WA2K Radio is now on the air

Alas my love you do me wrong
To cast me off discourteously;
And I have loved you oh so long
Delighting in your company.

Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves my heart of gold
Greensleeves was my heart of joy
And who but my Lady Greensleeves.

I have been ready at your hand
To grant whatever thou would'st crave;
I have waged both life and land
Your love and goodwill for to have.

Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves was my heart of gold
Greensleeves was my heart of joy
And who but my Lady Greensleeves.

Thy petticoat of sendle white
With gold embroidered gorgeously;
Thy petticoat of silk and white
And these I bought thee gladly.

Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves my heart of gold
Greensleeves was my heart of joy
And who but my Lady Greensleeves.

ah, cowboy, that is a lovely song and the melody corresponds with What Child is This. Thanks, dys.

When searching for The Green Leaves of Summer, I found this song. It is familiar, but I'm not certain why:

Frankie Laine did it and it pales to that lovely ballad, We'll Be together again, but I thought that I would give it a spin:

*Rose, Rose I love you with an aching heart
What is your future now we have to part
Standing on the jetty
As the steamer moves away
Flower of Malaya I can not stay

Make way, oh make way
For my eastern Rose
Men crowd in dozens, ev'rywhere she goes
In her rick'shaw on the street
Or in the cabaret
Please make way for Rose
You can hear them say

**All my life, I shall remember
Oriental music and you in muy arms
Perfumed flowers in your traces
Lotus scented breezes and swaying palms

Rose, Rose I love you
With your almond eyes
Fragrant and slender'neath tropical skies
I must cross the seas again
And never see you more
Way back to my home on a distant shore

(Repeat **)

Rose, Rose, I leave you
My ship is in the bay
Kiss me farewell now, there's nothing to say
East is east and west is west
Our worlds are far apart
I must leave you now but I leave my heart

(Repeat *)

This is a sad, but beautiful song that has always touched my heart.

Wendy Matthews
"Beloved" Lyrics

Here I am, I'm right here
Oh I wish you could feel me
Standing so close
I'm right beside you dear
I fly around this old man house
I float through our walls
I scream and I call
While I watch you without me
All I feel, all I am now
Is this love I have for you
Each night it's you
You I lay beside

Close my eyes, never to sleep
I tell you all the things I should have said
But you'll never know
How could I act such a part
As to love the one who breaks my heart
I had to go

So put your hands here round my waist
Though you cannot feel my touch dear
And dance with me as you did before
I'm bound forever to this house
I can never go beyond that door
I dance alone
So when you think of me, smile
It's the only way that I can see
That you still care for me

Close my eyes never to sleep
I tell you all the things I should have said
But you'll never know
How could I act such a part
As to love the one who breaks my heart
I had to go

Here I am, I'm right here
How I wish you could see me dear
Oh my dear

Aretha Franklin And George Michael

"I Knew You Were Waiting For Me" Lyrics

Like a warrior that fights
And wins the battle
I know the taste of victory
Though I went through some nights
Consumed by the shadows
I was crippled emotionally
Somehow I made it through the heartache
Yes I did, I escaped
I found my way out of the darkness
Kept my faith (I know you did)
Kept my faith

When the river was deep, I didn't falter
When the mountain was high, I still believed
When the valley was low, it didn't stop me, no no
I knew you were waiting
I knew you were waiting for me

With an endless desire I kept on searching
Sure in time our eyes would meet
Like the bridge is on fire
The hurt is over, one touch and you set me free
No, I don't regret a single moment
No I don't, looking back
When I think of all those disappointments
I just laugh, (I know you do), I just laugh

When the river was deep, I didn't falter
When the mountain was high, I still believed
When the valley was low, it didn't stop me, no no
I knew you were waiting
I knew you were waiting for me

So we were drawn together through destiny
I know this love we share was meant to be
I knew you were waiting, knew you were waiting
I knew you were waiting, knew you were waiting for me

Good morning, WA2K listeners and contributors.

butterfly, Thank you so much for those two lovely songs. I think, perhaps, that I can identify more with the one by Aretha Franklin, especially this particularly verse:



"Like a warrior that fights
And wins the battle
I know the taste of victory
Though I went through some nights
Consumed by the shadows
I was crippled emotionally
Somehow I made it through the heartache
Yes I did, I escaped
I found my way out of the darkness
Kept my faith (I know you did)
Kept my faith."

Music: Mimis Plessas
Lyrics: Lefteris Papadopoulos
Singer: Poly Panou

What I've done to you and you drink?

What I've done to you and you drink?
You smoke one cigarette after the other.
And your blurred eyes are like nails in the floor.

Tell me why you don't let me,
to take away with two kisses,
the black "cloudiness" from your blurred eyes?

The pain which is killing you,
is a double pain about me.
You stay away from me and you are not telling me a word.

I wish you only knew,
How my inside is distressed about you.
For staying away from me and not telling me a word.

Ah, there's our Grecian friend. Thank you for that meaningful song, Ellinas. Those lyrics say a lot. People need to be more open with each other. Often mystique is appealing and then there's this odd song:


Venom
Mystique

Mystique our majesty, Goddess unwind
Mystique of mind reveal, Mystique of mind
Mystique our majesty, Goddess unwind
Mystique my reveil
Match the eyes of the dragon
Catch the flames of breath
Hypnotize reality
And join in with the rest
Chase the hunted magic
And pray to its commands
You think you winning flight control to OD land
Bite the heart of the arrow
Forget the purpose life
Breaking in vein
Injecting the knife
Eagle eyes the challenge
Regurgitating feast
Yourself alive in mind
And shell joins the deceased
You can take all
Reach your hand right out and sin
dont mistake it
Kick the womb of the serpent
Announce the arctic foul
No mans dog but when he's gone you feel him growl
Heat the the bowl of the chalice
Release the virgins soul
Every scent of innocence forever growing old
Who awaits all
Crawls through the pores of your skin
Dont debate it
Mystique to those unknown
While all the mists arise
Death deals in danger
Take a look at your surprise
Mystique our majesty collected im my mind
Hell bent for mystery
Goddess reveal unwind

Good Morning WA2K:

And

A Happy 70th Birthday to Kris Kristofferson (Love that man's songs)



And a Happy 57 to the great Meryl Streep:

Ah, Raggedy. Thanks again for the great pictures. I love Kris's songs as well, PA.

I suppose the most depressing, but excellent movies that I have ever seen starring Streep was Sophie's Choice. I had no idea that William Styron wrote the book.

One of my favorites by Kris:

Busted flat in baton rouge, headin for the trains,
Feelin nearly faded as my jeans.
Bobby thumbed a diesel down just before it rained,
Took us all the way to new orleans.
Took my harpoon out of my dirty red bandana
And was blowin sad while bobby sang the blues,
With them windshield wipers slappin time and
Bobby clappin hands we finally sang up every song
That driver knew.

Freedoms just another word for nothin left to lose,
And nothin aint worth nothin but its free,
Feelin good was easy, lord, when bobby sang the blues,
And buddy, that was good enough for me,
Good enough for me and my bobby mcgee.

From the coalmines of kentucky to the california sun,
Bobby shared the secrets of my soul,
Standin right beside me through everythin I done,
And every night she kept me from the cold.
The somewhere near salinas, lord, I let her slip away,
She was lookin for the love I hope shell find,
Well Id trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday,
Holdin bobbys body close to mine.

Freedoms just another word for nothin left to lose,
And nothin left was all she left to me,
Feelin good was easy, lord, when bobby sang the blues,
And buddy, that was good enough for me.
Good enough for me and bobby mcgee.

H. Rider Haggard
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sir Henry Rider Haggard (June 22, 1856 - May 14, 1925), born in Norfolk, England, was a Victorian writer of adventure novels set in locations considered exotic by readers in his native England.

Haggard had some firsthand experience of these locations, thanks to his extensive travels. He first travelled to Natal Colony in 1875, as secretary to the colonial Governor Bulwer. It was in this role that Haggard was present in Pretoria for the official announcement of the British annexation of the Boer Republic of the Transvaal. In fact, Haggard was forced to read out much of the proclamation following the loss of voice of the official originally entrusted with the duty.

In 1878 he became Registrar of the High Court in the Transvaal, in the region that was to become part of South Africa. He was eventually to return to England to find a wife, bringing Mariana Louisa Margitson back to Africa with him as a bride.

Returning again to England in 1882, the couple settled in Ditchingham, Norfolk. Later he lived in Kessingland and had connections with the church in Bungay, Suffolk. He turned to the study of law and was called to the bar in 1884. His practice of law was somewhat desultory, and much of his time was taken up by the writing of novels.

While his novels contain many of the strong preconceptions common to the culture of British colonialism, they are unusual for the degree of sympathy with which he often treats the native populations. Africans often serve heroic roles in his novels, though the protagonists are typically, though not invariably, European. A notable example is Ignosi, the rightful king of Kukuanaland in King Solomon's Mines. Having developed an intense mutual friendship with the three Englishmen who help him reclaim his throne, he wisely accepts their advice to abolish witch hunts and arbitrary capital punishment.

Haggard is most famous as the author of the best-selling novel King Solomon's Mines, as well as many others such as She, Ayesha (sequel to She), Allan Quatermain (sequel to King Solomon's Mines), and the epic Viking romance, Eric Brighteyes.

In She, a Cambridge professor, Horace Holly and his adopted son, Leo Vincey travel to Africa. They encounter a white queen, Ayesha who has made herself immortal by bathing in a pillar of fire, the source of life itself. She becomes the prototypical all powerful female figure. She is to be both desired and feared. She is a breathtakingly beautiful creature who will not hesitate to kill any one who displeases her or stands in her way. The travelers discover that Ayesha has been waiting for 2000 years for the reincarnation of her lover Kallikrates, whom she had slain in a fit of jealous rage. She believes that Vincey is the reincarnation of Kallikrates.

In the climax of the novel, Ayesha takes the two men to see the pillar of fire. She wants Leo to bathe in it as she did so that he can become immortal and remain with her forever. His doubts about its safety lead her to step into the flames once more. However, with this second immersion she reverts to her true age and immediately withers and dies. Before dying she tells Vincey;"I die not. I shall come again."

Through out this book Haggard explores the themes, of power, life, death, reincarnation, sexuality, and fate.

Though Haggard is no longer as popular as he was when his books appeared, some of his characters have had a notable impact on early-twentieth-century thought. Ayesha, the female protagonist of She, was even cited by both Sigmund Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams and by Carl Jung as a female prototype. Allan Quatermain, the hero of King Solomon's Mines and its sequel still appears in Western popular culture today. As a populariser of the Lost World genre Haggard has had a wide influence on the spheres of science-fiction and fantasy through the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Allan Quatermain has been identified as one of the fictitious and real people on whom Indiana Jones, in the films Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is said to be based.

Haggard also wrote on social issues and agricultural reform, in part inspired by his experiences in Africa but also based on what he saw in Europe.

Ms. Letty, here's another great one by Kris K:

Take the ribbon from your hair
Shake it loose, let it fall
Lay it soft against my skin
Like the shadow on the wall

Come and lay down by my side
Till the early morning light
All I'm taking is your time
Help me make it through the night

I don't care what's right or wrong
I won't try to understand
Let the devil take tomorrow
'Cause tonight I need a friend

Yesterday is dead and gone
And tomorrow's out of sight
And it's sad to be alone
Help me make it through the night

I don't care what's right or wrong
I won't try to understand
Let the devil take tomorrow
'Cause tonight I need a friend

Yesterday is dead and gone
And tomorrow's out of sight
And it's sad to be alone
Help me make it through the night

I don't want to be alone
Help me make it through the night

Erich Maria Remarque
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Erich Maria Remarque (June 22, 1898 - September 25, 1970) was the pseudonym of Erich Paul Remark, a German author.

Erich Paul Remark was born in Osnabrück into a working-class Roman Catholic family. At the age of eighteen he went as a soldier to the front lines of World War I, where he was wounded by stray shell fragments. After the war he changed his last name to Remarque, which had been the family-name until his grandfather. He worked at a number of different jobs, including librarian, businessman, teacher, journalist and editor.

In 1929, Remarque published his most famous work, All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues) under the name Erich Maria Remarque (changing his middle name in honor of his mother), the novel described the utter cruelty of the war from the perspective of a nineteen-year-old soldier. A number of similar works followed; in simple, emotive language they realistically described wartime and the postwar years.

In 1933, the Nazis banned and burned Remarque's works, and issued propaganda stating that he was a descendant of French Jews and that his real last name was Kramer, his original name spelled backwards. This is still listed in some biographies despite the complete lack of proof or evidence to confirm this. He had been living in Switzerland since 1931, and in 1939 he emigrated to the United States of America with his first wife, Ilsa Jeanne Zamboui, whom he married and divorced twice, and they became naturalized citizens of the United States in 1947. He married the Hollywood actress Paulette Goddard in 1958 and they remained married until his death in 1970.

In 1948 he went to Switzerland, where he spent the rest of his life until his death at age 72. He is interred in the Ronco cemetery in Ronco, Ticino, Switzerland, where Goddard is also interred.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (June 22, 1906 - February 7, 2001) was a pioneering American aviator, author, and wife of Charles Lindbergh.

Early life

Anne Spencer Morrow was born in Englewood, New Jersey, to Dwight Whitney Morrow and Elizabeth Cutter Morrow. She was the second born of the Morrows' four children; the first, Elisabeth Reeve, was born in 1904, followed two years later by Anne. Dwight, Jr. was born in 1908, and Constance in 1913.

Anne was raised in a household that fostered achievement. Her mother would drop everything at five o'clock in the evening so that she could read to her children, and when they outgrew that practice, the young Morrows would use that hour to read by themselves, or write poetry and diaries. Anne in particular would later capitalize on that routine learned in her youth, and see many of her diaries published to critical acclaim.

Her father was consecutively a lawyer, a partner at J.P. Morgan Bank, United States Ambassador to Mexico, and Senator from New Jersey. Elizabeth Cutter Morrow was active in the advancement of women's education, serving on the board of trustees and briefly as acting president of her alma mater, Smith College.

After graduating from The Chapin School in New York City in 1924, Anne began attending Smith College, from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in May 1928. She received the Elizabeth Montagu Prize for her essay on women of the eighteenth century and Madame d'Houdetot, and the Mary Augusta Jordan Literary Prize for her fictional piece entitled "Lida Was Beautiful".

It was Dwight Morrow's position as Charles Lindbergh's financial adviser at J. P. Morgan & Co. that would prompt the aviator's invitation to Mexico, shortly before Morrow resigned to become Ambassador, as a means of promoting good relations between that country and the United States. It was in Mexico that Anne and Charles first met.

Anne Morrow and Charles Lindbergh were married at the home of her parents in Englewood on May 27, 1929. That year, she piloted her first solo flight, and was the first American woman ever to earn a first class glider pilot's license, in 1930. Together, Anne and Charles explored and charted air routes between continents during the 1930s. The Lindberghs were the first to fly from Africa to South America, and explored polar air routes from North America to Asia and Europe.

The Lindberghs' first born, Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, was kidnapped from their new home outside Hopewell, New Jersey on March 1, 1932. After a massive investigation, his dead body was discovered the following May 12, some four miles from the Lindberghs' home, at the summit of a hill on the Hopewell-Mt. Rose Highway.



The frenzied level of press attention paid to the Lindberghs, particularly after the kidnapping of their son and later the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann (the conclusion of which was his conviction and eventual execution), prompted Charles and Anne to move first to England, and later to the small island of Illiec, off the coast of France.

Europe provided the setting for the Lindberghs' fall from grace; he for his isolationist views, and she for thoroughly supporting him. In the late 1930s, the U.S. Air Attaché in Berlin invited Charles Lindbergh to inspect the rising power of Nazi Germany's Air Force. Impressed by German technology and their apparent number of planes, as well as influenced by the staggering number of deaths from World War I, Lindbergh opposed U.S. entry into the impending European conflict. Anne contributed an influential book, The Wave of the Future, which argued that something resembling fascism was the unfortunate "wave of the future", echoing authors such as Lawrence Dennis and later James Burnham.

The antiwar America First Committee quickly adopted Charles Lindbergh as their leader, but after Pearl Harbor and Germany's declaration of war, the committee disbanded.

Later life

During the postwar era, Anne and her husband wrote books, reestablishing the positive reputation they lost during the war hysteria. The most famous of Anne's literary output during that period is Gift from the Sea, her meditation on the meaning of a woman's life, which was published in 1955. Later, Anne edited and had published five volumes of her diaries from the period between 1922 and 1944. Revelations, after her death, that Charles maintained a second wife in Germany, and indeed, supported illegitimate children there, explain a stoic quality about Anne's later life.

Over the course of their 45-year marriage, Charles and Anne lived in New Jersey, New York, England, France, Maine, Michigan, Connecticut, Switzerland, and Hawaii. Charles died on Maui in 1974.

After suffering a series of strokes in the early 1990s, which left her confused and in poor health, Anne continued to live in her home in Connecticut with the assistance of round-the-clock caregivers. During a visit to her daughter Reeve's family in 1999, she came down with pneumonia, after which she went to live near Reeve in a small home built on Reeve's family's farm in Passumpsic, Vermont. It was there that Anne died in 2001, at the age of 94.

Anne received numerous awards and honors, in recognition of her contributions to both literature and aviation. The U.S. Flag Association honored her with its Cross of Honor in 1933 for having taken part in surveying transatlantic air routes. The following year, she was awarded the Hubbard Gold Medal by the National Geographic Society in acknowledgment of having completed 40,000 miles of exploratory flying with Charles, a feat that took them to five continents. Later, in 1993, Women in Aerospace presented her with an Aerospace Explorer Award, in recognition of her achievements in and contributions to the aerospace field.

In addition to being the recipient of honorary Masters and Doctor of Letters degrees from her alma mater Smith College (1935; 1970), Anne also received honorary degrees from Amherst College (1939), the University of Rochester (1939) and Gustavus Adolphus College (1985). She was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame, the National Women's Hall of Fame, and the Aviation Hall of Fame of New Jersey. War Within and Without, the last installment of her published diaries, was conferred the Christopher Award.

Billy Wilder
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Billy Wilder (June 22, 1906 - March 27, 2002) was a screenwriter, film director and producer whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age. Many of Wilder's films achieved both critical and public acclaim.

Life and career

Origins

Born Samuel Wilder in Sucha Beskidzka, Austria-Hungary (now Poland) to Max Wilder and Eugenia Dittler, Wilder was nicknamed Billy by his mother. After dropping out of the University of Vienna to become a journalist, he moved to Berlin, Germany. While in Berlin, and before his writing career became more successful, Wilder also allegedly worked as a taxi dancer. After writing crime and sports stories as a stringer for local newspapers, he was eventually offered a regular writing job at a Berlin tabloid. After gaining an interest in films, Wilder started working as a screenwriter. Wilder, who was Jewish, left for Paris and then the United States after the rise of Adolf Hitler. Wilder's mother, grandmother, and stepfather all died at the Auschwitz extermination camp.

Hollywood

After arriving in Hollywood in 1933, Wilder shared an apartment with fellow emigre Peter Lorre, and continued his career as a screenwriter.

Wilder's first significant success was Ninotchka, a collaboration with fellow German immigrant Ernst Lubitsch. Released in 1939, this screwball comedy starred Greta Garbo (generally known as a tragic heroine in film melodramas), and was popularly and critically acclaimed. With the byline, "Garbo Laughs!", it also took Garbo's career in a new direction. The film also marked Wilder's first Academy Award nomination, which he shared with co-writer Charles Brackett. For twelve years Wilder co-wrote many of his films with Brackett, from 1938 through 1950. He followed Ninotchka with a series of box office hits in 1942, including his directorial feature debut, The Major and the Minor, as well as Hold Back the Dawn and Ball of Fire.

Wilder's directoral choices reflected his belief in the primacy of writing. He avoided the exuberant cinematography of Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles because in Wilder's opinion, shots that called attention to themselves would distract the audience from the story. Wilder's pictures have tight plotting and memorable dialogue. He was skilled at working with actors, coaxing silent era legends Gloria Swanson and Erich von Stroheim out of retirement for roles in Sunset Boulevard. Wilder sometimes cast against type for major parts such as Fred MacMurray in The Apartment. MacMurray was famous as a wholesome family man from the television series My Three Sons, yet played a womanizing villain in Wilder's film. Wilder mentored Jack Lemmon and was the first director to pair him with Walter Matthau. Wilder filmed in black and white whenever studios would let him. Despite this conservative directoral style, his subject matter often pushed the boundaries of mainstream entertainment.

Wilder established his directorial reputation after helming Double Indemnity (1944), an early film noir he cowrote with mystery novelist Raymond Chandler. Double Indemnity not only set conventions for the noir genre (such as "venetian blind" lighting, and voice-over narration), but was also a landmark in the battle against Hollywood censorship. The original James M. Cain novel Double Indemnity featured two love triangles and a murder plotted for insurance money. The book was highly popular with the reading public, but had been considered unfilmable under the Hays Code, because adultery was central to its plot.

Two years later, Wilder earned the Best Director and Best Screenplay Academy Awards for the adaptation of a Charles R. Jackson story The Lost Weekend. This was the first major American film to make a serious examination of alcoholism. Another dark and cynical film Wilder cowrote and directed was the critically acclaimed Sunset Boulevard in 1950, which paired rising star William Holden with Gloria Swanson. Swanson played Norma Desmond, a reclusive silent film star who dreams of a comeback; Holden is an aspiring screenwriter and becomes a kept man, echoing Wilder's experience as a gigolo in Berlin. In 1959 Wilder introduced crossdressing to American film audiences with Some Like It Hot. In this comedy Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis play musicians on the run from a Chicago gang, who disguise themselves as women and become romantically involved with Marilyn Monroe and Joe E. Brown.

From the 1950s, Wilder made mostly comedies.[1] Among the classics Wilder produced in this period are the farces The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Some Like It Hot (1959), satires such as The Apartment (1960), and the romantic comedy Sabrina (1954). Wilder's humor is cynical and sometimes sardonic. In Love in the Afternoon (1957), a young and innocent Audrey Hepburn who doesn't want to be young or innocent wins playboy Gary Cooper by pretending to be a married woman in search of extramarital amusement. Even Wilder's warmest comedy The Apartment features an attempted suicide on Christmas Eve.

In 1959, Wilder teamed with writer-producer I.A.L. Diamond, a collaboration that remained until the end of both men's careers. After winning three Academy Awards for 1960's The Apartment (for Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay), Wilder's career slowed. After the lesser films Irma la Douce and Kiss Me, Stupid, Wilder garnered his last Oscar nomination for his screenplay The Fortune Cookie.

Later life

Billy Wilder died in 2002 at the age of 95 after battling health problems, including cancer, in Los Angeles, California, and was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, Los Angeles, California.

In 1988, Wilder was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Legacy

Several of Billy Wilder's films are regarded as cinema classics. He holds a significant place in the history of Hollywood censorship for expanding the range of acceptable subject matter. Yet film schools do not study Wilder's work in the comprehensive manner they approach other major directors such as Alfred Hitchcock. This may be because Wilder is not a good example of the auteur theory.

The American Film Institute has ranked four of Wilder's pictures among the top 100 American films of the twentieth century. These are:

Sunset Boulevard number 12
Some Like It Hot number 14
Double Indemnity number 38
The Apartment number 93

Trivia

Wilder is often confused with director William Wyler; the confusion is understandable, as both were German-speaking Jews with similar backgrounds and names. However, their output as directors was quite different, with Wyler preferring to direct epics and heavy dramas and Wilder noted for his comedies.
Billy Wilder's twelve Academy Award nominations for screenwriting were a record until 1997 when Woody Allen received a thirteenth nomination for Deconstructing Harry.
Billy Wilder is one of only four people who have won three Academy Awards for producing, directing, and writing the same film (The Apartment).
Billy Wilder once said: "My English is a mixture between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Archbishop Tutu."
Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba said in his acceptance speech for the 1993 Best Non-English Speaking Film Oscar "I'd like to thank God, but I don't believe in God, I just believe in Billy Wilder"

Mike Todd
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michael Todd (real name Avrom Hirsch Goldbogen) (June 22, 1907 or 19091 - March 22, 1958) was an American film producer who is best known for his production of Around the World in Eighty Days 1956, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture.

Life

He was born Avrom Hirsch Goldbogen in Minneapolis, to an Orthodox rabbi, Chaim Goldbogen, and Sophia Hellerman, both Polish Jewish immigrants. Todd was one of nine children in a poor family. His siblings gave him a surname, Toat, for his difficulty to pronounce the word coat.

Mike Todd didn't like school except for the play (The Mikado, by W. S. Gilbert & Arthur Sullivan) that he produced in his class and which turned out to be a hit. Not long after moving to Chicago, still in elementary school, he was expelled from sixth grade class for running a game of craps inside the school. He later dropped out of high school, and worked as a pharmacist, shoe salesman and store window decorator.

On Valentine's Day 1927, at the age of 17, Todd married Bertha Freshman. She bore him a son named Mike Todd Jr. in 1935. Later he married actress Joan Blondell in Las Vegas on July 5, 1947; they divorced in Las Vegas on June 8, 1950, when she alleged that he abused and extorted her. He married again to actress Elizabeth Taylor on February 2, 1957, and they had a daughter, Elizabeth Frances (Liza) Todd, on August 5, 1957. Liza would become a a sculptress.

Todd died in an airplane crash with his private plane, Lucky Liz, in Grants, New Mexico in 1958. He is buried in Chicago at Beth Aaron Cemetery #66.

Work

His early career started in the construction business where he made a fortune and almost lost everything. He traveled to Hollywood where he was a contractor to the studios. The 1933-4 Century of Progress World Fair in Chicago found him performing an act, "the Flame Dance" in which he burned part of the costume of a fairy dancer with gas jets, that left her looking naked. Next he formed a company and toured with a production of the Mikado, his high school favorite. When this closed he revamped the show as the jazzy The Hot Mikado in 1939 and performed it at the New York World's Fair. He would produce 30 Broadway shows in his career.

Todd's business career was volatile; failed ventures left him bankrupt many times.

In 1952, Todd produced an extravagant production of the Johann Strauss II operetta, "A Night In Venice," complete with floating gondolas at the newly constructed Jones Beach Theatre in Long Island, New York. It ran for two seasons.

In the 50s, Mike Todd founded a film company called Cinerama which intended to make films for projection on screens as wide as the human's field of vision. This initiative was brought to the public on September 1952. The company soon made a deal with American Optical Company which led to the creation of the Todd-AO technology, which was introduced to the public with the film version of the Broadway musical Oklahoma! in 1955, which was an instant success. Todd then made the film for which he is most famous, Around the World in Eighty Days which debuted in cinemas on October 17, 1956. It cost $6 million to make and earned him $16 million at the box office, raising him to the top of the movie business. Todd succeeded with another Todd-AO camera filmed movie South Pacific in 1957. The same year, his newly created technology earned him an Academy Award for South Pacific.

Kris Kristofferson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kris Kristofferson (born June 22, 1936) is an influential country music songwriter, singer and actor. He is best known for hits like "Me and Bobby McGee" and "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", many of which were co-written with Shel Silverstein or Fred Foster.

Early life

Although born in Brownsville, Texas, he moved around much as a youth, finally settling down in San Mateo, California, where he graduated from high school. Kristofferson's father was an Air Force general who pushed his son toward a military career. An aspiring writer, Kristofferson earned a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University (Merton College, Oxford) after previously attending Pomona College. While in England, Kristofferson began writing songs and working with his manager Larry Parnes; he recorded for Top Rank Records under the name Kris Carson, but was unsuccessful.

In 1960, Kristofferson graduated with a master's degree in English literature and married an old girlfriend, Fran Beir. His studies of literature are surely reflected in his song, "The Best of All Possible Worlds"; the French writer Voltaire satirized this idea, philosphical optimism, in his short novel Candide. He ultimately joined the Army and achieved the rank of captain. He became a helicopter pilot, which served him well later. During the early 1960s, he was stationed in West Germany and returned to music and forming a band. In 1965 he resigned his commission to pursue songwriting. He had just been assigned to become a teacher at West Point. Kristofferson sent some of his compositions to a friend's relative, Marijohn Wilkin, a successful Nashville, Tennessee songwriter.

Music career

Kristofferson moved to Nashville after resigning his commission in 1965, intent on becoming a professional songwriter. He worked a variety of odd jobs while struggling to make it in the music business, burdened with expensive medical bills as a result of his son's defective esophagus. He and his wife soon divorced.

He got a job sweeping floors at Columbia Studios in Nashville. There he met Johnny Cash, who initially took some of his songs but ignored them. During Kristofferson's time working as a janitor for Columbia, Bob Dylan was recording his landmark 1966 album Blonde on Blonde at the studio. Though Kristofferson was able to watch some of the sessions, he never got to meet Dylan because he was afraid that he would be fired for approaching him. He was also working as a commercial helicopter pilot at the time.

In 1966, Dave Dudley released a successful Kristofferson single, "Viet Nam Blues". The following year, Kristofferson signed to Epic Records and released a single, "Golden Idol"/"Killing Time", but the song was not successful. Within the next few years, more Kristofferson originals hit the charts, performed by Roy Drusky ("Jody and the Kid"), Billy Walker & the Tennessee Walkers ("From the Bottle to the Bottom"), Ray Stevens ("Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down"), Jerry Lee Lewis ("Once More with Feeling") Faron Young ("Your Time's Comin'") and Roger Miller ("Me and Bobby McGee", "Best of all Possible Worlds", "Darby's Castle"). He also gained some success as a performer himself, due to Johnny Cash's introduction of Kristofferson at the Newport Folk Festival. He got Cash's attention when he landed his helicopter in Cash's yard and gave him some tapes.

Kristofferson signed to Monument Records as a recording artist. The label was run by Fred Foster, also manager of Columbine Music, Kristofferson's songwriting label. His debut album for Monument in 1970 was Kristofferson, which included a few new songs as well as many of his previous hits. Sales were poor, although this debut album would become a success the following year when it was re-released under the title Me & Bobby MeGee. Kristofferson's compositions were still in high demand. Ray Price ("For the Good Times"), Waylon Jennings ("The Taker"), Bobby Bare ("Come Sundown"), Johnny Cash ("Sunday Morning Coming Down") and Sammi Smith ("Help Me Make It Through the Night") all recorded successful versions of his songs in the early 1970s. "For the Good Times" (Ray Price) won 'Song of the Year" in 1970 from the Academy of Country Music, while "Sunday Morning Coming Down" (Johnny Cash) won the same award from the Academy's rival, the Country Music Association in the same year. This is the only time an individual has won the same award from these two organizations in the same year for different songs.

In 1971, Janis Joplin, a very influential vocalist, had a #1 pop hit with "Me and Bobby McGee" from her posthumous Pearl. More hits followed from others: Ray Price ("I Won't Mention It Again", "I'd Rather Be Sorry"), Joe Simon ("Help Me Make It Through the Night"), Bobby Bare ("Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends"), O.C. Smith ("Help Me Make It Through the Night") Jerry Lee Lewis ("Me and Bobby McGee"), Patti Page ("I'd Rather Be Sorry") and Peggy Little ("I've Got to Have You"). Kristofferson released his second album, The Silver Tongued Devil and I in 1971; the album was a success and established Kristofferson's career as a recording artist in his own right. Not long after, Kristofferson made his acting debut in The Last Movie (directed by Dennis Hopper) and appeared at the Isle of Wight Festival. In 1972, he acted in Cisco Pike and released his third album, Border Lord; the album was all-new material and sales were sluggish. He also swept the Grammies that year with numerous songs nominated and several winning song of the year. Kristofferson's 1972 fourth album, Jesus Was a Capricorn began slow but the third single, "Why Me", was a success and significantly increased album sales.

Film career

For the next few years, Kristofferson focused on acting. He appeared in Blume in Love (directed by Paul Mazursky) and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (directed by Sam Peckinpah) and also married Rita Coolidge. With his new wife, Kristofferson released an album called Full Moon, another success buoyed by numerous hit singles and Grammy nominations. However, his fifth album, Spooky Lady's Sideshow was a commercial failure, setting the trend for most of the rest of his career. Artists like Ronnie Milsap and Johnny Duncan continued to record Kristofferson's material with much success, but his own rough voice and anti-pop sound kept his own audience to a minimum. He continued acting, in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Convoy, (another Sam Peckinpah film which was released in 1978), Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Vigilante Force, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, and A Star Is Born (with Barbra Streisand). In spite of his success with Streisand, Kristofferson's career was heading downward with the non-charting ninth album, Shake Hands with the Devil. His next film, Freedom Road, did not earn a theatrical release in the U.S. He and Rita Coolidge then divorced. Meanwhile, more artists were taking his songs to the top of the charts, including Lena Martell ("One Day at a Time") and Willie Nelson, whose Willie Nelson Sings Kris Kristofferson LP was a smash success. Kristofferson's next film was Heaven's Gate, a phenomenal failure that temporarily ended his acting career.

Later career

In 1982, Kristofferson participated (with Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and Brenda Lee) on The Winning Hand, a country success that failed to break into mainstream audiences. He then married again, to Lisa Meyers, and concentrated on films for a time, appearing in The Lost Honor of Kathryn Beck, Flashpoint and Songwriter. The latter also starred Willie Nelson and Kristofferson was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score. Music from Songwriter (an album of duets between Nelson and Kristofferson) was a massive country success. Nelson and Kristofferson continued their partnership, and added Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash to form the supergroup The Highwaymen. Their first album, Highwayman was a huge success, and the supergroup continued working together for a time. In 1985, Kristofferson starred in Trouble in Mind and released Repossessed a politically aware album that was a country success, particularly "They Killed Him" (also performed by Bob Dylan), a tribute to his heroes, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesus, and Mohandas Gandhi. Kristofferson also appeared in Amerika at about the same time; the mini-series was controversial, hypothesizing life under Communist domination. In spite of the success of Highwayman 2 in 1990, Kristofferson's solo recording career slipped significantly in the early 1990s, though he continued to successfully record with the Highwaymen. Lone Star (1996 film) reinvigorated Kristofferson's acting career, and he soon appeared in Blade, Blade II, Blade: Trinity, A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries, Fire Down Below, Tim Burton's remake of Planet of the Apes, Payback and The Jacket.

Kristofferson was inducted into the Songwriters` Hall of Fame in 1985 and the Nashville Songwriters` Hall of Fame in 1977. His last album is called Broken Freedom Song and was recorded live in San Francisco in 2003. In 2004 he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 2006, he received the Johnny Mercer Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame.


For the Good Times

Artist: Ray Price (peak Billboard position # 11 in 1970)
Words and Music by Kris Kristofferson

Don't look so sad, I know it's over
But life goes on and this old world will keep on turning
Let's just be glad we had some time to spend together
There's no need to watch the bridges that we're burning

Lay your head upon my pillow
Hold your warm and tender body close to mine
Hear the whisper of the rain drops flowing soft against the window
And make believe you love me one more time
For the good times

I'll get along, you'll find another
And I'll be here if you should find you ever need me
Don't say a word about tomorrow or forever
There'll be time enough for sadness when you leave me

Lay your head upon my pillow
Hold your warm and tender body close to mine
Hear the whisper of the rain drops flowing soft against the window
And make believe you love me one more time
For the good times

Hey, Mr. Turtle. Don't think our bio man is finished, but I love that one by Kris.

Klaus Maria Brandauer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Klaus Maria Brandauer (born June 22, 1944) is an actor and director.


Brandauer began acting onstage in 1962. After working in national theatre and television, he made his film debut in 1972, with his starring and award-winning role in Istvan Szabo's Mephisto (1981) launching his international career. He followed this with parts in Never Say Never Again (1983), Out of Africa (1985, for which he was nominated for an Oscar) and Szabo's Oberst Redl (1985) and Hanussen (1988).

He directed his first film in 1989, Georg Elser - Einer aus Deutschland, with himself in the title role. His other film roles have been in The Lightship (1986), Streets of Gold (1986), Burning Secret (1988), The Russia House (1990), White Fang (1991), Becoming Colette (1992), Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999) and Everyman's Feast (2002).

Between 1963, until her death in 1992, he was married to Karin Brandauer (they had one son).

He has acted in four languages: German, Hungarian, English and French.

Trivia

Was originally cast as Marko Ramius in The Hunt for Red October. That role eventually went to Oscar winner Sean Connery, who played James Bond to Brandauer's Largo in Never Say Never Again (1983). He co-starred with Connery again in The Russia House, released in 1990.

Cyndi Lauper
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper (born June 22, 1953), better known as Cyndi Lauper, is an American pop singer, New Wave artist and actress whose melodic voice and wild costumes have come to epitomize the 1980s, the decade in which she first came to fame.

Biography

Cyndi Lauper was born in Brooklyn, New York to Swiss German-American Fred Lauper and Sicilian Italian-American Catrine Dominique. She began her career in a cover band, but soon began performing her own songs - though she almost quit singing altogether due to strained vocal cords in 1977). By 1980 she'd released a rockabilly album on Polydor with the band Blue Angel. Despite much critical acclaim, the album "went lead" as Lauper says, and the band split as Lauper filed for bankruptcy.

In 1983, David Wolff (who also began managing as well as dating Ms. Lauper) produced She's So Unusual, the worldwide hit which made Lauper a household name. The album was a mixture of teen-friendly pop-rock, well orchestrated synthesizer dance music, and for the mainstream of the time, "unusual" punk-edged vocals. The record's biggest hit single, "Girls Just Want To Have Fun", quickly established itself as a female anthem, and a famed MTV video. Lauper won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards of 1984, and became the first female artist to have four consecutive Hot 100 Top 5 hits from one album.

She's So Unusual also included "She Bop", a paean to masturbation, the romantic ballad "Time After Time", a ballad which has since been covered by over 70 artists (most notably Miles Davis), and "Money Changes Everything" a deft cover of a tune by The Brains. Lauper was popular with teenagers, in part because of her quirky image which took the popular late 1970s punk look and marketed it to a mainstream audience. At this stage in her career, it was predicted that she would surely outlast Madonna as a pop icon.

From 1984 to 1985, she appeared as herself in a number of WWE professional wrestling events, where she supposedly was the manager of Wendi Richter. This cross-promotion arranged by David Wolff and Vince McMahon also lead to a number of professional wrestlers appearing on her early videos. She later described the period as fun, but a distraction to her musical ambitions, and largely stopped her WWE appearances after 1985.

In 1986, after recording the song "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough" for the 1985 film The Goonies, Lauper released her second album, True Colors. Revealing a more mature sound and sensibility, it reached number 4 on the Billboard 200. The title song went on to become her second Platinum number 1 hit. She also sang the jaunty theme song for the series, "Pee-wee's Playhouse", under the name Ellen Shaw, as well. The album sold 12 million copies worldwide.

In 1987, Cyndi traveled all the globe with the True Colors World Tour.

In 1988 she appeared as the female lead in the quirky comedy Vibes, which was poorly received by critics and a commercial flop. Her soundtrack contribution, "Hole In My Heart (All the Way to China)", also flopped.

Lauper's third album, 1989's A Night to Remember, though critically well-received, was not as commercially successful as its predecessors, spawning just one hit, "I Drove All Night", which was originally penned for Roy Orbison. Orbison's version was not released until 1992, three years after Lauper's version and four years after Orbison's death. "A Night To Remember" sold 5 million copies. Cyndi received a Grammy nomination for her vocals on "I Drove All Night".

In 1990 she joined many other guests for Roger Waters' massive performance of The Wall in Berlin (her performance of Another Brick in the Wall part II was criticized, even described by the All Music Guide as "ruining the spare funk with over-enthusiastic yelping" [1]). Her second film, Off and Running, went un-noticed, but she did meet future husband - actor David Thornton - on the set.

Lauper took a break from singing at this point, but didn't disappear from show business, and in 1993 she played Michael J. Fox's secretary in Life with Mikey. She released the critically acclaimed album Hat Full of Stars in the same year, but once again sales were poor. With a smooth new R&B sound and production by Junior Vasquez, she tackled such topics as spousal abuse and abortion.

In 1995 Lauper won an Emmy award for "Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series" for her portrayal of wealthy contessa Marianne Lugasso in Mad About You. She also released 12 Deadly Cyns... and Then Some, a greatest hits compilation that included two new tracks, one of which was a reworking of her first big hit, newly christened "Hey Now (Girls Just Want To Have Fun)". The album was released under a number of different titles, packaging and track listings around the world. "Twelve Deadly Cyns" sold over 10 million copies worldwide and she began a world tour to promote the album.

Her 1997 album Sisters of Avalon brought her back into the limelight. With subject matter even more adult than before, it was quickly embraced by the gay community for its dance and club stylings. The topicality of the album also contributed to its "pink" appeal: the song "Ballad of Cleo and Joe" addressed the complications of a drag queen's double life, while "You Don't Know" tackled the thorny issue of coming out. The album's singles were remixed to great acclaim, and Lauper began performing as a featured artist at gay pride events around the world.

In 1999 she co-headlined a tour alongside Cher, and contributed a cover version of The Trammps's classic "Disco Inferno" to the soundtrack of the film A Night at the Roxbury, which earned her another Grammy nomination. The remixed version becoming a club hit. She also garnered critical plaudits for her roles in several independent films including The Opportunists (with Christopher Walken).

In 2001 Lauper prepared an album, Shine, which saw her returning to her early pop/rock sound without losing the "maturity" she had embraced on later records. Just weeks before the album's scheduled release, however, her label, Edel America Records, folded, and the tracks were leaked to the public. Although a five song E.P. of the same name was made available through her website and at Tower Records, the full length album concept was scrapped.

She undertook her second co-headlining tour with Cher in 2002.

In 2003, an EP of remixes from the unreleased Shine album was sold on the Edel America Records website. Additionally Lauper's former label Sony issued a new greatest hits CD entitled The Essential Cyndi Lauper. She then re-signed with Sony/Epic Records, the label that made her a star, and a new album called Naked City was in the works.

In November 2003 an album of standards was released entitled At Last (formerly Naked City), which became a top 40 hit in the U.S. and Australia. It showed off her skills as a unique interpreter and critics agreed the Lauper's voice - always a force to be reckoned with - was even stronger at age 50 that it had been in her heyday. In March of 2004 the full length Shine album was finally released, though exclusively in Japan. She was nominated for a 2005 Grammy award for "Best Instrumental Composition Accompanying a Vocal" for her interpretation of the song "Unchained Melody" on the At Last album.

In 2004, Lauper was invited to perform at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert, in Oslo. She performed on stage 3 times during the concert. Her most notable performance of the evening was the timeless classic, "Time After Time", which included Chris Botti and Arvid Solvang. The trio were accompanied by a full orchestra.

In November of 2005 Lauper released The Body Acoustic, an album which featured acoustic reinterpretations of tracks from her back catalog as well as two new songs. Featuring guest appearances by artists such as Shaggy, Ani DiFranco and Sarah McLachlan, the collection debuted and peaked at #112 on the Billboard chart and upon its UK release in March 2006, accompanied by a promotional tour, it entered at UK #55, becoming her first UK chart album for nine years and her biggest chart success in the UK for 12 years. Lauper continues to tour the world performing live, and is noted as an energetic live performer. Lauper appeared as herself on the Showtime series Queer as Folk. She maintains a devoted fanbase and lives in New York with her husband, and their child.

In March of 2006 Lauper took on her first starring Broadway role as "Pirate" Jenny Diver in the musical The Threepenny Opera. The Roundabout's production of Threepenny Opera received a 2006 Tony nomination for best revival as well as Jim Dale for best featured actor in a musical. Lauper was honored for her work in Threepenny at the Drama League Awards.

Trivia

Married David Thornton in 1991.
Son Declyn Wallace Thornton Lauper was born in 1997.
Wrote "Code of Silence" with Billy Joel. It marked the first time Joel shared a songwriting credit on one of his albums.
Was interested in recording "Voices Carry" by 'Til Tuesday but the band ultimately decided to record the song themselves for their debut album.
Before achieving musical fame, she worked at New York high-end thrift store "Screaming Mimi's".
As of 2005, her albums sales have passed 60 million.
Appeared in the WWE as Wendi Richter's manager at Wrestlemania.

Girls Just Want To Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper

I come home in the morning light
My mother says when you gonna live your life right
Oh mother dear we're not the fortunate ones
And girls just want to have fun
Oh girls just want to have fun

The phone rings in the middle of the night
My father yells what you gonna do with your life
Oh daddy dear you know you're still number one
But girls they want to have fun
Oh girls just want to have--

That's all they really want
Some fun
When the working day is done
Girls-- they want to have fun
Oh girls just want to have fun

Some boys take a beautiful girl
And hide her away from the rest of the world
I want to be the one to walk in the sun
Oh girls they want to have fun
Oh girls just want to have

That's all they really want
Some fun
When the working day is done
Girls--they want to have fun
Oh girls just want to have fun,
They want to have fun,
They want to have fun...

Two patients limp into two different American Medical clinics with
the same complaint. Both have trouble walking and appear to require
a hip replacement.
The first patient is examined within the hour, is x-rayed the same
day and has a time booked for surgery the following week.
The second sees the family doctor after waiting a week for an
appointment, then waits eighteen weeks to see a specialist, then
gets an x-ray, which isn't reviewed for another month and finally
has his surgery scheduled for 6 months from then.
Why the different treatment for the two patients?
The first is a Golden Retriever.....
The second is a Senior Citizen.