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Rip Torn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Mathew Roland Lemieux
Born February 6, 1931 (1931-02-06) (age 77)
Temple, Texas, U.S.
Years active 1956 - present
Spouse(s) Ann Wedgeworth (1955-1961)
Geraldine Page (1963-1987)
Amy Wright
[show]Awards
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Supporting Actor - Comedy Series
1996 The Larry Sanders Show

Rip Torn (born Elmore Rual Torn, Jr. on February 6, 1931) is an Academy Award-nominated and Emmy Award-winning American television and film actor, who is perhaps best known for his role as Artie on the HBO comedy series The Larry Sanders Show.





Biography

Early life

Torn was born in Temple, Texas, the son of Kyra Gates (née Spacek) and Elmore Rual Torn, an agriculturalist and economist.[1][2] Being given the name "Rip" is a family tradition of men in the Torn family. It has been a tradition for several generations. It was given to him by his father, who was also called Rip. He graduated from Texas A & M University in 1952. Torn introduced his cousin, the Oscar-winning actress Sissy Spacek, to the entertainment business and she was able to enroll in Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio and then the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York.


Career

Following graduation from university, Torn relocated from his native Texas to give Hollywood a shot, making his debut in the 1956 film Baby Doll. Realizing that the way to success was a hard one, Torn headed to New York where he studied at the Actors Studio under Lee Strasberg and started becoming a prolific stage actor, appearing in the original cast of Tennessee Williams' play Sweet Bird of Youth, and reprising the role in the film and television adaptations. One of his earliest roles was in the film Pork Chop Hill, playing the brother-in-law of Gregory Peck's character.

He has been a distinctive character actor in numerous films since then, often showing up well in roles like the rich, sleazy New Orleans blackmailer Slade opposite Steve McQueen and Karl Malden in 1965's The Cincinnati Kid or the gruff boss in Men in Black.

The part of lawyer George Hanson in the Peter Fonda-Dennis Hopper road movie Easy Rider was written for Torn by Terry Southern (who was a close friend) but according to Southern's biographer Lee Hill, Torn withdrew from the project after he and co-director Dennis Hopper got into a bitter argument in a New York restaurant, ending with Hopper pulling a knife on Torn[3]. As a result, Torn had to be replaced by Jack Nicholson, whose appearance in the film catapulted him to stardom.[4]

In 1972 he won rave reviews for his portrayal of a country & western singer in the cult film Payday. He received what many felt was a long-overdue Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1983 film Cross Creek.

In 1988, he made an unsuccessful venture into directing with the offbeat comedy The Telephone, starring Whoopi Goldberg. The screenplay was written by Terry Southern and Harry Nilsson and the film was produced by their company Hawkeye. The story, which focussed on an unhinged, out-of-work actor, had been written with Robin Williams in mind. After he turned it down, Goldberg expressed a strong interest, but when production began Torn reportedly had to contend with Goldberg constantly digressing and improvising, and he had to plead with her to perform takes that stuck to the script. Goldberg was backed by the studio, who also allowed her to replace Torn's chosen DOP, veteran cinematographer John Alonzo, with her then husband. As a result of the power struggle, Torn, Southern and Nilsson cut their own version of the film, using the takes that adhered to the script, and this was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, but the studio put together a rival version using other takes and it was poorly reviewed when it premiered in January 1988.[5] In 1990, he played ultra-hawkish Colonel Fargo in By Dawn's Early Light, which despite a modest budget is replete with major name actors from the era when it was filmed.

For his role as talk show producer and TV veteran Artie in The Larry Sanders Show, Torn received six consecutive Emmy award nominations as Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and won the award once, in 1996. He has since appeared in many comedic roles in films such as Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Canadian Bacon and Rolling Kansas, as well as dramatic roles in films such as The Insider and Marie Antoinette. Torn is also known for his voice work, and has done voice-overs for many animated films, the most notable being Hercules. He lent his voice to the Jerry Seinfeld film Bee Movie. He has also made guest appearances on 30 Rock. He will next be seen in a starring role in Turn the River costarring Famke Janssen.

Rip Torn has played in several TV shows and movies over the years. He appeared on television as early as 1956 (where he played the part of a dentist in Baby Doll, as has continued to play a variety of roles in recent movies and television shows, Including the movies; Men in Black, Marie Antoinette, and the award winning NBC show, 30 Rock.


Personal life

Torn was married to actress Ann Wedgeworth from 1956 to 1961, with whom he had a daughter, Danae Torn. They divorced and he later married the Oscar-winning actress Geraldine Page. Page and Torn remained married until her death in 1987. They had three children: Tony Torn, Jon Torn and actress Angelica Torn. Torn apparently delighted in the fact that their country estate was called Torn Page.[6] He is married to actress Amy Wright with whom he has two children, Katie and Claire. Katie Torn is an accomplished painter and video artist.

In January 2004, Torn was arrested for drunk driving after colliding with a taxi in New York City. Video of his arrest in which he curses at officers and angrily refuses a breathalyzer test was aired on television news outlets. In October 2004, a jury acquitted Torn of any wrongdoing.[7] In December of 2006, Torn was again arrested for drunk driving in North Salem, New York after colliding with a tractor trailer. In April 2007, Torn plead guilty and agreed to have his license suspended for 90 days and pay a $380 fine.[8]


On-set conflicts

While filming Maidstone, Torn, apparently unhappy with the film, struck director and star of the film Norman Mailer three times in the head with a hammer.[9] With the camera rolling, Mailer bit Torn's ear and they wrestled to the ground. The fight continued until it was broken up by cast and crew members as Mailer's children screamed in the background. The fight is featured in the film.[10] Although the scene may have been planned by Torn, the blood shed by both actors is real and Torn was reportedly truly outraged by Mailer's direction.[9]

In 1999, Torn filed a defamation lawsuit against Dennis Hopper over a story Hopper told on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.[11] Hopper claimed that Torn pulled a knife on him during pre-production of the film Easy Rider. According to Hopper, Torn was originally cast in the film but was replaced with Jack Nicholson after the incident. According to Torn's suit, it was actually Hopper who pulled the knife on him. A judge ruled in Torn's favor and Hopper was ordered to pay $475,000 in damages. Hopper then appealed but the judge again ruled in Torn's favor and Hopper was required to pay another $475,000 in punitive damages.[12]

Mamie Van Doren
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Joan Lucille Olander
Born February 6, 1931 (1931-02-06) (age 77)
Rowena, South Dakota
Years active 1951 - 2002

Mamie Van Doren (born February 6, 1931 some sources say 1933) is an American actress and sex symbol.





Early life

Van Doren was born Joan Lucille Olander in Rowena, South Dakota, the daughter of Warner Carl Olander (March 30, 1908 - June 4, 1992) and Lucille Harriet Bennett (January 21, 1912 - August 27, 1995). She is of three-quarters Swedish ancestry; the remainder is mixed English and German. Her mother named her after Joan Crawford. In 1939, the family moved to Sioux City, Iowa. In May 1942, they moved to Los Angeles.

In early 1946, Joan began working as an usher at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. The following year, she had a bit part on an early television show. She also sang with Ted Fio Rito's band and entered beauty contests. In the summer of 1949, at age 18, she won the titles "Miss Eight Ball" and "Miss Palm Springs".

Joan was discovered by famed producer Howard Hughes on the night she was crowned Miss Palm Springs. The pair dated for several years. Hughes launched her career by placing her in several RKO films. [1]


Early career

Hughes provided Van Doren with a bit part in Jet Pilot at RKO, which was her motion picture debut. Her line of dialogue consisted of one word, "Look!" and she appears uncredited in the film. [2] Though production of the movie was from 1949 to 1953 (delays by Hughes), it was not released until 1957. The following year, 1951, she posed for famous pin-up girl artist Alberto Vargas, the painter of the glamorous "Varga Girls." His painting of Van Doren was on the July cover of Esquire.

Van Doren had been married for a brief time at seventeen, when she and first husband, Jack Newman, eloped to Santa Barbara. The marriage dissolved quickly, upon discovery of his abusive nature.

Van Doren did a few more bit parts in movies at RKO, including His Kind of Woman (1951) starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell and Vincent Price. About her appearance in that one, Van Doren has said, "If you blinked you would miss me. I look barely old enough to drive."

Van Doren then began working on the stage. She was a showgirl in New York in Monte Proser's nightclub version of Billion Dollar Baby. Songwriter Jimmy McHugh discovered her for his musicals, then decided she was too good for the chorus line and should have dramatic training. She studied with Ben Bard and Bliss-Hayden. While appearing in the role of Marie in a showcase production of Come Back, Little Sheba, Van Doren was seen by Phil Benjamin, a casting director at Universal International.


Early motion picture career

On January 20, 1953, Van Doren signed a contract with Universal Studios. The studio had big plans for her, hoping she would bring the same kind of success that 20th Century Fox had with Marilyn Monroe, the reigning sex symbol of the era. Van Doren, whose signing day coincided with the inauguration of President Eisenhower, was given the first name Mamie for Ike's wife, Mamie Eisenhower. A prominent and noted family of American intellectuals, the Van Dorens included two Pulitzer Prize winning brothers, Carl (biographer) and Mark (poet), and Mark's wife Dorothy, an academic and historian. Ironically, in 1957 Mark and Dorothy's son Charles Van Doren made front page news both by winning $129,000 on a television game show, then admitting the program was rigged. The publicity around this scandal kept the name 'Van Doren' in the newspapers and tabloids.

Van Doren's first movie for Universal was Forbidden (1953), playing a singer. She then made All-American (1953), playing Susie Ward, a wayward girl who is the man-trap at a campus beer joint. In Yankee Pasha (1954) starring Tony Curtis and Rhonda Fleming, she played a slave girl, Lilith.

Van Doren starred in several bad girl movies that later became cult films. She also appeared in some of the first movies to feature Rock & Roll music and became identified with this rebellious style, and made some Rock records. In the film Untamed Youth in 1957, she was the first woman to sing rock and roll in a Hollywood musical [3] (Eddie Cochran did the music for the film). [4] This film was later featured in Mystery Science Theater 3000's 'Untamed Youth' (1990).

Some of Van Doren's more noteworthy movies include Teacher's Pet (1958) at Paramount, Born Reckless (1958) at Warner Bros., High School Confidential (1958), and The Beat Generation (1959), the latter two at MGM. But Van Doren was just as well known for her provocative roles. She was in prison for Girls Town (1959), which provoked censors with a shower scene where audiences could see Van Doren's naked back. As Eve in The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960) she wore only fig leaves, and in other films, like The Beautiful Legs of Sabrina (1959), Sex Kittens Go to College (1960) and Vice Raid (1960) audiences were clued in as to the nature of the films from the titles.

Many of Van Doren's film roles showcased her ample curves, and her on screen wardrobe usually consisted of tight sweaters, low-cut blouses, form-fitting dresses, and daring (for the era) swimsuits. While she and other blonde bombshell contemporaries as Cleo Moore, Sheree North and Diana Dors did not attain the same level of superstar status as Marilyn Monroe, Van Doren did become a very famous star and notable Hollywood sex symbol. Marilyn, Mamie and Jayne Mansfield were known as the "Three M's." [5] But by comparison, where Monroe succeeded in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Mansfield had a big success with Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, (a part that was originally written for Van Doren who turned it down), Universal stuck Van Doren with Francis the Talking Mule in Francis Joins the WACS.


Film career in decline

As Van Doren's career progressed, many of the productions she starred in were low-budget B-movies. They are largely unknown to later generations, though some have gained a following for their high camp value.

In 1959, Universal chose not to exercise the option in her contract. Van Doren was now a free agent and had to struggle to find work. Some of her later movies were foreign and independent productions, such as Sex Kittens Go to College (1960), The Blonde from Buenos Aires (1961), The Candidate (1964), The Navy vs the Night Monsters (1966) as well as Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968), directed by Peter Bogdanovich, who used the pseudonym 'Derek Thomas' for the film. [6]


Personal life

Van Doren has been married five times; sportswear manufacturer Jack Newman (married 1950-divorced 1950), bandleader, composer and actor Ray Anthony (married 1955-divorced 1961), baseball player Lee Meyers (married 1966-divorced 1967), businessman Ross McClintock (married 1972-divorced 1973) and actor Thomas Dixon (married 1979-present).

She and Anthony had one son, Perry Ray Anthony (born March 18, 1956).

Van Doren's early 1960s highly publicized on-again off-again engagement to baseball player Bo Belinsky broke off for good in 1964. In her tell-all autobiography, she acknowledged numerous affairs, including ones with Clark Gable, Howard Hughes, Johnny Carson, Elvis Presley, Burt Reynolds, Jack Dempsey, Steve McQueen, Johnny Rivers, Robert Evans, Eddie Fisher, Warren Beatty, Tony Curtis, Steve Cochran, and Joe Namath. Claiming fidelity to each lover, of Hollywood life she said, "I don't wear panties anymore - this startles the Hollywood wolves so much they don't know what to pull at, so they leave me alone." [7]

In 1963, twice she posed for Playboy to promote her movie Three Nuts In Search of a Bolt (1964), though she was never a Playmate. By this point in her career, her voluptuous figure measured 38DD-26-36 (self-described in 1997). Of her curves she said, "I don't even want to say double-D, because they're even bigger than that." [8]

In 1964, Van Doren was a guest at the Whisky a Go Go on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood when The Beatles were at the club visiting with Jayne Mansfield, and an inebriated George Harrison accidentally threw his drink on her when he was really trying to throw it on some bothersome journalists. [9]

Van Doren also developed a nightclub act and did a lot of live theatre. She performed in stage productions of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Dames at Sea at the Drury Lane Theatre, Chicago, and appeared in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter and The Tender Trap at the Arlington Park Theatre.

During the Vietnam War, she did tours for U.S. troops in Vietnam, for three months in 1968 and again in 1970. In addition to USO shows, she visited hospitals, including the wards of amputees and burn victims that many other celebrities stayed away from.

Van Doren's guest appearances on TV include The Bob Cummings Show, The Jack Benny Show, Fantasy Island, Burke's Law, Vega$, and L.A. Law.

In the 1970s, Van Doren did a nightclub act in Las Vegas.


Second career in later life

Van Doren's autobiography, Playing the Field: My Story (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1987) brought much new attention to the veteran sex symbol and proved to be her biggest media splash in over 25 years. Since the book's publication she has often been interviewed and profiled and has occasionally returned to acting.

At age 60, she underwent cosmetic surgery. In interviews, she has consistently denied ever having breast implants. In 2006, Mamie posed for photographs for Vanity Fair with Pamela Anderson as part of their annual Hollywood issue.

In 2006 ?- at age 75 ?- Van Doren and her husband, Thomas, maintain her popular and controversial web site http://www.mamievandoren.com. Here she sells autographed "nipple prints" and homemade short films starring herself, such as 'A Girl and Her Banana' [10] Her contemporary topless and nude photos and outspoken political views have helped create a larger fan base than at any time in her remarkable career, arguably the longest career of any Hollywood sex symbol, with the possible exception of Mae West, Van Doren's childhood idol.

Van Doren has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7057 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.

François Truffaut
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Birth name François Roland Truffaut
Born February 6, 1932(1932-02-06)
Paris, France
Died October 21, 1984 (aged 52)
Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France
Years active 1955 - 1983
Spouse(s) Madeleine Morgenstern (1957-1965)
[show]Awards
Academy Awards
Best Foreign Language Film
1974 Day for Night
BAFTA Awards
Best Direction
1973 Day for Night
César Awards
Best Director
1980 The Last Metro
Best Film
1980 The Last Metro
Best Writing
1980 The Last Metro

François Roland Truffaut (French IPA: [fʁɑ̃swa tʁyˈfo]; February 6, 1932 - October 21, 1984) was one of the founders of the French New Wave in filmmaking, and remains an icon of the French film industry. In a film career lasting just over a quarter of a century, he was screenwriter, director, producer or actor in over twenty-five films.





Life

François Truffaut was born on February 6, 1932, out of wedlock. He never met his biological father, who was a dentist. His mother's future husband Roland Truffaut accepted him as an adopted son and gave him his surname. He was passed around to live with various nannies and his grandmother for a number of years. It was his grandmother that instilled him with her love of books and music. He lived with his grandmother until her death when Truffaut was ten years old. It was only after his grandmother's death that he lived with his parents for the first time.

He would often stay with friends and try to be out of the house as much as possible. It was the cinema that offered him the greatest escape from an unsatisfying home life. He was eight years old when he saw his first movie, Abel Gance's Paradis perdu from 1939. It was there that his obsession began. He frequently played truant from school and would sneak into theaters because he didn't have enough money for admission. After being excluded from several schools, at the age of fourteen he decided to be self taught. Some of his academic "goals" were to watch three movies a day and read three books a week.

Truffaut frequented Henri Langlois' Cinémathèque Française where he was exposed to countless foreign films from around the world. It was here that he fell in love with U.S. cinema and such directors as John Ford, Howard Hawks, and Alfred Hitchcock.

After starting his own film club in 1948, Truffaut met André Bazin, who would have great impact on his professional and personal life. Bazin was a critic and the head of another film society at the time. He became a personal friend of Truffaut's and helped him out of various financial and criminal situations during his formative years.

Truffaut joined the French Army in 1950, but spent the next two years trying to escape. Truffaut was arrested for attempting to desert the army. Bazin used his various political contacts to get Truffaut released and set him up with a job at his newly formed film magazine Cahiers du cinema. He soon became a film critic, and later a film director. He directed many movies.

Over the next few years, Truffaut became a critic (and later editor) at Cahiers. He was notorious for being brutal and unforgiving in his reviews, especially his take on French cinema of the day. He was called "The Gravedigger of French Cinema" and was even banned from the Cannes Film Festival in 1958. He developed one of the most influential theories of cinema itself, the auteur theory.

In 1954 Truffaut wrote an article called "Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma Français" (A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema), in which he stated that the director was the "author" of his work; that great directors such as Renoir, or Hitchcock, have distinct styles and themes that permeate all of their films. Although his theory was not widely accepted then, it gained some support in the 1960s from American critic Andrew Sarris.

After having been a critic, Truffaut decided to make films of his own. He started out with the short film Une Visite in 1955 and followed that up with Les Mistons in 1957. After seeing Orson Welles' Touch of Evil at the Expo 58, he was inspired to make his feature film debut The 400 Blows.

In 1983 François Truffaut was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He died on October 21, 1984. At the time of his death, he still had numerous films in preparation. His goal was to make thirty films and then retire to write books for his remaining days. He was five films short of his personal goal. He is buried in Montmartre Cemetery.


Work

The 400 Blows was released in 1959 to much critical and commercial acclaim. Truffaut received a Best Director award from the Cannes Film Festival, the same festival that had banned him only one year earlier. The film follows the character of Antoine Doinel through his perilous misadventures in school, an unhappy home life and later military school. The film is highly autobiographical. Both Truffaut and Doinel were only children of loveless marriages; they both committed petty crimes of theft and truancy from the military. Truffaut cast Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel. Léaud was an unknown who auditioned for the role after seeing a flyer. Léaud and Truffaut collaborated on several films over the years. Their most noteworthy collaboration was the continuation of the Antoine Doinel character in a series of films called "The Antoine Doinel Cycle".

The 400 Blows marked the beginning of the French New Wave Movement, which gave directors such as Godard and Rivette a wider audience. The New Wave dealt with a self-conscious rejection of traditional cinema structure. This was a topic on which Truffaut had been writing for years.

Following the success of The 400 Blows, Truffaut featured disjunctive editing and seemingly random voice-overs in his next film Shoot the Piano Player (1960). Truffaut has stated that in the middle of filming, he realized that he hated gangsters. But since gangsters were a main part of the story, he toned up the comical aspect of the characters and made the movie more attuned to his liking. Even though Shoot the Piano Player was much appreciated by critics, it performed poorly at the box office. While the film focused on two of the French New Wave's favorite elements, American Film Noir and themselves, Truffaut never again experimented as heavily.

In 1962 Truffaut directed what some would call his masterpiece, although it was only his third movie. Jules and Jim is the story of a woman who falls in love with two friends and begins a love triangle that lasts for many years. It is almost a fairy tale in which anything is possible. In the film, you believe a woman can love two men equally. You easily believe that she is so beautiful that the two men would be willing to do anything for her. If Shoot The Piano Player is a prime example of the French New Wave Gangster B-Movie, then Jules and Jim surely is an example of youthful free-spirited love that is found throughout New Wave Cinema.[original research?]

Jules and Jim has influenced many directors of current cinema. Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky makes visual references to it, but the plot has a different take, with two male friends who fall in love with the same woman. Both films feature unstable women who drive their lovers off a bridge

Over the next decade Truffaut had varying degrees of success with his films. In 1965 he directed the American production of Ray Bradbury's classic sci-fi novel Fahrenheit 451. It showcased Truffaut's love of books. His only English-speaking film was a great challenge for Truffaut, because he barely spoke English himself. This was also his first film shot in color. The larger scale production was difficult for Truffaut, who had worked only with small crews and budgets.

Truffaut worked on projects with varied subjects. The Bride Wore Black (1968) is a brutal tale of revenge, Mississippi Mermaid (1969) is an identity-bending romantic thriller, Stolen Kisses (1968) and Bed and Board (1970) are continuations of the Antoine Doinel Cycle, and The Wild Child (1970) included Truffaut's first acting in a film.

Two English Girls (1971) is the yin to the Jules and Jim yang. It is based on a story written by Henri-Pierre Roche, who also wrote Jules and Jim. It is about a man who falls equally in love with two sisters, and their love affair over a period of years.

Day for Night won Truffaut an Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1973. The film is probably his most reflective work. It is the story of a film crew trying to finish their film while dealing with all of the personal and professional problems that accompany making a movie. Truffaut plays the director of the fictional film being made. This film features scenes shown in his previous films. It is considered to be his best film since his earliest work. Time magazine placed it on their list of 100 Best Films of the Century (along with The 400 Blows).

In 1975, Truffaut gained more notoriety with The Story of Adele H. Isabelle Adjani in the title role earned a nomination for an Best Actress Oscar. Truffaut's 1976 film Small Change gained a Golden Globe Nomination for Best Foreign Film.

One of his final films gave Truffaut an international revival. In 1980, his film The Last Metro garnered twelve Cesar Award nominations with ten wins, including Best Director.

Truffaut's final movie was shot in black and white. It gives his career almost a sense of having bookends. In 1983 Confidentially Yours is Truffaut's tribute to his favorite director, Alfred Hitchcock. It deals with numerous Hitchcockian themes, such as private guilt vs. public innocence, a woman investigating a murder, anonymous locations, etc.

Among Truffaut's films, a series features the character Antoine Doinel, played by the actor Jean-Pierre Léaud. He began his career in The 400 Blows at the age of fourteen, and continued as the favorite actor and "double" of Truffaut. The series continued with Antoine and Colette (a short film in the anthology Love at Twenty), Stolen Kisses, Bed and Board and finally Love on the Run

In most of these movies, Léaud's partner was played by Truffaut's favourite actress Claude Jade as his girlfriend (and then wife), "Christine Darbon".

A keen reader, Truffaut adapted many literary works:

American detective novels:
The Bride Wore Black by William Irish
Mississippi Mermaid by William Irish
The Long Saturday Night (filmed as Confidentially Yours) by Charles Williams
Down There (filmed as Shoot the Piano Player) by David Goodis
Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me by Henry Farrell
Novels by Henri-Pierre Roché:
Jules and Jim
Two English Girls
A science fiction novel:
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451
A short story:
Henry James' "The Altar of the Dead", filmed as The Green Room, considered by some to be his deepest and most serious film
Truffaut's other films were from original screenplays, often co-written by the screenwriters Suzanne Schiffman or Jean Gruault. They featured diverse subjects, the sombre The Story of Adele H., inspired by the life of the daughter of Victor Hugo, with Isabelle Adjani; Day for Night, shot at the Studio La Victorine describing the ups and downs of film-making; and The Last Metro, set during the German occupation of France, a film rewarded by ten César Awards.

Tom Brokaw
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Thomas John Brokaw
Born February 6, 1940 (1940-02-06) (age 68)
Birth place Webster, South Dakota, U.S.
Circumstances
Occupation Television Journalist
Spouse Meredith Lynn Auld
Children Jennifer Jean
Andra Brooks
Sara Auld
Notable credit(s) Today co-anchor
(1976-1981)
NBC Nightly News anchor
(1982-2004)

Tom Brokaw (left) greeting the 20,000th visitor to the Gavins Point Dam in 1958. Brokaw was a tour guide there.Thomas John Brokaw (born February 6, 1940 in Webster, South Dakota) is an American television journalist and author, previously working on regularly scheduled news documentaries for the NBC television network, and is the former NBC News anchorman and managing editor of the program NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. His last broadcast as anchorman was on December 1, 2004, succeeded by Brian Williams in a carefully planned transition. In the later part of Tom Brokaw's tenure, NBC Nightly News became the most watched cable or broadcast news program in the United States. Brokaw also hosted, wrote, and moderated special programs on a wide range of topics. Throughout his career, he has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors.

Brokaw serves on the Howard University School of Communications Board of Visitors and on the boards of trustees of the University of South Dakota, the Norton Simon Museum, the American Museum of Natural History and the International Rescue Committee. As well as his television journalism, he has written for periodicals and has authored books.




Early life

Thomas John Brokaw was born in Webster, South Dakota to Anthony Orville Brokaw and Jean Conley; he was the eldest of their three sons. He was named after his maternal great-grandfather, Thomas Conley. His father was of Huguenot descent, and his mother was Irish.[1] His paternal great-grandfather, Richard P. Brokaw, founded the town of Bristol, South Dakota and the Brokaw House, a small hotel and the first structure in Bristol.[2]

Brokaw's father was a construction worker for the Army Corps of Engineers. He worked at the Black Hills Ordnance Depot (BHOD) and helped construct Fort Randall Dam; his job often required the family to resettle during Brokaw's early childhood.[3] The Brokaws lived for short periods in Bristol, Igloo (the small residential community of the BHOD), and Pickstown, before settling in Yankton, where Brokaw attended high school.[1][3]

As a high school student, Brokaw was governor of South Dakota American Legion Boys State, and in that capacity he accompanied then South Dakota Governor Joe Foss to New York City for a joint appearance on a TV game show. It was to be the beginning of a long relationship with Foss, whom Brokaw would later feature in his book about World War II veterans, The Greatest Generation.

Tom Brokaw dropped out of The University of Iowa, where he says he majored in "beer and co-eds" before receiving his B.A. degree in Political Science from the University of South Dakota in Vermillion in 1962.

He has been married to Meredith Lynn Auld (a former Miss South Dakota and author) since 1962. They have three daughters, Jennifer Jean, Andrea Brooks and Sara Auld.


Career


Brokaw in 2006 speaking about the attack on Pearl Harbor.His television career began at KTIV in Sioux City, Iowa, followed by a three-year stint at KMTV in Omaha, Nebraska. [4]

In 1965, he became an editor and anchorman of the late-evening news on WSB-TV in Atlanta, Georgia. The following year he joined NBC News, reporting from California and anchoring the 11 p.m. news for KNBC-TV in Los Angeles. From 1973-1976 he was an NBC News White House correspondent, covering the Watergate scandal. During this time, he was asked by the higher-rated CBS News to join it after CBS's management had decided its reporter, Dan Rather, was too hostile to then-President Richard Nixon. The switch never happened after word of it was leaked to the press.

In 1976, Brokaw became NBC News' Today Show host. He was also the floor reporter for the two major parties' presidential nominating conventions.

In 1982, Brokaw began co-anchoring NBC Nightly News, along with co-anchor Roger Mudd. When Mudd went on to host Meet the Press and American Almanac, a weekly newsmagazine, Brokaw became the sole anchor of the NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw on September 5, 1983.

In 1987, he wrote The Arms, the Men, the Money, investigating Contra rebels. That same year he conducted the first one-on-one American TV interview with Mikhail Gorbachev, and won an A.I.duPont-Columbia University Award. He also moderated the debates among all declared presidential candidates of both parties.

In 1989, he reported the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Also in January of 1989, he was the first person ever to do a The More You Know public service announcement.

From 1992-93 he anchored The Brokaw Report series of prime-time "critical issues" specials. He was also host, with Katie Couric, of a prime-time newsmagazine called Now. The show aired from 1993-94, and was folded into the multi-night Dateline NBC program.

In 1995, Brokaw reported from the site of the Oklahoma City bombing. The following year he reported from the scene of the TWA flight 800 tragedy.

In 1997, he interviewed Charlie Trie and Johnny Chung, key figures in the campaign finance abuse scandal.

In 1999, he conducted the first North American TV interview with Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, in Moscow. He also traveled to Tirana, Albania during NATO airstrikes in Yugoslavia.

In 2000, he conducted the first American TV interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in Moscow. He was also Master of Ceremonies at the opening of the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Brokaw was Grand Marshall for the 112th Tournament of Roses parade in 2001.

On September 11, 2001, Brokaw joined Katie Couric and Matt Lauer around 9:30 AM, following the live attack on the South Tower of the World Trade Center, and continued to anchor all day, until after midnight, when MSNBC took over coverage. During the early stages of the disaster, Brokaw famously responded to Lauer's speculations over loss of life after the second tower fell by saying, "This is war. This is a declaration and execution of an attack on the United States." He also asked "Are we at war?" and exclaimed "War! War!" in the style of a sports chant.

Throughout the day, Brokaw was joined by David Bloom, Jim Miklaszewski from the Pentagon, author Tom Clancy, Senator John McCain, and NBC Aviation expert Robert Hager at different points in the day, just to name a few.

Brokaw returned for the following two days and expanded the NBC Nightly News to midnight, as well. Along with his contemporaries, Peter Jennings of ABC and Dan Rather of CBS, the three anchors provided thorough and blanket coverage of the attacks.

In late September 2001, a letter containing anthrax was addressed to him as part of the 2001 anthrax attacks. Brokaw wasn't harmed, but two NBC News employees were infected.

In 2002, Brokaw announced his intention to go under retirement as anchor of the NBC Nightly News effective after the 2004 Presidential election. NBC then announced that Brian Williams would be Brokaw's successor as the anchor of NBC Nightly News on December 2, 2004. NBC also announced that Brokaw will remain with NBC News in a part-time capacity through 2014 serving as an analyst as well as anchoring and producing documentary programs. By the end of his time as Nightly News anchor, Brokaw was regarded as the most popular news personality in the United States. His program was consistently rated the highest evening news show, topping Dan Rather and Peter Jennings in the evening news ratings. This may explain why Brokaw was the only one of the three evening news anchors to have a sit-down interview with President George W. Bush.

Along with the two other pillars of the so-called "Big Three" ?- Peter Jennings (ABC) and Dan Rather (CBS) - Brokaw had ushered in the era of the TV news anchor as lavishly compensated, globe-trotting star in the 1980s. The magnitude of a news event could be measured by whether Brokaw and his counterparts on the other two networks showed up on the scene. Brokaw's retirement in December 2004, followed by Rather's ouster from the CBS Evening News in March 2005, and finally Jennings's death in August 2005, brought that era to a close.

He closed his final Nightly News broadcast in front of 15.7 million viewers on NBC by saying:

"That's Nightly News for this Wednesday night. I'm Tom Brokaw. You'll see Brian Williams tomorrow night; I'll see you along the way."

Ratings


By the time American viewers became familiar with Tom Brokaw and his NBC Nightly News the program was consistently ranked #1, Peter Jennings and World News Tonight was ranked #2, Dan Rather and the CBS Evening News was ranked #3. Earlier in his career, CBS under Cronkite and Rather was #1 in the early and mid 1980s, Jennings was #1 in the late 1980s and mid 1990s, and Brokaw took over as America's most watched anchor in the late 1990s, holding the spot until his retirement in 2004.


Present

In 2006, Tom Brokaw became the second journalist to receive the prestigious Sylvanus Thayer Award by the United States Military Academy at West Point. The first one was legendary news anchor man Walter Cronkite in 1997.

He is presently on the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the International Rescue Committee.

Some political independents, Libertarians, Reform party members and Green Party members have publicly urged Tom Brokaw to run as their candidate for national office: U.S. Senate, or President.

Brokaw recently completed a documentary on global warming for the Discovery Channel entitled Global Warming: What You Need to Know, with Tom Brokaw [1].

On November 19, 2006, Brokaw delivered the keynote speech at the annual Dedication Day Ceremony at the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, honoring those who fought and died in the American Civil War [2].

On January 2, 2007, Brokaw delivered one of the eulogies during the state funeral of former President Gerald R. Ford.

On May 28, 2007, Brokaw appeared on the History Channel special, "Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed", describing Darth Vader's attire.

Brokaw was the host for the rollout of the Boeing 787 airplane on July 8, 2007.

Fabian (entertainer)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Fabiano Anthony Forte
Born February 6, 1943 (1943-02-06) (age 65)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Years active 1959 - 1999
Spouse(s) Kate Forte (1980-1990)
Andrea Patrick (1998-)

Fabiano Anthony Forte (born February 6, 1943), better known as Fabian, is a former American teen idol of the late 1950s and early 1960s. He rose to national prominence after performing several times on American Bandstand. In total, he charted 11 hit singles in the Billboard Hot 100.





Biography

Early life

Fabian was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Josephine and Domenic Forte. His father was a policeman and had ill health. Fabian was discovered in 1957 by Bob Marcucci and Peter DeAngelis, owners of Chancellor Records. At the time, record producers were looking to the South Philadelphia neighborhoods in search of teenage talents with good looks, and Frankie Avalon, also of South Philly, suggested Fabian as a possibility. Fabian was sitting on the front steps of his house crying because he had just seen his father taken away in an ambulance. He was spotted and, due to his good looks, Marcucci and DeAngelis asked him if he wanted to get into the record business.

Fabian's father could not work any longer and since Fabian was the oldest of three brothers, he took a chance at making some money in the music business to help his family out. He never thought of singing and recording as a career, only as a way of stepping in for his father at the time. And yet, before he knew it, Fabian's popularity soared, and soon thousands rushed to his concerts. At fifteen, Fabian won the Silver Award as "The Promising Male Vocalist of 1958".


Career

With songwriters Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, Fabian released a series of hit singles for Chancellor Records including "I'm a Man", "Hound Dog Man", "Turn Me Loose", and his biggest hit, "Tiger". His career in music basically ended with the payola scandal of the 1960s, when it was alleged that his records were doctored significantly to improve his voice.[1]

The 1980 film The Idolmaker, written by Edward Di Lorenzo and directed by Taylor Hackford, was a thinly-disguised biography of Fabian (called "Caesare" in the film), as well as songwriter/producer Marcucci (called "Vinnie Vacarri" in the film) and Frankie Avalon (called "Tommy Dee" in the film). In the movie version, singer Caesare - a pretty boy with very little singing talent - goes through a whirlwind of success in a short time, and in a fit of pique, he abruptly fires his songwriters and quits his record label. The real-life Fabian threatened a lawsuit at the time of the film's release, though the filmmakers insisted that the film presented only fictional characters (though Marcucci was a paid consultant on the film).

Fabian went on to appear in more than 30 films, including Five Weeks in a Balloon, High Time, North to Alaska, The Longest Day and Ride the Wild Surf (1964) (with Tab Hunter). Most of his early films were comedies, and cast him as a restless teenager with a penchant for singing. After 1965, his film and singing career began to fade, along with his popularity as a teen idol. Fabian also appeared in a 1982 TV record commercial, for The Idols of Rock n' Roll.

He never regained his former stature, but has continued performing for more than 40 years. He was one of the few celebrities to pose with semi-frontal nudity during the late 1970s, posing for Playgirl magazine in its September 1973 issue. Recently he has been appearing with Frankie Avalon and Bobby Rydell to perform concerts as The Golden Boys.

The lead characters on the hit television show, "Laverne and Shirley", frequently mentioned Fabian as their favorite star. When they said his name, they would sigh, and say his name slowly.

He appeared in the 2005 documentary film The Bituminous Coal Queens of Pennsylvania.

In his latest endeavor, Fabian hosts and headlines in the hit show, "The Original Stars of Bandstand" at The Dick Clark Theater[2] in Branson, Missouri. The show stars Fabian and Bobby Vee and features The Chiffons, Brian Hyland, Chris Montez and rare footage of the performers and Dick Clark. Former First Lady and Presidential Candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton was once President of the Fabian Forte Fan Club.


Personal life

Fabian has been married twice - to Kate Netter Forte from 1980 to 1990 and to his current wife Andrea Patrick, a former Bituminous Coal Queen and Miss Pennsylvania USA, whom he married in 1998.[3] He has a son Christian and a daughter Julie from his first marriage. Christian is a screenwriter with the 1996 movie Albino Alligator starring Matt Dillon, Faye Dunaway, and Gary Sinise and directed by Kevin Spacey, to his credit. He is also the co-screenwriter for The Monkey Wrench Gang, which is scheduled for release in 2007. Christian and his wife are the parents of Fabian's granddaughter, Ava Josephine.

Fabian and his wife are actively involved in the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association and Fabian has helped raise money for veterans with his Celebrity Golf Tournament in North Carolina. Andrea and Fabian live on 20 acres in Southwestern Pennsylvania with their dog Max in a home that Andrea designed.

Fabian has always said that he went into show business because his family needed the money and that his biggest regret is that he started too soon and hit too big too early.

Natalie Cole
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Background information

Birth name Natalie Maria Cole
Born February 6, 1950 (1950-02-06) (age 58)
Origin Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Genre(s) Pop, R&B, jazz, soul, quiet storm, adult contemporary
Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, pianist
Years active 1975-present
Label(s) Capitol (1974-1981)
Epic (1982-1983)
Modern (1984-1985)
EMI-Manhattan (1986-1990)
Elektra (1991-2001)
Verve (2002-Present)
Associated
acts Nat King Cole

Natalie Maria Cole (born February 6, 1950), known professionally as Natalie Cole, is an Grammy Award winning American singer and songwriter.



Personal life

Natalie Cole is the daughter of noted crooner Nat King Cole. In several interviews, Cole talked about her upbringing; she was raised in an affluent area of Los Angeles, and her family, which she has referred to as "the black Kennedys," lived just a few doors down from the California governor.[1] Cole also stated in an interview that she did not connect with her cultural heritage or "blackness" until she attended college.[2] She was 15 years old when her famous father died of lung cancer.

She attended the Northfield Mount Hermon School in Northfield, Massachusetts. In her childhood, she was exposed to the greats of jazz, soul and blues at an early age, and she began performing at the age of 11.

Cole has been married three times, and has a son, Robert Yancy, (by Marvin Yancy), born in 1977; her son is a musician who tours with her. She later married former Rufus drummer Andre Fischer, who co-produced her album Unforgettable... With Love.


Music career

Early career


Her debut album in 1975, Inseparable, resulted in chart success with the single "This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)" (#1 R&B, #6 Pop). Her performance of the song won her a 1976 Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, a category that had heretofore been monopolized by Aretha Franklin. She also was awarded the Best New Artist Grammy of 1976. She gained a new generation of fans when American Idol finalists Jasmine Trias and Kimberley Locke sang "Inseperable" on the show to extremely good reviews.

More hits followed through 1980, including her biggest Pop hit, 1977's "I've Got Love On My Mind," as well as "Sophisticated Lady (She's A Different Lady)" (1976), "Our Love" (1978), and "Someone That I Used To Love" (1980). "I've Got Love On My Mind" and "Our Love" both earned certifications as Gold singles.


Career detour and resurgence

Cole's career paused in the early 1980s as she dealt with the challenges of her severe drug problem. By 1985, Cole was back in good health, and began a comeback.

Her first step was with the album Dangerous, released on the Modern label. In 1987, she released Everlasting (on EMI Manhattan) which sold over 2 million copies in the U.S., and won Cole a Soul Train Award for Female Single of the Year for the #1 R&B ballad "I Live for Your Love". The album garnered her three major hit singles: "Jump Start," "I Live For Your Love" (#2 AC and #13 Pop as well as #1 R&B), and a successful remake of Bruce Springsteen's "Pink Cadillac" (#5 Pop, #16 AC, and #1 Dance). The album also included a remake of one of her father's signature hits, "When I Fall In Love," which did moderately well on the AC chart.

In 1989, another album, Good To Be Back gave her another chart success "Miss You Like Crazy" (#1 both R&B and AC, and #7 Pop).


Unforgettable...with Love

Cole may be best remembered for her 1991 album, Unforgettable... with Love, featuring her own arrangements of her father's greatest hits. Ironically, during her early career, Cole was reluctant to capitalize on her father's name, and wanted to forge her own identity by going after the soul market in earnest. For many years, she also found the prospect of recording her late father's songs too painful on a personal level.

Her decision to record the songs was a chart success; the album sold over 7 million copies in the United States alone, and won Cole several Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance. The album featured a duet, the title track, with her father, created by splicing a recording of his vocals into the track. As a single, it reached #14 on Billboard Magazine's Hot 100 chart, and went gold.


Additional albums

Cole has released several more albums of pop standards in the years since; as a result of appealing to the "adult standards" audience, she has made only occasional forays onto the pop singles charts in that time (for example, "A Smile Like Yours" in 1997), although her albums still sell well. Cole is considered one of the core artists of the smooth jazz format, garnering frequent airplay on smooth jazz radio stations with both her classic songs and her newer material.

In 1995 she performed in The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Dreams Come True a musical performance of the popular story at Lincoln Center to benefit the Children's Defense Fund. The performance was originally broadcast on Turner Network Television (TNT), and issued on CD and video in 1996.

Her 1999 album Snowfall On The Sahara marked a return to the easy adult-contemporary soul that categorized her late-1980s hits, but for 2002's critically-praised Ask A Woman Who Knows, she turned more to the jazz side of the spectrum, covering songs made famous by Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, and Sarah Vaughan.

In September 2006, she released "Leavin'", a cover album of tracks made popular by Shelby Lynne, Kate Bush, Sting, and Fiona Apple, among others; the album is a hybrid of rock, pop music, and R&B.


Television and film

Cole has carved out a secondary career in acting. She has also appeared several times in live concerts or other music related programs, including the 1988 Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute with sidemen Richard Campbell, Jeffrey Worrell, Eddie Cole and Dave Joyce. In 1990, she (along with jazz vocalist Al Jarreau) sang the song "Mr. President" on HBO's Comic Relief special, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams and Billy Crystal. After Johnny Mathis appeared on a special of Cole's in 1980, the two kept in contact, and in 1992, he invited Cole to be a part of his television special titled "A Tribute To Nat Cole" for BBC-TV in England. It had high viewer ratings and was successful. From that project, an album with the same name was released, and featured several medley and solo numbers.

Cole has made a number of dramatic appearances on television, including guest appearances on I'll Fly Away, Touched by an Angel, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In 2006, she made a memorable guest appearance on the popular ABC show Grey's Anatomy as a terminally ill patient. Her character visited Seattle Grace Hospital to have a fork removed from her neck that her husband had stabbed her with during a mishap; the couple had been having an intimate encounter in public.[3]

Cole has also made several appearances in feature films, most recently in the Cole Porter biopic De-Lovely. She has appeared in several made-for-TV movies, most notably as the lead in Lily in Winter. Cole was featured on Macy Gray's album "Big" singing Finally Make Me Happy.

She also sang the national anthem with the Atlanta University Center Chorus at Super Bowl XXVIII

On December 2, 2006, Cole performed for the first time in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, as part of the annual Cayman Jazz Fest.[4]

On the February 5, 2007, episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Cole sang "I Say a Little Prayer" at a benefit dinner for Harriet Hayes (Sarah Paulson).

She can also be seen in the last scene of Nas' music video for "Can't Forget About You". The song uses a sample of her father's song "Unforgettable". Cole is sitting at a piano in a cabaret-style lounge mouthing her father's song with Nas standing beside her, sharing the moment.


Substance abuse and recovery

In 2000, Cole released an autobiography, Angel on My Shoulder, which described her battle with drugs during much of her life.

In the book, Cole admitted to using LSD, heroin and crack cocaine.
Cole said she began recreational drug use while attending the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
She also disclosed that she was arrested in Toronto, Canada for possession of heroin in 1975.
Cole continued to spiral out of control - including one incident where she refused to evacuate a burning building, and another where her young son Robert nearly drowned in the family swimming pool while she and her first husband, the late Reverend Marvin Yancy, were on a drug binge.[5] She did eventually enter rehab in 1983.[6]
In concert with the release of the book, her autobiography was turned into a made-for-TV movie, The Natalie Cole Story, which aired December 10, 2000 on NBC.

Here are some humorous statements made by airline flight crews...

"As we prepare for takeoff, please make sure your tray tables and seat backs are fully upright in their most uncomfortable position."

"There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways out of this airplane..."

"Your seat cushions can be used for floatation, and in the event of an emergency water landing, please take them with our compliments."

"We do feature a smoking section on this flight; if you must smoke, contact a member of the flight crew and we will escort you to the wing of the airplane."

"Smoking in the lavatories is prohibited. Any person caught smoking in the lavatories will be asked to leave the plane immediately."

"Good morning. As we leave Dallas, it's warm, the sun is shining, and the birds are singing. We are going to Charlotte, where it's dark, windy and raining. Why in the world y'all wanna go there I really don't know."

Pilot - "Folks, we have reached our cruising altitude now, so I am going to switch the seat belt sign off. Feel free to move about as you wish, but please stay inside the plane till we land... it's a bit cold outside, and if you walk on the wings it affects the flight pattern."

Pilot - "Folks, if you were with us last week, we never got around to mentioning that it was National Procrastination day. If you get a chance this week, please try to celebrate it. If you can't get to it, then maybe try to do it at the weekend, but no big rush. Have a nice day."

And, after landing: "Thank you for flying Delta Business Express. We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride."

As we waited just off the runway for another airliner to cross in front of us, some of the passengers were beginning to retrieve luggage from the overhead bins. The head steward announced on the intercom, "This aircraft is equipped with a video surveillance system that monitors the cabin during taxiing. Any passengers not remaining in their seats until the aircraft comes to a full and complete stop at the gate will be strip-searched asthey leave the aircraft.

As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Washington National, a lone voice comes over the loudspeaker: "Whoa, big fella...WHOA..!"

"Should the cabin lose pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the overhead area. Please place the bag over your own mouth and nose before assisting children or adults acting like children."

"As you exit the plane, please make sure to gather all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be distributed evenly among the flight attendants. Please do not leave children or spouses."

And from the pilot during his welcome message: "We are pleased to have some of the best flight attendants in the industry... Unfortunately none of them are on this flight!"

Thanks to the puppy and the hawk for the montage and the celeb bio's.

Well, Bob, those statements made by airline flight crews might be a bit disconcerting to first time fliers. Thanks for the smile, Boston.

We'll dedicate the following song to Rip Torn from Dennis Hopper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7827EMkm5ko

bob wrote :



my first flight was in 1960 from watertown , ny to NYC with "MOHAWK" airlines .
we had to wait in a little shed with a coffee shop while the flightcrew was kidding around .
pilot to a stewardess (now FLIGHT ATTENDANT !) :
"have i ever told you how i know when it's time to lift off ? "
puzzled look from stewardess
pilot : "it's easy . the co-pilot leans out the window and looks at the tarmac . he shouts at me : 'cement , cement , cement ... graaaassss !' .
i wasn't sure that i really wanted to go on that flight !
hbg

hamburger flying MOHAWK airlines

http://youtube.com/watch?v=s4fVp-hEPOk

Hilarious, hbg. Was that Kaiser helmet the cause of the puncture? My dad, who was in WWI, brought one of those helmets back with him.

"sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground"

That line by James Taylor I thought alluded to another airplane, folks. Let's listen.

We'll dedicate this one to all the erstwhile hippies out there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xhYk9PEmXA

I always liked the Alice books; through the looking glass and all that jazz. Does that count a bit towards being an erstwhile hippie, Letty?

It's been a while since we jambolayad or jambolaid or whatever. So hows about a little bit of Hank's stuff? (emphasis on the "little".)

Debacle, welcome back, buddy. Of course The Alice Books count. When I was a wee thing, I WAS Alice. Banged my head several times trying to get through my Mamma's mirror.

Ah, buddy, loved that one. Isn't that kid precious?

Wow, the country music business has sooooo many Hank's. This one I love as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIwzGtlHOwo

THREE YEAR OLD INUIT DRUM DANCER FROM NANAVUT/CANADA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAhQuXCrCcQ

Well, folks, once again I had some equipment problems. Seems all better now, but we shall have to wait and see.

hbg, how in the world those eskimos (ahem, Inuits) managed to teach that wee thing a song and dance chant is amazing. Thanks, Canada.

Well, I read today that several WWI veterans had recently died, and it is so odd that hbg and I discussed the Kaiser helmet and the ramifications thereof.

So this song we will consider a tribute to them. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=71smG5d29to

Time for me to say goodnight, and as most of you know, I love this one. I promise Raggedy that I will not get this fellow confused with "what's his name again". Oh, that's right, Sondheim.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsKlAwjeQsg

Goodnight, all.
From Letty with love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuNf70eV6sY

I heard this quite often in childhood - I love t still.

Good morning, WA2K listeners and contributors.

edgar, I think that I recall every song that was sung to me as a child, but I can't recall the first that I ever sang. Love Teddy Bear's Picnic, Texas.

Well, folks, it's the Year of the Rat, and I am certain that Roger is celebrating.

So, we have heard from the bear, how about a utopian song from the rat.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PScUdYTO0UM

Charles Dickens
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Charles Dickens is acclaimed as one of history's greatest novelists
Born 7 February 1812(1812-02-07)
Portsmouth, England

Died 9 June 1870 (aged 58)
Gad's Hill Place, Higham, Kent, England

Occupation Novelist
Influences Honoré de Balzac, Miguel de Cervantes, Victor Hugo, William Shakespeare
Influenced T. Coraghessan Boyle, Fyodor Dostoevsky, George Gissing, Thomas Hardy, John Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Tom Wolfe, G. K. Chesterton, George Orwell, Ray Bradbury
Charles John Huffam Dickens, FRSA (IPA: /ˈtʃɑrlz ˈdɪkɪnz/; 7 February 1812 - 9 June 1870), pen-name "Boz", was the foremost English novelist of the Victorian era, as well as a vigorous social campaigner. Considered one of the English language's greatest writers, he was acclaimed for his rich storytelling and memorable characters, and achieved massive worldwide popularity in his lifetime.

Later critics, beginning with George Gissing and G. K. Chesterton, championed his mastery of prose, his endless invention of memorable characters and his powerful social sensibilities, but fellow writers such as George Henry Lewes, Henry James and Virginia Woolf fault his work for sentimentality, implausible occurrence and grotesque characters.[1]

The popularity of Dickens' novels and short stories has meant that not one has ever gone out of print. Dickens wrote serialised novels, the usual format for fiction at the time, and each new part of his stories was eagerly anticipated by the reading public.





Life

Early years

Charles Dickens was born in Landport, Portsmouth in Hampshire, the second of eight children to John Dickens (1786 - 1851), a clerk in the Navy Pay Office at Portsmouth, and his wife Elizabeth Dickens (née Barrow, 1789 - 1863) on February 7 1812. When he was five, the family moved to Chatham, Kent. In 1822, when he was ten, the family relocated to 16 Bayham Street, Camden Town in London.


Although his early years seem to have been an idyllic time, he thought himself then as a "very small and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy".[2] He spent his time outdoors, but also read voraciously, with a particular fondness for the picaresque novels of Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. He talked later in life of his extremely poignant memories of childhood and his continuing photographic memory of the people and events that helped to bring his fiction to life. His family was moderately wealthy, and he received some education at the private William Giles' school in Chatham. This time of prosperity came to an abrupt end, however, when his father, after spending far too much money entertaining and retaining his social position, was imprisoned at Marshalsea debtors' prison.

The 12-year-old Dickens began working ten hour days in a Warren's boot-blacking factory, located near the present Charing Cross railway station. He earned six shillings a week pasting labels on the jars of thick polish. This money paid for his lodgings in Camden Town and helped him to support his family. The shocking conditions of the factory made an ingrained impression on Dickens.

After a few months, his family was able to leave Marshalsea, but their financial situation did not improve until later, partly due to money inherited from his father's family. Dickens's mother did not immediately remove him from the boot-blacking factory, owned by a relation of hers, and he never forgave her for this. Resentment of his situation and the conditions under which working-class people lived became major themes of his works, championing the causes of the poor and oppressed. As Dickens wrote in David Copperfield, his personal favorite as well as his most patently autobiographical novel,[3] "I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from anyone, that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven!" He eventually attended the Wellington House Academy in North London.

In May 1827, Dickens began work in the office of Ellis and Blackmore as a law clerk. This was a junior office position, but it came with the potential of helping him up to the Bar. It was here that he gained his detailed knowledge of the law and the poor's suffering at the hands of its many injustices, together with a loathing of inefficient bureaucracy which stayed with him for the rest his life. He showed his contempt for the lawyer's profession in his many literary works.

At the age of seventeen, he became a court stenographer and, in 1830, met his first love, Maria Beadnell. It is believed that she was the model for the character Dora in David Copperfield. Maria's parents disapproved of the courtship and effectively ended the relationship when they sent her to school in Paris.


Journalism and early novels

In 1834, Dickens became a political journalist, reporting on parliamentary debate and traveling across Britain by stagecoach to cover election campaigns for the Morning Chronicle. His journalism, in the form of sketches which appeared in periodicals from 1833, formed his first collection of pieces Sketches by Boz which were published in 1836 and led to the serialization of his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, in March 1836. He continued to contribute to and edit journals throughout much of his subsequent literary career. Dickens's keen perceptiveness, intimate knowledge and understanding of the people and tale-spinning genius was quickly to gain him world renown and wealth.

On 2 April 1836, he married Catherine Thompson Hogarth (1816 - 1879), the daughter of George Hogarth, editor of the Evening Chronicle. After a brief honeymoon in Chalk, Kent, they set up home in Bloomsbury, where they had ten children:

Charles Culliford Boz Dickens (6 January 1837 - 1896). C. C. B. Dickens, later known as Charles Dickens, Jr, editor for All the Year Round, author of the Dickens's Dictionary of London (1879).
Mary Angela Dickens (6 March 1838 - 1896).
Kate Macready Dickens (29 October 1839 - 1929).
Walter Landor Dickens (8 February 1841 - 1863). Died in India.
Francis Jeffrey Dickens (15 January 1844 - 1886).
Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens (28 October 1845 - 1912).
Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens (18 April 1847 - 1872).
(Sir) Henry Fielding Dickens (15 January 1849 - 1933).
Henry Charles Dickens (1882 - 1966), barrister. (Grandson)
Monica Dickens (1915 - 1992). (Great-granddaughter)
Dora Annie Dickens (16 August 1850 - April 1851).
Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens (13 March 1852 - 23 January 1902). He migrated to Australia, and became a member of the New South Wales state parliament. He died in Moree, New South Wales.
Catherine's sister Mary entered Dickens's Doughty Street household to offer support to her newly married sister and brother-in-law. It was not unusual for the unwedded sister of a new wife to either live with and help a newly married couple. Dickens became very attached to Mary and she died after a brief illness in his arms in 1837. She became a character in many of his books, and her death is fictionalized as the death of Little Nell.[4]

Also in 1836, Dickens accepted the job of editor of Bentley's Miscellany, a position that he would hold until 1839, when he fell out with the owner. His success as a novelist continued, however, producing Oliver Twist (1837-39), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39), The Old Curiosity Shop and, finally, Barnaby Rudge as part of the Master Humphrey's Clock series (1840-41) -- all published in monthly instalments before being made into books. Dickens had a pet raven named Grip; it died in 1841 and Dickens had it stuffed (it is now at The Free Library of Philadelphia).[1]

Dickens made two trips to North America.

In 1842, Dickens travelled with his wife to the United States and Canada, a journey which was successful in spite of his support for the abolition of slavery.

During this visit, Dickens spent time in New York City, where he gave lectures, raised support for copyright laws, and recorded many of his impressions of America. He toured the City for a month, and met such luminaries as Washington Irving and William Cullen Bryant. On 1842-02-14, a Boz Ball (named after his pseudonym) was held in his honor at the Park Theater, with 3,000 of New York's elite present. Among the neighborhoods he visited were Five Points, Wall Street, The Bowery, and the prison known as The Tombs[5].

The trip is described in the short travelogue American Notes for General Circulation and is also the basis of some of the episodes in Martin Chuzzlewit. Shortly thereafter, he began to show interest in Unitarian Christianity, although he remained an Anglican, at least nominally, for the rest of his life. [2] Dickens's work continued to be popular, especially A Christmas Carol written in 1843, the first of his Christmas books, which was reputedly written in a matter of weeks.

After living briefly abroad in Italy (1844) and Switzerland (1846), Dickens continued his success with Dombey and Son (1848); David Copperfield (1849-50); Bleak House (1852-53); Hard Times (1854); Little Dorrit (1857); A Tale of Two Cities (1859); and Great Expectations (1861). Dickens was also the publisher and editor of, and a major contributor to, the journals Household Words (1850 - 1859) and All the Year Round (1858-1870).


Middle years

In 1856, his popularity had allowed him to buy Gad's Hill Place. This large house in Higham, Kent, had a particular meaning to Dickens as he had walked past it as a child and had dreamed of living in it. The area was also the scene of some of the events of Shakespeare's Henry IV, part 1 and this literary connection pleased him.

In 1857, in preparation for public performances of The Frozen Deep, a play on which he and his protégé Wilkie Collins had collaborated, Dickens hired professional actresses to play the female parts. With one of these, Ellen Ternan, Dickens formed a bond which was to last the rest of his life. The exact nature of their relationship is unclear, as both Dickens and Ternan burned each other's letters, but it was clearly central to Dickens's personal and professional life. On his death, he settled an annuity on her which made her a financially independent woman. Claire Tomalin's book, The Invisible Woman, set out to prove that Ellen Ternan lived with Dickens secretly for the last 13 years of his life, and has subsequently been turned into a play by Simon Gray called Little Nell.

When Dickens separated from his wife in 1858, divorce was almost unthinkable, particularly for someone as famous as he was, and so he continued to maintain her in a house for the next 20 years until she died. Although they appeared to be initially happy together, Catherine did not seem to share quite the same boundless energy for life which Dickens had. Nevertheless, her job of looking after their ten children, and the pressure of living with a world-famous novelist and keeping house for him, certainly did not help.

An indication of his marital dissatisfaction was when, in 1855, he went to meet his first love, Maria Beadnell. Maria was by this time married as well, but seemed to have fallen short of Dickens's romantic memory of her.


Rail accident and last years

On 9 June 1865, while returning from France with Ternan, Dickens was involved in the Staplehurst rail crash in which the first seven carriages of the train plunged off a cast iron bridge that was being repaired. The only first-class carriage to remain on the track was the one in which Dickens was travelling. Dickens spent some time tending the wounded and the dying before rescuers arrived. Before leaving, he remembered the unfinished manuscript for Our Mutual Friend, and he returned to his carriage to retrieve it. Typically, Dickens later used this experience as material for his short ghost story The Signal-Man in which the central character has a premonition of his own death in a rail crash. He based the story around several previous rail accidents, such as the Clayton Tunnel rail crash of 1861.


Dickens managed to avoid an appearance at the inquest into the crash, as it would have become known that he was travelling that day with Ellen Ternan and her mother, which could have caused a scandal. Ellen had been Dickens's companion since the breakdown of his marriage, and, as he had met her in 1857, she was most likely the ultimate reason for that breakdown. She continued to be his companion, and likely mistress, until his death. The dimensions of the affair were unknown until the publication of Dickens and Daughter, a book about Dickens's relationship with his daughter Kate, in 1939. Kate Dickens worked with author Gladys Storey on the book prior to her death in 1929, and alleged that Dickens and Ternan had a son who died in infancy, though no contemporary evidence exists.

Dickens, though unharmed, never really recovered from the Staplehurst crash, and his normally prolific writing shrank to completing Our Mutual Friend and starting the unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood after a long interval. Much of his time was taken up with public readings from his best-loved novels. Dickens was fascinated by the theatre as an escape from the world, and theatres and theatrical people appear in Nicholas Nickleby. The travelling shows were extremely popular and, after three tours of British Isles, Dickens made one more trip outside of Britain.

Dickens made his second trip to the United States in 1867. During this trip, most of which he spent in New York, he gave 22 readings at Steinway Hall between 1867-12-09 and 1868-04-20, and four at Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims between 1868-01-16 and 1868-01-21. In his travels, he saw a significant change in the people and the circumstances of America. His final appearance was at a banquet at Delmonico's on 1868-04-18, when he promised to never denounce America again. Dickens boarded his ship to return to Britain on 1868-04-23, barely escaping a Federal Tax Lien against the proceeds of his lecture tour[5].


"Charles Dickens as he appears when reading." Wood engraving from Harper's Weekly, 7 December 1867The effort and passion he put into these readings with individual character voices is also thought to have contributed to his death. When he undertook another English tour of readings (1869 - 1870), he became ill and five years to the day after the Staplehurst crash, on 9 June 1870, he died at home at Gad's Hill Place after suffering a stroke, after a full, interesting and varied life. He was mourned by all his readers.

Contrary to his wish to be buried in Rochester Cathedral, he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. The inscription on his tomb reads: "He was a sympathiser to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world." Dickens's will stipulated that no memorial be erected to honour him. The only life-size bronze statue of Dickens, cast in 1891 by Francis Edwin Elwell, is located in Clark Park in the Spruce Hill neighbourhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States.


Literary style

Dickens's writing style is florid and poetic, with a strong comic touch. His satires of British aristocratic snobbery ?- he calls one character the "Noble Refrigerator" ?- are often popular. Comparing orphans to stocks and shares, people to tug boats, or dinner-party guests to furniture are just some of Dickens's acclaimed flights of fancy. Many of his character's names provide the reader with a hint as to the roles played in advancing the storyline, such as Miss Murdstone in the novel David Copperfield, which is clearly a combination of "murder" and stony coldness. His literary style is also a mixture of fantasy and realism.


Characters

Charles Dickens used his rich imagination, sense of humour and detailed memories, particularly of his childhood, to enliven his fiction.The characters are among the most memorable in English literature; certainly their names are. The likes of Ebenezer Scrooge, Fagin, Mrs Gamp, Charles Darnay, Oliver Twist, Micawber, Abel Magwitch, Samuel Pickwick, Miss Havisham, Wackford Squeers and many others are so well known and can be believed to be living a life outside the novels that their stories have been continued by other authors.

Dickens loved the style of 18th century gothic romance, though it had already become a target for parody ?- Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey being a well known example ?- and while some of his characters are grotesques, their eccentricities do not usually overshadow the stories. One 'character' most vividly drawn throughout his novels is London itself. From the coaching inns on the outskirts of the city to the lower reaches of the Thames, all aspects of the capital are described over the course of his corpus.


Episodic writing

As noted above, most of Dickens's major novels were first written in monthly or weekly instalments in journals such as Master Humphrey's Clock and Household Words, later reprinted in book form. These instalments made the stories cheap, accessible and the series of regular cliff-hangers made each new episode widely anticipated. American fans even waited at the docks in New York, shouting out to the crew of an incoming ship, "Is Little Nell dead?"[citation needed] Part of Dickens's great talent was to incorporate this episodic writing style but still end up with a coherent novel at the end. The monthly numbers were illustrated by, amongst others, "Phiz" (a pseudonym for Hablot Browne). Among his best-known works are Great Expectations, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, Nicholas Nickleby, The Pickwick Papers, and A Christmas Carol.

Dickens's technique of writing in monthly or weekly instalments (depending on the work) can be understood by analysing his relationship with his illustrators. The several artists who filled this role were privy to the contents and intentions of Dickens's instalments before the general public. Thus, by reading these correspondences between author and illustrator, the intentions behind Dickens's work can be better understood. What was hidden in his art is made plain in these letters. These also reveal how the interests of the reader and author do not coincide. A great example of that appears in the monthly novel Oliver Twist. At one point in this work, Dickens had Oliver become embroiled in a robbery. That particular monthly instalment concludes with young Oliver being shot. Readers expected that they would be forced to wait only a month to find out the outcome of that gunshot. In fact, Dickens did not reveal what became of young Oliver in the succeeding number. Rather, the reading public was forced to wait two months to discover if the boy lived.

Another important impact of Dickens's episodic writing style was his exposure to the opinions of his readers. Since Dickens did not write the chapters very far ahead of their publication, he was allowed to witness the public reaction and alter the story depending on those public reactions. A fine example of this process can be seen in his weekly serial The Old Curiosity Shop, which is a chase story. In this novel, Little Nell and her Grandfather are fleeing the villain Quilp. The progress of the novel follows the gradual success of that pursuit. As Dickens wrote and published the weekly instalments, his friend John Forster pointed out: "You know you're going to have to kill her, don't you." Why this end was necessary can be explained by a brief analysis of the difference between the structure of a comedy versus a tragedy. In a comedy, the action covers a sequence "You think they're going to lose, you think they're going to lose, they win." In tragedy, it's: "You think they're going to win, you think they're going to win, they lose". The dramatic conclusion of the story is implicit throughout the novel. So, as Dickens wrote the novel in the form of a tragedy, the sad outcome of the novel was a foregone conclusion. If he had not caused his heroine to lose, he would not have completed his dramatic structure. Dickens admitted that his friend Forster was right and, in the end, Little Nell died. [6]


Social commentary

Dickens's novels were, among other things, works of social commentary. He was a fierce critic of the poverty and social stratification of Victorian society. Dickens's second novel, Oliver Twist (1839), shocked readers with its images of poverty and crime and was responsible for the clearing of the actual London slum that was the basis of the story's Jacob's Island. In addition, with the character of the tragic prostitute, Nancy, Dickens "humanised" such women for the reading public; women who were regarded as "unfortunates," inherently immoral casualties of the Victorian class/economic system. Bleak House and Little Dorrit elaborated expansive critiques of the Victorian institutional apparatus: the interminable lawsuits of the Court of Chancery that destroyed people's lives in Bleak House and a dual attack in Little Dorrit on inefficient, corrupt patent offices and unregulated market speculation.


Literary techniques

Dickens is often described as using 'idealised' characters and highly sentimental scenes to contrast with his caricatures and the ugly social truths he reveals. The extended death scene of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) was received as incredibly moving by contemporary readers but viewed as ludicrously sentimental by Oscar Wilde:"You would need to have a heart of stone," he declared in one of his famous witticisms, "not to laugh at the death of Little Nell."[7] In 1903 Chesterton said, "It is not the death of Little Nell, but the life of Little Nell, that I object to." [8]

In Oliver Twist Dickens provides readers with an idealised portrait of a young boy so inherently and unrealistically 'good' that his values are never subverted by either brutal orphanages or coerced involvement in a gang of young pickpockets (similar to Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol). While later novels also centre on idealised characters (Esther Summerson in Bleak House and Amy Dorrit in Little Dorrit) this idealism serves only to highlight Dickens's goal of poignant social commentary. Many of his novels are concerned with social realism, focusing on mechanisms of social control that direct people's lives (for instance, factory networks in Hard Times and hypocritical exclusionary class codes in Our Mutual Friend).

Dickens also employs incredible coincidences (e.g. Oliver Twist turns out to be the lost nephew of the upper class family that randomly rescues him from the dangers of the pickpocket group). Such coincidences are a staple of eighteenth century picaresque novels such as Henry Fielding's Tom Jones that Dickens enjoyed so much. But to Dickens these were not just plot devices but an index of the humanism that led him to believe that good wins out in the end and often in unexpected ways.


Autobiographical elements

All authors might be said to incorporate autobiographical elements in their fiction, but with Dickens this is very noticeable, even though he took pains to cover up what he considered his shameful, lowly past. David Copperfield is one of the most clearly autobiographical but the scenes from Bleak House of interminable court cases and legal arguments are drawn from the author's brief career as a court reporter. Dickens's own family was sent to prison for poverty, a common theme in many of his books, and the detailed depiction of life in the Marshalsea prison in Little Dorrit is due to Dickens's own experiences of the institution. Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop is thought to represent Dickens's sister-in-law,[citation needed] Nicholas Nickleby's father and Wilkins Micawber are certainly Dickens's own father, just as Mrs. Nickleby and Mrs. Micawber are similar to his mother.[citation needed] The snobbish nature of Pip from Great Expectations also has some affinity to the author himself. The character of Fagin is believed to be based upon Ikey Solomon, a 19th century Jewish criminal of London and later Australia. It is reported that Dickens, during his time as a journalist, interviewed Solomon after a court appearance and that he was the inspiration for the gang leader in Oliver Twist. Dickens may have drawn on his childhood experiences, but he was also ashamed of them and would not reveal that this was where he got his realistic accounts of squalor. Very few knew the details of his early life until six years after his death when John Forster published a biography on which Dickens had collaborated. A shameful past in Victorian times could taint reputations, just as it did for some of his characters, and this may have been Dickens's own fear.


Legacy

Charles Dickens was a well-known personality and his novels were immensely popular during his lifetime. His first full novel, The Pickwick Papers (1837), brought him immediate fame and this continued right through his career. Although rarely departing greatly from his typical "Dickensian" method of always attempting to write a great "story" in a somewhat conventional manner (the dual narrators of Bleak House are a notable exception), he experimented with varied themes, characterisations and genres. Some of these experiments have proved more popular than others and the public's taste and appreciation of his many works have varied over time. He was usually keen to give his readers what they wanted, and the monthly or weekly publication of his works in episodes meant that the books could change as the story proceeded at the whim of the public. A good example of this are the American episodes in Martin Chuzzlewit which were put in by Dickens in response to lower than normal sales of the earlier chapters. In Our Mutual Friend, the inclusion of the character of Riah was a positive portrayal of a Jewish character after he was criticised for the depiction of Fagin in Oliver Twist.

His popularity has waned little since his death and he is still one of the best known and most read of English authors. At least 180 motion pictures and TV adaptations based on Dickens's works help confirm his success.[citation needed] Many of his works were adapted for the stage during his own lifetime and as early as 1913 a silent film of The Pickwick Papers was made. His characters were often so memorable that they took on a life of their own outside his books. Gamp became a slang expression for an umbrella from the character Mrs Gamp and Pickwickian, Pecksniffian and Gradgrind all entered dictionaries due to Dickens's original portraits of such characters who were quixotic, hypocritical or emotionlessly logical. Sam Weller, the carefree and irreverent valet of The Pickwick Papers, was an early superstar, perhaps better known than his author at first. It is likely that A Christmas Carol is his best-known story, with new adaptations almost every year. It is also the most-filmed of Dickens's stories, many versions dating from the early years of cinema. This simple morality tale with both pathos and its theme of redemption, for many, sums up the true meaning of Christmas and eclipses all other Yuletide stories in not only popularity, but in adding archetypal figures (Scrooge, Tiny Tim, the Christmas ghosts) to the Western cultural consciousness. Some historians consider this book to have played a major factor in redefining the holiday and its major sentiments.[citation needed] A Christmas Carol was written by Dickens in an attempt to forestall financial disaster as a result of flagging sales of his novel Martin Chuzzlewit. Years later, Dickens shared that he was "deeply affected" in writing A Christmas Carol and the novel rejuvenated his career as a renowned author.

At a time when Britain was the major economic and political power of the world, Dickens highlighted the life of the forgotten poor and disadvantaged at the heart of empire. Through his journalism he campaigned on specific issues ?- such as sanitation and the workhouse ?- but his fiction was probably all the more powerful in changing public opinion in regard to class inequalities. He often depicted the exploitation and repression of the poor and condemned the public officials and institutions that allowed such abuses to exist. His most strident indictment of this condition is in Hard Times (1854), Dickens's only novel-length treatment of the industrial working class. In that work, he uses both vitriol and satire to illustrate how this marginalised social stratum was termed "Hands" by the factory owners, that is, not really "people" but rather only appendages of the machines that they operated. His writings inspired others, in particular journalists and political figures, to address such problems of class oppression. For example, the prison scenes in Little Dorrit and The Pickwick Papers were prime movers in having the Marshalsea and Fleet Prisons shut down. As Karl Marx said, Dickens, and the other novelists of Victorian England, "…issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together…".[9] The exceptional popularity of his novels, even those with socially oppositional themes (Bleak House, 1853; Little Dorrit, 1857; Our Mutual Friend, 1865) underscored not only his almost preternatural ability to create compelling storylines and unforgettable characters, but also insured that the Victorian public confronted issues of social justice that had commonly been ignored.

His fiction, with often vivid descriptions of life in nineteenth century England, has inaccurately and anachronistically come to globally symbolise Victorian society (1837 - 1901) as uniformly "Dickensian," when in fact, his novels' time span is from the 1770s to the 1860s. In the decade following his death in 1870, a more intense degree of socially and philosophically pessimistic perspectives invested British fiction; such themes were in contrast to the religious faith that ultimately held together even the bleakest of Dickens's novels. Later Victorian novelists such as Thomas Hardy and George Gissing were influenced by Dickens, but their works display a greater willingness to confront and challenge the Victorian institution of religion. They also portray characters caught up by social forces (primarily via lower-class conditions) but which usually steer them to tragic ends beyond their control.

Novelists continue to be influenced by his books; for example, such disparate current writers as Anne Rice, Tom Wolfe and John Irving evidence direct Dickensian connections. Humorist James Finn Garner even wrote a tongue-in-cheek "politically correct" version of A Christmas Carol, and other affectionate parodies include the Radio 4 comedy Bleak Expectations.

Although Dickens's life has been the subject of at least two TV miniseries and two famous one-man shows, he has never been the subject of a Hollywood "big screen" biography.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=axmDT5JpzyQ

Dickens!!!!!