for the part, but he did visit her hotel, where he later recounted that "she sat at a little French desk with a telephone, she went through every movie star cliché. She said, "All right, let's talk about your movie. First of all, I strip for nobody.'"

Gardner moved to London, England in 1968, undergoing an elective hysterectomy to allay her worries of contracting the uterine cancer that had claimed the life of her own mother. That year, she made what some consider to be one of her best films, Mayerling, in which she played the Austrian Empress Elisabeth of Austria opposite James Mason as Emperor Franz Joseph I. She appeared in a number of disaster films throughout the 1970s, notably Earthquake (1974), The Cassandra Crossing (1976), and the Canadian movie City on Fire (1979). Her last movie was Regina Roma (1982).
Marriages and relationships
Mickey Rooney

Soon after her arrival in Los Angeles, Gardner met fellow MGM contract player Mickey Rooney; they married on January 10, 1942 in Ballard, California; she was 19 years old and he was 21. Gardner made several movies before 1946, but it wasn't until she starred in The Killers with Burt Lancaster, that she became a star as well as a sex symbol. Rooney and Gardner divorced in 1943. He later reputedly rhapsodized about their sex life, but Gardner retorted, "Well, honey, he may have enjoyed the sex, but I didn't." She once characterized their marriage as "Love Finds Andy Hardy".
Artie Shaw

Gardner's second marriage was to jazz musician and band leader Artie Shaw, from 1945 to 1946.
Frank Sinatra

Gardner's third and last marriage (1951-1957) was to singer and actor Frank Sinatra. She would later say in her autobiography that of all the men she'd had - that he was the love of her life. Sinatra left his wife, Nancy, for Ava and their subsequent marriage made headlines. Sinatra was savaged by gossip columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, the Hollywood establishment, the Catholic church, and by his fans for leaving his wife for a "femme fatale". His career suffered, while hers prospered - the headlines solidifying her screen siren image. Gardner used her considerable clout to get Sinatra cast in his Oscar-winning role in From Here to Eternity (1953). That role and the award revitalized both Sinatra's acting and singing careers. Gardner said of her relationship with Sinatra, "We were great in bed. It was usually on the way to the bidet when the trouble began."

During their marriage Gardner became pregnant twice, but she had two abortions. "MGM had all sorts of penalty clauses about their stars having babies", she said. She said years later, "We couldn't even take care of ourselves. How were we going to take care of a baby?" Gardner and Sinatra remained good friends for the rest of her life.
Howard Hughes

Gardner became a friend of billionaire aviator Howard Hughes in the early to mid-1940s, a close relationship that lasted well into the 1950s. Although he made numerous marriage proposals, Ava did not consider him a romantic interest, as she was put off by his eccentric ways.
Luis Miguel Dominguín

Gardner divorced Sinatra in 1957 and headed to Spain where her friendship with famed writer Ernest Hemingway led to her becoming a fan of bullfighting and bullfighters such as Luis Miguel Dominguín, who became her lover. "It was a sort of madness, honey", she said later of the time.
Final years

After a lifetime of smoking, Gardner suffered from emphysema, in addition to an autoimmune disorder (which may have been lupus). Two strokes in 1986 left her partially paralyzed and bedridden. Although Gardner could afford her medical expenses, Sinatra wanted to pay for her to visit a specialist in the United States, and she allowed him to make the arrangements for a medically-staffed private plane. Her last words (to her housekeeper Carmen), were reportedly, "I'm so tired", before she died of pneumonia at the age of 67. After her death, Sinatra's daughter Tina found him slumped in his room, crying, and unable to speak.

Gardner was not only the love of his life but also the inspiration for one of his most personal songs, "I'm a Fool to Want You", which Sinatra (who received a co-writing credit for the song) recorded twice, toward the end of his contract with Columbia Records and during his years on Capitol Records. ("It was Ava who taught him how to sing a torch song", Sinatra arranger Nelson Riddle was once quoted as saying.) It has been reported that Sinatra attended her funeral, due to the presence of a black limousine parked behind the crowd of 500 mourners. Instead, a hairstylist from Fayetteville, North Carolina had felt that a limousine was the only appropriate mode of transportation to Gardner's funeral. A floral arrangement at Gardner's graveside simply read: "With My Love, Francis".
Last acting roles

Gardner's acting career began to lose momentum after this, and although she continued infrequently to work in films and on television (Knots Landing).
Death

Gardner died in her London home in 1990, from pneumonia, following several years of declining health.
Remembered in song

"Frank and Ava", a song by Suzanne Vega
Gravesite

Gardner was buried in the Sunset Memorial Park, Smithfield, North Carolina, next to her brothers and their parents, Jonah (1878-1938) and Mollie Gardner (1883-1943). The town of Smithfield now has an Ava Gardner Museum.
Film Portrayals

Gardner has been portrayed by Marcia Gay Harden in the TV miniseries Sinatra, Deborah Kara Unger in HBO's The Rat Pack, and Kate Beckinsale in the 2004 Howard Hughes biopic, The Aviator.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1941 Shadow of the Thin Man Passerby
H.M. Pulham, Esq. Young Socialite
Babes on Broadway Pitt-Astor Girl
1942 Joe Smith - American Miss Maynard, Secretary
This Time for Keeps Girl in car lighting cigarette
Kid Glove Killer Car Hop
Sunday Punch Ringsider
Calling Dr. Gillespie Graduating student at Miss Hope's
Reunion in France Marie, a salesgirl
1943 Hitler's Madman Franciska Pritric a Student
Ghosts on the Loose Betty
Young Ideas Co-ed
Du Barry Was a Lady Perfume Girl
Swing Fever Receptionist
Lost Angel Hat Check Girl
1944 Two Girls and a Sailor Dream Girl
Three Men in White Jean Brown
Maisie Goes to Reno Gloria Fullerton
Blonde Fever Bit Role
1945 She Went to the Races Hilda Spotts
1946 Whistle Stop Mary
The Killers Kitty Collins
1947 Singapore Linda Grahame/Ann Van Leyden
The Hucksters Jean Ogilvie
1948 One Touch of Venus Venus
1945 The Bribe Elizabeth Hintten
The Great Sinner Pauline Ostrovsky
East Side, West Side Isabel Lorrison
1951 Pandora and the Flying Dutchman Pandora Reynolds
My Forbidden Past Barbara Beaurevel
Show Boat Julie LaVerne
1952 Lone Star Martha Ronda
The Snows of Kilimanjaro Cynthia Green
1953 Knights of the Round Table Guinevere
Ride, Vaquero! Cordelia Cameron
The Band Wagon Herself
Mogambo Honey Bear Kelly Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
1954 The Barefoot Contessa Maria Vargas
1956 Bhowani Junction Victoria Jones Nominated — BAFTA for Best Foreign Actress
1957 The Little Hut Lady Susan Ashlow
The Sun Also Rises Lady Brett Ashley
1958 The Naked Maja Maria Cayetana, Duchess of Alba
1959 On the Beach Moira Davidson Nominated — BAFTA for Best Foreign Actress
1960 The Angel Wore Red Soledad
1963 55 Days at Peking Baroness Natalie Ivanoff
1964 Seven Days in May Eleanor Holbrook
The Night of the Iguana Maxine Faulk Nominated — BAFTA for Best Foreign Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actress - Drama
1966 The Bible: In The Beginning Sarah
1968 Mayerling Empress Elizabeth
1970 Tam-Lin Michaela Cazaret
1972 The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean Lily Langtry
1974 Earthquake Remy Royce-Graff
1975 Permission to Kill Katina Petersen
1976 The Blue Bird Luxury
The Cassandra Crossing Nicole Dressler
1977 The Sentinel Miss Logan
1979 City on Fire Maggie Grayson
1980 The Kidnapping of the President Beth Richards
1981 Priest of Love Mabel Dodge Luhan
1982 Regina Roma Mama
http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr157/Mynock9/Film%20and%20Hollywood/GardnerAva_01.jpg
http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr157/Mynock9/Film%20and%20Hollywood/GardnerAva_03.jpg
http://i486.photobucket.com/albums/rr229/ruit48/Ava_Gardner_1.jpg
http://i340.photobucket.com/albums/o342/Sinned2471/ava-gardner.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 01/25/10 at 6:00 am

Ava Gardner was one of the handful of true Hollywood beauties.  However, another sad, unhappy life.... :-\\

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/25/10 at 6:45 am


The person who died on this day...Ava Gardner
Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress.

She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared in supporting roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers (1946). She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in Mogambo (1953). She appeared in several popular films during the 1950s, and received BAFTA Award nominations for her performances in Bhowani Junction (1956), On the Beach (1959) and The Night of the Iguana (1964).

She is listed as one of the American Film Institute's greatest stars of all time
In 1941, a Loews Theatres legal clerk, Barnard "Barney" Duhan, spotted Gardner's photo in Tarr's studio. At the time, Duhan often posed as an MGM talent scout to meet girls, using the fact that MGM was a subsidiary of Loews. Duhan entered Tarr's and tried to get Gardner's number, but was rebuffed by the receptionist. Duhan made the offhand comment, "Somebody should send her info to MGM", and the Tarrs did so immediately. Shortly after, Gardner, who at the time was a student at Atlantic Christian College, traveled to New York to be interviewed at MGM's New York office. She was offered a standard contract by MGM, and left school for Hollywood in 1941 with her sister Bappie accompanying her. MGM's first order of business was to provide her a voice coach, as her Carolina drawl was nearly incomprehensible to them.
Oscar nomination

Gardner was nominated for an Academy Award for Mogambo (1953); the award was won by Audrey Hepburn for Roman Holiday. Her performance as Maxine Faulk in The Night of the Iguana (1964), was well reviewed, and she was nominated a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe.

Other films include The Hucksters (1947), Showboat (1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), 1954's The Barefoot Contessa (which some consider to be Gardner's "signature film" which mirrored her real life custom of going barefoot), Bhowani Junction (1956), The Sun Also Rises in which she played party-girl Brett Ashley (1957), and the film version of Neville Shute's best-selling On the Beach, co-starring Gregory Peck. Off-camera, she could be witty and pithy, as in her assessment of director John Ford, who directed Mogambo ("The meanest man on earth. Thoroughly evil. Adored him!")
Later life

In 1966, Gardner briefly sought the role of Mrs. Robinson in Mike Nichols' The Graduate (1967). She reportedly called Nichols and said, "I want to see you! I want to talk about this Graduate thing!" Nichols never seriously considered her for the part, but he did visit her hotel, where he later recounted that "she sat at a little French desk with a telephone, she went through every movie star cliché. She said, "All right, let's talk about your movie. First of all, I strip for nobody.'"

Gardner moved to London, England in 1968, undergoing an elective hysterectomy to allay her worries of contracting the uterine cancer that had claimed the life of her own mother. That year, she made what some consider to be one of her best films, Mayerling, in which she played the Austrian Empress Elisabeth of Austria opposite James Mason as Emperor Franz Joseph I. She appeared in a number of disaster films throughout the 1970s, notably Earthquake (1974), The Cassandra Crossing (1976), and the Canadian movie City on Fire (1979). Her last movie was Regina Roma (1982).
Marriages and relationships
Mickey Rooney

Soon after her arrival in Los Angeles, Gardner met fellow MGM contract player Mickey Rooney; they married on January 10, 1942 in Ballard, California; she was 19 years old and he was 21. Gardner made several movies before 1946, but it wasn't until she starred in The Killers with Burt Lancaster, that she became a star as well as a sex symbol. Rooney and Gardner divorced in 1943. He later reputedly rhapsodized about their sex life, but Gardner retorted, "Well, honey, he may have enjoyed the sex, but I didn't." She once characterized their marriage as "Love Finds Andy Hardy".
Artie Shaw

Gardner's second marriage was to jazz musician and band leader Artie Shaw, from 1945 to 1946.
Frank Sinatra

Gardner's third and last marriage (1951-1957) was to singer and actor Frank Sinatra. She would later say in her autobiography that of all the men she'd had - that he was the love of her life. Sinatra left his wife, Nancy, for Ava and their subsequent marriage made headlines. Sinatra was savaged by gossip columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, the Hollywood establishment, the Catholic church, and by his fans for leaving his wife for a "femme fatale". His career suffered, while hers prospered - the headlines solidifying her screen siren image. Gardner used her considerable clout to get Sinatra cast in his Oscar-winning role in From Here to Eternity (1953). That role and the award revitalized both Sinatra's acting and singing careers. Gardner said of her relationship with Sinatra, "We were great in bed. It was usually on the way to the bidet when the trouble began."

During their marriage Gardner became pregnant twice, but she had two abortions. "MGM had all sorts of penalty clauses about their stars having babies", she said. She said years later, "We couldn't even take care of ourselves. How were we going to take care of a baby?" Gardner and Sinatra remained good friends for the rest of her life.
Howard Hughes

Gardner became a friend of billionaire aviator Howard Hughes in the early to mid-1940s, a close relationship that lasted well into the 1950s. Although he made numerous marriage proposals, Ava did not consider him a romantic interest, as she was put off by his eccentric ways.
Luis Miguel Dominguín

Gardner divorced Sinatra in 1957 and headed to Spain where her friendship with famed writer Ernest Hemingway led to her becoming a fan of bullfighting and bullfighters such as Luis Miguel Dominguín, who became her lover. "It was a sort of madness, honey", she said later of the time.
Final years

After a lifetime of smoking, Gardner suffered from emphysema, in addition to an autoimmune disorder (which may have been lupus). Two strokes in 1986 left her partially paralyzed and bedridden. Although Gardner could afford her medical expenses, Sinatra wanted to pay for her to visit a specialist in the United States, and she allowed him to make the arrangements for a medically-staffed private plane. Her last words (to her housekeeper Carmen), were reportedly, "I'm so tired", before she died of pneumonia at the age of 67. After her death, Sinatra's daughter Tina found him slumped in his room, crying, and unable to speak.

Gardner was not only the love of his life but also the inspiration for one of his most personal songs, "I'm a Fool to Want You", which Sinatra (who received a co-writing credit for the song) recorded twice, toward the end of his contract with Columbia Records and during his years on Capitol Records. ("It was Ava who taught him how to sing a torch song", Sinatra arranger Nelson Riddle was once quoted as saying.) It has been reported that Sinatra attended her funeral, due to the presence of a black limousine parked behind the crowd of 500 mourners. Instead, a hairstylist from Fayetteville, North Carolina had felt that a limousine was the only appropriate mode of transportation to Gardner's funeral. A floral arrangement at Gardner's graveside simply read: "With My Love, Francis".
Last acting roles

Gardner's acting career began to lose momentum after this, and although she continued infrequently to work in films and on television (Knots Landing).
Death

Gardner died in her London home in 1990, from pneumonia, following several years of declining health.
Remembered in song

"Frank and Ava", a song by Suzanne Vega
Gravesite

Gardner was buried in the Sunset Memorial Park, Smithfield, North Carolina, next to her brothers and their parents, Jonah (1878-1938) and Mollie Gardner (1883-1943). The town of Smithfield now has an Ava Gardner Museum.
Film Portrayals

Gardner has been portrayed by Marcia Gay Harden in the TV miniseries Sinatra, Deborah Kara Unger in HBO's The Rat Pack, and Kate Beckinsale in the 2004 Howard Hughes biopic, The Aviator.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1941 Shadow of the Thin Man Passerby
H.M. Pulham, Esq. Young Socialite
Babes on Broadway Pitt-Astor Girl
1942 Joe Smith - American Miss Maynard, Secretary
This Time for Keeps Girl in car lighting cigarette
Kid Glove Killer Car Hop
Sunday Punch Ringsider
Calling Dr. Gillespie Graduating student at Miss Hope's
Reunion in France Marie, a salesgirl
1943 Hitler's Madman Franciska Pritric a Student
Ghosts on the Loose Betty
Young Ideas Co-ed
Du Barry Was a Lady Perfume Girl
Swing Fever Receptionist
Lost Angel Hat Check Girl
1944 Two Girls and a Sailor Dream Girl
Three Men in White Jean Brown
Maisie Goes to Reno Gloria Fullerton
Blonde Fever Bit Role
1945 She Went to the Races Hilda Spotts
1946 Whistle Stop Mary
The Killers Kitty Collins
1947 Singapore Linda Grahame/Ann Van Leyden
The Hucksters Jean Ogilvie
1948 One Touch of Venus Venus
1945 The Bribe Elizabeth Hintten
The Great Sinner Pauline Ostrovsky
East Side, West Side Isabel Lorrison
1951 Pandora and the Flying Dutchman Pandora Reynolds
My Forbidden Past Barbara Beaurevel
Show Boat Julie LaVerne
1952 Lone Star Martha Ronda
The Snows of Kilimanjaro Cynthia Green
1953 Knights of the Round Table Guinevere
Ride, Vaquero! Cordelia Cameron
The Band Wagon Herself
Mogambo Honey Bear Kelly Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress
1954 The Barefoot Contessa Maria Vargas
1956 Bhowani Junction Victoria Jones Nominated — BAFTA for Best Foreign Actress
1957 The Little Hut Lady Susan Ashlow
The Sun Also Rises Lady Brett Ashley
1958 The Naked Maja Maria Cayetana, Duchess of Alba
1959 On the Beach Moira Davidson Nominated — BAFTA for Best Foreign Actress
1960 The Angel Wore Red Soledad
1963 55 Days at Peking Baroness Natalie Ivanoff
1964 Seven Days in May Eleanor Holbrook
The Night of the Iguana Maxine Faulk Nominated — BAFTA for Best Foreign Actress
Nominated — Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actress - Drama
1966 The Bible: In The Beginning Sarah
1968 Mayerling Empress Elizabeth
1970 Tam-Lin Michaela Cazaret
1972 The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean Lily Langtry
1974 Earthquake Remy Royce-Graff
1975 Permission to Kill Katina Petersen
1976 The Blue Bird Luxury
The Cassandra Crossing Nicole Dressler
1977 The Sentinel Miss Logan
1979 City on Fire Maggie Grayson
1980 The Kidnapping of the President Beth Richards
1981 Priest of Love Mabel Dodge Luhan
1982 Regina Roma Mama
http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr157/Mynock9/Film%20and%20Hollywood/GardnerAva_01.jpg
http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr157/Mynock9/Film%20and%20Hollywood/GardnerAva_03.jpg
http://i486.photobucket.com/albums/rr229/ruit48/Ava_Gardner_1.jpg
http://i340.photobucket.com/albums/o342/Sinned2471/ava-gardner.jpg


http://img.listal.com/image/503285/600full-ava-gardner.jpg


Ava in 1988.^

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/25/10 at 7:42 am

A couple of my photos.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3055/2469514954_a855acf77f.jpg
Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico taken in 2008.


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2123/2228399655_fd41e811c5.jpg
Guánica, Puerto Rico

This was taken on our trip to Puerto Rico in February, 2006. Carlos' father was stationed at this lighthouse when he was a cook in the Coast Guard. It was during this time that he met Carlos' mother. It is a shame that it has fallen into disarray. The photo was taken with my film camera. We just went past this lighthouse yesterday.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/25/10 at 8:23 am


A couple of my photos.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3055/2469514954_a855acf77f.jpg
Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico taken in 2008.


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2123/2228399655_fd41e811c5.jpg
Guánica, Puerto Rico

This was taken on our trip to Puerto Rico in February, 2006. Carlos' father was stationed at this lighthouse when he was a cook in the Coast Guard. It was during this time that he met Carlos' mother. It is a shame that it has fallen into disarray. The photo was taken with my film camera. We just went past this lighthouse yesterday.



Cat



Very nice :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/25/10 at 8:24 am


Ava Gardner was one of the handful of true Hollywood beauties.  However, another sad, unhappy life.... :-\\

So true,I wonder if she ever found true love :-\\

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/25/10 at 7:17 pm


A couple of my photos.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3055/2469514954_a855acf77f.jpg
Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico taken in 2008.


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2123/2228399655_fd41e811c5.jpg
Guánica, Puerto Rico

This was taken on our trip to Puerto Rico in February, 2006. Carlos' father was stationed at this lighthouse when he was a cook in the Coast Guard. It was during this time that he met Carlos' mother. It is a shame that it has fallen into disarray. The photo was taken with my film camera. We just went past this lighthouse yesterday.



Cat




quite beautiful.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 01/25/10 at 7:18 pm

Great pics. Thanks for posting.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/25/10 at 7:19 pm


So true,I wonder if she ever found true love :-\\


Was she single or did she marry?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/25/10 at 9:16 pm


Great pics. Thanks for posting.  :)

Your Welcome :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/25/10 at 9:18 pm


Was she single or did she marry?

She was married to Mickey Rooney,Artie Shaw & Frank Sinatra. she also dated Howard Hughes and bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/26/10 at 1:24 am

Canadian person of the day: Wayne Gretzky born January 26, 1961 in Brantford, Ontario, Canada

Nicknamed "The Great One", Gretzky was called "the greatest player of all time" in Total Hockey: The Official Encyclopedia of the NHL. He is generally regarded as the best player in the history of the NHL,and has been called "the greatest hockey player ever" by many sportswriters, players, and coaches. Upon his retirement on April 18, 1999, he held forty regular-season records, fifteen playoff records, and six All-Star records. He is the only NHL player to total over 200 points in one season—a feat he accomplished four times. In addition, he tallied over 100 points in 15 WHA/NHL seasons, 14 of them consecutive. Gretzky's jersey number, 99, has been retired by all teams in the National Hockey League.

Wayne Gretzky held or shared 61 NHL records upon his retirement on April 18, 1999, including 40 regular season records, 15 playoff records, and 6 all-star records.

http://fearandarrogance.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/wayne-gretzky-si-cover.jpg

The regular season records include most goals in a season (92), most assists in a season (163), and most points in a season (215). He also holds the record for the fastest 50 goals, accomplishing that feat in only 39 games and the record for most goals in a 50 game period (61, which he accomplished twice). In 1983–84, he had a 51-game point-scoring streak that has been compared to "Joltin' Joe" DiMaggio's streak in baseball, during which he averaged exactly three points per game, scoring 61 goals and 92 assists for 153 points.

Gretzky set impressive records in both regular season and post-season play, holding the record for most career regular season goals (894), assists (1,963), points (2,857), and hat tricks (50). The next closest player in total points for the regular season is Mark Messier at 1,887. Gretzky's point total including regular season and playoffs stands at an imposing 3,239. Gretzky also had more career assists than any other player has ever gained total points.

His 47 playoff points in 1985 and 31 assists in 1988 are still records for a single post-season round, and he holds the record for career playoff goals (122), assists (260), points (382), hat tricks (10), and game winning goals (24).
http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Sports/images-2/wayne-gretzky-edmonton-oilers.jpg
http://www.visiontech-usa.org/2009/Hayden/image006.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/26/10 at 7:25 am


Canadian person of the day: Wayne Gretzky born January 26, 1961 in Brantford, Ontario, Canada

Nicknamed "The Great One", Gretzky was called "the greatest player of all time" in Total Hockey: The Official Encyclopedia of the NHL. He is generally regarded as the best player in the history of the NHL,and has been called "the greatest hockey player ever" by many sportswriters, players, and coaches. Upon his retirement on April 18, 1999, he held forty regular-season records, fifteen playoff records, and six All-Star records. He is the only NHL player to total over 200 points in one season—a feat he accomplished four times. In addition, he tallied over 100 points in 15 WHA/NHL seasons, 14 of them consecutive. Gretzky's jersey number, 99, has been retired by all teams in the National Hockey League.

Wayne Gretzky held or shared 61 NHL records upon his retirement on April 18, 1999, including 40 regular season records, 15 playoff records, and 6 all-star records.

http://fearandarrogance.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/wayne-gretzky-si-cover.jpg

The regular season records include most goals in a season (92), most assists in a season (163), and most points in a season (215). He also holds the record for the fastest 50 goals, accomplishing that feat in only 39 games and the record for most goals in a 50 game period (61, which he accomplished twice). In 1983–84, he had a 51-game point-scoring streak that has been compared to "Joltin' Joe" DiMaggio's streak in baseball, during which he averaged exactly three points per game, scoring 61 goals and 92 assists for 153 points.

Gretzky set impressive records in both regular season and post-season play, holding the record for most career regular season goals (894), assists (1,963), points (2,857), and hat tricks (50). The next closest player in total points for the regular season is Mark Messier at 1,887. Gretzky's point total including regular season and playoffs stands at an imposing 3,239. Gretzky also had more career assists than any other player has ever gained total points.

His 47 playoff points in 1985 and 31 assists in 1988 are still records for a single post-season round, and he holds the record for career playoff goals (122), assists (260), points (382), hat tricks (10), and game winning goals (24).
http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Sports/images-2/wayne-gretzky-edmonton-oilers.jpg
http://www.visiontech-usa.org/2009/Hayden/image006.jpg

I had a feeling you would pick him :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/26/10 at 7:32 am

The word of the day...Fish
A fish is a creature that lives in water and has a tail and fins. There are many different kinds of fish.
Fish is the flesh of a fish eaten as food.
If you fish, you try to catch fish, either for food or as a form of sport or recreation.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/26/10 at 7:37 am

The birthday of the day...Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen Lee DeGeneres (born January 26, 1958) is an American stand-up comedienne, television hostess and actress. She hosts the syndicated talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and is also a judge on American Idol, having joined the show in its ninth season.

She has hosted both the Academy Awards and the Primetime Emmys. As a film actress, she starred in Mr. Wrong, appeared in EDtv and The Love Letter, and provided the voice of Dory in the Disney-Pixar's animated film Finding Nemo. She also starred in two television sitcoms, Ellen from 1994 to 1998 and The Ellen Show from 2001 to 2002. In 1997, during the fourth season of Ellen, she came out publicly as a lesbian in an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Shortly afterwards, her character Ellen Morgan also came out to a therapist played by Winfrey and the series went on to explore various LGBT issues as well as the coming out process. She has won twelve Emmys and numerous awards for her work and charitable efforts.
DeGeneres started performing stand-up comedy at small clubs and coffeehouses. By 1981 she was the emcee at Clyde's Comedy Club in New Orleans. Degeneres describes Woody Allen and Steve Martin as her main influences at this time. In the early 1980s she began to tour nationally, being named Showtime's Funniest Person in America in 1982. In 1986 she appeared for the first time on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, who likened her to Bob Newhart. When Carson invited her over for an onscreen chat after her performance, she became the first female comedian in the show's history to whom this honor was bestowed.
Early screen work

Television and film work in the late 1980s and early 1990s included roles on television in Open House and in the film Coneheads.
Ellen (sitcom, 1994–1998)
At the Governor's Ball after the 46th Annual Emmy Awards telecast, Sept. 1994

DeGeneres' comedy material became the basis of the successful 1994-1998 sitcom Ellen, named These Friends of Mine during its first season. The ABC show was popular in its first few seasons due in part to DeGeneres' style of quirky observational humor; it was often referred to as a "female Seinfeld."

Ellen reached its height of popularity in February 1997, when DeGeneres made her homosexuality public on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Subsequently her character on the sitcom came out of the closet in April to her therapist, played by Oprah Winfrey, that she was gay. The coming out episode, entitled "The Puppy Episode", was one of the highest-rated episodes of the show, but later episodes of the series would fail to match its popularity, and after declining ratings, the show was canceled. DeGeneres returned to the stand-up comedy circuit, and would later re-establish herself as a successful talk show host.
Ellen's Energy Adventure

DeGeneres starred in a series of films for a show named Ellen's Energy Adventure, which is part of the Universe of Energy attraction and pavilion at Walt Disney World's Epcot. The film also featured Bill Nye, Alex Trebek, Michael Richards and Jamie Lee Curtis. The show revolved around DeGeneres falling asleep and finding herself in an energy-themed version of Jeopardy!, playing against an old rival, portrayed by Curtis, and Albert Einstein. The next film had DeGeneres hosting an educational look at energy, co-hosted with Nye. The ride first opened on September 15, 1996, as Ellen's Energy Crisis but was quickly renamed to the more positive-sounding Ellen's Energy Adventure.
The Ellen Show

DeGeneres returned to series television in 2001 with a new CBS sitcom, The Ellen Show. Though her character was again a lesbian, it was not the central theme of the show.
2001 Emmy Awards

DeGeneres received wide exposure on November 4, 2001 when she hosted the televised broadcast of the Emmy Awards. Presented after two cancellations due to network concerns that a lavish ceremony following the September 11, 2001 attacks would appear insensitive, the show required a more somber tone that would also allow viewers to temporarily forget the tragedy. DeGeneres received several standing ovations for her performance that evening which included the line: "What would bug the Taliban more than seeing a gay woman in a suit surrounded by Jews?"

In August 2005, DeGeneres hosted the 2005 Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony which was held on September 18, 2005. This was three weeks after Hurricane Katrina, making it the second time she hosted the Emmys following a national tragedy. She also hosted the Grammy Awards in 1996 and in 1997.
Voice acting

DeGeneres lent her voice to the role of Dory, a fish with short-term memory loss, in the summer 2003 hit animated Disney/Pixar film Finding Nemo. The film's director, Andrew Stanton, claimed that he chose her because she "changed the subject five times before one sentence had finished" on her show. For her performance as Dory, DeGeneres won the Saturn Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films for "Best Supporting Actress"; "Favorite Voice from an Animated Movie" from the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards; and the Annie Award from the International Animated Film Association for "Outstanding Voice Acting". She was also nominated for a Chicago Film Critics Association Award in the "Best Supporting Actress" category. She also provided the voice of the dog in the prologue of the Eddie Murphy feature film Dr. Dolittle.
The Ellen DeGeneres Show

DeGeneres launched a daytime television talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show in September 2003. Amid a crop of several celebrity-hosted talk shows surfacing at the beginning of that season, such as those of Sharon Osbourne and Rita Rudner, her show has consistently risen in the Nielsen Ratings and received widespread critical praise. It was nominated for 11 Daytime Emmy Awards in its first season, winning four, including Best Talk Show. The show has won 25 Emmy Awards in its first three seasons on the air. DeGeneres is known for her dancing and singing with the audience at the beginning of the show and during commercial breaks. She often gives away free prizes and trips to her studio audience with the help of her sponsors.

DeGeneres celebrated her thirty-year class reunion by flying her graduating class to California to be guests on her show in February 2006. She presented Atlanta High School with a surprise gift of a new electronic LED marquee sign.

In May 2006, DeGeneres made a surprise appearance at the Tulane University commencement in New Orleans. Following George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton to the podium, she came out in a bathrobe and furry slippers. "They told me everyone would be wearing robes," she said.

The show broadcast for a week from Universal Studios Orlando in March 2007. Guests that week included Jennifer Lopez and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and skits included DeGeneres going on the Hulk Roller Coaster Ride and the Jaws Boat Ride.

In May 2007, DeGeneres was placed on bed rest due to a torn ligament in her back. She continued hosting her show from a hospital bed, tended to by a nurse, explaining "the show must go on, as they say." Guests sat in hospital beds as well.

On May 1, 2009, DeGeneres celebrated her 1000th episode, featuring celebrity guests such as Oprah, Justin Timberlake, and Paris Hilton, among others.
79th Academy Awards
Ellen DeGeneres at the Emmy Awards, 1997

On September 7, 2006, DeGeneres was selected to host the 79th Academy Awards ceremony, which took place on February 25, 2007. This makes her the first openly gay or lesbian person to have hosted the event. During the Awards show DeGeneres said, "What a wonderful night, such diversity in the room, in a year when there's been so many negative things said about people's race, religion and sexual orientation. And I want to put this out there: if there weren't blacks, Jews and gays, there would be no Oscars, or anyone named Oscar, when you think about that." Reviews of her hosting gig were positive, with one saying, "DeGeneres rocked, as she never forgot that she wasn't just there to entertain the Oscar nominees but also to tickle the audience at home." In fact, Regis Philbin said in an interview that "the only complaint was there's not enough Ellen."

DeGeneres was nominated for an Emmy Award as host of the Academy Awards broadcast.
2007 Writers Guild strike

DeGeneres, like many actors who are also writers, is a member of both the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA). Thus, although DeGeneres verbally supported the 2007 WGA strike she did not support it when she crossed the picket line the day after the strike began. Her representatives said that she was competing with other first-run syndicated shows during the competitive November sweeps period, and that she could not break her contracts or risk her show lose its time slot. As a show of solidarity with the strikers, DeGeneres omitted her monologue during the strike, typically written by WGA writers. The WGA condemned her while the AFTRA defended her.
Commercial spokeswoman

In November 2004, DeGeneres appeared, dancing, in an ad campaign for American Express. Her most recent American Express commercial, a two-minute black-and-white spot where she works with animals, debuted in November 2006 and was created by Ogilvy and Mather. In 2007, the commercial won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial.

DeGeneres began working with Cover Girl Cosmetics in September 2008, for which she has been criticized, as her animal-friendly values clash with Procter and Gamble's (the maker of Cover Girl Cosmetics) animal testing . Her face is the focus of new Cover Girl advertisements starting in January 2009. The beauty campaign will be DeGeneres' first.
American Idol

On September 9, 2009, it was confirmed that DeGeneres would replace Paula Abdul as a judge of the ninth season of American Idol. Her role will start only after the contestant auditions. DeGeneres also reportedly signed a contract to be a judge on the show for at least five seasons.
Personal life

DeGeneres was in a relationship (1997-2000) with former Another World actress Anne Heche who went on to marry cameraman Coley Laffoon. From 2001 to 2004, DeGeneres and actress/director/photographer Alexandra Hedison were in a relationship. They appeared on the cover of The Advocate after their separation had already been announced to the media.

Since 2004, DeGeneres has been in a relationship with former Ally McBeal and Arrested Development star Portia de Rossi. After the overturn of the same-sex marriage ban in California, DeGeneres announced on a May 2008 show that she and de Rossi were engaged, and gave de Rossi a three-carat pink diamond ring. They were married on August 16, 2008 at their home, with nineteen guests including their respective mothers. The passage of Proposition 8 cast doubt on the legal status of their marriage but a subsequent Supreme Court judgment validated it because it occurred before 4 November 2008.

They live in Beverly Hills, with three dogs and four cats, and both are vegan.

In her book, Love, Ellen, DeGeneres' mother, Betty DeGeneres, describes being initially shocked when her daughter came out as a lesbian, but has become one of her strongest supporters, an active member of Parents & Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign's Coming Out Project. DeGeneres' mother is a breast cancer survivor.

In 2007, Forbes estimated DeGeneres' net worth as US$65 million.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1990 Arduous Moon Herself Short film
1991 Wisecracks Herself Documentary
1993 Coneheads Coach
1994 Trevor Herself Short film
1996 Ellen's Energy Adventure Herself Short film
Mr. Wrong Martha Alston
1998 Goodbye Lover Sgt. Rita Pompano
Dr. Dolittle Prologue Dog Voice
1999 EDtv Cynthia
The Love Letter Janet Hall
2003 Pauly Shore Is Dead Herself
Finding Nemo Dory Voice
2004 My Short Film Herself Short film
Television
Year Film Role Notes
1988 Women of the Night Herself Comedy Special
1989 Open House Margo Van Mete Episode: "The Bad Seed"
Episode: "Let's Get Physicals"
1992 Laurie Hill Nancy MacIntyre Episode: "Pilot"
Episode: "The Heart Thing"
Episode: "Walter and Beverly"
1994-1998 Ellen Ellen Morgan 109 episodes
1995 Roseanne Dr. Whitman

Episode: "The Blaming of the Shrew"
1998 Mad About You Nancy Bloom Episode: "The Finale"
2000 If These Walls Could Talk 2 Kal Segment: "2000"
2001 On the Edge Operator Segment: "Reaching Normal"
2001-2002 The Ellen Show Ellen Richmond 18 episodes
2003 Ellen DeGeneres: Here and Now Herself Comedy Special
MADtv Herself Episode: "9.3"
2004 E! True Hollywood Story Herself
Six Feet Under Herself Parallel Play]]"
2007 Ellen's Really Big Show Herself
Sesame Street Herself Episode: "The Tutu Spell" (uncredited)
Forbes 20 Richest Women in Entertainment Herself
The Bachelorette Herself
2007-2008 American Idol: The Search for a Superstar Herself Episode: "Idol Gives Back 2007"
" Idol Gives Back 2008
2008 Ellen's Even Bigger Really Big Show Herself Comedy Special
2009 Ellen's Bigger, Longer & Wider Show Herself Comedy Special
So You Think You Can Dance Guest Judge Week 7; July 22, 2009
2003-present The Ellen DeGeneres Show Herself TV show
2010 American Idol Judge Starting with season 9.
Discography
Year Film Role Notes
1996 Ellen Degeneres: Taste This Stand-up comedy Live CD
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/26/10 at 7:53 am

The person who died on this day...Jose Ferrer
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón (January 8, 1912 – January 26, 1992), best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director. He was the first Hispanic actor to win an Academy Award.
Ferrer made his Broadway debut in 1935. In 1940, he played his first starring role on Broadway, the title role in Charley's Aunt, partly in drag. He played Iago in Margaret Webster's 1943 Broadway production of Othello, starring Paul Robeson in the title role, Webster as Emilia, and Ferrer's wife at the time, Uta Hagen, as Desdemona. It became the longest-running production of a Shakespeare play staged in the U.S., a record it still holds. His Broadway directing credits include The Shrike, Stalag 17, The Fourposter, Twentieth Century, Carmelina, My Three Angels, and The Andersonville Trial.
Cyrano de Bergerac

Ferrer may be best-remembered for his performance in the title role of Cyrano de Bergerac, which he first played on Broadway in 1946. Ferrer feared that the production would be a failure in rehearsals due to the open dislike for the play by director Mel Ferrer (who was not related to José), so he called in Joshua Logan (who had directed his star-making performance in Charley's Aunt) to serve as "play doctor" for the production. Logan wrote that he simply had to eliminate pieces of business which director Ferrer had inserted in his staging; they presumably were intended to sabotage the more sentimental elements of the play that the director considered to be corny and in bad taste. The production became one of the hits of the 1946/47 Broadway season, winning José the first Tony Award for his depiction of the long-nosed poet/swordsman (tied with Fredric March for Ruth Gordon's play about her own early years as an actress, Years Ago).

He reprised the role of Cyrano onstage at the New York City Center under his own direction in 1953, as well as in two films: his Academy Award-winning turn in the 1950 film of Edmond Rostand's play directed by Michael Gordon and the 1964 French film Cyrano et d'Artagnan directed by Abel Gance. He also played Cyrano in two television productions, for The Philco Television Playhouse in 1949 and Producers' Showcase in 1953. Ferrer was nominated for an Emmy Award for both presentations, which (taken with his Oscar and Tony) made him the first (and to date, the only) performer to be nominated for all three awards for playing the same character.

Ferrer would go on to voice a highly truncated cartoon version of the play for an episode of The ABC Afterschool Special in 1974, and made his farewell to the part by performing a short passage from the play for the 1986 Tony Awards telecast.
Early films

Ferrer made his film debut in 1948 in the Technicolor epic Joan of Arc as the weak-willed Dauphin opposite Ingrid Bergman. Leading roles in the films Whirlpool (opposite Gene Tierney) (1949) and Crisis (opposite Cary Grant) (1950) followed, and culminated in the 1950 film Cyrano de Bergerac. He next played the role of Toulouse-Lautrec in John Huston's fictional 1952 biopic, Moulin Rouge.
Later stage career

Beginning circa 1950, Ferrer concentrated on film work, but would return to the stage occasionally. In 1959 Ferrer directed the original stage production of Saul Levitt's The Andersonville Trial, about the trial following the revelation of conditions at the infamous Civil War prison. It was a hit and featured George C. Scott. He took over the direction of the troubled musical Juno from Vincent J. Donehue, who had himself taken over from Tony Richardson. The show folded after 16 performances and mixed-to extremely negative critical reaction. The show's commercial failure (along with his earlier flop, Oh, Captain!), was a considerable setback to Ferrer's directing career. Nor did the short-lived The Girl Who Came to Supper do much for his acting career. A notable performance of his later stage career was as Miguel de Cervantes and his fictional creation Don Quixote in the hit musical Man of La Mancha. Ferrer took over the role from Richard Kiley in 1967, and subsequently went on tour with it in the first national company of the show.
Other filmwork

He portrayed the Rev. Davidson in 1953's Miss Sadie Thompson (a remake of Rain) opposite Rita Hayworth; Barney Greenwald, the embittered defense attorney, in 1954's The Caine Mutiny; and operetta composer Sigmund Romberg in the MGM musical biopic Deep in My Heart. In 1955 Ferrer directed himself in the film version of The Shrike, with June Allyson. The Cockleshell Heroes followed a year later, along with The Great Man, both of which he also directed. In 1958 Ferrer directed and appeared in I Accuse! (as Alfred Dreyfus) and The High Cost of Loving. Ferrer also directed, but did not appear in, Return to Peyton Place in 1961 and also the remake of State Fair in 1962.

Ferrer's other notable film roles include the Turkish Bey in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Herod Antipas in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), a budding Nazi in Ship of Fools, a pompous professor in Woody Allen's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982), the treacherous Professor Siletski in the 1983 remake of To Be or Not to Be, and Shaddam Corrino IV in Dune in 1984. However, in an interview given in the 1980s, he bemoaned the lack of good character parts for aging stars, and readily admitted that he now took on roles mostly for the money.

In 1979, he had a memorable role as future Justice Abe Fortas, to whom he bore a strong resemblance, in the made-for-television film version of Anthony Lewis' Gideon's Trumpet, opposite Henry Fonda in an Emmy-nominated performance as Clarence Earl Gideon.
Radio and television

Among other radio roles, Ferrer starred as detective Philo Vance in a 1945 series of the same name.

Ferrer, not usually known for regular roles in TV series, had a recurring role as Julia Duffy's WASPy father on the long-running television series, Newhart in the 1980s. He also had a recurring role as elegant and flamboyant attorney Reuben Marino on the soap opera Another World in the early 1980s. He narrated the very first episode of the popular 1964 sitcom Bewitched, in mock documentary style. He also provided the voice of the evil Ben Haramed on the 1968 Rankin/Bass Christmas TV special The Little Drummer Boy.
Awards

Ferrer received his first Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the Dauphin who eventually becomes King of France in the Ingrid Bergman Joan of Arc in 1948. He went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Cyrano de Bergerac in the 1950 film version of Edmond Rostand's play, becoming the first Puerto Rican to win the award, only weeks after being subpoenaed to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee as a suspected Communist, charges that Ferrer vehemently denied and his career was unscathed. (Three other people connected with the film - screenwriter Carl Foreman, director Michael Gordon, and actor Morris Carnovsky, who was seen as Le Bret - were, in fact, blacklisted.) Ferrer was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for the second and final time for his portrayal of Toulouse-Lautrec in the 1952 non-musical film Moulin Rouge (no relation to the Nicole Kidman film of the same name).

Ferrer was also nominated for an Emmy Award twice - in 1949 and 1955. Both nominations were for playing the role of Cyrano in two different (and severely truncated) television productions of Cyrano de Bergerac. The first was telecast on Philco Television Playhouse, and the second on Producers' Showcase.

Before entering films, Ferrer won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Cyrano on the Broadway stage in a successful 1946 stage revival of the play. In 1952 Ferrer won a Tony Award for directing three plays (The Shrike, Stalag 17, The Fourposter), in the same season, and earned another for his performance in The Shrike.

In 1985, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
Personal life

Ferrer had a decade-long first marriage to famed actress and acting teacher Uta Hagen (1938–1948), with whom he had a daughter, Leticia ("Lettie") Ferrer. His second wife was dancer/actress Phyllis Hill (1948–1953). By his third marriage to Rosemary Clooney (actor George Clooney's aunt), Ferrer had five children: Miguel Jose (born February 7, 1955); Maria P (born August 9, 1956); Gabriel V (born August 1, 1957), Monsita T (born October 13, 1958) and Rafael F (born March 23, 1960). Ferrer and Clooney were married in 1953, divorced in 1961, and remarried in 1964, only to divorce again three years later. Their son, Gabriel Ferrer, is married to singer Debby Boone, daughter of Pat and Shirley Boone.

At the time of his death, he was married to Stella Magee, whom he met in the late sixties. Ferrer died following a brief battle with colon cancer in Coral Gables, Florida in 1992 and was interred in Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery in Old San Juan in his native Puerto Rico.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1948 Joan of Arc The Dauphin, Charles VII Directed by Victor Fleming
1949 Whirlpool David Korvo Directed by Otto Preminger
1950 Cyrano de Bergerac Cyrano de Bergerac Academy Award for Best Actor
Crisis Raoul Farrago Directed by Richard Brooks
The Secret Fury José
1952 Moulin Rouge Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Academy Award Nomination for Best Actor
Anything Can Happen Giorgi Papashvily
1953 Miss Sadie Thompson Alfred Davidson
1954 Deep in My Heart Sigmund Romberg
The Caine Mutiny Lt. Barney Greenwald Directed by Edward Dmytryk
1955 The Cockleshell Heroes Major Stringer
The Shrike Jim Downs
1956 The Great Man Joe Harris
1958 The High Cost of Loving Jim 'Jimbo' Fry
I Accuse! Capt. Alfred Dreyfus
1961 Return to Peyton Place
Forbid Them Not Narrator
1962 Lawrence of Arabia Turkish Bey
1963 Verspätung in Marienborn Cowan the Reporter
Nine Hours to Rama Supt. Gopal Das
1964 Cyrano et d'Artagnan Cyrano de Bergerac
1965 Ship of Fools Siegfried Rieber
The Greatest Story Ever Told Herod Antipas
1967 Cervantes Hassan Bey
Enter Laughing Mr. Marlowe
1975 El Clan de los inmorales Inspector Reed
1976 The Big Bus Ironman
Forever Young, Forever Free Father Alberto
Paco Fermin Flores
Voyage of the Damned Manuel Benitez
1977 The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover Lionel McCoy
Who Has Seen the Wind The Ben
The Sentinel Priest of the Brotherhood
Crash! Marc Denne
1978 The Swarm Dr. Andrews
Dracula's Dog Inspector Branco
Fedora Doctor Vando
The Return of Captain Nemo Captain Nemo
1979 Natural Enemies Harry Rosenthal
The Fifth Musketeer Athos
A Life of Sin Bishop
1980 The Big Brawl Domenici
1981 Bloody Birthday Doctor
1982 Blood Tide Nereus
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy Leopold
1983 To Be or Not to Be Prof. Siletski
The Being Mayor Gordon Lane
1984 Dune Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV
The Evil That Men Do Dr. Hector Lomelin
1987 The Sun and the Moon
1990 Hired to Kill Rallis
Old Explorers Warner Watney
1992 Laam Gong juen ji faan fei jo fung wan
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y213/redmars29/JoseFerrer.jpg
http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/qq85/cornershop15/Showbiz%20Couples/RosemaryClooney-JoseFerrerandfamily.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/26/10 at 2:08 pm

I found Nemo!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3019/2758112864_67b53c9a54.jpg

Dori

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3112/2757280039_9155d011e8.jpg

And yes, once again, those are my photos.


Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/26/10 at 2:19 pm


I found Nemo!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3019/2758112864_67b53c9a54.jpg

Dori

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3112/2757280039_9155d011e8.jpg

And yes, once again, those are my photos.


Cat



Very nice job :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/26/10 at 2:47 pm


The birthday of the day...Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen Lee DeGeneres (born January 26, 1958) is an American stand-up comedienne, television hostess and actress. She hosts the syndicated talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and is also a judge on American Idol, having joined the show in its ninth season.

She has hosted both the Academy Awards and the Primetime Emmys. As a film actress, she starred in Mr. Wrong, appeared in EDtv and The Love Letter, and provided the voice of Dory in the Disney-Pixar's animated film Finding Nemo. She also starred in two television sitcoms, Ellen from 1994 to 1998 and The Ellen Show from 2001 to 2002. In 1997, during the fourth season of Ellen, she came out publicly as a lesbian in an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Shortly afterwards, her character Ellen Morgan also came out to a therapist played by Winfrey and the series went on to explore various LGBT issues as well as the coming out process. She has won twelve Emmys and numerous awards for her work and charitable efforts.
DeGeneres started performing stand-up comedy at small clubs and coffeehouses. By 1981 she was the emcee at Clyde's Comedy Club in New Orleans. Degeneres describes Woody Allen and Steve Martin as her main influences at this time. In the early 1980s she began to tour nationally, being named Showtime's Funniest Person in America in 1982. In 1986 she appeared for the first time on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, who likened her to Bob Newhart. When Carson invited her over for an onscreen chat after her performance, she became the first female comedian in the show's history to whom this honor was bestowed.
Early screen work

Television and film work in the late 1980s and early 1990s included roles on television in Open House and in the film Coneheads.
Ellen (sitcom, 1994–1998)
At the Governor's Ball after the 46th Annual Emmy Awards telecast, Sept. 1994

DeGeneres' comedy material became the basis of the successful 1994-1998 sitcom Ellen, named These Friends of Mine during its first season. The ABC show was popular in its first few seasons due in part to DeGeneres' style of quirky observational humor; it was often referred to as a "female Seinfeld."

Ellen reached its height of popularity in February 1997, when DeGeneres made her homosexuality public on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Subsequently her character on the sitcom came out of the closet in April to her therapist, played by Oprah Winfrey, that she was gay. The coming out episode, entitled "The Puppy Episode", was one of the highest-rated episodes of the show, but later episodes of the series would fail to match its popularity, and after declining ratings, the show was canceled. DeGeneres returned to the stand-up comedy circuit, and would later re-establish herself as a successful talk show host.
Ellen's Energy Adventure

DeGeneres starred in a series of films for a show named Ellen's Energy Adventure, which is part of the Universe of Energy attraction and pavilion at Walt Disney World's Epcot. The film also featured Bill Nye, Alex Trebek, Michael Richards and Jamie Lee Curtis. The show revolved around DeGeneres falling asleep and finding herself in an energy-themed version of Jeopardy!, playing against an old rival, portrayed by Curtis, and Albert Einstein. The next film had DeGeneres hosting an educational look at energy, co-hosted with Nye. The ride first opened on September 15, 1996, as Ellen's Energy Crisis but was quickly renamed to the more positive-sounding Ellen's Energy Adventure.
The Ellen Show

DeGeneres returned to series television in 2001 with a new CBS sitcom, The Ellen Show. Though her character was again a lesbian, it was not the central theme of the show.
2001 Emmy Awards

DeGeneres received wide exposure on November 4, 2001 when she hosted the televised broadcast of the Emmy Awards. Presented after two cancellations due to network concerns that a lavish ceremony following the September 11, 2001 attacks would appear insensitive, the show required a more somber tone that would also allow viewers to temporarily forget the tragedy. DeGeneres received several standing ovations for her performance that evening which included the line: "What would bug the Taliban more than seeing a gay woman in a suit surrounded by Jews?"

In August 2005, DeGeneres hosted the 2005 Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony which was held on September 18, 2005. This was three weeks after Hurricane Katrina, making it the second time she hosted the Emmys following a national tragedy. She also hosted the Grammy Awards in 1996 and in 1997.
Voice acting

DeGeneres lent her voice to the role of Dory, a fish with short-term memory loss, in the summer 2003 hit animated Disney/Pixar film Finding Nemo. The film's director, Andrew Stanton, claimed that he chose her because she "changed the subject five times before one sentence had finished" on her show. For her performance as Dory, DeGeneres won the Saturn Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films for "Best Supporting Actress"; "Favorite Voice from an Animated Movie" from the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards; and the Annie Award from the International Animated Film Association for "Outstanding Voice Acting". She was also nominated for a Chicago Film Critics Association Award in the "Best Supporting Actress" category. She also provided the voice of the dog in the prologue of the Eddie Murphy feature film Dr. Dolittle.
The Ellen DeGeneres Show

DeGeneres launched a daytime television talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show in September 2003. Amid a crop of several celebrity-hosted talk shows surfacing at the beginning of that season, such as those of Sharon Osbourne and Rita Rudner, her show has consistently risen in the Nielsen Ratings and received widespread critical praise. It was nominated for 11 Daytime Emmy Awards in its first season, winning four, including Best Talk Show. The show has won 25 Emmy Awards in its first three seasons on the air. DeGeneres is known for her dancing and singing with the audience at the beginning of the show and during commercial breaks. She often gives away free prizes and trips to her studio audience with the help of her sponsors.

DeGeneres celebrated her thirty-year class reunion by flying her graduating class to California to be guests on her show in February 2006. She presented Atlanta High School with a surprise gift of a new electronic LED marquee sign.

In May 2006, DeGeneres made a surprise appearance at the Tulane University commencement in New Orleans. Following George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton to the podium, she came out in a bathrobe and furry slippers. "They told me everyone would be wearing robes," she said.

The show broadcast for a week from Universal Studios Orlando in March 2007. Guests that week included Jennifer Lopez and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and skits included DeGeneres going on the Hulk Roller Coaster Ride and the Jaws Boat Ride.

In May 2007, DeGeneres was placed on bed rest due to a torn ligament in her back. She continued hosting her show from a hospital bed, tended to by a nurse, explaining "the show must go on, as they say." Guests sat in hospital beds as well.

On May 1, 2009, DeGeneres celebrated her 1000th episode, featuring celebrity guests such as Oprah, Justin Timberlake, and Paris Hilton, among others.
79th Academy Awards
Ellen DeGeneres at the Emmy Awards, 1997

On September 7, 2006, DeGeneres was selected to host the 79th Academy Awards ceremony, which took place on February 25, 2007. This makes her the first openly gay or lesbian person to have hosted the event. During the Awards show DeGeneres said, "What a wonderful night, such diversity in the room, in a year when there's been so many negative things said about people's race, religion and sexual orientation. And I want to put this out there: if there weren't blacks, Jews and gays, there would be no Oscars, or anyone named Oscar, when you think about that." Reviews of her hosting gig were positive, with one saying, "DeGeneres rocked, as she never forgot that she wasn't just there to entertain the Oscar nominees but also to tickle the audience at home." In fact, Regis Philbin said in an interview that "the only complaint was there's not enough Ellen."

DeGeneres was nominated for an Emmy Award as host of the Academy Awards broadcast.
2007 Writers Guild strike

DeGeneres, like many actors who are also writers, is a member of both the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA). Thus, although DeGeneres verbally supported the 2007 WGA strike she did not support it when she crossed the picket line the day after the strike began. Her representatives said that she was competing with other first-run syndicated shows during the competitive November sweeps period, and that she could not break her contracts or risk her show lose its time slot. As a show of solidarity with the strikers, DeGeneres omitted her monologue during the strike, typically written by WGA writers. The WGA condemned her while the AFTRA defended her.
Commercial spokeswoman

In November 2004, DeGeneres appeared, dancing, in an ad campaign for American Express. Her most recent American Express commercial, a two-minute black-and-white spot where she works with animals, debuted in November 2006 and was created by Ogilvy and Mather. In 2007, the commercial won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial.

DeGeneres began working with Cover Girl Cosmetics in September 2008, for which she has been criticized, as her animal-friendly values clash with Procter and Gamble's (the maker of Cover Girl Cosmetics) animal testing . Her face is the focus of new Cover Girl advertisements starting in January 2009. The beauty campaign will be DeGeneres' first.
American Idol

On September 9, 2009, it was confirmed that DeGeneres would replace Paula Abdul as a judge of the ninth season of American Idol. Her role will start only after the contestant auditions. DeGeneres also reportedly signed a contract to be a judge on the show for at least five seasons.
Personal life

DeGeneres was in a relationship (1997-2000) with former Another World actress Anne Heche who went on to marry cameraman Coley Laffoon. From 2001 to 2004, DeGeneres and actress/director/photographer Alexandra Hedison were in a relationship. They appeared on the cover of The Advocate after their separation had already been announced to the media.

Since 2004, DeGeneres has been in a relationship with former Ally McBeal and Arrested Development star Portia de Rossi. After the overturn of the same-sex marriage ban in California, DeGeneres announced on a May 2008 show that she and de Rossi were engaged, and gave de Rossi a three-carat pink diamond ring. They were married on August 16, 2008 at their home, with nineteen guests including their respective mothers. The passage of Proposition 8 cast doubt on the legal status of their marriage but a subsequent Supreme Court judgment validated it because it occurred before 4 November 2008.

They live in Beverly Hills, with three dogs and four cats, and both are vegan.

In her book, Love, Ellen, DeGeneres' mother, Betty DeGeneres, describes being initially shocked when her daughter came out as a lesbian, but has become one of her strongest supporters, an active member of Parents & Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign's Coming Out Project. DeGeneres' mother is a breast cancer survivor.

In 2007, Forbes estimated DeGeneres' net worth as US$65 million.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1990 Arduous Moon Herself Short film
1991 Wisecracks Herself Documentary
1993 Coneheads Coach
1994 Trevor Herself Short film
1996 Ellen's Energy Adventure Herself Short film
Mr. Wrong Martha Alston
1998 Goodbye Lover Sgt. Rita Pompano
Dr. Dolittle Prologue Dog Voice
1999 EDtv Cynthia
The Love Letter Janet Hall
2003 Pauly Shore Is Dead Herself
Finding Nemo Dory Voice
2004 My Short Film Herself Short film
Television
Year Film Role Notes
1988 Women of the Night Herself Comedy Special
1989 Open House Margo Van Mete Episode: "The Bad Seed"
Episode: "Let's Get Physicals"
1992 Laurie Hill Nancy MacIntyre Episode: "Pilot"
Episode: "The Heart Thing"
Episode: "Walter and Beverly"
1994-1998 Ellen Ellen Morgan 109 episodes
1995 Roseanne Dr. Whitman

Episode: "The Blaming of the Shrew"
1998 Mad About You Nancy Bloom Episode: "The Finale"
2000 If These Walls Could Talk 2 Kal Segment: "2000"
2001 On the Edge Operator Segment: "Reaching Normal"
2001-2002 The Ellen Show Ellen Richmond 18 episodes
2003 Ellen DeGeneres: Here and Now Herself Comedy Special
MADtv Herself Episode: "9.3"
2004 E! True Hollywood Story Herself
Six Feet Under Herself Parallel Play]]"
2007 Ellen's Really Big Show Herself
Sesame Street Herself Episode: "The Tutu Spell" (uncredited)
Forbes 20 Richest Women in Entertainment Herself
The Bachelorette Herself
2007-2008 American Idol: The Search for a Superstar Herself Episode: "Idol Gives Back 2007"
" Idol Gives Back 2008
2008 Ellen's Even Bigger Really Big Show Herself Comedy Special
2009 Ellen's Bigger, Longer & Wider Show Herself Comedy Special
So You Think You Can Dance Guest Judge Week 7; July 22, 2009
2003-present The Ellen DeGeneres Show Herself TV show
2010 American Idol Judge Starting with season 9.
Discography
Year Film Role Notes
1996 Ellen Degeneres: Taste This Stand-up comedy Live CD
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n175/cityondown09/ellen_degeneres.jpg
http://i769.photobucket.com/albums/xx338/ihavefoundit/degeneres.jpg
http://i862.photobucket.com/albums/ab182/duhhkodaa/ellen-degeneres-raccoon.jpg
http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd230/honeyhoneyhoney/American%20Idol/1263253162_ellen-blog.jpg


I love her show.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/26/10 at 4:07 pm


I love her show.  :)

I don't usually watch it.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/27/10 at 6:32 am

The word of the day...Snow
Snow consists of a lot of soft white bits of frozen water that fall from the sky in cold weather.
If someone snows you, they persuade you to do something or convince you of something by flattering or deceiving you.
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu56/THElablahblah/snow.jpg
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt352/mbyoh/snow.jpg
http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/ae152/twilight_person/Photo258.jpg
http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt137/Planaproject/DSC_0133.jpg
http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad207/pacontrolrm/Random/Snow.jpg
http://i857.photobucket.com/albums/ab140/glvictor/Snow_mount.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r120/abaxter1411/PC260053.jpg
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss260/angelanewham/DSC04610.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd32/okesha/WinterinAshland.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/27/10 at 6:36 am

The person born on this day...James Cromwell
James Oliver Cromwell (born January 27, 1940) is an American film and television actor. He has been nominated for an Oscar, three Emmy Awards, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards during his career.
Cromwell's first television performance was in a 1974 episode of The Rockford Files playing Terry. A few weeks later, he began a recurring role as Stretch Cunningham on All in the Family. In 1975 he took his first lead role on television as Bill Lewis in the short-lived Hot l Baltimore, and a year later he made his film debut in Neil Simon's classic detective spoof Murder by Death.

In 1980, Cromwell guest-starred in the two-part pivotal episode "Laura Ingalls Wilder" of the long-running television series Little House on the Prairire. He played "Harve Miller," one of "Almanzo Wilder's" (Dean Butler) old friends. He comes to visit Almanzo, who lives with his shy sister, Walnut Grove's school teacher "Eliza Jane." Eliza Jane and Harve spend time together over the next few weeks, and she falls in love, for the first time, with Harve. Eliza, however, misunderstands some comments Harve has made, and he stuns her, at Nellie's restaurant, by announcing he wishes to marry another woman in a different town. Harve is totally unaware that she had feelings of love towards him. She takes Almanzo's wagon to the town of Sleepy Eye to seek him out before he marries someone else. She finally gathers the courage to tell him that she loves him. Instead, he tells Eliza that it is too late, he is already married. Eliza lies to everyone, and claims she is marrying Harve and moving away. This allows seventeen-year-old Laura Ingalls (Melissa Gilbert) to take over her job as school teacher, giving Laura and Almanzo desperately needed income, and allowing Laura to move into their home to marry Almanzo at last.

While Cromwell continued with regular television work throughout the 1980s, he made real inroads in film business for his supporting roles in the films Tank and Revenge of the Nerds. His starring roles in the 1990s critically-acclaimed films Babe (1995), The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), L.A. Confidential (1997), The Green Mile, and Snow Falling on Cedars (both 1999) were breakout roles for him, and made him more bankable in Hollywood. He also played Dr. Zefram Cochrane in Star Trek: First Contact (1996) and the Star Trek: Enterprise pilot Broken Bow (the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "In a Mirror, Darkly" later reused some of the First Contact footage). He has appeared on other Star Trek television series The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, though not as Cochrane (his appearances on these shows predated his role in First Contact), he guest starred in episodes including "The Hunted", "Birthright" (Part I and II) and "Starship Down".

Cromwell also had additional success on television throughout his career. His role as newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst in the television film RKO 281 earned him an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Television Movie. The following year, he receive his second Emmy Award nomination for playing Bishop Lionel Stewart on the NBC medical drama series ER. In 2004, he guest-starred as former President D. Wire Newman in the The West Wing episode "The Stormy Present". From 2003 to 2005, Cromwell played George Sibley in the HBO drama series Six Feet Under, which earned him his third Emmy Award nomination in 2003. Along with the rest of his castmates, he was also nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2005 and 2006. The following year, Cromwell played Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in The Queen (2006), that earned Dame Helen Mirren an Academy Award for Best Actress. He also guest starred as Phillip Bauer, father of lead character Jack, in the sixth season of the Fox thriller drama series 24.

In October 2007, Cromwell played the lead role of James Tyrone Sr. in the Druid Theatre Company's production of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, at the Gaiety in Dublin as part of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival's 50th Anniversary. More recently, Cromwell played George Herbert Walker Bush in Oliver Stone's W. (2008), that chronicles the unlikely rise to power of his son up until the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In an interview, Cromwell revealed that Stone had originally offered the role to Warren Beatty and Harrison Ford.
Personal life

He has long been an advocate of leftist causes. In an October 2008 interview, he strongly attacked the Republican Party and the George W. Bush administration, saying their controversial foreign policy would "either destroy us or the entire planet." In the late 1960s, he was a member of "The Committee to Defend The Panthers", a group organized to defend 13 members of the Black Panther Party who had been imprisoned in New York on charges of conspiracy. All thirteen were eventually released. In a 2004 interview with CNN.com, Cromwell praised the Panthers. He became a vegetarian in 1974 after seeing a stockyard in Texas and experiencing the "smell, terror and anxiety." He became an ethical vegan while playing the character of Farmer Hoggett in the movie Babe in 1995. He frequently speaks out on issues regarding animal cruelty for PETA, largely the treatment of pigs.

Cromwell is known for his unusually tall stature; he stands at 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m).

Cromwell was married to Anne Ulvestad from 1976 to 1986. They had three children. He married his second wife, Julie Cobb, on 29 May 1986.
Filmography
Films
Year Film Role Notes
1976 Murder by Death Marcel
1978 The Cheap Detective Schnell
1981 Nobody's Perfekt Dr. Carson
1983 The Man with Two Brains Realtor
1984 The House of God Officer Quick
Tank Deputy Euclid Baker
Revenge of the Nerds Mr. Skolnick Credited as "Jamie Cromwell"
Oh, God! You Devil Priest
1985 Explorers Mr. Müller
1986 A Fine Mess Detective Blist
1987 Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise Mr. Skolnick
1988 The Rescue Admiral Rothman
1989 The Runnin' Kind Unknown
Pink Cadillac Motel Desk Clerk
1992 The Babe Brother Mathias
1993 Romeo Is Bleeding Cage
1995 Babe Farmer Arthur Hoggett Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
1996 Eraser William Donohue
The People vs. Larry Flynt Charles Keating
Star Trek: First Contact Dr. Zefram Cochrane
1997 Owd Bob Adam MacAdam
L.A. Confidential Captain Dudley Smith Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
The Education of Little Tree Granpa
1998 Species II Senator Judson Ross
Deep Impact Alan Rittenhouse
Babe: Pig in the City Farmer Arthur Hoggett
1999 The General's Daughter Lt. Gen. Joseph Campbell
The Bachelor Priest
The Green Mile Warden Hal Moores Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Snow Falling on Cedars Judge Fielding
2000 Space Cowboys Bob Gerson
2002 Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron The Colonel
The Sum of All Fears President J. Robert Fowler
The Nazi Franz
2003 Blackball Ray Speight
The Snow Walker Walter Shepherd
2004 I, Robot Dr. Alfred Lanning
2005 The Longest Yard Warden Hazen
2006 The Queen Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
2007 Dante's Inferno Virgil
Becoming Jane Reverend Austen
Spider-Man 3 Captain George Stacy
2008 Tortured Jack
W. George H. W. Bush
2009 A Lonely Place for Dying Howard Simons
Flying Into Love Lyndon B. Johnson Pre-production
Surrogates Dr. Lionel Canter
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1974 The Rockford Files Terry Episode 1.3: "The Countess"
All in the Family Stretch Cunningham Appeared in three episodes
1974, 1978 Maude Alfie
Dr. Farrington Episode 3.9: "Last Tango in Tuckahoe"
Episode 6.13: "The Obscene Phone Call"
1975 Hot l Baltimore Bill Lewis Main cast member
Barbary Coast Roy Episode 1.4: "The Ballad of Redwing Jail"
1976 Stranded Jerry Holmes TV film
Insight Norman Episode "Jesus B.C."
The Nancy Walker Show Glen
Once an Eagle J. L. Cleghorne Mini-series
1977 Police Story Lutz Episode 4.20: "Ice Time"
The Girl in the Empty Grave Deputy Malcolm Rossiter Jr. TV film
M*A*S*H Captain Leo Bardonaro Episode 6.3: "Last Laugh"
Three's Company Detective Lannigan Episode 2.9: "Chrissy's Night Out"
Deadly Game Deputy Malcolm Rossiter Jr. TV film
1977, 1979, 1981 Barney Miller Sgt. Wilkinson
Neil Spencer
Jason Parrish
Dr. Edmund Danworth Episode 3.20: "Group Home"
Episode 6.6: "Strip Joint"
Episode 7.22: "Liquidation"
Episode 8.5: "Stress Analyzer"
1978 Alice Detective Ralph Hilton Episode 3.9: "Who Ordered the Hot Turkey?"
1979 Eight Is Enough Coach Pollard Episode 3.23: "The Better Part of Valour"
Diff'rent Strokes Father O'Brien Episode 2.7: "Arnold's Hero"
1979, 1980 The White Shadow Mr. Hamilton
Art Commings Episode 1.13: "Mainstream"
Episode 2.22: "The Death of Me Yet?"
1980 Flo Leon Episodes 1.1: "Homecoming" and 1.4: "Take My Sister, Please"
Little House on the Prairie Harve Miller Episodes 7.1: "Laura Ingalls Wilder: Part 1" and 7.2: "Laura Ingalls Wilder: Part 2"
A Christmas Without Snow Reverend Lohman TV film
1981 Barefoot in the Park Harry Pepper TV film
1982 The Rainmaker Noah Curry TV film
Nurse Paul Moore Episode 2.9: "A Place to Die"
The Wall Francisek TV film
Born to the Wind Fish Belly
Father Murphy Farley Webster Episodes 2.5: "The Reluctant Runaway: Part 1" and 2.6: "The Reluctant Runaway: Part 2"
1984 Buffalo Bill Unknown Episode 2.2: "Jerry Lewis Week"
Gimme a Break! Russell Cosgrove Episode 3.22: "Class of '84"
Spraggue Lieutenant Hurley TV film
Earthlings Simon Ganes TV film
1984-1985 Dallas Gerald Kane Appeared in three episodes
1985 Night Court Alan Episode 2.14: "Nuts About Harry"
Family Ties John Hancock Episode 3.15: "Philadelphia Story"
Riptide Joey Dietz Episode 2.17: "Girls Night Out"
Hardcastle and McCormick Jake Fellows Episode 2.20: "Undercover McCormick"
Knight Rider Curtis Episode 3.18: "Ten Wheel Trouble"
Wildside Fake Buffalo Bill Episode 1.5: "Buffalo Who?"
Hill Street Blues Lowenhandler Episode 5.23: "Grin and Bear It"
Hunter Seymour Robbins Episode 1.19: "Sniper"
The Twilight Zone Obediah Payne Episode 1.6: "Examination Day/A Message from Charity"
1985-1986 Scarecrow and Mrs. King Gregory Episodes 3.4: "Tail of the Dancing Weasel" and 3.18: "Wrong Number"
1986 Amazing Stories Francis Episode 1.15: "One for the Road"
Magnum, P.I. French Policeman Episode 6.21: "Photo Play"; uncredited
The Last Precinct Chief Bludhorn
Dream West Major General David Hunter TV mini-series
1987 Easy Street Quentin Standard Episode 1.13: "Frames and Dames"
Alison's Demise Humboldt Hobson TV film
1988 China Beach Ambassador at Large Roland Weymouth Pilot
Mr. Belvedere Roy Gallagher Episode 5.1: "Fat Cats"
Mama's Boy Unknown
1989 Christine Cromwell Arthur Episode 1.1: "Things That Go Bump in the Night"
1990 Life Goes On Bill Henderson Episode 1.13: "Thacher and Henderson"
Miracle Landing B.J. Cocker TV film
Matlock Judge Raymond Price Episode 5.2: "Nowhere to Turn"
1990, 1993 Star Trek: The Next Generation Prime Minister Nayrok
Jaglom Shrek Episode 3.11: "The Hunted"
Episodes 6.16: "Birthright: Part 1" and 6.17: "Birthright: Part 2"
1991 The Young Riders Jacob Episode 2.14: "The Peacemakers"
Jake and the Fatman Havilland Episode 4.19: "It Never Entered My Mind"
In a Child's Name Unknown TV film
1992 Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation Mr. Skolnick TV film; credited as "Jamie Cromwell"
1994 Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love Mr. Skolnick TV film; credited as "Jamie Cromwell"
The Shaggy Dog Charlie 'the Robber' Mulvihill TV film
Home Improvement Fred Episode 4.9: "My Dinner with Wilson"
1995 Renegade Jeremy Sullivan Episode 3.15: "Stalker's Moon"
Picket Fences The Bishop Episode 3.20: "Saint Zach"
Indictment: The McMartin Trial Judge Pounders TV film
Hawkeye Unknown Episode 1.17: "The Visit"
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Hanok Episode 4.6: "Starship Down"
1995-1996 Partners Mr. Saxonhouse Episodes 1.11: "Do We Have to Write You a Check?" and 1.18: "Can We Keep Her, Dad?"
1996 Strange Luck Minister Episode 1.13: "Healing Hands"
The Client Officer Joe Denton Episode 1.17: "The High Ground"
1999 A Slight Case of Murder John Edgerson TV film
RKO 281 William Randolph Hearst TV film
Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
2000 Fail Safe Gordon Knapp TV play
2001 ER Bishop Stewart Appeared in four episodes
Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor – Drama Series
Star Trek: Enterprise Dr. Zefram Cochrane Episode 1.1: "Broken Bow: Part 1"
Cromwell also appeared in archive footage in Episode 4.18: "In a Mirror, Darkly"
Citizen Baines Senator Elliot Baines Appeared in all seven episodes
2002 A Death in the Family Joel Lynch TV film
The Magnificent Ambersons Major Amberson TV film
RFK President Lyndon B. Johnson
2003 Angels in America Henry TV mini-series; chapters 1 and 4
2003-2005 Six Feet Under George Sibley Appeared in 27 episodes
Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series (2005, 2006)
2004 The West Wing President D. Wire Newman Episode 5.10: "The Stormy Present"
'Salem's Lot Father Donald Callahan TV mini-series
2005 Pope John Paul II Cardinal Adam Stefan Sapieha
2006 Avenger Paul Devereaux TV film
2007 24 Phillip Bauer Appeared in eight episodes
Masters of Science Fiction Randolph Ludwin Episode 1.6: "Watchbird"
2008 Hit Factor Orson Fierce Also producer
My Own Worst Enemy Alistar Trumble Appeared in six episodes
2009 Strikeout Director TV film
Impact Lloyd TV mini-series
The Last Days of Lehman Brothers Hank Paulson Docu-drama
Theatre

    * Long Day's Journey into Night (2007)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v196/paganpriest/Movies/People/JamesCromwell.jpg
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/27/10 at 6:41 am

The person who died on this day... Andre The Giant
André René Roussimoff (19 May 1946 – 27 January 1993), best known as André the Giant, was a French professional wrestler and actor. His great size was a result of acromegaly, and led to him being dubbed "The Eighth Wonder of the World".

In the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), Roussimoff briefly held the WWF Championship. In 1993, he was the first inductee into the WWF Hall of Fame.
On 26 March 1973, André made his WWE debut as a "face", defeating Buddy Wolfe in New York's Madison Square Garden.

By the time Vince McMahon, Jr. began to expand his promotion to the national level in the early 1980s, André wrestled exclusively for WWF in the USA, while still holding international engagements. André was mentioned in the 1974 Guinness Book of World Records as the highest paid wrestler in history up to that time. He had earned $400,000 in one year alone during the early 1970s.

André was one of WWF's most beloved "babyfaces" throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. As such, Gorilla Monsoon insisted that André was never defeated for 15 years by pinfall or submission prior to WrestleMania III. This, however, is not true. André actually had lost cleanly in matches outside of the parameters of WWF; a pinfall loss in Mexico to Canek in 1984 and in Japan a submission loss to Antonio Inoki in 1986. He also went sixty-minute time limit draws with the two other major world champions of the day, Harley Race and Nick Bockwinkel.

One of André's feuds pitted him against the Mongolian terror Killer Khan, who was managed by Freddie Blassie. According to the storyline, Khan had broken André's ankle during a match in Rochester, New York by leaping off the top rope and crashing down upon it with his knee-drop. After a stay at Beth-Israel Hospital in Boston, André returned with payback on his mind. On 14 November 1981 at the Philadelphia Spectrum, André exacted revenge by destroying Khan in what was billed as a "Mongolian Stretcher Match", in which the loser must be taken to the dressing room on a stretcher. In reality, André had snapped his ankle getting out of bed one morning. The injury and subsequent rehabilitation was worked into the existing André/Khan storyline.

Another feud involved a man who considered himself to be "the true giant" of wrestling: Big John Studd. Throughout the early to mid-1980s, André and Studd fought all over the world, battling to try and determine who the real giant of wrestling was. In December 1984, Studd took the feud to a new level, when he and partner Ken Patera knocked out André during a televised tag team match and proceeded to cut off André's hair. André had the last laugh at the first WrestleMania on 31 March 1985 at Madison Square Garden. André conquered Studd in a $15,000 Body Slam Challenge. After slamming Studd, he attempted to give the $15,000 prize to the fans, before having the bag stolen from him by his future manager Bobby "The Brain" Heenan.

The following year, at WrestleMania 2 on 7 April 1986, André continued to display his dominance by winning a twenty-man battle royal that featured top NFL stars and wrestlers. André last eliminated Bret Hart to win the contest. Afterward, André continued his feud with Studd and King Kong Bundy. André was suspended after a no-show; he returned under a mask as "The Giant Machine" part of a team with "Big Machine" (Robert Windham) and "Super Machine" (Bill Eadie) (The Machines gimmick was copied from New Japan Pro Wrestling character "Super Strong Machine", played by Japanese wrestler Junji Hirata). Soon afterwards, Giant Machine disappeared, and André was reinstated, to the approval of Bobby "The Brain" Heenan.
Heel run (1987–1990)

Feuding Hulk Hogan and WWF Champion
Main article: WrestleMania III

André was turned heel in 1987 so that he could face Hulk Hogan for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship in the main event of WrestleMania III. In early 1987, Hogan was presented a trophy for being the WWF World Heavyweight Champion for three years. André came out to congratulate him. Shortly afterward, André was presented a slightly smaller trophy for being "undefeated in WWF for fifteen years." In actuality, André had suffered a handful of countout and disqualification losses in WWF but had never been pinned or forced to submit in a WWF ring. Hogan came out to congratulate André and ended up being the focal point of the interview. A visibly annoyed André walked out in the midst of Hogan's speech. Then, on an edition of "Piper's Pit", Hogan was confronted by Bobby Heenan. Heenan announced that his new protege was André, who then challenged Hogan to a title match at WrestleMania III, ripping the t-shirt and crucifix from Hogan.

At WrestleMania III, he was billed at 525 lb (238 kg), and the stress of that immense weight on his bones and joints resulted in constant pain. After recent back surgery, he was also wearing a brace underneath his wrestling singlet. Hogan won the match after body slamming André, followed by Hogan's running leg drop finisher. Years later, Hogan claimed that André was so heavy, he felt more like 700 lb (320 kg), and that he actually tore his latissimus dorsi muscle slamming him. Another famous story about the match is that no one knew if André would lose the match. André had agreed to lose the match some time before, mostly for health reasons, though he almost pinned Hogan (albeit unintentionally) in the early goings of the match. Contrary to popular belief, it was not the first time that Hogan had successfully bodyslammed André in a WWF match. A then-heel Hogan bodyslammed a then-face André early in a match in Hamburg, Pennsylvania on 13 September 1980, though André was much lighter and more athletic at the time. This, of course, back in the territorial days of wrestling three years before WWF began its national expansion (André had also previously allowed Harley Race, Kamala, and Stan Hansen to slam him. By the time WrestleMania III had rolled around, the WWF had gone national, giving more meaning to the André-Hogan match that took place then. The feud between André and Hogan simmered during the summer of 1987, even as Roussimoff's health declined. The feud would begin heating up again when each wrestler was named the captain of rival teams at the inaugural Survivor Series event. André's team won the main event after André pinned Bam Bam Bigelow.

In the meantime, "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase failed to persuade Hogan to sell him the WWF World Championship. After failing to defeat Hogan in a subsequent series of matches, DiBiase turned to André to win it for him. Acting as his hired gun, André won the WWF title from Hogan on 5 February 1988 in a match where it was later revealed appointed referee Dave Hebner was "detained backstage", and a replacement who DiBiase paid to get plastic surgery to look like Dave (in reality, his twin brother Earl Hebner), made a three count on Hogan while his shoulders were off the mat. After winning, André "sold" the title to DiBiase; the transaction was declared invalid by then-WWF President Jack Tunney and the title was vacated. This was shown on WWF's NBC program The Main Event. At WrestleMania IV, André and Hulk Hogan fought to a double disqualification in a WWF title tournament match (with the idea in the storyline saying that André was again working on DiBiase's behalf in giving DiBiase a clearer path in the tournament). Afterward, André and Hogan's feud died down after a steel cage match held at WrestleFest on 31 July 1988 in Milwaukee. He and DiBiase also wrestled Hogan and Randy "Macho Man" Savage in the main event of SummerSlam; the DiBiase-André team lost, despite apparently having referee Jesse "the Body" Ventura on their side.
WrestleMania VI; The Colossal Connection

André's next major feud was against Jake "The Snake" Roberts. In this storyline, it was said André was deathly afraid of snakes, something Roberts exposed on Saturday Night's Main Event when he threw his snake, Damien, on the frightened André; as a result, André suffered a kayfabe mild heart attack and vowed revenge. During the next few weeks, Roberts frequently walked to ringside during André's matches, causing him to run from the ring in fright (since he knew what was inside the bag). Throughout their feud (which culminated at WrestleMania V), Roberts constantly used Damien to gain a psychological edge over the much larger and stronger André.

During the late summer and fall of 1989, André engaged in a brief feud with then-Intercontinental champion The Ultimate Warrior, where the younger Warrior regularly squashed the aging André. Earlier in 1989, André and the returning Big John Studd reprized their feud, this time with Studd as a face and André as the heel.

André won the World Tag Team Championship with his partner Haku (known collectively as The Colossal Connection) from Demolition on 13 December 1989. Managed by Bobby Heenan, they lost their titles at WrestleMania VI back to Demolition on 1 April 1990. After the match, a furious Heenan slapped André; he responded by knocking Heenan out, much to the delight of the fans. André went into the match as a heel, and left as a face.
Sporadic appearances

André continued to make appearances in the WWF throughout 1990 and 1991. He was scheduled to appear in the 1991 Royal Rumble battle royal but ultimately did not feature in the PPV at all. He came to the aid of The Big Bossman in his WrestleMania VII match against Mr. Perfect. His last major appearance was at SummerSlam in 1991, where he seconded The Bushwhackers in their match against The Natural Disasters. He also made an appearance later in the year to help The British Bulldog who had just won a Battle Royal in London.

On 25 January 2005 WWE released André The Giant, a DVD focusing on the career of André. The DVD is a reissue of the out-of-print André The Giant VHS made by Coliseum Video in 1985, with commentary by Michael Cole and Tazz replacing Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura's commentary on his WrestleMania match with Big John Studd. The video is hosted by Lord Alfred Hayes. Later matches, including André's battles against Hulk Hogan while a heel, are not included on this DVD.

His last U.S. television appearance was in a brief interview on World Championship Wrestling's Clash of the Champions XX special that aired on TBS on 2 September 1992.
Acting career

André branched out into acting in the 1970s and 1980s, making his acting debut playing a Sasquatch ("Bigfoot") on the 1970s television series The Six Million Dollar Man. He went on to appear in other television shows, including The Greatest American Hero, B.J. and the Bear, and The Fall Guy. He also participated in an episode of Zorro.

Towards the end of his career, André also starred in several movies. He had an uncredited appearance in the 1984 film — Conan the Destroyer, as Dagoth, the resurrected horned giant god who is killed by Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger). But he appeared most notably as Fezzik (his favorite role) in the 1987 film The Princess Bride.

In his final film, he appeared in something of a cameo role as a circus giant in the comedy Trading Mom, which was not released until the year after his death.

André: Heart of the Giant is a movie about André's life and struggles in and out of the wrestling ring.
Legacy

In 1993 when the then-World Wrestling Federation created the WWF Hall of Fame, André the Giant was the first inductee.

André was the inspiration for the 1998 film My Giant, written by his friend Billy Crystal, whom he had met during the filming of The Princess Bride.

Paul Wight, better known as The Big Show and the most similar in body structure to André than any other wrestler since André's death, was originally billed as the son of André the Giant during his stint in WCW (when he was known as simply The Giant) despite no biological relation. While also suffering from acromegaly, unlike André, Wight did get surgery on his pituitary gland in the early 1990s, which successfully halted the progress of his condition. Former wrestler Giant González is currently suffering from similar problems that André had near the end of his life.

André is cited and impersonated in the comedy film I Love You, Man. He is also cited in the Eminem song "Crack a Bottle" in the lyrics "Back when Andre the Giant, mister elephant tusk, picture us and you'll be another one to bite the dust". Andre is also cited in the movie The 40 Year Old Virgin when someone quotes a woman he dated "had hands like Andre The Giant."
Personal life

Roussimoff had one daughter, Robin Christensen, who was born in 1979.

The disease that granted him his immense size eventually began to take its toll on his body. By the late 1980s, André was in constant, near-crippling pain, and his heart struggled to pump blood throughout his massive body.

According to William Goldman, author of The Princess Bride and its respective screenplay, André was having such terrible back pain during the filming of the movie that in the first shooting of a scene where Robin Wright drops about one foot and is caught by André, he fell to one knee and almost dropped her.

In the A&E documentary, Biography, Arnold Skaaland mentions how André wished he could see a Broadway play. Arnold offered to buy tickets, but André then passed up the opportunity, citing how he was too big for the seats and that people behind him would not be able to see. This was cited as a principal reason for why André frequented taverns more than anywhere else. Another story he relates tells of when André was in a bar one night, four men came up to him and began harassing him about his size. At first, André attempted to avoid confrontation, but eventually he proceeded to chase the hecklers until they locked themselves in their car. André then grabbed the car and turned it over with the four people trapped inside. André was never arrested for the incident, presumably since local police officers had a hard time believing four inebriated men's story about an angry giant overturning their car.

He has been unofficially crowned "The Greatest Drunk on Earth" for once consuming 119 12-ounce beers in 6 hours. On an episode of WWE's Legends of Wrestling, Mike Graham claimed that André once drank 197 16-ounce beers in one sitting, which was confirmed by Dusty Rhodes. In her autobiography, The Fabulous Moolah alleges that André drank 327 beers and passed out in a hotel bar in Reading, Pennsylvania, and because the staff could not move him, they had to leave him there until he regained consciousness.

André was arrested by the Linn County, Iowa sheriff in August 1989 and charged with assault after the 540 lb (240 kg) wrestler allegedly roughed up a local TV cameraman.
Death

André died at the age of 46 in his sleep of a heart attack on January 27, 1993, in a Paris hotel room. He was in Paris to attend the funeral for his father. André's body was cremated in accordance with his wishes and his ashes scattered at his ranch in Ellerbe, North Carolina.
In wrestling

    * Finishing moves
          o Double underhook suplex
          o Elbow drop pin
          o Kneeling belly to belly piledriver
          o Sit-down splash
          o Standing splash

    * Signature moves
          o Bearhug
          o Big boot
          o Body slam
          o Chokehold
          o Gorilla press slam
          o Head and neck rake
          o Headbutt
          o Repeated hip attacks to a cornered opponent
          o Samoan drop

    * Managers
          o Bobby Heenan
          o Frank Valoi
          o Lou Albano
          o K.Y. Wakamatsu
          o Ted DiBiase

    * Nicknames
          o "The 8th Wonder of the World"
          o "Tiant"
          o "The Immovable Object"

Championships and accomplishments

    * Championship Wrestling from Florida
          o NWA Florida Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Dusty Rhodes
    * International Pro Wrestling
          o IWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Michael Nader
    * NWA Tri-State
          o NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Tri-State version) (1 time) – with Dusty Rhodes
    * Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum
          o Class of 2002
    * Pro Wrestling Illustrated
          o PWI Most Popular Wrestler of the Year (1977, 1982)
          o PWI Match of the Year (1981) vs. Killer Khan on 2 May
          o PWI Match of the Year (1988) vs. Hulk Hogan at The Main Event
          o PWI Most Hated Wrestler of the Year (1988)
          o PWI Editor's Award (1993)
    * Stampede Wrestling
          o Stampede Wrestling Hall of Fame
    * World Championship Wrestling (Australia)
          o NWA Austra-Asian Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Ronald Miller
    * World Wrestling Federation
          o WWF Championship (1 time)
          o WWF Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Haku
          o WWF Hall of Fame (Class of 1993)
    * Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards
          o Feud of the Year (1981) vs. Killer Khan
          o Most Embarrassing Wrestler (1989)
          o Worst Feud of the Year (1984) vs. Big John Studd
          o Worst Feud of the Year (1989) vs. The Ultimate Warrior
          o Worst Worked Match of the Year (1987) vs. Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania III
          o Worst Worked Match of the Year (1989) vs. The Ultimate Warrior on 31 October
          o Worst Tag Team (1990, 1991) with Giant Baba
          o Worst Wrestler (1989, 1991, 1992)
          o Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (Class of 1996)

Filmography

    * Casse tête chinois pour le judoka (1967)
    * The Six Million Dollar Man - "The Secret of Bigfoot II and I" (1976), Bigfoot
    * B. J. and the Bear - "Snow White and the Seven Lady Truckers" (1981), Manny Felcher
    * The Greatest American Hero - "Heaven Is in Your Genes" (1983), Monster
    * André makes an appearance in "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough" music video by Cyndi Lauper, along with several other 80s icon wrestlers like Rowdy Roddy Piper.
    * Conan the Destroyer (1984), Dagoth (uncredited)
    * Micki + Maude (1984), Himself
    * I Like to Hurt People (1985), Himself
    * The Princess Bride (1987), Fezzik
    * The Mommy Market (1994), Circus Giant
    * Symphorien (197?), french sitcom on Quebec television
    * Les Brillants (198?), french sitcom on Quebec television

See also

    * Andre the Giant Has a Posse
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http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr160/fishbulb-suplex/Wrestlers/Andre%20The%20Giant/trumphoganandrecq7.jpg
http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb213/goliath777/Andre%20the%20Giant/andre3.jpg
http://i624.photobucket.com/albums/tt324/jcordj66/andre-the-giant1.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/27/10 at 7:07 am


The person who died on this day... Andre The Giant
André René Roussimoff (19 May 1946 – 27 January 1993), best known as André the Giant, was a French professional wrestler and actor. His great size was a result of acromegaly, and led to him being dubbed "The Eighth Wonder of the World".

In the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), Roussimoff briefly held the WWF Championship. In 1993, he was the first inductee into the WWF Hall of Fame.
On 26 March 1973, André made his WWE debut as a "face", defeating Buddy Wolfe in New York's Madison Square Garden.

By the time Vince McMahon, Jr. began to expand his promotion to the national level in the early 1980s, André wrestled exclusively for WWF in the USA, while still holding international engagements. André was mentioned in the 1974 Guinness Book of World Records as the highest paid wrestler in history up to that time. He had earned $400,000 in one year alone during the early 1970s.

André was one of WWF's most beloved "babyfaces" throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. As such, Gorilla Monsoon insisted that André was never defeated for 15 years by pinfall or submission prior to WrestleMania III. This, however, is not true. André actually had lost cleanly in matches outside of the parameters of WWF; a pinfall loss in Mexico to Canek in 1984 and in Japan a submission loss to Antonio Inoki in 1986. He also went sixty-minute time limit draws with the two other major world champions of the day, Harley Race and Nick Bockwinkel.

One of André's feuds pitted him against the Mongolian terror Killer Khan, who was managed by Freddie Blassie. According to the storyline, Khan had broken André's ankle during a match in Rochester, New York by leaping off the top rope and crashing down upon it with his knee-drop. After a stay at Beth-Israel Hospital in Boston, André returned with payback on his mind. On 14 November 1981 at the Philadelphia Spectrum, André exacted revenge by destroying Khan in what was billed as a "Mongolian Stretcher Match", in which the loser must be taken to the dressing room on a stretcher. In reality, André had snapped his ankle getting out of bed one morning. The injury and subsequent rehabilitation was worked into the existing André/Khan storyline.

Another feud involved a man who considered himself to be "the true giant" of wrestling: Big John Studd. Throughout the early to mid-1980s, André and Studd fought all over the world, battling to try and determine who the real giant of wrestling was. In December 1984, Studd took the feud to a new level, when he and partner Ken Patera knocked out André during a televised tag team match and proceeded to cut off André's hair. André had the last laugh at the first WrestleMania on 31 March 1985 at Madison Square Garden. André conquered Studd in a $15,000 Body Slam Challenge. After slamming Studd, he attempted to give the $15,000 prize to the fans, before having the bag stolen from him by his future manager Bobby "The Brain" Heenan.

The following year, at WrestleMania 2 on 7 April 1986, André continued to display his dominance by winning a twenty-man battle royal that featured top NFL stars and wrestlers. André last eliminated Bret Hart to win the contest. Afterward, André continued his feud with Studd and King Kong Bundy. André was suspended after a no-show; he returned under a mask as "The Giant Machine" part of a team with "Big Machine" (Robert Windham) and "Super Machine" (Bill Eadie) (The Machines gimmick was copied from New Japan Pro Wrestling character "Super Strong Machine", played by Japanese wrestler Junji Hirata). Soon afterwards, Giant Machine disappeared, and André was reinstated, to the approval of Bobby "The Brain" Heenan.
Heel run (1987–1990)

Feuding Hulk Hogan and WWF Champion
Main article: WrestleMania III

André was turned heel in 1987 so that he could face Hulk Hogan for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship in the main event of WrestleMania III. In early 1987, Hogan was presented a trophy for being the WWF World Heavyweight Champion for three years. André came out to congratulate him. Shortly afterward, André was presented a slightly smaller trophy for being "undefeated in WWF for fifteen years." In actuality, André had suffered a handful of countout and disqualification losses in WWF but had never been pinned or forced to submit in a WWF ring. Hogan came out to congratulate André and ended up being the focal point of the interview. A visibly annoyed André walked out in the midst of Hogan's speech. Then, on an edition of "Piper's Pit", Hogan was confronted by Bobby Heenan. Heenan announced that his new protege was André, who then challenged Hogan to a title match at WrestleMania III, ripping the t-shirt and crucifix from Hogan.

At WrestleMania III, he was billed at 525 lb (238 kg), and the stress of that immense weight on his bones and joints resulted in constant pain. After recent back surgery, he was also wearing a brace underneath his wrestling singlet. Hogan won the match after body slamming André, followed by Hogan's running leg drop finisher. Years later, Hogan claimed that André was so heavy, he felt more like 700 lb (320 kg), and that he actually tore his latissimus dorsi muscle slamming him. Another famous story about the match is that no one knew if André would lose the match. André had agreed to lose the match some time before, mostly for health reasons, though he almost pinned Hogan (albeit unintentionally) in the early goings of the match. Contrary to popular belief, it was not the first time that Hogan had successfully bodyslammed André in a WWF match. A then-heel Hogan bodyslammed a then-face André early in a match in Hamburg, Pennsylvania on 13 September 1980, though André was much lighter and more athletic at the time. This, of course, back in the territorial days of wrestling three years before WWF began its national expansion (André had also previously allowed Harley Race, Kamala, and Stan Hansen to slam him. By the time WrestleMania III had rolled around, the WWF had gone national, giving more meaning to the André-Hogan match that took place then. The feud between André and Hogan simmered during the summer of 1987, even as Roussimoff's health declined. The feud would begin heating up again when each wrestler was named the captain of rival teams at the inaugural Survivor Series event. André's team won the main event after André pinned Bam Bam Bigelow.

In the meantime, "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase failed to persuade Hogan to sell him the WWF World Championship. After failing to defeat Hogan in a subsequent series of matches, DiBiase turned to André to win it for him. Acting as his hired gun, André won the WWF title from Hogan on 5 February 1988 in a match where it was later revealed appointed referee Dave Hebner was "detained backstage", and a replacement who DiBiase paid to get plastic surgery to look like Dave (in reality, his twin brother Earl Hebner), made a three count on Hogan while his shoulders were off the mat. After winning, André "sold" the title to DiBiase; the transaction was declared invalid by then-WWF President Jack Tunney and the title was vacated. This was shown on WWF's NBC program The Main Event. At WrestleMania IV, André and Hulk Hogan fought to a double disqualification in a WWF title tournament match (with the idea in the storyline saying that André was again working on DiBiase's behalf in giving DiBiase a clearer path in the tournament). Afterward, André and Hogan's feud died down after a steel cage match held at WrestleFest on 31 July 1988 in Milwaukee. He and DiBiase also wrestled Hogan and Randy "Macho Man" Savage in the main event of SummerSlam; the DiBiase-André team lost, despite apparently having referee Jesse "the Body" Ventura on their side.
WrestleMania VI; The Colossal Connection

André's next major feud was against Jake "The Snake" Roberts. In this storyline, it was said André was deathly afraid of snakes, something Roberts exposed on Saturday Night's Main Event when he threw his snake, Damien, on the frightened André; as a result, André suffered a kayfabe mild heart attack and vowed revenge. During the next few weeks, Roberts frequently walked to ringside during André's matches, causing him to run from the ring in fright (since he knew what was inside the bag). Throughout their feud (which culminated at WrestleMania V), Roberts constantly used Damien to gain a psychological edge over the much larger and stronger André.

During the late summer and fall of 1989, André engaged in a brief feud with then-Intercontinental champion The Ultimate Warrior, where the younger Warrior regularly squashed the aging André. Earlier in 1989, André and the returning Big John Studd reprized their feud, this time with Studd as a face and André as the heel.

André won the World Tag Team Championship with his partner Haku (known collectively as The Colossal Connection) from Demolition on 13 December 1989. Managed by Bobby Heenan, they lost their titles at WrestleMania VI back to Demolition on 1 April 1990. After the match, a furious Heenan slapped André; he responded by knocking Heenan out, much to the delight of the fans. André went into the match as a heel, and left as a face.
Sporadic appearances

André continued to make appearances in the WWF throughout 1990 and 1991. He was scheduled to appear in the 1991 Royal Rumble battle royal but ultimately did not feature in the PPV at all. He came to the aid of The Big Bossman in his WrestleMania VII match against Mr. Perfect. His last major appearance was at SummerSlam in 1991, where he seconded The Bushwhackers in their match against The Natural Disasters. He also made an appearance later in the year to help The British Bulldog who had just won a Battle Royal in London.

On 25 January 2005 WWE released André The Giant, a DVD focusing on the career of André. The DVD is a reissue of the out-of-print André The Giant VHS made by Coliseum Video in 1985, with commentary by Michael Cole and Tazz replacing Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura's commentary on his WrestleMania match with Big John Studd. The video is hosted by Lord Alfred Hayes. Later matches, including André's battles against Hulk Hogan while a heel, are not included on this DVD.

His last U.S. television appearance was in a brief interview on World Championship Wrestling's Clash of the Champions XX special that aired on TBS on 2 September 1992.
Acting career

André branched out into acting in the 1970s and 1980s, making his acting debut playing a Sasquatch ("Bigfoot") on the 1970s television series The Six Million Dollar Man. He went on to appear in other television shows, including The Greatest American Hero, B.J. and the Bear, and The Fall Guy. He also participated in an episode of Zorro.

Towards the end of his career, André also starred in several movies. He had an uncredited appearance in the 1984 film — Conan the Destroyer, as Dagoth, the resurrected horned giant god who is killed by Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger). But he appeared most notably as Fezzik (his favorite role) in the 1987 film The Princess Bride.

In his final film, he appeared in something of a cameo role as a circus giant in the comedy Trading Mom, which was not released until the year after his death.

André: Heart of the Giant is a movie about André's life and struggles in and out of the wrestling ring.
Legacy

In 1993 when the then-World Wrestling Federation created the WWF Hall of Fame, André the Giant was the first inductee.

André was the inspiration for the 1998 film My Giant, written by his friend Billy Crystal, whom he had met during the filming of The Princess Bride.

Paul Wight, better known as The Big Show and the most similar in body structure to André than any other wrestler since André's death, was originally billed as the son of André the Giant during his stint in WCW (when he was known as simply The Giant) despite no biological relation. While also suffering from acromegaly, unlike André, Wight did get surgery on his pituitary gland in the early 1990s, which successfully halted the progress of his condition. Former wrestler Giant González is currently suffering from similar problems that André had near the end of his life.

André is cited and impersonated in the comedy film I Love You, Man. He is also cited in the Eminem song "Crack a Bottle" in the lyrics "Back when Andre the Giant, mister elephant tusk, picture us and you'll be another one to bite the dust". Andre is also cited in the movie The 40 Year Old Virgin when someone quotes a woman he dated "had hands like Andre The Giant."
Personal life

Roussimoff had one daughter, Robin Christensen, who was born in 1979.

The disease that granted him his immense size eventually began to take its toll on his body. By the late 1980s, André was in constant, near-crippling pain, and his heart struggled to pump blood throughout his massive body.

According to William Goldman, author of The Princess Bride and its respective screenplay, André was having such terrible back pain during the filming of the movie that in the first shooting of a scene where Robin Wright drops about one foot and is caught by André, he fell to one knee and almost dropped her.

In the A&E documentary, Biography, Arnold Skaaland mentions how André wished he could see a Broadway play. Arnold offered to buy tickets, but André then passed up the opportunity, citing how he was too big for the seats and that people behind him would not be able to see. This was cited as a principal reason for why André frequented taverns more than anywhere else. Another story he relates tells of when André was in a bar one night, four men came up to him and began harassing him about his size. At first, André attempted to avoid confrontation, but eventually he proceeded to chase the hecklers until they locked themselves in their car. André then grabbed the car and turned it over with the four people trapped inside. André was never arrested for the incident, presumably since local police officers had a hard time believing four inebriated men's story about an angry giant overturning their car.

He has been unofficially crowned "The Greatest Drunk on Earth" for once consuming 119 12-ounce beers in 6 hours. On an episode of WWE's Legends of Wrestling, Mike Graham claimed that André once drank 197 16-ounce beers in one sitting, which was confirmed by Dusty Rhodes. In her autobiography, The Fabulous Moolah alleges that André drank 327 beers and passed out in a hotel bar in Reading, Pennsylvania, and because the staff could not move him, they had to leave him there until he regained consciousness.

André was arrested by the Linn County, Iowa sheriff in August 1989 and charged with assault after the 540 lb (240 kg) wrestler allegedly roughed up a local TV cameraman.
Death

André died at the age of 46 in his sleep of a heart attack on January 27, 1993, in a Paris hotel room. He was in Paris to attend the funeral for his father. André's body was cremated in accordance with his wishes and his ashes scattered at his ranch in Ellerbe, North Carolina.
In wrestling

    * Finishing moves
          o Double underhook suplex
          o Elbow drop pin
          o Kneeling belly to belly piledriver
          o Sit-down splash
          o Standing splash

    * Signature moves
          o Bearhug
          o Big boot
          o Body slam
          o Chokehold
          o Gorilla press slam
          o Head and neck rake
          o Headbutt
          o Repeated hip attacks to a cornered opponent
          o Samoan drop

    * Managers
          o Bobby Heenan
          o Frank Valoi
          o Lou Albano
          o K.Y. Wakamatsu
          o Ted DiBiase

    * Nicknames
          o "The 8th Wonder of the World"
          o "Tiant"
          o "The Immovable Object"

Championships and accomplishments

    * Championship Wrestling from Florida
          o NWA Florida Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Dusty Rhodes
    * International Pro Wrestling
          o IWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Michael Nader
    * NWA Tri-State
          o NWA United States Tag Team Championship (Tri-State version) (1 time) – with Dusty Rhodes
    * Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum
          o Class of 2002
    * Pro Wrestling Illustrated
          o PWI Most Popular Wrestler of the Year (1977, 1982)
          o PWI Match of the Year (1981) vs. Killer Khan on 2 May
          o PWI Match of the Year (1988) vs. Hulk Hogan at The Main Event
          o PWI Most Hated Wrestler of the Year (1988)
          o PWI Editor's Award (1993)
    * Stampede Wrestling
          o Stampede Wrestling Hall of Fame
    * World Championship Wrestling (Australia)
          o NWA Austra-Asian Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Ronald Miller
    * World Wrestling Federation
          o WWF Championship (1 time)
          o WWF Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Haku
          o WWF Hall of Fame (Class of 1993)
    * Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards
          o Feud of the Year (1981) vs. Killer Khan
          o Most Embarrassing Wrestler (1989)
          o Worst Feud of the Year (1984) vs. Big John Studd
          o Worst Feud of the Year (1989) vs. The Ultimate Warrior
          o Worst Worked Match of the Year (1987) vs. Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania III
          o Worst Worked Match of the Year (1989) vs. The Ultimate Warrior on 31 October
          o Worst Tag Team (1990, 1991) with Giant Baba
          o Worst Wrestler (1989, 1991, 1992)
          o Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (Class of 1996)

Filmography

    * Casse tête chinois pour le judoka (1967)
    * The Six Million Dollar Man - "The Secret of Bigfoot II and I" (1976), Bigfoot
    * B. J. and the Bear - "Snow White and the Seven Lady Truckers" (1981), Manny Felcher
    * The Greatest American Hero - "Heaven Is in Your Genes" (1983), Monster
    * André makes an appearance in "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough" music video by Cyndi Lauper, along with several other 80s icon wrestlers like Rowdy Roddy Piper.
    * Conan the Destroyer (1984), Dagoth (uncredited)
    * Micki + Maude (1984), Himself
    * I Like to Hurt People (1985), Himself
    * The Princess Bride (1987), Fezzik
    * The Mommy Market (1994), Circus Giant
    * Symphorien (197?), french sitcom on Quebec television
    * Les Brillants (198?), french sitcom on Quebec television

See also

    * Andre the Giant Has a Posse
http://i698.photobucket.com/albums/vv346/BartlesNBears/andre-the-giant.jpg
http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr160/fishbulb-suplex/Wrestlers/Andre%20The%20Giant/trumphoganandrecq7.jpg
http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb213/goliath777/Andre%20the%20Giant/andre3.jpg
http://i624.photobucket.com/albums/tt324/jcordj66/andre-the-giant1.jpg


Andre was a person you never wanted to mess with,Him And Haku were the best team Bobby Heenan ever created.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/27/10 at 7:29 am

Ok, not gonna post my photos of snow. I have a few times. If you want to see my snow photos, click on the Flikr link on my sig line and click on the link on the right side of the page where it says, "Vermont." You will see ALL my snow photos.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/27/10 at 7:34 am

http://www.wwe.com/content/media/images/377012/493116

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 01/27/10 at 7:53 am

I really enjoyed Andre The Giant's wrestling matches. He was huge...

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/27/10 at 8:34 am


Ok, not gonna post my photos of snow. I have a few times. If you want to see my snow photos, click on the Flikr link on my sig line and click on the link on the right side of the page where it says, "Vermont." You will see ALL my snow photos.



Cat

Nice pics, I see the car was buried on Valentines Day '07...nice day to stay home and snuggle.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/27/10 at 8:37 am


http://www.wwe.com/content/media/images/377012/493116

I just don't remember them wrestling together..I guess I'm getting old. :-\\

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/27/10 at 3:13 pm


I just don't remember them wrestling together..I guess I'm getting old. :-\\


They defeated Demolition on December 30th,1989 and lost to Demolition at Wrestlemania 6 on April 1st 1990. Now there's some history for ya.  ;)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/27/10 at 3:15 pm


I really enjoyed Andre The Giant's wrestling matches. He was huge...


He was supposed to have a match with Earthquake in 1991 but his heart problems began and looked very ill so all 'Quake did was ingure him as part of the storyline.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/27/10 at 5:07 pm


The person born on this day...James Cromwell
James Oliver Cromwell (born January 27, 1940) is an American film and television actor. He has been nominated for an Oscar, three Emmy Awards, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards during his career.
Cromwell's first television performance was in a 1974 episode of The Rockford Files playing Terry. A few weeks later, he began a recurring role as Stretch Cunningham on All in the Family. In 1975 he took his first lead role on television as Bill Lewis in the short-lived Hot l Baltimore, and a year later he made his film debut in Neil Simon's classic detective spoof Murder by Death.

In 1980, Cromwell guest-starred in the two-part pivotal episode "Laura Ingalls Wilder" of the long-running television series Little House on the Prairire. He played "Harve Miller," one of "Almanzo Wilder's" (Dean Butler) old friends. He comes to visit Almanzo, who lives with his shy sister, Walnut Grove's school teacher "Eliza Jane." Eliza Jane and Harve spend time together over the next few weeks, and she falls in love, for the first time, with Harve. Eliza, however, misunderstands some comments Harve has made, and he stuns her, at Nellie's restaurant, by announcing he wishes to marry another woman in a different town. Harve is totally unaware that she had feelings of love towards him. She takes Almanzo's wagon to the town of Sleepy Eye to seek him out before he marries someone else. She finally gathers the courage to tell him that she loves him. Instead, he tells Eliza that it is too late, he is already married. Eliza lies to everyone, and claims she is marrying Harve and moving away. This allows seventeen-year-old Laura Ingalls (Melissa Gilbert) to take over her job as school teacher, giving Laura and Almanzo desperately needed income, and allowing Laura to move into their home to marry Almanzo at last.

While Cromwell continued with regular television work throughout the 1980s, he made real inroads in film business for his supporting roles in the films Tank and Revenge of the Nerds. His starring roles in the 1990s critically-acclaimed films Babe (1995), The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), L.A. Confidential (1997), The Green Mile, and Snow Falling on Cedars (both 1999) were breakout roles for him, and made him more bankable in Hollywood. He also played Dr. Zefram Cochrane in Star Trek: First Contact (1996) and the Star Trek: Enterprise pilot Broken Bow (the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "In a Mirror, Darkly" later reused some of the First Contact footage). He has appeared on other Star Trek television series The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, though not as Cochrane (his appearances on these shows predated his role in First Contact), he guest starred in episodes including "The Hunted", "Birthright" (Part I and II) and "Starship Down".

Cromwell also had additional success on television throughout his career. His role as newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst in the television film RKO 281 earned him an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Television Movie. The following year, he receive his second Emmy Award nomination for playing Bishop Lionel Stewart on the NBC medical drama series ER. In 2004, he guest-starred as former President D. Wire Newman in the The West Wing episode "The Stormy Present". From 2003 to 2005, Cromwell played George Sibley in the HBO drama series Six Feet Under, which earned him his third Emmy Award nomination in 2003. Along with the rest of his castmates, he was also nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2005 and 2006. The following year, Cromwell played Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in The Queen (2006), that earned Dame Helen Mirren an Academy Award for Best Actress. He also guest starred as Phillip Bauer, father of lead character Jack, in the sixth season of the Fox thriller drama series 24.

In October 2007, Cromwell played the lead role of James Tyrone Sr. in the Druid Theatre Company's production of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, at the Gaiety in Dublin as part of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival's 50th Anniversary. More recently, Cromwell played George Herbert Walker Bush in Oliver Stone's W. (2008), that chronicles the unlikely rise to power of his son up until the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In an interview, Cromwell revealed that Stone had originally offered the role to Warren Beatty and Harrison Ford.
Personal life

He has long been an advocate of leftist causes. In an October 2008 interview, he strongly attacked the Republican Party and the George W. Bush administration, saying their controversial foreign policy would "either destroy us or the entire planet." In the late 1960s, he was a member of "The Committee to Defend The Panthers", a group organized to defend 13 members of the Black Panther Party who had been imprisoned in New York on charges of conspiracy. All thirteen were eventually released. In a 2004 interview with CNN.com, Cromwell praised the Panthers. He became a vegetarian in 1974 after seeing a stockyard in Texas and experiencing the "smell, terror and anxiety." He became an ethical vegan while playing the character of Farmer Hoggett in the movie Babe in 1995. He frequently speaks out on issues regarding animal cruelty for PETA, largely the treatment of pigs.

Cromwell is known for his unusually tall stature; he stands at 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m).

Cromwell was married to Anne Ulvestad from 1976 to 1986. They had three children. He married his second wife, Julie Cobb, on 29 May 1986.
Filmography
Films
Year Film Role Notes
1976 Murder by Death Marcel
1978 The Cheap Detective Schnell
1981 Nobody's Perfekt Dr. Carson
1983 The Man with Two Brains Realtor
1984 The House of God Officer Quick
Tank Deputy Euclid Baker
Revenge of the Nerds Mr. Skolnick Credited as "Jamie Cromwell"
Oh, God! You Devil Priest
1985 Explorers Mr. Müller
1986 A Fine Mess Detective Blist
1987 Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise Mr. Skolnick
1988 The Rescue Admiral Rothman
1989 The Runnin' Kind Unknown
Pink Cadillac Motel Desk Clerk
1992 The Babe Brother Mathias
1993 Romeo Is Bleeding Cage
1995 Babe Farmer Arthur Hoggett Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
1996 Eraser William Donohue
The People vs. Larry Flynt Charles Keating
Star Trek: First Contact Dr. Zefram Cochrane
1997 Owd Bob Adam MacAdam
L.A. Confidential Captain Dudley Smith Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
The Education of Little Tree Granpa
1998 Species II Senator Judson Ross
Deep Impact Alan Rittenhouse
Babe: Pig in the City Farmer Arthur Hoggett
1999 The General's Daughter Lt. Gen. Joseph Campbell
The Bachelor Priest
The Green Mile Warden Hal Moores Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Snow Falling on Cedars Judge Fielding
2000 Space Cowboys Bob Gerson
2002 Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron The Colonel
The Sum of All Fears President J. Robert Fowler
The Nazi Franz
2003 Blackball Ray Speight
The Snow Walker Walter Shepherd
2004 I, Robot Dr. Alfred Lanning
2005 The Longest Yard Warden Hazen
2006 The Queen Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
2007 Dante's Inferno Virgil
Becoming Jane Reverend Austen
Spider-Man 3 Captain George Stacy
2008 Tortured Jack
W. George H. W. Bush
2009 A Lonely Place for Dying Howard Simons
Flying Into Love Lyndon B. Johnson Pre-production
Surrogates Dr. Lionel Canter
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1974 The Rockford Files Terry Episode 1.3: "The Countess"
All in the Family Stretch Cunningham Appeared in three episodes
1974, 1978 Maude Alfie
Dr. Farrington Episode 3.9: "Last Tango in Tuckahoe"
Episode 6.13: "The Obscene Phone Call"
1975 Hot l Baltimore Bill Lewis Main cast member
Barbary Coast Roy Episode 1.4: "The Ballad of Redwing Jail"
1976 Stranded Jerry Holmes TV film
Insight Norman Episode "Jesus B.C."
The Nancy Walker Show Glen
Once an Eagle J. L. Cleghorne Mini-series
1977 Police Story Lutz Episode 4.20: "Ice Time"
The Girl in the Empty Grave Deputy Malcolm Rossiter Jr. TV film
M*A*S*H Captain Leo Bardonaro Episode 6.3: "Last Laugh"
Three's Company Detective Lannigan Episode 2.9: "Chrissy's Night Out"
Deadly Game Deputy Malcolm Rossiter Jr. TV film
1977, 1979, 1981 Barney Miller Sgt. Wilkinson
Neil Spencer
Jason Parrish
Dr. Edmund Danworth Episode 3.20: "Group Home"
Episode 6.6: "Strip Joint"
Episode 7.22: "Liquidation"
Episode 8.5: "Stress Analyzer"
1978 Alice Detective Ralph Hilton Episode 3.9: "Who Ordered the Hot Turkey?"
1979 Eight Is Enough Coach Pollard Episode 3.23: "The Better Part of Valour"
Diff'rent Strokes Father O'Brien Episode 2.7: "Arnold's Hero"
1979, 1980 The White Shadow Mr. Hamilton
Art Commings Episode 1.13: "Mainstream"
Episode 2.22: "The Death of Me Yet?"
1980 Flo Leon Episodes 1.1: "Homecoming" and 1.4: "Take My Sister, Please"
Little House on the Prairie Harve Miller Episodes 7.1: "Laura Ingalls Wilder: Part 1" and 7.2: "Laura Ingalls Wilder: Part 2"
A Christmas Without Snow Reverend Lohman TV film
1981 Barefoot in the Park Harry Pepper TV film
1982 The Rainmaker Noah Curry TV film
Nurse Paul Moore Episode 2.9: "A Place to Die"
The Wall Francisek TV film
Born to the Wind Fish Belly
Father Murphy Farley Webster Episodes 2.5: "The Reluctant Runaway: Part 1" and 2.6: "The Reluctant Runaway: Part 2"
1984 Buffalo Bill Unknown Episode 2.2: "Jerry Lewis Week"
Gimme a Break! Russell Cosgrove Episode 3.22: "Class of '84"
Spraggue Lieutenant Hurley TV film
Earthlings Simon Ganes TV film
1984-1985 Dallas Gerald Kane Appeared in three episodes
1985 Night Court Alan Episode 2.14: "Nuts About Harry"
Family Ties John Hancock Episode 3.15: "Philadelphia Story"
Riptide Joey Dietz Episode 2.17: "Girls Night Out"
Hardcastle and McCormick Jake Fellows Episode 2.20: "Undercover McCormick"
Knight Rider Curtis Episode 3.18: "Ten Wheel Trouble"
Wildside Fake Buffalo Bill Episode 1.5: "Buffalo Who?"
Hill Street Blues Lowenhandler Episode 5.23: "Grin and Bear It"
Hunter Seymour Robbins Episode 1.19: "Sniper"
The Twilight Zone Obediah Payne Episode 1.6: "Examination Day/A Message from Charity"
1985-1986 Scarecrow and Mrs. King Gregory Episodes 3.4: "Tail of the Dancing Weasel" and 3.18: "Wrong Number"
1986 Amazing Stories Francis Episode 1.15: "One for the Road"
Magnum, P.I. French Policeman Episode 6.21: "Photo Play"; uncredited
The Last Precinct Chief Bludhorn
Dream West Major General David Hunter TV mini-series
1987 Easy Street Quentin Standard Episode 1.13: "Frames and Dames"
Alison's Demise Humboldt Hobson TV film
1988 China Beach Ambassador at Large Roland Weymouth Pilot
Mr. Belvedere Roy Gallagher Episode 5.1: "Fat Cats"
Mama's Boy Unknown
1989 Christine Cromwell Arthur Episode 1.1: "Things That Go Bump in the Night"
1990 Life Goes On Bill Henderson Episode 1.13: "Thacher and Henderson"
Miracle Landing B.J. Cocker TV film
Matlock Judge Raymond Price Episode 5.2: "Nowhere to Turn"
1990, 1993 Star Trek: The Next Generation Prime Minister Nayrok
Jaglom Shrek Episode 3.11: "The Hunted"
Episodes 6.16: "Birthright: Part 1" and 6.17: "Birthright: Part 2"
1991 The Young Riders Jacob Episode 2.14: "The Peacemakers"
Jake and the Fatman Havilland Episode 4.19: "It Never Entered My Mind"
In a Child's Name Unknown TV film
1992 Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation Mr. Skolnick TV film; credited as "Jamie Cromwell"
1994 Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love Mr. Skolnick TV film; credited as "Jamie Cromwell"
The Shaggy Dog Charlie 'the Robber' Mulvihill TV film
Home Improvement Fred Episode 4.9: "My Dinner with Wilson"
1995 Renegade Jeremy Sullivan Episode 3.15: "Stalker's Moon"
Picket Fences The Bishop Episode 3.20: "Saint Zach"
Indictment: The McMartin Trial Judge Pounders TV film
Hawkeye Unknown Episode 1.17: "The Visit"
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Hanok Episode 4.6: "Starship Down"
1995-1996 Partners Mr. Saxonhouse Episodes 1.11: "Do We Have to Write You a Check?" and 1.18: "Can We Keep Her, Dad?"
1996 Strange Luck Minister Episode 1.13: "Healing Hands"
The Client Officer Joe Denton Episode 1.17: "The High Ground"
1999 A Slight Case of Murder John Edgerson TV film
RKO 281 William Randolph Hearst TV film
Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
2000 Fail Safe Gordon Knapp TV play
2001 ER Bishop Stewart Appeared in four episodes
Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor – Drama Series
Star Trek: Enterprise Dr. Zefram Cochrane Episode 1.1: "Broken Bow: Part 1"
Cromwell also appeared in archive footage in Episode 4.18: "In a Mirror, Darkly"
Citizen Baines Senator Elliot Baines Appeared in all seven episodes
2002 A Death in the Family Joel Lynch TV film
The Magnificent Ambersons Major Amberson TV film
RFK President Lyndon B. Johnson
2003 Angels in America Henry TV mini-series; chapters 1 and 4
2003-2005 Six Feet Under George Sibley Appeared in 27 episodes
Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series (2005, 2006)
2004 The West Wing President D. Wire Newman Episode 5.10: "The Stormy Present"
'Salem's Lot Father Donald Callahan TV mini-series
2005 Pope John Paul II Cardinal Adam Stefan Sapieha
2006 Avenger Paul Devereaux TV film
2007 24 Phillip Bauer Appeared in eight episodes
Masters of Science Fiction Randolph Ludwin Episode 1.6: "Watchbird"
2008 Hit Factor Orson Fierce Also producer
My Own Worst Enemy Alistar Trumble Appeared in six episodes
2009 Strikeout Director TV film
Impact Lloyd TV mini-series
The Last Days of Lehman Brothers Hank Paulson Docu-drama
Theatre

    * Long Day's Journey into Night (2007)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v196/paganpriest/Movies/People/JamesCromwell.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v301/thecaptain72/tn_cromwell.jpg
http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii171/stookiebhoy/patricia_clarkson_james_cromwell_th.jpg
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d108/ai108/88c97fcd.jpg

I wil always remember him as Stretch Cunningham...

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/27/10 at 5:11 pm


Andre was a person you never wanted to mess with,Him And Haku were the best team Bobby Heenan ever created.

I don't remember him and Haku togethr iether..weird...
Recall watching Andre wrestling on TV back in the very early 1970s, in Quebec, as Geant Jean Ferre. he was much slimmer then.
http://www.udenap.org/photos/g/geant_ferre.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/28/10 at 6:27 am

The word of the day...Sunshine
Sunshine is the light and heat that comes from the sun.
http://i1021.photobucket.com/albums/af335/Bwendi/SUNSHiNE.jpg
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d161/bittyskitty94210/words/sunshine.jpg
http://i613.photobucket.com/albums/tt211/Adi_059/Rsrit22Apr09.jpg
http://i410.photobucket.com/albums/pp185/allyin_wonderland/DSCN0172.jpg
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f31/Savagechic08/backgrounds/14v78g9.jpg
http://i680.photobucket.com/albums/vv169/nayaHR/winter%2009/platak9f.jpg
http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo281/CooperDaKat/sunshine.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/28/10 at 6:31 am

The birthday of the day...Elijah Wood
Elijah Jordan Wood (born January 28, 1981) is an American actor. Making his film debut with a minor part in the Back to the Future Part II (1989), he landed a succession of subsequent larger roles and became a critically acclaimed child actor by age 13.

After his high-profile role as the Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, he has resisted typecasting by choosing varied roles in critically-acclaimed films such as Bobby, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Sin City, Green Street and Everything Is Illuminated. Most recently he starred in the film Day Zero (2007) and provided the voice of the main character, Mumble, in the award-winning animated film Happy Feet. He also played an American tourist turned vampire in Paris, je t'aime. In 2005, he started his own record label, Simian Records. His next project is the upcoming Iggy Pop biopic The Passenger.

In 2006, he became a well-known voice actor in video gaming and would soon become the voice of the video game icon, Spyro the Dragon.

In 2008, he set a new world record when he became the first person ever to cross the Victoria Falls on ropes during an appearance on Jack Osbourne's show Adrenaline Junkie.
Wood modeled and did local commercials before moving with his family to Los Angeles in 1988, where he got his first break, a small role in a video by Paula Abdul - "Forever Your Girl," directed by David Fincher. Film work followed almost instantly in Back to the Future Part II (1989). It was Wood's role as Aidan Quinn's son in Barry Levinson's 1990 film Avalon (the third film in the Baltimore trilogy containing 1982's Diner and 1987's Tin Men) that first gave Wood attention, as the film received widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for four Academy Awards.

After a small part in the Richard Gere movie Internal Affairs (1990), he secured his first starring role in Paradise (1991), playing a young boy who brings estranged couple Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson back together. He received good reviews for his performance - some said it was one of the best things about the film - and from there, he went on to co-star with Mel Gibson and Jamie Lee Curtis in Forever Young and with Joseph Mazzello in Radio Flyer (both were released in 1992).
Wood in Radio Flyer

In 1993, he co-starred with Macaulay Culkin in The Good Son, and in the same year he had the lead role in The Adventures of Huck Finn. In 1994 he starred in The War (1994), with Kevin Costner. His performance in this movie gained him a nomination for a 'Young Star Award' (for which he was nominated four times, and won twice), and Roger Ebert said in his review of the film that:

    "Elijah Wood has emerged, I believe, as the most talented actor in his age group, in Hollywood history".

Also in 1994, he had the title role in North, and also featured in a Super Bowl commercial for Wavy Lay's potato chips that has him repeatedly exchanging seats with spectators at a football game (including Dan Quayle) using its famous slogan. In 1995 he appeared in the music video for The Cranberries’ "Ridiculous Thoughts". The following year he got the lead role in Flipper (1996), which was not very successful, but the subsequent critical and financial success of Ang Lee's The Ice Storm (1997) provided a positive development in the young actor's career. As the soulfully dazed and confused Mikey Carver, Wood gave a portrayal remarkable for its rendering of the thoughtfulness and exquisite hopelessness inherent in the character.

In 1997 he starred in Oliver Twist, as The Artful Dodger. 1998's Deep Impact and The Faculty did not allow Wood the same degree of character development, but were great financial successes and further stepping stones in Wood's evolution from winsome child star to impressive young actor.

Wood's next role was as the boyfriend of a wannabe hip-hop groupie in James Toback's Black and White (1999). He followed this with a role as a junior hitman in Chain of Fools.
1999–2003: The Lord of the Rings
Wood as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings

Wood further developed as an actor in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the first installment of director Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's literary trilogy. His most hotly anticipated project, the 2001 film gave Wood top billing as Frodo Baggins, alongside a glittering cast that included Sir Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Orlando Bloom, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, Sean Bean, and Viggo Mortensen. The Lord of the Rings was filmed in New Zealand and, before the cast left the country, Jackson gave Wood two gifts: one of the One Ring props used on the set and Sting, Frodo's sword. He was also given a pair of prosthetic "hobbit feet" he wore during filming. That same year, the young actor could be seen in less mystical surroundings, courtesy of Ed Burns' Ash Wednesday, a crime drama that also featured Oliver Platt and Rosario Dawson.

In 2002, Wood lent his voice to the direct-to-video release of The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina. Of course, his most substantial role of 2002 is inarguably his return to the role of hobbit Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

2003 proved to be a similar year for Wood; after two relatively small jobs (his role credited as 'The Guy' in Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over and his stint as First Assistant Director in Sean Astin's The Long and Short of It served purely as a break for Elijah), he starred in All I Want and once again resumed his role as Frodo Baggins for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), the final installment of Jackson's trilogy.
2004-2006: Recent career

Hot on the heels of the trilogy, Wood quickly appeared in his first post-Frodo role in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), playing an ethically challenged lab technician who helps erase heartbreaking memories but then uses his knowledge of the past relationship of an unknowing former patient (played by Kate Winslet) to woo her.
Wood as Kevin in Sin City

Wood's next role was his first villainous role: bespectacled serial killer Kevin in director Robert Rodriguez and writer-artist Frank Miller's adaptation of Miller's crime noir comic book series Sin City (2005), appearing opposite Mickey Rourke in the segment "The Hard Goodbye". On May 12, 2005 , Wood hosted a program called MTV Presents: The Next Generation Xbox Revealed, when the new Xbox 360 was launched.

Also in 2005, Wood starred in Everything Is Illuminated, in which he plays a young American Jewish man on a quest to find the woman who once saved his grandfather during the Second World War, and Green Street, as an American college student who falls in with a violent English football firm. Both had limited release, but were critically acclaimed.

Wood shot a small part in Paris, je t'aime, which consists of eighteen 5-minute sections. Each section is directed by a different director. Wood’s section, called "Quartier de la Madeleine", was directed by Vincenzo Natali. The film opened on May 18 at 2006 Cannes Film Festival and was shown at 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. First Look Pictures acquired the North American rights, and the film opened in the US in early 2007.

In 2006, he was part of the ensemble cast in Emilio Estevez's Bobby, in which his character gets married to change his draft classification. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was released on November 17, 2006 in New York and Los Angeles. Wide release followed on November 23.

In Happy Feet, Wood provided the voice of Mumble, a penguin who can tap dance, but not sing. Happy Feet was released on November 17, 2006 and has grossed over $380 million dollars worldwide. The movie also received a Golden Globe Award nomination and won an Academy Award and a BAFTA for Best Animated Feature.
2007-Present

Wood has finished filming Day Zero, a drama about the draft, in which he portrays Aaron Feller. The film had its debut at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.

On November 19, Wood hosted the special "Saving a Species: The Great Penguin Rescue" for Discovery Kids Channel, for which he has been nominated for a Daytime Emmy in the category of acting in a children/youth/family special. On January 4, 2007 Wood joined Screen Actors Guild President Alan Rosenberg to announce the nominees for the 13th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Wood also has finished filming The Oxford Murders, film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Guillermo Martínez, in which he plays a graduate student, who investigates a series of bizarre, mathematically-based murders in Oxford. It was released in Spain on January 18, 2008.

Wood also is set to star in The Passenger, a biopic about singer Iggy Pop as young man. He voiced the lead in the animated feature film version of the short film 9.
Other work

In 2005 Wood started his own record label called Simian Records. On September 19, 2006 Wood announced that Simian had signed The Apples in Stereo as their first band, with their new album New Magnetic Wonder released in February 2007. In addition he also directed the music video for "Energy". The other band signed to Simian thus far is Heloise and the Savoir Faire. Wood declared he is a big fan of these two bands.

Wood has also provided voiceovers for videogames, providing the current voice for Spyro the Dragon since 2006's The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning, as well as reprising Mumble in the game version of Happy Feet. He also contributed his talents to fellow Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen's album Pandemoniumfromamerica, singing and playing various instruments on the album.

Wood has signed to co-produce the film Black Wings Has My Angel, based on the noir novel of the same name, with Anthony Moody and Rob Malkani of Indalo Productions.

On April 11, 2008, Elijah was the guest host of Channel 4's Friday Night Project.

On April 25, 2009, Elijah was honored with The Midnight Award (San Francisco International Film Festival) as a dynamic young American actor who has made outstanding contributions to independent and Hollywood cinema, and who brings striking intelligence, exemplary talent and extraordinary depth of character to his roles.

Elijah Wood also starred in an episode of Yo! Gabba Gabba entitled "Eat" where he danced and "went crazy" alongside the rest of the Yo! Gabba Gabba crew.
Personal life
Wood in February 2006

Wood keeps his personal life from the media spotlight, and is private about his romantic relationships. He seems to have been in a five year relationship with Pamela Racine from Gogol Bordello and is photographed with her. In an interview about Everything Is Illuminated, director Liev Schreiber commented that Wood has a "generosity of spirit" and a "sincere goodness as a human being." He supported campaigns for charity as Keep a Child Alive or ALDO/YouthAIDS. Wood is a music buff owning 4,000 CDs, citing his favorite band as Smashing Pumpkins.

Wood has a tattoo of the Quenya-mode Tengwar symbol for "nine" below his waist on the right side, a reference to his character as one of the Fellowship of the Ring. The other actors of "The Fellowship" got the same tattoo (with the exception of John Rhys-Davies). He received one of the One Ring props from Peter Jackson.

In May 2006, Autograph Collector Magazine published its list of 10 Best & 10 Worst Hollywood Autograph Signers, Wood was ranked #7 of Best Signers.
Filmography
Films
Year Film Role Notes
1989 Back to the Future Part II Video-Game Boy #2 bit part
1990 Child in the Night Luke TV Film
Internal Affairs Sean Stretch minor role
Avalon Michael Kaye major role
The Witness Little Boy short film
1991 Paradise Willard Young
1992 Day-O Day-O TV Film
Forever Young Nat Cooper
Radio Flyer Mike
1993 The Good Son Mark Evans
The Adventures of Huck Finn Huckleberry Finn
1994 North North
The War Stuart 'Stu' Simmons
1996 Flipper Sandy
1997 Oliver Twist Jack 'The Artful Dodger' Dawkins TV Film
The Ice Storm Mikey Carver
1998 Deep Impact Leo Beiderman
The Faculty Casey Connor
1999 The Bumblebee Flies Anyway Barney Snow
Black and White Wren
2000 Chain of Fools Mikey Direct-to-video
2001 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Frodo Baggins
Ash Wednesday Sean Sullivan
2002 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Frodo Baggins
The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina Tom Thumb (voice) Direct-to-video
All I Want aka Try Seventeen Jones Dillon Direct-to-video
2003 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Frodo Baggins
The Long and Short of It First Assistant Director Short Film
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over The Guy Cameo
2004 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Patrick
2005 Sin City Kevin
Everything Is Illuminated Jonathan Safran Foer
Green Street Matt Bucknor
2006 Bobby William Avary
Happy Feet Mumble (Voice)
The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning Spyro Video Game
2007 Paris, je t'aime David
The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night Spyro Video Game
Day Zero Aaron Feller US Release: January 18, 2008
2008 The Oxford Murders Martin Spain Release: January 18, 2008
The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon Spyro Video Game
2009 9 9 (Voice)
2010 The Romantics Chip January 27, 2010 Sundance Film Festival
The Legend of Spyro 3D Spyro (Voice) in production
The Passenger Iggy Pop pre-production
2011 Happy Feet 2 in 3D Mumble (Voice) in production
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1994 Frasier Ethan (voice) Guess Who's Coming to Breakfast - TV Episode
1996 Homicide: Life on the Street McPhee Broadman The True Test- TV Episode
Adventures from the Book of Virtues Icarus (voice) Responsibility - TV Episode
1997 Oliver Twist Jack 'The Artful Dodger' Dawkins TV Film
2002 Franklin (TV series) Coyote (voice)
The Electric Playground ? TV Episode
2003 Saturday Night Live Host TV Episode
2004 The Osbournes Himself TV Episode
King of the Hill Jason (voice) Girl, You'll Be a Giant Soon- TV Episode
2006 Robot Chicken William David Reynolds (voice) Sausage Fest - TV Episode
American Dad! Ethan (voice) Iced, Iced Babies - TV Episode
Punk'd Himself TV Episode
Saving a Species: The Great Penguin Rescue Host and Narrator TV Special
2007 Yo Gabba Gabba! Himself TV Episode
2008 Friday Night Project Himself Guest host
2008 Celebrity Adrenaline Junkie Himself Rafting down the Zambezi Became the first person to cross the Victoria Falls on ropes.
Music videos

    * Paula Abdul: Forever Your Girl (1989)
    * The Cranberries: Ridiculous Thoughts (1995)
    * The Apples in Stereo: Energy (as director) (2006)
    * Greg Laswell: How the day sounds (2008)
    * The Lonely Island: On the Ground (2009)

Awards and nominations

Young Star Awards

    * 1995 Nominate Best Performance by a Young Actor in a Drama Film The War 1994
    * 1997 Nominated Best Performance by a Young Actor in a Comedy Film Flipper 1996
    * 1998 Won Best Performance by a Young Actor in a Drama Film Deep Impact 1998
    * 1998 Won Best Performance by a Young in a Miniseries/Made for TV Movies Oliver Twist 1997

Young Hollywood Awards

    * 2002 Won Hottest, Coolest Young Veteran - Male N/A

Young Artist Awards

    * 1991 Nominated Best Young Actor Starring in a TV Movie, Pilot or Special Child in the Night 1990
    * 1991 Nominated Best Young Actor Starring in a Motion Picture Avalon 1990
    * 1992 Nominated Best Young Actor Starring in a Motion Picture Paradise 1991
    * 1993 Won Best Young Actor Starring in a Motion Picture Radio Flyer 1992
    * 1995 Nominated Best Young Actor Starring in a Motion Picture North 1994
    * 1997 Nominated Best Performance in a Drama Series - Guest Starring Young Actor Homicide: Life on the Street 1993
    * 1998 Nominated Best Performance in a Feature Film - Supporting Young Actor The Ice Storm 1997

Visual Effects Society Awards

    * 2003 Won Best Performance by an Actor in an Effect Film Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers 2002

Teen Choice Awards

    * 2002 Nominated Film - Choice Actor, Drama/Action Adventure FOTR 2001
    * 2003 Nominated Choice Movie Actor - Drama/Action Adventure TTT 2002
    * 2004 Nominated Choice Movie Actor - Drama/Action Adventure ROTK 2003
    * 2005 Nominated Choice Movie Bad Guy Sin City 2005

ShoWest Convention USA

    * 1994 Won Young Star of the Year

Screen Actors Guild Awards

    * 2002 Nominated Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a Theatrical Motion Picture FOTR 2001
    * 2003 Nominated Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a Theatrical Motion Picture TTT 2002
    * 2004 Won Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a Theatrical Motion Picture ROTK 2003
    * 2007 Nominated Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Bobby 2006

Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards

    * 2002 Won Best Ensemble Acting FOTR 2001
    * 2003 Won Best Ensemble Acting TTT 2002
    * 2004 Nominated Best Ensemble Acting ROTK 2003

Online Film Critics Society Awards

    * 2003 Won Best Ensemble ROTK 2003

Blockbuster Entertainment Awards

    * 1999 Nominated Favorite Actor - Horror The Faculty 1998
    * 1999 Nominated Favorite Supporting Actor - Sci-Fi Deep Impact 1998

National Board of Review USA

    * 2003 Won Best Acting by an Ensemble ROTK 2003

MTV Movie Awards

    * 2002 Nominated Best On-Screen Team FOTR 2001
    * 2003 Won Best On-Screen Team TTT 2003

Kids' Choice Awards

    * 2002 Nominated Favorite Male Butt Kicker FOTR
    * 2003 Nominated Favorite Male Kicker TTT

Empire Awards UK

    * 2002 Won Best Actor FOTR

DVD Exclusive Awards

    * 2003 Nominated Best Animated Character Performance The Adventures of Tom Thumb & Thumbelina 2002
    * 2003 Nominated Best Audio Commentary, New Release FOTR
    * 2003 Nominated Best Audio Commentary (New For DVD) TTT

Broadcast Film Critics Awards

    * 2004 Won Best Acting Ensemble ROTK
    * 1999 Nominated Favorite Actor - Horror The Faculty 1998
    * 1999 Nominated Favorite Supporting Actor - Sci-Fi- Deep Impact 1998

Saturn Award

    * 1994 Won Best Performance by a Young Actor The Good Son 1993
    * 1995 Nominated Best Performance by a Younger Actor North 1994
    * 2003 Nominated Best Performance by a Younger Actor TTT
    * 2004 Won Best Actor ROTK

Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences

    * 2004 Won Outstanding Achievement in Character Performance - Male ROTK

Hollywood Film Festival

    * 2006 Won Best Ensemble Cast for Bobby

Daytime Emmy Awards

    * 2007 Nominated Outstanding Performer In A Children/Youth/Family Special - Saving a Species: The Great Penguin Rescue 2006

San Francisco International Film Festival

    * 2009 Won The Midnight Award as dynamic young American actor who bring striking intelligence, exemplary talent and extraordinary depth of character to his roles.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/28/10 at 6:36 am

The person who died on this date...Jim Capaldi
Nicola James "Jim" Capaldi (2 August 1944 – 28 January 2005) was an English musician and songwriter and a founding member of Traffic. He drummed with several famous singers and musicians, including Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Alvin Lee, and Mylon LeFevre. Early days

As a child Capaldi studied the piano and singing with his father, a music teacher, and by his teens he was playing drums with his friends. In 1961 Capaldi played drums for the Worcester band The Sapphires and in 1963 he formed The Hellions with Dave Mason on guitar and Gordon Jackson on rhythm guitar. In August 1964, Tanya Day took The Hellions to the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany as her backing group. The Spencer Davis Group were staying at the same hotel as The Hellions and it was there that Steve Winwood befriended Capaldi and Mason.

Back in Worcester, The Hellions established themselves as busy professionals of sufficient repute to provide backing to visiting performers including Adam Faith and Dave Berry. By the end of 1964, they had a London residency at the Whisky-A-Go-Go Club. In 1965 the band released three singles but none charted. Later that year John "Poli" Palmer joined the band on drums and Capaldi became the lead vocalist.

The Hellions moved back to Worcester in 1966 in an attempt to reduce their costs but local tastes had changed and the band relaunched themselves as The Revolution with a fourth single that also failed to chart. Disillusioned, Dave Mason left the band. Capaldi replaced Mason with Luther Grosvenor and renamed the band Deep Feeling. They played gigs in Birmingham and the surrounding Black Country area where they developed a significant fanbase. Capaldi, Jackson and Palmer wrote original songs for the band that were heavier than the Hellions repertoire. They recorded several studio tracks which remained unreleased until 2009.
First success

Capaldi and the band played frequently in London and Jimi Hendrix played guitar with them at the Knuckles Club as an unknown musician. Back in Birmingham Capaldi would occasionally join his friends Mason, Winwood and Chris Wood for impromptu performances at The Elbow Room club on Aston High Street. Early in 1967 they formalised this arrangement by forming Traffic and the other members of Deep Feeling disbanded. In 1968, Capaldi, Winwood and Mason contributed backing music to a solo album by Gordon Jackson.

The new band was signed by Island Records and rented a quiet cottage in Aston Tirrold, Berkshire in order to write and rehearse new material. The cottage did not remain quiet and had frequent visitors including Eric Burdon, Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend as well as Trevor Burton (of The Move) amongst many others. Capaldi wrote the lyrics for Traffic's first single "Paper Sun", which appeared in the UK singles chart at number 5 in summer 1967. Two more singles were released successfully in 1967 and in December the band released the album Mr. Fantasy, which demonstrated the individual talents of each member. Mason left the band soon after the album's release but returned the following May before finally leaving again in October. Winwood also left Traffic (to form Blind Faith) and the rest reluctantly concluded that the band was over.
Reformation and beyond

Capaldi now tried to form another band with Mason and Wood but the creative tensions that had caused Mason to leave Traffic remained and Wynder K. Frogg only lasted until March 1969. In January 1970 Capaldi and Wood joined Winwood in the studio to record Winwood's solo album. These sessions were so successful that the three of them reformed Traffic (without Mason) to release the album John Barleycorn Must Die. They then toured the UK and the U.S. with a band extended by several session musicians.

Although the next Traffic albums were successful, Capaldi began to develop his solo career and released his first solo album Oh How We Danced in 1972. This set featured contributions from Free guitarist Paul Kossoff, Barry Beckett and Rebop Kwaku Baah as well as several members of Traffic.

He followed this up with Whale Meat Again in 1974 before releasing what many consider to be his masterpiece, Short Cut Draw Blood, the following year. Full of tracks with lyrical bite, the album tackled issues such as the environment, government corruption and drugs. In October 1975 a single taken from the album, a cover version of The Everly Brothers' "Love Hurts", reached number four in the UK chart and charted worldwide.

Capaldi's first and only solo Top 40 hit in the United States was from his 1982 album Fierce Heart, yielding the hit single "That's Love", which climbed to Number 28 in Billboard's Top 40 in the summer of 1983. The track was a simple arrangement with synthesized drums, electric guitar, and keyboards. Steve Winwood supplied the keyboards with his then-wife Nicole Winwood on background vocals.

Capaldi was noted for the extent of his collaborations with other musicians. In 1973, he played drums at Eric Clapton's Rainbow Concert and on some Clapton studio sessions.
Collaborations

Jim Capaldi's success as a lyricist continued throughout his life. He was a five times winner of coveted BMI/Ascap Awards for the "most played compositions in America", and sales of songs written or co-written by him exceeded 25 million units. He numbered Bob Marley among his friends and they travelled together whilst Marley was writing the Catch A Fire album. Capaldi wrote the lyrics to "This Is Reggae Music".

In the 1980s, Capaldi collaborated with Carlos Santana contributing songs and ideas to Santana's projects and in the 1990s he wrote the song "Love Will Keep Us Alive" for the Eagles' successful Hell Freezes Over album. His own 1988 album Some Come Running included Eric Clapton and George Harrison on the track "Oh Lord, Why Lord".

In 1993, Traffic reformed (without Chris Wood, who died in 1983, and Dave Mason) and recorded a new album Far From Home and in 1994 Capaldi toured the U.S. and UK with the band. In 1998 he paired up again with Mason on an extensive American tour.
Marriage/Family

He married Brazilian-born Aninha in 1975 and in 1976 toured with his band Space Cadets before moving to Brazil in 1977. His daughters Tabitha and Tallulah were born in 1977 and 1979, respectively. The Capaldis lived in the Bahia region of Brazil until the beginning of 1980 and while there he became heavily involved with environmental issues. The track "Favella Music" on his 1981 album Let The Thunder Cry arose from his love of Brazil and he worked with several Brazilian composers.
The final years

In 2001, Capaldi's twelfth solo album Living On The Outside featured George Harrison, Steve Winwood, Paul Weller, Gary Moore and Ian Paice. George Harrison played guitar on the track "Anna Julia", an English translation of a song by the Brazilian band Los Hermanos and Capaldi played at the Concert for George in 2002.

Outside his music and his environmental activism, Capaldi also assisted his wife in her work with Jubilee Action to help Brazilian street children. He remained professionally active until his final illness prevented him from working on plans for a 2005 reunion tour of Traffic. He died of stomach cancer at 02:30 on 28 January 2005, aged 60. He is survived by his wife and daughters.
Dear Mr Fantasy

Dear Mr Fantasy was a celebration of Jim Capaldi's life and music that took place at the Roundhouse in Camden Town, London on Sunday, 21 January 2007. Guests included Bill Wyman, Jon Lord, Gary Moore, Steve Winwood, Cat Stevens, Paul Weller, Pete Townshend, his brother, Phil and many more. Dear Mr Fantasy featured the music of Jim Capaldi and Traffic. All profits went to The Jubilee Action Street Children Appeal.
Solo discography

    * Oh How We Danced (1972)
    * Whale Meat Again (1974)
    * Short Cut Draw Blood (1975)
    * Play It By Ear (1977)
    * Daughter of the Night (1978)
    * Contender (1978)
    * Electric Nights (1979)
    * Sweet Smell of ... Success (1980)
    * Let The Thunder Cry (1981)
    * Fierce Heart (1982)
    * One Man Mission (1984)
    * Some Come Running (1988)
    * Prince of Darkness (1995)
    * Let The Thunder Cry (1999)
    * Living On The Outside (2001)
    * Poor Boy Blue (2004)
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/28/10 at 7:02 am


I don't remember him and Haku togethr iether..weird...
Recall watching Andre wrestling on TV back in the very early 1970s, in Quebec, as Geant Jean Ferre. he was much slimmer then.
http://www.udenap.org/photos/g/geant_ferre.jpg


Bobby The Brain Heenan was the brains behind this tag team. After they lost the tag titles Andre slugged Bobby after and turned face and left the crowd in cheers.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/28/10 at 7:04 am


The word of the day...Sunshine
Sunshine is the light and heat that comes from the sun.
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Everybody loves The Sunshine. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/28/10 at 10:45 pm

Canadian Person of the day
Sarah Ann McLachlan  born January 28, 1968(1968-01-28)) is a Canadian musician, singer and songwriter.

She is known for her emotional ballads and mezzo-soprano vocal range. As of 2006, she has sold over 40 million albums worldwide. Her best-selling album to date is Surfacing, for which she won two Grammy Awards (out of four nominations) and eight Juno Awards. In addition to her personal artistic efforts, she founded the Lilith Fair tour, which showcased female musicians in the late 1990s.

http://anthonygeorge.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/sarah-mclachlan1.jpg

http://loadedbow.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/sarahmclachlan.jpg
Since her signing with Nettwerk Records two decades ago, every one of Sarah McLachlan's studio and live albums and videos has been certified gold, platinum, or multi-platinum by the RIAA. Touch (1988) and Solace (1991) were both gold sellers. Her 1994 breakthrough, the 3X-platinum Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, was followed by the digitally enhanced multimedia version of The Freedom Sessions (1995)

Sarah's landmark fifth album, the 10X-platinum Surfacing  (1997), contained two Grammy Award-winning tracks: "Building a Mystery" won for Best Female Pop Vocal and "Last Dance" was voted Best Pop Instrumental. In 1998, the soundtrack of the Wim Wenders film City of Angels reached Number One on the Billboard chart. Featuring the Sarah McLachlan track "Angel," the City of Angels soundtrack achieved 4X platinum sales status

The 1999 Lilith Fair tour gave rise to Sarah's 4X-platinum album Mirrorball and its platinum long-form video counterpart. "I Will Remember You," a track from Mirrorball, earned Sarah her third career Grammy Award, for Best Female Pop Vocal (1999).

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 01/28/10 at 10:47 pm


Canadian Person of the day
Sarah Ann McLachlan  born January 28, 1968(1968-01-28)) is a Canadian musician, singer and songwriter.

She is known for her emotional ballads and mezzo-soprano vocal range. As of 2006, she has sold over 40 million albums worldwide. Her best-selling album to date is Surfacing, for which she won two Grammy Awards (out of four nominations) and eight Juno Awards. In addition to her personal artistic efforts, she founded the Lilith Fair tour, which showcased female musicians in the late 1990s.

http://anthonygeorge.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/sarah-mclachlan1.jpg

http://loadedbow.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/sarahmclachlan.jpg
Since her signing with Nettwerk Records two decades ago, every one of Sarah McLachlan's studio and live albums and videos has been certified gold, platinum, or multi-platinum by the RIAA. Touch (1988) and Solace (1991) were both gold sellers. Her 1994 breakthrough, the 3X-platinum Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, was followed by the digitally enhanced multimedia version of The Freedom Sessions (1995)

Sarah's landmark fifth album, the 10X-platinum Surfacing  (1997), contained two Grammy Award-winning tracks: "Building a Mystery" won for Best Female Pop Vocal and "Last Dance" was voted Best Pop Instrumental. In 1998, the soundtrack of the Wim Wenders film City of Angels reached Number One on the Billboard chart. Featuring the Sarah McLachlan track "Angel," the City of Angels soundtrack achieved 4X platinum sales status

The 1999 Lilith Fair tour gave rise to Sarah's 4X-platinum album Mirrorball and its platinum long-form video counterpart. "I Will Remember You," a track from Mirrorball, earned Sarah her third career Grammy Award, for Best Female Pop Vocal (1999).



She has some great music. :) 8)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 01/28/10 at 10:52 pm


She has some great music. :) 8)

Yes, she has.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 01/28/10 at 10:53 pm


Yes, she has.

I like "Possession", "Building A Mystery", "Adia" and "Sweet Surrender." :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/29/10 at 6:50 am


Canadian Person of the day
Sarah Ann McLachlan  born January 28, 1968(1968-01-28)) is a Canadian musician, singer and songwriter.

She is known for her emotional ballads and mezzo-soprano vocal range. As of 2006, she has sold over 40 million albums worldwide. Her best-selling album to date is Surfacing, for which she won two Grammy Awards (out of four nominations) and eight Juno Awards. In addition to her personal artistic efforts, she founded the Lilith Fair tour, which showcased female musicians in the late 1990s.

http://anthonygeorge.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/sarah-mclachlan1.jpg

http://loadedbow.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/sarahmclachlan.jpg
Since her signing with Nettwerk Records two decades ago, every one of Sarah McLachlan's studio and live albums and videos has been certified gold, platinum, or multi-platinum by the RIAA. Touch (1988) and Solace (1991) were both gold sellers. Her 1994 breakthrough, the 3X-platinum Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, was followed by the digitally enhanced multimedia version of The Freedom Sessions (1995)

Sarah's landmark fifth album, the 10X-platinum Surfacing  (1997), contained two Grammy Award-winning tracks: "Building a Mystery" won for Best Female Pop Vocal and "Last Dance" was voted Best Pop Instrumental. In 1998, the soundtrack of the Wim Wenders film City of Angels reached Number One on the Billboard chart. Featuring the Sarah McLachlan track "Angel," the City of Angels soundtrack achieved 4X platinum sales status

The 1999 Lilith Fair tour gave rise to Sarah's 4X-platinum album Mirrorball and its platinum long-form video counterpart. "I Will Remember You," a track from Mirrorball, earned Sarah her third career Grammy Award, for Best Female Pop Vocal (1999).



Nice choice :)

I like "Possession", "Building A Mystery", "Adia" and "Sweet Surrender." :)

All good songs :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/29/10 at 6:54 am


Canadian Person of the day
Sarah Ann McLachlan  born January 28, 1968(1968-01-28)) is a Canadian musician, singer and songwriter.

She is known for her emotional ballads and mezzo-soprano vocal range. As of 2006, she has sold over 40 million albums worldwide. Her best-selling album to date is Surfacing, for which she won two Grammy Awards (out of four nominations) and eight Juno Awards. In addition to her personal artistic efforts, she founded the Lilith Fair tour, which showcased female musicians in the late 1990s.

http://anthonygeorge.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/sarah-mclachlan1.jpg

http://loadedbow.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/sarahmclachlan.jpg
Since her signing with Nettwerk Records two decades ago, every one of Sarah McLachlan's studio and live albums and videos has been certified gold, platinum, or multi-platinum by the RIAA. Touch (1988) and Solace (1991) were both gold sellers. Her 1994 breakthrough, the 3X-platinum Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, was followed by the digitally enhanced multimedia version of The Freedom Sessions (1995)

Sarah's landmark fifth album, the 10X-platinum Surfacing  (1997), contained two Grammy Award-winning tracks: "Building a Mystery" won for Best Female Pop Vocal and "Last Dance" was voted Best Pop Instrumental. In 1998, the soundtrack of the Wim Wenders film City of Angels reached Number One on the Billboard chart. Featuring the Sarah McLachlan track "Angel," the City of Angels soundtrack achieved 4X platinum sales status

The 1999 Lilith Fair tour gave rise to Sarah's 4X-platinum album Mirrorball and its platinum long-form video counterpart. "I Will Remember You," a track from Mirrorball, earned Sarah her third career Grammy Award, for Best Female Pop Vocal (1999).




I've heard of her,not too familiar with her music.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/29/10 at 6:59 am

The word of the day...Angels
#
Angels are spiritual beings that some people believe are God's servants in heaven. N-COUNT
#
You can call someone you like very much an angel in order to show affection, especially when they have been kind to you or done you a favour.
If you describe someone as an angel, you mean that they seem to be very kind and good.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/29/10 at 7:03 am

http://sylviasgalleryonline.com/images/Angel-7%20Small.jpg


Guardian Angel.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/29/10 at 7:03 am

The birthday of the day...John Forsthe
John Forsythe (born John Lincoln Freund; January 29, 1918) is an American stage, television and film actor. Forsythe starred in three television series, spanning three decades, as single playboy father Bentley Gregg in the 1950s sitcom Bachelor Father (1957–1962); as the unseen millionaire Charles Townsend on the 1970s crime drama Charlie's Angels (1976–1981), and as ruthless and beloved patriarch Blake Carrington on the 1980s soap opera Dynasty (1981–1989). He hosted World of Survival during the 1970s. Forsythe currently appears each year to read children's fiction during the annual Christmas program near his retirement home at the rural resort community of Solvang, California, north of Los Angeles. espite showing initial reluctance, Forsythe began an acting career at the suggestion of his father. He met actress Parker McCormick (December 1918 - July 1980) and the couple married in 1939; they had a son, Dall (born in 1943), but soon divorced.

As a bit player for Warner Brothers, Forsythe successfully appeared in several small parts. As a result he was given a small role in Destination Tokyo (1943). Leaving his movie career for service in World War II, he appeared in the U.S. Army Air Forces play and film Winged Victory, then worked with injured soldiers who had developed speech problems.

Also in 1943, Forsythe met Julie Warren, initially a theatre companion but later a successful actress in her own right, landing a role on Broadway in Around the World. Warren became Forsythe's second wife and in the early 1950s the marriage produced two daughters - Page and Brooke.

In 1947, Forsythe joined the initial class of the soon-to-be prestigious Actors Studio, where he met other promising young actors including Marlon Brando and Julie Harris. During this time he appeared on Broadway in Mister Roberts and The Teahouse of the August Moon.

In 1955, Alfred Hitchcock cast Forsythe in the movie The Trouble with Harry, with Shirley MacLaine in her first movie appearance. The film was unsuccessful at the box office, and Forsythe found high profile movie work harder to find.
Television work
Bachelor Father

In 1957, took a leading role in the situation comedy Bachelor Father for CBS as Bentley Gregg, a playboy lawyer who has to become a father to his niece Kelly (played by Noreen Corcoran), upon the death of her biological parents. The show was an immediate rating hit and moved to NBC the following season and to ABC in the fall of 1961.

On various episodes Forsythe worked with such up-and-coming actresses as Mary Tyler Moore, Barbara Eden, Donna Douglas, Sally Kellerman, Sue Ane Langdon, and Linda Evans (who immediately formed a crush on the much older actor). During the 1961 season, Bachelor Father moved to ABC, but was cancelled that season because of declining ratings.
After Bachelor Father

In the early 1960s, Forsythe returned to acting in movies including Kitten with a Whip (1964) and In Cold Blood (1967). He also attempted two new television programs: The John Forsythe Show on NBC with Guy Marks, Elsa Lanchester, Ann B. Davis, Peggy Lipton, and Forsythe's two young daughters, Page and Brooke. (1965–1966) and To Rome with Love on CBS (1969–1971) with co-star Walter Brennan. Between 1971 and 1977, Forsythe served as narrator on the syndicated nature series, The World of Survival. He was also the announcer for Michelob beer commercials from the 70s through about 1985, notably during the "Weekends were made for Michelob" era.
Charlie's Angels

Forsythe began a 13-year association with Aaron Spelling in 1976, cast in the role of a mysterious unseen millionaire and private investigator Charles Townsend in the crime drama Charlie's Angels (1976-1981). Townsend's voice is heard over a speaker phone, instructing the eponymous Angels of their mission for the episode. Charlie's Angels was a huge success, much as Bachelor Father had been before, and was exported to over 90 countries. Forsythe quickly became the highest paid actor on television.

During this period, Forsythe invested a lot of money in thoroughbred racing, a personal hobby. Gaining respect with the celebrity thoroughbred circuit, he has served on the Board of Directors at the Hollywood Park Racetrack since 1972, and has been on the committee for more than 25 years.

Following heart problems, Forsythe underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 1979. This was so successful that he safely returned to work on Charlie's Angels, and also appeared in the courtroom drama ...And Justice for All later that year. By 1980, Charlie's Angels was starting to decline in ratings, but Forsythe remained under contract to Spelling.
Dynasty

In 1981, nearing the end of Charlie's Angels, Forsythe was selected as a last minute replacement for George Peppard in the role of conniving patriarch Blake Carrington in Dynasty. Another Aaron Spelling production, Dynasty was ABC's answer to the highly successful CBS series Dallas. Between 1985 and 1987, Forsythe also appeared as Blake Carrington in the short-lived spin-off series The Colbys.

Dynasty was a hit for Forsythe and proved his most successful role yet. Forsythe and his character became pop culture icons of the 1980s, making him one of Hollywood's leading men and sex symbols. The series explored real-life and fictionalized topics including family feuds, foreign revolutionary gunplay, illegitimate children, sex, drugs, and featured lavish lifestyles and glamorous clothes.

The series reunited Forsythe with Bachelor Father guest star Linda Evans, who had replaced Angie Dickinson to play Blake's compassionate and caring younger wife Krystle. The chemistry between Forsythe and Evans was apparent and as the principal married couple on the show, the two appeared on numerous talk and news magazine shows. During the run of the series, Forsythe, Evans and Collins promoted the Dynasty line of fragrances.

Dynasty came to an end in 1989, after a total of nine seasons, with Forsythe being the only actor to appear in all 220 episodes.

Forsythe was nominated for Emmy awards three times between 1982 and 1984 for "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series" but each time failed to win. He was also nominated six times for Golden Globes, winning twice. He was nominated five times for the Soap Opera Digest Awards, also winning twice. During this time, Forsythe celebrated his 45th wedding anniversary.
The Powers That Be

In 1992, after a three-year absence, Forsythe returned to series television starring in Norman Lear's situation comedy, The Powers That Be for NBC. The show wasn’t a ratings winner and was swiftly cancelled after only one year.
Post-1990s work and life
Bartholomew John as Forsythe (with Melora Hardin as Linda Evans) in Dynasty: The Making of a Guilty Pleasure (2005)

On August 15, 1994, Forsythe's wife of 51 years, the former Julie Warren, died aged 74 in hospital after he made the difficult decision to turn off her life-support system. She had been in a coma following severe breathing difficulties. In 2002, Forsythe married businesswoman Nicole Carter, twenty-two years his junior. Forsythe has one son, two daughters, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren from his previous marriages.

Forsythe reprised his role as Charlie for the film version of Charlie's Angels (2000) and its sequel Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003), but is now retired from acting. Besides spending time with his family, he now enjoys ownership of an art gallery.

In 2005 actor Bartholomew John portrayed Forsythe in Dynasty: The Making of a Guilty Pleasure, a fictionalized television movie based on the creation and behind the scenes production of Dynasty.

On May 2, 2006, Forsythe appeared with Dynasty co-stars Linda Evans, Joan Collins, Pamela Sue Martin, Al Corley, Gordon Thomson and Catherine Oxenberg in Dynasty Reunion: Catfights & Caviar. The one-hour reunion special of the former ABC series aired on CBS.

It was announced that Forsythe was being treated for colorectal cancer on October 13, 2006. He was discharged from the hospital after one month.
Thoroughbred racing

John Forsythe owned and bred Thoroughbred racehorses for many years and was a member of the Board of Directors of Hollywood Park Racetrack. Among his successes, in partnership with film producer Martin Ritt he won the 1976 Longacres Mile with Yu Wipi. With partner Ken Opstein, he won the 1982 Sixty Sails Handicap with Targa, and the 1993 La Brea Stakes with a daughter of Targa, Mamselle Bebette, which he raced under the name of his Big Train Farm, a stable he named for Hall of Fame baseball pitcher, Walter "Big Train" Johnson,

In the 1980s, John Forsythe served as the regular host for the annual Eclipse Awards. He was the recipient of the 1988 Eclipse Award of Merit for his contibution in promoting the sport of Thoroughbred racing.
Filmography

   * Northern Pursuit (1943)
   * Destination Tokyo (1943)
   * The Captive City (1952)
   * It Happens Every Thursday (1953)
   * The Glass Web (1953)
   * Escape from Fort Bravo (1953)
   * American Harvest (Revised Edition) (1955) (short subject) (narrator)
   * The Trouble with Harry (1955)
   * The Ambassador's Daughter (1956)
   * Everything But the Truth (1956)
   * Dubrowsky (1959)
   * Kitten with a Whip (1964)
   * Madame X (1966)
   * In Cold Blood (1967)
   * Silent Treatment (1968)
   * Topaz (1969)
   * The Happy Ending (1969)
   * Goodbye and Amen (1977)
   * ...And Justice for All (1979)
   * Scrooged (1988)
   * Stan and George's New Life (1991)
   * We Wish You a Merry Christmas (1999) (voice) (direct-to-video)
   * Charlie's Angels (2000)
   * Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)

Television work

   * Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955)
   * Bachelor Father (1957–1962)
   * The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962)
   * See How They Run (1964)
   * The John Forsythe Show (1965–1966)
   * A Bell for Adano (1967)
   * Shadow on the Land (1968)
   * To Rome With Love (1969–1971)
   * Murder Once Removed (1971)
   * The World of Survival (1971-1977) (narrator)
   * The Letters (1973) (unsold pilot)
   * Lisa, Bright and Dark (1973)
   * Cry Panic (1974)
   * The Healers (1974)
   * Terror on the 40th Floor (1974)
   * The Deadly Tower (1975)
   * Charlie's Angels (1976–1981)
   * Amelia Earhart (1976)
   * Tail Gunner Joe (1977)
   * Emily, Emily (1977)
   * Never Con a Killer (1977) (pilot for The Feather and Father Gang)
   * Cruise Into Terror (1978)
   * With This Ring (1978)
   * The Users (1978)
   * A Time for Miracles (1980)
   * Dynasty (1981–1989)
   * Sizzle (1981)
   * Mysterious Two (1982)
   * On Fire (1987)
   * Miss Universe Pageant (1989)
   * Opposites Attract (1990)
   * Dynasty: The Reunion (1991)
   * The Powers That Be (1992–1993)
   * I Witness Video (host from 1993-1994)
   * People's Century (1995) (miniseries) (narrator in U.S. version)
   * Dynasty Reunion: Catfights & Caviar (2006)
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/29/10 at 7:05 am


http://sylviasgalleryonline.com/images/Angel-7%20Small.jpg


Guardian Angel.  :)

Very nice :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/29/10 at 7:06 am


Very nice :)



Thank You.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/29/10 at 7:10 am

The person who died on this day...Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. A popular and often-quoted poet, Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry.
In 1894 he sold his first poem, "My Butterfly: An Elegy" (published in the November 8, 1894 edition of the New York Independent) for fifteen dollars. Proud of this accomplishment he proposed marriage to Elinor Miriam White, but she demurred, wanting to finish college (at St. Lawrence University) before they married. Frost then went on an excursion to the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia, and asked Elinor again upon his return. Having graduated she agreed, and they were married at Harvard University, where he attended liberal arts studies for two years.

He did well at Harvard, but left to support his growing family. Grandfather Frost had, shortly before his death, purchased a farm for the young couple in Derry, New Hampshire; and Robert worked the farm for nine years, while writing early in the mornings and producing many of the poems that would later become famous. Ultimately his farming proved unsuccessful and he returned to education as an English teacher, at Pinkerton Academy from 1906 to 1911, then at the New Hampshire Normal School (now Plymouth State University) in Plymouth, New Hampshire.

In 1912 Frost sailed with his family to Great Britain, living first in Glasgow before settling in Beaconsfield outside London. His first book of poetry, A Boy's Will, was published the next year. In England he made some important acquaintances, including Edward Thomas (a member of the group known as the Dymock Poets), T.E. Hulme, and Ezra Pound. Pound would become the first American to write a (favorable) review of Frost's work, though Frost later resented Pound's attempts to manipulate his American prosody. Surrounded by his peers, Frost wrote some of his best work while in England.
The Robert Frost Farm in Derry, New Hampshire, where he wrote many of his poems, including "Tree at My Window" and "Mending Wall."

As World War I began, Frost returned to America in 1915. He bought a farm in Franconia, New Hampshire, where he launched a career of writing, teaching, and lecturing. This family homestead served as the Frosts' summer home until 1938, and is maintained today as 'The Frost Place', a museum and poetry conference site at Franconia. During the years 1916–20, 1923–24, and 1927–1938, Frost taught English at Amherst College, Massachusetts, notably encouraging his students to account for the sounds of the human voice in their writing.

For forty-two years, from 1921 to 1963, Frost spent almost every summer and fall teaching at the Bread Loaf School of English of Middlebury College, at the mountain campus at Ripton, Vermont. He is credited as a major influence upon the development of the school and its writing programs; the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference gained renown during Frost's time there. The college now owns and maintains his former Ripton farmstead as a national historic site near the Bread Loaf campus. In 1921 Frost accepted a fellowship teaching post at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he resided until 1927; while there he was awarded a lifetime appointment at the University as a Fellow in Letters. The Robert Frost Ann Arbor home is now situated at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Frost returned to Amherst in 1927. In 1940 he bought a 5-acre (2.0 ha) plot in South Miami, Florida, naming it Pencil Pines; he spent his winters there for the rest of his life.

Harvard's 1965 alumni directory indicates Frost received an honorary degree there. Though he never graduated from college, Frost received over 40 honorary degrees, including ones from Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge universities; and he was the only person to receive two honorary degrees from Dartmouth College. During his lifetime the Robert Frost Middle School in Fairfax, Virginia, and the main library of Amherst College were named after him.

Frost was 86 when he spoke and performed a reading of his poetry at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy on January 20, 1961. He died in Boston two years later, on January 29, 1963, of complications from prostate surgery. He was buried at the Old Bennington Cemetery in Bennington, Vermont. His epitaph quotes a line from one of his poems: "I had a lover's quarrel with the world."

Frost's poems are critiqued in the Anthology of Modern American Poetry (Oxford University Press) where it is mentioned that behind a sometimes charmingly familiar and rural façade, Frost's poetry frequently presents pessimistic and menacing undertones which often are either unrecognized or unanalyzed.

One of the original collections of Frost materials, to which he himself contributed, is found in the Special Collections department of the Jones Library in Amherst, Massachusetts. The collection consists of approximately twelve thousand items, including original manuscript poems and letters, correspondence, and photographs, as well as audio and visual recordings.
Personal life

Robert Frost's personal life was plagued with grief and loss. His father died of tuberculosis in 1885, when Frost was 11, leaving the family with just $8. Frost's mother died of cancer in 1900. In 1920, Frost had to commit his younger sister, Jeanie, to a mental hospital, where she died nine years later. Mental illness apparently ran in Frost's family, as both he and his mother suffered from depression, and his daughter Irma was committed to a mental hospital in 1947. Frost's wife, Elinor, also experienced bouts of depression.

Elinor and Robert Frost had six children: son Elliot (1896–1904, died of cholera), daughter Lesley Frost Ballantine (1899–1983), son Carol (1902–1940, committed suicide), daughter Irma (1903–1967), daughter Marjorie (1905–1934, died as a result of puerperal fever after childbirth), and daughter Elinor Bettina (died three days after birth in 1907). Only Lesley and Irma outlived their father. Frost's wife, who had heart problems throughout her life, developed breast cancer in 1937, and died of heart failure in 1938.
Selected works
Poems

    * After Apple-Picking
    * Acquainted with the Night
    * The Aim Was Song
    * An Old Man's Winter Night
    * The Armful
    * Asking for Roses
    * The Bear
    * Bereft
    * Birches
    * The Black Cottage
    * Bond and Free
    * A Boundless Moment
    * A Brook in the City
    * But Outer Space
    * Choose Something Like a Star
    * A Cliff Dwelling
    * The Code
    * Come In
    * A Considerable Speck
    * The Cow in Apple-Time
    * The Death of the Hired Man
    * Dedication
    * The Demiurge's Laugh
    * Devotion
    * Departmental
    * Desert Places
    * Design
    * Directive
    * A Dream Pang
    * Dust of Snow
    * The Egg and the Machine
    * Evening in a Sugar Orchard
    * The Exposed Nest
    * The Fear
    * Fire and Ice (1916)
    * Fireflies in the Garden
    * The Flower Boat
    * Flower-Gathering
    * For Once, Then Something
    * Fragmentary Blue
    * Gathering Leaves
    * The Generations of Men
    * Ghost House
    * The Gift Outright
    * A Girl's Garden
    * Going for Water
    * Good Hours
    * Good-bye, and Keep Cold
    * The Gum-Gatherer



    * A Hundred Collars
    * Hannibal
    * The Hill Wife
    * Home Burial
    * Hyla Brook
    * In a Disused Graveyard
    * In a Poem
    * In Hardwood Groves
    * In Neglect
    * In White (Frost's Early Version of "Design")
    * Into My Own
    * A Late Walk
    * Leaves Compared with Flowers
    * The Line-Gang
    * A Line-Storm Song
    * The Lockless Door
    * Love and a Question
    * Lure of the West
    * Meeting and Passing
    * Mending Wall
    * A Minor Bird
    * The Mountain
    * Mowing
    * My Butterfly
    * My November Guest
    * The Need of Being Versed in Country Things
    * Neither Out Far Nor in Deep
    * Never Again Would Bird's Song Be the Same
    * Not to Keep
    * Nothing Gold Can Stay
    * Now Close the Windows
    * October
    * On a Tree Fallen across the Road
    * On Looking up by Chance at the Constellations
    * Once by the Pacific (1916)
    * One Step Backward Taken
    * Out, Out- (1916)
    * The Oven Bird
    * Pan With Us
    * A Patch of Old Snow
    * The Pasture
    * Plowmen
    * A Prayer in Spring
    * Provide, Provide
    * Putting in the Seed



    * Quandary
    * A Question
    * Range-Finding
    * Reluctance
    * Revelation
    * The Road Not Taken
    * The Road That Lost its Reason
    * The Rose Family
    * Rose Pogonias
    * The Runaway
    * The Secret Sits
    * The Self-Seeker
    * A Servant to Servants
    * The Silken Tent
    * A Soldier
    * The Sound of the Trees
    * The Span of Life
    * Spring Pools
    * The Star-Splitter
    * Stars
    * Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
    * Storm Fear
    * The Telephone
    * They Were Welcome to Their Belief
    * A Time to Talk
    * To E.T.
    * To Earthward
    * To the Thawing Wind
    * Tree at My Window
    * The Trial by Existence
    * The Tuft of Flowers
    * Two Look at Two
    * Two Tramps in Mud Time
    * The Vanishing Red
    * The Vantage Point
    * War Thoughts at Home
    * What Fifty Said
    * The Witch of Coös
    * The Wood-Pile

Poetry collections

    * North of Boston (David Nutt, 1914; Holt, 1914)
    * Mending Wall
    * Mountain Interval (Holt, 1916)
    * The Road Not Taken
    * Selected Poems (Holt, 1923)

    Includes poems from first three volumes and the poem The Runaway

    * New Hampshire (Holt, 1923; Grant Richards, 1924)
    * Several Short Poems (Holt, 1924)
    * Selected Poems (Holt, 1928)
    * West-Running Brook (Holt, 1928? 1929)
    * The Lovely Shall Be Choosers (Random House, 1929)
    * Collected Poems of Robert Frost (Holt, 1930; Longmans, Green, 1930)
    * The Lone Striker (Knopf, 1933)
    * Selected Poems: Third Edition (Holt, 1934)
    * Three Poems (Baker Library, Dartmouth College, 1935)
    * The Gold Hesperidee (Bibliophile Press, 1935)
    * From Snow to Snow (Holt, 1936)
    * A Further Range (Holt, 1936; Cape, 1937)
    * Collected Poems of Robert Frost (Holt, 1939; Longmans, Green, 1939)
    * A Witness Tree (Holt, 1942; Cape, 1943)
    * Come In, and Other Poems (1943)
    * Steeple Bush (Holt, 1947)
    * Complete Poems of Robert Frost, 1949 (Holt, 1949; Cape, 1951)
    * Hard Not To Be King (House of Books, 1951)
    * Aforesaid (Holt, 1954)
    * A Remembrance Collection of New Poems (Holt, 1959)
    * You Come Too (Holt, 1959; Bodley Head, 1964)
    * In the Clearing (Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1962)
    * The Poetry of Robert Frost (New York, 1969)
    * A Further Range (published as Further Range in 1926, as New Poems by Holt, 1936; Cape, 1937)
    * Nothing Gold Can Stay
    * What Fifty Said
    * Fire And Ice
    * A Drumlin Woodchuck

Plays

    * A Way Out: A One Act Play (Harbor Press, 1929).
    * The Cow's in the Corn: A One Act Irish Play in Rhyme (Slide Mountain Press, 1929).
    * A Masque of Reason (Holt, 1945).
    * A Masque of Mercy (Holt, 1947).

Prose

    * The Letters of Robert Frost to Louis Untermeyer (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1963; Cape, 1964).
    * Robert Frost and John Bartlett: The Record of a Friendship, by Margaret Bartlett Anderson (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1963).
    * Selected Letters of Robert Frost (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964).
    * Interviews with Robert Frost (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1966; Cape, 1967).
    * Family Letters of Robert and Elinor Frost (State University of New York Press, 1972).
    * Robert Frost and Sidney Cox: Forty Years of Friendship (University Press of New England, 1981).
    * The Notebooks of Robert Frost, edited by Robert Faggen (Harvard University Press, January 2007).

Published as

    * Collected Poems, Prose and Plays (Richard Poirier, ed.) (Library of America, 1995) ISBN 978-1-88301106-2.

Pulitzer Prizes

    * 1924 for New Hampshire: A Poem With Notes and Grace Notes
    * 1931 for Collected Poems
    * 1937 for A Further Range
    * 1943 for A Witness Tree
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/29/10 at 7:33 am

My two favs are Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and of course The Road Less Traveled. That one really speaks to me because I feel like I have traveled the Road Less Traveled in my life.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 01/29/10 at 11:06 am


All good songs :)

As well as "I Will Remember You" (1999) and "Fallen" (2003-04). She also provided vocal on the Delerium song "Silence", which she co-wrote.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/30/10 at 4:51 am

Person of the Day (born to an English father and American mother): Thomas Rolfe

Thomas Rolfe (January 30, 1615 - c. 1675) was the only child of Pocahontas by her English husband, John Rolfe.

Rolfe was born at Smith's Plantation in Jamestown, Virginia. His maternal grandfather was Wahunsunacock, the chief of Powhatan tribe in Virgina. After growing up in England, he married Elizabeth Washington on 13 September 1632, at the St James's Church in Clerkenwell, London. Their daughter Anne was born in 1633. Elizabeth died shortly after Anne’s birth, and in 1635 Rolfe returned to Virginia, leaving his daughter with his cousin, Anthony Rolfe. In 1659, Anne Rolfe married Peter Elwin (1623-1695), of Thurning, Norfolk, England, and left descendants.

Rolfe became a powerful leader in the tribe his grandfather had led.  During this time, he met and married Jane Poythress. He served in the English military until 1675. His only child by his second wife, called Jane Rolfe, was born on October 10, 1650, and in 1675 married Colonel Robert Bolling and herself had two children, John Bolling (born January 26, 1676) and Rebecca Bolling. Many Americans claim descent from Rolfe, including some politicians. In 1675, Rolfe died at the age of 59 or 60, and was survived by his wife and child. Rolfe is buried in Hopewell's Kippax Plantation.

As a result of Thomas Rolfe's birth, the Rolfe family is considered one of the First Families of Virginia. He appears as an infant in the 2005 theatrical film The New World, but does not exist in the 1998 Disney animated straight-to-video film Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World, a sequel to the 1995 motion picture.

http://richmondthenandnow.com/Images/Articles/Pocahontas.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/30/10 at 5:39 am


Person of the Day (born to an English father and American mother): Thomas Rolfe

Thomas Rolfe (January 30, 1615 - c. 1675) was the only child of Pocahontas by her English husband, John Rolfe.

Rolfe was born at Smith's Plantation in Jamestown, Virginia. His maternal grandfather was Wahunsunacock, the chief of Powhatan tribe in Virgina. After growing up in England, he married Elizabeth Washington on 13 September 1632, at the St James's Church in Clerkenwell, London. Their daughter Anne was born in 1633. Elizabeth died shortly after Anne’s birth, and in 1635 Rolfe returned to Virginia, leaving his daughter with his cousin, Anthony Rolfe. In 1659, Anne Rolfe married Peter Elwin (1623-1695), of Thurning, Norfolk, England, and left descendants.

Rolfe became a powerful leader in the tribe his grandfather had led.  During this time, he met and married Jane Poythress. He served in the English military until 1675. His only child by his second wife, called Jane Rolfe, was born on October 10, 1650, and in 1675 married Colonel Robert Bolling and herself had two children, John Bolling (born January 26, 1676) and Rebecca Bolling. Many Americans claim descent from Rolfe, including some politicians. In 1675, Rolfe died at the age of 59 or 60, and was survived by his wife and child. Rolfe is buried in Hopewell's Kippax Plantation.

As a result of Thomas Rolfe's birth, the Rolfe family is considered one of the First Families of Virginia. He appears as an infant in the 2005 theatrical film The New World, but does not exist in the 1998 Disney animated straight-to-video film Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World, a sequel to the 1995 motion picture.

http://richmondthenandnow.com/Images/Articles/Pocahontas.jpg

Thanks Phil :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/30/10 at 5:44 am

The word of the day...Groovy
If you describe something as groovy, you mean that it is attractive, fashionable, or exciting.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/30/10 at 5:47 am

The person born on this day...Phil Collins
Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins LVO (born 30 January 1951) is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, keyboardist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for English progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist.

Collins sang the lead vocals on eight American chart-toppers between 1984 and 1989; seven as a solo artist and one with Genesis. His singles, often dealing with lost love, ranged from the drum-heavy "In the Air Tonight", to the dance pop of "Sussudio", to the political statements of his most successful song, "Another Day in Paradise". His international popularity transformed Genesis from a progressive rock group to a regular on the pop charts and an early MTV mainstay.

Collins's professional music career began as a drummer, first with obscure rock group Flaming Youth and then more famously with Genesis. In Genesis, Collins originally supplied backing vocals for front man Peter Gabriel, singing lead on only two songs: "For Absent Friends" from 1971's Nursery Cryme album and "More Fool Me" from Selling England by the Pound, which was released in 1973. On Gabriel's departure in 1975, Collins became the group's lead singer. As the decade closed, Genesis's first international hit, "Follow You, Follow Me", demonstrated a drastic change from the band's early years.

His concurrent solo career, heavily influenced by his personal life, brought both him and Genesis commercial success. According to Atlantic Records, Collins's total worldwide sales as a solo artist, as of 2002, were 150 million. He has won seven Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and two Golden Globes for his solo work.
n 1970, Collins answered a Melody Maker classified ad for "...a drummer sensitive to acoustic music, and acoustic twelve-string guitarist". Genesis placed the ad after having already lost three drummers over two albums. The audition occurred at the home of Peter Gabriel's parents. Prospective candidates performed tracks from the group's second album, Trespass (1970). Collins arrived early, listened to the other auditions while swimming in Gabriel's parents' pool, and memorised the pieces before his turn.
The music video for "Land of Confusion" featured the members of Genesis in puppet form, with the single cover (parodying the With the Beatles album and using puppets from the satirical TV show Spitting Image).

Collins won the audition. Nursery Cryme was released a year later. Although his role remained primarily that of drummer and backing vocalist for the next five years, he twice sang lead vocals: once on "For Absent Friends" (from Nursery Cryme) and once on "More Fool Me" (from Selling England by the Pound).

In 1974, while Genesis were recording the album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Brian Eno (who is credited with "Enossification" for electronic vocal effects on the track "Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging") needed a drummer for his album Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy). Collins was sent to fill the gap, and played drums in lieu of payment for Eno's work with the band.

In 1975, following the final tour supporting the concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Gabriel left the group to pursue a solo career. Collins became lead vocalist after a lengthy but ultimately fruitless search for Gabriel's replacement (where he sang back up with the over 400 hopefuls that reportedly auditioned). In the short term, the group recruited former Yes and King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford to play drums during live shows, although Collins continued to play during longer instrumental sections. Bruford's drumming can be heard on the track "The Cinema Show" on the live album Seconds Out. He was soon replaced by ex-Frank Zappa band member Chester Thompson, who became a mainstay of the band's live line-up. Collins, however, continued to play drums on all of the band's studio recordings.

The first album with Collins as lead vocalist, 1976's A Trick of the Tail, reached the American Top 40, and peaked high as #3 on the UK charts. Said Rolling Stone, "Genesis has managed to turn the possible catastrophe of Gabriel's departure into their first broad-based American success.". Following the recording of Genesis's next album Wind and Wuthering guitarist Steve Hackett left the group to pursue his own solo career. The group decided to continue as a trio for recording with Mike Rutherford playing guitar and bass in the studio, although the lineup was regularly augmented by Chester Thompson and American guitarist Daryl Stuermer for concert tours.

Collins simultaneously performed in a jazz fusion group called Brand X. The band recorded their first album, Unorthodox Behaviour, with Collins as drummer, but because Genesis was Collins's priority, there were several Brand X tours and albums without him. Collins credits Brand X as his first use of a drum machine as well as his first use of a home 8-track tape machine.

Collins also performed on Steve Hackett's first solo album, Voyage of the Acolyte, on which he sang lead vocals and played drums.

As the decade closed, Genesis began a shift from their progressive rock roots and toward more accessible, radio-friendly pop-rock music. The album …And Then There Were Three… featured their first UK Top 10 and U.S. Top 40 single, "Follow You, Follow Me".

"Dance on a Volcano" (1976)
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The first track from Genesis's A Trick of the Tail, this was Collins's first appearance as the group's lead singer. A progressive rock track, it contrasts with the style of his later work.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

In the 1980s, while Collins developed as a songwriter and established a parallel career as a solo artist, Genesis recorded a series of highly successful albums including Duke, Abacab, Genesis, and Invisible Touch. The latter album's title track reached #1 on the American Billboard singles chart, the only Genesis song to do so. The group received an MTV "Video of the Year" nomination in 1987 for the single "Land of Confusion" (which featured puppet caricatures created by the British satirical team Spitting Image) but lost out to Peter Gabriel's solo hit, "Sledgehammer". Reviews were generally positive, with Rolling Stone's J.D. Considine stating, "every tune is carefully pruned so that each flourish delivers not an instrumental epiphany but a solid hook."

Collins left Genesis in 1996 to focus on his solo career; The last studio album with him as the lead singer was 1991's We Can't Dance. He and Gabriel reunited with other Genesis members in 1999 to re-record "The Carpet Crawlers" for Genesis's Turn It on Again: The Hits. When in the mid-2000s discussions of a possible Genesis reunion arose, Collins stated that he would prefer to return as the drummer, with Gabriel handling the vocals. Eventually Turn It On Again: The Tour was announced for 2007, with the Collins/Rutherford/Banks lineup.
Solo career

The dominant theme running through Collins's early solo recordings (although never specifically mentioned in his songs) was the acrimonious breakdown of his first marriage and then-recent divorce. Two songs he wrote on the Genesis album Duke, "Please Don't Ask", and the Top 20 hit "Misunderstanding", dealt with failed relationships. One year earlier, he had played drums and sung backing vocals on John Martyn's Grace and Danger, an album whose main theme is also marriage breakup.

With the recording of his first solo album, Face Value, Collins attributed his divorce as his main influence, as can be inferred from songs such as "If Leaving Me Is Easy".

In September 1981, he made his live debut as a solo performer, appearing at the invitation of producer Martin Lewis at the Amnesty International benefit show The Secret Policeman's Other Ball at the Theatre Royal in London. Collins performed two songs "In The Air Tonight" and "The Roof Is Leaking" accompanying himself on the grand piano. His performance was augmented by Daryl Stuermer on acoustic guitar and banjo. The performance was the first time that Collins had performed live as a soloist and the first time that he performed at a charity show. In addition to performing his two solo songs, Collins joined the chorus on the finale of Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released" performed by the all-star Secret Police led by Sting, and featuring Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Bob Geldof, Midge Ure and Donovan. Collins would subsequently team up with Geldof and Ure to play drums on the 1984 Band-Aid single "Do They Know It's Christmas", and with Sting to perform together at the Geldof-organized Live Aid in 1985.

Collins's performances were prominently featured on the Secret Policeman's Other Ball - The Music album released in 1982, which was a Top 30 album in the UK, U.S. and other countries. His performance of "In The Air Tonight" was included in both the UK and U.S. versions of the movie of the show. His performance of "The Roof Is Leaking" was included in the U.S.-only home-video sequel The Secret Policeman's Private Parts in 1983.

In 1982 he produced Something's Going On, a solo album by Anni-Frid Lyngstad (Frida), of ABBA fame. Frida, who had just parted with bandmate and husband Benny Andersson, had been impressed by Collins's solo efforts. Consequently, she approached Collins with her own solo project. The resulting album, featuring Collins on drums, spawned the 1982–83 international smash hit "I Know There's Something Going On" (Russ Ballard) and Collins’s duet with Frida titled "Here We'll Stay." An edit featuring Frida on all vocals was released as a single. A one hour documentary about the making of this album can be seen on Frida - The DVD. Swedish television filmed the whole recording process from day one in the studio to the release party. The programme includes interviews with Phil and Frida, as well as all the musicians on the album.

Songs inspired by Collins’s marital problems formed the bulk of his first two solo albums. His second album, Hello, I Must Be Going!, released in 1982, included songs such as "I Don't Care Anymore". Collins’s early albums had a dark presence, usually heavy on the drums. Regarding Face Value, he says, "I had a wife, two children, two dogs, and the next day I didn't have anything. So a lot of these songs were written because I was going through these emotional changes." There were occasional poppier influences–Face Value's "Behind the Lines", for example, was a jazzy remake of a Genesis song he co-wrote. Face Value was a critical and multi-platinum success, and saw Collins’s profile increase further. Hello, I Must Be Going! gave him a UK #1 for his cover of The Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love". The album went triple-platinum in the United States, like its predecessor. The Supremes' cover was his first Top 10 U.S. hit (it also hit the Top 10 of Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart). The album also reached #2 on the UK album chart, spending well over a year there.

Two years before, Collins had played drums on Peter Gabriel's third self-titled record (often referred to as Melt), the first record to feature the "gated reverb" sound, which was used on the song "Intruder". Gabriel reportedly "didn't want any metal on the record" and asked Collins to leave his cymbals at home, to concentrate on the sound of his kit more heavily than usual. Studio engineer Hugh Padgham augmented the drum sound by using a microphone normally intended for studio communication rather than recording and feeding it through a signal processor called a noise gate. This allowed the reverberation added to the drums to be suddenly cut off before it naturally decayed. The result was the arresting "gated reverb" which became Collins signature sound. This was the same 'big drum sound' used on such songs as "In The Air Tonight", "Mama" by Genesis, and Frida's "There's Something Going On".

A turning point in Collins's musical style came when he was asked to provide the title track for the film Against All Odds, a song which he re-worked to become "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" from an original Face Value session out-take entitled "How Can You Sit There?". The emotionally-charged ballad shot to #1 in the U.S. and #2 in the UK.

In 1984, Collins produced Philip Bailey's Chinese Wall album. He performed a duet on one of the album's tracks, "Easy Lover" which went to #2 on the U.S. pop chart and spent four weeks at #1 in the UK. Collins worked with the horn section of Bailey's band, Earth, Wind & Fire (later known as the Phenix Horns) throughout the 1980s, both on solo and Genesis tracks. By the end of 1984, Collins participated in Bob Geldof's Band Aid charity project, as well as, playing drums on the Band Aid single "Feed The World (Do They Know It's Christmas)", a drum part he laid down in one take (while being filmed).
Collins with drum set and music stand.

Collins released his most successful album, No Jacket Required, in early 1985. It contained the hits "Sussudio", "One More Night", "Don't Lose My Number", and "Take Me Home", as well as the less known yet equally robust "Who Said I Would", and "Only You Know and I Know". The album featured Sting, Helen Terry and ex-bandmate Peter Gabriel as backing vocalists. He also recorded the successful song "Separate Lives", a duet with Marilyn Martin, and an American number one, for the movie White Nights. Collins had three American number one songs in 1985, the most by any artist that year. No Jacket Required went on to win several Grammy awards including Album of the Year.

No Jacket Required received criticism that the album was too safe, despite its upbeat reviews and commercial success. A positive review by David Fricke of Rolling Stone ended, "After years on the art-rock fringe, Collins has established himself firmly in the middle of the road. Perhaps he should consider testing himself and his new fans' expectations next time around." "Sussudio" also drew criticism for sounding too similar to Prince's "1999", a charge that Collins did not deny. Nevertheless, the album went straight to #1 in the U.S. and UK.

In 1985, Collins was invited by Bob Geldof to perform at the Live Aid charity event. Collins had the distinction of being the only performer to appear at both the UK concert at Wembley Stadium and the U.S. concert at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. He accomplished this by performing early in the day at Wembley as both a solo artist and alongside Sting, then flying on a special Concorde flight to the USA enabling him to perform his solo material, and drum for Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton in Philadelphia.

Howard Jones re-recorded his song "No One Is to Blame", from his Dream into Action album, featuring Phil Collins as drummer, backing vocalist, and producer. He has also played drums on singles for Robert Plant and Tina Turner on their respective albums. Collins also produced and played drums on the Eric Clapton albums Behind the Sun, August, and Journeyman, and appeared in the videos for Clapton's "Pretending" and Bad Love. He also toured with Clapton during 1986 in support of the release of August as the band's drummer, appearing in both of Clapton's concert videos Live from Montreux and Eric Clapton and Friends. Collins was also a regular fixture through the 1980s and early 1990s at the Prince's Trust concerts. Collins's solo success, as well as his concurrent career with Genesis, led to a 1985 cover story in Rolling Stone, with the tag reading "Phil Collins Beats the Odds".

In 1988, Collins starred in the movie Buster about the Great Train Robbery, which took place in England in the 1960s. The movie received good reviews and Collins contributed four songs to the films soundtrack. "Two Hearts" -- , which he wrote with Lamont Dozier; a cover of "A Groovy Kind of Love" (originally a 1966 hit for The Mindbenders, lyrics by Toni Wine, and music by Carole Bayer Sager, but with the melody of the Rondo section of Muzio Clementi's "Sonatina in G major", op. 36 no. 5.); "Big Noise", written by Phil Collins and Lamont Dozier, which included Collins on vocals (although the song was not released as a single, an instrumental version of this song appeared as the B-side to the single version of "A Groovy Kind Of Love".) The final song, "Loco In Acapulco", was another collaboration between him and Dozier, with the vocals performed by the legendary Motown group The Four Tops.

In 1989, Collins produced another successful album, ...But Seriously, featuring the anti-homelessness anthem "Another Day in Paradise", with David Crosby on backing vocals. (Collins later went on to co-write, sing and play on the song "Hero" on Crosby's 1993 album Thousand Roads.) "Another Day in Paradise" went to Number 1 on the Billboard Charts at the end of 1989 and won Collins a Grammy for Record of the Year (1990). In the process, it became the last #1 U.S. pop hit of the 1980s. The album ...But Seriously became the first #1 U.S. album of the 1990s. Other songs included "Something Happened on the Way to Heaven" (#4 U.S., #15 UK), "Do You Remember?" (not released in the UK, but a #4 hit in the U.S.), and "I Wish It Would Rain Down" (the latter featuring Clapton on guitar) (#3 U.S., #7 UK). Songs about apartheid and homelessness demonstrated Collins’s turn to politically-driven material. This theme recurred on his later albums. A live album, Serious Hits… Live!, followed.

During this period, Collins appeared on various albums as a guest vocalist. Collins appeared on David Crosby's Thousand Roads album, singing the backing vocals for the single "Hero". Collins also appeared on the Curtis Mayfield album, A Tribute to Curtis Mayfield, covering Mayfield's song "I've Been Trying". He also sang a cover of Elton John's hit "Burn Down the Mission", in Two Rooms: Celebrating the Songs of Elton John & Bernie Taupin. Collins also sang on Quincy Jones' Q's Jook Joint album, singing "Do Nothing till You Hear from Me". Collins also sang on The Songs of West Side Story, providing lead vocals for "Somewhere", which was also released as a single.

Collins’s record sales began to drop with the 1993 release of Both Sides, a largely experimental album that, according to Collins, included songs that "were becoming so personal, so private, I didn't want anyone else's input". Featuring a less polished sound and fewer up-tempo songs than his previous albums, Both Sides was a significant departure. Collins used no backing musicians, performed all the vocal and instrumental parts at his home studio, and used rough vocal takes for the final product. The album was not well received by radio. Its two biggest hits were "Both Sides of the Story" and "Everyday". Collins worked on the album completely independently of his record company, and took them by surprise when he delivered them a completed album that they were unaware he was making.

Collins attempted a return to poppier music with Dance into the Light, which Entertainment Weekly reviewed by saying that "(e)ven Phil Collins must know that we all grew weary of Phil Collins." It included minor hits such as the title track and the Beatles-inspired "It's In Your Eyes". Although the album went Gold in the U.S., it sold considerably less than his previous albums. Only the title track made a brief appearance on Collins’s then forthcoming Hits collection. Despite this, its subsequent tour regularly sold out arenas.

In 1996, Collins formed The Phil Collins Big Band. With Collins as drummer, the band performed jazz renditions of Collins’s and Genesis's hits. The Phil Collins Big Band did a world tour in 1998 that included a performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival. In 1999, the group released the CD A Hot Night in Paris including big band versions of "Invisible Touch", "Sussudio", and the more obscure "The Los Endos Suite" from A Trick of the Tail.

A Hits album released in 1998 was very successful, returning Collins to multi-platinum status in America. The album's sole new track, a cover of the Cyndi Lauper hit "True Colors", received considerable play on US Adult Contemporary stations while peaking at #2. Some of Collins’s earlier hits (e.g. "I Missed Again", "If Leaving Me Is Easy", etc.) and other successes were not included in this compilation.

Collins's next single, "You'll Be in My Heart", from the Disney animated movie Tarzan, spent 19 weeks at #1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart - the longest time ever up to that point—and Collins won the Oscar. It was his third nomination in the songwriters category, after being nominated in 1985 and 1989.

Metacritic's roundup of album reviews found his most recent studio album, 2002's Testify, to be the worst-reviewed album by the time of its release, though it has since been "surpassed" by three more recent releases. The album's "Can't Stop Loving You" (a Leo Sayer cover) was yet another #1 Adult Contemporary smash hit for Collins. Testify sold 140,000 copies in the United States by year's end, although a successful worldwide tour followed.


    *
      "In the Air Tonight" (1980)
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      The ambiguous lyrics of Collins's first solo hit, "In the Air Tonight", have spawned an urban legend about Collins witnessing of a murder.
      "Sussudio" (1985)
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      The dance pop of No Jacket Required, including this number one hit, won Collins a Grammy Award for "Album of the Year".
      "Another Day in Paradise" (1989)
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      The last of Collins's seven American number one singles, "Another Day in Paradise", was a topical song that discussed the plight of the homeless, and won Collins a Grammy Award for "Record of the Year".
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Collins reported losing his hearing in one ear, and in 2003 announced his last solo tour. He called it the "First Final Farewell Tour", a tongue-in-cheek reference to the multiple farewell tours of other popular artists. He continued touring through 2006 while working with Disney on a Broadway production of Tarzan, a musical which received generally poor reviews. In 2007, Collins reunited with his Genesis bandmates for a tour of Europe and North America. He accepted an invitation to drum for the "house band" celebrating Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee. He has played drums for Paul McCartney, Ozzy Osbourne, Cliff Richard, Eric Clapton, as well as Led Zeppelin.

With the exception of Paul McCartney, Collins is the only recording artist that has ever been a principal member of a band that has sold at least 100 million albums worldwide, and sold at least 100 million albums worldwide as a solo artist. According to Billboard, when his work with Genesis, his work with other artists, as well as his solo career is totalled, Collins has the most top 40 hits on the Billboard charts for the 80s.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/30/10 at 5:52 am

The person who died on this date ...Sidney Sheldon
Sidney Sheldon (February 11, 1917 – January 30, 2007) was an American writer. His TV works spanned a 20-year period during which he created The Patty Duke Show (1963–66), I Dream of Jeannie (1965–70) and Hart to Hart (1979–84), but it was not until after he turned 50 and began writing best-selling novels such as Master of the Game (1982), The Other Side of Midnight (1973) and Rage of Angels (1980) that he became most famous.Sheldon was born Sidney Schechtel in Chicago, Illinois, to parents of Russian Jewish ancestry, Ascher "Otto" Schechtel (1894–1967), manager of a jewelry store, and Natalie Marcus. At 10, he made his first sale, $5 for a poem. During the Depression, he worked at a variety of jobs, attended Northwestern University and contributed short plays to drama groups.

In 1937 he moved to Hollywood, California, where he reviewed scripts and collaborated on a number of B movies. Sheldon enlisted in the military during World War II as a pilot in the War Training Service, a branch of the Army Air Corps, However, his unit was disbanded before Sheldon could see any action. He then returned to civilian life and moved to New York where he began writing musicals for the Broadway stage while continuing to write screenplays for both MGM Studios and Paramount Pictures. He earned a reputation as a prolific writer; for example, at one time he had three musicals on Broadway: a rewritten The Merry Widow, Jackpot, and Dream with Music. His success on Broadway brought him back to Hollywood where his first assignment was The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, which earned him the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay of 1947.

When television became the new hot medium, he decided to try his hand in it. "I suppose I needed money," he remembered. "I met Patty Duke one day at lunch. So I produced The Patty Duke Show, and I did something nobody else in TV ever did. For seven years, I wrote almost every single episode of the series." He also wrote for the series Hart to Hart and Nancy. Most famously he wrote the series I Dream of Jeannie, which he also created and produced, which lasted for five seasons from 1965–1970. It was "During the last year of I Dream of Jeannie, I decided to try a novel," he said in 1982. "Each morning from 9 until noon, I had a secretary at the studio take all calls. I mean every single call. I wrote each morning - or rather, dictated - and then I faced the TV business."

In 1969, Sheldon wrote his first novel, The Naked Face, which earned him a nomination for the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America in the category of Best First Novel. His next novel, The Other Side of Midnight, went to #1 on The New York Times bestseller list as did several ensuing novels, a number of which were also made into motion pictures or TV miniseries.

His novels often featured determined women who persevere in a tough world run by hostile men. The novels contained a lot of suspense and devices to keep the reader turning the page:

    "I try to write my books so the reader can't put them down," he explained in a 1982 interview. "I try to construct them so when the reader gets to the end of a chapter, he or she has to read just one more chapter. It's the technique of the old Saturday afternoon serial: leave the guy hanging on the edge of the cliff at the end of the chapter."

Most of his readers were women. Asked why this was the case he said: "I like to write about women who are talented and capable, but most important, retain their femininity. Women have tremendous power - their femininity, because men can't do without it." Books were Sheldon's favorite medium. "I love writing books," he commented. "Movies are a collaborative medium, and everyone is second-guessing you. When you do a novel you're on your own. It's a freedom that doesn't exist in any other medium."

Sheldon created, produced and wrote I Dream of Jeannie in his co-production capacity with Screen Gems. He wrote all but two dozen scripts in five years, sometimes using three pseudonyms {"Mark Rowane", "Allan Devon", "Christopher Golato"}, while simultaneously writing scripts for "The Patty Duke Show". He also used the same pseudonyms in writing all seventeen episodes of Nancy. Sheldon did this because, as he later admitted, he felt his name was appearing too often in the credits as creator, producer, copyright owner and writer of his TV series.

Sheldon was married for 30 years to Jorja Curtright Sheldon, a stage and film actress who later became an accomplished and well known interior designer. She died of a heart attack in 1985. He then remarried Alexandra Kostoff, a former child actress and advertising executive of Macedonian origin, in Las Vegas in 1989. His daughter, Mary Sheldon, became a novelist in her own right.

He struggled with bipolar disorder for years; he contemplated suicide at 17 (talked out of it by his father, who discovered him), as detailed in his autobiography published in 2005, The Other Side of Me

Sheldon died on January 30, 2007 from complications arising from pneumonia at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California.

He was cremated. His ashes were interred in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.
Awards

Sheldon won an Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay (1947) for The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, a Tony Award (1959) for his musical Redhead, and was nominated for an Emmy Award for his work on I Dream of Jeannie, an NBC sitcom.
Bibliography
Novels

    * The Naked Face (1970)
    * The Other Side of Midnight (1973)
    * A Stranger in the Mirror (1976)
    * Bloodline (1977)
    * Rage of Angels (1980)
    * Master of the Game (1982)
    * If Tomorrow Comes (1985)
    * Windmills of the Gods (1987)
    * The Sands of Time (1988)
    * Memories of Midnight (1990)
    * The Doomsday Conspiracy (1991)
    * The Stars Shine Down (1992)
    * Nothing Lasts Forever (1994)
    * Morning, Noon and Night (1995)
    * The Best Laid plan (1997)
    * Tell Me Your Dreams (1998)
    * The Sky Is Falling (2001)
    * Are You Afraid of the Dark? (2004)

Autobiography

    * The Other Side of Me (2005)

Broadway Plays

    * The Merry Widow
    * Alice in Arms
    * Redhead
    * Roman Candle
    * Gomes(London)

Films

    * The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer
    * Three Guys Named Mike
    * Annie Get Your Gun
    * Dream Wife
    * You're Never Too Young
    * Anything Goes
    * Billy Rose's Jumbo
    * Bloodline

Television

    * I Dream of Jeannie
    * If Tomorrow Comes
    * The Patty Duke Show
    * Hart to Hart
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/30/10 at 6:08 am


Thanks Phil :)
I still have the past week to check up on.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/30/10 at 6:44 am


The person born on this day...Phil Collins
Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins LVO (born 30 January 1951) is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, keyboardist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for English progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist.

Collins sang the lead vocals on eight American chart-toppers between 1984 and 1989; seven as a solo artist and one with Genesis. His singles, often dealing with lost love, ranged from the drum-heavy "In the Air Tonight", to the dance pop of "Sussudio", to the political statements of his most successful song, "Another Day in Paradise". His international popularity transformed Genesis from a progressive rock group to a regular on the pop charts and an early MTV mainstay.

Collins's professional music career began as a drummer, first with obscure rock group Flaming Youth and then more famously with Genesis. In Genesis, Collins originally supplied backing vocals for front man Peter Gabriel, singing lead on only two songs: "For Absent Friends" from 1971's Nursery Cryme album and "More Fool Me" from Selling England by the Pound, which was released in 1973. On Gabriel's departure in 1975, Collins became the group's lead singer. As the decade closed, Genesis's first international hit, "Follow You, Follow Me", demonstrated a drastic change from the band's early years.

His concurrent solo career, heavily influenced by his personal life, brought both him and Genesis commercial success. According to Atlantic Records, Collins's total worldwide sales as a solo artist, as of 2002, were 150 million. He has won seven Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and two Golden Globes for his solo work.
n 1970, Collins answered a Melody Maker classified ad for "...a drummer sensitive to acoustic music, and acoustic twelve-string guitarist". Genesis placed the ad after having already lost three drummers over two albums. The audition occurred at the home of Peter Gabriel's parents. Prospective candidates performed tracks from the group's second album, Trespass (1970). Collins arrived early, listened to the other auditions while swimming in Gabriel's parents' pool, and memorised the pieces before his turn.
The music video for "Land of Confusion" featured the members of Genesis in puppet form, with the single cover (parodying the With the Beatles album and using puppets from the satirical TV show Spitting Image).

Collins won the audition. Nursery Cryme was released a year later. Although his role remained primarily that of drummer and backing vocalist for the next five years, he twice sang lead vocals: once on "For Absent Friends" (from Nursery Cryme) and once on "More Fool Me" (from Selling England by the Pound).

In 1974, while Genesis were recording the album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Brian Eno (who is credited with "Enossification" for electronic vocal effects on the track "Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging") needed a drummer for his album Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy). Collins was sent to fill the gap, and played drums in lieu of payment for Eno's work with the band.

In 1975, following the final tour supporting the concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Gabriel left the group to pursue a solo career. Collins became lead vocalist after a lengthy but ultimately fruitless search for Gabriel's replacement (where he sang back up with the over 400 hopefuls that reportedly auditioned). In the short term, the group recruited former Yes and King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford to play drums during live shows, although Collins continued to play during longer instrumental sections. Bruford's drumming can be heard on the track "The Cinema Show" on the live album Seconds Out. He was soon replaced by ex-Frank Zappa band member Chester Thompson, who became a mainstay of the band's live line-up. Collins, however, continued to play drums on all of the band's studio recordings.

The first album with Collins as lead vocalist, 1976's A Trick of the Tail, reached the American Top 40, and peaked high as #3 on the UK charts. Said Rolling Stone, "Genesis has managed to turn the possible catastrophe of Gabriel's departure into their first broad-based American success.". Following the recording of Genesis's next album Wind and Wuthering guitarist Steve Hackett left the group to pursue his own solo career. The group decided to continue as a trio for recording with Mike Rutherford playing guitar and bass in the studio, although the lineup was regularly augmented by Chester Thompson and American guitarist Daryl Stuermer for concert tours.

Collins simultaneously performed in a jazz fusion group called Brand X. The band recorded their first album, Unorthodox Behaviour, with Collins as drummer, but because Genesis was Collins's priority, there were several Brand X tours and albums without him. Collins credits Brand X as his first use of a drum machine as well as his first use of a home 8-track tape machine.

Collins also performed on Steve Hackett's first solo album, Voyage of the Acolyte, on which he sang lead vocals and played drums.

As the decade closed, Genesis began a shift from their progressive rock roots and toward more accessible, radio-friendly pop-rock music. The album …And Then There Were Three… featured their first UK Top 10 and U.S. Top 40 single, "Follow You, Follow Me".

"Dance on a Volcano" (1976)
Play sound
The first track from Genesis's A Trick of the Tail, this was Collins's first appearance as the group's lead singer. A progressive rock track, it contrasts with the style of his later work.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

In the 1980s, while Collins developed as a songwriter and established a parallel career as a solo artist, Genesis recorded a series of highly successful albums including Duke, Abacab, Genesis, and Invisible Touch. The latter album's title track reached #1 on the American Billboard singles chart, the only Genesis song to do so. The group received an MTV "Video of the Year" nomination in 1987 for the single "Land of Confusion" (which featured puppet caricatures created by the British satirical team Spitting Image) but lost out to Peter Gabriel's solo hit, "Sledgehammer". Reviews were generally positive, with Rolling Stone's J.D. Considine stating, "every tune is carefully pruned so that each flourish delivers not an instrumental epiphany but a solid hook."

Collins left Genesis in 1996 to focus on his solo career; The last studio album with him as the lead singer was 1991's We Can't Dance. He and Gabriel reunited with other Genesis members in 1999 to re-record "The Carpet Crawlers" for Genesis's Turn It on Again: The Hits. When in the mid-2000s discussions of a possible Genesis reunion arose, Collins stated that he would prefer to return as the drummer, with Gabriel handling the vocals. Eventually Turn It On Again: The Tour was announced for 2007, with the Collins/Rutherford/Banks lineup.
Solo career

The dominant theme running through Collins's early solo recordings (although never specifically mentioned in his songs) was the acrimonious breakdown of his first marriage and then-recent divorce. Two songs he wrote on the Genesis album Duke, "Please Don't Ask", and the Top 20 hit "Misunderstanding", dealt with failed relationships. One year earlier, he had played drums and sung backing vocals on John Martyn's Grace and Danger, an album whose main theme is also marriage breakup.

With the recording of his first solo album, Face Value, Collins attributed his divorce as his main influence, as can be inferred from songs such as "If Leaving Me Is Easy".

In September 1981, he made his live debut as a solo performer, appearing at the invitation of producer Martin Lewis at the Amnesty International benefit show The Secret Policeman's Other Ball at the Theatre Royal in London. Collins performed two songs "In The Air Tonight" and "The Roof Is Leaking" accompanying himself on the grand piano. His performance was augmented by Daryl Stuermer on acoustic guitar and banjo. The performance was the first time that Collins had performed live as a soloist and the first time that he performed at a charity show. In addition to performing his two solo songs, Collins joined the chorus on the finale of Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released" performed by the all-star Secret Police led by Sting, and featuring Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Bob Geldof, Midge Ure and Donovan. Collins would subsequently team up with Geldof and Ure to play drums on the 1984 Band-Aid single "Do They Know It's Christmas", and with Sting to perform together at the Geldof-organized Live Aid in 1985.

Collins's performances were prominently featured on the Secret Policeman's Other Ball - The Music album released in 1982, which was a Top 30 album in the UK, U.S. and other countries. His performance of "In The Air Tonight" was included in both the UK and U.S. versions of the movie of the show. His performance of "The Roof Is Leaking" was included in the U.S.-only home-video sequel The Secret Policeman's Private Parts in 1983.

In 1982 he produced Something's Going On, a solo album by Anni-Frid Lyngstad (Frida), of ABBA fame. Frida, who had just parted with bandmate and husband Benny Andersson, had been impressed by Collins's solo efforts. Consequently, she approached Collins with her own solo project. The resulting album, featuring Collins on drums, spawned the 1982–83 international smash hit "I Know There's Something Going On" (Russ Ballard) and Collins’s duet with Frida titled "Here We'll Stay." An edit featuring Frida on all vocals was released as a single. A one hour documentary about the making of this album can be seen on Frida - The DVD. Swedish television filmed the whole recording process from day one in the studio to the release party. The programme includes interviews with Phil and Frida, as well as all the musicians on the album.

Songs inspired by Collins’s marital problems formed the bulk of his first two solo albums. His second album, Hello, I Must Be Going!, released in 1982, included songs such as "I Don't Care Anymore". Collins’s early albums had a dark presence, usually heavy on the drums. Regarding Face Value, he says, "I had a wife, two children, two dogs, and the next day I didn't have anything. So a lot of these songs were written because I was going through these emotional changes." There were occasional poppier influences–Face Value's "Behind the Lines", for example, was a jazzy remake of a Genesis song he co-wrote. Face Value was a critical and multi-platinum success, and saw Collins’s profile increase further. Hello, I Must Be Going! gave him a UK #1 for his cover of The Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love". The album went triple-platinum in the United States, like its predecessor. The Supremes' cover was his first Top 10 U.S. hit (it also hit the Top 10 of Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart). The album also reached #2 on the UK album chart, spending well over a year there.

Two years before, Collins had played drums on Peter Gabriel's third self-titled record (often referred to as Melt), the first record to feature the "gated reverb" sound, which was used on the song "Intruder". Gabriel reportedly "didn't want any metal on the record" and asked Collins to leave his cymbals at home, to concentrate on the sound of his kit more heavily than usual. Studio engineer Hugh Padgham augmented the drum sound by using a microphone normally intended for studio communication rather than recording and feeding it through a signal processor called a noise gate. This allowed the reverberation added to the drums to be suddenly cut off before it naturally decayed. The result was the arresting "gated reverb" which became Collins signature sound. This was the same 'big drum sound' used on such songs as "In The Air Tonight", "Mama" by Genesis, and Frida's "There's Something Going On".

A turning point in Collins's musical style came when he was asked to provide the title track for the film Against All Odds, a song which he re-worked to become "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" from an original Face Value session out-take entitled "How Can You Sit There?". The emotionally-charged ballad shot to #1 in the U.S. and #2 in the UK.

In 1984, Collins produced Philip Bailey's Chinese Wall album. He performed a duet on one of the album's tracks, "Easy Lover" which went to #2 on the U.S. pop chart and spent four weeks at #1 in the UK. Collins worked with the horn section of Bailey's band, Earth, Wind & Fire (later known as the Phenix Horns) throughout the 1980s, both on solo and Genesis tracks. By the end of 1984, Collins participated in Bob Geldof's Band Aid charity project, as well as, playing drums on the Band Aid single "Feed The World (Do They Know It's Christmas)", a drum part he laid down in one take (while being filmed).
Collins with drum set and music stand.

Collins released his most successful album, No Jacket Required, in early 1985. It contained the hits "Sussudio", "One More Night", "Don't Lose My Number", and "Take Me Home", as well as the less known yet equally robust "Who Said I Would", and "Only You Know and I Know". The album featured Sting, Helen Terry and ex-bandmate Peter Gabriel as backing vocalists. He also recorded the successful song "Separate Lives", a duet with Marilyn Martin, and an American number one, for the movie White Nights. Collins had three American number one songs in 1985, the most by any artist that year. No Jacket Required went on to win several Grammy awards including Album of the Year.

No Jacket Required received criticism that the album was too safe, despite its upbeat reviews and commercial success. A positive review by David Fricke of Rolling Stone ended, "After years on the art-rock fringe, Collins has established himself firmly in the middle of the road. Perhaps he should consider testing himself and his new fans' expectations next time around." "Sussudio" also drew criticism for sounding too similar to Prince's "1999", a charge that Collins did not deny. Nevertheless, the album went straight to #1 in the U.S. and UK.

In 1985, Collins was invited by Bob Geldof to perform at the Live Aid charity event. Collins had the distinction of being the only performer to appear at both the UK concert at Wembley Stadium and the U.S. concert at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. He accomplished this by performing early in the day at Wembley as both a solo artist and alongside Sting, then flying on a special Concorde flight to the USA enabling him to perform his solo material, and drum for Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton in Philadelphia.

Howard Jones re-recorded his song "No One Is to Blame", from his Dream into Action album, featuring Phil Collins as drummer, backing vocalist, and producer. He has also played drums on singles for Robert Plant and Tina Turner on their respective albums. Collins also produced and played drums on the Eric Clapton albums Behind the Sun, August, and Journeyman, and appeared in the videos for Clapton's "Pretending" and Bad Love. He also toured with Clapton during 1986 in support of the release of August as the band's drummer, appearing in both of Clapton's concert videos Live from Montreux and Eric Clapton and Friends. Collins was also a regular fixture through the 1980s and early 1990s at the Prince's Trust concerts. Collins's solo success, as well as his concurrent career with Genesis, led to a 1985 cover story in Rolling Stone, with the tag reading "Phil Collins Beats the Odds".

In 1988, Collins starred in the movie Buster about the Great Train Robbery, which took place in England in the 1960s. The movie received good reviews and Collins contributed four songs to the films soundtrack. "Two Hearts" -- , which he wrote with Lamont Dozier; a cover of "A Groovy Kind of Love" (originally a 1966 hit for The Mindbenders, lyrics by Toni Wine, and music by Carole Bayer Sager, but with the melody of the Rondo section of Muzio Clementi's "Sonatina in G major", op. 36 no. 5.); "Big Noise", written by Phil Collins and Lamont Dozier, which included Collins on vocals (although the song was not released as a single, an instrumental version of this song appeared as the B-side to the single version of "A Groovy Kind Of Love".) The final song, "Loco In Acapulco", was another collaboration between him and Dozier, with the vocals performed by the legendary Motown group The Four Tops.

In 1989, Collins produced another successful album, ...But Seriously, featuring the anti-homelessness anthem "Another Day in Paradise", with David Crosby on backing vocals. (Collins later went on to co-write, sing and play on the song "Hero" on Crosby's 1993 album Thousand Roads.) "Another Day in Paradise" went to Number 1 on the Billboard Charts at the end of 1989 and won Collins a Grammy for Record of the Year (1990). In the process, it became the last #1 U.S. pop hit of the 1980s. The album ...But Seriously became the first #1 U.S. album of the 1990s. Other songs included "Something Happened on the Way to Heaven" (#4 U.S., #15 UK), "Do You Remember?" (not released in the UK, but a #4 hit in the U.S.), and "I Wish It Would Rain Down" (the latter featuring Clapton on guitar) (#3 U.S., #7 UK). Songs about apartheid and homelessness demonstrated Collins’s turn to politically-driven material. This theme recurred on his later albums. A live album, Serious Hits… Live!, followed.

During this period, Collins appeared on various albums as a guest vocalist. Collins appeared on David Crosby's Thousand Roads album, singing the backing vocals for the single "Hero". Collins also appeared on the Curtis Mayfield album, A Tribute to Curtis Mayfield, covering Mayfield's song "I've Been Trying". He also sang a cover of Elton John's hit "Burn Down the Mission", in Two Rooms: Celebrating the Songs of Elton John & Bernie Taupin. Collins also sang on Quincy Jones' Q's Jook Joint album, singing "Do Nothing till You Hear from Me". Collins also sang on The Songs of West Side Story, providing lead vocals for "Somewhere", which was also released as a single.

Collins’s record sales began to drop with the 1993 release of Both Sides, a largely experimental album that, according to Collins, included songs that "were becoming so personal, so private, I didn't want anyone else's input". Featuring a less polished sound and fewer up-tempo songs than his previous albums, Both Sides was a significant departure. Collins used no backing musicians, performed all the vocal and instrumental parts at his home studio, and used rough vocal takes for the final product. The album was not well received by radio. Its two biggest hits were "Both Sides of the Story" and "Everyday". Collins worked on the album completely independently of his record company, and took them by surprise when he delivered them a completed album that they were unaware he was making.

Collins attempted a return to poppier music with Dance into the Light, which Entertainment Weekly reviewed by saying that "(e)ven Phil Collins must know that we all grew weary of Phil Collins." It included minor hits such as the title track and the Beatles-inspired "It's In Your Eyes". Although the album went Gold in the U.S., it sold considerably less than his previous albums. Only the title track made a brief appearance on Collins’s then forthcoming Hits collection. Despite this, its subsequent tour regularly sold out arenas.

In 1996, Collins formed The Phil Collins Big Band. With Collins as drummer, the band performed jazz renditions of Collins’s and Genesis's hits. The Phil Collins Big Band did a world tour in 1998 that included a performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival. In 1999, the group released the CD A Hot Night in Paris including big band versions of "Invisible Touch", "Sussudio", and the more obscure "The Los Endos Suite" from A Trick of the Tail.

A Hits album released in 1998 was very successful, returning Collins to multi-platinum status in America. The album's sole new track, a cover of the Cyndi Lauper hit "True Colors", received considerable play on US Adult Contemporary stations while peaking at #2. Some of Collins’s earlier hits (e.g. "I Missed Again", "If Leaving Me Is Easy", etc.) and other successes were not included in this compilation.

Collins's next single, "You'll Be in My Heart", from the Disney animated movie Tarzan, spent 19 weeks at #1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart - the longest time ever up to that point—and Collins won the Oscar. It was his third nomination in the songwriters category, after being nominated in 1985 and 1989.

Metacritic's roundup of album reviews found his most recent studio album, 2002's Testify, to be the worst-reviewed album by the time of its release, though it has since been "surpassed" by three more recent releases. The album's "Can't Stop Loving You" (a Leo Sayer cover) was yet another #1 Adult Contemporary smash hit for Collins. Testify sold 140,000 copies in the United States by year's end, although a successful worldwide tour followed.


    *
      "In the Air Tonight" (1980)
      Play sound
      The ambiguous lyrics of Collins's first solo hit, "In the Air Tonight", have spawned an urban legend about Collins witnessing of a murder.
      "Sussudio" (1985)
      Play sound
      The dance pop of No Jacket Required, including this number one hit, won Collins a Grammy Award for "Album of the Year".
      "Another Day in Paradise" (1989)
      Play sound
      The last of Collins's seven American number one singles, "Another Day in Paradise", was a topical song that discussed the plight of the homeless, and won Collins a Grammy Award for "Record of the Year".
    * Problems listening to the files? See media help.

Collins reported losing his hearing in one ear, and in 2003 announced his last solo tour. He called it the "First Final Farewell Tour", a tongue-in-cheek reference to the multiple farewell tours of other popular artists. He continued touring through 2006 while working with Disney on a Broadway production of Tarzan, a musical which received generally poor reviews. In 2007, Collins reunited with his Genesis bandmates for a tour of Europe and North America. He accepted an invitation to drum for the "house band" celebrating Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee. He has played drums for Paul McCartney, Ozzy Osbourne, Cliff Richard, Eric Clapton, as well as Led Zeppelin.

With the exception of Paul McCartney, Collins is the only recording artist that has ever been a principal member of a band that has sold at least 100 million albums worldwide, and sold at least 100 million albums worldwide as a solo artist. According to Billboard, when his work with Genesis, his work with other artists, as well as his solo career is totalled, Collins has the most top 40 hits on the Billboard charts for the 80s.
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z134/elcapitaan/phil-collins.jpg
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My favorites are Sussudio and In The Air Tonight.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 01/30/10 at 7:06 am

Great bio's, Ninny. Thanks for sharing.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/30/10 at 7:14 am

I almost forgot Land of Confusion.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/30/10 at 7:15 am


I almost forgot Land of Confusion.
That is Genisis, more than Phil Collins as solo.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/30/10 at 7:20 am


That is Genisis, more than Phil Collins as solo.


I remember the video.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/30/10 at 7:45 am


Great bio's, Ninny. Thanks for sharing.

I'm glad you liked them :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/30/10 at 7:47 am


I remember the video.
The song is widely remembered for its music video, which had heavy airplay on MTV. The video drew controversy for its portrayal of Ronald Reagan as being physically and cognitively inept. The video features bizarre puppets by the British television show Spitting Image. After Phil Collins saw a caricatured version of himself on the show, he commissioned the show's creators, Peter Fluck and Roger Law, to create puppets of the entire band, as well as all the characters in the video.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/30/10 at 7:47 am


I still have the past week to check up on.

Take your time, you must of had a busy week at work.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/30/10 at 7:48 am


Take your time, you must of had a busy week at work.
Yes it was a busy week, a couple of night I did not go online.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/30/10 at 7:50 am



My favorites are Sussudio and In The Air Tonight.

Those are good songs. My favs are In The Air Tonight, I Wish It Would Rain Down, A Groovy Kind Of Love & Take Me Home.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/30/10 at 7:51 am


Yes it was a busy week, a couple of night I did not go online.

Yeah I noticed that. Glad you got time now to visit.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/30/10 at 7:52 am


Yeah I noticed that. Glad you got time now to visit.
It is the weekend now, time off for me and I should really be relaxing.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/30/10 at 8:12 am


It is the weekend now, time off for me and I should really be relaxing.

So true. Does posting help you to relax?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/30/10 at 8:17 am


So true. Does posting help you to relax?
It is what I am use to doing.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/30/10 at 7:06 pm


The song is widely remembered for its music video, which had heavy airplay on MTV. The video drew controversy for its portrayal of Ronald Reagan as being physically and cognitively inept. The video features bizarre puppets by the British television show Spitting Image. After Phil Collins saw a caricatured version of himself on the show, he commissioned the show's creators, Peter Fluck and Roger Law, to create puppets of the entire band, as well as all the characters in the video.


And it was such a funny video.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/31/10 at 2:20 am


And it was such a funny video.
As the series of Spitting Image was.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/31/10 at 2:20 am


Take your time, you must of had a busy week at work.
I will try now.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/31/10 at 2:22 am


The word of the day...Snow
Snow consists of a lot of soft white bits of frozen water that fall from the sky in cold weather.
If someone snows you, they persuade you to do something or convince you of something by flattering or deceiving you.
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/uu56/THElablahblah/snow.jpg
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt352/mbyoh/snow.jpg
http://i967.photobucket.com/albums/ae152/twilight_person/Photo258.jpg
http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt137/Planaproject/DSC_0133.jpg
http://i936.photobucket.com/albums/ad207/pacontrolrm/Random/Snow.jpg
http://i857.photobucket.com/albums/ab140/glvictor/Snow_mount.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r120/abaxter1411/PC260053.jpg
http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss260/angelanewham/DSC04610.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd32/okesha/WinterinAshland.jpg
Snow, don't remind me!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/31/10 at 2:24 am


The word of the day...Snow
Snow consists of a lot of soft white bits of frozen water that fall from the sky in cold weather.
If someone snows you, they persuade you to do something or convince you of something by flattering or deceiving you.
http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm66/Phil_O-Sopher/SnowOnceMore.jpg

Abbey Road yesterday morning, with a light dusting of snow.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/31/10 at 2:27 am


The word of the day...Snow
Snow consists of a lot of soft white bits of frozen water that fall from the sky in cold weather.
If someone snows you, they persuade you to do something or convince you of something by flattering or deceiving you.
http://www.lbc.co.uk/mm/photos/2010/01/399/500x/5973.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/31/10 at 2:30 am


The word of the day...Sunshine
Sunshine is the light and heat that comes from the sun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AbxQ2Q4HeU

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/31/10 at 2:33 am


The person who died on this date...Jim Capaldi
Nicola James "Jim" Capaldi (2 August 1944 – 28 January 2005) was an English musician and songwriter and a founding member of Traffic. He drummed with several famous singers and musicians, including Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Alvin Lee, and Mylon LeFevre. Early days

As a child Capaldi studied the piano and singing with his father, a music teacher, and by his teens he was playing drums with his friends. In 1961 Capaldi played drums for the Worcester band The Sapphires and in 1963 he formed The Hellions with Dave Mason on guitar and Gordon Jackson on rhythm guitar. In August 1964, Tanya Day took The Hellions to the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany as her backing group. The Spencer Davis Group were staying at the same hotel as The Hellions and it was there that Steve Winwood befriended Capaldi and Mason.

Back in Worcester, The Hellions established themselves as busy professionals of sufficient repute to provide backing to visiting performers including Adam Faith and Dave Berry. By the end of 1964, they had a London residency at the Whisky-A-Go-Go Club. In 1965 the band released three singles but none charted. Later that year John "Poli" Palmer joined the band on drums and Capaldi became the lead vocalist.

The Hellions moved back to Worcester in 1966 in an attempt to reduce their costs but local tastes had changed and the band relaunched themselves as The Revolution with a fourth single that also failed to chart. Disillusioned, Dave Mason left the band. Capaldi replaced Mason with Luther Grosvenor and renamed the band Deep Feeling. They played gigs in Birmingham and the surrounding Black Country area where they developed a significant fanbase. Capaldi, Jackson and Palmer wrote original songs for the band that were heavier than the Hellions repertoire. They recorded several studio tracks which remained unreleased until 2009.
First success

Capaldi and the band played frequently in London and Jimi Hendrix played guitar with them at the Knuckles Club as an unknown musician. Back in Birmingham Capaldi would occasionally join his friends Mason, Winwood and Chris Wood for impromptu performances at The Elbow Room club on Aston High Street. Early in 1967 they formalised this arrangement by forming Traffic and the other members of Deep Feeling disbanded. In 1968, Capaldi, Winwood and Mason contributed backing music to a solo album by Gordon Jackson.

The new band was signed by Island Records and rented a quiet cottage in Aston Tirrold, Berkshire in order to write and rehearse new material. The cottage did not remain quiet and had frequent visitors including Eric Burdon, Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend as well as Trevor Burton (of The Move) amongst many others. Capaldi wrote the lyrics for Traffic's first single "Paper Sun", which appeared in the UK singles chart at number 5 in summer 1967. Two more singles were released successfully in 1967 and in December the band released the album Mr. Fantasy, which demonstrated the individual talents of each member. Mason left the band soon after the album's release but returned the following May before finally leaving again in October. Winwood also left Traffic (to form Blind Faith) and the rest reluctantly concluded that the band was over.
Reformation and beyond

Capaldi now tried to form another band with Mason and Wood but the creative tensions that had caused Mason to leave Traffic remained and Wynder K. Frogg only lasted until March 1969. In January 1970 Capaldi and Wood joined Winwood in the studio to record Winwood's solo album. These sessions were so successful that the three of them reformed Traffic (without Mason) to release the album John Barleycorn Must Die. They then toured the UK and the U.S. with a band extended by several session musicians.

Although the next Traffic albums were successful, Capaldi began to develop his solo career and released his first solo album Oh How We Danced in 1972. This set featured contributions from Free guitarist Paul Kossoff, Barry Beckett and Rebop Kwaku Baah as well as several members of Traffic.

He followed this up with Whale Meat Again in 1974 before releasing what many consider to be his masterpiece, Short Cut Draw Blood, the following year. Full of tracks with lyrical bite, the album tackled issues such as the environment, government corruption and drugs. In October 1975 a single taken from the album, a cover version of The Everly Brothers' "Love Hurts", reached number four in the UK chart and charted worldwide.

Capaldi's first and only solo Top 40 hit in the United States was from his 1982 album Fierce Heart, yielding the hit single "That's Love", which climbed to Number 28 in Billboard's Top 40 in the summer of 1983. The track was a simple arrangement with synthesized drums, electric guitar, and keyboards. Steve Winwood supplied the keyboards with his then-wife Nicole Winwood on background vocals.

Capaldi was noted for the extent of his collaborations with other musicians. In 1973, he played drums at Eric Clapton's Rainbow Concert and on some Clapton studio sessions.
Collaborations

Jim Capaldi's success as a lyricist continued throughout his life. He was a five times winner of coveted BMI/Ascap Awards for the "most played compositions in America", and sales of songs written or co-written by him exceeded 25 million units. He numbered Bob Marley among his friends and they travelled together whilst Marley was writing the Catch A Fire album. Capaldi wrote the lyrics to "This Is Reggae Music".

In the 1980s, Capaldi collaborated with Carlos Santana contributing songs and ideas to Santana's projects and in the 1990s he wrote the song "Love Will Keep Us Alive" for the Eagles' successful Hell Freezes Over album. His own 1988 album Some Come Running included Eric Clapton and George Harrison on the track "Oh Lord, Why Lord".

In 1993, Traffic reformed (without Chris Wood, who died in 1983, and Dave Mason) and recorded a new album Far From Home and in 1994 Capaldi toured the U.S. and UK with the band. In 1998 he paired up again with Mason on an extensive American tour.
Marriage/Family

He married Brazilian-born Aninha in 1975 and in 1976 toured with his band Space Cadets before moving to Brazil in 1977. His daughters Tabitha and Tallulah were born in 1977 and 1979, respectively. The Capaldis lived in the Bahia region of Brazil until the beginning of 1980 and while there he became heavily involved with environmental issues. The track "Favella Music" on his 1981 album Let The Thunder Cry arose from his love of Brazil and he worked with several Brazilian composers.
The final years

In 2001, Capaldi's twelfth solo album Living On The Outside featured George Harrison, Steve Winwood, Paul Weller, Gary Moore and Ian Paice. George Harrison played guitar on the track "Anna Julia", an English translation of a song by the Brazilian band Los Hermanos and Capaldi played at the Concert for George in 2002.

Outside his music and his environmental activism, Capaldi also assisted his wife in her work with Jubilee Action to help Brazilian street children. He remained professionally active until his final illness prevented him from working on plans for a 2005 reunion tour of Traffic. He died of stomach cancer at 02:30 on 28 January 2005, aged 60. He is survived by his wife and daughters.
Dear Mr Fantasy

Dear Mr Fantasy was a celebration of Jim Capaldi's life and music that took place at the Roundhouse in Camden Town, London on Sunday, 21 January 2007. Guests included Bill Wyman, Jon Lord, Gary Moore, Steve Winwood, Cat Stevens, Paul Weller, Pete Townshend, his brother, Phil and many more. Dear Mr Fantasy featured the music of Jim Capaldi and Traffic. All profits went to The Jubilee Action Street Children Appeal.
Solo discography

    * Oh How We Danced (1972)
    * Whale Meat Again (1974)
    * Short Cut Draw Blood (1975)
    * Play It By Ear (1977)
    * Daughter of the Night (1978)
    * Contender (1978)
    * Electric Nights (1979)
    * Sweet Smell of ... Success (1980)
    * Let The Thunder Cry (1981)
    * Fierce Heart (1982)
    * One Man Mission (1984)
    * Some Come Running (1988)
    * Prince of Darkness (1995)
    * Let The Thunder Cry (1999)
    * Living On The Outside (2001)
    * Poor Boy Blue (2004)
http://i490.photobucket.com/albums/rr262/juniorjr2008/JimCapaldiGeorgeHarrison-AnnaJulia.jpg
http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg122/tiredofit07/capalldi.jpg
http://i889.photobucket.com/albums/ac97/trontxi/front.jpg
:\'(

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/31/10 at 2:35 am


The word of the day...Groovy
If you describe something as groovy, you mean that it is attractive, fashionable, or exciting.
http://www.costumebox.com.au/images/P/Groovy%20Baby%20-%20Billy%20Bob%20Costume%20Accessories.detail.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/31/10 at 2:35 am


I still have the past week to check up on.
Doing my bit right now!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/31/10 at 6:05 am

The word or phrase of the day...High Heels
High-heeled footwear (often abbreviated as high heels or simply heels) is footwear that raises the heel of the wearer's foot significantly higher ...
http://i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq80/CHAKAL0SA_2008/qoates/Image3.png
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad291/edina-margaret/IMG_0386.jpg
http://i978.photobucket.com/albums/ae269/angelsmom1207/KayLeigh%20Angel%20Warneka/2010_01170052.jpg
http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l142/kittykat8925/thpumps.jpg
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj21/Sillyitsme02/highheelsandglasses.jpg
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p5/darlyndeville/heels.jpg
http://i610.photobucket.com/albums/tt190/lwy_alice/high_heels.jpg
http://i745.photobucket.com/albums/xx96/toddbaxtor/High_Heels.jpg
http://i768.photobucket.com/albums/xx327/dreamshadows11/Heels.gif

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/31/10 at 6:07 am


http://www.lbc.co.uk/mm/photos/2010/01/399/500x/5973.jpg

That's cute :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/31/10 at 6:10 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AbxQ2Q4HeU

Great song :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/31/10 at 6:12 am

The person born on this day...Minnie Driver
Minnie Driver (born 31 January 1970) is an English actress and singer-songwriter. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting.
efore receiving worldwide recognition, she appeared on British television with renowned comedians such as Steve Coogan and Armando Iannucci and had small parts in such shows as Casualty, The House of Eliott, Lovejoy and Peak Practice, among others. Driver first came to broad public attention when she played the lead role in Circle of Friends in 1995 and then with her Academy Award nominated performance in Good Will Hunting in 1997. In 2003 and 2004, she had a noted recurring role on Will & Grace as Lorraine Finster, the nemesis of Karen Walker (Megan Mullally) and daughter of Karen's lover, Lyle Finster (John Cleese). Driver has also worked on several animated features, including Disney's 1999 version of Tarzan and the 1999 dubbed-English version of the Japanese film Princess Mononoke in which she voices the fictional character Lady Eboshi.

On 12 March 2007, Driver made her return to television starring alongside Eddie Izzard on the FX Network show The Riches, a series about a family of Travellers living in an upscale gated community in the suburbs. She was nominated for the 2007 Emmy Award as Best Actress in a Dramatic Series.

On November 12, 2009, it was announced that Driver would guest-star in a January 2010 episode of Modern Family. She will play Claire's friend and former co-worker whom she hasn't seen in years. At the end of 2009, Driver began filming a part in the Tiger Aspect television serial The Deep, to be shown on BBC One in 2010.
Music career

Early in her career Driver was a member of a band called "Puff, Rocks and Brown"; the band was signed to a development deal with Island Records, which ended without a release.

She began a low-profile return to music in 2000; the following year, she signed with EMI and Rounder Records and performed at SXSW. Canadian music producer Colin Craig assisted in the eventual release of Everything I've Got in My Pocket, which reached No. 34 in the UK, and a second single, "Invisible Girl" peaking at No. 68. The album was backed by a group including members of the Wallflowers and Pete Yorn's band. Driver wrote 10 of the 11 songs on the album and also covered "Hungry Heart" from Bruce Springsteen's The River. In 2004, Driver was the support act for the Finn Brothers on the UK portion of their world tour.

In 2004, Driver played Carlotta Giudicelli in Joel Schumacher's film of The Phantom of the Opera. Because of the vocal requirements of the role, Driver was the sole cast member to have her voice dubbed. However, she did lend her own voice to Learn to be Lonely, a song written by Andrew Lloyd Webber specifically for the film version of his musical (it plays over the closing credits of the movie). Driver released her second album entitled Seastories on 17 July 2007. The 12-track set is produced by Marc "Doc" Dauer, who also produced Everything I've Got in My Pocket. Ryan Adams and Liz Phair are among the list of collaborators for the album.
Personal life

On 13 March 2008, during an appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, she announced that she was expecting her first child in August. On 5 September 2008, she gave birth to a boy named Henry Story Driver. The father's identity remains private.
Filmography
Features
Film
Year Film Role Notes
1995 Circle of Friends Bernadette 'Benny' Hogan
GoldenEye Irina
1996 Big Night Phyllis
Sleepers Carol Martinez
1997 Grosse Pointe Blank Debi Newberry
Mononoke-hime Lady Eboshi
Good Will Hunting Skylar
1998 Hard Rain Karen
The Governess Rosina da Silva
At Sachem Farm Kendal
1999 An Ideal Husband Miss Mabel Chiltern
Tarzan Jane Porter
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut Brooke Shields
2000 Return to Me Grace Briggs
Beautiful Mona Higgard
Slow Burn Trina McTeague
2001 High Heels and Low Lifes Shannon
2003 Owning Mahowny Belinda
Hope Springs Vera Edwards
2004 Ella Enchanted Mandy
The Phantom of the Opera Carlotta
2006 The Virgin of Juarez Karina Danes
Delirious
2007 Ripple Effect Kitty
Take Ana
2009 Motherhood Sheila
Betty Anne Waters Abra
2010 Barney's Version Mrs. P
Television

    * Mr. Wroe's Virgins (1993)
    * The Day Today (1994)
    * Knowing Me, Knowing You... with Alan Partridge (episode 2, 1994)
    * The Politician's Wife (1995)
    * The X Files (2000)
    * Will & Grace (2003)
    * Freedom2speak v2.0 (2004) (documentary)
    * The Kumars at No. 42
    * The Riches (2007–2008) (television series)

Short Subjects

    * The Zebra Man (1992)
    * Baggage (1997)
    * The Upgrade (2000)
    * D.C. Smalls (2001)
    * Film Trix 2004 (2004)
    * Portrait (2004)

Other

    * Minnie played herself in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous, a British sitcom.
    * Minnie provides the voice of adventurer Lara Croft in Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider Animated Series.
    * Minnie provided the voice of Anne in the videogame Jurassic Park: Trespasser.
    * She played Lilith in the early series of the popular British children's game show, Knightmare.
    * She was given a cut scene in Family Guy's "Saving Private Brian" as having a big head, and the director had difficulty fitting it on stage.

Discography
Albums
Year Album US Heat Label
2004 Everything I've Got in My Pocket 43 Zoë
2007 Seastories 25
Singles
Year Single Album
2004 "Invisible Girl" Everything I've Got in My Pocket
2005 "Everything I've Got in My Pocket"
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v177/krazychild/Minnie%20Driver/minni.jpg
http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg32/sharkypuffs/minnie-driver.jpg
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n204/iheartcher/Minnie%20Driver/0000038285_20070307180611.jpg
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n204/iheartcher/Minnie%20Driver/l_13527f4179d6b26d8bcff1264617f46c.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/31/10 at 6:13 am


The word or phrase of the day...High Heels
High-heeled footwear (often abbreviated as high heels or simply heels) is footwear that raises the heel of the wearer's foot significantly higher ...

http://i745.photobucket.com/albums/xx96/toddbaxtor/High_Heels.jpg

That looks painful!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/31/10 at 6:15 am


The person born on this day...Minnie Driver
Minnie Driver (born 31 January 1970) is an English actress and singer-songwriter. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting.
efore receiving worldwide recognition, she appeared on British television with renowned comedians such as Steve Coogan and Armando Iannucci and had small parts in such shows as Casualty, The House of Eliott, Lovejoy and Peak Practice, among others. Driver first came to broad public attention when she played the lead role in Circle of Friends in 1995 and then with her Academy Award nominated performance in Good Will Hunting in 1997. In 2003 and 2004, she had a noted recurring role on Will & Grace as Lorraine Finster, the nemesis of Karen Walker (Megan Mullally) and daughter of Karen's lover, Lyle Finster (John Cleese). Driver has also worked on several animated features, including Disney's 1999 version of Tarzan and the 1999 dubbed-English version of the Japanese film Princess Mononoke in which she voices the fictional character Lady Eboshi.

On 12 March 2007, Driver made her return to television starring alongside Eddie Izzard on the FX Network show The Riches, a series about a family of Travellers living in an upscale gated community in the suburbs. She was nominated for the 2007 Emmy Award as Best Actress in a Dramatic Series.

On November 12, 2009, it was announced that Driver would guest-star in a January 2010 episode of Modern Family. She will play Claire's friend and former co-worker whom she hasn't seen in years. At the end of 2009, Driver began filming a part in the Tiger Aspect television serial The Deep, to be shown on BBC One in 2010.
Music career

Early in her career Driver was a member of a band called "Puff, Rocks and Brown"; the band was signed to a development deal with Island Records, which ended without a release.

She began a low-profile return to music in 2000; the following year, she signed with EMI and Rounder Records and performed at SXSW. Canadian music producer Colin Craig assisted in the eventual release of Everything I've Got in My Pocket, which reached No. 34 in the UK, and a second single, "Invisible Girl" peaking at No. 68. The album was backed by a group including members of the Wallflowers and Pete Yorn's band. Driver wrote 10 of the 11 songs on the album and also covered "Hungry Heart" from Bruce Springsteen's The River. In 2004, Driver was the support act for the Finn Brothers on the UK portion of their world tour.

In 2004, Driver played Carlotta Giudicelli in Joel Schumacher's film of The Phantom of the Opera. Because of the vocal requirements of the role, Driver was the sole cast member to have her voice dubbed. However, she did lend her own voice to Learn to be Lonely, a song written by Andrew Lloyd Webber specifically for the film version of his musical (it plays over the closing credits of the movie). Driver released her second album entitled Seastories on 17 July 2007. The 12-track set is produced by Marc "Doc" Dauer, who also produced Everything I've Got in My Pocket. Ryan Adams and Liz Phair are among the list of collaborators for the album.
Personal life

On 13 March 2008, during an appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, she announced that she was expecting her first child in August. On 5 September 2008, she gave birth to a boy named Henry Story Driver. The father's identity remains private.
Filmography
Features
Film
Year Film Role Notes
1995 Circle of Friends Bernadette 'Benny' Hogan
GoldenEye Irina
1996 Big Night Phyllis
Sleepers Carol Martinez
1997 Grosse Pointe Blank Debi Newberry
Mononoke-hime Lady Eboshi
Good Will Hunting Skylar
1998 Hard Rain Karen
The Governess Rosina da Silva
At Sachem Farm Kendal
1999 An Ideal Husband Miss Mabel Chiltern
Tarzan Jane Porter
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut Brooke Shields
2000 Return to Me Grace Briggs
Beautiful Mona Higgard
Slow Burn Trina McTeague
2001 High Heels and Low Lifes Shannon
2003 Owning Mahowny Belinda
Hope Springs Vera Edwards
2004 Ella Enchanted Mandy
The Phantom of the Opera Carlotta
2006 The Virgin of Juarez Karina Danes
Delirious
2007 Ripple Effect Kitty
Take Ana
2009 Motherhood Sheila
Betty Anne Waters Abra
2010 Barney's Version Mrs. P
Television

    * Mr. Wroe's Virgins (1993)
    * The Day Today (1994)
    * Knowing Me, Knowing You... with Alan Partridge (episode 2, 1994)
    * The Politician's Wife (1995)
    * The X Files (2000)
    * Will & Grace (2003)
    * Freedom2speak v2.0 (2004) (documentary)
    * The Kumars at No. 42
    * The Riches (2007–2008) (television series)

Short Subjects

    * The Zebra Man (1992)
    * Baggage (1997)
    * The Upgrade (2000)
    * D.C. Smalls (2001)
    * Film Trix 2004 (2004)
    * Portrait (2004)

Other

    * Minnie played herself in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous, a British sitcom.
    * Minnie provides the voice of adventurer Lara Croft in Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider Animated Series.
    * Minnie provided the voice of Anne in the videogame Jurassic Park: Trespasser.
    * She played Lilith in the early series of the popular British children's game show, Knightmare.
    * She was given a cut scene in Family Guy's "Saving Private Brian" as having a big head, and the director had difficulty fitting it on stage.

Discography
Albums
Year Album US Heat Label
2004 Everything I've Got in My Pocket 43 Zoë
2007 Seastories 25
Singles
Year Single Album
2004 "Invisible Girl" Everything I've Got in My Pocket
2005 "Everything I've Got in My Pocket"
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v177/krazychild/Minnie%20Driver/minni.jpg
http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg32/sharkypuffs/minnie-driver.jpg
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n204/iheartcher/Minnie%20Driver/0000038285_20070307180611.jpg
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n204/iheartcher/Minnie%20Driver/l_13527f4179d6b26d8bcff1264617f46c.jpg
I was going to do Minnie Driver for she was born in England, and decided not to for I just felt she will be one of your choices for today.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/31/10 at 6:18 am

The person who died on this day...Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn (17 August 1879 – 31 January 1974) was an American film producer, and founding contributor executive of several motion picture studios.
elbfisz became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1902. At the time, the fledgling film industry was expanding rapidly and in his spare time, an enraptured Gelbfisz went to see as many movies as possible. Before long, he went into the business with Vaudeville performer Jesse L. Lasky, his brother-in-law at the time, and Adolph Zukor, a theater owner. Together, the three produced their first film, using an ambitious young director named Cecil B. DeMille. Disputes arose between the partners and Gelbfisz left after a few years but their company evolved to later become Paramount Pictures. Shortly before this, he also divorced his first wife, Blanche (née Lasky), with whom he had a daughter, Ruth Anne.
Goldwyn Pictures

In 1916 he partnered with Broadway producers Edgar and Archibald Selwyn, using a combination of both names to call their movie-making enterprise the Goldwyn Pictures Corporation. Seeing an opportunity, Samuel Gelbfisz then had his name legally changed to Samuel Goldwyn, which he used for the rest of his life. The Goldwyn Company proved moderately successful but it is their "Leo the Lion" trademark for which the organization is most famous. Eventually the company was acquired by Marcus Loew and his Metro Pictures Corporation but by then Samuel Goldwyn had already been forced out by his partners and was never a part of the new studio that became Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Goldwyn was married to Blanche Lasky, a sister of one of his partners Jesse, from 1910 to 1915. In 1925, he married actress Frances Howard to whom he remained married for the rest of his life. Their son, Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., would eventually join his father in the business.
Samuel Goldwyn Studio
From the trailer for The Hurricane (1937)
Main article: Samuel Goldwyn Studio

After his departure from Goldwyn Pictures Corporation, he established Samuel Goldwyn Inc., eventually opening Samuel Goldwyn Studio on Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood. For 35 years, Goldwyn built a reputation in filmmaking and an eye for finding the talent for making films, although, contrary to some erroneous claims, he did not discover actor Gary Cooper. He used director William Wyler for many of his productions and hired writers such as Ben Hecht, Sidney Howard, Dorothy Parker, and Lillian Hellman. (According to legend, at a heated story conference Goldwyn scolded someone--in most accounts Mrs. Parker--who recalled he had once been a glove maker and retorted: "Don't you point that finger at me. I knew it when it had a thimble on it!" Another time, when he demanded a script that ended on a happy note, she said: "I know this will come as a shock to you, Mr. Goldwyn, but in all history, which has held billions and billions of human beings, not a single one ever had a happy ending.")

For more than three decades, Goldwyn made numerous successful films and received Best Picture Oscar nominations for Arrowsmith (1931), Dodsworth (1936), Dead End (1937), Wuthering Heights (1939), and The Little Foxes (1941). The leading actors in several of Goldwyn films were also Oscar-nominated for their performances.

Throughout the 1930s, Goldwyn released all his films through United Artists, but beginning in 1941, and continuing almost through the end of his career, Goldwyn released his films through RKO Radio Pictures.
Oscar
See also: Academy Awards

In 1946, the year he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, Goldwyn's drama The Best Years of Our Lives, starring Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Teresa Wright and Dana Andrews, won the Academy Award for Best Picture. In the 1950s Samuel Goldwyn turned to making a number of musicals including the 1955 hit Guys and Dolls starring Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Frank Sinatra, and Vivian Blaine. This was the only independent film that Goldwyn ever released through MGM. (Goldwyn had previously made several musicals starring Eddie Cantor and Danny Kaye, as well as 1938's The Goldwyn Follies.) Two years later, in 1957, he was awarded The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his outstanding contributions to humanitarian causes.

In his final film, made in 1959, Samuel Goldwyn brought together African-American actors Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Pearl Bailey in a film rendition of the George Gershwin opera, Porgy and Bess. Released by Columbia Pictures, the film was nominated for three Oscars, but won only one. It was also a critical and financial failure, and the Gershwin family reportedly disliked the film and eventually pulled it from distribution. The reception of the film was a huge disappointment to Goldwyn.

On March 27, 1971, Goldwyn was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon.
Death

Samuel Goldwyn died at his home in Los Angeles in 1974 from natural causes, at the probable age of 94. He was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. In the 1980s, Samuel Goldwyn Studio was sold to Warner Bros.. There is a theater named for him in Beverly Hills and he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1631 Vine Street.
Grandchildren

Samuel Goldwyn's grandsons include Francis Goldwyn, founder of the Manhattan Toy Company and Managing Member of Quorum Associates LLC, actor Tony Goldwyn and film producer John Goldwyn. His granddaughter, Catherine Goldwyn, created Sound Art, a non-profit organization that teaches popular music all over Los Angeles. His other granddaughter, Liz Goldwyn, has a film on HBO called Pretty Things, featuring interviews with queens from the heyday of burlesque. Her book, an extension of the documentary titled, Pretty Things: The Last Generation of American Burlesque Queens, was published in October 2006 by HarperCollins.
The Samuel Goldwyn Foundation

Samuel Goldwyn's will created a multi-million dollar charitable foundation in his name. Among other endeavors, the Samuel Goldwyn Foundation funds the Samuel Goldwyn Writing Awards, provided construction funds for the Frances Howard Goldwyn Hollywood Regional Library, and provides ongoing funding for the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital.
The Samuel Goldwyn Company
Main article: The Samuel Goldwyn Company

Several years after the Sr. Goldwyn's death, his son, Samuel Goldwyn Jr., initiated an independent film and television distribution company dedicated to preserving the integrity of Goldwyn's ambitions and work. The rights to the classic Goldwyn library (among other pre-1996 Goldwyn company holdings) are now held by MGM.
Goldwynisms
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Search Wikiquote Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Samuel Goldwyn

Samuel Goldwyn was also known for malapropisms, paradoxes, and other speech errors called 'Goldwynisms' ("A humorous statement or phrase resulting from the use of incongruous or contradictory words, situations, idioms, etc.") being frequently quoted, such as:

   * “A bachelor’s life is no life for a single man.”
   * “A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”
   * “Anyone who would go to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined!”
   * “Can she sing? She’s practically a Florence Nightingale.”
   * “Color television! Bah, I won’t believe it until I see it in black and white.”
   * “Don’t worry about the war. It’s all over but the shooting.”
   * “Every director bites the hand that lays the golden egg.”
   * “Flashbacks are a thing of the past.”
   * “For your information, just answer me one question!”
   * “Gentlemen, include me out.”
   * “Gentlemen, listen to me slowly.”
   * “Give me a couple of years, and I’ll make that actress an overnight success.”
   * “God makes stars. I just produce them.”
   * “He treats me like the dirt under my feet.”
   * “I don’t care if it doesn’t make a nickel. I just want every man, woman, and child in America to see it.”
   * “I don’t think anyone should write his autobiography until after he’s dead.”
   * “I had a great idea this morning, but I didn’t like it.”
   * “I paid too much for it, but it’s worth it.”
   * “I read part of it all the way through.”
   * “If I look confused it’s because I’m thinking.”
   * “In two words: im-possible.”
   * “I’m willing to admit that I may not always be right, but I am never wrong.”
   * “Keep a stiff upper chin.”
   * “Let’s have some new clichés.”
   * “Modern dancing is old fashioned.”
   * “Our comedies are not to be laughed at.”
   * “Pictures are for entertainment, messages should be delivered by Western Union.”
   * “Tell them to stand closer apart.”
   * “That’s our strongest weak point.”
   * “That’s the kind of ad I like, facts, facts, facts.”
   * “The next time I send a damn fool for something, I go myself.”
   * “There is a statue of limitation.”
   * “They stayed away in droves.”
   * “We have that Indian scene. We can get the Indians from the reservoir.”
   * “Why did you name him Sam? Every Tom, Dick and Harry is named Sam!”
   * “Why should people go out and pay to see bad movies when they can stay home and see bad television for nothing.”
   * “You fail to overlook the crucial point.”
   * “You’ve got to take the bitter with the sour.”
   * “How come you did what I told you to do, when you know I don't know what I'm talking about."
   * "I don't want to be surrounded by 'yes men'. I want people who'll disagree with me, even if it costs them their jobs."
   * On the death of Louis B. Mayer: "The reason so many people turned up at his funeral is that they wanted to make sure he was dead."
   * "I want to go where the hand of man has never set foot."
   * "The A-bomb is dynamite."
   * "Destroy the old files, but make copies first."
   * Upon being told that a book he had purchased for filming, The Well of Loneliness, couldn't be filmed because it was about lesbians, he replied: "That's all right, we'll make them Hungarians."
   * Upon being told that a dictionary had included the word "Goldwynism" as synonym for malapropism, he raged: "Goldwynisms! They should talk to Jesse Lasky!"

Having many writers in his employ, Goldwyn may not have come up with all of these on his own. In fact Charlie Chaplin took credit for penning the 'im-possible' line on him; and the "damn fool...I go myself" quote has also been attributed to Michael Curtiz.

These led to the reference in the Cole Porter song Anything Goes:

   " When Sam Goldwyn can with great conviction
   instruct Anna Sten in diction,
   then Anna shows,
   Anything goes!"
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/31/10 at 6:19 am


That looks painful!

Yikes! I know..it's sneakers or flats for me.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/31/10 at 6:20 am


I was going to do Minnie Driver for she was born in England, and decided not to for I just felt she will be one of your choices for today.

Thanks,I made sure I looked first, because I thought you may pick her. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 01/31/10 at 7:02 am


The person born on this day...Minnie Driver
Minnie Driver (born 31 January 1970) is an English actress and singer-songwriter. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting.
efore receiving worldwide recognition, she appeared on British television with renowned comedians such as Steve Coogan and Armando Iannucci and had small parts in such shows as Casualty, The House of Eliott, Lovejoy and Peak Practice, among others. Driver first came to broad public attention when she played the lead role in Circle of Friends in 1995 and then with her Academy Award nominated performance in Good Will Hunting in 1997. In 2003 and 2004, she had a noted recurring role on Will & Grace as Lorraine Finster, the nemesis of Karen Walker (Megan Mullally) and daughter of Karen's lover, Lyle Finster (John Cleese). Driver has also worked on several animated features, including Disney's 1999 version of Tarzan and the 1999 dubbed-English version of the Japanese film Princess Mononoke in which she voices the fictional character Lady Eboshi.

On 12 March 2007, Driver made her return to television starring alongside Eddie Izzard on the FX Network show The Riches, a series about a family of Travellers living in an upscale gated community in the suburbs. She was nominated for the 2007 Emmy Award as Best Actress in a Dramatic Series.

On November 12, 2009, it was announced that Driver would guest-star in a January 2010 episode of Modern Family. She will play Claire's friend and former co-worker whom she hasn't seen in years. At the end of 2009, Driver began filming a part in the Tiger Aspect television serial The Deep, to be shown on BBC One in 2010.
Music career

Early in her career Driver was a member of a band called "Puff, Rocks and Brown"; the band was signed to a development deal with Island Records, which ended without a release.

She began a low-profile return to music in 2000; the following year, she signed with EMI and Rounder Records and performed at SXSW. Canadian music producer Colin Craig assisted in the eventual release of Everything I've Got in My Pocket, which reached No. 34 in the UK, and a second single, "Invisible Girl" peaking at No. 68. The album was backed by a group including members of the Wallflowers and Pete Yorn's band. Driver wrote 10 of the 11 songs on the album and also covered "Hungry Heart" from Bruce Springsteen's The River. In 2004, Driver was the support act for the Finn Brothers on the UK portion of their world tour.

In 2004, Driver played Carlotta Giudicelli in Joel Schumacher's film of The Phantom of the Opera. Because of the vocal requirements of the role, Driver was the sole cast member to have her voice dubbed. However, she did lend her own voice to Learn to be Lonely, a song written by Andrew Lloyd Webber specifically for the film version of his musical (it plays over the closing credits of the movie). Driver released her second album entitled Seastories on 17 July 2007. The 12-track set is produced by Marc "Doc" Dauer, who also produced Everything I've Got in My Pocket. Ryan Adams and Liz Phair are among the list of collaborators for the album.
Personal life

On 13 March 2008, during an appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, she announced that she was expecting her first child in August. On 5 September 2008, she gave birth to a boy named Henry Story Driver. The father's identity remains private.
Filmography
Features
Film
Year Film Role Notes
1995 Circle of Friends Bernadette 'Benny' Hogan
GoldenEye Irina
1996 Big Night Phyllis
Sleepers Carol Martinez
1997 Grosse Pointe Blank Debi Newberry
Mononoke-hime Lady Eboshi
Good Will Hunting Skylar
1998 Hard Rain Karen
The Governess Rosina da Silva
At Sachem Farm Kendal
1999 An Ideal Husband Miss Mabel Chiltern
Tarzan Jane Porter
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut Brooke Shields
2000 Return to Me Grace Briggs
Beautiful Mona Higgard
Slow Burn Trina McTeague
2001 High Heels and Low Lifes Shannon
2003 Owning Mahowny Belinda
Hope Springs Vera Edwards
2004 Ella Enchanted Mandy
The Phantom of the Opera Carlotta
2006 The Virgin of Juarez Karina Danes
Delirious
2007 Ripple Effect Kitty
Take Ana
2009 Motherhood Sheila
Betty Anne Waters Abra
2010 Barney's Version Mrs. P
Television

    * Mr. Wroe's Virgins (1993)
    * The Day Today (1994)
    * Knowing Me, Knowing You... with Alan Partridge (episode 2, 1994)
    * The Politician's Wife (1995)
    * The X Files (2000)
    * Will & Grace (2003)
    * Freedom2speak v2.0 (2004) (documentary)
    * The Kumars at No. 42
    * The Riches (2007–2008) (television series)

Short Subjects

    * The Zebra Man (1992)
    * Baggage (1997)
    * The Upgrade (2000)
    * D.C. Smalls (2001)
    * Film Trix 2004 (2004)
    * Portrait (2004)

Other

    * Minnie played herself in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous, a British sitcom.
    * Minnie provides the voice of adventurer Lara Croft in Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider Animated Series.
    * Minnie provided the voice of Anne in the videogame Jurassic Park: Trespasser.
    * She played Lilith in the early series of the popular British children's game show, Knightmare.
    * She was given a cut scene in Family Guy's "Saving Private Brian" as having a big head, and the director had difficulty fitting it on stage.

Discography
Albums
Year Album US Heat Label
2004 Everything I've Got in My Pocket 43 Zoë
2007 Seastories 25
Singles
Year Single Album
2004 "Invisible Girl" Everything I've Got in My Pocket
2005 "Everything I've Got in My Pocket"
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I remember she was on an episode of Will And Grace.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 01/31/10 at 7:12 am

Interesting bio on Minnie Driver, Ninny. Thanks for sharing.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 01/31/10 at 8:03 am


That looks painful!



Yeah, it does.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/31/10 at 9:03 am


Interesting bio on Minnie Driver, Ninny. Thanks for sharing.  :)

I'm glad you liked it. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 01/31/10 at 12:48 pm



Yeah, it does.



Cat
An experience I will never know!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 01/31/10 at 1:59 pm


An experience I will never know!

I wouldn't want to know.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/01/10 at 5:35 am

The word of the day...Twin(s)
If two people are twins, they have the same mother and were born on the same day.
Twin is used to describe a pair of things that look the same and are close together.
Twin is used to describe two things or ideas that are similar or connected in some way.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/01/10 at 5:37 am

How about The film Twins?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/01/10 at 5:40 am

The person born on this day...Sherilyn Fenn
Sherilyn Fenn (born February 1, 1965) is an Emmy and Golden Globe award-nominated American actress. She came to international attention for her performance on the 1990 cult TV series Twin Peaks. She is also known for her roles in Of Mice and Men, Ruby, Boxing Helena and Rude Awakening, and for portraying actress Elizabeth Taylor in Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story. Fenn won her most famous role and made an impression on the public when she was cast by David Lynch and Mark Frost as the tantalizing, reckless Audrey Horne, a high school femme fatale, in the critically acclaimed TV series Twin Peaks. The series ran from 1990 to 1991, and the character of Audrey was one of the most popular with fans, in particular for her unrequited love for FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (played by Kyle MacLachlan) and her style from the '50s (with her saddle shoes, plaid skirts, and tight sweaters). Fenn reached cult status with a scene in which she danced to Angelo Badalamenti's music and a scene in which she knotted a cherry stem in her mouth. "With Sherilyn Fenn, Twin Peaks came on and effortlessly destroyed every other show’s sexuality", said co-star James Marshall. "Audrey is a woman-child who dresses like the girls in the '50s and shows her body", said Fenn. "But she's daddy's little girl at the same time." In the show's second season, when the idea of pairing Audrey with Cooper was abandoned, Audrey was paired with other characters like Bobby Briggs (played by Dana Ashbrook) and John Justice Wheeler (Billy Zane). About Audrey, Fenn said:
“ Audrey’s been great for me. She has brought out a side of me that’s more mischievous and fun that I had suppressed, trying to be an adult. She has made it OK to use the power one has as a woman to be manipulative at times, to be precocious. She goes after what she wants vehemently and she takes it. I think that’s really admirable. I love that about her.

Shortly after shooting the Twin Peaks' pilot episode, David Lynch gave her a small part in Wild at Heart, as a girl injured in a car wreck, obsessed by the contents of her purse, opposite Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern. The film won the Golden Palm Award at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. "David’s direction was, ‘Only think of this: bobby pins, lipstick, wallet, comb, that’s it.’ It’s very abstract." "I just pictured her being able to do this", said Lynch of her scene, "she’s like a broken China doll." David Lynch, who once described Sherilyn Fenn as "five feet of heaven in a ponytail" (quoting from a 1958 record by The Playmates), and said that she makes him think of a porcelain doll, said about her:
“ She's a mysterious girl and I think that actresses like her who have a mystery - where there's something hiding beneath the surface - are the really interesting ones.

"He's very creative and unafraid of taking chances," she said of the director. "I really respect him. He's wonderful."

She soon portrayed John Dillinger's girlfriend Billie Frechette in ABC's 1991 gangster TV movie Dillinger opposite Mark Harmon, and shot the neo-noir black comedy Desire and Hell at Sunset Motel in which she played a sultry, seductive femme fatale, opposite Whip Hubley and David Hewlett. After Twin Peaks, Fenn chose to focus on widening her range of roles and was determined to avoid typecasting. "They’ve offered me every variation on Audrey Horne, none of which were as good or as much fun." She turned down the Audrey Horne spin-off series that was offered to her, and unlike most of the cast, chose not to return for the 1992 prequel movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, as she was then shooting Of Mice and Men.
Post-Peaks roles (1992–1995)
Sherilyn Fenn as Sheryl Ann DuJean in Ruby

After two nominations (Emmy and Golden Globe) for Twin Peaks, and a pictorial in Playboy magazine (for which she chose her then boyfriend, Barry Hollywood, to photograph her), Fenn was propelled to stardom and became a major sex symbol, with her Old Hollywood looks. In October 1990, while promoting Twin Peaks, Fenn made the cover of Rolling Stone magazine along with Mädchen Amick and Lara Flynn Boyle. In 1990 Us Magazine chose her as one of the "10 Most Beautiful Women in the World" and in 1991 People magazine chose her as one of the "50 Most Beautiful Women in the World". She posed for photographer Steven Meisel for the autumn-winter 1991-1992 Dolce & Gabbana campaign, for which he photographed her as a classical Hollywood femme fatale. In 1992 photographer George Hurrell took a series of photographs of Sherilyn Fenn, Sharon Stone, Julian Sands, Raquel Welch, Eric Roberts and Sean Penn. In these portraits he recreated his style of the 1930s, with Fenn posing in costumes, hairstyle and makeup of the period.

In 1991, veteran Hollywood acting coach Roy London chose her to star in his directorial debut Diary of a Hitman (nominated for the Critics Award at the 1991 Deauville Film Festival), in which she plays a young mother determined to protect her child from hit-man Forest Whitaker. According to Fenn, the turning point in her career was when she met London in 1990. She credits him with instilling confidence and newfound enthusiasm.
“ I was disillusioned with acting after the pilot of Twin Peaks. I'd been doing low-budget films. I didn't want to walk through movies being a pretty ornament. At 25 I didn't know if I had it. I questioned if there was depth, if there was integrity to me. I was longing to go inside, to do deeper work.

She learned from her beloved teacher "to find the roles that you're passionate about, that speak to you on some level and which will help you grow on some level," which has then become her line of conduct. "A lot of the sentiment that acting should be about an art form rather than mass entertainment and celebrity is at the core of Fenn’s attitude to the business," wrote Jessica Sully in Australian magazine Movie. "I try to keep myself centered," Fenn said. "I don't go to parties and all that. I don't think being seen or being in the right place is going to make me a better actress. I care about my work and try to do what's right in my heart." As Mike Bygrave wrote in Sky Magazine: "One of the keys to understanding Fenn is that when she talks about the characters she plays she's really talking about herself."Fenn was eager to play varied parts that could eclipse her sex-symbol image. "People who think they know me would be surprised that my whole life doesn't revolve around sex," she said. After Twin Peaks, Fenn demanded a no-nudity clause in her contracts. She turned to the independent world, to manage to carve out a career on her own terms as a versatile actress. She worked intensely, choosing varied and unusual roles:
“ The world has certain rules - Hollywood has certain rules - but it doesn't mean you have to play by them, and I don't, or I'd be a miserable person.
Sherilyn Fenn as Curley's wife in Of Mice and Men

A highlight of Fenn's film career is Gary Sinise's film adaptation of Of Mice and Men (nominated for the Golden Palm at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival) in which she played a sad and lonely country wife, desperately in need to talk to somebody, opposite Sinise and John Malkovich. "Sherilyn’s one of the reasons we got such a great ovation at Cannes", said Sinise. "She’s like a terribly sad angel in this film. Sherilyn plays against just being a sexy and beautiful girl," he added. "Hopefully her performance in my film will show her deep talent because she certainly showed the right mix of innocence and seductiveness for the role. We needed a fresh face but also one who knew what she was doing." "Gary Sinise was one of the first people who didn’t see me like a lot of other people did," she said. "It was a wonderful experience. Horton Foote adapted the novel and he fleshed out my character, and he made her much, much more." The same year saw her starring alongside Danny Aiello, Arliss Howard and Marc Lawrence in John Mackenzie's Ruby, that attempts to unravel the mystery of who killed John F. Kennedy and why, and depicts the events that led Jack Ruby to shoot Lee Harvey Oswald. Fenn plays the part of ambitious stripper Sheryl Ann DuJean, a fictitious character who is a composite of several real-life women including stripper Candy Barr, Marilyn Monroe and Judith Campbell Exner. "She’s got a brain and all the right emotional instincts, and that’s a great combination," said Mackenzie of Fenn.

In 1993 she starred in the romantic comedy Three of Hearts as Kelly Lynch and William Baldwin's love interest. During the shooting the relations between Fenn and director Yurek Bogayevicz became more and more strained as she refused to appear nude in the film. Fenn was also considered for the title role in Roger Vadim's remake of his 1968 film Barbarella that ultimately didn't come off.

Her most notable film role to date was in the controversial Boxing Helena (nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival), directed by David Lynch's daughter Jennifer Chambers Lynch. Fenn portrayed a narcissistic seductress amputated and imprisoned by Julian Sands, who makes her become his personal Venus de Milo in an effort to possess her. Helena was a way for Fenn to avoid being type-cast, with a radically different role from what she’d done in the past:
“ I like taking risks and I decided to put every bit of me into the role.

"Women do feel like they're in a box," she says of the subtext that attracted her to the role. "Society, Hollywood, some men... they want to wrap women up in a neat little package." Both Lynch and Fenn were proud of their work in it but the film - which was overshadowed by the lawsuits against Kim Basinger after she dropped out - ultimately was a critical and commercial failure. However, both women enjoyed their collaboration. "Sherilyn is an amazing actress, a total bundle of energy and a real powerhouse and I think people will see a side of her that we have never seen of Sherilyn anywhere else before," said Lynch of the actress. "I have with Sherilyn something I didn't think I'd ever find and that is the entire whole." "Jennifer’s one of the brightest person I know," said Fenn. "Boxing Helena was something that I think was pretty cool, but people judged it without even having seen it. It’s not perfect, but I think for the story that we were trying to tell, it turned out pretty good. What it signified was really powerful to me: how society puts us in boxes one way or another."
Sherilyn Fenn as the limbless Helena in Boxing Helena

She then starred in Carl Reiner's neo-noir parody Fatal Instinct as Armand Assante's devoted secretary and Sean Young and Kate Nelligan’s rival. She was asked to read for the femme fatale Lola (eventually played by Young), but opted for Assante's lovesick secretary.

Fenn afterward portrayed Potiphar's wife Zulaikha in Showtime's Biblical TV movie Slave of Dreams (released in 1995) opposite Adrian Pasdar and Edward James Olmos. The film was directed by multi-award winning Robert M. Young and produced by Martha and Dino De Laurentiis.

In 1995, she starred in an episode of Tales from the Crypt directed by Robert Zemeckis, alongside Isabella Rossellini and John Lithgow, in which she played the lover of Humphrey Bogart, who appeared in the episode via CGI special effects. "It was wonderful working with Bob Zemeckis and Isabella, and everybody was really nice."

After a short break during which she married and gave birth to a son, Fenn was chosen among more than 100 actresses to portray legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor in NBC's 1995 telemovie Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story.
“ Playing Elizabeth Taylor was probably the hardest job I’ve ever done.

"Director Kevin Connor and I arranged a lunch, not an audition," said executive producer Lester Persky. "We knew 10 minutes into our meeting that Sherilyn was it. She has the same striking beauty, and because of that she's experienced some of the things in life and in this business that make Elizabeth such a fascinating person." When she accepted the part, Fenn was unaware that Taylor was suing to stop both broadcast of the film and the unauthorized biography that it is based on. But that didn't let her distract from her work. "I am somebody who doesn't make choices lightly at this point of my life. I'm not somebody who wants to exploit another's woman story or life in any way." Some parallels with her life made it important for Fenn to do the biography. Like Taylor, Fenn's mother married several times. "It's remarkable, to be married so many times. How do you say 'I do' yet again and again and mean it? Maybe she lives her life in the moment, and ferociously believe in love. My mother getting married over and over definitely had an effect on me." Also, Fenn and Taylor both encountered similar experiences in the film business. "There are stereotypes of what a beautiful woman is. She struggled with that. A certain part of her life she went on that calling card. I certainly know I've come into contact with that. ‘You are too pretty,’ I'm told." During the shooting, Fenn fought to keep integrity in the script. Her priority was to respectfully and accurately portray Taylor, and she supported the original screenwriter's effort to concentrate on Taylor the person, not the legend.
“ I fought to keep the integrity of the story because the producer was bringing in a writer that was making it very soapy. They wanted many scenes of her when she was very overweight. I said, ‘I'm not doing that. I'll do one. That's not this woman's life.’ For me it was just: I didn't want to make an impression. I just tried to play the truth of the woman. Not the legend, not the stories that we hear about her. Because even when she was a child, you were seeing a version of her that was manipulated by the studios, so you didn't really see her. I thought the closest she ever came to revealing herself was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and she lost herself in that role. It was cathartic for her to do that in a lot of ways, to let herself be that wild.
Following Rude Awakening, Fenn's work consisted of a lot of episodic TV work. In the middle of the 2000s, she failed to find a role that could re-ignite her career as she got involved into many projects, that went unrealized.

In 2001, she starred in the episode Replica of The Outer Limits, playing a scientist who volunteered to be cloned. She also starred in an episode of Night Visions, as a woman who buys a used car possessed by a vengeful spirit. She was cast as a kindergarten teacher for the pilot of the 2001 American version of the British TV show Blind Men, alongside French Stewart. However, the pilot was not ordered into a series.

In 2002, Fenn was one of several former Twin Peaks stars, such as Dana Ashbrook and Mädchen Amick, to have a recurring role on The WB's Dawson's Creek. She guest-starred in three episodes from the fifth season, as Alex Pearl, the seductive manager of the restaurant where Joshua Jackson works. Fenn was afterwards cast as madcap villain Harley Quinn in The WB's Birds of Prey but was replaced by Mia Sara before the series began. Fenn starred in the original pilot episode but dropped out, due to scheduling conflicts, as the show's creators realized that the character of Harley Quinn would need to be a bigger part of the show She also played a manipulative woman in a season 4 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit opposite Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay and appeared in Watching Ellie.

Fenn played a crime boss in the 2002 film Swindle opposite Tom Sizemore. She had a small role in the critically acclaimed The United States of Leland, opposite Ryan Gosling, in which she played a mother who captivates a troubled teenage boy.
Sherilyn Fenn as Billie Frank in Rude Awakening

In 2003, Fenn appeared on The WB's Gilmore Girls as Sasha, the girlfriend of Jess Mariano's estranged father (played by Rob Estes) in the season three episode Here Comes the Son, which was the backdoor pilot for a California-set spin-off titled Windward Circle, that was to have starred Milo Ventimiglia, Estes and Fenn. The network dropped the project citing cost issues due to filming on location in Venice, California.

She then played the recurring part of Violet Montgomery on Fox's Boston Public (2003-2004), and appeared in Showtime's Cavedweller (2004) opposite Kyra Sedgwick. In 2004, Fenn joined former co-star Mark Harmon in an episode of NCIS, as an amnesiac woman. She was afterwards cast for the 2004 remake of Mister Ed, planned for the Fox network. However, after the pilot was shot, the show's writer/producer Drake Sather committed suicide, and the pilot was not aired.

In 2004, Fenn co-starred opposite Traci Lords and Paul Johansson in Emily Skopov's Novel Romance, released in 2006, in which she played a pregnancy shop owner who can't have children and whose sister decides to become a single mother. She then appeared in the martial arts film Lesser of Three Evils alongside Ho Sung Pak, Peter Greene and Roger Guenveur Smith, as the unbalanced and alcoholic wife of a corrupt detective. The film was released in 2009 under the title Fist of the Warrior.

In 2005, Fenn made a notable appearance on The 4400, playing Jean DeLynn Baker, a 4400 who has the ability to grow toxin-emitting spores on her hands. She also guest-starred on the final episode of Judging Amy.

After finishing the Russia-set action film Treasure Raiders with David Carradine, Fenn starred in the Canadian psychological thriller Presumed Dead, opposite Duncan Regehr, as a detective working on a missing person case, who has to outwit a crime novelist.

In 2006, Fenn reteamed with Amy Sherman-Palladino and reappeared in the sixth and seventh seasons of Gilmore Girls as Anna Nardini, the ex-girlfriend of Luke Danes (played by Scott Patterson) and protective mother to his daughter April. After the 2003 Gilmore Girls spin-off project, Sherman-Palladino wanted to work with Fenn again ever since, and wrote the character of Anna with her in mind. When asked why she cast Fenn for two different roles on Gilmore Girls, Sherman-Palladino said:
“ I love Sherilyn so much and I don't care. One thing about the show is I just want the best people. I've just been looking constantly for a time to work with Sherilyn, and I'm getting very old and I could just get hit by a truck at any minute. I just simply can't put it off that long, so I'd just rather get her in and have her part of my world.

However, after Sherman-Palladino left the show, the direction for the character changed — the producers decided to make her character a villain in a custody battle.

Fenn was cast as the female lead in ABC's 2006 comedy series Three Moons Over Milford but she was ultimately replaced by Elizabeth McGovern. Fenn was slated for a recurring role on CBS' 2006 crime drama Smith, but the show was quickly-canceled.

She appeared in the 2007 Dukes of Hazzard prequel, The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning as Lulu Hogg. "It's just a fun silly role," she said, but Fenn who had already worked with director Robert Berlinger on Rude Awakening, wanted to do so again.

In July 2006, shortly after shooting The Dukes of Hazzard prequel, Fenn stepped behind the camera for the first time and directed in Pittsburgh a documentary film about child enrichment program CosmiKids and its founder Judy Julin. She subsequently joined its executive team in 2007 as executive director of the film and television division.

In July 2008, Fenn filmed The Scenesters, a black comedy made by Los Angeles-based comedy group The Vacationeers, which premiered in October 2009.

In July 2009, Fenn made a guest appearance on In Plain Sight as a lesbian counterfeiter.
Personal life

Fenn lives in Los Angeles. She practices kundalini yoga.

Fenn was reportedly romantically linked to musician Prince, whom she met soon after she arrived in Los Angeles. She was also romantically linked to actor Chris Penn (on the set of their 1984 movie The Wild Life), and photographer Barry Hollywood (whom she chose to photograph her for the December 1990 issue of Playboy magazine).

She became romantically involved with actor Johnny Depp on the set of the 1985 short film Dummies. Director Laurie Frank said: "It was just so gorgeous, and their eyes locked and that was it. They really fell madly in love." Fenn and Depp dated for three and a half years and the couple were reportedly engaged. He later signed a contract to become a series regular on 21 Jump Street, which went into production in Vancouver. In pursuit of their different careers in Los Angeles and Vancouver, the two parted ways.

In 1994, Fenn married guitarist/songwriter Toulouse Holliday, whom she met on the set of Three of Hearts, and gave birth to a son, Myles, in late 1993. The marriage came to an end in 1997.

Her second son, Christian, with IT consultant Dylan Stewart, was born in August 2007.

In 2009 Sherilyn Fenn created a blog named Postcards from the Ledge.
Awards and nominations

Emmy Awards

   * 1990: nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series -- Twin Peaks

Golden Globe Awards

   * 1991: nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV -- Twin Peaks

Other recognition

   * Fenn made the cover of such magazines as New York, Rolling Stone (along with Mädchen Amick and Lara Flynn Boyle), In Fashion (along with Billy Idol), Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, The Face, Details, Sky, and Harper's Bazaar.
   * In 1990 Us Magazine chose her as one of the "10 Most Beautiful Women in the World".
   * In 1991 People chose her as one of the "50 Most Beautiful Women in the World".
   * Fenn posed for photographer Steven Meisel for the autumn-winter 1991-1992 Dolce & Gabbana campaign.
   * In 1992, Fenn posed for photographer George Hurrell.
   * Singer and composer Screamin' Jay Hawkins wrote and recorded the 1993 song entitled "Sherilyn Fenn", featured on his album Stone Crazy. The song is an ode to Fenn, who worked with Hawkins in Two Moon Junction.
   * Fenn is mentioned in the song "Razor Burn" by the punk band Lagwagon on their 1995 album entitled Hoss.
   * In 1995 FHM chose her as one of the "100 sexiest women in the world".
   * In 1996, The Daily Mirror chose her as one of the "World's 100 Most Beautiful Women", and Femme Fatales chose her as one of the "50 sexiest sci-fi actresses".
   * Fenn inspired Norwegian hard rock band Audrey Horne, formed in 2002, named after her character in Twin Peaks.
   * In 2006, Australian men magazine Zoo Weekly chose her as one of the "Top 50 Hottest Babes Ever".

Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1984 The Wild Life Penny Harlin
1985 Just One of the Guys Sandy
Out of Control Katie
"Dummies" short film
1986 Thrashin' Velvet
The Wraith Keri Johnson
1987 Zombie High Suzi
1988 Two Moon Junction April Delongpre
Crime Zone Helen
1989 True Blood Jennifer Scott aka Edge of Darkness
1990 Backstreet Dreams Lucy
Wild at Heart Girl in accident
Meridian Catherine Bomarzini
1991 Desire and Hell at Sunset Motel Bridget 'Bridey' DeSoto
Diary of a Hitman Jain Zidzyck
1992 Ruby Sheryl Ann 'Candy Cane' DuJean also song performer
Of Mice and Men Curley's wife
1993 Three of Hearts Ellen Armstrong
Boxing Helena Helena
Fatal Instinct Laura Lincolnberry
1997 Lovelife Molly
Just Write Amanda Clark
1998 The Shadow Men Dez Wilson
Darkness Falls Sally Driscoll
Outside Ozona Marcy Duggan Rice
1999 Cement Lyndel
2002 Swindle Sophie Zenn
2003 The United States of Leland Angela Calderon
2006 Novel Romance Liza Normane Stewart filmed in 2004
Whitepaddy Karen Greenly
2007 Treasure Raiders Lena filmed in 2005
2009 Fist of the Warrior Katie Barnes filmed in 2004
The Scenesters A.D.A. Barbara Dietrichson
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1985 Cheers Gabrielle episode 4.4 "The Groom Wore Clearasil"
1987 21 Jump Street Diane Nelson episode 1.9 "Blindsided"
1988 Divided We Stand TV pilot — not ordered to series
ABC Afterschool Special Beth pisode 17.2 "A Family Again"
1989 TV 101 Robin Zimmer ep. 1.7, 1.8 "The Last Temptation of Checker"
1990 Twin Peaks Audrey Horne regular (2 seasons, 1990–1991)
Nominated for Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress
Nominated for Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress
1995 Tales from the Crypt Erika episode 6.15 "You, Murderer"
1997 Friends Ginger episode 3.14 "The One with Phoebe's Ex-Partner"
Prey Dr. Sloan Larkin TV pilot — original unaired pilot
1998 Love, American Style Nancy TV anthology series pilot — not ordered to series
Rude Awakening Billie Frank lead (3 seasons, 1998-2001)
Cupid Helen Davis episode 1.7 "Pick-Up Schticks"
2001 The Outer Limits Nora Griffiths / Nora's clone episode 7.7 "Replica"
Night Visions Charlotte episode 1.8 "Used Car"
Blind Men TV pilot — not ordered to series
2002 Watching Ellie Vanessa ep. 1.5 "Cheetos", 1.7 "Gift"
Dawson's Creek Alexandra 'Alex' Pearl episodes 5.20 "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)", 5.21 "After Hours", 5.22 "The Abby"
Birds of Prey Dr. Harleen Quinzel/Harley Quinn TV pilot — original unaired pilot
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Gloria Stanfield ep. 4.2 "Deception"
2003 Gilmore Girls Sasha episode 3.21 "Here Comes the Son"
Boston Public Violet Montgomery recurring (season 4, 2003-2004)
2004 NCIS Jane Doe / Suzzanne McNeil (episode 1.10 "Left for Dead"
Century Cities Bree Clemens episode 1.07 "The Face Was Familiar"
Mister Ed Carlotta Pope TV pilot — not ordered to series
2005 Judging Amy Heather Reid episode 6.22 "My Name Is Amy Gray..."
The 4400 Jean DeLynn Baker episode 2.7 "Carrier"
2006 Gilmore Girls Anna Nardini recurring (seasons 6–7, 2006–2007)
CSI: Miami Gwen Creighton episode 4.22 "Open Water"
Three Moons Over Milford Janet Davis TV pilot — original unaired pilot
Smith Debbie Turkenson episode 1.6 "Six"
2008 House M.D. Mrs. Soellner episode 5.11 "Joy to the World"
2009 In Plain Sight Helen Trask/Helen Traylen episode 2.13 "Let's Get It Ahn"
Television films
Year Title Role Notes
1984 Silence of the Heart Monica
1987 Tales from the Hollywood Hills: A Table at Ciro's Betty
1991 Dillinger Evelyn 'Billie' Frechette
1994 Spring Awakening Margie
1995 Slave of Dreams Zulaikha
Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story Elizabeth Taylor TV miniseries
1996 A Season in Purgatory Kit Bradley TV miniseries
1997 The Don's Analyst Isabella Leoni
1998 Nightmare Street Joanna Burke/Sarah Randolph
2001 Off Season Patty Winslow
2002 Scent of Danger Brenna Shaw
2003 Nightwaves Shelby Naylor
2004 Cavedweller M.T.
Pop Rocks Allison Harden
2005 Officer Down Kathryn Shaunessy aka Assassin in Blue
Deadly Isolation Susan Mandaway
2006 Presumed Dead Det. Mary Anne 'Coop' Cooper
2007 The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning Lulu Hogg
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/01/10 at 5:41 am

I love Sherilynn Finn,She is hot sexy.  ;)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/01/10 at 5:45 am


I love Sherilynn Finn,She is hot sexy.  ;)

Yeah my husband remembered she was in Playboy >:( :-\\

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/01/10 at 5:47 am


Yeah my husband remembered she was in Playboy >:( :-\\


What year? Hmm..maybe I should Google it.  ;)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/01/10 at 5:50 am

The person who died on this day...Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley (née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin, and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.

Mary Godwin's mother died when she was eleven days old; afterwards, she and her older half-sister, Fanny Imlay, were raised by her father. When Mary was four, Godwin married his neighbour, Mary Jane Clairmont. Godwin provided his daughter with a rich, if informal, education, encouraging her to adhere to his liberal political theories. In 1814, Mary Godwin began a romantic relationship with one of her father’s political followers, the married Percy Bysshe Shelley. Together with Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont, they left for France and travelled through Europe; upon their return to England, Mary was pregnant with Percy's child. Over the next two years, she and Percy faced ostracism, constant debt, and the death of their prematurely born daughter. They married in late 1816 after the suicide of Percy Shelley's first wife, Harriet.

In 1816, the couple famously spent a summer with Lord Byron, John William Polidori, and Claire Clairmont near Geneva, Switzerland, where Mary conceived the idea for her novel Frankenstein. The Shelleys left Britain in 1818 for Italy, where their second and third children died before Mary Shelley gave birth to her last and only surviving child, Percy Florence. In 1822, her husband drowned when his sailing boat sank during a storm in the Bay of La Spezia. A year later, Mary Shelley returned to England and from then on devoted herself to the upbringing of her son and a career as a professional author. The last decade of her life was dogged by illness, probably caused by the brain tumour that was to kill her at the age of 53.

Until the 1970s, Mary Shelley was known mainly for her efforts to publish Percy Shelley's works and for her novel Frankenstein, which remains widely read and has inspired many theatrical and film adaptations. Recent scholarship has yielded a more comprehensive view of Mary Shelley’s achievements. Scholars have shown increasing interest in her literary output, particularly in her novels, which include the historical novels Valperga (1823) and Perkin Warbeck (1830), the apocalyptic novel The Last Man (1826), and her final two novels, Lodore (1835) and Falkner (1837). Studies of her lesser-known works such as the travel book Rambles in Germany and Italy (1844) and the biographical articles for Dionysius Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829–46) support the growing view that Mary Shelley remained a political radical throughout her life. Mary Shelley's works often argue that cooperation and sympathy, particularly as practised by women in the family, were the ways to reform civil society. This view was a direct challenge to the individualistic Romantic ethos promoted by Percy Shelley and the Enlightenment political theories articulated by her father, William Godwin.
Mary Godwin may have first met the radical poet-philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley in the interval between her two stays in Scotland. By the time she returned home for a second time on 30 March 1814, Percy Shelley had become estranged from his wife and was regularly visiting Godwin, whom he had agreed to bail out of debt. Percy Shelley's radicalism, particularly his economic views, which he had imbibed from Godwin's Political Justice (1793), had alienated him from his wealthy aristocratic family: they wanted him to follow traditional models of the landed aristocracy, and he wanted to donate large amounts of the family's money to schemes intended to help the disadvantaged. Percy Shelley therefore had difficulty gaining access to money until he inherited his estate because his family did not want him wasting it on projects of "political justice". After several months of promises, Shelley announced that he either could not or would not pay off all of Godwin's debts. Godwin was angry and felt betrayed.

Mary and Percy began meeting each other secretly at Mary Wollstonecraft's grave in St Pancras Churchyard, and they fell in love—she was nearly seventeen, he nearly twenty-two. To Mary's dismay, her father disapproved and tried to thwart the relationship and salvage the "spotless fame" of his daughter. At about the same time, Godwin learned of Shelley's inability to pay off his loans for him. Mary, who later wrote of "my excessive and romantic attachment to my father", was confused. She saw Percy Shelley as an embodiment of her parents' liberal and reformist ideas of the 1790s, particularly Godwin's view that marriage was a repressive monopoly, which he had argued in his 1793 edition of Political Justice but since retracted. On 28 July 1814, the couple secretly left for France, taking Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont, with them, but leaving Percy's pregnant wife behind.

After convincing Mary Jane Godwin, who had pursued them to Calais, that they did not wish to return, the trio travelled to Paris, and then, by donkey, mule, and carriage, through a France recently ravaged by war, to Switzerland. "It was acting in a novel, being an incarnate romance," Mary Shelley recalled in 1826. As they travelled, Mary and Percy read works by Mary Wollstonecraft and others, kept a joint journal, and continued their own writing. At Lucerne, lack of money forced the three to turn back. They travelled down the Rhine and by land to the Dutch port of Marsluys, arriving at Gravesend, Kent, on 13 September 1814.
Half-length oval portrait of a man wearing a black jacket and a white shirt, which is askew and open to his chest.
Percy Bysshe Shelley was inspired by the radicalism of Godwin's Political Justice (1793). When the poet Robert Southey met Shelley, he felt as if he were seeing himself from the 1790s. (Portrait by Amelia Curran, 1819.)

The situation awaiting Mary Godwin in England was fraught with complications, some of which she had not foreseen. Either before or during the journey, she had become pregnant. She and Percy now found themselves penniless, and, to Mary's genuine surprise, her father refused to have anything to do with her. The couple moved with Claire into lodgings at Somers Town, and later, Nelson Square. They maintained their intense programme of reading and writing and entertained Percy Shelley's friends, such as Thomas Jefferson Hogg and the writer Thomas Love Peacock. Percy Shelley sometimes left home for short periods to dodge creditors. The couple's distraught letters reveal their pain at these separations.

Pregnant and often ill, Mary Godwin had to cope with Percy's joy at the birth of his son by Harriet Shelley in late 1814 and his constant outings with Claire Clairmont. She was partly consoled by the visits of Hogg, whom she disliked at first but soon considered a close friend. Percy Shelley seems to have wanted Mary Godwin and Hogg to become lovers; Mary did not dismiss the idea, since in principle she believed in free love. In practice, however, she loved only Percy Shelley and seems to have ventured no further than flirting with Hogg. On 22 February 1815, she gave birth to a two-months premature baby girl, who was not expected to survive. On 6 March, she wrote to Hogg:

   My dearest Hogg my baby is dead—will you come to see me as soon as you can. I wish to see you—It was perfectly well when I went to bed—I awoke in the night to give it suck it appeared to be sleeping so quietly that I would not awake it. It was dead then, but we did not find that out till morning—from its appearance it evidently died of convulsions—Will you come—you are so calm a creature & Shelley is afraid of a fever from the milk—for I am no longer a mother now.

The loss of her child induced acute depression in Mary Godwin, who was haunted by visions of the baby; but she conceived again and had recovered by the summer. With a revival in Percy Shelley's finances after the death of his grandfather, Sir Bysshe Shelley, the couple holidayed in Torquay and then rented a two-storey cottage at Bishopsgate, on the edge of Windsor Great Park. Little is known about this period in Mary Godwin's life, since her journal from May 1815 to July 1816 is lost. At Bishopsgate, Percy wrote his poem Alastor; and on 24 January 1816, Mary gave birth to a second child, William, named after her father and soon nicknamed "Willmouse". In her novel The Last Man, she later imagined Windsor as a Garden of Eden.
Lake Geneva and Frankenstein
Handwritten manuscript of Frankenstein.
Draft of Frankenstein ("It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld my man completed ...")

In May 1816, Mary Godwin, Percy Shelley, and their son travelled to Geneva with Claire Clairmont. They planned to spend the summer with the poet Lord Byron, whose recent affair with Claire had left her pregnant. The party arrived at Geneva on 14 May 1816, where Mary called herself "Mrs Shelley". Byron joined them on 25 May, with his young physician, John William Polidori, and rented the Villa Diodati, close to Lake Geneva at the village of Cologny; Percy Shelley rented a smaller building called Maison Chapuis on the waterfront nearby. They spent their time writing, boating on the lake, and talking late into the night.

"It proved a wet, ungenial summer", Mary Shelley remembered in 1831, "and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house". Amongst other subjects, the conversation turned to the experiments of the 18th-century natural philosopher and poet Erasmus Darwin, who was said to have animated dead matter, and to galvanism and the feasibility of returning a corpse or assembled body parts to life. Sitting around a log fire at Byron's villa, the company also amused themselves by reading German ghost stories, prompting Byron to suggest they each write their own supernatural tale. Shortly afterwards, in a waking dream, Mary Godwin conceived the idea for Frankenstein:

   I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.

She began writing what she assumed would be a short story. With Percy Shelley's encouragement, she expanded this tale into her first novel, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus, published in 1818. She later described that summer in Switzerland as the moment "when I first stepped out from childhood into life"
1840 and 1842, mother and son travelled together on the continent, journeys that Mary Shelley recorded in Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842 and 1843 (1844). In 1844, Sir Timothy Shelley finally died at the age of ninety, "falling from the stalk like an overblown flower", as Mary put it. For the first time, she and her son were financially independent, though the estate proved less valuable than they had hoped.
Photograph of a coffin-shaped granite tomb.
In order to fulfil Mary Shelley's wishes, Percy Florence and his wife Jane had the coffins of Mary Shelley's parents exhumed and buried with her in Bournemouth.

In the mid-1840s, Mary Shelley found herself the target of three separate blackmailers. In 1845, an Italian political exile called Gatteschi, whom she had met in Paris, threatened to publish letters she had sent him. A friend of her son's bribed a police chief into seizing Gatteschi's papers, including the letters, which were then destroyed. Shortly afterwards, Mary Shelley bought some letters written by herself and Percy Bysshe Shelley from a man calling himself G. Byron and posing as the illegitimate son of the late Lord Byron. Also in 1845, Percy Bysshe Shelley's cousin Thomas Medwin approached her claiming to have written a damaging biography of Percy Shelley. He said he would suppress it in return for £250, but Mary Shelley refused.

In 1848, Percy Florence married Jane Gibson St John. The marriage proved a happy one, and Mary Shelley and Jane were fond of each other. Mary lived with her son and daughter-in-law at Field Place, Sussex, the Shelleys' ancestral home, and at Chester Square, London, and accompanied them on travels abroad.

Mary Shelley's last years were blighted by illness. From 1839, she suffered from headaches and bouts of paralysis in parts of her body, which sometimes prevented her from reading and writing. On 1 February 1851, at Chester Square, she died at the age of fifty-three from what her physician suspected was a brain tumour. According to Jane Shelley, Mary Shelley had asked to be buried with her mother and father; but Percy and Jane, judging the graveyard at St Pancras to be "dreadful", chose to bury her instead at St Peter's Church, Bournemouth, near their new home at Boscombe. On the first anniversary of Mary Shelley's death, the Shelleys opened her box-desk. Inside they found locks of her dead children's hair, a notebook she had shared with Percy Bysshe Shelley, and a copy of his poem Adonaïs with one page folded round a silk parcel containing some of his ashes and the remains of his heart.
Literary themes and styles

Mary Shelley lived a literary life. Her father encouraged her to learn to write by composing letters, and her favourite occupation as a child was writing stories. Unfortunately, all of Mary's juvenilia were lost when she ran off with Percy in 1814, and none of her surviving manuscripts can be definitively dated before that year. Her first published work is often thought to have been Mounseer Nongtongpaw, comic verses written for Godwin's Juvenile Library when she was ten and a half; however, the poem is attributed to another writer in the most recent authoritative collection of her works. Percy Shelley enthusiastically encouraged Mary Shelley's writing: "My husband was, from the first, very anxious that I should prove myself worthy of my parentage, and enrol myself on the page of fame. He was forever inciting me to obtain literary reputation."
Novels
Autobiographical elements

Certain sections of Mary Shelley's novels are often interpreted as masked rewritings of her life. Critics have pointed to the recurrence of the father–daughter motif in particular as evidence of this autobiographical style. For example, commentators frequently read Mathilda (1820) autobiographically, identifying the three central characters as versions of Mary Shelley, William Godwin, and Percy Shelley. Mary Shelley herself confided that she modelled the central characters of The Last Man on her Italian circle. Lord Raymond, who leaves England to fight for the Greeks and dies in Constantinople, is based on Lord Byron; and the utopian Adrian, Earl of Windsor, who leads his followers in search of a natural paradise and dies when his boat sinks in a storm, is a fictional portrait of Percy Bysshe Shelley. However, as she wrote in her review of Godwin's novel Cloudesley (1830), she did not believe that authors "were merely copying from our own hearts". William Godwin regarded his daughter's characters as types rather than portraits from real life. Some modern critics, such as Patricia Clemit and Jane Blumberg, have taken the same view, resisting autobiographical readings of Mary Shelley's works.
Novelistic genres
" was never heard of more; even her name perished....The private chronicles, from which the foregoing relation has been collected, end with the death of Euthanasia. It is therefore in public histories alone that we find an account of the last years of the life of Castruccio."
— From Mary Shelley, Valperga

Mary Shelley employed the techniques of many different novelistic genres, most vividly the Godwinian novel, Walter Scott's new historical novel, and the Gothic novel. The Godwinian novel, made popular during the 1790s with works such as Godwin's Caleb Williams (1794), "employed a Rousseauvian confessional form to explore the contradictory relations between the self and society", and Frankenstein exhibits many of the same themes and literary devices as Godwin's novel. However, Shelley critiques those Enlightenment ideals that Godwin promotes in his works. In The Last Man, she uses the philosophical form of the Godwinian novel to demonstrate the ultimate meaninglessness of the world. While earlier Godwinian novels had shown how rational individuals could slowly improve society, The Last Man and Frankenstein demonstrate the individual's lack of control over history.

Shelley uses the historical novel to comment on gender relations; for example, Valperga is a feminist version of Scott's masculinist genre. Introducing women into the story who are not part of the historical record, Shelley uses their narratives to question established theological and political institutions. Shelley sets the male protagonist's compulsive greed for conquest in opposition to a female alternative: reason and sensibility. In Perkin Warbeck, Shelley's other historical novel, Lady Gordon stands for the values of friendship, domesticity, and equality. Through her, Shelley offers a feminine alternative to the masculine power politics that destroy the male characters. The novel provides a more inclusive historical narrative to challenge the one which usually relates only masculine events.
Gender

With the rise of feminist literary criticism in the 1970s, Mary Shelley's works, particularly Frankenstein, began to attract much more attention from scholars. Feminist and psychoanalytic critics were largely responsible for the recovery from neglect of Shelley as a writer. Ellen Moers was one of the first to claim that Shelley's loss of a baby was a crucial influence on the writing of Frankenstein. She argues that the novel is a "birth myth" in which Shelley comes to terms with her guilt for causing her mother's death as well as for failing as a parent. In Moers' view, it is a story "about what happens when a man tries to have a baby without a woman ... is profoundly concerned with natural as opposed to unnatural modes of production and reproduction". Victor Frankenstein's failure as a "parent" in the novel has been read as an expression of the anxieties which accompany pregnancy, giving birth, and particularly maternity.

Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar argue in their seminal book The Madwoman in the Attic (1979) that in Frankenstein in particular, Shelley responded to the masculine literary tradition represented by John Milton's Paradise Lost. In their interpretation, Shelley reaffirms this masculine tradition, including the misogyny inherent in it, but at the same time "conceal fantasies of equality that occasionally erupt in monstrous images of rage". Mary Poovey reads the first edition of Frankenstein as part of a larger pattern in Shelley's writing, which begins with literary self-assertion and ends with conventional femininity. Poovey suggests that Frankenstein's multiple narratives enable Shelley to split her artistic persona: she can "express and efface herself at the same time". Shelley's fear of self-assertion is reflected in the fate of Frankenstein, who is punished for his egotism by losing all his domestic ties.

Feminist critics often focus on how authorship itself, particularly female authorship, is represented in and through Shelley's novels. As Shelley scholar Anne K. Mellor explains, Shelley uses the Gothic style not only to explore repressed female sexual desire but also as way to "censor her own speech in Frankenstein". According to Poovey and Mellor, Shelley did not want to promote her own authorial persona and felt deeply inadequate as a writer, and "this shame contributed to the generation of her fictional images of abnormality, perversion, and destruction".

Shelley's writings focus on the role of the family in society and women's role within that family. She celebrates the "feminine affections and compassion" associated with the family and suggests that civil society will fail without them. Shelley was "profoundly committed to an ethic of cooperation, mutual dependence, and self-sacrifice". In Lodore, for example, the central story follows the fortunes of the wife and daughter of the title character, Lord Lodore, who is killed in a duel at the end of the first volume, leaving a trail of legal, financial, and familial obstacles for the two "heroines" to negotiate. The novel is engaged with political and ideological issues, particularly the education and social role of women. It dissects a patriarchal culture that separated the sexes and pressured women into dependence on men. In the view of Shelley scholar Betty T. Bennett, "the novel proposes egalitarian educational paradigms for women and men, which would bring social justice as well as the spiritual and intellectual means by which to meet the challenges life invariably brings". However, Falkner is the only one of Mary Shelley's novels in which the heroine's agenda triumphs. The novel’s resolution proposes that when female values triumph over violent and destructive masculinity, men will be freed to express the "compassion, sympathy, and generosity" of their better natures.
Enlightenment and Romanticism

Frankenstein, like much Gothic fiction of the period, mixes a visceral and alienating subject matter with speculative and thought-provoking themes. Rather than focusing on the twists and turns of the plot, however, the novel foregrounds the mental and moral struggles of the protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, and Shelley imbues the text with her own brand of politicised Romanticism, one that criticised the individualism and egotism of traditional Romanticism. Victor Frankenstein is like Satan in Paradise Lost, and Prometheus: he rebels against tradition; he creates life; and he shapes his own destiny. These traits are not portrayed positively; as Blumberg writes, "his relentless ambition is a self-delusion, clothed as quest for truth". He must abandon his family to fulfill his ambition.
Engraving showing a naked man awaking on the floor and another man fleeing in horror. A skull and a book are next to the naked man and a window, with the moon shining through it, is in the background.
The frontispiece to the 1831 Frankenstein by Theodor von Holst, one of the first two illustrations for the novel

Mary Shelley believed in the Enlightenment idea that people could improve society through the responsible exercise of political power, but she feared that the irresponsible exercise of power would lead to chaos. In practice, her works largely criticise the way 18th-century thinkers such as her parents believed such change could be brought about. The creature in Frankenstein, for example, reads books associated with radical ideals but the education he gains from them is ultimately useless. Shelley's works reveal her as less optimistic than Godwin and Wollstonecraft; she lacks faith in Godwin's theory that humanity could eventually be perfected.

As literary scholar Kari Lokke writes, The Last Man, more so than Frankenstein, "in its refusal to place humanity at the center of the universe, its questioning of our privileged position in relation to nature ... constitutes a profound and prophetic challenge to Western humanism." Specifically, Mary Shelley's allusions to what radicals believed was a failed revolution in France and the Godwinian, Wollstonecraftian, and Burkean responses to it, challenge "Enlightenment faith in the inevitability of progress through collective efforts". As in Frankenstein, Shelley "offers a profoundly disenchanted commentary on the age of revolution, which ends in a total rejection of the progressive ideals of her own generation". Not only does she reject these Enlightenment political ideals, but she also rejects the Romantic notion that the poetic or literary imagination can offer an alternative.
Selected list of works
Main article: List of works by Mary Shelley

   * History of Six Weeks' Tour through a Part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland, with Letters Descriptive of a Sail round the Lake of Geneva, and of the Glaciers of Chamouni (1817)
   * Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)
   * Mathilda (1819)
   * Valperga; or, The Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca (1823)
   * Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1824)
   * The Last Man (1826)
   * The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1830)
   * Lodore (1835)
   * Falkner (1837)
   * The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1839)
   * Contributions to Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men (1835–39), part of Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia
   * Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 (1844)

Collections of Mary Shelley's papers are housed in Lord Abinger's Shelley Collection on deposit at the Bodleian Library, the New York Public Library (particularly The Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle), the Huntington Library, the British Library, and in the John Murray Collection.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/01/10 at 5:51 am


What year? Hmm..maybe I should Google it.  ;)

1990

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/01/10 at 5:53 am


1990


Thanks.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/01/10 at 5:59 am


Thanks.

Your Welcome :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/01/10 at 8:03 am

I have twin nieces.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/01/10 at 10:30 am


I have twin nieces.



Cat

Nice, I have aunts that are twins.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/02/10 at 5:41 am

The word of the day...Bounty
You can refer to something that is provided in large amounts as bounty.
A bounty is money that is offered as a reward for doing something, especially for finding or killing a particular person
A bounty hunter is someone who tries to find or kill someone in order to get the reward that has been offered.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/02/10 at 5:52 am

The person born on this day...Duane Chapman
Duane Lee "Dog" Chapman (born February 2, 1953 in Denver, Colorado ) is an American bounty hunter, a former bail bondsman. He stars in Dog the Bounty Hunter, a weekly reality television program which is broadcast on the A&E Network (USA), Virgin 1 (both UK and Ireland), Bravo, FOX8/GO!(Australia), and OLN, Canada. (Australia).
Duane Chapman was born in Denver, Colorado. He dropped out of middle school in the seventh grade. According to his book, he walked into his principal's office and said, "fudge you. You never stuck up for me when you knew I was getting beaten at home. You never believed a word I said. I quit!"

Duane Chapman used to be an amateur boxer in his teens, going by the name "Dog Lee", taken from his nickname and middle name. Dog still enjoys weight training, as evidenced by the Bosco episode, during which Dog's workout regimen is featured.

In 1977 Chapman was sentenced to 5 years in prison and was remanded to Huntsville prison in Huntsville, Texas. When he was in prison, Duane and his first wife, LaFonda Honeycutt, divorced. He served 18 months of his 5 year sentence for the murder of Jerry Oliver in Pampa, Texas. Chapman maintains his innocence of murder but suggests he was a legal accessory for not reporting the shooting to the police. He was released on parole. Two of his co-defendants received probation and a third, their alleged shooter, received ten years in prison.

In 2006, he married his fifth wife, Beth Smith, on his television show in Hawaii. They were together for ten years before they married.

Duane Lee "Dog" Chapman also studies Native American History as a hobby.
Bounty hunting

Chapman's career in bounty hunting began when he was in court disputing child support. When he told the judge he did not have the money to pay, the judge offered him a deal to bring in a fugitive in exchange for the judge to pay part of Chapman's child support for Duane Lee and Leland Chapman. He started his first bondsman business in his hometown of Denver, Colorado before moving to Hawaii with five of his children: Leland Chapman, Duane Lee Chapman, Tucker, Baby Lyssa and Barbara Katie. After his mother's death, he moved back to Colorado for a long stay to work alongside his sister, Jolene Chapman, who also started her own bail bond business on 'Bail Bond's Row'. Duane Chapman and his wife Alice Barmore (now known as Beth Chapman) soon joined with him on his bounties and business. Both moved back to Hawaii to open up another office in downtown Honolulu. This business has been extended to within Hawaii to the Big Island and Maui. He has arrested more than 7,000 people.
Arrest by Mexican government
Main article: Andrew Luster

On June 18, 2003, Chapman made news with his hunt and capture of Max Factor cosmetics heir Andrew Luster, who at the time was in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Luster had fled the United States in the middle of his trial for drugging and raping a number of women, and was convicted in absentia on 86 counts including multiple rape charges connected to assaults in 1996, 1997 and 2000. Chapman was assisted by his "hunt team", consisting of his son Leland and his associate, Tim Chapman . After Luster's jailing, Duane Chapman was interviewed for a documentary which was published on 2009 August 28 by Dominick Dunne on Power, Privilege, and Justice broadcast via the TruTV network.

On September 14, 2006, days before the expiration of the statute of limitations, Chapman, along with his son Leland Chapman and associate Tim Chapman, were arrested by United States Marshals and jailed in Honolulu on behalf of the Mexican government. Mexican authorities had charged all three with deprivation of liberty, involving the 2003 apprehension of Andrew Luster, because they had not handed Luster over to them. After not obtaining permission to leave the country in 2003, the Mexican Government declared Duane, Leleand and Tim Chapman, fugitives from justice and tried to get them extradited to Mexico for sentencing. After spending one night in the federal detention center in Honolulu, Chapman told reporters: "The federal marshals treated us with great respect. But let me tell you, you never want to go to a federal prison, because it's terrible."

The next day, September 15, 2006, Chapman appeared in a packed Honolulu courtroom with his ankles shackled. Although the judge agreed that the men were not a flight risk, he ordered that each wear an electronic monitoring device around the ankle.  The three men were released on bail ($300,000 for Duane Chapman, $100,000 each for Leland Chapman and Tim Chapman). They were also ordered to wear an electronic ankle bracelet for house arrest.

Beth Chapman was detained and had a hearing after she was caught wearing an A&E body microphone when entering the courthouse for their bond hearing; electronic recording devices are prohibited by law from being carried into federal courthouses. She was released after explaining that she "didn't know they had the mic and transmitter"; the judge was satisfied that no recording was done.

Chapman was fighting extradition in September 2006. His lead attorney Brook Hart reportedly planned to argue that although the charge Chapman faced is a misdemeanor in Mexico, when translated into English it became a felony (kidnapping) under American law. An extradition hearing was set for November 16, 2006, where both sides were to present evidence and witnesses. Chapman has speculated that his arrest was due in part to a possible prisoner exchange agreement between the Mexican and American authorities. According to Chapman, the federal agents 'sold him out', by trading him in for a convicted Mexican drug lord. Duane, Leland, and Tim had their ankle bracelets removed so they could work.

On October 11, 2006, reports surfaced of an open letter dated September 26, 2006, sent on Chapman's behalf by 29 Republican Congressmen to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The letter stated the authors' opposition to Chapman's extradition and requested that Rice deny Mexico's request for same. Subsequently on October 20, 2006, lawyers for Chapman said that the Mexican federal court had granted them an order that halted the criminal case against the bounty hunter until further evidence and witness testimony were gathered.

A court hearing was held on December 22, 2006. The original hearing was postponed because a report from a lower court was not yet received. The court heard both sides of the story, and then decided to recess. Then court proceedings started on January 16, 2007 and the court had up to Tuesday, February 6, 2007 but the deadline was extended.

On February 16, 2007, a Mexican Federal court cleared the way for Duane Chapman to be extradited, ruling there was no reason not to try him with the charge of deprivation of liberty in Mexico. They also added that Mr. Chapman would not last five days in a Mexican prison. In response, on February 23, Hawaii State Representatives Gene Ward, Karen Awana, Rida Cabanilla, Lynn Finnegan, Barbara Marumoto, Colleen Meyer, Kymberly Pine, Joe Bertram, Ken Ito, Marylin Lee, and John Mizuno introduced 'House concurrent resolution 50', "Requesting the President of Mexico and the Second District Court of Guadalajara to drop extradition charges against TV Bounty Hunter, Duane 'Dog' Chapman".

Chapman, along with his lawyer, William C. Bollard, has appeared on numerous media shows. Some of these include: Larry King Live, Greta Van Susteren, Mark and Mercedez Morning Show on Mix 94.1 KMXB in Las Vegas, The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet on WFLD, Fox 6 News San Diego, The Glenn Beck Program, and THE 9 on Yahoo!.

On March 7, 2007, legislators in the International Affairs Committee of the Hawaii State House passed a resolution that asks the Mexican government to drop the extradition proceedings against Duane, Leland and Tim Chapman.

Honolulu news outlet KHNL reported on August 1, 2007 that the arrest warrant issued for Chapman and his associates may now be invalidated, as a Mexican court has found that the statute of limitations regarding the arrest has expired. The 15-page legal order was released in Spanish and was translated and verified for legal acuity. The case against the bounty hunters may still be open to legal recourse by Mexican prosecutors.

On August 2, 2007, the First Criminal Court in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, dismissed all criminal charges pending against Duane, Tim and Leland Chapman on the grounds that the statute of limitations had expired. The order effectively canceled all pending charges. The ruling, however, was appealed by the prosecution in order to overturn the lower court's decision. A&E was told that in Mexico, rulings against the prosecution are generally appealed as a matter of principle.

On November 5, 2007, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Kurren dismissed the extradition attempt, saying that even though the cases were appealed, the trio are no longer charged with any offenses.
Racial slur and fall out

In March 2007, during a taped conversation with his son Tucker, Chapman used strong language, including the word "******," when referring to Monique Shinnery, his son's African-American girlfriend:
“ Duane "Dog" Chapman: I don't care if she's a Mexican, a whore or whatever. It's not because she's black, it's because we use the word ****** sometimes here. I'm not gonna take a chance ever in life of losing everything I've worked for for 30 years because some fudgeing ****** heard us say ****** and turned us in to the Enquirer magazine. Our career is over! I'm not taking that chance at all! Never in life! Never! Never! If Lyssa was dating a ******, we would all say 'fudge you!' And you know that. If Lyssa brought a black guy home, ya da da... it's not that they're black, it's none of that. It's that we use the word ******. We don't mean you fudgeing scum ****** without a soul. We don't mean that sheesh. But America would think we mean that. And we're not taking a chance on losing everything we got over a racial slur because our son goes with a girl like that. I can't do that, Tucker. You can't expect Gary, Bonnie, Cecily, all them young kids to because 'I'm in love for 7 months' - fudge that! So, I'll help you get another job but you cannot work here unless you break up with her and she's out of your life. I can't handle that sheesh. I got 'em in the parking lot trying to record us. I got that girl saying she's gonna wear a recorder...

Tucker Chapman: I don't even know what to say.


The audiotape, which Tucker sold to the National Enquirer, was posted online on October 31, 2007, and prompted a coalition of civil rights leaders to call for Chapman's popular Dog the Bounty Hunter show on A&E to be canceled. After the tape was made public, A&E announced it was suspending production for the series pending an investigation. Conservative civil rights leader Roy Innis said that Chapman "should not have a show."

On October 31, 2007, Chapman issued a public apology:
“ "My sincerest, heartfelt apologies go out to every person I have offended for my regrettable use of very inappropriate language. I am deeply disappointed in myself for speaking out of anger to my son and using such a hateful term in a private phone conversation. It was completely taken out of context. I was disappointed in his choice of a friend, not due to her race, but her character. However, I should have never used that term. I have the utmost respect and aloha for black people – who have already suffered so much due to racial discrimination and acts of hatred. I did not mean to add yet another slap in the face to an entire race of people who have brought so many gifts to this world. I am ashamed of myself and I pledge to do whatever I can to repair this damage I have caused. You see, I live in Hawaii, and we just don't get a whole lotta black people down here in the Aloha State.

"In Hawaii, we have something called Ho'oponopono, where people come together to resolve crises and restore peace and balance. I am meeting with my spiritual advisor, Rev. Tim Storey, and hope to meet with other black leaders so they can see who I really am and teach me the right thing to do to make things right, again.

"I know that all of my fans are deeply disappointed in me, as well, as I have tried to be a model for doing the right thing. I did not do the right thing this time, and hope you will forgive me. We learn from our mistakes, as my story of overcoming a life of crime has proven, and I will learn from this one for the rest of my life."


On November 2, 2007, A&E announced it is removing the show from their schedule "for the foreseeable future." On the same day Yum Brands announced pulling ad support for the TV series.

On December 21, 2007, Roy Innis, the chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, one of the first to call the A&E network to have the show taken off the air, met with Alicia Colon of The New York Sun and Chapman. Innis stated for the daily newspaper, "After meeting with him and his wife, Beth, and hearing his side of the story, we realized that the controversy had unjustly spiraled out of control without context."

He went on to say, "Duane has taken ownership of the damage of his words and has taken on the responsibility of being a racial healer for our country... I have been with this man several times and had extensive dialogues with him. I consider him and his wife good friends. Duane is a changed man and has a higher purpose. Popular television is a wasteland of meaningless titillation and degradation. The Dog's potential to take his celebrity and turn it into something redeeming for our culture and society is immense. It is for these reasons that we want his television show back on the air."
Renewal of show

Innis' December 2007 statement and a petition with over 40,000 signatures requested the return of Chapman's program. On February 19, 2008, A&E announced that the show would return. Reruns of Dog The Bounty Hunter, along with never before seen episodes from season 4, began airing on June 25, 2008. New episodes (the show's fifth season) began airing on July 16, 2008.

The show is currently into its seventh season, the first episode of which aired on December 2, 2009.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/02/10 at 5:57 am

The person who died on this day...Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff (November 23, 1887 – February 2, 1969) was an English actor who emigrated to Canada in the 1910s. He is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the 1931 film Frankenstein, 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein, and 1939 film Son of Frankenstein. His popularity following Frankenstein in the early 1930s was such that for a brief time he was billed simply as "Karloff" or, on some movie posters, "Karloff the Uncanny".
In 1909, Pratt travelled to Canada and some time later changed his professional name to "Boris Karloff". Some have theorized that he took the stage name from a mad scientist character in the novel The Drums of Jeopardy called "Boris Karlov". However, the novel was not published until 1920, at least eight years after Karloff had been using the name on stage and in silent films (Warner Oland played "Boris Karlov" in a movie version in 1931). Another possible influence was thought to be a character in the Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy novel H.R.H. The Rider which features a "Prince Boris of Karlova", but as the novel was not published until 1915, the influence may be backward, that Burroughs saw Karloff in a play and adapted the name for the character. Karloff always claimed he chose the first name "Boris" because it sounded foreign and exotic, and that "Karloff" was a family name. However, his daughter Sara Karloff publicly denied any knowledge of Slavic forebears, "Karloff" or otherwise. One reason for the name change was to prevent embarrassment to his family. Whether or not his brothers (all dignified members of the British foreign service) actually considered young William the "black sheep of the family" for having become an actor, Karloff himself apparently worried they did feel that way. He did not reunite with his family again until 1933, when he went back to England to make The Ghoul, extremely worried that his siblings would disapprove of his new, macabre claim to world fame. Instead, his elder brothers jostled for position around their "baby" brother and happily posed for publicity photographs with him.

Karloff joined the Jeanne Russell Co. in 1911 and performed in towns like Kamloops, BC and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. In 1912, while at Regina, Saskatchewan, he was present for a devastating tornado. He later took a job as a railway baggage handler and joined the Harry St. Clair Co., that performed in Minot, North Dakota, for a year, in an opera house above a hardware store.

Due to the years of difficult manual labor in Canada and the U.S. while trying to establish his acting career, he suffered back problems for the rest of his life. Because of his health, he did not fight in World War I.
Career in Hollywood
Karloff as The Monster from the Bride of Frankenstein trailer (1935)

Once Karloff arrived in Hollywood, he made dozens of silent films, but work was sporadic, and he often had to take up manual labor, such as digging ditches and driving a cement truck, to pay the bills. His role as Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (1931) made him a star. A year later, he played another iconic character, Imhotep, in The Mummy.

The five-foot, eleven-inch, brown-eyed Karloff played a wide variety of roles in other genres besides horror. He was memorably gunned down in a bowling alley in the 1932 film Scarface. He played a religious WWI soldier in the 1934 John Ford epic The Lost Patrol. Karloff gave a string of lauded performances in 1930s Universal horror movies, including several with his main rival for heir to the horror throne of Lon Chaney, Sr.: Béla Lugosi, whose refusal to play the monster in Frankenstein made Karloff's subsequent career possible. Karloff played Frankenstein's monster three times, the other films being Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939), which also featured Lugosi. Karloff would revisit the Frankenstein mythos in film several times after leaving the role. The first would be as the villainous Dr. Niemann in House of Frankenstein (1944), where Karloff would be contrasted against Glenn Strange's portrayal of the Monster.

Karloff returned to the role of the "mad scientist" in 1958's Frankenstein 1970, as Baron Victor von Frankenstein II, the grandson of the original inventor. The finale reveals that the crippled Baron has given his own face (i.e., "Karloff's") to the Monster. The actor appeared at a celebrity baseball game as the Monster in 1940, hitting a gag home run and making catcher Buster Keaton fall into an acrobatic dead faint as the Monster stomped into home plate. Norman Z. McLeod filmed a sequence in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Karloff in the Monster make-up, but it was deleted. Karloff donned the headpiece and neck bolts for the final time in 1962 for a Halloween episode of the TV series Route 66, but he was playing "Boris Karloff," who, within the story, was playing "the Monster."

While the long, creative partnership between Karloff and Lugosi never led to a close mutual friendship, it produced some of the actors' most revered and enduring productions, beginning with The Black Cat. Follow-ups included Gift of Gab (1934), The Raven (1935), The Invisible Ray (1936), Black Friday (1940), You'll Find Out (also 1940), and The Body Snatcher (1945). During this period he also starred with Basil Rathbone in Tower of London (1939).

From 1945-1946, Karloff appeared in three films for RKO produced by Val Lewton: Isle of the Dead, The Body Snatcher, and Bedlam. In a 1946 interview with Louis Berg of the Los Angeles Times, Karloff discussed his three-picture deal with RKO, his reasons for leaving Universal Pictures and working with producer Lewton. Karloff left Universal because he thought the Frankenstein franchise had run its course. The latest installment was what he called a "'monster clambake,' with everything thrown in - Frankenstein, Dracula, a hunchback and a 'man-beast' that howled in the night. It was too much. Karloff thought it was ridiculous and said so." Berg continues, "Mr. Karloff has great love and respect for Mr. Lewton as the man who rescued him from the living dead and restored, so to speak, his soul".

During this period, Karloff was also a frequent guest on radio programs, whether it was starring in Arch Oboler's Chicago-based Lights Out productions (most notably the episode "Cat Wife") or spoofing his horror image with Fred Allen or Jack Benny.

An enthusiastic performer, he returned to the Broadway stage in the original production of Arsenic and Old Lace in 1941, in which he played a homicidal gangster enraged to be frequently mistaken for Karloff. Although Frank Capra cast Raymond Massey in the 1944 film, (which was shot in 1941, while Karloff was still appearing in the role on Broadway), Karloff reprised the role on television with Tony Randall and Tom Bosley in a 1962 production on the Hallmark Hall of Fame. Somewhat less successful was his work in the J. B. Priestley play The Linden Tree. He also appeared as Captain Hook in the play Peter Pan with Jean Arthur. He was nominated for a Tony Award for his work opposite Julie Harris in The Lark, by the French playwright Jean Anouilh about Joan of Arc, which was also reprised on Hallmark Hall of Fame.

In later years, Karloff hosted and acted in a number of television series, most notably Thriller, Out of This World, and The Veil, the latter of which was never broadcast and only came to light in the 1990s. In the 1960s, Karloff appeared in several films for American International Pictures, including The Comedy of Terrors, The Raven, and The Terror, the latter two directed by Roger Corman, and Die, Monster, Die!

During the 1950s Karloff appeared on British TV in the series Colonel March of Scotland Yard, in which he portrayed John Dickson Carr's fictional detective Colonel March who was known for solving apparently impossible crimes.

As a guest on The Gisele MacKenzie Show, Karloff sings "Those Were the Good Old Days" from Damn Yankees, while Gisele MacKenzie performs the solo, "Give Me the Simple Life". On The Red Skelton Show, Karloff guest starred along with horror actor Vincent Price in a parody of Frankenstein, with Red Skelton as the monster "Klem Kadiddle Monster." In 1966 Karloff also appeared with Robert Vaughn and Stefanie Powers in the spy series The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., in the episode "The Mother Muffin Affair." Karloff performed in drag as the titular Mother Muffin. That same year he also played an Indian Maharajah on the adventure series The Wild Wild West ("The Night of the Golden Cobra"). In 1967, he played an eccentric Spanish professor who thinks he's Don Quixote in a whimsical episode of I Spy ("Mainly on the Plains").

In the mid-1960s, Karloff gained a late-career surge of American popularity when he narrated the made-for-television animated film of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and provided "the sounds of the Grinch" (the song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" was sung not by Karloff, but by American voice actor Thurl Ravenscroft). Karloff later won a Grammy in the spoken word category after the story was released as a record.

In 1968 he starred in Targets, a movie directed by Peter Bogdanovich about a young man who embarks on a spree of killings carried out with handguns and high powered rifles. The movie starred Karloff as "retired horror film actor" Byron Orlok (a lightly-disguised version of himself) facing an end of life crisis, resolved through a confrontation with the shooter.

Karloff ended his career appearing in a trio of low-budget Mexican horror films that were shot shortly before his death; all were released posthumously, with the last, The Incredible Invasion, not released until 1971, two years after Karloff's death.
Spoken Word

Other records Karloff made for the children's market included Three Little Pigs and Other Fairy Stories, Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories and, with Cyril Ritchard and Celeste Holm, Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, and Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark.
Personal life

In contrast to the sinister characters he played on screen, Karloff was known in real life as a very kind gentleman who gave generously, especially to children's charities. Beginning in 1940, Karloff dressed up as Santa Claus every Christmas to hand out presents to physically disabled children in a Baltimore hospital.

Karloff was also a charter member of the Screen Actors Guild, and was especially outspoken regarding working conditions on sets that actors were expected to deal with in the mid-1930s (some of which were extremely hazardous). He married six times and had one child, a daughter, by his fifth wife.

In 1931, Boris Karloff took out insurance against premature aging that might be caused by his fright make-up.
Death

Boris Karloff lived out his final years at his cottage, 'Roundabout,' in the Hampshire village of Bramshott. After a long battle with arthritis and emphysema, he contracted pneumonia, succumbing to it in King Edward VII Hospital, Midhurst, Sussex, England, on February 2, 1969. He was cremated, following a requested low-key service, at Guildford Crematorium, Godalming, Surrey, where he is commemorated by a plaque in the Garden of Remembrance. A memorial service was held at St Paul's, Covent Garden (The Actors' Church), London, where there is also a plaque.

However, even death could not put an immediate halt to Karloff's media career. Four Mexican films for which Karloff shot his scenes in Los Angeles were released over a two-year period after he had died. They were dismissed, by critics and fans alike as undistinguished efforts. Also, during the run of Thriller, Karloff lent his name and likeness to a comic book for Gold Key Comics based upon the series. After Thriller was cancelled, the comic was retitled Boris Karloff's Tales of Mystery. An illustrated likeness of Karloff continued to introduce each issue of this publication for nearly a decade after the real Karloff died; the comic lasted until the early 1980s.
Legacy

For his contribution to film and television, Boris Karloff was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 1737 Vine Street (for motion pictures) and 6664 Hollywood Boulevard (for television) (Lindsay, 1975).

In 1998, Karloff (as Frankenstein's Monster and The Mummy) was featured in a series of "Monster Stamps" issued by the U.S. Postal Service.

In the webcomic Schlock Mercenary, the AI responsible for piloting the mercenary warship Touch and Go is initially created with a spooky voice and demeanour attributed to it being given a 'Karloff Skin'.

Kirk Hammett has been seen using ESP guitars customized to bear images of Boris Karloff as The Mummy and as Frankenstien's monster. He owns the rights to both guitars and is not currently allowing ESP to release them.
Filmography
Further information: Boris Karloff filmography
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/02/10 at 7:01 am


The person born on this day...Duane Chapman
Duane Lee "Dog" Chapman (born February 2, 1953 in Denver, Colorado ) is an American bounty hunter, a former bail bondsman. He stars in Dog the Bounty Hunter, a weekly reality television program which is broadcast on the A&E Network (USA), Virgin 1 (both UK and Ireland), Bravo, FOX8/GO!(Australia), and OLN, Canada. (Australia).
Duane Chapman was born in Denver, Colorado. He dropped out of middle school in the seventh grade. According to his book, he walked into his principal's office and said, "fudge you. You never stuck up for me when you knew I was getting beaten at home. You never believed a word I said. I quit!"

Duane Chapman used to be an amateur boxer in his teens, going by the name "Dog Lee", taken from his nickname and middle name. Dog still enjoys weight training, as evidenced by the Bosco episode, during which Dog's workout regimen is featured.

In 1977 Chapman was sentenced to 5 years in prison and was remanded to Huntsville prison in Huntsville, Texas. When he was in prison, Duane and his first wife, LaFonda Honeycutt, divorced. He served 18 months of his 5 year sentence for the murder of Jerry Oliver in Pampa, Texas. Chapman maintains his innocence of murder but suggests he was a legal accessory for not reporting the shooting to the police. He was released on parole. Two of his co-defendants received probation and a third, their alleged shooter, received ten years in prison.

In 2006, he married his fifth wife, Beth Smith, on his television show in Hawaii. They were together for ten years before they married.

Duane Lee "Dog" Chapman also studies Native American History as a hobby.
Bounty hunting

Chapman's career in bounty hunting began when he was in court disputing child support. When he told the judge he did not have the money to pay, the judge offered him a deal to bring in a fugitive in exchange for the judge to pay part of Chapman's child support for Duane Lee and Leland Chapman. He started his first bondsman business in his hometown of Denver, Colorado before moving to Hawaii with five of his children: Leland Chapman, Duane Lee Chapman, Tucker, Baby Lyssa and Barbara Katie. After his mother's death, he moved back to Colorado for a long stay to work alongside his sister, Jolene Chapman, who also started her own bail bond business on 'Bail Bond's Row'. Duane Chapman and his wife Alice Barmore (now known as Beth Chapman) soon joined with him on his bounties and business. Both moved back to Hawaii to open up another office in downtown Honolulu. This business has been extended to within Hawaii to the Big Island and Maui. He has arrested more than 7,000 people.
Arrest by Mexican government
Main article: Andrew Luster

On June 18, 2003, Chapman made news with his hunt and capture of Max Factor cosmetics heir Andrew Luster, who at the time was in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Luster had fled the United States in the middle of his trial for drugging and raping a number of women, and was convicted in absentia on 86 counts including multiple rape charges connected to assaults in 1996, 1997 and 2000. Chapman was assisted by his "hunt team", consisting of his son Leland and his associate, Tim Chapman . After Luster's jailing, Duane Chapman was interviewed for a documentary which was published on 2009 August 28 by Dominick Dunne on Power, Privilege, and Justice broadcast via the TruTV network.

On September 14, 2006, days before the expiration of the statute of limitations, Chapman, along with his son Leland Chapman and associate Tim Chapman, were arrested by United States Marshals and jailed in Honolulu on behalf of the Mexican government. Mexican authorities had charged all three with deprivation of liberty, involving the 2003 apprehension of Andrew Luster, because they had not handed Luster over to them. After not obtaining permission to leave the country in 2003, the Mexican Government declared Duane, Leleand and Tim Chapman, fugitives from justice and tried to get them extradited to Mexico for sentencing. After spending one night in the federal detention center in Honolulu, Chapman told reporters: "The federal marshals treated us with great respect. But let me tell you, you never want to go to a federal prison, because it's terrible."

The next day, September 15, 2006, Chapman appeared in a packed Honolulu courtroom with his ankles shackled. Although the judge agreed that the men were not a flight risk, he ordered that each wear an electronic monitoring device around the ankle.  The three men were released on bail ($300,000 for Duane Chapman, $100,000 each for Leland Chapman and Tim Chapman). They were also ordered to wear an electronic ankle bracelet for house arrest.

Beth Chapman was detained and had a hearing after she was caught wearing an A&E body microphone when entering the courthouse for their bond hearing; electronic recording devices are prohibited by law from being carried into federal courthouses. She was released after explaining that she "didn't know they had the mic and transmitter"; the judge was satisfied that no recording was done.

Chapman was fighting extradition in September 2006. His lead attorney Brook Hart reportedly planned to argue that although the charge Chapman faced is a misdemeanor in Mexico, when translated into English it became a felony (kidnapping) under American law. An extradition hearing was set for November 16, 2006, where both sides were to present evidence and witnesses. Chapman has speculated that his arrest was due in part to a possible prisoner exchange agreement between the Mexican and American authorities. According to Chapman, the federal agents 'sold him out', by trading him in for a convicted Mexican drug lord. Duane, Leland, and Tim had their ankle bracelets removed so they could work.

On October 11, 2006, reports surfaced of an open letter dated September 26, 2006, sent on Chapman's behalf by 29 Republican Congressmen to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The letter stated the authors' opposition to Chapman's extradition and requested that Rice deny Mexico's request for same. Subsequently on October 20, 2006, lawyers for Chapman said that the Mexican federal court had granted them an order that halted the criminal case against the bounty hunter until further evidence and witness testimony were gathered.

A court hearing was held on December 22, 2006. The original hearing was postponed because a report from a lower court was not yet received. The court heard both sides of the story, and then decided to recess. Then court proceedings started on January 16, 2007 and the court had up to Tuesday, February 6, 2007 but the deadline was extended.

On February 16, 2007, a Mexican Federal court cleared the way for Duane Chapman to be extradited, ruling there was no reason not to try him with the charge of deprivation of liberty in Mexico. They also added that Mr. Chapman would not last five days in a Mexican prison. In response, on February 23, Hawaii State Representatives Gene Ward, Karen Awana, Rida Cabanilla, Lynn Finnegan, Barbara Marumoto, Colleen Meyer, Kymberly Pine, Joe Bertram, Ken Ito, Marylin Lee, and John Mizuno introduced 'House concurrent resolution 50', "Requesting the President of Mexico and the Second District Court of Guadalajara to drop extradition charges against TV Bounty Hunter, Duane 'Dog' Chapman".

Chapman, along with his lawyer, William C. Bollard, has appeared on numerous media shows. Some of these include: Larry King Live, Greta Van Susteren, Mark and Mercedez Morning Show on Mix 94.1 KMXB in Las Vegas, The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet on WFLD, Fox 6 News San Diego, The Glenn Beck Program, and THE 9 on Yahoo!.

On March 7, 2007, legislators in the International Affairs Committee of the Hawaii State House passed a resolution that asks the Mexican government to drop the extradition proceedings against Duane, Leland and Tim Chapman.

Honolulu news outlet KHNL reported on August 1, 2007 that the arrest warrant issued for Chapman and his associates may now be invalidated, as a Mexican court has found that the statute of limitations regarding the arrest has expired. The 15-page legal order was released in Spanish and was translated and verified for legal acuity. The case against the bounty hunters may still be open to legal recourse by Mexican prosecutors.

On August 2, 2007, the First Criminal Court in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, dismissed all criminal charges pending against Duane, Tim and Leland Chapman on the grounds that the statute of limitations had expired. The order effectively canceled all pending charges. The ruling, however, was appealed by the prosecution in order to overturn the lower court's decision. A&E was told that in Mexico, rulings against the prosecution are generally appealed as a matter of principle.

On November 5, 2007, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barry Kurren dismissed the extradition attempt, saying that even though the cases were appealed, the trio are no longer charged with any offenses.
Racial slur and fall out

In March 2007, during a taped conversation with his son Tucker, Chapman used strong language, including the word "******," when referring to Monique Shinnery, his son's African-American girlfriend:
“ Duane "Dog" Chapman: I don't care if she's a Mexican, a whore or whatever. It's not because she's black, it's because we use the word ****** sometimes here. I'm not gonna take a chance ever in life of losing everything I've worked for for 30 years because some fudgeing ****** heard us say ****** and turned us in to the Enquirer magazine. Our career is over! I'm not taking that chance at all! Never in life! Never! Never! If Lyssa was dating a ******, we would all say 'fudge you!' And you know that. If Lyssa brought a black guy home, ya da da... it's not that they're black, it's none of that. It's that we use the word ******. We don't mean you fudgeing scum ****** without a soul. We don't mean that sheesh. But America would think we mean that. And we're not taking a chance on losing everything we got over a racial slur because our son goes with a girl like that. I can't do that, Tucker. You can't expect Gary, Bonnie, Cecily, all them young kids to because 'I'm in love for 7 months' - fudge that! So, I'll help you get another job but you cannot work here unless you break up with her and she's out of your life. I can't handle that sheesh. I got 'em in the parking lot trying to record us. I got that girl saying she's gonna wear a recorder...

Tucker Chapman: I don't even know what to say.


The audiotape, which Tucker sold to the National Enquirer, was posted online on October 31, 2007, and prompted a coalition of civil rights leaders to call for Chapman's popular Dog the Bounty Hunter show on A&E to be canceled. After the tape was made public, A&E announced it was suspending production for the series pending an investigation. Conservative civil rights leader Roy Innis said that Chapman "should not have a show."

On October 31, 2007, Chapman issued a public apology:
“ "My sincerest, heartfelt apologies go out to every person I have offended for my regrettable use of very inappropriate language. I am deeply disappointed in myself for speaking out of anger to my son and using such a hateful term in a private phone conversation. It was completely taken out of context. I was disappointed in his choice of a friend, not due to her race, but her character. However, I should have never used that term. I have the utmost respect and aloha for black people – who have already suffered so much due to racial discrimination and acts of hatred. I did not mean to add yet another slap in the face to an entire race of people who have brought so many gifts to this world. I am ashamed of myself and I pledge to do whatever I can to repair this damage I have caused. You see, I live in Hawaii, and we just don't get a whole lotta black people down here in the Aloha State.

"In Hawaii, we have something called Ho'oponopono, where people come together to resolve crises and restore peace and balance. I am meeting with my spiritual advisor, Rev. Tim Storey, and hope to meet with other black leaders so they can see who I really am and teach me the right thing to do to make things right, again.

"I know that all of my fans are deeply disappointed in me, as well, as I have tried to be a model for doing the right thing. I did not do the right thing this time, and hope you will forgive me. We learn from our mistakes, as my story of overcoming a life of crime has proven, and I will learn from this one for the rest of my life."


On November 2, 2007, A&E announced it is removing the show from their schedule "for the foreseeable future." On the same day Yum Brands announced pulling ad support for the TV series.

On December 21, 2007, Roy Innis, the chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, one of the first to call the A&E network to have the show taken off the air, met with Alicia Colon of The New York Sun and Chapman. Innis stated for the daily newspaper, "After meeting with him and his wife, Beth, and hearing his side of the story, we realized that the controversy had unjustly spiraled out of control without context."

He went on to say, "Duane has taken ownership of the damage of his words and has taken on the responsibility of being a racial healer for our country... I have been with this man several times and had extensive dialogues with him. I consider him and his wife good friends. Duane is a changed man and has a higher purpose. Popular television is a wasteland of meaningless titillation and degradation. The Dog's potential to take his celebrity and turn it into something redeeming for our culture and society is immense. It is for these reasons that we want his television show back on the air."
Renewal of show

Innis' December 2007 statement and a petition with over 40,000 signatures requested the return of Chapman's program. On February 19, 2008, A&E announced that the show would return. Reruns of Dog The Bounty Hunter, along with never before seen episodes from season 4, began airing on June 25, 2008. New episodes (the show's fifth season) began airing on July 16, 2008.

The show is currently into its seventh season, the first episode of which aired on December 2, 2009.
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Dog,The Bounty Hunter.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/03/10 at 6:03 am

The word of the day...Nurse
A nurse is a person whose job is to care for people who are ill.
If you nurse someone, you care for them when they are ill.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/03/10 at 6:12 am

The person born on this day...Maura Tierney
Maura Therese Tierney (born February 3, 1965) is an American film and television actress, who is likely best known for her roles as Lisa Miller on NewsRadio and Abby Lockhart on the television medical drama ER. Following ER, Tierney was set to star in the NBC series, Parenthood; however, she left the show after filming the pilot to undergo treatment for breast cancer
After appearing in several plays, she moved to Los Angeles, California and in 1987 got her first break in a role in Walt Disney's made-for-TV film Student Exchange. Tierney's first starring role in a film was in a low-budget, independently-produced film called Dead Women in Lingerie, shot in 24 days. The film never received a theatrical release, although it was released on DVD in 2005.

Tierney continued winning small roles in film and television, though it was not until her leading role in the sitcom NewsRadio from 1995–1999 that she received regular national exposure. While she was a NewsRadio cast member, she also appeared in two successful films (Primal Fear and Forces of Nature), and the even more successful Jim Carrey film Liar Liar.

After NewsRadio was canceled, Tierney decided not to pursue a role in another sitcom:
hen NewsRadio got canceled, ... I thought, there's probably not gonna be something like again for me...So then, when ER called,...that was a way to stay in that would remain interesting for me.

Tierney played Nurse Abigail "Abby" Lockhart on ER, a character that began as a guest appearance as an OB nurse in November 1999, then expanded in February 2000 to a full-time regular part as an ER nurse (and later, after completion of medical school, a full-on ER doctor). Within a year, her work on ER had earned her an Emmy Award nomination, recognition she credits to a "juicy" story arc featuring Sally Field as Lockhart's mother, who suffers from bipolar disorder.

Tierney confirmed in April 2008 that she would be leaving ER shortly after the beginning of the show's fifteenth season. In October 2008, she made her final regular appearance on the series after nearly 10 seasons on the show. She did return to make a cameo appearance on one additional episode later on during the final season.

As of 2007 Tierney's highest-profile film since joining the cast of ER was the 2002 film Insomnia. That same year she also starred in Scotland, Pa., portraying a Lady Macbeth-like character written specifically for her by then-husband Billy Morrissette. She was praised by critics for her performance. She collaborated with NewsRadio writer Joe Furey for a special, "Working with Joe Furey" featurette for Furey's film Love and Support. In 2004, Tierney won the second season tournament of Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown against Lauren Graham.

She returned to the stage in May 2006 in an appearance opposite Eric McCormack in the off-Broadway premiere of Some Girl(s). She also appeared in the 2008 films Semi-Pro, Baby Mama, The Go-Getter and Finding Amanda.

Tierney played the role of Laurel in the off-Broadway play Three Changes with Dylan McDermott. from September 16 to October 4, 2008.
Personal life

Tierney married actor-director Billy Morrissette on February 1, 1993, two days before her 28th birthday, after the two met on the set of a never-aired television series. She filed for divorce 13 years later, citing irreconcilable differences. They had no children.

On February 1, 2009, which would have been her own 16th wedding anniversary, she officiated at the wedding of ER castmate/friend, Parminder Nagra and photographer James Stenson.

On December 14, 2009, Maura's father, former Boston City Council President Joseph M. Tierney, died at his Hyde Park home at age 68 after a brief battle with cancer.
Breast cancer

Tierney had been cast to star in the 2009 NBC drama, Parenthood. According to The Hollywood Reporter on July 10, 2009, the series was pushed to midseason. Filming had been scheduled to begin July 27. Production has been postponed for eight weeks to late September, according to NBC, "due to medical evaluation that (Tierney) is undergoing ... e are unable to release further details and ask that you respect her privacy at this time."

On July 13, 2009 it was announced that Tierney would have surgery to remove a tumor from her breast. On September 10, 2009, it was announced that she had left the cast of Parenthood due to schedule conflicts with her cancer treatments, and would not be returning to the show. Lauren Graham replaced her.
Filmography
Year Title Role Notes
1987 Student Exchange Kathy Maltby TV movies.
1988 Crossing the Mob Michelle
The Van Dyke Show
10 episodes Jillian Ryan
1989 Family Ties
Ep: My Best Friend's Girl Darlene
1990 Booker
Ep: Reunion Donna Cofax
Flying Blind Donna TV movie.
1991 Dead Women in Lingerie Molly Field
The Linguini Incident Cecelia
Law & Order
Ep: Aria Patricia 'Patti' Blaine
1992 White Sands Noreen
1993 Fly by Night Denise
The Temp Sharon Derns
1994 Lifestories: Families in Crisis
Ep: A Body to Die For: The Aaron Henry Story
Out of Darkness Meg TV movie.
704 Hauser
5 episodes Cherlyn
1995 Mercy Simonet
NewsRadio
97 episodes
1995-1999 Lisa Miller
1996 Primal Fear Naomi Chance
1997 Liar Liar Audrey Reede
1998 Primary Colors Daisy Green
1999 Forces of Nature Bridget Cahill
Oxygen Det. Madeline Foster
Instinct Lynn Powell
ER
189 episodes
1999-2009 Dr. Abby Lockhart
2000 Mexico City Pam on Phone (voice)
King of the Hill
Ep: Movin' On Up Tanya (voice)
2001 Scotland, Pa Pat McBeth
2002 Insomnia Rachel Clement
Rooftop Kisses Denise
The Nazi Helen
2003 Melvin Goes to Dinner Leslie
2004 Welcome to Mooseport Sally Mannis
2006 Danny Roane: First Time Director Maura Tierney
Diggers Gina
2007 The Go-Getter Hal's Pets
2008 Semi-Pro Lynn
Baby Mama Caroline
Finding Amanda Lorraine Mendon
2009 Rescue Me
6 episodes Kelly McPhee
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/03/10 at 6:16 am

The person who died on this day...Buddy Holly
Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959), known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll. Although his success lasted only a year and a half before his death in an airplane crash, Holly is described by critic Bruce Eder as "the single most influential creative force in early rock and roll." His works and innovations inspired and influenced both his contemporaries and later musicians, notably The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, Don McLean, and Bob Dylan, and exerted a profound influence on popular music.

Holly was in the first group of inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Holly #13 among "The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time".
Holly saw Elvis Presley sing in Lubbock in 1955 and began to incorporate a rockabilly style into his music, which gradually evolved into rock music. On October 15, he opened on the same bill with Presley in Lubbock, catching the eye of a Nashville talent scout. Holly's transition to rock continued when he opened for Bill Haley & His Comets at a local show organized by Eddie Crandall, the manager for Marty Robbins.

Following this performance, Decca Records signed him to a contract in February 1956, misspelling his name as "Holly". He adopted it for his professional career. Holly formed his own band, which would later be called the Crickets. It consisted of Holly (lead guitar and vocalist), Niki Sullivan (guitar), Joe B. Mauldin (bass), and Jerry Allison (drums).

They went to Nashville for three recording sessions with producer Owen Bradley. However, he chafed under a restrictive atmosphere that allowed him little input. Among the tracks he recorded was an early version of "That'll Be The Day", which took its title from a line that John Wayne's character says repeatedly in the 1956 film, The Searchers. (This initial version of the song played more slowly and about half an octave higher than the later hit version.) Decca chose to release two singles, "Blue Days, Black Nights" and "Modern Don Juan", which failed to make an impression. On January 22, 1957, Decca informed Holly that his contract would not be renewed, insisting however that he could not record the same songs for anyone else for five years.
Norman Petty Recording Studios in Clovis, New Mexico

Holly then hired Norman Petty as manager, and the band began recording at Petty's studios in Clovis, New Mexico. Petty contacted music publishers and labels, and Brunswick Records, a subsidiary of Decca, signed the Crickets on March 19, 1957. Holly signed as a solo artist with another Decca subsidiary, Coral Records. This put him in the unusual position of having two recording contracts at the same time.

On May 27, "That'll Be The Day" was released as a single, credited to the Crickets to try to bypass Decca's claimed legal rights. When the song became a hit, Decca decided not to press its claim. "That'll Be the Day" topped the US "Best Sellers in Stores" chart on September 23 and was the UK Singles Chart for three weeks in November. The Crickets performed "That'll Be the Day" and "Peggy Sue", on The Ed Sullivan Show on December 1.

Holly managed to bridge the racial divide that marked rock n' roll. While Elvis made black music more acceptable to white audiences, Holly won over an all-black audience when the Crickets were booked at New York's Apollo Theater for August 16–22, 1956. Unlike the immediate response shown in the 1978 movie The Buddy Holly Story, it actually took several performances for the audience to warm to him. In August 1957, the Crickets were the only white performers on a national tour.

As Holly was signed as both a solo artist and as part of the Crickets, two debut albums were released: The "Chirping" Crickets on November 27, 1957 and Buddy Holly on February 20, 1958. His singles "Peggy Sue" and "Oh Boy!" reached the top ten on both the United States and United Kingdom charts. Buddy Holly and the Crickets toured Australia in January 1958, and the UK in March. Their third and final album, That'll Be the Day, was put together from early recordings and was released in April.
Marriage

In June 1958, he met Maria Elena Santiago, who was working as a receptionist for Murray Deutch, an executive at Peer-Southern Music, a New York music publisher.

Holly managed to have Santiago invited to a luncheon at Howard Johnson's, thanks to Deutch's secretary, Jo Harper. He asked her to have dinner with him that night at P. J. Clarke's. Holly proposed marriage to her on their very first date. "While we were having dinner, he got up and came back with his hands behind his back. He brought out a red rose and said, "This is for you. Would you marry me?" He went to her guardian's house the next morning to get her approval. Santiago at first thought he was kidding, but they married in Lubbock on August 15, 1958, less than two months later. "I'd never had a boyfriend in my life. I'd never been on a date before. But when I saw Buddy, it was like magic. We had something special: love at first sight," she told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal on what would have been their 50th wedding anniversary. The newlyweds honeymooned in Acapulco.

Maria Elena traveled on tours, doing everything from the laundry to equipment setup to ensure the group got paid. Although Holly had already begun to become disillusioned with Norman Petty before meeting his bride, it was through Maria Elena and her aunt Provi, who was the head of Latin American music at Peer Southern, that he began to fully realize what was going on with his manager, who was paying the band's royalties into his own company's account.

Holly wrote the song "True Love Ways" about his relationship with his young wife. It was recorded in her presence on October 21, 1958 at Decca's Pythian Temple, with Dick Jacob, Coral-Brunswick's new head of Artists & Repertoire, serving as both producer and conductor of the eighteen-piece orchestra, which included members of the New York Symphony Orchestra, NBC Television's house orchestra and Abraham "Boomie" Richman, formerly of Benny Goodman's band.

It was not until Holly died that many fans became aware of his marriage.
Holly in New York

The ambitious Holly became increasingly interested in the New York music/recording/publishing scene, while his bandmates wanted to go back home to Lubbock. As a result, the group split up in late 1958. The Hollys settled in at Greenwich Village, New York, in the new Brevoort apartment block at 9th Street and Fifth Avenue. It was here that he recorded the series of acoustic songs, including "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" and "What to Do", known as the "Apartment Tapes", which were released after his death.

The Hollys frequented many of New York's music venues, including The Village Gate, Blue Note, Village Vanguard, and Johnny Johnson's. Maria Elena reported that Buddy was keen to learn finger-style flamenco guitar and would often visit her aunt's home to play the piano there. He wanted to develop collaborations between soul singers and rock 'n' roll, hoping to make an album with Ray Charles and gospel legend Mahalia Jackson. He also had ambitions to work in film, like Elvis Presley and Eddie Cochran, and registered for acting classes with Lee Strasburg's Actors' Studio, where the likes of Marlon Brando and James Dean had trained.

However, he was still having trouble getting his royalties from Petty, so he hired the noted lawyer Harold Orenstein at the recommendation of his friends, the Everly Brothers, who had engaged Orenstein following their own disputes with their manager Wesley Rose. Yet, with the money still being withheld by Petty and with rent due, Buddy was forced to go back on the road.
Death
Holly's headstone in the City of Lubbock Cemetery
Main article: The Day the Music Died

Buddy was offered the Winter Dance Party by the GAC agency, a three-week tour across the Midwest opening on January 23, 1959, with other notable performers such as Dion and the Belmonts, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. He assembled a backing band consisting of Tommy Allsup (guitar), Waylon Jennings (bass) and Carl Bunch (drums) and billed as The Crickets.

The tour turned out to be a miserable ordeal for the performers, who were subjected to long overnight travel in a bus plagued with a faulty heating system in -25°F (-32°C) temperatures. The bus also broke down several times between stops. Following a performance at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa on February 2, 1959, Holly chartered a small airplane to take him to the next stop on the tour. He, Valens, Richardson, and the pilot were killed en route to Moorhead, Minnesota, when their plane crashed soon after taking off from nearby Mason City in the early morning hours of February 3. Don McLean referred to it as "The Day the Music Died" in his song "American Pie".

Holly's funeral was held on February 7, 1959, at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Lubbock. The service was performed by Ben D. Johnson, who had presided at the Hollys' wedding just months earlier. The pallbearers were Jerry Allison, Joe B. Mauldin, Niki Sullivan, Bob Montgomery, Sonny Curtis and Phil Everly. Waylon Jennings was unable to attend due to his commitment to the still touring Winter Dance Party. The body was interred in the City of Lubbock Cemetery in the eastern part of the city. Holly's headstone carries the correct spelling of his surname (Holley) and a carving of his Fender Stratocaster guitar.

Holly's pregnant wife became a widow after barely six months of marriage and miscarried soon after. María Elena Holly did not attend the funeral and has never visited the grave site. She later told the Avalanche-Journal:

    In a way, I blame myself. I was not feeling well when he left. I was two weeks pregnant, and I wanted Buddy to stay with me, but he had scheduled that tour. It was the only time I wasn't with him. And I blame myself because I know that, if only I had gone along, Buddy never would have gotten into that airplane.

Style

Holly's music was sophisticated for its day, including the use of instruments considered novel for rock and roll, such as the celesta (heard on "Everyday"). Holly was an influential lead and rhythm guitarist, notably on songs such as "Peggy Sue" and "Not Fade Away". While Holly could pump out boy-loves-girl songs with the best of his contemporaries, other songs featured more sophisticated lyrics and more complex harmonies and melodies than had previously appeared in the genre.

Many of his songs feature a unique vocal "hiccup" technique, a glottal stop, to emphasize certain words in any given song, especially the rockers. Other singers (such as Elvis) have used a similar technique, though less obviously and consistently. Examples of this can be found at the start of the raucous "Rave On!": "Weh-eh-ell, the little things you say and do, make me want to be with you-ou..."; in "That'll Be the Day": "Well, you give me all your lovin' and your -turtle dovin'..."; and in "Peggy Sue": "I love you Peggy Sue - with a love so rare and tr-ue ...".
Influence
Buddy Holly statue on the Lubbock Walk of Fame

Holly set the template for the standard rock and roll band: two guitars, bass, and drums. He was also one of the first in the genre to write, produce, and perform his own songs.

Contrary to popular belief, teenagers John Lennon and Paul McCartney did not attend a Holly concert, although they watched his TV appearance on Sunday Night at the London Palladium; Tony Bramwell, a school friend of McCartney and George Harrison, did. Bramwell met Holly, and freely shared his records with all three. Lennon and McCartney later cited Holly as a primary influence. (Their band's name, The Beatles, was chosen partly in homage to Holly's Crickets.) The Beatles did a cover version of "Words of Love" that was a close reproduction of Holly's version, released on 1964's Beatles for Sale. During the January 1969 sessions for the Let It Be album, the Beatles played a slow impromptu version of "Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues" — although not written by Holly, it was popularized by him — with Lennon mimicking Holly's vocal style; the recording was eventually released in the mid-1990s on Anthology 3. Paul McCartney's band Wings recorded their version of "Love is Strange" on their first album Wild Life. In addition, John Lennon recorded a cover version of "Peggy Sue" on his 1975 album Rock 'n' Roll. McCartney owns the publishing rights to Holly's song catalogue.

A 17-year-old Bob Dylan attended the January 31, 1959 show, two nights before Holly's death. Dylan referred to this in his 1998 Grammy acceptance speech for his Time out of Mind being named Album of the Year:

    And I just want to say that when I was sixteen or seventeen years old, I went to see Buddy Holly play at Duluth National Guard Armory and I was three feet away from him...and he LOOKED at me. And I just have some sort of feeling that he was — I don't know how or why — but I know he was with us all the time we were making this record in some kind of way.

The Holly mural on 19th Street in Lubbock

Keith Richards attended one of Holly's performances, where he heard "Not Fade Away" for the first time. The Rolling Stones had an early hit covering the song.

In an August 24, 1978 Rolling Stone interview, Bruce Springsteen told Dave Marsh, "I play Buddy Holly every night before I go on; that keeps me honest."

Various rock and roll histories have asserted that the singing group The Hollies were named in homage to Buddy Holly. According to the band's website, although the group admired Holly (and years later produced an album covering some of his songs), their name was inspired primarily by the sprigs of holly in evidence around Christmas of 1962.
Discography
Main article: Buddy Holly discography

Buddy Holly released only three albums in his lifetime. Nonetheless, he recorded so prolifically that Coral Records was able to release brand-new albums and singles for 10 years after his death, although the technical quality was very mixed, some being studio quality and others home recordings. Holly's simple demonstration recordings were overdubbed by studio musicians to bring them up to then-commercial standards. The best of these overdubbed records is often considered to be the first posthumous single, the 1959 coupling of "Peggy Sue Got Married" and "Crying, Waiting, Hoping", produced by Jack Hansen, with added backing vocals by the Ray Charles Singers in simulation of an authentic Crickets record. "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" was actually supposed to be the "A" side of the 45, with the backup group effectively echoing Buddy's call-and-response vocal. The Hansen session, in which Holly's last six original compositions were overdubbed, was issued on the 1960 Coral LP The Buddy Holly Story, Vol. 2. But the best "posthumous" records were the studio recordings, which included "Wishing" and "Reminiscing".

Buddy Holly continued to be promoted and sold as an "active" artist, and his records had a loyal following, especially in Europe. The demand for unissued Holly material was so great that Norman Petty resorted to overdubbing whatever he could find: alternate takes of studio recordings, originally rejected masters, "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" and the other five 1959 tracks (adding new surf-guitar arrangements), and even Holly's amateur demos from 1954 (where the low-fidelity vocals are often muffled behind the new orchestrations). The last new Buddy Holly album was Giant (featuring the single "Love Is Strange"), issued in 1969. Between the 1959–60 Jack Hansen overdubs, the 1960s Norman Petty overdubs, various alternate takes, and Holly's undubbed originals, collectors can often choose from multiple versions of the same song.
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g222/icryintherain101/Buddy_Holly.jpg
http://i805.photobucket.com/albums/yy333/HotChantal69/buddy-holly-singing.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/mattrgarrett/Buddy.jpg
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c78/Bugsy88/Never%20to%20much%20stuffs/RS274-RS.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/03/10 at 6:43 am


The word of the day...Nurse
A nurse is a person whose job is to care for people who are ill.
If you nurse someone, you care for them when they are ill.
http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu50/kobe_034/DSCF4651.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v694/Kellycfan267/DH_20703632412-01-15.jpg
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/wlittle1686/Medical%20pictures/NH.jpg
http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r210/jram1203/Videos/IMG_0412.jpg
http://i832.photobucket.com/albums/zz242/Azeus420/JokerNurseGmail.jpg
http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae116/Twinderellas/Birth%20and%20NICU/Pictures/CaydyandTammy.jpg


http://www.ukemergency.co.uk/fire/dscd0180.jpg

They'll check your temperature for you.  ;) ;D^

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/03/10 at 7:50 am

One of my step-daughters is a nurse.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/03/10 at 9:08 am


One of my step-daughters is a nurse.



Cat

Does she like it.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/03/10 at 9:31 am


Does she like it.



I think so. I haven't heard her complain-not even about her hours.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/03/10 at 10:55 am


The person who died on this day...Buddy Holly
Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959), known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll. Although his success lasted only a year and a half before his death in an airplane crash, Holly is described by critic Bruce Eder as "the single most influential creative force in early rock and roll." His works and innovations inspired and influenced both his contemporaries and later musicians, notably The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, Don McLean, and Bob Dylan, and exerted a profound influence on popular music.

Holly was in the first group of inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Holly #13 among "The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time".
Holly saw Elvis Presley sing in Lubbock in 1955 and began to incorporate a rockabilly style into his music, which gradually evolved into rock music. On October 15, he opened on the same bill with Presley in Lubbock, catching the eye of a Nashville talent scout. Holly's transition to rock continued when he opened for Bill Haley & His Comets at a local show organized by Eddie Crandall, the manager for Marty Robbins.

Following this performance, Decca Records signed him to a contract in February 1956, misspelling his name as "Holly". He adopted it for his professional career. Holly formed his own band, which would later be called the Crickets. It consisted of Holly (lead guitar and vocalist), Niki Sullivan (guitar), Joe B. Mauldin (bass), and Jerry Allison (drums).

They went to Nashville for three recording sessions with producer Owen Bradley. However, he chafed under a restrictive atmosphere that allowed him little input. Among the tracks he recorded was an early version of "That'll Be The Day", which took its title from a line that John Wayne's character says repeatedly in the 1956 film, The Searchers. (This initial version of the song played more slowly and about half an octave higher than the later hit version.) Decca chose to release two singles, "Blue Days, Black Nights" and "Modern Don Juan", which failed to make an impression. On January 22, 1957, Decca informed Holly that his contract would not be renewed, insisting however that he could not record the same songs for anyone else for five years.
Norman Petty Recording Studios in Clovis, New Mexico

Holly then hired Norman Petty as manager, and the band began recording at Petty's studios in Clovis, New Mexico. Petty contacted music publishers and labels, and Brunswick Records, a subsidiary of Decca, signed the Crickets on March 19, 1957. Holly signed as a solo artist with another Decca subsidiary, Coral Records. This put him in the unusual position of having two recording contracts at the same time.

On May 27, "That'll Be The Day" was released as a single, credited to the Crickets to try to bypass Decca's claimed legal rights. When the song became a hit, Decca decided not to press its claim. "That'll Be the Day" topped the US "Best Sellers in Stores" chart on September 23 and was the UK Singles Chart for three weeks in November. The Crickets performed "That'll Be the Day" and "Peggy Sue", on The Ed Sullivan Show on December 1.

Holly managed to bridge the racial divide that marked rock n' roll. While Elvis made black music more acceptable to white audiences, Holly won over an all-black audience when the Crickets were booked at New York's Apollo Theater for August 16–22, 1956. Unlike the immediate response shown in the 1978 movie The Buddy Holly Story, it actually took several performances for the audience to warm to him. In August 1957, the Crickets were the only white performers on a national tour.

As Holly was signed as both a solo artist and as part of the Crickets, two debut albums were released: The "Chirping" Crickets on November 27, 1957 and Buddy Holly on February 20, 1958. His singles "Peggy Sue" and "Oh Boy!" reached the top ten on both the United States and United Kingdom charts. Buddy Holly and the Crickets toured Australia in January 1958, and the UK in March. Their third and final album, That'll Be the Day, was put together from early recordings and was released in April.
Marriage

In June 1958, he met Maria Elena Santiago, who was working as a receptionist for Murray Deutch, an executive at Peer-Southern Music, a New York music publisher.

Holly managed to have Santiago invited to a luncheon at Howard Johnson's, thanks to Deutch's secretary, Jo Harper. He asked her to have dinner with him that night at P. J. Clarke's. Holly proposed marriage to her on their very first date. "While we were having dinner, he got up and came back with his hands behind his back. He brought out a red rose and said, "This is for you. Would you marry me?" He went to her guardian's house the next morning to get her approval. Santiago at first thought he was kidding, but they married in Lubbock on August 15, 1958, less than two months later. "I'd never had a boyfriend in my life. I'd never been on a date before. But when I saw Buddy, it was like magic. We had something special: love at first sight," she told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal on what would have been their 50th wedding anniversary. The newlyweds honeymooned in Acapulco.

Maria Elena traveled on tours, doing everything from the laundry to equipment setup to ensure the group got paid. Although Holly had already begun to become disillusioned with Norman Petty before meeting his bride, it was through Maria Elena and her aunt Provi, who was the head of Latin American music at Peer Southern, that he began to fully realize what was going on with his manager, who was paying the band's royalties into his own company's account.

Holly wrote the song "True Love Ways" about his relationship with his young wife. It was recorded in her presence on October 21, 1958 at Decca's Pythian Temple, with Dick Jacob, Coral-Brunswick's new head of Artists & Repertoire, serving as both producer and conductor of the eighteen-piece orchestra, which included members of the New York Symphony Orchestra, NBC Television's house orchestra and Abraham "Boomie" Richman, formerly of Benny Goodman's band.

It was not until Holly died that many fans became aware of his marriage.
Holly in New York

The ambitious Holly became increasingly interested in the New York music/recording/publishing scene, while his bandmates wanted to go back home to Lubbock. As a result, the group split up in late 1958. The Hollys settled in at Greenwich Village, New York, in the new Brevoort apartment block at 9th Street and Fifth Avenue. It was here that he recorded the series of acoustic songs, including "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" and "What to Do", known as the "Apartment Tapes", which were released after his death.

The Hollys frequented many of New York's music venues, including The Village Gate, Blue Note, Village Vanguard, and Johnny Johnson's. Maria Elena reported that Buddy was keen to learn finger-style flamenco guitar and would often visit her aunt's home to play the piano there. He wanted to develop collaborations between soul singers and rock 'n' roll, hoping to make an album with Ray Charles and gospel legend Mahalia Jackson. He also had ambitions to work in film, like Elvis Presley and Eddie Cochran, and registered for acting classes with Lee Strasburg's Actors' Studio, where the likes of Marlon Brando and James Dean had trained.

However, he was still having trouble getting his royalties from Petty, so he hired the noted lawyer Harold Orenstein at the recommendation of his friends, the Everly Brothers, who had engaged Orenstein following their own disputes with their manager Wesley Rose. Yet, with the money still being withheld by Petty and with rent due, Buddy was forced to go back on the road.
Death
Holly's headstone in the City of Lubbock Cemetery
Main article: The Day the Music Died

Buddy was offered the Winter Dance Party by the GAC agency, a three-week tour across the Midwest opening on January 23, 1959, with other notable performers such as Dion and the Belmonts, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. He assembled a backing band consisting of Tommy Allsup (guitar), Waylon Jennings (bass) and Carl Bunch (drums) and billed as The Crickets.

The tour turned out to be a miserable ordeal for the performers, who were subjected to long overnight travel in a bus plagued with a faulty heating system in -25°F (-32°C) temperatures. The bus also broke down several times between stops. Following a performance at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa on February 2, 1959, Holly chartered a small airplane to take him to the next stop on the tour. He, Valens, Richardson, and the pilot were killed en route to Moorhead, Minnesota, when their plane crashed soon after taking off from nearby Mason City in the early morning hours of February 3. Don McLean referred to it as "The Day the Music Died" in his song "American Pie".

Holly's funeral was held on February 7, 1959, at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Lubbock. The service was performed by Ben D. Johnson, who had presided at the Hollys' wedding just months earlier. The pallbearers were Jerry Allison, Joe B. Mauldin, Niki Sullivan, Bob Montgomery, Sonny Curtis and Phil Everly. Waylon Jennings was unable to attend due to his commitment to the still touring Winter Dance Party. The body was interred in the City of Lubbock Cemetery in the eastern part of the city. Holly's headstone carries the correct spelling of his surname (Holley) and a carving of his Fender Stratocaster guitar.

Holly's pregnant wife became a widow after barely six months of marriage and miscarried soon after. María Elena Holly did not attend the funeral and has never visited the grave site. She later told the Avalanche-Journal:

    In a way, I blame myself. I was not feeling well when he left. I was two weeks pregnant, and I wanted Buddy to stay with me, but he had scheduled that tour. It was the only time I wasn't with him. And I blame myself because I know that, if only I had gone along, Buddy never would have gotten into that airplane.

Style

Holly's music was sophisticated for its day, including the use of instruments considered novel for rock and roll, such as the celesta (heard on "Everyday"). Holly was an influential lead and rhythm guitarist, notably on songs such as "Peggy Sue" and "Not Fade Away". While Holly could pump out boy-loves-girl songs with the best of his contemporaries, other songs featured more sophisticated lyrics and more complex harmonies and melodies than had previously appeared in the genre.

Many of his songs feature a unique vocal "hiccup" technique, a glottal stop, to emphasize certain words in any given song, especially the rockers. Other singers (such as Elvis) have used a similar technique, though less obviously and consistently. Examples of this can be found at the start of the raucous "Rave On!": "Weh-eh-ell, the little things you say and do, make me want to be with you-ou..."; in "That'll Be the Day": "Well, you give me all your lovin' and your -turtle dovin'..."; and in "Peggy Sue": "I love you Peggy Sue - with a love so rare and tr-ue ...".
Influence
Buddy Holly statue on the Lubbock Walk of Fame

Holly set the template for the standard rock and roll band: two guitars, bass, and drums. He was also one of the first in the genre to write, produce, and perform his own songs.

Contrary to popular belief, teenagers John Lennon and Paul McCartney did not attend a Holly concert, although they watched his TV appearance on Sunday Night at the London Palladium; Tony Bramwell, a school friend of McCartney and George Harrison, did. Bramwell met Holly, and freely shared his records with all three. Lennon and McCartney later cited Holly as a primary influence. (Their band's name, The Beatles, was chosen partly in homage to Holly's Crickets.) The Beatles did a cover version of "Words of Love" that was a close reproduction of Holly's version, released on 1964's Beatles for Sale. During the January 1969 sessions for the Let It Be album, the Beatles played a slow impromptu version of "Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues" — although not written by Holly, it was popularized by him — with Lennon mimicking Holly's vocal style; the recording was eventually released in the mid-1990s on Anthology 3. Paul McCartney's band Wings recorded their version of "Love is Strange" on their first album Wild Life. In addition, John Lennon recorded a cover version of "Peggy Sue" on his 1975 album Rock 'n' Roll. McCartney owns the publishing rights to Holly's song catalogue.

A 17-year-old Bob Dylan attended the January 31, 1959 show, two nights before Holly's death. Dylan referred to this in his 1998 Grammy acceptance speech for his Time out of Mind being named Album of the Year:

    And I just want to say that when I was sixteen or seventeen years old, I went to see Buddy Holly play at Duluth National Guard Armory and I was three feet away from him...and he LOOKED at me. And I just have some sort of feeling that he was — I don't know how or why — but I know he was with us all the time we were making this record in some kind of way.

The Holly mural on 19th Street in Lubbock

Keith Richards attended one of Holly's performances, where he heard "Not Fade Away" for the first time. The Rolling Stones had an early hit covering the song.

In an August 24, 1978 Rolling Stone interview, Bruce Springsteen told Dave Marsh, "I play Buddy Holly every night before I go on; that keeps me honest."

Various rock and roll histories have asserted that the singing group The Hollies were named in homage to Buddy Holly. According to the band's website, although the group admired Holly (and years later produced an album covering some of his songs), their name was inspired primarily by the sprigs of holly in evidence around Christmas of 1962.
Discography
Main article: Buddy Holly discography

Buddy Holly released only three albums in his lifetime. Nonetheless, he recorded so prolifically that Coral Records was able to release brand-new albums and singles for 10 years after his death, although the technical quality was very mixed, some being studio quality and others home recordings. Holly's simple demonstration recordings were overdubbed by studio musicians to bring them up to then-commercial standards. The best of these overdubbed records is often considered to be the first posthumous single, the 1959 coupling of "Peggy Sue Got Married" and "Crying, Waiting, Hoping", produced by Jack Hansen, with added backing vocals by the Ray Charles Singers in simulation of an authentic Crickets record. "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" was actually supposed to be the "A" side of the 45, with the backup group effectively echoing Buddy's call-and-response vocal. The Hansen session, in which Holly's last six original compositions were overdubbed, was issued on the 1960 Coral LP The Buddy Holly Story, Vol. 2. But the best "posthumous" records were the studio recordings, which included "Wishing" and "Reminiscing".

Buddy Holly continued to be promoted and sold as an "active" artist, and his records had a loyal following, especially in Europe. The demand for unissued Holly material was so great that Norman Petty resorted to overdubbing whatever he could find: alternate takes of studio recordings, originally rejected masters, "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" and the other five 1959 tracks (adding new surf-guitar arrangements), and even Holly's amateur demos from 1954 (where the low-fidelity vocals are often muffled behind the new orchestrations). The last new Buddy Holly album was Giant (featuring the single "Love Is Strange"), issued in 1969. Between the 1959–60 Jack Hansen overdubs, the 1960s Norman Petty overdubs, various alternate takes, and Holly's undubbed originals, collectors can often choose from multiple versions of the same song.
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g222/icryintherain101/Buddy_Holly.jpg
http://i805.photobucket.com/albums/yy333/HotChantal69/buddy-holly-singing.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/mattrgarrett/Buddy.jpg
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c78/Bugsy88/Never%20to%20much%20stuffs/RS274-RS.jpg

A very talented man with great songs in short a short period of time.
Just imagine how many more hits we would have heard. He died much too young.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/03/10 at 12:05 pm


A very talented man with great songs in short a short period of time.
Just imagine how many more hits we would have heard. He died much too young.



Totally agree. But not just him but Richie Valens, & Jiles Perry Richardson, Jr. AKA The Big Bopper. Truly the day the music died.  :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'(



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/03/10 at 12:56 pm


The person who died on this day...Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff (November 23, 1887 – February 2, 1969) was an English actor who emigrated to Canada in the 1910s. He is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the 1931 film Frankenstein, 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein, and 1939 film Son of Frankenstein. His popularity following Frankenstein in the early 1930s was such that for a brief time he was billed simply as "Karloff" or, on some movie posters, "Karloff the Uncanny".
In 1909, Pratt travelled to Canada and some time later changed his professional name to "Boris Karloff". Some have theorized that he took the stage name from a mad scientist character in the novel The Drums of Jeopardy called "Boris Karlov". However, the novel was not published until 1920, at least eight years after Karloff had been using the name on stage and in silent films (Warner Oland played "Boris Karlov" in a movie version in 1931). Another possible influence was thought to be a character in the Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy novel H.R.H. The Rider which features a "Prince Boris of Karlova", but as the novel was not published until 1915, the influence may be backward, that Burroughs saw Karloff in a play and adapted the name for the character. Karloff always claimed he chose the first name "Boris" because it sounded foreign and exotic, and that "Karloff" was a family name. However, his daughter Sara Karloff publicly denied any knowledge of Slavic forebears, "Karloff" or otherwise. One reason for the name change was to prevent embarrassment to his family. Whether or not his brothers (all dignified members of the British foreign service) actually considered young William the "black sheep of the family" for having become an actor, Karloff himself apparently worried they did feel that way. He did not reunite with his family again until 1933, when he went back to England to make The Ghoul, extremely worried that his siblings would disapprove of his new, macabre claim to world fame. Instead, his elder brothers jostled for position around their "baby" brother and happily posed for publicity photographs with him.

Karloff joined the Jeanne Russell Co. in 1911 and performed in towns like Kamloops, BC and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. In 1912, while at Regina, Saskatchewan, he was present for a devastating tornado. He later took a job as a railway baggage handler and joined the Harry St. Clair Co., that performed in Minot, North Dakota, for a year, in an opera house above a hardware store.

Due to the years of difficult manual labor in Canada and the U.S. while trying to establish his acting career, he suffered back problems for the rest of his life. Because of his health, he did not fight in World War I.
Career in Hollywood
Karloff as The Monster from the Bride of Frankenstein trailer (1935)

Once Karloff arrived in Hollywood, he made dozens of silent films, but work was sporadic, and he often had to take up manual labor, such as digging ditches and driving a cement truck, to pay the bills. His role as Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (1931) made him a star. A year later, he played another iconic character, Imhotep, in The Mummy.

The five-foot, eleven-inch, brown-eyed Karloff played a wide variety of roles in other genres besides horror. He was memorably gunned down in a bowling alley in the 1932 film Scarface. He played a religious WWI soldier in the 1934 John Ford epic The Lost Patrol. Karloff gave a string of lauded performances in 1930s Universal horror movies, including several with his main rival for heir to the horror throne of Lon Chaney, Sr.: Béla Lugosi, whose refusal to play the monster in Frankenstein made Karloff's subsequent career possible. Karloff played Frankenstein's monster three times, the other films being Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939), which also featured Lugosi. Karloff would revisit the Frankenstein mythos in film several times after leaving the role. The first would be as the villainous Dr. Niemann in House of Frankenstein (1944), where Karloff would be contrasted against Glenn Strange's portrayal of the Monster.

Karloff returned to the role of the "mad scientist" in 1958's Frankenstein 1970, as Baron Victor von Frankenstein II, the grandson of the original inventor. The finale reveals that the crippled Baron has given his own face (i.e., "Karloff's") to the Monster. The actor appeared at a celebrity baseball game as the Monster in 1940, hitting a gag home run and making catcher Buster Keaton fall into an acrobatic dead faint as the Monster stomped into home plate. Norman Z. McLeod filmed a sequence in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Karloff in the Monster make-up, but it was deleted. Karloff donned the headpiece and neck bolts for the final time in 1962 for a Halloween episode of the TV series Route 66, but he was playing "Boris Karloff," who, within the story, was playing "the Monster."

While the long, creative partnership between Karloff and Lugosi never led to a close mutual friendship, it produced some of the actors' most revered and enduring productions, beginning with The Black Cat. Follow-ups included Gift of Gab (1934), The Raven (1935), The Invisible Ray (1936), Black Friday (1940), You'll Find Out (also 1940), and The Body Snatcher (1945). During this period he also starred with Basil Rathbone in Tower of London (1939).

From 1945-1946, Karloff appeared in three films for RKO produced by Val Lewton: Isle of the Dead, The Body Snatcher, and Bedlam. In a 1946 interview with Louis Berg of the Los Angeles Times, Karloff discussed his three-picture deal with RKO, his reasons for leaving Universal Pictures and working with producer Lewton. Karloff left Universal because he thought the Frankenstein franchise had run its course. The latest installment was what he called a "'monster clambake,' with everything thrown in - Frankenstein, Dracula, a hunchback and a 'man-beast' that howled in the night. It was too much. Karloff thought it was ridiculous and said so." Berg continues, "Mr. Karloff has great love and respect for Mr. Lewton as the man who rescued him from the living dead and restored, so to speak, his soul".

During this period, Karloff was also a frequent guest on radio programs, whether it was starring in Arch Oboler's Chicago-based Lights Out productions (most notably the episode "Cat Wife") or spoofing his horror image with Fred Allen or Jack Benny.

An enthusiastic performer, he returned to the Broadway stage in the original production of Arsenic and Old Lace in 1941, in which he played a homicidal gangster enraged to be frequently mistaken for Karloff. Although Frank Capra cast Raymond Massey in the 1944 film, (which was shot in 1941, while Karloff was still appearing in the role on Broadway), Karloff reprised the role on television with Tony Randall and Tom Bosley in a 1962 production on the Hallmark Hall of Fame. Somewhat less successful was his work in the J. B. Priestley play The Linden Tree. He also appeared as Captain Hook in the play Peter Pan with Jean Arthur. He was nominated for a Tony Award for his work opposite Julie Harris in The Lark, by the French playwright Jean Anouilh about Joan of Arc, which was also reprised on Hallmark Hall of Fame.

In later years, Karloff hosted and acted in a number of television series, most notably Thriller, Out of This World, and The Veil, the latter of which was never broadcast and only came to light in the 1990s. In the 1960s, Karloff appeared in several films for American International Pictures, including The Comedy of Terrors, The Raven, and The Terror, the latter two directed by Roger Corman, and Die, Monster, Die!

During the 1950s Karloff appeared on British TV in the series Colonel March of Scotland Yard, in which he portrayed John Dickson Carr's fictional detective Colonel March who was known for solving apparently impossible crimes.

As a guest on The Gisele MacKenzie Show, Karloff sings "Those Were the Good Old Days" from Damn Yankees, while Gisele MacKenzie performs the solo, "Give Me the Simple Life". On The Red Skelton Show, Karloff guest starred along with horror actor Vincent Price in a parody of Frankenstein, with Red Skelton as the monster "Klem Kadiddle Monster." In 1966 Karloff also appeared with Robert Vaughn and Stefanie Powers in the spy series The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., in the episode "The Mother Muffin Affair." Karloff performed in drag as the titular Mother Muffin. That same year he also played an Indian Maharajah on the adventure series The Wild Wild West ("The Night of the Golden Cobra"). In 1967, he played an eccentric Spanish professor who thinks he's Don Quixote in a whimsical episode of I Spy ("Mainly on the Plains").

In the mid-1960s, Karloff gained a late-career surge of American popularity when he narrated the made-for-television animated film of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and provided "the sounds of the Grinch" (the song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" was sung not by Karloff, but by American voice actor Thurl Ravenscroft). Karloff later won a Grammy in the spoken word category after the story was released as a record.

In 1968 he starred in Targets, a movie directed by Peter Bogdanovich about a young man who embarks on a spree of killings carried out with handguns and high powered rifles. The movie starred Karloff as "retired horror film actor" Byron Orlok (a lightly-disguised version of himself) facing an end of life crisis, resolved through a confrontation with the shooter.

Karloff ended his career appearing in a trio of low-budget Mexican horror films that were shot shortly before his death; all were released posthumously, with the last, The Incredible Invasion, not released until 1971, two years after Karloff's death.
Spoken Word

Other records Karloff made for the children's market included Three Little Pigs and Other Fairy Stories, Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories and, with Cyril Ritchard and Celeste Holm, Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, and Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark.
Personal life

In contrast to the sinister characters he played on screen, Karloff was known in real life as a very kind gentleman who gave generously, especially to children's charities. Beginning in 1940, Karloff dressed up as Santa Claus every Christmas to hand out presents to physically disabled children in a Baltimore hospital.

Karloff was also a charter member of the Screen Actors Guild, and was especially outspoken regarding working conditions on sets that actors were expected to deal with in the mid-1930s (some of which were extremely hazardous). He married six times and had one child, a daughter, by his fifth wife.

In 1931, Boris Karloff took out insurance against premature aging that might be caused by his fright make-up.
Death

Boris Karloff lived out his final years at his cottage, 'Roundabout,' in the Hampshire village of Bramshott. After a long battle with arthritis and emphysema, he contracted pneumonia, succumbing to it in King Edward VII Hospital, Midhurst, Sussex, England, on February 2, 1969. He was cremated, following a requested low-key service, at Guildford Crematorium, Godalming, Surrey, where he is commemorated by a plaque in the Garden of Remembrance. A memorial service was held at St Paul's, Covent Garden (The Actors' Church), London, where there is also a plaque.

However, even death could not put an immediate halt to Karloff's media career. Four Mexican films for which Karloff shot his scenes in Los Angeles were released over a two-year period after he had died. They were dismissed, by critics and fans alike as undistinguished efforts. Also, during the run of Thriller, Karloff lent his name and likeness to a comic book for Gold Key Comics based upon the series. After Thriller was cancelled, the comic was retitled Boris Karloff's Tales of Mystery. An illustrated likeness of Karloff continued to introduce each issue of this publication for nearly a decade after the real Karloff died; the comic lasted until the early 1980s.
Legacy

For his contribution to film and television, Boris Karloff was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 1737 Vine Street (for motion pictures) and 6664 Hollywood Boulevard (for television) (Lindsay, 1975).

In 1998, Karloff (as Frankenstein's Monster and The Mummy) was featured in a series of "Monster Stamps" issued by the U.S. Postal Service.

In the webcomic Schlock Mercenary, the AI responsible for piloting the mercenary warship Touch and Go is initially created with a spooky voice and demeanour attributed to it being given a 'Karloff Skin'.

Kirk Hammett has been seen using ESP guitars customized to bear images of Boris Karloff as The Mummy and as Frankenstien's monster. He owns the rights to both guitars and is not currently allowing ESP to release them.
Filmography
Further information: Boris Karloff filmography
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/15/19867211_edeee41dd7.jpg

A blue plaque for Boris Karloff in Forest Hill Road, East Dulwich, London

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 02/03/10 at 6:09 pm

Interesting and entertaining bio on Karloff. Thanks for sharing, Ninny.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/03/10 at 6:16 pm


A very talented man with great songs in short a short period of time.
Just imagine how many more hits we would have heard. He died much too young.


Totally agree. But not just him but Richie Valens, & Jiles Perry Richardson, Jr. AKA The Big Bopper. Truly the day the music died.  :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'(



Cat

This is true we lost 3 talented people that day :\'( :\'( :\'(

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/03/10 at 6:18 pm


http://farm1.static.flickr.com/15/19867211_edeee41dd7.jpg

A blue plaque for Boris Karloff in Forest Hill Road, East Dulwich, London

He was one of the greatest horror actors around

Interesting and entertaining bio on Karloff. Thanks for sharing, Ninny.  :)

I'm glad you liked it. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/03/10 at 6:53 pm


One of my step-daughters is a nurse.



Cat


is she a regular nurse?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/04/10 at 5:18 am

The word of the day...School
A school is a place where children are educated. You usually refer to this place as school when you are talking about the time that children spend there and the activities that they do there.
A school is the pupils or staff at a school.
A privately-run place where a particular skill or subject is taught can be referred to as a school.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/04/10 at 5:39 am

The person born on this day...Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier, February 4, 1948) is an American rock singer, songwriter and broadcaster whose career spans more than four decades. With a stage show that features guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, boa constrictors and baby dolls, Cooper has drawn equally from horror movies, vaudeville, and garage rock to pioneer a grandly theatrical and violent brand of heavy metal that was designed to shock.

Alice Cooper was originally a band consisting of Furnier on vocals and harmonica, lead guitarist Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar, and drummer Neal Smith. The original Alice Cooper band broke into the international music mainstream with the 1971 hit "I'm Eighteen" from the album Love it to Death, which was followed by the even bigger single "School's Out" in 1972. The band reached their commercial peak with the 1973 album Billion Dollar Babies.

Furnier's solo career as Alice Cooper, adopting the band's name as his own name, began with the 1975 concept album Welcome to My Nightmare. In 2008 he released Along Came a Spider, his 18th solo album. Expanding from his original Detroit rock roots, over the years Cooper has experimented with many different musical styles, including conceptual rock, art rock, glam metal, hard rock, new wave, pop rock, soft rock, experimental rock and industrial rock. In recent times he has returned more to his garage rock roots.

Alice Cooper is known for his social and witty persona offstage, The Rolling Stone Album Guide going so far as to refer to him as the world's most "beloved heavy metal entertainer". He helped to shape the sound and look of heavy metal, and is seen as being the person who "first introduced horror imagery to rock'n'roll, and whose stagecraft and showmanship have permanently transformed the genre". Away from music, Cooper is a film actor, a golfing celebrity, a restaurateur and, since 2004, a popular radio DJ with his classic rock show Nights with Alice Cooper.

On VH1's "100 Greatest artists of Hard Rock", Cooper was ranked #20..

In 1968, upon learning that Todd Rundgren also had a band called Nazz, the band were again in need of another stage name. Furnier recognized that the group needed a gimmick to succeed, and that other bands were not exploiting the showmanship potential of the stage. He subsequently chose Alice Cooper as the band's name and adopted this stage name as his own.

Early press releases claimed that the name was agreed upon after a session with a Ouija board, during which it was revealed that Furnier was the reincarnation of a 17th century witch named Alice Cooper. However, it is now widely accepted that this story was in fact a publicity stunt—Cooper in later interviews confirmed that the name actually came out of thin air, conjuring an image of "a cute and sweet little girl with a hatchet behind her back". (The name was also once said to be an inside joke associated with a character in the television show Mayberry R.F.D.; Alice Cooper is also the name of Betty Cooper's mother in the Archie comic strips).

In later interviews, Cooper admitted that "Alice Cooper" was only intended to be the name of the band, as Cooper himself used his birth name (Vincent Furnier) during the band's early days. However, as the band played more shows, numerous fans were coming up to Cooper and saying, "Hey, Alice!" Cooper was unaware that the fans were addressing him, and was taken aback by the notion that the fans were mistaking the band's name for his own.

Nonetheless, at the time Cooper and the band realized that the concept of a male playing the role of an androgynous witch, in tattered women's clothing and wearing make-up, would definitely have the potential to cause considerable social controversy and grab headlines. Cooper has stated in interviews that his look was inspired in part by the film Barbarella. "When I saw Anita Pallenberg playing the Great Tyrant in that movie in 1968, wearing long black leather gloves with switchblades coming out of them, I thought, ‘That’s what Alice should look like.’ That, and a little bit of Emma Peel from The Avengers. Alice has also cited What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? as an influence on the make up.

" Furnier would later admit that the name change was one of his most important and brilliant career moves.

The classic Alice Cooper group line-up consisted of singer Alice Cooper (Vincent Furnier), lead guitarist Glen Buxton, rhythm guitarist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway, and drummer Neal Smith. With the exception of Smith, who graduated from Camelback High School (which is referred to in the song "Alma Mater" on the School's Out album), all of the band members were on the Cortez High School cross-country team, and many of Cooper's stage 'effects' were inspired by their cross-country coach, Emmett Smith (one of Smith's class projects was to build a working guillotine for slicing watermelons). Cooper, Buxton and Dunaway were also art students, and their admiration for the works of surrealist artists such as Salvador Dalí would further inspire their future stage antics.

One night, after an unsuccessful gig at a club in Venice, California called The Cheetah, where the band emptied the entire room of patrons after playing just ten minutes, they were approached and enlisted by music manager Shep Gordon, who ironically saw the band's seemingly negative impact that night as a force that could be directed in a more positive direction. Shep then managed to arrange an audition for the band with composer and renowned record producer Frank Zappa, who was looking to sign bizarre music acts to his new record label, Straight Records. For the audition, Zappa told them to come to his house "at 7 o'clock", however, the band mistakenly assumed he meant 7 o'clock in the morning. Being woken up by a band willing to play that particular brand of psychedelic rock at seven in the morning impressed Zappa enough to sign them on a three-album deal. It was another Zappa signed act, the all-female GTOs, who liked to "dress the Cooper boys up like full size barbie dolls", that played a major role in developing the band's early onstage look. Cooper's first album Pretties for You was released in 1969 and the album had a slight psychedelic feel to the album. Although it touched the US charts for one week at #193, ultimately met with critical and commercial failure.

After an unrehearsed stage routine involving Cooper and a live chicken garnered attention from the press, the band decided to capitalize on tabloid sensationalism, creating in the process a new subgenre, shock rock. Cooper claims that the infamous 'Chicken Incident', which took place at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival concert in September 1969, was in fact an accident. A chicken somehow made its way on stage during Cooper's performance; not having any experience around farm animals, Cooper presumed that, since the chicken had wings, it would be able to fly. He picked it up and threw it out over the crowd, expecting it to fly away; the bird instead plummeted into the first few rows of the crowd occupied by disabled people in wheelchairs, who reportedly proceeded to tear the animal to pieces.

The next day, the incident made the front page of many national newspapers, and Zappa phoned him to ask if the story, which reported that Cooper had bitten the head off the chicken and drunk its blood on stage, was true. Cooper denied the rumor, whereupon Zappa told him, "Well, whatever you do, don't tell anyone you didn't do it", obviously recognising that such kind of publicity would be priceless for the band.

Despite the publicity the band received from the Chicken Incident, their stronger second album, Easy Action, released in 1970, met with the same fate as its predecessor. Music label Warner Bros. Records then purchased Straight Records from Frank Zappa, and the Alice Cooper group was set to receive a higher level of promotion from the more major label. It was around this time that the band, fed up with Californians' indifference to their act, relocated to Cooper's birthplace, Detroit, where their bizarre stage act was much better received. Detroit would remain their steady home base until 1972. "LA just didn’t get it. They were all on the wrong drug for us. They were on acid and we were basically drinking beer. We fit much more in Detroit than we did anywhere else..."
1970s

In 1970, after two failed albums, the Alice Cooper group was teamed up with fledgling producer Bob Ezrin for their third album, the last in their contract with Straight Records, and the band's last chance to create a hit. That hit soon came with the single "I'm Eighteen", released in November 1970, which reached number 21 in the Billboard Hot 100. The album that followed, Love it to Death, released in February 1971, proved to be their breakthrough record, reaching number 35 in the U.S. Billboard 200 album charts. It would be the first of eleven Alice Cooper group and solo albums produced by Ezrin, who is widely seen as being instrumental in helping to create and develop the band's definitive sound. The band's trailblazing mix of glam and increasingly violent stage theatrics stood out in stark contrast to the bearded, denim-clad hippie bands of the time. As Cooper himself stated: "We were into fun, sex, death and money when everybody was into peace and love. We wanted to see what was next. It turned out we were next, and we drove a stake through the heart of the Love Generation".

Sporting tight sequined costumes by the prominent rock fashion designer Cindy Dunaway (sister of band member Neal Smith, and wife of band member Dennis Dunaway) and stage shows that involved mock fights and Gothic torture modes being imposed on Cooper, the androgynous stage role now presented a villainous side which posed a potential threat to modern society. With Cooper needing to be punished for his immoral ways, the first of a number of methods of execution were incorporated into the show: the Electric Chair. The success of the band's single, the album, and their tour of 1971, which saw their first and hugely successful tour of Europe (audience members reportedly included Elton John and David Bowie), provided enough encouragement for Warner Bros. to offer the band a new multi-album contract.

Their follow-up album Killer, released in late 1971, continued the commercial success of Love It To Death and included further single success with "Under My Wheels" and "Be My Lover" in early 1972, and "Halo Of Flies", which became a Top 10 hit in the Netherlands. Thematically, Killer expanded on the villainous side of Cooper's androgynous stage role, with its music becoming the soundtrack to the group's morality-based stage show, which by then featured a boa constrictor hugging Cooper onstage and the murderous axe chopping of bloodied dead baby dolls. In addition, the method of execution had developed into death by hanging: The Gallows. By mid-1972, the Alice Cooper show had become infamous, but what the band really needed was a big hit single.

That summer saw the release of the appropriately titled single "School's Out". It went Top 10 in the US, was a #1 single in the UK, and remains a staple on classic rock radio to this day. School's Out the album reached #2 on the US charts and sold over a million copies. The band now relocated to their new mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. With Cooper's on-stage androgynous persona completely replaced with brattiness and machismo, the band's traveling carnival of filth and terror cemented their success with subsequent tours in the US and Europe, and won over devoted fans in droves while at the same time horrifying parents and outraging the social establishment.

In England, Mary Whitheouse, a well known campaigner for values of morality and decency, succeeded in having the BBC ban the video for "School's Out" and Member of Parliament Leo Abse petitioned Home Secretary Reginald Maudling to have the group banned altogether from performing in the country. However, this seemed to have little effect on the band's popularity, as they were selected to be the first band to appear on the television series ABC In Concert in September 1972, and in February 1973 Billion Dollar Babies appeared, which was the band's most commercially successful album. It reached #1 in both the US and UK, and is also viewed by many critics as representing the band's creative peak. "Elected", a 1972 Top 10 UK hit from the album, which inspired one of the first MTV-style story-line promo videos ever made for a song (three years before Queen's promotional video for "Bohemian Rhapsody"), was followed by two more UK Top 10 singles, "Hello Hooray" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy", the latter of which was the last UK single from the album; it reached #25 in the US. The title track, featuring guest vocals by Donovan, was also a US hit single. Due to Glen Buxton's health problems, around this time, Mick Mashbir was added to the band (who also played, without credit, on Muscle of Love).

With a string of successful concept albums and several hit singles, the band continued their grueling schedule and toured the US once again. Continued attempts by politicians and pressure groups to ban their shocking act only served to fuel the myth of Alice Cooper further and generate even greater public interest. Their 1973 US tour broke box office records previously set by The Rolling Stones and raised rock theatrics to new heights; the multi-level stage show by then featured numerous special effects, including Billion Dollar Bills, decapitated baby dolls and mannequins, a dental psychosis scene complete with dancing teeth, and the ultimate execution prop and highlight of the show: the guillotine. The guillotine and other stage effects were designed for the band by magician James Randi, who appeared on stage during some of the shows as executioner. The Alice Cooper group had now reached its peak and it was among the most visible and successful acts in the industry. (Cooper's stage antics would influence a host of later bands, including, among others, Kiss, Blue Öyster Cult, GWAR, W.A.S.P. and, later, Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie.) Beneath the surface, however, the repetitive schedule of recording and touring had begun to take its toll on the band, and Cooper, who was under the constant pressure of getting into character for that night's show, was consistently sighted nursing a can of beer.

Muscle of Love, released at the end of 1973, was to be the last studio album from the classic line-up, and marked Alice Cooper's last UK Top 20 single of the 1970s with "Teenage Lament '74". A theme song was recorded for the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun, but a different song of the same name by Lulu was chosen instead. By 1974, the Muscle of Love album had not matched the top-charting success of its predecessor, and the band began to have constant disagreements. Cooper wanted to retain the theatrics in the show that had brought them so much attention, while the rest of the group thought they should be toned down so that they could concentrate more on the music which had given them credibility. Largely as a result of this difference of opinion, the band decided to take a much-needed hiatus.

During this time, Cooper relocated back to Los Angeles and started appearing regularly on TV shows such as Hollywood Squares, and Warner Bros. released the Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits compilation album which featured classic artwork and which performed better than Muscle of Love, reaching the US Top 10. However, the band's feature film Good To See You Again, Alice Cooper (mainly concert footage with a faint storyline and 'comedic' sketches woven throughout), released on a minor theatrical run mostly to drive-in theaters, saw little box office success.

As some of the Alice Cooper band's members had begun recording solo albums Cooper decided to do the same himself, and 1975 saw the release of his first solo album Welcome To My Nightmare. Its success marked the final break with the original members of the band, with Cooper collaborating with their producer Bob Ezrin who recruited Lou Reed's backing band, including guitarist Dick Wagner to play on the album. Spearheaded by the US Top 20 hit "Only Women Bleed", a ballad, the album was released by Atlantic Records in March of that year and became a Top 10 hit for Cooper. It was a concept album, based on the nightmare of a child named Steven, featuring narration by classic horror movie film star Vincent Price (several years after Welcome To My Nightmare, he guested on Michael Jackson's "Thriller"), and serving as the soundtrack to Cooper's new stage show, which now included more theatrics than ever (including an eight foot tall furry Cyclops which Cooper decapitates and kills).

However, by this time alcohol was clearly affecting Cooper's performances. During the Welcome to My Nightmare tour in Vancouver, and only a few songs into the routine, Cooper tripped over a footlight, staggered a few paces, lost his bearings and plunged head first off the stage and onto the concrete floor of the Pacific Colosseum. Some fans, thinking it was all part of the act, reached through the barriers to pull at his blood-matted hair before bouncers could pull him away for help. He was taken to a local hospital, where medical staff stitched his head wound and provided him with a skullcap. Cooper returned to the venue a couple of hours later and tried to perform a couple of more songs, but within minutes he had to call it a night. The opening act, Suzi Quatro, had already left the building and the remainder of the concert was cancelled.

Accompanying the album and stage show was the TV special The Nightmare, starring Cooper and Vincent Price in person, which aired on US prime-time TV in April 1975. The Nightmare, the first rock music video album ever made (it was later released on home video in 1983 and gained a Grammy Awards nomination for Best Long Form Music Video), was regarded as another groundbreaking moment in rock history. Adding to all that, a concert film, also called Welcome to My Nightmare and filmed live at London's Wembley Arena in September 1975, was released to theaters in 1976. Though it failed at the box office, it later became a midnight movie favorite and a cult classic. Such was the immense success of this solo project that Cooper decided to continue alone as a solo artist, and the original band became officially defunct. It was also during this time that Cooper co-founded the legendary drinking club The Hollywood Vampires, which gave him yet another reason to indulge his continued ample appetite for alcohol.

Following the 1976 US #12 hit "I Never Cry", another ballad, two albums, Alice Cooper Goes to Hell and Lace and Whiskey, and another ballad hit, the US #9 "You and Me", it became clear from his performances during his 1977 US tour that he was in dire need of help with his alcoholism (at his alcoholic peak it was rumoured that Cooper was consuming up to two cases of Budweiser and a bottle of whiskey a day). Following the tour, Cooper had himself hospitalized in a New York sanitarium for treatment, during which time the live album The Alice Cooper Show was released. His experience in the sanitarium was the inspiration for his 1978 semi-autobiographical album From The Inside, which Cooper co-wrote with Bernie Taupin. The release spawned another US Top 20 hit "How You Gonna See Me Now", which peaked at #12, and was yet another ballad, based on his fear of how his wife would react to him after his spell in hospital.

The subsequent tour's stage show was based inside an asylum, and was filmed for Cooper's first home video release, The Strange Case of Alice Cooper, in 1979. Around this time, Cooper performed "Welcome To My Nightmare", "You and Me", and "School's Out" on The Muppet Show (episode # 307) on March 28, 1978 (he played one of the devil's henchmen trying to dupe Kermit the Frog and Gonzo into selling their souls). He also appeared in an against-type casting in the campy role of a piano playing, disco bellboy in Mae West's final film, Sextette. Cooper also led celebrities in raising money to remodel the famous Hollywood Sign in California. Cooper himself contributed over $27,000 to the project, buying an O in the sign in memory of friend and comedian Groucho Marx.
During an interview for the program Entertainment USA in 1986, Cooper stunned interviewer Jonathan King by stating that The Yardbirds were his favorite band of all time. Perhaps King should not have been so taken aback, as Cooper had as far back as 1969 gone on record as saying that it was music from the mid-sixties, and particularly from British bands The Beatles, The Who, and The Rolling Stones, as well as The Yardbirds, that had had the greatest influence on him. Cooper would later pay homage to The Who by appearing in A Celebration: The Music of Pete Townshend and The Who in 1994 at Carnegie Hall in New York, and performing a cover of "My Generation" on the Brutal Planet tour of 2000.

During an interview that Cooper himself conducted with Ozzy Osbourne on his radio show, Nights with Alice Cooper in 2007, Cooper again affirmed his debt of gratitude to these bands, and to The Beatles in particular. During their discussion, Cooper and Osbourne bemoaned the often inferior quality of songwriting coming from contemporary rock artists. Cooper stated that in his opinion the cause of the problem was that certain modern bands "had forgotten to listen to The Beatles".

On the 25th Anniversary DVD of Cabaret, Liza Minelli stated that her good friend, Alice Cooper, had told her that his whole career was based on the movie Cabaret.

Evidence of Cooper's eclectic tastes in both classic and contemporary rock music, from the 1960s to the present, can be seen in the track listings of his radio show; in addition, when Cooper appeared on the BBC Radio 2 program "Tracks of My Years" in September 2007, he cited his favourite tracks of all time as being the following: "19th Nervous Breakdown" (1966) by The Rolling Stones, "Turning Japanese" (1980) by The Vapors, "My Sharona" (1979) by The Knack, "Beds Are Burning" (1987) by Midnight Oil, "My Generation" (1965) by The Who, "Welcome To The Jungle" (1987) by Guns N' Roses, "Rebel Rebel" (1974) by David Bowie, "Over Under Sideways Down" (1966) by The Yardbirds, "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" (2003) by Jet and "A Hard Day's Night" (1964) by The Beatles.

Rob Zombie, former frontman of White Zombie, claims his first "metal moment" was seeing Alice Cooper on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert.

In a 1978 interview with Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan stated, "I think Alice Cooper is an overlooked songwriter".

In the foreword to Alice Cooper's CD retrospective box set The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper, John Lydon of The Sex Pistols pronounced Killer as the greatest rock album of all time, and in 2002 Lydon presented his own tribute program to Cooper on BBC radio.

The Flaming Lips are longtime Alice Cooper fans and used the bass line from "Levity Ball" (an early song from the 1969 release Pretties for You) for their song "The Ceiling Is Bending". They also covered "Sun Arise" for an Alice Cooper tribute album. (Cooper's version, which closes the album Love It To Death, was itself a cover of a Rolf Harris song.)

In 1999 Cleopatra Records released Humanary Stew: A Tribute to Alice Cooper featuring a number of contributions from rock and metal all-star collaborations, including Dave Mustaine, Roger Daltrey, Ronnie James Dio, Slash, Bruce Dickinson, and Steve Jones. The album was notable for the fact that it was possible to assemble a different supergroup for each cover version on the record, which gave an indication of the depth of esteem in which Cooper is held by other eminent musicians within the music industry.

Heavy metal rocker Jon Mikl Thor, also known as Thor, stated in an interview that Alice Cooper was his idol and hero.

A song by alternative rock group They Might Be Giants from their 1994 album John Henry entitled "Why Must I Be Sad?" mentions 13 Cooper songs, and has been described as being "from the perspective of a kid who hears all of his unspoken sadness given voice in the music of Alice Cooper; Alice says everything the kid has been wishing he could say about his alienated, frustrated, teenage world".

Such unlikely non-musician fans of Cooper included Groucho Marx and Mae West, who both reportedly saw the early shows as a form of vaudeville revue, and artist Salvador Dalí, who on attending a show in 1973 described it as being surreal, and made a hologram, First Cylindric Chromo-Hologram Portrait of Alice Cooper's Brain.
Personal life

In the period when the Alice Cooper group was signed to Frank Zappa's Straight label, Miss Christine of the GTOs became Cooper's girlfriend. Miss Christine (real name: Christine Frka), who had actually recommended Zappa to the group, died on November 5, 1972 of an overdose. Another long-time girlfriend of Cooper's was Cindy Lang, with whom he lived for several years. They separated in 1975. Lang sued Cooper for palimony, and they eventually settled out of court in the early 1980s. After his separation from Lang, Cooper was briefly linked with sex symbol/actress Raquel Welch. Cooper then reportedly left Welch, however, to marry, on March 20 1976, ballerina instructor/choreographer Sheryl Goddard, who performed in the Alice Cooper show from 1975 to 1982. In November 1983, at the height of Cooper's alcoholism, Sheryl filed for divorce, but by mid-1984, she and Cooper had reconciled. The couple has remained together since. In a 2002 television interview, Cooper claimed that he had "never cheated" on his wife in all the time they had been together. In the same interview, he also claimed that the secret to a lasting and successful relationship is to continue going out on dates with your partner. The couple have three children: elder daughter Calico Cooper (born 1981), an actress and singer who has been performing in the Alice Cooper show since 2000; son Dash (b. 1985), a student at Arizona State University, and also plays in a band called Runaway Phoenix; and younger daughter Sonora Rose (b. 1993).

Cooper, a huge fan of The Simpsons, was asked to contribute a storyline for the September 2004 edition of Bongo Comics's Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror, a special Monsters of Rock issue that also included stories plotted by Gene Simmons, Rob Zombie and Pat Boone. Cooper's story featured Homer Simpson being a Jason Voorhees, Friday the 13th style killer and Alice and the citizens of Springfield are being stalked by Homer.

On June 20, 2005, ahead of his June–July 2005 tour, Cooper had a wide-ranging interview with interviewer of celebrities Andrew Denton for the Australian ABC Television's Enough Rope. Cooper discussed various issues during a revealing and frank talk, including the horrors of acute alcoholism and his subsequent cure, being a Christian, and his social and work relationship with his family. During the interview, Cooper remarked "I look at Mick Jagger and he's on an 18-month tour and he's six years older than me, so I figure, when he retires, I have six more years. I will not let him beat me when it comes to longevity."




Discography

   See: Alice Cooper discography

Filmography

   See: Alice Cooper filmography

List of Alice Cooper band personnel

   See: list of Alice Cooper personnel
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/04/10 at 5:44 am

The person who died on this day...Karen Carpenter
Karen Anne Carpenter (March 2, 1950 – February 4, 1983) was an American singer and drummer. She and her brother, Richard, formed the 1970s duo The Carpenters. Her drumming skills were considerable, but it is for her vocal performances that she is best remembered.

She suffered from anorexia nervosa, a little known disease at the time, and died at the age of 32 from heart failure, later attributed to complications related to her illness.
From 1965 to 1968, Karen, her brother Richard and his college friend Wes Jacobs, a bassist and tuba player, formed The Richard Carpenter Trio. The band played jazz at numerous nightclubs, and also appeared on a TV talent show called Your All American College Show.

Karen, Richard, and other musicians, including Gary Sims and John Bettis, also performed as an ensemble known as Spectrum. Spectrum focused on a harmonious, vocal sound, and recorded many demo tapes in the garage studio of friend and bassist Joe Osborn. Many of those tapes were rejected. According to former Carpenters member John Bettis, those rejections "took their toll."

Finally, in April 1969 A&M Records signed the Carpenters to a recording contract. Karen Carpenter sang most of the songs on the band's first album, "Offering" (later retitled Ticket to Ride). The issued single (later the title track), which was a cover of a Beatles song, became their first single: it reached #54 on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts. Their next album, 1970's Close to You, featured two massive hit singles: "(They Long to Be) Close to You" and "We've Only Just Begun." They peaked at #1 and #2, respectively, on the Hot 100.

Karen Carpenter started out as both the group's drummer and lead singer, and she originally sang all her vocals from behind the drum set. Eventually, she was persuaded to stand at the microphone to sing the band's hits while another musician played the drums, although she still did some drumming. (Former Mouseketeer Cubby O'Brien served as the band's other drummer for many years.)

After the release of Now & Then in 1973, the albums tended to have Karen singing more and drumming less. Karen rarely selected the songs she would sing, and often felt she had very little control over her life. She dieted obsessively and developed anorexia nervosa. At the same time, her brother Richard developed an addiction to Quaaludes.

The Carpenters frequently cancelled tour dates, and they stopped touring altogether after September 4, 1978, when they gave their last live concert at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. In 1981, after the release of the Made in America album (which turned out to be their last) the Carpenters returned to the stage and did some tour dates, including their final live performance in Brazil.
As a drummer

Karen's drumming was praised by fellow drummers Hal Blaine, Cubby O'Brien, Buddy Rich and Modern Drummer magazine. Many people are unaware that Karen had an impeccable ability to play the drums, in part because the public wanted a singing Karen Carpenter, rather than a drumming Karen Carpenter. However, according to Richard Carpenter in an interview, Karen always considered herself a "drummer who sang."

Carpenter started playing the drum set in 1964. She was always enthusiastic about the drums, and taught herself how to play complicated drum lines with "exotic time signatures", according to Richard Carpenter.
Solo album

In 1979, Richard Carpenter took a year off to cure a dependency on quaaludes, and Karen decided to make a solo album with producer Phil Ramone. Her solo work was markedly different from usual Carpenters fare, consisting of adult-oriented and disco/dance-tempo material with more sexual lyrics and the use of Karen's higher vocal register.

The project met a tepid response from Richard and A&M executives in early 1980. The album was shelved by A&M CEO Herb Alpert, in spite of Quincy Jones' attempts to talk Alpert into releasing the record after some tracks had been remixed. A&M made the Carpenters pay $400,000 to cover the cost of recording Karen's unreleased solo album, which was to be charged against the duo's future royalties.

Carpenters fans got a taste of the album in 1989 when some of its tracks (as remixed by Richard) were mixed onto the album Lovelines, the final album of Carpenters' new unreleased material. Seven years later, in 1996, the entire album, featuring mixes approved by Karen before her death and one unmixed bonus track, was finally released.
Personal life

Karen lived with her parents until she was 26 years old. After the Carpenters became successful in the early 1970s, she and her brother bought two apartment buildings in Downey. Called "Close To You" and "Only Just Begun," both apartments can still be found at 8388 5th Street, Downey, California.

In 1976, Karen bought two Century City apartments, gutted them, and turned them into one condominium. Located at 2222 Avenue of the Stars, the doorbell chimed the first six notes of "We've Only Just Begun". As a housewarming gift, her mother gave her a collection of leather-bound classic works of literature. Karen collected Disney memorabilia, loved to play softball and baseball, and listed Petula Clark, Olivia Newton-John and Dionne Warwick among her closest friends.

Karen dated a number of well-known men including Mike Curb, Tony Danza, Mark Harmon, Steve Martin and Alan Osmond. The songwriter Tom Bahler wrote the song "She's Out of My Life" (which eventually became a hit single for Michael Jackson) after she broke up with him because she discovered that he had fathered a child with a married woman.

After a whirlwind romance, Karen married real estate developer Thomas James Burris on August 31, 1980 at the Beverly Hills Hotel in the Crystal Room. Burris, a divorcee with an 18-year old son, was nine years older than she was. A new song performed by Karen at the ceremony, "Because We Are In Love," was released in 1981. The couple went to Bora Bora for their honeymoon. Karen called her family from the island and described it as "Boring Boring." The marriage was not a happy one, and the couple filed for divorce in November 1981.

The song "Now", recorded in April 1982, was the last song Karen Carpenter recorded. She recorded it after a two-week intermission in her therapy with psychotherapist Steven Levenkron in New York City for her anorexia. The sight of Karen upon her return to California in April shook Richard and his parents, since she had lost a considerable amount of weight since beginning her therapy with Steven Levenkron. In September 1982, Karen's treatment, which had never convinced her family as being an effective method, took a sinister turn of events when Karen called her psyschotherapist to tell him she felt dizzy and that her heart was beating irregularly. Karen was admitted to Lennox Hospital in New York and hooked up to an intranvenous drip, which would be the cause of her much debated 30 pound weight gain in 8 weeks. Richard recalled visiting her in the hospital, saying 'Karen, this is crap. Don't you understand? This is crap! You're going about this all the wrong way, this guy isn't getting anything accomplished, because you're in a hospital now!'

Karen returned to California in November 1982, determined to reinvigorate her career, finalize her divorce and begin a new album with Richard. She had gained 30 pounds over a two-month stay in New York, and the sudden weight gain (much of which was the result of intravenous feeding) further strained her heart, which was already weak from years of crash dieting. At the height of her illness, Karen was taking ten times the normal daily dose of thyroid replacement medication (equivalent to 1 milligram, as opposed to the normal 100 microgram dose), in order to speed up her metabolism.

On December 17, 1982, Karen made her last public appearance in the "multi-purpose" room of the Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, California singing for her godchildren and their classmates who attended the school. She sang Christmas carols for friends.

A few weeks before Karen died, Richard tried to get through to Karen that she was still sick, saying many years later "Karen had marvellous, big brown eyes. And there was just no life in them. " Speaking of a meeting with his sister and Werner Wolfen, the Carpenters' financial advisor, two weeks prior to her death, Richard said:

    Karen was hot as hell at me for even questioning how she looked. And I told her 'the only reason I'm bringing all of this up, and talking to people...is because I'm concerned and because I love you.' And am I glad I said that because within weeks, that was that. She was dead.'"

Death

On February 4, 1983, less than a month before her thirty-third birthday, Karen suffered heart failure at her parents' home in Downey, California. She was taken to Downey Community Hospital, where she was pronounced dead twenty minutes later. The LA coroner gave the cause of death as "heartbeat irregularities brought on by chemical imbalances associated with anorexia nervosa." Her divorce was scheduled to have been finalized that day.

The autopsy stated that Karen's death was the result of emetine cardiotoxicity due to anorexia nervosa. Under the anatomical summary, the first item was heart failure, with anorexia as second. The third finding was cachexia, which is extremely low weight and weakness and general body decline associated with chronic disease. Emetine cardiotoxicity implies that Karen abused ipecac syrup, an easily obtained emetic medicine that is only meant to be taken by persons who have accidentally swallowed poison. Agnes and Richard disputed this finding. Both have stated that they never found empty vials of ipecac in her apartment, nor was there any concrete evidence that Karen had been vomiting. Richard believes that Karen was not willing to do this because it could damage her vocal cords, relying on laxatives alone to maintain her low body weight.

Her funeral service took place on February 8, 1983, at the Downey United Methodist Church where the Rev. Charles Neal, an old family friend and their pastor in New Haven, officiated. Carpenter, dressed in a rose colored suit, lay in an open white casket. Over a thousand mourners passed through to say goodbye, among them her friends Dorothy Hamill, Olivia Newton-John, Petula Clark, and Dionne Warwick. Carpenter's estranged husband Tom attended her funeral, where he took off his wedding ring and threw it into the casket.

She was buried at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Cypress, California. In 2003, she was re-interred, next to her parents, in a mausoleum at the Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village, California.
After death

Carpenter's death brought lasting media attention to anorexia nervosa and also to bulimia. In the years after Carpenter's death, there were a number of celebrities who decided to go public about their eating disorders, among them Tracey Gold and Diana, Princess of Wales. Medical centers and hospitals began receiving increased contacts from people with these disorders. The general public had little knowledge of anorexia nervosa and bulimia prior to Carpenter's death, making the condition difficult to identify and treat.

Her family started the "Karen A. Carpenter Memorial Foundation," which raised money for research on anorexia nervosa and eating disorders. Today the name of the organization has been changed to the "Carpenter Family Foundation." In addition to eating disorders, the foundation now funds the arts, entertainment and education.
Carpenters' star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

On October 12, 1983, the Carpenters received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is located at 6931 Hollywood Blvd., a few yards from the Kodak Theater. Richard, Harold and Agnes Carpenter attended the inauguration, as did many fans.

In 1987, movie director Todd Haynes used songs by Richard and Karen in his movie Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. In the movie, Haynes portrayed the Carpenters with Barbie dolls, rather than live actors. The movie was later pulled from distribution after Richard Carpenter won a court case involving song royalties; Haynes had not obtained legal permission to use The Carpenters' recordings.

On January 1, 1989, the similarly-titled made-for-TV movie The Karen Carpenter Story aired on CBS with Cynthia Gibb in the title role. Gibb lip-synced the songs to Carpenter's recorded voice. Both films use the song "This Masquerade" in the background while showing Karen's marriage to Burris.
Lists containing Karen Carpenter

1975 - In Playboy's annual opinion poll, its readers voted Karen Carpenter the Best Rock Drummer of the year.

1999 - VH1 ranked Karen Carpenter at #29 on their list of the 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll.

2008 - Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Karen Carpenter number 94 on their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.
Albums
Studio albums

    * Offering (later reissued as 'Ticket To Ride') (1969)
    * Close to You (1970)
    * Carpenters (1971)
    * A Song for You (1972)
    * Now & Then (1973)
    * The Singles: 1969-1973 (1973)
    * Horizon (1975)
    * A Kind of Hush (1976)
    * Passage (1977)
    * Christmas Portrait (1978)
    * The Singles: 1974-1978 (1978)
    * Made in America (1981)
    * Voice of the Heart (1983)
    * An Old-Fashioned Christmas (1984)
    * Lovelines (1989)
    * As Time Goes By (2003)

Solo albums

    * Karen Carpenter (1996)

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e270/Retisboy/karen-carpenter.jpg
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd283/MyLiFeAsAdOc/Karen_Carpenter.jpg
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii111/redrosie83/Karen%20Carpenter/karen_1434.jpg
http://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac67/NicotineQueen/august%2009/karen-carpenter.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 02/04/10 at 6:48 am

Wow...Alice Cooper and Karen Carpenter.... I  like them both.  Cooper looked monstrous but sang some of the greatest ballads of the 70's. I read his bio with great interest.

Karen Carpenter was simply one of the greatest female voices of last century. Incredibly under rated....

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/04/10 at 6:59 am

I LOVE the Welcome To My Nightmare album. The only Alice Cooper album I have.


I remember when Karen died. So sad. She was such a great talent.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/04/10 at 7:04 am


is she a regular nurse?



As opposed to a irregular nurse?  ???


Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/04/10 at 7:06 am


The word of the day...School
A school is a place where children are educated. You usually refer to this place as school when you are talking about the time that children spend there and the activities that they do there.
A school is the pupils or staff at a school.
A privately-run place where a particular skill or subject is taught can be referred to as a school.
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f226/q_t_girl/School/Brittany.jpg
http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g250/cdewitt557/School.jpg
http://i995.photobucket.com/albums/af71/zappwns/Real-Life-Pics/school-flood.png
http://i935.photobucket.com/albums/ad196/stephanyamaranta/school.jpg
http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv311/happysinner018/xtRatx010.jpg
http://i872.photobucket.com/albums/ab290/DotWorld/3.png
http://i498.photobucket.com/albums/rr342/AthrunXKiraXLalala/scaryastle.jpg
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f226/q_t_girl/School/Dominic-playing-clarinet.jpg
http://i676.photobucket.com/albums/vv128/little_magpie_2009/DSC_3436.jpg
http://i904.photobucket.com/albums/ac241/NCItems/KINDER2.gif


I can't believe it's been 18 years since I graduated High School.  :o

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/04/10 at 7:07 am



As opposed to a irregular nurse?  ???


Cat


What's that supposed to mean?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 02/04/10 at 7:10 am


I LOVE the Welcome To My Nightmare album. The only Alice Cooper album I have.


I remember when Karen died. So sad. She was such a great talent.



Cat


It was my only Cooper album also. The single Dept of Youth was a bigger hit over here (from memory) than it was in the U.S. (only #67 in The States).

I also didn't realize that Alice Cooper was the band name prior to him becoming a single act.... ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/04/10 at 7:11 am

Alice Cooper was at Wrestlemania 2 in Jake Roberts's corner against The HonkyTonk Man.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/04/10 at 7:18 am


It was my only Cooper album also. The single Dept of Youth was a bigger hit over here (from memory) than it was in the U.S. (only #67 in The States).

I also didn't realize that Alice Cooper was the band name prior to him becoming a single act.... ;D



I love Dept of Youth. I don't know if you ever listened to the end as the song starts to fade (it is barely audible) when he asks, "And who gave it to you?" and the kids yell "Donnie Osmond" and he said, "WHAT?"  That always cracks me up.

Of course I do Love Some Folks, Years Ago & Steven. Great songs.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 02/04/10 at 7:20 am



I love Dept of Youth. I don't know if you ever listened to the end as the song starts to fade (it is barely audible) when he asks, "And who gave it to you?" and the kids yell "Donnie Osmond" and he said, "WHAT?"  That always cracks me up.

Of course I do Love Some Folks, Years Ago & Steven. Great songs.



Cat




YEESSS!  I forgot about that. That was always amusing.... ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/04/10 at 8:17 am


Wow...Alice Cooper and Karen Carpenter.... I  like them both.  Cooper looked monstrous but sang some of the greatest ballads of the 70's. I read his bio with great interest.

Karen Carpenter was simply one of the greatest female voices of last century. Incredibly under rated....


I LOVE the Welcome To My Nightmare album. The only Alice Cooper album I have.


I remember when Karen died. So sad. She was such a great talent.



Cat

Yes interesting that they both have different styles, but I also liked both...Karen was one of the greatest, plus a female drummer back in the 70's now you didn't see that.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/04/10 at 8:19 am



As opposed to a irregular nurse?  ???


Cat

I was dying to say that but bite my lip ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/04/10 at 11:09 am


Yes interesting that they both have different styles, but I also liked both...Karen was one of the greatest, plus a female drummer back in the 70's now you didn't see that.

Karen..still miss ya. Your sweet voice..a touch of sadness in it...Those carpenter songs...
Classics.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/04/10 at 12:47 pm


Karen..still miss ya. Your sweet voice..a touch of sadness in it...Those carpenter songs...
Classics.

I've been listening to some of their songs today..very nice

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 02/04/10 at 12:50 pm


I also didn't realize that Alice Cooper was the band name prior to him becoming a single act.... ;D

Neither did I...until I read about it a few months ago.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/04/10 at 2:10 pm


The person born on this day...Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier, February 4, 1948) is an American rock singer, songwriter and broadcaster whose career spans more than four decades. With a stage show that features guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, boa constrictors and baby dolls, Cooper has drawn equally from horror movies, vaudeville, and garage rock to pioneer a grandly theatrical and violent brand of heavy metal that was designed to shock.

Alice Cooper was originally a band consisting of Furnier on vocals and harmonica, lead guitarist Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar, and drummer Neal Smith. The original Alice Cooper band broke into the international music mainstream with the 1971 hit "I'm Eighteen" from the album Love it to Death, which was followed by the even bigger single "School's Out" in 1972. The band reached their commercial peak with the 1973 album Billion Dollar Babies.

Furnier's solo career as Alice Cooper, adopting the band's name as his own name, began with the 1975 concept album Welcome to My Nightmare. In 2008 he released Along Came a Spider, his 18th solo album. Expanding from his original Detroit rock roots, over the years Cooper has experimented with many different musical styles, including conceptual rock, art rock, glam metal, hard rock, new wave, pop rock, soft rock, experimental rock and industrial rock. In recent times he has returned more to his garage rock roots.

Alice Cooper is known for his social and witty persona offstage, The Rolling Stone Album Guide going so far as to refer to him as the world's most "beloved heavy metal entertainer". He helped to shape the sound and look of heavy metal, and is seen as being the person who "first introduced horror imagery to rock'n'roll, and whose stagecraft and showmanship have permanently transformed the genre". Away from music, Cooper is a film actor, a golfing celebrity, a restaurateur and, since 2004, a popular radio DJ with his classic rock show Nights with Alice Cooper.

On VH1's "100 Greatest artists of Hard Rock", Cooper was ranked #20..

In 1968, upon learning that Todd Rundgren also had a band called Nazz, the band were again in need of another stage name. Furnier recognized that the group needed a gimmick to succeed, and that other bands were not exploiting the showmanship potential of the stage. He subsequently chose Alice Cooper as the band's name and adopted this stage name as his own.

Early press releases claimed that the name was agreed upon after a session with a Ouija board, during which it was revealed that Furnier was the reincarnation of a 17th century witch named Alice Cooper. However, it is now widely accepted that this story was in fact a publicity stunt—Cooper in later interviews confirmed that the name actually came out of thin air, conjuring an image of "a cute and sweet little girl with a hatchet behind her back". (The name was also once said to be an inside joke associated with a character in the television show Mayberry R.F.D.; Alice Cooper is also the name of Betty Cooper's mother in the Archie comic strips).

In later interviews, Cooper admitted that "Alice Cooper" was only intended to be the name of the band, as Cooper himself used his birth name (Vincent Furnier) during the band's early days. However, as the band played more shows, numerous fans were coming up to Cooper and saying, "Hey, Alice!" Cooper was unaware that the fans were addressing him, and was taken aback by the notion that the fans were mistaking the band's name for his own.

Nonetheless, at the time Cooper and the band realized that the concept of a male playing the role of an androgynous witch, in tattered women's clothing and wearing make-up, would definitely have the potential to cause considerable social controversy and grab headlines. Cooper has stated in interviews that his look was inspired in part by the film Barbarella. "When I saw Anita Pallenberg playing the Great Tyrant in that movie in 1968, wearing long black leather gloves with switchblades coming out of them, I thought, ‘That’s what Alice should look like.’ That, and a little bit of Emma Peel from The Avengers. Alice has also cited What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? as an influence on the make up.

" Furnier would later admit that the name change was one of his most important and brilliant career moves.

The classic Alice Cooper group line-up consisted of singer Alice Cooper (Vincent Furnier), lead guitarist Glen Buxton, rhythm guitarist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway, and drummer Neal Smith. With the exception of Smith, who graduated from Camelback High School (which is referred to in the song "Alma Mater" on the School's Out album), all of the band members were on the Cortez High School cross-country team, and many of Cooper's stage 'effects' were inspired by their cross-country coach, Emmett Smith (one of Smith's class projects was to build a working guillotine for slicing watermelons). Cooper, Buxton and Dunaway were also art students, and their admiration for the works of surrealist artists such as Salvador Dalí would further inspire their future stage antics.

One night, after an unsuccessful gig at a club in Venice, California called The Cheetah, where the band emptied the entire room of patrons after playing just ten minutes, they were approached and enlisted by music manager Shep Gordon, who ironically saw the band's seemingly negative impact that night as a force that could be directed in a more positive direction. Shep then managed to arrange an audition for the band with composer and renowned record producer Frank Zappa, who was looking to sign bizarre music acts to his new record label, Straight Records. For the audition, Zappa told them to come to his house "at 7 o'clock", however, the band mistakenly assumed he meant 7 o'clock in the morning. Being woken up by a band willing to play that particular brand of psychedelic rock at seven in the morning impressed Zappa enough to sign them on a three-album deal. It was another Zappa signed act, the all-female GTOs, who liked to "dress the Cooper boys up like full size barbie dolls", that played a major role in developing the band's early onstage look. Cooper's first album Pretties for You was released in 1969 and the album had a slight psychedelic feel to the album. Although it touched the US charts for one week at #193, ultimately met with critical and commercial failure.

After an unrehearsed stage routine involving Cooper and a live chicken garnered attention from the press, the band decided to capitalize on tabloid sensationalism, creating in the process a new subgenre, shock rock. Cooper claims that the infamous 'Chicken Incident', which took place at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival concert in September 1969, was in fact an accident. A chicken somehow made its way on stage during Cooper's performance; not having any experience around farm animals, Cooper presumed that, since the chicken had wings, it would be able to fly. He picked it up and threw it out over the crowd, expecting it to fly away; the bird instead plummeted into the first few rows of the crowd occupied by disabled people in wheelchairs, who reportedly proceeded to tear the animal to pieces.

The next day, the incident made the front page of many national newspapers, and Zappa phoned him to ask if the story, which reported that Cooper had bitten the head off the chicken and drunk its blood on stage, was true. Cooper denied the rumor, whereupon Zappa told him, "Well, whatever you do, don't tell anyone you didn't do it", obviously recognising that such kind of publicity would be priceless for the band.

Despite the publicity the band received from the Chicken Incident, their stronger second album, Easy Action, released in 1970, met with the same fate as its predecessor. Music label Warner Bros. Records then purchased Straight Records from Frank Zappa, and the Alice Cooper group was set to receive a higher level of promotion from the more major label. It was around this time that the band, fed up with Californians' indifference to their act, relocated to Cooper's birthplace, Detroit, where their bizarre stage act was much better received. Detroit would remain their steady home base until 1972. "LA just didn’t get it. They were all on the wrong drug for us. They were on acid and we were basically drinking beer. We fit much more in Detroit than we did anywhere else..."
1970s

In 1970, after two failed albums, the Alice Cooper group was teamed up with fledgling producer Bob Ezrin for their third album, the last in their contract with Straight Records, and the band's last chance to create a hit. That hit soon came with the single "I'm Eighteen", released in November 1970, which reached number 21 in the Billboard Hot 100. The album that followed, Love it to Death, released in February 1971, proved to be their breakthrough record, reaching number 35 in the U.S. Billboard 200 album charts. It would be the first of eleven Alice Cooper group and solo albums produced by Ezrin, who is widely seen as being instrumental in helping to create and develop the band's definitive sound. The band's trailblazing mix of glam and increasingly violent stage theatrics stood out in stark contrast to the bearded, denim-clad hippie bands of the time. As Cooper himself stated: "We were into fun, sex, death and money when everybody was into peace and love. We wanted to see what was next. It turned out we were next, and we drove a stake through the heart of the Love Generation".

Sporting tight sequined costumes by the prominent rock fashion designer Cindy Dunaway (sister of band member Neal Smith, and wife of band member Dennis Dunaway) and stage shows that involved mock fights and Gothic torture modes being imposed on Cooper, the androgynous stage role now presented a villainous side which posed a potential threat to modern society. With Cooper needing to be punished for his immoral ways, the first of a number of methods of execution were incorporated into the show: the Electric Chair. The success of the band's single, the album, and their tour of 1971, which saw their first and hugely successful tour of Europe (audience members reportedly included Elton John and David Bowie), provided enough encouragement for Warner Bros. to offer the band a new multi-album contract.

Their follow-up album Killer, released in late 1971, continued the commercial success of Love It To Death and included further single success with "Under My Wheels" and "Be My Lover" in early 1972, and "Halo Of Flies", which became a Top 10 hit in the Netherlands. Thematically, Killer expanded on the villainous side of Cooper's androgynous stage role, with its music becoming the soundtrack to the group's morality-based stage show, which by then featured a boa constrictor hugging Cooper onstage and the murderous axe chopping of bloodied dead baby dolls. In addition, the method of execution had developed into death by hanging: The Gallows. By mid-1972, the Alice Cooper show had become infamous, but what the band really needed was a big hit single.

That summer saw the release of the appropriately titled single "School's Out". It went Top 10 in the US, was a #1 single in the UK, and remains a staple on classic rock radio to this day. School's Out the album reached #2 on the US charts and sold over a million copies. The band now relocated to their new mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. With Cooper's on-stage androgynous persona completely replaced with brattiness and machismo, the band's traveling carnival of filth and terror cemented their success with subsequent tours in the US and Europe, and won over devoted fans in droves while at the same time horrifying parents and outraging the social establishment.

In England, Mary Whitheouse, a well known campaigner for values of morality and decency, succeeded in having the BBC ban the video for "School's Out" and Member of Parliament Leo Abse petitioned Home Secretary Reginald Maudling to have the group banned altogether from performing in the country. However, this seemed to have little effect on the band's popularity, as they were selected to be the first band to appear on the television series ABC In Concert in September 1972, and in February 1973 Billion Dollar Babies appeared, which was the band's most commercially successful album. It reached #1 in both the US and UK, and is also viewed by many critics as representing the band's creative peak. "Elected", a 1972 Top 10 UK hit from the album, which inspired one of the first MTV-style story-line promo videos ever made for a song (three years before Queen's promotional video for "Bohemian Rhapsody"), was followed by two more UK Top 10 singles, "Hello Hooray" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy", the latter of which was the last UK single from the album; it reached #25 in the US. The title track, featuring guest vocals by Donovan, was also a US hit single. Due to Glen Buxton's health problems, around this time, Mick Mashbir was added to the band (who also played, without credit, on Muscle of Love).

With a string of successful concept albums and several hit singles, the band continued their grueling schedule and toured the US once again. Continued attempts by politicians and pressure groups to ban their shocking act only served to fuel the myth of Alice Cooper further and generate even greater public interest. Their 1973 US tour broke box office records previously set by The Rolling Stones and raised rock theatrics to new heights; the multi-level stage show by then featured numerous special effects, including Billion Dollar Bills, decapitated baby dolls and mannequins, a dental psychosis scene complete with dancing teeth, and the ultimate execution prop and highlight of the show: the guillotine. The guillotine and other stage effects were designed for the band by magician James Randi, who appeared on stage during some of the shows as executioner. The Alice Cooper group had now reached its peak and it was among the most visible and successful acts in the industry. (Cooper's stage antics would influence a host of later bands, including, among others, Kiss, Blue Öyster Cult, GWAR, W.A.S.P. and, later, Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie.) Beneath the surface, however, the repetitive schedule of recording and touring had begun to take its toll on the band, and Cooper, who was under the constant pressure of getting into character for that night's show, was consistently sighted nursing a can of beer.

Muscle of Love, released at the end of 1973, was to be the last studio album from the classic line-up, and marked Alice Cooper's last UK Top 20 single of the 1970s with "Teenage Lament '74". A theme song was recorded for the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun, but a different song of the same name by Lulu was chosen instead. By 1974, the Muscle of Love album had not matched the top-charting success of its predecessor, and the band began to have constant disagreements. Cooper wanted to retain the theatrics in the show that had brought them so much attention, while the rest of the group thought they should be toned down so that they could concentrate more on the music which had given them credibility. Largely as a result of this difference of opinion, the band decided to take a much-needed hiatus.

During this time, Cooper relocated back to Los Angeles and started appearing regularly on TV shows such as Hollywood Squares, and Warner Bros. released the Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits compilation album which featured classic artwork and which performed better than Muscle of Love, reaching the US Top 10. However, the band's feature film Good To See You Again, Alice Cooper (mainly concert footage with a faint storyline and 'comedic' sketches woven throughout), released on a minor theatrical run mostly to drive-in theaters, saw little box office success.

As some of the Alice Cooper band's members had begun recording solo albums Cooper decided to do the same himself, and 1975 saw the release of his first solo album Welcome To My Nightmare. Its success marked the final break with the original members of the band, with Cooper collaborating with their producer Bob Ezrin who recruited Lou Reed's backing band, including guitarist Dick Wagner to play on the album. Spearheaded by the US Top 20 hit "Only Women Bleed", a ballad, the album was released by Atlantic Records in March of that year and became a Top 10 hit for Cooper. It was a concept album, based on the nightmare of a child named Steven, featuring narration by classic horror movie film star Vincent Price (several years after Welcome To My Nightmare, he guested on Michael Jackson's "Thriller"), and serving as the soundtrack to Cooper's new stage show, which now included more theatrics than ever (including an eight foot tall furry Cyclops which Cooper decapitates and kills).

However, by this time alcohol was clearly affecting Cooper's performances. During the Welcome to My Nightmare tour in Vancouver, and only a few songs into the routine, Cooper tripped over a footlight, staggered a few paces, lost his bearings and plunged head first off the stage and onto the concrete floor of the Pacific Colosseum. Some fans, thinking it was all part of the act, reached through the barriers to pull at his blood-matted hair before bouncers could pull him away for help. He was taken to a local hospital, where medical staff stitched his head wound and provided him with a skullcap. Cooper returned to the venue a couple of hours later and tried to perform a couple of more songs, but within minutes he had to call it a night. The opening act, Suzi Quatro, had already left the building and the remainder of the concert was cancelled.

Accompanying the album and stage show was the TV special The Nightmare, starring Cooper and Vincent Price in person, which aired on US prime-time TV in April 1975. The Nightmare, the first rock music video album ever made (it was later released on home video in 1983 and gained a Grammy Awards nomination for Best Long Form Music Video), was regarded as another groundbreaking moment in rock history. Adding to all that, a concert film, also called Welcome to My Nightmare and filmed live at London's Wembley Arena in September 1975, was released to theaters in 1976. Though it failed at the box office, it later became a midnight movie favorite and a cult classic. Such was the immense success of this solo project that Cooper decided to continue alone as a solo artist, and the original band became officially defunct. It was also during this time that Cooper co-founded the legendary drinking club The Hollywood Vampires, which gave him yet another reason to indulge his continued ample appetite for alcohol.

Following the 1976 US #12 hit "I Never Cry", another ballad, two albums, Alice Cooper Goes to Hell and Lace and Whiskey, and another ballad hit, the US #9 "You and Me", it became clear from his performances during his 1977 US tour that he was in dire need of help with his alcoholism (at his alcoholic peak it was rumoured that Cooper was consuming up to two cases of Budweiser and a bottle of whiskey a day). Following the tour, Cooper had himself hospitalized in a New York sanitarium for treatment, during which time the live album The Alice Cooper Show was released. His experience in the sanitarium was the inspiration for his 1978 semi-autobiographical album From The Inside, which Cooper co-wrote with Bernie Taupin. The release spawned another US Top 20 hit "How You Gonna See Me Now", which peaked at #12, and was yet another ballad, based on his fear of how his wife would react to him after his spell in hospital.

The subsequent tour's stage show was based inside an asylum, and was filmed for Cooper's first home video release, The Strange Case of Alice Cooper, in 1979. Around this time, Cooper performed "Welcome To My Nightmare", "You and Me", and "School's Out" on The Muppet Show (episode # 307) on March 28, 1978 (he played one of the devil's henchmen trying to dupe Kermit the Frog and Gonzo into selling their souls). He also appeared in an against-type casting in the campy role of a piano playing, disco bellboy in Mae West's final film, Sextette. Cooper also led celebrities in raising money to remodel the famous Hollywood Sign in California. Cooper himself contributed over $27,000 to the project, buying an O in the sign in memory of friend and comedian Groucho Marx.
During an interview for the program Entertainment USA in 1986, Cooper stunned interviewer Jonathan King by stating that The Yardbirds were his favorite band of all time. Perhaps King should not have been so taken aback, as Cooper had as far back as 1969 gone on record as saying that it was music from the mid-sixties, and particularly from British bands The Beatles, The Who, and The Rolling Stones, as well as The Yardbirds, that had had the greatest influence on him. Cooper would later pay homage to The Who by appearing in A Celebration: The Music of Pete Townshend and The Who in 1994 at Carnegie Hall in New York, and performing a cover of "My Generation" on the Brutal Planet tour of 2000.

During an interview that Cooper himself conducted with Ozzy Osbourne on his radio show, Nights with Alice Cooper in 2007, Cooper again affirmed his debt of gratitude to these bands, and to The Beatles in particular. During their discussion, Cooper and Osbourne bemoaned the often inferior quality of songwriting coming from contemporary rock artists. Cooper stated that in his opinion the cause of the problem was that certain modern bands "had forgotten to listen to The Beatles".

On the 25th Anniversary DVD of Cabaret, Liza Minelli stated that her good friend, Alice Cooper, had told her that his whole career was based on the movie Cabaret.

Evidence of Cooper's eclectic tastes in both classic and contemporary rock music, from the 1960s to the present, can be seen in the track listings of his radio show; in addition, when Cooper appeared on the BBC Radio 2 program "Tracks of My Years" in September 2007, he cited his favourite tracks of all time as being the following: "19th Nervous Breakdown" (1966) by The Rolling Stones, "Turning Japanese" (1980) by The Vapors, "My Sharona" (1979) by The Knack, "Beds Are Burning" (1987) by Midnight Oil, "My Generation" (1965) by The Who, "Welcome To The Jungle" (1987) by Guns N' Roses, "Rebel Rebel" (1974) by David Bowie, "Over Under Sideways Down" (1966) by The Yardbirds, "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" (2003) by Jet and "A Hard Day's Night" (1964) by The Beatles.

Rob Zombie, former frontman of White Zombie, claims his first "metal moment" was seeing Alice Cooper on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert.

In a 1978 interview with Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan stated, "I think Alice Cooper is an overlooked songwriter".

In the foreword to Alice Cooper's CD retrospective box set The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper, John Lydon of The Sex Pistols pronounced Killer as the greatest rock album of all time, and in 2002 Lydon presented his own tribute program to Cooper on BBC radio.

The Flaming Lips are longtime Alice Cooper fans and used the bass line from "Levity Ball" (an early song from the 1969 release Pretties for You) for their song "The Ceiling Is Bending". They also covered "Sun Arise" for an Alice Cooper tribute album. (Cooper's version, which closes the album Love It To Death, was itself a cover of a Rolf Harris song.)

In 1999 Cleopatra Records released Humanary Stew: A Tribute to Alice Cooper featuring a number of contributions from rock and metal all-star collaborations, including Dave Mustaine, Roger Daltrey, Ronnie James Dio, Slash, Bruce Dickinson, and Steve Jones. The album was notable for the fact that it was possible to assemble a different supergroup for each cover version on the record, which gave an indication of the depth of esteem in which Cooper is held by other eminent musicians within the music industry.

Heavy metal rocker Jon Mikl Thor, also known as Thor, stated in an interview that Alice Cooper was his idol and hero.

A song by alternative rock group They Might Be Giants from their 1994 album John Henry entitled "Why Must I Be Sad?" mentions 13 Cooper songs, and has been described as being "from the perspective of a kid who hears all of his unspoken sadness given voice in the music of Alice Cooper; Alice says everything the kid has been wishing he could say about his alienated, frustrated, teenage world".

Such unlikely non-musician fans of Cooper included Groucho Marx and Mae West, who both reportedly saw the early shows as a form of vaudeville revue, and artist Salvador Dalí, who on attending a show in 1973 described it as being surreal, and made a hologram, First Cylindric Chromo-Hologram Portrait of Alice Cooper's Brain.
Personal life

In the period when the Alice Cooper group was signed to Frank Zappa's Straight label, Miss Christine of the GTOs became Cooper's girlfriend. Miss Christine (real name: Christine Frka), who had actually recommended Zappa to the group, died on November 5, 1972 of an overdose. Another long-time girlfriend of Cooper's was Cindy Lang, with whom he lived for several years. They separated in 1975. Lang sued Cooper for palimony, and they eventually settled out of court in the early 1980s. After his separation from Lang, Cooper was briefly linked with sex symbol/actress Raquel Welch. Cooper then reportedly left Welch, however, to marry, on March 20 1976, ballerina instructor/choreographer Sheryl Goddard, who performed in the Alice Cooper show from 1975 to 1982. In November 1983, at the height of Cooper's alcoholism, Sheryl filed for divorce, but by mid-1984, she and Cooper had reconciled. The couple has remained together since. In a 2002 television interview, Cooper claimed that he had "never cheated" on his wife in all the time they had been together. In the same interview, he also claimed that the secret to a lasting and successful relationship is to continue going out on dates with your partner. The couple have three children: elder daughter Calico Cooper (born 1981), an actress and singer who has been performing in the Alice Cooper show since 2000; son Dash (b. 1985), a student at Arizona State University, and also plays in a band called Runaway Phoenix; and younger daughter Sonora Rose (b. 1993).

Cooper, a huge fan of The Simpsons, was asked to contribute a storyline for the September 2004 edition of Bongo Comics's Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror, a special Monsters of Rock issue that also included stories plotted by Gene Simmons, Rob Zombie and Pat Boone. Cooper's story featured Homer Simpson being a Jason Voorhees, Friday the 13th style killer and Alice and the citizens of Springfield are being stalked by Homer.

On June 20, 2005, ahead of his June–July 2005 tour, Cooper had a wide-ranging interview with interviewer of celebrities Andrew Denton for the Australian ABC Television's Enough Rope. Cooper discussed various issues during a revealing and frank talk, including the horrors of acute alcoholism and his subsequent cure, being a Christian, and his social and work relationship with his family. During the interview, Cooper remarked "I look at Mick Jagger and he's on an 18-month tour and he's six years older than me, so I figure, when he retires, I have six more years. I will not let him beat me when it comes to longevity."




Discography

    See: Alice Cooper discography

Filmography

    See: Alice Cooper filmography

List of Alice Cooper band personnel

    See: list of Alice Cooper personnel
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Hello hurray!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/04/10 at 2:28 pm


Neither did I...until I read about it a few months ago.

Yes  this was in my original copy, but I had too many words :(
The actual ownership of the Alice Cooper name is often cited by intellectual property lawyers and law professors as an example of the value of a single copyright or trademark. Since "Alice Cooper" was originally the name of the band, and not the lead singer (e.g. Uriah Heep, Jethro Tull, Meat Loaf, etc.), and it was actually owned by the band as whole, Cooper paid, and continues to pay, a yearly royalty to his original bandmates for the right to use the name commercially. Although the exact amount is not known, insiders agree that it is large enough for the other band members to live comfortably on.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 02/04/10 at 2:31 pm


Yes this was in my original copy, but I had too many words :(
The actual ownership of the Alice Cooper name is often cited by intellectual property lawyers and law professors as an example of the value of a single copyright or trademark. Since "Alice Cooper" was originally the name of the band, and not the lead singer (e.g. Uriah Heep, Jethro Tull, Meat Loaf, etc.), and it was actually owned by the band as whole, Cooper paid, and continues to pay, a yearly royalty to his original bandmates for the right to use the name commercially. Although the exact amount is not known, insiders agree that it is large enough for the other band members to live comfortably on.

Thanks for the explanation on that ;)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/04/10 at 2:37 pm


I've been listening to some of their songs today..very nice


like Rainy Days And Mondays?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/04/10 at 5:20 pm


like Rainy Days And Mondays?

Yes and Superstar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9Nm_0pC4FM&feature=rec-LGOUT-exp_fresh+div-1r-2-HM#

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/04/10 at 6:33 pm

Back in the day, wayyy back in the 70s, we used to sing "School's out" on the last day of school before the summer holidays. Wonder if anyone else on these boards did that?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 02/04/10 at 8:01 pm

Nice bio on Karen Carpenter, Ninny. I've always liked her. Thanks for sharing.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 02/04/10 at 9:20 pm

Okay...I admit that I thought the song "Only Women Bleed" was about something else!  :-\\

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/05/10 at 12:49 am

Sports person of the day: Hank Aaron (born February 5, 1934 in Mobile, Alabama)

Aaron is widely considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time. In 1999, editors at The Sporting News ranked Hank Aaron fifth on their list of "Greatest Baseball Players.
He played 21 seasons with the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves in the National League, and his last two years (1975–76) with the Milwaukee Brewers in the American League. His most notable achievement was setting the MLB record for most career home runs with 755, which he held for 33 years until being surpassed by San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds on August 7, 2007.  Many still maintain Aaron holds the record since Barry has been linked with steroids.

http://www.vintagecardprices.com/pics/1830/110/165092.jpg


He hit 24 or more home runs every year from 1955 through 1973, and is the only player to hit 30 or more home runs in a season at least fifteen times. He is one of only four players to have at least seventeen seasons with 150 or more hits. Aaron made the All-Star team every year from 1955 until 1975 and won three Rawlings Gold Glove Awards. In 1957, he won the National League Most Valuable Player Award, while that same year, the Braves won the World Series, his one World Series victory during his career.

http://rhapsodyinbooks.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/hank-aaron-6.jpg

Aaron's consistency helped him to establish a number of important hitting records during his 23-year career. Aaron holds the MLB records for the most career runs batted in (2,297), the most career extra base hits (1,477), and the most career total bases (6,856); he is also in the top five for career hits with 3,771 (third) and runs with 2,174, which is tied for fourth with Babe Ruth). He also is in second place in at-bats (12,364), and in third place in games played (3,298). Aaron's nicknames include "Hammer," "Hammerin' Hank"
http://urbansportstalk.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/hank-aaron.jpg


Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/05/10 at 12:56 am

British Person of the Day: Ben Ainslie

Charles Benedict Ainslie, CBE (born 5 February 1977 in Macclesfield) is an English sailor and three-times Olympic gold medalist. He started sailing at the age of 4 and first competed at the age of 10. Ainslie's first international competition was the 1989 Optimist world championships held in Japan where he placed 37th.

The son of Roderick 'Roddy' Ainslie, who captained a boat that took part in the first Whitbread Round The World Race in 1973, he won a gold medal at the World Youth Championships in 1995 and was awarded the title of British Yachtsman of the Year in 1995, 1999, 2000 and 2002. He was elected ISAF World Sailor of the Year in 1998, 2002 and 2008.

Sailing

Olympic medal record
Sailing
Gold 2008 Beijing Finn
Gold 2004 Athens Finn
Gold 2000 Sydney Laser
Silver 1996 Atlanta Laser

Ainslie was a gold medalist at the 1993 Laser Radial World Championship, gold medalist at the 1993 Laser Radial European Championship, silver medalist at the 1994 IYRU World Youth Sailing Championship in Marathon, Greece and gold medalist at the 1995 IYRU World Youth Sailing Championship in Hamilton, Bermuda.

Ainslie won silver at the 1996 Olympic Games and gold in the 2000 Summer Olympics in the Laser class. He put on 40 pounds (18 kg) and moved to the larger Finn class for the 2004 Summer Olympics, where he won gold, a feat he repeated in the 2008 competition. He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2001 New Year Honours after his success in Sydney, and was promoted to Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2005 New Year Honours following the Athens Games. He was again promoted, to Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours, following the Beijing Games.

America's Cup

At the beginning of 2005 he worked in the role of Tactician in the New Zealand based Team New Zealand who were preparing to compete in the challenger selection process to win the right to Challenge for the 32nd America's Cup.

In May 2005 Ainslie took the decision to relinquish the role of tactician and focus on improving his Match Racing skills as helmsman of the 'B' boat used to practice and tune the race boat helmed by Dean Barker.

He is presently skipper on Team Origin.

New Zealand Match Racing Championships

In November 2008, Ainslie finished first place in the New Zealand Match racing Championships

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/00791/ben_ainslie4_791788c.jpg

http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/04/0223ainslie/1.JPG

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/05/10 at 4:41 am


Back in the day, wayyy back in the 70s, we used to sing "School's out" on the last day of school before the summer holidays. Wonder if anyone else on these boards did that?

All the time ;D
Okay...I admit that I thought the song "Only Women Bleed" was about something else!  :-\\

Actually I did too :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/05/10 at 4:43 am


Sports person of the day: Hank Aaron (born February 5, 1934 in Mobile, Alabama)

Aaron is widely considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time. In 1999, editors at The Sporting News ranked Hank Aaron fifth on their list of "Greatest Baseball Players.
He played 21 seasons with the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves in the National League, and his last two years (1975–76) with the Milwaukee Brewers in the American League. His most notable achievement was setting the MLB record for most career home runs with 755, which he held for 33 years until being surpassed by San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds on August 7, 2007.  Many still maintain Aaron holds the record since Barry has been linked with steroids.

http://www.vintagecardprices.com/pics/1830/110/165092.jpg


He hit 24 or more home runs every year from 1955 through 1973, and is the only player to hit 30 or more home runs in a season at least fifteen times. He is one of only four players to have at least seventeen seasons with 150 or more hits. Aaron made the All-Star team every year from 1955 until 1975 and won three Rawlings Gold Glove Awards. In 1957, he won the National League Most Valuable Player Award, while that same year, the Braves won the World Series, his one World Series victory during his career.

http://rhapsodyinbooks.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/hank-aaron-6.jpg

Aaron's consistency helped him to establish a number of important hitting records during his 23-year career. Aaron holds the MLB records for the most career runs batted in (2,297), the most career extra base hits (1,477), and the most career total bases (6,856); he is also in the top five for career hits with 3,771 (third) and runs with 2,174, which is tied for fourth with Babe Ruth). He also is in second place in at-bats (12,364), and in third place in games played (3,298). Aaron's nicknames include "Hammer," "Hammerin' Hank"
http://urbansportstalk.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/hank-aaron.jpg




Nice bio :)  good thing I checked I had picked Hank as my person.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/05/10 at 4:45 am


Thanks for the explanation on that ;)

Your welcome :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/05/10 at 4:45 am


Nice bio on Karen Carpenter, Ninny. I've always liked her. Thanks for sharing.  :)

I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/05/10 at 4:48 am


British Person of the Day: Ben Ainslie

Charles Benedict Ainslie, CBE (born 5 February 1977 in Macclesfield) is an English sailor and three-times Olympic gold medalist. He started sailing at the age of 4 and first competed at the age of 10. Ainslie's first international competition was the 1989 Optimist world championships held in Japan where he placed 37th.

The son of Roderick 'Roddy' Ainslie, who captained a boat that took part in the first Whitbread Round The World Race in 1973, he won a gold medal at the World Youth Championships in 1995 and was awarded the title of British Yachtsman of the Year in 1995, 1999, 2000 and 2002. He was elected ISAF World Sailor of the Year in 1998, 2002 and 2008.

Sailing

Olympic medal record
Sailing
Gold 2008 Beijing Finn
Gold 2004 Athens Finn
Gold 2000 Sydney Laser
Silver 1996 Atlanta Laser

Ainslie was a gold medalist at the 1993 Laser Radial World Championship, gold medalist at the 1993 Laser Radial European Championship, silver medalist at the 1994 IYRU World Youth Sailing Championship in Marathon, Greece and gold medalist at the 1995 IYRU World Youth Sailing Championship in Hamilton, Bermuda.

Ainslie won silver at the 1996 Olympic Games and gold in the 2000 Summer Olympics in the Laser class. He put on 40 pounds (18 kg) and moved to the larger Finn class for the 2004 Summer Olympics, where he won gold, a feat he repeated in the 2008 competition. He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2001 New Year Honours after his success in Sydney, and was promoted to Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2005 New Year Honours following the Athens Games. He was again promoted, to Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours, following the Beijing Games.

America's Cup

At the beginning of 2005 he worked in the role of Tactician in the New Zealand based Team New Zealand who were preparing to compete in the challenger selection process to win the right to Challenge for the 32nd America's Cup.

In May 2005 Ainslie took the decision to relinquish the role of tactician and focus on improving his Match Racing skills as helmsman of the 'B' boat used to practice and tune the race boat helmed by Dean Barker.

He is presently skipper on Team Origin.

New Zealand Match Racing Championships

In November 2008, Ainslie finished first place in the New Zealand Match racing Championships

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/00791/ben_ainslie4_791788c.jpg

http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/04/0223ainslie/1.JPG

Thanks Phil. I tied taking basic sailing lessons in college, all went well till they discovered I couldn't swim ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/05/10 at 4:54 am

The word of the day...Grapes
#
Grapes are small green or dark purple fruit which grow in bunches. Grapes can be eaten raw, used for making wine, or dried. N-COUNT food
#
If you describe someone's attitude as sour grapes, you mean that they say something is worthless or undesirable because they want it themselves but cannot have it.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/05/10 at 4:59 am

The person born on this day...John Carradine
John Carradine (February 5, 1906 – November 27, 1988) was an American actor, best known for his roles in horror films and Westerns.
Beginning with The Prisoner of Shark Island (1934), Carradine appeared in ten John Ford productions, including The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and Stagecoach (1939). He also portrayed the Biblical hero Aaron in The Ten Commandments (1956). He did considerable stage work, much of which provided his only opportunity to work in a classic drama context. He toured with his own Shakespearean company in the 1940s, playing Hamlet and Macbeth. His Broadway roles included Ferdinand in a 1946 production of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, the Ragpicker in a 13-month run of Jean Giraudoux's The Madwoman of Chaillot, Lycus in a 15-month run of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and DeLacey in the expensive one-night flop Frankenstein in 1981. He also toured in road companies of such shows as Tobacco Road and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in which he was properly emaciated as the cancer-ridden Big Daddy.

Carradine claimed to have appeared in more than 450 movies, but only 225 movies can be documented (his count is closer to fact if theatrical movies, made-for-TV movies and TV shows are included). He often played eccentric, mad or diabolical characters, especially in the horror genre with which he had become identified as a "star" by the mid-1940s. He occasionally, however, did play a "good guy" role, as in The Grapes of Wrath, in which he played Casy, the ill-fated "preacher". He appeared in seemingly dozens of low-budget horror films from the 1940s onwards, in order to finance a touring classical theatre company. He even sang the theme song to one film he appeared in briefly, Red Zone Cuba. He also made more than one hundred television appearances, including CBS's My Friend Flicka, NBC's Overland Trail in the 1960 episode "The Reckoning" and on ABC's Harrigan and Son and The Legend of Jesse James. He made recurring appearances as the mortician, Mr. Gateman, on CBS's The Munsters. In 1985, Carradine won a Daytime Emmy award for his performance as an eccentric old man who lives by the railroad tracks in the Young People's Special, Umbrella Jack.

In 1982, he did the voice of the Great Owl in the animated feature The Secret of NIMH. One of Carradine's final film appearances was Peggy Sue Got Married in 1986. Carradine's last released film credit was Bikini Drive-In, released years after his death.

Carradine's deep, resonant voice earned him the nickname "The Voice". He was also known as the "Bard of the Boulevard" due to his idiosyncratic habit of strolling Hollywood streets while reciting Shakespearean soliloquies, something he always denied.
Personal life

Four of Carradine's five sons became actors: David Carradine, Robert Carradine, Keith Carradine, and Bruce Carradine. David's show, Kung Fu, featured his father John and half-brother Robert in the episode "Dark Angel". John would appear as the same character, the Reverend Serenity Johnson, in two more episodes: "The Nature of Evil" and "Ambush". Keith Carradine portrayed a younger version of his half-brother David's character throughout the series.

Carradine was married four times. His wives were Ardanelle McCool, mother of Bruce and David. Bruce, Ardanelle's son from a previous marriage, was adopted by John. John was married to Ardanelle from 1935 to 1944; Sonia Sorel, mother of Keith, Robert and Chris from 1944 to 1956; Doris Rich from 1957 to 1971, ending in her death; and Emily Cisneros from 1975 to 1988, who survived him.

Carradine suffered from painful and crippling arthritis during his later years, but continued working nonetheless.
Death

On November 27, 1988, Carradine died of natural causes in Milan, Italy at age 82. His final words were: "Milan: What a beautiful place to die".

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, John Carradine has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6240 Hollywood Blvd.

In 2003, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Filmography
Main article: John Carradine filmography
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/05/10 at 5:04 am

The person who died on this day...Doug McClure
Douglas Osborne McClure (May 11, 1935 – February 5, 1995) was an American actor whose career in film and television extended from the 1950s to the 1990s. Born in Glendale, California, to Donald Reed McClure and the former Clara Clapp, he is best known for his appearances as Trampas in the NBC western series The Virginian.
McClure's The Virginian co-stars were James Drury, Roberta Shore, Lee J. Cobb, Randy Boone, Gary Clarke, and Tim Matheson in the later seasons. Before The Virginian, McClure costarred in two other series: (1) as Frank "Flip" Flippen on NBC's western, Overland Trail (1960), with co-star William Bendix, and (2) as Jed Sills on the CBS detective series Checkmate (1960-1962) opposite Anthony George as Don Corey and Sebastian Cabot as Dr. Carl Hyatt. In 1958 and 1959, McClure appeared in three episodes of the syndicated western series 26 Men, stories of the Arizona Rangers. He appeared as Adam Davis in 1959 in the episode "The Court Martial of Trooper Davis" of the syndicated series Mackenzie's Raiders starring Richard Carlson. He was in the third episode of The Twilight Zone, "Mr. Denton on Doomsday".

He also starred in science fiction films such as At the Earth's Core, The Land That Time Forgot and The People That Time Forgot, all three based on the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In 1967, he played the Errol Flynn role in a re-make of Against All Flags titled The King's Pirate. He co-starred on the sitcom Out of This World later in his career. Along with Troy Donahue, he gave his name to the character of Troy McClure on The Simpsons.

On February 5, 1995, McClure died from lung cancer in Sherman Oaks, California. He was 59 and is buried at Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery. In addition to his fifth wife, he was survived by three daughters, Valerie and Tane McClure, who is an actress.

McClure has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television at 7065 Hollywood Blvd. That star was unveiled in what proved to be his final public appearance in 1994.
Filmography

    * The Enemy Below (1957)
    * Gidget (1959)
    * The Unforgiven (1960)
    * Because They're Young (1960)
    * The Lively Set! (1964)
    * Shenandoah (1965)
    * Beau Geste (1966)
    * The King's Pirate (1967)
    * Playmates (1972)
    * The Judge and Jake Wyler (1972)
    * "Die blutigen Geier von Alaska" (Germany, 1973)
    * The Land That Time Forgot (1975)
    * At the Earth's Core (1976)
    * The People That Time Forgot (1977)
    * Warlords of Atlantis (1978)
    * Wild and Wooly (1978)
    * The Rebels - Pt. 2 of the Kent Family Chronicles (1979)
    * Humanoids from the Deep (1980)
    * Firebird 2015 A.D. (1981)
    * The House Where Evil Dwells (1982)
    * Cannonball Run II (1984)
    * 52 Pick-Up (1986)
    * Omega Syndrome (1986)
    * Prime Suspect (1988)
    * Dark Before Dawn (1988)
    * Battling for Baby (1992)
    * Dead Man's Revenge (1993)
    * Maverick (1994)
    * Riders in the Storm (1995)

Television

    * COronado 9 - Jimmy Hoke in "The Widow of Kill Cove" (1960)
    * Johnny Midnight - Rice in "Mother's Boy" (1960)
    * Overland Trail - Frank Flippin (1960)
    * Checkmate - Jed Stills (1960-1962)
    * The Virginian - Trampas (1962-1971)
    * The Longest Hundred Miles (1967)
    * Barbary Coast - Cash Conover (1975)
    * Satan's Triangle - Lt. J. Haig (1975)
    * Search - C. R. Grover (1972-1973)
    * Roots - Jimmy Brent (1977)
    * Out of This World - Mayor Kyle Applegate (1987-1991)
    * The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw (1994)
http://i449.photobucket.com/albums/qq213/robsonj3/doug_mcclure_200x200.jpg
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http://i449.photobucket.com/albums/qq213/robsonj3/doug.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/05/10 at 5:39 am


The word of the day...Grapes
#
Grapes are small green or dark purple fruit which grow in bunches. Grapes can be eaten raw, used for making wine, or dried. N-COUNT food
#
If you describe someone's attitude as sour grapes, you mean that they say something is worthless or undesirable because they want it themselves but cannot have it.
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http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz71/Empire1000/TheGrapesOfWrath.jpg


grapes are so delicious.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 02/05/10 at 5:53 am

One of the pics made me forget about the grapes! ...but mmmmmmm anyway!  ;)

I liked Doug McClure...I remembered seeing him in a pirate movie when I was young (probably The Kings Pirate)... :)

Carradine reminds me of Vincent Price in one of those pics....

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/05/10 at 7:17 am


grapes are so delicious.

Yes they are :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/05/10 at 7:19 am


One of the pics made me forget about the grapes! ...but mmmmmmm anyway!  ;)

I liked Doug McClure...I remembered seeing him in a pirate movie when I was young (probably The Kings Pirate)... :)

Carradine reminds me of Vincent Price in one of those pics....

Well I thought Howie would mention that pic ;D
I thought the same thing, that the pic looked like Vincent Price.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/05/10 at 10:26 am


One of the pics made me forget about the grapes! ...but mmmmmmm anyway!  ;)

I liked Doug McClure...I remembered seeing him in a pirate movie when I was young (probably The Kings Pirate)... :)

Carradine reminds me of Vincent Price in one of those pics....

I liked Doug McClure too, and yes, Carradine's resemblance with Vincent Price, agreed.



Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/05/10 at 10:29 am

Interesting you chose the food "Grapes" today, because that's the nickname of Canada's most famous hockey personality, Don Cherry, and it's his birthday today (born Feb 5, 1934)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/05/10 at 12:59 pm


Thanks Phil. I tied taking basic sailing lessons in college, all went well till they discovered I couldn't swim ;D
I do not enjoy being on a boat too.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/05/10 at 1:06 pm


I do not enjoy being on a boat too.

I like boats, and like to swim.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/05/10 at 2:02 pm


The person who died on this day...Doug McClure
Douglas Osborne McClure (May 11, 1935 – February 5, 1995) was an American actor whose career in film and television extended from the 1950s to the 1990s. Born in Glendale, California, to Donald Reed McClure and the former Clara Clapp, he is best known for his appearances as Trampas in the NBC western series The Virginian.
McClure's The Virginian co-stars were James Drury, Roberta Shore, Lee J. Cobb, Randy Boone, Gary Clarke, and Tim Matheson in the later seasons. Before The Virginian, McClure costarred in two other series: (1) as Frank "Flip" Flippen on NBC's western, Overland Trail (1960), with co-star William Bendix, and (2) as Jed Sills on the CBS detective series Checkmate (1960-1962) opposite Anthony George as Don Corey and Sebastian Cabot as Dr. Carl Hyatt. In 1958 and 1959, McClure appeared in three episodes of the syndicated western series 26 Men, stories of the Arizona Rangers. He appeared as Adam Davis in 1959 in the episode "The Court Martial of Trooper Davis" of the syndicated series Mackenzie's Raiders starring Richard Carlson. He was in the third episode of The Twilight Zone, "Mr. Denton on Doomsday".

He also starred in science fiction films such as At the Earth's Core, The Land That Time Forgot and The People That Time Forgot, all three based on the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In 1967, he played the Errol Flynn role in a re-make of Against All Flags titled The King's Pirate. He co-starred on the sitcom Out of This World later in his career. Along with Troy Donahue, he gave his name to the character of Troy McClure on The Simpsons.

On February 5, 1995, McClure died from lung cancer in Sherman Oaks, California. He was 59 and is buried at Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery. In addition to his fifth wife, he was survived by three daughters, Valerie and Tane McClure, who is an actress.

McClure has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television at 7065 Hollywood Blvd. That star was unveiled in what proved to be his final public appearance in 1994.
Filmography

    * The Enemy Below (1957)
    * Gidget (1959)
    * The Unforgiven (1960)
    * Because They're Young (1960)
    * The Lively Set! (1964)
    * Shenandoah (1965)
    * Beau Geste (1966)
    * The King's Pirate (1967)
    * Playmates (1972)
    * The Judge and Jake Wyler (1972)
    * "Die blutigen Geier von Alaska" (Germany, 1973)
    * The Land That Time Forgot (1975)
    * At the Earth's Core (1976)
    * The People That Time Forgot (1977)
    * Warlords of Atlantis (1978)
    * Wild and Wooly (1978)
    * The Rebels - Pt. 2 of the Kent Family Chronicles (1979)
    * Humanoids from the Deep (1980)
    * Firebird 2015 A.D. (1981)
    * The House Where Evil Dwells (1982)
    * Cannonball Run II (1984)
    * 52 Pick-Up (1986)
    * Omega Syndrome (1986)
    * Prime Suspect (1988)
    * Dark Before Dawn (1988)
    * Battling for Baby (1992)
    * Dead Man's Revenge (1993)
    * Maverick (1994)
    * Riders in the Storm (1995)

Television

    * COronado 9 - Jimmy Hoke in "The Widow of Kill Cove" (1960)
    * Johnny Midnight - Rice in "Mother's Boy" (1960)
    * Overland Trail - Frank Flippin (1960)
    * Checkmate - Jed Stills (1960-1962)
    * The Virginian - Trampas (1962-1971)
    * The Longest Hundred Miles (1967)
    * Barbary Coast - Cash Conover (1975)
    * Satan's Triangle - Lt. J. Haig (1975)
    * Search - C. R. Grover (1972-1973)
    * Roots - Jimmy Brent (1977)
    * Out of This World - Mayor Kyle Applegate (1987-1991)
    * The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw (1994)

Any connection to Troy McClure?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/05/10 at 2:10 pm


Sports person of the day: Hank Aaron (born February 5, 1934 in Mobile, Alabama)

Aaron is widely considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time. In 1999, editors at The Sporting News ranked Hank Aaron fifth on their list of "Greatest Baseball Players.
He played 21 seasons with the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves in the National League, and his last two years (1975–76) with the Milwaukee Brewers in the American League. His most notable achievement was setting the MLB record for most career home runs with 755, which he held for 33 years until being surpassed by San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds on August 7, 2007.  Many still maintain Aaron holds the record since Barry has been linked with steroids.

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He hit 24 or more home runs every year from 1955 through 1973, and is the only player to hit 30 or more home runs in a season at least fifteen times. He is one of only four players to have at least seventeen seasons with 150 or more hits. Aaron made the All-Star team every year from 1955 until 1975 and won three Rawlings Gold Glove Awards. In 1957, he won the National League Most Valuable Player Award, while that same year, the Braves won the World Series, his one World Series victory during his career.

http://rhapsodyinbooks.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/hank-aaron-6.jpg

Aaron's consistency helped him to establish a number of important hitting records during his 23-year career. Aaron holds the MLB records for the most career runs batted in (2,297), the most career extra base hits (1,477), and the most career total bases (6,856); he is also in the top five for career hits with 3,771 (third) and runs with 2,174, which is tied for fourth with Babe Ruth). He also is in second place in at-bats (12,364), and in third place in games played (3,298). Aaron's nicknames include "Hammer," "Hammerin' Hank"
http://urbansportstalk.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/hank-aaron.jpg



A name for me to remember for Baseball players A-Z

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/05/10 at 3:00 pm


Yes they are :)


the green ones are good instead of the pitted ones.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 02/05/10 at 3:02 pm


the green ones are good instead of the pitted ones.

I mostly eat the green grapes too. I haven't found too many pitted grapes of any color

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/05/10 at 3:04 pm


I mostly eat the green grapes too. I haven't found too many pitted grapes of any color


I think the red ones have pits.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 02/05/10 at 3:04 pm


I think the red ones have pits.

Some varieties of them probably do.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/05/10 at 3:22 pm


the green ones are good instead of the pitted ones.
I like drinking grapes

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/05/10 at 3:23 pm


I like drinking grapes


I like grape soda.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/05/10 at 3:24 pm


I like grape soda.
It is wine for me, red or white will do.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/05/10 at 3:25 pm


It is wine for me, red or white will do.


grape wine is good on an occasion.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/05/10 at 3:27 pm


grape wine is good on an occasion.
...or relaxing, like at the end of a long hard week at work.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/05/10 at 3:28 pm


...or relaxing, like at the end of a long hard week at work.


I drink coffee after a hard day.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/05/10 at 3:30 pm


I drink coffee after a hard day.
With caffine in it?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 02/05/10 at 4:08 pm


I like boats, and like to swim.


I'm an Aussie who never learned to swim. I have virtually no buoyancy at all....can't even float on my back. I never go out of my depth... :-\\

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/05/10 at 6:01 pm


I'm an Aussie who never learned to swim. I have virtually no buoyancy at all....can't even float on my back. I never go out of my depth... :-\\
I always thought that Australians were good swimmers.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 02/05/10 at 6:02 pm


I always thought that Australians were good swimmers.


Many are...excepting myself, of course!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/05/10 at 6:05 pm


Many are...excepting myself, of course!
Understandable, Australia has always had Olympic swimmer and the images of being on a beach next to sea.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 02/05/10 at 6:07 pm


Understandable, Australia has always had Olympic swimmer and the images of being on a beach next to sea.


I am about an hours drive from the nearest surfing beach. Due to me lack of water skill, I have never tried to surf. Just body surfing...

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: seamermar on 02/05/10 at 6:33 pm


The person who died on this day...Doug McClure
he is best known for his appearances as Trampas in the NBC western series The Virginian.


Hi ninny !! just my favour character in that serie which I watched when I was a child.

Trampas is a Spanish word meaning traps.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/05/10 at 8:42 pm


I'm an Aussie who never learned to swim. I have virtually no buoyancy at all....can't even float on my back. I never go out of my depth... :-\\

Am I the only one who swims here?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/05/10 at 9:12 pm


Any connection to Troy McClure?

Actually yes according to Wikipedia:
McClure was based on the typical "washed up" Hollywood actor. B movie actors Troy Donahue and Doug McClure served as inspiration for his name and certain character aspects. Writer Mike Reiss later met Doug McClure's daughter, who revealed that her father had found the homage funny. His children would call their father "Troy McClure" when his back was turned. According to show creator Matt Groening, Phil Hartman was cast in the role due to his ability to pull "the maximum amount of humor" out of any line he was given. McClure's visual appearance is similar to that of Hartman himself.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/05/10 at 9:13 pm


I like grape soda.

Me too :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/05/10 at 9:14 pm


I like drinking grapes

Wine gives me hot flashes and well we wont say what champagne does to me. :-[

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/05/10 at 9:15 pm


I like boats, and like to swim.

I wish I could
I'm an Aussie who never learned to swim. I have virtually no buoyancy at all....can't even float on my back. I never go out of my depth... :-\\

I do a mean doggy paddle ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/05/10 at 9:16 pm


Hi ninny !! just my favour character in that serie which I watched when I was a child.

Trampas is a Spanish word meaning traps.

Nice to hear from you old friend :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/06/10 at 12:02 am


Wine gives me hot flashes and well we wont say what champagne does to me. :-[
Never like champagne.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/06/10 at 4:10 am

The word of the day...Umbrella
An umbrella is an object which you use to protect yourself from the rain or hot sun. It consists of a long stick with a folding frame covered in cloth.
Umbrella is used to refer to a single group or description that includes a lot of different organizations or ideas.
Umbrella is used to refer to a system or agreement which protects a country or group of people.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/06/10 at 4:12 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvBfHwUxHIk

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/06/10 at 4:18 am

The person born on this day...Patrick Macnee
Patrick Macnee (born 6 February 1922) is an English actor, best known for his role as the secret agent John Steed in the series The Avengers. Macnee, the older of two sons (he has a younger brother, James), was born Daniel Patrick Macnee in Paddington, London, the son of Dorothea Mary (née Henry) and Daniel "Shrimp" Macnee, a race horse trainer. His maternal grandmother was Frances Alice Hastings, who descended from the Earls of Huntingdon - Macnee has long suggested that he may be a distant relation of Robin Hood, sometimes said to have been a black sheep of the Huntingdon family. Macnee's great-grandfather was Scottish portrait artist Sir Daniel Macnee.

His parents divorced after his mother declared her lesbianism and had a live-in partner (referred to in Macnee's memoirs as "Uncle Evelyn") who helped pay for young Patrick's schooling. He was educated at Eton College, was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and was awarded the Atlantic Star for his service during World War II. After nurturing his acting career in Canada, Macnee appeared in supporting roles in a number of films, notably in the Gene Kelly vehicle Les Girls (as an Old Bailey barrister) and opposite Anthony Quayle in the 1956 war movie The Battle of the River Plate. He had a small role in the 1951 version of Scrooge (A Christmas Carol in the US) as the young Jacob Marley (according to Macnee's official website).
“The Avengers”

Despite numerous roles in theatre, on television and in cinema, Macnee is still best known as John Steed in the series The Avengers (broadcast from 1961 to 1969). Initially, a secondary character — the series was conceived as a vehicle for Ian Hendry, who played an associate of Steed's — Steed (and Macnee) became the centre of the show after Hendry's departure at the end of the first season. He played opposite a succession of female partners who included Honor Blackman, Diana Rigg, and finally Linda Thorson. Steed was also the central character of a revival, The New Avengers, in which he was teamed with Purdey, portrayed by Joanna Lumley, and Mike Gambit, played by Gareth Hunt.

Although Macnee evolved the role as the series progressed, the key elements of Steed's persona and appearance were there from very early on: the slightly mysterious demeanour, and increasingly, the light, suave, flirting tone with ladies (and always with his female assistants). Finally, from the episodes with Honor Blackman onwards, the trademark bowler hat and umbrella completed the image. Traditionally associated with London 'city gents', the suit, umbrella and bowler had developed in the post-war years as mufti for ex-servicemen attending Armistice Day ceremonies. Macnee, alongside designer Pierre Cardin, adapted the look into a style all his own, and he went on to design several outfits himself for Steed based on the same basic theme.

During the 1960s, Macnee co-wrote two original novels based upon “The Avengers”: “Dead Duck” and “Deadline”. In 1988, he wrote his autobiography entitled “Blind in One Ear”. In 1995, he hosted a documentary, “The Avengers: The Journey Back”, directed by Clyde Lucas.

When asked in June 1982 which “Avengers” female lead was his favourite, Macnee declined to give a specific answer. "Well, I'd rather not say. To do so would invite trouble," he told TV Week magazine. Macnee did provide his evaluation of the female leads. Of Honor Blackman he said "She was wonderful, presenting the concept of a strong-willed, independent and liberated woman just as that sort of woman was beginning to emerge in society." Diana Rigg was "One of the world's great actresses. A superb comedienne. I'm convinced that one day she'll be Dame Diana." (which actually came true) Linda Thorson was "one of the sexiest women alive" while Joanna Lumley was "superb in the role of Purdey. An actress who is only now realising her immense potential."
Other roles

Macnee's other notable roles have included playing Sir Godfrey Tibbett opposite Roger Moore in the James Bond movie A View to a Kill, as Major Crossley in "The Sea Wolves" (again with Moore), guest roles in "Alias Smith and Jones", "Hart to Hart", "Murder, She Wrote", "Battlestar Galactica" and "The Love Boat". Though Macnee found fame as the heroic Steed, the majority of his guest appearances have been in villainous roles. He also presented the American paranormal series, "Mysteries, Magic and Miracles". Macnee made his Broadway debut as the star of Anthony Shaffer's mystery "Sleuth" in 1972 and subsequently headlined the national tour of that play. .

In 1975, Macnee co-starred as the ship's captain with Peter Falk and Robert Vaughn in the Columbo episode Troubled Waters. He had recurring roles in the crime series Gavilan with Robert Urich and in the 1984 satire on big business, Empire, as the menacing M.D. 'Calvin Cromwell'. In 1984, Macnee appeared in Magnum, P.I. as a retired British agent who believes he is Sherlock Holmes (in a Season four episode entitled "Holmes is Where the Heart is"). He in fact had played Dr. Watson to Roger Moore's Sherlock Holmes in a 1976 TV movie, “Sherlock Holmes in New York” and went on to play Holmes in another TV movie, “The Hound of London” (1993). He played Watson in two TV movies with Christopher Lee (“Incident at Victoria Falls” and “Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady”).

He also appeared in several cult films: in The Howling as 'Dr George Waggner' (named whimsically after the director of 1941's The Wolf Man) and as 'Sir Denis Eton-Hogg' in the rockumentary comedy This Is Spinal Tap. He took over Leo G. Carroll's role as the head of U.N.C.L.E. in The Return of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in 1983. Patrick starred in the 1990s science fiction series Super Force as E.B. Hungerford (called "MR. H." by lab assistant F.X.) in the pilot and his computer counter-part; his character was killed. Macnee also appeared as a supporting character in the 1989 science fiction parody, Lobster Man From Mars, as Prof. Plocostomos and in Frasier (season 8, episode 11) .

Macnee serves as the narrator for several "behind-the-scenes" featurettes, featured on the James Bond series of DVDs. He lent his voice in a cameo as 'Invisible Jones' in the 1998 critically lambasted film version of The Avengers (in which Steed was played by Ralph Fiennes), and he also featured in two pop videos: in his Steed persona in The Pretenders' video “Don't Get Me Wrong”, and in the Oasis' video of their song “Don't Look Back in Anger” in 1996, with the familiar smart suit and umbrella, but minus the bowler hat. Macnee was the voice of the evil Imperious Leader of the Cylons in the original 1970's version of Battlestar Galactica, and appeared onscreen as Count Iblis - the Imperious Leader apparently based on him.

He has also recorded numerous audio books, most notably for the audio book releases of many novels by Jack Higgins.
Personal life

Macnee has two children, Rupert and Jenny, from his first marriage to Barbara Douglas (from 1942 to 1956). His second marriage (1965 – 1969) was to actress Katherine Woodville. He was married to third wife Baba Majos de Nagyzsenye from 1988 until her death in 2008.

Macnee became an American citizen in 1959.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/06/10 at 4:18 am

British Person of the Day: Rick Astley

Richard Paul "Rick" Astley (born 6 February 1966, Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire) is an English singer-songwriter and musician. He is best known for his 1987 hit single in 16 countries, "Never Gonna Give You Up". Astley holds the record for being the only male solo artist to have his first 8 singles reach the Top 10 in the UK and has sold approximately 40 million records worldwide.

After fading into obscurity in the 1990s, Astley made a comeback in 2007 when he became an Internet phenomenon, as his video for "Never Gonna Give You Up" became part of a popular Internet meme known as "Rickrolling". Astley was voted by Internet users "Best Act Ever" at the MTV Europe Music Awards 2008.

1980s

In 1985, Astley was playing the club circuit as a drummer with a soul band named FBI when he was noticed by the record producer Pete Waterman, who persuaded him to come to London to work at the PWL recording studio. Under the tutelage of the production team of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman, known as Stock Aitken Waterman, Astley was taught about the recording process and groomed for his future career, supposedly starting off as the recording studio 'tea boy'.

His first single was the little-known "When You Gonna", released as a collaboration with Lisa Carter, but his first solo offering was "Never Gonna Give You Up", released in 1987. It became an immediate success, spending five weeks at the top of the British charts and becoming the year's highest-selling single. It was the first of 13 (worldwide) top 30 hit singles for him.

The 1987 album Whenever You Need Somebody also reached number one in the UK, and the hit singles continued, including the title track and a cover of Nat King Cole's "When I Fall in Love".

On 12 March 1988, "Never Gonna Give You Up" also topped the U.S. singles chart and was followed by a second U.S. #1 on 18 June with his second U.S. single release, "Together Forever". In 1989 he was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best New Artist, but lost to Tracy Chapman.
The group FBI, from left to right, Kevin Needham, Rick Astley, Will Hopper, Peter Dale, & Greg Smee, in 1984.

In late 1988, Astley released his second album, Hold Me In Your Arms. While the album sold well in Europe, with all its three singles becoming top 10 hits in the UK, his success in the US waned, with only the first single, "She Wants To Dance With Me", making an impact, peaking at #6.

1990s

By the end of the 1980s, Astley had parted company with Stock, Aitken, and Waterman. He achieved one more major success with the 1991 ballad "Cry for Help", which reached the top 10 in both the UK and the US. The song was taken from his third album, Free, which featured a move towards soul music, leaving his synth-pop days behind. The album was not as successful as his previous two.

In 1991 the RIAA certified that two million copies of Whenever You Need Somebody had been sold.

His next album, Body and Soul, was released in 1993. The album did not chart in the UK but managed to make the Billboard 200, peaking at #182. The two singles, "The Ones You Love" and "Hopelessly", performed very well on the adult contemporary chart, peaking at #19 and #4 respectively. "Hopelessly" also crossed over and peaked at #31 on the Top 40 Mainstream chart.

For much of the 1990s and early 2000s, Astley remained largely out of the spotlight.

2000s

Almost 10 years after Body and Soul, Astley finally returned to the music world and released Keep It Turned On in 2002. The album featured the single "Sleeping", which became a minor club hit, thanks to a set of remixes from U.S. house producer Todd Terry.

In March, 2005, Astley released the album Portrait in which he covered many classic standards such as "Vincent", "Nature Boy" and "Close to You".

In early 2006, Astley withdrew unexpectedly at the eleventh hour from appearing on the BBC TV celebrity/pro duets show Just the Two of Us after committing to do so. This led to criticism from those in the entertainment industry and media. His place was filled by singer Russell Watson, who eventually won the competition. The BBC failed to explain that Astley's withdrawal was due to his wife Lene Bausager being nominated for the 2006 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for the Sean Ellis film Cashback, where she was the main producer. Astley would have missed a crucial part of the show by attending the awards ceremony and so withdrew before the show began.
Astley at a festival in Singapore.

Based on various music charts in the UK, US and Canada, Astley has charted a grand total of 14 different hit singles and 6 different hit albums, as of March 2006. In April 2008, the album "The Ultimate Collection: Rick Astley" was released by Sony BMG and by early May it had reached #17 on the UK Top 40 Albums Chart.

In September 2008, Rick was nominated for the 'Best Act Ever' award at the MTV Europe Music Awards The push to make Astley the winner of the award continued after the announcement, as well as efforts to encourage MTV to personally invite Astley to the awards ceremony. On 10 October, Astley's website confirmed that an invitation to the awards had been received. On 7 November, following a massive internet campaign by fans, Rick won the award in Liverpool, but was not there in person to receive it. Perez Hilton collected the prize on his behalf.

In 2008, Astley was a headlining act at the Northampton Balloon Festival. In April 2009, he wrote an article for Time Magazine about moot.

Rickroll Internet phenomenon

In 2007 Rick Astley became the subject of a viral Internet meme in which an estimated 25 million Internet users were tricked into watching Rick Astley's video "Never Gonna Give You Up" by posting it under the name of other popular video titles. The practice is now known as Rickrolling. The phenomenon became so popular that on 1 April 2008, YouTube pranked its users by making every single featured video on the front page a Rickroll.

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Technology/images/rick-astley.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/06/10 at 4:18 am


The person born on this day...Patrick Macnee
Patrick Macnee (born 6 February 1922) is an English actor, best known for his role as the secret agent John Steed in the series The Avengers. Macnee, the older of two sons (he has a younger brother, James), was born Daniel Patrick Macnee in Paddington, London, the son of Dorothea Mary (née Henry) and Daniel "Shrimp" Macnee, a race horse trainer. His maternal grandmother was Frances Alice Hastings, who descended from the Earls of Huntingdon - Macnee has long suggested that he may be a distant relation of Robin Hood, sometimes said to have been a black sheep of the Huntingdon family. Macnee's great-grandfather was Scottish portrait artist Sir Daniel Macnee.

His parents divorced after his mother declared her lesbianism and had a live-in partner (referred to in Macnee's memoirs as "Uncle Evelyn") who helped pay for young Patrick's schooling. He was educated at Eton College, was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and was awarded the Atlantic Star for his service during World War II. After nurturing his acting career in Canada, Macnee appeared in supporting roles in a number of films, notably in the Gene Kelly vehicle Les Girls (as an Old Bailey barrister) and opposite Anthony Quayle in the 1956 war movie The Battle of the River Plate. He had a small role in the 1951 version of Scrooge (A Christmas Carol in the US) as the young Jacob Marley (according to Macnee's official website).
“The Avengers”

Despite numerous roles in theatre, on television and in cinema, Macnee is still best known as John Steed in the series The Avengers (broadcast from 1961 to 1969). Initially, a secondary character — the series was conceived as a vehicle for Ian Hendry, who played an associate of Steed's — Steed (and Macnee) became the centre of the show after Hendry's departure at the end of the first season. He played opposite a succession of female partners who included Honor Blackman, Diana Rigg, and finally Linda Thorson. Steed was also the central character of a revival, The New Avengers, in which he was teamed with Purdey, portrayed by Joanna Lumley, and Mike Gambit, played by Gareth Hunt.

Although Macnee evolved the role as the series progressed, the key elements of Steed's persona and appearance were there from very early on: the slightly mysterious demeanour, and increasingly, the light, suave, flirting tone with ladies (and always with his female assistants). Finally, from the episodes with Honor Blackman onwards, the trademark bowler hat and umbrella completed the image. Traditionally associated with London 'city gents', the suit, umbrella and bowler had developed in the post-war years as mufti for ex-servicemen attending Armistice Day ceremonies. Macnee, alongside designer Pierre Cardin, adapted the look into a style all his own, and he went on to design several outfits himself for Steed based on the same basic theme.

During the 1960s, Macnee co-wrote two original novels based upon “The Avengers”: “Dead Duck” and “Deadline”. In 1988, he wrote his autobiography entitled “Blind in One Ear”. In 1995, he hosted a documentary, “The Avengers: The Journey Back”, directed by Clyde Lucas.

When asked in June 1982 which “Avengers” female lead was his favourite, Macnee declined to give a specific answer. "Well, I'd rather not say. To do so would invite trouble," he told TV Week magazine. Macnee did provide his evaluation of the female leads. Of Honor Blackman he said "She was wonderful, presenting the concept of a strong-willed, independent and liberated woman just as that sort of woman was beginning to emerge in society." Diana Rigg was "One of the world's great actresses. A superb comedienne. I'm convinced that one day she'll be Dame Diana." (which actually came true) Linda Thorson was "one of the sexiest women alive" while Joanna Lumley was "superb in the role of Purdey. An actress who is only now realising her immense potential."
Other roles

Macnee's other notable roles have included playing Sir Godfrey Tibbett opposite Roger Moore in the James Bond movie A View to a Kill, as Major Crossley in "The Sea Wolves" (again with Moore), guest roles in "Alias Smith and Jones", "Hart to Hart", "Murder, She Wrote", "Battlestar Galactica" and "The Love Boat". Though Macnee found fame as the heroic Steed, the majority of his guest appearances have been in villainous roles. He also presented the American paranormal series, "Mysteries, Magic and Miracles". Macnee made his Broadway debut as the star of Anthony Shaffer's mystery "Sleuth" in 1972 and subsequently headlined the national tour of that play. .

In 1975, Macnee co-starred as the ship's captain with Peter Falk and Robert Vaughn in the Columbo episode Troubled Waters. He had recurring roles in the crime series Gavilan with Robert Urich and in the 1984 satire on big business, Empire, as the menacing M.D. 'Calvin Cromwell'. In 1984, Macnee appeared in Magnum, P.I. as a retired British agent who believes he is Sherlock Holmes (in a Season four episode entitled "Holmes is Where the Heart is"). He in fact had played Dr. Watson to Roger Moore's Sherlock Holmes in a 1976 TV movie, “Sherlock Holmes in New York” and went on to play Holmes in another TV movie, “The Hound of London” (1993). He played Watson in two TV movies with Christopher Lee (“Incident at Victoria Falls” and “Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady”).

He also appeared in several cult films: in The Howling as 'Dr George Waggner' (named whimsically after the director of 1941's The Wolf Man) and as 'Sir Denis Eton-Hogg' in the rockumentary comedy This Is Spinal Tap. He took over Leo G. Carroll's role as the head of U.N.C.L.E. in The Return of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in 1983. Patrick starred in the 1990s science fiction series Super Force as E.B. Hungerford (called "MR. H." by lab assistant F.X.) in the pilot and his computer counter-part; his character was killed. Macnee also appeared as a supporting character in the 1989 science fiction parody, Lobster Man From Mars, as Prof. Plocostomos and in Frasier (season 8, episode 11) .

Macnee serves as the narrator for several "behind-the-scenes" featurettes, featured on the James Bond series of DVDs. He lent his voice in a cameo as 'Invisible Jones' in the 1998 critically lambasted film version of The Avengers (in which Steed was played by Ralph Fiennes), and he also featured in two pop videos: in his Steed persona in The Pretenders' video “Don't Get Me Wrong”, and in the Oasis' video of their song “Don't Look Back in Anger” in 1996, with the familiar smart suit and umbrella, but minus the bowler hat. Macnee was the voice of the evil Imperious Leader of the Cylons in the original 1970's version of Battlestar Galactica, and appeared onscreen as Count Iblis - the Imperious Leader apparently based on him.

He has also recorded numerous audio books, most notably for the audio book releases of many novels by Jack Higgins.
Personal life

Macnee has two children, Rupert and Jenny, from his first marriage to Barbara Douglas (from 1942 to 1956). His second marriage (1965 – 1969) was to actress Katherine Woodville. He was married to third wife Baba Majos de Nagyzsenye from 1988 until her death in 2008.

Macnee became an American citizen in 1959.
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The Avengers, one tv program I can easily watch again with pleasure.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/06/10 at 4:23 am

The person who died on this day...Danny Thomas

Danny Thomas (January 6, 1912 – February 6, 1991) was an American nightclub comedian and television and film actor, best known for starring in the television sitcom Make Room for Daddy, or The Danny Thomas Show. He is also the founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. He is the father of Marlo Thomas, Terre Thomas and Tony Thomas.
Thomas was born Amos Alphonsus Muzyad Yakhoob in Deerfield, Michigan, to Charles and Margaret Yakhoob (Jacobs). His parents were immigrants from Lebanon. He first performed under his Anglicized birth name, Amos Jacobs, before settling on the stage name, Danny Thomas, which were the first names of two of his brothers. He was raised in Toledo, Ohio, attending St. Francis de Sales Church, Woodward High School and attending The University of Toledo. He married his beloved wife Rose Marie Cassaniti on January 15, 1936, a week after his 24th birthday.
Career

Thomas first reached large audiences on network radio in the 1940s, most notably playing shifty brother-in-law Amos in The Bickersons, which began as sketches on the half-hour music-comedy show Drene Time, co-hosted by Don Ameche and Frances Langford. Thomas also portrayed himself as a slightly scatterbrained Lothario on this show. His other network radio work included a stint as "Jerry Dingle" the postman on Fanny Brice's The Baby Snooks Show, and periodic appearances on the legendary NBC variety program, The Big Show, hosted by stage legend Tallulah Bankhead.

In films, he starred in The Jazz Singer, a 1952 remake of the 1927 original and played songwriter Gus Kahn opposite Doris Day in the 1951 film biography I'll See You in My Dreams. During his successful run on Make Room for Daddy, which was later known as The Danny Thomas Show, Thomas became a successful television producer (with Sheldon Leonard and Aaron Spelling among his partners), working on many popular shows including The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Andy Griffith Show, and The Mod Squad. Thomas also produced three series for Walter Brennan: The Real McCoys, The Tycoon and The Guns of Will Sonnett, all on ABC during the late 1950s and 1960s.

He often appeared in cameos on shows he produced, perhaps the most memorable being his portrayal of the tuxedoed, humourlessly droll alien Colac, lord of the planet Twylo, in the classic Dick Van Dyke Show science-fiction spoof, "It May Look Like a Walnut."

In the early seventies, he reunited most of his second Daddy cast (Marjorie Lord, Rusty Hamer, and Angela Cartwright) for a short-lived update of the show, Make Room for Granddaddy. Premised around Danny and Kathy Williams caring for their grandson by daughter Terry, who was away with her husband on a long business assignment, the show barely lasted a season.

A generous philanthropist, Thomas founded the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1962. The hospital has treated thousands of children for childhood cancers. In 1996, Peter Doherty, Ph.D., of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, was corecipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work related to how the immune system kills virus-infected cells. As a "starving actor" Thomas made a vow: If he found success, he would open a hospital dedicated to St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes. A Third Degree Freemason, he was an active member of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (Shriners), especially in their hospital work for children.

Thomas was one of the original owners of the Miami Dolphins, along with Joe Robbie, although he sold his share soon after purchase. He was also an avid golfer. He claimed a ten golf handicap and once competed with Sam Snead in a charity event. Thomas developed a close relationship with the PGA Tour — two of their tournaments bore his name. The first was the Danny Thomas-Diplomat Classic which played in south Florida in 1969; then the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic which played from 1970–1984.

His children are also performers, the most famous being his daughter, Marlo, who is married to Phil Donahue. His son, Tony Thomas, is a television producer, and another daughter, Terre Thomas, is a former actress.

A devout Roman Catholic, Thomas was awarded a papal knighthood by Pope Paul VI. He was named a Knight Commander of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre in recognition of his services to both the church and the community. President Ronald Reagan presented Thomas with a Congressional Gold Medal honouring him for his work with St Jude's Hospital.
Death

Thomas died on February 6, 1991, of a heart failure at age 79. He had completed filming a commercial for St. Jude Hospital a few days before his death and this final commercial aired as a tribute to him.

Danny Thomas and his beloved wife Rose Marie (who also died in 2000) are interred in a crypt in a mausoleum on the grounds of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. He was a posthumous recipient of the 2004 Bob Hope Humanitarian Award.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/06/10 at 4:26 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvBfHwUxHIk

I knew someone would post this :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/06/10 at 4:27 am


The Avengers, one tv program I can easily watch again with pleasure.

I enjoyed it myself :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/06/10 at 4:28 am


British Person of the Day: Rick Astley

Richard Paul "Rick" Astley (born 6 February 1966, Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire) is an English singer-songwriter and musician. He is best known for his 1987 hit single in 16 countries, "Never Gonna Give You Up". Astley holds the record for being the only male solo artist to have his first 8 singles reach the Top 10 in the UK and has sold approximately 40 million records worldwide.

After fading into obscurity in the 1990s, Astley made a comeback in 2007 when he became an Internet phenomenon, as his video for "Never Gonna Give You Up" became part of a popular Internet meme known as "Rickrolling". Astley was voted by Internet users "Best Act Ever" at the MTV Europe Music Awards 2008.

1980s

In 1985, Astley was playing the club circuit as a drummer with a soul band named FBI when he was noticed by the record producer Pete Waterman, who persuaded him to come to London to work at the PWL recording studio. Under the tutelage of the production team of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman, known as Stock Aitken Waterman, Astley was taught about the recording process and groomed for his future career, supposedly starting off as the recording studio 'tea boy'.

His first single was the little-known "When You Gonna", released as a collaboration with Lisa Carter, but his first solo offering was "Never Gonna Give You Up", released in 1987. It became an immediate success, spending five weeks at the top of the British charts and becoming the year's highest-selling single. It was the first of 13 (worldwide) top 30 hit singles for him.

The 1987 album Whenever You Need Somebody also reached number one in the UK, and the hit singles continued, including the title track and a cover of Nat King Cole's "When I Fall in Love".

On 12 March 1988, "Never Gonna Give You Up" also topped the U.S. singles chart and was followed by a second U.S. #1 on 18 June with his second U.S. single release, "Together Forever". In 1989 he was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best New Artist, but lost to Tracy Chapman.
The group FBI, from left to right, Kevin Needham, Rick Astley, Will Hopper, Peter Dale, & Greg Smee, in 1984.

In late 1988, Astley released his second album, Hold Me In Your Arms. While the album sold well in Europe, with all its three singles becoming top 10 hits in the UK, his success in the US waned, with only the first single, "She Wants To Dance With Me", making an impact, peaking at #6.

1990s

By the end of the 1980s, Astley had parted company with Stock, Aitken, and Waterman. He achieved one more major success with the 1991 ballad "Cry for Help", which reached the top 10 in both the UK and the US. The song was taken from his third album, Free, which featured a move towards soul music, leaving his synth-pop days behind. The album was not as successful as his previous two.

In 1991 the RIAA certified that two million copies of Whenever You Need Somebody had been sold.

His next album, Body and Soul, was released in 1993. The album did not chart in the UK but managed to make the Billboard 200, peaking at #182. The two singles, "The Ones You Love" and "Hopelessly", performed very well on the adult contemporary chart, peaking at #19 and #4 respectively. "Hopelessly" also crossed over and peaked at #31 on the Top 40 Mainstream chart.

For much of the 1990s and early 2000s, Astley remained largely out of the spotlight.

2000s

Almost 10 years after Body and Soul, Astley finally returned to the music world and released Keep It Turned On in 2002. The album featured the single "Sleeping", which became a minor club hit, thanks to a set of remixes from U.S. house producer Todd Terry.

In March, 2005, Astley released the album Portrait in which he covered many classic standards such as "Vincent", "Nature Boy" and "Close to You".

In early 2006, Astley withdrew unexpectedly at the eleventh hour from appearing on the BBC TV celebrity/pro duets show Just the Two of Us after committing to do so. This led to criticism from those in the entertainment industry and media. His place was filled by singer Russell Watson, who eventually won the competition. The BBC failed to explain that Astley's withdrawal was due to his wife Lene Bausager being nominated for the 2006 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for the Sean Ellis film Cashback, where she was the main producer. Astley would have missed a crucial part of the show by attending the awards ceremony and so withdrew before the show began.
Astley at a festival in Singapore.

Based on various music charts in the UK, US and Canada, Astley has charted a grand total of 14 different hit singles and 6 different hit albums, as of March 2006. In April 2008, the album "The Ultimate Collection: Rick Astley" was released by Sony BMG and by early May it had reached #17 on the UK Top 40 Albums Chart.

In September 2008, Rick was nominated for the 'Best Act Ever' award at the MTV Europe Music Awards The push to make Astley the winner of the award continued after the announcement, as well as efforts to encourage MTV to personally invite Astley to the awards ceremony. On 10 October, Astley's website confirmed that an invitation to the awards had been received. On 7 November, following a massive internet campaign by fans, Rick won the award in Liverpool, but was not there in person to receive it. Perez Hilton collected the prize on his behalf.

In 2008, Astley was a headlining act at the Northampton Balloon Festival. In April 2009, he wrote an article for Time Magazine about moot.

Rickroll Internet phenomenon

In 2007 Rick Astley became the subject of a viral Internet meme in which an estimated 25 million Internet users were tricked into watching Rick Astley's video "Never Gonna Give You Up" by posting it under the name of other popular video titles. The practice is now known as Rickrolling. The phenomenon became so popular that on 1 April 2008, YouTube pranked its users by making every single featured video on the front page a Rickroll.

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Technology/images/rick-astley.jpg



Other than "Never Gonna Give You Up" I really don't know any of his songs.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/06/10 at 5:13 am


I enjoyed it myself :)
I remember watching The Avengers frist time round

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/06/10 at 6:47 am


With caffine in it?


and cream with sugar.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/06/10 at 6:50 am

Rick Astley,always like his videos.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/06/10 at 7:57 am


It is wine for me, red or white will do.



Spumonti for me.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/06/10 at 8:04 am



Spumonti for me.



Cat

I never got into wine even though I live in Wine Country NY.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/06/10 at 8:15 am



Spumonti for me.



Cat
http://www.luding.ru/media/catalog/drink/it_spumante_elit_big.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/06/10 at 8:32 am


http://www.luding.ru/media/catalog/drink/it_spumante_elit_big.jpg





Yup.


A little info about spumante. Spumante is the grape. Asti is a region in Italy. It is like Champagne. Sparkling wine HAS to be from that region in France to be called Champagne just like spumante HAS to be from the region in Italy for it to be called Asti.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/06/10 at 8:44 am



Yup.


A little info about spumante. Spumante is the grape. Asti is a region in Italy. It is like Champagne. Sparkling wine HAS to be from that region in France to be called Champagne just like spumante HAS to be from the region in Italy for it to be called Asti.



Cat
I forgot the glasses...

http://buycheapwineglasses.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/cheap-wine-glasses-2.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/06/10 at 8:53 am


I forgot the glasses...

http://buycheapwineglasses.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/cheap-wine-glasses-2.jpg



Is that enough for everyone? I think we will need more than 1 bottle for this crowd. I could drink a whole bottle by myself.  :o :o :o



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/06/10 at 10:28 am



Is that enough for everyone? I think we will need more than 1 bottle for this crowd. I could drink a whole bottle by myself.  :o :o :o



Cat
We need to find a good wine cellar.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/06/10 at 12:05 pm


The Avengers, one tv program I can easily watch again with pleasure.

Me too. We were fortunate to have that British TV show here in Canada.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/06/10 at 7:28 pm

he also had that Nat King Cole hit.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 02/07/10 at 1:47 am


The Avengers, one tv program I can easily watch again with pleasure.


I bought the DVD of the Diana Rigg series years. That show is a blast..... ;D .... and Diana Rigg is just so special I can't even tell you what that woman does for me...... ::)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/07/10 at 3:17 am


he also had that Nat King Cole hit.
When I Fall In Love

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/07/10 at 3:47 am

British Person of the Day: Hattie Jacques

Josephine Edwina Jaques (7 February 1922 – 6 October 1980) was an English comedy actress, known by the stage name Hattie Jacques.

Starting her career in the 1940s, Jacques first gained attention through her radio appearances with Tommy Handley on ITMA and later with Tony Hancock on Hancock's Half Hour. From 1958 to 1974 she appeared in fourteen Carry On films, often playing the Matron. She had a long professional partnership with Eric Sykes, with whom she co-starred in his long running television series, Sykes. She also starred in two Norman Wisdom films, The Square Peg and Follow a Star.

Jacques was married to John Le Mesurier from 1949 until their divorce in 1965.

Her final appearance on television was an advertisement for Asda in 1980. She died later that year from a heart attack.

Early life

Hattie Jacques was born Josephine Edwina Jaques in Sandgate, Kent in 1922, the daughter of Robin and Mary Jacques. Her father was an RAF pilot who was killed in a plane crash just 18 months after her birth. Her mother was an amateur actress.

Educated at the Godolphin and Latymer School, she served as a nurse in the Red Cross during the Second World War, and worked as a welder in a factory in North London

At the age of 20, she made her theatrical début at the Players' Theatre in London. Almost immediately, she became a regular performer with the company, appearing in music hall revues and playing the Fairy Queen in their Victorian-style pantomimes. It has been reported she sometimes "sang Marie Lloyd songs and ended her act by leaping into the air and doing the splits".

After achieving success in radio, television and film, she returned to the Players' on a regular basis as a performer, writer and director. It was during her time at the Players' that she acquired the nickname 'Hattie' - appearing in a minstrel show called 'Coal Black Mammies for Dixie', she took to the stage blacked up and was likened to the American actress Hattie McDaniel (of Gone with the Wind fame). Thereafter the name stuck.

Radio

In 1947 she was seen at the Players' by Ted Kavanagh, the scriptwriter of It's That Man Again (ITMA), and was invited to join the cast of the radio comedy series (1948-1949) playing the greedy schoolgirl Sophie Tuckshop.

She also performed (1950-1954) in the radio show Educating Archie as Agatha Danglebody. It was on this show that she first worked with Eric Sykes, who was providing scripts for the series.

In 1956, she was asked to join the radio series Hancock's Half Hour, with regulars Tony Hancock, Sid James, Bill Kerr and Kenneth Williams. She also appeared in several episodes of Hancock's television series.

Carry On films

She was also appearing in films by this time, and her early films included Scrooge (1951) and a couple of Norman Wisdom comedies, The Square Peg and Follow a Star. In 1958, she joined the Carry On team in Carry On Sergeant and achieved more widespread recognition.

She appeared in fourteen films in the long-running series and portrayed the no-nonsense Matron in five of the films - Carry On Nurse, Carry On Doctor, Carry On Camping, Carry On Again Doctor and Carry On Matron.

Her own personal favourite was Carry On Cabby, in which she was allowed to drop her 'battleaxe' persona and play the romantic lead opposite Sid James.

She was known by the team as a warm, kind-hearted and endearing lady and was close friends with many of her co-stars, including Kenneth Williams and Joan Sims, whom Hattie provided with a great deal of advice and practical help. In return, Sims regarded Hattie as her "greatest friend".

Eric Sykes

She first met Eric Sykes at the Players' Theatre in London. Dazzled by her performance, Sykes came backstage to be introduced. It was to be the beginning of a life-long friendship and partnership.

In 1960 she joined Eric Sykes on his long-running BBC comedy series Sykes, in which they played a brother and sister who got into all sorts of comic scrapes. The joke was that they were meant to be twins, but were physically very unalike, Jacques being short and plump, while Sykes was thin and gangly. The show ran from 1960 to 1965 and was revived from 1972 to 1979. In later years, they teamed up for national and international stage tours of the show, although this put something of a strain on their professional relationship.

Personal life

Hattie Jacques was married to the actor John Le Mesurier from 1949 to 1965. They had two sons. At the time of their divorce, the media were given the impression that the fault was on Le Mesurier's side. It was later revealed that Jacques had been having an affair with a younger man called John Schofield. The 2007 book Hattie: the Authorised Biography says he was a cockney used-car dealer and that Schofield moved into the master bedroom while Le Mesurier retreated to the attic. When Jacques was filming in Rome, Schofield came out to stay and ran off with an Italian heiress. Le Mesurier went along with the charade of it being his fault so as not to damage Jacques's career. She remained on good terms with Le Mesurier and encouraged him to marry his third wife, Joan.

Later years

In her later years, Jacques was plagued by continued ill-health, but she carried on working and supporting her favourite charities, as well as keeping up her busy social life. She died of a heart attack on 6 October 1980, at the age of 58. She was cremated at Putney Vale Crematorium, where her ashes were also scattered.

Radio performances

    * ITMA (1948 - 1949), Sophie Tuckshop
    * Educating Archie (1950 - 1954), Agatha Danglebody
    * Hancock's Half Hour (1956 - 1959), Griselda Pugh

Television

    * Hancock's Half Hour (1956 - 1960), Griselda Pugh
    * Sykes (TV series, 1960 - 1965, 1971 - 1979), Hattie
    * Doctor at Large (1971) as Mrs Askey in 'Cynthia Darling'

Selected films

    * Oliver Twist (1948) singer in the thieves' pub
    * Trottie True (1948) music hall performer
    * Carry On Sergeant (1958), Captain Clark
    * The Square Peg (1958), Gretchen
    * Carry on Nurse (1959), Matron
    * The Navy Lark (1959), Fortune Teller
    * The Night We Dropped a Clanger (1959), Ada
    * Carry On Teacher (1959), Grace Short
    * Follow a Star (1959), Dymphna Dobson
    * Make Mine Mink (1960), Nanette Parry
    * Carry On Constable (1960), Sergeant Laura Moon
    * School for Scoundrels (1960), First Instructress
    * In the Doghouse (1961), Gudgeon
    * Carry On Regardless (1961), Sister
    * She'll Have to Go (1962)
    * Carry On Cabby (1963), Peggy
    * Carry On Doctor (1967), Matron
    * Carry On Again Doctor (1969), Matron
    * Monte Carlo or Bust (1969), Lady Journalist
    * The Magic Christian (1969), Ginger Horton
    * Carry On Camping (1969), Miss Haggerd
    * Carry On Loving (1970), Sophie Bliss
    * Carry On At Your Convenience (1971), Beatrice Plummer
    * Carry On Matron (1971), Matron
    * Carry On Abroad (1972), Floella
    * Carry On Dick (1974), Martha Hoggett
    * Rhubarb Rhubarb (1980), Nanny

http://www.didtheydie.com/morgue/images/hattie_jacques.jpg

https://www.spotlight.com/hallfame/portraits/hattie_jacques.jpg


Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/07/10 at 3:48 am


British Person of the Day: Hattie Jacques

Josephine Edwina Jaques (7 February 1922 – 6 October 1980) was an English comedy actress, known by the stage name Hattie Jacques.

Starting her career in the 1940s, Jacques first gained attention through her radio appearances with Tommy Handley on ITMA and later with Tony Hancock on Hancock's Half Hour. From 1958 to 1974 she appeared in fourteen Carry On films, often playing the Matron. She had a long professional partnership with Eric Sykes, with whom she co-starred in his long running television series, Sykes. She also starred in two Norman Wisdom films, The Square Peg and Follow a Star.

Jacques was married to John Le Mesurier from 1949 until their divorce in 1965.

Her final appearance on television was an advertisement for Asda in 1980. She died later that year from a heart attack.

Early life

Hattie Jacques was born Josephine Edwina Jaques in Sandgate, Kent in 1922, the daughter of Robin and Mary Jacques. Her father was an RAF pilot who was killed in a plane crash just 18 months after her birth. Her mother was an amateur actress.

Educated at the Godolphin and Latymer School, she served as a nurse in the Red Cross during the Second World War, and worked as a welder in a factory in North London

At the age of 20, she made her theatrical début at the Players' Theatre in London. Almost immediately, she became a regular performer with the company, appearing in music hall revues and playing the Fairy Queen in their Victorian-style pantomimes. It has been reported she sometimes "sang Marie Lloyd songs and ended her act by leaping into the air and doing the splits".

After achieving success in radio, television and film, she returned to the Players' on a regular basis as a performer, writer and director. It was during her time at the Players' that she acquired the nickname 'Hattie' - appearing in a minstrel show called 'Coal Black Mammies for Dixie', she took to the stage blacked up and was likened to the American actress Hattie McDaniel (of Gone with the Wind fame). Thereafter the name stuck.

Radio

In 1947 she was seen at the Players' by Ted Kavanagh, the scriptwriter of It's That Man Again (ITMA), and was invited to join the cast of the radio comedy series (1948-1949) playing the greedy schoolgirl Sophie Tuckshop.

She also performed (1950-1954) in the radio show Educating Archie as Agatha Danglebody. It was on this show that she first worked with Eric Sykes, who was providing scripts for the series.

In 1956, she was asked to join the radio series Hancock's Half Hour, with regulars Tony Hancock, Sid James, Bill Kerr and Kenneth Williams. She also appeared in several episodes of Hancock's television series.

Carry On films

She was also appearing in films by this time, and her early films included Scrooge (1951) and a couple of Norman Wisdom comedies, The Square Peg and Follow a Star. In 1958, she joined the Carry On team in Carry On Sergeant and achieved more widespread recognition.

She appeared in fourteen films in the long-running series and portrayed the no-nonsense Matron in five of the films - Carry On Nurse, Carry On Doctor, Carry On Camping, Carry On Again Doctor and Carry On Matron.

Her own personal favourite was Carry On Cabby, in which she was allowed to drop her 'battleaxe' persona and play the romantic lead opposite Sid James.

She was known by the team as a warm, kind-hearted and endearing lady and was close friends with many of her co-stars, including Kenneth Williams and Joan Sims, whom Hattie provided with a great deal of advice and practical help. In return, Sims regarded Hattie as her "greatest friend".

Eric Sykes

She first met Eric Sykes at the Players' Theatre in London. Dazzled by her performance, Sykes came backstage to be introduced. It was to be the beginning of a life-long friendship and partnership.

In 1960 she joined Eric Sykes on his long-running BBC comedy series Sykes, in which they played a brother and sister who got into all sorts of comic scrapes. The joke was that they were meant to be twins, but were physically very unalike, Jacques being short and plump, while Sykes was thin and gangly. The show ran from 1960 to 1965 and was revived from 1972 to 1979. In later years, they teamed up for national and international stage tours of the show, although this put something of a strain on their professional relationship.

Personal life

Hattie Jacques was married to the actor John Le Mesurier from 1949 to 1965. They had two sons. At the time of their divorce, the media were given the impression that the fault was on Le Mesurier's side. It was later revealed that Jacques had been having an affair with a younger man called John Schofield. The 2007 book Hattie: the Authorised Biography says he was a cockney used-car dealer and that Schofield moved into the master bedroom while Le Mesurier retreated to the attic. When Jacques was filming in Rome, Schofield came out to stay and ran off with an Italian heiress. Le Mesurier went along with the charade of it being his fault so as not to damage Jacques's career. She remained on good terms with Le Mesurier and encouraged him to marry his third wife, Joan.

Later years

In her later years, Jacques was plagued by continued ill-health, but she carried on working and supporting her favourite charities, as well as keeping up her busy social life. She died of a heart attack on 6 October 1980, at the age of 58. She was cremated at Putney Vale Crematorium, where her ashes were also scattered.

Radio performances

    * ITMA (1948 - 1949), Sophie Tuckshop
    * Educating Archie (1950 - 1954), Agatha Danglebody
    * Hancock's Half Hour (1956 - 1959), Griselda Pugh

Television

    * Hancock's Half Hour (1956 - 1960), Griselda Pugh
    * Sykes (TV series, 1960 - 1965, 1971 - 1979), Hattie
    * Doctor at Large (1971) as Mrs Askey in 'Cynthia Darling'

Selected films

    * Oliver Twist (1948) singer in the thieves' pub
    * Trottie True (1948) music hall performer
    * Carry On Sergeant (1958), Captain Clark
    * The Square Peg (1958), Gretchen
    * Carry on Nurse (1959), Matron
    * The Navy Lark (1959), Fortune Teller
    * The Night We Dropped a Clanger (1959), Ada
    * Carry On Teacher (1959), Grace Short
    * Follow a Star (1959), Dymphna Dobson
    * Make Mine Mink (1960), Nanette Parry
    * Carry On Constable (1960), Sergeant Laura Moon
    * School for Scoundrels (1960), First Instructress
    * In the Doghouse (1961), Gudgeon
    * Carry On Regardless (1961), Sister
    * She'll Have to Go (1962)
    * Carry On Cabby (1963), Peggy
    * Carry On Doctor (1967), Matron
    * Carry On Again Doctor (1969), Matron
    * Monte Carlo or Bust (1969), Lady Journalist
    * The Magic Christian (1969), Ginger Horton
    * Carry On Camping (1969), Miss Haggerd
    * Carry On Loving (1970), Sophie Bliss
    * Carry On At Your Convenience (1971), Beatrice Plummer
    * Carry On Matron (1971), Matron
    * Carry On Abroad (1972), Floella
    * Carry On Dick (1974), Martha Hoggett
    * Rhubarb Rhubarb (1980), Nanny

http://www.didtheydie.com/morgue/images/hattie_jacques.jpg

https://www.spotlight.com/hallfame/portraits/hattie_jacques.jpg

:\'(

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/07/10 at 5:44 am

The word of the day...Champagne
Champagne is an expensive French white wine with bubbles in. It is often drunk to celebrate something
If you say that champagne corks are popping, you mean that people are celebrating something.
http://i661.photobucket.com/albums/uu339/22darkman/champagne.gif
http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr151/jwbn/Birthday_n_Gotcha_Club/MONTHLY%20PAWTIES/Jan2010/Champagne.jpg
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn49/MoreChampagneSir/IMG_7915.jpg
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee197/ladyt065_2007/BOBBYMURRAYFLYERINWHITE.jpg
http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/ab309/Korina22/thchampagnepng-1.png
http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x115/jiminycricket46/HEARTS/ValentineFlute2.jpg
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r320/johng-018/100_1320.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/07/10 at 5:55 am


The word of the day...Champagne
Champagne is an expensive French white wine with bubbles in. It is often drunk to celebrate something
If you say that champagne corks are popping, you mean that people are celebrating something.
http://i661.photobucket.com/albums/uu339/22darkman/champagne.gif
http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr151/jwbn/Birthday_n_Gotcha_Club/MONTHLY%20PAWTIES/Jan2010/Champagne.jpg
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn49/MoreChampagneSir/IMG_7915.jpg
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee197/ladyt065_2007/BOBBYMURRAYFLYERINWHITE.jpg
http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/ab309/Korina22/thchampagnepng-1.png
http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x115/jiminycricket46/HEARTS/ValentineFlute2.jpg
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r320/johng-018/100_1320.jpg
Champagne, I only drink it when I have to.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/07/10 at 6:11 am

The person born on this day...Chris Rock
Christopher Julius "Chris" Rock III (born February 7, 1965) is an American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer and director. He was voted as the fifth greatest stand-up comedian of all time by Comedy Central
Rock began doing stand-up comedy in 1985 in New York City's Catch a Rising Star. He slowly rose up the ranks of the comedy circuit in addition to earning bit roles in the film I'm Gonna Git You Sucka and the TV series Miami Vice. Upon seeing his act at a nightclub, Eddie Murphy befriended and mentored the aspiring comic. Murphy gave Rock his first film role in Beverly Hills Cop II.
Saturday Night Live

Rock became a cast member of the popular sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live in 1990. He and other new cast members Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider and David Spade became known as the Bad Boys of SNL. In 1991, he released his first comedy album Born Suspect and won acclaim for his dramatic role as a crack addict in the film New Jack City. His tenure on SNL gave Rock national exposure.
Standup success

A frustrated Rock left Saturday Night Live in 1993, appearing instead as a "special guest" star on the predominately African-American sketch show In Living Color. The show, however, was canceled months later. Rock then decided to concentrate on a film career. He wrote and starred in the mockumentary CB4 but the film was not a success. Acting jobs became scarce, and Rock abandoned Hollywood to concentrate on stand-up comedy.

Rock starred in his first HBO comedy special in 1994 titled Big Ass Jokes. But it was his second stand-up special, 1996's Bring the Pain, that reinvented Rock as one of the best comedians in the industry. His routine, which featured commentaries on race in America, stirred up a great deal of controversy. Rock won two Emmy Awards for that special. Adding to his popularity was his much-publicized role as a commentator for Comedy Central's Politically Incorrect during the 1996 Presidential elections which earned him another Emmy nomination. Rock also was the voice for the "Lil Penny" puppet who was the alter ego to basketball star Penny Hardaway in a series of Nike shoe commercials from 1994-1998, and hosted the '97 MTV Video Music Awards.

Rock later had two more HBO comedy specials: Bigger & Blacker in 1999, and Never Scared in 2004. Articles relating to both specials called Rock "the funniest man in America" in Time and Entertainment Weekly. HBO also aired his talk show, The Chris Rock Show, which gained critical acclaim for Rock's interviews with celebrities and politicians. The show won an Emmy for writing. His television work has won him a total of three Emmy Awards and 15 nominations. By the end of the decade, Rock was established as one of the preeminent stand-up comedians and comic minds of his generation.

During this time, Rock also translated his comedy into print form in the book Rock This! and released the Grammy Award-winning comedy albums, Roll with the New, Bigger & Blacker and Never Scared.

Rock's fifth HBO special, Kill the Messenger, premiered on September 27, 2008, and won him another Emmy for outstanding writing for a variety or muic program.
Film and television

It was not until the success of his stand-up act in the late 1990s that Rock began receiving major parts in films. These include roles in Dogma, Beverly Hills Ninja, Lethal Weapon 4, Nurse Betty, The Longest Yard, Bad Company, and a starring role in Down to Earth. Rock has also increasingly worked behind the camera, both as a writer and director of Head of State and I Think I Love My Wife. In the fall of 2005, the UPN television network premiered a comedy series called Everybody Hates Chris, based on Rock's school days, of which he is the executive producer and narrator. The show has garnered both critical and ratings success. The series was nominated for a 2006 Golden Globe for Best TV Series (Musical or Comedy), a 2006 People's Choice Award for Favorite New Television Comedy, and two 2006 Emmy Awards for costuming and cinematography.
Academy Awards

In early 2005, Rock hosted the 77th Academy Awards ceremony. The decision to have Rock host the awards was seen by some as a chance to bring an "edge" to the ceremony, and to make it more relevant or appealing to younger audiences. Jokingly, Rock opened by saying "Welcome to the 77th and LAST Academy Awards!" During one segment Rock asked, "Who is this guy?" in reference to actor Jude Law seemingly appearing in every movie Rock had seen that year and implied Law was a low-rent Tom Cruise (he made a joke about filmmakers rushing production when unable to get the actors they want: "If you want Tom Cruise and all you can get is Jude Law, wait !"). Subsequently, a defensive Sean Penn took the stage to present and said, "In answer to our host's question, Jude Law is one of our finest young actors." (At the time, Penn and Law were shooting All the King's Men.) Law was not the only actor that Rock poked fun at that evening, however—he turned the joke on himself at one point, saying, "If you want Denzel and all you can get is me, wait!" Older Oscar officials were reportedly displeased with Rock's performance, which did not elevate ratings for the ceremony. Rock was also criticized for referring to the Oscars as "idiotic", and asserting that heterosexual men do not watch them, in an interview prior to Oscar night.
Music videos

Rock's first music video was for his song "Your Mother's Got a Big Head" from his album Born Suspect. Rock also made videos for his songs "Champagne" from Roll With the New and "No Sex (In the Champagne Room)" from Bigger & Blacker. Chris Rock also directed and appeared in the music video for the Red Hot Chili Peppers song "Hump de Bump".

Rock appeared in the Big Daddy Kane music video "Smooth Operator" as a guy getting his hair cut.

He also appeared in Johnny Cash's "God's Gonna Cut You Down", one of the many celebrities seen lip-synching the song.
Comedic style and views

Rock's subject matter typically involves family, politics, romance, music, class relationships, and race relations in the United States. Though not strictly autobiographical, much of his comic standpoint seem rooted in his teenage experience; his strict parents, concerned about the inadequacies of the local school system, arranged to have the adolescent Rock bused to a nearly all-white high school in Bensonhurst (an Italian-ethnic neighborhood of Brooklyn known at the time for poor race relations). In his memoir Rock This, the comedian recalls, "My parents assumed I'd get a better education in a better neighborhood. What I actually got was a worse education in a worse neighborhood. And a whole bunch of ass-whippings."

The comedian has also expressed discomfort with the notion that success in standup comedy—or, indeed, in any aspect of the entertainment industry—should oblige him to serve as a role model. In this position, he finds himself directly at odds with one of his comic idols, Bill Cosby. Cosby has reprimanded Rock both explicitly—for his famous/notorious Niggas vs. Black People track —and implicitly, for heavy use of the word "******." Rock has not wavered from a position explored in his 1996 Roll With The New show, and reiterated in his 1997 memoir: "Why does the public expect entertainers to behave better than everybody else? It's ridiculous...Of course, this is just for black entertainers. You don't see anyone telling Jerry Seinfeld he's a good role model. Because everyone expects whites to behave themselves...Nowadays, you've got to be an entertainer and a leader. It's too much." Often the subject of tabloids, when asked about paparazzi and the other negative aspects of fame, Rock says he accepts the bad with the good: "You can't be happy that fire cooks your food and be mad it burns your fingertips."

At the London Live Earth concert on July 7, 2007, which was broadcast live on the BBC, before introducing the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rock called the crowd "motherfudgeers" and "sheesh" after a brief sigh when he said he was joking. Due to the broadcast being at 5:45pm Rock was immediately cut off, and the BBC made several apologies for his use of the word "motherfudgeer".
Personal life

Rock has been married to Malaak Compton-Rock since November 23, 1996. She is the founder and executive director of StyleWorks, a non-profit, full-service salon that provides free services for women leaving welfare and entering the workforce. They have 2 daughters together, Lola Simone (born June 28, 2002) and Zahra Savannah (born May 22, 2004).

In November 2006, the entertainment news website TMZ.com reported that Rock was filing for divorce after nearly ten years of marriage to Malaak. Two weeks later, however, TMZ reported that Rock had not filed divorce papers, and that it appeared that the couple had been able to work out their differences and stay together. In response to the reports, the Rocks released a statement to the press denouncing them as "untrue rumors and lies".

In 2007, freelance journalist and former actress Kali Bowyer filed a paternity suit against Chris Rock, claiming he was the father of her son, and in need of hospitalization. DNA testing proved that Rock was not the child's father.

Rock currently resides in Alpine, New Jersey.

In 2008, Rock's family history was profiled on the PBS series African American Lives 2. A DNA test showed that he is descended from the Udeme people of northern Cameroon and that he is 20% Caucasian.
Work
Filmography
Film
Year Title Role Notes
1987 Beverly Hills Cop II Playboy Mansion Valet
1988 Comedy's Dirtiest Dozen Himself Direct-to-video Concert film
I'm Gonna Git You Sucka Rib Joint Customer
1989 Who Is Chris Rock? Himself Documentary Short
1991 New Jack City Pookie
1992 Boomerang Bony T
1993 CB4 Albert Brown/M.C. Gusto Also wrote story, screenplay and was co-producer
1995 The Immortals Deke Anthony
Panther Yuck Mouth
1996 Sgt. Bilko 1st Lt. Oster
1997 Beverly Hills Ninja Joey Washington
1998 Dr. Dolittle Rodney Voice
Lethal Weapon 4 Detective Lee Butters
1999 Torrance Rises Himself Documentary short
Dogma Rufus
2000 Nurse Betty Wesley
2001 Down to Earth Lance Barton Also co-writer and executive producer
AI: Artificial Intelligence Mecha Comedian Voice/cameo
Pootie Tang JB/Radio DJ/Pootie's Father Also producer
Osmosis Jones Osmosis Jones Voice
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Chaka Luther King Cameo
2002 Bad Company Jake Hayes/Kevin Pope/Michael Turner
Comedian Himself Documentary
2003 Pauly Shore Is Dead Himself Cameo
Head of State Mays Gilliam Also director, producer and co-writer
2004 The N-Word Himself Documentary
Paparazzi Pizza Delivery Guy Cameo
2005 The Aristocrats Himself Documentary
Madagascar Marty voice
The Longest Yard Farrell Caretaker
2007 I Think I Love My Wife Richard Marcus Cooper Also director and co-writer
Bee Movie Mooseblood the Mosquito Voice
2008 You Don't Mess with the Zohan Taxi Driver Cameo
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa Marty and other zebras Voice
2009 Good Hair Himself Documentary
2010 Death at a Funeral Aaron Also producer, Remake of the 2007 film of the same name
Grown Ups Kurt McKenzie
2012 Madagascar 3 Marty Voice
Discography
Year Album Peak positions Certifications
U.S. U.S.
R&B
1991 Born Suspect – –

    * US: Gold

1997 Roll with the New 93 41

    * US: Platinum

1999 Bigger & Blacker 44 26

    * US: Platinum

2004 Never Scared – –

    * US: Platinum

Television
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1987 Uptown Comedy Express Himself HBO special
Miami Vice Carson Episode: Missing Hours
1990-1993 Saturday Night Live Various Cast member
1993-1994 In Living Color Various Recurring
1994 Big Ass Jokes Himself HBO special
1995 The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Maurice/Jasmine Episode: Get a Job
1996-1998 The Moxy Show Flea Uncredited voice role
1996 Martin Valentino Episode: The Love Jones Connection
Homicide: Life on the Street Carver Episode: Requiem for Adena
Bring the Pain Himself HBO special
Politically Incorrect Himself Correspondent
1997 MTV Music Video Awards Himself Host
1997-2000 The Chris Rock Show Himself Cast member, writer
1998 King of the Hill Roger "Booda" Sack Episode: Traffic Jam
1999 MTV Music Video Awards Himself Host
Bigger & Blacker Himself HBO special
2003 MTV Music Video Awards Himself HBO special
2004 77th Academy Awards Himself Host
Never Scared Himself HBO special
2005-2009 Everybody Hates Chris Narrator Creator
2008 Kill the Messenger Himself HBO special
Books

    * Rock This! (Hyperion Books, 1997) - ISBN 0786862890

Tours

    * Bring the Pain (1996)
    * Bigger & Blacker (1999)
    * Black Ambition (2003-2004)
    * No Apologies (2007-2008)

See also

    * Niggas vs. Black People, one of Rock's most famous and controversial bits.
http://i497.photobucket.com/albums/rr340/hjitj/Chris_Rock.jpg
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc1/mommadonna_photos/chris_rock.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/07/10 at 6:15 am


The person born on this day...Chris Rock
Christopher Julius "Chris" Rock III (born February 7, 1965) is an American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer and director. He was voted as the fifth greatest stand-up comedian of all time by Comedy Central


** My grandson has slobbed on my wireless mouse so at this time I cannot copy or paste anything :-[..I will try again later.
Naughty grandson!!!

You can still copy by using Alt + C and paste by Alt + V, but you still need to highlight for the copying.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/07/10 at 6:42 am

There's also Evelyn "Champagne" King.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/07/10 at 7:16 am


Naughty grandson!!!

You can still copy by using Alt + C and paste by Alt + V, but you still need to highlight for the copying.

Thanks Phil :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/07/10 at 7:24 am


British Person of the Day: Hattie Jacques

Josephine Edwina Jaques (7 February 1922 – 6 October 1980) was an English comedy actress, known by the stage name Hattie Jacques.

Starting her career in the 1940s, Jacques first gained attention through her radio appearances with Tommy Handley on ITMA and later with Tony Hancock on Hancock's Half Hour. From 1958 to 1974 she appeared in fourteen Carry On films, often playing the Matron. She had a long professional partnership with Eric Sykes, with whom she co-starred in his long running television series, Sykes. She also starred in two Norman Wisdom films, The Square Peg and Follow a Star.

Jacques was married to John Le Mesurier from 1949 until their divorce in 1965.

Her final appearance on television was an advertisement for Asda in 1980. She died later that year from a heart attack.

Early life

Hattie Jacques was born Josephine Edwina Jaques in Sandgate, Kent in 1922, the daughter of Robin and Mary Jacques. Her father was an RAF pilot who was killed in a plane crash just 18 months after her birth. Her mother was an amateur actress.

Educated at the Godolphin and Latymer School, she served as a nurse in the Red Cross during the Second World War, and worked as a welder in a factory in North London

At the age of 20, she made her theatrical début at the Players' Theatre in London. Almost immediately, she became a regular performer with the company, appearing in music hall revues and playing the Fairy Queen in their Victorian-style pantomimes. It has been reported she sometimes "sang Marie Lloyd songs and ended her act by leaping into the air and doing the splits".

After achieving success in radio, television and film, she returned to the Players' on a regular basis as a performer, writer and director. It was during her time at the Players' that she acquired the nickname 'Hattie' - appearing in a minstrel show called 'Coal Black Mammies for Dixie', she took to the stage blacked up and was likened to the American actress Hattie McDaniel (of Gone with the Wind fame). Thereafter the name stuck.

Radio

In 1947 she was seen at the Players' by Ted Kavanagh, the scriptwriter of It's That Man Again (ITMA), and was invited to join the cast of the radio comedy series (1948-1949) playing the greedy schoolgirl Sophie Tuckshop.

She also performed (1950-1954) in the radio show Educating Archie as Agatha Danglebody. It was on this show that she first worked with Eric Sykes, who was providing scripts for the series.

In 1956, she was asked to join the radio series Hancock's Half Hour, with regulars Tony Hancock, Sid James, Bill Kerr and Kenneth Williams. She also appeared in several episodes of Hancock's television series.

Carry On films

She was also appearing in films by this time, and her early films included Scrooge (1951) and a couple of Norman Wisdom comedies, The Square Peg and Follow a Star. In 1958, she joined the Carry On team in Carry On Sergeant and achieved more widespread recognition.

She appeared in fourteen films in the long-running series and portrayed the no-nonsense Matron in five of the films - Carry On Nurse, Carry On Doctor, Carry On Camping, Carry On Again Doctor and Carry On Matron.

Her own personal favourite was Carry On Cabby, in which she was allowed to drop her 'battleaxe' persona and play the romantic lead opposite Sid James.

She was known by the team as a warm, kind-hearted and endearing lady and was close friends with many of her co-stars, including Kenneth Williams and Joan Sims, whom Hattie provided with a great deal of advice and practical help. In return, Sims regarded Hattie as her "greatest friend".

Eric Sykes

She first met Eric Sykes at the Players' Theatre in London. Dazzled by her performance, Sykes came backstage to be introduced. It was to be the beginning of a life-long friendship and partnership.

In 1960 she joined Eric Sykes on his long-running BBC comedy series Sykes, in which they played a brother and sister who got into all sorts of comic scrapes. The joke was that they were meant to be twins, but were physically very unalike, Jacques being short and plump, while Sykes was thin and gangly. The show ran from 1960 to 1965 and was revived from 1972 to 1979. In later years, they teamed up for national and international stage tours of the show, although this put something of a strain on their professional relationship.

Personal life

Hattie Jacques was married to the actor John Le Mesurier from 1949 to 1965. They had two sons. At the time of their divorce, the media were given the impression that the fault was on Le Mesurier's side. It was later revealed that Jacques had been having an affair with a younger man called John Schofield. The 2007 book Hattie: the Authorised Biography says he was a cockney used-car dealer and that Schofield moved into the master bedroom while Le Mesurier retreated to the attic. When Jacques was filming in Rome, Schofield came out to stay and ran off with an Italian heiress. Le Mesurier went along with the charade of it being his fault so as not to damage Jacques's career. She remained on good terms with Le Mesurier and encouraged him to marry his third wife, Joan.

Later years

In her later years, Jacques was plagued by continued ill-health, but she carried on working and supporting her favourite charities, as well as keeping up her busy social life. She died of a heart attack on 6 October 1980, at the age of 58. She was cremated at Putney Vale Crematorium, where her ashes were also scattered.

Radio performances

    * ITMA (1948 - 1949), Sophie Tuckshop
    * Educating Archie (1950 - 1954), Agatha Danglebody
    * Hancock's Half Hour (1956 - 1959), Griselda Pugh

Television

    * Hancock's Half Hour (1956 - 1960), Griselda Pugh
    * Sykes (TV series, 1960 - 1965, 1971 - 1979), Hattie
    * Doctor at Large (1971) as Mrs Askey in 'Cynthia Darling'

Selected films

    * Oliver Twist (1948) singer in the thieves' pub
    * Trottie True (1948) music hall performer
    * Carry On Sergeant (1958), Captain Clark
    * The Square Peg (1958), Gretchen
    * Carry on Nurse (1959), Matron
    * The Navy Lark (1959), Fortune Teller
    * The Night We Dropped a Clanger (1959), Ada
    * Carry On Teacher (1959), Grace Short
    * Follow a Star (1959), Dymphna Dobson
    * Make Mine Mink (1960), Nanette Parry
    * Carry On Constable (1960), Sergeant Laura Moon
    * School for Scoundrels (1960), First Instructress
    * In the Doghouse (1961), Gudgeon
    * Carry On Regardless (1961), Sister
    * She'll Have to Go (1962)
    * Carry On Cabby (1963), Peggy
    * Carry On Doctor (1967), Matron
    * Carry On Again Doctor (1969), Matron
    * Monte Carlo or Bust (1969), Lady Journalist
    * The Magic Christian (1969), Ginger Horton
    * Carry On Camping (1969), Miss Haggerd
    * Carry On Loving (1970), Sophie Bliss
    * Carry On At Your Convenience (1971), Beatrice Plummer
    * Carry On Matron (1971), Matron
    * Carry On Abroad (1972), Floella
    * Carry On Dick (1974), Martha Hoggett
    * Rhubarb Rhubarb (1980), Nanny

http://www.didtheydie.com/morgue/images/hattie_jacques.jpg

https://www.spotlight.com/hallfame/portraits/hattie_jacques.jpg




Thanks Phil. I can honestly say I never heard of her. Were the Carry On movies only popular in the U.K.?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/07/10 at 7:29 am

The person who died on this day...Nick Adams
Nick Adams (July 10, 1931 – February 7, 1968) was an Academy Award nominated American film and television actor. He has been noted for his supporting roles in successful Hollywood films during the 1950s and 1960s along with his starring role in the ABC television series The Rebel (1959). Decades after Adams' death from a prescription drug overdose at the age of 36 his widely publicized friendships with James Dean and Elvis Presley would stir speculation about both his private life and the circumstances of his death. In an Allmovie synopsis for Adams' last film, reviewer Dan Pavlides wrote, "Plagued by personal excesses, he will be remembered just as much for what he could have done in cinema as what he left behind.
dams was an avid reader of fan magazines and came to believe he could meet agents and directors by being seen at the Warners Theater in Beverly Hills. He got a job there as doorman, usher and maintenance man, which included changing the notices on the theater marquee. He was fired after he put his own name up as a publicity stunt.

Adams' earliest reported paid acting job in Los Angeles was a stage role at the Las Palmas Theater in a comedy called Mr. Big Shot. Although he was paid about $60 a week Adams had to pay $175 for membership in Actors Equity. He also earned $25 one night at the Mocambo nightclub, filling in for Pearl Bailey who had fallen ill. Eight years later Hedda Hopper told Adams she recalled writing about him at the time and he replied by reciting back to her, "Nick Adams, gas station attendant from New Jersey, did an impersonation of Jimmy Cagney and a scene from Glass Menagerie."

After three years of struggle and optimistic self-promotion, his first film role came in 1951, an uncredited one-liner as a Western Union delivery boy in George Seaton's Somebody Loves Me (1952). This allowed him to join the Screen Actors Guild, but he was unable to find steady acting work, even when "creatively" claiming he had appeared with Palance in The Silver Tassie in New York. Undaunted, Adams joined a theater workshop run by Arthur Kennedy. In January 1952 Adams was drafted into the United States Coast Guard.
Supporting actor

Two and a half years later, in June 1954 his ship docked in Long Beach harbor and after a brash audition for director John Ford during which Adams did impressions of James Cagney and other celebrities while dressed in his Coast Guard uniform, he took his accumulated leave and appeared as Seaman Reber in the 1955 film version of Mister Roberts. Adams then completed his military service, returned to Los Angeles and at the age of 23, based on his work in the hit film Mr Roberts, was able to secure a powerful agent and signed with Warner Brothers.

Adams had a small role (as Chick) in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Also that year Adams played the role of "Bomber" the paper boy in the widely popular film adaptation of Picnic (1955) which was mostly filmed on location in Kansas and starred William Holden, Kim Novak and Susan Strasberg. He was not perceived by casting directors as tall or handsome enough for leading roles but during the late 1950s Adams had supporting roles in several successful television productions and films such as Our Miss Brooks (1956), No Time for Sergeants (1958), Steve Canyon (1958) and Pillow Talk (1959).
James Dean

Adams may have first met James Dean in December 1950 while jitterbugging for a soft drink commercial filmed at Griffith Park. Adams spent three years in the US Coast Guard between the time this commercial was shot in late 1950 and the start of filming for Rebel Without a Cause in March 1955. Actor Jack Grinnage, who played Moose, recalled, "Off the set, Nick, Dennis, and the others would go out together--almost like the gang we portrayed--but Jimmy and Corey Allen... were not a part of that." They became friends during filming. During breaks, Dean and Adams entertained cast and crew with impersonations of Marlon Brando and Elia Kazan (who had directed Dean in East of Eden). A 1955 Warner Brothers press release quoted Dean as saying, "I shall be busy for the rest of 1955, and Nick will be doing film work for the next six months. Come 1956, however, I wouldn't be surprised to find myself with Adams doing a two-a-night nightclub routine--or acting in a comedy by William Shakespeare." When production was wrapped, Dean said in another press release, "I now regard Natalie, Nick and Sal as co-workers; I regard them as friends... about the only friends I have in this town. And I hope we all work together again soon." Following Dean's 1955 death in an automobile accident, Adams overdubbed some of James Dean's lines for the film Giant (these are in Jett Rink's speech at the hotel) and dated co-star Natalie Wood. Adams tried to capitalize on Dean's fame through various publicity stunts, including a claim he was being stalked by a crazed female Dean fan, allowing himself to be photographed at Dean's grave in a contemplative pose, holding flowers and surrounded by mourning, teenaged female fans along with writing articles and doing interviews about Dean for fan magazines. He also claimed to have developed Dean's affection for fast cars, later telling a reporter, "I became a highway delinquent. I was arrested nine times in one year. They put me on probation, but I kept on racing... nowhere."
Elvis Presley

Nick Adams' widely publicized friendship with Elvis Presley began in 1956 on the set of Presley's film Love Me Tender during the second day of shooting. Presley had admired James Dean and when the singer arrived in Hollywood he was encouraged by studio executives to be seen with some of the "hip" new young actors there. Meanwhile his manager Colonel Tom Parker was worried Elvis' new Hollywood acquaintances might influence Presley and even tell him what they were paying their managers and agents (usually a fraction of what Parker was getting). Elaine Dundy called Parker a "master manipulator" who used Nick Adams and others in the entourage (including Parker's own brother-in-law Bitsy Mott) to counter possible subversion against him and control Elvis' movements. She later wrote a scathing characterization of Adams:

    ...brash struggling young actor whose main scheme to further his career was to hitch his wagon to a star, the first being James Dean, about whose friendship he was noisily boastful... this made it easy for Parker to suggest that Nick be invited to join Elvis' growing entourage of paid companions, and for Nick to accept... following Adams' hiring, there appeared a newspaper item stating that Nick and Parker were writing a book on Elvis together.

Dundy also wrote, "Of all Elvis' new friends, Nick Adams, by background and temperament the most insecure, was also his closest." Adams was Dennis Hopper's roommate during this period and the three reportedly socialized together, with Presley "...hanging out more and more with Nick and his friends" and glad his manager "liked Nick." Decades later, Kathleen Tracy recalled Adams often met Presley backstage or at Graceland, where Elvis often asked Adams "to stay over on nights": "He and Elvis would go motorcycle riding late at night and stay up until all hours talking about the pain of celebrity" and enjoying prescription drugs.

Almost forty years later, writer Peter Guaralnick wrote that Presley found it "good running around with Nick ... – there was always something happening, and the hotel suite was like a private clubhouse where you needed to know the secret password to get in and he got to change the password every day." Presley's girlfriend June Juanico complained the singer was always talking about his friend Adams and James Dean. As with Dean, Adams capitalized on his association with Presley, publishing an account of their friendship in May 1957. In August 1958 after Elvis' mother Gladys died, Parker wrote in a letter, "Nicky Admas came out to be with Elvis last Week wich was so very kind of him to be there with his friend."
The Rebel

In 1959 Adams starred in the ABC television series The Rebel playing the character Johnny Yuma, a wandering, ex-Confederate, journal-keeping, sawed-off shotgun toting "trouble-shooter" in the old American west. He is credited as a co-creator of The Rebel but had no role in writing the pilot or any of the series' episodes. Adams had asked his friend Andrew J. Fenady to write the pilot as a starring vehicle for him. The series' only recurring character, publicized as a "Reconstruction beatnik", was played by Adams. He reportedly consulted with John Wayne for tips on how to play the role. Adams wanted Presley to sing the theme song for The Rebel but the show's producer wanted Johnny Cash, who made it a hit. Guest stars appearing on the series during its two year run included Dan Blocker, Johnny Cash, Leonard Nimoy, Tex Ritter and Robert Vaughn. 76 half-hour episodes were filmed before the series was cancelled in 1961. Reruns were syndicated for several years. Adams went back to TV and film work, along with a role in the short-lived but critically successful television series Saints and Sinners.
Twilight of Honor

Adams was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as an unlikeable murder suspect in the film Twilight of Honor (1963) which featured the film debuts of both Linda Evans and Joey Heatherton. He campaigned heavily for the award, spending over $8,000 on ads in trade magazines but many of his strongest scenes had been cut from the movie and he lost to Melvyn Douglas.
Toho Studios

In 1964, Adams had a leading role in an episode (Fun and Games) of The Outer Limits television series. A review of this episode written over three decades later would characterize him as an "underrated actor." By this time Adams' career was stalling. He had high hopes his co-starring performance with Robert Conrad in Young Dillinger (1964) would be critically acclaimed but the project had low production values and both critics and audiences rejected the film. Also that year Adams guest starred in an episode of the short-lived CBS drama The Reporter.

In 1965, after publicly insisting he would never work in films produced outside the US, Adams began accepting parts in Japanese science fiction monster movies (kaiju). He landed major roles in two science fiction epics from Toho Studios in Chiyoda, Tokyo. His first Japanese movie was Frankenstein Conquers the World, in which he played Dr. James Bowen, a radiologist working in Hiroshima who encounters a new incarnation of the Frankenstein monster. Adams next starred in the sixth Godzilla film, Invasion of Astro-Monster (known in the U.S. as Monster Zero), in which he played Astronaut Glenn, journeying to the newly discovered Planet X. In both film plots his character had a love interest with characters portrayed by actress Kumi Mizuno. Actors at Toho Studios later fondly remembered Adams as a "team player". On the set of Monster Zero Adams and co-star Yoshio Tsuchiya (who played the villainous Controller of Planet X) reportedly got along well and played jokes on each other. Adams made four films in Japan during 1965 and 1966. During this time he also co-starred with Boris Karloff in Die, Monster, Die! (1965), a gothic horror–sci fi movie filmed in England.
1967: TV episodes and low budget films
Nick Adams wears an off-the-shelf motorcycle helmet in Mission Mars (1968) shortly before his death.

In early 1967 Disney released Mosby's Marauders, a now mostly forgotten but successful Civil War drama told from a southern perspective with Adams in the role of a cruel Union army sergeant. Adams guest-starred in five episodes of four TV series that year, including an installment of his friend Robert Conrad's The Wild Wild West, an appearance in Combat! and two episodes of Hondo (a short-lived western which also had an ex-Confederate theme). Throughout 1967 and early 1968 he also worked in three low budget films. One of these was Mission Mars (1968) which, having been released the same year as Stanley Kubrick's widely praised 2001: A Space Odyssey, has been described as "rarely seen, and utterly dreadful." Adams' costume for this movie included an off-the-shelf motorcycle helmet. Reacting to Mission Mars over 30 years later, SciFi reviewer Gary Westfahl wrote, "The only quality that Adams could persuasively project on film was a desperate desire to be popular, to be liked.... which helps to explain why Adams got his foot in many doors..." Adams' last US production was a more solid B picture, a stock car movie filmed in Iowa called Fever Heat. His last film appearance was in the little seen Spanish-language western Los Asesinos filmed in Mexico City, Mexico.
Marriage and children
Nick Adams (with props from his TV series The Rebel) and Carol Nugent pose for a publicity photo taken shortly after their marriage

Adams married former child actor Carol Nugent in 1959. Nugent had appeared in an episode of The Rebel. They had two children, Allyson Lee Adams (1960) and Jeb Stuart Adams (1961) who both later pursued careers in the film industry.

Sometimes acrimonious marital problems reportedly interfered with his ability to get lucrative acting parts after 1963. While promoting Young Dillinger during a television appearance on The Les Crane Show in early 1965, Adams "shocked" the viewing audience with an announcement he was leaving his wife—seemingly without telling her first. The couple publicly announced a reconciliation a week later but his career and personal life following this episode have been characterized as a "tragic freefall".

Adams and actress Kumi Mizuno may have had a short affair while he was working in Japan. "That's one of the reasons my parents were divorced", his daughter, playwright Allyson Lee Adams later said. "My dad had a penchant for becoming infatuated with his leading ladies. It was a way for him to take on the role he was playing at the time."

By July 1965 they were legally separated and Carol filed for divorce in September. The following month, while Adams was in Japan, Carol was granted a divorce and custody of the children. In January 1966 Nick and Carol announced another reconciliation on a local television show, Bill John's Hollywood Star Notebook. However in November 1966 Carol resumed the divorce proceedings and obtained a restraining order against him, alleging Adams was "prone to fits of temper" and in an affidavit charged he had "choked her, struck her and threatened to kill her during the past few weeks." On January 20, 1967 Adams was waiting for a court hearing to start when he was served with an $110,000 defamation suit by Carol's boyfriend. Nevertheless, nine days later he was granted temporary custody of the children. His son Jeb Adams later recalled, "He saw it as a competition, basically, more than anything of getting custody of us. But, a matter of a week or two later, he gave us back to my mom" and Carol later regained legal custody of the children.
Death
Adams death certificate

After finishing Los Asesinos (1968) in Mexico Adams bought a plane ticket with his own money and flew to Rome to co-star with Aldo Ray in a SciFi horror movie called Murder in the Third Dimension, but when he got there found the project had been dropped. Susan Strasberg, who had worked with him 13 years earlier on the hit film Picnic and was living in Italy, encountered a thoroughly demoralized Adams in a Rome bar. On the night of February 7, 1968 his lawyer and friend, ex-LAPD officer Erwin Roeder, drove to the actor's house at 2126 El Roble Lane in Beverly Hills to check on him after a missed dinner appointment. Seeing a light on and his car in the garage, Roeder broke through a window and discovered Adams in his upstairs bedroom, slumped dead against a wall.

During the autopsy Dr. Thomas Noguchi found enough paraldehyde, sedatives and other drugs in the body "to cause instant unconsciousness." The death certificate lists "paraldehyde and promazine intoxication" as the immediate cause of death along with the notation accident; suicide; undetermined. During the 1960s drug interaction warnings were not so prominent as they later would be and the American Medical Association has subsequently warned these two types of drugs should never be taken together.

The death of Nick Adams has been cited in articles and books about Hollywood's unsolved mysteries along with speculation by a few of Adams' acquaintances he was murdered (but apparently with no motive ever offered) and claims no trace of paraldehyde (a liquid sedative often given to alcoholics at the time and one of two drugs attributed to his death) was ever found in his home. However, Adams' brother Andrew had become a medical doctor and prescribed the sedative to him. Moreover, a story in The Los Angeles Times reported stoppered bottles with prescription labels were found in the medicine cabinet near the upstairs bedroom where Adams' body was discovered. Through the years Adams' children offered speculation ranging from murder to accidental death, the latter perhaps caused by Raeder while trying to calm the actor's nerves with an unintentionally lethal combination of alcohol and prescription drugs (although the autopsy found no alcohol in Adams' blood). Adams' best friend, actor Robert Conrad, has consistently maintained the death was accidental.

Carol Adams is listed as Adams' spouse on his death certificate, evidence the divorce had not become final when the actor died. She and the children were living only a few blocks from Adams' recently-rented house on Roble Lane.

Nick Adams' remains were buried in Berwick, Pennsylvania. He appeared in over 150 television series episodes and feature films throughout a 20 year career. Half of these were episodes of The Rebel. The back of his gravestone bears a silhouette of Adams in the civil-war era cap from his TV series and reads Nick Adams - the rebel - actor of hollywood screens.
Later published speculation
Adams's sexuality

Decades later, Adams' highly publicized life and death at a young age and his friendships with cultural icons such as James Dean and Elvis Presley along with his reported drug consumption made his private life the subject of many reports and assertions by some writers who have claimed Adams may have been gay or bisexual and may have had intimate relationships with both Dean and Presley. One of the earliest published mentions on this overall topic was made by gossip columnist Rona Barrett in her 1974 autobiography, in which she made no assertion Adams was homosexual or bisexual but claimed Adams had told her, along with a "whole roomful of people -- that he wasn't making it because no one in Hollywood's upper stratosphere would accept his wife." Barret wrote, "This was untrue. She was one of the most refreshing wives in the entire community", and went on to say Adams "had become the companion to a group of salacious homosexuals" who flattered the actor, which affected his judgement and caused him to blame Carol. Hollywood biographer Lawrence J. Quirk claimed Mike Connolly (a gay gossip columnist for the Hollywood Reporter from 1951 to 1966) "would put the make on the most prominent young actors, including Robert Francis, Guy Madison, Anthony Perkins, Nick Adams, and James Dean." According to American Film (1986), "Nick Adams, who was ... gay, was the butt of anti-gay humor in Pillow Talk.

Some writers later called Adams a "Hollywood hustler" or a "street hustler" but one journalist also refers to Adams as a pool hustler who made money in pool halls when he was a teenager in New Jersey and later while struggling to make ends meet during his early years in Hollywood .
Friendship with Dean and Presley

It is uncertain whether James Dean and Adams met before his service in the US Coast Guard (1952-1955) and subsequent role in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). In his 1986 gossip book about gay Hollywood, Conversations With My Elders, Boze Hadleigh claimed actor Sal Mineo told him in 1972, "I didn't hear it from Jimmy (James Dean), who was sort of awesome to me when we did Rebel. But Nick told me they had a big affair." Journalist, screenwriter and author of books about Hollywood, John Gregory Dunne wrote that "James Dean was bisexual, as were Nick Adams and Sal Mineo." In his book Elvis (1981) Albert Goldman wrote, "Nick Adams ingratiated himself with James Dean precisely as he would do a year or so later with Elvis. He offered himself to the shy, emotionally contorted and rebellious Dean, as a friend, a guide, a boon companion, a homosexual lover -- whatever role or service Dean required." According to Eric Braun, "Elvis was attracted by Adams' outgoing personality and the young actors caused quite a stir, cruising round Los Angeles with Natalie Wood, Russ Tamblyn and others on their Hondas." In 2005 Byron Raphael and Presley biographer Alanna Nash claimed Adams may have "swung both ways" like "Adams' good pal (and Elvis' idol) James Dean. Tongues wagged that Elvis and Adams were getting it on." Earl Greenwood, author and biographer David Bret and Adams' former fan mail secretary Bill Dakota made similar statements. For Adams's friendships with both Dean and Presley, see also Eric Braun, Frightening the Horses: Gay Icons of the Cinema (2002). However, in 2006 Kathleen Tracy noted, "It has since been speculated in Hollywood gossip that Presley and Adams may have shared some sort of intimate encounter. But there's no definitive evidence one way or another."
Studio-arranged dates

Adams regularly dated actresses with whom he made movies. During the mid-1950s photographs of him with actress Natalie Wood were widely publicized in fan magazines. Modern Screen wrote at the time "their relationship has been mostly for fun" and they shared "a tendency toward moodiness and unpredictability." The magazine also reported they had given joint interviews "in which they admitted they adored each other" and "they even came terribly close to getting married" in Las Vegas. The same article also remarked that on one of their trips they "posed for innumerable publicity photographs - that was the real reason for the trip - " and "Right now, both Nick and Natalie are inclined to deny the whole Las Vegas episode." In his 2004 biography Natalie Wood: A Life biographer and screenwriter Gavin Lambert wrote in passing, Wood's "first studio-arranged date with a gay or bisexual actor had been with Nick Adams." In his biography of gay Hollywood agent Henry Willson, Robert Hofler deals with the rise of the studio star system, in which several actors spent time on the homosexual casting couch and dated girls or even entered into sham marriages in order to cover their homosexuality. "In the Henry Willson date pool", the author says, "Nick Adams was one client, among many, who glommed on to Natalie Wood to get his picture taken." Suzanne Finstad cites actor Jack Grinnage, one of the gang members in Rebel Without a Cause, about Nick Adams's and Dennis Hopper's reasons "for getting close to Natalie. 'I remember being in Dennis' dressing room with Nick and Natalie ... I don't know which one of them said this - it was Nick or Dennis - but he said, "We're gonna hang on to her bra straps." Meaning up the career ladder.' Natalie's tutor, who knew Hopper and Adams off set, said, 'Both of those two guys were all over her ... because they could see that this movie was going to be a big thing for Natalie ... they were game for anything in order to be noticed and to get ahead in the business.' "

Actress Olive Sturgess relates: "When Nick and I went out, it was a casual thing – no great love or anything like that. ... I thought he was very troubled ... You could feel he was troubled. It was the manner he had – that was the way he was in real life, always brooding. ... When we went out, it was never on his motorcycle! That's one trick he couldn't pull on me. We always went in a car!"
Lack of confirmation

Because of morality clauses in studio contracts along with practical marketing concerns, most gay and lesbian actors during the 1950s and 1960s were discreet about their sexuality. However, Adams was known in Hollywood for embellishing and inventing stories about his show business experiences and long tried to capitalize on his associations with James Dean and Elvis Presley. In a brief biographical article journalist Bill Kelly wrote Adams "became James Dean's closest pal, although Nick was straight and Dean was bisexual." Moreover there are neither any court documents (such as from the long and drawn out divorce and child custody proceedings between him and his wife), personal letters from Adams nor directly attributable statements by any alleged male lovers to support the assertions.
Quotes
“ I dreamed all my life of being a movie star. Movies were my life.
You had to have an escape when you were raised in a basement.
I saw all the James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and John Garfield
pictures. Odds against the world... that was my meat. ”
“ I will never make a picture abroad.

— 1963, two years before Adams went to Japan and co-starred in Invasion of Astro-Monster, the sixth Godzilla movie produced by Toho Studios.

Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1952 Somebody Loves Me Western Union boy Uncredited
1955 Strange Lady in Town Billy the Kid
Mister Roberts Reber
Rebel Without a Cause Chick
I Died a Thousand Times Bell Boy Uncredited
Picnic Bomber
1956 Our Miss Brooks Gary Nolan
A Strange Adventure Phil Davis Alternative title: White Nightmare
The Last Wagon Ridge
Giant Jett Rink (Voice) Uncredited
1957 Fury at Showdown Tracy Mitchell
Sweet Smell of Success Hot-Dog Stand Customer Uncredited
Playhouse 90 Sandy TV, 1 episode
1958 Sing Boy Sing C.K. Judd
Richard Diamond, Private Detective Mickey Houseman TV, 1 episode
Teacher's Pet Barney Kovac
No Time for Sergeants Pvt. Benjamin B. Whitledge
Wanted: Dead or Alive Andy Martin TV, 1 episode
Cimarron City John Hartman, Jr. TV, 1 episode
Letter to Loretta Chip Davidson TV, 1 episode
Steve Canyon Sgt. Korman TV, 1 episode
1958-1959 Zane Grey Theater George Pelletti TV, 2 episodes
Trackdown Deal Jackford TV, 3 episodes
1958-1961 Wagon Train Sam Upton TV, 2 episodes
1959 Yancy Derringer Duke Alexis TV, 1 episode
Tales of Wells Fargo Ira Watkins TV, 1 episode
The David Niven Show TV, 1 episode
Pillow Talk Tony Walters
The FBI Story John Gilbert "Jack" Graham
1959-1961 The Rebel Johnny Yuma TV, 59 episodes, wrote 38 episodes, credited as creator
1961-1962 The Dick Powell Show Nick Phillips/George Townsend TV, 2 episodes
General Electric Theater Paul Madsen TV, 2 episodes
1962 Checkmate Weiler aka "Kid" TV, 1 episode
Hell is for Heroes Homer
The Interns Dr. Sid Lackland
A Girl Named Tamiko
1962-1963 Saints and Sinners Nick Alexander TV, 3 episodes
1963 The Hook Pvt. V.R. Hackett
Twilight of Honor Ben Brown Alternative title: The Charge is Murder, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
77 Sunset Strip Max Dent TV, 1 episode
1963-1965 Burke's Law Various roles TV, 5 episodes
1963-1967 Combat! Pvt. Mick Hellar/Cpl. Marty Roberts TV, 2 episodes
1964 Arrest and Trial Ronnie Blake TV, 1 episode
The Outer Limits Mike Benson TV, 1 episode
The Reporter Roger TV, 1 episode
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea Jason Kemp TV, 1 episode
The Young Lovers Tarragoo
Rawhide Corporal Dasovik TV, 1 episode
1965 Ben Casey Orin Reid TV, 1 episode
Young Dillinger John Dillinger
Frankenstein Conquers the World Dr. James Bowen
Die, Monster, Die! Stephen Reinhart Alternative titles: Monster of Terror & The House at the End of the World
Invasion of Astro-Monster Astronaut Glenn Alternative titles: Godzilla vs. Monster Zero & Invasion of the Astros
1966 Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title KEB agent Uncredited
1966-1968 The Wild Wild West Prince/Sheriff Dave Cord TV, 2 episodes
1967 The Wonderful World of Disney Sergeant Gregg TV, 2 episodes
The Monroes Dave TV, 1 episode
The Killing Bottle John Carter Alternative titles: International Secret Police: Driven to the Wall & Zettai zatsumi
Hondo Apache Kid TV, 2 episodes
1968 Fever Heat Ace Jones
Mission Mars Nick Grant
Los Asesinos Shannon
http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll56/Joesmyhero_album/Michael%20Landon/img187.jpg
http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll56/Joesmyhero_album/Michael%20Landon/img189.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/07/10 at 8:01 am


The word of the day...Champagne
Champagne is an expensive French white wine with bubbles in. It is often drunk to celebrate something
If you say that champagne corks are popping, you mean that people are celebrating something.
http://i661.photobucket.com/albums/uu339/22darkman/champagne.gif
http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr151/jwbn/Birthday_n_Gotcha_Club/MONTHLY%20PAWTIES/Jan2010/Champagne.jpg
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn49/MoreChampagneSir/IMG_7915.jpg
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee197/ladyt065_2007/BOBBYMURRAYFLYERINWHITE.jpg
http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/ab309/Korina22/thchampagnepng-1.png
http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x115/jiminycricket46/HEARTS/ValentineFlute2.jpg
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r320/johng-018/100_1320.jpg



I thought we already have a discussion about champagne.  :D ;D ;D ;D



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/07/10 at 8:12 am



I thought we already have a discussion about champagne.  :D ;D ;D ;D



Cat

I know I feel like an alcoholic ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/07/10 at 9:30 am


Thanks Phil. I can honestly say I never heard of her. Were the Carry On movies only popular in the U.K.?
The Carry On films are popular in the UK for the bawdy humour, but are now outdated due to PC standards etc.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/07/10 at 10:30 am



I thought we already have a discussion about champagne.  :D ;D ;D ;D



Cat


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6me5MAHTWo

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/07/10 at 10:46 am

Another British Person of the Day (Died This Day): Matt Monro

Matt Monro (1 December 1930 – 7 February 1985) was an English singer who became one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s. Throughout his 30-year career, he filled cabarets, nightclubs, music halls, and stadiums in Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and Hong Kong to Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. He sold more than 100 million records during his lifetime.

Early career

He was born Terence Edward Parsons in Shoreditch, London and attended Duncombe School in Islington. Affectionately nicknamed "the singing bus driver" (because one of his many occupations prior to achieving fame was driving the Number 27 bus from Highgate to Teddington), he got his first break in 1956 when he became a featured vocalist with the BBC Show Band. An important influence on his early career was the pianist Winifred Atwell, who became his mentor, provided him with his stage name, and helped him sign with Decca Records.

In 1957 Monro released Blue and Sentimental, a collection of standards. Despite the album's critical acclaim, Monro languished among the young male singers trying to break through at the end of the 1950s, many of them emulating Frankie Vaughan by recording cover versions of American hits. (Monro even recorded a version of Vaughan's "Garden of Eden" during this period.) A short recording contract with Fontana Records followed.

By the end of the 1950s, Monro's mid-decade fame had evaporated, and he returned to relative obscurity. He and his wife Mickie lived from her wages as a song plugger and his royalties from a TV advertising jingle for Camay soap. In 1959 he recorded a country pastiche song, "Bound for Texas", for The Chaplin Revue, a feature-length compilation of Charlie Chaplin shorts. It would be the first of many Monro soundtrack themes.

International success

Prior to producing the Peter Sellers album Songs For Swinging Sellers in 1960, George Martin asked Monro to record a satirical ditty to help the comedian imitate the song with a Frank Sinatra-type styling. When Sellers heard the recording he decided to use it to open the record rather than record his own version. However, Sellers billed Monro as "Fred Flange," and though it was a demoralizing experience at the time, the incident developed into a lifelong friendship with Martin, who subsequently asked Monro to begin recording with him for EMI's Parlophone record label. Their second single, "Portrait of My Love," reached number three in the UK Singles Chart.

By the following year, he had been named Top International Act by Billboard magazine, and his follow-up hits included "My Kind of Girl" (1961), "Softly as I Leave You" (1962) and the song from the James Bond film From Russia with Love (1963). For the latter, his vocals were not used in the opening titles, as became the standard for the series; they were heard on a radio during the film and over the final credits. At the 1964 Eurovision Song Contest, singing "I Love the Little Things," he finished second behind Italy's 16-year-old Gigliola Cinquetti, despite an "excellent performance of the only English language song of the night." The Austrian entry "Warum Nur Warum?", sung by Udo Jürgens, caught Monro's ear, despite its sixth-place finish, and he recorded an English version titled "Walk Away" (with lyrics by Monro's manager Don Black), earning him another hit single late in 1964. He also had a hit with the The Beatles' "Yesterday" in 1965, releasing the first single of the most recorded song of all time, predating even the Beatles' own. The following year, Monro sang the Oscar winning title song for the film, Born Free, which became his signature tune. The opening scene for the film The Italian Job featured Monro singing "On Days Like These." These two movie themes featured lyrics also written by Don Black, who started his career as a renowned songwriter when Monro challenged him to pen the English lyric that became "Walk Away." On December 31, 1976, Monro performed Walk Away on BBC1's A Jubilee Of Music, celebrating British pop music for Queen Elizabeth II's impending Silver jubilee.

Monro achieved fame in the United States when "My Kind of Girl" (1961) and "Walk Away" (1964) hit the Top 40. In 1966, following the death of Nat King Cole, EMI moved Monro from Parlophone to Capitol. After relocating to California and recording several albums with American arrangers, Monro returned to the UK and began appearing on EMI's Columbia label, his final U.S. album release being Close To You in 1970. This LP contained the uncharted (in the US) but widely played "We're Gonna Change The World", a semi-satirical song about women's liberation.

He continued touring and recording until just before his death, releasing a single and promoting it throughout the UK and Australia in 1984. In one of his final appearances he praised Boy George, noting the importance of quality recordings in all musical genres.

Death and legacy

Monro died from liver cancer in 1985 at the Cromwell Hospital, Kensington, London, leaving a widow, Mickie, and three children: Mitchell, Michele, and Matthew. Mitchell, a professional pilot, also died of cancer in 2004. A Memorial was held in Harrow.

The twentieth anniversary of Monro's passing spotlighted the continuing interest in his music, with a Top 10 tribute compilation CD (UK), a No. 1 concert DVD (UK), a BBC TV documentary, and an official website all appearing in 2005. A 2007 compilation CD entitled From Matt With Love reached the Top 40 of the UK Albums Chart during its first week of release.

In Autumn 2005 Matt Monro Jr. toured the United Kingdom with a tribute concert commemorating the anniversary. Also, EMI re-released Matt Sings Monro, a 1995 duet album that combined his voice with the senior Monro's. Another posthumous Matt Monro duet, with Cliff Richard, appeared on Richard's duets CD, Two's Company, in 2007.

Monro never recorded a "live" concert album, preferring the technical purity of the recording studio and wanting his public performances to retain an element of uniqueness. However, in the past few years, commercially-released concert albums have emerged following meticulous remastering of radio and television shows, private recordings he commissioned. These include an intimate 1967 cabaret performance from his first tour of Australia; a 1967 BBC concert with Nelson Riddle; a 1966 arena concert before 24,000 fans in Manila; and one of his final concerts, recorded on the last night of his fourteenth and final Australian tour in 1984.

In recent years, many singers riding the resurging wave of retro-pop have cited Matt Monro as a strong influence, including Michael Bublé, Monica Mancini, and Rick Astley. Musicians' biographies regularly note his stylistic influence on their subjects, including Cass Elliot and Karen Carpenter. He continues to feature prominently on radio stations and CD compilations featuring popular easy-listening vocalists.

His music

Most of Monro's recordings were produced or overseen by George Martin. Unlike his contemporaries, Monro recorded very few Tin Pan Alley standards during his career. (The exception was Matt Monro sings Hoagy Carmichael, one of his most highly-regarded albums.) Instead, he and Martin searched for material written by promising newcomers and commissioned English lyrics for dramatic melodies written by European composers. He also covered many of the most popular stage and screen songs of the 1950s and 1960s. Over the years, his recordings featured arrangements by Johnnie Spence, Sid Feller, Billy May, John Barry, Buddy Bregman, Kenny Clayton, Colin Keyes, and Martin himself. Monro also teamed up with Nelson Riddle and Billy May for concerts broadcast by the BBC.

In 1973 Monro released a vocal version of the popular Van der Valk TV-series theme titled "And You Smiled". It was his final hit. In 1977 he recorded "If I Never Sing Another Song", which became a latter-day standard among his contemporaries, its lyrics referring to the "heyday" of fan mail, awards, and other trappings of celebrity that had faded for them.

http://www.gmmy.com/crooners/MATT-3.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/07/10 at 10:46 am


Another British Person of the Day (Died This Day): Matt Monro

Matt Monro (1 December 1930 – 7 February 1985) was an English singer who became one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s. Throughout his 30-year career, he filled cabarets, nightclubs, music halls, and stadiums in Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and Hong Kong to Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. He sold more than 100 million records during his lifetime.

Early career

He was born Terence Edward Parsons in Shoreditch, London and attended Duncombe School in Islington. Affectionately nicknamed "the singing bus driver" (because one of his many occupations prior to achieving fame was driving the Number 27 bus from Highgate to Teddington), he got his first break in 1956 when he became a featured vocalist with the BBC Show Band. An important influence on his early career was the pianist Winifred Atwell, who became his mentor, provided him with his stage name, and helped him sign with Decca Records.

In 1957 Monro released Blue and Sentimental, a collection of standards. Despite the album's critical acclaim, Monro languished among the young male singers trying to break through at the end of the 1950s, many of them emulating Frankie Vaughan by recording cover versions of American hits. (Monro even recorded a version of Vaughan's "Garden of Eden" during this period.) A short recording contract with Fontana Records followed.

By the end of the 1950s, Monro's mid-decade fame had evaporated, and he returned to relative obscurity. He and his wife Mickie lived from her wages as a song plugger and his royalties from a TV advertising jingle for Camay soap. In 1959 he recorded a country pastiche song, "Bound for Texas", for The Chaplin Revue, a feature-length compilation of Charlie Chaplin shorts. It would be the first of many Monro soundtrack themes.

International success

Prior to producing the Peter Sellers album Songs For Swinging Sellers in 1960, George Martin asked Monro to record a satirical ditty to help the comedian imitate the song with a Frank Sinatra-type styling. When Sellers heard the recording he decided to use it to open the record rather than record his own version. However, Sellers billed Monro as "Fred Flange," and though it was a demoralizing experience at the time, the incident developed into a lifelong friendship with Martin, who subsequently asked Monro to begin recording with him for EMI's Parlophone record label. Their second single, "Portrait of My Love," reached number three in the UK Singles Chart.

By the following year, he had been named Top International Act by Billboard magazine, and his follow-up hits included "My Kind of Girl" (1961), "Softly as I Leave You" (1962) and the song from the James Bond film From Russia with Love (1963). For the latter, his vocals were not used in the opening titles, as became the standard for the series; they were heard on a radio during the film and over the final credits. At the 1964 Eurovision Song Contest, singing "I Love the Little Things," he finished second behind Italy's 16-year-old Gigliola Cinquetti, despite an "excellent performance of the only English language song of the night." The Austrian entry "Warum Nur Warum?", sung by Udo Jürgens, caught Monro's ear, despite its sixth-place finish, and he recorded an English version titled "Walk Away" (with lyrics by Monro's manager Don Black), earning him another hit single late in 1964. He also had a hit with the The Beatles' "Yesterday" in 1965, releasing the first single of the most recorded song of all time, predating even the Beatles' own. The following year, Monro sang the Oscar winning title song for the film, Born Free, which became his signature tune. The opening scene for the film The Italian Job featured Monro singing "On Days Like These." These two movie themes featured lyrics also written by Don Black, who started his career as a renowned songwriter when Monro challenged him to pen the English lyric that became "Walk Away." On December 31, 1976, Monro performed Walk Away on BBC1's A Jubilee Of Music, celebrating British pop music for Queen Elizabeth II's impending Silver jubilee.

Monro achieved fame in the United States when "My Kind of Girl" (1961) and "Walk Away" (1964) hit the Top 40. In 1966, following the death of Nat King Cole, EMI moved Monro from Parlophone to Capitol. After relocating to California and recording several albums with American arrangers, Monro returned to the UK and began appearing on EMI's Columbia label, his final U.S. album release being Close To You in 1970. This LP contained the uncharted (in the US) but widely played "We're Gonna Change The World", a semi-satirical song about women's liberation.

He continued touring and recording until just before his death, releasing a single and promoting it throughout the UK and Australia in 1984. In one of his final appearances he praised Boy George, noting the importance of quality recordings in all musical genres.

Death and legacy

Monro died from liver cancer in 1985 at the Cromwell Hospital, Kensington, London, leaving a widow, Mickie, and three children: Mitchell, Michele, and Matthew. Mitchell, a professional pilot, also died of cancer in 2004. A Memorial was held in Harrow.

The twentieth anniversary of Monro's passing spotlighted the continuing interest in his music, with a Top 10 tribute compilation CD (UK), a No. 1 concert DVD (UK), a BBC TV documentary, and an official website all appearing in 2005. A 2007 compilation CD entitled From Matt With Love reached the Top 40 of the UK Albums Chart during its first week of release.

In Autumn 2005 Matt Monro Jr. toured the United Kingdom with a tribute concert commemorating the anniversary. Also, EMI re-released Matt Sings Monro, a 1995 duet album that combined his voice with the senior Monro's. Another posthumous Matt Monro duet, with Cliff Richard, appeared on Richard's duets CD, Two's Company, in 2007.

Monro never recorded a "live" concert album, preferring the technical purity of the recording studio and wanting his public performances to retain an element of uniqueness. However, in the past few years, commercially-released concert albums have emerged following meticulous remastering of radio and television shows, private recordings he commissioned. These include an intimate 1967 cabaret performance from his first tour of Australia; a 1967 BBC concert with Nelson Riddle; a 1966 arena concert before 24,000 fans in Manila; and one of his final concerts, recorded on the last night of his fourteenth and final Australian tour in 1984.

In recent years, many singers riding the resurging wave of retro-pop have cited Matt Monro as a strong influence, including Michael Bublé, Monica Mancini, and Rick Astley. Musicians' biographies regularly note his stylistic influence on their subjects, including Cass Elliot and Karen Carpenter. He continues to feature prominently on radio stations and CD compilations featuring popular easy-listening vocalists.

His music

Most of Monro's recordings were produced or overseen by George Martin. Unlike his contemporaries, Monro recorded very few Tin Pan Alley standards during his career. (The exception was Matt Monro sings Hoagy Carmichael, one of his most highly-regarded albums.) Instead, he and Martin searched for material written by promising newcomers and commissioned English lyrics for dramatic melodies written by European composers. He also covered many of the most popular stage and screen songs of the 1950s and 1960s. Over the years, his recordings featured arrangements by Johnnie Spence, Sid Feller, Billy May, John Barry, Buddy Bregman, Kenny Clayton, Colin Keyes, and Martin himself. Monro also teamed up with Nelson Riddle and Billy May for concerts broadcast by the BBC.

In 1973 Monro released a vocal version of the popular Van der Valk TV-series theme titled "And You Smiled". It was his final hit. In 1977 he recorded "If I Never Sing Another Song", which became a latter-day standard among his contemporaries, its lyrics referring to the "heyday" of fan mail, awards, and other trappings of celebrity that had faded for them.

http://www.gmmy.com/crooners/MATT-3.jpg
:\'(

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/07/10 at 10:47 am

Introduced by Jimmy Saville...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbS_-biZ_P4

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 02/07/10 at 6:47 pm

Very nice bio on Nick Adams. He was a talented, but unfortunately an underated actor.  Thanks for sharing, Ninny.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/07/10 at 7:07 pm

I drink champagne on occasions.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/08/10 at 12:34 am


I drink champagne on occasions.
I only drink champagne on occasions.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 02/08/10 at 12:44 am


I only drink champagne on occasions.

I have never had a desire to drink champagne, or try any alcoholic beverages for that matter. Just my personal preference, that's all.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/08/10 at 4:23 am


I have never had a desire to drink champagne, or try any alcoholic beverages for that matter. Just my personal preference, that's all.

It's a good one to have.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/08/10 at 4:28 am

The word of the day...House
A house is a building in which people live, usually the people belonging to one family.
You can refer to all the people who live together in a house as the house.
#
House is used in the names of types of places where people go to eat and drink. N-COUNT n N

    *
      ...a steak house.
    *
      ...an old Salzburg coffee house.

#
House is used in the names of types of companies, especially ones which publish books, lend money, or design clothes. N-COUNT n N

    *
      Many of the clothes come from the world's top fashion houses.
    *
      Eventually she was fired from her job at a publishing house.

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq98/mugglio711/house.jpg
http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt205/ShackledBrian/house.jpg
http://i389.photobucket.com/albums/oo336/GirlsDontPoop216/house.jpg
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/ad327/cassi_rox64/Items/House.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o60/coffeelover69/the%20house/house1.jpg
http://i833.photobucket.com/albums/zz252/dnsmiller/House/DSCN0014.jpg
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee136/holanders/New%20house/house.jpg
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd250/NYelta/kipling.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/08/10 at 4:33 am

The person who was born on this day...John Grisham
John Ray Grisham (born February 8, 1955) is an American author, best known for his popular legal thrillers. Before becoming a writer, he was a successful lawyer and politician. As of 2008, his books have sold over 250 million copies worldwide
John Grisham, the second oldest of five siblings, was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to Southern Baptist parents of modest means. His father worked as a construction worker and a cotton farmer while his mother was a homemaker. After relocating frequently, the family settled in 1967 in the town of Southaven in DeSoto County, Mississippi, where Grisham graduated from Southaven High School. He played as a quarterback for the school football team. Encouraged by his mother, the young Grisham was an avid reader, and was especially influenced by the work of John Steinbeck, whose clarity he admired. His brother Vaughn is one of the main experts on Community Development in the United States, and is a professor of Public Administration at the University of Mississippi.
Education

During 1977, Grisham received a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Mississippi State University. Grisham tried for the baseball team at Delta State University, but was dismissed by the coach, who was former Boston Red Sox pitcher Dave "Boo" Ferriss. Grisham and Ferris have since teamed to host a fundraiser for Delta State Baseball, at which the two discussed how and why Ferris dismissed Grisham, telling him he should "stick to the books" after Grisham failed miserably in his attempts to hit a college level curve ball. He earned his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981. During law school Grisham switched interests from tax law to criminal and general civil litigation. Upon graduation he entered a small-town general law practice for nearly a decade in Southaven, where he focused on criminal law and civil law representing a broad spectrum of clients. As a young attorney he spent much of his time in court proceedings.
Political life

During 1983 he was elected as a democrat to the Mississippi House of Representatives, where he served until 1990. During his time as a legislator, he continued his private law practice in Southaven. He has donated over $100,000 to Democratic Party candidates. During September, 2007 Grisham appeared with Hillary Rodham Clinton, his stated choice for U.S. President in 2008, and former Virginia Governor Mark Warner, whom Grisham supported for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Republican John Warner (no relation). Grisham himself had considered challenging former GOP U.S. Senator George Allen, Jr. in the 2006 Virginia Senatorial Election.
Inspiration for first novel

In 1984 at the DeSoto County courthouse in Hernando, Grisham witnessed the harrowing testimony of a 12-year-old rape victim. According to Grisham's official website, Grisham used his spare time to begin work on his first novel, which "explored what would have happened if the girl's father had murdered her assailants." He "spent three years on A Time to Kill and finished it in 1987. Initially rejected by many publishers, the manuscript was eventually bought by Wynwood Press, who gave it a modest 5,000-copy printing and published it in June 1988."

The day after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on another novel, the story of a young attorney "lured to an apparently perfect law firm that was not what it appeared." That second book, The Firm, became the 7th bestselling novel of 1991. Grisham then produced at least one work a year, most of them very popular bestsellers. He authored seven number-one bestselling novels of the year (1994, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, and 2005).

Beginning with A Painted House in 2001, the author broadened his focus from law to the more general rural south, while continuing to pen his legal thrillers.

Publishers Weekly declared Grisham "the bestselling novelist of the 90s," selling a total of 60,742,289 copies. He is also one of only a few authors to sell two million copies on a first printing; others include Tom Clancy and J. K. Rowling. Grisham's 1992 novel The Pelican Brief sold 11,232,480 copies in the United States alone.
Courtroom re-appearance

Grisham returned briefly to practice law during 1996 after a five-year hiatus. According to his official website, he "was honoring a commitment he made before he had retired from the law...representing the family of a railroad brakeman killed when he was pinned between two cars...Grisham successfully argued his clients' case, earning them a jury award of $683,500." Another tie to the legal community that he continues to hold is his seat on the Board of Directors for the Innocence Project, an organization dedicated to exonerating the innocent through DNA testing after they have been convicted.
Named in libel suit

On September 28, 2007, Grisham was named in a civil suit in a US District Court, claiming Grisham libeled former Pontotoc County, Oklahoma District Attorney Bill Peterson, former Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent Gary Rogers, and criminalist Melvin Hett. The suit claimed that Grisham, along with two other authors critical of Peterson and his prosecution of murder cases, conspired to commit libel, generate publicity for themselves by placing the plaintiffs in a false light and intentionally inflict emotional distress. Grisham was named as a result of his non-fiction book, The Innocent Man, about the investigation of the murder of a cocktail waitress in Ada, Oklahoma, and the exoneration by DNA evidence of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz more than 12 years later. The case was dismissed on September 18, 2008, with the judge saying, "The wrongful convictions of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz must be discussed openly and with great vigor."
John Grisham Room

The Mississippi State University Libraries, Manuscript Division, maintains the John Grisham Room, an archive containing materials generated during the author's tenure as Mississippi State Representative and relating to his writings.

Grisham's lifelong passion for baseball is evident in his novel A Painted House and in his support of Little League activities in both Oxford, Mississippi, and Charlottesville, Virginia. He wrote the original screenplay for and produced the baseball movie Mickey, starring Harry Connick, Jr.. The movie was released on DVD in April 2004. He remains a fan of Mississippi State University's baseball team and wrote about his ties to the university and the Left Field Lounge in the introduction for the book Dudy Noble Field: A Celebration of MSU Baseball.

Grisham is also well known within the literary community for his efforts to support the continuing literary tradition of his native south. He has endowed scholarships and writer's residencies in the University of Mississippi's English Department and Graduate Creative Writing Program and was the founding publisher of the Oxford American, a magazine devoted to literary writing. The magazine is famous for its annual music issue, copies of which include a compilation CD featuring contemporary and classic Southern musicians in genres ranging from blues and gospel to country-western and alternative rock.

In an October 2006 interview on the Charlie Rose Show, Grisham stated that he usually takes only six months to write a book and that his favorite author was John le Carré.
Family life

Grisham describes himself as a "moderate Baptist," and has performed mission service for his church in Brazil; that country provides the setting for two of his novels: The Testament, which has a strong religious theme; and The Partner. He lives with his wife Renée Jones and their two children, Ty and Shea. Grisham's website states that the "family splits their time between their Victorian home on a farm" outside Oxford, Mississippi, "and a home near Charlottesville, Virginia." In 2008, he and Renee bought a condo in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Books
Legal fiction
Complete Collection of John Grisham Novels

    * A Time to Kill (1989)
    * The Firm (1991)
    * The Pelican Brief (1992)
    * The Client (1993)
    * The Chamber (1994)
    * The Rainmaker (1995)
    * The Runaway Jury (1996)
    * The Partner (1997)
    * The Street Lawyer (1998)
    * The Testament (1999)
    * The Brethren (2000)
    * The Summons (2002)
    * The King of Torts (2003)
    * The Last Juror (2004)
    * The Broker (2005)
    * The Appeal (2008)
    * The Associate (2009)

Non-legal fiction

    * A Painted House (2001)
    * Skipping Christmas (2001)
    * Bleachers (2003)
    * Playing for Pizza (2007)
    * Ford County (2009)

Non-fiction

    * The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (2006)

Film adaptations

    * The Firm (1993)
    * The Pelican Brief (1993)
    * The Client (1994)
    * A Time to Kill (1996)
    * The Chamber (1996)
    * The Rainmaker (1997)
    * The Gingerbread Man (1998) Based on an unpublished short story
    * A Painted House (2003)
    * Runaway Jury (2003)
    * Christmas with the Kranks (2004) Based on the novel 'Skipping Christmas'
    * The Partner (2010)
    * The Associate (2012)
    * The Testament (2012)

Quotes

    * "My success was not planned, but it could only happen in America."
    * "Everything I'm thinking about writing now is about politics or social issues wrapped around a novel."
    * "I'm a famous writer in a country where nobody reads."
    * "You guys have forgotten about my favorite story, Marc Dreier. I haven’t seen a Dreier story in weeks. But it’s incredible. Pretending to be someone else? Taking over a conference room? I knew something was wrong when I read about his 120-foot yacht. When you’ve got a yacht that big you’re living like a billionaire. And you can’t do that as a New York lawyer. I don’t care how big your firm is... And I couldn’t make it any better. I couldn’t improve on it. The sushi restaurant (Dreier) owned? All the cars? The secretaries making $200,000 a year? It’s too much. When I see stuff like that my imagination just goes into overdrive"
    * "You live your life today, not tomorrow, and certainly not yesterday."

See also

    * The Innocence Project
    * List of bestselling novels in the United States
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l78/bquinster/grisham_john.jpg
http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u84/butterflyfrenzee/JOHN_GRISHAM.jpg
http://i620.photobucket.com/albums/tt283/syauqy_arr/john-grisham-1_5248.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/08/10 at 4:39 am

The person who died on this day...Del Shannon
Del Shannon (December 30, 1934 — February 8, 1990) was an American rock and roll singer-songwriter who had a No. 1 hit, "Runaway", in 1961. Del Shannon was born Charles Weedon Westover in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He grew up in Coopersville, a small town near Grand Rapids. There he learned ukulele and guitar and listened to country and western music, including Hank Williams, Hank Snow, and Lefty Frizzell. In 1954, he was drafted into the Army, and while in Germany played guitar in a band called the Cool Flames.

When his service ended, he returned to Battle Creek, Michigan, and worked in a furniture factory as a truck driver and selling carpets. He also found part-time work as a rhythm guitarist in singer Doug DeMott's group, working at the Hi-Lo Club. When DeMott was fired in 1958, Westover took over as leader and singer, giving himself the name Charlie Johnson, and renaming his band the Big Little Show Band.

In early 1959 he added keyboardist Max Crook, who played the Musitron (his own invention of an early synthesizer). Crook had made recordings and persuaded Ann Arbor disc jockey Ollie McLaughlin to hear the band. In turn, McLaughlin took the group's demos to Harry Balk and Irving Micahnik of Talent Artists in Detroit. In July 1960, Westover and Crook signed to become recording artists and composers, recording for Big Top. Balk suggested Westover use a new name, and they came up with Del Shannon, combining a friend's assumed surname with Del from his favorite car, the Cadillac Coupe de Ville.

He flew to New York City, but his first sessions did not produce results. McLaughlin persuaded Shannon and Crook to rewrite and re-record one of their earlier songs, originally called "Little Runaway", using the Musitron as lead instrument. On January 21, 1961, they recorded "Runaway", released as a single in February 1961. It reached #1 in the Billboard chart in April.

Shannon followed with "Hats Off to Larry", which peaked at #5 (Billboard) and #2 on Cashbox in 1961, and the less popular "So Long, Baby," another song of breakup bitterness. "Runaway" and "Hats Off to Larry" were recorded in a day. "Little Town Flirt", in 1962 (with Bob Babbitt), reached #12 in 1963, as did the album of the same name. After these hits, Shannon was unable to keep his momentum in the U.S., but continued his success in England, where he had always been more popular. In 1963, he became the first American to record a cover version of a Beatles song. "From Me to You" charted in the US before the Beatles.

By late 1963, Shannon's relationship with his managers and Big Top had soured and he formed his own label, Berlee, distributed by Diamond Records. Two singles were issued: the apparently Four Seasons-inspired "Sue's Gotta Be Mine" charted moderately, the second didn't. He patched up his relationship with his managers and was placed on Amy in early 1964.

Shannon returned to the charts in 1964, with "Handy Man" (a 1960 hit by Jimmy Jones), "Do You Wanna Dance" (a 1958 hit by Bobby Freeman), and two originals, "Keep Searchin'" (#3 in the UK; #9 in the US), and "Stranger in Town" (1965).

In the latter part of 1964, Shannon produced a demo recording session for a young fellow Michigander named Bob Seger, who would go onto his own stardom much later. Del gave acetates of the session to Dick Clark (Del was on one of Clark's tours in 1965) and by 1966 Bob Seger was recording for Philadelphia's famed Cameo Records label, resulting in some regional hits which would eventually lead to a major-label deal with Capitol Records.

Also in late '64, Del paid tribute to one of his own musical idols, with "Del Shannon sings Hank Williams", Amy Records 8004, released in the closing days of 1964. This was a true concept album, waxed in Detroit with steel player Buddy Gibson and members of The Royaltones, who also backed Del on his Amy Records R 'n' R hits. The album was recorded in hardcore country honky-tonk style and no singles were released (this was two and a half years before "Sgt. Pepper", often erroneously identified as rock's first "concept album").

Shannon opened with Ike and Tina Turner at Dave Hull's Hullabaloo, in Los Angeles, California, on December 22, 1965.

Shannon signed with Liberty in 1966 and covered "The Big Hurt" and the Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb". Peter and Gordon released his "I Go To Pieces" in 1965. Shannon also discovered country singer Johnny Carver, who was then working in the Los Angeles area. Del got Carver a contract with Liberty Records subsidiary Imperial Records, writing, producing and arranging both sides of Carver's debut single "One Way Or The Other"/"Think About Her All The Time". Carver went on to have nearly twenty Country-chart hits during the late 60s and 70s. The liner notes to his debut Imperial album acknowledge Del's role in his being brought to the label.

In the late 1960s, not having charted for several years, he turned to production. In 1969, he discovered Smith and arranged their hit "Baby, It's You," which had been a hit for the Shirelles in 1963. In 1970, he produced Brian Hyland's million-seller "Gypsy Woman", a cover of Curtis Mayfield.

During Shannon's Liberty Records tenure, success on a national scale eluded him, but he scored several solid "regional" U.S. chart hits with "The Big Hurt", "Under My Thumb", "She" "Led Along" and "Runaway" (1967 version). The 1967 version of "Runaway" (recorded in England and produced by Andrew Loog Oldham) also did well on Canadian and Australian pop charts. In early '67, Shannon recorded one of Rock's greatest "lost albums" in England, with Rolling Stones producer Andrew Loog Oldham at the helm. Intended by Oldham as the British answer to "Pet Sounds", "Home And Away" was shelved by Liberty Records, although a handful of singles were issued. It was not until 1978 that all of the tracks were eventually issued (with three non-related tracks) on a British album titled "And The Music Plays On". In 1991, all of the tracks were released, in the U.S.A. as part of the "Del Shannon-The Liberty Years" CD. In 2006, thirty-nine years after it was recorded, "Home And Away" was finally released as a stand-alone collection by EMI Records, in the U.K. This CD collected the eleven original tracks in stereo and the five single releases US, UK and Philippines) in their original monaural mixes.

In September 1967, Del began laying down the tracks for "The Further Adventures Of Charles Westover", which would be highly regarded by fans and critics alike, despite disappointing sales. Shannon's "Pop-Psych" masterpiece yielded two 1968 singles..."Thinkin' It Over" and the haunting "Gemini" (recently the subject of a Pilooski remix). In October 1968, Liberty Records released the 10th (in the USA) and their final Del Shannon single...a cover of Dee Clark's 1961 smash, "Raindrops". This brought to a close a commercially disappointing period in Del's career.

In 1972 he recorded Live In England, released in June 1973. Reviewer Chris Martin critiqued the album favourably, saying that Shannon never improvised, was always true to the original sounds of his music, and that only Lou Christie rivaled his falsetto. In April 1975 Shannon signed with Island Records.

After he and his manager jointly sought back royalties for Shannon, Bug Music was founded in 1975 to administer his songs.

A 1976 article on Shannon's concert at The Roxy Theatre described the singer as "personal, pure and simple rock 'n' roll, dated but gratifyingly undiluted." Shannon sang some of his new rock songs along with classics like "Endless Sleep" and "The Big Hurt." Writer Richard Cromelin said "Shannon's haunting vignettes of heartbreak and restlessness contain something of a cosmic undercurrent which has the protagonist tragically doomed to a bleak, shadowy struggle."

Shannon's career slowed greatly in the 1970s, in part due to alcoholism. English rock singer, Dave Edmunds, produced the Shannon single, "And the Music Plays On", in 1974. In 1978 he stopped drinking, and began work on "Sea of Love", released in the early 1980s. This song came from Shannon's album Drop Down and Get Me, produced by Tom Petty. The album took two years to record and featured Petty's Heartbreakers backing Shannon. RSO Records, which recorded Shannon, folded. The LP was recorded by Network Records and distributed by Elektra Records. Seven songs are Shannon originals with covers of the Everly Brothers, Rolling Stones, Frankie Ford, and "Sea of Love" by Phil Phillips. It was Shannon's first album in eight years.

In February 1982 Shannon appeared at the Bottom Line. He performed pop-rock tunes and old hits. New York Times reviewer, Stephen Holden, described an "easygoing pop-country" manner. He was not an "anachronism," yet there seemed no comparison with the newer songs and the best of his vintage material. On "Runaway" and "Keep Searchin," Shannon and his band rediscovered the sound "in which his keen falsetto played off against airy organ obbligatos." In the 1980s Shannon performed "competent but mundane country-rock".

Shannon enjoyed a resurgence after re-recording "Runaway" with new lyrics as the theme for the NBC-TV television program Crime Story. Producer Michael Mann felt this was definitive of the era in which the program was set. The new lyrics replaced "wishin' you were here by me... to end this misery" with “watchin’ all the things go by... some live, while others die,” reflecting the violent, mob-related show.

In 1988, Shannon sang on "The World We Know" with The Smithereens on their album Green Thoughts. Shortly after, in 1990, he recorded with Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra, and there were rumors he would join The Traveling Wilburys after Roy Orbison's death. Previously, in 1975, Shannon had recorded tracks with Lynne, along with "In My Arms Again," a self-penned country song recorded by Warner Brothers, which had signed Shannon in 1984.

Suffering from depression, Shannon committed suicide on February 8, 1990, with a 22 caliber rifle. Following his death, the four surviving Wilburys honored him by recording a version of "Runaway." Lynne also co-produced Shannon's posthumous album, Rock On, released on Silvertone in 1991.

Shannon was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, and his contribution has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

In 2005, Del Shannon was inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame. In 2007, Shannon's recording of "Runaway" was voted the #1 Legendary Michigan Song. Del has had two other recordings recognized as Legendary Michigan songs: "Keep Searchin' (We'll Follow The Sun)" in 2008 and "Hats Off to Larry" in 2009.
Legacy

In 1990, the country band Southern Pacific covered Shannon's hit "I Go To Pieces" (also a hit in 1965 for Peter & Gordon), with the video dedicated in Shannon's memory.

Tom Petty referenced Shannon and his song "Runaway" on Petty's song "Runnin' Down A Dream" on Full Moon Fever, which was co-produced by Jeff Lynne. Both were members of the Traveling Wilburys, who recorded a cover of "Runaway" during the sessions for Volume 3. Although the track didn't make it onto the final album, two versions have circulated on the bootleg circuit for years, one with Max Crook's famous eight-bar keyboard solo played note-for-note by Jeff Lynne and another, earlier version which features Bob Dylan playing harmonica in place of the keyboard solo.

In 2009, "Runaway" was used in the 21st episode of the 3rd season of the TV series Heroes.
Film and television
Filmography

    * It's Trad, Dad! (aka Ring A Ding Rhythm) (1962)
    * "Daytona Beach Weekend" (1965)
    * The Best of Del Shannon, Rock 'N' Roll's Greatest Hits in Concert, (Live from the Rock & Roll Love Palace, Kissimmee, Florida, 1988). a television program hosted by Wolfman Jack.

Television

    * "American Bandstand" (1961)
    * "The Buddy Deane Show" (1962)
    * Shindig! (1965)
    * "Hulaballoo" (1965)
    * "The Lloyd Thaxton Show" (1965)
    * "Shivaree" (1965)
    * "The Merv Griffin Show" (1965)
    * Hollywood A Go-Go (1965)
    * "Where The Action Is" (1966)
    * Late Night with David Letterman (1986)

Hit singles
Release date Title Chart positions
US UK
3/61 "Runaway" 1 1
6/61 "Hats Off to Larry" 5 6
9/61 "So Long Baby" 28 10
11/61 "Hey! Little Girl" 38 2
3/62 "I Won't Be There" 113 -
3/62 "Ginny In The Mirror" 117 -
6/62 "Cry Myself to Sleep" 99 29
9/62 "The Swiss Maid" 64 2
12/62 "Little Town Flirt" 12 4
4/63 "Two Kinds of Teardrops" 50 5
6/63 "From Me to You" 77 -
8/63 "Two Silhouettes" - 23
11/63 "Sue's Gotta Be Mine" 71 21
3/64 "That's The Way Love Is" 133 -
3/64 "Mary Jane" - 35
7/64 "Handy Man" 22 36
9/64 "Do You Want To Dance" 43 -
11/64 "Keep Searchin' (We'll Follow the Sun)" 9 3
2/65 "Stranger in Town" 30 40
5/65 "Break Up" 95 -
8/65 "Move It On Over" 129 -
5/66 "The Big Hurt" 94 -
9/66 "Under My Thumb" 128 -
2/67 "She" 131 -
9/67 "Runaway" (remake) 112 -
6/69 "Comin' Back To Me" 127 -
12/81 "Sea of Love" 33 -
3/85 "In My Arms Again"A - -

    * APeaked at #56 on Hot Country Songs.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/08/10 at 5:40 am

Our House By Madness.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/08/10 at 6:22 am


Our House By Madness.

Good song :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 02/08/10 at 12:16 pm


Our House By Madness.


Good song :)

Indeed it is. Their biggest hit in the US.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/08/10 at 2:48 pm


Our House By Madness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p4RWBCEFRo

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/08/10 at 2:49 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QnBccG_ChI

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/08/10 at 3:56 pm


I have never had a desire to drink champagne, or try any alcoholic beverages for that matter. Just my personal preference, that's all.

I also don't drink anymore, not for..hmm...almost 15 years. My personal choice as well.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 02/08/10 at 3:58 pm


I also don't drink anymore, not for..hmm...almost 15 years. My personal choice as well.

Even though I have been legally old enough to drink for the past 8 1/2 years, I have never had any desire to. I feel that if I were to get drunk, I would become incoherent, and not pleasant to be around.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/08/10 at 4:31 pm


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p4RWBCEFRo




Great video.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/09/10 at 4:27 am

The word of the day...tapestry
A tapestry is a large piece of heavy cloth with a picture sewn on it using coloured threads.
You can refer to something as a tapestry when it is made up of many varied types of people or things. http://i588.photobucket.com/albums/ss326/kcswonderland/Tapestry%20Round/R008lan201001B.jpg
http://i588.photobucket.com/albums/ss326/kcswonderland/Tapestry%20Round/R013BchengL.jpg
http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af307/GraniaDudley/Known%20World%20Tapestry/Tapestry-Leopard.png
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu147/Schlobben/Tangled%20Web%20Tapestries/tapestry_the_hunt.gif
http://i764.photobucket.com/albums/xx281/jbear2506/rome/vatican%20museum/VaticanMuseum171.jpg
http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af307/GraniaDudley/Known%20World%20Tapestry/Tapestry-Outlands.png
http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af307/GraniaDudley/Known%20World%20Tapestry/Tapestry-Butterfly.png

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/09/10 at 4:31 am

The person born on this day...Carole King
Carole King (born February 9, 1942) is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. As a songwriter, she and songwriting partner and husband Gerry Goffin penned over two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have since become standards and reaching number one; as a singer and performer, her iconic album Tapestry topped the U.S. album chart for 15 weeks in 1971, and remained on the charts for over six years.

Carole King's success as a performer was highest in the first half of the 1970s, although she was a successful songwriter long before and long after. She wrote her first #1 hit at the age of 17 in 1959 with Gerry Goffin, "Will You Love Me Tomorrow." In 1997 she wrote "The Reason" for Celine Dion.

In 2000 Carole King was named the most successful female songwriter of the 1955-99 pop music era by Joel Whitburn, a Billboard Magazine pop music researcher as she wrote or co-wrote 118 pop hits that appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 during that time. This was featured in the Los Angeles Times.

Carole King has released 25 solo albums, her most successful being Tapestry. Her most recent album is The Living Room Tour, which experienced great success on the charts in its first week alone. This was thanks to marketing through Starbucks and television advertisements.

She has won four Grammy Awards and was inducted into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for her songwriting, along with long-time partner Gerry Goffin.

Carole King holds the record for the longest time for an album by a female to remain on the charts and the longest time for an album by a female to stay at #1 on the charts for Tapestry.
Goffin and King soon formed a songwriting partnership. Working for Aldon Music in the Brill Building, where chart-topping hits were churned out during the 1960s, the Goffin-King partnership first hit it big with "Will You Love Me Tomorrow". Recorded by The Shirelles, the song topped the charts in 1961, becoming the first number-one hit by a girl group; it was later recorded by Ben E King, Dusty Springfield, Laura Branigan, Little Eva, Roberta Flack, The Four Seasons, Bryan Ferry and King herself. In 1987 Elton John performed a live version of the song. As with many of King's compositions, the song has been recorded by too many artists to enumerate and continues to be recorded to this day by even newer musical acts, for example, Amy Winehouse.

Goffin and King married in September 1960 and had two daughters, Louise Goffin and Sherry Goffin Kondor, both of whom also became musicians.

In 1965, Goffin and King wrote a theme song for Sidney Sheldon's new television series, I Dream of Jeannie, but the song was not used. Instead, an instrumental theme by Hugo Montenegro was used.

Their 1967 song "Pleasant Valley Sunday", a #3 hit for The Monkees, was inspired by their move to suburban West Orange, New Jersey. Goffin and King also wrote several songs for Head, the Monkees' feature film.

Goffin and King divorced in 1968. Even after their divorce, Goffin and King remained in touch. At times Carole would consult Goffin on some of the music and songs she was writing and composing. After time, King lost touch with Goffin because of his declining mental health and the effect it had on their children. However, the two remain friends.
Major Hits by Goffin and King
Year Song Original artist U.S. Hot 100 Cover versions
1960 "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" Shirelles 1 Carole King (in 1971), The Four Seasons, Roberta Flack, Amy Winehouse, Melanie, Jackie DeShannon, Len Barry, Bunny Sigler, Cissy Houston, The Platters, Neil Diamond (in 1993), Linda Ronstadt, Angus Tung (in Mandarin), Shirley Kwan and Alan Tam (in Cantonese), Dave Mason and Debbie Gibson (both under the title "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow"), The Rocky Fellers, Lorrie Morgan(( Minnie Driver for the film "Beautiful")).
1961 "Take Good Care of My Baby" Bobby Vee 1 Dion and the Belmonts (later in 1961), Bobby Vinton (in 1968), Smokie (in 1981), Bobby Vee, Stephen Collins, Dick Brave
"Some Kind of Wonderful" The Drifters 32 Marvin Gaye (in 1968), Carole King (in 1971); not the same song as the Grand Funk Railroad hit
"Halfway to Paradise" Tony Orlando 39 Billy Fury (1962), Bobby Vinton(1968), Tina Charles(1977)
"Every Breath I Take" Gene Pitney 42 no relation to The Police's "Every Breath You Take"
"Walkin' with My Angel" Bobby Vee 53 Herman's Hermits
1962 "Chains" The Cookies 17 The Beatles (in 1963), Carole King (in 1980)
"Keep Your Hands Off My Baby" Little Eva 12 The Beatles (in 1964, unreleased until 1994)
"The Loco-Motion" Little Eva 1 The Chiffons (in 1963), Emerson Lake & Powell (instrumental), Grand Funk Railroad (in 1974, #1), Carole King (in 1980), Kylie Minogue (in 1988, #3), Tina Turner, Dwight Yoakam
"He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)" The Crystals The Motels (in 1982), Hole (in 1994), Grizzly Bear (in 2007)
"Go Away Little Girl" Steve Lawrence 1 Mark Wynter, The Tams, Donny Osmond (in 1971, #1), The Happenings (in 1966, #12)
"Point Of No Return" Gene McDaniels 21
"Crying in the Rain" The Everly Brothers 6 A-ha (in 1990, #1 in Norway), Dave Edmunds
1963 "Don't Say Nothin' Bad (About My Baby)" The Cookies 7
"I Can't Stay Mad At You" Skeeter Davis 7
"Hey Girl" Freddie Scott 10 Donny Osmond (in 1972, #9), George Benson ("Livin' Inside Your Love" in 1977), Carole King (in 1980), Billy Joel (Greatest Hits Volume III in 1997), Bob James & David Sanborn, Bobby Vee (as part of a medley with The Temptations' hit My Girl in 1968, #35)
"One Fine Day" The Chiffons 5 Rita Coolidge (in 1979, #66), Carole King (in 1980, #12), Aaron Neville (in 1993), Natalie Merchant (in 1996)
"Up on the Roof" The Drifters 5 Kenny Lynch (1964),King (in 1970), Laura Nyro (in 1970), James Taylor (in 1979, #28), Neil Diamond (in 1993), Billy Joe Royal, Peter Cincotti
1964 "I Can't Hear You No More" Betty Everett 66 Dusty Springfield (in 1965), King (in 1970), Helen Reddy (in 1976, #29)
"I'm into Something Good" "Earl-Jean" McCrea 38 Herman's Hermits (later in 1964, #13)
"Oh No Not My Baby" Maxine Brown 24 Manfred Mann (in 1965), Dusty Springfield (in 1965), Aretha Franklin (in 1970), Rod Stewart (in 1973, #59), The Partridge Family (Bulletin Board in 1973), King (in 1980 and 2001), Cher (in 1992), Linda Ronstadt (in 1994)
1965 "Don't Forget About Me" Barbara Lewis - Dusty Springfield
1966 "Don't Bring Me Down" The Animals 12 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (in 1986)
"Goin' Back" Dusty Springfield - The Byrds (in 1968, #86), King (in 1980), Larry Lurex (1973) Nils Lofgren,Elkie Brooks Johnny Logan, Diana Ross, Glen Shorrock & Renee Geyer (Aust. 1983)
"I Can't Make It Alone" P.J. Proby - Dusty Springfield, Maria McKee (in 1993)
1967 "Pleasant Valley Sunday" The Monkees 3 The Weisstronauts (in 2008)
"(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" Aretha Franklin 8 King (in 1971), Laura Nyro (in 1971), Rod Stewart (in 1974), Mary J. Blige (in 1995, #95), Celine Dion (in 1995)
1968 "Porpoise Song" The Monkees 62
"Wasn't Born to Follow" The Byrds King (in 1980)
1970 "Hi-De-Ho (That Old Sweet Roll)" Blood, Sweat & Tears 14 Dusty Springfield (non-LP B-Side in 1969), King (in 1980)
Recording artist

In 1966 artist Peter Max introduced King to guru Sri Swami Satchidananda, who became a friend and adviser to King. In 1967 King also had a hit "Windy Day" with The Executives. In 1968, King was hired to co-write two songs for Strawberry Alarm Clock with Toni Stern, "Lady of the Lake" and "Blues for a Young Girl Gone," which appeared on the album, The World in a Seashell.

King began to focus on her own singing career. She sang backup vocals on the demo of Little Eva's hit "The Loco-Motion". She had had a modest hit in 1962 singing one of her own songs, "It Might As Well Rain Until September" (#22 in the US and a top 10 success in the UK, later a hit in Canada for Gary and Dave), but after "He's a Bad Boy" made #94 in 1963, it would take King eight years to reach the Hot 100 singles chart again as a performer.

As the '60s waned, King helped pioneer a record label, Tomorrow Records, divorced Goffin and married Charles Larkey (of the Myddle Class).

Moving to the West Coast, Larkey, King and Danny Kortchmar formed a group called The City, which released one album, Now That Everything's Been Said, but the album was a commercial failure. King then released Writer (1970), a critically acclaimed record, but another commercial failure.
Tapestry and beyond

King followed up Writer in 1971 with Tapestry, featuring new folk-flavored compositions, as well as reinterpretations of two of her early pop hits as a songwriter, "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman."

Tapestry was an instant success and was soon recognized as one of the landmark albums of the singer-songwriter genre of the early 1970s. With numerous hit singles, including a #1 hit, Tapestry would remain on the charts for nearly six years and sell over 10 million copies in the United States and over 25 million worldwide. The album garnered four Grammy Awards including Album of the Year; Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female; Record of the Year ("It's Too Late", lyrics by Toni Stern); and Song of the Year ("You've Got a Friend"). The album signalled the era of platinum albums, though it was issued prior to the invention of the platinum certification by the RIAA. It would eventually be certified diamond.

Tapestry became the top-selling solo album ever, a position it held until the release of Michael Jackson's Thriller in 1982. The album was later placed at #36 on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list. In addition, "It's Too Late" was placed at #469 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Music (1971), Rhymes and Reasons (1972), and Fantasy (1973) followed, each earning either a gold or platinum RIAA certification. Music would produce a top ten hit, "Sweet Seasons" (US #9 and AC #2), Rhymes and Reasons produced another hit, "Been to Canaan" (US #24 and AC #1), and Fantasy produced two hits, "Believe in Humanity" (US #28) and "Corazon" (US #37 and AC #5), as well as another song that charted on the Hot 100, "You Light Up My Life" (US #68 and AC #6).

In 1973, King performed a free concert in New York City's Central Park and broke all previous records for such a concert with over 100,000 people attending.

King also enjoyed major success with her 1974 album Wrap Around Joy and the subsequent tour to promote the album. The album reached number #1 on the Billboard charts and, for only the second time in her career, she had a song reach as high as #2 on the singles chart with "Jazzman." The album also produced her fourth top ten hit, "Nightingale".

In 1975, King scored a number of songs for the animated TV production of Maurice Sendak's work Really Rosie, which was also released as an album by the same name, with lyrics by Sendak.

Thoroughbred (1976) was the last studio album she released under the Ode label. In addition to enlisting her long-time friends such as David Crosby, Graham Nash, James Taylor and Waddy Wachtel, King reunited with Gerry Goffin to write four songs for the album. The songwriting partnership between King and her former husband continued intermittently in later years. King also did a promotional tour for the album in 1976.

In 1977, King collaborated with another songwriting partner Rick Evers on Simple Things, the first release under her contract with a new label distributed by Capitol Records. King married Evers shortly thereafter; he died of a heroin overdose one year later. Simple Things became her first album which failed to reach the top 10 on the Billboard since Tapestry, and it would be her last Gold-certified record by the RIAA, except a compilation entitled Her Greatest Hits released in the following year. Neither Welcome Home (1978), which marked her debut as a co-producer on an album, nor Touch the Sky (1979), reached the top 100.

Pearls - The Songs of Goffin and King (1980) was moderately successful and yielded a hit single, an updated version of "One Fine Day". Pearls marked the end of King's career as a hitmaker and a performer, as no subsequent single release would reach the top 40.
An all-star roster of artists paid tribute to King on the 1995 album Tapestry Revisited: A Tribute to Carole King. From the album, Rod Stewart's version of "So Far Away" and Celine Dion's cover of "A Natural Woman" were both Adult Contemporary chart hits. Other artists who appeared on the album included Amy Grant ("It's Too Late"), Richard Marx ("Beautiful"), Aretha Franklin ("You've Got a Friend"), Faith Hill ("Where You Lead"), and the Bee Gees ("Will You Love Me Tomorrow?").

In addition to the numerous hit versions of her songs with Gerry Goffin and Tapestry Revisited, many other cover versions of King's work have appeared over the years. Most notably, "You've Got a Friend" was a smash #1 hit for James Taylor in 1971 and a top 40 hit for Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway that same year. Barbra Streisand had a top 40 hit in 1972 with "Where You Lead" twice — by itself and as part of a live medley with "Sweet Inspiration." Barbra also covered "No Easy Way Down" in 1971, "Beautiful" and "You've Got A Friend" in 1972, and "Being At War With Each Other" in 1974. The Carpenters recorded King's "It's Going to Take Some Time" in 1972 and reached number 12 on the Billboard charts. Richard Carpenter produced a version of "You've Got A Friend" with then teen singer/actor Scott Grimes in 1989. Martika had a number 25 hit in 1989 with her version of I Feel the Earth Move, and "It's Too Late" reappeared on the Adult Contemporary chart in 1995 by Gloria Estefan. Linda Ronstadt recorded a new version of "Oh No Not My Baby" in 1993. Celine Dion also recorded King's song "The Reason" on her 1997 album Let's Talk About Love with Carole King singing backup and it became a million-seller and was certified Diamond in France. Jonathan Rayson recorded a new version of "Beautiful" in his 2006 release "Shiny And New". "Where You Lead" (lyrics by Toni Stern) became the title song of TV show Gilmore Girls.

In 1996 a film very loosely based on her life, Grace of My Heart, was released. In the film an aspiring singer sacrifices her own singing career to write hit songs that launch the careers of other singers. Mirroring King's life, the film follows her from her first break, through the pain of rejection from the recording industry and a bad marriage, to her final triumph in realizing her dream to record her own hit album.
Awards and recognition

    * In 1987, Goffin and King were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
    * In 1988, Goffin and King received the National Academy of Songwriters Lifetime Achievement Award.
    * In 1990, King was inducted, along with Goffin, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the non-performer category for her songwriting achievements.
    * In 2002, King was given the "Johnny Mercer Award" by the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
    * In 2004, Goffin and King were awarded the Grammy Trustees Award.
    * King was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2007.

Discography
Main article: Carole King discography
See also

    * List of songwriter tandems

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/09/10 at 4:35 am

The person who died on this day...Princess Margaret
The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (Margaret Rose; 21 August 1930 – 9 February 2002) was the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II.

Margaret spent much of her early life in the company of her elder sister and parents, The Prince Albert, Duke of York (later King George VI) and Elizabeth, Duchess of York (later the Queen Mother). Her life changed dramatically in 1936, when her uncle, King Edward VIII, abdicated to marry the divorced American Wallis Simpson. Margaret's father became King in Edward's place, and after her elder sister, Elizabeth, Margaret became second in line to the throne.

During World War II, Margaret and Elizabeth stayed at Windsor Castle, despite government pressure to evacuate to Canada. During the war years, Margaret was not expected to perform any public or official duties, and instead continued her education. After the war, she fell in love with a divorced older man, Group Captain Peter Townsend, her father's equerry. Her father died at around the same time, and her sister Elizabeth became Queen. Many in the government felt that Townsend was an unsuitable husband for the Queen's sister, and the Church of England refused to countenance the marriage. Under pressure, Margaret chose to abandon her plans, and instead accepted the proposal of the photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones, who was created Earl of Snowdon by the Queen. The marriage, despite an auspicious start, soon became unhappy; the couple divorced in 1978.

Margaret was often viewed as a controversial member of the Royal Family. Her divorce earned her negative publicity, and she was romantically linked with several men. Her health gradually deteriorated; a heavy smoker all her adult life, she had a lung operation in 1985, a bout of pneumonia in 1993, and at least three strokes between 1998 and 2001. Margaret died at King Edward VII Hospital, London, on 9 February 2002. After a private funeral, her body was cremated. Two months later, after the death of her mother, Margaret's ashes were interred beside the bodies of her parents in the George VI Memorial Chapel at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
Margaret was born Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret Rose of York on 21 August 1930 at Glamis Castle in Angus, Scotland, her mother's ancestral home. At the time of her birth, she was fourth in the line of succession to the British throne. Her father was Prince Albert, Duke of York (later George VI), the second son of King George V and Queen Mary. As a grandchild of the Sovereign in the male line, Margaret Rose was styled Her Royal Highness from birth. Her mother was Elizabeth, Duchess of York, the youngest daughter of the 14th Earl and Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne. The Duchess of York originally wanted the names Ann Margaret, as she explained to Queen Mary in a letter: "I am very anxious to call her Ann Margaret, as I think Ann of York sounds pretty, & Elizabeth and Ann go so well together." King George V disliked the name Ann, but approved of the alternative "Margaret Rose". She was baptised in the Private Chapel of Buckingham Palace on 30 October 1930 by Cosmo Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and her godparents were her uncle the Prince of Wales (for whom his brother, Prince George, stood proxy); her father's cousin Princess Ingrid of Sweden (for whom Lady Patricia Ramsay stood proxy); her great-aunt Princess Victoria; her maternal aunt Lady Rose Leveson-Gower; and her maternal uncle The Hon David Bowes-Lyon.
Princess Margaret (front) with her sister Elizabeth (right) and grandmother Queen Mary (left)

Margaret's early life was spent primarily at the Yorks' residences at 145 Piccadilly (their town house in London) or Royal Lodge in Windsor. The Yorks were perceived by the public as an ideal family: father, mother and children, but unfounded rumours that Margaret was deaf and dumb were not completely dispelled until Margaret's first main public appearance at her uncle Prince George's wedding in 1934. She was educated alongside her sister, Princess Elizabeth, by their Scottish governess Marion Crawford. Her education was mainly supervised by her mother, who in the words of Randolph Churchill "never aimed at bringing her daughters up to be more than nicely behaved young ladies". When Queen Mary insisted upon the importance of education, the Duchess of York commented, "I don't know what she meant. After all I and my sisters only had governesses and we all married well—one of us very well". Margaret was resentful about her limited education, especially in later years, aiming criticism at her mother. However, Margaret's mother told a friend that she "regretted" that her own daughters did not go to school like other children, and the employment of a governess rather than sending the girls to school may have been done only at the insistence of King George V.

George V died when Margaret was five, and her uncle succeeded as King Edward VIII. Less than a year later, on 11 December 1936, Edward abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American, who neither the Church of England nor the Commonwealth governments would accept as Queen. The Church would not recognise the marriage of a divorced woman with a living ex-husband as valid. Edward's abdication for love left a reluctant Duke of York in his place as King George VI, and Margaret unexpectedly became second in line to the throne. The family moved into Buckingham Palace; Margaret's room overlooked The Mall.

Margaret was a Brownie in the 1st Buckingham Palace Brownie Pack, formed in 1937. She was also a Girl Guide and later a Sea Ranger. She served as President of Girlguiding UK from 1965 until her death in 2002.

At the outbreak of World War II, Margaret and her sister were at Birkhall, on the Balmoral Castle estate, where they stayed until Christmas 1939 enduring nights so cold that drinking water in carafes by their bedside froze. They spent Christmas at Sandringham House, before moving to Windsor Castle just outside London for much of the remainder of the war. Lord Hailsham wrote to Prime Minister Winston Churchill to advise the evacuation of the princesses to the greater safety of Canada, to which their mother famously replied "The children won't go without me. I won't leave without the King. And the King will never leave." When Margaret was twelve in 1942 her uncle and godfather, Prince George, was killed in an air crash. Unlike other members of the royal family, Margaret was not expected to undertake any public or official duties during the war. She developed her skills at singing and playing the piano. Her contemporaries thought she was spoilt by her parents, especially her father, who allowed her to take liberties not usually permissible, such as being allowed to stay up to dinner at the age of 13. Marion Crawford despaired at the attention Margaret was getting, writing to friends "Could you this year only ask Princess Elizabeth to your party? ... Princess Margaret does draw all the attention and Princess Elizabeth lets her do that." Elizabeth, however, did not mind this, commenting, "oh, it's so much easier when Margaret's there—everybody laughs at what Margaret says". King George described Elizabeth as his pride and Margaret as his joy.
Post-war years
Margaret (right) and her sister Elizabeth (left) depicted on a stamp celebrating the royal tour of Southern Africa in 1947

Following the end of the war in 1945, Margaret appeared on the balcony at Buckingham Palace with her family and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Afterwards, both Elizabeth and Margaret joined the crowds outside the palace incognito chanting, "we want the King, we want the Queen!". On 1 February 1947, Margaret, Elizabeth and her parents embarked on a state tour of Southern Africa. The three-month long visit was Margaret's first visit abroad, and she later claimed that she remembered "every minute of it". Margaret was chaperoned by Peter Townsend, the King's equerry. Later that year, Margaret was a bridesmaid at Elizabeth's wedding. Elizabeth had two children, Charles and Anne, in the next two years, which moved Margaret further down the line of succession.

In 1950, the former royal governess, Marion Crawford, published a biography of Elizabeth and Margaret's childhood years entitled The Little Princesses in which she described Margaret's "light-hearted fun and frolics" and her "amusing and outrageous ... antics". The royal family were appalled at what they saw as Crawford's invasion of their privacy and breach of trust, as a result of which Crawford was ostracised from royal circles.

As a beautiful young woman, with an 18-inch waist and "vivid blue eyes", Margaret enjoyed socialising with high society and the young, aristocratic set, including Sharman Douglas, the daughter of the American ambassador, Lewis W. Douglas. She was often featured in the press at balls, parties, and night-clubs. The number of her official engagements increased, which included a tour of Italy, Switzerland and France, and she joined a growing number of charitable organisations as President or Patron.

Her twenty-first birthday party was held at Balmoral in August 1951. The following month her father underwent surgery for lung cancer, and Margaret was appointed one of the Counsellors of State who undertook the King's official duties while he was incapacitated. Within six months, her father was dead and her sister was Queen.
Marriage

Margaret was grief-stricken by her father's death, and was prescribed sedatives to help her sleep. She wrote, "He was such a wonderful person, the very heart and centre of our happy family." She was consoled by her deeply-held Christian beliefs. With her widowed mother, Margaret moved out of Buckingham Palace and into Clarence House, while her sister and her family moved out of Clarence House and into Buckingham Palace. Peter Townsend was appointed Comptroller of her mother's household.

By 1953, Townsend was divorced from his first wife; he proposed marriage to Margaret. He was sixteen years older than her, and had two children from his previous marriage. Margaret accepted, and informed the Queen of her desire to marry Townsend. As in 1936, the Church of England refused to countenance the remarriage of the divorced. Queen Mary had recently died, and the Queen was about to be crowned in the Coronation service. After the Coronation, she planned to tour the Commonwealth for six months. The Queen told Margaret, "Under the circumstances, it isn't unreasonable for me to ask you to wait a year." The Queen was counselled by her private secretary to post Townsend abroad, but she refused, instead transferring him from the Queen Mother's household to her own. The British Cabinet refused to approve the marriage, and newspapers reported that the marriage was "unthinkable" and "would fly in the face of Royal and Christian tradition". Prime Minister Churchill informed the Queen that the Commonwealth prime ministers were unanimously against the marriage, and that Parliament would not approve a marriage that would be unrecognised by the Church of England unless Margaret renounced her right of succession. Churchill arranged for Townsend to be posted to Brussels. Polls run by popular newspapers appeared to show that the public supported Margaret's personal choice, regardless of Church teaching or the government's opinion. For two years, press speculation continued. Margaret was told by clerics, incorrectly, that she would be unable to take communion if she married a divorced man. Finally, Margaret issued a statement:

    "I would like it to be known that I have decided not to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend. I have been aware that, subject to my renouncing my rights of succession, it might have been possible for me to contract a civil marriage. But mindful of the Church's teachings that Christian marriage is indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have resolved to put these considerations before others. I have reached this decision entirely alone, and in doing so I have been strengthened by the unfailing support and devotion of Group Captain Townsend."

Following some other romantic interests, on 6 May 1960 Margaret married the photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones at Westminster Abbey. She reportedly accepted his proposal a day after learning from Peter Townsend that he intended to marry a young Belgian woman, Marie-Luce Jamagne, who was half his age and bore a striking resemblance to Margaret. The announcement of the engagement, on 26 February 1960, took the press by surprise. Margaret had taken care to conceal the romance from reporters. The ceremony was the first royal wedding to be broadcast on television, and attracted viewing figures of 300 million worldwide. Margaret's corsage was designed by Norman Hartnell, and the honeymoon was spent aboard the royal yacht Britannia on a six-week Caribbean cruise. As a wedding present, Colin Tennant gave her a plot of land on his private Caribbean island, Mustique. The newly-weds moved into rooms in Kensington Palace. In 1961, the Princess's husband was created Earl of Snowdon, whereupon she became formally styled HRH The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon. They had two children, both born by Caesarean section at Margaret's request: David, Viscount Linley in 1961 and Lady Sarah in 1964.

The marriage widened Princess Margaret's social circle beyond the Court and aristocracy to include show business celebrities and bohemians, and was seen at the time as reflecting the breakdown of class barriers. The Snowdons experimented with the styles and fashions of the 1960s.
Royal duties

Princess Margaret began her royal duties at an early age. She attended the silver jubilee of her grandparents, George V and Queen Mary, aged five in 1935. She later attended her parents' coronation in 1937. Her first major royal tour occurred when she joined her parents and sister for a tour of South Africa in 1947. Her tour aboard Britannia to the British colonies in the Caribbean in 1955 created a sensation throughout the West Indies, and calypsos were dedicated to her. As colonies of the British Commonwealth of Nations sought nationhood, Princess Margaret represented the Crown at independence ceremonies in Jamaica in 1962 and Tuvalu and Dominica in 1978. Her visit to Tuvalu was cut short after an illness, which may have been viral pneumonia, and she was flown to Australia to recuperate. Other Overseas tours included the United States in 1963, Japan in 1969 and 1979, the United States and Canada in 1974, Australia in 1975, the Philippines in 1980, Swaziland in 1981, and China in 1987.

The Princess's main interests were welfare charities, music and ballet. She was President of the National Society and of the Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and Invalid Children's Aid Nationwide (also called 'I CAN'). She was Grand President of the St. John Ambulance Brigade and Colonel-in-Chief of Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps. She was also the president or patron of numerous organisations, such as the Northern Ballet Theatre, West Indies Olympic Association, the Girl Guides and the London Lighthouse (an AIDS charity that has since merged with the Terrence Higgins Trust).
Private life
House of Windsor
Badge of the House of Windsor.svg
George VI
  Elizabeth II
  Margaret, Countess of Snowdon

Reportedly, her first extramarital affair took place in 1966, with her daughter's godfather, Bordeaux wine producer Anthony Barton, and a year later she had a one-month liaison with Robin Douglas-Home, a nephew of a former British Prime Minister. Margaret claimed that her relationship with Douglas-Home was platonic, but her letters to him (which were later sold) were intimate. Douglas-Home committed suicide 18 months after the split with Margaret. Claims that she was romantically involved with musician Mick Jagger, actor Peter Sellers, and Australian cricketer Keith Miller are unproven. A 2009 biography of actor David Niven asserted based on information from his widow and a good friend of Niven's that he too had had an affair with the princess. Another association was supposed to be with John Bindon, a cockney actor who had spent time in prison. His story, sold to the Daily Mirror, boasted of a close relationship with Margaret and, while it was debatable, the publicity that followed further damaged her reputation.

By the early 1970s, the Snowdons had drifted apart. In September 1973, Colin Tennant introduced Margaret to Roddy Llewellyn. Llewellyn was seventeen years her junior. In 1974, he was a guest at the holiday home she had built on Mustique. It was the first of several visits. Margaret described their relationship as "a loving friendship". Once, when Llewellyn left on an impulsive trip to Turkey, Margaret became emotionally distraught and took an overdose of sleeping tablets. "I was so exhausted because of everything", she later said, "that all I wanted to do was sleep." As she recovered, her ladies-in-waiting kept Lord Snowdon away from her, afraid that seeing him would distress her further.

In February 1976, a picture of Margaret and Llewellyn in swimsuits on Mustique was published on the front page of the tabloid News of the World. The press portrayed Margaret and Llewellyn as a predatory older woman and her toyboy lover. The following month, the Snowdons publicly acknowledged that their marriage was over. There were calls to remove her from the Civil list. Labour MPs denounced her as "a royal parasite", and a "floosie". On 11 July 1978, the Snowdons' divorce was finalised. It was the first divorce of a senior Royal since Princess Victoria of Edinburgh in 1901. In December Snowdon married Lucy Lindsay-Hogg.
Later life

While on a fund-raising tour of the United States in October 1979 on behalf of the Royal Opera House, Margaret became embroiled in the controversy over the assassination of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma. Mountbatten and members of his family were killed by a bomb planted by the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Seated at a dinner reception in Chicago with columnist Abra Anderson and mayor Jane Byrne, Margaret told them that the royal family had been moved by the many letters of condolence from Ireland. The following day, a single press report, written by Anderson's rival Irv Kupcinet, claimed that Margaret had referred to the Irish as "pigs". Margaret, Anderson and Byrne all issued immediate denials, but the damage was already done. The rest of the tour drew demonstrations, and Margaret's security was doubled in the face of physical threats.

In 1981, Llewellyn married Tatiana Soskin, whom he had known for ten years. Margaret remained close friends with them both.

The Princess's later life was marred by illness and disability. She had smoked since at least the age of 15. On 5 January 1985, she had part of her left lung removed; the operation drew parallels with that of her father 30 years earlier. In 1991, she quit smoking, but continued to drink heavily. In January 1993 she was admitted to hospital for pneumonia. She experienced a mild stroke in 1998 at her holiday home in Mustique. Early in the following year, the Princess suffered severe scalds to her feet in a bathroom accident, which affected her mobility to the extent she required support when walking and sometimes used a wheelchair. In January and March 2001, further strokes were diagnosed, which left her with partial vision and paralysis on the left side. Margaret's last public appearances were at the 101st birthday celebrations of her mother in August 2001, and the 100th birthday celebration of her aunt, Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, that December.
Legacy
We thank thee Lord who by thy spirit doth our faith restore
When we with wordly things commune & prayerless close our door
We lose our precious gift divine to worship and adore
Then thou our Saviour, fill our hearts to love thee evermore
—Princess Margaret's epitaph, written by herself is carved on a memorial stone in St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle

Princess Margaret died in the King Edward VII Hospital on 9 February 2002 at the age of 71, after suffering another stroke. Her funeral was held on 15 February 2002—the 50th anniversary of her father's funeral. In line with the Princess's wishes, the ceremony was a private service for family and friends. It was the last time the Queen Mother was seen in public before her own death six weeks later; she was advised by many not to attend but she insisted on doing so. Unlike most other members of the Royal Family, Princess Margaret was cremated, at Slough Crematorium. Her ashes were placed in the tomb of her parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, in the King George VI Memorial Chapel in St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, two months later. A state memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey on 19 April 2002.

Princess Margaret's nephew, Charles, Prince of Wales, talked about her after her death:

    "My aunt was one of those remarkable people who, apart from being incredibly vital and attractive, and of course when she was young so many people remember her for that vitality and attractiveness and indeed her incredible beauty, but she also, and I think many people do not realise this, but she had such incredible talent."

Observers often characterised her as a spoiled snob capable of cutting remarks or hauteur. She even apparently looked down on her own grandmother, Mary of Teck, because Mary was royal only by marriage, whereas Margaret was royal by birth. Their letters, however, provide no indication of friction between them. She could also, however, be charming and informal. People who came into contact with her could be perplexed by her capricious swings between frivolity and formality. Marion Crawford explained, "Impulsive and bright remarks she made became headlines and, taken out of their context, began to produce in the public eye an oddly distorted personality that bore little resemblance to the Margaret we knew." Margaret's acquaintance Gore Vidal wrote, "She was far too intelligent for her station in life." He recalled a conversation with Margaret, in which she discussed her public notoriety, saying, "It was inevitable: when there are two sisters and one is the Queen, who must be the source of honour and all that is good, while the other must be the focus of the most creative malice, the evil sister."

In June 2006, much of her estate was auctioned by Christie's to meet inheritance tax, though some of the items were sold in aid of charities such as the Stroke Association. A world record price of £1.24 million was set by a Fabergé clock, and the Poltimore tiara, worn for her wedding in 1960, sold for £926,400. The sale of her effects totalled £13,658,000. In April 2007, an exhibition entitled Princess Line - The Fashion Legacy of Princess Margaret opened at Kensington Palace, showcasing contemporary fashion from British designers such as Vivienne Westwood inspired by Princess Margaret's 'legacy' of style. Christopher Bailey's Spring 2006 collection for Burberry was inspired by Margaret's look from the 1960s.

Princess Margaret's private life was for many years the subject of intense speculation by media and royal-watchers. Her house on Mustique, designed by her husband's uncle the stage designer Oliver Messel, was her favorite holiday destination. Allegations of wild parties and drug taking were made in a documentary broadcast after the Princess's death. Her supposed Mustique indiscretions form an important part of the background of the quasi-historical 2008 film The Bank Job. Princess Margaret was portrayed by Lucy Cohu in the Channel 4 TV drama The Queen's Sister (2005), by Trulie MacLeod in the TV drama The Women of Windsor (1992), and by Hannah Wiltshire in the TV drama Bertie and Elizabeth; she is portrayed silently in the second series première of Ashes to Ashes (2009, set in 1982) and subsequently complains off-camera about one of the principal characters. Her affair with Peter Townsend and the Queen's dealing with this was the subject of the first episode of the Channel 4 Docudrama The Queen in which she was portrayed by Katie McGrath

It is argued that Margaret's most enduring legacy is an accidental one. Perhaps unwittingly, Margaret paved the way for public acceptance of royal divorce. Her life, if not her actions, made the decisions and choices of her sister's children, three of whom divorced, easier than they otherwise would have been.
Titles, styles, honours and arms
Titles and styles
Royal styles of
The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon

Countess of Snowdon Arms.svg
Reference style Her Royal Highness
Spoken style Your Royal Highness
Alternative style Ma'am

    * 21 August 1930 – 11 December 1936: Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret of York
    * 11 December 1936 – 3 October 1961: Her Royal Highness The Princess Margaret
    * 3 October 1961 – 9 February 2002: Her Royal Highness The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon

Honours

    * CI: Companion of the Crown of India, 12 June 1947
    * GCVO: Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, 1953
    * GCStJ: Dame Grand Cross of St John of Jerusalem, 1956
    * Royal Victorian Chain, 1990
    * Royal Family Order of King George V
    * Royal Family Order of King George VI
    * Royal Family Order of Queen Elizabeth II

Foreign Honours

    * Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion, 1948
    * Order of the Brilliant Star of Zanzibar, First Class, 1956
    * Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown (Belgium), 1960
    * Order of the Crown, Lion and Spear of Toro Kingdom (Uganda), 1965
    * Order of the Precious Crown, First Class (Japan), 1971

Honorary military appointments

Australia Australia

    * Colonel-in-Chief, Women's Royal Australian Army Corps

Bermuda Bermuda

    * Colonel-in-Chief, Bermuda Regiment

Canada Canada

    * Colonel-in-Chief, the Highland Fusiliers of Canada
    * Colonel-in-Chief, Princess Louise Fusiliers
    * Colonel-in-Chief, The Royal Newfoundland Regiment
    * Colonel-in-Chief, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI)

United Kingdom United Kingdom

    * Colonel-in-Chief, 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars
    * Colonel-in-Chief, Light Dragoons
    * Colonel-in-Chief, Royal Highland Fusiliers (Princess Margaret's Own Glasgow and Ayrshire Regiment)
    * Colonel-in-Chief, Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps
    * Deputy Colonel-in-Chief, Royal Anglian Regiment
    * Honorary Air Commodore, Royal Air Force Coningsby

Arms
Arms of Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon
Notes
The Princess' personalized coat of arms were those of the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom with a label for difference.
Countess of Snowdon Arms.svg
Escutcheon
Quarterly 1st and 4th gules three lions passant guardant or 2nd or a lion rampant gules within a double tressure flory counterflory gules 3rd azure a harp or stringed argent
Other elements
The whole differenced by a label of three points Argent, first and third charged with a Tudor rose the second with a thistle proper
Banner
The princess' personal Royal Standard was that of the Sovereign, labelled for difference as in her arms.
Symbolism
As with the Royal Arms of the United Kingdom. The first and fourth quarters are the arms of England, the second of Scotland, the third of Ireland.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/09/10 at 5:38 am


The word of the day...tapestry
A tapestry is a large piece of heavy cloth with a picture sewn on it using coloured threads.
You can refer to something as a tapestry when it is made up of many varied types of people or things. http://i588.photobucket.com/albums/ss326/kcswonderland/Tapestry%20Round/R008lan201001B.jpg
http://i588.photobucket.com/albums/ss326/kcswonderland/Tapestry%20Round/R013BchengL.jpg
http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af307/GraniaDudley/Known%20World%20Tapestry/Tapestry-Leopard.png
http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/uu147/Schlobben/Tangled%20Web%20Tapestries/tapestry_the_hunt.gif
http://i764.photobucket.com/albums/xx281/jbear2506/rome/vatican%20museum/VaticanMuseum171.jpg
http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af307/GraniaDudley/Known%20World%20Tapestry/Tapestry-Outlands.png
http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af307/GraniaDudley/Known%20World%20Tapestry/Tapestry-Butterfly.png


those are really gorgeous. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/09/10 at 6:37 am


those are really gorgeous. :)

I'm glad you like them :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/09/10 at 7:45 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p4RWBCEFRo





I used that song in the video I made with some photos I took of the kids.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 02/09/10 at 7:52 pm

Nice bio on Carol King, Ninny. I grew up listening to her music. Lots of good memories.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 02/09/10 at 7:59 pm

Tapestry was one of the finest albums of the 70's. Most people had it in their collection...along with 'Best of Bread', 'Eagles Greatest Hits' and America's 'History'

Absolutely loved that album and bought the CD a couple of years ago...(the album quality isn't so hot anymore).

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/10/10 at 1:05 am


Nice bio on Carol King, Ninny. I grew up listening to her music. Lots of good memories.  :)
Great singer!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/10/10 at 4:17 am


Nice bio on Carol King, Ninny. I grew up listening to her music. Lots of good memories.  :)

Thanks :)

Tapestry was one of the finest albums of the 70's. Most people had it in their collection...along with 'Best of Bread', 'Eagles Greatest Hits' and America's 'History'

Absolutely loved that album and bought the CD a couple of years ago...(the album quality isn't so hot anymore).

You got good taste Peter. :)

Great singer!

Yes she is :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/10/10 at 4:39 am


Interesting you chose the food "Grapes" today, because that's the nickname of Canada's most famous hockey personality, Don Cherry, and it's his birthday today (born Feb 5, 1934)

I just saw this post Don Cherry use to coach the Rochester Americans.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/10/10 at 4:46 am

The word of the day...Feather
A bird's feathers are the soft covering on its body. Each feather consists of a lot of smooth hairs on each side of a thin stiff centre
If you describe two people as birds of a feather, you mean that they have very similar characteristics, interests, or beliefs.
If you describe something that someone has achieved as a feather in their cap, you mean that they can be proud of it or that it might bring them some advantage.
http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk263/CND_Emi/feather34l.jpg
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http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l187/x3die_romanticx3/Misc/Picture103.jpg
http://i635.photobucket.com/albums/uu80/streetwisepup/jiva/New%20Ebay%20pics/peacock-feather-tickler2.gif
http://i688.photobucket.com/albums/vv244/uttamdirect/FEATHERSKIRT.jpg
http://i961.photobucket.com/albums/ae96/enigmastery/Sensual/feather-tickle-1.jpg
http://i468.photobucket.com/albums/rr48/uneedaluv2/MY%20BACKYARD/265.jpg
http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/ac312/mochamist/DSC03273.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/10/10 at 4:50 am

The person born on this day...Robert Wagner
Robert John Wagner (born February 10, 1930) is an American film and television actor of stage and screen, who starred in movies, soap operas and television.

Wagner starred in three American television series that spanned three decades: as playboy-thief-turned-secret-agent, Alexander Mundy, in It Takes a Thief (1968–1970), as Eddie Albert's ex-con man turned crime-fighting partner, Det. Pete T. Ryan, in the con-artist-oriented drama Switch (1975–1978), and as Stefanie Powers's super-rich husband and private-eye partner, Jonathan Hart, in the lighthearted crime drama Hart to Hart (1979–1984). In movies, Wagner is known for his role as Number Two in the Austin Powers films of the late 1990s and early 2000s. He also had a recurring role as Teddy Leopold on the TV sitcom Two and a Half Men.

Wagner's autobiography, Pieces of My Heart: A Life, written with author Scott Eyman, was published on September 23, 2008.
When he was dining with his family at a Beverly Hills restaurant he was "discovered" by talent agent Henry Willson. Making his debut in The Happy Years (1950), he would play minor characters in several military themed films until his performance in With a Song in My Heart (1952) starring Susan Hayward, which would lead to a contract with 20th Century Fox.

His signing on with Fox would lead to a series of films in starring roles including Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953) and Prince Valiant (1954) as well as smaller, although impressive performances, in A Kiss Before Dying (1956) and Between Heaven and Hell (1956).
Wagner (right), with Jean Peters in the 1954 film Broken Lance

He starred in White Feather (1955) with Debra Paget and Jeffrey Hunter.

It was during his early career that he became the protégé of veteran actor Clifton Webb, appearing with him in Stars and Stripes Forever (1952) and Titanic (1953). His performance earned him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer in motion pictures. Wagner starred opposite Steve McQueen in The War Lover (1962). Roles soon followed in The Longest Day (1962), The Condemned of Altona and the The Pink Panther. He reunited with McQueen, along with Paul Newman and Faye Dunaway, in the 1974 blockbuster disaster film The Towering Inferno. He reprised his role in the sequel Curse of the Pink Panther (1983).
Career rises

Wagner was convinced by Lew Wasserman in 1968 to make his television series debut starring in It Takes a Thief, after signing with Universal Studios in 1967. While the success of The Pink Panther and Harper began Wagner's comeback, the successful two and a half seasons of his first TV series completed his comeback. In this series he acted with Fred Astaire, who played his father. Astaire was a long-time friend of Wagner's, who had gone to school with Astaire's eldest son, Peter.

In 1972 he produced and cast himself opposite Bette Davis in the television movie Madame Sin, which was released in foreign markets as a feature film.

By the mid-1970s, Wagner's television career was at its peak with the television series Switch opposite Eddie Albert, after re-signing a contract with Universal Studios in 1974. Before Switch, Albert was a childhood television hero of Wagner's, after watching the movie Brother Rat along with a few others. The friendship started in the early 1960s, where he also co-starred in a couple of Albert's movies. After the series' end, the two remained friends until Albert's death on May 26, 2005. Wagner spoke at his funeral, and gave a testimonial about his longtime friendship with him.

In part payment for starring together in the Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg production of the TV movie The Affair Wagner and Wood were given a share in three TV series that the producers were developing for ABC. Only one reached the screen, the very successful TV series Charlie's Angels for which Wagner and Wood had a 50% share, though Wagner was to spend many years in court arguing with Spelling and Goldberg over what was defined as profit.

Wagner and Wood acted together with Laurence Olivier in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (as part of the UK television series Laurence Olivier Presents). Wood also made a small cameo appearance in the pilot episode of Wagner's own television series, Hart to Hart.

His third successful series was Hart to Hart that co-starred Stefanie Powers. Before those roles, Wagner also made guest appearances in the pilot episode of The Streets of San Francisco and as a regular in the UK World War II drama Colditz. He would later be nominated for an Emmy Award for Best TV Actor for his performance in It Takes a Thief and for four Golden Globe awards for his role as Jonathan Hart in Hart to Hart.

Robert Wagner's radio and television career was recognized by the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters on January 30, 2009 when they presented him with their Art Gilmore Career Achievement Award.
Return to film and TV
Robert Wagner as Number Two in New Line's Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)

Wagner's film career received a revival after his role in the Austin Powers series of spy spoofs starring Mike Myers. Wagner played Dr. Evil's henchman Number 2 in all three films: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) and Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002).

He also became the host of Fox Movie Channel's Hour of Stars, featuring original television episodes of The 20th Century-Fox Hour (1955), a series which Wagner had appeared on in his early days with the studio.

In 2007, Wagner had a role in the BBC/AMC series Hustle. In its fourth season premiere, Wagner played a crooked Texan being taken for half a million dollars. As Wagner is considered "a suave icon of American caper television, including It Takes a Thief and Hart to Hart", Robert Glenister (Hustle's fixer, Ash Morgan) commented that "to have one of the icons of that period involved is a great bonus for all of us".

Recently, Wagner played the pivotal role of President James Garfield in the comedy/horror film Netherbeast Incorporated (2007). The role was written with Wagner in mind.

Wagner had a recurring role of a rich suitor to the main characters' mother on the sitcom Two and a Half Men. His most recent appearances on the show were in May 2008.

On November 2, 2009, it was announced that Wagner will guest-star as Tony's father in the 150th episode of NCIS, TVGuide.com has confirmed. Tony and his dad will reunite in the episode, which is slated for January.
Personal life
Marriages and relationships

Wagner had a 4 year romantic relationship with Barbara Stanwyck after they acted together in the movie Titanic. Because of the age difference - he was 22, she was 45 - they kept the affair secret to avoid damage to their careers. When the relationship ended, he graduated to young actresses including Joan Collins and Debbie Reynolds, eventually becoming lasting friends with both.

Wagner became involved with teen actress Natalie Wood and married her on December 28, 1957. The couple soon became involved in financial troubles. At Fox, Wagner's career was slowly being overtaken by newer actors such as Marlon Brando and Paul Newman. The two separated in September 1961 and divorced on April 27, 1962. Wagner, with his career stalled due to a lack of studio support, broke his studio contract with 20th Century Fox. and moved to Europe in search of better film roles.

While in Europe he met an old friend, actress Marion Marshall. After a brief courtship, Wagner, Marshall, and her two children from her marriage to Stanley Donen, in the spring of 1963 moved back to America. Wagner and Marshall married on July 22, 1963 in the Bronx Courthouse. Soon after, they had a daughter, Katie Wagner (born May 11, 1964). The two were together for nearly nine years before they separated in late 1970. They were divorced on April 26, 1971. He then had a relationship with Tina Sinatra.

Wagner kept in contact with Natalie Wood, whose short-lived marriage to Richard Gregson ended in early 1972. Wagner remarried her on July 16, 1972 in a ceremony on a friend's yacht The Ramblin' Rose. On March 9, 1974, the couple had their only child, daughter Courtney. On November 29, 1981, Natalie Wood drowned near their yacht Splendour while moored near Catalina Island with Wagner and Christopher Walken, who was co-starring with her in the motion picture Brainstorm. Wagner was devastated by her death and later stated in his autobiography Pieces of My Heart and in several interviews that he went through a daze between the tragedy and her funeral then spent eight days in bed. He subsequently became the legal guardian of Wood's daughter Natasha Gregson.

In early 1982, Wagner began a relationship with actress Jill St. John, who coincidentally was a childhood friend of Natalie Wood and Wagner's Hart to Hart co-star Stefanie Powers. After an eight-year courtship, they were married on May 26, 1990. In the spring of 2000, St. John herself would become involved in an altercation with Lana Wood during a cover shoot for Vanity Fair featuring the actresses of the long running James Bond series. The two women co-starred in the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds are Forever.

On September 21, 2006, he became a first time grandfather when his daughter, Katie, gave birth to a son, Riley Wagner-Lewis.

Wagner maintains residences in Los Angeles, California and Aspen, Colorado.

Wagner is currently pitching for a reverse mortgage company, the Senior Lending Network.
Aaron Spelling lawsuit

In June 2000, Wagner sued Aaron Spelling Productions for $20 million for breach of contract and fraud, claiming he had been cheated out of profits from the Fox television series Beverly Hills, 90210. The dispute centered on an agreement between Wagner and the show's creator-producer Aaron Spelling.

In 1988, Wagner agreed to become involved in Spelling's television series Angels 88, then in development, in which Spelling had agreed Wagner would receive a 7.5% gross profit for his participation, regardless of services rendered. However, when the series was initially picked up by Fox and later dropped in favor of Beverly Hills, 90210, Wagner claimed he was entitled to the rights previously agreed upon in their 1988 agreement.
Filmography

Wagner's career as a supporting player in movies was solid in the 1950s, but declined in the 1960s, and he turned to television with great success. His notable roles include:

    * Pvt. Coffman in Halls of Montezuma (1951)
    * Willie Little in Stars and Stripes Forever (1952)
    * Tony Petrakis in Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953)
    * Gifford "Giff" Rogers in Titanic (1953)
    * Joe Devereaux in Broken Lance (1954)
    * Prince Valiant in Prince Valiant (1954)
    * Josh Tanner in White Feather (1955)
    * Bud Corliss in A Kiss Before Dying (1956)
    * Sam Gifford in Between Heaven and Hell (1956)
    * Christopher Teller in The Mountain (1956)
    * Jesse James in The True Story of Jesse James, directed by Nicholas Ray (1957)
    * Lt. Pell in The Hunters (1958)
    * Chad Bixby, based on Chet Baker in All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960)
    * Lt Ed Boland in The War Lover (1962)
    * George Lytton in The Pink Panther (1963) and Curse of the Pink Panther (1983)
    * Allan Taggert in Harper (1966)
    * Mike Banning in Banning (1967)
    * Luther Erding in Winning (1969)
    * Alexander Mundy in It Takes a Thief (1968–70)
    * David Corey in The Name of the Game (1970–1971)
    * Dan Bigelow in The Towering Inferno (1974)
    * Brick Pollitt in Laurence Olivier Presents: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976) (with then wife Natalie Wood and Laurence Olivier)
    * Pete T. Ryan in Switch (1975–1978)
    * Kevin Harrison in The Concorde ... Airport '79 (1979)
    * Jonathan Hart in Hart to Hart (1979–1984)
    * Mike Slade in Windmills of the Gods (1988)
    * Bill Krieger in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993)
    * Number Two in the Austin Powers movies (1997, 1999, 2002)
    * Tom Baxter in Wild Things (1998)
    * Digicron President in Fatal Error (1999)
    * Amos in Man of Faith (2005)
    * President James Garfield in Netherbeast Incorporated (2007)
    * Mr. Wilson in A Dennis the Menace Christmas (2007)

Other roles

    * Kenny Walsh in the episode "And God Created Vanity" in the NBC medical drama about psychiatry, The Eleventh Hour (1963)
    * Flight Lieutenant/Major Phil Carrington in the BBC series Colditz (1972–1974)
    * Jack Gates in Delirious (1991) (uncredited)
    * Guest starred as Mickey's father in the Seinfeld episode "The Yada Yada" (1997)
    * Guest starred as Jack Fairfield in Hope & Faith (2003)
    * Guest starred in Hollywood Homicide (2003)
    * Alex Avery in the tv series Las Vegas episode Cash Springs Eternal (2006)
    * Guest starred as Teddy, the boyfriend of Alan's and Charlie's mother in Two and a Half Men (2007-2008)
    * Guest starred as Anthony DiNozzo Sr. in "NCIS" (2010)
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/10/10 at 4:56 am

The person who died on this day...Laura Ingalls Wilder
Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder (February 7, 1867 – February 10, 1957) was an American author who wrote the Little House series of books based on her childhood in a pioneer family. Laura Elizabeth Ingalls was born February 7, 1867, near the village of Pepin, in the "Big Woods" of Wisconsin, to Charles Phillip Ingalls and Caroline Lake (Quiner) Ingalls. She was the second of five children; her siblings were Mary Amelia, who went blind; Carrie Celestia, Charles Frederick, who died when nine months old, and Grace Pearl. Her birth site is commemorated by a period log cabin, the Little House Wayside.

Her paternal immigrant ancestor was Edmund Ingalls born 27 June 1586 in Skirbeck, Lincolnshire, England, and died 16 September 1648 in Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts.

In Laura's early childhood, her father settled on land not yet open for homesteading in what was then Indian Territory near Independence, Kansas--an experience that formed the basis of Ingalls' novel Little House on the Prairie. Within a few years, her father's restless spirit led them on various moves to a preemption claim in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, living with relatives near South Troy, Minnesota, and helping to run a hotel in Burr Oak, Iowa. After a move from Burr Oak back to Walnut Grove, where Charles Ingalls served as the town butcher and Justice of the Peace, Charles accepted a railroad job in the spring of 1879 which led him to eastern Dakota Territory, where he was joined by the family in the fall of 1879. Over the winter of 1879-1880, Charles landed a homestead, and called DeSmet, South Dakota, home for the rest of his, Caroline, and Mary's lives. After staying the cold winter of 1879–1880 in the Surveyor's House, the Ingalls family watched the town of DeSmet rise up from the prairie in 1880. The following winter, 1880–1881, one of the most severe on record in the Dakotas, was later described by Wilder in her book, The Long Winter. Once the family was settled in DeSmet, she attended school, made many friends, and met homesteader Almanzo Wilder (1857–1949). This time in her life is well documented in the Little House Books.

At the age of 15, Laura accepted her first teaching position, teaching three terms in one-room schools, when not attending school herself in DeSmet. She later admitted that she did not particularly enjoy teaching, but felt the responsibility from a young age to help her family financially, and wage earning opportunities for females were limited. Laura stopped teaching when she married Almanzo Wilder on August 25, 1885. Wilder had achieved a degree of prosperity on his homestead claim, owing to favorable weather in the early 1880s, and the couple's prospects seemed bright. She joined Almanzo in a new home on his claim north of DeSmet and agreed to help him make the claim succeed. On December 5, 1886, she gave birth to Rose Wilder (1886–1968) and later, an unnamed son, who died shortly after birth in 1889.

The first few years of marriage held many trials. Complications from a life-threatening bout of diphtheria left Almanzo partially paralyzed. While he eventually regained nearly full use of his legs, he needed a cane to walk for the remainder of his life. This setback, among many others, began a series of disastrous events that included the death of their unnamed newborn son, the destruction of their home and barn by fire, and several years of severe drought that left them in debt, physically ill, and unable to earn a living from their 320 acres (1.3 km2) of prairie land. The tales of their trials at farming can be found in The First Four Years, a manuscript that was discovered after Rose Wilder Lane's death. Published in 1971, it detailed the hard-fought first four years of marriage on the Dakota prairies.

About 1890, the Wilders left South Dakota and spent about a year resting at Wilder's parents' prosperous Spring Valley Minnesota farm before moving briefly to Westville, Florida. They sought Florida's climate to improve Wilder's health, but being used to living on the dry plains, he wilted in the heat and Southern humidity. In 1892, they returned to DeSmet and bought a small house (although later accounts by Lane mistakenly indicated it was rented). The Wilders received special permission to start their precocious daughter in school early and took jobs (Almanzo as a day laborer, Laura as a seamstress at a dressmaker's shop) to save enough money to once again start a farm.
Rocky Ridge Farm

In 1894, the hard-pressed young couple moved a final time to Mansfield, Missouri, using their savings to make a down payment on a piece of undeveloped property just outside of town. They named the place Rocky Ridge Farm. What began as about 40 acres (0.2 km2) of thickly wooded, stone-covered hillside with a windowless log cabin, over the next 20 years evolved into a 200-acre (0.8 km2), relatively prosperous poultry, dairy, and fruit farm. The ramshackle log cabin was eventually replaced with an impressive 10-room farmhouse and outbuildings.

The couple's climb to financial security was a slow process. Initially, the only income the farm produced was from wagonloads of firewood Almanzo sold for 50 cents in town, the result of the backbreaking work of clearing the trees and stones from land that slowly evolved into fertile fields and pastures. The apple trees did not begin to bear fruit for seven years. Barely able to eke out more than a subsistence living on the new farm, the Wilders decided to move into nearby Mansfield in the late 1890s and rent a small house. Almanzo found work as an oil salesman and general delivery man, while Laura took in boarders and served meals to local railroad workers. Recipes that she used are included in the biography, I Remember Laura, by Stephen W. Hines. Any spare time was spent improving the farm and planning for a better future.

Wilder's parents visited around this time, and presented to the couple, as a gift, the deed to the house they had been renting in Mansfield. This was the economic jump start they needed; they eventually sold the house in town and using the proceeds from the sale, were able to move back to the farm permanently, and to complete Rocky Ridge.

Almanzo died in 1949 at the age of ninety-two, Laura died at the age of ninety on February 10, 1957, both on their Rocky Ridge Farm at Mansfield, Missouri.
Farm diversification
Laura and Almanzo Wilder, 1885

By 1910, Rocky Ridge Farm was established to the point where the Wilders returned there to focus their efforts on increasing the farm's productivity and output. The impressive 10-room farmhouse completed in 1912 stands as a testament to their labors and determination to carve a comfortable and attractive home from the land.

Having learned a hard lesson from focusing solely on wheat farming in South Dakota, the Wilders' Rocky Ridge Farm became a diversified poultry and dairy farm, with an abundant apple orchard. Wilder, always active in various clubs and an advocate for several regional farm associations, was recognized as an authority in poultry farming and rural living, which led to invitations to talk to groups around the region.

Following Rose Wilder Lane's developing writing career also inspired Wilder to do some writing of her own. An invitation to submit an article to the Missouri Ruralist in 1911 led to a permanent position as a columnist and editor with that publication — a position she held until the mid-1920s. She also took a paid position with a Farm Loan Association, dispensing small loans to local farmers from her office in the farmhouse.

Her column in the Ruralist, "As a Farm Woman Thinks," introduced Mrs. A.J. Wilder to a loyal audience of rural Ozarkians, who enjoyed her regular columns, whose topics ranged from home and family to World War I and other world events, to the fascinating world travels of her daughter and her own thoughts on the increasing options offered to women during this era.

While the Wilders were never wealthy until the "Little House" series of books began to achieve popularity, the farming operation and Wilder's income from writing and the Farm Loan Association provided a stable enough living for the Wilders to finally place themselves in Mansfield middle-class society.

Wilder's fellow clubwomen were mostly the wives of business owners, doctors and lawyers, and her club activities took up much of the time that Lane encouraged her to use to develop a writing career for national magazines, as Lane had done. Wilder seemed unable or unwilling to make the leap from writing for the Missouri Ruralist to these higher-paying national markets. The few articles she was able to sell to national magazines were heavily edited by her daughter and placed solely through Lane's established publishing connections.
Retirement

For much of the 1920s and 1930s, between long stints living abroad (including in her beloved adopted country of Albania), Lane lived with the Wilders at Rocky Ridge Farm. As her free-lance writing career flourished, she successfully invested in the booming stock market.

Her newfound financial freedom led her to increasingly assume responsibility for her aging parents' support, as well as providing for the college educations of several young people she "adopted," both in Albania and Mansfield. Lane also took over the farmhouse her parents had built and had a beautiful, modern stone cottage constructed for them as a gift. However, when Lane left the farm for good a few years later, the Wilders, homesick for the house they had built with their own hands, moved back to it, and finished their lives there.

By the late 1920s, they had scaled back the farming operation considerably and Wilder had resigned from her positions with the Missouri Ruralist and the Farm Loan Association. Hired help was installed in the caretaker's house Lane had built on the property, to take care of the remaining farm work that Almanzo, now in his 70s, could no longer easily manage.

A comfortable and worry-free retirement seemed possible for the Wilders until the Stock Market Crash of 1929 wiped out the family's investments. The couple still owned the 200 acres (0.8 km2) farm, but they had invested most of their hard-won savings with Lane's broker. Lane was faced with the grim prospect of selling enough of her writing in a depressed market to maintain the financial responsibilities she had assumed, and the Wilders became dependent on her as their primary source of support.

In 1930, Wilder asked her daughter's opinion about a biographical manuscript she had written about her pioneering childhood. The Great Depression, coupled with the death of her mother in 1924 and her sister Mary in 1928, seem to have prompted her to preserve her memories in a "life story" called "Pioneer Girl." She had also renewed her interest in writing in the hope of generating some income. The first idea for the title of the first of the books was When Grandma was a Little Girl (later Little House in the Big Woods). After its success, Laura continued writing, given mental support and help in the form of sharing her own memories, by her sister Carrie.
Book series collaboration

Controversy surrounds Lane's exact role in what became her mother's famous "Little House" series of books. Some argue that Laura was an "untutored genius," relying on her daughter mainly for some early encouragement and her connections with publishers and literary agents. Others contend that Lane took each of her mother's unpolished rough drafts in hand and completely (and silently) transformed them into the series of books we know today. The truth most likely lies somewhere between these two positions — Wilder's writing career as a rural journalist and credible essayist began more than two decades before the "Little House" series, and Lane's formidable skills as an editor and ghostwriter are well-documented . But Lane's New York literary agent, George T. Bye, turned away the initial drafts, commenting that they lacked drama.

The existing evidence (including ongoing correspondence between the women concerning the development of the series, Lane's extensive personal diaries and Wilder's first person draft manuscripts) tends to reveal an ongoing joint collaboration. The conclusion can be drawn that Wilder's strengths as a compelling storyteller and Lane's considerable skills in dramatic pacing and literary structure contributed to an occasionally tense, but fruitful, collaboration between two talented and headstrong women. In fact, the collaboration seems to have worked both ways: two of Lane's most successful novels, Let the Hurricane Roar (1932) and Free Land (1938), were written at the same time as the "Little House" series and basically re-told Ingalls and Wilder family tales in an adult format. The collaboration also brought the two writers at Rocky Ridge Farm the money they needed to recoup the loss of their investments in the stock market. Simply stated: If Wilder had not written the books, they would not exist — Lane had no interest in writing what she called "juveniles" — but had Lane not edited the books, they might well have never been accepted for publication let alone become famous. Since the initial publication of "Little House in the Big Woods" in 1931, the books have been continually in print and have been translated into 40 different languages.

Whatever the collaboration personally represented to the mother and daughter was never publicly discussed, however. Wilder's first — and smallest — royalty check from Harper was for $500 — the equivalent of $7,300 in 2007 dollars. By the mid-1930s the royalties from the "Little House" books brought a steady and increasingly substantial income to the Wilders for the first time in their 50 years of marriage. Various honors, huge amounts of fan mail and other accolades were granted to Laura Ingalls Wilder. The novels and short stories of Rose Wilder Lane during the 1930s also represented her creative and literary peak. Her name received top billing on the magazine covers where her fiction and articles appeared. The Saturday Evening Post paid her $30,000 (approximately $400,000 in 2007 dollars) to serialize her best-selling novel Free Land, while Let the Hurricane Roar saw an increasing and steady sale, augmented by a radio dramatization starring Helen Hayes. The book remains in print today as Young Pioneers.
Celebrated author

Lane left Rocky Ridge Farm in the late 1930s, establishing homes in Harlingen, Texas, and Danbury, Connecticut. She eventually ceased fiction writing and spent the remainder of her life writing about and promoting her philosophies of personal freedom and liberty. She became one of the more influential American libertarians of the mid-twentieth century.

During these years, Wilder and her husband were frequently alone at Rocky Ridge Farm. Most of the surrounding area (including the property with the stone cottage Lane had built for them) had been sold off, but they still kept some farm animals, and tended their flower beds and vegetable gardens. Almost daily, carloads of fans would stop by, eager to meet "Laura" of the Little House books. The Wilders lived independently and without financial worries until Almanzo's death in 1949, at the age of 92. Wilder was grieved, but determined to remain independent and stay on the farm, despite Lane's requests that her mother come live with her permanently in Connecticut. For the next eight years, she lived alone, looked after by a circle of neighbors and friends who found it hard to believe their very own "Mrs. Wilder" was a world-famous author. She was a familiar figure in Mansfield, being brought into town regularly by her driver to run errands, attend church, or visit friends. She continued an active correspondence with her editors, many fans and friends during these years.

Throughout the 1950s, Lane usually returned to Missouri to spend the winter with her mother. Once, Wilder flew to Connecticut for a visit to Lane's home. In the fall of 1956, Lane went to Mansfield for Thanksgiving, and found her 89-year-old mother severely ill from undiagnosed diabetes and a weakening heart. Several weeks in the hospital seemed to improve the situation somewhat, and Wilder was able to return home on the day after Christmas. But she was very old and very ill, and declined rapidly after that point. Wilder had an extremely competitive spirit going all the way back to the schoolyard as a child, and she had remarked to many people that she wanted to live to be 90, "because Almanzo had". She succeeded. On February 10, 1957, just three days after her 90th birthday, Laura Ingalls Wilder died in her sleep in her Mansfield farmhouse.

With Wilder's death in 1957, use of the Rocky Ridge Farmhouse reverted to the farmer who had earlier bought the surrounding land. The local townsfolk put together a non-profit corporation to purchase the house and its grounds, for use as a museum. After some wariness at the notion of seeing the house rather than the books themselves be a shrine to her mother, Lane came to believe that making a museum of it would draw long-lasting attention to the books. She donated the money needed to purchase the house and make it a museum, agreed to make significant contributions each year for its upkeep and also gave many of the family's belongings to help establish what became a popular museum that still draws thousands of visitors each year to Mansfield.

Lane inherited ownership of the "Little House" literary estate for her lifetime only, all rights reverting to the Mansfield library after her death, according to her mother's will. After her death in 1968, Lane's heir, Roger MacBride, gained control of the copyrights. MacBride was Lane's informally-adopted grandson, as well as her business agent, attorney, and heir. All of MacBride's actions carried Lane's apparent approval. In fact, at Lane's request, the copyrights to each of the "Little House" books, as well as those of Lane's own literary works, had been renewed in MacBride's name when the original copyrights expired during the decade between Wilder's and Lane's deaths.

Controversy did not come until after MacBride's death in 1995, when the Laura Ingalls Wilder Branch of the Wright County Library (which Wilder helped found) in Mansfield, Missouri, decided it was worth trying to recover the rights. The ensuing court case was settled in an undisclosed manner, but MacBride's heirs retained the rights. The library received enough to start work on a new building.

The popularity of the "Little House" series of books has grown phenomenally over the years, spawning a multimillion-dollar franchise of mass merchandising, additional spinoff book series (some written by MacBride and his daughter), and the long-running television show, starring Michael Landon. Laura Ingalls Wilder has been portrayed by Melissa Gilbert (1974-1984), Meredith Monroe (1997, 1998) and Kyle Chavarria (2005) in television series.

Wilder once said the reason she wrote her books in the first place was to preserve the stories of her childhood for today's children, to help them to understand how much America had changed during her lifetime.
Legacy

    * Hall of Famous Missourians - Laura Wilder was inducted in 1993

    * Missouri State Capitol -a bronze bust depicting her is on permanent display in the rotunda

    * Missouri Walk of Fame - Wilder was honored on the in 2006. David Ingalls, an Ingalls cousin, accepted the star.

    * Laura Ingalls Wilder Home and Museum - located in Mansfield, Missouri.

    * Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum - located in Walnut Grove, Minnesota.

    * Laura Wilder Elementary School - located in Sioux Falls, South Dakota

    * Laura Ingalls Wilder Elementary - located in Woodinville, Washington

    * List of craters on Venus - Wilder crater located on the planet Venus was named after her.

Bibliography
Search Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons has media related to: The Ingalls
Search Wikiquote Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Laura Ingalls Wilder

    * Little House in the Big Woods (1932)
    * Farmer Boy (1933) - about her husband's childhood on a farm in New York
    * Little House on the Prairie (1935)
    * On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937), a Newbery Honor book
    * By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939), a Newbery Honor book
    * The Long Winter (1940), a Newbery Honor book
    * Little Town on the Prairie (1941), a Newbery Honor book
    * These Happy Golden Years (1943), a Newbery Honor book
    * On the Way Home (1962, published posthumously) - a diary of the Wilders' move from de Smet to Mansfield, Missouri, edited and added to by Rose Wilder Lane.
    * The First Four Years (1971, published posthumously)
    * West From Home (1974, published posthumously) - Wilder's letters to Almanzo while visiting Lane in San Francisco in 1915
    * The Road Back (Part of A Little House Traveler: Writings from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Journeys Across America, highlighting Laura's previously unpublished record of a 1931 trip with Almanzo to De Smet, South Dakota, and the Black Hills)
    * A Little House Sampler, with Rose Wilder Lane, edited by William Anderson
    * Farm Journalist : Writings from the Ozarks
    * Writings to Young Women (Volume One: On Wisdom and Virtues, Volume Two: On Life As a Pioneer Woman, Volume Three: As Told By Her Family, Friends, and Neighbors)
    * A Little House Reader: A Collection of Writings
    * Laura Ingalls Wilder & Rose Wilder Lane (Letters exchanged by Laura and Rose)
    * Little House in the Ozarks: The Rediscovered Writings
    * Laura's Album (A Remembrance Scrapbook of Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by William Anderson)

and others.
Museums and home sites
Further information: Historic sites and museums
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/10/10 at 7:05 am


The word of the day...Feather
A bird's feathers are the soft covering on its body. Each feather consists of a lot of smooth hairs on each side of a thin stiff centre
If you describe two people as birds of a feather, you mean that they have very similar characteristics, interests, or beliefs.
If you describe something that someone has achieved as a feather in their cap, you mean that they can be proud of it or that it might bring them some advantage.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdmEGWqIWEI

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/10/10 at 10:36 am


Tapestry was one of the finest albums of the 70's. Most people had it in their collection...along with 'Best of Bread', 'Eagles Greatest Hits' and America's 'History'

Absolutely loved that album and bought the CD a couple of years ago...(the album quality isn't so hot anymore).

I had Tapestry. Some great tunes on there, big album in (I think) 1971.
...and I also had the other 3 albums gibbo mentioned. From this post ( and others) I find that gibbo and I have quite the similar taste in music.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/10/10 at 11:18 am


I had Tapestry. Some great tunes on there, big album in (I think) 1971.
...and I also had the other 3 albums gibbo mentioned. From this post ( and others) I find that gibbo and I have quite the similar taste in music.



My sister had the album. A few years ago, I purchased it on CD. As I was listening to it, I didn't realized that I basically knew the entire album. I guess my sister played it THAT MUCH when I was a kid.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/10/10 at 12:36 pm


The person born on this day...Robert Wagner
Robert John Wagner (born February 10, 1930) is an American film and television actor of stage and screen, who starred in movies, soap operas and television.

Wagner starred in three American television series that spanned three decades: as playboy-thief-turned-secret-agent, Alexander Mundy, in It Takes a Thief (1968–1970), as Eddie Albert's ex-con man turned crime-fighting partner, Det. Pete T. Ryan, in the con-artist-oriented drama Switch (1975–1978), and as Stefanie Powers's super-rich husband and private-eye partner, Jonathan Hart, in the lighthearted crime drama Hart to Hart (1979–1984). In movies, Wagner is known for his role as Number Two in the Austin Powers films of the late 1990s and early 2000s. He also had a recurring role as Teddy Leopold on the TV sitcom Two and a Half Men.

Wagner's autobiography, Pieces of My Heart: A Life, written with author Scott Eyman, was published on September 23, 2008.
When he was dining with his family at a Beverly Hills restaurant he was "discovered" by talent agent Henry Willson. Making his debut in The Happy Years (1950), he would play minor characters in several military themed films until his performance in With a Song in My Heart (1952) starring Susan Hayward, which would lead to a contract with 20th Century Fox.

His signing on with Fox would lead to a series of films in starring roles including Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953) and Prince Valiant (1954) as well as smaller, although impressive performances, in A Kiss Before Dying (1956) and Between Heaven and Hell (1956).
Wagner (right), with Jean Peters in the 1954 film Broken Lance

He starred in White Feather (1955) with Debra Paget and Jeffrey Hunter.

It was during his early career that he became the protégé of veteran actor Clifton Webb, appearing with him in Stars and Stripes Forever (1952) and Titanic (1953). His performance earned him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer in motion pictures. Wagner starred opposite Steve McQueen in The War Lover (1962). Roles soon followed in The Longest Day (1962), The Condemned of Altona and the The Pink Panther. He reunited with McQueen, along with Paul Newman and Faye Dunaway, in the 1974 blockbuster disaster film The Towering Inferno. He reprised his role in the sequel Curse of the Pink Panther (1983).
Career rises

Wagner was convinced by Lew Wasserman in 1968 to make his television series debut starring in It Takes a Thief, after signing with Universal Studios in 1967. While the success of The Pink Panther and Harper began Wagner's comeback, the successful two and a half seasons of his first TV series completed his comeback. In this series he acted with Fred Astaire, who played his father. Astaire was a long-time friend of Wagner's, who had gone to school with Astaire's eldest son, Peter.

In 1972 he produced and cast himself opposite Bette Davis in the television movie Madame Sin, which was released in foreign markets as a feature film.

By the mid-1970s, Wagner's television career was at its peak with the television series Switch opposite Eddie Albert, after re-signing a contract with Universal Studios in 1974. Before Switch, Albert was a childhood television hero of Wagner's, after watching the movie Brother Rat along with a few others. The friendship started in the early 1960s, where he also co-starred in a couple of Albert's movies. After the series' end, the two remained friends until Albert's death on May 26, 2005. Wagner spoke at his funeral, and gave a testimonial about his longtime friendship with him.

In part payment for starring together in the Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg production of the TV movie The Affair Wagner and Wood were given a share in three TV series that the producers were developing for ABC. Only one reached the screen, the very successful TV series Charlie's Angels for which Wagner and Wood had a 50% share, though Wagner was to spend many years in court arguing with Spelling and Goldberg over what was defined as profit.

Wagner and Wood acted together with Laurence Olivier in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (as part of the UK television series Laurence Olivier Presents). Wood also made a small cameo appearance in the pilot episode of Wagner's own television series, Hart to Hart.

His third successful series was Hart to Hart that co-starred Stefanie Powers. Before those roles, Wagner also made guest appearances in the pilot episode of The Streets of San Francisco and as a regular in the UK World War II drama Colditz. He would later be nominated for an Emmy Award for Best TV Actor for his performance in It Takes a Thief and for four Golden Globe awards for his role as Jonathan Hart in Hart to Hart.

Robert Wagner's radio and television career was recognized by the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters on January 30, 2009 when they presented him with their Art Gilmore Career Achievement Award.
Return to film and TV
Robert Wagner as Number Two in New Line's Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)

Wagner's film career received a revival after his role in the Austin Powers series of spy spoofs starring Mike Myers. Wagner played Dr. Evil's henchman Number 2 in all three films: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) and Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002).

He also became the host of Fox Movie Channel's Hour of Stars, featuring original television episodes of The 20th Century-Fox Hour (1955), a series which Wagner had appeared on in his early days with the studio.

In 2007, Wagner had a role in the BBC/AMC series Hustle. In its fourth season premiere, Wagner played a crooked Texan being taken for half a million dollars. As Wagner is considered "a suave icon of American caper television, including It Takes a Thief and Hart to Hart", Robert Glenister (Hustle's fixer, Ash Morgan) commented that "to have one of the icons of that period involved is a great bonus for all of us".

Recently, Wagner played the pivotal role of President James Garfield in the comedy/horror film Netherbeast Incorporated (2007). The role was written with Wagner in mind.

Wagner had a recurring role of a rich suitor to the main characters' mother on the sitcom Two and a Half Men. His most recent appearances on the show were in May 2008.

On November 2, 2009, it was announced that Wagner will guest-star as Tony's father in the 150th episode of NCIS, TVGuide.com has confirmed. Tony and his dad will reunite in the episode, which is slated for January.
Personal life
Marriages and relationships

Wagner had a 4 year romantic relationship with Barbara Stanwyck after they acted together in the movie Titanic. Because of the age difference - he was 22, she was 45 - they kept the affair secret to avoid damage to their careers. When the relationship ended, he graduated to young actresses including Joan Collins and Debbie Reynolds, eventually becoming lasting friends with both.

Wagner became involved with teen actress Natalie Wood and married her on December 28, 1957. The couple soon became involved in financial troubles. At Fox, Wagner's career was slowly being overtaken by newer actors such as Marlon Brando and Paul Newman. The two separated in September 1961 and divorced on April 27, 1962. Wagner, with his career stalled due to a lack of studio support, broke his studio contract with 20th Century Fox. and moved to Europe in search of better film roles.

While in Europe he met an old friend, actress Marion Marshall. After a brief courtship, Wagner, Marshall, and her two children from her marriage to Stanley Donen, in the spring of 1963 moved back to America. Wagner and Marshall married on July 22, 1963 in the Bronx Courthouse. Soon after, they had a daughter, Katie Wagner (born May 11, 1964). The two were together for nearly nine years before they separated in late 1970. They were divorced on April 26, 1971. He then had a relationship with Tina Sinatra.

Wagner kept in contact with Natalie Wood, whose short-lived marriage to Richard Gregson ended in early 1972. Wagner remarried her on July 16, 1972 in a ceremony on a friend's yacht The Ramblin' Rose. On March 9, 1974, the couple had their only child, daughter Courtney. On November 29, 1981, Natalie Wood drowned near their yacht Splendour while moored near Catalina Island with Wagner and Christopher Walken, who was co-starring with her in the motion picture Brainstorm. Wagner was devastated by her death and later stated in his autobiography Pieces of My Heart and in several interviews that he went through a daze between the tragedy and her funeral then spent eight days in bed. He subsequently became the legal guardian of Wood's daughter Natasha Gregson.

In early 1982, Wagner began a relationship with actress Jill St. John, who coincidentally was a childhood friend of Natalie Wood and Wagner's Hart to Hart co-star Stefanie Powers. After an eight-year courtship, they were married on May 26, 1990. In the spring of 2000, St. John herself would become involved in an altercation with Lana Wood during a cover shoot for Vanity Fair featuring the actresses of the long running James Bond series. The two women co-starred in the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds are Forever.

On September 21, 2006, he became a first time grandfather when his daughter, Katie, gave birth to a son, Riley Wagner-Lewis.

Wagner maintains residences in Los Angeles, California and Aspen, Colorado.

Wagner is currently pitching for a reverse mortgage company, the Senior Lending Network.
Aaron Spelling lawsuit

In June 2000, Wagner sued Aaron Spelling Productions for $20 million for breach of contract and fraud, claiming he had been cheated out of profits from the Fox television series Beverly Hills, 90210. The dispute centered on an agreement between Wagner and the show's creator-producer Aaron Spelling.

In 1988, Wagner agreed to become involved in Spelling's television series Angels 88, then in development, in which Spelling had agreed Wagner would receive a 7.5% gross profit for his participation, regardless of services rendered. However, when the series was initially picked up by Fox and later dropped in favor of Beverly Hills, 90210, Wagner claimed he was entitled to the rights previously agreed upon in their 1988 agreement.
Filmography

Wagner's career as a supporting player in movies was solid in the 1950s, but declined in the 1960s, and he turned to television with great success. His notable roles include:

    * Pvt. Coffman in Halls of Montezuma (1951)
    * Willie Little in Stars and Stripes Forever (1952)
    * Tony Petrakis in Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953)
    * Gifford "Giff" Rogers in Titanic (1953)
    * Joe Devereaux in Broken Lance (1954)
    * Prince Valiant in Prince Valiant (1954)
    * Josh Tanner in White Feather (1955)
    * Bud Corliss in A Kiss Before Dying (1956)
    * Sam Gifford in Between Heaven and Hell (1956)
    * Christopher Teller in The Mountain (1956)
    * Jesse James in The True Story of Jesse James, directed by Nicholas Ray (1957)
    * Lt. Pell in The Hunters (1958)
    * Chad Bixby, based on Chet Baker in All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960)
    * Lt Ed Boland in The War Lover (1962)
    * George Lytton in The Pink Panther (1963) and Curse of the Pink Panther (1983)
    * Allan Taggert in Harper (1966)
    * Mike Banning in Banning (1967)
    * Luther Erding in Winning (1969)
    * Alexander Mundy in It Takes a Thief (1968–70)
    * David Corey in The Name of the Game (1970–1971)
    * Dan Bigelow in The Towering Inferno (1974)
    * Brick Pollitt in Laurence Olivier Presents: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976) (with then wife Natalie Wood and Laurence Olivier)
    * Pete T. Ryan in Switch (1975–1978)
    * Kevin Harrison in The Concorde ... Airport '79 (1979)
    * Jonathan Hart in Hart to Hart (1979–1984)
    * Mike Slade in Windmills of the Gods (1988)
    * Bill Krieger in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993)
    * Number Two in the Austin Powers movies (1997, 1999, 2002)
    * Tom Baxter in Wild Things (1998)
    * Digicron President in Fatal Error (1999)
    * Amos in Man of Faith (2005)
    * President James Garfield in Netherbeast Incorporated (2007)
    * Mr. Wilson in A Dennis the Menace Christmas (2007)

Other roles

    * Kenny Walsh in the episode "And God Created Vanity" in the NBC medical drama about psychiatry, The Eleventh Hour (1963)
    * Flight Lieutenant/Major Phil Carrington in the BBC series Colditz (1972–1974)
    * Jack Gates in Delirious (1991) (uncredited)
    * Guest starred as Mickey's father in the Seinfeld episode "The Yada Yada" (1997)
    * Guest starred as Jack Fairfield in Hope & Faith (2003)
    * Guest starred in Hollywood Homicide (2003)
    * Alex Avery in the tv series Las Vegas episode Cash Springs Eternal (2006)
    * Guest starred as Teddy, the boyfriend of Alan's and Charlie's mother in Two and a Half Men (2007-2008)
    * Guest starred as Anthony DiNozzo Sr. in "NCIS" (2010)
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He is one of my wife's favorites.



My sister had the album. A few years ago, I purchased it on CD. As I was listening to it, I didn't realized that I basically knew the entire album. I guess my sister played it THAT MUCH when I was a kid.

Cat

It's one of those albums that always appears in the list of "Most popular 70s albums"

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/10/10 at 1:52 pm



http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn44/smkukla/Laura%20Ingalls%20Wilder/The-Ingalls-Family-laura-ingalls-wi.jpg

Great beard!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/11/10 at 5:50 am

The word of the day...Phonograph
A phonograph is a record player
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/11/10 at 5:54 am

The person who was born on this day...Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor, scientist and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park" (now Edison, New Jersey) by a newspaper reporter, he was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and large teamwork to the process of invention, and therefore is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory.

Edison is considered one of the most prolific inventors in history, holding 1,093 U.S. patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. He is credited with numerous inventions that contributed to mass communication and, in particular, telecommunications. His advanced work in these fields was an outgrowth of his early career as a telegraph operator. Edison originated the concept and implementation of electric-power generation and distribution to homes, businesses, and factories – a crucial development in the modern industrialized world. His first power station was on Manhattan Island, New York.
Edison became a telegraph operator after he saved three-year-old Jimmie MacKenzie from being struck by a runaway train. Jimmie's father, station agent J.U. MacKenzie of Mount Clemens, Michigan, was so grateful that he trained Edison as a telegraph operator. Edison's first telegraphy job away from Port Huron was at Stratford Junction, Ontario, on the Grand Trunk Railway. In 1866, at the age of 19, Thomas Edison moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where, as an employee of Western Union, he worked the Associated Press bureau news wire. Edison requested the night shift, which allowed him plenty of time to spend at his two favorite pastimes—reading and experimenting. Eventually, the latter pre-occupation cost him his job. One night in 1867, he was working with a lead-acid battery when he spilled sulfuric acid onto the floor. It ran between the floorboards and onto his boss's desk below. The next morning Edison was fired.

One of his mentors during those early years was a fellow telegrapher and inventor named Franklin Leonard Pope, who allowed the impoverished youth to live and work in the basement of his Elizabeth, New Jersey home. Some of Edison's earliest inventions were related to telegraphy, including a stock ticker. His first patent was for the electric vote recorder, (U. S. Patent 90,646), which was granted on June 1, 1869.
Marriages and children
Mina Edison in 1906

On December 25, 1871, Edison married 16-year-old Mary Stilwell, whom he had met two months earlier as she was an employee at one of his shops. They had three children:

    * Marion Estelle Edison (1873–1965), nicknamed "Dot"
    * Thomas Alva Edison, Jr. (1876–1935), nicknamed "Dash"
    * William Leslie Edison (1878–1937) Inventor, graduate of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, 1900.

Mary Edison died on August 9, 1884, possibly from a brain tumor.

On February 24, 1886, at the age of thirty nine, Edison married 20-year-old Mina Miller in Akron, Ohio. She was the daughter of inventor Lewis Miller, co-founder of the Chautauqua Institution and a benefactor of Methodist charities. They also had three children:

    * Madeleine Edison (1888–1979), who married John Eyre Sloane.
    * Charles Edison (1890–1969), who took over the company upon his father's death and who later was elected Governor of New Jersey. He also took charge of his father's experimental laboratories in West Orange.
    * Theodore Edison (1898–1992), (MIT Physics 1923), had over 80 patents to his credit.

Mina outlived Thomas Edison, dying on August 24, 1947.
Beginning his career
Photograph of Edison with his phonograph, taken by Mathew Brady in 1877

Mary Had a Little Lamb
Play sound
Thomas Edison reciting "Mary Had a Little Lamb"
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Thomas Edison began his career as an inventor in Newark, New Jersey, with the automatic repeater and his other improved telegraphic devices, but the invention which first gained him fame was the phonograph in 1877. This accomplishment was so unexpected by the public at large as to appear almost magical. Edison became known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park," New Jersey, where he lived. His first phonograph recorded on tinfoil around a grooved cylinder and had poor sound quality. The tinfoil recordings could be replayed only a few times. In the 1880s, a redesigned model using wax-coated cardboard cylinders was produced by Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell, and Charles Tainter. This was one reason that Thomas Edison continued work on his own "Perfected Phonograph."
Menlo Park (1876–1881)

Edison's major innovation was the first industrial research lab, which was built in Menlo Park, New Jersey. It was built with the funds from the sale of Edison's quadruplex telegraph. After his demonstration of the telegraph, Edison was not sure that his original plan to sell it for $4,000 to $5,000 was right, so he asked Western Union to make a bid. He was surprised to hear them offer $10,000, which he gratefully accepted. The quadruplex telegraph was Edison's first big financial success, and Menlo Park became the first institution set up with the specific purpose of producing constant technological innovation and improvement. Edison was legally attributed with most of the inventions produced there, though many employees carried out research and development work under his direction. His staff was generally told to carry out his directions in conducting research, and he drove them hard to produce results. The large research group included engineers and other workers.
Edison's Menlo Park Laboratory, removed to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. (Note the organ against the back wall)

William J. Hammer, a consulting electrical engineer, began his duties as a laboratory assistant to Edison in December 1879. He assisted in experiments on the telephone, phonograph, electric railway, iron ore separator, electric lighting, and other developing inventions. However, Hammer worked primarily on the incandescent electric lamp and was put in charge of tests and records on that device. In 1880, he was appointed chief engineer of the Edison Lamp Works. In his first year, the plant under General Manager Francis Robbins Upton turned out 50,000 lamps. According to Edison, Hammer was "a pioneer of incandescent electric lighting".
Thomas Edison's first successful light bulb model, used in public demonstration at Menlo Park, December 1879

Nearly all of Edison's patents were utility patents, which were protected for a 17-year period and included inventions or processes that are electrical, mechanical, or chemical in nature. About a dozen were design patents, which protect an ornamental design for up to a 14-year period. As in most patents, the inventions he described were improvements over prior art. The phonograph patent, in contrast, was unprecedented as describing the first device to record and reproduce sounds. Edison did not invent the first electric light bulb, but instead invented the first commercially practical incandescent light. Several designs had already been developed by earlier inventors including the patent he allegedly purchased from Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans. Others who developed early and not commercially practical incandescent electric lamps included Humphry Davy, James Bowman Lindsay, Moses G. Farmer, William E. Sawyer, Joseph Swan and Heinrich Göbel. Some of these early bulbs had such flaws as an extremely short life, high expense to produce, and high electric current drawn, making them difficult to apply on a large scale commercially. In 1878, Edison applied the term filament to the element of glowing wire carrying the current, although the English inventor Joseph Swan had used the term prior to this. Swan developed an incandescent light with a long lasting filament at about the same time as Edison, but it lacked the high resistance needed for central station DC service. Edison took the features of these earlier designs and set his workers to the task of creating longer-lasting bulbs. By 1879, he had produced a new concept: a high resistance lamp in a very high vacuum, which would burn for hundreds of hours. While the earlier inventors had produced electric lighting in laboratory conditions, dating back to a demonstration of a glowing wire by Alessandro Volta in 1800, Edison concentrated on commercial application, and was able to sell the concept to homes and businesses by mass-producing relatively long-lasting light bulbs and creating a complete system for the generation and distribution of electricity.

In just over a decade Edison's Menlo Park laboratory had expanded to occupy two city blocks. Edison said he wanted the lab to have "a stock of almost every conceivable material". A newspaper article printed in 1887 reveals the seriousness of his claim, stating the lab contained "eight thousand kinds of chemicals, every kind of screw made, every size of needle, every kind of cord or wire, hair of humans, horses, hogs, cows, rabbits, goats, minx, camels ... silk in every texture, cocoons, various kinds of hoofs, shark's teeth, deer horns, tortoise shell ... cork, resin, varnish and oil, ostrich feathers, a peacock's tail, jet, amber, rubber, all ores ..." and the list goes on.

Over his desk, Edison displayed a placard with Sir Joshua Reynolds' famous quote: "There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking." This slogan was reputedly posted at several other locations throughout the facility.

With Menlo Park, Edison had created the first industrial laboratory concerned with creating knowledge and then controlling its application.
Carbon telephone transmitter

In 1877–1878, Edison invented and developed the carbon microphone used in all telephones along with the Bell receiver until the 1980s. After protracted patent litigation, in 1892 a federal court ruled that Edison—and not Emile Berliner—was the inventor of the carbon microphone. The carbon microphone was also used in radio broadcasting and public address work through the 1920s.
Electric light
Edison in 1878
Edison speech, 1920s.ogg
Play video
Video clip of Thomas Edison talking about the invention of the light bulb, late 1920s
Main article: Incandescent light bulb

After many experiments with platinum and other metal filaments, Edison returned to a carbon filament. The first successful test was on October 22, 1879; it lasted 40 hours. Edison continued to improve this design and by November 4, 1879, filed for U.S. patent 223,898 (granted on January 27, 1880) for an electric lamp using "a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected to platina contact wires". Although the patent described several ways of creating the carbon filament including "cotton and linen thread, wood splints, papers coiled in various ways", it was not until several months after the patent was granted that Edison and his team discovered a carbonized bamboo filament that could last over 1,200 hours. The idea of using this particular raw material originated from Edison's recalling his examination of a few threads from a bamboo fishing pole while relaxing on the shore of Battle Lake in the present-day state of Wyoming, where he and other members of a scientific team had traveled so that they could clearly observe a total eclipse of the sun on July 29, 1878, from the Continental Divide.
U.S. Patent#223898: Electric-Lamp. Issued January 27, 1880.

Edison allegedly bought light bulb U.S. patent 181,613 of Henry Woodward that was issued August 29, 1876, and obtained an exclusive license to Woodward's Canadian patent. These patents covered a carbon rod in a nitrogen filled glass cylinder, and differed substantially from the first commercially practical bulb invented by Edison.

In 1878, Edison formed the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City with several financiers, including J. P. Morgan and the members of the Vanderbilt family. Edison made the first public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb on December 31, 1879, in Menlo Park. It was during this time that he said: "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles."

George Westinghouse's company bought Philip Diehl's competing induction lamp patent rights (1882) for $25,000, forcing the holders of the Edison patent to charge a more reasonable rate for the use of the Edison patent rights and lowering the price of the electric lamp.

On October 8, 1883, the U.S. patent office ruled that Edison's patent was based on the work of William Sawyer and was therefore invalid. Litigation continued for nearly six years, until October 6, 1889, when a judge ruled that Edison's electric light improvement claim for "a filament of carbon of high resistance" was valid. To avoid a possible court battle with Joseph Swan, whose British patent had been awarded a year before Edison's, he and Swan formed a joint company called Ediswan to manufacture and market the invention in Britain.

Mahen Theatre in Brno in what is now the Czech Republic, was the first public building in the world to use Edison's electric lamps, with the installation supervised by Edison's assistant in the invention of the lamp, Francis Jehl.
Electric power distribution

Edison patented a system for electricity distribution in 1880, which was essential to capitalize on the invention of the electric lamp. On December 17, 1880, Edison founded the Edison Illuminating Company. The company established the first investor-owned electric utility in 1882 on Pearl Street Station, New York City. It was on September 4, 1882, that Edison switched on his Pearl Street generating station's electrical power distribution system, which provided 110 volts direct current (DC) to 59 customers in lower Manhattan.

Earlier in the year, in January 1882 he had switched on the first steam generating power station at Holborn Viaduct in London. The DC supply system provided electricity supplies to street lamps and several private dwellings within a short distance of the station. On January 19, 1883, the first standardized incandescent electric lighting system employing overhead wires began service in Roselle, New Jersey. The key to Edison's fortunes was telegraphy. With knowledge gained from years of working as a telegraph operator, he learned the basics of electricity. This allowed him to make his early fortune with the stock ticker, the first electricity-based broadcast system. Edison patented the sound recording and reproducing phonograph in 1878. Edison was also granted a patent for the motion picture camera or "Kinetograph". He did the electromechanical design, while his employee W.K.L. Dickson, a photographer, worked on the photographic and optical development. Much of the credit for the invention belongs to Dickson. In 1891, Thomas Edison built a Kinetoscope, or peep-hole viewer. This device was installed in penny arcades, where people could watch short, simple films. The kinetograph and kinetoscope were both first publicly exhibited May 20, 1891.

On August 9, 1892, Edison received a patent for a two-way telegraph. In April 1896, Thomas Armat's Vitascope, manufactured by the Edison factory and marketed in Edison's name, was used to project motion pictures in public screenings in New York City. Later he exhibited motion pictures with voice soundtrack on cylinder recordings, mechanically synchronized with the film.

Officially the kinetoscope entered Europe when the rich American Businessman Irving T. Bush (1869–1948) bought from the Continental Commerce Company of Franck Z. Maguire and Joseph D. Bachus a dozen machines. Bush placed from October 17, 1894, the first kinetoscopes in London. At the same time the French company Kinétoscope Edison Michel et Alexis Werner bought these machines for the market in France. In the last three months of 1894 The Continental Commerce Company sold hundreds of kinetoscopes in Europe (i.e. the Netherlands and Italy). In Germany and in Austria-Hungary the kinetoscope was introduced by the Deutsche-österreichische-Edison-Kinetoscop Gesellschaft, founded by the Ludwig Stollwerck of the Schokoladen-Süsswarenfabrik Stollwerck & Co of Cologne. The first kinetoscopes arrived in Belgium at the Fairs in early 1895. The Edison's Kinétoscope Français, a Belgian company, was founded in Brussels on January 15, 1895, with the rights to sell the kinetoscopes in Monaco, France and the French colonies. The main investors in this company were Belgian industrialists. On May 14, 1895, the Edison's Kinétoscope Belge was founded in Brussels. The businessman Ladislas-Victor Lewitzki, living in London but active in Belgium and France, took the initiative in starting this business. He had contacts with Leon Gaumont and the American Mutoscope and Biograph Co. In 1898 he also became a shareholder of the Biograph and Mutoscope Company for France.

In 1901, he visited the Sudbury area in Ontario, Canada, as a mining prospector, and is credited with the original discovery of the Falconbridge ore body. His attempts to actually mine the ore body were not successful, however, and he abandoned his mining claim in 1903. A street in Falconbridge, as well as the Edison Building, which served as the head office of Falconbridge Mines, are named for him.

In 1902, agents of Thomas Edison bribed a theater owner in London for a copy of A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès. Edison then made hundreds of copies and showed them in New York City. Méliès received no compensation. He was counting on taking the film to the US and recapture its huge cost by showing it throughout the country when he realized it had already been shown there by Edison. This effectively bankrupted Méliès. Other exhibitors similarly routinely copied and exhibited each others films. To better protect the copyrights on his films, Edison deposited prints of them on long strips of photographic paper with the U.S. copyright office. Many of these paper prints survived longer and in better condition than the actual films of that era.

Edison's favourite movie was The Birth of a Nation. He thought that talkies had "spoiled everything" for him. "There isn't any good acting on the screen. They concentrate on the voice now and have forgotten how to act. I can sense it more than you because I am deaf."

In 1908, Edison started the Motion Picture Patents Company, which was a conglomerate of nine major film studios (commonly known as the Edison Trust). Thomas Edison was the first honorary fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, which was founded in 1929.
Several places have been named after Edison, most notably the town of Edison, New Jersey. Thomas Edison State College, a nationally known college for adult learners, is in Trenton, New Jersey. Two community colleges are named for him: Edison State College in Fort Myers, Florida, and Edison Community College in Piqua, Ohio. There are numerous high schools named after Edison; see Edison High School.

The City Hotel, in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, was the first building to be lit with Edison's three-wire system. The hotel was re-named The Hotel Edison, and retains that name today.

Three bridges around the United States have been named in his honor (see Edison Bridge).
Museums and memorials

In West Orange, New Jersey, the 13.5 acre (5.5 ha) Glenmont estate is maintained and operated by the National Park Service as the Edison National Historic Site. The Thomas Alva Edison Memorial Tower and Museum is in the town of Edison, New Jersey. In Beaumont, Texas, there is an Edison Museum, though Edison never visited there. The Port Huron Museum, in Port Huron, Michigan, restored the original depot that Thomas Edison worked out of as a young newsbutcher. The depot has been named the Thomas Edison Depot Museum. The town has many Edison historical landmarks, including the graves of Edison's parents, and a monument along the St. Clair River. Edison's influence can be seen throughout this city of 32,000. In Detroit, the Edison Memorial Fountain in Grand Circus Park was created to honor his achievements. The limestone fountain was dedicated October 21, 1929.
Companies bearing Edison's name

    * Edison General Electric, merged with Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric
    * Commonwealth Edison, now part of Exelon
    * Consolidated Edison
    * Edison International
          o Southern California Edison
          o Edison Mission Energy
          o Edison Capital
    * Detroit Edison, a unit of DTE Energy
    * Edison Sault Electric Company, a unit of Wisconsin Energy Corporation
    * FirstEnergy
          o Metropolitan Edison
          o Ohio Edison
          o Toledo Edison
    * Edison S.p.A., a unit of Italenergia
    * Boston Edison, a unit of NSTAR, formerly known as the Edison Electric Illuminating Company
    * WEEI radio station in Boston, established by the Edison Electric Illuminating Company (hence the call letters)

Awards named in honor of Edison

The Edison Medal was created on February 11, 1904, by a group of Edison's friends and associates. Four years later the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), later IEEE, entered into an agreement with the group to present the medal as its highest award. The first medal was presented in 1909 to Elihu Thomson and, in a twist of fate, was awarded to Nikola Tesla in 1917. It is the oldest award in the area of electrical and electronics engineering, and is presented annually "for a career of meritorious achievement in electrical science, electrical engineering or the electrical arts."

In the Netherlands, the major music awards are named the Edison Award after him.

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers concedes the Thomas A. Edison Patent Award to individual patents since 2000.
Honors and awards given to Edison

The President of the Third French Republic, Jules Grévy, on the recommendation of his Minister of Foreign Affairs Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire and with the presentations of the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs Louis Cochery, designated Edison with the distinction of an 'Officeer of the Legion of Honour' (Légion d'honneur) by decree on November 10, 1881;

Decree awarding Helmholtz, Bell, and Edison, the Legion of Honour
French Presidential Decree -Award of Legion of Honour to Helholtz, Bell and Edison -10 November 1881 Pg. 1.jpg

French Presidential Decree -Award of Legion of Honour to Helholtz, Bell and Edison -10 November 1881 Pg. 3.jpg

French Presidential Decree -Award of Legion of Honour to Helholtz, Bell and Edison -10 November 1881 Pg. 4.jpg

French Presidential Decree -Award of Legion of Honour to Helholtz, Bell and Edison -10 November 1881 Pg. 5.jpg

In 1983, the United States Congress, pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution 140 (Public Law 97—198), designated February 11, Edison's birthday, as National Inventor's Day.

In 1887, Edison won the Matteucci Medal. In 1890, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Edison was ranked thirty-fifth on Michael H. Hart's 1978 book The 100, a list of the most influential figures in history. Life magazine (USA), in a special double issue in 1997, placed Edison first in the list of the "100 Most Important People in the Last 1000 Years", noting that the light bulb he promoted "lit up the world". In the 2005 television series The Greatest American, he was voted by viewers as the fifteenth-greatest.

In 2008, Edison was inducted in the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
Other items named after Edison

The United States Navy named the USS Edison (DD-439), a Gleaves class destroyer, in his honor in 1940. The ship was decommissioned a few months after the end of World War II. In 1962, the Navy commissioned USS Thomas A. Edison (SSBN-610), a fleet ballistic missile nuclear-powered submarine. Decommissioned on December 1, 1983, Thomas A. Edison was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on April 30, 1986. She went through the Navy's Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Bremerton, Washington, beginning on October 1, 1996. When she finished the program on December 1, 1997, she ceased to exist as a complete ship and was listed as scrapped.
In popular culture
Main article: Thomas Edison in popular culture

Thomas Edison has appeared in popular culture as a character in novels, films, comics and video games. His prolific inventing helped make him an icon and he has made appearances in popular culture during his lifetime down to the present day. His history with Nikola Tesla has also provided dramatic tension and is a theme returned to numerous times.
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f273/fadams76/thomas-edison.jpg
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d4/lovetoohateyou/Thomas_Edison.jpg
http://i868.photobucket.com/albums/ab247/calccrazy1dx/Thomas_A_Edison.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/11/10 at 6:00 am

The person who died on this day...Frank Herbert
Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr. (October 8, 1920 – February 11, 1986) was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. Although a short story author, he is best known for his novels, most notably Dune and its five sequels. The Dune saga, set in the distant future and taking place over millennia, deals with themes such as human survival and evolution, ecology, and the intersection of religion, politics and power. Dune itself is the "best-selling science fiction novel of all time," and the series is widely considered to be among the classics in the genre.
n 1947 Frank Herbert sold his first science fiction story, "Looking for Something", to Startling Stories.

Frank Herbert did not graduate from college, according to his son Brian, because he wanted to study only what interested him and so did not complete the required courses. After leaving college he returned to journalism and worked at the Seattle Star and the Oregon Statesman; he was a writer and editor for the San Francisco Examiner's California Living magazine for a decade.

His career as a novelist began with the publication of The Dragon in the Sea in 1955, where he used the environment of a 21st century submarine as a means to explore sanity and madness. The book predicted worldwide conflicts over oil consumption and production. It was a critical success but not a major commercial one.
Florence, Oregon, with sand dunes that served as an inspiration for the Dune saga

Herbert began researching Dune in 1959 and was able to devote himself wholeheartedly to his writing career because his wife returned to work full time as an advertising writer for department stores, becoming the main breadwinner during the 1960s. Herbert later related in an interview with Willis E. McNeilly that the novel originated when he was supposed to do a magazine article on sand dunes in the Oregon Dunes near Florence, Oregon, but he became too involved in it and ended up with far more raw material than needed for a single article. The article, entitled "They Stopped the Moving Sands," was never written, but it did serve as the seed for the ideas that led to Dune.

Dune took six years of research and writing to complete. Far longer than commercial science fiction of the time was supposed to run, it was serialized in Analog magazine in two separate parts ("Dune World" and "Prophet of Dune"), in 1963 and 1965. It was then rejected by nearly twenty book publishers before finally being accepted. One editor prophetically wrote back "I might be making the mistake of the decade, but..." before rejecting the manuscript.

Chilton, a minor publishing house in Philadelphia known mainly for its auto-repair manuals, gave Herbert a $7,500 advance, and Dune was soon a critical success. It won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1965 and shared the Hugo Award in 1966 with ...And Call Me Conrad by Roger Zelazny. Dune was the first major ecological science fiction novel, embracing a multitude of sweeping, inter-related themes and multiple character viewpoints, a method that ran through all Herbert's mature work.

The book was not an instant bestseller. By 1968 Herbert had made $20,000 from it, far more than most science fiction novels of the time were generating, but not enough to let him take up full-time writing. However, the publication of Dune did open doors for him. He was the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's education writer from 1969 to 1972 and lecturer in general studies and interdisciplinary studies at the University of Washington (1970 – 1972). He worked in Vietnam and Pakistan as social and ecological consultant in 1972. In 1973 he was director-photographer of the television show The Tillers.

    A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating. You're there now doing the thing on paper. You're not killing the goose, you're just producing an egg. So I don't worry about inspiration, or anything like that. It's a matter of just sitting down and working. I have never had the problem of a writing block. I've heard about it. I've felt reluctant to write on some days, for whole weeks, or sometimes even longer. I'd much rather go fishing, for example, or go sharpen pencils, or go swimming, or what not. But, later, coming back and reading what I have produced, I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and when I had to sit down and say, "Well, now it's writing time and now I'll write." There's no difference on paper between the two.

    – Frank Herbert

By 1972, Herbert retired from newspaper writing and became a full-time fiction writer. During the 1970s and 1980s, Herbert enjoyed considerable commercial success as an author. He divided his time between homes in Hawaii and Washington's Olympic Peninsula; his home on the peninsula was intended to be an "ecological demonstration project". During this time he wrote numerous books and pushed ecological and philosophical ideas. He continued his Dune saga, following it with Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, and God Emperor of Dune. Other highlights were The Dosadi Experiment, The Godmakers, The White Plague and the books he wrote in partnership with Bill Ransom: The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect, and The Ascension Factor which were sequels to Destination: Void.

Herbert's change in fortune was shadowed by tragedy. In 1974, Beverly underwent an operation for cancer. She lived ten more years, but her health was adversely impacted by the surgery. During this period, Herbert was the featured speaker at the Octocon II science fiction convention at the El Rancho Tropicana in Santa Rosa, California in October 1978. Beverly Herbert died on February 7, 1984, the same year that Heretics of Dune was published. In his afterword to 1985's Chapterhouse Dune, Frank Herbert wrote a moving eulogy for his wife of 38 years.

1984 was a tumultuous year in Herbert's life. During this same year of his wife's death, his career took off with the release of David Lynch's film version of Dune. Despite high expectations, a big-budget production design and an A-list cast, the movie drew mostly poor reviews in the United States. However, despite a disappointing response in the USA, the film was a critical and commercial success in Europe and Japan.

After Beverly's death, Herbert married Theresa Shackleford in 1985, the year he published Chapterhouse Dune, which tied up many of the saga's story threads (though ending with a cliffhanger intended to lead into his planned Dune 7). This would be Herbert's final single work (the anthology Eye was published that year, and Man of Two Worlds was published in 1986). He died of a massive pulmonary embolism while recovering from surgery for pancreatic cancer on February 11, 1986 in Madison, Wisconsin age 65.
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f156/rjrunar/Frank_Herbert.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/anc7459/frank_herbert.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b136/whiteminority339/Frank_Herbert.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/11/10 at 7:05 am


The word of the day...Phonograph
A phonograph is a record player
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/stalkerbynitee/phonograph.jpg
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k299/suitofrags/Phonograph.gif
http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l139/jvmyka/phonograph.jpg
http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z279/edceteraLJ/phonograph.jpg
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj57/zombiechik7/Birdcage%20Theater/Phonograph.jpg
http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii151/cameramanlink/Phonograph.jpg
http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu194/electriclotustattoo/09.jpg
http://i672.photobucket.com/albums/vv84/datopalooza/nipper1.jpg


Wow,how times have changed since the days of The Phonograph.  :o

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/11/10 at 9:20 am


Wow,how times have changed since the days of The Phonograph.  :o

That's for sure.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/11/10 at 11:56 am


The word of the day...Phonograph
A phonograph is a record player
http://i672.photobucket.com/albums/vv84/datopalooza/nipper1.jpg
The dog's name was Nipper!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/11/10 at 12:03 pm

British Person of the Day: Mary Quant

Mary Quant, OBE, FCSD (born 11 February 1934 in Blackheath, Kent, England) is a British fashion designer, one of the many designers who took credit for inventing the miniskirt and hot pants. Born to Welsh parents, Quant went to Blackheath High School then studied illustration at Goldsmiths College before taking a career with a couture milliner. She is also famed for her work on pop art in fashion.

Early career

In November 1955, she teamed up with her husband, Alexander Plunkett-Grene, and a former solicitor, Archie Mcnair, to open a clothes shop on the Kings Road in London called Bazaar. Bazaar's best sellers were small white plastic collars to brighten up black dresses or a black sweat shirt. Black stretch stockings were popular too.

Following the positive reaction to a pair of "mad house pyjamas" designed for the opening, and dissatisfied with the variety of clothes available to her, Quant decided to make her own range of clothing. Initially working solo, she was soon employing a handful of machinists, and by 1966 she was working with 18 different manufacturers concurrently.

She has one son, Orlando.

Miniskirt

Skirts had been getting shorter since about 1958 – a development Mary Quant considered to be practical and liberating, allowing women the ability to run for a bus. The miniskirt, for which she is arguably most famous, became one of the defining fashions of the 1960s. The miniskirt was developed separately by André Courrèges and John Bates, and there is disagreement as to who came up with the idea first. Like most fashion, the short- and ever-shorter skirt was evolving already among individual fashion-minded young women: The designers who adapted it just helped spread the style and, in Quant's case, gave it a name. Mary Quant named the miniskirt after her favorite make of car, the Mini; she loved this car so much, she had one designed especially for her.

In addition to the miniskirt, Mary Quant is often credited with inventing the coloured and patterned tights that tended to accompany the garment, although these are also attributed to Cristobal Balenciaga or John Bates.

Later career

In the late 1960s, Quant popularised hot pants. Through the 1970s and 1980s she concentrated on household goods and make-up, rather than just her clothing lines. At a talk at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2007 she claimed to have invented duvet covers.

In 1988, Quant designed the interior of the Mini (1000) Designer (Originally dubbed the Mini Quant, this name was switched when popularity charts were set against having Quant's name on the car). It featured black and white striped seats with red trimming. The seatbelts were red, and the driving and passenger seats had Quant's signature on the upper left quadrant. The steering wheel had Quant's signature daisy and the bonnet badge had "Mary Quant" written over the signature name. The headlight housings, wheel arches, door handles and bumpers were all nimbus grey, rather than the more common chrome or black finishes. 2000 were released in the UK on 15 June 1988, a number were also released on to foreign markets; however, the numbers for these are hard to come by. The special edition Mini came in two body colours, jet black and diamond white.

She is also a Fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers, and winner of the Minerva Medal, the Society's highest award.

In 2000, she resigned as director of Mary Quant Ltd., her cosmetics company, after a Japanese buy-out. There are over 200 Mary Quant Colour shops in Japan, where Quant fashions continue to enjoy more popularity.

http://succesdesign.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/mary_quant.jpg

http://www.mookychick.co.uk/images/style/mary-quant-mini4.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/11/10 at 2:53 pm


The dog's name was Nipper!


Why was he looking at a phonograph?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/11/10 at 2:59 pm


Why was he looking at a phonograph?
The dog is listening, not looking.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/11/10 at 3:03 pm


The dog is listening, not looking.


Oh I See.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/11/10 at 4:24 pm

This is in Albany, NY.


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3308/3579214816_deb066f260.jpg


My grandparents (both sets) lived in Albany and every time we went to visit them, we would always go by this building. I always loved seeing Little Nipper (only in this case it should have been BIG Nipper  :D ;D ;D ;D ) on top of the building.


BTW, this is NOT one of my photos.


Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/11/10 at 4:33 pm


This is in Albany, NY.


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3308/3579214816_deb066f260.jpg


My grandparents (both sets) lived in Albany and every time we went to visit them, we would always go by this building. I always loved seeing Little Nipper (only in this case it should have been BIG Nipper  :D ;D ;D ;D ) on top of the building.


BTW, this is NOT one of my photos.


Cat
I have never seen Nipper so big before.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/11/10 at 4:43 pm


I have never seen Nipper so big before.

I have been to Albany twice, but never noticed this.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/11/10 at 5:49 pm


British Person of the Day: Mary Quant

Mary Quant, OBE, FCSD (born 11 February 1934 in Blackheath, Kent, England) is a British fashion designer, one of the many designers who took credit for inventing the miniskirt and hot pants. Born to Welsh parents, Quant went to Blackheath High School then studied illustration at Goldsmiths College before taking a career with a couture milliner. She is also famed for her work on pop art in fashion.

Early career

In November 1955, she teamed up with her husband, Alexander Plunkett-Grene, and a former solicitor, Archie Mcnair, to open a clothes shop on the Kings Road in London called Bazaar. Bazaar's best sellers were small white plastic collars to brighten up black dresses or a black sweat shirt. Black stretch stockings were popular too.

Following the positive reaction to a pair of "mad house pyjamas" designed for the opening, and dissatisfied with the variety of clothes available to her, Quant decided to make her own range of clothing. Initially working solo, she was soon employing a handful of machinists, and by 1966 she was working with 18 different manufacturers concurrently.

She has one son, Orlando.

Miniskirt

Skirts had been getting shorter since about 1958 – a development Mary Quant considered to be practical and liberating, allowing women the ability to run for a bus. The miniskirt, for which she is arguably most famous, became one of the defining fashions of the 1960s. The miniskirt was developed separately by André Courrèges and John Bates, and there is disagreement as to who came up with the idea first. Like most fashion, the short- and ever-shorter skirt was evolving already among individual fashion-minded young women: The designers who adapted it just helped spread the style and, in Quant's case, gave it a name. Mary Quant named the miniskirt after her favorite make of car, the Mini; she loved this car so much, she had one designed especially for her.

In addition to the miniskirt, Mary Quant is often credited with inventing the coloured and patterned tights that tended to accompany the garment, although these are also attributed to Cristobal Balenciaga or John Bates.

Later career

In the late 1960s, Quant popularised hot pants. Through the 1970s and 1980s she concentrated on household goods and make-up, rather than just her clothing lines. At a talk at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2007 she claimed to have invented duvet covers.

In 1988, Quant designed the interior of the Mini (1000) Designer (Originally dubbed the Mini Quant, this name was switched when popularity charts were set against having Quant's name on the car). It featured black and white striped seats with red trimming. The seatbelts were red, and the driving and passenger seats had Quant's signature on the upper left quadrant. The steering wheel had Quant's signature daisy and the bonnet badge had "Mary Quant" written over the signature name. The headlight housings, wheel arches, door handles and bumpers were all nimbus grey, rather than the more common chrome or black finishes. 2000 were released in the UK on 15 June 1988, a number were also released on to foreign markets; however, the numbers for these are hard to come by. The special edition Mini came in two body colours, jet black and diamond white.

She is also a Fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers, and winner of the Minerva Medal, the Society's highest award.

In 2000, she resigned as director of Mary Quant Ltd., her cosmetics company, after a Japanese buy-out. There are over 200 Mary Quant Colour shops in Japan, where Quant fashions continue to enjoy more popularity.

http://succesdesign.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/mary_quant.jpg

http://www.mookychick.co.uk/images/style/mary-quant-mini4.jpg

Nice bio Thanks Phil :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/11/10 at 5:50 pm


This is in Albany, NY.


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3308/3579214816_deb066f260.jpg


My grandparents (both sets) lived in Albany and every time we went to visit them, we would always go by this building. I always loved seeing Little Nipper (only in this case it should have been BIG Nipper  :D ;D ;D ;D ) on top of the building.


BTW, this is NOT one of my photos.


Cat

Is he still there?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/11/10 at 5:57 pm


Is he still there?



I think so.


http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2008/06/25/big-nipper-little-nipper


Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/11/10 at 9:29 pm



I think so.


http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2008/06/25/big-nipper-little-nipper


Cat

I hate to think what would happen if it fell.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/12/10 at 1:30 am


Is he still there?
If you go to Google Maps, type in "978 Broadway, Albany, NY, United States" and drag the orange man to the indicator, and turn the image around and look upwards, Nipper can be seen.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/12/10 at 5:12 am


If you go to Google Maps, type in "978 Broadway, Albany, NY, United States" and drag the orange man to the indicator, and turn the image around and look upwards, Nipper can be seen.

Thanks Phil. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/12/10 at 5:18 am

The word or phrase of the day...Ice Storm
An ice storm occurs when frozen rain or hail blankets a region. Not only do roads freeze, but also ice coats trees, bushes and power lines. Because of the weight of the ice, an ice storm can cause tremendous damage to an area, pulling down trees and power lines. A few past ice storms have caused farmers to lose entire crops or power to be lost for many days.
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii49/daleah/IceFrontDrive.jpg
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll37/Bozgan/IMG_1838.jpg
http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb282/mystang05-photo/m_icestormpart2019.jpg
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http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb282/mystang05-photo/m_icestormpart2029.jpg
http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb282/mystang05-photo/m_icestormpart2030.jpg
http://i701.photobucket.com/albums/ww14/peggyvboone/icestorm1-26-09002.jpg
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n15/krummerm/Ice%20Storms/DSCN5473.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/12/10 at 5:23 am

The person born on this day...Christina Ricci
Christina Ricci (born February 12, 1980) is an American actress. Ricci received worldwide attention and praise for her performances in films such as The Addams Family (1991), its sequel Addams Family Values (1993), as Wednesday Addams, Casper (1995), The Ice Storm (1997), The Opposite of Sex (1998), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, Sleepy Hollow (1999) and Monster (2003). She recently appeared in the films Black Snake Moan (2007), Penelope, Speed Racer (2008) and New York, I Love You (2009).
A critic for the Bergen Record discovered Ricci at age eight in a school play (The Twelve Days of Christmas) at Edgemont School in Montclair, New Jersey. The critic's son was originally cast in the role, but Ricci got him to hit her and told on him; he lost the role to her as part of his punishment. After this, she became involved in the movie business. She did several commercials starting at the age of six, until she finally got her big screen debut in Mermaids in 1990 as Cher's younger daughter. The young actress made enough of an impression to land more work; later she appeared in the video of the film's soundtrack "The Shoop Shoop Song". The following year, she starred as the morbidly precocious Wednesday Addams in the film adaptation of The Addams Family. The role would help to establish Ricci as an actress known for playing dark, unconventional characters – she went on to play Wednesday again in the film's 1993 sequel, Addams Family Values, which became another box office draw, and more screen time was provided for Ricci's performance as Wednesday.

After this, her popularity increased dramatically, and she became in high demand by the mid-1990s. Her next project, Casper, received mixed critical reviews, but was a major success at the box office, being the year's seventh highest grossing film. After Casper, she starred in Now and Then, a coming-of-age film about four 12-year-old girls and their friendship during the 1970s to the 1990s. Now and Then was another box office success, and received favourable comparisons to Stand by Me, being called "the female version" of the film, and Ricci was becoming a top box office draw. She also starred in a handful of other films with teenage roles such as Golddiggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain and That Darn Cat.
Career Breakthrough (1998–2005)

In 1997, Ricci began to appear in more adult roles, beginning with her role as the troubled, sexually curious Wendy Hood in Ang Lee's critically acclaimed The Ice Storm. Ricci subsequently appeared in films like the independent hit Buffalo '66 (in which she played Vincent Gallo's unwitting abductee-turned-girlfriend), John Waters' Pecker, and Don Roos' The Opposite of Sex (as the acid-tongued, manipulative Dede). For her performance as Dede, Ricci won acclaim and was nominated for a Golden Globe and attained the unofficial title of the Sundance Film Festival's 1998 "It" Girl. Although she missed out on an Academy Award nomination, Entertainment Weekly honored her well-received performance as one of the "Worst Oscar Snubs Ever".

Later films included Sleepy Hollow (alongside Johnny Depp), and Prozac Nation (which featured her first on-screen nude scene). She starred opposite Charlize Theron in the film Monster. During Theron's acceptance speech at the Golden Globes, she acknowledged Ricci, calling her the "unsung hero" of the film. Ricci had to turn down the role of Ronna in Go because of scheduling conflicts; the role eventually went to Sarah Polley. Ricci was turned down four times for the role of Dolores Haze in Lolita, and the role eventually went to Dominique Swain. Ricci was originally slated to play the lead in Ghost World (2001), but by the time it was filmed she was too old for the part and had moved on to other projects. Thora Birch (Ricci's co-star in Now And Then) took over the role. Ricci also turned down a role in Loser. Ricci made a cameo appearance on Beck's successful album Guero, providing vocals on "Hell Yes".
Ricci at the Gramercy Park Hotel, 2007

In February 2006, Ricci made a guest appearance as a paramedic in the ABC drama Grey's Anatomy, for which she was nominated for an Emmy award. She was a guest star for seven episodes in the last season of Ally McBeal in 2002 as Debbie 'Liza' Bump, a lawyer who works at Cage & Fish and marries Richard Fish in the last episode. It was initially hoped that Ricci and several other noted guest star appearances would boost Ally McBeal's then declining ratings.

On December 4, 1999, she appeared as the guest host on Saturday Night Live. She performed parodies of Britney Spears and the Olsen Twins. During one of her skits, she accidentally punched actress Ana Gasteyer in the face. The skit was a parody of the Sally Jessy Raphael show, in which she played a 13-year-old runaway who sleeps with dogs, and required her to fake-punch Gasteyer, but accidentally ended up really hitting Gasteyer in the eye. Although Ricci initially reacted by putting her hands over her mouth in surprise, she quickly fell back into character.
International success (2006–present)

In 2006, Ricci stated that she feels that at 5 ft 1 in (155 cm) she is "too short" to ever be an A-list actress, saying she tends "to look really small on camera". She has also said that she believes that she does not have much control over her career, specifying that she still has to audition for film parts. Her 2007 film, Black Snake Moan received mixed reviews, with rottentomatoes.com tallying an overall score of 66 percent. On the television program Ebert & Roeper, filmmaker Kevin Smith, filling in for Roger Ebert, described the film as the best of the year thus far and called it Ricci's best performance. Richard Roeper also gave the film a "thumb up" rating. The film earned $4 million, putting it in eighth place for the highest earnings in its opening weekend. For her role in Black Snake Moan, Ricci was required to lose several pounds and wore a forty-pound (18 kg) chain during filming. Apart from having to lose weight, Ricci ate only food items without any nutritional value to achieve her unhealthy appearance. Ricci has starred in Penelope, alongside Reese Witherspoon, a modern day fairytale, and in 2008, she played the female lead in The Wachowski Brothers' feature film adaptation of Speed Racer.

Ricci is currently filming the psychological thriller After.Life in New York with Liam Neeson and Justin Long, and has signed on for three episodes of TNT's crime drama Saving Grace, which recently began its second season. Ricci will play a young detective who temporarily partners with Grace, played by Holly Hunter.
Personal life

Ricci owns her own production company, Blaspheme Films, responsible for Prozac Nation and Pumpkin. Ricci told a magazine in a 2005 interview that she is a Christian. She is on the national board of VOX-Voices for Planned Parenthood. She will also be appearing in national ads for emergency contraception. She supported John Kerry's presidential bid in 2004. Ricci maintains a close friendship with former child star and actress Gaby Hoffmann, with whom she starred in Now and Then and 200 Cigarettes. She is also a friend of Black Snake Moan co-star Samuel L. Jackson.

After making the top of PETA's worst-dressed list and receiving a letter from the animal rights group, Ricci decided to give up wearing fur. Ricci also owns two dogs (The Sheriff Steve Goldburg and Buzz Goldicci).

In 2004, Ricci appeared as the first model in the Spring/ Summer 2005 Louis Vuitton show, and also appeared in advertisements for the popular French fashion house that year.

In April 2007, Ricci became the national spokesperson for RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network for the United States, which assists victims of these crimes and promotes programs that help prevent them from occurring. She cited some of her research in Black Snake Moan role as educational on the importance of the issues that RAINN deals with.

She has cited Pulp Fiction, Lord of the Rings, Gangs of New York, and My Own Private Idaho as her favorite films. She drives a Porsche Boxster. Her favorite musicians are the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Petty, The Ramones, R.E.M., The White Stripes, Weezer, and Pixies.

Ricci also has many tattoos: a lion on her right shoulder blade (a reference to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a favorite novel of hers as a child), a fairy on the inside of her right wrist, praying hands on her left hip (this tattoo was originally a bat), a bouquet of sweetpeas on her lower back, the words "Move or Bleed" on the left side of her ribcage, the name "Jack" on her right thigh for a dead pet, a sparrow on her right breast, and a mermaid on her left ankle.

She was briefly engaged to fellow actor Owen Benjamin.
Filmography
Film
Year Film Role Notes
1990 Mermaids Kate Flax Young Artist Award for Best Young Actress in a Supporting Role – Motion Picture
1991 The Hard Way Bonnie
The Addams Family Wednesday Addams Nominated – Young Artist Award for Best Young Actress – Motion Picture
1993 The Cemetery Club Jessica
Addams Family Values Wednesday Addams
1995 Casper Kathleen 'Kat' Harvey Nominated – Young Artist Award for Best Young Actress – Feature Film or Video
Now and Then Young Roberta Martin Nominated – Young Artist Award for Best Cast – Feature film or Video
Golddiggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain Beth Easton
1996 Bastard Out of Carolina Dee Dee
The Last of the High Kings Erin Also known as Summer Fling
1997 Little Red Riding Hood Little Red Riding Hood
That Darn Cat Patti Randall Nominated – Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie Actress
Nominated – Young Artist Award for Best Young Actress – Feature Film or Video
The Ice Storm Wendy Hood Nominated – Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated – Young Artist Award for Best Young Actress – Feature Film or Video
1998 Souvenir Young Orlando (voice)
Buffalo '66 Layla Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress also for The Opposite of Sex and Pecker
Seattle International Film Festival – Golden Space Needle Award – Best Actress also for The Opposite of Sex
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Lucy
The Opposite of Sex Dede Truitt Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress also for Buffalo '66 and Pecker
National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress
Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Seattle International Film Festival – Golden Space Needle Award – Best Actress also for Buffalo '66
Nominated – American Comedy Award for Funniest Actress in a Motion Picture
Nominated – Chlotrudis Award for Best Actress
Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Nominated – Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead
Small Soldiers Gwendy Doll (voice)
Pecker Shelley Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress also for The Opposite of Sex and Buffalo '66
Desert Blue Ely Jackson
I Woke Up Early the Day I Died Teenage Hooker
1999 200 Cigarettes Val
No Vacancy Lillian
Sleepy Hollow Katrina Van Tassel Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actress
Nominated – Teen Choice Award for Choice Actress
Nominated – Young Artist Award for Best Young Actress – Feature Film or Video
2000 Bless the Child Cheri Post Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Supporting Actress
The Man Who Cried Suzie Character born "Fegele Abramovich"
2001 All Over the Guy Rayna Wyckoff
Prozac Nation Elizabeth Wurtzel
2002 The Gathering Cassie Grant
The Laramie Project Romaine Patterson
Pumpkin Carolyn McDuffy Nominated – Teen Choice Award for Choice Actress
Miranda Miranda (Alice)
2003 Monster Selby Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss shared with Charlize Theron
Anything Else Amanda
2005 Cursed Ellie
2006 Home of the Brave Sarah Schivino
2007 Black Snake Moan Rae
2008 Penelope Penelope Wilhern
Speed Racer Trixie Fontaine Nominated – Teen Choice Award for Choice Actress
2009 New York, I Love You Camille
After.Life Anna
All's Faire in Love Kate
Television series
Year Film Role Notes
1990 H.E.L.P. Olivia 1 episode
1996 The Simpsons Erin 1 episode
voice
2002 Ally McBeal Liza Bump 7 episodes
Malcolm in the Middle Kelly 1 episode
2005 Joey Mary Teresa 1 episode
2006 Grey's Anatomy Hannah Davies 2 episodes

Nominated – Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress – Drama Series
2009 Saving Grace Offcr. Abby Charles 3 episodes
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/12/10 at 5:31 am

The person who died on this day...Charles Schulz
Charles Monroe Schulz (November 26, 1922 – February 12, 2000) was an American cartoonist best known worldwide for his Peanuts comic strip. Schulz's first regular cartoons, Li'l Folks, were published from 1947 to 1950 by the St. Paul Pioneer Press; he first used the name Charlie Brown for a character there, although he applied the name in four gags to three different boys and one buried in sand. The series also had a dog that looked much like Snoopy. In 1948, Schulz sold a cartoon to the Saturday Evening Post; the first of seventeen single-panel cartoons by Schulz that would be published there. In 1948, Schulz tried to have Li'l Folks syndicated through the Newspaper Enterprise Association. Schulz would have been an independent contractor for the syndicate, unheard of in the 1940s, but the deal fell through. Li'l Folks was dropped from the Pioneer Press in January, 1950.

Later that year, Schulz approached the United Feature Syndicate with his best strips from Li'l Folks, and Peanuts made its first appearance on October 2, 1950. The strip became one of the most popular comic strips of all time. He also had a short-lived sports-oriented comic strip called It's Only a Game (1957–1959), but abandoned it due to the demands of the successful Peanuts. From 1956 to 1965 he also contributed a single-panel strip ("Young Pillars") featuring teenagers to Youth, a publication associated with the Church of God (Anderson).

Charlie Brown, the principal character for Peanuts, was named after a co-worker at the Art Instruction Schools; Schulz drew much more inspiration from his own life:

    * Like Charlie Brown's parents, Schulz's father was a barber and his mother a housewife.
    * Schulz and Charlie Brown were shy and withdrawn.
    * Schulz had a dog when he was a boy, although unlike Snoopy the beagle, it was a pointer.
    * References to Snoopy's brother Spike living outside of Needles, California were likely influenced by the few years (1928–1930) that the Schulz family lived there; they had moved to Needles to join other family members who had relocated from Minnesota to tend to an ill cousin.
    * Schulz's "Little Red-Haired Girl" was Donna Johnson, an Art Instruction Schools accountant with whom he fell in love. Schulz was planning to propose to her, but before he got an opportunity to do so, she agreed to marry another man.
    * Linus and Shermy were both named for good friends of his (Linus Maurer and Sherman Plepler, respectively).
    * Peppermint Patty was inspired by Patricia Swanson, one of his cousins on his mother's side.

In 1951, Schulz moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado. The same year, Schulz married Joyce Halverson. His son, Monte, was born at this time, with their three further children being born later, in Minnesota. He painted a wall in that home for his adopted daughter Meredith, featuring Patty, Charlie Brown and Snoopy. The wall was removed in 2001 and donated to the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California.

Schulz's family returned to Minneapolis and stayed until 1958. They then moved to Sebastopol, California, where Schulz built his first studio. It was here that Schulz was interviewed for the unaired television documentary A Boy Named Charlie Brown. (Some of the footage was eventually used in a later documentary titled Charlie Brown and Charles Schulz. The original documentary is available on DVD from the Charles M. Schulz Museum.)

Schulz's father died while visiting him in 1966, the same year his Sebastopol studio burned down. By 1969, Schulz had moved to Santa Rosa, California, where he lived and worked until his death.
Charles Schulz Highland Arena on Snelling Avenue and Ford Parkway in St. Paul, MN.

Schulz had a long association with ice sports, and both figure skating and ice hockey featured prominently in his cartoons. In Santa Rosa, he was the owner of the Redwood Empire Ice Arena, which opened in 1969 and featured a snack bar called "The Warm Puppy". Schulz's daughter Amy served as a model for the figure skating in the 1980 television special She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown. Schulz also was very active in senior ice-hockey tournaments; in 1975, he formed Snoopy's Senior World Hockey Tournament at his Redwood Empire Ice Arena, and in 1981, Schulz was awarded the Lester Patrick Trophy for outstanding service to the sport of hockey in the United States. In 1998, he hosted the first-ever Over 75 Hockey Tournament. In 2001, Saint Paul renamed The Highland Park Ice Arena the "Charles Schulz Arena" in his honor.

Although Schulz authorized a biography, Rheta Grimsley Johnson's Good Grief: The Story of Charles M. Schulz during his lifetime, the first full-scale biography since his death, Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography, by David Michaelis, was released in October 2007. The book has been heavily criticized by the Schulz family, with son Monte stating it has "a number of factual errors throughout... factual errors of interpretation" and extensively documenting these errors in a number of essays; for his part, Michaelis maintains that there is "no question" his work is accurate. Although artist Bill Watterson (creator of Calvin & Hobbes) feels that the biography does justice to Schulz's legacy, while giving insight into the emotional impetus of the creation of the strips, cartoonist and critic R.C. Harvey regards the book as falling short both in describing Schulz as a cartoonist and in fulfilling Michaelis' stated aim of "understanding how Charles Schulz knew the world", feeling the biography bends the facts to a thesis rather than evoking a thesis from the facts. A review of Michaelis' biography by Dan Shanahan in the American Book Review (vol 29, no. 6) faults the biography not for factual errors, but for "a predisposition" to finding problems in Schulz's life to explain his art, regardless of how little the material lends itself to Michaelis' interpretations. Shanahan cites, in particular, such things as Michaelis' crude characterizations of Schulz's mother's family, and "an almost voyeuristic quality" to the hundred pages devoted to the breakup of Schulz's first marriage.

In light of David Michaelis' biography and the controversy surrounding his interpretation of the personality that was Charles Schulz, responses from his family reveal some intimate knowledge about the Schulz's persona beyond that of mere artist.
Death
Charles Schulz's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Peanuts ran for nearly 50 years, almost without interruption; during the life of the strip, Schulz took only one vacation, a five-week break in late 1997. At its peak, Peanuts appeared in more than 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries. In November 1999 Schulz suffered a stroke, and later it was discovered that he had colon cancer that had metastasized. Because of the chemotherapy and the fact he could not read or see clearly, he announced his retirement on December 14, 1999. This was difficult for Schulz, and he was quoted as saying to Al Roker on The Today Show, "I never dreamed that this would happen to me. I always had the feeling that I would stay with the strip until I was in my early eighties, or something like that. But all of sudden it's gone. I did not take it away. This has been taken away from me."

Schulz died in Santa Rosa of complications from colon cancer at 9:45 p.m. on February 12, 2000. He was buried in Sebastopol's Pleasant Hills Cemetery.

The last original strip ran the day after his death. In it, a statement was included from Schulz that his family wished for the strip to end when he was no longer able to produce it. Schulz had previously predicted that the strip would outlive him, with his reason being that comic strips are usually drawn weeks before their publication. As part of his will, Schulz had requested that the Peanuts characters remain as authentic as possible and that no new comic strips based on them be drawn. United Features has legal ownership of the strip, but his wishes have been honored, although reruns of the strip are still being syndicated to newspapers. New television specials have also been produced since Schulz's death, but the stories are based on previous strips.

Schulz had been asked if, for his final Peanuts strip, Charlie Brown would finally get to kick that football after so many decades. His response: "Oh, no! Definitely not! I couldn't have Charlie Brown kick that football; that would be a terrible disservice to him after nearly half a century." Yet, in a December 1999 interview, holding back tears, he recounted the moment when he signed the panel of his final strip, saying, “All of a sudden I thought, 'You know, that poor, poor kid, he never even got to kick the football. What a dirty trick — he never had a chance to kick the football.'”

He was honored on May 27, 2000, by cartoonists of 42 comic strips paying homage to him and Peanuts.
Awards
Schulz's Congressional Gold Medal

Schulz received the National Cartoonist Society Humor Comic Strip Award in 1962 for Peanuts, the Society's Elzie Segar Award in 1980, their Reuben Award for 1955 and 1964, and their Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999. He was also a hockey fan; in 1981, Schulz was awarded the Lester Patrick Trophy for outstanding contributions to the sport of hockey in the United States, and he was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in 1993. On June 28, 1996, Schulz was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, adjacent to Walt Disney's. A replica of this star appears outside his former studio in Santa Rosa. Schulz is a recipient of the Silver Buffalo Award, the highest adult award given by the Boy Scouts of America, for his service to American youth.

On January 1, 1974, Schulz served as the Grand Marshal of the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California.

On February 10, 2000, Congressman Mike Thompson introduced H.R. 3642, a bill to award Schulz the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor the United States legislature can bestow. The bill passed the House (410-1)(with only Ron Paul voting no and 24 not voting) on February 15, and the bill was sent to the Senate where it passed unanimously on May 2. The Senate also considered a bill S.2060 (introduced by Diane Feinstein). President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law on June 20. On June 7, 2001, Schulz's widow Jean accepted the award on behalf of her late husband in a public ceremony.

Schulz was inducted into the United States Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2007.
Legacy

When the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota first opened, the Amusement Park in the center of the Mall was themed around Schulz' "Peanuts" characters, until the Mall lost the rights to use the branding in 2006.

In 2000, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors rechristened the Charles M. Schulz - Sonoma County Airport in his honor. The airport's logo features Snoopy in goggles and scarf, taking to the skies on top of his red doghouse.
The Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center

The Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa opened on August 17, 2002, two blocks away from his former studio and celebrates his life's work and art of cartooning. A bronze statue of Charlie Brown and Snoopy stands in Depot Park in downtown Santa Rosa.
The Jean and Charles Schulz Information Center

The Jean and Charles Schulz Information Center at Sonoma State University is one of the largest libraries in the CSU system and the state of California with a 400,000 volume general collection and with a 750,000 volume automated retrieval system capacity. The $41.5 million building was named after Schulz and his wife donated $5 million needed to build and furnish the structure. The library opened in 2000 and now stands as one of the largest buildings in the university.

Peanuts on Parade has been Saint Paul, Minnesota’s tribute to its favorite native cartoonist. It began in 2000 with the placing of 101 five-foot tall statues of Snoopy throughout the city of Saint Paul. Every summer for the next 4 years statues of a different Peanuts character were placed on the sidewalks of Saint Paul. In 2001 there was Charlie Brown Around Town, 2002 brought Looking for Lucy, then in 2003 along came Linus Blankets Saint Paul, ending in 2004 with Snoopy lying on his doghouse. The statues were auctioned off at the end of each summer, so some remain around the city but others have been relocated. The auction proceeds were used for artists' scholarships and for permanent, bronze statues of the Peanuts characters. These bronze statues are in Landmark Plaza and Rice Park in downtown Saint Paul.

In 2006 Forbes ranked Schulz as the third highest-earning deceased celebrity, having earned $35 million in the previous year. According to Tod Benoit in his book Where Are They Buried? How Did They Die?, Charles M. Schulz's income during his lifetime totaled more than $1.1 billion.
Religion

Schulz touched on religious themes in his work, including the classic television cartoon, A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), which features the character Linus van Pelt quoting the King James Version of the Bible Luke 2:8-14 to explain "what Christmas is all about." In personal interviews Schulz mentioned that Linus represented his spiritual side.

Schulz, reared in the Lutheran faith, had been active in the Church of God (Anderson) as a young adult and then later taught Sunday school at a United Methodist Church.

From the late 1980s, however, Schulz described himself in interviews as a "secular humanist":
“ I do not go to church anymore... I guess you might say I've come around to secular humanism, an obligation I believe all humans have to others and the world we live in.

In the 1960s, Robert L. Short interpreted certain themes and conversations in Peanuts as being consistent with parts of Christian theology, and used them as illustrations during his lectures about the gospel, as he explained in his bestselling paperback book, The Gospel According to Peanuts, the first of several books he wrote on religion and Peanuts.
Influences

The Charles M. Schulz Museum counts Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates) and Bill Mauldin as key influences on Schulz's work. In his own strip, Schulz paid an annual Veterans Day tribute to Mauldin's World War II cartoons.

Critics have also credited George Herriman (Krazy Kat), Roy Crane (Wash Tubbs), Elzie C. Segar (Thimble Theater) and Percy Crosby (Skippy) among Schulz's influences. However,
“ It would be impossible to narrow down three or two or even one direct influence on personal drawing style. The uniqueness of Peanuts has set it apart for years... That one-of-kind quality permeates every aspect of the strip and very clearly extends to the drawing. It is purely his with no clear forerunners and no subsequent pretenders.
— Good Grief: The Story of Charles M. Schulz, Rheta Grimsley Johnson, p. 68
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/12/10 at 5:40 am


The word or phrase of the day...Ice Storm
An ice storm occurs when frozen rain or hail blankets a region. Not only do roads freeze, but also ice coats trees, bushes and power lines. Because of the weight of the ice, an ice storm can cause tremendous damage to an area, pulling down trees and power lines. A few past ice storms have caused farmers to lose entire crops or power to be lost for many days.
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii49/daleah/IceFrontDrive.jpg
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll37/Bozgan/IMG_1838.jpg
http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb282/mystang05-photo/m_icestormpart2019.jpg
http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb282/mystang05-photo/m_icestormpart2023.jpg
http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb282/mystang05-photo/m_icestormpart2029.jpg
http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb282/mystang05-photo/m_icestormpart2030.jpg
http://i701.photobucket.com/albums/ww14/peggyvboone/icestorm1-26-09002.jpg
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n15/krummerm/Ice%20Storms/DSCN5473.jpg


Wow,reminds me of winter.  :o

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/12/10 at 5:48 am


Thanks Phil. :)
Have you seen Nipper yet?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/12/10 at 6:44 am

British Person of the day: Thomas Campion

Thomas Campion, (sometimes Campian) (12 February 1567 – 1 March 1620) was an English composer, poet and physician.

Biography

Campion was born in London and studied at Peterhouse, Cambridge, but left without taking a degree. He later entered Gray's Inn to study law in 1586. However, he left in 1595 without having been called to the bar. On 10 February 1605 he received his medical degree from the University of Caen.

Campion was first published as a poet in 1591 with five of his works appearing in an edition of Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella. The Songs of Mourning: Bewailing the Untimely Death of Prince Henry (1613), were set to music by John Cooper. He also wrote a number of other poems as well as a book on poetry, Observations in the Art of English Poesie (1602), in which he criticises the practice of rhyming in poetry.

Campion wrote over one hundred lute songs in the Books of Airs, with the first collection (co-written with Philip Rosseter) appearing in 1601 and four more following throughout the 1610s. He also wrote a number of masques, including Lord Hay's Masque performed in 1607, along with Somerset Masque and The Lord's Masque which premiered in 1613. Some of Campion's works were quite ribald on the other hand, such as "Beauty, since you so much desire" (see media). In 1615 he published a book on counterpoint, A New Way of Making Fowre Parts in Counterpoint By a Most Familiar and Infallible Rule, which was regarded highly enough to be reprinted in 1660.

He was implicated in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, but was eventually exonerated, as it was found that he had delivered a bribe unwittingly.

Campion died in London, possibly of the plague.

Early dictionary writers, such as Fétis saw Campion as a theorist. It was much later on that people began to see him as a composer.

He was the writer of a poem, Cherry Ripe, which is not the later famous poem of that title but has several similarities.

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/12/10 at 6:57 am


Have you seen Nipper yet?

Yeah i just looked it up, maybe someday I'll see him in person.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 02/12/10 at 8:32 am

Nice bios, Ninny and Philip. Thanks for sharing.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/12/10 at 8:54 am


The word or phrase of the day...Ice Storm
An ice storm occurs when frozen rain or hail blankets a region. Not only do roads freeze, but also ice coats trees, bushes and power lines. Because of the weight of the ice, an ice storm can cause tremendous damage to an area, pulling down trees and power lines. A few past ice storms have caused farmers to lose entire crops or power to be lost for many days.
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii49/daleah/IceFrontDrive.jpg
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll37/Bozgan/IMG_1838.jpg
http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb282/mystang05-photo/m_icestormpart2019.jpg
http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb282/mystang05-photo/m_icestormpart2023.jpg
http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb282/mystang05-photo/m_icestormpart2029.jpg
http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb282/mystang05-photo/m_icestormpart2030.jpg
http://i701.photobucket.com/albums/ww14/peggyvboone/icestorm1-26-09002.jpg
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n15/krummerm/Ice%20Storms/DSCN5473.jpg
You have made me feel cold again.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/12/10 at 10:40 pm


You have made me feel cold again.

We've had cold weather here but not the snow that lot of people saw.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/13/10 at 12:24 am


We've had cold weather here but not the snow that lot of people saw.
Other parts of the UK has snow, but is still cold in London.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/13/10 at 6:00 am

The word of the day...Vertigo
If you get vertigo when you look down from a high place, you feel unsteady and sick.
dizziness: a reeling sensation; a feeling that you are about to fall
Vertigo (from the Latin vertigin-, vertigo, "dizziness," originally "a whirling or spinning movement," from '''' "I turn" ) is a specific type of dizziness, a major symptom of a balance disorder.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/13/10 at 6:02 am

The person born on this day...Kim Novak
Kim Novak (born February 13, 1933) is a two-time Golden Globe Award-winning American actress. She is best known for her performance in the classic 1958 film Vertigo. Novak retired from acting in 1991 and is now an accomplished artist. She currently lives on a ranch in Eagle Point, Oregon, with her veterinarian husband. The 21-year-old Marilyn Novak struck a pose on a stairway for the RKO 3-D motion picture The French Line (1954) starring Jane Russell and Gilbert Roland. Novak received no screen credit. Eventually, she was seen by a Columbia Pictures talent agent and filmed a screen test. Studio chief Harry Cohn was searching for another beauty to replace the rebellious and difficult Rita Hayworth. Novak was signed to a six-month contract. Paramount Pictures had an arrangement whereby budding actresses resided at a "ladies' residence", similar to a sorority, where their personal lives were under supervision.

Columbia decided to make the blonde, buxom actress its version of Marilyn Monroe. Immediately, there was the issue of what to do about her name. Neither Novak nor Columbia wanted to be seen as cashing in on Marilyn Monroe's enormous popularity, so Novak's real first name had to go. She resisted changing it to Kit Marlowe. She and the studio finally settled on the stage name Kim Novak. Cohn told her to lose weight, and he won the battle to make her wear brassieres. She took acting lessons, which she had to pay for herself.

Novak debuted as Lona McLane in Pushover (1954) opposite Fred MacMurray and Philip Carey. Though her role was not the best, her beauty caught the attention of fans and critics alike. She then played the femme fatale role as Janis in Phffft! (1954) opposite Judy Holliday, Jack Lemmon, and Jack Carson. Novak's reviews were good. People were eager to see the new star, and she received an enormous amount of fan mail.

After playing Madge Owens in Picnic (1955) opposite William Holden, Novak won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer and for World Film Favorite. She was also nominated for the British BAFTA Film Award for Best Foreign Actress. She played Molly in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), on loan to United Artists, with Frank Sinatra. The movie was a big hit. She worked with Sinatra again for Pal Joey (1957), which also starred Rita Hayworth. She also starred in Jeanne Eagels (1957) with Jeff Chandler. Her popularity became such that she made the cover of the July 29, 1957 issue of Time Magazine. That same year, she went on strike, protesting at her salary of $1,250 per week.
Kim Novak in Vertigo

In 1958, Novak starred in the Alfred Hitchcock-directed classic thriller Vertigo with James Stewart. Today, the film is considered a masterpiece of romantic suspense, though Novak's performance has a mixed reputation. Critic David Shipman thought it "little more than competent", while David Thomson sees it as "one of the major female performances in the cinema". Hitchcock, rarely one to praise actors, dismissed Novak in a later interview. "You think you're getting a lot," he said of her ability, "but you're not."

Following Vertigo, she reunited with Stewart and Jack Lemmon in Bell, Book and Candle (1958), a comedy tale of modern-day witchcraft that did not do well at the box office. In 1960, she co-starred with Kirk Douglas in the critically acclaimed Strangers When We Meet also featuring Walter Matthau and Ernie Kovacs.

In 1962, Novak took the leap of producing her own movie, financing her own production company in association with Filmways Productions. Boys' Night Out, in which she starred with James Garner and Tony Randall, marked a turning point in her career when it was not received well either by critics or the public. She continued to act, but took fewer roles as she began to prefer personal activities over acting. She refused to accept many of the sexpot roles she was being offered. She also turned down several strong dramatic roles including Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Hustler, Days of Wine and Roses, and The Sandpiper.

Novak was paired with Lemmon for a third and final time in a mystery-comedy, The Notorious Landlady (1962). She played the vulgar waitress Mildred Rogers in a remake of W. Somerset Maugham's drama Of Human Bondage (1964) opposite Laurence Harvey. She starred in Billy Wilder's cult classic Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) with Ray Walston and Dean Martin, a film critically panned at the time which has since gained a strong following. After playing the title role in The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965) with Richard Johnson and Angela Lansbury, Novak took a break, seeing as little of Hollywood as possible.

Her comeback came in a dual role as a young actress, Elsa Brinkmann, and an early-day movie goddess who was murdered, Lylah Clare, in producer-director Robert Aldrich's The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968) with Peter Finch and Ernest Borgnine for MGM. It failed miserably. After playing a forger, Sister Lyda Kebanov, in The Great Bank Robbery (1969) opposite Zero Mostel, Clint Walker, and Claude Akins, she stayed away from the screen for four years. She then played the key role of Auriol Pageant in the horror anthology film Tales That Witness Madness (1973). She starred as veteran showgirl Gloria Joyce in the made-for-TV movie The Third Girl From the Left (1973) with Tony Curtis and played Eve in Satan's Triangle (1975).

In 1979, she played Helga in Just a Gigolo starring David Bowie and then Lola Brewster in an Agatha Christie mystery/thriller The Mirror Crack'd (1980) with Angela Lansbury, Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor. She and Taylor portrayed rival actresses. She made occasional television appearances over the years. She co-starred with James Coburn in the TV-movie Malibu (1983) and played Rosa in a revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985). From 1986 to 1987, the actress was a cast member of the television series Falcon Crest during the its fourth season in the role of Kit Marlowe (the stage name rejected at the start of her career).

Her most recent appearance on the big screen to date came as a terminally ill writer in the mystery/thriller Liebestraum (1991) for MGM. However, due to battles with the director over how to play the role, her scenes were cut. In a rare interview with Stephen Rebello in the July 2005 issue of Movieline's Hollywood Life, Novak admitted that she had been "unprofessional" in her conduct with director Mike Figgis. Since that time, she has turned down many other offers to appear in film and TV.

Novak has not ruled out further acting. In an interview in 2007, she said that she would consider returning to the screen "if the right thing came along."
Honors

For her contribution to motion pictures, Novak was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6332 Hollywood Boulevard.

In 1995, Novak was ranked 92nd by Empire Magazine on a list of the 100 sexiest stars in film history. In 1955 she won the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer-Female; in 1957 she won another Golden Globe — for World Favorite female actress. In 1997 Kim won an Honorary Berlin Golden Bear Award. In 2002 a Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Novak by Eastman Kodak.

New York rock band The Velvet Underground had a song about Kim Novak on their album Loaded, called "New Age".

British designer Alexander McQueen named his first 'It bag', the Novak, after her in 2005.
Personal life

Novak has been married to veterinarian Dr. Robert Malloy since March 12, 1976. The couple resides on a ranch where they raise horses and llamas. Novak has two stepchildren.
publicity photo of Novak in 1962

For barely a year, Novak was previously married to English actor Richard Johnson from March 15, 1965 to April 23, 1966. Despite their divorce, the two have remained friends. Novak also dated Sammy Davis, Jr in the late 1950s. She was engaged to director Richard Quine although they never married, according to critic Jonathan Rosenbaum.

Her home in Eagle Point, Oregon was partially destroyed in a fire on July 24, 2000. A computer containing the only existing draft of her unfinished autobiography was also lost to the fire. "I take it personally as a sign that maybe I’m not supposed to write my biography; maybe the past is supposed to stay buried," Novak said. Among Novak's lost mementos were scripts of some of her most critically acclaimed movies, including Vertigo and Picnic, as well as several paintings. "It made me realize then what was really valuable," she said. "That’s the day I wrote a gratitude list. We’re safe and our animals are safe."

In 2006, Novak was injured in a horseback riding accident. She suffered a punctured lung, broken ribs and nerve damage, but made a full recovery within a year.

Novak is an accomplished artist who expresses herself in watercolor and oil paintings, sculpture, stained glass design and photography. She also writes poetry.
Filmography

    * The French Line (1954) (uncredited)
    * Pushover (1954)
    * Phffft! (1954)
    * Son of Sinbad (1955) (uncredited)
    * 5 Against the House (1955)
    * Picnic (1955)
    * The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
    * The Eddy Duchin Story (1956)
    * Jeanne Eagels (1957)
    * Pal Joey (1957)
    * Vertigo (1958)
    * Bell, Book and Candle (1958)
    * Middle of the Night (1959)
    * Strangers When We Meet (1960)
    * Pepe (1960) (cameo)
    * The Notorious Landlady (1962)
    * Boys' Night Out (1962)



    * Showman (1963) (documentary)
    * Of Human Bondage (1964)
    * Kiss Me, Stupid (1964)
    * The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965)
    * The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968)
    * The Great Bank Robbery (1969)
    * Tales That Witness Madness (1973)
    * The Third Girl from the Left (1973)
    * Satan's Triangle (1975)
    * The White Buffalo (1977)
    * Just a Gigolo (1979)
    * The Mirror Crack'd (1980)
    * Malibu (1983)
    * Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985)
    * Falcon Crest (14 episodes; 1986-87)
    * I Have Been Very Pleased (1987) (short subject)
    * The Children (1990)
    * Liebestraum (1991)
http://i584.photobucket.com/albums/ss284/Mirna27/Decorated%20images/kim_novak_01.jpg
http://i484.photobucket.com/albums/rr201/GeorgiaGirl_51/kim_novak_gallery_1.jpg
http://i387.photobucket.com/albums/oo314/ilovedorisday/KimNovak6.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/13/10 at 6:05 am

The person who died on this day...David Janssen
David Janssen (March 27, 1931 – February 13, 1980) was an American film and television actor who is best known for his starring role as Dr. Richard Kimble in the television series The Fugitive (1963–1967).
Janssen appeared in many television series before he landed programs of his own. In 1956, he and Peter Breck appeared in John Bromfield's syndicated series Sheriff of Cochise in the episode "The Turkey Farmers". Later, he guest starred on NBC's medical drama The Eleventh Hour in the role of Hal Kincaid in the 1962 episode "Make Me a Place", with series co-stars Wendell Corey and Jack Ging. He joined Milner in a 1962 episode of Route 66 as the character Kamo in the episode "One Tiger to a Hill."

Janssen starred in four television series of his own, Richard Diamond, Private Detective (1957-60), the hit Quinn Martin produced series, The Fugitive (1963-67), O'Hara, U.S. Treasury (1971–72) and Harry O (1974–76). At the time, the final episode of The Fugitive held the record for the greatest number of American homes with television sets to watch a series finale, at 72% in August 1967.

His films include To Hell and Back, the autobiography of Audie Murphy, who is considered the most decorated soldier in the military history of the United States; John Wayne's war film The Green Berets (1968), and opposite Gregory Peck in the space story Marooned about three stranded astronauts. Janssen played an alcoholic in the 1977 TV movie A Sensitive, Passionate Man, which co-starred Angie Dickinson.

At the time of his death, Janssen had just begun filming a television movie playing the part of Father Damien, the priest who dedicated himself to the leper colony on the island of Molokai. The part was eventually reassigned to actor Ken Howard.
Personal life

He was married twice, first to Ellie Graham on August 23, 1959 in Las Vegas, Nevada; they divorced on August 25, 1970. He dated actress Rosemary Forsyth for a few years. From October 4, 1975 to his death, he was married to sometime actress and model Dani Crayne Greco (born Darlyne Danielle Swanson, December 25, 1934, Minneapolis, Minnesota). Dani was previously married to singer Buddy Greco; they divorced in April 1974. Ms. Janssen resides in the penthouse of the west tower of The Century Towers in Century City, Los Angeles, California. She is known for her annual Oscars party in the penthouse where the who's who of the film crowd attend.
Death

David Janssen died of a sudden heart attack in 1980 in Malibu, California, two days into the filming of Father Damien, aged 48. Two days earlier, he had a bad dream that he was being carried in a coffin following a heart attack He was interred in the Hillside Memorial Cemetery in Culver City, California.
Selected filmography

    * Francis Goes to West Point (1952)
    * Yankee Buccaneer (1952)
    * Chief Crazy Horse (1955)
    * Cult of the Cobra (1955)
    * The Private War of Major Benson (1955)
    * Francis in the Navy (1955)
    * To Hell and Back (1955)
    * Lux Video Theatre (3 episodes, 1955-1956)
    * Matinee Theater (1 episode, 1956)
    * Never Say Goodbye (1956)
    * Richard Diamond, Private Detective (1957-1960)
    * Dondi (1961)
    * Hell to Eternity (1960)
    * Ring of Fire (1961)
    * Target: The Corruptors!, "The Middle Man" episode, February 2, 1962
    * The Fugitive (1963–1967)
    * Warning Shot (1967)
    * The Green Berets (1968)
    * The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968)
    * Marooned (1969)
    * Where It's At (1969)
    * O'Hara, U.S. Treasury (1971-1972)
    * Moon of the Wolf (1973)
    * Birds of Prey (1973)
    * Jacqueline Susann's Once Is Not Enough (1975)
    * Harry O (1974-1976)
    * The Swiss Conspiracy (1976)
    * Two-Minute Warning (1976)
    * Centennial (1978)
    * S.O.S. Titanic (1979)
    * High Ice (1980)

See also

    * Lifestyle diseases
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 02/13/10 at 6:31 am

I've always liked Kim Novak, Nice bio, Ninny. Thanks for posting.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/13/10 at 7:20 am


I've always liked Kim Novak, Nice bio, Ninny. Thanks for posting.  :)

Your Welcome Vinny  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/13/10 at 7:21 am


The person born on this day...Kim Novak
Kim Novak (born February 13, 1933) is a two-time Golden Globe Award-winning American actress. She is best known for her performance in the classic 1958 film Vertigo. Novak retired from acting in 1991 and is now an accomplished artist. She currently lives on a ranch in Eagle Point, Oregon, with her veterinarian husband. The 21-year-old Marilyn Novak struck a pose on a stairway for the RKO 3-D motion picture The French Line (1954) starring Jane Russell and Gilbert Roland. Novak received no screen credit. Eventually, she was seen by a Columbia Pictures talent agent and filmed a screen test. Studio chief Harry Cohn was searching for another beauty to replace the rebellious and difficult Rita Hayworth. Novak was signed to a six-month contract. Paramount Pictures had an arrangement whereby budding actresses resided at a "ladies' residence", similar to a sorority, where their personal lives were under supervision.

Columbia decided to make the blonde, buxom actress its version of Marilyn Monroe. Immediately, there was the issue of what to do about her name. Neither Novak nor Columbia wanted to be seen as cashing in on Marilyn Monroe's enormous popularity, so Novak's real first name had to go. She resisted changing it to Kit Marlowe. She and the studio finally settled on the stage name Kim Novak. Cohn told her to lose weight, and he won the battle to make her wear brassieres. She took acting lessons, which she had to pay for herself.

Novak debuted as Lona McLane in Pushover (1954) opposite Fred MacMurray and Philip Carey. Though her role was not the best, her beauty caught the attention of fans and critics alike. She then played the femme fatale role as Janis in Phffft! (1954) opposite Judy Holliday, Jack Lemmon, and Jack Carson. Novak's reviews were good. People were eager to see the new star, and she received an enormous amount of fan mail.

After playing Madge Owens in Picnic (1955) opposite William Holden, Novak won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer and for World Film Favorite. She was also nominated for the British BAFTA Film Award for Best Foreign Actress. She played Molly in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), on loan to United Artists, with Frank Sinatra. The movie was a big hit. She worked with Sinatra again for Pal Joey (1957), which also starred Rita Hayworth. She also starred in Jeanne Eagels (1957) with Jeff Chandler. Her popularity became such that she made the cover of the July 29, 1957 issue of Time Magazine. That same year, she went on strike, protesting at her salary of $1,250 per week.
Kim Novak in Vertigo

In 1958, Novak starred in the Alfred Hitchcock-directed classic thriller Vertigo with James Stewart. Today, the film is considered a masterpiece of romantic suspense, though Novak's performance has a mixed reputation. Critic David Shipman thought it "little more than competent", while David Thomson sees it as "one of the major female performances in the cinema". Hitchcock, rarely one to praise actors, dismissed Novak in a later interview. "You think you're getting a lot," he said of her ability, "but you're not."

Following Vertigo, she reunited with Stewart and Jack Lemmon in Bell, Book and Candle (1958), a comedy tale of modern-day witchcraft that did not do well at the box office. In 1960, she co-starred with Kirk Douglas in the critically acclaimed Strangers When We Meet also featuring Walter Matthau and Ernie Kovacs.

In 1962, Novak took the leap of producing her own movie, financing her own production company in association with Filmways Productions. Boys' Night Out, in which she starred with James Garner and Tony Randall, marked a turning point in her career when it was not received well either by critics or the public. She continued to act, but took fewer roles as she began to prefer personal activities over acting. She refused to accept many of the sexpot roles she was being offered. She also turned down several strong dramatic roles including Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Hustler, Days of Wine and Roses, and The Sandpiper.

Novak was paired with Lemmon for a third and final time in a mystery-comedy, The Notorious Landlady (1962). She played the vulgar waitress Mildred Rogers in a remake of W. Somerset Maugham's drama Of Human Bondage (1964) opposite Laurence Harvey. She starred in Billy Wilder's cult classic Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) with Ray Walston and Dean Martin, a film critically panned at the time which has since gained a strong following. After playing the title role in The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965) with Richard Johnson and Angela Lansbury, Novak took a break, seeing as little of Hollywood as possible.

Her comeback came in a dual role as a young actress, Elsa Brinkmann, and an early-day movie goddess who was murdered, Lylah Clare, in producer-director Robert Aldrich's The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968) with Peter Finch and Ernest Borgnine for MGM. It failed miserably. After playing a forger, Sister Lyda Kebanov, in The Great Bank Robbery (1969) opposite Zero Mostel, Clint Walker, and Claude Akins, she stayed away from the screen for four years. She then played the key role of Auriol Pageant in the horror anthology film Tales That Witness Madness (1973). She starred as veteran showgirl Gloria Joyce in the made-for-TV movie The Third Girl From the Left (1973) with Tony Curtis and played Eve in Satan's Triangle (1975).

In 1979, she played Helga in Just a Gigolo starring David Bowie and then Lola Brewster in an Agatha Christie mystery/thriller The Mirror Crack'd (1980) with Angela Lansbury, Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor. She and Taylor portrayed rival actresses. She made occasional television appearances over the years. She co-starred with James Coburn in the TV-movie Malibu (1983) and played Rosa in a revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985). From 1986 to 1987, the actress was a cast member of the television series Falcon Crest during the its fourth season in the role of Kit Marlowe (the stage name rejected at the start of her career).

Her most recent appearance on the big screen to date came as a terminally ill writer in the mystery/thriller Liebestraum (1991) for MGM. However, due to battles with the director over how to play the role, her scenes were cut. In a rare interview with Stephen Rebello in the July 2005 issue of Movieline's Hollywood Life, Novak admitted that she had been "unprofessional" in her conduct with director Mike Figgis. Since that time, she has turned down many other offers to appear in film and TV.

Novak has not ruled out further acting. In an interview in 2007, she said that she would consider returning to the screen "if the right thing came along."
Honors

For her contribution to motion pictures, Novak was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6332 Hollywood Boulevard.

In 1995, Novak was ranked 92nd by Empire Magazine on a list of the 100 sexiest stars in film history. In 1955 she won the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer-Female; in 1957 she won another Golden Globe — for World Favorite female actress. In 1997 Kim won an Honorary Berlin Golden Bear Award. In 2002 a Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Novak by Eastman Kodak.

New York rock band The Velvet Underground had a song about Kim Novak on their album Loaded, called "New Age".

British designer Alexander McQueen named his first 'It bag', the Novak, after her in 2005.
Personal life

Novak has been married to veterinarian Dr. Robert Malloy since March 12, 1976. The couple resides on a ranch where they raise horses and llamas. Novak has two stepchildren.
publicity photo of Novak in 1962

For barely a year, Novak was previously married to English actor Richard Johnson from March 15, 1965 to April 23, 1966. Despite their divorce, the two have remained friends. Novak also dated Sammy Davis, Jr in the late 1950s. She was engaged to director Richard Quine although they never married, according to critic Jonathan Rosenbaum.

Her home in Eagle Point, Oregon was partially destroyed in a fire on July 24, 2000. A computer containing the only existing draft of her unfinished autobiography was also lost to the fire. "I take it personally as a sign that maybe I’m not supposed to write my biography; maybe the past is supposed to stay buried," Novak said. Among Novak's lost mementos were scripts of some of her most critically acclaimed movies, including Vertigo and Picnic, as well as several paintings. "It made me realize then what was really valuable," she said. "That’s the day I wrote a gratitude list. We’re safe and our animals are safe."

In 2006, Novak was injured in a horseback riding accident. She suffered a punctured lung, broken ribs and nerve damage, but made a full recovery within a year.

Novak is an accomplished artist who expresses herself in watercolor and oil paintings, sculpture, stained glass design and photography. She also writes poetry.
Filmography

    * The French Line (1954) (uncredited)
    * Pushover (1954)
    * Phffft! (1954)
    * Son of Sinbad (1955) (uncredited)
    * 5 Against the House (1955)
    * Picnic (1955)
    * The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
    * The Eddy Duchin Story (1956)
    * Jeanne Eagels (1957)
    * Pal Joey (1957)
    * Vertigo (1958)
    * Bell, Book and Candle (1958)
    * Middle of the Night (1959)
    * Strangers When We Meet (1960)
    * Pepe (1960) (cameo)
    * The Notorious Landlady (1962)
    * Boys' Night Out (1962)



    * Showman (1963) (documentary)
    * Of Human Bondage (1964)
    * Kiss Me, Stupid (1964)
    * The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965)
    * The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968)
    * The Great Bank Robbery (1969)
    * Tales That Witness Madness (1973)
    * The Third Girl from the Left (1973)
    * Satan's Triangle (1975)
    * The White Buffalo (1977)
    * Just a Gigolo (1979)
    * The Mirror Crack'd (1980)
    * Malibu (1983)
    * Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985)
    * Falcon Crest (14 episodes; 1986-87)
    * I Have Been Very Pleased (1987) (short subject)
    * The Children (1990)
    * Liebestraum (1991)
http://i584.photobucket.com/albums/ss284/Mirna27/Decorated%20images/kim_novak_01.jpg
http://i484.photobucket.com/albums/rr201/GeorgiaGirl_51/kim_novak_gallery_1.jpg
http://i387.photobucket.com/albums/oo314/ilovedorisday/KimNovak6.jpg


There is a picture of her today somewhere.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/13/10 at 7:23 am


There is a picture of her today somewhere.

here's a recent pic taken sometime in the 2000's
http://i934.photobucket.com/albums/ad190/lookovahere/an6vb010p9dn0b0n.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/13/10 at 7:36 am


The person born on this day...Kim Novak
Kim Novak (born February 13, 1933) is a two-time Golden Globe Award-winning American actress. She is best known for her performance in the classic 1958 film Vertigo. Novak retired from acting in 1991 and is now an accomplished artist. She currently lives on a ranch in Eagle Point, Oregon, with her veterinarian husband. The 21-year-old Marilyn Novak struck a pose on a stairway for the RKO 3-D motion picture The French Line (1954) starring Jane Russell and Gilbert Roland. Novak received no screen credit. Eventually, she was seen by a Columbia Pictures talent agent and filmed a screen test. Studio chief Harry Cohn was searching for another beauty to replace the rebellious and difficult Rita Hayworth. Novak was signed to a six-month contract. Paramount Pictures had an arrangement whereby budding actresses resided at a "ladies' residence", similar to a sorority, where their personal lives were under supervision.

Columbia decided to make the blonde, buxom actress its version of Marilyn Monroe. Immediately, there was the issue of what to do about her name. Neither Novak nor Columbia wanted to be seen as cashing in on Marilyn Monroe's enormous popularity, so Novak's real first name had to go. She resisted changing it to Kit Marlowe. She and the studio finally settled on the stage name Kim Novak. Cohn told her to lose weight, and he won the battle to make her wear brassieres. She took acting lessons, which she had to pay for herself.

Novak debuted as Lona McLane in Pushover (1954) opposite Fred MacMurray and Philip Carey. Though her role was not the best, her beauty caught the attention of fans and critics alike. She then played the femme fatale role as Janis in Phffft! (1954) opposite Judy Holliday, Jack Lemmon, and Jack Carson. Novak's reviews were good. People were eager to see the new star, and she received an enormous amount of fan mail.

After playing Madge Owens in Picnic (1955) opposite William Holden, Novak won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer and for World Film Favorite. She was also nominated for the British BAFTA Film Award for Best Foreign Actress. She played Molly in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), on loan to United Artists, with Frank Sinatra. The movie was a big hit. She worked with Sinatra again for Pal Joey (1957), which also starred Rita Hayworth. She also starred in Jeanne Eagels (1957) with Jeff Chandler. Her popularity became such that she made the cover of the July 29, 1957 issue of Time Magazine. That same year, she went on strike, protesting at her salary of $1,250 per week.
Kim Novak in Vertigo

In 1958, Novak starred in the Alfred Hitchcock-directed classic thriller Vertigo with James Stewart. Today, the film is considered a masterpiece of romantic suspense, though Novak's performance has a mixed reputation. Critic David Shipman thought it "little more than competent", while David Thomson sees it as "one of the major female performances in the cinema". Hitchcock, rarely one to praise actors, dismissed Novak in a later interview. "You think you're getting a lot," he said of her ability, "but you're not."

Following Vertigo, she reunited with Stewart and Jack Lemmon in Bell, Book and Candle (1958), a comedy tale of modern-day witchcraft that did not do well at the box office. In 1960, she co-starred with Kirk Douglas in the critically acclaimed Strangers When We Meet also featuring Walter Matthau and Ernie Kovacs.

In 1962, Novak took the leap of producing her own movie, financing her own production company in association with Filmways Productions. Boys' Night Out, in which she starred with James Garner and Tony Randall, marked a turning point in her career when it was not received well either by critics or the public. She continued to act, but took fewer roles as she began to prefer personal activities over acting. She refused to accept many of the sexpot roles she was being offered. She also turned down several strong dramatic roles including Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Hustler, Days of Wine and Roses, and The Sandpiper.

Novak was paired with Lemmon for a third and final time in a mystery-comedy, The Notorious Landlady (1962). She played the vulgar waitress Mildred Rogers in a remake of W. Somerset Maugham's drama Of Human Bondage (1964) opposite Laurence Harvey. She starred in Billy Wilder's cult classic Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) with Ray Walston and Dean Martin, a film critically panned at the time which has since gained a strong following. After playing the title role in The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965) with Richard Johnson and Angela Lansbury, Novak took a break, seeing as little of Hollywood as possible.

Her comeback came in a dual role as a young actress, Elsa Brinkmann, and an early-day movie goddess who was murdered, Lylah Clare, in producer-director Robert Aldrich's The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968) with Peter Finch and Ernest Borgnine for MGM. It failed miserably. After playing a forger, Sister Lyda Kebanov, in The Great Bank Robbery (1969) opposite Zero Mostel, Clint Walker, and Claude Akins, she stayed away from the screen for four years. She then played the key role of Auriol Pageant in the horror anthology film Tales That Witness Madness (1973). She starred as veteran showgirl Gloria Joyce in the made-for-TV movie The Third Girl From the Left (1973) with Tony Curtis and played Eve in Satan's Triangle (1975).

In 1979, she played Helga in Just a Gigolo starring David Bowie and then Lola Brewster in an Agatha Christie mystery/thriller The Mirror Crack'd (1980) with Angela Lansbury, Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor. She and Taylor portrayed rival actresses. She made occasional television appearances over the years. She co-starred with James Coburn in the TV-movie Malibu (1983) and played Rosa in a revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985). From 1986 to 1987, the actress was a cast member of the television series Falcon Crest during the its fourth season in the role of Kit Marlowe (the stage name rejected at the start of her career).

Her most recent appearance on the big screen to date came as a terminally ill writer in the mystery/thriller Liebestraum (1991) for MGM. However, due to battles with the director over how to play the role, her scenes were cut. In a rare interview with Stephen Rebello in the July 2005 issue of Movieline's Hollywood Life, Novak admitted that she had been "unprofessional" in her conduct with director Mike Figgis. Since that time, she has turned down many other offers to appear in film and TV.

Novak has not ruled out further acting. In an interview in 2007, she said that she would consider returning to the screen "if the right thing came along."
Honors

For her contribution to motion pictures, Novak was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6332 Hollywood Boulevard.

In 1995, Novak was ranked 92nd by Empire Magazine on a list of the 100 sexiest stars in film history. In 1955 she won the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer-Female; in 1957 she won another Golden Globe — for World Favorite female actress. In 1997 Kim won an Honorary Berlin Golden Bear Award. In 2002 a Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Novak by Eastman Kodak.

New York rock band The Velvet Underground had a song about Kim Novak on their album Loaded, called "New Age".

British designer Alexander McQueen named his first 'It bag', the Novak, after her in 2005.
Personal life

Novak has been married to veterinarian Dr. Robert Malloy since March 12, 1976. The couple resides on a ranch where they raise horses and llamas. Novak has two stepchildren.
publicity photo of Novak in 1962

For barely a year, Novak was previously married to English actor Richard Johnson from March 15, 1965 to April 23, 1966. Despite their divorce, the two have remained friends. Novak also dated Sammy Davis, Jr in the late 1950s. She was engaged to director Richard Quine although they never married, according to critic Jonathan Rosenbaum.

Her home in Eagle Point, Oregon was partially destroyed in a fire on July 24, 2000. A computer containing the only existing draft of her unfinished autobiography was also lost to the fire. "I take it personally as a sign that maybe I’m not supposed to write my biography; maybe the past is supposed to stay buried," Novak said. Among Novak's lost mementos were scripts of some of her most critically acclaimed movies, including Vertigo and Picnic, as well as several paintings. "It made me realize then what was really valuable," she said. "That’s the day I wrote a gratitude list. We’re safe and our animals are safe."

In 2006, Novak was injured in a horseback riding accident. She suffered a punctured lung, broken ribs and nerve damage, but made a full recovery within a year.

Novak is an accomplished artist who expresses herself in watercolor and oil paintings, sculpture, stained glass design and photography. She also writes poetry.
Filmography

    * The French Line (1954) (uncredited)
    * Pushover (1954)
    * Phffft! (1954)
    * Son of Sinbad (1955) (uncredited)
    * 5 Against the House (1955)
    * Picnic (1955)
    * The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
    * The Eddy Duchin Story (1956)
    * Jeanne Eagels (1957)
    * Pal Joey (1957)
    * Vertigo (1958)
    * Bell, Book and Candle (1958)
    * Middle of the Night (1959)
    * Strangers When We Meet (1960)
    * Pepe (1960) (cameo)
    * The Notorious Landlady (1962)
    * Boys' Night Out (1962)



    * Showman (1963) (documentary)
    * Of Human Bondage (1964)
    * Kiss Me, Stupid (1964)
    * The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965)
    * The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968)
    * The Great Bank Robbery (1969)
    * Tales That Witness Madness (1973)
    * The Third Girl from the Left (1973)
    * Satan's Triangle (1975)
    * The White Buffalo (1977)
    * Just a Gigolo (1979)
    * The Mirror Crack'd (1980)
    * Malibu (1983)
    * Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985)
    * Falcon Crest (14 episodes; 1986-87)
    * I Have Been Very Pleased (1987) (short subject)
    * The Children (1990)
    * Liebestraum (1991)
http://i584.photobucket.com/albums/ss284/Mirna27/Decorated%20images/kim_novak_01.jpg
http://i484.photobucket.com/albums/rr201/GeorgiaGirl_51/kim_novak_gallery_1.jpg
http://i387.photobucket.com/albums/oo314/ilovedorisday/KimNovak6.jpg
We all loved her in Vertigo

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/13/10 at 7:55 am


We all loved her in Vertigo

Yes she was great along with Jimmy Stewart :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/13/10 at 7:56 am


Yes she was great along with Jimmy Stewart :)
Just one great movie by the master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 02/13/10 at 12:26 pm


here's a recent pic taken sometime in the 2000's
http://i934.photobucket.com/albums/ad190/lookovahere/an6vb010p9dn0b0n.jpg

She still looks great.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/13/10 at 2:01 pm


Just one great movie by the master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock.

Yes, love those Hitchcock films. And Vertigo was one of the better ones.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/13/10 at 2:53 pm


Yes, love those Hitchcock films. And Vertigo was one of the better ones.

True, I also liked Rear Window.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/13/10 at 3:54 pm


True, I also liked Rear Window.
another brillliant Hitchcock/Stewart movie

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/13/10 at 7:19 pm


here's a recent pic taken sometime in the 2000's
http://i934.photobucket.com/albums/ad190/lookovahere/an6vb010p9dn0b0n.jpg


Thank You Ninny. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 02/13/10 at 7:28 pm

Novak is a big name ...yet she was only in a handful of 'big' movies!  Picnic and Vertigo would have been her biggest movies ...while ManWith The Golden Arm and Pal Joey were also successful.

I liked her ... but she was never a favourite of mine.

I used to watch Jansen in The Fugitive. I enjoyed him in that show but otherwise I felt he was a fairly one dimensional actor!!!  :-\\

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/14/10 at 3:00 am

British Person of the Day: Simon Pegg

Simon Pegg (born Simon John Beckingham; 14 February 1970) is an English actor, comedian, writer, film producer and director. He is best known for his starring roles in Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Run Fatboy Run, the comedy series Spaced and his portrayal of Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the revamped Star Trek. Much of his major work has been in collaboration with some combination of Nick Frost, Jessica Hynes, Dylan Moran and Edgar Wright.

Career

In 1993, he moved to London and performed on the stand-up comedy circuit. In 1995 he took his acclaimed one-man show to the Edinburgh Festival, which led to his being invited to perform at festivals in Adelaide and Melbourne in Australia and Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch in New Zealand, which he did in 1996 and 1997. His work as a stand up attracted the attention of several TV producers, leading to appearances in Asylum, Six Pairs of Pants, Faith in the Future, Big Train and Hippies. From 1998 to 2004, Pegg regularly featured on BBC Radio 4's The 99p Challenge. In 1999, he created and co-wrote the Channel 4 sitcom Spaced with Jessica Stevenson. For this project Pegg brought in Nick Frost, his best friend. For his performance in this series, Pegg was nominated for a British Comedy Award as Best Male Comedy Newcomer. Pegg co-wrote (with Spaced director Edgar Wright) and starred in the "romantic zombie comedy" film Shaun of the Dead, released in April 2004. At George A. Romero's invitation, Pegg and Wright made cameo appearances in Romero's film, Land of the Dead. In 2004, Pegg also starred in a spin-off of the television show Danger! 50,000 Volts! called Danger! 50,000 Zombies!, in which he played a zombie hunter named Dr. Russel Fell.

Pegg's other credits include the World War II miniseries Band of Brothers, guest appearances on Black Books, Brass Eye Special, I'm Alan Partridge, The Parole Officer and in the Factory Records story 24 Hour Party People. He also played the mutant bounty hunter Johnny Alpha, the Strontium Dog, in a series of Big Finish Productions audio plays based on the character from British comic 2000 AD and featured in Guest House Paradiso, a film based on the sitcom Bottom.

Pegg appeared in the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who audio story Invaders From Mars as Don Chaney, and portrayed the Editor in the 2005 Doctor Who episode "The Long Game". He also narrated the first series of the documentary series Doctor Who Confidential.

Upon completion of Shaun of the Dead, Pegg was questioned on whether he would be abandoning the British film industry for bigger and better things, to which he replied "It's not like I'm going to run off and do Mission: Impossible III!" He then promptly went on to do just that, playing Benji Dunn, an I.M.F. technician who assists Tom Cruise's character, Ethan Hunt. In 2006 he played an American character, Gus, in Big Nothing alongside David Schwimmer.

In 2006, Pegg and Wright completed their second film, Hot Fuzz, released in February 2007. The film is a police-action movie homage and also stars Nick Frost. Pegg plays Nicholas Angel, a London policeman who is transferred to rural Sandford, a fictional village situated in Pegg's home county of Gloucestershire, where grisly events take place.

In 2007, Pegg starred in The Good Night (directed by Jake Paltrow) and Run Fatboy Run directed by David Schwimmer and co-starring Thandie Newton and Hank Azaria.

In 2008, Pegg wrote the dialogue for an English language re-release of the cult 2006 animated Norwegian film, Free Jimmy. Pegg received screenwriting credit for this, and Pegg also voiced one of the main characters in the English language version, which has an international range of actors including Woody Harrelson.

Pegg is co-writing and starring with Nick Frost in an upcoming film entitled Paul, with production expected to begin in June 2009. The plot revolves around characters played by Pegg and Frost road tripping across America. Pegg also announced that he and Wright had the idea for "the concluding part in what we are calling our 'Blood and Ice Cream' trilogy" (the first two being Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz). It is provisionally called The World Ends. In those films and in Spaced, Pegg typically plays the leading hero while Frost plays the sidekick. However, he has revealed that Paul will reverse this dynamic. Pegg has also stated that Wright will not direct, Paul not being part of their 'Blood and Ice Cream' trilogy. The completed script appeared on the 2008 Black List, a film-industry-compiled list of the best unproduced screenplays. Paul received two votes.

Pegg played engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the newest Star Trek film, released 8 May 2009. He wore a kilt to the film's United Kingdom premiere, at the Empire Leicester Square theatre. He told Jo Russell's show on Absolute Radio that he is waiting for a Scotty action figure to add to his collection of Simon Pegg action figures from Dr Who, Hot Fuzz, and Shaun of the Dead. He is currently completing a film, directed by John Landis, about Burke and Hare, the Ulster men who were notorious murderers and bodysnatchers in early nineteenth-century Edinburgh. His likeness was also used for the character of Wee Hughie in the comic book series The Boys; while this was done without Pegg's permission, he quickly became a fan of the title, and even wrote the introduction to the first bound volume.

Movies

The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
The World's End (2010)
Paul (2010)
Star Trek (2009)
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008)
Run, Fat Boy, Run (2007)
The Good Night (2007)
Hot Fuzz (2007)
Grindhouse (2007)
Big Nothing (2006)
Mission: Impossible 3 (2006)
Free Jimmy (2006)
Land of the Dead (2005)
The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse (2005)
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Sex & Lies (2004)
The Reckoning (2003)
Final Demand (2003)
24 Hour Party People (2002)
Band of Brothers (2001)
The Parole Officer (2001)
Guest House Paradiso (1999)
Tube Tales (1999)

http://www.virginmedia.com/images/bca0simon-pegg-290x400.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/14/10 at 4:52 am


British Person of the Day: Simon Pegg

Simon Pegg (born Simon John Beckingham; 14 February 1970) is an English actor, comedian, writer, film producer and director. He is best known for his starring roles in Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Run Fatboy Run, the comedy series Spaced and his portrayal of Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the revamped Star Trek. Much of his major work has been in collaboration with some combination of Nick Frost, Jessica Hynes, Dylan Moran and Edgar Wright.

Career

In 1993, he moved to London and performed on the stand-up comedy circuit. In 1995 he took his acclaimed one-man show to the Edinburgh Festival, which led to his being invited to perform at festivals in Adelaide and Melbourne in Australia and Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch in New Zealand, which he did in 1996 and 1997. His work as a stand up attracted the attention of several TV producers, leading to appearances in Asylum, Six Pairs of Pants, Faith in the Future, Big Train and Hippies. From 1998 to 2004, Pegg regularly featured on BBC Radio 4's The 99p Challenge. In 1999, he created and co-wrote the Channel 4 sitcom Spaced with Jessica Stevenson. For this project Pegg brought in Nick Frost, his best friend. For his performance in this series, Pegg was nominated for a British Comedy Award as Best Male Comedy Newcomer. Pegg co-wrote (with Spaced director Edgar Wright) and starred in the "romantic zombie comedy" film Shaun of the Dead, released in April 2004. At George A. Romero's invitation, Pegg and Wright made cameo appearances in Romero's film, Land of the Dead. In 2004, Pegg also starred in a spin-off of the television show Danger! 50,000 Volts! called Danger! 50,000 Zombies!, in which he played a zombie hunter named Dr. Russel Fell.

Pegg's other credits include the World War II miniseries Band of Brothers, guest appearances on Black Books, Brass Eye Special, I'm Alan Partridge, The Parole Officer and in the Factory Records story 24 Hour Party People. He also played the mutant bounty hunter Johnny Alpha, the Strontium Dog, in a series of Big Finish Productions audio plays based on the character from British comic 2000 AD and featured in Guest House Paradiso, a film based on the sitcom Bottom.

Pegg appeared in the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who audio story Invaders From Mars as Don Chaney, and portrayed the Editor in the 2005 Doctor Who episode "The Long Game". He also narrated the first series of the documentary series Doctor Who Confidential.

Upon completion of Shaun of the Dead, Pegg was questioned on whether he would be abandoning the British film industry for bigger and better things, to which he replied "It's not like I'm going to run off and do Mission: Impossible III!" He then promptly went on to do just that, playing Benji Dunn, an I.M.F. technician who assists Tom Cruise's character, Ethan Hunt. In 2006 he played an American character, Gus, in Big Nothing alongside David Schwimmer.

In 2006, Pegg and Wright completed their second film, Hot Fuzz, released in February 2007. The film is a police-action movie homage and also stars Nick Frost. Pegg plays Nicholas Angel, a London policeman who is transferred to rural Sandford, a fictional village situated in Pegg's home county of Gloucestershire, where grisly events take place.

In 2007, Pegg starred in The Good Night (directed by Jake Paltrow) and Run Fatboy Run directed by David Schwimmer and co-starring Thandie Newton and Hank Azaria.

In 2008, Pegg wrote the dialogue for an English language re-release of the cult 2006 animated Norwegian film, Free Jimmy. Pegg received screenwriting credit for this, and Pegg also voiced one of the main characters in the English language version, which has an international range of actors including Woody Harrelson.

Pegg is co-writing and starring with Nick Frost in an upcoming film entitled Paul, with production expected to begin in June 2009. The plot revolves around characters played by Pegg and Frost road tripping across America. Pegg also announced that he and Wright had the idea for "the concluding part in what we are calling our 'Blood and Ice Cream' trilogy" (the first two being Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz). It is provisionally called The World Ends. In those films and in Spaced, Pegg typically plays the leading hero while Frost plays the sidekick. However, he has revealed that Paul will reverse this dynamic. Pegg has also stated that Wright will not direct, Paul not being part of their 'Blood and Ice Cream' trilogy. The completed script appeared on the 2008 Black List, a film-industry-compiled list of the best unproduced screenplays. Paul received two votes.

Pegg played engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the newest Star Trek film, released 8 May 2009. He wore a kilt to the film's United Kingdom premiere, at the Empire Leicester Square theatre. He told Jo Russell's show on Absolute Radio that he is waiting for a Scotty action figure to add to his collection of Simon Pegg action figures from Dr Who, Hot Fuzz, and Shaun of the Dead. He is currently completing a film, directed by John Landis, about Burke and Hare, the Ulster men who were notorious murderers and bodysnatchers in early nineteenth-century Edinburgh. His likeness was also used for the character of Wee Hughie in the comic book series The Boys; while this was done without Pegg's permission, he quickly became a fan of the title, and even wrote the introduction to the first bound volume.

Movies

The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
The World's End (2010)
Paul (2010)
Star Trek (2009)
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008)
Run, Fat Boy, Run (2007)
The Good Night (2007)
Hot Fuzz (2007)
Grindhouse (2007)
Big Nothing (2006)
Mission: Impossible 3 (2006)
Free Jimmy (2006)
Land of the Dead (2005)
The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse (2005)
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Sex & Lies (2004)
The Reckoning (2003)
Final Demand (2003)
24 Hour Party People (2002)
Band of Brothers (2001)
The Parole Officer (2001)
Guest House Paradiso (1999)
Tube Tales (1999)

http://www.virginmedia.com/images/bca0simon-pegg-290x400.jpg

I was just about to do him ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/14/10 at 5:05 am

The word of the day...Heart
      Your heart is the organ in your chest that pumps the blood around your body. People also use heart to refer to the area of their chest that is closest to their heart
You can refer to someone's heart when you are talking about their deep feelings and beliefs.
You use heart when you are talking about someone's character and attitude towards other people, especially when they are kind and generous.
If you refer to things of the heart, you mean love and relationships
The heart of something is the most central and important part of it.
http://i533.photobucket.com/albums/ee335/PicPocket74/coffee%20art/Copyofhearts.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/cillymiu/Heart/lovimage0sbnF.jpg
http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h47/satasiza/heart.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r183/All_About_Anime/heart.jpg
http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j301/brunette58/heart-1.jpg
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a100/jowanna__daatio/patterns/heart.jpg
http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn290/RAWRxitsmaya/REAL_HEART.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/cillymiu/Heart/shwluvh1.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/14/10 at 5:09 am

The person born on this day...Alan Parker
Sir Alan William Parker, CBE (born 14 February 1944) is an English film director, producer, writer and actor. He has been active in both the British film industry and Hollywood and was a founding member of the Director's Guild of Great Britain.
Life and career

Parker was born into a working class family in Islington, North London, the son of Elsie Ellen, a dressmaker, and William Leslie Parker, a house painter. He attended Dame Alice Owen's School. Parker started out as a copywriter for advertising agencies in the 1960s and 1970s and later began to write his own television commercial scripts. His most celebrated and enduring advertising work was when he worked for famed London agency Collett Dickenson Pearce where he directed many award winning commercials, including the famous Cinzano vermouth advertisement, starring Leonard Rossiter and Joan Collins, shown in the UK.

His film career began through his association with producer David Puttnam, now Lord Puttnam, when he wrote the screenplay for the feature Melody (1971). Puttnam would later produce a number of Parker's films including Midnight Express (1978). This, his breakthrough, was a highly controversial film set in a Turkish prison that was lauded by critics and ended up earning Parker a number of Oscar nominations, including Best Director and Best Picture. He was later nominated for Best Director with Mississippi Burning (1988).

Parker has directed a number of off-beat musicals including Bugsy Malone (1976), Fame (1980), Pink Floyd The Wall (1982), The Commitments (1991) and Evita (1996).

He was knighted in the New Year's Honours for 2002. He received an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from the University of Sunderland in 2005 of which his long time associate Lord Puttnam is chancellor. Parker is an Arsenal fan and attends their home games.
Controversy

One of his films, Midnight Express, stirred enormous controversy in the world, especially in Turkey. The film derives from a book written by Billy Hayes. Oliver Stone wrote the screenplay of the film and David Puttnam is the producer. After the release of the film, it was and is condemned in Turkey for its portrayal of Turkish people, Turkish institutions and consequently damaging the public image of Turkey.

Unlike Parker, Putnam, Stone and Hayes who were producer, screenwriter and author of the original book respectively expressed their concerns with the film regarding its anti-Turkish agenda. Screenwriter of that film, Oliver Stone, who won an Academy Award for the film, visited Turkey in 2004, made an apology for the portrayal of the Turkish people in the film. In parallel with Stone, an amateur interview with Billy Hayes who is the author of the book that Midnight Express is based on, appeared on YouTube (Part 1 - Part 2) recorded during the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, in which he expressed his disappointment with the film adaptation. In an article for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Hayes stated that the film "depicts all Turks as monsters".

In an interview in 1984, David Puttnam, producer of the film, called the book dishonest. In addition to Putnam, Stone and Hayes, film reviewers described the film as "violent", "national hate-film", "a cultural form that narrows horizons", "confirming the audience’s meanest fears and prejudices and resentments".
Filmography

    * Melody (1971)
    * Our Cissy (1974) (short film)
    * Footsteps (1974) (short film)
    * The Evacuees (1975) (TV)
    * Bugsy Malone (1976)
    * Midnight Express (1978)
    * Fame (1980)
    * Shoot the Moon (1982)
    * Pink Floyd The Wall (1982)
    * Birdy (1984)
    * Angel Heart (1987)
    * Mississippi Burning (1988)
    * Come See The Paradise (1990)
    * The Commitments (1991)
    * The Road to Wellville (1994)
    * Evita (1996)
    * Angela's Ashes (1999)
    * The Life of David Gale (2003)
http://i1021.photobucket.com/albums/af338/pawellsphotos/Stardust%20Memories/alanparker.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/14/10 at 5:14 am

The person who died(?) on this day...Saint Valentine
Saint Valentine (in Latin, Valentinus) is the name of several martyred saints of ancient Rome. The name "Valentine", derived from valens (worthy), was popular in Late Antiquity. Of the Saint Valentine whose feast is on February 14, nothing is known except his name and that he was buried at the Via Flaminia north of Rome on February 14. It is even uncertain whether the feast of that day celebrates only one saint or more saints of the same name. For this reason this liturgical commemoration was not kept in the Catholic calendar of saints for universal liturgical veneration as revised in 1969. But "Martyr Valentinus the Presbyter and those with him at Rome" remains in the list of saints proposed for veneration by all Catholics.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Saint Valentine the Presbyter is celebrated on July 6, and Hieromartyr Saint Valentine (Bishop of Interamna, Terni in Italy) is celebrated on July 30. The name "Valentine" (Priest Valentio) does not occur in the earliest list of Roman martyrs, compiled by the Chronographer of 354. The feast of St. Valentine was first established in 496 by Pope Gelasius I, who included Valentine among those "... whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God." As Gelasius implied, nothing was known, even then, about the lives of any of these martyrs. The Saint Valentine that appears in various martyrologies in connection with February 14 is described either as:

    * A priest in Rome,
    * A bishop of Interamna (modern Terni), or
    * A martyr in the Roman province of Africa.

The first representation of Saint Valentine appeared in the Nuremberg Chronicle, (1493); alongside the woodcut portrait of Valentine the text states that he was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius II, known as Claudius Gothicus. He was arrested and imprisoned upon being caught marrying Christian couples and otherwise aiding Christians who were at the time being persecuted by Claudius in Rome. Helping Christians at this time was considered a crime. Claudius took a liking to this prisoner -- until Valentinus tried to convert the Emperor -- whereupon this priest was condemned to death. He was beaten with clubs and stoned; when that didn't finish him, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate. Various dates are given for the martyrdom or martyrdoms: 269, 270, or 273.

The official Roman Martyrology for February 14 mentions only one Saint Valentine.
Saint Valentine of Terni oversees the construction of his basilica at Terni, from a 14th century French manuscript (BN, Mss fr. 185)

English eighteenth-century antiquarians Alban Butler and Francis Douce, noting the obscurity of Saint Valentine's identity, suggested that Valentine's Day was created as an attempt to supersede the pagan holiday of Lupercalia. This idea has lately been contested by Professor Jack Oruch of the University of Kansas. Many of the current legends that characterise Saint Valentine were invented in the fourteenth century in England, notably by Geoffrey Chaucer and his circle, when the feast day of February 14 first became associated with romantic love.

While a website of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia and other sources give different lists of Saint Valentines, the Catholic Church's official list of recognized saints, the Roman Martyrology lists seven: a martyr (Roman priest or Terni bishop?) buried on the Via Flaminia (February 14); a priest from Viterbo (November 3); a bishop from Raetia who died in about 450 (January 7); a fifth-century priest and hermit (July 4); a Spanish hermit who died in about 715 (October 25); Valentine Berrio Ochoa, martyred in 1861 (November 24); and Valentine Jaunzarás Gómez, martyred in 1936 (September 18).
Earliest church dedications
Saint Valentine receives a rosary from the Virgin, by David Teniers III

Hagiographical sources speak of a Roman priest and a bishop of Terni each buried along the Via Flaminia outside Rome, at different distances from the city, with each venerated on February 14. In the Middle Ages, two Roman churches were dedicated to Saint Valentine. One was the tenth-century church Sancti Valentini de Balneo Miccine or de Piscina, which was rededicated by Pope Urban III in 1186. The other, on the Via Flaminia, was the ancient basilica S. Valentini extra Portam founded by Pope Julius I (337‑352), though not under this dedication. The basilica appellatur Valentini, "is called Valentine's"; but early basilicas were as often called by the name of their former owner as by the saint to whom they were dedicated: see titulus.

This, the earlier and by far more important of the churches, is dedicated to the less prominent of the two saints, Valentine, presbyter of Rome; this was the Basilica S. Valentini extra Portam, the "Basilica of Saint Valentine beyond the Gate" which was situated beyond the Porta Flaminia (the Porta del Popolo, which was the Porta S. Valentini when William of Malmesbury visited Rome). It stood on the right hand side at the second milestone on the Via Flaminia. It had its origins in a funerary chapel on the site of catacombs, which the Liber Pontificalis attributes to a foundation by Pope Julius I (337-352). However, the dedications of two basilicas dedicated by Julius are not specified in the Liber Pontificalis. It was restored or largely rebuilt by Pope Theodore (642‑649) and Pope Leo III (795‑816), enriched with an altar cloth by Pope Benedict II (683‑685) and by gifts of Pope Hadrian I (772‑795), Pope Leo III and Pope Gregory IV (827‑844), so that it had become ecclesia mirifice ornata, "a church marvellously adorned". The monastery of San Silvestro in Capite was annexed to it, and in the surviving epitome of a lost catalogue of the churches of Rome, compiled by Giraldus Cambrensis about 1200, it was hospitale S. Valentini extra urbem, the "hospital of Saint Valentine outside the city". But in the thirteenth century the martyr's relics were transferred to Santa Prassede, and the ancient basilica decayed: in Signorili's catalogue, made in about 1425, it was Ecclesia sancti Valentini extra portam sine muris non habet sacerdotem, "the church of Saint Valentine beyond the gate without walls, has no priest".
In the Golden Legend

The Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, compiled about 1260 and one of the most-read books of the High Middle Ages, gives sufficient details of the saints for each day of the liturgical year to inspire a homily on each occasion. The very brief vita of St Valentine has him refusing to deny Christ before the "Emperor Claudius" in the year 280. Before his head was cut off, this Valentine restored sight and hearing to the daughter of his jailer. Jacobus makes a play with the etymology of "Valentine", "as containing valour".
St. Valentine's Day
For more details on this topic, see Valentine's Day.

Historian Jack Oruch has made the case that the traditions associated with "Valentine's Day", documented in Geoffrey Chaucer's Parliament of Foules and set in the fictional context of an old tradition, had no such tradition before Chaucer. He argues that the speculative explanation of sentimental customs, posing as historical fact, had their origins among 18th-century antiquaries, notably Alban Butler, the author of Butler's Lives of Saints, and have been perpetuated even by respectable modern scholars. In the French 14th-century manuscript illumination from a Vies des Saints (illustration above), Saint Valentine, bishop of Terni, oversees the construction of his basilica at Terni; there is no suggestion here yet that the bishop was a patron of lovers.
Relics and liturgical celebration

The flower crowned skull of St Valentine is exhibited in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome.

In 1836, some relics that were exhumed from the catacombs of Saint Hippolytus on the Via Tiburtina, then near (rather than inside) Rome, were identified with St Valentine; placed in a casket, and transported to the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, Ireland, to which they were donated by Pope Gregory XVI. Many tourists visit the saintly remains on St. Valentine's Day, when the casket is carried in solemn procession to the high altar for a special Mass dedicated to young people and all those in love. Alleged relics of St. Valentine also lie at the reliquary of Roquemaure in France, in the Stephansdom in Vienna and also in Blessed John Duns Scotus' church in the Gorbals area of Glasgow, Scotland. There is also a gold reliquary bearing the words 'Corpus St. Valentin, M' (Body of St. Valentine, Martyr) at The Birmingham Oratory, UK in one of the side altars in the main church.

    Of greatest interest at this altar is the rich coffin which lies beneath it, containing the body of St. Valentine, a martyr whose relics from the Roman catacombs were given to John Henry Cardinal Newman by Blessed Pius IX in 1847.

The Saint Valentine who is celebrated on February 14 remains in the Catholic Church's official list of saints (the Roman Martyrology), but, in view of the scarcity of information about him, his commemoration was removed from the General Calendar for universal liturgical veneration, when this was revised in 1969. It is included in local calendars of places such as Balzan and Malta, where relics of the saint are claimed to be found. Some still observe the calendars of the Roman Rite from the Tridentine Calendar until 1969, in which Saint Valentine was at first celebrated as a simple feast, until 1955, when Pope Pius XII reduced the mention of Saint Valentine to a commemoration in the Mass of the day. It is kept as a commemoration by Traditionalist Roman Catholics who, in accordance with the authorization given by Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum of July 7, 2007, use the General Roman Calendar of 1962 and the liturgy of Pope John XXIII's 1962 edition of the Roman Missal, and, as a Simple Feast, by Traditionalist Roman Catholics who use the General Roman Calendar as in 1954.

The feast day of Saint Valentine, priest and martyr, was included in the Tridentine Calendar, with the rank of Simple, on February 14. In 1955, Pope Pius XII reduced the celebration to a commemoration within the celebration of the occurring weekday. In 1969, this commemoration was removed from the General Roman Calendar, but Saint Valentine continues to be recognized as a saint, since he is included in the Roman Martyrology, the Catholic Church's official list of saints. The feast day of Saint Valentine also continues to be included in local calendars of places such as Balzan and Malta, where relics of the saint are claimed to be found.
See also

    * La Fête du Baiser
    * Saint Valentine, 8th century Spanish martyr
http://i620.photobucket.com/albums/tt284/Osarseph/322012-7.jpg
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f249/InsaneAmbiguous/StValentinemosaic.jpg
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d42/cha_psh/saint.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/14/10 at 5:24 am


I was just about to do him ;D
Sorry http://www.inthe00s.com/Smileys/valentine/smiley.gif

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/14/10 at 6:16 am


Sorry http://www.inthe00s.com/Smileys/valentine/smiley.gif

That's OK :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/14/10 at 6:19 am


That's OK :)
Originally I was going to James Cook, the English explorer, navigator and cartographer, who died this day in 1779 in Hawaii, but the info was far too much to handle.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/14/10 at 6:41 am


The word of the day...Heart
      Your heart is the organ in your chest that pumps the blood around your body. People also use heart to refer to the area of their chest that is closest to their heart
You can refer to someone's heart when you are talking about their deep feelings and beliefs.
You use heart when you are talking about someone's character and attitude towards other people, especially when they are kind and generous.
If you refer to things of the heart, you mean love and relationships
The heart of something is the most central and important part of it.
http://i533.photobucket.com/albums/ee335/PicPocket74/coffee%20art/Copyofhearts.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/cillymiu/Heart/lovimage0sbnF.jpg
http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h47/satasiza/heart.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r183/All_About_Anime/heart.jpg
http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j301/brunette58/heart-1.jpg
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a100/jowanna__daatio/patterns/heart.jpg
http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn290/RAWRxitsmaya/REAL_HEART.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/cillymiu/Heart/shwluvh1.jpg




http://www.tailgatershandbook.com/Images/Heart.jpg  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/14/10 at 6:45 am

My Heart Will Goo On

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saalGKY7ifU

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/14/10 at 6:45 am


My Heart Will Goo On

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saalGKY7ifU


a very sad song.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/14/10 at 12:33 pm


Originally I was going to James Cook, the English explorer, navigator and cartographer, who died this day in 1779 in Hawaii, but the info was far too much to handle.

I had that a couple of times where it told me I had too many words, sometimes it's hard to distinguish what to keep and what not.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/14/10 at 12:34 pm


My Heart Will Goo On

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saalGKY7ifU


a very sad song.

Yes and very beautiful :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/14/10 at 12:37 pm


I had that a couple of times where it told me I had too many words, sometimes it's hard to distinguish what to keep and what not.
Exactly, that was the same reason for me too.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 02/14/10 at 6:44 pm


British Person of the Day: Simon Pegg

Simon Pegg (born Simon John Beckingham; 14 February 1970) is an English actor, comedian, writer, film producer and director. He is best known for his starring roles in Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Run Fatboy Run, the comedy series Spaced and his portrayal of Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the revamped Star Trek. Much of his major work has been in collaboration with some combination of Nick Frost, Jessica Hynes, Dylan Moran and Edgar Wright.

Career

In 1993, he moved to London and performed on the stand-up comedy circuit. In 1995 he took his acclaimed one-man show to the Edinburgh Festival, which led to his being invited to perform at festivals in Adelaide and Melbourne in Australia and Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch in New Zealand, which he did in 1996 and 1997. His work as a stand up attracted the attention of several TV producers, leading to appearances in Asylum, Six Pairs of Pants, Faith in the Future, Big Train and Hippies. From 1998 to 2004, Pegg regularly featured on BBC Radio 4's The 99p Challenge. In 1999, he created and co-wrote the Channel 4 sitcom Spaced with Jessica Stevenson. For this project Pegg brought in Nick Frost, his best friend. For his performance in this series, Pegg was nominated for a British Comedy Award as Best Male Comedy Newcomer. Pegg co-wrote (with Spaced director Edgar Wright) and starred in the "romantic zombie comedy" film Shaun of the Dead, released in April 2004. At George A. Romero's invitation, Pegg and Wright made cameo appearances in Romero's film, Land of the Dead. In 2004, Pegg also starred in a spin-off of the television show Danger! 50,000 Volts! called Danger! 50,000 Zombies!, in which he played a zombie hunter named Dr. Russel Fell.

Pegg's other credits include the World War II miniseries Band of Brothers, guest appearances on Black Books, Brass Eye Special, I'm Alan Partridge, The Parole Officer and in the Factory Records story 24 Hour Party People. He also played the mutant bounty hunter Johnny Alpha, the Strontium Dog, in a series of Big Finish Productions audio plays based on the character from British comic 2000 AD and featured in Guest House Paradiso, a film based on the sitcom Bottom.

Pegg appeared in the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who audio story Invaders From Mars as Don Chaney, and portrayed the Editor in the 2005 Doctor Who episode "The Long Game". He also narrated the first series of the documentary series Doctor Who Confidential.

Upon completion of Shaun of the Dead, Pegg was questioned on whether he would be abandoning the British film industry for bigger and better things, to which he replied "It's not like I'm going to run off and do Mission: Impossible III!" He then promptly went on to do just that, playing Benji Dunn, an I.M.F. technician who assists Tom Cruise's character, Ethan Hunt. In 2006 he played an American character, Gus, in Big Nothing alongside David Schwimmer.

In 2006, Pegg and Wright completed their second film, Hot Fuzz, released in February 2007. The film is a police-action movie homage and also stars Nick Frost. Pegg plays Nicholas Angel, a London policeman who is transferred to rural Sandford, a fictional village situated in Pegg's home county of Gloucestershire, where grisly events take place.

In 2007, Pegg starred in The Good Night (directed by Jake Paltrow) and Run Fatboy Run directed by David Schwimmer and co-starring Thandie Newton and Hank Azaria.

In 2008, Pegg wrote the dialogue for an English language re-release of the cult 2006 animated Norwegian film, Free Jimmy. Pegg received screenwriting credit for this, and Pegg also voiced one of the main characters in the English language version, which has an international range of actors including Woody Harrelson.

Pegg is co-writing and starring with Nick Frost in an upcoming film entitled Paul, with production expected to begin in June 2009. The plot revolves around characters played by Pegg and Frost road tripping across America. Pegg also announced that he and Wright had the idea for "the concluding part in what we are calling our 'Blood and Ice Cream' trilogy" (the first two being Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz). It is provisionally called The World Ends. In those films and in Spaced, Pegg typically plays the leading hero while Frost plays the sidekick. However, he has revealed that Paul will reverse this dynamic. Pegg has also stated that Wright will not direct, Paul not being part of their 'Blood and Ice Cream' trilogy. The completed script appeared on the 2008 Black List, a film-industry-compiled list of the best unproduced screenplays. Paul received two votes.

Pegg played engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the newest Star Trek film, released 8 May 2009. He wore a kilt to the film's United Kingdom premiere, at the Empire Leicester Square theatre. He told Jo Russell's show on Absolute Radio that he is waiting for a Scotty action figure to add to his collection of Simon Pegg action figures from Dr Who, Hot Fuzz, and Shaun of the Dead. He is currently completing a film, directed by John Landis, about Burke and Hare, the Ulster men who were notorious murderers and bodysnatchers in early nineteenth-century Edinburgh. His likeness was also used for the character of Wee Hughie in the comic book series The Boys; while this was done without Pegg's permission, he quickly became a fan of the title, and even wrote the introduction to the first bound volume.

Movies

The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
The World's End (2010)
Paul (2010)
Star Trek (2009)
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008)
Run, Fat Boy, Run (2007)
The Good Night (2007)
Hot Fuzz (2007)
Grindhouse (2007)
Big Nothing (2006)
Mission: Impossible 3 (2006)
Free Jimmy (2006)
Land of the Dead (2005)
The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse (2005)
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Sex & Lies (2004)
The Reckoning (2003)
Final Demand (2003)
24 Hour Party People (2002)
Band of Brothers (2001)
The Parole Officer (2001)
Guest House Paradiso (1999)
Tube Tales (1999)

http://www.virginmedia.com/images/bca0simon-pegg-290x400.jpg


I enjoy his films. Interesting bio, Philip. Thanks for sharing.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Womble on 02/14/10 at 6:47 pm


The word of the day...Heart
      Your heart is the organ in your chest that pumps the blood around your body. People also use heart to refer to the area of their chest that is closest to their heart
You can refer to someone's heart when you are talking about their deep feelings and beliefs.
You use heart when you are talking about someone's character and attitude towards other people, especially when they are kind and generous.
If you refer to things of the heart, you mean love and relationships
The heart of something is the most central and important part of it.
http://i533.photobucket.com/albums/ee335/PicPocket74/coffee%20art/Copyofhearts.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/cillymiu/Heart/lovimage0sbnF.jpg
http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h47/satasiza/heart.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r183/All_About_Anime/heart.jpg
http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j301/brunette58/heart-1.jpg
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a100/jowanna__daatio/patterns/heart.jpg
http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn290/RAWRxitsmaya/REAL_HEART.jpg
http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae1/cillymiu/Heart/shwluvh1.jpg



Love the heart pics, Ninny. Thanks for sharing.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 02/14/10 at 6:51 pm


Originally I was going to James Cook, the English explorer, navigator and cartographer, who died this day in 1779 in Hawaii, but the info was far too much to handle.


I was reading in the Sunday paper all about his death (in Hawaii). They thought he was a living god...then, unfortunately for him, they changed their minds!  :o  There is a monument to James Cook on the big island of Hawaii with the surrounding land deemed as English territory (forever England).

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 02/14/10 at 6:53 pm


Love the heart pics, Ninny. Thanks for sharing.  :)

Ditto. O0 And a perfect day to post all of that info.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/14/10 at 7:03 pm


Love the heart pics, Ninny. Thanks for sharing.  :)

Thanks Vinny :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/14/10 at 7:04 pm


Ditto. O0 And a perfect day to post all of that info.

Thanks Jeff :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/15/10 at 7:09 am

The word of the day...Dollhouse
a toy house with small furniture and sometimes dolls in it for children to play with
a house so small that it is likened to a child's plaything
Dollhouse is an American science fiction television series created by writer-director Joss Whedon under Mutant Enemy Productions. The show premiered on February 13, 2009 on the Fox network. ...
A dollhouse is a toy home, made in miniature. For the last century, dollhouses have primarily been the domain of children but their collection and ...
A Doll's House (Et dukkehjem) is an 1879 play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.
http://i639.photobucket.com/albums/uu120/darsvet2/dollhouse.jpg
http://i639.photobucket.com/albums/uu120/darsvet2/dollhouse2.jpg
http://i889.photobucket.com/albums/ac93/Fistfulofcoupons/doll-house.gif
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa118/meiweihuang/doll%20house/belledollhouse016edSmall.jpg
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj77/PKtech/TV/dollhouse1-liten.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/15/10 at 7:12 am

The person born on this day...Claire Bloom
Claire Bloom (born Patricia Claire Blume; 15 February 1931) is an English film and stage actress
Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth (née Grew) and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales. Her paternal grandparents, originally named Blumenthal, as well as her maternal grandparents, originally named Griewski, were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Bloom attended secondary school at the independent Badminton School in Bristol.
Career

After training at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the Central School of Speech and Drama, Bloom made her debut on BBC radio programmes. She made her stage debut in 1946, when she was 15, with the Oxford Repertory Theatre. Her London stage debut was in 1947 in the hit Christopher Fry play The Lady's Not For Burning, which also featured the young Richard Burton, starred John Gielgud and Pamela Brown and which, subsequently, was produced, with the aforementioned four, on Broadway in New York. The following year, she received great acclaim for her portrayal of Ophelia in Hamlet, the first of many works by William Shakespeare in which Bloom would appear.

Bloom has appeared in a number of plays and theatrical works in both London and New York. Those works include Look Back in Anger, Rashomon, and Bloom's favorite role, that of Blanche in the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire. Bloom has also performed in a one woman show that included monologues from several of her stage performances.

Bloom's first film role was in 1948, for the film The Blind Goddess. She was chosen by Charlie Chaplin in 1952 to appear in his film Limelight, which catapulted Bloom to stardom, and remains one of her most memorable roles. She was subsequently featured in a number of "costume" roles in films such as Alexander the Great, The Brothers Karamazov, The Buccaneer, and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm. Bloom also appeared in Laurence Olivier's film version of Richard III, Ibsen's A Doll's House, The Outrage with Paul Newman and Laurence Harvey, as well as the films The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Look Back in Anger, both with Richard Burton.

In the 1960s she began to play more contemporary roles, including an unhinged housewife in The Chapman Report, a psychologist in the Oscar winning film Charly, and Theodora in The Haunting. She also appeared in the Woody Allen film Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). Her most recent appearance in a Hollywood film was in the 1996 Sylvester Stallone film Daylight.

Bloom has appeared on television, perhaps the most memorable of which was her portrayal of Lady Marchmain in Brideshead Revisited (1981). Other roles included two prominent BBC Television productions for director Rudolph Cartier; co-starring with Sean Connery in Anna Karenina (1961), and playing Cathy in Wuthering Heights with Keith Michell as Heathcliff (1962). She also appeared as First Lady Edith Wilson in Backstairs at the White House (1979); as Joy Gresham, the wife of C. S. Lewis in Shadowlands (For that performance she received the BAFTA Award as Best Actress. (1985), and as the older Sophy in the 1992 miniseries The Camomile Lawn on Britain's Channel 4. Her most recent appearance in a miniseries was in the 2006 version of The Ten Commandments.

On continuing television series, she has appeared on the New York-based Law & Order: Criminal Intent. From 1991 to 1993, she portrayed villainess Orlena Grimaldi on the daytime drama As the World Turns. She also had major roles in several of the BBC-Shakespeare Play television presentations and has led workshops on Shakespearean performance practices.

In January 2006, she appeared on the London stage in Arthur Allan Seidelman's production of Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks by Richard Alfieri, a two-hander in which she co-starred with Billy Zane.

In December of 2009, she appeared in the BBC's Doctor Who alongside David Tennant in his final story as the Tenth Doctor, as a Time Lord credited only as "The Woman." though Russell T Davies alludes that the character is supposed to be The Doctor's mother in his book "A Writers Tale"
Personal life

Bloom has married three times. Her first marriage, in 1959, was to actor Rod Steiger, whom she had met when they both performed in the play Rashomon. Their daughter is opera singer Anna Steiger. Steiger and Bloom divorced in 1969. In that same year, Bloom married producer Hillard Elkins. The marriage lasted three years and the couple divorced in 1972. Bloom's third marriage on April 29, 1990 was to writer Philip Roth, her longtime companion. The couple divorced in 1995.

Bloom has written two memoirs about her life and career. The first, Limelight and After: The Education of an Actress, was released in 1982 and was an in-depth look at her career and the film and stage roles she had portrayed. Her second book, Leaving a Doll's House: A Memoir, was published in 1996, and went into greater details about her personal life; she discussed not only her marriages but her romantic relationships with Richard Burton and Laurence Olivier. The book created a stir when Bloom detailed the highly complicated relationship between her and Philip Roth during their marriage. The details Bloom shared were unflattering to Roth, and created a controversy regarding the true nature of their relationship. The character of Eve Frame in Roth's 1998 novel I Married a Communist is clearly intended as a retort.
Selected filmography

   * 1952: Limelight
   * 1953: The Man Between
   * 1955: "Richard III"
   * 1956: Alexander the Great)
   * 1957: The Brothers Karamazov
   * 1958: The Buccaneer
   * 1958: Look Back in Anger
   * 1960: Schachnovelle
   * 1961: The Chapman report
   * 1962: The wonderful world of the Brothers Grimm
   * 1962: The Haunting
   * 1963: Eighty thousand suspects
   * 1964: The Outrage
   * 1965: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
   * 1968: Charly
   * 1968: Three into two won’t go
   * 1968: The illustrated man
   * 1970: A Severed Head
   * 1973: The going up of David Lev
   * 1973: A doll’s house
   * 1976: Islands in the stream
   * 1981: Brideshead Revisited
   * 1981: Clash of the titans
   * 1983: Separate tables
   * 1984: Ellis Island
   * 1985: Ann and Debbie (TV)
   * 1986: Shadows on the sun
   * 1987: Sammy and Rosie Get Laid
   * 1987: Queenie
   * 1988: The lady and the highwayman
   * 1988: Shadow on the sun
   * 1989: Crimes and Misdemeanors
   * 1992: It’s nothing personal
   * 1994: Remember
   * 1994: A village affair
   * 1995: Mighty Aphrodite
   * 1996: Daylight
   * 1997: What the deaf man heard
   * 2000: Yesterday’s children
   * 2000: Love and murder: Love and murder
   * 2002: The Book of Eve
http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/qq85/cornershop15/ClaireBloomRichardBurton2-1.jpg
http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww31/haroldfilm/ClaireBloom.jpg
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa218/sulamite3/Doctor%20Who/claire-bloom.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/15/10 at 7:13 am


The word of the day...Dollhouse
a toy house with small furniture and sometimes dolls in it for children to play with
a house so small that it is likened to a child's plaything
Dollhouse is an American science fiction television series created by writer-director Joss Whedon under Mutant Enemy Productions. The show premiered on February 13, 2009 on the Fox network. ...
A dollhouse is a toy home, made in miniature. For the last century, dollhouses have primarily been the domain of children but their collection and ...
A Doll's House (Et dukkehjem) is an 1879 play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.
http://i639.photobucket.com/albums/uu120/darsvet2/dollhouse.jpg
http://i639.photobucket.com/albums/uu120/darsvet2/dollhouse2.jpg
http://i889.photobucket.com/albums/ac93/Fistfulofcoupons/doll-house.gif
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh82/quiroz923/Doll%20House/dollHouse074.jpg
http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z269/depot09/barbie_doll_house.jpg
http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss124/TamariaHolt01/house.jpg
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa118/meiweihuang/doll%20house/belledollhouse016edSmall.jpg
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj77/PKtech/TV/dollhouse1-liten.jpg


Sorry,never owned a dollhouse. ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/15/10 at 7:17 am

The person who died on this day...Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat "King" Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres. He was one of the first black Americans to host a television variety show, and has maintained worldwide popularity since his death; he is widely considered one of the most important musical personalities in United States history. Cole's first mainstream vocal hit was his 1943 recording of one of his compositions, "Straighten Up and Fly Right," based on a black folk tale that his father had used as a theme for a sermon. Johnny Mercer invited him to record it for the fledgling Capitol Records label. It sold over 500,000 copies, proving that folk-based material could appeal to a wide audience. Although Cole would never be considered a rocker, the song can be seen as anticipating the first rock and roll records. Indeed, Bo Diddley, who performed similar transformations of folk material, counted Cole as an influence.

Beginning in the late 1940s, Cole began recording and performing more pop-oriented material for mainstream audiences, often accompanied by a string orchestra. His stature as a popular icon was cemented during this period by hits such as "The Christmas Song" (Cole recorded that tune four times: on June 14, 1946, as a pure Trio recording, on August 19, 1946, with an added string section, on August 24, 1953, and in 1961 for the double album The Nat King Cole Story; this final version, recorded in stereo, is the one most often heard today), "Nature Boy" (1948), "Mona Lisa" (1950), "Too Young" (the #1 song in 1951), and his signature tune "Unforgettable" (1951). While this shift to pop music led some jazz critics and fans to accuse Cole of selling out, he never totally abandoned his jazz roots; as late as 1956, for instance, he recorded an all-jazz album After Midnight. Cole had one of his last big hits two years before his death, in 1963, with the classic "Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer", which reached #6 on the Pop chart.
Making television history

On November 5, 1956, The Nat King Cole Show debuted on NBC-TV. The Cole program was the first of its kind hosted by an African-American, which created controversy at the time.

Beginning as a 15-minute pops show on Monday night, the program was expanded to a half hour in July 1957. Despite the efforts of NBC, as well as many of Cole's industry colleagues—many of whom, such as Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte, Frankie Laine, Mel Tormé, Peggy Lee, and Eartha Kitt worked for industry scale (or even for no pay) in order to help the show save money—The Nat King Cole Show was ultimately done in by lack of a national sponsorship. Companies such as Rheingold Beer assumed regional sponsorship of the show, but a national sponsor never appeared.

The last episode of "The Nat King Cole Show" aired December 17, 1957. Cole had survived for over a year, and it was he, not NBC, who ultimately decided to pull the plug on the show. NBC, as well as Cole himself, had been operating at an extreme financial loss. Commenting on the lack of sponsorship his show received, Cole quipped shortly after its demise, "Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark." This statement, with the passing of time, has fueled the urban legend that Cole's show had to close down despite enormous popularity. In fact, the Cole program was routinely beaten by the competition at ABC, which was then riding high with its travel and western shows. In addition, musical variety series have always been risky enterprises with a fickle public; among the one-season casualties are Frank Sinatra in 1957, Judy Garland in 1963, and Julie Andrews in 1972.

In 1964, Cole made one of his final television appearances on The Jack Benny Program. In his typically magnanimous fashion, Benny allowed his guest star to steal the show. Cole sang “When I Fall in Love” in perhaps his finest and most memorable performance. Cole was introduced as “the best friend a song ever had” and traded very humorous banter with Benny. Cole highlighted a classic Benny skit in which Benny is upstaged by an emergency stand-in drummer. Introduced as Cole’s cousin, five-year-old James Bradley Jr. stunned Benny with incredible drumming talent and participated with Cole in playful banter at Benny’s expense. It would prove to be one of Cole's last performances.
Racism
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Nat King Cole corner in the Hotel Nacional de Cuba

Cole fought racism all his life and refused to perform in segregated venues. In 1956, he was assaulted on stage during a concert in Birmingham, Alabama, (while singing the song "Little Girl") by three members of the North Alabama White Citizens Council (a group led by Education of Little Tree author Asa "Forrest" Carter, himself not among the attackers), who apparently were attempting to kidnap him. The three male attackers ran down the aisles of the auditorium towards Cole and his band. Although local law enforcement quickly ended the invasion of the stage, the ensuing melée toppled Cole from his piano bench and injured his back. Cole did not finish the concert and never again performed in the South. A fourth member of the group who had participated in the plot was later arrested in connection with the act. All were later tried and convicted for their roles in the crime.

In 1956 he was contracted to perform in Cuba and wanted to stay at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, Havana, but was not allowed to because it operated a color bar. Cole honored his contract, however, and the concert at the Tropicana was a huge success. The following year, he returned to Cuba for another concert, singing many songs in Spanish. There is now a tribute to him in the form of a bust and a jukebox in the Hotel Nacional.
1950s and beyond

Throughout the 1950s, Cole continued to rack up hit after hit, including "Smile", "Pretend", "A Blossom Fell", and "If I May". His pop hits were collaborations with well-known arrangers and conductors of the day, including Nelson Riddle, Gordon Jenkins, and Ralph Carmichael. Riddle arranged several of Cole's 1950s albums, including his first 10-inch long-play album, his 1953 Nat King Cole Sings For Two In Love. In 1955, his single "Darling Je Vous Aime Beaucoup" reached #7 on the Billboard chart. Jenkins arranged Love Is the Thing, which hit #1 on the album charts in April 1957.

In 1958, Cole went to Havana, Cuba to record Cole Español, an album sung entirely in Spanish. The album was so popular in Latin America, as well as in the USA, that two others of the same variety followed: A Mis Amigos (sung in Spanish and Portuguese) in 1959 and More Cole Español in 1962. A Mis Amigos contains the Venezuelan hit "Ansiedad," whose lyrics Cole had learned while performing in Caracas in 1958. Cole learned songs in languages other than English by rote.

After the change in musical tastes during the late 1950s, Cole's ballad singing did not sell well with younger listeners, despite a successful stab at rock n' roll with "Send For Me" (peaked at #6 pop). Along with his contemporaries Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and Tony Bennett, Cole found that the pop singles chart had been almost entirely taken over by youth-oriented acts. In 1960, Nat's longtime collaborator Nelson Riddle left Capitol Records for Frank Sinatra's newly formed Reprise Records label. Riddle and Cole recorded one final hit album, Wild Is Love, based on lyrics by Ray Rasch and Dotty Wayne. Cole later retooled the concept album into an off-Broadway show, "I'm With You."

Cole did manage to record some hit singles during the 1960s, including the country-flavored hit "Ramblin' Rose" in August 1962 as well as "Dear Lonely Hearts", "Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days Of Summer" (his final hit, reaching #6 pop), and "That Sunday, That Summer".

Cole performed in many short films, sitcoms, and television shows and played W. C. Handy in the film St. Louis Blues (1958). He also appeared in The Nat King Cole Story, China Gate, and The Blue Gardenia (1953). Cat Ballou (1965), his final film, was released several months after his death.
Death and posthumous achievements
Cole's vault at Forest Lawn Memorial Park

Cole was a heavy smoker of Kool menthol cigarettes. He believed smoking kept his voice low. (He would smoke several cigarettes in succession before a recording for this very purpose.) He died of lung cancer on February 15, 1965, at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California. His funeral was held at St. James Episcopal Church on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. His remains were interred inside Freedom Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale.

His last album, L-O-V-E, was recorded in early December 1964—just a few days before he entered the hospital for cancer treatment—and was released just prior to his death. It peaked at #4 on the Billboard Albums chart in the spring of 1965. A "Best Of" album went gold in 1968. His 1957 recording of "When I Fall In Love" reached #4 in the UK charts in 1987.

In 1983, an archivist for EMI Electrola Records, EMI (Capitol's parent company) Records' subsidiary in Germany, discovered some songs Cole had recorded but that had never been released, including one in Japanese and another in Spanish ("Tu Eres Tan Amable"). Capitol released them later that year as the LP "Unreleased."

Cole was inducted into both the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame. In 1990, he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 1997 was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame. In 2007, he was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.

In 1991, Mosaic Records released "The Complete Capitol Recordings of the Nat King Cole Trio," an 18-compact-disc set consisting of 349 songs. (This special compilation also was available as a 27 LP set.)

Cole's youngest brother, Freddy Cole, and Cole's daughter Natalie are also singers. In the summer of 1991, Natalie Cole and her father had a hit when Natalie mixed her own voice with her father's 1961 rendition of "Unforgettable" as part of a tribute album to her father's music. The song and album of the same name won seven Grammy awards in 1992.
Marriage, children and other personal details

There has been some confusion as to Cole's actual year of birth. Cole himself used four different dates on official documents: 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1919. However, Nathaniel is listed with his parents and older siblings in the 1920 U.S. Federal census for Montgomery Ward 7 and his age is given as nine months old. Since this is a contemporary record, it is very likely he was born in 1919. This is also consistent with the 1930 census which finds him at age 11 with his family in Chicago's Ward 3. In the 1920 census, the race of all members of the family (Ed, Perlina, Eddie M., Edward D., Evelina and Nathaniel) is recorded as mulatto. Cole's birth year is also listed as 1919 on the Nat King Cole Society's web site.

Cole's first marriage, to Nadine Robinson, ended in 1948. On March 28, 1948 (Easter Sunday), just six days after his divorce from Nadine became final, Cole married singer Maria Hawkins Ellington. Although Maria had sung with Duke Ellington's band, she is not related to Duke Ellington. Maria and Cole were married in Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church by Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. They had five children: daughter Natalie (born 1950); adopted daughter Carole (the daughter of Maria's sister), (1944-2009), who died of lung cancer aged 64; adopted son Nat Kelly Cole (1959-1995), who died of AIDS at 36; and twin girls Casey and Timolin (born 1961).

In 1948, Cole purchased a house in the all-white Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. Members of the property-owners association told Cole they did not want any undesirables moving in. Cole retorted, "Neither do I. And if I see anybody undesirable coming in here, I'll be the first to complain." The Ku Klux Klan, still active in Los Angeles well into the 1950s, responded by placing a burning cross on his front lawn.

Cole carried on affairs throughout his marriages. By the time he developed lung cancer, he was estranged from his wife Maria in favor of actress Gunilla Hutton, best known as Nurse Goodbody of "Hee Haw" fame. But he was with Maria during his illness, and she stayed with him until his death. In an interview, Maria expressed no lingering resentment over his affairs. Instead, she emphasized his musical legacy and the class he exhibited in all other aspects of his life.

An official United States postage stamp featuring Cole's likeness was issued in 1994.

In 2000 Cole was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the major influences for early Rock and Roll.
Politics

Cole sang at the 1956 Republican National Convention in the Cow Palace, San Francisco, California, on August 23, 1956. There, his "singing of 'That's All There Is To That' was greeted with applause." He was also present at the Democratic National Convention in 1960 to throw his support behind President John F. Kennedy. Cole was also among the dozens of entertainers recruited by Frank Sinatra to perform at the Kennedy Inaugural gala in 1961. Cole frequently consulted with President Kennedy (and later President Johnson) on civil rights.
Notable TV appearances (other than his own show)

   * Ed Sullivan: Nat King Cole was on The Ed Sullivan Show six times before his own show ran regularly in 1957. He appeared twice after his show ended, once in 1958
         o Nat King Cole appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show by: (Season, Episode and Production Number, Air Date, Episode Title)
               + Season 9 (380.9-2 02-Oct-1955)
                     # Scheduled: Nat King Cole; "Fanny" cast and Josh Logan
               + Season 9 (383.9-5 23-Oct-1955)
                     # Scheduled: Nat King Cole & wife Maria; Jack Palance and Rod Steiger
               + Season 9 (404.9-26 18-Mar-1956)
                     # Scheduled: Marcel Marceau; Eli Wallach; Nat King Cole and Cesare Siepe
               + Season 9 (405.9-27 25-Mar-1956)
                     # Scheduled: Nat King Cole; Jack Carter and Reese & Davis
               + Season 9 (411.9-33 06-May-1956)
                     # Scheduled: Tony Martin; Nat King Cole; Edie Adams; The Lovers and Will Jordan
               + Season 9 (416.9-38 10-Jun-1956)
                     # Scheduled: Nat King Cole; Bob Hope (on film); Jack Carter and film: "A Short Vision"
               + Season 11 (510.11-29 13-Apr-1958)
                     # Scheduled: Nat King Cole; Mickey Mantle; Yogi Berra and Jack Norworth
               + Season 14 (648.14-16 29-Jan-1961)
                     # Scheduled: Carmen McRae; Carol Channing and Nat King Cole
   * Dinah Shore: Nat King Cole was also on The Dinah Shore Show – singing "Mr. Cole Won’t Rock & Roll" — in the early-1960s.
   * Your Show of Shows ... aka Sid Caesar's Show of Shows - Episode dated September 12, 1953.
   * What's My Line? (Mystery Guest, December 6, 1953)
   * An Evening With Nat King Cole BBC Special 1963.

Discography
Main article: Nat King Cole discography
Filmography
Features

   * Citizen Kane (1941) (off-screen)
   * Here Comes Elmer (1943)
   * Pistol Packin' Mama (1943)
   * Pin Up Girl (1944)
   * Stars on Parade (1944)
   * Swing in the Saddle (1944)
   * See My Lawyer (1945)
   * Breakfast in Hollywood (1946)
   * Killer Diller (1948)
   * Make Believe Ballroom (1949)
   * The Blue Gardenia (1953)
   * Small Town Girl (1953)
   * Rock 'n' Roll Revue (1955)
   * Rhythm and Blues Revue (1955)
   * Basin Street Revue (1956)
   * The Scarlet Hour (1956)
   * Istanbul (1957)
   * China Gate (1957)
   * St. Louis Blues (1958)
   * Night of the Quarter Moon (1959)
   * Schlager-Raketen (1960)
   * Cat Ballou (1965)

Short subjects

   * King Cole Trio & Benny Carter Orchestra (1950)
   * Nat King Cole and Joe Adams Orchestra (1952)
   * Nat King Cole and Russ Morgan and His Orchestra (1953)
   * The Nat King Cole Musical Story (1955)

See also
Music portal

   * List of African American firsts
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/15/10 at 7:22 am

Unforgettable. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/15/10 at 10:44 am


Unforgettable. :)

Great song.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/16/10 at 6:12 am

The word of the day...Crowd
A crowd is a large group of people who have gathered together, for example to watch or listen to something interesting, or to protest about something
A particular crowd is a group of friends, or a set of people who share the same interests or job.
When people crowd around someone or something, they gather closely together around them.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/16/10 at 6:14 am

The person born on this day...John Schlesinger
John Richard Schlesinger, CBE (16 February 1926 – 25 July 2003) was an English film and stage director.
Schlesinger was born in London into a middle class Jewish family, the son of Winifred Henrietta (née Regensburg) and Bernard Edward Schlesinger, a physician. After Uppingham School and graduating from Balliol College, Oxford, he worked as an actor.
Career

One of his earliest films, the British Transport Films' documentary Terminus (1960), gained a Venice Film Festival Gold Lion and a British Academy Award. His first two fiction movies, A Kind of Loving (1962) and Billy Liar (1963) were set in the North of England. A Kind of Loving won the Golden Bear award at the 12th Berlin International Film Festival in 1962.

His third Darling (1965) described tartly the modern urban way of life in London and was one of the first films about 'swinging London'. Schlesinger's next movie was Far From the Madding Crowd (1967), an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's popular novel. Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy (1969) was internationally acclaimed and it won Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture.

His later films include Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), The Day of the Locust (1975), Marathon Man (1976), Yanks (1979), Pacific Heights (1990), A Question of Attribution (1991), The Innocent (1993) and The Next Best Thing (2000).

Schlesinger also directed Timon of Athens (1965) for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the musical I and Albert (1972) at London's Piccadilly Theatre. From 1973 he was an associate director of the Royal National Theatre.

Openly gay, Schlesinger dealt with homosexuality in Midnight Cowboy, Sunday Bloody Sunday and The Next Best Thing, and two main characters in Marathon Man were at least implicitly gay. Speaking about Midnight Cowboy's unflattering portrayal of homosexuality, he stated that he was against political correctness and the self-censorship it encourages, which would prevent such a film from being made today.

Schlesinger also directed a notable party political broadcast for the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom general election, 1992 which featured Prime Minister John Major returning to Brixton in south London where he had spent his teenage years, which highlighted his humble background, atypical for a Conservative politician. Schlesinger admitted to voting for all three main political parties in the UK at one time or another.

The book and TV series The Glittering Prizes, writer Frederic Raphael, who won the Best Screenwriting Oscar for his work on Schlesinger's film Darling, feature a character believed to be based on Schlesinger.
Death

Schlesinger underwent a quadruple heart bypass in 1998, before suffering a stroke in December 2000. He was taken off life support at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs on July 24, 2003 by his life partner of over 30 years, photographer Michael Childers. Schlesinger died early the following day at the age of 77.
Filmography

Feature and television films

    * A Kind of Loving (1962)
    * Billy Liar (1963)
    * Darling (1965)
    * Far From the Madding Crowd (1967)
    * Midnight Cowboy (1969)
    * Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)
    * Visions of Eight (1973)
    * The Day of the Locust (1975)
    * Marathon Man (1976)
    * Yanks (1979)
    * Honky Tonk Freeway (1981)
    * Privileged (1982)
    * Separate Tables (1983) (TV)
    * An Englishman Abroad (1983) (TV)
    * The Falcon and the Snowman (1985)
    * The Believers (1987)
    * Madame Sousatzka (1988)
    * Pacific Heights (1990)
    * A Question of Attribution (1991) (TV)
    * The Innocent (1993)
    * Cold Comfort Farm (1995) (TV)
    * Eye for an Eye (1996)
    * The Tale of Sweeney Todd (1998) (TV)
    * The Next Best Thing (2000)
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/16/10 at 6:19 am

The person who died on this day...Eddie Foy
Eddie Foy, Sr. (born Edwin Fitzgerald March 9, 1856, in Greenwich Village, New York City; died February 16, 1928, Kansas City, Missouri), was an actor, comedian, dancer and vaudevillian.
Foy's parents, Richard and Mary Fitzgerald immigrated to the United States from Ireland in 1855 and lived first in New York's Bowery, then in Greenwich Village, where Eddie was born. Richard Fitzgerald died in an insane asylum in 1862 from syphilis-induced dementia, and his widow took her four children (Eddie was second oldest) to Chicago, where she reportedly at one time tended the mentally ill widow of Abraham Lincoln. Six-year-old Eddie began performing in in the streets and local saloons to support his family. At 15, he changed his name to Foy and with a partner began dancing in bars, traveling throughout the western United States. He worked for a time as a supernumerary in theatrical productions, sharing a stage at times with such leading men of the time as Edwin Booth and Joseph Jefferson. With another partner, Jim Thompson, Foy went west again and gained his first professional recognition in mining camps and cow towns. In one such town, Dodge City, Kansas, Foy and his partner lingered for some time and Foy became acquainted with notable citizens Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Doc Holliday. Foy in later years told of an altercation over a girl with fellow actor Charles Chapin, who was drunkenly taking pot-shots at Foy. The gunfire awakened Wyatt Earp, who disarmed the actor and sent both the players home to sleep it off. Foy is also rumored to have been in Tombstone, Arizona in October 1881 appearing at the local theatre when the Gunfight at the OK Corral occurred on the 26th of that month.

In 1879, Foy married Rose Howland, one of the singing Howland Sisters, who were traveling the same circuit. Three years later, Foy and troupe relocated to Philadelphia and joined the Carncross Minstrels. That same year, however, Rose Foy died in childbirth, as did the child she was delivering. Foy lingered with the troupe for two seasons, then returned to the road. He joined David Henderson's troupe and traveled all around the U.S. dancing, doing comedy, and acting in farces. In San Francisco, he met Lola Sefton and was romantically involved with her for ten years, until her death in 1894. Although some sources claim they were married, no record of their marriage has ever been found, nor apparently did Foy ever state clearly that a marriage had occurred. They had no children.
Return to Chicago
Sheet music for Wedding Bells from Sinbad with Eddie Foy on the cover, 1891

He returned to Chicago in 1888 as the star comedian in variety shows and revues, initially for his own company. He played the variety circuits for years in a series of song and dance acts, eventually rising to musical comedy stardom in such Broadway hits as The Strollers (1901), and Mr. Bluebeard (1903). Foy specialized in eccentric routines and costumes, often appearing in drag to hilarious effect. His upper lip extended well below his teeth, giving him an unusual V-shaped grin, and making him look like he had no upper teeth. As a result he spoke with a slurred lisp that audiences adored.

In 1896, Foy married his third wife, Madeline Morando, a dancer with his company. She gave him eleven children, of whom seven survived. These were: Bryan (1896-1977) who became a producer at Warner Bros; Charley (1898-1984), an actor; Mary (1901-1987); Madeline (1903-1988), an actress; Eddie Jr. (1905-1983) who carved out a successful career as an actor and entertainer on stage and screen, including The Pajama Game, and Bells Are Ringing; Richard (1905-1947) and Irving (1908-2003), a writer. Eddie Jr.'s son, Eddie III, was a casting director with Columbia Pictures for over 40 years.
Eddie Foy's plaque in Eddie Foy Park

Between 1901 and 1912 Foy Sr. played the leading comic roles in a series of musical comedies in New York City and on tour including The Strollers (1901), The Wild Rose (1902), Mr. Bluebeard (1903), Piff! Paff! Pouf! (1904), The Earl and the Girl (1905), The Orchid (1907), Mr Hamlet of Broadway (1908/9), Up and Down Broadway (1910), and Over the River (1912). It was while on tour with Mr. Bluebeard that he became a hero of Chicago’s infamous Iroquois Theater Fire, December 30, 1903. A malfunctioning spotlight set fire to the scenery backstage, and Foy stayed onstage until the last minute, trying to keep the audience from panicking. Unfortunately the theatre’s safety features were woefully inadequate, the theatre personnel untrained, and some of the exits had been locked from the outside; at least 600 people perished. Foy escaped by crawling through a sewer.
Eddie Foy and The Seven Little Foys
The headstone of Eddie Foy in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.

Between 1910 and 1913, he formed a family vaudeville act, and "Eddie Foy and The Seven Little Foys" quickly turned into a national institution. While Eddie was a stern disciplinarian backstage (his wife Madeline died in 1918) he portrayed an indulgent papa onstage, and the Foys toured successfully for over a decade and appeared in one motion picture. When Eddie remarried - to Marie Reilly Coombs - in 1923, the children went their separate ways. A dedicated trouper, the elder Foy continued to appear in vaudeville and starred in the hit Broadway comedy "The Fallen Star" in 1927. He died of a heart attack while headlining on the Orpheum circuit in Kansas City, Mo. at age 71.

All his children except Bryan are buried with their father at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in New Rochelle, New York. The family’s story was filmed in 1955 as The Seven Little Foys, with Bob Hope as Eddie Sr. and James Cagney as George M. Cohan; Charley Foy narrated. Eddie Foy Jr. appeared as his father in several films: Frontier Marshal (1939), Lillian Russell (1940), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) Wilson (1944), as well as a television version of The Seven Little Foys with Mickey Rooney (1964).
See also

    * Iroquois Theater Fire
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/16/10 at 11:54 am


Unforgettable. :)
Thats what you are.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/16/10 at 3:08 pm

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/2415/threesdesignkh5.png

Too bad this didn't last long. :(

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/16/10 at 4:08 pm


http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/2415/threesdesignkh5.png

Too bad this didn't last long. :(

I forgot about that show :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/17/10 at 5:57 am


I forgot about that show :)


That show could've lasted a couple of more years.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/17/10 at 6:13 am

The word of the day...Backstage
In a theatre, backstage refers to the areas behind the stage.
out of view of the public; behind the scenes; "Working backstage to gain political support for his proposal"
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/17/10 at 6:31 am

The person born on this day...Jerry O'Connell
Jeremiah "Jerry" O'Connell (born February 17, 1974) is an American actor, best known for his roles in the TV series Sliders, Vern Tessio in the film Stand by Me, Charlie Carbone in Kangaroo Jack, and Detective Woody Hoyt on the drama Crossing Jordan.
O'Connell was born in New York City, the son of Linda (née Witkowski), an art teacher, and Michael O'Connell, an advertising agency art director. His maternal grandfather, Charles S. Witkowski, was the mayor of Jersey City, NJ. O'Connell is of Irish descent on his father's side and Polish ancestry on his mother's. O'Connell was raised in Manhattan with a younger brother Charlie O'Connell, also an actor. O'Connell began his acting career at a young age. As a child, he did commercial work for Duncan Hines cookies. Shortly after at the age of eleven, he landed his first feature film role as the character Vern Tessio in Rob Reiner's Stand by Me. As a teenager, he starred in the Canadian TV series My Secret Identity from 1988–91, and attended Manhattan's Professional Children's School.

O'Connell attended New York University (NYU) from 1991 to 1994, majoring in film. While there, he studied screen writing and competed on the NYU fencing team, serving a stint as captain of the sabre squad. However, he left NYU several credits short of graduation in 1999.
Adult career

O'Connell starred in the sci-fi sitcom My Secret Identity from 1988-1991 as the teen hero who develops superhuman traits. During a summer break from NYU, Jerry starred in the feature film Calendar Girl alongside Jason Priestley and Gabriel Olds. He also appeared in the short-lived ABC sitcom, Camp Wilder with Jay Mohr and Hilary Swank in 1992. In his Junior year, O'Connell auditioned for the TV pilot Sliders. He was offered the role of Quinn Mallory in the series, which ran for three seasons on Fox and two seasons on the Sci-Fi Channel. He served as producer during his fourth and final season, and is credited with writing and directing several episodes.

O'Connell has since gone on to star in such movies as Jerry Maguire, Body Shots, Mission to Mars, Tomcats, Scream 2, and Kangaroo Jack. O'Connell has also tried his hand at screenwriting and sold his first screenplay, for First Daughter, to New Regency in 1999. The film was released in 2004 by 20th Century Fox-based Davis Entertainment. O'Connell served as executive producer on the film, which starred Katie Holmes and Michael Keaton.

O'Connell starred as Detective Woody Hoyt on the NBC crime drama Crossing Jordan (2001) until its cancellation, and was engaged to TV personality Giuliana DePandi. He starred opposite her in the Ugly Betty episode "Derailed". O'Connell has also starred as Hoyt in several episodes of Las Vegas. In 2004, he wore a diaper on Last Call with Carson Daly, during a mock commercial skit for the GoodNites bedwetting product. The National Enquirer caught him filming the skit and printed a photo of him in his diaper.

In 2005, O'Connell guest-starred in one episode of the animated series Justice League Unlimited. In the episode, entitled "The Clash", he played Captain Marvel.

His younger brother Charlie O'Connell, an alumnus of NYU who was most recently seen as The Bachelor, is also an actor who has appeared with Jerry in several productions, usually playing the brother of Jerry's character, such as in Sliders and Crossing Jordan.

In 2007-08 Jerry O'Connell starred in ABC's Carpoolers, which ran from October 2, 2007 to March 4, 2008. Although it has not appeared in the Fall '08 lineup, it could come back in the future seasons on ABC.

In early 2008, O'Connell acted in a widely circulated Internet video parody of the leaked Tom Cruise video on Scientology. He also co-wrote and appeared in a video parody called "Young Hillary Clinton," satirizing Hillary Clinton's 2008 primary campaign. On February 2, 2008, O'Connell hosted VH1's Pepsi Smash Super Bowl Bash, which aired the night before Super Bowl XLII and featured musical guests Maroon 5 and Mary J. Blige. On April 28, 2008, O'Connell appeared as a guest star on ABC's Samantha Who?.

In the fall of 2008 O'Connell starred in Fox's Do Not Disturb, costarring Niecy Nash, but Fox cancelled the show after only three episodes.

Most recently, he appeared in the 2009 thriller film Obsessed as "Ben", the best friend and co-worker of the film's protagonist Derek Charles (Idris Elba).

Jerry will appear in Eastwick on ABC, alongside his wife who stars in the series. Jerry will play a good man hiding a horrible secret. His character is a single father, a widower, with a young son who is a part of this secret. Kat will be drawn to him, and she will be put in danger as a result.

O'Connell portrayed Derrick Jones in Alexandre Aja's Piranha 3-D, which also stars Elizabeth Shue.

It has been announced that O'connell will co-star with David Tennant in the new NBC legal drama Rex Is Not Your Lawyer.
Personal life

On July 14, 2007, O'Connell married actress and former model Rebecca Romijn near Los Angeles in Calabasas, California.

A self-proclaimed "Super Super Fan" of The Howard Stern Show, O'Connell placed last in the "Celebrity" version of the "Super Fan Contest" that took place on May 13, 2008. His opponents were Jimmy Kimmel and Jeff Probst. Kimmel ultimately won the contest by a large margin.

After weeks of officially stating that the couple was "trying" to get pregnant, a publicist for the pair confirmed that Romijn was pregnant with twin girls. When talking about having children, O'Connell said "I am excited I am having girls. I know guys are supposed to say, 'I want a boy. I want to play baseball,' but I think I'm going to be good raising girls...I can't wait. They're going to be tough chicks. They're only having sex when I'm dead. If they don't date boys at all and just want to be infatuated with their father, that's what I'm really going for. The nunnery!" O'Connell and Romijn welcomed their twin girls, Dolly Rebecca Rose and Charlie Tamara Tulip, on December 28, 2008.

O'Connell enrolled in Southwestern Law School in the fall of 2009.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1986 Stand by Me Vern Tessio
1988 Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach Kid at beach Uncredited
1993 Calendar Girl Scott Foreman
1996 Joe's Apartment Joe
Jerry Maguire Frank Cushman
1997 Scream 2 Derek
1998 Can't Hardly Wait Trip McNeely Uncredited
1999 Body Shots Michael Penorisi
2000 Clayton
Mission to Mars Phil Ohlmyer
2001 Tomcats Michael Delaney
2002 The New Guy Highland Party Twin
Buying the Cow David Collins
2003 Kangaroo Jack Charlie Carbone
2004 Fat Slags Sean Cooley
2005 'Yours, Mine and Ours Max/Mac
2006 The Alibi Businessman
Man About Town David Lilly
Room 6 Lucas Dylan
2008 The Parody Video Tom Cruise Wants You to See Tom Cruise Short film
2009 Baby on Board Curtis
Obsessed Ben
2010 Piranha 3-D Derrick Jones
Cat Tale Biscuit (voice)
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1987 The Room Upstairs Carl 1 episode
1988 The Equalizer Bobby Episode: "The Child Broker"
Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss Ralph Parker TV movie
1988-91 My Secret Identity Andrew Clements Cast member
1989 Charles in Charge David Landon Episode: "The Organization Man"
1990 TGIF Brody Unknown episodes
1992 Camp Wilder Brody Wilder Episode: "See Spot Go"
1995 The Ranger, the Cook and a Hole in the Sky Mac TV movie
Blue River Lawrence Sellars
1995-99 Sliders Quinn Mallory Cast member
1999 The 60's Brian Herlihy TV movie
2001 Night Visions Andy Episode: "Rest Stop"
2002 Going to California Pete Rossock Episode: "Searching For Eddie Van Halen"
Rome Fire Ryan Wheeler TV movie
2002-7 Crossing Jordan Detective Woody Hoyt Cast member
2003 MADtv Ted Levin Episode: 8.12
2004 Without a Trace Joe Gibson Episode: "Hawks and Handsaws"
The Screaming Cocktail Hour Singer TV series
2004-6 Las Vegas Detective Woody Hoyt 5 episode
2005 Justice League Unlimited Captain Marvel Episode: "Clash"
2007 On the Lot Jerry 'The Move' Episode "6 Cut to 5 & 5 Directors Compete"
Ugly Betty Joel Episode: "Derailed"
The Batman Nightwing 2 episodes: "The Metal Face of Comedy", "Artifacts"
2007-8 Carpoolers Laird Cast member
2008 Samantha Who? Craig Episode: "The Gallery Show"
Do Not Disturb Neal 6 episodes
2009 Midnight Bayou Declan Fitzpatrick TV movie
Eastwick Colin Friesen Episode: "Magic Snow and Creepy Gene"
2010 Rex Is Not Your Lawyer TBA Upcoming TV series
Producer

    * Sliders (1995) TV series (producer: 1998–1999)
    * First Daughter (2004)

Director

    * Sliders (1997) TV series - "Stoker"
    * Sliders (1999) TV series - "Slidecage," "Lipschitz Live," "Data World," "Roads Taken"

Writer

    * Sliders (1999) - "Way out West",
    * First Daughter (2004) - screenplay

Music videos

    * "David Duchovny" - Bree Sharp
    * "Heartbreaker" - Mariah Carey (1999)

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t67/ryu_036/jerry-oconnell.jpg
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h94/LegacyGB/oconnell_chargers.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y253/DeeLightning/Other/0408.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/17/10 at 6:39 am

The person who died on this day...Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg (November 17, 1901 – February 17, 1982) was an American actor, director and acting teacher. He cofounded, with director Harold Clurman, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as "America's first true theatrical collective". In 1951, he became director of the non-profit Actors Studio, in New York City, considered "the nation's most prestigious acting school". In 1969, Strasberg founded the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York City and in Hollywood to teach the work he pioneered.

He was the chief proponent of "Method acting" from the 1920s until his death in 1982, and according to acting author Mel Gussow, "he revolutionized the art of acting and had a profound influence on performance in American theater and movies". From his base in New York, he trained several generations of theatre and film's most illustrious talents, including Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Julie Harris, Paul Newman, Al Pacino and director Elia Kazan.

Former student Elia Kazan directed James Dean in East of Eden (1955), for which Kazan and Dean were nominated for Academy Awards. Dean once wrote that Actors Studio was "the greatest school of the theater the best thing that can happen to an actor". In more recent years, directors like Sidney Lumet have intentionally used actors skilled in Strasberg's "Method".

Kazan, in his autobiography, wrote, "He carried with him the aura of a prophet, a magician, a witch doctor, a psychoanalyst, and a feared father of a Jewish home.... e was the force that held the thirty-odd members of the theatre together, and made them 'permanent.'" :61 Today, Ellen Burstyn, Al Pacino, and Harvey Keitel lead this nonprofit studio dedicated to the development of actors, playwrights, and directors.
Kazan biographer Richard Schickel described Strasberg's first experiences to the "art" of acting:

    He dropped out of high school, worked in a shop that made hairpieces, drifted into the theater via a settlement house company and … had his life-shaping revelation when Stanislavsky brought his Moscow Art Theatre to the United States in 1923. He had seen good acting before, of course, but never an ensemble like this with actors completely surrendering their egos to the work.... e observed, first of all, that all the actors, whether they were playing leads or small parts, worked with the same commitment and intensity. No actors idled about posing and preening (or thinking about where they might dine after the performance). More important, every actor seemed to project some sort of unspoken, yet palpable, inner life for his or her character. This was acting of a sort that one rarely saw on the American stage ... here there was little stress on the psychology of the characters or their interactions.... Strasberg was galvanized. He knew that his own future as an actor – he was a slight and unhandsome man – was limited. But he soon perceived that as a theoretician and teacher of this new 'system' it might become a major force in American theater.

Strasberg eventually left the Clare Tree Major School to study with students of Stanislavsky – Maria Ouspenskaya and Richard Boleslavsky – at the American Laboratory Theater. In 1925 Strasberg had his first professional appearance in Processional, a play produced by the Theater Guild. According to Schickel:

    What Strasberg... took away from the Actor's Lab was a belief that just as an actor could be prepared physically for his work with dance, movement and fencing classes, he could be mentally prepared by resort to analogous mental exercises. They worked on relaxation as well as concentration. They worked with nonexistent objects that helped prepare them for the exploration of equally ephemeral emotions. They learned to used “affective memory”, as Strasberg called the most controversial aspect of his teaching — summoning emotions from their own lives to illuminate their stage roles.... Strasberg believed he could codify this system, a necessary precursor to teaching it to anyone who wanted to learn it... e became a director more preoccupied with getting his actors to work in the “correct” way than he was in shaping the overall presentation.


Acting director and teacher
Group Theater

He gained a reputation with the Theater Guild of New York and helped form the Group Theater in New York in 1931. There he created a technique which became known as "the Method" or "method acting." His teaching style owed much to the Russian director, Stanislavsky, whose book, An Actor Prepares, dealt with the psychology of interpretation in acting. He began by directing, but his time was gradually taken up by the training of actors. Called "America’s first true theatrical collective," the Lab immediately offered a few tuition-free scholarships for its three-year program to "promising students".
Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio

Publishers Weekly wrote "The Group Theatre... ith its self-defined mission to reconnect theater to the world of ideas and actions, staged plays that confronted social and moral issues... ith members Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg, Stella and Luther Adler, Clifford Odets, Elia Kazan and an ill-assorted band of idealistic actors living hand to mouth are seen welded in a collective of creativity that was also a tangle of jealousies, love affairs and explosive feuds." Playwright Arthur Miller said "the Group Theatre was unique and probably will never be repeated. For awhile it was literally the voice of Depression America".

Co-founder Harold Clurman, in describing what Strasberg brought to the Group Theater, wrote:

    Lee Strasberg is one of the few artists among American theater directors. He is the director of introverted feeling, of strong emotion curbed by ascetic control, sentiment of great intensity muted by delicacy, pride, fear, shame. The effect he produces is a clasic hush, tense and tragic, a constant conflict so held in check that a kind of beautiful spareness results. The roots are clearly in the intimate experience of a complex psychology, an acute awareness of human contradiction and suffering.


Actors

In 1947, Elia Kazan, Robert Lewis, and Cheryl Crawford, also members of the Group Theatre, started the Actors Studio as a non-profit workshop for professional and aspiring actors to concentrate on their craft away from the pressures of the commercial theatre. Strasberg assumed leadership of the studio in 1951 as its artistic director. "As a teacher and acting theorist, he revolutionized American actor training and engaged such remarkable performers as Kim Hunter, Marilyn Monroe, Julie Harris, Paul Newman, Geraldine Page, Ellen Burstyn, and Al Pacino." Since its inception the Studio has been a nonprofit educational corporation chartered by the state of New York, and has been supported entirely by contributions and benefits.... We have here the possibility of creating a kind of theatre that would be a shining medal for our country", Strasberg said in 1959. UCLA acting teacher Robert Hethmon writes, "The Actors Studio is a refuge. Its privacy is guarded ferociously against the casual intruder, the seeker of curiousities, and the exploiter... he Studio helps actors to meet the enemy within... and contributes greatly to Strasberg's utterly pragmatic views on training the actor and solving his problems ... is kept deliberately modest in its circumstances, its essence being the private room where Lee Strasberg and some talented actors can work."

Strasberg wrote, "At the studio, we do not sit around and feed each other's egos. People are shocked how severe we are on each other." Admission to the Actors Studio was usually by audition with more than a thousand actors auditioning each year and the directors usually conferring membership on only five or six each year. "The Studio was, and is sui generis", said Elia Kazan, proudly. Beginning in a small, private way, with a strictly off-limits-to-outsiders policy, the Studio quickly earned a high reputation in theatre circles. "It became the place to be, the forum where all the most promising and unconventional young actors were being cultivated by sharp young directors..." Actors who have worked at the studio include Julie Harris, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton, Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Patricia Neal, Rod Steiger, Mildred Dunnock, Eva Marie Saint, Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson, Ben Gazzara, Sidney Poitier, Karl Malden, Shelley Winters and Sally Field.
Strasberg acting with Al Pacino in Godfather II

Al Pacino

        The Actors Studio meant so much to me in my life. Lee Strasberg hasn't been given the credit he deserves. Brando doesn't give Lee any credit ... Next to Charlie , it sort of launched me. It really did. That was a remarkable turning point in my life. It was directly responsible for getting me to quit all those jobs and just stay acting.

   

Marlon Brando
    Movie stars spawned by Strasberg's Actors Studio were of a new type which is often labeled the "rebel hero", wrote Pamela Wojcik. Historian Sam Staggs writes that "Brando was the hot, sleek engine on the Actors Studio express", and called him " embodiment of Method acting", but Brando was trained primarily by Stella Adler, a former member of the Group Theatre who had a falling out with Strasberg over his interpretations of Stanislavsky's ideas." He based his acting technique on the Method, once stating, "t made me a real actor. The idea is you learn to use everything that happened in your life and you learn to use it in creating the character you're working on. You learn to dig into your unconscious and make use of every experience you ever had."

Playwright Tennessee Williams

James Dean

According to James Dean biographer W. Bast, "Proud of this accomplishment, Dean referred to the studio in a 1952 letter, when he was 21 years old, to his family as 'The greatest school of the theater. It houses great people like Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Arthur Kennedy, Mildred Dunnock ... ery few get into it.... It is the best thing that can happen to an actor. I am one of the youngest to belong.'"

Marilyn Monroe

Film author Maurice Zolotow wrote: "Between The Seven Year Itch and Some Like it Hot only four years elapsed, but her world had changed. She had become one of the most celebrated personalities in the world. She had divorced Joe Di Maggio. She had married Arthur Miller. She had become a disciple of Lee Strasberg. She was seriously studying acting. She was reading good books."

Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams' plays have been populated by graduates of the studio, where he felt that "studio actors had a more intense and honest style of acting". He wrote, "They act from the inside out. They communicate emotions they really feel. They give you a sense of life." Williams was also a founder of the group and a key member of its playwright's wing, and later wrote A Streetcar Named Desire, Brando's greatest early role.

Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda recalled that at the age of five, she and her brother, actor Peter Fonda, acted out Western stories similar to those her father, Henry Fonda, played in the movies. She attended Vassar College and went to Paris for two years to study art. Upon returning, she met Lee Strasberg and the meeting changed the course of her life, Fonda saying, "I went to the Actor's Studio and Lee Strasberg told me I had talent. Real talent. It was the first time that anyone, except my father--who had to say so--told me I was good. At anything. It was a turning point in my life. I went to bed thinking about acting. I woke up thinking about acting. It was like the roof had come off my life!"
Teaching methods and philosophy

In describing his teaching philosophy, Strasberg wrote, "The two areas of discovery that were of primary importance in my work at the Actors Studio and in my private classes where improvisation and affective memory. It is finally by using these techniques that the actor can express the appropriate emotions demanded of the character".
Methods of teaching

Strasberg demanded great discipline of his actors as well as great depths of psychological truthfulness. He once explained his approach in this way:

    The human being who acts is the human being who lives. That is a terrifying circumstance. Essentially the actor acts a fiction, a dream; in life the stimuli to which we respond are always real. The actor must constantly respond to stimuli that are imaginary. And yet this must happen not only just as it happens in life, but actually more fully and more expressively. Although the actor can do things in life quite easily, when he has to do the same thing on the stage under fictitious conditions he has difficulty because he is not equipped as a human being merely to playact at imitating life. He must somehow believe. He must somehow be able to convince himself of the rightness of what he is doing in order to do things fully on the stage.

According to film critic/author Mel Gussow, Strasberg required that an actor, when preparing for a role, delve not only into the character's life in the play, but also, "ar more importantly, into the character's life before the curtain rises. In rehearsal, the character's prehistory, perhaps going back to childhood, is discussed and even acted out. The play became the climax of the character's existence."
On February 17, 1982, Lee Strasberg died from a heart attack in New York City, aged 80. With him at his death at the hospital were his wife, Anna, and their two sons. He was interred at Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. A day before his unexpected death, he was officially notified that he had been elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame. His last public appearance was on February 14, 1982 at Night of 100 Stars in the Radio City Music Hall, a benefit for the Actors Fund. Along with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, he danced in the chorus line with the Rockettes.

Actress Ellen Burstyn recalled that evening:

    Late in the evening, I wandered into the greenroom and saw Lee sitting next to Anna, watching the taping on the monitor. I sat next to him and we chatted a little. Lee wasn't one for small talk, so I didn't stay long. But before I got up, I said, 'Lee, I've been asked to run for president of Actors Equity.' He reached over and patted me on the back, 'That's wonderful, dahling. Congratulations.' Those were the last words he ever said to me.... Two days later, early in the morning, I was still asleep when the door to my bedroom opened. I woke up and saw my friend and assistant, Katherine Cortez, enter the room and walk toward me.... 'We just got a call. Lee Strasberg died.' No, no, no, I wailed, over and over. 'I'm not ready', and pulled the covers over my head. I had told myself that I must be prepared for this, but I was not prepared. What was I to do now? Who would I work for when I was preparing for a role? Who would I go to when I was in trouble?.... His memorial service was held at the Shubert Theater where A Chorus Line was playing. Lee's coffin was brought down the aisle and placed center stage. Everybody in the theater world came – actors, writers, directors, producers, and most, if not all, his students. He was a giant of the theater and was deeply mourned. Those of us who had the great good fortune to be fertilized and quickened by his genius would feel the loss of him for the rest of our lives.



In an 80th birthday interview, he said that he was looking forward to his next 20 years in the theater. According to friends, he was healthy until the day he died. "It was so unexpected", Al Pacino said. "What stood out was how youthful he was. He never seemed as old as his years. He was an inspiration." Actress Jane Fonda said after hearing of his death, "I'm not sure I even would have become an actress were it not for him. He will be missed, but he leaves behind a great legacy."
Legacy

Influence on American films

"Whether directly influenced by Strasberg or not", wrote acting author Pamela Wojcik, "the new male stars all to some degree or other adapted Method techniques to support their identification as rebels... He recreates romance as a drama of male neuroticism and also invests his characterization 'with an unprecedented aura of verisimilitude'." Acting teacher and author Alison Hodge explains: "Seemingly spontaneous, intuitive, brooding, 'private', lit with potent vibrations from an inner life of conflict and contradiction, their work exemplified the style of heightened naturalism which (whether Brando agrees or not) Lee Strasberg devoted his life to exploring and promoting."

Pamela Wojcik adds:

    Because of their tendency to substitute their personal feelings for those of the characters they were playing, Actors Studio performers were well suited to become Hollywood stars.... In short, Lee Strasberg transformed a socialistic, egalitarian theory of acting into a celebrity-making machine.... It does not matter who 'invented' Marlon Brando or how regularly or faithfully he, Dean, or Clift attended the Studio or studied the Method at the feet of Lee Strasberg. In their signature roles – the most influential performances in the history of American films – these three performers revealed new kinds of body language and new ways of delivering dialogue. In the pauses between words, in the language 'spoken' by their eyes and faces, they gave psychological realism an unprecedented charge. Verbally inarticulate, they were eloquent 'speakers' of emotion. Far less protective of their masculinity than earlier film actors, they enacted emotionally wounded and vulnerable outsiders struggling for self-understanding, and their work shimmered with a mercurial neuroticism... he Method-trained performers in films of the fifties added an enhanced verbal and gesture naturalism and a more vivid inner life.


Actors Studio West

In 1966, Strasberg established Actors Studio West in Los Angeles. In 1969, he founded the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York and Los Angeles. Ellen Burstyn, Al Pacino, and Harvey Keitel lead this nonprofit studio dedicated to the development of actors, playwrights, and directors. In 1974, at the suggestion of his former student Al Pacino, Strasberg acted in a key supporting role alongside Pacino in Godfather II and again in the 1979 film, And Justice for All.
Work on Broadway

Note: All works are plays and the original productions unless otherwise noted.

    * Four Walls (1927) - Actor
    * The Vegetable (1929) - Director
    * Red Rust (1929) - Actor
    * Green Grow the Lilacs (1931) - Actor
    * The House of Connelly (1931) - Co-Director
    * 1931 (1931) - Director
    * Success Story (1932) - Director
    * Men in White (1933) - Director
    * Gentlewoman (1934) - Director
    * Gold Eagle Guy (1934) - Director
    * Paradise Lost (1935) - Produced by Group Theatre
    * Case of Clyde Griffiths (1936) - Director, Produced by Group Theatre
    * Johnny Johnson (1936) - Director, Produced by Group Theatre
    * Many Mansions (1937) - Director
    * Golden Boy (1937) - Produced by Group Theatre
    * Roosty (1938) - Director
    * Casey Jones (1938) - Produced by Group Theatre
    * All the Living (1938) - Director
    * Dance Night (1938) - Director
    * Rocket to the Moon (1938) - Produced by Group Theatre
    * The Gentle People (1939) - Produced by Group Theatre
    * Awake and Sing! (1939), revival - Produced by Group Theatre
    * Summer Night (1939) - Director
    * Night Music (1940) - Produced by Group Theatre
    * The Fifth Column (1940) - Director
    * Clash by Night (1941) - Director
    * A Kiss for Cinderella (1942), revival - Director
    * R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (1942), revival - Director
    * Apology (1943) - Producer and Director
    * South Pacific (1943, apparently no relation to the Broadway musical South Pacific) - Director
    * Skipper Next to God (1948) - Director
    * The Big Knife (1949) - Director
    * The Closing Door (1949) - Director
    * The Country Girl (1950) - Co-Producer
    * Peer Gynt (1951), (revival) - Director
    * Strange Interlude (1963), (revival) - Produced by The Actors Studio - Tony Award Co-nomination for Best Producer of a Play
    * Marathon '33 (1963) - Production supervisor
    * The Three Sisters (1964), (revival) - Director, Produced by The Actors Studio

Film acting credits

    * The Godfather Part II (1974; Academy Award nomination: Best Actor in a Supporting Role)
    * The Cassandra Crossing (1976)
    * ... And Justice for All (1979)
    * Going in Style (1979)
    * Gideon's Trumpet (1980)

See also

    * Method acting
    * Notable alumni of the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/roxyboarder21/220px-LeeStrasberg.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/17/10 at 12:12 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsxBx4Qdmto&feature=PlayList&p=FF2DBD08925155B5&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=7

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/17/10 at 12:49 pm


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsxBx4Qdmto&feature=PlayList&p=FF2DBD08925155B5&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=7

I was originally going to pick him as the person of the day, I'm not sure why I changed it :-\\

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/17/10 at 2:01 pm


I was originally going to pick him as the person of the day, I'm not sure why I changed it :-\\
A great singer, greatly missed.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/17/10 at 3:57 pm


A great singer, greatly missed.

Yes he is :\'(

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/17/10 at 5:15 pm


The person born on this day...Jerry O'Connell
Jeremiah "Jerry" O'Connell (born February 17, 1974) is an American actor, best known for his roles in the TV series Sliders, Vern Tessio in the film Stand by Me, Charlie Carbone in Kangaroo Jack, and Detective Woody Hoyt on the drama Crossing Jordan.
O'Connell was born in New York City, the son of Linda (née Witkowski), an art teacher, and Michael O'Connell, an advertising agency art director. His maternal grandfather, Charles S. Witkowski, was the mayor of Jersey City, NJ. O'Connell is of Irish descent on his father's side and Polish ancestry on his mother's. O'Connell was raised in Manhattan with a younger brother Charlie O'Connell, also an actor. O'Connell began his acting career at a young age. As a child, he did commercial work for Duncan Hines cookies. Shortly after at the age of eleven, he landed his first feature film role as the character Vern Tessio in Rob Reiner's Stand by Me. As a teenager, he starred in the Canadian TV series My Secret Identity from 1988–91, and attended Manhattan's Professional Children's School.

O'Connell attended New York University (NYU) from 1991 to 1994, majoring in film. While there, he studied screen writing and competed on the NYU fencing team, serving a stint as captain of the sabre squad. However, he left NYU several credits short of graduation in 1999.
Adult career

O'Connell starred in the sci-fi sitcom My Secret Identity from 1988-1991 as the teen hero who develops superhuman traits. During a summer break from NYU, Jerry starred in the feature film Calendar Girl alongside Jason Priestley and Gabriel Olds. He also appeared in the short-lived ABC sitcom, Camp Wilder with Jay Mohr and Hilary Swank in 1992. In his Junior year, O'Connell auditioned for the TV pilot Sliders. He was offered the role of Quinn Mallory in the series, which ran for three seasons on Fox and two seasons on the Sci-Fi Channel. He served as producer during his fourth and final season, and is credited with writing and directing several episodes.

O'Connell has since gone on to star in such movies as Jerry Maguire, Body Shots, Mission to Mars, Tomcats, Scream 2, and Kangaroo Jack. O'Connell has also tried his hand at screenwriting and sold his first screenplay, for First Daughter, to New Regency in 1999. The film was released in 2004 by 20th Century Fox-based Davis Entertainment. O'Connell served as executive producer on the film, which starred Katie Holmes and Michael Keaton.

O'Connell starred as Detective Woody Hoyt on the NBC crime drama Crossing Jordan (2001) until its cancellation, and was engaged to TV personality Giuliana DePandi. He starred opposite her in the Ugly Betty episode "Derailed". O'Connell has also starred as Hoyt in several episodes of Las Vegas. In 2004, he wore a diaper on Last Call with Carson Daly, during a mock commercial skit for the GoodNites bedwetting product. The National Enquirer caught him filming the skit and printed a photo of him in his diaper.

In 2005, O'Connell guest-starred in one episode of the animated series Justice League Unlimited. In the episode, entitled "The Clash", he played Captain Marvel.

His younger brother Charlie O'Connell, an alumnus of NYU who was most recently seen as The Bachelor, is also an actor who has appeared with Jerry in several productions, usually playing the brother of Jerry's character, such as in Sliders and Crossing Jordan.

In 2007-08 Jerry O'Connell starred in ABC's Carpoolers, which ran from October 2, 2007 to March 4, 2008. Although it has not appeared in the Fall '08 lineup, it could come back in the future seasons on ABC.

In early 2008, O'Connell acted in a widely circulated Internet video parody of the leaked Tom Cruise video on Scientology. He also co-wrote and appeared in a video parody called "Young Hillary Clinton," satirizing Hillary Clinton's 2008 primary campaign. On February 2, 2008, O'Connell hosted VH1's Pepsi Smash Super Bowl Bash, which aired the night before Super Bowl XLII and featured musical guests Maroon 5 and Mary J. Blige. On April 28, 2008, O'Connell appeared as a guest star on ABC's Samantha Who?.

In the fall of 2008 O'Connell starred in Fox's Do Not Disturb, costarring Niecy Nash, but Fox cancelled the show after only three episodes.

Most recently, he appeared in the 2009 thriller film Obsessed as "Ben", the best friend and co-worker of the film's protagonist Derek Charles (Idris Elba).

Jerry will appear in Eastwick on ABC, alongside his wife who stars in the series. Jerry will play a good man hiding a horrible secret. His character is a single father, a widower, with a young son who is a part of this secret. Kat will be drawn to him, and she will be put in danger as a result.

O'Connell portrayed Derrick Jones in Alexandre Aja's Piranha 3-D, which also stars Elizabeth Shue.

It has been announced that O'connell will co-star with David Tennant in the new NBC legal drama Rex Is Not Your Lawyer.
Personal life

On July 14, 2007, O'Connell married actress and former model Rebecca Romijn near Los Angeles in Calabasas, California.

A self-proclaimed "Super Super Fan" of The Howard Stern Show, O'Connell placed last in the "Celebrity" version of the "Super Fan Contest" that took place on May 13, 2008. His opponents were Jimmy Kimmel and Jeff Probst. Kimmel ultimately won the contest by a large margin.

After weeks of officially stating that the couple was "trying" to get pregnant, a publicist for the pair confirmed that Romijn was pregnant with twin girls. When talking about having children, O'Connell said "I am excited I am having girls. I know guys are supposed to say, 'I want a boy. I want to play baseball,' but I think I'm going to be good raising girls...I can't wait. They're going to be tough chicks. They're only having sex when I'm dead. If they don't date boys at all and just want to be infatuated with their father, that's what I'm really going for. The nunnery!" O'Connell and Romijn welcomed their twin girls, Dolly Rebecca Rose and Charlie Tamara Tulip, on December 28, 2008.

O'Connell enrolled in Southwestern Law School in the fall of 2009.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1986 Stand by Me Vern Tessio
1988 Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach Kid at beach Uncredited
1993 Calendar Girl Scott Foreman
1996 Joe's Apartment Joe
Jerry Maguire Frank Cushman
1997 Scream 2 Derek
1998 Can't Hardly Wait Trip McNeely Uncredited
1999 Body Shots Michael Penorisi
2000 Clayton
Mission to Mars Phil Ohlmyer
2001 Tomcats Michael Delaney
2002 The New Guy Highland Party Twin
Buying the Cow David Collins
2003 Kangaroo Jack Charlie Carbone
2004 Fat Slags Sean Cooley
2005 'Yours, Mine and Ours Max/Mac
2006 The Alibi Businessman
Man About Town David Lilly
Room 6 Lucas Dylan
2008 The Parody Video Tom Cruise Wants You to See Tom Cruise Short film
2009 Baby on Board Curtis
Obsessed Ben
2010 Piranha 3-D Derrick Jones
Cat Tale Biscuit (voice)
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1987 The Room Upstairs Carl 1 episode
1988 The Equalizer Bobby Episode: "The Child Broker"
Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss Ralph Parker TV movie
1988-91 My Secret Identity Andrew Clements Cast member
1989 Charles in Charge David Landon Episode: "The Organization Man"
1990 TGIF Brody Unknown episodes
1992 Camp Wilder Brody Wilder Episode: "See Spot Go"
1995 The Ranger, the Cook and a Hole in the Sky Mac TV movie
Blue River Lawrence Sellars
1995-99 Sliders Quinn Mallory Cast member
1999 The 60's Brian Herlihy TV movie
2001 Night Visions Andy Episode: "Rest Stop"
2002 Going to California Pete Rossock Episode: "Searching For Eddie Van Halen"
Rome Fire Ryan Wheeler TV movie
2002-7 Crossing Jordan Detective Woody Hoyt Cast member
2003 MADtv Ted Levin Episode: 8.12
2004 Without a Trace Joe Gibson Episode: "Hawks and Handsaws"
The Screaming Cocktail Hour Singer TV series
2004-6 Las Vegas Detective Woody Hoyt 5 episode
2005 Justice League Unlimited Captain Marvel Episode: "Clash"
2007 On the Lot Jerry 'The Move' Episode "6 Cut to 5 & 5 Directors Compete"
Ugly Betty Joel Episode: "Derailed"
The Batman Nightwing 2 episodes: "The Metal Face of Comedy", "Artifacts"
2007-8 Carpoolers Laird Cast member
2008 Samantha Who? Craig Episode: "The Gallery Show"
Do Not Disturb Neal 6 episodes
2009 Midnight Bayou Declan Fitzpatrick TV movie
Eastwick Colin Friesen Episode: "Magic Snow and Creepy Gene"
2010 Rex Is Not Your Lawyer TBA Upcoming TV series
Producer

    * Sliders (1995) TV series (producer: 1998–1999)
    * First Daughter (2004)

Director

    * Sliders (1997) TV series - "Stoker"
    * Sliders (1999) TV series - "Slidecage," "Lipschitz Live," "Data World," "Roads Taken"

Writer

    * Sliders (1999) - "Way out West",
    * First Daughter (2004) - screenplay

Music videos

    * "David Duchovny" - Bree Sharp
    * "Heartbreaker" - Mariah Carey (1999)

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what a great actor.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/18/10 at 5:52 am



what a great actor.  :)

He sure has changed since Stand By Me.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/18/10 at 6:03 am

The Word of the day...Cuckoo
A cuckoo is a bird that has a call of two quick notes, and lays its eggs in other birds' nests.
If you say that someone is living in cloud-cuckoo-land, you are criticizing them because they think there are no problems and that things will happen exactly as they want them to, when this is obviously not the case.
A cuckoo clock is a clock with a door from which a toy cuckoo comes out and makes noises like a cuckoo every hour or half hour.
fathead: a man who is a stupid incompetent fool
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/18/10 at 6:06 am

The person born on this day...Milos Forman
Jan Tomáš Forman (Czech pronunciation: ; born February 18, 1932), better known as Miloš Forman (), is a Czech film director, screenwriter, actor and professor. Two of his films, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus, are among the most celebrated in the history of film, both garnering him the Academy Award as a director. He was also nominated for The People vs. Larry Flynt. Forman was born in Čáslav, Czechoslovakia (present-day Czech Republic), the son of Anna (née Svabova), who ran a summer hotel, and Rudolf Forman, a professor. His parents were Protestants; his father was arrested for distributing banned books during the Nazi occupation and died in Buchenwald in 1944, and his mother died in Auschwitz in 1943. Forman lived with relatives during World War II and later discovered that his biological father was a Jewish architect.

After the war, Forman attended King George College public school in the spa town Poděbrady, where his fellow students were Václav Havel and the Mašín brothers. Later on he studied screenwriting at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.
Career

Forman directed several Czech comedies in Czechoslovakia. However, in 1968 when the USSR and its Warsaw Pact allies invaded the country to end the Prague Spring, he was in Paris negotiating for the production of his first American film. The Czech studio for which he worked fired him, claiming that he was out of the country illegally. He moved to New York, where he later became a professor of film at Columbia University and co-chair (with his former teacher František Daniel) of Columbia's film division. One of his protégées was future director James Mangold, whom Forman had advised about scriptwriting.

In spite of initial difficulties, he started directing in his new home country, and achieved success in 1975 with the adaptation of Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which won five Academy Awards including one for direction. In 1977, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Other notable successes have been Amadeus, which won eight Academy Awards, and The People vs. Larry Flynt, for which he received a Best Director Academy Award Nomination and a Golden Globe win.

Forman's early movies are still very popular among Czechs. Many of the situations and phrases made it into common use: for example, the Czech term zhasnout (to switch lights off) from The Firemen's Ball, associated with petty theft in the movie, has been used to describe the large-scale asset stripping happening in the country during the 1990s.

In 1997 he received the Crystal Globe award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Forman co-starred alongside Edward Norton in the actor's directorial debut, Keeping the Faith (2000), as the wise friend to Norton's young, conflicted priest.

In 2009 he received an honorary degree from Emerson College in Boston.
Personal life

In 2006, he received the Hanno R. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award presented by the Prague Society for International Cooperation.

Forman's two twin sons Petr Forman and Matěj Forman (born in 1964) are also movie and theatre actors.

Forman became a U.S. citizen in 1977.

Asteroid 11333 Forman was named after Forman.

He is married to Martina Zborilova-Forman. They have twin sons, Jim and Andy. They live in Connecticut.
Filmography
Year Film Oscar nominations Oscar wins
1963 Audition
1964 Black Peter
1965 Loves of a Blonde 1
1967 The Firemen's Ball 1
1971 Taking Off
1973 Visions of Eight
1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 9 5
1979 Hair
1981 Ragtime 8
1984 Amadeus 11 8
1989 Valmont 1
1996 The People vs. Larry Flynt 2
1999 Man on the Moon
2006 Goya's Ghosts
2009 The Ghost of Munich
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/18/10 at 6:11 am

The person who died on this day...Johnny Appleseed
Johnny Appleseed (September 26, 1774 – February 18, 1845), born John Chapman, was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. He became an American legend while still alive, largely because of his kind and generous ways, his great leadership in conservation, and the symbolic importance he attributed to apples.

He was also a missionary for the Church of the New Jerusalem, or Swedenborgian Church, so named because it teaches the theological doctrines contained in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.He was raised on a small farm on Massachusetts. His favorite place was his father's apple orchard, as he loved apples. When ever settlers passed by, he heard of fertile soils, and that inspired him to plant apple seeds through the frontier.
Heading to the frontier

In 1792, 18-year-old Chapman went west, taking 11-year-old half-brother Nathaniel and his sister Emily (full sister) with him. Their destination was the headwaters of the Susquehanna. There are stories of him practicing his nurseryman craft in the Wilkes-Barre area and of picking seeds from the pomace at Potomac cider mills in the late 1790s. Another story has Chapman living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Grant's Hill in 1794 at the time of the Whiskey Rebellion.

Land records show that John Chapman was in what is today Licking County, Ohio in 1800. Congress had passed resolutions in 1798 to give land there, ranging from 160 to 2,240 acres (65-900 hectares), to Revolutionary War veterans, but soldiers did not actually receive letters of patent to their grants until 1802. By the time the veterans arrived, John's nurseries, located on the Isaac Stadden farm, had trees big enough to transplant.

Nathaniel Chapman arrived with his second family and sister in 1805. At that point, the younger Nathaniel Chapman rejoined the elder, and his sister had gotten married. John spent the rest of his life as an itinerant planter and sometime-preacher.

By 1806, when he arrived in Jackson County, Ohio, wading down the Ohio River with a load of seeds, he was known as Johnny Appleseed.
Business plan

The popular image of Johnny Appleseed had him spreading apple seeds randomly, everywhere he went. In fact, he planted nurseries rather than orchards, built fences around them to protect them from livestock, left the nurseries in the care of a neighbor who sold trees on shares, and returned every year or two to tend the nursery. Many of these nurseries were located in the Mohican area of north-central Ohio. This area included the towns of Mansfield, Lucas, Perrysville, and Loudonville.

Appleseed's managers were asked to sell trees on credit, if at all possible, but he would accept corn meal, cash or used clothing in barter. The notes did not specify an exact maturity date—that date might not be convenient—and if it did not get paid on time, or even get paid at all, Johnny Appleseed did not press for payment. Appleseed was hardly alone in this pattern of doing business, but he was unusual in remaining a wanderer his entire life.
"Here's your primitive Christian!" Illustration from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 1871

He obtained the apple seeds free; cider mills wanted more apple trees planted since it would eventually bring them more business. Johnny Appleseed dressed in the worst of the used clothing he received, giving away the better clothing in barter. He wore no shoes, even in the snowy winter. There was always someone in need he could help out, for he did not have a house to maintain. When he heard a horse was to be put down, he had to buy the horse, buy a few grassy acres nearby, and turn the horse out to recover. If it did, he would give the horse to someone needy, exacting a promise to treat the horse humanely.
Subsistence lifestyle

Chapman often eschewed normal clothing, even in the cold of winter, and generally led a harsh, subsistent lifestyle. Contrary to popular belief, Johnny actually didn't wear pots on his head or torn rags for clothing, although he did go barefoot in summers to save leather. According to Harper's New Monthly Magazine, towards the end of his career, he was present when an itinerant missionary was exhorting an open-air congregation in Mansfield, Ohio. The sermon was long and quite severe on the topic of extravagance, because the pioneers were starting to buy such indulgences as calico and store-bought tea. “Where now is there a man who, like the primitive Christians, is traveling to heaven bare-footed and clad in coarse raiment?” the preacher repeatedly asked, until Johnny Appleseed, his endurance worn out, walked up to the preacher, put his bare foot on the stump which had served as a podium, and said, “Here's your primitive Christian!” The flummoxed sermonizer dismissed the congregation.
Life as a missionary

He spent most of his time traveling from house to house on the frontier. He would tell stories to children, spread the Swedenborgian gospel ("news right fresh from heaven") to the adults, receiving a floor to sleep on for the night, sometimes supper in return. "We can hear him read now, just as he did that summer day, when we were busy quilting up stairs, and he lay near the door, his voice rising denunciatory and thrilling—strong and loud as the roar of wind and waves, then soft and soothing as the balmy airs that quivered the morning-glory leaves about his gray beard. His was a strange eloquence at times, and he was undoubtedly a man of genius", reported a lady who knew him in his later years. He would often tear a few pages from one of Swedenborg's books and leave them with his hosts.

He made several trips back east, both to visit his sister and to replenish his supply of Swedenborgian literature. He typically would visit his orchards every year or two and collect his earnings.
Attitudes towards animals

Johnny Appleseed's beliefs made him care deeply about animals. His concern extended even to insects. Henry Howe, who visited all 88 counties in Ohio in the early 1800s, collected these stories in the 1830s, when Johnny Appleseed was still alive:

    One cool autumnal night, while lying by his camp-fire in the woods, he observed that the mosquitoes flew in the blaze and were burnt. Johnny, who wore on his head a tin utensil which answered both as a cap and a mush pot, filled it with water and quenched the fire, and afterwards remarked, “God forbid that I should build a fire for my comfort, that should be the means of destroying any of His creatures.”

    Another time he made a camp-fire at the end of a hollow log in which he intended to pass the night, but finding it occupied by a bear and cubs, he removed his fire to the other end, and slept on the snow in the open air, rather than disturb the bear.

Attitude towards marriage

When Johnny Appleseed was asked why he did not marry, his answer was always that two female spirits would be his wives in the after-life if he stayed single on earth. However, Henry Howe reported that Appleseed had been a frequent visitor to Perrysville, Ohio, where Appleseed is remembered as being a constant snuff customer, with beautiful teeth. He was to propose to Miss Nancy Tannehill there—only to find that he was a day late; she had accepted a prior proposal:

    On one occasion Miss PRICE’s mother asked Johnny if he would not be a happier man, if he were settled in a home of his own, and had a family to love him. He opened his eyes very wide–they were remarkably keen, penetrating grey eyes, almost black–and replied that all women were not what they professed to be; that some of them were deceivers; and a man might not marry the amiable woman that he thought he was getting, after all.

    Now we had always heard that Johnny had loved once upon a time, and that his lady love had proven false to him. Then he said one time he saw a poor, friendless little girl, who had no one to care for her, and sent her to school, and meant to bring her up to suit himself, and when she was old enough he intended to marry her. He clothed her and watched over her; but when she was fifteen years old, he called to see her once unexpectedly, and found her sitting beside a young man, with her hand in his, listening to his silly twaddle.

    I peeped over at Johnny while he was telling this, and, young as I was, I saw his eyes grow dark as violets, and the pupils enlarge, and his voice rise up in denunciation, while his nostrils dilated and his thin lips worked with emotion. How angry he grew! He thought the girl was basely ungrateful. After that time she was no protegé of his.

Johnny Appleseed, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, 1871
Health

It has been suggested that Johnny may have had Marfan syndrome, a rare genetic disorder. One of the primary characteristics of Marfan Syndrome is extra-long and slim limbs. All sources seem to agree that Johnny Appleseed was slim, but while other accounts suggest that he was tall, Harper's describes him as "small and wiry."

Those who propose the Marfan theory suggest that his compromised health may have made him feel the cold less intensely. His long life, however, suggests he did not have Marfan's, and while Marfan's is closely associated with death from cardiovascular complications, Johnny Appleseed died in his sleep, from winter plague (presumably pneumonia).
Gravesite

41°6′36″N 85°7′25″W / 41.11°N 85.12361°W / 41.11; -85.12361

There is some controversy and vagueness concerning the date of his death and his burial. Harper's New Monthly Magazine of November, 1871 (which is taken by many as the primary source of information about John Chapman) says he died in the summer of 1847. The Fort Wayne Sentinel, however, printed his obituary on March 22, 1845, saying that he died on March 18:

    "On the same day in this neighborhood, at an advanced age, Mr. John Chapman (better known as Johnny Appleseed).

    The deceased was well known through this region by his eccentricity, and the strange garb he usually wore. He followed the occupation of a nurseryman, and has been a regular visitor here upwards of 10 years. He was a native of Pennsylvania we understand but his home—if home he had—for some years past was in the neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, where he has relatives living. He is supposed to have considerable property, yet denied himself almost the common necessities of life—not so much perhaps for avarice as from his peculiar notions on religious subjects. He was a follower of Swedenborg and devoutly believed that the more he endured in this world the less he would have to suffer and the greater would be his happiness hereafter—he submitted to every privation with cheerfulness and content, believing that in so doing he was securing snug quarters hereafter.

    In the most inclement weather he might be seen barefooted and almost naked except when he chanced to pick up articles of old clothing. Notwithstanding the privations and exposure he endured, he lived to an extreme old age, not less than 80 years at the time of his death — though no person would have judged from his appearance that he was 60. "He always carried with him some work on the doctrines of Swedenborg with which he was perfectly familiar, and would readily converse and argue on his tenets, using much shrewdness and penetration.

    His death was quite sudden. He was seen on our streets a day or two previous."

The actual site of his grave is disputed as well. Developers of Fort Wayne, Indiana's Canterbury Green apartment complex and golf course claim his grave is there, marked by a rock. That is where the Worth cabin in which he died sat.

However, Steven Fortriede, director of the Allen County Public Library (ACPL) and author of the 1978 "Johnny Appleseed", believes another putative gravesite, one designated as a National Historic Landmark and located in Johnny Appleseed Park in Fort Wayne, is the correct site. Johnny Appleseed Park was known until recently as Archer Park and was the former Archer farm.

The Worth family attended First Baptist Church in Fort Wayne, according to records at ACPL, which has one of the nation's top genealogy collections. According to an 1858 interview with Richard Worth Jr., Chapman was buried "respectably" in the Archer cemetery, and Fortriede believes use of the term "respectably" indicates Chapman was buried in the hallowed ground of Archer cemetery instead of near the cabin where he died.

John H. Archer, grandson of David Archer, wrote in a letter dated October 4, 1900:

    The historical account of his death and burial by the Worths and their neighbors, the Pettits, Goinges, Porters, Notestems, Parkers, Beckets, Whitesides, Pechons, Hatfields, Parrants, Ballards, Randsells, and the Archers in David Archer's private burial grounds is substantially correct. The grave, more especially the common head-boards used in those days, have long since decayed and become entirely obliterated, and at this time I do not think that any person could with any degree of certainty come within fifty feet of pointing out the location of his grave. Suffice it to say that he has been gathered in with his neighbors and friends, as I have enumerated, for the majority of them lie in David Archer's graveyard with him

The Johnny Appleseed Commission to the Common Council of the City of Fort Wayne reported, "as a part of the celebration of Indiana's 100th birthday in 1916 an iron fence was placed in the Archer graveyard by the Horticulture Society of Indiana setting off the grave of Johnny Appleseed. At that time, there were men living who had attended the funeral of Johnny Appleseed. Direct and accurate evidence was available then. There was little or no reason for them to make a mistake about the location of this grave. They located the grave in the Archer burying ground."
Legacy

Despite his altruism and charity, Johnny Appleseed left an estate of over 1,200 acres (500 ha) of valuable nurseries to his sister. He also owned four plots in Allen County, Indiana, including a nursery in Milan Township, Allen County, Indiana, with 15,000 trees. He could have left more if he had been diligent in his bookkeeping. He bought the southwest quarter (160 acres) of section 26, Mohican Township, Ashland County, Ohio, but he did not record the deed and lost the property.

The financial panic of 1837 took a toll on his estate. Trees only brought two or three cents each, as opposed to the "flippenny bit" (about six and a quarter cents) that he usually got. Some of his land was sold for taxes following his death, and litigation used up much of the rest.

A memorial in Fort Wayne's Swinney Park purports to honor him but not to mark his grave. Also in Fort Wayne, since 1975, a Johnny Appleseed Festival has been held in mid-September in Johnny Appleseed Park. Musicians, demonstrators, and vendors dress in early 19th century dress, and offer food and beverages which would have been available then. An outdoor drama is also an annual event in Mansfield, Ohio.

March 11 or September 26 are sometimes celebrated as Johnny Appleseed Day. The September date is Appleseed's acknowledged birthdate, but the March date is sometimes preferred because it is during planting season, even though it is disputed as the day of his death. Other sources report that he died on February 18th.

Johnny Appleseed Elementary School is a public school located in Leominster, MA, his birthplace. Mansfield, Ohio, one of Appleseed's stops in his peregrinations, was home to Johnny Appleseed Middle School until it closed in 1989.

A large terra cotta sculpture of Johnny Appleseed, created by Viktor Schreckengost, decorates the front of the Lakewood High School Civic Auditorium in Lakewood, Ohio. Although the local Board of Education deemed Appleseed too "eccentric" a figure to grace the front of the building, renaming the sculpture simply "Early Settler," students, teachers, and parents alike still call the sculpture by its intended name: "Johnny Appleseed."
In modern culture
1948 Disney movie

Johnny Appleseed is remembered in American popular culture by his traveling song or Swedenborgian hymn ("The Lord is good to me...") which is today sung before meals in some American households.

Many books and films have been based on the life of Johnny Appleseed. One notable account is from the first chapter of The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan.

One of the more successful films was Melody Time, the animated 1948 film from Walt Disney Studios featuring Dennis Day. The Legend of Johnny Appleseed, a 19-minute segment, tells the story of an apple farmer who sees others going west, wistfully wishing he was not tied down by his orchard, until an angel appears, singing an apple song, setting Johnny on a mission. When he treats a skunk kindly, all animals everywhere thereafter trust him. The cartoon features lively tunes, and a childlike simplicity of message, offering a bright, well-groomed park environment instead of a dark and rugged malarial swamp, friendly, pet-like creatures instead of dangerous animals, and a lack of hunger, loneliness, disease, and extremes of temperature. Uniquely for a cartoon of its period, it shows Johnny at the moment of his death, followed by his resurrection in heaven and the commitment to "sow the clouds" with apple trees. . This animated short was included in Disney's American Legends, a compilation of four animated shorts. (Note: Showing a character in Heaven is not unique to this cartoon. In Make Mine Music (1946), the segment entitled "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met" ends with the whale being killed and then singing in Heaven.)

Supposedly, the only surviving tree planted by Johnny Appleseed is on the farm of Richard and Phyllis Algeo of Nova, Ohio Some marketers claim it is a Rambo, although the Rambo was introduced to America in the 1640s by Peter Gunnarsson Rambo, more than a century before John Chapman was born. Some even make the claim that the Rambo was "Johnny Appleseed's favorite variety", ignoring that he had religious objections to grafting and preferred wild apples to all named varieties. It appears most nurseries are calling the tree the "Johnny Appleseed" variety, rather than a Rambo. Unlike the mid-summer Rambo, the Johnny Appleseed variety ripens in September and is a baking/applesauce variety similar to an Albemarle Pippen. Nurseries offer the Johnny Appleseed tree as an immature apple tree for planting, with scions from the Algeo stock grafted on them. Orchardists do not appear to be marketing the fruit of this tree.

References to Johnny Appleseed abound in popular culture. Johnny Appleseed is a character in Neil Gaiman's American Gods. Apple Inc. uses a "John Appleseed" character in many of its recent adverts, video tutorials, and keynote presentation examples; this was also the alias of Mike Markkula under which he published several programs for the Apple II. Rock music bands NOFX, Guided by Voices, and Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros have all released songs titled "Johnny Appleseed". "Johnny Appleseed" also featured in a comic series in "The Victor" in UK, early Sixties. In Philip Roth's novel American Pastoral, the central character imagines himself as Johnny Appleseed when he moves from Newark to a rural community; in this case the figure stands for an innocent, childlike version of the American pioneer spirit.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/18/10 at 6:57 am


The Word of the day...Cuckoo
A cuckoo is a bird that has a call of two quick notes, and lays its eggs in other birds' nests.
If you say that someone is living in cloud-cuckoo-land, you are criticizing them because they think there are no problems and that things will happen exactly as they want them to, when this is obviously not the case.
A cuckoo clock is a clock with a door from which a toy cuckoo comes out and makes noises like a cuckoo every hour or half hour.
fathead: a man who is a stupid incompetent fool
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I go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/18/10 at 7:12 am


I go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

Love those Cocoa Puffs.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/18/10 at 7:23 am


Love those Cocoa Puffs.


It'd always stayed chocolately.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/18/10 at 9:17 am


It'd always stayed chocolately.

You can't beat chocolate for breakfast ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/18/10 at 7:27 pm


You can't beat chocolate for breakfast ;D


chocolate is nutritious.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/19/10 at 1:18 pm


The Word of the day...Cuckoo
A cuckoo is a bird that has a call of two quick notes, and lays its eggs in other birds' nests.
If you say that someone is living in cloud-cuckoo-land, you are criticizing them because they think there are no problems and that things will happen exactly as they want them to, when this is obviously not the case.
A cuckoo clock is a clock with a door from which a toy cuckoo comes out and makes noises like a cuckoo every hour or half hour.
fathead: a man who is a stupid incompetent fool


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhtHxPI3cxM

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/19/10 at 1:20 pm


The Word of the day...Cuckoo
A cuckoo is a bird that has a call of two quick notes, and lays its eggs in other birds' nests.
If you say that someone is living in cloud-cuckoo-land, you are criticizing them because they think there are no problems and that things will happen exactly as they want them to, when this is obviously not the case.
A cuckoo clock is a clock with a door from which a toy cuckoo comes out and makes noises like a cuckoo every hour or half hour.
fathead: a man who is a stupid incompetent fool


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNjPgE1muTM

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/19/10 at 4:43 pm

I'm sorry but I was away all day. I will do the word & persons of the day tomorrow.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/19/10 at 5:03 pm


I'm sorry but I was away all day. I will do the word & persons of the day tomorrow.
I had not noticed.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/20/10 at 4:30 am


I'm sorry but I was away all day. I will do the word & persons of the day tomorrow.
You will do word & persons of the yesterday tomorrow?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/20/10 at 4:33 am


You will do word & persons of the yesterday tomorrow?

I'll do one right now :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/20/10 at 4:38 am


I'll do one right now :)
I was preparing one for earlier today and my Internet link went hatwire and lost the almost completed person, I do not feel in the right mood to do it all again.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/20/10 at 4:42 am

The word of the day...Field(s)
A field is an area of grass, for example in a park or on a farm. A field is also an area of land on which a crop is grown.
A sports field is an area of grass where sports are played.
A field is an area of land or sea bed under which large amounts of a particular mineral have been found
A magnetic, gravitational, or electric field is the area in which that particular force is strong enough to have an effect
A particular field is a particular subject of study or type of activity.
A field is an area of a computer's memory or a program where data can be entered, edited, or stored.
You can refer to the area where fighting or other military action in a war takes place as the field or the field of battle.
Your field of vision or your visual field is the area that you can see without turning your head.
http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc8/str1nger/Field.jpg
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/20/10 at 4:44 am


I was preparing one for earlier today and my Internet link went hatwire and lost the almost completed person, I do not feel in the right mood to do it all again.

Ugh I hate when that happens. Were you going to do Gordon Brown?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/20/10 at 4:45 am


Ugh I hate when that happens. Were you going to do Gordon Brown?
I had someone else in mind, I will try again later on.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/20/10 at 4:47 am


Were you going to do Gordon Brown?
Just looked, there is a lot there on him.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/20/10 at 4:47 am

The person born on this day...Sidney Poitier
ir Sidney Poitier, KBE (pronounced /ˈpwɑːtjeɪ/ or /ˈpwɑːtieɪ/; born February 20, 1927) is a Bahamian-American actor, film director, author, and diplomat. He broke through as a star in acclaimed performances in American films and plays, which, by consciously defying racial stereotyping, gave a new dramatic credibility for black actors to mainstream film audiences in the Western world.

In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field. The significance of this achievement was later bolstered in 1967 when he starred in three well-received films—To Sir, with Love; In the Heat of the Night; and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner—making him the top box office star of that year. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Poitier among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking 22nd on the list of 25.

Poitier has directed a number of popular movies such as Uptown Saturday Night, and Let's Do It Again (with friend Bill Cosby), and Stir Crazy (starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder). In 2002, 38 years after receiving the Best Actor Award, Poitier was chosen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive an Honorary Award, designated "To Sidney Poitier in recognition of his remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being."

Since 1997 he has been the Bahamian ambassador to Japan. On August 12, 2009, Sidney Poitier was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America's highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama.
oitier joined the American Negro Theater, but was rejected by audiences. His tone deafness made him - contrary to what was expected of black actors at the time - unable to sing or dance. Determined to refine his acting skills and rid himself of his noticeable Bahamian accent, he spent the next six months dedicating himself to achieving theatrical success. On his second attempt at the theater, he was noticed and given a leading role in the Broadway production Lysistrata, for which he received excellent reviews. By the end of 1949, he had to choose between leading roles on stage and an offer to work for Darryl F. Zanuck in the film No Way Out (1950). His performance in No Way Out, as a doctor treating a white bigot, was noticed and led to more roles, each considerably more interesting and more prominent than what most black actors of the time were being cast.

Poitier's breakout role was as a member of an incorrigible high school class in Blackboard Jungle (1955). At age twenty-seven though, like most of the actors in the film, he was not a teenager.

Poitier was the first male black actor to be nominated for a competitive Academy Award (for The Defiant Ones, 1958). Tony Curtis is on record as saying he had approval of Poitier as his co-star. He also said the director's first choice for his role was Robert Mitchum, but Mitchum refused to work with a black man. Curtis made these comments on the 1999 program Private Screenings with Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne.

He was also the first black actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor (for Lilies of the Field in 1963). (James Baskett was the first to receive an Oscar, an Honorary Academy Award for his performance as Uncle Remus in the Walt Disney production of Song of the South in 1948, while Hattie McDaniel predated them both, winning as Best Supporting Actress for her role in 1939's Gone with the Wind).

He acted in the first production of A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway in 1959, and later starred in the film version released in 1961. He also gave memorable performances in The Bedford Incident (1965), and A Patch of Blue (1965) co-starring Elizabeth Hartman and Shelley Winters. In 1967, he was the most successful draw at the box office, the commercial peak of his career, with three successful films, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner; To Sir, with Love and In the Heat of the Night. The last film featured his most successful character, Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania detective whose subsequent career was the subject of two sequels: They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! (1970) and The Organization (1971).

However, Poitier began to be criticized for typecasting himself as playing overidealized black characters who were not permitted to have any sexuality or personality faults, such as his character in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. Poitier was aware of this pattern himself, but was conflicted on the matter; he wanted more varied roles, but also felt obliged to set a good example with his characters to defy previous stereotypes as he was the only major black actor in the American film industry at the time. For instance, Poitier, along with his producers, was able to make Virgil Tibbs a dignified and astute detective who is capable of making errors in judgment.
Directorial career

Poitier has directed several films, the most successful being the Richard Pryor-Gene Wilder comedy Stir Crazy, which for years was the highest grossing film directed by a person of African descent. His feature film directorial debut was the western Buck and the Preacher in which Poitier also starred, alongside Harry Belafonte. Poitier replaced original director Joseph Sargent. The trio of Poitier, Cosby, and Belafonte reunited again (with Poitier again directing) in Uptown Saturday Night. Poitier also directed Cosby in Let's Do It Again, A Piece of the Action, and Ghost Dad. Poitier also directed the first popular dance battle movie Fast Forward in 1985.
Personal life

Poitier was first married to Juanita Hardy from April 29, 1950 until 1965. He has been married to Joanna Shimkus, a Canadian-born former actress of Lithuanian descent, since January 23, 1976. He has four daughters by his first wife and two by his second: Beverly, Pamela, Sherri, Gina, Anika, Sydney Tamiia.

He has written three autobiographical books, This Life (1980), The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (2000) and Life Beyond Measure - letters to my Great-Granddaughter (2008). The second one became an Oprah's Book Club selection. Its translation in Traditional Chinese (ISBN 9570484969) was done by Fongfong Olivia Wei, and subsequently published by Triumph Publishing Company in Taipei, Taiwan in the year 2002.
Later life

In April 1997, Poitier was appointed as ambassador of the Bahamas to Japan, a position he currently holds. He is also the ambassador of the Bahamas to UNESCO. During the period of 1998 to 2003, he served as a Member of the Board of Directors of The Walt Disney Company.

In 2001, Poitier received an Academy Honorary Award for his overall contribution to American cinema.

In August 2009, Poitier received the Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama.
Filmography
Actor
Year Film Role Notes
1947 Sepia Cinderella Extra uncredited
1949 From Whence Cometh My Help Himself documentary
1950 No Way Out Dr. Luther Brooks
1951 Cry, The Beloved Country Reverend Msimangu
1952 Red Ball Express Cpl. Andrew Robertson
1954 Go, Man, Go! Inman Jackson
1955 Blackboard Jungle Gregory W. Miller
1956 Good-bye, My Lady Gates
1957 Edge of the City Tommy Tyler Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Something of Value Kimani Wa Karanja
Band of Angels Rau-Ru
The Mark of the Hawk Obam
1958 Virgin Island Marcus
The Defiant Ones Noah Cullen BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Berlin Film Festival: Silver Bear for Best Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
1959 Porgy and Bess Porgy Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1960 All the Young Men Sgt. Eddie Towler
1961 A Raisin in the Sun Walter Lee Younger Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
Paris Blues Eddie Cook
1962 Pressure Point Doctor (Chief Psychiatrist)
1963 The Long Ships Aly Mansuh
Lilies of the Field Homer Smith Academy Award for Best Actor
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Berlin Film Festival: Silver Bear for Best Actor
1965 The Bedford Incident Ben Munceford
The Greatest Story Ever Told Simon of Cyrene
A Patch of Blue Gordon Ralfe Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
The Slender Thread Alan Newell
1966 Duel at Diablo Toller (contract horse dealer)
1967 To Sir, with Love Mark Thackeray
In the Heat of the Night Det. Virgil Tibbs Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Dr. John Wade Prentice
1968 For Love of Ivy Jack Parks
1969 The Lost Man Jason Higgs
1970 King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis Narrator documentary
They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! Virgil Tibbs
1971 Brother John John Kane
Not Me Boss!!
The Organization Detective Lieutenant Virgil Tibbs SFPD Homicide
1972 Buck and the Preacher Buck
1973 A Warm December Matt Younger
1974 Uptown Saturday Night Steve Jackson
1975 The Wilby Conspiracy Shack Twala
Let's Do it Again Clyde Williams
1977 A Piece of the Action Manny Durrell
1979 Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist Narrator short subject
1988 Shoot to Kill Warren Stantin
Little Nikita* Roy Parmenter
1992 Sneakers Donald Crease
1994 A Century of Cinema Himself documentary
1996 Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick Himself documentary
1997 The Jackal FBI Deputy Director Carter Preston
2001 Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey Narrator documentary
2004 MacKenzie Himself documentary
2008 Mr. Warmth:The Don Rickles Project Himself documentary
Director
Year Film
1972 Buck and the Preacher
1973 A Warm December
1974 Uptown Saturday Night
1975 Let's Do it Again
1977 A Piece of the Action
1980 Stir Crazy
1982 Hanky Panky
1985 Fast Forward
1990 Ghost Dad
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1991 Separate but Equal Thurgood Marshall Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
1995 Children of the Dust Gypsy Smith
1996 To Sir, with Love II Mark Thackeray
1997 Mandela and De Klerk Nelson Mandela Nominated - Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
1998 David and Lisa Dr. Jack Miller
1999 The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn Noah Dearborn
Free of Eden Will Cleamons
2001 The Last Brickmaker in America Henry Cobb
Awards and recognition

   * 1958 British Academy of Film and Television Arts for Best Foreign Actor for The Defiant Ones
   * 1958 Silver Bear for Best Actor (Berlin Film Festival) for The Defiant Ones
   * 1963 Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Lilies of the Field
   * 1963 Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama for Lilies of the Field
   * 1963 Silver Bear for Best Actor (Berlin Film Festival) for Lilies of the Field
   * 1974 Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Because Poitier is a citizen of The Bahamas, a Commonwealth realm that subscribes to the British Honours System, this is a substantive (as opposed to honorary) knighthood, which entitles him to the style "Sir". Poitier does not use the style, nor does his wife use the style "Lady Poitier"
   * 1992 AFI Life Achievement Award
   * 1995 SAG Life Achievement Award
   * 1997 Appointed non-resident Bahamian Ambassador to Japan
   * 1999 Kennedy Center Honors
   * 2000 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special for The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn
   * 2001 NAACP Image Award - Hall of Fame Award
   * 2001 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album - Rick Harris, John Runnette (producers) and Sidney Poitier for The Measure of a Man
   * 2002 Honorary Oscar - "For his extraordinary performances and unique presence on the screen and for representing the industry with dignity, style and intelligence"
   * 2009 Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

See also

   * List of African American firsts
   * David Hampton, an impostor who posed as Poitier's son "David" in 1983, which inspired a play and a film, Six Degrees of Separation
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/20/10 at 4:48 am


Just looked, there is a lot there on him.
I know what to do!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/20/10 at 4:48 am


Just looked, there is a lot there on him.

Yeah your right.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/20/10 at 4:50 am

British Person of the Day: Gordon Brown

James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party. Brown became Prime Minister in June 2007, after the resignation of Tony Blair and three days after becoming leader of the governing Labour Party. Immediately before this he had served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour government from 1997 to 2007 under Tony Blair.

Brown has a PhD in history from the University of Edinburgh and spent his early career working as a television journalist. He has been a Member of Parliament since 1983; first for Dunfermline East and since 2005 for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. As Prime Minister, he also holds the offices of First Lord of the Treasury and the Minister for the Civil Service.

Brown's time as Chancellor was marked by major reform of Britain's monetary and fiscal policy architecture, transferring interest rate setting powers to the Bank of England, by a wide extension of the powers of the Treasury to cover much domestic policy and by transferring responsibility for banking supervision to the Financial Services Authority. Controversial moves included the abolition of advance corporation tax (ACT) relief in his first budget, and the removal in his final budget of the 10 per cent "starting rate" of personal income tax which he had introduced in 1999.

After an initial rise in opinion polls, Brown's time as Prime Minister has seen his approval ratings fall and the Labour Party suffer its worst local election results in 40 years. Despite public and parliamentary pressure on his leadership, he remains leader of the Labour Party.

http://frankowenspaintbrush.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/gordon-brown.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/20/10 at 4:51 am


British Person of the Day: Gordon Brown

James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party. Brown became Prime Minister in June 2007, after the resignation of Tony Blair and three days after becoming leader of the governing Labour Party. Immediately before this he had served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour government from 1997 to 2007 under Tony Blair.

Brown has a PhD in history from the University of Edinburgh and spent his early career working as a television journalist. He has been a Member of Parliament since 1983; first for Dunfermline East and since 2005 for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. As Prime Minister, he also holds the offices of First Lord of the Treasury and the Minister for the Civil Service.

Brown's time as Chancellor was marked by major reform of Britain's monetary and fiscal policy architecture, transferring interest rate setting powers to the Bank of England, by a wide extension of the powers of the Treasury to cover much domestic policy and by transferring responsibility for banking supervision to the Financial Services Authority. Controversial moves included the abolition of advance corporation tax (ACT) relief in his first budget, and the removal in his final budget of the 10 per cent "starting rate" of personal income tax which he had introduced in 1999.

After an initial rise in opinion polls, Brown's time as Prime Minister has seen his approval ratings fall and the Labour Party suffer its worst local election results in 40 years. Despite public and parliamentary pressure on his leadership, he remains leader of the Labour Party.

http://frankowenspaintbrush.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/gordon-brown.jpg
During an end-of-term rugby union match at his old school he received a kick to the head and suffered a retinal detachment. This left him blind in his left eye, despite treatment including several operations and weeks spent lying in a darkened room. Later at Edinburgh, while playing tennis, he noticed the same symptoms in his right eye. Brown underwent experimental surgery at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and his eye was saved.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/20/10 at 4:53 am

The person who died on this day...Burt Lancaster
Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster (November 2, 1913 – October 20, 1994) was an American film actor and star, noted for his athletic physique, distinct smile (which he called "The Grin") and, later, his willingness to play roles that went against his initial "tough guy" image. Initially dismissed as "Mr Muscles and Teeth", in the late 1950s Lancaster abandoned his "all-American" image and gradually came to be regarded as one of the best actors of his generation.

Lancaster was nominated four times for Academy Awards and won once, for his work in Elmer Gantry in 1960. He also won a Golden Globe for that performance, and BAFTA Awards for The Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) and Atlantic City (1980).
ough initially unenthusiastic about acting, he returned from service, auditioned for a Broadway play and was offered a role. Although Harry Brown's A Sound of Hunting was not successful, Lancaster's performance drew the attention of a Hollywood agent, Harold Hecht, who introduced him to Hal Wallis who cast Lancaster in The Killers (1946). (Hecht and Lancaster later formed several production companies in the 50's to give Lancaster greater creative control.) The tall, muscular actor won significant acclaim and appeared in two more films the following year. Subsequently, he played in a variety of films, especially in dramas, thrillers, and military and adventure films. In two, The Flame and the Arrow and The Crimson Pirate, a friend from his circus years, Nick Cravat, played a leading role, and both actors impressed audiences with their acrobatic prowess.

In 1953, Lancaster played one of his best remembered roles with Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity. The American Film Institute acknowledged the iconic status of the scene from that film in which he and Deborah Kerr make love on a Hawaiian beach amid the crashing waves. The organization named it one of "AFI's top 100 Most Romantic Films" of all time. In the mid-1950s, Lancaster went on challenging himself with varied cinematic roles, and he satisfied longtime aspirations by forming a film production partnership, Hecht-Lancaster Productions (eventually Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions) as well, having a pioneering role in the development of independent cinema. His work was recognized in 1960 when he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, a Golden Globe Award, and the New York Film Critics Award for his performance in Elmer Gantry. In 1966, at the age of 52, Lancaster appeared nude in the film, The Swimmer.

Lancaster made several films over the years with Kirk Douglas, including I Walk Alone (1948), Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), The Devil's Disciple (1959), Seven Days in May (1964), and Tough Guys (1986), which fixed the notion of the pair as something of a team in the public imagination. Douglas was always second-billed under Lancaster in these films, but with the exception of I Walk Alone, in which Douglas played a villain, their roles were usually more or less the same size.

During the later part of his career, Lancaster left adventure and acrobatic movies behind and portrayed more distinguished characters. This period brought him work on several European productions, with directors such as Luchino Visconti and Bernardo Bertolucci. Lancaster sought demanding roles and, if he liked a part or a director, was prepared to work for much lower pay than he might have earned elsewhere; he even helped to finance movies whose artistic value he believed in. He also mentored directors such as Sydney Pollack and John Frankenheimer and appeared in several TV films.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Lancaster has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Blvd.
Personal life

Lancaster vigorously guarded his private life. He was married three times; his first two ended in divorce: to June Ernst from 1935 to 1946; to Norma Anderson from 1946 to 1969; to Susan Martin from September 1990 until his death. All five of his children were with Anderson: Bill (who became a screenwriter), James, Susan, Joanna, and Sighle (pronounced Sheila). He was romantically involved with Deborah Kerr during the filming of From Here to Eternity in 1953.

Lancaster was an unabashed liberal, who frequently spoke out with support for racial minorities. He was also instrumental in the formation of many liberal groups, through financial support. At one point, he was rumored to be a member of the Communist Party, because of his involvement in many liberal causes. He was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War and political movements such as McCarthyism, and he helped pay for the successful defense of a soldier accused of fragging another soldier during the war. In 1968, Lancaster actively supported the presidential candidacy of antiwar Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, and frequently spoke on his behalf in the Democratic primaries. In 1985, Lancaster, a longtime supporter of gay rights, joined the fight against AIDS after his close friend, Rock Hudson, contracted the disease. He campaigned for Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election.
Health problems and death

As Lancaster grew older, heart trouble increasingly hindered him from working. He nearly died during a routine gall bladder operation in January 1980. Following two minor heart attacks he had to undergo an emergency quadruple heart bypass in 1983, after which he was in frail health. He suffered a severe stroke in November 1990, which left him partly paralyzed and with restricted speech. Lancaster died in his Century City apartment in Los Angeles from a third heart attack on October 20, 1994, at the age of 80. He is buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Westwood Village in Los Angeles.
Filmography and awards
Year Film Role Notes
1946 The Killers 'Swede' Andersen
1947 Brute Force Joe Collins
Desert Fury Tom Hanson
1948 I Walk Alone Frankie Madison
All My Sons Chris Keller
Sorry, Wrong Number Henry Stevenson
Kiss the Blood Off My Hands William Earle 'Bill' Saunders
1949 Criss Cross Steve Thompson / Narrator
Rope of Sand Michael (Mike) Davis
1950 The Flame and the Arrow Dardo Bartoli
Mister 880 Steve Buchanan
1951 Vengeance Valley Owen Daybright
Jim Thorpe -- All-American Jim Thorpe
Ten Tall Men Sgt Mike Kincaid
1952 The Crimson Pirate Capitan Vallo
Come Back, Little Sheba Doc Delaney
1953 South Sea Woman Master Gunnery Sgt. James O'Hearn
From Here to Eternity 1st Sgt. Milton Warden New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Three Sailors and a Girl Marine (uncredited)
1954 His Majesty O'Keefe Captain David Dion O'Keefe/Narrator
Apache Massai
Vera Cruz Joe Erin
1955 The Kentuckian Elias Wakefield (Big Eli) Director
Nominated — Golden Lion
The Rose Tattoo Alvaro Mangiacavallo
1956 Trapeze Mike Ribble Silver Bear for Best Actor at Berlin
The Rainmaker Bill Starbuck, aka Bill Smith, Bill Harley, Tornado Johnson Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1957 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral Marshal Wyatt Earp
Sweet Smell of Success J.J. Hunsecker
1958 Run Silent Run Deep Lt. Jim Bledsoe
Separate Tables John Malcolm
1959 The Devil's Disciple The Rev. Anthony Anderson
1960 The Unforgiven Ben Zachary
Elmer Gantry Elmer Gantry Academy Award for Best Actor
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1961 The Young Savages Hank Bell
Judgment at Nuremberg Dr. Ernst Janning
1962 Birdman of Alcatraz Robert Stroud BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Volpi Cup
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1963 A Child is Waiting Dr. Ben Clark
The Leopard (Gattopardo, Il) Prince Don Fabrizio Salina
The List of Adrian Messenger Cameo
1964 Seven Days in May Gen. James Mattoon Scott
The Train Paul Labiche
1965 The Hallelujah Trail Col. Thaddeus Gearhart
1966 The Professionals Bill Dolworth
1967 All About People Narrator
1968 The Scalphunters Joe Bass
The Swimmer Ned Merrill
1969 Castle Keep Maj. Abraham Falconer
The Gypsy Moths Mike Rettig
1970 Airport Mel Bakersfeld
1971 Lawman Bannock Marshal Jered Maddox
Valdez Is Coming Valdez
1972 Ulzana's Raid McIntosh
1973 Scorpio Cross
Executive Action James Farrington
1974 The Midnight Man Jim Slade Director
Gruppo di famiglia in un interno (Conversation Piece) The Professor David di Donatello for Best Actor
Moses the Lawgiver (TV mini-series) Moses
1976 ' 'Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson Ned Buntline
1900 (Novecento) Alfredo's Grandfather
Victory at Entebbe (TV) Shimon Peres
The Cassandra Crossing Col. Stephen Mackenzie
1977 Twilight's Last Gleaming Gen. Lawrence Dell
The Island of Dr. Moreau Dr. Paul Moreau Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actor
1978 Go Tell the Spartans Maj. Asa Barker
1979 Zulu Dawn Col. Anthony Durnford
1980 Atlantic City Lou Pascal BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor
David di Donatello for Best Actor
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1981 Cattle Annie and Little Britches Bill Doolin
La pelle Gen. Mark Clark
1982 Marco Polo TV mini-series TeobaldoVisconti / Pope Gregory X
Verdi (TV mini-series) Narrator in American version
1983 Local Hero Felix Happer Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
The Osterman Weekend Maxwell Danforth
1985 Scandal Sheet Harold Fallen
Little Treasure Delbert Teschemacher
1986 Väter und Söhne - Eine deutsche Tragödie (TV mini-series) Geheimrat Carl Julius Deutz
On Wings of Eagles (TV mini-series) Lieutenant Colonel Arthur D. "Bull" Simons
Barnum Phineas Taylor 'P.T.' Barnum
1986 Tough Guys Harry Doyle
1987 Il Giorno prima Dr. Herbert Monroe
1988 Rocket Gibraltar Levi Rockwell
1989 Field of Dreams Dr. Archibald 'Moonlight' Graham
La Bottega dell'orefice The Jeweller
I Promessi sposi (TV mini-series) Cardinal Federigo Borromeo
1990 The Phantom of the Opera Gerard Carriere
Voyage of Terror: The Achille Lauro Affair (TV) Leon Klinghoffer
1991 Separate But Equal (TV) John W. Davis
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t130/killerofthesky/Celebrities/Males/burtl.jpg
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k36/scalphunterfire/men/kkkkk.jpg
http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff37/anuki_var/2004-01-28/23a4.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/20/10 at 4:54 am


During an end-of-term rugby union match at his old school he received a kick to the head and suffered a retinal detachment. This left him blind in his left eye, despite treatment including several operations and weeks spent lying in a darkened room. Later at Edinburgh, while playing tennis, he noticed the same symptoms in his right eye. Brown underwent experimental surgery at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and his eye was saved.

He was one lucky guy.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/20/10 at 4:54 am


The word of the day...Field(s)
A field is an area of grass, for example in a park or on a farm. A field is also an area of land on which a crop is grown.
A sports field is an area of grass where sports are played.
A field is an area of land or sea bed under which large amounts of a particular mineral have been found
A magnetic, gravitational, or electric field is the area in which that particular force is strong enough to have an effect
A particular field is a particular subject of study or type of activity.
A field is an area of a computer's memory or a program where data can be entered, edited, or stored.
You can refer to the area where fighting or other military action in a war takes place as the field or the field of battle.
Your field of vision or your visual field is the area that you can see without turning your head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCNJBopK25I

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/20/10 at 4:56 am


The person born on this day...Sidney Poitier
ir Sidney Poitier, KBE (pronounced /ˈpwɑːtjeɪ/ or /ˈpwɑːtieɪ/; born February 20, 1927) is a Bahamian-American actor, film director, author, and diplomat. He broke through as a star in acclaimed performances in American films and plays, which, by consciously defying racial stereotyping, gave a new dramatic credibility for black actors to mainstream film audiences in the Western world.

In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field. The significance of this achievement was later bolstered in 1967 when he starred in three well-received films—To Sir, with Love; In the Heat of the Night; and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner—making him the top box office star of that year. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Poitier among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking 22nd on the list of 25.

Poitier has directed a number of popular movies such as Uptown Saturday Night, and Let's Do It Again (with friend Bill Cosby), and Stir Crazy (starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder). In 2002, 38 years after receiving the Best Actor Award, Poitier was chosen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive an Honorary Award, designated "To Sidney Poitier in recognition of his remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being."

Since 1997 he has been the Bahamian ambassador to Japan. On August 12, 2009, Sidney Poitier was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America's highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama.
oitier joined the American Negro Theater, but was rejected by audiences. His tone deafness made him - contrary to what was expected of black actors at the time - unable to sing or dance. Determined to refine his acting skills and rid himself of his noticeable Bahamian accent, he spent the next six months dedicating himself to achieving theatrical success. On his second attempt at the theater, he was noticed and given a leading role in the Broadway production Lysistrata, for which he received excellent reviews. By the end of 1949, he had to choose between leading roles on stage and an offer to work for Darryl F. Zanuck in the film No Way Out (1950). His performance in No Way Out, as a doctor treating a white bigot, was noticed and led to more roles, each considerably more interesting and more prominent than what most black actors of the time were being cast.

Poitier's breakout role was as a member of an incorrigible high school class in Blackboard Jungle (1955). At age twenty-seven though, like most of the actors in the film, he was not a teenager.

Poitier was the first male black actor to be nominated for a competitive Academy Award (for The Defiant Ones, 1958). Tony Curtis is on record as saying he had approval of Poitier as his co-star. He also said the director's first choice for his role was Robert Mitchum, but Mitchum refused to work with a black man. Curtis made these comments on the 1999 program Private Screenings with Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne.

He was also the first black actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor (for Lilies of the Field in 1963). (James Baskett was the first to receive an Oscar, an Honorary Academy Award for his performance as Uncle Remus in the Walt Disney production of Song of the South in 1948, while Hattie McDaniel predated them both, winning as Best Supporting Actress for her role in 1939's Gone with the Wind).

He acted in the first production of A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway in 1959, and later starred in the film version released in 1961. He also gave memorable performances in The Bedford Incident (1965), and A Patch of Blue (1965) co-starring Elizabeth Hartman and Shelley Winters. In 1967, he was the most successful draw at the box office, the commercial peak of his career, with three successful films, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner; To Sir, with Love and In the Heat of the Night. The last film featured his most successful character, Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania detective whose subsequent career was the subject of two sequels: They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! (1970) and The Organization (1971).

However, Poitier began to be criticized for typecasting himself as playing overidealized black characters who were not permitted to have any sexuality or personality faults, such as his character in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. Poitier was aware of this pattern himself, but was conflicted on the matter; he wanted more varied roles, but also felt obliged to set a good example with his characters to defy previous stereotypes as he was the only major black actor in the American film industry at the time. For instance, Poitier, along with his producers, was able to make Virgil Tibbs a dignified and astute detective who is capable of making errors in judgment.
Directorial career

Poitier has directed several films, the most successful being the Richard Pryor-Gene Wilder comedy Stir Crazy, which for years was the highest grossing film directed by a person of African descent. His feature film directorial debut was the western Buck and the Preacher in which Poitier also starred, alongside Harry Belafonte. Poitier replaced original director Joseph Sargent. The trio of Poitier, Cosby, and Belafonte reunited again (with Poitier again directing) in Uptown Saturday Night. Poitier also directed Cosby in Let's Do It Again, A Piece of the Action, and Ghost Dad. Poitier also directed the first popular dance battle movie Fast Forward in 1985.
Personal life

Poitier was first married to Juanita Hardy from April 29, 1950 until 1965. He has been married to Joanna Shimkus, a Canadian-born former actress of Lithuanian descent, since January 23, 1976. He has four daughters by his first wife and two by his second: Beverly, Pamela, Sherri, Gina, Anika, Sydney Tamiia.

He has written three autobiographical books, This Life (1980), The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (2000) and Life Beyond Measure - letters to my Great-Granddaughter (2008). The second one became an Oprah's Book Club selection. Its translation in Traditional Chinese (ISBN 9570484969) was done by Fongfong Olivia Wei, and subsequently published by Triumph Publishing Company in Taipei, Taiwan in the year 2002.
Later life

In April 1997, Poitier was appointed as ambassador of the Bahamas to Japan, a position he currently holds. He is also the ambassador of the Bahamas to UNESCO. During the period of 1998 to 2003, he served as a Member of the Board of Directors of The Walt Disney Company.

In 2001, Poitier received an Academy Honorary Award for his overall contribution to American cinema.

In August 2009, Poitier received the Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama.
Filmography
Actor
Year Film Role Notes
1947 Sepia Cinderella Extra uncredited
1949 From Whence Cometh My Help Himself documentary
1950 No Way Out Dr. Luther Brooks
1951 Cry, The Beloved Country Reverend Msimangu
1952 Red Ball Express Cpl. Andrew Robertson
1954 Go, Man, Go! Inman Jackson
1955 Blackboard Jungle Gregory W. Miller
1956 Good-bye, My Lady Gates
1957 Edge of the City Tommy Tyler Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Something of Value Kimani Wa Karanja
Band of Angels Rau-Ru
The Mark of the Hawk Obam
1958 Virgin Island Marcus
The Defiant Ones Noah Cullen BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Berlin Film Festival: Silver Bear for Best Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
1959 Porgy and Bess Porgy Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1960 All the Young Men Sgt. Eddie Towler
1961 A Raisin in the Sun Walter Lee Younger Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
Paris Blues Eddie Cook
1962 Pressure Point Doctor (Chief Psychiatrist)
1963 The Long Ships Aly Mansuh
Lilies of the Field Homer Smith Academy Award for Best Actor
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Berlin Film Festival: Silver Bear for Best Actor
1965 The Bedford Incident Ben Munceford
The Greatest Story Ever Told Simon of Cyrene
A Patch of Blue Gordon Ralfe Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
The Slender Thread Alan Newell
1966 Duel at Diablo Toller (contract horse dealer)
1967 To Sir, with Love Mark Thackeray
In the Heat of the Night Det. Virgil Tibbs Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Dr. John Wade Prentice
1968 For Love of Ivy Jack Parks
1969 The Lost Man Jason Higgs
1970 King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis Narrator documentary
They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! Virgil Tibbs
1971 Brother John John Kane
Not Me Boss!!
The Organization Detective Lieutenant Virgil Tibbs SFPD Homicide
1972 Buck and the Preacher Buck
1973 A Warm December Matt Younger
1974 Uptown Saturday Night Steve Jackson
1975 The Wilby Conspiracy Shack Twala
Let's Do it Again Clyde Williams
1977 A Piece of the Action Manny Durrell
1979 Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist Narrator short subject
1988 Shoot to Kill Warren Stantin
Little Nikita* Roy Parmenter
1992 Sneakers Donald Crease
1994 A Century of Cinema Himself documentary
1996 Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick Himself documentary
1997 The Jackal FBI Deputy Director Carter Preston
2001 Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey Narrator documentary
2004 MacKenzie Himself documentary
2008 Mr. Warmth:The Don Rickles Project Himself documentary
Director
Year Film
1972 Buck and the Preacher
1973 A Warm December
1974 Uptown Saturday Night
1975 Let's Do it Again
1977 A Piece of the Action
1980 Stir Crazy
1982 Hanky Panky
1985 Fast Forward
1990 Ghost Dad
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1991 Separate but Equal Thurgood Marshall Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
1995 Children of the Dust Gypsy Smith
1996 To Sir, with Love II Mark Thackeray
1997 Mandela and De Klerk Nelson Mandela Nominated - Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
1998 David and Lisa Dr. Jack Miller
1999 The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn Noah Dearborn
Free of Eden Will Cleamons
2001 The Last Brickmaker in America Henry Cobb
Awards and recognition

    * 1958 British Academy of Film and Television Arts for Best Foreign Actor for The Defiant Ones
    * 1958 Silver Bear for Best Actor (Berlin Film Festival) for The Defiant Ones
    * 1963 Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Lilies of the Field
    * 1963 Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama for Lilies of the Field
    * 1963 Silver Bear for Best Actor (Berlin Film Festival) for Lilies of the Field
    * 1974 Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Because Poitier is a citizen of The Bahamas, a Commonwealth realm that subscribes to the British Honours System, this is a substantive (as opposed to honorary) knighthood, which entitles him to the style "Sir". Poitier does not use the style, nor does his wife use the style "Lady Poitier"
    * 1992 AFI Life Achievement Award
    * 1995 SAG Life Achievement Award
    * 1997 Appointed non-resident Bahamian Ambassador to Japan
    * 1999 Kennedy Center Honors
    * 2000 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special for The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn
    * 2001 NAACP Image Award - Hall of Fame Award
    * 2001 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album - Rick Harris, John Runnette (producers) and Sidney Poitier for The Measure of a Man
    * 2002 Honorary Oscar - "For his extraordinary performances and unique presence on the screen and for representing the industry with dignity, style and intelligence"
    * 2009 Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

See also

    * List of African American firsts
    * David Hampton, an impostor who posed as Poitier's son "David" in 1983, which inspired a play and a film, Six Degrees of Separation




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aSFoY3W3NM

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/20/10 at 4:57 am


British Person of the Day: Gordon Brown

James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party. Brown became Prime Minister in June 2007, after the resignation of Tony Blair and three days after becoming leader of the governing Labour Party. Immediately before this he had served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour government from 1997 to 2007 under Tony Blair.

Brown has a PhD in history from the University of Edinburgh and spent his early career working as a television journalist. He has been a Member of Parliament since 1983; first for Dunfermline East and since 2005 for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. As Prime Minister, he also holds the offices of First Lord of the Treasury and the Minister for the Civil Service.

Brown's time as Chancellor was marked by major reform of Britain's monetary and fiscal policy architecture, transferring interest rate setting powers to the Bank of England, by a wide extension of the powers of the Treasury to cover much domestic policy and by transferring responsibility for banking supervision to the Financial Services Authority. Controversial moves included the abolition of advance corporation tax (ACT) relief in his first budget, and the removal in his final budget of the 10 per cent "starting rate" of personal income tax which he had introduced in 1999.

After an initial rise in opinion polls, Brown's time as Prime Minister has seen his approval ratings fall and the Labour Party suffer its worst local election results in 40 years. Despite public and parliamentary pressure on his leadership, he remains leader of the Labour Party.

http://frankowenspaintbrush.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/gordon-brown.jpg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7R7q1lSZfs

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/20/10 at 5:41 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCNJBopK25I

Nice song...I looked at this quick and I thought it said "Fields of Gold String" ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/20/10 at 5:43 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aSFoY3W3NM

It's been awhile since I've seen the movie.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 02/20/10 at 5:49 am

Don't forget...Sally Fields

http://i557.photobucket.com/albums/ss20/SurfinGidget/sallyfield-nc.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/20/10 at 5:51 am


Don't forget...Sally Fields

http://i557.photobucket.com/albums/ss20/SurfinGidget/sallyfield-nc.jpg
...or WC Fields!

http://blog.lakesregionhome.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/wc-fields.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/20/10 at 5:52 am


It's been awhile since I've seen the movie.
I want my own copy of it, everytime I see the DVD in the shops, it is always expensive.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/20/10 at 7:00 am


Don't forget...Sally Fields

http://i557.photobucket.com/albums/ss20/SurfinGidget/sallyfield-nc.jpg


Now she does commercials for Boniva.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/20/10 at 7:01 am


The person born on this day...Sidney Poitier
ir Sidney Poitier, KBE (pronounced /ˈpwɑːtjeɪ/ or /ˈpwɑːtieɪ/; born February 20, 1927) is a Bahamian-American actor, film director, author, and diplomat. He broke through as a star in acclaimed performances in American films and plays, which, by consciously defying racial stereotyping, gave a new dramatic credibility for black actors to mainstream film audiences in the Western world.

In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field. The significance of this achievement was later bolstered in 1967 when he starred in three well-received films—To Sir, with Love; In the Heat of the Night; and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner—making him the top box office star of that year. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Poitier among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking 22nd on the list of 25.

Poitier has directed a number of popular movies such as Uptown Saturday Night, and Let's Do It Again (with friend Bill Cosby), and Stir Crazy (starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder). In 2002, 38 years after receiving the Best Actor Award, Poitier was chosen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive an Honorary Award, designated "To Sidney Poitier in recognition of his remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being."

Since 1997 he has been the Bahamian ambassador to Japan. On August 12, 2009, Sidney Poitier was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America's highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama.
oitier joined the American Negro Theater, but was rejected by audiences. His tone deafness made him - contrary to what was expected of black actors at the time - unable to sing or dance. Determined to refine his acting skills and rid himself of his noticeable Bahamian accent, he spent the next six months dedicating himself to achieving theatrical success. On his second attempt at the theater, he was noticed and given a leading role in the Broadway production Lysistrata, for which he received excellent reviews. By the end of 1949, he had to choose between leading roles on stage and an offer to work for Darryl F. Zanuck in the film No Way Out (1950). His performance in No Way Out, as a doctor treating a white bigot, was noticed and led to more roles, each considerably more interesting and more prominent than what most black actors of the time were being cast.

Poitier's breakout role was as a member of an incorrigible high school class in Blackboard Jungle (1955). At age twenty-seven though, like most of the actors in the film, he was not a teenager.

Poitier was the first male black actor to be nominated for a competitive Academy Award (for The Defiant Ones, 1958). Tony Curtis is on record as saying he had approval of Poitier as his co-star. He also said the director's first choice for his role was Robert Mitchum, but Mitchum refused to work with a black man. Curtis made these comments on the 1999 program Private Screenings with Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne.

He was also the first black actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor (for Lilies of the Field in 1963). (James Baskett was the first to receive an Oscar, an Honorary Academy Award for his performance as Uncle Remus in the Walt Disney production of Song of the South in 1948, while Hattie McDaniel predated them both, winning as Best Supporting Actress for her role in 1939's Gone with the Wind).

He acted in the first production of A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway in 1959, and later starred in the film version released in 1961. He also gave memorable performances in The Bedford Incident (1965), and A Patch of Blue (1965) co-starring Elizabeth Hartman and Shelley Winters. In 1967, he was the most successful draw at the box office, the commercial peak of his career, with three successful films, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner; To Sir, with Love and In the Heat of the Night. The last film featured his most successful character, Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania detective whose subsequent career was the subject of two sequels: They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! (1970) and The Organization (1971).

However, Poitier began to be criticized for typecasting himself as playing overidealized black characters who were not permitted to have any sexuality or personality faults, such as his character in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. Poitier was aware of this pattern himself, but was conflicted on the matter; he wanted more varied roles, but also felt obliged to set a good example with his characters to defy previous stereotypes as he was the only major black actor in the American film industry at the time. For instance, Poitier, along with his producers, was able to make Virgil Tibbs a dignified and astute detective who is capable of making errors in judgment.
Directorial career

Poitier has directed several films, the most successful being the Richard Pryor-Gene Wilder comedy Stir Crazy, which for years was the highest grossing film directed by a person of African descent. His feature film directorial debut was the western Buck and the Preacher in which Poitier also starred, alongside Harry Belafonte. Poitier replaced original director Joseph Sargent. The trio of Poitier, Cosby, and Belafonte reunited again (with Poitier again directing) in Uptown Saturday Night. Poitier also directed Cosby in Let's Do It Again, A Piece of the Action, and Ghost Dad. Poitier also directed the first popular dance battle movie Fast Forward in 1985.
Personal life

Poitier was first married to Juanita Hardy from April 29, 1950 until 1965. He has been married to Joanna Shimkus, a Canadian-born former actress of Lithuanian descent, since January 23, 1976. He has four daughters by his first wife and two by his second: Beverly, Pamela, Sherri, Gina, Anika, Sydney Tamiia.

He has written three autobiographical books, This Life (1980), The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (2000) and Life Beyond Measure - letters to my Great-Granddaughter (2008). The second one became an Oprah's Book Club selection. Its translation in Traditional Chinese (ISBN 9570484969) was done by Fongfong Olivia Wei, and subsequently published by Triumph Publishing Company in Taipei, Taiwan in the year 2002.
Later life

In April 1997, Poitier was appointed as ambassador of the Bahamas to Japan, a position he currently holds. He is also the ambassador of the Bahamas to UNESCO. During the period of 1998 to 2003, he served as a Member of the Board of Directors of The Walt Disney Company.

In 2001, Poitier received an Academy Honorary Award for his overall contribution to American cinema.

In August 2009, Poitier received the Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama.
Filmography
Actor
Year Film Role Notes
1947 Sepia Cinderella Extra uncredited
1949 From Whence Cometh My Help Himself documentary
1950 No Way Out Dr. Luther Brooks
1951 Cry, The Beloved Country Reverend Msimangu
1952 Red Ball Express Cpl. Andrew Robertson
1954 Go, Man, Go! Inman Jackson
1955 Blackboard Jungle Gregory W. Miller
1956 Good-bye, My Lady Gates
1957 Edge of the City Tommy Tyler Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Something of Value Kimani Wa Karanja
Band of Angels Rau-Ru
The Mark of the Hawk Obam
1958 Virgin Island Marcus
The Defiant Ones Noah Cullen BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Berlin Film Festival: Silver Bear for Best Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
1959 Porgy and Bess Porgy Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1960 All the Young Men Sgt. Eddie Towler
1961 A Raisin in the Sun Walter Lee Younger Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
Paris Blues Eddie Cook
1962 Pressure Point Doctor (Chief Psychiatrist)
1963 The Long Ships Aly Mansuh
Lilies of the Field Homer Smith Academy Award for Best Actor
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Berlin Film Festival: Silver Bear for Best Actor
1965 The Bedford Incident Ben Munceford
The Greatest Story Ever Told Simon of Cyrene
A Patch of Blue Gordon Ralfe Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
The Slender Thread Alan Newell
1966 Duel at Diablo Toller (contract horse dealer)
1967 To Sir, with Love Mark Thackeray
In the Heat of the Night Det. Virgil Tibbs Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Dr. John Wade Prentice
1968 For Love of Ivy Jack Parks
1969 The Lost Man Jason Higgs
1970 King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis Narrator documentary
They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! Virgil Tibbs
1971 Brother John John Kane
Not Me Boss!!
The Organization Detective Lieutenant Virgil Tibbs SFPD Homicide
1972 Buck and the Preacher Buck
1973 A Warm December Matt Younger
1974 Uptown Saturday Night Steve Jackson
1975 The Wilby Conspiracy Shack Twala
Let's Do it Again Clyde Williams
1977 A Piece of the Action Manny Durrell
1979 Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist Narrator short subject
1988 Shoot to Kill Warren Stantin
Little Nikita* Roy Parmenter
1992 Sneakers Donald Crease
1994 A Century of Cinema Himself documentary
1996 Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick Himself documentary
1997 The Jackal FBI Deputy Director Carter Preston
2001 Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey Narrator documentary
2004 MacKenzie Himself documentary
2008 Mr. Warmth:The Don Rickles Project Himself documentary
Director
Year Film
1972 Buck and the Preacher
1973 A Warm December
1974 Uptown Saturday Night
1975 Let's Do it Again
1977 A Piece of the Action
1980 Stir Crazy
1982 Hanky Panky
1985 Fast Forward
1990 Ghost Dad
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1991 Separate but Equal Thurgood Marshall Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film
1995 Children of the Dust Gypsy Smith
1996 To Sir, with Love II Mark Thackeray
1997 Mandela and De Klerk Nelson Mandela Nominated - Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
1998 David and Lisa Dr. Jack Miller
1999 The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn Noah Dearborn
Free of Eden Will Cleamons
2001 The Last Brickmaker in America Henry Cobb
Awards and recognition

   * 1958 British Academy of Film and Television Arts for Best Foreign Actor for The Defiant Ones
   * 1958 Silver Bear for Best Actor (Berlin Film Festival) for The Defiant Ones
   * 1963 Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Lilies of the Field
   * 1963 Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama for Lilies of the Field
   * 1963 Silver Bear for Best Actor (Berlin Film Festival) for Lilies of the Field
   * 1974 Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Because Poitier is a citizen of The Bahamas, a Commonwealth realm that subscribes to the British Honours System, this is a substantive (as opposed to honorary) knighthood, which entitles him to the style "Sir". Poitier does not use the style, nor does his wife use the style "Lady Poitier"
   * 1992 AFI Life Achievement Award
   * 1995 SAG Life Achievement Award
   * 1997 Appointed non-resident Bahamian Ambassador to Japan
   * 1999 Kennedy Center Honors
   * 2000 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special for The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn
   * 2001 NAACP Image Award - Hall of Fame Award
   * 2001 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album - Rick Harris, John Runnette (producers) and Sidney Poitier for The Measure of a Man
   * 2002 Honorary Oscar - "For his extraordinary performances and unique presence on the screen and for representing the industry with dignity, style and intelligence"
   * 2009 Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

See also

   * List of African American firsts
   * David Hampton, an impostor who posed as Poitier's son "David" in 1983, which inspired a play and a film, Six Degrees of Separation
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x280/icebergslim1047/recipient2.jpg
http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa304/earlyrizer/sidney_poitier.jpg
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k74/nicoletteautumn/SidneyPoitier.jpg
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q134/jojetjes/HisExcellency.jpg



a very fine actor. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/20/10 at 7:38 am



http://i638.photobucket.com/albums/uu105/Hangar519/pics463.jpg




Wow! That guy is out standing in his field.  :D ;D ;D ;D



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/20/10 at 8:21 am


Don't forget...Sally Fields

http://i557.photobucket.com/albums/ss20/SurfinGidget/sallyfield-nc.jpg

...or WC Fields!

http://blog.lakesregionhome.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/wc-fields.jpg

Good choices :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/20/10 at 8:22 am


a very fine actor. :)

Yes he is.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/20/10 at 8:23 am



Wow! That guy is out standing in his field.  :D ;D ;D ;D



Cat

Nice one ;D ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/20/10 at 10:37 am

Sidney Poitier..Loved him in "Lilies of the field"
Thanks.

Sally Field. Girl with (still) cute cheeks

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/20/10 at 10:46 am

Canadian person of the day:
Philip Anthony "Espo" Esposito, OC (born February 20, 1942 in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario) is a retired professional ice hockey centre who played 18 seasons in the National Hockey League for the Chicago Black Hawks, Boston Bruins and New York Rangers. He is an Honoured Member of the Hockey Hall of Fame and is considered to be one of the best to have ever played in the National Hockey League.

http://onestophockeycards.com/Error_69-70_OPC_-__Espo_a_B.jpg

In 1967, he came to Boston Bruins in a blockbuster trade, along with Ken Hodge and Fred Stanfield. While the hitherto unremarkable Hodge and Stanfield became stars in the black-and-gold, Esposito blossomed into the greatest scorer of his day, becoming the first NHL player to score 100 points in a season with 126 in the 1969 season. He would top the "century" mark six times in all, including five consecutive seasons between 1971 and 1975 (plus a 99-point season in 1970), capturing the Art Ross Trophy in 1969 and 1971–74 as the top regular season scorer, and leading the league in goals for six straight seasons, (69/70 to 74/75).

http://www.distantreplay.org/NHL/images/players/PhilEspositoBos.jpg

Esposito was named to the NHL's First All-Star team six consecutive times (from 1969–74), and won the Hart Trophy as the league's most valuable player in 1969 and 1974. His Boston fans printed and displayed bumper stickers during his best years to celebrate his scoring: they read, "Jesus saves, Espo scores on the rebound." Esposito, while not a fast or graceful skater, was best known for his unmovable presence in front of the opposition net from which he could score from all angles. Esposito has said: “Scoring is easy. You simply stand in the slot, take your beating and shoot the puck into the net.”

During these great years, centering one of the most renowned forward lines in history with Hodge on right wing and left winger Wayne Cashman, Esposito and fellow superstar Bobby Orr led the Bruins to Stanley Cup victories in 1970 and 1972, and first-place finishes in the league in 1971, 1972, and 1974.

During 1970–71, Esposito shattered the record for most goals scored in a season when he finished up with 76. This record stood until 1982 when Wayne Gretzky scored his 77th, 78th and 79th goal against the Buffalo Sabres on February 24, 1982 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. Esposito was on hand to present the game puck to Gretzky. Esposito also set the single season point-scoring record in 1971 with 152, a mark likewise now held by Gretzky. Only three other players have reached the 150 point-scoring plateau — Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman and Bernie Nicholls — and only Gretzky, Lemieux, Brett Hull, Teemu Selanne and Alexander Mogilny have scored 76 or more goals in a season. That season also saw Esposito shatter the single season mark for shots on goal with 550, an unsurpassed mark which only one other player has approached within a hundred (Alexander Ovechkin in 2008–09).

After his performance in the Summit Series, where he was the inspirational captain for Team Canada and its leading scorer in the series, he won the 1972 Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada's outstanding male athlete of the year and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. Esposito also scored the first goal of the series and he scored or assisted four times in the deciding game. During that series, his scolding of Canadian fans, who booed the national team after a 5–3 loss to the Soviet Union in Game Four, was credited with firing up his teammates :

    "If the Russian fans boo their players in Moscow like you people are booing us, I'll come back and apologize personally to every one of you, but I really don't think that will happen. We gave it and are doing our best. All of us guys are really disheartened. . . . We came out here because we love Canada. They're a good hockey team, and we don't know what we could do better, but I promise we will figure it out. But it's totally ridiculous — I don't think it is fair that we should be booed."
http://www.1972summitseries.com/photos/esposito_and_tretiak.jpg

He retired in 1981, then only second to Gordie Howe in career goals and total points, and third in assists to Howe and Stan Mikita.

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/content/Image/08-12-2009/Phil-Esposito.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/20/10 at 10:48 am


Canadian person of the day:
Philip Anthony "Espo" Esposito, OC (born February 20, 1942 in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario) is a retired professional ice hockey centre who played 18 seasons in the National Hockey League for the Chicago Black Hawks, Boston Bruins and New York Rangers. He is an Honoured Member of the Hockey Hall of Fame and is considered to be one of the best to have ever played in the National Hockey League.

http://onestophockeycards.com/Error_69-70_OPC_-__Espo_a_B.jpg

In 1967, he came to Boston Bruins in a blockbuster trade, along with Ken Hodge and Fred Stanfield. While the hitherto unremarkable Hodge and Stanfield became stars in the black-and-gold, Esposito blossomed into the greatest scorer of his day, becoming the first NHL player to score 100 points in a season with 126 in the 1969 season. He would top the "century" mark six times in all, including five consecutive seasons between 1971 and 1975 (plus a 99-point season in 1970), capturing the Art Ross Trophy in 1969 and 1971–74 as the top regular season scorer, and leading the league in goals for six straight seasons, (69/70 to 74/75).

http://www.distantreplay.org/NHL/images/players/PhilEspositoBos.jpg

Esposito was named to the NHL's First All-Star team six consecutive times (from 1969–74), and won the Hart Trophy as the league's most valuable player in 1969 and 1974. His Boston fans printed and displayed bumper stickers during his best years to celebrate his scoring: they read, "Jesus saves, Espo scores on the rebound." Esposito, while not a fast or graceful skater, was best known for his unmovable presence in front of the opposition net from which he could score from all angles. Esposito has said: “Scoring is easy. You simply stand in the slot, take your beating and shoot the puck into the net.”

During these great years, centering one of the most renowned forward lines in history with Hodge on right wing and left winger Wayne Cashman, Esposito and fellow superstar Bobby Orr led the Bruins to Stanley Cup victories in 1970 and 1972, and first-place finishes in the league in 1971, 1972, and 1974.

During 1970–71, Esposito shattered the record for most goals scored in a season when he finished up with 76. This record stood until 1982 when Wayne Gretzky scored his 77th, 78th and 79th goal against the Buffalo Sabres on February 24, 1982 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. Esposito was on hand to present the game puck to Gretzky. Esposito also set the single season point-scoring record in 1971 with 152, a mark likewise now held by Gretzky. Only three other players have reached the 150 point-scoring plateau — Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman and Bernie Nicholls — and only Gretzky, Lemieux, Brett Hull, Teemu Selanne and Alexander Mogilny have scored 76 or more goals in a season. That season also saw Esposito shatter the single season mark for shots on goal with 550, an unsurpassed mark which only one other player has approached within a hundred (Alexander Ovechkin in 2008–09).

After his performance in the Summit Series, where he was the inspirational captain for Team Canada and its leading scorer in the series, he won the 1972 Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada's outstanding male athlete of the year and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. Esposito also scored the first goal of the series and he scored or assisted four times in the deciding game. During that series, his scolding of Canadian fans, who booed the national team after a 5–3 loss to the Soviet Union in Game Four, was credited with firing up his teammates :

    "If the Russian fans boo their players in Moscow like you people are booing us, I'll come back and apologize personally to every one of you, but I really don't think that will happen. We gave it and are doing our best. All of us guys are really disheartened. . . . We came out here because we love Canada. They're a good hockey team, and we don't know what we could do better, but I promise we will figure it out. But it's totally ridiculous — I don't think it is fair that we should be booed."
http://www.1972summitseries.com/photos/esposito_and_tretiak.jpg

He retired in 1981, then only second to Gordie Howe in career goals and total points, and third in assists to Howe and Stan Mikita.

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/content/Image/08-12-2009/Phil-Esposito.jpg

Always liked Phil, Thanks Frank :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/20/10 at 10:51 am


Always liked Phil, Thanks Frank :)

I saw him last year at an Autograph show. (Didn't get his autograph, charging over $100 for it at the show)
I saw Phil (and Bobby Orr) play a couple of time at the Montreal Forum...back in the day.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/20/10 at 12:09 pm



Wow! That guy is out standing in his field.  :D ;D ;D ;D



Cat
He-He!!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/20/10 at 12:12 pm


I saw him last year at an Autograph show. (Didn't get his autograph, charging over $100 for it at the show)
Disgraceful!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/20/10 at 5:02 pm


Disgraceful!

Some even charge more than that.
Think I'll charge $573.12 for my autograph. Any takers?  :D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/20/10 at 7:00 pm


Some even charge more than that.
Think I'll charge $573.12 for my autograph. Any takers?  :D



want to negoiate?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/21/10 at 1:42 am


Some even charge more than that.
Think I'll charge $573.12 for my autograph. Any takers?  :D

Is your autograph on ebay?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/21/10 at 1:57 am

British Person of the Day: Alan Rickman

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (born 21 February 1946) is a British actor and theatre director born in England. Rickman is known for his performances in film as Hans Gruber in Die Hard and Severus Snape in the Harry Potter film series. He is a renowned stage actor in modern and classical productions and a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He is also known for his prominent roles as the Sheriff of Nottingham in the 1991 blockbuster film, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; as Colonel Brandon in the Oscar-winning 1995 Sense and Sensibility and, more recently, Judge Turpin in Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Early life

Rickman was born in Hammersmith, London to a working class family, the son of Margaret Doreen Rose (née Bartlett), a housewife, and Bernard Rickman, a factory worker. Rickman's mother was Welsh and a Methodist and his father was of Irish Catholic background. He has one elder brother David, a younger brother Michael and a younger sister Sheila. Rickman attended an infants' school in Acton that followed the Montessori method of education. When he was eight his father died, leaving his mother to bring up four children mostly alone. She married again, but divorced his stepfather after three years. "There was one love in her life," Rickman later said. Rickman excelled at calligraphy and watercolour painting, and from Derwentwater Junior School he won a scholarship to Latymer Upper School in London, where he started getting involved in drama. After leaving Latymer, Rickman attended Chelsea College of Art and Design and made his way as a graphic designer, which he considered a more stable occupation than acting. "Drama school wasn't considered the sensible thing to do at 18," he said. Rickman received a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) which he attended from 1972–1974. While there, he studied Shakespeare's works and supported himself working as a dresser for Sir Nigel Hawthorne and Sir Ralph Richardson, and left after winning several prizes such as the Emile Littler Prize, the Forbes Robertson Prize, and the Bancroft Gold Medal.

Career

After graduating from the RADA, Rickman worked extensively with various British repertory and experimental theatre groups on productions including The Seagull and Snoo Wilson's The Grass Widow at the Royal Court Theatre, and has appeared three times at the Edinburgh International Festival. In 1978, he played with the Court Drama Group, performing in several plays, most notably Romeo And Juliet and A View from the Bridge. While working with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) he starred in, among other things, As You Like It. He was the male lead in the 1985 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, directed by Christopher Hampton, which was a sellout. When the show went across the Atlantic in 1986, Rickman went on with it to Broadway and there earned a Tony Award nomination for his performance.

While with the RSC he shared a house with fellow company member Ruby Wax. Rickman put her into writing comedy and proceeded to direct several of her successful shows. "If people want to know who I am, it is all in the work", he said. In 1992, in an interview for The Big Issue magazine, Rickman said,

"You can act truthfully or you can lie. You can reveal things about yourself or you can hide. Therefore, the audience recognises something about themselves or they don't — You hope they don't leave the theatre thinking 'that was nice...now where's the cab?'"

To television audiences he also became known as Mr. Slope in the BBC's 1980s adaptation of Barchester Towers. He played future Irish Taoiseach and president Éamon de Valera in the film Michael Collins alongside Liam Neeson as the title character. While playing romantic leads in British movies (Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility; Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply), he was generally typecast in Hollywood films as an over-the-top villain (German terrorist Hans Gruber in Die Hard and the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves). His role in Die Hard earned him a spot on the American Film Institute's list of the "100 Best Heroes/Villains" as the 46th best villain in film history. His performance of Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves also made him known as one of the best actors to portray a villain in films.

Rickman has also played comedic roles in films such as Galaxy Quest, Dogma, and as Emma Thompson's foolish husband in Love Actually. He won a Golden Globe and an Emmy for his performance as Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny in 1996, and was also nominated for an Emmy for his work as Dr. Alfred Blalock in 2004's Something the Lord Made. Rickman was cast in 2005 as the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film. Coincidentally, Rickman and David Learner, who occupied Marvin's costume for the TV adaptation and stage shows, studied together at RADA. He was very busy in 2006 with Snow Cake (with Sigourney Weaver and Carrie-Anne Moss) which had its debut at the Berlinale, and also Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (with Dustin Hoffman), directed by Tom Tykwer.

Rickman has performed on stage in Noel Coward's romantic comedy Private Lives, which transferred to Broadway after its successful run in London at the Albery Theatre and ended in September 2002. Rickman had reunited with his Les Liaisons Dangereuses co-star Lindsay Duncan, and director Howard Davies for this Tony Award-winning production.

His previous stage performance was as Mark Antony, opposite Helen Mirren as Cleopatra, in the Royal National Theatre's production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Olivier Theatre in London, which ran from 20 October to 3 December 1998. Before that, he performed in Yukio Ninagawa's Tango at the End of Winter in London's West End and the Riverside Studio production of Hamlet in 1991, directed by Robert Sturua. He directed The Winter Guest at London's Almeida Theatre in 1995. He also directed the film version in 1996 starring Emma Thompson and her real life mother Phyllida Law.

Rickman has also been featured in several musical works — most notably in a song composed by the English songwriter Adam Leonard. Moreover, the actor played a "Master of Ceremonies" part in announcing the various instruments in Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells II on the track The Bell. Rickman was one of the many artists who recited Shakespearian sonnets on the 2002-released When Love Speaks CD, and is also featured prominently in a music video by the band Texas entitled In Demand, which premiered on Europe MTV in August 2000. In the video, lead singer Sharleen Spiteri danced the tango with Rickman: the clip was nominated for Best British Video at the Brit Awards.

Rickman played Severus Snape, the seemingly sinister potions master of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter saga, in the six films of that series to date. In 2007, Entertainment Weekly named him one of their favourite people in pop culture, saying that in the Harry Potter films, "he may not be on screen long - but he owns every minute," and that he is capable of "turning a simple retort into a mini-symphony of contempt."

Rickman directed the play My Name Is Rachel Corrie in April 2005 at the Royal Court Theatre, London, and won the Theatre Goers' Choice Awards for best director. The production is based on the writings of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old American woman who was killed on 16 March 2003 by an Israeli armoured bulldozer. The show played at the West End's Playhouse Theatre in London from March to May 2006. The play also ran at both the Galway Arts Festival and the Edinburgh Festival in 2006.

In 1995 Rickman turned down the role of Alec Trevelyan in the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye. Rickman has taken issue with being labelled as a "villain actor", citing the fact that he has not portrayed a stock villain character since the Sheriff of Nottingham in 1991. He has further said that he has continued to portray characters of complex and varying emotions, and does not think it is fair to assign characters a label of good or evil, hero or villain. Prior to the book release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Rickman had spoken on occasion about Snape quite easily, but with the controversy of the character following the events of the sixth book, Rickman refused to speak on the character.

In 2007, Rickman appeared in the critically-acclaimed Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street directed by Tim Burton, alongside Harry Potter co-stars Helena Bonham Carter and Timothy Spall; he played antagonist Judge Turpin. According to Miami Herald, Rickman's performance "makes the judge's villainy something to simultaneously savor and despise", with his "oozing moral rot and arrogance". Rickman will also be appearing as The Caterpillar in the upcoming 2010 Tim Burton film Alice in Wonderland alongside Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Stephen Fry and Anne Hathaway.

Filmography

1978 Romeo and Juliet
1982 The Barchester Chronicles
1985 Return of the Native
1988 Die Hard
1989 The January Man
1990 Quigley Down Under
1991 Truly Madly Deeply
1991 Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
1991 Close My Eyes
1991 Closet Land
1992 Bob Roberts
1994 Mesmer
1995 An Awfully Big Adventure
1995 Sense and Sensibility
1996 Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny
1996 Michael Collins
1997 The Winter Guest
1998 Judas Kiss
1998 Dark Harbor
1999 Dogma
1999 Galaxy Quest
2000 Help! I'm a Fish!
2000 Blow Dry
2001 The Search for John Gissing
2001 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Known as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in United States)
2002 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
2002 King of the Hill
2003 Love Actually
2004 Something the Lord Made
2004 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
2005 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
2005 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
2006 Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
2006 Snow Cake
2007 Nobel Son
2007 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
2007 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
2008 Bottle Shock
2008 We're Here To Help
2009 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
2010 Alice in Wonderland
2010 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I
2010 The Villa Golitsyn
2011 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II

http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Severus-Snape-severus-snape-117858_549_293.jpg

http://www.mtv.com/movies/photos/h/harry_potter_half_blood_prince_cast_071114/alan_rickman.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 02/21/10 at 2:05 am

Loved his turn as Hans Gruber in Die Hard... ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/21/10 at 2:18 am


Loved his turn as Hans Gruber in Die Hard... ;D
A great role for him, and I just have recently re-watched that film.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/21/10 at 2:19 am


Loved his turn as Hans Gruber in Die Hard... ;D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTxwg64FHfU

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/21/10 at 2:20 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTxwg64FHfU
The music is not the Beethoven music as used in Die Hard!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/21/10 at 5:47 am


British Person of the Day: Alan Rickman

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (born 21 February 1946) is a British actor and theatre director born in England. Rickman is known for his performances in film as Hans Gruber in Die Hard and Severus Snape in the Harry Potter film series. He is a renowned stage actor in modern and classical productions and a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He is also known for his prominent roles as the Sheriff of Nottingham in the 1991 blockbuster film, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; as Colonel Brandon in the Oscar-winning 1995 Sense and Sensibility and, more recently, Judge Turpin in Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Early life

Rickman was born in Hammersmith, London to a working class family, the son of Margaret Doreen Rose (née Bartlett), a housewife, and Bernard Rickman, a factory worker. Rickman's mother was Welsh and a Methodist and his father was of Irish Catholic background. He has one elder brother David, a younger brother Michael and a younger sister Sheila. Rickman attended an infants' school in Acton that followed the Montessori method of education. When he was eight his father died, leaving his mother to bring up four children mostly alone. She married again, but divorced his stepfather after three years. "There was one love in her life," Rickman later said. Rickman excelled at calligraphy and watercolour painting, and from Derwentwater Junior School he won a scholarship to Latymer Upper School in London, where he started getting involved in drama. After leaving Latymer, Rickman attended Chelsea College of Art and Design and made his way as a graphic designer, which he considered a more stable occupation than acting. "Drama school wasn't considered the sensible thing to do at 18," he said. Rickman received a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) which he attended from 1972–1974. While there, he studied Shakespeare's works and supported himself working as a dresser for Sir Nigel Hawthorne and Sir Ralph Richardson, and left after winning several prizes such as the Emile Littler Prize, the Forbes Robertson Prize, and the Bancroft Gold Medal.

Career

After graduating from the RADA, Rickman worked extensively with various British repertory and experimental theatre groups on productions including The Seagull and Snoo Wilson's The Grass Widow at the Royal Court Theatre, and has appeared three times at the Edinburgh International Festival. In 1978, he played with the Court Drama Group, performing in several plays, most notably Romeo And Juliet and A View from the Bridge. While working with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) he starred in, among other things, As You Like It. He was the male lead in the 1985 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, directed by Christopher Hampton, which was a sellout. When the show went across the Atlantic in 1986, Rickman went on with it to Broadway and there earned a Tony Award nomination for his performance.

While with the RSC he shared a house with fellow company member Ruby Wax. Rickman put her into writing comedy and proceeded to direct several of her successful shows. "If people want to know who I am, it is all in the work", he said. In 1992, in an interview for The Big Issue magazine, Rickman said,

"You can act truthfully or you can lie. You can reveal things about yourself or you can hide. Therefore, the audience recognises something about themselves or they don't — You hope they don't leave the theatre thinking 'that was nice...now where's the cab?'"

To television audiences he also became known as Mr. Slope in the BBC's 1980s adaptation of Barchester Towers. He played future Irish Taoiseach and president Éamon de Valera in the film Michael Collins alongside Liam Neeson as the title character. While playing romantic leads in British movies (Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility; Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply), he was generally typecast in Hollywood films as an over-the-top villain (German terrorist Hans Gruber in Die Hard and the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves). His role in Die Hard earned him a spot on the American Film Institute's list of the "100 Best Heroes/Villains" as the 46th best villain in film history. His performance of Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves also made him known as one of the best actors to portray a villain in films.

Rickman has also played comedic roles in films such as Galaxy Quest, Dogma, and as Emma Thompson's foolish husband in Love Actually. He won a Golden Globe and an Emmy for his performance as Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny in 1996, and was also nominated for an Emmy for his work as Dr. Alfred Blalock in 2004's Something the Lord Made. Rickman was cast in 2005 as the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film. Coincidentally, Rickman and David Learner, who occupied Marvin's costume for the TV adaptation and stage shows, studied together at RADA. He was very busy in 2006 with Snow Cake (with Sigourney Weaver and Carrie-Anne Moss) which had its debut at the Berlinale, and also Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (with Dustin Hoffman), directed by Tom Tykwer.

Rickman has performed on stage in Noel Coward's romantic comedy Private Lives, which transferred to Broadway after its successful run in London at the Albery Theatre and ended in September 2002. Rickman had reunited with his Les Liaisons Dangereuses co-star Lindsay Duncan, and director Howard Davies for this Tony Award-winning production.

His previous stage performance was as Mark Antony, opposite Helen Mirren as Cleopatra, in the Royal National Theatre's production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Olivier Theatre in London, which ran from 20 October to 3 December 1998. Before that, he performed in Yukio Ninagawa's Tango at the End of Winter in London's West End and the Riverside Studio production of Hamlet in 1991, directed by Robert Sturua. He directed The Winter Guest at London's Almeida Theatre in 1995. He also directed the film version in 1996 starring Emma Thompson and her real life mother Phyllida Law.

Rickman has also been featured in several musical works — most notably in a song composed by the English songwriter Adam Leonard. Moreover, the actor played a "Master of Ceremonies" part in announcing the various instruments in Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells II on the track The Bell. Rickman was one of the many artists who recited Shakespearian sonnets on the 2002-released When Love Speaks CD, and is also featured prominently in a music video by the band Texas entitled In Demand, which premiered on Europe MTV in August 2000. In the video, lead singer Sharleen Spiteri danced the tango with Rickman: the clip was nominated for Best British Video at the Brit Awards.

Rickman played Severus Snape, the seemingly sinister potions master of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter saga, in the six films of that series to date. In 2007, Entertainment Weekly named him one of their favourite people in pop culture, saying that in the Harry Potter films, "he may not be on screen long - but he owns every minute," and that he is capable of "turning a simple retort into a mini-symphony of contempt."

Rickman directed the play My Name Is Rachel Corrie in April 2005 at the Royal Court Theatre, London, and won the Theatre Goers' Choice Awards for best director. The production is based on the writings of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old American woman who was killed on 16 March 2003 by an Israeli armoured bulldozer. The show played at the West End's Playhouse Theatre in London from March to May 2006. The play also ran at both the Galway Arts Festival and the Edinburgh Festival in 2006.

In 1995 Rickman turned down the role of Alec Trevelyan in the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye. Rickman has taken issue with being labelled as a "villain actor", citing the fact that he has not portrayed a stock villain character since the Sheriff of Nottingham in 1991. He has further said that he has continued to portray characters of complex and varying emotions, and does not think it is fair to assign characters a label of good or evil, hero or villain. Prior to the book release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Rickman had spoken on occasion about Snape quite easily, but with the controversy of the character following the events of the sixth book, Rickman refused to speak on the character.

In 2007, Rickman appeared in the critically-acclaimed Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street directed by Tim Burton, alongside Harry Potter co-stars Helena Bonham Carter and Timothy Spall; he played antagonist Judge Turpin. According to Miami Herald, Rickman's performance "makes the judge's villainy something to simultaneously savor and despise", with his "oozing moral rot and arrogance". Rickman will also be appearing as The Caterpillar in the upcoming 2010 Tim Burton film Alice in Wonderland alongside Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Stephen Fry and Anne Hathaway.

Filmography

1978 Romeo and Juliet
1982 The Barchester Chronicles
1985 Return of the Native
1988 Die Hard
1989 The January Man
1990 Quigley Down Under
1991 Truly Madly Deeply
1991 Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
1991 Close My Eyes
1991 Closet Land
1992 Bob Roberts
1994 Mesmer
1995 An Awfully Big Adventure
1995 Sense and Sensibility
1996 Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny
1996 Michael Collins
1997 The Winter Guest
1998 Judas Kiss
1998 Dark Harbor
1999 Dogma
1999 Galaxy Quest
2000 Help! I'm a Fish!
2000 Blow Dry
2001 The Search for John Gissing
2001 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Known as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in United States)
2002 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
2002 King of the Hill
2003 Love Actually
2004 Something the Lord Made
2004 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
2005 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
2005 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
2006 Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
2006 Snow Cake
2007 Nobel Son
2007 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
2007 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
2008 Bottle Shock
2008 We're Here To Help
2009 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
2010 Alice in Wonderland
2010 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I
2010 The Villa Golitsyn
2011 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II

http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Severus-Snape-severus-snape-117858_549_293.jpg

http://www.mtv.com/movies/photos/h/harry_potter_half_blood_prince_cast_071114/alan_rickman.jpg


Thanks Phil, I've always enjoyed his acting.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/21/10 at 5:49 am


Thanks Phil, I've always enjoyed his acting.
As I see more of him, I am liking him more and more.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/21/10 at 5:51 am

The word of the day...Cheers
   *
     a word that people say to each other as they lift up their glasses to drink
   *
     goodbye British English informal
         o
           Cheers then. See you later.
   *
     thank you British English informal
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/cowgirl4/009.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr251/Mistyman5/IM000977.jpg
http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/xx51/CartR13/P2050195.jpg
http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad305/ARCH2010/drink01.jpg
http://i949.photobucket.com/albums/ad334/lauren_hoffman82/TriSummerFY10/kkk.jpg
http://i863.photobucket.com/albums/ab194/auntmaim/BC_DG.jpg
http://i783.photobucket.com/albums/yy119/Mikevayne79/Ganbei.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj128/nicstockman/Cheers.jpg
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e190/Amberlynn13/cheers.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/21/10 at 5:52 am


The word of the day...Cheers
    *
      a word that people say to each other as they lift up their glasses to drink
    *
      goodbye British English informal
          o
            Cheers then. See you later.
    *
      thank you British English informal
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c26/cowgirl4/009.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr251/Mistyman5/IM000977.jpg
http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/xx51/CartR13/P2050195.jpg
http://i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad305/ARCH2010/drink01.jpg
http://i949.photobucket.com/albums/ad334/lauren_hoffman82/TriSummerFY10/kkk.jpg
http://i863.photobucket.com/albums/ab194/auntmaim/BC_DG.jpg
http://i783.photobucket.com/albums/yy119/Mikevayne79/Ganbei.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj128/nicstockman/Cheers.jpg
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e190/Amberlynn13/cheers.jpg
I'll drink to that!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/21/10 at 5:56 am

The person born on this day...Kelsey Grammer
Allen Kelsey Grammer (born February 21, 1955), best known as Kelsey Grammer, is an American actor, producer, director, writer, voice artist and comedian best known for his two-decade portrayal of psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane in the NBC situation comedies Cheers (nine years) and Frasier (eleven years), and providing the voice of Sideshow Bob on the Fox animated series The Simpsons. He was nominated for numerous Emmys, including one for playing Frasier Crane on three different sitcoms (the third being a guest appearance on Wings). He has worked as a television producer, director, writer, and a voice artist. Grammer was born in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands to Sally (née Cranmer), a singer, and Frank Allen Grammer, Jr., a musician and owner of a coffee shop and a bar & grill. He is descended from Massachusetts Governor Thomas Dudley. His parents' marriage ended when he was young; his mother took him to live with her, and he was raised partly in New Jersey by his maternal grandparents, Evangeline Dimmock and Gordon Cranmer.
Family tragedies

Grammer's family life has been plagued by tragedies. In 1968, when Grammer was thirteen years old, his father, whom he had seen only twice since his parents' divorce, was killed on the front lawn of his home in the U.S. Virgin Islands. In 1975, his sister, Karen, was raped and murdered after being abducted outside a Red Lobster restaurant in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where her boyfriend worked. In 1980, his fraternal twin younger half-brothers were killed by a shark in a scuba diving accident.

Grammer has sworn to prevent his sister's murderer, Freddie Lee Glenn, from being paroled; in July 2009, Glenn was denied parole at least in part due to a letter Grammer submitted to the parole board.
Career
Stage

After leaving Juilliard, he had a three-year internship with the Old Globe Theatre, in San Diego, in the late 1970s, before a stint in 1980 at the Guthrie Theater, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He made his Broadway debut in 1981, as "Lennox," in Macbeth, taking the lead role when Philip Anglim withdrew after receiving negative reviews. In 1983, he performed on the demo of the Stephen Sondheim–James Lapine production Sunday in the Park with George, starring Mandy Patinkin. Also featured on the demo was Christine Baranski, who later starred as Mrs. Lovett to Grammer's Sweeney Todd in the 1999 LA Reprise! production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Grammer then played Michael Cassio in a Broadway revival of Othello, with James Earl Jones and Christopher Plummer. On April 18, 2010, Grammer will make his Broadway musical debut playing the role of Georges in a revival of the Jerry Herman/Harvey Fierstein musical La Cage aux Folles.
Television

His television career began in the early 1980s when he portrayed Stephen Smith in the NBC miniseries Kennedy. Grammer came to broader public attention as Dr. Frasier Crane in the NBC sitcom Cheers. Grammer's former Juilliard classmate and Broadway co-star Patinkin suggested Grammer to the New York casting director, and he got what was supposed to be a six-episode job but ended up as a regular cast member. The character became the center of the successful spin-off Frasier. Grammer reprised his role of Dr. Frasier Crane in a commercial for Dr Pepper.

In 2001, he negotiated a US$700,000-per-episode salary for Frasier, and his 20-year run playing Dr. Frasier Crane ties a length set by James Arness in playing Marshall Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke from 1955 to 1975.

In 2005, he returned to series television on Fox, by attempting to create an American adaptation of The Sketch Show, a British sketch show. The main cast consisted of Malcolm Barrett, Kaitlin Olson, Mary Lynn Rajskub, and Paul F. Tompkins, as well as Lee Mack from the British version of the show. Grammer appeared in only short opening and closing segments in each episode. Many of the sketches from the British version were recreated, such as the "California Dreamin'," "English Course," and "Sign Language" sketches. Only six episodes of the show were made, and it was canceled after only four of them had aired.

In addition to being producer, he guest-starred as the Angel of Death on Medium.

In 2007, Grammer returned to the sitcom format as the central character in the American sitcom Back to You, co-starring with Patricia Heaton. It was canceled by Fox after its first season.

Grammer's ABC sitcom Hank was canceled in its first season on Nov 11, 2009, saying at the end, "Honestly, it just wasn't very funny."
Voice work

Grammer's smooth, deep voice and Mid-Atlantic accent make him popular for voiceover work. He has provided the voice of Sideshow Bob on The Simpsons, winning an Emmy for his work in the episode "The Italian Bob." He has appeared in eleven episodes since the show's inception in 1989, the most recent being "Wedding for Disaster" that aired in early 2009. Grammer supplied the voices for "Stinky Pete the Prospector" in Toy Story 2, Vladimir in the Fox animated movie Anastasia, Zozi the Bear in the subsequently produced prequel Bartok the Magnificent, and the title character in the short-lived animated series Gary the Rat. He provided the opening speech and piano in The Vandals' song "Phone Machine" from the album Fear of a Punk Planet, and sang a rewritten version of the "grinch" on an episode of Just Shoot Me!. He was the voice of the mad scientist, Dr. Frankenollie, in the Mickey Mouse short Runaway Brain.
Production work

His production company, Grammnet Productions, produces the CW sitcoms Girlfriends and The Game, the CBS drama Medium, and is involved in many other projects.
Other work

In film, his recent work includes the role of Dr. Hank McCoy (also known as Beast) in X-Men: The Last Stand and the voice of Snowball in the live-action film adaptation of the George Orwell classic book Animal Farm. Kelsey starred in the movie Swing Vote; the plot is based in part on the tight races for President of the United States, in which the vote is so tight that it comes down to one man's vote to determine the winner. Kelsey plays the Republican incumbent, a role that aligns with his own views. He played another role as General George S. Patton in An American Carol.

As part of his voice-over work, Grammer's voice has been featured in commercials. He was the voice of the original GEICO gecko, a talking reptile created by The Martin Agency in 1999. In the commercial, the gecko pleads for people to stop calling him in error, mistaking gecko for GEICO. Since 2006, Grammer has provided the voice for television commercials advertising the Hyundai Sonata, Hyundai Santa Fe, Hyundai Veracruz, and Hyundai Azera. He was chosen because his "refined and luxurious voice" would help build the up-and-coming car maker's new image as an affordable luxury automobile.

Recently he went onto the Internet and started www.KelseyLive.com and developed a new concept which he refers to as a "Branded Social Television Network". The site is a cross between Facebook and MySpace but branded to him then mixed with Amazon as there is shopping and Television where you can find all his old Frasier and Cheers episodes plus other film and TV projects he has done in the past. From his site he plans on developing new content for the net and also the studios. His most current project involves an animated cat call Gary Geezley which is in pre-production currently.
Awards

He won a number of Emmys, Screen Actors Guild Award, and Golden Globes for his work on Frasier. He was the first American actor ever to be nominated for multiple Emmy awards for portraying the same character on three different television shows (Cheers, Frasier, and Wings).

Grammer has received at least 45 nominations for major awards and has won on 18 occasions. He has received 14 individual Emmy Award nominations for 4 different television shows (plus an additional 2 as part of the Frasier ensemble) and has won on 5 occasions. At the Golden Globes, he has received eight nominations and twice been victorious. He has received two People's Choice Awards, and in 1999 his directorial skills were recognised with a nomination for a Directors Guild of America award for directing an episode of Frasier. He received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role in X-Men: The Last Stand. On May 22, 2001, he was presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for television.

The following table gives a selection of the awards he has won.
Year Award Category
1994 Emmy Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (Frasier)
1995 Emmy Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (Frasier)
1995 American Comedy Award Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Frasier)
1996 Golden Globe Best Performance by an Actor in a TV-Series Comedy/Musical (Frasier)
1996 American Comedy Award Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Frasier)
1998 Emmy Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (Frasier)
2001 Golden Globe Best Performance by an Actor in a TV-Series Comedy/Musical (Frasier)
2004 Emmy Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (Frasier)
2006 Emmy Outstanding Voice-Over Performance (The Simpsons)
Personal life
Family

Grammer has been married three times. His first marriage, to dance instructor Doreen Alderman, lasted from 1982 to 1990. They had one daughter, Spencer Grammer (born October 9, 1983), an actress on the CBS Daytime soap opera As the World Turns and the ABC Family show Greek.

His second marriage, to stripper Leigh-Anne Csuhany in 1992, lasted one year. Grammer says that she was abusive and that, after talk of divorce, she attempted suicide, which resulted in the miscarriage of their child. During this marriage, Grammer had a daughter out of wedlock, Greer Kandace (born February 15, 1992), with hair and makeup stylist Barrie Buckner.

Grammer has been married since August 1997 to Camille Donatacci, a former Playboy model. They have a daughter, Mason Olivia (born October 24, 2001), and a son, Jude Gordon (born August 28, 2004), both born via surrogate mother. Grammer and Donatacci have homes in Malibu, California; Colorado; and New York. They have a holiday home on Maui.
Defamation lawsuit

In 1995, Grammer was sued by ex-girlfriend Cerlette Lamme for defamation of character and invasion of privacy over content he included in his autobiography So Far.
Sex tape lawsuit

In 1998, Grammer filed a lawsuit against Internet Entertainment Group, which Grammer claimed had stolen from his home a videotape of him having sex with a woman. IEG countersued Grammer, denying they were in possession of such a tape, and Grammer's suit was eventually dropped. IEG President Seth Warshavsky told the New York Post, "We have been presented with another Kelsey Grammer tape. But we have no plans to air it. We are still evaluating it at this time." Grammer later told Maxim, "Whether or not you’re a celebrity—even if you’re just an old slob with a video camera—you don’t realize you shouldn’t do it. So you throw the tape in the back of a dark closet until your old girlfriend remembers it’s there because you’re famous now and she’s not. But if you’re not prepared to do the time, don’t do the crime."
Copyright lawsuit

In August 2008, Bradley Blakeman, a former aide to George W. Bush, filed a copyright lawsuit in federal court on Long Island over Grammer's movie Swing Vote, claiming that parts of its plot and marketing had been stolen from him. The lawsuit claimed that Blakeman had given a copyrighted screenplay called Go November to Grammer in 2006, and that Grammer agreed to develop the project and star as a Republican president but instead ended up playing a similar role in Swing Vote, which was released on August 1, 2008. Grammer's spokesman dismissed the claims as "frivolous" and a "waste of time". The lawsuit claims that Blakeman's copyrighted screenplay had the same basic plot as Swing Vote.
Substance abuse

Grammer began drinking at age nine and became a frequent abuser of alcohol. In 1988, he was sentenced to 30 days in jail for drunk driving and cocaine possession. He was again arrested for cocaine possession in August 1990 and was sentenced to three years' probation, fined $500, and given 300 hours of community service. In January 1991, he was given an additional two years' probation for violating his original probation through additional cocaine use. In September 1996, he flipped his Dodge Viper while intoxicated and subsequently checked in to the Betty Ford Center for 30 days.
Health problems

Grammer suffered a heart attack on May 31, 2008. He told Jay Leno on the July 24, 2008, airing of The Tonight Show that he had to wait one and a half hours for paramedics to arrive. He was hospitalized in Hawaii after he had symptoms while paddle-boating with his wife, Camille. He was released on June 4, 2008, and was listed as "resting comfortably" at his Hawaiian residence. Seven weeks after his attack, Grammer told Entertainment Tonight that, although at the time his spokesman described the attack as mild, it was in fact more severe, almost leading to his death, as his heart had stopped.

Grammer blamed Fox's decision to cancel his TV sitcom Back to You for his health problems, stating that "It was a very stressful time for me, and a surprise that it was cancelled. But you know, everything that doesn't kill us—which it almost did—makes us stronger!"

On June 28, 2008, Grammer checked into an undisclosed New York hospital after complaints of feeling faint. His publicist said that it may have been due to a reaction to medication.
Politics

Grammer is a member of the Republican Party and has expressed an interest in someday running for United States Congress.

Grammer was a celebrity guest at President George W. Bush's first inauguration, along with Drew Carey, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and Fred Thompson.

Grammer endorsed Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 presidential primary and later campaigned for John McCain in the general election.

When asked by Maxim magazine about his political ambitions, Grammer replied, "It's a notion I have about the future, to run for office, to do the world some good. Maybe in 15 years or so, there may be a run for office. But I don’t know what I’d run for."
Filmography
Films
Year Film Role Notes
1992 Galaxies Are Colliding Peter
1995 Runaway Brain Dr. Frankenollie Short film
1996 Down Periscope Lieutenant Commander Thomas Dodge
1997 Anastasia Vladimir
1998 The Real Howard Spitz Howard Spitz
1999 Animal Farm Napoleon
New Jersey Turnpikes Unknown
Standing on Fishes Verk
Toy Story 2 "Stinky Pete" the Prospector
Bartok the Magnificent Zozi Direct-to-video release
Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas Narrator Direct-to-video release
2001 15 Minutes Robert Hawkins
Just Visiting Narrator Uncredited
2003 The Big Empty Agent Banks
Barbie of Swan Lake Rothbart Direct-to-video release
2004 Teacher's Pet Dr. Ivan Krank
2005 The Good Humor Man Mr. Skibness Also executive producer
2006 X-Men: The Last Stand Dr. Henry 'Hank' McCoy/Beast
2007 Even Money Detective Brunner
2008 Swing Vote President Andrew Boone
An American Carol General George S. Patton
2009 Fame Joel Cranston
2010 Crazy on the Outside Frank
Bunyan and Babe Norm Blandsford Post-production
Middle Men Frank Griffin Post-production
TBA Alligator Point TBA
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1982 Macbeth Ross TV film
1983 Kennedy Stephen Smith TV miniseries
1984 Kate & Allie David Hamill Episode 1.1: "Allie's First Date"
George Washington Lt. Stewart TV miniseries
1984-1985 Another World Dr. Canard Recurring role
1984-1993 Cheers Dr. Frasier Crane Appeared in 201 episodes
1986 Crossings Craig Lawson TV miniseries
1987 Biography George Washington Episode: "Benedict Arnold"
J.J. Starbuck Pierce Morgan Episode 1.3: "Murder in E Minor"
1988 Dance 'til Dawn Ed Strull TV film
1989 Top of the Hill Unknown TV film
227 Mr. Anderson Episode 4.24: "For Sale"
1990 The Tracey Ullman Show Mr. Brenna Episode 4.12: "Maria and the Mister"
1990- The Simpsons Sideshow Bob Has appeared in eleven episodes
1991 Baby Talk Russell Episode 1.7: "One Night with Elliot"
1992 Wings Dr. Frasier Crane Episode 3.16: "Planes, Trains and Visiting Cranes"
Star Trek: The Next Generation Captain Bateson Episode 5.18: "Cause and Effect"
1993 Roc Detective Rush Episode 2.25: "To Love and Die on Emerson Street: Part 2"
Beyond Suspicion Ron McNally TV film
1993-2004 Frasier Dr. Frasier Crane Appeared in all 264 episodes;
also executive producer and director of 37 episodes
1994 The Innocent Det. Frank Barlow TV film
1995 The John Larroquette Show Dr. Frasier Crane Episode 3.1: "More Changes"
1996 London Suite Sydney Nichols TV film
1997 Fired Up Tom Whitman Episodes 1.3: "Who's the Boss" and 2.3: "You Don't Know Jack"; also executive producer
1998 The Pentagon Wars Major General Partridge TV film
Just Shoot Me! Narrator Episode 3.10: "How the Finch Stole Christmas"
1999 Animal Farm Snowball TV film
2000 Stark Raving Mad Professor Tuttle 1.17: "The Grade"
2001 Neurotic Tendencies N/A TV film; executive producer, director and writer
2000-2008 Girlfriends Executive producer
2001 The Sports Pages Howard Greene TV film
2002 Mr. St. Nick Nick St. Nicholas/Santa Claus the 21st TV film
2002-2003 In-Laws N/A Executive producer
2003 Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor George Washington TV film
Becker Rick Cooper Episode 5.13: "But I've Got Friends I Haven't Used Yet"
Gary the Rat Gary "The Rat" Andrews Appeared in all 13 episodes;
also executive producer
2004 A Christmas Carol Ebenezer Scrooge TV film
The Soluna Project N/A TV film; executive producer
2005 Kelsey Grammer Presents: The Sketch Show Various characters Appeared in all four aired episodes;
also executive producer
Out of Practice N/A Directed episodes 1.1 and 1.18
2006 Medium Angel of Death Episode 2.21: "Death Takes a Policy"
Also executive producer
My Ex Life N/A Director
2006-2009 The Game N/A Executive producer
2007 Dash 4 Cash N/A TV film; executive producer
Everybody Hates Chris N/A Directed episode 2.22: "Everybody Hates the Last Day"
2007-2008 Back to You Chuck Darling Appeared in all 17 episodes
Also executive producer
2009 Hank Lead role Also executive producer
Video games

    * The Simpsons Game (2007) - Sideshow Bob

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa312/AnotherDroolWorthyPic/Kelsey%20Grammer%20Album/0146.jpg
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa312/AnotherDroolWorthyPic/Kelsey%20Grammer%20Album/0155.jpg
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa312/AnotherDroolWorthyPic/Kelsey%20Grammer%20Album/0165.jpg
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa312/AnotherDroolWorthyPic/Kelsey%20Grammer%20Album/0131.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/21/10 at 6:01 am

The person who died on this day...Murray the K
Murray Kaufman (February 14, 1922 – February 21, 1982) professionally known as Murray the K, was a famous and influential rock and roll impresario and disc jockey of the 1950s, '60s and '70s. During the early days of Beatlemania, he frequently referred to himself as "the Fifth Beatle". In the late '40s and early '50s, he worked in public relations and as a song plugger, helping to promote tunes like Bob Merrill's "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window." From there, he worked as a radio producer and co-host at WMCA (and briefly thereafter at WMGM), working with personalities such as Laraine Day on the late night interview program "Day At Night" and with Eva Gabor. At the same time, he was doing promotion for several baseball players, including Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays, and his radio beginnings may be attributable to his connection with the New York Giants, whose manager, Leo Durocher, was the husband of Laraine Day. His work on those shows earned him his own late-night show that often featured his wife as co-host, as was popular at the time. For a while in the 1950s he was president of the National Conference of Disk Jockeys.
Murray the K Fan Club promo shot
Deejay: from AM to FM
"This meeting of the Swingin' Soiree is now in session!"

Kaufman's big break came in 1958 after he moved to WINS-AM to do the all-night show, which he titled "The Swingin' Soiree." Shortly after his arrival, WINS's high energy star disk jockey, Alan Freed, was indicted for tax evasion and forced off the air. Though Freed's spot was briefly occupied by Bruce Morrow, who later became known as Cousin Brucie on WABC, Murray soon was moved into the 7-11PM time period and remained there for the next seven years, always opening his show with Sinatra and making radio history with his innovative segues, jingles, sound effects, antics, and frenetic, creative programming. Jeff Rice, writing in M/C Journal, says that Tom Wolfe calls Murray "the original hysterical disk jockey"
Murray the K, the "Fifth Beatle"
"The Fifth Beatle"

Murray the K reached his peak of popularity in the mid 1960s when, as the top-rated radio host in New York City, he became an early and ardent supporter and friend of The Beatles. When the Beatles came to New York in February, 1964, Murray was the first DJ they welcomed into their circle, having heard about him and his Brooklyn Fox shows from American acts who visited England. Murray did his radio show from their Plaza Hotel room their first night in New York and accompanied them to Washington, D.C. for their first U.S. concert, was backstage at their Ed Sullivan Show premiere, and roomed with Beatles guitarist George Harrison in Miami, broadcasting his shows from there. He came to be referred to as the "Fifth Beatle," a moniker he said he was given either by Harrison during the train ride to the Beatles' first concert in Washington D.C. or by Ringo Starr at a press conference before that concert. (However, in The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit he is seen christening himself thus in a phone conversation with the Beatles on the morning of their arrival in New York). His radio station WINS picked up on the name and billed him as the Fifth Beatle, a moniker he came to regret. He was invited to the set of A Hard Day's Night in England and made several treks to England during 1964, giving WINS listeners more Beatle exclusives.
The move to FM

By the end of 1964, Murray found out that WINS was going to change to an all news format the following year. He resigned on the air in December '64 (breaking news about the sale of the station and the change in format before the station and Group W released it) and did his last show on February 27 prior to the format change that occurred in April 1965. A year later, in 1966, the FCC ruled that AM and FM radio stations could no longer simply simultaneously broadcast the same content, opening the door for Murray to become program director and primetime dj on WOR-FM — one of the first FM rock stations, soon airing such djs as Rosko and Scott Muni in the new FM format. Murray played long album cuts rather than singles, often playing groups of songs by one artist, or thematically linked songs, uninterrupted by commercials. He combined live in-studio interviews with folk-rock — he called it "attitude music" — and all forms of popular music in a free-form format. He played artists like Bob Dylan and Janis Ian, the long album versions of their songs that came to be known as the "FM cuts". Al Aronowitz quotes Murray as saying, about his this formula, "You didn't have to hype the record any more. The music was speaking for itself."
Dylan

During that time Murray was often a champion of the much-maligned electric Bob Dylan. He introduced him to boos at a huge Forest Hills Tennis Stadium concert in August 1965, saying "It's not rock, it's not folk, it's a new thing called Dylan."

He defended Dylan on a WABC-TV panel:

    "Even in his months of seclusion after the motorcycle accident, WABC-TV dedicated a television show to a discussion of what Bob Dylan was really like. When one member of the panel accused Dylan of all but inventing juvenile delinquency, there was only Murray the K to defend him. 'Is Bob Dylan every kid's father?' Murray asked."

And he played his music, full length, on the radio.
Last years in radio

Murray's WOR-FM radio was a cultural phenomenon and commercially successful, but after a year management wanted more commercial appeal and tried to force Murray to use a set playlist; he refused, then had a heart attack. WOR switched to an oldies format and Murray the K left New York radio to host programs in Toronto - on CHUM -and on WHFS in the Washington D.C. area. He returned to New York in 1970 on the weekend show NBC Monitor and as a fill-in morning dj, and then in 1972 moved to a regular evening weekend program on WNBC radio where Don Imus was broadcasting; he was joined there by the legendary Wolfman Jack, a year later. Although it was low-key, Murray's WNBC show featured his own innovative trademark programming style, including telling stories that were illustrated by selected songs, his unique segues, and his pairing cuts by theme or idiosyncratic associations. In early 1975, he was brought on for a brief stint at legendary Long Island alternative rock station WLIR, and his final New York radio show ran later that year on WKTU-FM after which - already in ill health - he moved to Los Angeles.
1964 Holiday Revue at the Fox
Brooklyn Fox shows

Throughout his New York radio career, Kaufman was renowned for the multi-racial rock 'n' roll shows he produced three or four times a year, usually during the Easter school recess, the week before Labor Day, and between Christmas and New Year at the Brooklyn Fox Theater. Those shows featured the top performers of the era and introduced new acts, such as Dionne Warwick, Chuck Jackson, The Zombies, Little Anthony & The Imperials, the Ronettes, the Shangri-Las, Gene Pitney, Ben E. King, the Four Tops, Wayne Newton, Bobby Vinton (who was the leader of the house band when he asked for a chance to perform as a singer), The Lovin' Spoonful, Cream, and The Who, among many others. He was known for promoting original black and Latino artists rather than white covers of their songs, at a time when that was not popular.
Records, television, stage, and syndication

Throughout his radio career, from the 50s through the 70s, Murray also released numerous LP record albums, often compilations of hits by the acts that appeared in his famous Brooklyn Fox shows. These albums frequently had names such as "Murray the K's Blasts from the Past" or "Murray the K's Sing Along with the Original Golden Gassers".

"Meusurray" (named after a language Murray invented and used quite often on his 1010 WINS radio show) was a single by a girl group called The Delicates, released on the United Artists label. The Delicates were Denise Ferri, Arleen Lanzotti and Peggy Santiglia, known as Murray's "dancing girls". They wrote the song which was arranged by Don Costa. The Delicates also wrote and recorded his "Submarine Race Watcher" theme, used to open and close his radio show. It was during the "twist craze" that Kaufman introduced a song sung by an unidentified artist named, "The Lone Twister". Of course, the artist was Murray.

In the mid-'60s, Kaufman also produced and hosted television variety shows featuring rock performers. The best known was a national broadcast entitled It's What's Happening, Baby which was made under the auspices of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The show aired on June 28, 1965 and featured performances by many of the popular artists of the day like Jan & Dean, Mary Wells, the Dave Clark Five, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Diana Ross & The Supremes, Patti LaBelle & the Bluebelles, The Drifters, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, The Ronettes, The Righteous Brothers and Little Anthony & the Imperials That show also introduced the first music video-style programming, pre-dating MTV by 15 years.

In 1967, Murray produced and wrote "Murray the K in New York" which expanded on the music video-style approach he began in It's What's Happening, Baby and featured an eclectic line-up of stars, including The Doors, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Spanky & Our Gang, and The Four Tops with guest appearances by Ed Sullivan and Joe Namath.

Other locally broadcast shows from the period included "Murray the K at Shea" with James Brown and The Four Seasons and "Music in the Year 2000."

In 1968, Murray produced and hosted a studio panel discussion program entitled "The Sound is Now"; it included appearances by Phil Ochs and Sonny and Cher who were grilled by Henry Morgan and Tex McCrary.

Kaufman also created Murray the K's World, a multimedia discothèque in an abandoned airplane hangar at Roosevelt Field on Long Island where live and recorded music played while slides and film were projected.

During the early 1970s, Murray acted as a special consultant to the stage show Beatlemania, and he toured the country giving interviews on behalf of the show.

In Los Angeles in the late 70s he hosted Watermark's syndicated "Soundtrack of the '60s" until ill health forced him to resign and forced the cancellation of "A Salute to Murray the K," a tribute concert slated for Madison Square Garden.
Film

Kaufman was parodied in the film The Rutles - All You Need Is Cash as a radio host named Bill Murray the K, played by actor Bill Murray. Kaufman appeared as a guest star on a 1960s series entitled "Coronet Blue," receiving very good reviews, and also appeared as himself, to not-so-good reviews, in I Wanna Hold Your Hand, a film by Academy Award winner Robert Zemeckis.

Kaufman also appeared - opposite Harvey Keitel - in the 1975 film That's the Way of the World directed by Sig Shore.
Family and death

He was married six times and had three sons, Peter (Altschuler), Jeff and Keith. His first wife, Anna May, died in childbirth. He was married to his second, Toni, for three years; his third, Beverly, for three months; his fourth, Claire, for about nine years in the 1950s; his fifth, Jackie Hayes (called "Jackie the K"), until about 1973; and finally, his sixth, actress Jackie Zeman for just one year, although they were together for seven years before marrying.

Kaufman died of cancer a week after his 60th birthday on February 21, 1982.
Legacy

He shares writing credit with his mother and Bobby Darin for Darin's breakout song, "Splish Splash"

Beginning in 1960, Kaufman's rock 'n' roll shows at the Brooklyn Paramount theater (as co-host with Clay Cole), Manhattan's Academy of Music theater on 14th Street and, predominantly, the Brooklyn Fox theater provided an inter-racial environment in which the performers and the audiences both thrived. The week-long, eight-show-a-day presentations continued throughout the most explosive periods of civil rights unrest in the mid-'60s, culminating in Kaufman's final show at the RKO 58th Street theater in Manhattan with a line-up that included The Who and Cream in their American debuts.

Murray was the author of a 1966 book, Murray the K Tells It Like It Is, Baby.

Kaufman was program director and primetime evening DJ on the nation's first FM rock station WOR-FM, changing the way in which radio listeners heard rock music. During the short run of progressive rock programming - the station switched to an oldies format within the first year - listeners would have been able to hear the full, album versions of songs like Positively Fourth Street and Society's Child which were either played in shorter versions on AM radio or not played at all.

He is mentioned in the 1980 Ramones song Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio? as well as Who Will Save Rock 'n' Roll by the Dictators.

He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1997.
Recordings made by Murray Kaufman

    * 1955 Fraternity F-714 "The Crazy Otto Rag" as by Ludwig Von Kaufman/"Out Of The Bushes" as by Murray Kaufman (made before becoming a DJ at WMCA)
    * 1958 Murray Kaufman Part 1/Part 2 (Part 1 is a 1010WINS radio jingle item featuring Murray and the Delicates and his themes; Part 2 is his "Ah, Bey, ah bey, koowi zowa zowa" chant, along with an explanation of its meaning.) The chant was lifted intact from a Thomas J. Valentino music library recording (on the Major Records label) entitled "African Drums With Native Chants" on the A side and "Drums (African)," "Native Work Chant (African)," and "Native Choral Chant (African)" on the B side.
    * 1961 Atlantic 2130 "The Lone Twister"/"Twistin' Up A Storm" as by The Lone Twister

Murray the K's Sing Along with the Original Golden Gassers, 1961
Catchphrases

    * "Ah Bey!"
    * "kooma zowa zowa"
    * "It's what's happening, baby!"
    * "submarine race watching"
    * "blast from the past"
    * "Me-a-surray" language, his own version of pig Latin
    * the "Swingin' Soiree"
    * "golden gassers"
    * the Record Review Board
    * his hats
    * "grand kook"
    * "ain't that a kick in the head"
    * "dancing girls"
    * "play 'em red hot and blue"
    * "the grand commodore"
    * "the halvah plantation"
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/21/10 at 6:56 am


The person born on this day...Kelsey Grammer
Allen Kelsey Grammer (born February 21, 1955), best known as Kelsey Grammer, is an American actor, producer, director, writer, voice artist and comedian best known for his two-decade portrayal of psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane in the NBC situation comedies Cheers (nine years) and Frasier (eleven years), and providing the voice of Sideshow Bob on the Fox animated series The Simpsons. He was nominated for numerous Emmys, including one for playing Frasier Crane on three different sitcoms (the third being a guest appearance on Wings). He has worked as a television producer, director, writer, and a voice artist. Grammer was born in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands to Sally (née Cranmer), a singer, and Frank Allen Grammer, Jr., a musician and owner of a coffee shop and a bar & grill. He is descended from Massachusetts Governor Thomas Dudley. His parents' marriage ended when he was young; his mother took him to live with her, and he was raised partly in New Jersey by his maternal grandparents, Evangeline Dimmock and Gordon Cranmer.
Family tragedies

Grammer's family life has been plagued by tragedies. In 1968, when Grammer was thirteen years old, his father, whom he had seen only twice since his parents' divorce, was killed on the front lawn of his home in the U.S. Virgin Islands. In 1975, his sister, Karen, was raped and murdered after being abducted outside a Red Lobster restaurant in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where her boyfriend worked. In 1980, his fraternal twin younger half-brothers were killed by a shark in a scuba diving accident.

Grammer has sworn to prevent his sister's murderer, Freddie Lee Glenn, from being paroled; in July 2009, Glenn was denied parole at least in part due to a letter Grammer submitted to the parole board.
Career
Stage

After leaving Juilliard, he had a three-year internship with the Old Globe Theatre, in San Diego, in the late 1970s, before a stint in 1980 at the Guthrie Theater, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He made his Broadway debut in 1981, as "Lennox," in Macbeth, taking the lead role when Philip Anglim withdrew after receiving negative reviews. In 1983, he performed on the demo of the Stephen Sondheim–James Lapine production Sunday in the Park with George, starring Mandy Patinkin. Also featured on the demo was Christine Baranski, who later starred as Mrs. Lovett to Grammer's Sweeney Todd in the 1999 LA Reprise! production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Grammer then played Michael Cassio in a Broadway revival of Othello, with James Earl Jones and Christopher Plummer. On April 18, 2010, Grammer will make his Broadway musical debut playing the role of Georges in a revival of the Jerry Herman/Harvey Fierstein musical La Cage aux Folles.
Television

His television career began in the early 1980s when he portrayed Stephen Smith in the NBC miniseries Kennedy. Grammer came to broader public attention as Dr. Frasier Crane in the NBC sitcom Cheers. Grammer's former Juilliard classmate and Broadway co-star Patinkin suggested Grammer to the New York casting director, and he got what was supposed to be a six-episode job but ended up as a regular cast member. The character became the center of the successful spin-off Frasier. Grammer reprised his role of Dr. Frasier Crane in a commercial for Dr Pepper.

In 2001, he negotiated a US$700,000-per-episode salary for Frasier, and his 20-year run playing Dr. Frasier Crane ties a length set by James Arness in playing Marshall Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke from 1955 to 1975.

In 2005, he returned to series television on Fox, by attempting to create an American adaptation of The Sketch Show, a British sketch show. The main cast consisted of Malcolm Barrett, Kaitlin Olson, Mary Lynn Rajskub, and Paul F. Tompkins, as well as Lee Mack from the British version of the show. Grammer appeared in only short opening and closing segments in each episode. Many of the sketches from the British version were recreated, such as the "California Dreamin'," "English Course," and "Sign Language" sketches. Only six episodes of the show were made, and it was canceled after only four of them had aired.

In addition to being producer, he guest-starred as the Angel of Death on Medium.

In 2007, Grammer returned to the sitcom format as the central character in the American sitcom Back to You, co-starring with Patricia Heaton. It was canceled by Fox after its first season.

Grammer's ABC sitcom Hank was canceled in its first season on Nov 11, 2009, saying at the end, "Honestly, it just wasn't very funny."
Voice work

Grammer's smooth, deep voice and Mid-Atlantic accent make him popular for voiceover work. He has provided the voice of Sideshow Bob on The Simpsons, winning an Emmy for his work in the episode "The Italian Bob." He has appeared in eleven episodes since the show's inception in 1989, the most recent being "Wedding for Disaster" that aired in early 2009. Grammer supplied the voices for "Stinky Pete the Prospector" in Toy Story 2, Vladimir in the Fox animated movie Anastasia, Zozi the Bear in the subsequently produced prequel Bartok the Magnificent, and the title character in the short-lived animated series Gary the Rat. He provided the opening speech and piano in The Vandals' song "Phone Machine" from the album Fear of a Punk Planet, and sang a rewritten version of the "grinch" on an episode of Just Shoot Me!. He was the voice of the mad scientist, Dr. Frankenollie, in the Mickey Mouse short Runaway Brain.
Production work

His production company, Grammnet Productions, produces the CW sitcoms Girlfriends and The Game, the CBS drama Medium, and is involved in many other projects.
Other work

In film, his recent work includes the role of Dr. Hank McCoy (also known as Beast) in X-Men: The Last Stand and the voice of Snowball in the live-action film adaptation of the George Orwell classic book Animal Farm. Kelsey starred in the movie Swing Vote; the plot is based in part on the tight races for President of the United States, in which the vote is so tight that it comes down to one man's vote to determine the winner. Kelsey plays the Republican incumbent, a role that aligns with his own views. He played another role as General George S. Patton in An American Carol.

As part of his voice-over work, Grammer's voice has been featured in commercials. He was the voice of the original GEICO gecko, a talking reptile created by The Martin Agency in 1999. In the commercial, the gecko pleads for people to stop calling him in error, mistaking gecko for GEICO. Since 2006, Grammer has provided the voice for television commercials advertising the Hyundai Sonata, Hyundai Santa Fe, Hyundai Veracruz, and Hyundai Azera. He was chosen because his "refined and luxurious voice" would help build the up-and-coming car maker's new image as an affordable luxury automobile.

Recently he went onto the Internet and started www.KelseyLive.com and developed a new concept which he refers to as a "Branded Social Television Network". The site is a cross between Facebook and MySpace but branded to him then mixed with Amazon as there is shopping and Television where you can find all his old Frasier and Cheers episodes plus other film and TV projects he has done in the past. From his site he plans on developing new content for the net and also the studios. His most current project involves an animated cat call Gary Geezley which is in pre-production currently.
Awards

He won a number of Emmys, Screen Actors Guild Award, and Golden Globes for his work on Frasier. He was the first American actor ever to be nominated for multiple Emmy awards for portraying the same character on three different television shows (Cheers, Frasier, and Wings).

Grammer has received at least 45 nominations for major awards and has won on 18 occasions. He has received 14 individual Emmy Award nominations for 4 different television shows (plus an additional 2 as part of the Frasier ensemble) and has won on 5 occasions. At the Golden Globes, he has received eight nominations and twice been victorious. He has received two People's Choice Awards, and in 1999 his directorial skills were recognised with a nomination for a Directors Guild of America award for directing an episode of Frasier. He received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role in X-Men: The Last Stand. On May 22, 2001, he was presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for television.

The following table gives a selection of the awards he has won.
Year Award Category
1994 Emmy Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (Frasier)
1995 Emmy Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (Frasier)
1995 American Comedy Award Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Frasier)
1996 Golden Globe Best Performance by an Actor in a TV-Series Comedy/Musical (Frasier)
1996 American Comedy Award Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Frasier)
1998 Emmy Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (Frasier)
2001 Golden Globe Best Performance by an Actor in a TV-Series Comedy/Musical (Frasier)
2004 Emmy Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (Frasier)
2006 Emmy Outstanding Voice-Over Performance (The Simpsons)
Personal life
Family

Grammer has been married three times. His first marriage, to dance instructor Doreen Alderman, lasted from 1982 to 1990. They had one daughter, Spencer Grammer (born October 9, 1983), an actress on the CBS Daytime soap opera As the World Turns and the ABC Family show Greek.

His second marriage, to stripper Leigh-Anne Csuhany in 1992, lasted one year. Grammer says that she was abusive and that, after talk of divorce, she attempted suicide, which resulted in the miscarriage of their child. During this marriage, Grammer had a daughter out of wedlock, Greer Kandace (born February 15, 1992), with hair and makeup stylist Barrie Buckner.

Grammer has been married since August 1997 to Camille Donatacci, a former Playboy model. They have a daughter, Mason Olivia (born October 24, 2001), and a son, Jude Gordon (born August 28, 2004), both born via surrogate mother. Grammer and Donatacci have homes in Malibu, California; Colorado; and New York. They have a holiday home on Maui.
Defamation lawsuit

In 1995, Grammer was sued by ex-girlfriend Cerlette Lamme for defamation of character and invasion of privacy over content he included in his autobiography So Far.
Sex tape lawsuit

In 1998, Grammer filed a lawsuit against Internet Entertainment Group, which Grammer claimed had stolen from his home a videotape of him having sex with a woman. IEG countersued Grammer, denying they were in possession of such a tape, and Grammer's suit was eventually dropped. IEG President Seth Warshavsky told the New York Post, "We have been presented with another Kelsey Grammer tape. But we have no plans to air it. We are still evaluating it at this time." Grammer later told Maxim, "Whether or not you’re a celebrity—even if you’re just an old slob with a video camera—you don’t realize you shouldn’t do it. So you throw the tape in the back of a dark closet until your old girlfriend remembers it’s there because you’re famous now and she’s not. But if you’re not prepared to do the time, don’t do the crime."
Copyright lawsuit

In August 2008, Bradley Blakeman, a former aide to George W. Bush, filed a copyright lawsuit in federal court on Long Island over Grammer's movie Swing Vote, claiming that parts of its plot and marketing had been stolen from him. The lawsuit claimed that Blakeman had given a copyrighted screenplay called Go November to Grammer in 2006, and that Grammer agreed to develop the project and star as a Republican president but instead ended up playing a similar role in Swing Vote, which was released on August 1, 2008. Grammer's spokesman dismissed the claims as "frivolous" and a "waste of time". The lawsuit claims that Blakeman's copyrighted screenplay had the same basic plot as Swing Vote.
Substance abuse

Grammer began drinking at age nine and became a frequent abuser of alcohol. In 1988, he was sentenced to 30 days in jail for drunk driving and cocaine possession. He was again arrested for cocaine possession in August 1990 and was sentenced to three years' probation, fined $500, and given 300 hours of community service. In January 1991, he was given an additional two years' probation for violating his original probation through additional cocaine use. In September 1996, he flipped his Dodge Viper while intoxicated and subsequently checked in to the Betty Ford Center for 30 days.
Health problems

Grammer suffered a heart attack on May 31, 2008. He told Jay Leno on the July 24, 2008, airing of The Tonight Show that he had to wait one and a half hours for paramedics to arrive. He was hospitalized in Hawaii after he had symptoms while paddle-boating with his wife, Camille. He was released on June 4, 2008, and was listed as "resting comfortably" at his Hawaiian residence. Seven weeks after his attack, Grammer told Entertainment Tonight that, although at the time his spokesman described the attack as mild, it was in fact more severe, almost leading to his death, as his heart had stopped.

Grammer blamed Fox's decision to cancel his TV sitcom Back to You for his health problems, stating that "It was a very stressful time for me, and a surprise that it was cancelled. But you know, everything that doesn't kill us—which it almost did—makes us stronger!"

On June 28, 2008, Grammer checked into an undisclosed New York hospital after complaints of feeling faint. His publicist said that it may have been due to a reaction to medication.
Politics

Grammer is a member of the Republican Party and has expressed an interest in someday running for United States Congress.

Grammer was a celebrity guest at President George W. Bush's first inauguration, along with Drew Carey, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and Fred Thompson.

Grammer endorsed Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 presidential primary and later campaigned for John McCain in the general election.

When asked by Maxim magazine about his political ambitions, Grammer replied, "It's a notion I have about the future, to run for office, to do the world some good. Maybe in 15 years or so, there may be a run for office. But I don’t know what I’d run for."
Filmography
Films
Year Film Role Notes
1992 Galaxies Are Colliding Peter
1995 Runaway Brain Dr. Frankenollie Short film
1996 Down Periscope Lieutenant Commander Thomas Dodge
1997 Anastasia Vladimir
1998 The Real Howard Spitz Howard Spitz
1999 Animal Farm Napoleon
New Jersey Turnpikes Unknown
Standing on Fishes Verk
Toy Story 2 "Stinky Pete" the Prospector
Bartok the Magnificent Zozi Direct-to-video release
Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas Narrator Direct-to-video release
2001 15 Minutes Robert Hawkins
Just Visiting Narrator Uncredited
2003 The Big Empty Agent Banks
Barbie of Swan Lake Rothbart Direct-to-video release
2004 Teacher's Pet Dr. Ivan Krank
2005 The Good Humor Man Mr. Skibness Also executive producer
2006 X-Men: The Last Stand Dr. Henry 'Hank' McCoy/Beast
2007 Even Money Detective Brunner
2008 Swing Vote President Andrew Boone
An American Carol General George S. Patton
2009 Fame Joel Cranston
2010 Crazy on the Outside Frank
Bunyan and Babe Norm Blandsford Post-production
Middle Men Frank Griffin Post-production
TBA Alligator Point TBA
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1982 Macbeth Ross TV film
1983 Kennedy Stephen Smith TV miniseries
1984 Kate & Allie David Hamill Episode 1.1: "Allie's First Date"
George Washington Lt. Stewart TV miniseries
1984-1985 Another World Dr. Canard Recurring role
1984-1993 Cheers Dr. Frasier Crane Appeared in 201 episodes
1986 Crossings Craig Lawson TV miniseries
1987 Biography George Washington Episode: "Benedict Arnold"
J.J. Starbuck Pierce Morgan Episode 1.3: "Murder in E Minor"
1988 Dance 'til Dawn Ed Strull TV film
1989 Top of the Hill Unknown TV film
227 Mr. Anderson Episode 4.24: "For Sale"
1990 The Tracey Ullman Show Mr. Brenna Episode 4.12: "Maria and the Mister"
1990- The Simpsons Sideshow Bob Has appeared in eleven episodes
1991 Baby Talk Russell Episode 1.7: "One Night with Elliot"
1992 Wings Dr. Frasier Crane Episode 3.16: "Planes, Trains and Visiting Cranes"
Star Trek: The Next Generation Captain Bateson Episode 5.18: "Cause and Effect"
1993 Roc Detective Rush Episode 2.25: "To Love and Die on Emerson Street: Part 2"
Beyond Suspicion Ron McNally TV film
1993-2004 Frasier Dr. Frasier Crane Appeared in all 264 episodes;
also executive producer and director of 37 episodes
1994 The Innocent Det. Frank Barlow TV film
1995 The John Larroquette Show Dr. Frasier Crane Episode 3.1: "More Changes"
1996 London Suite Sydney Nichols TV film
1997 Fired Up Tom Whitman Episodes 1.3: "Who's the Boss" and 2.3: "You Don't Know Jack"; also executive producer
1998 The Pentagon Wars Major General Partridge TV film
Just Shoot Me! Narrator Episode 3.10: "How the Finch Stole Christmas"
1999 Animal Farm Snowball TV film
2000 Stark Raving Mad Professor Tuttle 1.17: "The Grade"
2001 Neurotic Tendencies N/A TV film; executive producer, director and writer
2000-2008 Girlfriends Executive producer
2001 The Sports Pages Howard Greene TV film
2002 Mr. St. Nick Nick St. Nicholas/Santa Claus the 21st TV film
2002-2003 In-Laws N/A Executive producer
2003 Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor George Washington TV film
Becker Rick Cooper Episode 5.13: "But I've Got Friends I Haven't Used Yet"
Gary the Rat Gary "The Rat" Andrews Appeared in all 13 episodes;
also executive producer
2004 A Christmas Carol Ebenezer Scrooge TV film
The Soluna Project N/A TV film; executive producer
2005 Kelsey Grammer Presents: The Sketch Show Various characters Appeared in all four aired episodes;
also executive producer
Out of Practice N/A Directed episodes 1.1 and 1.18
2006 Medium Angel of Death Episode 2.21: "Death Takes a Policy"
Also executive producer
My Ex Life N/A Director
2006-2009 The Game N/A Executive producer
2007 Dash 4 Cash N/A TV film; executive producer
Everybody Hates Chris N/A Directed episode 2.22: "Everybody Hates the Last Day"
2007-2008 Back to You Chuck Darling Appeared in all 17 episodes
Also executive producer
2009 Hank Lead role Also executive producer
Video games

    * The Simpsons Game (2007) - Sideshow Bob

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Frasier was such a funny show,still is.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/21/10 at 8:23 am


British Person of the Day: Alan Rickman

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (born 21 February 1946) is a British actor and theatre director born in England. Rickman is known for his performances in film as Hans Gruber in Die Hard and Severus Snape in the Harry Potter film series. He is a renowned stage actor in modern and classical productions and a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He is also known for his prominent roles as the Sheriff of Nottingham in the 1991 blockbuster film, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; as Colonel Brandon in the Oscar-winning 1995 Sense and Sensibility and, more recently, Judge Turpin in Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Early life

Rickman was born in Hammersmith, London to a working class family, the son of Margaret Doreen Rose (née Bartlett), a housewife, and Bernard Rickman, a factory worker. Rickman's mother was Welsh and a Methodist and his father was of Irish Catholic background. He has one elder brother David, a younger brother Michael and a younger sister Sheila. Rickman attended an infants' school in Acton that followed the Montessori method of education. When he was eight his father died, leaving his mother to bring up four children mostly alone. She married again, but divorced his stepfather after three years. "There was one love in her life," Rickman later said. Rickman excelled at calligraphy and watercolour painting, and from Derwentwater Junior School he won a scholarship to Latymer Upper School in London, where he started getting involved in drama. After leaving Latymer, Rickman attended Chelsea College of Art and Design and made his way as a graphic designer, which he considered a more stable occupation than acting. "Drama school wasn't considered the sensible thing to do at 18," he said. Rickman received a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) which he attended from 1972–1974. While there, he studied Shakespeare's works and supported himself working as a dresser for Sir Nigel Hawthorne and Sir Ralph Richardson, and left after winning several prizes such as the Emile Littler Prize, the Forbes Robertson Prize, and the Bancroft Gold Medal.

Career

After graduating from the RADA, Rickman worked extensively with various British repertory and experimental theatre groups on productions including The Seagull and Snoo Wilson's The Grass Widow at the Royal Court Theatre, and has appeared three times at the Edinburgh International Festival. In 1978, he played with the Court Drama Group, performing in several plays, most notably Romeo And Juliet and A View from the Bridge. While working with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) he starred in, among other things, As You Like It. He was the male lead in the 1985 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, directed by Christopher Hampton, which was a sellout. When the show went across the Atlantic in 1986, Rickman went on with it to Broadway and there earned a Tony Award nomination for his performance.

While with the RSC he shared a house with fellow company member Ruby Wax. Rickman put her into writing comedy and proceeded to direct several of her successful shows. "If people want to know who I am, it is all in the work", he said. In 1992, in an interview for The Big Issue magazine, Rickman said,

"You can act truthfully or you can lie. You can reveal things about yourself or you can hide. Therefore, the audience recognises something about themselves or they don't — You hope they don't leave the theatre thinking 'that was nice...now where's the cab?'"

To television audiences he also became known as Mr. Slope in the BBC's 1980s adaptation of Barchester Towers. He played future Irish Taoiseach and president Éamon de Valera in the film Michael Collins alongside Liam Neeson as the title character. While playing romantic leads in British movies (Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility; Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply), he was generally typecast in Hollywood films as an over-the-top villain (German terrorist Hans Gruber in Die Hard and the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves). His role in Die Hard earned him a spot on the American Film Institute's list of the "100 Best Heroes/Villains" as the 46th best villain in film history. His performance of Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves also made him known as one of the best actors to portray a villain in films.

Rickman has also played comedic roles in films such as Galaxy Quest, Dogma, and as Emma Thompson's foolish husband in Love Actually. He won a Golden Globe and an Emmy for his performance as Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny in 1996, and was also nominated for an Emmy for his work as Dr. Alfred Blalock in 2004's Something the Lord Made. Rickman was cast in 2005 as the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film. Coincidentally, Rickman and David Learner, who occupied Marvin's costume for the TV adaptation and stage shows, studied together at RADA. He was very busy in 2006 with Snow Cake (with Sigourney Weaver and Carrie-Anne Moss) which had its debut at the Berlinale, and also Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (with Dustin Hoffman), directed by Tom Tykwer.

Rickman has performed on stage in Noel Coward's romantic comedy Private Lives, which transferred to Broadway after its successful run in London at the Albery Theatre and ended in September 2002. Rickman had reunited with his Les Liaisons Dangereuses co-star Lindsay Duncan, and director Howard Davies for this Tony Award-winning production.

His previous stage performance was as Mark Antony, opposite Helen Mirren as Cleopatra, in the Royal National Theatre's production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Olivier Theatre in London, which ran from 20 October to 3 December 1998. Before that, he performed in Yukio Ninagawa's Tango at the End of Winter in London's West End and the Riverside Studio production of Hamlet in 1991, directed by Robert Sturua. He directed The Winter Guest at London's Almeida Theatre in 1995. He also directed the film version in 1996 starring Emma Thompson and her real life mother Phyllida Law.

Rickman has also been featured in several musical works — most notably in a song composed by the English songwriter Adam Leonard. Moreover, the actor played a "Master of Ceremonies" part in announcing the various instruments in Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells II on the track The Bell. Rickman was one of the many artists who recited Shakespearian sonnets on the 2002-released When Love Speaks CD, and is also featured prominently in a music video by the band Texas entitled In Demand, which premiered on Europe MTV in August 2000. In the video, lead singer Sharleen Spiteri danced the tango with Rickman: the clip was nominated for Best British Video at the Brit Awards.

Rickman played Severus Snape, the seemingly sinister potions master of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter saga, in the six films of that series to date. In 2007, Entertainment Weekly named him one of their favourite people in pop culture, saying that in the Harry Potter films, "he may not be on screen long - but he owns every minute," and that he is capable of "turning a simple retort into a mini-symphony of contempt."

Rickman directed the play My Name Is Rachel Corrie in April 2005 at the Royal Court Theatre, London, and won the Theatre Goers' Choice Awards for best director. The production is based on the writings of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old American woman who was killed on 16 March 2003 by an Israeli armoured bulldozer. The show played at the West End's Playhouse Theatre in London from March to May 2006. The play also ran at both the Galway Arts Festival and the Edinburgh Festival in 2006.

In 1995 Rickman turned down the role of Alec Trevelyan in the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye. Rickman has taken issue with being labelled as a "villain actor", citing the fact that he has not portrayed a stock villain character since the Sheriff of Nottingham in 1991. He has further said that he has continued to portray characters of complex and varying emotions, and does not think it is fair to assign characters a label of good or evil, hero or villain. Prior to the book release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Rickman had spoken on occasion about Snape quite easily, but with the controversy of the character following the events of the sixth book, Rickman refused to speak on the character.

In 2007, Rickman appeared in the critically-acclaimed Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street directed by Tim Burton, alongside Harry Potter co-stars Helena Bonham Carter and Timothy Spall; he played antagonist Judge Turpin. According to Miami Herald, Rickman's performance "makes the judge's villainy something to simultaneously savor and despise", with his "oozing moral rot and arrogance". Rickman will also be appearing as The Caterpillar in the upcoming 2010 Tim Burton film Alice in Wonderland alongside Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Stephen Fry and Anne Hathaway.

Filmography

1978 Romeo and Juliet
1982 The Barchester Chronicles
1985 Return of the Native
1988 Die Hard
1989 The January Man
1990 Quigley Down Under
1991 Truly Madly Deeply
1991 Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
1991 Close My Eyes
1991 Closet Land
1992 Bob Roberts
1994 Mesmer
1995 An Awfully Big Adventure
1995 Sense and Sensibility
1996 Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny
1996 Michael Collins
1997 The Winter Guest
1998 Judas Kiss
1998 Dark Harbor
1999 Dogma
1999 Galaxy Quest
2000 Help! I'm a Fish!
2000 Blow Dry
2001 The Search for John Gissing
2001 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Known as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in United States)
2002 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
2002 King of the Hill
2003 Love Actually
2004 Something the Lord Made
2004 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
2005 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
2005 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
2006 Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
2006 Snow Cake
2007 Nobel Son
2007 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
2007 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
2008 Bottle Shock
2008 We're Here To Help
2009 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
2010 Alice in Wonderland
2010 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I
2010 The Villa Golitsyn
2011 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II

http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Severus-Snape-severus-snape-117858_549_293.jpg

http://www.mtv.com/movies/photos/h/harry_potter_half_blood_prince_cast_071114/alan_rickman.jpg




I LOVE Alan Rickman. I think he plays a great sleezoid. I love the way he delivers the line in the first Harry Potter "Someone might think you were.....UP to something." I think he is a great actor.

I read this story one time that after Robin Hood, he sent a photo of him on top of Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (which was taken towards the end of the movie) to her husband and wrote, "Happy Christmas" on it.  ;D ;D ;D



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/22/10 at 5:33 am

The word of the day...Garden(s)
In British English, a garden is a piece of land next to a house, with flowers, vegetables, other plants, and often grass. In American English, the usual word is yard, and a garden refers only to land which is used for growing flowers and vegetables.
If you garden, you do work in your garden such as weeding or planting.
Gardens are places like a park that have areas of plants, trees, and grass, and that people can visit and walk around.
Gardens is sometimes used as part of the name of a street.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh118/jaggerkat/canada-butchart-gardens.jpg
http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy65/amyjayne10/Gardens%20and%20Landscapes/752522a1.jpg
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http://i518.photobucket.com/albums/u346/hpncgroup/vegetable_garden.jpg
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/22/10 at 5:36 am

The person born on this day...Drew Barrymore
Drew Blyth Barrymore (born February 22, 1975) is an American actress, film producer and film director. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was eleven months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered States in 1980. Afterwards, she starred in her breakout role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. She quickly became one of Hollywood's most recognized child actors, going on to establish herself in mainly comic roles.

Following a turbulent childhood which was marked by drug and alcohol abuse and two stints in rehab, Barrymore wrote the 1990 autobiography, Little Girl Lost. She successfully made the transition from child star to adult actress with a number of films including Poison Ivy, Bad Girls, Boys on the Side, and Everyone Says I Love You. Subsequently, she established herself in romantic comedies such as The Wedding Singer and Lucky You.

In 1990, she and partner Nancy Juvonen formed the production company Flower Films, with its first production the 1999 Barrymore film Never Been Kissed. Flower Films has gone on to produce the Barrymore vehicle films Charlie's Angels, 50 First Dates, and Music and Lyrics, as well as the cult film Donnie Darko. Barrymore's more recent projects include He's Just Not That into You, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, and Everybody's Fine. A recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Barrymore appeared on the cover of the 2007 People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful issue.

Barrymore was named Ambassador Against Hunger for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). Since then, she has donated over $1 million to the program. In 2007, she became both CoverGirl's newest model and spokeswoman for the cosmetic and the face for Gucci's newest jewelry line.

In 2010 she was awarded the Screen Actors Guild Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film for her portrayal of Little Edie in Grey Gardens.
Barrymore's career began when she auditioned for a dog food commercial at eleven months old. When she was bitten by her canine co-star, the producers were afraid she would cry, but she merely laughed, and was hired for the job. She made her film debut in Altered States (1980), in which she got a small part. A year later, she landed the role of Gertie, the younger sister of Elliott, in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which made her famous. She received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 1984 for her role in Irreconcilable Differences, in which she starred as a young girl divorcing her parents. In a review in the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert states: "Barrymore is the right actress for this role precisely because she approaches it with such grave calm." He concludes with saying that "The Drew Barrymore character sees right through all of this. She doesn't care about careers, she wants to be given a happy home and her minimum daily requirement of love, and, in a way, the movie is about how Hollywood (and American success in general) tends to cut adults off from the natural functions of parents."
Rebellious era

In the wake of this sudden stardom, Barrymore endured a notoriously troubled childhood. She was already a regular at the famed Studio 54 when she was a little girl, smoking cigarettes at age nine, drinking alcohol by the time she was 11, smoking marijuana at 12, and snorting cocaine at 13. Her nightlife and constant partying became a popular subject with the media. She was in rehab at age 13. A suicide attempt at age 14 put her back in rehab, followed by a three-month stay with singer David Crosby and his wife. The stay was precipitated, Crosby said, because she "needed to be around some people that were committed to sobriety." Barrymore later described this period of her life in her 1990 autobiography, Little Girl Lost. The next year, following a successful juvenile court petition for emancipation, she moved into her own apartment and has never relapsed.
New image

In her late teens, Barrymore forged a new image as she played a manipulative teenage seductress in Poison Ivy (1992), which was a box office failure, but was popular on video and cable. That same year, at the age of 17, she posed nude for the cover of the July issue of Interview magazine with her then-fiancé, actor Jamie Walters, as well as appearing nude in pictures inside the issue. In 1993, Barrymore earned a second Golden Globe nomination for the film Guncrazy. Barrymore would go on to pose nude for the January 1995 issue of Playboy. Steven Spielberg, who directed her in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial when she was a child, gave her a quilt for her twentieth birthday with a note that read, "Cover yourself up". Enclosed were copies of her Playboy pictures, with the pictures altered by his art department so that she appeared fully clothed. She would appear nude in five of her films during this period. During a 1995 appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, Barrymore climbed onto David Letterman's desk and bared her breasts to him, her back to the camera, in celebration of his birthday. She modeled in a series of Guess? jeans ads during this time. She underwent breast reduction surgery in 1992, and has said on the subject:

    I really love my body and the way it is right now. There's something very awkward about women and their breasts because men look at them so much. When they're huge, you become very self-conscious. Your back hurts. You find that whatever you wear, you look heavy in. It's uncomfortable. I've learned something, though, about breasts through my years of pondering and pontificating, and that is: Men love them, and I love that.

Return to prominence

In 1995, Barrymore starred in Boys on the Side opposite Whoopi Goldberg and Mary-Louise Parker, and had a cameo role in Joel Schumacher's film Batman Forever, in which she portrayed a moll to Tommy Lee Jones' character, Two-Face. The following year, she made a cameo in the successful horror film Scream. Barrymore has continued to be highly bankable, and a top box office draw. She was frequently cast in romantic comedies such as Wishful Thinking (1996), The Wedding Singer (1998), and Home Fries (1998).
Barrymore at the Tribeca Film Festival, May 2007.

Besides a number of appearances in films produced by her company, Flower Films, including Charlie's Angels, Barrymore had a dramatic role in the comedy/drama Riding in Cars with Boys (2001), playing a teenage mother in a failed marriage with the drug-addicted father (based on the real-life story of Beverly D'Onofrio). In 2002, Barrymore appeared in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, alongside Sam Rockwell and Julia Roberts.
Flower Films

In 1995, Barrymore formed Flower Films, a production company, with business partner Nancy Juvonen. The first film produced by the company was 1999's Never Been Kissed. The second offering from the company was Charlie's Angels (2000), a major box office success in 2000 that helped solidify the standing of both Barrymore and the company.

When the production of Richard Kelly's debut film, Donnie Darko, was threatened, Barrymore stepped forward with financing from Flower Films and took the small role of Karen Pomeroy, the title character's English teacher. Although the film was less than successful at the box office in the wake of 9/11, it reached cult film status after the DVD release, inspiring numerous websites devoted to unraveling the plot twists and meanings.

In 2003, she reprised her role as Dylan Sanders in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, was nominated for an Emmy Award for her performance in Olive, the Other Reindeer and appeared with Ben Stiller in Duplex in 2003. Flower Films produced 50 First Dates with co-star Adam Sandler's Happy Madison company in 2004. Summing up Barrymore's appeal, Roger Ebert, in his review of 50 First Dates, described Barrymore as having a "smiling, coy sincerity", describing the film as "ingratiating and lovable".

50 First Dates was followed by Fever Pitch (2005), and in 2007, Music and Lyrics and Lucky You. Barrymore's more recent projects include Beverly Hills Chihuahua in 2008, and 2009's He's Just Not That into You, Grey Gardens and Everybody's Fine.

Barrymore's directorial debut film Whip It, was released in October 2009. Whip It starred Ellen Page and Marcia Gay Harden and centered on an obsession with beauty pageants and the Austin, Texas Hurl Scouts roller derby team. Barrymore also co-starred in the film.
Other career highlights

Barrymore began a recurring character in the animated comedy Family Guy as Brian Griffin's simple-minded girlfriend, Jillian. She has since appeared in eight episodes. She was the subject of the 2005 documentary My Date with Drew. In it, an aspiring filmmaker and a fan of Barrymore's, uses his limited resources in an attempt to gain a date with her.

On February 3, 2004, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Josette Sheeran Shiner, Barrymore, Condoleezza Rice, and Paul Tergat

Barrymore's films have a worldwide box office gross that stands at over $2.3 billion. According to The Hollywood Reporter's annual Star Salary Top 10, she was one of the actresses with the second highest salary per movie for 2006.

On February 3, 2007, Barrymore hosted Saturday Night Live (SNL) for the fifth time, making her the second female host (after Candice Bergen) in the show's history to do so. She hosted again on October 10, 2009, becoming the first female to host six times. Barrymore still holds the record as the youngest celebrity ever to host the show (1982, at age seven).

Barrymore became a CoverGirl Cosmetics' model and spokeswoman in 2007, and was No. 1 in People's annual 100 Most Beautiful People list. In 2007, she was named the new face for the Gucci jewelry line. Barrymore is signed to IMG Models New York City.

In May 2007, Barrymore was named Ambassador Against Hunger for the United Nations World Food Programme and later donated $1 million to the cause.
Personal life

In 1991, at the age of 16, Barrymore became engaged to Leland Hayward, grandson of Hollywood producer Leland Hayward. However after a few months, this engagement was called off. Soon afterward, Barrymore was engaged to and lived with musician/actor Jamie Walters in 1992-93.

She was married to Welsh bartender turned bar owner Jeremy Thomas from March 20 to April 28, 1994. Her second marriage was to comedian Tom Green from July 7, 2001 to October 15, 2002. Green filed for divorce in December 2001. In 2002, Barrymore began dating Strokes' drummer Fabrizio Moretti, soon after they met at a concert. Their five year relationship, however, ended on January 10, 2007. She most recently dated Justin Long, however, they confirmed their split in July 2008. The couple reunited in 2009 and Us Weekly reported that they signed on to co-star in the upcoming film Going the Distance.

In the 1990s Barrymore was frequently described as bisexual, although she said in a 1997 interview that she had not "been with a woman in about two years". In 2004, she was quoted as saying "A woman and a woman together are beautiful, just as a man and a woman together are beautiful. Being with a woman is like exploring your own body, but through someone else. When I was younger I used to go with lots of women. Totally. I love it". In March 2007, former magazine editor Jane Pratt claimed on her Sirius Satellite Radio show that she had a romance with Barrymore in the mid-nineties.

Barrymore was formerly a vegetarian, but has since begun to eat meat.
Filmography
Actress
Barrymore at the Music and Lyrics London premiere.
Year Film Role Notes
1978 Suddenly, Love Bobbi Graham (Uncredited) TV movie
1980 Bogie Leslie Bogart TV movie
Altered States Margaret Jessup
1982 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Gertie Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer
1984 Firestarter Charlene "Charlie" McGee Nominated – Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor
Irreconcilable Differences Casey Brodsky Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
1985 Cat's Eye Our Girl, Amanda (all segments)
1986 Babes in Toyland Lisa Piper TV movie
1989 See You in the Morning Cathy Goodwin
Far From Home Joleen Cox
1991 Motorama Fantasy Girl
1992 2000 Malibu Road Lindsay 6 episodes
Waxwork II: Lost in Time Vampire Victim #1
Poison Ivy Ivy
Guncrazy Anita Minteer Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film
1993 The Amy Fisher Story Amy Fisher
No Place to Hide Tinsel Hanley
Doppelganger Holly Gooding
Wayne's World 2 Bjergen Kjergen
1994 Inside the Goldmine Daisy
Bad Girls Lilly Laronette
1995 Boys on the Side Holly Pulchik-Lincoln
Mad Love Casey Roberts
Batman Forever Sugar
1996 Everyone Says I Love You Skylar Dandridge
Scream Casey Becker Nominated – Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
1997 Wishful Thinking Lena
Best Men Hope
1998 The Wedding Singer Julia Sullivan Nominated – Chlotrudis Award for Best Actress also for Ever After
Ever After Danielle de Barbarac Saturn Award for Best Actress
Nominated – Chlotrudis Award for Best Actress also for The Wedding Singer
Home Fries Sally Jackson
1999 Never Been Kissed Josie Geller Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Female
Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss
Olive, the Other Reindeer Olive voice
2000 The Simpsons Sophie (voice) 1 episode
Skipped Parts Fantasy Girl
Titan A.E. Akima voice
Charlie's Angels Dylan Sanders MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Team with Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu
Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Fight
2001 Donnie Darko Karen Pomeroy
Freddy Got Fingered Mr. Davidson's Receptionist
Riding in Cars with Boys Beverly Donofrio
2002 Confessions of a Dangerous Mind Penny
2003 Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle Dylan Sanders Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Dance Sequence with Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu
Duplex Nancy Kendricks
2004 50 First Dates Lucy Whitmore MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo
Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Female
People's Choice Award for Favorite On-Screen Chemistry
My Date With Drew Herself
2005 Fever Pitch Lindsey Meeks
2006–2009 Family Guy Jillian Russell (voice) 7 episodes
2006 Curious George Maggie voice
2007 Music and Lyrics Sophie Fisher
Lucky You Billie Offer
2008 Beverly Hills Chihuahua Chloe voice
2009 He's Just Not That Into You Mary Harris
Grey Gardens Edith Bouvier Beale Made-for-cable HBO film
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film
Satellite Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
Nominated – Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
Everybody's Fine Rosie
Whip It Smashly Simpson Also Directed by Drew Barrymore
2010 Going the Distance 'Post-production
Director
Year Film Notes
2004 Choose or Lose Presents: The Best Place to Start Director; Documentary
2009 Whip It Directorial debut
Producer credits
Year Film Notes
1999 Never Been Kissed Executive producer
2000 Charlie's Angels Producer
2001 Donnie Darko Executive producer
2003 Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle Producer
Duplex Producer
2005 Fever Pitch Producer
2009 He's Just Not That Into You Executive producer
Whip It Executive producer
See also

    * Barrymore family
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/22/10 at 5:52 am

The person who died on this day...Chuck Jones
Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones (September 21, 1912 – February 22, 2002) was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio. He directed many of the classic short animated cartoons starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, Sylvester, Pepé Le Pew and the other Warners characters, including Duck Amuck, One Froggy Evening and What's Opera, Doc? (all three of which were later inducted into the National Film Registry) and Jones' famous "Hunting Trilogy" of Rabbit Fire, Rabbit Seasoning, and Duck! Rabbit! Duck! (1951–1953).

After his career at Warner Bros. ended in 1962, Jones started Sib Tower 12 Productions and began producing cartoons for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, including a new series of Tom and Jerry shorts and the television adaptation of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. He later started his own studio, Chuck Jones Productions, which created several one-shot specials, and periodically worked on Looney Tunes related works
Chuck Jones joined Leon Schlesinger Productions, the independent studio that produced Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies for Warner Bros., in 1933 as an assistant animator. In 1935, he was promoted to animator, and assigned to work with new Schlesinger director Tex Avery. There was no room for the new Avery unit in Schlesinger's small studio, so Avery, Jones, and fellow animators Bob Clampett, Virgil Ross, and Sid Sutherland were moved into a small adjacent building they dubbed "Termite Terrace". When Clampett was promoted to director in 1937, Jones was assigned to his unit; the Clampett unit was briefly assigned to work with Jones' old employer, Ub Iwerks, when Iwerks subcontracted four cartoons to Schlesinger in 1937. Jones became a director (or "supervisor", the original title for an animation director in the studio) himself in 1938 when Frank Tashlin left the studio. Jones' first cartoon was The Night Watchman, which featured a cute kitten who would later evolve into Sniffles the mouse.

Many of Jones' cartoons of the 1930s and early 1940s were lavishly animated, but audiences and fellow Schlesinger staff members found them lacking in genuine humor. Often slow-moving and overbearing with "cuteness", Jones' early cartoons were an attempt to follow in the footsteps of Walt Disney's shorts (especially with such cartoons as Tom Thumb in Trouble and the Sniffles cartoons). Jones finally broke away from traditional animation conventions with the cartoon The Dover Boys in 1942. Jones credits this cartoon as the film where he "learned how to be funny." The Dover Boys is also one of the first uses of Stylized animation in American film, breaking away from the more realistic animation styles influenced by the Disney Studio. This was also the period where Jones created many of his lesser-known characters, including Charlie Dog, Hubie and Bertie, and The Three Bears. Despite their relative obscurity today, the shorts starring these characters represent some of Jones' earliest work that was strictly intended to be funny.

During the World War II years, Jones worked closely with Theodor Geisel (also known as Dr. Seuss) to create the Private Snafu series of Army educational cartoons. Private Snafu comically educated soldiers on topics like spies and laziness in a more risque way than general audiences would have been used to at the time. Jones would later collaborate with Seuss on a number of adaptations of Seuss' books to animated form, most importantly How the Grinch Stole Christmas! in 1966.
A still from What's Opera, Doc?.

Jones hit his stride in the late 1940s, and continued to make his best-regarded works through the 1950s. Jones-created characters from this period includes Claude Cat, Marc Antony and Pussyfoot, Charlie Dog, Michigan J. Frog, and his three most popular creations, Pepe LePew, the Road Runner, and Wile E. Coyote. The Road Runner cartoons, in addition to the cartoons that are considered his masterpieces (all written and conceived by Michael Maltese), Duck Amuck, One Froggy Evening, and What's Opera, Doc? are today hailed by critics as some of the best cartoons ever made.

The staff of the Jones' Unit A were as important to the success of these cartoons as Jones himself. Key members included writer Maltese, layout artist/background designer/co-director Maurice Noble, animator and co-director Abe Levitow, and animators Ken Harris and Ben Washam.

In 1950, Jones and Maltese began working on Rabbit Fire, a short that changed Daffy Duck's personality forever. They decided to make him a totally different character; instead of the wacky, comic relief character he had been, they turned Daffy into a vain, egomaniacal prima donna wanting to steal the spotlight from Bugs Bunny. Of his versions of Bugs and Daffy, Chuck Jones has said, "Bugs is who we want to be. Daffy is who we are."

Jones remained at Warner Bros. throughout the 1950s, except for a brief period in 1953 when Warner closed the animation studio. During this interim, Jones found employment at Walt Disney Animation Studios, where he teamed with wit Disney animator Ward Kimball for a four month period of uncredited work on Sleeping Beauty (1959). Upon the reopening of the Warner animation department, Jones left the Disney studio and was rehired and reunited with most of his unit.

In the early-1960s, Jones and his wife Dorothy wrote the screenplay for the animated feature Gay Purr-ee. The finished film would feature the voices of Judy Garland, Robert Goulet and Red Buttons as cats in Paris, France. The feature was produced by UPA, and directed by his former Warner collaborator, Abe Levitow. Jones moonlighted to work on the film, since he had an exclusive contract with Warner Bros. UPA completed the film and made it available for distribution in 1962; it was picked up by Warner Bros. When Warner discovered that Jones had violated his exclusive contract with them, they terminated him. Jones' former animation unit was laid off after completing the final cartoon in their pipeline, The Iceman Ducketh, and the rest of the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio was closed in early 1963. (Jones frequently claimed, including in the aforementioned autobiography, that this happened because Warner finally learned they weren't making Mickey Mouse cartoons).
Jones on his own

With business partner Les Goldman, Jones started an independent animation studio Sib Tower 12 Productions, bringing on most of his unit from Warner Bros., including Maurice Noble and Michael Maltese. In 1963, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contracted with Sib Tower 12 to have Jones and his staff produce new Tom and Jerry cartoons. In 1964, Sib Tower 12 was absorbed by MGM and was renamed MGM Animation/Visual Arts. Jones' animated short film The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics won the 1965 Oscar for Best Animated Short. Jones also directed the classic animated short "The Bear That Wasn't".

As the Tom and Jerry series wound down (it would be discontinued in 1967), Jones moved on to television. In 1966, he produced and directed the TV special How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, featuring the voice and facial features of Boris Karloff. Jones continued to work on TV specials such as Horton Hears a Who! (1970), but his main focus during this time was producing the feature film The Phantom Tollbooth, which did lukewarm business when MGM released it in 1970. Jones co-directed 1969's The Pogo Special Birthday Special, based on the Walt Kelly comic strip, and voiced the characters of Porky Pine and Bun Rab.

MGM closed the animation division in 1970, and Jones once again started his own studio, Chuck Jones Productions. He produced a Saturday morning children's TV series for the American Broadcasting Company called The Curiosity Shop in 1971. In 1973, he produced an animated version of the George Selden book The Cricket in Times Square, and would go on to produce two sequels. His most notable work during this period was three animated TV adaptations of short stories from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Brothers, The White Seal and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. Jones resumed working with Warner Bros. in 1976 with the animated TV adaptation of The Carnival of the Animals with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Jones also produced the 1979 movie The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie which was a compilation of Jones' best theatrical shorts; Jones produced new Road Runner shorts for The Electric Company series and Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales (1979), and even newer shorts were made for Bugs Bunny's Bustin' Out All Over (1980).

From 1977-1978, Jones wrote and drew the syndicated comic strip Crawford (also known as Crawford & Morgan) for the Chicago Tribune-NY News Syndicate.

In 1978, Jones' wife Dorothy died; three years later, he married Marian Dern, the writer of the comic strip Rick O'Shay.
Later years

Through the 1980s and 1990s, Jones was painting cartoon and parody art, sold through animation galleries by his daughter's company, Linda Jones Enterprises. Jones was the creative consultant and character designer for the first Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas special "A Chipmunk Christmas". He was also creating new cartoons for the Internet based on his new character, Thomas Timberwolf. He made a cameo appearance in the 1984 film Gremlins and directed the Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck animated sequences that bookend Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990). Jones also directed animated sequences various features such as a lengthy sequence in the 1992 film Stay Tuned and a shorter one seen at the start of the 1993 film Mrs. Doubtfire. Jones was not a fan of much contemporary animation, terming most of it, especially television cartoons such as those of Hanna-Barbera, "illustrated radio".

In 1988, Jones contributed to the creation of London's Museum of the Moving Image by spending several days working high on scaffolding creating a chase sequence directly onto the high walls of the museum.

Jones was a historical authority as well as a major contributor to the development of animation throughout the 20th century. He received an honorary degree from Oglethorpe University in 1993.

In his later years, Jones became the most vocal alumnus of the Termite Terrace studio, frequently giving lectures, seminars, and working to educate newcomers in the animation field. Many of his principles, therefore, found their way back into the mainstream animation consciousness, and can be seen in films such as The Emperor's New Groove and Lilo & Stitch.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Jones has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7011 Hollywood Blvd.

Jones, whose work had been nominated eight times over his career for an Oscar (winning thrice, for For Scent-imental Reasons, So Much for So Little, and The Dot and the Line), received an Honorary Academy Award in 1996 by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, for "the creation of classic cartoons and cartoon characters whose animated lives have brought joy to our real ones for more than half a century." At that year's awards show, Robin Williams, a self-confessed "Jones-aholic," presented the Honorary award to Jones, calling him "The Orson Welles of cartoons."

Jones' final Looney Tunes cartoon was From Hare to Eternity in 1996, which starred Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam, with Greg Burson voicing Bugs. The cartoon was dedicated to Friz Freleng, who had passed on in 1995. Jones did produce a few more Looney Tunes-based and non-related cartoons, a noticeable one being Chariots of Fur, his final Road Runner cartoon, in 1994.

Jones, the last surviving animation director from the "Termite Terrace" days of the WB cartoons, died of heart failure in 2002. He was cremated after the funeral service and his ashes were scattered at sea. Cartoon Network aired a 30-second segment with black dots tracing Jones' portrait with the words "We'll miss you - Cartoon Network." fading in on the right-hand side.

After his death, the Looney Tunes cartoon Daffy Duck for President, based on the book that Jones had written and using Jones' style for the characters, originally scheduled to be released in 2000, was released in 2004.
Examples of animated films or short subjects directed by Chuck Jones

    * Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur (1939)
    * Elmer's Candid Camera (1940)
    * Joe Glow, the Firefly (1941)
    * The Dover Boys At Pimento University, or The Rivals Of Roquefort Hall (1942)
    * Fin N' Catty (1943)
    * The Weakly Reporter (1944)
    * Hell-Bent for Election (Franklin D. Roosevelt campaign film, 1944)
    * Fresh Airedale (1945)
    * Fair and Worm-er (1946)
    * A Pest in the House (1947)
    * Scaredy Cat (1948)
    * Long-Haired Hare (1949)
    * For Scent-imental Reasons (1949)
    * Fast and Furry-ous (1949)
    * So Much for So Little (1949, made for Federal Security Agency's Public Health Service)
    * The Rabbit of Seville (1950)
    * The "Hunting Trilogy": Rabbit Fire (1951), Rabbit Seasoning (1952), and Duck! Rabbit! Duck! (1953)
    * Feed the Kitty (1952)
    * Duck Amuck (1953)
    * Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century (1953)
    * Bully for Bugs (1953)
    * Punch Trunk (1953)
    * Feline Frame-Up (1954)
    * One Froggy Evening (1955)
    * Rocket-Bye Baby (1956)
    * What's Opera, Doc? (1957)
    * Robin Hood Daffy (1958)
    * High Note (1960)
    * Now Hear This (1962)
    * The Dot and the Line (1965)
    * The Bear That Wasn't (1967)
    * How The Grinch Stole Christmas! (TV special, 1966)
    * Sesame Street (various cartoon segments, 1969)
    * The Electric Company (1971)
    * Horton Hears A Who! (TV special, 1970)
    * The Phantom Tollbooth (feature film, 1970)
    * Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (TV special, 1975)

See also

    * Warner Bros. Cartoons
    * Warner Bros. Animation
    * A Boy Named Charlie Brown - storyboard

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/22/10 at 6:36 am


The person born on this day...Drew Barrymore
Drew Blyth Barrymore (born February 22, 1975) is an American actress, film producer and film director. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was eleven months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered States in 1980. Afterwards, she starred in her breakout role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. She quickly became one of Hollywood's most recognized child actors, going on to establish herself in mainly comic roles.

Following a turbulent childhood which was marked by drug and alcohol abuse and two stints in rehab, Barrymore wrote the 1990 autobiography, Little Girl Lost. She successfully made the transition from child star to adult actress with a number of films including Poison Ivy, Bad Girls, Boys on the Side, and Everyone Says I Love You. Subsequently, she established herself in romantic comedies such as The Wedding Singer and Lucky You.

In 1990, she and partner Nancy Juvonen formed the production company Flower Films, with its first production the 1999 Barrymore film Never Been Kissed. Flower Films has gone on to produce the Barrymore vehicle films Charlie's Angels, 50 First Dates, and Music and Lyrics, as well as the cult film Donnie Darko. Barrymore's more recent projects include He's Just Not That into You, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, and Everybody's Fine. A recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Barrymore appeared on the cover of the 2007 People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful issue.

Barrymore was named Ambassador Against Hunger for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). Since then, she has donated over $1 million to the program. In 2007, she became both CoverGirl's newest model and spokeswoman for the cosmetic and the face for Gucci's newest jewelry line.

In 2010 she was awarded the Screen Actors Guild Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film for her portrayal of Little Edie in Grey Gardens.
Barrymore's career began when she auditioned for a dog food commercial at eleven months old. When she was bitten by her canine co-star, the producers were afraid she would cry, but she merely laughed, and was hired for the job. She made her film debut in Altered States (1980), in which she got a small part. A year later, she landed the role of Gertie, the younger sister of Elliott, in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which made her famous. She received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 1984 for her role in Irreconcilable Differences, in which she starred as a young girl divorcing her parents. In a review in the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert states: "Barrymore is the right actress for this role precisely because she approaches it with such grave calm." He concludes with saying that "The Drew Barrymore character sees right through all of this. She doesn't care about careers, she wants to be given a happy home and her minimum daily requirement of love, and, in a way, the movie is about how Hollywood (and American success in general) tends to cut adults off from the natural functions of parents."
Rebellious era

In the wake of this sudden stardom, Barrymore endured a notoriously troubled childhood. She was already a regular at the famed Studio 54 when she was a little girl, smoking cigarettes at age nine, drinking alcohol by the time she was 11, smoking marijuana at 12, and snorting cocaine at 13. Her nightlife and constant partying became a popular subject with the media. She was in rehab at age 13. A suicide attempt at age 14 put her back in rehab, followed by a three-month stay with singer David Crosby and his wife. The stay was precipitated, Crosby said, because she "needed to be around some people that were committed to sobriety." Barrymore later described this period of her life in her 1990 autobiography, Little Girl Lost. The next year, following a successful juvenile court petition for emancipation, she moved into her own apartment and has never relapsed.
New image

In her late teens, Barrymore forged a new image as she played a manipulative teenage seductress in Poison Ivy (1992), which was a box office failure, but was popular on video and cable. That same year, at the age of 17, she posed nude for the cover of the July issue of Interview magazine with her then-fiancé, actor Jamie Walters, as well as appearing nude in pictures inside the issue. In 1993, Barrymore earned a second Golden Globe nomination for the film Guncrazy. Barrymore would go on to pose nude for the January 1995 issue of Playboy. Steven Spielberg, who directed her in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial when she was a child, gave her a quilt for her twentieth birthday with a note that read, "Cover yourself up". Enclosed were copies of her Playboy pictures, with the pictures altered by his art department so that she appeared fully clothed. She would appear nude in five of her films during this period. During a 1995 appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, Barrymore climbed onto David Letterman's desk and bared her breasts to him, her back to the camera, in celebration of his birthday. She modeled in a series of Guess? jeans ads during this time. She underwent breast reduction surgery in 1992, and has said on the subject:

    I really love my body and the way it is right now. There's something very awkward about women and their breasts because men look at them so much. When they're huge, you become very self-conscious. Your back hurts. You find that whatever you wear, you look heavy in. It's uncomfortable. I've learned something, though, about breasts through my years of pondering and pontificating, and that is: Men love them, and I love that.

Return to prominence

In 1995, Barrymore starred in Boys on the Side opposite Whoopi Goldberg and Mary-Louise Parker, and had a cameo role in Joel Schumacher's film Batman Forever, in which she portrayed a moll to Tommy Lee Jones' character, Two-Face. The following year, she made a cameo in the successful horror film Scream. Barrymore has continued to be highly bankable, and a top box office draw. She was frequently cast in romantic comedies such as Wishful Thinking (1996), The Wedding Singer (1998), and Home Fries (1998).
Barrymore at the Tribeca Film Festival, May 2007.

Besides a number of appearances in films produced by her company, Flower Films, including Charlie's Angels, Barrymore had a dramatic role in the comedy/drama Riding in Cars with Boys (2001), playing a teenage mother in a failed marriage with the drug-addicted father (based on the real-life story of Beverly D'Onofrio). In 2002, Barrymore appeared in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, alongside Sam Rockwell and Julia Roberts.
Flower Films

In 1995, Barrymore formed Flower Films, a production company, with business partner Nancy Juvonen. The first film produced by the company was 1999's Never Been Kissed. The second offering from the company was Charlie's Angels (2000), a major box office success in 2000 that helped solidify the standing of both Barrymore and the company.

When the production of Richard Kelly's debut film, Donnie Darko, was threatened, Barrymore stepped forward with financing from Flower Films and took the small role of Karen Pomeroy, the title character's English teacher. Although the film was less than successful at the box office in the wake of 9/11, it reached cult film status after the DVD release, inspiring numerous websites devoted to unraveling the plot twists and meanings.

In 2003, she reprised her role as Dylan Sanders in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, was nominated for an Emmy Award for her performance in Olive, the Other Reindeer and appeared with Ben Stiller in Duplex in 2003. Flower Films produced 50 First Dates with co-star Adam Sandler's Happy Madison company in 2004. Summing up Barrymore's appeal, Roger Ebert, in his review of 50 First Dates, described Barrymore as having a "smiling, coy sincerity", describing the film as "ingratiating and lovable".

50 First Dates was followed by Fever Pitch (2005), and in 2007, Music and Lyrics and Lucky You. Barrymore's more recent projects include Beverly Hills Chihuahua in 2008, and 2009's He's Just Not That into You, Grey Gardens and Everybody's Fine.

Barrymore's directorial debut film Whip It, was released in October 2009. Whip It starred Ellen Page and Marcia Gay Harden and centered on an obsession with beauty pageants and the Austin, Texas Hurl Scouts roller derby team. Barrymore also co-starred in the film.
Other career highlights

Barrymore began a recurring character in the animated comedy Family Guy as Brian Griffin's simple-minded girlfriend, Jillian. She has since appeared in eight episodes. She was the subject of the 2005 documentary My Date with Drew. In it, an aspiring filmmaker and a fan of Barrymore's, uses his limited resources in an attempt to gain a date with her.

On February 3, 2004, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Josette Sheeran Shiner, Barrymore, Condoleezza Rice, and Paul Tergat

Barrymore's films have a worldwide box office gross that stands at over $2.3 billion. According to The Hollywood Reporter's annual Star Salary Top 10, she was one of the actresses with the second highest salary per movie for 2006.

On February 3, 2007, Barrymore hosted Saturday Night Live (SNL) for the fifth time, making her the second female host (after Candice Bergen) in the show's history to do so. She hosted again on October 10, 2009, becoming the first female to host six times. Barrymore still holds the record as the youngest celebrity ever to host the show (1982, at age seven).

Barrymore became a CoverGirl Cosmetics' model and spokeswoman in 2007, and was No. 1 in People's annual 100 Most Beautiful People list. In 2007, she was named the new face for the Gucci jewelry line. Barrymore is signed to IMG Models New York City.

In May 2007, Barrymore was named Ambassador Against Hunger for the United Nations World Food Programme and later donated $1 million to the cause.
Personal life

In 1991, at the age of 16, Barrymore became engaged to Leland Hayward, grandson of Hollywood producer Leland Hayward. However after a few months, this engagement was called off. Soon afterward, Barrymore was engaged to and lived with musician/actor Jamie Walters in 1992-93.

She was married to Welsh bartender turned bar owner Jeremy Thomas from March 20 to April 28, 1994. Her second marriage was to comedian Tom Green from July 7, 2001 to October 15, 2002. Green filed for divorce in December 2001. In 2002, Barrymore began dating Strokes' drummer Fabrizio Moretti, soon after they met at a concert. Their five year relationship, however, ended on January 10, 2007. She most recently dated Justin Long, however, they confirmed their split in July 2008. The couple reunited in 2009 and Us Weekly reported that they signed on to co-star in the upcoming film Going the Distance.

In the 1990s Barrymore was frequently described as bisexual, although she said in a 1997 interview that she had not "been with a woman in about two years". In 2004, she was quoted as saying "A woman and a woman together are beautiful, just as a man and a woman together are beautiful. Being with a woman is like exploring your own body, but through someone else. When I was younger I used to go with lots of women. Totally. I love it". In March 2007, former magazine editor Jane Pratt claimed on her Sirius Satellite Radio show that she had a romance with Barrymore in the mid-nineties.

Barrymore was formerly a vegetarian, but has since begun to eat meat.
Filmography
Actress
Barrymore at the Music and Lyrics London premiere.
Year Film Role Notes
1978 Suddenly, Love Bobbi Graham (Uncredited) TV movie
1980 Bogie Leslie Bogart TV movie
Altered States Margaret Jessup
1982 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Gertie Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer
1984 Firestarter Charlene "Charlie" McGee Nominated – Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor
Irreconcilable Differences Casey Brodsky Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
1985 Cat's Eye Our Girl, Amanda (all segments)
1986 Babes in Toyland Lisa Piper TV movie
1989 See You in the Morning Cathy Goodwin
Far From Home Joleen Cox
1991 Motorama Fantasy Girl
1992 2000 Malibu Road Lindsay 6 episodes
Waxwork II: Lost in Time Vampire Victim #1
Poison Ivy Ivy
Guncrazy Anita Minteer Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film
1993 The Amy Fisher Story Amy Fisher
No Place to Hide Tinsel Hanley
Doppelganger Holly Gooding
Wayne's World 2 Bjergen Kjergen
1994 Inside the Goldmine Daisy
Bad Girls Lilly Laronette
1995 Boys on the Side Holly Pulchik-Lincoln
Mad Love Casey Roberts
Batman Forever Sugar
1996 Everyone Says I Love You Skylar Dandridge
Scream Casey Becker Nominated – Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
1997 Wishful Thinking Lena
Best Men Hope
1998 The Wedding Singer Julia Sullivan Nominated – Chlotrudis Award for Best Actress also for Ever After
Ever After Danielle de Barbarac Saturn Award for Best Actress
Nominated – Chlotrudis Award for Best Actress also for The Wedding Singer
Home Fries Sally Jackson
1999 Never Been Kissed Josie Geller Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Female
Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss
Olive, the Other Reindeer Olive voice
2000 The Simpsons Sophie (voice) 1 episode
Skipped Parts Fantasy Girl
Titan A.E. Akima voice
Charlie's Angels Dylan Sanders MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Team with Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu
Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Fight
2001 Donnie Darko Karen Pomeroy
Freddy Got Fingered Mr. Davidson's Receptionist
Riding in Cars with Boys Beverly Donofrio
2002 Confessions of a Dangerous Mind Penny
2003 Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle Dylan Sanders Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Dance Sequence with Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu
Duplex Nancy Kendricks
2004 50 First Dates Lucy Whitmore MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo
Nominated – MTV Movie Award for Best Performance - Female
People's Choice Award for Favorite On-Screen Chemistry
My Date With Drew Herself
2005 Fever Pitch Lindsey Meeks
2006–2009 Family Guy Jillian Russell (voice) 7 episodes
2006 Curious George Maggie voice
2007 Music and Lyrics Sophie Fisher
Lucky You Billie Offer
2008 Beverly Hills Chihuahua Chloe voice
2009 He's Just Not That Into You Mary Harris
Grey Gardens Edith Bouvier Beale Made-for-cable HBO film
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film
Satellite Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
Nominated – Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie
Everybody's Fine Rosie
Whip It Smashly Simpson Also Directed by Drew Barrymore
2010 Going the Distance 'Post-production
Director
Year Film Notes
2004 Choose or Lose Presents: The Best Place to Start Director; Documentary
2009 Whip It Directorial debut
Producer credits
Year Film Notes
1999 Never Been Kissed Executive producer
2000 Charlie's Angels Producer
2001 Donnie Darko Executive producer
2003 Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle Producer
Duplex Producer
2005 Fever Pitch Producer
2009 He's Just Not That Into You Executive producer
Whip It Executive producer
See also

    * Barrymore family
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She turned out to be such a hot actress.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/22/10 at 9:45 am


She turned out to be such a hot actress.

Yes she is.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/22/10 at 12:16 pm

British Person of the Day: Nigel Planer

Nigel George Planer (born 22 February 1953 in Westminster, London, England, UK) is an English actor, comedian, novelist and playwright. Planer is perhaps best known for his role as Neil in the cult BBC comedy The Young Ones. He has appeared in many West End musicals, including Evita, Chicago, We Will Rock You, Wicked and Hairspray. He is also long time comedy partner with Peter Richardson.

Career

He was educated at Westminster School, the University of Sussex at Brighton, and LAMDA.

Acting

Planer is perhaps best known for his role as Neil, the hippie housemate of Vyvyan (Adrian Edmondson), Rick (Rik Mayall) and Mike (Christopher Ryan) in the cult BBC comedy The Young Ones, which ran from 1982–84. Planer was one of the original cast of The Comic Strip team, pioneers of the alternative comedy movement in the UK. Originally a nightclub stage show, he appeared with its creator Peter Richardson as part of the double act The Outer Limits. Planer and Richardson also wrote the That's Life! parody on Not The Nine O'Clock News. He played Professor Dumbledore in a Harry Potter parody, Harry Potter and the Secret Chamber Pot of Azerbaijan.

Theatre

His first break in the theatre was understudying David Essex as Che Guevara in the original West End run of Evita. Nigel was in the original London cast of Chicago, as Amos Hart. He was a member of the original West End cast of Ben Elton's Queen musical We Will Rock You as Pop. From 10–15 July 2006 he played the part of the narrator in The Rocky Horror Show taking on the role in Manchester and Bromley. He most recently starred as The Wizard in the West End production of Wicked at The Apollo Victoria Theatre. He ended his run on 7 June 2008 and was replaced by Desmond Barrit. He recently appeared on a BBC 4 programme under the guise of 'Nicholas Craig' to be interviewed by Mark Lawson. He took over the role of Wilbur from Ian Talbot in the West End production of Hairspray on 2 February 2009.

Music

Nigel was one of the four members of the 1980s spoof rock band, Bad News, playing Den Dennis. As Neil from The Young Ones, Planer gained a number two hit single in 1984 in the form of "Hole in My Shoe", (originally a hit for Sixties band Traffic). A cover of Tomorrow's "My White Bicycle" was a less successful follow up, only reaching No.97 in the charts. After that, an album was produced, entitled Neil's Heavy Concept Album. Nigel also took Neil's stage act on the road in that year as Neil in the "Bad Karma in The UK" tour. This culminated in a month-long run at St. Mary's Hall at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The Young Ones also appeared on Cliff Richard's 1986 charity rerecording of "Living Doll", which spent three weeks at number one in the UK.

Voice acting

Nigel is the reader for the audiobook editions of many of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. He also appeared in the television adaptations of both Terry Pratchett's Hogfather and The Colour of Magic, and performed as a voice artist in the games Discworld 2 and Discworld Noir. Discworld Audiobooks narrated by Nigel Planer include (with number in parentheses indicating order of the book in the Discworld series):

    * The Colour of Magic (1)
    * The Light Fantastic (2)
    * Mort (4)
    * Sourcery (5)
    * Wyrd Sisters (6)
    * Pyramids (7)
    * Guards! Guards! (8 )
    * Moving Pictures (10)
    * Reaper Man (11)
    * Witches Abroad (12)
    * Small Gods (13)
    * Lords and Ladies (14)
    * Men at Arms (15)
    * Soul Music (16)
    * Interesting Times (17)
    * Maskerade (18)
    * Feet of Clay (19)
    * Hogfather (20)
    * Jingo (21)
    * The Last Continent (22)
    * Carpe Jugulum (23)

Other voice roles include the narrator of Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids and Dr. Marmalade in an episode of Spongebob Squarepants.

Credits

He is arguably best known in Britain for his work in television comedy and satire, including:

    * Boom Boom...Out Go The Lights (1980)
    * Shine on Harvey Moon (1982)
    * The Young Ones (12 episodes) (1982–84)
    * Roll Over Beethoven (1983–84)
    * The Comic Strip Presents… (25 episodes) (1983–2005)
    * King & Castle (1986–88)
    * Filthy Rich & Catflap (6 episodes) (1987)
    * Blackeyes by Dennis Potter (1989)
    * Frankenstein's Baby (1990)
    * Nicholas Craig — The Naked Actor (1990)
    * Nicholas Craig's Interview Masterclass (1990)
    * Nicholas Craig's Masterpiece Theatre (1992)
    * The Nicholas Craig Masterclass (1992)
    * Carry On Columbus (1992)
    * The Magic Roundabout (English adaptation and narrator on previously unseen episodes)
    * Sherlock Holmes (1993)
    * Let's Get Divorced (1994)
    * Wake Up! With Libby And Jonathan (1994)
    * Blackadder the Third
    * Yellowbeard
    * French & Saunders
    * Jonathan Creek
    * The Grimleys (1997–2001)
    * Wicked (2006–08)
    * Terry Pratchett's Hogfather (2006)
    * Flood (2007)
    * Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic (2008)'
    * Hairspray (2009)
    * M.I.High (2009)

He has published several books including the novels The Right Man (2000) (ISBN 0-09-927227-X) and Faking It (2003) (ISBN 0-09-940986-0). Nigel also wrote A Good Enough Dad (1992) (ISBN 0-09-929661-6) after his first son was born, talking about coping with becoming a father.

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/22/10 at 3:00 pm


British Person of the Day: Nigel Planer

Nigel George Planer (born 22 February 1953 in Westminster, London, England, UK) is an English actor, comedian, novelist and playwright. Planer is perhaps best known for his role as Neil in the cult BBC comedy The Young Ones. He has appeared in many West End musicals, including Evita, Chicago, We Will Rock You, Wicked and Hairspray. He is also long time comedy partner with Peter Richardson.

Career

He was educated at Westminster School, the University of Sussex at Brighton, and LAMDA.

Acting

Planer is perhaps best known for his role as Neil, the hippie housemate of Vyvyan (Adrian Edmondson), Rick (Rik Mayall) and Mike (Christopher Ryan) in the cult BBC comedy The Young Ones, which ran from 1982–84. Planer was one of the original cast of The Comic Strip team, pioneers of the alternative comedy movement in the UK. Originally a nightclub stage show, he appeared with its creator Peter Richardson as part of the double act The Outer Limits. Planer and Richardson also wrote the That's Life! parody on Not The Nine O'Clock News. He played Professor Dumbledore in a Harry Potter parody, Harry Potter and the Secret Chamber Pot of Azerbaijan.

Theatre

His first break in the theatre was understudying David Essex as Che Guevara in the original West End run of Evita. Nigel was in the original London cast of Chicago, as Amos Hart. He was a member of the original West End cast of Ben Elton's Queen musical We Will Rock You as Pop. From 10–15 July 2006 he played the part of the narrator in The Rocky Horror Show taking on the role in Manchester and Bromley. He most recently starred as The Wizard in the West End production of Wicked at The Apollo Victoria Theatre. He ended his run on 7 June 2008 and was replaced by Desmond Barrit. He recently appeared on a BBC 4 programme under the guise of 'Nicholas Craig' to be interviewed by Mark Lawson. He took over the role of Wilbur from Ian Talbot in the West End production of Hairspray on 2 February 2009.

Music

Nigel was one of the four members of the 1980s spoof rock band, Bad News, playing Den Dennis. As Neil from The Young Ones, Planer gained a number two hit single in 1984 in the form of "Hole in My Shoe", (originally a hit for Sixties band Traffic). A cover of Tomorrow's "My White Bicycle" was a less successful follow up, only reaching No.97 in the charts. After that, an album was produced, entitled Neil's Heavy Concept Album. Nigel also took Neil's stage act on the road in that year as Neil in the "Bad Karma in The UK" tour. This culminated in a month-long run at St. Mary's Hall at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The Young Ones also appeared on Cliff Richard's 1986 charity rerecording of "Living Doll", which spent three weeks at number one in the UK.

Voice acting

Nigel is the reader for the audiobook editions of many of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. He also appeared in the television adaptations of both Terry Pratchett's Hogfather and The Colour of Magic, and performed as a voice artist in the games Discworld 2 and Discworld Noir. Discworld Audiobooks narrated by Nigel Planer include (with number in parentheses indicating order of the book in the Discworld series):

    * The Colour of Magic (1)
    * The Light Fantastic (2)
    * Mort (4)
    * Sourcery (5)
    * Wyrd Sisters (6)
    * Pyramids (7)
    * Guards! Guards! (8 )
    * Moving Pictures (10)
    * Reaper Man (11)
    * Witches Abroad (12)
    * Small Gods (13)
    * Lords and Ladies (14)
    * Men at Arms (15)
    * Soul Music (16)
    * Interesting Times (17)
    * Maskerade (18)
    * Feet of Clay (19)
    * Hogfather (20)
    * Jingo (21)
    * The Last Continent (22)
    * Carpe Jugulum (23)

Other voice roles include the narrator of Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids and Dr. Marmalade in an episode of Spongebob Squarepants.

Credits

He is arguably best known in Britain for his work in television comedy and satire, including:

    * Boom Boom...Out Go The Lights (1980)
    * Shine on Harvey Moon (1982)
    * The Young Ones (12 episodes) (1982–84)
    * Roll Over Beethoven (1983–84)
    * The Comic Strip Presents… (25 episodes) (1983–2005)
    * King & Castle (1986–88)
    * Filthy Rich & Catflap (6 episodes) (1987)
    * Blackeyes by Dennis Potter (1989)
    * Frankenstein's Baby (1990)
    * Nicholas Craig — The Naked Actor (1990)
    * Nicholas Craig's Interview Masterclass (1990)
    * Nicholas Craig's Masterpiece Theatre (1992)
    * The Nicholas Craig Masterclass (1992)
    * Carry On Columbus (1992)
    * The Magic Roundabout (English adaptation and narrator on previously unseen episodes)
    * Sherlock Holmes (1993)
    * Let's Get Divorced (1994)
    * Wake Up! With Libby And Jonathan (1994)
    * Blackadder the Third
    * Yellowbeard
    * French & Saunders
    * Jonathan Creek
    * The Grimleys (1997–2001)
    * Wicked (2006–08)
    * Terry Pratchett's Hogfather (2006)
    * Flood (2007)
    * Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic (2008)'
    * Hairspray (2009)
    * M.I.High (2009)

He has published several books including the novels The Right Man (2000) (ISBN 0-09-927227-X) and Faking It (2003) (ISBN 0-09-940986-0). Nigel also wrote A Good Enough Dad (1992) (ISBN 0-09-929661-6) after his first son was born, talking about coping with becoming a father.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40248000/jpg/_40248987_neil2bbcok.jpg

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Lifeandhealth/Pix/pictures/2009/6/19/1245411566123/Nigel-Planer-001.jpg

Thanks Phil. He was someone who I knew his name, but knew little about.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/23/10 at 6:14 am

The word of the day...Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a vehicle with two wheels and an engine.
http://i474.photobucket.com/albums/rr101/soveriegn73/motorcycle002.jpg
http://i645.photobucket.com/albums/uu171/jbeambabie/Motorcycle/VTX2.jpg
http://i895.photobucket.com/albums/ac160/brianj2656/d757df3e.jpg
http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd217/epen12/xcs%20motorcycle/testimony.jpg
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f194/gidget922/Motorcycle/29.gif
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/ae142/nurivan2010/2000_0101AA.jpg
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f194/gidget922/Motorcycle/easyrider21ty.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/23/10 at 6:19 am

The person born on this day...Peter Fonda

Peter Henry Fonda (born February 23, 1940) is an American actor. He is the son of Henry Fonda, the brother of Jane Fonda, and the father of Bridget and Justin Fonda (by first wife Susan Brewer, stepdaughter of Noah Dietrich). Fonda is an icon of the counterculture of the 1960s.
Fonda found work on Broadway where he achieved notice in Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole, before going to Hollywood to make films. He started his film career in romantic leading roles. He debuted in Tammy and the Doctor (1963), which he called "Tammy and the Chuckface". But Fonda's intensity impressed Robert Rossen, the director of Lilith (1964). Rossen envisioned a Jewish actor in the role of Stephen Evshevsky, a mental patient. Fonda earned the role after removing his boss' glasses from his face and putting them on so as to look more "Jewish". He also was in The Victors (1964), an "anti-war war movie" and played the male lead in The Young Lovers (1964), about out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

By the mid-1960s, Peter Fonda was not a conventional "leading man" in Hollywood. As Playboy magazine reported, Fonda had established a "solid reputation as a dropout". He had become outwardly nonconformist and grew his hair long, alienating the "establishment" film industry. Desirable acting work became scarce. In the 1963-1964 season, he appeared in an episode of the ABC drama about college life, Channing.

Through his friendships with members of the Byrds, Fonda visited The Beatles in their rented house in Benedict Canyon in Los Angeles in August, 1965. While John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison were under the influence of LSD, Lennon heard Fonda say, "I know what it's like to be dead". This phrase became the tag line for Lennon's song, "She Said She Said", which appeared in their groundbreaking Revolver (1966) album. In 1966, Fonda was arrested in the anti-war Sunset Strip riot which the police ended forcefully. The band Buffalo Springfield protested the department's handling of the incident in their song "For What It's Worth". Fonda would take a stab at being a singer himself in 1968, recording a 45 for the Chisa label: "November Night" (written by Gram Parsons) b/w "Catch The Wind" (the Donovan song), produced by Hugh Masakela.

Fonda's first counterculture-oriented film role was the lead character Heavenly Blues, a Hells Angels chapter president, in the Roger Corman directed film The Wild Angels (1966). The Wild Angels is still remembered for Fonda's "eulogy" delivered at the fiasco of a fallen Angel's funeral service, which was sampled in the Primal Scream recording "Loaded" (1991), and in other rock songs. Then Fonda played the male lead character in Corman's film The Trip (1967), a take on the experience and consequences of consuming LSD.
Easy Rider
Replica of the "Captain America"-Harley which Fonda rode in Easy Rider, on display in a German Museum.

In 1968, Fonda produced and starred in Easy Rider, the classic film for which he is best known. Easy Rider is about two long-haired bikers traveling through the southwest and southern United States in a world of intolerance and violence. The Fonda character was the charismatic, laconic "Captain America" whose motorcycle jacket bore a large American flag across the back. Dennis Hopper played the garrulous "Billy". Jack Nicholson was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his turn as George Hanson, an alcoholic civil rights lawyer who rides along. Fonda co-wrote Easy Rider with Terry Southern and Hopper, who directed.

Hopper filmed the cross-country road trip depicted in Easy Rider almost entirely on location. Fonda had secured funding in the neighborhood of $360,000 - (largely based on the fact he knew that was the budget Roger Corman needed to make The Wild Angels), and they released the film in 1969 to massive international success. Robbie Robertson was so moved by an advance screening that he approached Fonda and tried to convince him to let him write a complete score, even though the film was nearly due for wide release. Fonda refused, using the Byrds' song "Ballad of Easy Rider", Dylan's "It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding" sung by the Byrds' Roger McGuinn. Fonda, Hopper and Southern were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Later work

After the success of Easy Rider, both Hopper and Fonda were in a position to make any film project they wanted. While Hopper chose to make the drug addled jungle epic The Last Movie, (in which Fonda co-starred along with Michelle Phillips), Fonda directed the Western film, The Hired Hand. Fonda took the lead role in a cast that also featured Warren Oates, Verna Bloom and Beat poet Michael McClure. This was followed by the cult-classic "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry", a box-office smash in 1974, and "Open Season", which tanked. He would re-team with Warren Oates in Race With The Devil in 1975, and later would star in "Futureworld", a sequel to "Westworld", which was another box office failure. Despite generating mixed reviews upon its initial release, In 2001, The Hired Hand was fully restored and exhibited at a number of festivals to a generally enthusiastic critical response. Subsequently, the Sundance Channel released a DVD of the film in two separate editions that same year, and the film has since found an audience as a cult Western classic. In 1976, Fonda starred opposite Susan St. James as a musician on the run in "Outlaw Blues". In 1979, Fonda directed and starred in the drama Wanda Nevada alongside Brooke Shields. His father Henry Fonda made a brief appearance as well, making it the only time the father and son appeared together on film. In a later nod to his roles in The Wild Angels and Easy Rider, Fonda also had a cameo as the "Chief Biker" in the 1981 slapstick comedy The Cannonball Run.

Fonda received high-profile critical recognition and universal praise for his role in Ulee's Gold (1997). Fonda portrayed a stoic north Florida beekeeper who, in spite of his tumultuous family life, imparts a sense of integrity to his wayward convict son, and takes risks in acting protectively toward his drug-abusing daughter-in-law. His performance resulted in an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Fonda's movie career has made the more interesting for the extreme contrast between the wide-eyed and questing (though possibly amoral, certainly drug-dealing) rebel motorcyclist in Easy Rider and the upright war-veteran father he played nearly three decades later in Ulee's Gold — a character who tries to share the wisdom of age with his defiantly nihilistic son and who saves his addicted daughter-in-law's life. Two years later, Fonda appeared in the 1999 Steven Soderbergh neo noir crime film The Limey, as the money laundering/celebrity rock music producer Terry Valentine.

In 2002 Fonda was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame.

Fonda lent his voice talent to the 2004 video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as the aging hippie, The Truth.

In 2007, Fonda made a notable return to the big screen in the critically acclaimed remake of the 1957 Western 3:10 to Yuma, appearing alongside Christian Bale and Russell Crowe as the bounty hunter Byron McElroy. The film received two Academy Award nominations, and positive reviews from critics. He also made an appearance in the last scenes of the Biker-comedy Wild Hogs as Damien Blade, founder of the biker gang Del Fuegos and father of Jack, a character played by Ray Liotta. This year also featured Fonda portraying Mephostophiles, one of two main villains in the 2007 film Ghost Rider, and he has also expressed interest in re-playing the character in Ghost Rider 2. In 2009, he appeared in The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, the sequel to the cult hit, as 'The Roman', the main villain and an old acquaintance of Il Duce, the character played by Billy Connolly.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1963 Tammy and the Doctor Dr. Mark Cheswick
The Victors Weaver Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer - Male
1964 Lilith Stephen Evshevsky
The Young Lovers Eddie Slocum
1966 The Wild Angels Heavenly Blues
1967 The Trip Paul Groves
1968 Histories extradinaires Baron Wilhelm (segment "Metzengerstein")
1969 Easy Rider Wyatt Nominated — Academy Award For Best Original Screenplay with Dennis Hopper and Terry Southern
Nominated — Writers Guild of America Award for Best Drama Written Directly for the Screen with Dennis Hopper and Terry Southern
1971 The Hired hand Harry Collings
The Last Movie Young Sheriff
1973 Idaho Transfer Director
Two People Evan Bonner
1974 Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry Larry Rider
Open Season Ken
1975 Race with the Devil Roger March
92 in the Shade Skelton
1976 Killer Force Bradley
Futureworld Chuck Browning
Fighting Mad Tom Hunter
1977 Outlaw Blues Bobby Ogden
1978 High-Ballin' Rane
1979 Wanda Nevada Beaudray Demerille
1981 Cannonball Run Chief Biker (cameo appearance)
1982 Split Image Kirklander
1983 Peppermint-Frieden Mr. Freedom
Dance of the Dwarfs Harry Bediker
Daijôbu, mai furendo Gonzy Traumerai
Spasms Dr. Tom Brasilian
1985 A Reason to Live Gus Stewart TV movie
Certain Fury Rodney
1987 Hawken's Breed Hawken
1988 Mercenary Fighters Virelli
1989 The Rose Garden Herbert Schluter
1990 Fatal Mission Ken Andrews
1992 South Beach Jake
Family Express Nick
1993 Deadfall Pete
Bodies, Rest & Motion Motorcycle Rider
1994 Molly & Gina Larry Stanton
Love and a .45 Vergil Cheatham
Nadja Dracula/Dr. Van Helsing
1996 Escape from L.A. Pipeline
Grace of My Heart Guru Dave
1997 Ulee's Gold Ulysses 'Ulee' Jackson Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Male
Nominated — Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Painted Hero Ray the Cook
1999 The Passion of Ayn Rand Frank Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film
Nominated — Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor – Miniseries or a Movie
Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie
The Limey Terry Valentine
2000 South of Heaven, West of Hell Shoshonee Bill
Thomas and the Magic Railroad Grandpa Burnett Stone
Second Skin Merv Gutman
2001 Wooly Boys Stoney
2002 The Laramie Project Doctor Cantway
2004 The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things Grandfather
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas The Truth (voice)
2005 Supernova Dr. Austin Shepard
2007 Ghost Rider Mephistopheles
Wild Hogs Damien Blade
3:10 to Yuma Byron McElroy Nominated — Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
The Gathering Thomas Carrier
2008 Japan Alfred
Journey to the Center of the Earth Edward Dennison
2009 The Perfect Age of Rock 'n' Roll August West
The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day The Roman
http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee91/Gypsy48/Entertainment/Fonda_Peter.jpg
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f64/inutero220/people%20and%20things/peter_fonda.jpg
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll266/ka321_2008/KristinPeterfonda.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/23/10 at 6:23 am

The person who died on this day...Stan Laurel
Stan Laurel (born Arthur Stanley Jefferson; 16 June 1890 – 23 February 1965) was an English comic actor, writer and director, famous as the first half of the comedy double-act Laurel and Hardy, whose career stretched from the silent films of the early 20th century until after World War II.
Laurel went on to join the Hal Roach studio, and began directing films, including a 1926 production called Yes, Yes, Nanette. He intended to work primarily as a writer and director, but fate stepped in. In 1927, Oliver Hardy, another member of the Hal Roach Studios Comedy All Star players, was injured in a kitchen mishap and Laurel was asked to return to acting. Laurel and Hardy began sharing the screen in Slipping Wives, Duck Soup and With Love and Hisses. The two became friends and their comic chemistry soon became obvious. Roach Studios' supervising director Leo McCarey noticed the audience reaction to them and began teaming them, leading to the creation of the Laurel and Hardy series later that year.

Together, the two men began producing a huge body of short films, including The Battle of the Century, Should Married Men Go Home?, Two Tars, Be Big!, Big Business, and many others. Laurel and Hardy successfully made the transition to talking films with the short Unaccustomed As We Are in 1929. They also appeared in their first feature in one of the revue sequences of The Hollywood Revue of 1929 and the following year they appeared as the comic relief in a lavish all-colour (in Technicolor) musical feature, The Rogue Song. In 1931, their own first starring feature, Pardon Us was released, although they continued to make both features and shorts until 1935, including their 1932 three-reeler The Music Box which won an Academy Award for Best Short Subject.
Trouble at Roach Studio

During the 1930s, Laurel was involved in a dispute with Hal Roach and ended up having his contract terminated. After being tried for drunk driving, he counter-sued the Roach studio. Eventually, the case was dropped and Laurel returned to Roach. Meanwhile, Laurel had divorced his first wife and married Virginia Ruth Rogers in 1935, whom he divorced to marry his third wife Vera Ivanova Shuvalova ("Illeana") in 1938. By 1941, he had once again married Virginia Ruth Rogers.

After returning to Roach studios, the first film Laurel and Hardy made was A Chump at Oxford. Subsequently, they made Saps at Sea, which was their last film for Roach. In April 1940, their contract expired. Roach decided to make a film without Stan Laurel, but with Oliver Hardy, Zenobia.

During the start of Laurel and Hardy's partnership, Stan had a baby girl with Lois (his first wife), born in 1928, and named the baby after his wife, Lois. Stan and his daughter Lois had a very strong relationship. Stan would take Lois onto the sets and try to see her as much as he could, even when he divorced her mother. Stan also had a son, who died just ten days after birth in 1930 .
Fox Studios

In 1939, Laurel and Hardy signed a contract at 20th Century Fox to make one motion picture and nine more over the following five months. During the war years, their work became more standardised and less successful though The Bullfighters, Great Guns and A-Haunting We Will Go did receive some praise. Laurel discovered he had diabetes, so he encouraged Oliver Hardy to make two films without him. In 1946, he divorced Virginia Ruth Rogers and married Ida Kitaeva Raphael. With Ida, he enjoyed a happy marriage until his death.

In 1950, Laurel and Hardy were invited to France to make a feature film. The film, a French/Italian co-production titled Atoll K, was a disaster. (The film was titled Utopia in the US and Robinson Crusoeland in the UK.) Both stars were noticeably ill during the filming. Upon returning home, they spent most of their time recovering. In 1952, Laurel and Hardy toured Europe successfully, and they toured Europe again in 1953.

During this tour, Laurel fell ill and was unable to perform for several weeks. In May 1954, Oliver Hardy had a heart attack and canceled the tour. In 1955, they were planning to do a television series, Laurel and Hardy's Fabulous Fables, based on children's stories, but the plans were delayed because Laurel suffered a stroke. He recovered, and as he was planning to get back to work, Oliver Hardy had a massive stroke on 15 September 1956. Paralyzed and bedridden for several months, he was unable to speak or move.
Hardy's death

On 7 August 1957, Oliver Hardy died. Laurel did not attend his funeral, stating "Babe would understand." Afterward, Laurel decided he would never act again without his long-time friend, but he did write gags and sketches for fellow comedians. People who knew Laurel said he was absolutely devastated by Hardy's death and never fully recovered.
Life after Laurel and Hardy
Stan Laurel's grave at Forest Lawn. The Birth of Liberty mosaic is visible in the background.

In 1961, Laurel was given a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award for his pioneering work in comedy. He had achieved his lifelong dream as a comedian and had been involved in nearly 190 films. He lived his final years in a small apartment in the Oceana Hotel in Santa Monica. Always gracious to fans, he spent much time answering fan mail. His phone number was listed in the telephone directory, and fans were amazed that they could dial the number and speak to Stan Laurel. Jerry Lewis was among the comedians to visit Laurel, who offered suggestions for Lewis' production of The Bellboy (1960). Lewis had even paid tribute to Laurel by naming his main character Stanley in the film, and having Bill Richmond play a version of Laurel as well.
Death

Laurel was a heavy smoker until suddenly giving up when he was about seventy years of age. He died on February 23, 1965, several days after suffering a heart attack. Just minutes away from death, Laurel told his nurse he would not mind going skiing right at that very moment. Somewhat taken aback, the nurse replied that she was not aware that he was a skier. "I'm not," said Laurel, "I'd rather be doing that than have all these needles stuck into me!" A few minutes later the nurse looked in on him again and found that he had died.

Dick Van Dyke, a friend, and protege, and occasional impressionist of Laurel's during his later years, gave the eulogy at his funeral. Silent screen comedian Buster Keaton was overheard at Laurel's funeral giving his assessment of the comedian's considerable talents: "Chaplin wasn't the funniest, I wasn't the funniest, this man was the funniest."

Laurel wrote his own epitaph; "If anyone at my funeral has a long face, I'll never speak to him again." He was buried at Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Legacy

    * In 1989 a statue of Laurel was erected in Dockwray Square, North Shields, Northumberland, England where he lived at No. 8 from 1897 to 1902, and where the steps down from the Square to the North Shields Fish Quay were said to have inspired the piano-moving scene in The Music Box. In 2006, BBC Four showed a drama called Stan, based on Laurel meeting Hardy on his deathbed and reminiscing about their career .
    * Laurel's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is situated at 7021 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, California.
    * In 2008, a statue of Stan Laurel was unveiled in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, on the site of the Eden Theatre .
    * In April 2009, a bronze statue of Laurel and Hardy was unveiled in Ulverston, Cumbria.
    * Above the door of the house where Stan Laurel lived, there is a plaque commemorating the actor.

Filmography
Biography portal

    * Filmography of Stan Laurel (The films of Stan Laurel as an actor without Oliver Hardy)
    * Laurel and Hardy films (The filmography of Laurel and Hardy together)

References

  1. ^ a b Midwinter, Eric (2006). "Laurel, Stan". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/37659. Retrieved 2008-08-11.
  2. ^ The Laurel & Hardy Forum :: View topic - Plea to save Stan Laurel's school
  3. ^ http://rutherglenacademy.net/famous_ruglonians_1.html
  4. ^ Bowers, Judith (2007). Stan Laurel and other stars of the Panopticon. Birlinn Ltd. pp. 143–147. ISBN 184158617X.
  5. ^ Larry Harnisch (2009-06-21). "Stan Laurel's stormy marriage full of off-screen drama". Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-then21-2009jun21,0,3596284.story?track=rss/. Retrieved 2009-06-21.
  6. ^ Find A Grave
  7. ^ "Stan Laurel Dies. Teamed With Oliver Hardy in 200 Slapstick Films-Played 'Simple' Foil.". New York Times. 24 February 1965. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70A1FF63F5812738DDDAD0A94DA405B858AF1D3. Retrieved 2008-05-29.
  8. ^ BBC - BBC Four Cinema - Silent Cinema Season
  9. ^ http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/3590723.Laurel_proves_Hardy_after_disaster_delays/ - Statue of Laurel arrives in Bishop Auckland
  10. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/8006614.stm

    * Marriot, AJ (1993). Laurel & Hardy : The British Tours. Hitchen: AJ Marriot.. ISBN 0-9521308-0-7.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh86/blindguidedog/119434-Stan_Laurel.jpg
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http://i432.photobucket.com/albums/qq45/minijb_2008/StanLaurel-1.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/23/10 at 1:34 pm


The word of the day...Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a vehicle with two wheels and an engine.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLkmbLoaORU

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/23/10 at 1:49 pm

Britiah Person of the Day: Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys was born on 23 February 1633 near Fleet Street in London, the son of a tailor. He was educated at St Paul's School in London and Cambridge University. After graduating, Pepys was employed as secretary to Edward Montagu, a distant relative who was a councillor of state during the Cromwellian protectorate and later served Charles II. In 1655, Pepys married 15-year-old Elizabeth Marchant de Saint-Michel, daughter of a Huguenot exile. In 1658, he underwent a dangerous operation for the removal of a bladder stone. Every year on the anniversary of the operation, he celebrated his recovery.

Pepys began his diary on 1 January 1660. It is written in a form of shorthand, with names in longhand. It ranges from private remarks, including revelations of infidelity - to detailed observations of events in 17th century England - such as the plague of 1665, the Great Fire of London and Charles II's coronation - and some of the key figures of the era, including Sir Christopher Wren and Sir Isaac Newton. Fear of losing his eyesight prompted Pepys to stop writing the diary in 1669. He never actually went blind.

In June 1660, Pepys was appointed clerk of the acts to the navy board, a key post in one of the most important of all government departments, the royal dockyards. In 1673, he became secretary to the Admiralty and in the same year a member of parliament for a Norfolk constituency, later representing Harwich. He was responsible for some important naval reforms which helped lay the foundations for a professional naval service. He was also a member of the Royal Society, serving as its president from 1684-1686.

In 1679, Pepys was forced to resign from the Admiralty and was imprisoned on a charge of selling naval secrets to the French, but the charge was subsequently dropped. In 1685, Charles II died and was succeeded by his brother who became James II, who Pepys served as loyally as he had Charles. After the overthrow of James in 1688, Pepys's career effectively came to an end. He was again arrested in 1690, under suspicion of Jacobite sympathies, but was released.

Pepys died in Clapham on the outskirts of London on 26 May 1703.

http://davidwmsims.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/samuelpepys.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/23/10 at 3:04 pm


The word of the day...Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a vehicle with two wheels and an engine.
http://i474.photobucket.com/albums/rr101/soveriegn73/motorcycle002.jpg
http://i645.photobucket.com/albums/uu171/jbeambabie/Motorcycle/VTX2.jpg
http://i895.photobucket.com/albums/ac160/brianj2656/d757df3e.jpg
http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd217/epen12/xcs%20motorcycle/testimony.jpg
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f194/gidget922/Motorcycle/29.gif
http://i966.photobucket.com/albums/ae142/nurivan2010/2000_0101AA.jpg
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f194/gidget922/Motorcycle/easyrider21ty.jpg


I remember The Undertaker had a similar gimmick called American Badass and he rode a motorcycle to the ring in 2002.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/24/10 at 6:23 am

The word of the day...Suit
A man's suit consists of a jacket, trousers, and sometimes a waistcoat, all made from the same fabric
A woman's suit consists of a jacket and skirt, or sometimes trousers, made from the same fabric.
A particular type of suit is a piece of clothing that you wear for a particular activity.
If something suits you, it is convenient for you or is the best thing for you in the circumstances
A suit is one of the four types of card in a set of playing cards. These are hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades.
http://i750.photobucket.com/albums/xx142/gqchris1683/SUIT/Picture042.jpg
http://i746.photobucket.com/albums/xx109/Sparker2010/Rob.jpg
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t1/cacks_photos/BoysChristeningSuit2.jpg
http://i750.photobucket.com/albums/xx142/gqchris1683/SUIT/Picture045.jpg
http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv33/Glo222/DSC01786.jpg
http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/ab64/mrroberttower/EITS/IMG_0039.jpg
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt317/iluvbrands/DSC_6.jpg
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj43/wartjr2373/SSBB%20Wallpapers/ZeroSuitSamus.png
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l201/Katieso99/playing_cards_by_bertyhell-1.jpg
http://i913.photobucket.com/albums/ac333/Jonathan2051/100_0089.jpg
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n20/second2none34/swim.jpg.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/24/10 at 6:26 am

The person born on this day...Edward James Olmos
Edward James "Eddie" Olmos (born February 24, 1947) is a Mexican American actor and director. Among his most memorable roles are Commander/Admiral William Adama in the Battlestar Galactica re-imagined series, Lt. Martin Castillo in Miami Vice, teacher Jaime Escalante in Stand and Deliver, patriarch Abraham Quintanilla in the film Selena, Detective Gaff in Blade Runner, and narrator El Pachuco in both the stage and film versions of Zoot Suit.
Olmos was born Edward James Olmos in Los Angeles, California, where he was raised, the son of Eleanor (née Huizar) and Pedro Olmos, who was a welder. His father was a Mexican immigrant and his mother Mexican American. He grew up wanting to be a professional baseball player and became the Golden State batting champion. In his teen years, he turned to rock and roll, and became the lead singer for a band he named Pacific Ocean, so-called because it was to be "the biggest thing on the West Coast". He graduated from Montebello High School in 1964. While at Montebello High School, he lost a race for Student Body President to future California Democratic Party Chair Art Torres. For several years Pacific Ocean played various clubs in and around Los Angeles and released a record in 1968. At the same time, he attended classes at East Los Angeles College, including courses in acting.
Career

In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, Olmos branched out from music into acting, appearing in many small productions, until his big break portraying the narrator, called "El Pachuco," in the play Zoot Suit, which dramatized the World War II-era rioting in California brought about by the tensions between Mexican-Americans and local police. (See Zoot Suit Riots.) The play moved to Broadway, and Olmos earned a Tony award nomination. He subsequently took the role to the filmed version in 1981, and appeared in many other films including Wolfen, Blade Runner and The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez.

From 1984 to 1989, Olmos starred in his biggest role up to that date as the authoritarian police Lieutenant Martin Castillo in the television series Miami Vice opposite Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas, for which he was awarded a Golden Globe and an Emmy in 1985. He was contacted about playing the captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise on Star Trek: The Next Generation when it was in pre-production in 1986, but he declined.

Returning to film, Olmos received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in Stand and Deliver for his portrayal of real-life math teacher, Jaime Escalante. He directed and starred in American Me in 1992, and also starred in My Family/Mi Familia, a multigenerational story of a Chicano family. In 1997 he starred alongside Jennifer Lopez in the film Selena. Olmos played Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo in the 2001 movie In the Time of the Butterflies. He also had a recurring role as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Roberto Mendoza in the NBC drama The West Wing. From 2002 to 2004, he starred as a recently widowed father of a Latino L.A.-family in the PBS drama American Family: Journey of Dreams.

From 2003 to 2009, he starred as Admiral William Adama in the Sci Fi / SyFy Channel's reimagined Battlestar Galactica miniseries and in the television series that followed. He directed four episodes of the show, Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down (1.9), Taking a Break from All Your Worries (3.13), Escape Velocity (4.4) and Islanded in a Stream of Stars (4.18). He also directed a television movie of the show, The Plan. Regarding his work on the show, he told CraveOnline, "I'm very grateful for the work that I've been able to do in my life but I can honestly tell you, this is the best usage of television I've ever been a part of to date."

In 2006, he co-produced, directed, and played the bit part of Julian Nava in the HBO movie about the 1968 Chicano Blowouts, Walkout . He also appeared in Snoop Dogg's music video "Vato", featuring B-Real from Cypress Hill. In the series finale of the ABC sitcom George Lopez, titled George Decides to Sta-Local Where It's Familia, he guest-starred as the plant's new multi-millionaire owner. More recently, he has been a spokesperson for Farmers Insurance Group, starring in their Spanish language commercials.
Social Activism

Olmos has often been involved in social activism, especially those affecting the Latino community. During the 1992 Rodney King Riots in Los Angeles, when many people left the city, Olmos went out with a broom and worked to get communities cleaned up and rebuilt. In 1997, Olmos co-founded the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival with Marlene Dermer, George Hernandez and Kirk Whisler. That same year, he co-founded with Kirk Whisler the non-profit organization Latino Literacy Now that has produced 44 Latino Book & Festivals around the USA, attended by over 700,000 people. In 1998, he founded Latino Public Broadcasting and currently serves as its Chairman. Latino Public Broadcasting funds public television programming that focuses on issues affecting Latinos and advocates for diverse perspectives in public television. That same year, he starred in The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, a comedy that sought to break Latino stereotypes and transcend the normal stigmas of most Latino-oriented movies. In 1999, Olmos was one of the driving forces that created Americanos: Latino Life in the U.S.1, a book project featuring over 30 award winning photographers, later turned into a Smithsonian traveling exhibition, music CD and HBO special. He also makes frequent appearances at juvenile halls and detention centers to speak to at-risk teenagers. He has also been an international ambassador for UNICEF. In 2001, he was arrested and spent 20 days in prison for taking part in the Navy-Vieques protests against United States Navy target practice bombings of the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico.

On January 5, 2007, he appeared on Puerto Rican Television to blame the Puerto Rican and United States Governments for not cleaning the Island of Vieques after the United States Navy stopped using the island for bombing practice. He also gave $2,300 to New Mexico governor Bill Richardson for his Presidential campaign (the maximum amount for the primaries).
Personal life

In 1971, Olmos married Katija Keel, the daughter of actor Howard Keel. They had two children, Bodie and Mico, before divorcing in 1992. Olmos also has three adopted children: Michael D., Brandon and Tamiko. He married actress Lorraine Bracco in 1994, but she filed for divorce in January 2002 after five years of separation. He is currently married to Puerto Rican actress Lymari Nadal, 30 years his junior.

In 1996, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from California State University, Fresno. In 2007, after a seven-year process, he obtained Mexican nationality.

Asteroid 5608 Olmos is named in his honor.
Filmography
Films

    * Alambrista! (1977) - Drunk Yelling at Workers (Credit reads "Edward Olmos")
    * Evening in Byzantium (1978) - Angelo
    * Fukkatsu no hi (1979) - Capt. Lopez
    * Three Hundred Miles for Stephanie (1981) - Art Vela
    * Wolfen (1981) - Eddie Holt
    * Zoot Suit (1981) - El Pachuco
    * Blade Runner (1982) - Gaff
    * The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (1983) - Gregorio Cortez
    * Saving Grace (1985) - Ciolino
    * Stand and Deliver (1988) - Jaime Escalante
    * The Fortunate Pilgrim (1989) - Frank Corbo
    * Triumph of the Spirit (1989) - Gypsy
    * Talent for the Game (1991) - Virgil Sweet
    * American Me (1992) - Montoya Santana
    * Roosters (1993) - Gallo Morales
    * Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills (1994) - Jose Menendez
    * A Million to Juan (1994) - Angel
    * The Burning Season (1994) - Wilson Pinheiro
    * Mirage (1995) - Matteo Juarez
    * My Family (1995) - Paco
    * Dead Man's Walk (1996) - Capt. Salazar
    * The Limbic Region (1996) - Jon Lucca
    * Caught (1996) - Joe
    * 12 Angry Men (1997) - Juror #11
    * Selena (1997) - Abraham Quintanilla Jr.
    * The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca (1997) - Roberto Lozano
    * The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (1998) - Vamanos
    * The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1998) - Det. Anthony Piscotti
    * Bonanno: A Godfather's Story (1999) - Salvatore Maranzano
    * The Road to El Dorado (2000) (voice) - Chief
    * Gossip (2000) - Detective Curtis
    * The Judge (2001) - Judge Armando
    * In the Time of the Butterflies (2001) Rafael Trujillo
    * Jack and Marilyn (2002) - Pasquel
    * Cerca, La (2005) - Nino
    * Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (2005) - Voice of Mitto
    * Splinter (2006) - Capt. Garcia
    * Walkout (2006) - Julian Nava
    * Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008) (voice) - Diablo
    * The Green Hornet (2010) - Michael Axford

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s307/tusabes1/EDWARD.jpg
http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/ss156/puzzled11/edward_james_olmos.jpg
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l52/Mystiqueband/Edspics028.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/24/10 at 6:31 am

The person who died on this day...Dennis Weaver
William Dennis Weaver (June 4, 1924 – February 24, 2006) better known as Dennis Weaver was an American actor, best known for his work in television, including roles on Gunsmoke, as Marshal Sam McCloud on the NBC police drama McCloud, and the 1971 TV movie Duel.
Weaver was born William Dennis Weaver in Joplin, Missouri, the son of Lena Prather (1892–1970) and Walter Weaver (1890–1967), of Irish, Scottish, English, Cherokee and Osage ancestry. He wanted to be an actor from boyhood. He started college at Joplin Junior College, now Missouri Southern State University and later attended the University of Oklahoma at Norman, where he studied drama and also was a track star, setting records in several events. He served as a pilot in the United States Navy during the Second World War. In 1945, he married Gerry Stowell, with whom he had three children (Rick, Robbie and Rustin). In 1948, he tried out for the U.S. Olympic team in the decathlon. After he finished sixth in the Olympic Trials (only the top three made the team), his college friend Lonny Chapman convinced him to come to New York City to try acting.
Career

Weaver's first role on Broadway came as an understudy to Chapman as Turk Fisher in Come Back, Little Sheba. He eventually took over the role from Chapman in the national touring company. Solidifying his choice to become an actor, Weaver enrolled in The Actors Studio, where he met Shelley Winters. In the beginning of his acting career, he supported his family by doing a number of odd jobs, including selling vacuum cleaners, tricycles and women's hosiery.

In 1952, Winters aided him in getting a contract from Universal Studios. He made his film debut that same year in the movie The Redhead from Wyoming. Over the next three years, he played roles in a series of movies, but still had to work odd jobs to support his family. It was while delivering flowers that he heard he had landed his biggest break — the role of Chester Goode on the new television series Gunsmoke  — which would go on to become the highest-rated and longest-running series in US television history (1955 to 1975). He received an Emmy Award in 1959 for Best Supporting Actor (Continuing Character) in a Dramatic Series.

Having become famous as Chester, he was cast in an offbeat supporting role in the 1958 Orson Welles film Touch of Evil, in which he nervously repeated, "I'm the night man." In 1961 he did an episode of The Twilight Zone called "Shadow Play" where he was trapped inside his own dream.

From 1964 to 1965, he portrayed a friendly veterinarian in NBC's comedy-drama Kentucky Jones. His next substantial role was as Tom Wedloe on the CBS series Gentle Ben, with co-star Clint Howard, between 1967 and 1969.
Weaver in Duel (1971)

He began appearing on the series McCloud in 1970, for which he received two Emmy Award nominations. In 1974, he was nominated for Best Lead Actor in a Limited Series and in 1975, for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series. His frequent use of the affirming Southernism, "There you go," became a catchphrase for the show. During the series, in 1971, he appeared in Duel, a television movie directed by Steven Spielberg. From 1973 to 1975, he was president of the Screen Actors Guild.

Later series during the 1980s (both of which lasted only one season) were Stone in which Weaver played a Joseph Wambaugh-esque police sergeant turned crime novelist, and Buck James, in which he played a Texas-based surgeon and rancher (Buck James was loosely based on real-life Texas doctor Red Duke).

In 1978, Weaver played the trail boss R.J. Poteet in the television miniseries Centennial on the episode titled "The Longhorns." Weaver also appeared in many acclaimed television films. In 1980, he played Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was imprisoned for involvement in the Lincoln assassination, in The Ordeal Of Doctor Mudd. In 1983, he played a real estate agent addicted to cocaine in Cocaine: One Man's Seduction. Weaver received probably the best reviews of his career when he starred in the 1987 film Bluffing It, in which he played a man who is illiterate. In February 2002, he appeared on the animated series The Simpsons (episode DABF07, "The Lastest Gun in the West") as the voice of aging Hollywood cowboy legend Buck McCoy.

For his contribution to the television industry, Dennis Weaver was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6822 Hollywood Blvd, and on the Dodge City (KS) Trail of Fame. In 1981, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame with the Wrangler Award at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Weaver's most recent work was done on an ABC Family cable television show called Wildfire, where he played Henry, the father of Jean Ritter and the co-owner of Raintree Ranch. He was only on the show for season 1, and died of complications from cancer at the age of 81 on February 24, 2006. He was cremated and his ashes were given to his family.
Personal life

Weaver had been a vegetarian since 1958 and student of yoga and meditation since the 1960s. He was also renowned as an environmentalist, promoting eating lower on the food chain, alternate fuels such as hydrogen and wind power through an educational organization he founded, The Institute of Ecolonomics (a neologism formed by combining "ecology" and "economics"). He was also involved with John Denver's WindStar Foundation. He founded an organisation called Love is Feeding Everyone which provided food for 150,000 needy people a week in Los Angeles.

Weaver was active in liberal political causes. He used his celebrity status in instrumental roles as a fundraiser and organizer for George McGovern's campaign for president in 1972.

In 2004, he led a fleet of alternative fuel vehicles across America in order to raise awareness about America's dependence on oil.

The “Earth Ship,” the personal home he commissioned architect Michael Reynolds to design and build in Ridgway, Colorado during the late 1980s, incorporated recycled materials in its construction and featured advanced eco-technologies.

Weaver was consistently involved with the annual Genesis Awards, which were created by The Ark Trust to honor those in the media who bring attention to the plight and suffering of animals.

    There will come a time … when civilized people will look back in horror on our generation and the ones that preceded it: the idea that we should eat other living things running around on four legs, that we should raise them just for the purpose of killing them! The people of the future will say “meat-eaters!” in disgust and regard us in the same way we regard cannibals and cannibalism – Dennis Weaver

Selected filmography

    * The Lawless Breed (1953)
    * War Arrow (1953)
    * Dangerous Mission (1954)
    * Dragnet (1954)
    * Ten Wanted Men (1955)
    * Seven Angry Men (1955)
    * Chief Crazy Horse (1955)
    * Navy Wife (1956)
    * Touch of Evil (1958)
    * The Gallant Hours (1960)
    * Duel at Diablo (1966)
    * Gentle Giant (1967)
    * Mission Batangas (1968)
    * McCloud:Who Killed Miss U.S.A? (1970) (TV)
    * A Man Called Sledge (1970)
    * Duel (1971)
    * Cry For Justice (1977)
    * Cocaine: One Man's Poison (1983)
    * Two Bits & Pepper (1995)
    * Escape from Wildcat Canyon (1998)
    * Submerged (2000) with Coolio, Maxwell Caulfield, Brent Huff and Nicole Eggert
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q255/wildfirefan/dennis%20weaver/weaver3.jpg
http://i545.photobucket.com/albums/hh389/cowboy66_03/Pictures%202/DennisWeaver1.jpg
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q255/wildfirefan/dennis%20weaver/mcloud1.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/24/10 at 6:57 am


The person born on this day...Edward James Olmos
Edward James "Eddie" Olmos (born February 24, 1947) is a Mexican American actor and director. Among his most memorable roles are Commander/Admiral William Adama in the Battlestar Galactica re-imagined series, Lt. Martin Castillo in Miami Vice, teacher Jaime Escalante in Stand and Deliver, patriarch Abraham Quintanilla in the film Selena, Detective Gaff in Blade Runner, and narrator El Pachuco in both the stage and film versions of Zoot Suit.
Olmos was born Edward James Olmos in Los Angeles, California, where he was raised, the son of Eleanor (née Huizar) and Pedro Olmos, who was a welder. His father was a Mexican immigrant and his mother Mexican American. He grew up wanting to be a professional baseball player and became the Golden State batting champion. In his teen years, he turned to rock and roll, and became the lead singer for a band he named Pacific Ocean, so-called because it was to be "the biggest thing on the West Coast". He graduated from Montebello High School in 1964. While at Montebello High School, he lost a race for Student Body President to future California Democratic Party Chair Art Torres. For several years Pacific Ocean played various clubs in and around Los Angeles and released a record in 1968. At the same time, he attended classes at East Los Angeles College, including courses in acting.
Career

In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, Olmos branched out from music into acting, appearing in many small productions, until his big break portraying the narrator, called "El Pachuco," in the play Zoot Suit, which dramatized the World War II-era rioting in California brought about by the tensions between Mexican-Americans and local police. (See Zoot Suit Riots.) The play moved to Broadway, and Olmos earned a Tony award nomination. He subsequently took the role to the filmed version in 1981, and appeared in many other films including Wolfen, Blade Runner and The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez.

From 1984 to 1989, Olmos starred in his biggest role up to that date as the authoritarian police Lieutenant Martin Castillo in the television series Miami Vice opposite Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas, for which he was awarded a Golden Globe and an Emmy in 1985. He was contacted about playing the captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise on Star Trek: The Next Generation when it was in pre-production in 1986, but he declined.

Returning to film, Olmos received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in Stand and Deliver for his portrayal of real-life math teacher, Jaime Escalante. He directed and starred in American Me in 1992, and also starred in My Family/Mi Familia, a multigenerational story of a Chicano family. In 1997 he starred alongside Jennifer Lopez in the film Selena. Olmos played Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo in the 2001 movie In the Time of the Butterflies. He also had a recurring role as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Roberto Mendoza in the NBC drama The West Wing. From 2002 to 2004, he starred as a recently widowed father of a Latino L.A.-family in the PBS drama American Family: Journey of Dreams.

From 2003 to 2009, he starred as Admiral William Adama in the Sci Fi / SyFy Channel's reimagined Battlestar Galactica miniseries and in the television series that followed. He directed four episodes of the show, Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down (1.9), Taking a Break from All Your Worries (3.13), Escape Velocity (4.4) and Islanded in a Stream of Stars (4.18). He also directed a television movie of the show, The Plan. Regarding his work on the show, he told CraveOnline, "I'm very grateful for the work that I've been able to do in my life but I can honestly tell you, this is the best usage of television I've ever been a part of to date."

In 2006, he co-produced, directed, and played the bit part of Julian Nava in the HBO movie about the 1968 Chicano Blowouts, Walkout . He also appeared in Snoop Dogg's music video "Vato", featuring B-Real from Cypress Hill. In the series finale of the ABC sitcom George Lopez, titled George Decides to Sta-Local Where It's Familia, he guest-starred as the plant's new multi-millionaire owner. More recently, he has been a spokesperson for Farmers Insurance Group, starring in their Spanish language commercials.
Social Activism

Olmos has often been involved in social activism, especially those affecting the Latino community. During the 1992 Rodney King Riots in Los Angeles, when many people left the city, Olmos went out with a broom and worked to get communities cleaned up and rebuilt. In 1997, Olmos co-founded the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival with Marlene Dermer, George Hernandez and Kirk Whisler. That same year, he co-founded with Kirk Whisler the non-profit organization Latino Literacy Now that has produced 44 Latino Book & Festivals around the USA, attended by over 700,000 people. In 1998, he founded Latino Public Broadcasting and currently serves as its Chairman. Latino Public Broadcasting funds public television programming that focuses on issues affecting Latinos and advocates for diverse perspectives in public television. That same year, he starred in The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, a comedy that sought to break Latino stereotypes and transcend the normal stigmas of most Latino-oriented movies. In 1999, Olmos was one of the driving forces that created Americanos: Latino Life in the U.S.1, a book project featuring over 30 award winning photographers, later turned into a Smithsonian traveling exhibition, music CD and HBO special. He also makes frequent appearances at juvenile halls and detention centers to speak to at-risk teenagers. He has also been an international ambassador for UNICEF. In 2001, he was arrested and spent 20 days in prison for taking part in the Navy-Vieques protests against United States Navy target practice bombings of the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico.

On January 5, 2007, he appeared on Puerto Rican Television to blame the Puerto Rican and United States Governments for not cleaning the Island of Vieques after the United States Navy stopped using the island for bombing practice. He also gave $2,300 to New Mexico governor Bill Richardson for his Presidential campaign (the maximum amount for the primaries).
Personal life

In 1971, Olmos married Katija Keel, the daughter of actor Howard Keel. They had two children, Bodie and Mico, before divorcing in 1992. Olmos also has three adopted children: Michael D., Brandon and Tamiko. He married actress Lorraine Bracco in 1994, but she filed for divorce in January 2002 after five years of separation. He is currently married to Puerto Rican actress Lymari Nadal, 30 years his junior.

In 1996, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from California State University, Fresno. In 2007, after a seven-year process, he obtained Mexican nationality.

Asteroid 5608 Olmos is named in his honor.
Filmography
Films

    * Alambrista! (1977) - Drunk Yelling at Workers (Credit reads "Edward Olmos")
    * Evening in Byzantium (1978) - Angelo
    * Fukkatsu no hi (1979) - Capt. Lopez
    * Three Hundred Miles for Stephanie (1981) - Art Vela
    * Wolfen (1981) - Eddie Holt
    * Zoot Suit (1981) - El Pachuco
    * Blade Runner (1982) - Gaff
    * The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (1983) - Gregorio Cortez
    * Saving Grace (1985) - Ciolino
    * Stand and Deliver (1988) - Jaime Escalante
    * The Fortunate Pilgrim (1989) - Frank Corbo
    * Triumph of the Spirit (1989) - Gypsy
    * Talent for the Game (1991) - Virgil Sweet
    * American Me (1992) - Montoya Santana
    * Roosters (1993) - Gallo Morales
    * Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills (1994) - Jose Menendez
    * A Million to Juan (1994) - Angel
    * The Burning Season (1994) - Wilson Pinheiro
    * Mirage (1995) - Matteo Juarez
    * My Family (1995) - Paco
    * Dead Man's Walk (1996) - Capt. Salazar
    * The Limbic Region (1996) - Jon Lucca
    * Caught (1996) - Joe
    * 12 Angry Men (1997) - Juror #11
    * Selena (1997) - Abraham Quintanilla Jr.
    * The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca (1997) - Roberto Lozano
    * The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (1998) - Vamanos
    * The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1998) - Det. Anthony Piscotti
    * Bonanno: A Godfather's Story (1999) - Salvatore Maranzano
    * The Road to El Dorado (2000) (voice) - Chief
    * Gossip (2000) - Detective Curtis
    * The Judge (2001) - Judge Armando
    * In the Time of the Butterflies (2001) Rafael Trujillo
    * Jack and Marilyn (2002) - Pasquel
    * Cerca, La (2005) - Nino
    * Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (2005) - Voice of Mitto
    * Splinter (2006) - Capt. Garcia
    * Walkout (2006) - Julian Nava
    * Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008) (voice) - Diablo
    * The Green Hornet (2010) - Michael Axford

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s307/tusabes1/EDWARD.jpg
http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/ss156/puzzled11/edward_james_olmos.jpg
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l52/Mystiqueband/Edspics028.jpg


I think Stand And Deliver was his best work.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/24/10 at 7:33 am


I think Stand And Deliver was his best work.

Yes he was good in that.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/24/10 at 10:17 am

I liked Dennis Weaver in McCLoud, and in the mini-series, Centennial.
Thanks for posting.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/24/10 at 12:54 pm


I liked Dennis Weaver in McCLoud, and in the mini-series, Centennial.
Thanks for posting.

Your welcome :) I always liked McCloud.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/24/10 at 1:02 pm

British Person of the Day: James Quin

James Quin (24 February 1693 – 21 January 1766) was an English actor of Irish descent.

Quin was born in London. He was educated at Dublin, and probably spent a short time at Trinity College.

Soon after his father's death in 1710, he made his first appearance on the stage at Abel in Sir Robert Howard's The Committee at the Smock Alley Theatre. Quin's first London engagement was in small parts at Drury Lane, and he secured his first triumph at Bajazet in Nicholas Rowe's Tamerlane, on 8 November 1715. The next year he appeared as Hotspur at Lincoln's Inn, where he remained for fourteen years.

On 10 July 1718 he was convicted of manslaughter for having killed Bowen, another actor, in a duel which the victim had himself provoked. Quin was not severely punished, the affair being regarded as more of an accident than a crime. The public took a similar view of another episode in which Quin, on being attacked by a young actor who had been angered by the sarcastic criticism of his superior, drew upon him and killed him.

But if he was eager in his own defence he was no less so in that of others. In 1721 a drunken nobleman reeled on to the stage of the theatre and assaulted the manager, Rich, whose life was saved by Quin's prompt armed interference. This resulted in a riot, and thereafter a guard was stationed in all theatres. In 1732 Quin appeared at Covent Garden, returning to Drury Lane from 1734 to 1741, and in 1742 was again at Covent Garden, where he remained until the close of his career. On 14 November 1746 Quin played Horatio and Garrick Lothario to the Calista of Mrs Cibber in Rose's Fair Penitent. The applause of the audience was so great as to disconcert if not actually to alarm the two actors.

Public interest was yet more keenly stimulated in comparing Garrick's and Quin's impersonations of Richard III, the popular verdict being loudly in favor of Garrick. But Quin's Falstaff in King Henry IV was emphatically preferred to the Hotspur of his rival. In consequence of an attempt made by Garrick in 1750-51 to draw him away from Covent Garden, Quin was enabled to extort from his manager a salary of £1000 a year, the highest figure then reached in the profession. Quin's last regular appearance was on 15 May 1757, as Horatio in the Fair Penitent, though in the following year he twice played Falstaff for the benefit of friends. He had retired to Bath, where he lived a happy life, with late hours and much eating and drinking, until his death on 21 January 1766. He was buried in the abbey church at Bath.

Some coolness which had arisen between Quin and Garrick before the former's retirement was dissipated on their subsequent meeting at Chatsworth at the duke of Devonshire's, and Quin paid many a visit to Garrick's villa at Hampton in the latter part of his life. The epitaph in verse on his tomb was written by Garrick. Quin's will displayed a generous nature, and among numerous bequests was one of fifty pounds to "Mr Thomas Gainsborough, limner."

In the Garrick Club in London are two portraits of the actor ascribed to Hogarth, and a portrait by Gainsborough is in Buckingham Palace. His personality was not gracious. His jokes were coarse; his temper irascible; his love of food, his important airs, and his capacity for deep drinking do not command respect; on the other hand, a few of his jokes were excellent, and there was no rancour in him. On many occasions he showed his willingness to help persons in distress. His character is summarised by Smollett in Humphrey Clinker. As an actor his manner was charged with an excess of gravity and deliberation; his pauses were so portentous as in some situations to appear even ludicrous; but he was well fitted for the delivery of Milton's poetry, and for the portrayal of the graver roles in his repertory.

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/4135444/2/istockphoto_4135444-james-quin.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/25/10 at 1:38 am

British Person of the Day: Myra Hess

Dame Myra Hess DBE (25 February 1890 – 25 November 1965) was a British pianist.

She was born in London as Julia Myra Hess, but was best-known by her middle name. At the age of five she began to study the piano and two years later entered the Guildhall School of Music, where she graduated as winner of the gold medal. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music under Tobias Matthay. Her debut came in 1907 when she played Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 with Sir Thomas Beecham conducting. She went on to tour through Britain, the Netherlands and France. Upon her American debut (New York, 24 January 1922) she became a prime favourite in the United States, not only as a soloist, but also as a fine ensemble player.

She garnered greater fame during World War II when, with all concert halls closed, she organised a series of lunchtime concerts at the National Gallery, playing in many herself. For this contribution to maintaining the morale of the populace of London, she was created a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in 1941; having previously been created a CBE in 1936. Hess makes a brief appearance performing at one of her lunchtime concerts in the classic 1942 wartime documentary Listen to Britain (directed by Humphrey Jennings and Stuart McAllister).

Hess was most renowned for her interpretations of the works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schumann, but had a wide repertoire ranging from Domenico Scarlatti to contemporary works. She gave the premiere of Howard Ferguson's Piano Sonata and his Piano Concerto. She also played a good amount of chamber music, and performed in a piano duo with Irene Scharrer. She promoted public awareness of the piano duo and two-piano works of Schubert.

She made a well-known arrangement for piano of the chorale prelude "Jesus bleibet meine Freude" (known in English as "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring") from Johann Sebastian Bach's Cantata No. 147 "Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben". Her protégés included Clive Lythgoe and Richard and John Contiguglia.

She influenced the City Music Society to form from the lunchtime concerts she organised.

http://image.absoluteastronomy.com/images/encyclopediaimages/m/my/myra_hess.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/25/10 at 1:39 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6BPTCveWH8&feature=PlayList&p=8D527853ACFA647F&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=46

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/25/10 at 6:14 am


British Person of the Day: James Quin

James Quin (24 February 1693 – 21 January 1766) was an English actor of Irish descent.

Quin was born in London. He was educated at Dublin, and probably spent a short time at Trinity College.

Soon after his father's death in 1710, he made his first appearance on the stage at Abel in Sir Robert Howard's The Committee at the Smock Alley Theatre. Quin's first London engagement was in small parts at Drury Lane, and he secured his first triumph at Bajazet in Nicholas Rowe's Tamerlane, on 8 November 1715. The next year he appeared as Hotspur at Lincoln's Inn, where he remained for fourteen years.

On 10 July 1718 he was convicted of manslaughter for having killed Bowen, another actor, in a duel which the victim had himself provoked. Quin was not severely punished, the affair being regarded as more of an accident than a crime. The public took a similar view of another episode in which Quin, on being attacked by a young actor who had been angered by the sarcastic criticism of his superior, drew upon him and killed him.

But if he was eager in his own defence he was no less so in that of others. In 1721 a drunken nobleman reeled on to the stage of the theatre and assaulted the manager, Rich, whose life was saved by Quin's prompt armed interference. This resulted in a riot, and thereafter a guard was stationed in all theatres. In 1732 Quin appeared at Covent Garden, returning to Drury Lane from 1734 to 1741, and in 1742 was again at Covent Garden, where he remained until the close of his career. On 14 November 1746 Quin played Horatio and Garrick Lothario to the Calista of Mrs Cibber in Rose's Fair Penitent. The applause of the audience was so great as to disconcert if not actually to alarm the two actors.

Public interest was yet more keenly stimulated in comparing Garrick's and Quin's impersonations of Richard III, the popular verdict being loudly in favor of Garrick. But Quin's Falstaff in King Henry IV was emphatically preferred to the Hotspur of his rival. In consequence of an attempt made by Garrick in 1750-51 to draw him away from Covent Garden, Quin was enabled to extort from his manager a salary of £1000 a year, the highest figure then reached in the profession. Quin's last regular appearance was on 15 May 1757, as Horatio in the Fair Penitent, though in the following year he twice played Falstaff for the benefit of friends. He had retired to Bath, where he lived a happy life, with late hours and much eating and drinking, until his death on 21 January 1766. He was buried in the abbey church at Bath.

Some coolness which had arisen between Quin and Garrick before the former's retirement was dissipated on their subsequent meeting at Chatsworth at the duke of Devonshire's, and Quin paid many a visit to Garrick's villa at Hampton in the latter part of his life. The epitaph in verse on his tomb was written by Garrick. Quin's will displayed a generous nature, and among numerous bequests was one of fifty pounds to "Mr Thomas Gainsborough, limner."

In the Garrick Club in London are two portraits of the actor ascribed to Hogarth, and a portrait by Gainsborough is in Buckingham Palace. His personality was not gracious. His jokes were coarse; his temper irascible; his love of food, his important airs, and his capacity for deep drinking do not command respect; on the other hand, a few of his jokes were excellent, and there was no rancour in him. On many occasions he showed his willingness to help persons in distress. His character is summarised by Smollett in Humphrey Clinker. As an actor his manner was charged with an excess of gravity and deliberation; his pauses were so portentous as in some situations to appear even ludicrous; but he was well fitted for the delivery of Milton's poetry, and for the portrayal of the graver roles in his repertory.

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/4135444/2/istockphoto_4135444-james-quin.jpg

Interesting bio, Thanks Phil.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/25/10 at 6:16 am


British Person of the Day: Myra Hess

Dame Myra Hess DBE (25 February 1890 – 25 November 1965) was a British pianist.

She was born in London as Julia Myra Hess, but was best-known by her middle name. At the age of five she began to study the piano and two years later entered the Guildhall School of Music, where she graduated as winner of the gold medal. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music under Tobias Matthay. Her debut came in 1907 when she played Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 with Sir Thomas Beecham conducting. She went on to tour through Britain, the Netherlands and France. Upon her American debut (New York, 24 January 1922) she became a prime favourite in the United States, not only as a soloist, but also as a fine ensemble player.

She garnered greater fame during World War II when, with all concert halls closed, she organised a series of lunchtime concerts at the National Gallery, playing in many herself. For this contribution to maintaining the morale of the populace of London, she was created a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in 1941; having previously been created a CBE in 1936. Hess makes a brief appearance performing at one of her lunchtime concerts in the classic 1942 wartime documentary Listen to Britain (directed by Humphrey Jennings and Stuart McAllister).

Hess was most renowned for her interpretations of the works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schumann, but had a wide repertoire ranging from Domenico Scarlatti to contemporary works. She gave the premiere of Howard Ferguson's Piano Sonata and his Piano Concerto. She also played a good amount of chamber music, and performed in a piano duo with Irene Scharrer. She promoted public awareness of the piano duo and two-piano works of Schubert.

She made a well-known arrangement for piano of the chorale prelude "Jesus bleibet meine Freude" (known in English as "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring") from Johann Sebastian Bach's Cantata No. 147 "Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben". Her protégés included Clive Lythgoe and Richard and John Contiguglia.

She influenced the City Music Society to form from the lunchtime concerts she organised.

http://image.absoluteastronomy.com/images/encyclopediaimages/m/my/myra_hess.jpg

I love your choices, because these are people I never knew about :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/25/10 at 6:33 am

The word of the day...Runner
A runner is a person who runs, especially for sport or pleasure
The runners in a horse race are the horses taking part.
A drug runner or gun runner is someone who illegally takes drugs or guns into a country.
Someone who is a runner for a particular person or company is employed to take messages, collect money, or do other small tasks for them.
Runners are thin strips of wood or metal underneath something which help it to move smoothly.
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff121/blake_yount/Yatesintakerunners2.jpg
http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz71/Empire1000/BladeRunner.jpg
http://i977.photobucket.com/albums/ae257/gti1999/100_4788.jpg
http://i568.photobucket.com/albums/ss125/Lucas_Adorn/WFRPG%20pics/Gutter-Runner-Front-Face.png
http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww36/Brian6809/Drawings/Marathonrunner.jpg
http://i904.photobucket.com/albums/ac250/zhandenrich/acuestick%20photo/19948_1127285922300_1831746317_2601.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/25/10 at 6:37 am

The person born on this day...Tom Courtenay
Sir Thomas Daniel "Tom" Courtenay (pronounced "Courtney"; born 25 February 1937) is an English actor who came to prominence in the early 1960s with a succession of films including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), Billy Liar (1963) and Dr. Zhivago (1965). Since the mid-1960s he has been known primarily for his work in the theatre. Courtenay received a knighthood in February 2001 for forty years service to cinema and theatre. Tom Courtenay is the President of Hull City A.F.C.'s Official Supporters Club. In 1999 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Hull University.
ourtenay was born in Hull, the son of Anne Eliza (née Quest) and Thomas Henry Courtenay, a boat painter. He attended Kingston High School there. Courtenay studied drama at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.
Career

Courtenay made his stage début in 1960 with the Old Vic theatre company at the Lyceum, Edinburgh, before taking over from Albert Finney in the title role of Billy Liar at the Cambridge Theatre in 1961. In 1963 he would play that same title role in the film version, directed by John Schlesinger. He said of Albert Finney, "We both have the same problem, overcoming the flat harsh speech of the North."

Courtenay's film debut was in 1962 with Private Potter, directed by Finnish-born director Casper Wrede, who had first spotted Courtenay while he was still at RADA. This was followed by The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, directed by Tony Richardson and Billy Liar, two highly acclaimed films and performances which helped usher in the British New Wave of the early-to-mid '60s. For these performance Courtenay was awarded the 1962 BAFTA Award for most promising newcomer and the 1963 BAFTA Award for best actor respectively. For his role as the dedicated revolutionary leader Pasha Antipov in Doctor Zhivago (1965), he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, being beaten out by Martin Balsam. Among his other well-known films is King & Country directed by Joseph Losey, where he played opposite Dirk Bogarde, and Night of the Generals directed by Anatole Litvak.

Despite being catapulted to fame by the aforementioned films, Courtenay has said that he has not particularly enjoyed film acting; and from the mid-1960s concentrated more on stage work. In 1966 Courtenay began a long association with the then newly formed Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, firstly under the direction of Casper Wrede. His first roles there were as Faulkland in Sheridan's The Rivals and the hero of von Kleist's The Prince of Homburg. Since then he has played a variety of roles, including in 1999 the leading role in the theatre's production of King Lear, and in 2001 Uncle Vanya.

Courtenay's working relationship with Wrede returned to film when he played the title role in the latter's 1970 production of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. His best known film role since then was in The Dresser, from Ronald Harwood's play of the same name (in which he also appeared) with Albert Finney. Both Courtenay and Finney received nominations for Best Actor in the 1984 Academy Awards for their roles, losing to Robert Duvall. He played the father of Derek Bentley (Christopher Eccleston) in the 1991 film Let Him Have It.

Courtenay's television and radio appearances have been relatively few, but have included She Stoops to Conquer in 1971 on BBC and several Ayckbourn plays. He appeared in I Heard the Owl Call My Name on US television in 1973. In 1994 he starred with Peter Ustinov in a Disney Channel 'made for television' version of The Old Curiosity Shop. Rather unexpecedly, he had a cameo role as the anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski in the 1995 US TV movie Young Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Peacock's Eye. In 1998 he teamed with Albert Finney again for the acclaimed BBC drama A Rather English Marriage. He played the role of God, opposite Sebastian Graham-Jones, in Ben Steiner's radio play "A Brief Interruption", broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004. Also for Radio 4, he played the title role in Nick Leather's The Domino Man of Lancashire and Maurice in Richard Lumsden's Man in the Moon, both broadcast in 2007. Courtenay also appeared in the 2008 Christmas special of the BBC show The Royle Family, playing the role of Dave's father, David Senior.

In 2002, based on an idea by Michael Godley, Courtenay compiled a one-man show Pretending To Be Me based on the letters and writings of poet Philip Larkin, which first played at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. It later transferred to the Comedy Theatre in the West End in London.

In 2007 Courtenay appeared in two films: Flood, a disaster epic in which London is overwhelmed by floods, and The Golden Compass, an adaptation of the Philip Pullman's novel, playing the part of Farder Coram. In 2008 he appeared in the BBC adaptation of Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens, playing William Dorrit, and the Christmas edition of The Royle Family, playing David (Senior).
Personal life

Courtenay was married to actress Cheryl Kennedy from 1973 to 1982. In 1988 he married Isabel Crossley, a stage manager at the Royal Exchange Theatre. They have homes in Manchester and Putney in London.

In 2000 Courtenay's memoir Dear Tom: Letters From Home was published to critical acclaim. It comprises a selection of the letters exchanged between Courtenay and his mother, interspersed with his own recollections of life as a young student actor in London in the early 1960s.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1962 Private Potter Private Potter
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner Colin Smith BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer
1963 Billy Liar Billy Fisher Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best British Actor
1964 King & Country Private Hamp Volpi Cup
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best British Actor
1965 Operation Crossbow Robert Henshaw
King Rat Lt. Robin Grey
Doctor Zhivago Pasha Antipov Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
1967 The Night of the Generals Lance Cpl. Kurt Hartmann
The Day the Fish Came Out The Navigator
1968 A Dandy in Aspic Gatiss
Otley Gerald Arthur Otley
1970 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Ivan Denisovich
1971 To Catch a Spy Baxter Clarke
She Stoops to Conquer Marlow
1983 The Dresser Norman Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best British Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1987 Happy New Year Edward Saunders
Leonard Part 6 Frayn
1991 The Last Butterfly Antoine Moreau
Let Him Have it William Bentley
1996 Famous Fred Kenneth
The Boy from Mercury Uncle Tony Cronin
1999 Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? Harold Smith Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival Award for Best Supporting Actor
2001 Last Orders Vic National Board of Review Award for Best Cast
Nominated — European Film Award for Best Actor
2002 Nicholas Nickleby Newman Noggs National Board of Review Award for Best Cast
2007 Flood Leonard Morrison
The Golden Compass Farder Coram
http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/qq85/cornershop15/JessieRobinsfarright.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/25/10 at 6:41 am

The person who died on this day...Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), born Thomas Lanier Williams, was an American playwright who received many of the top theatrical awards for his works of drama. He moved to New Orleans in 1939 and changed his name to "Tennessee", the state of his father's birth.

He won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948 and for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955. In addition, The Glass Menagerie (1945) and The Night of the Iguana (1961) received New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards. His 1952 play The Rose Tattoo received the Tony Award for best play. In 1980 he was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter.
Williams was born in Columbus, Mississippi, in the home of his maternal grandfather, the local Episcopal priest. He was of Welsh descent. His father, Cornelius Williams, a hard drinking traveling salesman, favored Tennessee's younger brother Dakin, perhaps because of Tennessee's weakness and effeminacy as a child. His mother, Edwina, was a borderline hysteric. Tennessee Williams would find inspiration in his problematic family for much of his writing.

In 1918, when Williams was seven, the family moved to the University City neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri, where he first attended Soldan High School, used in his work The Glass Menagerie and later University City High School. In 1927, at age 16, Williams won third prize (five dollars) for an essay published in Smart Set entitled, "Can a Good Wife Be a Good Sport?" A year later, he published "The Vengeance of Nitocris" in Weird Tales.

In the early 1930s Williams attended the University of Missouri, where he joined Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. In the late 1930s, Williams transferred to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri for a year, and finally earned a degree in 1938 from the University of Iowa, where he wrote "Spring Storm." By then, Williams had written Cairo, Shanghai, Bombay!. This work was first produced in 1935 by a community theater in Memphis, Tennessee. He later studied at The New School in New York City.
Writer

Williams lived for a time in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. He moved there in 1939 to write for the WPA. He first lived at 722 Toulouse Street, the setting of his 1977 play Vieux Carré. The building is part of The Historic New Orleans Collection. He began writing A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) while living at 632 St. Peter Street. He finished it later in Key West, Florida, where he moved in the 1940s. While in New Orleans, Williams met and fell in love with Frank Merlo, a second generation Sicilian American who had served in the U.S. Navy in World War II.

Tennessee was close to his sister Rose, a slim beauty who was diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age. As was common then, Rose was institutionalized and spent most of her adult life in mental hospitals. When therapies were unsuccessful, she showed more paranoid tendencies. In an effort to treat her, Rose's parents authorized a prefrontal lobotomy, a drastic treatment that was thought to help some mental patients who suffered extreme agitation. Performed in 1937 in Knoxville, Tennessee, the operation incapacitated Rose for the rest of her life. Her surgery may have contributed to his alcoholism and his dependence on various combinations of amphetamines and barbiturates often prescribed by Dr. Max (Feelgood) Jacobson.

Williams worked extremely briefly in the renowned Gotham Book Mart in Manhattan, lasting less than a day.

Williams' relationship with Frank Merlo lasted from 1947 until Merlo's death from cancer in 1963. With that stability, Williams created his most enduring works. Merlo provided balance to many of Williams' frequent bouts with depression and the fear that, like his sister Rose, he would go insane.
Death

Williams died on February 24, 1983.

Reports at the time indicated he choked on an eyedrop bottle cap in his room at the Hotel Elysee in New York. The reports said he would routinely place the cap in his mouth, lean back, and place his eyedrops in each eye. The police report, however, suggested his use of drugs and alcohol contributed to his death. Prescription drugs, including barbiturates, were found in the room, and Williams' gag response may have been diminished by the effects of drugs and alcohol.

However, on February 15, 2010, Williams' friend Larry Myers told the New York Post that the autopsy reported that he died of "Acute Seconal Intolerance." The article said that Williams' Key West companion Scott Kenan said that somebody in the coroner's office "created the bottle-cap scenario."

Williams' body was found by director John Uecker who was identified as his secretary and who travelled with Williams, and was staying in a separate room in Williams' suite.

Williams' body was taken to Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel and Williams' funeral took place on March 3, 1983 at Saint Malachy's Roman Catholic Church in New York City. At his brother Dakin's insistence, Williams' body was interred in the Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri, a city he detested. Williams had long told his friends he wanted to be buried at sea at approximately the same place as Hart Crane, a poet he considered to be one of his most significant influences.

Williams left his literary rights to The University of the South in honor of his grandfather, Walter Dakin, an alumnus of the university, which is located in Sewanee, Tennessee. The funds support a creative writing program. When his sister Rose died in 1996 after many years in a mental institution, she bequeathed $7 million from her part of the Williams estate to The University of the South as well.

In 1989, the University City Loop (in a suburb of St. Louis) inducted Tennessee Williams into its St. Louis Walk of Fame.
Afterlife

In late 2009, Williams was inducted into the Poet's Corner at St. John the Divine Episcopalian Church ]. The ceremony seemed geared to elevate the poet and playwright into the pantheon of great English Language writers, including William Faulkner and William Shakespeare. The purpose of the ceremony seemed to be a prayer for the poets fire to continually burn on Earth, as it would in heaven, and included elements choral music, tributes, readings, personal anecdotes from friends, and overall a tone and deliberate selections of choral music and prayer that offered acceptance and forgiveness which seemed to address certain prejudices which may have arisen against the poet in his lifetime so that the man's work could, going forward, be more fully accepted and explored.

Williams at the time of his death had been working on a final play, In Masks Outrageous and Austere ], which attempted to reconcile certain forces and facts of his own life, a theme which ran throughout his work, as Elia Kazan had say. Please see the article in WikiPedia on In Masks Outrageous and Austere for further details.
Works

The "mad heroine" theme that appeared in many of his plays seemed clearly influenced by the life of Williams' sister Rose.
Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Characters in his plays are often seen as representations of his family members. Laura Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie was understood to be modeled on Rose. Some biographers believed that the character of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire is also based on her.

Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie was generally seen to represent Williams' mother, Edwina. Characters such as Tom Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie and Sebastian in Suddenly, Last Summer were understood to represent Williams himself. In addition, he used a lobotomy operation as a motif in Suddenly, Last Summer.

The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was awarded to A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948 and to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955. These two plays were later filmed, with great success, by noted directors Elia Kazan (Streetcar) with whom Williams developed a very close artistic relationship, and Richard Brooks (Cat). Both plays included references to elements of Williams' life such as homosexuality, mental instability, and alcoholism. Although The Flowering Peach by Clifford Odets was the preferred choice of the Pulitzer Prize jury in 1955 and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was at first considered the weakest of the five shortlisted nominees, Joseph Pulitzer Jr., chairman of the Board, had seen Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and thought it worthy of the drama prize. The Board went along with him after considerable discussion.

Williams wrote The Parade, or Approaching the End of a Summer when he was 29 and worked on it through his life. It seemed an autobiographical depiction of an early romance in Provincetown, Massachusetts. This play was produced for the first time on October 1, 2006 in Provincetown by the Shakespeare on the Cape production company, as part of the First Annual Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival.

The Parade, or Approaching the End of a Summer was among several works published by New Directions in the spring of 2008, edited and introduced by Williams scholar Annette J. Saddik. This collection of experimental plays was titled The Traveling Companion and Other Plays.usc

Williams' last play A House Not Meant to Stand is a gothic comedy published in 2008 by New Directions with a foreword by Gregory Mosher and an introduction by Thomas Keith. Williams called his last play a "Southern gothic spook sonata."

Other works by Williams include Camino Real and Sweet Bird of Youth.

His last play went through many drafts as he was trying to reconcile what would be the end of his life]. There are many versions of it, but it is referred to as In Masks Outrageous and Austere and a Wikipedia article may be found on the subject.
Plays

Apprentice plays

    * Candles to the Sun (1936)
    * Spring Storm (1937)
    * Fugitive Kind (1937)
    * Not About Nightingales (1938)
    * I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix (1941)
    * Orpheus Descending (1945)
    * You Touched Me (1945)
    * Stairs to the Roof (1947)

Major plays

    * The Glass Menagerie (1944)
    * A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
    * Summer and Smoke (1948)
    * The Rose Tattoo (1951)
    * Camino Real (1953)
    * Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)
    * Baby Doll (1956)
    * Orpheus Descending (1957)
    * Suddenly, Last Summer (1958)
    * Sweet Bird of Youth (1959)
    * Period of Adjustment (1960)
    * The Night of the Iguana (1961)
    * The Eccentricities of a Nightingale (1962, rewriting of Summer and Smoke)
    * The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963)
    * The Mutilated (1965)
    * The Seven Descents of Myrtle (1968, aka Kingdom of Earth)
    * In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel (1969)
    * Will Mr. Merriweather Return from Memphis? (1969)
    * Small Craft Warnings (1972)
    * The Two-Character Play (1973)
    * Out Cry (1973, rewriting of The Two-Character Play)
    * The Red Devil Battery Sign (1975)
    * This Is (An Entertainment) (1976)
    * Vieux Carré (1977)
    * A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur (1979)
    * Clothes for a Summer Hotel (1980)
    * The Notebook of Trigorin (1980)
    * Something Cloudy, Something Clear (1981)
    * A House Not Meant to Stand (1982)
    * In Masks Outrageous and Austere (1983)

Novels

    * The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1950, filmed 1961)
    * Moise and the World of Reason (1975)

Screenplays

    * The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (1957, filmed 2009)

Short stories

    * The Vengeance of Nitocris (1928)
    * The Field of Blue Children (1939)
    * The Resemblance Between a Violin Case and a Coffin (1951)
    * Hard Candy: A Book of Stories (1954)
    * Three Players of a Summer Game and Other Stories (1960)
    * The Knightly Quest: a Novella and Four Short Stories (1966)
    * One Arm and Other Stories (1967)
          o One Arm
          o The Malediction
          o The Poet
          o Chronicle of a Demise
          o Desire and the Black Masseur
          o Portrait of a Girl in Glass
          o The Important Thing
          o The Angel in the Alcove
          o The Field of Blue Children
          o The Night of the Iguana
          o The Yellow Bird
    * Eight Mortal Ladies Possessed: a Book of Stories (1974)
    * Tent Worms (1980)
    * It Happened the day the Sun Rose, and Other Stories (1981)

One-act collections

Tennessee Williams wrote over 70 one-act plays during his lifetime. The one-acts explored many of the same themes that dominated his longer works. Williams' major collections are published by New Directions in New York City.

    * American Blues (1948)
    * Mister Paradise and Other One-Act Plays
    * Dragon Country: a book of one-act plays (1970)
    * The Traveling Companion and Other Plays
    * 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays (1946 and 1953)
          o «Something wild...» (introduction) (1953)
          o 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1946 and 1953)
          o The Purification (1946 and 1953)
          o The Lady of Larkspur Lotion (1946 and 1953)
          o The Last of My Solid Gold Watches (1946 and 1953)
          o Portrait of a Madonna (1946 and 1953)
          o Auto-da-Fé (1946 and 1953)
          o Lord Byron's Love Letter (1946 and 1953)
          o The Strangest Kind of Romance (1946 and 1953)
          o The Long Goodbye (1946 and 1953)
          o At Liberty (1946)
          o Moony's Kid Don't Cry (1946)
          o Hello from Bertha (1946 and 1953)
          o This Property Is Condemned (1946 and 1953)
          o Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen... (1953)
          o Something Unspoken (1953)
    * The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, Volume VI
    * The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, Volume VII

Selected works

    * Gussow, Mel and Holditch, Kenneth, eds. Tennessee Williams, Plays 1937-1955 (Library of America, 2000) ISBN 978-1-88301186-4.
          o Spring Storm
          o Not About Nightingales
          o Battle of Angels
          o I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix
          o from 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1946)
                + 27 Wagons Full of Cotton
                + The Lady of Larkspur Lotion
                + The Last of My Solid Gold Watches
                + Portrait of a Madonna
                + Auto-da-Fé
                + Lord Byron's Love Letter
                + This Property Is Condemned
          o The Glass Menagerie
          o A Streetcar Named Desire
          o Summer and Smoke
          o The Rose Tattoo
          o Camino Real
          o from 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1953)
                + "Something Wild"
                + Talk to Me Like the Rain and Let Me Listen
                + Something Unspoken
          o Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
    * Gussow, Mel and Holditch, Kenneth, eds. Tennessee Williams, Plays 1957-1980 (Library of America, 2000) ISBN 978-1-88301187-1.
          o Orpheus Descending
          o Suddenly Last Summer
          o Sweet Bird of Youth
          o Period of Adjustment
          o The Night of the Iguana
          o The Eccentricities of a Nightingale
          o The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore
          o The Mutilated
          o Kingdom of Earth (The Seven Descents of Myrtle)
          o Small Craft Warnings
          o Out Cry
          o Vieux Carré
          o A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur

Related Works

A book is coming out soon by a former assistant, Scott. John Uecker is also has directed Williams' plays in addition to creating an edit of In Masks Outrageous and Austere.
See also

    * Lanier family tree
    * Virginia Spencer Carr, friend and biographer of Williams
    * List of unusual deaths
http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/ss216/kantropus/Williams/tennessee.jpg
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n209/guwumpki/180px-Tennessee_Williams_NYWTS.jpg
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q192/wintersherald/williams.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/25/10 at 6:49 am

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2009/11/06/george_harrison_main.jpg

Happy Birthday George Harrison. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/25/10 at 8:49 am


http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2009/11/06/george_harrison_main.jpg

Happy Birthday George Harrison. :)

He'd be 67 today :\'(

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/25/10 at 12:24 pm


The person born on this day...Tom Courtenay
Sir Thomas Daniel "Tom" Courtenay (pronounced "Courtney"; born 25 February 1937) is an English actor who came to prominence in the early 1960s with a succession of films including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), Billy Liar (1963) and Dr. Zhivago (1965). Since the mid-1960s he has been known primarily for his work in the theatre. Courtenay received a knighthood in February 2001 for forty years service to cinema and theatre. Tom Courtenay is the President of Hull City A.F.C.'s Official Supporters Club. In 1999 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Hull University.
ourtenay was born in Hull, the son of Anne Eliza (née Quest) and Thomas Henry Courtenay, a boat painter. He attended Kingston High School there. Courtenay studied drama at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.
Career

Courtenay made his stage début in 1960 with the Old Vic theatre company at the Lyceum, Edinburgh, before taking over from Albert Finney in the title role of Billy Liar at the Cambridge Theatre in 1961. In 1963 he would play that same title role in the film version, directed by John Schlesinger. He said of Albert Finney, "We both have the same problem, overcoming the flat harsh speech of the North."

Courtenay's film debut was in 1962 with Private Potter, directed by Finnish-born director Casper Wrede, who had first spotted Courtenay while he was still at RADA. This was followed by The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, directed by Tony Richardson and Billy Liar, two highly acclaimed films and performances which helped usher in the British New Wave of the early-to-mid '60s. For these performance Courtenay was awarded the 1962 BAFTA Award for most promising newcomer and the 1963 BAFTA Award for best actor respectively. For his role as the dedicated revolutionary leader Pasha Antipov in Doctor Zhivago (1965), he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, being beaten out by Martin Balsam. Among his other well-known films is King & Country directed by Joseph Losey, where he played opposite Dirk Bogarde, and Night of the Generals directed by Anatole Litvak.

Despite being catapulted to fame by the aforementioned films, Courtenay has said that he has not particularly enjoyed film acting; and from the mid-1960s concentrated more on stage work. In 1966 Courtenay began a long association with the then newly formed Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, firstly under the direction of Casper Wrede. His first roles there were as Faulkland in Sheridan's The Rivals and the hero of von Kleist's The Prince of Homburg. Since then he has played a variety of roles, including in 1999 the leading role in the theatre's production of King Lear, and in 2001 Uncle Vanya.

Courtenay's working relationship with Wrede returned to film when he played the title role in the latter's 1970 production of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. His best known film role since then was in The Dresser, from Ronald Harwood's play of the same name (in which he also appeared) with Albert Finney. Both Courtenay and Finney received nominations for Best Actor in the 1984 Academy Awards for their roles, losing to Robert Duvall. He played the father of Derek Bentley (Christopher Eccleston) in the 1991 film Let Him Have It.

Courtenay's television and radio appearances have been relatively few, but have included She Stoops to Conquer in 1971 on BBC and several Ayckbourn plays. He appeared in I Heard the Owl Call My Name on US television in 1973. In 1994 he starred with Peter Ustinov in a Disney Channel 'made for television' version of The Old Curiosity Shop. Rather unexpecedly, he had a cameo role as the anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski in the 1995 US TV movie Young Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Peacock's Eye. In 1998 he teamed with Albert Finney again for the acclaimed BBC drama A Rather English Marriage. He played the role of God, opposite Sebastian Graham-Jones, in Ben Steiner's radio play "A Brief Interruption", broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004. Also for Radio 4, he played the title role in Nick Leather's The Domino Man of Lancashire and Maurice in Richard Lumsden's Man in the Moon, both broadcast in 2007. Courtenay also appeared in the 2008 Christmas special of the BBC show The Royle Family, playing the role of Dave's father, David Senior.

In 2002, based on an idea by Michael Godley, Courtenay compiled a one-man show Pretending To Be Me based on the letters and writings of poet Philip Larkin, which first played at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. It later transferred to the Comedy Theatre in the West End in London.

In 2007 Courtenay appeared in two films: Flood, a disaster epic in which London is overwhelmed by floods, and The Golden Compass, an adaptation of the Philip Pullman's novel, playing the part of Farder Coram. In 2008 he appeared in the BBC adaptation of Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens, playing William Dorrit, and the Christmas edition of The Royle Family, playing David (Senior).
Personal life

Courtenay was married to actress Cheryl Kennedy from 1973 to 1982. In 1988 he married Isabel Crossley, a stage manager at the Royal Exchange Theatre. They have homes in Manchester and Putney in London.

In 2000 Courtenay's memoir Dear Tom: Letters From Home was published to critical acclaim. It comprises a selection of the letters exchanged between Courtenay and his mother, interspersed with his own recollections of life as a young student actor in London in the early 1960s.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1962 Private Potter Private Potter
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner Colin Smith BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer
1963 Billy Liar Billy Fisher Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best British Actor
1964 King & Country Private Hamp Volpi Cup
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best British Actor
1965 Operation Crossbow Robert Henshaw
King Rat Lt. Robin Grey
Doctor Zhivago Pasha Antipov Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
1967 The Night of the Generals Lance Cpl. Kurt Hartmann
The Day the Fish Came Out The Navigator
1968 A Dandy in Aspic Gatiss
Otley Gerald Arthur Otley
1970 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Ivan Denisovich
1971 To Catch a Spy Baxter Clarke
She Stoops to Conquer Marlow
1983 The Dresser Norman Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actor
Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best British Actor
Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama
1987 Happy New Year Edward Saunders
Leonard Part 6 Frayn
1991 The Last Butterfly Antoine Moreau
Let Him Have it William Bentley
1996 Famous Fred Kenneth
The Boy from Mercury Uncle Tony Cronin
1999 Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? Harold Smith Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival Award for Best Supporting Actor
2001 Last Orders Vic National Board of Review Award for Best Cast
Nominated — European Film Award for Best Actor
2002 Nicholas Nickleby Newman Noggs National Board of Review Award for Best Cast
2007 Flood Leonard Morrison
The Golden Compass Farder Coram
http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/qq85/cornershop15/JessieRobinsfarright.jpg
British and I missed him!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/25/10 at 12:26 pm


http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2009/11/06/george_harrison_main.jpg

Happy Birthday George Harrison. :)
Believe or not, I read conflicting reports on his date of birth (either yesterday or today), so I do not have GH as the British Person of the Day.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/25/10 at 1:16 pm

We should have George Harrison as one of the people of the day-Honorable Mention or something.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 02/25/10 at 1:24 pm


We should have George Harrison as one of the people of the day-Honorable Mention or something.



Cat

I think so too.


Believe or not, I read conflicting reports on his date of birth (either yesterday or today), so I do not have GH as the British Person of the Day.

I read that too; from what I read, he believed for most of his life that his birthday was the 25th, but other sources give it as the 24th, saying that he was born just a couple minutes before midnight (or something to that effect).

Now I'm looking at his Wiki page and there's a footnote to a source that confirms the 25th as his actual birthday.

Footnote #10:
^ Reliable sources and his birth certificate show his birth date as 25 February, though some sources give 24 February.
So that means today would have been his 67th birthday. :\'(

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/25/10 at 1:55 pm

Beatle George!

Brought us some lovely songs as "Here comes the sun". "Something", "Give me love, give me peace on earth" and more.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 02/25/10 at 1:58 pm


Beatle George!

Brought us some lovely songs as "Here comes the sun". "Something", "Give me love, give me peace on earth" and more.


Yeah those are good ones.

Some of his solo hits include "My Sweet Lord", "All Those Years Ago" and "(I've) Got My Mind Set On You", all of which I enjoy.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/25/10 at 1:58 pm


I think so too.
I read that too; from what I read, he believed for most of his life that his birthday was the 25th, but other sources give it as the 24th, saying that he was born just a couple minutes before midnight (or something to that effect).

Now I'm looking at his Wiki page and there's a footnote to a source that confirms the 25th as his actual birthday.

Footnote #10:So that means today would have been his 67th birthday. :\'(
:\'(

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/25/10 at 2:00 pm


Yeah those are good ones.

Some of his solo hits include "My Sweet Lord", "All Those Years Ago" and "(I've) Got My Mind Set On You", all of which I enjoy.
All Those Years Ago is one of my favs.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/25/10 at 2:01 pm


:\'(

It's incredible how young George was when he joined the band & how young he was when the Beatles were in Hamburg.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/25/10 at 2:02 pm


It's incredible how young George was when he joined the band & how young he was when the Beatles were in Hamburg.
When The Beatles were offered work in Hamburg in 1960, the musical apprenticeship that Harrison received playing long hours at the Kaiserkeller with the rest of the group, including guitar lessons from Tony Sheridan, laid the foundations of The Beatles' sound, and of Harrison's quiet, professional role within the group; this role would contribute to his reputation as "the quiet Beatle". However, the first trip to Hamburg was shortened when Harrison was deported for being underage.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 02/25/10 at 2:02 pm


It's incredible how young George was when he joined the band & how young he was when the Beatles were in Hamburg.

That's right, he was the youngest member of the group. And when they appeared on Ed Sullivan, George was almost 21.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/25/10 at 2:04 pm


When The Beatles were offered work in Hamburg in 1960, the musical apprenticeship that Harrison received playing long hours at the Kaiserkeller with the rest of the group, including guitar lessons from Tony Sheridan, laid the foundations of The Beatles' sound, and of Harrison's quiet, professional role within the group; this role would contribute to his reputation as "the quiet Beatle". However, the first trip to Hamburg was shortened when Harrison was deported for being underage.

I remember hearing about that.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/25/10 at 2:56 pm


Beatle George!

Brought us some lovely songs as "Here comes the sun". "Something", "Give me love, give me peace on earth" and more.




My Guitar Gently Weeps.


Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/25/10 at 4:08 pm



My Guitar Gently Weeps.


Cat

That's another one.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/25/10 at 8:30 pm


Beatle George!

Brought us some lovely songs as "Here comes the sun". "Something", "Give me love, give me peace on earth" and more.



1987 Got My Mind Set On You.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/25/10 at 10:26 pm


1987 Got My Mind Set On You.
It had a good pop video.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/25/10 at 10:47 pm


I think so too.
I read that too; from what I read, he believed for most of his life that his birthday was the 25th, but other sources give it as the 24th, saying that he was born just a couple minutes before midnight (or something to that effect).

Now I'm looking at his Wiki page and there's a footnote to a source that confirms the 25th as his actual birthday.

Footnote #10:So that means today would have been his 67th birthday. :\'(
Another section of wiki has GH's birthday as 26th February.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 02/25/10 at 10:50 pm


Another section of wiki has GH's birthday as 26th February.

The footnote that I quoted from his Wiki page states that his birth certificate lists his birthday as the 25th, so I guess we'll go with that.





My Guitar Gently Weeps.


Cat

I know he wrote that one; I guess he sang on the recording too?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/25/10 at 10:56 pm

British Person of the Day: Margaret Leighton

Margaret Leighton (26 February 1922 – 13 January 1976) was an English leading actress with an exquisite sense of grandeur and refinement. She created the role of Hannah Jelkes in Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana.

Life and career

Born in Barnt Green, Worcestershire, Leighton made her stage debut was as Dorothy in Laugh With Me (1938), which was also performed that year for television on BBC. She went on to become a star of the Old Vic. HerBroadway debut was as the Queen in Henry IV (1946) starring Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson during a visit to America of the Old Vic company, which performed a total of five plays from its repertoire before returning to London.

After appearing in two British films, including the starring role of Flora MacDonald opposite David Niven in Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948), the tall willowy actress played second female lead in Alfred Hitchcock's Under Capricorn (1949) starring Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, and Michael Wilding. She starred with Walter Pidgeon in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer crime/mystery Calling Bulldog Drummond (1951).

Leighton had three husbands: publisher Max Reinhardt (married 1947-divorced 1955); actor Laurence Harvey (married 1957-divorced 1961); and actor Michael Wilding (married 1964-her death 1976). She had no children.

She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in Separate Tables (1956); she won another Tony in that category for The Night of the Iguana (1962), playing the luminous Hannah Jelkes (a role played by Deborah Kerr on film) opposite Bette Davis's Maxine Faulk. Leighton was nominated for Best Actress in a Play for Much Ado About Nothing (1959) opposite John Gielgud and for Tchin-Tchin (1962) opposite Anthony Quinn.

She also had a noteworthy list of TV appearances, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Ben Casey and Burke's Law. She won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in Drama for Hamlet (1970). And she was nominated for an Emmy in 1966 for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Drama for four episodes of Dr. Kildare. Her last appearance on Broadway was as Birdie Hubbard in a revival of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes (1967) starring Anne Bancroft as Regina Giddens.

For her film role as Mrs. Maudsley in The Go-Between (1970), Leighton won the British BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actress. She received a BAFTA nomination for Best British Actress for her role as Valerie Carrington in Carrington V.C. (1955). She received a Hollywood Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for The Go-Between.

Margaret Leighton died of multiple sclerosis, aged 53, in Chichester, West Sussex.

Film

    * The Winslow Boy (1948) (British Lion Films) ... Catherine Winslow
    * Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948) (London Film Productions) ... Flora MacDonald
    * Under Capricorn (1949) (Warner Bros.) ... Milly
    * The Astonished Heart (1949) (General Film Distributors) ... Leonora Vail
    * The Elusive Pimpernel (1950) (British Lion Films) ... Marguerite Blakeney
    * Calling Bulldog Drummond (1951) (MGM) ... Sgt. Helen Smith
    * Home at Seven (1952) (British Lion Films) ... Janet Preston
    * The Holly and the Ivy (1952) (London Film Productions) ... Margaret Gregory
    * The Teckman Mystery (1954) (Associated Artists Productions) ... Helen Teckman
    * The Good Die Young (1954) (United Artists) ... Eve Ravenscourt
    * Carrington V.C. (1955) (Kingsley-International Pictures) ... Valerie Carrington
    * The Constant Husband (1955) (British Lion Films) ... Miss Chesterman
    * A Passionate Stranger (1955) (British Lion Films) ... Judith Wynter/Leonie
    * The Sound and the Fury (1959) (20th Century Fox) ... Caddy Compson
    * Waltz of the Toreadors (1962) (The Rank Organisation Film Productions) ... Emily Fitzjohn
    * The Third Secret (1964) (20th Century Fox)
    * The Best Man (1964) (United Artists) ... Alice Russell
    * The Loved One (1965) (MGM) ... Mrs. Helen Kenton
    * 7 Women (1966) (MGM) ... Agatha Andrews
    * The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969) (Warner Bros.) ... Constance, the Madwoman of Passy
    * The Go-Between (1970) (EMI Distribution) ... Mrs. Maudsley
    * Zee and Co. (1972) (Columbia) ... Gladys ... aka X, Y and Zee (USA)
    * Lady Caroline Lamb (1972) (MGM-EMI) ... Lady Melbourne
    * A Bequest to the Nation (1973) (Universal) ... Lady Frances Nelson
    * From Beyond the Grave (1973) (Warner Bros.) ... Madame Orloff in segment The Elemental
    * Galileo (1975) (The American Film Theatre) ... Elderly Court Lady
    * Trial by Combat (1976) (Combat-Warner Bros.) ... Ma Gore

Television

    * Laugh With Me (1938) (BBC) ... Dorothy
    * As You Like It (1953) (BBC) ... Rosalind
    * An Ideal Husband (1969) (BBC) ... Mrs. Cheveley
    * Hamlet (1970) (NBC) ... Gertrude
    * The Upper Crusts (1973) (series) (ITV) ... Lady Seacroft
    * Frankenstein: The True Story (1973) (NBC) ... Francoise DuVal
    * Great Expectations (1974) (NBC) ... Miss Havisham
    * Space: 1999 (First Season, ep. "Collision Course") (1975) (ITC) ... Arra


http://www.doctormacro1.info/Images/Leighton,%20Margaret/Leighton,%20Margaret_01.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 02/26/10 at 12:28 am


The footnote that I quoted from his Wiki page states that his birth certificate lists his birthday as the 25th, so I guess we'll go with that.


I know he wrote that one; I guess he sang on the recording too?

Yes he did, and Eric Clapton also played guitar on that song, back in 1968.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/26/10 at 3:24 am


Yes he did, and Eric Clapton also played guitar on that song, back in 1968.
It has been reported that "Here Comes The Sun" was written/composed in Eric Clapton's garden.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/26/10 at 6:23 am


British Person of the Day: Margaret Leighton

Margaret Leighton (26 February 1922 – 13 January 1976) was an English leading actress with an exquisite sense of grandeur and refinement. She created the role of Hannah Jelkes in Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana.

Life and career

Born in Barnt Green, Worcestershire, Leighton made her stage debut was as Dorothy in Laugh With Me (1938), which was also performed that year for television on BBC. She went on to become a star of the Old Vic. HerBroadway debut was as the Queen in Henry IV (1946) starring Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson during a visit to America of the Old Vic company, which performed a total of five plays from its repertoire before returning to London.

After appearing in two British films, including the starring role of Flora MacDonald opposite David Niven in Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948), the tall willowy actress played second female lead in Alfred Hitchcock's Under Capricorn (1949) starring Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, and Michael Wilding. She starred with Walter Pidgeon in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer crime/mystery Calling Bulldog Drummond (1951).

Leighton had three husbands: publisher Max Reinhardt (married 1947-divorced 1955); actor Laurence Harvey (married 1957-divorced 1961); and actor Michael Wilding (married 1964-her death 1976). She had no children.

She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in Separate Tables (1956); she won another Tony in that category for The Night of the Iguana (1962), playing the luminous Hannah Jelkes (a role played by Deborah Kerr on film) opposite Bette Davis's Maxine Faulk. Leighton was nominated for Best Actress in a Play for Much Ado About Nothing (1959) opposite John Gielgud and for Tchin-Tchin (1962) opposite Anthony Quinn.

She also had a noteworthy list of TV appearances, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Ben Casey and Burke's Law. She won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in Drama for Hamlet (1970). And she was nominated for an Emmy in 1966 for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Drama for four episodes of Dr. Kildare. Her last appearance on Broadway was as Birdie Hubbard in a revival of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes (1967) starring Anne Bancroft as Regina Giddens.

For her film role as Mrs. Maudsley in The Go-Between (1970), Leighton won the British BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actress. She received a BAFTA nomination for Best British Actress for her role as Valerie Carrington in Carrington V.C. (1955). She received a Hollywood Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for The Go-Between.

Margaret Leighton died of multiple sclerosis, aged 53, in Chichester, West Sussex.

Film

    * The Winslow Boy (1948) (British Lion Films) ... Catherine Winslow
    * Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948) (London Film Productions) ... Flora MacDonald
    * Under Capricorn (1949) (Warner Bros.) ... Milly
    * The Astonished Heart (1949) (General Film Distributors) ... Leonora Vail
    * The Elusive Pimpernel (1950) (British Lion Films) ... Marguerite Blakeney
    * Calling Bulldog Drummond (1951) (MGM) ... Sgt. Helen Smith
    * Home at Seven (1952) (British Lion Films) ... Janet Preston
    * The Holly and the Ivy (1952) (London Film Productions) ... Margaret Gregory
    * The Teckman Mystery (1954) (Associated Artists Productions) ... Helen Teckman
    * The Good Die Young (1954) (United Artists) ... Eve Ravenscourt
    * Carrington V.C. (1955) (Kingsley-International Pictures) ... Valerie Carrington
    * The Constant Husband (1955) (British Lion Films) ... Miss Chesterman
    * A Passionate Stranger (1955) (British Lion Films) ... Judith Wynter/Leonie
    * The Sound and the Fury (1959) (20th Century Fox) ... Caddy Compson
    * Waltz of the Toreadors (1962) (The Rank Organisation Film Productions) ... Emily Fitzjohn
    * The Third Secret (1964) (20th Century Fox)
    * The Best Man (1964) (United Artists) ... Alice Russell
    * The Loved One (1965) (MGM) ... Mrs. Helen Kenton
    * 7 Women (1966) (MGM) ... Agatha Andrews
    * The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969) (Warner Bros.) ... Constance, the Madwoman of Passy
    * The Go-Between (1970) (EMI Distribution) ... Mrs. Maudsley
    * Zee and Co. (1972) (Columbia) ... Gladys ... aka X, Y and Zee (USA)
    * Lady Caroline Lamb (1972) (MGM-EMI) ... Lady Melbourne
    * A Bequest to the Nation (1973) (Universal) ... Lady Frances Nelson
    * From Beyond the Grave (1973) (Warner Bros.) ... Madame Orloff in segment The Elemental
    * Galileo (1975) (The American Film Theatre) ... Elderly Court Lady
    * Trial by Combat (1976) (Combat-Warner Bros.) ... Ma Gore

Television

    * Laugh With Me (1938) (BBC) ... Dorothy
    * As You Like It (1953) (BBC) ... Rosalind
    * An Ideal Husband (1969) (BBC) ... Mrs. Cheveley
    * Hamlet (1970) (NBC) ... Gertrude
    * The Upper Crusts (1973) (series) (ITV) ... Lady Seacroft
    * Frankenstein: The True Story (1973) (NBC) ... Francoise DuVal
    * Great Expectations (1974) (NBC) ... Miss Havisham
    * Space: 1999 (First Season, ep. "Collision Course") (1975) (ITC) ... Arra


http://www.doctormacro1.info/Images/Leighton,%20Margaret/Leighton,%20Margaret_01.jpg


Very fine actress :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/26/10 at 6:31 am

The word of the day...Valley
A valley is a low stretch of land between hills, especially one that has a river flowing through it.
http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll161/bruce868/silicon_valley.jpg
http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n414/geomariner/Death%20Valley%202006/DeathValley060.jpg
http://i403.photobucket.com/albums/pp120/Fire_Krakker/Photographymyass/d3d18909.jpg
http://i855.photobucket.com/albums/ab112/thedreamsky/BarunValleyNgheKharkaNepal.jpg
http://i843.photobucket.com/albums/zz353/denisevickie/Redlands_Valley.jpg
http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/xx241/jkandn/Australia/nancy011.jpg
http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc267/Nestonlady/more%20snow/Postcards/OgwenValley.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/26/10 at 6:35 am

The person born on this day...Fats Domino
Antoine Dominique "Fats" Domino (born February 26, 1928) is an American R&B and rock and roll pianist and singer-songwriter.
Antoine was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Imperial Records era (1949–1962)

Domino first attracted national attention with "The Fat Man" in 1949 on Imperial Records. This song is an early rock and roll record, featuring a rolling piano and Domino doing "wah-wah" vocalizing over a fat back beat. It sold over a million copies and is widely regarded as the first rock and roll record to do so.

Fats Domino released a series of hit songs with producer and co-writer Dave Bartholomew, saxophonists Herbert Hardesty and Alvin "Red" Tyler and drummer Earl Palmer. Other notable and long-standing musicians in Domino's band were saxophonists Reggie Houston, Lee Allen, and Fred Kemp, who was also Domino's trusted bandleader. Domino finally crossed into the pop mainstream with "Ain't That a Shame" (1955), which hit the Top Ten, though Pat Boone characteristically hit #1 with a milder cover of the song that received wider radio airplay in a racially-segregated era. Domino would eventually release 37 Top 40 singles, "Whole Lotta Loving" and "Blue Monday" among them.

Domino's first album, Carry on Rockin', was released under the Imperial imprint, #9009, in November 1955 and subsequently reissued as Rock and Rollin' with Fats Domino in 1956. Combining a number of his hits along with some tracks which had not yet been released as singles, the album went on under its alternate title to reach #17 on the "Pop Albums" chart.

His 1956 up-tempo version of the 1940 Vincent Rose, Al Lewis & Larry Stock song, "Blueberry Hill" reached #2 in the Top 40, was #1 on the R&B charts for 11 weeks, and was his biggest hit. "Blueberry Hill" sold more than 5 million copies worldwide in 1956-57. The song had earlier been recorded by Gene Autry, and Louis Armstrong among many others. He had further hit singles between 1956 and 1959, including "When My Dreamboat Comes Home" (Pop #14), "I'm Walkin'" (Pop #4), "Valley of Tears" (Pop #8), "It's You I Love" (Pop #6), "Whole Lotta Loving" (Pop #6), "I Want to Walk You Home" (Pop #8), and "Be My Guest" (Pop #8).

Fats appeared in two films released in 1956: Shake, Rattle & Rock! and The Girl Can't Help It. On December 18, 1957, Domino's hit "The Big Beat" was featured on Dick Clark's American Bandstand.

Domino continued to have a steady series of hits for Imperial through early 1962, including "Walkin' to New Orleans" (1960) (Pop #6), co-written by Bobby Charles, and "My Girl Josephine" (Pop #14) from the same year. After Imperial Records was sold to outside interests in early 1963, Domino left the label: "I stuck with them until they sold out", he claimed in 1979. In all, Domino recorded over 60 singles for the label, placing 40 songs in the top 10 on the R&B charts, and scoring 11 top 10 singles on the pop charts. Twenty-two of Domino's Imperial singles were double-sided hits.
Post-Imperial recording career (1963–1970s)

Domino moved to ABC-Paramount Records in 1963. The label dictated that he would record in Nashville rather than New Orleans. He was assigned a new producer (Felton Jarvis) and a new arranger (Bill Justis); Domino's long-term collaboration with producer/arranger/frequent co-writer Dave Bartholomew, who oversaw virtually all of his Imperial hits, was seemingly at an end.

Jarvis and Justis changed the Domino sound somewhat, notably by adding the backing of a countrypolitan-style vocal chorus to most of his new recordings. Perhaps as a result of this tinkering with an established formula, Domino's chart career was drastically curtailed. He released 11 singles for ABC-Paramount, but only had one top 40 entry with "Red Sails In The Sunset" (1963). By the end of 1964 the British Invasion had changed the tastes of the record-buying public, and Domino's chart run was over.

Despite the lack of chart success, Domino continued to record steadily until about 1970, leaving ABC-Paramount in mid-1965 and recording for a variety of other labels: Mercury, Dave Bartholomew's small Broadmoor label (reuniting with Bartholomew along the way), and Reprise. He also continued as a popular live act for several decades.
Later career (1980s–2005)

In the 1980s, Domino decided he would no longer leave New Orleans, having a comfortable income from royalties and a dislike for touring, and claiming he could not get any food that he liked any place else. His induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and an invitation to perform at the White House failed to persuade Domino to make an exception to this policy.

Fats Domino was persuaded to perform out of town periodically for Dianna Chenevert, agent, founder and president of New Orleans based Omni Attractions, during the 1980s and early 1990s. Most of these engagements were in and around New Orleans, but also included a concert in Texas at West End Market Place in downtown Dallas on October 24, 1986.

On October 12, 1983 USA Today reported that Domino was included in Chenevert's "Southern Stars" promotional poster for the agency (along with historically preserving childhood photographs of other famous living musicians from New Orleans and Louisiana on it). Fats provided a photograph of his first recording session, which was the only one he had left from his childhood. Domino autographed these posters, whose recipients included USA Today's Gannett president Al Newharth, and Peter Morton founder of the Hard Rock Cafe. Times-Picayune columnist Betty Guillaud noted on September 30, 1987 that Domino also provided Chenevert with an autographed pair of his shoes (and signed a black grand piano lid) for the Hard Rock location in New Orleans.

Domino lived in a mansion in a predominantly working-class Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood, where he was a familiar sight in his bright pink Cadillac automobile. He makes yearly appearances at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and other local events. Domino was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him #25 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time."
Domino and Hurricane Katrina
Graffiti on Domino's home from the time he was rumored dead
Fats Domino's office, June 2007

When Hurricane Katrina was approaching New Orleans in August 2005, Dianna Chenevert encouraged Fats to evacuate, but he chose to stay at home with his family, partly because of his wife's poor health. Unfortunately his house was in an area that was heavily flooded. Chenevert e-mailed writers at the Times Picayune newspaper and the Coast Guard with the Dominos' location.

Someone thought Fats was dead, and spray-painted a message on his home, "RIP Fats. You will be missed", which was shown in news photos. On September 1, Domino's agent, Al Embry, announced that he had not heard from the musician since before the hurricane had struck.

Later that day, CNN reported that Domino was rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter. Embry confirmed that Domino and his family had been rescued. The Domino family was then taken to a Baton Rouge shelter, after which they were picked up by JaMarcus Russell, the starting quarterback of the Louisiana State University football team, and Fats' granddaughter's boyfriend. He let the Dominos stay in his apartment. The Washington Post reported that on September 2, they had left Russell's apartment after sleeping three nights on the couch. "We've lost everything", Domino said, according to the Post.

By January 2006, work to gut and repair Domino's home and office had begun. For the meantime, the Domino family is residing in Harvey, Louisiana.

Chenevert replaced the Southern Stars poster Fats Domino lost in Katrina and President George W. Bush also made a personal visit and replaced the medal that President Bill Clinton had previously awarded Fats.
Post-Katrina activity
President George W. Bush shakes the hand of Fats Domino, wearing a National Medal of Arts, after the President presented it on August 29, 2006, at the musician's home in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. The medal was a replacement medal for the one—originally awarded by President Bill Clinton—that was lost in the flood waters of Hurricane Katrina.

Domino was the first artist to be announced as scheduled to perform at the 2006 Jazz & Heritage Festival. However, he was too ill to perform when scheduled and was only able to offer the audience an on-stage greeting. Domino also released an album Alive and Kickin' in early 2006 to benefit the Tipitina's Foundation, which supports indigent local musicians. The title song was recorded after Katrina, but most of the cuts were from unreleased sessions in the 1990s.

On January 12, 2007, Domino was honored with OffBeat magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual Best of the Beat Awards held at House of Blues in New Orleans. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin declared the day "Fats Domino Day in New Orleans" and presented Fats Domino with a signed declaration. OffBeat publisher Jan Ramsey and WWL-TV's Eric Paulsen presented Fats Domino with the Lifetime Achievement Award. An all-star musical tribute followed with an introduction by the legendary producer Cosimo Matassa. The Lil' Band O' Gold rhythm section, Warren Storm, Kenny Bill Stinson, David Egan and C.C. Adcock, not only anchored the band, but each contributed lead vocals, swamp pop legend Warren Storm leading off with "Let the Four Winds Blow" and "The Prisoner Song", which he proudly introduced by saying, "Fats Domino recorded this in 1958.. and so did I." The horn section included Lil' Band O' Gold's Dickie Landry, the Iguanas' Derek Huston, and long-time Domino horn men Roger Lewis, Elliot "Stackman" Callier and Herb Hardesty. They were joined by Jon Cleary (who also played guitar in the rhythm section), Al "Carnival Time" Johnson, Irma Thomas, George Porter, Jr. (who, naturally, came up with a funky arrangement for "You Keep On Knocking"), Art Neville, Dr. John and Allen Toussaint, who wrote and debuted a song in tribute of Domino for the occasion. Though Domino didn't perform, those near him recall him playing air piano and singing along to his own songs.

Fats Domino returned to stage on May 19, 2007, at Tipitina's at New Orleans, performing to a full house. A foundation has been formed and a show is being planned for Domino and the restoration of his home, where he intends to return someday. "I like it down there" he said in a February, 2006 CBS News interview.

In September 2007, Domino was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. He has also been inducted into the Delta Music Museum Hall of Fame in Ferriday. In December 2007, Fats Domino was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.

In May 2009, Domino made an unexpected appearance for The Domino Effect, a namesake concert aimed at raising funds to help rebuild schools and playgrounds damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Influence

He was acknowledged as an important influence on the music of the 1960s and 1970s by some of the top artists of that era. Paul McCartney reportedly wrote the Beatles song "Lady Madonna" in an emulation of Domino's style, combining it with a nod to Humphrey Lyttelton's 1956 hit "Bad Penny Blues", a record which Joe Meek had engineered. Domino did manage to return to the "Hot 100" charts one final time in 1968—with his own recording of "Lady Madonna". That recording, as well as covers of two other Beatles songs, appeared on his Reprise LP Fats Is Back, produced by Richard Perry and recorded by a band which included New Orleans piano player James Booker; Domino played piano only on one track, "I'm Ready". Both John Lennon and Paul McCartney later recorded Fats Domino songs. Domino's rhythm, accentuating the offbeat as in the song "Be My Guest", was an influence on ska music. Ray Manzarek, keyboard player from The Doors has also stated a big influence from Fats Domino, on the "History of Rock and Roll" documentary series.
Singles discography

Nationally charted hits shown in bold.
A-Side B-Side Year Label + Cat. No. Chart positions
US Hot 100 US R&B UK
Detroit City Blues The Fat Man 1949 Imperial 5058 2
Boogie-Woogie Baby Little Bee 1950 Imperial 5065
Hide Away Blues She's My Baby 1950 Imperial 5077
Hey La Bas Boogie Brand New Baby 1950 Imperial 5085
Every Night about This Time Korea Blues 1950 Imperial 5099 5
Tired of Crying What's the Matter Baby 1951 Imperial 5114
Don't You Lie to Me Sometimes I Wonder 1951 Imperial 5123
Right From Wrong No, No Baby 1951 Imperial 5138
Rockin' Chair Careless Love 1951 Imperial 5145 9
I'll Be Gone You Know I Miss You 1952 Imperial 5167
Goin' Home Reeling and Rocking 1952 Imperial 5180 30 1
Poor Poor Me Trust in Me 1952 Imperial 5197 10
How Long Dreaming 1952 Imperial 5209 9
Nobody Loves Me Cheatin' 1953 Imperial 5220
Going to the River Mardi Gras in New Orleans 1953 Imperial 5231 24 2
Please Don't Leave Me The Girl I Love 1953 Imperial 5240 3
Rose Mary You Said You Loved Me 1953 Imperial 5251 10
Something's Wrong Don't Leave Me This Way 1953 Imperial 5262 6
You Done Me Wrong Little School Girl 1954 Imperial 5272 10
Where Did You Stay Baby Please 1954 Imperial 5283
You Can Pack Your Suitcase I Lived My Life 1954 Imperial 5301
Love Me Don't You Hear Me Calling You 1954 Imperial 5313
I Know Thinking of You 1954 Imperial 5323 14
Don't You Know Helping Hand 1955 Imperial 5340 7
Ain't That a Shame La La 1955 Imperial 5348 10 1 23
All By Myself Troubles of My Own 1955 Imperial 5357 1
Poor Me 1955 Imperial 5369 1
I Can't Go On 1955 Imperial 5369 6
Bo Weevil 1956 Imperial 5375 35 5
Don't Blame It on Me 1956 Imperial 5375 9
I'm in Love Again March 1956 Imperial 5386 3 1 12
My Blue Heaven 19 5
When My Dreamboat Comes Home July 1956 Imperial 5396 14 2
So Long 44 5
Blueberry Hill September 1956 Imperial 5407 2 1 6
Honey Chile 2 29
Blue Monday December 1956 Imperial 5417 5 1 23
What's the Reason I'm Not Pleasing You 50 12
I'm Walkin' I'm in the Mood for Love February 1957 Imperial 5428 4 1 19
The Rooster Song My Happiness//As Time Goes By//Hey La Bas (4 song EP) 1957 Imperial 147 13 8
Valley of Tears April 1957 Imperial 5442 8 2 25
It's You I Love 6 2
When I See You July 1957 Imperial 5454 29 14
What Will I Tell My Heart 64 12
Wait and See September 1957 Imperial 5467 23 7
I Still Love You 79
The Big Beat December 1957 Imperial 5477 26 15 20
I Want You to Know 32
Yes My Darling Don't You Know I Love You February 1958 Imperial 5492 55 10
Sick and Tired April 1958 Imperial 5515 22 14 26
No, No 55 14
Little Mary Prisoner's Song July 1958 Imperial 5526 48 4
Young School Girl It Must Be Love August 1958 Imperial 5537 92 15
Whole Lotta Loving October 1958 Imperial 5553 6 2 10
Coquette 92 26
Telling Lies January 1959 Imperial 5569 50 13
When the Saints Go Marching In 50
I'm Ready April 1959 Imperial 5585 16 7
Margie Imperial 5585 51 18
I Want to Walk You Home July 1959 Imperial 5606 8 1 14
I'm Gonna Be a Wheel Someday 17 22
Be My Guest October 1959 Imperial 5629 8 2 11
I've Been Around 33 19
Country Boy January 1960 Imperial 5645 25 19
If You Need Me 98
Tell Me That You Love Me April 1960 Imperial 5660 51
Before I Grow Too Old 84 17
Walking to New Orleans June 1960 Imperial 5675 6 2 19
Don't Come Knockin' 21 28
Three Nights a Week August 1960 Imperial 5687 15 8 45
Put Your Arms Around Me Honey 58
My Girl Josephine October 1960 Imperial 5704 14 7 32
Natural Born Lover 38 28
Ain't That Just Like a Woman January 1961 Imperial 5723 33 19
What a Price 22 7
Shu Rah March 1961 Imperial 5734 32
Fell in Love on Monday 32
It Keeps Rainin' I Just Cry May 1961 Imperial 5753 23 18 49
Let The Four Winds Blow Good Hearted Man July 1961 Imperial 5764 15 2
What A Party September 1961 Imperial 5779 22 43
Rockin' Bicycle 83
I Hear You Knocking November 1961 Imperial 5796 67
Jambalaya (On the Bayou) 30 41
You Win Again February 1962 Imperial 5816 22
Ida Jane 90
My Real Name My Heart Is Bleeding May 1962 Imperial 5833 59 22
Dance with Mr. Domino July 1962 Imperial 5863 98
Nothing New (Same Old Thing) 77
Did You Ever See a Dream Walking September 1962 Imperial 5875 79
Stop the Clock 103
Won't You Come on Back Hands Across the Table November 1962 Imperial 5895
Hum Diddy Doo Those Eyes January 1963 Imperial 5909 124
You Always Hurt the One You Love Trouble Blues March 1963 Imperial 5937 102
True Confession Isle of Capri May 1963 Imperial 5959
One Night I Can't Go on This Way 1963 Imperial 5980
There Goes (My Heart Again) May 1963 ABC 10444 59
Can't Go on Without You 123
When I'm Walking (Let Me Walk) July 1963 ABC 10475 114
I've Got a Right to Cry 128
Red Sails in the Sunset Song For Rosemary 1963 ABC 10484 35 24 34
I Can't Give You Anything But Love Goin' Home August 1963 Imperial 66005 114
Who Cares 1963 ABC 10512 63 27
Just a Lonely Man 1963 ABC 10512 108
Your Cheatin' Heart When I Was Young 1964 Imperial 66016 112
Lazy Lady 1964 ABC 10531 86 34
I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire 1964 ABC 10531 122
If You Don't Know What Love Is Something You Got Baby 1964 ABC 10545
Mary, Oh Mary Packin' Up 1964 ABC 10567 127
Sally Was a Good Old Girl For You 1964 ABC 10584 99
Kansas City Heartbreak Hill 1964 ABC 10596 99
Why Don't You Do Right Wigs 1965 ABC 10631
Let Me Call You Sweetheart Goodnight Sweetheart 1965 ABC 10644
I Done Got Over It I Left My Heart In San Francisco 1965 Mercury 72463
What's That You Got? It's Never Too Late 1965 Mercury 72485
The Lady in Black Working My Way Up Steady 1967 Broadmoor 104
Big Mouth Wait 'Til It Happens to You 1967 Broadmoor 105
One For The Highway Honest Papas Love Their Mamas Better 1968 Reprise 0696
Lady Madonna One for the Highway 1968 Reprise 0763 100
Lovely Rita Wait 'Till It Happens to You 1968 Reprise 0775
Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey So Swell When You're Well 1969 Reprise 0843
Make Me Belong to You Have You Seen My Baby 1970 Reprise 0891
New Orleans Ain't the Same Sweet Patootie 1970 Reprise 0944
Sleeping on the Job After Hours 1978 Sonet 2168 -UK
Whiskey Heaven -- 1980 Warner Bros. 49610
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j37/billythekidcpr/FATS.jpg
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n263/jonahjt/thfats-domino.jpg
http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z104/darko47darko/FatsDomino2.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/26/10 at 6:41 am

The person who died on this day...Buddy Miles
George Allen Miles, Jr. (September 5, 1947 – February 26, 2008), known as Buddy Miles, was an American rock and funk drummer, most known as a member of Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys from 1969 through to January 1970.
George "Buddy" Miles was born in Omaha, Nebraska on September 5, 1947. He was known as a child prodigy, originally playing drums in his father, George Miles, Sr.'s, jazz band, The Bebops, beginning at age 12. Miles Sr. had played upright bass with Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Charlie Parker and Dexter Gordon.

In his teens Miles Jr. was often seen hanging out as well as recording at the Universal Promotions Corporation (U.P.C.) recording studios, which later became Rainbow Recording Studios

Miles was given the nickname "Buddy" by his aunt after the drummer Buddy Rich.
Early career

Miles played in a variety of rhythm and blues and soul acts as a teenager, including Ruby & the Romantics, the Ink Spots, the Delfonics and Wilson Pickett. By 1967 he moved to Chicago where he formed the Electric Flag with guitarist Mike Bloomfield. Nick Gravenitis was the vocalist on this and other Bloomfield LP's . Major songs from this LP include "Wine" and "Just Got In From Texas," later included on a blues collection. An LP was released in 1984 on cassette called Best of Electric Flag with hits like Sunny and Killing Floor and guitar work by Michael Bloomfield. The blues-soul-rock band made their live debut at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and released their debut album, A Long Time Comin', the next year. Miles sometimes sang lead vocals for the group in addition to playing drums. The group broke up after their second album and Miles formed the Buddy Miles Express, with Jim McCarty, later the guitarist for Cactus.
Jimi Hendrix

After Electric Flag, Miles would begin involvement with the rock legend Jimi Hendrix. Miles had met Jimi Hendrix in an earlier time when both were acting as sidemen for other artists in the early '60s. The meeting had occurred in Canada in 1964, at a show both were participating in.

Miles said of his first meeting with Hendrix: "He was playing in the Isley Brothers band and I was in Ruby and the Romantics ... had his hair in a pony-tail with long sideburns. Even though he was shy I could tell this guy was different. He looked rather strange, because everyone else was wearing uniforms and he was eating his guitar, doing flip-flops and wearing chains."

This prefaced a later friendship that would result in varied collaborations between the two artists. In 1967, Hendrix and Miles jammed at the Malibu home of Stephen Stills, and went on to play together again at various times, in both Los Angeles and New York in 1968. Hendrix occasionally joined Electric Flag on stage. Soon after, Jimi Hendrix started opening his recording style to include guest artists. And in this mode Hendrix was working in, Buddy Miles quite naturally was invited to participate. Miles took part in the session recordings for Electric Ladyland, playing on the songs "Rainy Day, Dream Away" and "Still Raining, Still Dreaming".

In 1969 an extremely busy Hendrix would somehow find time to produce the first two albums released by Buddy Miles' own band, Buddy Miles Express - Expressway To Your Skull and Electric Church. There was obvious public curiosity as to whether the name of the band "Buddy Miles Express" was influenced by Hendrix's act, "The Jimi Hendrix Experience".

Soon after the release of the groundbreaking Electric Ladyland album, Noel Redding (original Experience bass player) and Mitch Mitchell (the Experience drummer) had both parted company with Hendrix, not least because of constant wrangling between Hendrix's manager (Michael Jeffery) and his producer (Alan Douglas), both vying for control of his career. Everyone wanted a piece of Hendrix's success.

As Buddy Miles explained: "Jimi was not happy. He felt powerless. He couldn't do what he wanted to do.". Hendrix's solution to the problem was to found a short-lived band called Band of Gypsys, and Miles was brought in to join him. One of the notable features for his audience at the time was the fact that all of the players were black. This was a first for Hendrix as an international recording star – although he had, of course, played with the Isley Brothers in his early days – and this choice reflected a move toward reconnecting with his soul roots. It also had the effect of re-associating rock with its African American roots. Originally it was a solo lp , but in the last ten years or so additional cuts from the concerts were released on a three piece cassette box. The band was based in New York City where Hendrix was spending the majority of his time. Hendrix, who was tangled in legal litigation concerning contracts he had signed prior to his becoming internationally recognized, was required to release a record to the Capitol Records label as part of the agreement in court. This fact led to the live recording of his collaboration with Buddy Miles and Billy Cox.

However during a follow up performance a month later, Hendrix had a minor, drug-related meltdown on stage which has also been speculated to have been an act of sabotage on the part of a very frustrated manager Michael Jeffery, who was not a fan of the Band of Gypsys all-black line-up and strong R&B roots. Miles had this to say about the incident years later:

"Jeffery slipped two half-tabs of acid on stage as he went on ... just freaked out. I told Jeffery he was an out-and-out complete idiot and a fudgeing asshole to boot. One of the biggest reasons why Jimi is dead is because of that guy." Miles and Jeffery already had a strained relationship, as Jeffery was always uncomfortable with Hendrix and Miles' close friendship. After this performance at Madison Square Garden in January 1970, Jeffery fired Buddy Miles and the Band of Gypsys was no more.

Miles continued to work with Hendrix during early and mid 1970 after the Jimi Hendrix Experience had failed to re-form to record. Miles would share recording studio drumming duties on songs "Room Full of Mirrors", "Izabella", "Ezy Ryder" and the first version of "Stepping Stone" (for which Mitchell played a final drum track). These songs have been released in several posthumous Hendrix albums.Ironically, the album Band of Gypsys — released in May 1970 — made the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic, and stayed in the US charts for over a year. Hendrix died in September 18, 1970, prompting the album to sell even better. There are now videos of Buddy and Randy Hansen covering several of Jimi's songs on a major website.
Post-Hendrix

Buddy Miles went on to produce other records under his own name. A song he had written and recorded with the Band of Gypsys, "Them Changes" was again recorded by Miles with his own band on a release soon after Hendrix's passing on Mercury Records. Miles' former Band Of Gypsys sideman, Billy Cox, performed bass guitar on this track. By this time Miles had dropped the "Buddy Miles Express" act name and shortened it to just his own name. That band included bassist David Hull (who would go on to work with Joe Perry of Aerosmith) and guitarist Charlie Karp. The same band would release a live album entitled Live which again included his by now signature song, "Them Changes". In late 1968, they appeared in the Monkees television special 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee which aired in April 1969.

In 1970, while recording the album We Got To Live Together Buddy Miles learned of the death of Hendrix, which he mentions on the inner cover of the album. Released in 1971, We Got To Live Together is produced by Buddy Miles and Robin McBride. It comprises 5 songs including the instrumental "Easy Greasy". High energy drumming with funky overtones and big horns make this album quintessential Buddy. The other cuts on the album are: "Runaway Child (Little Miss Nothin)", "Walking Down the Highway", "We Got To Live Together", "Take It Off Him and Put It On Me". All the songs were written by Buddy Miles with C.Karp except for "Take it Off...".

Buddy also contributed to a number of Cheech and Chong songs. One was "Lost Due To Incompetence (Theme For A Big Green Van) 1978" from the film Up In Smoke. Buddy did an album with Adrian Gurvitz (from the Gun group) in 1973 called Chapter VII (this album has photos of Buddy and his family along with some shots of Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone). Buddy had major success with Them Changes, a soul and pop hit in 70-71.

Miles would see the song released yet a fourth time on a collaborative live record he made with Carlos Santana. This particular version was particularly notable for its intense energy, horn lines and blazing guitar work supplied by a very young and energetic Santana. Miles would then go on to be signed by the '70s-'80s era record label, Casablanca Records, best known for their rock act KISS. Miles' work for the label included the excellent album released under his own name, Bicentennial Gathering Of The Tribes. It would include on its liner notes a quote from President John F Kennedy concerning the American Indians. That quote would include the line "When we neglect the heroic past of the American Indian, we thereby weaken our own heritage." This was interesting in relationship to his former friendship and collaborations with Jimi Hendrix who, in fact, had much American Indian blood in his family line. From 1994 - 1999 Buddy Miles formulated an excellent group in the N.Y.C./area featuring Charlie Torres on Bass Guitar and Vocals . Rod Kohn on Guitar and vocals . Kenn Moutenot on drums / vocals /management . Mark " Muggy Doo " Leach on Hammond B3 and Keyboards. They toured non stop in the United States and over seas with almost one thousand concerts and festivals to their credit. Buddy also composed and recorded many songs with this new version of " The Buddy Miles Express " that is yet to be released.It was Buddy's most enduring live band throughout his illustrious career. This popular touring line up lasted for six fruitful years together with the same members. Part of Miles' appeal as a rock musician was his physical appearance. He drew many stares and smiles as he held court from the drumset in the Electric Flag days, with his American flag or sequined shirts, his high-brushed Afro, and his massive frame and smile. Buddy was an eyeful for the hippies and concertgoers of the day. Once guitarist for the band SNAIL (Cream Records), JOHN ROCKER was guitarist for THE BUDDY MILES EXPRESS too for about 5 - 6 years as well touring throughout North America...
The Unknown Work of Buddy Miles - The Club Fed Sessions

Perhaps the best work Buddy ever did was in collaboration with a team of musician/writers from Marin County, California in late 1984, early 1985. Buddy was in a halfway house in Oakland and commuted every day to the Ice House Studio in San Rafael, CA to work with Pat Craig of the Tazmanian Devils, David Jenkins of Pablo Cruise, Dave Carlson of Tazmanian Devils and other Marin musicians and songwriters including Bill Craig, Tony Marty, and Tony Saunders. The result was an album's worth of material written by Pat Craig, Buddy, David Jenkins, Robbie Long, Bill Craig and Tony Marty. First recorded as a demo at the Ice House, the project was moved to The Record Plant in Sausalito and Jim Gaines of Huey Lewis fame came in to take over production chores. The group produced over 15 songs ranging from funky soul to beautiful ballads, and featuring some of the best singing that Miles ever did. One cut, "When The Train Leaves the Station," featured solos by both Carlos Santana and Neil Schoen. The title song of the proposed album, "Anna", was a beautiful soul stirrer that helped Buddy land his next gig with California Raisins. While the album was being recorded, the Record Plant was taken over by the Federal Government when the owner was busted for drug trafficking. The musicians and employees working there began calling the studio "Club Fed" and that's how "The Club Fed Sessions" came to be. Unfortunately Buddy's reputation of inconsistency and problems with the law closed many doors for him and the album was never released. The Masters remain in the can in the hands of Buddy's former manager, but Pat Craig did manage to digitize some of the better mixes and has offered them from time to time on Ebay as a collector's item under the title "Buddy and Me.". Songs on the demo included "Anna," "Forever in a Moment," "Tonight," "Next to You," and "This Could Be An Everlasting Love." A short-lived band featuring Pat Craig, David Jenkins, Rick Quintanal, Tony Saunders and other Marin musicians played one gig in LA at a concert honoring Vietnam Veterans.
California Raisins

In 1986 Miles performed vocals for the California Raisins claymation ad campaign, most notably singing "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and was also lead vocals on two California Raisins albums featuring 1960's R&B covers. In 1986 and 1987, after spending the late 1970s and early 1980s incarcerated for theft, he also rejoined Carlos Santana as a vocalist on Santana's album Freedom.

In 1996, he sat in with rock band Phish at Madison Square Garden.

Through the late 1990s, Miles' charitable side was seen in his band's playing pro bono at several annual tribute concerts for local friend and fan Linda Gillespie, who had been killed in a car accident in the Spring of 1994 in Winthrop Harbor, IL.

Buddy Miles was seen in the Hendrix-family-owned, official video release The Making of Electric Ladyland on Rhino Records. That video featured interviews with the majority of players who were involved in recording the legendary Hendrix album. Miles even went as far as to be video recorded playing his same drum tracks yet again in the studio to the original multi-track recordings of Hendrix. In 1999 Miles appeared on the late Bruce Cameron's album, Midnight Daydream that included other Hendrix alumni Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell along with Jack Bruce and others.

In 2004 Miles reunited yet again with Billy Cox of the Band of Gypsys to re-record songs from the original live album of 1970 with guitarists Eric Gales, Kenny Olsen, Sheldon Reynolds, Andy Aledort, and Gary Serkin. The album, titled The Band Of Gypsys Return, was released in 2006. Until his death, Buddy Miles continued to be active musically and performed many shows with proceeds going to help support victims of natural disasters and other noble causes.

Buddy Miles is credited on sessions with George Clinton/Parliament/Funkadelic.

In 2005 Buddy Miles began collaborating with Florida based Guitar Virtuoso Tony Smotherman in which the two toured the Southeast with a Blues-Rock Band performing various pieces from Miles' Collaborations with Jimi Hendrix. Miles and Smotherman last performed at the Austin Convention Center at the 2007 Summer NAMM Show with Vernon Reid of Living Colour.

Buddy Miles played his last live dates in 2007, on the West Coast of the United States with special assistance.Also in Texas with Lance Lopez & Collin freekin Keeton. He was forced to cancel the remaining dates because of heart problems.
Death

Buddy Miles died on February 26, 2008, at his home in Austin, Texas at the age of 60. According to his website he died of congestive heart disease, although his publicist Duane Lee told the New York Times that Miles had been suffering recently from congestive heart failure.

There was a history of congestive heart failure in his family. His sister and mother both died of the same illness. It is known that his heart had certainly been struggling, working at only 15%, and his health had been consistently deteriorating over the past few months. According to friends, "he had turned off his defibrillator and was ready for heaven."There was no funeral; Miles was cremated.

The day before Buddy died, he heard Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton playing 'Them Changes' at Madison Square Garden through his cell phone. 'Them Changes' is now part of Clapton's set on tour as a tribute to Buddy.The UK-based newspaper The Independent ran an almost full-page obituary for Buddy Miles in its Friday February 29, 2008 edition. The title for the piece was "Buddy Miles: Flamboyant Hendrix drummer", and can be found on page 47.

Asked how he would like to be remembered by the American music magazine Seconds in 1995, Miles simply said: "The baddest of the bad. People say I'm the baddest drummer. If that's true, thank you world."A memorial concert took place on March 30, 2008 at Threadgill’s on Riverside Drive, South Austin.
Discography
Solo

    * Expressway to Your Skull - Mercury (1968)
    * Electric Church - Mercury (1969)
    * Them Changes - Mercury (1970)
    * We Got to Live Together - Mercury (1970)
    * A Message to the People - Mercury (1971)
    * Buddy Miles Live - Mercury (1971)
    * Booger Bear - Columbia (1973)
    * Chapter VII - Columbia (1973)
    * All the Faces of Buddy Miles - Epic (1974)
    * More Miles Per Gallon - Casablanca (1975)
    * Bicentennial Gathering of the Tribes - Casablanca (1976)
    * Sneak Attack - Atlantic (1981)
    * Hell and Back - Rykodisc (1994)
    * Tribute to Jimi Hendrix - CAS (1997)
    * Miles Away from Home - Hip-O (1997)
    * Blues Berries - Ruf (2002)
    * Changes - SPV (2005)

Collaborative

    * Jimi Hendrix - Band of Gypsys - Capitol (1970)
    * Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles! Live! - Columbia (1972)
    * With Carlos Santana - CBS (1972)
    * Hardware - Third Eye Open (1994)
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j82/leprechaun007/miles.jpg
http://i406.photobucket.com/albums/pp141/theHipsterHolyGrail/Picture3-1.png
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p218/levijackson/buddy.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/26/10 at 7:28 am


The word of the day...Valley
A valley is a low stretch of land between hills, especially one that has a river flowing through it.
http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll161/bruce868/silicon_valley.jpg
http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n414/geomariner/Death%20Valley%202006/DeathValley060.jpg
http://i403.photobucket.com/albums/pp120/Fire_Krakker/Photographymyass/d3d18909.jpg
http://i855.photobucket.com/albums/ab112/thedreamsky/BarunValleyNgheKharkaNepal.jpg
http://i843.photobucket.com/albums/zz353/denisevickie/Redlands_Valley.jpg
http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/xx241/jkandn/Australia/nancy011.jpg
http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc267/Nestonlady/more%20snow/Postcards/OgwenValley.jpg



Man,these are so beautiful,as usual I will use one of them as computer wallpaper.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/26/10 at 8:54 am


The person born on this day...Fats Domino
Antoine Dominique "Fats" Domino (born February 26, 1928) is an American R&B and rock and roll pianist and singer-songwriter.
Antoine was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Imperial Records era (1949–1962)

Domino first attracted national attention with "The Fat Man" in 1949 on Imperial Records. This song is an early rock and roll record, featuring a rolling piano and Domino doing "wah-wah" vocalizing over a fat back beat. It sold over a million copies and is widely regarded as the first rock and roll record to do so.

Fats Domino released a series of hit songs with producer and co-writer Dave Bartholomew, saxophonists Herbert Hardesty and Alvin "Red" Tyler and drummer Earl Palmer. Other notable and long-standing musicians in Domino's band were saxophonists Reggie Houston, Lee Allen, and Fred Kemp, who was also Domino's trusted bandleader. Domino finally crossed into the pop mainstream with "Ain't That a Shame" (1955), which hit the Top Ten, though Pat Boone characteristically hit #1 with a milder cover of the song that received wider radio airplay in a racially-segregated era. Domino would eventually release 37 Top 40 singles, "Whole Lotta Loving" and "Blue Monday" among them.

Domino's first album, Carry on Rockin', was released under the Imperial imprint, #9009, in November 1955 and subsequently reissued as Rock and Rollin' with Fats Domino in 1956. Combining a number of his hits along with some tracks which had not yet been released as singles, the album went on under its alternate title to reach #17 on the "Pop Albums" chart.

His 1956 up-tempo version of the 1940 Vincent Rose, Al Lewis & Larry Stock song, "Blueberry Hill" reached #2 in the Top 40, was #1 on the R&B charts for 11 weeks, and was his biggest hit. "Blueberry Hill" sold more than 5 million copies worldwide in 1956-57. The song had earlier been recorded by Gene Autry, and Louis Armstrong among many others. He had further hit singles between 1956 and 1959, including "When My Dreamboat Comes Home" (Pop #14), "I'm Walkin'" (Pop #4), "Valley of Tears" (Pop #8), "It's You I Love" (Pop #6), "Whole Lotta Loving" (Pop #6), "I Want to Walk You Home" (Pop #8), and "Be My Guest" (Pop #8).

Fats appeared in two films released in 1956: Shake, Rattle & Rock! and The Girl Can't Help It. On December 18, 1957, Domino's hit "The Big Beat" was featured on Dick Clark's American Bandstand.

Domino continued to have a steady series of hits for Imperial through early 1962, including "Walkin' to New Orleans" (1960) (Pop #6), co-written by Bobby Charles, and "My Girl Josephine" (Pop #14) from the same year. After Imperial Records was sold to outside interests in early 1963, Domino left the label: "I stuck with them until they sold out", he claimed in 1979. In all, Domino recorded over 60 singles for the label, placing 40 songs in the top 10 on the R&B charts, and scoring 11 top 10 singles on the pop charts. Twenty-two of Domino's Imperial singles were double-sided hits.
Post-Imperial recording career (1963–1970s)

Domino moved to ABC-Paramount Records in 1963. The label dictated that he would record in Nashville rather than New Orleans. He was assigned a new producer (Felton Jarvis) and a new arranger (Bill Justis); Domino's long-term collaboration with producer/arranger/frequent co-writer Dave Bartholomew, who oversaw virtually all of his Imperial hits, was seemingly at an end.

Jarvis and Justis changed the Domino sound somewhat, notably by adding the backing of a countrypolitan-style vocal chorus to most of his new recordings. Perhaps as a result of this tinkering with an established formula, Domino's chart career was drastically curtailed. He released 11 singles for ABC-Paramount, but only had one top 40 entry with "Red Sails In The Sunset" (1963). By the end of 1964 the British Invasion had changed the tastes of the record-buying public, and Domino's chart run was over.

Despite the lack of chart success, Domino continued to record steadily until about 1970, leaving ABC-Paramount in mid-1965 and recording for a variety of other labels: Mercury, Dave Bartholomew's small Broadmoor label (reuniting with Bartholomew along the way), and Reprise. He also continued as a popular live act for several decades.
Later career (1980s–2005)

In the 1980s, Domino decided he would no longer leave New Orleans, having a comfortable income from royalties and a dislike for touring, and claiming he could not get any food that he liked any place else. His induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and an invitation to perform at the White House failed to persuade Domino to make an exception to this policy.

Fats Domino was persuaded to perform out of town periodically for Dianna Chenevert, agent, founder and president of New Orleans based Omni Attractions, during the 1980s and early 1990s. Most of these engagements were in and around New Orleans, but also included a concert in Texas at West End Market Place in downtown Dallas on October 24, 1986.

On October 12, 1983 USA Today reported that Domino was included in Chenevert's "Southern Stars" promotional poster for the agency (along with historically preserving childhood photographs of other famous living musicians from New Orleans and Louisiana on it). Fats provided a photograph of his first recording session, which was the only one he had left from his childhood. Domino autographed these posters, whose recipients included USA Today's Gannett president Al Newharth, and Peter Morton founder of the Hard Rock Cafe. Times-Picayune columnist Betty Guillaud noted on September 30, 1987 that Domino also provided Chenevert with an autographed pair of his shoes (and signed a black grand piano lid) for the Hard Rock location in New Orleans.

Domino lived in a mansion in a predominantly working-class Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood, where he was a familiar sight in his bright pink Cadillac automobile. He makes yearly appearances at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and other local events. Domino was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him #25 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time."
Domino and Hurricane Katrina
Graffiti on Domino's home from the time he was rumored dead
Fats Domino's office, June 2007

When Hurricane Katrina was approaching New Orleans in August 2005, Dianna Chenevert encouraged Fats to evacuate, but he chose to stay at home with his family, partly because of his wife's poor health. Unfortunately his house was in an area that was heavily flooded. Chenevert e-mailed writers at the Times Picayune newspaper and the Coast Guard with the Dominos' location.

Someone thought Fats was dead, and spray-painted a message on his home, "RIP Fats. You will be missed", which was shown in news photos. On September 1, Domino's agent, Al Embry, announced that he had not heard from the musician since before the hurricane had struck.

Later that day, CNN reported that Domino was rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter. Embry confirmed that Domino and his family had been rescued. The Domino family was then taken to a Baton Rouge shelter, after which they were picked up by JaMarcus Russell, the starting quarterback of the Louisiana State University football team, and Fats' granddaughter's boyfriend. He let the Dominos stay in his apartment. The Washington Post reported that on September 2, they had left Russell's apartment after sleeping three nights on the couch. "We've lost everything", Domino said, according to the Post.

By January 2006, work to gut and repair Domino's home and office had begun. For the meantime, the Domino family is residing in Harvey, Louisiana.

Chenevert replaced the Southern Stars poster Fats Domino lost in Katrina and President George W. Bush also made a personal visit and replaced the medal that President Bill Clinton had previously awarded Fats.
Post-Katrina activity
President George W. Bush shakes the hand of Fats Domino, wearing a National Medal of Arts, after the President presented it on August 29, 2006, at the musician's home in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. The medal was a replacement medal for the one—originally awarded by President Bill Clinton—that was lost in the flood waters of Hurricane Katrina.

Domino was the first artist to be announced as scheduled to perform at the 2006 Jazz & Heritage Festival. However, he was too ill to perform when scheduled and was only able to offer the audience an on-stage greeting. Domino also released an album Alive and Kickin' in early 2006 to benefit the Tipitina's Foundation, which supports indigent local musicians. The title song was recorded after Katrina, but most of the cuts were from unreleased sessions in the 1990s.

On January 12, 2007, Domino was honored with OffBeat magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual Best of the Beat Awards held at House of Blues in New Orleans. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin declared the day "Fats Domino Day in New Orleans" and presented Fats Domino with a signed declaration. OffBeat publisher Jan Ramsey and WWL-TV's Eric Paulsen presented Fats Domino with the Lifetime Achievement Award. An all-star musical tribute followed with an introduction by the legendary producer Cosimo Matassa. The Lil' Band O' Gold rhythm section, Warren Storm, Kenny Bill Stinson, David Egan and C.C. Adcock, not only anchored the band, but each contributed lead vocals, swamp pop legend Warren Storm leading off with "Let the Four Winds Blow" and "The Prisoner Song", which he proudly introduced by saying, "Fats Domino recorded this in 1958.. and so did I." The horn section included Lil' Band O' Gold's Dickie Landry, the Iguanas' Derek Huston, and long-time Domino horn men Roger Lewis, Elliot "Stackman" Callier and Herb Hardesty. They were joined by Jon Cleary (who also played guitar in the rhythm section), Al "Carnival Time" Johnson, Irma Thomas, George Porter, Jr. (who, naturally, came up with a funky arrangement for "You Keep On Knocking"), Art Neville, Dr. John and Allen Toussaint, who wrote and debuted a song in tribute of Domino for the occasion. Though Domino didn't perform, those near him recall him playing air piano and singing along to his own songs.

Fats Domino returned to stage on May 19, 2007, at Tipitina's at New Orleans, performing to a full house. A foundation has been formed and a show is being planned for Domino and the restoration of his home, where he intends to return someday. "I like it down there" he said in a February, 2006 CBS News interview.

In September 2007, Domino was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. He has also been inducted into the Delta Music Museum Hall of Fame in Ferriday. In December 2007, Fats Domino was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.

In May 2009, Domino made an unexpected appearance for The Domino Effect, a namesake concert aimed at raising funds to help rebuild schools and playgrounds damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Influence

He was acknowledged as an important influence on the music of the 1960s and 1970s by some of the top artists of that era. Paul McCartney reportedly wrote the Beatles song "Lady Madonna" in an emulation of Domino's style, combining it with a nod to Humphrey Lyttelton's 1956 hit "Bad Penny Blues", a record which Joe Meek had engineered. Domino did manage to return to the "Hot 100" charts one final time in 1968—with his own recording of "Lady Madonna". That recording, as well as covers of two other Beatles songs, appeared on his Reprise LP Fats Is Back, produced by Richard Perry and recorded by a band which included New Orleans piano player James Booker; Domino played piano only on one track, "I'm Ready". Both John Lennon and Paul McCartney later recorded Fats Domino songs. Domino's rhythm, accentuating the offbeat as in the song "Be My Guest", was an influence on ska music. Ray Manzarek, keyboard player from The Doors has also stated a big influence from Fats Domino, on the "History of Rock and Roll" documentary series.
Singles discography

Nationally charted hits shown in bold.
A-Side B-Side Year Label + Cat. No. Chart positions
US Hot 100 US R&B UK
Detroit City Blues The Fat Man 1949 Imperial 5058 2
Boogie-Woogie Baby Little Bee 1950 Imperial 5065
Hide Away Blues She's My Baby 1950 Imperial 5077
Hey La Bas Boogie Brand New Baby 1950 Imperial 5085
Every Night about This Time Korea Blues 1950 Imperial 5099 5
Tired of Crying What's the Matter Baby 1951 Imperial 5114
Don't You Lie to Me Sometimes I Wonder 1951 Imperial 5123
Right From Wrong No, No Baby 1951 Imperial 5138
Rockin' Chair Careless Love 1951 Imperial 5145 9
I'll Be Gone You Know I Miss You 1952 Imperial 5167
Goin' Home Reeling and Rocking 1952 Imperial 5180 30 1
Poor Poor Me Trust in Me 1952 Imperial 5197 10
How Long Dreaming 1952 Imperial 5209 9
Nobody Loves Me Cheatin' 1953 Imperial 5220
Going to the River Mardi Gras in New Orleans 1953 Imperial 5231 24 2
Please Don't Leave Me The Girl I Love 1953 Imperial 5240 3
Rose Mary You Said You Loved Me 1953 Imperial 5251 10
Something's Wrong Don't Leave Me This Way 1953 Imperial 5262 6
You Done Me Wrong Little School Girl 1954 Imperial 5272 10
Where Did You Stay Baby Please 1954 Imperial 5283
You Can Pack Your Suitcase I Lived My Life 1954 Imperial 5301
Love Me Don't You Hear Me Calling You 1954 Imperial 5313
I Know Thinking of You 1954 Imperial 5323 14
Don't You Know Helping Hand 1955 Imperial 5340 7
Ain't That a Shame La La 1955 Imperial 5348 10 1 23
All By Myself Troubles of My Own 1955 Imperial 5357 1
Poor Me 1955 Imperial 5369 1
I Can't Go On 1955 Imperial 5369 6
Bo Weevil 1956 Imperial 5375 35 5
Don't Blame It on Me 1956 Imperial 5375 9
I'm in Love Again March 1956 Imperial 5386 3 1 12
My Blue Heaven 19 5
When My Dreamboat Comes Home July 1956 Imperial 5396 14 2
So Long 44 5
Blueberry Hill September 1956 Imperial 5407 2 1 6
Honey Chile 2 29
Blue Monday December 1956 Imperial 5417 5 1 23
What's the Reason I'm Not Pleasing You 50 12
I'm Walkin' I'm in the Mood for Love February 1957 Imperial 5428 4 1 19
The Rooster Song My Happiness//As Time Goes By//Hey La Bas (4 song EP) 1957 Imperial 147 13 8
Valley of Tears April 1957 Imperial 5442 8 2 25
It's You I Love 6 2
When I See You July 1957 Imperial 5454 29 14
What Will I Tell My Heart 64 12
Wait and See September 1957 Imperial 5467 23 7
I Still Love You 79
The Big Beat December 1957 Imperial 5477 26 15 20
I Want You to Know 32
Yes My Darling Don't You Know I Love You February 1958 Imperial 5492 55 10
Sick and Tired April 1958 Imperial 5515 22 14 26
No, No 55 14
Little Mary Prisoner's Song July 1958 Imperial 5526 48 4
Young School Girl It Must Be Love August 1958 Imperial 5537 92 15
Whole Lotta Loving October 1958 Imperial 5553 6 2 10
Coquette 92 26
Telling Lies January 1959 Imperial 5569 50 13
When the Saints Go Marching In 50
I'm Ready April 1959 Imperial 5585 16 7
Margie Imperial 5585 51 18
I Want to Walk You Home July 1959 Imperial 5606 8 1 14
I'm Gonna Be a Wheel Someday 17 22
Be My Guest October 1959 Imperial 5629 8 2 11
I've Been Around 33 19
Country Boy January 1960 Imperial 5645 25 19
If You Need Me 98
Tell Me That You Love Me April 1960 Imperial 5660 51
Before I Grow Too Old 84 17
Walking to New Orleans June 1960 Imperial 5675 6 2 19
Don't Come Knockin' 21 28
Three Nights a Week August 1960 Imperial 5687 15 8 45
Put Your Arms Around Me Honey 58
My Girl Josephine October 1960 Imperial 5704 14 7 32
Natural Born Lover 38 28
Ain't That Just Like a Woman January 1961 Imperial 5723 33 19
What a Price 22 7
Shu Rah March 1961 Imperial 5734 32
Fell in Love on Monday 32
It Keeps Rainin' I Just Cry May 1961 Imperial 5753 23 18 49
Let The Four Winds Blow Good Hearted Man July 1961 Imperial 5764 15 2
What A Party September 1961 Imperial 5779 22 43
Rockin' Bicycle 83
I Hear You Knocking November 1961 Imperial 5796 67
Jambalaya (On the Bayou) 30 41
You Win Again February 1962 Imperial 5816 22
Ida Jane 90
My Real Name My Heart Is Bleeding May 1962 Imperial 5833 59 22
Dance with Mr. Domino July 1962 Imperial 5863 98
Nothing New (Same Old Thing) 77
Did You Ever See a Dream Walking September 1962 Imperial 5875 79
Stop the Clock 103
Won't You Come on Back Hands Across the Table November 1962 Imperial 5895
Hum Diddy Doo Those Eyes January 1963 Imperial 5909 124
You Always Hurt the One You Love Trouble Blues March 1963 Imperial 5937 102
True Confession Isle of Capri May 1963 Imperial 5959
One Night I Can't Go on This Way 1963 Imperial 5980
There Goes (My Heart Again) May 1963 ABC 10444 59
Can't Go on Without You 123
When I'm Walking (Let Me Walk) July 1963 ABC 10475 114
I've Got a Right to Cry 128
Red Sails in the Sunset Song For Rosemary 1963 ABC 10484 35 24 34
I Can't Give You Anything But Love Goin' Home August 1963 Imperial 66005 114
Who Cares 1963 ABC 10512 63 27
Just a Lonely Man 1963 ABC 10512 108
Your Cheatin' Heart When I Was Young 1964 Imperial 66016 112
Lazy Lady 1964 ABC 10531 86 34
I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire 1964 ABC 10531 122
If You Don't Know What Love Is Something You Got Baby 1964 ABC 10545
Mary, Oh Mary Packin' Up 1964 ABC 10567 127
Sally Was a Good Old Girl For You 1964 ABC 10584 99
Kansas City Heartbreak Hill 1964 ABC 10596 99
Why Don't You Do Right Wigs 1965 ABC 10631
Let Me Call You Sweetheart Goodnight Sweetheart 1965 ABC 10644
I Done Got Over It I Left My Heart In San Francisco 1965 Mercury 72463
What's That You Got? It's Never Too Late 1965 Mercury 72485
The Lady in Black Working My Way Up Steady 1967 Broadmoor 104
Big Mouth Wait 'Til It Happens to You 1967 Broadmoor 105
One For The Highway Honest Papas Love Their Mamas Better 1968 Reprise 0696
Lady Madonna One for the Highway 1968 Reprise 0763 100
Lovely Rita Wait 'Till It Happens to You 1968 Reprise 0775
Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey So Swell When You're Well 1969 Reprise 0843
Make Me Belong to You Have You Seen My Baby 1970 Reprise 0891
New Orleans Ain't the Same Sweet Patootie 1970 Reprise 0944
Sleeping on the Job After Hours 1978 Sonet 2168 -UK
Whiskey Heaven -- 1980 Warner Bros. 49610
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j37/billythekidcpr/FATS.jpg
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n263/jonahjt/thfats-domino.jpg
http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z104/darko47darko/FatsDomino2.jpg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdjLINBYEPc

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/26/10 at 9:43 am


Yes he did, and Eric Clapton also played guitar on that song, back in 1968.



I was going to say that but you beat me to it. That song is one song that you just have to CRANK. The neighbors always know whenever we listen to that song.  :D ;D ;D ;D



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/26/10 at 3:35 pm

http://www.wrestlingvalley.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/ric_flair_02.jpg


happy birthday To Nature Boy Ric Flair. :) WHOO!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/26/10 at 7:23 pm


http://www.wrestlingvalley.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/ric_flair_02.jpg


happy birthday To Nature Boy Ric Flair. :) WHOO!

One of a kind.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 02/26/10 at 9:54 pm

Nice valley pics Janine. I even recognized some Aussie landscape in there somewhere!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 12:44 am


One of a kind.
A wrestler?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 02/27/10 at 1:10 am


A wrestler?


Yes...from the old days of Harley Race and Bruno Sammartino ...right through until just recently (he kept making appearances). I never liked his character too much!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 1:23 am


Yes...from the old days of Harley Race and Bruno Sammartino ...right through until just recently (he kept making appearances). I never liked his character too much!
Many thanks.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 1:26 am

Anglo-American Person of the Day: Elizabeth Taylor

One of the great Hollywood stars of the 20th century, Elizabeth Taylor has had three fairly distinct career personas: as the winsome child star of movies like National Velvet (1944); as a fiery prima donna, the acknowledged "world's most beautiful woman" and star of movies like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Butterfield 8 (1960); and as an older Hollywood grande dame, tabloid favorite, and friend to pop stars like Elton John and Michael Jackson. Her tempestuous marriage to Welsh actor Richard Burton made them Hollywood's reigning couple in the 1960s: they starred together as lovers in Cleopatra (1963, with Taylor as Cleopatra and Burton as Marc Antony) and then played battling spouses in the 1966 film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Taylor had seven husbands and eight marriages in all: hotelier Nicky Hilton (1950-51, divorced), actor Michael Wilding (1952-57, divorced), producer Mike Todd (1957 until his 1958 death in a plane crash), singer Eddie Fisher (1959-64, divorced), actor Richard Burton (1964-74, divorced), Burton again (1975-76, divorced again), politician John Warner (1976-82, divorced), and construction worker Larry Fortensky (1991-96, divorced). Taylor won best actress Oscars for Butterfield 8 and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. She was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in 2000 by Queen Elizabeth II.

Taylor was the first actress to earn a million dollars for one film, for 1963's Cleopatra.

http://www.hecklerspray.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/elizabeth%20taylor.jpg

http://gossips.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/tn2_elizabeth_taylor_4.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/27/10 at 5:40 am


Yes...from the old days of Harley Race and Bruno Sammartino ...right through until just recently (he kept making appearances). I never liked his character too much!


Well he's The Nature Boy.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/27/10 at 5:41 am


Anglo-American Person of the Day: Elizabeth Taylor

One of the great Hollywood stars of the 20th century, Elizabeth Taylor has had three fairly distinct career personas: as the winsome child star of movies like National Velvet (1944); as a fiery prima donna, the acknowledged "world's most beautiful woman" and star of movies like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Butterfield 8 (1960); and as an older Hollywood grande dame, tabloid favorite, and friend to pop stars like Elton John and Michael Jackson. Her tempestuous marriage to Welsh actor Richard Burton made them Hollywood's reigning couple in the 1960s: they starred together as lovers in Cleopatra (1963, with Taylor as Cleopatra and Burton as Marc Antony) and then played battling spouses in the 1966 film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Taylor had seven husbands and eight marriages in all: hotelier Nicky Hilton (1950-51, divorced), actor Michael Wilding (1952-57, divorced), producer Mike Todd (1957 until his 1958 death in a plane crash), singer Eddie Fisher (1959-64, divorced), actor Richard Burton (1964-74, divorced), Burton again (1975-76, divorced again), politician John Warner (1976-82, divorced), and construction worker Larry Fortensky (1991-96, divorced). Taylor won best actress Oscars for Butterfield 8 and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. She was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in 2000 by Queen Elizabeth II.

Taylor was the first actress to earn a million dollars for one film, for 1963's Cleopatra.

http://www.hecklerspray.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/elizabeth%20taylor.jpg

http://gossips.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/tn2_elizabeth_taylor_4.jpg


Now she's confined to a wheelchair.  :(

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 5:55 am


Now she's confined to a wheelchair.  :(
I had not realsied that.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/27/10 at 6:00 am


Anglo-American Person of the Day: Elizabeth Taylor

One of the great Hollywood stars of the 20th century, Elizabeth Taylor has had three fairly distinct career personas: as the winsome child star of movies like National Velvet (1944); as a fiery prima donna, the acknowledged "world's most beautiful woman" and star of movies like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Butterfield 8 (1960); and as an older Hollywood grande dame, tabloid favorite, and friend to pop stars like Elton John and Michael Jackson. Her tempestuous marriage to Welsh actor Richard Burton made them Hollywood's reigning couple in the 1960s: they starred together as lovers in Cleopatra (1963, with Taylor as Cleopatra and Burton as Marc Antony) and then played battling spouses in the 1966 film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Taylor had seven husbands and eight marriages in all: hotelier Nicky Hilton (1950-51, divorced), actor Michael Wilding (1952-57, divorced), producer Mike Todd (1957 until his 1958 death in a plane crash), singer Eddie Fisher (1959-64, divorced), actor Richard Burton (1964-74, divorced), Burton again (1975-76, divorced again), politician John Warner (1976-82, divorced), and construction worker Larry Fortensky (1991-96, divorced). Taylor won best actress Oscars for Butterfield 8 and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. She was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in 2000 by Queen Elizabeth II.

Taylor was the first actress to earn a million dollars for one film, for 1963's Cleopatra.

http://www.hecklerspray.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/elizabeth%20taylor.jpg

http://gossips.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/tn2_elizabeth_taylor_4.jpg

Good thing I checked this morning, i had a feeling you might pick her.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/27/10 at 6:00 am


Now she's confined to a wheelchair.  :(

I had not realsied that.

Nor did I .

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 6:01 am


Good thing I checked this morning, i had a feeling you might pick her.
She was born in Hampstead in North London, and I have not located the exact house yet.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 6:02 am


Nor did I .
checking online...

"Taylor went to the Hollywood Bowl June 8, 2009, to hear Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli in concert, her first night out in months. Taylor, bound to a wheelchair by scoliosis, said her mind and soul "were transported by his beauty, his voice, his inner being." The actress posted online messages through the Twitter social network after the Italian tenor's concert Monday night. "I went to see Andrea Bocelli last night. The first time I've been out in months. The Hollywood Bowl allowed me to use my wheelchair," she said."

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/27/10 at 6:08 am

The word of the day...Mice
Mice is the plural of mouse.
A mouse is a small furry animal with a long tail.
http://i756.photobucket.com/albums/xx204/omega24614/Ball%20Python/Mice.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/primcindy/mice-1.jpg
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w65/maidog_photos/mice/IMG_5928.jpg
http://i459.photobucket.com/albums/qq315/dottiemadcat/bulk%20cat%20toys/pe---rockin-mice.jpg
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w65/maidog_photos/mice/IMG_5932.jpg
http://i459.photobucket.com/albums/qq315/dottiemadcat/bulk%20cat%20toys/DSC00247.jpg
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d161/bittyskitty94210/animals/animals%202/big_4686041.jpg
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o172/lilbbezoe/Picture173.jpg
http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u236/Magik_Moonmyst/Nature/Animals/watch_harvest_mice.jpg
http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x17/Kawgirl_2007/Small%20Pet%20books/GerbilsRatsandMice.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 6:11 am


The word of the day...Mice
Mice is the plural of mouse.
A mouse is a small furry animal with a long tail.
http://i756.photobucket.com/albums/xx204/omega24614/Ball%20Python/Mice.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/primcindy/mice-1.jpg
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w65/maidog_photos/mice/IMG_5928.jpg
http://i459.photobucket.com/albums/qq315/dottiemadcat/bulk%20cat%20toys/pe---rockin-mice.jpg
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w65/maidog_photos/mice/IMG_5932.jpg
http://i459.photobucket.com/albums/qq315/dottiemadcat/bulk%20cat%20toys/DSC00247.jpg
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d161/bittyskitty94210/animals/animals%202/big_4686041.jpg
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o172/lilbbezoe/Picture173.jpg
http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u236/Magik_Moonmyst/Nature/Animals/watch_harvest_mice.jpg
http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x17/Kawgirl_2007/Small%20Pet%20books/GerbilsRatsandMice.jpg
http://welcometothesalon.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/mouse_trap_board_and_boxjpg.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 6:12 am

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm66/Phil_O-Sopher/MouseTrap.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/27/10 at 6:14 am


checking online...

"Taylor went to the Hollywood Bowl June 8, 2009, to hear Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli in concert, her first night out in months. Taylor, bound to a wheelchair by scoliosis, said her mind and soul "were transported by his beauty, his voice, his inner being." The actress posted online messages through the Twitter social network after the Italian tenor's concert Monday night. "I went to see Andrea Bocelli last night. The first time I've been out in months. The Hollywood Bowl allowed me to use my wheelchair," she said."

My daughter has a curved back and was checked all through school for scoliosis. At least Ms. Taylor is still able to get places.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 6:14 am


The word of the day...Mice
Mice is the plural of mouse.
A mouse is a small furry animal with a long tail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYiqDyC6qgo

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 6:17 am


The word of the day...Mice
Mice is the plural of mouse.
A mouse is a small furry animal with a long tail.
http://hackedgadgets.com/wp-content/computer_mouse_using_a_real_dead_mouse_4.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/27/10 at 6:18 am

The person born on this day...John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer. He wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and the novella Of Mice and Men (1937). He wrote a total of twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books and five collections of short stories. In 1962, Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. He was of German and Irish descent. Johann Adolf Großsteinbeck, Steinbeck's paternal grandfather, had shortened the family name to Steinbeck when he immigrated to the United States. The family farm in Heiligenhaus, Germany, is still today named "Großsteinbeck".

His father, John Steinbeck Sr., served as Monterey County Treasurer. John's mother, Olive Hamilton, a former school teacher, shared Steinbeck's passion of reading and writing. Steinbeck lived in a small rural town that was essentially a frontier settlement, set amid some of the world's most fertile land. He spent his summers working on nearby ranches and later with migrant workers on Spreckels ranch. He became aware of the harsher aspects of migrant life and the darker side of human nature, which material expressed in such works as Of Mice and Men. He also explored his surroundings, walking across local forests, fields, and farms.

In 1919, Steinbeck graduated from Salinas High School and attended Stanford University intermittently until 1925, eventually leaving without a degree. He traveled to New York City and held odd jobs while pursuing his dream of becoming a writer. When he failed to get his work published, he returned to California and worked for a time in 1928 as a tourguide and caretaker at the fish hatchery in Tahoe City, where he would meet tourist Carol Henning, his future first wife.. Steinbeck and Henning were married in January, 1930.

Steinbeck lived most of the years of the great depression and his marriage to Carol in a cottage in Pacific Grove, California on the Monterey Peninsula that was owned by his father. The elder Steinbeck supplied him with the lodging for free, with paper for his manuscripts, and critical loans beginning at the end of 1928 which allowed Steinbeck to give up a punishing warehouse job in San Francisco, and focus on his craft.

After the publication of his Monterey novel Tortilla Flat in 1935, his first clear novelistic success, the Steinbecks emerged from relative poverty and built a summer ranch-home in Los Gatos. In 1940, Steinbeck went on a voyage around the Gulf of California with his influential friend Ed Ricketts, to collect biological specimens. The Log from the Sea of Cortez describes his experiences. Although Carol accompanied Steinbeck on the trip, their marriage was beginning to suffer by this time, and would effectively end in 1941, even as Steinbeck worked on the manuscript for the book.

In 1943, Steinbeck filed for divorce against Carol and married Gwyndolyn "Gwyn" Conger, with whom he had two children - Thomas ("Thom") Myles Steinbeck in 1944 and John Steinbeck IV, who died in 1991. Steinbeck and his second wife divorced in 1948. In December 1950, Steinbeck married stage-manager Elaine Scott within a week of the finalizing of her divorce from actor Zachary Scott. This marriage lasted until Steinbeck's death in 1968.

In 1948, Steinbeck toured the Soviet Union with renowned photographer Robert Capa. They visited Moscow, Kiev, Tbilisi, Batumi and Stalingrad. His book about their experiences, A Russian Journal, was illustrated with Capa's photos. That year he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Steinbeck's gravestone at Salinas cemetery

In 1966, Steinbeck traveled to Tel Aviv to visit the site of Mount Hope, a farm community established in Israel by his grandfather, whose brother, Friedrich Grosssteinbeck, was murdered by Arab marauders on January 11, 1858.

John Steinbeck died in New York City on December 20, 1968 of heart disease and congestive heart failure. He was 66, and had been a life-long smoker. An autopsy showed nearly complete occlusion of the main coronary arteries.

In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated and an urn containing his ashes was interred at his family gravesite at Garden of Memories Memorial Park in Salinas. His ashes were placed with those of the Hamiltons (grandparents). His third wife, Elaine, was buried with him in 2004. He had earlier written to his doctor that he felt deeply "in his flesh" that he would not survive his physical death, and that the biological end of his life was the final end to it.
Literary career

Steinbeck's first novel, Cup of Gold, published in 1929, is based on the life and death of privateer Henry Morgan. It centers on Morgan's assault and sacking of the city of Panama, sometimes referred to as the 'Cup of Gold', and on the woman, fairer than the sun, who was said to be found there.

After Cup of Gold, between 1931 and 1933 Steinbeck produced three shorter works. The Pastures of Heaven, published in 1932, comprised twelve interconnected stories about a valley near Monterey, that was discovered by a Spanish corporal while chasing runaway American Indian slaves. In 1933 Steinbeck published The Red Pony, a 100-page, four-chapter story weaving in memories of Steinbeck's childhood. To a God Unknown follows the life of a homesteader and his family in California, depicting a character with a primal and pagan worship of the land he works.

Steinbeck achieved his first critical success with the novel Tortilla Flat (1935), which won the California Commonwealth Club's Gold Medal. The book portrays the adventures of a group of classless and usually homeless young men in Monterey after World War I, just before U.S. prohibition. The characters, who are portrayed in ironic comparison to mythic knights on a quest, reject nearly all the standard mores of American society in enjoyment of a dissolute life centered around wine, lust, camaraderie and petty theft. The book was made into the 1942 film Tortilla Flat, starring Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr and John Garfield, a friend of Steinbeck's.

Steinbeck began to write a series of "California novels" and Dust Bowl fiction, set among common people during the Great Depression. These included In Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. Of Mice and Men, about the dreams of a pair of migrant laborers working the California soil, was critically acclaimed.

The stage adaptation of Of Mice and Men was a hit, starring Broderick Crawford as the mentally child-like but physically powerful itinerant farmhand "Lennie," and Wallace Ford as Lennie's companion, "George." However, Steinbeck refused to travel from his home in California to attend any performance of the play during its New York run, telling Kaufman that the play as it existed in his own mind was "perfect" and that anything presented on stage would only be a disappointment. Steinbeck would write two more stage plays (The Moon Is Down and Burning Bright).

Of Mice and Men was rapidly adapted into a 1939 Hollywood film, in which Lon Chaney, Jr. (who had portrayed the role in the Los Angeles production of the play) was cast as Lennie and Burgess Meredith as "George." Steinbeck followed this wave of success with The Grapes of Wrath (1939), based on newspaper articles he had written in San Francisco. The novel would be considered by many to be his finest work. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940, even as it was made into a notable film directed by John Ford, starring Henry Fonda as Tom Joad, who was nominated for an Academy Award for the part.

The success of The Grapes of Wrath was not free of controversy, as Steinbeck's liberal political views, portrayal of the negative side of capitalism, and mythical reinterpretation of the historical events of the Dust Bowl migrations led to backlash against the author, especially close to home. In fact, claiming the book was both obscene and misrepresented conditions in the county, the Kern County Board of Supervisors banned the book from the county's public schools and libraries in August 1939. This ban lasted until January 1941.

Of the controversy, Steinbeck wrote, "The vilification of me out here from the large landowners and bankers is pretty bad. The latest is a rumor started by them that the Okies hate me and have threatened to kill me for lying about them. I'm frightened at the rolling might of this damned thing. It is completely out of hand; I mean a kind of hysteria about the book is growing that is not healthy."

The film versions of The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men (by two different movie studios) were in production simultaneously, allowing Steinbeck to spend a full day on the set of The Grapes of Wrath and the next day on the set of Of Mice and Men.
Ed Ricketts
Ed Ricketts

In the 1930s and 1940s, Ed Ricketts strongly influenced Steinbeck's writing. Steinbeck frequently took small trips with Ricketts along the California coast to collect biological specimens which Ricketts sold for a living and give Steinbeck time off from his writing. Their joint book about a collecting expedition to the Gulf of California in 1940, which was part travelogue and part natural history, published just as the U.S. entered World War II, never found an audience and did not sell well. However, in 1951, Steinbeck republished the narrative portion of the book as The Log from the Sea of Cortez, under his name only (though Ricketts had written some of it). This work remains in print today.

Ricketts was Steinbeck's model for the character of "Doc" in Cannery Row (1945) and Sweet Thursday (1954), "Friend Ed" in Burning Bright, and characters in In Dubious Battle (1936) and The Grapes of Wrath (1939). Ecological themes recur in Steinbeck's novels of the period.

Steinbeck's close relations with Ricketts ended in 1941 when Steinbeck moved away from Pacific Grove and split with his wife Carol. Ricketts' biographer Eric Enno Tamm notes that, except for East of Eden (1952), Steinbeck's writing declined after Ricketts' untimely death in 1948.
n 1962, Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature for his “realistic and imaginative writing, combining as it does sympathetic humor and keen social perception.” On the day of the announcement (Oct. 25) when he was asked by a reporter at a press conference given by his publisher, if he thought he deserved the Nobel, he said: "Frankly, no." In his acceptance speech later in the year in Stockholm, he said:

   the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.
   —Steinbeck Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

Although modest about his own talent as a writer, Steinbeck talked openly of his own admiration of certain writers: in 1953, he wrote in humor that he considered cartoonist Al Capp "possibly the best writer in the world today." . However, at his own first Nobel Prize press conference he was asked his favorite authors and works and replied: "Hemingway's short stories and nearly everything Faulkner wrote."

In September 1964, Steinbeck was awarded the United States Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

In 1967, at the behest of Newsday magazine, Steinbeck went to Vietnam to report on the war there. Thinking of the Vietnam War as a heroic venture, he was considered a hawk for his position on that war. His sons both served in Vietnam prior to his death, and Steinbeck visited one son in the battlefield (at one point being allowed to man a machine-gun watch position at night at a firebase, while his son and other members of his platoon slept).

After Steinbeck's death, his incomplete novel based on the King Arthur legends of Malory and others, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, was finally published in 1976.

On Feb. 27, 1979, on what would have been his 77th birthday, he was honored by being placed on a U.S. postage stamp.
Legacy
National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California

The day after Steinbeck's death in New York City, reviewer Charles Poore wrote in the New York Times: "John Steinbeck's first great book was his last great book. But Good Lord, what a book that was and is: The Grapes of Wrath." Poore noted a "preachiness" in Steinbeck's work, "as if half his literary inheritance came from the best of Mark Twain— and the other half from the worst of Cotton Mather." But he asserted that "Steinbeck didn't need the Nobel Prize— the Nobel judges needed him."

Many of Steinbeck's works are on required reading lists in American high schools. In the United Kingdom, Of Mice and Men is one of the key texts used by the examining body AQA for its English Literature GCSE. A study by the Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature in the United States found that Of Mice and Men was one of the ten most frequently read books in public high schools.

At the same time, The Grapes of Wrath has been banned by school boards: In August 1939, Kern County Board of Supervisors banned the book from the county's public schools and libraries. It was burned in Salinas on two different occasions. In 2003, a school board in Mississippi banned it on the grounds of profanity. According to the American Library Association Steinbeck was one of the ten most frequently banned authors from 1990 to 2004, with Of Mice and Men ranking sixth out of 100 such books in the United States.

His books are also commonly referenced in music. Once There Was A War, an alternative metal band from Sayreville, New Jersey, derived their name from one of his novels.
Literary influences

Steinbeck grew up in California's Salinas Valley, a culturally diverse place with a rich migratory and immigrant history. This upbringing imparted a regionalistic flavor to his writing, giving many of his works a distinct sense of place. Salinas, Monterey and parts of the San Joaquin Valley were the setting for many of his stories. The area is now sometimes referred to as "Steinbeck Country". Most of his early work dealt with subjects familiar to him from his formative years. An exception was his first novel, Cup of Gold, which concerns the pirate Henry Morgan, whose adventures had captured Steinbeck's imagination as a child.

In his subsequent novels, Steinbeck found a more authentic voice by drawing upon direct memories of his life in California. His childhood friend, Max Wagner, a brother of Jack Wagner and who later became a film actor, served as inspiration for The Red Pony. Later he used real American historical conditions and events in the first half of the 20th century, which he had experienced first-hand as a reporter. Steinbeck often populated his stories with struggling characters; his works examined the lives of the working class and migrant workers during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression.

His later work reflected his wide range of interests, including marine biology, politics, religion, history, and mythology. One of his last published works was Travels with Charley, a travelogue of a road trip he took in 1960 to rediscover America.
Cannery Row in Monterey

Steinbeck's boyhood home, a turreted Victorian building in downtown Salinas, has been preserved and restored by the Valley Guild, a nonprofit organization. Fixed menu lunches are served Monday through Saturday, and the house is open for tours during the summer on Sunday afternoons.

The National Steinbeck Center, two blocks away at One Main Street is the only museum in the U.S. dedicated to a single author. Dana Gioia (chair of the National Endowment for the Arts) told an audience at the Center, "This is really the best modern literary shrine in the country, and I've seen them all." Its Steinbeckiana includes Rocinante, the camper truck in which Steinbeck made the cross-country trip described in "Travels with Charley."

His father's cottage on Eleventh Street in Pacific Grove, where Steinbeck wrote some of his earliest books, also survives.

In Monterey, Ed Ricketts' laboratory survives (though it is not yet open to the public) and at the corner which Steinbeck describes in Cannery Row, also the store which once belonged to Lee Chong, and the adjacent vacant lot frequented by the hobos of Cannery Row. The sardine cannery next to Doc's lab closed down long ago and the site is now occupied by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The town has commemorated Steinbeck's work with an avenue of flags depicting characters from Cannery Row and historical plaques, and sculptured busts depicting Steinbeck and Ricketts.
Commemoration

On Feb 27, 1979, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp featuring Steinbeck, starting the Postal Service’s Literary Arts series honoring American writers.

John Steinbeck Official First Day Stamp Cover

On December 5, 2007 California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Steinbeck into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts. His son, author Thomas Steinbeck, accepted the award on his behalf.
Major works
Of Mice and Men
Main article: Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men is a tragedy that was written in the form of a play in 1937. The story is about two traveling ranch workers, George and Lennie, trying to work up enough money to buy their own farm/ranch. It encompasses themes of racism, loneliness, prejudice against the mentally ill, and the struggle for personal independence. Along with Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and The Pearl, Of Mice and Men is one of Steinbeck's best known works. It was made into a movie three times, in 1939 starring Burgess Meredith, Lon Chaney Jr., and Betty Field, in 1982 starring Randy Quaid, Robert Blake and Ted Neeley, and in 1992 starring Gary Sinise and John Malkovich.
The Grapes of Wrath
Main article: The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath was written in 1939 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940. The book is set in the Great Depression and describes a family of sharecroppers, the Joads, who were driven from their land due to the dust storms of the Dust Bowl. The title is a reference to the Battle Hymn of the Republic. The book was made into a film in 1940 starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford.
East of Eden
Main article: East of Eden

Steinbeck deals with the nature of good and evil in this Salinas Valley saga. The story follows two families: the Hamiltons - based on Steinbeck's own maternal ancestry - and the Trasks, reprising stories about the Biblical Adam and his progeny. The book was published in 1952.
Travels With Charley
Main article: Travels With Charley: In Search of America

In 1960, Steinbeck bought a pickup truck and had it modified with a custom-built camper top — which was rare at the time — and drove across the United States with his faithful 'blue' poodle, Charley. Steinbeck nicknamed his truck Rocinante after Don Quixote's "noble steed". In this sometimes comical, sometimes melancholic book, Steinbeck describes what he sees from Maine to Montana to California, and from there to Texas and Louisiana and back to his home in Long Island. The restored camper truck is on exhibit in the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas.
Bibliography

   * Cup of Gold (1927)
   * The Pastures of Heaven (1932)
   * The Red Pony (1933)
   * To a God Unknown (1933)
   * Tortilla Flat (1935)
   * In Dubious Battle (1936)
   * The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to the Grapes of Wrath (1936)
   * Of Mice and Men (1937)
   * The Long Valley (1938)
   * The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
   * The Forgotten Village (1941)
   * Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research (1941)
   * The Moon Is Down (1942)
   * Bombs Away: The Story of a Bomber Team (1942)
   * Cannery Row (1945)
   * The Wayward Bus (1947)
   * The Pearl (1947)
   * A Russian Journal (1948)
   * Burning Bright (1950)
   * The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951)
   * East of Eden (1952)
   * Sweet Thursday (1954)
   * The Short Reign of Pippin IV: A Fabrication (1957)
   * Once There Was A War (1958)
   * The Winter of Our Discontent (1961)
   * Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1962)
   * America and Americans (1966)
   * Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters (1969)
   * Viva Zapata! (1975)
   * The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976)
   * Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath (1989)

Filmography

   * 1939—Of Mice and Men—directed by Lewis Milestone, featuring Burgess Meredith, Lon Chaney, Jr., and Betty Field
   * 1940—The Grapes of Wrath—directed by John Ford, featuring Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell and John Carradine
   * 1941—The Forgotten Village—directed by Alexander Hammid and Herbert Kline, narrated by Burgess Meredith, music by Hanns Eisler
   * 1942—Tortilla Flat—directed by Victor Fleming, featuring Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr and John Garfield
   * 1943—The Moon is Down—directed by Irving Pichel, featuring Lee J. Cobb and Sir Cedric Hardwicke
   * 1944—Lifeboat—directed by Alfred Hitchcock, featuring Tallulah Bankhead, Hume Cronyn, and John Hodiak
   * 1944—A Medal for Benny—directed by Irving Pichel, featuring Dorothy Lamour and Arturo de Cordova
   * 1947—La Perla (The Pearl, Mexico)—directed by Emilio Fernández, featuring Pedro Armendáriz and María Elena Marqués
   * 1949—The Red Pony—directed by Lewis Milestone, featuring Myrna Loy, Robert Mitchum, and Louis Calhern
   * 1952—Viva Zapata!—directed by Elia Kazan, featuring Marlon Brando, Anthony Quinn and Jean Peters
   * 1955—East of Eden—directed by Elia Kazan, featuring James Dean, Julie Harris, Jo Van Fleet, and Raymond Massey
   * 1956—The Wayward Bus—directed by Victor Vicas, featuring Rick Jason, Jayne Mansfield, and Joan Collins
   * 1961—Flight—featuring Efrain Ramírez and Arnelia Cortez
   * 1962—Ikimize bir dünya (Of Mice and Men, Turkey)
   * 1972—Topoli (Of Mice and Men, Iran)
   * 1982—Cannery Row—directed by David S. Ward, featuring Nick Nolte and Debra Winger
   * 1992—Of Mice and Men—directed by Gary Sinise and starring John Malkovich and Gary Sinise

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 6:21 am


The person born on this day...John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer. He wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and the novella Of Mice and Men (1937). He wrote a total of twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books and five collections of short stories. In 1962, Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. He was of German and Irish descent. Johann Adolf Großsteinbeck, Steinbeck's paternal grandfather, had shortened the family name to Steinbeck when he immigrated to the United States. The family farm in Heiligenhaus, Germany, is still today named "Großsteinbeck".

His father, John Steinbeck Sr., served as Monterey County Treasurer. John's mother, Olive Hamilton, a former school teacher, shared Steinbeck's passion of reading and writing. Steinbeck lived in a small rural town that was essentially a frontier settlement, set amid some of the world's most fertile land. He spent his summers working on nearby ranches and later with migrant workers on Spreckels ranch. He became aware of the harsher aspects of migrant life and the darker side of human nature, which material expressed in such works as Of Mice and Men. He also explored his surroundings, walking across local forests, fields, and farms.

In 1919, Steinbeck graduated from Salinas High School and attended Stanford University intermittently until 1925, eventually leaving without a degree. He traveled to New York City and held odd jobs while pursuing his dream of becoming a writer. When he failed to get his work published, he returned to California and worked for a time in 1928 as a tourguide and caretaker at the fish hatchery in Tahoe City, where he would meet tourist Carol Henning, his future first wife.. Steinbeck and Henning were married in January, 1930.

Steinbeck lived most of the years of the great depression and his marriage to Carol in a cottage in Pacific Grove, California on the Monterey Peninsula that was owned by his father. The elder Steinbeck supplied him with the lodging for free, with paper for his manuscripts, and critical loans beginning at the end of 1928 which allowed Steinbeck to give up a punishing warehouse job in San Francisco, and focus on his craft.

After the publication of his Monterey novel Tortilla Flat in 1935, his first clear novelistic success, the Steinbecks emerged from relative poverty and built a summer ranch-home in Los Gatos. In 1940, Steinbeck went on a voyage around the Gulf of California with his influential friend Ed Ricketts, to collect biological specimens. The Log from the Sea of Cortez describes his experiences. Although Carol accompanied Steinbeck on the trip, their marriage was beginning to suffer by this time, and would effectively end in 1941, even as Steinbeck worked on the manuscript for the book.

In 1943, Steinbeck filed for divorce against Carol and married Gwyndolyn "Gwyn" Conger, with whom he had two children - Thomas ("Thom") Myles Steinbeck in 1944 and John Steinbeck IV, who died in 1991. Steinbeck and his second wife divorced in 1948. In December 1950, Steinbeck married stage-manager Elaine Scott within a week of the finalizing of her divorce from actor Zachary Scott. This marriage lasted until Steinbeck's death in 1968.

In 1948, Steinbeck toured the Soviet Union with renowned photographer Robert Capa. They visited Moscow, Kiev, Tbilisi, Batumi and Stalingrad. His book about their experiences, A Russian Journal, was illustrated with Capa's photos. That year he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Steinbeck's gravestone at Salinas cemetery

In 1966, Steinbeck traveled to Tel Aviv to visit the site of Mount Hope, a farm community established in Israel by his grandfather, whose brother, Friedrich Grosssteinbeck, was murdered by Arab marauders on January 11, 1858.

John Steinbeck died in New York City on December 20, 1968 of heart disease and congestive heart failure. He was 66, and had been a life-long smoker. An autopsy showed nearly complete occlusion of the main coronary arteries.

In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated and an urn containing his ashes was interred at his family gravesite at Garden of Memories Memorial Park in Salinas. His ashes were placed with those of the Hamiltons (grandparents). His third wife, Elaine, was buried with him in 2004. He had earlier written to his doctor that he felt deeply "in his flesh" that he would not survive his physical death, and that the biological end of his life was the final end to it.
Literary career

Steinbeck's first novel, Cup of Gold, published in 1929, is based on the life and death of privateer Henry Morgan. It centers on Morgan's assault and sacking of the city of Panama, sometimes referred to as the 'Cup of Gold', and on the woman, fairer than the sun, who was said to be found there.

After Cup of Gold, between 1931 and 1933 Steinbeck produced three shorter works. The Pastures of Heaven, published in 1932, comprised twelve interconnected stories about a valley near Monterey, that was discovered by a Spanish corporal while chasing runaway American Indian slaves. In 1933 Steinbeck published The Red Pony, a 100-page, four-chapter story weaving in memories of Steinbeck's childhood. To a God Unknown follows the life of a homesteader and his family in California, depicting a character with a primal and pagan worship of the land he works.

Steinbeck achieved his first critical success with the novel Tortilla Flat (1935), which won the California Commonwealth Club's Gold Medal. The book portrays the adventures of a group of classless and usually homeless young men in Monterey after World War I, just before U.S. prohibition. The characters, who are portrayed in ironic comparison to mythic knights on a quest, reject nearly all the standard mores of American society in enjoyment of a dissolute life centered around wine, lust, camaraderie and petty theft. The book was made into the 1942 film Tortilla Flat, starring Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr and John Garfield, a friend of Steinbeck's.

Steinbeck began to write a series of "California novels" and Dust Bowl fiction, set among common people during the Great Depression. These included In Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. Of Mice and Men, about the dreams of a pair of migrant laborers working the California soil, was critically acclaimed.

The stage adaptation of Of Mice and Men was a hit, starring Broderick Crawford as the mentally child-like but physically powerful itinerant farmhand "Lennie," and Wallace Ford as Lennie's companion, "George." However, Steinbeck refused to travel from his home in California to attend any performance of the play during its New York run, telling Kaufman that the play as it existed in his own mind was "perfect" and that anything presented on stage would only be a disappointment. Steinbeck would write two more stage plays (The Moon Is Down and Burning Bright).

Of Mice and Men was rapidly adapted into a 1939 Hollywood film, in which Lon Chaney, Jr. (who had portrayed the role in the Los Angeles production of the play) was cast as Lennie and Burgess Meredith as "George." Steinbeck followed this wave of success with The Grapes of Wrath (1939), based on newspaper articles he had written in San Francisco. The novel would be considered by many to be his finest work. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940, even as it was made into a notable film directed by John Ford, starring Henry Fonda as Tom Joad, who was nominated for an Academy Award for the part.

The success of The Grapes of Wrath was not free of controversy, as Steinbeck's liberal political views, portrayal of the negative side of capitalism, and mythical reinterpretation of the historical events of the Dust Bowl migrations led to backlash against the author, especially close to home. In fact, claiming the book was both obscene and misrepresented conditions in the county, the Kern County Board of Supervisors banned the book from the county's public schools and libraries in August 1939. This ban lasted until January 1941.

Of the controversy, Steinbeck wrote, "The vilification of me out here from the large landowners and bankers is pretty bad. The latest is a rumor started by them that the Okies hate me and have threatened to kill me for lying about them. I'm frightened at the rolling might of this damned thing. It is completely out of hand; I mean a kind of hysteria about the book is growing that is not healthy."

The film versions of The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men (by two different movie studios) were in production simultaneously, allowing Steinbeck to spend a full day on the set of The Grapes of Wrath and the next day on the set of Of Mice and Men.
Ed Ricketts
Ed Ricketts

In the 1930s and 1940s, Ed Ricketts strongly influenced Steinbeck's writing. Steinbeck frequently took small trips with Ricketts along the California coast to collect biological specimens which Ricketts sold for a living and give Steinbeck time off from his writing. Their joint book about a collecting expedition to the Gulf of California in 1940, which was part travelogue and part natural history, published just as the U.S. entered World War II, never found an audience and did not sell well. However, in 1951, Steinbeck republished the narrative portion of the book as The Log from the Sea of Cortez, under his name only (though Ricketts had written some of it). This work remains in print today.

Ricketts was Steinbeck's model for the character of "Doc" in Cannery Row (1945) and Sweet Thursday (1954), "Friend Ed" in Burning Bright, and characters in In Dubious Battle (1936) and The Grapes of Wrath (1939). Ecological themes recur in Steinbeck's novels of the period.

Steinbeck's close relations with Ricketts ended in 1941 when Steinbeck moved away from Pacific Grove and split with his wife Carol. Ricketts' biographer Eric Enno Tamm notes that, except for East of Eden (1952), Steinbeck's writing declined after Ricketts' untimely death in 1948.
n 1962, Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature for his “realistic and imaginative writing, combining as it does sympathetic humor and keen social perception.” On the day of the announcement (Oct. 25) when he was asked by a reporter at a press conference given by his publisher, if he thought he deserved the Nobel, he said: "Frankly, no." In his acceptance speech later in the year in Stockholm, he said:

    the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.
    —Steinbeck Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

Although modest about his own talent as a writer, Steinbeck talked openly of his own admiration of certain writers: in 1953, he wrote in humor that he considered cartoonist Al Capp "possibly the best writer in the world today." . However, at his own first Nobel Prize press conference he was asked his favorite authors and works and replied: "Hemingway's short stories and nearly everything Faulkner wrote."

In September 1964, Steinbeck was awarded the United States Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

In 1967, at the behest of Newsday magazine, Steinbeck went to Vietnam to report on the war there. Thinking of the Vietnam War as a heroic venture, he was considered a hawk for his position on that war. His sons both served in Vietnam prior to his death, and Steinbeck visited one son in the battlefield (at one point being allowed to man a machine-gun watch position at night at a firebase, while his son and other members of his platoon slept).

After Steinbeck's death, his incomplete novel based on the King Arthur legends of Malory and others, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, was finally published in 1976.

On Feb. 27, 1979, on what would have been his 77th birthday, he was honored by being placed on a U.S. postage stamp.
Legacy
National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California

The day after Steinbeck's death in New York City, reviewer Charles Poore wrote in the New York Times: "John Steinbeck's first great book was his last great book. But Good Lord, what a book that was and is: The Grapes of Wrath." Poore noted a "preachiness" in Steinbeck's work, "as if half his literary inheritance came from the best of Mark Twain— and the other half from the worst of Cotton Mather." But he asserted that "Steinbeck didn't need the Nobel Prize— the Nobel judges needed him."

Many of Steinbeck's works are on required reading lists in American high schools. In the United Kingdom, Of Mice and Men is one of the key texts used by the examining body AQA for its English Literature GCSE. A study by the Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature in the United States found that Of Mice and Men was one of the ten most frequently read books in public high schools.

At the same time, The Grapes of Wrath has been banned by school boards: In August 1939, Kern County Board of Supervisors banned the book from the county's public schools and libraries. It was burned in Salinas on two different occasions. In 2003, a school board in Mississippi banned it on the grounds of profanity. According to the American Library Association Steinbeck was one of the ten most frequently banned authors from 1990 to 2004, with Of Mice and Men ranking sixth out of 100 such books in the United States.

His books are also commonly referenced in music. Once There Was A War, an alternative metal band from Sayreville, New Jersey, derived their name from one of his novels.
Literary influences

Steinbeck grew up in California's Salinas Valley, a culturally diverse place with a rich migratory and immigrant history. This upbringing imparted a regionalistic flavor to his writing, giving many of his works a distinct sense of place. Salinas, Monterey and parts of the San Joaquin Valley were the setting for many of his stories. The area is now sometimes referred to as "Steinbeck Country". Most of his early work dealt with subjects familiar to him from his formative years. An exception was his first novel, Cup of Gold, which concerns the pirate Henry Morgan, whose adventures had captured Steinbeck's imagination as a child.

In his subsequent novels, Steinbeck found a more authentic voice by drawing upon direct memories of his life in California. His childhood friend, Max Wagner, a brother of Jack Wagner and who later became a film actor, served as inspiration for The Red Pony. Later he used real American historical conditions and events in the first half of the 20th century, which he had experienced first-hand as a reporter. Steinbeck often populated his stories with struggling characters; his works examined the lives of the working class and migrant workers during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression.

His later work reflected his wide range of interests, including marine biology, politics, religion, history, and mythology. One of his last published works was Travels with Charley, a travelogue of a road trip he took in 1960 to rediscover America.
Cannery Row in Monterey

Steinbeck's boyhood home, a turreted Victorian building in downtown Salinas, has been preserved and restored by the Valley Guild, a nonprofit organization. Fixed menu lunches are served Monday through Saturday, and the house is open for tours during the summer on Sunday afternoons.

The National Steinbeck Center, two blocks away at One Main Street is the only museum in the U.S. dedicated to a single author. Dana Gioia (chair of the National Endowment for the Arts) told an audience at the Center, "This is really the best modern literary shrine in the country, and I've seen them all." Its Steinbeckiana includes Rocinante, the camper truck in which Steinbeck made the cross-country trip described in "Travels with Charley."

His father's cottage on Eleventh Street in Pacific Grove, where Steinbeck wrote some of his earliest books, also survives.

In Monterey, Ed Ricketts' laboratory survives (though it is not yet open to the public) and at the corner which Steinbeck describes in Cannery Row, also the store which once belonged to Lee Chong, and the adjacent vacant lot frequented by the hobos of Cannery Row. The sardine cannery next to Doc's lab closed down long ago and the site is now occupied by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The town has commemorated Steinbeck's work with an avenue of flags depicting characters from Cannery Row and historical plaques, and sculptured busts depicting Steinbeck and Ricketts.
Commemoration

On Feb 27, 1979, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp featuring Steinbeck, starting the Postal Service’s Literary Arts series honoring American writers.

John Steinbeck Official First Day Stamp Cover

On December 5, 2007 California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Steinbeck into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts. His son, author Thomas Steinbeck, accepted the award on his behalf.
Major works
Of Mice and Men
Main article: Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men is a tragedy that was written in the form of a play in 1937. The story is about two traveling ranch workers, George and Lennie, trying to work up enough money to buy their own farm/ranch. It encompasses themes of racism, loneliness, prejudice against the mentally ill, and the struggle for personal independence. Along with Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and The Pearl, Of Mice and Men is one of Steinbeck's best known works. It was made into a movie three times, in 1939 starring Burgess Meredith, Lon Chaney Jr., and Betty Field, in 1982 starring Randy Quaid, Robert Blake and Ted Neeley, and in 1992 starring Gary Sinise and John Malkovich.
The Grapes of Wrath
Main article: The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath was written in 1939 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940. The book is set in the Great Depression and describes a family of sharecroppers, the Joads, who were driven from their land due to the dust storms of the Dust Bowl. The title is a reference to the Battle Hymn of the Republic. The book was made into a film in 1940 starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford.
East of Eden
Main article: East of Eden

Steinbeck deals with the nature of good and evil in this Salinas Valley saga. The story follows two families: the Hamiltons - based on Steinbeck's own maternal ancestry - and the Trasks, reprising stories about the Biblical Adam and his progeny. The book was published in 1952.
Travels With Charley
Main article: Travels With Charley: In Search of America

In 1960, Steinbeck bought a pickup truck and had it modified with a custom-built camper top — which was rare at the time — and drove across the United States with his faithful 'blue' poodle, Charley. Steinbeck nicknamed his truck Rocinante after Don Quixote's "noble steed". In this sometimes comical, sometimes melancholic book, Steinbeck describes what he sees from Maine to Montana to California, and from there to Texas and Louisiana and back to his home in Long Island. The restored camper truck is on exhibit in the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas.
Bibliography

    * Cup of Gold (1927)
    * The Pastures of Heaven (1932)
    * The Red Pony (1933)
    * To a God Unknown (1933)
    * Tortilla Flat (1935)
    * In Dubious Battle (1936)
    * The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to the Grapes of Wrath (1936)
    * Of Mice and Men (1937)
    * The Long Valley (1938)
    * The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
    * The Forgotten Village (1941)
    * Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research (1941)
    * The Moon Is Down (1942)
    * Bombs Away: The Story of a Bomber Team (1942)
    * Cannery Row (1945)
    * The Wayward Bus (1947)
    * The Pearl (1947)
    * A Russian Journal (1948)
    * Burning Bright (1950)
    * The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951)
    * East of Eden (1952)
    * Sweet Thursday (1954)
    * The Short Reign of Pippin IV: A Fabrication (1957)
    * Once There Was A War (1958)
    * The Winter of Our Discontent (1961)
    * Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1962)
    * America and Americans (1966)
    * Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters (1969)
    * Viva Zapata! (1975)
    * The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976)
    * Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath (1989)

Filmography

    * 1939—Of Mice and Men—directed by Lewis Milestone, featuring Burgess Meredith, Lon Chaney, Jr., and Betty Field
    * 1940—The Grapes of Wrath—directed by John Ford, featuring Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell and John Carradine
    * 1941—The Forgotten Village—directed by Alexander Hammid and Herbert Kline, narrated by Burgess Meredith, music by Hanns Eisler
    * 1942—Tortilla Flat—directed by Victor Fleming, featuring Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr and John Garfield
    * 1943—The Moon is Down—directed by Irving Pichel, featuring Lee J. Cobb and Sir Cedric Hardwicke
    * 1944—Lifeboat—directed by Alfred Hitchcock, featuring Tallulah Bankhead, Hume Cronyn, and John Hodiak
    * 1944—A Medal for Benny—directed by Irving Pichel, featuring Dorothy Lamour and Arturo de Cordova
    * 1947—La Perla (The Pearl, Mexico)—directed by Emilio Fernández, featuring Pedro Armendáriz and María Elena Marqués
    * 1949—The Red Pony—directed by Lewis Milestone, featuring Myrna Loy, Robert Mitchum, and Louis Calhern
    * 1952—Viva Zapata!—directed by Elia Kazan, featuring Marlon Brando, Anthony Quinn and Jean Peters
    * 1955—East of Eden—directed by Elia Kazan, featuring James Dean, Julie Harris, Jo Van Fleet, and Raymond Massey
    * 1956—The Wayward Bus—directed by Victor Vicas, featuring Rick Jason, Jayne Mansfield, and Joan Collins
    * 1961—Flight—featuring Efrain Ramírez and Arnelia Cortez
    * 1962—Ikimize bir dünya (Of Mice and Men, Turkey)
    * 1972—Topoli (Of Mice and Men, Iran)
    * 1982—Cannery Row—directed by David S. Ward, featuring Nick Nolte and Debra Winger
    * 1992—Of Mice and Men—directed by Gary Sinise and starring John Malkovich and Gary Sinise

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Of Mice and Men is a great book!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 6:22 am


http://hackedgadgets.com/wp-content/computer_mouse_using_a_real_dead_mouse_4.jpg
http://www.halloween-party-idea.net/images/minnie.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/27/10 at 6:23 am


http://welcometothesalon.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/mouse_trap_board_and_boxjpg.jpg

I never had that game :(

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm66/Phil_O-Sopher/MouseTrap.jpg

Is that going to be enough protection? ;D

http://hackedgadgets.com/wp-content/computer_mouse_using_a_real_dead_mouse_4.jpg

Nice, I have to find one of those. ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 6:23 am

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2364/1790655244_defd620802.jpg

Oh dear!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/27/10 at 6:24 am


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2364/1790655244_defd620802.jpg

Oh dear!

Poor kitty  :(  :-\\  ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 6:25 am


I never had that game :(
I only played it once when I was young.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 6:26 am

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2537/3912677296_6015981cb2_m.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 6:28 am

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2464/3592206278_3ccc7c2d2f_m.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/27/10 at 6:37 am

The person who died on this day...Spike Milligan
Terence Alan Patrick Seán Milligan KBE (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002), known as Spike Milligan, was an Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet and playwright. Milligan was the co-creator, main writer and a principal cast member of The Goon Show, performing a range of roles including the popular Eccles.

Milligan wrote and/or edited many books, including Puckoon and his six-volume autobiographical account of his time serving during the Second World War, beginning with Adolf Hitler: My part in his downfall. He is also noted as a popular writer of comical verse, much of his poetry was written for children, including Silly Verse for Kids (1959). After enormous success with the ground-breaking British radio programme, The Goon Show, Milligan translated this success to television with Q5; a surreal sketch show which is credited as a major influence on the members of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Milligan was born in Ahmednagar, India, on 16 April 1918, the son of an Irish-born father, Captain Leo Alphonso Milligan, MSM, RA (1890-1969), who was serving in the British Indian Army. His mother, Florence Mary Winifred Kettleband (1893-1990), was born in England. He spent his childhood in Poona (India) and later in Rangoon, capital of Burma (Myanmar). He was educated at the Convent of Jesus and Mary, Poona, and St Paul's Christian Brothers, de la Salle, Rangoon.

He lived most of his life in England and served in the British Army, in the Royal Artillery during World War II.
illigan returned to jazz in the late 1940s and made a precarious living with the Hall trio and other musical comedy acts. He was also trying to break into the world of radio, as either a performer or as a script writer. His first success in radio was as writer for comedian Derek Roy's show. After a delayed start, Milligan, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine joined forces in a relatively radical comedy project, The Goon Show. During its first season the BBC titled the show as Crazy People, or in full, "The Junior Crazy Gang featuring those Crazy People, the Goons!", an attempt to make the programme palatable to BBC officials by connecting it with the popular group of theatre comedians known as The Crazy Gang.

The first episode was broadcast on 28 May 1951 on the BBC Home Service. Although he did not perform as much in the early shows Milligan eventually became a lead performer in almost all of the Goon Show episodes, portraying a wide range of characters including Eccles, Minnie Bannister, Willium Mate, Jim Spriggs and the nefarious Count Moriarty. He was also the primary author of most of the scripts, although he co-wrote many scripts with various collaborators, most notably Larry Stephens and Eric Sykes. Most of the early shows were co-written with Stephens (and edited by Jimmy Grafton) but this partnership faltered after Series 3. Milligan wrote most of Series 4 himself, but from Series 5 (coinciding with the birth of the Milligans' second child Sean) and through most of Series 6, Milligan collaborated with Eric Sykes, a development that grew out of Milligan's contemporary business collaboration with Sykes in Associated London Scripts. Milligan and Stephens reunited during Series 6, but towards the end of Series 8 Stephens was sidelined by health problems, and Milligan worked briefly with John Antrobus. The Milligan-Stephens partnership was finally ended by Stephens' untimely death from a brain hemorrage in January 1959 and Milligan later downplayed and disparaged Stephens' contributions.

The Goon Show was recorded before a studio audience, and during the audience warm-up session, Milligan would play the trumpet, while Peter Sellers played on the orchestra's drums. For the first few years the shows were recorded live, direct to 16-inch transcription disc, which required the cast to adhere closely to the script, but by Series 4 the BBC had adopted the use of magnetic tape. Milligan eagerly exploited the possibilities the new technology offered -- the tapes could be edited, so the cast could now ad-lib freely, and tape also enabled the creation of groundbreaking sound effects. Over the first three series Milligan's demands for increasingly complex sound effects (or 'grams', as they were then known) pushed the available technology and the skills of the BBC engineers to their limits -- effects had to be created mechanically (foley) or played back from discs, sometimes requiring the use of four or five turntables running simultaneously. With magnetic tape, these effects could be produced in advance and the BBC engineers were able to create highly complex, tightly edited effects 'stings' that would have been very difficult (if not impossible) to perform using foley or disc. In the later years of the series many Goon Show 'grams' were produced for the series by members of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, a notable example being the famous "Bloodnok's Stomach" effect, realised by Dick Mills.

Although The Goons elevated Milligan to international stardom, the demands of writing and performing the series took a heavy toll. During Series 3 he suffered the first of several serious mental breakdowns, which also marked the onset of a decades-long cycle of manic/depressive illness. In late 1952, possibly exacerbated by suppressed tensions between the Goons stars, Milligan apparently became irrationally convinced that he had to kill Peter Sellers, but when he attempted to gain entry to Sellers' neighbouring flat, armed with a potato knife, he accidentally walked straight through the plate-glass front door. He was hospitalised, heavily sedated for two weeks, and spent almost two months recuperating; fortunately, a backlog of scripts meant that his illness had little effect on the production of The Goon Show. Milligan later blamed the pressure of writing and performing The Goon Show for both his breakdown and the failure of his first marriage.
Television

Milligan made several forays into television as a writer-performer, in addition to his many guest appearances on interview, variety and sketch comedy series from the 1950s to the 2000s.

The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d (1956) starring Peter Sellers was the first attempt to translate Goon humour to TV; it was followed by A Show Called Fred and Son of Fred, both made during 1956 and directed by Richard Lester, who went on to work with The Beatles. In 1961 Milligan co-wrote two episodes of the popular sitcom Sykes and A..., co-starring Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques.

The 15-minute series The Telegoons (1963) was the next attempt to transplant The Goons to television, this time using puppet versions of the familiar characters. The initial intention was to 'visualise' original recordings of 1950s Goon Show episodes, but this proved difficult to achieve in practice due to the rapid-fire dialogue and was ultimately frustrated by the BBC's refusal to allow the original audio to be used. 15-minute adaptations of the original scripts by Maurice Wiltshire were used instead, with Milligan, Sellers and Seacombe reuniting to provide the voices; according to a contemporary press report, they received the highest fees the BBC had ever paid for 15-minute shows. Two series were made in 1963 and 1964 and (presumably because it was shot on 35mm film rather than video) the entire series has reportedly been preserved in the BBC archives.

Milligan's next major TV venture was the sketch comedy series The World of Beachcomber (BBC, 1968); it is thought that all 19 episodes are now lost.

In 1968 the three Goons reunited for a televised re-staging of a vintage Goon Show for Thames Television, with John Cleese substituting for the late Wallace Greenslade, but the pilot was not successful and no further programs were made.

In early 1969 Milligan starred in the ill-fated situation comedy Curry & Chips, created and written by Johnny Speight and featuring Milligan's old friend and colleague Eric Sykes. Curry & Chips set out to satirize racist attitudes in Britain in a similar vein to Speight's earlier creation, the hugely successful Till Death Us Do Part, with Milligan 'blacking up' to play Kevin O'Grady, a half-Pakistani/half-Irish factory worker. The series generated numerous complaints because of its frequent use of racist epithets and 'bad language' - one viewer reportedly complained of counting 59 uses of the word "bloody" in one episode - and it was cancelled on the orders of the Independent Broadcasting Authority after only six episodes.

Later that year, Milligan was commissioned by the BBC to write and star in Q5, the first in the innovative "Q" TV series, acknowledged as an important precursor to Monty Python's Flying Circus, which premiered several months later. However there was a hiatus of several years before the BBC commissioned Q6 in 1975. Q7 appeared in 1977, Q8 in 1978, Q9 in 1980 and There's a Lot of It About in 1982. Milligan later complained of the BBC's cold attitude towards the series and stated that he would have made more programs had he been given the opportunity.

The Bed-Sitting Room

In 1961-62, during the long pauses between the matinee and the evening show of Treasure Island, Milligan began talking to Miles about the idea he and John Antrobus were exploring of a dramatized post-nuclear world. This became the one-act play The Bed-Sitting Room, which Milligan co-wrote with John Antrobus, and which premiered at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury on 12 February 1962. It was adapted to a longer play, and staged by Miles at London's Mermaid Theatre, making its debut on 31 January 1963. It was a critical and commercial success, and was revived in 1967 with a provincial tour before opening at London's Saville Theatre on 3 May 1967. Finally it was made into a film in 1969.
illustrated in the description of his involvement in theatre, Milligan often ad-libbed. He also did this on radio and television. One of his last screen appearances was in the BBC dramatisation of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, and he was (almost inevitably) noted as an ad-libber.

One of Milligan's most famous ad-lib incidents occurred during a visit to Australia in the late 1960s. He was interviewed live on air and remained in the studio for the news broadcast that followed (read by Rod McNeil), during which Milligan constantly interjected, adding his own name to news items. As a result, he was banned from making any further live appearances on the ABC.
Cartoons and art

Milligan contributed occasional cartoons to the satirical magazine Private Eye. Most were visualizations of one-line jokes. For example, a young boy sees the Concorde and asks his father "What's that?". The reply is "That's a flying groundnut scheme, son." Aside from his well-known comedy and poetry, Milligan was a keen painter.
Advertising

In 1967, applying a satirical angle to a fashion for the inclusion of “superman” inspired characters in UK television commercials, Milligan dressed up in a “Bat-Goons” outfit to head up a series of television commercials for British Petroleum. A contemporary reporter found the TV commercials “funny and effective”. From 1980 to 1982, Milligan advertised for the English Tourist Board, playing a Scotsman on a visit around the different regions of England.
He suffered from severe bipolar disorder for most of his life, having at least ten major mental breakdowns, several lasting over a year. He spoke candidly about his condition and its effect on his life:

   I have got so low that I have asked to be hospitalised and for deep narcosis (sleep). I cannot stand being awake. The pain is too much... Something has happened to me, this vital spark has stopped burning - I go to a dinner table now and I don't say a word, just sit there like a dodo. Normally I am the centre of attention, keep the conversation going - so that is depressing in itself. It's like another person taking over, very strange. The most important thing I say is 'good evening' and then I go quiet.

Prince of Wales

The Prince of Wales was a fan, and Milligan caused a stir by calling him a "little grovelling bastard" on live television in 1994. He later faxed the prince, saying "I suppose a knighthood is out of the question?" In reality he and the Prince were very close friends, and he was made a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE) (honorary because of his Irish citizenship) in 2000. He had been made an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1992.
Campaigning

He was a strident campaigner on environmental matters, particularly arguing against unnecessary noise, such as the use of muzak.

In 1971, Milligan caused controversy by attacking an art exhibition at the Hayward Gallery with a hammer. The exhibit consisted of catfish, oysters and shrimp that were to be electrocuted as part of the exhibition. He was a strong opponent of cruelty to animals and, during an appearance on Room 101, chose fox hunting as a pet hate, and succeeded in banishing it to the eponymous room.

In 1996, he successfully campaigned for the restoration of London's Elfin Oak.

He was also a public opponent of domestic violence, dedicating one of his books to Erin Pizzey.
The grave of Spike Milligan in the grounds of St Thomas, Winchelsea, East Sussex. The epitaph reads "Duirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite", Irish for "I told you I was ill."
Family

Milligan had three children with his first wife June (Marchinie) Marlow: Laura, Seán and Síle. They were married in 1952 and divorced in 1960. He had one daughter with his second wife, Patricia Ridgeway (known as Paddy): the actress Jane Milligan (b. 1966). Jane's first nanny was a New Zealander, Diana Griffiths who lived in the home with them at 127 Holden Road. Milligan and Patricia were married in June 1962 with George Martin as best man. The marriage ended in 1978 with her death. In 1975 Milligan fathered a son, James (born June 1976), in an affair with Margaret Maughan. Another child, a daughter Romany, is suspected to have been born at the same time by a Canadian journalist named Roberta Watt. His last wife was Shelagh Sinclair, to whom he was married from 1983 to his death on 27 February 2002. Four of his children have recently collaborated with documentary makers on a new multi-platform programme called I Told You I Was Ill: The Life and Legacy of Spike Milligan (2005) and accompanying website.

In October 2008 an array of Milligan's personal effects were to be sold at auction by his third wife, Shelagh, who was moving into a smaller home. These included a grand piano salvaged from a demolition and apparently played every morning by Paul McCartney, a neighbour in Rye in East Sussex.
Death

Even late in life, Milligan's black humour had not deserted him. After the death of friend Harry Secombe from cancer, he said, "I'm glad he died before me, because I didn't want him to sing at my funeral." A recording of Secombe singing was played at Milligan's memorial service. He also wrote his own obituary, in which he stated repeatedly that he "wrote the Goon show and died".

Milligan died from liver disease, at the age of 83, on 27 February 2002, at his home in Rye, East Sussex. On the day of his funeral, 8 March 2002, his coffin was carried to St Thomas's Church in Winchelsea, Sussex, and was draped in the flag of the Republic of Ireland. He had once quipped that he wanted his headstone to bear the words "I told you I was ill." He was buried at St Thomas's Church cemetery in Winchelsea, East Sussex, but the Chichester Diocese refused to allow this epitaph. A compromise was reached with the Irish translation, "Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite", and additionally in English, "Love, light, peace".
Legacy
The Holden Road plaque

From the 1960s onwards Milligan was a regular correspondent with Robert Graves. Milligan's letters to Graves usually addressed a question to do with classical studies. The letters form part of Graves' bequest to St. John's College, Oxford.

The film of Puckoon, starring Sean Hughes and including Milligan's daughter, the actress Jane Milligan, was released after his death.

Milligan lived for several years in Holden Road, Woodside Park and at The Crescent, Barnet, and was a strong supporter of the Finchley Society. His old house in Woodside Park is now demolished, but there is a blue plaque in his memory on the new house on the site. The Finchley Society is trying to get a statue of him erected in Finchley. There is also a campaign to erect a statue in the London Borough of Lewisham where he grew up (see Honor Oak). After coming to the UK from India in the 1930s he lived at 50 Riseldine Road, Brockley and attended Brownhill Boys' school (later to become Catford Boys' School which was demolished in 1994). Lynsey De Paul is a patron of the Spike Milligan Statue Memorial Fund. There is a plaque and bench located at the Wadestown Library, Wellington New Zealand in an area called Spike Milligan corner.

In a BBC poll in August 1999, Spike Milligan was voted the "funniest person of the last 1000 years". Also, in a 2005 poll to find The Comedians' Comedian, he was voted among the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.

Milligan has been portrayed twice in films. In the adaptation of his novel Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall, he was played by Jim Dale, while Milligan himself played his own father. He was also portrayed by Edward Tudor-Pole in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004). In a 2008 stage play, Surviving Spike, Milligan was played by the entertainer Michael Barrymore.

On 9 June 2006 it was reported that Professor Richard Wiseman had identified Milligan as the writer of the world's funniest joke as decided by the Laughlab project. Professor Wiseman said the joke contained all three elements of what makes a good gag: anxiety, a feeling of superiority, and an element of surprise.

Eddie Izzard described Milligan as "The Godfather of Alternative Comedy". "From his unchained mind came forth ideas that just had no boundaries. And he influenced a new generation of comedians who came to be known as 'alternative'." Members of Monty Python greatly admired him. In one interview, which was widely quoted at the time, John Cleese stated "Milligan is the Great God to all of us". The Pythons gave Milligan a cameo role in their 1979 film, Monty Python's Life of Brian, when Milligan happened to be holidaying in Tunisia, near where it was being filmed. Graham Chapman gave him a minor part in Yellowbeard.

Apart from those cited above, a number of people have played tribute to Milligan's influence on them, with 49 such people contributing to Maxine Ventham's (2002) book "Spike Milligan: His Part in Our Lives".
Radio comedy shows

   * The Goon Show (1951–1960)
   * The Idiot Weekly (1958–1962)
   * The Omar Khayyam Show (1963–1964)
   * Milligna (or Your Favourite Spike) (1972) The title is based on Milligan's introduction in The Last Goon Show of All as "Spike Milligna, the well-known typing error".
   * The Milligan Papers (1987)

Other radio shows

Milligan contributed his recollections of his childhood in India for the acclaimed 1970s BBC audio history series Plain Tales From The Raj. The series was published in book form in 1975 by Andre Deutsch, edited by Charles Allen.
TV comedy shows

   * The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d
   * A Show Called Fred
   * Son of Fred
   * The World of Beachcomber
   * The Q series: Q5, Q6, Q7, Q8, Q9, and There's a Lot of It About
   * Curry & Chips

Other notable TV involvement

   * Six-Five Special, first aired on 31 August 1957. Spike Milligan plays an inventor, Mr. Pym, and acts as a butcher in a sketch.
   * This is Your Life, 11 April 1973. With Sellers, Bentine, and many others. Secombe spoke via a TV recording, as did his great friend Robert Graves.
   * In 1975 Milligan co-wrote (with Neil Shand) and co-starred in a BBC TV sitcom called The Melting Pot. Its cast of characters included two illegal Indian immigrants, an Irish landlord, a Chinese Cockney, a Scottish Arab and numerous other racial stereotypes. After screening the pilot, the series was deemed to be too offensive for transmission. Five episodes remain unseen. Some of the characters and situations were reused in Milligan's novel, The Looney.
   * Tiswas - 1981 edition.
   * Guest appearing along with Peter Cook in Kenny Everett's Christmas Show in 1985.
   * Playing a moaning stranger in an episode from 1987 of In Sickness and in Health.
   * Narrator of The Ratties (1987), a children's cartoon series written by Mike Wallis and Laura Milligan, Spike's daughter.
   * The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town ran as a serial in The Two Ronnies in the 1970s.
   * Special guest star of the 18 January 1979 edition of The Muppet Show
   * Guest star in the 3rd episode of the award-winning BBC Scotland drama series Takin' Over the Asylum (1994)
   * Narrated the 1995 TV show Wolves, Witches and Giants. A cartoon based on the book of the same name, it retold classic tales such as Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella, but with a twist. The programme won the 1995 Royal Television Society award for Best Children's Entertainment, and was nominated for the same award again in 1997.
   * Guest on Series 4, Episode 3 of Room 101 in 1999

Theatre

   * Treasure Island (1961, 1973–1975)
   * The Bed-Sitting Room (1963, 1967) written by Milligan and John Antrobus
   * Oblomov opened at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, in 1964. It was based on the Russian classic by Ivan Goncharov, and gave Milligan the opportunity to play most of the title role in bed. Unsure of his material, on the opening night he improvised a great deal, treating the audience as part of the plot almost, and he continued in this manner for the rest of the run, and on tour as 'Son Of Oblomov'. The show ran at The Comedy Theatre in London's West end in 1965.

Films

   * Down Among the Z Men (1952), played Eccles in a black-and-white secret agent comedy with all the Goons, including early member Michael Bentine and original announcer Andrew Timothy.
   * The Case of the Mukkinese Battle Horn (1956), a Goon-like 2-reel comedy ("Mukkinese" = "mucky knees").
   * The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film (1960), a silent comedy, Richard Lester's debut film.
   * Country postman Harold Petts in Postman's Knock (1962).
   * The Bed-Sitting Room (1969), post-apocalyptic comedy with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and also Arthur Lowe; written by John Antrobus based on the Milligan/Antrobus play. Milligan had a small role as a postman named "Mate", which was also the name of a Goon Show character.
   * The traffic warden who eats the ticket in The Magic Christian (1969).
   * Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972) as Gryphon.
   * Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall (1972), a film of the first volume of his autobiography. Spike played the part of his father. The role of the young Spike Milligan was played by Jim Dale.
   * The decrepit manager of a seedy London hotel in Bruce Beresford's The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972).
   * Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World (1973) children's comedy.
   * Monsieur Bonacieux, husband of Madame Bonacieux (Raquel Welch) in Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers (1973).
   * The Great McGonagall (1974), untalented Scottish poet (based on William Topaz McGonagall) angles to become laureate, with Peter Sellers as Queen Victoria.
   * The decrepit Geste family retainer Crumpet in The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977), with Marty Feldman.
   * A policeman who briefly talks to Dr. Watson and Stapleton when they first arrive on the moors in The Hound of the Baskervilles.
   * The prophet abandoned by his flock in Life of Brian (1979).
   * Monsieur Rimbaud in History of the World, Part I (1981).
   * A royal herald flunkie who accidentally blows a spy's cover in Yellowbeard (1983).

One of Milligan's earlier books
Books

   * Silly Verse for Kids (1959); the 1968 paperback edition omits one poem and adds some from the next two books
   * A Dustbin of Milligan (1961, Dobson Books). Subsequent reprints by Tandem, London, 1965-1975. This book contains a good representation of Milligan's earlier writing style, including poems, cartoons, short stories, letters to Secombe, and his views on some issues.
   * Goblins (1978) A collection of poems
   * The Little Pot Boiler (1963)
   * Puckoon (1963)
   * A Book of Bits, or A Bit of a Book (1965)
   * A Book of Milliganimals (1968)
   * Badjelly the Witch (1973)

   * The Goon Show Scripts (1973). London: Sphere. Milligan's selection of scripts.
   * More Goon Show Scripts (1974, paperback). London: Sphere. ISBN 0-7221-6077-1. Milligan's selection of scripts.
   * The Lost Goon Shows (1987). London: Robson. Milligan's selection of scripts.

   * The Bedsitting Room. First published in Great Britain by Margaret & Jack Hobbs, 1970. Published by Universal-Tandem, 1972. Tandem, 1973. © 1970 Spike Milligan and John Antrobus.
   * The Looney: An Irish Fantasy (1987)
   * The Bedside Milligan
   * "The War (and Peace) Memoirs"
         o The seven memoirs were also recorded as talking books with Spike reciting them in his own inimitable style.
         o Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall (1971)
         o "Rommel?" "Gunner Who?" (1974)
         o Monty: His Part in My Victory (1976)
               + This and the previous two books were released and publicised as the first, second and third part respectively of a trilogy.
         o Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall (1978)
               + This was announced as the fourth part of his "increasingly misnamed" trilogy.
         o Where Have All the Bullets Gone? (1985)
         o Goodbye Soldier (1986)
         o Peace Work (1992)

   * S(I_am_a_loser_who_has_no_respect_for_women)horpe Revisited, added articles and instant relatives. Michael Joseph, London. Published by Penguin. Copyright, Spike Milligan Productions, 1989. ISBN 07181.3356.0
   * Small Dreams of a Scorpion (1972)
   * Hidden Words: Collected Poems
   * Open Heart University
   * Startling Verse for All the Family
   * Sir Nobonk and the Terrible Dreadful Awful Naughty Nasty Dragon
   * A Mad Medley of Milligan
   * Transports of Delight (Sidgwick & Jackson 1974)
   * More Transports of Delight
   * Depression and How to Survive It (with Professor Anthony Clare), medical biography.
   * It Ends with Magic
   * The Murphy (Virgin, 2001)
   * Milligan's Ark
   * The Spike Milligan Letters (edited by Norma Farnes)
   * More Spike Milligan Letters (edited by Norma Farnes)
   * The Unpublished Spike Milligan BOX 18 (edited by Norma Farnes), London, Fourth Estate, 2006. ISBN 978-0-00-721427-3.
   * The "According to" Books
         o The Bible—the Old Testament According to Spike Milligan (Michael Joseph, October 1993)
         o Black Beauty According to Spike Milligan (Michael Joseph, 1996)
         o D.H.Lawrence's John Thomas and Lady Jane: According to Spike Milligan—Part II of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (Michael Joseph, 1995)
         o Frankenstein According to Spike Milligan (Virgin, 1997)
         o The Hound of the Baskervilles According to Spike Milligan
         o Lady Chatterley's Lover According to Spike Milligan (Michael Joseph, April 1994)
         o Robin Hood According to Spike Milligan (Virgin, 1998)
         o Treasure Island According to Spike Milligan
         o Wuthering Heights According to Spike Milligan (Michael Joseph, 1994)
   * The Essential Spike Milligan (compiled by Alexander Games, 2002), ISBN 0-00-767358-2
   * The Compulsive Spike Milligan (Edited by Norma Farnes, 2004), ISBN 0-00-771702-4
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/27/10 at 6:37 am


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2464/3592206278_3ccc7c2d2f_m.jpg

Now that's just wrong ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 6:39 am


The person who died on this day...Spike Milligan
Terence Alan Patrick Seán Milligan KBE (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002), known as Spike Milligan, was an Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet and playwright. Milligan was the co-creator, main writer and a principal cast member of The Goon Show, performing a range of roles including the popular Eccles.

Milligan wrote and/or edited many books, including Puckoon and his six-volume autobiographical account of his time serving during the Second World War, beginning with Adolf Hitler: My part in his downfall. He is also noted as a popular writer of comical verse, much of his poetry was written for children, including Silly Verse for Kids (1959). After enormous success with the ground-breaking British radio programme, The Goon Show, Milligan translated this success to television with Q5; a surreal sketch show which is credited as a major influence on the members of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Milligan was born in Ahmednagar, India, on 16 April 1918, the son of an Irish-born father, Captain Leo Alphonso Milligan, MSM, RA (1890-1969), who was serving in the British Indian Army. His mother, Florence Mary Winifred Kettleband (1893-1990), was born in England. He spent his childhood in Poona (India) and later in Rangoon, capital of Burma (Myanmar). He was educated at the Convent of Jesus and Mary, Poona, and St Paul's Christian Brothers, de la Salle, Rangoon.

He lived most of his life in England and served in the British Army, in the Royal Artillery during World War II.
illigan returned to jazz in the late 1940s and made a precarious living with the Hall trio and other musical comedy acts. He was also trying to break into the world of radio, as either a performer or as a script writer. His first success in radio was as writer for comedian Derek Roy's show. After a delayed start, Milligan, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine joined forces in a relatively radical comedy project, The Goon Show. During its first season the BBC titled the show as Crazy People, or in full, "The Junior Crazy Gang featuring those Crazy People, the Goons!", an attempt to make the programme palatable to BBC officials by connecting it with the popular group of theatre comedians known as The Crazy Gang.

The first episode was broadcast on 28 May 1951 on the BBC Home Service. Although he did not perform as much in the early shows Milligan eventually became a lead performer in almost all of the Goon Show episodes, portraying a wide range of characters including Eccles, Minnie Bannister, Willium Mate, Jim Spriggs and the nefarious Count Moriarty. He was also the primary author of most of the scripts, although he co-wrote many scripts with various collaborators, most notably Larry Stephens and Eric Sykes. Most of the early shows were co-written with Stephens (and edited by Jimmy Grafton) but this partnership faltered after Series 3. Milligan wrote most of Series 4 himself, but from Series 5 (coinciding with the birth of the Milligans' second child Sean) and through most of Series 6, Milligan collaborated with Eric Sykes, a development that grew out of Milligan's contemporary business collaboration with Sykes in Associated London Scripts. Milligan and Stephens reunited during Series 6, but towards the end of Series 8 Stephens was sidelined by health problems, and Milligan worked briefly with John Antrobus. The Milligan-Stephens partnership was finally ended by Stephens' untimely death from a brain hemorrage in January 1959 and Milligan later downplayed and disparaged Stephens' contributions.

The Goon Show was recorded before a studio audience, and during the audience warm-up session, Milligan would play the trumpet, while Peter Sellers played on the orchestra's drums. For the first few years the shows were recorded live, direct to 16-inch transcription disc, which required the cast to adhere closely to the script, but by Series 4 the BBC had adopted the use of magnetic tape. Milligan eagerly exploited the possibilities the new technology offered -- the tapes could be edited, so the cast could now ad-lib freely, and tape also enabled the creation of groundbreaking sound effects. Over the first three series Milligan's demands for increasingly complex sound effects (or 'grams', as they were then known) pushed the available technology and the skills of the BBC engineers to their limits -- effects had to be created mechanically (foley) or played back from discs, sometimes requiring the use of four or five turntables running simultaneously. With magnetic tape, these effects could be produced in advance and the BBC engineers were able to create highly complex, tightly edited effects 'stings' that would have been very difficult (if not impossible) to perform using foley or disc. In the later years of the series many Goon Show 'grams' were produced for the series by members of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, a notable example being the famous "Bloodnok's Stomach" effect, realised by Dick Mills.

Although The Goons elevated Milligan to international stardom, the demands of writing and performing the series took a heavy toll. During Series 3 he suffered the first of several serious mental breakdowns, which also marked the onset of a decades-long cycle of manic/depressive illness. In late 1952, possibly exacerbated by suppressed tensions between the Goons stars, Milligan apparently became irrationally convinced that he had to kill Peter Sellers, but when he attempted to gain entry to Sellers' neighbouring flat, armed with a potato knife, he accidentally walked straight through the plate-glass front door. He was hospitalised, heavily sedated for two weeks, and spent almost two months recuperating; fortunately, a backlog of scripts meant that his illness had little effect on the production of The Goon Show. Milligan later blamed the pressure of writing and performing The Goon Show for both his breakdown and the failure of his first marriage.
Television

Milligan made several forays into television as a writer-performer, in addition to his many guest appearances on interview, variety and sketch comedy series from the 1950s to the 2000s.

The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d (1956) starring Peter Sellers was the first attempt to translate Goon humour to TV; it was followed by A Show Called Fred and Son of Fred, both made during 1956 and directed by Richard Lester, who went on to work with The Beatles. In 1961 Milligan co-wrote two episodes of the popular sitcom Sykes and A..., co-starring Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques.

The 15-minute series The Telegoons (1963) was the next attempt to transplant The Goons to television, this time using puppet versions of the familiar characters. The initial intention was to 'visualise' original recordings of 1950s Goon Show episodes, but this proved difficult to achieve in practice due to the rapid-fire dialogue and was ultimately frustrated by the BBC's refusal to allow the original audio to be used. 15-minute adaptations of the original scripts by Maurice Wiltshire were used instead, with Milligan, Sellers and Seacombe reuniting to provide the voices; according to a contemporary press report, they received the highest fees the BBC had ever paid for 15-minute shows. Two series were made in 1963 and 1964 and (presumably because it was shot on 35mm film rather than video) the entire series has reportedly been preserved in the BBC archives.

Milligan's next major TV venture was the sketch comedy series The World of Beachcomber (BBC, 1968); it is thought that all 19 episodes are now lost.

In 1968 the three Goons reunited for a televised re-staging of a vintage Goon Show for Thames Television, with John Cleese substituting for the late Wallace Greenslade, but the pilot was not successful and no further programs were made.

In early 1969 Milligan starred in the ill-fated situation comedy Curry & Chips, created and written by Johnny Speight and featuring Milligan's old friend and colleague Eric Sykes. Curry & Chips set out to satirize racist attitudes in Britain in a similar vein to Speight's earlier creation, the hugely successful Till Death Us Do Part, with Milligan 'blacking up' to play Kevin O'Grady, a half-Pakistani/half-Irish factory worker. The series generated numerous complaints because of its frequent use of racist epithets and 'bad language' - one viewer reportedly complained of counting 59 uses of the word "bloody" in one episode - and it was cancelled on the orders of the Independent Broadcasting Authority after only six episodes.

Later that year, Milligan was commissioned by the BBC to write and star in Q5, the first in the innovative "Q" TV series, acknowledged as an important precursor to Monty Python's Flying Circus, which premiered several months later. However there was a hiatus of several years before the BBC commissioned Q6 in 1975. Q7 appeared in 1977, Q8 in 1978, Q9 in 1980 and There's a Lot of It About in 1982. Milligan later complained of the BBC's cold attitude towards the series and stated that he would have made more programs had he been given the opportunity.

The Bed-Sitting Room

In 1961-62, during the long pauses between the matinee and the evening show of Treasure Island, Milligan began talking to Miles about the idea he and John Antrobus were exploring of a dramatized post-nuclear world. This became the one-act play The Bed-Sitting Room, which Milligan co-wrote with John Antrobus, and which premiered at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury on 12 February 1962. It was adapted to a longer play, and staged by Miles at London's Mermaid Theatre, making its debut on 31 January 1963. It was a critical and commercial success, and was revived in 1967 with a provincial tour before opening at London's Saville Theatre on 3 May 1967. Finally it was made into a film in 1969.
illustrated in the description of his involvement in theatre, Milligan often ad-libbed. He also did this on radio and television. One of his last screen appearances was in the BBC dramatisation of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, and he was (almost inevitably) noted as an ad-libber.

One of Milligan's most famous ad-lib incidents occurred during a visit to Australia in the late 1960s. He was interviewed live on air and remained in the studio for the news broadcast that followed (read by Rod McNeil), during which Milligan constantly interjected, adding his own name to news items. As a result, he was banned from making any further live appearances on the ABC.
Cartoons and art

Milligan contributed occasional cartoons to the satirical magazine Private Eye. Most were visualizations of one-line jokes. For example, a young boy sees the Concorde and asks his father "What's that?". The reply is "That's a flying groundnut scheme, son." Aside from his well-known comedy and poetry, Milligan was a keen painter.
Advertising

In 1967, applying a satirical angle to a fashion for the inclusion of “superman” inspired characters in UK television commercials, Milligan dressed up in a “Bat-Goons” outfit to head up a series of television commercials for British Petroleum. A contemporary reporter found the TV commercials “funny and effective”. From 1980 to 1982, Milligan advertised for the English Tourist Board, playing a Scotsman on a visit around the different regions of England.
He suffered from severe bipolar disorder for most of his life, having at least ten major mental breakdowns, several lasting over a year. He spoke candidly about his condition and its effect on his life:

    I have got so low that I have asked to be hospitalised and for deep narcosis (sleep). I cannot stand being awake. The pain is too much... Something has happened to me, this vital spark has stopped burning - I go to a dinner table now and I don't say a word, just sit there like a dodo. Normally I am the centre of attention, keep the conversation going - so that is depressing in itself. It's like another person taking over, very strange. The most important thing I say is 'good evening' and then I go quiet.

Prince of Wales

The Prince of Wales was a fan, and Milligan caused a stir by calling him a "little grovelling bastard" on live television in 1994. He later faxed the prince, saying "I suppose a knighthood is out of the question?" In reality he and the Prince were very close friends, and he was made a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE) (honorary because of his Irish citizenship) in 2000. He had been made an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1992.
Campaigning

He was a strident campaigner on environmental matters, particularly arguing against unnecessary noise, such as the use of muzak.

In 1971, Milligan caused controversy by attacking an art exhibition at the Hayward Gallery with a hammer. The exhibit consisted of catfish, oysters and shrimp that were to be electrocuted as part of the exhibition. He was a strong opponent of cruelty to animals and, during an appearance on Room 101, chose fox hunting as a pet hate, and succeeded in banishing it to the eponymous room.

In 1996, he successfully campaigned for the restoration of London's Elfin Oak.

He was also a public opponent of domestic violence, dedicating one of his books to Erin Pizzey.
The grave of Spike Milligan in the grounds of St Thomas, Winchelsea, East Sussex. The epitaph reads "Duirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite", Irish for "I told you I was ill."
Family

Milligan had three children with his first wife June (Marchinie) Marlow: Laura, Seán and Síle. They were married in 1952 and divorced in 1960. He had one daughter with his second wife, Patricia Ridgeway (known as Paddy): the actress Jane Milligan (b. 1966). Jane's first nanny was a New Zealander, Diana Griffiths who lived in the home with them at 127 Holden Road. Milligan and Patricia were married in June 1962 with George Martin as best man. The marriage ended in 1978 with her death. In 1975 Milligan fathered a son, James (born June 1976), in an affair with Margaret Maughan. Another child, a daughter Romany, is suspected to have been born at the same time by a Canadian journalist named Roberta Watt. His last wife was Shelagh Sinclair, to whom he was married from 1983 to his death on 27 February 2002. Four of his children have recently collaborated with documentary makers on a new multi-platform programme called I Told You I Was Ill: The Life and Legacy of Spike Milligan (2005) and accompanying website.

In October 2008 an array of Milligan's personal effects were to be sold at auction by his third wife, Shelagh, who was moving into a smaller home. These included a grand piano salvaged from a demolition and apparently played every morning by Paul McCartney, a neighbour in Rye in East Sussex.
Death

Even late in life, Milligan's black humour had not deserted him. After the death of friend Harry Secombe from cancer, he said, "I'm glad he died before me, because I didn't want him to sing at my funeral." A recording of Secombe singing was played at Milligan's memorial service. He also wrote his own obituary, in which he stated repeatedly that he "wrote the Goon show and died".

Milligan died from liver disease, at the age of 83, on 27 February 2002, at his home in Rye, East Sussex. On the day of his funeral, 8 March 2002, his coffin was carried to St Thomas's Church in Winchelsea, Sussex, and was draped in the flag of the Republic of Ireland. He had once quipped that he wanted his headstone to bear the words "I told you I was ill." He was buried at St Thomas's Church cemetery in Winchelsea, East Sussex, but the Chichester Diocese refused to allow this epitaph. A compromise was reached with the Irish translation, "Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite", and additionally in English, "Love, light, peace".
Legacy
The Holden Road plaque

From the 1960s onwards Milligan was a regular correspondent with Robert Graves. Milligan's letters to Graves usually addressed a question to do with classical studies. The letters form part of Graves' bequest to St. John's College, Oxford.

The film of Puckoon, starring Sean Hughes and including Milligan's daughter, the actress Jane Milligan, was released after his death.

Milligan lived for several years in Holden Road, Woodside Park and at The Crescent, Barnet, and was a strong supporter of the Finchley Society. His old house in Woodside Park is now demolished, but there is a blue plaque in his memory on the new house on the site. The Finchley Society is trying to get a statue of him erected in Finchley. There is also a campaign to erect a statue in the London Borough of Lewisham where he grew up (see Honor Oak). After coming to the UK from India in the 1930s he lived at 50 Riseldine Road, Brockley and attended Brownhill Boys' school (later to become Catford Boys' School which was demolished in 1994). Lynsey De Paul is a patron of the Spike Milligan Statue Memorial Fund. There is a plaque and bench located at the Wadestown Library, Wellington New Zealand in an area called Spike Milligan corner.

In a BBC poll in August 1999, Spike Milligan was voted the "funniest person of the last 1000 years". Also, in a 2005 poll to find The Comedians' Comedian, he was voted among the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.

Milligan has been portrayed twice in films. In the adaptation of his novel Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall, he was played by Jim Dale, while Milligan himself played his own father. He was also portrayed by Edward Tudor-Pole in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004). In a 2008 stage play, Surviving Spike, Milligan was played by the entertainer Michael Barrymore.

On 9 June 2006 it was reported that Professor Richard Wiseman had identified Milligan as the writer of the world's funniest joke as decided by the Laughlab project. Professor Wiseman said the joke contained all three elements of what makes a good gag: anxiety, a feeling of superiority, and an element of surprise.

Eddie Izzard described Milligan as "The Godfather of Alternative Comedy". "From his unchained mind came forth ideas that just had no boundaries. And he influenced a new generation of comedians who came to be known as 'alternative'." Members of Monty Python greatly admired him. In one interview, which was widely quoted at the time, John Cleese stated "Milligan is the Great God to all of us". The Pythons gave Milligan a cameo role in their 1979 film, Monty Python's Life of Brian, when Milligan happened to be holidaying in Tunisia, near where it was being filmed. Graham Chapman gave him a minor part in Yellowbeard.

Apart from those cited above, a number of people have played tribute to Milligan's influence on them, with 49 such people contributing to Maxine Ventham's (2002) book "Spike Milligan: His Part in Our Lives".
Radio comedy shows

    * The Goon Show (1951–1960)
    * The Idiot Weekly (1958–1962)
    * The Omar Khayyam Show (1963–1964)
    * Milligna (or Your Favourite Spike) (1972) The title is based on Milligan's introduction in The Last Goon Show of All as "Spike Milligna, the well-known typing error".
    * The Milligan Papers (1987)

Other radio shows

Milligan contributed his recollections of his childhood in India for the acclaimed 1970s BBC audio history series Plain Tales From The Raj. The series was published in book form in 1975 by Andre Deutsch, edited by Charles Allen.
TV comedy shows

    * The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d
    * A Show Called Fred
    * Son of Fred
    * The World of Beachcomber
    * The Q series: Q5, Q6, Q7, Q8, Q9, and There's a Lot of It About
    * Curry & Chips

Other notable TV involvement

    * Six-Five Special, first aired on 31 August 1957. Spike Milligan plays an inventor, Mr. Pym, and acts as a butcher in a sketch.
    * This is Your Life, 11 April 1973. With Sellers, Bentine, and many others. Secombe spoke via a TV recording, as did his great friend Robert Graves.
    * In 1975 Milligan co-wrote (with Neil Shand) and co-starred in a BBC TV sitcom called The Melting Pot. Its cast of characters included two illegal Indian immigrants, an Irish landlord, a Chinese Cockney, a Scottish Arab and numerous other racial stereotypes. After screening the pilot, the series was deemed to be too offensive for transmission. Five episodes remain unseen. Some of the characters and situations were reused in Milligan's novel, The Looney.
    * Tiswas - 1981 edition.
    * Guest appearing along with Peter Cook in Kenny Everett's Christmas Show in 1985.
    * Playing a moaning stranger in an episode from 1987 of In Sickness and in Health.
    * Narrator of The Ratties (1987), a children's cartoon series written by Mike Wallis and Laura Milligan, Spike's daughter.
    * The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town ran as a serial in The Two Ronnies in the 1970s.
    * Special guest star of the 18 January 1979 edition of The Muppet Show
    * Guest star in the 3rd episode of the award-winning BBC Scotland drama series Takin' Over the Asylum (1994)
    * Narrated the 1995 TV show Wolves, Witches and Giants. A cartoon based on the book of the same name, it retold classic tales such as Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella, but with a twist. The programme won the 1995 Royal Television Society award for Best Children's Entertainment, and was nominated for the same award again in 1997.
    * Guest on Series 4, Episode 3 of Room 101 in 1999

Theatre

    * Treasure Island (1961, 1973–1975)
    * The Bed-Sitting Room (1963, 1967) written by Milligan and John Antrobus
    * Oblomov opened at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, in 1964. It was based on the Russian classic by Ivan Goncharov, and gave Milligan the opportunity to play most of the title role in bed. Unsure of his material, on the opening night he improvised a great deal, treating the audience as part of the plot almost, and he continued in this manner for the rest of the run, and on tour as 'Son Of Oblomov'. The show ran at The Comedy Theatre in London's West end in 1965.

Films

    * Down Among the Z Men (1952), played Eccles in a black-and-white secret agent comedy with all the Goons, including early member Michael Bentine and original announcer Andrew Timothy.
    * The Case of the Mukkinese Battle Horn (1956), a Goon-like 2-reel comedy ("Mukkinese" = "mucky knees").
    * The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film (1960), a silent comedy, Richard Lester's debut film.
    * Country postman Harold Petts in Postman's Knock (1962).
    * The Bed-Sitting Room (1969), post-apocalyptic comedy with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and also Arthur Lowe; written by John Antrobus based on the Milligan/Antrobus play. Milligan had a small role as a postman named "Mate", which was also the name of a Goon Show character.
    * The traffic warden who eats the ticket in The Magic Christian (1969).
    * Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972) as Gryphon.
    * Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall (1972), a film of the first volume of his autobiography. Spike played the part of his father. The role of the young Spike Milligan was played by Jim Dale.
    * The decrepit manager of a seedy London hotel in Bruce Beresford's The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972).
    * Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World (1973) children's comedy.
    * Monsieur Bonacieux, husband of Madame Bonacieux (Raquel Welch) in Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers (1973).
    * The Great McGonagall (1974), untalented Scottish poet (based on William Topaz McGonagall) angles to become laureate, with Peter Sellers as Queen Victoria.
    * The decrepit Geste family retainer Crumpet in The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977), with Marty Feldman.
    * A policeman who briefly talks to Dr. Watson and Stapleton when they first arrive on the moors in The Hound of the Baskervilles.
    * The prophet abandoned by his flock in Life of Brian (1979).
    * Monsieur Rimbaud in History of the World, Part I (1981).
    * A royal herald flunkie who accidentally blows a spy's cover in Yellowbeard (1983).

One of Milligan's earlier books
Books

    * Silly Verse for Kids (1959); the 1968 paperback edition omits one poem and adds some from the next two books
    * A Dustbin of Milligan (1961, Dobson Books). Subsequent reprints by Tandem, London, 1965-1975. This book contains a good representation of Milligan's earlier writing style, including poems, cartoons, short stories, letters to Secombe, and his views on some issues.
    * Goblins (1978) A collection of poems
    * The Little Pot Boiler (1963)
    * Puckoon (1963)
    * A Book of Bits, or A Bit of a Book (1965)
    * A Book of Milliganimals (1968)
    * Badjelly the Witch (1973)

    * The Goon Show Scripts (1973). London: Sphere. Milligan's selection of scripts.
    * More Goon Show Scripts (1974, paperback). London: Sphere. ISBN 0-7221-6077-1. Milligan's selection of scripts.
    * The Lost Goon Shows (1987). London: Robson. Milligan's selection of scripts.

    * The Bedsitting Room. First published in Great Britain by Margaret & Jack Hobbs, 1970. Published by Universal-Tandem, 1972. Tandem, 1973. © 1970 Spike Milligan and John Antrobus.
    * The Looney: An Irish Fantasy (1987)
    * The Bedside Milligan
    * "The War (and Peace) Memoirs"
          o The seven memoirs were also recorded as talking books with Spike reciting them in his own inimitable style.
          o Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall (1971)
          o "Rommel?" "Gunner Who?" (1974)
          o Monty: His Part in My Victory (1976)
                + This and the previous two books were released and publicised as the first, second and third part respectively of a trilogy.
          o Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall (1978)
                + This was announced as the fourth part of his "increasingly misnamed" trilogy.
          o Where Have All the Bullets Gone? (1985)
          o Goodbye Soldier (1986)
          o Peace Work (1992)

    * S(I_am_a_loser_who_has_no_respect_for_women)horpe Revisited, added articles and instant relatives. Michael Joseph, London. Published by Penguin. Copyright, Spike Milligan Productions, 1989. ISBN 07181.3356.0
    * Small Dreams of a Scorpion (1972)
    * Hidden Words: Collected Poems
    * Open Heart University
    * Startling Verse for All the Family
    * Sir Nobonk and the Terrible Dreadful Awful Naughty Nasty Dragon
    * A Mad Medley of Milligan
    * Transports of Delight (Sidgwick & Jackson 1974)
    * More Transports of Delight
    * Depression and How to Survive It (with Professor Anthony Clare), medical biography.
    * It Ends with Magic
    * The Murphy (Virgin, 2001)
    * Milligan's Ark
    * The Spike Milligan Letters (edited by Norma Farnes)
    * More Spike Milligan Letters (edited by Norma Farnes)
    * The Unpublished Spike Milligan BOX 18 (edited by Norma Farnes), London, Fourth Estate, 2006. ISBN 978-0-00-721427-3.
    * The "According to" Books
          o The Bible—the Old Testament According to Spike Milligan (Michael Joseph, October 1993)
          o Black Beauty According to Spike Milligan (Michael Joseph, 1996)
          o D.H.Lawrence's John Thomas and Lady Jane: According to Spike Milligan—Part II of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (Michael Joseph, 1995)
          o Frankenstein According to Spike Milligan (Virgin, 1997)
          o The Hound of the Baskervilles According to Spike Milligan
          o Lady Chatterley's Lover According to Spike Milligan (Michael Joseph, April 1994)
          o Robin Hood According to Spike Milligan (Virgin, 1998)
          o Treasure Island According to Spike Milligan
          o Wuthering Heights According to Spike Milligan (Michael Joseph, 1994)
    * The Essential Spike Milligan (compiled by Alexander Games, 2002), ISBN 0-00-767358-2
    * The Compulsive Spike Milligan (Edited by Norma Farnes, 2004), ISBN 0-00-771702-4
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j210/Coyne53/spike_milligan-s.jpg
http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x169/unclekalbo/TheGoons-1.jpg
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Of course, he died today...

Thanks!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 6:50 am


The person who died on this day...Spike Milligan
Terence Alan Patrick Seán Milligan KBE (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002), known as Spike Milligan, was an Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet and playwright. Milligan was the co-creator, main writer and a principal cast member of The Goon Show, performing a range of roles including the popular Eccles.

Milligan wrote and/or edited many books, including Puckoon and his six-volume autobiographical account of his time serving during the Second World War, beginning with Adolf Hitler: My part in his downfall. He is also noted as a popular writer of comical verse, much of his poetry was written for children, including Silly Verse for Kids (1959). After enormous success with the ground-breaking British radio programme, The Goon Show, Milligan translated this success to television with Q5; a surreal sketch show which is credited as a major influence on the members of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Milligan was born in Ahmednagar, India, on 16 April 1918, the son of an Irish-born father, Captain Leo Alphonso Milligan, MSM, RA (1890-1969), who was serving in the British Indian Army. His mother, Florence Mary Winifred Kettleband (1893-1990), was born in England. He spent his childhood in Poona (India) and later in Rangoon, capital of Burma (Myanmar). He was educated at the Convent of Jesus and Mary, Poona, and St Paul's Christian Brothers, de la Salle, Rangoon.

He lived most of his life in England and served in the British Army, in the Royal Artillery during World War II.
illigan returned to jazz in the late 1940s and made a precarious living with the Hall trio and other musical comedy acts. He was also trying to break into the world of radio, as either a performer or as a script writer. His first success in radio was as writer for comedian Derek Roy's show. After a delayed start, Milligan, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine joined forces in a relatively radical comedy project, The Goon Show. During its first season the BBC titled the show as Crazy People, or in full, "The Junior Crazy Gang featuring those Crazy People, the Goons!", an attempt to make the programme palatable to BBC officials by connecting it with the popular group of theatre comedians known as The Crazy Gang.

The first episode was broadcast on 28 May 1951 on the BBC Home Service. Although he did not perform as much in the early shows Milligan eventually became a lead performer in almost all of the Goon Show episodes, portraying a wide range of characters including Eccles, Minnie Bannister, Willium Mate, Jim Spriggs and the nefarious Count Moriarty. He was also the primary author of most of the scripts, although he co-wrote many scripts with various collaborators, most notably Larry Stephens and Eric Sykes. Most of the early shows were co-written with Stephens (and edited by Jimmy Grafton) but this partnership faltered after Series 3. Milligan wrote most of Series 4 himself, but from Series 5 (coinciding with the birth of the Milligans' second child Sean) and through most of Series 6, Milligan collaborated with Eric Sykes, a development that grew out of Milligan's contemporary business collaboration with Sykes in Associated London Scripts. Milligan and Stephens reunited during Series 6, but towards the end of Series 8 Stephens was sidelined by health problems, and Milligan worked briefly with John Antrobus. The Milligan-Stephens partnership was finally ended by Stephens' untimely death from a brain hemorrage in January 1959 and Milligan later downplayed and disparaged Stephens' contributions.

The Goon Show was recorded before a studio audience, and during the audience warm-up session, Milligan would play the trumpet, while Peter Sellers played on the orchestra's drums. For the first few years the shows were recorded live, direct to 16-inch transcription disc, which required the cast to adhere closely to the script, but by Series 4 the BBC had adopted the use of magnetic tape. Milligan eagerly exploited the possibilities the new technology offered -- the tapes could be edited, so the cast could now ad-lib freely, and tape also enabled the creation of groundbreaking sound effects. Over the first three series Milligan's demands for increasingly complex sound effects (or 'grams', as they were then known) pushed the available technology and the skills of the BBC engineers to their limits -- effects had to be created mechanically (foley) or played back from discs, sometimes requiring the use of four or five turntables running simultaneously. With magnetic tape, these effects could be produced in advance and the BBC engineers were able to create highly complex, tightly edited effects 'stings' that would have been very difficult (if not impossible) to perform using foley or disc. In the later years of the series many Goon Show 'grams' were produced for the series by members of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, a notable example being the famous "Bloodnok's Stomach" effect, realised by Dick Mills.

Although The Goons elevated Milligan to international stardom, the demands of writing and performing the series took a heavy toll. During Series 3 he suffered the first of several serious mental breakdowns, which also marked the onset of a decades-long cycle of manic/depressive illness. In late 1952, possibly exacerbated by suppressed tensions between the Goons stars, Milligan apparently became irrationally convinced that he had to kill Peter Sellers, but when he attempted to gain entry to Sellers' neighbouring flat, armed with a potato knife, he accidentally walked straight through the plate-glass front door. He was hospitalised, heavily sedated for two weeks, and spent almost two months recuperating; fortunately, a backlog of scripts meant that his illness had little effect on the production of The Goon Show. Milligan later blamed the pressure of writing and performing The Goon Show for both his breakdown and the failure of his first marriage.
Television

Milligan made several forays into television as a writer-performer, in addition to his many guest appearances on interview, variety and sketch comedy series from the 1950s to the 2000s.

The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d (1956) starring Peter Sellers was the first attempt to translate Goon humour to TV; it was followed by A Show Called Fred and Son of Fred, both made during 1956 and directed by Richard Lester, who went on to work with The Beatles. In 1961 Milligan co-wrote two episodes of the popular sitcom Sykes and A..., co-starring Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques.

The 15-minute series The Telegoons (1963) was the next attempt to transplant The Goons to television, this time using puppet versions of the familiar characters. The initial intention was to 'visualise' original recordings of 1950s Goon Show episodes, but this proved difficult to achieve in practice due to the rapid-fire dialogue and was ultimately frustrated by the BBC's refusal to allow the original audio to be used. 15-minute adaptations of the original scripts by Maurice Wiltshire were used instead, with Milligan, Sellers and Seacombe reuniting to provide the voices; according to a contemporary press report, they received the highest fees the BBC had ever paid for 15-minute shows. Two series were made in 1963 and 1964 and (presumably because it was shot on 35mm film rather than video) the entire series has reportedly been preserved in the BBC archives.

Milligan's next major TV venture was the sketch comedy series The World of Beachcomber (BBC, 1968); it is thought that all 19 episodes are now lost.

In 1968 the three Goons reunited for a televised re-staging of a vintage Goon Show for Thames Television, with John Cleese substituting for the late Wallace Greenslade, but the pilot was not successful and no further programs were made.

In early 1969 Milligan starred in the ill-fated situation comedy Curry & Chips, created and written by Johnny Speight and featuring Milligan's old friend and colleague Eric Sykes. Curry & Chips set out to satirize racist attitudes in Britain in a similar vein to Speight's earlier creation, the hugely successful Till Death Us Do Part, with Milligan 'blacking up' to play Kevin O'Grady, a half-Pakistani/half-Irish factory worker. The series generated numerous complaints because of its frequent use of racist epithets and 'bad language' - one viewer reportedly complained of counting 59 uses of the word "bloody" in one episode - and it was cancelled on the orders of the Independent Broadcasting Authority after only six episodes.

Later that year, Milligan was commissioned by the BBC to write and star in Q5, the first in the innovative "Q" TV series, acknowledged as an important precursor to Monty Python's Flying Circus, which premiered several months later. However there was a hiatus of several years before the BBC commissioned Q6 in 1975. Q7 appeared in 1977, Q8 in 1978, Q9 in 1980 and There's a Lot of It About in 1982. Milligan later complained of the BBC's cold attitude towards the series and stated that he would have made more programs had he been given the opportunity.

The Bed-Sitting Room

In 1961-62, during the long pauses between the matinee and the evening show of Treasure Island, Milligan began talking to Miles about the idea he and John Antrobus were exploring of a dramatized post-nuclear world. This became the one-act play The Bed-Sitting Room, which Milligan co-wrote with John Antrobus, and which premiered at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury on 12 February 1962. It was adapted to a longer play, and staged by Miles at London's Mermaid Theatre, making its debut on 31 January 1963. It was a critical and commercial success, and was revived in 1967 with a provincial tour before opening at London's Saville Theatre on 3 May 1967. Finally it was made into a film in 1969.
illustrated in the description of his involvement in theatre, Milligan often ad-libbed. He also did this on radio and television. One of his last screen appearances was in the BBC dramatisation of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, and he was (almost inevitably) noted as an ad-libber.

One of Milligan's most famous ad-lib incidents occurred during a visit to Australia in the late 1960s. He was interviewed live on air and remained in the studio for the news broadcast that followed (read by Rod McNeil), during which Milligan constantly interjected, adding his own name to news items. As a result, he was banned from making any further live appearances on the ABC.
Cartoons and art

Milligan contributed occasional cartoons to the satirical magazine Private Eye. Most were visualizations of one-line jokes. For example, a young boy sees the Concorde and asks his father "What's that?". The reply is "That's a flying groundnut scheme, son." Aside from his well-known comedy and poetry, Milligan was a keen painter.
Advertising

In 1967, applying a satirical angle to a fashion for the inclusion of “superman” inspired characters in UK television commercials, Milligan dressed up in a “Bat-Goons” outfit to head up a series of television commercials for British Petroleum. A contemporary reporter found the TV commercials “funny and effective”. From 1980 to 1982, Milligan advertised for the English Tourist Board, playing a Scotsman on a visit around the different regions of England.
He suffered from severe bipolar disorder for most of his life, having at least ten major mental breakdowns, several lasting over a year. He spoke candidly about his condition and its effect on his life:

    I have got so low that I have asked to be hospitalised and for deep narcosis (sleep). I cannot stand being awake. The pain is too much... Something has happened to me, this vital spark has stopped burning - I go to a dinner table now and I don't say a word, just sit there like a dodo. Normally I am the centre of attention, keep the conversation going - so that is depressing in itself. It's like another person taking over, very strange. The most important thing I say is 'good evening' and then I go quiet.

Prince of Wales

The Prince of Wales was a fan, and Milligan caused a stir by calling him a "little grovelling bastard" on live television in 1994. He later faxed the prince, saying "I suppose a knighthood is out of the question?" In reality he and the Prince were very close friends, and he was made a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE) (honorary because of his Irish citizenship) in 2000. He had been made an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1992.
Campaigning

He was a strident campaigner on environmental matters, particularly arguing against unnecessary noise, such as the use of muzak.

In 1971, Milligan caused controversy by attacking an art exhibition at the Hayward Gallery with a hammer. The exhibit consisted of catfish, oysters and shrimp that were to be electrocuted as part of the exhibition. He was a strong opponent of cruelty to animals and, during an appearance on Room 101, chose fox hunting as a pet hate, and succeeded in banishing it to the eponymous room.

In 1996, he successfully campaigned for the restoration of London's Elfin Oak.

He was also a public opponent of domestic violence, dedicating one of his books to Erin Pizzey.
The grave of Spike Milligan in the grounds of St Thomas, Winchelsea, East Sussex. The epitaph reads "Duirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite", Irish for "I told you I was ill."
Family

Milligan had three children with his first wife June (Marchinie) Marlow: Laura, Seán and Síle. They were married in 1952 and divorced in 1960. He had one daughter with his second wife, Patricia Ridgeway (known as Paddy): the actress Jane Milligan (b. 1966). Jane's first nanny was a New Zealander, Diana Griffiths who lived in the home with them at 127 Holden Road. Milligan and Patricia were married in June 1962 with George Martin as best man. The marriage ended in 1978 with her death. In 1975 Milligan fathered a son, James (born June 1976), in an affair with Margaret Maughan. Another child, a daughter Romany, is suspected to have been born at the same time by a Canadian journalist named Roberta Watt. His last wife was Shelagh Sinclair, to whom he was married from 1983 to his death on 27 February 2002. Four of his children have recently collaborated with documentary makers on a new multi-platform programme called I Told You I Was Ill: The Life and Legacy of Spike Milligan (2005) and accompanying website.

In October 2008 an array of Milligan's personal effects were to be sold at auction by his third wife, Shelagh, who was moving into a smaller home. These included a grand piano salvaged from a demolition and apparently played every morning by Paul McCartney, a neighbour in Rye in East Sussex.
Death

Even late in life, Milligan's black humour had not deserted him. After the death of friend Harry Secombe from cancer, he said, "I'm glad he died before me, because I didn't want him to sing at my funeral." A recording of Secombe singing was played at Milligan's memorial service. He also wrote his own obituary, in which he stated repeatedly that he "wrote the Goon show and died".

Milligan died from liver disease, at the age of 83, on 27 February 2002, at his home in Rye, East Sussex. On the day of his funeral, 8 March 2002, his coffin was carried to St Thomas's Church in Winchelsea, Sussex, and was draped in the flag of the Republic of Ireland. He had once quipped that he wanted his headstone to bear the words "I told you I was ill." He was buried at St Thomas's Church cemetery in Winchelsea, East Sussex, but the Chichester Diocese refused to allow this epitaph. A compromise was reached with the Irish translation, "Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite", and additionally in English, "Love, light, peace".
Legacy
The Holden Road plaque

From the 1960s onwards Milligan was a regular correspondent with Robert Graves. Milligan's letters to Graves usually addressed a question to do with classical studies. The letters form part of Graves' bequest to St. John's College, Oxford.

The film of Puckoon, starring Sean Hughes and including Milligan's daughter, the actress Jane Milligan, was released after his death.

Milligan lived for several years in Holden Road, Woodside Park and at The Crescent, Barnet, and was a strong supporter of the Finchley Society. His old house in Woodside Park is now demolished, but there is a blue plaque in his memory on the new house on the site. The Finchley Society is trying to get a statue of him erected in Finchley. There is also a campaign to erect a statue in the London Borough of Lewisham where he grew up (see Honor Oak). After coming to the UK from India in the 1930s he lived at 50 Riseldine Road, Brockley and attended Brownhill Boys' school (later to become Catford Boys' School which was demolished in 1994). Lynsey De Paul is a patron of the Spike Milligan Statue Memorial Fund. There is a plaque and bench located at the Wadestown Library, Wellington New Zealand in an area called Spike Milligan corner.

In a BBC poll in August 1999, Spike Milligan was voted the "funniest person of the last 1000 years". Also, in a 2005 poll to find The Comedians' Comedian, he was voted among the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.

Milligan has been portrayed twice in films. In the adaptation of his novel Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall, he was played by Jim Dale, while Milligan himself played his own father. He was also portrayed by Edward Tudor-Pole in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004). In a 2008 stage play, Surviving Spike, Milligan was played by the entertainer Michael Barrymore.

On 9 June 2006 it was reported that Professor Richard Wiseman had identified Milligan as the writer of the world's funniest joke as decided by the Laughlab project. Professor Wiseman said the joke contained all three elements of what makes a good gag: anxiety, a feeling of superiority, and an element of surprise.

Eddie Izzard described Milligan as "The Godfather of Alternative Comedy". "From his unchained mind came forth ideas that just had no boundaries. And he influenced a new generation of comedians who came to be known as 'alternative'." Members of Monty Python greatly admired him. In one interview, which was widely quoted at the time, John Cleese stated "Milligan is the Great God to all of us". The Pythons gave Milligan a cameo role in their 1979 film, Monty Python's Life of Brian, when Milligan happened to be holidaying in Tunisia, near where it was being filmed. Graham Chapman gave him a minor part in Yellowbeard.

Apart from those cited above, a number of people have played tribute to Milligan's influence on them, with 49 such people contributing to Maxine Ventham's (2002) book "Spike Milligan: His Part in Our Lives".
Radio comedy shows

    * The Goon Show (1951–1960)
    * The Idiot Weekly (1958–1962)
    * The Omar Khayyam Show (1963–1964)
    * Milligna (or Your Favourite Spike) (1972) The title is based on Milligan's introduction in The Last Goon Show of All as "Spike Milligna, the well-known typing error".
    * The Milligan Papers (1987)

Other radio shows

Milligan contributed his recollections of his childhood in India for the acclaimed 1970s BBC audio history series Plain Tales From The Raj. The series was published in book form in 1975 by Andre Deutsch, edited by Charles Allen.
TV comedy shows

    * The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d
    * A Show Called Fred
    * Son of Fred
    * The World of Beachcomber
    * The Q series: Q5, Q6, Q7, Q8, Q9, and There's a Lot of It About
    * Curry & Chips

Other notable TV involvement

    * Six-Five Special, first aired on 31 August 1957. Spike Milligan plays an inventor, Mr. Pym, and acts as a butcher in a sketch.
    * This is Your Life, 11 April 1973. With Sellers, Bentine, and many others. Secombe spoke via a TV recording, as did his great friend Robert Graves.
    * In 1975 Milligan co-wrote (with Neil Shand) and co-starred in a BBC TV sitcom called The Melting Pot. Its cast of characters included two illegal Indian immigrants, an Irish landlord, a Chinese Cockney, a Scottish Arab and numerous other racial stereotypes. After screening the pilot, the series was deemed to be too offensive for transmission. Five episodes remain unseen. Some of the characters and situations were reused in Milligan's novel, The Looney.
    * Tiswas - 1981 edition.
    * Guest appearing along with Peter Cook in Kenny Everett's Christmas Show in 1985.
    * Playing a moaning stranger in an episode from 1987 of In Sickness and in Health.
    * Narrator of The Ratties (1987), a children's cartoon series written by Mike Wallis and Laura Milligan, Spike's daughter.
    * The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town ran as a serial in The Two Ronnies in the 1970s.
    * Special guest star of the 18 January 1979 edition of The Muppet Show
    * Guest star in the 3rd episode of the award-winning BBC Scotland drama series Takin' Over the Asylum (1994)
    * Narrated the 1995 TV show Wolves, Witches and Giants. A cartoon based on the book of the same name, it retold classic tales such as Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella, but with a twist. The programme won the 1995 Royal Television Society award for Best Children's Entertainment, and was nominated for the same award again in 1997.
    * Guest on Series 4, Episode 3 of Room 101 in 1999

Theatre

    * Treasure Island (1961, 1973–1975)
    * The Bed-Sitting Room (1963, 1967) written by Milligan and John Antrobus
    * Oblomov opened at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, in 1964. It was based on the Russian classic by Ivan Goncharov, and gave Milligan the opportunity to play most of the title role in bed. Unsure of his material, on the opening night he improvised a great deal, treating the audience as part of the plot almost, and he continued in this manner for the rest of the run, and on tour as 'Son Of Oblomov'. The show ran at The Comedy Theatre in London's West end in 1965.

Films

    * Down Among the Z Men (1952), played Eccles in a black-and-white secret agent comedy with all the Goons, including early member Michael Bentine and original announcer Andrew Timothy.
    * The Case of the Mukkinese Battle Horn (1956), a Goon-like 2-reel comedy ("Mukkinese" = "mucky knees").
    * The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film (1960), a silent comedy, Richard Lester's debut film.
    * Country postman Harold Petts in Postman's Knock (1962).
    * The Bed-Sitting Room (1969), post-apocalyptic comedy with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and also Arthur Lowe; written by John Antrobus based on the Milligan/Antrobus play. Milligan had a small role as a postman named "Mate", which was also the name of a Goon Show character.
    * The traffic warden who eats the ticket in The Magic Christian (1969).
    * Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972) as Gryphon.
    * Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall (1972), a film of the first volume of his autobiography. Spike played the part of his father. The role of the young Spike Milligan was played by Jim Dale.
    * The decrepit manager of a seedy London hotel in Bruce Beresford's The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972).
    * Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World (1973) children's comedy.
    * Monsieur Bonacieux, husband of Madame Bonacieux (Raquel Welch) in Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers (1973).
    * The Great McGonagall (1974), untalented Scottish poet (based on William Topaz McGonagall) angles to become laureate, with Peter Sellers as Queen Victoria.
    * The decrepit Geste family retainer Crumpet in The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977), with Marty Feldman.
    * A policeman who briefly talks to Dr. Watson and Stapleton when they first arrive on the moors in The Hound of the Baskervilles.
    * The prophet abandoned by his flock in Life of Brian (1979).
    * Monsieur Rimbaud in History of the World, Part I (1981).
    * A royal herald flunkie who accidentally blows a spy's cover in Yellowbeard (1983).

One of Milligan's earlier books
Books

    * Silly Verse for Kids (1959); the 1968 paperback edition omits one poem and adds some from the next two books
    * A Dustbin of Milligan (1961, Dobson Books). Subsequent reprints by Tandem, London, 1965-1975. This book contains a good representation of Milligan's earlier writing style, including poems, cartoons, short stories, letters to Secombe, and his views on some issues.
    * Goblins (1978) A collection of poems
    * The Little Pot Boiler (1963)
    * Puckoon (1963)
    * A Book of Bits, or A Bit of a Book (1965)
    * A Book of Milliganimals (1968)
    * Badjelly the Witch (1973)

    * The Goon Show Scripts (1973). London: Sphere. Milligan's selection of scripts.
    * More Goon Show Scripts (1974, paperback). London: Sphere. ISBN 0-7221-6077-1. Milligan's selection of scripts.
    * The Lost Goon Shows (1987). London: Robson. Milligan's selection of scripts.

    * The Bedsitting Room. First published in Great Britain by Margaret & Jack Hobbs, 1970. Published by Universal-Tandem, 1972. Tandem, 1973. © 1970 Spike Milligan and John Antrobus.
    * The Looney: An Irish Fantasy (1987)
    * The Bedside Milligan
    * "The War (and Peace) Memoirs"
          o The seven memoirs were also recorded as talking books with Spike reciting them in his own inimitable style.
          o Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall (1971)
          o "Rommel?" "Gunner Who?" (1974)
          o Monty: His Part in My Victory (1976)
                + This and the previous two books were released and publicised as the first, second and third part respectively of a trilogy.
          o Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall (1978)
                + This was announced as the fourth part of his "increasingly misnamed" trilogy.
          o Where Have All the Bullets Gone? (1985)
          o Goodbye Soldier (1986)
          o Peace Work (1992)

    * S(I_am_a_loser_who_has_no_respect_for_women)horpe Revisited, added articles and instant relatives. Michael Joseph, London. Published by Penguin. Copyright, Spike Milligan Productions, 1989. ISBN 07181.3356.0
    * Small Dreams of a Scorpion (1972)
    * Hidden Words: Collected Poems
    * Open Heart University
    * Startling Verse for All the Family
    * Sir Nobonk and the Terrible Dreadful Awful Naughty Nasty Dragon
    * A Mad Medley of Milligan
    * Transports of Delight (Sidgwick & Jackson 1974)
    * More Transports of Delight
    * Depression and How to Survive It (with Professor Anthony Clare), medical biography.
    * It Ends with Magic
    * The Murphy (Virgin, 2001)
    * Milligan's Ark
    * The Spike Milligan Letters (edited by Norma Farnes)
    * More Spike Milligan Letters (edited by Norma Farnes)
    * The Unpublished Spike Milligan BOX 18 (edited by Norma Farnes), London, Fourth Estate, 2006. ISBN 978-0-00-721427-3.
    * The "According to" Books
          o The Bible—the Old Testament According to Spike Milligan (Michael Joseph, October 1993)
          o Black Beauty According to Spike Milligan (Michael Joseph, 1996)
          o D.H.Lawrence's John Thomas and Lady Jane: According to Spike Milligan—Part II of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (Michael Joseph, 1995)
          o Frankenstein According to Spike Milligan (Virgin, 1997)
          o The Hound of the Baskervilles According to Spike Milligan
          o Lady Chatterley's Lover According to Spike Milligan (Michael Joseph, April 1994)
          o Robin Hood According to Spike Milligan (Virgin, 1998)
          o Treasure Island According to Spike Milligan
          o Wuthering Heights According to Spike Milligan (Michael Joseph, 1994)
    * The Essential Spike Milligan (compiled by Alexander Games, 2002), ISBN 0-00-767358-2
    * The Compulsive Spike Milligan (Edited by Norma Farnes, 2004), ISBN 0-00-771702-4
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j210/Coyne53/spike_milligan-s.jpg
http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x169/unclekalbo/TheGoons-1.jpg
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x55/derekclive35/anappleaday_1.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkOAUht3G5o

A classic moment from Spike Milligan at the British Comedy Awards in 1994 called Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales a "little grovelling bastard".

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 6:56 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffkYD2_uTzg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 6:58 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qClVtN1ELgA

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/27/10 at 7:29 am


Of course, he died today...

Thanks!

I thought you would like if I did him :)
I had to leave some things out because there was too many words.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/27/10 at 7:31 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkOAUht3G5o

A classic moment from Spike Milligan at the British Comedy Awards in 1994 called Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales a "little grovelling bastard".

I tried to watch it, but it said it was blocked in my country. :(

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/27/10 at 7:33 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffkYD2_uTzg

;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/27/10 at 7:34 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qClVtN1ELgA

My brains not working, what's the name of the song? I know it but can't think of the title.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/27/10 at 10:13 am


http://welcometothesalon.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/mouse_trap_board_and_boxjpg.jpg



We had that game. I don't recall ever playing it-I just remembered that it took so long to put it together that I got bored before we actually played.  :D ;D ;D



http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2464/3592206278_3ccc7c2d2f_m.jpg



My niece has that job-SERIOUSLY!!! She recently got a job working at Disneyland in California where she is either Mikey, Minnie, Milo, Stitch, Chip, or Dale.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/27/10 at 10:19 am


My brains not working, what's the name of the song? I know it but can't think of the title.



Rhapsody in Blue-by George Gershwin


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U40xBSz6Dc




Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 10:19 am


My brains not working, what's the name of the song? I know it but can't think of the title.
Rhapsody In Blue by George Gershwin

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 10:20 am



Rhapsody in Blue-by George Gershwin


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U40xBSz6Dc




Cat

Rhapsody In Blue by George Gershwin
You beat me to it!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/27/10 at 10:23 am


You beat me to it!



My brother (who plays the piano by ear) was going to learn how to play that-using music. He would look at the music, look down at the piano, play a chord, look up at the music, look down at the piano, play a chord, etc. etc. etc. He finally got it where you know what he was trying to play but he stumbled through it. My dad (who could have been a concert pianist in his heyday), came in, sat down at the piano, opened the music and played it as if he played it everyday of his life. The look on my brother's face was...well, let's just say if looks could kill.  ;D ;D ;D



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/27/10 at 11:32 am



My brother (who plays the piano by ear) was going to learn how to play that-using music. He would look at the music, look down at the piano, play a chord, look up at the music, look down at the piano, play a chord, etc. etc. etc. He finally got it where you know what he was trying to play but he stumbled through it. My dad (who could have been a concert pianist in his heyday), came in, sat down at the piano, opened the music and played it as if he played it everyday of his life. The look on my brother's face was...well, let's just say if looks could kill.  ;D ;D ;D



Cat
He-He!!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 02/27/10 at 12:50 pm



My brother (who plays the piano by ear) was going to learn how to play that-using music. He would look at the music, look down at the piano, play a chord, look up at the music, look down at the piano, play a chord, etc. etc. etc. He finally got it where you know what he was trying to play but he stumbled through it. My dad (who could have been a concert pianist in his heyday), came in, sat down at the piano, opened the music and played it as if he played it everyday of his life. The look on my brother's face was...well, let's just say if looks could kill.  ;D ;D ;D



Cat

I often used to do that when I first began taking private piano lessons in the early 1990s.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 02/27/10 at 12:53 pm



http://welcometothesalon.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/mouse_trap_board_and_boxjpg.jpg


We had that game. I don't recall ever playing it-I just remembered that it took so long to put it together that I got bored before we actually played.  :D ;D ;D

I never owned a copy of it, but a friend of mine did, and we played it together at their home. You're right, it did take a very long time to set it all up. Of course, the mouse trap itself is a Rube Goldberg device! :D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/27/10 at 2:56 pm


Nor did I .


She has scoliosis.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/27/10 at 2:57 pm


The word of the day...Mice
Mice is the plural of mouse.
A mouse is a small furry animal with a long tail.
http://i756.photobucket.com/albums/xx204/omega24614/Ball%20Python/Mice.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/primcindy/mice-1.jpg
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w65/maidog_photos/mice/IMG_5928.jpg
http://i459.photobucket.com/albums/qq315/dottiemadcat/bulk%20cat%20toys/pe---rockin-mice.jpg
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w65/maidog_photos/mice/IMG_5932.jpg
http://i459.photobucket.com/albums/qq315/dottiemadcat/bulk%20cat%20toys/DSC00247.jpg
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d161/bittyskitty94210/animals/animals%202/big_4686041.jpg
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o172/lilbbezoe/Picture173.jpg
http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u236/Magik_Moonmyst/Nature/Animals/watch_harvest_mice.jpg
http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x17/Kawgirl_2007/Small%20Pet%20books/GerbilsRatsandMice.jpg



I used to own gerbils 22 years ago. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 02/27/10 at 3:27 pm



I used to own gerbils 22 years ago. :)



I had gerbils, too-way, WAY back in the dark ages.  :D ;D ;D ;D



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/28/10 at 12:49 am


I thought you would like if I did him :)
I had to leave some things out because there was too many words.
Thanks.

So many words for a varied life.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/28/10 at 12:50 am


I tried to watch it, but it said it was blocked in my country. :(
Blast!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 02/28/10 at 4:11 am

Quote from: ninny on February 27, 2010, 11:31:24 PM
I tried to watch it, but it said it was blocked in my country. Sad


Blast!


Same here..... :(  ....and Spike Milligan was probably the funniest guy that ever lived! Maybe only the Pythons could match him... :-\\

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/28/10 at 4:36 am


Quote from: ninny on February 27, 2010, 11:31:24 PM
I tried to watch it, but it said it was blocked in my country. Sad

Same here..... :(  ....and Spike Milligan was probably the funniest guy that ever lived! Maybe only the Pythons could match him... :-\\
The Pythons owe a lot to him, the Goons inspired them.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/28/10 at 5:10 am


Quote from: ninny on February 27, 2010, 11:31:24 PM
I tried to watch it, but it said it was blocked in my country. Sad

Same here..... :(  ....and Spike Milligan was probably the funniest guy that ever lived! Maybe only the Pythons could match him... :-\\

The Pythons owe a lot to him, the Goons inspired them.

Lets raise a toast to him
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e105/CommentCrazyGirl/Smileys%20Action/Food%20Drink/gettingdrunksmiley.gif

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/28/10 at 5:14 am


Lets raise a toast to him
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e105/CommentCrazyGirl/Smileys%20Action/Food%20Drink/gettingdrunksmiley.gif
To a very clever and inpsroed man!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/28/10 at 5:14 am


To a very clever and inpsroed man!
...and a raving lunatic!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/28/10 at 5:31 am

The word of the day...Rink
A rink is a large area covered with ice where people go to ice-skate, or a large area of concrete where people go to roller-skate.
http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad260/jaynelehman/DSC03924.jpg
http://i587.photobucket.com/albums/ss318/pnguine/Olympics/IMG_2734.jpg
http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/xx132/aladent/Kazakhstan/photos199.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/speedracer93lx/CO%2005/CO%2008/HPIM0089.jpg
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt320/mepsu2003/NYC/NYC031.jpg
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e307/Mog604/Cloudy%20Religion/IMG_8057.jpg
http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt279/morephotosandmail/rink.jpg
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r283/kittykaturule/rink.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 02/28/10 at 5:31 am


The Pythons owe a lot to him, the Goons inspired them.


I'd bet the Goodies also were inspired by Milligan and co...

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/28/10 at 5:34 am

The person who was born on this day...Eric Lindros
Eric Bryan Lindros (pronounced /ˈlɪndrɒs/; born February 28, 1973 in London, Ontario) is a former Canadian professional ice hockey player. He was the first overall pick in the 1991 NHL Entry Draft. He retired in November 2007, after playing the 2006–07 season with the Dallas Stars.
As a teenage power forward playing minor hockey, Lindros became nationally famous both for his scoring feats and his ability to physically dominate players older than himself. He attended Monarch Park and later St. Michael's College School in Toronto with his brother and fellow hockey player, Brett Lindros. Both brothers at one time or another (Eric in 1988–89) played for the school's Metro Junior "B" St. Michael's Buzzers before moving up to the OHL. Lindros' play made him the most highly valued amateur player in North America and he was often nicknamed "The Next One", a reference to Wayne Gretzky's moniker "The Great One."

Throughout his career, Lindros has been tagged with various other nicknames, including "The Big E", which was originally the nickname of the USS Enterprise, the famous World War II aircraft carrier. The hype around Lindros during his early career led to an exclusive deal with sports card manufacturer SCORE. Attempting to leverage this arrangement as much as possible, he was even featured on a baseball card showing him as a third baseman for the Toronto Blue Jays, although the closest he came to a professional baseball career was taking batting practice one day with the Blue Jays.

A controversy arose when Lindros refused to go to the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds after they drafted him from St. Michael's. Lindros had already stated his intention not to join the Greyhounds, but Greyhounds owner Phil Esposito drafted him anyway, enabling Esposito to sell his share in the team at a higher price. Lindros was traded to the Oshawa Generals instead, and when they played the Greyhounds, some Greyhound players wore black armbands in protest of Lindros' antics.

He played parts of three seasons for the Oshawa Generals of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) from 1990 to 1992. During that time, he scored 97 goals and had 119 assists in 95 games played. Lindros helped lead the Generals to the 1990 J. Ross Robertson Cup, and a 1990 Memorial Cup victory. During the 1990–91 OHL season, Lindros won the Eddie Powers Memorial Trophy as top scorer, the Red Tilson Trophy as MVP, the CHL Player of the Year award, and the CHL Top Draft Prospect Award.

On March 6, 2008, the Oshawa Generals retired his #88, just the second number to be retired by the franchise, and it was declared Eric Lindros Day in Oshawa.
1991 NHL Entry Draft

Lindros' entry to the National Hockey League proceeded in much the same manner. Lindros was selected first overall by the Quebec Nordiques in the 1991 NHL Entry Draft. Lindros had signaled in advance that he would never play for the Nordiques, citing distance, lack of marketing potential, and having to speak French. He went as far as to refuse to wear the team's jersey on draft day; the team selected him anyway. The Nordiques president publicly announced that they would make Lindros the centrepiece of their franchise turnaround, and refused to trade Lindros, saying that he would not have a career in the NHL as long as he held out. Because of Lindros' popularity and hype, it is alleged that the NHL President intervened to get the Nordiques to trade him, as it would otherwise damage the image of the league. While he awaited a trade, Lindros spent the time playing with the Oshawa Generals and also participated in the 1992 Winter Olympics, winning a Silver Medal.

In 1992, the Nordiques worked out trades for him with both the New York Rangers, and Philadelphia Flyers. Eventually an arbitrator, Larry Bertuzzi (granduncle of Todd Bertuzzi), ruled in favour of the Flyers, for whom Lindros played from 1992 to 2000, most of the time as the team's captain.

Many consider this trade a key reason that the Colorado Avalanche (the new name of the Nordiques after they relocated before the 1995 season), went on to be an NHL powerhouse. They received in the trade eventual Hart Trophy winner Peter Forsberg, as well as Ron Hextall, Chris Simon, Mike Ricci, Kerry Huffman, Steve Duchesne, a 1st round selection (Jocelyn Thibault) in 1993, a 1st round selection (later traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs, later traded to the Washington Capitals - Nolan Baumgartner) in 1994, and $15,000,000 cash. Since the trade, the Avalanche have won eight division titles and two Stanley Cup championships, due in part to the play of Forsberg, and the later addition of Patrick Roy, whom the Avalanche received in a later package deal that included Thibault.

The trade between the Nordiques and the Rangers that was ruled invalid by the arbitrator had Lindros being traded for Doug Weight, Tony Amonte, Alexei Kovalev, John Vanbiesbrouck, three first round draft picks (1993, 1994 & 1995) and $12 million.
Philadelphia Flyers

With his imposing physical strength and playmaking ability, Lindros established himself as the top player on a Flyers team that had perennially been in contention but always fell short. His time in Philadelphia would see him score points at a phenomenal rate (for much of his first 5 seasons in the NHL, Lindros hovered around 4th all-time in points per game) and become one of the most feared players in the NHL, eventually leading the Flyers to the Stanley Cup finals in 1997 (which they lost to the Detroit Red Wings); he would also suffer frequent injuries and feud with general manager Bobby Clarke.

Along with John LeClair and Mikael Renberg, he played on the "Legion of Doom" line. He scored over 40 goals in each of his first two seasons and won the Hart Trophy as MVP in the lockout-shortened season of 1995 by scoring 29 goals and 41 assists in 46 games. He led the Flyers to the Stanley Cup finals in 1997, handily defeating their three opponents along the way. The Flyers were overmatched against the Detroit Red Wings, however, and were swept in the series, with Lindros managing to score his only goal in the dying minutes of Game 4 to cut the score to 2-1. In 1998, Lindros, only 25 years old, was ranked number 54 on The Hockey News' list of the 100 Greatest Hockey Players of all time. The only player of comparable age was No. 37-ranked Jaromir Jagr, who was 26 at the time.

Lindros' relationship with Flyers general manager Bobby Clarke soon deteriorated. He and Clarke feuded in the media, with Clarke questioning his toughness; Lindros spent many games on the injured reserve and suffered a series of concussions, the first in 1998 from a hit delivered by Pittsburgh's Darius Kasparaitis that sidelined him for 18 games. During an April 1, 1999, game against the Nashville Predators, Lindros suffered what was diagnosed as a rib injury. Later that night, the teammate he was sharing a hotel room with, Keith Jones, discovered Lindros lying in a tub, pale and cold. In a call to the Flyers, the trainer was told to put Lindros on a plane that was returning to Philadelphia with injured team mate Mark Recchi. But Jones insisted that Lindros be taken to a nearby hospital and it was discovered Lindros had a collapsed lung caused by internal bleeding of his chest wall. Lindros's father wrote the Flyers a letter in which he stated that if the trainer had followed team orders, Eric would be dead, a statement supported by the doctors who treated him in Nashville.

The following season, he was stripped of his captaincy after criticizing team doctors. Once again plagued by concussions, Lindros returned in the Eastern Conference Finals, in which he played the final two games of the series, the latter of which Lindros suffered yet another concussion after a hit by New Jersey Devils defenseman Scott Stevens. The Flyers lost the final game and the series, and Lindros became a restricted free agent during the off-season. He refused to accept a 2-way qualifying offer with a minor league provision from the Flyers, who still owned his rights. After Lindros was cleared to play in December, the Flyers refused to deal his rights to the Toronto Maple Leafs, as he preferred, and Lindros sat out the rest of 2000–01 NHL season.
New York Rangers

Flyers GM Bobby Clarke eventually traded Lindros to the New York Rangers on August 20, 2001 for Jan Hlaváč, Kim Johnsson, Pavel Brendl, and a 2003 3rd-round draft choice (Štefan Ružička).

He played for the Rangers for the next three seasons. Though his second season with them was the first injury-free one of his career (albeit his first season averaging under one point a game), in 2004 he sustained his eighth concussion. He was given permission by a doctor to resume training; however, two doctors who had never examined or treated him suggested Lindros retire. He again became an unrestricted free agent.
Toronto Maple Leafs

On August 11, 2005, after the NHL labour dispute had wiped out the 2004–05 season, Lindros signed a one-year, $1.55 million contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs for the 2005–06 NHL season. After a steady start to his tenure with Toronto in which he recorded 22 points in 32 games, Lindros suffered a tear of a ligament in his left wrist against the Dallas Stars on December 10, 2005. After a 27 game absence, Lindros returned to the Toronto lineup on February 28, 2006, against the Washington Capitals. His return was short-lived however, as he re-injured his wrist while taking a slapshot in a game against the Ottawa Senators on March 5, 2006, effectively ending his season. He had surgery on the wrist at the Hand and Upper Limb Centre in London, Ontario two days after the game.
Dallas Stars and Retirement

Lindros signed a one-year contract for the 2006–07 NHL season with the Dallas Stars on July 17, 2006.

Lindros officially announced his retirement on November 8, 2007, in London, Ontario.
Post-playing career

On November 11, 2007, three days after his retirement, the NHL Players Association appointed Lindros to the newly created position of NHLPA ombudsman. Lindros had been involved with the organization throughout his career. Lindros cut ties with the NHL Players' Association on February 3, 2009, resigning as ombudsman after 15 months on the job.
Transactions

    * June 22, 1991 - Quebec Nordiques draft Lindros with the 1st overall pick in the 1991 NHL Entry Draft.
    * June 30, 1992 - Traded by the Quebec Nordiques to the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for Peter Forsberg, Steve Duchesne, Kerry Huffman, Mike Ricci, Ron Hextall, Chris Simon, Philadelphia's 1993 1st round draft choice, Philadelphia's 1994 1st round draft choice and $15,000,000.
    * August 20, 2001 - Traded by the Philadelphia Flyers to the New York Rangers in exchange for Jan Hlaváč, Kim Johnsson, Pavel Brendl and the Rangers' 2003 3rd round draft choice (Štefan Ružička).
    * August 11, 2005 - Signed as a free agent with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
    * July 17, 2006 - Signed as a free agent with the Dallas Stars.
    * November 8, 2007 - Officially announced his retirement from the NHL.

Awards

    * Named to NHL All-Rookie Team - 1993
    * Hart Memorial Trophy - 1995
    * Lester B. Pearson Award - 1995
    * Bobby Clarke Trophy - 1994, 1995, 1996, 1999
    * Played in 6 All-Star Games - 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000
    * Won Olympic Silver Medal with Team Canada in 1992 Winter Olympic Games
    * Won Olympic Gold Medal with Team Canada in 2002 Winter Olympic Games
    * #88 retired by his junior team, the Oshawa Generals

Career statistics
    Regular season   Playoffs
Season Team League GP G A Pts PIM GP G A Pts PIM
1989–90 Oshawa Generals OHL 25 17 19 36 61 17 18 18 36 76
1990–91 Oshawa Generals OHL 57 71 78 149 189 16 18 20 38 93
1991–92 Oshawa Generals OHL 13 9 22 31 54 — — — — —
1992–93 Philadelphia Flyers NHL 61 41 34 75 147 — — — — —
1993–94 Philadelphia Flyers NHL 65 44 53 97 103 — — — — —
1994–95 Philadelphia Flyers NHL 46 29 41 70 60 12 4 11 15 18
1995–96 Philadelphia Flyers NHL 73 47 68 115 163 12 6 6 12 43
1996–97 Philadelphia Flyers NHL 52 32 47 79 136 19 12 14 26 40
1997–98 Philadelphia Flyers NHL 63 30 41 71 134 5 1 2 3 17
1998–99 Philadelphia Flyers NHL 71 40 53 93 120 — — — — —
1999–00 Philadelphia Flyers NHL 55 27 32 59 83 2 1 0 1 0
2001–02 New York Rangers NHL 72 37 36 73 138 — — — — —
2002–03 New York Rangers NHL 81 19 34 53 141 — — — — —
2003–04 New York Rangers NHL 39 10 22 32 60 — — — — —
2005–06 Toronto Maple Leafs NHL 33 11 11 22 43 — — — — —
2006–07 Dallas Stars NHL 49 5 21 26 70 3 0 0 0 4
NHL totals 760 372 493 865 1398 53 24 33 57 122
International play
Olympic medal record
Men's ice hockey
Gold 2002 Salt Lake City Ice hockey
Silver 1992 Albertville Ice hockey

Played for Canada in:

    * 1990 World Junior Championships (gold medal)
    * 1991 World Junior Championships (gold medal)
    * 1991 Canada Cup (championship)
    * 1992 World Junior Championships
    * 1992 Winter Olympics (silver medal)
    * 1993 World Championships
    * 1996 World Cup of Hockey
    * 1998 Winter Olympics
    * 2002 Winter Olympics (gold medal)
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l10/ciazio/Lindros.jpg
http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/ac314/masig/NFT/Local/Hockey/Lindros_RC.jpg
http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/FuzzieMonkie28/f701.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/28/10 at 5:40 am


I'd bet the Goodies also were inspired by Milligan and co...
Originally Tim Brooke-Taylor was to be a part of Monty Python, but he felt that he did not have the comedy writing qualitiies.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/28/10 at 5:49 am

The person who died on this day.. Henry James
enry James, O.M. (April 15, 1843(1843-04-15) – February 28, 1916) was an American writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.

James spent the last 40 years of his life in England, becoming a British subject in 1915, one year before his death. He is primarily known for the series of novels in which he portrays the encounter of Americans with Europe and Europeans. His method of writing from the point of view of a character within a tale allows him to explore issues related to consciousness and perception, and his style in later works has been compared to impressionist painting.

James contributed significantly to the criticism of fiction, particularly in his insistence that writers be allowed the greatest possible freedom in presenting their view of the world. His imaginative use of point of view, interior monologue and possibly unreliable narrators in his own novels and tales brought a new depth and interest to narrative fiction. An extraordinarily productive writer, in addition to his voluminous works of fiction he published articles and books of travel, biography, autobiography, and criticism, and wrote plays, some of which were performed during his lifetime with moderate success. His theatrical work is thought to have profoundly influenced his later novels and tales.
James was born in New York City into a wealthy family. His father, Henry James Sr. was one of the best-known intellectuals in mid-nineteenth-century America. In his youth James traveled back and forth between Europe and America. He studied with tutors in Geneva, London, Paris, Bologna and Bonn. At the age of 19 he briefly attended Harvard Law School, but preferred reading literature to studying law. James published his first short story, A Tragedy of Errors, two years later, and devoted himself to literature. In 1866–69 and 1871–72 he was a contributor to The Nation and Atlantic Monthly.

From an early age James had read the classics of English, American, French and German literature and Russian classics in translation. His first novel, Watch and Ward (1871), was written while he was traveling through Venice and Paris. After living in Paris, where he was contributor to the New York Tribune, James moved to England in 1876, living first in London and then in Rye, Sussex. During his first years in Europe James wrote novels that portrayed Americans living abroad. In 1905 James visited America for the first time in twenty-five years, and wrote "Jolly Corner".

Among James's masterpieces are Daisy Miller (1879); in which the eponymous protagonist, the young and innocent American Daisy Miller, finds her values in conflict with European sophistication; and The Portrait of a Lady (1881), in which once again a young American woman becomes a victim of her provincialism during her travels in Europe. The Bostonians (1886) is set in the era of the rising feminist movement. What Maisie Knew (1897) depicts a preadolescent girl, who must choose between her parents and a motherly old governess. In The Wings of the Dove (1902) an inheritance destroys the love of a young couple. James considered The Ambassadors (1903) his most "perfect" work of art. James's most famous short story is The Turn of the Screw, a ghost story in which the question of childhood corruption obsesses a governess. Although James is best known for his novels, his essays are now attracting a more general audience.
Grave marking Henry James in Cambridge Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Between 1906 and 1910 James revised many of his tales and novels for the New York edition of his complete works. His autobiography, A Small Boy And Others, appeared in 1913 and was continued in Notes Of A Son And Brother (1914). The third volume, The Middle Years, appeared posthumously in 1917. The outbreak of World War I was a shock for James, and on July 26, 1915 he became a British citizen as a declaration of loyalty to his adopted country and in protest against the America's refusal to enter the war. James suffered a stroke on December 2, 1915, and died in London on February 28, 1916. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium and his ashes are interred at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Style and themes
Portrait of Henry James, charcoal drawing by John Singer Sargent (1912).

James is one of the major figures of trans-Atlantic literature. His works frequently juxtapose characters from the Old World (Europe), embodying a feudal civilization that is beautiful, often corrupt, and alluring, and from the New World (United States), where people are often brash, open, and assertive and embody the virtues — freedom and a more highly evolved moral character — of the new American society. James explores this clash of personalities and cultures, in stories of personal relationships in which power is exercised well or badly. His protagonists were often young American women facing oppression or abuse, and as his secretary Theodora Bosanquet remarked in her monograph Henry James at Work:

    When he walked out of the refuge of his study and into the world and looked around him, he saw a place of torment, where creatures of prey perpetually thrust their claws into the quivering flesh of doomed, defenseless children of light… His novels are a repeated exposure of this wickedness, a reiterated and passionate plea for the fullest freedom of development, unimperiled by reckless and barbarous stupidity.

Critics have jokingly described three phases in the development of James's prose: "James the First, James the Second, and The Old Pretender" and observers do often group his works of fiction into three periods. In his apprentice years, culminating with the masterwork The Portrait of a Lady, his style was simple and direct (by the standards of Victorian magazine writing) and he experimented widely with forms and methods, generally narrating from a conventionally omniscient point of view. Plots generally concern romance, except for the three big novels of social commentary that conclude this period. In the second period, as noted above, he abandoned the serialized novel and from 1890 to about 1897, he wrote short stories and plays. Finally, in his third and last period he returned to the long, serialized novel. Beginning in the second period, but most noticeably in the third, he increasingly abandoned direct statement in favor of frequent double negatives, and complex descriptive imagery. Single paragraphs began to run for page after page, in which an initial noun would be succeeded by pronouns surrounded by clouds of adjectives and prepositional clauses, far from their original referents, and verbs would be deferred and then preceded by a series of adverbs. The overall effect could be a vivid evocation of a scene as perceived by a sensitive observer. In its intense focus on the consciousness of his major characters, James's later work foreshadows extensive developments in 20th century fiction. Then and later many readers find the late style difficult and unnecessary; his friend Edith Wharton, who admired him greatly, said that there were passages in his work that were all but incomprehensible. H.G. Wells harshly portrayed James as a hippopotamus laboriously attempting to pick up a pea that has got into a corner of its cage. Some critics have claimed that the more elaborate manner was a result of James taking up the practice of dictating to a secretary. He was afflicted with a stutter and compensated by speaking slowly and deliberately. The late style does become more difficult in the years when he dictates, but James also was able to revise typewritten drafts more extensively, and his few surviving drafts show that the later works are more heavily revised and redrafted. In some cases this leads critics to prefer the earlier, unrevised versions of some works because the older style is thought to be closer to the original conception and spirit of the work, Daisy Miller being a case in point: most of the current reprints of this novel contain the unrevised text. On the other hand, the late revision of the early novel The Portrait of a Lady is generally much preferred to the first edition, even by those who dislike the late style, because of the power of the imagery and the depth of characterization, while his shorter late fiction, such as The Turn of the Screw, is considered highly accessible and remains popular with readers.

More important for his work overall may have been his position as an expatriate, and in other ways an outsider, living in Europe. While he came from middle-class and provincial belongings (seen from the perspective of European polite society) he worked very hard to gain access to all levels of society, and the settings of his fiction range from working class to aristocratic, and often describe the efforts of middle-class Americans to make their way in European capitals. He confessed he got some of his best story ideas from gossip at the dinner table or at country house weekends. He worked for a living, however, and lacked the experiences of select schools, university, and army service, the common bonds of masculine society. He was furthermore a man whose tastes and interests were, according to the prevailing standards of Victorian era Anglo-American culture, rather feminine, and who was shadowed by the cloud of prejudice that then and later accompanied suspicions of his homosexuality. Edmund Wilson famously compared James's objectivity to Shakespeare's:

    One would be in a position to appreciate James better if one compared him with the dramatists of the seventeenth century—Racine and Molière, whom he resembles in form as well as in point of view, and even Shakespeare, when allowances are made for the most extreme differences in subject and form. These poets are not, like Dickens and Hardy, writers of melodrama — either humorous or pessimistic, nor secretaries of society like Balzac, nor prophets like Tolstoy: they are occupied simply with the presentation of conflicts of moral character, which they do not concern themselves about softening or averting. They do not indict society for these situations: they regard them as universal and inevitable. They do not even blame God for allowing them: they accept them as the conditions of life.

It is also possible to see many of James's stories as psychological thought-experiments. The Portrait of a Lady may be an experiment to see what happens when an idealistic young woman suddenly becomes very rich. In many of his tales, characters seem to exemplify alternate futures and possibilities, as most markedly in "The Jolly Corner", in which the protagonist and a ghost-doppelganger live alternate American and European lives; and in others, like The Ambassadors, an older James seems fondly to regard his own younger self facing a crucial moment.
Major novels
"Portrait of Henry James", oil painting by John Singer Sargent (1913)

Although any selection of James's novels as "major" must inevitably depend to some extent on personal preference, the following books have achieved prominence among his works in the views of many critics.

The first period of James's fiction, usually considered to have culminated in The Portrait of a Lady, concentrated on the contrast between Europe and America. The style of these novels is generally straightforward and, though personally characteristic, well within the norms of 19th century fiction. Roderick Hudson (1875) is a Künstlerroman that traces the development of the title character, an extremely talented sculptor. Although the book shows some signs of immaturity—this was James's first serious attempt at a full-length novel — it has attracted favorable comment due to the vivid realization of the three major characters: Roderick Hudson, superbly gifted but unstable and unreliable; Rowland Mallet, Roderick's limited but much more mature friend and patron; and Christina Light, one of James's most enchanting and maddening femmes fatale. The pair of Hudson and Mallet has been seen as representing the two sides of James's own nature: the wildly imaginative artist and the brooding conscientious mentor.

Although Roderick Hudson featured mostly American characters in a European setting, James made the Europe–America contrast even more explicit in his next novel. In fact, the contrast could be considered the leading theme of The American (1877). This book is a combination of social comedy and melodrama concerning the adventures and misadventures of Christopher Newman, an essentially good-hearted but rather gauche American businessman on his first tour of Europe. Newman is looking for a world different from the simple, harsh realities of 19th century American business. He encounters both the beauty and the ugliness of Europe, and learns not to take either for granted.

James wrote Washington Square (1880), a deceptively simple tragicomedy that recounts the conflict between a dull but sweet daughter and her brilliant, domineering father. The book is often compared to Jane Austen's work for the clarity and grace of its prose and its intense focus on family relationships. James was not particularly enthusiastic about Jane Austen, so he might not have regarded the comparison as flattering. In fact, James was not enthusiastic about Washington Square itself. He tried to read it over for inclusion in the New York Edition of his fiction (1907–09) but found that he could not. So he excluded the novel from the edition. But other readers have enjoyed the book enough to make it one of the more popular works in the entire Jamesian canon.

In The Portrait of a Lady (1881) James concluded the first phase of his career with a novel that remains his most popular long fiction. The story is of a spirited young American woman, Isabel Archer, who "affronts her destiny" and finds it overwhelming. She inherits a large amount of money and subsequently becomes the victim of Machiavellian scheming by two American expatriates. The narrative is set mainly in Europe, especially in England and Italy. Generally regarded as the masterpiece of his early phase, The Portrait of a Lady is described as a psychological novel, exploring the minds of his characters, and almost a work of social science, exploring the differences between Europeans and Americans, the old and the new worlds.

In the 1880s James wrote The Bostonians (1886), a bittersweet tragicomedy that centers on: Basil Ransom, an unbending political conservative from Mississippi; Olive Chancellor, Ransom's cousin and a zealous Boston feminist; and Verena Tarrant, a pretty protégée of Olive's in the feminist movement. The story line concerns the contest between Ransom and Olive for Verena's allegiance and affection, though the novel also includes a wide panorama of political activists, newspaper people, and quirky eccentrics.

James followed with The Princess Casamassima (1886), the story of an intelligent but confused young London bookbinder, Hyacinth Robinson, who becomes involved in far left politics and a terrorist assassination plot. The book is something of a lone sport in the Jamesian canon for dealing with such a violent political subject. But it is often paired with The Bostonians, which is concerned with political issues.

Just as James was beginning his ultimately disastrous attempt to conquer the stage, he wrote The Tragic Muse (1890). This novel offers a wide, cheerful panorama of English life and follows the fortunes of two would-be artists: Nick Dormer, who vacillates between a political career and his efforts to become a painter, and Miriam Rooth, an actress striving for artistic and commercial success. A huge cast of supporting characters help and hinder their pursuits. The book reflects James's consuming interest in the theater and is often considered to mark the close of the second or middle phase of his career.

After the failure of his "dramatic experiment" James returned to his fiction and began to probe his characters' consciousness. His style started to grow in complexity to reflect the greater depth of his analysis. The Spoils of Poynton (1897) is a half-length novel that describes the struggle between Mrs. Gereth, a widow of impeccable taste and iron will, and her son Owen over a houseful of precious antique furniture. The story is largely told from the viewpoint of Fleda Vetch, a young woman in love with Owen but sympathetic to Mrs Gereth's anguish over losing the antiques she patiently collected.

James continued the more involved, psychological approach to his fiction with What Maisie Knew (1897), the story of the sensitive daughter of divorced and irresponsible parents. The novel has great contemporary relevance as an unflinching account of a wildly dysfunctional family.

The third period of James's career reached its most significant achievement in three novels published just after the turn of the century. Critic F. O. Matthiessen called this "trilogy" James's major phase, and these novels have certainly received intense critical study. It was the second-written of the books, The Wings of the Dove (1902) that was the first published. This novel tells the story of Milly Theale, an American heiress stricken with a serious disease, and her impact on the people around her. Some of these people befriend Milly with honorable motives, while others are more self-interested. James stated in his autobiographical books that Milly was based on Minny Temple, his beloved cousin who died at an early age of tuberculosis. He said that he attempted in the novel to wrap her memory in the "beauty and dignity of art".

The next published of the three novels, The Ambassadors (1903), is a dark comedy that follows the trip of protagonist Lewis Lambert Strether to Europe in pursuit of his widowed fiancée's supposedly wayward son. Strether is to bring the young man back to the family business, but he encounters unexpected complications. The third-person narrative is told exclusively from Strether's point of view. In his preface to the New York Edition text of the novel, James placed this book at the top of his achievements, which has occasioned some critical disagreement. The Golden Bowl (1904) is a complex, intense study of marriage and adultery that completes the "major phase" and, essentially, James's career in the novel. The book explores the tangle of interrelationships between a father and daughter and their respective spouses. The novel focuses deeply and almost exclusively on the consciousness of the central characters, with sometimes obsessive detail and powerful insight.
Shorter narratives
Lamb House in Rye, East Sussex, where James lived from 1897

James was particularly interested in what he called the "beautiful and blest nouvelle", or the longer form of short narrative. Still, he produced a number of very short stories in which he achieved notable compression of sometimes complex subjects. The following narratives are representative of James's achievement in the shorter forms of fiction.

Just as the contrast between Europe and America was a predominant theme in James's early novels, many of his first tales also explored the clash between the Old World and the New. In "A Passionate Pilgrim" (1871), the earliest fiction that James included in the New York Edition, the difference between America and Europe erupts into open conflict, which leads to a sadly ironic ending. The story's technique still seems somewhat inexpert, with passages of local color description occasionally interrupting the flow of the narrative. But James manages to craft an interesting and believable example of what he would call the "Americano-European legend".

James published many stories before what would prove to be his greatest success with the readers of his time, "Daisy Miller" (1878). This story portrays the confused courtship of the title character, a free-spirited American girl, by Winterbourne, a compatriot of hers with much more sophistication. His pursuit of Daisy is hampered by her own flirtatiousness, which is frowned upon by the other expatriates they meet in Switzerland and Italy. Her lack of understanding of the social mores of the society she so desperately wishes to enter ultimately leads to tragedy.

As James moved on from studies of the Europe-America clash and the American girl in his novels, his shorter works also explored new subjects in the 1880s. "The Aspern Papers" (1888) is one of James's best-known and most acclaimed longer tales. The storyline is based on an anecdote that James heard about a Shelley devotee who tried to obtain some valuable letters written by the poet. Set in a brilliantly described Venice, the story demonstrates James's ability to generate almost unbearable suspense while never neglecting the development of his characters. Another fine example of the middle phase of James's career in short narrative is "The Pupil" (1891), the story of a precocious young boy growing up in a mendacious and dishonorable family. He befriends his tutor, who is the only adult in his life that he can trust. James presents their relationship with sympathy and insight, and the story reaches what some have considered the status of classical tragedy.

"The Altar of the Dead", first published in James's collection Terminations in 1895 after the story failed of magazine publication, is a fable of literally life and death significance. The story explores how the protagonist tries to keep the remembrance of his dead friends, to save them from being forgotten entirely in the rush of everyday events. He meets a woman who shares his ideals, only to find that the past places what seems to be an impassable barrier between them. Although James was not religious in any conventional sense, the story shows a deep spirituality in its treatment of mortality and the transcendent power of unselfish love.

The final phase of James's short narratives shows the same characteristics as the final phase of his novels: a more involved style, a deeper psychological approach, and a sharper focus on his central characters. Probably his most popular short narrative among today's readers, "The Turn of the Screw" (1898) is a ghost story that has lent itself well to operatic and film adaptation. With its possibly ambiguous content and powerful narrative technique, the story challenges the reader to determine if the protagonist, an unnamed governess, is correctly reporting events or is instead an unreliable neurotic with an overheated imagination. To further muddy the waters, her written account of the experience—a frame tale—is being read many years later at a Christmas house party by someone who claims to have known her.

"The Beast in the Jungle" (1903) is almost universally considered to be one of James's finest short narratives, and has often been compared with The Ambassadors in its meditation on experience or the lack of it. The story also treats other universal themes: loneliness, fate, love and death. The parable of John Marcher and his peculiar destiny speaks to anyone who has speculated on the worth and meaning of human life. Among his last efforts in short narrative, "The Jolly Corner" (1908) is usually held to be one of James's best ghost stories. The tale describes the adventures of Spencer Brydon as he prowls the now-empty New York house where he grew up. Brydon encounters a "sensation more complex than had ever before found itself consistent with sanity".
Nonfiction
Photograph of Henry James (1897)

Beyond his fiction, James was one of the more important literary critics in the history of the novel. In his classic essay The Art of Fiction (1884), he argued against rigid proscriptions on the novelist's choice of subject and method of treatment. He maintained that the widest possible freedom in content and approach would help ensure narrative fiction's continued vitality. James wrote many valuable critical articles on other novelists; typical is his insightful book-length study of his American predecessor Nathaniel Hawthorne. When he assembled the New York Edition of his fiction in his final years, James wrote a series of prefaces that subjected his own work to the same searching, occasionally harsh criticism.

For most of his life James harbored ambitions for success as a playwright. He converted his novel The American into a play that enjoyed modest returns in the early 1890s. In all he wrote about a dozen plays, most of which went unproduced. His costume drama Guy Domville failed disastrously on its opening night in 1895. James then largely abandoned his efforts to conquer the stage and returned to his fiction. In his Notebooks he maintained that his theatrical experiment benefited his novels and tales by helping him dramatize his characters' thoughts and emotions. James produced a small but valuable amount of theatrical criticism, including perceptive appreciations of Henrik Ibsen.

With his wide-ranging artistic interests, James occasionally wrote on the visual arts. Perhaps his most valuable contribution was his favorable assessment of fellow expatriate John Singer Sargent, a painter whose critical status has improved markedly in recent decades. James also wrote sometimes charming, sometimes brooding articles about various places he visited and lived in. His most famous books of travel writing include Italian Hours (an example of the charming approach) and The American Scene (most definitely on the brooding side).

James was one of the great letter-writers of any era. More than ten thousand of his personal letters are extant, and over three thousand have been published in a large number of collections. A complete edition of James's letters began publication in 2006 with two volumes covering the 1855–1872 period, edited by Pierre Walker and Greg Zacharias. James's correspondents included celebrated contemporaries like Robert Louis Stevenson, Edith Wharton and Joseph Conrad, along with many others in his wide circle of friends and acquaintances. The letters range from the "mere twaddle of graciousness" to serious discussions of artistic, social and personal issues. Very late in life James began a series of autobiographical works: A Small Boy and Others, Notes of a Son and Brother, and the unfinished The Middle Years. These books portray the development of a classic observer who was passionately interested in artistic creation but was somewhat reticent about participating fully in the life around him.

Henry James was only twenty-two when he wrote The Noble School of Fiction for The Nation's first issue in 1865. He wrote, in all, over two hundred essays and book, art and theater reviews for the magazine.
Works

Novels

    * Watch and Ward (1871)
    * Roderick Hudson (1875)
    * The American (1877)
    * The Europeans (1878)
    * Confidence (1879)
    * Washington Square (1880)
    * The Portrait of a Lady (1881)
    * The Bostonians (1886)



    * The Princess Casamassima (1886)
    * The Reverberator (1888)
    * The Tragic Muse (1890)
    * The Other House (1896)
    * The Spoils of Poynton (1897)
    * What Maisie Knew (1897)
    * The Awkward Age (1899)
    * The Sacred Fount (1901)



    * The Wings of the Dove (1902)
    * The Ambassadors (1903)
    * The Golden Bowl (1904)
    * The Whole Family (collaborative novel with eleven other authors, 1908)
    * The Outcry (1911)
    * The Ivory Tower (unfinished, published posthumously 1917)
    * The Sense of the Past (unfinished, published posthumously 1917)

Selected novellas and tales

    * A Passionate Pilgrim (1871)
    * Madame de Mauves (1874)
    * Daisy Miller (1878)
    * Four Meetings (1879)
    * A Bundle of Letters (1879)
    * The Author of Beltraffio (1884)
    * The Romance of Certain Old Clothes (1885)
    * A London Life (1888)
    * The Aspern Papers (1888)
    * The Pupil (1891)



    * The Lesson of the Master (1892)
    * The Real Thing (1892)
    * The Middle Years (1893)
    * The Death of the Lion (1894)
    * The Coxon Fund (1894)
    * The Next Time (1895)
    * The Altar of the Dead (1895)
    * The Figure in the Carpet (1896)
    * The Turn of the Screw (1898)
    * In the Cage (1898)



    * Europe (1899)
    * Paste (1899)
    * The Great Good Place (1900)
    * Mrs. Medwin (1900)
    * The Birthplace (1903)
    * The Beast in the Jungle (1903)
    * The Jolly Corner (1908)

Other

    * French Poets and Novelists (1878)
    * Hawthorne (1879)
    * A Little Tour in France (1884)
    * Partial Portraits (1888)
    * Essays in London and Elsewhere (1893)
    * Picture and Text (1893)
    * Theatricals (1894)



    * Theatricals: Second Series (1895)
    * Guy Domville (1895)
    * William Wetmore Story and His Friends (1903)
    * English Hours (1905)
    * The American Scene (1907)
    * New York Edition (1907–1909), selected "definitive" edition of James's fiction
    * Italian Hours (1909)



    * A Small Boy and Others (1913)
    * Notes on Novelists (1914)
    * Notes of a Son and Brother (1914)
    * Notebooks (various, published posthumously)
    * The Middle Years (unfinished, published posthumously 1917)
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/28/10 at 6:45 am



I had gerbils, too-way, WAY back in the dark ages.  :D ;D ;D ;D



Cat



http://www.pethealthinfo.org.uk/resources/ist2_4688088_black_and_brown_gerbils.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/28/10 at 6:48 am


The word of the day...Rink
A rink is a large area covered with ice where people go to ice-skate, or a large area of concrete where people go to roller-skate.
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I remember roller skating rinks.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/28/10 at 7:16 am


I remember roller skating rinks.

I was never good at any kind of skating  :-[

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 02/28/10 at 10:10 am


I was never good at any kind of skating  :-[
I have not roller skated for ages.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/28/10 at 11:57 am



Rhapsody in Blue-by George Gershwin


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U40xBSz6Dc




Cat

Thanks, I should of known that. :-[

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/28/10 at 11:59 am


Rhapsody In Blue by George Gershwin

I'm enjoying it now :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 02/28/10 at 12:01 pm



I used to own gerbils 22 years ago. :)

I'm not into in type of rodent.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 02/28/10 at 7:20 pm


I have not roller skated for ages.


For me it's been over 20 years.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 02/28/10 at 8:52 pm


I have not roller skated for ages.


For me it's been over 20 years.

For me it's been a little over 13 years. It was on the day after Christmas in 1996.



I'm not into in type of rodent.

Neither am I.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/01/10 at 12:50 am



I had gerbils, too-way, WAY back in the dark ages.  :D ;D ;D ;D



Cat
Did they keep gerbils as pets in the dark ages?  ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/01/10 at 5:53 am

The word of the day...Tables
A table is a piece of furniture with a flat top that you put things on or sit at.
If you ask for a table in a restaurant, you want to have a meal there.
If someone tables a proposal, they say formally that they want it to be discussed at a meeting.
A table is a written set of facts and figures arranged in columns and rows.
A table is a list of the multiplications of numbers between one and twelve. Children often have to learn tables at school.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/01/10 at 5:58 am

The person born on this day....David Niven
James David Graham Niven (1 March 1910 – 29 July 1983), known as David Niven, was a English actor and novelist, best known for his roles as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and Sir Charles Litton, a.k.a. "the Phantom," in The Pink Panther. He was awarded the 1958 Academy Award for Best Actor in Separate Tables.
When Niven presented himself at the doors of Central Casting, he found out that he had to have a work permit, to allow him to reside and work in the U.S.

This meant that Niven had to leave U.S. soil, and he left for Mexico, where he worked as a "gun-man", cleaning and polishing the rifles of visiting American hunters. He received his Resident Alien Visa from the American Consulate when his birth certificate arrived from England. He then returned to the U.S. and was accepted by Central Casting as "Anglo-Saxon Type No. 2008."

His first work as an extra was as a Mexican in a Western. This inauspicious start notwithstanding, he then found himself an agent: Bill Hawks. He had several bit parts in 1933, 1934, and 1935, including a non-speaking part in MGM's Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), which led to some fortuitous publicity.

Niven thus came to the attention of independent film producer Samuel Goldwyn, who signed him to a contract and established his career. Niven appeared in 19 movies in the next four years. He had supporting roles in several major films: Rose-Marie (1936), Dodsworth (1936), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937); and leading roles in The Dawn Patrol (1938), Three Blind Mice (1938), and Wuthering Heights (1939), playing opposite such famous stars as Errol Flynn, Loretta Young, and Laurence Olivier. In 1939 he co-starred with Ginger Rogers in the RKO comedy Bachelor Mother, and starred as the eponymous gentleman thief in Raffles.

Niven joined what became known as the Hollywood Raj, a group of British actors in Hollywood. Other members of the group included Boris Karloff, Stan Laurel, Basil Rathbone, Ronald Colman, and C. Aubrey Smith. He and Errol Flynn shared a house, which they dubbed "Cirrhosis-by-the-Sea".
After the United Kingdom declared war in 1939, Niven returned to Britain and rejoined the Army. He was re-commissioned as a lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade on 25 February 1940, and was assigned to a motor training battalion. But he wanted something more exciting, and transferred into the Commandos. He was assigned to a training base at Inverailort House in the Western Highlands. Niven later claimed credit for bringing future Major General Sir Robert Laycock to the Commandos.

Niven also worked with the Army Film Unit. He acted in two films during the war, The First of the Few (1942) and The Way Ahead (1944). Both films were made to win support for the British war effort, especially in the U.S. His Film Unit work included a small part in the deception operation that used minor actor M. E. Clifton James to impersonate Field Marshal Montgomery.

During his work with the Film Unit, Peter Ustinov, though one of the script-writers, had to pose as Niven's batman. (Ustinov also acted in The Way Ahead). Niven in his autobiography explained that there was no military way that he, as a Lieutenant-Colonel, and Ustinov, who had risen only to the rank of Private, could associate, save as an officer and his servant, hence their strange 'act'. Ustinov later appeared with Niven in Death on the Nile (1978).

Niven took part in the Invasion of Normandy, arriving several days after D-Day. He served in the "Phantom Signals Unit", which located and reported enemy positions, and kept rear commanders up to date on changing battle lines. Niven was posted at one time to Chilham in Kent.

Niven remained close-mouthed about the war, despite public interest in celebrities in combat and a reputation for storytelling. He said once: "I will, however, tell you just one thing about the war, my first story and my last. I was asked by some American friends to search out the grave of their son near Bastogne. I found it where they told me I would, but it was among 27,000 others, and I told myself that here, Niven, were 27,000 reasons why you should keep your mouth shut after the war." Niven also had special scorn for the newspaper columnists covering the war who typed out self-glorifying and excessively florid prose about their meagre wartime experiences. Niven stated, "Anyone who says a bullet sings past, hums past, flies, pings, or whines past, has never heard one − they go crack!"

He gave a few details of his war experience in his autobiography, The Moon's a Balloon: his private conversations with Winston Churchill, the bombing of London, and what it was like entering Germany with the occupation forces. Niven first met Churchill at a dinner party in February 1940. Churchill singled him out from the crowd and stated, "Young man, you did a fine thing to give up your film career to fight for your country. Mark you, had you not done so − it would have been despicable."

A few stories have surfaced. About to lead his men into action, Niven eased their nervousness by telling them, "Look, you chaps only have to do this once. But I'll have to do it all over again in Hollywood with Errol Flynn!" Asked by suspicious American sentries during the Battle of the Bulge who had won the World Series in 1943, he answered "Haven't the foggiest idea . . . But I did co-star with Ginger Rogers in Bachelor Mother!"

Niven ended the war as a Lieutenant-Colonel. On his return to Hollywood after the war, he received the Legion of Merit, the highest American order that can be earned by a foreigner. Presented by Eisenhower himself, it honored Niven's work in setting up the BBC Allied Expeditionary Forces Programme, a radio news and entertainment station for the Allied forces.
Post-war acting career

In spite of a six-year absence from the screen, Niven came second in the 1945 Popularity Poll of British film stars.

He resumed his career in 1946, now only in starring roles. A Matter of Life and Death (1946), The Bishop's Wife (1947), and Enchantment (1948) are all highly regarded. In 1950 he starred in The Elusive Pimpernel, which was made in Britain and was to be distributed by Samuel Goldwyn. Goldwyn pulled out, and the film did not appear in the U.S. for three years.

Niven had a long and complex relationship with Goldwyn, who gave him his first start. But the dispute over The Elusive Pimpernel and Niven's demands for more money led to a long estrangement in the 1950s.

During this period Niven was largely barred from the Hollywood studios. In 1951 to 1956, he made 11 movies, of which two were MGM productions, and the rest were low-budget British or independent productions. However, Niven won a Golden Globe Award for his work in The Moon Is Blue (1953), produced and directed by Otto Preminger.

In 1955 renowned British photographer Cornel Lucas photographed David Niven whilst filming at the Rank Film Studio in Denham. These images can be seen at The Cornel Lucas Collection and are now for most of us the iconic representation of the way in which we remember Niven. A limited edition of British postage stamps was produced using one of Cornel Lucas' images taken during this portrait sitting.

Niven also worked in television. Niven appeared several times on various short-drama shows, and was one of the "four stars" of the dramatic anthology series Four Star Playhouse, appearing in 33 episodes. The show was produced by Four Star Television, which was co-owned by Niven, Robert Montgomery, and Charles Boyer. The show ended in 1955, but Four Star TV became a highly successful TV production company.
from the trailer for The Toast of New Orleans (1950)

Niven's film career took off in 1956, when he starred as Phileas Fogg in Michael Todd's immensely successful production of Around the World in 80 Days.

He appeared in 13 more TV episodes. He won the 1958 Academy Award for Best Actor in Separate Tables; ironically, he was also a co-host of the 1959 "Oscar" show.

After Niven won the Academy Award, Goldwyn called with an invitation to his home. In Goldwyn's drawing room, Niven noticed a picture of himself in uniform that he had sent to Goldwyn from England during World War II. In happier times with Goldwyn, he had observed this same picture sitting on Goldwyn's piano. Now years later, the picture was still in the exact same spot. As he was looking at the picture, Goldwyn's wife Frances said "Sam never took it down."

With an Academy Award to his credit, Niven's career continued to improve. In 1959, he became the host of his own TV drama series, The David Niven Show, which ran for 13 episodes that summer.

Over the rest of his career, Niven appeared in over thirty additional movies. These included The Guns Of Navarone (1961), and The Pink Panther (1963), Murder By Death (1976), Death on the Nile (1978), and The Sea Wolves (1980), but also a lot of unmemorable films.

In 1964, he was cast (along with Boyer) in the Four Star series The Rogues. Niven played "Alexander 'Alec' Fleming", one of a family of retired con artists who now fleece villains in the interests of justice. This was his only recurring role on television. The Rogues ran for only one season, but won a Golden Globe award.

In 1967, he appeared as one of seven incarnations of "007" in the James Bond spoof Casino Royale. In fact, Niven had been Bond creator Ian Fleming's first choice to play Bond in Dr. No. Casino Royale co-producer Charles K. Feldman said later that Fleming had written the book with Niven in mind, and therefore had sent a copy to Niven.

Niven was the only James Bond actor mentioned by name in the text of Fleming's novels. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Bond visits an exclusive ski resort in Switzerland where he is told that David Niven is a frequent visitor and in You Only Live Twice, David Niven is referred to as the only real gentleman in Hollywood.

While co-hosting the 46th Annual Oscars ceremony, A naked man appeared behind him, "streaking" across the stage. Niven responded "Isn't it fascinating to think, that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life, is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?"

In 1974, he hosted David Niven's World for London Weekend Television. This was a series of profiles of contemporary adventurers such as hang gliders, motorcyclists, and mountain climbers. It ran for 21 episodes.

In 1975, he narrated The Remarkable Rocket, a short animation based on a story by Oscar Wilde.

In 1979, he appeared in Escape to Athena, which was produced by his son David jr.

Also in 1979, Niven starred in the television miniseries A Man Called INTREPID, based on the supposed memoir of Sir William Stephenson, a Canadian master spy for British intelligence. (In fact the book was mostly invented by co-author William Stevenson (no relation), Sir William then being very old.)

In July 1982, Blake Edwards brought Niven back for cameo appearances in two final "Pink Panther" movies (Trail of the Pink Panther and Curse of the Pink Panther), reprising his role as Sir Charles Litton. By this time, Niven was having serious health problems. When the raw footage was reviewed, his voice was inaudible, and his lines had to be dubbed by Rich Little. Niven was not told of this - he learned it from a newspaper report. This was his last film appearance.
In 1980, Niven began experiencing fatigue, muscle weakness, and a warble in his voice. A 1981 interview on Michael Parkinson's talk show alarmed family and friends; viewers wondered if Niven had either been drinking or suffered a stroke. (Another 1981 interview, posted on YouTube, shows Niven on The Merv Griffin Show while publicizing his novel Go Slowly, Come Back Quickly. He blames his slightly slurred voice on the shooting schedule on the film he'd been making; Better Late Than Never.) He was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease) later that year. He hosted the 1981 American Film Institute tribute to Fred Astaire, which was his final appearance in Hollywood.

In February 1983, using a false name to avoid publicity, Niven was hospitalised for ten days for treatment, ostensibly for a digestive problem. Afterwards, he returned to his chalet at Chateau d'Oex in Switzerland, where his condition continued to decline. He refused to return to the hospital, and his family supported his decision. Niven died of ALS on 29 July 1983, at age 73.

Bitter, estranged, and plagued by depression, Hjördis showed up drunk at the funeral, having been persuaded to attend by family friend Prince Rainier III of Monaco. Kristina and Fiona told Graham Lord that Hjördis added insult to injury by forbidding them to bury her alongside her husband in the place left for her in his double grave in Switzerland.

Lord wrote that "the biggest wreath, worthy of a Mafia Godfather's funeral, was delivered from the porters at London's Heathrow Airport, along with a card that read: 'To the finest gentleman who ever walked through these halls. He made a porter feel like a king.'"

Niven died on the same day as Raymond Massey, his co-star in The Prisoner of Zenda and A Matter of Life and Death.
Quotations

By Niven:

    * "It really is amazing. Can you imagine being wonderfully overpaid for dressing up and playing games? It's like being Peter Pan."

    * "I've been lucky enough to win an Oscar, write a best-seller — my other dream would be to have a painting in the Louvre. The only way that's going to happen is if I paint a dirty one on the wall of the gentlemen's lavatory."

    * When asked why he seemed so incredibly cheerful all the time: "Well, old bean, life is really so bloody awful that I feel it’s my absolute duty to be chirpy and try and make everybody else happy too."

About Niven:

    * "I don't think his acting ever quite achieved the brilliance or the polish of his dinner-party conversations." — John Mortimer

    * "David's life was Wodehouse with tears." John Mortimer speaking at Niven's memorial service, quoted by Niven biographer Graham Lord.

    * "Niv was the twinkling star, the meteor who lit up every room he entered; I am just the dreary drudge whose job it is to try to tell the truth." — Niven biographer Graham Lord, in the preface to his book Niv.

Filmography

    * There Goes the Bride (1932)
    * Eyes of Fate (1933)
    * Cleopatra (1934)
    * Without Regret (1935)
    * Barbary Coast (1935)
    * A Feather in Her Hat (1935)
    * Splendor (1935)
    * "Mutiny On the Bounty" (1935) extra-uncredited
    * Rose-Marie (1936)
    * Palm Springs (1936)
    * Dodsworth (1936)
    * Screen Snapshots Series 16, No. 4 (1936)
    * Thank You, Jeeves! (1936)
    * The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936)
    * Beloved Enemy (1936)
    * We Have Our Moments (1937)
    * The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)
    * Dinner at the Ritz (1937)
    * Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938)
    * Four Men and a Prayer (1938)
    * Three Blind Mice (1938)
    * The Dawn Patrol (1938)
    * Wuthering Heights (1939)
    * Bachelor Mother (1939)
    * The Real Glory (1939)
    * Eternally Yours (1939)
    * Raffles (1939)
    * The First of the Few (1942)
    * The Way Ahead (1944)
    * A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
    * Magnificent Doll (1946)
    * The Perfect Marriage (1947)
    * The Other Love (1947)



    * The Bishop's Wife (1947)
    * Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948)
    * Enchantment (1948)
    * A Kiss in the Dark (1949)
    * A Kiss for Corliss (1949)
    * The Elusive Pimpernel (1950)
    * The Toast of New Orleans (1950)
    * Happy Go Lovely (1951)
    * Soldiers Three (1951)
    * Appointment with Venus (1951)
    * The Lady Says No (1952)
    * The Moon Is Blue (1953)
    * The Love Lottery (1954)
    * Happy Ever After (1954)
    * Carrington V.C. (1955)
    * The King's Thief (1955)
    * The Birds and the Bees (1956)
    * The Silken Affair (1956)
    * Around the World in 80 Days
    * Oh, Men! Oh, Women! (1957)
    * The Little Hut (1957)
    * My Man Godfrey (1957)
    * Screen Snapshots: Glamorous Hollywood (1958)
    * Bonjour Tristesse (1958)
    * Separate Tables (1958)
    * Ask Any Girl (1959)
    * Happy Anniversary (1959)
    * Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960)
    * The Guns of Navarone (1961)
    * The Shortest Day (1962)
    * Conquered City (1962)
    * The Best of Enemies (1962)



    * The Road to Hong Kong (1962)
    * Guns of Darkness (1962)
    * 55 Days at Peking (1963)
    * The Pink Panther (1963)
    * Bedtime Story (1964)
    * Where the Spies Are (1965)
    * Lady L (1965)
    * Eye of the Devil (1966)
    * All Eyes on Sharon Tate (1967)
    * Casino Royale (1967)
    * Prudence and the Pill (1968)
    * The Impossible Years (1968)
    * The Extraordinary Seaman (1969)
    * The Brain (1969)
    * Before Winter Comes (1969)
    * The Statue (1971)
    * King, Queen, Knave (1972)
    * Vampira (1974)
    * Paper Tiger (1975)
    * No Deposit, No Return (1976)
    * The Remarkable Rocket (1975)
    * Murder by Death (1976)
    * Candleshoe (1977)
    * Speed Fever (1978)
    * Death on the Nile (1978)
    * A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square (1979)
    * Escape to Athena (1979)
    * Rough Cut (1980)
    * The Sea Wolves (1980)
    * Better Late Than Never (1982)
    * Trail of the Pink Panther (1982)
    * Curse of the Pink Panther (1983)

Bibliography

    * Niven, David (1951). Round the Rugged Rocks. London: The Cresset Press.
    * Niven, David (1971). The Moon's a Balloon. London: Hamish Hamilton. ISBN 0-340-15817-4.
    * Niven, David (1975). Bring on the Empty Horses. London: Hamish Hamilton. ISBN 0-241-89273-2.
    * Niven, David (1981). Go Slowly, Come Back Quickly. London: Hamish Hamilton. ISBN 0-241-10690-7.

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/01/10 at 6:05 am

The person who died on this day...Jackie Coogan
John Leslie "Jackie" Coogan, Jr. (October 26, 1914 – March 1, 1984) was an American actor who began his movie career as a child actor in silent films. Many years later, he became known as Uncle Fester on 1960s sitcom The Addams Family. In the interim, he sued his mother and stepfather over his squandered film earnings and provoked California to enact the first known legal protection for the earnings of child performers.
ackie Coogan was born in Los Angeles, California, to John Henry Coogan, Jr. (also known as "Big Jack" or "Jack, Sr.") (1886–1935), the son of John Henry Coogan, Sr. (1853–1932), and Lilian Rita Dolliver Coogan (1892–1977, birth also has been listed at 1895). He began his acting career as an infant in both vaudeville and film, with an uncredited role in the 1917 film Skinner's Baby. Charlie Chaplin discovered him in a Los Angeles vaudeville house, doing the shimmy, a popular dance at the time, on the stage. His father, Jack Coogan, Sr. was also an actor. The boy was a natural mimic, and delighted Chaplin with his abilities in this area. As a child actor, he is best remembered for his role as Charlie Chaplin's irascible sidekick in the film classic The Kid (1921) and for the title role in Oliver Twist, directed by Frank Lloyd, the following year. He was also one of the first stars to get heavily merchandised, with peanut butter, stationery, whistles, dolls, records, and figurines just being a sample of the Coogan merchandise. He also travelled internationally to huge crowds. Many of his early films are lost or unavailable, but Turner Classic Movies recently presented The Rag Man with a new score. Coogan was famous for his pageboy haircut and his The Kid outfit of oversized overalls and cap, which was widely imitated, including by the young Scotty Beckett in the Our Gang films.

He was tutored until the age of ten, after which he attended Urban Military Academy and other prep schools, and then several colleges, including the University of Southern California. In 1932 he left Santa Clara University because of poor grades.

On May 4, 1935, Coogan's father was killed in a car crash in San Diego County that also claimed the life of Coogan's best friend Junior Durkin, a child actor best known as Huckleberry Finn in two films of the early 1930s. The accident took place just short of Coogan's twenty-first birthday; he was the sole survivor of the accident.

Jackie Coogan has his hand and foot prints in concrete out front of Grauman's Chinese Theater (now Mann's Chinese Theater), Ceremony #19, on December 12, 1931 (his former wife Betty Grable, Ceremony #68, on February 15, 1943 also). He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in front of 1654 Vine Street, just south of Hollywood Blvd.

In November 1933 Brooke Hart, a close friend of Coogan's, from Santa Clara University was kidnapped in San Francisco. After several demands for a $40,000 ransom, police arrested Thomas Thurmond and John Holmes in San Jose. Thurmond admitted that Hart had been murdered on the night he was kidnapped. Both men were then transferred to a prison in San Jose, California. Later a mob broke into the building; Thurmond and Holmes were then hanged in an adjacent park. Coogan is reported to have been one of the mob that prepared and held the lynching rope.
Coogan Bill
Main article: California Child Actor's Bill

As a child star, Coogan earned an estimated $3 to 4 million, but the money was taken by his mother, Lilian, and stepfather, Arthur Bernstein, for extravagances such as fur coats, diamonds, and cars. He sued them in 1938 (at age 23), but after legal expenses, he only received $126,000 of the approx. $250,000 left. When Coogan fell on hard times, Charlie Chaplin gave him some financial support.

The legal battle did, however, bring attention to child actors and resulted in the state of California enacting the California Child Actor's Bill, sometimes known as the Coogan Bill or the Coogan Act. This requires that the child's employer set aside 15% of the child's earnings in a trust, and codifies such issues as schooling, work hours and time-off. Jackie's mother and stepfather attempted to soften the situation by pointing out that the child was having fun and thought he was playing. However, virtually every child star from Baby Peggy on has stated that they were keenly aware that what they were doing was work.
Later years
World War II

Coogan enlisted in the US Army in March 1941. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he requested a transfer to US Army Air Forces as a glider pilot because of his civilian flying experience. After graduating from glider school, he was made a Flight Officer and he volunteered for hazardous duty with the 1st Air Commando Group. In December 1943, the unit was sent to India. He flew British troops, the Chindits, under General Orde Wingate on 5 March 1944, landing them at night in a small jungle clearing 100 miles behind Japanese lines in the Burma campaign.
Television

After the war, Coogan returned to acting, taking mostly character roles and appearing on television. He guest starred as Corbett in two episodes of NBC's The Outlaws with Barton MacLane, which aired from 1960-1962. In the 1960-1961 season, he guest starred in the episode "The Damaged Dolls" of the syndicated crime drama The Brothers Brannagan.

Coogan had a regular role in a 1962-1963 NBC series, McKeever and the Colonel. He finally found his most famous television role as Uncle Fester in ABC's The Addams Family (1964–1966). He appeared as a police officer in the Elvis Presley comedy Girl Happy in 1965. He had a role in the 1969 movie Marlowe.

In addition to The Addams Family, he appeared a number of times on the Perry Mason series, and once on Emergency! as a junkyard owner who tries to bribe the paramedics, who have come to inspect his property for fire safety. He also was featured in an episode of The Brady Bunch ("Fender Bender"), Here's Lucy and The Brian Keith Show, and he continued to guest star on television (including multiple appearances on The Partridge Family, The Wild Wild West and Hawaii Five-O) until his retirement in the middle 1970s.
Marriages and children

  1. Betty Grable, married on November 20, 1937, divorced on October 11, 1939. Interment Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood California.
  2. Flower Parry, married on August 10, 1941, divorced on June 29, 1943
        1. One son, John Anthony Coogan (writer/producer 3D digital & film), born March 4, 1942 in Los Angeles, California.
  3. Ann McCormack, married on December 26, 1946, divorced on September 20, 1951
        1. One daughter, Joann Dolliver Coogan born April 2, 1948 in Los Angeles, California.
  4. Dorothea Odetta Hanson, aka. Dorothea Lamphere, best known as Dodie, married on April 1952, they were together until his death
        1. One daughter, Leslie Diane Coogan, born November 24, 1953 in Los Angeles, California. Her son is the actor Keith Coogan, who was born January 13, 1970. He began acting in 1975. Two years after his grandfather's death in 1986 he changed his name to Keith Coogan from Keith Eric Mitchell. He played the oldest son in Adventures in Babysitting.
        2. One son, Christopher Fenton Coogan, born July 9, 1967 in Riverside County, California. He died in a motorcycle accident in Palm Springs, California, on June 29, 1990.

Death

On March 1, 1984, Coogan died of cardiac arrest at the age of 69 at Santa Monica Medical Center in Santa Monica, California. He was buried in Culver City's Holy Cross Cemetery.
Selected filmography

    * Skinner's Baby (Uncredited, 1917)
    * A Day's Pleasure (1919)
    * The Kid (1921)
    * Peck's Bad Boy (1921)
    * My Boy (1921)
    * Nice and Friendly (1922)
    * Trouble (1922)
    * Oliver Twist (1922)
    * Daddy (1923)
    * Circus Days (1923)
    * Long Live the King (1923)
    * A Boy of Flanders (1924)
    * Little Robinson Crusoe (1924)
    * Hello, 'Frisco (1924)
    * The Rag Man (1925)
    * Old Clothes (1925)
    * Johnny Get Your Hair Cut (1927)
    * The Bugle Call (1927)
    * Buttons (1927)
    * Tom Sawyer (1930)
    * Huckleberry Finn (1931)
    * Girl Happy (1965)
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/Japanime-Lover/Movies%20%20Books%20%20Other%20Shows/Actors/Jackie%20Coogan/Jackie-Coogan-1.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/Japanime-Lover/Movies%20%20Books%20%20Other%20Shows/Actors/Jackie%20Coogan/charlie-jackie-film.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/Japanime-Lover/Movies%20%20Books%20%20Other%20Shows/Actors/Jackie%20Coogan/jackie-coogan.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 03/01/10 at 6:35 am


The person who died on this day...Jackie Coogan
John Leslie "Jackie" Coogan, Jr. (October 26, 1914 – March 1, 1984) was an American actor who began his movie career as a child actor in silent films. Many years later, he became known as Uncle Fester on 1960s sitcom The Addams Family. In the interim, he sued his mother and stepfather over his squandered film earnings and provoked California to enact the first known legal protection for the earnings of child performers.
ackie Coogan was born in Los Angeles, California, to John Henry Coogan, Jr. (also known as "Big Jack" or "Jack, Sr.") (1886–1935), the son of John Henry Coogan, Sr. (1853–1932), and Lilian Rita Dolliver Coogan (1892–1977, birth also has been listed at 1895). He began his acting career as an infant in both vaudeville and film, with an uncredited role in the 1917 film Skinner's Baby. Charlie Chaplin discovered him in a Los Angeles vaudeville house, doing the shimmy, a popular dance at the time, on the stage. His father, Jack Coogan, Sr. was also an actor. The boy was a natural mimic, and delighted Chaplin with his abilities in this area. As a child actor, he is best remembered for his role as Charlie Chaplin's irascible sidekick in the film classic The Kid (1921) and for the title role in Oliver Twist, directed by Frank Lloyd, the following year. He was also one of the first stars to get heavily merchandised, with peanut butter, stationery, whistles, dolls, records, and figurines just being a sample of the Coogan merchandise. He also travelled internationally to huge crowds. Many of his early films are lost or unavailable, but Turner Classic Movies recently presented The Rag Man with a new score. Coogan was famous for his pageboy haircut and his The Kid outfit of oversized overalls and cap, which was widely imitated, including by the young Scotty Beckett in the Our Gang films.

He was tutored until the age of ten, after which he attended Urban Military Academy and other prep schools, and then several colleges, including the University of Southern California. In 1932 he left Santa Clara University because of poor grades.

On May 4, 1935, Coogan's father was killed in a car crash in San Diego County that also claimed the life of Coogan's best friend Junior Durkin, a child actor best known as Huckleberry Finn in two films of the early 1930s. The accident took place just short of Coogan's twenty-first birthday; he was the sole survivor of the accident.

Jackie Coogan has his hand and foot prints in concrete out front of Grauman's Chinese Theater (now Mann's Chinese Theater), Ceremony #19, on December 12, 1931 (his former wife Betty Grable, Ceremony #68, on February 15, 1943 also). He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in front of 1654 Vine Street, just south of Hollywood Blvd.

In November 1933 Brooke Hart, a close friend of Coogan's, from Santa Clara University was kidnapped in San Francisco. After several demands for a $40,000 ransom, police arrested Thomas Thurmond and John Holmes in San Jose. Thurmond admitted that Hart had been murdered on the night he was kidnapped. Both men were then transferred to a prison in San Jose, California. Later a mob broke into the building; Thurmond and Holmes were then hanged in an adjacent park. Coogan is reported to have been one of the mob that prepared and held the lynching rope.
Coogan Bill
Main article: California Child Actor's Bill

As a child star, Coogan earned an estimated $3 to 4 million, but the money was taken by his mother, Lilian, and stepfather, Arthur Bernstein, for extravagances such as fur coats, diamonds, and cars. He sued them in 1938 (at age 23), but after legal expenses, he only received $126,000 of the approx. $250,000 left. When Coogan fell on hard times, Charlie Chaplin gave him some financial support.

The legal battle did, however, bring attention to child actors and resulted in the state of California enacting the California Child Actor's Bill, sometimes known as the Coogan Bill or the Coogan Act. This requires that the child's employer set aside 15% of the child's earnings in a trust, and codifies such issues as schooling, work hours and time-off. Jackie's mother and stepfather attempted to soften the situation by pointing out that the child was having fun and thought he was playing. However, virtually every child star from Baby Peggy on has stated that they were keenly aware that what they were doing was work.
Later years
World War II

Coogan enlisted in the US Army in March 1941. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he requested a transfer to US Army Air Forces as a glider pilot because of his civilian flying experience. After graduating from glider school, he was made a Flight Officer and he volunteered for hazardous duty with the 1st Air Commando Group. In December 1943, the unit was sent to India. He flew British troops, the Chindits, under General Orde Wingate on 5 March 1944, landing them at night in a small jungle clearing 100 miles behind Japanese lines in the Burma campaign.
Television

After the war, Coogan returned to acting, taking mostly character roles and appearing on television. He guest starred as Corbett in two episodes of NBC's The Outlaws with Barton MacLane, which aired from 1960-1962. In the 1960-1961 season, he guest starred in the episode "The Damaged Dolls" of the syndicated crime drama The Brothers Brannagan.

Coogan had a regular role in a 1962-1963 NBC series, McKeever and the Colonel. He finally found his most famous television role as Uncle Fester in ABC's The Addams Family (1964–1966). He appeared as a police officer in the Elvis Presley comedy Girl Happy in 1965. He had a role in the 1969 movie Marlowe.

In addition to The Addams Family, he appeared a number of times on the Perry Mason series, and once on Emergency! as a junkyard owner who tries to bribe the paramedics, who have come to inspect his property for fire safety. He also was featured in an episode of The Brady Bunch ("Fender Bender"), Here's Lucy and The Brian Keith Show, and he continued to guest star on television (including multiple appearances on The Partridge Family, The Wild Wild West and Hawaii Five-O) until his retirement in the middle 1970s.
Marriages and children

   1. Betty Grable, married on November 20, 1937, divorced on October 11, 1939. Interment Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood California.
   2. Flower Parry, married on August 10, 1941, divorced on June 29, 1943
         1. One son, John Anthony Coogan (writer/producer 3D digital & film), born March 4, 1942 in Los Angeles, California.
   3. Ann McCormack, married on December 26, 1946, divorced on September 20, 1951
         1. One daughter, Joann Dolliver Coogan born April 2, 1948 in Los Angeles, California.
   4. Dorothea Odetta Hanson, aka. Dorothea Lamphere, best known as Dodie, married on April 1952, they were together until his death
         1. One daughter, Leslie Diane Coogan, born November 24, 1953 in Los Angeles, California. Her son is the actor Keith Coogan, who was born January 13, 1970. He began acting in 1975. Two years after his grandfather's death in 1986 he changed his name to Keith Coogan from Keith Eric Mitchell. He played the oldest son in Adventures in Babysitting.
         2. One son, Christopher Fenton Coogan, born July 9, 1967 in Riverside County, California. He died in a motorcycle accident in Palm Springs, California, on June 29, 1990.

Death

On March 1, 1984, Coogan died of cardiac arrest at the age of 69 at Santa Monica Medical Center in Santa Monica, California. He was buried in Culver City's Holy Cross Cemetery.
Selected filmography

    * Skinner's Baby (Uncredited, 1917)
    * A Day's Pleasure (1919)
    * The Kid (1921)
    * Peck's Bad Boy (1921)
    * My Boy (1921)
    * Nice and Friendly (1922)
    * Trouble (1922)
    * Oliver Twist (1922)
    * Daddy (1923)
    * Circus Days (1923)
    * Long Live the King (1923)
    * A Boy of Flanders (1924)
    * Little Robinson Crusoe (1924)
    * Hello, 'Frisco (1924)
    * The Rag Man (1925)
    * Old Clothes (1925)
    * Johnny Get Your Hair Cut (1927)
    * The Bugle Call (1927)
    * Buttons (1927)
    * Tom Sawyer (1930)
    * Huckleberry Finn (1931)
    * Girl Happy (1965)
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/Japanime-Lover/Movies%20%20Books%20%20Other%20Shows/Actors/Jackie%20Coogan/Jackie-Coogan-1.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/Japanime-Lover/Movies%20%20Books%20%20Other%20Shows/Actors/Jackie%20Coogan/charlie-jackie-film.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/Japanime-Lover/Movies%20%20Books%20%20Other%20Shows/Actors/Jackie%20Coogan/jackie-coogan.jpg



http://www.nndb.com/people/341/000044209/coogan1-sized.jpg


Jackie Coogan in later years.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/01/10 at 6:48 am


The word of the day...Tables
A table is a piece of furniture with a flat top that you put things on or sit at.
If you ask for a table in a restaurant, you want to have a meal there.
If someone tables a proposal, they say formally that they want it to be discussed at a meeting.
A table is a written set of facts and figures arranged in columns and rows.
A table is a list of the multiplications of numbers between one and twelve. Children often have to learn tables at school.
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http://i366.photobucket.com/albums/oo101/GrandMasonRyan/TOC.jpg

http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/computer/multiplication-tables/times-table-12x12.gif

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/01/10 at 7:08 am



http://www.nndb.com/people/341/000044209/coogan1-sized.jpg


Jackie Coogan in later years.

Thanks Howie :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 03/01/10 at 7:10 am


Thanks Howie :)


You're Welcome.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 03/01/10 at 4:46 pm

Canadian person of the day

Alan Thicke (born Alan Willis Jeffery; March 1, 1947) is a Canadian actor, songwriter, and game and talk show host. He is best known for his role as Jason Seaver, the patriarch on the ABC television series Growing Pains.

http://tvcrazy.net/images/growing_pains.jpg

Thicke has been married three times. His first marriage to Days of our Lives actress Gloria Loring, from 1970 to 1983, bore him two sons, Brennan and Robin. His second marriage was to the Miss World 1990 pageant winner, Gina Tolleson, from 1992 to 1999, and produced a third son, Carter William. He has been married to Tanya Callau since 2005.
http://www.crunchgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/alan-thicke21.jpg

His son Robin is a platinum album-selling musician, and his son Brennan was a voice actor for cartoons when he was younger.

Thicke was also the host of his own popular talk show in Canada during the early 1980s, called the The Alan Thicke Show. The show at one point spawned a prime time spin-off titled Prime Cuts, which consisted of edited highlights from the talk show.

Based on the success of his talk show, Thicke was signed to do an American late night talk show Thicke of the Night.

Thicke had a successful career as a TV theme song composer. He often collaborated with his wife Gloria Loring on these projects, which included the themes to the popular sitcoms Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life. He also wrote a number of TV game show themes, including The Wizard of Odds (for which he also sang the vocal introduction), The Joker's Wild, Celebrity Sweepstakes, The Diamond Head Game, Blank Check, Stumpers!, Whew! and the original theme to Wheel of Fortune.

http://www.contactmusic.com/pics/lc/nhl_awards_arrivals_4_190609/alan_thicke_5313763.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/02/10 at 1:47 am

British Person of the Day: Andrew Strauss

Andrew John Strauss, MBE (born 2 March 1977) is an English cricketer who plays county cricket for Middlesex County Cricket Club and is captain of England.

A fluent left-handed opening batsman, Strauss has the ability to accumulate runs without playing big shots, in which respect he has been likened to Graham Thorpe. Also, his technique and more specifically his footwork has been compared to that of the Australian opening batsman Justin Langer, who captained Strauss at Middlesex. Strauss favours scoring off the back foot, mostly playing cut and pull shots. Strauss is also known for his fielding strength at slip or in the covers.

He made his First-class debut in 1998, and made his One Day International (ODI) debut in Sri Lanka in 2003. He quickly rose to fame on his Test match debut replacing the injured Michael Vaughan at Lords against New Zealand in 2004. With scores of 112 and 83 (run out) in an England victory, and the man of the match award, he became only the fourth batsman to score a century at Lord's on his debut and was close to becoming the first Englishman to score centuries in both innings of his debut. Strauss again nearly scored two centuries (126 and 94 not out) and was named man of the match in his first overseas Test match, in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, in December 2004. Strauss suffered a drop in form during 2007, and as a result he was left out of the Test squad for England's tour of Sri Lanka, and announced that he was taking a break from cricket. After a poor tour for England, Andrew was recalled into the squad for the 2008 tour of New Zealand, and subsequently reestablished himself in the side with a career-best 177 in the third and final Test of that series, and a further three centuries in 2008.

Having deputised for Michael Vaughan as England captain in 2006, Strauss was appointed on a permanent basis for the 2009 tour of the West Indies following Kevin Pietersen's resignation. He enjoyed success with three centuries, and retained the captaincy into 2009. Strauss captained the England team to a 2–1 victory in the 2009 Ashes, scoring a series total of 474 runs, more than any other player on either side, including 161 in England's first victory in an Ashes Test at Lord's in 75 years.

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/11/09/ANDREW_STRAUSS_gallery__452x400.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 03/02/10 at 5:41 am


Canadian person of the day

Alan Thicke (born Alan Willis Jeffery; March 1, 1947) is a Canadian actor, songwriter, and game and talk show host. He is best known for his role as Jason Seaver, the patriarch on the ABC television series Growing Pains.

http://tvcrazy.net/images/growing_pains.jpg

Thicke has been married three times. His first marriage to Days of our Lives actress Gloria Loring, from 1970 to 1983, bore him two sons, Brennan and Robin. His second marriage was to the Miss World 1990 pageant winner, Gina Tolleson, from 1992 to 1999, and produced a third son, Carter William. He has been married to Tanya Callau since 2005.
http://www.crunchgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/alan-thicke21.jpg

His son Robin is a platinum album-selling musician, and his son Brennan was a voice actor for cartoons when he was younger.

Thicke was also the host of his own popular talk show in Canada during the early 1980s, called the The Alan Thicke Show. The show at one point spawned a prime time spin-off titled Prime Cuts, which consisted of edited highlights from the talk show.

Based on the success of his talk show, Thicke was signed to do an American late night talk show Thicke of the Night.

Thicke had a successful career as a TV theme song composer. He often collaborated with his wife Gloria Loring on these projects, which included the themes to the popular sitcoms Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life. He also wrote a number of TV game show themes, including The Wizard of Odds (for which he also sang the vocal introduction), The Joker's Wild, Celebrity Sweepstakes, The Diamond Head Game, Blank Check, Stumpers!, Whew! and the original theme to Wheel of Fortune.

http://www.contactmusic.com/pics/lc/nhl_awards_arrivals_4_190609/alan_thicke_5313763.jpg


Man,I miss Growing Pains.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/02/10 at 6:01 am


Man,I miss Growing Pains.  :)

Me too.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/02/10 at 6:03 am


British Person of the Day: Andrew Strauss

Andrew John Strauss, MBE (born 2 March 1977) is an English cricketer who plays county cricket for Middlesex County Cricket Club and is captain of England.

A fluent left-handed opening batsman, Strauss has the ability to accumulate runs without playing big shots, in which respect he has been likened to Graham Thorpe. Also, his technique and more specifically his footwork has been compared to that of the Australian opening batsman Justin Langer, who captained Strauss at Middlesex. Strauss favours scoring off the back foot, mostly playing cut and pull shots. Strauss is also known for his fielding strength at slip or in the covers.

He made his First-class debut in 1998, and made his One Day International (ODI) debut in Sri Lanka in 2003. He quickly rose to fame on his Test match debut replacing the injured Michael Vaughan at Lords against New Zealand in 2004. With scores of 112 and 83 (run out) in an England victory, and the man of the match award, he became only the fourth batsman to score a century at Lord's on his debut and was close to becoming the first Englishman to score centuries in both innings of his debut. Strauss again nearly scored two centuries (126 and 94 not out) and was named man of the match in his first overseas Test match, in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, in December 2004. Strauss suffered a drop in form during 2007, and as a result he was left out of the Test squad for England's tour of Sri Lanka, and announced that he was taking a break from cricket. After a poor tour for England, Andrew was recalled into the squad for the 2008 tour of New Zealand, and subsequently reestablished himself in the side with a career-best 177 in the third and final Test of that series, and a further three centuries in 2008.

Having deputised for Michael Vaughan as England captain in 2006, Strauss was appointed on a permanent basis for the 2009 tour of the West Indies following Kevin Pietersen's resignation. He enjoyed success with three centuries, and retained the captaincy into 2009. Strauss captained the England team to a 2–1 victory in the 2009 Ashes, scoring a series total of 474 runs, more than any other player on either side, including 161 in England's first victory in an Ashes Test at Lord's in 75 years.

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/11/09/ANDREW_STRAUSS_gallery__452x400.jpg

Cricket is a sport I know nothing about.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/02/10 at 6:04 am

Thanks Frank and Phil :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/02/10 at 6:08 am

The word of the day...Slippery
Something that is slippery is smooth, wet, or oily and is therefore difficult to walk on or to hold.
You can describe someone as slippery if you think that they are dishonest in a clever way and cannot be trusted.
If someone is on a slippery slope, they are involved in a course of action that is difficult to stop and that will eventually lead to failure or trouble
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/02/10 at 6:16 am

The person born on this day...Jon Bon Jovi
Jon Bon Jovi (born John Francis Bongiovi, Jr. March 2, 1962) is an American musician, songwriter and actor, best known as the lead singer and founder of band Bon Jovi. He was also the owner of the Philadelphia Soul of the now suspended Arena Football League. Throughout his career, he has released two solo albums and eleven studio albums with his band which have sold over 120 million albums worldwide.

As a solo artist, he has numerous awards for his work, including a Golden Globe and an Academy Award nomination for his solo hit: Blaze of Glory. He was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Monmouth University in 2001. He campaigned for Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential election, John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election, and Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential election.
In October 1984, Bon Jovi supported the group Kiss at the Queens Hall in Leeds.

With the help of their new manager Doc McGhee, the band's debut album, Bon Jovi, was released on January 21, 1984. The album went gold in the US (sales of over 500,000). In 1985, Bon Jovi's second album 7800°Fahrenheit was released, but the response was poor. The turning point came when they brought in songwriter Desmond Child for their third album, Slippery When Wet. With Child co-writing many of their hits on this and future albums the band shot to super-stardom around the world with songs such as "You Give Love a Bad Name", "Livin' On A Prayer", and "Wanted Dead or Alive". The album has sold in excess of 28 million copies worldwide since its release in late 1986.

During their 1986-1987 tour, Jon's attempt to give it his all during live shows (plus the tour's exhausting schedule) greatly strained his vocal cords. In the band's Behind The Music special, he notes that his vocal cords were given steroids to help him sing. With the help of a vocal coach, he was able to continue doing the tour. Contrary to popular belief, Bon Jovi did not have voice damage during the New Jersey Syndicate Tour. As recordings from that tour show, his voice was in perfect condition throughout.

The next album from Bon Jovi was New Jersey released in 1988. The album was recorded very shortly after the tour for Slippery, because the band wanted to prove that they were not just a one hit wonder. The resulting album is a fan favorite and a mammoth commercial success, with hit songs such as "Bad Medicine", "Lay Your Hands on Me" and "I'll Be There for You", which are still nightly stalwarts in their live repertoire.

Despite the band achieving massive success, New Jersey almost led to the end of the band as they went straight back out on the road so soon after the heavy touring for their previous album. This constant living on the road almost destroyed the strong bond between the band members. Sambora is noted on the albums as co-writer for many songs, yet he resented the lack of attention that was heaped on Jon alone. As mentioned in VH1's Behind the Music, the band members note that at the end of the tour, each band member went their separate way, even departing in separate jets after the tour ended in Guadalajara, Mexico in early 1990.

Between 1990 and 1992, members of Bon Jovi went their separate ways after the very rigorous two year New Jersey Tour, which exceeded 200 shows on 5 continents. This time off also helped them determine where Bon Jovi would fit within the rapidly changing music scene upon their return.

In 1992, the band returned with the album Keep the Faith. The album was released in November 1992. Produced by Bob Rock, the album signified an ending to their early metal roots in previous albums and introduced a more "rock n roll"-driven groove to the album. Much more complex, lyrically and musically, the album proved that Bon Jovi could still be a viable band in 90's, despite the industry's and audience's growing affinity for Grunge.

In 1994, Bon Jovi released a "greatest hits" album titled Cross Road, which also contained two new tracks: the hit singles "Always" and "Someday I'll Be Saturday Night". Always, spent six months on the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and became one of Bon Jovi's all-time biggest hits. The song peaked at #4 on the U.S. charts and at #1 in countries across Europe, Asia and in Australia. The single sold very well, going platinum in the U.S. That same year, bassist Alec John Such left the band, the first and only lineup change since Bon Jovi began. Hugh McDonald, who was the bassist on "Runaway", unofficially replaced Such as bassist.

Their sixth studio album These Days was released in June 1995 to the most critical acclaim that the band had ever received. With the album These Days, Bon Jovi took the mature rock sound they had developed on Keep the Faith further. The record as a whole was darker and more downbeat than the usual Bon Jovi flare. By 1996, Bon Jovi had established themselves as a "force" in the music industry, proving much more durable than most of their 80's glam peers.

After another lengthy hiatus of nearly three years, during which several band members worked on independent projects, Bon Jovi regrouped in 1999 to begin work on their next studio album. Their 2000 release, Crush, enjoyed overwhelming success all around the world, thanks in part to the smash-hit single "It's My Life", co-written by famous Swedish producer Max Martin. Crush, which also produced such hits as "Say it isn't so", and helped introduce Bon Jovi to a new, younger fan base.

In late 2002, Bounce, the band's follow-up to Crush, hit stores. Though Bounce did not enjoy the level of success of its predecessor, the album did produce hit singles such as "Everyday" and the title track.
Jon Bon Jovi in the Netherlands on May 26, 2006

Bon Jovi's ninth studio album, Have a Nice Day, was released in September 2005. "Have A Nice Day" was the first single off the new album and the second single from the album "Who Says You Can't Go Home", was released in the U.S. in the spring of 2006. In the U.S. a duet version of "Who Says You Can't Go Home" with country singer Jennifer Nettles of the band Sugarland was released, and in May 2006, Bon Jovi made history by becoming the first Rock & Roll Band to have a #1 hit on Billboard's Hot Country Chart. On February 11, 2007, Bon Jovi also won a Grammy Award, for "Best Country Collaboration with Vocals" for "Who Says You Can't Go Home".

In June 2007, Bon Jovi released their studio album, Lost Highway. The album debuted at number #1 on the Billboard charts, the first time that Bon Jovi have had a number one album on the US charts since the release of New Jersey in 1988. Thanks to the band's new country music fanbase, the album sold 292,000 copies in its first week on sale in the U.S., and became Bon Jovi's third US number one album.

On April 6, 2009, it was announced that the Tribeca Film Festival will screen a Bon Jovi documentary called When We Were Beautiful. The film follows the band on the Lost Highway Tour during 2008. The film is directed by Phil Griffin and will be the centerpiece of the festival and is considered a work-in-progress.

In November 2009, Bon Jovi released their latest studio album The Circle.
Solo career
Jon Bon Jovi in January 2009

Jon Bon Jovi recorded a solo album, a soundtrack to the movie "Young Guns II" (in which he also appeared for less than a second), more commonly known as Blaze of Glory. Released in 1990, the album featured high profile guests such as: Elton John, Aldo Nova, Little Richard, and Jeff Beck, among others. The album fared well commercially and received very positive reviews and quickly achieved double platinum status. The title track, "Blaze of Glory", hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned Jon an Academy Award nomination for Best Song, but he did not win the award. That same year, however, "Blaze of Glory" was awarded a Golden Globe.

Jon wrote what would become his second solo album, 1997's Destination Anywhere. The album received very positive reviews and was a success across Europe. It was rumored that the record company was pursuing Jon to name the record "These Days, Part 2", since the album was somewhat of a moody progression from These Days. A short movie of the same name was recorded right around the record's release, based entirely on the songs from the record and starring Jon Bon Jovi, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon and Whoopi Goldberg. Dave Stewart of Eurythmics played guitar on the record, as well as producing some of the tracks. That year Jon Bon Jovi earned a BRIT Award for Best International Male and also won a MTV Europe Music Award for Best Male.
Personal life

During a stop in Los Angeles on the New Jersey tour in 1989, Bon Jovi secretly took a trip to Las Vegas, where he married his high school sweetheart, Dorothea Hurley (born September 29, 1962) on April 29, 1989 at the Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Together they have four children: Stephanie Rose, Jesse James, Jake and Romeo. Bon Jovi maintains a strong family foundation to this day.

In 2004, he became founder and primary owner of the Philadelphia Soul of the Arena Football League with fellow band member Richie Sambora. He appeared in several television commercials for the league, typically with John Elway, Hall of Fame quarterback for the Denver Broncos. Bon Jovi has been a New York Giants fan his entire life, and also has a long-standing friendship with New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, demonstrated by Belichick often playing Bon Jovi music at Patriots practices.

Bon Jovi was raised a Roman Catholic and states "I'm what you call a recovering Catholic. I have many major issues with the church."
Charitable work

Bon Jovi has worked on behalf of the Special Olympics, the American Red Cross, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, Project Home, The Philadelphia Soul Charitable Foundation and other groups.

He has been named the first Founding Ambassador of the Habitat for Humanity Ambassador program as part of the international-nonprofit organization’s new advocacy outreach initiative. Bon Jovi has been raising awareness with Habitat for Humanity since 2005 when he provided the funds to build six homes in Philadelphia and built the homes alongside the homeowner families, as well as with members of his Philadelphia Soul Arena Football Team. The construction site also served as the video shoot location for his band’s single, "Who Says You Can’t Go Home". In 2006, Bon Jovi made a $1 million donation to build 28 Habitat homes in Louisiana in partnership with low-income families on the hurricane-stricken coast. In July, 2007, Bon Jovi announced a project that will rehabilitate a block of 15 homes in north Philadelphia. During an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2005, the band donated $1 million to the Angel Network foundation.

He is one of 21 artists singing on "Everybody Hurts", a charity single organised by Simon Cowell in aid of the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
Acting work

Bon Jovi is a credited actor in the movies Moonlight and Valentino, The Leading Man, Destination Anywhere, Homegrown, Little City, No Looking Back, Row Your Boat, Vampires Los Muertos, U-571, Cry Wolf, National Lampoon's Pucked. He also had a supporting role in the movie Pay It Forward, where he played Helen Hunt's abusive ex-husband. His TV series appearances include Sex and the City and an extended stint on Ally McBeal as a plumber who was Ally's boyfriend for a short period of time, as well as a guest appearance on 30 Rock, Las Vegas, and The West Wing.
Presenting

He was guest star on American Idol in May 2007, during the show's "Rock Week" in which the contestants all performed his or his band's songs. On October 13, 2007 Jon hosted the third episode of the 33rd season of Saturday Night Live.
Political activism

As a Democrat, Bon Jovi toured extensively on behalf of Presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004, appearing at and playing acoustic sets (with Sambora) at rallies for the Kerry-Edwards ticket throughout the United States. Bon Jovi also played as a part of the Live Earth concert at the Meadowlands in 2007, and was introduced by former Vice President Al Gore. In 2008, Jon Bon Jovi supported Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and after she dropped out, he supported Barack Obama, even holding an exclusive fundraiser at his home for him; he will play a 2009 Manhattan fundraiser for now Secretary of State Clinton to lessen some of her $6.3 million dollar campaign debt. On Sunday, January 18, 2009 Bon Jovi performed a duet at the Obama Inauguration Concert of the Sam Cooke classic "A Change is Gonna Come" with Bettye LaVette. On June 4, 2009 Bon Jovi performed an acoustic benefit show for democratic Gov. Jon Corzine at the NJPAC in Newark, New Jersey.

On June 24, 2009, Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora and Andy Madadian recorded a musical message of worldwide solidarity with the people of Iran. The handwritten Persian sign in the video translates to "we are one".
Filmography
Year Film Role
1995 Moonlight and Valentino The Painter
1996 The Leading Man Robin Grange
1997 Destination Anywhere -
Little City Kevin
1998 Homegrown Danny
No Looking Back Michael
Row Your Boat Jamey Meadows
2000 U-571 Lieutenant Pete Emmett, Chief Engineer, S-33
Pay It Forward Ricky McKinney
2001-2002 Ally McBeal Victor Morrison (10 Episodes)
2002 Vampires: Los Muertos Derek Bliss
2005 Cry Wolf Rich Walker
2006 National Lampoon's Pucked Frank Hopper
The West Wing Himself
2010 30 Rock Himself
Awards

    * 1985: Kerrang: Sex Object Of The Year
    * 1987: Metal Edge Reader's Choice Awards: Best Male Performer.
    * 1989: American Music Award: Best Pop/Rock Band, Duo or Group; award shared with his band.
    * 1990: Golden Globe: Best Song, Blaze of Glory (from Young Guns II soundtrack).
    * 1990: Academy Awards: Nominated, Original Song, "Blaze of Glory" (from Young Guns II soundtrack).
    * 1991: ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards: Most Performed Songs from Motion Pictures for YOUNG GUNS II - Blaze of Glory.
    * 1991: MTV Michael Jackson: Video Vanguard Award; shared with his band.
    * 1996: Sky Sport: Special Olympics Awards.
    * 1997: Kerrang Awards: Classic Songwriter.
    * 1997: MTV Europe Music Awards: Best Male.
    * 1998: Brit awards: Best International Male.
    * 1998: ECHO: Best International Male Artist.
    * 2000: People: Sexiest Rock Star.
    * 2001: Humanitarian of the Year by The Food Bank of Monmouth & Ocean Counties for his charitable work on behalf of the people of New Jersey.
    * 2001: Honorary doctorate in Humanities degree from Monmouth University in New Jersey, for his success as an entertainer and his humanitarian work.
    * 2002: People: Sexiest Rock Star.
    * 2002: My VH1 Music Awards: From The Tour to The Tube - Best TV for ,,Ally McBeal".
    * 2003: People: Sexiest Rock Star.
    * 2004: American Music Awards: Received the Award of Merit for their long career.
    * 2005: World Music Awards:KUMAD Received the Diamond Award for sales of 100+ million albums.
    * 2006: Help USA: Tribute Dinner Honnores.
    * 2006: Inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame
    * 2006: VH1 Livin' on a Prayer-Greatest Song of the '80's
    * 2007: Grammy for Best Country Vocal Collaboration, "Who Says You Can't Go Home?" (with Jennifer Nettles).
    * 2008: VH1 The Greatest: 100 Sexiest Artists (20 - 1): 14th Sexiest Artist
    * 2008: MTV1 The Best: Best Selling Song Of The Decade 1980. Most popular rock song since 1980-s to Present.
    * 2009: Inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

Discography
Studio albums
Year Album details Peak chart positions Certifications
(sales threshold)
US CAN UK AUS NZ JAP SPA GER AUT SWI SWE
1990 Blaze of Glory - Young Guns II

    * Released: July 26, 1990
    * Label: Mercury Records

3 — 2 2 3 4 — 4 1 4 1

    * US: 2× Multi-Platinum
    * CAN: 2× Platinum

1997 Destination Anywhere

    * Released: June 17, 1997
    * Label: Mercury Records

31 6 2 4 34 2 1 1 1 1 7

    * CAN: Platinum
    * ITA: Platinum

"—" denotes releases that did not chart
Compilation albums
Year Album
2001 The Power Station Years: The Unreleased Recordings

    * Released: September 18, 2001
    * Label: Mercury Records

Solo singles
Year Single Peak chart positions Album
US US Rock CAN AUS NZ UK IRE GER SWI AUT NL SWE
1990 "Blaze of Glory" 1 1 1 1 1 13 3 16 5 2 16 3 Blaze of Glory
"Miracle" 12 20 6 8 6 29 20 47 20 — 65 15
1991 "Never Say Die" — — — 60 — — — — — — — —
"Dyin' Ain't Much of a Livin'" — — — — — — — — — — — —
1992 "Levon" 37* 27 — — — — — — — — — — Two Rooms
1994 "Please Come Home for Christmas" — — — — — 7 + 6 + — — — — — A Very Special Christmas 2
1997 "Midnight in Chelsea" 27* — 3 17 — 4 13 9 5 8 16 49 Destination Anywhere
"Queen of New Orleans" — — 40 40 — 10 27 66 50 — 40 41
"Janie, Don't Take Your Love to Town" 48* — 18 — — 13 — 38 — 40 61 —
"Ugly" — — — — — — — 75 41 39 — —
2010 "Everybody Hurts" (as part of "Helping Haiti") 121 — 69 28 17 1 1 16 16 — — 25 Charity single
* Airplay/Radio & Records Chart, "—" denotes the single failed to chart or not released

    * + "Please Come Home for Christmas" was originally credited as a solo recording by Jon Bon Jovi when included on the Christmas compilation A Very Special Christmas 2 in 1992, but when released as a single in UK, Ireland and Europe in 1994 it was released as a Bon Jovi single under the band name. The cover artwork of the single was a still from the musicvideo of Jon Bon Jovi and Cindy Crawford and the same Bon Jovi logo as was used on the albums Keep the Faith and Cross Road and the singles taken from them.

Guest singles
Year Single Artist US Country Album
1998 "Bang a Drum" Chris LeDoux 68 One Road Man
Other album appearances
Year Song Artist Album
2009 "Keep the Faith" Jon Bon Jovi & Washington DC Youth Choir Oh Happy Day
With Bon Jovi
Main article: Bon Jovi discography

Studio albums

    * Bon Jovi (1984)
    * 7800° Fahrenheit (1985)
    * Slippery When Wet (1986)
    * New Jersey (1988)
    * Keep the Faith (1992)
    * These Days (1995)
    * Crush (2000)
    * Bounce (2002)
    * Have a Nice Day (2005)
    * Lost Highway (2007)
    * The Circle (2009)



Compilation albums

    * Cross Road (1994)
    * Tokyo Road: Best of Bon Jovi (2001)
    * This Left Feels Right (2003)

Live albums

    * One Wild Night Live 1985-2001 (2001)

Box Sets

    * 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong (2004)

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/02/10 at 6:30 am

The person who died on this day...Jack Wild
Jack Wild (30 September 1952 – 1 March 2006) was a British actor who achieved fame for his roles in both stage and screen productions of the Lionel Bart musical Oliver! with Ron Moody, Shani Wallis and Oliver Reed. For the latter performance (playing the Artful Dodger), he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the age of 16. Jack Wild appeared with actor Mark Lester in two films: Oliver! (1968) and Melody (1971)
Wild was born into a working class family in Royton, near Oldham, Lancashire, to a labourer father and a mother who worked as a butcher. Wild moved to Hounslow, West London, with his parents during his childhood. He was discovered whilst playing football, by June, mother of Genesis member Phil Collins. He was asked if he wanted a job, and told her he already had one, that he worked for the milkman. He was educated at the independent Barbara Speake Stage School in Acton, London, and had to supplement his parents' modest incomes by working on a stage production of Oliver!, in order to pay his school fees.

It was at the premiere of the 1968 film version of Oliver! that he met brothers Sid and Marty Krofft, who thought Wild would make a good lead for a show they were developing called H.R. Pufnstuf. Wild starred in this American family TV series that launched in 1969, and he was paid $1,000,000 to play 'Jimmy', a boy washed up on 'Living Island' (a magic island) with his best friend Freddy, a talking flute. He was also in the movie Pufnstuf. As well as embarking on a recording career, cutting one album for Capitol Records and two for Buddah Records in the early 1970s, the three albums were called The Jack Wild Album, Everything's Coming Up Roses, and Beautiful World. On top of this he became a favourite for teen magazines of the times and was often featured in interviews, articles and pull-out-posters.

Wild had an older brother named Arthur, who was also an actor and appeared in the London stage version of Oliver!. Arthur Wild died in September 2000.
Problems

Like many child stars, Wild struggled to make the transition to adult stardom, and by 1976 his film career was over. He had begun drinking and smoking regularly at the age of twelve. His alcoholism ruined both his career and his marriage to his childhood sweetheart, Gaynor Jones who left him in 1985 due to his excessive drinking. For a few years Wild, having blown his fortune, was forced to live with his retired father. His alcoholism caused three near-fatal cardiac arrests and resulted in several spells in hospital until he finally stopped drinking in 1989.
Career restarts

Wild went into rehab in 1988 and gave up drinking on 6 March 1989 after joining Alcoholics Victorious. He returned to the big screen in a few minor roles, such as in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. He was also reported to be developing a TV situation comedy with Suzi Quatro around the same time, but those plans never materialized into an actual series. For the most part, Wild spent the remainder of his career working in theatre.His last major appearance was as the male lead, `Mouse' in Tayla Goodman's rock musical `Virus'. The show ran for two weeks at the Theatre Royal Nottingham. Jack received rave reviews and left the audience laughing. Director Peter Everett said that Jack was a true Actor of the old school and a perfect gentleman.
Death

Wild died on 1 March 2006, aged 53, after a long battle with oral cancer, which he believed was caused by his alcoholism and smoking. Diagnosed with the disease in 2000, he initially underwent chemotherapy, but later had part of his tongue and both vocal cords removed in July 2004. Because of this surgery, he had lost his speech and had to communicate through his wife, Claire Harding, whom he met when they were appearing in Jack and the Beanstalk in Worthing. He is buried in Toddington Parish Cemetery.
Filmography

    * Danny the Dragon (1967)
    * Oliver! (1968)
    * H.R. Pufnstuf 1969-1971
    * Pufnstuf aka Pufnstuf Zaps the World (1970)
    * Melody (1971)
    * Flight of the Doves (1971)
    * Caterpiller Taxis (1972)
    * The Pied Piper (1972)
    * The Wild Little Bunch (1972)
    * The Fourteen (UK) aka Existence (1973 film) (USA) and The Wild Little Bunch (USA) (1973)
    * Keep It Up Downstairs (1976)
    * Alice (1981)
    * Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
    * Basil (1998)
    * Moussaka & Chips (2005)

See also

    * List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o66/jackwildscans/jackwild1.jpg
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http://i689.photobucket.com/albums/vv255/entomologynichic/Artical19.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/02/10 at 8:02 am


Cricket is a sport I know nothing about.
The same applies for me for baseball and American Football (Gridiron).

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/02/10 at 8:04 am


The word of the day...Slippery
Something that is slippery is smooth, wet, or oily and is therefore difficult to walk on or to hold.
You can describe someone as slippery if you think that they are dishonest in a clever way and cannot be trusted.
If someone is on a slippery slope, they are involved in a course of action that is difficult to stop and that will eventually lead to failure or trouble
http://i822.photobucket.com/albums/zz144/family_photos_10/Snow%20Day/100_0977.jpg
http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii248/keasbeyknights/DSCF1144.jpg
http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff181/Dcko97/Cody%202-13-14-10/IMG_2581.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii16/Juniorsauer/Slippery.jpg
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt318/lowellbrown/slippery.png
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http://hygo.co.uk/store/images/wet-floor-sign-floor.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/02/10 at 8:04 am


Thanks Frank and Phil :)
No problem.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/02/10 at 8:07 am


The person who died on this day...Jack Wild
Jack Wild (30 September 1952 – 1 March 2006) was a British actor who achieved fame for his roles in both stage and screen productions of the Lionel Bart musical Oliver! with Ron Moody, Shani Wallis and Oliver Reed. For the latter performance (playing the Artful Dodger), he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the age of 16. Jack Wild appeared with actor Mark Lester in two films: Oliver! (1968) and Melody (1971)
Wild was born into a working class family in Royton, near Oldham, Lancashire, to a labourer father and a mother who worked as a butcher. Wild moved to Hounslow, West London, with his parents during his childhood. He was discovered whilst playing football, by June, mother of Genesis member Phil Collins. He was asked if he wanted a job, and told her he already had one, that he worked for the milkman. He was educated at the independent Barbara Speake Stage School in Acton, London, and had to supplement his parents' modest incomes by working on a stage production of Oliver!, in order to pay his school fees.

It was at the premiere of the 1968 film version of Oliver! that he met brothers Sid and Marty Krofft, who thought Wild would make a good lead for a show they were developing called H.R. Pufnstuf. Wild starred in this American family TV series that launched in 1969, and he was paid $1,000,000 to play 'Jimmy', a boy washed up on 'Living Island' (a magic island) with his best friend Freddy, a talking flute. He was also in the movie Pufnstuf. As well as embarking on a recording career, cutting one album for Capitol Records and two for Buddah Records in the early 1970s, the three albums were called The Jack Wild Album, Everything's Coming Up Roses, and Beautiful World. On top of this he became a favourite for teen magazines of the times and was often featured in interviews, articles and pull-out-posters.

Wild had an older brother named Arthur, who was also an actor and appeared in the London stage version of Oliver!. Arthur Wild died in September 2000.
Problems

Like many child stars, Wild struggled to make the transition to adult stardom, and by 1976 his film career was over. He had begun drinking and smoking regularly at the age of twelve. His alcoholism ruined both his career and his marriage to his childhood sweetheart, Gaynor Jones who left him in 1985 due to his excessive drinking. For a few years Wild, having blown his fortune, was forced to live with his retired father. His alcoholism caused three near-fatal cardiac arrests and resulted in several spells in hospital until he finally stopped drinking in 1989.
Career restarts

Wild went into rehab in 1988 and gave up drinking on 6 March 1989 after joining Alcoholics Victorious. He returned to the big screen in a few minor roles, such as in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. He was also reported to be developing a TV situation comedy with Suzi Quatro around the same time, but those plans never materialized into an actual series. For the most part, Wild spent the remainder of his career working in theatre.His last major appearance was as the male lead, `Mouse' in Tayla Goodman's rock musical `Virus'. The show ran for two weeks at the Theatre Royal Nottingham. Jack received rave reviews and left the audience laughing. Director Peter Everett said that Jack was a true Actor of the old school and a perfect gentleman.
Death

Wild died on 1 March 2006, aged 53, after a long battle with oral cancer, which he believed was caused by his alcoholism and smoking. Diagnosed with the disease in 2000, he initially underwent chemotherapy, but later had part of his tongue and both vocal cords removed in July 2004. Because of this surgery, he had lost his speech and had to communicate through his wife, Claire Harding, whom he met when they were appearing in Jack and the Beanstalk in Worthing. He is buried in Toddington Parish Cemetery.
Filmography

    * Danny the Dragon (1967)
    * Oliver! (1968)
    * H.R. Pufnstuf 1969-1971
    * Pufnstuf aka Pufnstuf Zaps the World (1970)
    * Melody (1971)
    * Flight of the Doves (1971)
    * Caterpiller Taxis (1972)
    * The Pied Piper (1972)
    * The Wild Little Bunch (1972)
    * The Fourteen (UK) aka Existence (1973 film) (USA) and The Wild Little Bunch (USA) (1973)
    * Keep It Up Downstairs (1976)
    * Alice (1981)
    * Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
    * Basil (1998)
    * Moussaka & Chips (2005)

See also

    * List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o66/jackwildscans/jackwild1.jpg
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http://i689.photobucket.com/albums/vv255/entomologynichic/Artical19.jpg
:\'(

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/02/10 at 9:17 am


:\'(

It's to bad he started drinking & smoking at such a young age.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/02/10 at 9:34 am


It's to bad he started drinking & smoking at such a young age.
I can only assume badly advised on money matters.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 03/02/10 at 11:08 am

I used to watch H.R. Pufnstuf every week, Saturday mornings. Great stuff. I just adored his accent.
Anyone remember Jack singing (in H.R. Pufnstuf) "I'm a mechanical boy...."?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/02/10 at 11:31 am


I used to watch H.R. Pufnstuf every week, Saturday mornings. Great stuff. I just adored his accent.
Anyone remember Jack singing (in H.R. Pufnstuf) "I'm a mechanical boy...."?
I do not recall seeing that, probably I was watching something else at that time.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/02/10 at 11:36 am


I used to watch H.R. Pufnstuf every week, Saturday mornings. Great stuff. I just adored his accent.
Anyone remember Jack singing (in H.R. Pufnstuf) "I'm a mechanical boy...."?

I use to watch it all the time, I had a crush on Jack and Mark Lester

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qSy3IJJpHY&feature=related#

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 03/02/10 at 2:57 pm


I use to watch it all the time, I had a crush on Jack and Mark Lester

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qSy3IJJpHY&feature=related#



My sister had a major crush on Mark Lester.


I swear that the writers of H.R. Puffinstuff was puffin' on stuff.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/02/10 at 2:59 pm



My sister had a major crush on Mark Lester.


I swear that the writers of H.R. Puffinstuff was puffin' on stuff.



Cat

Most be true, how else could you come up with that show. ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 03/02/10 at 3:00 pm


The person born on this day...Jon Bon Jovi
Jon Bon Jovi (born John Francis Bongiovi, Jr. March 2, 1962) is an American musician, songwriter and actor, best known as the lead singer and founder of band Bon Jovi. He was also the owner of the Philadelphia Soul of the now suspended Arena Football League. Throughout his career, he has released two solo albums and eleven studio albums with his band which have sold over 120 million albums worldwide.

As a solo artist, he has numerous awards for his work, including a Golden Globe and an Academy Award nomination for his solo hit: Blaze of Glory. He was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Monmouth University in 2001. He campaigned for Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential election, John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election, and Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential election.
In October 1984, Bon Jovi supported the group Kiss at the Queens Hall in Leeds.

With the help of their new manager Doc McGhee, the band's debut album, Bon Jovi, was released on January 21, 1984. The album went gold in the US (sales of over 500,000). In 1985, Bon Jovi's second album 7800°Fahrenheit was released, but the response was poor. The turning point came when they brought in songwriter Desmond Child for their third album, Slippery When Wet. With Child co-writing many of their hits on this and future albums the band shot to super-stardom around the world with songs such as "You Give Love a Bad Name", "Livin' On A Prayer", and "Wanted Dead or Alive". The album has sold in excess of 28 million copies worldwide since its release in late 1986.

During their 1986-1987 tour, Jon's attempt to give it his all during live shows (plus the tour's exhausting schedule) greatly strained his vocal cords. In the band's Behind The Music special, he notes that his vocal cords were given steroids to help him sing. With the help of a vocal coach, he was able to continue doing the tour. Contrary to popular belief, Bon Jovi did not have voice damage during the New Jersey Syndicate Tour. As recordings from that tour show, his voice was in perfect condition throughout.

The next album from Bon Jovi was New Jersey released in 1988. The album was recorded very shortly after the tour for Slippery, because the band wanted to prove that they were not just a one hit wonder. The resulting album is a fan favorite and a mammoth commercial success, with hit songs such as "Bad Medicine", "Lay Your Hands on Me" and "I'll Be There for You", which are still nightly stalwarts in their live repertoire.

Despite the band achieving massive success, New Jersey almost led to the end of the band as they went straight back out on the road so soon after the heavy touring for their previous album. This constant living on the road almost destroyed the strong bond between the band members. Sambora is noted on the albums as co-writer for many songs, yet he resented the lack of attention that was heaped on Jon alone. As mentioned in VH1's Behind the Music, the band members note that at the end of the tour, each band member went their separate way, even departing in separate jets after the tour ended in Guadalajara, Mexico in early 1990.

Between 1990 and 1992, members of Bon Jovi went their separate ways after the very rigorous two year New Jersey Tour, which exceeded 200 shows on 5 continents. This time off also helped them determine where Bon Jovi would fit within the rapidly changing music scene upon their return.

In 1992, the band returned with the album Keep the Faith. The album was released in November 1992. Produced by Bob Rock, the album signified an ending to their early metal roots in previous albums and introduced a more "rock n roll"-driven groove to the album. Much more complex, lyrically and musically, the album proved that Bon Jovi could still be a viable band in 90's, despite the industry's and audience's growing affinity for Grunge.

In 1994, Bon Jovi released a "greatest hits" album titled Cross Road, which also contained two new tracks: the hit singles "Always" and "Someday I'll Be Saturday Night". Always, spent six months on the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and became one of Bon Jovi's all-time biggest hits. The song peaked at #4 on the U.S. charts and at #1 in countries across Europe, Asia and in Australia. The single sold very well, going platinum in the U.S. That same year, bassist Alec John Such left the band, the first and only lineup change since Bon Jovi began. Hugh McDonald, who was the bassist on "Runaway", unofficially replaced Such as bassist.

Their sixth studio album These Days was released in June 1995 to the most critical acclaim that the band had ever received. With the album These Days, Bon Jovi took the mature rock sound they had developed on Keep the Faith further. The record as a whole was darker and more downbeat than the usual Bon Jovi flare. By 1996, Bon Jovi had established themselves as a "force" in the music industry, proving much more durable than most of their 80's glam peers.

After another lengthy hiatus of nearly three years, during which several band members worked on independent projects, Bon Jovi regrouped in 1999 to begin work on their next studio album. Their 2000 release, Crush, enjoyed overwhelming success all around the world, thanks in part to the smash-hit single "It's My Life", co-written by famous Swedish producer Max Martin. Crush, which also produced such hits as "Say it isn't so", and helped introduce Bon Jovi to a new, younger fan base.

In late 2002, Bounce, the band's follow-up to Crush, hit stores. Though Bounce did not enjoy the level of success of its predecessor, the album did produce hit singles such as "Everyday" and the title track.
Jon Bon Jovi in the Netherlands on May 26, 2006

Bon Jovi's ninth studio album, Have a Nice Day, was released in September 2005. "Have A Nice Day" was the first single off the new album and the second single from the album "Who Says You Can't Go Home", was released in the U.S. in the spring of 2006. In the U.S. a duet version of "Who Says You Can't Go Home" with country singer Jennifer Nettles of the band Sugarland was released, and in May 2006, Bon Jovi made history by becoming the first Rock & Roll Band to have a #1 hit on Billboard's Hot Country Chart. On February 11, 2007, Bon Jovi also won a Grammy Award, for "Best Country Collaboration with Vocals" for "Who Says You Can't Go Home".

In June 2007, Bon Jovi released their studio album, Lost Highway. The album debuted at number #1 on the Billboard charts, the first time that Bon Jovi have had a number one album on the US charts since the release of New Jersey in 1988. Thanks to the band's new country music fanbase, the album sold 292,000 copies in its first week on sale in the U.S., and became Bon Jovi's third US number one album.

On April 6, 2009, it was announced that the Tribeca Film Festival will screen a Bon Jovi documentary called When We Were Beautiful. The film follows the band on the Lost Highway Tour during 2008. The film is directed by Phil Griffin and will be the centerpiece of the festival and is considered a work-in-progress.

In November 2009, Bon Jovi released their latest studio album The Circle.
Solo career
Jon Bon Jovi in January 2009

Jon Bon Jovi recorded a solo album, a soundtrack to the movie "Young Guns II" (in which he also appeared for less than a second), more commonly known as Blaze of Glory. Released in 1990, the album featured high profile guests such as: Elton John, Aldo Nova, Little Richard, and Jeff Beck, among others. The album fared well commercially and received very positive reviews and quickly achieved double platinum status. The title track, "Blaze of Glory", hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned Jon an Academy Award nomination for Best Song, but he did not win the award. That same year, however, "Blaze of Glory" was awarded a Golden Globe.

Jon wrote what would become his second solo album, 1997's Destination Anywhere. The album received very positive reviews and was a success across Europe. It was rumored that the record company was pursuing Jon to name the record "These Days, Part 2", since the album was somewhat of a moody progression from These Days. A short movie of the same name was recorded right around the record's release, based entirely on the songs from the record and starring Jon Bon Jovi, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon and Whoopi Goldberg. Dave Stewart of Eurythmics played guitar on the record, as well as producing some of the tracks. That year Jon Bon Jovi earned a BRIT Award for Best International Male and also won a MTV Europe Music Award for Best Male.
Personal life

During a stop in Los Angeles on the New Jersey tour in 1989, Bon Jovi secretly took a trip to Las Vegas, where he married his high school sweetheart, Dorothea Hurley (born September 29, 1962) on April 29, 1989 at the Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Together they have four children: Stephanie Rose, Jesse James, Jake and Romeo. Bon Jovi maintains a strong family foundation to this day.

In 2004, he became founder and primary owner of the Philadelphia Soul of the Arena Football League with fellow band member Richie Sambora. He appeared in several television commercials for the league, typically with John Elway, Hall of Fame quarterback for the Denver Broncos. Bon Jovi has been a New York Giants fan his entire life, and also has a long-standing friendship with New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, demonstrated by Belichick often playing Bon Jovi music at Patriots practices.

Bon Jovi was raised a Roman Catholic and states "I'm what you call a recovering Catholic. I have many major issues with the church."
Charitable work

Bon Jovi has worked on behalf of the Special Olympics, the American Red Cross, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, Project Home, The Philadelphia Soul Charitable Foundation and other groups.

He has been named the first Founding Ambassador of the Habitat for Humanity Ambassador program as part of the international-nonprofit organization’s new advocacy outreach initiative. Bon Jovi has been raising awareness with Habitat for Humanity since 2005 when he provided the funds to build six homes in Philadelphia and built the homes alongside the homeowner families, as well as with members of his Philadelphia Soul Arena Football Team. The construction site also served as the video shoot location for his band’s single, "Who Says You Can’t Go Home". In 2006, Bon Jovi made a $1 million donation to build 28 Habitat homes in Louisiana in partnership with low-income families on the hurricane-stricken coast. In July, 2007, Bon Jovi announced a project that will rehabilitate a block of 15 homes in north Philadelphia. During an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2005, the band donated $1 million to the Angel Network foundation.

He is one of 21 artists singing on "Everybody Hurts", a charity single organised by Simon Cowell in aid of the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
Acting work

Bon Jovi is a credited actor in the movies Moonlight and Valentino, The Leading Man, Destination Anywhere, Homegrown, Little City, No Looking Back, Row Your Boat, Vampires Los Muertos, U-571, Cry Wolf, National Lampoon's Pucked. He also had a supporting role in the movie Pay It Forward, where he played Helen Hunt's abusive ex-husband. His TV series appearances include Sex and the City and an extended stint on Ally McBeal as a plumber who was Ally's boyfriend for a short period of time, as well as a guest appearance on 30 Rock, Las Vegas, and The West Wing.
Presenting

He was guest star on American Idol in May 2007, during the show's "Rock Week" in which the contestants all performed his or his band's songs. On October 13, 2007 Jon hosted the third episode of the 33rd season of Saturday Night Live.
Political activism

As a Democrat, Bon Jovi toured extensively on behalf of Presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004, appearing at and playing acoustic sets (with Sambora) at rallies for the Kerry-Edwards ticket throughout the United States. Bon Jovi also played as a part of the Live Earth concert at the Meadowlands in 2007, and was introduced by former Vice President Al Gore. In 2008, Jon Bon Jovi supported Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and after she dropped out, he supported Barack Obama, even holding an exclusive fundraiser at his home for him; he will play a 2009 Manhattan fundraiser for now Secretary of State Clinton to lessen some of her $6.3 million dollar campaign debt. On Sunday, January 18, 2009 Bon Jovi performed a duet at the Obama Inauguration Concert of the Sam Cooke classic "A Change is Gonna Come" with Bettye LaVette. On June 4, 2009 Bon Jovi performed an acoustic benefit show for democratic Gov. Jon Corzine at the NJPAC in Newark, New Jersey.

On June 24, 2009, Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora and Andy Madadian recorded a musical message of worldwide solidarity with the people of Iran. The handwritten Persian sign in the video translates to "we are one".
Filmography
Year Film Role
1995 Moonlight and Valentino The Painter
1996 The Leading Man Robin Grange
1997 Destination Anywhere -
Little City Kevin
1998 Homegrown Danny
No Looking Back Michael
Row Your Boat Jamey Meadows
2000 U-571 Lieutenant Pete Emmett, Chief Engineer, S-33
Pay It Forward Ricky McKinney
2001-2002 Ally McBeal Victor Morrison (10 Episodes)
2002 Vampires: Los Muertos Derek Bliss
2005 Cry Wolf Rich Walker
2006 National Lampoon's Pucked Frank Hopper
The West Wing Himself
2010 30 Rock Himself
Awards

    * 1985: Kerrang: Sex Object Of The Year
    * 1987: Metal Edge Reader's Choice Awards: Best Male Performer.
    * 1989: American Music Award: Best Pop/Rock Band, Duo or Group; award shared with his band.
    * 1990: Golden Globe: Best Song, Blaze of Glory (from Young Guns II soundtrack).
    * 1990: Academy Awards: Nominated, Original Song, "Blaze of Glory" (from Young Guns II soundtrack).
    * 1991: ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards: Most Performed Songs from Motion Pictures for YOUNG GUNS II - Blaze of Glory.
    * 1991: MTV Michael Jackson: Video Vanguard Award; shared with his band.
    * 1996: Sky Sport: Special Olympics Awards.
    * 1997: Kerrang Awards: Classic Songwriter.
    * 1997: MTV Europe Music Awards: Best Male.
    * 1998: Brit awards: Best International Male.
    * 1998: ECHO: Best International Male Artist.
    * 2000: People: Sexiest Rock Star.
    * 2001: Humanitarian of the Year by The Food Bank of Monmouth & Ocean Counties for his charitable work on behalf of the people of New Jersey.
    * 2001: Honorary doctorate in Humanities degree from Monmouth University in New Jersey, for his success as an entertainer and his humanitarian work.
    * 2002: People: Sexiest Rock Star.
    * 2002: My VH1 Music Awards: From The Tour to The Tube - Best TV for ,,Ally McBeal".
    * 2003: People: Sexiest Rock Star.
    * 2004: American Music Awards: Received the Award of Merit for their long career.
    * 2005: World Music Awards:KUMAD Received the Diamond Award for sales of 100+ million albums.
    * 2006: Help USA: Tribute Dinner Honnores.
    * 2006: Inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame
    * 2006: VH1 Livin' on a Prayer-Greatest Song of the '80's
    * 2007: Grammy for Best Country Vocal Collaboration, "Who Says You Can't Go Home?" (with Jennifer Nettles).
    * 2008: VH1 The Greatest: 100 Sexiest Artists (20 - 1): 14th Sexiest Artist
    * 2008: MTV1 The Best: Best Selling Song Of The Decade 1980. Most popular rock song since 1980-s to Present.
    * 2009: Inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

Discography
Studio albums
Year Album details Peak chart positions Certifications
(sales threshold)
US CAN UK AUS NZ JAP SPA GER AUT SWI SWE
1990 Blaze of Glory - Young Guns II

    * Released: July 26, 1990
    * Label: Mercury Records

3 — 2 2 3 4 — 4 1 4 1

    * US: 2× Multi-Platinum
    * CAN: 2× Platinum

1997 Destination Anywhere

    * Released: June 17, 1997
    * Label: Mercury Records

31 6 2 4 34 2 1 1 1 1 7

    * CAN: Platinum
    * ITA: Platinum

"—" denotes releases that did not chart
Compilation albums
Year Album
2001 The Power Station Years: The Unreleased Recordings

    * Released: September 18, 2001
    * Label: Mercury Records

Solo singles
Year Single Peak chart positions Album
US US Rock CAN AUS NZ UK IRE GER SWI AUT NL SWE
1990 "Blaze of Glory" 1 1 1 1 1 13 3 16 5 2 16 3 Blaze of Glory
"Miracle" 12 20 6 8 6 29 20 47 20 — 65 15
1991 "Never Say Die" — — — 60 — — — — — — — —
"Dyin' Ain't Much of a Livin'" — — — — — — — — — — — —
1992 "Levon" 37* 27 — — — — — — — — — — Two Rooms
1994 "Please Come Home for Christmas" — — — — — 7 + 6 + — — — — — A Very Special Christmas 2
1997 "Midnight in Chelsea" 27* — 3 17 — 4 13 9 5 8 16 49 Destination Anywhere
"Queen of New Orleans" — — 40 40 — 10 27 66 50 — 40 41
"Janie, Don't Take Your Love to Town" 48* — 18 — — 13 — 38 — 40 61 —
"Ugly" — — — — — — — 75 41 39 — —
2010 "Everybody Hurts" (as part of "Helping Haiti") 121 — 69 28 17 1 1 16 16 — — 25 Charity single
* Airplay/Radio & Records Chart, "—" denotes the single failed to chart or not released

    * + "Please Come Home for Christmas" was originally credited as a solo recording by Jon Bon Jovi when included on the Christmas compilation A Very Special Christmas 2 in 1992, but when released as a single in UK, Ireland and Europe in 1994 it was released as a Bon Jovi single under the band name. The cover artwork of the single was a still from the musicvideo of Jon Bon Jovi and Cindy Crawford and the same Bon Jovi logo as was used on the albums Keep the Faith and Cross Road and the singles taken from them.

Guest singles
Year Single Artist US Country Album
1998 "Bang a Drum" Chris LeDoux 68 One Road Man
Other album appearances
Year Song Artist Album
2009 "Keep the Faith" Jon Bon Jovi & Washington DC Youth Choir Oh Happy Day
With Bon Jovi
Main article: Bon Jovi discography

Studio albums

    * Bon Jovi (1984)
    * 7800° Fahrenheit (1985)
    * Slippery When Wet (1986)
    * New Jersey (1988)
    * Keep the Faith (1992)
    * These Days (1995)
    * Crush (2000)
    * Bounce (2002)
    * Have a Nice Day (2005)
    * Lost Highway (2007)
    * The Circle (2009)



Compilation albums

    * Cross Road (1994)
    * Tokyo Road: Best of Bon Jovi (2001)
    * This Left Feels Right (2003)

Live albums

    * One Wild Night Live 1985-2001 (2001)

Box Sets

    * 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong (2004)

http://i574.photobucket.com/albums/ss188/KowboiCash/Jon%20Bon%20Jovi/JBJ161.jpg
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll19/locohicana65/STUFF/42af48da.jpg
http://i574.photobucket.com/albums/ss188/KowboiCash/Jon%20Bon%20Jovi/JBJ157.jpg


I used to love Bonjovi videos. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 03/02/10 at 3:09 pm

I think Bon Jovi was underrated. Jon and Richie are great singing together and playing acoustically.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 03/02/10 at 3:39 pm


Most be true, how else could you come up with that show. ;D

I have watched it recently. Weird stuff. I know lots of girls who had a crush on jack in that show.
I used to be afraid of witchie-poo a little.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/02/10 at 3:59 pm


I used to love Bonjovi videos. :)

I think Bon Jovi was underrated. Jon and Richie are great singing together and playing acoustically.

I love Bon Jovi :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/02/10 at 4:00 pm


I have watched it recently. Weird stuff. I know lots of girls who had a crush on jack in that show.
I used to be afraid of witchie-poo a little.

I never was afraid of her, but was afraid of the wicked witch from The Wizard of Oz.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 03/02/10 at 4:05 pm


I never was afraid of her, but was afraid of the wicked witch from The Wizard of Oz.

Me too.
I have read somewhere that since HR Puff'n stuff looks like the Hamburgler in those old Mcdonalds commercials, not sure if Krofft wanted to sue Mcdonalds or vice versa. My memory isn't as good as it used to be in my younger days.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: nally on 03/02/10 at 11:53 pm


I love Bon Jovi :)

yeah, they've made lots of great songs. O0

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/03/10 at 2:07 am

British Person of the Day: Fatima Whitbread

Fatima Whitbread MBE (born 3 March 1961 in London) is an British former javelin thrower and multiple medal-winner.

Early life

Fatima Whitbread was born in north London to a Turkish Cypriot mother and Greek Cypriot father.

At age fourteen, Fatima was adopted by the Whitbread family and she spent her teenage years in Chadwell St Mary, Essex. Fatima's mother had asked them to take her in when she realized that Fatima was spending a lot of time with Margaret Whitbread, a sports coach.

Fatima attended Dilkes County Primary School And The Culverhouse School (Now The Ockendon Maths And Computing College) In South Ockendon, Essex.

Career

Whitbread broke the World Record with a throw of 77.44m in the qualifying round of the 1986 European Championships in Athletics (where she also won the final) and became World Champion in 1987. She became well-known in the UK for her celebratory wiggle after defeating arch-rival Petra Felke in these events. Her performances in 1987 led to her being voted winner of the prestigious BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.

Whitbread had won the silver medal at the inaugural World Championships in 1983. She was also well known for her rivalry with fellow English javelin thrower Tessa Sanderson, who won the gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles with Whitbread finishing in bronze medal position.

In the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Whitbread won the silver medal behind Petra Felke, who had broken the world record in the interim.

Later life

In 1997, Whitbread married Andrew Norman at Copthorne in West Sussex and has one son, Ryan. Norman, who represented many athletes professionally, died in 2007.

She was at one time a governor of King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford, in the town of Brentwood where she was living.

According to a November 2008 Daily Express article, she owns her own company and is heavily involved with the stadium being used after the 2012 London Olympics.

http://www.olympics.org.uk/images/athlete/Whitbread_Fatima_Action_1.jpg

http://www.archwaysbooks.com/shop_image/product/13700.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/03/10 at 5:37 am


British Person of the Day: Fatima Whitbread

Fatima Whitbread MBE (born 3 March 1961 in London) is an British former javelin thrower and multiple medal-winner.

Early life

Fatima Whitbread was born in north London to a Turkish Cypriot mother and Greek Cypriot father.

At age fourteen, Fatima was adopted by the Whitbread family and she spent her teenage years in Chadwell St Mary, Essex. Fatima's mother had asked them to take her in when she realized that Fatima was spending a lot of time with Margaret Whitbread, a sports coach.

Fatima attended Dilkes County Primary School And The Culverhouse School (Now The Ockendon Maths And Computing College) In South Ockendon, Essex.

Career

Whitbread broke the World Record with a throw of 77.44m in the qualifying round of the 1986 European Championships in Athletics (where she also won the final) and became World Champion in 1987. She became well-known in the UK for her celebratory wiggle after defeating arch-rival Petra Felke in these events. Her performances in 1987 led to her being voted winner of the prestigious BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.

Whitbread had won the silver medal at the inaugural World Championships in 1983. She was also well known for her rivalry with fellow English javelin thrower Tessa Sanderson, who won the gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles with Whitbread finishing in bronze medal position.

In the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Whitbread won the silver medal behind Petra Felke, who had broken the world record in the interim.

Later life

In 1997, Whitbread married Andrew Norman at Copthorne in West Sussex and has one son, Ryan. Norman, who represented many athletes professionally, died in 2007.

She was at one time a governor of King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford, in the town of Brentwood where she was living.

According to a November 2008 Daily Express article, she owns her own company and is heavily involved with the stadium being used after the 2012 London Olympics.

http://www.olympics.org.uk/images/athlete/Whitbread_Fatima_Action_1.jpg

http://www.archwaysbooks.com/shop_image/product/13700.jpg

Very nice. Funny I too picked an Olympian.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/03/10 at 5:43 am

The word of the day...Hurdle(s)
A hurdle is a problem, difficulty, or part of a process that may prevent you from achieving something.
Hurdles is a race in which people have to jump over a number of obstacles that are also called hurdles. You can use hurdles to refer to one or more races.
If you hurdle, you jump over something while you are running.
http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb199/cac_mai_09/Hurdles.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/krazy_kona_rider/hurdles.jpg
http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad176/Croket47/Hurdles.jpg
http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u164/mena7306/hurdles.jpg
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j218/Ethan_721/hurdles.gif
http://i583.photobucket.com/albums/ss276/resumerob/hurdle.jpg
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d101/scotth92/Scott_Hurdle.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss227/jennyandizzy/boomerangg093.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/03/10 at 5:45 am

The person born on this day...Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Jacqueline "Jackie" Joyner-Kersee (born March 3, 1962) is a retired American athlete, ranked among the all-time greatest athletes in the women's heptathlon as well as in the women's long jump. She won three gold, one silver, and two bronze Olympic medals, in those two different events. Sports Illustrated for Women magazine voted Joyner-Kersee the Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th century, just ahead of Babe Didrikson Zaharias.
Jacqueline Joyner was born March 3, 1962, in East St. Louis, Illinois, and was named after Jackie Kennedy. She was inspired to compete in multi-disciplinary track & field events after seeing a 1975 made-for-TV movie about Babe Didrikson Zaharias. Interestingly, Didrikson, the trackster, basketball player, and pro golfer, was chosen the "Greatest Female Athlete of the First Half of the 20th Century. Fifty years later, "Sports Illustrated for Women" magazine voted Joyner-Kersee the greatest female athlete of "all time".
UCLA

Joyner-Kersee attended college at the University of California at Los Angeles, where she starred in both track & field and in women's basketball from 1980-1985. She was a starter in her forward position for each of her first three seasons (1980-81, 81-82, and 82-83)as well as in her senior (fifth) year, 1984-1985. She had red-shirted during the 1983-1984 academic year to concentrate on the heptathalon for the 1984 Summer Olympics.

She scored 1,167 points during her collegiate career, which places her 19th all time for the Bruins as of the 2009 season. She had 752 career rebounds, which places her 9th all-time for the Bruins. In her senior season, the Bruins twice defeated Cheryl Miller-led USC Trojans teams in the UCLA-USC rivalry games. The Bruins advanced to the West Regional semi-finals of the 1985 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament before losing to eventual runner-up Georgia.

She was honored on February 21, 1998 as one of the 15 greatest players in UCLA women's basketball. In April 2001, Joyner-Kersee was voted the "Top Woman Collegiate Athlete of the Past 25 Years." The vote was conducted among the 976 NCAA member schools.
Competition
1984 Summer Olympics

Joyner-Kersee competed in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and won the silver medal in the heptathlon.
1986 Goodwill Games

Joyner-Kersee was the first woman to score over 7,000 points in a heptathlon event (during the 1986 Goodwill Games). In 1986, she received the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States.
1988 Summer Olympics

In the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Korea, Joyner-Kersee earned gold medals in both the heptathlon and the long jump. At the 1988 Games in Seoul, she set the still-standing heptathlon world record of 7,291 points. The silver and bronze medalists were Sabine John and Anke Vater-Behmer, both of whom were representing East Germany. Five days later, Joyner won her second gold medal, leaping to an Olympic record of 7.40 m (24 ft 3+1⁄4 in) in the long jump.
1991 World Championships Tokyo

She was the red hot favorite to retain both her World titles earned four years earlier in Rome. However her challenge was dramatically halted when, having won the long jump easily with a 7.32 m (24 ft +1⁄4 in) jump no one would beat, she slipped on the take off board and careened head first into the pit, luckily avoiding serious injury. She did, however, strain a hamstring, which led to her having to pull out of the heptathlon during the 200 m at the end of the first day.
1992 Summer Olympics

In the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, Joyner-Kersee earned her 2nd Olympic gold medal in the heptathlon. She also won the bronze medal in the long jump which was won by her friend Heike Drechsler of Germany.
1996 Summer Olympics

At the Olympic Trials, Joyner-Kersee sustained an injury to her right hamstring. When the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia began, Joyner-Kersee was not fully recovered by the time the heptathlon started. After running the first event, the 100 m hurdles, the pain was unbearable and she withdrew. She was able to recover well enough to compete in the long jump and qualify for the final, but was in sixth place in the final with one jump remaining. Her final jump of 7.00 m (22 ft 11+1⁄2 in) was long enough for her to win the bronze medal. The Atlanta Olympics would be the last Olympics of Joyner-Kersee's long competitive career.
Professional Basketball Career

In 1996 she signed on to play pro basketball for the Richmond Rage of the fledgling American Basketball League. Although she was very popular with the fans, she was less successful on the court. She appeared in only 17 games, and scored no more than four points in any game.
1998 Goodwill Games

Returning to track, Joyner-Kersee won the heptathlon again at the 1998 Goodwill Games, scoring 6,502 points.
2000 Olympic Trials

Joyner-Kersee made her final bow in track & field competition in 2000. She was sixth in the long jump (21-10.75) at the Olympic Trials.
Awards and honors

    * 2010 NCAA Silver Anniversary Awards honoree.

Current world records

As of August 2008, Joyner-Kersee holds the world record in heptathlon along with six all time best results and her long jump record of 7.49 m is second on the long jump all time list. In addition to heptathlon and long jump, she was a world class athlete in 100 m hurdles and 200 meters being as of June 2006 in top 60 all time in those events.

Sports Illustrated voted her the greatest female athlete of the 20th century.

Joyner-Kersee consistently has maintained that she has competed throughout her career without performance-enhancing drugs.
Personal life

Jackie's brother is the Olympic champion triple jumper Al Joyner, who was married to another Olympic track champion, the late Florence Griffith-Joyner. Jackie married her track coach, Bob Kersee, in 1986.

In 1988, Joyner-Kersee established the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation, which provides youth, adults, and families with the resources to improve their quality of life with special attention directed to East St. Louis, Illinois. In 2007, Jackie Joyner-Kersee along with Andre Agassi, Muhammad Ali, Lance Armstrong, Warrick Dunn, Mia Hamm, Jeff Gordon, Tony Hawk, Andrea Jaeger, Mario Lemieux, Alonzo Mourning, and Cal Ripken, Jr. founded the "Athletes for Hope", a charitable organization, which helps professional athletes get involved in charitable causes and inspires millions of non-athletes to volunteer and support the community
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/03/10 at 5:49 am

The person who died on this day...Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye (January 18, 1913 – March 3, 1987) was an American actor, singer and comedian.
Born David Daniel Kaminsky to Jewish Ukrainian immigrants in Brooklyn, Kaye became one of the world's best-known comedians. He spent his early youth attending Public School 149 in East New York, Brooklyn, before moving to Thomas Jefferson High School, but he never graduated. He learned his trade in his teenage years in the Catskills as a tummler in the Borscht Belt.
Career

Danny Kaye made his film debut in a 1935 comedy short titled Moon Over Manhattan. In 1937 he signed with New York–based Educational Pictures for a series of two-reel comedies. Kaye usually played a manic, dark-haired, fast-talking Russian in these low-budget shorts, opposite young hopefuls June Allyson or Imogene Coca. The Kaye series ended abruptly when the studio shut down permanently in 1938.

Kaye scored a personal triumph in 1941, in the hit Broadway comedy Lady in the Dark. His show-stopping number was "Tchaikovsky", by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin, in which he sang the names of a whole string of Russian composers at breakneck speed, seemingly without taking a breath.

His feature film debut was in producer Samuel Goldwyn's Technicolor 1944 comedy Up in Arms, a remake of Goldwyn's Eddie Cantor comedy Whoopee! (1930). Goldwyn agonized over Kaye's ethnic, Borscht-belt looks and ordered him to undergo a nose job. Kaye refused, and Goldwyn found another way to brighten Kaye's dark features by lightening his hair, giving him his trademark redheaded locks. Kaye's rubber face and fast patter were an instant hit, and rival producer Robert M. Savini cashed in almost immediately by compiling three of Kaye's old Educational Pictures shorts into a makeshift feature, The Birth of a Star (1945).

Kaye starred in several movies with actress Virginia Mayo in the 1940s, and is well known for his roles in films such as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), The Inspector General (1949), On the Riviera (1951) co-starring Gene Tierney, White Christmas (1954, in a role originally intended for Fred Astaire, then Donald O'Connor), Knock on Wood (1954), The Court Jester (1956), and Merry Andrew (1958). Kaye starred in two pictures based on biographies, Hans Christian Andersen (1952) about the Danish story-teller, and The Five Pennies (1959) about jazz pioneer Red Nichols. His wife, writer/lyricist Sylvia Fine, wrote many of the witty, tongue-twisting songs Danny Kaye became famous for. Some of Kaye's films included the theme of doubles, two people who look identical (both played by Danny Kaye) being mistaken for each other, to comic effect. The Kaye-Fine marriage, as was the case with many spouses who worked together in the high-pressure world of film-making, was sometimes stormy.

During World War II, the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated rumors that Kaye dodged the draft by manufacturing a medical condition to gain 4-F status and exemption from military service. FBI files show he was also under investigation for supposed links with Communist groups. The allegations were never substantiated, and he was never charged with any associated crime.
Other projects

Kaye starred in a radio program of his own, The Danny Kaye Show, on CBS in 1945–1946. Although it had a stellar cast (including Eve Arden, Lionel Stander, and Big Band leader Harry James), and was scripted by radio notables Goodman Ace, Sylvia Fine, and respected playwright-director Abe Burrows, the show failed to make proper use of its star, and never found an audience. It turned out to be a very bitter experience for both Kaye and Ace. Many episodes survive today, and are notable for Kaye's opening "nonsense" patter.

Kaye was sufficiently popular that he inspired imitations:

    * The 1946 Warner Bros. cartoon Book Revue had a lengthy sequence with Daffy Duck impersonating Kaye singing "Carolina in the Morning" with the Russian accent that Kaye would affect from time to time.
    * Satirical songwriter Tom Lehrer's 1953 song "Lobachevsky" was based on a number that Kaye had done, about the Russian director Constantin Stanislavski, again with the affected Russian accent. Lehrer mentioned Kaye in the opening monologue, citing him as an "idol since childbirth."

When he appeared at the London Palladium music hall in 1948, he "roused the Royal family to shrieks of laughter and was the first of many performers who have turned English variety into an American preserve." Life magazine described his reception as "worshipful hysteria" and noted that the royal family, for the first time in history, left the royal box to see the show from the front row of the orchestra.

He hosted the 24th Academy Awards in 1952. The program was broadcast only on radio. Telecasts of the Oscar ceremony would come later.

He hosted his own variety hour on CBS television, The Danny Kaye Show, from 1963 to 1967. During this period, beginning in 1964, he acted as television host to the annual CBS telecasts of MGM's The Wizard of Oz. Kaye also did a stint as one of the What's My Line? Mystery Guests on the popular Sunday night CBS-TV quiz program. Kaye later served as a guest panelist on that show. He also appeared on the NBC interview program Here's Hollywood.

Danny Kaye was very fond of the legendary arranger Vic Schoen. Schoen had arranged for him on White Christmas, the Court Jester, and albums and concerts with the Andrews Sisters. In the 1960s Vic Schoen was working on a show in Las Vegas with Shirley Temple. He was injured in a car accident. When Danny Kaye heard about the accident, he immediately flew his own plane (Kaye was an avid pilot) to McCarran Airport to pick up Schoen and bring him back to Los Angeles to guarantee the best medical attention.

In 1976, he played the role of Mister Geppetto in a television musical adaptation of Pinocchio with Sandy Duncan in the title role. He guest-starred much later in his career in episodes of The Muppet Show, The Cosby Show and in the 1980s revival of The Twilight Zone.

Kaye was the original owner of baseball's Seattle Mariners along with his partner Lester Smith from 1977 to 1981. Prior to that, the lifelong fan of the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers recorded a song called "The D-O-D-G-E-R-S Song (Oh really? No, O'Malley!)", describing a fictitious encounter with the San Francisco Giants, which was a hit during those clubs' real-life pennant chase of 1962. That song is included on one of the Baseball's Greatest Hits compact discs.

During the 1950s, Kaye visited Australia, where he played "Buttons" in a production of Cinderella in Sydney. In the 1970s Kaye tore a ligament in his leg during the run of the Richard Rodgers musical Two by Two, but went on with the show, appearing with his leg in a cast and cavorting on stage from a wheelchair.

In many of his movies, as well as on stage, Kaye proved to be a very able actor, singer, dancer and comedian. He showed quite a different and serious side as Ambassador for UNICEF and in his dramatic role in the memorable TV movie Skokie, in which he played a Holocaust survivor. Before his death in 1987, Kaye demonstrated his ability to conduct an orchestra during a comical, but technically sound, series of concerts organized for UNICEF fundraising. Kaye received two Academy Awards: an honorary award in 1955 and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1982.

In 1980, Kaye hosted and sang in the 25th Anniversary of Disneyland celebration, and hosted the opening celebration for Epcot in 1982 (EPCOT Center at the time), both of which were aired on prime-time American television.

In his later years he took to entertaining at home as chef – he had a special stove installed in his patio – and specialized in Chinese cooking. The theater and demonstration kitchen underneath the library at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York is named for him.

He also had a longstanding interest in medicine and was permitted to observe surgery on several occasions.

He was an accomplished pilot, rated for airplanes ranging from single engine light aircraft to multi-engine jets.

Throughout his life, Kaye donated to various charities. Working alongside UNICEF's Halloween fundraiser founder, Ward Simon Kimball Jr., the actor educated the public on impoverished children in deplorable living conditions overseas and assisted in the distribution of donated goods and funds.

Kaye was enamored of music. While he often claimed an inability to read music, he was quite the conductor, and was said to have perfect pitch. Kaye was often invited to conduct symphonies as charity fundraisers. Over the course of his career he raised over US$5,000,000 in support of musicians pension funds.
The bench at Danny Kaye's grave in Kensico Cemetery

Kaye died in 1987 from a heart attack, following a bout of hepatitis. He left a widow, Sylvia Fine, and a daughter, Dena. He is interred in the Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. His grave is adorned with a bench that contains friezes of a baseball and bat, an aircraft, a piano, a flower pot, musical notes, and a glove.
Personal life

After Kaye and his wife became estranged, he was allegedly involved with a succession of women, though he and Fine never divorced. The best-known of these women was actress Eve Arden.

There are persistent rumors that Kaye was either homosexual or bisexual and some sources claim that Kaye and Laurence Olivier had a 10-year relationship in the 1950s while Olivier was still married to Vivien Leigh. A biography of Leigh states that the alleged relationship caused her to have a breakdown. The alleged relationship has been denied by Olivier's official biographer, Terry Coleman. Joan Plowright, Olivier's widow, has dealt with the matter in different ways on different occasions: she deflected the question (but alluded to Olivier's "demons") in a BBC interview and was reported saying on another occasion that "I have always resented the comments that it was I who was the homewrecker of Larry's marriage to Vivien Leigh. Danny Kaye was attached to Larry far earlier than I." However, in her memoirs Plowright denies that there had been an affair between the two men. Producer Perry Lafferty reported: “People would ask me, ‘Is he gay? Is he gay?’ I never saw anything to substantiate that in all the time I was with him.” Kaye’s final girlfriend, Marlene Sorosky, reported that he told her, “I’ve never had a homosexual experience in my life. I’ve never had any kind of gay relationship. I’ve had opportunities, but I never did anything about them.”
Honors, awards, tributes

    * Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (1981)
    * Asteroid 6546 Kaye
    * Kennedy Center Honor (1984)
    * The song I Wish I Was Danny Kaye on Miracle Legion's 1996 album Portrait of a Damaged Family
    * On June 23, 1987, Kaye was posthumously presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan. The award was received by his daughter Dena.

Filmography
Film
# Title Year Role Director Co-stars Filmed in
1. Moon Over Manhattan 1935 Himself Al Christie Sylvia Froos, Marion Martin Black and white
2. Dime a Dance 1937 Eddie Al Christie Imogene Coca, June Allyson Black and white
3. Getting an Eyeful 1938 Russian Al Christie Charles Kemper, Sally Starr Black and white
4. Cupid Takes a Holiday 1938 Nikolai Nikolaevich (bride-seeker) William Watson Douglas Leavitt, Estelle Jayne Black and white
5. Money on Your Life 1938 Russian William Watson Charles Kemper, Sally Starr Black and white
6. Up in Arms 1944 Danny Weems Elliott Nugent Dinah Shore, Dana Andrews Technicolor
7. Wonder Man 1945 Edwin Dingle / Buzzy Bellew H. Bruce Humberstone Virginia Mayo, Vera-Ellen, Steve Cochran Technicolor
8. The Kid from Brooklyn 1946 Burleigh Hubert Sullivan Norman Z. McLeod Virginia Mayo, Vera-Ellen, Steve Cochran, Eve Arden Technicolor
9. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty 1947 Walter Mitty Norman Z. McLeod Virginia Mayo, Boris Karloff, Fay Bainter, Ann Rutherford Technicolor
10. A Song Is Born 1948 Professor Hobart Frisbee Howard Hawks Virginia Mayo, Benny Goodman, Hugh Herbert, Steve Cochran Technicolor
11. It's a Great Feeling 1949 Himself David Bulter Dennis Morgan, Doris Day, Jack Carson Technicolor
12. The Inspector General 1949 Georgi Henry Koster Walter Slezak, Barbara Bates, Elsa Lanchester, Gene Lockhart Technicolor
13. On the Riviera 1951 Jack Martin / Henri Duran Walter Lang Gene Tierney, Corinne Calvet Technicolor
14. Hans Christian Andersen 1952 Hans Christian Andersen Charles Vidor Farley Granger, Zizi Jeanmaire Technicolor
15. Knock on Wood 1954 Jerry Morgan / Papa Morgan Norman Panama
Mevin Frank Mai Zetterling, Torin Thatcher Technicolor
16. White Christmas 1954 Phil Davis Michael Curtiz Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen, Dean Jagger VistaVision
Technicolor
17. The Court Jester 1956 Hubert Hawkins Norman Panama
Mevin Frank Glynis Johns, Basil Rathbone, Angela Lansbury VistaVision
Technicolor
18. Merry Andrew 1958 Andrew Larabee Michael Kidd Anna Maria, Pier Angeli CinemaScope
Metrocolor
19. Me and the Colonel 1958 Samuel L. Jacobowsky Peter Glenville Curd Jürgens, Nicole Maurey, Françoise Rosay, Akim Tamiroff Black and white
20. The Five Pennies 1959 Red Nichols Melville Shavelson Barbara Bel Geddes, Louis Armstrong, Tuesday Weld VistaVision
Technicolor
21. The Millionairess 1960 Tommy True Anthony Asquith Sophia Loren, Peter Sellers, Alastair Sim, Vittorio de Sica CinemaScope
Eastmancolor
22. On the Double 1961 Pfc. Ernie Williams Melville Shavelson Dana Wynter, Margaret Rutherford, Diana Dors Panavision
Technicolor
23. The Man from the Diner's Club 1963 Ernest Klenk Frank Tashlin Cara Williams, Martha Hyer Black and white
24. The Madwoman of Chaillot 1969 The Ragpicker Bryan Forbes Katharine Hepburn, Charles Boyer Technicolor
Television

    * Autumn Laughter (1938) (experimental telecast)
    * The Danny Kaye Show with Lucille Ball (1962) (special)
    * The Danny Kaye Show (1963–1967) (series)
    * The Lucy Show: "Lucy Meets Danny Kaye" (1964) (guest appearance)
    * Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1971) (voice)
    * The Enchanted World of Danny Kaye: The Emperor's New Clothes (1972) (special)
    * An Evening with John Denver (1975) (special)
    * Pinocchio (1976) (special)
    * Peter Pan (1976) (special)
    * The Muppet Show (1978) (guest appearance)
    * Disneyland's 25th Anniversary (1980) (special guest appearance)
    * An Evening with Danny Kaye (1981) (special)
    * Skokie (1981)
    * The New Twilight Zone: "Paladin of the Lost Hour" (1985) (guest appearance)
    * The Cosby Show: "The Dentist" (1986) (guest appearance)
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http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s189/celticpup/Classics/dannykayebook.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 03/03/10 at 6:36 am


The person who died on this day...Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye (January 18, 1913 – March 3, 1987) was an American actor, singer and comedian.
Born David Daniel Kaminsky to Jewish Ukrainian immigrants in Brooklyn, Kaye became one of the world's best-known comedians. He spent his early youth attending Public School 149 in East New York, Brooklyn, before moving to Thomas Jefferson High School, but he never graduated. He learned his trade in his teenage years in the Catskills as a tummler in the Borscht Belt.
Career

Danny Kaye made his film debut in a 1935 comedy short titled Moon Over Manhattan. In 1937 he signed with New York–based Educational Pictures for a series of two-reel comedies. Kaye usually played a manic, dark-haired, fast-talking Russian in these low-budget shorts, opposite young hopefuls June Allyson or Imogene Coca. The Kaye series ended abruptly when the studio shut down permanently in 1938.

Kaye scored a personal triumph in 1941, in the hit Broadway comedy Lady in the Dark. His show-stopping number was "Tchaikovsky", by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin, in which he sang the names of a whole string of Russian composers at breakneck speed, seemingly without taking a breath.

His feature film debut was in producer Samuel Goldwyn's Technicolor 1944 comedy Up in Arms, a remake of Goldwyn's Eddie Cantor comedy Whoopee! (1930). Goldwyn agonized over Kaye's ethnic, Borscht-belt looks and ordered him to undergo a nose job. Kaye refused, and Goldwyn found another way to brighten Kaye's dark features by lightening his hair, giving him his trademark redheaded locks. Kaye's rubber face and fast patter were an instant hit, and rival producer Robert M. Savini cashed in almost immediately by compiling three of Kaye's old Educational Pictures shorts into a makeshift feature, The Birth of a Star (1945).

Kaye starred in several movies with actress Virginia Mayo in the 1940s, and is well known for his roles in films such as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), The Inspector General (1949), On the Riviera (1951) co-starring Gene Tierney, White Christmas (1954, in a role originally intended for Fred Astaire, then Donald O'Connor), Knock on Wood (1954), The Court Jester (1956), and Merry Andrew (1958). Kaye starred in two pictures based on biographies, Hans Christian Andersen (1952) about the Danish story-teller, and The Five Pennies (1959) about jazz pioneer Red Nichols. His wife, writer/lyricist Sylvia Fine, wrote many of the witty, tongue-twisting songs Danny Kaye became famous for. Some of Kaye's films included the theme of doubles, two people who look identical (both played by Danny Kaye) being mistaken for each other, to comic effect. The Kaye-Fine marriage, as was the case with many spouses who worked together in the high-pressure world of film-making, was sometimes stormy.

During World War II, the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated rumors that Kaye dodged the draft by manufacturing a medical condition to gain 4-F status and exemption from military service. FBI files show he was also under investigation for supposed links with Communist groups. The allegations were never substantiated, and he was never charged with any associated crime.
Other projects

Kaye starred in a radio program of his own, The Danny Kaye Show, on CBS in 1945–1946. Although it had a stellar cast (including Eve Arden, Lionel Stander, and Big Band leader Harry James), and was scripted by radio notables Goodman Ace, Sylvia Fine, and respected playwright-director Abe Burrows, the show failed to make proper use of its star, and never found an audience. It turned out to be a very bitter experience for both Kaye and Ace. Many episodes survive today, and are notable for Kaye's opening "nonsense" patter.

Kaye was sufficiently popular that he inspired imitations:

    * The 1946 Warner Bros. cartoon Book Revue had a lengthy sequence with Daffy Duck impersonating Kaye singing "Carolina in the Morning" with the Russian accent that Kaye would affect from time to time.
    * Satirical songwriter Tom Lehrer's 1953 song "Lobachevsky" was based on a number that Kaye had done, about the Russian director Constantin Stanislavski, again with the affected Russian accent. Lehrer mentioned Kaye in the opening monologue, citing him as an "idol since childbirth."

When he appeared at the London Palladium music hall in 1948, he "roused the Royal family to shrieks of laughter and was the first of many performers who have turned English variety into an American preserve." Life magazine described his reception as "worshipful hysteria" and noted that the royal family, for the first time in history, left the royal box to see the show from the front row of the orchestra.

He hosted the 24th Academy Awards in 1952. The program was broadcast only on radio. Telecasts of the Oscar ceremony would come later.

He hosted his own variety hour on CBS television, The Danny Kaye Show, from 1963 to 1967. During this period, beginning in 1964, he acted as television host to the annual CBS telecasts of MGM's The Wizard of Oz. Kaye also did a stint as one of the What's My Line? Mystery Guests on the popular Sunday night CBS-TV quiz program. Kaye later served as a guest panelist on that show. He also appeared on the NBC interview program Here's Hollywood.

Danny Kaye was very fond of the legendary arranger Vic Schoen. Schoen had arranged for him on White Christmas, the Court Jester, and albums and concerts with the Andrews Sisters. In the 1960s Vic Schoen was working on a show in Las Vegas with Shirley Temple. He was injured in a car accident. When Danny Kaye heard about the accident, he immediately flew his own plane (Kaye was an avid pilot) to McCarran Airport to pick up Schoen and bring him back to Los Angeles to guarantee the best medical attention.

In 1976, he played the role of Mister Geppetto in a television musical adaptation of Pinocchio with Sandy Duncan in the title role. He guest-starred much later in his career in episodes of The Muppet Show, The Cosby Show and in the 1980s revival of The Twilight Zone.

Kaye was the original owner of baseball's Seattle Mariners along with his partner Lester Smith from 1977 to 1981. Prior to that, the lifelong fan of the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers recorded a song called "The D-O-D-G-E-R-S Song (Oh really? No, O'Malley!)", describing a fictitious encounter with the San Francisco Giants, which was a hit during those clubs' real-life pennant chase of 1962. That song is included on one of the Baseball's Greatest Hits compact discs.

During the 1950s, Kaye visited Australia, where he played "Buttons" in a production of Cinderella in Sydney. In the 1970s Kaye tore a ligament in his leg during the run of the Richard Rodgers musical Two by Two, but went on with the show, appearing with his leg in a cast and cavorting on stage from a wheelchair.

In many of his movies, as well as on stage, Kaye proved to be a very able actor, singer, dancer and comedian. He showed quite a different and serious side as Ambassador for UNICEF and in his dramatic role in the memorable TV movie Skokie, in which he played a Holocaust survivor. Before his death in 1987, Kaye demonstrated his ability to conduct an orchestra during a comical, but technically sound, series of concerts organized for UNICEF fundraising. Kaye received two Academy Awards: an honorary award in 1955 and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1982.

In 1980, Kaye hosted and sang in the 25th Anniversary of Disneyland celebration, and hosted the opening celebration for Epcot in 1982 (EPCOT Center at the time), both of which were aired on prime-time American television.

In his later years he took to entertaining at home as chef – he had a special stove installed in his patio – and specialized in Chinese cooking. The theater and demonstration kitchen underneath the library at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York is named for him.

He also had a longstanding interest in medicine and was permitted to observe surgery on several occasions.

He was an accomplished pilot, rated for airplanes ranging from single engine light aircraft to multi-engine jets.

Throughout his life, Kaye donated to various charities. Working alongside UNICEF's Halloween fundraiser founder, Ward Simon Kimball Jr., the actor educated the public on impoverished children in deplorable living conditions overseas and assisted in the distribution of donated goods and funds.

Kaye was enamored of music. While he often claimed an inability to read music, he was quite the conductor, and was said to have perfect pitch. Kaye was often invited to conduct symphonies as charity fundraisers. Over the course of his career he raised over US$5,000,000 in support of musicians pension funds.
The bench at Danny Kaye's grave in Kensico Cemetery

Kaye died in 1987 from a heart attack, following a bout of hepatitis. He left a widow, Sylvia Fine, and a daughter, Dena. He is interred in the Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. His grave is adorned with a bench that contains friezes of a baseball and bat, an aircraft, a piano, a flower pot, musical notes, and a glove.
Personal life

After Kaye and his wife became estranged, he was allegedly involved with a succession of women, though he and Fine never divorced. The best-known of these women was actress Eve Arden.

There are persistent rumors that Kaye was either homosexual or bisexual and some sources claim that Kaye and Laurence Olivier had a 10-year relationship in the 1950s while Olivier was still married to Vivien Leigh. A biography of Leigh states that the alleged relationship caused her to have a breakdown. The alleged relationship has been denied by Olivier's official biographer, Terry Coleman. Joan Plowright, Olivier's widow, has dealt with the matter in different ways on different occasions: she deflected the question (but alluded to Olivier's "demons") in a BBC interview and was reported saying on another occasion that "I have always resented the comments that it was I who was the homewrecker of Larry's marriage to Vivien Leigh. Danny Kaye was attached to Larry far earlier than I." However, in her memoirs Plowright denies that there had been an affair between the two men. Producer Perry Lafferty reported: “People would ask me, ‘Is he gay? Is he gay?’ I never saw anything to substantiate that in all the time I was with him.” Kaye’s final girlfriend, Marlene Sorosky, reported that he told her, “I’ve never had a homosexual experience in my life. I’ve never had any kind of gay relationship. I’ve had opportunities, but I never did anything about them.”
Honors, awards, tributes

    * Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (1981)
    * Asteroid 6546 Kaye
    * Kennedy Center Honor (1984)
    * The song I Wish I Was Danny Kaye on Miracle Legion's 1996 album Portrait of a Damaged Family
    * On June 23, 1987, Kaye was posthumously presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan. The award was received by his daughter Dena.

Filmography
Film
# Title Year Role Director Co-stars Filmed in
1. Moon Over Manhattan 1935 Himself Al Christie Sylvia Froos, Marion Martin Black and white
2. Dime a Dance 1937 Eddie Al Christie Imogene Coca, June Allyson Black and white
3. Getting an Eyeful 1938 Russian Al Christie Charles Kemper, Sally Starr Black and white
4. Cupid Takes a Holiday 1938 Nikolai Nikolaevich (bride-seeker) William Watson Douglas Leavitt, Estelle Jayne Black and white
5. Money on Your Life 1938 Russian William Watson Charles Kemper, Sally Starr Black and white
6. Up in Arms 1944 Danny Weems Elliott Nugent Dinah Shore, Dana Andrews Technicolor
7. Wonder Man 1945 Edwin Dingle / Buzzy Bellew H. Bruce Humberstone Virginia Mayo, Vera-Ellen, Steve Cochran Technicolor
8. The Kid from Brooklyn 1946 Burleigh Hubert Sullivan Norman Z. McLeod Virginia Mayo, Vera-Ellen, Steve Cochran, Eve Arden Technicolor
9. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty 1947 Walter Mitty Norman Z. McLeod Virginia Mayo, Boris Karloff, Fay Bainter, Ann Rutherford Technicolor
10. A Song Is Born 1948 Professor Hobart Frisbee Howard Hawks Virginia Mayo, Benny Goodman, Hugh Herbert, Steve Cochran Technicolor
11. It's a Great Feeling 1949 Himself David Bulter Dennis Morgan, Doris Day, Jack Carson Technicolor
12. The Inspector General 1949 Georgi Henry Koster Walter Slezak, Barbara Bates, Elsa Lanchester, Gene Lockhart Technicolor
13. On the Riviera 1951 Jack Martin / Henri Duran Walter Lang Gene Tierney, Corinne Calvet Technicolor
14. Hans Christian Andersen 1952 Hans Christian Andersen Charles Vidor Farley Granger, Zizi Jeanmaire Technicolor
15. Knock on Wood 1954 Jerry Morgan / Papa Morgan Norman Panama
Mevin Frank Mai Zetterling, Torin Thatcher Technicolor
16. White Christmas 1954 Phil Davis Michael Curtiz Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen, Dean Jagger VistaVision
Technicolor
17. The Court Jester 1956 Hubert Hawkins Norman Panama
Mevin Frank Glynis Johns, Basil Rathbone, Angela Lansbury VistaVision
Technicolor
18. Merry Andrew 1958 Andrew Larabee Michael Kidd Anna Maria, Pier Angeli CinemaScope
Metrocolor
19. Me and the Colonel 1958 Samuel L. Jacobowsky Peter Glenville Curd Jürgens, Nicole Maurey, Françoise Rosay, Akim Tamiroff Black and white
20. The Five Pennies 1959 Red Nichols Melville Shavelson Barbara Bel Geddes, Louis Armstrong, Tuesday Weld VistaVision
Technicolor
21. The Millionairess 1960 Tommy True Anthony Asquith Sophia Loren, Peter Sellers, Alastair Sim, Vittorio de Sica CinemaScope
Eastmancolor
22. On the Double 1961 Pfc. Ernie Williams Melville Shavelson Dana Wynter, Margaret Rutherford, Diana Dors Panavision
Technicolor
23. The Man from the Diner's Club 1963 Ernest Klenk Frank Tashlin Cara Williams, Martha Hyer Black and white
24. The Madwoman of Chaillot 1969 The Ragpicker Bryan Forbes Katharine Hepburn, Charles Boyer Technicolor
Television

    * Autumn Laughter (1938) (experimental telecast)
    * The Danny Kaye Show with Lucille Ball (1962) (special)
    * The Danny Kaye Show (1963–1967) (series)
    * The Lucy Show: "Lucy Meets Danny Kaye" (1964) (guest appearance)
    * Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1971) (voice)
    * The Enchanted World of Danny Kaye: The Emperor's New Clothes (1972) (special)
    * An Evening with John Denver (1975) (special)
    * Pinocchio (1976) (special)
    * Peter Pan (1976) (special)
    * The Muppet Show (1978) (guest appearance)
    * Disneyland's 25th Anniversary (1980) (special guest appearance)
    * An Evening with Danny Kaye (1981) (special)
    * Skokie (1981)
    * The New Twilight Zone: "Paladin of the Lost Hour" (1985) (guest appearance)
    http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y49/lindaf3915/DK1.jpg
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z245/lauralbates/Danny.gif
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s189/celticpup/Classics/dannykayebook.jpg


* The Cosby Show: "The Dentist" (1986) (guest appearance)



I remember he was on that episode playing a hilarious doctor.  ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/03/10 at 8:51 am


* The Cosby Show: "The Dentist" (1986) (guest appearance)



I remember he was on that episode playing a hilarious doctor.  ;D

I have fond memories of that and of Danny Kaye.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/03/10 at 10:53 am


Very nice. Funny I too picked an Olympian.
Great minds think alike.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 03/03/10 at 11:22 am

I always loved Danny Kaye.

From Lady In The Dark:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh-wOvuOHPE



Cat


Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/03/10 at 11:22 am


Great minds think alike.

so true. ;D

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: gibbo on 03/03/10 at 2:56 pm


Great minds think alike.


Unfortunately...so do loonies!  ;D

Loved The Court Jester... ;D

The vessel with the pestle has the pellet with the poison...the chalice from the palace holds the brew that is true!!!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/03/10 at 4:33 pm


Unfortunately...so do loonies!  ;D
It helps!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/04/10 at 3:08 am

British Person (with Irish stock) of the Day: Patsy Kensit

Patricia Jude Francis "Patsy" Kensit (born 4 March 1968 in Hounslow, West London) is an English actress and former singer well known for her many appearances on television.

Early life

Born to James Henry Kensit and the late Margaret Rose Kensit (née Doohan), a native of Ireland who died from breast cancer, Patsy Kensit has an older brother Jamie. Her mother (1947-93) was a publicist, and her father (1915-87) was an associate of the notorious London gangsters the Kray twins. Nicknamed "Jimmy the Dip", he was also reportedly an associate of the rival Richardsons, running long firms for the gang. He served time in prison before Kensit was born, she believed he was an antiques dealer. Her paternal grandfather was a robber and counterfeiter, and her brother's godfather was Reggie Kray.

Early work

At the age of four, Kensit appeared in a television advert for Birds Eye frozen peas. In 1972, she had her first role in the film For the Love of Ada. Her next film role was two years later in The Great Gatsby starring with Mia Farrow—whom she would later portray in the 1995 biopic Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story.

As a pupil at the Italia Conti Academy stage school, Kensit's first starring roles were in British children's television programmes such as The Adventures of Pollyanna (1982) and Luna. She also appeared as Estella in a BBC adaptation of Great Expectations in 1981 and as Lady Margaret Plantagenet in the 1982 BBC production of Shakespeare's Richard III.

Rise to fame

In 1985 Kensit led a dual career as the lead singer of the band Eighth Wonder and an actress. Eighth Wonder had two Top 40 singles ("I'm Not Scared" UK #7 and "Cross My Heart" UK #13) and appeared on Top of the Pops, while Kensit also starred as Eppie in an adaptation of Silas Marner, with Ben Kingsley. At the time, Kensit infamously stated: "All I want is to be more famous than anything or anyone".

In 1986, she won the lead female role in the film version of Absolute Beginners, based on the book by Colin MacInnes. In November 1987, she sang a duet with the Italian singer and songwriter, Eros Ramazzotti, entitled 'La luce buona delle stelle', which in English translates to 'The Good Light Of The Stars'. In 1988, Eighth Wonder had their only UK top 10 hit with "I'm Not Scared", which was written and produced by the Pet Shop Boys. Although the band's success quickly waned, the song appeared in the 1989 film Lethal Weapon 2, in which Kensit, now focused solely on being an actress, played Rika van den Haas, a South African consulate secretary with whom cop Martin Riggs (played by Mel Gibson) falls in love.

Following Lethal Weapon 2, she appeared in 1991's little-seen Twenty-One. Of her role, Variety magazine wrote, "Fans of Kensit get plenty of her; her lovely face and form are always the center of attention. The cool control with which she executes the role is admirable". In 1992, she had a leading role in the British film Blame it on the Bellboy as Miss Carolyn Wright, a desperate real estate dealer in Venice who would stop at nothing to clinch a deal.

Return to fame

In 2004, Kensit joined the cast of British soap opera Emmerdale, playing the character Sadie King, and also regularly featured in the third series of Channel 4's Bo' Selecta! and its 2005 spin-off series A Bear's Tail. Kensit's success as the soap super-bitch and in a popular comedy brought her back to the attention of the British public.

In September and October 2005 she appeared as a celebrity contestant in Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon, progressing through to Play Your Cards Right before being eliminated by Carol Vorderman, the eventual winner of the series. Kensit was a special guest host on The Friday Night Project on 23 June 2006 with band Placebo. She appeared as The Grand High Witch of all the World at the Children's Party at the Palace in celebration of the Queen's 80th birthday in 2006. She also became the voice of online gambling website 32red.com.

Kensit left Emmerdale in September 2006, stating that commuting to Yorkshire and the resultant time away from her sons was too stressful. As part of a dramatic week of episodes which coincided with Jeff Hordley's exit from the show. Hordley's character Cain Dingle and Sadie hatched an elaborate kidnap plan involving Tom King - they set up the transfer of £2 million from the Kings to Cain in order for Tom to be released, however Cain double crossed Sadie. Her last appearance was at an airstrip watching Cain fly away, leaving her penniless and alone.

Kensit has played ward sister Faye Morton in the BBC One medical drama series Holby City since October 2006. Kensit is signed to Models 1 in London.

In 1995, Kensit starred in Angels & Insects, with Kristin Scott Thomas and Mark Rylance, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Costume Design and in which she complied with film director Philip Haas' request to bleach her pubic hair. Kensit's last major lead film role was in the Newcastle-based The One and Only.

Marriages

Kensit's penchant for rock front men started when she briefly dated Michael Head of The Pale Fountains whilst Michael was living in Breck Road, Hackney in the early eighties.

Kensit has been married four times, and all her husbands have been musicians of Irish descent. In 1988 she married Dan Donovan of band Big Audio Dynamite. In 1992 she married Jim Kerr, lead singer of Simple Minds. During her second marriage she gave birth to her first child, James in 1992. In 1997 she married Liam Gallagher from Oasis. Kensit and Gallagher had a son, Lennon, named after John Lennon; they divorced in 2000.

By now Kensit's private life had brought her to as much attention as her acting or singing, as the tabloid newspapers detailed the breakdown of her marriage to Simple Minds singer Jim Kerr and her romance with Oasis singer Liam Gallagher. Her career stalled as she focused on her marriage, over which she claimed to cry every day of the marriage until it ended, as it eventually headed towards divorce. This personal downward spiral led to the resumption of her acting career.

After her marriage to Gallagher ended in divorce, Kensit spoke openly about her breast augmentation, which took her bust measurement from a 32B to a 35C. She has three tattoos: on her back; above the blade of her left foot (Gaelic words); and on her ankle. She changed the tattoo of her ex-husband's name from Liam to the name of their son, Lennon.

After reported relationships with Ally McCoist, Calum Best, David Walliams, Matt Holbrook, and in 2005 with Jean-Christophe Novelli, Kensit began dating rap artist and beatboxer Killa Kela. They split up shortly after a year, with Kensit claiming that she did not see a future with Killa.

She later became involved with the DJ Jeremy Healy and announced that she was marrying for a fourth time on 29 November 2007. However, on the 31 March 2008 it was reported that the pair had mutually split and called off their wedding. They eventually married on April 18, 2009, in an event covered by a magazine., but the Daily Mail reported in February 2010 that the couple has now separated.

Partial filmography

    * 1972 - Birds Eye frozen peas (TV advertisements)
    * 1974 - The Great Gatsby
    * 1974 - Gold
    * 1976 - The Blue Bird
    * 1978 - Armchair Thriller 'Quiet as a Nun'
    * 1978 - Lady Oscar
    * 1979 - Hanover Street
    * 1981 - Great Expectations (TV)
    * 1982 - The Adventures of Pollyanna
    * 1982 - Richard III
    * 1982 - Luna (TV)
    * 1984 - Diana (TV)
    * 1985 - Silas Marner (TV)
    * 1986 - Absolute Beginners
    * 1988 - A Chorus of Disapproval
    * 1989 - Lethal Weapon 2
    * 1990 - Kill Cruise (aka Der Skipper)
    * 1990 - Does This Mean We're Married
    * 1991 - Twenty-One
    * 1991 - Timebomb
    * 1992 - Blame It on the Bellboy
    * 1993 - Full Eclipse
    * 1994 - The Turn of the Screw
    * 1995 - Angels & Insects
    * 1995 - Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story (as Mia Farrow)
    * 1999 - Speedway Junky
    * 2000 - Best
    * 2002 - The One and Only
    * 2001 - Loves Music, Loves to Dance
    * 2002 - Bad Karma
    * 2003 - Harlequin Romance Series: At the Midnight Hour (1995) (TV)
    * 2003 - Who's Your Daddy?
    * 2004 - Emmerdale (TV)
    * 2004 - Bo' Selecta! (TV)
    * 2006 - Played
    * 2007 - Holby City (TV)
    * 2008 - Who Do You Think You Are? (TV)
    * 2008 - Gordon Ramsay: Cookalong Live (TV)
    * 2009 - Chris Moyles' Quiz Night (TV)

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/00428/travel-graphics-200_428196a.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/04/10 at 5:46 am


British Person (with Irish stock) of the Day: Patsy Kensit

Patricia Jude Francis "Patsy" Kensit (born 4 March 1968 in Hounslow, West London) is an English actress and former singer well known for her many appearances on television.

Early life

Born to James Henry Kensit and the late Margaret Rose Kensit (née Doohan), a native of Ireland who died from breast cancer, Patsy Kensit has an older brother Jamie. Her mother (1947-93) was a publicist, and her father (1915-87) was an associate of the notorious London gangsters the Kray twins. Nicknamed "Jimmy the Dip", he was also reportedly an associate of the rival Richardsons, running long firms for the gang. He served time in prison before Kensit was born, she believed he was an antiques dealer. Her paternal grandfather was a robber and counterfeiter, and her brother's godfather was Reggie Kray.

Early work

At the age of four, Kensit appeared in a television advert for Birds Eye frozen peas. In 1972, she had her first role in the film For the Love of Ada. Her next film role was two years later in The Great Gatsby starring with Mia Farrow—whom she would later portray in the 1995 biopic Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story.

As a pupil at the Italia Conti Academy stage school, Kensit's first starring roles were in British children's television programmes such as The Adventures of Pollyanna (1982) and Luna. She also appeared as Estella in a BBC adaptation of Great Expectations in 1981 and as Lady Margaret Plantagenet in the 1982 BBC production of Shakespeare's Richard III.

Rise to fame

In 1985 Kensit led a dual career as the lead singer of the band Eighth Wonder and an actress. Eighth Wonder had two Top 40 singles ("I'm Not Scared" UK #7 and "Cross My Heart" UK #13) and appeared on Top of the Pops, while Kensit also starred as Eppie in an adaptation of Silas Marner, with Ben Kingsley. At the time, Kensit infamously stated: "All I want is to be more famous than anything or anyone".

In 1986, she won the lead female role in the film version of Absolute Beginners, based on the book by Colin MacInnes. In November 1987, she sang a duet with the Italian singer and songwriter, Eros Ramazzotti, entitled 'La luce buona delle stelle', which in English translates to 'The Good Light Of The Stars'. In 1988, Eighth Wonder had their only UK top 10 hit with "I'm Not Scared", which was written and produced by the Pet Shop Boys. Although the band's success quickly waned, the song appeared in the 1989 film Lethal Weapon 2, in which Kensit, now focused solely on being an actress, played Rika van den Haas, a South African consulate secretary with whom cop Martin Riggs (played by Mel Gibson) falls in love.

Following Lethal Weapon 2, she appeared in 1991's little-seen Twenty-One. Of her role, Variety magazine wrote, "Fans of Kensit get plenty of her; her lovely face and form are always the center of attention. The cool control with which she executes the role is admirable". In 1992, she had a leading role in the British film Blame it on the Bellboy as Miss Carolyn Wright, a desperate real estate dealer in Venice who would stop at nothing to clinch a deal.

Return to fame

In 2004, Kensit joined the cast of British soap opera Emmerdale, playing the character Sadie King, and also regularly featured in the third series of Channel 4's Bo' Selecta! and its 2005 spin-off series A Bear's Tail. Kensit's success as the soap super-bitch and in a popular comedy brought her back to the attention of the British public.

In September and October 2005 she appeared as a celebrity contestant in Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon, progressing through to Play Your Cards Right before being eliminated by Carol Vorderman, the eventual winner of the series. Kensit was a special guest host on The Friday Night Project on 23 June 2006 with band Placebo. She appeared as The Grand High Witch of all the World at the Children's Party at the Palace in celebration of the Queen's 80th birthday in 2006. She also became the voice of online gambling website 32red.com.

Kensit left Emmerdale in September 2006, stating that commuting to Yorkshire and the resultant time away from her sons was too stressful. As part of a dramatic week of episodes which coincided with Jeff Hordley's exit from the show. Hordley's character Cain Dingle and Sadie hatched an elaborate kidnap plan involving Tom King - they set up the transfer of £2 million from the Kings to Cain in order for Tom to be released, however Cain double crossed Sadie. Her last appearance was at an airstrip watching Cain fly away, leaving her penniless and alone.

Kensit has played ward sister Faye Morton in the BBC One medical drama series Holby City since October 2006. Kensit is signed to Models 1 in London.

In 1995, Kensit starred in Angels & Insects, with Kristin Scott Thomas and Mark Rylance, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Costume Design and in which she complied with film director Philip Haas' request to bleach her pubic hair. Kensit's last major lead film role was in the Newcastle-based The One and Only.

Marriages

Kensit's penchant for rock front men started when she briefly dated Michael Head of The Pale Fountains whilst Michael was living in Breck Road, Hackney in the early eighties.

Kensit has been married four times, and all her husbands have been musicians of Irish descent. In 1988 she married Dan Donovan of band Big Audio Dynamite. In 1992 she married Jim Kerr, lead singer of Simple Minds. During her second marriage she gave birth to her first child, James in 1992. In 1997 she married Liam Gallagher from Oasis. Kensit and Gallagher had a son, Lennon, named after John Lennon; they divorced in 2000.

By now Kensit's private life had brought her to as much attention as her acting or singing, as the tabloid newspapers detailed the breakdown of her marriage to Simple Minds singer Jim Kerr and her romance with Oasis singer Liam Gallagher. Her career stalled as she focused on her marriage, over which she claimed to cry every day of the marriage until it ended, as it eventually headed towards divorce. This personal downward spiral led to the resumption of her acting career.

After her marriage to Gallagher ended in divorce, Kensit spoke openly about her breast augmentation, which took her bust measurement from a 32B to a 35C. She has three tattoos: on her back; above the blade of her left foot (Gaelic words); and on her ankle. She changed the tattoo of her ex-husband's name from Liam to the name of their son, Lennon.

After reported relationships with Ally McCoist, Calum Best, David Walliams, Matt Holbrook, and in 2005 with Jean-Christophe Novelli, Kensit began dating rap artist and beatboxer Killa Kela. They split up shortly after a year, with Kensit claiming that she did not see a future with Killa.

She later became involved with the DJ Jeremy Healy and announced that she was marrying for a fourth time on 29 November 2007. However, on the 31 March 2008 it was reported that the pair had mutually split and called off their wedding. They eventually married on April 18, 2009, in an event covered by a magazine., but the Daily Mail reported in February 2010 that the couple has now separated.

Partial filmography

    * 1972 - Birds Eye frozen peas (TV advertisements)
    * 1974 - The Great Gatsby
    * 1974 - Gold
    * 1976 - The Blue Bird
    * 1978 - Armchair Thriller 'Quiet as a Nun'
    * 1978 - Lady Oscar
    * 1979 - Hanover Street
    * 1981 - Great Expectations (TV)
    * 1982 - The Adventures of Pollyanna
    * 1982 - Richard III
    * 1982 - Luna (TV)
    * 1984 - Diana (TV)
    * 1985 - Silas Marner (TV)
    * 1986 - Absolute Beginners
    * 1988 - A Chorus of Disapproval
    * 1989 - Lethal Weapon 2
    * 1990 - Kill Cruise (aka Der Skipper)
    * 1990 - Does This Mean We're Married
    * 1991 - Twenty-One
    * 1991 - Timebomb
    * 1992 - Blame It on the Bellboy
    * 1993 - Full Eclipse
    * 1994 - The Turn of the Screw
    * 1995 - Angels & Insects
    * 1995 - Love and Betrayal: The Mia Farrow Story (as Mia Farrow)
    * 1999 - Speedway Junky
    * 2000 - Best
    * 2002 - The One and Only
    * 2001 - Loves Music, Loves to Dance
    * 2002 - Bad Karma
    * 2003 - Harlequin Romance Series: At the Midnight Hour (1995) (TV)
    * 2003 - Who's Your Daddy?
    * 2004 - Emmerdale (TV)
    * 2004 - Bo' Selecta! (TV)
    * 2006 - Played
    * 2007 - Holby City (TV)
    * 2008 - Who Do You Think You Are? (TV)
    * 2008 - Gordon Ramsay: Cookalong Live (TV)
    * 2009 - Chris Moyles' Quiz Night (TV)

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/00428/travel-graphics-200_428196a.jpg


She was one of my choices for today ;D Thanks for picking her.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/04/10 at 5:54 am

The word of the day...Wind
A wind is a current of air that is moving across the earth's surface.
Journalists often refer to a trend or factor that influences events as a wind of a particular kind.
If you are winded by something such as a blow, the air is suddenly knocked out of your lungs so that you have difficulty breathing for a short time.
Wind is the air that you sometimes swallow with food or drink, or gas that is produced in your intestines, which causes an uncomfortable feeling.
http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u174/timothyduenas/katrice2.jpg
http://i950.photobucket.com/albums/ad350/katfish9/sunny122.jpg
http://i617.photobucket.com/albums/tt253/hoa138/20050730windbell.jpg
http://i944.photobucket.com/albums/ad289/AikiiYukii/Wind.gif
http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t31/nailed_barnacle/weatherforecast.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h202/VampyrSephiroth/Sovias/wind.jpg
http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu231/Jonah_Anderson/Outdoors/Hunting2010014.jpg
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d161/bittyskitty94210/words/big_4800493.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/04/10 at 6:11 am

The Person born on this day...Catherine O'Hara
Catherine Anne O'Hara (born March 4, 1954) is a Canadian-American actress and comedienne. She is well known for her comedy work on SCTV, and her roles in the films After Hours, Beetlejuice, Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, and The Nightmare Before Christmas; as well in the mockumentary films written and directed by Christopher Guest including Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration.
O'Hara was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario in a large Irish Catholic family. She started her acting career at age 20 as a cast member of The Second City in Toronto. She was an understudy for Gilda Radner until she left for Saturday Night Live. Two years later, this theatre troupe created the television series SCTV, on which she became a regular performer. Her memorable characterizations on the show included Las Vegas scorcher Lola Heatherton, buzzer-happy game show contestant Margaret Meehan, raunchy nightclub comedian Dusty Towne, soap opera seductress Sue Ellen and stage actress Sue Bopper Simpson.

In the late 1970s, O'Hara did voice-overs for a number of cartoons, which would continue throughout her career. During a short time in the early 80s when SCTV was in between network deals, she was hired to replace Ann Risley when Saturday Night Live was being retooled in 1981. However, she quit the show without ever appearing on-air, choosing to go back to SCTV when the show signed on with NBC. Her SNL position was then given to fellow Canadian Robin Duke, who had also replaced O'Hara for a season on SCTV.

O'Hara has appeared in many films in the past two decades, including Martin Scorsese's After Hours, as well as parts in two Tim Burton films: Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas, which also co-starred her fellow Whose Line Is It Anyway? castmate Greg Proops. She played Kate McCallister in the first two Home Alone films. From 1997 to 2006, she starred in the Christopher Guest mockumentary films Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration. On June 9, 2007, O'Hara was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. In May 2008, it was announced that she has signed on to star in the upcoming ABC dramedy Good Behavior.
Personal life

A naturalized U.S. citizen, she married production designer/director Bo Welch in 1992 and has two sons, Matthew (b.1994) and Luke (b.1997). She is the sister of critically-acclaimed singer-songwriter Mary Margaret O'Hara, though she is a singer-songwriter in her own right, having written and performed songs in Christopher Guest's film A Mighty Wind. She has a condition known as Situs Inversus with Dextrocardia meaning that among other things, her heart is on the right side of her body.
Celebrities impersonated on SCTV

    * Liv Ullmann
    * Katharine Hepburn
    * Diane Keaton
    * Joey Heatherton
    * Lola Falana
    * Elizabeth Taylor
    * Brooke Shields
    * Morgan Fairchild
    * Barbara Billingsley
    * Phyllis George



    * Charlotte Rampling
    * Monica Vitti
    * Jane Pauley
    * Rona Barrett
    * Tammy Faye Bakker
    * Angie Dickinson
    * Dorothy Kilgallen
    * Jessica Savitch
    * Linda Blair
    * Judith Crist



    * Rusty Warren
    * Gilda Radner
    * Dinah Shore
    * Joan Sutherland
    * Jane Fonda
    * Joan Embery
    * Candice Bergen
    * Meryl Streep
    * Karen Black
    * Lucille Ball

Filmography
Year Film title Character or role
1983 Rock & Rule Aunt Edith
1985 After Hours Gail
1986 Heartburn Betty
1988 Beetlejuice Delia Deetz
1990 Home Alone Kate McCallister
Betsy's Wedding Gloria Henner
Dick Tracy Texie Garcia
Little Vegas Lexie
1992 Home Alone 2: Lost in New York Kate McCallister
There Goes the Neighborhood Jessie Lodge
1993 The Nightmare Before Christmas Sally and Shock (both speaking and singing)
1994 Little Giants Young Boy's Mother
A Simple Twist of Fate April Simon
Wyatt Earp Allie Earp
The Paper Susan
1995 Tall Tale Calamity Jane
1996 The Last of the High Kings Cathleen
Waiting for Guffman Sheila Albertson
1997 Hope (TV) Muriel Macswain
Pippi Longstocking voice of Mrs. Prysselius
1998 Home Fries Mrs. Lever
1999 Late Last Night (TV) the Shrink
Bartok the Magnificent voice of Ludmilla
The Life Before This Sheena
2000 Edwurd Fudwupper Fibbed Big voice
Best in Show Cookie Guggelman Fleck
2001 Speaking of Sex Connie Barker
Committed (TV Series) Liz Larsen
2002 Orange County Cindy Beugler
2003 Six Feet Under Carol Ward
A Mighty Wind Mickey Crabbe
2004 Surviving Christmas Christine Valco
The Wool Cap Gloria
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events Justice Strauss
2005 Chicken Little Tina
2006 For Your Consideration Marilyn Hack
Monster House DJ's Mother
Brother Bear 2 Kata
Over The Hedge Penny
Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses Duchess Rowena
2008 Penelope Jessica Wilhern
2009 Away We Go Gloria Farlander
Where the Wild Things Are Judith
Glenn Martin, DDS (TV series) Jackie Martin
Curb your Enthusiasm (TV series) Bam Bam Funkhouser
2010 Five Killers
Discography

    * Finn McCoul (1993)

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http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee12/Lovertits1988/ohara.jpg
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http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e158/desafio05/WaitingForGuffman.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/04/10 at 6:17 am

The person who died on this day...John Candy
John Franklin Candy (October 31, 1950 – March 4, 1994) was a Canadian comedian and actor. He rose to fame as a member of the Toronto, Ontario branch of The Second City and for his starring role in the 1993 comedy Cool Runnings. One of his most renowned on-screen performances was that of Del Griffith in the John Hughes comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Candy was born and raised in Toronto, the son of Evangeline (née Aker) and Sidney James Candy. He attended Neil McNeil High School, an all-boys Catholic school in Toronto, where he played Grid Iron football.

Candy's first movie role was a small uncredited appearance in the 1973 film Class of '44. He appeared in several other low-budget films in the 1970s. In 1976, Candy played a supporting role (with Rick Moranis) on Peter Gzowski's short-lived, late-night television talk show, Ninety Minutes Live. That same year, as a member of Toronto's branch of The Second City, he gained wide North American popularity, which grew when he became a cast member on the influential Toronto-based comedy-variety show Second City Television (SCTV). NBC picked the show up in 1981 and it quickly became an alltime fan favourite.
1980s

Among Candy's memorable characterizations for SCTV were unscrupulous street-beat TV personality Johnny LaRue, 3-D horror auteur Doctor Tongue, sycophantic and easily amused talk-show sidekick William B. Williams, and Melonville's corrupt Mayor Tommy Shanks. Other characters included Morgy, from Morgy and Shoo, the cheerful Leutonian clarinetist Yosh Shmenge, who was half of the Happy Wanderers and the subject of the mockumentary The Last Polka, folksy fishin' musician Gil Fisher, handsome if accent-challenged TV actor Steve Roman, hapless children's entertainer Mr. Messenger, corrupt soap opera doctor William Wainwright and smut merchant Harry, "the Guy With the Snake on His Face".

Mimicry was one of Candy's talents, which he used often at SCTV. Celebrities impersonated by Candy include Jerry Mathers, Divine (Glen Milstead), Orson Welles, Julia Child, Richard Burton, Darryl Sittler, Luciano Pavarotti, Jimmy the Greek, Andrew Sarris, Tip O'Neill, Don Rickles, Curly Howard, Merlin Olsen, Jackie Gleason, Tom Selleck, Gordon Pinsent, Ed Asner, Gertrude Stein, Morgy Kneele, Doug McGrath and Hervé Villechaize.

By 1980, he began a more active film career having appeared as a soldier in Steven Spielberg's big-budget comedy 1941 and had a supporting role as a parole officer in The Blues Brothers. A year later, Candy played the lovable, mild-mannered Army recruit Dewey Oxberger in 1981's Stripes, one of the most successful films of the year. In the next two years, Candy did a small cameo in Harold Ramis' National Lampoon's Vacation, appeared on Saturday Night Live twice (hosting in 1983) while still appearing on SCTV.

In 1983, Candy headlined in the film Going Berserk, and was also approached to play the character of accountant Louis Tully in Ghostbusters (completed and released 1984), but ultimately did not get the role because of his conflicting ideas of how to play the character; the part went instead to Rick Moranis. (However, Candy was one of the many celebrities who appeared chanting "Ghostbusters" in Ray Parker, Jr.'s hit "single" for the movie). In 1984, Candy played Tom Hanks' womanizing brother in the hit romantic comedy Splash, considered to be his breakout role.

Throughout the latter half of the 1980s, Candy worked often taking roles in substandard films (even performing the voice of a talking horse in the Bobcat Goldthwait comedy Hot to Trot). Although Candy continued to play supporting roles in films like Spaceballs, he was awarded the opportunity to headline or co-star in such comedy films as Volunteers; Planes, Trains & Automobiles; Brewster's Millions; The Great Outdoors; Armed and Dangerous; Who's Harry Crumb? and Uncle Buck. He also continued to provide memorable bit roles, including a "weird" disc jockey in the comic musical film Little Shop of Horrors, and a state trooper in the Sesame Street film Follow That Bird.

He also produced and starred in a Saturday morning animated series on NBC entitled Camp Candy in 1989. The show was set in a fictional summer camp run by Candy, featured his two children in supporting roles, and also spawned a brief comic book series published by Marvel Comics' Star Comics imprint.
1990s

In the early 1990s, Candy's career went into decline after he appeared in a string of critical and commercial failures, including Nothing But Trouble, Delirious and Once Upon A Crime, although he did appear in major successes such as Rookie of the Year (uncredited), The Rescuers Down Under, Cool Runnings, and Home Alone.

Candy attempted to reinvigorate his acting career by broadening his range and playing more dramatic roles. In 1991, Candy appeared in a light romantic comedy-drama, Only the Lonely which saw him as a Chicago cop torn between his overbearing mother (Maureen O'Hara) and his new girlfriend (Ally Sheedy). The same year and in rare form, Candy played a dramatic role as Dean Andrews Jr., a shady Southern lawyer in Oliver Stone's JFK.

In 1991, Bruce McNall, Wayne Gretzky, and Candy became co-owners of the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts. The celebrity ownership group attracted a lot of attention in Canada and the team spent a significant amount of money, even signing some highly touted National Football League players. John and the Argonauts took home the 1991 Grey Cup beating Calgary 36 to 21 in the final.
Death

Candy struggled with obesity throughout his adult life. During the late 1980s and early 1990s he gained a large amount of additional weight, making him almost unrecognizable from his years on SCTV. However, he had been making a significant effort to improve his overall health in the last year of his life; he had quit smoking and had begun losing weight.

The 43-year-old Candy died in his sleep from a heart attack on March 4, 1994, while on location in Durango, Mexico, filming Wagons East!

Candy was survived by his wife, Rosemary Margaret (Hobor), whom he married in 1979, and their children, Jennifer and Christopher. His funeral Mass was held at St. Martin of Tours Church. Candy was cremated, and was interred in an upper crypt in Room 7 alcove, in the Mausoleum, at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

On March 18, 1994, a special memorial service for Candy, produced by his former improv troupe The Second City, was broadcast across Canada. Following his death, the sign atop comedy club The Laugh Factory honored Candy and fellow comedian Bill Hicks (who had died several days earlier): "Rest in peace; make God laugh."
Legacy

Wagons East! was released in the summer of 1994, completed using a body double in Candy's place.

Candy's final completed movie was Canadian Bacon, a satirical comedy by Michael Moore that was released the year after Candy's death. Candy played American sheriff Bud Boomer who led the "attack" against Canada.

Candy recorded a voice for the TV film The Magic 7 in the early-1990s. The film remained in production for years due to animation difficulties and production delays, and it was shelved.

Candy was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. In May 2006, Candy became one of the first four entertainers ever honoured by Canada Post by being featured on a postage stamp. Blues Brothers 2000 is dedicated to three people, including Candy, who played a supporting role in the original Blues Brothers.

The John Candy Visual Arts Studio at Neil McNeil Catholic High School, in Toronto, Ontario was dedicated in his honour after his death. John Candy, one of the school's most famous alumni, said during one of his annual visits to the school, “My success is simply rooted in the values and discipline and respect for others that I was taught at Neil McNeil.”

A tribute to Candy was hosted by Dan Aykroyd at the 2007 Grey Cup festivities in Toronto in November 2007.

Ween's Chocolate and Cheese album released in 1994 is "dedicated in loving memory to John Candy (1950-1994)".

Candy's daughter, Jennifer is an actress and television producer, having production credits for the television series Prom Queen and Sam Has 7 Friends.
Filmography
Film
Year Film Role Notes
1973 Class of '44 Paule Uncredited
1975 It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time Kopek
1976 Tunnel Vision Cooper
The Clown Murders Ollie
Find the Lady Kopek
1978 The Silent Partner Simonsen
1979 Lost and Found Carpentier
1941 Pvt. Foley
1980 Deadly Companion John also known as Double Negative
The Blues Brothers Burton Mercer
1981 Stripes Ox
Heavy Metal Desk Sergeant Voice
1983 National Lampoon's Vacation Lasky (Guard at 'Walleyworld')
Going Berserk John Bourgignon
1984 Splash Freddie Bauer
1985 Brewster's Millions Spike Nolan
Sesame Street Presents: Follow that Bird State Trooper
Summer Rental Jack Chester
Volunteers Tom Turtle
1986 Armed and Dangerous Frank Dooley
Little Shop of Horrors Wink Wilkinson
1987 Spaceballs Barf
Planes, Trains & Automobiles Del Griffith
1988 The Great Outdoors Chet Ripley
She's Having a Baby Chet from 'The Great Outdoors' Uncredited
Hot to Trot Don Voice
1989 Who's Harry Crumb? Harry Crumb
Speed Zone! Charlie Cronan
Uncle Buck Buck Russell
1990 Masters of Menace Beer Truck Driver
Home Alone Gus Polinski
The Rescuers Down Under Wilbur Voice
1991 Nothing But Trouble Dennis / Eldona
Career Opportunities C.D. Marsh Uncredited
Only the Lonely Danny Muldoon
Delirious Jack Gable (post production)
JFK Dean Andrews
1992 Once Upon a Crime... Augie Morosco
Boris and Natasha: The Movie Kalishak
1993 Rookie of the Year Cliff Murdoch (Announcer) Uncredited
Cool Runnings Irving 'Irv' Blitzer
1994 Wagons East James Harlow Last film Candy filmed before his death
1995 Canadian Bacon Sheriff Bud Boomer
Television
Year Film Role Notes
1972 Cucumber Weatherman (unknown episodes)
Dr. Simon Locke Richie Episode: "Death Holds the Scale"
1974 The ABC Afternoon Playbreak 2nd Son Episode: "Last Bride of Salem"
Dr. Zonk and the Zunkins (unknown episodes)
1976 The David Steinberg Show Spider Reichman Episode one
Episode two
90 Minutes Live (Various) TV series
1976–1977 Coming Up Rosie Wally Wypyzypychwk TV series
1976–1979 Second City TV (Various) 50 episodes
1977 King of Kensington Bandit Episode: "The Hero"
1980 The Courage of Kavik, the Wolf Dog Pinky TV film
1981 Tales of the Klondike TV mini-series
Saturday Night Live Juan Gavino Episode: "George Kennedy/Miles Davis"
(uncredited)
1981–1983 SCTV Network 90 (Various) 38 episodes
1983 SCTV Channel (Various) Episode: "Maudlin O' the Night"
1984 The New Show (Various) Five episodes
1985 Martin Short: Concert for the North Americas Marcel TV film
The Canadian Conspiracy (Various) TV film
The Last Polka Yosh Shmenge/Pa Shmenge TV film
1987 Really Weird Tales Howard Jensen ('Cursed with Charisma') TV film
1989 The Rocket Boy The Hawk TV film
1990 The Dave Thomas Comedy Show One episode
1992 Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories Narrator Episode: "Blumpoe the Grumpoe Meets Arnold the Cat/Millions of Cats"
1994 Hostage for a Day Yuri Petrovich TV film
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r311/kinzel_c/john_candy.jpg
http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm163/pacersfan33/25john_candy.jpg
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t166/danielpev33/johncandy.jpg
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd172/tomdotreed/JohnCandy.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/04/10 at 6:26 am


The word of the day...Wind
A wind is a current of air that is moving across the earth's surface.
Journalists often refer to a trend or factor that influences events as a wind of a particular kind.
If you are winded by something such as a blow, the air is suddenly knocked out of your lungs so that you have difficulty breathing for a short time.
Wind is the air that you sometimes swallow with food or drink, or gas that is produced in your intestines, which causes an uncomfortable feeling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XttBzn8bY8

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/04/10 at 6:27 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XttBzn8bY8
Moya (Marie Brennan) is a cousin to Enya.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 03/04/10 at 6:34 am


The person who died on this day...John Candy
John Franklin Candy (October 31, 1950 – March 4, 1994) was a Canadian comedian and actor. He rose to fame as a member of the Toronto, Ontario branch of The Second City and for his starring role in the 1993 comedy Cool Runnings. One of his most renowned on-screen performances was that of Del Griffith in the John Hughes comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Candy was born and raised in Toronto, the son of Evangeline (née Aker) and Sidney James Candy. He attended Neil McNeil High School, an all-boys Catholic school in Toronto, where he played Grid Iron football.

Candy's first movie role was a small uncredited appearance in the 1973 film Class of '44. He appeared in several other low-budget films in the 1970s. In 1976, Candy played a supporting role (with Rick Moranis) on Peter Gzowski's short-lived, late-night television talk show, Ninety Minutes Live. That same year, as a member of Toronto's branch of The Second City, he gained wide North American popularity, which grew when he became a cast member on the influential Toronto-based comedy-variety show Second City Television (SCTV). NBC picked the show up in 1981 and it quickly became an alltime fan favourite.
1980s

Among Candy's memorable characterizations for SCTV were unscrupulous street-beat TV personality Johnny LaRue, 3-D horror auteur Doctor Tongue, sycophantic and easily amused talk-show sidekick William B. Williams, and Melonville's corrupt Mayor Tommy Shanks. Other characters included Morgy, from Morgy and Shoo, the cheerful Leutonian clarinetist Yosh Shmenge, who was half of the Happy Wanderers and the subject of the mockumentary The Last Polka, folksy fishin' musician Gil Fisher, handsome if accent-challenged TV actor Steve Roman, hapless children's entertainer Mr. Messenger, corrupt soap opera doctor William Wainwright and smut merchant Harry, "the Guy With the Snake on His Face".

Mimicry was one of Candy's talents, which he used often at SCTV. Celebrities impersonated by Candy include Jerry Mathers, Divine (Glen Milstead), Orson Welles, Julia Child, Richard Burton, Darryl Sittler, Luciano Pavarotti, Jimmy the Greek, Andrew Sarris, Tip O'Neill, Don Rickles, Curly Howard, Merlin Olsen, Jackie Gleason, Tom Selleck, Gordon Pinsent, Ed Asner, Gertrude Stein, Morgy Kneele, Doug McGrath and Hervé Villechaize.

By 1980, he began a more active film career having appeared as a soldier in Steven Spielberg's big-budget comedy 1941 and had a supporting role as a parole officer in The Blues Brothers. A year later, Candy played the lovable, mild-mannered Army recruit Dewey Oxberger in 1981's Stripes, one of the most successful films of the year. In the next two years, Candy did a small cameo in Harold Ramis' National Lampoon's Vacation, appeared on Saturday Night Live twice (hosting in 1983) while still appearing on SCTV.

In 1983, Candy headlined in the film Going Berserk, and was also approached to play the character of accountant Louis Tully in Ghostbusters (completed and released 1984), but ultimately did not get the role because of his conflicting ideas of how to play the character; the part went instead to Rick Moranis. (However, Candy was one of the many celebrities who appeared chanting "Ghostbusters" in Ray Parker, Jr.'s hit "single" for the movie). In 1984, Candy played Tom Hanks' womanizing brother in the hit romantic comedy Splash, considered to be his breakout role.

Throughout the latter half of the 1980s, Candy worked often taking roles in substandard films (even performing the voice of a talking horse in the Bobcat Goldthwait comedy Hot to Trot). Although Candy continued to play supporting roles in films like Spaceballs, he was awarded the opportunity to headline or co-star in such comedy films as Volunteers; Planes, Trains & Automobiles; Brewster's Millions; The Great Outdoors; Armed and Dangerous; Who's Harry Crumb? and Uncle Buck. He also continued to provide memorable bit roles, including a "weird" disc jockey in the comic musical film Little Shop of Horrors, and a state trooper in the Sesame Street film Follow That Bird.

He also produced and starred in a Saturday morning animated series on NBC entitled Camp Candy in 1989. The show was set in a fictional summer camp run by Candy, featured his two children in supporting roles, and also spawned a brief comic book series published by Marvel Comics' Star Comics imprint.
1990s

In the early 1990s, Candy's career went into decline after he appeared in a string of critical and commercial failures, including Nothing But Trouble, Delirious and Once Upon A Crime, although he did appear in major successes such as Rookie of the Year (uncredited), The Rescuers Down Under, Cool Runnings, and Home Alone.

Candy attempted to reinvigorate his acting career by broadening his range and playing more dramatic roles. In 1991, Candy appeared in a light romantic comedy-drama, Only the Lonely which saw him as a Chicago cop torn between his overbearing mother (Maureen O'Hara) and his new girlfriend (Ally Sheedy). The same year and in rare form, Candy played a dramatic role as Dean Andrews Jr., a shady Southern lawyer in Oliver Stone's JFK.

In 1991, Bruce McNall, Wayne Gretzky, and Candy became co-owners of the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts. The celebrity ownership group attracted a lot of attention in Canada and the team spent a significant amount of money, even signing some highly touted National Football League players. John and the Argonauts took home the 1991 Grey Cup beating Calgary 36 to 21 in the final.
Death

Candy struggled with obesity throughout his adult life. During the late 1980s and early 1990s he gained a large amount of additional weight, making him almost unrecognizable from his years on SCTV. However, he had been making a significant effort to improve his overall health in the last year of his life; he had quit smoking and had begun losing weight.

The 43-year-old Candy died in his sleep from a heart attack on March 4, 1994, while on location in Durango, Mexico, filming Wagons East!

Candy was survived by his wife, Rosemary Margaret (Hobor), whom he married in 1979, and their children, Jennifer and Christopher. His funeral Mass was held at St. Martin of Tours Church. Candy was cremated, and was interred in an upper crypt in Room 7 alcove, in the Mausoleum, at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

On March 18, 1994, a special memorial service for Candy, produced by his former improv troupe The Second City, was broadcast across Canada. Following his death, the sign atop comedy club The Laugh Factory honored Candy and fellow comedian Bill Hicks (who had died several days earlier): "Rest in peace; make God laugh."
Legacy

Wagons East! was released in the summer of 1994, completed using a body double in Candy's place.

Candy's final completed movie was Canadian Bacon, a satirical comedy by Michael Moore that was released the year after Candy's death. Candy played American sheriff Bud Boomer who led the "attack" against Canada.

Candy recorded a voice for the TV film The Magic 7 in the early-1990s. The film remained in production for years due to animation difficulties and production delays, and it was shelved.

Candy was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. In May 2006, Candy became one of the first four entertainers ever honoured by Canada Post by being featured on a postage stamp. Blues Brothers 2000 is dedicated to three people, including Candy, who played a supporting role in the original Blues Brothers.

The John Candy Visual Arts Studio at Neil McNeil Catholic High School, in Toronto, Ontario was dedicated in his honour after his death. John Candy, one of the school's most famous alumni, said during one of his annual visits to the school, “My success is simply rooted in the values and discipline and respect for others that I was taught at Neil McNeil.”

A tribute to Candy was hosted by Dan Aykroyd at the 2007 Grey Cup festivities in Toronto in November 2007.

Ween's Chocolate and Cheese album released in 1994 is "dedicated in loving memory to John Candy (1950-1994)".

Candy's daughter, Jennifer is an actress and television producer, having production credits for the television series Prom Queen and Sam Has 7 Friends.
Filmography
Film
Year Film Role Notes
1973 Class of '44 Paule Uncredited
1975 It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time Kopek
1976 Tunnel Vision Cooper
The Clown Murders Ollie
Find the Lady Kopek
1978 The Silent Partner Simonsen
1979 Lost and Found Carpentier
1941 Pvt. Foley
1980 Deadly Companion John also known as Double Negative
The Blues Brothers Burton Mercer
1981 Stripes Ox
Heavy Metal Desk Sergeant Voice
1983 National Lampoon's Vacation Lasky (Guard at 'Walleyworld')
Going Berserk John Bourgignon
1984 Splash Freddie Bauer
1985 Brewster's Millions Spike Nolan
Sesame Street Presents: Follow that Bird State Trooper
Summer Rental Jack Chester
Volunteers Tom Turtle
1986 Armed and Dangerous Frank Dooley
Little Shop of Horrors Wink Wilkinson
1987 Spaceballs Barf
Planes, Trains & Automobiles Del Griffith
1988 The Great Outdoors Chet Ripley
She's Having a Baby Chet from 'The Great Outdoors' Uncredited
Hot to Trot Don Voice
1989 Who's Harry Crumb? Harry Crumb
Speed Zone! Charlie Cronan
Uncle Buck Buck Russell
1990 Masters of Menace Beer Truck Driver
Home Alone Gus Polinski
The Rescuers Down Under Wilbur Voice
1991 Nothing But Trouble Dennis / Eldona
Career Opportunities C.D. Marsh Uncredited
Only the Lonely Danny Muldoon
Delirious Jack Gable (post production)
JFK Dean Andrews
1992 Once Upon a Crime... Augie Morosco
Boris and Natasha: The Movie Kalishak
1993 Rookie of the Year Cliff Murdoch (Announcer) Uncredited
Cool Runnings Irving 'Irv' Blitzer
1994 Wagons East James Harlow Last film Candy filmed before his death
1995 Canadian Bacon Sheriff Bud Boomer
Television
Year Film Role Notes
1972 Cucumber Weatherman (unknown episodes)
Dr. Simon Locke Richie Episode: "Death Holds the Scale"
1974 The ABC Afternoon Playbreak 2nd Son Episode: "Last Bride of Salem"
Dr. Zonk and the Zunkins (unknown episodes)
1976 The David Steinberg Show Spider Reichman Episode one
Episode two
90 Minutes Live (Various) TV series
1976–1977 Coming Up Rosie Wally Wypyzypychwk TV series
1976–1979 Second City TV (Various) 50 episodes
1977 King of Kensington Bandit Episode: "The Hero"
1980 The Courage of Kavik, the Wolf Dog Pinky TV film
1981 Tales of the Klondike TV mini-series
Saturday Night Live Juan Gavino Episode: "George Kennedy/Miles Davis"
(uncredited)
1981–1983 SCTV Network 90 (Various) 38 episodes
1983 SCTV Channel (Various) Episode: "Maudlin O' the Night"
1984 The New Show (Various) Five episodes
1985 Martin Short: Concert for the North Americas Marcel TV film
The Canadian Conspiracy (Various) TV film
The Last Polka Yosh Shmenge/Pa Shmenge TV film
1987 Really Weird Tales Howard Jensen ('Cursed with Charisma') TV film
1989 The Rocket Boy The Hawk TV film
1990 The Dave Thomas Comedy Show One episode
1992 Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories Narrator Episode: "Blumpoe the Grumpoe Meets Arnold the Cat/Millions of Cats"
1994 Hostage for a Day Yuri Petrovich TV film
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r311/kinzel_c/john_candy.jpg
http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm163/pacersfan33/25john_candy.jpg
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t166/danielpev33/johncandy.jpg
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd172/tomdotreed/JohnCandy.jpg



Uncle Buck was funny too.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/04/10 at 7:46 am


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XttBzn8bY8

A lot different than this Against The Wind
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcDCvQbOdig#

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/04/10 at 8:32 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWvh4S3YWVo

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 03/04/10 at 11:36 am

Two SCTV alum.


The funniest SCTV episode was when they were doing Fantasy Island. I remember my stomach really hurting and crying throughout the entire show from laughing so hard.



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 03/04/10 at 11:43 am


Two SCTV alum.


The funniest SCTV episode was when they were doing Fantasy Island. I remember my stomach really hurting and crying throughout the entire show from laughing so hard.



Cat

SCTV had many funny skits. I remember the fantasy island one.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 03/04/10 at 7:25 pm


SCTV had many funny skits. I remember the fantasy island one.



I don't remember many SCTV skits.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/05/10 at 2:02 am

British Person of the Day: Matt Lucas

Matthew Richard "Matt" Lucas (born 5 March 1974) is an English comedian, screenwriter and actor. He is perhaps best known for his acclaimed work with David Walliams in the television show Little Britain and spoof interview series Rock Profile, as well as for his portrayal of the surreal scorekeeping baby George Dawes in the Reeves and Mortimer comedy panel game Shooting Stars. Lucas played Chancellor Donold David Dongalor, on the BBC/Comedy Central series Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire.

In May 2007 he placed eighth in the list of the UK's 100 most influential gays and lesbians, in fields as diverse as entertainment, business, politics, and science, by British newspapers The Independent and The Daily Mail.

Personal life

Born in Paddington, London, Lucas comes from a Jewish background, with some of his British-born mother Diana's family fleeing Nazi Germany. Lucas grew up in Stanmore, Greater London; he has an older brother, Howard. He has had alopecia since his childhood, which in interviews he has inconsistently attributed to various events, including a delayed reaction to a car accident at the age of four. He lost all of his hair when he was six years old. Lucas's father John Lucas died of a heart attack in 1996, aged 52, in Brent, Greater London.

He was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, the same school as attended by David Baddiel and Sacha Baron Cohen. He went on to study drama in the Faculty of Arts at Bristol University between 1993 and 1995.

Lucas worked for Chelsea F.C. as a sales assistant in the old club shop, though he is a high-profile Arsenal fan.

Lucas is a patron of the The Karen Morris Memorial Trust, a UK charity for leukaemia patients and their families. In April 2004 he appeared on Celebrity Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and won £62,500 for the charity.

Early career

Lucas's association with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer began in 1992. In 1994, Lucas appeared in The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer. The second series of the show featured Lucas in several sketches. He went on to star with them in Shooting Stars. He quickly rose to fame as George Dawes, the giant baby, who would deliver a string of meaningless gags (often in character) and insults before delivering the score, while sitting at and playing a drum kit. Many of these parts were introduced not in the style of a baby, but of a grown man — indeed, often, he would come on dressed as a specific adult such as Elton John. He also appeared on occasion as Marjorie Dawes, George's mother, who also appears in Little Britain. He also appeared in the Reeves & Mortimer BBC series Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), and Catterick in a variety of roles. Lucas has also written for actor Sacha Baron Cohen.

His music video appearances include; the Damien Hirst-directed video for Blur's "Country House" (as a psychoanalyst) in 1995, "Jesusland" by Ben Folds in 2005, "I'm with Stupid" by the Pet Shop Boys and "Vindaloo" and "Naughty Christmas" by Fat Les.

Lucas ventured into the world of stage musicals in 2002, when he took one of the main roles in Boy George's musical Taboo, at The Venue, London. He played the part of infamous performance artist Leigh Bowery, which required him to wear some outrageous and spectacular outfits and make-up.

Lucas also appeared in a Big Finish audio play based on the long-running BBC science-fiction series Doctor Who. The play he featured in was called The One Doctor and was a light-hearted Christmas panto-style play.

Little Britain

Little Britain is commercially Lucas's most successful work. Originally a radio show on BBC Radio 4, it later became a TV series. Little Britain has won numerous TV awards, spawning large DVD sales and merchandising. It plays heavily on memorable catchphrases which have become ingrained in playgrounds and offices around the UK. Lucas plays, among many others, four of the most popular characters in the series, which he writes and acts in along with David Walliams: apparently disabled Andy Pipkin, teenage Bristol chav Vicky Pollard, homophobic homosexual Daffyd Thomas and insensitive slimming club organiser Marjorie Dawes. Lucas has also played many other popular characters including the morbidly obese Bubbles DeVere and Orville The Duck in one sketch.

After Little Britain

In 2005, he took his first role in a television drama, a supporting part as a Venetian Duke in the BBC historical serial Casanova, written by Russell T Davies. Since 2006, Lucas has been the voice of the radio and television character Digit Al, devised as part of a public information campaign on digital switchover. On 26 November 2006 he appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs. He made a cameo appearance in Shaun of the Dead as the cousin of Shaun's friend Yvonne.

In 2007, he released "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)", originally by The Proclaimers, with Peter Kay as a charity single for Comic Relief. He performed the single as Little Britain character Andy Pipkin, along with Kay playing as Brian Potter. After being available for less than 48 hours on iTunes alone, the track entered the UK Top 40 at number 3. On 25 March It went to number one, where it stayed for three weeks, selling over 400,000 copies. He also starred as the irrepressible Mr. Toad in The Wind in the Willows, a 2006 television adaptation of the Kenneth Grahame novel.

He has made appearances in Kath & Kim and Neighbours (the latter alongside David Walliams as Little Britain stalwarts Lou and Andy, as well as a cameo role, playing 'Chris' or 'Jammy' at the wedding fayre, in the BBC Three sitcom Gavin & Stacey. Lucas has co written (with Walliams) and performed in a new series of Little Britain USA for HBO. The pair are also writing a movie for Dreamworks.

Lucas was the first celebrity to make an appearance in 2008's Big Brother Celebrity Hijack on E4, working alongside Big Brother in a series containing housemates aged 18–21 with various talents.

In September 2008, whilst on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, Lucas stated that he would play Tweedledee and Tweedledum in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, alongside Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway.

On 9 April 2009, the series Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire, featuring Matt Lucas as a regular performer, premièred on Comedy Central, the first major comedy series Lucas has done since Little Britain.

http://i44.tinypic.com/24v8x8i.jpg

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/02/27/daffyd_narrowweb__300x414,0.jpg

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00391/littlebritain_682_391888a.jpg

http://www.virginmedia.com/images/bbch-matt-lucas.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/05/10 at 2:04 am


British Person of the Day: Matt Lucas

Matthew Richard "Matt" Lucas (born 5 March 1974) is an English comedian, screenwriter and actor. He is perhaps best known for his acclaimed work with David Walliams in the television show Little Britain and spoof interview series Rock Profile, as well as for his portrayal of the surreal scorekeeping baby George Dawes in the Reeves and Mortimer comedy panel game Shooting Stars. Lucas played Chancellor Donold David Dongalor, on the BBC/Comedy Central series Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire.

In May 2007 he placed eighth in the list of the UK's 100 most influential gays and lesbians, in fields as diverse as entertainment, business, politics, and science, by British newspapers The Independent and The Daily Mail.

Personal life

Born in Paddington, London, Lucas comes from a Jewish background, with some of his British-born mother Diana's family fleeing Nazi Germany. Lucas grew up in Stanmore, Greater London; he has an older brother, Howard. He has had alopecia since his childhood, which in interviews he has inconsistently attributed to various events, including a delayed reaction to a car accident at the age of four. He lost all of his hair when he was six years old. Lucas's father John Lucas died of a heart attack in 1996, aged 52, in Brent, Greater London.

He was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, the same school as attended by David Baddiel and Sacha Baron Cohen. He went on to study drama in the Faculty of Arts at Bristol University between 1993 and 1995.

Lucas worked for Chelsea F.C. as a sales assistant in the old club shop, though he is a high-profile Arsenal fan.

Lucas is a patron of the The Karen Morris Memorial Trust, a UK charity for leukaemia patients and their families. In April 2004 he appeared on Celebrity Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and won £62,500 for the charity.

Early career

Lucas's association with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer began in 1992. In 1994, Lucas appeared in The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer. The second series of the show featured Lucas in several sketches. He went on to star with them in Shooting Stars. He quickly rose to fame as George Dawes, the giant baby, who would deliver a string of meaningless gags (often in character) and insults before delivering the score, while sitting at and playing a drum kit. Many of these parts were introduced not in the style of a baby, but of a grown man — indeed, often, he would come on dressed as a specific adult such as Elton John. He also appeared on occasion as Marjorie Dawes, George's mother, who also appears in Little Britain. He also appeared in the Reeves & Mortimer BBC series Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), and Catterick in a variety of roles. Lucas has also written for actor Sacha Baron Cohen.

His music video appearances include; the Damien Hirst-directed video for Blur's "Country House" (as a psychoanalyst) in 1995, "Jesusland" by Ben Folds in 2005, "I'm with Stupid" by the Pet Shop Boys and "Vindaloo" and "Naughty Christmas" by Fat Les.

Lucas ventured into the world of stage musicals in 2002, when he took one of the main roles in Boy George's musical Taboo, at The Venue, London. He played the part of infamous performance artist Leigh Bowery, which required him to wear some outrageous and spectacular outfits and make-up.

Lucas also appeared in a Big Finish audio play based on the long-running BBC science-fiction series Doctor Who. The play he featured in was called The One Doctor and was a light-hearted Christmas panto-style play.

Little Britain

Little Britain is commercially Lucas's most successful work. Originally a radio show on BBC Radio 4, it later became a TV series. Little Britain has won numerous TV awards, spawning large DVD sales and merchandising. It plays heavily on memorable catchphrases which have become ingrained in playgrounds and offices around the UK. Lucas plays, among many others, four of the most popular characters in the series, which he writes and acts in along with David Walliams: apparently disabled Andy Pipkin, teenage Bristol chav Vicky Pollard, homophobic homosexual Daffyd Thomas and insensitive slimming club organiser Marjorie Dawes. Lucas has also played many other popular characters including the morbidly obese Bubbles DeVere and Orville The Duck in one sketch.

After Little Britain

In 2005, he took his first role in a television drama, a supporting part as a Venetian Duke in the BBC historical serial Casanova, written by Russell T Davies. Since 2006, Lucas has been the voice of the radio and television character Digit Al, devised as part of a public information campaign on digital switchover. On 26 November 2006 he appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs. He made a cameo appearance in Shaun of the Dead as the cousin of Shaun's friend Yvonne.

In 2007, he released "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)", originally by The Proclaimers, with Peter Kay as a charity single for Comic Relief. He performed the single as Little Britain character Andy Pipkin, along with Kay playing as Brian Potter. After being available for less than 48 hours on iTunes alone, the track entered the UK Top 40 at number 3. On 25 March It went to number one, where it stayed for three weeks, selling over 400,000 copies. He also starred as the irrepressible Mr. Toad in The Wind in the Willows, a 2006 television adaptation of the Kenneth Grahame novel.

He has made appearances in Kath & Kim and Neighbours (the latter alongside David Walliams as Little Britain stalwarts Lou and Andy, as well as a cameo role, playing 'Chris' or 'Jammy' at the wedding fayre, in the BBC Three sitcom Gavin & Stacey. Lucas has co written (with Walliams) and performed in a new series of Little Britain USA for HBO. The pair are also writing a movie for Dreamworks.

Lucas was the first celebrity to make an appearance in 2008's Big Brother Celebrity Hijack on E4, working alongside Big Brother in a series containing housemates aged 18–21 with various talents.

In September 2008, whilst on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, Lucas stated that he would play Tweedledee and Tweedledum in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, alongside Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway.

On 9 April 2009, the series Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire, featuring Matt Lucas as a regular performer, premièred on Comedy Central, the first major comedy series Lucas has done since Little Britain.

http://i44.tinypic.com/24v8x8i.jpg

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/02/27/daffyd_narrowweb__300x414,0.jpg

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00391/littlebritain_682_391888a.jpg

http://www.virginmedia.com/images/bbch-matt-lucas.jpg
"Yeah, I know."

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/05/10 at 4:50 am


British Person of the Day: Matt Lucas

Matthew Richard "Matt" Lucas (born 5 March 1974) is an English comedian, screenwriter and actor. He is perhaps best known for his acclaimed work with David Walliams in the television show Little Britain and spoof interview series Rock Profile, as well as for his portrayal of the surreal scorekeeping baby George Dawes in the Reeves and Mortimer comedy panel game Shooting Stars. Lucas played Chancellor Donold David Dongalor, on the BBC/Comedy Central series Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire.

In May 2007 he placed eighth in the list of the UK's 100 most influential gays and lesbians, in fields as diverse as entertainment, business, politics, and science, by British newspapers The Independent and The Daily Mail.

Personal life

Born in Paddington, London, Lucas comes from a Jewish background, with some of his British-born mother Diana's family fleeing Nazi Germany. Lucas grew up in Stanmore, Greater London; he has an older brother, Howard. He has had alopecia since his childhood, which in interviews he has inconsistently attributed to various events, including a delayed reaction to a car accident at the age of four. He lost all of his hair when he was six years old. Lucas's father John Lucas died of a heart attack in 1996, aged 52, in Brent, Greater London.

He was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, the same school as attended by David Baddiel and Sacha Baron Cohen. He went on to study drama in the Faculty of Arts at Bristol University between 1993 and 1995.

Lucas worked for Chelsea F.C. as a sales assistant in the old club shop, though he is a high-profile Arsenal fan.

Lucas is a patron of the The Karen Morris Memorial Trust, a UK charity for leukaemia patients and their families. In April 2004 he appeared on Celebrity Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and won £62,500 for the charity.

Early career

Lucas's association with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer began in 1992. In 1994, Lucas appeared in The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer. The second series of the show featured Lucas in several sketches. He went on to star with them in Shooting Stars. He quickly rose to fame as George Dawes, the giant baby, who would deliver a string of meaningless gags (often in character) and insults before delivering the score, while sitting at and playing a drum kit. Many of these parts were introduced not in the style of a baby, but of a grown man — indeed, often, he would come on dressed as a specific adult such as Elton John. He also appeared on occasion as Marjorie Dawes, George's mother, who also appears in Little Britain. He also appeared in the Reeves & Mortimer BBC series Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), and Catterick in a variety of roles. Lucas has also written for actor Sacha Baron Cohen.

His music video appearances include; the Damien Hirst-directed video for Blur's "Country House" (as a psychoanalyst) in 1995, "Jesusland" by Ben Folds in 2005, "I'm with Stupid" by the Pet Shop Boys and "Vindaloo" and "Naughty Christmas" by Fat Les.

Lucas ventured into the world of stage musicals in 2002, when he took one of the main roles in Boy George's musical Taboo, at The Venue, London. He played the part of infamous performance artist Leigh Bowery, which required him to wear some outrageous and spectacular outfits and make-up.

Lucas also appeared in a Big Finish audio play based on the long-running BBC science-fiction series Doctor Who. The play he featured in was called The One Doctor and was a light-hearted Christmas panto-style play.

Little Britain

Little Britain is commercially Lucas's most successful work. Originally a radio show on BBC Radio 4, it later became a TV series. Little Britain has won numerous TV awards, spawning large DVD sales and merchandising. It plays heavily on memorable catchphrases which have become ingrained in playgrounds and offices around the UK. Lucas plays, among many others, four of the most popular characters in the series, which he writes and acts in along with David Walliams: apparently disabled Andy Pipkin, teenage Bristol chav Vicky Pollard, homophobic homosexual Daffyd Thomas and insensitive slimming club organiser Marjorie Dawes. Lucas has also played many other popular characters including the morbidly obese Bubbles DeVere and Orville The Duck in one sketch.

After Little Britain

In 2005, he took his first role in a television drama, a supporting part as a Venetian Duke in the BBC historical serial Casanova, written by Russell T Davies. Since 2006, Lucas has been the voice of the radio and television character Digit Al, devised as part of a public information campaign on digital switchover. On 26 November 2006 he appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs. He made a cameo appearance in Shaun of the Dead as the cousin of Shaun's friend Yvonne.

In 2007, he released "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)", originally by The Proclaimers, with Peter Kay as a charity single for Comic Relief. He performed the single as Little Britain character Andy Pipkin, along with Kay playing as Brian Potter. After being available for less than 48 hours on iTunes alone, the track entered the UK Top 40 at number 3. On 25 March It went to number one, where it stayed for three weeks, selling over 400,000 copies. He also starred as the irrepressible Mr. Toad in The Wind in the Willows, a 2006 television adaptation of the Kenneth Grahame novel.

He has made appearances in Kath & Kim and Neighbours (the latter alongside David Walliams as Little Britain stalwarts Lou and Andy, as well as a cameo role, playing 'Chris' or 'Jammy' at the wedding fayre, in the BBC Three sitcom Gavin & Stacey. Lucas has co written (with Walliams) and performed in a new series of Little Britain USA for HBO. The pair are also writing a movie for Dreamworks.

Lucas was the first celebrity to make an appearance in 2008's Big Brother Celebrity Hijack on E4, working alongside Big Brother in a series containing housemates aged 18–21 with various talents.

In September 2008, whilst on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, Lucas stated that he would play Tweedledee and Tweedledum in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, alongside Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway.

On 9 April 2009, the series Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire, featuring Matt Lucas as a regular performer, premièred on Comedy Central, the first major comedy series Lucas has done since Little Britain.

http://i44.tinypic.com/24v8x8i.jpg

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/02/27/daffyd_narrowweb__300x414,0.jpg

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00391/littlebritain_682_391888a.jpg

http://www.virginmedia.com/images/bbch-matt-lucas.jpg

Thanks Phil,don't really know him but have heard of Little Britain.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/05/10 at 5:04 am

The word or phrase of the day...Teen Idol
A teen idol is a celebrity who is widely idolized by teenagers; he or she is often young but not necessarily teenaged. Often teen idols are actors or pop singers, but some sports figures have an appeal to teenagers. Some teen idols are child actors. The idol's popularity may be limited to teens, or may extend to all age groups.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/05/10 at 5:06 am

The person born on this day...Andy Gibb
Andy Gibb (5 March 1958 – 10 March 1988) was a British/Australian singer, teen idol, and the youngest brother of the members who formed the Bee Gees, Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb.
Born Andrew Roy Gibb in Manchester, England, to Barbara (née Pass) and Hugh Gibb, Gibb emigrated with his family to Australia six months after his birth. They settled in Cribb Island, adjacent to Redcliffe, north of Brisbane. He was the youngest of five children and had one older sister, Lesley (1945), and three older brothers, Barry (1946) and twins Maurice (22 December 1949 – 12 January 2003) and Robin (1949).

Gibb began playing at tourist clubs around Spain's coastal Island of Ibiza, and later on the Isle of Man, as a young teenager.

After returning to Australia in 1975, Gibb began recording a series of his own compositions, one of which was released as a single on the ATA label, owned by Australian performer, Col Joye. "Words and Music" would eventually reach Top Five on the Sydney music charts in 1976. Robert Stigwood who, at the time, was also the Bee Gees' manager signed Gibb to his label, RSO Records. Gibb soon moved to Miami Beach, Florida to begin working on songs with his brother Barry, and co-producers Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson.

Prior to leaving Australia, Gibb had married his girlfriend, Kim Reeder. They had one child, a daughter named Peta Jaye, born 25 January 1978, but the couple was already separated at the time of Peta's birth and would divorce later that year. Gibb reportedly met his daughter only once, in 1981. As of 2007 Peta is known as Peta J. Reeder-Gibb and breeds Staffordshire Bull Terriers as well as being a respected dog show judge in New South Wales, Australia. Peta married Matt Weber on January 19, 2008.
Number 1 hits
The single cover of "I Just Want To Be Your Everything"

In the United States, Gibb became the first male solo artist to chart three consecutive Number One singles on the Billboard Hot 100. In July 1977, he had his first major hit, "I Just Want to Be Your Everything", a song written by his brother Barry, just as his first album Flowing Rivers broke into the US Top 20, on its way to selling over a million copies. The album's second single "(Love Is) Thicker Than Water" broke in early 1978 during the time the BeeGee's contributions to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, replacing "Stayin' Alive" at the top of the US charts, and then surpassed by "Night Fever" when it reached number one in mid-March.

Gibb then began work with the Gibb-Galuten-Richardson production team on his second album Shadow Dancing, which was released in April 1978. The title track, written by all four Gibb brothers, was released as a single in the US in April 1978, and in mid-June began a seven week run at number one, achieving platinum status. Two further Top Ten singles, "An Everlasting Love" (which reached number five) and "(Our Love) Don't Throw It All Away" (which reached number nine), a song also released by his brothers (in 1979), were released from the album, which became another million seller.

In 1979, Gibb performed, along with the Bee Gees, ABBA, and Olivia Newton-John (duet with "Rest Your Love On Me"), at the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly, broadcast worldwide.

He returned to the studio to begin recording sessions for his final full studio album, After Dark. In March 1980, the last of Gibb's Top Ten singles charted just ahead of the album's release. "Desire", was recorded for the Bee Gees' 1979 album Spirits Having Flown, and featured their original track complete with Andy's original "guest vocal" track. A second single, "I Can't Help It", a duet with family friend Olivia Newton-John, reached the Top Twenty.

Later in the year, Andy Gibb's Greatest Hits was released as a finale to his contract with RSO Records, with two new songs: "Time Is Time" (number 15 in January 1981) and "Me (Without You)" (Gibb's last Top Forty chart entry) shipped as singles. "After Dark" and "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" were non single songs added to the album, the latter of which was a duet with PP Arnold, who had previously worked with Barry Gibb, including singing uncredited backups on, "Bury Me Down By The River" from Cucumber Castle.
Career Stall-out

During his relationship with Victoria Principal, Gibb worked on several projects outside of the recording studio. These included performances in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on Broadway, Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance in Los Angeles, and a stint from 1980-1982 as co-host of the television music show Solid Gold. He was fired from both Dreamcoat and Solid Gold due to absenteeism.

According to Broadway producer Zev Bufman, who financed Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat: "When Andy was at the theater, he was a joy. But he wasn't there enough", adding that of the five people to play Joseph up to that point, Gibb was the best actor. He also said after Gibb's death, "e'd lose him over long weekends. He'd come back on Tuesday, and he'd look beat. He was like a little puppy — so ashamed when he did something wrong. He was all heart, but he didn't have enough muscle to carry through." An unnamed co-star in Dreamcoat was quoted as saying, "I hear he spent most of his time in his hotel room in front of the TV. I guess he was frightened and insecure. That's what happens when you're the baby brother of the Bee Gees." Commenting after Gibb's death, Solid Gold producer Brad Lachman was of a similar sentiment: "... was a very charming, vulnerable and charismatic performer. He clearly meant well. He wasn't being difficult. He was going through problems he couldn't deal with. He wanted everyone to love him. He had so much going for him, and he just couldn't believe it."

His romance with Principal also ended shortly thereafter, but not before he recorded and released a duet of the Everly Brothers' "All I Have To Do Is Dream", in the summer of 1981. This would be Gibb's last official single, and his last US chart entry, peaking at number 51.

His family convinced him to seek treatment for his drug addiction; after a stint at the Betty Ford Clinic in the mid-1980s, Gibb toured small venues with a stage show of his greatest hits and covers. He also appeared in guest-starring roles on several television situation comedies including Gimme A Break! and Punky Brewster. Following an expansive East Asia tour, he regularly performed shows in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe. In 1984 he was the headline performer at the Viña del Mar Festival in Chile, performing two nights in a row. He also held a two-week engagement at San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel in March 1986. Gibb declared bankruptcy.

Gibb returned to work alongside brothers Barry and Maurice. Their series of demo recordings with engineer Scott Glasel would eventually secure him a contract with the UK branch of Island Records. One of the demos, "Man On Fire", was released posthumously on a self-titled 1991 Polydor anthology. Another demo, "Arrow Through The Heart" (though unreleased to the present day), would be featured on an episode of VH1's series Behind the Music. It will be available for the first time on his brothers' upcoming Bee Gees Mythology collection, due to be released in 2010.
Death

In March 1988, Gibb celebrated his 30th birthday in London while working on a new album. Soon after, he entered John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, complaining of chest pains. He died on March 10, 1988, just five days after his 30th birthday as a result of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle due to a recent viral infection. Just before Gibb's death, it was decided by the group that Andy would join them, which would have made the group a quartet. This did not come to pass, however. The Bee Gees' following album, One (1989), featured a song dedicated to Andy, "Wish You Were Here". Andy Gibb is entombed at Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His father, Hugh, died four years later and was also buried there.
Discography
Studio albums
Year Album details Peak chart positions Certifications
(sales threshold)
US US R&B CAN UK SWE NOR NZ
1977 Flowing Rivers

    * First studio album
    * Release date: September 1977
    * Label: RSO Records

19 — 9 — 4 — —

    * US certification: Platinum
    * CAN certification: Gold

1978 Shadow Dancing

    * Second studio album
    * Release date: April 1978
    * Label: RSO Records

7 18 1 15 42 8 15

    * US certification: Platinum
    * CAN: certification: Platinum
    * UK certification: Silver

1980 After Dark

    * Third studio album
    * Release date: February 1980
    * Label: RSO Records

21 67 24 — 23 21 —

    * US certification: Gold

"—" denotes releases that did not chart
Compilations
Year Album details Peak positions
US
1980 Andy Gibb's Greatest Hits

    * Release date: 1980
    * Label: RSO Records

46
1991 Greatest Hits Collection

    * Release date: 1991
    * Label: Polydor Records


2001 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection

    * Release date: August 14, 2001
    * Label: Polydor Records


"—" denotes releases that did not chart
Singles
Year Single Peak chart positions Album
US US AC US R&B NZ UK AUS
1976 "Words and Music" — — — 29 — 78 Non-album song
1977 "I Just Want to Be Your Everything" 1 8 19 2 26 1 Flowing Rivers
"(Love Is) Thicker Than Water" 1 18 — 25 — 13
1978 "Shadow Dancing" 1 8 11 5 42 11 Shadow Dancing
"An Everlasting Love" 5 8 — 28 10 57
"(Our Love) Don't Throw It All Away" 9 2 — 27 32 61
1980 "Desire" 4 — 49 38 — 90 After Dark
"I Can't Help It" (with Olivia Newton-John) 12 8 — — — 62
"Time Is Time" 15 29 — — — — Andy Gibb's Greatest Hits
1981 "Me (Without You)" 40 45 — — — —
"All I Have to Do Is Dream" (with Victoria Principal) 51 25 — — — — Non-album song
"—" denotes releases that did not chart
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/05/10 at 5:09 am

The person who died on this day...John Belushi
John Adam Belushi (pronounced /bɨˈluːʃi/; January 24, 1949 – March 5, 1982) was an American comedian, actor, and musician notable for his work on Saturday Night Live, National Lampoon's Animal House, and The Blues Brothers. He was the older brother of James Belushi.
John Belushi was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Agnes Belushi (née Samaras), a first generation Albanian-American, and Adam Belushi (b. 1919), an Albanian immigrant and restaurant operator who left his native village, Qytezë, in 1934 at the age of sixteen. The family's name at the time of immigration was Bellios, or Belliors. Belushi was raised in the Albanian Orthodox church and grew up outside Chicago in Wheaton with a brother Jim, five-and-a-half years his junior. He attended Wheaton Central High School, where he met his future wife, Judy Jacklin, and was a middle linebacker for the school's football team.

He attended the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater and the College of DuPage near Chicago.
Career

Belushi's first big break as a comedian occurred in 1971, when he joined The Second City comedy troupe in Chicago. Thanks to a caricature of singer Joe Cocker's intense and jerky stage presence, he was cast in National Lampoon's Lemmings, a parody of Woodstock, which played Off-Broadway in 1972 and also showcased future Saturday Night Live (SNL) performers Chevy Chase and Christopher Guest.

From 1973 to 1975, National Lampoon Inc. aired The National Lampoon Radio Hour, a half-hour comedy program syndicated across the country on approximately 600 stations. When original director Michael O'Donoghue quit in 1974, Belushi took over the reins until the show was canceled. Other players on the show included future SNL regulars Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray and Chevy Chase. Belushi married Judy Jacklin (Judy Pisano), an associate producer of The Radio Hour. A number of comic segments first performed on The Radio Hour would be translated into SNL sketches in the show's early seasons.
1975-1979

Belushi achieved national fame for his work on Saturday Night Live, which he joined as an original cast member in 1975. Between seasons of the show, he made one of his best-known movies, Animal House. As several Belushi biographies have noted, on John's 30th birthday (in 1979), he had the number one film in the U.S. (Animal House), the number one album in the U.S. (The Blues Brothers: Briefcase Full of Blues) and Saturday Night Live was the highest-rated late night television program. In the toga party scene in the basement of the fraternity house in Animal House, the uncredited coed dancing with Bluto (Belushi) is his wife. While filming Animal House, Belushi made an appearance at Ithaca College in 1976. When introduced, he came onstage with a chainsaw and cut up the podium.

When interviewed for retrospectives on John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd told stories of John often finishing SNL rehearsals, shows or film shoots and, exhausted, simply walking unannounced into nearby homes of friends or strangers, scrounging around for food and often falling asleep, unable to be located for the following day's work. This was the impetus for the SNL horror-spoof sketch "The Thing That Wouldn't Leave", in which Belushi torments a couple (played by Jane Curtin and Bill Murray) in their home looking for snacks, newspapers and magazines to read, and taking control of their television. SNL also featured a short film by writer Tom Schiller called "Don't Look Back In Anger", where Belushi playing himself as an old man, visits the graves of his now-former cast-members, the last to survive. Ironically, Belushi was the first SNL cast member to die.

Belushi left Saturday Night Live in 1979 to pursue a film career. Belushi would make four more movies; three of them, 1941, Neighbors, and most notably The Blues Brothers were made with fellow SNL alumnus Dan Aykroyd.
Other movie projects

Dan Aykroyd wrote the roles of Dr. Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters and Emmett Fitz-Hume in Spies Like Us with Belushi in mind, and the roles were actually played by Belushi's former SNL castmates Bill Murray and Chevy Chase, respectively. Aykroyd used to joke that the green ghost Slimer in Ghostbusters was "the ghost of John Belushi", given that he had a similar party animal personality.

Released in September 1981, the romantic comedy Continental Divide starred Belushi as Chicago home town hero writer Ernie Souchack who gets put on assignment researching a scientist studying birds of prey in the remote rocky mountains. Belushi's character "Ernie Souchak" was loosely based on popular, now deceased Chicago columnist Mike Royko.

At the time of his death, Belushi was pursuing several movie projects, including Noble Rot, an adaptation of a script by former The Mary Tyler Moore Show writer/producer Jay Sandrich entitled Sweet Deception; noble rot is a benevolent fungus that can infect wine grapes on the vine, helping to produce high quality sweet wines. Belushi was rewriting the script with former Saturday Night Live colleague Don Novello.
Personal life

The "College" sweatshirt Belushi wore in National Lampoon's Animal House was purchased in Carbondale, Illinois, when his brother, Jim, was a student at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

According to writer/actor Tim Kazurinsky in the book Live From New York, mentor and close friend Belushi was instrumental in getting fellow Second City alumnus Kazurinsky onto Saturday Night Live in 1981. But during his run on the show, Kazurinsky became very stressed out by its demands. He later called Belushi and said that he needed a ride to the airport because he was quitting and moving back to Chicago. Belushi and his wife picked him up but refused to bring him to the airport, at which Belushi told Kazurinsky that the show's atmosphere can get bad, but that he still had access to major broadcasting airwaves. Instead, Belushi took the performer to a psychiatrist whom he saw for a year, while staying with the show during his run.

It was Belushi who recruited the band Fear and brought them to Cherokee Studios to record songs for the soundtrack of Neighbors, a film he and Aykroyd were starring in. Music producing partners Steve Cropper and Bruce Robb remember recording the music, but nobody knows exactly what happened with the final soundtrack, which was ultimately replaced in the film by a traditional movie score. Cherokee Studios was a regular haunt for the original Blues Brothers back in the early days of the band. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd became fixtures at the recording studio, while fellow Blues Brother and guitar player Steve Cropper called Cherokee his producing home. Whenever they needed a bass player, they were joined by another Blues Brother, Donald "Duck" Dunn. During this time, Cropper along with producing partner and Cherokee owner Bruce Robb worked on a number of music projects with the two comedian/musicians, the band Fear and later Aykroyd's movie "Dragnet." "What can I say? John was excessively talented, and I guess you could say he sort of lived life 'excessively.' I think what happened to John had a sobering effect on a lot of people, me included," said music producer Bruce Robb.

Belushi was generous to his friends and family, often lending them money when they asked. He bought his father a ranch near San Diego, and helped set up his old friends in Chicago with their own businesses. He helped his brother Jim find a spot at Second City, where he himself acted in the early days of his career. His generous side also showed during his time in the Blues Brothers; he often played songs by blues artists he thought could use the money from the royalties.
Death
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On March 5, 1982, Belushi was found dead in his room at Bungalow #3 of the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. The cause of death was a speedball, a combined injection of cocaine and heroin. On the night of his death, he was visited separately by friends Robin Williams (at the height of his own drug exploits) and Robert De Niro, each of whom left the premises, leaving Belushi in the company of assorted others, including Cathy Smith. His death was investigated by forensic pathologist Dr. Ryan Norris among others, and while the findings were disputed, it was officially ruled a drug-related accident.

Two months later, Smith admitted in an interview with the National Enquirer that she had been with Belushi the night of his death and had given him the fatal speedball shot. After the appearance of the article "I Killed Belushi" in the Enquirer edition of June 29, 1982, the case was reopened. Smith was extradited from Toronto, arrested and charged with first-degree murder. A plea bargain arrangement reduced the charges to involuntary manslaughter, and she served 15 months in prison.

In one of Belushi's last TV appearances, he filmed a cameo for the comedy series Police Squad!. At the suggestion of the show's producer, Robert K. Weiss, Belushi was filmed, face down in a swimming pool, dead. The footage was part of a running gag where the episode's guest-star would not survive past the opening credit sequence without meeting some gruesome end. Also, as noted in one of the commentary tracks on the DVD, John nearly drowned during the filming of the scene. The scene never aired.

Belushi and his friend Dan Aykroyd were slated to present the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the 54th Academy Awards, an event held less than four weeks after his death. Aykroyd presented the award alone, commenting on the stage "My partner would have loved to have been here to present this award, given that he was something of a visual effect himself."

Belushi is interred in Abel's Hill Cemetery on Martha's Vineyard Chilmark, Massachusetts. His tombstone reads "He Gave Us Laughter." His gravestone is not above his body. It was moved after operators of the cemetery had found many signs of vandalism and rowdiness where his body lies. He also has a cenotaph at Elmwood Cemetery in River Grove, Illinois.
Tributes
This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2010)

John Belushi's life is detailed in the 1985 biography Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi by Bob Woodward. Many friends and relatives of Belushi, including his wife Judy, Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi, agreed to be interviewed at length for the book, but later felt the final product was exploitative and not representative of the John Belushi they knew. The book was later adapted into a feature film in which Belushi was played by Michael Chiklis. Belushi's friends and family boycotted the film, which proved to be critical and caused the movie to be a box-office flop.

The Grateful Dead performed the song "West L.A. Fadeaway" beginning in late 1982. The song, penned by long time lyricist Robert Hunter and sung by Jerry Garcia, contains fairly explicit references to Belushi's death, especially the line "Looking for a chateau, 21 rooms but one will do."

Belushi was portrayed by actors Eric Siegel in Gilda Radner: It's Always Something, Tyler Labine in Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Mork & Mindy (which also features his friendship with Robin Williams), and Michael Chiklis in Wired.

His widow later remarried and is now Judith Belushi Pisano. Her biography (with co-biographer Tanner Colby) of John, Belushi: A Biography is a collection of first-person interviews and photographs, and was published in 2005.

On April 1, 2004, 22 years after his death, Belushi was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, after a ten-year lobby by James Belushi and Judith Belushi Pisano. Among those present at the ceremony were Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen, and Tom Arnold.

In 2006, Biography Channel aired the "John Belushi" episode of Final 24, a documentary following Belushi in the last 24 hours leading to his death. In 2010, Biography aired a full biography documentation of the life of "John Belushi".
Filmography

    * Tarzoon: Shame of the Jungle (1975) (voice) (1979 American dubbed version)
    * Animal House (1978)
    * The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978)
    * Goin' South (1978)
    * Old Boyfriends (1979)
    * 1941 (1979)
    * The Blues Brothers (1980)
    * Continental Divide (1981)
    * Neighbors (1981)

SNL characters and impersonations
This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2010)

Recurring characters

    * Samurai Futaba
    * Captain Ned, one of Miles Cowperthwaite's cronies
    * Jacob Papageorge alias 'Joliet' Jake Blues, from the Blues Brothers
    * Jeff Widette, from the Widettes
    * Kevin (from The Mall sketches)
    * Kuldorth (from The Coneheads)
    * Larry Farber (one half of the Farber couple )
    * Lowell Brock, from the H&L Brock commercials
    * Matt Cooper, from the Land Shark sketches
    * Pete, from the Olympia Cafe
    * Steve Beshekas (who was in real life a good friend of Belushi's since community college)
    * Frank Leary, one of St. Mickey's Knights of Columbus

Celebrity impersonations

    * Al Hirt
    * Babe Ruth
    * Bert Lance
    * Cesar Romero
    * Dino De Laurentiis
    * Ed Ames
    * Ed Asner
    * Elizabeth Taylor
    * Elvis Presley
    * Franklin D. Roosevelt
    * Fred Silverman
    * George Wallace
    * Henry Kissinger
    * Hermann Göring
    * Jack Kerouac
    * Jawaharlal Nehru
    * Jimmy Hoffa
    * Joe Cocker
    * John Lennon
    * Julia Child
    * Leonid Brezhnev
    * Ludwig van Beethoven
    * Marlon Brando
    * Menachim Begin
    * Richard Daley
    * Robert Blake
    * Roy Orbison
    * Sam Peckinpah
    * Sanjay Gandhi
    * Steve Rubell
    * Sun Myung Moon
    * Tip O'Neill
    * Truman Capote
    * Vasiliy Alekseyev
    * William Shatner
    * Woody Hayes
    * Yasser Arafat

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u54/judithdelrio/Belushi.jpg
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb60/ofhsfootball/John%20Belushi/thjohnbelushi.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/05/10 at 5:43 am


The person who died on this day...John Belushi
John Adam Belushi (pronounced /bɨˈluːʃi/; January 24, 1949 – March 5, 1982) was an American comedian, actor, and musician notable for his work on Saturday Night Live, National Lampoon's Animal House, and The Blues Brothers. He was the older brother of James Belushi.
John Belushi was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Agnes Belushi (née Samaras), a first generation Albanian-American, and Adam Belushi (b. 1919), an Albanian immigrant and restaurant operator who left his native village, Qytezë, in 1934 at the age of sixteen. The family's name at the time of immigration was Bellios, or Belliors. Belushi was raised in the Albanian Orthodox church and grew up outside Chicago in Wheaton with a brother Jim, five-and-a-half years his junior. He attended Wheaton Central High School, where he met his future wife, Judy Jacklin, and was a middle linebacker for the school's football team.

He attended the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater and the College of DuPage near Chicago.
Career

Belushi's first big break as a comedian occurred in 1971, when he joined The Second City comedy troupe in Chicago. Thanks to a caricature of singer Joe Cocker's intense and jerky stage presence, he was cast in National Lampoon's Lemmings, a parody of Woodstock, which played Off-Broadway in 1972 and also showcased future Saturday Night Live (SNL) performers Chevy Chase and Christopher Guest.

From 1973 to 1975, National Lampoon Inc. aired The National Lampoon Radio Hour, a half-hour comedy program syndicated across the country on approximately 600 stations. When original director Michael O'Donoghue quit in 1974, Belushi took over the reins until the show was canceled. Other players on the show included future SNL regulars Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray and Chevy Chase. Belushi married Judy Jacklin (Judy Pisano), an associate producer of The Radio Hour. A number of comic segments first performed on The Radio Hour would be translated into SNL sketches in the show's early seasons.
1975-1979

Belushi achieved national fame for his work on Saturday Night Live, which he joined as an original cast member in 1975. Between seasons of the show, he made one of his best-known movies, Animal House. As several Belushi biographies have noted, on John's 30th birthday (in 1979), he had the number one film in the U.S. (Animal House), the number one album in the U.S. (The Blues Brothers: Briefcase Full of Blues) and Saturday Night Live was the highest-rated late night television program. In the toga party scene in the basement of the fraternity house in Animal House, the uncredited coed dancing with Bluto (Belushi) is his wife. While filming Animal House, Belushi made an appearance at Ithaca College in 1976. When introduced, he came onstage with a chainsaw and cut up the podium.

When interviewed for retrospectives on John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd told stories of John often finishing SNL rehearsals, shows or film shoots and, exhausted, simply walking unannounced into nearby homes of friends or strangers, scrounging around for food and often falling asleep, unable to be located for the following day's work. This was the impetus for the SNL horror-spoof sketch "The Thing That Wouldn't Leave", in which Belushi torments a couple (played by Jane Curtin and Bill Murray) in their home looking for snacks, newspapers and magazines to read, and taking control of their television. SNL also featured a short film by writer Tom Schiller called "Don't Look Back In Anger", where Belushi playing himself as an old man, visits the graves of his now-former cast-members, the last to survive. Ironically, Belushi was the first SNL cast member to die.

Belushi left Saturday Night Live in 1979 to pursue a film career. Belushi would make four more movies; three of them, 1941, Neighbors, and most notably The Blues Brothers were made with fellow SNL alumnus Dan Aykroyd.
Other movie projects

Dan Aykroyd wrote the roles of Dr. Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters and Emmett Fitz-Hume in Spies Like Us with Belushi in mind, and the roles were actually played by Belushi's former SNL castmates Bill Murray and Chevy Chase, respectively. Aykroyd used to joke that the green ghost Slimer in Ghostbusters was "the ghost of John Belushi", given that he had a similar party animal personality.

Released in September 1981, the romantic comedy Continental Divide starred Belushi as Chicago home town hero writer Ernie Souchack who gets put on assignment researching a scientist studying birds of prey in the remote rocky mountains. Belushi's character "Ernie Souchak" was loosely based on popular, now deceased Chicago columnist Mike Royko.

At the time of his death, Belushi was pursuing several movie projects, including Noble Rot, an adaptation of a script by former The Mary Tyler Moore Show writer/producer Jay Sandrich entitled Sweet Deception; noble rot is a benevolent fungus that can infect wine grapes on the vine, helping to produce high quality sweet wines. Belushi was rewriting the script with former Saturday Night Live colleague Don Novello.
Personal life

The "College" sweatshirt Belushi wore in National Lampoon's Animal House was purchased in Carbondale, Illinois, when his brother, Jim, was a student at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

According to writer/actor Tim Kazurinsky in the book Live From New York, mentor and close friend Belushi was instrumental in getting fellow Second City alumnus Kazurinsky onto Saturday Night Live in 1981. But during his run on the show, Kazurinsky became very stressed out by its demands. He later called Belushi and said that he needed a ride to the airport because he was quitting and moving back to Chicago. Belushi and his wife picked him up but refused to bring him to the airport, at which Belushi told Kazurinsky that the show's atmosphere can get bad, but that he still had access to major broadcasting airwaves. Instead, Belushi took the performer to a psychiatrist whom he saw for a year, while staying with the show during his run.

It was Belushi who recruited the band Fear and brought them to Cherokee Studios to record songs for the soundtrack of Neighbors, a film he and Aykroyd were starring in. Music producing partners Steve Cropper and Bruce Robb remember recording the music, but nobody knows exactly what happened with the final soundtrack, which was ultimately replaced in the film by a traditional movie score. Cherokee Studios was a regular haunt for the original Blues Brothers back in the early days of the band. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd became fixtures at the recording studio, while fellow Blues Brother and guitar player Steve Cropper called Cherokee his producing home. Whenever they needed a bass player, they were joined by another Blues Brother, Donald "Duck" Dunn. During this time, Cropper along with producing partner and Cherokee owner Bruce Robb worked on a number of music projects with the two comedian/musicians, the band Fear and later Aykroyd's movie "Dragnet." "What can I say? John was excessively talented, and I guess you could say he sort of lived life 'excessively.' I think what happened to John had a sobering effect on a lot of people, me included," said music producer Bruce Robb.

Belushi was generous to his friends and family, often lending them money when they asked. He bought his father a ranch near San Diego, and helped set up his old friends in Chicago with their own businesses. He helped his brother Jim find a spot at Second City, where he himself acted in the early days of his career. His generous side also showed during his time in the Blues Brothers; he often played songs by blues artists he thought could use the money from the royalties.
Death
Question book-new.svg
This section needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2009)

On March 5, 1982, Belushi was found dead in his room at Bungalow #3 of the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. The cause of death was a speedball, a combined injection of cocaine and heroin. On the night of his death, he was visited separately by friends Robin Williams (at the height of his own drug exploits) and Robert De Niro, each of whom left the premises, leaving Belushi in the company of assorted others, including Cathy Smith. His death was investigated by forensic pathologist Dr. Ryan Norris among others, and while the findings were disputed, it was officially ruled a drug-related accident.

Two months later, Smith admitted in an interview with the National Enquirer that she had been with Belushi the night of his death and had given him the fatal speedball shot. After the appearance of the article "I Killed Belushi" in the Enquirer edition of June 29, 1982, the case was reopened. Smith was extradited from Toronto, arrested and charged with first-degree murder. A plea bargain arrangement reduced the charges to involuntary manslaughter, and she served 15 months in prison.

In one of Belushi's last TV appearances, he filmed a cameo for the comedy series Police Squad!. At the suggestion of the show's producer, Robert K. Weiss, Belushi was filmed, face down in a swimming pool, dead. The footage was part of a running gag where the episode's guest-star would not survive past the opening credit sequence without meeting some gruesome end. Also, as noted in one of the commentary tracks on the DVD, John nearly drowned during the filming of the scene. The scene never aired.

Belushi and his friend Dan Aykroyd were slated to present the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the 54th Academy Awards, an event held less than four weeks after his death. Aykroyd presented the award alone, commenting on the stage "My partner would have loved to have been here to present this award, given that he was something of a visual effect himself."

Belushi is interred in Abel's Hill Cemetery on Martha's Vineyard Chilmark, Massachusetts. His tombstone reads "He Gave Us Laughter." His gravestone is not above his body. It was moved after operators of the cemetery had found many signs of vandalism and rowdiness where his body lies. He also has a cenotaph at Elmwood Cemetery in River Grove, Illinois.
Tributes
This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2010)

John Belushi's life is detailed in the 1985 biography Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi by Bob Woodward. Many friends and relatives of Belushi, including his wife Judy, Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi, agreed to be interviewed at length for the book, but later felt the final product was exploitative and not representative of the John Belushi they knew. The book was later adapted into a feature film in which Belushi was played by Michael Chiklis. Belushi's friends and family boycotted the film, which proved to be critical and caused the movie to be a box-office flop.

The Grateful Dead performed the song "West L.A. Fadeaway" beginning in late 1982. The song, penned by long time lyricist Robert Hunter and sung by Jerry Garcia, contains fairly explicit references to Belushi's death, especially the line "Looking for a chateau, 21 rooms but one will do."

Belushi was portrayed by actors Eric Siegel in Gilda Radner: It's Always Something, Tyler Labine in Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Mork & Mindy (which also features his friendship with Robin Williams), and Michael Chiklis in Wired.

His widow later remarried and is now Judith Belushi Pisano. Her biography (with co-biographer Tanner Colby) of John, Belushi: A Biography is a collection of first-person interviews and photographs, and was published in 2005.

On April 1, 2004, 22 years after his death, Belushi was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, after a ten-year lobby by James Belushi and Judith Belushi Pisano. Among those present at the ceremony were Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen, and Tom Arnold.

In 2006, Biography Channel aired the "John Belushi" episode of Final 24, a documentary following Belushi in the last 24 hours leading to his death. In 2010, Biography aired a full biography documentation of the life of "John Belushi".
Filmography

    * Tarzoon: Shame of the Jungle (1975) (voice) (1979 American dubbed version)
    * Animal House (1978)
    * The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978)
    * Goin' South (1978)
    * Old Boyfriends (1979)
    * 1941 (1979)
    * The Blues Brothers (1980)
    * Continental Divide (1981)
    * Neighbors (1981)

SNL characters and impersonations
This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2010)

Recurring characters

    * Samurai Futaba
    * Captain Ned, one of Miles Cowperthwaite's cronies
    * Jacob Papageorge alias 'Joliet' Jake Blues, from the Blues Brothers
    * Jeff Widette, from the Widettes
    * Kevin (from The Mall sketches)
    * Kuldorth (from The Coneheads)
    * Larry Farber (one half of the Farber couple )
    * Lowell Brock, from the H&L Brock commercials
    * Matt Cooper, from the Land Shark sketches
    * Pete, from the Olympia Cafe
    * Steve Beshekas (who was in real life a good friend of Belushi's since community college)
    * Frank Leary, one of St. Mickey's Knights of Columbus

Celebrity impersonations

    * Al Hirt
    * Babe Ruth
    * Bert Lance
    * Cesar Romero
    * Dino De Laurentiis
    * Ed Ames
    * Ed Asner
    * Elizabeth Taylor
    * Elvis Presley
    * Franklin D. Roosevelt
    * Fred Silverman
    * George Wallace
    * Henry Kissinger
    * Hermann Göring
    * Jack Kerouac
    * Jawaharlal Nehru
    * Jimmy Hoffa
    * Joe Cocker
    * John Lennon
    * Julia Child
    * Leonid Brezhnev
    * Ludwig van Beethoven
    * Marlon Brando
    * Menachim Begin
    * Richard Daley
    * Robert Blake
    * Roy Orbison
    * Sam Peckinpah
    * Sanjay Gandhi
    * Steve Rubell
    * Sun Myung Moon
    * Tip O'Neill
    * Truman Capote
    * Vasiliy Alekseyev
    * William Shatner
    * Woody Hayes
    * Yasser Arafat

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u54/judithdelrio/Belushi.jpg
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb60/ofhsfootball/John%20Belushi/thjohnbelushi.jpg
A sad loss to the movie and comedy industry.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 03/05/10 at 7:00 am

http://www.soulwalking.co.uk/%A5Artist%20GIF%20Images/Teena-Marie-Colour-99.jpg

It is also Teena Marie's birthday who was born March 5th,She's 54 today.


Happy Birthday. :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 03/05/10 at 7:02 am


The person born on this day...Andy Gibb
Andy Gibb (5 March 1958 – 10 March 1988) was a British/Australian singer, teen idol, and the youngest brother of the members who formed the Bee Gees, Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb.
Born Andrew Roy Gibb in Manchester, England, to Barbara (née Pass) and Hugh Gibb, Gibb emigrated with his family to Australia six months after his birth. They settled in Cribb Island, adjacent to Redcliffe, north of Brisbane. He was the youngest of five children and had one older sister, Lesley (1945), and three older brothers, Barry (1946) and twins Maurice (22 December 1949 – 12 January 2003) and Robin (1949).

Gibb began playing at tourist clubs around Spain's coastal Island of Ibiza, and later on the Isle of Man, as a young teenager.

After returning to Australia in 1975, Gibb began recording a series of his own compositions, one of which was released as a single on the ATA label, owned by Australian performer, Col Joye. "Words and Music" would eventually reach Top Five on the Sydney music charts in 1976. Robert Stigwood who, at the time, was also the Bee Gees' manager signed Gibb to his label, RSO Records. Gibb soon moved to Miami Beach, Florida to begin working on songs with his brother Barry, and co-producers Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson.

Prior to leaving Australia, Gibb had married his girlfriend, Kim Reeder. They had one child, a daughter named Peta Jaye, born 25 January 1978, but the couple was already separated at the time of Peta's birth and would divorce later that year. Gibb reportedly met his daughter only once, in 1981. As of 2007 Peta is known as Peta J. Reeder-Gibb and breeds Staffordshire Bull Terriers as well as being a respected dog show judge in New South Wales, Australia. Peta married Matt Weber on January 19, 2008.
Number 1 hits
The single cover of "I Just Want To Be Your Everything"

In the United States, Gibb became the first male solo artist to chart three consecutive Number One singles on the Billboard Hot 100. In July 1977, he had his first major hit, "I Just Want to Be Your Everything", a song written by his brother Barry, just as his first album Flowing Rivers broke into the US Top 20, on its way to selling over a million copies. The album's second single "(Love Is) Thicker Than Water" broke in early 1978 during the time the BeeGee's contributions to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, replacing "Stayin' Alive" at the top of the US charts, and then surpassed by "Night Fever" when it reached number one in mid-March.

Gibb then began work with the Gibb-Galuten-Richardson production team on his second album Shadow Dancing, which was released in April 1978. The title track, written by all four Gibb brothers, was released as a single in the US in April 1978, and in mid-June began a seven week run at number one, achieving platinum status. Two further Top Ten singles, "An Everlasting Love" (which reached number five) and "(Our Love) Don't Throw It All Away" (which reached number nine), a song also released by his brothers (in 1979), were released from the album, which became another million seller.

In 1979, Gibb performed, along with the Bee Gees, ABBA, and Olivia Newton-John (duet with "Rest Your Love On Me"), at the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly, broadcast worldwide.

He returned to the studio to begin recording sessions for his final full studio album, After Dark. In March 1980, the last of Gibb's Top Ten singles charted just ahead of the album's release. "Desire", was recorded for the Bee Gees' 1979 album Spirits Having Flown, and featured their original track complete with Andy's original "guest vocal" track. A second single, "I Can't Help It", a duet with family friend Olivia Newton-John, reached the Top Twenty.

Later in the year, Andy Gibb's Greatest Hits was released as a finale to his contract with RSO Records, with two new songs: "Time Is Time" (number 15 in January 1981) and "Me (Without You)" (Gibb's last Top Forty chart entry) shipped as singles. "After Dark" and "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" were non single songs added to the album, the latter of which was a duet with PP Arnold, who had previously worked with Barry Gibb, including singing uncredited backups on, "Bury Me Down By The River" from Cucumber Castle.
Career Stall-out

During his relationship with Victoria Principal, Gibb worked on several projects outside of the recording studio. These included performances in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on Broadway, Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance in Los Angeles, and a stint from 1980-1982 as co-host of the television music show Solid Gold. He was fired from both Dreamcoat and Solid Gold due to absenteeism.

According to Broadway producer Zev Bufman, who financed Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat: "When Andy was at the theater, he was a joy. But he wasn't there enough", adding that of the five people to play Joseph up to that point, Gibb was the best actor. He also said after Gibb's death, "e'd lose him over long weekends. He'd come back on Tuesday, and he'd look beat. He was like a little puppy — so ashamed when he did something wrong. He was all heart, but he didn't have enough muscle to carry through." An unnamed co-star in Dreamcoat was quoted as saying, "I hear he spent most of his time in his hotel room in front of the TV. I guess he was frightened and insecure. That's what happens when you're the baby brother of the Bee Gees." Commenting after Gibb's death, Solid Gold producer Brad Lachman was of a similar sentiment: "... was a very charming, vulnerable and charismatic performer. He clearly meant well. He wasn't being difficult. He was going through problems he couldn't deal with. He wanted everyone to love him. He had so much going for him, and he just couldn't believe it."

His romance with Principal also ended shortly thereafter, but not before he recorded and released a duet of the Everly Brothers' "All I Have To Do Is Dream", in the summer of 1981. This would be Gibb's last official single, and his last US chart entry, peaking at number 51.

His family convinced him to seek treatment for his drug addiction; after a stint at the Betty Ford Clinic in the mid-1980s, Gibb toured small venues with a stage show of his greatest hits and covers. He also appeared in guest-starring roles on several television situation comedies including Gimme A Break! and Punky Brewster. Following an expansive East Asia tour, he regularly performed shows in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe. In 1984 he was the headline performer at the Viña del Mar Festival in Chile, performing two nights in a row. He also held a two-week engagement at San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel in March 1986. Gibb declared bankruptcy.

Gibb returned to work alongside brothers Barry and Maurice. Their series of demo recordings with engineer Scott Glasel would eventually secure him a contract with the UK branch of Island Records. One of the demos, "Man On Fire", was released posthumously on a self-titled 1991 Polydor anthology. Another demo, "Arrow Through The Heart" (though unreleased to the present day), would be featured on an episode of VH1's series Behind the Music. It will be available for the first time on his brothers' upcoming Bee Gees Mythology collection, due to be released in 2010.
Death

In March 1988, Gibb celebrated his 30th birthday in London while working on a new album. Soon after, he entered John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, complaining of chest pains. He died on March 10, 1988, just five days after his 30th birthday as a result of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle due to a recent viral infection. Just before Gibb's death, it was decided by the group that Andy would join them, which would have made the group a quartet. This did not come to pass, however. The Bee Gees' following album, One (1989), featured a song dedicated to Andy, "Wish You Were Here". Andy Gibb is entombed at Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His father, Hugh, died four years later and was also buried there.
Discography
Studio albums
Year Album details Peak chart positions Certifications
(sales threshold)
US US R&B CAN UK SWE NOR NZ
1977 Flowing Rivers

    * First studio album
    * Release date: September 1977
    * Label: RSO Records

19 — 9 — 4 — —

    * US certification: Platinum
    * CAN certification: Gold

1978 Shadow Dancing

    * Second studio album
    * Release date: April 1978
    * Label: RSO Records

7 18 1 15 42 8 15

    * US certification: Platinum
    * CAN: certification: Platinum
    * UK certification: Silver

1980 After Dark

    * Third studio album
    * Release date: February 1980
    * Label: RSO Records

21 67 24 — 23 21 —

    * US certification: Gold

"—" denotes releases that did not chart
Compilations
Year Album details Peak positions
US
1980 Andy Gibb's Greatest Hits

    * Release date: 1980
    * Label: RSO Records

46
1991 Greatest Hits Collection

    * Release date: 1991
    * Label: Polydor Records


2001 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection

    * Release date: August 14, 2001
    * Label: Polydor Records


"—" denotes releases that did not chart
Singles
Year Single Peak chart positions Album
US US AC US R&B NZ UK AUS
1976 "Words and Music" — — — 29 — 78 Non-album song
1977 "I Just Want to Be Your Everything" 1 8 19 2 26 1 Flowing Rivers
"(Love Is) Thicker Than Water" 1 18 — 25 — 13
1978 "Shadow Dancing" 1 8 11 5 42 11 Shadow Dancing
"An Everlasting Love" 5 8 — 28 10 57
"(Our Love) Don't Throw It All Away" 9 2 — 27 32 61
1980 "Desire" 4 — 49 38 — 90 After Dark
"I Can't Help It" (with Olivia Newton-John) 12 8 — — — 62
"Time Is Time" 15 29 — — — — Andy Gibb's Greatest Hits
1981 "Me (Without You)" 40 45 — — — —
"All I Have to Do Is Dream" (with Victoria Principal) 51 25 — — — — Non-album song
"—" denotes releases that did not chart
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w219/debbers1979/6731_andy_gibb_03.jpg
http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh240/tweety36c/andy_collage.jpg


My favorites were Shadow Dancing and Love is Thicker Than Water.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/05/10 at 7:13 am


http://www.soulwalking.co.uk/%A5Artist%20GIF%20Images/Teena-Marie-Colour-99.jpg

It is also Teena Marie's birthday who was born March 5th,She's 54 today.


Happy Birthday. :)
Any more information on her?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 03/05/10 at 7:16 am


Any more information on her?




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teena_Marie

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/05/10 at 7:20 am




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teena_Marie
Teena Marie (born Mary Christine Brockert on March 5, 1956) is an American Grammy Award-nominated singer–songwriter–producer. Marie, nicknamed Lady Tee,(sometimes spelled Lady T), is a protegée of late funk legend Rick James, and is notable as one of the few successful white performers of R&B. She sings R&B with strong, robust vocals and plays rhythm guitar, keyboards and congas. She also has written, produced, sung and arranged virtually all of her songs since her 1980 release Irons in the Fire. She has quoted this as being her favorite album. She has a daughter named Alia Rose who, as of 2009, sings under the name Rose Le Beau

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 03/05/10 at 7:26 am


Teena Marie (born Mary Christine Brockert on March 5, 1956) is an American Grammy Award-nominated singer–songwriter–producer. Marie, nicknamed Lady Tee,(sometimes spelled Lady T), is a protegée of late funk legend Rick James, and is notable as one of the few successful white performers of R&B. She sings R&B with strong, robust vocals and plays rhythm guitar, keyboards and congas. She also has written, produced, sung and arranged virtually all of her songs since her 1980 release Irons in the Fire. She has quoted this as being her favorite album. She has a daughter named Alia Rose who, as of 2009, sings under the name Rose Le Beau



Government also put out a Brockert Law.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 03/05/10 at 3:46 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqCmGQKmGnw

Man, I listen to that song and it takes me back to another place, another time.



I remember where I was when I heard about John Belushi-I was in basic training my TI (Training Instructor) told us and I thought that it couldn't be real because basic training didn't seem real at all. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgtUrYtEkI0



Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 03/05/10 at 7:09 pm


My favorites were Shadow Dancing and Love is Thicker Than Water.

His albums were one othe first I ever purchased. Liked his stuff. It's in the genes, I guess.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/06/10 at 6:31 am

The word of the day...Wall
A wall is one of the vertical sides of a building or room.
A wall is a long narrow vertical structure made of stone or brick that surrounds or divides an area of land.
The wall of something that is hollow is its side.
A wall of something is a large amount of it forming a high vertical barrier.
You can describe something as a wall of a particular kind when it acts as a barrier and prevents people from understanding something.
http://i650.photobucket.com/albums/uu221/spaceinthewall/xx3.jpg
http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm291/humanbeatmachine/thegetbacks_wall.gif
http://i958.photobucket.com/albums/ae66/NakedGirl7/wall.jpg
http://i541.photobucket.com/albums/gg368/will_f_07/brickscopy.jpg
http://i448.photobucket.com/albums/qq209/lilremie1996/wall-e.jpg
http://i841.photobucket.com/albums/zz336/HugoMGM/Wall-E1cpia.jpg
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n161/mjfoster77/DSC02573.jpg
http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/vv267/kaysnave/DSCN3339.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/06/10 at 6:37 am

The person born on this day...David Gilmour
David Jon Gilmour CBE (born 6 March 1946) is an English musician, best known as the guitarist, lead singer, and one of the main songwriters in the rock band Pink Floyd. In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has worked as a record producer for a variety of artists, and has enjoyed a successful career as a solo artist. Gilmour has been actively involved with many charity organizations over the course of his career. In 2003, he was appointed CBE for services to music and philanthropy and was awarded with the Outstanding Contribution title at the 2008 Q Awards.
Gilmour was approached in late December 1967 by drummer Nick Mason, who asked if he would be interested in joining Pink Floyd, which he did in January 1968, making Pink Floyd briefly a five-piece band. He was used to fill in for Syd Barrett's guitar parts when the front man was unable to take a consistent part in Floyd's live performances. When Syd Barrett "left" the group (due to his erratic behaviour, the band chose not to pick Barrett up one night for a gig ), Gilmour by default assumed the role of the band's lead guitarist and shared lead vocal duties with bassist Roger Waters and keyboard player Richard Wright in Barrett's stead. However, after the back-to-back successes of The Dark Side of the Moon and then Wish You Were Here, Waters took more control over the band, writing most of Animals and The Wall by himself. Wright was fired during The Wall sessions and the relationship between Gilmour and Waters would further deteriorate during the making of The Wall film and the 1983 Pink Floyd album The Final Cut.

After recording "Animals", Gilmour thought that his musical influence had been underused, and channelled his ideas into his self-titled first solo album (1978), which showcases his signature guitar style, as well as underscoring his songwriting skills. A tune written during the finishing stages of this album, but too late to be used, became "Comfortably Numb" on The Wall.
Gilmour performing in Brussels in 1984, on his About Face tour

The negative atmosphere surrounding the creation of The Wall album and film, compounded by The Final Cut's virtually being a Roger Waters solo album, led Gilmour to produce his second solo album About Face in 1984. He used it to express his feelings about a range of topics, from the murder of John Lennon, to his relationship with Waters. He has since admitted that he also used the album to distance himself from Pink Floyd. He toured Europe and the US along with support act The Television Personalities, who later disappeared from the line-up after revealing Syd Barrett's address on stage. Mason and Wright also played on the UK leg of the tour, which despite some cancellations eventually turned a profit. When he returned from touring, Gilmour played guitar with a range of artists, and also produced The Dream Academy, who had a top ten hit with "Life in a Northern Town".

In 1985, Waters declared that Pink Floyd was "a spent force creatively". However, in 1986, Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason issued a press release stating that Waters had quit the band and they intended to continue without him. Gilmour assumed full control of the group and produced A Momentary Lapse of Reason in 1987 with some contributions from Mason and Richard Wright. Wright officially rejoined the band after the release of the album for a lengthy world tour and helped create 1994's The Division Bell as well. Gilmour explained:
“ I had a number of problems with the direction of the band in our recent past, before Roger left. I thought the songs were very wordy and that, because the specific meanings of those words were so important, the music became a mere vehicle for lyrics, and not a very inspiring one. Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here were so successful not just because of Roger's contributions, but also because there was a better balance between the music and the lyrics than there has been in more recent albums. That's what I'm trying to do with A Momentary Lapse of Reason; more focus on the music, restore the balance. ”

In 1986, Gilmour purchased the houseboat Astoria which is moored on the River Thames near Hampton Court, and transformed it into a recording studio. The majority of the two most recent Pink Floyd albums, as well as Gilmour's 2006 solo release On an Island, were recorded there.

On 2 July 2005, Gilmour played with Pink Floyd — including Roger Waters — at Live 8. The performance caused a temporary 1343% sales increase of Pink Floyd's album Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd. Gilmour donated all of his resulting profits to charities that reflect the goals of Live 8 saying:
Gilmour at Live 8 in July 2005
“ Though the main objective has been to raise consciousness and put pressure on the G8 leaders, I will not profit from the concert. This is money that should be used to save lives.

Shortly after, he called upon all artists experiencing a surge in sales from Live 8 performances to donate the extra revenue to Live 8 fund-raising. After the Live 8 concert, Pink Floyd were offered £150 million to tour the United States, but the band turned down the offer.

On 3 February 2006, he announced in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that Pink Floyd would most likely never tour or write material together again. He said:
“ I think enough is enough. I am 60 years old. I don't have the will to work as much anymore. Pink Floyd was an important part in my life, I have had a wonderful time, but it's over. For me it's much less complicated to work alone. ”

He said that by agreeing to Live 8, he had ensured the story of Floyd would not end on a sour note.
“ There was more than one reason, firstly to support the cause. The second one is the energy consuming an uncomfortable relationship between Roger and me that I was carrying along in my heart. That is why we wanted to perform and to leave the trash behind. Thirdly, I might have regretted it if I declined. ”

On 20 February 2006, Gilmour commented again on Pink Floyd's future when he was interviewed by Billboard.com, stating, "Who knows? I have no plans at all to do that. My plans are to do my concerts and put my solo record out."

In December 2006, Gilmour released a tribute to Syd Barrett, who had died in July that year, in the form of his own version of Pink Floyd's first single "Arnold Layne". Recorded live at London's Royal Albert Hall, the CD single featured versions of the song performed by Pink Floyd's keyboard player (and Gilmour's band member) Richard Wright and special guest artist David Bowie. The single entered the UK Top 75 charts at number nineteen and remained steady for three weeks.

Since their Live 8 appearance in 2005, Gilmour has repeatedly said that there will be no Pink Floyd reunion. However, in a 2007 interview with Phil Manzanera, he stated that he's "not done with it yet" and that he plans on doing "something" in the future. With the death of Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright in September 2008, another reunion of the core group members became impossible. Gilmour said of Wright: "In the welter of arguments about who or what was Pink Floyd, Rick's enormous input was frequently forgotten. He was gentle, unassuming and private but his soulful voice and playing were vital, magical components of our most recognised Pink Floyd sound. Like Rick, I don't find it easy to express my feelings in words, but I loved him and will miss him enormously. I have never played with anyone quite like him."
Other projects

Taking time off from Pink Floyd's schedule, Gilmour also took up various roles as a producer, sideman and even concert sound engineer for a wide variety of acts which included former bandmate Syd Barrett, Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, Grace Jones, Tom Jones, Elton John, B. B. King, Seal, Sam Brown, Jools Holland, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, The Who, Supertramp, Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson, Alan Parsons, and various charity groups among others.

In 1985, Gilmour was member of Bryan Ferry's band. He played on Ferry's album Boys and Girls, as well as the song "Is Your Love Strong Enough" for the U.S. release of the Ridley Scott-Tom Cruise film Legend. A music video for the latter was created, incorporating Ferry and Gilmour into footage from the film (released as a bonus on the 2002 "Ultimate Edition" DVD release). Later that year, Gilmour played with Ferry at the London Live Aid concert; his first meeting with Ferry's keyboard player Jon Carin, later to tour with Pink Floyd.

David Gilmour also took part in a comedy skit titled "The Easy Guitar Book Sketch" with comedian Rowland Rivron and fellow British musicians Mark Knopfler, Lemmy from Motorhead, Mark King from Level 42, and Gary Moore. Guitar tech Phil Taylor explained in an interview that Knopfler used Gilmour's guitar rig and managed to sound like himself when performing in the skit.

He has also recorded four solo albums, all four of which charted in the U.S. Top 40 (2006's On an Island peaked at #6 in 2006, 2008's Live in Gdansk peaked at #26, his 1978 self-titled solo debut peaked at #29 in 1978 and 1984's About Face peaked at #32 in 1984) thus making him the only member of Pink Floyd to have a commercially successful solo career.

In 1994, Gilmour played guitar for the video game Tuneland, along with the additional saxophonist for Pink Floyd, Scott Page.

In 2001 and 2002, he held a small number of acoustic solo concerts in London and Paris, along with a small band and choir, which was documented on the In Concert release. In 2003, Rolling Stone included Gilmour in the list of hundred greatest guitarists of all time.

On 24 September 2004, Gilmour performed a three song set (tracks 28-30) at The Strat Pack concert at London's Wembley Arena, marking the 50th anniversary of the Fender Stratocaster guitar.

On 6 March 2006, his 60th birthday, he released his third solo album, On an Island, and a day later it was released in the US; it debuted at #1 in the UK charts. The album reached the top five in Germany and Sweden, and the top six in Billboard 200. Produced by Gilmour along with Phil Manzanera and Chris Thomas, the album features orchestrations by renowned Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner. The album features David Crosby and Graham Nash on harmonies on the title track, Robert Wyatt on cornet and percussion and Richard Wright on Hammond organ and vocals. Other contributors include Jools Holland, Phil Manzanera, Georgie Fame, Andy Newmark, B. J. Cole, Chris Stainton, Willie Wilson, Rado ‘Bob’ Klose on guitar and Leszek Możdżer on piano. The album also features Gilmour's debut with the saxophone.

Gilmour toured Europe, US and Canada from 10 March to 31 May to promote On an Island. There were 10 shows in the US and Canadian leg of the tour. Pink Floyd alumnus Richard Wright, and frequent Floyd collaborators Dick Parry, Guy Pratt and Jon Carin also accompanied him on the tour. More shows were held in Europe during from July through August in 2006.

In a press release to promote the tour, David Gilmour stated:
“ "I'm rather hoping that with this tour announcement, people will believe me when I say, honestly, this is the only band I plan to tour with!". ”

On an Island peaked the UK charts by reaching number one. On 10 April 2006, the album was certified platinum in Canada, with sales of over 100,000 copies. The album also gave Gilmour his first US Top 10 album as a solo artist.

A video recording of a show from Gilmour's solo tour, entitled Remember That Night - Live At The Royal Albert Hall was released on 17 September 2007. The double DVD, directed by David Mallet, contains over five hours of footage, including an on-the-road documentary and guest appearances by David Bowie and Robert Wyatt. The two and a half hour concert features band members Richard Wright of Pink Floyd, Phil Manzanera of Roxy Music, Steve DiStanislao on drums, and various Pink Floyd regulars such as Dick Parry, Guy Pratt and Jon Carin. The 20-page booklet accompanying the DVD, features over 80 photos selected from studio recording and touring. The album is now available on Hi-Definition Blu-ray Disc with Dolby TrueHD surround sound. As TrueHD is not a mandatory format for Blu-ray players, and the disc carries no other surround channel, some players will only play it in stereo.

The final show of David Gilmour's On an Island tour was held at the Gdańsk Shipyard on 26 August 2006. The concert was held before a huge crowd of 50,000, and marked the twenty-sixth anniversary of Poland's 1980 revolution. The concert was notable for the inclusion of "A Great Day For Freedom" as part of the encore.

The show was recorded resulting in a live album and DVD release; Live in Gdańsk. The concert was the only occasion on which Gilmour performed the tour material with an orchestra, using the 40-strong string section of the Polish Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Zbigniew Preisner, who was responsible for On An Island's orchestral arrangements.

On 25 May 2009, he participated in a concert held at Union Chapel in Islington, London. The concert was of part of the 'Hidden Gigs' campaign against hidden homelessness that is organized by the Crisis, a UK-based national charity for people homelessness. There he appeared in a collaboration with the Malian musicians Amadou and Mariam.

On 4 July 2009, he joined his friend Jeff Beck onstage at the Royal Albert Hall. David and Jeff traded solos on Jerusalem and closed the show with Hi Ho Silver Lining.
In August 2009, he released an online single, Chicago - Change the World, on which he sang and played guitar, bass and keyboards, to promote awareness of the plight of Gary McKinnon. A re-titled cover of the Graham Nash song Chicago, it featured Chrissie Hynde and Bob Geldof, plus McKinnon himself. It was produced by long-time Pink Floyd collaborator Chris Thomas.. A video was also posted on-line.
Musical style

Gilmour is best known for his lead guitar work. Gilmour's solo style is often characterised by blues-influenced phrasing, expressive note bends and sustain. In 2005, Gilmour was rated the 82nd greatest guitarist by Rolling Stone. The website Digital Dream Door ranked Gilmour as the fourteenth greatest rock guitarist. In January 2007, Guitar World readers voted Gilmour's solos, "Comfortably Numb", "Time" and "Money" into the top 100 Greatest Guitar Solos ("Comfortably Numb" was voted the 4th greatest solo of all time , "Time" was voted the 21st greatest solo of all time and "Money" was voted the 62nd greatest solo of all time .

In his early career with Pink Floyd, Gilmour played a multitude of Fender Stratocasters. One of his popular guitar solos ("Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2") was played on a Gibson Les Paul Gold Top guitar equipped with Bigsby tremolo bar and P-90 pickups. In 1996, Gilmour was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd. Gilmour's solo on "Comfortably Numb" was voted as one of the greatest guitar solos of all time in several polls by listeners and critics.

Although mainly known for his guitar work, Gilmour is also a proficient multi-instrumentalist. He also plays bass guitar (which he did on some Pink Floyd tracks), keyboards, banjo, harmonica, drums (as heard on the Syd Barrett solo track "Dominoes", and other songs where he opted to play all the instruments) and lately, the saxophone.
The following is a list of equipment Gilmour either has used on his solo or Pink Floyd recordings, as well as on current or previous tours.
Guitars

   * Fender
         o Stratocaster
               + His main guitar, much modified over the years, is a (1969) 3-colour Sunburst Fender Stratocaster painted over with black as well with a black pickguard and white-coloured pickup covers and knobs, currently with a vintage 1957 reissue "V shape" maple neck. This neck came from his guitar that he used on the About Face tour. It also includes a small toggle switch that combines the neck and bridge pickups (Note this guitar was for brief time fitted with a Kahler locking tremolo system, the system was subsequently un-installed and the removed wood filled with a replacement piece of timber and repainted to match as can be noted by close examination of the guitar behind its reinstalled Fender tremolo). This guitar has a Seymour Duncan SSL-1 bridge pickup, and currently has a strap which once belonged to Jimi Hendrix.
               + His main guitar for the post-Roger Waters era Pink Floyd tours in support of A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Delicate Sound of Thunder (dubbed "Another Lapse") and The Division Bell was a Candy Apple Red '57 reissue (made in 1984) fitted with a set of EMG SA active pickups with the two standard tone controls replaced with an EMG SPC mid boost control, and an EXG treble/bass expander (which cuts the mids while boosting bass and treble). On the On an Island tour it was used every night of the tour on "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".
               + Gilmour is the owner of Strat #0001. However, this is not the first Stratocaster ever made, but the first to be given a serial number. It was last seen at the Strat Pack Concert in Wembley Arena in 2004.
               + Cream coloured '57 reissue. Used at 1984 solo tour and at the early parts of the 1987-1990 tour. In the 1994 tour it was used as spare guitar. Tim Renwick played it with David and the rest of Pink Floyd at their Live 8 set. This Strat was fitted with the same EMG set of pickups and tone circuits as the aforementioned Candy Apple Red '57 reissue and after its use at Live 8, the cream finished guitar's neck was transferred to David's main Black Strat.
               + '57 Lake Placid Blue. (Serial number #0040). Used at The Wall sessions.
               + Double-neck Stratocaster (body was custom made by guitar builder Dick Knight, but the necks were Fender strat necks. Used live (1970-72).
               + Sunburst Stratocaster. '63 rosewood neck with '59 body. This guitar was given to David by Steve Marriott of Humble Pie and the Small Faces, and though David didn't like the guitar enough to use it very long, he preferred the neck to the original one on his black Strat and switched the two. The sunburst Strat was used as his spare and slide guitar in subsequent years (sporting the maple cap neck with a large headstock from the black Strat), and the rosewood neck remained on the black Strat until 1978.
               + White with white pickguard. Used in the late 1960s. Received as a gift from the rest of the band. Stolen in equipment heist in 1970.
               + Gilmour also used a strat equipped with the Doug Wilkes 'Answer' sliding pickup system on the 'Momentary Lapse of Reason' recording.
               + Doug Wilkes also built Gilmour a Precision-style single pickup bass, which was also used on the 'Momentary Lapse of Reason' sessions.
         o Telecaster
               + Blonde body with white pickguard. Used on the On an Island tour.
               + '52 Butterscotch Reissues with black pickguard. Used between 1987 and 1995. The first guitar was tuned in Dropped D rather than a standard tuning and was used for "Run Like Hell". The second served as a backup instrument and had a regular guitar tuning. Gilmour used this guitar for Astronomy Domine.
               + '59 Custom Telecaster with sunburst ash body, white binding on the body, rosewood fingerboard, and a white pickguard. There was a Gibson Humbucker placed in the Neck position at a brief point but was removed before it was used on the Animals' recording sessions. Last seen on rehearsals during the On an Island tour.
               + '61 Telecaster used during The Wall recording sessions. Also used live in post-Waters era for "Run Like Hell". Last seen on the Syd Barrett memory concert in 2007.
               + 1960s brown-faded body. Used in the late 1960s.
               + 1960s blonde ash body with white pickguard. His main guitar during his first year with Pink Floyd, which was lost by an airline company in 1968, and prompted Gilmour to buy the brown-faded Telecaster.
         o Esquire
               + '55 Sunburst body aka "The workmate Tele". Neck pickup added. Used at the recording sessions for his first solo album, The Wall recording session and the following tour. Also seen when performing with Paul McCartney in the late 1990s.
         o Lap Steel guitars
               + 1950's Fender 1000 twin neck pedal steel. Used in the early 1970s, purchased from a pawn shop while Gilmour was in Seattle in 1970. Used during recording of "One of These Days" from "Meddle" and "Breathe" and "Great Gig in the Sky" from The Dark Side of the Moon.
               + Fender Deluxe lap steel. First time seen during The Division Bell tour in 1994.
         o Fender Bass VI. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
         o Fender Precision bass guitar
         o Fender Jazz Bass. Used during The Wall recording sessions.

   * Gibson
         o A Gibson Les Paul Goldtop (P-90 pick-ups, Bigsby vibrato bridge). Used for the guitar solo on 'Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2.
         o Gibson: EH150 Lap Steel guitar, "Chet Atkins" classical guitar, & J-200 Celebrity acoustic guitars.
   * Gretsch Duo-Jet
   * Bill Lewis 24-fret Guitar. Used at Meddle and Dark Side of the Moon recording sessions.
   * Ovation.
         o Ovation Legend 1619-4 steel string & high string guitars. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
         o Ovation Legend 1613-4 nylon string guitar. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
         o Ovation Magnum bass guitar. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
   * Takamine acoustic guitar.
   * Martin acoustic guitars.
         o Martin D-35.
         o Martin D12-28 12-string acoustic guitar.
         o Martin D-18 acoustic.
   * Taylor acoustics
   * Guild F-512 "antique burst" 12-string guitar.
   * Jose Vilaplana nylon string guitar
   * Steinberger GL. His main guitar during A Momentary Lapse of Reason recording sessions.
   * Charvel Fretless Fender Precision style bass guitar. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
   * Music Man Fretless Stingray bass guitar. Used by Gilmour while running the house band at the 1991 Amnesty International concert, during Spinal Tap's performance on "Big Bottom". (All guitarists played bass on this song, and Gilmour played a solo.)
   * Jedson lap steel guitars. One red (1977-tuned D-G-D-G-B-E for Shine On You Crazy Diamond Parts 6-9, 1987-2006: Tuned E-B-E-G-B-E) and one blonde.
   * ZB pedal steel guitar.



Tribute guitars

In November 2006, Fender Custom Shop announced two reproductions of Gilmour's "Black" Strat for release on 22 September 2008. Gilmour's website states the release date was chosen to coincide with the release of his Live in Gdansk album. Both guitars are based on extensive measurements of the original instrument, each featuring varying degrees of wear.

Discography
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd portal

   * A Saucerful of Secrets – 29 June 1968.
   * More – 27 July 1969.
   * Ummagumma – 25 October 1969.
   * Atom Heart Mother – 10 October 1970.
   * Meddle – 30 October 1971.
   * Obscured by Clouds – 3 June 1972.
   * The Dark Side of the Moon – 17 March 1973.
   * Wish You Were Here – 15 September 1975.
   * Animals – 23 January 1977.
   * The Wall – 30 November 1979.
   * The Final Cut – 21 March 1983.
   * A Momentary Lapse of Reason – 8 September 1987.
   * Delicate Sound of Thunder – 22 November 1988.
   * The Division Bell – 30 March 1994.
   * P•U•L•S•E – 29 May 1995.

   For the full discography, see Pink Floyd discography.

Solo
Albums

   * David Gilmour – 25 May 1978
   * About Face – 27 March 1984
   * On an Island – 6 March 2006
   * Live in Gdańsk – 22 September 2008

Soundtracks

   * Fractals: The Colors of Infinity, Documentary - 1994

Singles

   * "There's No Way Out of Here", 1978
   * "Blue Light", March, 1984
   * "Love on the Air", May, 1984
   * "On an Island", 6 March 2006
   * "Smile", 13 June 2006
   * "Arnold Layne" (Live) 26 December 2006

Filmography

   * David Gilmour Live 1984 (VHS) – September 1984
   * David Gilmour in Concert (DVD) – October 2002
   * Remember That Night (DVD/BD) – September 2007
   * Live in Gdańsk (DVD) – September 2008

Collaborations and work for other artists
Year Artist Album / Work
1970 Syd Barrett The Madcap Laughs
Syd Barrett Barrett
Ron Geesin and Roger Waters "Give Birth to a Smile" on Music from The Body
1974 Unicorn Blue Pine Trees
1975 Roy Harper "The Game" from HQ
1978 Kate Bush Executive producer for two tracks in The Kick Inside
1979 Wings Back to the Egg
1980 Roy Harper "Playing Games", "You (The Game Part II)", "Old Faces", "Short and Sweet" and "True Story" credited to Harper/Gilmour from the album "The Unknown Soldier". Gilmour is credited as a musician on the album.
1982 Kate Bush Vocals on "Pull Out The Pin" in The Dreaming‎
1983 Atomic Rooster Headline news
1984 Paul McCartney No More Lonely Nights in Give My Regards to Broad Street
1985 Supertramp Brother Where You Bound
Bryan Ferry "Is Your Love Strong Enough?" in Legend
Bryan Ferry Boys and Girls
Bryan Ferry Live Aid (Played with Bryan Ferry's band)
Nick Mason and Rick Fenn "Lie for a Lie" (vocals) in Profiles
Pete Townshend "Give Blood" and "White City Fighting" in White City: A Novel "White City Fighting" credited to Townshend/Gilmour. Also performed live as Deep End.
Arcadia So Red the Rose
The Dream Academy Co-produced The Dream Academy‎
Roy Harper and Jimmy Page Whatever Happened to Jugula?,"Hope" credited to Harper/Gilmour.
1986 Berlin Count Three & Pray
Pete Townshend lead guitar in Pete Townshend's Deep End Live!
1987 Dalbello "Immaculate Eyes" in she
1988 Peter Cetera "You Never Listen To Me" in One More Story
Sam Brown Stop! Guitar on "This Feeling" and "I'll Be In Love"
1989 Kate Bush "Love and Anger" and "Rocket's Tail" in The Sensual World
Paul McCartney "We Got Married" in Flowers in the Dirt
Rock Aid Armenia Smoke on the Water in The Earthquake Album
Warren Zevon Transverse City
1990 Roy Harper "Once" in Once (w/Kate Bush on backing vocals)
Propaganda "Only one word" in 1234
Sam Brown April Moon, vocals on "Troubled Soul"
1991 All About Eve "Are You Lonely" and "Wishing the Hours Away" in Touched by Jesus
1992 Elton John "Understanding Women", in The One
Mica Paris I Put a Spell on You on Later With Jools Holland
1993 Paul Rodgers "Standing Around Crying" in Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute to Muddy Waters
1996 The Who Quadrophenia (1996 Hyde Park concert)
1997 B. B. King "Cryin' Won't Help You Babe" in Deuces Wild
1999 Paul McCartney Run Devil Run
2001 The Triumph of Love soundtrack Plays guitar over several chamber orchestra pieces
2003 Ringo Starr Ringo Rama
2004 Alan Parsons "Return to Tunguska" in A Valid Path
2005 Various artists "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)"
2006 Chris Jagger It's Amazing (What People Throw Away), in Act of Faith
Chris Jagger Junkman in Act of Faith
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm29/icarusxx7/DavidGilmour.jpg
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q144/Jen8153/gilmour.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/06/10 at 6:44 am

The person who died on this day...Pearl Buck
Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 — March 6, 1973) also known as Sai Zhen Zhu (Simplified Chinese: 赛珍珠; Pinyin: Sài Zhēnzhū; Traditional Chinese: 賽珍珠), was an award winning American writer who spent the majority of her life in China. Her novel The Good Earth was the best selling fiction book in the U.S. in 1931 and 1932 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, she became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces." With no irony, she has been described in China as a Chinese writer.
lthough many of Buck's life experiences and political views are described in her novels, short stories, fiction, children's stories, and the biographies of her parents entitled Fighting Angel (on Absalom) and The Exile (on Carrie). She wrote on a diverse variety of topics including woman's rights, Asian cultures, immigration, adoption, missionary work, and war.

In 1949, outraged that existing adoption services considered Asian and mixed-race children unadoptable, Pearl established Welcome House, Inc., the first international, interracial adoption agency. In nearly five decades of work, Welcome House has placed over five thousand children. In 1964, to support children who were not eligible for adoption, Buck established the Pearl S. Buck Foundation to "address poverty and discrimination faced by children in Asian countries." In 1965, she opened the Opportunity Center and Orphanage in South Korea, and later offices were opened in Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. When establishing Opportunity House, Buck said, "The purpose...is to publicize and eliminate injustices and prejudices suffered by children, who, because of their birth, are not permitted to enjoy the educational, social, economic and civil privileges normally accorded to children."

In the late 1960s, Pearl toured West Virginia to raise money to preserve her family farm in Hillsboro, WV. Today The Pearl S. Buck Birthplace is a historic house museum and cultural center. She hoped the house would "belong to everyone who cares to go there," and serve as a "gateway to new thoughts and dreams and ways of life."
Life
The Stulting House at the Pearl Buck Birthplace in Hillsboro, West Virginia

Pearl was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia to Caroline Stulting (1857-1921) and Absalom Sydenstricker. Her parents, Southern Presbyterian missionaries, traveled to China soon after their marriage on July 8, 1880, but returned to the United States for Pearl's birth. When Pearl was three months old, the family returned to China, to be stationed first in Zhenjiang (then often known as Jingjiang or, in the Postal Romanization, Tsingkiang). Pearl grew up bilingual, tutored in English by her mother and in classical Chinese by Mr. Kung.
Chinese man in Zhenjiang, c. 1900

The Boxer Uprising greatly affected Pearl and her family. Pearl's Chinese friends deserted her and her family, and there were not as many Western visitors as there once were.

In 1911, Pearl left China to attend Randolph-Macon Woman's College, graduating (Phi Beta Kappa) in 1914. From 1914 to 1933, she served as a Presbyterian missionary, but her views later became highly controversial in the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, leading to her resignation.

In 1914, Pearl returned to China. She married an agricultural economist missionary, John Lossing Buck, on May 13, 1917, and they moved to Suzhou, Anhui Province, a small town on the Huai River (not be confused with the better-known Suzhou in Jiangsu Province.). It is this region she described later in The Good Earth and Sons.
Nanjing University

From 1920 to 1933, Pearl and John made their home in Nanking (Nanjing), on the campus of Nanjing University, where both had teaching positions. Pearl taught English literature at the University of Nanjing and the Chinese National University. In 1920, the Bucks had a daughter, Carol, afflicted with phenylketonuria. In 1921, Pearl's mother died and shortly afterward her father moved in. In 1924, they left China for John's year of sabbatical and returned to the United States for a short time, during which Pearl earned her Masters degree from Cornell University. In 1925, the Bucks adopted Janice (later surnamed Walsh). That fall, they returned to China.

The tragedies and dislocations that Pearl suffered in the 1920s reached a climax in March 1927, during "Nanking Incident." In a confused battle involving elements of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist troops, Communist forces, and assorted warlords, several Westerners were murdered. Since Absalom was a missionary, the family decided to stay in Nanjing until the battle reached the city. When violence broke out, a poor Chinese family allowed them to hide in their hut while the family house was looted. The family spent a terrified day in hiding, after which they were rescued by American gunboats. They traveled to Shanghai and then sailed to Japan, where they spent the following year. They later moved back to Nanjing, though conditions remained dangerously unsettled.

In 1935, the Bucks were divorced. Richard Walsh, president of the John Day Company and her publisher, became Pearl Buck's second husband. The couple lived in Pennsylvania.

Pearl S. Buck died of lung cancer on March 6, 1973 in Danby, Vermont and was interred in Green Hills Farm in Perkasie, Pennsylvania. She designed her own tombstone, which does not record her name in English; instead, the grave marker is inscribed with Chinese characters representing the name Pearl Sydenstricker.
The Pearl S. Buck House at Nanjing University

(Simplified Chinese: 賽珍珠故居) Pearl's former residence at Nanjing University is now the Nanjing University Science and Technology Industry Group Building along the West Wall of the university's north campus. U.S. President George H.W. Bush toured the Pearl S. Buck House in October 1998. He expressed that he, like millions of other Americans, had gained an appreciation for the Chinese through Pearl's writing.
Selected bibliography
Autobiographies

    * My Several Worlds (1954)
    * A Bridge For Passing (1962)

Biographies

    * The Exile (1936)
    * Fighting Angel (1936)

Novels
See also: List_of_bestselling_novels_in_the_United_States_in_the_1930s

    * East Wind:West Wind (1930)
    * The House of Earth (1935)
          o The Good Earth (1931)
          o Sons (1933)
          o A House Divided (1935)
    * The Mother (1933)
    * This Proud Heart (1938)
    * The Patriot (1939)
    * Other Gods (1940)
    * China Sky (1941)
    * Dragon Seed (1942)
    * The Promise (1943)
    * China Flight (1943)
    * The Townsman (1945) -- as John Sedges
    * Portrait of a Marriage (1945)
    * Pavilion of Women (1946)
    * The Angry Wife (1947) -- as John Sedges
    * Peony (1948)
    * The Big Wave (1948)
    * A Long Love (1949) -- as John Sedges
    * Kinfolk (1950)
    * God's Men (1951)
    * The Hidden Flower (1952)
    * Come, My Beloved (1953)
    * Voices in the House (1953) -- as John Sedges
    * Imperial Woman (1956)
    * Letter from Peking (1957)
    * Command the Morning (1959)
    * Satan Never Sleeps (1962; see 1962 film Satan Never Sleeps)
    * The Living Reed (1963)
    * Death in the Castle (1965)
    * The Time Is Noon (1966)
    * Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (1967)
    * The New Year (1968)
    * The Three Daughters of Madame Liang (1969)
    * Mandala (1970)
    * The Goddess Abides (1972)
    * All Under Heaven (1973)
    * The Rainbow (1974)

Non-fiction

    * Of Men and Women (1941)
    * How It Happens: Talk about the German People, 1914-1933, with Erna von Pustau (1947)
    * The Child Who Never Grew (1950)
    * The Man Who Changed China: The Story of Sun Yat-sen (1953) for young readers
    * My Several Worlds (1954)
    * For Spacious Skies (1966)
    * The People of Japan (1966)
    * The Kennedy Women (1970)
    * China as I See It (1970)
    * The Story Bible (1971)
    * Pearl S. Buck's Oriental Cookbook (1972)

Short Stories

    * The First Wife and Other Stories (1933)
    * Today and Forever: Stories of China (1941)
    * Twenty-Seven Stories (1943)
    * Far and Near: Stories of Japan, China, and America (1949)
    * Fourteen Stories (1961)
    * Hearts Come Home and Other Stories (1962)
    * Stories of China (1964)
    * Escape at Midnight and Other Stories (1964)
    * The Good Deed and Other Stories of Asia, Past and Present (1969)
    * Once Upon a Christmas (1972)
    * East and West Stories (1975)
    * Secrets of the Heart: Stories (1976)
    * The Lovers and Other Stories (1977)
    * Mrs. Stoner and the Sea and Other Stories (1978)
    * The Woman Who Was Changed and Other Stories (1979)
    * The Good Deed (1969)
    * "Christmas Day in the Morning"
    * "The Refugee"
    * " The Chinese Children Next Door" for children
    * ″The Enemy"
    * "The Frill"

Awards

    * Pulitzer Prize for the Novel: The Good Earth (1932)
    * William Dean Howells Medal (1935)
    * Nobel Prize in Literature (1938)

Museums and Historic Houses

Several historic sites work to preserve and display artifacts from Pearl's profoundly multicultural life:

    * The Pearl S. Buck Birthplace in Hillsboro, West Virginia
    * Green Hills Farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania
    * The Zhenjiang Pearl S. Buck Research Association in Zhenjiang, China
    * Pearl S. Buck House in Nanjing, China
    * The Pearl S. Buck Summer Villa, on Lushan Mountain in Jiangxi Province, China
    * The Pearl Buck Museum in Anhui Province, China
    * The Pearl S. Buck Memorial Hall, Bucheon City, South Korea

See also

    * Christian feminism
    * List of female Nobel laureates

References

  1. ^ Meyers, Mike. "Pearl of the Orient," New York Times. March 5, 2006.
  2. ^ Pearl S. Buck International, "Our History," 2009.
  3. ^ The Pearl S. Buck Birthplace Foundation, http://www.pearlsbuckbirthplace.com
  4. ^ Buck, Pearl S. My Mother's House. Richwood, WV: Appalachian Press. Pp. 30-1.
  5. ^ Shavit, David (1990), The United States in Asia: a historical dictionary, Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 480, ISBN 031326788X, http://books.google.com.au/books?id=IWdZTaJdc6UC  (Entry for "Sydenstricker, Absalom")
  6. ^ Peter Conn, Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996) 9, 19-23.
  7. ^ Randolph-Macon Woman's College
  8. ^ Conn, Pearl S. Buck, 70-82.
  9. ^ Buck, Pearl S. The Good Earth. Ed. Peter Conn. New York: Washington Square Press, 1994. Pp. xviii-xix.
  10. ^ Conn, Peter, Dragon and the Pearl
  11. ^ DDMap.com: 赛珍珠故居, http://nj.ddmap.com/map/25/point-659569-%C8%FC%D5%E4-.htm, retrieved 2010-02-21
  12. ^ "Pearl S. Buck International: Other Pearl S. Buck Historic Places". Psbi.org. 2006-09-30. http://www.psbi.org/site/PageServer?pagename=PSBH_Other_PSB_Historic_Places. Retrieved 2010-02-25.

    * Peter J. Conn, Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN 0521560802.)
    * Elizabeth Johnston Lipscomb, Frances E. Webb Peter J. Conn, eds., The Several Worlds of Pearl S. Buck: Essays Presented at a Centennial Symposium, Randolph-Macon Woman's College, March 26-28, 1992 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994. ISBN 0313291527.)
    * Liao Kang, Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Bridge across the Pacific (Westport, CT, London: Greenwood Press, 1997. ISBN 0313301468.)
    * Karen J. Leong, The China Mystique: Pearl S. Buck, Anna May Wong, Mayling Soong, and the Transformation of American Orientalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0520244238.)
    * Pearl Buck's Portrait of Her Fighting Missionary Father (NY Times, November 29, 1936.)
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/06/10 at 7:22 am


The person born on this day...David Gilmour
David Jon Gilmour CBE (born 6 March 1946) is an English musician, best known as the guitarist, lead singer, and one of the main songwriters in the rock band Pink Floyd. In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has worked as a record producer for a variety of artists, and has enjoyed a successful career as a solo artist. Gilmour has been actively involved with many charity organizations over the course of his career. In 2003, he was appointed CBE for services to music and philanthropy and was awarded with the Outstanding Contribution title at the 2008 Q Awards.
Gilmour was approached in late December 1967 by drummer Nick Mason, who asked if he would be interested in joining Pink Floyd, which he did in January 1968, making Pink Floyd briefly a five-piece band. He was used to fill in for Syd Barrett's guitar parts when the front man was unable to take a consistent part in Floyd's live performances. When Syd Barrett "left" the group (due to his erratic behaviour, the band chose not to pick Barrett up one night for a gig ), Gilmour by default assumed the role of the band's lead guitarist and shared lead vocal duties with bassist Roger Waters and keyboard player Richard Wright in Barrett's stead. However, after the back-to-back successes of The Dark Side of the Moon and then Wish You Were Here, Waters took more control over the band, writing most of Animals and The Wall by himself. Wright was fired during The Wall sessions and the relationship between Gilmour and Waters would further deteriorate during the making of The Wall film and the 1983 Pink Floyd album The Final Cut.

After recording "Animals", Gilmour thought that his musical influence had been underused, and channelled his ideas into his self-titled first solo album (1978), which showcases his signature guitar style, as well as underscoring his songwriting skills. A tune written during the finishing stages of this album, but too late to be used, became "Comfortably Numb" on The Wall.
Gilmour performing in Brussels in 1984, on his About Face tour

The negative atmosphere surrounding the creation of The Wall album and film, compounded by The Final Cut's virtually being a Roger Waters solo album, led Gilmour to produce his second solo album About Face in 1984. He used it to express his feelings about a range of topics, from the murder of John Lennon, to his relationship with Waters. He has since admitted that he also used the album to distance himself from Pink Floyd. He toured Europe and the US along with support act The Television Personalities, who later disappeared from the line-up after revealing Syd Barrett's address on stage. Mason and Wright also played on the UK leg of the tour, which despite some cancellations eventually turned a profit. When he returned from touring, Gilmour played guitar with a range of artists, and also produced The Dream Academy, who had a top ten hit with "Life in a Northern Town".

In 1985, Waters declared that Pink Floyd was "a spent force creatively". However, in 1986, Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason issued a press release stating that Waters had quit the band and they intended to continue without him. Gilmour assumed full control of the group and produced A Momentary Lapse of Reason in 1987 with some contributions from Mason and Richard Wright. Wright officially rejoined the band after the release of the album for a lengthy world tour and helped create 1994's The Division Bell as well. Gilmour explained:
“ I had a number of problems with the direction of the band in our recent past, before Roger left. I thought the songs were very wordy and that, because the specific meanings of those words were so important, the music became a mere vehicle for lyrics, and not a very inspiring one. Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here were so successful not just because of Roger's contributions, but also because there was a better balance between the music and the lyrics than there has been in more recent albums. That's what I'm trying to do with A Momentary Lapse of Reason; more focus on the music, restore the balance. ”

In 1986, Gilmour purchased the houseboat Astoria which is moored on the River Thames near Hampton Court, and transformed it into a recording studio. The majority of the two most recent Pink Floyd albums, as well as Gilmour's 2006 solo release On an Island, were recorded there.

On 2 July 2005, Gilmour played with Pink Floyd — including Roger Waters — at Live 8. The performance caused a temporary 1343% sales increase of Pink Floyd's album Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd. Gilmour donated all of his resulting profits to charities that reflect the goals of Live 8 saying:
Gilmour at Live 8 in July 2005
“ Though the main objective has been to raise consciousness and put pressure on the G8 leaders, I will not profit from the concert. This is money that should be used to save lives.

Shortly after, he called upon all artists experiencing a surge in sales from Live 8 performances to donate the extra revenue to Live 8 fund-raising. After the Live 8 concert, Pink Floyd were offered £150 million to tour the United States, but the band turned down the offer.

On 3 February 2006, he announced in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that Pink Floyd would most likely never tour or write material together again. He said:
“ I think enough is enough. I am 60 years old. I don't have the will to work as much anymore. Pink Floyd was an important part in my life, I have had a wonderful time, but it's over. For me it's much less complicated to work alone. ”

He said that by agreeing to Live 8, he had ensured the story of Floyd would not end on a sour note.
“ There was more than one reason, firstly to support the cause. The second one is the energy consuming an uncomfortable relationship between Roger and me that I was carrying along in my heart. That is why we wanted to perform and to leave the trash behind. Thirdly, I might have regretted it if I declined. ”

On 20 February 2006, Gilmour commented again on Pink Floyd's future when he was interviewed by Billboard.com, stating, "Who knows? I have no plans at all to do that. My plans are to do my concerts and put my solo record out."

In December 2006, Gilmour released a tribute to Syd Barrett, who had died in July that year, in the form of his own version of Pink Floyd's first single "Arnold Layne". Recorded live at London's Royal Albert Hall, the CD single featured versions of the song performed by Pink Floyd's keyboard player (and Gilmour's band member) Richard Wright and special guest artist David Bowie. The single entered the UK Top 75 charts at number nineteen and remained steady for three weeks.

Since their Live 8 appearance in 2005, Gilmour has repeatedly said that there will be no Pink Floyd reunion. However, in a 2007 interview with Phil Manzanera, he stated that he's "not done with it yet" and that he plans on doing "something" in the future. With the death of Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright in September 2008, another reunion of the core group members became impossible. Gilmour said of Wright: "In the welter of arguments about who or what was Pink Floyd, Rick's enormous input was frequently forgotten. He was gentle, unassuming and private but his soulful voice and playing were vital, magical components of our most recognised Pink Floyd sound. Like Rick, I don't find it easy to express my feelings in words, but I loved him and will miss him enormously. I have never played with anyone quite like him."
Other projects

Taking time off from Pink Floyd's schedule, Gilmour also took up various roles as a producer, sideman and even concert sound engineer for a wide variety of acts which included former bandmate Syd Barrett, Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, Grace Jones, Tom Jones, Elton John, B. B. King, Seal, Sam Brown, Jools Holland, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, The Who, Supertramp, Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson, Alan Parsons, and various charity groups among others.

In 1985, Gilmour was member of Bryan Ferry's band. He played on Ferry's album Boys and Girls, as well as the song "Is Your Love Strong Enough" for the U.S. release of the Ridley Scott-Tom Cruise film Legend. A music video for the latter was created, incorporating Ferry and Gilmour into footage from the film (released as a bonus on the 2002 "Ultimate Edition" DVD release). Later that year, Gilmour played with Ferry at the London Live Aid concert; his first meeting with Ferry's keyboard player Jon Carin, later to tour with Pink Floyd.

David Gilmour also took part in a comedy skit titled "The Easy Guitar Book Sketch" with comedian Rowland Rivron and fellow British musicians Mark Knopfler, Lemmy from Motorhead, Mark King from Level 42, and Gary Moore. Guitar tech Phil Taylor explained in an interview that Knopfler used Gilmour's guitar rig and managed to sound like himself when performing in the skit.

He has also recorded four solo albums, all four of which charted in the U.S. Top 40 (2006's On an Island peaked at #6 in 2006, 2008's Live in Gdansk peaked at #26, his 1978 self-titled solo debut peaked at #29 in 1978 and 1984's About Face peaked at #32 in 1984) thus making him the only member of Pink Floyd to have a commercially successful solo career.

In 1994, Gilmour played guitar for the video game Tuneland, along with the additional saxophonist for Pink Floyd, Scott Page.

In 2001 and 2002, he held a small number of acoustic solo concerts in London and Paris, along with a small band and choir, which was documented on the In Concert release. In 2003, Rolling Stone included Gilmour in the list of hundred greatest guitarists of all time.

On 24 September 2004, Gilmour performed a three song set (tracks 28-30) at The Strat Pack concert at London's Wembley Arena, marking the 50th anniversary of the Fender Stratocaster guitar.

On 6 March 2006, his 60th birthday, he released his third solo album, On an Island, and a day later it was released in the US; it debuted at #1 in the UK charts. The album reached the top five in Germany and Sweden, and the top six in Billboard 200. Produced by Gilmour along with Phil Manzanera and Chris Thomas, the album features orchestrations by renowned Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner. The album features David Crosby and Graham Nash on harmonies on the title track, Robert Wyatt on cornet and percussion and Richard Wright on Hammond organ and vocals. Other contributors include Jools Holland, Phil Manzanera, Georgie Fame, Andy Newmark, B. J. Cole, Chris Stainton, Willie Wilson, Rado ‘Bob’ Klose on guitar and Leszek Możdżer on piano. The album also features Gilmour's debut with the saxophone.

Gilmour toured Europe, US and Canada from 10 March to 31 May to promote On an Island. There were 10 shows in the US and Canadian leg of the tour. Pink Floyd alumnus Richard Wright, and frequent Floyd collaborators Dick Parry, Guy Pratt and Jon Carin also accompanied him on the tour. More shows were held in Europe during from July through August in 2006.

In a press release to promote the tour, David Gilmour stated:
“ "I'm rather hoping that with this tour announcement, people will believe me when I say, honestly, this is the only band I plan to tour with!". ”

On an Island peaked the UK charts by reaching number one. On 10 April 2006, the album was certified platinum in Canada, with sales of over 100,000 copies. The album also gave Gilmour his first US Top 10 album as a solo artist.

A video recording of a show from Gilmour's solo tour, entitled Remember That Night - Live At The Royal Albert Hall was released on 17 September 2007. The double DVD, directed by David Mallet, contains over five hours of footage, including an on-the-road documentary and guest appearances by David Bowie and Robert Wyatt. The two and a half hour concert features band members Richard Wright of Pink Floyd, Phil Manzanera of Roxy Music, Steve DiStanislao on drums, and various Pink Floyd regulars such as Dick Parry, Guy Pratt and Jon Carin. The 20-page booklet accompanying the DVD, features over 80 photos selected from studio recording and touring. The album is now available on Hi-Definition Blu-ray Disc with Dolby TrueHD surround sound. As TrueHD is not a mandatory format for Blu-ray players, and the disc carries no other surround channel, some players will only play it in stereo.

The final show of David Gilmour's On an Island tour was held at the Gdańsk Shipyard on 26 August 2006. The concert was held before a huge crowd of 50,000, and marked the twenty-sixth anniversary of Poland's 1980 revolution. The concert was notable for the inclusion of "A Great Day For Freedom" as part of the encore.

The show was recorded resulting in a live album and DVD release; Live in Gdańsk. The concert was the only occasion on which Gilmour performed the tour material with an orchestra, using the 40-strong string section of the Polish Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Zbigniew Preisner, who was responsible for On An Island's orchestral arrangements.

On 25 May 2009, he participated in a concert held at Union Chapel in Islington, London. The concert was of part of the 'Hidden Gigs' campaign against hidden homelessness that is organized by the Crisis, a UK-based national charity for people homelessness. There he appeared in a collaboration with the Malian musicians Amadou and Mariam.

On 4 July 2009, he joined his friend Jeff Beck onstage at the Royal Albert Hall. David and Jeff traded solos on Jerusalem and closed the show with Hi Ho Silver Lining.
In August 2009, he released an online single, Chicago - Change the World, on which he sang and played guitar, bass and keyboards, to promote awareness of the plight of Gary McKinnon. A re-titled cover of the Graham Nash song Chicago, it featured Chrissie Hynde and Bob Geldof, plus McKinnon himself. It was produced by long-time Pink Floyd collaborator Chris Thomas.. A video was also posted on-line.
Musical style

Gilmour is best known for his lead guitar work. Gilmour's solo style is often characterised by blues-influenced phrasing, expressive note bends and sustain. In 2005, Gilmour was rated the 82nd greatest guitarist by Rolling Stone. The website Digital Dream Door ranked Gilmour as the fourteenth greatest rock guitarist. In January 2007, Guitar World readers voted Gilmour's solos, "Comfortably Numb", "Time" and "Money" into the top 100 Greatest Guitar Solos ("Comfortably Numb" was voted the 4th greatest solo of all time , "Time" was voted the 21st greatest solo of all time and "Money" was voted the 62nd greatest solo of all time .

In his early career with Pink Floyd, Gilmour played a multitude of Fender Stratocasters. One of his popular guitar solos ("Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2") was played on a Gibson Les Paul Gold Top guitar equipped with Bigsby tremolo bar and P-90 pickups. In 1996, Gilmour was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd. Gilmour's solo on "Comfortably Numb" was voted as one of the greatest guitar solos of all time in several polls by listeners and critics.

Although mainly known for his guitar work, Gilmour is also a proficient multi-instrumentalist. He also plays bass guitar (which he did on some Pink Floyd tracks), keyboards, banjo, harmonica, drums (as heard on the Syd Barrett solo track "Dominoes", and other songs where he opted to play all the instruments) and lately, the saxophone.
The following is a list of equipment Gilmour either has used on his solo or Pink Floyd recordings, as well as on current or previous tours.
Guitars

    * Fender
          o Stratocaster
                + His main guitar, much modified over the years, is a (1969) 3-colour Sunburst Fender Stratocaster painted over with black as well with a black pickguard and white-coloured pickup covers and knobs, currently with a vintage 1957 reissue "V shape" maple neck. This neck came from his guitar that he used on the About Face tour. It also includes a small toggle switch that combines the neck and bridge pickups (Note this guitar was for brief time fitted with a Kahler locking tremolo system, the system was subsequently un-installed and the removed wood filled with a replacement piece of timber and repainted to match as can be noted by close examination of the guitar behind its reinstalled Fender tremolo). This guitar has a Seymour Duncan SSL-1 bridge pickup, and currently has a strap which once belonged to Jimi Hendrix.
                + His main guitar for the post-Roger Waters era Pink Floyd tours in support of A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Delicate Sound of Thunder (dubbed "Another Lapse") and The Division Bell was a Candy Apple Red '57 reissue (made in 1984) fitted with a set of EMG SA active pickups with the two standard tone controls replaced with an EMG SPC mid boost control, and an EXG treble/bass expander (which cuts the mids while boosting bass and treble). On the On an Island tour it was used every night of the tour on "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".
                + Gilmour is the owner of Strat #0001. However, this is not the first Stratocaster ever made, but the first to be given a serial number. It was last seen at the Strat Pack Concert in Wembley Arena in 2004.
                + Cream coloured '57 reissue. Used at 1984 solo tour and at the early parts of the 1987-1990 tour. In the 1994 tour it was used as spare guitar. Tim Renwick played it with David and the rest of Pink Floyd at their Live 8 set. This Strat was fitted with the same EMG set of pickups and tone circuits as the aforementioned Candy Apple Red '57 reissue and after its use at Live 8, the cream finished guitar's neck was transferred to David's main Black Strat.
                + '57 Lake Placid Blue. (Serial number #0040). Used at The Wall sessions.
                + Double-neck Stratocaster (body was custom made by guitar builder Dick Knight, but the necks were Fender strat necks. Used live (1970-72).
                + Sunburst Stratocaster. '63 rosewood neck with '59 body. This guitar was given to David by Steve Marriott of Humble Pie and the Small Faces, and though David didn't like the guitar enough to use it very long, he preferred the neck to the original one on his black Strat and switched the two. The sunburst Strat was used as his spare and slide guitar in subsequent years (sporting the maple cap neck with a large headstock from the black Strat), and the rosewood neck remained on the black Strat until 1978.
                + White with white pickguard. Used in the late 1960s. Received as a gift from the rest of the band. Stolen in equipment heist in 1970.
                + Gilmour also used a strat equipped with the Doug Wilkes 'Answer' sliding pickup system on the 'Momentary Lapse of Reason' recording.
                + Doug Wilkes also built Gilmour a Precision-style single pickup bass, which was also used on the 'Momentary Lapse of Reason' sessions.
          o Telecaster
                + Blonde body with white pickguard. Used on the On an Island tour.
                + '52 Butterscotch Reissues with black pickguard. Used between 1987 and 1995. The first guitar was tuned in Dropped D rather than a standard tuning and was used for "Run Like Hell". The second served as a backup instrument and had a regular guitar tuning. Gilmour used this guitar for Astronomy Domine.
                + '59 Custom Telecaster with sunburst ash body, white binding on the body, rosewood fingerboard, and a white pickguard. There was a Gibson Humbucker placed in the Neck position at a brief point but was removed before it was used on the Animals' recording sessions. Last seen on rehearsals during the On an Island tour.
                + '61 Telecaster used during The Wall recording sessions. Also used live in post-Waters era for "Run Like Hell". Last seen on the Syd Barrett memory concert in 2007.
                + 1960s brown-faded body. Used in the late 1960s.
                + 1960s blonde ash body with white pickguard. His main guitar during his first year with Pink Floyd, which was lost by an airline company in 1968, and prompted Gilmour to buy the brown-faded Telecaster.
          o Esquire
                + '55 Sunburst body aka "The workmate Tele". Neck pickup added. Used at the recording sessions for his first solo album, The Wall recording session and the following tour. Also seen when performing with Paul McCartney in the late 1990s.
          o Lap Steel guitars
                + 1950's Fender 1000 twin neck pedal steel. Used in the early 1970s, purchased from a pawn shop while Gilmour was in Seattle in 1970. Used during recording of "One of These Days" from "Meddle" and "Breathe" and "Great Gig in the Sky" from The Dark Side of the Moon.
                + Fender Deluxe lap steel. First time seen during The Division Bell tour in 1994.
          o Fender Bass VI. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
          o Fender Precision bass guitar
          o Fender Jazz Bass. Used during The Wall recording sessions.

    * Gibson
          o A Gibson Les Paul Goldtop (P-90 pick-ups, Bigsby vibrato bridge). Used for the guitar solo on 'Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2.
          o Gibson: EH150 Lap Steel guitar, "Chet Atkins" classical guitar, & J-200 Celebrity acoustic guitars.
    * Gretsch Duo-Jet
    * Bill Lewis 24-fret Guitar. Used at Meddle and Dark Side of the Moon recording sessions.
    * Ovation.
          o Ovation Legend 1619-4 steel string & high string guitars. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
          o Ovation Legend 1613-4 nylon string guitar. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
          o Ovation Magnum bass guitar. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
    * Takamine acoustic guitar.
    * Martin acoustic guitars.
          o Martin D-35.
          o Martin D12-28 12-string acoustic guitar.
          o Martin D-18 acoustic.
    * Taylor acoustics
    * Guild F-512 "antique burst" 12-string guitar.
    * Jose Vilaplana nylon string guitar
    * Steinberger GL. His main guitar during A Momentary Lapse of Reason recording sessions.
    * Charvel Fretless Fender Precision style bass guitar. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
    * Music Man Fretless Stingray bass guitar. Used by Gilmour while running the house band at the 1991 Amnesty International concert, during Spinal Tap's performance on "Big Bottom". (All guitarists played bass on this song, and Gilmour played a solo.)
    * Jedson lap steel guitars. One red (1977-tuned D-G-D-G-B-E for Shine On You Crazy Diamond Parts 6-9, 1987-2006: Tuned E-B-E-G-B-E) and one blonde.
    * ZB pedal steel guitar.



Tribute guitars

In November 2006, Fender Custom Shop announced two reproductions of Gilmour's "Black" Strat for release on 22 September 2008. Gilmour's website states the release date was chosen to coincide with the release of his Live in Gdansk album. Both guitars are based on extensive measurements of the original instrument, each featuring varying degrees of wear.

Discography
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd portal

    * A Saucerful of Secrets – 29 June 1968.
    * More – 27 July 1969.
    * Ummagumma – 25 October 1969.
    * Atom Heart Mother – 10 October 1970.
    * Meddle – 30 October 1971.
    * Obscured by Clouds – 3 June 1972.
    * The Dark Side of the Moon – 17 March 1973.
    * Wish You Were Here – 15 September 1975.
    * Animals – 23 January 1977.
    * The Wall – 30 November 1979.
    * The Final Cut – 21 March 1983.
    * A Momentary Lapse of Reason – 8 September 1987.
    * Delicate Sound of Thunder – 22 November 1988.
    * The Division Bell – 30 March 1994.
    * P•U•L•S•E – 29 May 1995.

    For the full discography, see Pink Floyd discography.

Solo
Albums

    * David Gilmour – 25 May 1978
    * About Face – 27 March 1984
    * On an Island – 6 March 2006
    * Live in Gdańsk – 22 September 2008

Soundtracks

    * Fractals: The Colors of Infinity, Documentary - 1994

Singles

    * "There's No Way Out of Here", 1978
    * "Blue Light", March, 1984
    * "Love on the Air", May, 1984
    * "On an Island", 6 March 2006
    * "Smile", 13 June 2006
    * "Arnold Layne" (Live) 26 December 2006

Filmography

    * David Gilmour Live 1984 (VHS) – September 1984
    * David Gilmour in Concert (DVD) – October 2002
    * Remember That Night (DVD/BD) – September 2007
    * Live in Gdańsk (DVD) – September 2008

Collaborations and work for other artists
Year Artist Album / Work
1970 Syd Barrett The Madcap Laughs
Syd Barrett Barrett
Ron Geesin and Roger Waters "Give Birth to a Smile" on Music from The Body
1974 Unicorn Blue Pine Trees
1975 Roy Harper "The Game" from HQ
1978 Kate Bush Executive producer for two tracks in The Kick Inside
1979 Wings Back to the Egg
1980 Roy Harper "Playing Games", "You (The Game Part II)", "Old Faces", "Short and Sweet" and "True Story" credited to Harper/Gilmour from the album "The Unknown Soldier". Gilmour is credited as a musician on the album.
1982 Kate Bush Vocals on "Pull Out The Pin" in The Dreaming‎
1983 Atomic Rooster Headline news
1984 Paul McCartney No More Lonely Nights in Give My Regards to Broad Street
1985 Supertramp Brother Where You Bound
Bryan Ferry "Is Your Love Strong Enough?" in Legend
Bryan Ferry Boys and Girls
Bryan Ferry Live Aid (Played with Bryan Ferry's band)
Nick Mason and Rick Fenn "Lie for a Lie" (vocals) in Profiles
Pete Townshend "Give Blood" and "White City Fighting" in White City: A Novel "White City Fighting" credited to Townshend/Gilmour. Also performed live as Deep End.
Arcadia So Red the Rose
The Dream Academy Co-produced The Dream Academy‎
Roy Harper and Jimmy Page Whatever Happened to Jugula?,"Hope" credited to Harper/Gilmour.
1986 Berlin Count Three & Pray
Pete Townshend lead guitar in Pete Townshend's Deep End Live!
1987 Dalbello "Immaculate Eyes" in she
1988 Peter Cetera "You Never Listen To Me" in One More Story
Sam Brown Stop! Guitar on "This Feeling" and "I'll Be In Love"
1989 Kate Bush "Love and Anger" and "Rocket's Tail" in The Sensual World
Paul McCartney "We Got Married" in Flowers in the Dirt
Rock Aid Armenia Smoke on the Water in The Earthquake Album
Warren Zevon Transverse City
1990 Roy Harper "Once" in Once (w/Kate Bush on backing vocals)
Propaganda "Only one word" in 1234
Sam Brown April Moon, vocals on "Troubled Soul"
1991 All About Eve "Are You Lonely" and "Wishing the Hours Away" in Touched by Jesus
1992 Elton John "Understanding Women", in The One
Mica Paris I Put a Spell on You on Later With Jools Holland
1993 Paul Rodgers "Standing Around Crying" in Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute to Muddy Waters
1996 The Who Quadrophenia (1996 Hyde Park concert)
1997 B. B. King "Cryin' Won't Help You Babe" in Deuces Wild
1999 Paul McCartney Run Devil Run
2001 The Triumph of Love soundtrack Plays guitar over several chamber orchestra pieces
2003 Ringo Starr Ringo Rama
2004 Alan Parsons "Return to Tunguska" in A Valid Path
2005 Various artists "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)"
2006 Chris Jagger It's Amazing (What People Throw Away), in Act of Faith
Chris Jagger Junkman in Act of Faith
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm29/icarusxx7/DavidGilmour.jpg
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q144/Jen8153/gilmour.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUASiDg-kg4

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 03/06/10 at 7:24 am


The person born on this day...David Gilmour
David Jon Gilmour CBE (born 6 March 1946) is an English musician, best known as the guitarist, lead singer, and one of the main songwriters in the rock band Pink Floyd. In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has worked as a record producer for a variety of artists, and has enjoyed a successful career as a solo artist. Gilmour has been actively involved with many charity organizations over the course of his career. In 2003, he was appointed CBE for services to music and philanthropy and was awarded with the Outstanding Contribution title at the 2008 Q Awards.
Gilmour was approached in late December 1967 by drummer Nick Mason, who asked if he would be interested in joining Pink Floyd, which he did in January 1968, making Pink Floyd briefly a five-piece band. He was used to fill in for Syd Barrett's guitar parts when the front man was unable to take a consistent part in Floyd's live performances. When Syd Barrett "left" the group (due to his erratic behaviour, the band chose not to pick Barrett up one night for a gig ), Gilmour by default assumed the role of the band's lead guitarist and shared lead vocal duties with bassist Roger Waters and keyboard player Richard Wright in Barrett's stead. However, after the back-to-back successes of The Dark Side of the Moon and then Wish You Were Here, Waters took more control over the band, writing most of Animals and The Wall by himself. Wright was fired during The Wall sessions and the relationship between Gilmour and Waters would further deteriorate during the making of The Wall film and the 1983 Pink Floyd album The Final Cut.

After recording "Animals", Gilmour thought that his musical influence had been underused, and channelled his ideas into his self-titled first solo album (1978), which showcases his signature guitar style, as well as underscoring his songwriting skills. A tune written during the finishing stages of this album, but too late to be used, became "Comfortably Numb" on The Wall.
Gilmour performing in Brussels in 1984, on his About Face tour

The negative atmosphere surrounding the creation of The Wall album and film, compounded by The Final Cut's virtually being a Roger Waters solo album, led Gilmour to produce his second solo album About Face in 1984. He used it to express his feelings about a range of topics, from the murder of John Lennon, to his relationship with Waters. He has since admitted that he also used the album to distance himself from Pink Floyd. He toured Europe and the US along with support act The Television Personalities, who later disappeared from the line-up after revealing Syd Barrett's address on stage. Mason and Wright also played on the UK leg of the tour, which despite some cancellations eventually turned a profit. When he returned from touring, Gilmour played guitar with a range of artists, and also produced The Dream Academy, who had a top ten hit with "Life in a Northern Town".

In 1985, Waters declared that Pink Floyd was "a spent force creatively". However, in 1986, Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason issued a press release stating that Waters had quit the band and they intended to continue without him. Gilmour assumed full control of the group and produced A Momentary Lapse of Reason in 1987 with some contributions from Mason and Richard Wright. Wright officially rejoined the band after the release of the album for a lengthy world tour and helped create 1994's The Division Bell as well. Gilmour explained:
“ I had a number of problems with the direction of the band in our recent past, before Roger left. I thought the songs were very wordy and that, because the specific meanings of those words were so important, the music became a mere vehicle for lyrics, and not a very inspiring one. Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here were so successful not just because of Roger's contributions, but also because there was a better balance between the music and the lyrics than there has been in more recent albums. That's what I'm trying to do with A Momentary Lapse of Reason; more focus on the music, restore the balance. ”

In 1986, Gilmour purchased the houseboat Astoria which is moored on the River Thames near Hampton Court, and transformed it into a recording studio. The majority of the two most recent Pink Floyd albums, as well as Gilmour's 2006 solo release On an Island, were recorded there.

On 2 July 2005, Gilmour played with Pink Floyd — including Roger Waters — at Live 8. The performance caused a temporary 1343% sales increase of Pink Floyd's album Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd. Gilmour donated all of his resulting profits to charities that reflect the goals of Live 8 saying:
Gilmour at Live 8 in July 2005
“ Though the main objective has been to raise consciousness and put pressure on the G8 leaders, I will not profit from the concert. This is money that should be used to save lives.

Shortly after, he called upon all artists experiencing a surge in sales from Live 8 performances to donate the extra revenue to Live 8 fund-raising. After the Live 8 concert, Pink Floyd were offered £150 million to tour the United States, but the band turned down the offer.

On 3 February 2006, he announced in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that Pink Floyd would most likely never tour or write material together again. He said:
“ I think enough is enough. I am 60 years old. I don't have the will to work as much anymore. Pink Floyd was an important part in my life, I have had a wonderful time, but it's over. For me it's much less complicated to work alone. ”

He said that by agreeing to Live 8, he had ensured the story of Floyd would not end on a sour note.
“ There was more than one reason, firstly to support the cause. The second one is the energy consuming an uncomfortable relationship between Roger and me that I was carrying along in my heart. That is why we wanted to perform and to leave the trash behind. Thirdly, I might have regretted it if I declined. ”

On 20 February 2006, Gilmour commented again on Pink Floyd's future when he was interviewed by Billboard.com, stating, "Who knows? I have no plans at all to do that. My plans are to do my concerts and put my solo record out."

In December 2006, Gilmour released a tribute to Syd Barrett, who had died in July that year, in the form of his own version of Pink Floyd's first single "Arnold Layne". Recorded live at London's Royal Albert Hall, the CD single featured versions of the song performed by Pink Floyd's keyboard player (and Gilmour's band member) Richard Wright and special guest artist David Bowie. The single entered the UK Top 75 charts at number nineteen and remained steady for three weeks.

Since their Live 8 appearance in 2005, Gilmour has repeatedly said that there will be no Pink Floyd reunion. However, in a 2007 interview with Phil Manzanera, he stated that he's "not done with it yet" and that he plans on doing "something" in the future. With the death of Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright in September 2008, another reunion of the core group members became impossible. Gilmour said of Wright: "In the welter of arguments about who or what was Pink Floyd, Rick's enormous input was frequently forgotten. He was gentle, unassuming and private but his soulful voice and playing were vital, magical components of our most recognised Pink Floyd sound. Like Rick, I don't find it easy to express my feelings in words, but I loved him and will miss him enormously. I have never played with anyone quite like him."
Other projects

Taking time off from Pink Floyd's schedule, Gilmour also took up various roles as a producer, sideman and even concert sound engineer for a wide variety of acts which included former bandmate Syd Barrett, Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, Grace Jones, Tom Jones, Elton John, B. B. King, Seal, Sam Brown, Jools Holland, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, The Who, Supertramp, Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson, Alan Parsons, and various charity groups among others.

In 1985, Gilmour was member of Bryan Ferry's band. He played on Ferry's album Boys and Girls, as well as the song "Is Your Love Strong Enough" for the U.S. release of the Ridley Scott-Tom Cruise film Legend. A music video for the latter was created, incorporating Ferry and Gilmour into footage from the film (released as a bonus on the 2002 "Ultimate Edition" DVD release). Later that year, Gilmour played with Ferry at the London Live Aid concert; his first meeting with Ferry's keyboard player Jon Carin, later to tour with Pink Floyd.

David Gilmour also took part in a comedy skit titled "The Easy Guitar Book Sketch" with comedian Rowland Rivron and fellow British musicians Mark Knopfler, Lemmy from Motorhead, Mark King from Level 42, and Gary Moore. Guitar tech Phil Taylor explained in an interview that Knopfler used Gilmour's guitar rig and managed to sound like himself when performing in the skit.

He has also recorded four solo albums, all four of which charted in the U.S. Top 40 (2006's On an Island peaked at #6 in 2006, 2008's Live in Gdansk peaked at #26, his 1978 self-titled solo debut peaked at #29 in 1978 and 1984's About Face peaked at #32 in 1984) thus making him the only member of Pink Floyd to have a commercially successful solo career.

In 1994, Gilmour played guitar for the video game Tuneland, along with the additional saxophonist for Pink Floyd, Scott Page.

In 2001 and 2002, he held a small number of acoustic solo concerts in London and Paris, along with a small band and choir, which was documented on the In Concert release. In 2003, Rolling Stone included Gilmour in the list of hundred greatest guitarists of all time.

On 24 September 2004, Gilmour performed a three song set (tracks 28-30) at The Strat Pack concert at London's Wembley Arena, marking the 50th anniversary of the Fender Stratocaster guitar.

On 6 March 2006, his 60th birthday, he released his third solo album, On an Island, and a day later it was released in the US; it debuted at #1 in the UK charts. The album reached the top five in Germany and Sweden, and the top six in Billboard 200. Produced by Gilmour along with Phil Manzanera and Chris Thomas, the album features orchestrations by renowned Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner. The album features David Crosby and Graham Nash on harmonies on the title track, Robert Wyatt on cornet and percussion and Richard Wright on Hammond organ and vocals. Other contributors include Jools Holland, Phil Manzanera, Georgie Fame, Andy Newmark, B. J. Cole, Chris Stainton, Willie Wilson, Rado ‘Bob’ Klose on guitar and Leszek Możdżer on piano. The album also features Gilmour's debut with the saxophone.

Gilmour toured Europe, US and Canada from 10 March to 31 May to promote On an Island. There were 10 shows in the US and Canadian leg of the tour. Pink Floyd alumnus Richard Wright, and frequent Floyd collaborators Dick Parry, Guy Pratt and Jon Carin also accompanied him on the tour. More shows were held in Europe during from July through August in 2006.

In a press release to promote the tour, David Gilmour stated:
“ "I'm rather hoping that with this tour announcement, people will believe me when I say, honestly, this is the only band I plan to tour with!". ”

On an Island peaked the UK charts by reaching number one. On 10 April 2006, the album was certified platinum in Canada, with sales of over 100,000 copies. The album also gave Gilmour his first US Top 10 album as a solo artist.

A video recording of a show from Gilmour's solo tour, entitled Remember That Night - Live At The Royal Albert Hall was released on 17 September 2007. The double DVD, directed by David Mallet, contains over five hours of footage, including an on-the-road documentary and guest appearances by David Bowie and Robert Wyatt. The two and a half hour concert features band members Richard Wright of Pink Floyd, Phil Manzanera of Roxy Music, Steve DiStanislao on drums, and various Pink Floyd regulars such as Dick Parry, Guy Pratt and Jon Carin. The 20-page booklet accompanying the DVD, features over 80 photos selected from studio recording and touring. The album is now available on Hi-Definition Blu-ray Disc with Dolby TrueHD surround sound. As TrueHD is not a mandatory format for Blu-ray players, and the disc carries no other surround channel, some players will only play it in stereo.

The final show of David Gilmour's On an Island tour was held at the Gdańsk Shipyard on 26 August 2006. The concert was held before a huge crowd of 50,000, and marked the twenty-sixth anniversary of Poland's 1980 revolution. The concert was notable for the inclusion of "A Great Day For Freedom" as part of the encore.

The show was recorded resulting in a live album and DVD release; Live in Gdańsk. The concert was the only occasion on which Gilmour performed the tour material with an orchestra, using the 40-strong string section of the Polish Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Zbigniew Preisner, who was responsible for On An Island's orchestral arrangements.

On 25 May 2009, he participated in a concert held at Union Chapel in Islington, London. The concert was of part of the 'Hidden Gigs' campaign against hidden homelessness that is organized by the Crisis, a UK-based national charity for people homelessness. There he appeared in a collaboration with the Malian musicians Amadou and Mariam.

On 4 July 2009, he joined his friend Jeff Beck onstage at the Royal Albert Hall. David and Jeff traded solos on Jerusalem and closed the show with Hi Ho Silver Lining.
In August 2009, he released an online single, Chicago - Change the World, on which he sang and played guitar, bass and keyboards, to promote awareness of the plight of Gary McKinnon. A re-titled cover of the Graham Nash song Chicago, it featured Chrissie Hynde and Bob Geldof, plus McKinnon himself. It was produced by long-time Pink Floyd collaborator Chris Thomas.. A video was also posted on-line.
Musical style

Gilmour is best known for his lead guitar work. Gilmour's solo style is often characterised by blues-influenced phrasing, expressive note bends and sustain. In 2005, Gilmour was rated the 82nd greatest guitarist by Rolling Stone. The website Digital Dream Door ranked Gilmour as the fourteenth greatest rock guitarist. In January 2007, Guitar World readers voted Gilmour's solos, "Comfortably Numb", "Time" and "Money" into the top 100 Greatest Guitar Solos ("Comfortably Numb" was voted the 4th greatest solo of all time , "Time" was voted the 21st greatest solo of all time and "Money" was voted the 62nd greatest solo of all time .

In his early career with Pink Floyd, Gilmour played a multitude of Fender Stratocasters. One of his popular guitar solos ("Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2") was played on a Gibson Les Paul Gold Top guitar equipped with Bigsby tremolo bar and P-90 pickups. In 1996, Gilmour was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd. Gilmour's solo on "Comfortably Numb" was voted as one of the greatest guitar solos of all time in several polls by listeners and critics.

Although mainly known for his guitar work, Gilmour is also a proficient multi-instrumentalist. He also plays bass guitar (which he did on some Pink Floyd tracks), keyboards, banjo, harmonica, drums (as heard on the Syd Barrett solo track "Dominoes", and other songs where he opted to play all the instruments) and lately, the saxophone.
The following is a list of equipment Gilmour either has used on his solo or Pink Floyd recordings, as well as on current or previous tours.
Guitars

   * Fender
         o Stratocaster
               + His main guitar, much modified over the years, is a (1969) 3-colour Sunburst Fender Stratocaster painted over with black as well with a black pickguard and white-coloured pickup covers and knobs, currently with a vintage 1957 reissue "V shape" maple neck. This neck came from his guitar that he used on the About Face tour. It also includes a small toggle switch that combines the neck and bridge pickups (Note this guitar was for brief time fitted with a Kahler locking tremolo system, the system was subsequently un-installed and the removed wood filled with a replacement piece of timber and repainted to match as can be noted by close examination of the guitar behind its reinstalled Fender tremolo). This guitar has a Seymour Duncan SSL-1 bridge pickup, and currently has a strap which once belonged to Jimi Hendrix.
               + His main guitar for the post-Roger Waters era Pink Floyd tours in support of A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Delicate Sound of Thunder (dubbed "Another Lapse") and The Division Bell was a Candy Apple Red '57 reissue (made in 1984) fitted with a set of EMG SA active pickups with the two standard tone controls replaced with an EMG SPC mid boost control, and an EXG treble/bass expander (which cuts the mids while boosting bass and treble). On the On an Island tour it was used every night of the tour on "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".
               + Gilmour is the owner of Strat #0001. However, this is not the first Stratocaster ever made, but the first to be given a serial number. It was last seen at the Strat Pack Concert in Wembley Arena in 2004.
               + Cream coloured '57 reissue. Used at 1984 solo tour and at the early parts of the 1987-1990 tour. In the 1994 tour it was used as spare guitar. Tim Renwick played it with David and the rest of Pink Floyd at their Live 8 set. This Strat was fitted with the same EMG set of pickups and tone circuits as the aforementioned Candy Apple Red '57 reissue and after its use at Live 8, the cream finished guitar's neck was transferred to David's main Black Strat.
               + '57 Lake Placid Blue. (Serial number #0040). Used at The Wall sessions.
               + Double-neck Stratocaster (body was custom made by guitar builder Dick Knight, but the necks were Fender strat necks. Used live (1970-72).
               + Sunburst Stratocaster. '63 rosewood neck with '59 body. This guitar was given to David by Steve Marriott of Humble Pie and the Small Faces, and though David didn't like the guitar enough to use it very long, he preferred the neck to the original one on his black Strat and switched the two. The sunburst Strat was used as his spare and slide guitar in subsequent years (sporting the maple cap neck with a large headstock from the black Strat), and the rosewood neck remained on the black Strat until 1978.
               + White with white pickguard. Used in the late 1960s. Received as a gift from the rest of the band. Stolen in equipment heist in 1970.
               + Gilmour also used a strat equipped with the Doug Wilkes 'Answer' sliding pickup system on the 'Momentary Lapse of Reason' recording.
               + Doug Wilkes also built Gilmour a Precision-style single pickup bass, which was also used on the 'Momentary Lapse of Reason' sessions.
         o Telecaster
               + Blonde body with white pickguard. Used on the On an Island tour.
               + '52 Butterscotch Reissues with black pickguard. Used between 1987 and 1995. The first guitar was tuned in Dropped D rather than a standard tuning and was used for "Run Like Hell". The second served as a backup instrument and had a regular guitar tuning. Gilmour used this guitar for Astronomy Domine.
               + '59 Custom Telecaster with sunburst ash body, white binding on the body, rosewood fingerboard, and a white pickguard. There was a Gibson Humbucker placed in the Neck position at a brief point but was removed before it was used on the Animals' recording sessions. Last seen on rehearsals during the On an Island tour.
               + '61 Telecaster used during The Wall recording sessions. Also used live in post-Waters era for "Run Like Hell". Last seen on the Syd Barrett memory concert in 2007.
               + 1960s brown-faded body. Used in the late 1960s.
               + 1960s blonde ash body with white pickguard. His main guitar during his first year with Pink Floyd, which was lost by an airline company in 1968, and prompted Gilmour to buy the brown-faded Telecaster.
         o Esquire
               + '55 Sunburst body aka "The workmate Tele". Neck pickup added. Used at the recording sessions for his first solo album, The Wall recording session and the following tour. Also seen when performing with Paul McCartney in the late 1990s.
         o Lap Steel guitars
               + 1950's Fender 1000 twin neck pedal steel. Used in the early 1970s, purchased from a pawn shop while Gilmour was in Seattle in 1970. Used during recording of "One of These Days" from "Meddle" and "Breathe" and "Great Gig in the Sky" from The Dark Side of the Moon.
               + Fender Deluxe lap steel. First time seen during The Division Bell tour in 1994.
         o Fender Bass VI. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
         o Fender Precision bass guitar
         o Fender Jazz Bass. Used during The Wall recording sessions.

   * Gibson
         o A Gibson Les Paul Goldtop (P-90 pick-ups, Bigsby vibrato bridge). Used for the guitar solo on 'Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2.
         o Gibson: EH150 Lap Steel guitar, "Chet Atkins" classical guitar, & J-200 Celebrity acoustic guitars.
   * Gretsch Duo-Jet
   * Bill Lewis 24-fret Guitar. Used at Meddle and Dark Side of the Moon recording sessions.
   * Ovation.
         o Ovation Legend 1619-4 steel string & high string guitars. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
         o Ovation Legend 1613-4 nylon string guitar. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
         o Ovation Magnum bass guitar. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
   * Takamine acoustic guitar.
   * Martin acoustic guitars.
         o Martin D-35.
         o Martin D12-28 12-string acoustic guitar.
         o Martin D-18 acoustic.
   * Taylor acoustics
   * Guild F-512 "antique burst" 12-string guitar.
   * Jose Vilaplana nylon string guitar
   * Steinberger GL. His main guitar during A Momentary Lapse of Reason recording sessions.
   * Charvel Fretless Fender Precision style bass guitar. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
   * Music Man Fretless Stingray bass guitar. Used by Gilmour while running the house band at the 1991 Amnesty International concert, during Spinal Tap's performance on "Big Bottom". (All guitarists played bass on this song, and Gilmour played a solo.)
   * Jedson lap steel guitars. One red (1977-tuned D-G-D-G-B-E for Shine On You Crazy Diamond Parts 6-9, 1987-2006: Tuned E-B-E-G-B-E) and one blonde.
   * ZB pedal steel guitar.



Tribute guitars

In November 2006, Fender Custom Shop announced two reproductions of Gilmour's "Black" Strat for release on 22 September 2008. Gilmour's website states the release date was chosen to coincide with the release of his Live in Gdansk album. Both guitars are based on extensive measurements of the original instrument, each featuring varying degrees of wear.

Discography
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd portal

   * A Saucerful of Secrets – 29 June 1968.
   * More – 27 July 1969.
   * Ummagumma – 25 October 1969.
   * Atom Heart Mother – 10 October 1970.
   * Meddle – 30 October 1971.
   * Obscured by Clouds – 3 June 1972.
   * The Dark Side of the Moon – 17 March 1973.
   * Wish You Were Here – 15 September 1975.
   * Animals – 23 January 1977.
   * The Wall – 30 November 1979.
   * The Final Cut – 21 March 1983.
   * A Momentary Lapse of Reason – 8 September 1987.
   * Delicate Sound of Thunder – 22 November 1988.
   * The Division Bell – 30 March 1994.
   * P•U•L•S•E – 29 May 1995.

   For the full discography, see Pink Floyd discography.

Solo
Albums

   * David Gilmour – 25 May 1978
   * About Face – 27 March 1984
   * On an Island – 6 March 2006
   * Live in Gdańsk – 22 September 2008

Soundtracks

   * Fractals: The Colors of Infinity, Documentary - 1994

Singles

   * "There's No Way Out of Here", 1978
   * "Blue Light", March, 1984
   * "Love on the Air", May, 1984
   * "On an Island", 6 March 2006
   * "Smile", 13 June 2006
   * "Arnold Layne" (Live) 26 December 2006

Filmography

   * David Gilmour Live 1984 (VHS) – September 1984
   * David Gilmour in Concert (DVD) – October 2002
   * Remember That Night (DVD/BD) – September 2007
   * Live in Gdańsk (DVD) – September 2008

Collaborations and work for other artists
Year Artist Album / Work
1970 Syd Barrett The Madcap Laughs
Syd Barrett Barrett
Ron Geesin and Roger Waters "Give Birth to a Smile" on Music from The Body
1974 Unicorn Blue Pine Trees
1975 Roy Harper "The Game" from HQ
1978 Kate Bush Executive producer for two tracks in The Kick Inside
1979 Wings Back to the Egg
1980 Roy Harper "Playing Games", "You (The Game Part II)", "Old Faces", "Short and Sweet" and "True Story" credited to Harper/Gilmour from the album "The Unknown Soldier". Gilmour is credited as a musician on the album.
1982 Kate Bush Vocals on "Pull Out The Pin" in The Dreaming‎
1983 Atomic Rooster Headline news
1984 Paul McCartney No More Lonely Nights in Give My Regards to Broad Street
1985 Supertramp Brother Where You Bound
Bryan Ferry "Is Your Love Strong Enough?" in Legend
Bryan Ferry Boys and Girls
Bryan Ferry Live Aid (Played with Bryan Ferry's band)
Nick Mason and Rick Fenn "Lie for a Lie" (vocals) in Profiles
Pete Townshend "Give Blood" and "White City Fighting" in White City: A Novel "White City Fighting" credited to Townshend/Gilmour. Also performed live as Deep End.
Arcadia So Red the Rose
The Dream Academy Co-produced The Dream Academy‎
Roy Harper and Jimmy Page Whatever Happened to Jugula?,"Hope" credited to Harper/Gilmour.
1986 Berlin Count Three & Pray
Pete Townshend lead guitar in Pete Townshend's Deep End Live!
1987 Dalbello "Immaculate Eyes" in she
1988 Peter Cetera "You Never Listen To Me" in One More Story
Sam Brown Stop! Guitar on "This Feeling" and "I'll Be In Love"
1989 Kate Bush "Love and Anger" and "Rocket's Tail" in The Sensual World
Paul McCartney "We Got Married" in Flowers in the Dirt
Rock Aid Armenia Smoke on the Water in The Earthquake Album
Warren Zevon Transverse City
1990 Roy Harper "Once" in Once (w/Kate Bush on backing vocals)
Propaganda "Only one word" in 1234
Sam Brown April Moon, vocals on "Troubled Soul"
1991 All About Eve "Are You Lonely" and "Wishing the Hours Away" in Touched by Jesus
1992 Elton John "Understanding Women", in The One
Mica Paris I Put a Spell on You on Later With Jools Holland
1993 Paul Rodgers "Standing Around Crying" in Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute to Muddy Waters
1996 The Who Quadrophenia (1996 Hyde Park concert)
1997 B. B. King "Cryin' Won't Help You Babe" in Deuces Wild
1999 Paul McCartney Run Devil Run
2001 The Triumph of Love soundtrack Plays guitar over several chamber orchestra pieces
2003 Ringo Starr Ringo Rama
2004 Alan Parsons "Return to Tunguska" in A Valid Path
2005 Various artists "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)"
2006 Chris Jagger It's Amazing (What People Throw Away), in Act of Faith
Chris Jagger Junkman in Act of Faith
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm29/icarusxx7/DavidGilmour.jpg
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q144/Jen8153/gilmour.jpg


Pink Floyd still rocks.  :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/06/10 at 9:55 am


The person born on this day...David Gilmour
David Jon Gilmour CBE (born 6 March 1946) is an English musician, best known as the guitarist, lead singer, and one of the main songwriters in the rock band Pink Floyd. In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has worked as a record producer for a variety of artists, and has enjoyed a successful career as a solo artist. Gilmour has been actively involved with many charity organizations over the course of his career. In 2003, he was appointed CBE for services to music and philanthropy and was awarded with the Outstanding Contribution title at the 2008 Q Awards.
Gilmour was approached in late December 1967 by drummer Nick Mason, who asked if he would be interested in joining Pink Floyd, which he did in January 1968, making Pink Floyd briefly a five-piece band. He was used to fill in for Syd Barrett's guitar parts when the front man was unable to take a consistent part in Floyd's live performances. When Syd Barrett "left" the group (due to his erratic behaviour, the band chose not to pick Barrett up one night for a gig ), Gilmour by default assumed the role of the band's lead guitarist and shared lead vocal duties with bassist Roger Waters and keyboard player Richard Wright in Barrett's stead. However, after the back-to-back successes of The Dark Side of the Moon and then Wish You Were Here, Waters took more control over the band, writing most of Animals and The Wall by himself. Wright was fired during The Wall sessions and the relationship between Gilmour and Waters would further deteriorate during the making of The Wall film and the 1983 Pink Floyd album The Final Cut.

After recording "Animals", Gilmour thought that his musical influence had been underused, and channelled his ideas into his self-titled first solo album (1978), which showcases his signature guitar style, as well as underscoring his songwriting skills. A tune written during the finishing stages of this album, but too late to be used, became "Comfortably Numb" on The Wall.
Gilmour performing in Brussels in 1984, on his About Face tour

The negative atmosphere surrounding the creation of The Wall album and film, compounded by The Final Cut's virtually being a Roger Waters solo album, led Gilmour to produce his second solo album About Face in 1984. He used it to express his feelings about a range of topics, from the murder of John Lennon, to his relationship with Waters. He has since admitted that he also used the album to distance himself from Pink Floyd. He toured Europe and the US along with support act The Television Personalities, who later disappeared from the line-up after revealing Syd Barrett's address on stage. Mason and Wright also played on the UK leg of the tour, which despite some cancellations eventually turned a profit. When he returned from touring, Gilmour played guitar with a range of artists, and also produced The Dream Academy, who had a top ten hit with "Life in a Northern Town".

In 1985, Waters declared that Pink Floyd was "a spent force creatively". However, in 1986, Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason issued a press release stating that Waters had quit the band and they intended to continue without him. Gilmour assumed full control of the group and produced A Momentary Lapse of Reason in 1987 with some contributions from Mason and Richard Wright. Wright officially rejoined the band after the release of the album for a lengthy world tour and helped create 1994's The Division Bell as well. Gilmour explained:
“ I had a number of problems with the direction of the band in our recent past, before Roger left. I thought the songs were very wordy and that, because the specific meanings of those words were so important, the music became a mere vehicle for lyrics, and not a very inspiring one. Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here were so successful not just because of Roger's contributions, but also because there was a better balance between the music and the lyrics than there has been in more recent albums. That's what I'm trying to do with A Momentary Lapse of Reason; more focus on the music, restore the balance. ”

In 1986, Gilmour purchased the houseboat Astoria which is moored on the River Thames near Hampton Court, and transformed it into a recording studio. The majority of the two most recent Pink Floyd albums, as well as Gilmour's 2006 solo release On an Island, were recorded there.

On 2 July 2005, Gilmour played with Pink Floyd — including Roger Waters — at Live 8. The performance caused a temporary 1343% sales increase of Pink Floyd's album Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd. Gilmour donated all of his resulting profits to charities that reflect the goals of Live 8 saying:
Gilmour at Live 8 in July 2005
“ Though the main objective has been to raise consciousness and put pressure on the G8 leaders, I will not profit from the concert. This is money that should be used to save lives.

Shortly after, he called upon all artists experiencing a surge in sales from Live 8 performances to donate the extra revenue to Live 8 fund-raising. After the Live 8 concert, Pink Floyd were offered £150 million to tour the United States, but the band turned down the offer.

On 3 February 2006, he announced in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that Pink Floyd would most likely never tour or write material together again. He said:
“ I think enough is enough. I am 60 years old. I don't have the will to work as much anymore. Pink Floyd was an important part in my life, I have had a wonderful time, but it's over. For me it's much less complicated to work alone. ”

He said that by agreeing to Live 8, he had ensured the story of Floyd would not end on a sour note.
“ There was more than one reason, firstly to support the cause. The second one is the energy consuming an uncomfortable relationship between Roger and me that I was carrying along in my heart. That is why we wanted to perform and to leave the trash behind. Thirdly, I might have regretted it if I declined. ”

On 20 February 2006, Gilmour commented again on Pink Floyd's future when he was interviewed by Billboard.com, stating, "Who knows? I have no plans at all to do that. My plans are to do my concerts and put my solo record out."

In December 2006, Gilmour released a tribute to Syd Barrett, who had died in July that year, in the form of his own version of Pink Floyd's first single "Arnold Layne". Recorded live at London's Royal Albert Hall, the CD single featured versions of the song performed by Pink Floyd's keyboard player (and Gilmour's band member) Richard Wright and special guest artist David Bowie. The single entered the UK Top 75 charts at number nineteen and remained steady for three weeks.

Since their Live 8 appearance in 2005, Gilmour has repeatedly said that there will be no Pink Floyd reunion. However, in a 2007 interview with Phil Manzanera, he stated that he's "not done with it yet" and that he plans on doing "something" in the future. With the death of Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright in September 2008, another reunion of the core group members became impossible. Gilmour said of Wright: "In the welter of arguments about who or what was Pink Floyd, Rick's enormous input was frequently forgotten. He was gentle, unassuming and private but his soulful voice and playing were vital, magical components of our most recognised Pink Floyd sound. Like Rick, I don't find it easy to express my feelings in words, but I loved him and will miss him enormously. I have never played with anyone quite like him."
Other projects

Taking time off from Pink Floyd's schedule, Gilmour also took up various roles as a producer, sideman and even concert sound engineer for a wide variety of acts which included former bandmate Syd Barrett, Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, Grace Jones, Tom Jones, Elton John, B. B. King, Seal, Sam Brown, Jools Holland, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, The Who, Supertramp, Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson, Alan Parsons, and various charity groups among others.

In 1985, Gilmour was member of Bryan Ferry's band. He played on Ferry's album Boys and Girls, as well as the song "Is Your Love Strong Enough" for the U.S. release of the Ridley Scott-Tom Cruise film Legend. A music video for the latter was created, incorporating Ferry and Gilmour into footage from the film (released as a bonus on the 2002 "Ultimate Edition" DVD release). Later that year, Gilmour played with Ferry at the London Live Aid concert; his first meeting with Ferry's keyboard player Jon Carin, later to tour with Pink Floyd.

David Gilmour also took part in a comedy skit titled "The Easy Guitar Book Sketch" with comedian Rowland Rivron and fellow British musicians Mark Knopfler, Lemmy from Motorhead, Mark King from Level 42, and Gary Moore. Guitar tech Phil Taylor explained in an interview that Knopfler used Gilmour's guitar rig and managed to sound like himself when performing in the skit.

He has also recorded four solo albums, all four of which charted in the U.S. Top 40 (2006's On an Island peaked at #6 in 2006, 2008's Live in Gdansk peaked at #26, his 1978 self-titled solo debut peaked at #29 in 1978 and 1984's About Face peaked at #32 in 1984) thus making him the only member of Pink Floyd to have a commercially successful solo career.

In 1994, Gilmour played guitar for the video game Tuneland, along with the additional saxophonist for Pink Floyd, Scott Page.

In 2001 and 2002, he held a small number of acoustic solo concerts in London and Paris, along with a small band and choir, which was documented on the In Concert release. In 2003, Rolling Stone included Gilmour in the list of hundred greatest guitarists of all time.

On 24 September 2004, Gilmour performed a three song set (tracks 28-30) at The Strat Pack concert at London's Wembley Arena, marking the 50th anniversary of the Fender Stratocaster guitar.

On 6 March 2006, his 60th birthday, he released his third solo album, On an Island, and a day later it was released in the US; it debuted at #1 in the UK charts. The album reached the top five in Germany and Sweden, and the top six in Billboard 200. Produced by Gilmour along with Phil Manzanera and Chris Thomas, the album features orchestrations by renowned Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner. The album features David Crosby and Graham Nash on harmonies on the title track, Robert Wyatt on cornet and percussion and Richard Wright on Hammond organ and vocals. Other contributors include Jools Holland, Phil Manzanera, Georgie Fame, Andy Newmark, B. J. Cole, Chris Stainton, Willie Wilson, Rado ‘Bob’ Klose on guitar and Leszek Możdżer on piano. The album also features Gilmour's debut with the saxophone.

Gilmour toured Europe, US and Canada from 10 March to 31 May to promote On an Island. There were 10 shows in the US and Canadian leg of the tour. Pink Floyd alumnus Richard Wright, and frequent Floyd collaborators Dick Parry, Guy Pratt and Jon Carin also accompanied him on the tour. More shows were held in Europe during from July through August in 2006.

In a press release to promote the tour, David Gilmour stated:
“ "I'm rather hoping that with this tour announcement, people will believe me when I say, honestly, this is the only band I plan to tour with!". ”

On an Island peaked the UK charts by reaching number one. On 10 April 2006, the album was certified platinum in Canada, with sales of over 100,000 copies. The album also gave Gilmour his first US Top 10 album as a solo artist.

A video recording of a show from Gilmour's solo tour, entitled Remember That Night - Live At The Royal Albert Hall was released on 17 September 2007. The double DVD, directed by David Mallet, contains over five hours of footage, including an on-the-road documentary and guest appearances by David Bowie and Robert Wyatt. The two and a half hour concert features band members Richard Wright of Pink Floyd, Phil Manzanera of Roxy Music, Steve DiStanislao on drums, and various Pink Floyd regulars such as Dick Parry, Guy Pratt and Jon Carin. The 20-page booklet accompanying the DVD, features over 80 photos selected from studio recording and touring. The album is now available on Hi-Definition Blu-ray Disc with Dolby TrueHD surround sound. As TrueHD is not a mandatory format for Blu-ray players, and the disc carries no other surround channel, some players will only play it in stereo.

The final show of David Gilmour's On an Island tour was held at the Gdańsk Shipyard on 26 August 2006. The concert was held before a huge crowd of 50,000, and marked the twenty-sixth anniversary of Poland's 1980 revolution. The concert was notable for the inclusion of "A Great Day For Freedom" as part of the encore.

The show was recorded resulting in a live album and DVD release; Live in Gdańsk. The concert was the only occasion on which Gilmour performed the tour material with an orchestra, using the 40-strong string section of the Polish Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Zbigniew Preisner, who was responsible for On An Island's orchestral arrangements.

On 25 May 2009, he participated in a concert held at Union Chapel in Islington, London. The concert was of part of the 'Hidden Gigs' campaign against hidden homelessness that is organized by the Crisis, a UK-based national charity for people homelessness. There he appeared in a collaboration with the Malian musicians Amadou and Mariam.

On 4 July 2009, he joined his friend Jeff Beck onstage at the Royal Albert Hall. David and Jeff traded solos on Jerusalem and closed the show with Hi Ho Silver Lining.
In August 2009, he released an online single, Chicago - Change the World, on which he sang and played guitar, bass and keyboards, to promote awareness of the plight of Gary McKinnon. A re-titled cover of the Graham Nash song Chicago, it featured Chrissie Hynde and Bob Geldof, plus McKinnon himself. It was produced by long-time Pink Floyd collaborator Chris Thomas.. A video was also posted on-line.
Musical style

Gilmour is best known for his lead guitar work. Gilmour's solo style is often characterised by blues-influenced phrasing, expressive note bends and sustain. In 2005, Gilmour was rated the 82nd greatest guitarist by Rolling Stone. The website Digital Dream Door ranked Gilmour as the fourteenth greatest rock guitarist. In January 2007, Guitar World readers voted Gilmour's solos, "Comfortably Numb", "Time" and "Money" into the top 100 Greatest Guitar Solos ("Comfortably Numb" was voted the 4th greatest solo of all time , "Time" was voted the 21st greatest solo of all time and "Money" was voted the 62nd greatest solo of all time .

In his early career with Pink Floyd, Gilmour played a multitude of Fender Stratocasters. One of his popular guitar solos ("Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2") was played on a Gibson Les Paul Gold Top guitar equipped with Bigsby tremolo bar and P-90 pickups. In 1996, Gilmour was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd. Gilmour's solo on "Comfortably Numb" was voted as one of the greatest guitar solos of all time in several polls by listeners and critics.

Although mainly known for his guitar work, Gilmour is also a proficient multi-instrumentalist. He also plays bass guitar (which he did on some Pink Floyd tracks), keyboards, banjo, harmonica, drums (as heard on the Syd Barrett solo track "Dominoes", and other songs where he opted to play all the instruments) and lately, the saxophone.
The following is a list of equipment Gilmour either has used on his solo or Pink Floyd recordings, as well as on current or previous tours.
Guitars

    * Fender
          o Stratocaster
                + His main guitar, much modified over the years, is a (1969) 3-colour Sunburst Fender Stratocaster painted over with black as well with a black pickguard and white-coloured pickup covers and knobs, currently with a vintage 1957 reissue "V shape" maple neck. This neck came from his guitar that he used on the About Face tour. It also includes a small toggle switch that combines the neck and bridge pickups (Note this guitar was for brief time fitted with a Kahler locking tremolo system, the system was subsequently un-installed and the removed wood filled with a replacement piece of timber and repainted to match as can be noted by close examination of the guitar behind its reinstalled Fender tremolo). This guitar has a Seymour Duncan SSL-1 bridge pickup, and currently has a strap which once belonged to Jimi Hendrix.
                + His main guitar for the post-Roger Waters era Pink Floyd tours in support of A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Delicate Sound of Thunder (dubbed "Another Lapse") and The Division Bell was a Candy Apple Red '57 reissue (made in 1984) fitted with a set of EMG SA active pickups with the two standard tone controls replaced with an EMG SPC mid boost control, and an EXG treble/bass expander (which cuts the mids while boosting bass and treble). On the On an Island tour it was used every night of the tour on "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".
                + Gilmour is the owner of Strat #0001. However, this is not the first Stratocaster ever made, but the first to be given a serial number. It was last seen at the Strat Pack Concert in Wembley Arena in 2004.
                + Cream coloured '57 reissue. Used at 1984 solo tour and at the early parts of the 1987-1990 tour. In the 1994 tour it was used as spare guitar. Tim Renwick played it with David and the rest of Pink Floyd at their Live 8 set. This Strat was fitted with the same EMG set of pickups and tone circuits as the aforementioned Candy Apple Red '57 reissue and after its use at Live 8, the cream finished guitar's neck was transferred to David's main Black Strat.
                + '57 Lake Placid Blue. (Serial number #0040). Used at The Wall sessions.
                + Double-neck Stratocaster (body was custom made by guitar builder Dick Knight, but the necks were Fender strat necks. Used live (1970-72).
                + Sunburst Stratocaster. '63 rosewood neck with '59 body. This guitar was given to David by Steve Marriott of Humble Pie and the Small Faces, and though David didn't like the guitar enough to use it very long, he preferred the neck to the original one on his black Strat and switched the two. The sunburst Strat was used as his spare and slide guitar in subsequent years (sporting the maple cap neck with a large headstock from the black Strat), and the rosewood neck remained on the black Strat until 1978.
                + White with white pickguard. Used in the late 1960s. Received as a gift from the rest of the band. Stolen in equipment heist in 1970.
                + Gilmour also used a strat equipped with the Doug Wilkes 'Answer' sliding pickup system on the 'Momentary Lapse of Reason' recording.
                + Doug Wilkes also built Gilmour a Precision-style single pickup bass, which was also used on the 'Momentary Lapse of Reason' sessions.
          o Telecaster
                + Blonde body with white pickguard. Used on the On an Island tour.
                + '52 Butterscotch Reissues with black pickguard. Used between 1987 and 1995. The first guitar was tuned in Dropped D rather than a standard tuning and was used for "Run Like Hell". The second served as a backup instrument and had a regular guitar tuning. Gilmour used this guitar for Astronomy Domine.
                + '59 Custom Telecaster with sunburst ash body, white binding on the body, rosewood fingerboard, and a white pickguard. There was a Gibson Humbucker placed in the Neck position at a brief point but was removed before it was used on the Animals' recording sessions. Last seen on rehearsals during the On an Island tour.
                + '61 Telecaster used during The Wall recording sessions. Also used live in post-Waters era for "Run Like Hell". Last seen on the Syd Barrett memory concert in 2007.
                + 1960s brown-faded body. Used in the late 1960s.
                + 1960s blonde ash body with white pickguard. His main guitar during his first year with Pink Floyd, which was lost by an airline company in 1968, and prompted Gilmour to buy the brown-faded Telecaster.
          o Esquire
                + '55 Sunburst body aka "The workmate Tele". Neck pickup added. Used at the recording sessions for his first solo album, The Wall recording session and the following tour. Also seen when performing with Paul McCartney in the late 1990s.
          o Lap Steel guitars
                + 1950's Fender 1000 twin neck pedal steel. Used in the early 1970s, purchased from a pawn shop while Gilmour was in Seattle in 1970. Used during recording of "One of These Days" from "Meddle" and "Breathe" and "Great Gig in the Sky" from The Dark Side of the Moon.
                + Fender Deluxe lap steel. First time seen during The Division Bell tour in 1994.
          o Fender Bass VI. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
          o Fender Precision bass guitar
          o Fender Jazz Bass. Used during The Wall recording sessions.

    * Gibson
          o A Gibson Les Paul Goldtop (P-90 pick-ups, Bigsby vibrato bridge). Used for the guitar solo on 'Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2.
          o Gibson: EH150 Lap Steel guitar, "Chet Atkins" classical guitar, & J-200 Celebrity acoustic guitars.
    * Gretsch Duo-Jet
    * Bill Lewis 24-fret Guitar. Used at Meddle and Dark Side of the Moon recording sessions.
    * Ovation.
          o Ovation Legend 1619-4 steel string & high string guitars. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
          o Ovation Legend 1613-4 nylon string guitar. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
          o Ovation Magnum bass guitar. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
    * Takamine acoustic guitar.
    * Martin acoustic guitars.
          o Martin D-35.
          o Martin D12-28 12-string acoustic guitar.
          o Martin D-18 acoustic.
    * Taylor acoustics
    * Guild F-512 "antique burst" 12-string guitar.
    * Jose Vilaplana nylon string guitar
    * Steinberger GL. His main guitar during A Momentary Lapse of Reason recording sessions.
    * Charvel Fretless Fender Precision style bass guitar. Used during The Wall recording sessions.
    * Music Man Fretless Stingray bass guitar. Used by Gilmour while running the house band at the 1991 Amnesty International concert, during Spinal Tap's performance on "Big Bottom". (All guitarists played bass on this song, and Gilmour played a solo.)
    * Jedson lap steel guitars. One red (1977-tuned D-G-D-G-B-E for Shine On You Crazy Diamond Parts 6-9, 1987-2006: Tuned E-B-E-G-B-E) and one blonde.
    * ZB pedal steel guitar.



Tribute guitars

In November 2006, Fender Custom Shop announced two reproductions of Gilmour's "Black" Strat for release on 22 September 2008. Gilmour's website states the release date was chosen to coincide with the release of his Live in Gdansk album. Both guitars are based on extensive measurements of the original instrument, each featuring varying degrees of wear.

Discography
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd portal

    * A Saucerful of Secrets – 29 June 1968.
    * More – 27 July 1969.
    * Ummagumma – 25 October 1969.
    * Atom Heart Mother – 10 October 1970.
    * Meddle – 30 October 1971.
    * Obscured by Clouds – 3 June 1972.
    * The Dark Side of the Moon – 17 March 1973.
    * Wish You Were Here – 15 September 1975.
    * Animals – 23 January 1977.
    * The Wall – 30 November 1979.
    * The Final Cut – 21 March 1983.
    * A Momentary Lapse of Reason – 8 September 1987.
    * Delicate Sound of Thunder – 22 November 1988.
    * The Division Bell – 30 March 1994.
    * P•U•L•S•E – 29 May 1995.

    For the full discography, see Pink Floyd discography.

Solo
Albums

    * David Gilmour – 25 May 1978
    * About Face – 27 March 1984
    * On an Island – 6 March 2006
    * Live in Gdańsk – 22 September 2008

Soundtracks

    * Fractals: The Colors of Infinity, Documentary - 1994

Singles

    * "There's No Way Out of Here", 1978
    * "Blue Light", March, 1984
    * "Love on the Air", May, 1984
    * "On an Island", 6 March 2006
    * "Smile", 13 June 2006
    * "Arnold Layne" (Live) 26 December 2006

Filmography

    * David Gilmour Live 1984 (VHS) – September 1984
    * David Gilmour in Concert (DVD) – October 2002
    * Remember That Night (DVD/BD) – September 2007
    * Live in Gdańsk (DVD) – September 2008

Collaborations and work for other artists
Year Artist Album / Work
1970 Syd Barrett The Madcap Laughs
Syd Barrett Barrett
Ron Geesin and Roger Waters "Give Birth to a Smile" on Music from The Body
1974 Unicorn Blue Pine Trees
1975 Roy Harper "The Game" from HQ
1978 Kate Bush Executive producer for two tracks in The Kick Inside
1979 Wings Back to the Egg
1980 Roy Harper "Playing Games", "You (The Game Part II)", "Old Faces", "Short and Sweet" and "True Story" credited to Harper/Gilmour from the album "The Unknown Soldier". Gilmour is credited as a musician on the album.
1982 Kate Bush Vocals on "Pull Out The Pin" in The Dreaming‎
1983 Atomic Rooster Headline news
1984 Paul McCartney No More Lonely Nights in Give My Regards to Broad Street
1985 Supertramp Brother Where You Bound
Bryan Ferry "Is Your Love Strong Enough?" in Legend
Bryan Ferry Boys and Girls
Bryan Ferry Live Aid (Played with Bryan Ferry's band)
Nick Mason and Rick Fenn "Lie for a Lie" (vocals) in Profiles
Pete Townshend "Give Blood" and "White City Fighting" in White City: A Novel "White City Fighting" credited to Townshend/Gilmour. Also performed live as Deep End.
Arcadia So Red the Rose
The Dream Academy Co-produced The Dream Academy‎
Roy Harper and Jimmy Page Whatever Happened to Jugula?,"Hope" credited to Harper/Gilmour.
1986 Berlin Count Three & Pray
Pete Townshend lead guitar in Pete Townshend's Deep End Live!
1987 Dalbello "Immaculate Eyes" in she
1988 Peter Cetera "You Never Listen To Me" in One More Story
Sam Brown Stop! Guitar on "This Feeling" and "I'll Be In Love"
1989 Kate Bush "Love and Anger" and "Rocket's Tail" in The Sensual World
Paul McCartney "We Got Married" in Flowers in the Dirt
Rock Aid Armenia Smoke on the Water in The Earthquake Album
Warren Zevon Transverse City
1990 Roy Harper "Once" in Once (w/Kate Bush on backing vocals)
Propaganda "Only one word" in 1234
Sam Brown April Moon, vocals on "Troubled Soul"
1991 All About Eve "Are You Lonely" and "Wishing the Hours Away" in Touched by Jesus
1992 Elton John "Understanding Women", in The One
Mica Paris I Put a Spell on You on Later With Jools Holland
1993 Paul Rodgers "Standing Around Crying" in Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute to Muddy Waters
1996 The Who Quadrophenia (1996 Hyde Park concert)
1997 B. B. King "Cryin' Won't Help You Babe" in Deuces Wild
1999 Paul McCartney Run Devil Run
2001 The Triumph of Love soundtrack Plays guitar over several chamber orchestra pieces
2003 Ringo Starr Ringo Rama
2004 Alan Parsons "Return to Tunguska" in A Valid Path
2005 Various artists "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)"
2006 Chris Jagger It's Amazing (What People Throw Away), in Act of Faith
Chris Jagger Junkman in Act of Faith
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm29/icarusxx7/DavidGilmour.jpg
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q144/Jen8153/gilmour.jpg
A few years back, I was walking down a road nears Lord's Cricket Ground (in London), when a complete stranger asked me "do I know where David Gilmour's house is?" Then I did not know, and now I still do not know.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/06/10 at 10:56 am


Pink Floyd still rocks.  :)

I'll give them their props, but I'm not into Pink Floyd

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/06/10 at 10:56 am


A few years back, I was walking down a road nears Lord's Cricket Ground (in London), when a complete stranger asked me "do I know where David Gilmour's house is?" Then I did not know, and now I still do not know.

Do you want to know?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/06/10 at 10:57 am


Pink Floyd still rocks.  :)
More like Grey Floyd ?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/06/10 at 10:57 am


Do you want to know?
Not really.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/06/10 at 10:59 am


I'll give them their props, but I'm not into Pink Floyd
What song from ANY decade are you currently listening to?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/06/10 at 11:01 am


What song from ANY decade are you currently listening to?
Which did not feature David Gilmour.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 03/06/10 at 12:44 pm


More like Grey Floyd ?



:D ;D ;D ;D


I LOVE Pink Floyd. Yeah, I know The Wall is overplayed but I still love it. I have the video of the movie plus I have a video of the all-star "Live At The Berlin Wall"


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0244296/


If you care to watch it on YouTube:


http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_playlists&search_query=live+at+the+berlin+wall&uni=1




Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 03/06/10 at 2:38 pm


More like Grey Floyd ?


A much better name.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: CatwomanofV on 03/06/10 at 2:47 pm

http://www.popartdiva.com/ProductImages/LARGES/Parodies/PinkFreud.jpg




Cat

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 03/06/10 at 4:52 pm


Pink Floyd still rocks.  :)

They do. One of the best bands ever.


:D ;D ;D ;D


I LOVE Pink Floyd. Yeah, I know The Wall is overplayed but I still love it. I have the video of the movie plus I have a video of the all-star "Live At The Berlin Wall"


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0244296/


If you care to watch it on YouTube:


http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_playlists&search_query=live+at+the+berlin+wall&uni=1




Cat

I was fortunate to see them in concert about 25 years ago, before they were grey. "Time" and "Comfortably numb" are still 2 of my all time favorite songs.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/07/10 at 5:51 am

The word or phrase of the day....Shattered Glass
I can't find a definition for it.
http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb311/agc727/shattered.jpg
http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt146/dark3y3/shattered-glass.jpg
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh266/shannonmolear/shattered%20glass/brokenglasswindows.jpg
http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q18/hails615/Funny/Cars/carmaserati-shattered-glass.jpg
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff250/Cherry_Blossom_Kiss/Photo5.jpg
http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh12/abbyrw08/martini.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/07/10 at 5:54 am

The person born on this day...Peter Sarsgaard
ohn Peter Sarsgaard (born March 7, 1971) is an American film and stage actor. He landed his first feature role in the movie Dead Man Walking in 1995. He then appeared in the independent films Another Day in Paradise (1995) and Desert Blue (1996). In 1998, Sarsgaard received a substantial role in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), playing Raoul, the son of Athos. Sarsgaard later achieved critical recognition when he was cast in Boys Don't Cry (1999) as John Lotter. He landed his first leading role in the 2001 film The Center of the World. The following year, he played supporting roles in Empire, The Salton Sea, and K-19: The Widowmaker.

For his portrayal of Charles Lane in Shattered Glass, Sarsgaard won the Online Film Critics Society Award in the category for Best Supporting Actor and was nominated for the 2004 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sarsgaard has appeared in an eclectic range of films, including the 2004 comedy Garden State, the biographical film Kinsey (2004), the drama The Dying Gaul (2005) and big-budget films such as Flightplan (2005), Jarhead (2005), and Orphan (2009).

Sarsgaard has also appeared in Off-Broadway productions including Kingdom of Earth, Laura Dennis, and Burn This. In September 2008, he made his Broadway debut as Boris Alexeyevich Trigorin in The Seagull. Sarsgaard appeared in the off-Broadway production of Uncle Vanya in January 2009. Sarsgaard has been in a relationship with actress Maggie Gyllenhaal since 2002. In 2006, the two became engaged and Gyllenhaal gave birth to their daughter, Ramona, on October 3, 2006. On May 2, 2009 Sarsgaard and Gyllenhaal were married in Italy.
Sarsgaard was born at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, where his father was an Air Force engineer and later worked for Monsanto Company and IBM. His family moved over twelve times during his childhood, following his father's job. At the age of seven, Sarsgaard originally wanted to become a soccer player, and took up ballet to help improve his coordination. After suffering several bad concussions while playing soccer, he gave up the sport and became interested in writing and theater.

Sarsgaard attended Fairfield Prep, a Jesuit boys' school in Connecticut, where he became interested in movies. Following his graduation from Fairfield Prep, he attended Bard College, in New York, for two years before transferring to Washington University in St. Louis in 1991, where he co-founded an improvisational comedy troupe "Mama's Pot Roast". While at Washington University, Sarsgaard began performing in plays in an offshoot of New York's Actors Studio; His first role was as the servant Lawrence in Molière's Tartuffe. In 1993, he graduated with a degree in history and moved to New York.
Career
Early work

Sarsgaard branched out with guest roles in television productions filmed in New York City, with Law & Order in 1995, and New York Undercover (1997) as well as an appearance in the 1997 HBO special Subway Stories. He appeared in his first film role in Dead Man Walking (1995), where he was cast as a murdered victim, killed by Sean Penn's character.

His next film roles were in a series of independent features: Another Day in Paradise (1997), part of an ensemble cast that included James Woods, Melanie Griffith, Vincent Kartheiser, and Natasha Gregson Wagner, and In Desert Blue (1998), where he had a supporting role in the film. He received his substantial role in the 1998 film The Man in the Iron Mask, where he played Raoul, the ill-fated son of John Malkovich's dueling Musketeer, Athos. The film uses characters from Alexandre Dumas' d'Artagnan Romances, and is very loosely adapted from some plot elements of The Vicomte de Bragelonne. The film received ambivalent reviews, but was a success at the box office, earning $182 million worldwide.
Critical success

In 1999, Sarsgaard earned critical recognition in Kimberly Peirce's Boys Don't Cry, where he was cast as John Lotter, a violent charismatic ex-convict. The film is based on the real-life story of Brandon Teena, a transman who was raped and murdered in 1993 by Lotter and Tom Nissen after they found out he had female genitalia. Boys Don’t Cry received overwhelmingly positive acclaim from critics. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly in his review of the film noted that Sarsgaard and co-star Brendan Sexton III are "ominously authentic as violent Midwestern sociopaths driven to annihilate what they can't control." In the Seattle Post-Intelligencer review: "It's a marvelous performance supported ably by ... Sarsgaard as the unpredictable, sociopathic Lotter." The film was screened at a special presentation at the 2000 Venice Film Festival. The film was ranked as one of "The 25 Most Dangerous Movies" by Premiere magazine. In regards to his character, as how Sarsgaard made him "likeable, sympathetic even" was because he wanted the audience "to understand why they would hang out with me. If my character wasn't necessarily likable, I wanted him to be charismatic enough that you weren't going to have a dull time if you were with him." In another interview, Sarsgaard said he felt "empowered" by playing John.

He later appeared in the 2001 film The Center of the World, his first leading role, where he plays Richard Longman, a lonely young entrepreneur, who skips out on his company's big initial public offering and pays a stripper (Molly Parker) $10,000 to fly to Las Vegas with him. Although the film was met with mixed reviews, A.O. Scott of the New York Times, reported that the performances by both Sarsgaard and Parker "provide a rough grain of authenticity, capturing the blunted affect and aimless neediness of people in their 20's struggling to navigate a world of material abundance and impoverished emotional possibility." Scott concluded with, "Mr. Sarsgaard ... makes Richard seem like a genuinely nice guy, too innocent to grasp the sleaziness of his bargain with Florence."

In 2002, Sarsgaard starred in three features, K-19: The Widowmaker, Empire and The Salton Sea. In K-19: The Widowmaker, he portrayed a young Russian sailor lieutenant. The film's budget cost was $100 million to make, but upon release, it grossed $35 million in the United States and $30 million internationally, qualifying it as a box office failure. His next role was in Empire, a crime thriller film, where he was cast in a supporting role. Sarsgaard played a meth addict in D. J. Caruso's The Salton Sea.
Worldwide recognition

2003 marked a significant turning point in Sarsgaard's career, when he starred in the feature film Shattered Glass. He depicted journalist Charles Lane, the lead editor of The New Republic. Shattered Glass is based on the real events of journalist Stephen Glass' career at the The New Republic during the mid-1990s and his fall when his widespread journalistic fraud is exposed. During promotion of the film, Sarsgaard noted of his portrayal of Lane: "I just wanted to get his perspective on the actual events. I think that I tried to have some respect for myself and that way you're respecting the real person you're playing. I've done it a number of times. And it's always a little bit confusing. The best thing to do is just to ignore the fact, I think, that you're playing somebody who is a real life character." According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, "Peter Sarsgaard is appealingly level, a stolid straight-shooter as Lane". A reviewer from the Chicago Tribune noted that Sarsgaard plays Lane with "great subtlety and grace". The newspaper concluded with, "The character doesn't seethe with personal resentment; when he does a slow burn, he conveys a much deeper sense of a man's value system being violated past the breaking point." Sarsgaard's performance in the film earned him the Best Supporting Actor award from the Online Film Critics Society, his first Golden Globe Award nomination and an Independent Spirit Award nomination.

Following the success of Shattered Glass, Sarsgaard starred in several roles. In 2004 he starred in the comedy-drama Garden State, where he played Mark, the sarcastic best friend to Zach Braff's character. In the same year, Sarsgaard portrayed Clyde Martin, in the biographical film Kinsey, a movie about the life of Alfred Kinsey, played by Liam Neeson. Kinsey was Sarsgaard's first film role which featured full frontal nudity. Paul Clinton of CNN reported that Sarsgaard's Clyde Martin "stands out" and "confirms that he's without doubt one of the best character actors of his generation." When asked about his kissing scenes with Neeson in Kinsey, Sarsgaard said:

    It wasn’t as hard as, say, running around with all my gear on in Jarhead. I’d rather go for an awkward moment than physical exertion any day. The only thing that I think get freaked out about when they have to do something like kiss a guy in a movie—when to their knowledge they’re straight—is that they’re afraid they’re going to be turned on. And if you’re not afraid that you’re going to be turned on—meaning that you know what you like—then really it’s not that hard.

In 2005, Sarsgaard starred in the drama The Dying Gaul, where he plays Robert Sandrich, a struggling screenwriter who has written a serious love story about a man and his terminally ill partner. The film garnered favorable reviews. In an interview, Sarsgaard said, he felt like he was playing a character based on Craig Lucas, the director, whom he describes as "elitist in a fun way". Because his character, a screenwriter, is also "elitist," when he sells his soul by compromising his artistic vision, "...the conflict seems bigger. Anyone can sell their soul. Even people with integrity. There's always that temptation to guard against. Which is why it's best to keep as much as possible hidden."

Also in 2005, he had a supporting role in the suspense film The Skeleton Key. His next film role was in Robert Schwentke's thriller Flightplan (2005). In the film, Sarsgaard played an air marshall, who is ordered to keep guard of Jodie Foster's character. Flightplan was screened at a special presentation at the 30th annual Toronto International Film Festival in 2005. Despite the mixed reviews, the film was a financial success, earning $223 million worldwide, making it his highest grossing film to the end of 2008. Sarsgaard's next feature was in Jarhead (2005) opposite Jake Gyllenhaal. The movie is based on U.S. Marine Anthony Swofford's 2003 Gulf War memoir of the same name.

Sarsgaard hosted Saturday Night Live (SNL) on January 21, 2006. In his introductory monologue, he tried to point out that he was a nice guy despite his sometimes macabre roles. Video clips were then played of Sarsgaard scaring the SNL cast. One sketch featured the Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) global scare, which was still fresh in many minds, and one of the skits included a promotion for the Peter Sarsgaard "SARS-Guard", a reference to the mania of facemasks worn in public by those fearing infection.
Sarsgaard attending the European premiere of The Dark Knight in 2008

In 2007, he starred in supporting roles in Year of the Dog and Rendition. Year of the Dog is a dark comedy about a lonely middle-aged woman, played by Molly Shannon, who finds that animals are the only beings she can truly rely on. Sarsgaard plays Newt, an androgynous dog trainer, and love interest for Shannon's character. He starred alongside Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin, Reese Witherspoon, and Jake Gyllenhaal in Rendition, a Gavin Hood-directed political thriller about the US policy of extraordinary rendition. Viewed as a sex symbol, Sarsgaard was named one of Salon.com's Sexiest Man Living in 2007. 2008 saw Sarsgaard star in the drama Elegy, based on a Phillip Roth novel, The Dying Animal. The film received favorable good reception amongst critics.

In 2009, Sarsgaard starred alongside Jon Foster and Sienna Miller in the drama The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. It is an adaptation of Michael Chabon's novel of the same name. In the movie, Sarsgaard plays Cleveland, the rebellious bisexual boyfriend of Miller's character. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. His next film appearance was in the thriller Orphan, where he and Vera Farmiga play a married couple who lose a baby and adopt a nine-year-old girl, who is not as innocent as she claims to be. Furthermore in the same year, Sarsgaard starred as David in Lone Scherfig's coming of age film An Education. The role required Sarsgaard to speak in a British accent. An Education drew favorable reviews from critics. According to Variety, "Sarsgaard ... marvelously expresses the savoir faire that has such an impact on Jenny ." Sarsgaard has signed on to appear as a federal agent in the film Knight & Day and will appear alongside Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. In February 2010, it was announced that Sarsgaard had been cast as villain Hector Hammond in the superhero film Green Lantern. The film is set for release in 2011.
Stage career

In 1995, Sarsgaard made his theatrical debut in the Off-Broadway production of Horton Foote's Laura Dennis, which was directed by James Houghton. Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote: "Mr. Sarsgaard ... emerges as an actor to watch with a performance of breathtaking emotional conviction." The following year he starred in Kingdom of Earth opposite Cynthia Nixon and directed by John Cameron Mitchell. His performance in the play received favorable reviews amongst critics. In October 2002, Sarsgaard returned to theater in a New York production of Lanford Wilson's Burn This, where he replaced Edward Norton.

In 2008, Sarsgaard made his Broadway debut at the Royal Court Theatre of Anton Chekhov's adaptation The Seagull alongside Kristin Scott Thomas, Mackenzie Crook and Carey Mulligan. In the production, he plays, Boris Alexeyevich Trigorin, a tortured writer who drives a rival to suicide and a young lover to ruin. For the role, Sarsgaard had been required to speak in a British accent, in which he wanted it to be "less liked by an American audience".

Sarsgaard played Mikhail Lvovich Astrov, a country doctor and philosopher, in the Classic Stage Company's 2009 off-Broadway production of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya in New York City. The cast also included Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mamie Gummer, Denis O'Hare, and George Morfogen. 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 gave the production one out of four stars, but complimented his performance, writing that Sarsgaard does a "credible job as the doctor". In the Bloomberg review of Uncle Vanya, John Simon, wrote: "Sarsgaard can't find the right tempi or emphases: shuttling between colorless rattle and silence-studded rallentandos, he fails at both infectious enthusiasm and self- effacing charm."
Personal life
Sarsgaard and Maggie Gyllenhaal at the New York premiere of An Education in October 2009.

Sarsgaard was raised Catholic and served as an altar boy. In an interview with the New York Times, when asked if he still had Catholic faith, Sarsgaard said: "I like the death-cult aspect of Catholicism. Every religion is interested in death, but Catholicism takes it to a particularly high level. Seriously, in Catholicism, you're supposed to love your enemy. That really impressed me as a kid, and it has helped me as an actor. The way that I view the characters I play is part of my religious upbringing. To abandon curiosity in all personalities, good or bad, is to give up hope in humanity."

Among his most notable romantic relationships, Sarsgaard dated burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese and model/actress Shalom Harlow. Early in his film career, he dated and lived with photographer Malerie Marder, a close friend from his days attending Bard College, who had featured Sarsgaard in some of her early work. Sarsgaard has been in a relationship with actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, and is a close friend of her brother Jake Gyllenhaal, since 2002. In April 2006 they announced their engagement. They have a daughter Ramona, born October 3, 2006, and live in Brooklyn, New York. On May 2, 2009, they married in a small ceremony in Italy.
Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1995 Dead Man Walking Walter Delacroix
1997 Subway Stories: Tales from the Underground Boy #1 TV
1998 Minor Details Scott
The Man in the Iron Mask Raoul
Desert Blue Billy Baxter
Another Day in Paradise Ty
1999 Freak City Cal Jackson TV
Boys Don't Cry John Lotter
2000 The Cell Julia Hickson's Fiancee Uncredited
Housebound Tom
2001 The Center of the World Richard Longman
Bacon Wagon Cowboy Zombie Victim
2002 Empire Jack
The Salton Sea Jimmy the Finn
K-19: The Widowmaker LT Vadim Radchenko
Unconditional Love Window Washer
2003 Death of a Dynasty Brendon III
Shattered Glass Charles 'Chuck' Lane Golden Globe nomination
2004 Garden State Mark
Kinsey Clyde Martin
2005 The Dying Gaul Robert Sandrich
The Skeleton Key Luke
Flightplan Gene Carson
Jarhead Cpl. Alan Troy
Statler and Waldorf: From the Balcony himself guest appearance in episode 8
2007 Year of the Dog Newt
Rendition Alan Smith
2008 Elegy Kenneth Kepesh
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh Cleveland Arning
2009 An Education David
In the Electric Mist Elrod Sykes
Orphan John Coleman
2010 Knight & Day Fitzgerald forthcoming film
2011 Green Lantern Dr. Hector Hammond pre-production
Awards
Year Award Category Film Result
2000 St. Louis International Film Festival Emerging Actor Award Won
2003 Boston Society of Film Critics Awards Best Supporting Actor Shattered Glass Won
San Francisco Film Critics Circle Best Supporting Actor Won
Toronto Film Critics Association Awards Best Supporting Performance - Male Won
2004 Chlotrudis Awards Best Supporting Actor Nominated
Independent Spirit Awards Best Supporting Male Nominated
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards Best Supporting Actor Won
Las Palmas Film Festival Best Actor Won
National Society of Film Critics Awards Best Supporting Actor Won
Online Film Critics Society Awards Best Supporting Actor Won
San Francisco Film Critics Circle Best Supporting Actor Won
Golden Globes Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture Nominated
Stockholm International Film Festival Best Actor Garden State Won
2005 Satellite Awards Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Comedy or Musical Nominated
Outstanding Actor in a Supporting Role, Drama Jarhead Nominated
Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Drama Kinsey Nominated
Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards Best Supporting Actor Nominated
Chlotrudis Awards Best Supporting Actor Won
Glitter Awards Best Supporting Actor Won
Independent Spirit Awards Best Supporting Male Nominated
Online Film Critics Society Awards Best Supporting Actor Nominated
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards Best Supporting Actor Jarhead Nominated
2010 Screen Actors Guild Awards Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture An Education Nominated
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d33/xxxxicexxxx/peter%20sarsgaard/1430424_10.jpg
http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n173/linzzer220/montages/petershottness.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/07/10 at 5:59 am


The word or phrase of the day....Shattered Glass
I can't find a definition for it.
http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb311/agc727/shattered.jpg
http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt146/dark3y3/shattered-glass.jpg
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh266/shannonmolear/shattered%20glass/brokenglasswindows.jpg
http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q18/hails615/Funny/Cars/carmaserati-shattered-glass.jpg
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff250/Cherry_Blossom_Kiss/Photo5.jpg
http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh12/abbyrw08/martini.jpg
Let me think!

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/07/10 at 6:19 am


The word or phrase of the day....Shattered Glass
I can't find a definition for it.
Glass that has been shattered ?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/07/10 at 6:20 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6gqNCiK-Fw

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/07/10 at 6:28 am

The person who died on this day...Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick (July 26, 1928–March 7, 1999) was an American director, writer, producer, and photographer of films, who lived in England during most of the last 40 years of his career. Kubrick was noted for the scrupulous care with which he chose his subjects, his slow method of working, the variety of genres he worked in, his technical perfectionism and his reclusiveness about his films and personal life. He worked far beyond the confines of the Hollywood system, maintaining almost complete artistic control and making movies according to the whims and time constraints of no one but himself, but with the rare advantage of big-studio financial support for all his endeavors. Oscar nominated on several occasions as screenwriter and director, his only personal win was for the special effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Kubrick is widely acknowledged as one of the most accomplished, innovative and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. He directed a number of highly acclaimed and often controversial films that have often been perceived as a reflection of his obsessive and perfectionist nature. His films are characterized by a formal visual style and meticulous attention to detail – his later films often have elements of surrealism and expressionism eschewing structured linear narrative. While often viewed as expressing an ironic pessimism, a few critics feel his films contain a cautious optimism when viewed more carefully. His works are noted as some of the "most original, provocative, and visionary motion pictures ever made".
Upon his return to the United States, Kubrick worked for six months on the Marlon Brando vehicle One-Eyed Jacks (1961). The two clashed over a number of casting decisions, and Brando eventually fired him and decided to direct the picture himself. Kubrick worked on a number of unproduced screenplays, including Lunatic at Large, which Kubrick intended to develop into a movie", until Kirk Douglas asked him to take over Douglas' epic production Spartacus (1960) from Anthony Mann, who had been fired by the studio two weeks into shooting.

Based upon the true story of a doomed uprising of Roman slaves, Spartacus was a difficult production. Creative differences arose between Kubrick and Douglas, and the two reportedly had a stormy working relationship. Frustrated by his lack of creative control, Kubrick later largely disowned the film, which further angered Douglas. The friendship the two men had formed on Paths of Glory was destroyed by the experience of making the film. Years later, Douglas referred to Kubrick as "a talented sheesh."

Despite the on-set troubles, Spartacus was a critical and commercial success and established Kubrick as a major director. However, its embattled production convinced Kubrick to find ways of working with Hollywood financing while remaining independent of its production system, which he called "film by fiat, film by frenzy."

Spartacus is the only Stanley Kubrick film in which Kubrick had no hand in the screenplay, no final cut, no producing credit, nor any say in the casting. It is largely Kirk Douglas' project.

Spartacus would go on to win 4 Oscars with one going to Peter Ustinov, for his turn as slave dealer Batiatus, the only actor to win one under Kubrick's direction.

In 1962, Kubrick moved to England to film Lolita, and he would live there for the rest of his life. The original motivation was to film Lolita in a country with laxer censorship laws. However, Kubrick had to remain in England to film Dr. Strangelove since Peter Sellers was not permitted to leave England at the time as he was involved in divorce proceedings, and the filming of 2001: A Space Odyssey required the large capacity of the sound stages of Shepperton studios, which were not available in America. It was after filming the first two of these films in England and in the early planning stages of 2001 that Kubrick decided to settle in England permanently.
Lolita was one of most controversial novels of the century, given its theme. Here, Lolita kisses her stepfather Humbert goodnight while he plays chess with her mother (Shelley Winters). Any kind of overt sexual content had to be toned down significantly for Kubrick's film adaptation, and most of the sexual acts between its title character and Humbert are only hinted at.

Lolita was the first of two times Kubrick worked with British comic actor Peter Sellers, the second being Dr. Strangelove (1964). Sellers' role is that of Clare Quilty, a second older man unknown to Humbert who is involved with Lolita, serving dramatically as Humbert's darker doppelganger. In the novel, Quilty is behind the scenes for most of the story, but Kubrick brings him to the foreground, which resulted in an expansion of his role (even then running to only about half an hour's screen time). Kubrick adds the dramatic device of Quilty's pretending to be multiple characters, allowing Sellers to employ his gift for mock accents.

Critical reception of the film was mixed; many praised it for its daring subject matter, while others were surprised by the lack of intimacy between Lolita and Humbert. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, and Sue Lyon, who played the title role, won a Golden Globe for Best Newcomer.

Film critic Gene Youngblood holds that stylistically Lolita is a transitional film for Kubrick, "marking the turning point from a naturalistic cinema...to the surrealism of the later films."
Many viewers of Dr. Strangelove did not initially realize that Kubrick had cast Peter Sellers in three roles, all with distinctively different appearances and accents.

Kubrick's next film, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), became a cult film and is now considered a classic. Roger Ebert has written that it is the best satirical film ever made. The screenplay—based upon the novel Red Alert, by ex-RAF flight lieutenant Peter George (writing as Peter Bryant)—was cowritten by Kubrick and George, with contributions by American satirist Terry Southern. Red Alert is a serious, cautionary tale of accidental atomic war. However, Kubrick found the conditions leading to nuclear war so absurd that the story became a sinister macabre comedy. Once so reconceived, Kubrick recruited Terry Southern to polish the final screenplay.

The story centers on an American nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, initiated by renegade U.S.A.F. Gen. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden; the character's name is a reference to Jack the Ripper) without official authorization. When Ripper gives his orders, the bombers are all at fail-safe points, before which passing they cannot arm their warheads, and past which, they cannot proceed without direct orders. Once past this point, the planes will only return with a prearranged recall code. The film intercuts between three locales: 1) Ripper's air force base, where RAF Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Sellers) tries to stop the mad Gen. Ripper by obtaining the codes; 2) the Pentagon War Room, where the President of the United States (Sellers) and U.S.A.F. Gen. Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) try to develop a strategy with the Soviets to stop Gen. Ripper's B-52 bombers from dropping nuclear bombs on Russia; and 3) Major Kong's (Slim Pickens) B-52 bomber, where he and his crew of airmen (never knowing their orders are false) doggedly try to complete their mission. It soon becomes clear that the bombers may reach Russia, since only Gen. Ripper knows the recall codes. At this point, the character of Dr. Strangelove (Sellers' third role) is introduced. His Nazi-style plans for ensuring the survival of the fittest of the human race in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust are the black-comedy highlight of the film.

Peter Sellers, who had played a small but pivotal part in Lolita, was hired to play four roles in Dr. Strangelove. He eventually played three, due to an injured leg and his difficulty in mastering bomber pilot Major "King" Kong's Texas accent. Kubrick later called Sellers "amazing", but lamented the fact that the actor's manic energy rarely lasted beyond two or three takes. To overcome this problem, Kubrick ran two cameras simultaneously and let Sellers improvise.

The film prefigured the antiwar sentiments which would become explosive only a few years after its release. It was highly irreverent toward war policies of the U.S., which were largely considered sacrosanct up to that time. Eight months after the release of Strangelove, the straight thriller Fail-Safe with a plot remarkably similar to that of Dr. Strangelove was released. The film earned four Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture and Best Director) and the New York Film Critics' Best Director award.
2001 is the first of many Kubrick films to use an all-classical score. Kubrick's famed opening shot of the Sun, Earth and Moon is one of several accompanied by Richard Strauss's majestic fanfarelike Also sprach Zarathustra. Space flight is accompanied by Johann Strauss's graceful The Blue Danube, and all appearances of the monolith are accompanied by the unearthly modernistic Requiem by György Ligeti.

Kubrick spent five years developing his next film, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The film was conceived as a Cinerama spectacle and was photographed in Super Panavision 70. Kubrick cowrote the screenplay with science fiction writer Sir Arthur C. Clarke, expanding on Clarke's short story "The Sentinel." Kubrick reportedly told Clarke that his intention was to make "the proverbial great science fiction film."

2001 begins four million years ago with an encounter between a group of apes and a mysterious black monolith, which seems to trigger in them the ability to use a bone as both a tool and a weapon. Used as the latter allows them to claim a water hole from another group of apes, who have no tool-wielding ability. A victorious ape tosses his bone into the air, at which point the film makes a celebrated jump cut to an orbiting weapons satellite, circa 2000. At this time, a group of Americans at their moon base have dug up a similar monolith. Geological evidence indicates that it was deliberately buried four million years ago. When the sun rises over the monolith, it sends a radio signal to Jupiter. Eighteen months later, the U.S. sends a group of astronauts aboard the spaceship Discovery on a mission to Jupiter, the purpose of which is to investigate the monolith's signal, although this is concealed from the crew. During the flight, the ship's sentient HAL 9000 computer malfunctions but resists disconnection, believing its control of the mission to be crucial. The computer terminates life support for most of the crew before it is successfully shut down. The surviving astronaut, David Bowman (Keir Dullea), in a tiny space pod, encounters another monolith in orbit around Jupiter, whereupon he is hurled into a portal in space at high speed, witnessing many astronomical phenomena. His interstellar journey concludes with his transformation into a mysterious new being resembling a fetus enclosed in an orb of light, last seen gazing at Earth from space.

The $10,000,000 (U.S.) film was a massive production for its time. The groundbreaking visual effects were overseen by Kubrick and were engineered by a team that included a young Douglas Trumbull, who would become famous in his own right for his work on the films Silent Running and Blade Runner. Kubrick extensively used traveling matte photography to film space flight, a technique also used nine years later by George Lucas in making Star Wars, although that film also used motion-control effects that were unavailable to Kubrick at the time. Kubrick made innovative use of slit-scan photography to film the Stargate sequence. The film's striking cinematography was the work of legendary British director of photography Geoffrey Unsworth, who would later photograph classic films such as Cabaret and Superman. Manufacturing companies were consulted as to what the design of both special-purpose and everyday objects would look like in the future. At the time of the movie's release, Arthur C. Clarke predicted that a generation of engineers would design real spacecraft based upon 2001 "…even if it isn't the best way to do it." The film also is a rare instance of portraying space travel realistically, with complete silence in the vacuum of space and a realistic representation of weightlessness.

The film is famous for using classical music in place of an original score. Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra and Johann Strauss's The Blue Danube waltz became for a while indelibly associated with the film, especially the former, as it was not well-known to the public prior to the film. Kubrick also used music by contemporary avant-garde Hungarian composer György Ligeti, although some of the pieces were altered without Ligeti's consent. The appearance of Atmospheres, Lux Aeterna, and Requiem on the 2001 soundtrack was the first wide commercial exposure of Ligeti's work. This use of "program" music was not originally planned. Kubrick had commissioned composer Alex North to write a full-length score for the film, but Kubrick became so attached to the temporary soundtrack he had constructed during editing that he dropped the idea of an original score entirely.

Although it eventually became an enormous success, the film was not an immediate hit. Initial critical reaction was extremely hostile, with critics attacking the film's lack of dialogue, slow pacing, and seemingly impenetrable storyline. One of the film's few defenders was Penelope Gilliatt, who called it (in The New Yorker) "some kind of a great film". Word of mouth among young audiences—especially the 1960s counterculture audience, who loved the movie's "Star Gate" sequence, a seemingly psychedelic journey to the infinite reaches of the cosmos—made the film a hit. Despite nominations in the directing, writing, and producing categories, the only Academy Award Kubrick ever received was for supervising the special effects of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Today, however, many consider it the greatest sci-fi film ever made, and it is a staple on Top 10 lists of all-time.

Artistically, 2001 was a radical departure from Kubrick's previous films. It contains only 45 minutes of spoken dialogue, over a running time of two hours and twenty minutes. The fairly mundane dialogue is mostly superfluous to the images and music. The film's most memorable dialogue belongs to the computer HAL in HAL's exchanges with Dave Bowman. Some argue that Kubrick is portraying a future humanity largely dissociated from its environment. The film's ambiguous, perplexing ending continues to fascinate contemporary audiences and critics. After this film, Kubrick would never experiment so radically with special effects or narrative form, but his subsequent films maintain some level of ambiguity.

Interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey are numerous and diverse. Despite having been released in 1968, it still prompts debate today. When critic Joseph Gelmis asked Kubrick about the meaning of the film, Kubrick replied:

   They are the areas I prefer not to discuss, because they are highly subjective and will differ from viewer to viewer. In this sense, the film becomes anything the viewer sees in it. If the film stirs the emotions and penetrates the subconscious of the viewer, if it stimulates, however inchoately, his mythological and religious yearnings and impulses, then it has succeeded.

2001: A Space Odyssey is perhaps Kubrick's most famous and influential film. Steven Spielberg called it his generation's big bang, focusing attention upon the space race. It was a precursor to the explosion of the science fiction film market nine years later, which began with the release of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
1970s: A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon
In A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick continued his innovative use of classical music begun in 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, instead of accompanying graceful space flight, the music accompanied violence and rape. The slow-motion fight scene about to commence is choreographed to Rossini's overture to "The Thieving Magpie."

After 2001, Kubrick initially attempted to make a film about the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. When financing fell through, Kubrick went looking for a project that he could film quickly on a small budget. He eventually settled on A Clockwork Orange (1971). His adaptation of Anthony Burgess' novel is a dark, shocking exploration of violence in human society. The film was initially released with an X rating in the United States and caused considerable controversy. The film's iconic poster imagery was created by legendary designer Bill Gold.

The story takes place in a futuristic version of Great Britain that is both authoritarian and chaotic. The central character is a teenage hooligan named Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell), who, along with his companion "droogs", gleefully torments, beats, robs, tortures, and rapes without conscience or remorse. His brutal beating and murder of an older woman finally lands Alex in prison. Alex undergoes an experimental medical aversion treatment, known as the Ludovico Technique, that inhibits his violent tendencies, though he has no real free moral choice. At the public demonstration of the success of the technique, Alex is treated cruelly but does not fight back; the treatment has made him less than human. He has been conditioned against classical music, his love of which was his one human feature, and apparently all of his sex drive is gone. We further see hints that the promotion of the treatment is politically motivated. After being freed, he is found by his former partners in crime who had betrayed him and who are now policemen, and they beat him mercilessly.

He then comes to the home of a political writer who disdains "the modern age" and is initially sympathetic to Alex's plight until he recognizes Alex as the young man who brutally raped his wife and paralyzed him a few years before. Alex then becomes a pawn in a political game.

The society was sometimes perceived as Communist (as Michel Ciment pointed out in an interview with Kubrick, although he himself didn't feel that way) due to its slight ties to Russian culture. The teenage slang has a heavily Russian vocabulary, which can be attributed to Burgess. There is some evidence to suggest that the society is a socialist one, or at least a society moving out of a failed, Leftist socialism and into a Rightist or fascist society. In the novel, streets have paintings of working men in the style of Russian socialist art, and in the film, there is a mural of socialist artwork with obscenities drawn on it. As well, Alex's residence was shot on actual failed Labour Party architecture (as Malcolm McDowell points out on the DVD commentary), and the name "Municipal Flat Block 18A, Linear North" alludes to socialist-style housing. Later in the film, when the new right-wing government takes power, the atmosphere is certainly more authoritarian than the anarchist air of the beginning. Kubrick's response to Ciment's question remained ambiguous as to exactly what kind of society it is. He held that the film held comparisons between both the left and right end of the political spectrum and that there is little difference between the two. Kubrick stated, "The Minister, played by Anthony Sharp, is clearly a figure of the Right. The writer, Patrick Magee, is a lunatic of the Left. ...They differ only in their dogma. Their means and ends are hardly distinguishable."

Kubrick photographed A Clockwork Orange quickly and almost entirely on location in and around London. Despite the low-tech nature of the film as compared to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick showed his talent for innovation; at one point, he threw "an old Newman Sinclair clockwork mechanism camera" off a rooftop in order to achieve the effect he wanted. For the score, Kubrick enlisted electronic music composer Wendy Carlos—at the time, known as Walter Carlos (Switched-On Bach)—to adapt famous classical works (such as Beethoven's Ninth Symphony) for the Moog synthesizer.

It is pivotal to the plot that the lead character, Alex, is fond of classical music, and that the brainwashing Ludovico treatment accidentally conditions him against classical music. As such, it was natural for Kubrick to continue the tradition begun in 2001: A Space Odyssey of using a great deal of classical music in the score. However, in this film, classical music accompanies scenes of violent mayhem and coercive sexuality rather than of graceful space flight and mysterious alien presences. Both Pauline Kael (who generally disliked Kubrick) and Roger Ebert (who often praises Kubrick) found Kubrick's use of juxtaposing classical music and violence in this film unpleasant, Ebert calling it a "cute, cheap, dead-end dimension," and Kael, "self-important." Burgess, in his introduction to his own stage adaptation of the novel, held that ultimately, classical music is what will finally redeem Alex.

The film was extremely controversial because of its explicit depiction of teenage gang rape and violence. It was released in the same year as Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs and Don Siegel's Dirty Harry, and the three films sparked a ferocious debate in the media about the social effects of cinematic violence. The controversy was exacerbated when copycat crimes were committed in England by criminals wearing the same costumes as characters in A Clockwork Orange. British readers of the novel noted that Kubrick had omitted the final chapter (also omitted from American editions of the book) in which Alex finds redemption and sanity.

After receiving death threats to himself and his family as a result of the controversy, Kubrick took the unusual step of removing the film from circulation in Britain. It was unavailable in the United Kingdom until its re-release in 2000, a year after Kubrick's death, although it could be seen in continental Europe. The Scala cinema in London's Kings Cross showed the film in the early 1990s, and at Kubrick's insistence, the cinema was sued and put out of business, thus depriving London of one of its very few independent cinemas. It is now the Scala club. In early 1973, Kubrick re-released A Clockwork Orange to cinemas in the United States with footage modified so that it could get its rating reduced to an R. This enabled many more newspapers to advertise it, since in 1972 many newspapers had stopped carrying any advertising for X-rated films due to the new association of that rating with pornography.

Reviewers such as Pauline Kael, who had been critical of Kubrick's previous work, found Barry Lyndon a cold, slow-moving, and lifeless film. Its measured pace and length—more than three hours—put off many American critics and audiences, although it received positive reviews from Rex Reed and Richard Schickel. Time magazine published a cover story about the film, and Kubrick was nominated for three Academy Awards. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four, more than any other Kubrick film. Despite this, Barry Lyndon was not a box office success in the U.S., although the film found a great audience in Europe, particularly in France.

As with most of Kubrick's films, Barry Lyndon's reputation has grown through the years, particularly among other filmmakers. Director Martin Scorsese has cited it as his favorite Kubrick film. Steven Spielberg has praised its "impeccable technique", though, when younger, he famously described it "like going through the Prado without lunch."

As in his other films, Kubrick's cinematography and lighting techniques were highly innovative. Most famously, interior scenes were shot with a specially adapted high-speed f/0.7 Zeiss camera lens originally developed for NASA. This allowed many scenes to be lit only with candlelight, creating two-dimensional diffused-light images reminiscent of 18th-century paintings.

Like its two predecessors, the film does not have an original score. Irish traditional songs (performed by The Chieftains) are combined with works such as Antonio Vivaldi's Cello Concerto in B, a Johann Sebastian Bach Double Concerto, George Frideric Handel's Sarabande from the Keyboard Suite in D minor (HWV 448, HG II/ii/4), and Franz Schubert's German Dance No. 1 in C major, Piano Trio No. 2 in E flat, and Impromptu No. 1 in C minor. The music was conducted and adapted by Leonard Rosenman, for which he won an Oscar.

The pace of Kubrick's work slowed considerably after Barry Lyndon, and he did not make another film for five years. The Shining, released in 1980, was adapted from the novel of the same name by bestselling horror writer Stephen King. The film starred Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance, a failed writer who takes a job as an off-season caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, a high-class resort deep in the Colorado mountains. The job requires spending the winter in the isolated hotel with his wife, Wendy (played by Shelley Duvall) and their young son, Danny, who is gifted with a form of telepathy—the "shining" of the film's title.

As winter takes hold, the family's isolation deepens, and the demons and ghosts of the Overlook Hotel's dark past begin to awake. The hotel displays increasingly horrible, phantasmagoric images to Danny. Meanwhile, Jack is slowly driven mad by the haunted surroundings until he finally collapses into homicidal psychosis.
Documentary short films

   * Day of the Fight (1951)
   * Flying Padre (1951)
   * The Seafarers (1953)

Feature films

Year Title Awards
1953 Fear and Desire
1955 Killer's Kiss
1956 The Killing Nominated for BAFTA Award: Best Film from Any Source
1957 Paths of Glory Nominated for BAFTA Award: Best Film from Any Source
1960 Spartacus Nominated for 6 Oscars, Won 4: Best Supporting Actor, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Editing, Best Original Score
Nominated for 6 Golden Globes, Won 1: Best Drama Picture, Best Drama Actor, Best Director, Best Original Score, Best Supporting Actor
Nominated for BAFTA Award: Best Film from Any Source
1962 Lolita Nominated for Oscar: Best Adapted Screenplay
Nominated for 5 Golden Globes, Won 1: Most Promising Newcomer – Female, Best Drama Actor, Best Drama Actress, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor
Nominated for BAFTA Award: Best Actor
1964 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Nominated for 4 Oscars:Best Actor, Best Director, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay
Nominated for 6 BAFTA Awards, Won 3: Best British Art Direction, Best British Film, Best Film from any Source, Best British Actor, Best British Screenplay, Best Foreign Actor
1968 2001: A Space Odyssey Nominated for 4 Oscars, Won 1 : Best Special Effects, Best Director, Best Art Direction, Best Original Screenplay
Nominated for 4 BAFTA Awards, Won 3: Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Track, Best Film
1971 A Clockwork Orange Nominated for 4 Oscars: Best Director, Best Editing, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay
Nominated for 3 Golden Globes: Best Director, Best Drama Picture, Best Drama Actor
Nominated for 7 BAFTA Awards: Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Direction, Best Film, Best Film Editing, Best Screenplay, Best Sound Track
Won 2 recognitions by The New York Film Critics: Best Director, Best Picture
1975 Barry Lyndon Nominated for 7 Oscars, Won 4: Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Original Song Score and/or Adaptation, Best Director, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay
Nominated for 2 Golden Globes: Best Director, Best Drama Picture
Nominated for 5 BAFTA Awards, Won 2: Best Cinematography, Best Direction, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Film
1980 The Shining
1987 Full Metal Jacket Nominated for Oscar: Best Adapted Screenplay
Nominated for Golden Globe: Best Supporting Actor
Nominated for 2 BAFTA Awards: Best Sound, Best Special Effects
1999 Eyes Wide Shut Nominated for Golden Globe: Best Original Score

This chart is limited to the Oscars, Golden Globes, and BAFTAs.

Kubrick has also been nominated for and won awards from various societies of film critics, film festivals, and both the Writers Guild of America and the Directors Guild of America.

In the science fiction world, Kubrick has three times won the especially coveted Hugo Award, a prized mainly for print writing and only secondarily for drama production. He also received four nominations (with one win) of the sci-fi-film-oriented Saturn awards from the Academy of Science Fiction for The Shining, an award that did not exist when Kubrick won his three Hugos.

The least honored of Kubrick's films since 1956's The Killing is 1980's The Shining, which garnered only the above-mentioned four nominations (with one win) for Saturn awards. In addition, The Shining is the only Stanley Kubrick film ever to be nominated for any of the notorious Razzies for worst film element. It was nominated for two.
http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa95/pauerboys/stanley_kubrick.jpg
http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg131/malasuerte_bucket/stanley_kubrick.jpg


* please note there is a lot more about Stanley Kubrick in Wikipedia*

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/07/10 at 6:29 am


Glass that has been shattered ?

I was going to say that, but thought better of it :-\\

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/07/10 at 6:31 am


The person who died on this day...Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick (July 26, 1928–March 7, 1999) was an American director, writer, producer, and photographer of films, who lived in England during most of the last 40 years of his career. Kubrick was noted for the scrupulous care with which he chose his subjects, his slow method of working, the variety of genres he worked in, his technical perfectionism and his reclusiveness about his films and personal life. He worked far beyond the confines of the Hollywood system, maintaining almost complete artistic control and making movies according to the whims and time constraints of no one but himself, but with the rare advantage of big-studio financial support for all his endeavors. Oscar nominated on several occasions as screenwriter and director, his only personal win was for the special effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Kubrick is widely acknowledged as one of the most accomplished, innovative and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. He directed a number of highly acclaimed and often controversial films that have often been perceived as a reflection of his obsessive and perfectionist nature. His films are characterized by a formal visual style and meticulous attention to detail – his later films often have elements of surrealism and expressionism eschewing structured linear narrative. While often viewed as expressing an ironic pessimism, a few critics feel his films contain a cautious optimism when viewed more carefully. His works are noted as some of the "most original, provocative, and visionary motion pictures ever made".
Upon his return to the United States, Kubrick worked for six months on the Marlon Brando vehicle One-Eyed Jacks (1961). The two clashed over a number of casting decisions, and Brando eventually fired him and decided to direct the picture himself. Kubrick worked on a number of unproduced screenplays, including Lunatic at Large, which Kubrick intended to develop into a movie", until Kirk Douglas asked him to take over Douglas' epic production Spartacus (1960) from Anthony Mann, who had been fired by the studio two weeks into shooting.

Based upon the true story of a doomed uprising of Roman slaves, Spartacus was a difficult production. Creative differences arose between Kubrick and Douglas, and the two reportedly had a stormy working relationship. Frustrated by his lack of creative control, Kubrick later largely disowned the film, which further angered Douglas. The friendship the two men had formed on Paths of Glory was destroyed by the experience of making the film. Years later, Douglas referred to Kubrick as "a talented sheesh."

Despite the on-set troubles, Spartacus was a critical and commercial success and established Kubrick as a major director. However, its embattled production convinced Kubrick to find ways of working with Hollywood financing while remaining independent of its production system, which he called "film by fiat, film by frenzy."

Spartacus is the only Stanley Kubrick film in which Kubrick had no hand in the screenplay, no final cut, no producing credit, nor any say in the casting. It is largely Kirk Douglas' project.

Spartacus would go on to win 4 Oscars with one going to Peter Ustinov, for his turn as slave dealer Batiatus, the only actor to win one under Kubrick's direction.

In 1962, Kubrick moved to England to film Lolita, and he would live there for the rest of his life. The original motivation was to film Lolita in a country with laxer censorship laws. However, Kubrick had to remain in England to film Dr. Strangelove since Peter Sellers was not permitted to leave England at the time as he was involved in divorce proceedings, and the filming of 2001: A Space Odyssey required the large capacity of the sound stages of Shepperton studios, which were not available in America. It was after filming the first two of these films in England and in the early planning stages of 2001 that Kubrick decided to settle in England permanently.
Lolita was one of most controversial novels of the century, given its theme. Here, Lolita kisses her stepfather Humbert goodnight while he plays chess with her mother (Shelley Winters). Any kind of overt sexual content had to be toned down significantly for Kubrick's film adaptation, and most of the sexual acts between its title character and Humbert are only hinted at.

Lolita was the first of two times Kubrick worked with British comic actor Peter Sellers, the second being Dr. Strangelove (1964). Sellers' role is that of Clare Quilty, a second older man unknown to Humbert who is involved with Lolita, serving dramatically as Humbert's darker doppelganger. In the novel, Quilty is behind the scenes for most of the story, but Kubrick brings him to the foreground, which resulted in an expansion of his role (even then running to only about half an hour's screen time). Kubrick adds the dramatic device of Quilty's pretending to be multiple characters, allowing Sellers to employ his gift for mock accents.

Critical reception of the film was mixed; many praised it for its daring subject matter, while others were surprised by the lack of intimacy between Lolita and Humbert. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, and Sue Lyon, who played the title role, won a Golden Globe for Best Newcomer.

Film critic Gene Youngblood holds that stylistically Lolita is a transitional film for Kubrick, "marking the turning point from a naturalistic cinema...to the surrealism of the later films."
Many viewers of Dr. Strangelove did not initially realize that Kubrick had cast Peter Sellers in three roles, all with distinctively different appearances and accents.

Kubrick's next film, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), became a cult film and is now considered a classic. Roger Ebert has written that it is the best satirical film ever made. The screenplay—based upon the novel Red Alert, by ex-RAF flight lieutenant Peter George (writing as Peter Bryant)—was cowritten by Kubrick and George, with contributions by American satirist Terry Southern. Red Alert is a serious, cautionary tale of accidental atomic war. However, Kubrick found the conditions leading to nuclear war so absurd that the story became a sinister macabre comedy. Once so reconceived, Kubrick recruited Terry Southern to polish the final screenplay.

The story centers on an American nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, initiated by renegade U.S.A.F. Gen. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden; the character's name is a reference to Jack the Ripper) without official authorization. When Ripper gives his orders, the bombers are all at fail-safe points, before which passing they cannot arm their warheads, and past which, they cannot proceed without direct orders. Once past this point, the planes will only return with a prearranged recall code. The film intercuts between three locales: 1) Ripper's air force base, where RAF Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Sellers) tries to stop the mad Gen. Ripper by obtaining the codes; 2) the Pentagon War Room, where the President of the United States (Sellers) and U.S.A.F. Gen. Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) try to develop a strategy with the Soviets to stop Gen. Ripper's B-52 bombers from dropping nuclear bombs on Russia; and 3) Major Kong's (Slim Pickens) B-52 bomber, where he and his crew of airmen (never knowing their orders are false) doggedly try to complete their mission. It soon becomes clear that the bombers may reach Russia, since only Gen. Ripper knows the recall codes. At this point, the character of Dr. Strangelove (Sellers' third role) is introduced. His Nazi-style plans for ensuring the survival of the fittest of the human race in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust are the black-comedy highlight of the film.

Peter Sellers, who had played a small but pivotal part in Lolita, was hired to play four roles in Dr. Strangelove. He eventually played three, due to an injured leg and his difficulty in mastering bomber pilot Major "King" Kong's Texas accent. Kubrick later called Sellers "amazing", but lamented the fact that the actor's manic energy rarely lasted beyond two or three takes. To overcome this problem, Kubrick ran two cameras simultaneously and let Sellers improvise.

The film prefigured the antiwar sentiments which would become explosive only a few years after its release. It was highly irreverent toward war policies of the U.S., which were largely considered sacrosanct up to that time. Eight months after the release of Strangelove, the straight thriller Fail-Safe with a plot remarkably similar to that of Dr. Strangelove was released. The film earned four Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture and Best Director) and the New York Film Critics' Best Director award.
2001 is the first of many Kubrick films to use an all-classical score. Kubrick's famed opening shot of the Sun, Earth and Moon is one of several accompanied by Richard Strauss's majestic fanfarelike Also sprach Zarathustra. Space flight is accompanied by Johann Strauss's graceful The Blue Danube, and all appearances of the monolith are accompanied by the unearthly modernistic Requiem by György Ligeti.

Kubrick spent five years developing his next film, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The film was conceived as a Cinerama spectacle and was photographed in Super Panavision 70. Kubrick cowrote the screenplay with science fiction writer Sir Arthur C. Clarke, expanding on Clarke's short story "The Sentinel." Kubrick reportedly told Clarke that his intention was to make "the proverbial great science fiction film."

2001 begins four million years ago with an encounter between a group of apes and a mysterious black monolith, which seems to trigger in them the ability to use a bone as both a tool and a weapon. Used as the latter allows them to claim a water hole from another group of apes, who have no tool-wielding ability. A victorious ape tosses his bone into the air, at which point the film makes a celebrated jump cut to an orbiting weapons satellite, circa 2000. At this time, a group of Americans at their moon base have dug up a similar monolith. Geological evidence indicates that it was deliberately buried four million years ago. When the sun rises over the monolith, it sends a radio signal to Jupiter. Eighteen months later, the U.S. sends a group of astronauts aboard the spaceship Discovery on a mission to Jupiter, the purpose of which is to investigate the monolith's signal, although this is concealed from the crew. During the flight, the ship's sentient HAL 9000 computer malfunctions but resists disconnection, believing its control of the mission to be crucial. The computer terminates life support for most of the crew before it is successfully shut down. The surviving astronaut, David Bowman (Keir Dullea), in a tiny space pod, encounters another monolith in orbit around Jupiter, whereupon he is hurled into a portal in space at high speed, witnessing many astronomical phenomena. His interstellar journey concludes with his transformation into a mysterious new being resembling a fetus enclosed in an orb of light, last seen gazing at Earth from space.

The $10,000,000 (U.S.) film was a massive production for its time. The groundbreaking visual effects were overseen by Kubrick and were engineered by a team that included a young Douglas Trumbull, who would become famous in his own right for his work on the films Silent Running and Blade Runner. Kubrick extensively used traveling matte photography to film space flight, a technique also used nine years later by George Lucas in making Star Wars, although that film also used motion-control effects that were unavailable to Kubrick at the time. Kubrick made innovative use of slit-scan photography to film the Stargate sequence. The film's striking cinematography was the work of legendary British director of photography Geoffrey Unsworth, who would later photograph classic films such as Cabaret and Superman. Manufacturing companies were consulted as to what the design of both special-purpose and everyday objects would look like in the future. At the time of the movie's release, Arthur C. Clarke predicted that a generation of engineers would design real spacecraft based upon 2001 "…even if it isn't the best way to do it." The film also is a rare instance of portraying space travel realistically, with complete silence in the vacuum of space and a realistic representation of weightlessness.

The film is famous for using classical music in place of an original score. Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra and Johann Strauss's The Blue Danube waltz became for a while indelibly associated with the film, especially the former, as it was not well-known to the public prior to the film. Kubrick also used music by contemporary avant-garde Hungarian composer György Ligeti, although some of the pieces were altered without Ligeti's consent. The appearance of Atmospheres, Lux Aeterna, and Requiem on the 2001 soundtrack was the first wide commercial exposure of Ligeti's work. This use of "program" music was not originally planned. Kubrick had commissioned composer Alex North to write a full-length score for the film, but Kubrick became so attached to the temporary soundtrack he had constructed during editing that he dropped the idea of an original score entirely.

Although it eventually became an enormous success, the film was not an immediate hit. Initial critical reaction was extremely hostile, with critics attacking the film's lack of dialogue, slow pacing, and seemingly impenetrable storyline. One of the film's few defenders was Penelope Gilliatt, who called it (in The New Yorker) "some kind of a great film". Word of mouth among young audiences—especially the 1960s counterculture audience, who loved the movie's "Star Gate" sequence, a seemingly psychedelic journey to the infinite reaches of the cosmos—made the film a hit. Despite nominations in the directing, writing, and producing categories, the only Academy Award Kubrick ever received was for supervising the special effects of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Today, however, many consider it the greatest sci-fi film ever made, and it is a staple on Top 10 lists of all-time.

Artistically, 2001 was a radical departure from Kubrick's previous films. It contains only 45 minutes of spoken dialogue, over a running time of two hours and twenty minutes. The fairly mundane dialogue is mostly superfluous to the images and music. The film's most memorable dialogue belongs to the computer HAL in HAL's exchanges with Dave Bowman. Some argue that Kubrick is portraying a future humanity largely dissociated from its environment. The film's ambiguous, perplexing ending continues to fascinate contemporary audiences and critics. After this film, Kubrick would never experiment so radically with special effects or narrative form, but his subsequent films maintain some level of ambiguity.

Interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey are numerous and diverse. Despite having been released in 1968, it still prompts debate today. When critic Joseph Gelmis asked Kubrick about the meaning of the film, Kubrick replied:

    They are the areas I prefer not to discuss, because they are highly subjective and will differ from viewer to viewer. In this sense, the film becomes anything the viewer sees in it. If the film stirs the emotions and penetrates the subconscious of the viewer, if it stimulates, however inchoately, his mythological and religious yearnings and impulses, then it has succeeded.

2001: A Space Odyssey is perhaps Kubrick's most famous and influential film. Steven Spielberg called it his generation's big bang, focusing attention upon the space race. It was a precursor to the explosion of the science fiction film market nine years later, which began with the release of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
1970s: A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon
In A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick continued his innovative use of classical music begun in 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, instead of accompanying graceful space flight, the music accompanied violence and rape. The slow-motion fight scene about to commence is choreographed to Rossini's overture to "The Thieving Magpie."

After 2001, Kubrick initially attempted to make a film about the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. When financing fell through, Kubrick went looking for a project that he could film quickly on a small budget. He eventually settled on A Clockwork Orange (1971). His adaptation of Anthony Burgess' novel is a dark, shocking exploration of violence in human society. The film was initially released with an X rating in the United States and caused considerable controversy. The film's iconic poster imagery was created by legendary designer Bill Gold.

The story takes place in a futuristic version of Great Britain that is both authoritarian and chaotic. The central character is a teenage hooligan named Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell), who, along with his companion "droogs", gleefully torments, beats, robs, tortures, and rapes without conscience or remorse. His brutal beating and murder of an older woman finally lands Alex in prison. Alex undergoes an experimental medical aversion treatment, known as the Ludovico Technique, that inhibits his violent tendencies, though he has no real free moral choice. At the public demonstration of the success of the technique, Alex is treated cruelly but does not fight back; the treatment has made him less than human. He has been conditioned against classical music, his love of which was his one human feature, and apparently all of his sex drive is gone. We further see hints that the promotion of the treatment is politically motivated. After being freed, he is found by his former partners in crime who had betrayed him and who are now policemen, and they beat him mercilessly.

He then comes to the home of a political writer who disdains "the modern age" and is initially sympathetic to Alex's plight until he recognizes Alex as the young man who brutally raped his wife and paralyzed him a few years before. Alex then becomes a pawn in a political game.

The society was sometimes perceived as Communist (as Michel Ciment pointed out in an interview with Kubrick, although he himself didn't feel that way) due to its slight ties to Russian culture. The teenage slang has a heavily Russian vocabulary, which can be attributed to Burgess. There is some evidence to suggest that the society is a socialist one, or at least a society moving out of a failed, Leftist socialism and into a Rightist or fascist society. In the novel, streets have paintings of working men in the style of Russian socialist art, and in the film, there is a mural of socialist artwork with obscenities drawn on it. As well, Alex's residence was shot on actual failed Labour Party architecture (as Malcolm McDowell points out on the DVD commentary), and the name "Municipal Flat Block 18A, Linear North" alludes to socialist-style housing. Later in the film, when the new right-wing government takes power, the atmosphere is certainly more authoritarian than the anarchist air of the beginning. Kubrick's response to Ciment's question remained ambiguous as to exactly what kind of society it is. He held that the film held comparisons between both the left and right end of the political spectrum and that there is little difference between the two. Kubrick stated, "The Minister, played by Anthony Sharp, is clearly a figure of the Right. The writer, Patrick Magee, is a lunatic of the Left. ...They differ only in their dogma. Their means and ends are hardly distinguishable."

Kubrick photographed A Clockwork Orange quickly and almost entirely on location in and around London. Despite the low-tech nature of the film as compared to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick showed his talent for innovation; at one point, he threw "an old Newman Sinclair clockwork mechanism camera" off a rooftop in order to achieve the effect he wanted. For the score, Kubrick enlisted electronic music composer Wendy Carlos—at the time, known as Walter Carlos (Switched-On Bach)—to adapt famous classical works (such as Beethoven's Ninth Symphony) for the Moog synthesizer.

It is pivotal to the plot that the lead character, Alex, is fond of classical music, and that the brainwashing Ludovico treatment accidentally conditions him against classical music. As such, it was natural for Kubrick to continue the tradition begun in 2001: A Space Odyssey of using a great deal of classical music in the score. However, in this film, classical music accompanies scenes of violent mayhem and coercive sexuality rather than of graceful space flight and mysterious alien presences. Both Pauline Kael (who generally disliked Kubrick) and Roger Ebert (who often praises Kubrick) found Kubrick's use of juxtaposing classical music and violence in this film unpleasant, Ebert calling it a "cute, cheap, dead-end dimension," and Kael, "self-important." Burgess, in his introduction to his own stage adaptation of the novel, held that ultimately, classical music is what will finally redeem Alex.

The film was extremely controversial because of its explicit depiction of teenage gang rape and violence. It was released in the same year as Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs and Don Siegel's Dirty Harry, and the three films sparked a ferocious debate in the media about the social effects of cinematic violence. The controversy was exacerbated when copycat crimes were committed in England by criminals wearing the same costumes as characters in A Clockwork Orange. British readers of the novel noted that Kubrick had omitted the final chapter (also omitted from American editions of the book) in which Alex finds redemption and sanity.

After receiving death threats to himself and his family as a result of the controversy, Kubrick took the unusual step of removing the film from circulation in Britain. It was unavailable in the United Kingdom until its re-release in 2000, a year after Kubrick's death, although it could be seen in continental Europe. The Scala cinema in London's Kings Cross showed the film in the early 1990s, and at Kubrick's insistence, the cinema was sued and put out of business, thus depriving London of one of its very few independent cinemas. It is now the Scala club. In early 1973, Kubrick re-released A Clockwork Orange to cinemas in the United States with footage modified so that it could get its rating reduced to an R. This enabled many more newspapers to advertise it, since in 1972 many newspapers had stopped carrying any advertising for X-rated films due to the new association of that rating with pornography.

Reviewers such as Pauline Kael, who had been critical of Kubrick's previous work, found Barry Lyndon a cold, slow-moving, and lifeless film. Its measured pace and length—more than three hours—put off many American critics and audiences, although it received positive reviews from Rex Reed and Richard Schickel. Time magazine published a cover story about the film, and Kubrick was nominated for three Academy Awards. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four, more than any other Kubrick film. Despite this, Barry Lyndon was not a box office success in the U.S., although the film found a great audience in Europe, particularly in France.

As with most of Kubrick's films, Barry Lyndon's reputation has grown through the years, particularly among other filmmakers. Director Martin Scorsese has cited it as his favorite Kubrick film. Steven Spielberg has praised its "impeccable technique", though, when younger, he famously described it "like going through the Prado without lunch."

As in his other films, Kubrick's cinematography and lighting techniques were highly innovative. Most famously, interior scenes were shot with a specially adapted high-speed f/0.7 Zeiss camera lens originally developed for NASA. This allowed many scenes to be lit only with candlelight, creating two-dimensional diffused-light images reminiscent of 18th-century paintings.

Like its two predecessors, the film does not have an original score. Irish traditional songs (performed by The Chieftains) are combined with works such as Antonio Vivaldi's Cello Concerto in B, a Johann Sebastian Bach Double Concerto, George Frideric Handel's Sarabande from the Keyboard Suite in D minor (HWV 448, HG II/ii/4), and Franz Schubert's German Dance No. 1 in C major, Piano Trio No. 2 in E flat, and Impromptu No. 1 in C minor. The music was conducted and adapted by Leonard Rosenman, for which he won an Oscar.

The pace of Kubrick's work slowed considerably after Barry Lyndon, and he did not make another film for five years. The Shining, released in 1980, was adapted from the novel of the same name by bestselling horror writer Stephen King. The film starred Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance, a failed writer who takes a job as an off-season caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, a high-class resort deep in the Colorado mountains. The job requires spending the winter in the isolated hotel with his wife, Wendy (played by Shelley Duvall) and their young son, Danny, who is gifted with a form of telepathy—the "shining" of the film's title.

As winter takes hold, the family's isolation deepens, and the demons and ghosts of the Overlook Hotel's dark past begin to awake. The hotel displays increasingly horrible, phantasmagoric images to Danny. Meanwhile, Jack is slowly driven mad by the haunted surroundings until he finally collapses into homicidal psychosis.
Documentary short films

    * Day of the Fight (1951)
    * Flying Padre (1951)
    * The Seafarers (1953)

Feature films

Year Title Awards
1953 Fear and Desire
1955 Killer's Kiss
1956 The Killing Nominated for BAFTA Award: Best Film from Any Source
1957 Paths of Glory Nominated for BAFTA Award: Best Film from Any Source
1960 Spartacus Nominated for 6 Oscars, Won 4: Best Supporting Actor, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Editing, Best Original Score
Nominated for 6 Golden Globes, Won 1: Best Drama Picture, Best Drama Actor, Best Director, Best Original Score, Best Supporting Actor
Nominated for BAFTA Award: Best Film from Any Source
1962 Lolita Nominated for Oscar: Best Adapted Screenplay
Nominated for 5 Golden Globes, Won 1: Most Promising Newcomer – Female, Best Drama Actor, Best Drama Actress, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor
Nominated for BAFTA Award: Best Actor
1964 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Nominated for 4 Oscars:Best Actor, Best Director, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay
Nominated for 6 BAFTA Awards, Won 3: Best British Art Direction, Best British Film, Best Film from any Source, Best British Actor, Best British Screenplay, Best Foreign Actor
1968 2001: A Space Odyssey Nominated for 4 Oscars, Won 1 : Best Special Effects, Best Director, Best Art Direction, Best Original Screenplay
Nominated for 4 BAFTA Awards, Won 3: Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Track, Best Film
1971 A Clockwork Orange Nominated for 4 Oscars: Best Director, Best Editing, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay
Nominated for 3 Golden Globes: Best Director, Best Drama Picture, Best Drama Actor
Nominated for 7 BAFTA Awards: Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Direction, Best Film, Best Film Editing, Best Screenplay, Best Sound Track
Won 2 recognitions by The New York Film Critics: Best Director, Best Picture
1975 Barry Lyndon Nominated for 7 Oscars, Won 4: Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Original Song Score and/or Adaptation, Best Director, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay
Nominated for 2 Golden Globes: Best Director, Best Drama Picture
Nominated for 5 BAFTA Awards, Won 2: Best Cinematography, Best Direction, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Film
1980 The Shining
1987 Full Metal Jacket Nominated for Oscar: Best Adapted Screenplay
Nominated for Golden Globe: Best Supporting Actor
Nominated for 2 BAFTA Awards: Best Sound, Best Special Effects
1999 Eyes Wide Shut Nominated for Golden Globe: Best Original Score

This chart is limited to the Oscars, Golden Globes, and BAFTAs.

Kubrick has also been nominated for and won awards from various societies of film critics, film festivals, and both the Writers Guild of America and the Directors Guild of America.

In the science fiction world, Kubrick has three times won the especially coveted Hugo Award, a prized mainly for print writing and only secondarily for drama production. He also received four nominations (with one win) of the sci-fi-film-oriented Saturn awards from the Academy of Science Fiction for The Shining, an award that did not exist when Kubrick won his three Hugos.

The least honored of Kubrick's films since 1956's The Killing is 1980's The Shining, which garnered only the above-mentioned four nominations (with one win) for Saturn awards. In addition, The Shining is the only Stanley Kubrick film ever to be nominated for any of the notorious Razzies for worst film element. It was nominated for two.
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* please note there is a lot more about Stanley Kubrick in Wikipedia*
My favourite film director and I did not realise till now that to is the date he died.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 03/07/10 at 6:45 am

http://poorrichkids.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/shattered_glass2.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/07/10 at 6:51 am


My favourite film director and I did not realise till now that to is the date he died.

There is so much about his great works that it was hard getting under the word limit.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/07/10 at 6:59 am


There is so much about his great works that it was hard getting under the word limit.
A great movie director, with not many films to his name. If he had made plenty of films, he would just become ordinary.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/08/10 at 4:27 am

British Person of the Day: Kenneth Grahame

Kenneth Grahame (8 March 1859 – 6 July 1932) was a British writer, most famous for The Wind in the Willows (1908), one of the classics of children's literature. He also wrote The Reluctant Dragon; both books were later adapted into Disney films.

His Life

Grahame was born on 8 March 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland but in early childhood, after his mother died and his father began to drink heavily, he moved with his younger sister to live with his grandmother on the banks of the River Thames in the Berkshire village of Cookham in southern England. He was an outstanding pupil at St Edward's School in Oxford and wanted to attend Oxford University but was not allowed to do so by his guardian on grounds of cost. Instead he was sent to work at the Bank of England in 1879, and rose through the ranks until retiring as its Secretary in 1908 due to ill health. In addition to ill health, Grahame's retirement was precipitated in 1903 by a strange, possibly political, shooting incident at the bank. Grahame was shot at three times, all of them missed.

Grahame married Elspeth Thomson in 1899, but the marriage was not a happy one. They had only one child, a boy named Alastair (whose nickname was "Mouse") born blind in one eye and plagued by health problems throughout his short life. Alastair eventually committed suicide on a railway track while an undergraduate at Oxford University, two days before his 20th birthday on 7 May 1920. Out of respect for Kenneth Grahame, Alastair's demise was recorded as an accidental death.

Kenneth Grahame died in Pangbourne, Berkshire in 1932. He is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford. Grahame's cousin Anthony Hope, also a successful author, wrote his epitaph, which reads: "To the beautiful memory of Kenneth Grahame, husband of Elspeth and father of Alastair, who passed the river on the 6th of July, 1932, leaving childhood and literature through him the more blest for all time".

Works

While still a young man, Grahame began to publish light stories in London periodicals such as the St. James Gazette. Some of these stories were collected and published as Pagan Papers in 1893, and, two years later, The Golden Age. These were followed by Dream Days in 1898, which contains The Reluctant Dragon.

There is a ten-year gap between Grahame's penultimate book and the publication of his triumph, The Wind in the Willows. During this decade Grahame became a father. The wayward headstrong nature he saw in his little son Alistair (also known as "Mouse") he transformed into the swaggering Mr. Toad, one of its four principal characters. Despite its success, he never attempted a sequel; in the 1990s William Horwood began writing a series of sequels. The book was a hit and is still enjoyed by adults and children today, whether in book form or in the films, while Toad remains one of the most celebrated and beloved characters of the book.

Bibliography

    * Pagan Papers (1893)
    * The Golden Age (1895)
    * Dream Days (1898)
          * Including The Reluctant Dragon (1898)
    * The Headswoman (1898)
    * The Wind in the Willows (1908)

http://www.borderlandsbooks.com/images/books/24140_669.jpg

http://litbirthdays.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/kenneth-grahame.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/08/10 at 5:29 am

The word of the day...Frost
When there is frost or a frost, the temperature outside falls below freezing point and the ground becomes covered in ice crystals
When someone says that there are a particular number of degrees of frost they mean that the temperature is that number of degrees below freezing point.
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/08/10 at 5:32 am


British Person of the Day: Kenneth Grahame

Kenneth Grahame (8 March 1859 – 6 July 1932) was a British writer, most famous for The Wind in the Willows (1908), one of the classics of children's literature. He also wrote The Reluctant Dragon; both books were later adapted into Disney films.

His Life

Grahame was born on 8 March 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland but in early childhood, after his mother died and his father began to drink heavily, he moved with his younger sister to live with his grandmother on the banks of the River Thames in the Berkshire village of Cookham in southern England. He was an outstanding pupil at St Edward's School in Oxford and wanted to attend Oxford University but was not allowed to do so by his guardian on grounds of cost. Instead he was sent to work at the Bank of England in 1879, and rose through the ranks until retiring as its Secretary in 1908 due to ill health. In addition to ill health, Grahame's retirement was precipitated in 1903 by a strange, possibly political, shooting incident at the bank. Grahame was shot at three times, all of them missed.

Grahame married Elspeth Thomson in 1899, but the marriage was not a happy one. They had only one child, a boy named Alastair (whose nickname was "Mouse") born blind in one eye and plagued by health problems throughout his short life. Alastair eventually committed suicide on a railway track while an undergraduate at Oxford University, two days before his 20th birthday on 7 May 1920. Out of respect for Kenneth Grahame, Alastair's demise was recorded as an accidental death.

Kenneth Grahame died in Pangbourne, Berkshire in 1932. He is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford. Grahame's cousin Anthony Hope, also a successful author, wrote his epitaph, which reads: "To the beautiful memory of Kenneth Grahame, husband of Elspeth and father of Alastair, who passed the river on the 6th of July, 1932, leaving childhood and literature through him the more blest for all time".

Works

While still a young man, Grahame began to publish light stories in London periodicals such as the St. James Gazette. Some of these stories were collected and published as Pagan Papers in 1893, and, two years later, The Golden Age. These were followed by Dream Days in 1898, which contains The Reluctant Dragon.

There is a ten-year gap between Grahame's penultimate book and the publication of his triumph, The Wind in the Willows. During this decade Grahame became a father. The wayward headstrong nature he saw in his little son Alistair (also known as "Mouse") he transformed into the swaggering Mr. Toad, one of its four principal characters. Despite its success, he never attempted a sequel; in the 1990s William Horwood began writing a series of sequels. The book was a hit and is still enjoyed by adults and children today, whether in book form or in the films, while Toad remains one of the most celebrated and beloved characters of the book.

Bibliography

    * Pagan Papers (1893)
    * The Golden Age (1895)
    * Dream Days (1898)
          * Including The Reluctant Dragon (1898)
    * The Headswoman (1898)
    * The Wind in the Willows (1908)

http://www.borderlandsbooks.com/images/books/24140_669.jpg

http://litbirthdays.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/kenneth-grahame.jpg

Thanks Phil, it's been a long time since I read The Wind In The Willows :)

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/08/10 at 5:35 am

The person born on this day...Aidan Quinn
Aidan Quinn (born March 8, 1959) is an Irish-American actor. Quinn was born in Rockford, Illinois to devoutly Catholic Irish parents. He was raised in Chicago and Rockford, as well as in Dublin and Birr, County Offaly in Ireland. His father was a professor in literature and his mother was a homemaker. He has three brothers and a sister. His older brother, Declan Quinn, is a noted cinematographer. Though a roofer by trade, Quinn got his start in the Chicago theater at age 19. He trained at the Piven Theatre Workshop.
Career

His first significant film role was in Reckless, followed by a breakthrough role in Desperately Seeking Susan as the character "Dez" (the love interest of the character played by Rosanna Arquette). Quinn next starred in the controversial TV movie An Early Frost, about a young lawyer dying of AIDS (it was broadcast on NBC on November 11, 1985) and co-starred such luminaries as Gena Rowlands, Ben Gazzara and Sylvia Sidney. He received his first Emmy Award nomination for the role which allowed him to gain recognition in Hollywood.

In 1988 Quinn lost the role of Jesus Christ when Paramount Pictures dropped the controversial Martin Scorsese movie The Last Temptation of Christ. When Universal Pictures picked up the film, the role went to Willem Dafoe. In meantime, Quinn recited in a role as protagonist in the film Crusoe, finished in 1989.

During the 1990s Quinn's career grew immensely. He found work alongside such Hollywood stars as Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall, Johnny Depp in Benny & Joon, Robert Duvall in The Handmaid's Tale and Sir John Gielgud in Haunted. He continually starred in films that allowed him to return to his Irish roots, such as Michael Collins, Song for a Raggy Boy and Evelyn

In 2000, Quinn portrayed Paul McCartney in the VH1 television drama, Two of Us. He later met McCartney at a hotel, and they became good friends. Quinn was able to gain his first regular television role as the lead in the short lived, and controversial NBC drama The Book of Daniel, in 2006 before being canceled after the first three weeks of its run. In 2007, Quinn received his second Emmy nomination for the television movie Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
Personal life

Quinn is married to the actress Elizabeth Bracco, sister of actress Lorraine Bracco. The two met in 1984 at a restaurant and later co-starred in Stakeout. They married in 1987 and have two daughters, one diagnosed with autism. The other has been confirmed to appear as a ghost in The Eclipse.
Filmography
Film
Year Film Role Notes
1984 Reckless Johnny Rourke
1985 Desperately Seeking Susan Dez
1986 The Mission Felipe Mendoza
1987 Stakeout Richard 'Stick' Montgomery
1989 Crusoe Crusoe
1990 The Handmaid's Tale Nick
The Lemon Sisters Frankie McGuinness
Avalon Jules Kaye
1991 At Play in the Fields of the Lord Martin Quarrier
1992 The Playboys Tom Casey
1993 Benny & Joon Benjamin 'Benny' Pearl
1994 Blink Det. John Hallstrom
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Capt. Robert Walton
Legends of the Fall Alfred Ludlow
1995 The Stars Fell on Henrietta Don Day
Haunted Prof. David Ash
1996 Looking for Richard Richmond
Michael Collins Harry Boland
1997 Commandments Seth Warner
The Assignment Lt. Cmdr. Annibal Ramirez/Carlos
1998 This Is My Father Kieran O'Day
Practical Magic Officer Gary Hallet Blockbuster Entertainment Award (nominated)
1999 In Dreams Paul Cooper
Music of the Heart Brian Turner
2000 Songcatcher Tom Bledsoe Sundance Film Festival Award (won)
2002 Stolen Summer Joe O'Malley
Evelyn Nick Barron
2003 Song for a Raggy Boy William Franklin
2004 Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius Harry Vardon
Shadow of Fear Detective Scofield
Return to Sender Frank Nitzche IFTA Awards (nominated-4Xs)
Proud Commodore Alfred Lind
2005 Nine Lives Henry Gotham Awards (nominated)
2007 Dark Matter Reiser
32A Frank Brennan
2008 Wild Child Gerry
2009 A Shine of Rainbows Alec
The Eclipse Nicholas Holden
The 5th Quarter Steven Abbate
Handsome Harry Porter
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1985 An Early Frost Michael Pierson NBC TV-Movie

Emmy Award (nominated)
1987 All My Sons Chris Keller TV-Movie
1989 Perfect Witness Sam Paxton HBO TV-Movie
1991 Lies of the Twins James McEwan/Jonathan McEwan TV-Movie
1992 A Private Matter Bob Finkbine HBO TV-Movie
1997 Forbidden Territory: Stanley's Search for Livingstone Henry Morton Stanley TV-Movie
2000 See You in My Dreams Joe F. Brown TV-Movie
The Prince and the Pauper Miles Hendon TV-Movie
Two of Us Paul McCartney VH1 TV-Movie
2001 Night Visions Jeremy Bell Episode: The Passenger List
2003 Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor Gen. Benedict Arnold A&E TV-Movie
2004 Plainsong Tom Guthrie CBS TV-Movie
Cavedweller Clint Windsor Showtime Network TV-Movie

Independent Spirit Award (nominated)
Miracle Run Douglas Thomas Lifetime Movie Network TV-Movie
2005 The Exonerated Kerry CourtTV TV-Movie
Empire Falls David Roby HBO Miniseries
Mayday John Berry CBS TV-Movie
2004 - 2005 Third Watch Lieutenant John Miller Episode: Alone Again, Naturally
Episode: Last Will and Testament
Episode: The Hunter, Hunted
Episode: The Greatest Detectives
Episode: Goodbye to Camelot
2006 The Book of Daniel Daniel Webster
2007 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Henry L. Dawes HBO TV-Movie

Emmy Award (nominated)
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Ben Nicholson Episode: Savant
2008 Canterbury's Law Matthew "Matt" Furey
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a104/outlander_casting/Dougal/quinnaid.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v196/paganpriest/Movies/People/AidanQuinn.jpg
http://i582.photobucket.com/albums/ss266/thecityhp/A%20Page/aidanquinn.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/08/10 at 5:43 am

The person who died on this day...Adam Faith
Terence (Terry) Nelhams-Wright, known as Adam Faith (23 June 1940, East Acton, London – 8 March 2003, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire) was an English singer, actor and financial journalist. Teen idol turned top actor then financial wizard, Faith was one of the most charted acts of the 1960s. He became the first UK artist to lodge his initial seven hits in the Top 5. He was also one of the first UK acts to record original songs regularly  Terence Terry Nelhams-Wright was born at 4 Churchfield Road, Acton, London. He was unaware his surname was Nelhams-Wright until he applied for a passport and obtained his birth certificate. He was known as Terry Nelhams. The third in a family of five children, Nelhams grew up in a council house in a working class area of London, where he attended John Perryn Junior school. He started work at 12, delivering and selling newspapers while still at school. His first full-time job was odd-job boy for a silk screen printer.
Music career

Faith became one of Britain's significant early pop stars. At the time, he was distinctive for his hiccupping glottal stops and exaggerated pronunciation. He did not write his own material, and much of his early success was through partnership with songwriter Les Vandyke and John Barry, whose arrangements were inspired by Don Costa's pizzicato arrangements for Buddy Holly's "It Doesn't Matter Anymore".

Faith began his musical career in 1957, while working as a film cutter in London in the hope of becoming an actor, singing with and managing a skiffle group, The Worried Men. The group played in Soho coffee bars after work, and became the resident band at The 2i's Coffee Bar, where they appeared on the BBC Television live music programme Six-Five Special. The producer, Jack Good, was impressed by the singer and arranged a solo recording contract with HMV under the name Adam Faith.

His debut record "(Got a) Heartsick Feeling" and "Brother Heartache and Sister Tears" in January 1958, failed to make the charts. Good gave him a part in the stage show of Six-Five Special, along with The John Barry Seven but the show folded after four performances. His second release later that year was a cover of Jerry Lee Lewis' "High School Confidential", backed with the Burt Bacharach and Hal David penned "Country Music Holiday", but this also failed.

Faith returned to work as a film cutter at National Studios at Elstree until March 1959, when Barry invited him to audition for a BBC TV rock and roll show, Drumbeat. The producer, Stewart Morris, gave him a contract for three shows, extended to the full 22-week run. His contract with HMV had ended, and he sang one track, "I Vibrate", on a six-track EP released by the Fontana record label. Barry's manager, Eve Taylor, got him a contract with Top Rank, but his only record there, "Ah, Poor Little Baby" / "Runk Bunk" produced by Tony Hatch, failed to chart due to a lack of publicity caused by a national printing strike.

Despite the failure, Faith was becoming popular through television appearances. He became an actor by taking drama and elocution lessons, and appeared as a pop singer in the film, Beat Girl. The script called for Faith to sing a songs, and as Barry was arranging Faith's recordings and live Drumbeat material, the film company asked him to write the score. This was the beginning of Barry's career in film music.

Faith's success on Drumbeat enabled another recording contract with Parlophone. His next record in 1959, "What Do You Want?", written by Les Vandyke and produced by Barry and John Burgess, received good reviews in the NME and other papers, as well as being voted a hit on Juke Box Jury. This became his first number one hit in the UK Singles Chart, and his pronounciation of the word 'baby' as 'bay-beh' became a catch phrase.

"What Do You Want?" was the first number one hit for Parlophone, Faith the only pop act on the label.

With songs like "Poor Me" (another chart topper),"Someone Else's Baby" (a UK #2) and "Don't That Beat All", he established himself as a rival to Cliff Richard in British popular music.

A UK variety tour was followed by a 12-week season at Blackpool Hippodrome and an appearance on the Royal Variety Show.

His next release was a double A-side single, "Made You" / "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", Both made the Top Ten, despite a BBC ban for "Made You" for 'a lewd and salacious lyric'. His 1960 novelty record "Lonely Pup (In a Christmas Shop"), to coincide with his Christmas pantomime, gained a silver disc.

His debut album Adam was released on 4 November 1960 to critical acclaim for the inventiveness of Barry's arrangements and Faith's own performances. The material ranged from standards such as "Summertime", "Hit The Road To Dreamland" and "Singin' In The Rain" to more contemporary songs, such as Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman's "I'm A Man", Johnny Worth's "Fare Thee Well My Pretty Maid", and Howard Guyton's "Wonderful Time".

Still 20 and living with his parents, he bought a house in Hampton Court for £6000, where he moved with his family from their house in Acton. In December 1960 he became the first pop artist to appear on the TV interview series Face to Face with John Freeman.

Faith made six further albums and 35 singles, with a total of 24 chart entries. In the early 1960s, Faith's backing group was The Roulettes.
Film and television career

Faith's teen pop became less popular in the mid-1960s in competition from The Beatles. After a final single in 1968 he parted company with EMI and concentrated on acting. While a musician he had appeared in films such as Beat Girl (1961), Never Let Go, and television dramas such as the Rediffusion/ITV series, No Hiding Place but now he concentrated on repertory theatre. After a number of small parts, he was given a more substantial role in Night Must Fall, playing opposite Dame Sybil Thorndike. In autumn 1969 he took the lead in a touring production of Billy Liar.

In the 1970s, he went into music management, managing Leo Sayer among others.

He starred as the eponymous hero in the 1970s television series Budgie (LWT/ITV), about an ex-convict, but his career declined after a motorcycle accident in which he almost lost a leg. He restarted with a role as the manipulative manager of rock star David Essex, in Stardust. He was nominated for a BAFTA award. In 1980 he starred with Roger Daltrey in McVicar and appeared with Jodie Foster in Foxes.

He played the role of James Crane in the 1985 TV movie Minder on the Orient Express - part of the Minder franchise.

From 1992 to 1994, Faith appeared in another TV series, Love Hurts starring with Zoe Wanamaker, and in 2002 he appeared in the BBC series, The House That Jack Built. In 2003, Faith appeared in an episode of Murder in Mind.
Later years

He married Jackie Irving in 1967 and they had one daughter Katya Faith who became a television producer. In 1986, he was hired as a financial journalist, by the Daily Mail and its sister paper The Mail on Sunday.

In 1985, he appeared on a BBC Radio 2 tribute programme to James Dean, written and presented by Terence Pettigrew. You're Tearing Me Apart was aired on the 30th anniversary of Dean's death. Dean had been his idol, and the film Rebel Without A Cause had inspired the teenage Faith to become a singer and actor. "That movie changed my life", he admitted on the programme, which was produced by Harry Thompson, who later found fame as the originator and long-time producer of BBC TV's award-winning Have I Got News For You

Faith had heart problems since 1986, when he had open heart surgery.

In the 1980s, Faith became a financial investments advisor. He had a financial involvement with television's 'Money Channel'. But the channel proved unsuccessful and closed in 2001. Faith was declared bankrupt owing a reported £32 million. He also advised and invested monies for Michael Winner via Sir Nicholas Goodison and also with Roger Levitt's financial group. However, both these investments lost money.

He became ill after his stage performance in the touring production of Love And Marriage at Stoke-on-Trent on the Friday evening, and died at North Staffordshire Hospital of a heart attack early on Saturday, 8 March 2003.

British tabloid newspapers reported his last words as "Channel Five is all sheesh, isn't it? Christ, the crap they put on there. It's a waste of space". Although it is not certain these were his words, it has become an urban myth.
Discography
Singles
Year Title UK Singles Chart
1958 "(Got A) Heartsick Feeling" -
1958 "Country Music Holiday" -
1959 "Ah, Poor Little Baby!" -
1959 "What Do You Want?" #1
1960 "Poor Me" #1
1960 "Someone Else's Baby" #2
1960 "When Johnny Comes Marching Home"/
"Made You" #5
1960 "How About That!" #4
1960 "Lonely Pup (In a Christmas Shop)" #4
1961 "Who Am I!" / "This is It!" #5
1961 "Easy Going Me" #12
1961 "Don't You Know It?" #12
1961 "The Time Has Come" #4
1962 "Lonesome" #12
1962 "As You Like It" #5
1962 "Don't That Beat All" #8
1962 "Baby Take a Bow" #22
1963 "What Now" #31
1963 "Walkin' Tall" #23
1963 "The First Time" #5
1963 "We Are in Love" #11
1964 "If He Tells You" #25
1964 "I Love Being in Love with You" #33
1964 "Only One Such as You" -
1964 "A Message to Martha (Kentucky Bluebird)" #12
1965 "Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself" #23
1965 "Hand Me Down Things" -
1965 "Someone's Taken Maria Away" #34
1965 "I Don't Need that Kind of Lovin'" -
1966 "Idle Gossip" -
1966 "To Make a Big Man Cry" -
1966 "Cheryl's Goin' Home" #46
1967 "What More Can Anyone Do?" -
1967 "Cowman, Milk Your Cow" -
1967 "To Hell With Love" -
1968 "You Make My Life Worth While" -
1974 "I Survive" -
1974 "Maybe" -
1974 "I Believe in Love" -
1975 "Strung Out Again"/
"Steppin' Stone" -
1976 "Vindictive Attack" -
1978 "What Do You Want?"/
"Poor Me" -
1983 "What Do You Want?"/
"How About That!" -
1993 "Stuck in the Middle" -
Albums



    * Adam (Parlophone) (1960) - UK Number 6
    * Beat Girl (film soundtrack) (Columbia) (1961) - UK Number 11
    * Adam Faith (Parlophone) (1962) - UK Number 20
    * From Adam with Love
    * For You - Love Adam
    * On the Move
    * Faith Alive (Parlophone) (1965) - UK Number 19
    * I Survived
    * Midnight Postcards (PolyGram) (1993) - UK Number 43

Compilation albums



    * The Best of Adam Faith (Starline) (1966)
    * The Best of Adam Faith (MFP) (1971)
    * 24 Golden Greats (Warwick) (1981) - UK Number 61
    * Not Just A Memory (Amy Records) (1983)
    * The Best of Adam Faith (re-issue) (MFP) (1985)
    * The Best of Adam Faith (second re-issue) (MFP) (1989)
    * The Singles Collection (Greatest Hits) (1990)
    * The Best of EMI Years (1994)
    * The Very Best of Adam Faith (MFP/EMI) (1997)
    * Greatest Hits (EMI Gold) (1998)
    * The Very Best of Adam Faith (EMI) (2005)
    * All The Hits (EMI Gold) (2009)
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r174/crucialmusic/AdamFaithLPback-1.jpg
http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/qq85/cornershop15/AdamFaith1.jpg
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o290/Oldmansteds/AdamFaith.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 03/08/10 at 6:45 am


The word of the day...Frost
When there is frost or a frost, the temperature outside falls below freezing point and the ground becomes covered in ice crystals
When someone says that there are a particular number of degrees of frost they mean that the temperature is that number of degrees below freezing point.
http://i902.photobucket.com/albums/ac225/blake_4533/IMGP1073.jpg
http://i902.photobucket.com/albums/ac225/blake_4533/IMGP1067.jpg
http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/burnsidetreacle2/IMGP1079.jpg
http://i719.photobucket.com/albums/ww198/Meeshellz41/IMG_7093.jpg
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l104/xortin/IMG00016.jpg
http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q98/graywolf78/Ute%20Pass%20House%20Pics/P1010384.jpg


I love frost on a cold winter's morning.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/08/10 at 4:29 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmuJDmjq-xQ

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 03/08/10 at 7:23 pm


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmuJDmjq-xQ


I used to watch that on winter evenings.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 03/09/10 at 12:57 am


The person who died on this day...Adam Faith
Terence (Terry) Nelhams-Wright, known as Adam Faith (23 June 1940, East Acton, London – 8 March 2003, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire) was an English singer, actor and financial journalist. Teen idol turned top actor then financial wizard, Faith was one of the most charted acts of the 1960s. He became the first UK artist to lodge his initial seven hits in the Top 5. He was also one of the first UK acts to record original songs regularly  Terence Terry Nelhams-Wright was born at 4 Churchfield Road, Acton, London. He was unaware his surname was Nelhams-Wright until he applied for a passport and obtained his birth certificate. He was known as Terry Nelhams. The third in a family of five children, Nelhams grew up in a council house in a working class area of London, where he attended John Perryn Junior school. He started work at 12, delivering and selling newspapers while still at school. His first full-time job was odd-job boy for a silk screen printer.
Music career

Faith became one of Britain's significant early pop stars. At the time, he was distinctive for his hiccupping glottal stops and exaggerated pronunciation. He did not write his own material, and much of his early success was through partnership with songwriter Les Vandyke and John Barry, whose arrangements were inspired by Don Costa's pizzicato arrangements for Buddy Holly's "It Doesn't Matter Anymore".

Faith began his musical career in 1957, while working as a film cutter in London in the hope of becoming an actor, singing with and managing a skiffle group, The Worried Men. The group played in Soho coffee bars after work, and became the resident band at The 2i's Coffee Bar, where they appeared on the BBC Television live music programme Six-Five Special. The producer, Jack Good, was impressed by the singer and arranged a solo recording contract with HMV under the name Adam Faith.

His debut record "(Got a) Heartsick Feeling" and "Brother Heartache and Sister Tears" in January 1958, failed to make the charts. Good gave him a part in the stage show of Six-Five Special, along with The John Barry Seven but the show folded after four performances. His second release later that year was a cover of Jerry Lee Lewis' "High School Confidential", backed with the Burt Bacharach and Hal David penned "Country Music Holiday", but this also failed.

Faith returned to work as a film cutter at National Studios at Elstree until March 1959, when Barry invited him to audition for a BBC TV rock and roll show, Drumbeat. The producer, Stewart Morris, gave him a contract for three shows, extended to the full 22-week run. His contract with HMV had ended, and he sang one track, "I Vibrate", on a six-track EP released by the Fontana record label. Barry's manager, Eve Taylor, got him a contract with Top Rank, but his only record there, "Ah, Poor Little Baby" / "Runk Bunk" produced by Tony Hatch, failed to chart due to a lack of publicity caused by a national printing strike.

Despite the failure, Faith was becoming popular through television appearances. He became an actor by taking drama and elocution lessons, and appeared as a pop singer in the film, Beat Girl. The script called for Faith to sing a songs, and as Barry was arranging Faith's recordings and live Drumbeat material, the film company asked him to write the score. This was the beginning of Barry's career in film music.

Faith's success on Drumbeat enabled another recording contract with Parlophone. His next record in 1959, "What Do You Want?", written by Les Vandyke and produced by Barry and John Burgess, received good reviews in the NME and other papers, as well as being voted a hit on Juke Box Jury. This became his first number one hit in the UK Singles Chart, and his pronounciation of the word 'baby' as 'bay-beh' became a catch phrase.

"What Do You Want?" was the first number one hit for Parlophone, Faith the only pop act on the label.

With songs like "Poor Me" (another chart topper),"Someone Else's Baby" (a UK #2) and "Don't That Beat All", he established himself as a rival to Cliff Richard in British popular music.

A UK variety tour was followed by a 12-week season at Blackpool Hippodrome and an appearance on the Royal Variety Show.

His next release was a double A-side single, "Made You" / "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", Both made the Top Ten, despite a BBC ban for "Made You" for 'a lewd and salacious lyric'. His 1960 novelty record "Lonely Pup (In a Christmas Shop"), to coincide with his Christmas pantomime, gained a silver disc.

His debut album Adam was released on 4 November 1960 to critical acclaim for the inventiveness of Barry's arrangements and Faith's own performances. The material ranged from standards such as "Summertime", "Hit The Road To Dreamland" and "Singin' In The Rain" to more contemporary songs, such as Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman's "I'm A Man", Johnny Worth's "Fare Thee Well My Pretty Maid", and Howard Guyton's "Wonderful Time".

Still 20 and living with his parents, he bought a house in Hampton Court for £6000, where he moved with his family from their house in Acton. In December 1960 he became the first pop artist to appear on the TV interview series Face to Face with John Freeman.

Faith made six further albums and 35 singles, with a total of 24 chart entries. In the early 1960s, Faith's backing group was The Roulettes.
Film and television career

Faith's teen pop became less popular in the mid-1960s in competition from The Beatles. After a final single in 1968 he parted company with EMI and concentrated on acting. While a musician he had appeared in films such as Beat Girl (1961), Never Let Go, and television dramas such as the Rediffusion/ITV series, No Hiding Place but now he concentrated on repertory theatre. After a number of small parts, he was given a more substantial role in Night Must Fall, playing opposite Dame Sybil Thorndike. In autumn 1969 he took the lead in a touring production of Billy Liar.

In the 1970s, he went into music management, managing Leo Sayer among others.

He starred as the eponymous hero in the 1970s television series Budgie (LWT/ITV), about an ex-convict, but his career declined after a motorcycle accident in which he almost lost a leg. He restarted with a role as the manipulative manager of rock star David Essex, in Stardust. He was nominated for a BAFTA award. In 1980 he starred with Roger Daltrey in McVicar and appeared with Jodie Foster in Foxes.

He played the role of James Crane in the 1985 TV movie Minder on the Orient Express - part of the Minder franchise.

From 1992 to 1994, Faith appeared in another TV series, Love Hurts starring with Zoe Wanamaker, and in 2002 he appeared in the BBC series, The House That Jack Built. In 2003, Faith appeared in an episode of Murder in Mind.
Later years

He married Jackie Irving in 1967 and they had one daughter Katya Faith who became a television producer. In 1986, he was hired as a financial journalist, by the Daily Mail and its sister paper The Mail on Sunday.

In 1985, he appeared on a BBC Radio 2 tribute programme to James Dean, written and presented by Terence Pettigrew. You're Tearing Me Apart was aired on the 30th anniversary of Dean's death. Dean had been his idol, and the film Rebel Without A Cause had inspired the teenage Faith to become a singer and actor. "That movie changed my life", he admitted on the programme, which was produced by Harry Thompson, who later found fame as the originator and long-time producer of BBC TV's award-winning Have I Got News For You

Faith had heart problems since 1986, when he had open heart surgery.

In the 1980s, Faith became a financial investments advisor. He had a financial involvement with television's 'Money Channel'. But the channel proved unsuccessful and closed in 2001. Faith was declared bankrupt owing a reported £32 million. He also advised and invested monies for Michael Winner via Sir Nicholas Goodison and also with Roger Levitt's financial group. However, both these investments lost money.

He became ill after his stage performance in the touring production of Love And Marriage at Stoke-on-Trent on the Friday evening, and died at North Staffordshire Hospital of a heart attack early on Saturday, 8 March 2003.

British tabloid newspapers reported his last words as "Channel Five is all sheesh, isn't it? Christ, the crap they put on there. It's a waste of space". Although it is not certain these were his words, it has become an urban myth.
Discography
Singles
Year Title UK Singles Chart
1958 "(Got A) Heartsick Feeling" -
1958 "Country Music Holiday" -
1959 "Ah, Poor Little Baby!" -
1959 "What Do You Want?" #1
1960 "Poor Me" #1
1960 "Someone Else's Baby" #2
1960 "When Johnny Comes Marching Home"/
"Made You" #5
1960 "How About That!" #4
1960 "Lonely Pup (In a Christmas Shop)" #4
1961 "Who Am I!" / "This is It!" #5
1961 "Easy Going Me" #12
1961 "Don't You Know It?" #12
1961 "The Time Has Come" #4
1962 "Lonesome" #12
1962 "As You Like It" #5
1962 "Don't That Beat All" #8
1962 "Baby Take a Bow" #22
1963 "What Now" #31
1963 "Walkin' Tall" #23
1963 "The First Time" #5
1963 "We Are in Love" #11
1964 "If He Tells You" #25
1964 "I Love Being in Love with You" #33
1964 "Only One Such as You" -
1964 "A Message to Martha (Kentucky Bluebird)" #12
1965 "Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself" #23
1965 "Hand Me Down Things" -
1965 "Someone's Taken Maria Away" #34
1965 "I Don't Need that Kind of Lovin'" -
1966 "Idle Gossip" -
1966 "To Make a Big Man Cry" -
1966 "Cheryl's Goin' Home" #46
1967 "What More Can Anyone Do?" -
1967 "Cowman, Milk Your Cow" -
1967 "To Hell With Love" -
1968 "You Make My Life Worth While" -
1974 "I Survive" -
1974 "Maybe" -
1974 "I Believe in Love" -
1975 "Strung Out Again"/
"Steppin' Stone" -
1976 "Vindictive Attack" -
1978 "What Do You Want?"/
"Poor Me" -
1983 "What Do You Want?"/
"How About That!" -
1993 "Stuck in the Middle" -
Albums



    * Adam (Parlophone) (1960) - UK Number 6
    * Beat Girl (film soundtrack) (Columbia) (1961) - UK Number 11
    * Adam Faith (Parlophone) (1962) - UK Number 20
    * From Adam with Love
    * For You - Love Adam
    * On the Move
    * Faith Alive (Parlophone) (1965) - UK Number 19
    * I Survived
    * Midnight Postcards (PolyGram) (1993) - UK Number 43

Compilation albums



    * The Best of Adam Faith (Starline) (1966)
    * The Best of Adam Faith (MFP) (1971)
    * 24 Golden Greats (Warwick) (1981) - UK Number 61
    * Not Just A Memory (Amy Records) (1983)
    * The Best of Adam Faith (re-issue) (MFP) (1985)
    * The Best of Adam Faith (second re-issue) (MFP) (1989)
    * The Singles Collection (Greatest Hits) (1990)
    * The Best of EMI Years (1994)
    * The Very Best of Adam Faith (MFP/EMI) (1997)
    * Greatest Hits (EMI Gold) (1998)
    * The Very Best of Adam Faith (EMI) (2005)
    * All The Hits (EMI Gold) (2009)
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r174/crucialmusic/AdamFaithLPback-1.jpg
http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/qq85/cornershop15/AdamFaith1.jpg
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o290/Oldmansteds/AdamFaith.jpg

For whatever reason, Adam faith never made it big in North America

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Philip Eno on 03/09/10 at 12:58 am


For whatever reason, Adam faith never made it big in North America
Just like Cliff Rcihard, I believe?

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Frank on 03/09/10 at 1:04 am


Just like Cliff Rcihard, I believe?

Yes, but at least Cliff had some hits in N.A, but not Adam.

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/09/10 at 6:19 am

The word of the day...Caravan
A caravan is a vehicle without an engine that can be pulled by a car or van. It contains beds and cooking equipment so that people can live or spend their holidays in it.
A caravan is a group of people and animals or vehicles who travel together.
http://i877.photobucket.com/albums/ab332/arellanotravels/Egypt10/caravan.jpg
http://i682.photobucket.com/albums/vv190/tunnex/100_5512.jpg
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j236/stephen_tickell/midget_caravan.jpg
http://i986.photobucket.com/albums/ae346/IainM1970/New%20Caravan/EdinburghMarch2010002.jpg
http://i801.photobucket.com/albums/yy295/paramore723_photos/Egypt/161.jpg
http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g178/Gwenvael/Aotearoa%20NZ%20Part%202/DSCN4063.jpg
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh184/pob7161/caravan.jpg

Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/09/10 at 6:22 am

The person born on this day...Robin Trower
Robin Leonard Trower, known as Robin Trower (born 9 March 1945, Catford, South East London, England) is an English rock guitarist who achieved success with Procol Harum during the 1960s, and then again as the bandleader of his own power trio.
Trower grew up in the seaside resort of Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England.

In 1962, Trower formed a group that came to be known as The Paramounts, later including fellow Southend High School pupil Gary Brooker. The Paramounts disbanded in 1966 to pursue individual projects. During this time, Trower created a local 3 piece Southend band called 'The Jam' - not to be confused with the later group with Paul Weller. Trower then joined Brooker's new band Procol Harum in 1967, with whom he remained until 1972. After going solo in 1971 (replaced in Procol Harum by Dave Ball), he found the individual identity and style that have brought him acclaim to this day.

Before launching his own eponymous band, he joined singer Frankie Miller, bass player James Dewar, and former Jethro Tull drummer Clive Bunker to form the short-lived combo Jude. Although this outfit played some well-received gigs, it did not record and soon split up.

Trower retained as bassist Dewar, who took on lead vocals as well, and recruited drummer Reg Isidore (later replaced by Bill Lordan) to form the Robin Trower Band in 1973.

Perhaps Trower's most famous album is Bridge of Sighs (1974). This album, along with his first and third solo albums, was produced by his former Procol Harum bandmate, organist Matthew Fisher. Despite differences, Trower's early power trio work was noted for Hendrixesque influences.

In 1977, feeling he had already proven himself as a performer, Trower ventured into new musical realms, as demonstrated by the release of the In City Dreams album. The 1978 release of Caravan to Midnight was in a different style from the rest of his earlier work, symbolising a change in direction for him. "I am spending much more time and energy and effort on writing and arranging the material," he said at the time, adding "I think music today is suffering greatly from a cleanness. It's too set, too pat, too clever, there's not enough spontaneity."

In the early 1980s, Trower teamed up with former Cream bassist Jack Bruce and his previous drummers Lordan and Isidore, for two albums, BLT (Bruce, Lordan, Trower) and Truce (Trower, Bruce, Isidore).

Trower's album, Living Out of Time (2003), features the return of veteran bandmates Dave Bronze on bass, vocalist Davey Pattison (formerly with Ronnie Montrose's band Gamma) and Pete Thompson on drums - the same lineup as the mid 1980s albums Passion and Take What You Need.

With the same bandmates Trower gave a concert on his 60th birthday in Bonn, Germany. The concert was recorded by the German television channel WDR. It was then released on DVD and subsequently on CD throughout Europe and later the US under the title Living Out Of Time: Live.

In 2007 Trower released a third recording with Jack Bruce, Seven Moons, featuring Gary Husband on drums.

Trower toured the United States and Canada in the summer and autumn of 2006. A 2008 world tour began in Ft. Pierce, Florida on 16 January 2008. Joining Davey Pattison and Pete Thompson was Glenn Letsch (formerly of Gamma) playing bass. European dates began in April. The 29 March 2008 show at the Royal Oak Music Theater in Royal Oak, Michigan was released as a double album on V12 Records.

On Friday, September 25, 2009, Trower was taken ill prior to his performance at the Palace Theater in Greensburg, Pa. An ambulance with paramedics was called to the theater to assist Trower. However, after a delay Trower, thanking the audience for its patience, performed a 90-minute set with his band, including an encore.
Equipment
Trower in 1975

Trower has been a long time proponent of the Fender Stratocaster. He currently uses his custom built Strat (made by the Fender Custom Shop) which comes in Black, Arctic White and Midnight Wine Burst. The guitar is equipped with a 1950s reissue pickup in the neck position, a 1960s reissue in the middle position, and a Texas Special at the bridge. Other features included a custom C-shaped maple neck featuring a large headstock with a Bullet truss-rod system, locking machine heads and a maple fingerboard with narrow-spaced abalone dot position inlays and 21 frets. The Strats he plays live are an exact model of his signature guitar, which is entirely unmodified. During live performances, his guitar is tuned a full step down, to a DGCFAD tuning, instead of the "standard" EADGBE tuning.

Trower is known to use anywhere from one to three 100-Watt Marshall heads with four to six cabinets on stage. Usually two JCM 800s, and a JCM 900. But, has also been known to link 100-Watt Marshall Plexi heads. It is not uncommon for Trower to play at very high volume levels through his rigs, even in relatively small venues, to achieve his desired tone. In studio sessions, Trower uses a mix of amplifiers, such as a Fender Blues Junior and Cornell Plexi Amplifers models to acquire different tonality. Recently, Trower has been using Marshall Vintage Modern 2466 heads live.

He has recently been using Fulltone pedals and effects. He favors the OCD, Distortion Pro, Fat Boost, CLYDE Deluxe Wah, Deja Vibe 2, Soul-Bender, and a BOSS Chromatic Tuner. He runs his Deja Vibe into his distortion pedal to get his famous tone. He was given his own signature Fulltone Robin Trower Overdrive in late 2008.

For his 2009 tour Robin was using his Fender Custom Shop Signature Stratocater into a Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner, Fulltone Robin Trower Overdrive, Fulltone Full Drive, Fulltone Clyde Standard Wah, Fulltone Wahfull, and Fulltone DejaVibe 2 into two Marshall Vintage Modern 2466 heads.
Discography
With Procol Harum

    * 1967 Procol Harum
    * 1968 Shine on Brightly
    * 1969 A Salty Dog
    * 1970 Ain't Nothin' to Get Excited About (members of Procol Harum, as Liquorice John Death)
    * 1970 Home
    * 1971 Broken Barricades
    * 1991 The Prodigal Stranger
    * 1995 The Long Goodbye

With Robin Trower Band

    * 1973 Twice Removed from Yesterday ----- Certified Gold by RIAA
    * 1974 Bridge of Sighs ----- Certified Gold by RIAA
    * 1975 For Earth Below ----- Certified Gold by RIAA
    * 1976 Robin Trower Live
    * 1976 Long Misty Days ----- Certified Gold by RIAA
    * 1977 In City Dreams ----- Certified Gold by RIAA
    * 1978 Caravan to Midnight
    * 1979 Victims of the Fury
    * 1983 Back It Up
    * 1985 Beyond the Mist
    * 1987 Passion
    * 1988 Take What You Need
    * 1990 In the Line of Fire
    * 1994 20th Century Blues
    * 1995 Live in Concert
    * 1996 In Concert
    * 1997 Someday Blues
    * 1999 This Was Now '74-'98
    * 2000 Go My Way
    * 2004 Living Out of Time
    * 2005 Living Out Of Time: Live (Note: Also available on DVD)
    * 2005 Another Days Blues
    * 2008 RT@RO.08
    * 2009 What Lies Beneath

With Bryan Ferry Band

    * 1993 Taxi (Bryan Ferry Band)
    * 2000 Mamouna (Ferry)
    * 2007 Dylanesque (Bryan Ferry Band)

With Jack Bruce

    * 1981 B.L.T.
    * 1982 Truce
    * 1989 No Stopping Anytime (compilation)
    * 2008 Seven Moons

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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: ninny on 03/09/10 at 6:27 am

The person who died on this day...George Burns
George Burns (January 20, 1896 – March 9, 1996), born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor, and writer.

His career spanned vaudeville, film, radio, and television, with and without his wife, Gracie Allen. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became familiar trademarks for over three quarters of a century. He enjoyed a career resurrection with a new image as an amiable and unusually active old comedian that began at age 79 and ended shortly before his death at age 100.
Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen was born into an Irish Catholic show business family and educated at Star of the Sea Convent School in San Francisco, California in girlhood. She began in vaudeville around 1909, teamed as an Irish-dance act, "The Four Colleens", with her sisters, Bessie, Hazel, and Pearl.

She met George Burns and the two immediately launched a new partnership, with Gracie playing the role of the "straight man" and George delivering the punchlines as the comedian. Burns knew something was wrong when the audience ignored his jokes but snickered at Gracie's questions. Burns cannily flipped the act around: After a Hoboken, New Jersey performance in which they tested the new style for the first time, Burns's hunch proved right. Gracie was the better 'laugh-getter', especially with the "illogical logic" that formed her responses to Burns's prompting comments or questions.

Allen's part was known in vaudeville as a "Dumb Dora" act, named after a very early film of the same name that featured a scatterbrained female protagonist, but her "illogical logic" style was several cuts above the Dumb Dora stereotype, as was Burns's understated straight man. The twosome worked the new style tirelessly on the road, building a following, as well as a reputation for being a reliable "disappointment act" (one that could fill in for another act on short notice). Burns and Allen were so consistently dependable that vaudeville bookers elevated them to the more secure "standard act" status, and finally to the vaudevillian's dream: the Palace Theatre in New York.

Burns wrote their early scripts, but was rarely credited with being such a brilliant comedy writer. He continued to write the act through vaudeville, films, radio, and, finally, television, first by himself, then with his brother Willie and a team of writers. The entire concept of the Burns and Allen characters, however, was one created and developed by Burns.

As the team toured in vaudeville, Burns found himself falling in love with Allen, who was engaged to another performer at the time. After several attempts to win her over, he finally succeeded (by accident) after making her cry at a Christmas party. She told a friend that "if George meant enough to her to make her cry she must be in love with him".

They were married in Cleveland, Ohio on January 7, 1926, somewhat daring for those times, considering Burns's Jewish and Allen's Irish Catholic upbringing. They adopted their daughter, Sandra, in 1934 and son, Ronnie, in 1935. (For her part, Allen also endeared herself to her in-laws by adopting his mother's favorite phrase, used whenever the older woman needed to bring her son back down to earth: "Nattie, you're such a Chuck," using a diminutive of his given name. When Burns's mother died, Allen comforted her grief-stricken husband with the same phrase.)

In later years Burns admitted that, following an argument over a pricey silver table centerpiece Allen wanted, he had a very brief affair with a Las Vegas showgirl. Stricken by guilt, he phoned Jack Benny and told him about the indiscretion. However, Allen overheard the conversation and Burns quietly bought the expensive centerpiece and nothing more was said. Years later, he discovered that Allen had told one of her friends about the episode finishing with "You know, I really wish George would cheat on me again. I could use a new centerpiece."
Stage to screen

Getting a start in motion pictures with a series of comic short films, their feature credits in the mid- to late-1930s included The Big Broadcast; International House (1933), Six of a Kind (1934), The Big Broadcast of 1936, The Big Broadcast of 1937, A Damsel in Distress (1937) in which they danced step for step with Fred Astaire, and College Swing (1938), in which Bob Hope made one of his early film appearances.

Burns and Allen were indirectly responsible for the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby series of "Road" pictures. In 1938, William LeBaron, producer and managing director at Paramount, had a script prepared by Don Hartman and Frank Butler. It was to star Burns and Allen with a young crooner named Bing Crosby. The story did not seem to fit the comedy team's style, so LeBaron ordered Hartman and Butler to rewrite the script to fit two male co-stars: Hope and Crosby. The script was titled Road to Singapore and it made motion picture history when it was released in 1940.
Radio stars

Burns and Allen first made it to radio as the comedy relief for bandleader Guy Lombardo, which did not always sit well with Lombardo's home audience. In his later memoir, The Third Time Around, Burns revealed a college fraternity's protest letter, complaining that they resented their weekly dance parties with their girl friends to "Thirty Minutes of the Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven" had to be broken into by the droll vaudeville team.

In time, though, Burns and Allen found their own show and radio audience, first airing on February 15, 1932 and concentrating on their classic stage routines plus sketch comedy in which the Burns and Allen style was woven into different little scenes, not unlike the short films they made in Hollywood. They were also good for a clever publicity stunt, none more so than the hunt for Gracie's missing brother, a hunt that included Gracie turning up on other radio shows searching for him as well.

The couple was portrayed at first as younger singles, with Allen the object of both Burns's and other cast members affections. Most notably, bandleaders Ray Noble (known for his phrase, "Gracie, this is the first time we've ever been alone") and Artie Shaw played "love" interests to Gracie. In addition, singer Tony Martin played an unwilling love interest of Gracie's, in which Gracie "sexually harassed" him, by threatening to fire him if the romantic interest wasn't returned. In time, however, due to slipping ratings and the difficulty of being portrayed as singles in light of the audience's close familiarity with their real-life marriage, the show adapted in 1940 to present them as the married couple they actually were. For a time, Burns and Allen had a rather distinguished and popular musical director: Artie Shaw, who also appeared as a character in some of the show's sketches. A somewhat different Gracie also marked this era, as the Gracie character could often found to be mean to George.

    George Your mother cut my face out of the picture.
    Gracie Oh George you're being sensitive.
    George I am not! Look at my face! What happened to it?
    Gracie I don't know; it looks like you fell on it.

Or

    Census Taker What do you make?
    Gracie I make cookies and aprons and knit sweaters.
    Census Taker No, I mean what do you earn?
    Gracie George's salary.

As this format grew stale over the years, Burns and his fellow writers redeveloped the show as a situation comedy in the fall of 1941. The reformat focused on the couple's married life and life among various friends, including Elvia Allman as "Tootsie Sagwell," a man-hungry spinster in love with Bill Goodwin, and neighbors, until the characters of Harry and Blanche Morton entered the picture to stay. Like The Jack Benny Program, the new George Burns & Gracie Allen Show portrayed George and Gracie as entertainers with their own weekly radio show. Goodwin remained, his character as "girl-crazy" as ever, and the music was now handled by Meredith Willson (later to be better known for composing the Broadway musical The Music Man). Willson also played himself on the show as a naive, friendly, girl-shy fellow. The new format's success made it one of the few classic radio comedies to completely re-invent itself and regain major fame.
Supporting players

The supporting cast during this phase included Mel Blanc as the melancholy, ironically named "Happy Postman" (his catchphrase was "Remember, keep smiling!"); Bea Benaderet (later Cousin Pearl in The Beverly Hillbillies and the voice of Betty Rubble in The Flintstones) and Hal March (later more famous as the host of The $64,000 Question) as neighbors Blanche and Harry Morton; and the various members of Gracie's ladies' club, the Beverly Hills Uplift Society. One running gag during this period, stretching into the television era, was Burns's questionable singing voice, as Gracie lovingly referred to her husband as "Sugar Throat." The show received and maintained a top ten rating for the rest of its radio life.
New network

The couple took the show to CBS in the fall of 1949, after having spent virtually their entire radio career to date on NBC. Their good friend Jack Benny reached a negotiating impasse with NBC over the corporation he set up ("Amusement Enterprises") to package his show, the better to put more of his earnings on a capital-gains basis and avoid the 80 percent taxes slapped on very high earners in the World War II period. When CBS executive William S. Paley convinced Benny to move to CBS (Paley, among other things, impressed Benny with his attitude that the performers make the network, not the other way around as NBC chief David Sarnoff reputedly believed), Benny in turn convinced several NBC stars to join him, including Burns and Allen. Thus did CBS reap the benefits when Burns and Allen moved to television in 1950.
Television

On television, The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show put faces to the radio characters audiences had come to love. A number of significant changes were seen in the show:

    * A parade of actors portrayed Harry Morton: Hal March, The Life Of Riley alumnus John Brown, veteran movie and television character actor Fred Clark, and future Mister Ed co-star Larry Keating.
    * Burns often broke the fourth wall, and chatted with the home audience, telling understated jokes and commenting wryly about what show characters were doing or undoing. In later shows, he would actually turn on a television and watch what the other characters were up to when he was off camera, then returned to foil the plot.
    * When announcer Bill Goodwin left after the first season, Burns hired veteran radio announcer Harry Von Zell to succeed him. Von Zell was cast as the good-natured, easily-confused Burns and Allen announcer and buddy. He also became one of the show's running gags, when his involvement in Gracie's harebrained ideas would get him fired at least once a week by Burns.
    * The first shows were simply a copy of the radio format, complete with lengthy and integrated commercials for sponsor Carnation Evaporated Milk by Goodwin. However, what worked well on radio appeared forced and plodding on television. The show was changed into the now-standard situation comedy format, with the commercials distinct from the plot.
    * Midway through the run of the television show the Burns' two adopted children, Sandra and Ronald, began to make appearances: Sandy as an occasional drama school classmate of Ronnie, and Ronnie himself as George and Gracie's son, who held his parents' comedy style in befuddled contempt and deemed it unsuitable to the "serious" drama student. In one episode, Ronnie and Sandy, in a plot centered around their school's staging a vaudeville-style show to raise money, performed a remarkable impersonation of their famous parents' stage and radio comedy routines.

Burns and Allen also took a cue from Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's Desilu Productions and formed a company of their own, McCadden Corporation (named after the street on which Burns's brother lived), headquartered on the General Service Studio lot in the heart of Hollywood, and set up to film television shows and commercials. Besides their own hit show (which made the transition from a bi-weekly live series to a weekly filmed version in the fall of 1952), the couple's company produced such television series as The Bob Cummings Show (subsequently syndicated and rerun as Love That Bob); The People's Choice, starring Jackie Cooper; Mona McClusky, starring Juliet Prowse; and Mister Ed, starring Alan Young and a talented "talking" horse. Several of their good friend Jack Benny's 1953-55 filmed episodes were also produced by McCadden for CBS.

George Burns appeared on the Muppet Show.
The George Burns Show

The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show ran on CBS Television from 1950 through 1958, when Burns at last consented to Allen's retirement. The onset of heart trouble in the early 1950s had left her exhausted from full-time work and she had been anxious to stop but couldn't say no to Burns.

Burns attempted to continue the show (for new sponsor Colgate-Palmolive on NBC), but without Allen to provide the classic Gracie-isms, the show expired after a year.
Wendy and Me

Burns subsequently created Wendy and Me, a situation comedy in which he co-starred with Connie Stevens, Ron Harper, and J. Pat O'Malley. Burns acted primarily as the narrator, and secondarily as the advisor to Stevens' Gracie-like character. The first episode involved the middle-aged Burns watching with amusement the activities of his young upstairs neighbor on his television set, apparently via hidden cameras, then breaking the fourth wall and commenting directly to viewers. The series only lasted a year. In a promotion, Burns had joked that "Connie Stevens plays Wendy, and I play 'me'."
Allen's death

After fighting a long battle with heart disease, Gracie Allen suffered a fatal heart attack in her home on August 27, 1964 at the age of 69. She was entombed in a mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery. In his second book, They Still Love Me in Altoona, Burns wrote that he found it impossible to sleep after her death until he decided to sleep in the bed she used during her illness. He also visited her grave once a month, professing to talk to her about whatever he was doing at the time — including, he said, trying to decide whether he really should accept the Sunshine Boys role Jack Benny had to abandon because of his own failing health. He visited the tomb with Ed Bradley during a 60 Minutes interview on November 6, 1988.
The Sunshine Boys

After Gracie's death George immersed himself in work. McCadden Productions co-produced the television series No Time for Sergeants, based on the hit Broadway play; George also produced Juliet Prowse's 1965-'66 NBC situation comedy, Mona McCluskey. At the same time, he toured the U.S. playing nightclub and theater engagements with such diverse partners as Carol Channing, Dorothy Provine, Jane Russell, Connie Haines, and Berle Davis. He also performed a series of solo concerts, playing university campuses, New York's Philharmonic Hall and winding up a successful season at Carnegie Hall, where he wowed a capacity audience with his show-stopping songs, dances, and jokes.

In 1974, Jack Benny signed to play one of the lead roles in the film version of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys (Red Skelton was originally the other). Benny's health had begun to fail, however, and he advised his manager Irving Fein to let longtime friend Burns fill in for him on a series of nightclub dates to which Benny had committed around the U.S.

Burns, who enjoyed working, accepted the job. As he recalled years later:

    "The happiest people I know are the ones that are still working. The saddest are the ones who are retired. Very few performers retire on their own. It's usually because no one wants them. Six years ago Sinatra announced his retirement. He's still working."

But Benny was never able to work on The Sunshine Boys, as he'd been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, from which he died soon thereafter (December 26, 1974). Burns, heartbroken, said that the only time he ever wept in his life other than Gracie's death was when Benny died. He was chosen to give one of the eulogies at the funeral and said, "Jack was someone special to all of you but he was so special to me…I cannot imagine my life without Jack Benny and I will miss him so very much." Burns then broke down and had to be helped to his seat. People who knew George said that he never could really come to terms with his beloved friend's death.

Burns replaced Benny in the film as well as the club tour, a move that turned out to be one of the biggest breaks of his career; his wise performance as faded vaudevillian Al Lewis earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and secured his career resurgence for good. At age 80, Burns was the oldest Oscar winner in the history of the Academy Awards, a record that would remain until Jessica Tandy won an Oscar for Driving Miss Daisy in 1989.
Oh, God!

In 1977, Burns made another hit film, Oh, God!, playing the omnipotent title role opposite singer John Denver as an earnest but befuddled supermarket manager, whom God picks at random to revive His message. The image of Burns in a sailor's cap and light springtime jacket as the droll Almighty influenced his subsequent comedic work, as well as that of other comedians. At a celebrity roast in his honor, Dean Martin adapted a Burns crack: "When George was growing up, the Top Ten were the Ten Commandments."

Burns appeared in this character along with Vanessa Williams on the September 1984 cover of Penthouse magazine, the issue which contained the infamous nude photos of Williams, as well as the first appearance of underage pornographic film star Nora Kuzma, better known to the world as Traci Lords. A blurb on the cover even announced "Oh God, she's naked!"

Oh, God! inspired two sequels Oh, God! Book Two (in which the Almighty engages a precocious schoolgirl (Louanne Sirota) to spread the word) and Oh, God! You Devil—in which Burns played a dual role as God and the Devil, with the soul of a would-be songwriter (Ted Wass) at stake.

Burns also provided the voice of God in John Denver's TV special Montana Christmas Skies.
Later films

Burns appeared in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the film based on the Beatles' album of the same name.

Burns continued to work well into his nineties, writing a number of books and appearing in television and films. One of his last films was 18 Again!, based on his half-novelty, country music based hit single, "I Wish I Was 18 Again." In this film, he played a self-made millionaire industrialist who switched bodies with his awkward, artistic, eighteen-year-old grandson (played by Charlie Schlatter).

His last feature film role was the cameo role of Milt Lackey, a 100 year old stand-up comedian, in the comedy mystery Radioland Murders.
Author

Burns was a bestselling author who wrote a total of 10 books:

    * I Love Her, That's Why (1955)
    * Living It Up or They Still Love Me in Altoona (1976)
    * The Third Time Around (1980)
    * How to Live to be 100 or More (1983)
    * Dr. Burns' Prescription for Happiness (1984)
    * Dear George (1986)
    * Gracie, A Love Story (1988)
    * All My Best Friends (1989)
    * Wisdom of the 90s (1991)
    * 100 Years 100 Stories (1996)
In July 1994, Burns fell in his bathtub and had to undergo surgery to remove fluid that had collected on his brain. His health began to decline afterward. All performances celebrating his 100th birthday were canceled. In December 1995, Burns was well enough to attend a Christmas party hosted by Frank Sinatra, where he reportedly caught the flu, which weakened him further. On January 20, 1996, he celebrated his 100th birthday, but was no longer mobile enough to perform and instead spent the evening at home.

On March 9, 1996, just forty-nine days after his milestone birthday, Burns died in his Beverly Hills home of cardiac arrest. His funeral was held three days later at the Wee Kirk o' the Heather church in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale. George Burns was buried in his best dark blue suit, light blue shirt and red tie along with three cigars in his pocket, his toupee, his watch that Gracie gave him, his ring, and in his pocket, his keys and his wallet with 10 $100 bills, a five and three ones.

As much as he looked forward to reaching age 100, Burns also stated that he looked forward to death, saying that the day he died he would be with Gracie again in heaven. Upon being interred with Gracie, the crypt's marker was changed to, "Gracie Allen & George Burns—Together Again." George had said that he wanted Gracie to have top billing.
Legacy
The handprints of George Burns in front of The Great Movie Ride at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.

    * Burns and Allen were the subjects of Rupert Holmes's play Say Goodnight, Gracie.
    * In the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the two humpback whales are named George and Gracie after Burns and Allen.
    * Hooters restaurants had signs that prior to George's death read "We even card George Burns," and following his death were changed to read "We even carded George Burns."
    * The episode "The Deep End" of Robot Chicken features a parody of the movie Kill Bill entitled Kill Bunny with George Burns replacing Pai Mei.
    * The Simpsons referenced Burns in the Season 5 episode titled "Rosebud". In the show, Burns is the younger brother of Montgomery Burns. The character of Mr. Burns, as a kid, leaves his family to live with a rich man (who is actually his paternal grandfather). His father makes the comment, "Oh well. At least we still have his little brother George." The camera flashes to a kid-sized George Burns, who sings a line in his style and then says, "Trust me, it'll be funny when I'm an old man."
    * In South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, George Burns appears briefly when Kenny goes to Hell. Along with Adolf Hitler and Mahatma Gandhi, he is a ghost who talks to Kenny, and is heard saying, "Hey, fudgeface, you seen Gracie?".
    * In an episode of Boy Meets World, Corey Mathews claims an old educational puberty film starred George Burns.
    * In the film For the Boys, the characters played by Bette Midler and James Caan talk about how their comedy act will be "bigger than Burns and Allen, bigger than Hope and Crosby".
    * In en episode of Mad About You, Paul Reiser's character is working on a documentary on the history of television. In a scene he is reviewing classic television shows, and the viewer can hear Gracie saying, "Well, if we were married they'd call me Mrs. Burns."
    * In Eminem's duel rap song Guilty Conscience, there is a reference to George Burns, "Think about it before you walk in the door first; Look at the store clerk, she's older than George Burns"

Filmography

Features

    * The Big Broadcast (1932)
    * International House (1933)
    * College Humor (1933)
    * Six of a Kind (1934)
    * We're Not Dressing (1934)
    * Many Happy Returns (1934)
    * Love in Bloom (1935)
    * Here Comes Cookie (1935)
    * The Big Broadcast of 1936 (1935)
    * College Holiday (1936)
    * A Damsel in Distress (1937)
    * College Swing (1938)
    * Honolulu (1939)
    * The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956) (narrator)
    * The Sunshine Boys (1975)
    * Oh, God! (1977)
    * Movie Movie (1978)
    * Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978)
    * Just You and Me, Kid (1979)
    * Going in Style (1979)
    * Oh, God Book II (1980)
    * Oh, God! You Devil (1984)
    * 18 Again! (1988)
    * A Century of Cinema (1994) (documentary)
    * Radioland Murders (1994)
    * 2010 Mars Men (cancellation)



Short Subjects

    * Lambchops (1929)
    * Fit to Be Tied (1930)
    * Pulling a Bone (1931)
    * The Antique Shop (1931)
    * Once Over, Light (1931)
    * 100% Service (1931)
    * Oh, My Operation (1932)
    * The Babbling Book (1932)
    * Your Hat (1932)
    * Let's Dance (1933)
    * Hollywood on Parade No. A-9 (1933)
    * Walking the Baby (1933)
    * Screen Snapshots: Famous Fathers and Sons (1946)
    * Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Grows Up (1954)
    * Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Beauty (1955)
    * All About People (1967) (narrator)
    * A Look at the World of Soylent Green (1973)
    * The Lion Roars
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Subject: Re: ninny's New Person & Word of the Day

Written By: Howard on 03/09/10 at 3:37 pm


The person who died on this day...George Burns
George Burns (January 20, 1896 – March 9, 1996), born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor, and writer.

His career spanned vaudeville, film, radio, and television, with and without his wife, Gracie Allen. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became familiar trademarks for over three quarters of a century. He enjoyed a career resurrection with a new image as an amiable and unusually active old comedian that began at age 79 and ended shortly before his death at age 100.
Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen was born into an Irish Catholic show business family and educated at Star of the Sea Convent School in San Francisco, California in girlhood. She began in vaudeville around 1909, teamed as an Irish-dance act, "The Four Colleens", with her sisters, Bessie, Hazel, and Pearl.

She met George Burns and the two immediately launched a new partnership, with Gracie playing the role of the "straight man" and George delivering the punchlines as the comedian. Burns knew something was wrong when the audience ignored his jokes but snickered at Gracie's questions. Burns cannily flipped the act around: After a Hoboken, New Jersey performance in which they tested the new style for the first time, Burns's hunch proved right. Gracie was the better 'laugh-getter', especially with the "illogical logic" that formed her responses to Burns's prompting comments or questions.

Allen's part was known in vaudeville as a "Dumb Dora" act, named after a very early film of the same name that featured a scatterbrained female protagonist, but her "illogical logic" style was several cuts above the Dumb Dora stereotype, as was Burns's understated straight man. The twosome worked the new style tirelessly on the road, building a following, as well as a reputation for being a reliable "disappointment act" (one that could fill in for another act on short notice). Burns and Allen were so consistently dependable that vaudeville bookers elevated them to the more secure "standard act" status, and finally to the vaudevillian's dream: the Palace Theatre in New York.

Burns wrote their early scripts, but was rarely credited with being such a brilliant comedy writer. He continued to write the act through vaudeville, films, radio, and, finally, television, first by himself, then with his brother Willie and a team of writers. The entire concept of the Burns and Allen characters, however, was one created and developed by Burns.

As the team toured in vaudeville, Burns found himself falling in love with Allen, who was engaged to another performer at the time. After several attempts to win her over, he finally succeeded (by accident) after making her cry at a Christmas party. She told a friend that "if George meant enough to her to make her cry she must be in love with him".

They were married in Cleveland, Ohio on January 7, 1926, somewhat daring for those times, considering Burns's Jewish and Allen's Irish Catholic upbringing. They adopted their daughter, Sandra, in 1934 and son, Ronnie, in 1935. (For her part, Allen also endeared herself to her in-laws by adopting his mother's favorite phrase, used whenever the older woman needed to bring her son back down to earth: "Nattie, you're such a Chuck," using a diminutive of his given name. When Burns's mother died, Allen comforted her grief-stricken husband with the same phrase.)

In later years Burns admitted that, following an argument over a pricey silver table centerpiece Allen wanted, he had a very brief affair with a Las Vegas showgirl. Stricken by guilt, he phoned Jack Benny and told him about the indiscretion. However, Allen overheard the conversation and Burns quietly bought the expensive centerpiece and nothing more was said. Years later, he discovered that Allen had told one of her friends about the episode finishing with "You know, I really wish George would cheat on me again. I could use a new centerpiece."
Stage to screen

Getting a start in motion pictures with a series of comic short films, their feature credits in the mid- to late-1930s included The Big Broadcast; International House (1933), Six of a Kind (1934), The Big Broadcast of 1936, The Big Broadcast of 1937, A Damsel in Distress (1937) in which they danced step for step with Fred Astaire, and College Swing (1938), in which Bob Hope made one of his early film appearances.

Burns and Allen were indirectly responsible for the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby series of "Road" pictures. In 1938, William LeBaron, producer and managing director at Paramount, had a script prepared by Don Hartman and Frank Butler. It was to star Burns and Allen with a young crooner named Bing Crosby. The story did not seem to fit the comedy team's style, so LeBaron ordered Hartman and Butler to rewrite the script to fit two male co-stars: Hope and Crosby. The script was titled Road to Singapore and it made motion picture history when it was released in 1940.
Radio stars

Burns and Allen first made it to radio as the comedy relief for bandleader Guy Lombardo, which did not always sit well with Lombardo's home audience. In his later memoir, The Third Time Around, Burns revealed a college fraternity's protest letter, complaining that they resented their weekly dance parties with their girl friends to "Thirty Minutes of the Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven" had to be broken into by the droll vaudeville team.

In time, though, Burns and Allen found their own show and radio audience, first airing on February 15, 1932 and concentrating on their classic stage routines plus sketch comedy in which the Burns and Allen style was woven into different little scenes, not unlike the short films they made in Hollywood. They were also good for a clever publicity stunt, none more so than the hunt for Gracie's missing brother, a hunt that included Gracie turning up on other radio shows searching for him as well.

The couple was portrayed at first as younger singles, with Allen the object of both Burns's and other cast members affections. Most notably, bandleaders Ray Noble (known for his phrase, "Gracie, this is the first time we've ever been alone") and Artie Shaw played "love" interests to Gracie. In addition, singer Tony Martin played an unwilling love interest of Gracie's, in which Gracie "sexually harassed" him, by threatening to fire him if the romantic interest wasn't returned. In time, however, due to slipping ratings and the difficulty of being portrayed as singles in light of the audience's close familiarity with their real-life marriage, the show adapted in 1940 to present them as the married couple they actually were. For a time, Burns and Allen had a rather distinguished and popular musical director: Artie Shaw, who also appeared as a character in some of the show's sketches. A somewhat different Gracie also marked this era, as the Gracie character could often found to be mean to George.

    George Your mother cut my face out of the picture.
    Gracie Oh George you're being sensitive.
    George I am not! Look at my face! What happened to it?
    Gracie I don't know; it looks like you fell on it.

Or

    Census Taker What do you make?
    Gracie I make cookies and aprons and knit sweaters.
    Census Taker No, I mean what do you earn?
    Gracie George's salary.

As this format grew stale over the years, Burns and his fellow writers redeveloped the show as a situation comedy in the fall of 1941. The reformat focused on the couple's married life and life among various friends, including Elvia Allman as "Tootsie Sagwell," a man-hungry spinster in love with Bill Goodwin, and neighbors, until the characters of Harry and Blanche Morton entered the picture to stay. Like The Jack Benny Program, the new George Burns & Gracie Allen Show portrayed George and Gracie as entertainers with their own weekly radio show. Goodwin remained, his character as "girl-crazy