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George Byron, 6th Baron Byron
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Born: 22 January 1788
London, England
Died: 19 April 1824
Missolonghi, Greece


George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 - 19 April 1824) was a British poet and a leading figure in Romanticism. Among Lord Byron's best-known works are the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan. The latter remained incomplete on his death. He was regarded as one of the greatest European poets and remains widely read.

Lord Byron's fame rests not only in his writings but also in his life, which featured extravagant living, numerous love affairs, debts, separation, and allegations of incest and sodomy. He was famously described by Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know". Byron served as a regional leader of Italy's revolutionary organization the Carbonari in its struggle against Austria, and later travelled to fight against the Turks in the Greek War of Independence, for which the Greeks consider him a national hero. He died from fever in Missolonghi.

His daughter Ada Lovelace, notable in her own right, collaborated with Charles Babbage on the analytical engine, a predecessor to modern computers.



Name

Byron had two last names (in addition to his title) but only one at any given time. He was born George Gordon Byron; at age 10, he inherited the family title, becoming George Gordon (Byron), Baron Byron. When his mother-in-law died, her will required that he change his surname to Noel in order to inherit half her estate. (It would have been more usual to hyphenate to Byron-Noel, as his grandsons changed from King to King-Noel, but his in-laws had come to hate the name of Byron.) He was thereafter George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron. He then signed himself "Noel Byron", boasting of having the same initials as Napoleon Bonaparte. Gordon was a baptismal name, not a surname (his mother had been a Gordon); Wentworth was Lady Byron's eventual title, not a surname (the Noels had inherited it from the Wentworths in 1745).


Early life

Byron was born in London, the son of Captain John "Mad Jack" Byron and his second wife, the former Catherine Gordon, heiress of Gight in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. His paternal grandfather was Vice-Admiral John "Foulweather Jack" Byron, who had circumnavigated the globe, who was the younger brother of the 5th Baron Byron, known as "the Wicked Lord". He is one of the descendents of King Edward III of England. [2]

From birth, Byron suffered from a malformation of the right foot (club foot), causing a slight lameness, which resulted in lifelong misery for him, aggravated by the suspicion that with proper care it might have been cured. He was christened George Gordon after his maternal grandfather, George Gordon of Gight, a descendant of King James I. This grandfather committed suicide in 1779. Byron's mother Catherine had to sell her land and title to pay her father's debts. John Byron may have married Catherine for her money and, after squandering it, deserted her. Byron's parents separated before his birth. Catherine moved back to Scotland shortly afterwards, where she raised her son in Aberdeen until 21 May 1798, when the death of his great-uncle made him the 6th Baron Byron, inheriting Newstead Abbey, rented to Lord Grey de Ruthyn during Byron's adolescence.

He received his formal education at Aberdeen Grammar School. In 1801 he was sent to Harrow, where he remained until 1805, when he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge. Whilst not at school or college, he lived, in some antagonism, with his mother at Burbage Manor in Southwell, Nottinghamshire. Whilst there, he cultivated several important early friendships, such as the platonic relationship with Elizabeth Pigot and her brother, John, with whom he staged two plays for the delight of the community. During this time, with the help of Elizabeth Pigot, who copied out many of his rough drafts, he was encouraged to write his first volumes of poetry. "Fugitive Pieces" was the first, printed by Ridge of Newark, which contained poems written going back to when Byron was only fourteen. However, it was promptly recalled and burned on the advice of his friend, the Reverend Thomas Becher, on account of its more amorous verses, particularly the poem "To Mary". "Pieces on Various Occasions", a "miraculously chaste" revision according to Byron, was published after this. "Hours of Idleness", which collected many of the previous poems, along with more recent compositions, was the culminating book. The savage criticism this received at the hands of Henry P. Brougham of "The Edinburgh Review" prompted his first major satire, "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers". Whilst at Trinity, he met and shortly fell deeply in love with a fifteen year old choirboy by the name of John Edleston. About his "protégé" he wrote, "He has been my almost constant associate since October, 1805, when I entered Trinity College. His voice first attracted my attention, his countenance fixed it, and his manners attached me to him for ever." Later, upon learning of his friend's death, he wrote, "I have heard of a death the other day that shocked me more than any, of one whom I loved more than any, of one whom I loved more than I ever loved a living thing, and one who, I believe, loved me to the last." In his memory Byron composed Thyrza, a series of elegies, in which he changed the pronouns from masculine to feminine so as not to offend sensibilities.


Travels to the East

From 1809 to 1811, Byron went on the Grand Tour then customary for a young nobleman. The Napoleonic Wars forced him to avoid most of Europe, and he instead turned to the Orient, which had fascinated him from a young age anyway. Correspondence among his circle of Cambridge friends also makes clear that a key motive was the hope of homosexual experience. He travelled from England over Spain to Albania and spent a lot of time there and in Athens. While in Athens he had a torrid love affair with Nicolò Giraud, a boy of fifteen or sixteen who taught him Italian. In gratitude for the boy's love Byron sent him to school at a monastery in Malta and bequeathed him seven thousand pounds sterling - almost double what he was later to spend refitting the Greek fleet. For most of the trip, he had a travelling companion in his friend John Cam Hobhouse. On this tour, the first two cantos of his epic poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage were written, though some of the more risqué passages, such as those touching on pederasty, were suppressed before publication.[1]


Beginning of poetic career

As previously mentioned, some early verses which he had published in 1806 were suppressed. He followed those in 1807 with Hours of Idleness, which the Edinburgh Review, a Whig periodical, savagely attacked. In reply, Byron sent forth English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), which created considerable stir and shortly went through five editions. While some authors resented being satirized in its first edition, over time in subsequent editions it became a mark of prestige to be the target of Byron's pen.

After his return from his travels, the first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage were published in 1812, and were received with acclamation. In his own words, "I awoke one morning and found myself famous." He followed up his success with the poem's last two cantos, as well as four equally celebrated Oriental Tales, The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair, and Lara, which established the Byronic hero. About the same time began his intimacy with his future biographer, Thomas Moore.


Political career

Byron eventually took his seat at the House of Lords in 1811, shortly after his return from the Levant, and made his first speech there on 27 February 1812. A strong advocate of social reform, he received particular praise as one of the few Parliamentary defenders of the Luddites. He also spoke in defence of the rights of Roman Catholics. These experiences inspired Byron to write political poems such as "Song for the Luddites" (1816) and "The Landlords' Interest" (1823). Examples of poems where he attacked his political opponents include "Wellington: The Best of the Cut-Throats" (1819) and "The Intellectual Eunuch Castlereagh" (1818).


Affairs and scandals

Lord Byron cut a sexual swathe that still astonishes by its sheer brazenness and multiplicity - he once bragged that he had sex with 250 women in Venice over the course of a single year. He was all-inclusive - boys, siblings, women of all classes. Ultimately he was to live abroad to escape the censure of British society, where men could be forgiven for sexual misbehaviour only up to a point, one which Byron far surpassed.

In an early scandal, Byron embarked in 1812 on a well-publicised affair with Lady Caroline Lamb. Byron eventually broke off the relationship, and Lamb never entirely recovered.

As a child, Byron had seen little of his half-sister Augusta Leigh; in adulthood, he formed a close relationship with her that has widely been interpreted as incestuous. Augusta had been separated from her husband since 1811 when she gave birth on 15 April 1814 to a daughter, Elizabeth Medora Leigh. The extent of Byron's joy over the birth has been construed as evidence that he was Medora's father, a theory reinforced by the many passionate poems he wrote to Augusta.

Eventually Byron began to court Lady Caroline's cousin Anne Isabella Milbanke ("Annabella"), who refused his first proposal of marriage but later relented. They married at Seaham Hall, County Durham, on 2 January 1815. The marriage proved unhappy. He treated her poorly and showed disappointment at the birth of a daughter (Augusta Ada), rather than a son. On 16 January 1816, Lady Byron left him, taking Ada with her. On 21 April, Byron signed the Deed of Separation. Rumours of marital violence, adultery with actresses, incest with Augusta, and sodomy were circulated, assisted by a jealous Lady Caroline. In a letter, Augusta quoted him as saying: "Even to have such a thing said is utter destruction & ruin to a man from which he can never recover."

After this break-up of his domestic life, Byron again left England, as it turned out, forever. Byron passed through Belgium and up the Rhine; in the summer of 1816 Lord Byron and his personal physician, John William Polidori settled in Switzerland, at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva. There he became friends with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Shelley's wife-to-be Mary Godwin. He was also joined by Mary's step-sister, Claire Clairmont, with whom he had had an affair in London. Byron initially refused to have anything to do with Claire, and would only agree to remain in her presence with the Shelleys, who eventually persuaded Byron to accept and provide for Allegra, the child she bore him in January 1817.

At the Villa Diodati, kept indoors by the "incessant rain" of that "wet, ungenial summer", over three days in June the five turned to reading fantastical stories, including "Fantasmagoriana" (in the French edition), and then devising their own tales. Mary Shelley produced what would become Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus and Polidori was inspired by a fragmentary story of Byron's to produce The Vampyre, the progenitor of the romantic vampire genre. Byron's story fragment was published as a postscript to Mazeppa; he also wrote the third canto of Childe Harold. Byron wintered in Venice, but in 1817 he journeyed to Rome, whence returning to Venice he wrote the fourth canto of Childe Harold. About the same time he sold Newstead and published Manfred, Cain, and The Deformed Transformed. The first five cantos of Don Juan were written between 1818 and 1820, during which period he made the acquaintance of the Countess Guiccioli, who soon separated from her husband. It was about this time that he received a visit from Moore, to whom he confided his autobiography, which Moore, in the exercise of the discretion left to him, burned in 1824.



Byron in Italy and Greece

In 1821-22 he finished cantos 6-12 of Don Juan at Pisa, and in the same year he joined with Leigh Hunt and Percy Bysshe Shelley in starting a short-lived newspaper, The Liberal, in the first number of which appeared The Vision of Judgment. His last Italian home was Genoa, where he was still accompanied by the Countess, and where he lived until 1823, when he offered himself as an ally to the Greek insurgents. By 1823 Byron had grown bored with his life in Genoa and with his mistress, the Contessa Guiccioli. When the representatives of the movement for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire contacted him to ask for his support, he accepted. On 16 July, Byron left Genoa on the Hercules, arriving at Kefalonia in the Ionian Islands on 4 August. He spent £4000 of his own money to refit the Greek fleet, then sailed for Messolonghi in western Greece, arriving on 29 December to join Alexandros Mavrokordatos, leader of the Greek rebel forces.

Mavrokordatos and Byron planned to attack the Turkish-held fortress of Lepanto, at the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth. Byron employed a fire-master to prepare artillery and took part of the rebel army under his own command and pay, despite his lack of military experience, but before the expedition could sail, on 15 February 1824, he fell ill, and the usual remedy of bleeding weakened him further. He made a partial recovery, but in early April he caught a violent cold which the bleeding ?- insisted on by his doctors ?- aggravated. The cold became a violent fever, and he died on 19 April.


Post mortem

The Greeks mourned Lord Byron deeply, and he became a national hero. Βύρων (Viron), the Greek form of "Byron", continues in popularity as a masculine name in Greece, and a suburb of Athens is called Vironas in his honour. His body was embalmed and his heart buried under a tree in Messolonghi. His remains were sent to England for burial in Westminster Abbey, but the Abbey refused. He is buried at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Hucknall, Nottingham. At her request, Ada, the child he never knew, was buried next to him. In later years, the Abbey allowed a duplicate of a marble slab given by the King of Greece, which is laid directly above Byron's grave. In 1969, 145 years after Byron's death, a memorial to him was finally placed in Westminster Abbey.

Upon his death, the barony passed to a cousin, George Anson Byron (1789-1868), a career military officer and Byron's polar opposite in temperament and lifestyle.


Poetic works

Byron wrote prolifically.[3] In 1833 his publisher, John Murray, released the complete works in 17 octavo volumes, including a life by Thomas Moore. His magnum opus, Don Juan, a poem spanning 17 cantos, ranks as one of the most important long poems published in England since Milton's Paradise Lost. Don Juan, Byron's masterpiece, often called the epic of its time, has roots deep in literary tradition and, although regarded by early Victorians as somewhat shocking, equally involves itself with its own contemporary world at all levels - social, political, literary and ideological.


The Byronic hero pervades much of Byron's work. Scholars have traced the literary history of the Byronic hero from Milton, and many authors and artists of the Romantic movement show Byron's influence -- during the 19th century and beyond. The Byronic hero presents an idealised but flawed character whose attributes include:

having great talent
exhibiting great passion
having a distaste for society and social institutions
expressing a lack of respect for rank and privilege
thwarted in love by social constraint or death
rebelling
suffering exile
hiding an unsavoury past
ultimately, acting in a self-destructive manner

Character

Lord Byron, by all accounts, had a particularly magnetic personality - one may say astonishingly so. He obtained a reputation as being unconventional, eccentric, flamboyant and controversial. He was given to extremes of temper. Byron had a great fondness for animals, most famously for a Newfoundland dog named Boatswain; when Boatswain contracted rabies, Byron reportedly nursed him without any fear of becoming bitten and infected. Boatswain lies buried at Newstead Abbey and has a monument larger than his master's. The inscription, Byron's "Epitaph to a dog", has become one of his best-known works, reading in part:

Near this Spot
are deposited the Remains of one
who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferosity,
and all the Virtues of Man without his Vices.
This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
if inscribed over human Ashes,
is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a DOG,
who was born in Newfoundland May 1803,
and died at Newstead Nov.r 18th, 1808.[4]
Byron also kept a bear while he was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge (reputedly out of resentment of Trinity rules forbidding pet dogs - he later suggested that the bear apply for a college fellowship). At other times in his life, Byron kept a fox, monkeys, a parrot, cats, an eagle, a crow, a crocodile, a falcon, peacocks, guinea hens, an Egyptian crane, a badger, geese, and a heron.


Lasting influence

The re-founding of the Byron Society [5] in 1971 reflects the fascination that many people have for Byron and his work. This society has become very active, publishing a learned annual journal. Today some 36 International Byron Societies function throughout the world, and an International Conference takes place annually. Hardly a year passes without a new book about the poet appearing. In the last 20 years two new feature films about him have screened, and a television play has been broadcast.

Byron exercised a marked influence on Continental literature and art, and his reputation as poet is higher in many European countries than in Britain or America, although not as high as in his time.

A complete picture of Byron's character has only been possible in recent years with the freeing up of the archive of Murray, Byron's original publishers, who had formerly withheld compromising letters and instructed at least one major biographer (Leslie Marchard) to censor details of his bisexuality. (The Guardian, November 9, 2002)


Fictional Depictions

Byron is an immortal still alive in modern times in the hit television show Highlander: The Series in the 5th season episode The Modern Prometheus, living as a decadent rock star.

John Crowley's novel Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land (2005) involves the rediscovery of a lost manuscript by Lord Byron, as does Frederick Prokosch's The Missolonghi Manuscript (1968).

Byron appears as a character in Tim Powers' The Stress of Her Regard (1989) and Walter Jon Williams' novella Wall, Stone Craft (1994), as also in Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004).

The Black Drama by Manly Wade Wellman (Weird Tales, 1938; Fearful Rock and Other Precarious Locales, 2001) involves the rediscovery and production of a lost play by Byron (from which Polidori's The Vampyre was plagiarised) by a man who purports to be a descendant of the poet.

In the 1995 novel Lord Of The Dead, Tom Holland romantically describes how Lord Byron became a vampire during his first visit to Greece - a fictional transformation that explains a lot of his subsequent behaviour towards family and friends, and finds support in quotes from Byron poems and the diaries of John Cam Hobhouse. The Byron as vampire character returns in the sequel Slave of My Thirst...

Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia revolves around a modern researcher's attempts to find out what made Byron leave the country.

Symphonic metal band Bal-Sagoth's vocalist Byron Roberts goes by the moniker Lord Byron. Whether this has relation to Lord Byron himself is unknown, but given Bal-Sagoth's lyrical style, Roberts was probably aware of Lord Byron, and took his moniker from there.

Heavy Metal band Cradle of Filth have a song on their album Thornography entitled "The Byronic Man", which is based on the life of Lord Byron.

The character of Brian Kinney, in Queer as Folk, is certainly of Byronic extraction.

Television portrayals include a major 2003 BBC drama on Byron's life, and minor appearances in Highlander: The Series (as well as the Shelleys), Blackadder Series III and The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy.

He makes an appearance in the alternative history novel The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. In a Britain powered by the massive, steam-driven, mechanical computers invented by Charles Babbage, he is leader of the 'Industrial Radical party', eventually becoming Prime Minister.

The events featuring the Shelley's and Lord Byron's relationship at the house beside Lake Geneva in 1816 have been fictionalized in film, twice.
(1) A 1986 British production, Gothic, directed by Ken Russell, and starring Gabriel Byrne as Byron.
(2) A 1988 Spanish production, Rowing with the Wind (Remando al viento), starring Hugh Grant as Byron.

In the 2006 book The History of Lucy's Love Life in 10 ½ Chapters by Deborah Wright, the main character, Lucy, has an obsession with Byron. She eventually meets her hero - portrayed as a cruel but attractive man - when she takes a time machine from her boss.

D. W. Griffith
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


David Llewelyn Wark Griffith, commonly known as D. W. Griffith (January 22, 1875-July 23, 1948) was an American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial film The Birth of a Nation (1915).



Early life

Griffith was born in La Grange, Kentucky. His father was Jacob "Roaring Jake" Griffith, a Confederate Army colonel and Civil War hero. He began his career as a hopeful playwright but met with little success. He then became an actor. Finding his way into the motion picture business, he soon began to direct a huge body of work.


Film career

Between 1908 and 1913 (the years he directed for the Biograph Company), Griffith produced 450 short films, an enormous number even for this period. This work enabled him to experiment with cross-cutting, camera movement, close-ups, and other methods of spatial and temporal manipulation.

On Griffith's first trip to California, he and his company discovered a little village to film their movies in. This place was known as Hollywood. With this, Biograph was the first company to shoot a movie in Hollywood: In Old California (1910).

Influenced by a European feature film Cabiria from Italy, Griffith was convinced that feature films could be financially viable. He produced and directed the Biograph feature film Judith of Bethulia, one of the earliest feature films to be produced in the United States. However, Biograph believed that longer features were not viable. According to actress Lillian Gish, "[Biograph] thought that a movie that long would hurt [the audience's] eyes". Because of this, and the film's budget overrun (it cost US$30,000 dollars to produce), Griffith left Biograph and took his whole stock company of actors with him. His new production company became an autonomous production unit partner in Triangle Pictures Corporation with Keystone Studios and Thomas Ince. Through David W. Griffith Corp. he produced The Clansman (1915), which would later be known as The Birth of a Nation.


The Birth of a Nation is considered important by film historians as the first feature length American film (previously films had been less than one hour long). It was enormously popular, breaking box office records, but aroused controversy in the way it expressed the racist views held by many in the era (it depicts Southern pre-Civil War black slavery as benign, and the Ku Klux Klan as a band of heroes restoring order to a post-Reconstruction black-ruled South). Although these were the standard opinions of the majority of American historians of the day (and indeed, long afterwards, E.M. Coulter's The South During Reconstruction, published in 1947, would repeat many of these views), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People campaigned against the film, but were unsuccessful in suppressing it. It would go on to become the most successful box office attraction of its time. "They lost track of the money it made," Lillian Gish once remarked in a Kevin Brownlow interview. Among the people who profited by the film was Louis B. Mayer, who bought the rights to distribute The Birth of a Nation in New England. With the money he made, he was able to begin his career as a producer that culminated in the creation of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. Margaret Mitchell, who wrote Gone with the Wind, was also inspired by Griffith's Civil War epic.

The production partnership was dissolved in 1917, so Griffith went to Artcraft (part of Paramount), then to First National (1919-1920). At the same time he founded United Artists, together with Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks.

Though United Artists survived as a company, Griffith's association with it was short-lived, and while some of his later films did well at the box office, commercial success often eluded him. Features from this period include Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), Orphans of the Storm (1921) and America (1924). Griffith made only two sound films, Abraham Lincoln (1930) and The Struggle (1931). Neither was successful, and he never made another film. For the last seventeen years of his life he lived as a virtual hermit in Los Angeles. He died in 1948 on his way to a Hollywood hospital from the Knickerbocker Hotel where he had been living alone.


Achievements

Griffith has been called the father of film grammar. Few scholars still hold that his "innovations" really began with him, but Griffith was a key figure in establishing the set of codes that have become the universal backbone of film language. He was particularly influential in popularizing "cross-cutting"?-using film editing to alternate between different events occurring at the same time?-in order to build suspense. That being said, he still used many elements from the "primitive" style of movie-making that predated classical Hollywood's continuity system, such as frontal staging, exaggerated gestures, minimal camera movement, and an absence of point of view shots. Some claim, too, that he "invented" the close-up shot.

Credit for Griffith's cinematic innovations must be shared with his cameraman of many years, Billy Bitzer. In addition, he himself credited the legendary silent star Lillian Gish, who appeared in several of his films, with creating a new style of acting for the cinema.


Controversy


Griffith was a highly controversial figure. Immensely popular at the time of its release, his film The Birth of a Nation (1915), based on the novel and play The Clansman by Thomas W. Dixon, was a white supremacist interpretation of history, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People attempted to have it banned. After that effort failed, they then attempted to have some of the film's scenes that they disagreed with censored. The scenes in question depict white members of the Ku Klux Klan killing blacks to protect white women, which is portrayed as favorable toward the Ku Klux Klan members. Griffith did also say that he made the film with the intention to show how the Scalawags and Carpetbaggers began to rule as tyrants with President Lincoln out of the picture. Griffith did also try to denounce prejudice in his next film Intolerance by showing how slavery was wrong because the Babylonians tried to make some slaves out of their people who didn't believe in some of the main traditional gods. According to Lillian Gish in her autobiography, The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me, Griffith towards the end of his life expressed an interest in making a film that would be a tribute to African-Americans, but he never got the chance to make that film.


Legacy

Motion picture legend Charles Chaplin called Griffith "The Teacher Of Us All". This sentiment was widely shared. Filmmakers as diverse as John Ford and Orson Welles have spoken of their respect for the director of Intolerance. Whether or not he actually invented new techniques in film grammar, he seems to have been among the first to understand how these techniques could be used to create an expressive language. In early shorts such as Biograph's The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) which was the first "Gangster film", we can see how Griffith's attention to camera placement and lighting heighten mood and tension. In making Intolerance the director opened up new possibilities for the medium, creating a form that seems to owe more to music than to traditional narrative.

Griffith was honored on a 10-cent postage stamp by the United States issued May 5, 1975.

In 1953, the Directors Guild of America instituted the D.W. Griffith Award, its Guild's highest honor. Its recipients included Stanley Kubrick, David Lean, John Huston, Woody Allen, Akira Kurosawa, John Ford, Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock and Griffith's friend Cecil B. DeMille. On 15 December 1999, however, DGA President Jack Shea and the DGA National Board?-without membership consultation (though unnecessary according to DGA's regulations)?-announced that the award would be renamed the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award because Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation had "helped foster intolerable racial stereotypes". The following living recipients of the award agreed with the guild's decision: Francis Ford Coppola and Sidney Lumet.

Conrad Veidt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Conrad Veidt (January 22, 1893 - April 3, 1943) was a German actor, well known for his roles in such films as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Casablanca (1942).

He was born Hans Walter Conrad Weidt in Potsdam, Germany. In the 27 years between 1916 and his death, he managed to act in well over 100 movies, some of them classics. His starring role in The Man Who Laughs (1928) was the inspiration for Batman's greatest enemy, The Joker. Veidt appeared in Magnus Hirschfeld's pioneering homosexual-rights film Anders als die Andern ("Different from the Others", 1919) and in Das Land ohne Frauen (1929), Germany's first talking picture.

Veidt was known to have anti-Nazi beliefs, and he emigrated from Germany in 1933. Married twice before, he married a Jewish woman, Illona Prager, and a week afterward departed Germany forever. Settling in Britain he continued making films, notably three with director Michael Powell: The Spy in Black (1939), Contraband (1940) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940). Perhaps most tellingly, he also made the movie Jew Suss which was a satire of Nazi anti-Semitism. Although it was not a success with audiences, it did succeed in angering Josef Goebbels who banned all of Veidt's films from Germany.

He later moved to Hollywood, and starred in a few films, such as Nazi Agent - in which he had a dual role as a Nazi and as the Nazi's twin brother (better than it sounds). But he is most well known in this period for playing the Nazi Major Heinrich Strasser in Casablanca (1942). He died of a heart attack a year later, while playing golf in Los Angeles.

Ann Sothern
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Ann Sothern (January 22, 1909 - March 15, 2001) was an American film actress with a career spanning six decades.

Born Harriette Arlene Lake in Valley City, North Dakota, Sothern left home very young and began her film career as an extra in Broadway Nights (1927), aged 18. During 1929 and 1930, she appeared as a chorus girl in such films as The Show of Shows and Whoopee! (as one of the "Goldwyn Girls").

In 1934 she signed a contract with Columbia Pictures but after two years the studio released her from this contract, and she was signed by RKO Pictures in 1936. After a string of films that failed to attract an audience, Sothern left RKO and was signed to MGM, making her first film for them in 1939.

In a role originally intended for Jean Harlow, Sothern was cast in Maisie (1939) as brassy Brooklyn burlesque dancer Mary Anastasia O'Connor who also goes by the stage name Maisie Revere. In Mary C. McCall Jr.'s screenplay of Wilson Collison's novel, Maisie is stranded penniless in a small Wyoming town, takes a job as a ranch maid and becomes caught in a web of romantic entanglements. After years of trying, Sothern had her first real success, and a string of "Maisie" comedy sequels followed, beginning with Congo Maisie (1940) and continuing until Undercover Maisie (1947) in which Maisie infiltrates a gang of con men headed by a phony swami. Reviewing Swing Shift Maisie (1943), Time praised Sothern:

Swing Shift Maisie (MGM) is one of those B-budget marrow bones which are tossed to the simple appetites of the sticks, but which many a choosy cinemaddict prefers to the average A-budget epic. In part this is due to cinemactress Ann Sothern, one of the smartest comediennes in the business. In part it is due to a crisp script, which manages to lather up a good deal of apt comic comment on the lives and habits of U.S. defense workers. The film's central characters are Good Girl Maisie Revere (Miss Sothern in her sixth Maisie picture) and Bad Girl Iris (Jean Rogers). They are sidelighted by a cocky test pilot, for whom Maisie falls hard, and by a bolt & nut man?-the chinny type who assures every new girl in the plant that he knows all the angles. Maisie, an ex-showgirl, has an undulant walk that elicits wolf calls from welders' masks as she saunters about the plant. But Maisie is a model of kindliness, courage, efficiency. [1]

On November 24, 1941 Sothern appeared in the Lux Radio Theater adaptation of Maisie Was a Lady, and the popularity of the film series led to her own radio program, The Adventures of Maisie, broadcast on CBS from 1945 to 1947, on Mutual in 1952 and in syndication from 1949 to 1953.

When she appeared in A Letter to Three Wives (1949), the film earned her excellent reviews but did not stimulate her career. During the 1950s she made few movies and was often on television. She was the lead in the series Private Secretary from 1953 until 1957, and The Ann Sothern Show from 1958 until 1961. Both programs were successful and earned Sothern four Emmy Award nominations. Previously a stunning beauty, Southern had a bout of hepatitis which left her with a bloated, overweight appearance; so she preferred not to be seen. In 1965 she was heard as the voice of Mom in the series My Mother the Car, which co-starred Jerry Van Dyke. The series was unsuccessful and is often cited as one of the worst situation comedies ever produced, but it has gained a cult following over the years.

During this period, Sothern made occasional guest appearances on The Lucy Show with her old MGM cohort, Lucille Ball. In 1967 her old boss, Desi Arnaz, the first husband of Lucille Ball, approached her to co-star with Eve Arden as battling neighbors in The Mothers-In-Law but NBC felt that Sothern's style was too similar to Arden's. The very differently styled and younger Kaye Ballard got the part.

She resumed working sporadically on television until the mid 1980s, including a television remake of her earlier success A Letter to Three Wives. Her final film role was in The Whales of August in 1987.

Her role as the neighbor of elderly sisters, played by Lillian Gish and Bette Davis, brought Sothern her first and only Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination after 60 years in the business. However, she lost to Olympia Dukakis.

She was married to actor Robert Sterling from 1943 to 1949, and their daughter is actress Tisha Sterling. She retired from acting, and moved in 1984 to Ketchum, Idaho, where she died from heart failure at the age of 92. She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for motion pictures (1612 Vine Street) and television (1634 Vine Street).

Sam Cooke
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




Background information

Birth name Samuel L. Cook
Also known as Dale Cooke
Born January 22, 1931
Origin Clarksdale, Mississippi, USA
Died December 11, 1964
Los Angeles, California


Sam Cooke (January 22, 1931 - December 11, 1964) was a popular and influential American gospel, R&B, soul, pop singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur. Indeed, musicians and critics today recognize him as one of the founders of soul music, and as one of the most important singers in soul music history.

The title "the king of soul" is often over-used, but Sam Cooke's legacy is a very big one. He had 29 Top 40 hits in the U.S. between 1957 and 1965. He is therefore seen by many as "the creator" of the genre. Major hits like "You Send Me", "Chain Gang", "Wonderful World" and "Bring It On Home To Me" are among some of his most popular work.

Cooke was also among the first modern black performers and composers to attend to the business side of his musical career. He founded both a record label and a publishing company as an extension of his careers as a singer and composer. He also took an active part in the Civil Rights Movement, paralleling his musical ability to bridge gaps between black and white audiences.




Biography

Sam Cooke was born Samuel Cook in Clarksdale, Mississippi He added an "e" onto the end of his name because he thought it added a touch of class. He was one of eight children of Annie Mae and the Reverand Charles Cook, a Pentecostal minister. The family moved to Chicago in 1933.

Cooke began his musical career as a member of a quartet with his siblings, The Singing Children, and, as a teenager, he was a member of the Highway QCs, a gospel group. In 1950, at the age of 19, he joined The Soul Stirrers and achieved significant success and fame within the gospel community.

His first pop single, "Lovable" (1956), was released under the alias of "Dale Cooke" in order to not alienate his fan base; there was a considerable taboo against gospel singers performing secular music. However, the alias failed to hide Cooke's unique and distinctive vocals. No one was fooled. Art Rupe, head of Specialty Records, the label of the Soul Stirrers, gave his blessing for Cooke to record secular music under his real name, but he was unhappy about the type of music Cooke and producer Bumps Blackwell were making. Rupe expected Cooke's secular music to be similar to that of another Specialty Records artist, Little Richard. When Rupe walked in on a recording session and heard Cooke covering Gershwin, he was quite upset. After an argument between Rupe and Blackwell, Cooke and Blackwell left the label.

In 1957, Cooke signed with Keen Records. His first release was "You Send Me", which spent six weeks at #1 on the Billboard R&B chart. The song also had massive mainstream success, spending three weeks at #1 on the Billboard pop chart.


Cover of Cooke's landmark album Ain't That Good NewsIn addition to his success in writing his own songs and achieving mainstream fame ?- a truly remarkable accomplishment for an R&B singer at that time ?- Cooke continued to astonish the music business in the 1960s with the founding of his own label, SAR Records, which soon included The Simms Twins, The Valentinos, Bobby Womack, and Johnnie Taylor. Cooke then created a publishing imprint and management firm, then left Keen to sign with RCA Victor. One of his first RCA singles was the hit "Chain Gang." It reached #2 on the Billboard pop chart. This was followed by more hits, including "Sad Mood", "Bring it on Home to Me" (with Lou Rawls on backing vocals), "Another Saturday Night" and "Twistin' the Night Away".

Like most R&B artists of his time, Cooke focused on singles; in all he had 29 top 40 hits on the pop charts, and more on the R&B charts. In spite of this, he released a critically acclaimed blues-inflected LP in 1963, Night Beat. He was known for having written many of the most popular songs of all time in the genre, and is often unaccredited for many of them by the general public.

Cooke died at the age of 33 under mysterious circumstances on December 11, 1964 in Los Angeles, California. Though the details of the case are still in dispute, he was shot to death by Bertha Franklin, manager of the Hacienda Motel in South Los Angeles, who claimed that he had threatened her, and that she killed him in self-defense. The verdict was justifiable homicide, though many believe that crucial details did not come out in court, or were buried afterward. Cooke was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale, California.

Some posthumous releases followed, many of which became hits, including "A Change Is Gonna Come", an early protest song which is generally regarded as his greatest composition. After Cooke's death, his widow, Barbara, married Bobby Womack. Cooke's daughter, Linda, later married Bobby's brother, Cecil. Cooke was inducted as a charter member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.


Death

The details of the case involving Sam Cooke's death are still in dispute. The official police record[1] states that Cooke was shot to death by Bertha Franklin, the manager of the Hacienda Motel, where Cooke had checked in earlier that evening. Franklin claimed that Cooke had broken into the manager's office/apartment in a rage, wearing nothing but a shoe and an overcoat (and nothing beneath it) demanding to know the whereabouts of a woman who had accompanied him to the motel. Franklin said that the woman was not in the office and that she told Cooke this, but the enraged Cooke did not believe her and violently grabbed her demanding again to know the woman's whereabouts. According to Franklin, she grappled with Cooke, the two of them fell to the floor, and she then got up and ran to retrieve her gun. She said that she then fired at Cooke in self-defense because she feared for her life. According to Franklin, Cooke exclaimed, "Lady, you shot me," before finally falling, mortally wounded.

According to Franklin and to the motel's owner, Evelyn Carr, they had been on the phone together at the time of the incident. Thus, Carr claimed to have overheard Cooke's intrusion and the ensuing confrontation and gunshots. Carr called the police to request that they go to the motel, informing them that she believed a shooting had occurred.

A coroner's inquest was convened to investigate the incident. The woman who had accompanied Cooke to the motel was identified as Elisa Boyer, who had also called the police that night shortly before Carr did. Boyer had called the police from a phone booth near the motel, telling them she had just escaped from being kidnapped.

Boyer told the police that she had first met Cooke earlier that night and had spent the evening in his company. She claimed that after they left a local nightclub together, she had repeatedly requested that he take her home, but that he instead took her against her will to the Hacienda Motel. She claimed that once in one of the motel's rooms, Cooke physically forced her onto the bed and that she was certain he was going to rape her. According to Boyer, when Cooke stepped into the bathroom for a moment, she quickly grabbed her clothes and ran from the room. She claimed that in her haste, she had also scooped up most of Cooke's clothing by mistake. She said that she ran first to the manager's office and knocked on the door seeking help. However, she said that the manager took too long in responding, so, fearing Cooke would soon be coming after her, she fled the motel altogether before the manager ever opened the door. She claimed she then put her own clothing back on, stashed Cooke's clothing away and went to the phone booth from which she called police.

Boyer's story is the only account of what happened between the two that night. However, her story has long been called into question. Due to inconsistencies between her version of events and details reported by other witnesses, as well as other circumstantial evidence (e.g. cash Cooke was reportedly carrying that was never recovered, and the fact that Boyer was soon after arrested for prostitution), many people feel it is more likely that Boyer went willingly to the motel with Cooke, and then slipped out of the room with Cooke's clothing in order to rob him, rather than in order to escape an attempted rape.

Ultimately though, such questions were beyond the scope of the inquest, whose purpose was simply to establish the circumstances of Franklin's role in the shooting, not to determine exactly what had happened between Cooke and Boyer preceding that. Boyer's leaving the motel room with almost all of Cooke's clothing in tow, regardless of exactly why she did so, combined with the fact that tests showed Cooke was inebriated at the time, seemed to provide a plausible explanation for Cooke's bizarre behavior and state of dress, as reported by Franklin and Carr. This explanation together with the fact that Carr, from what she said she had overheard, corroborated Franklin's version of events, was enough to convince the coroner's jury to accept Franklin's explanation that it was a case of justifiable homicide. And with that verdict, authorities officially closed the case on Cooke's death.[2]

However, some of Cooke's family and supporters have rejected not only Boyer's version of events, but also Franklin's and Carr's. They believe that there was a conspiracy from the start to murder Cooke, that this murder did in fact take place in some manner entirely different from the official account of Cooke's intrusion into Franklin's office/apartment, and that Franklin, Boyer and Carr were all lying to provide a cover story for this murder.[1] [2] [3]

My brother was first class all the way. He would not check into a $3 a night motel; that wasn't his style.

?- Agnes Cooke-Hoskins, sister of Sam Cooke, attending the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 2005 tribute to Cooke.
In her autobiography, Rage To Survive, singer Etta James claimed that she viewed Cooke's body in the funeral home and that the injuries she observed were well beyond what could be explained by the official account of Franklin alone having fought with Cooke. James described Cooke as having been so badly beaten that his head was nearly decapitated from his shoulders, his hands were broken and crushed and his nose was mangled.

Nevertheless, no solid, reviewable evidence supporting a conspiracy theory has been presented to date.


Legacy

Cooke's influence has been immense: even people who have never heard one of his records have still heard his voice and phrasing if they have listened to any Rod Stewart or Southside Johnny. Other rock artists with a notable Cooke heritage include The Animals, Simon and Garfunkel, Van Morrison, James Taylor, the Beatles (particularly John Lennon), John Mayer, Bruce Springsteen, Steve Marriott, Terry Reid, Steve Perry, and numerous others, while R&B and soul artists indebted to Cooke include Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Lou Rawls, Al Green, and many more. Southern radio stations can be picked up at night in Jamaica, and Cooke's recordings were a major influence on the singing style of Bob Marley. Shortly following his passing, Motown Records released We Remember Sam Cooke, a collection of Cooke covers recorded by The Supremes.

"Wonderful World" was a featured song in the film National Lampoon's Animal House, one song in that film that was not a "party" song. The song was also featured in the film Hitch with Will Smith. After being featured prominently in the 1985 film Witness (starring Harrison Ford), the song gained further exposure and became a hit in the United Kingdom, reaching #2 in re-release.

The well-known verse of "Wonderful World" ?- "Don't know much about [history, geography, etc.]" ?- provided the inspiration for titles of several books authored by writer Kenneth C. Davis. His books explored both basic and lesser-known facts about those subjects.

In 1999, Cooke was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #16 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[3].

Piper Laurie
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Birth name Rosetta Jacobs
Born January 22, 1932
Detroit, Michigan, USA

Height 164 cm (65 in)
Other name(s) Laurie Piper
Fumio Yamaguchi
Spouse(s) Joe Morgenstern 1962-1981
Notable roles Margaret White, Carrie
Catherine Martell, Twin Peaks
Mr. Tojamura, Twin Peaks
Emmy Awards

Promise - 1987

Piper Laurie (born January 22, 1932) is an American actress.

Born Rosetta Jacobs to a Jewish family in Detroit, Michigan, she moved to Los Angeles when she was young. She signed a contract with Universal Studios when she was 17, co-starring with Ronald Reagan (whom she dated a couple of times before his marriage to Nancy Davis) in Louisa.




Career

Dissatisfied with the work she was being offered in Hollywood, Laurie went to New York City in 1955 to work on the live television programs of the 1950s. She starred in such productions as Twelfth Night and Days of Wine and Roses. In 1961 she returned to Hollywood to star opposite Paul Newman in The Hustler, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as Sarah Packard, the crippled love interest for Newman's "Fast Eddie" Felson.

In 1965, she starred in a Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie opposite Maureen Stapleton, Pat Hingle and George Grizzard. She wouldn't star in another Broadway production for 37 years, when she appeared in Lincoln Center's acclaimed revival of Paul Osborn's Morning's at Seven with Julie Hagerty, Buck Henry, Frances Sternhagen and Estelle Parsons.

In the 1960s, once again disenchanted with the work available, Laurie returned to semi-retirement to raise a family. She appeared in the Australian film Tim (1979) opposite a very young Mel Gibson (in which she can be credited in doing the first sex scene on screen that he was in). But perhaps her most famous role in her later career was in Brian De Palma's Carrie, as the title character's fanatically religious mother, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She first turned down the role because she didn't know how to play it, but later realized that it was a dark comedy; She ruined several shots because she couldn't stop laughing. Twenty years later, she reunited with co-star Sissy Spacek when they played sisters in a screen adaptation of Truman Capote's The Grass Harp.

She received another Academy Award Supporting Actress nomination, in 1987, for Children of a Lesser God, in which she played Marlee Matlin's mother.

Laurie also starred as the devious Catherine Martell in David Lynch's television series Twin Peaks. Following the character's supposed death in a mill fire at the end of the first season, the actress (under heavy makeup) returned as "Fumio Yamaguchi," playing the mysterious Mr. Tojamura, who would eventually be revealed to be Catherine Martell in disguise.

She also appeared in horror maestro Dario Argento's first American film Trauma, along with the director's daughter Asia Argento.


Awards

Laurie won an Emmy Award, for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Special, for her role in the 1986 TV movie Promise opposite James Garner and James Woods. In addition, she received several Emmy nominations, including one for playing Magda Goebbels, wife of Joseph Goebbels, in The Bunker, opposite Anthony Hopkins as Hitler, for her role in the miniseries The Thorn Birds, and two for her work in Twin Peaks.

Bill Bixby
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Bill Bixby (January 22, 1934 - November 21, 1993) was an American film and television actor, director and frequent game show panelist. His career spanned over three decades, appearing on stage, in motion pictures and starring in five TV series. His lead television roles were as: Tim O'Hara in My Favorite Martian (1963-1966) on CBS; Tom Corbett in The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1969-1972) on ABC; Anthony Dorian in The Magician (1973) on NBC; Dr. David Banner in The Incredible Hulk (1977-1982) on CBS; and Matt Cassidy in Goodnight Beantown (1983-1984) on CBS.



Early life and career

An only child, he was born as Wilfred Bailey Bixby, a fourth-generation Californian, in San Francisco, California. His father, Wilfred Everett Bixby, was a store clerk and his mother, Jane Bixby, was a department store owner. When Bixby was 8, his father enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War II and traveled to the South Pacific. He attended Lowell High School where he perfected his oratory and dramatic skills as a member of the Lowell Forensic Society. Though he received average grades, he also competed in high school speech tournaments regionally. After graduation from high school in 1952, against his parents' wishes, he majored in drama at San Francisco City College, where he was a classmate of future actress Lee Meriwether. Later, he attended the University of California, Berkeley, his parents' alma mater. Just four credits short of earning a degree, Bixby dropped out of college and was drafted into the United States Marine Corps.

He then moved to Hollywood where he had a string of odd jobs that included bellhop and lifeguard. He organized shows at a resort in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In 1959, he was hired to work as a model and to do commercial work for General Motors and Chrysler. Image:Http://www.biography.com/biography/images/episode images/Bill Bixby 320X240.jpg

Career as an actor

In 1961, Bixby was in the musical The Boyfriend at the Detroit Civic Theater, returning to Hollywood to make his television debut on an episode of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Bixby became a highly regarded character actor and guest-starred in many 1960s TV series including Ben Casey, The Twilight Zone, The Andy Griffith Show, Dr. Kildare and Hennessey. He also joined the cast of The Joey Bishop Show in 1962. During the 1970s, he made guest-appearances on TV series such as Ironside, Insight, Barbary Coast, The Love Boat, Medical Center, four episodes of Love, American Style, Fantasy Island and two episodes of The Streets of San Francisco. His appearance on The Streets of San Francisco earned him an Emmy Award nomination in 1976 for Outstanding Lead Actor for a Single Appearance in Drama or Comedy.


My Favorite Martian

Bixby took the role of young reporter Tim O'Hara in the 1963 CBS sitcom, My Favorite Martian. The show was a ratings winner in its first year, earning tenth place among all primetime shows.[citation needed] But by 1966, bad scripts and high production costs forced the series to come to an end after 107 episodes.

After the cancellation of Martian, Bixby starred in four box-office movies: Ride Beyond Vengeance (1966), You've Got to Be Kidding (1967), and two of Elvis Presley's movies, Clambake (1967), and Speedway (1968).

He turned down the role as Marlo Thomas's boyfriend in That Girl and starred in two failed pilots.


The Courtship of Eddie's Father

In 1969 Bixby starred in his second high profile television role, as Tom Corbett in the successful dramedy show The Courtship of Eddie's Father on ABC. The series concerned a widowed father raising a young son while trying to re-establish himself on the dating scene. Bixby's co-star on the show was unknown child actor Brandon Cruz; the pair developed a close chemistry that translated to an off-camera friendship as well. The cast was rounded out by Academy Award winning actress Miyoshi Umeki who played the role of Tom's maid, Mrs. Livingston, James Komack (one of the series' producers) as Norman Tinker (Tom's boss) and Kristina Holland as Tina (Tom's secretary). One episode of the show co-starred Bixby's future wife (Days of Our Lives actress Brenda Benet) as one of Tom's girlfriends.

Bixby was nominated for an Emmy Award for Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in 1971, but did not win. The following year, he won the Parents Without Partners Exemplary Service Award for 1972. He also made his directorial debut on the show in 1970.

By its final season, Courtship's ratings had slumped, the scripts focused more on Komack's as well as Bixby's character and this led to friction between star and producer.[citation needed] ABC pulled the plug on the sitcom in 1972 after 73 episodes.

Brandon Cruz said of his costar that Bixby was always looking after him, giving him great advice and in many ways being a "second father" to the young actor. Years after the show ended, their relationship remained strong. Shortly after Bixby's death, Cruz named his own son Lincoln Bixby Cruz.


1973 to 1977
In 1973, Bixby starred in The Magician. The series was well-liked, but it only lasted one season. An accomplished amateur magician himself, he hosted several TV specials in the mid-1970s which featured other amateur magicians.

He became a popular game show panelist, appearing mostly on Password and The Hollywood Squares. He was also a panelist on the 1974 revival of Masquerade Party hosted by Richard Dawson. He had also appeared with Dawson on Cop-Out.

He co-starred with Tim Conway and Don Knotts in the Disney movie The Apple Dumpling Gang 1975. Unlike the previous movies that Bixby starred in, this one received mediocre reviews, but was well-received by the public and is generally considered a good family film.

Returning to television, he worked with Susan Blakely on Rich Man, Poor Man, a highly successful television miniseries in 1976.


The Incredible Hulk

In 1977 Bixby starred as Dr. David Banner in a two-hour pilot movie called The Incredible Hulk, based loosely on the Stan Lee-created Marvel comic of the same name. Its success (coupled with some theatrical releases of the film in Europe) convinced CBS to turn it into a weekly science-fiction series which began airing in early 1978. The series was a hit and was seen in over 70 countries. The show made Bixby into a pop icon of the 1980s. Lou Ferrigno, who was a bodybuilder, played the Hulk. The show also starred veteran actor Jack Colvin as investigative reporter Jack McGee, who pursues the Hulk throughout the series run. (Hence the line in the tv pilot from Dr. Banner: "Mr McGee, don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry!") The pilot also starred Susan Sullivan as Dr. Elena Marks who helps the conflicted and widowed Dr. Banner overcome his "problem" and falls in love with him in the process.

During the show's run, he invited two of his long-time friends, Ray Walston and Brandon Cruz, to guest star with him in different episodes of the series. He also worked on the show with his friend, movie actress Mariette Hartley, who would later star with Bixby in his final series, Goodnight Beantown in 1983. In the Hulk, Ms. Hartley appeared in the memorable two-part episode- Married (in which David finds another source of help, falls in love, and then marries her) and then won an Emmy Award for her guest appearance. Future star Loni Anderson would also guest star with Bixby, during the first season. Bixby directed an episode of Hulk in 1981; the series was cancelled soon after. Bixby was disappointed that his character was not cured of his condition in the final episode.


Later work

After finishing Hulk, Bixby sort of left acting after 24 years, as he turned towards directing, from his own short-lived comedy, Goodnight, Beantown in which he starred with Mariette Hartley to the successful satirical police sitcom Sledge Hammer! In addition Bixby directed (and starring in all three) in two of the three Hulk TV revivals in the late '80s and early '90s. He was also lead director on the TV sitcom Blossom. He hosted two Is Elvis Alive? specials in August 1991 and January 1992 [1]. Additionally, in 1992, Bixby became an outspoken advocate for prostate cancer research, a disease which would ultimately take his life.


Personal life



Bixby lost his father to a heart attack in 1971, a month before his first wedding. Bixby scattered his ashes in the Pacific off the island of Maui.

Bixby was married three times. His first marriage was to actress and former Miss USA contestant Brenda Benet in 1971. She gave birth to their son Christopher on September 25, 1974. In addition to their earlier appearance together on Courtship, Benet guest-starred with him on The Incredible Hulk in 1980 just before they divorced. On March 1, 1981, Bixby's six-year-old son Christopher died suddenly of a rare throat infection. His ashes were scattered in the Pacific off the island of Maui like his grandfather's. Benet committed suicide in April 1982.

In 1989 he met Laura Michaels, who had worked on the set of one of his Hulk movies. The couple married a year later in Hawaii. In early 1991, Bixby was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent treatment for the disease. He was divorced in the same year. In late 1992, friends introduced him to the artist Judith Kliban, widow of B. Kliban, a cartoonist who had died of cancer. Bixby married Judith in late 1993, just six weeks before he collapsed on the set of Blossom.

In early 1993, after rumours began circulating about his health, Bixby decided to go public with his illness, discussing his disease and the energy needed to keep him alive. As a result, he made several guest appearances on shows such as Entertainment Tonight, The Today Show, and Good Morning America among many others.

Unfortunately Bixby's cancer recurred and was diagnosed as inoperable. On November 21, 1993, six days after his final assignment on Blossom, Bill Bixby died of complications from cancer in Century City, California. His wife and another longtime friend of Bixby's, Dick Martin, were by his side. After his death, Bixby's ashes were scattered in the Pacific off the island of Maui just as his father's and son's had been. A week after Bixby's death, Judith and Bill's family were joined by many mourners at a private memorial. Martin, Loni Anderson, Bob Newhart, Mike Connors, Lou Ferrigno, Kenneth Johnson, Paul Williams, Mariette Hartley, Harry Nilsson, Ray Walston, Richard Crenna, Brandon Cruz, and Miyoshi Umeki were present. The entire cast of Blossom attended with the exception of Mayim Bialik.

Linda Blair
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Birth name Linda Denise Blair
Born January 22, 1959 (age 47)
St. Louis, Missouri USA
Height 5'2



Linda Denise Blair (born January 22, 1959 in St. Louis, Missouri) is an American actress most famous for her role as the possessed child in the 1973 film The Exorcist and the sequel, Exorcist II: The Heretic.


Child Actress

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she moved with her parents to Westport, Connecticut when she was 2 years old. As a young child, Linda Blair began her career by modeling, then later started acting in commercials, including one for Gulden's Mustard that ran for years. Blair had originally planned to become a doctor, but instead accepted a role in The Exorcist because money she would earn would allow her to pursue her interest in horsemanship, particularly show jumping. She was chosen over the very similar-looking Pamelyn Ferdin since the director wanted an unknown, and Miss Ferdin had already become quite visible following her performances in Star Trek, The Odd Couple, and Night Gallery.


The Exorcist

Based on William Peter Blatty's best-selling novel, The Exorcist, was directed by William Friedkin, who had recently won the Oscar for directing The French Connection. The cast included Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, Max Von Sydow and Kitty Winn. Blatty both produced the film and wrote the screenplay.

Blair gave a strong, credible performance as the young girl possessed by the devil, and was an integral part of the film's phenomenal success. The Exorcist opened in December of 1973 and soon was more than a hit film?-it was a media phenomenon. Lines at theaters went around the block, and people stood on line for hours to see the film if they didn't pass out or faint during the screenings. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and Blair received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The film garnered a total of ten Academy Award nominations.

But on Oscar night, Best Picture went to George Roy Hill's film, The Sting, and The Exorcist was virtually shut out, although it won awards for Blatty's screenplay and for Best Sound. Blair's chances for an Oscar were undeniably hurt by controversy that erupted when Mercedes McCambridge revealed to the press that she had supplied the voice for the demon without getting screen credit, and another woman claimed to have been used as a body double for Blair in several scenes. The Best Supporting Female Actress Oscar that year went to 10-year old Tatum O'Neal for her performance in Peter Bogdanovich's Paper Moon.


After "The Exorcist"

At the age of 15, Blair dated, then lived with pop singer Rick Springfield, despite the ten year difference in their ages ([1]) and, more importantly, the fact that she was legally a minor.

Following the success of The Exorcist, Ms. Blair appeared in numerous controversial television films, including Born Innocent and Sarah T...Portrait Of A Teenage Alcoholic. She was featured in Airport 1975. Soon after, her appearance in Exorcist II: The Heretic, the failed sequel to the successful original film that made her a household name, nearly cost her career.

According to an interview with John McLaughlin on his program, McLaughlin's One On One, she experienced an uncontrollable weight gain over the next few years which was finally traced to a hormone deficiency which was corrected[citation needed].

Adding to her troubles, in December of 1977, Ms Blair was arrested for conspiring to buy and distribute cocaine and for possessing amphetamines, eventually pleading guilty to possession charges and fined. She was also sentenced to three years probation, instructed to appear in several anti-drug commercials, and ordered to enter a nine month drug rehabilitation program. This was confirmed on the Linda Blair E! True Hollywood Story episode which aired in October 1999. Linda explained in the episode that the 1977 arrest ruined her career and Hollywood wanted nothing to do with her afterward.

Throughout the 1980s, Ms. Blair's career fell into decline, and she appeared in many minor films, often with a horror or slapstick comedy theme. Meanwhile, Linda returned to her first love of riding and showing horses, where she competed under pseudonyms in showjumping events and won numerous equestrian events.

During the early 1980s Ms Blair had a passionate relationship with singer Rick James, but left him when she could no longer handle his drug addiction. In 1978, as part of a plea bargain to avoid jail time, she was ordered to stay away from drugs after the December 1977 arrest.

In 1990, she reprised her Exorcist character in the spoof film Repossessed, in addition to reducing her appearances in lower budget movies and concentrating on TV work, including a guest spot on the 1992/1993 season opener of the FOX series Married... with Children, making it the highest watched episode of that series.

In 1996, Blair had a brief uncredited cameo appearance in the box office smash Scream, in addition to winning wide acclaim for her performance in the 1997 stage revival of Grease.

In 2000, she appeared in the British teen show LA 7 featuring the popular pop group S Club 7, while starring in several independent movies. She also hosted Fox Family's series Scariest Places On Earth.

One of Blair's latest appearances was in the Supernatural episode "The Usual Suspects".

Blair has long been active in charities involving prevention of cruelty to animals with her own Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation, and is a committed vegan.

Diane Lane
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Born January 22, 1965 (age 41)
New York, New York, USA

Height 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)
Spouse(s) Josh Brolin (14 August 2004 - present)
Christopher Lambert (October 1988 - March 1994)
Official site DianeLane.com

Diane Lane (born January 22, 1965) is an Academy Award-nominated American actress.




Biography

Early life

Lane was born in New York City, New York. The daughter of acting coach Burt Lane and singer/Playboy centerfold Colleen Farrington, Lane was raised by her father after her parents' divorce when she was a baby.


Career

She began acting professionally at the age of six at the La Mama Experimental Theatre in New York where she appeared in acclaimed productions of Medea and The Cherry Orchard, among others.

At 13, she made her film debut opposite Laurence Olivier in A Little Romance, and at 14 was featured on the cover of Time [1].

One of the few child performers to make a successful transition into adult roles, Lane made a hit with audiences in the back-to-back cult films The Outsiders and Rumble Fish, and for a time was designated a member of the so-called "Brat pack." However the two films that should have catapulted her to star status, Streets of Fire and The Cotton Club, were both box office flops and her career languished as a result. It wasn't until 1989's hugely popular and critically acclaimed TV mini-series Lonesome Dove that Lane made another big impression on a sizable audience (she was nominated for an Emmy Award). She won further praise for her role in 1999's A Walk on the Moon, opposite Viggo Mortensen.

In 2002 Lane was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actress for her performance in Unfaithful, and was honored for her work in that film by The New York Film Critics and The National Society of Film Critics. She followed that up with Under the Tuscan Sun (2003), based on the best-selling book by Frances Mayes.

Numerous web media sites have her rumored to take on the role of Jane Jetson in Warner Bros'. upcoming live action The Jetsons movie in 2009, but there has been no confirmation as of yet.


Personal life

Lane dated rock star Jon Bon Jovi in the 1980s and she was married to French actor Christopher Lambert from 1988 to 1994. They had a daughter, Eleanor Jasmine Lambert, born September 5, 1993, and were divorced following a prolonged separation.

Lane married actor Josh Brolin on August 14, 2004. On December 20 of that year, she called police after an altercation with him, and he was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery. Lane declined to press charges, however, and the couple's spokesperson characterized the incident as a "misunderstanding".[2]

50 Ways to Recognise a Massachusetts Person
>
> Subject: Massachusetts People
>
>
> >> 1. You think crosswalks are for wimps
>
>
> >> 2. You think if someone is nice to you that they either want
> something, or they are from out of town and lost
>
> >> 3. You know how to cross four lanes of traffic in five seconds
>
> >> 4. You're amazed when traveling out of town that people at
> McDonalds actually speak english
>
> >> 5. You think it's not actually tailgating unless you're touching
the
bumper of the car in front of you
>
> >> 6. You know that a yellow light means that at least five more
> people can get through and a red one means two more can.
>
> >> 7. The transportation system is known as the "T"
>
> >> 8. You could own a small town in Iowa for the cost of your
house
>
> >> 9. Subway is a fast food place. And not a very good one in your
> esteemed opinion.
>
> >>10. There are 24 Dunkin Donuts shops within 15 minutes of your
> house and this is not unusual to you.
>
> >>11. When people talk about "The Curse Of The Bambino", you know
> > what they're talking about, and believe it, too
(well, at
least you USED to).
>
>
> >>12. You believe using your turn signals gives away your plan to the
enemy.
>
> >>13. If you stay on the same road long enough, it eventually has
> three different names.
>
> >>14. Someone has honked at you because you didn't peel out the
> second the light turned green.
>
> >>15. You have honked at someone because they didn't peel out the
> second the light turned green
>
> >>16. All the potholes just add to the excitement of driving.
>
> >>17. Stop signs mean slow down a little, but only of you want to.
>
> >>18. Six inches of snow is considered a dusting.
>
> >>19. Three days of 90 degree heat is definately a "heat wave" and 63
degrees is "a little on the warm side"
>
> >>20. You cringe everytime you hear some stupid actor or actress try
and
imitate the "Boston Accent" on TV or in a movie...if you don't have
it,
then you're never going to get it, even if you were born here. (Hint to
Hollywood: We don't sound like that!!)
>
> >>21. At the ice cream shop, you call chocolate sprinkles "jimmies".
What
others call a milk shake, you call a frappe. Soda pop is "tonic" and a
Hogie
must be someone who's a fan of the Hulkster because you eat subs. When
shopping, you put your groceries in carriages, not carts, and he's a
"bag
boy" not a "sacker." A 'sacker' sounds slightly... sexual to you and
makes
you uneasy just saying it. He's a bag boy. Period.
>
> >>22. You can go from one side of town to the other in less than
> fifteen minutes and see at least fifteen losers you went to high
school
with doing the same thing they were doing when you saw them last.
>
> >>23. The person in front of you is going 70 MPH and you're cursing
> them for going too slowly.
>
> >>24. You know how to pronounce towns like Worcester, Haverhill, and
> Cotuit.
>
>
> >>25. You know what they sell at a "packie".
>
> >>26. You have never been to the Cheers bar. Please.
>
> >>27. You've slammed on your brakes to deter a tailgater.
>
> >>28. You still try to order curly fries from Burger King.
>
> >>29. You keep an ice scraper in your car all year round.
>
> >>30. You know at least three Tony's, one Vinnie, and a Frank. If
you're
from Southie or Charlestown or Dorchester, you know several
> Sullies, Smitties and Fitzies. People with the last name of Doherty
are
called Dot's. And there isn't a rich Kennedy anywhere you know of
except on
the cape.
>
> >>31. Paranoia sets in when you can't see an ATM or CVS.
>
> >>32. You've pulled out of a side street and used your car to block
> > oncoming traffic so you can make a left.
>
> >>33. You've bragged about saving money at The Christmas Tree Shop.
>
> >>34. You know what a "regular coffee" is.
>
> >>35. You can navigate a rotary without a problem.
>
> >>36. You have been to Fenway Park. Sat in the cheap seats. When they
existed.
>
> >>37. You refer to the New York Yankees as the 'evil empire'.
>
> >>38. You feel the rest of the world needs to drive more like you.
>
> >>39. You use the words "wicked" and "good" in the same sentence.
>
> >>40. You know what's in the Harbor and it ain't tea, so, no, you'll
decline a midnight swim even if you're plastered.
>
> >>41. Saint Patrticks Day is your second favorite holiday.
>
> >>42. You are proud to drink Sam Adams and think that the rest of the
country owes Bostonians a thank you.
>
> >>43. You never say "Cape Cod"; you say "the cape".
>
> >>44. You went to Old Sturbridge Village and Plymouth Plantation in
> > elementary school on a field trip.
>
> >>45. You can drive to the mountains and the ocean all in one day.
>
> >>46. You have a special place in your heart for the Worcester
> > Firefighters
>
> >>47. You know the Mass Pike is some strange weather dividing line.
>
> >>48. You almost feel disappointed when someone doesn't flip you off
when
you cut them off or steal their parking space.
>
> >>49. Saving your parking space in the dead of winter in front of
your
house by putting an old chair or a milk crate in it is logical to you.
Someone coming along and parking there after you spent all morning
shoveling
it out is tantamount to murder.
>
> >>50. You wonder who is voting that chowderhead Manino in and if they
sell
the drugs they are using.
>
> And if you are from Mass, then you actually get all of these
jokes,

Well, folks, our Raggedy had a duet today. Linda and Diane. Linda doesn't look too bad for a girl whose head rotated 350 degrees and who hovered above the bed in levitation.

Hey, hawkman. The I-4 corridor to Orlando is bad enough, so I most certainly will not make the attempt to drive to Massachusetts any time soon.

The following poem by Bryon is for Yitwail

The Destruction of Sennacherib
by George Gordon, Lord Byron
.
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd,
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpets unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

and a poetry parody from Ogden Nash:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Very Like a Whale

One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by the authors of simile and
metaphor.
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,
Can't seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to
go out of their way to say that it is like something else.
What does it mean when we are told
That that Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?
In the first place, George Gordon Byron had enough experience
To know that it probably wasn't just one Assyrian, it was a lot of
Assyrians.
However, as too many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and
thus hinder longevity.
We'll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity.
Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were
gleaming in purple and gold,
Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a
wold on the fold?
In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of in our philosophy
there are great many things.
But I don't imagine that among them there is a wolf with purple
and gold cohorts or purple and gold anythings.
No, no, Lord Byron, before I'll believe that this Assyrian was
actually like a wolf I must have some kind of proof;
Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red
mouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof Woof?
Frankly I think it is very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say,
at the very most,
Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian
cohorts about to destroy the Hebrew host.
But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he
had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them,
With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers
to people they say Oh yes, they're the ones that a lot of
wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them.
That's the kind of thing that's being done all the time by poets,
from Homer to Tennyson;
They're always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,
And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanket
after a winter storm.
Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanket of
snow and I'll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoetical
blanket material and we'll see which one keeps warm,
And after that maybe you'll begin to comprehend dimly
What I mean by too much metaphor and simile.

-- Ogden Nash

Love it, and thanks, Raggedy and Bob for the bio's and the photo's.

written and sung by Eric Anderson, dedicated to the civil rights movement of the 1960's

You've long been on the open road,
You've been sleeping in the rain,
From dirty words and muddy cells
Your clothes are smeared and stained,
But the dirty words and muddy cells
Will soon be hid in shame
So only stop to rest yourself
Till you are off again

Chorus:

So take off your thirsty boots
and stay for a while,
Your feet are hot and weary,
from a dusty mile,
And maybe I can make you laugh,
maybe I can try,
I'm just looking for the evening,
the morning in your eye.

So tell me of the ones you saw
As far as you could see
Across the plain from field to town
A-marching to be free
And of the rusted prison gates
That tumbled by degree
Like laughing children, one by one,
They look like you and me

Chorus.

I know you are no stranger down
The crooked rainbow trails
From dancing cliff-edged shattered sills
Of slandered, shackled jails
For the voices drift up from below
As the walls they're being scaled
Yes, all of this, and more, my friend,
Your song shall not be failed.

Chorus.

Yes, you've long been on the open road
You've been sleeping in the rain
From dirty words and muddy cells
Your clothes are smeared and stained
But the dirty words, the muddy cells,
They'll soon be judged insane
So only stop to rest yourself
'til you are off again.

Hey, dys. Powerful song, and something about the line, "take off your thirsty boots", touched a chord.

From Kenny Loggins:

Why are there so many
Songs about rainbows
And what's on the other side
Rainbow's are visions
They're only illusions
And rainbows have nothing to hide
So we've been told and some chose to
Believe it
But I know they're wrong wait and see

Someday we'll find it
The Rainbow Connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me

Who said that every wish
Would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that
And someone believed it
And look what it's done so far
What's so amazing
That keeps us star gazing
What so we think we might see

Someday we'll find it
That Rainbow Connection
The lovers the dreamers and me

Have you been half asleep
And have you heard voices
I've heard them calling my name
Are these the sweet sounds that called
The young sailors
I think they're one and the same
I've heard it too many times to ignore it
There's something that I'm supposed to be

Someday we'll find it
The Rainbow Connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me

I'm really missing both of them today.

One of them hosted great parties for friends and family, and friends of family, the other was wonderfully kind to volunteers at the local Young People's Theatre.

I'm glad I got to know them to the degree that I did.

~~~~~~

John and Mitchie were gettin' kind of itchy
Just to leave the folk music behind;
Zal and Denny workin' for a penny
Tryin' to get a fish on the line.
In a coffee house Sebastian sat,
And after every number they'd pass the hat.

McGuinn and McGuire just a-gettin' higher in L.A.,
You know where that's at.
And no one's gettin' fat except Mama Cass.Zallie said, "Denny, you know there aren't many
Who can sing a song the way that you do; let's go south."
Denny said, Zallie, golly, don't you think that I wish
I could play guitar like you."
Zal, Denny, and Sebastian sat (at the Night Owl)
And after every number they'd pass the hat.
McGuinn and McGuire still a-gettin higher in L.A.,
You know where that's at.
And no one's gettin' fat except Mama Cass.

When Cass was a sophomore, planned to go to Swathmore
But she changed her mind one day.
Standin' on the turnpike, thumb out to hitchhike,
"Take me to New York right away."
When Denny met Cass he gave her love bumps;
Called John and Zal and that was the Mugwumps.
McGuinn and McGuire couldn't get no higher
But that's what they were aimin' at.
And no one's gettin' fat except Mama Cass.

Mugwumps, high jumps, low slumps, big bumps -
Don't you work as hard as you play.
Make up, break up, everything is shake up;
Guess it had to be that way.
Sebastian and Zal formed the 'Spoonful;
Michelle, John, and Denny gettin' very tuneful.
McGuinn and McGuire just a-catchin' fire in L.A.,
You know where that's at.
And everybody's gettin' fat except Mama Cass.

Broke, busted, disgusted, agents can't be trusted,
And Mitchie wants to go to the sea.
Cass can't make it; she says we'll have to fake it -
We knew she'd come eventually.
Greasin' on American Express cards;
Tents low rent, but keeping out the heat's hard.
Duffy's good vibrations and our imaginations
Can't go on indefinitely.
And California dreamin' is becomin' a reality...

~~~~~~~~

a lot of fun left with them

ehBeth, Welcome back, gal. Great info and neat song, TO. We all used to get together in the longue at UVA and sing "Monday, Monday." I had no idea what I was doing, but thank God for my good ear.

Here's another

The Mamas The Papas

WORDS OF LOVE
(Phillips)

Words of love, so soft and tender
Won't win a girls heart anymore
If you love her then you must send her
Somewhere where she's never been before
Worn out phrases and longing gazes
Won't get you where you want to go, no!
Words of love, soft and tender
Won't win her

You oughta know by now
You oughta know, you oughta know by now
Words of love, soft and tender
Won't win her anymore

------ instrumental break ------

You oughta know by now
You oughta know, you oughta know by now
Words of love, soft and tender
Won't win a girls heart anymore
If you love her then you must send her
Somewhere where she's never been before
Worn out phrases and longing gazes
Won't get you where you want to go

Words of love, soft and tender
Won't win her anymore, anymore

i found some nice :wink: irish songs ; they sure are a delight to sing along with .
so here is one from the collection .
sit back , sing along and relax - have a guinness or some irish mist !
hbg

Hi for the Beggarman
--------------------------
Sequenced by Brian Hicks

The night being dark and very cold,
A woman took pity on a poor soul.
She took pity on a poor old soul
And asked him to come in.

Chorus
With a tooroo, rooroo, rantin hi,
A tooroo, rooroo, rantin hi,
Tooroo, rooroo rantin hi,
And hi for the beggarman.

He sat him down in a chimney nook;
He hung his coat up on a hook.
He hung his coat up on a hook,
And merrily he did sing.

Chorus

In the middle of the night the old woman rose;
She missed the beggarman and all his clothes.
She clapped and clapped and clapped again,
Says, "He has my daughter gone!"

Chorus

Three long years have passed and gone,
When this old man came back again,
Asking for a charity:
"Would you lodge a beggarman?"

Chorus

"I never lodged any but the one,
And with that one me daughter's gone,
With that one me daughter's gone
So merrily you may gang."

Chorus

"Would you like to see your daughter now,
With two babies on her knee,
With two babies on her knee
And another coming on?"

Chorus

"For yonder she sits and yonder she stands,
The finest lady in all the land;
Servants there at her command
Since she went with the beggarman."

Seminole Wind
John Anderson

Ever since the days of old
Men would search for wealth untold
They'd dig for silver and for gold
And leave the empty holes
And way down south in the Everglades
Where the black water rolls and the saw grass waves
The eagles fly and the otters play
In the land of the Seminole

So blow, blow Seminole wind
Blow like you're never gonna blow again
I'm callin' to you like a long-lost friend
But I know who you are
And blow, blow from the Okeechobee
All the way up to Micanopy (pronounced: Meh-can-o-pee)
Blow across the home of the Seminole
The alligators in the gull

Progress came and took its toll
And in the name of flood control
They made their plans and they drained the land
Now the Glades are goin' dry
And the last time I walked in the swamp
I stood up on a cypruss stump
I listened close and I heard the ghost
Of Oseola cry

So blow, blow Seminole wind
Blow like you're never gonna blow again
I'm callin' to you like a long-lost friend
But I know who you are
And blow, blow from the Okeechobee
All the way up to Micanopy
Blow across the home of the Seminole
The alligators in the gull

Ah, hamburger, that was lovely, Canada. Wonder where Imur be?

How about a wee bit of opera, folks. This aria is by Enrico Caruso

Recitar!...mentre preso dal delirio
non so piu quel che dico e quel che faccio!
Eppur...e d'uopo...sforzati! Bah, sei tu forse un uom?
Tu se' Pagliaccio! Vesti la giubba e la faccia infarina.
La gente paga e rider vuole qua.
E se Arlecchin t'invola Colombina, ridi, Pagliaccio...
e ognum applaudira! Tramuta in lazzi lo spasmo ed il pianto;
In una smorfia il singhiozzo e'l dolor...
Ridi Pagliaccio, sul tuo amore infranto!
Ridi del duol che t'avvelena il cor!

ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Go on stage, while I'm nearly delirious?
I don't know what I'm saying or what I'm doing!
And yet, chin up! I'll try harder. Bah, you think you're a man?
You're just a clown! On with the show, man,
and put on your white-face.
The people pay you and you must make them laugh.
And if Harlequin should steal your Columbine, laugh,
you're Pagliaccio, and the world will clap for you!
Turn into banter all your pain and sorrow,
and with your clowns' face hide grief and distress...
Laugh loud, Pagliaccio, forget all of your troubles,
Laugh off the pain that so empoisons your heart.

Well, my, my. How did that possum sneak past me? A pogo stick perhaps?

Love that Seminole Wind, edgar. It sent a small shiver up my spine.

Well, folks, we have done Irish, and Amerind, and opera, so how about a little cowboy song from Willie:
Maybe I didn't love you
Quite as often as I could have
Maybe I didn't treat you
Quite as good as I should have
If I made you feel second best
Girl I'm sorry I was blind

You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind

Maybe I didn't hold you
All those lonely, lonely times
And I guess I never told you
I'm so happy that you're mine
Little things I should have said and done
I just never took the time

You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind

Tell me, tell me that your
Sweet love hasn't died
And give me
Give me one more chance
To keep you satisfied
satisfied

Little things I should have
Said and done
I just never took the time

You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind....

well , here is another good irish song from auld Johnny Dhu .
got any irish mist left :wink: ? i hope the beggarman had some !
hbg



The Jolly Beggarman
------------------------
I am a little beggarman, a begging I have been
For three score years in this little isle of green
I'm known along the Liffey from the Basin to the Zoo
And everybody calls me by the name of Johnny Dhu.

Of all the trades a going, sure the begging is the best
For when a man is tired he can sit him down and rest
He can beg for his dinner, he has nothing else to do
But to slip around the corner with his old rigadoo.

I slept in a barn one night in Currabawn
A shocking wet night it was, but I slept until the dawn
There was holes in the roof and the raindrops coming thru
And the rats and the cats were a playing peek a boo.

Who did I waken but the woman of the house
With her white spotted apron and her calico blouse
She began to frighten and I said boo
Sure, don't be afraid at all, it's only Johnny Dhu.

I met a little girl while a walkin out one day
Good morrow little flaxen haired girl, I did say
Good morrow little beggarman and how do you do
With your rags and your tags and your auld rigadoo.

I'll buy a pair of leggins and a collar and a tie
And a nice young lady I'll go courting by and by
I'll buy a pair of goggles and I'll color them with blue
And an old fashioned lady I will make her too.

So all along the high road with my bag upon my back
Over the fields with my bulging heavy sack
With holes in my shoes and my toes a peeping thru
Singing, skin a ma rink a doodle with my auld rigadoo.

O I must be going to bed for it's getting late at night
The fire is all raked and now tis out of light
For now you've heard the story of my auld rigadoo
So good and God be with you, from auld Johnny Dhu.