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Jo Anne Worley
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Jo Anne WorleyJo Anne Worley (born on September 6, 1937) is an American actress. Her work covers television, movies, theater, game shows, talk shows, commercials, and cartoons. She is best known for her work on the comedy-variety show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.

Biography

Worley was born in Lowell, Indiana, the third of five children. In 1962, her father remarried and his second union gave her two half-brothers and two half-sisters. Always remembered for her loud voice, Worley once said that when she attended church as a little girl, she never sang the hymns but would only lip-synch them for fear that she would drown out everyone else. Before graduating from high school, she was named School Comedienne.

After graduating from high school in 1955, Worley moved to Bleauvelt, New York, where she began her professional career as a member of the Pickwick Players. This led to a drama scholarship to Midwestern University in Wichita Falls, Texas. After studying at Midwestern for two years, she moved to Los Angeles to study at the Los Angeles City College and the Pasadena Playhouse. She was soon given her first musical role in a production of Wonderful Town. In 1961, she received her first major break when she appeared in the musical revue Billy Barnes People; this performance soon moved to Broadway.

In 1964, Worley was chosen to be a stand-in the original Broadway production of Hello Dolly! One year later, she created her own nightclub act in Greenwich Village, where she was discovered by talk-show host Merv Griffin in 1966. Impressed by Worley's talents, Griffin allowed her to be one of his primary guest stars on his show, where she made approximately 200 appearances. That same year, she co-starred Off-Broadway in The Mad Show, a musical revue based on Mad Magazine. In 1967, her stint on Griffin's show led to her discovery by George Schlatter, who soon cast her in Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.

In 1970, she left Laugh-In to pursue other projects and has made guest appearances on several TV shows, including Love, American Style, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, The Andy Williams Show, and different game shows, such as Hollywood Squares. She continued working in various movies, TV shows, and theatrical performances (original productions and revivals alike) over the years; and she also became known for her work as a voice provider for several cartoons and animated movies (particularly Disney movies). In 1989, she returned to Broadway to appear in the original performance of Prince of Central Park. Her voice work includes Nutcracker Fantasy (1979), the Disney movies Beauty and the Beast (1991), A Goofy Movie (1995), and Belle's Magical World (1998).

Worley continues to perform today in several acting circuits in New York and Los Angeles, and she has also been active at times in the lecture circuit. She also serves on the Board of Directors for Actors and Others for Animals. Her most recent role was playing the voice of the Wardrobe in Kingdom Hearts 2.

Roger Waters
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name George Roger Waters
Born September 6, 1943
Origin Great Bookham, England

George Roger Waters (born September 6, 1943) is a rock musician, songwriter, and composer.

He is best known for his illustrious 1965-1985 career with the band Pink Floyd as their main songwriter from 1968, one of their chief singers (along with David Gilmour), bass player and main sonic wizard.

Following this, he began a moderately successful solo career releasing three studio albums and staging one of the largest concerts ever, The Wall Concert in Berlin in 1990. In 2005, he released an opera, Ça Ira and rejoined Pink Floyd for a performance at the Live 8 concert in London, on July 2, 2005.

Biography

(Pre 1965) Early years

Waters was born George Roger Waters in Great Bookham, Surrey near Leatherhead, and grew up in Cambridge.

Although his father Eric Fletcher Waters had been a Communist and ardent pacifist, he fought in World War II and died in action at Anzio in 1944, when Roger was only five months old. Waters would refer or allude to the loss of his father throughout his work, especially on The Final Cut album from 1983 (which is dedicated to his father) and the song named "When the Tigers Broke Free" from the movie version of The Wall. However, he has said that the mother character from the latter album was nothing like his own. Distrust of authority, particularly government, educational, and military institutions, is a recurring theme in Waters' writing. This theme is clearly expressed in "When the Tigers Broke Free" as Waters expresses what he felt was a hollow and patronizing response to his father's sacrifice at Anzio:

"And kind old King George sent Mother a note when he heard that Father was gone.
It was, as I recall, in a form of a scroll, with gold leaf and all.
And I found it one day in a drawer of old photographs, hidden away.
And my eyes still grow damp to remember, His Majesty signed with his own rubber stamp."

He and Syd Barrett attended the Morley Memorial Junior School on Hills Road, Cambridge, and later both attended the Cambridge County School for Boys (now Hills Road Sixth Form College), while fellow band member David Gilmour attended The Perse School on the same road [1]). He met Nick Mason and Richard Wright while attending the Regent Street Polytechnic school of architecture. He was a keen sportsman and was fond of swimming in the River Cam at Grantchester Meadows. At 15 he was chair of YCND in Cambridge.

(1965-1985) Pink Floyd years

In 1965, Roger Waters was a founding member of Pink Floyd, with then lead singer, guitarist, and principal songwriter Syd Barrett - as well as Richard Wright and Nick Mason. Although Barrett initially did most of the songwriting for the band, Roger wrote "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk" on their 1967 debut LP, Piper at the Gates of Dawn. The album was a critical success and positioned the band for stardom.

In 1968, Barrett's erratic behaviour and deteriorating mental health led to his eventual departure from the band. There was talk that without the talented lead singer and songwriter, the band would not be able to sustain its initial success. To fill the void, Waters began to chart the band's artistic direction. Along with co-writer, guitarist, and singer David Gilmour, who had joined the band to augment, and later replace Barrett, Waters brought Pink Floyd back into prominence as their main composer, producing a series of albums in the 1970s that remain among the most critically acclaimed and best-selling records of all time.

In 1970, Waters collaborated with British composer Ron Geesin (who had worked with Pink Floyd on 1970's Atom Heart Mother) on a soundtrack album, Music from "The Body", a mostly instrumental album.

Within Pink Floyd, Waters, the main lyrical contributor, exerted more and more creative control over the band. Waters steered Floyd into recording increasingly personalised concept albums such as Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall in which he wrote all the lyrics. He is the sole writer of many of Pink Floyd's better known hits such as "Money" and "Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2" In total, Waters has songwriting credit (solo or shared) on over 70% of Pink Floyd's entire music catalogue.

Waters' bandmates were happy to allow him to write the band's lyrics and guide the band's conceptual direction while they shared the opportunity to contribute musical ideas (Floyd guitarist David Gilmour described Waters as "a very good motivator and obviously a great lyricist,"[2] even at the height of the acrimony between Waters and Gilmour in 1995). Some of the band's most popular and beloved songs, including "Echoes", "Time", "Us And Them", "Wish You Were Here" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", feature the strong synergy of Waters' sharp lyrical instincts with the melodic talents of Gilmour, the soft, precise drumming of Nick Mason, and atmospheric patterns of keyboardist Richard Wright ("Us And Them", for instance, began as a sweetly melodic Wright keyboard instrumental and gained poignancy when Waters added plaintive antiwar lyrics). Unfortunately, this give-and-take relationship began to give way after 1975's Wish You Were Here; 1977's Animals lacked significant contributions from Mason or Wright and Gilmour only received credit for co-writing the track "Dogs" which comprised most of the album's first side (the song had previously been performed live under the title "You Gotta Be Crazy"). The double-album The Wall featured only four co-credited tracks, "Young Lust", "Run Like Hell" and "Comfortably Numb" (co-written with Gilmour), and "The Trial" (co-written by album producer Bob Ezrin). Songwriting credits were a source of contention in these difficult years: Gilmour has noted that his contributions to tracks like "Another Brick In The Wall Pt. 2" (with its blistering solo) were not always noted in the album credits. Nick Mason also addresses the band in-fighting over credits much more dispassionately in his memoir, Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd. It was while recording The Wall that Waters made the decision to fire keyboardist and founding member Rick Wright, although Wright remained on the album tour as a paid session musician. Ironically, because he was now on a fixed salary, Wright was the only member of the band to make a profit out of this extremely expensive but very short tour.

For many fans and casual listeners, the collaborative years of 1971-1975 remain the "classic" Pink Floyd years; a 1987 end-of-year review in Rolling Stone noted that Waters' solo Radio K.A.O.S. and the Waters-less Pink Floyd's A Momentary Lapse of Reason, taken together, might have made a nice Dark Side Of The Moon.

Waters is also known to play electric guitar as he did on Animals, where he played rhythm guitar on tracks Pigs (Three Different Ones) and Sheep, to play synthesizers and add tape effects since earlier works. He is also known for his acoustic guitar work, which he plays frequently live on his tours, mostly on tracks from The Final Cut. He also played guitar on the track Shine On You Crazy Diamond.

In 1983, the last Waters-Gilmour-Mason collaboration, The Final Cut, was released, though it was largely considered more like a Roger Waters solo album "performed by Pink Floyd" than an actual Pink Floyd collaborative album (Gilmour tried unsuccessfully to delay production until he could author more material; given the personal nature of the subject matter, Waters refused).

In 1985, Waters proclaimed that, due to irreconcilable differences, the band had dissolved. The ensuing disagreement between Waters and Gilmour over the latter's intention to continue to use the name "Pink Floyd" descended into lawsuits and public bickering in the press. Waters claimed that as the original band consisted of himself, Syd Barrett, Nick Mason and Richard Wright, that this band could not reasonably call itself "Pink Floyd" now that it was without three of its founding members. Another of Waters' arguments was that he had written almost all of the band's lyrics and a great part of the music, after Barrett's departure. However, Gilmour and Mason won the right to use the name and a majority of the band's songs, though Waters did retain the rights to the albums The Wall and all of its songs (save for the three Gilmour co-wrote) and The Final Cut, and to the famous Pink Floyd pigs.

In 2005, he agreed to rejoin Pink Floyd on stage for Live 8, and performed on July 2, 2005 with his former bandmates David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Rick Wright. It was the first time the four men had been onstage together since the June 1981 concerts at Earl's Court in London.

(1985-) Solo years

Amused to Death album coverWaters embarked on a solo career after Pink Floyd, producing three concept albums and a movie soundtrack which did not garner impressive sales. Solo works have managed critical acclaim and even some comparison to previous work with Pink Floyd.[[3]]

His first truly solo album, 1984's The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, was a project about a man's dreams in a night. The list of musicians helping Waters during recording included legendary guitarist Eric Clapton and jazz saxophonist David Sanborn. Conceived around the same time as The Wall, the concept was shown to the Pink Floyd members, but they preferred The Wall over The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking. The album had been demoed by Waters at the same time as The Wall, but the band had voted it too personal. Waters decided to shelve it until he could do it as a solo project. The album received mixed reviews, with Kurt Loder describing Pros And Cons Of Hitch Hiking in Rolling Stone as a "strangely static, faintly hideous record," adding that "Waters sounds like the kind of guy who'd bring Hershey bars and nylons along on a first date." (Loder gave the album one star out of five, though user ratings have averaged four out of five )[4]

In 1986 Waters contributed songs to the soundtrack of the movie When the Wind Blows.

In 1987 Waters released another concept album, Radio K.A.O.S., about a man named Billy who can hear radio waves in his head. Waters followed the release with a supporting tour, also in 1987. His album did not garner the impressive sales he had achieved in Pink Floyd. One possible reason was that he was now competing with a reformed Pink Floyd who were touring to support their latest release, A Momentary Lapse of Reason.

After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, Waters staged a gigantic charity concert of The Wall in Berlin on July 21, 1990 to commemorate the end of the division between East and West Germany. The concert took place on Potsdamer Platz (a location which was part of the former "no-man's land" of the Berlin Wall), featured many guest superstars, and, at the time, was the biggest concert ever staged with an attendance of over 300,000 and watched live by over 5 million people worldwide.

1992's Amused to Death, about the corrupting, desensitizing nature of television, is perhaps Waters' most critically acclaimed solo recording, with music critics comparing it to later Pink Floyd work, such as The Wall. The album had one hit which was What God Wants, Pt. 1 which hit #4 on Mainstream Rock charts. Jeff Beck, another legendary guitarist, saw action on Waters' album as he played lead guitar.

In 1999 Waters embarked on the In the Flesh tour which saw Waters performing some of his most famous work, both solo and Pink Floyd material. The tour was a success, and eventually stretched across the world. Tickets were at such high demand, that the tour had to be spanned over three years. Almost every show was sold out with some venues garnering more sales than Pink Floyd shows of early touring years.[citation needed] One concert was released on CD and DVD, named In the Flesh Live, after the tour.

In 2002 Waters performed at a concert organised by the Countryside Alliance in support of fox hunting [citation needed]. Waters has never publicly expressed any Tory allegiances and has, in fact, criticised the Thatcher Conservative government for their handling of the Falklands War on The Final Cut. In June of 2002 Waters played the Glastonbury Festival performing many classic Pink Floyd songs. This was the first time a special speaker system had been set up among the audience to enable sound effects to appear to be moving around amongst the crowd.

Miramax Films announced in mid-2004 that a production of The Wall is to appear on Broadway with Waters playing a prominent part in its production. Reports say the musical will contain not only the original tracks from The Wall, but also songs from Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and other Pink Floyd albums, as well as new material. [[5]

On the night of 1 May 2004, the overture for Ça Ira was pre-premièred on occasion of the Welcome Europe celebrations in the accession country of Malta, performed over Grand Harbour in Valletta and illuminated by light artist Gert Hof. The event was broadcast over all EBU television stations. [6]

In September 2004, Waters released two new tracks, "To Kill The Child" and "Leaving Beirut". These were released only on the Internet. Both of these tracks were inspired by the U.S./UK 2003 invasion of Iraq. Waters, who currently resides in the U.S., has said that the songs were written immediately after the start of the war, but he delayed releasing them until just before the 2004 Presidential election, hoping to derail George W. Bush's re-election. The lyrics were quite rash such as: "Oh George! Oh George! That Texas education must have fucked you up when you were very small" (from "Leaving Beirut"). Although the songs' criticism was primarily aimed at the American government, Tony Blair is also referenced: "Not in my name, Tony, you great war leader".

After the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and subsequent tsunami disaster that occurred on December 26th 2004 (at 00:58 UTC), Waters performed "Wish You Were Here" with Eric Clapton on an NBC benefit concert.

Waters and Pink Floyd reunited for a performance at the Live 8 concert. They played a four-song, 23-minute set. Before going into "Wish You Were Here", Waters said:

It's actually quite emotional standing up here with these three guys after all these years. Standing to be counted with the rest of you. Anyway, we're doing this for everyone who's not here, but particularly, of course, for Syd.


Waters remarked shortly after Live 8 to the Associated Press that, while the experience of playing as Pink Floyd again was positive, the chances of a bona-fide reunion would be 'slight', considering his and Gilmour's continuing musical and ideological differences. Gilmour commented that the experience was like "sleeping with my ex-wife again".

Waters is also known to be working on two new solo albums, which (as remarked to Jim Ladd, with whom he worked on Radio K.A.O.S.) one has the working title of Heartland, and that it might be released in 2006 or 2007. Two possible tracks from this album have appeared on In the Flesh Live ("Each Small Candle") and the compilation Flickering Flame: The Solo Years Vol. 1 ("Flickering Flame"). The other of the two albums deals with the theme of Love like his first solo album. A possible track is a song dubbed "Woman" which was heard during the sound checks for the "In the Flesh" tour.

In February of 2005, it was announced on Roger Waters' website that his opera, Ça Ira, had been completed after 16 years of work. It was released as a CD/DVD set by Sony Classical on September 27, 2005 with Baritone Bryn Terfel, soprano Ying Huang and tenor Paul Groves. The original libretto was written in French by the late Étienne Roda-Gil, who set the opera during the optimistic days of the early French Revolution. From 1997 Roger Waters rewrote the libretto in English.

On May 20th, 2006 he performed with a set band consisting of Roger Taylor and Eric Clapton and band-mate Nick Mason performing two songs, 'Wish You Were Here' and 'Comfortably Numb'.

Roger Waters toured Europe during the Summer of 2006 and North America in the fall for his The Dark Side Of The Moon Live Tour. As part of his performance he played a complete run-through of the 1973 Pink Floyd classic, The Dark Side Of The Moon, as the second half of the show. The first half was a mix of Floyd classics and Roger's solo material. Elaborate staging designed by Mark Fisher, complete with projections, and a full, 360 degree quadrophonic sound system were used. This new Waters' solo tour is expected to be as successful as his previous In the Flesh tour. Hisformer Pink Floyd bandmate, Nick Mason joined Roger on some of the tour dates. Rick Wright wasinvited to participate on the tour as well but he declined the offer to work on solo projects. [7]

Waters' former bandmate Nick Mason began patching their relationship in 2002. After speaking to Mason and Bob Geldof about a possible Pink Floyd reunion at Live 8, Waters contacted Gilmour by phone and e-mail, and it appears that they have buried the hatchets since the historic concert and apparently now communicate on a friendly basis. Waters has made overtures to Richard Wright, as well. Syd Barrett, who died on Friday 7th of July 2006, remained an emotional subject for most of his friends and former colleagues. Waters said in interviews before Barrett's death that it would be difficult and inappropriate for him to try to insert himself back into his old friend's life.

Hits and Awards

Roger Waters had exposure to hit singles in his solo period. His three major solo albums have been acclaimed Gold by the RIAA, and his opera Ça Ira had reached #1 on both the UK and U.S. Classical Charts. His work also consisted of a few hit singles, his most popular was "What God Wants, Pt. 1" on his Amused to Death album, which reached #4. His tours have been very successful[citation needed]. Roger has also been inducted into the U.S. and UK Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd.

Personal interests

A passionate football fan, Waters supports London club Arsenal F.C.

Roger also enjoys fishing, and has been fly fishing for 20 years.

Waters is a lifelong supporter of the Labour Party, often describing himself as a socialist, but he's lately been heavily disagreeing with Tony Blair's New Labour policies.

Waters also went to the West Bank in Palestine on June 22, 2006, prior to his concert at Neve Shalom, in the Latrun area of Israel. He spray painted the Israeli West Bank barrier which he has openly stood against labeling it an "apartheid wall".

Swoosie Kurtz
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Swoosie Kurtz (born on September 6, 1944, in Omaha, Nebraska) is an American actress.

Early Life and Namesake

Kurtz is the only child of Air Force Colonel Frank Kurtz, and his wife, author Margo Kurtz. She got her unique first name "Swoosie" (which rhymes with Lucy, rather than woozy) from her father. It is derived from the sole surviving example, at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, of the B-17D Flying Fortress airplane, named "The Swoose" or simply "Swoose" - half swan, half goose - which her father piloted during World War II. (Her first television appearance, in fact, was on To Tell the Truth at age 18, introducing her father and two impostors.)

The family moved frequently due to her father's career. When it came time to enter college, Kurtz decided on the University of Southern California where she majored in drama. She then attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Career

Kurtz first gained attention in the late 70s in Uncommon Women and Others, the breakthrough play by Wendy Wasserstein. Kurtz was soon was awarded Broadway's "triple crown" (the Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle awards) for her portrayal of Gwen in Lanford Wilson's The Fifth of July. She won a second Tony was for her performance as Bananas in a 1986 revival of The House of Blue Leaves by John Guare.

Kurtz had starring roles in the television series Love, Sidney and Sisters. She has also received an Emmy for her guest-starring performance on Carol Burnett's comedy series Carol & Company. Recently, Kurtz has had a recurring guest role as Judy Miller's mother on the CBS sitcom Still Standing; and as Beth Huffstodt's mother on Huff.

Kurtz frequently received stellar reviews even in less praised projects, and she is widely respected as one of Hollywood's most sought-after supporting actresses, doing a lot of work she would rather not so as to pay the bills and be able to really act in the theatre.

She has never married or had children.

Jane Curtin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jane Therese Curtin (born September 6, 1947) is an American actor and comedian, from Cambridge, Massachusetts. She holds an associate degree from Elizabeth Seton Junior College in New York City. Curtin lives in Connecticut with her husband, Patrick Lynch. The couple have one daughter, Tess Lynch. She has served as a U.S. Committee National Ambassador for UNICEF.

In 1968, Curtin decided to pursue comedy as a career and dropped out of college. She joined a comedy group, "The Proposition", and performed with them until 1972. She starred in Pretzels, an off-Broadway play written by Curtin and Fred Grandy, in 1974.

One of the original "Not Ready For Prime Time Players" for NBC's Saturday Night Live (1975), Curtin remained on the show through the 1979-1980 season. A practicing Catholic, she did not participate in SNL's notorious backstage party scene.

Saturday Night Live

Jane Curtin is famous as one of the original cast members of Saturday Night Live (SNL). On this show, she often played straight-woman characters seemingly driven to frustration by the antics of her wackier castmates including John Belushi and Gilda Radner.

As a TV anchorwoman, Jane played as a foil to John Belushi, who would often give a rambling and out of control "commentary" on events of the day. During these sketches, Jane would timidly try to get Belushi to come to the point which would only make him angrier. In the most noted sketch, Belushi gave a rambling account of his Irish friend's troubles to demonstrate that there was no such thing as "the luck of the Irish".

Gilda Radner, in her persona of Roseanne RoseannaDanna, would present an ethnic face to Jane's Anglo-Saxon self-control and as such annoy Jane with personal remarks. In one famous sketch, Jane lost control (presumably playing this loss of control, not literally) and exposed her bra to Roseanne, saying "check for yourself, Roseanne"!

These sketches may have represented an American anxiety about the FCC's "fairness doctrine" which in the early 1970s required television networks to allow on-air responses to station viewpoints by a variety of minority political views, and Belushi and Radner appear to get their cue from the outlier individuals who sometimes appeared on-air under the fairness doctrine. Despite Saturday Night Live's reputation as a "liberal", indeed envelope-pushing show, Belushi and Radner make the comedic point that minorities (Belushi's East European, Radner's Jew) aren't ready for prime time while Anglo-Saxon hipsters are, for the former can control themselves. In fact, American television networks were able to get the fairness doctrine revoked.

For this reason, Jane had many admirers in SNL's audience because in the middle of what Tom Wolfe called "the Purple decades", Curtin gave TwentySomething women permission to abandon the faux-ethnic look (wild hair, Asian long skirts, platform shoes and clunky jewelry) and take on the "TV anchorwoman" look (coiffed hair, tailored suits, pumps and no jewelry) which ten years later became a widespread Yuppie fashion statement of recommittment to "prime time" values.

Curtin is also well known for her role in the Conehead sketches as "Prymaat Conehead" (mother of the Conehead family), and as "Enid Loopner" (in sketches with Gilda Radner and Bill Murray). Curtin anchored SNL's "Weekend Update" segment in 1976-77, and was paired with Dan Aykroyd in 1977-78 and Bill Murray in 1978-80. In a parody of the "Point-Counterpoint" segment of the news program 60 Minutes, Curtin portrayed a controlled "liberal", Politically Correct viewpoint vs. Dan Aykroyd, who prototyped today's right-wing media "attack" journalist. (Curtin would always present the liberal "Point" portion first, then Aykroyd would present the "Counterpoint" portion, beginning with the statement, "Jane, you ignorant slut!")

Later television career

Unlike many of her SNL cast members who ventured often successfully into film, Curtin chose to stay in television and has been remarkably successful there. Her film appearances have been sporadic. To date, she has starred in two long-running television sitcoms. First, in Kate & Allie, with Susan Saint James (1984-89), she played a single mother named "Allie Lowell." She received two Emmys for her performance. She later joined the cast of 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996-2001) playing a human, "Dr. Mary Albright," opposite the alien family, composed of John Lithgow, Kristen Johnston, French Stewart, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Curtin starred with Fred Savage in the ABC sitcom Crumbs, which debuted in January 2006 and was canceled in May of that year.

In 1993, Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd were reunited in Coneheads, a full-length motion picture based on their popular SNL characters. They also appeared together as the voices of a pair of wasps in the film Antz.

Broadway

Curtin has also performed on Broadway on occasion. She first appeared on the Great White Way as Miss Prosperine Garrett in the play "Candida" in 1981. She later went on to be a replacement actress in two other plays: "Love Letters" and "Noises Off", and was in the 2002 revival of "Our Town," which received huge press attention as Paul Newman returned to the Broadway stage after several decades away.

Curtin has a cousin in the industry, actress and writer Valerie Curtin.

Jane Curtin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jane Therese Curtin (born September 6, 1947) is an American actor and comedian, from Cambridge, Massachusetts. She holds an associate degree from Elizabeth Seton Junior College in New York City. Curtin lives in Connecticut with her husband, Patrick Lynch. The couple have one daughter, Tess Lynch. She has served as a U.S. Committee National Ambassador for UNICEF.

In 1968, Curtin decided to pursue comedy as a career and dropped out of college. She joined a comedy group, "The Proposition", and performed with them until 1972. She starred in Pretzels, an off-Broadway play written by Curtin and Fred Grandy, in 1974.

One of the original "Not Ready For Prime Time Players" for NBC's Saturday Night Live (1975), Curtin remained on the show through the 1979-1980 season. A practicing Catholic, she did not participate in SNL's notorious backstage party scene.

Saturday Night Live

Jane Curtin is famous as one of the original cast members of Saturday Night Live (SNL). On this show, she often played straight-woman characters seemingly driven to frustration by the antics of her wackier castmates including John Belushi and Gilda Radner.

As a TV anchorwoman, Jane played as a foil to John Belushi, who would often give a rambling and out of control "commentary" on events of the day. During these sketches, Jane would timidly try to get Belushi to come to the point which would only make him angrier. In the most noted sketch, Belushi gave a rambling account of his Irish friend's troubles to demonstrate that there was no such thing as "the luck of the Irish".

Gilda Radner, in her persona of Roseanne RoseannaDanna, would present an ethnic face to Jane's Anglo-Saxon self-control and as such annoy Jane with personal remarks. In one famous sketch, Jane lost control (presumably playing this loss of control, not literally) and exposed her bra to Roseanne, saying "check for yourself, Roseanne"!

These sketches may have represented an American anxiety about the FCC's "fairness doctrine" which in the early 1970s required television networks to allow on-air responses to station viewpoints by a variety of minority political views, and Belushi and Radner appear to get their cue from the outlier individuals who sometimes appeared on-air under the fairness doctrine. Despite Saturday Night Live's reputation as a "liberal", indeed envelope-pushing show, Belushi and Radner make the comedic point that minorities (Belushi's East European, Radner's Jew) aren't ready for prime time while Anglo-Saxon hipsters are, for the former can control themselves. In fact, American television networks were able to get the fairness doctrine revoked.

For this reason, Jane had many admirers in SNL's audience because in the middle of what Tom Wolfe called "the Purple decades", Curtin gave TwentySomething women permission to abandon the faux-ethnic look (wild hair, Asian long skirts, platform shoes and clunky jewelry) and take on the "TV anchorwoman" look (coiffed hair, tailored suits, pumps and no jewelry) which ten years later became a widespread Yuppie fashion statement of recommittment to "prime time" values.

Curtin is also well known for her role in the Conehead sketches as "Prymaat Conehead" (mother of the Conehead family), and as "Enid Loopner" (in sketches with Gilda Radner and Bill Murray). Curtin anchored SNL's "Weekend Update" segment in 1976-77, and was paired with Dan Aykroyd in 1977-78 and Bill Murray in 1978-80. In a parody of the "Point-Counterpoint" segment of the news program 60 Minutes, Curtin portrayed a controlled "liberal", Politically Correct viewpoint vs. Dan Aykroyd, who prototyped today's right-wing media "attack" journalist. (Curtin would always present the liberal "Point" portion first, then Aykroyd would present the "Counterpoint" portion, beginning with the statement, "Jane, you ignorant slut!")

Later television career

Unlike many of her SNL cast members who ventured often successfully into film, Curtin chose to stay in television and has been remarkably successful there. Her film appearances have been sporadic. To date, she has starred in two long-running television sitcoms. First, in Kate & Allie, with Susan Saint James (1984-89), she played a single mother named "Allie Lowell." She received two Emmys for her performance. She later joined the cast of 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996-2001) playing a human, "Dr. Mary Albright," opposite the alien family, composed of John Lithgow, Kristen Johnston, French Stewart, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Curtin starred with Fred Savage in the ABC sitcom Crumbs, which debuted in January 2006 and was canceled in May of that year.

In 1993, Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd were reunited in Coneheads, a full-length motion picture based on their popular SNL characters. They also appeared together as the voices of a pair of wasps in the film Antz.

Broadway

Curtin has also performed on Broadway on occasion. She first appeared on the Great White Way as Miss Prosperine Garrett in the play "Candida" in 1981. She later went on to be a replacement actress in two other plays: "Love Letters" and "Noises Off", and was in the 2002 revival of "Our Town," which received huge press attention as Paul Newman returned to the Broadway stage after several decades away.

Curtin has a cousin in the industry, actress and writer Valerie Curtin.

Jane Curtin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jane Therese Curtin (born September 6, 1947) is an American actor and comedian, from Cambridge, Massachusetts. She holds an associate degree from Elizabeth Seton Junior College in New York City. Curtin lives in Connecticut with her husband, Patrick Lynch. The couple have one daughter, Tess Lynch. She has served as a U.S. Committee National Ambassador for UNICEF.

In 1968, Curtin decided to pursue comedy as a career and dropped out of college. She joined a comedy group, "The Proposition", and performed with them until 1972. She starred in Pretzels, an off-Broadway play written by Curtin and Fred Grandy, in 1974.

One of the original "Not Ready For Prime Time Players" for NBC's Saturday Night Live (1975), Curtin remained on the show through the 1979-1980 season. A practicing Catholic, she did not participate in SNL's notorious backstage party scene.

Saturday Night Live

Jane Curtin is famous as one of the original cast members of Saturday Night Live (SNL). On this show, she often played straight-woman characters seemingly driven to frustration by the antics of her wackier castmates including John Belushi and Gilda Radner.

As a TV anchorwoman, Jane played as a foil to John Belushi, who would often give a rambling and out of control "commentary" on events of the day. During these sketches, Jane would timidly try to get Belushi to come to the point which would only make him angrier. In the most noted sketch, Belushi gave a rambling account of his Irish friend's troubles to demonstrate that there was no such thing as "the luck of the Irish".

Gilda Radner, in her persona of Roseanne RoseannaDanna, would present an ethnic face to Jane's Anglo-Saxon self-control and as such annoy Jane with personal remarks. In one famous sketch, Jane lost control (presumably playing this loss of control, not literally) and exposed her bra to Roseanne, saying "check for yourself, Roseanne"!

These sketches may have represented an American anxiety about the FCC's "fairness doctrine" which in the early 1970s required television networks to allow on-air responses to station viewpoints by a variety of minority political views, and Belushi and Radner appear to get their cue from the outlier individuals who sometimes appeared on-air under the fairness doctrine. Despite Saturday Night Live's reputation as a "liberal", indeed envelope-pushing show, Belushi and Radner make the comedic point that minorities (Belushi's East European, Radner's Jew) aren't ready for prime time while Anglo-Saxon hipsters are, for the former can control themselves. In fact, American television networks were able to get the fairness doctrine revoked.

For this reason, Jane had many admirers in SNL's audience because in the middle of what Tom Wolfe called "the Purple decades", Curtin gave TwentySomething women permission to abandon the faux-ethnic look (wild hair, Asian long skirts, platform shoes and clunky jewelry) and take on the "TV anchorwoman" look (coiffed hair, tailored suits, pumps and no jewelry) which ten years later became a widespread Yuppie fashion statement of recommittment to "prime time" values.

Curtin is also well known for her role in the Conehead sketches as "Prymaat Conehead" (mother of the Conehead family), and as "Enid Loopner" (in sketches with Gilda Radner and Bill Murray). Curtin anchored SNL's "Weekend Update" segment in 1976-77, and was paired with Dan Aykroyd in 1977-78 and Bill Murray in 1978-80. In a parody of the "Point-Counterpoint" segment of the news program 60 Minutes, Curtin portrayed a controlled "liberal", Politically Correct viewpoint vs. Dan Aykroyd, who prototyped today's right-wing media "attack" journalist. (Curtin would always present the liberal "Point" portion first, then Aykroyd would present the "Counterpoint" portion, beginning with the statement, "Jane, you ignorant slut!")

Later television career

Unlike many of her SNL cast members who ventured often successfully into film, Curtin chose to stay in television and has been remarkably successful there. Her film appearances have been sporadic. To date, she has starred in two long-running television sitcoms. First, in Kate & Allie, with Susan Saint James (1984-89), she played a single mother named "Allie Lowell." She received two Emmys for her performance. She later joined the cast of 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996-2001) playing a human, "Dr. Mary Albright," opposite the alien family, composed of John Lithgow, Kristen Johnston, French Stewart, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Curtin starred with Fred Savage in the ABC sitcom Crumbs, which debuted in January 2006 and was canceled in May of that year.

In 1993, Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd were reunited in Coneheads, a full-length motion picture based on their popular SNL characters. They also appeared together as the voices of a pair of wasps in the film Antz.

Broadway

Curtin has also performed on Broadway on occasion. She first appeared on the Great White Way as Miss Prosperine Garrett in the play "Candida" in 1981. She later went on to be a replacement actress in two other plays: "Love Letters" and "Noises Off", and was in the 2002 revival of "Our Town," which received huge press attention as Paul Newman returned to the Broadway stage after several decades away.

Curtin has a cousin in the industry, actress and writer Valerie Curtin.

A school teacher injured his back and had to wear a
plaster cast around the upper part of his body. It fit
under his shirt and was not noticeable at all.

On the first day of the term, still with the cast under
his shirt, he found himself assigned to the toughest
students in school.

Walking confidently into the rowdy classroom, he opened
the window as wide as possible and then busied himself
with desk work.

When a strong breeze made his tie flap, he took the
desk stapler and stapled the tie to his chest.

He had no trouble with discipline that term.

Ah, folks, our hawkman is back, replete and complete. <smile> Thanks, Boston. I read every single bit of info on your celebs. It's amazing what we learn from our Bob, right? The information on Lafayette and his alliance with Washington and Jefferson was quite impressive, especially the part on the University of Virginia.

Of course, we loved your anecdote about the teacher. In our public schools today, a bullet proof vest might be the equivalent.

Folks, do you realize how many songs are entitled "Wish You Were Here?"

I found 240 in our archives.

I think we have already played the Pink group starring Roger, so let's hear this older one and dedicate it to our European friends:


They're not making the skies as blue this year
Wish you were here
As blue as they used to when you were near
Wish you were here
And the mornings don't seem as new
Brand-new as they did with you
Wish you were here
Wish you were here
Wish you were here

Someone's painting the leaves all wrong this year
Wish you were here
And why did the birds change their song this year
Wish you were here
They're not shining the stars as bright
They've stolen the joy from the night
Wish you were here
Wish you were here
Wish you were here

[Orchestral Interlude]

Someone's painting the leaves all wrong this year
Wish you were here
Why did the birds change their song this year
Wish you were here
They're not shining the stars as bright
They've stolen the joy from the night
Wish you were here
Wish you were here
Wish you were here

Well, perhaps it is time for a poetic reminder of how one should live:

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but sustain'd and sooth'd
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

William Cullen Bryant

Across The Alley From The Alamo
The Mills Brothers

[Written by Joe Greene]

Across the alley from the Alamo
Lived a pinto pony and a Navajo
Who sang a sort of Indian "Hi-de-ho"
To the people passin' by

The pinto spent his time a-swishin' flies
And the Navajo watched the lazy skies
And very rarely did they ever rest their eyes
On the people passin' by

One day, they went a-walkin' along the railroad track
They were swishin' not a-lookin', toot, toot
They never came back

Oh, across the alley from the Alamo
When the summer sun decides to settle low
A fly sings an Indian "Hi-de-ho"
To the people passing by

Across the alley from the Alamo
Lived a pinto pony and a Navajo
Who used to bake frijoles in cornmeal dough
For the people passing by

They thought that they would make some easy bucks
By washin' their frijoles in Duz and Lux
A pair of very conscientious clucks
To the people passin' by

Then they took this cheap vacation
Their shoes were polished bright
No, they never heard the whistle, toot, toot
They're clear out of sight

Oh, across the alley from the Alamo
When the starlight beams its tender glow
The beams go to sleep and then there ain't no dough
For the people passin' by

One day, they went a-walkin' along the railroad track
They were swishin' not a-lookin', toot, toot
They never came back

Oh, across the alley from the Alamo
When the summer sun decides to settle low
A fly sings an Indian "Hi-de-ho"
To the people passin' by
Across the alley from the Alamo

Good morning, WA2K radio listeners and contributors.

edgar, The Mills Brothers were a favorite of my mom's. Thanks, Texas. I smiled at the memory.

A morning poem for all:

In the leafy shadows

Where sunlight filters through,

It lights the pool's surface

In shades of greeny blue.



Within the eerie silence,

Where birds seldom trill.

The soft footfalls of deer

Seem very loud and shrill.



To this glade's quietude

Humans rarely stray.

Only the old shaman

Comes at sunrise each day.



Here he sits and ponders

All life has in store,

And he prays in silence

That it shall be so evermore.



Jacqui Thornton
Copyright © 2000

Old Lazy Bones, that's me & there songs about it


The tax mans taken all my dough,
And left me in my stately home,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.
And I cant sail my yacht,
Hes taken everything Ive got,
All Ive gots this sunny afternoon.

Save me, save me, save me from this squeeze.
I got a big fat mama trying to break me.
And I love to live so pleasantly,
Live this life of luxury,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.
In the summertime
In the summertime
In the summertime

My girlfriends run off with my car,
And gone back to her ma and pa,
Telling tales of drunkenness and cruelty.
Now Im sitting here,
Sipping at my ice cold beer,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.

Help me, help me, help me sail away,
Well give me two good reasons why I oughta stay.
cause I love to live so pleasantly,
Live this life of luxury,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.
In the summertime
In the summertime
In the summertime

Ah, save me, save me, save me from this squeeze.
I got a big fat mama trying to break me.
And I love to live so pleasantly,
Live this life of luxury,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.
In the summertime
In the summertime
In the summertime

Well, my goodness. Welcome back oakman. Lazy? well, just glad that you have the opportunity to be, Brit. <smile>

Harry admonishes lazy folks:

HARRY CONNICK, JR Song Lyrics

Lazybones
(From the album "25")

Lazybones, sleeping in the sun
How you 'spect to get your day's work done?
Never get your day's work done
Sleeping in the new day's sun

Lazybones, sleepin in the shade
How you 'spect to get your cornmeal made?
You'll never get your cornmeal made
Just sleepin in the evenin shade

When 'taters need spraying I bet you keep praying
The bugs fall off the vine
And when you go fishin, I bet you keep wishin
The fish won't grab your line

Lazybones, loafing through the day
How you 'spect to get a dime that way?
Never make a dime that way
Never heard a word I say.

Good afternoon.

Long way from Johnny Mercer/Hoagy Carmichael to Buddy Holly who (together with Peter Lawford) is featured in today's celebrity birthday photo gallery, isn't it?

Anthony Quayle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born 7 September 1913
Ainsdale, Southport, Lancashire (now Ainsdale, Sefton, Merseyside), England
Died 20 October 1989
London, England

Sir John Anthony Quayle (7 September 1913 - 20 October 1989) was an English actor and director.

He was born in Ainsdale in Lancashire and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. After appearing in music hall, he joined the Old Vic in 1932. During the Second World War he was an Army Officer and made one of the area commanders of the auxiliary units [1]. Later he joined the Special Operations Executive and served as a liaison officer with the partisans in Albania (reportedly, his service with the SOE seriously affected him, and he never felt comfortable talking about it). In 1944 he was the aide to the Governor of Gibraltar at the time of the air crash of General Władysław Sikorski's aircraft on July 4, 1943. He described his experiences in a fictionalised form in Eight Hours from England [2].

From 1948 to 1956 he directed at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, and laid the foundations for the creation of the Royal Shakespeare Company. His own Shakespearian roles included Falstaff and Othello; and he also appeared in contemporary plays.

His film roles included parts in Ice Cold in Alex (1958),Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (1959), The Guns of Navarone (1961) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962). He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1969 for his role in Anne of the Thousand Days. One of his best friends was fellow actor Alec Guinness, who he knew from his days at the Old Vic, and appeared in several films with him.

Television appearances include the title role in the 1969 ITC drama series Strange Report.

Quayle was knighted in 1985 and he died in London from liver cancer in October 1989, aged 76. He was married twice. His first wife was the actress Hermione Hannen (1913-1983) and his widow and second wife was Dorothy Hyson (1914-1997). He and Dorothy had two daughters, Jenny and Rosanna.

Peter Lawford
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Peter Sydney Lawford (September 7, 1923 - December 24, 1984) was a Hollywood actor and member of Frank Sinatra's "Rat Pack," perhaps more noted for his off-screen activities as a celebrity than for his acting.

Early life

Born in London, England, the son of British World War I hero Sir Sydney Turing Lawford and the former May Somerville Bunny, he spent his early childhood in France, and began acting at a young age. May and Sir Sydney were not married when Peter was conceived, and the resulting scandal caused the couple to flee England for America. In America, Lord and Lady Lawford were treated like royalty among the well-to-do people in their new neighborhood of Palm Beach, Florida, and were always invited to the events there. As a child, he severely injured his arm - in his words, "attempting to run through a glass door." Doctors were able to save the arm, but the injury continued to bother him throughout his life, and his arm was slightly deformed. In fact, the injury was considered so damaging as to keep him from entering World War II, but this turn of fate was probably the greatest boon to his career. At that time, Hollywood was infatuated with the heroic Englishmen; and as war movies were being churned out by the dozens and American actors began to be drafted, Lawford put his considerable talents to work for the cause.

Career

Prior to the war, Lawford had a gained a contract position with the MGM studios. Once he signed with MGM, his mother, May, insisted that studio head, Louis B. Mayer, pay her a salary as Peter's personal assistant. He declined. Lady Lawford responded by claiming her son to be "homosexual," and that he needed to be "supervised." When Peter learned of his mother's actions, their relationship was never the same, and over the years, he saw his mother's antics as an embarassment. Lawford's first major movie role was A Yank At Eton (1942). He played a snobby bully opposite Mickey Rooney. The picture was a smash hit, and Lawford's performance was widely praised. He won even greater kudos for his performance in The White Cliffs Of Dover (1944), in which he played a young soldier in World War II. MGM gave him another important role in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945). Lawford also made Son Of Lassie (1945) and won a Modern Screen magazine readers' poll as the most popular actor in Hollywood. His fan mail jumped to thousands of letters a week. Lawford had become a major star.

Lawford's busiest year as an actor was in 1946, when two of his films opened within days of each other: Cluny Brown (1946), and Two Sisters From Boston (1946). With heartthrobs like Clark Gable off to war, Lawford was recognized as the romantic lead on the MGM lot. He appeared with Frank Sinatra for the first time in the musical, It Happened In Brooklyn (1947). Lawford received rave reviews for his work in the film, while Sinatra's were lukewarm. Lawford later admitted that the most terrifying experience of his career was the first musical number he performed (the Jitterbug). He also made his first comedy that same year: My Brother Talks To Horses (1947). It was in Good News (1947) that he won his greatest acclaim as an actor. He also got to dance and sing, and held his own against the other cast.

Lawford was given other important roles in MGM films over the next few years, such as On An Island With You (1948), Easter Parade (1948) and Little Women (1949 film) (1949). His first marriage was to Patricia Kennedy Lawford, sister of future President John F. Kennedy, in 1954. They had four children, actor Christopher, Sidney, Victoria, and Robin. Lawford became an American citizen in 1960, in time to vote for his brother-in-law in the presidential elections. Lawford, along with other members of the "Rat Pack," helped campaign for Kennedy and the Democratic Party.

Personal life

Lawford had a reputation as a ladies' man and was reported to have had many affairs with famous ladies of movies, song, and politics including Ava Gardner, June Allyson, Lana Turner, Janet Leigh, Rita Hayworth, Dorothy Dandridge, Lucille Ball, Anne Baxter, Judy Holliday, Gina Lollobrigida, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Lee Remick, Nancy Reagan, and Elizabeth Taylor, just to name a few. It has been said that in another time and place, Lawford and Dandridge would have been married, but in the racially-intolerant 1950s, this was not an option, and would have meant an end to both of their careers. Lawford introduced Marilyn Monroe before she sang her infamous Happy Birthday, Mr. President song. He and his brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy are rumoured to have visited Monroe on the day she died, although this has never been confirmed. The Kennedy family distanced itself from Lawford as his antics proved to be an embarrassment. Patricia Kennedy Lawford eventually divorced him in 1966 due to his alcoholism and infidelity.

Lawford was very close to Frank Sinatra for a number of years, appearing in several Rat Pack movies and stage acts. Sinatra, however, threatened him with bodily harm when he learned that Lawford had lunch with Ava Gardner. Lawford's friends managed to convince Sinatra that nothing was going on between Gardner and Lawford, but Sinatra refused to speak with Lawford for a number of years. The two were later reconciled, but Sinatra ultimately broke off the friendship after Lawford refused to act as a go-between for Sinatra and President Kennedy as their association had become controversial. The end of their relationship came when President John F. Kennedy made plans to stay at crooner Bing Crosby's house instead of Sinatra's during a visit to Los Angeles. Sinatra was even more incensed because Crosby was a Republican! Sinatra's feelings were such that one time, when he learned that Lawford was in the audience he was about to perform in front of, he refused to come out until Lawford and his wife were removed from the audience. Lawford and Sinatra never spoke again, though Lawford maintained a good friendship with Rat-Pack-pal, Sammy Davis, Jr. The two starred together in the 1960s film, "Salt and Pepper."

Later in life, Lawford fell into drug and alcohol abuse. Such abuse, plus strained relationships with others and financial difficulties caused a great deal of stress on his increasingly fragile health. Lawford was reduced to doing television guest shots on such shows as Fantasy Island, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Profiles In Courage, The Wild Wild West, I Spy, The Name Of The Game, The Jeffersons, The Love Boat, The Virginian, Bewitched, The Patty Duke Show, The Doris Day Show, and Hawaii Five-O. Besides sitcoms, he also guest-starred on variety shows such The Judy Garland Show and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, and game shows such as What's My Line?, Password, and Pyramid.

Lawford married his second wife, Mary Rowan, daughter of Dan Rowan, in 1971 when she was in her twenties. They divorced in 1975. He was married to his third wife, Deborah Gould, from 1976 to 1977; and finally married his fourth wife and widow, Patricia Seaton, in 1984. Lawford died alone in a hospital in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve 1984 of liver and kidney disease culminating in cardiac arrest at the age of 61.

His body was cremated and the ashes were inurned at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. His original burial location was near that of Marilyn Monroe. According to his son, the actor Christopher Lawford, talking on Larry King's CNN talk-show on September 27, 2005, none of the Rat Pack members attended the funeral, though a number of the Lawford/Kennedy cousins came. Because of a dispute between the family and the cemetery, however, his remains were removed and then scattered in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California by his widow, Patricia Seaton Lawford, who invited the tabloid, the National Enquirer along to photograph the event.

Buddy Holly
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born: September 7, 1936
Lubbock, Texas, USA
Died: February 3, 1959
near Mason City, Iowa, USA
Occupation: Singer and songwriter
Spouse: Maria Elena Holly

Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 - February 3, 1959), better known as Buddy Holly, was an American singer, songwriter, and a pioneer of Rock and Roll. The change of spelling of Holley to Holly came about because of an error in a contract he was asked to sign, listing him as Buddy Holly. That spelling was then adopted for his professional career. The original spelling of "Holley" was engraved on his headstone.

Biography

Buddy Holly was born Charles Hardin Holley in Lubbock, Texas to Lawrence Odell Holley and Ella Pauline Drake. The Holleys were a musical family and as a young boy, Holley learned to play the violin (his brothers oiled the strings so much that no one could hear him play), piano and guitar. In the fall of 1949, he met Bob Montgomery at Hutchinson Jr. High School. They shared a common interest in music and soon teamed up as the duo "Buddy and Bob". Initially influenced by bluegrass music, they sang harmony duets at local clubs and high school talent shows.

Holly turned to rock music after seeing Elvis Presley sing live in Lubbock in early 1955. A few months later, he appeared on the same bill with Presley, also in Lubbock. Holly's transition to rock was finalized when they opened for Bill Haley & His Comets at a local rock show organized by Eddie Crandall, who was also the manager for Marty Robbins. As a result of this performance, Holly was offered a contract with Decca Records to work alone, which he accepted. According to the Amburn book (p.45), his public name changed from "Holley" to "Holly" on February 8, 1956, when he signed the Decca contract. Among the tracks recorded for Decca was an early version of "That'll Be The Day," later recorded with the Crickets.

Back in Lubbock, Holly formed his own band, The Crickets, and began making records at Norman Petty's studios in Clovis, New Mexico. Among the songs they recorded was what became the hit version of "That'll Be the Day", which took its title from a phrase which John Wayne's character said repeatedly in the 1956 film, The Searchers. Norman had music industry contacts, and believing that "That'll Be the Day" would be a hit single, he contacted publishers and labels. Coral Records, a subsidiary of Decca, signed Buddy Holly and The Crickets. This put Buddy in the unusual position of having two record contracts at the same time. Before "That'll Be The Day" had its nationwide release and became a smash hit, Holly played lead guitar on the hit-single "Starlight", recorded in April 1957, featuring Jack Huddle. The initial, unsuccessful version of "That'll Be The Day" played more slowly and about half an octave higher than the hit version.


"The Crickets": Buddy Holly, Jerry Allison, Joe Mauldin, and Niki SullivanHolly's music was sophisticated for its day, including the use of instruments considered novel for rock and roll, such as the celesta (heard on "Everyday"). Holly was an influential lead and rhythm guitarist, notably on songs such as "Peggy Sue" and "Not Fade Away". While Holly could pump out boy-loves-girl songs with the best of his contemporaries, other songs featured more sophisticated lyrics and more complex harmonies and melodies than had previously appeared in the genre.

Many of his songs feature a unique vocal "hiccup" technique, a clipped "uh" sound used to emphasize certain words in any given song, especially the rockers. Other singers have used a similar technique, though less obviously and consistently. An example is the start of the raucous "Rave On": "Weh-UH-eh-UH-ell, the little things you say and do, make me want to be with you-UH-ou...". Or this, from "That'll Be the Day": "Well, you give me all your lovin' and your UH-turtle dovin'..."

Holly also managed to bridge some of the racial divide that marked rock, notably winning over an all-black audience when accidentally booked at New York's Apollo Theater (though, unlike the fictional movie biography, it took several performances for audiences to be convinced of his talents).

After the release of several, highly successful songs, in March 1958, he and the Crickets toured the United Kingdom. In the audience were teenagers John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who later cited Holly as a primary influence (the band's name, The Beatles, was later chosen partly in homage to Holly's Crickets). The Beatles did a cover version of "Words of Love" that was an almost perfect reproduction of Holly's version. The Rolling Stones covered "Not Fade Away."

The group, The Hollies, were conventionally thought to have been named in homage, and various rock and roll histories have asserted this as fact. According to the band's website, [1] although the group admired Buddy Holly (and years later produced an album covering some of his songs), their name was inspired primarily by the sprigs of holly in evidence around Christmas of 1962, when they re-formed their previous band (the Deltas) and had to come up with a new name. The site also admits to a degree of uncertainty about that story, so it is possible that they have disavowed any reference to Holly in order to avoid legal or copyright issues.

Holly's personal style, more controlled and cerebral than Elvis' and more youthful and innovative than the country and western stars of his day, would have an influence on youth culture on both sides of the Atlantic for decades to come, reflected particularly in the New Wave movement in artists such as Elvis Costello and Marshall Crenshaw (who portrayed Holly in the Richie Valens biopic La Bamba), and earlier in folk rock bands like The Byrds and The Turtles.

He married Maria Elena Santiago on August 15, 1958.

In 1959, Holly split with the Crickets and began a solo tour with other notable performers, including Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson, "The Big Bopper". One audience member at the tour stop in Duluth, Minnesota was a young Bobby Zimmerman, who would later become better known as Bob Dylan.


Buddy Holly statue in LubbockFollowing the February 2, 1959 performance at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, Buddy Holly chartered a Beechcraft Bonanza to take him and his new Crickets band (Tommy Allsup and Waylon Jennings) to Fargo, North Dakota. Richardson came down with the flu and didn't feel comfortable on the bus, so Jennings gave his plane seat to him. Valens had never flown on a small plane and requested Allsup's seat. They flipped a coin, Valens called heads and won the toss. The four-passenger Beechcraft Bonanza took off into a blinding snow storm and crashed into Albert Juhl's corn field several miles after takeoff at 1:05 A.M. The crash killed Holly, Valens, Richardson, and the 21-year-old pilot, Roger Peterson, leaving Holly's pregnant bride, Maria Elena Holly, a widow (she miscarried soon after).

Although the crash received a good deal of local coverage, it was displaced in the national news by an accident that occurred the same day in New York City, when American Airlines Flight 320 crashed during an instrument landing approach at LaGuardia Airport. In that crash, 65 died and 8 survived.


Buddy Holly's gravestoneHolly's funeral services were held at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Lubbock, Texas, and his body was interred in the City of Lubbock Cemetery.

Holly's headstone carries the correct spelling of his name, Buddy Holley. It also features a carving of his Fender Stratocaster guitar. Downtown Lubbock has a "walk of fame" with plaques to various area artists such as Mac Davis and Waylon Jennings, with a life-size statue of Buddy, playing his Fender guitar, as its centerpiece.

The tragic plane crash inspired Mike Berry & The Outlaws' single Tribute To Buddy Holly (1961), and singer Don McLean's popular 1971 ballad "American Pie", and immortalized February 3 as "The Day the Music Died". Contrary to popular myth, "American Pie" was not the name of the ill-fated plane.

The Surf Ballroom, a popular and old-fashioned dance hall that dates to the height of Big Band Era, continues to put on shows, notably an annual Buddy Holly tribute on the anniversary of his last performances.

Tributes

In 1988, Ken Paquette, a Wisconsin fan of the 1950s, erected a stainless steel monument depicting a steel guitar and a set of three records bearing the names of each of the three performers. It is located on private farmland, about one quarter mile west of the intersection of 315th Street and Gull Avenue, approximately five miles north of Clear Lake. He also created a similar stainless steel monument to the three musicians near the Riverside Ballroom in Green Bay, Wisconsin. That memorial was unveiled on July 17, 2003.

The dramatic arc of Holly's life story inspired a Hollywood biography The Buddy Holly Story, for which actor Gary Busey received a nomination for Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Holly, as well as successful Broadway and West End musicals documenting his career. The West End musical, Buddy, ran for seven years. The movie, while entertaining, received wide criticism from the rock community for its wild inaccuracies. This led Paul McCartney to produce and host his own tribute to Holly, titled "The Real Buddy Holly Story." This authoritative video includes interviews with Keith Richards, Phil and Don Everly, Sonny Curtis, Jerry Allison, Holly's family, and McCartney himself, among others.

Buddy Holly is considered one of the founding fathers of rock 'n roll and one of its most influential. Although his career was cut short, his body of work is considered one of the best in rock music history and his music would influence not only many of his recording contemporaries, but also the future direction music would take. As one of the capstones of rock 'n' roll, Buddy influenced groups for decades.

The science fiction novel Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede, by Bradley Denton (ISBN 0-688-10822-9 and ISBN 0-380-71876-6), begins when television sets throughout the world suddenly begin broadcasting a concert by an apparently living Buddy Holly, who says he is on Ganymede.

Terry Pratchett's novel Soul Music features a protagonist whose name translates to "Bud Y Holly".

"Oil", an episode of The Young Ones features Mike (Christopher Ryan) discovering Buddy Holly, alive and well and tangled in parachutes, in the attic of a house in London. Holly comments that he loves "your British beetles", as he has been eating them since the plane crash. Mike asks Holly if he has come up with any new material, and Holly plays a brief song about eating crickets...then his parachute strap suddenly breaks, slamming him into the floor and killing him. Mike later hands off a duffel bag containing Holly's corpse to two minor characters, asking them to "take care of my Buddy."

A fictional version of a young pre-fame Buddy Holly appears in an episode of Quantum Leap, working as a veterinarian's assistant.

Buddy is also one of the dead rock stars who exists in the town of "Rock N' Roll Heaven" in Stephen King's short horror story You Know They Got a Hell of a Band.

The 1998 film "Six-String Samurai," a surreal romp through an alternate-timeline post-apocalyptic America (Russia bombed and then invaded the United States in 1957), features a rock-and-rolling martial arts hero named "Buddy" who sports familiar black horn-rimmed glasses and a tuxedo. The film follows Buddy's journey to "Lost Vegas", the last outpost of freedom in the world, to claim the crown of the recently-deceased King Elvis.

Buddy Holly was part of the first group inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on its formation in 1986. His pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

The Smithereens' song "Maria Elena" is a Buddy Holly tribute as sung to his widow.

On the infamous Gunfight at Carnegie Hall album, Phil Ochs famously sang a long tribute to Buddy Holly, while dressed in an uncharacteristic shiny gold suit. The album also includes a long Elvis Presley medley.

Paul Simon's song "Old" references his early influences, including Buddy Holly, including the line "Buddy Holly still goes on, but his catalog was sold."

The Dixie Chicks recently recorded the song "Lubbock or Leave It" which references Buddy Holly's death by airplane crash, and the statue that was erected in his hometown after his death.

In an interview with Alan Freed, Holly and Freed mentions Cricket bass player Joe Mauldin's nickname "Joe Buy-Us", as in "Go buy us a coke". This was replayed in the TV series Arrested Development, where the character GOB (George Oscar Bluth) decides to start up a business with his brother-in-law Tobias in a collaboration named "Gobias Industries", which will deal in the sale of coffee. They then proceed to explain their reasoning behind the name, "Gobias, as in 'go buy us' a coffee".

Of the trio of musicians who died in the crash, he was the one mentioned in Billy Joel's history themed song "We Didn't Start the Fire".

Q. How can you drop a raw egg onto a concrete floor without cracking it?

A. Concrete floors are very hard to crack!

Q. If it took eight men ten hours to build a wall, how long would it
take four men to build it?

A. No time at all; it is already built.

Q. If you had three apples and four oranges in one hand and four apples
and three oranges in the other hand, what would you have?

A. VERY large hands.

Q.. How can you lift an elephant with one hand?

A. No problem, since you will never find an elephant with one hand.

Q. How can a man go eight days without sleep?

A. He sleeps at night.

Q. What looks like a half an apple ?

A : The other half.

Q. What gets wet with drying ?

A : A towel.

Q. What happened when the wheel was invented ?

A : It caused a revolution.

Q. Why is it easy to weigh a fish ?

A : Because it has its own scales.

Well, folks. Our Raggedy and our hawkman are in sync today. Bob, your humorous observation about misleading questions is fantastic. It's a wonder to me that anyone ever understands anything. <smile> Thanks for the bio's, Boston.

Raggedy,Great pictures, PA. I hadn't realized that Peter Lawford had such a variety of problems, nor did I know that Johnny Mercer had written that lazy song. As a matter of fact, I have never heard Buddy Holly sing nor would I have know one thing about him had it not been for Don McLean.

This song was a surprise as well:

Maria Elena

Maria Elena you're the answer to a prayer
Maria Elena can't you see how much I care
To me your voice is like the echo of a sigh
And when you're near my heart
Can't speak above a sigh
Maria Elena say we two will never part
Maria Elena take me to your heart
A love like mine is great enough for two
To share this love is really all I ask of you.

I did a filmography check on Anthony, listeners. I simply cannot recall one movie in which he starred.