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Till I Waltz Again With You
Teresa Brewer

[Words and Music by Sidney Prosen]

Till I waltz again with you
Let no other hold your charms
If my dreams should all come true
You'll be waiting for my arms

Till I kiss you once agin
Keep my love locked in your heart
Darling, I'll return and then
We will never have to part

Though it may break your heart and mine
The minute when it's time to go
Remember Dear, each word divine
That meant I love you so

Till I waltz again with you
Just the way we are tonight
I will keep my promise true
For you are my guiding light

Till I waltz again with you
Keep my love locked in your heart
Darling, I'll return and then
We will never have to part
Though it may break your heart and mine
The minute when it's time to go
Remember Dear, each word divine
That meant I love you so

Till I waltz again with you
Just the way we are tonight
I will keep my promise true
For you are my guiding light
My light, my light
I will keep my promise true
Till I waltz again with you

All you young cowboys come gather around
I'll tell you a story of Abilene town
Of two young lovers as true lovers know
The girl in this story is Abilene Rose

Rose, Rose, Abilene Rose
Your memory still lives in my heart
Rose, Abilene Rose
We promised we never would part

Rose was so pretty in her gingham gown
She was the fairest in Abilene town
Her eyes were as bright as the stars up above
Every one knew when she chose me to love

Rose, Rose, Abilene Rose
Your memory still lives in my heart
Rose, Abilene Rose
We promised we never would part

We courted each other out under the moon
We planned to be married the first day of June
Then I started drinking and gambling you see
I broke her young heart and then she left me

Rose, Rose, Abilene Rose
Your memory still lives in my heart
Rose, Abilene Rose
We promised we never would part

I got into trouble and had to leave town
Rose got married and then settled down
She was as happy as happy could be
With her young cowboy and their family

Rose, Rose, Abilene Rose
Your memory still lives in my heart
Rose, Abilene Rose
We promised we never would part

This is the story I promised to tell
All you young cowboys remember it well
If you find true love don't tear it apart
Marry that true love
Don't break her young heart

Rose, Rose, Abilene Rose
Your memory still lives in my heart
Rose, Abilene Rose
Forever we must live apart

Marty Robbins

Heartaches By The Number
Guy Mitchell

[Written by Harlan Howard]

Heartaches by the number
Troubles by the score
Everyday you love me less
Each day I love you more
Yes, I've got heartaches by the number
A love that I can't win
But the day that I stop counting
That's the day my world will end

Heartache number one was when you left me
I never knew that I could hurt this way
And heartache number two
Was when you *come* back again
You came back but never meant to stay

Yes, I've got
Heartaches by the number
Troubles by the score
Everyday you love me less
Each day I love you more
Yes, I've got heartaches by the number
A love that I can't win
But the day that I stop counting
That's the day my world will end

Heartache number three
was when you called me
And said that you were comin' back to stay
With hopeful heart
I waited for your knock on the door
I waited but you must have lost your way

Yes, I've got
Heartaches by the number
Troubles by the score
Everyday you love me less
Each day I love you more
Yes, I've got heartaches by the number
A love that I can't win
But the day that I stop counting
That's the day my world will end

H. G. Wells
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Born: 21 September 1866(1866-09-21)
Bromley, Kent, England
Died: 13 August 1946 (aged 79)
London, England
Occupation: Novelist, Teacher, Historian,
Journalist
Nationality: English
Genres: Science Fiction
Influences: Darwinian Theory,
Mark Twain,
Mary Shelley,
Jonathan Swift
Influenced: Olaf Stapledon,
Stanley G. Weinbaum,
Edgar Rice Burroughs,
H.P. Lovecraft,
Frank R. Paul,
Robert Goddard,
Isaac Asimov,
Arthur C. Clarke,
Carl Sagan,
Jack Williamson
Stan Lee
George Orwell

Herbert George Wells (September 21, 1866 - August 13, 1946), better known as H. G. Wells, was an English writer best known for such science fiction novels as The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, The First Men in the Moon and The Island of Doctor Moreau. He was a prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction, and produced works in many different genres, including contemporary novels, history, and social commentary. He was also an outspoken socialist. His later works become increasingly political and didactic, and only his early science fiction novels are widely read today. Both Wells and Jules Verne are sometimes referred to as "The Father of Science Fiction".[1]




Biography

Early life

Herbert George Wells, the fourth and last child of Joseph Wells (a former domestic gardener, and at the time shopkeeper and cricketer) and his wife Sarah Neal (a former domestic servant), was born at Atlas House, 47 High Street, Bromley, in the county of Kent.[2] The family was of the impoverished lower-middle-class. An inheritance had allowed them to purchase a china shop, though they quickly realised it would never be a prosperous concern: the stock was old and worn out, and the location was poor. They managed to earn a meagre income, but little of it came from the shop. Joseph sold cricket bats and balls and other equipment at the matches he played at, and received an unsteady amount of money from the matches, since at that time there were no professional cricketers, and payment for skilled bowlers and batters came from voluntary donations afterwards, or from small payments from the clubs where matches were played.

A defining incident of young Wells's life is said to be an accident he had in 1874, when he was seven years old, which left him bedridden with a broken leg. To pass the time he started reading, and soon became devoted to the other worlds and lives to which books gave him access; they also stimulated his desire to write. Later that year he entered Thomas Morley's Commercial Academy, a private school founded in 1849 following the bankruptcy of Morley's earlier school. The teaching was erratic, the curriculum mostly focused, Wells later said, on producing copperplate handwriting and doing the sort of sums useful to tradesmen. Wells continued at Morley's Academy until 1880. In 1877 another accident affected his life, when his father, Joseph Wells, fractured his thigh. The accident effectively put an end to Joseph's career as a cricketer, and his earnings as a shopkeeper were not enough to compensate for the loss.

No longer able to support themselves financially, the family instead sought to place their boys as apprentices to various professions. From 1881 to 1883 Wells had an unhappy apprenticeship as a draper at the Southsea Drapery Emporium. His experiences were later used as inspiration for his novels The Wheels of Chance and Kipps, which describe the life of a draper's apprentice as well as being a critique of the world's distribution of wealth.

Wells's mother and father had never got along with one another particularly well (she was a Protestant, he a free thinker), and when she went back to work as a lady's maid (at Uppark, a country house in Sussex) one of the conditions of work was that she would not have space for husband or children; thereafter, she and Joseph lived separate lives, though they never divorced and neither ever developed any other liaison. Wells not only failed at being a draper, he also failed as a chemist's assistant and had bad experiences as a teaching assistant. After each failure, he would arrive at Uppark - "the bad shilling back again!" as he said - and stay there until a fresh start could be arranged for him. Fortunately for Wells, Uppark had a magnificent library in which he immersed himself.


Teacher

In 1883, Wells's employer dismissed him, claiming to be dissatisfied with him. The young man was reportedly not displeased with this ending to his apprenticeship. Later that year, he became an assistant teacher at Midhurst Grammar School, in West Sussex (teaching students such as A.A. Milne[3]), until he won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science (later the Royal College of Science, now part of Imperial College London) in London, studying biology under T. H. Huxley. As an alumnus, he later helped to set up the Royal College of Science Association, of which he became the first president in 1909. Wells studied in his new school until 1887 with an allowance of twenty-one shillings a week thanks to his scholarship.

He soon entered the Debating Society of the school. These years mark the beginning of his interest in a possible reformation of society. At first approaching the subject through studying The Republic by Plato, he soon turned to contemporary ideas of socialism as expressed by the recently formed Fabian Society and free lectures delivered at Kelmscott House, the home of William Morris. He was also among the founders of The Science School Journal, a school magazine which allowed him to express his views on literature and society. The school year 1886-1887 was the last year of his studies. In spite of having previously successfully passed his exams in both biology and physics, his lack of interest in geology resulted in his failure to pass and the loss of his scholarship. It was not until 1890 that Wells earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology from the University of London External Programme.

Upon leaving the Normal School of Science, Wells was left without a source of income. His aunt Mary, a cousin of his father, invited him to stay with her for a while, so at least he did not face the problem of housing. During his stay with his aunt, he grew interested in her daughter, Isabel.


Private life

In 1891 Wells married his cousin Isabel Mary Wells, but left her in 1894 for one of his students, Amy Catherine Robbins, whom he married in 1895. He had two sons by Amy: George Philip (known as 'Gip') in 1901 and Frank Richard in 1903.[4]

During his marriage to Amy, Wells had liaisons with a number of women, including the American birth-control activist and eugenicist Margaret Sanger.[5] In 1909 he had a daughter, Anna-Jane, with the writer Amber Reeves,[4] whose parents, William and Maud Pember Reeves, he had met through the Fabian Society; and in 1914, a son, Anthony West, by the novelist and feminist Rebecca West, twenty-six years his junior.[6] In spite of Amy Catherine's knowledge of some of these affairs, she remained married to Wells until her death in 1927.[4] Wells also had liaisons with Odette Keun and Moura Budberg.

"I was never a great amorist," Wells wrote in Experiment in Autobiography (1934), "though I have loved several people very deeply."


Artist

As one method of self-expression, Wells tended to sketch. One common location for these sketches was the endpapers and title pages of his own books, and they covered a wide variety of topics, from political commentary to his feelings toward his literary contemporaries and his current romantic interests. During his marriage to Amy Catherine, whom he nicknamed Jane, he sketched a considerable number of pictures, many of them being overt comments on their marriage. It was during this period, and this period only, that he called his sketches "picshuas." These picshuas have been the topic of study by Wells scholars for many years, and recently a book was published on the subject.[7]


Games

Seeking a more structured way to play war games, Wells wrote Floor Games (1911) followed by Little Wars (1913). Little Wars is recognised today as the first recreational wargame and Wells is regarded by gamers and hobbyists as "the Father of Miniature War gaming." [8]


Writer

Wells's first bestseller was Anticipations (1901).[9] When originally serialised in a magazine it was subtitled, "An Experiment in Prophecy", and is considered his most explicitly futuristic work. Anticipating what the world would be like in the year 2000, the book is interesting both for its hits (trains and cars resulting in the dispersion of population from cities to suburbs; moral restrictions declining as men and women seek greater sexual freedom; the defeat of German militarism, and the existence of a European Union) and its misses (he did not expect successful aircraft before 1950, and averred that "my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocate its crew and founder at sea").


Statue of a The War of the Worlds tripod, erected as a tribute to H. G. Wells in Woking town centre, UK.His early novels, called "scientific romances", invented a number of themes now classic in science fiction in such works as The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds and The First Men in the Moon (which have all been made into films). He also wrote other, non-fantastic novels which have received critical acclaim, including Kipps and the satire on Edwardian advertising, Tono-Bungay.

Wells also wrote several dozen short stories and novellas, the best known of which is "The Country of the Blind" (1904). Besides being an important occurrence of blindness in literature, this is Wells's commentary on humanity's ability to overcome any inconvenience after a few generations and think that it is normal.

Though Tono-Bungay was not a science-fiction novel, radioactive decay plays a small but consequential role in it. Radioactive decay plays a much larger role in The World Set Free (1914). This book contains what is surely his biggest prophetic "hit." Scientists of the day were well aware that the natural decay of radium releases energy at a slow rate over thousands of years. The rate of release is too slow to have practical utility, but the total amount released is huge. Wells's novel revolves around an (unspecified) invention that accelerates the process of radioactive decay, producing bombs that explode with no more than the force of ordinary high explosive?- but which "continue to explode" for days on end. "Nothing could have been more obvious to the people of the earlier twentieth century," he wrote, "than the rapidity with which war was becoming impossible... [but] they did not see it until the atomic bombs burst in their fumbling hands." Leó Szilárd acknowledged that the book inspired him to theorise the nuclear chain reaction.

Wells also wrote nonfiction. His bestselling two-volume work, The Outline of History (1920), began a new era of popularised world history. It received a mixed critical response from professional historians, but was praised by Arnold J. Toynbee as the best introductory history available.[1] Many other authors followed with 'Outlines' of their own in other subjects. Wells reprised his Outline in 1922 with a much shorter popular work, A Short History of the World[2], and two long efforts, The Science of Life (1930) and The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (1931). The 'Outlines' became sufficiently common for James Thurber to parody the trend in his humorous essay, "An Outline of Scientists" ?- indeed, Wells's Outline of History remains in print with a new 2005 edition, while A Short History of the World has been recently reedited (2006).

From quite early in his career, he sought a better way to organise society, and wrote a number of Utopian novels. Usually starting with the world rushing to catastrophe, until people realise a better way of living: whether by mysterious gases from a comet causing people to behave rationally (In the Days of the Comet), or a world council of scientists taking over, as in The Shape of Things to Come (1933, which he later adapted for the 1936 Alexander Korda film, Things to Come). This depicted, all too accurately, the impending World War, with cities being destroyed by aerial bombs. He also portrayed social reconstruction through the rise of fascist dictators in The Autocracy of Mr Parham (1930) and The Holy Terror (1939).


Wells contemplates the ideas of nature vs. nurture and questions humanity in books like The Island of Doctor Moreau. Not all his scientific romances ended in a happy Utopia, as the dystopian When the Sleeper Wakes (1899, rewritten as The Sleeper Awakes, 1910) shows. The Island of Doctor Moreau is even darker. The narrator, having been trapped on an island of animals vivisected (unsuccessfully) into human beings, eventually returns to England; like Gulliver on his return from the Houyhnhnms, he finds himself unable to shake off the perceptions of his fellow humans as barely civilised beasts, slowly reverting back to their animal natures.

Wells also wrote the preface for the first edition of W. N. P. Barbellion's diaries, The Journal of a Disappointed Man, published in 1919. Since "Barbellion" was the real author's pen-name, many reviewers believed Wells to have been the true author of the Journal; Wells always denied this, despite being full of praise for the diaries, but the rumours persisted until Barbellion's death later that year.

In 1927, Florence Deeks sued Wells for plagiarism, claiming that he had stolen much of the content of The Outline of History from a work, The Web, she had submitted to the Canadian Macmillan Company, but who held onto the manuscript for eight months before rejecting it. Despite numerous similarities in phrasing and factual errors, the court found Wells not guilty.

In 1936, before the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Wells called for the compilation of a constantly growing and changing World Encyclopaedia, to be reviewed by outstanding authorities and made accessible to every human being. In 1938, he published a collection of essays on the future organisation of knowledge and education, World Brain, including the essay, "The Idea of a Permanent World Encyclopaedia."

Near the end of the Second World War, Allied forces discovered that the SS had compiled lists of intellectuals and politicians slated for immediate liquidation upon the invasion of England in the abandoned Operation Sea Lion. The name "H. G. Wells" appeared high on the list for the "crime" of being a socialist. Wells, as president of the International PEN (Poets, Essayists, Novelists), had already angered the Nazis by overseeing the expulsion of the German PEN club from the international body in 1934 following the German PEN's refusal to admit non-Aryan writers to its membership.


Politics

Wells called his political views socialist, but he occasionally found himself at odds with other socialists. He was for a time a member of the Fabian Society, but broke with them as he intended them to be an organisation far more radical than they wanted. He later grew staunchly critical of them as having a poor understanding of economics and educational reform. He also ran as a Labour Party candidate for London University in 1922 and 1923, but even at that point his faith in that party was weak or uncertain.

His most consistent political ideal was the World State. He stated in his autobiography that from 1900 onward he considered a world-state inevitable. The details of this state varied but in general it would be a planned society that would advance science, end nationalism, and allow people to advance solely by merit rather than birth. He also was consistent that it must not be a democracy. He stated that in the same period he came to realise a world-state was inevitable, he realised that parliamentary democracy as then practised was insufficient. Wells remained fairly consistent in rejection of a world-state being a parliamentary democracy and therefore during his work on the United Nations Charter he opposed any mention of democracy. He feared that the average citizen could never be educated or aware enough to decide the major issues of the world. Therefore he favoured the vote be limited to scientists, organisers, engineers, and others of merit. At the same time he strongly believed citizens should have as much freedom as they could without consequently restricting the freedom of others. These values came under increasing criticism from the 1920s and afterwards.[10]

That said, he remained confident of the inevitability of a planned world state well into the 1930s. Lenin's attempts at reconstructing the shattered Russian economy, as his account of a visit (Russia in the Shadows; 1920) shows, also related towards that. This is because at first he believed Lenin might lead to the kind of planned world he envisioned. This despite the fact that he was a strongly anti-Marxist socialist who would later state that it would've been better if Karl Marx was never born. The leadership of Joseph Stalin led to a change in his view of the Soviet Union even though his initial impression of Stalin himself was mixed. He disliked what he saw as a narrow orthodoxy and obdurance to the facts in Stalin. However he did give him some praise saying, "I have never met a man more fair, candid, and honest" and making it clear that he felt the "sinister" image of Stalin was unfair or simply false. Nevertheless he judged Stalin's rule to be far too rigid, restrictive of independent thought, and blinkered to lead toward the Cosmopolis he hoped for.[11]

In the end his contemporary political impact was limited. His efforts to help form the League of Nations became a disappointment as the organisation turned out to be a weak one unable to prevent World War II. The war itself increased the pessimistic side of his nature. In his last book Mind at the End of its Tether (1945) he considered the idea that humanity being replaced by another species might not be a bad idea. He also came to call the era "The age of frustration." He spent his final years venting this frustration at various targets which included a neighbour who erected a large sign to a servicemen's club. As he devoted his final decades toward causes which were largely rejected by contemporaries, this caused his literary reputation to decline. One critic said, "Mr. Wells is a born storyteller who has sold his birthright for a pot of message."[12]

Wells, like many in his time, believed in the theory of eugenics. In 1904 he discussed a survey paper by Francis Galton, co-founder of eugenics, saying "I believe .. It is in the sterilisation of failure, and not in the selection of successes for breeding, that the possibility of an improvement of the human stock lies." Some contemporary supporters even suggested connections between the "degenerate" man-creatures portrayed in The Time Machine and Wells's eugenic beliefs. For example, this is what Irving Fisher, the economist, said in his 1912 presidential address to the Eugenics Research Association: "The Nordic race will... vanish or lose its dominance if, in fact, the whole human race does not sink so low as to become the prey, as H. G. Wells images, of some less degenerate animal!"[13]


Legacy

Wells died of liver cancer[citation needed] on 13 August, 1946, at his home at 13 Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park, London, which now bears his commemorative blue plaque. In his lifetime and after his death, Wells was considered a prominent socialist thinker. In later years, however, Wells's image has shifted and he is now thought of simply as one of the pioneers of science fiction.


Other appearances

H. G. Wells has been portrayed in a number of novels and films, including:

The novel The Time Ships, by British author Stephen Baxter, was designated by the Wells estate as an authorised sequel to The Time Machine, marking the centenary of its publication, and features characters, situations and technobabble from several of Wells's stories, as well as a representation of Wells (unnamed, and referred to as 'my friend, the Author').
In C. S. Lewis's novel That Hideous Strength, the character Jules is a caricature of Wells, and much of Lewis's science fiction was written both under the influence of Wells and as an antithesis to his work. The devoutly Christian Lewis was especially incensed at Wells's The Shape of Things to Come where a future world government systematically persecutes and completely obliterates Christianity (and all other religions), which the book presents as a positive and vitally necessary act.
Wells's photo appears on a stairway wall of time traveller Alex Hartdegen's New York brownstone, in a 2002 version of The Time Machine, directed by Wells's great-grandson Simon Wells. The 1960 movie version has a plate on the Time Machine telling that it had been manufactured by "H. George Wells"
Arthur Sammler, the main character of Saul Bellow's Mr. Sammler's Planet, knew Wells, and is urged by other characters to use that fact as the basis for writing a biography of Wells, a project about which Holocaust survivor and self-made philosopher Sammler has decidedly mixed feelings.
Wells appears as the protagonist in the 1979 film Time After Time, and in the novel The Martian War by Kevin J. Anderson (as "Gabriel Mesta"). Both works use the conceit that Wells's works were based upon actual adventures he had.
In an episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, entitled Tempus Fugitive, a time-travelling H. G. Wells (Terry Kiser) seeks out Superman's help to stop a criminal from the future whom Wells had accidentally unleashed on the present. The concept of Wells's time machine being stolen and used for evil closely resembles the plot of Time After Time. Both H. G. Wells and the criminal Tempus returned for three later episodes.
In an adventure in the BBC's Doctor Who, the two-part, 90-minute Timelash, the time-travelling Doctor encounters an excitable young man, Herbert, in the Scottish Highlands, taking him on an adventure that is revealed to have been inspirational when it is finally realised this is the pre-published Wells.
In the Disney Channel series Phil of the Future, the title character attends a fictional school named H. G. Wells Junior High, the name of the school possibly drawn from the show's science fiction manner.
In Ben Bova's short story "Inspiration", the narrator gets Wells to meet a young Albert Einstein and Lord Kelvin. In the end of the story he (Wells) gave a tip to a 6 year old Adolf Hitler.
The movie Librarian:Quest for The Spear, ends with the main character, Flynn Carsen, getting a mission to retrieve H. G. Wells's Time Machine.
Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and staunch Republican, praised Wells in his book To Renew America, writing "Our generation is still seeking its Jules Verne or H. G. Wells to dazzle our imaginations with hope and optimism".[14] It should be noted, however, that even though Mr. Gingrich has written science fiction himself, he was speaking as a politician, not as a literary critic.
In the movie The Maltese Falcon Kasper Gutman recounts the history of the bird emphasizing that "Those are facts, historical facts, not school book history, not Mr. Wells' history, but facts nevertheless."
In the science/historical fiction novel And Having Writ..., Wells is a major character.
In Stephen King's Misery (1987), the main character compares a tripod based barbecure to the machines of destruction in Wells's The War of the Worlds.
Wells makes an appearance in the Stargate SG-1 book Roswell.

Chuck Jones
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones (September 21, 1912 - February 22, 2002) was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. cartoon studio. He directed many of the classic short animated cartoons starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, the Road Runner & Wile E. Coyote, Pepé Le Pew and the other Warners characters, including the memorable What's Opera, Doc? (1957), Duck Amuck (1952) (both later inducted into the National Film Registry) and Jones' famous "Hunter's Trilogy" of Rabbit Fire, Rabbit Seasoning, and Duck! Rabbit! Duck! (1951-1953), establishing himself as an important innovator and storyteller. After his career at Warners ended, he is remembered for directing the television adaptation of Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966).




Biography

Early life

Jones was born in Spokane, Washington, and later moved with his parents and three siblings to the Los Angeles, California area. In his autobiography, Chuck Amuck, Jones credits his artistic bent to circumstances surrounding his father, who was an unsuccessful businessman in California in the 1920s. His father, Jones recounts, would start every new business venture by purchasing new stationery and new pencils with the company name on them. When the business failed, his father would quietly turn the huge stacks of useless stationery and pencils over to his children, requiring them to use up all the material as fast as possible (e.g., they must not draw on both sides). Armed with an endless supply of high-quality paper and pencils, the children drew constantly. Later, in one art school class, the professor gravely informed the students that they each had 100,000 bad drawings in them that they must first get past before they could possibly draw anything worthwhile. Chuck Jones recounted years later that this pronouncement came as a great relief to him, as he was well past the 200,000 mark, having used up all that stationery. Jones and several of his siblings went on to artistic careers. After graduating from Chouinard Art Institute, Jones held a number of low-ranking jobs in the animation industry, including washing cels at the Ub Iwerks studio and assistant animator at the Walter Lantz studio. While at Iwerks, he met a cel painter named Dorothy Webster, who would later become his wife.


Warner Bros.

Jones joined Leon Schlesinger Productions, the independent studio that produced Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies for Warner Bros., in 1933 as an assistant animator. In 1935, he was promoted to animator, and assigned to work with new Schlesinger director Tex Avery. There was no room for the new Avery unit in Schlesinger's small studio, so Avery, Jones, and fellow animators Bob Clampett, Virgil Ross, and Sid Sutherland were moved into a small adjacent building they dubbed "Termite Terrace". When Clampett was promoted to director in 1937, Jones was assigned to his unit; the Clampett unit were briefly assigned to work with Jones' old employer, Ub Iwerks, when Iwerks subcontracted four cartoons to Schlesinger in 1937. Jones became a director (or "supervisor", the original title for an animation director in the studio) himself in 1938 when Frank Tashlin left the studio. Jones' first cartoon was The Night Watchman, which featured a cute kitten who would later evolve into Sniffles the mouse.

Many of Jones' cartoons of the 1930s and early 1940s were lavishly animated, but audiences and fellow Schlesinger staff members found them lacking in genuine humor. Often slow-moving and overbearing with "cuteness", Jones' early cartoons were an attempt to follow in the footsteps of Walt Disney's shorts (especially with such cartoons as Tom Thumb in Trouble and the Sniffles cartoons). Jones finally broke away from both his traditional cuteness, and traditional animation conventions as well, with the cartoon The Dover Boys in 1942. Jones credits this cartoon as the film where he "learned how to be funny." The Dover Boys is also one of the first uses of Stylized animation in American film, breaking away from the more realistic animation styles influenced by the Disney Studio. This was also the period where Jones created many of his lesser-known characters, including Charlie Dog, Hubie and Bertie, and The Three Bears. Despite their relative obscurity today, the shorts starring these characters represent some of Jones' earliest work that was strictly intended to be funny.

During the World War II years, Jones worked closely with Theodore Geisel (also known as Dr. Seuss) to create the Private Snafu series of Army educational cartoons. Private Snafu comically educated soldiers on topics like spies and laziness in a more risque way than general audiences would have been used to at the time. Jones would later collaborate with Seuss on a number of adaptations of Seuss' books to animated form, most importantly How the Grinch Stole Christmas in 1966.


A still from What's Opera, Doc?.Jones hit his stride in the late 1940s, and continued to make his best-regarded works through the 1950s. Jones-created characters from this period includes Claude Cat, Marc Antony and Pussyfoot, Charlie Dog, Michigan J. Frog, and his three most popular creations, Pepe LePew, the Road Runner, and Wile E. Coyote. The Coyote was inspired by a talking coyote in a Mark Twain story that Jones read when he was six years old. Later, Jones identified with his creation, the erudite if inept Wile E. Coyote, because though he nevers wins in the end, he never gives up. The Road Runner cartoons, in addition to the cartoons that are considered his masterpieces (all written and conceived by Michael Maltese), Duck Amuck, One Froggy Evening, and What's Opera, Doc? are today hailed by critics as some of the best cartoons ever made.

The staff of the Jones unit was as important to the success of these cartoons as Jones himself. Key members included writer Michael Maltese, layout artist/background designer/co-director Maurice Noble, animator and co-director Abe Levitow, and animators Ken Harris and Ben Washam.

Jones remained at Warners throughout the 1950s, except for a brief period in 1953 when Warners closed the animation studio. During this interim, Jones found employment at the Walt Disney studio, where he did four months of uncredited work on Sleeping Beauty (1959).

In the early-1960s, Jones and his wife Dorothy wrote the screenplay for the animated feature Gay Purr-ee. The finished film would feature the voices of Judy Garland, Robert Goulet and Red Buttons as cats in Paris, France. The feature was produced by UPA, and Jones moonlit to work on the film, since he had an exclusive contract with Warner Bros. UPA completed the film and made it available for distribution in 1962; it was picked up by Warner Bros., who found out Jones had violated his contract and fired him from the company.


Jones on his own

With business partner Les Goldman, Jones started an independent animation studio, Sib Tower 12 Productions, bringing on most of his unit from Warner Bros., including Maurice Noble and Michael Maltese. In 1963, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contracted with Sib Tower 12 to have Jones and his staff produce new Tom and Jerry cartoons. In 1964, Sib Tower 12 was absorbed by MGM and was renamed MGM Animation/Visual Arts. Jones' animated short film The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Higher Mathematics won the 1965 Oscar for Best Animated Short.

As the Tom and Jerry series wound down (it would be discontinued in 1967), Jones moved on to television. In 1966, he produced and directed the TV special How the Grinch Stole Christmas, featuring the voice and facial features of Boris Karloff. Jones continued to work on TV specials such as Horton Hears A Who! (1970), but his main focus during this time was the feature film The Phantom Tollbooth, which did lukewarm business when MGM released it in 1970.

MGM closed the animation division in 1970, and Jones once again started his own studio, Chuck Jones Productions. His most notable work during this period was three animated TV adaptations of short stories from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Brothers, The White Seal and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. The 1979 movie The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie was a compilation of Jones' best theatrical shorts; Jones produced new Road Runner shorts for The Electric Company series and Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales (1979), and even newer shorts were made for Bugs Bunny's Bustin' Out All Over (1980).


Later years

Through the 1980s and 1990s, Jones was painting cartoon and parody art, sold through animation galleries by his daughter's company, Linda Jones Enterprises. He was also creating new cartoons for the Internet based on his new character, "Thomas Timberwolf". He made a cameo appearance in the 1984 film Gremlins and directed the Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck animated sequences that bookend Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990). Jones also directed animated sequences various features such as a lengthy sequence in the 1992 film, Stay Tuned and a shorter one seen at the start of the 1993 film Mrs. Doubtfire. Jones was not a fan of much contemporary animation, terming most of it, especially television cartoons such as those of Hanna-Barbera, "illustrated radio."

In 1988 Jones contributed to the creation of London's Museum of the Moving Image (MOMI) by spending several days working high on scaffolding creating a chase sequence directly onto the high walls of the museum.

Jones' intellectualism, writing ability, and capacity for self-analysis made him an historical authority as well as a major contributor to the development of animation throughout the 20th century. He received an honorary degree from Oglethorpe University in 1993.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Chuck Jones has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7011 Hollywood Blvd.

Jones, who had been nominated 8 times over his career for an Oscar (winning twice), received an Honorary Academy Award in 1996 by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, for "the creation of classic cartoons and cartoon characters whose animated lives have brought joy to our real ones for more than half a century."

Jones died of heart failure in 2002.


Influence and critical perception


Jones is considered to be a master of characterization and timing. His best works are noted for depicting a refinement of character to the point that a single eyebrow wiggle could be a major gag as opposed to the wild, frenetic style usually associated with cartoons, and those of Warner Bros. in particular. Like Walt Disney, Jones wanted animation to gain respect from the film and art communities, and often undertook special animation projects reflecting such, including What's Opera Doc, The Dot and the Line, and the 1944 political film Hell-Bent for Election, a campaign film for Franklin D. Roosevelt that he directed for UPA.

In his later years, Jones became the most vocal alumnus of the Termite Terrace studio, frequently giving lectures, seminars, and working to educate newcomers in the animation field. Many of his principles, therefore, found their way back into the mainstream animation consciousness, and can be seen in films such as Cats Don't Dance, The Emperor's New Groove and Lilo & Stitch.

Jones had a penchant for cuteness in his earliest days as is visible in his cartoons featuring Sniffles the Mouse. Other Warners directors, particularly Tex Avery and Robert Clampett, considered "cute" to be a four letter word. By request of producer Leon Schlesinger, Jones changed his style, and began making zanier pictures such as Wackiki Wabbit and Hare Conditioned. After Avery, Clampett, and Schlesinger left the studio, Jones gradually reincorporated elements of the slow pace, sentimentality and cuteness of his previous work with characters like Marc Antony and Pussyfoot and the young Ralph Phillips. His versions of the characters he worked with often showcased a more infantile look than other interpretations, with larger eyes and eyelashes. This is especially apparent in his Tom and Jerry films, some of which are considered the weakest in the canon.

Jones, like the rest of his Termite Terrace associates after the departure of Schlesinger, has been criticized for using repetitive plots, most obvious in the Pepé Le Pew and Road Runner cartoons. It must be noted, however, that many of these films were originally issued to theatres years apart, and the repetitious factor was often done at the request of the producers, management, or theatre owners. Also, series like the Road Runner were set up as exercises in exploring the same situation in different ways. Jones had a set list of rules as to what could and could not occur in a Road Runner cartoon, and stated that it was not what happened that was important in the films, but how it happened.

Chuck Jones' reinvention of certain characters is also a controversial subject. He reimagined the wacky, Clampett-esque hero Daffy Duck as a greedy, sneaky antagonist with a slow-burning temper; and he relegated hapless star Porky Pig to being a sidekick or audience-aware observer of the action. Jones also created a series of films in which he used Friz Freleng's Sylvester in the context of a real cat. Like all the Warners directors, his Bugs Bunny characterization is unique to his films: Jones' Bugs never attacks unless attacked, unlike Avery's and Clampett's bombastic rabbits.

Quotes
" I am still astonished that somebody would offer me a job and pay me to do what I wanted to do. "

Larry Hagman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Larry Martin Hageman
Born September 21, 1931 (1931-09-21) (age 76)
Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.

Larry Martin Hagman (born September 21, 1931) is a popular American film and television actor, producer and director, primarily in soap operas and television, who is best known for playing John Ross "J.R." Ewing, Jr. in the 1980s television soap opera Dallas and as Barbara Eden's master (later husband) Major Anthony Nelson in the 1960s sitcom, I Dream of Jeannie.




Biography

Early life

Hagman was born Larry Martin Hageman[1] in Fort Worth, Texas. His mother, Mary Martin, was a popular Broadway actress and his father, Benjamin Jack Hageman,[2] was a district attorney. In 1936, when Hagman was only five, his parents were divorced. He lived with his grandmother in Texas and California. His famous mother became a contract player with Paramount in 1938, and occasionally brought him to her movies. In 1940, his mother met and married Richard Halliday, giving birth to a daughter, Heller, the following year. Larry attended the strict Black Fox Military Institute.

When his mother moved to New York City to continue her Broadway career, Larry Hagman continued to live with his grandmother in California. Just a couple years later, his grandmother died and Hagman would go back to living with his mother. In 1945, at age fourteen, while attending boarding school, he began drinking heavily which would lead to serious health problems later in life. In 1946, Hagman moved back to his hometown of Weatherford, Texas, where he worked as a ranch hand for his father's friend's company. Upon attending Weatherford High School, he was drawn to drama classes and reputedly fell in love with the stage in particular with the warm reception he got for his comedic roles.

Hagman developed quite a reputation as a talented performer and in between school terms, would take minor roles in local stage productions. In 1949, Hagman graduated from high school and his mother suggested that he try out as an actor.

Early career

Hagman began his acting career in Dallas, Texas working as a production assistant and acting in small roles in Margo Jones' Theater '50, during a break from his one year at Bard College. He appeared in The Taming of the Shrew in New York City, followed by numerous tent show musicals with St. John Terrell's Music Circus in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Lambertville, New Jersey. In 1951, Hagman appeared in the London production of South Pacific with his mother, and stayed in the show for about a year.

In 1952, Hagman was drafted into the United States Air Force, during the Korean War. Stationed in London, he spent the majority of his service career entertaining U.S. Troops in the UK and at military bases in Europe.


Stage/TV and film actor

After leaving the Air Force in 1956, Hagman returned to New York where he appeared in the Off-Broadway play Once Around the Block, by William Saroyan, and received excellent reviews. This was followed by nearly a year in another Off-Broadway play, James Lee's Career. Despite his success, his career was overshadowed by his mother's fame, which was in ascendancy due to her starring role in the TV movie, Peter Pan. Larry Hagman's Broadway debut occurred in 1958, in Comes a Day. Hagman appeared in four other Broadway plays, God and Kate Murphy, The Nervous Set, The Warm Peninsula and The Beauty Part.

During this period, Hagman appeared in numerous, mostly live, television programs. He joined the cast of The Edge of Night, as Ed Gibson, in 1961, and stayed in that role for two years. In 1964 he made his film debut in Ensign Pulver, which featured young unknown, Jack Nicholson. That same year, Hagman also appeared in Fail-Safe, opposite Henry Fonda.


I Dream of Jeannie

After years of guest-starring in many TV roles, and starring in a less successful series the previous year, he hit the jackpot in 1965, by playing Barbara Eden's TV boyfriend, Maj. Anthony Nelson in the sitcom, I Dream of Jeannie, for NBC. The show had climbed into the Top 10 in its first year and was NBC's answer to both successful 1960s magical comedies, Bewitched and My Favorite Martian.

In its first season, NBC executives decided that the show should not be filmed in color which was prohibitively expensive at the time. However, by the second season in 1966 the show was filmed in color in recognition of the widespread uptake of color televisions by the viewing public.

By 1970, Jeannie was running out of steam and during the last season, Hagman's character finally married Jeannie.


1970s work

After Jeannie was cancelled, Hagman had two other short-lived series in the 1970s: Here We Go Again and The Good Life. He made guest appearances on television shows like Love American Style, Medical Center, and McCloud. He also appeared in such television films as Getting Away From It All (1972), Sidekicks (1974), The Return Of The World's Greatest Detective (1976), Intimate Strangers (1977), and Checkered Flag Or Crash (1977).

Hagman also appeared in the theatrical films The Group, Harry and Tonto (1974), Mother, Jugs & Speed (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1977), Superman (1978), and Primary Colors (1998). He directed (and appeared briefly in) a low-budget comedy/horror film in 1972 called Beware The Blob (a sequel to the classic 1958 horror film, The Blob). Some have jokingly called this "the film that J.R. shot".


Dallas

In late 1977, after years of starring in so many roles, Hagman chose to leave the good guy image behind and took on the starring role in Dallas, which was the first long-running, 1980's prime-time soap opera to make the big time.

Hagman read the script for the role at his wife's suggestion, and they concluded it was perfect for him. Another attraction for Hagman was that as a native Texan he did not have to travel that far from his hometown, which gained great exposure and notoriety from the series.

He was cast as conniving older son and businessman, J.R. Ewing, a man whom everybody loved-to-hate. Co-starring on the show were a number of unfamiliar, yet promising actors, including Patrick Duffy and Victoria Principal, as J.R.'s younger, nice brother and his sister-in-law, Bobby & Pamela Ewing.

In mid-1978, the producers thought that the series was originally supposed to be about Bobby & Pam, and it wasn't originally intended to be a ratings bonanza, with producers anticipating having to cancel the show after only five episodes.


However, thanks to the strong fan following for Hagman's portrayal of J.R. from Day 1, he was credited as being the star who saved the show being offered a second season, on the strength of excellent first season ratings. His co-star Linda Gray also received a starring role, as JR's long-suffering wife. Overall, the cast got along very well with Hagman, particularly Duffy, who would often spend weekends with the Hagmans. The chemistry between Hagman and Duffy was convincingly like sibling rivalry which made for exciting onscreen exchanges and equal screen time for Duffy's character, something to which Hagman had no objections.

Seen in over 90 countries, the show was a worldwide success and Hagman became one of the most reliable and supportive network stars. As the star of the show, Hagman drew on many of his youthful experiences of growing up in Texas to bring depth to J.R.'s irascible character. While J.R. played out a complex love/hate relationship with his "Dallas" family, Hagman enjoyed a relaxed and warm relationship with his castmates, often playing practical jokes to lessen the tension caused by tight filming schedules and highly emotionally charged scripts.

By the end of its second season, Dallas was a bonafide hit. Producers were keen to capitalise on J.R.'s love/hate relationship with his TV family, building anticipation to a fever-pitch in a cliff hanger season finale in which J.R. is shot. An event to which the producers of The Simpsons paid homage over a decade later in one of their cliffhanger season finale, 'Who Shot Mr. Burns?'. Over 10 years on, the formula still worked, this time to heightened comedic effect.

At the beginning of Dallas' third season, audience and actors were guessing "Who Shot J.R.". During the media build up, Hagman was involved in contract negotiations delaying his return in the third season. Holding out for a higher salary, Hagman did not appear in the first episode of the show, despite all the media and fan frenzy over the fate of J.R.

Producers were faced with a dilemma whether to pay the greatly increased salary or to write J.R. out of the picture. CBS began taping different episodes of Dallas which did not include Hagman.

In the midst of negotiations, Hagman took his family to London for their July vacation. He continued to fight for his demands and network executives conceded that the show really could not go on without him. From the third season, Hagman was paid a huge amount per episode.

At the beginning of the third season, writers were told to keep the storylines away from the actors until they really found out who actually shot J.R.; and it took at least three weeks until the culprit was revealed on November 21, 1980.

By near the end of its third season, Hagman's co-star and TV father (Jim Davis) had been diagnosed with brain cancer in 1981, and despite his condition, he was retained on the show so that he not only died in real-life, but he was also written out of the show, with his character sent off to South America in a plane to work on the oil fields. The following year, Davis' character died, and the producers couldn't do a death episode for Davis at the beginning of the fourth season, but had to wait until the following season, where they aired an episode dedicated to Davis' final will and testament and its effect on the Dallas family. Hagman and the rest of the cast attended Davis' funeral, after the season finale.

For his work as JR Ewing, Hagman was nominated for two Emmys between 1980 and 1981, for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, but didn't win. He was also nominated for four Golden Globes, between 1981 and 1983 and one in 1985, but didn't win. He was nominated for a Soap Opera Digest Award seven times for Outstanding Villain on a Prime Time Serial, Outstanding Actor in a Leading Role on a Prime Time Serial, Favorite Super Couple: Prime Time and Outstanding Actor in a Comic Relief Role on a Prime Time Serial, and won five times. In 1984, his co-star (Barbara Bel Geddes) had departed from the show, when she was on a medical leave, due to a sudden heart attack. At one point, Hagman suggested to his real-life mother (Mary Martin) to play Miss Ellie, but she refused and was replaced with veteran actress (Donna Reed of The Donna Reed Show fame), who was fired from the show, just one year before her death in 1986.

Bel Geddes came back in 1985; and stayed on until 1990. In 1985, his co-star (Patrick Duffy) left the show in order to pursue a career in TV movies, and thanks to Hagman's wishes, Duffy decided to comeback at the end of the 1985-86 season, as a guest-star, and received a starring role along with his salary back in 1986, the following year in 1987, (Victoria Principal) left the show, and the following year and a half, her character had died (though it wasn't played by Principal after her departure). and in 1989, his co-star (Linda Gray) was fired from the hit soap; the ratings were beginning to slip that same year.

The decline in Dallas' was mirrored in Hagman's private life. He was drinking continuously and this led him to developing cirrhosis of the liver. During the final season of Dallas, he was with former Jeannie star Barbara Eden, who played J.R.'s conniving girlfriend. By the end of its thirteenth season in 1991, ratings continued to slip and CBS decided to end Dallas after a remarkable run. Hagman was the only actor to appear in 356 of the 357 episodes total. Due to his character's popularity, he made 5 guest appearances on Knots Landing, which itself was Dallas's spinoff in the early 1980s.

Hagman's relationship with Patrick Duffy's family began in the mid 1940s, when this teenaged actor went to spend a lot of time with Duffy's parents. In the reunion, Duffy said of Hagman's friendship with his real-life parents, "Larry knew my parents, before you ever knew me," Later, he said about working with the veteran actor on a weekly series on which it made Patrick really nervous, "I would get a phone call from them, when I was driving my truck, and they said, 'Call this nice Mr. Hagman, maybe he can help you in the business.' And I didn't know who the hell Mr. Hagman was!" Patrick also said of Hagman's tenure on Dallas: "Larry took the part that could've been a joke, just plain The Evil Master of the Universe. And he decided to play J.R. as the hero. Larry believes that J.R. was his knight-and-shining armour. He thought he'd never done something wrong!" Duffy would also say something about Hagman's character who did everybody no harm than good, "He never actually killed anybody. He fomented revolutions in South America, he had no problems with environmental disasters, he sank ships, he had babies stolen --- he made babies, God knows he was like a rabbit. In fact, my son was his on the show, figure that one out." When the "Who Shot JR?", media was surrounded, Duffy would say of Hagman's contract renegotiation, "Not only it was 'Who Shot JR?', it was 'Who's going to be JR?', and the press took a hold of that, and I think the studio is throwing out people's names, in their negotiations with Larry, and this will scare him, it won't scare him!" Upon Hagman's return to the show, Duffy said, "And he came back and it was grand, you know, it was Larry!" Years before Hagman's hospitalization, Duffy was one of the stars to be emotionally concerned about his drinking behaviour, "He came to my house and had corn flakes and Bourbon. And I realized, he was just way out of his league," he said, "We'd arrived for makeup around 7:30 A.M. in the morning and the first bottle will be popped open," the last thing he said was, "He'd continued to imbibe, not just throw it back, but to keep that buzz going, all day long." After the show was cancelled and Hagman's short battle against cancer, Duffy still remained close to Hagman.


After Dallas

In January 1997, Larry starred in a short lived TV series named Orleans as Judge Luther Charbonnet. It lasted only eight episodes. Hagman appeared without the toupee he had started wearing during the filming of "Dallas". Hagman appeared as a guest star during the fourth season of Nip/Tuck.

In November 1999, after 29 years, Hagman was finally reunited with his Jeannie co-stars Barbara Eden and Bill Daily and creator and producer Sidney Sheldon on the daytime talk show, The Donny & Marie Show for the very first official I Dream Of Jeannie Reunion. The show was filled with loving memories & clips from I Dream Of Jeannie. In 2002 when I Dream Of Jeannie was set to join the cable channel TV Land, Larry once again took part in a I Dream Of Jeannie Reunion with Barbara Eden and Bill Daily, this time on the Larry King Live show for CNN. For the first time ever fans of I Dream Of Jeannie were able to call in and talk to the cast.

On the TV Land Awards in March 2004, Larry Hagman and Barbara Eden were the first presenters to reunite on stage to give out the first award to the best TV twin. The award went to Patty Duke for The Patty Duke Show. In October 2004, Hagman & Bill Daily appeared at The Ray Courts Hollywood Autograph Show.

In March 2006, Larry Hagman once again reunited with his former I Dream Of Jeannie co-star Barbara Eden and went on a publicity tour in New York to promote the First Season DVD of I Dream Of Jeannie. Soon after, he flew back to the East Coast and reunited with Barbara Eden on stage for the play Love Letters at the College Of Staten Island in New York and The United States Military Academy, West Point, New York. This was the first time they had acted together since appearing on the TV series Dallas in 1990 when Barbara was a guest on several episodes playing an ex-lover (Lee Ann De La Vega) of Larry Hagman's character J.R. Ewing.


Personal life

In 1973, his step-father Richard Halliday died, and Hagman reconciled with his mother soon after. The two became close until his mother's own death, seventeen years later. Late in 1990, his mother (Mary Martin) was diagnosed with colon cancer and died just one month before her 77th birthday. Hagman enjoyed a warm relationship with his mother, and she was very proud of her son's accomplishments.

While in England, he dated future British actress Joan Collins (of Dynasty fame).

He has been married to Swedish-born Maj Axelsson since 1954, and they have two children, Heidi Kristina (b. 1958) and Preston (b. 1962). Longtime residents of Malibu, California, they now live in Ojai, California. He has been a member of the Peace and Freedom Party since the 1960s.[3] Hagman derided President George W. Bush, a fellow Texan, before the Iraq War. At a signing for his book he said "A sad figure (Bush) - not too well educated, who doesn't get out of America much. He's leading the country towards fascism".[4]

In 1982 he was given the honour to crown the winner of 1982's Miss Sweden competition in Stockholm. During the coronation he was wearing a traditional Lapphatt and sang a Swedish folksong.

Earlier in his career Hagman was introduced by Jack Nicholson to marijuana as a safer alternative to Hagman's heavy drinking. Although Hagman says he no longer smokes marijuana and is on a "12-step program," he explains that marijuana

"is benign compared to alcohol. When you come right down to it, alcohol destroys your body and makes you do violent things. With grass you sit back and enjoy life."

In 1967 Peter Fonda supplied him with LSD:

LSD was such a profound experience in my life that it changed my pattern of life and my way of thinking and I could not exclude it.

In August 1995, Hagman underwent a life-saving liver transplant after admitting he had been a heavy drinker. Numerous reports state he was drinking four bottles of champagne a day on the set of Dallas. He was also a heavy smoker as a young man, but a terrifying cancer scare was the catalyst for him to quit. Hagman was so shaken by this incident that he immediately became strongly anti smoking. He has recorded several public service announcements pleading with smokers to quit and urging non-smokers never to start. Hagman was the chairman of the American Cancer Society's annual Great American Smokeout for many years, and also worked on behalf of the National Kidney Foundation.

These health struggles have actually been turned into a running joke on Jim Rome's radio show, where e-mailers routinely send e-mails signed by "Larry Hagman's liver", usually in reference to things that have failed.


Hagman in popular culture

In an episode of The Simpsons, Homer Simpson in: "Kidney Trouble", Homer's father is waiting for a kidney. Dr. Hibbert says that there was one available but "Larry Hagman took it," and that now he has "five kidneys and three hearts. We didn't want to give it to him, but he overpowered us." Hagman later appeared on the show as the voice of attorney Wallace Brady in the episode "The Monkey Suit."

In the 2004 British horror-comedy "Freak Out," the killer is obsessed with Hagman, even to the point of wearing a giant J.R. Ewing mask by the end of the movie. Another scene in the movie has the killer discussing with the main character that all cool horror movie villains have four syllable names ("Jason Voorhees, Freddy Kreuger") and the killer says "Larry Hagman."

Stephen King
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pseudonym: Richard Bachman
John Swithen
Born: September 21, 1947 (1947-09-21) (age 60)
Portland, Maine, USA
Occupation: Novelist
Short story writer
Screenwriter
Columnist
Director (once)
Genres: Horror fiction
Fantasy
Science fiction
Debut works: Short story: In a Half-World of Terror
Novel: Carrie
Bibliography
Influences: Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, William Golding, Shirley Jackson, Fritz Leiber, H.P. Lovecraft, Richard Matheson, John D. MacDonald, Edgar Allan Poe, J. R. R. Tolkien, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Robert Browning (Dark Tower Series), Daphne du Maurier (Bag of Bones), Alexandre Dumas, père (Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption)
Influenced: Bentley Little, Dean Koontz, Scott Sigler, Haruki Murakami, Sarah Pinborough
Signature:
Website: StephenKing.com

Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of over 200 stories including over 50 bestselling horror and fantasy novels. King was the 2003 recipient of The National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

King evinces a thorough knowledge of the horror genre, as shown in his nonfiction book Danse Macabre, which chronicles several decades of notable works in both literature and cinema. He has also written stories outside the horror genre, including the novella collection Different Seasons, The Green Mile, The Eyes of the Dragon, Hearts in Atlantis and his self-described "magnum opus," The Dark Tower series. In the past, Stephen King has written under the pen names Richard Bachman and (once) John Swithen.





Biography

Early life

When King was two years old, his father, Donald Edwin King, deserted his family. His mother, Nellie Ruth (née Pillsbury), raised King and his adopted older brother David by herself, sometimes under great financial strain. The family moved to Ruth's home town of Durham, Maine, but also spent brief periods in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Stratford, Connecticut.

As a child, King apparently witnessed a gruesome accident ?- one of his friends was struck and killed by a train.[1] Some commentators have suggested this event may have inspired King's dark, disturbing creations, but King himself dismisses the idea, noting that he has no memory of the event: his family told him that after leaving home to play with the boy, King returned, speechless and seemingly in shock. Only later did the family learn of the friend's death.[2]

King attended Durham Elementary School and Lisbon Falls High School. As a young boy, King was an avid reader of EC's horror comics including Tales from the Crypt, which provided the genesis for his love of horror. His screenplay for Creepshow would later play tribute to the comics. When in school, he wrote stories based on movies he had seen, copying them with a mimeo machine his brother used to publish a newspaper, Dave's Rag, to which King contributed. King sold the stories to friends, but his teachers disapproved and forced him to return his profits.

His first published story was "In a Half-World of Terror" (retitled from "I Was a Teen-Age Grave-robber"), published in a horror fanzine issued by Mike Garrett of Birmingham, Alabama.

From 1966 to 1971, King studied English at the University of Maine at Orono, where he wrote a column entitled "King's Garbage Truck" for the student newspaper, the Maine Campus. He met Tabitha Spruce there; they married in 1971. The campus period in his life is readily evident in the second part of Hearts in Atlantis, and the odd jobs he took on to pay for his studies, including one at an industrial laundry, would later inspire stories such as "The Mangler" and the novel Roadwork (as Richard Bachman).

After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in English and a certificate to teach high school, King taught English at Hampden Academy in Hampden, Maine. He and his family lived in a trailer, and he wrote short stories, most for men's magazines, to help make ends meet. As Carrie's introduction relates, if one of his kids got a cold, Tabitha would joke, "Come on, Steve, think of a monster."[3] King also developed a drinking problem, which would stay with him for over a decade.


Becoming famous

King's homeKing soon began a number of novels. One of his first ideas was of a young girl with psychic powers, but he grew discouraged and discarded it. His wife later rescued it from the trash and encouraged him to finish it.[4] After completing the novel, he titled it Carrie and sent it to Doubleday. He received a $2,500 advance (not large for a novel, even at that time) but the paperback rights eventually earned $400,000, with half going to the publisher. Soon following its release, his mother died of uterine cancer. His Aunt Emrine read the novel to her before she died.

In On Writing, King admits that at this time he was often drunk and was even intoxicated while delivering his mother's eulogy. [5] He states he was the basis for The Shining's alcoholic father, though he would not admit it (even to himself) for several years.

Shortly after The Tommyknockers' publication, King's family and friends finally intervened, dumping his trash?-beer cans, cigarette butts, grams of cocaine, Xanax, Valium, NyQuil, dextromethorphan (cough medicine), and marijuana?-on the rug in front of him to show the evidence of his addictions. As King related in his memoir, he sought help and quit all forms of drugs and alcohol in the late 1980s, and has remained sober since.[5]

King will not sign photographs in person. He feels that is something that should be reserved for movie stars. However, some of his fans have received autographed photos simply by asking.

King spends winter seasons in a waterfront mansion located off the Gulf of Mexico in Sarasota, Florida. Their three children, Naomi Rachel, Joseph Hillstrom (who appeared in the film Creepshow), and Owen Phillip, are grown and living on their own.

Owen and Joseph are writers; Owen published his first collection of stories, We're All in This Together: A Novella and Stories in 2005. The first collection of stories by Joe Hill (Joseph's pen name), 20th Century Ghosts, was published in 2005 by PS Publishing in a very limited edition, winning the Crawford Award for best new fantasy writer, together with the Bram Stoker Award and the British Fantasy Award for Best Fiction Collection. Tom Pabst will adapt Hill's upcoming novel, Heart-Shaped Box, for a 2007 Warner Bros release.

King's daughter Naomi spent the past two years as a minister in the Unitarian Universalist Church in Utica, New York, where she lived with her partner; she has since been reassigned.


Baseball

Stephen King is a fan of the Boston Red Sox and frequently attends home and away baseball games.

King helped coach his son Owen's Bangor West team to the Maine Little League Championship in 1989. He recounts this experience in the New Yorker essay "Head Down", which also appears in the collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes. King has called "Head Down" his best piece of nonfiction writing.

In 1992 King and his wife Tabitha's donations allowed the opening of Mansfield Stadium, a Little League ballpark in Bangor, Maine.

In 1999, King wrote The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, which featured former Red Sox pitcher Tom Gordon as the protagonist's imaginary companion. King recently co-wrote a book titled Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season with Stewart O'Nan, recounting the authors' roller coaster reaction to the Red Sox's 2004 season, a season culminating in the Sox winning the 2004 American League Championship Series and World Series.

In the 2005 film Fever Pitch, about an obsessive Boston Red Sox fan, King tosses out the first pitch of the Sox's opening day game.


Philanthropy

Since becoming commercially successful, King and his wife have donated money to causes around their home state of Maine.

The Kings' early nineties donation to the University of Maine Swim Team saved the program from elimination from the school's athletics department. Donations to local YMCA and YWCA programs have allowed renovations and improvements that would otherwise have been impossible. Additionally, King annually sponsors a number of scholarships for high school and college students.

The Kings do not desire recognition for their bankrolling of Bangor-area facilities: they named the Shawn T. Mansfield Stadium for a prominent local little league coach's cerebral palsy victim son, while the Beth Pancoe Aquatic Park memorializes an accomplished area swimmer who died of cancer.


Car accident

In the summer of 1999, King had finished the memoir section of On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft but had abandoned the book for nearly eighteen months, unsure of how or whether to proceed. King says that it was the first book that he'd abandoned since writing The Stand decades earlier. He had just decided to continue the book and on June 17 wrote a list of questions fans frequently asked him about writing; on June 18, he wrote four pages of the writing section.

On June 19, at about 4:30 p.m., he was walking on the right shoulder of Route 5 in Center Lovell, Maine. Driver Bryan Smith, distracted by an unrestrained Rottweiler named Bullet, moving in the back of his 1985 Dodge Caravan[6], struck King, who landed in a depression in the ground about 14 feet from the pavement of Route 5.[5]

Smith was leaning to the rear of his vehicle trying to restrain his dog and was not watching the road when he struck King. According to Oxford County Sheriff deputy Matt Baker, King was struck from behind and witnesses said the driver was not speeding or reckless.[7] King's website, however, states this is incorrect and that King was walking facing traffic.

King was conscious enough to give the deputy phone numbers to contact his family but was in considerable pain. King mentioned in an interview that he told a paramedic he knew he was going into shock ?- and he knew very well what shock was because he wrote about horrible injuries all the time. The author was first transported to Northern Cumberland Hospital in Bridgton and then flown by helicopter to Central Maine Hospital in Lewiston. His injuries ?- a collapsed right lung, multiple fractures of the right leg, scalp laceration and a broken hip ?- kept him in Central Maine Medical Center until July 9, almost three weeks later.

Earlier that year, King had finished most of From a Buick 8, a novel in which a character dies after getting struck by a car. Of the similarities, King says that he tries "not to make too much of it." King's work had certainly featured car accidents and their horrors before. His 1987 novel Misery also concerned a writer who experiences severe injuries in an auto accident, and auto wrecks figure prominently in The Dead Zone and Thinner. In Christine, a 1958 Plymouth Fury runs down its enemies. 1994's Insomnia has a main character struck dead by a car, and central to Pet Sematary's plot is the scene in which a tractor-trailer strikes and kills the protagonist's young son. Following his accident, King wrote Dreamcatcher, in which a central character suffers injuries similar to King's own after being struck by a car.

After five operations in ten days and physical therapy, King resumed work on On Writing in July, though his hip was still shattered and he could only sit for about forty minutes before the pain became intolerable.

King's lawyer and two others purchased Smith's van for $1,500, reportedly to avoid it appearing on eBay. The van was later crushed at a junkyard, though King mentioned during an interview with Fresh Air's Terry Gross that he wanted to destroy the vehicle with a sledgehammer.[8] Smith, a disabled construction worker, died of an overdose of pain medication on September 21, 2000 (King's birthday) at the age of 43.

King incorporated his accident into the final novel of his Dark Tower series, in which the character Jake Chambers prevents a fictionalized version of King from being fatally injured by the van.



Recent years

In 2000, King published a serialised novel "The Plant" over the internet, bypassing print publication. Sales were unsuccessful, and he abandoned the project.[9] In 2002, King announced he would stop writing, apparently motivated in part by frustration with his injuries, which had made sitting uncomfortable and reduced his stamina.

"I'm writing but I'm writing at a much slower pace than previously and I think that if I come up with something really, really good, I would be perfectly willing to publish it because that still feels like the final act of the creative process, publishing it so people can read it and you can get feedback and people can talk about it with each other and with you, the writer, but the force of my invention has slowed down a lot over the years and that's as it should be. I'm not a kid of 25 anymore and I'm not a young middle-aged man of 35 anymore ?- I'm 55 years old and I have grandchildren, two new puppies to house-train and I have a lot of things to do besides writing and that in and of itself is a wonderful thing but writing is still a big, important part of my life and of everyday."[10]
Since 2003, King has provided his take on pop culture in a column appearing on the back page of Entertainment Weekly, usually every third week. The column is called "The Pop of King", a reference to "The King of Pop", Michael Jackson.

In October 2005, King signed a deal with Marvel Comics, to publish a seven-issue, miniseries spinoff of The Dark Tower series called The Gunslinger Born. The series, which focuses on a young Roland Deschain, is plotted by Robin Furth, dialogued by Peter David, and illustrated by Eisner Award-winning artist Jae Lee. The first issue was published on February 7, 2007, and because of its connection with King, David, Lee, and Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada appeared at a midnight signing at a Times Square, New York comic book store to promote it.[11][12] The work had sold over 200,000 copies by March 2007.[13]

In June 2006, King appeared on the first installment of Amazon Fishbowl, a live web-program hosted by Bill Maher.

King, a long time supporter of small publishing, has recently allowed the publication of two past novels in limited edition form. The Green Mile and Colorado Kid will receive special treatment from two small publishing houses. Both books will be produced and be signed by both King and the artist contributing work to the book. Half of King's published work has been re-published in limited (signed) edition format.

On February 14, 2007, Joblo.com announced[14] that plans were underway for Lost co-creator J. J. Abrams to do an adaptation of King's epic Dark Tower series.

In June 2007, King's novel Blaze, which was written in the early 1970s, under his long-time pseudonym Richard Bachman, was published. He is also finishing the novel Duma Key and writing a play with John Mellencamp titled Ghost Brothers of Darkland County.

On April 20, 2007, Entertainment Weekly asked King if he felt there was a correlation between Seung-Hui Cho's writing and the Virginia Tech massacre. King stated, "Certainly in this sensitized day and age, my own college writing would have raised red flags, and I'm certain someone would have tabbed me as mentally ill because of them" and "Cho doesn't strike me as in the least creative, however. Dude was crazy. Dude was, in the memorable phrasing of Nikki Giovanni, 'just mean.' Essentially there's no story here, except for a paranoid a--hole who went DEFCON-1." King felt that Cho's work had issues because of its themes and the lack of writing ability and a meaningful story.[15]

On August 15, 2007, King was mistaken for a vandal in an Alice Springs bookstore. King signed six books in total, after a customer thought she had caught a vandal scribbling in volumes in the fiction section and reported him to store manager Bev Ellis.[16]


Richard Bachman

In the late 1970s-early 1980s, after becoming a popular horror writer, King published a handful of novels ?- Rage (1977), The Long Walk (1979), Road Work (1981), The Running Man (1982) and Thinner (1984) ?- under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. The idea behind this was largely an experiment to measure for himself whether or not he could replicate his own success again, and allay at least part of the notion inside his own head that popularity might all be just an accident of fate. An alternate (or additional) explanation was because of publishing standards back then allowing only a single book a year.[17]

But there's another part that suggests it's all a lottery, a real-life game-show not much different from Wheel of Fortune or The New Price Is Right (two of the Bachman books, incidentally, are about game-show-type competitions). It is for some reason depressing to think it was all ?- or even mostly ?- an accident. So maybe you try to find out if you could do it again.[18]

The Bachman novels contained hints to the author's actual identity that were picked up on by fans, leading to King's admission of authorship in 1985. King dedicated his 1989 book The Dark Half about a pseudonym turning on a writer to "the deceased Richard Bachman", and in 1996, when the Stephen King novel Desperation was released, the companion novel The Regulators carried the Bachman byline.

In 2006, during a London UK press conference, King declared that he had discovered another Bachman novel, titled Blaze. It was published on June 12, 2007 in the UK and US. In fact, the manuscript had been held at King's alma mater, the University of Maine in Orono for many years and had been covered by numerous King experts. King completely rewrote the 1973 manuscript for its publication.


Writing style

In his nonfiction book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, King discusses his writing style at great length. King believes that, generally speaking, good stories cannot be called consciously and should not be plotted out beforehand, they are better served by focusing on a single "seed" of a story and letting the story grow itself. King often begins a story with no idea how it will end. He mentions in the Dark Tower series that halfway through its nearly 30-year writing period a terminally-ill woman asked how it would end, certain she would die before the series's completion. He told her he did not know. King believes strongly in this style, stating that his best writing comes from "freewriting." In On Writing, King stated that he believed stories to exist fully formed, like fossils, and that his role as a writer was to excavate the fossil as well as he could. When asked for the source of his story ideas in interviews, however, he has several times, including the appearance on Amazon.com's Fishbowl, answered, "I have the heart of a small boy……and I keep it in a jar on my desk." (This quote is most often attributed to Robert Bloch, author of Psycho.)

He is known for his great eye for detail, for continuity and for inside references; many stories that may seem unrelated are often linked by secondary characters, fictional towns, or off-hand references to events in previous books. Many of the settings for King's books are in Maine, though often fictional locations.

King's books are filled with references to American history and American culture, particularly the darker, more fearful side of these. These references are generally spun into the stories of characters, often explaining their fears. Recurrent references include crime, war (especially the Vietnam War), violence, the supernatural and racism.

King is also known for his folksy, informal narration, often referring to his fans as "Constant Readers" or "friends and neighbors." This familiar style contrasts with the horrific content of many of his stories.

King has a very simple formula for learning to write well: "Read four hours a day and write four hours a day. If you cannot find the time for that, you can't expect to become a good writer." He also has a simple definition for talent in writing: "If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented."[19]

Shortly after his accident, King wrote the first draft of the book Dreamcatcher with a notebook and a Waterman fountain pen, which he called "the world's finest word processor."

King's writing style throughout his novels alternates from future to past, character development (including character illumination, dynamics and revelation), and setting in each chapter ?- leaving a cliffhanger at the end. He then continues this process until the novel is finished.

When asked why he writes, King responds: "The answer to that is fairly simple - there was nothing else I was made to do. I was made to write stories and I love to write stories. That's why I do it. I really can't imagine doing anything else and I can't imagine not doing what I do."[20]


Influences

King has called Richard Matheson "the author who influenced me most as a writer."[5] Both authors casually integrate characters' thoughts into the third person narration, just one of several parallels between their writing styles. In a current edition of Matheson's The Incredible Shrinking Man, King is quoted: "A horror story if there ever was one…a great adventure story ?- it is certainly one of that select handful that I have given to people, envying them the experience of the first reading."

King is a fan of H.P. Lovecraft and refers to him several times in Danse Macabre. Lovecraft's influence shows in King's invention of bizarre, ancient deities, subtle connections among all of his tales and the integration of fabricated newspaper clippings, trial transcripts and documents as narrative devices. King's invented trio of afflicted New England towns ?- Jerusalem's Lot, Castle Rock and Derry ?- are reminiscent of Lovecraft's Arkham, Dunwich and Innsmouth. King's short story "Crouch End" is an explicit homage to, and part of, Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos story cycle. "Gramma", a short story made into a film in the 1980s anthology horror show The New Twilight Zone, mentions Lovecraft's notorious fictional creation Necronomicon, also borrowing the names of a number of the fictional monsters mentioned therein. "I Know What You Need" from 1976's anthology collection Night Shift, and 'Salem's Lot also mention the tome. Another tribute to Lovecraft is in King's short story "Jerusalem's Lot", which opens Night Shift. King differs markedly from Lovecraft in his focus on extensive characterization and naturalistic dialogue, both notably absent in Lovecraft's writing. In On Writing, King is critical of Lovecraft's dialogue-writing skills, using passages from The Colour Out of Space as particularly poor examples. There are also several examples of King referring to Lovecraftian characters in his work, such as Nyarlathotep and Yog-Sothoth.

Edgar Allan Poe exerts a noticeable influence over King's writing as well. In The Shining, the phrase "And the red death held sway over all" hearkens back to Poe's "And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all" from "The Masque of the Red Death." The short story "Dolan's Cadillac" has a theme almost identical to Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," including a paraphrase of Fortunato's famous plea, "For the love of God, Montresor!" In The Shining, King refers to Poe as "The Great American Hack".

King acknowledges the influence of Bram Stoker, particularly on his novel 'Salem's Lot, which he envisioned as a retelling of Dracula.[21] Its related short story "Jerusalem's Lot", is reminiscent of Stoker's Lair of the White Worm.

King has also openly declared his admiration for another, less prolific author: Shirley Jackson. 'Salem's Lot opens with a quotation from Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Tony, an imaginary playmate from The Shining, bears a striking resemblance to another imaginary playmate with the same name from Jackson's Hangsaman. A pivotal scene in Storm of the Century is based on Jackson's The Lottery. A character in Wolves of the Calla references the Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

King is a big fan of John D. MacDonald and dedicated the novella Sun Dog to MacDonald, saying "I miss you, old friend." For his part, MacDonald wrote an admiring preface to an early paperback version of Night Shift, and even had his famous character, Travis McGee, reading Cujo in one of the last McGee novels.

In an Amazon.com interview, King said the one book he wishes he'd written is William Golding's Lord of the Flies.

King makes references in several of his books to characters and events in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Robert A. Heinlein's book The Door into Summer is repeatedly mentioned in King's Wolves of the Calla.


Collaborations

King has written two novels with acclaimed horror novelist Peter Straub, The Talisman and a sequel, Black House. King has indicated that he and Straub will likely write the third and concluding book in this series, the tale of Jack Sawyer, but has set no timeline for its completion.

King also wrote the nonfiction book, Faithful with novelist and fellow Red Sox fanatic Stewart O'Nan.

The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red, was a paperback tie-in for the King-penned miniseries Rose Red. The book was published under anonymous authorship, and written by Ridley Pearson. This spin-off is a rare occasion of another author being granted permission to write commercial work using characters and story elements invented by King.

King wrote an introduction to one of Neil Gaiman's many graphic novel collections, and expressed admiration for him. He also wrote an introduction to the October 1986 400th issue of the Batman comic book.

Speculation that King wrote the novel Bad Twin, a tie-in to the series Lost, under the pseudonym Gary Troup has been discredited.

King played guitar for the rock band Rock Bottom Remainders, several of whose members are authors. Other members include Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Scott Turow, Amy Tan, James McBride, Mitch Albom, Roy Blount Jr., Matt Groening, Kathi Kamen Goldmark and Greg Iles. None of them claim to have any musical talent. King is a fan of the rock band AC/DC, who did the soundtrack for his 1986 film, Maximum Overdrive. He is also a fan of The Ramones, who wrote the title song for Pet Sematary and appeared in the music video. They are referred to several times in various novels and stories. In addition he wrote the liner notes for their tribute album We're a Happy Family.


Critical response

Critical responses to King's works have been mixed.

In his analysis of post-World War II horror fiction, The Modern Weird Tale (2001), critic S. T. Joshi[22] devotes a chapter to King's work. Joshi argues that King's best-known works (his supernatural novels) are his worst, being mostly bloated, illogical, maudlin and prone to deus ex machina endings. Despite these criticisms, Joshi argues that since Gerald's Game (1993), King has been tempering the worst of his writing faults, producing books that are leaner, more believable and generally better written. Joshi also stresses that, despite his flaws, King almost unfailingly writes insightfully about the pains and joys of adolescence, and has produced a few outstanding books, citing two non-supernatural novels - Rage (1977) and The Running Man (1982) - as King's best: in Joshi's estimation, both books are riveting and well-constructed, with believable characters.

In 1996, King won an O. Henry Award for his short story "The Man in the Black Suit." In 2003, when King was honored by the National Book Awards with a lifetime achievement award: Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, there was an uproar in the literary community, with literary critic Harold Bloom denouncing the choice:

The decision to give the National Book Foundation's annual award for "distinguished contribution" to Stephen King is extraordinary, another low in the shocking process of dumbing down our cultural life. I've described King in the past as a writer of penny dreadfuls, but perhaps even that is too kind. He shares nothing with Edgar Allan Poe. What he is is an immensely inadequate writer on a sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph, book-by-book basis.[23]

However, in giving the award, the Foundation said, "Stephen King's writing is securely rooted in the great American tradition that glorifies spirit-of-place and the abiding power of narrative. He crafts stylish, mind-bending page-turners that contain profound moral truths - some beautiful, some harrowing - about our inner lives. This Award commemorates Mr. King's well-earned place of distinction in the wide world of readers and book lovers of all ages."

Others in the writing community expressed their contempt of the slight towards King. When Richard Snyder, the former CEO of Simon & Schuster, described King's work as "non-literature", Orson Scott Card responded: "Let me assure you that King's work most definitely is literature, because it was written to be published and is read with admiration. What Snyder really means is that it is not the literature preferred by the academic-literary elite."[24]

In Roger Ebert's review of the 2004 movie Secret Window, he states "A lot of people were outraged that he [King] was honored at the National Book Awards, as if a popular writer could not be taken seriously. But after finding that his book On Writing had more useful and observant things to say about the craft than any book since Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, I have gotten over my own snobbery."[25]


Influence on popular culture


Since the publication of Carrie, public awareness of King and his works has reached a high saturation rate. As the best-selling novelist in the world, and the most financially successful horror writer in history, King is an American horror icon of the highest order. King's books and characters encompass primary fears in such an iconic manner that his stories have become synonymous with certain key genre ideas. Carrie, Christine, Cujo, It, and The Shining, for example, are instantly recognizable to millions as popular shorthand for the Vengeful Nerd Wronged, the Killer Car, the Evil Dog, the Evil Clown, and the Haunted Hotel. Even King himself is so recognizable to the American public that in an American Express advertisement, the writer was able to satirize his spooky image in 30 seconds, and Gary Larson could portray a young Stephen King torturing his toys in a Far Side panel, without extensive explanation.


Films and TV

Many of King's novels and short stories have been made into major motion pictures or TV movies and miniseries.[26] Unlike some authors, King is untroubled by movies based on his works differing from the original work. He has contrasted his books and its film adaptations as "apples and oranges; both delicious, but very different." The exception to this is The Shining, which King criticized when it was released in 1980; and The Lawnmower Man (he sued to have his name removed from the credits). King seems to have gained greater appreciation for Kubrick's The Shining over the years. Kubrick had knocked the original novel in an interview as not "literary," having its merits exclusively in the plot. This understandably may have upset King. As a film, The Lawnmower Man bore no resemblance whatsoever to King's original short story. King's name was used solely as a faux-brand.

King made his feature film acting debut in Creepshow, playing Jordy Verrill, a backwoods redneck who, after touching a fallen meteor in hopes of selling it, grows moss all over his body. He has since made cameos in several adaptations of his works. He appeared in Pet Sematary as a minister at a funeral, in Rose Red as a pizza deliveryman, in The Stand as "Teddy Wieszack," in the Shining miniseries as band member Gage Creed and in The Langoliers as Tom Holby. He has also appeared in The Golden Years, in Chappelle's Show and, along with fellow author Amy Tan, on The Simpsons as himself.

After a private screening of the film Stand By Me (which was an adaptation of his novella The Body), King told director Rob Reiner that it was the best film adaptation of any of his works up to that point. He said it was actually better than his original novella.[citation needed] King was also very happy with the job Frank Darabont did with The Green Mile.[citation needed]

King produced and acted in a miniseries, Kingdom Hospital, which is based on the Danish miniseries Riget by Lars von Trier. He also co-wrote The X-Files season 5 episode "Chinga" with the creator of the series Chris Carter.

He is rumored to have stored in his house many of the film props from the numerous movies adapted from his original books, including the car used in Christine and a life-sized model of Barlow the Vampire from 'Salem's Lot. Since 1977, King has granted permission to student filmmakers to make adaptations of his short stories for one dollar (see Dollar Baby).

King is friends with film director George Romero, to whom he partly dedicated his book Cell, and wrote a tribute about the filmmaker in Entertainment Weekly for his pop culture column, as well as an essay for the Elite DVD version of Night of the Living Dead. Romero is rumored to be directing the adaptations of King's novels The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and From a Buick 8.[citation needed]

Bill Murray
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Birth name William James Murray
Born September 21, 1950 (1950-09-21) (age 57)
Wilmette, Illinois, U.S.
Years active 1975 - present
Spouse(s) Margaret Kelley (1980-1994)
Jennifer Butler (1997-)
Children Homer Murray (b.1982)
Luke Murray (b.1985)
Jackson Murray (b.1993)
Cal Murray (b.1995)
Cooper Murray (b.1996)
Lincoln Murray (b.2001)
[show]Awards
BAFTA Awards
Best Actor
2003 Lost in Translation
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Writing in a Comedy-Variety or Music Series
1977 Saturday Night Live
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
2003 Lost in Translation
Other Awards
NYFCC Award for Best Actor'
2003 Lost in Translation
NYFCC Award for Best Supporting Actor
1998 Rushmore

William James "Bill" Murray (born September 21, 1950) is an Academy Award-nominated, Emmy-winning and Golden Globe-winning American comedian and actor. He is perhaps most famous for his work in Saturday Night Live, as well as for his comedic roles in films such as Stripes, Groundhog Day, Caddyshack, Ghostbusters and Rushmore, among many others. He has gained further acclaim for recent dramatic roles, such as in the acclaimed films Lost In Translation, Broken Flowers and The Royal Tenenbaums.




Biography

Early life

Murray was born and raised in Wilmette, Illinois (metro Chicago), the fifth of nine children of Edward J. Murray II, a lumber salesman, and Lucille Collins,[1] both Irish American Catholics. [2] Three of Murray's siblings are also actors: John Murray, Joel Murray, and Brian Doyle-Murray. A sister, Nancy, is an Adrian Dominican Sister in Michigan.

Murray attended Loyola Academy. As a teenager, he worked alongside his brothers as a caddy to pay for school.[1] After graduation, he attended Regis University in Denver, Colorado where he took pre-med courses. He later dropped out after being arrested for possession of marijuana at Chicago's O'Hare Airport.[1][2] He worked numerous jobs including a stint at a Little Caesar's alongside future chef Kerry Simon.



Early career

With an invitation from his older brother, Brian, Murray got his start at Second City Chicago studying under Del Close. The improvisational comedy troupe was a perfect fit for Murray's clever, dry humor and ad libbing. He eventually became a featured player on The National Lampoon Radio Hour, aired on some 600 stations from 1973 to 1974.


Saturday Night Live

In 1975, he landed his first television role as a cast member of the ABC variety show Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. That same season, another variety show titled NBC's Saturday Night premiered. Cosell's show lasted just one season.

After working in Los Angeles with the "guerrilla video" commune TVTV on a number of projects, Murray rose to prominence when he joined the cast of NBC's newly-titled Saturday Night Live the following season, replacing Chevy Chase. This was initially a turbulent experience for Murray. He often flubbed his lines and seemed awkward on camera. Chase had been the most popular cast member and some fans sent Murray hate mail stating he was a poor replacement. When Chase appeared as a guest host that season, they got into a fist fight backstage. But by the end of Murray's first season, he had begun to display his witty, laid-back persona. His characters, such as Nick the Lounge Singer and nerd Todd DiLamuca, became very popular with viewers. With the departure of Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi in 1979, Murray became the most popular member of the ensemble cast. In 1980, the entire cast left the show. Another scandal surrounding Murray was that he had had a relationship with co-star Gilda Radner, which ended badly.

Murray later revisited the troupe he started with in the TV special Bill Murray Live From the Second City in 1980.


Film career

Murray landed his first starring role with the film Meatballs in 1979. He followed this up with his portrayal of famed writer Hunter S. Thompson in 1980's Where the Buffalo Roam. In the early 1980s, he starred in a string of box-office hits including Caddyshack, Stripes and Tootsie.

Murray began work on a film adaptation of the novel The Razor's Edge. The film, which Murray also co-wrote, was his first starring role in a dramatic film. He later agreed to star in Ghostbusters in a role originally written for John Belushi. This was a deal Murray made with Columbia Pictures in order to gain financing for his film. Ghostbusters became the highest-grossing film of 1984. But The Razor's Edge, which was filmed before Ghostbusters but not released until after, was a box-office flop. Upset over the failure of Razor's Edge, Murray took four years off from acting to study French at the Sorbonne and spend time with his family in their Hudson River Valley home. With the exception of a memorable cameo in the 1986 movie Little Shop of Horrors, he did not make any appearances in films.

Murray returned to films in 1988 with Scrooged and followed up with the long-awaited sequel Ghostbusters II in 1989. In 1990, Murray made his first and only attempt at directing when he co-helmed Quick Change with producer Howard Franklin. His subsequent films What About Bob? (1991) and Groundhog Day (1993) were box-office hits and critically acclaimed, and in recent years have come to be seen as minor classics.

After a string of films that did not do well with audiences, he received much critical acclaim for Wes Anderson's Rushmore for which he won several awards. Murray then experienced a resurgence in his career as a dramatic actor. After dramatic roles in Wild Things, Cradle Will Rock, Hamlet (as Polonius), and The Royal Tenenbaums, he garnered considerable acclaim for the 2003 film Lost in Translation. He received a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA award. He was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, in what was considered to be a two-horse race between him and Sean Penn, who eventually prevailed. In an interview included on the Lost in Translation DVD, Murray states that this is his favorite movie in which he has appeared.


During this time, Murray still appeared in comedic roles such as Charlie's Angels and Osmosis Jones. In 2004, he provided the voice of Garfield in Garfield: The Movie and marked his third collaboration with Wes Anderson in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Murray also garnered acclaim for his dramatic role in Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers.

In 2005, he announced that he would take a break from acting, as he had not had the time since his new breakthrough in the late-1990s. His last film role to date is Garfield's voice in the sequel Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties. Dan Aykroyd has recently confirmed in an interview with CISN Country that Murray will be reprising his role as the voice of Dr. Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters III, which will be done with computer animation partially because Murray refused to act in a live action sequel.

Personal life

Murray wed Margaret Kelly in 1980. They had two sons, Homer (born 1982) and Luke (born 1985), before divorcing in 1994. In 1997, he married Jennifer Butler. They have four children together: Cal (born 1993), Jackson (born 1995), Cooper (born 1996), and Lincoln (born 2001).

He is a partner with his brothers in Murray Bros. Caddy Shack, a restaurant chain with locations near Jacksonville and in Myrtle Beach and St. Augustine. Murray is an avid golfer who often plays in celebrity tournaments. His 1999 book Cinderella Story: My Life in Golf, part autobiography and part essay, expounds on his love of golf. In 2002, he and his brothers starred in the Comedy Central series, The Sweet Spot, which chronicled their adventures playing golf.

He is a part-owner of the St. Paul Saints independent minor-league baseball team and occasionally travels to Saint Paul, Minnesota to watch the team's games. He also owns part of the Charleston RiverDogs, Hudson Valley Renegades, and the Brockton Rox. He invested in a number of other minor league teams in the past, including the Utica Blue Sox, Miami Miracle, and Salt Lake Trappers. He was also a part-owner of the Auburn Astros (now the Auburn Doubledays) in Auburn, NY.

Very detached from the Hollywood scene, Murray does not have an agent or manager and reportedly[3] only fields offers for scripts and roles using a personal telephone number with a voice mailbox that he checks infrequently. This practice has the downside of sometimes preventing him from taking parts that he had auditioned for and was interested in, such as that of Sulley in Monsters, Inc and Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Murray has homes in Los Angeles, Charleston, SC, and New York.

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Murray stumped for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.

Murray is a huge fan of Chicago pro sports teams, especially the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago Bears. He also is a big Michael Jordan fan and has made cameo appearances in Space Jam and Jordan documentaries. He also cheered courtside for the Illinois Fighting Illini's game versus the University of North Carolina in the NCAA Basketball Tournament's championship game in 2005.

In August 2007 Murray was cited for driving a golf cart while under the influence of alcohol in Stockholm, Sweden[4], having a blood alcohol content of 0.036% (legal limit 0.02%).[3]


Trivia


Has been adopted as an unofficial mascot by the Online Forum Football365.
Murray was the first guest on both of David Letterman's long-running late night television programs. He appeared on the first episode of Late Night with David Letterman on February 1, 1982, as well as the inaugural episode of Late Show with David Letterman on August 30, 1993. In addition, he was the first guest on Late Show on February 1, 2007, as David Letterman celebrated his 25th anniversary in late night.
Lorenzo Music voiced Murray's character, Venkman, in The Real Ghostbusters cartoon series. Music is best-known for voicing Garfield the cat in various cartoon series. Murray would go on to be the voice of Garfield in the 2004 film and 2006 film.
Murray is said to have a policy of not doing a third version of anything, which is one of the reasons Ghostbusters III has been reported to be in development hell, but his filmography would also seem to suggest that he has not been offered a third version of anything besides Ghostbusters.
In early February 2007, Dan Aykroyd revealed in an interview that Bill Murray agreed to provide the voice of Dr. Venkman in an upcoming animated Ghostbusters sequel, after having upheld his refusal to appear in a live-action sequel.
He was named #1 Smartass on Comedy Central's "List of the 51 Greatest Smartasses."
Is quoted on the DVD case and some VHS releases of Frankenhooker, saying If you see one movie this year, it should be Frankenhooker.
Appeared on TLC's American Chopper during which the Teutuls did a Caddyshack-themed bike.
Murray was once asked by Harry Caray during a Cubs game (and shortly after Murray's mother had died) "How's your mother doing?" Murray responded, "Well, she's dead, Harry...and don't ask about my father because he's dead too."
Regis University awarded actor and alum, Bill Murray an honorary degree the evening of Friday, July 13, 2007. The award was presented during the University's alumni weekend dinner at the University's Lowell campus in North Denver. The honorary degree is a doctor of humanities.[5]
Hosted the 2007 Crossroads Guitar Festival
The band Gorillaz made a song titled "Bill Murray" as a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the actor.
Though it was stated as fact in the short film FCU With Bill Murray, Murray does not drink a glass of warm 2% milk before he goes to bed every night.

Faith Hill
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Background information

Birth name Audrey Faith Perry
Born September 21, 1967 (1967-09-21) (age 40)
Ridgeland, Mississippi
Genre(s) Country pop
Occupation(s) Singer
Instrument(s) Vocals
Years active 1993-present
Label(s) Warner Bros. Records
Website http://www.faithhill.com

Audrey Faith Perry McGraw, known professionally by her first married name Faith Hill (born September 21, 1967), is an American country singer, known for her commercial success as well as her marriage to fellow country singer Tim McGraw. Hill's "soulful and rasping voice" [1] and talent for picking songs[2] have helped her to sell over 30 million records and accumulate 11 number one singles on the Country charts.

Hill has been honored by the Country Music Association, the Academy of Country Music, the Grammy Awards, the American Music Awards and the People's Choice Awards. Her Soul2Soul II Tour 2006 with husband McGraw became the highest-grossing country tour of all time.[3] In 2001 she was named one of the 30 most powerful women in America by Ladies Home Journal.




Biography

Early life

Hill was born Audrey Faith Perry in Ridgeland, Mississippi near Jackson, Mississippi. She was adopted as an infant, and raised by a couple in the nearby town of Star. Her adoptive parents raised their two (biological) sons and Hill in a very Christian environment.[2]

Hill's vocal talent was apparent early, and she had her first public performance, a 4-H luncheon, when she was seven.[4] By the time she was a teenager, Hill was a regular performer at area churches, even those not in her own Baptist denomination.[5] At seventeen, Hill formed a band that played in local rodeos. She briefly attended college, but at 19 quit school to move to Nashville and pursue her dream of being a country singer. In her early days in Nashville, Hill auditioned to be a backup singer for Reba McEntire, but failed to secure the job.[2] After a stint selling t-shirts, Hill became a secretary at a music publishing firm.[4]

Apart from her quest for entry into the music industry, Hill also began working towards a more robust family life. In 1988 she married songwriter and music executive Dan Hill, who provided the surname she would use as she became famous. Two years later she began a search for her natural mother, whom she eventually met and with whom she still corresponds.[6]

A co-worker heard Hill singing to herself one day, and soon the head of her music publishing company was encouraging her to become a demo singer for the firm.[4] She supplemented this work by singing backup vocals for songwriter Gary Burr, who often performed his new songs at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe. During one of those performances, an executive from Warner Bros. Records was in the audience, and, impressed with Hill's voice, began the process of signing her to a recording contract.[2]


1993 - 1997: Country success

Hill's debut album was Take Me as I Am (1993); sales were strong, buoyed by the chart success of "Wild One". Hill became the first female country singer in 30 years to hold Billboard's #1 position for four consecutive weeks when "Wild One" managed the feat in 1994.[7] Her version of Erma Franklin's "Piece of My Heart", also went to the top of the country charts in 1994,[4] although rock fans drew unflattering comparisons to Janis Joplin's cover.[citation needed] The album sold a total of 3 million copies.[4]

Shortly after the release of her album, Hill found her marriage falling apart. She and Dan Hill divorced in 1994.[6]

The recording of Faith's second album was delayed by surgery to repair a busted blood vessel on her vocal cords. It Matters to Me finally appeared in 1995 and was another success, with the title track becoming her fourth #1 country single. Several other top 10 singles followed, and this album also sold over 3 million copies.[4] The fifth single from the album, "I Can't Do That Anymore," was written by country music artist Alan Jackson.

In the spring of 1996 Hill began the Spontaneous Combustion Tour with country singer Tim McGraw. At that time Hill had recently become engaged to her former producer, Scott Hendricks, and McGraw had recently broken an engagement. McGraw and Hill were quickly attracted to each other and Hill broke her engagement so that she and McGraw could begin dating. The pair became engaged on the tour and married on October 6, 1996.[6] They have three daughters together: Gracie Katherine (b. 1997), Maggie Elizabeth (b. 1998) and Audrey Caroline (b. 2001). Since their marriage, Hill and McGraw have strived to never be apart for more than three consecutive days.[2]


1998 - 2004: Pop crossover

After the release of It Matters to Me, Hill took a three-year break from recording to give herself a rest from four years of touring and to begin a family with McGraw. During her break, she joined forces with her husband for their first duet, "It's Your Love". [1] The song stayed at Number 1 for six weeks[4] and won awards from both the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association. Hill has remarked that sometimes when they perform the song together, " it [doesn't] feel like anybody else was really watching."[1]

She reentered the music business with 1998's Faith.[1] The album moved her closer towards a mainstream, pop-oriented sound, although it retained some country sound. "This Kiss" became a #1 country hit, and was the first of her singles to place on the pop charts, peaking at #7. The album sold over six million copies and delivered more hits including another duet with McGraw, "Just To Hear You Say That You Love Me", "Let Me Let Go" and "The Secret Of Life".[4]

To follow up this new found success Hill immediately released Breathe, which debuted at Number 1 on the Billboard Country and all genre charts, ahead of albums by Mariah Carey and Savage Garden.[8] Although the album had few overt country sounds, it "complement[ed] her vocal strengths."[9] For the first time, the album consisted solely of songs about love and did not venture into the more somber territory that her previous albums had touched.[9] The title track, "Breathe", reached Number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.[8] "The Way You Love Me" hit the top ten as well (#6), and became one of the longest running singles in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 (57 weeks).[citation needed] The album won Hill three Grammy Awards including Best Country Album, Best Country Collaboration With Vocals for Let's Make Love featuring Tim McGraw and Best Country Female Vocal Performance for Breathe.[10].[10] It also marked a step away from her girl-next-door image, as the videos and promotional pictures all portrayed a much sexier image. Breathe has sold almost 10 million copies worldwide.[11]

Hill used her 1999 tour to support a national children's book drive. Fans who donated books at one of her concerts were entered into a drawing to meet her personally after the show.[12] The effort resulted in the donation of 35,000 children's books, which were distributed to hospitals, schools, libraries, and daycare centers in 40 cities across the United States.[13]

2000 was an especially busy year for Hill. Besides a successful tour with her husband, Hill was featured in a CBS television special, VH1's Behind the Music, VH1 Divas 2000, and the Lifetime cable channel's Intimate Portraits series.[8] She signed an endorsement deal with CoverGirl makeup.[4], performed at the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards, appeared on the cover of numerous magazine, and performed the national anthem at the Super Bowl.[8] Hill was also named to Mr. Blackwell's 10-best dressed women of 2000, the only singer listed among actresses and other celebrities. Hill and McGraw also embarked on their first Soul2Soul tour the "Soul2Soul Tour 2000".[14]

Musically, in 2000 Hill recorded a song for the movie Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas The song also appeared on the pop and country charts. Hill's success on the pop charts disturbed some country music insiders, who questioned whether she was trying to dismiss her country roots and move into the pop genre. Despite the grumbling, Hill won the CMA Female Vocalist of The Year Award, and in her acceptance speech announced, "I love this business and I love this industry...and my heart is here."[8]

In 2001, Hill recorded a song for the Pearl Harbor soundtrack. "There You'll Be" also appeared on the album There You'll Be: The Best Of Faith Hill, an international greatest hits album. The album featured some dance mixes of "Piece Of My Heart," "Let Me Let Go," "The Way You Love Me" and "Breathe."

In 2002, Hill released her new album with a more pop-oriented sound, Cry. The album "spotlight[ed] her impressive set of pipes", but also marked the completion of her "transformation into a pop diva", containing few nods to her country roots. Though the album debuted at #1 on Billboard magazine's pop and country album charts,[4] and Hill made her debut as musical guest on Saturday Night Live, the album's singles (including the title track "Cry", written and originally performed by Angie Aparo) received much less radio airplay than her previous smashes.[15] The album however, did win a Grammy Award and has sold over 3 million copies worldwide.[10]

Faith Hill's 2002 single "Baby You Belong" off her Cry album was used as the theme song for the movie Lilo & Stitch. The music video featured clips from the movie as well as performance clips, It was released and well received in Asia.

Hill was also interested in branching out into acting. Although she was rumored to have won a part in Mel Gibson's We Were Soldiers, she did not actually appear in the movie.[16] Her movie debut came in the summer of 2004, when Hill co-starred with Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick and Glenn Close in director Frank Oz's remake of the 1975 thriller The Stepford Wives.[17]


2005 - 2006: Back to country roots

In 2005, Faith Hill returned with her new country album, Fireflies. The CD debuted at Number 1 on the Billboard Country and all genre albums charts, placing her among only a handful of artists to have 3 consecutive albums debut at number 1 on both charts.[18] The debut single, "Mississippi Girl", became Hill's highest-debuting single. The song was written specifically for her by John Rich (of Big and Rich) and Adam Shoenfield of MuzikMafia, and tells the abbreviated story of her life. Hill recorded two other songs by Rich, "Sunshine and Summertime" and "Like We Never Loved at All", both of which became successful singles.[19] The album marked a return to Hill's country roots and succeeded in reestablishing her place on country radio.[20]

Her focus changed to charitable endeavors in 2005. In the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina, Hill and her husband, who was raised in Louisiana, joined groups taking supplies to Gulfport, Mississippi. The two also hosted several charity concerts to benefit those who were displaced by the storm.[21] Later in the year the couple established the Neighbor's Keeper Foundation, which provides funding for community charities to assist with basic humanitarian services in the event of a natural disaster or for desperate personal circumstances.

After a six-year break from touring following the birth of her youngest daughter,[2] in 2006 Hill and husband Tim McGraw embarked on their Soul2Soul II Tour 2006. The tour became the highest grossing country music tour ever with a gross of $90 million.[22][3] It was named "Major Tour of the Year" by the prestigous Pollstar Magazine, beating out such heavyweights as Madonna and the Rolling Stones. In a special gesture, the couple donated all of the profits from their performance in New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina relief.[23]


2006 CMA Awards controversy

In November 2006, Hill made entertainment news headlines when she appeared to react angrily to losing the Female Vocalist of the Year award to Carrie Underwood at the CMA Awards. Hill, who was backstage at the time, could be seen pacing in anticipation and throwing both hands in the air as if she had won, and then mouthing "What!?" into the camera and then stepping away from the camera after Underwood's name was called.[24] Hill claimed that her reaction was a joke, saying in a statement, "The idea that I would act disrespectful towards a fellow musician is unimaginable to me. For this to become a focus of attention, given the talent gathered, is utterly ridiculous. Carrie is a talented and deserving female vocalist of the year."[25] She later called Underwood to congratulate her and to clear up any misconceptions between the two singers.[26] Underwood has stated in public that she believes Hill meant no ill-will, and that although she did not believe Hill needed to apologize, her immediate attempt to make amends elevated Underwood's respect for her. Some fans, especially those of Underwood, remain unconvinced and believe that Hill was in fact upset at Underwood's win.[27]


Present

In 2007, Hill started work on her first domestic greatest hits package, titled The Hits, set to be released October 2. The Hits will feature two new songs, "Lost" and "Red Umbrella" (the current single). The album will also feature hits covering her entire career from 1993-2005.

Hill will be heard on Aretha Franklin's upcoming album A Woman Falling Out of Love, planned to be released later this year. She has also recorded a duet called "Sleeping with the Telephone" for Reba McEntire's upcoming Duets album, scheduled to released on September 18. Hill is also featured on husband Tim McGraw's new album Let It Go. She sings two duets with him, "I Need You" and "Shotgun Rider". Both songs were sung at the couple's critically acclaimed 2006 Soul2Soul II Tour 2006. She and Tim are doing an encore of their Soul2Soul II Tour. Soul2Soul 2007 began in June and will run through September.

Hill was recently asked to sing the theme for Sunday Night Football that airs on the NBC network. The song is called "Waiting All Week For Sunday Night". You can see the video and hear the song on September 6 when the first NFL game is played, where Hill will sing a free concert along with Kelly Clarkson and John Mellencamp during the pregame show.

It has also been rumored that Faith has began to record her next studio album of all new material, to be released in 2008

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

"House" for instance, is feminine: "la Casa."

"Pencil," however, is masculine: "el lapiz."

A student asked, "What gender is 'computer'?"

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups,
male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether
"computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun.

Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men's group decided that "computer" should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la computadora"), because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal
logic;

2. The native language they use to communicate
With other computers is incomprehensible to everyone
else;

3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term
memory for possible later retrieval; and

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find
yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for
it.

(THIS GETS BETTER!)

The women's group, however, concluded that computers
should be Masculine ("el computador"), because:

1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn
them on;

2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for
themselves;

3. They are supposed to help you solve problems,
But half the time they ARE the problem; and

4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that
if you ad waited a little longer, you could have gotten a
better model.

The women won.

Hot chili peppers in the blistering sun
Dust on my face and my cape,
Me and Magdalena on the run
I think this time we shall escape.

Sold my guitar to the baker's son
For a few crumbs and a place to hide,
But I can get another one
And I'll play for Magdalena as we ride.

No llores, mi querida
Dios nos vigila
Soon the horse will take us to Durango.
Agarrame, mi vida
Soon the desert will be gone
Soon you will be dancing the fandango.

Past the Aztec ruins and the ghosts of our people
Hoofbeats like castanets on stone.
At night I dream of bells in the village steeple
Then I see the bloody face of Ramon.

Was it me that shot him down in the cantina
Was it my hand that held the gun?
Come, let us fly, my Magdalena
The dogs are barking and what's done is done.

No llores, mi querida
Dios nos vigila
Soon the horse will take us to Durango.
Agarrame, mi vida
Soon the desert will be gone
Soon you will be dancing the fandango.

At the corrida we'll sit in the shade
And watch the young torero stand alone.
We'll drink tequila where our grandfathers stayed
When they rode with Villa into Torreon.

Then the padre will recite the prayers of old
In the little church this side of town.
I will wear new boots and an earring of gold
You'll shine with diamonds in your wedding gown.

The way is long but the end is near
Already the fiesta has begun.
The face of God will appear
With His serpent eyes of obsidian.

No llores, mi querida
Dios nos vigila
Soon the horse will take us to Durango.
Agarrame, mi vida
Soon the desert will be gone
Soon you will be dancing the fandango.

Was that the thunder that I heard?
My head is vibrating, I feel a sharp pain
Come sit by me, don't say a word
Oh, can it be that I am slain?

Quick, Magdalena, take my gun
Look up in the hills, that flash of light.
Aim well my little one
We may not make it through the night.

No llores, mi querida
Dios nos vigila
Soon the horse will take us to Durango.
Agarrame, mi vida
Soon the desert will be gone
Soon you will be dancing the fandango.

Romance in Durango
Bob Dylan

The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Dont dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what is yet to be

The wars they will
Be fought again
The holy dove
Be caught again
Bought and sold
And bought again
The dove is never free

Chorus
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
Thats how the light gets in

We asked for signs
The signs were sent
The birth betrayed
The marriage spent
The widowhood
Of every government
Signs for all to see

Cant run no more
With the lawless crowd
While the killers in high places
Say their prayers out loud
But theyve summoned up
A thundercloud
And theyre going to hear from me

Chorus

You can add up the parts
But you wont have the sum
You can strike up the march
There is no drum
Every heart
To love will come
But like a refugee

Chorus

Anthem
Leonard Cohen

WHERE HAS MISS LETTY GONE ?
i see that her last entry was september 13 . have i missed a message ?
hbg

Letty took a trip, as I recall, to Virginia. Don't know any details.

Back from Virginia and my family reunion. Thank you all so much for keeping our little cyber radio on the air.

I am rather tired tonight, but I will see you in the morning.

Psssst, edgar, I don't think our listeners and contributors want all the details.

Goodnight, my friends.

From Letty with love

as the ad's for the national enquirer would say

enquiring mind's want to know :wink:

welcome back

Wellcome back Letty we missed you.

WELCOME BACK , LETTY !

this is the best that i can do for a welcome song on short notice !
hbg

Waving at Miss Letty...

Sweet dreams.

Letty my love how sweet to see your smiling visage again. Needless to say you were missed by all. Welcome home. Hugs and kisses.

your favorite hawk

Bob