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Another history mystery, folks.

Parachute may belong to famed hijacker: By GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 3 minutes ago

SEATTLE - Hoping to solve at least part of a 36-year-old mystery, the FBI is analyzing a torn, tangled parachute found in southwest Washington to determine if it belonged to famed plane hijacker D.B. Cooper.
Children playing outside their home near Amboy found the chute's fabric sticking up from the ground in an area where their father had been grading a road, agent Larry Carr said Tuesday. They pulled it out as far as they could, then cut the parachute's ropes with scissors

Hmmm. Frankly, I think Gus is D.B. Cooper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBrIoNrXXu8

Good afternoon WA2K. Can't believe I just exed (how do you spell exed?) out my reply and all 7 pictures. But that's no mystery. That's stupid.

Here I go again.

Remembering Robert Frost and Tennessee Williams



and a Happy 77th to Leonard Nimoy; 74th to Alan Arkin; 68th to James Caan; 64th To Diana Ross and 58th to Martin Short.

Robert Frost
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Born March 26, 1874
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Died January 29, 1963
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation Poet

Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 - January 29, 1963) was an American poet. His work frequently employed themes from the early 1900s rural life in New England, using the setting to examine complex social and philosophical themes. While Frost's poems continue to be popularly interpreted optimistically within the frame of an idyllic pastoral life, most modern literary criticism is preoccupied with their frequently pessimistic, menacing, and disingenuous undertones.[1] A popular and often-quoted poet, Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes.




Biography

Early life

Although he is commonly associated with New England, Robert Frost was a native of California, born in San Francisco, and lived there until he was 11 years old. His mother, Isabelle Moodie Frost, was of Scottish descent; his father, William Prescott Frost, Jr., was a descendant of colonist Nicholas Frost from Tiverton, Devon, England who had sailed to New Hampshire in 1634 on the Wolfrana.

Frost's father was a good teacher, and later an editor of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin (which was eventually merged into the San Francisco Examiner), and an unsuccessful candidate for the city tax collector. The road not taken for young Robert might have been as a Californian editor rather than a New England poet, but William Frost Jr. died May 5, 1885, debts were settled, and the family moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts where William Frost, Sr., was an overseer at a New England mill. Frost's mother joined the Swedenborgian church and had him baptized in it, but he left it as an adult.

Despite his later association with rural life, Frost lived in the city, and published his first poem in the Lawrence high school magazine. He attended Dartmouth College, long enough to be accepted into the Theta Delta Chi fraternity. Frost returned home to teach and to work at various jobs including delivering newspapers and factory labor. He did not enjoy these jobs at all, feeling his true calling as a poet.


Adult years

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life ?- It goes on" -- Robert FrostIn 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 refused, 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 in Harvard University, which he attended for two years.

He did well, but left to support his growing family. Grandfather Frost purchased a farm for the young couple in Derry, New Hampshire, shortly before his death. Frost worked on the farm for nine years. He wrote early in the mornings, producing many of the poems that would later become famous. His attempts at farming were not successful, and Frost 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. Surrounded by his peers, Frost wrote some of his best work while in England.

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. The family homestead at Franconia, which served as his summer home until 1938, is maintained as a museum and poetry conference site. From 1916 to 1938, Frost was an English professor at Amherst College, encouraging his students to account for the sounds of the human voice in their craft. Starting in 1921, and for the next 42 years (with three exceptions), Frost spent his summers and into late fall teaching at the Bread Loaf School of English of Middlebury College in Ripton, Vermont. The college now owns and maintains Robert Frost's farm as a national historic site near the Bread Loaf campus.

Frost was 86 when he spoke at the inauguration of President Kennedy on January 20, 1961. He died a little more than two years later, in Boston, on January 29, 1963. He was buried at the Old Bennington Cemetery in Bennington, Vermont.

Harvard's 1965 alumni directory indicates his having received an honorary degree there; Frost also received honorary degrees from Bates College and Oxford and Cambridge universities, and he was the first to receive two honorary degrees from Dartmouth College. During his lifetime, the Robert Frost Middle School in Fairfax, Virginia, as well as the main library of Amherst College, were named after him.

Tennessee Williams
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Born March 26, 1911(1911-03-26)
Columbus, Mississippi
Died February 25, 1983 (aged 71)
New York, New York
Occupation Playwright
Writing period 1930-1983
Genres Southern Gothic
Influences[show]
Anton Chekhov, D. H. Lawrence, August Strindberg, Hart Crane
Influenced[show]
Stephen Chbosky[1]


Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 - February 25, 1983), better known by the nickname Tennessee Williams, was a major American playwright of the twentieth century who received many of the top theatrical awards for his work. 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 (dedicated to his lover, Frank Merlo), received the Tony Award for best play.





Biography

Tennessee Williams found inspiration in his problematic family for much of his writing. He was born in Columbus, Mississippi, in the home of his maternal grandfather, the local Episcopal rector. (The home is now the Mississippi Welcome Center and tourist office for the city.)

By the time Thomas was three, the family had moved to Clarksdale, Mississippi. At five, he was diagnosed with a paralytic disease. It caused his legs to be paralyzed for nearly two years. He could do almost nothing, but his mother encouraged him to make up stories and read. She didn't want him to continue wasting his time. She encouraged him to use his imagination and gave him a typewriter when he was thirteen.[citation needed]

His father Cornelius Williams was a traveling salesman who became increasingly abusive as his children grew older. The father often favored Tennessee's brother Dakin, perhaps because of Tennessee's illness and extended weakness and convalescence as a child. Tennessee's mother Edwina Dakin Williams had aspirations as a genteel southern lady and was somewhat smothering. She may have had a mood disorder.

In 1918, when Williams was seven, the family moved again, this time to St. Louis, Missouri. In 1927, at the age of 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-Columbia, where he joined Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. His fraternity brothers dubbed him "Tennessee" for his rich southern drawl. In the late 1930s, Williams transferred to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri for a year, and finally earned a degree from the University of Iowa in 1938. By then, Williams had written Cairo, Shanghai, Bombay!. This work was first performed in 1935 at 1780 Glenview in Memphis.

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. He lived in a separate building at the home of a family named Black. Mr. Black was an Episcopal minister. George Black, the son, became one of his gay partners, and they were close for many years, even after George and his family moved to Miami. It has been suggested that this Mr. Black was the inspiration for the film John Q.[citation needed]

Tennessee was close to his sister Rose, a slim beauty whose sad life had perhaps the greatest influence on him. She 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 Washington, D.C., the operation went badly. Rose was incapacitated for the rest of her life.

Rose's failed lobotomy was a hard blow to Williams. He never forgave their parents for allowing the operation. His sister's severe illness and failed surgery may have contributed to his alcoholism and his dependence on various combinations of amphetamines and barbituates often prescribed by Dr. Max (Feelgood) Jacobson.[2] They may also have shared a genetic vulnerability, as Williams also suffered from depression.

Williams's relationship with Frank Merlo, a second generation Sicilian American who had served in the U.S. Navy in World War II, 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[3] and the fear that, like his sister Rose, he would go insane.

Tennessee Williams died at the age of 71 after he choked on an eyedrop bottle cap in his room at the Hotel Elysee in New York. He would routinely place the cap in his mouth, lean back, and place his eyedrops in each eye, pretending he was a walrus. [4] His brother Dakin and some friends believed he was murdered. The police report, however, suggested his use of drugs and alcohol contributed to his death. Many prescription drugs were found in the room. Williams' lack of gag response may have been due to drugs and alcohol effects.

Williams' funeral took place on Saturday March 3, 1983 at St. Malachy's Roman Catholic Church in New York City. Williams' body was interred in the Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri. Williams had long told his friends he wanted to be buried at sea at approximately the same place as the poet Hart Crane, as he considered Crane to be one of his most significant influences.

Tennessee Williams left his literary rights to Sewanee, The University of the South in honor of his grandfather, Walter Dakin, an alumnus of the university. It is located in Sewanee, Tennessee. The funds support a creative writing program. When his sister Rose died after many years in a mental institution, she bequeathed over 50 million dollars from her part of the Williams estate to Sewanee, The University of the South as well.

In 1989, the City of St. Louis inducted Tennessee Williams into its St. Louis Walk of Fame.


The work

The "mad heroine" theme that appeared in many of his plays seemed clearly influenced by the life of Williams' sister Rose.[citation needed]


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, as well as Williams himself. When Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire, he believed he was going to die and that this play would be his swan song.

Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie was generally seen to represent Williams' mother. 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.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof included references to elements of Williams' life such as homosexuality, mental instability and alcoholism.

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 1 October 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 will be published by New Directions in the spring of 2008, in a collection of previously unpublished plays titled The Traveling Companion and Other Plays, edited by Williams scholar Annette J. Saddik.

Sterling Hayden
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born Sterling Relyea Walter
March 26, 1916
Upper Montclair, New Jersey, United States
Died May 23, 1986 (age 70)
Sausalito, California
Other name(s) Sterling Walter Hayden, John Hamilton
Occupation Actor, author, sailor, model, Marine, OSS agent
Years active 1930s-1982
Spouse(s) Betty De Noon (divorced 1959)
Catherine Devine McConnell (1960-1986)

Sterling Hayden (March 26, 1916 - May 23, 1986) was an American actor and author. For most of his career as a leading man, he specialized in westerns and film noir, such as Johnny Guitar, The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing. Later on he became noted as a character actor for such roles as Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). He also played the Irish policeman, Captain McCluskey, in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather in 1972.





Biography

Early life, education

Born in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, Hayden's parents were George and Frances Walter, who named him Sterling Relyea Walter[1][2]. After his father died, he was adopted at the age of nine by James Hayden and renamed Sterling Walter Hayden. As a child, he lived in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., and Maine, where he attended Wassookeag School in Dexter, Maine.

Hayden was a genuine adventurer and man of action, not dissimilar from many of his movie parts. He ran away to sea at 17, as a ship's boy, then later was a fisherman on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. After serving as sailor and fireman on larger vessels, he was awarded his first command at 19, and sailed around the world several times.


Hollywood years, military service, communist sympathies

Hayden became a print model and later signed a contract with Paramount Pictures, who dubbed the 6' 5" (1.96 m) actor The Most Beautiful Man in the Movies and The Beautiful Blond Viking God. His first film starred Madeleine Carroll, with whom he fell in love and married. But after just two film roles, he left Hollywood to serve as an undercover agent with William J. Donovan's COI office. He remained there after it became the OSS. Hayden also joined the Marines under the name John Hamilton (which was never his legal name). His World War II service included running guns through German lines to the Yugoslav partisans and parachuting into fascist Croatia. He won the Silver Star and a commendation from Yugoslavia's Marshal Tito.

His admiration for the Communist partisans led to a brief membership in the Communist Party. According to his IMDB biography, as the Red Scare deepened in U.S., "he cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee, confessing his brief Communist ties" and 'naming names'. His wife at that time, Betty De Noon, insisted that the 'names' her ex-husband provided were already in the hands of the Committee, which had a copy of the Communist Party's membership list. In any event, Hayden subsequently repudiated his own cooperation with the Committee, stating in his autobiography "I don't think you have the foggiest notion of the contempt I have had for myself since the day I did that thing."[1].


Marriages, sailing

Sterling Hayden often professed distaste for film acting, claiming he did it mainly to pay for his ships and voyages. In 1959, after a very bitter divorce he was awarded custody of his children. He defied a court order and sailed to Tahiti with all four children, Christian, Dana, Gretchen and Matthew.

Hayden married Catherine Devine McConnell in 1960. They had two sons, Andrew and David, and were married until his death in 1986. Catherine also had a son from her first marriage, the journalist Scott McConnell.

In the early 1960s, Hayden rented one of the pilot houses of the retired ferryboat Berkeley, docked in Sausalito, California where he resided while writing his autobiography Wanderer, which was published in 1963.

In the 1970s, after his appearance in The Godfather, he appeared several times on NBC's The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder where he talked about his career resurgence and how it had funded his travels and adventures around the world. Hayden bought a canal barge in the Netherlands in 1969, eventually moving it to the heart of Paris and living on it part of the time. He also shared a home in Connecticut with his family and had an apartment in Sausalito, California.

In 1986, Sterling Hayden died of prostate cancer in Sausalito, California, age 70. [3]


Quotations
From his autobiography, Wanderer:

To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea... cruising, it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about. I've always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can't afford it." What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of security. And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone. What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all - in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed. Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?

Strother Martin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Strother Martin (March 26, 1919 - August 1, 1980) was an American character actor in numerous films and television programs. Martin is perhaps best known as the prison "captain" in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, where he uttered the classic line, "What we've got here is failure to communicate."

He also frequently acted alongside L. Q. Jones, who in real life was one of his closest friends.

Born in Kokomo, Indiana, Martin excelled at swimming and diving, and got the nickname "T-Bone Martin" from his diving expertise. At 17 he won the National Junior Springboard Diving Championship. He served as a swimming instructor in the U.S. Navy during World War II and was a member of the diving team at the University of Michigan. He entered the adult National Springboard Diving competition in hopes of gaining a berth on the U.S. Olympic team, but finished third in the competition.[1] After the war, Martin moved to Los Angeles and worked as a swimming instructor and as a swimming extra in water scenes in films,[2] eventually earning bit roles in a number of pictures. He quickly became a frequent fixture in small character roles in movies and TV through the 1950s. Martin's distinctive, reedy voice and menacing demeanor made him ideal for villainous roles in many of the best known Westerns of the 1960s and 1970s. In a classic Gunsmoke episode "Island in the Desert" he starred as a crazy desert hermit named Ben Snow. By the late 1960s Martin was almost as well-known a figure in movies as many top-billed stars.

Martin appeared in all three of the classic Westerns released in 1969: Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (as Coffer, a bloodthirsty bounty hunter); George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (as Percy Garris, the "colorful" Bolivian mine boss who hires the two title characters); and Henry Hathaway's True Grit (as Colonel Stonehill, a horse dealer). Though he usually appeared in supporting roles, he had major parts in Hannie Caulder, The Brotherhood of Satan (both 1971), and SSSSSSS (1973). Martin later appeared in another classic George Roy Hill film, Slap Shot (1977), again with Paul Newman, as the cheap manager of the Charlestown Chiefs hockey club.

Strother Martin can also be seen in Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke (1978) as Arnold Stoner, the father of Tommy Chong's character Anthony. He also starred in a two part Rockford Files(1977) as T.T. Flowers - an episode that took on urban invasion and the environment.

One of his last acting jobs was as host of Saturday Night Live on April 19, 1980. His episode was supposed to be rerun during the summer of 1980, but was pulled and replaced with another episode due to his death.

Martin died of a heart attack in 1980 at the age of 61.

Leonard Nimoy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born Leonard Simon Nimoy
March 26, 1931 (1931-03-26) (age 77)
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Years active 1951-Present
Spouse(s) Sandra Zober (1954-1987)
Susan Bay (1988-present)

Leonard Simon Nimoy (born March 26, 1931) is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. He is best known for playing the character of Spock on Star Trek, an American television series that ran for three seasons from 1966 to 1969, in addition to several movie sequels.





Early life

Nimoy was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants from Russia.[1][2] His mother, Dora (née Spinner), was a homemaker, and his father, Max Nimoy, owned a barbershop.[3][4] Nimoy began acting at the age of 8 but his first major role was Ralphie in Clifford Odets's "Awake and Sing," at 17.[5] He studied photography at UCLA, but never completed his degree. He graduated from Boston College in 1953 and has an MA in education and an honorary doctorate from Antioch College in Ohio. Nimoy spent much of his early career doing small parts in B-movies, TV shows such as Dragnet, and serials such as Republic Pictures' Zombies of the Stratosphere in 1952. He fondly recalls playing in pinochle tournaments and selling his body for medical experiments to pay for tap dance lessons. In 1961 he had a minor role in The Twilight Zone episode "A Quality of Mercy". His Bostonian upbringing can be heard in his pronunciation, for example his pronunciation of the word "rather" in Star Trek episodes.

Nimoy served in the U.S. Army Reserve, receiving final discharge in November 1955 as a Sergeant. According to the National Archives and Records Administration, Nimoy's U.S. Army service record was destroyed in the 1973 National Archives Fire.


Career

Stage and screen

Nimoy's most famous role is the half-Vulcan, half-human Spock from Star Trek, The Original Series, which ran from 1966 to 1969. He earned three Emmy nominations for playing this character.

As a foretaste of what was to come, Nimoy and William Shatner (who would go on to play Spock's commanding officer, Captain James T. Kirk) found themselves on the opposite side of the Iron Curtain in the 1964 episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., "The Project Strigas Affair". With his saturnine looks, Nimoy was predictably the villain, with Shatner playing a reluctant U.N.C.L.E. recruit. Nimoy went on to reprise Spock's character in a voice-over role in Star Trek: The Animated Series, in two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and in six Star Trek motion pictures featuring the original cast. He will perform an older Spock in the upcoming Star Trek movie directed by J.J. Abrams.

Before his success in Star Trek, Nimoy had acted in more than 50 movies or television shows. Although most of these were popular TV shows, he also appeared in The Balcony, an adaptation of a play by Jean Genet. Following the cancellation of the original Star Trek series, Nimoy immediately joined the cast of the spy series Mission: Impossible, which was seeking a replacement for Martin Landau. Nimoy was cast as an IMF agent who was an ex-magician/ make-up expert, "The Great Paris." He played the role from 1969 to 1971, on the fourth and fifth seasons of the show. (As noted by Patrick White in The Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier, Landau had been an early choice to play Spock.) It was during the run of the show that Nimoy fell ill with a stomach ulcer.

He co-starred with Yul Brynner and Richard Crenna in the Western movie Catlow (1971). Nimoy also appeared in various made for television films in this period, such as Assault On The Wayne (1970), Baffled (1972), The Alpha Caper (1973), The Missing Are Deadly (1974), Seizure: The Story Of Kathy Morris (1980), Marco Polo (1982) and he received an Emmy award nomination for best supporting actor for the TV film A Woman Called Golda (1982). Nimoy also appeared in two popular television series, 1972 episode of Night Gallery called "She'll Be Company for You", and in 1973 on an episode of Columbo called "A Stitch In Crime". He played a murderous doctor and was one of the few criminals at whom Columbo ever really became angry. In the late 1970s, he hosted and narrated the television series In Search of..., which investigated paranormal or unexplained events or subjects. He also has a memorable character part as a mad scientist-type New Age psychologist in Philip Kaufman's remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It was during this time that Nimoy won acclaim for a series of stage roles as well. He has appeared in such plays as Vincent, Fiddler On The Roof, The Man in the Glass Booth, Oliver!, Six Rms Riv Vu, Full Circle, Camelot, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, The King And I, Caligula, The Four Poster, Twelfth Night, Sherlock Holmes, Equus and My Fair Lady. When a new Star Trek series was planned in the late 1970s, Nimoy was to be in only two out of every eleven episodes, but when the show was elevated to a feature film, he agreed to reprise his role.

After directing a few television show episodes, Nimoy broke into film directing in 1984 with the successful third installment of the Star Trek film series (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock). Nimoy would go on to direct the most successful (critically and financially) film in the franchise to date, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) and move beyond the Trek universe with Three Men and a Baby, the highest grossing film of 1987. Nimoy also did occasional work as a voice actor in animated feature films including the character of Galvatron in Transformers: The Movie in 1986 and The Pagemaster in 1994.


Literary works

Nimoy has written two autobiographies, the first one called I Am Not Spock (1977). The title of this book was controversial, as many fans incorrectly assumed that Nimoy was distancing himself from the Spock character; however, Nimoy's stated intention was merely to remind the public at large that Spock and Nimoy were not one and the same. In the book, Nimoy conducts dialogues between himself and Spock.

His second autobiography was entitled I Am Spock (1995), and this title was meant to communicate that he finally realized that his years of portraying the Spock character had led to a much greater identification between the fictional character and the real person. Over the years, Nimoy had much input into how Spock would act in certain situations, and, conversely, Nimoy's contemplation of how Spock acted gave him cause to think about things in a way that he never would have thought if he had not portrayed this character. As such, in this autobiography Nimoy maintains that in some meaningful sense, he really is now Spock, and Spock is he, while at the same time maintaining the distance between fact and fiction.

Nimoy has also written several volumes of poetry, some published along with a number of his photographs. His latest effort is entitled A Lifetime of Love: Poems on the Passages of Life (2002). His poetry can be found in the Contemporary Poets index of The HyperTexts.[6] In the mid 1970s Nimoy wrote and starred in a one man play called Vincent based on the play Van Gogh by Phillip Stephens.

In 1995, Nimoy was involved in the production of Primortals, a comic book series published by Tekno Comix that involved a first contact situation with aliens that had arisen from discussion between him and Isaac Asimov. There was a novelization by Steve Perry.


Music career



During and following Star Trek, Nimoy also released five albums of vocal recordings on Dot Records, including Trek-related songs and cover versions of popular tunes, notably, "Highly Illogical". The albums were extremely popular and resulted in numerous live appearances and promotional record signings that attracted crowds of fans in the thousands. The early recordings were produced by Charles Grean, who may be best known as the composer of "Quentin's Theme" for the mid-sixties goth soap opera, Dark Shadows. These recordings are generally regarded as unintentionally camp, though his tongue-in-cheek performance of "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" received a fair amount of airplay when Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films were released.

In addition to his own music career he directed a 1985 music video for The Bangles' "Going Down to Liverpool". He makes a brief cameo appearance in the video as their driver. This came about because his son Adam Nimoy (now a frequent television director) was a friend of Bangles lead singer Susanna Hoffs from college.

Nimoy appeared in Hearts of Space program number 142 - "Whales alive"


Current work

Starting in 1994, Nimoy began to narrate the Ancient Mysteries series on A&E including "The Sacred Water of Lourdes" and "The Last Days of the Romanovs". He also appeared in advertising in the United Kingdom for the computer company Time Computers in the late 1990s. He had a central role in Brave New World (film), a 1998 TV-movie version of Aldous Huxley's novel where he played a character wonderfully reminiscent of Spock in his philosophical balancing of unpredictable human qualities with the need for control. Nimoy has also appeared in several popular television series--including Futurama and The Simpsons--as both himself and Spock.

In 2003, he announced his retirement from acting in order to concentrate on his photography, such as his recent exhibit for nude pictures of BBW women and models, but has subsequently appeared in several popular television commercials with William Shatner for Priceline.com. He also appeared in a commercial for Aleve, an arthritis pain medication, which aired during the 2006 Super Bowl. Nimoy also provided a comprehensive series of voiceovers for the 2005 computer game Civilization IV. He also did the TV series Next Wave where he interviewed people about technology. He is the host in the documentary film The Once and Future Griffith Observatory currently running in the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater located at the recently reopened Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California. In January 2007, he granted an interview to Fat free film where he discussed his early career and the benefits of being typecast.[7]

On July 26, 2007, it was revealed at Comic-Con that Nimoy would return to reprise his famous role as Spock one more time in the upcoming movie Star Trek, while Zachary Quinto will play his younger self.[8]


Personal life

Nimoy has long been active in the Jewish community, as a teen he was active in BBYO, the Jewish youth organization, and recently won their award for distinguished alumni. He speaks and reads Yiddish. One of his better-known roles was that of Tevye the milkman, in the musical Fiddler on the Roof, based on the series of short stories by Yiddish author Sholom Aleichem. In 1997 he narrated the documentary A Life Apart: Hasidism in America, about the various sects of Hasidic Orthodox Jews. In October 2002 Nimoy published The Shekhina Project, a photographic study exploring the feminine aspect of God's presence, inspired by Kabbalah (esoteric Jewish mysticism). His photographs, which show nude women draped in tefillin (phylacteries), which are typically worn by Jewish males, aroused considerable controversy in the Jewish community.

Nimoy has been married twice. In 1954, he married actress Sandra Zober, whom he divorced in 1987. He had two children with her, director Adam Nimoy and Julie Nimoy, which they both appear in an Oldsmobile commercial, with the famous tagline, "This is not your father's Oldmobile". In 1988, he married actress Susan Bay.

Nimoy introduced the Vulcan nerve pinch in an early TOS episode ("The Enemy Within") where Spock was supposed to KO the evil Kirk in the Engineering room. He suggested the "pinch" as a non-violent alternative. Nimoy also devised the Vulcan Salute - a raised hand, palm forward with the fingers parted between the middle and ring finger - based on the traditional kohanic blessing, which is performed with both hands, thumb to thumb in this position: a position thought to represent the Hebrew letter shin (ש). (This letter is often used as a symbol of God in Judaism, as it is an abbreviation for one of God's names, Shaddai. This usage is seen, for example, on every mezuzah.) Nimoy says he derived the accompanying spoken blessing, "Live long and prosper" from this source, as the last phrase of the blessing is "May the Lord be forbearing unto you and give you peace" (Numbers 6:24-26).[9] Nimoy was asked to read the verses as part of his narration for Civilization IV.

A political liberal, Nimoy recently contributed the maximum $2300 to 2008 US presidential candidate Barack Obama.[10]

Alan Arkin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born Alan Wolf Arkin
March 26, 1934 (1934-03-26) (age 74)
Brooklyn, New York City, New York, U.S.
Spouse(s) Jeremy Yaffe (1955-1960)
Barbara Dana (m.1964)
Suzanne Newlander (1996-)
[show]Awards won
Academy Awards
Best Supporting Actor
2006 Little Miss Sunshine
BAFTA Awards
Best Actor in a Supporting Role
2006 Little Miss Sunshine
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1966 The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming
Screen Actors Guild Awards
Best Cast - Motion Picture
2006 Little Miss Sunshine
Tony Awards
Best Featured Actor in a Play
1963 Enter Laughing

Alan Wolf Arkin (born March 26, 1934) is an Academy Award- and Golden Globe-winning and four-time Emmy nominated American actor and director. He is best-known for starring in such films as Catch-22, The In-Laws, Edward Scissorhands, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, Glengarry Glen Ross and Little Miss Sunshine, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2007. He is the father of actor Adam Arkin.





Biography

Early life and career

Arkin was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Beatrice (née Wortis), a teacher, and David I. Arkin, a painter and writer who mostly worked as a teacher.[1] Arkin was raised in a Jewish family with "no emphasis on religion;" his maternal grandfather was an immigrant from Odessa, Ukraine.[2] The family moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, California when Arkin was 11 years old,[2] but an eight-month Hollywood strike cost Arkin's father a set designer job he had wanted to take. Arkin's parents were accused during the 1950s Red Scare of being Communists, which led to Arkin's father losing his job after refusing to answer questions regarding his political affiliation. David Arkin challenged the dismissal and ultimately prevailed, but after his death.[3]

Arkin, who had been taking acting lessons since age 10, became a scholarship student at various drama academies, including one run by Stanislavsky student Benjamin Zemach, who taught Arkin a psychological approach to acting.[4] Arkin attended Franklin High School,[5] in Los Angeles, followed by Los Angeles City College from 1951 to 1953. With two friends, he formed the folk music group The Tarriers, in which Arkin sang and played guitar. The band-members co-composed the group's 1956 hit "The Banana Boat Song," a reworking, with some new lyrics, of a traditional, same-name Jamaican calypso folk song combined with another titled "Hill and Gully Rider".[6] It reached #4 on the Billboard magazine chart the same year as Harry Belafonte's better-known hit version.[7]

From 1958 to 1968, Arkin performed and recorded with the children's folk group, The Baby Sitters.[8]


Acting career

Arkin is one of only eight[9] actors to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his first screen appearance (for The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming in 1966). Two years later, he was again nominated, for The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.

Arkin is equally comfortable in comedy and dramatic roles. Among those for which he has garnered the most favorable critical attention are his Oscar-nominated turns above; Wait Until Dark, as the erudite killer stalking Audrey Hepburn; director Mike Nichols' Catch-22; The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (where he played Sigmund Freud); writer Jules Feiffer's Little Murders, which Arkin directed; the The In-Laws, co-starring Peter Falk; Glengarry Glen Ross; and Little Miss Sunshine, for which he received his third Oscar nomination, in the category of Best Supporting Actor. On the 11th February 2007 he received a BAFTA Film Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his portrayal of Grandfather Edwin in Little Miss Sunshine. On February 25, 2007, upon winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Arkin, who plays a foul-mouthed grandfather with a taste for heroin said, "More than anything, I'm deeply moved by the open-hearted appreciation our small film has received, which in these fragmented times speaks so openly of the possibility of innocence, growth and connection".[10] At 72 years old, Arkin became the sixth oldest winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

On Broadway, Arkin starred in Enter Laughing, for which he won a Tony Award, and Luv. He also directed The Sunshine Boys, among others.


Author

Arkin is also the author of many books, including the children's stories The Lemming Condition and The Clearing.


Personal life

Arkin has been married three times. He and Jeremy Yaffe, to whom he was married from 1955 to 1960, have two sons: Adam Arkin, born Aug. 19, 1956 or 1957 (accounts differ), and Matthew Arkin, born in 1960. In 1967, Arkin had son Anthony (Tony) Dana Arkin with actress-screenwriter Barbara Dana (born 1940), to whom he was married from June 16, 1964 to the mid-1990s. In 1996, Arkin married a psychotherapist, Suzanne Newlander.[3] As of 2007, they live in New Mexico.

James Caan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born James Edmund Caan
March 26, 1940 (1940-03-26) (age 68)
The Bronx, New York City,
New York, United States
Other name(s) Jimmy Caan
[show]Awards won
Academy Awards
Nominated: Best Supporting Actor
1972 The Godfather

James Edmund "Jimmy" Caan (born March 26, 1940) is an American Academy Award-, Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated American film, stage and television actor. He is best-known for his Academy Award nominated role of Santino 'Sonny' Corleone in 1972's The Godfather and for his role as Ed Deline on Las Vegas.





Biography

Early life

Caan was born in The Bronx, the son of Sophie and Arthur Caan, Jewish emigrants from Germany.[1] His father was a meat dealer.[2] Caan grew up in Sunnyside, Queens.[1] Caan played college football at Michigan State University. He transferred to Hofstra University, but he did not graduate. However, while studying at Hofstra University, he became intrigued by acting and was interviewed, accepted and graduated from New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse where one of his instructors was teaching legend Sanford Meisner.


Career

Caan began acting in television on such series as The Untouchables, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Kraft Suspense Theatre, Combat!, Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, The Wide Country, Alcoa Premiere, Route 66, and Naked City.

His first substantial film role was as a villainous punk in the 1964 thriller Lady in a Cage, which starred Olivia de Havilland. In 1967, Caan appeared in El Dorado with John Wayne. He first won praise for his role as a brain-damaged football player in The Rain People (1969), directed by Francis Ford Coppola. In 1971, Caan won more acclaim as dying football player Brian Piccolo in the television movie Brian's Song, which was later released in theaters. The following year, Coppola cast Caan as mobster Sonny Corleone in The Godfather, which also helped launch Al Pacino's career. Caan was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in the film.

In was around this time that Caan had his infamous great friendship with the reputed Underboss of the Colombo crime family, the fierce Carmine "Junior" Persico. Caan would eventually be photographed by US law enforcement in surveillance pictures along with Persico, however, due to the fact that the The Godfather hadn't come out yet, the authorities mistook him for another rising mobster in the Colombo crime family, which Persico currently is the Boss of today.

From 1973-82, Caan appeared in many Hollywood films. He played a wide variety of roles. His films include Cinderella Liberty, Rollerball, a musical turn in Funny Lady, Harry And Walter Go To New York, A Bridge Too Far, Comes A Horseman and Chapter Two (a play screenplay conversion by Neil Simon). In 1980, Caan directed Hide In Plain Sight a film about a father searching for his children lost in the Witness Protection Program. Despite critical praise, the film was not a hit with the public. The following year, Caan appeared in Thief, directed by Michael Mann, where he played a professional safe cracker. This film is today regarded as a neo-noir classic and Caan has often said it is the role of which he is proudest next to The Godfather.

From 1982-87, Caan suffered from depression over his sister's death, a growing problem with cocaine, and what he described as "Hollywood burnout," did not act in any films. He returned to film in 1987 when Coppola cast him as an army platoon sergeant for the "Old Guard" in Gardens of Stone, a film that dealt with the effect of the Vietnam War on the homefront. In 1988 and 1990, Caan starred in the films Alien Nation, Dick Tracy and Misery (co-star Kathy Bates won a Best Actress Oscar). In 1992, Caan appeared in Honeymoon in Vegas.

In 1996, he appeared in Bottle Rocket and pursued Arnold Schwarzenegger in Eraser. In 1999, Caan portrayed Philip Marlowe in the HBO film Poodle Springs. Some of his most recent appearances have been in The Yards (2000), City of Ghosts (2002), Dogville (2003), and Elf (2003). In 2003, he auditioned and won the role of the head security officer 'Big Ed' Deline in Las Vegas. On February 27, 2007, Caan announced that he would not return to Las Vegas for the show's fifth season in order to return to film work. That same year, he was replaced by Tom Selleck.

He will appear in the 2008 film Get Smart.


Personal life

Caan has been married four times. In 1960, he married Dee Jay Mathis/Mattis; and divorced in 1966. They had one child Tara A. Caan (born November 5, 1964). His second marriage to Sheila Ryan, former girlfriend of music legend Elvis Presley, in 1976 was short-lived: they divorced the following year. His son, Scott Caan, was born August 23, 1976.

From September 1990 to March 1995, Caan was married to Ingrid Hajek; they also had one child, Alexander James Caan (born April 10, 1991). He married Linda Stokes in October 1996, and they have two children, James Arthur Caan (born November 6, 1995) and Jacob Nicholas Caan (born September 24, 1998).

Caan is a practicing martial artist. He has trained with karate master Tak Kubota for nearly thirty years, earning various ranks.[3] He trained the Culver City Police department in martial arts use.[1]


Caan in pop culture


Family Guy makes a reference to Caan in the episode "He's Too Sexy for His Fat". Caan is also featured in the "All's Fair in Oven War" episode of The Simpsons, playing himself in Bart's treehouse grotto. He is gunned down in a manner similar to Sonny Corleone in the episode's coda (by Cletus Spuckler variants, in revenge for Caan "stealing" Brandine's heart).
He also made an appearance as himself on Newsradio, in the episode, "Movie Star". The episode deals with his visiting the radio station to research a role, but being sidetracked by Matthew, who in Caan's words is "the strangest sonuvabitch I ever saw"
In the Seinfeld episode "The Letter", Jerry receives a letter from the girl he is seeing, Nina, telling him that he doesn't "opt for happiness", a direct line she copied out of Chapter Two. Later, when Jerry discovers the "stunning similarity," he exclaims "I opt for happiness! James Caan doesn't opt for happiness!"
"From Chunk to Hunk," an episode of the animated TV series The Critic, portrays William Shatner hosting an episode of "Celebrity 911" that is entirely dedicated to police calls involving James Caan. He then twitches and shouts, "CAAAAAAN!," a reference to a famous line from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
As a result of his portrayal of Sonny Corleone, Caan is often mistaken for being of Italian ancestry, and has even received recognition from a few Italian-American organizations. However, Caan is of German Jewish descent.[1] In the episode of The Sopranos entitled "Christopher", this is made fun of when Caan is compared to Iron Eyes Cody.
In the TV show Taxi, episode "Bobby's Big Break," when Bobby quits the garage after winning a gig on a soap opera. Louie tells him, "You'll be back. They all come back. Only one guy ever made it out in the history of the garage and that was James Caan. And he'll be back."
In the "That '70s Show" episode "Acid Queen" Kitty Foreman states, "You know who I think is sexy? James Caan in the Godfather. Now, if he made me an offer, I sure couldn't refuse. Yowsa".

Diana Ross
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Background information

Birth name Diane Ernestine Earle Ross
Born March 26, 1944 (1944-03-26) (age 64)
Detroit, Michigan, United States
Genre(s) R&B, soul, pop, disco, jazz
Occupation(s) Singer, record producer, actress
Years active 1959-present
Label(s) Motown, RCA
Associated acts The Supremes, The Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye
Website www.dianaross.com

Diana Ross (born Diane Ernestine Earle Ross on March 26, 1944) is a Grammy Award and Academy Award-nominated American singer, record producer and actress, whose musical repertoire spans R&B, soul, pop, disco, and jazz. During the 1960s, she shaped the sound of popular music and Motown Records as front woman of The Supremes before leaving for a solo career in the beginning of the following decade.

During the 1970's and into the early to mid 1980's, Ross became the most successful female artist of the rock era, while crossing over into film, television and Broadway winning a Tony Award for her one-woman show, An Evening with Diana Ross in 1977, and being nominated for twelve Grammy Awards and an Academy Award for Best Actress for her 1972 role as Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues. She was also recently honored by The Kennedy Center.

In 1976, Billboard magazine named her the female entertainer of the century. Guinness World Records declared Diana Ross as the most successful female music artist of the 20th century with a total of eighteen American number-one singles: twelve as lead singer of The Supremes and six as a solo artist. Ross was the first female solo artist to score six number-ones. She is also one of the few artists to have two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?-one as a solo artist and the other as a member of the Supremes[1].

In 1999, as a solo artist, she was ranked #38 on VH1's "The 100 Greatest Women in Rock and Roll", while The Supremes ranked #16.




Biography

Early years

Ross was born at Women's Hospital[2] in Detroit, Michigan on March 26, 1944.[3] She is also of Cherokee descent. [3] For a time, Ross' family lived in the northern side of Detroit's streets where Ross befriended next-door neighbor Smokey Robinson. When Ross was seven, her mother contracted tuberculosis causing her to become seriously ill. Ross' father moved his children to live with relatives in Bessemer, Alabama. After her mother recovered, her family moved back to Detroit when Ross was fourteen years old, and lived in the Brewster-Douglass projects. The following year, Ross began her music career with neighborhood friends Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard, and Betty McGlown as the doo-wop quartet the Primettes (later renamed The Supremes), a sister group to local act The Primes (later The Temptations).


The Supremes


In 1961, having already replaced McGlown with Barbara Martin, the quartet auditioned for and eventually signed with Motown Records. During the group's struggling early years, all but one of the singles the group released were all sung by Ross, whose nasal soprano contrasted with founder Florence Ballard's brassier mezzo soprano, Mary Wilson's punchier alto and Martin's raspy contralto. Between 1961 and 1963, the group were known jokingly as the "no-hit Supremes".

After Martin's exit in 1962, the group would remain a trio throughout its tenure. In 1963, Motown CEO Berry Gordy made Ross the official lead singer of the group after several years of group mates trading leads, because he felt the group could crossover to the pop charts with Ross' higher register. Initially, this decision was not an issue by Ross' band mates, until a few years later, when it became obvious that Ross was the focal point of the group; Ballard, in particular, took extreme issue. Despite difficulties, after the group hit number-one with The Marvelettes reject, "Where Did Our Love Go", the group would eventually find stardom. Between 1964 and 1967, Ross, Wilson and Ballard sung on ten number-one hit singles.

After years of tension, Ballard was let go from the Supremes by Gordy and she was replaced by Cindy Birdsong, a former member of Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles. Around the same time, the group's name changed to Diana Ross and the Supremes to benefit from Ross' rising star. Eventually scoring a total of twelve number-one singles, the Supremes became the most successful American vocal group of the sixties with only The Beatles behind them.


Leaving the Supremes

Motown began plans to have Ross start a solo career in 1968. Television specials such as TCB (1968) and G.I.T. on Broadway (1969) were designed to spotlight Ross as a star in her own right, and much of the later Ross-led Supremes material was recorded by Ross with session singers The Andantes, not Wilson and Birdsong, on backing vocals.

By the summer of 1969, Jean Terrell was chosen by Gordy to be Ross' replacement and Ross began her first solo recordings. In November of the same year, three years after it was first rumored, Billboard magazine confirmed Ross' exit from the group to begin her solo career. In conjunction with the start of her solo career, Ross introduced Motown's newest act, The Jackson 5, to national audiences.

Ross began her solo sessions with a number of producers, including Bones Howe and Johnny Bristol. Her first track with Bristol, "Someday We'll Be Together", was tagged as her first solo single; it was instead issued as the final Diana Ross & the Supremes release. "Someday We'll Be Together" was the twelfth and the final number-one hit for the Supremes, and the last American number-one hit of the 1960s. Ross made her final appearance with the Supremes at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas on January 14, 1970.


Early solo career

Ross' first solo LP, Diana Ross, featured her first solo number-one hit, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough".After a half-year of recording material with various producers, Ross settled with the production team of Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, the creative force behind Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell's hit duets. Ashford and Simpson helmed most of Ross' first album, Diana Ross, and would continue to write and produce for Ross for the next decade. In May 1970, Diana Ross was released on Motown. The first single, the gospel-influenced "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)", peaked at #20 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album's second single, a cover of Gaye and Terrell's 1967 hit "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", was an international hit, and gave Ross her first #1 pop single as a solo artist. "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" garnered Ross a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female.

In 1971, Motown released Ross's second album Everything is Everything, which garnered Ross's first UK number one solo single, "I'm Still Waiting". Several months later, Ross released Surrender, which garnered the top 20 pop hit, "Remember Me". That year, Ross hosted her first solo TV special, Diana!. Featuring guest appearances by The Jackson 5, Bill Cosby and Danny Thomas, Ross' special continued her popularity with her middle of the road fan base.

By this point, Motown Records had relocated to the West Coast, specifically Hollywood. Berry Gordy decided it was time the company ventured out once more in new territory, so he focused much of his attention on developing a motion pictures company and set his sights on making Ross a movie star.


Lady Sings the Blues

In late-1971, it was announced that Diana Ross was going to play jazz icon Billie Holiday in a Motown-produced biographical film loosely based on Holiday's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues. From the moment the film was announced, critics ridiculed Ross throughout the media: Ross and Holiday were miles apart from each other in style and appearance. Ross soldiered on, immersing herself into Holiday's music and life story. Diana actually knew little about Holiday, and wasn't a big fan of jazz in general. She did not attempt to imitate Holiday's voice, instead, Ross focused on adapting Holiday's vocal phrasing. According to a television documentary, Ross studied Holiday's character so well that Motown executive Suzanne de Passe says Gordy told her to "put a little Diana back into it".

Opening in October 1972, Lady Sings the Blues was a phenomenal success, and Ross' performance drew universal rave reviews. The movie co-starred Brian's Song star Billy Dee Williams, who played Holiday's lover, Louis McKay. Also appearing was, in his film debut, comedian and actor Richard Pryor, who played the "Piano Man". In 1973, Ross was nominated for both the Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for "Best Actress". Winning a Golden Globe for Best Newcomer, Ross lost the Best Actress Oscar to her friend Liza Minnelli, for her role in Cabaret. The soundtrack album for Lady Sings the Blues went to number-one album on the Billboard 200 for two weeks, and reportedly sold 300,000 copies during its first eight days of release. The soundtrack also garnered accolades for Ross, as critics praised her for "suggesting Billie Holiday" with her delivery and expertly capturing Holiday's intricate phrasing.


Ross' continued career in music and film

Ross' second self-titled release, Diana Ross (1976), featured the number-one hits "Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To)" and "Love Hangover".In 1971, Ross and Motown labelmate Marvin Gaye had begun an album of duets. The two singers clashed over Gaye's refusal to stop smoking marijuana in the studio to appease Ross, then pregnant with her second child Tracee Ellis Ross. As a result, the duets album, Diana & Marvin, was completed in separate studios in 1972. Upon its 1973 release, Diana & Marvin proved to be a success, with their cover of The Stylistics' "You Are Everything" becoming a Top 10 hit in the United Kingdom.

The Michael Masser-composed ballad, "Touch Me in the Morning", became Ross' second number-one pop single as a solo artist in 1973. A resulting Touch Me in the Morning LP was a Top 10 success in both the United States and the United Kingdom, and the title track earned Ross a second Grammy nomination.

In 1975, Ross again co-starred with Billy Dee Williams in the Motown film Mahogany. The story of an aspiring fashion designer who becomes a runway model and the toast of the industry, Mahogany was a troubled production from early on. The film's original director, Tony Richardson, was fired during production and Berry Gordy assumed the director's chair himself. In addition, Gordy and Ross clashed during filming, with Ross leaving the production before shooting was completed. While a box office hit, the film was not a critical success: Time magazine's review of the film chastised Gordy for "squandering one of America's most natural resources: Diana Ross."[4]

Ross hit number-one on the pop charts twice in 1976 with "Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To)", and the disco single "Love Hangover". The successes of these singles made her 1976 album, Diana Ross, her fourth LP to reach the Top 10. In 1977, her Broadway one-woman show earned the singer a special Tony Award. That same show was televised as a special on NBC and later released as An Evening with Diana Ross.

That same year, Motown acquired the film rights to the popular Broadway play The Wiz, an African-American reinterpretation of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Although teenage Stephanie Mills, a veteran of the play, was originally cast as Dorothy, Diana Ross convinced Universal Pictures producer Rob Cohen to have Ross cast as Dorothy, As a result, the eleven-year old protagonist of the story was altered into a shy twenty-four year old schoolteacher from Harlem, New York. Among Ross' costars in the film were Nipsey Russell, Ted Ross, and her former label mate and protégé Michael Jackson from the Jackson 5. Upon its October 1978 release, the film adaptation of The Wiz was a costly commercial and critical failure, and was Ross' final film for Motown. The accompanying soundtrack album, however, sold over 850,000 copies.


Diana Ross' landmark 1980 album, diana, was her final LP for Motown Records before leaving for RCA the following year.Resuming her becalmed singing career in 1979, Ross re-teamed with Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson for the album The Boss, which became Ross' first gold-certified album (Motown sales records before 1977 were not audited by the RIAA, and therefore none of Motown's pre-1977 releases were awarded certifications). In 1980, Ross released her first RIAA platinum-certified disc, "diana," produced by Chic's front men Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards. The album included two of Ross' most successful and familiar solo hits, her fifth number-one single, "Upside Down", and the Top 5 single "I'm Coming Out". diana is Ross' most successful studio album to date, peaking at number-two on the Billboard 200 chart for three weeks and selling over 6 million copies worldwide.

Ross scored a Top 10 hit in late 1980 with the theme song to the 1980 film It's My Turn. The following year, she collaborated with former Commodores singer-songwriter Lionel Richie on the theme song for the film Endless Love. The Academy Award-nominated "Endless Love" single became Ross' final hit on Motown Records, and the Number One Record of the year. Feeling that Motown, and in particular Gordy, were keeping her from freely expressing herself, and not according her financial parity, Ross left Motown for $20 million contract to sign with RCA Records, ending her twenty-year tenure with the label. The Ross-RCA deal was the most money ever paid to an artist until Michael Jackson, Madonna, Janet Jackson and Whitney Houston all signed bigger deals many years after Ross'. When "Endless Love" hit number-one in 1981, Ross became the first female artist in music history to place six singles at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, surpassing Cher's four number-ones, Barbra Streisand's four number-ones, Donna Summer's four number-ones and Olivia Newton-John's four number-ones. "Endless Love" remains the most successful duet in pop history.


Ross' career during the 1980s and 1990s

Diana Ross' RCA Records debut, the platinum-selling Why Do Fools Fall in Love, was issued in the summer of 1981. The blockbuster album yielded 3 Top 10 hits including the title track "Why Do Fools Fall in Love", a remake of the 1956 Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers classic of the same name, and the smash single "Mirror Mirror".

In 1983, Ross reunited with former Supremes Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong for the television special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever. The three singers performed their 1969 number-one hit "Someday We'll Be Together", although altercations on stage between Ross and Wilson became an issue during the taping of the special. A four song Supremes set was planned but Ross declined to rehearse with "The Girls" and stated that they would have to be happy just doing "Someday We'll Be Together". Due to the lack of rehearsal, Wilson planned with Birdsong to take a step forward every time Ross did as to not fade into the background. Due to the non-rehearsal, Wilson was not aware of the script set by producer Suzanne DePasse, which did not go over well with Ross. Unknown to Wilson, Ross was to introduce Berry Gordy, however Wilson took it upon herself to do so,.[5] at which point Ross pushed Wilson, pulling Wilson's hand down, while saying "It's been taken care of." Ross then, after fluffing her hair, proceeded to introduce Gordy herself.[6] These incidents were excised from the final edit of the taped special, but still made their way into the news media; People magazine reported that "Ross [did] some elbowing to get Wilson out of the spotlight."[7]

Later that year, Ross held a much-heralded concert in Central Park, the proceeds of which were to go towards building a playground in the singer's name. Fifteen minutes into the show, which was being filmed for Showtime cable television, it began to rain, and as she urged the crowd of 300,000 to safely exit the venue, Ross announced that she would continue the performance the next day. Ross' actions drew praise within the mainstream press. That next day, over 500,000 people came back for one of the largest free concerts in the park's history. However, the second show generated controversy. New York mayor Ed Koch objected to the expenses of a second show. To settle the matter, Ross personally wrote a check for an estimated $250,000 to cover the remaining costs. Although Koch's objections slowed the progress, the Diana Ross Playground was finally built three years later.[8]

Other hit singles recorded by Ross for RCA included the Grammy nominated "Muscles" (1982), "So Close" (1983), "Pieces of Ice" (1983), "All of You" (1984) "Swept Away" (1984), "Missing You" (1984), "Eaten Alive" (1985) and the UK number-one single, "Chain Reaction" (1986). Hit albums during this period included the gold-certified releases, All The Great Hits , Silk Electric and Swept Away, the latter being the last top forty charted album in Ross' career for two decades. While Ross continued to have success overseas as the 1980s continued, she began to struggle on the United States Billboard Hot 100 chart. In 1989, after leaving RCA, Diana Ross returned to Motown, where Ross was now both a part-owner and a recording artist.

In 1989, Diana Ross released her first Motown album in eight years, the Nile Rodgers-produced Workin' Overtime. Despite a chart topping R&B hit with the title track, the album failed to find a pop audience in America, as Ross' 1987 RCA release had. Subsequent follow-ups such as 1991's The Force Behind the Power, 1995's Take Me Higher and 1999's Every Day is a New Day produced the same dismal results in the US.


Ross co-starred with R&B singer Brandy in the ABC television movie Double Platinum in 1999.Ross still had success with her latter-day Motown albums and singles in the United Kingdom and Europe, however, scoring Top UK hits with "When You Tell Me That You Love Me" (1991), "One Shining Moment (1992), "Your Love" (1993), "I Will Survive" (1995), "In the Ones You Love" (1996) and "Not Over You Yet" (1999), among others. Ross was a halftime performer at Super Bowl XXX in 1996. In 1999, Diana Ross was named the most successful female singer in the history of the United Kingdom charts, based upon a tally of her career hits. Fellow Michigan singer Madonna would eventually beat Ross out as the most successful female artist in the UK. In 2002, Diana Ross and Motown parted ways.

Diana Ross returned to acting in the ABC telefilm, Out of Darkness (1994), in which she played a woman suffering from schizophrenia. Once again, Ross drew critical acclaim for her acting, and scored her third Golden Globe nomination for acting. In 1999, Ross co-starred with young R&B singer Brandy for the ABC television movie Double Platinum playing a singer who neglected her daughter while concentrating on her career.


Later years

Diana Ross was a presenter at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards, held that September. She shocked TV viewers when she grabbed rapper Lil' Kim's exposed breast, reportedly amazed at the open brashness of the rapper showcasing her body[9] A month after the Lil Kim incident, authorities at London's Heathrow Airport detained Ross for assaulting a female security guard. The singer claimed that she had felt "violated as a woman" by the body search that she was subjected to. In retaliation, she was alleged to have fondled the bust of the female airport security guard. The singer was detained but was later released.[10]

In 2000, Ross announced a Supremes reunion tour, again with former band mates Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong, called Return to Love. Wilson and Birdsong declined the tour because of a reported difference in pay offered to each member: Ross was offered $15 million while Wilson was offered $3 million and Birdsong less than $1 million.[11] They were replaced by latter-day Supremes Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne. It should be of note that both Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne were members of the Supremes after Diana Ross had left The Supremes...and none of the three women had ever been in the group at the same time. Despite a respectable opening in Philadelphia, the Return to Love tour was canceled after nine dates, because of lackluster ticket sales.

In December 2002, Ross was arrested in Tucson, Arizona for drunk driving. She pled no contest, and later served a two day jail sentence near her home in Greenwich, Connecticut.[12]


Current work

In 2005, Diana Ross returned to the charts with a pair of duets. "I Got a Crush on You" was recorded with Rod Stewart for his album The Great American Songbook, and reached number nineteen on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary chart. Another duet, recorded with Westlife, was a remake of Ross' 1991 number-two UK single, "When You Tell Me You Love Me", and reached number-two in the UK just as the original had.

In 2006, Motown released a shelved Ross album titled Blue, which was a collection of jazz standards recorded after Ross filmed Lady Sings the Blues. Released in June to stellar reviews, Blue peaked at number-two on the jazz albums chart. In August, it was announced that Ross would release a new studio album of classic rock and soul standards on the EMI label Angel Records. The album, titled I Love You, was released on October 2 around the world, and then saw release in North America on January 16, 2007, on the Manhattan Records/EMI label.[13] The new album earned the coveted Hot Shot Debut by Billboard magazine when it bowed at a respectable number thirty-two on the pop albums chart, making it Ross' first top forty US pop album since 1984's Swept Away. Since its release in 2007, EMI Inside reports that I Love You has sold more than 100,000 copies in the USA and 38,000 in the United Kingdom.

In January 2007, Ross appeared on a number of TV shows across the U.S. to promote her new album and began touring in the spring. She also appeared on American Idol as a mentor to the contestants[14] Ross's United States "I Love You" tour has garnered positive reviews,[15] as well as her European tour, which began on May 6, 2007.[16]

At the 2007 BET Awards, Ross was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by singer Alicia Keys and her five children. Stevie Wonder, Erykah Badu, and Chaka Khan performed a tribute to Ross, covering several of her hits. Later that year, the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors committee which recognizes career excellence, cultural influence and contributions to American culture named Diana Ross as one of the honorees. Past honoree and fellow Motown alumni Smokey Robinson spoke on her behalf at the official ceremony that December.

In February 2008, Diana Ross was the guest speaker at the Houston-based Brilliant Lecture series, at The Hobby Center, Houston. The lectures are designed to present prolific and influential characters to speak about their life and inspirations.

During the summer of 2008, Diana Ross will be performing at two major events in the UK; the famous Liverpool Pops Festival and the National Trust Summer Festival at Petworth House, East Sussex.


Personal life

Ross was the second of six children born to a Baptist family by Fred Ross and Ernestine Moten in Detroit. Her sisters Barbara and Rita did not enter show business; instead, Barbara Ross became a doctor, while Rita Ross became a schoolteacher. Younger brother Arthur "T-Boy" Ross was a successful songwriter for Motown, composing hits for Marvin Gaye, the Jackson 5, and others alongside Leon Ware. Ross' youngest brother, Wilbert "Chico" Ross, was a dancer on Ross' tours. During Ross' later teenage years, Ross' parents separated and later divorced. Diana's mother would later remarry.

Like her father, Ross attended Detroit's Cass Technical High School. She graduated in January 1962, one semester before the rest of her classmates.

Ross married music business manager Robert Ellis Silberstein in August 1971. After divorcing him in March 1977, Ross publicly dated actor Ryan O'Neal and rocker Gene Simmons of the group Kiss, before marrying Norwegian tycoon Arne Næss Jr. in October 1985. They divorced in 2000.

Ross is the mother of five children. She and Motown Records founder Berry Gordy are the parents of Rhonda Suzanne Silberstein (born 1971), now known as Rhonda Ross Kendrick. Ross and Robert Silberstein are the parents of Tracee Joy Silberstein (born 1972), now known as Tracee Ellis Ross, and Chudney Lane Silberstein (born 1975), now known as Chudney Ross. Ross Arne Næss (born 1987) and Evan Olaf Næss, now known as Evan Ross (born 1988), are the children of Ross and Arne Næss.

Rhonda Ross Kendrick found fame in the television soap opera Another World, appeared in the movie The Personals with Malik Yoba (from N.Y. Undercover) and has an active career as a jazz singer, often performing with husband, jazz pianist Rodney Kendrick. Tracee Ellis Ross pursued a career as a model, and later found fame as an actress: her sitcom, Girlfriends, ran on UPN from 2000 to 2006, and continues to run on The CW. She also appeared in the Tyler Perry film Daddy's Little Girls. Diana's youngest daughter, Chudney Ross, is a model, and was briefly a judge in a reality show Fame. Ross' youngest son, Evan Ross, received positive reviews for his roles in the 2006 film ATL, in which he co-starred with rapper T.I. and as "Reggie" in the movie Pride (2007). Most recently, Tracee and Evan Ross appeared together in the HBO telefilm Life Support (2007), in which Evan portrayed a gay HIV positive teenager. All of Ross' children, except Evan, are college educated, and most were graduated: Ross Naess is expected to graduate from Marist College in 2010.

Both of Ross' parents are deceased: Ernestine Ross-Jordan died in November 1984, and Fred Ross, Sr., died in November 2007.[17]

It has been noted that as a result of smart business planning, investments and sage advice, Ross is now worth approximately $150,000,000.

Johnny Crawford
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born March 26, 1946 (1946-03-26) (age 62)
Los Angeles, U.S.
Occupation Actor, singer, musician

John Ernest Crawford (born March 26, 1946) in Los Angeles, California) is an American actor, singer, and musician.

An original Mousketeer in 1955, Crawford has acted on stage, in films, and on television.

He received an Emmy Award nomination at the age of 13 for his role as "Mark McCain," the son of Lucas McCain, played by Chuck Connors, on the Four Star Television series The Rifleman, which originally aired from 1958-1963 on ABC. During this time, he had wide popularity with American teenagers and a recording career that generated five Top 40 hits, including the single "Cindy's Birthday," which peaked at #8 on Billboard's Top 40 Hit Chart in 1962.

Crawford played "Horsey," Tommy Kirk's cowboyish sidekick in the 1965 film Village of the Giants which also featured Joy Harmon, Beau Bridges, and Ron Howard.

The Naked Ape, a 1973 film directed by Donald Driver ?- based on the book ?- starred Crawford and Victoria Principal.

Crawford had a key role in the early career of Victoria Jackson of Saturday Night Live fame; after appearing together in a summer stock production of "Meet Me in St. Louis," he presented her with a one-way airline ticket to California and encouraged her to pursue a Hollywood career. This led to her early TV appearances on The Tonight Show before she was cast as a regular on Saturday Night Live.

Crawford is currently the leader of the California-based Johnny Crawford Orchestra, which specializes in traditional jazz, early big band, and classical styles of music.

He reconnected with his high school sweetheart Charlotte in 1990, and they wed in 1995.[1]


Academy Award winning movie

In 1970, Crawford starred with Kristin Nelson in The Resurrection of Broncho Billy. It won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short

Vicki Lawrence
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born Victoria Ann Axelrad
March 26, 1949 (1949-03-26) (age 59)
Inglewood, California, U.S.
Occupation Comic, Singer, Actress
Website www.vickilawrence.com

Vicki Lawrence (born Victoria Ann Axelrad on March 26, 1949 in Inglewood, California) [1] is an Emmy Award-winning actress, frequent game show panelist of the 1970s and 1980s, comedian, and singer. She is best known for her co-starring role on The Carol Burnett Show, alongside Carol Burnett, from 1967 to 1978, and as the sharp-tongued matriarch, Thelma Harper (the main character on Mama's Family, airing from 1983 to 1990, which was spun off from The Carol Burnett Show's The Family sketches).

She has also been credited as Vicki Lawrence Schultz; Schultz being the surname of her second husband and Hollywood make-up artist, Al Schultz, to whom she has been married since November 16, 1974, and by whom she has two children, Courtney (born May 3, 1975) and Garrett (born July 3, 1977).

She is a graduate of Morningside High School in Inglewood.





Comedy

As a comedienne and actress, she is best known for her work on The Carol Burnett Show, of which she was a part from 1967 to 1978. She was the only cast member, except for Burnett herself, who stayed on the show for the entire eleven seasons. Lawrence's ascension to become part of the Burnett show is part of Hollywood legend; she was literally hired for the show on the basis of a letter she had sent to Burnett and the producers, with a photograph of Lawrence that clearly showed her resemblance to Burnett. Despite her beginner's status, Lawrence proved to be a valuable part of the comedic team on the show, and played many memorable characters, particularly Thelma Harper (a.k.a., "Mama") in the recurring "Family" sketches.

After The Carol Burnett Show ended in 1978, Vicki and her husband Al moved with their children to Maui in Hawaii but after a couple of years, returned to Los Angeles where they have remained.

Her portrayal of the "Mama" character was so popular that NBC created a sitcom, Mama's Family, based on characters from the skit. (Burnett reprised the Eunice Higgins character for the sitcom from time to time.) The series ran from 1983 to 1985 on NBC; after its cancellation from NBC, it was renewed from 1986 to 1990 in first-run syndication, which many believe to be a more animated, livelier version of Mama's Family. The show was more successful in the renewed version. She also reprised the "Mama" character on stage for Vicki Lawrence & Mama: A Two-Woman Show.

Lawrence has made appearances on other programs, such as the sitcoms Roseanne, Hannah Montana and Yes, Dear. She has also appeared with Burnett, Harvey Korman, and Tim Conway in the Burnett show retrospectives that were broadcast in 2001 and 2004.


Other careers

As a singer, she is most known for her #1 hit, "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia," a song written by her first husband Bobby Russell, which was released on Bell Records in November 1972. (Cher was offered the song first but, unbeknownst to her, her then-husband Sonny Bono had turned it down.)

"He Did With Me," Vicki's follow-up to "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia," only managed to reach #75 in the United States (although it became her biggest hit in Australia, reaching #1 there in November of 1973). Two years later, in the fall of 1975, Vicki managed one last minor US chart entry on the Private Stock label with the anti-feminist curiosity "The Other Woman" (#81).

As an emcee, she hosted the daytime NBC version of the game show Win, Lose or Draw, and has also appeared often as a popular panelist on such game shows as Match Game, Password, Scrabble, The $10,000 Pyramid, and The $25,000 Pyramid, as well as Hollywood Squares, where she appeared both as herself and in character as Thelma "Mama" Harper. Lawrence was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Best Talk Show in 1993 for the eponymous Vicki!, but the show was canceled after two seasons.

She tours the country with her "two-woman" show with the first half as herself and the second half done as Thelma "Mama" Harper.

Vicki also plays 'Mamaw Stewart' (the mother of Robby Ray Stewart and grandmother of Jackson and Miley Stewart) in the hit Disney series Hannah Montana, along side Billy Ray Cyrus, and his daughter Miley Cyrus.

Martin Short
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born Martin Hayter Short
March 26, 1950 (1950-03-26) (age 58)
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Occupation comedian, actor, writer, singer, producer
Spouse(s) Nancy Dolman (1980-present)
[show]Awards won
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program

1983 SCTV Network 90

Tony Awards
Best Actor in a Musical

1999 Little Me


Martin Hayter Short, CM (born March 26, 1950) is an Emmy Award-nominated Canadian-American comedian, actor, writer, singer and producer. He is best known for his comedy work, particularly on the TV programs SCTV and Saturday Night Live.




Early life

The youngest of five children, Short was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada to Charles and Olive Short. His father, an executive with Stelco,[1] a Canadian steel company, came to North America in 1921 as a stowaway Roman Catholic refugee from Belfast, Northern Ireland during the Irish War of Independence.[citation needed] His mother, who was the concertmaster of the Hamilton Symphony Orchestra, encouraged his early creative endeavours.[2]

Short attended Westdale Secondary School[3] and graduated in 1972 from McMaster University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in social work.

Short lost several members of his family at an early age. His eldest brother, David, was killed in a car accident in 1962, when Short was 12. His mother died of cancer when he was 17; two years later, his father died of complications from a stroke in 1970.[4]



Career

Early career

When Short graduated from McMaster University, he intended to pursue a career in social work, but he became interested in acting once he was cast in a Toronto production of Godspell in 1972 (among the other members of that production's cast: Victor Garber, Gilda Radner, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas and Andrea Martin, with Paul Shaffer as musical director.) He was subsequently cast in several television shows and plays, including an intense topical drama, "Fortune and Men's Eyes". (He worked solely in Canada from 1972 through 1979.)

In 1979, Short starred in the ill-fated TV sitcom "The Associates" about a group of young novice lawyers working at a Wall Street law firm. The show was cancelled after only 9 of the 13 episodes were aired, but received 2 Golden Globe nominations after its cancellation.

Short then joined the cast of "I'm A Big Girl Now", a sitcom vehicle for Diana Canova that also starred Danny Thomas, in 1980. Canova was offered the sitcom due to her success playing Corinne Tate Flotsky on ABC's "Soap", and she left the cast of the latter show in the fall of 1980 in order to accept the offer shortly before Short's newlywed wife Nancy Dolman joined it.


SCTV

Short was encouraged to pursue comedy by McMaster classmates Eugene Levy and Dave Thomas, both notable comedians in their own right. He joined Levy and Thomas at improv troupe The Second City in 1977. Short came to public notice when the troupe produced a show for television, called SCTV (Second City Television), which ran for several years in Canada and the United States. Short was a cast member and performed several recurring characters. He was a member of the troupe for several years before moving on to Saturday Night Live for the 1984-1985 season.[5] At SCTV, Short developed many characters which he later used at SNL, including:

Talk show host Brock Linehan, based on the Canadian interviewer Brian Linehan.
Aged songwriter Irving Cohen
Spurious albino entertainer Jackie Rogers, Jr.
Current-events commentator Troy Soren
Industrialist and art patron Bradley P. Allen
Defensive attorney Nathan Thurm
Oddball man-child Ed Grimley
Hollywood agent and man-about-town Jiminy Glick.

Saturday Night Live

At "SNL", Short helped revive the show after Eddie Murphy left with his many characters, including the Wheel of Fortune fan Ed Grimley he borrowed from his SCTV days. The Grimley character became perhaps Short's best known original character. He also was recognized for his impersonations of celebrities, notably Jerry Lewis and Katharine Hepburn, and for the character of Nathan Thurm. SNL proved to be the springboard to a long career in film & TV.


Film

After doing sketch comedy for several years, Short focused on film roles, appearing in several films, including Three Amigos, Innerspace, and the 1991 remake of Father of the Bride. In 2004 he wrote and starred in Jiminy Glick in Lalawood, with Jan Hooks as his improbable wife, Dixie Glick.


Theatre & other live performances

Short also resumed work in the theater, taking a role in the 1993 musical version of the Neil Simon work The Goodbye Girl. He had the lead role in the 1999 revival of the musical Little Me, which earned him a Tony Award.

Short performed in a satirical one-man show (with a full cast of six), Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me, at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on Broadway. The show toured several cities in the spring of 2006, began previews on July 29, 2006, opened on August 17 and closed on January 7, 2007. In it, he performed his aforementioned classic characters Grimley, Cohen, and Glick. As Glick, Short brought a member of the audience (usually a celebrity) on stage and interviews him or her. Jerry Seinfeld was the guest on opening night and the subjects have included Kristin Chenoweth, Regis Philbin, Neil Simon, Diane Keaton, Jamie Lee Curtis, Richard Kind, David Schwimmer, David Hasselhoff and many more. The show also featured parodies of many celebrities including Celine Dion, Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Tommy Tune, Joan Rivers, Britney Spears, Ellen DeGeneres, Renée Zellweger, Jodie Foster and Short's wife, actress Nancy Dolman.

The cast album was released on April 10th, 2007 and is available from Ghostlight Records, an imprint of Sh-K-Boom Records (www.sh-k-boom.com).

During 2008 Short continues to tour his comedy show, which features many of his best loved characters and skits.


Personal life

Relationships

Short met Canadian comic actress Nancy Dolman during the run of the 1972 production of Godspell. After that production, Short dated costar Gilda Radner, then began dating Dolman (Radner's understudy) in 1974. The couple married in 1980. Dolman was most notable for her recurring role on the ABC cult sitcom "Soap", SCTV, and "Custard Pie".

Dolman retired from show business in 1985 to be a homemaker.[citation needed] Short and Dolman have three children: Katherine Elizabeth (born December 3, 1983), Oliver Patrick (born 1986), and Henry (born 1989). Short and his family make their home in Pacific Palisades, California, and Short has become a naturalized U.S. citizen (but also maintains his Canadian citizenship).[citation needed] They also have a home on Lake Rosseau[6] in Ontario, Canada.

Short has a star on Canada's Walk of Fame. A Roman Catholic, he is often incorrectly identified as Jewish.[2] His brother, Michael Short, is a comedy writer and a two-time Emmy Award winner.


Extended family

Dolman's brother, screenwriter/director Bob Dolman (who served as a part of SCTV's Emmy-winning writing team alongside Short), married their close friend and colleague Andrea Martin, also in 1980. Dolman and Short are aunt and uncle to the couple's two sons, Jack (born 1981) and Joe (born 1983). Bob Dolman and Andrea Martin have since divorced.[7] Also, Short is the first cousin of Clare Short, a member of the British Parliament and a former British cabinet minister.

Jennifer Grey
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born March 26, 1960 (1960-03-26) (age 48)
New York City, United States

Jennifer Grey (born March 26, 1960) is an American actress, best known for playing Frances "Baby" Houseman in the 1987 hit film, Dirty Dancing.




Biography

Born in New York City, Jennifer Grey is the daughter of stage and screen actor Joel Grey and the granddaughter of comedian and musician Mickey Katz. Her mother is Jo Wilder. She is an alumna of The Dalton School, an elite private school in Manhattan, and studied both dance and acting. Her commercial debut was at the age of 19, in an ad for the Dr Pepper soft drink. After other small roles, she landed the part of angry sister Jeanie in the hit 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The following year she reunited with Patrick Swayze, whom she had played opposite in Red Dawn, for her biggest role ever, Frances "Baby" Houseman in Dirty Dancing.

In the early 1990s, Grey underwent a rhinoplasty procedure that was so botched she required a second plastic surgery to repair the damage. The result was a face so altered that even close friends failed to recognize her, and the major change in her appearance negatively impacted her career. Of the experience she said, "I went in the operating theater a celebrity - and come out anonymous. It was like being in a witness protection program or being invisible."[1] She briefly considered starting over with a new name to go with the new face, Wanda West, but then stuck with her original name.[2] In 1999, she reappeared in the short-lived 1999 ABC sitcom It's Like, You Know... portraying a variation of herself, a struggling actress named Jennifer Grey. In an episode of the series, she poked fun at herself with a storyline about a much-publicized nose job.

Grey also appeared with Shirley Maclaine, Liza Minnelli, and Kathy Bates in the CBS television movie The West Side Waltz, adapted by Ernest Thompson from his play, an episode of Friends as Mindy, and she had a small role in the 2000 film Bounce with Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck. Her sole Broadway theatre credit is The Twilight of the Golds (1993).

Following engagements to Matthew Broderick and Johnny Depp, and after dating George Stephanopoulos, Grey married actor/director Clark Gregg (The New Adventures of Old Christine) on July 21, 2001, and their daughter Stella was born in December of that year. The couple co-starred in the Lifetime movie Road to Christmas.

Grey has recently appeared as Daphne, Meyer's fiancee, on the HBO series John from Cincinnati.

You Seen Your Wife?


A man left for work one Friday afternoon. But, being pay-day, instead of going home, he stayed out the entire weekend partying with the boys and spending his entire paycheque.When He finally appeared at home, Sunday Night, he was confronted by a very angry wife and was barraged for nearly two hours with a tirade befitting his actions.Finally his wife stopped the nagging and simply said to him."How would you like it if you didn't see me for two or three days?"To which he replied."That would be fine with me."Monday went by and he didn't see his wife. Tuesday and Wednesday came and went with the same results. But on Thursday, the swelling went down just enough where he could see her a little out of the corner of his left eye.

First, folks, allow me to thank our puppy for the delightful septet. Hey, PA, you could have said "axed out". . Funny, I recall someone saying:

"I axed him howdy and he told me no sir".

Once again our BioBob has given us some great info on the notables. Thanks again, hawkman. We always learn lots of interesting things from you, and your joke of the day challenges our imagination. Love it!

I have heard it said that Robert Frost was not a very nice man, but I really see beauty and wisdom in his poetry.

Love this poem:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

-- Robert Frost

This song from The Outsiders, urges us to never give up on the gold in our lives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAdlVRn1xYc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNKJLUyRjC8

Eddy Fisher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83D8SaVkZ00

I've started a thread about Richard Widmark. He died Monday.

Well, edgar, it seems that Eddy Fisher is still alive. Thanks for Cindy, Texas.

Checked out Richard Widmark and just found out that he starred in Cheyenne Autumn. The only thing that I recall about the movie was the anachronism. Sorry about his death. More about that later, y'all.

Here's another Cindy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHAJvsU4anU&feature=related

Time for me to say goodnight, and I just found this one by Eddy Fisher. Wonder if there are any fountain pharmacies left in the world?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlibQr69PPg

Tomorrow, my friends.

From Letty with love