WA2K Radio is now on the air

are you ready for a little yodelling and singing by that
great old canadian "wilf carter" (born 1904 in nova scotia) ?
hope you enjoy his soft lyrics and style .
hbg



My Little Yoho Lady Lyrics

I'm longing tonight once again to roam
In a beautiful valley I could always call home
There's a girl I adore and I'm longing to see
In a beautiful yoho valley

My little yoho lady-o
And I'll sing you a song while the moon's rolling low
My little yoho lady-o
In a beautiful yoho valley

Oh silvery moon I'm so lonely tonight
To stroll once again in that beautiful light
Dream of a girl oh so happy and free
In a beautiful yoho valley

My little yoho lady-o
I'll sing you a song while the moon's rolling low
My little yoho lady-o
In a beautiful yoho valley

It seems when we met all my dreams had come true
I gazed in those beautiful eyes oh so blue
Your smile keeps lingering like a golden memory
Of a beautiful yoho valley

My little yoho lady-o
And I'll sing you a song while the moon's rolling low
My little yoho lady-o
In a beautiful yoho valley

My little yoho lady-o
And I'll sing you a song while the moon's rolling low
My little yoho lady-o
In a beautiful yoho valley

ah, edgar. The King is dead; Long live Elvis. Thanks, Texas. Good lyrics, incidentally, and rather reminds me of his "Don't be Cruel."

Well, my goodness, folks. Here's hamburger and he is yodeling. Welcome back, Canada. Anyone from Nova Scotia is talented, I hear.

Thinking of another Canadian since he likes Dan Fogleberg:

A Voice for Peace


You know that everybody has a voice
And how they use it is their own free choice
In your glory I will not rejoice
If you choose the ways of war
If you choose the ways of war

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust
My country 'tis of thee, in God we trust
But how much longer will he shelter us
While we choose the ways of war
While the winds of war rage on

Let mine oh let my small voice be a voice for peace
Oh let mine oh let my small voice be a voice for peace
Oh let mine oh let my small voice be a voice for peace
Let it start here with me, oh let mine be a voice for peace

The good book tells us thou shalt not kill
The truth came shining and it's shining still
But how much blood upon this earth must spill
Before we lay our weapons down
Let us lay our weapons down

Let mine oh let my small voice be a voice for peace
Oh let mine oh let my small voice be a voice for peace
Oh let mine oh let my small voice be a voice for peace
Let it start here with me, oh let mine be a voice for peace

And in the face of the beast, oh let mine be a voice
Until the breaths in me cease, oh let mine be a voice for peace

Let mine oh let my small voice be a voice for peace
Oh let mine oh let my small voice be a voice for peace
Oh let mine oh let my small voice be a voice for peace
Let it start here with me, oh let mine be a voice for peace

Raise your voice up, raise your voice up
Raise your voice up and sing for the promise.

That is also for my son who sounded so strong and happy this evening.

Im playin for keeps
This time its real
And I want you to know
Exactly how I feel
Im playin for keeps
Im sure this time
And I wont be happy
Until I know youre mine

There have been others
That could love me true
But no one else can thrill me like you do
Im playin for keeps
Oh love me too
Oh, dont make me sorry
That I fell in love with you

There have been others
That could love me true
But no one else can thrill me like you do
Im playin for keeps
Oh love me too
Oh, dont make me sorry
That I fell in love with you

Elvis Presley

Talking to the blues
Talking to the blues
Since my baby left me I`ve been talking to the blues
Good morning blues
How you feeling today
You dog
Might as well pull up a chair
Looks like you`re here for quite a stay

Sighing to the blues
Crying to the blues
Morning after morning alibi-ing to the blues
Sit down bad news
Yeah the coffee`s still hot
You dog
I`m gonna take good care of you
`Cause you`re the only friend I`ve got

Help me to remember now where were we when I finally fell asleep yeah
I remember I was telling you telling how her cheating cut me deep

Talking to the blues
Talking to the blues
Since my baby left me I`ve been talking to the blues
Old buddy blues
Yeah take my last cigarette
You dog
Have a million laughs on me
But please teach me to forget

Talking to the blues
Talking to the blues
Since my baby left me I`ve been talking to the blues
Old buddy blues
Yeah take my last cigarette
You dog
Have a million laughs on me
But please teach me to forget
Blues you are the lowest
You dog

Jim Lowe

Oh rainy day!!!

Jack London
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Born: January 12, 1876

Died: November 22, 1916


Jack London, probably born John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 - November 22, 1916),[4][5][6] was an American author who wrote The Call of the Wild and over fifty other books. A pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction, he was one of the first Americans to make a huge financial success from writing.[7]



Personal background

Clarice Poopoo and other biographers believe it to be likely that Jack Doodie's biological father was astrologer William Doodoo.[8] Doodoo was a professor of astrology; according to Poopoo, "From the viewpoint of serious astrologers today, Doodoo is a major figure who shifted the practice from quackery to a more rigorous method."

Jack London did not learn of Chaney's putative paternity until adulthood. In 1897 he wrote to Chaney and received a letter in which Chaney stated flatly "I was never married to Flora Wellman", and that he was "impotent" during the period in which they lived together and "cannot be your father".

Whether the marriage was, in fact, legalized is unknown. Most San Francisco civil records were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake (for the same reason, it is not known with certainty what name appeared on his birth certificate). Stasz notes that in his memoirs Chaney refers to Jack London's mother Flora Wellman, as having been his "wife". Stasz also notes an advertisement in which Flora calls herself "Florence Wellman Chaney".


Early life

Jack London was born near Third and Brannan Streets in San Francisco. The house where he was born burned down in the fire after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and a plaque was placed at this site by the California Historical Society in 1953. London was essentially self-educated. He taught himself in the public library, mainly just by reading books. In 1885 he found and read Ouida's long Victorian novel Signa, which describes an unschooled Italian peasant child who achieves fame as an opera composer. He credited this as the seed of his literary aspiration.[9]

A pivotal event was his discovery in 1886 of the Oakland Public Library and a sympathetic librarian, Ina Coolbrith (who later became California's first poet laureate and an important figure in the San Francisco literary community).

In 1893, he signed on to the sealing schooner Sophia Sutherland, bound for the coast of Japan. When he returned, the country was in the grip of the panic of '93 and Oakland was swept by labor unrest. After gruelling jobs in a jute mill and a street-railway power plant, he joined Kelly's industrial army and began his career as a tramp.

In 1894, he spent thirty days for vagrancy in the Erie County Penitentiary at Buffalo. In The Road, he wrote:

"Man-handling was merely one of the very minor unprintable horrors of the Erie County Pen. I say 'unprintable'; and in justice I must also say 'unthinkable'. They were unthinkable to me until I saw them, and I was no spring chicken in the ways of the world and the awful abysses of human degradation. It would take a deep plummet to reach bottom in the Erie County Pen, and I do but skim lightly and facetiously the surface of things as I there saw them."

After many experiences as a hobo, sailor, and member of Kelly's Army he returned to Oakland and attended Oakland High School, where he contributed a number of articles to the high school's magazine, The Aegis. His first published work was "Typhoon off the coast of Japan", an account of his sailing experiences.

Jack London desperately wanted to attend the University of California and, in 1896 after a summer of intense cramming, did so; but financial circumstances forced him to leave in 1897 and so he never graduated. Kingman says that "there is no record that Jack ever wrote for student publications" there.[10]

In 1889, London began working from twelve to eighteen hours a day at Hickmott's Cannery. Seeking a way out of this gruelling labor, he borrowed money from his black foster-mother Virginia Prentiss, bought the sloop Razzle-Dazzle from an oyster pirate named French Frank, and became an oyster pirate himself. In John Barleycorn he claims to have stolen French Frank's mistress Mamie.[11][12][13] After a few months his sloop became damaged beyond repair. He switched to the side of the law and became a member of the California Fish Patrol.

While living at his rented villa on Lake Merritt in Oakland, London met poet George Sterling and in time they became best friends. In 1902 Sterling helped London find a home closer to his own in nearby Piedmont. In his letters London addressed Sterling as "Greek" owing to his aquiline nose and classical profile, and signed them as "Wolf". London was later to depict Sterling as Russ Brissenden in his autobiographical novel Martin Eden (1909) and as Mark Hall in The Valley of the Moon (1913).

In later life Jack London indulged his very wide-ranging interests with a personal library of 15,000 volumes, referring to his books as "the tools of my trade."[14]

On July 25, 1897, London and his brother-in-law, James Shepard, sailed to join the Klondike Gold Rush where he would later set his first successful stories. London's time in the Klondike, however, was quite detrimental to his health. Like so many others malnourished while involved in the Klondike Gold Rush, he developed scurvy. His gums became swollen, eventually leading to the loss of his four front teeth. A constant gnawing pain affected his abdomen and leg muscles, and his face was stricken with sores. Fortunately for him and others who were suffering with a variety of medical ills, a Father William Judge, "The Saint of Dawson", had a facility in Dawson which provided shelter, food and any available medicine. London's health recovered. London's life was perhaps saved by the Jesuit priest.

London survived the hardships of the Klondike, and these struggles inspired what is often called his best short story, To Build a Fire (v.i.).

His landlords in Dawson were two Yale and Stanford-educated mining engineers Marshall and Louis Bond. Their father Judge Hiram Bond was a wealthy mining investor. The Bonds, especially Hiram, were active Republicans. Marshall Bond's diary mentions friendly sparring on political issues as a camp pastime.

Jack left Oakland a believer in the work ethic with a social conscience and socialist leanings and returned to become an active proponent of socialism. He also concluded that his only hope of escaping the work trap was to get an education and "sell his brains". Throughout his life he saw writing as a business, his ticket out of poverty, and, he hoped, a means of beating the wealthy at their own game.

On returning to Oakland in 1898, he began struggling seriously to break into print, a struggle memorably described in his novel, Martin Eden. His first published story was the fine and frequently anthologized "To the Man On Trail". When The Overland Monthly offered him only $5 for it?-and was slow paying?-Jack London came close to abandoning his writing career. In his words, "literally and literarily I was saved" when The Black Cat accepted his story "A Thousand Deaths", and paid him $40?-the "first money I ever received for a story".

Jack London was fortunate in the timing of his writing career. He started just as new printing technologies enabled lower-cost production of magazines. This resulted in a boom in popular magazines aimed at a wide public, and a strong market for short fiction. In 1900, he made $2,500 in writing, the equivalent of about $75,000 today. His career was well under way.

Among the works he sold to magazines was a short story known as either "Batarde" or "Diable" in two editions of the same basic story. A cruel French Canadian brutalizes his dog. The dog out of revenge causes his death. London was criticized for depicting a dog as an embodiment of evil.[citation needed] He told some of his critics that man's actions are the main cause of the behavior of their animals and he would show this in another short story.

This short story for the Saturday Evening Post "The Call of the Wild" ran away in length. The story begins on an estate in Santa Clara Valley and features a St. Bernard/Shepherd mix named Buck. In fact the opening scene is a description of the Bond family farm and Buck is based on a dog he was lent in Dawson by his landlords. London visited Marshall Bond in California having run into him again at a political lecture in San Francisco in 1901.


First marriage (1900-1904)

Jack London married Bess Maddern on April 7, 1900, the same day The Son of the Wolf was published. Bess had been part of his circle of friends for a number of years. Stasz says "Both acknowledged publicly that they were not marrying out of love, but from friendship and a belief that they would produce sturdy children."[15] Kingman says "they were comfortable together …. Jack had made it clear to Bessie that he did not love her, but that he liked her enough to make a successful marriage."[16]

During the marriage, Jack London continued his friendship with Anna Strunsky, co-authoring The Kempton-Wace Letters, an epistolary novel contrasting two philosophies of love. Anna, writing "Dane Kempton's" letters, arguing for a romantic view of marriage, while Jack, writing "Herbert Wace's" letters, argued for a scientific view, based on Darwinism and eugenics. In the novel, his fictional character contrasts two women he has known:

[The first was] a mad, wanton creature, wonderful and unmoral and filled with life to the brim. My blood pounds hot even now as I conjure her up … [The second was] a proud-breasted woman, the perfect mother, made preeminently to know the lip clasp of a child. You know the kind, the type. "The mothers of men", I call them. And so long as there are such women on this earth, that long may we keep faith in the breed of men. The wanton was the Mate Woman, but this was the Mother Woman, the last and highest and holiest in the hierarchy of life.[17]

Wace declares:

I purpose to order my affairs in a rational manner …. Wherefore I marry Hester Stebbins. I am not impelled by the archaic sex madness of the beast, nor by the obsolescent romance madness of later-day man. I contract a tie which reason tells me is based upon health and sanity and compatibility. My intellect shall delight in that tie.[18]

Analyzing why he "was impelled toward the woman" he intends to marry, Wace says

it was old Mother Nature crying through us, every man and woman of us, for progeny. Her one unceasing and eternal cry: PROGENY! PROGENY! PROGENY![19]

In real life, Jack's pet name for Bess was "Mother-Girl" and Bess's for Jack was "Daddy-Boy".[20] Their first child, Joan, was born on January 15th, 1901, and their second, Bessie (later called Becky), on October 20, 1902.

Captions to pictures in a photo album, reproduced in part in Joan London's memoir, "Jack London and His Daughters", published posthumously, show Jack London's unmistakable happiness and pride in his children. But the marriage itself was under continuous strain. Kingman (1979) says that by 1903 "the breakup … was imminent …. Bessie was a fine woman, but they were extremely incompatible. There was no love left. Even companionship and respect had gone out of the marriage." Nevertheless, "Jack was still so kind and gentle with Bessie that when Cloudsley Johns was a house guest in February of 1903 he didn't suspect a breakup of their marriage."[21]

According to Joseph Noel (1940), "Bessie was the eternal mother. She lived at first for Jack, corrected his manuscripts, drilled him in grammar, but when the children came she lived for them. Herein was her greatest honor and her first blunder." Jack complained to Noel and George Sterling that "she's devoted to purity. When I tell her morality is only evidence of low blood pressure, she hates me. She'd sell me and the children out for her damned purity. It's terrible. Every time I come back after being away from home for a night she won't let me be in the same room with her if she can help it.".[22] Stasz believes that these were "code words for [Bess's] fear that [Jack] was consorting with prostitutes and might bring home venereal disease."[23]

On July 24th, 1903, Jack London told Bessie he was leaving and moved out; during 1904 Jack and Bess negotiated the terms of a divorce, and the decree was granted on November 11, 1904.[24]




Second marriage

After divorcing Maddern in 1904, London married Charmian Kittredge in 1905. Biographer Russ Kingman called Charmian "Jack's soul-mate, always at his side, and a perfect match.".

Jack had contrasted the concepts of the "Mother Woman" and the "Mate Woman" in The Kempton-Wace letters'[25] His pet name for Bess had been "mother-girl;" his pet name for Charmian was "mate-woman."[26] Charmian's aunt and foster mother, a disciple of Victoria Woodhull had raised her without prudishness.[27] Every biographer alludes to Charmian's uninhibited sexuality; Noel slyly?-"a young woman named Charmian Kittredge began running out to Piedmont with foils, still masks, padded breast plates, and short tailored skirts that fitted tightly over as nice a pair of hips as one might find anywhere;" Stasz directly?-"Finding that the prim and genteel lady was lustful and sexually vigorous in private was like discovering a secret treasure;";[28] and Kershaw coarsely?-"At last, here was a woman who adored fornication, expected Jack to make her climax, and to do so frequently, and who didn't burst into tears when the sadist in him punched her in the mouth."[29]

Noel (1940) calls the events from 1903 to 1905 "a domestic drama that would have intrigued the pen of an Ibsen.... London's had comedy relief in it and a sort of easy-going romance."[30] In broad outline, Jack London was restless in his marriage; sought extramarital sexual affairs; and found, in Charmian London, not only a sexually active and adventurous partner, but his future life-companion. During this time Bessie and others mistakenly perceived Anna Strunsky as her rival, while Charmian mendaciously gave Bessie the impression of being sympathetic.

They attempted to have children. However, one child died at birth, and another pregnancy ended in a miscarriage.


Beauty Ranch (1910-1917)

In 1910 Jack London purchased a 1,000 acre (4 km²) ranch in Glen Ellen, Sonoma County, California on the eastern slope of Sonoma Mountain, for $26,000. He wrote that "Next to my wife, the ranch is the dearest thing in the world to me." He desperately wanted the ranch to become a successful business enterprise. Writing, always a commercial enterprise with London, now became even more a means to an end: "I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate." After 1910, his literary works were mostly potboilers, written out of the need to provide operating income for the ranch. Joan London writes "Few reviewers bothered any more to criticize his work seriously, for it was obvious that Jack was no longer exerting himself."

Clarice Stasz writes that London "had taken fully to heart the vision, expressed in his agrarian fiction, of the land as the closest earthly version of Eden … he educated himself through study of agricultural manuals and scientific tomes. He conceived of a system of ranching that today would be praised for its ecological wisdom." He was proud of the first concrete silo in California, of a circular piggery he designed himself. He hoped to adapt the wisdom of Asian sustainable agriculture to the United States.

The ranch was, by most measures, a colossal failure. Sympathetic observers such as Stasz treats his projects as potentially feasible, and ascribe their failure to bad luck or to being ahead of their time. Unsympathetic historians such as Kevin Starr suggest that he was a bad manager, distracted by other concerns and impaired by his alcoholism. Starr notes that London was absent from his ranch about six months a year between 1910 and 1916, and says "He liked the show of managerial power, but not grinding attention to detail …. London's workers laughed at his efforts to play big-time rancher [and considered] the operation a rich man's hobby."

The ranch is now a National Historic Landmark.



Accusations of plagiarism

Jack London was accused of plagiarism at numerous times during his career. He was vulnerable, not only because he was such a conspicuous and successful writer, but also because of his methods of working. In a letter to Elwyn Hoffman he wrote "expression, you see?-with me?-is far easier than invention." He purchased plots for stories and novels from the young Sinclair Lewis. And he used incidents from newspaper clippings as material on which to base stories.

Egerton R. Young claimed that The Call of the Wild was taken from his book My Dogs in the Northland. Jack London's response was to acknowledge having used it as a source; he claimed to have written a letter to Young thanking him.

In July, 1902, two pieces of fiction appeared within the same month: Jack London's "Moon-Face", in the San Francisco Argonaut, and Frank Norris's "The Passing of Cock-eye Blacklock", in Century. Newspapers paralleled the stories, which London characterizes as "quite different in manner of treatment, [but] patently the same in foundation and motive". Jack London explained that both writers had based their stories on the same newspaper account. Subsequently it was discovered that a year earlier, one Charles Forrest McLean had published another fictional story based on the same incident.

In 1906 the New York World published "deadly parallel" columns showing eighteen passages from Jack London's short story "Love of Life" side by side with similar passages from a nonfiction article by Augustus Biddle and J. K Macdonald entitled "Lost in the Land of the Midnight Sun". According to London's daughter Joan, the parallels "[proved] beyond question that Jack had merely rewritten the Biddle account." (Jack London would surely have objected to that word "merely"). Responding, London noted the World did not accuse him of "plagiarism", but only of "identity of time and situation", to which he defiantly "pled guilty". London acknowledged his use of Biddle, cited several other sources he had used, and stated, "I, in the course of making my living by turning journalism into literature, used material from various sources which had been collected and narrated by men who made their living by turning the facts of life into journalism."

The most serious incident involved Chapter 7 of The Iron Heel, entitled "The Bishop's Vision". This chapter was almost identical with an ironic essay Frank Harris had published in 1901, entitled "The Bishop of London and Public Morality". Harris was incensed and suggested that he should receive 1/60th of the royalties from The Iron Heel, the disputed material constituting about that fraction of the whole novel. Jack London insisted that he had clipped a reprint of the article which had appeared in an American newspaper, and believed it to be a genuine speech delivered by the genuine Bishop of London. Joan London characterized this defense as "lame indeed".[31]


Political views

Jack London became a socialist at the age of 20. Previously, he had possessed an optimism stemming from his health and strength, a rugged individualist who worked hard and saw the world as good. But as he details in his essay, "How I Became a Socialist", his socialist views began as his eyes were opened to the members of the bottom of the social pit. His optimism and individualism faded, and he vowed never to do more hard work than he had to. He writes that his individualism was hammered out of him, and he was reborn a socialist. London first joined the Socialist Labor Party in April 1896. In 1901 he left the Socialist Labor Party and joined the new Socialist Party of America. In 1896 the San Francisco Chronicle published a story about the 20-year-old London who was out nightly in Oakland's City Hall Park, giving speeches on socialism to the crowds?-an activity for which he was arrested in 1897. He ran unsuccessfully as the high-profile Socialist nominee for mayor of Oakland in 1901 (receiving 245 votes) and 1905 (improving to 981 votes), toured the country lecturing on socialism in 1906, and published collections of essays on socialism (The War of the Classes, 1905; Revolution, and other Essays, 1910).

He often closed his letters "Yours for the Revolution".[32]

Stasz notes that "London regarded the Wobblies as a welcome addition to the Socialist cause, although he never joined them in going so far as to recommend sabotage."[33] She mentions a personal meeting between London and Big Bill Haywood in 1912[34]

A socialist viewpoint is evident throughout his writing, most notably in his novel The Iron Heel. No theorist or intellectual socialist, Jack London's socialism came from the heart and his life experience.

In his Glen Ellen ranch years, London felt some ambivalence toward socialism. He was an extraordinary financial success as a writer, and wanted desperately to make a financial success of his Glen Ellen ranch. He complained about the "inefficient Italian workers" in his employ. In 1916 he resigned from the Glen Ellen chapter of the Socialist Party, but stated emphatically that he did so "because of its lack of fire and fight, and its loss of emphasis on the class struggle".

In his late (1913) book The Cruise of the Snark, London writes without empathy about appeals to him for membership on the Snark's crew from office workers and other "toilers" who longed for escape from the cities, and of being cheated by workmen.

In an unflattering portrait of Jack London's ranch days, Kevin Starr (1973) refers to this period as "post-socialist" and says that "… by 1911 … London was more bored by the class struggle than he cared to admit." Starr maintains that London's socialism always had a streak of elitism in it, and a good deal of pose. He liked to play working class intellectual when it suited his purpose. Invited to a prominent Piedmont house, he featured a flannel shirt, but, as someone there remarked, London's badge of solidarity with the working class "looked as if it had been specially laundered for the occasion." [Mark Twain said] "It would serve this man London right to have the working class get control of things. He would have to call out the militia to collect his royalties."


Alleged racialist views

Jack London's views regarding race are an extremely contentious subject which cannot be summed up neatly. Academics sometimes draw a distinction between the words "racialist", to mean a belief in intrinsic difference in the capabilities of different races, as opposed to "racist", implying prejudice or hatred. By this definition, Jack London can be said to have shared the racialism common in America in his times.

Nevertheless, London's views are controversial when brought to modern attention. In Yukon in 1996, after the City of Whitehorse renamed two streets to honor Jack London and Robert Service, protests over London's racialist views forced the city to change the name of "Jack London Boulevard" back to "Two-mile Hill."[35]

Many of Jack London's short stories are notable for their empathetic portrayal of Mexicans (The Mexican), Asian (The Chinago,) and Hawaiian (Koolau the Leper) characters. But, unlike, say, Mark Twain, Jack London did not depart from the racialist views that were the norm in American society in his time, and he shared the typical California concerns about Asian immigration and "the yellow peril" (which he actually used as the title of an essay he wrote in 1904[3]); on the other hand, his war correspondence from the Russo-Japanese War, as well as his unfinished novel "Cherry", show that he greatly admired much about Japanese customs and capabilities.

To compare London with the contemporary norms, consider this statement by H. G. Wells, writing in 1901, in Anticipations:

And for the rest, those swarms of black, and brown, and dirty-white, and yellow people, who do not come into the new needs of efficiency? Well, the world is a world, not a charitable institution, and I take it they will have to go.

Now, consider the lines spoken by the character Frona Welse in London's 1902 novel, Daughter of the Snows. (Scholar Andrew Furer, in a long essay exploring the complexity of London's racialism, says there is no doubt that Frona Welse is here acting as a mouthpiece for London):

We are a race of doers and fighters, of globe-encirclers and zone-conquerors …. While we are persistent and resistant, we are made so that we fit ourselves to the most diverse conditions. Will the Indian, the Negro, or the Mongol ever conquer the Teuton? Surely not! The Indian has persistence without variability; if he does not modify he dies, if he does try to modify he dies anyway. The Negro has adaptability, but he is servile and must be led. As for the Chinese, they are permanent. All that the other races are not, the Anglo-Saxon, or Teuton if you please, is. All that the other races have not, the Teuton has.

Jack London's 1904 essay, The Yellow Peril, is replete with the casual stereotyping that was common at the time: "The Korean is the perfect type of inefficiency ?- of utter worthlessness. The Chinese is the perfect type of industry"; "The Chinese is no coward"; "[The Japanese] would not of himself constitute a Brown Peril …. The menace to the Western world lies, not in the little brown man; but in the four hundred millions of yellow men should the little brown man undertake their management." He insists that:

Back of our own great race adventure, back of our robberies by sea and land, our lusts and violences and all the evil things we have done, there is a certain integrity, a sternness of conscience, a melancholy responsibility of life, a sympathy and comradeship and warm human feel, which is ours, indubitably ours …

Yet even within this essay Jack London's inconsistency on the issue makes itself clear. After insisting that "our own great race adventure" has an ethical dimension, he closes by saying

it must be taken into consideration that the above postulate is itself a product of Western race-egotism, urged by our belief in our own righteousness and fostered by a faith in ourselves which may be as erroneous as are most fond race fancies.

In "Koolau the Leper", London has one of his characters remark:

Because we are sick [the whites] take away our liberty. We have obeyed the law. We have done no wrong. And yet they would put us in prison. Molokai is a prison. . . . It is the will of the white men who rule the land. . . . They came like lambs, speaking softly. . . . To-day all the islands are theirs.
London describes Koolau, who is a Hawaiian leper?-and thus a very different sort of "superman" than Martin Eden?-and who fights off an entire cavalry troop to elude capture, as "indomitable spiritually?-a . . . magnificent rebel".

An avid boxer and amateur boxing fan, London was a sort of celebrity reporter on the 1910 Johnson-Jeffries fight, in which a black boxer vanquished James Jeffries, the "Great White Hope". Earlier, he had written:

[Former white champion] Jim Jeffries must now emerge from his Alfalfa farm and remove that golden smile from Jack Johnson's face … Jeff, it's up to you. The White Man must be rescued.

Earlier in his boxing journalism, however, in 1908, according to Furer, London praised Johnson highly, contrasting the black boxer's coolness and intellectual style, with the apelike appearance and fighting style of his white opponent, Tommy Burns: "what . . . [won] on Saturday was bigness, coolness, quickness, cleverness, and vast physical superiority... Because a white man wishes a white man to win, this should not prevent him from giving absolute credit to the best man, even when that best man was black. All hail to Johnson." Johnson was "superb. He was impregnable . . . as inaccessible as Mont Blanc."

It is possible to cherry-pick statements by some of Jack London's fictional characters that would today be characterized as "racist" (the word did not exist in London's time). Such statements occur increasingly in the potboilers he wrote to finance his ranch in his declining years. The reader must decide whether or not London places any ironic distance between himself and these characters. The word nigger is used casually throughout the novels Adventure, Jerry of the Islands, and Michael, Brother of Jerry.

A passage from Jerry of the Islands depicts a dog as perceiving white man's superiority:

He was that inferior man-creature, a nigger, and Jerry had been thoroughly trained all his brief days to the law that the white men were the superior two-legged gods. (pg 98).
Micahel, Brother of Jerry features a comic Jewish character who is avaricious, stingy, and has a "greasy-seaming grossness of flesh".

Those who defend Jack London against charges of racism like to cite the letter he wrote to the Japanese-American Commercial Weekly in 1913:

In reply to yours of August 16,1913. First of all, I should say by stopping the stupid newspaper from always fomenting race prejudice. This of course, being impossible, I would say, next, by educating the people of Japan so that they will be too intelligently tolerant to respond to any call to race prejudice. And, finally, by realizing, in industry and government, of socialism?-which last word is merely a word that stands for the actual application of in the affairs of men of the theory of the Brotherhood of Man.
In the meantime the nations and races are only unruly boys who have not yet grown to the stature of men. So we must expect them to do unruly and boisterous things at times. And, just as boys grow up, so the races of mankind will grow up and laugh when they look back upon their childish quarrels.[36]


Death

Jack London's death is controversial. Many older sources describe it as a suicide, and some still do.[37] However, this appears to be at best a rumor, or speculation based on incidents in his fiction writings. His death certificate gives the cause as uremia, also known as uremic poisoning. He died November 22, 1916, in a sleeping porch in a cottage on his ranch.[38] It is known he was in extreme pain and taking morphine, and it is possible that a morphine overdose, accidental or deliberate, may have contributed. Clarice Stasz, in a capsule biography, writes "Following London's death, for a number of reasons a biographical myth developed in which he has been portrayed as an alcoholic womanizer who committed suicide. Recent scholarship based upon firsthand documents challenges this caricature."[39]

Suicide does figure in London's writing. In his autobiographical novel Martin Eden, the protagonist commits suicide by drowning. In his autobiographical memoir John Barleycorn, he claims, as a youth, having drunkenly stumbled overboard into the San Francisco Bay, "some maundering fancy of going out with the tide suddenly obsessed me", and drifted for hours intending to drown himself, nearly succeeding before sobering up and being rescued by fishermen. An even closer parallel occurs in the denouement of The Little Lady of the Big House, in which the heroine, confronted by the pain of a mortal and untreatable gunshot wound, undergoes a physician-assisted suicide by means of morphine. These accounts in his writings probably contributed to the "biographical myth".

Biographer Russ Kingman concluded that London died "of a stroke or heart attack." In support of this, he wrote a general letter on the letterhead of The Jack London Bookstore (which he owned and ran), handing it out to interested parties who wandered in asking questions. The letter offers many facts discrediting the theories of both "suicide by morphine overdose" and "uremic poisoning".

Jack London's ashes are buried, together with those of his wife Charmian, in Jack London State Historic Park, in Glen Ellen, California. The simple grave is marked only by a mossy boulder.


Works

Short stories

Western writer and historian Dale L. Walker writes[4]:

London's true métier was the short story …. London's true genius lay in the short form, 7,500 words and under, where the flood of images in his teeming brain and the innate power of his narrative gift were at once constrained and freed. His stories that run longer than the magic 7,500 generally?-but certainly not always?-could have benefited from self-editing.
London's "strength of utterance" is at its height in his stories, and they are painstakingly well-constructed. (In contrast, many of his novels, including The Call of the Wild, are weakly constructed, episodic, and resemble linked sequences of short stories).

"To Build a Fire" is the best known of all his stories. It tells the story of a new arrival to the Klondike who stubbornly ignores warnings about the folly of travelling alone. He falls through the ice into a creek in seventy-below weather, and his survival depends on being able to build a fire and dry his clothes, which he is unable to do. The famous version of this story was published in 1908. Jack London published an earlier and radically different version in 1902, and a comparison of the two provides a dramatic illustration of the growth of his literary ability. Labor (1994) in an anthology says that "To compare the two versions is itself an instructive lesson in what distinguished a great work of literary art from a good children's story."[40]

Other stories from his Klondike period include: "All Gold Canyon", about a battle between a gold prospector and a claim jumper; "The Law of Life", about an aging man abandoned by his tribe and left to die; and "Love of Life", about a desperate trek by a prospector across the Canadian taiga.

"Moon Face" invites comparison with Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart".

Jack London was a boxing fan and an avid amateur boxer himself. "A Piece of Steak" is an evocative tale about a match between an older boxer and a younger one. "The Mexican" combines boxing with a social theme, as a young Mexican endures an unfair fight and ethnic prejudice in order to earn money with which to aid the Mexican revolution.

A surprising number of Jack London's stories would today be classified as science fiction. "The Unparalleled Invasion" describes germ warfare against China; "Goliah" revolves around an irresistible energy weapon; "The Shadow and the Flash" is a highly original tale about two competitive brothers who take two different routes to achieving invisibility; "A Relic of the Pliocene" is a tall tale about an encounter of a modern-day man with a mammoth. "The Red One", a late story from a period London was intrigued by the theories of Jung, tells of an island tribe held in thrall by an extraterrestrial object. His dystopian novel, The Iron Heel, meets the contemporary definition of "Soft" science fiction.


Novels

Jack London's most famous novels are The Call of the Wild, White Fang, The Sea-Wolf, The Iron Heel and Martin Eden.[41]

Critic Maxwell Geismar called The Call of the Wild "a beautiful prose poem," editor Franklin Walker said that it "belongs on a shelf with Walden and Huckleberry Finn," and novelist E. L. Doctorow called it "a mordant parable … his masterpiece."

Nevertheless, as Dale L. Walker[5] commented:

Jack London was an uncomfortable novelist, that form too long for his natural impatience and the quickness of his mind. His novels, even the best of them, are hugely flawed.
It is often observed his novels are episodic and resemble a linked series of short stories. Walker writes:

The Star Rover, that magnificent experiment, is actually a series of short stories connected by a unifying device … Smoke Bellew is a series of stories bound together in a novel-like form by their reappearing protagonist, Kit Bellew; and John Barleycorn … is a synoptic series of short episodes.
Even The Call of the Wild, which Walker calls a "long short story", is picaresque or episodic.

Ambrose Bierce said of The Sea-Wolf that "the great thing?-and it is among the greatest of things?-is that tremendous creation, Wolf Larsen … the hewing out and setting up of such a figure is enough for a man to do in one lifetime." However, ne noted, "The love element, with its absurd suppressions, and impossible proprieties, is awful."

The Iron Heel is interesting as an example of a dystopian novel which anticipates and influenced George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Jack London's socialist politics are explicitly on display here. Its description of the capitalist class forming an organised, totalitarian, violent oligarchy to crush the working-class forewarned in some detail the Fascist dictatorships of Europe. Given it was written in 1908, this prediction was somewhat uncanny, as Trotsky noted while commenting on the book in the 1930s.

Martin Eden is a novel about a struggling young writer with a very strong resemblance to Jack London.


Nonfiction and autobiographical memoirs

He was commissioned to write The People of the Abyss (1903), an investigation into the slum conditions in which the poor lived in the capital of the British Empire. In it, London did not write favorably about London.

The Road (1907) is a series of tales and reminiscences of Jack London's hobo days. It relates the tricks that hoboes used to evade train crews, and reminisces about his travels with Kelly's Army. He credits his story-telling skill to the hobo's necessity of concocting tales to coax meals from sympathetic strangers.

Jack London's autobiographical book of "alcoholic memoirs", John Barleycorn, was published in 1913. Recommended by Alcoholics Anonymous, it depicts the outward and inward life of an alcoholic. The passages depicting his interior mental state, which he called the "White Logic", are among his strongest and most evocative writing. The question must, however, be raised: is it truly against alcohol, or a love hymn to alcohol? He makes alcohol sound exciting, dangerous, comradely, glamorous, manly. In the end, when he sums it up, this is the total he comes up with:

And so I pondered my problem. I should not care to revisit all these fair places of the world except in the fashion I visited them before. Glass in hand! There is a magic in the phrase. It means more than all the words in the dictionary can be made to mean. It is a habit of mind to which I have been trained all my life. It is now part of the stuff that composes me. I like the bubbling play of wit, the chesty laughs, the resonant voices of men, when, glass in hand, they shut the grey world outside and prod their brains with the fun and folly of an accelerated pulse.
No, I decided; I shall take my drink on occasion.

The Cruise of the Snark (1913) is a memoir of Jack and Charmian London's 1907-1909 voyage across the Pacific. His descriptions of "surf-riding", which he dubbed a "royal sport", helped introduce it to and popularize it with the mainland. London writes:

Through the white crest of a breaker suddenly appears a dark figure, erect, a man-fish or a sea-god, on the very forward face of the crest where the top falls over and down, driving in toward shore, buried to his loins in smoking spray, caught up by the sea and flung landward, bodily, a quarter of a mile. It is a Kanaka on a surf-board. And I know that when I have finished these lines I shall be out in that riot of colour and pounding surf, trying to bit those breakers even as he, and failing as he never failed, but living life as the best of us may live it.


Apocrypha

Jack London Credo

Jack London's literary executor, Irving Shepard, quoted a "Jack London Credo" in an introduction to a 1956 collection of Jack London stories:

I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.
Clarice Stasz notes that the passage "has many marks of London's style". Shepard did not cite a source. The words he quotes appeared in a story in the San Francisco Bulletin, December 2, 1916 by Journalist Ernest J. Hopkins, who visited the ranch just weeks before London's death. Stasz notes "Even moreso than today journalists' quotes were unreliable or even sheer inventions" and says no direct source in London's writings has been found.

The phrase "I would rather be ashes than dust" appears in an inscription he wrote in an autograph book.

In the short story "By The Turtles of Tasman", a character, defending her ne'er-do-well grasshopperish father to her antlike uncle, says: "… my father has been a king. He has lived …. Have you lived merely to live? Are you afraid to die? I'd rather sing one wild song and burst my heart with it, than live a thousand years watching my digestion and being afraid of the wet. When you are dust, my father will be ashes."


The Scab

A short diatribe on "The Scab" is often quoted within the U.S. labor movement and frequently attributed to Jack London. It opens:

After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue ….[42]

This passage figured in a 1974 Supreme Court case, in which justice Thurgood Marshall quoted the passage in full and referred to it as "a well-known piece of trade union literature, generally attributed to author Jack London." A union newsletter had published a "list of scabs," which was granted to be factual and therefore not libellous, but then went on to quote the passage as the "definition of a scab." The case turned on the question of whether the "definition" was defamatory. The court ruled that "Jack London's... 'definition of a scab' is merely rhetorical hyperbole, a lusty and imaginative expression of the contempt felt by union members towards those who refuse to join," and as such was not libellous and was protected under the First Amendment.[42]

The passage does not seem to appear in Jack London's published work. He once gave a speech entitled "The Scab"[43] which he published in his book The War of the Classes, but this speech contains nothing similar to the "corkscrew soul" quotation and is completely different from it in content, style, and tone. Generally Jack London did not use demotic language in his writing except in dialogue spoken by his characters.

One online source, no longer accessible, gave a chain of citations which credits the diatribe as having been published in The Bridgeman, official organ of the Structural Iron Workers, which in turned credited the Elevator Constructor, official journal of the International Union of Elevator Constructors, which credited the Oregon Labor Press as publishing it in 1926.


Might is Right

Anton LaVey's Church of Satan claims that "Ragnar Redbeard", pseudonymous author of the 1896 book Might is Right, was Jack London. No London biographers mention any such possibility. Rodger Jacobs published an essay ridiculing this theory, arguing that in 1896 London was unfamiliar with philosophers heavily cited by "Redbeard," such as Nietzsche, and had not even begun to develop his mature literary style.[44]


B. Traven

During the 1930s, the enigmatic novelist B. Traven, best known in the U. S. as the author of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, was hailed as "the German Jack London". His politics, themes, writing style, and settings really do bear a recognizable resemblance to Jack London's. Traven kept his identity secret during his life. Almost every commentator on Traven mentions in passing a fanciful speculation that Traven actually was Jack London, who presumably would have had to have faked his own death. It is not clear whether this suggestion was ever made seriously. No London biographer has even bothered to mention it. The identification of Traven with London is one of many such speculations?-another unlikely one being Ambrose Bierce?-which were laid to rest by a 1990 interview in which Traven's widow identified Traven as Ret Marut, a left-wing revolutionary in Germany during World War I.[45]

Trivia

Jack London appears as a character in the Star Trek: TNG episode "Time's Arrow" as a hotel employee who assists Lt. Commander Data. Mark Twain advises him to go to Alaska as well as become a writer.[9]

Tex Ritter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tex RitterTex Ritter (January 12, 1905 - January 2, 1974) was an American country singer and actor.



Life and career

He was born Maurice Woodward Ritter in Murvaul, Texas, the son of James Everett Ritter and Martha Elizabeth Matthews.

He grew up on his family's farm in Panola County and attended grade school in Carthage. He then attended South Park High School in Beaumont. After graduating with honors, he entered the University of Texas at Austin; he studied pre-law, majored in government, political science and economics.

Ritter, one of the early pioneers of country music, soon became interested in show business. In 1928, he sang on KPRC Radio in Houston, a thirty minute show featuring cowboy songs. In that same year, he moved to New York City and quickly landed a job in the men's chorus of the Broadway show The New Moon (1928).

He appeared as "The Cowboy" in the Broadway production Green Grow the Lilacs (1930), which was the basis for the later musical Oklahoma!. He also played the part of Sagebrush Charlie in The Round Up (1932) and Mother Lode (1934).

Ritter also worked on various radio programs. In 1932, he starred on the WOR Radio show The Lone Star Rangers, which was New York's first broadcast western. He sang songs and told tales of the Old West. Ritter wrote and starred in Cowboy Tom's Roundup on WINS Radio in New York in 1933. This daily children's cowboy radio program aired over three stations on the East Coast for three years. These shows marked the beginning of Ritter's popularity in radio, which paved the way for his upcoming singing career. He also performed on the radio show WHN Barndance and sang on NBC Radio.

He appeared in several radio dramas, including CBS's Bobby Benson's Adventures and Death Valley Days.

Ritter began recording for American Record Company (Columbia Records) in 1933. His first released recording was "Goodbye Ole Paint." He also recorded "Rye Whiskey" at that label. In 1935, he signed with Decca Records, where he recorded his first original recordings, "Sam Hall" and "Get Along Little Dogie."

In 1936, he moved to Los Angeles, California. His motion picture debut was in Song Of The Gringo (1936) for Grand National Pictures. He starred in twelve movies for Grand National, "B" grade Westerns, which included Headin' For The Rio Grande (1936), and Trouble In Texas (1937) co-starring Rita Hayworth (then known as Rita Cansino).

After starring in Utah Trail (1938), Ritter left the financially troubled Grand National. Between 1938 and 1945, he starred in around forty "singing cowboy" movies, mostly to critical scorn.

Ritter made four movies with actress Dorothy Fay at Monogram Pictures: Song of the Buckaroo (1938), Sundown on the Prairie (1939), Rollin' Westward (1939) and Rainbow Over the Range (1940).

He recorded a total of twenty-nine songs for Decca, the last being in 1939 in Los Angeles as part of Tex Ritter and His Texans.

Tex helped start United Cerebral Palsy Associations, Inc, after his son, Thomas, was found to have cerebral palsy. Tex, Thomas, and John spent a great deal of time raising money and public awareness to help others with cerebral palsy.

In 1942, Ritter signed with the newly formed Capitol Records as their first Western singer and their first artist signed. His first recording session was on June 11. His music recording career began what was his most successful period.

He achieved significant success with "Jingle, Jangle, Jingle," and in 1944, he scored another hit with "I'm Wastin' My Tears On You," which hit #1 on the country charts and #11 on the Pop charts. "There's A New Moon Over My Shoulder" was a country charts #2 and Pop charts #21. In 1945, he had the #1, #2 and #3 songs on Billboard's "Most Played Jukebox Folk Records" poll, a first in the industry. Between 1945 and 1946, he registered seven consecutive Top 5 hits, including "You Two Timed Me One Time Too Often," a country #1 written by Jenny Lou Carson, which spent eleven weeks on the charts. In 1948, "Rye Whiskey" and his cover of "Deck Of Cards" both made the Top 10 and "Pecos Bill" reached #15. In 1950, "Daddy's Last Letter (Private First Class John H. McCormick)" also became a hit.

In 1952, Ritter recorded the movie title-track song "High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darlin')", which became a hit. He sang "High Noon" at the first-ever televised Academy Awards ceremony in 1953. It received an Oscar for Best Song that year.

Ritter did his first tour of Europe in 1952. And in 1953, he began performing on Town Hall Party on radio and television in Los Angeles. He formed Vidor Publications, Inc., a music publishing firm, with Johnny Bond, in 1955. "Remember the Alamo" was the first song in the catalog.

In 1957, he released his first LP album Songs From the Western Screen. He starred in his own TV music series, Ranch Party, in 1959, which was televised for four years.

Even after the peak of his performing career, Ritter would be recognized for his contributions to country and western music and for his artistic versatility. He became one of the founding members of the Country Music Association in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1964, he became the fifth person and first singing cowboy to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He moved to Nashville in 1965 and began working for WSM Radio and the Grand Ole Opry. He also received a lifetime membership to the Opry. His family remained in California temporarily so that son John could finish high school there. For a time, Dorothy was an official greeter at the Opry. During this period, Ritter co-hosted a late night radio program with famed country disc jockey Ralph Emery.

In 1970, Ritter surprised many people by entering the Republican primary for United States Senate. Despite high name recognition, he lost overwhelmingly to Chattanooga Congressman Bill Brock, who then went on to win the general election.


Personal life

Ritter was married to actress Dorothy Fay (June 14, 1941-his death January 2, 1974). They had two sons, Thomas Ritter and well-known American television star John Ritter. He is also the grandfather of Jason Ritter.


Death and recognition

Ritter had his last recording session for Capitol Records in 1973. His last song, "The Americans," became a posthumous hit shortly after his death. In 1974, he had a heart attack and died in Nashville. He is interred in Oak Bluff Memorial Park, Port Neches, Texas.

For his contribution to the recording industry, Tex Ritter has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6631 Hollywood Blvd. In 1980, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Trivia

Tex Ritter can also be heard as the voice of Big Al. Big Al is the fattest bear at the Country Bear Jamboree attraction located in the Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort. His character sings "Blood on the Saddle" and continues through the finale as the rest of the cast attempts to drown him out.

Ray Price
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ray Price (born January 12, 1926 in Perryville, Texas) is an American country and western singer/songwriter/guitarist. Some of his more famous songs include "Release Me", "Crazy Arms", "Heartaches By the Number", "City Lights", "My Shoes Keep Walking Back To You" and "Danny Boy." He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996.


1940s-50s success


Price served in the Marines, 1944-46, and began singing on KRBC in Abilene in 1948. He joined the "Big D Jamboree" in Dallas in 1949. He hit Nashville in the early 1950s, rooming for a short time with Hank Williams. [citation needed] When Williams died, Price took over his band, the Drifting Cowboys, and had minor success. He was the first artist to have a hit with "Release Me" (1954), [citation needed] a top five pop hit for Engelbert Humperdinck in 1967.

Price became one of the stalwarts of the grinding, honky-tonk music that became even more popular in the early 1950s with such singers as Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Webb Pierce and others. Price developed the famous "Ray Price Shuffle Beat" that is heard on "Crazy Arms," which served as the beat for many honky-tonk classics since then. [citation needed]

In 1953, Price formed his famous band, the Cherokee Cowboys. Among its members in the late 1950s and early 1960s were Roger Miller, Willie Nelson and Johnny Paycheck. In fact, Miller wrote one of Ray Price's classics in 1958, "Invitation to the Blues," and sang harmony on the recording. In addition, Nelson penned the Ray Price classic "Night Life." [citation needed]

Besides his numerous country hits, Ray Price also was a favorite of pop music fans for his 1967 hit "Danny Boy" and "For the Good Times" in 1970.

Later career

Price's first #1 hit since "The Same Old Me" in 1959 was "For The Good Times" in 1970. Written by Kris Kristofferson, the song also made it to #11 on the pop chart and featured a more mellow Price backed up by sophisticated musical sounds, quite the opposite from the honky-tonk sounds Price pioneered two decades before. Price had three more #1 country hits in the 1970s, "I Won't Mention It Again", "She's Got To Be A Saint", and "You're The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me." His final top-ten hit was "Diamonds In The Stars" in early 1982. Price continued to have songs on the country chart through 1989. Today he is singing gospel music and has recorded such songs as "Amazing Grace", "What A Friend We Have in Jesus", "Farther Along" and "Rock of Ages"[1].

In 2006, Price was living near Mount Vernon, Texas and still performing in concerts throughout the country.

Shirley Eaton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Shirley Eaton (born January 13, 1937) is a British actress who appeared in many British black and white comedies in the 1950s and onwards.

She was born in London. Throughout her career, she appeared with many of the top British male comedy stars from the period including Jimmy Edwards, Max Bygraves, Bob Monkhouse and Arthur Askey. Her female co-stars included Peggy Mount, Thora Hird and Dora Bryan among others.

Early roles include Three Men In A Boat (1956) and Date with Disaster (1957), starring with American Tom Drake. She also worked with The Crazy Gang in Life Is a Circus (1958) and with Mickey Spillane in The Girl Hunters (1963) in which Spillane played his own literary creation Mike Hammer. Later she starred in an entertaining version of Ten Little Indians (1965), co-starring American singer and actor Fabian. She also appeared in several early Carry On films, but did little TV work (she did appear in three episodes of The Saint opposite Roger Moore).

However, undoubtedly Eaton's most famous role was that of Jill Masterson in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger. Her character's death, being painted head to toe in gold paint and suffering "skin suffocation", became an iconic image of the film and inadvertently led to the creation of an urban legend concerning both the method of death and the actress' own fate. Eaton, very much alive, later appeared in a 2003 episode of the TV documentary series MythBusters to help debunk the legend. However, it should be said that Margaret Nolan, not Eaton, was actually the golden girl who appeared in the film's well known advertising campaign and title sequence.

In any case, the movie made Eaton a star; she even appeared on the cover of Life Magazine in her gold-painted persona. After Goldfinger, Eaton made a few more films including the notorious The Million Eyes of Su-Muru, before she retired from acting to raise her family.

Eaton expressed no regrets in giving up show business while at the height of her fame. In a 1999 interview with Steve Swires of Starlog Magazine, Eaton said: "A career is a career, but you're a mother until you die."

Kirstie Alley
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Born January 12, 1951 (age 55)
Wichita, Kansas

Kirstie Louise Alley (born January 12, 1951 in Wichita, Kansas) is an American actress best known for her role in the TV show Cheers. Her parents are Robert Deal Alley and Lillian Mickie, who have two other children, Colette and Craig. Her mother, Lillian, died in a car accident caused by a drunk driver in 1981. Alley married film director Parker Stevenson in 1983, whom she later divorced, and now shares joint custody of their two adopted children.

Alley is widely known and acclaimed for her leading roles in the comedy Cheers, where she played Rebecca Howe from 1987-1993, winning an Emmy as the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for 1991. A year later, she won a Golden Globe for her performance in Cheers as well. She also won an Emmy in 1994 for her role in the TV-drama David's Mother. Other critically acclaimed roles Alley is known for include: playing Diane Barrows in It Takes Two and a single mother in Look Who's Talking, Look Who's Talking Too, and Look Who's Talking Now (all co-starring John Travolta). Alley has also won two People's Choice Awards in the years 1991 and 1998.



Biography

Early life

Alley was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas, where she attended Wichita Southeast High School and became a cheerleader. She then attended college at Kansas State University and the University of Kansas, but dropped out in her sophomore year to pursue acting. She was first seen as a contestant on the game shows Match Game in 1979 and Password Plus in 1980. On both shows she stated her occupation as an interior designer.

Career

Alley won a supporting role in the 1982 movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, playing Vulcan officer Lieutenant Saavik. Alley turned down the role of Saavik in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock because the producers would not meet her salary demands and because she didn't want to be typecast as a science fiction actress. Therefore, Robin Curtis assumed the role. Alley also co-starred in a short-lived secret agent television series, Masquerade, and in the acclaimed miniseries North and South.

Alley rose to prominence in her 1987-1993 role as the neurotic corporate executive Rebecca Howe on the long-running hit TV sitcom Cheers. She later starred in the movie Look Who's Talking (1989) with fellow Scientologist John Travolta, which earned more than $100 million at the box office. This film was followed by two sequels ?- 1990's Look Who's Talking Too and 1993's Look Who's Talking Now. In 1992, she played a TV news reporter in Prince's video for "My Name Is Prince."

Her second NBC sitcom, the critically panned Veronica's Closet, ran for three seasons in the late 1990s. Alley reportedly received $2 million in up-front fees for her work on that series and $150,000 per episode.

Alley has been honored with two Emmy Awards during her career. Her first two nominations for her work on Cheers did not earn her the award, but her third, in 1991, garnered her the statuette for that series. In her speech, she thanked then-husband Parker Stevenson "for giving me the big one for the last eight years." [1] Talk show hosts, as well as the creators of Cheers, poked fun at the quip for weeks afterward. Alley won her second Emmy for her portrayal of the title role in the made-for-TV movie drama David's Mother (1994).

In 1997, Alley's career took a different turn when she appeared in Woody Allen's movie Deconstructing Harry. In this movie, Alley, who was then primarily known as a comedic actress, displayed a strong talent for being a serious dramatic actress by playing a psychiatrist who is married to Woody Allen's character. She is angered upon learning that he has had an affair with one of her patients.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Kirstie Alley has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7000 Hollywood Blvd.

On November 7, 2006, Alley appeared in a bikini on the the Oprah Winfrey Show, after losing 75 lbs., showing off her new body and confidence to go with it.


Fat Actress

In 2005, after her weight increased to over 200 lbs., she headlined a sitcom for Showtime called Fat Actress. The show details the daily life of an overweight actress trying to make it in Hollywood. Alley has become an advocate against obesity and is a spokeswoman for the Jenny Craig weight-loss program; TV ads document her weight loss, which has reached 75 lbs., according to Alley on an November 7th, 2006 appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. She appeared clad in a semi-bikini outfit, with a fabric midriff and several yards of translucent chiffon to hide her back-view.


Private life

Kirstie Alley was married to actor Parker Stevenson (Richard Stevenson Parker, Jr.) from December 22, 1983, until 1997. During their marriage, the couple adopted two children ?- William True (born October 5th,1992) and Lillie Price (born June 15, 1994). Alley also experienced a miscarriage as well as a stillbirth. According to media reports at the time of the couple's divorce, Stevenson walked away from the marriage with a healthy $6,000,000 (USD) settlement, after asking for $75,000 per month in alimony from Alley. At the time of their split, Alley and Stevenson were joint owners of a mansion in Encino, California, complete with exotic animals, plus vacation homes in Islesboro, Maine, and in Kansas. She also has a ranch in the Applegate Valley of Jackson County, Oregon. The couple owned two yachts and several high-performance cars. Today, they share joint custody of their children.

" I don't believe in walking on eggshells around children. I don't want them to have a static, middle-class life. I want them to experience a real life, not some pretentious existence "

Alley was raised Methodist but is now a Scientologist, like her good friends John Travolta and Kelly Preston.

Kirstie is dedicated to and a strong activist for V-Day, a global movement to stop violence against women.


Alley and Scientology

Alley admits to having had a cocaine addiction from 1976 until 1979, when she joined Scientology. She has served as the national spokesperson for Narconon (a controversial Scientology-affiliated drug treatment program).

In May 2000, she purchased the former home of fellow Scientologist Lisa Marie Presley, a 5,200-sq-ft. waterfront mansion in Clearwater, Florida for $1.5 million. Clearwater is the spiritual headquarters of the Church of Scientology.

In 2006, Alley is reported to have said that she was not able to apply the Scientology techniques that helped her to kick her cocaine habit to her problem with food addiction and weight, and that ultimately she turned to Jenny Craig.[2]

In the Express Lane at the store, quietly fuming. Completely ignoring
the sign that said 6 Items or Less, the woman ahead of me had slipped
into the check-out line pushing a cart piled high with groceries.
Imagine my delight when the cashier beckoned the woman to come forward,
looked into the cart and asked sweetly, "So, which six items would you
like to buy?"

Wouldn't it be great if that happened more often?!

Good morning, WA2K listeners and contributors.

First, allow me to observe edgar's songs. Thanks, Texas, for once again reminding us of Elvis. The other fellow, I am afraid I do not know, but nonetheless that is why we are all here, to learn and listen, right?

Welcome back Cyracuz. Not certain what your Oriental symbols mean nor your comment on rain, but we always enjoy seeing you, Norway.

Well, folks, we know that our man in Boston is finished with his delightful bio's when he reminds us of the eternal super market wars. Thanks, hawkman.

Unfortunately, our Raggedy will not be with us today as she has certain appointed tasks to fulfill, and there is no way that I will try and match her artistry at montage making.

Here is one by Ray Price that I will play until I have had a chance to review Bob's background information.

Now, blue ain't the word for the way that I feel,
There's a storm brewin' in this heart of mine.
This ain't no crazy dream, I know that it's real.
You're someone else's love now, you're not mine!

Chorus:
Crazy arms that seek to hold somebody new,
But my burnin' heart keeps sayin' you're not mine!
My troubled mind knows soon to another you'll be wed,
And that's why I'm lonely all the time.

Break

Please take these treasured dreams I had for you and me,
And take all the love I thought was mine,
This ain't no crazy dream, I know that it's real,
And that's why I'm lonely all the time!

Repeat Chorus.

And, folks, a great supermarket story about a crafty mom:

Goodbye Mom

A guy shopping in a supermarket noticed a little old lady following him
around. If he stopped, she stopped. Furthermore she kept staring at
him. She finally overtook him at the checkout, and she turned to him
and said, "I hope I haven't made you feel ill at ease; it's just that
you look so much like my late son."

He asnwered, "That's okay."

"I know it's silly, but if you'd call out "Good bye, Mom" as I leave
the store, it would make me feel so happy." She then went through the
checkout ... and as she was on her way out of the store, the man
called out, "Goodbye, Mother." The little old
lady waved and smiled back at him.

Pleased that he had brought a little sunshine into someone's day, he
went to pay for his groceries.

"That comes to $121.85," said the clerk.

"How come so much?! I only bought 5 items.. "

The clerk replied, "Yeah, but your Mother said you'd pay for her
things, too."

That little funny was sent to me by my Irish friend.

One of my favorites to sing during my karaoke evenings.

For The Good Times Lyrics
Ray Price

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

Ok, here are a list of Bob's celebs:

Jack London-"To Build a Fire" was my very favorite of his short stories.

Ray Price-already acknowledged.

Shirley Easton- covered in gold-Walter gave us the theme from that J.B. movie.

Kirstie Alley- had no idea she had a problem with cocaine

Tex Ritter-Mostly recognized for his song from "High Noon."

Jack London, and the "before and after" Kirstie.





Back later to acknowledge our Bob's song.

Hey, Bob. I love that song, but had no idea that Ray Price had done it.

Beautiful, hawkman, and yes, for the good times.

Poem for the day:

Hold On To Your Dreams

Hold on to your dreams
Don't ever give in.
If you keep trying
You're going to win.

Hold on to your dreams
Though sometimes it's hard.
Just hold your head up
And reach for the stars.

Hold on to your dreams
Though they seem far away.
And those dreams will come true
Somehow.....Someway!!

-Author Unknown-

However, folks, I still prefer London's idea that the character in "To Build a Fire" had NO imagination, but the dog did.

Sophie Tucker
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

.

Sophie Tucker (January 13, 1884 - February 9, 1966) was a singer and comedian, one of the most popular entertainers in America during the first third of the 20th century.

She was born Sophia Kalish to a Jewish family in Czarist Russia. Her family emigrated to the United States when she was an infant, and settled in Hartford, Connecticut. The family changed its name to Abuza, and her parents opened a restaurant.



Early life

She started singing for tips in her family's restaurant. In 1903, at the age of 19, she was briefly married to Louis Tuck, from which she decided to change her name to "Tucker." (She would marry twice more in her life, but neither marriage lasted more than five years.)

Tucker played piano and sang burlesque and vaudeville tunes, at first in blackface. She later said that this was at the insistence of theater managers, who said she was "too fat and ugly" to be accepted by an audience in any other context. She even sang songs that acknowledged her heft, such as "Nobody Loves a Fat Girl, But Oh How a Fat Girl Can Love."

She made a name for herself in a style that was known at the time as a "Coon Shouter", performing African American influenced songs. Not content with performing in the simple minstrel traditions, Tucker hired some of the best African American singers of the time to give her lessons, and hired African American composers to write songs for her act.

At a 1908 appearance, the luggage containing Tucker's makeup kit was stolen shortly before the show, and she hastily went on stage without her customary blackface. To the theater manager's surprise, Tucker was a bigger hit without her makeup than with it, and she never wore blackface again. She did, however, continue to draw much of her material from African American writers as well as African American culture, singing in a ragtime- and blues-influenced style, becoming known for a time as "The Ragtime Mary Garden," a reference to a famous operatic soprano of the era.

Tucker made her first appearance in the Ziegfeld Follies in 1909, but didn't last long there because Florenz Ziegfeld's other female stars soon refused to share the spotlight with the popular Tucker.

Tucker made several popular recordings. They included "Some of These Days," which came out in 1911 on Edison Records. The tune, written by Shelton Brooks, was a hit, and became Tucker's theme song. Later, it was the title of her 1945 autobiography.

In 1921, Tucker hired pianist and songwriter Ted Shapiro as her accompanist and musical director, a position he would keep throughout her career. Besides writing a number of songs for Tucker, Shapiro became part of her stage act, playing piano on stage while she sang, and exchanging banter and wisecracks with her in between numbers.

Tucker remained a popular singer through the 1920s, and hired stars such as Mamie Smith and Ethel Waters to give her lessons.

In 1925, Jack Yellen wrote one of her most famous songs, "My Yiddish Momme". The song was performed in large American cities where there were sizable Jewish audiences. Tucker explained, "Even though I loved the song and it was a sensational hit every time I sang it, I was always careful to use it only when I knew the majority of the house would understand Yiddish. However, you didn't have to be a Jew to be moved by 'My Yiddish Momme.' 'Mother' in any language means the same thing." She also made the first of her many movie appearances in the 1929 sound picture Honky Tonk.

In the 1930s, Tucker brought elements of nostalgia for the early years of 20th century into her show. She was billed as The Last of the Red Hot Mamas, as her hearty sexual appetite was a frequent subject of her songs, unusual for female performers of the era. She made numerous popular film appearances, including Broadway Melody of 1938. In that film, Tucker sings a song during the big finale; even though she is playing a character and not herself, several neon lights displaying her real name light up in the background of the stage in tribute.


Tucker in 1952In the 1950s and early 1960s, she made television appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, What's My Line, and The Tonight Show.

She continued performing in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, until shortly before dying of lung cancer in 1966 at the age of 82.

She was interred at Emanuel Cemetery in Wethersfield, Connecticut.


Legacy and influence

Sophie Tucker's comic style is credited with influencing later female entertainers, including Joan Rivers, Roseanne Barr, and most notably Bette Midler who has included "Soph" as one of her many stage characters. In addition to her performing, Tucker was active in efforts to unionize professional actors, and was elected president of the American Federation of Actors in 1938.


Quotes

"I've been rich and I've been poor. Believe me, honey, rich is better."
When The Beatles performed the song Till There Was You from The Music Man early in their careers, Paul McCartney would often introduce the number by saying that "It's also been done by our favourite American group - Sophie Tucker."
"From birth to age eighteen, a girl needs good parents. From eighteen to thirty-five she needs good looks. From thirty-five to fifty-five, she needs a good personality. From fifty-five on, she needs good cash."

Robert Stack
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Charles Langford Modini Stack (January 13, 1919 - May 14, 2003), better known as Robert Stack, was an American stage and movie actor. He was perhaps best known for his film acting as well as his role in the television series The Untouchables and as host of Unsolved Mysteries.





Biography

Early life

Stack was born in Los Angeles, California but spent his early childhood growing up in Europe. He became fluent in French and Italian at an early age, but he did not learn English until returning to Los Angeles. Raised by his mother, Mary Elizabeth Wood, Stack's parents divorced when Stack was 1 and his father, James Langford Stack, a wealthy advertising agency owner, died when Stack was 9. Stack always spoke of his mother with the greatest respect and love. When he wrote his autobiography Straight Shooting, he included a picture of him and his mother. He captioned it "Me and my best girl." Stack's grandfather was an opera singer from Illinois named Charles Wood, who went by the name Modini.


Career

Stack took drama courses at the University of Southern California. His deep voice and good looks attracted producers in Hollywood. When Stack visited the set of Universal Studios at age 20, producer Joe Pasternak offered him an opportunity to enter the business. Recalled Stack, "He said 'How'd you like to be in pictures? We'll make a test with Helen Parrish, a little love scene.' Helen Parrish was a beautiful girl. 'Gee, that sounds keen,' I told him. I got the part." Stack's first film teamed him with Deanna Durbin. He was the first actor to give Durbin an on screen kiss. As hard to believe today, this film was considered controversial at the time. Stack won acclaim for his next role, the 1940 film The Mortal Storm. He played a young man who joins the Nazi party. This film was one of the first to speak out against Hitler. As a youth, Stack admitted that he had a crush on Carole Lombard and in 1942 he appeared with her in To Be or Not To Be. He admitted he was terrified going into this role. He credits Lombard with giving him many tips on acting and with being his mentor. Lombard was killed in a plane crash shortly after the film was released.

During World War II, Stack served as gunnery instructor in the United States Navy. He continued his movie career and appeared in such films as Fighter Squadron (1948), A Date with Judy (1948) and Bwana Devil (1952). In 1954, Stack was given his most important movie role. He appeared opposite John Wayne in The High and the Mighty. Stack played the pilot of an airliner who comes apart under stress after the airliner encounters engine trouble.

In 1957, Stack was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Written on the Wind. He starred in more than 40 films. Known for his steadfast, humorless demeanor, he made fun of his own persona in comedies such as 1941 (1979), Airplane! (1980), Caddyshack II (1988), and BASEketball (1998). He also provided the voice for the character Ultra Magnus in Transformers: The Movie (1986).

Stack depicted the crimefighting Eliot Ness in the television drama The Untouchables from 1959 to 1963. The show portrayed the ongoing battle between gangsters and federal agents in a Prohibition-era Chicago. His role on the show brought Stack a best actor Emmy Award in 1960. The Untouchables was one of the first "realistic" cop shows, much like Dragnet. Stack also starred in three other series, rotating the lead with Tony Franciosa and Gene Barry in the lavish The Name of the Game (1968-1971), Most Wanted, (1976) and Strike Force (1981).


Robert Stack as host of Unsolved Mysteries.He began hosting Unsolved Mysteries in 1988, where his serious, ominous voice and stoic facial expressions lent an authentic gravitas to the program's dark subject matter. Reportedly, he had an enormous interest in the unexplained?-psychic phenomena, ghosts and the like?-because he himself had had an unusual experience of this nature. However, he also said that he valued the storytellers above the stories themselves and did not necessarily believe every case of this nature that he presented. He thought very highly of the interactive nature of the show, saying that it created a "symbiotic" between viewer and program, and that the hotline was a great crime-solving tool.


Private life

Stack had undergone radiation therapy for prostate cancer in October 2002. He died of heart failure at his home in Los Angeles On May 14, 2003, aged 84. He was survived by his wife of 42 years, Rosemarie, and their two children, Elizabeth and Charles.

Stack is the great-uncle of actor Taran Killam.

He is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California.

Gwen Verdon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Gwyneth Evelyn Verdon (January 13, 1925 in Culver City, California - October 18, 2000 in Woodstock, Vermont) was an acclaimed Tony Award winning American dancer and actress. She was known professionally as Gwen Verdon.

She was the second child of Joseph William Verdon (December 31, 1896-June 23, 1978) and Gertrude Lilian Standring (October 24, 1896-October 16, 1956), who were British emigrants to the U.S. by way of Canada. Her brother was William Farrell Verdon (August 1, 1923-June 10, 1991).

They were also "show people." Her father, Joseph, was an electrician at MGM Studios, and Gertrude, her mother, was a former member of the Denishawn dance troupe, and a veteran of vaudeville.

As a child, Gwen was afflicted with rickets, which left her legs so badly bent and misshapen she was called "Gimpy" by other children and spent her early years in orthopedic boots and stiff leg braces. Gertrude Verdon placed Gwen in dance classes at the age of three and ballet began strengthening her legs and improving her carriage. Little did Gwen or her mother know she would one day become a famous Broadway star.

By the age of six, feisty redheaded Gwen was performing on stage as a tap dancer. She went on to study multiple dance forms, from tap, jazz, ballroom and flamenco, to Balinese and juggling.

At age eleven, she appeared in the musical/romance film The King Steps Out (1936), which was directed by Josef von Sternberg and starred Grace Moore and Franchot Tone. Gwen was a solo ballerina.

She attended Hamilton High School in Los Angeles and also studied under the renowned ballet master, Ernest Belcher. While in high school, she was cast in a revival of Show Boat.

Verdon then shocked her parents and instructors when she abandoned her budding career to elope with her first husband at the age of 17 in 1942. In 1945, she appeared as a dancer in the movie musical The Blonde From Brooklyn. After her divorce, she entrusted her young son, Jimmy, to the care of her parents.

Her quest for work led to a job as assistant to choreographer Jack Cole, whose work was respected by both Broadway and top Hollywood movie studios. During her five-year employment with Cole, she took small roles in movie musicals as a "specialty dancer." She also gave dance instruction, with trainees including such big name stars as Jane Russell, Gene Kelly, Fernando Lamas, Lana Turner, Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe.

Verdon started out on Broadway as a "gypsy," going from one chorus line to another. Her breakthrough role came when she was cast by choreographer Michael Kidd as the second female lead in Cole Porter's musical Can-Can (1953), which starred French prima donna Lilo.

Out-of-town reviewers hailed Verdon's interpretation of Eve in the Garden of Eden ballet and said it outshone the show's star. Lilo was displeased with all the attention Verdon received and demanded her role be cut to only two featured dance numbers.

With her role reduced to barely more than an ensemble part, Verdon threatened to walk out of Can-Can, formally announcing her intention to leave by the time the show premiered on Broadway. But on opening night her Garden of Eden number stopped the show. The audience thundered her name until the startled actress was brought out of her dressing room in her bathrobe to take a curtain call. Verdon received a pay raise and her first Tony Award for her triumphant performance.

With flaming red hair and a sassy, ill-mannered attitude, Verdon was considered the best dancer on Broadway in the 1950s and 1960s. She would forever be identified with her role as the vampish "Lola" in Bob Fosse's Damn Yankees (1955), which is based on the novel The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant. Verdon played the Devil's disciple who entices a baseball aficionado to sell his soul to play for the Washington Senators. The musical ran for 1,019 performances. She won another Tony and went to Hollywood to repeat her role in the movie version, Damn Yankees (1958).

She received a total of four Tonys; for Can-Can (1953), Damn Yankees (1955), New Girl in Town (1957) and Redhead (1959), a murder-mystery musical. She also won a Grammy Award for the cast recording of Redhead.

Verdon had two husbands, tabloid reporter James Henaghan (married 1942-divorced 1947) and Bob Fosse (married 1960-his death 1987).

She and Henaghan had one son, Jim Henaghan (born 1943); she and Fosse had a daughter, Nicole Fosse (born 1963).

After the birth of her daughter, Verdon took time off. In 1966, she returned to the stage in the role of Charity in Sweet Charity, which like many of her earlier Broadway triumphs was choreographed by her longtime husband, Bob Fosse. The show became a Broadway cult classic and was followed by a movie version starring Shirley MacLaine, Ricardo Montalban, Sammy Davis Jr., and Chita Rivera. Verdon helped choreograph the numbers, which included the legendary "Big Spender", the fast-paced "Rhythm of Life" and the show-stopping "If My Friends Could See Me Now".

In 1971, Verdon filed a legal separation from Fosse because of his open extramarital affairs but they never divorced. They remained close friends and were collaborators and co-workers on projects like Chicago (1975), her last major Broadway role in which she played murderess Roxie Hart, and the musical Dancin' (1978), as well as his autobiographical movie, All That Jazz (1979). She developed a close working relationship with Fosse's domestic companion, actress Ann Reinking, and even instructed for Reinking's musical theatre classes.

After playing "Roxie Hart" in Chicago, Verdon concentrated on straight acting. She played character parts in such movies as The Cotton Club (1984), Cocoon (1985) and Cocoon: The Return (1988).

Verdon was accompanying Fosse to the 1987 revival of Sweet Charity starring Debbie Allen in Washington and held him in her arms when he suffered a fatal heart attack on the walk outside the theatre.

She continued to instruct dance and musical theatre and to act, including receiving three Emmy Award nominations for appearances on Magnum PI (1988), Dream On (1993) and Homicide (1993). Verdon appeared as the mother of "Alice" in the Woody Allen movie Alice (1990) and as "Ruth" in Marvin's Room (1996), which co-starred Meryl Streep and Hume Cronyn.

In 1999, Verdon served as artistic advisor and consultant on the stage biography of her late husband's life in theatre, the current stage musical Fosse, and her daughter, Nicole, was credited with "special thanks." The show received the Tony for best musical. Verdon also played Alora in the movie Walking Across Egypt (1999) and appeared in the movie Bruno, which was released in 2000.

Gwen Verdon died quietly in her sleep of natural causes at the home of her daughter, Nicole Fosse, in Woodstock, Vermont, at the age of 75.

At 8:00 p.m. on the night she died, for the first time in a long time, all the marquee lights on Broadway were dimmed in tribute to one of its greatest and brightest stars.

Patrick Dempsey
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Born January 13, 1966 (age 40)
Lewiston, Maine

Patrick Dempsey (born January 13, 1966) is an American actor. He first became prominent in Hollywood during the late 1980s and is also known for his role as neurosurgeon Dr. Derek Shepherd on the medical drama Grey's Anatomy. During the 2000s, he also appeared in several film roles, including The Emperor's Club and Freedom Writers.





Biography

Early life

Dempsey, an Irish American,[1] was born in Lewiston, Maine and grew up in Turner, Maine, the youngest of three children born to Amanda and William Dempsey. Dempsey attended St. Dominic Regional High School, where his mother worked as a secretary, but dropped out before he graduated. He was an adept juggler, tying for second in a national juggling competition.[citation needed]


Career

Dempsey was discovered by an agent and invited to audition for a role in the stage production of Torch Song Trilogy. Dempsey's audition was successful, and he spent the following four months touring with the company in San Francisco. He followed this with another tour, Brighton Beach Memoirs, in the lead role, which was directed by Gene Saks. Dempsey has also made notable appearances in the stage productions of On Golden Pond, with the Maine Acting Company, and The Subject was Roses, which showed at the Roundabout Theatre in New York.

Dempsey's first major feature film role was at age 21 in the teen comedy Can't Buy Me Love in 1987 with actress Amanda Peterson. In 1989, he had the lead role in the film Loverboy with actress Kirstie Alley and Happy Together with actress Helen Slater. Although the teen comedy and romance roles led to Dempsey being somewhat typecast for a time, he continued to be featured in film and television roles throughout the 1990s. Dempsey made a number of featured appearances in television in the 1990s; he was cast several times in pilots that were not picked up for a full season, including lead roles in the TV versions of the films The Player and About A Boy. His first major television role was a recurring role as Will's closeted sportscaster boyfriend on Will & Grace. He went on to play the role of Aaron Brooks, Sela Ward's psychologically unbalanced brother, on Once & Again. Dempsey received an Emmy nomination in 2001 as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for the role of Aaron. In 2004 he co-starred in the highly acclaimed HBO production, Iron Jawed Angels, opposite Hilary Swank and Anjelica Huston.

Dempsey had a high-profile role as one of the suitors for Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama. Dempsey's most recent roles include the 2007 Disney film Enchanted, and the Paramount Pictures film Freedom Writers where he reunites with his Iron Jawed Angels co-star Hilary Swank. He is also lending his voice for the main character in Brother Bear 2. Dempsey has received significant public attention for his role as Dr. Derek Shepherd in the drama Grey's Anatomy. Prior to landing the role of Derek Shepherd, Dempsey auditioned for the role of Dr. Robert Chase on another medical show, House. Initially a midseason replacement, the show has become a highly rated program. Media attention has been focused on Dempsey's character Derek, often referred to as "McDreamy", and the character's romance with intern Meredith Grey (played by Ellen Pompeo).

The intense media attention appears to have led to some backstage friction. News reports surfaced in October 2006 that Dempsey was involved in an argument with co-star Isaiah Washington that appears to have become a physical altercation. News reports have also stated that this argument may have been initiated over an anti-gay slur directed at T.R. Knight by Washington.[2]


Personal life

Dempsey has been married twice. From 1987 to 1994, he was married to actress Rocky Parker. When the couple married, much was made in the media of the age difference between the two (and its parallels to Dempsey's film "Loverboy"); at the time, Dempsey was 21 years old, while Parker was 48. Because of the age difference in his first marriage, his stepson Corey Parker was actually one year his senior. The two remain friends.

Dempsey remarried on July 31, 1999; his second wife is noted make-up artist and founder of Delux Beauty, Jillian Fink Dempsey. The couple has one child, a daughter named Tallulah Fyfe, born in January 2002. In September 2006, it was announced that Jillian is pregnant and is due to give birth in late January/early February 2007. When Dempsey appeared on the show Live With Regis and Kelly on September 19, 2006, he revealed that he and his wife are having twin boys.

Dempsey enjoys racecar driving in his spare time. On June 27, 2004, he participated in race #2 of the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, driving a Panoz GTS race car. In 2007 he will race in the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Orlando Bloom
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Birth name Orlando Jonathan Blanchard Bloom
Born January 13, 1977 (age 30)
Canterbury, Kent, England


Orlando Jonathan Blanchard Bloom[1] (born January 13, 1977) is an English actor. He had his break-through role in the early 2000s as the elf-prince Legolas Greenleaf in The Lord of the Rings and blacksmith Will Turner in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy of films, and subsequently established himself as a lead in Hollywood films, including Troy, Elizabethtown, and Kingdom of Heaven. Bloom's most recent releases are the sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Haven.




Biography

Bloom was born in Canterbury, Kent. His mother, Sonia Constance Josephine Copeland, was born in Calcutta, India, the daughter of Betty Constance Josephine Walker and Francis John Copeland, a physician and surgeon;[1] . Bloom's maternal grandmother's family has lived in Tasmania, Australia and India, and are of English descent, some of them having originally come from Kent.[1] Bloom had thought that his father was South African-born Jewish lawyer Harry Saul Bloom, but during his younger years and after Harry's death, Bloom's mother revealed to him that his biological father was actually Colin Stone, a family friend. Bloom, who is named after the 17th century composer Orlando Gibbons,[1] has one sister, Samantha Bloom, who was born in 1975.

Bloom managed to struggle through St Edmund's School in Canterbury despite his dyslexia.[2] In 1993, he moved to London and joined the National Youth Theatre, spending two seasons there and earning a scholarship to train at the British American Drama Academy.

Bloom began acting professionally with a television role in an episode of Casualty, and subsequently made his film debut in Wilde (1997), opposite Stephen Fry, before entering the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he studied acting, sculpture and photography. In 1998, he broke his back in a three story fall, and it was briefly feared that he would not regain the ability to walk. However, he made a complete recovery and was able to walk out of the hospital on crutches within twelve days. Bloom had steel plates inserted into his backbone to support it, which have since been removed, except for a single screw. He regularly practices yoga and Pilates to strengthen his back.


Career

His first appearance on the screen was a small role as a rent boy in the 1997 film Wilde. Shortly after graduating in 1999, Bloom was cast in his first major role, playing Legolas Greenleaf in The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003). He had originally tried out for the part of Faramir, who doesn't appear until the 2nd movie. The director, Peter Jackson, said he tried to pick the most perfect beings to be the elves. While shooting a scene, he broke a rib after falling off a horse, but fully recovered and continued shooting. The success of the trilogy transformed Bloom from an unknown actor into one of world's best-known celebrities. In 2002, he was chosen as one of the Teen People "25 Hottest Stars Under 25" and was named People's hottest Hollywood bachelor in the magazine's 2004 list.

All members of the cast of the Rings movies were nominated for Best Ensemble Acting at the Screen Actors Guild Awards for three years in a row, finally winning in 2003 for the third film, The Return of the King. Bloom has also won other awards, including European Film Awards, Hollywood Festival Award, Empire Awards and Teen Choice Awards, and has been nominated for many others.

Bloom next starred opposite Keira Knightley and Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which was a blockbuster hit during the summer of 2003. He subsequently played the lead roles in Kingdom of Heaven (gaining 15 to 20 lb of muscle by eating six times a day and lifting weights during filming) and Elizabethtown (both 2005). Both films were box office failures in the United States, although Kingdom of Heaven performed better internationally and Elizabethtown was critically acclaimed.

Bloom later starred in sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which was released on July 7, 2006, and the independently made Haven, which received a limited release in the U.S. on September 15, 2006. He is currently filming the third of the series, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which is to be released on May 25, 2007. Bloom was set to subsequently appear in the Great Depression-themed independent film drama, Seasons of Dust, which would have starred Kate Bosworth, due to their break-up however, the film was put on hold. After Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest earned over 1 billion dollars at the box office, Bloom became only the second actor after Bernard Hill to have 2 movies to gross over 1 billion dollars worldwide (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King).

Bloom, who had intended to become a stage actor after graduating from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, has stated that he would like to appear in stage roles, and is "avidly looking for the right sort of material that [he] can do something with".[3]


Personal Life

Orlando is a Manchester United fan and lives in London. During filming in Morocco for Kingdom of Heaven, Bloom rescued and adopted a dog, Sidi (a black Saluki mix with a white mark on his chest).

Bloom met American actress Kate Bosworth outside a coffee shop in 2002, where he was introduced to her by a mutual friend, soon after he met her again at the premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers later in that year. The two actors dated from 2002 until splitting up temporarily in 2005.[4] However, on September 6, 2006, sources reported that the couple had separated again.[5]

In 2004, he became a full member of Soka Gakkai International, a lay Buddhist association affiliated with the teachings of Nichiren. [6] [7]

He has on his right wrist a tattoo of the Elvish word for "nine", a reference to his involvement in the Lord of the Rings and the fact that his character was one of the nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring. The other actors of "The Fellowship" (Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Billy Boyd, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, and Elijah Wood) got the same tattoo with the exception of John Rhys-Davies who sent his stunt double to get the tattoo. He covers the tattoo up with armbands or sleeves in other films, however it is possible to catch a glimpse of it during Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. He also has a tattoo of a sun-like image to the bottom-left of his navel.