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Sidney Poitier
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born February 20, 1927 (1927-02-20) (age 81)
Miami, Florida[citation needed], possibly born in the Bahamas
Spouse(s) Juanita Hardy (1950-1965)
Joanna Shimkus (1976-)
[show]Awards
Academy Awards
Best Actor
1963 Lilies of the Field
Academy Honorary Award (2002)
BAFTA Awards
Best Actor
1958 The Defiant Ones
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
1964 Lilies of the Field
Cecil B. DeMille Award (1982)
Other Awards
AFI Life Achievement Award
1992 Lifetime Achievement

Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE (pronounced /ˈpwɑːtieɪ/; born February 20, 1927), is an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Grammy-winning American actor, film director, and author. He broke through as a star in acclaimed performances in American films and plays, which, by consciously defying racial stereotyping, gave a new dramatic credibility for black actors to mainstream film audiences in the Western world.

In 1963, Poitier became the first black man to win the Academy Award for Best Actor - for his role in Lilies of the Field. The significance of this achievement was later bolstered in 1967 when he starred in three very well received films - To Sir, With Love, In the Heat of the Night, and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - making him the top box office star of that year.[1]

Poitier has directed a number of popular movies such as Uptown Saturday Night, and Let's Do It Again (with friend Bill Cosby), and Stir Crazy (starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder). In 2002, 38 years after receiving the Best Actor Award, Poitier was chosen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive the Honorary Award, designated "To Sidney Poitier in recognition of his remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being."[2]





Biography


By Poitier's own account, he was born in The Bahamas and later moved to the United States.[citation needed] By other accounts, he was born at sea en route to Miami, Florida, where his Bahamian parents, Evelyn (née Outten) and Reginald James Poitier,[3] traveled to sell tomatoes and other produce from their farm on tiny Cat Island. Poitier was born prematurely and was not originally expected to survive the boat ride; his birth was recorded in Miami (though he may not have been born there), as the vessel was already closer to Florida. He spent his early years on remote Cat Island, which had a population of 4,000 and no electricity.

At the age of 10, Poitier traveled to Nassau with his family. His family attended the Anglican and then the Catholic church, and Poitier was also involved with local voodoo traditions.[4] As he got older, he displayed an increasing inclination toward juvenile delinquency. At the age of 15, his parents shipped him off to Miami to live with his older brother. At age 17, Poitier moved to New York City and held a string of menial jobs. During this time, he was arrested for vagrancy after being thrown out of his housing complex for not paying rent, and decided to join the United States Army.


Acting career

Poitier tried his hand at the American Negro Theater, where he was handily rejected by audiences. Determined to refine his acting skills and rid himself of his noticeable Bahamian accent, he spent the next six months dedicating himself to achieving theatrical success. On his second attempt at the theater, he was noticed and given a leading role in the Broadway production Lysistrata, for which he got excellent reviews. By the end of 1949, he had to choose between leading roles on stage and an offer to work for Darryl F. Zanuck in the film No Way Out (1950). His performance in No Way Out as a doctor treating a white bigot was noticed and led to more roles, each considerably more interesting and prominent than most black actors of the time were getting, though still less so than those white actors routinely obtained.

Poitier's breakout role was as a member of an incorrigible high school class in the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle. At age twenty-seven, like most of the actors in the film, he was not a teenager. Poitier was the first male black actor to be nominated for a competitive Academy Award (for The Defiant Ones, 1958), and also the first to win the Academy Award for Best Actor (for Lilies of the Field in 1963). (James Baskett was the first to receive an Oscar, an Honorary Academy Award for his performance as Uncle Remus in the Walt Disney production of Song of the South in 1948).

He acted in the first production of A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway in 1959, and later starred in the film version released in 1961. He also gave memorable performances in The Bedford Incident (1965), A Patch of Blue (1965) co-starring Elizabeth Hartman and Shelley Winters; Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967); and To Sir, with Love (1967). Poitier played Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania detective in the 1967 film In the Heat of the Night and its two sequels: They Call Me Mister Tibbs (1970) and The Organization (1971).


Directorial career

Poitier has directed several films, the most successful being the Richard Pryor-Gene Wilder comedy Stir Crazy, which for years was the highest grossing film directed by a person of African descent.[citation needed] His feature film directorial debut was the western Buck and the Preacher in which Poitier also starred in alongside Harry Belafonte. Poitier replaced original director Joseph Sargent. The trio of Poitier, Cosby, and Belafonte reunited again (with Poitier again directing) in Uptown Saturday Night. Poitier also directed Cosby in Let's Do It Again, A Piece of the Action, and Ghost Dad.


Personal life

Poitier was first married to Juanita Hardy from April 29, 1950 until 1965. He has been married to Joanna Shimkus, a Canadian-born former actress of Lithuanian descent, since January 23, 1976. He has four children by his first marriage and two children by his second marriage, all girls. His fifth daughter is actress Sydney Tamiia Poitier.

He has written two autobiographical books, This Life (1980) and The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (2000). In January 2007, the latter became an Oprah's Book Club selection.

Amanda Blake
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Beverly Louise Neill
Born February 20, 1929(1929-02-20)
Buffalo, New York, U.S.
Died August 16, 1989 (aged 60)

Amanda Blake (February 20, 1929 - August 16, 1989), was an American actress best known for the role of the red-haired "Miss Kitty" on the longest-running television drama, CBS's Gunsmoke series (1955-1975).

Born Beverly Louise Neill in Buffalo, New York, she was a telephone operator before taking up acting. Nicknamed "The Young Greer Garson," she became best known for her 19-year stint as the fictitious "Kitty Russell." Miss Kitty was owner-operator of the Long Branch Saloon, from which she dispensed wisdom, whiskey, (and though not overtly) boarding room keys and "fancy" women. (In early episodes of Gunsmoke Miss Kitty is an employee of the Long Branch although it is not clear what her duties are.) Like Perry Mason and his secretary Della Street, Kitty and Dodge City's U.S. Marshal, Matt Dillon (played by James Arness) seemingly carried on a cloaked relationship. Blake's Kitty presumably departed Dodge City at the close of the series' 19th season, sans an on-screen farewell. Character actress Fran Ryan (Hanna) assumed ownership of the Long Branch for the twentieth and final season, with little mentioned of Kitty. In the first of three CBS post-series movies ("Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge"), Kitty tells Hanna (Ryan) that she left Dodge to return to New Orleans, as she was no longer willing to watch Matt cheat death another time (Actually, a flashback was created by cleverly editing/integrating footage from a 1970 episode where Kitty left Matt/ Dodge but returned by the epilogue). In real life Blake left in 1974 as she wanted more free time, and missed her friend/costar Glenn Strange who played Kitty's barkeeper Sam. Gunsmoke continued for one more year before CBS cancelled it after its 20th season, much to the surprise of the entire cast, including Arness.

In 1968, Blake was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. This was six years before the legendary John Wayne was inducted in 1974 and more than a decade before co-stars Arness, Ken Curtis, Dennis Weaver, and Milburn Stone were inducted in 1981. Blake was the third performer welcomed into the Hall, after Tom Mix and Gary Cooper, who were inducted in 1958 and 1966 respectively.


Because of her continuing role on Gunsmoke, Blake did not appear in many films. She did once manage to find time to appear in a comedy routine with the legendary CBS entertainer Red Skelton She was also a panelist on the long-running Hollywood Squares and "Match Game '74."


After Gunsmoke, Blake went into semi-retirement at her home in Phoenix, Arizona, taking on only a few film and TV projects. A lover of animals, she joined with others to form the Arizona Animal Welfare League in 1971, today the oldest and largest "no-kill" animal shelter in the state. In 1980, Blake was diagnosed with a form of mouth cancer. In 1985, she helped finance the start-up of the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) and devoted a great deal of time and money in support of its efforts, including travels to Africa.

Blake reportedly was a one-time board member of the Humane Society of the United States. [1] In 1997, the Amanda Blake Memorial Wildlife Refuge [2]opened at Rancho Seco Park in Herald, California. The refuge is a PAWS[3] sanctuary for free-ranging African hoofed wildlife, most of whom were originally destined for exotic animal auctions or hunting ranches.

The exact cause of Blake's death is unclear. It was widely reported in the news media that she had died of AIDS[4] and had contracted HIV. In retrospect, it would probably be more accurate to say that an AIDS-defining infection contributed to her death, the underlying cause of which was cancer. A longtime smoker, Blake was diagnosed with mouth cancer and underwent surgery in 1977 (and seven years later was a recipient of the American Cancer Society's Courage Award). [5] According to her doctor, Sacramento internist Dr. Lou Nishimura, she had throat cancer at the time of her death. Miss Blake's death certificate, however, listed the immediate cause as cardiopulmonary arrest due to liver failure and CMV hepatitis. A report by television station KRBK in Sacramento, where Miss Blake was a longtime resident, quoted her friends as saying that her death was related to AIDS. Her fourth husband was openly bisexual and had died of AIDS in 1985, just a year after they married. In response to this report, Dr. Nishimura said that Blake had suffered from AIDS symptoms for about a year but that he did not know how she had contracted the disease.

Nancy Wilson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Background information
Birth name Nancy Sue Wilson
Born February 20, 1937 (1937-02-20) (age 71)
Origin Chillicothe, Ohio, USA
Genre(s) Blues
Jazz
Cabaret
Pop
Occupation(s) Vocalist
Years active 1956 - present
Label(s) MCG Jazz, Capitol, Blue Note
Associated
acts Ramsey Lewis
George Shearing
Cannonball Adderley
James Ingram
Hank Jones
Billy Taylor
Website Miss Nancy Wilson

Nancy Wilson (born February 20, 1937) is an American singer with seventy-plus albums, and three Grammy Awards so far in her career. She's been labeled a singer of blues, jazz, cabaret and pop; a "consummate actress"; and "the complete entertainer." The title she prefers, however, is song stylist.[1] She has received many nicknames--"Sweet Nancy, The Baby" and the "Fancy Miss Nancy" are only two of them.[2]





Background

Nancy Wilson was born in Chillicothe, Ohio, February 20, 1937 to Olden Wilson (iron foundry worker), and Lillian Ryan.[3] Nancy's father would buy records to listen to in the home. At an early age Nancy heard recordings from Billy Eckstine, Nat Cole, and Jimmy Scott with Lionel Hampton's Big Band. Nancy says: "The juke joint down on the block had a great jukebox and there I heard Dinah Washington, Ruth Brown, LaVerne Baker, Little Esther".[4] By age of four, she knew she would eventually become a singer.

At the age of 15, while a student at West High School (Columbus, Ohio), she was chosen to represent the school in a talent contest sponsored by local television station WTVN. She won. The prize was an appearance on a twice-a-week television show, Skyline Melodies, which she ended up hosting.[5] She also worked every club on the east side and north side of Columbus, Ohio, from the age of 15 until when she graduated from West High School, at age 17. Nancy first attracted notice performing the club circuit in nearby Columbus.

Unsure of her future as an entertainer, she entered college to pursue teaching credentials. She spent one year at Ohio's Central State College before dropping out and following her original ambitions. She auditioned and won a spot with Rusty Bryant's Carolyn Club Band in 1956.


Career

Wilson moved to New York City in 1956, where she met jazz alto saxophonist Julian Cannonball Adderley in a recording session. She wanted Cannonball's manager John Levy to represent her, and she wanted Capitol Records as her label. Within four weeks of her arrival in New York she got her first big break, a call to fill in for Irene Reid at "The Blue Morocco". The club booked Wilson on a permanent basis; she was singing four nights a week and working as a secretary fot the New York Institute of Technology during the day. John Levy sent demos "Guess Who I Saw Today", "Sometimes I'm Happy", and two other songs to Capitol. Capitol Records signed her in 1960.

Nancy's debut single, "Guess Who I Saw Today", was so successful that between April 1960 and July 1962 Capitol Records released five Nancy Wilson albums, and a 1962 album with Adderley propelled her to national prominence. In 1963 "Tell Me The Truth" became her first truly major hit, leading up to her performance at the Coconut Grove in 1964 - the turning pointing of her career garnering critical acclaim from coast to coast.[6] It was covered in Time magazine, She is, all at once, both cool and sweet, both singer and storyteller.[7]

After doing numerous television guest appearances, Wilson eventually got her own series on NBC, "The Nancy Wilson Show" (1967-1968), that won an Emmy in 1975.[8] Over the years she has appeared on many popular television shows from I Spy (more or less playing herself as a Las Vegas singer in the 1966 episode "Lori"); Room 222; Hawaii Five-O; Police Story, The Jack Paar Program; The The Sammy Davis, Jr. Show (1966); The Danny Kaye Show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour; Kraft Music Hall (TV series); The Cosby Show; The Andy Williams Show, The Carol Burnett Show, Soul Food (TV series), New York Undercover; and recently Moesha; and The Parkers.[9][10] She was in the 1993 Robert Townsend's The Meteor Man (film).

In 1982 she signed with CBS, her albums here including The Two Of Us (1984), duets with Ramsey Lewis produced by Stanley Clarke; Forbidden Lover (1987), including the title track duet with Carl Anderson; and A Lady With A Song, which became her 52nd album release in 1989.

In the late 1990s, Nancy teamed up with MCG Jazz, a youth education programs of the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild,[11] nonprofit, minority-directed, arts and learning organization located in Pittsburgh, PA. A Nancy Wilson Christmas, released for the 2001, all proceeds from the sale went directly to support the programs of MCG Jazz.[12] Wilson was the host on Jazz Profiles,[13] from 1996 to 2005. It was a a jazz radio program on National Public Radio, Washington, D.C., during the show's run from 1996-2005. This series profiled the legends and legacy of jazz through music, interviews and commentary. Wilson and the program were the recipients of the George Foster Peabody Award in 2001.[14]

Nancy's second and third album with MCG Jazz, R.S.V.P. (Rare Songs, Very Personal), and Turned to Blue won Grammy Awards in 2005 and 2007, respectively.


Awards and honors

In 1993, received an award from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in 1993; the NAACP Image Award - Hall of Fame Award in 1998, and was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1999. Nancy has received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991, at 6541 Hollywood Blvd.[15] Received honorary degrees from the Berklee School of Music and Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio. She is also a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. Wilson has a street named after her in her hometown of Chillicothe, Ohio.

Wilson was the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts, NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships award in 2004, the highest honors that the United States government bestows upon jazz musicians.[16] The 2004 NAACP Image Awards for Best Recording Jazz Artist. In 2005, the UNCF Trumpet Award celebrating African-American achievement, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the NAACP in Chicago, and Oprah Winfrey's Legends Award.

In September, 2005 Nancy was inducted on the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site. Wilson was a major figure in civil rights marches of the 1960s. Nancy Wilson said, "This award means more to me than anything else I have ever received."[17]

Times.com, August 20, 2006: "It's been a long career for the polished Wilson, whose first albums appeared in the 1960s, and she faces that truth head-on in such numbers as These Golden Years and I Don't Remember Ever Growing Up. Shorter breathed these days, she can still summon a warm, rich sound and vividly tell a song's story. With a big band behind her in Taking a Chance on Love, she also shows there's plenty of fire in her autumnal mood".[18]

At the Hollywood Bowl, August 29, 2007, Nancy Wilson celebrated her 70th birthday with an all-star event hosted by Arsenio Hall. Ramsey Lewis and his trio performed "To Know Her Is To Love Her". (Lewis and Wilson have recorded over 150 albums together.) Other appearances were Nnenna Freelon, Regina Carter, Patti Austin, Natalie Cole, James Ingram, and other artists.[19][20]

Richard Beymer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Birth name George Richard Beymer
Born February 20, 1938 (1938-02-20) (age 69)
Avoca, Iowa, U.S.
Occupation Actor
Richard Beymer (born February 20, 1938, in Avoca, Iowa) is an American actor.

Beymer and his family moved to Los Angeles, California in 1940 where he began his acting career in 1949 in television. In the 1950s, he began appearing in films and achieved success in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) and West Side Story (1961) before sharing a 1962 Golden Globe award as "Most Promising Newcomer" with Bobby Darin and Warren Beatty.

In 1961, Beymer began a brief relationship with Sharon Tate, who was working as an extra on his film, Adventures of a Young Man. Beymer encouraged Tate to pursue an acting career, and after she was introduced to his agent, Tate signed a contract with Filmways. [1]

Beymer achieved a notable success in the film The Longest Day (1962). In 1964, he became involved in Freedom Summer in Mississippi. During this time, he filmed the award-winning documentary A Regular Bouquet: Mississippi Summer, documenting the efforts of volunteers registering African Americans to vote. He directed the avant-garde film The Innerview in 1974. He had a featured role in the television series Twin Peaks in 1990, playing Benjamin Horne. In addition to his work in films, Beymer has frequently appeared in guest roles in television series. These include three appearances on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Li Nalas in the episodes "The Homecoming", "The Circle," and "The Siege". Beymer also appeared as Dr. Matthew Sheridan with Yasmine Bleeth in 1996 in the made-for-TV movie The Face, which was also known as A Face to Die For.

In 2007, Beymer completed his first book. The self-published novel, Impostor: Or Whatever Happened to Richard Beymer?, is a semi-autobiographical account of a young actor's struggle to find himself amidst murder, mystery and mayhem. Beymer's photographs of Twin Peaks cast and crew were featured in the gallery of behind the scenes photos on the Twin Peaks Definitive Gold Box Edition that was released on October 30, 2007.

Beymer currently resides in Fairfield, Iowa, where he continues to make movies, write, take photographs and paint.

Buffy Sainte-Marie
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Beverly Sainte-Marie
Born August 2, 1941 (1941-20-02) (age 66)
Origin Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan, Canada
Genre(s) folk music, rock music, country music, electronic music
Occupation(s) Singer, songwriter, record producer, visual artist, educator, social activist
Years active 1960-present (singer)
Label(s) Vanguard Records, Angel Records, Capitol, Island,
Website Official website

Buffy Sainte-Marie (born Beverly Sainte-Marie, February 20, 1941) is an Academy Award-winning Canadian First Nations musician, composer, visual artist, educator and social activist.

"Artists are the people who are able to resist the school system fragmenting us because it's convenient to do so, when the art teacher is in competition with the music teacher, and all creativity is in competition with the 'real' curriculum."[1]





Personal life

Buffy Sainte-Marie was born on the Piapot Cree reserve in the Qu'Appelle valley, Saskatchewan. She was orphaned[2] and later adopted[3] and grew up in Maine and Massachusetts with parents Albert and Winifred Sainte-Marie who were related to her biological parents.[4] From the University of Massachusetts she holds degrees in teaching and Oriental Philosophy[5] graduating in the top ten of her class[3] and went on to earn a Ph.D. in Fine Arts. In 1964 on a return trip to the Piapot Cree reserve in Canada for a Powwow she was welcomed and (in a Cree nation context) adopted by the youngest son of Chief Piapot, Imu Piapot and his wife who added to Sainte-Marie's cultural value of and place in First Nations culture.[6]

In 1968 she married surfing teacher Dewain Bugbee of Hawaii. They divorced in 1971. She married Sheldon Wolfchild from Minnesota in 1975, and they have a son, Dakota "Cody" Starblanket Wolfchild. She reportedly married Jack Nitzsche in the early 1980s. Sainte-Marie has been in a committed relationship with Hawaiian Chuck Wilson since 1993, ("A blond boy raised in a tan community" as Sainte-Marie says).[6]. She currently lives on Kauai[7].

She became an active friend of the Bahá'í Faith by the mid-1970s when she is said to have appeared in the 1973 Third National Baha'i Youth Conference at the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds, Oklahoma City, OK, with several artists including Seals & Crofts and has continued to appear at concerts, conferences and conventions of that religion since then. In 1992 Sainte-Marie appeared in the musical event prelude to the Bahá'í World Congress; a double concert "Live Unity: The Sound of the World" in 1992 with video broadcast and documentary.[8] In the video documentary of the event Sainte-Marie is seen on the Dini Petty Show explaining the Bahá'í Faith teaching of Progressive Revelation.[9]

In 1996 she received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Regina. In 2007 she received an honorary Doctor of Letters from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.[10]


Early career

Sainte-Marie played piano and guitar, self-taught, in her childhood and teen years. In college some of her songs, "Ananias", the Indian lament, "Now That the Buffalo's Gone" and "Mayoo Sto Hoon" (in Hindi) were already in her repertoire.[5]

By 1962, in her early twenties, Sainte-Marie was touring alone, developing her craft and performing in various concert halls, folk festivals and Native reservations across the U.S, Canada and abroad. She spent a considerable amount of time in the coffeehouses of downtown Toronto's old Yorkville district, and New York City's Greenwich Village as part of the early to mid-1960s folk scene, often alongside other emerging Canadian contemporaries, such as Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell (including introducing her to manager Eliot Roberts[6]), and Neil Young.


Buffy Sainte-MarieShe quickly earned a reputation as a gifted songwriter, and many of her earliest songs were covered, and often turned into hits, by other artists, including Chet Atkins, Janis Joplin, Taj Mahal and others. One of her most popular songs, "Until It's Time for You to Go", has been recorded by artists as diverse as Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra, Roberta Flack, Cher, and Bobby Darin, while "Piney Wood Hills" was made into a country hit by Bobby Bare.

In 1963, recovering from a throat infection Sainte-Marie became addicted to codeine and recovering from the experience became the basis of her song "Cod'ine"[3], later covered by Quicksilver Messenger Service. Also in 1963 Sainte-Marie witnessed wounded soldiers returning from Vietnam at a time when the U.S. government was denying involvement - this inspired her protest song "Universal Soldier"[11] which was released on her debut album, It's My Way on Vanguard Records in 1964, and later became a hit for Donovan. She was subsequently named Billboard Magazine's Best New Artist.

In 1967, Sainte-Marie released the album Fire and Fleet and Candlelight, which contained her interpretation of the traditional song "Lyke Wake Dirge" and the hit "Now That the Buffalo's Gone", a protest over broken treaties with First Nations people. Sainte-Marie's other well-known songs include "Mister Can't You See," (a Top 40 U.S. hit in 1972); "He's an Indian Cowboy in the Rodeo"; and the theme song of the popular movie "Soldier Blue". Perhaps her first appearance on TV was as herself on To Tell the Truth in January 1966.[12]. She also appeared on Pete Seeger's Rainbow Quest with Pete Seeger in 1965 and several Canadian Television productions from the 1960s through to the 1990s[6]

In the late sixties, Sainte-Marie used a Buchla synthesizer to record the album Illuminations, which did not receive much notice. "People were more in love with the Pocahontas-with-a-guitar image," she commented in a 1998 interview.

She sang the opening song "The Circle Game" (written by Joni Mitchell as performed by Sainte-Marie[6]) in Stuart Hagmann's 1970 film "The Strawberry Statement". Sainte-Marie regularly appeared on the children's TV series Sesame Street over a five year period from 1976 - 1981, along with her first son, Dakota Starblanket Wolfchild whom she breast fed in one episode. She also began using Apple Inc. Apple II[13] and Macintosh computers as early as 1981 to record her music and later some of her visual art.[5]

The song "Up Where We Belong" (which Sainte-Marie co-wrote with Will Jennings and musician Jack Nitzsche) was performed by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes for the film An Officer and a Gentleman. It received the Academy Award for Best Song in 1982. The song was later covered by Cliff Richard and Anne Murray on Cliff's album of duets, Two's Company.


Later career

In 1992, after a sixteen-year recording hiatus, Sainte-Marie released the album Coincidence and Likely Stories. Recorded in 1990 at home in Hawaii on her computer and transmitted via modem through the early Internet to producer Chris Burket in London, England[6], the album included the politically-charged songs "The Big Ones Get Away" and "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" (which mentions Leonard Peltier), both commenting on the ongoing plight of Native Americans (see also the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.) Also in 1992, Sainte-Marie appeared in the television movie The Broken Chain with Pierce Brosnan along with fellow First Nations Bahá'í Phil Lucas. Her next album followed up in 1996 with Up Where We Belong, an album on which she re-recorded a number of her greatest hits in more unplugged and acoustic versions, including a re-release of "Universal Soldier".

A gifted digital artist, Sainte-Marie has exhibited her art at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Emily Carr Gallery in Vancouver and the American Indian Arts Museum in Santa Fe.

She founded the Cradleboard Teaching Project in October of 1996, from a two year grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Michigan. With projects across Mohawk, Cree, Ojibwe, Menominee, Coeur D'Alene, Navajo, Quinault, Hawaiian, and Apache communities in eleven states, partnered with a non-First Nations class of the same grade level for Elementary, Middle, and High School grades in the disciplines of Geography, History, Social Studies, Music and Science and produced a multimedia curriculum CD, Science: Through Native American Eyes.[14]

In 2000, Sainte-Marie gave the commencement address at Haskell Indian Nations University.[15] In 2002 she sang at the Kennedy Space Center for Chicasaw Commander John Herrington, the first Native American astronaut.[16] In 2003 she became a spokesperson for the UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network in Canada.[17]

In 2004, a track written and performed by her and entitled "Lazarus" was sampled by Hip Hop producer Kanye West and performed by Cam'Ron and Jim Jones of The Diplomats. The track is called "Dead or Alive". In June 2007, Sainte-Marie made a rare United States appearance at the Clearwater Festival in Croton-on-Hudson, NY.


Censorship

Sainte-Marie has claimed that she was blacklisted and that she, along with other American Indians in the Red Power movements, was put out of business in the 1970s.

"I found out 10 years later, in the 1980s, that [President] Lyndon B. Johnson had been writing letters on White House stationery praising radio stations for suppressing my music," Sainte-Marie said in a 1999 interview with Indian Country Today at Dine' College... "In the 1970s, not only was the protest movement put out of business, but the Native American movement was attacked."

Additionally, she claims that in the United States, her records were disappearing. According to her, thousands of people at concerts wanted records, and although the distributor claimed that the records had been shipped, no one seemed to know where they were.

Said Sainte-Marie, "I was put out of business in the United States."


Awards and Honors

France named Buffy Sainte-Marie Best International Artist of 1993. That same year, she was selected by the United Nations to proclaim officially the International Year of Indigenous Peoples.

Sainte-Marie was inducted into the Juno Hall of Fame for her life-long contribution to music in 1995 and won a Gemini Award in 1997 for the Canadian TV special Buffy Sainte-Marie: Up Where We Belong. This also marked the first time she had performed her famous song to a live audience.

She received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation in Canada in 1998, and was also made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

In 1999, she received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.

Sandy Duncan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Birth name Sandra Kay Duncan
Born February 20, 1946 (1946-02-20) (age 62)
Henderson, Texas, U.S.
Spouse(s) Don Correia (1980-present)
Dr. Thomas Calcaterra (1973-1979)
Bruce Scott (1968-1972)

Sandra Kay "Sandy" Duncan (born February 20, 1946) is an American singer and actress of stage and television. Her most notable trademarks are her pixie blonde hairdo and her perky demeanor. She was born in Henderson, Texas. Among her most prominent roles is playing Sandy Hogan on the sitcom The Hogan Family.

A brilliant dancer, she also captivated Broadway audiences with her engaging personality. In 1970, she was named one of the "most promising faces of tomorrow" by TIME magazine. In 1971, she starred in the television series Funny Face (later renamed The Sandy Duncan Show). Her performance as Missy Anne Reynolds in the miniseries Roots earned her an Emmy Award nomination. In 1976, she was a guest star in an episode of the first season of The Muppet Show. It was then that she went back to Broadway for many years. Notable performances include her 1979 stint as the title role in Peter Pan, My One and Only, and Chicago.

She has also been nominated for a Tony Award three times: as Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Musical), in 1969 for Canterbury Tales, and as Best Actress (Musical), in 1971 for a revival of The Boy Friend, and in 1980 for Peter Pan.

In the 1970s, she was treated for a tumor behind her left eye, which damaged the optic nerve. She lost the sight in the eye, but is still able to move it normally.[citation needed]

In 1987, she joined the cast of Valerie's Family (which was previously titled Valerie, and soon to be retitled The Hogan Family) after Valerie Harper left the show abruptly over financial matters. Sandy filled the "mother" role as "aunt", Sandy Hogan, the patriarch's sister.

In 1988, she did the first three Barney and the Backyard Gang videos as Michael and Amy's mother. She has been in many traveling stage productions, including The King and I.

She has also lent her voice talents to animated characters; in 1984 she was the speaking and singing voice of Firefly in the pilot episode of My Little Pony, and in 1994 she was the voice of Queen Uberta in The Swan Princess.





Streets named in her honor

Taylorville, Illinois (about 30 miles southeast of Springfield, Illinois) had a street named "Sandy Duncan Drive" in her honor.


References in Pop Culture


She appeared on an episode of Scooby-Doo.
She also played Vixie in the movie The Fox and the Hound.
Her glass eye is a running gag on the TV show "Family Guy" Such jokes would include Peter having a job at one time as her glass eye.

She was also mentioned in a "The Simpsons" episode by Marge, mistaking Sandy for Courtney Love on a Wheaties box.
There was a L.A. based band in the early 90's calld Sandy Duncans Eye. [1]

Peter Strauss
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born February 20, 1947 (1947-02-20) (age 61)
Croton-on-Hudson, New York

Peter Strauss (born February 20, 1947) is an American television and movie actor, perhaps best known for his roles in several television miniseries in the 1970s. He won an Emmy Award for his role on the 1979 made-for-television movie The Jericho Mile. His other noted television miniseries credits include roles in Rich Man, Poor Man, the sequel Rich Man, Poor Man Book II, and Masada.

He also starred in the films Soldier Blue (1970) and Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983), and has appeared in several others. He voiced the character of Justin, Captain of the Guard, in the 1982 animated film The Secret of NIMH, alongside the late Elizabeth Hartman and the late Paul Shenar, and subsequently named his son Justin, for the character. A more recent film is XXX: State of the Union (2005). He also has appeared in commercials for Miracle-Gro. He was the voice of Moses in the animated series K10C: Kids' Ten Commandments. He married the actress Rachel Ticotin on December 31, 1998.

Strauss also runs a successful citrus production business and is on the advisory board of the Los Angeles Arboretum. He sold[1] a ranch property to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. The ranch has since been acquired by the National Park Service as the Peter Strauss Ranch.

Jennifer O'Neill
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jennifer O'Neill (born February 20, 1948) is an American actress and author, born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the daughter of a Spanish-Irish businessman and his English wife. As a teenager, O'Neill worked as a fashion model and appeared in television commercials and on magazine covers. In 1968 she landed a small role in For the Love of Ivy. In 1970 she played one of the lead female roles in Rio Lobo starring John Wayne.

After her success in Summer of '42 in 1971, in which she plays the young widow of a soldier killed in World War II, O'Neill became a well-known Hollywood actress, and continued acting for the next two decades, including singing in the Chrysler corporation commercial "change in Charger" that represented the death of the Dodge Charger in 1975. She also continued playing a grasping mistress in Luchino Visconti's final film, L'Innocente [1976]). She had more success in TV movies, including performances in Love's Savage Fury.

A self-described "romantic", O'Neill has been married and divorced nine times, and has a daughter by her first husband, and two sons from later marriages. A lifelong competitive rider, she has suffered serious back injuries due to falls. On Oct 23, 1982, her name was in the news after she accidentally shot herself in the abdomen with a gun belonging to her then husband. The incident occurred at the Bedford, New York mansion she shared with her husband-manager, John Lederer. Local police ruled it an accident, and O'Neill said she was checking to see if the weapon was loaded.

In 1982, O'Neill starred in the short-lived NBC prime time soap opera Bare Essence.

In 1984, her television career was hit with tragedy. At the time, she played the lead female role on the CBS television series Cover Up. That year, Jon-Erik Hexum, the lead male actor, was killed on the studio playing with a blank (prop bullet in a gun). The series ended after just one season, with Antony Hamilton as the new male lead.

More recently, O'Neill has started to write, and has published From Fallen To Forgiven, a book of biographical notes and philosophical thoughts about life and existence.

The actress, who had an abortion at the age of nineteen, has, in recent years, become a pro-life activist and speaks on abstinence to teens, and is now a Christian.

Good evening from Germany!

You might have noticed my absence from this thread which can only mean one thing - I went to work again on Monday! So this is dedicated to me
Working...

Kurt Cobain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Background information

Birth name Kurt Donald Cobain
Born February 20, 1967(1967-02-20)
Aberdeen, Washington, USA
Died c. April 5, 1994 (aged 27)
Seattle, Washington, USA
Genre(s) Alternative rock
Grunge
Occupation(s) Musician, Songwriter
Instrument(s) Vocals
Guitar
Associated
acts Nirvana
Fecal Matter
Notable instrument(s)
Fender Jagstang
Fender Stratocaster
Fender Jaguar
Fender Mustang

Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 - c. April 5, 1994), was an American musician, best known for his roles as lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the Seattle-based rock band Nirvana.

Cobain formed Nirvana in 1987 with Krist Novoselic. Within two years, the band became a fixture of the burgeoning Seattle grunge scene. In 1991, the arrival of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" marked the beginning of a dramatic shift of popular rock music away from the dominant genres of the 1980s (glam metal, arena rock, and dance-pop) and toward grunge and alternative rock. The music media eventually awarded the song "anthem-of-a-generation" status,[1] and, with it, Cobain was labeled a "spokesman" for Generation X.

During the last years of his life, Cobain struggled with drug addiction and the media pressures surrounding him and his wife, Courtney Love. On April 8, 1994, Cobain was found dead in his home in Seattle, the victim of what was officially ruled a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head. In ensuing years, the circumstances of his death became a topic of fascination and debate.





Life and career

Early life

Kurt Cobain was born to Donald and Wendy Cobain on February 20, 1967 in Aberdeen, Washington and spent his first six months living in the village of Hoquiam, Washington before the family moved to Aberdeen.[2] He began developing an interest in music early in his life. According to his Aunt Mari, "He was singing from the time he was two. He would sing Beatles songs like 'Hey Jude'. He had a lot of charisma from a very young age."[3]


Young Kurt Cobain, seen here in a yearbook picture. This picture was handed out at his memorial service.Cobain's life changed at the age of seven when his parents divorced in 1975, an event which he later cited as having a profound impact on his life. His mother noted that his personality changed dramatically, with Cobain becoming more withdrawn.[4] In a 1993 interview, Cobain said, "I remember feeling ashamed, for some reason. I was ashamed of my parents. I couldn't face some of my friends at school anymore, because I desperately wanted to have the classic, you know, typical family. Mother, father. I wanted that security, so I resented my parents for quite a few years because of that."[5] After a year spent living with his mother following the divorce, Cobain moved to Montesano, Washington to live with his father, but after a few years his youthful rebellion became too overwhelming and he found himself being shuffled between friends and family.[6]

At school, Cobain took little interest in sports. At his father's insistence, Cobain joined the junior high wrestling team. While he was good at it, he despised it. Later, his father signed him up for a local baseball league, where Cobain would intentionally strike out to avoid having to play.[7] Instead, Cobain focused on his art courses. He often drew during classes, including objects associated with human anatomy. Cobain was friends with a gay student at his school, sometimes suffering bullying at the hands of homophobic students. That friendship led some to believe that he himself was gay. In one of his personal journals, Cobain wrote, "I am not gay, although I wish I were, just to piss off homophobes."[8] In a 1993 interview with The Advocate, Cobain claimed that he used to spray paint "God is Gay" on pickup trucks around Aberdeen. Cobain also claimed he was arrested in 1985 for spray-painting "HOMO SEX RULES" on a bank.[9] However, Aberdeen police records show that the phrase for which he was arrested was actually "Ain't got no how watchamacallit".[10] As a teenager growing up in small-town Washington, Cobain eventually found escape through the thriving Pacific Northwest punk scene, going to punk rock shows in Seattle. Eventually, Cobain began frequenting the practice space of fellow Montesano musicians the Melvins.

In the middle of tenth grade, Cobain moved back to live with his mother in Aberdeen. Two weeks before his graduation, Cobain dropped out of high school after realizing that he did not have enough credits to graduate. His mother gave him a choice: either get a job or leave. After a week or so, Cobain found his clothes and other belongings packed away in boxes.[11] Forced out of his mother's home, Cobain often stayed at friends' houses and sneaked into his mother's basement occasionally.[12] Cobain later claimed that when he could not find anywhere else to stay, he lived under a bridge over the Wishkah River,[12] an experience that inspired the Nevermind track "Something in the Way". However, Krist Novoselic claimed that Cobain never really lived there, saying, "He hung out there, but you couldn't live on those muddy banks, with the tides coming up and down. That was his own revisionism."[13]

In late 1986, Cobain moved into the first house he lived in alone and paid his rent by working at a coastal resort twenty miles from Aberdeen.[14] At the same time, Cobain was traveling more frequently to Olympia, Washington to check out rock shows.[15] During his visits to Olympia, Cobain started a relationship with Tracy Marander.


Nirvana

For his 14th birthday, Cobain's uncle gave him the option of a guitar or a bicycle as a gift; Cobain chose the guitar. He started learning a few covers, including AC/DC's "Back in Black" and The Cars' "My Best Friend's Girl", and soon began working on his own songs.[16]

In high school, Cobain rarely found anyone to jam with. While hanging out at the Melvins practice space, he met Krist Novoselic, a fellow devotee of punk rock. Novoselic's mother owned a hair salon and Cobain and Novoselic would occasionally practice in the upstairs room. A few years later, Cobain tried to convince Novoselic to form a band with him by lending him a copy of a home demo recorded by Cobain's earlier band, Fecal Matter. After months of asking, Novoselic finally agreed to join Cobain, forming the beginnings of Nirvana.[17]

During their first few years playing together, Novoselic and Cobain were hosts to a rotating list of drummers. Eventually, the band settled on Chad Channing, with whom Nirvana recorded the album Bleach, released on Sub Pop Records in 1989. Cobain, however, became dissatisfied with Channing's style, leading the band to seek out a replacement, eventually settling on Dave Grohl. With Grohl, the band found their greatest success via their 1991 major-label debut, Nevermind.

Cobain struggled to reconcile the massive success of Nirvana with his underground roots. He also felt persecuted by the media, comparing himself to Frances Farmer, and harbored resentment for people who claimed to be fans of the band but who completely missed the point of the band's message. One incident particularly distressing to Cobain involved two men who raped a woman while singing the Nirvana song "Polly". Cobain condemned the episode in the liner notes of the US release of the album Incesticide: "Last year, a girl was raped by two wastes of sperm and eggs while they sang the lyrics to our song 'Polly'. I have a hard time carrying on knowing there are plankton like that in our audience. Sorry to be so anally P.C. but that's the way I feel."


Marriage

Courtney Love first saw Cobain perform in 1989 at a show in Portland, Oregon; the pair talked briefly after the show and Love developed a crush on him.[18] According to journalist Everett True, the pair were formally introduced at an L7/Butthole Surfers concert in Los Angeles in May 1991.[19] In the weeks that followed, after learning from Grohl that she and Cobain shared mutual crushes, Love began pursuing Cobain. After a few weeks of on-again, off-again courtship in the fall of 1991, the two found themselves together on a regular basis, often bonding through drug use.[20]

Around the time of Nirvana's 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live,in which Cobain was doped up on heroin during the performance, Love discovered that she was pregnant with Cobain's child. A few days after the conclusion of Nirvana's Pacific Rim tour, on Monday, February 24, 1992, Cobain married Love on Waikiki Beach, Hawaii. "In the last couple months I've gotten engaged and my attitude has changed drastically," Cobain said in an interview with Sassy magazine. "I can't believe how much happier I am. At times I even forget that I'm in a band, I'm so blinded by love. I know that sounds embarrassing, but it's true. I could give up the band right now. It doesn't matter, but I'm under contract."[21] On August 18, the couple's daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, was born. The unusual middle name was given to her because Cobain thought she looked like a kidney bean on the first sonogram he saw of her. Her namesake is Frances McKee of British band The Vaselines and not Frances Farmer as is sometimes reported.[22]

Love was somewhat unpopular with Nirvana fans; her harshest critics said she was merely using him as a vehicle to make herself famous.[20] Critics who compared Cobain to John Lennon were also fond of comparing Love to Yoko Ono. Rumors persist that Cobain wrote most of the songs on the breakthrough album Live Through This of Love's band Hole, partially fueled by the 1996 appearance of a rough mix of "Asking for It" with Cobain singing backing vocals. However, there is no specific evidence to support the assertion.

At the same time, one song by Hole was discovered to be a song originally written by Nirvana. The song "Old Age" appeared as a B-side on the 1993 single for Beautiful Son, credited to Hole. Initially, there was no reason to believe it was anything other than a Hole-penned song. However, in 1998, a boombox recording of the song performed by Nirvana (with significantly different lyrics) was surfaced by Seattle newspaper The Stranger. In the article that accompanied the clip, Novoselic confirmed that the recording was made in 1991 and that "Old Age" was a Nirvana song, leading to more speculation about Cobain's involvement in Hole's catalog. Nirvana had even attempted to record "Old Age" during the sessions for Nevermind, but it was left incomplete as Cobain had yet to finish the lyrics and the band had run out of studio time. (The incomplete recording appeared on the 2004 compilation With the Lights Out, credited to Cobain.) As for Hole's version, guitarist Eric Erlandson noted that he believed Cobain wrote the music for the song, but that Love had written the lyrics for their version.[23]

In a 1992 article in Vanity Fair, Love admitted to using heroin while (unknowingly) pregnant. Love claimed that Vanity Fair had misquoted her,[24] but her admission created controversy for the couple. While Cobain and Love's romance had always been something of a media attraction, the couple found themselves hounded by tabloid reporters after the article was published, many wanting to know if Frances was addicted to drugs at birth. The Los Angeles County Department of Children's Services took the Cobains to court, claiming that the couple's drug usage made them unfit parents.[22] Two-week-old Frances Bean Cobain was ordered by the judge to be taken from their custody and placed with Courtney's sister Jamie for several weeks, after which the couple obtained custody, but had to submit to urine tests and a regular visit from a social worker. After months of legal wrangling, the couple were eventually granted full custody of their daughter.


Drug addiction

Throughout most of his life, Cobain battled chronic bronchitis and intense physical pain due to an undiagnosed chronic stomach condition.[25] This last condition was especially debilitating to his emotional welfare, and he spent years trying to find its source. However, none of the doctors he consulted were able to pinpoint the specific cause, guessing that it was either a result of Cobain's childhood scoliosis or related to the stresses of performing.

His first drug experience was with marijuana in 1980 at age 14. Cobain's first experience with heroin occurred sometime in 1986, administered to him by a local drug dealer in Tacoma, Washington, who had previously been supplying him with Percodan.[26] Cobain used heroin sporadically for several years, but, by the end of 1990, his use had developed into a full-fledged addiction. Cobain claimed that he was "determined to get a habit" as a way to self-medicate his stomach condition. Related Cobain, "It started with three days in a row of doing heroin and I don't have a stomach pain. That was such a relief."[27]

His heroin use eventually began affecting the band's support of Nevermind, with Cobain passing out during photo shoots. One memorable example came the day of the band's 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live, where Nirvana had a shoot with photographer Michael Levine. Having shot up beforehand, Cobain nodded off several times during the shoot. Regarding the shoot, Cobain related to biographer Michael Azerrad, "I mean, what are they supposed to do? They're not going to be able to tell me to stop. So I really didn't care. Obviously to them it was like practicing witchcraft or something. They didn't know anything about it so they thought that any second, I was going to die."[28] Cobain also overdosed on the same night, after performing on Saturday Night Live.

Cobain's heroin addiction worsened as the years progressed. Cobain made his first attempt at rehab in early 1992, not long after he and Love discovered they were going to become parents. Immediately after leaving rehab, Nirvana embarked on their Australian tour, with Cobain appearing pale and gaunt while suffering through withdrawals. Not long after returning home, Cobain's heroin use resurfaced.

Prior to a performance at the New Music Seminar in New York City in July 1993, Cobain suffered a heroin overdose. Rather than calling for an ambulance, Love injected Cobain with illegally acquired Narcan to bring him out of his unconscious state. Cobain proceeded to perform with Nirvana, giving the public no indication that anything out of the ordinary had taken place.[29]



Cobain's final weeks and death

Following a tour stop at Terminal Eins in Munich, Germany, on March 1, 1994, Cobain was diagnosed with bronchitis and severe laryngitis. He flew to Rome the next day for medical treatment, and was joined there by his wife on March 3. The next morning, Love awoke to find that Cobain had overdosed on a combination of champagne and Rohypnol (Love had a prescription for Rohypnol filled after arriving in Rome). Cobain was immediately rushed to the hospital, and spent the rest of the day unconscious. After five days in the hospital, Cobain was released and returned to Seattle.[30] Love later stated that the incident was Cobain's first suicide attempt.[31]

On March 18, Love phoned police to inform them that Cobain was suicidal and had locked himself in a room with a gun. Police arrived and confiscated several guns and a bottle of pills from Cobain, who insisted that he was not suicidal and had locked himself in the room to hide from Love. When questioned by police, Love admitted that Cobain had never mentioned that he was suicidal and that she had not seen him with a gun.[32]

Love arranged an intervention concerning Cobain's drug use that took place on March 25. The ten people involved included musician friends, record company executives, and one of Cobain's closest friends, Dylan Carlson. Former Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg described Cobain as being "extremely reluctant" and that he "denied that he was doing anything self-destructive." However, by the end of the day, Cobain had agreed to undergo a detox program.[33] Cobain arrived at the Exodus Recovery Center in Los Angeles, California, on March 30. The following night, Cobain walked outside to have a cigarette, then climbed over a six-foot-high fence to leave the facility. He took a taxi to Los Angeles Airport and flew back to Seattle. Over the course of April 2 and April 3, Cobain was spotted in various locations around Seattle, but most of his friends and family were unaware of his whereabouts. On April 3, Love contacted a private investigator, Tom Grant, and hired him to find Cobain. The next day, a person claiming to be Cobain's mother filed a missing person report. The report stated that Cobain "may be suicidal" and had purchased a shotgun.[34]

On April 8, 1994, Cobain was discovered in the spare room above the garage at his Lake Washington home by Veca Electric employee Gary Smith. Smith arrived at the house that morning to install security lighting and saw him lying inside. Apart from a minor amount of blood coming out of Cobain's ear, Smith reported seeing no visible signs of trauma, and initially believed that Cobain was asleep. Smith found what he thought might be a suicide note with a pen stuck through it beneath an overturned flowerpot. A shotgun, purchased for Cobain by Dylan Carlson, was found at Cobain's side. Cobain's death certificate concluded Cobain's death was a result of a "self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head." The report estimates Cobain to have died on April 5, 1994.

On April 10, a public vigil was held for Cobain at a park at Seattle Center which drew approximately seven thousand mourners.[35] Prerecorded messages by Krist Novoselic and Courtney Love were played at the memorial. Love read portions of Cobain's suicide note to the crowd and broke down, crying and chastizing Cobain. Near the end of the vigil Love arrived at the park and distributed some of Cobain's clothing to those who still remained.[36] Cobain's body was cremated.


Musical influences

Cobain was a devoted champion of early alternative rock acts. His interest in the underground started when Buzz Osborne of the Melvins let him borrow a tape with songs by punk bands such as Black Flag, Flipper, and Millions of Dead Cops. He would often make reference to his favorite bands in interviews, often placing a greater importance on the bands that influenced him than on his own music. Interviews with Cobain were often littered with references to obscure performers like The Vaselines, The Melvins, Daniel Johnston, The Meat Puppets, Young Marble Giants, The Wipers, Flipper, The Raincoats, and Led Zeppelin. Cobain was eventually able to convince record companies to reissue albums by The Raincoats (Geffen) and The Vaselines (Sub Pop). Cobain also noted the influence of the Pixies, and commented that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" bore some similarities to their sound. Cobain told Melody Maker in 1992 that hearing Surfer Rosa for the first time convinced him to abandon his more Black Flag-influenced songwriting in favor of the "Iggy Pop / Aerosmith" type songwriting that appeared on Nevermind.[37]

The Beatles were an early and important musical influence on Cobain. Cobain expressed a particular fondness for John Lennon, whom he called his "idol" in his journals. Cobain once related that he wrote "About a Girl" after spending three hours listening to Meet the Beatles!.[38] He was heavily influenced by punk rock and hardcore punk, and often credited bands such as Black Flag and the Sex Pistols for his artistic style and attitude.

Even with all of Cobain's indie influences, Nirvana's early style was influenced by the major rock bands of the '70s, including Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Kiss, and Neil Young. In its early days, Nirvana made a habit of regularly playing cover songs by those bands, including Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song", "Dazed and Confused", "Heartbreaker", and made a studio recording of Kiss' "Do You Love Me?". Cobain also talked about the influence of bands like The Knack, Boston, and The Bay City Rollers.

There were also earlier influences: Nirvana's MTV Unplugged concert ended with a version of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night", a song popularized by blues artist Lead Belly, whom Cobain called one of his favorite performers. Critic Greil Marcus suggested that Cobain's "Polly" was a descendant of "Pretty Polly", a murder ballad that might have been a century old when Dock Boggs recorded it in 1927.

Cobain also made efforts to include his favorite performers in his musical endeavors. At the 1991 Reading Festival, Eugene Kelly of the Vaselines joined Nirvana onstage for a duet of "Molly's Lips", which Cobain would later proclaim to be one of the greatest moments of his life.[39] In 1993, when he decided that he wanted a second guitarist to help him on stage, he recruited Pat Smear of the legendary L.A. punk band The Germs. When rehearsals of three Meat Puppets covers for Nirvana's 1993 performance for MTV Unplugged went awry, Cobain placed a call to the two lead members of the band, Curt and Cris Kirkwood, who ended up joining the band on stage to perform the songs. Cobain also contributed backing guitar for a spoken word William S. Burroughs recording entitled "the "Priest" they called him".[40]

Where Sonic Youth had served to help Nirvana gain wider success, Nirvana attempted to help other indie acts attain success. The band submitted the song "Oh, the Guilt" to a split single with Chicago's The Jesus Lizard, helping Nirvana's indie credibility while opening The Jesus Lizard to a wider audience.


Legacy

In 2005, a sign was put up in Aberdeen, Washington that read "Welcome to Aberdeen - Come As You Are" as a tribute to Cobain. The sign was paid for and created by the Kurt Cobain Memorial Committee, a non-profit organization created in May 2004 to honor Cobain. The Committee also planned to create a Kurt Cobain Memorial Park and a youth center in Aberdeen.

As Cobain has no gravesite, many Nirvana fans visit Viretta Park, near Cobain's former Lake Washington home, to pay tribute. On the anniversary of his death, fans gather in the park to celebrate his life and memory. In the years following his death, Cobain is now often remembered as one of the most iconic rock musicians in the history of alternative music.

Gus Van Sant based his 2005 movie Last Days on what might have happened in the final hours of Cobain's life. In January 2007, Courtney Love began to shop the biography Heavier Than Heaven to various movie studios in Hollywood to turn the book into an A-list feature film about Cobain and Nirvana.


Books and films on Cobain

Prior to Cobain's death, writer Michael Azerrad published Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana, a book that chronicled Nirvana's career from its beginning, as well as the personal histories of the band members. The book explored Cobain's drug addiction, as well as the countless controversies surrounding the band. After Cobain's death, Azerrad re-published the book to include a final chapter discussing the last year of Cobain's life. The book is notable for its involvement of the band members themselves, who gave interviews and personal information to Azerrad specifically for the book. In 2006, Azerrad's taped conversations with Cobain were transformed into a documentary about Cobain, titled Kurt Cobain About a Son.

In the 1998 documentary Kurt & Courtney, filmmaker Nick Broomfield investigated Tom Grant's claim that Cobain was actually murdered, and took a film crew to visit a number of people associated with Cobain and Love, including Love's father, Cobain's aunt, and one of the couple's former nannies. Broomfield also spoke to Mentors bandleader Eldon "El Duce" Hoke, who claimed that Love had offered him $50,000 to kill Cobain. Though Hoke claimed that he knew who killed Cobain, he failed to mention a name, and offered no evidence to support his assertion. Broomfield inadvertently captured Hoke's last interview, as he died days later, reportedly hit by a train while drunk. In the end, however, Broomfield felt he hadn't uncovered enough evidence to conclude the existence of a conspiracy. In a 1998 interview, Broomfield summed it up by saying, "I think that he committed suicide. I don't think that there's a smoking gun. And I think there's only one way you can explain a lot of things around his death. Not that he was murdered, but that there was just a lack of caring for him. I just think that Courtney had moved on, and he was expendable."[41]

Journalists Ian Halperin and Max Wallace took a similar path and attempted to investigate the conspiracy for themselves. Their initial work, the 1999 book Who Killed Kurt Cobain? argued that, while there wasn't enough evidence to prove a conspiracy, there was more than enough to demand that the case be reopened.[42] A notable element of the book included their discussions with Grant, who had taped nearly every conversation that he had undertaken while he was in Love's employ. In particular, Halperin and Wallace insisted that Grant play them the tapes of his conversations with Carroll so that they could confirm his story. Over the next several years, Halperin and Wallace collaborated with Grant to write a second book, 2004's Love and Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain.

In 2001, writer Charles R. Cross published a biography of Cobain titled Heavier Than Heaven. For the book, Cross conducted over 400 interviews, and was given access by Courtney Love to Cobain's journals, lyrics, and diaries.[43] However, neither Dave Grohl nor Cobain's mother contributed to the book.[44]

In 2002, a sampling of Cobain's writings was published as Journals. The book is 280 pages with a simple black cover; the pages are arranged somewhat chronologically (although Cobain generally did not date them). The journal pages are reproduced in color, and there is a section added at the back that has explanations and transcripts of some of the less legible pages. The writings begin in the late 1980s, around the time the band started, and end in 1994. A paperback version of the book, released in 2003, included a handful of writings that were not offered in the initial release. In the journals, Cobain talked about the ups and downs of life on the road, made lists of what music he was enjoying, and often scribbled down lyric ideas for future reference. Upon its release, reviewers and fans were conflicted about the collection. Many were elated to be able to learn more about Cobain and read his inner thoughts in his own words, but were disturbed by what was viewed as an invasion of his privacy.[45]

FAMOUS MOVIE LOVE QUOTES

Casablanca:
Kiss me. Kiss me as if it were the last time.

City of Angels:
I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss from her
mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it.

Crimes and Misdemeanors:
My husband and I fell in love at first sight... maybe I should have
taken a second look.

Fried Green Tomatoes:
A heart can be broken; but it keeps beating just the same.

Four Weddings and a Funeral:
I always just hoped that, that I'd meet some nice friendly girl, like
the look of her, hope the look of me didn't make her physically sick,
then pop the question and... um... settle down and be happy. It
worked for my parents. Well, apart from the divorce and all that!

Love and Death:
To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love; but then
one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer, not to
love is to suffer, to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love; to
be happy then is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy;
therefore to be unhappy one must love or love to suffer or suffer
from too much happiness. I hope you're getting this down.

When Harry Met Sally:
I love that you get cold when it is 71 degrees out. I love that it
takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get
a little crinkle in your nose when you're looking at me like I'm
nuts. I love that after I spend day with you, I can still smell your
perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want
to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm
lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight
because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with
somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as
possible.

When Harry Met Sally:
You can't express every feeling that you have every moment that you
have them.

Wizard of Oz:
Hearts will never be practical until they are made unbreakable. ..

First, listeners, allow me to tell Urs that we DID miss her but delighted that she has fully recovered and is back nine to fiving it.

That movie was funny, honey, especially the line where Jane Fonda said that she could do M&M's or anything she wanted to. Loved it.

Hey, hawkman, We are delighted with your celeb bio's, buddy (this is my day to alliterate) Thanks once again.

Loved your dear quote about love, Boston, especially this one:

Hearts will never be practical until they are mad unbreakable. "Unbreak my Heart" remember who did that one?

For one of my favorite actors, Sidney Potier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wNNLePF9e4&feature=related

Good afternoon.

Love the movie quotes, Bob.

Thanks for Wuthering Heights, Letty.

Today's bios: Gale Gordon; Sidney Poitier; Amanda Blake; Nancy Wilson; Richard Beymer; Buffie Sainte-Marie; Sandy Duncan; The J. Geils Band; Peter Strauss; Jennifer O'Neill and Kurt Cobain

Un-break My Heart Lyrics
» Toni Braxton

Don't leave me in all this pain
Don't leave me out in the rain
Come back and bring back my smile
Come and take these tears away
I need your arms to hold me now
The night are so unkind
Bring back those nights when I held you beside me

Un-break my heart
Say you'll me again
Undo this hurt you caused
When you walked out the door
And walked out of my life
Un-cry these tears
I cried so many nights
Un-break my heart
My heart

Take back that sad word good-bye
Bring back the joy to my life
Don't leave me here with these tears
Come and kiss that pain away
I can't forget the day you left
Time is so unkind
And life is so cruel without you here beside me

Un-break my heart
Say you'll love me again
Undo this hurt you caused
When you walked out the door
And walked out of my life
Un-cry these tears
I cried so many nights
Un-break my heart
My heart

Don't leave me in all this pain
Don't leave me out in the rain
Bring back the nights when I held you beside me

Un-break my heart
Say you'll love me again
Undo this hurt you caused
When you walked out the door
And walked out of my life
Un-cry that tears
I cried so many, many nights
Un-break my

Un-break my heart
Come back and say you love me
Un-break my heart
Sweet darlin'
Without you I just can't go on


www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVjTVsjEw6Q

Today's the day, or rather, tonight's the night for:

No moon at all, what a night
Even lightnin' bugs have dimmed their lights
Stars have disappeared from sight
And there's no moon at all

Don't make a sound, it's so dark
Even Fido is afraid to bark
What a perfect chance to park
And there's no moon at all

Should we want atmosphere for inspiration, dear
One kiss will make it clear
That tonight is right and bright moonlight might

interfere

No moon at all way up above
This is nothin' like they told us of
Just to think we fell in love
And there's no moon at all

<instrumental interlude>

Should we want atmosphere for inspiration, dear
One kiss will make it clear
That tonight is right and bright moonlight might

interfere

No moon at all up above
Aww, this is nothin' like they told us of
Just to think we fell in love
And there's no moon at all

Aww, there's no moon at all
There is no moon at all
No moon at all

Words and Music by R. Evans and D. Mann

There's our puppy, everybody, with a great double quintet. I never think of Cathy that I don't think of Raggedy and the moor. (a ghostly moor, however. )

Thanks, Princess PA. Wonderful photo's as usual.

Now, folks, to match the hawk and the hummingbird.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVjTVsjEw6Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F3i60UQygI

Sorry about the triple edit. Hope it works, y'all.

NOT TO BE PLAYED BEFORE ECLIPSE OF THE MOON ! :wink:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oqSulR9Fymg

Ah, hbg. As I drove home tonight, I looked at the moon on the ocean and there was a cloud drifting over its face.

We'll save yours until the eclipse, then, Canada. In the interim, how about one by Keith at the piano and Diana Kraal at the mike.

Diana


There was a moon out in space
But a cloud drifted over its face
You kissed me and went on your way
The night we called it a day
I heard the song of the spheres
Like a minor lament in my ears
I hadn't the heart left to pray
The night we called it a day

Soft through the dark
The hoot of an owl in the sky
Sad though his song
No bluer was he than I

The moon went down stars were gone
But the sun didn't rise with the dawn
There wasn't a thing left to say
The night we called it a day
There wasn't a thing left to say
The night we called it a day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3irnGesv-4E