WA2K Radio is now on the air

Good morning WA2K folks, and a special good morning to Urs in Germany.

That was a fabulous Soccer song, gal, it made me want to get up and dance, but it's too early for that here in Florida. I can see why spectators get all worked up if they had that song to encourage them. Thanks, Urs, for the vicarious experience.

Well, today is the legendary James Dean's birthday, so here's one by The Eagles. First, the lyrics as that quartet is about as easy to understand as is German. Strange, however, as their latest is called Long Road Out of Eden.


James Dean
James Dean, James Dean
I know just what you mean
James Dean, you said it all so clean
And I know my life would look allright
If I could see it on the silver screen

You were the lowdown rebel if there ever was
Even if you had no cause
James Dean, you said it all so clean
And I know my life would look all right
If I could see it on the silver screen

We'll talk about a low-down bad refrigerator,
You were just too cool for school
Sock hop, soda pop, basketball and auto shop,
The only thing that got you off was breakin' all the rules
James Dean, James Dean
So hungry and so lean
James Dean, you said it all so clean
And I know my life would look all right
If I could see it on the silver screen

Little James Dean, up on the screen
Wond'rin' who he might be
Along came a Spyder and picked up a rider
And took him down the road to eternity

James Dean, James Dean, you bought it sight unseen

You were too fast to live, too young to die, bye-bye
You were to fast to live, too young to die, bye-bye
Bye-bye, Bye-bye, Bye-bye, Bye, bye

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlxYDJ2Z4Cs&feature=related

Your weather report from WA2K radio.

Tornadoes Kill at Least 55 Across Southern U.S., Despite Repeated Warnings Thursday, February 07, 2008


LAFAYETTE, Tenn. ?- One man pulled a couch over his head. Bank employees rushed into the vault. A woman trembled in her bathroom, clinging to her dogs. College students huddled in dormitories.
Tornado warnings had been broadcast for hours, and when the sirens finally announced that the twisters had arrived, many people across the South took shelter and saved their lives. But others simply had nowhere safe to go, or the storms proved too powerful, too numerous, too unpredictable.
At least 55 people were killed and hundreds injured Tuesday and Wednesday by dozens of tornadoes that plowed across Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama. It was the nation's deadliest barrage of twisters in almost 23 years.
"We had a beautiful neighborhood. Now it's hell," said Bonnie Brawner, 80

For a while, there was a tornado watch for Tampa Bay here in Florida. Not much that Florida residents can do except find a safe room

I got caught up in James Dean clips on youtube now.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SGuxAs8HkZM&feature=related

Sun Arise

Urs, James still has a cult following. My young friends in Orlando have a license plate on their car that shows the guy's picture.

Morning, edgar. Love that song and here's another by Rolf. Australia will please forgive the parody

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KJW_8yZIP0w&feature=related

Jules Verne
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born February 8, 1828(1828-02-08)
Nantes, France
Died March 24, 1905 (aged 77)
Amiens, France
Occupation Novelist
Nationality French
Genres Science Fiction
Influences Edgar Allan Poe





Jules Gabriel Verne (February 8, 1828-March 24, 1905) was a French author who pioneered the science-fiction genre. He is best known for novels such as Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before air travel and practical submarines were invented, and before practical means of space travel had been devised. He is the third most translated author in the world, according to Index Translationum. Some of his books have been made into films. Verne, along with H. G. Wells, is often popularly referred to as the "Father of Science Fiction".[1]





Biography

Early years

Jules Gabriel Verne was born to Pierre Verne, an attorney (died 1871), and his wife, Sophie-Henriette Allotte de la Fuÿe (died 1887), in Nantes. The eldest of five children, he spent his early years at home with his parents in the bustling harbor city of Nantes. The family spent summers in a country house just outside the city, on the banks of the Loire River. Jules and his brother Paul would often rent a boat for a franc a day. The sight of the many ships navigating the river sparked Jules' imagination, as he describes in the autobiographical short story Souvenirs d'Enfance et de Jeunesse. At the age of nine, Jules and Paul, of whom he was very fond, were sent to boarding school at the Saint Donatien College (Petit séminaire de Saint-Donatien). As a child, he developed a great interest in travel and exploration, a passion he showed as a writer of adventure stories and science fiction.


At the boarding school, Verne studied Latin, which he used in his short story Le Mariage de Monsieur Anselme des Tilleuls in the mid-1850s. One of his teachers may have been the French inventor Brutus de Villeroi, professor of drawing and mathematics at the college in 1842, and who later became famous for creating the US Navy's first submarine, the USS Alligator. De Villeroi may have inspired Verne's conceptual design for the Nautilus in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, although no direct exchanges between the two men have been recorded.


Literary debut

After completing his studies at the lycée, Jules Verne went to Paris to study law. About 1848, in conjunction with Michel Carré, he began writing librettos for operettas. For some years his attentions were divided between the theatre and work, but some travellers' stories which he wrote for the Musée des Familles revealed to him his true talent: the telling of delightfully extravagant voyages and adventures to which cleverly prepared scientific and geographical details lent an air of verisimilitude.

When Verne's father discovered that his son was writing rather than studying law, he promptly withdrew his financial support. Verne was forced to support himself as a stockbroker, which he hated despite being somewhat successful at it. During this period, he met Alexandre Dumas, père and Victor Hugo, who offered him writing advice.

Verne also met Honorine de Viane Morel, a widow with two daughters. They were married on January 10, 1857. With her encouragement, he continued to write and actively looked for a publisher. On August 3, 1861, their son, Michel Jean Verne, was born. A classic enfant terrible, Michel was sent to Mettray Penal Colony in 1876 and later would marry an actress in spite of Verne's objections, had two children by his 16 year old mistress, and buried himself in debts. The relationship between father and son did improve as Michel grew older.


Verne's situation improved when he met Pierre-Jules Hetzel, one of the most important French publishers of the 19th century, who also published Victor Hugo, Georges Sand, and Erckmann-Chatrian, among others. They formed an excellent writer-publisher team until Hetzel's death. Hetzel helped improve Verne's writings, which until then had been repeatedly rejected by other publishers. Hetzel read a draft of Verne's story about the balloon exploration of Africa, which had been rejected by other publishers for being "too scientific". With Hetzel's help, Verne rewrote the story, which was published in 1863 in book form as Cinq semaines en ballon (Five Weeks in a Balloon). Acting on Hetzel's advice, Verne added comical accents to his novels, changed sad endings into happy ones, and toned down various political messages.

From that point to years after Verne's death, Hetzel published two or more volumes a year. The most successful of these include: Voyage au centre de la terre (Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1864); De la terre à la lune (From the Earth to the Moon, 1865); Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, 1869); and Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (Around the World in Eighty Days), which first appeared in Le Temps in 1872. The series is collectively known as "Les voyages extraordinaires" ("extraordinary voyages"). Verne could now live on his writings. But most of his wealth came from the stage adaptations of Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (1874) and Michel Strogoff (1876), which he wrote with Adolphe d'Ennery. In 1867 Verne bought a small ship, the Saint-Michel, which he successively replaced with the Saint-Michel II and the Saint-Michel III as his financial situation improved. On board the Saint-Michel III, he sailed around Europe. In 1870, he was appointed "Chevalier" (Knight) of the Légion d'honneur. After his first novel, most of his stories were first serialised in the Magazine d'Éducation et de Récréation, a Hetzel biweekly publication, before being published in the form of books. His brother Paul contributed to 40th French climbing of the Mont-Blanc and a collection of short stories, Doctor Ox (1874). According to the Unesco Index Translationum, Jules Verne regularly places among the top five most translated authors in the world.


Last years

On March 9, 1886, as Verne was coming home, his twenty-five-year-old paranoid nephew, Gaston, shot him with a gun. One bullet missed, but the second entered Verne's left leg, giving him a limp that would not be cured. This left Verne limping for life. Gaston spent the rest of his life in an asylum.

After the deaths of Hetzel and his beloved mother in 1887, Jules began writing darker works. This may partly be due to changes in his personality, but an important factor is the fact that Hetzel's son, who took over his father's business, was not as rigorous in his corrections as Hetzel Sr. had been. In 1888, Jules Verne entered politics and was elected town councilor of Amiens, where he championed several improvements and served for fifteen years. In 1905, while ill with diabetes, Verne died at his home, 44 Boulevard Longueville (now Boulevard Jules-Verne). Michel oversaw publication of his last novels Invasion of the Sea and The Lighthouse at the End of the World. The "Voyages extraordinaires" series continued for several years afterwards in the same rhythm of two volumes a year. It has later been discovered that Michel Verne had made extensive changes in these stories, and the original versions were published at the end of the 20th century.

In 1863, Jules Verne wrote a novel called Paris in the 20th Century about a young man who lives in a world of glass skyscrapers, high-speed trains, gas-powered automobiles, calculators, and a worldwide communications network, yet cannot find happiness and comes to a tragic end. Hetzel thought the novel's pessimism would damage Verne's then booming career, and suggested he wait 20 years to publish it. Verne put the manuscript in a safe, where it was discovered by his great-grandson in 1989. It was published in 1994.


Reputation in English-speaking countries

While Verne is considered in many countries such as France as an author of quality books for young people, with a good command of his subjects, including technology and politics, his reputation in English-speaking countries suffered for a long time from poor translation.

It has been said that 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea portrays the British Empire in a bad light, and so the first English translator, Reverend Lewis Page Mercier working under a pseudonym, removed many such passages, such as those describing the political actions of Captain Nemo in his incarnation as an Indian nobleman. Such negative depictions were not, however, invariable in Verne's works; for example, Facing the Flag features Lieutenant Devon, a heroic, self-sacrificing Royal Navy officer worthy of any written by British authors. Captain Nemo, an Indian, was balanced by Ned Land, a Canadian. Some of Verne's most famous heroes were British (e.g. Phileas Fogg in Around the World in Eighty Days).

Mercier and subsequent British translators also had trouble with the metric system that Verne used, sometimes dropping significant figures, at other times keeping the nominal value and only changing the unit to an Imperial measure. Thus Verne's calculations, which in general were remarkably exact, were converted into mathematical gibberish. Also, artistic passages and whole chapters were cut because of the need to fit the work in a constrained space for publication.

For those reasons, Verne's work initially acquired a reputation in English-speaking countries for not being fit for adult readers. This in turn prevented him from being taken seriously enough to merit new translations, leading to those of Mercier and others being reprinted decade after decade. Only from 1965 on were some of his novels re-translated more accurately, but even today Verne's work has still not been fully rehabilitated in the English-speaking world.

Verne's works may also reflect the bitterness France felt in the wake of defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to 1871, and the loss of Alsace and Lorraine. The Begum's Millions (Les Cinq cents millions de la Begum) of 1879 gives a highly stereotypical depiction of Germans as monstrous cruel militarists. By contrast, almost all the protagonists in his pre-1871 works, such as the sympathetic first-person narrator in Journey to the Centre of the Earth, are German.


Hetzel's influence

Hetzel substantially influenced the writings of Verne, who was so happy to finally find a willing publisher that he agreed on almost all changes that Hetzel suggested. Hetzel rejected at least one novel (Paris in the 20th Century), and asked Verne to significantly change his other drafts. One of the most important changes Hetzel enforced on Verne was the adoption of optimism in his novels. Verne was in fact not an enthusiast of technological and human progress, as can be seen in his works created before he met Hetzel and after his death. Hetzel's demand of the optimistic text proved correct. For example, The Mysterious Island originally ended with the survivors returning to mainland forever nostalgic about the island. Hetzel decided that the heroes should live happily, so in the revised draft, they use their fortunes to build a replica of the island. Many translations are like this. Also, in order not to offend France's then-ally, Russia, the origin and past of the famous Captain Nemo were changed from those of a Polish refugee avenging the partitions of Poland and the death of his family in the January Uprising repressions to those of an Indian prince fighting the British Empire after the Sikh War.


Predictions

Jules Verne's novels have been noted for being startlingly accurate anticipations of modern times. Paris in the 20th Century is an often cited example of this as it describes air conditioning, automobiles, the internet, television, and other modern conveniences very similar to their real world counterparts. Another good example is From the Earth to the Moon, which is uncannily similar to the real Apollo Program, as three astronauts are launched from the Florida peninsula and recovered through a splash landing. His other notable predictions were of helicopters, submarines, projectors, jukeboxes, etc.


Scholars' jokes

Verne, who had a large archive and always kept up with the scientific and technological progress, sometimes seemed to joke with the readers, using so called "scholars' jokes" (that is, a joke that only a scientist may recognise). These appear for example in Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen, where it is a Manticora beetle which helps Cousin Bénédict to escape from imprisonment, when the aforementioned, not guarded in a garden, follows the beetle. Since the beetle escapes from him by flying, while in fact the genus is flightless, it is possible that this is one such joke. Other examples appear for example in Mysterious Island (its fauna and flora - note that one of the main characters, the sailor Bonadventure Pencroff talks to Cyrus Harding whether the latter believes in islands made specially as ideal ones for castaways) or From the Earth to the Moon (the material used for the cannon - in this case it was probably poetic license, since the description of the making of the gun became far more dramatic), or The Begum's Millions, where the methods used for making steel in "Steel City", described as the most modern steel factory in the world, were rather dated, but, again, much more spectacular to describe. (See Neff, 1978)

Charles Ruggles
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Charles Sherman Ruggles (more often known as Charlie Ruggles) (February 8, 1886 - December 23, 1970) was a comic American actor. In a career spanning six decades, Ruggles appeared in close to 100 feature films. He was also the brother of director, producer, and silent actor Wesley Ruggles (1889 - 1972).


Career

Charlie Ruggles was born in Los Angeles, California in 1886. Despite training to be a doctor, Ruggles soon found himself on the stage, appearing in a stock production of Nathan Hale in 1905. He moved to Broadway to appear in Help Wanted in 1914. His first screen role came in the silent Peer Gynt the following year. Throughout the 1910s and 1920s Ruggles continued to appear in silent movies, though his passion remained the stage, appearing in long-running productions such as The Passing Show of 1918, The Demi-Virgin and Battling Butler. His most famous stage hit was one of his last before a twenty year hiatus, Queen High, produced in 1930.

From 1929, Ruggles appeared in talking pictures. His first was Gentleman of the Press in which he played a comic, alcoholic, newspaper reporter; a role he was to repeat several times over the years. He struck up a comic partnership with the formidable actress Mary Boland with whom he appeared with in half-a-dozen farces in the 1930s, notably Six of a Kind, Ruggles of Red Gap, and People Will Talk. He remains perhaps best remembered today as the big game hunter in Bringing Up Baby. In other films he often played the "comic relief" character in otherwise straight films. In all, he appeared in about 100 movies.

In 1949, Ruggles halted in his film career to return to the stage and to move into television. He was the headline character in the TV series The Ruggles, where he played a character also called Charlie Ruggles, and The World of Mr. Sweeney. He returned to the big screen in 1961, playing Charles McKendrick in The Parent Trap and Mackenzie Savage in The Pleasure of His Company. He was a guest star on The Beverly Hillbillies, in the mid-1960's and had a recurring role as Lowell Redlings Farquahr, father-in-law of Milburn Drysdale (Raymond Bailey).

Ruggles died of cancer at his Hollywood home in 1970 at the age of 84. He was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard.

Edith Evans
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Birth name Edith Mary Evans
Born February 8, 1888
London, England
Died October 14, 1976 (aged 88)
Kent, England
Spouse(s) George Booth (1925-1935)
[show]Awards
BAFTA Awards
Best Actress
1967 The Whisperers
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1968 The Whisperers

Dame Edith Mary Evans DBE (8 February 1888-14 October 1976) was an Academy Award nominated and Golden Globe award winning actress.

Born in London, the daughter of Edward Evans, a civil servant, and his wife, Caroline Ellen Foster. She was educated at St Michael's Church of England School, Pimlico, before being apprenticed at the age of 15 in 1903 as a milliner.

Her first stage appearance was with Miss Massey's Streatham Shakespeare Players in the role of Viola in Twelfth Night in October 1910. In 1912 she was discovered by the noted producer William Poel and made her first professional appearance for Poel in August of that year, playing the role of Gautami in an obscure sixth-century Hindu classic, Sakuntala. She received much attention with her performance as Cressida in Troilus and Cressida in London and subsequently at Stratford upon Avon.

Her distinguished career which spanned sixty years and during which she played over 150 different roles, included numerous works by Shakespeare, Congreve, Ibsen, Wycherley, Wilde, and contemporary playwrights including Shaw, Enid Bagnold, Christopher Fry and Coward. She created six of the characters of George Bernard Shaw: the Serpent, the Oracle, the She-Ancient, and the Ghost of the Serpent in Back to Methuselah (1923); Orinthia in The Apple Cart (1929); and Epifania in The Millionairess (1940). Other performances which many considered definitive were as Millamant in The Way of the World (1924), Rosalind in As You Like It (1926 and 1936), the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet (1932, 1934, 1935, and 1961), and, most notably, as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of being Earnest (1939), a role with which she became identified in the public's mind.

She had begun her film career in 1915, but was noted mostly for her stage work until she appeared in the 1949 film The Last Days of Dolwyn. From then until close to her death, she made several acclaimed films, including the following:

1952 The Importance of Being Earnest
1958 Look Back in Anger
1959 The Nun's Story
1963 Tom Jones (nominated for Best Supporting Actress)
1964 The Chalk Garden (nominated for Best Supporting Actress)
1967 The Whisperers (for which she received The Golden Bear for the Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress)
1967 Fitzwilly
1969 The Madwoman of Chaillot
1969 Crooks and Coronets
1970 Scrooge
1973 A Doll's House
1976 The Slipper and the Rose
1977 Nasty Habits
Edith Evans was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1946. She also received four honorary degrees from the universities of London (1950), Cambridge (1951), Oxford (1954), and Hull (1968).

Walter Sickert painted Edith Evans as Katharina, the lead character in Shakespeare's romantic comedy, The Taming of the Shrew. A sculpted head of her was for many years on display at the Royal Court Theatre, London.

Her ashes rest at St Paul's, Covent Garden, London. There is a blue plaque outside her house at 109 Ebury Street, London.


Trivia

In the 1997 movie Love! Valour! Compassion!, Jason Alexander's (homosexual) character declares, presumably tongue-in-cheek, that Dame Edith Evans and Deborah Kerr are the only heterosexual British actresses.

Betty Field
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Betty Field (February 8, 1913[1] in Boston, Massachusetts - September 13, 1973 in Hyannis, Massachusetts) was an American film and stage actress.

Field began her acting career on the London stage in Howard Lindsay's farce, She Loves Me Not. Following its run she returned to the United States and appeared in several stage successes, before making her film debut in 1939. Her role as Mae, the only female character, in Of Mice and Men (1939) established her as a dramatic actress. She starred opposite John Wayne in the 1941 film The Shepherd of the Hills. Field played supporting roles in films such as Kings Row (1942), in which she played a victim of incest, although that fact was not readily apparent due to the heavy censorship of the time.

Field preferred performing on Broadway in plays like Elmer Rice's Dream Girl and Jean Anouilh's The Waltz of the Toreadors, but returned to Hollywood regularly, appearing in Flesh and Fantasy (1943), The Southerner (1945), The Great Gatsby (1949), Picnic (1955), Bus Stop (1956), Peyton Place (1957), BUtterfield 8 (1960) and Birdman of Alcatraz (1962). Her final film role was in Coogan's Bluff in 1968.

Her first marriage, to playwright Elmer Rice, ended in divorce. The couple had three children. Field died from a cerebral haemorrhage in Hyannis, Massachusetts, aged 60.

Lana Turner
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner
Born February 8, 1921(1921-02-08)
Wallace, Idaho, U.S.
Died June 29, 1995 (aged 74)
Century City, Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Years active 1937 - 1991
Spouse(s) Artie Shaw (1940-1940)
Stephen Crane (1942-1943, 1943-1944)
Henry J. 'Bob' Topping (1948-1952)
Lex Barker (1953-1957)
Fred May (1960-1962)
Robert Eaton (1965-1969)
Ronald Dante (1969-1972)
[show]Awards
Academy Awards
Nominated: Best Actress
1957 Peyton Place



Lana Turner (February 8, 1921 - June 29, 1995) was an Academy Award-nominated American film actress. On-screen, she was well-known for the glamour and sensuality she brought to almost all her movie roles. Off-screen, she led a stormy and colorful private life which included seven husbands, numerous lovers, and a famous murder scandal.






Early life

Born Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner in Wallace, Idaho, she was the daughter of John Virgil Turner, a miner from Hohenwald, Tennessee, and Mildred Frances Cowan, a 16-year-old Alabaman.

Until her film career took off, she was known to family and friends as "Judy." Hard times eventually forced the family to re-locate to San Francisco, where John and Mildred soon separated.

On December 14, 1930, John Turner won a bit of money at a traveling craps game, stuffed his winnings in his left sock, and headed for home. He was later found dead on the corner of Minnesota and Mariposa Streets, on the edge of Potrero Hill and the Mission District in San Francisco, his left sock missing. The robbery and murder were never solved. Soon after, Mildred Turner developed health problems and was advised by her doctor to move to a drier climate. She and her 10-year-old daughter moved to Los Angeles in 1931.[1]


Film career

Turner's discovery at Schwab's Drug Store has become one of Hollywood's most enduring show-business legends. The true story differs only slightly from that legend. As a 16-year-old student at Hollywood High, Turner decided to skip a typing class and buy a Coke at the Top Hat Cafe located on the southeast corner of Sunset Boulevard and McCadden Place. There, she was spotted by William R. Wilkerson, publisher of the Hollywood Reporter, and his wife Tichi. Wilkerson was struck by her beauty and physique, and referred her to the actor/comedian/talent agent Zeppo Marx. Marx's agency immediately signed her on and introduced her to film director Mervyn LeRoy, who cast her in her first film, 1937's They Won't Forget. She also appeared as an extra that year in A Star Is Born. If the viewer doesn't blink, Lana can be spotted in the crowd at a boxing match.

Turner earned the nickname "The Sweater Girl" from her form-fitting attire in a scene in They Won't Forget. She reached the height of her fame in the 1940s and 1950s. During World War II, Turner became a popular pin-up girl due to her popularity in such films such as Ziegfeld Girl, Johnny Eager, and four films with MGM's king of the lot: Clark Gable (the films' success was only heightened by gossip-column rumors about a relationship between the two).

After the war, Turner's career hit a new high with the 1946 classic film noir The Postman Always Rings Twice, co-starring John Garfield.


During the 1950s, Turner starred in a series of films that failed to succeed at the box office, a situation which MGM attempted to remedy by casting her in musicals. The first, Mr. Imperium, was a flop, while The Merry Widow was more successful. She gave a widely-praised performance in Vincente Minnelli's 1952 film, The Bad and the Beautiful , and later starred with John Wayne in the adventure film The Sea Chase. She was then cast in the epic The Prodigal, but the film and her performance in general were not well received. After the 1956 film, Diane, MGM opted not to renew her contract.

Turner's career recovered briefly after appearing in the hugely-successful big-screen adaptation of Grace Metalious's best-selling novel, Peyton Place, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Another few box-office failures followed (Another Time, Another Place, for example) when the 1958 scandal surrounding the death of Johnny Stompanato threatened to derail her career completely. Fearing she would never work again,[citation needed] Turner accepted the lead role in Ross Hunter's re-make of Imitation of Life under the direction of Douglas Sirk. Universal Studios capitalized on her new-found notoriety. The result was one of the biggest hits of 1959, not to mention the biggest hit of Turner's career. Since Turner had accepted a percentage of the box-office receipts in lieu of salary, she was paid handsomely for the role. Critics and audiences couldn't help noticing that both Peyton and Imitation borrowed from Turner's private life ?- a single mother coping with a troubled teenage daughter.

In 1961, she made her last film appearance under her old contract with MGM, starring with Bob Hope in Bachelor in Paradise. Other highlights of this era include two Ross Hunter productions, Portrait in Black and Madame X, which proved to be her last major starring role.


Personal life

Turner was well known inside Hollywood circles for dating often, changing partners often, and for never shying away from the topic of how many lovers she had in her lifetime. Of her many love affairs, Turner reportedly once said "I liked the boys, and the boys liked me." [1]

Turner was married eight times to seven different husbands, and had many lovers, including; Joseph Wapner, her high school boyfriend who would later achieve fame on The People's Court, Tyrone Power (whom she calls the love of her life in her autobiography), Victor Mature, Fernando Lamas, producer Robert Evans, Joe Louis, fashion designer Oleg Cassini, actor Robert Taylor while he was married to actress Barbara Stanwyck, and a small-time hood named Johnny Stompanato, just to name a few. [2]

Her husbands were:

Bandleader Artie Shaw (1940) Married only four months, Turner was 19 when she and Shaw eloped on their first date. She later referred to their stormy and verbally abusive relationship as "my college education".
Actor-restaurateur Josef Stephen Crane (1942-43, 1943-44) Turner and Crane's first marriage was annulled after she discovered that Crane's previous divorce had not yet been finalized. After a brief separation (during which Crane attempted suicide), they re-married to provide for their newborn daughter, Cheryl.
Millionaire socialite Henry J. Topping, Jr. (1948-52) Topping proposed to Turner at the 21 Club in Los Angeles by dropping a diamond ring into her martini. Although worth millions when they married, Topping suffered heavy financial losses due to poor investments and excessive gambling. Turner finally divorced Topping when she realized she could no longer afford to keep them in the lavish lifestyle to which they had grown accustomed.
Actor Lex Barker (1953-57), whom she divorced after her daughter Cheryl claimed that he repeatedly molested and raped her.
Rancher Fred May (1960-62)
Robert P. Eaton (1965-69);[2] who later went on to write The Body Brokers, a behind-the-scenes look at the Hollywood movie world, featuring a character named Marla Jordan, based on Turner.
Nightclub hypnotist Ronald Pellar, aka Ronald Dante or Dr. Dante (1969-72). The couple met in 1969 in a Los Angeles discotheque and married that same year. After about 6 months of marriage, Pellar disappeared a few days after she had written a $35,000 check to him to help him in an investment; he used the money for other purposes. In addition, she later accused him of stealing $100,000 worth of jewelry. [3]
Turner was a lifelong Democrat, and campaigned for Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1944 presidential election.


The Stompanato murder case

Turner met Johnny Stompanato during the spring of 1957, shortly after ending her marriage to Lex Barker. At first, Turner was susceptible to Stompanato's good looks and prowess as a lover, but after she discovered his ties to the LA underworld (in particular, his association with gangster Mickey Cohen), she tried to break off the affair out of fear of bad publicity. Stompanato was not easily deterred, however, and over the course of the following year, he and Turner carried on a relationship filled with violent arguments, physical abuse, and repeated reconciliations.

In the fall of 1957, Stompanato followed Turner to England where she was filming Another Time, Another Place, costarring Sean Connery, later of James Bond fame. Fearful that Turner was having an affair with Connery, Stompanato stormed onto the set brandishing a gun. Connery managed to land a single punch to Stompanato's jaw and took away his gun. Stompanato was soon deported by Scotland Yard for the incident.[4]

On the evening of April 4, 1958, Turner and Stompanato began a violent argument in Turner's house at 730 N. Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills. Fearing her mother's life was in danger, Turner's 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl Crane grabbed a kitchen knife and ran to Turner's defense.

Many theories abound as to what happened afterward, but it appears Crane stabbed Stompanato, killing him. The case quickly became a media sensation. It was later deemed a justifiable homicide at a coroner's inquest, at which Turner provided dramatic testimony. Some observers have said her testimony that day was the acting performance of her life.[5]


Later life

In the 1970s and 1980s, Turner appeared in several television roles, most notably one season (1982-83) on the series Falcon Crest, but the majority of her final decade was spent out of the public eye.

She died rather suddenly at the age of 74 in 1995 of complications from throat cancer, which was diagnosed in 1992 and which she had been battling ever since, at her home in Century City, Los Angeles, California. She was, until her death, a very heavy smoker.

She was survived by her only child, her daughter, Cheryl Crane, and Cheryl's life partner Joyce "Josh" LeRoy, whom she said she accepted "as a second daughter." They inherited some of Lana's sizeable estate, built through shrewd real estate holdings and investments. However, the majority of her estate was left to her maid, Carmen Lopez Cruz.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Lana Turner has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6241 Hollywood Boulevard.

Audrey Meadows
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Audrey Cotter
Born February 8, 1922
Wuchang, China
Died February 3, 1996 (aged 73)
Los Angeles, California
Spouse(s) Robert F. "Bob" Six (1961-1986, his death)

Audrey Meadows Cotter Six (February 8, 1922 - February 3, 1996) was an Emmy Award-winning American actress best known for playing the deadpan housewife Alice Kramden on the 1950s American television comedy The Honeymooners.





Biography

Early life

Audrey Meadows was born on February 8, 1922, in Wu-ch'ang (now Wuchang), China, to Episcopal missionaries Rev. James Cotter and his wife, Ida.

According to the Social Security Death Index[1], Audrey was born in 1922. Her sister, actress Jayne Meadows, long claimed to have been born in 1926, but was really born in 1920. Thus Audrey was long-regarded as the elder sister, when she was really the younger. The year of birth on Meadows' gravestone is inaccurate.


Career

Shortly after Audrey's birth, the family returned to their home in Sharon, Connecticut. After high school, Audrey moved to New York City and became a singer in the Broadway show Top Banana before becoming a regular on the Bob and Ray Show. She was then hired to play Alice on The Jackie Gleason Show after the original Alice (Pert Kelton) was blacklisted. Pert Kelton had originated the role of Alice when The Honeymooners was a skit on Gleason's variety show, but lost the role due to the blacklist, and her absence was explained away as due to her health.

Audrey retained the role when The Honeymooners became a half-hour situation comedy on CBS. She then returned to play Alice after a long hiatus, when Gleason produced occasional Honeymooners specials in the 1970s. Meadows had auditioned for Gleason and was initially turned down for being too chic and pretty for the drab Alice. Meadows later submitted a photo of herself as plain and decidedly un-chic, which won her the role. She and Gleason remained close friends for the rest of their lives.

After the show's run, Meadows played in a number of films, worked with Dean Martin on his variety hour, and then returned to situation comedy in the 1980s playing the mother-in-law on Too Close for Comfort. She had a notable appearance in an episode of The Simpsons, "Old Money", where she did the voice of Bea Simmons, Grampa Simpsons' girlfriend; her character died in that episode.


Marriage

On August 24, 1961, Meadows married Robert F. "Bob" Six, President of Continental Airlines, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Their marriage was happy, but childless. Audrey served as Director of the First National Bank of Denver for eleven years, the first woman to hold this position, and was also an Advisory Director of Continental Airlines. Bob died in 1986.


Death

In 1995, Audrey, a life-long chain smoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer, but declined treatment. She was apparently estranged from her sister and her sister's family and had not been on speaking terms with them for at least a year. Jayne Meadows was unaware of Audrey's illness and first learned her sister was hospitalized when she was on a Hollywood soundstage appearing on an episode of the short-lived sitcom High Society. She rushed to the hospital but Audrey was already in a coma.

Audrey died on February 3, 1996, just five days before her 74th birthday. She is interred in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California, although she was not known to be a Roman Catholic.

In October 1994, Meadows published her memoirs, entitled, Love, Alice.

Jack Lemmon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name John Uhler Lemmon III
Born February 8, 1925(1925-02-08)
Newton, Massachusetts
Died June 27, 2001 (aged 76)
Los Angeles, California, United States
Resting place Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, Los Angeles, California
Plot: Chapel Garden Estate, B-6
Occupation Actor Comedian Director
Years active 1949-2000
Spouse(s) Cynthia Stone (1950 - 1956 divorced)
Felicia Farr (1962 - 2001 his death)
[show]Awards
Academy Awards
Best Actor
1973 Save the Tiger
Best Supporting Actor
1957 Mister Roberts
BAFTA Awards
Best Actor
1959 Some Like It Hot
1960 The Apartment
1979 The China Syndrome
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Lead Actor - Miniseries or a Movie
1999 Tuesdays with Morrie
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1960 Some Like It Hot
1961 The Apartment
1973 Avanti!
Cecil B. DeMille Award
1991 Lifetime Achievement
Best Actor - Mini-series
2000 Inherit the Wind
Other Awards
Best Actor Award - Cannes Film Festival
1979 The China Syndrome
1982 Missing
AFI Life Achievement Award
1988 Lifetime Achievement

John Uhler Lemmon III (February 8, 1925 - June 27, 2001), better known as Jack Lemmon, was a two-time Academy Award and Cannes award-winning American actor and comedian. He starred in legendary classics such as Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Days of Wine and Roses, Irma La Douce, The Great Race, The Odd Couple, The Out-of-Towners, My Fellow Americans and The China Syndrome.



Biography

Early life

Lemmon was born in an elevator at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, the son of Mildred Burgess LaRue (née Noel),[1] and John Uhler Lemmon, Jr., who was the president of a doughnut company.[2] Lemmon attended John Ward Elementary School in Newton. At twenty-two years old, Lemmon graduated from Harvard University. He was a member of several Drama Clubs and was one of the most active members. Lemmon also revealed that he knew he wanted to be an actor from the age of eight. After attending Phillips Academy (Class of 43) and Harvard University (Class of 47), becoming president of the Hasty Pudding Club, Lemmon joined the Navy, received V-12 training and served as an ensign. On being discharged, he took up acting professionally, working on radio, television and Broadway. He studied acting under Uta Hagen. He also became infatuated with the piano and had learned to play by himself. He could also play the harmonica and the bass fiddle.


Career

Lemmon's film debut was a bit part as a plasterer/painter in the 1949 film The Lady Takes a Sailor, but he was not noticed until his official debut opposite Judy Holliday in the 1954 comedy, It Should Happen to You. Lemmon worked with many legendary leading ladies of the cinema screen. He worked with Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood, Betty Grable, Janet Leigh, Shirley MacLaine, Doris Day, Kim Novak, Judy Holliday, Rita Hayworth, June Allyson, Virna Lisi, Ann Margret, Sophia Loren, Grace Lee Whitney, Kathryn Grant and many, many more. He was also close friends with Tony Curtis and Walter Matthau. He made two films with Curtis and a total of eleven films with Matthau.

He became a favorite actor of director Billy Wilder, starring in his films Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Irma La Douce, The Fortune Cookie, Avanti!, The Front Page and Buddy Buddy. Wilder felt Lemmon had a natural tendency toward overacting that had to be tempered; the Wilder biography "Nobody's Perfect" quotes the director as saying: "Lemmon, I would describe him as a ham, a fine ham, and with ham you have to trim a little fat". The same Billy Wilder biography quotes Jack Lemmon as saying: "I am particularly susceptible to the parts I play... If my character was having a nervous breakdown I started to have one".


Lemmon recorded his own album in 1958 while filming Some Like It Hot with Marilyn Monroe. Twelve jazz tracks were created for Lemmon and another twelve tracks were added which were the soundtracks to his 1959 comedy film, Some Like It Hot. Lemmon also played the piano on his Frank Sinatra-type album. He recorded his own versions of Monroe's trademark songs, I Wanna Be Loved By You and I'm Through With Love. These two tracks can be heard on the album, which was eventually released in 1959 and was titled "A Twist of Lemmon/Some Like It Hot".

Lemmon was awarded the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1956 for Mister Roberts (1955), and the Best Actor Oscar for Save the Tiger (1973), being the first actor to achieve this double. He was also nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his role in the controversial film Missing in 1982. In 1988, the American Film Institute gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award. Days of Wine and Roses (1962) was one of his favorite roles. He portrayed Joe Clay, a young, fun-loving alcoholic businessman. In that film, Lemmon delivered the line, "My name is Joe Clay ... I'm an alcoholic." Three and a half decades later, he admitted on the television program, Inside the Actors Studio, that he was not acting when he delivered that line, that he really was an alcoholic in real life.

Throughout his career, Lemmon often appeared in films alongside actor Walter Matthau. They would go on to be one of the most beloved duos in cinema history. Among their pairings was as Felix Unger (Lemmon) and Oscar Madison (Matthau) in the 1968 film, The Odd Couple. They also starred together in The Fortune Cookie, The Front Page, and Buddy Buddy. Additionally, both had small parts in Oliver Stone's 1991 film, JFK (the only film in which they both appear, but share no screentime). In 1993, the duo teamed up again to star in Grumpy Old Men. The film was a surprise hit, earning the two actors a new generation of young fans. During the rest of the decade, they would go on to star together in Out to Sea, Grumpier Old Men and the widely-panned The Odd Couple II. The only death scene that Lemmon performed was in The China Syndrome in 1979. For this part, he was awarded Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1982, he won another Cannes award for his performance in Missing (which also received the Palme d'Or). He is currently the only actor other than Marcello Mastroianni to have won it twice.

At the 1998 Golden Globe Awards, he was nominated for "Best Actor in a Made for TV Movie" for his role in Twelve Angry Men. He lost the award to Ving Rhames. After accepting the award, Rhames asked Lemmon to come onstage and in a move that stunned the audience, gave his award to him. (The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which presents the Golden Globes, decided to have a second award made and sent to Rhames.)


Personal life

Lemmon was one of the best-liked actors in Hollywood. He is remembered as making time for people, as the actor Kevin Spacey recalled in a tribute. When already regarded as a legend, he met the teenage Spacey backstage after a theater performance and spoke to him about pursuing an acting career.[citation needed] Spacey would later work with Lemmon in the critically acclaimed film Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), and on stage in a revival of Long Day's Journey Into Night. Lemmon's performance even inspired Gil Gunderson, a character on The Simpsons that is modeled on Lemmon's character in the film.

Lemmon was married twice. His son, Chris Lemmon, (b. 1954), was his first child by his first wife, actress Cynthia Stone (b. February 26, 1926, Peoria, Illinois). He is also an actor. His second wife was the western actress Felicia Farr, with whom he had a daughter, Courtney, born in 1966.

Jack Lemmon died of carcinoma of the colon and metastatic cancer of the bladder[3] on June 27, 2001. He had been fighting the disease, very privately, for two years before losing the battle.

Lemmon's son, Chris Lemmon, made several TV shows and movies. He also wrote a book about his father after his death, named "A Twist of Lemmon: A Tribute to My Father". He has three kids named Sydney Noel, Chris Jr. and Jonathon.

He is interred at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, Westwood, Los Angeles, California, where Walter Matthau is also buried. In typical Jack Lemmon wit, his gravestone simply reads 'Jack Lemmon ?- in'. After Matthau's death in 2000, Lemmon appeared with friends and relatives of the actor on a Larry King Live show in tribute. A year later, many of the same people appeared on the show again to pay tribute to Lemmon.

James Dean
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name James Byron Dean
Born February 8, 1931(1931-02-08)
Marion, Indiana, USA
Died September 30, 1955 (aged 24)
Cholame, California, USA
Other name(s) Jimmy Dean
Years active 1951-1955
[show]Awards
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama'
(1956)


James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 - September 30, 1955) was an American film actor. Dean's status as a cultural icon is best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause, in which he starred as troubled high school rebel Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his star power were as the awkward loner Cal Trask in East of Eden, and as the surly, racist farmer Jett Rink in Giant. His enduring fame and popularity rests on only three films, his entire starring output. As with Buddy Holly, Bruce Lee, and Marilyn Monroe, his death at a young age helped guarantee a legendary status. He was the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and remains the only person to have two such nominations posthumously.




Early life

James Dean was born to Winton and Mildred Wilson Dean at the "Seven Gables" apartment house, at the intersection of 4th and McClure Streets in Marion, Indiana. Six years after his father had left farming to become a dental technician, James and his family moved to Santa Monica, California. The family spent some years there, and by all accounts young Jimmy was very close to his mother. According to Michael DeAngelis, she was "the only person capable of understanding him."[1] He was enrolled in Brentwood Public School until his mother died of cancer in 1940. Dean's "moodiness and antisocial behavior are consistently attributed to her loss," and even in later years he still attempted to regain his mother's "sense of understanding in all of his relationships with women during his acting career."[2]

Unable to care for his nine year old son, Winton Dean sent young Dean to live with Winton's sister Ortense and her husband Marcus Winslow on a farm in Fairmount, Indiana, where he entered high school and was brought up with a Quaker background. Here Dean sought the counsel of, and formed an enduring friendship with a Methodist pastor, Rev. James DeWeerd. DeWeerd seemed to have had a formative influence upon the teenager, especially upon his future interests in bullfighting, car racing, and the theater. According to Billy J. Harbin, "Dean had an intimate relationship with his pastor... which began in his senior year of high school and 'endured for many years.' "[3] In high school, Dean's overall performance was mediocre, but he successfully played on the baseball and basketball team and studied forensics and drama. After graduating from Fairmount High School on May 16, 1949, Dean moved back to California with his beagle, Maxx, to live with his father and stepmother. He enrolled in Santa Monica College (SMCC) and majored in pre-law. Dean transferred to UCLA and changed his major to drama, which resulted in estrangement from his father. He pledged the Sigma Nu fraternity but was never initiated. While at UCLA, he beat out 350 actors to land the role of Malcolm in Macbeth. At that time, he also began acting with James Whitmore's acting workshop. In January 1951, he dropped out of college to pursue a career as an actor.


Acting career

Dean initially had little success in Hollywood, then got his first acting job in a Pepsi Cola television commercial[4]. He quit college to act full time and was cast as John the Beloved Disciple in "Hill Number One", an Easter television special, and three walk- on roles in movies, Fixed Bayonets, Sailor Beware, and Has Anybody Seen My Gal. His only speaking part was in Sailor Beware, a Paramount comedy starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis; Dean played a boxing trainer. While struggling to get jobs in Hollywood, Dean also worked as a parking lot attendant at CBS Studios, during which time he met Rogers Brackett, a radio director for an advertising agency, who offered Dean professional help and guidance in his chosen career, as well as a place to stay.[5][6]

In October of 1951, following actor James Whitmore's and his mentor Rogers Brackett's advice, Dean moved to New York City. In New York he worked as a stunt tester for the Beat the Clock game show. He also appeared in episodes of several CBS television series, The Web, Studio One, and Lux Video Theater, before gaining admission to the legendary Actor's Studio to study Method acting under Lee Strasberg. Proud of this accomplishment, Dean referred to the Studio in a 1952 letter to his family as "The greatest school of the theater. It houses great people like Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Arthur Kennedy, Mildred Dunnock. ... Very few get into it ... It is the best thing that can happen to an actor. I am one of the youngest to belong."[7] His career picked up and he performed in further episodes of such early 1950s television shows as Kraft Television Theater, Robert Montgomery Presents, Danger and General Electric Theater. One early role, for the CBS series, Omnibus, (Glory in the Flower) saw Dean portraying the same type of disaffected youth he would later immortalize in Rebel Without a Cause (this summer, 1953 program was also notable for featuring the song "Crazy Man, Crazy", one of the first dramatic TV programs to feature rock and roll music). Positive reviews for his 1954 theatrical role as "Bachir", a pandering North African houseboy, in an adaptation of André Gide's book The Immoralist, led to calls from Hollywood.[8].


East of Eden

In 1953, director Elia Kazan was looking for an actor to play the role of "Cal Trask" in screenwriter Paul Osborn's adaptation of John Steinbeck's 1952 novel East of Eden. The book dealt with the story of the Trask and Hamilton families over the course of three generations, focusing especially on the lives of the latter two generations in Salinas Valley, California in the mid-1800s through the 1910s. However, the film chose to deal predominantly with the character of Cal Trask, who is essentially the rebel son of a pious, and constantly disapproving, father (played by Raymond Massey), and estranged mother, whom Cal discovers is a brothel-keeping madam (Jo Van Fleet). Elia Kazan said of Cal before casting "I wanted a Brando for the role." Osborn suggested to Kazan that he consider Dean for the part. After introducing Dean to Steinbeck, and gaining his enthusiastic approval, Kazan set about putting the wheels in motion to cast the relatively unknown young actor in the role. On March 8, 1954, Dean left New York City and headed for Los Angeles to begin shooting. Dean's performance in the film foreshadowed his role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. Both characters are rebel loners and misunderstood outcasts, desperately craving parental guidance from a father figure.

Much of Dean's performance in the film is completely unscripted, such as his dance in the bean field and his curling up and pulling his arms inside of his shirt on top of the train during his ride home from meeting his mother. The most famous improvisation during the film was when Cal's father rejects his gift of $5,000 (which was in reparation for his father's business loss). Instead of running away from his father as the script called for, Dean instinctively turned to Massey and, crying, embraced him. This cut and Massey's shocked reaction were kept in the film by Kazan.

He received a posthumous Best Actor in a Leading Role Academy Award nomination for this role, the first posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history.


Rebel Without a Cause

Dean quickly followed up his role in Eden with a starring role in Rebel Without a Cause, a film that would prove to be hugely popular among teenagers. The film is widely cited as an accurate representation of teenage angst. It co-starred Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo, and was directed by Nicholas Ray.


Giant

Giant, which was posthumously released in 1956, saw Dean play a supporting role to Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. This was due to his desire to avoid being typecast as Jim Stark and Cal Trask. In the film, he plays Jett, a surly, racist Texan with a strong prejudice against Mexicans. His role was notable in that, in order to portray an older version of his character in one scene, Dean dyed his hair gray and shaved some of it off to give himself a receding hairline.

Giant would be Dean's last film. At the end of the film, Dean is supposed to make a drunken speech at a banquet; this is nicknamed the "Last Supper" because it was the last scene before his sudden and horrible death. Dean mumbled so much that the scene had to later be re-recorded by his co-stars because Dean had died before the film was edited.

Coincidentally, the #1 pop song in the US at the time of Dean's death, "The Yellow Rose of Texas" by Mitch Miller, was also featured in "Giant" in a scene following the actor's last appearance in the film described above.

Dean received his second Academy Award nomination after Giant.


Racing career and "Little Bastard"

When Dean got the part in East of Eden, he bought himself a red race-prepared MG TD and shortly afterwards, a white Ford Country Squire Woodie station wagon. Dean upgraded his MG to a Porsche 356 Speedster (Chassis number: 82621), which he raced. Dean came in second in the Palm Springs Road Races in March 1955 after a driver was disqualified; he came in third in May 1955 at Bakersfield and was running fourth at the Santa Monica Road Races later that month, until he retired with an engine failure.

During filming of Rebel Without a Cause, Dean traded the 356 Speedster in for one of only 90 Porsche 550 Spyders. He was contractually barred from racing during the filming of Giant, but with that out of the way, he was free to compete again. The Porsche was in fact a stopgap for Dean, as delivery of a superior Lotus Mk. X was delayed and he needed a car to compete at the races in Salinas, California.

Dean's 550 was customized by the young George Barris, who would go on to design the Batmobile. Dean's Porsche was numbered 130 at the front, side and back. The car had a tartan on the seating and two red stripes at the rear of its wheelwell. The car was given the nickname "Little Bastard" by Bill Hickman, his language coach on Giant. When Dean introduced himself to Alec Guinness outside a restaurant, he asked him to take a look at the Spyder. Guinness thought the car appeared "sinister" and told Dean: "If you get in that car, you will be found dead in it by this time next week." This encounter took place on September 23, 1955.[9]


Death

On September 30, 1955, Dean and his mechanic Rolf Wütherich set off from Competition Motors, where they had prepared his Porsche 550 Spyder that morning for a sports car race at Salinas, California. Dean originally intended to trailer the Porsche to the meeting point at Salinas, behind his new Ford Country Squire station wagon, crewed by Hickman and photographer Stanford Roth, who was planning a photo story of Dean at the races. At the last minute, Dean drove the Spyder, having decided he needed more time to familiarize himself with the car. At 3:30PM, Dean was ticketed in Kern County for doing 65 in a 55 mph zone. The driver of the Ford was ticketed for doing 20 mph over the limit, as the speed limit for all vehicles towing a trailer was 45 mph. Later, having left the Ford far behind, they stopped at Blackwell's Corner for fuel and met up with fellow racer Lance Reventlow.

Dean was driving west on U.S. Route 466 (later State Route 46) near Cholame, California when a black-and-white 1950 Ford Custom Tudor coupe, driven from the opposite direction by 23-year-old Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed, attempted to take the fork onto State Route 41 and crossed into Dean's lane without seeing him. The two cars hit almost head on. According to a story in the October 1, 2005 edition of the Los Angeles Times,[10] California Highway Patrol officer Ron Nelson and his partner had been finishing a coffee break in Paso Robles when they were called to the scene of the accident, where they saw a heavily-breathing Dean being placed into an ambulance. Wütherich had been thrown from the car, but survived with a broken jaw and other injuries. Dean was taken to Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival at 5:59PM. His last known words, uttered right before impact, were said to have been "That guy's gotta stop... He'll see us."[11]


Junction of highways 46 and 41Contrary to reports of Dean's speeding, which persisted decades after his death, Nelson said "the wreckage and the position of Dean's body indicated his speed was more like 55 mph (88 km/h)." Turnupseed received a gashed forehead and bruised nose and was not cited by police for the accident. Rolf Wütherich would die in a road accident in Germany in 1981 after surviving several other suicide attempts.

While completing Giant, and to promote Rebel Without a Cause, Dean filmed a short interview with actor Gig Young for an episode of Warner Bros. Presents[12] in which Dean, instead of saying the popular phrase "The life you save may be your own" instead ad-libbed "The life you save may be mine."[13] Dean's sudden death prompted the studio to re-film the section, and the piece was never aired - though in the past several sources have referred to the footage, mistakenly identifying it as a public service announcement. (The segment can, however, be viewed on both the 2001 VHS and 2005 DVD editions of Rebel Without a Cause). BMW once made a commercial with the footage of the infamous clip and reconstruction of the crash, which cuts into a scene indicating that Dean would be alive if he had driven one of their models, the commercial was never shown due to poor taste but is aired in programs such as Tarrant on TV.

William Bast identifies a potentially bipolar depression in James Dean's erratic behaviour and mood swings.[14] In his description of their relationship, Dean emerges as a character very much torn apart between wanting to reach out (to Bast) and needing protection against possible rejections or wanting to hide any supposed weakness. Shortly before his death, Dean also gave away his pet kitten Marcus, saying: "I figured, I might go out some night and just never come home."[15] Bast also repeatedly observed Dean's heavy use of alcohol and drugs during the filming of Rebel Without a Cause,[16] which also can be a sign of depressions or other serious psychological issues, just as reckless driving can be a masked depressive or suicidal impulse. All this confirms Bast's theory, and therefore serious depressive symptoms in Dean's state of mind - probably caused by childhood trauma or (sexual) guilt - make his early death seem more like a logical conclusion than an unforeseen tragedy.


Memorial

Dean died about 900 yards east of this tree.James Dean is buried in Park Cemetery in Fairmount, Indiana. In 1977, a Dean memorial was built in Cholame, California. The stylized sculpture is composed of concrete and stainless steel around a tree of heaven growing in front of the Cholame post office. The sculpture was made in Japan and transported to Cholame, accompanied by the project's benefactor, Seita Ohnishi. Ohnishi chose the site after examining the location of the accident, now little more than a few road signs and flashing yellow signals. In September, 2005, the intersection of Highways 41 and 46 in Cholame (San Luis Obispo county) was dedicated as the James Dean Memorial Highway as part of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of his death. (Maps of the intersection 35°44′5″N, 120°17′4″W)

The dates and hours of Dean's birth and death are etched into the sculpture, along with a handwritten description by Dean's close friend, William Bast, of one of Dean's favorite lines from Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince - "What is essential is invisible to the eye."


Dean's iconic appeal

Many American teens at the time of Dean's major movies identified with Dean and the roles he played, especially in Rebel Without A Cause: the typical teenager, caught where no one, mostly not even his peers can understand him. Joe Hyams says that Dean was "one of the rare stars, like Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift, who both men and women find sexy." However, according to Marjorie Garber, this quality is not rare, "it is the undefinable extra something that makes a star."[17] Dean's iconic appeal has been attributed to the public's need for someone to stand up for the disenfranchised young of the era[18], and to the air of androgyny[19] that he projected onscreen. Dean's "loving tenderness towards the besotted Sal Mineo in Rebel Without a Cause continues to touch and excite gay audiences by its honesty. The Gay Times Readers' Awards cited him as the male gay icon of all time."[20]


Dean's personal relationships and sexual orientation

Today, Dean is often considered an icon because of his "experimental" take on life, which included his ambivalent sexuality.[21] There have been several accounts of Dean's sexual relationships with both men and women. William Bast was one of Dean's closest friends, a fact acknowledged by Dean's family.[22] Dean's first biographer (1956),[23] Bast was his roommate at UCLA and later in New York, and knew Dean throughout the last five years of his life. Bast has recently published a revealing update of his first book, in which, after years of successfully dodging the question as to whether he and Dean were sexually involved,[24][25] he has finally admitted that they were.[26] In this second book Bast describes the difficult circumstances of their involvement and also deals frankly with some of Dean's other homosexual relationships, notably the actor's friendship with Rogers Brackett, the influential producer of radio dramas who encouraged Dean in his career and provided him with useful professional contacts.[27]

Journalist Joe Hyams suggests that any homosexual acts Dean might have involved himself in appear to have been strictly "for trade," as a means of advancing his career. Val Holley notes that, according to Hollywood biographer Lawrence J. Quirk, gay Hollywood columnist Mike Connolly "would put the make on the most prominent young actors, including Robert Francis, Guy Madison, Anthony Perkins, Nick Adams and James Dean."[28] However, the "trade only" notion is debated by Bast[29] and other Dean biographers.[30] Indeed, aside from Bast's account of his own relationship with Dean, Dean's fellow biker and "Night Watch" member John Gilmore claims he and Dean "experimented" with homosexual acts on one occasion in New York, and it is difficult to see how Dean, then already in his twenties, would have viewed this as a "trade" means of advancing his career.[31] (On the other hand, Gilmore's account of his friendship with Dean has the reputation of dubious tabloid sensationalism.) In his Natalie Wood biography, Gavin Lambert, himself homosexual and part of the Hollywood gay circles of the 50s and 60s, describes Dean as being bisexual. Rebel director Nicholas Ray has also gone on record to say that Dean was bisexual.[32] Additionally, William Bast and biographer Paul Alexander conclude that Dean was at least bisexual, if not homosexual.[33] [34], although this aspect of Dean's personality still makes some fans uncomfortable (especially Paul Alexander's work got under attack when published). This is also evident in George Perry's biography when Dean's bi-/homosexual orientation is reduced to "experimentation".[35] Still, Joe Hyams and Paul Alexander also claim that Dean's relationship with pastor De Weerd had a sexual aspect, too.[36][37] Bast also shows that Dean had knowledge of gay bars and customs.[38] Consequently, Robert Aldrich and Garry Wotherspoon's book Who's Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History: From World War II to the Present Day (2001) includes an entry on James Dean. Dean avoided the draft by registering as a homosexual, then classified by the US government as a mental disorder. When questioned about his orientation, he is reported to have said, "Well, I'm certainly not going through life with one hand tied behind my back."[39]

As for Dean's relationships with women, after Dean signed his contract with Warner Brothers the studio's public relations department began generating stories about Dean's liaisons with a variety of young actresses who were mostly drawn from the clientele of Dean's Hollywood agent, Dick Clayton. Studio press releases also grouped "Dean together with two other actors, Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, identifying each of the men as an 'eligible bachelor' who has not yet found the time to commit to a single woman: 'They say their film rehearsals are in conflict with their marriage rehearsals.'"[40] Dean's best remembered relationship is that undertaken with a young Italian actress Pier Angeli, whom he met while Angeli was shooting The Silver Chalice on an adjoining Warner lot, and with whom he exchanged items of jewelry as love tokens.[41] Angeli's mother was reported to have disapproved of the relationship because Dean was not Roman Catholic. In his autobiography, East of Eden director Elia Kazan, while dismissing the notion that Dean could possibly have had any success with women, paradoxically alluded to Dean and Angeli's "romance," claiming that he had heard them loudly making love in Dean's dressing room. For a very short time the story of a Dean-Angeli love affair was even promoted by Dean himself, who fed it to various gossip columnists and to his co-star, Julie Harris, who in interviews has reported that Dean told her about being madly in love with Angeli. However, in early October 1954, Angeli unexpectedly announced her engagement to Italian-American singer Vic Damone, to Dean's expressed irritation.[42] Angeli married Damone the following month, and gossip columnists reported that Dean, or someone dressed like him, watched the wedding from across the road on a motorcycle. However, Dean denied that he, personally, would have done anything so "dumb", when his friend William Bast questioned him about the reports later, and Bast, like Paul Alexander, believes the relationship was a mere publicity stunt.[43][44] Pier Angeli only talked once about the relationship in her later life in an interview, giving vivid descriptions of romantic meetings at the beach that read like wishful fantasies[45], as also William Bast claims them to be.[46]

Actress Liz Sheridan claims that she and Dean had a short affair in New York. In her memoir detailing this, she also states that Dean was having a sexual involvement with Rogers Brackett, and describes her negative response to this situation.[47] However, again William Bast is sceptical whether this was a true love affair and claims Dean and Sheridan didn't spend much time together.[48]Gavin Lambert wrote in his Natalie Wood biography that, contrary to popular notions, Wood's casting in Rebel Without a Cause did not lead to a romance with Dean: "Like many people, she was fascinated by his charm. He had this magnetic quality on the screen and in life... They got on very well, they liked each other a lot," but there was no affair and no sexual relationship.[49]


Dean in popular culture

James Dean was the first ?- and is one of five ?- to have been posthumously nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award and the only one so nominated twice. His estate still earns about $5,000,000 per year, according to Forbes Magazine.[50]

Along with Blackboard Jungle, Dean's Rebel Without a Cause is frequently cited as having symbolized the growing post-war rebellion of 1950s teenagers as well as playing a part in the emergence of rock and roll as a lasting cultural phenomenon.

His charismatic screen presence and very brief career combined with the publicity surrounding his death at a young age transformed Dean into a cult figure. His name is mentioned in countless songs, movies, and is a pop icon of apparently timeless fascination.


The "curse" of "Little Bastard"

Since Dean's death, his Porsche 550 Spyder became infamous for being the vehicle that killed not only him, but for injuring and killing several others in the years following his death. In view of this, many have come to believe that the actor's vehicle and all of its parts were cursed. Legendary Hot Rodder George Barris bought the wreck for $2,500, only to have it slip off its trailer and break a mechanic's leg. Soon afterwards, Barris sold the engine and drive-train, respectively, to physicians Troy McHenry and William Eschrid. While racing against each other, the former would be killed instantly when his vehicle spun out of control and crashed into a tree, while the latter would be seriously injured when his vehicle rolled over while going into a curve. Barris later sold two tires, which malfunctioned as well. The tires, which were unharmed in Dean's accident, blew up simultaneously causing the buyer's automobile to go off the road. Subsequently, two young would-be thieves were injured while attempting to steal parts from the car. When one tried to steal the steering wheel from the Porsche, his arm was ripped open on a piece of jagged metal. Later, another man was injured while trying to steal the bloodstained front seat. This would be the final straw for Barris, who decided to store "Little Bastard" away, but was quickly persuaded by the California Highway Patrol (CHP) to loan the wrecked car to a highway safety exhibit.

The first exhibit from the CHP featuring the car ended unsuccessfully, as the garage storing the Spyder went up in flames, destroying everything except the car itself, which suffered almost no damage whatsoever from the fire. The second display, at a Sacramento High School, ended when the car fell, breaking a student's hip. "Little Bastard" caused problems while being transported several times. On the way to Salinas, the truck containing the vehicle lost control, causing the driver to fall out, only to be crushed by the Porsche after it fell off the back. On two separate occasions, once on a freeway and again in Oregon, the car came off other trucks, although no injuries were reported, another vehicle's windshield was shattered in Oregon. Its last use in a CHP exhibit was in 1959. In 1960, when being returned to George Barris in Los Angeles, California, the car mysteriously vanished. It has not been seen since.[51][52]

Mary Steenburgen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born February 8, 1953 (1953-02-08) (age 55)
Newport, Arkansas, United States
Years active 1978 - present
Spouse(s) Malcolm McDowell (1980-1990)
Ted Danson (1995-)
[show]Awards
Academy Awards
Best Supporting Actress
1980 Melvin and Howard
Golden Globe Awards
Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
1981 Melvin and Howard

Mary Steenburgen (IPA: /ˈstiːnbɜrdʒən/; born February 8, 1953) is an Academy Award-winning American actress.





Biography

Personal life

Steenburgen was born in Newport, Arkansas, daughter of Nell, a school-board secretary, and Maurice Steenburgen, a freight-train conductor.[1][2] Steenburgen married Malcolm McDowell in 1980 and they had two children together: Lily Amanda, born January 21, 1981 and Charles Malcolm born July 10, 1983, before divorcing in 1990, and has been married to actor Ted Danson since 1995. In 2006, Steenburgen received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Lyon College in Batesville, Arkansas.

She is a close personal friend of former first lady, New York Senator, and new presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. She currently resides in Oxford, Mississippi.


Career

Steenburgen moved to New York City in 1972, working at Doubleday's while studying acting at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre.[3] Her break came when she discovered by Jack Nicholson in the reception room of Paramount's New York office, and soon after cast her as the lead in his second directorial effort, the 1978 Western Goin' South.[3] She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the 1980 film Melvin and Howard. She played Clara Clayton in Back to the Future Part III (1990), a role which her children, fans of the Back to the Future movies, convinced her to play. She reprised the role by providing the character's voice in the Back to the Future: The Animated Series. She also had a role in the 1979 film Time After Time in which she played the love interest to H.G. Wells played by her husband-to-be Malcolm McDowell. In both films, she played the love interest of a time traveller. She also starred in the sitcom Ink and the television miniseries of Gulliver's Travels with her husband Ted Danson.

Gary Coleman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Born February 8, 1968 (1968-02-08) (age 40)
Zion, Illinois
Years active 1975 ─ present

Gary Wayne Coleman (born February 8, 1968) is an American actor known for his role as Arnold Jackson in the American sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1978-1986), and his character's catchphrase "what'chu talkin' 'bout, Willis?"



Biography

Coleman was born in Zion, Illinois on February 8, 1968. He was adopted by Willie and Sue Coleman. He suffers from a congenital kidney disease causing nephritis (an autoimmune destruction of the kidney), which halted his growth at an early age, leading to a small stature (4 ft 8 in; 1.42 m). He has undergone two kidney transplants, one in 1973 and one in 1984, and requires daily dialysis.

Coleman appeared in several media productions, but is best known for his role as Arnold Jackson in Diff'rent Strokes.


Media appearances

While best known for his role on Diff'rent Strokes, he appeared before on The Jeffersons, and Good Times and Facts of Life as Penny's smart-lipped friend Gary.


Diff'rent Strokes

Due to his cherubic face and keen comic timing, Coleman captured the role of Arnold Jackson on Diff'rent Strokes, portraying a child adopted by a wealthy widower. The show was broadcast from 1978 to 1986, and was a quick success.

At the height of his fame on Diff'rent Strokes, Coleman earned $70,000 per episode. As he grew older, however, he fell from public favor.


Later character appearances

Capitalizing on this fame, Coleman became a popular figure, starring in a number of feature films and made-for-TV movies including On the Right Track, and The Kid with the Broken Halo. The latter eventually served as the basis for the Hanna-Barbera-produced animated series The Gary Coleman Show from 1982.

In 1994, Coleman appeared in an episode of Married... with Children, playing a building code inspector whom Al Bundy called to report an illegal driveway. (Season 8, Episode 16, "How Green Was My Apple")

In 1995, Coleman was featured as the character "Mad Dog No Good" on the television show Martin, in which he played an ex-convict whom Martin helped to imprison. Once released, Mad Dog No Good comes looking for Martin. (Episode 74, "High Noon")

In 1996, Coleman played Arnold Jackson on the final episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. He and Conrad Bain (as Mr. Drummond) were looking to buy the mansion from the Banks family.

In 1997, Coleman did voice work for The Curse of Monkey Island, the third installment in the Monkey Island series of comedy adventure games developed by LucasArts, as Kenny Falmouth, the lemon juice boy.

In 1999, Coleman played himself in an episode of The Simpsons titled "Grift of the Magi" (Episode 235).

Coleman also played himself in the 2001 Scooby-Doo parody, Night of the Living Doo, produced by the Cartoon Network.

In 2001, Coleman was employed as a shopping mall security guard in the Los Angeles area. A surveillance video of Coleman trying to stop a vehicle from entering the mall while the driver ridiculed him was broadcast on numerous television shows.

Coleman played a supporting role in the controversial 2003 computer game Postal² by Running With Scissors, Inc. Coleman, who played himself, appeared at a shopping mall, and one of the game's objectives was to secure his autograph. Coleman's role was almost certainly based on a 1998 incident in which Coleman punched a fan who sought his autograph while he was at a shopping mall. Upon the player securing his autograph, police storm the mall to arrest him for an unknown crime, which leads to a violent shootout. Coleman was also featured prominently in the 2005 expansion pack to Postal², Apocalypse Weekend.

Coleman was featured in the 2004 season of The Surreal Life. He managed the restaurant at which the other cast members worked.

Gary Coleman had a brief appearance on Family Guy in the episode Brian Goes Back to College. He had replaced Stewie since he owed him a favor.

Coleman occasionally is able to cash in on his camp value to members of Generation X, by appearing in cameo roles in film and TV. As with Day-Glo, Rubik's Cube, Valley girls, Care Bears, Mr. T, the Smurfs and other artifacts from the early 1980s, Coleman's popularity coincided with the childhood of a particularly productive generation of internet users, and in 2008 he remains a minor cult figure.

During 2006 and 2007, Coleman appeared in a commercial for a cash-advance loan company called CashCall. He ends the commercial by saying, "Pay your bills on time and everyone will love you."


Appearances as himself

Coleman played himself in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) superstar John Cena's music video for "Bad Bad Man". Coleman was also featured in Kid Rock's video for "Cowboy", in which, appropriately garbed, he took on Rock's diminutive sidekick, Joe C.

Coleman made an appearance on E!'s short-lived celebrity dating show Star Dates, in which former celebrities went on blind dates with regular people. Other former celebrities who appeared on the show included Jimmie Walker (Good Times), Butch Patrick (The Munsters), and Susan Olsen (The Brady Bunch).

Coleman also appeared in a Nickelodeon sitcom called Drake & Josh. The two main characters were selling a product called the "Gary Coleman Grill" (a parody of the George Foreman Grill). At the end of the show, Coleman appears as himself.

Coleman made an appearance as himself in the TV show "My Wife and Kids", which Damon Wayans starred in. He was one of Kady's boyfriends when Micheal Kyle (Wayans) was dreaming about what boys she would bring home. He said sarcasticly, Gary Coleman and in the dream Kady brings Gary Coleman home.

In June 2005, VH-1 named Coleman No. 1 on its list of the Top 100 Child Stars Ever.


Avenue Q character

Gary Coleman is a character (not an actor) in the hit 2003 Broadway musical, Avenue Q, which won the 2004 Tony Award for best musical. The character works as the superintendent of the apartment complex where the musical takes place. In the song, "It Sucks to be Me", he laments his fate.

In the Broadway musical, Coleman states:

I'm Gary Coleman from TV's Diff'rent Strokes
I made a lot of money that got stolen by my folks
Now I'm broke, and I'm the butt of everyone's jokes
But I'm here - The superintendent! - On Avenue Q!

In the London production, Coleman's lyrics are:

I was the cutest little Black kid on TV
I made a zillion dollars that my parents stole from me
My life was over when I hit puberty
But I'm here - Fixing the toilets! - On Avenue Q!

In both versions, Coleman continues:

Try having people stopping you to ask you "What'chu talkin' 'bout, Willis?"
It... gets ... old!!

When the real Gary Coleman was asked his opinion on the Avenue Q character, he responded, "I wish there was a lawyer on Earth that would sue them for me."[1]


Legal struggles

In 1989, Coleman sued his parents and former manager over misappropriation of his $8.3 million trust fund.[2] He won a $1,280,000 ruling on February 23, 1993.[3] Coleman later filed for bankruptcy in 1999; he attributed his financial problems to mismanagement of his trust.[4]

Coleman was charged with assault in 1998 after he punched a woman. Coleman was working as a security guard, and bus driver Tracy Fields had asked for his autograph while he was shopping for a bulletproof vest in a California mall. The two argued about the autograph, and Fields mocked Coleman's lackluster career as an adult actor. Coleman testified that "I was getting scared, and she was getting ugly"; he said that he thought Fields was going to hit him, so he punched her. Coleman pleaded no contest and received a suspended sentence. He was also ordered to pay Fields $1,665 for hospital bills resulting from the fight.[5] The incident was later parodied on Chappelle's Show.

On July 26, 2007, Coleman was cited for misdemeanor disorderly conduct by a Provo, Utah, police officer after he was seen having a "heated discussion" with a woman.[6]


Candidate for Governor of California

Coleman was a candidate for governor in the 2003 California recall election. This campaign was sponsored by the free newsweekly the East Bay Express as a satirical comment on the recall. After Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy, Coleman stated that he would be voting for Schwarzenegger. Coleman placed 8th in a field of 135 candidates, receiving 14,242 votes.

MICROSOFT SHOULD MAKE CARS, GM SHOULD MAKE SOFTWARE

At a recent computer expo, Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon." In response to Bill's comments/General Motors issued a press release stating the following: "If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally, your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would accept this, restart, and drive on.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart;
in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought 'Car95' or 'CarNT.' Then you would have to buy
more seats.

6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was more reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five percent of the roads.

7. The oil, water, temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single 'general car fault' warning light.

8. New seats would force everyone to have the same butt size.

9. The airbag system would say 'Are you sure?' before going off.

10. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50 per cent or more.

12. Every time GM introduced a new model, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

13. You'd press the 'Start' button to shut off the engine.

Good morning, hawkman. Love the observations about GM and Bill Gates. General Motors got it right, because every few minutes last evening I had to shut down for no reason. Too true to be funny, Boston.

Thanks again for the great background on the celeb's.

I had no idea that Jules Verne was French, folks. So in honor of the writer who was ahead of his time, let's watch this video that challenges NASA.

From the earth to the moon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_1O2GAkNBI

Good afternoon WA2K.

A few of today's birthday celebs:

off to an evening of OPERETTA AND OPERA at queen's university
hbg

http://youtube.com/watch?v=M_9iq8A2tA0

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=BPy-Memj0vE

Love this voice.