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Ellen DeGeneres
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Born January 26, 1958 (age 48)
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA


Ellen Lee DeGeneres (born January 26, 1958) is an American actress, stand-up comedian, and currently the Emmy Award-winning host of the syndicated talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show.



Early life

Ellen DeGeneres was born at Ochsner Hospital in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, Louisiana. Her father, Elliot, was an insurance salesman, and her mother, Elizabeth Jane "Betty," a real-estate agent. She is of French, English, German, and Irish descent.

Along with her brother Vance DeGeneres, actor and guitarist for the rock band Cowboy Mouth, she was raised as a Christian Scientist until the age of 13. Betty moved out on April 3, 1972, and it was Elliot who filed for separation on December 4, 1973. The divorce was finalized in January 1974. Shortly after the divorce her mother married Roy Gruessendorf, a salesman, and moved from the New Orleans area to Atlanta, Texas. DeGeneres graduated from Atlanta High School on May 21, 1976.

DeGeneres moved back to New Orleans to attend the University of New Orleans, where she majored in communications. After one semester, she left school to do clerical work in a law firm. She also held a job selling clothes, including dresses, at the chain-store the Merry-Go-Round at the Lakeside Shopping Center in New Orleans. Other working experiences included being a waitress at TGI Friday's and another restaurant, a house painter, a hostess, a bartender, and an oyster shucker. Finally, DeGeneres realized she didn't want to "answer to a boss" and started to figure out what she really wanted to do.


Career

Stand-up comedy

Whenever DeGeneres' friends put together a show or party, DeGeneres was asked to do a comedy routine. She did an act and was soon asked to perform as a stand-up comedian at small clubs and coffeehouses, and eventually became the MC at Clyde's Comedy Club (the only comedy club in New Orleans at the time). While working at Clyde's in 1981, DeGeneres recorded her club performances.

After traveling around the United States performing her comedy act, she was chosen in a national competition in 1982 by the cable channel Showtime as the funniest person in America. She then appeared on late night television and comedy programs.

Soon afterward, DeGeneres was invited to perform on the Tonight Show by booking agent and producer Jim McCawley for her first appearance in 1986. She was the first comedienne to ever be asked over to the couch to visit with Johnny Carson on her first visit. McCawley truly believed that she was going to be a hit and often spoke in praise of her when her name was mentioned.

She also appeared as a stand-up comedian as early as on the HBO Tenth Annual Young Comedians special, where she was introduced as an up-and-coming talent by Young Comedians show veteran Harry Anderson.

Before getting her own show, DeGeneres began her television career on the short-lived TV sitcom Open House (1989-1990) and Laurie Hill (1992).

DeGeneres has also performed two HBO stand-up specials. The first was called Ellen DeGeneres: The Beginning (2000) and was taped live at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. Her most recent one, which was taped in the same location, was entitled Ellen DeGeneres: Here and Now (2003). After she began her talk show, DeGeneres said she would no longer do stand-up shows and tours.

Her comedic style has been compared to stand-up legend Bob Newhart. She was voted as 16th on Comedy Central's list 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time.


Ellen sitcom

DeGeneres rose to national attention when her material was turned into the subject matter of the successful 1994-1998 sitcom Ellen (called These Friends of Mine during its first season). The ABC show was popular in its first few seasons due in part to DeGeneres's style of quirky observational humor; it was often referred to as a "female Seinfeld."[1][2]

Ellen reached its height of attention in April 1997 when DeGeneres (and her character on the show) came out of the closet on national television and publicly declared that she was a lesbian with Oprah Winfrey playing her therapist. In spite of the controversy, or perhaps because of it, the outing episode, entitled "The Puppy Episode," was one of the highest-rated episodes of the show which is before the Oprah announcement, making viewers confused if the outing scene was breaking the fourth wall. After sinking ratings, the show was canceled, and DeGeneres returned to the stand-up comedy circuit. Not forgetting the nosedive her lucrative network television show took, Ellen would later re-establish herself as a successful talk show host.


Ellen's Energy Adventure

DeGeneres starred in a series of films for a show named Ellen's Energy Adventure, which is part of the Universe of Energy attraction and pavilion at Walt Disney World's Epcot. The film also featured Bill Nye ("the science guy"), Alex Trebek, Michael Richards, and Jamie Lee Curtis. The show revolved around DeGeneres falling asleep and finding herself in an energy-themed version of Jeopardy!, playing against an old rival (portrayed by Curtis) and Albert Einstein. The next film had DeGeneres hosting an educational look at energy - co-hosted with Nye. The ride first opened on September 15, 1996, as Ellen's Energy Crisis but was quickly renamed Ellen's Energy Adventure for reasons that to this day remain unknown.


The Ellen Show sitcom

DeGeneres returned to series TV in 2001 with a new CBS sitcom, The Ellen Show. Though her character was again a lesbian, it was not the central theme of the show. It received critical praise but low viewership and was canceled after one season.

Although her second sitcom was not a success, Ellen did receive wide exposure on November 4, 2001, when she served as hostess of the Emmy Awards-TV show. Presented following two cancellations due to fears that a showy ceremony would appear insensitive following the September 11, 2001, attacks, the show required a newer, more somber tone that at the same time allowed viewers to temporarily forget the tragedy. DeGeneres delivered this, receiving several standing ovations for her performance that evening. She memorably delivered the following line: "We're told to go on living our lives as usual, because to do otherwise is to let the terrorists win, and really, what would upset the Taliban more than a gay woman wearing a suit in front of a room full of Jews?"


Voice acting

DeGeneres lent her voice to the role of "Dory," a fish with short-term memory loss, in the summer 2003 hit animated Disney/Pixar film Finding Nemo. The film's director, Andrew Stanton, claimed that he chose her because she "changed the subject five times before one sentence had finished" on her show. The movie returned DeGeneres to the limelight, with critics giving her rave reviews. She also narrated one of the highly successful VH1 Divas shows.


Talk show

In September 2003, DeGeneres launched a daytime television talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Amid a crop of several talk shows surfacing in 2003 and hosted by high-profile celebrities (including Sharon Osbourne and Rita Rudner), DeGeneres' show has consistently risen in the Nielsen Ratings and received widespread critical praise. It was nominated for 11 Daytime Emmy Awards in its freshman season, winning four, including Best Talk Show. The show has won 15 Emmy Awards in its first three seasons on the air. The Ellen DeGeneres Show is the first talk show in television history to win the Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show for its first three seasons on the air. DeGeneres is known for her dancing and singing with the audience at the beginning of the show. She often gives away free prizes and trips to her studio audience with the help of her sponsors. On November 17, 2005, the show was played in reverse, similar to the film Memento.

In November 2004, DeGeneres appeared, dancing, in an ad campaign for American Express. Her most recent American Express commercial, a two-minute black-and-white spot where she works with animals, debuted in November 2006 and was created by Ogilvy and Mather.

In August 2005, DeGeneres was selected once again as host of the 2005 Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony, which was held on September 18, 2005. (The awards show came three weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, making it the second time Ellen hosted the Emmys following a national tragedy. Because Ellen is from New Orleans, the tragedy literally hit close to home.) When she announced that she'd be again hosting the Emmys, she joked, "You know me, any excuse to put on a dress." She also hosted the Grammy Awards in 1996 and in 1997.

In May of 2006, speaking of Hurricane Katrina, she also put in a surprise appearance at the Tulane University commencement in New Orleans. Following George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton to the podium, she came out in a bathrobe and furry slippers. "They told me everyone would be wearing robes," she said.


Academy Awards

On September 7, 2006, DeGeneres was chosen to host the 79th Academy Awards ceremony, which will take place on February 25, 2007


Personal life

DeGeneres' relationship with former Another World actress Anne Heche turned into material for the tabloid press. After several years in the spotlight, Heche broke up with DeGeneres and went on to marry male cameraman Coley Laffoon. DeGeneres then had a relationship with Actress/Director/Photographer Alexandra Hedison. They appeared on the cover of The Advocate magazine (ironically, after their split-up had already been announced to the press). Since 2004 DeGeneres has been in a relationship with Arrested Development and former Ally McBeal star Portia de Rossi.

DeGeneres has one brother, Vance, who made a guest appearance on Ellen in 1994. Vance was also a correspondent for The Daily Show from 1999 to 2001.

In her book, Love, Ellen, DeGeneres' mother, Betty, describes being initially shocked when her daughter came out as a lesbian, but has in fact become one of her strongest supporters. Betty DeGeneres is an active member of PFLAG and spokesperson for the HRC Coming Out Project. She is also a breast cancer survivor.

After Ellen came out as a lesbian, televangelist Jerry Falwell referred to her in a sermon as "Ellen Degenerate." Ellen responded: "Really? He called me that? Wow, I haven't heard that since third grade."

On September 1, 2006, at just before 4 PM PT, DeGeneres was injured in a three-car road accident as a 2002 Porsche Carrera rear-ended a 2002 Buick Le Sabre, which subsequently rear-ended DeGeneres' 2006 Porsche Carrera as she was driving on Sunset Boulevard with girlfriend Portia de Rossi. Two men in their twenties, later identified as paparazzi, were in the Buick, and the other vehicle was being driven by a 52-year-old woman.[4]

The British Government's policy of socialised medicine
has recently been broadened to include a service called
"Proxy Fathers". Under the government plan, any married
woman who is unable to become pregnant through the first
five years of her marriage may request the service of a
proxy father - a government employee who attempts to
solve the couple's problem by impregnating the wife.

The Smiths, a young couple, have no children and a proxy
father is due to arrive. Leaving for work, Mr. Smith says,
"I'm off. The government man should be here soon."

Moments later a door-to-door baby photographer rings the
bell.

Ms Smith: "Good morning."

Salesman: "Good morning, madam. You don't know me, but
I've come to....."

Ms Smith: "No need to explain, I've been expecting you.

Salesman: "Really? Well, good. You'll be reassured to
know that I've made a speciality of babies, especially
twins."

Ms Smith: "That's what my husband and I had hoped.
Please come in and have a seat."

Salesman: (Sitting) "Then you don't need to be sold
on the idea?"

Ms Smith: "Don't concern yourself. My husband and I
both agree this is the right thing to do."

Salesman: "Well, perhaps we should get down to it."

Ms Smith: (Blushing) "Just where do we start?"

Salesman: "Leave everything to me. I usually try two
in the bathtub, one on the couch and perhaps a couple
on the bed. Sometimes the living room floor allows
the subject to really spread out."

Ms Smith: "Bathtub, living room floor? No wonder it
hasn't worked for Harry and me."

Salesman: "Well, madam, none of us can guarantee a
good one everytime, but if we try several locations
and I shoot from six or seven angles, I'm sure you'll
be pleased with the results. In fact, my business card
says, "I aim to please."

Ms Smith: "Pardon me, but isn't this a little informal?"

Salesman: "Madam, in my line of work, a man must be at
ease and take his time. I'd love to be in and out in
five minutes, but you'd be disappointed with that."

Ms Smith: "Don't I know! Have you had much success at
this?"

Salesman: (Opening his briefcase and finding baby
pictures) "Just look at this picture. Believe it or
not, it was done on top of a bus in downtown London."

Ms Smith: "Oh, my!!"

Salesman: "And here are pictures of the prettiest twins
in town. They turned out exceptionally well when you
consider their mother was so difficult to work with."

Ms Smith: "She was?"

Salesman: "Yes, I'm afraid so. I finally had to take her
down to Hyde Park to get the job done right. I've never
worked under such impossible conditions. People were
crowding around four and five deep, pushing to get a
good look."

Ms Smith: "A good look?"

Salesman: "Yes and for more than three hours, too. The
mother got so excited she started bouncing around,
squealing and yelling at the crowd. I couldn't concentrate.
I'm afraid I had to ask a couple of men to restrain her. By
that time darkness was approaching and I began to rush my
shots. When the squirrels began nibbling on my equipment I
just packed it all in."

Ms Smith: "You mean they actually chewed on your, eh,
equipment?"

Salesman: "That's right, but it's all in a day's work. I
consider my work a pleasure. I've spent years perfecting
my patented technique. Now take this baby, I shot this one
in the front window of a big department store."

Ms Smith: "I just can't believe it."

Salesman: "Well, madam, if you're ready, I'll set up my
tripod so that we can get to work."

Ms Smith: "TRIPOD?!?"

Salesman: "Oh yes, I have to use a tripod to rest my
equipment on. It's much too heavy and unwieldy for me
to hold while I'm shooting. Ms Smith? Ms Smith?

Good Morning WA2K.

I'll await Letty's comments on the baby photographer, Bob.

Faces to match Bob's bios:

Good morning, WA2K listeners and contributors.

First allow me to acknowledge our edgar and dj. Texas, your song reminded me of the one by George Benson which I shall play later for our audience. dj, you did the right thing there, Canada, since dys is an anarchist. still rather scary to think that we would be on our pc's by candlelight.

Now for Bob's proxy funny. Great, Boston, as I love the idea of talking at cross "porpoises". See what happens when the government becomes involved in our lives, folks? We don't need that kind of "equipment" jerking us around. Thanks for the great bio's once again.

Hey, PA, great photo's as usual, gal.

We're looking at Anne, Paul old and Paul new. Just as sexy old and he was young, right? and I have a jar of his pop corn on my pantry shelf, too.

Next, there is Scott, Van Halen, Anita, and Ellen. That's quite a collection of notables, Raggedy.

Here's that song by George until I can get it all together. Imagine, if you will, this song and its melody being played with Beethoven"s 5th in the background.

YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT LOVE IS (George Benson)

You don't know what love is
Until you've learned the meaning of the blues
Until you've loved a love you've had to lose
You don't know what love is

You don't know how lips hurt
Until you've kissed and had to pay the cost
Until you've flipped your heart and you have lost
You don't know what love is

Do you know how a lost heart feels
The thought of reminiscing
And how lips that taste of tears
Lose their taste for kissing

You don't know how hearts burn
For love that can not live yet never dies
Until you've faced each dawn with sleepless eyes
You don't know what love is

You don't know how hearts burn
For love that can not live yet never dies
Until you've faced each dawn with sleepless eyes
You don't know what love is.....what love is....

Some time back, our Bio Bob did some background on Clarence Darrow. I read the book, Compulsion, and became fascinated with him. He was a brilliant lawyer, and he got both Leopold and Loeb off with life instead of the death penalty.



so, here is a song by The Man in Black that could reflect the situation, folks.

On a monday I was ar-rested (uh huh)
On a tuesday they locked me in jail (poor boy)
On a wednesday my trial was at-tested
On a thursday they said guilty and the judge's gavel fell

I got stripes --- stripes around my shoulders
I got chains --- chains around my feet
I got stripes --- stripes around my shoulders
And them chains --- them chains they're about to drag me down

On a monday I got my stripe-ed britches
On a tuesday I got my ball and chain
On a wednesday I'm workin' diggin' ditches
On a thursday lord I begged 'em not to knock me down again

I got stripes --- stripes around my shoulders
I got chains --- chains around my feet
I got stripes --- stripes around my shoulders
And them chains --- them chains they're about to drag me down

On a monday my momma come to see me
On a tuesday they caught me with a file
On a wednesday I'm down in solitary
On a thursday I start on bread and water for a while

I got stripes --- stripes around my shoulders
I got chains --- chains around my feet
I got stripes --- stripes around my shoulders
And them chains --- them chains they're about to drag me down

Bring The Boys Home- -refers to Vietnam
Freda Payne

Fathers are pleading
Lovers are all alone
Mothers are praying
Send our sons back home
You marched them away
Yes, you did, now
On ships and planes
To the senseless war
Facing death in vain

Bring the boys home
(Bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home
(Bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home
(Bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home
(Bring 'em back alive)
Turn the ships around
Lay your weapons down

Can't you see 'em march across the sky
All the soldiers that have died
Tryin' to get home
Can't you see them tryin' to get home
Tryin' to get home
They're tryin' to get home
Cease all fire on the battlefield
Enough men have already
Been wounded or killed

Bring the boys home
(Bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home
(Bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home
(Bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home
(Bring 'em back alive)
Turn the ships around
Lay your weapons down
(Mothers, fathers and lovers)
(Can't you see them)

Oooh, oooh...
Tryin' to get home
Can't you see them tryin' to get home
Oooh, oooh...
Tryin' to get home
Tryin' to get home

Bring the boys home
(Bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home
(Bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home
(Bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home
(Bring 'em back alive)
What they doing over there, now
(Bring 'em back alive)
When we need them over here, now
(Bring 'em back alive)
What they doing over there, now
(Bring 'em back alive)
When we need them over here, now
(Bring 'em back alive)

Hey, edgar. Love the song, Texas, but I was thinking about some Dixieland jazz, but this will fill the bill, I think. (love your thinking thread)

Back home again in Indiana
And it seems that I can see
A gleaming candlelight
Still shining bright
Through the sycamores, for me

The new-mown hay
Sends all its fragrance
From the fields I used to roam
When I dream about the moonlight
On the Wabash
Then I long for my Indiana home

You've Really Got A Hold On Me
The Miracles

I don't like you
But I love you
Seems that I'm always
thinking of you
Oh, oh, oh,
you treat me badly
I love you madly
You've really got a hold on me
You've really got a hold on me, baby

I don't want you,
but I need you
Don't want to kiss you
but I need to
Oh, oh, oh
you do me wrong now
my love is strong now
You've really got a hold on me
You've really got a hold on me, baby

I love you and all I want you to do
is just hold me, hold me, hold me, hold me

I want to leave you
don't want to stay here
Don't want to spend
another day here
Oh, oh, oh, I want to split now
I just can't quit now
You've really got a hold on me
You've really got a hold on me, baby

I love you and all I want you to do
is just hold me, hold me, hold me, hold me

You've really got a hold on me
You've really got a hold on me

and then, edgar, there is the other side of liking and loving:

"Two out of three ain't bad"


Meat Loaf:

Baby we can talk all night
But that ain't getting us nowhere
I told you everything I possibly can
There's nothing left inside of here
And may be you can cry all night
But that'll never change the way that I feel
The snow is really piling up outside
I wish you wouldn't make me leave here
I poured it on and I poured it out
I tired to show you just how much I care
I'm tired of words and I'm too hoarse to shout
But you've been cold to me so long
I'm crying icicles instead of tears
And all I can do is keep on telling you
I want you
I need you
But there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you
Now don't be sad
Cause two out of three ain't bad
Don't be sad
Cause two out of three ain't bad
You'll never find your gold on a sandy beach
You'll never drill for oil on a city street
I know you're looking for a ruby
in a mountain of rocks
But there ain't no Coupe de Ville
hiding at the bottom
of a cracker jack box
I can't lie
I can't tell you that I'm something I'm not
No matter how I try
I'll never be able
To give you something
Something that I just haven't got
Well there's only one boy that I will ever love
And that was so many years ago
And though I'll never get him out of my heart
He never loved me back
ooh I know
Well I remember how he left me
on the stormy night
He kissed me and got out of our bed
And though I pleaded and begged him
not to walk out that door
He packed his bag and turned away
And he kept on telling me,
He kept on telling me,
He kept on telling me
I want you
I need you
But there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you
Now don't be sad
Cause two out of three ain't bad
Don't be sad
Cause two out of three ain't bad
Baby we can talk all night
But that ain't getting us nowhere
I told you everything I possibly can
There's nothing left inside of here
I keep on telling you,
I keep on telling you,
I keep on telling you
I want you
I need you
But there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you
Now don't be sad
Cause two out of three ain't bad
Don't be sad
Cause two out of three ain't bad

As Tears Go By
The Rolling Stones

It is the evening of the day
I sit and watch the children play
Smiling faces I can see
But not for me
I sit and watch
As tears go by

My riches can't buy everything
I want to hear the children sing
All I hear is the sound
Of rain falling on the ground
I sit and watch
As tears go by

It is the evening of the day
I sit and watch the children play
Doing things I used to do
They think are new
I sit and watch
As tears go by

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Background information

Birth name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart
Born January 27, 1756
Salzburg, (now Austria, then a principality of the Holy Roman Empire)
Died December 5, 1791
Vienna, Austria, Holy Roman Empire


Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (baptized Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart) (January 27, 1756 - December 5, 1791) was a prolific and influential Austrian composer of the Classical era. His output of more than six hundred compositions includes works widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. Mozart is among the most enduringly popular of European composers and many of his works are part of the standard concert repertoire. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest composers of classical music.



Life

Family and early years

Mozart was born to Leopold and Anna Maria Pertl Mozart, in the front room of nine Getreidegasse in Salzburg, the capital of the sovereign Archbishopric of Salzburg, in what is now Austria, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. His only sibling who survived beyond infancy was an older sister: Maria Anna, nicknamed Nannerl. Mozart was baptized the day after his birth at St. Rupert's Cathedral. The baptismal record gives his name in Latinized form as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. Of these names, the first two refer to John Chrysostom, one of the Church Fathers, and they were names not employed in everyday life. The fourth name, meaning "beloved of God" in Greek, was variously translated in Mozart's lifetime as Amadeus (Latin), Gottlieb (German), and Amadé (French). Mozart's father Leopold announced the birth of his son in a letter to the publisher Johann Jakob Lotter with the words "...the boy is called Joannes Chrysostomus, Wolfgang, Gottlieb". Mozart himself preferred to use the third name, and he also took a fancy to "Amadeus" over the years. (see Mozart's name).

Mozart's father Leopold Mozart (1719-1787) was one of Europe's leading musical teachers. His influential textbook Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule, was published in 1756, the year of Mozart's birth (English, as "A Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing", transl. E.Knocker; Oxford-New York, 1948). He was deputy Kapellmeister to the court orchestra of the Archbishop of Salzburg, and a prolific and successful composer of instrumental music. Leopold gave up composing when his son's outstanding musical talents became evident. They first came to light when Wolfgang was about three years old, and Leopold, proud of Wolfgang's achievements, gave him intensive musical training, including instruction in clavier, violin, and organ. Leopold was Wolfgang's only teacher in his earliest years. A note by Leopold in Nannerl's music book - the Nannerl Notenbuch - records that little Wolfgang had learned several of the pieces at the age of four. Mozart's first compositions, a small Andante (K. 1a) and Allegro (K. 1b), were written in 1761, when he was five years old.[1]


The years of travel

During his formative years, Mozart made several European journeys, beginning with an exhibition in 1762 at the Court of the Elector of Bavaria in Munich, then in the same year at the Imperial Court in Vienna and Prague. A long concert tour spanning three and a half years followed, taking him and his father to the courts of Munich, Mannheim, Paris, London (where Wolfgang Amadeus played with the famous Italian cellist Giovanni Battista Cirri), The Hague, again to Paris, and back home via Zürich, Donaueschingen, and Munich. During this trip Mozart met a great number of musicians and acquainted himself with the works of other great composers. A particularly important influence was Johann Christian Bach, who ded Mozart in London in 1764-65. Bach's work is often taken to be an inspiration for Mozart's music. They again went to Vienna in late 1767 and remained there until December 1768. On this trip Mozart contracted smallpox, and his healing was considered by Leopold as a proof of God's intentions concerning the child.

After one year in Salzburg, three trips to Italy followed: from December 1769 to March 1771, from August to December 1771, and from October 1772 to March 1773. Mozart was commissioned to compose three operas: Mitridate Rè di Ponto (1770), Ascanio in Alba (1771), and Lucio Silla (1772), all three of which were performed in Milan. During the first of these trips, Mozart met Andrea Luchesi in Venice and G.B. Martini in Bologna, and was accepted as a member of the famous Accademia Filarmonica. A highlight of the Italian journey, now an almost legendary tale, occurred when he heard Gregorio Allegri's Miserere once in performance in the Sistine Chapel then wrote it out in its entirety from memory, only returning to correct minor errors; thus producing the first illegal copy of this closely-guarded property of the Vatican.[2]

On September 23, 1777, accompanied by his mother, Mozart began a tour of Europe that included Munich, Mannheim, and Paris. In Mannheim he became acquainted with members of the Mannheim orchestra, the best in Europe at the time. He fell in love with Aloysia Weber, who later broke up the relationship with him. He was to marry her sister Constanze some four years later in Vienna. During his unsuccessful visit to Paris, his mother died 1778.



Mozart in Vienna

In 1781, Idomeneo, regarded as Mozart's first great opera, premiered in Munich. The following year, he visited Vienna in the company of his employer, the harsh Prince-Archbishop Colloredo. When they returned to Salzburg, Mozart, who was then Konzertmeister, became increasingly rebellious, not wanting to follow the whims of the archbishop relating to musical affairs; and expressing these views, he soon fell out of the archbishop's favor. According to Mozart's own testimony, he was dismissed - literally - "with a kick in the arse".[3] Mozart chose to settle and develop his own freelance career in Vienna after its aristocracy began to take an interest in him.

On August 4, 1782, against his father's wishes, he married Constanze Weber (1763-1842; her name is also spelled "Costanze"); her father Fridolin was a half-brother of Carl Maria von Weber's father Franz Anton Weber. Although they had six children, only two survived infancy: Carl Thomas (1784-1858) and Franz Xaver Wolfgang (1791-1844; later a minor composer himself). Neither of these sons married or had children who reached adulthood. Carl did father a daughter, Constanza, who died in 1833.

The year 1782 was an auspicious one for Mozart's career: his opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail ("The Abduction from the Seraglio") was a great success, and he began a series of concerts at which he premiered his own piano concertos as director of the ensemble and soloist.

During 1782-83, Mozart became closely acquainted with the work of J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel as a result of the influence of Baron Gottfried van Swieten, who owned many manuscripts of works by the Baroque masters. Mozart's study of these works led first to a number of works imitating Baroque style and later had a powerful influence on his own personal musical language, for example the fugal passages in Die Zauberflöte ("The Magic Flute"), and in the finale of Symphony No. 41.

In 1783, Wolfgang and Constanze visited Leopold in Salzburg, but the visit was not a success, as his father did not open his heart to Constanze. However, the visit sparked the composition of one of Mozart's great liturgical pieces, the Mass in C Minor, which, though not completed, was premiered in Salzburg, and is now one of his best-known works. Wolfgang featured Constanze as the lead female solo voice at the premiere of the work, hoping to endear her to his father's affection.

In his early Vienna years, Mozart met Joseph Haydn and the two composers became friends. When Haydn visited Vienna, they sometimes played together in an impromptu string quartet. Mozart's six quartets dedicated to Haydn (K. 387, K. 421, K. 428, K. 458, K. 464, and K. 465) date from 1782-85, and are often judged to be his response to Haydn's Opus 33 set from 1781. In a letter to Haydn, Mozart wrote:

A father who had decided to send his sons out into the great world thought it his duty to entrust them to the protection and guidance of a man who was very celebrated at the time, and who happened moreover to be his best friend. In the same way I send my six sons to you... Please then, receive them kindly and be to them a father, guide, and friend!... I entreat you, however, to be indulgent to those faults which may have escaped a father's partial eye, and in spite of them, to continue your generous friendship towards one who so highly appreciates it." (Bernard Jacobson (1995) in CD no. 13 of the Best of the Complete Mozart Edition [Germany: Philips])

Haydn was soon in awe of Mozart, and when he first heard the last three of Mozart's series he told Leopold, "Before God and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name: He has taste, and, furthermore, the most profound knowledge of composition."[4]


During the years 1782-1785, Mozart put on a series of concerts in which he appeared as soloist in his piano concertos, widely considered among his greatest works. These concerts were financially successful. After 1785 Mozart performed far less and wrote only a few concertos. Maynard Solomon conjectures that he may have suffered from hand injuries [citation needed]; another possibility is that the fickle public ceased to attend the concerts in the same numbers.

Mozart was influenced by the ideas of the eighteenth-century European Enlightenment as an adult, and became a Freemason in 1784. His lodge was specifically Catholic, rather than deistic, and he worked fervently and successfully to convert his father before the latter's death in 1787. Die Zauberflöte, his second last opera, includes Masonic themes and allegory. He was in the same Masonic Lodge as Haydn.

Mozart's life was occasionally fraught with financial difficulty. Though the extent of this difficulty has often been romanticized and exaggerated, he nonetheless did resort to borrowing money from close friends, some debts remaining unpaid even to his death. During the years 1784-1787 he lived in a lavish, seven-room apartment, which may be visited today at Domgasse 5, behind St Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna; it was here, in 1786, that Mozart composed the opera Le nozze di Figaro.


Mozart and Prague

Mozart had a special relationship with the city of Prague and its people. The audience there celebrated the Figaro with the much-deserved reverence he was missing in his hometown Vienna. His quotation "Meine Prager verstehen mich" (My Praguers understand me) became very famous in the Bohemian lands. Many tourists follow his tracks in Prague and visit the Mozart Museum of the Villa Bertramka where they can enjoy a chamber concert. In the later years of his life, Prague provided Mozart with many financial resources from commissions [citation needed]. In Prague, Don Giovanni premiered on October 29, 1787 at the Theatre of the Estates. Mozart wrote La clemenza di Tito for the festivities accompanying Leopold II's coronation in November 1790; Mozart obtained this commission after Antonio Salieri had allegedly rejected it.[5]


Final illness and death

Mozart's final illness and death are difficult topics for scholars, obscured by romantic stories and replete with conflicting theories. Scholars disagree about the course of decline in Mozart's health - particularly at what point (or if at all) Mozart became aware of his impending death and whether this awareness influenced his final works. The romantic view holds that Mozart declined gradually and that his outlook and compositions paralleled this decline. In opposition to this, some present-day scholars point out correspondence from Mozart's final year indicating that he was in good cheer, as well as evidence that Mozart's death was sudden and a shock to his family and friends. Mozart's attributed last words: "The taste of death is upon my lips...I feel something, that is not of this earth." The actual cause of Mozart's death is also a matter of conjecture. His death record listed "hitziges Frieselfieber" ("severe miliary fever," referring to a rash that looks like millet-seeds), a description that does not suffice to identify the cause as it would be diagnosed in modern medicine. Dozens of theories have been proposed, including trichinosis, mercury poisoning, and rheumatic fever. The practice of bleeding medical patients, common at that time, is also cited as a contributing cause.

Mozart died at approximately 1 a.m. on December 5, 1791 in Vienna. With the onset of his illness, he had largely ceased work on his final composition, the Requiem some days earlier. Popular belief has it that Mozart was thinking of his own impending death while writing this piece, and even that a messenger from the afterworld commissioned it. Documentary evidence has established that the anonymous commission came from one Franz Count of Walsegg on Schloss Stuppach, and that most if not all of the music had been written while Mozart was still in good health. A younger composer, and Mozart's pupil at the time, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, was engaged by Constanze to complete the Requiem. He was not the first composer asked to finish the Requiem, as the widow had first approached another Mozart student, Joseph Eybler, who began work directly on the empty staves of Mozart's manuscript but then abandoned it.

Because he was buried in an unmarked grave, it has been popularly assumed that Mozart was penniless and forgotten when he died. In fact, though he was no longer as fashionable in Vienna as before, he continued to have a well paid job at court and receive substantial commissions from more distant parts of Europe, Prague in particular [citation needed]. He earned about 10,000 florins per year[6], equivalent to at least 42,000 US dollars in 2006, which places him within the top 5% of late 18th century wage earners[6], but he could not manage his wealth. His mother wrote, "When Wolfgang makes new acquaintances, he immediately wants to give his life and property to them." His impulsive largesse and spending often had him asking for loans. Many of his begging letters survive, but they are evidence not so much of poverty as of his habit of spending more than he earned. He was not buried in a "mass grave" but in a regular communal grave according to the 1784 laws in Austria.

Though the original grave in the St. Marx cemetery was lost, memorial gravestones (or cenotaphs) have been placed there and in the Zentralfriedhof. In 2005 new DNA testing was performed by Austria's University of Innsbruck and the US Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Rockville, Maryland, to determine if a skull in an Austrian Museum was actually his, using DNA samples from the marked graves of his grandmother and Mozart's niece. Test results were inconclusive, suggesting that none of the DNA samples were related to each other.

In 1809 Constanze married Danish diplomat Georg Nikolaus von Nissen (1761-1826). Being a fanatical admirer of Mozart, he (and Constanze?) edited vulgar passages out of many of the composer's letters and wrote a Mozart biography. Nissen did not live to see his biography printed, and Constanze finished it.




Style

Mozart's music, like Haydn's, stands as an archetypal example of the Classical style. His works spanned the period during which that style transformed from one exemplified by the style galant to one that began to incorporate some of the contrapuntal complexities of the late Baroque, complexities against which the galant style had been a reaction. Mozart's own stylistic development closely paralleled the development of the classical style as a whole. In addition, he was a versatile composer and wrote in almost every major genre, including symphony, opera, the solo concerto, chamber music including string quartet and string quintet, and the piano sonata. While none of these genres were new, the piano concerto was almost single-handedly developed and popularized by Mozart. He also wrote a great deal of religious music, including masses; and he composed many dances, divertimenti, serenades, and other forms of light entertainment.

The central traits of the classical style can all be identified in Mozart's music. Clarity, balance, and transparency are hallmarks, though a simplistic notion of the delicacy of his music obscures for us the exceptional and even demonic power of some of his finest masterpieces, such as the Piano Concerto No. 24 (Mozart) in C minor, K. 491, the Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550, and the opera Don Giovanni. The famed writer on music Charles Rosen has written (in The Classical Style): "It is only through recognizing the violence and sensuality at the center of Mozart's work that we can make a start towards a comprehension of his structures and an insight into his magnificence. In a paradoxical way, Schumann's superficial characterization of the G minor Symphony can help us to see Mozart's daemon more steadily. In all of Mozart's supreme expressions of suffering and terror, there is something shockingly voluptuous." Especially during his last decade, Mozart explored chromatic harmony to a degree rare at the time. The slow introduction to the "Dissonant" Quartet, K. 465, a work that Haydn greatly admired, rapidly explodes a shallow understanding of Mozart's style as light and pleasant.

From his earliest years Mozart had a gift for imitating the music he heard; since he travelled widely, he acquired a rare collection of experiences from which to create his unique compositional language. When he went to London[7] as a child, he met J.C. Bach and heard his music; when he went to Paris, Mannheim, and Vienna, he heard the work of composers active there, as well as the spectacular Mannheim orchestra; when he went to Italy, he encountered the Italian overture and the opera buffa, both of which were to be hugely influential on his development. Both in London and Italy, the galant style was all the rage: simple, light music, with a mania for cadencing, an emphasis on tonic, dominant, and subdominant to the exclusion of other chords, symmetrical phrases, and clearly articulated structures. This style, out of which the classical style evolved, was a reaction against the complexity of late Baroque music. Some of Mozart's early symphonies are Italian overtures, with three movements running into each other; many are "homotonal" (each movement in the same key, with the slow movement in the tonic minor). Others mimic the works of J.C. Bach, and others show the simple rounded binary forms commonly being written by composers in Vienna. One of the most recognizable features of Mozart's works is a sequence of harmonies or modes that usually leads to a cadence in the dominant or tonic key. This sequence is essentially borrowed from baroque music, especially Bach. But Mozart shifted the sequence so that the cadence ended on the stronger half, i.e., the first beat of the bar. Mozart's understanding of modes such as Phrygian is evident in such passages.

As Mozart matured, he began to incorporate some more features of Baroque styles into his music. For example, the Symphony No. 29 in A Major K. 201 uses a contrapuntal main theme in its first movement, and experimentation with irregular phrase lengths. Some of his quartets from 1773 have fugal finales, probably influenced by Haydn, who had just published his opus 20 set. The influence of the Sturm und Drang ("Storm and Stress") period in German literature, with its brief foreshadowing of the Romantic era to come, is evident in some of the music of both composers at that time.

Over the course of his working life Mozart switched his focus from instrumental music to operas, and back again. He wrote operas in each of the styles current in Europe: opera buffa, such as The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, or Così fan tutte; opera seria, such as Idomeneo; and Singspiel, of which Die Zauberflöte is probably the most famous example by any composer. In his later operas, he developed the use of subtle changes in instrumentation, orchestration, and tone colour to express or highlight psychological or emotional states and dramatic shifts. Here his advances in opera and instrumental composing interacted. His increasingly sophisticated use of the orchestra in the symphonies and concerti served as a resource in his operatic orchestration, and his developing subtlety in using the orchestra to psychological effect in his operas was reflected in his later non-operatic compositions.


Influence

Mozart's legacy to subsequent generations of composers (in all genres) is immense.

Many important composers since Mozart's time have expressed profound appreciation of Mozart. Rossini averred, "He is the only musician who had as much knowledge as genius, and as much genius as knowledge." Ludwig van Beethoven's admiration for Mozart is also quite clear. Beethoven used Mozart as a model a number of times: for example, Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major demonstrates a debt to Mozart's Piano Concerto in C major, K. 503. A plausible story - not corroborated - regards one of Beethoven's students who looked through a pile of music in Beethoven's apartment. When the student pulled out Mozart's A major Quartet, K. 464, Beethoven exclaimed "Ah, that piece. That's Mozart saying 'here's what I could do, if only you had ears to hear!' "; Beethoven's own Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor is an obvious tribute to Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, and yet another plausible - if unconfirmed - story concerns Beethoven at a concert with his sometime-student Ferdinand Ries. As they listened to Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24, the orchestra reached the quite unusual coda of the last movement, and Beethoven whispered to Ries: "We'll never think of anything like that!" Beethoven's Quintet for Piano and Winds is another obvious tribute to Mozart, similar to Mozart's own quintet for the same ensemble. Beethoven also paid homage to Mozart by writing sets of variations on several of his themes: for example, the two sets of variations for cello and piano on themes from Mozart's Magic Flute, and cadenzas to several of Mozart's piano concertos, most notably the Piano Concerto No. 20 K. 466. A famous story asserts that, after the only meeting between the two composers, Mozart noted that Beethoven would "give the world something to talk about." However, it is not certain that the two ever met. Tchaikovsky wrote his Mozartiana in praise of Mozart; and Mahler's final word was alleged to have been simply "Mozart". The theme of the opening movement of the Piano Sonata in A major K. 331 (itself a set of variations on that theme) was used by Max Reger for his Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Mozart, written in 1914 and among Reger's best-known works.[8]


The first two measures of Mozart's Sonata IX, K.331.In addition, Mozart received outstanding praise from several fellow composers including Frédéric Chopin, Franz Schubert, Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky, Robert Schumann, and many more.[1]

Mozart has remained an influence in popular contemporary music in varying genres ranging from Jazz to modern Rock and Heavy metal. An example of this influence is the jazz pianist Chick Corea, who has performed piano concertos of Mozart and was inspired by them to write a concerto of his own.


The Köchel catalogue

In the decades after Mozart's death there were several attempts to catalogue his compositions, but it was not until 1862 that Ludwig von Köchel succeeded in this enterprise. Many of his famous works are referred to by their Köchel catalogue number; for example, the Piano Concerto in A major (Piano Concerto No. 23) is often referred to simply as "K. 488" or "KV. 488". The catalogue has undergone six revisions, labeling the works from K. 1 to K. 626.





Rumours and controversies

Mozart is unusual among composers for being the subject of an abundance of misconceptions, partly because none of his early biographers knew him personally. They often resorted to fiction in order to produce a work. Many rumours began soon after Mozart died, but few have any basis in fact. An example is the story that Mozart composed his Requiem with the belief it was for himself. Sorting out fabrications from real events is a vexing and continuous task for Mozart scholars, mainly because of the prevalence of story in scholarship. Dramatists and screenwriters, free from responsibilities of scholarship, have found excellent material among these rumours.

An especially popular case is the supposed rivalry between Mozart and Antonio Salieri, and, in some versions, the tale that it was poison received from the latter that caused Mozart's death; this is the subject of Aleksandr Pushkin's play Mozart and Salieri, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Mozart and Salieri, and Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus. The last of these has been made into a feature-length film of the same name. Shaffer's play attracted criticism for portraying Mozart as vulgar and loutish, a characterization felt by many to be unfairly exaggerated, but in fact frequently confirmed by the composer's letters and other memorabilia. For example, Mozart wrote canons on the words "Leck mich im Arsch" ("Lick me in the arse") and "Leck mich im Arsch recht fein schön sauber" ("Lick me in the arse nice and clean") as party pieces for his friends. The Köchel numbers of these canons are 231 and 233.

Another debate involves Mozart's alleged status as a kind of superhuman prodigy, from childhood right up until his death. While some have criticised his earlier works as simplistic or forgettable, others revere even Mozart's juvenilia. In any case, several of his early compositions remain very popular. The motet Exultate, jubilate (K. 165), for example, composed when Mozart was seventeen years old, is among the most frequently recorded of his vocal compositions. It is also mentioned that around the time when he was five or six years old, he could play the piano blindfolded and with his hands crossed over one another. [citation needed]

Benjamin Simkin, a medical doctor, argues in his book Medical and Musical Byways of Mozartiana[9] that Mozart had Tourette syndrome. However, no Tourette syndrome expert, organization, psychiatrist or neurologist has stated that there is credible evidence that Mozart had this syndrome, and several have stated that they do not believe there is enough evidence to substantiate the claim.[10]


Amadeus (1984)

Milos Forman's 1984 motion picture Amadeus, based on the play by Peter Shaffer, won eight Academy Awards and was one of the year's most popular films. While the film did a great deal to popularize Mozart's work with the general public, it has been criticized for its historical inaccuracies, and in particular for its portrayal of Antonio Salieri's intrigues against Mozart, for which little historical evidence can be found. On the contrary, it is likely that Mozart and Salieri regarded each other as friends and colleagues: it is well documented, for instance, that Salieri frequently lent Mozart musical scores from the court library, that he often chose compositions by Mozart for performance at state occasions, and Salieri taught Mozart's son, Franz Xaver.

The idea that he never revised his compositions, dramatized in the film, is easily exploded by even a cursory examination of the autograph manuscripts, which contain many revisions. Mozart was a studiously hard worker, and by his own admission his extensive knowledge and abilities developed out of many years' close study of the European musical tradition. In fairness, Schaffer and Forman never claimed that Amadeus was intended to be an accurate biographical portrait of Mozart. Rather, as Shaffer reveals on the DVD release of the film, the dramatic narrative was inspired by the biblical story of Cain and Abel - one brother loved by God, and the other scorned.

Lewis Carroll
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (January 27, 1832 - January 14, 1898), better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican clergyman, and photographer.

His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass as well as the poems "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky".

His facility at word play, logic, and fantasy has delighted audiences ranging from children to the literary elite. But beyond this, his work has become embedded deeply in modern culture. He has directly influenced many artists.

There are societies dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of his works and the investigation of his life in many parts of the world including North America, Japan, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand.

His biography has recently come under much question as a result of what has come to be termed the "Carroll Myth."



Early life

Antecedents

Dodgson's family was predominantly northern English, with some Irish connections. Conservative and High Church Anglican, most of Dodgson's ancestors were army officers or Church of England clergymen. His great-grandfather, also Charles Dodgson, had risen through the ranks of the church to become a bishop; his grandfather, another Charles, had been an army captain, killed in action in 1803 when his two sons were hardly more than babies.

The elder of these sons ?- yet another Charles ?- was Carroll's father. He reverted to the other family business and took holy orders. He went to Rugby School, and thence to Christ Church, Oxford. He was mathematically gifted and won a double first degree which could have been the prelude to a brilliant academic career. Instead he married his first cousin in 1827 and retired into obscurity as a country parson.

Young Charles' father was an active and highly conservative member of the Anglican church who involved himself, sometimes influentially, in the intense religious disputes that were dividing the Anglican church. He was High Church, inclining to Anglo-Catholicism, an admirer of Newman and the Tractarian movement, and he did his best to instill such views in his children. Young Charles, however, was to develop an ambiguous relationship with his father's values and with the Anglican church as a whole.


Young Charles

Young Dodgson was born in the little parsonage of Daresbury in Warrington, Cheshire, the oldest boy but already the third child of the four-and-a-half year old marriage. Eight more were to follow and, remarkably for the time, all of them?-seven girls and four boys (including Edwin H. Dodgson)?- survived into adulthood. When Charles was 11, his father was given the living of Croft-on-Tees in north Yorkshire, and the whole family moved to the spacious Rectory. This remained their home for the next twenty-five years.

In his early years, young Dodgson was educated at home. His "reading lists" preserved in the family testify to a precocious intellect: at the age of seven the child was reading The Pilgrim's Progress. He also suffered from a stammer ?- a condition shared by his siblings ?- that often influenced his social life throughout his years. At twelve he was sent away to a small private school at nearby Richmond, where he appears to have been happy and settled. But in 1845, young Dodgson moved on to Rugby School, where he was evidently less happy, for as he wrote some years after leaving the place:

I cannot say ... that any earthly considerations would induce me to go through my three years again ... I can honestly say that if I could have been ... secure from annoyance at night, the hardships of the daily life would have been comparative trifles to bear. [1]

The nature of this nocturnal "annoyance" will probably never now be fully understood, but it may be that he is delicately referring to some type of sexual molestation. Scholastically, though, he excelled with apparent ease. "I have not had a more promising boy his age since I came to Rugby" observed R.B. Mayor, the Mathematics master.[2]


Oxford

He left Rugby at the end of 1849 and, after an interval which remains unexplained, went on in January 1851 to Oxford, attending his father's old college, Christ Church. He had only been at Oxford two days when he received a summons home. His mother had died of "inflammation of the brain" ?- perhaps meningitis or a stroke ?- at the age of forty-seven.

His early academic career veered between high-octane promise and irresistible distraction. He may not always have worked hard, but he was exceptionally gifted and achievement came easily to him. In 1852 he received a first in Honour Moderations, and shortly after he was nominated to a Studentship, by his father's old friend Canon Edward Pusey. However, a little later he failed an important scholarship through his self-confessed inability to apply himself to study. Even so, his talent as a mathematician won him the Christ Church Mathematical Lectureship, which he continued to hold for the next twenty-six years. The income was good, but the work bored him. Many of his pupils were older and richer than he was, and almost all of them were uninterested. However, despite early unhappiness, Dodgson was to remain at Christ Church, in various capacities, until his death.


Character and appearance

Physical appearance

The young adult Charles Dodgson was about six feet tall, slender and handsome, with curling brown hair and blue eyes. He was described in later life as somewhat asymmetrical, or as carrying himself rather stiffly and awkwardly, though this may be on account of a knee injury sustained in middle age. At the age of seventeen, he suffered a severe attack of whooping cough which left him with poor hearing in his right ear and was probably responsible for his chronically weak chest in later life. The only overt defect he carried into adulthood was what he referred to as his "hesitation", a stammer he acquired in early childhood and which plagued him throughout his life.


Stammer

The stammer has always been a potent part of the conceptions of him; it is part of the belief that Dodgson stammered only in adult company and was free and fluent with children, but there is no evidence to support this idea.[3] Many children of his acquaintance remembered the stammer while many adults failed to notice it. It came and went for its own reasons, but not as a clichéd manifestation of fear of the adult world. Dodgson himself seems to have been far more acutely aware of it than most people he met; it is said he caricatured himself as the Dodo in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, referring to his difficulty in pronouncing his last name, but this is one of the many 'facts' oft-repeated, for which no firsthand evidence remains. He did indeed refer to himself as the dodo, but that this was a reference to his stammer is simply speculation.


Personality

Although Carroll's stammer troubled him, it was never bad enough to stop him using his other qualities to do well in society. At a time when people devised their own amusements and singing and recitation were required social skills, the young Dodgson was well-equipped as an engaging entertainer. He could sing tolerably well and was not afraid to do so in front of an audience. He was adept at mimicry and storytelling, and was reputedly quite good at charades.

Carroll appears to have invented, and certainly popularised, a form of brain-teaser which is still popular today: the game of changing one word into another word of equal length by altering one letter at a time, the result always being a genuine word. For instance, CAT may be transformed into DOG by the following steps: CAT, COT, DOT, DOG.

He was also quite socially ambitious, anxious to make his mark on the world as a writer or an artist. His scholastic career may well have been seen as something of a stop-gap to other more exciting attainments that he desired. The traditional image of his entirely child-centred life has recently been challenged (see 'Karoline Leach's work on the "Carroll Myth"' below), and we have been reminded that he did enjoy a very active adult social life. In the interim between his early published writing and the success of Alice, he began to move in the Pre-Raphaelite social circle. He first met John Ruskin in 1857 and became friendly with him. Dodgson developed a close relationship with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his family, and also knew William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Arthur Hughes among other artists. He also knew the fairy-tale author George MacDonald well ?- it was the enthusiastic reception of Alice by the young MacDonald children that convinced him to submit the work for publication.


Dodgson the artist

The author

From a young age, Dodgson wrote poetry and short stories, sending them to various magazines and enjoying moderate success. Between 1854 and 1856, his work appeared in the national publications, The Comic Times and The Train, as well as smaller magazines like the Whitby Gazette and the Oxford Critic. Most of this output was humorous, sometimes satirical, but his standards and ambitions were exacting. "I do not think I have yet written anything worthy of real publication (in which I do not include the Whitby Gazette or the Oxonian Advertiser), but I do not despair of doing so some day", he wrote in July 1855. In 1856 he published his first piece of work under the name that would make him famous. A very predictable little romantic poem called "Solitude" appeared in The Train under the authorship of 'Lewis Carroll'. This pseudonym was a play on his real name; Lewis was the anglicised form of Ludovicus, which was the Latin for Lutwidge, and Carroll being an anglicised version of Carolus, the Latin for Charles.


Alice

The ruin of Godstow Nunnery.In the same year, 1856, a new Dean, Henry Liddell, arrived at Christ Church, bringing with him a young wife and children, all of whom would figure largely in Dodgson's life, and greatly influence his writing career, over the following years. He became close friends with the mother Lorina and the children, particularly the three sisters Ina, Edith and Alice Liddell. It is from the latter he is often said to have derived his own "Alice", however, Dodgson himself later denied his "little heroine" was based on any real child, [4].

There is an acrostic poem at the end of Through the Looking Glass; reading downward, taking the first letter of each line, spells out Alice Pleasance Liddell, so there is little doubt that she was responsible for the inspiration behind the fictional Alice.

Though information is scarce (Dodgson's diaries for the years 1858-62 are missing), it does seem evident his friendship with the family was an important part of his life in the late 1850s, and he grew into the habit of taking the children (first the brother Harry, but later the three girls) on rowing trips to nearby Nuneham or Godstow.

It was on one such expedition, on July 4, 1862, that Dodgson invented the outline of the story that eventually became his first and largest commercial success. Having told the story and been begged by Alice Liddell to write it down, Dodgson eventually (after much delay) presented her with a handwritten, illustrated manuscript entitled Alice's Adventures Under Ground in November 1864.

Before this, the family of friend and mentor George MacDonald read Dodgson's incomplete manuscript and the enthusiasm of the MacDonald children encouraged Dodgson to seek publication. In 1863, he had taken the unfinished manuscript to Macmillan the publisher, who liked it immediately. After the possible alternative titles Alice Among the Fairies and Alice's Golden Hour were rejected, the work was finally published as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865 under the Lewis Carroll pen name which Dodgson had first used some nine years earlier. The illustrations this time were by Sir John Tenniel; Dodgson evidently realised that a published book would need the skills of a professional artist. The first edition copy of Alice's Adventures Under Ground, now highly sought after by literary collectors, changed hands to a private collector on January 26, 2006. It was sold at Christie's for GBP4,800 by the Duke of Gloucester, its previous owner, to pay for his father's death duties[5]

The overwhelming commercial success of the first Alice book changed Dodgson's life in many ways. The fame of his alter ego 'Lewis Carroll' soon spread around the world. He was inundated with fan mail and sometimes unwanted attention. He also began earning quite substantial sums of money. However, perhaps oddly, he didn't use this income as a means of abandoning his seemingly disliked post at Christ Church.

In 1872, a sequel ?- Through the Looking-Glass ?- was published. Its darker mood possibly reflects the changes in Dodgson's life. His father had recently died (1868) plunging him into a depression that would last some years.


The Hunting of the Snark

In 1876, Dodgson produced his last great work, The Hunting of the Snark a fantastic 'nonsense' poem, exploring the adventures of a bizarre crew of variously inadequate beings, and one beaver, who set off to find the eponymous creature. The painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti reputedly became convinced the poem was about him.


The photographer

In 1856, Dodgson took up the new art form of photography, first under the influence of his uncle Skeffington Lutwidge, and later his Oxford friend Reginald Southey.

He soon excelled at the art and became a well-known gentleman-photographer, and he seems even to have toyed with the idea of making a living out of it in his very early years.

A recent study (Roger Taylor and Edward Wakeling's Lewis Carroll, Photographer (2002) exhaustively lists every surviving print, and Taylor calculates that just over fifty percent of his surviving work depicts young girls. Alexandra Kitchin, known as 'Xie', was a favorite photographic subject; Dodgson made over 50 studies of her from 1869 until his cessation of photography in 1880, just before her sixteenth birthday. However before attempting to draw any conclusions, it should be noted that less than a third of his original portfolio has survived (see below). We do know he also made many studies of men, women, male children and landscapes and in all his subjects ranged from skeletons, through dolls, dogs, statues and paintings to trees, scholars, old men, scientists and (indeed) little girls. His infamous (and possibly misunderstood) studies of child nudes were long presumed lost, but six have since surfaced, four of which have been published and another two of which little is known.


He also found photography to be a useful entré into higher social circles. During the most productive part of his career, he made portraits of notable sitters such as John Everett Millais, Ellen Terry, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Julia Margaret Cameron, Michael Faraday and Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Dodgson abruptly ceased to photograph in 1880. Over 24 years, he had completely mastered the medium, set up his own studio on the roof of Tom Quad, and created around 3,000 images. Fewer than 1,000 have survived time and deliberate destruction. His reasons for abandoning photography remain uncertain.

With the advent of Modernism tastes changed, and his photography was forgotten from around 1920 until the 1960s. He is now considered one of the very best Victorian photographers, and is certainly the one who has had the most influence on modern art photographers.


The inventor

To promote letter writing Carroll invented The Wonderland Postage-Stamp Case in 1889. This was a cloth-backed folder with twelve slots, two marked for inserting the then most commonly used 1d. stamp, and one each for the other current denominations to 1s. The folder was then put into a slip case decorated with a picture of Alice on the front and the Cheshire Cat on the back. All could be conveniently carried in a pocket or purse. When issued it also included a copy of Carroll's pamphletted lecture, Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing.[6] [7] [8]


The later years

Over the remaining twenty years of his life, throughout his growing wealth and fame, his existence remained little changed. He continued to teach at Christ Church until 1881, and remained in residence there until his death. His last novel, the two-volume Sylvie and Bruno, was published in 1889 and 1893 respectively. Its extraordinary convolutions and apparent confusion baffled most readers and it achieved little success. He died at his sisters' home in Guildford on January 14, 1898 of pneumonia following influenza. He was not quite sixty-six years old. He is buried in Guildford at the Mount Cemetery.


Controversies and mysteries

The possibility of drug use

There has been much speculation that Dodgson used psychoactive drugs, however there is no direct evidence that he ever did. It is true that the most common painkiller of the time?-laudanum?-was in fact a tincture of opium and could produce a 'high' if used in a large enough dose. Most historians can infer Dodgson probably used it from time to time to ease the pain of his arthritis, since it was the standard domestic painkiller of its day and was to be found in numerous patent medicines of the time, but there is no evidence he ever abused it or that its effects had any impact on his work. There is no factual evidence to support a suggestion that he smoked cannabis. However, many people regard Alice's hallucinations in the Wonderland, when surrounded by teas, mushrooms and smoking insects, as references to psychedelic substances.


The priesthood

Charles Dodgson had been groomed for the priesthood from a very early age and was expected, as a condition of his residency at Christ Church, to take holy orders within four years of obtaining his master's degree. However, for reasons not presently explained, he became reluctant to do this. He delayed the process for some time but eventually took deacon's orders in December 1861. But when the time came, a year later, to progress to full orders, Dodgson appealed to the dean for permission not to proceed. This was against college rules, and Dean Liddell told him he would very likely have to leave his job if he refused to take orders. He told Dodgson he would have to consult the college ruling body, which would almost undoubtedly have resulted in his being expelled. However, for unknown reasons, Dean Liddell changed his mind and permitted Dodgson to remain at the college, in defiance of the rules.[9] Dodgson never became a priest. Dean Liddell's behavior remains puzzling and unexplained, though some theories have been put forward to explain it.

There is currently no conclusive evidence about why Dodgson rejected the priesthood. Some have suggested his stammer made him reluctant to take the step, because he was afraid of having to preach, but this seems unlikely given his willingness to take on other public performances (story-telling, recitations, magic lantern shows), and the fact that he did indeed preach in later life, even though not in orders. Others have suggested, perhaps more plausibly, that he was having serious doubts about the Anglican church. It is known that he was interested in minority forms of Christianity (he was an admirer of FD Maurice) and 'alternative' religions (Theosophy) so this may well have been a reason. However, it is also true that Dodgson was deeply troubled by an unexplained sense of sin and guilt at this time (the early 1860s), and frequently expressed the view in his diaries that he was a "vile and worthless" sinner, unworthy of the priesthood [10], so this may well also have been a contributing factor.

Currently it is unknown why Dodgson was consumed with a sense of sin at this time, though again several theories have been put forward.


The missing diaries

At least four complete volumes[11] and around seven pages[12] of text are missing from Dodgson's 13 diaries. The loss of the volumes remains unexplained; the pages have been deliberately removed by an unknown hand. Most scholars assume the diary material was removed by family members in the interests of preserving the family name, but this has not been proven.[13]

All of the missing material, except for a single page, is believed to date from the period between 1853 (when Dodgson was 22) and 1863 (when he was 32).[14] Many theories have been put forward to explain the missing material. A popular 'explanation' for one particular missing page (June 27, 1863) was that it might have been torn out to conceal the fact that Dodgson had proposed marriage on that day to the 11-year old Alice. However, there has never been any hard evidence to suggest this was so, and a paper[15] that came to light in the Dodgson family archive in 1996 provides some evidence to the contrary. This paper, known as the 'cut pages in diary document', gives a brief summary of two of the missing pages, including the one for June 27, 1863. The summary reveals that there was gossip circulating about Dodgson and the Liddell governess as well as 'Ina', Alice's older sister Lorina. The 'break' with the family that occurred after this point was presumably in response to this gossip. [16] [17]

An alternate interpretation can be made regarding Carroll's rumored involvement with 'Ina'. Lorina was also the name of Alice's mother. The ultimate reason for the break remains unconfirmed.


Suggestions of paedophilia

Dodgson's fondness for little girls, together with his perceived lack of interest in forming romantic attachments to adult women; psychological readings of his work?-especially his photographs of nude[18] or semi-nude girls, have all led to speculation that he was, in modern parlance, a paedophile. This possibility has underpinned numerous modern interpretations of his life and work, most particularly, Dennis Potter's play Alice, his motion picture, Dreamchild, and numerous recent biographies, including Michael Bakewell's Lewis Carroll: A Biography (1996) , Donald Thomas's Lewis Carroll: A Portrait with Background (1996) and - most notably, Morton N. Cohen's Lewis Carroll: A Biography (1995). All of these latest works more or less unequivocally assume that Dodgson was a paedophile, albeit a repressed and celibate one. Cohen claims Dodgson's "sexual energies sought unconventional outlets", and further writes:

We cannot know to what extent sexual urges lay behind Charles's preference for drawing and photographing children in the nude. He contended the preference was entirely aesthetic. But given his emotional attachment to children as well as his aesthetic appreciation of their forms, his assertion that his interest was strictly artistic is naïve. He probably felt more than he dared acknowledge, even to himself. [19]
Cohen further notes that Dodgson "apparently convinced many of his friends that his attachment to the nude female child form was free of any eroticism", but adds that "later generations look beneath the surface" (p 229).

Cohen - and many other biographers - also argue that Dodgson may have wanted to marry the 11-year old Alice Liddell and that this was the cause of Dodgson's unexplained 'break' with the family in June of 1863 (Cohen pp 100-4). But there has never been much evidence to support such an idea, and the 1996 discovery of the 'cut pages in diary document' (see above) seems to imply that the 1863 'break' had nothing to do with Alice Liddell. But the document's provenance is disputed, and its final significance is unknown.

Those writers, like Derek Hudson and Roger Lancelyn Green, who have fallen short of accepting Dodgson was a paedophile, have tended to concur that he held a unique passion for small female children and had next to no interest in the adult world. The issue is considered at length in Darien Graham-Smith's 2005 PhD thesis Contextualising Carroll.


"The Carroll Myth"

The accepted view of Dodgson's biography ?- and most particularly his image as a potential paedophile ?- has received a challenge in quite recent times, when a new and controversial analysis of Dodgson's sexual proclivities (and indeed the evolution of the entire process of his biography) appeared in Karoline Leach's 1999 book In the Shadow of the Dreamchild. She states that the image of Dodgson's alleged paedophilia was built out of a failure to understand Victorian morals, as well as the mistaken idea that Dodgson had no interest in adult women which evolved out of the minds of various biographers. She termed this simplified ?- and often, in her view, fictional ?- image "the Carroll Myth".

According to Leach, Dodgson's real life was very different from the accepted biographical image. He was not, she says, exclusively interested in female children. She acknowledges he was fond of children, but says this interest has been exaggerated. She says that he was also keenly interested in adult women and apparently enjoyed several relationships with them, married and single; furthermore, she goes on to state that many of those Dodgson described as 'child-friends' were not children at all, but girls in their late teens and even twenties.[20] She cites examples of many such adult friendships, such as Catherine Lloyd, Constance Burch, May Miller, Edith Shute, Ethel Rowell, Beatrice Hatch and Gertrude Thomson, among others. Some of these were girls he met as children but continued to be close to in adulthood. Others were, says Leach, women he met as adults and with whom he shared very close and meaningful friendships. Suggestions of paedophilia only evolved many years after his death, says Leach, when his well-meaning family had suppressed all evidence of his adult friendships in order to try to preserve his reputation, thus giving a false impression of a man interested only in little girls.

According to Leach the image of 'Lewis Carroll' was constructed almost accidentally by generations of biographers. One of these, Langford Reed, writing in 1932, was the first to state that many of Carroll's female friendships ended when the girls reached the age of 14,[21] though Reed apparently only intended to suggest that Dodgson was thereby a "pure man" untainted by sexual desire.[22] This statement, that Dodgson lost interest in girls once they reached puberty, was later caught up by other biographers, including Florence Becker Lennon (Victoria Through the Looking-Glass ?- UK title "Lewis Carroll", 1945) and the highly influential Alexander Taylor (The White Knight), 1952 who remained unaware of the evidence to the contrary since Dodgson's family refused to publish his diaries and letters. By the time more evidence became available, this image was so ingrained that any revision seemed "unnecessary, even impertinent," [23]and thus a supposed biography was preserved. This, in essence, is Leach's case.

Reactions to Leach's work have been generally polarised. She joined with supportive scholars and writers (most notably Hugues Lebailly), to form Contrariwise, the 'association for new Lewis Carroll studies'. The group argues collectively that a rumour has grossly distorted our reading of Dodgson's biography, and that considering Dodgson's relationship with 'the child' within the context of his real life ?- as opposed to the misconceptions of it ?- and the fashions and mores of his time, assertions of paedophilia become nonsensical and amount to a failure to understand the complexity of Dodgson's real life as well as the "Victorian Cult of the Child."

However, in a review of the title in Victorian Studies (Vol. 43, No 4) reviewer Donald Rackin wrote, "As a piece of biographical scholarship, Karoline Leach's In the Shadow of the Dreamchild is difficult to take seriously". Martin Gardner was similarly dismissive in an article published by the Lewis Carroll Society of North America.[24] Morton N. Cohen repudiates Leach's position as being simply a plea for the defence, and, in a recent article in the Times Literary Supplement has labeled Leach and her supporters as 'revisionists' attempting to rewrite history. [25]

Writing in The Carrollian, Michael Bakewell takes a measured view, saying that "after Leach's book Carroll studies can never be quite the same again; we may not agree with it but we cannot ignore it and it should certainly be read by anyone concerned with Dodgson's life and work."[26]


Trivia

There is a popular urban legend that Queen Victoria, having enjoyed one of Carroll's children's books, wrote to him graciously suggesting that he dedicate his next book to her. Carroll, according to the story, obligingly did so dedicate it, but the work happened to be a mathematical opus (which did not amuse her) entitled An Elementary Treatise on Determinants. This story originated in Carroll's lifetime, and he wrote himself that "nothing even resembling it has occurred".[27][28]

Donna Reed
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Birth name Donnabelle Mullenger
Born January 27, 1921
Denison, Iowa United States
Died January 14, 1986 age 64
Beverly Hills, California


Academy Awards

Best Supporting Actress
1953 From Here to Eternity

Donna Reed (January 27, 1921 - January 14, 1986) was an Academy Award-winning American actress.





Early life

Ms. Reed was born Donnabelle Mullenger on a farm near Denison, Crawford County, Iowa. Her parents are William Richard Mullenger (whose paternal grandparents were born in England) and Hazel Jane Shives .One of her nephews, Todd Mullenger, is treasurer at Corrections Corporation of America. His son is Matt Mullenger.


Career

Reed is probably best remembered for her roles as the wholesome housewife "Donna Stone" on television's The Donna Reed Show and as "Mary Bailey" in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946). She won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing a prostitute in From Here to Eternity (1953).

In her later years she temporarily replaced an ailing Barbara Bel Geddes as "Miss Ellie" in the television series Dallas in the 1984-1985 season. When Bel Geddes was well enough to return to the role, Reed was fired. She sued the show's production company and received an undisclosed seven-figure settlement, but this settlement came shortly before her death from cancer.

Donna Reed was the mother of 4 children, who was committed to both motherhood and gender equality. In 1967, in opposition to the Vietnam War, she co-founded Another Mother for Peace.


Death

She died on January 14, 1986, at age 64 in Beverly Hills, California from pancreatic cancer, and was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

The Donna Reed Foundation for the Performing Arts, based in Reed's hometown of Denison, was organized after Reed's death in 1986. The non-profit organization grants scholarships for performing arts students, runs an annual festival of performing arts workshops, and operates The Donna Reed Center for the Performing Arts. The performing arts center was formerly an opera house built in 1914, and later renovated into the Ritz Movie Theater where Donna Reed, as a young girl in Denison, first fell in love with movies

Sabu Dastagir
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born 27 January 1924
Karapur, Mysore, India
Died 2 December 1963
Chatsworth, California, USA

Sabu Dastagir (January 27, 1924 - December 2, 1963) was a motion picture actor known by his first name, Sabu.

Born in Mysore, India, he was the son of an Indian mahout (elephant driver) and was discovered by documentary film-maker Robert Flaherty who cast him in the role of an elephant driver in the 1937 British film Elephant Boy, based on "Toomai of the Elephants", a story by Kipling.

Most reference books have his full name as "Sabu Dastigir", but research by journalist Philip Leibfried suggests that was his brother's name, and that Sabu was in fact Selar Shaik Sabu. His brother managed his career.

Sabu is remembered most fondly for his role as Abu in the Hollywood film The Thief of Bagdad. In 1942 he once again played a role based on Kipling, namely Mowgli in Jungle Book directed by Zoltán Korda. But his career went into decline after World War II, with rare gleams of glory, such as his supporting role in the classic film Black Narcissus




Air Force career

After becoming an American citizen in 1944, Sabu joined the U.S Army Air Force as a tail gunner. He flew several dozen missions over the Pacific and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his valor and bravery.


Personal life

In 1948 Sabu married Marilyn Cooper, with whom he had two children. He died in Chatsworth, California of a heart attack at the age of 39 in 1963 in his wife's arms and was interred in the Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery.

His son Paul Sabu established the rock band Sabu in the 1980s.
His daughter Jasmine Sabu was an animal trainer on various films. She died in 2001.
Sabu the Elephant Boy was featured in story and song by folk singer John Prine.

Troy Donahue
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Troy Donahue (January 27, 1936 - September 2, 2001) was an American actor, known for being a teen idol.

Merle Johnson Jr. was initially a journalism student at Columbia University before he decided to become an actor in Hollywood, where he was represented by Rock Hudson's agent, Henry Willson. According to Robert Hofler's 2005 biography, The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson, Willson tried out the name Troy on Rory Calhoun and James Darren, with no success, before it finally stuck to Donahue. The blond heartthrob established himself with uncredited roles in The Monolith Monsters (1957) and Man Afraid (1957), leading to larger parts in several films.

He starred in Monster on the Campus (1958), Live Fast, Die Young (1958), and opposite fellow teen idol Sandra Dee in A Summer Place (1959). He signed a contract with Warner Bros., and met actress Suzanne Pleshette on the set of Rome Adventure (aka Lovers Must Learn). They married in 1964 but divorced later that year.

After the release of My Blood Runs Cold (1965), Donahue's contract with Warner Bros. ended. He later struggled to find new roles and had problems with drug addiction and alcoholism. He was married again in 1966, to actress Valerie Allen, but they divorced in 1968. In 1970 he appeared in the daytime drama The Secret Storm. In 1974 he was cast in his most high profile role, in The Godfather Part II as the new fiancé of Connie Corleone. His character was called Merle Johnson, Donahue's real name.

The character of Troy McClure in the animated programme The Simpsons is said to be based on an anagram of Donahue and Doug McClure.

He spent his last few years with his fiancée, mezzo-soprano Zheng Cao. He died of a heart attack in 2001.


Trivia

He was touring in a Broadway production of Bye Bye Birdie a few months before the time of his death.
In 1960, he was one of the top five contenders for the lead role in West Side Story, the others being Warren Beatty, Richard Beymer (who ultimately won), Anthony Perkins, and Tab Hunter.
In the song "Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee" in Grease, there is a hint to Troy Donahue.

Bridget Fonda
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Born January 27, 1964
Los Angeles, California

Bridget Jane Fonda (born January 27, 1964) is an American actress.





Biography

Bridget Fonda was born in Los Angeles, California, USA, into a family of actors, including her grandfather Henry Fonda, father Peter Fonda, mother Susan Brewer and aunt Jane Fonda.

She was named after Bridget Hayward, with whom her father was in love at one time. Peter and Susan Brewer divorced and he married Portia Rebecca Crockett (aka Becky McGuane), who brought up Bridget and her brother, Justin, in the Coldwater Canyon section of Los Angeles.

Fonda attended Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles. During this time, Bridget and Justin had little contact with their father or any of the Fonda family, recalling in an interview: When I was a kid, the most important thing for me was my home... People would come and go, and things would change, but that place wouldn't. I loved it. I want to have that for the rest of my life. I want to have a place."


Career

Fonda first became involved with the theatre when she was cast in a school production of Harvey. Although she came from a long line of actors, Fonda resented the implication that acting was in her blood. She refused to solicit acting tips and advice from her famous relatives, and studied method acting at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. During her first two years she suffered from a severe case of stage fright and self-consciousness.

Fonda made her film debut with a non-speaking role in the 1982 comedy Partners. It was not until 1988 that she had her first speaking role in a feature film starring with John Hurt in Scandal, based on the Profumo affair. That year, she also appeared in both You Can't Hurry Love and Shag.

Fonda's first big role in a movie was when she starred as an attractive journalist in The Godfather, Part III. After gaining additional work experience on a few theater productions and small movie roles, she was cast in the lead for Barbet Schroeder's Single White Female. A review in the New Yorker proclaimed she had "...a provocative, taunting assertiveness" and Rolling Stone said that Fonda was "a comic delight."

Her father, Peter Fonda, believes Bridget is the most talented member of the family, including his father, whose skill he has said he aspires to attain.


Marriage

On November 29, 2003, Fonda married film-composer Danny Elfman. They have one son, Oliver, born in January, 2005. She has not appeared in a film since her marriage.

COLD WEATHER--Degrees & Activity:

60 Californians put on sweaters (if they can find one).
50 Miami residents turn on the heat.
45 Vermont residents go to outdoor concerts.
40 You can see your breath.
Californians shiver uncontrollably.
Minnesotans go swimming.
35 Italian cars don't start.
32 Water freezes.
30 You plan your vacation to Australia.
25 Ohio water freezes.
Californians weep pitiably.
Minnesotans eat ice cream.
Canadians go swimming.
20 Politicians begin to talk about the homeless.
New York City water freezes.
Miami residents plan vacation further South.
15 French cars don't start.
Cat insists on sleeping in your bed with you.
10 You need jumper cables to get the car going.
5 American cars don't start.
0 Alaskans put on T-shirts.
-10 German cars don't start.
Eyes freeze shut when you blink.
-15 You can cut your breath and use it to build an igloo.
Arkansans stick tongue on metal objects.
Miami residents cease to exist.
-20 Cat insists on sleeping in pajamas with you.
Politicians actually do something about the homeless.
Minnesotans shovel snow off roof.
Japanese cars don't start.
-25 Too cold to think.
You need jumper cables to get the driver going.
-30 You plan a two week hot bath.
Swedish cars don't start.
-40 Californians disappear.
Minnesotans button top button.
Canadians put on sweaters.
Your car helps you plan your trip South.
-50 Congressional hot air freezes.
Alaskans close the bathroom window.
-80 Hell freezes over.
Polar bears move South.
Viking Fans order hot cocoa at the game.
-90 Lawyers put their hands in their own pockets.

Good morning, WA2K listeners and contributors. Great bio's, Bob, and we love your temperature observations, especially the one's about congressional hot air and lawyers.(sorry, Ticomaya) Will await our famous photographer, Raggedy, before commenting on your celebs, hawkman. Thanks so much, honey, as you put many myths to rest.

edgar, Your Rolling Stone song was great, Texas, and the line, "as tears go by" reminded me of Casablanca and the theme song from the movie.

Here's a morning song from the Fab Four, folks, and they must have had fun with this one:


You say yes, I say no,
You say stop, I say go, go, go.
Oh no.
You say goodbye and I say hello, hello, hello.
I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello, hello, hello.
I don't why you say goodbye I say hello.
I say high, you say low.
You say why and I say I don't know.
Oh no.
You say goodbye and I say hello, hello, hello.
I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello, hello, hello.
I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello.
Why, why, why, why, why, why, do you
Say goodbye, goodbye, bye, bye.
Oh no.
You say goodbye and I say hello, hello, hello.
I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello, hello, hello.
I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello.
You say yes, I say no (I say yes but I may mean no)
You say stop and I say go, go, go (I can stay till it's time to go)
Oh, oh no.
You say goodbye and I say hello, hello, hello.
I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello, hello, hello.
I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello, hello, hello.
I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello, hello, hello.
Hello, hello, hello.
Hello, hello, hello.
Hela, heba, helloa.

Winter World Of Love
Engelbert Humperdinck

My love, the days are colder
So, let me take your hand
And lead you through a snow white land
Oh, oh
Oh, oh

My love, the year is older
So, let me hold you tight
And wile away this winter night
Oh, oh

I see the firelight in your eyes
Come kiss me now, before it dies
We'll find a winter world of love
'Cause love is warmer in December
My darlin', stay here in my arms
Till summer comes along
And in our winter world of love
You see, we always will remember
That as the snow lay on the ground
We found our winter world of love

Because the nights are longer
We'll have the time to say such tender things
Before each day
Oh, oh
Oh, oh

And then, when love is stronger
Perhaps, you'll give your heart
And promise that we'll never part, oh, no

And at the end of every year
I'll be so glad to have you near
We'll find a winter world of love
'Cause love is warmer in December
My darlin', stay here in my arms
Till summer comes along
And in our winter world of love
You see, we always will remember
That as the snow lay on the ground
We found our winter world of love

edgar, Never heard that one, Texas, but I do know Engelbert. Isn't he the man with too many teeth for all practical purposes? That, too, reminds me of Somerset Maugham's "The Luncheon."

Love this one, folks:

Artist: Sarah Brightman
Song: Meadowlark
Album: Songs That Got Away


When I was a girl, I had a favourite story
Of the meadowlark who lived where the rivers wind
Her voice could match the angels' in its glory,
But she was blind,
The lark was blind.

An old king came and took her to his palace,
Where the walls were burnished bronze and golden braid,
And he fed her fruit and nuts from an ivory chalice and he prayed


"Sing for me, my meadowlark
Sing for me of the silver morning.
Set me free, my meadowlark
And I'll buy you a priceless jewel,
And cloth of brocade and crewel,
And I'll love you for life if you will
Sing for me."


Than one day as the lark sang by the water
The god of the sun heard her in his flight
And her singing moved him so, he came and brought her
The gift of sight,
He gave her sight.
And she opened her eyes to the shimmer and the splendour
Of this beautiful young god, so proud and strong
And he called to the lark in a voice both rough and tender,
"Come along,


Fly with me, my meadowlark,
Fly with me on the silver morning.
Past the sea where the dolphins bark,
We will dance on the coral beaches,
Make a feast of the plums and peaches,
Just as far as your vision reaches,
Fly with me."


But the meadowlark said no,
For the old king loved her so,
She couldn't bear to wound his pride.
So the sun god flew away and when the king came down that day,
He found his meadowlark had died.
Every time I heard that part I cried.


And now I stand here, starry-eyed and stormy.
Oh, just when I thought my heart was finally numb,
A beautiful young man appears before me
Singing "Come
Oh, won't you come?"
And what can I do if finally for the first time
The one I'm burning for returns the glow?
If love has come at last it's picked the worst time
Still I know
I've got to go.


Fly away, meadowlark.
Fly away in the silver morning.
If I stay, I'll grow to curse the dark,
So it's off where the days won't bind me.
I know I leave wounds behind me,
But I won't let tomorrow find me
Back this way.


Before my past once again can blind me,
Fly away.


And we won't wait to say goodbye,
My beautiful young man and I