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George Murphy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia






United States Senator
from California
In office
January 1, 1965-January 3, 1971
Preceded by Pierre Salinger
Succeeded by John V. Tunney



Born July 4, 1902
New Haven, Connecticut
Died May 3, 1992
Palm Beach, Florida
Nationality American
Political party Republican
Spouse Julie Johnson
Profession actor, dancer

George Lloyd Murphy (July 4, 1902-May 3, 1992) was an American dancer, actor, and politician.

He was born in New Haven, Connecticut of Irish Catholic extraction, and attended Yale University. He worked as a tool maker for the Ford Motor Company, as a miner, a real estate agent, and a night club dancer.

In 1927 he appeared on Broadway, partnering with his wife Julie Johnson as a dance act. When Johnson decided to retire from show business in 1935, Murphy moved the family to Hollywood, appearing in several musicals and comedies until 1952. During World War II he appeared in several patriotic films designed to increase morale in the U.S., including the 1943 movie This Is the Army in which he plays a thinly fictionalized version of Irving Berlin.

He was the president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1944 to 1946. He was a vice president of Desilu Studios and of the Technicolor Corporation. He was director of entertainment for presidential inaugurations in 1952, 1956 and 1960.

In the 1950s, Murphy entered politics as chairman of the California Republican State Central Committee. In 1964 he was elected to the United States Senate; he defeated Pierre Salinger, who had been appointed several months earlier to serve the remainder of the late Clair Engle's unexpired term. Murphy served from January 1, 1965 to January 3, 1971. In 1968, he served as the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Murphy assumed his seat two days early, when Salinger resigned from the seat in order to allow Murphy to gain an edge in seniority. Murphy was then appointed by Gov. Pat Brown to serve the remaining two days of Salinger's term. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1970, and subsequently moved to Palm Beach, Florida, where he died at the age of 89 from leukemia.

During his Senate term, Murphy suffered from throat cancer, forcing him to have his larynx removed. He was unable to speak above a whisper for the rest of his life. (He may well have had cancer, but when he spoke to the NYC Buckleyite East Side Conservative Club in the mid-1980s there was nothing discernible in his speech or appearance.)

George Murphy was the subject of a song by satirist Tom Lehrer celebrating his appointment in which Lehrer declared in mock vaudeville style: "Oh, gee it's great, at last we've got a senator who can really sing and dance." Lehrer also alluded sarcastically to an infamous remark Murphy once made during a debate about the bracero program that granted temporary work visas to Mexican migrant farmhands:

Should Americans pick crops?
George says no;
'Cuz no one but a Mexican would stoop so low.
And after all, even in Egypt, the Pharaohs
Had to import?-Hebrew braceros.

Murphy had stated that Mexicans were genetically suited to farm labor; because they were "built lower to the ground", it was supposedly "easier for them to stoop". Oddly, some years earlier, in 1949, Murphy himself had starred next to Mexican actor Ricardo Montalban in the film Border Incident, which cast the exploitation of the braceros in a deservedly negative light.

Murphy's move from the screen to politics paved the way for the successful transitions of actors such as Ronald Reagan and later Arnold Schwarzenegger. Indeed, Reagan's nascent rise was also pondered by an incredulous Lehrer, in the opening lines of the same 1965 song:

Hollywood's often tried to mix
Show business with politics.
From Helen Gahagan
To. . . Ronald Reagan ?

This connection is also referred to by folk singer Phil Ochs on the track "Ringing of Revolution", when Ochs describes a fictional film based on that song, and Murphy is played by Reagan.

Not surprisingly, Ronald Reagan once famously referred to George Murphy as "...my John the Baptist" (in a political sense

Gloria Stuart
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Birth name Gloria Frances Stewart
Born July 4, 1910 (1910-07-04) (age 97)
Santa Monica, California, United States
Spouse(s) Blair Gordon Newell (1930-1934)
Arthur Sheekman (1934-1978)
Notable roles Old Rose in Titanic.1997
Screen Actors Guild Awards

Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
1997 Titanic

Gloria Stuart (born July 4, 1910) is an American stage, television and film actress and artist. To this day, she remains the oldest actress ever to be nominated for an Academy Award.




Born

Born Gloria Frances Stewart in Santa Monica, California, she changed the spelling of her name when she commenced her acting career because "Stuart" fit better on a theater marquee.


Career

1930s

After acting in college and in other amateur productions, Stuart was discovered at the Pasadena Playhouse and signed to a contract by Universal Studios in 1932. She was also selected as one of the thirteen WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1932.

As a glamorous blonde, she was quickly cast in a variety of films and became a favourite of director James Whale, appearing in his films The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) and The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933).

Her career with Universal Studios failed to gain momentum, and she moved to 20th Century Fox. By the end of the decade, she had starred in more than forty films, including Roman Scandals (1933) and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938) but had not become a major star. Some of her co-stars during the 1930s included Lionel Barrymore, Kay Francis, Claude Rains, Raymond Massey, Paul Lukas, John Boles, John Beal, and Shirley Temple.


Marriage

In 1934, she married the screenwriter, Arthur Sheekman, writer of many of the Marx Brothers movies and Groucho's closest friend. In 1935, their daughter, Sylvia, was born. In 1939, Stuart and Sheekman took a trip around the world, and, when they returned to California at the outbreak of the war, Stuart worked for the war effort, became a famous hostess at the legendary Garden of Allah, and made a few more films, but her career was fizzling. She turned her energies to a decorating shop, Décor, Ltd, where she sold the découpage furniture she created: lamps, frames, tables, globes. In 1954, living in Rapallo on the Italian Riviera, she took up oil painting. She had her first one woman show at the prestigious Hammer Galleries in New York, and she became well respected with her work being exhibited throughout the United States and Europe.



1970s

After a thirty year break from acting, she appeared in the 1975 television movie The Legend of Lizzie Borden and over the next few years appeared regularly on television. She made her first cinema appearance in almost forty years when she appeared in My Favourite Year in 1982?-one of her favorite scenes in all her movies, dancing with Peter O'Toole?-but she had no lines. She also survived breast cancer around this time.


1980s-present

In 1984, the 74-year-old Stuart branched yet another career off her artwork. Her close friend, the California printer Ward Ritchie, taught her to print on his venerable hand press. She became a fine printer, founding a private press under the name "Imprenta Glorias." Since then, she has created a substantial number of artists books that are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, the Library of Congress, The J. Paul Getty Museum, the Morgan Library, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and la Bibliothèque nationale de France. In her 97th year, she is still at work every day in her studio. She has bequeathed her press and collection of rare metal type to Mills College.

In old age, Stuart achieved a level of celebrity she had never experienced during her years as a Hollywood contract player, when cast in Titanic (1997). As the 100-year-old Rose Dawson Calvert, she received a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination as well as a Golden Globe Nomination and a Screen Actors Guild Award win. At the age of 87, this made Stuart the oldest nominee ever for a competitive acting Oscar, a record she still holds. Although the Oscar and the Golden Globe were eventually won by Kim Basinger, Stuart tied with Basinger for the SAG Award.

Stuart found herself relatively in demand after this and was constantly employed, as much as her age and health permitted, with her most recent roles being in a Murder, She Wrote TV movie in 2001, and Wim Wenders' Land of Plenty (2004). She is still reading scripts, hoping for another great role.

Eva Marie Saint
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Born July 4, 1924 (1924-07-04)
Newark, New Jersey, USA
Other name(s) Eve Marie Saint
Spouse(s) Jeffrey Hayden 1951-present
Notable roles Eve Kendall
North by Northwest
Academy Awards

Best Supporting Actress
1954 On the Waterfront
Emmy Awards

Outstanding Supporting Actress - Miniseries or Movie
1990 People Like Us

Eva Marie Saint (born July 4, 1924) is an Academy Award-winning American actress. She has starred on Broadway, in films and on television beginning in the 1950s.




Biography

Early life

Saint was born in Newark, New Jersey but attended Bethlehem Central High School in Delmar, NY, graduating in 1942. Eva was inducted into the high school's hall of fame in 2006. She studied acting at Bowling Green State University, while a member of Delta Gamma Sorority. There is also a theatre on Bowling Green campus named after her.


Early television career

In the late '40s, she began doing extensive work in radio and television before winning the Drama Critics Award for her Broadway stage role in the Horton Foote play The Trip to Bountiful (1953), in which she co-starred with such formidable actors as Lillian Gish and Jo Van Fleet. In 1955, she was nominated for her first Emmy for "Best Actress In A Single Performance" on The Philco Television Playhouse for the playing the young mistress of middle-aged E. G. Marshall in Middle of the Night by Paddy Chayevsky. She won another Emmy nomination for the 1955 television musical version of the Thornton Wilder classic play Our Town with co-stars Paul Newman (in his only musical role) and Frank Sinatra. Her success and acclaim were of such a high level that the young Saint earned the nickname "the Helen Hayes of television."


Film debut

Saint's first feature motion picture role was in On the Waterfront (1954), directed by Elia Kazan and starring Marlon Brando ?- a smart, sympathetic, and emotionally-charged role for which she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Her performance as Edie Doyle (whose brother Jimmy's death sets the film's drama in motion) which she won over such leading contenders as Grace Kelly, Janice Rule, and Elizabeth Montgomery, also earned her a British Academy of Film and Television Award for "Most Promising Newcomer." In his New York Times review, film critic Bosley Crowther wrote:

"In casting Eva Marie Saint ?- a newcomer to movies from TV and Broadway ?- Mr. Kazan has come up with a pretty and blond artisan who does not have to depend on these attributes. Her parochial school training is no bar to love with the proper stranger. Amid scenes of carnage, she gives tenderness and sensitivity to genuine romance."[1]

In a 2000 interview in Premiere magazine, Saint recalled making the hugely influential film:

" [Elia] Kazan put me in a room with Marlon Brando. He said, 'Brando is the boyfriend of your sister. You're a Catholic girl and not used to being with a young man. Don't let him in the door under any circumstances.' I don't know what he told Marlon; you'll have to ask him ?- good luck! [Brando] came in and started teasing me. He put me off-balance. And I remained off-balance for the whole shoot. "

The watershed success of the film launched Saint into many of the best known films of her early screen career. They include starring with Don Murray in the powerful and pioneering drug-addiction drama, A Hatful of Rain (1957), for which she won the "Best Foreign Actress" from the British Academy of Film and Television, and the lavish Civil War epic Raintree County, opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.


Hitchcock blonde

Legendary director Alfred Hitchcock surprised many by choosing the stately and serious Saint over dozens of other candidates for the femme fatale role in what was to become a suspense classic North by Northwest (1959) with Cary Grant and James Mason. Written by Ernest Lehman, the brilliant and immensely entertaining film updated and expanded upon the director's early "wrong man" spy adventures of the '30s, '40s, and '50s, including The 39 Steps, Young and Innocent, and Foreign Correspondent. North by Northwest not only became a massive box-office hit but also a major influence on other spy films for decades. The film ranks number forty on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time.

At the time of the film's production, much publicity was garnered by Hitchcock's decision to cut Saint's waist-length blonde hair for the very first time in her career. Hitchcock explained at the time, "Short hair gives Eva a more exotic look, in keeping with her role of the glamorous woman of my story. I wanted her dressed like a kept woman - smart, simple, subtle and quiet. In other words, anything but the bangles and beads type." The director also worked with Saint to make her voice lower and huskier and even personally chose costumes for her during a shopping trip to Bergdorf Goodman in New York City. The change in Saint's screen persona, coupled with her adroit performance as a seductive woman of mystery who keeps Cary Grant (and the audience) off-balance, was widely heralded. In his New York Times review of August 7, 1959. critic Bosley Crowther wrote, "In casting Eva Marie Saint as [Cary Grant's] romantic vis-a-vis, Mr. Hitchcock has plumbed some talents not shown by the actress heretofore. Although she is seemingly a hard, designing type, she also emerges both the sweet heroine and a glamorous charmer." In 2000, recalling her experience making the picture with Cary Grant and Hitchcock, Saint said, "[Grant] would say, "See, Eva Marie, you don't have to cry in a movie to have a good time. Just kick up your heels and have fun." Hitchcock said, "I don't want you to do a sink-to-sink movie again, ever. You've done these black-and-white movies like On the Waterfront. It's drab in that tenement house. Women go to the movies, and they've just left the sink at home. They don't want to see you at the sink." I said, "I can't promise you that, Hitch, because I love those dramas."


Mid-career

Although North by Northwest might have propelled her to the very top ranks of stardom, she elected to limit her film work in order to spend time with her husband since 1951, director Jeffrey Hayden, and their two children. Nevertheless, in the 1960s, Saint continued to distinguish herself in both high-profile and more offbeat motion pictures, including co-starring again with Paul Newman in the historical drama about the founding of the state of Israel Exodus (1960), directed by Otto Preminger. She also co-starred with Warren Beatty, Karl Malden, and Angela Lansbury as a tragic beauty in the 1962 drama All Fall Down. Based upon a novel by James Leo Herlihy and a screenplay by William Inge, the film was directed by John Frankenheimer. She was also seen with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the highly-publicized melodrama The Sandpiper for Vincente Minnelli, and with James Garner in thriller 36 Hours, directed by George Seaton. She was among the all-star casts in the comedic satire The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, directed by Norman Jewison and the international racing drama Grand Prix presented in Cinerama and directed by John Frankenheimer. Although she was announced as the leading lady opposite Steve McQueen in director Norman Jewison's ultra-stylish romantic caper film The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), the meteoric rise of newcomer Faye Dunaway, who was cast instead, cost Saint a rare glamorous and sexy role.

In 1970, she received some of the best reviews of her film career for Loving, in which she co-starred as the wife of George Segal in a critically-acclaimed but underseen film drama about a commercial artist's relationship with his wife and the other women in his life. Because of the mostly second-rate film roles that came her way in the 1970s, Saint returned to television and the stage in the 1980s. She has appeared in a number of made-for-TV movies, played the mother of Cybill Shepherd on the hit television series Moonlighting, winning an Emmy nomination for the 1977 miniseries How The West Was Won, a 1978 Emmy nomination for Taxi and an Emmy in 1990 for the mini-series People Like Us.


Later career

In 2000, she co-starred with Kim Basinger in the motion picture I Dreamed of Africa, with Jessica Lange for director Wim Wenders in Don't Come Knocking (2005) written by Sam Shepard, and in the heart-tugging family film Because of Winn-Dixie. In 2006, Saint once again became a household name by playing Martha Kent, the adoptive mother of Superman, in Superman Returns.

She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures at 6624 Hollywood Blvd., and one for television at 6730 Hollywood Blvd.

Gina Lollobrigida
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gina Lollobrigida July 4, 1927 born in Subiaco, Italy, is a Golden Globe nominated Italian actress.




Birth name Luigina Lollobrigida
Born July 04, 1927 (1927-07-04)
Subiaco, Italy
Years active 1947-1997



Biography

Lollobrigida is one of four daughters of a furniture manufacturer (her sisters are Giuliana, Maria and Fernanda). She spent her youth in a picturesque mountain village. In her youth, Gina did some modeling, and from there she went to participate successfully in several beauty contests. At around this time, she began appearing in Italian language films. In 1947, Gina entered the Miss Italy pageant and came in 3rd place. The contest was won by Lucia Bosé and second place was Gianna Maria Canale - they would both go on to be actresses though neither would come near Lollobrigida's success.

It is rumoured that after seeing her in a film, eccentric millionaire mogul Howard Hughes had her flown to Hollywood in 1947 though if this happened, it did not result in her staying in America. Instead she stayed in Italy and in 1949 she married a Slovenian physician, Mirko Skofic. (They had one son, Mirko Skofic jr, and were divorced in 1971). Her appearance in Italian films brought her to the attention of Hollywood and she made her first American film, Beat the Devil, in 1953. As her popularity increased, Lollobrigida earned the nickname "The World's Most Beautiful Woman" after her signature 1955 movie.

She made another notable appearance in Trapeze with Burt Lancaster in 1956 and starred in The Hunchback of Notre Dame the same year. In 1959 she co-starred in Frank Sinatra's Never So Few (she is rumoured to have had an affair with Sinatra) and in 1961 made one of her most popular films, Come September, with Rock Hudson.

She co-starred with him again in 1965's Strange Bedfellows and appeared alongside Alec Guinness in 1966's Hotel Paradiso. In 1968 she starred in the enjoyable Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell with Shelley Winters, Phil Silvers, and Telly Savalas. By the 1970s her film career had wound down and she appeared in only a few, fairly poorly received productions in the early part of the decade.

By this time she had embarked on what was to turn out to be a successful career as a photographic journalist. She photographed, among others, Paul Newman, Salvador Dalí and the German national football team and scooped the world's press by obtaining an exclusive interview with Fidel Castro. In 1973 a collection of her work was published, Italia Mia.

Still focusing on other interests, including sculpting, it was 1984 before she returned to American television screens with a part in Falcon Crest. She made a few minor film appearances in the 1990s and in 1999 she ran unsuccessfully for one of Italy's 87 seats in the elections for European Parliament. She was also a corporate executive for fashion and cosmetics companies.

Now virtually retired from acting, she has not made a film since 1997, she told Parade magazine in April 2000: "I studied painting and sculpting at school and became an actress by mistake .... I've had many lovers and still have romances. I am very spoiled. All my life, I've had too many admirers."

In October 2006, at age 79, she announced to Spain's ¡Hola! magazine her engagement to a 45-year-old Spanish businessman, Javier Rigau y Rafols, whom she met at a party in Monte Carlo in 1984. [1]. The engagement was called off on 6 December 2006 due to media pressure around the event [2].


Trivia



Head of jury at the Berlin International Film Festival 1986.
She had £10,000 worth of jewels stolen from a bag in November 1998. This happened at a hotel reception in Munich, Germany while she was waiting for a taxi to the airport.
In 1966 Gina had an affair with comedian Jerry Lewis.
A kind of "curly" lettuce was named after her "lollo".
Wooster's World (1967), Geoffrey Jaggard's companion to the Jeeves and Wooster stories of P G Wodehouse (1881-1975), includes under ?'Lollobrigida, Gina' just five words - ?'the highly individual shape of' - and a cross-reference to Cocktail Time (1958), the novel where they originally appeared.
She has a grandson, Dimitri Mirko.
David Gedge and his band Cinerama enititled a single Lollobrigida
She has won 6 David di Donatello, 3 Nastri d'Argento and a Golden Globe as World's favourite star.
Cardiacs had a song entitled Gina Lollobrigida on their debut The Seaside album.
The comedian Billy Connolly once introduced her onstage with an anecdote that her name (which contains seven syllables) has long been used by drummers all over the world as a mnemonic for seven beats to the bar.

Neil Simon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Neil Simon (born Marvin Neil Simon July 4, 1927 in The Bronx, New York City), is a Jewish American playwright and screenwriter. He is one of the most reliable hitmakers in Broadway history, as well as one of the most performed playwrights in the world.

Simon briefly attended New York University in 1946. Two years later, he quit his job as a mailroom clerk in the Warner Brothers offices in Manhattan to write radio and television scripts with his brother Danny Simon. Their revues for Camp Tamiment in Pennsylvania in the early 1950s caught the attention of Sid Caesar, who hired the duo for his popular TV comedy series Your Show of Shows. (Simon later incorporated their experiences into his play Laughter on the 23rd Floor.) His work won him two Emmy Award nominations and the appreciation of Phil Silvers, who hired him to write for his eponymous sitcom in 1959.

In 1961, Simon's first Broadway play, Come Blow Your Horn, opened at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, where it ran for 678 performances. Six weeks after its closing, his second production, the musical Little Me (starring former boss Caesar), opened to mixed reviews. Although it failed to attract a large audience, it earned Simon his first Tony Award nomination. Overall, he has garnered seventeen Tony nominations and won three. He has also won a Pulitzer Prize in drama for Lost In Yonkers.

His prolific output includes light comedies (Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple), darker, more autobiographical works (Chapter Two, the Eugene Trilogy comprised of Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound) and books for musical comedies (Sweet Charity, Promises, Promises).

He has also written screenplays for over 20 films. These include adaptations of his own plays as well as original work, including The Out-of-Towners, Murder by Death and The Goodbye Girl. He has received four Best Screenplay Academy Award nominations.

Simon has been married five times, to dancer Joan Baim (1953-1973), actress Marsha Mason (1973-1981), twice to Diane Lander (1987-1988 and 1990-1998), and currently actress Elaine Joyce with son Michael. He is also the father of Nancy and Ellen, from his first marriage, and Bryn, whom he adopted with Lander.

Simon has an honorary L.H.D. degree from Hofstra University and an honorary D.H.C. degree from Williams College. He is the owner of the Eugene O'Neill Theatre as well as the namesake of another Broadway house.

Stephen Boyd
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Birth name William Millar
Born July 4, 1931
Whitehouse, County Antrim, Northern Ireland
Died June 2, 1977, age 45
Northridge, California, USA

Stephen Boyd (born William Millar, July 4, 1931 - June 2, 1977) - was a Northern Ireland-born actor, born at Doagh Road, Whitehouse, County Antrim, who starred in over fifty films.

He began in British films, but it was his role in a 1957 French film Les bijoutiers du clair de lune (English title: Heaven Fell That Night) opposite Brigitte Bardot that got him noticed. He went to Hollywood and appeared as second leads in a variety of films, including The Bravados (1958). His role as Messala in Ben-Hur (1959) propelled him to international fame and he was thereafter fated to play roles wearing breastplates and Roman togas, as in Samuel Bronston's The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), in which he co-starred with Sophia Loren. He received a Golden Globe for his performance in Ben-Hur.

He was originally chosen to play Mark Antony opposite Elizabeth Taylor in 20th Century-Fox's epic production of Cleopatra under the direction of Rouben Mamoulian, but eventually withdrew from the problem-plagued production when he committed to star in The Fall of the Roman Empire (Cleopatra was later directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and the role of Mark Antony went to Richard Burton).

Boyd also appeared in John Huston's Biblical epic The Bible...in the Beginning (1966) and was top-billed in another costumed epic Genghis Khan (1965), filmed in Yugoslavia. He appeared in the French-produced Napoleonic epic Imperial Venus (1962), playing opposite Gina Lollobrigida. His non-epic roles included the musical Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962) opposite Doris Day, the Hollywood melodrama The Oscar (1966), the sci-fi special effects extravaganza Fantastic Voyage (1966), the spy thriller Assignment K (1969) and the international Western Shalako (1969), shot in Spain. His career declined in the 1970s and he appeared in several European potboilers before making a comeback in Michael Apted's British gangster thriller The Squeeze (1977).

He died of a heart attack at the age of 45 while playing golf at the Porter Valley Country Club in Northridge, California.

Stephen Boyd was interred in Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, California.

Bill Withers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Background information
Born July 4, 1938
Slab Fork, West Virginia, United States
Origin Los Angeles
Genre(s) Soul, R&B
Instrument(s) Voice, acoustic guitar
Years active 1967-1985
Label(s) Sussex Records
Columbia Records
Website http://www.billwithers.com/

Bill Withers (born July 4, 1938 in Slab Fork, West Virginia) is an American singer-songwriter who performed and recorded from the late 1960s until the mid 1980s. Some of his best-known songs include "Ain't No Sunshine," "Use Me," "Lean on Me", "Grandma's Hands", and "Just the Two of Us".





Early life

Bill Withers was born the youngest of nine children in the small coal-mining town of Slab Fork, West Virginia. Raised in nearby Beckley, West Virginia, he was thirteen when his father died. He joined the United States Navy at seventeen and served for nine years, during which time he became interested in singing. He began writing songs to fill a need for lyrics that expressed what he felt. Following his discharge from the Navy in 1965, he moved to Los Angeles in 1967 to pursue a career in music.[1]

Withers worked full-time in a Lockheed assembly plant, assembling toilets for Boeing 747s, while recording demo tapes he shopped around and performing in the juke joints during the night.[2] When he debuted on the music scene with "Ain't No Sunshine" he refused to give up his job because of his belief that the music business was a fickle industry and that he was still a novice compared to other working acts like The Temptations or Sammy Davis, Jr.[citation needed]


Career

Sussex Records

In early 1970, Withers' demo tape was received favorably by Clarence Avant of Sussex Records. Avant signed Withers to a record deal and assigned Booker T. Jones to produce Withers' debut album. Four three-hour studio sessions were planned to record the album, but funding caused the album to be recorded in three sessions with a six-month break between the second and final sessions. Just As I Am was released in 1971 with the tracks "Harlem" and "Ain't No Sunshine" as singles.[3]

The album was a hit and Withers began touring with a band assembled from members of The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band: drummer James Gadson, guitarist Bernoce Blackmon, keyboardist Ray Jackson, and bassist Melvin Dunlap. During a break in touring, Withers recorded his second album, Still Bill. The single "Lean on Me" went to number one the week of July 8, 1972.

A 1973 performance was recorded for the live album Bill Withers, Live at Carnegie Hall. It was followed by the 1974 album +Justments.

After +Justments, Withers became engaged in a legal dispute with the Sussex label and was unable to record. During this time, he wrote and produced two songs on the Gladys Knight & the Pips record I Feel A Song and performed in concert as part of the historical Ali/Forman fight in Zaire. Footage of his performance appeared in the 1996 documentary film When We Were Kings and the accompanying soundtrack.


Columbia Records

Withers signed with Columbia Records in 1975. His first released with the label was Making Music, Making Friends, which had the single "She's Lonely" appear in the movie Looking for Mr. Goodbar. The next three years saw an album released each year with Naked & Warm (1976), Menagerie (1977) and 'Bout Love (1978).

He then focused on joint projects for several years, including the multiple Grammy-nominated "Just the Two of Us," which he performed with jazz saxophonist Grover Washington, Jr., "Soul Shadows" with The Crusaders, and "In The Name Of Love" with Ralph MacDonald, which was nominated for a vocal performance Grammy.

His final new release was 1985's Watching You, Watching Me, with the singles "Whatever Happens" and "You Just Can't Smile It Away". He retired from the music business after the album was released.


Other endeavors

After retiring, Withers focused on parenting with his wife Marcia, who handles the day-to-day running of his publishing company.[2] In 1987, he received his ninth Grammy nomination and third Grammy as a songwriter for the re-recording of "Lean On Me" by Club Nouveau.

Following the reissues of Still Bill in 2003 and Just As I am in 2005, there was speculation of previously unreleased material being issued as a new album.[4] Tapes of his unreleased material were delivered from Sony to Withers in 2006.[2]

You know you are in deep trouble when...

* The stewardess on your American Airlines flight tells you NOT to
fasten your seatbelt.

* Your accountants letter of resignation is postmarked Panama.

* You have to hitch hike to the bank to make your late car payment.

* The little league puts you on waivers.

* Your suggestion box starts ticking.

* Your secretary tells you the FBI is on line 1, the DEA is on line 2,
and CBS is on line 3.

* You see your stockbroker hitchhiking out of town.

* You see the cruise captain running toward the railing wearing a life
jacket.

* They pay your wages out of petty cash.

* You make more than you ever made, owe more than you ever owed, and
have less than you've ever had.

* Getting there is half the fun and three-fourths of the vacation
budget.

* The simple instructions enclosed, aren't.

* A black cat crosses you path and drops dead.

* You take an assertiveness training course and you're afraid to tell
your wife.

* You see your wife and your girlfriend having lunch together.

* Your pacemaker has only a thirty day guarantee.

* The candles on your cake set off your smoke alarm.

* The pest exterminator crawls under your house and never comes out.

I've done it before and I'd do it again. I regard this as one of the most wonderful songs ever written. If it's the favorite of a gigantic gorilla, namely Mighty Joe Young, who can argue it's merits.



BEAUTIFUL DREAMER, 1865


Stephen C. Foster




LYRICS


Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee;
Sounds of the rude world, heard in the day,
Lull'd by the moonlight have all pass'd away!
Beautiful dreamer, queen of my song,
List while I woo thee with soft melody;
Gone are the cares of life's busy throng,
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!

Beautiful dreamer, out on the sea
Mermaids are chanting the wild lorelie;
Over the streamlet vapors are borne,
Waiting to fade at the bright coming morn.
Beautiful dreamer, beam on my heart,
E'en as the morn on the streamlet and sea;
Then will all clouds of sorrow depart,
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!

Ray Charles
Swanee River Rock

'way down upon the Swanee River
Far, far away
There's where my heart is turning ever
There's where the old folks stay
All the world is sad and dreary everywhere I roam
Oh, darling, how my heart grows weary
Far from the old folks at home

Thanks, hawkman, for all the great background that matches our Raggedy's faces, and, we appreciate the warnings.

I, too, love Beautiful Dreamer. I have learned to appreciate the old songs.

Incidentally, Boston Bob. In the final scenes of Titanic, the sight of that old lady dropping the beautiful necklace into the water while in the background we hear the beautiful whistle music of Ireland, was the most poignant part of the film.

Here is the song that goes with the movie, folks

Artist: Titanic
Song: My Heart Will Go On



Every night in my dreams
I see you, I feel you
That is how I know you go on.

Far across the distance
and spaces between us
You have come to show you go on.

Near, Far,
wherever you are,
I believe that the heart does go on.

Once more, you opened the door
And you're here in my heart,
and my heart will go on and on.

Love can touch us one time
and last for a lifetime
And never let go till we're gone.

Love was when I loved you,
one true time to hold on to
In my life we'll always go on.

Near, far,
wherever you are,
I believe that the heart does go on.

Once more, you opened the door
And you're here in my heart,
and my heart will go on and on.

You're here, there's nothing I fear
And I know that my heart will go on.
We'll stay, forever this way
You are safe in my heart

and my heart will go on and on.

Here it is!
Ray Charles Swanee River Rock

Welcome back, Victor, and thanks, edgar, for the "old folks" song. Here's a bit of fascinating history, folks.

The Star Spangled Banner

Translations

The anthem has also been translated into other languages. In 1861, it was translated into German. It has been translated into Yiddish by Jewish immigrants and into French by Acadians of Louisiana. The third verse of the anthem has also been translated into Latin. It has been translated into Samoan; here are the last four lines of the first verse:

O roketi mumu fa'aafi, o pomu ma fana ma aloi afi
E fa'amaonia i le po atoa, le fu'a o lo'o tu maninoa.
Aue! ia tumau le fe'ilafi mai, ma agiagia pea
I eleele o sa'olotoga, ma nofoaga o le au totoa.[3].
Nuestro Himno

A Spanish-language recording of the "Star-Spangled Banner" called "Nuestro Himno" was released on 28 April 2006. This was a few days before nationwide demonstrations on 1 May regarding immigration-law reform. This recording was created as a show of support for all immigrants, the majority of whom are of Hispanic origin, in the United States in response to a proposed crackdown on illegal immigration.

"Nuestro Himno" used the text of the Spanish-language version translated by Francis Haffkine Snow of the "The Star-Spangled Banner" called "La Bandera de Estrellas." This version was published by the US Bureau of Education in 1919. This same translation is on the United States Department of State's website. A reproduction of the original sheet music is on the Library of Congress website.

Public reaction to "Nuestro Himno" was widely divided. It drew this response from President George W. Bush: "I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English." President Bush's administration had Spanish versions of the Anthem posted online

Performances and adaptations of The Star-Spangled Banner
The song is notoriously difficult for nonprofessionals to sing, because its range is wide: an octave and a half. Garrison Keillor has frequently campaigned for the performance of the anthem in the original key, G major?-which can, in fact, be managed by most average singers without difficulty. It is usually played in A-flat or B-flat.) Humorist Richard Armour referred to the song's difficulty in his book It All Started With Columbus

Professional and amateur singers have been known to forget the words, which is one reason the song is so often prerecorded and lip-synched. This situation was lampooned in the comedy film The Naked Gun, as its star Leslie Nielsen, undercover as opera singer Enrico Pallazzo at a baseball game, made mincemeat of the lyrics. The prerecording of the anthem has become standard practice at some ballparks (such as Boston's Fenway Park, according to the SABR publication The Fenway Project)
Musical references
The tune has been referenced in many other musical compositions.
The city of Philadelphia commissioned Richard Wagner to write a piece in honor of the centenary of U.S. independence. His American Centennial March uses a recurring allusion to "The Star-Spangled Banner" in its main theme.
The nineteenth-century American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk incorporated both "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Yankee Doodle" in his piano composition The Union.
Giacomo Puccini controversially used the opening phrases of "The Star-Spangled Banner" as a theme for the character of Pinkerton in his opera Madama Butterfly.
The last of Leopold Godowsky's set of thirty piano pieces titled Triakontameron is "Requiem (1914-1918): Epilogue", which concludes with a full-blown romantic arrangement of the anthem.
The paraphrase of the first stanza is used in the score of American Panorama (1933) by Daniele Amfitheatrof.
The title tune of the 1960s musical Hair contains the lines (sung to the usual tune) "O, say, can you see / my eyes? If you can / then my hair's too short!"
In the musical 1776 the song "Cool, Cool Considerate Men" starts and ends with the beginning bars of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and begins with the lyrics "Oh say do you see what I see?"
In the multi-media performance piece "Home of the Brave", by artist/musician Laurie Anderson.
The rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix performed the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock, one of his most memorable performances.

The National Anthem Sung By Cher

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Boots Randolph, a saxophone player best known for the 1963 hit "Yakety Sax," died Tuesday. He was 80.

Randolph suffered a cerebral hemorrhage June 25 and had been hospitalized in a coma. He was taken off a respirator earlier Tuesday, said Betty Hofer, a publicist and spokeswoman for the family.

Randolph played regularly in Nashville nightclubs for 30 years, becoming a tourist draw for the city much like Wayne Newton in Las Vegas and Pete Fountain in New Orleans.

edgar, Thanks for that update on Boots, Texas. I know that he did a couple of hit singles, Hey Mr. Sax Man, and Temptation, but the only songs that I could find were ones in which he played accompaniment. Something tells me, folks, that the Sax Man song might have something to do with Bob Dylan.

Here's one that featured Boots, and this version is done by Ray Charles.

(I can't stop loving you)
I've made up my mind
To live in memories of the lonesome times
(I can't stop wanting you)
It's useless to say
So I'll just live my life in dreams of yesterday
(Those happy hours)
Those happy hours
(That we once knew)
That we once knew
(Tho' long ago)
Tho' long ago
(Still make me blue)
Still ma-a-a-ake me blue
(They say that time)
They say that time
(Heals a broken heart)
Heals a broken heart
(But time has stood still)
Time has stood still
(Since we've been apart)
Since we've been apart

(I can't stop loving you)
I said I made up my mind
To live in memory of the lonesome times
(Sing a song, children)
(I can't stop wanting you)
It's useless to say
So I'll just live my life of dreams of yesterday
(Of yesterday)

Shooby Doo Wop ba baa (hey hey)
Shooby Doo Wop ba baa (hey hey)
Shooby Doo Wop ba baa (hey hey)

My heart is cryin',cryin'
Lonely teardrops
My pillows never dry of
Lonely teardrops

Come home, come home
Just say you will, say you will (say you will)
Say you will (say you will)
Hey, hey (say you will)

My heart is cryin, cryin
Lonely teardrops
My pillows never dry of
Lonely teardrops

Come home, come home
Just say you will, say you will (say you will)
Say you will (say you will)
Hey, hey (say you will)

Just give me another chance
For our romance
Come on and tell me
That one day you'll return
Cause everyday that you've been gone away
You know my heart does nothing but burn
Crying

Lonely teardrops
My pillows never dry of
Lonely teardrops

Come home, come home
Just say you will, say you will (say you will)
Say you will (say you will)
Hey, hey (say you will)
Say it right now baby (say you will)
Come on, come on (say you will)
Say it darling

Jackie Wilson

When
The Kalin Twins

[Words and Music by Paul Evans and Jack Reardon]

When, when you smile, when you smile at me
Well, well I know our love will always be
When, when you kiss, when you kiss me right
I, I don't want to ever say good night

I need you
I want you near me
I love you
Yes, I do and I hope you hear me

When, when I say, when I say, be mine
If, if you will I know all will be fine
When will you be mine

(Oh, baby)
(I need you)
(I want you near me)
(I love you)
(Yes, I do and I hope you hear me when)

When, when you smile, when you smile at me
Well, well I know our love will always be
When, when you kiss, when you kiss me right
I, I don't want to ever say good night

I need you
I want you near me
I love you
Yes, I do and I hope you hear me

When, when I say, when I say, be mine
If, if you will I know all will be fine
When will you be mine