WA2K Radio is now on the air

satt, Welcome back. Yes, they are lovely lyrics in any language.

More later, because there are some things that I would like to ask you.

Wow, edgar. Dylan makes many reference to the Bible in his songs, no? They are usually a bit sarcastic, but done in such a creative way that I always reread them.

Speaking of highways and byways, here's one for the road.
America


Chewing on a piece of grass
Walking down the road
Tell me, how long you gonna stay here, Joe?
Some people say this town don't look good in snow
You don't care, I know

Ventura Highway in the sunshine
Where the days are longer
The nights are stronger than moonshine
You're gonna go I know

'Cause the free wind is blowin' through your hair
And the days surround your daylight there
Seasons crying no despair
Alligator lizards in the air, in the air

Did di di di dit ...

Wishin' on a falling star
Waitin' for the early train
Sorry boy, but I've been hit by purple rain
Aw, come on, Joe, you can always
Change your name
Thanks a lot, son, just the same

Ventura Highway in the sunshine
Where the days are longer
The nights are stronger than moonshine
You're gonna go I know

'Cause the free wind is blowin' through your hair
And the days surround your daylight there
Seasons crying no despair
Alligator lizards in the air, in the air

Did di di di dit ...

From the highway to my bed, as I must say goodnight.

An Evening Song.


Look off, dear Love, across the sallow sands,
And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea,
How long they kiss in sight of all the lands.
Ah! longer, longer, we.

Now in the sea's red vintage melts the sun,
As Egypt's pearl dissolved in rosy wine,
And Cleopatra night drinks all. 'Tis done,
Love, lay thine hand in mine.

Come forth, sweet stars, and comfort heaven's heart;
Glimmer, ye waves, round else unlighted sands.
O night! divorce our sun and sky apart
Never our lips, our hands.

Sidney Lanier

From Letty with love

that's flattering. it's from anime, is it? since the lyrics omit all pronouns except "you" (anata) i had to guess whether "i" or "we" would be correct in many places, and i did have to look up a few words, like komorebi & yuragu.

Party Lights
Claudine Clark

(Party lights, I see the party lights)
Whoooooooa, oh, oh, oooooh
(They're red and blue and green)
Lights
(Everybody in the crowd is there)
Mama, I wanna go, go, go, go, go
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

(Mama, Mama)
Well, Mama dear, oh, tell me, do you hear
They're partying tonight
I tell you, I can't sleep
Because across the street
A-oh, a-oh, I see the party lights

(Mama, Mama)
I see the lights, I see the party lights
They're red and blue and green
Oh, everybody in the crowd is there
But you won't let me make the scene

(Mama, Mama)
Oh, Mama dear, oh, look here, oh, dear
There goes Mary Lou
I see Tommy and Joe, oh-oh and Betty Sue
Oh-oh, a-oh and there goes my boyfriend too
I see the lights...

I see the lights, I see the party lights
They're red and blue and green
Oh, everybody in the crowd is there
But you won't let me make the scene

Listen to the party, Mama

---- Instrumental Interlude ----

Oh, Mama dear, oh, look here, oh dear
I'm feeling, oh, so blue
They're doin' the twist, the fish
The mashed potatoes too
I'm here a-lookin' at you

I see the lights...
I see the lights
I see the party lights
They're red and blue and green
Everybody in the crowd is there
But you won't let me make the scene

They're doin' the fish
A doin' the twist
The watusi, the mashed potatoes
I see the lights, I see the lights
They're doin' the bop, I wanna go

There, I've Said It Again
Vaughn Monroe

I love you, there's nothing to hide
It's better than burning inside
I love you, no use to pretend
There, I've said it again

I've said it, what more can I say
Believe me, there's no other way
I love you, I will to the end
There, I've said it again

I've tried to drum up
A phrase that would sum up
All that I feel for you
But what good are phrases
The thought that amazes
Is you love me, and it's heavenly

Forgive me for wanting you so
But one thing I want you to know
I've loved you since heaven knows when
There, I've said it again

---- Instrumanal Interlude ----

Forgive me for wanting you so
But one thing I want you to know
I've loved you since heaven knows when
There I go, there I've said it again

Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts

The festival was over, the boys were all plannin' for a fall,
The cabaret was quiet except for the drillin' in the wall.
The curfew had been lifted and the gamblin' wheel shut down,
Anyone with any sense had already left town.
He was standin' in the doorway lookin' like the Jack of Hearts.

He moved across the mirrored room, "Set it up for everyone," he said,
Then everyone commenced to do what they were doin' before he turned their heads.
Then he walked up to a stranger and he asked him with a grin,
"Could you kindly tell me, friend, what time the show begins?"
Then he moved into the corner, face down like the Jack of Hearts.

Backstage the girls were playin' five-card stud by the stairs,
Lily had two queens, she was hopin' for a third to match her pair.
Outside the streets were fillin' up, the window was open wide,
A gentle breeze was blowin', you could feel it from inside.
Lily called another bet and drew up the Jack of Hearts.

Big Jim was no one's fool, he owned the town's only diamond mine,
He made his usual entrance lookin' so dandy and so fine.
With his bodyguards and silver cane and every hair in place,
He took whatever he wanted to and he laid it all to waste.
But his bodyguards and silver cane were no match for the Jack of Hearts.

Rosemary combed her hair and took a carriage into town,
She slipped in through the side door lookin' like a queen without a crown.
She fluttered her false eyelashes and whispered in his ear,
"Sorry, darlin', that I'm late," but he didn't seem to hear.
He was starin' into space over at the Jack of Hearts.

"I know I've seen that face before," Big Jim was thinkin' to himself,
"Maybe down in Mexico or a picture up on somebody's shelf."
But then the crowd began to stamp their feet and the house lights did dim
And in the darkness of the room there was only Jim and him,
Starin' at the butterfly who just drew the Jack of Hearts.

Lily was a princess, she was fair-skinned and precious as a child,
She did whatever she had to do, she had that certain flash every time she smiled.
She'd come away from a broken home, had lots of strange affairs
With men in every walk of life which took her everywhere.
But she'd never met anyone quite like the Jack of Hearts.

The hangin' judge came in unnoticed and was being wined and dined,
The drillin' in the wall kept up but no one seemed to pay it any mind.
It was known all around that Lily had Jim's ring
And nothing would ever come between Lily and the king.
No, nothin' ever would except maybe the Jack of Hearts.

Rosemary started drinkin' hard and seein' her reflection in the knife,
She was tired of the attention, tired of playin' the role of Big Jim's wife.
She had done a lot of bad things, even once tried suicide,
Was lookin' to do just one good deed before she died.
She was gazin' to the future, riding on the Jack of Hearts.

Lily washed her face, took her dress off and buried it away.
"Has your luck run out?" she laughed at him, "Well, I guess you must
have known it would someday.
Be careful not to touch the wall, there's a brand-new coat of paint,
I'm glad to see you're still alive, you're lookin' like a saint."
Down the hallway footsteps were comin' for the Jack of Hearts.

The backstage manager was pacing all around by his chair.
"There's something funny going on," he said, "I can just feel it in the air."
He went to get the hangin' judge, but the hangin' judge was drunk,
As the leading actor hurried by in the costume of a monk.
There was no actor anywhere better than the Jack of Hearts.

No one knew the circumstance but they say that it happened very quick,
The door to the dressing room burst open and a colt revolver clicked.
And Big Jim was standin' there, ya couldn't say surprise,
Rosemary right beside him, studyin' her eyes.
She was with Big Jim but she was leanin' to the Jack of Hearts.

Two doors down the boys finally made it through the wall
And cleaned out the bank safe, it's said that they got off with quite a haul.
In the darkness by the riverbed they waited on the ground
For one more member who had business back in town.
But they couldn't go no further without the Jack of Hearts.

The next day was hangin' day, the sky was overcast and black,
Big Jim lay covered up, killed by a penknife in the back.
And Rosemary on the gallows, she didn't even blink,
The hangin' judge was sober, he hadn't had a drink.
The only person on the scene missin' was the Jack of Hearts.

The cabaret was empty now, a sign said, "Closed for repair,"
Lily had already taken all of the dye out of her hair.
She was thinkin' 'bout her father, who she very rarely saw,
Thinkin' 'bout Rosemary and thinkin' about the law.
But, most of all she was thinkin' 'bout the Jack of Hearts.

Bob Dylan

Your translation conveys the flavor of the original lyrics.
The song lyrics were written for an animated story ("Anime") of the title, "Howl's Moving Castle" by Shuntaro Tanigawa, who is one of the major poets in Japan. The original written in Japanese seems very difficult to appreciate. (I hesitated to translate the lyrics.)

YouTube

satt, thanks for the melody. the clip is pleasant, but doesn't shed much light on the meaning of the lyrics. maybe it's supposed to be ambiguous...nothing wrong with a little ambiguity

Good morning, WA2K listeners and contributors.

First, allow me to thank our edgar for the delightful trio of songs. Jack of Hearts rather reminds me of the song Jack of Diamonds. Don't ask, cause I don't know why I know it.

M.D. and satt, I think Disney has also done that anime. It is so nice to have someone who can interpret and translate for us here on our little radio.

A morning song for everyone, and I am totally fascinated by Sidney and his background.

A Sunrise Song.


Young palmer sun, that to these shining sands
Pourest thy pilgrim's tale, discoursing still
Thy silver passages of sacred lands,
With news of Sepulchre and Dolorous Hill,

Canst thou be he that, yester-sunset warm,
Purple with Paynim rage and wrack desire,
Dashed ravening out of a dusty lair of Storm,
Harried the west, and set the world on fire?

Hast thou perchance repented, Saracen Sun?
Wilt warm the world with peace and dove-desire?
Or wilt thou, ere this very day be done,
Blaze Saladin still, with unforgiving fire?

Sidney Lanier

On this day in 1955 - The U.S. Supreme Court ordered that all states must end racial segregation "with all deliberate speed."

About time, right dys?

and here's history in a song, folks.

We Didn't Start The Fire Lyrics
Artist(Band):Billy Joel

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

Rosenbergs, H Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye

Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
Well, we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc

Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland

Bob Dole, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
Well, we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge On The River Kwai

Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California Baseball,
Starkwether, Homicide, Children of Thalidomide

Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go

U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
Well, we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Hemingway, Eichmann, Stranger in a Strange Land,
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion

Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex
J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
Well, we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock

Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz

Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and Roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on...

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
Well, we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
Well, we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire...

Omar Khayyám
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Persian scholar
Medieval era

Name: Omar Khayyám
Birth: 1048
Death: 1131
School/tradition:
Main interests: Poetry, Mathematics, Philosophy, Astronomy
Influences:

Influenced:

Ghiyās ol-Dīn Ab'ol-Fath Omār ibn Ebrāhīm Khayyām Neyshābūrī (Persian: غیاث الدین ابو الفتح عمر بن ابراهیم خیام نیشابوری) or Omar Khayyam, born: May 18, 1048 in Nishapur, Iran (Persia) - died: December 4, 1131), was a Persian poet, mathematician, philosopher and astronomer who lived in Persia. He is best known for his collection of poetry, the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.





Student

Khayyam is thought to have been born into a family of Nishapur artisans. He spent his childhood in the town of Balkh, studying there and being tutored by Sheik Muhammad Mansuri, one of the most well-known scholars of the time. In his youth, Omar Khayyám studied under Imam Mowaffak of Nishapur, who was considered one of the greatest teachers of the Khorassan region. According to one disputed account, two other exceptional students began studying under the same teacher at about the same time. One of these was Nizam-ul-Mulk, who went on to become the Vizier to the Seljukid Empire. The other was Hassan-i-Sabah, who went on to become the leader of the Hashshashin.

It was commonly believed that any young man who studied under that eminent Imam would attain honor and happiness. These three students, who became friends, pledged to each other that whichever of them was to receive fortune would share it equally with the other two. After Nizam-ul-Mulk became Vizier, Hassan-i-Sabah and Omar Khayyám each went to him, and asked to share in his good fortune.

Hassan-i-Sabah demanded and was granted a place in the government, but he was ambitious, and was eventually removed from power after he participated in an unsuccessful effort to overthrow his benefactor, the Vizier. Many years later, he rose to become head of the Hashshashin.

Omar Khayyám was much more modest in his request, not asking for any office, but just a place to live, study science, and pray. He was granted a yearly pension of 1,200 mithkals of gold from the treasury of Nishapur. He lived on this pension for the rest of his life. This story, known as Three Schoolmates is not plausible because the dates of birth of these three schoolmates do not match. Khayyam was born in 1048. Hassan bin Sabah was born in 1034 and Nizam-ul-Mulk was born in 1018.


Mathematician

He was famous during his lifetime as a mathematician, well known for inventing the method of solving cubic equations by intersecting a parabola with a circle. Although his approach at achieving this had earlier been attempted by Menaechmus and others, Khayyám provided a generalization extending it to all cubics. In addition he discovered the binomial expansion, and authored criticisms of Euclid's theories of parallels which made their way to Europe, where they contributed to the eventual development of non-Euclidean geometry.

In 1070 he wrote his greatest work on algebra. In it he classified equations according to their degree, and gave rules for solving quadratic equations, which are very similar to the ones in use today, and a geometric method for solving cubic equations with real roots. He also wrote on the triangular array of binomial coefficients known as Pascal's triangle. In 1077, Omar wrote Sharh ma ashkala min musadarat kitab Uqlidis (Explanations of the Difficulties in the Postulates of Euclid). An important part of the book is concerned with Euclid's famous parallel postulate, which had also attracted the interest of Thabit ibn Qurra. Al-Haytham had previously attempted a demonstation of the postulate; Omar's attempt was a distinct advance. Omar Khayyám also had other notable work in geometry, specifically on the theory of proportions.


Astronomer

Omar Khayyám was also famous as an astronomer. In 1073, the Malik-Shah, sultan of Seljuk, invited Khayyám to build and work with an observatory, along with various other distinguished scientists. Eventually, Khayyám very accurately (correct to six decimal places) measured the length of the solar year as 365.24219858156 days. This calendar measurement has only an 1 hour error in every 5,500 years, whereas the Gregorian Calendar used today, has a 1 day error in every 3,330 years. He also calculated how to correct the Persian calendar. On March 15, 1079, Sultan Jalal al-Din Malekshah Saljuqi (1072-92) put Omar's corrected calendar into effect, as in Europe Julius Caesar had done in 46 B.C. with the corrections of Sosigenes, and as Pope Gregory XIII would do in February 1552 with Aloysius Lilius' corrected calendar (although Britain would not switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar until 1751, and Russia would not switch until 1918).

Omar Khayyám was famous in the Persian and Islamic world for his astronomical observations. He built a star map (now lost).

Omar Khayyam also estimated and proved to an audience that included the then-prestigious and most respected scholar Imam Ghazali, that the universe is not moving around earth as was believed by all at that time. By constructing a revolving platform and simple arrangement of the star charts lit by candles around the circular walls of the room, he demonstrated that earth revolves on its axis, bringing into view different constellations throughout the night and day (completing a one-day cycle). He also elaborated that stars are stationary objects in space which if moving around earth would have been burnt to cinders due to their large mass. All these theories were centuries later adopted by Christian astronomers, as we know them now.


Islam

Some assert that it is unclear whether he believed in the existence of God, but he objected to the notion that every particular event and phenomenon was the result of divine intervention. Nor did he believe in any Judgment Day or rewards and punishments after life. Instead he supported the view that laws of nature explained all phenomena of observed life. Religious officials asked him many times to explain his different views about Islam.

Khayyam's viewpoint regarding Islam in general and its various aspects such as eschatology, Islamic taboos and divine revelation can be clearly realized through unbiased examination of his quatrains that as a rule of thumb should reflect his intrinsic conclusions. Although there are a great number of quatrains that are erroneously attributed to Khayyam that manifest a more colorful irreligiousness and hedonism, still the number of his original quatrains that advocate laws of nature and antagonize resurrection and eternal life readily outweigh others that may entail the slightest devotion or praise to God or Islamic beliefs. The following two quatrains are merely specimens amongst numerous others that serve to defy many facets of Islamic dogma:


*O Mullah, We (people) do much more work than you do
* Even when we are drunk, we are still more sober than you * You drink (suck) people's blood and we drink the grapes blood(wine) * Let's be fair, which one of us is more immoral?خيام اگر ز باده مستى خوش باش
با ماه رخى اگر نشستى خوش باش
چون عاقبت كار جهان نيستى است
انگار كه نيستى، چو هستى خوش باش


which translates in Fitzgerald's work as:

And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,
End in the Nothing all Things end in ?- Yes ?-
Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what
Thou shalt be ?- Nothing ?- Thou shalt not be less.


The literal translation could read:

If with wine you are drunk be happy
if Seated with a moon-faced (beauty)? Be happy
Since the end purpose of the universe is nothing-ness
Hence then you shall be naught, then while you are, be happy!


آنانكه ز پيش رفته‌اند اى ساقى
درخاك غرور خفته‌اند اى ساقى
رو باده خور و حقيقت از من بشنو
باد است هرآنچه گفته‌اند اى ساقى


which Fitzgerald has boldy interpreted as:

Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly ?- are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.


The literal translation, in an ironic echo of "all is vanity", could read:

Those who have gone forth, thou cup-bearer
Have fallen upon the dust of pride, thou cup-bearer
Drink wine and hear from me the truth:
(Hot) air is all that they have said, thou cup-bearer.


Khayyám eventually was obliged to make a hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca in order to demonstrate that he was a faithful follower of Islam.


Skeptic

(These poems were translated by Edward FitzGerald and are potentially more revealing of the thoughts of Edward than Omar.)


Khayyam, 12th century Persian poet and philosopherAnd, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted - "Open then the Door!
You know how little time we have to stay,
And once departed, may return no more."



Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare,
And that after a TO-MORROW stare,
A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries
"Fools! your reward is neither Here nor There!"



Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter'd, and their mouths are stopt with Dust.



Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.



Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out of the same Door as in I went.



With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour'd it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd -
"I came like Water, and like Wind I go."



Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.



The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.



And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help - for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.




Writer and poet

Main article: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Omar Khayyám is famous today not only for his scientific accomplishments, but for his literary works. He is believed to have written about a thousand four-line verses. In the English-speaking world, he is best known for The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám in the English translations by Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883).

Other people have also published translations of some of the rubáiyát (rubáiyát meaning "quatrains"), but Fitzgerald's are the most well known. Translations also exist in languages other than English.

In one of his rubaiya, he says: "Enjoy wine and women and don't be afraid, God has compassion".


Miscellaneous

In a series of "Rocky and Bullwinkle" cartoons, the story line revolves around the "Ruby Yacht of Omar Khayyam" - a jewelled toy boat.
Omar's life is dramatized in the 1957 film Omar Khayyam starring Cornel Wilde, Debra Paget, Raymond Massey, Michael Rennie, and John Derek.
Omar Khayyám appears as a comedic sidekick in the film Son of Sinbad. He is portrayed by Vincent Price and parts of his poems are distributed throughout his dialogue.
He is also a topic of discussion between two characters in Jack London's novel The Sea-Wolf.
Khayyam's soul has a pivotal role in a well-versed 1997 novel in Persian, titled "خيام و آن دروغ دلاويز" (English "Khayyam and That Delightful Fabrication") and authored by Hooshang Mo'eenzadeh (هوشنگ معين‌زاده). The story's protagonist, "Haj Rajab (حاج رجب)", meets -among many other personalities- Khayyam's soul in the afterworld who recites his materialistic poems in public and mocks divine power eventhough he is presumably residing in God's paradise, leading Haj Rajab to strongly question fundamentals of his pious past earthly life.
Furthermore, he appears as major character in the novel Samarkand by Amin Maalouf.
Most recently, his life was dramatized by the Iranian-American director Kayvan Mashayekh in The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam playing in independent theaters since June 2005.
A lunar crater Omar Khayyam was named after him in 1970.
An asteroid 3095 Omarkhayyam was named after him in 1980.
Salman Rushdie's novel Shame makes reference to Omar Khayyam with a character by the same name.
Khayyám is quoted in Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech, Why I oppose the war in Vietnam. "It is time for all people of conscience to call upon America to come back home. Come home America. Omar Khayyám is right 'The moving finger writes and having writ, moves on.'"
One of the two founders of Discordianism, Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, named himself after Omar Khayyam.

Walt Whitman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Pseudonym: Walt Whitman
Born: May 31, 1819
Huntington Long Island, New York
Died: March 26, 1892
Camden, New Jersey
Occupation: journalist, editor, poet, teacher, Civil Servant for U.S. Department of the Interior, volunteer nurse

Walter Whitman (May 31, 1819-March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. Proclaimed the "greatest of all American poets" by many foreign observers a mere four years after his death, he is viewed as the first urban poet. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and Realism, incorporating both views in his works. His works have even been translated into more than 25 languages.[1] Whitman is among the most influential and controversial poets in the American canon. His work has been described as a "rude shock" and "the most audacious and debatable contribution yet made to American literature."[2] As Whitman wrote in Leaves of Grass (By Blue Ontario's Shore), "Rhymes and rhymers pass away...America justifies itself, give it time..."[3]




Early Life

Walter Whitman was born May 31, 1819 in West Hills, Long Island, to parents of Quaker background, Walter and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman. Whitman was the second of nine children born to Walter Whitman and Louisa (Van Velsor) Whitman [4]. One of his siblings, born prior to him, did not make it past infancy. His mother was barely literate and of Dutch descent and his father was a Quaker carpenter. In 1823 the family moved to Brooklyn, where for six years Whitman attended public schools. It was the only formal education he ever received. His mother taught him the value of family ties, and Whitman remained devoted to his family throughout his life, becoming, in a real sense, its leader after the death of his father. Whitman inherited the liberal intellectual and political attitudes of a free thinker from his father, who exposed him to the ideas and writings of the socialists Frances Wright and Robert Dale Owen, the liberal Quaker Elias Hicks, and the deistical Count Volney. [5]

One advantage of living in Brooklyn was that Whitman saw many of the famous people of the day when they visited nearby New York City. Thus he saw President Andrew Jackson and Marquis de Lafayette [6]. In what was one of Whitman's favorite childhood stories Marquis de Lafayette visited New York and, selecting the six-year-old Walt from the crowd, lifted him up and carried him. Whitman came to view this event as a kind of laying on of hands: the French hero of the American Revolution anointing the future poet of democracy in the energetic city of immigrants where the nation was being invented day by day. [7]

At age eleven he worked as an office boy for lawyers and a doctor, then in the summer of 1831 became a printer's devil for the Long Island Patriot , a four-page weekly whose editor, Samuel L. Clements, shared the liberal political views of his father. It was here that Whitman first broke into print with "sentimental" bits of filler material. The following summer Whitman went to work for another printer, Erastus Worthington, and in the autumn he moved on to the shop of Alden Spooner, the most successful publisher-printer in Brooklyn. Although his family moved back to the area of West Hills in 1834, where another son, Thomas Jefferson, was born in July, Whitman stayed on in Brooklyn. He published a few pieces in the New York Mirror, attended the Bowery Theater, continued subscribing to a circulating library, and joined a local debating society. In his sixteenth year, Whitman moved to New York City to seek work as a compositor. But Whitman 's move was poorly timed: a wave of Irish immigrants had contributed to the already unruly behavior in the city's streets; anti-abolitionist and anti-Irish riots often broke out; unemployment was high; and the winter was miserably cold. Whitman could not find satisfactory employment and, in May 1836, he rejoined his family, now living in Hempstead, Long Island. Whitman taught at various schools until the spring of 1838, when, with the financial support of friends, he began his own newspaper, the weekly Long Islander, in Huntington. [8]

Whitman 's stint as an independent newspaperman lasted until May 1839, when he sold the paper and his equipment and went again to New York. This time he was more fortunate, landing a job in Jamaica with James J. Brenton, editor of the Long Island Democrat [9]. In 1841 he moved to New York City, working initially as a printer but ultimately as a journalist. His first important post was as editor of the New York Aurora in 1842. [10] Throughout the 1840s he worked for more than a dozen New York City newspapers, including the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, where he was editor between 1846 and 1848 [11] . His position at the Eagle was abruptly terminated in part because of his disagreement with the newspaper's owners over the wisdom of the Wilmot Proviso, which stated that all territories had to be admitted into the Union as free soil states. The fact that he started a free soil paper in 1849 reinforces the conclusion that Whitman left his New Orleans post partly for political reasons. Generally, Whitman's position on slavery was that it was an evil, but so long as the Constitution made it legal, he believed that fugitive slave laws should be obeyed. He stated his views on slavery in a quasi-political treatise called The Eighteenth Presidency written between 1854 and 1856; although it was put into proof sheets, it was never published in Whitman's lifetime. In his optimism for the power of American democracy, he hoped that the American people would voluntarily give up slavery rather than lose it through civil war. [12]

His most famous work is Leaves of Grass, which he continued to edit and revise until his death and is considered his most personal work. A group of Civil War poems, included within Leaves of Grass, is often published as an independent collection under the name of Drum-Taps. [13]

The first versions of Leaves of Grass were self-published and poorly received. Several poems featured graphic depictions of the human body, enumerated in Whitman's innovative "cataloging" style, which contrasted with the reserved Victorian ethic of the period. Despite its revolutionary content and structure, subsequent editions of the book evoked critical indifference in the US literary establishment. Outside the US, the book was a world-wide sensation, especially in France, where Whitman's intense humanism influenced the naturalist revolution in French letters. [14]

By 1865 Walt Whitman was world-famous, and Leaves of Grass had been accepted by a publishing house in the US. Though still considered an iconoclast and a literary outsider, the poet's status began to grow at home. During his final years, Whitman became a respected literary vanguard visited by young artists. Several photographs and paintings of Whitman with a large beard cultivated a "Christ-figure" mystique. Whitman did not invent American transcendentalism, but he had become its most famous exponent and was also associated with American mysticism. In the 20th century, young writers such as Hart Crane, William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac rediscovered Whitman and reinterpreted his literary festo for younger audiences. [15]


Later Life

Whitman began 1864 writing to various people for assistance. Of James Redpath, a Boston publisher, he asked--unsuccessfully--for help in publishing his accounts of Washington during the War, called "Memoranda of a Year." Other people were enlisted in an attempt to find Whitman a better paying job. John Trowbridge met with Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, to find Whitman a position in that department. Chase, a politically sensitive man, not only turned down Whitman because he had learned he was the author of a notorious book, but kept a letter of recommendation written by Emerson as well. During February-March 1864 Whitman visited the wounded at the front, boosting morale and passing out books for them to read. Worn out by all this activity, Whitman returned to Brooklyn in July, physically and emotionally exhausted. [16]

The events of late 1864 did little to raise Whitman 's spirits. In October he found out that his brother George had been captured by the Confederacy after a battle; whether he was wounded and where he was held remained unknown. In December Whitman took his brother Jesse, whose mind had been deteriorating, to the Kings County Lunatic Asylum and committed him. Fortunately for Whitman , more positive events were taking place in Washington. In late December, O'Connor pleaded Whitman 's case before W.T. Otto, Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Interior, and in January, Whitman was offered a low-level clerkship for--to Whitman --the more than adequate salary of $1,200 a year. Upon returning to Washington in January 1865, Whitman was assigned to the Indian Bureau division of the Interior Department. George, after being released from the Danville, Virginia, prisoner-of-war camp, returned home in March, and Whitman took a leave of absence to visit him. When he returned to Washington, Whitman was promoted to a clerkship one grade higher. [17]

Whitman had not by any means stopped writing poetry during this period. He had, soon after the 1860 Leaves of Grass went into a second printing, begun work on a new volume of poetry, to be called Banners at Day-Break, but the failure of Thayer and Eldridge brought this plan to a halt. The verses intended for the aborted volume would find their way into the next edition of Leaves of Grass (on which Whitman was continually working) and into his next book, which would poetically comment on the Civil War. [18]

In January 1865 Whitman was appointed a clerk in the Indian Affairs Department in Washington. By spring, not long after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, he was fired from his government post on the orders of Secretary of the Interior James Harlan. The charge was that Whitman was the author of a "dirty book," Leaves of Grass. Actually, Whitman's dismissal was part of an efficiency campaign, but Harlan, formerly a professor of mental and moral science in Iowa, also objected strongly to Whitman's emphasis on the body in his poetry. On 1 July, Ashton reinstated Whitman and transferred him to his own department. Whitman was relieved and his life returned to normal. O'Connor, though, was still upset and went about vindicating Whitman by publishing a biographical study, The Good Gray Poet, in January 1866. This book defended both Whitman and artistic freedom and is especially interesting today because Whitman himself had a major role in preparing it. [19]

Over the next few years Whitman continued to work on his poetry, and in 1871 a number of works were published. Roberts Brothers of Boston published After All, Not to Create Only (later called "Song of the Exposition"), a poem which celebrated the opening of the National Industrial Exposition in New York on 7 September 1871. Whitman had been invited by the organizing committee and was paid $100 for his work, which he read in person on opening day. In the same year appeared Democratic Vistas, Whitman 's prose comments on the role of the poet in shaping both America's and humanity's destinies, and the importance of democracy as an element in the formation of character. Also in 1871 Whitman published Passage to India, which praised the completion of the Suez Canal, the laying of the Atlantic cable, and the finishing of the transcontinental railroad.

In 1873, Whitman suffered a stroke while working and living in Washington, D.C. He never completely recovered, but continued to write poetry. He lived his final years at his home on Mickle Street in Camden, New Jersey, revising Leaves of Grass and receiving visitors, including Oscar Wilde.[20]

After his stroke, his fame grew substantially both at home and abroad. Mostly it was stimulated by several prominent British writers criticizing the American academy for not recognizing Whitman's talents. These included William Rossetti and Anne Gilchrist. At this time in his life, Whitman also had a prominent group of national and international disciples, including Canadian writer and physician Richard Bucke. [21]

During his later years, Whitman ventured out on only two significant journeys: to Colorado in 1879 and to Boston to visit Emerson in 1881. Whitman died on March 26, 1892, and was buried in Camden's Harleigh Cemetery.

Although Whitman left Long Island at age 22, he is still much revered there and especially in his native Huntington, where a large shopping mall, high school and major road are all named in his honor. The oldest newspaper on Long Island, The Long Islander, touts that it was "founded by Walt Whitman". Camden and the surrounding area also honor the poet. The Walt Whitman Bridge spans the Delaware River, linking Philadelphia and southern New Jersey, and the Walt Whitman Center at Rutgers-Camden hosts poets, plays and other events. Additionally, a statue of Whitman can be found in the campus center.


Famous Literary Works

Leaves of Grass

In 1855 Whitman took it upon himself to publish his first edition of Leaves of Grass. The next year he released his second edition of Leaves of Grass in 1856 with around 20 new poems. In 1860 Whitman released his third edition of Leaves of Grass, which was the first major revision and edition to his work. Whitman in 1870 added "Drum-Taps", "Sequel to Drum-Taps", and "Songs before Parting" to Leaves of Grass, which made this edition the first to properly address the Civil War through Whitman's eyes. In 1881 Whitman was able to purchase his final home because of the revenue generated from the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass. The final edition, called the deathbed edition, was released in 1892, bringing Leaves of Grass to its current state. [22]

The public response to Leaves of Grass was initially mixed. The first notice, probably written by Charles A. Dana, in the New York Daily Tribune, complained of "a somewhat too oracular strain" and of language that is "too frequently reckless and indecent ... quite out of place amid the decorum of modern society." Nevertheless, "no impartial reader can fail to be impressed with the vigor and faint beauty of isolated portions." In short, "the taste of not overdainty fastidiousness will discern much of the essential spirit of poetry beneath an uncouth and grotesque embodiment." Charles Eliot Norton, writing in Putnam's Monthly, was not at all impressed with this "curious and lawless collection of poems ... [which] are neither in rhyme or blank verse, but in a sort of excited prose broken into lines without any attempt at measure or regularity, and, as many readers will perhaps think, without any idea of sense or reason." Leaves of Grass is ultimately dismissed as a "superficial yet profound ... preposterous yet somehow fascinating ... mixture of Yankee Transcendentalism and New York rowdyism." The debate was beginning. [23]


Song of Myself

Song of Myself was originally published in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass in which it was the first of twelve poems. At the time this poem was untitled, but in 1856 Whitman titled this work "Poem of Walt Whitman: An American". "Poem of Walt Whitman: An American" was divided into 52 numbered sections in 1867, which is how the poem is organized to this day. Then in 1881 Whitman decided to give the poem its final name: Song of Myself[24].

"Song of Myself is a history of the poet's movement from loafing individual to active spirit. But the poet's movement is paralleled by the reader's movement from "assuming" to "resuming" and the poet controls both movements in the poem with the catalogues." [25].


Drum-Taps

In May 1865 Walt began printing his Civil War literature entitled, Drum-Taps. Shortly after beginning his printing of Drum-Taps Whitman pauses, and begins writing the sequel in order to add in When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd and O Captain! My Captain! in remembrance of President Lincoln, whom Whitman was very fond of. In late 1865 Whitman concluded his work on Drum-Taps and Sequel, and began printing them for distribution. [26]

Drum-Taps represents yet another shift in Whitman's poetry. In the first two editions, the focus was on the self and its transcendent powers; in the third edition--with such seashore poems as "Out of the Cradle" and "As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life"--the poet exchanged the representative ego for a recognition that life has its human limits that the poet must also celebrate, somehow exorcising the bad from the good. In his third phase, he shifts the attention from the self of the first editions to the Christ figure in others. This is brought to its richest fruition in Whitman's elegy for Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd." What is remarkable about the poem is its revitalization of Whitman's original powers as a poet.


Memoranda During the War

In 1875, Whitman copyrighted his 11 articles written for the New York Times and the New York Weekly Graphic, along with some more material, which he called "Memoranda During the War". In later years he released the work, only one thousand copies at first, from a private printing. "Memoranda During the War" was not meant to be a detailed description of the actions of the Civil War, but rather a spotlight on the men fighting this monumental battle. This topic touched close to home with Whitman because his brother George was wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg, which was the catalyst to Whitman's involvement. [27]

"DURING the Union War I commenced at the close of 1862, and continued steadily through '63, '64 and '65, to visit the sick and wounded of the Army, both on the field and in the Hospitals in and around Washington city. From the first I kept little note-books for impromptu jottings in pencil to refresh my memory of names and circumstances, and what was specially wanted…" [28]. This is a small exerpt from the beginning of "Memoranda During the War".


Influence on later poets

Walt Whitman's influence on contemporary North American poetry is so enormous that it has been said that American poetry divides into two camps: that which naturally flows from Whitman and that which consciously strives to accept it. Whitman's great talents presented a complex paradox for the modernist poets T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, who recognized Whitman's value but feared the implications of his influence.

During the height of modernism, Whitman continued to present "a problem" until he was rescued by such influential poets as William Carlos Williams and Hart Crane. Later, Allen Ginsberg and the beat poets would become the most vociferous champions of Whitman's expansive, abundant, humanistic America. Ginsberg begins his famous poem "Supermarket in California" from Howl and Other Poems with a reference to Whitman. The hand of Whitman can be seen working in such diverse 20th-century poets as John Berryman, Galway Kinnell, Langston Hughes, Philip Levine, Kenneth Koch, James Wright, Joy Harjo, William Carlos Williams, Mary Oliver, Bob Dylan, Jerry Wemple and June Jordan, to name only a few.

Whitman was also revered by international poets ranging from Pablo Neruda to Rimbaud to Federico García Lorca to Fernando Pessoa.

Yale professor and literary critic Harold Bloom considers Walt Whitman to be among the five most important U.S. poets of all time (along with Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane, and Robert Frost).

Whitman was also a huge influence on the English novelist and poet D. H. Lawrence.


Whitman and sexuality

Whitman's expression of sexuality ranged from his admiration for 19th-century ideals of male friendship to openly erotic descriptions of the male body, as can be readily seen in his poem "Song of Myself". Many also depicted Whitman as a homosexual because of his detailed description in "Song of Myself." This is in contradiction to the outrage Whitman displayed when confronted about these messages in public, praising chastity and denouncing onanism.[citation needed]

During the Civil War, the intense comradeship at the front lines in Virginia, which were visited by Whitman as he searched for his wounded brother, and later in Washington, D.C. where he spent a huge amount of time as an unpaid nurse, fueled his ideas about the convergence of homosexuality and democracy.[citation needed] In "Democratic Vistas", he begins to discriminate between amative (i.e., heterosexual) and adhesive (i.e., homosexual) love, and identifies the latter as the key to forming the community without which democracy is incomplete:

It is to the development, identification, and general prevalence of that fervid comradeship (the adhesive love, at least rivaling the amative love hitherto possessing imaginative literature, if not going beyond it), that I look for the counterbalance and offset of our materialistic and vulgar American democracy, and for the spiritualization thereof.
In 1915, Fernando Pessoa explicitly described Whitman as being homosexual in his sensationalist poem Saudação a Walt Whitman.

In the 1970s, the gay liberation movement made Whitman one of their poster children, citing the homosexual content and comparing him to Jean Genet for his love of young working-class men ("We Two Boys Together Clinging"). In particular the "Calamus" poems, written after a failed and very likely homosexual relationship, contain passages that were interpreted to represent the coming out of a gay man. The name of the poems alone would have sufficed to convey homosexual connotations to the ones in the know at the time, since the calamus plant is associated with Kalamos, a god in antique mythology who was transformed with grief by the death of his lover, the male youth Karpos. In addition, the calamus plant's central characteristic is a prominent central vein that is phallic in appearance.

Whitman's romantic and sexual attraction towards other men is not disputed. However, whether or not Whitman had sexual relationships with men has been the subject of some critical disagreement. The best evidence is a pair of third-hand accounts attributed to fellow poets George Sylvester Viereck and Edward Carpenter, neither of whom entrusted those accounts to print themselves. Though scholars in the field have increasingly supported the view of Whitman as actively homosexual, this aspect of his personality is still sometimes omitted when his works are presented in educational settings. The love of Whitman's life may well have been Peter Doyle, a bus conductor whom he met around 1866. They were inseparable for several years. Interviewed in 1895, Doyle said: "We were familiar at once ?- I put my hand on his knee ?- we understood. He did not get out at the end of the trip ?- in fact went all the way back with me."[29].

Harold Bloom in The Western Canon proposes that although Whitman was primarily attracted to his own sex, his primary expressions of sexuality throughout his life were onanistic and reads numerous onanistic references into Leaves of Grass. He writes of Whitman as one of the first Western writers to speak in praise of masturbation. This view is supported by Robert S. Frederickson in his essay "Public Onanism: Whitman's Song of Himself".[30] Bloom's thesis - that the sexual experience Whitman celebrates was possibly merely imagined - has been ridiculed by other scholars, such as Gary Schmidgall[31], who view it as obtuse at best, and homophobic at worst.

Don Ameche
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Birth name Dominic Felix Amici
Born May 31, 1908
Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA
Died December 6, 1993
Scottsdale, Arizona, USA
Spouse(s) Honore Prendergast (1932-1986)
Academy Awards

Best Supporting Actor
1985 Cocoon

Dominic Felix Ameche (May 31, 1908 - December 6, 1993) was an Academy Award-winning American actor and director.

Ameche was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin to Felix Ameche, an immigrant from Italy whose original surname was "Amici", and Barbara, who was of Irish and German descent.[1]





Career

Ameche began his career in vaudeville with Texas Guinan until Guinan dropped him from the act, dismissing him as "too stiff".[2] He made his film debut in 1935 and, by the late thirties, had established himself as a leading actor in Hollywood. He appeared successfully in such films as Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), as the title character in The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939), and Heaven Can Wait (1943) co-starring Gene Tierney.

He was so associated by the public with his role as Bell that for a time, "Ameche" was slang for telephone.[citation needed] By the end of the decade, his films had lost their appeal, and he turned to radio, as the announcer and 'sketch' participant for the show of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. He then achieved great success during the late 1940's and early 1950's playing opposite Frances Langford in The Bickersons.

Ameche enjoyed a substantial Broadway career with roles in Silk Stockings, Goldilocks, Holiday for Lovers, Henry, Sweet Henry, and Our Town.

Between 1961 and 1965, Ameche sat in the grandstand of a different European resident circus each week to serve as host/commentator on International Showtime. The program aired on NBC television.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ameche directed the NBC television drama series Julia, starring Diahann Carroll. For three decades, he was virtually absent from films, until he was cast alongside fellow veteran actor Ralph Bellamy in the film Trading Places in 1983. The actors played rich brothers intent on ruining an innocent man for the sake of a one-dollar bet. The film's great success, and their acclaimed comedic performances, brought them both back into the limelight. In an interview some years later on Larry King Live, co-star Jamie Lee Curtis said that Ameche, a proper old-school actor, went to everyone on the set to apologize ahead of time when he had to say the "f-word" in the film.

Ameche's next role, in Cocoon (1985), won him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He continued working for the rest of his life (including a role in the sequel, Cocoon: The Return). His last films were Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993), and Corrina, Corrina (1994), and his final scenes for the film Corrina, Corrina (1994) were completed only days before his death in Scottsdale, Arizona from prostate cancer.

For his contribution to radio, Ameche received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6313 Hollywood Boulevard and a second star at 6101 Hollywood Boulevard for his television work.


Personal life

He was married to Honore Prendergast from 1932 until her death in 1986, with whom he had six children. One of them, Ron Ameche, owned the restaurant "Ameche's Pumpernickel" in Coralville, Iowa. Ameche's late younger brother Jim Ameche was also an actor.

Ameche died on December 6, 1993. He was buried at Resurrection Catholic Cemetery, also known as St. Philomena Cemetery, in Asbury, Iowa.

Clint Eastwood
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Birth name Clinton Eastwood, Jr.
Born May 31, 1930 (1930-05-31) (age 77)
San Francisco, California, USA
Spouse(s) Dina Ruiz (March 31, 1996 - present) 1 child
Maggie Johnson (December 19, 1953 - 1978) (divorced) 2 children
Notable roles Man with No Name in
A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
For a Few Dollars More (1965)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
'Dirty' Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry (1971) and sequels
Josey Wales in The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
Will Munny in Unforgiven (1992)
Frankie Dunn in Million Dollar Baby (2004)
Academy Awards

Best Director
1992 Unforgiven
2004 Million Dollar Baby

Nominated:
2003 Mystic River


2006 Letters from Iwo Jima
Best Picture
1992 Unforgiven
2004 Million Dollar Baby
Nominated:
2003 Mystic River
2006 Letters from Iwo Jima
Best Actor
Nominated:
1992 Unforgiven
2004 Million Dollar Baby

Golden Globe Awards

Best Director - Motion Picture
1988 Bird
1992 Unforgiven
2004 Million Dollar Baby
Best Foreign Language Film
2006 Letters from Iwo Jima
Best Motion Picture - Drama
Nominated:
1992 Unforgiven
2003 Mystic River
2004 Million Dollar Baby
Cecil B. DeMille Award (1988)
BAFTA Awards

Best Film
Nominated:
1992 Unforgiven
César Awards

Best Foreign Film
2003 Mystic River
2004 Million Dollar Baby
AFI Awards

Life Achievement Award (1996)

Clint Eastwood (born Clinton Eastwood, Jr. on May 31, 1930) is an iconic American actor, composer, and Academy Award-winning film director and producer. While his recent work as a director, on films like Million Dollar Baby and Letters from Iwo Jima, is consistently praised by critics, Eastwood is perhaps most famous for his tough guy, anti-hero acting roles, including Inspector 'Dirty' Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry series and the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns.





Biography

Born in San Francisco in 1930, Eastwood moved often as a child as his father worked a variety of jobs along the West Coast. The family settled in Piedmont, California during his teens, and he graduated from Oakland Technical High School in 1949. He subsequently served in the United States Army before seeking an acting career in the early 1950s.


Film career

Eastwood began work as an actor, making brief appearances in B-films such as Revenge of the Creature, Tarantula and Francis in the Navy. In 1959, he got his first break with the long-running television series, Rawhide. As Rowdy Yates (whom Eastwood would later refer to in interviews as "the idiot of the plains"), he made the show his own and became a household name across the country.


1960s

Eastwood found lead roles as the mysterious Man with no name in Sergio Leone's loose trilogy of westerns A Fistful of Dollars / Per un pugno di dollari (1964), For a Few Dollars More / Per qualche dollaro in più (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly / Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966). Although the first of these was evidently a tribute to Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, Leone used his innovative style to depict a wilder, more lawless and desolate world than traditional westerns. All three films were hits, particularly the third, and Eastwood became an instant international star, redefining the traditional image of the American cowboy (though his character was actually a gunslinger rather than a traditional hero).

Stardom brought more roles, though still in the "tough guy" mold. In Where Eagles Dare (1968) he had second billing to Richard Burton but was paid $800,000. In the same year, he starred in Don Siegel's Coogan's Bluff, in which Eastwood was a lonely sheriff who came to the big city of New York to enforce the law in his own way. The film was controversial for its straightforward portrayal of violence, but it launched a more than ten-year collaboration between Eastwood and Siegel and set the prototype for the macho cop hero that Eastwood would play in the Dirty Harry series of films. In the next year Eastwood began to branch out. Paint Your Wagon (1969) was a western, but also a musical.


1970s

Kelly's Heroes, (1970) combined tough-guy action with offbeat humor. Clint made a western with Shirley McLaine in Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970). In The Beguiled, directed again by Siegel, he played a villain. However 1971 proved to be a professional turning point for his career. His production company, Malpaso, was new but gave Eastwood the control he desired, allowing him to direct and star in the thriller Play Misty for Me. But it was his portrayal of the hard-edged police inspector Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry that propelled Siegel's most successful movie at the box-office and arguably established Eastwood's most memorable character. The film has been credited with inventing the "loose-cannon cop genre" that is imitated to this day. Eastwood's tough, no-nonsense cop touched a cultural nerve with many who were fed up with crime in the streets. Dirty Harry led to four sequels: Magnum Force (1973), The Enforcer (1976), Sudden Impact (1983), and The Dead Pool (1988), as well as sparking numerous imitators such as Death Wish (1974), which had four sequels of its own.


Eastwood directed two important, morality play westerns during the 1970s, High Plains Drifter (1973) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976).

In 1974, Eastwood teamed with a young actor named Jeff Bridges in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. The movie was written and directed by Michael Cimino, who had previously written only the Dirty Harry sequel Magnum Force (and would win an Oscar for directing The Deer Hunter four years later).

In 1975, Eastwood brought another talent to the screen: rock climbing. In The Eiger Sanction, in which he directed and starred, Eastwood ?- a 5.9 climber ?- performed his own rock climbing stunts. This film has become a cult classic in the rock climbing community. This film was done before the advent of CGI, so no digital manipulation was used in the film.

In 1978, he starred in Every Which Way But Loose in an uncharacteristic and offbeat comedy role as Philo Beddoe, a trucker and brawler roaming the American West in search of a lost love while accompanying his brother/manager Orville and his pet orangutan, Clyde. Panned by critics, the movie was an enormous success and along with its 1980 sequel Any Which Way You Can are the two highest grossing Eastwood movies.

In 1979 Eastwood played another memorable role as the prison escapee Frank Morris in the fact-based movie Escape from Alcatraz. Morris was an escape artist who was sent to Alcatraz in 1960, which was, at the time, one of the toughest prisons in America. Morris devised a carefully thought out plan to escape from "The Rock" and, in 1962, he and two other prisoners broke out of the prison and entered San Francisco Bay. They were never seen again, and although the FBI believes that the escapees drowned, to this day their actual fate is unknown.


1980s

It was the fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact (1983), that made Eastwood a viable star for the '80s. President Reagan used his famous "make my day" line in one of his speeches. Eastwood revisited the western genre directing and starring in Pale Rider (1985), paying homage to the western film classic Shane which was rehearsed at the Cannes Film Festival. His fifth and final Dirty Harry movie, The Dead Pool (1988), was a success overall, but it did not have the box office punch his previous films had achieved. Eastwood alternated between more mainstream comedic films (if not particularly successful) such as Pink Cadillac (1989), and The Rookie (1990) and more personal projects, such as directing Bird (1988), a biopic of Charlie "Bird" Parker, which gave him the nomination for Golden Palm in the Cannes Film Festival. He also starred in and directed White Hunter, Black Heart (1990), an uneven, loose biography of John Huston, which received some critical acclaim, although Katharine Hepburn contested the veracity of much of the material.


1990s

Eastwood rose to prominence yet again in the early 1990s. He directed and starred in the revisionist western Unforgiven in 1992, taking on the role of an aging ex-gunfighter long past his prime. The film, also starring such heavyweight actors as Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman and Richard Harris, laid the groundwork for such later westerns as Deadwood by re-envisioning established genre conventions in a more ambiguous and unromantic light. A great success both in terms of box office and critical acclaim, it was nominated for nine Oscars, including Best Actor for Eastwood, and won four, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood.

The following year, Eastwood played a guilt-ridden Secret Service agent in the thriller In the Line of Fire (1993) directed by Wolfgang Petersen. This film was a blockbuster and among the top 10 box-office performers in that year. Eastwood directed and starred with Kevin Costner in A Perfect World in the same year. He continued to expand his repertoire by playing opposite Meryl Streep in the love story, The Bridges of Madison County (1995). Based on a best-selling novel, it was also a hit at the box-office. Afterward, Eastwood turned to more directing work ?- much of it well received ?- including Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997).


2000s

In 2002, Eastwood played an ex-FBI agent on the track of a sadistic killer in Blood Work, which was derived from a book by Michael Connelly. In 2003 he directed Mystic River in which he garnered a Best Director nomination. But he found critical acclaim with Million Dollar Baby in 2004. This movie won 4 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and Eastwood was nomimated for Best Actor (but lost to Jamie Foxx).


Directing

Eastwood has developed directing as a second career, and has generally received greater critical acclaim for his directing than he ever did for his acting. Eastwood has become known for directing high-quality but pessimistic dramas such as Unforgiven, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers, and Letters from Iwo Jima. However, he has chosen a wide variety of films to direct, some clearly commercial, others highly personal. Articles about Eastwood often neglect to mention that he has directed 27 films (as of 2006). Many actors direct now and then, but Eastwood is as distinguished as many more famous directors. (See Awards.)

Eastwood also produces many of his movies, and is well known in the industry for his efficient, low-cost approach to making films. Over the years, he has developed relationships with many other filmmakers, working over and over with the same crew, production designers, cinematographers, editors and other technical people. Similarly, he has a long-term relationship with the Warner Bros. studio, which finances and releases most of his films (although, in a 2004 interview appearing in The New York Times, Eastwood noted that he still sometimes has difficulty convincing the studio to back his films). In more recent years, Eastwood also has begun writing music for some of his films.


Awards and nominations

Eastwood has been nominated for the Academy Award for directing and producing eight times, winning for Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby (his other nominations come for Mystic River and Letters from Iwo Jima), and twice for acting (Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby), though he has not won an Academy Award for acting. He is one of only three living directors (along with Miloš Forman and Francis Ford Coppola) to have directed two Best Picture winners, Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby, the second of which earned him his second Best Director Oscar.[1] At age 74, he was the oldest director to achieve this distinction.

Eastwood has received numerous other awards, including an America Now TV Award as well as one of the 2000 Kennedy Center Honors. He also received an honorary degree from University of the Pacific in 2006, and an honorary degree from University of Southern California in 2007. In 1994 He received the honorary Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for lifetime achievement in acting.[2] In 2006, he received a nomination for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Score Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media for Million Dollar Baby. In 2007, Eastwood will be the first recipient of the Jack Valenti Humanitarian Award, an annual award presented by the MPAA to individuals in the motion picture industry whose work has reached out positively and respectfully to the world. Eastwood will receive the award for his work on the 2006 films Flags of Our Fathers and the Academy Award-nominated Letters from Iwo Jima.[3]

In early 2007, Eastwood was presented with the highest civilian distinction in France, Légion d'honneur, at a ceremony in Paris. French President Jacques Chirac told Eastwood that he embodied "the best of Hollywood".[4]


Current projects

Eastwood has been announced to direct Universal Pictures' The Changeling, a period thriller from noted writer J. Michael Straczynski and producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. Angelina Jolie has been slated to star in the film, with production set to start later in 2007.[5]

Eastwood and Warner Bros. have also purchased the movie rights to James Hansen's First Man, the authorized biography of astronaut Neil Armstrong. No production date has been announced.

In early 2007, Eastwood announced that he will produce a Bruce Ricker documentary about jazz legend Dave Brubeck. The film is tentatively titled "Dave Brubeck - In His Own Sweet Way." It will trace the development of Brubeck's latest composition, the Cannery Row Suite. This work was commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival and premiered at the 2006 festival. Eastwood's film crews have already captured early rehearsals, sound checks and the final performance. Ricker and Eastwood are currently working on a documentary about Tony Bennett titled "The Music Never Ends."[6]


Political life

Eastwood made one successful foray into elected politics, becoming the Mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea (Carmel), California (population 4000), a wealthy small town and artist community on the Monterey Peninsula, for one term. Frustrated with what he perceived to be the bureaucracy in Carmel's politics, he ran a last-minute, small scale campaign emphasizing better relations between the residential and business communities. On election day, April 8, 1986, with double the voter turnout, Eastwood garnered 72.5% of the vote and was elected to a position that paid $200 per month. During his tenure he tried to balance the rights of preservationists and develop the town for local business. Eastwood decided not to run for a second term due to the number of small scale decisions required of the mayor in such a small town. During his tenure he completed Heartbreak Ridge and Bird.[1] On a lighter note, as mayor he repealed a municipal law that forbade anyone from eating ice cream on the sidewalk.

Eastwood has been registered as a Republican since 1951, and was a supporter of Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign. He describes himself as a libertarian, describing his philosophy as "Everyone leaves everyone else alone." [2] He voted for Arnold Schwarzenegger as Governor of California in 2003 and 2006.


Personal life

Eastwood, who has been married twice, has five daughters and two sons by five different women: Kimber (born 1964), with Roxanne Tunis; Kyle (born in 1968) and Alison (born on May 22, 1972), with ex-wife Maggie Johnson; Scott (born March 21, 1986) and Kathryn (born February 2, 1988), with airline hostess Barrett Stone; Francesca Ruth (born August 7, 1993), with Frances Fisher, his co-star in Unforgiven; and Morgan (born December 12, 1996), with current wife Dina Ruiz. Clint Eastwood lived with actress Sondra Locke from 1976 to 1988. The relationship produced no children.

Eastwood remains a sex symbol for many. He once said, "I like to joke that since my children weren't making me any grandchildren, I had two of my own. It is a terrific feeling being a dad again at my age. I am very fortunate. I realize how unfair a thing it is that men can have children at a much older age than women." He now has two grandchildren, Clinton (born 1984) and Graylen (born 1994) of Kimber and Kyle, respectively.

Eastwood owns the exclusive Tehama Golf Club located in Carmel within Monterey County. The invitation-only club reportedly has around 300 members and a joining price of $500,000. Eastwood is also the owner of the Mission Ranch Hotel and Restaurant, located in Carmel as well.

Clint Eastwood is also an audiophile, known for his love of jazz. He owns an extensive collection of LPs which he plays on a Rockport turntable. His interest in music was passed on to his son Kyle, now a jazz musician.

It is also stated that Eastwood is a descendent of William Bradford, a pilgrim that sailed to America on the Mayflower[citation needed].


Trivia


Two actors (Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman) have won Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in consecutive years for playing characters in Eastwood's movies. Robbins won in 2003 for Mystic River while Freeman won in 2004 for his role in Million Dollar Baby.
Jokingly threatened to kill Michael Moore at the National Board of Review awards dinner in January, 2005. Eastwood was quoted as saying "Michael Moore and I actually have a lot in common, we both appreciate living in a country where there's free expression... but, Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera - I'll kill you." This was presumably in reference to Moore's controversial interview with Eastwood's friend Charlton Heston in the movie Bowling for Columbine.
Claims to have "developed his distinctive manner of speech by studying the breathy whisper of Marilyn Monroe."[citation needed]
He is allergic to horses.[citation needed]
One recurrent rumor has it that Eastwood is the son (legitimate or otherwise) of British comic actor Stan Laurel. This is untrue, although a passing facial resemblance to the comedian (plus the fact that Eastwood was born on the same day as one of Laurel's children) has ensured that the legend often resurfaces. [3]
He has his own Warner Bros. Records-distributed imprint, Malpaso Records, as part of his deal with Warner Bros. This deal was left intact when Warner Music Group was sold by Time Warner to private investors. Malpaso has released all of the scores of Eastwood's films from The Bridges of Madison County onward. It also released the album of a 1996 jazz concert he hosted, titled Eastwood after Hours?-Live at Carnegie Hall.
A physical fitness fanatic, he has never smoked, except in some of his movies.
If you scramble the letters in Clint Eastwood's name they can be reformed into "old west action"

Eastwood in popular culture

Clint Eastwood is the name used by the character Marty McFly in the movie Back to the Future Part III (1990), which parodies a Western. Marty also used a piece of metal as a bulletproof vest in a duel with Buford (as foreshadowed in Part II while Biff is watching A Fistful of Dollars in his hot tub).
Stephen King has publicly stated in interviews, as well as in forewords and afterwords for the respective books, that one of the inspirations for Roland Deschain, A.K.A Roland of Gilead, the Gunslinger in his popular The Dark Tower opus, is Clint Eastwood. He also says that Roland is meant to embody a gritty, melancholy like that of Eastwood's "The Man With No Name" persona in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Reggae/dub legend Lee Perry recorded a song entitled "Clint Eastwood" in 1969.
Virtual band Gorillaz has recorded two songs called "Clint Eastwood" and "Dirty Harry" both on Track 5.
Rock Band "The Transplants" make references to Hang em High, and A Few Dollars More in some of their songs.
The song "The Unknown Stuntman", which was the theme song to television show The Fall Guy, references Eastwood with the line "I'm the unknown stuntman that makes Eastwood look so fine."
Clint Eastwood, although in cybernetic form, is the main character/driver in the game Nitro for the Commodore Amiga and Atari-ST computers, by Psygnosis (1990).
A Swedish metal band from the 1980s was named after him: The Clint Eastwood Experience. The band featured members of Dismember and Entombed.
In the computer game Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge, one of the characters in the second allied mission (which is set in Hollywood) is named Flint Westwood. The character is also named for the game's produced, Westwood Studios.
He appears as an audio-animatronic in the Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park at Walt Disney World on one of the park's most iconic attractions, The Great Movie Ride, along with other classic actors.
In the computer game Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, there is a mention of the "East Clintwood Institute, named after the famous movie star".
The final boss in the computer game Fallout 2 is called Frank Horrigan, a reference to Clint Eastwood's character in the movie In the Line of Fire.
Clint Eastwood is the name used by popular Reggae musician and D.J. Robert Brammer.
Adam and the Ants chant Clint Eastwood's name as part of the chorus of "Los Rancheros," which appears on their 1980 album titled Kings of the Wild Frontier.
Big Audio Dynamite inserted several audio samples from Eastwood's spaghetti western movies into their song "Medicine Show," which appears on This is Big Audio Dynamite, released in 1985.
Two Japanese people in the film Crocodile Dundee II mistook the main character, Mick Dundee as Clint Eastwood.

Lea Thompson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Lea Katherine Thompson (born May 31, 1961, in Rochester, Minnesota) is an American actress.




Early life

She studied dance as a girl, and would practice three to four hours every day. She was dancing professionally by the age of 14. Lea then won scholarships to several ballet schools, including The American Ballet Theatre and The San Francisco Ballet. She danced with the The Minnesota Dance Theatre, The Pennsylvania Ballet Company, and The Ballet Repertory.

She was informed by Baryshnikov that she was "too stocky". Due to this (as well as some small little nagging injuries) she decided to give up dancing in favor of an acting career. She moved to New York at the age of 20, and performed in a number of Burger King ads in the 1980s along with Elisabeth Shue, her eventual co-star in the Back to the Future movies.


Career

Her first significant movie role was in All the Right Moves (1983) with Tom Cruise. That was followed by Red Dawn (1984) and The Wild Life (1984). Her most famous role was that of Lorraine Baines McFly in the Back to the Future trilogy; her character is mother of the main character played by Michael J. Fox. In real life Thompson is the same age as Michael J. Fox. She also starred in the movies SpaceCamp (1986) and Howard The Duck (1986), both considered commercial flops. She is also known for playing Alice Mitchell in the film version of Dennis the Menace (1993).


Lea was nominated for a Cable ACE Award for her outstanding work in Nightbreaker, and she has been a winner of the People's Choice Award. Lea also received critical acclaim for her work with Farrah Fawcett in The Substitute Wife.

Thompson found critical and popular success as the star of the NBC sitcom Caroline in the City from 1995-1999.


In 2005, Thompson starred in a series of made-for-TV movies for the Hallmark Channel in which she plays "Jane Doe," an ex-secret agent turned housewife who helps the government solve mysteries. She also played a guest role in a 2004 episode of NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, playing a woman who had her embryos stolen.

Thompson was a featured celebrity singer on Celebrity Duets and was the 2nd contestant Eliminated (Friday, Sept. 8, 2006).


Personal life

She is married to film director Howard Deutch. She first met Howard on the set of Some Kind of Wonderful. They have two daughters, Madeline and Zoey. Thompson had previously been engaged to Dennis Quaid, her Jaws 3-D co-star.
Has a brother, Andrew Thompson, who made a successful career with the Colorado Ballet. They both took ballet classes in their youth and he even helped her pay for classes.
Danced in more than 45 ballets with the American Ballet Theatre.
Won scholarships to the School of American Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre.

On this day in 1957 American playwright Arthur Miller was convicted of contempt of Congress. The conviction related to an investigation the previous year by the House of Representatives' Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) into a Communist conspiracy to misuse American passports.

Brooke Shields
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Born May 31, 1965 (1965-05-31)
New York City, New York
Spouse(s) Chris Henchy (2001 - present)
Andre Agassi (1997 - 1999) (annuled)
Notable roles Violet in Pretty Baby
Emmeline Lestrange in
The Blue Lagoon
Jade Butterfield
in Endless Love

Christa Brooke Camille Shields[1] (born May 31, 1965) is an American actress and supermodel.





Biography

Career

Shields' career as a model began in the 1960s as an infant, and she continued as a successful child model throughout the 1970s. In early 1980 (at age 14), Shields was the youngest fashion model to ever appear on the cover of the top fashion publication Vogue magazine. Later that same year (at age 15), Shields appeared in controversial print and TV ads for Calvin Klein jeans. The TV ad included her saying the famous tagline, "Do you wanna know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing."

By the age of 16, Shields had become one of the most recognizable faces in the world because of her dual career as a provocative fashion model and controversial child actress. TIME magazine reported, in its February 9, 1981 cover story, that her day rate as a model was $10,000. In 1983 Shields appeared on the cover of the September issue of Paris VOGUE, the October and November issues of American VOGUE and the December edition of Italian VOGUE.

Shields's film career began in 1978 with her appearance in Louis Malle's Pretty Baby, a movie in which she played a child living in a brothel (and in which there were numerous nude scenes). Because she was only 12 when the film was released, and possibly 11 when it was filmed, questions were raised about child pornography. This was followed by a slightly less controversial, but also less notable film, Wanda Nevada (1979).

After two decades of movies, her best-known films are still arguably The Blue Lagoon (1980), which included a number of nude scenes between teenage cousins on a deserted island (Shields later testified before a U.S. Congressional inquiry that older body doubles were used in some of them), and Endless Love (1981). She won the People's Choice Award in the category of Favorite Young Performer in four consecutive years from 1981 to 1984.

Shields put her film career on hold to attend Princeton University from 1983 to 1987, graduating with a degree in French literature. Her senior thesis was titled "The Initiation: From Innocence to Experience: The Pre-Adolescent/Adolescent Journey in the Films of Louis Malle, Pretty Baby and Lacombe Lucien." It was here at Princeton where she spoke openly about her sexuality and virginity. During her tenure at Princeton, Shields was a member of the Princeton Triangle Club and the Cap and Gown Club.

Shields' career stalled at various times, and she has told interviewers that her height (6'0") prevented her from getting roles opposite shorter male actors.

Shields has appeared in a number of television shows, the most successful being the NBC sitcom Suddenly Susan, in which she starred from 1996 until 2000 and which earned her a People's Choice Award in the category of Favorite Female Performer in a New Television Series in 1997.

Shields has appeared in many on-stage productions, mostly musical revivals, including Grease, Cabaret, Wonderful Town and Chicago on Broadway; she also performed in Chicago in London's West End.

Shields made a couple of guest appearances on That '70s Show. She played Mrs. Burkhart, Jackie's (Mila Kunis) mother, who later was briefly involved with Donna's (Laura Prepon) father (played by Don Stark). Shields left That '70s Show when her character was written out. Shields recorded the narration for the SONY/BMG recording of The Runaway Bunny, a Concerto for Violin, Orchestra, and Reader by Glen Roven. It was performed by the Royal Philharmonic and Ittai Shapira.


Personal life

Shields, whose middle name, Camille, is the name she adopted for her Confirmation at age 10, was born in New York City into a well-known American society family with links to Italian nobility. She was delivered by the New Jersey obstetrician, Dr. Frederick A. Small[1]. Her father was Francis Alexander Shields, and her mother was Teri Shields (né Maria Theresia Schmonn). Shields' parents divorced when she was a child, and her father later married Diana Lippert Auchincloss, the former wife of Thomas Gore Auchincloss (a half-brother of Gore Vidal and a stepbrother of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis). The actress has three half-sisters: Marina (who married Thomas William Purcell), Olympia, and Christiana Shields. Also, she has two stepsiblings, Diana Luise Auchincloss and Thomas Gore Auchincloss Jr.

Her paternal grandparents were Francis Xavier Shields, a tennis star of Irish descent, and his second wife, Donna Marina Torlonia di Civitella-Cesi, a half-Italian, half-American socialite who was a sister of Don Alessandro Torlonia, 5th Prince di Civitella-Cesi, the husband of Infanta Beatriz of Spain (an aunt of King Juan Carlos I of Spain). Shields is a second cousin once removed of the actress Glenn Close. Shields's great-grandmother Mary Elsie Moore (wife of Don Marino Torlonia, 4th Prince di Civitella-Cesi) was Close's great-aunt, a sister of Close's maternal grandfather, Charles Arthur Moore.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Shields' romantic relationships were the subject of many tabloid articles. Among the celebrities she dated were Ted McGinley (her high school prom escort), Dean Cain (her Princeton roommate and the first man with whom she had sex, according to an article published by the Associated Press)[2], John F. Kennedy Jr., Michael Bolton, Prince Albert II of Monaco, and Michael Jackson (his date to the 1984 Grammy Awards).

Shields was married from April 19, 1997, to April 9, 1999, to professional tennis player Andre Agassi; their marriage was annulled. Since April 4, 2001, she has been married to television writer Chris Henchy. They have two daughters: Rowan Francis (b. May 15, 2003) and Grier Hammond (b. April 18, 2006). Coincidentally, Shields' second child was born on the same day and in the same hospital as the first child of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise, Suri.


Postpartum depression

In the spring of 2005, Shields spoke to magazines (such as the Guideposts shown here) and appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to publicize her battle with postpartum depression, an experience that included depression, thoughts of suicide, an inability to respond to her baby's needs, and delayed maternal bonding. The illness may have been triggered by a traumatic childbirth, the death of her father three weeks earlier, stress from in vitro fertilization, a miscarriage, and a family history of depression, as well as the hormones and life changes brought on by childbirth. Her book, Down Came the Rain, discusses her experience.[2]

In May 2005, Tom Cruise, a Scientologist whose religion frowns upon psychiatry, condemned Shields both personally and professionally, particularly for both using and speaking in favor of the antidepressant drug Paxil. As Cruise said, "Here is a woman, and I care about Brooke Shields because I think she is an incredibly talented woman, you look at [and think], where has her career gone?" Shields responded that Cruise's statements about anti-depressants were "irresponsible" and "dangerous." She said he should "stick to fighting aliens", (a reference to Cruise's starring role in War of the Worlds as well as some of the more exotic aspects of Scientology doctrine and teachings), "and let mothers decide the best way to treat postpartum depression." The actress responded to a further attack by Cruise in an essay War of Words published in The New York Times on July 1, 2005, in which she made an individual case for the medication and said, "In a strange way, it was comforting to me when my obstetrician told me that my feelings of extreme despair and my suicidal thoughts were directly tied to a biochemical shift in my body. Once we admit that postpartum is a serious medical condition, then the treatment becomes more available and socially acceptable. With a doctor's care, I have since tapered off the medication, but without it, I wouldn't have become the loving parent I am today." ([3]). On Thursday, August 31, 2006, according to USAToday.com [4], Cruise privately apologized to Shields for the incident, and Shields accepted, saying it was "heartfelt". Three months later, she and her husband attended the wedding of Cruise and Katie Holmes in November 2006.

Since writing her book, Shields has guest-starred on shows like FX's Nip/Tuck and CBS' Two and a Half Men.

A girl walked up to the information desk in a hospital and
asked to see the "upturn".
"I think you mean the 'intern', don't you?" asked the nurse on duty.
"Yes," said the girl. "I want to have a 'contamination. '"
"You mean 'examination, '" the nurse corrected her.
"Well I want to go to the 'fraternity ward,' anyway."
"I'm sure you mean the maternity ward."
To which the girl replied: "Upturn, intern; contamination,
examination, fraternity, maternity... . what's the difference?
All I know is I haven't demonstrated in two months,
and I think I'm stagnant."