edgar, Thanks for that bit of background. I didn't know it, of course. I'm just beginning to learn the importance of understanding the composer. I may be wrong, but didn't they play this one at your brother's funeral, Texas?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNopQq5lWqQ&NR=1
Letty wrote:edgar, Thanks for that bit of background. I didn't know it, of course. I'm just beginning to learn the importance of understanding the composer. I may be wrong, but didn't they play this one at your brother's funeral, Texas?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNopQq5lWqQ&NR=1
The minister read the original form of it from the Bible.
Letty wrote:
Heh, heh, Rex. Votes don't lie? I can see that you have forgotten Florida, Maine. I'm usually apolitical, but I do get a kick out of some funny stuff about politicians. Here's a funny one, folks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El9RZvbXIj4
Hehe, more like the Tax(relief)man
Yep, dj. That was a good one, buddy, and I found this out about those kids.
The band Guster is composed of three members Ryan Miller on guitar and vocals, Brian Rosenworcel on drums and Adam Gardner on guitar and vocals.
They met at a university during freshman orientation and became friends. At the time, they had their own high school bands. During college, they form a band and call themselves "Gus". After they graduate college, they find out another artist is called Gus, so they changed their name to Guster.
Their first album, Parachute, came out around 1994-1995. Their second album, Goldfly, came out in 1997. They just branched off from that. Their most recent album is Ganging Up on the Sun.
Hmmm, folks, perhaps our Gus is behind that group.
Indeed Rex, What a "relief" to know that he's a lame duck.
Well, it's time for me to say goodnight, and since this is Sunday and a bit of cognitive insight for me when I awakened one night singing it, this song will be perfect.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_-GQ6kze9pA
Goodnight to all
From Letty with love
Letty, Here's fair warning. You gotta watch this, edgar, fellow. He posted a link to the Vietnam War with no warning that made me very sad and cry. (And I rarely cry.)
I'm very sorry, CI. If it's any consolation, I often cry over just the same thing.
Good morning, WA2K radio audience.
edgar, I had forgotten that cute song. Thanks, Texas.
C.I., Welcome back. It's been a long time, my friend, and it is great to see you here. I don't know if you are joking or not, but I have always thought the most masculine thing in the world is for a man to be able to cry, so what was that Nam thing? (your Hawaiian travelogue was so enchanting)
Today is Julio Iglesias birthday, so let's hear about a stranger in paradise, Spanish style.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOS-M3ZQ2wM&feature=related
Breaking news from a very famous statue.
Joel and Ethan Coen were the big winners at the Academy Awards presentation Sunday night, when their film "No Country for Old Men" won a total of four Oscars, and all of them big ones: best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay and best supporting actor.
Though the best picture win was expected, the across-the-board scale of their triumph was something of a surprise, in an eclectic year in which several films had passionate advocates. Their victory dwarfed their previous Academy Awards success with "Fargo," which won two Oscars (actress and original screenplay) at the ceremony in 1997.
French actress Marion Cotillard won for her brilliant portrayal of singer Edith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose," and Daniel Day-Lewis took best actor honors, for his histrionic performance as an oil baron at the turn of the past century in "There Will Be Blood." Cotillard, clearly surprised, was over the moon, while front-runner Day-Lewis gave a gracious acceptance speech, in which he paid tribute to his wife, screenwriter Rebecca Miller, and director Paul Thomas Anderson.
Enrico Caruso
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Enrico Caruso (born Errico Caruso; February 25, 1873 - August 2, 1921) was an Italian opera singer and one of the most famous tenors in history. Caruso was also the most popular singer in any genre in the first two decades of the 20th Century and one of the most important pioneers of recorded music. Caruso's popular recordings and his extraordinary voice, known for its mature power, beauty and unequalled richness of tone, made him perhaps the best-known operatic star of his era. Such was his influence on singing style, virtually all subsequent Italianate tenors (and many non-Italian tenors) have been his heirs to a greater or lesser extent. He remains famous, though he predated the publicity that would aid later stars of opera.[1] - although it should be noted that Caruso was a client of Edward Bernays (the father of public relations) in the latter's tenure as a press agent in the USA.
Life
During his career, Enrico Caruso made over 260 recordings and made millions of dollars from the sale of his 78 rpm records. While Caruso sang at many of the world's great opera houses including La Scala in Milan and Covent Garden in London, he is best known as the leading tenor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City for 17 years. Maestro Arturo Toscanini, who conducted some of the operas that Caruso sang in at the Met, considered him one of the greatest artists with whom he ever worked. Caruso's technique and style combined in a unique way the finest aspects of elegant, technically-polished 19th Century tenor singing with the emotionally-charged delivery and exciting, thrusting timbre demanded by the Verismo composers of the early 20th Century.
Caruso was baptized in the Church of San Giovanni e Paolo on February 26, 1873, having been born in Naples, Italy, one day earlier. He began his career in Naples in 1894. The first major role that he created was Loris in Giordano's Fedora, at the Teatro Lirico in Milan, on November 17, 1898. At that same theater, on November 6, 1902, he created the role of Maurizio in Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur.
In 1903, with the help of his agent, the banker Pasquale Simonelli, he went to New York City, and, on November 23 of that year, he made his debut with the Metropolitan Opera as the Duke of Mantua in a new production of Verdi's Rigoletto. The following year Caruso began his lifelong association with the Victor Talking-Machine Company; his star relationships with both the Metropolitan and Victor would last until 1920. Caruso himself commissioned Tiffany & Co. to produce a 24 kt. gold medal with his profile, as a memento (PER RICORDO) for his friends of his Metropolitan performances.
In April 1906, Caruso and members of the Metropolitan Opera Company came to San Francisco to give a series of performances at the Tivoli Opera House. The night after Caruso's performance in Carmen, the tenor was awakened in the early morning in his Palace Hotel suite by a strong jolt. San Francisco had been hit by a major earthquake, which led to a series of fires that eventually destroyed most of the city. The Metropolitan lost all of the sets and costumes it had brought. Clutching an autographed photo of President Theodore Roosevelt, Caruso made an effort to get out of the city, first by boat and then by train, and vowed never to return to San Francisco; he kept his word.[2]
On November 16 1906, Caruso was charged with an indecent act committed in the monkey house of New York's Central Park Zoo. He pinched the bottom of a woman described as "pretty and plump", causing outrage amongst New York high society. Caruso claimed a monkey pinched the lady's bottom. Caruso was eventually found guilty before appeal, and fined 10 dollars.
On December 10, 1910, he starred at the Met as Dick Johnson in the world premiere of Puccini's La fanciulla del West.
In 1917, he was elected as an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the national fraternity for men in music, by the fraternity's Alpha chapter at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.
In 1918 Caruso married Dorothy Park Benjamin, who was then aged 25, the daughter of an old-established New York family. They had one daughter, Gloria. Dorothy published two books about Caruso, one in 1928, the other in 1945, which includes many of his letters to her.
In September 1920, Caruso recorded several discs in Victor's Trinity Church studio, including sacred music by Rossini; these recordings were his very last. On December 11, 1920, during the performance of L'elisir d'amore by Donizetti, he suffered a hemorrhage; after act I of the opera, the audience was dismissed. Following this incident, he gave only three more performances at the Met, the last being Eléazar in Halévy's La Juive, on December 24, 1920.
Caruso died in 1921 in Naples, at age 48. The cause of Enrico's death was likely peritonitis, due to the bursting of an abscess. He is buried in an elaborate tomb at Naples. Caruso was portrayed by Mario Lanza in a highly fictionalized 1951 Hollywood film biography, The Great Caruso. In 1987, Caruso was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Other
Caruso was the third of seven children born to the same parents and one of only three to survive infancy. The myth of 17 or 18 children is pure nonsense and has been proven carefully. When he was 18, he used fees earned by singing at an Italian resort to buy his first pair of shoes. He is pictured wearing a bedsheet, draped like a toga, in his first publicity photograph because his only shirt was in the laundry.
Caruso's birthplace in Naples, Via San Giovanella agli Ottocalli 7, still stands next to the church where he was baptized. His remains were interred in a mausoleum at the cemetery of Santa Maria del Pianto.
During a performance in Naples, early in his career, Caruso was booed by the audience because he ignored the custom of hiring a claque to cheer for him. Afterwards, he said he would never again go to Naples to sing, but "only to eat spaghetti".
Caruso performed in Carmen in San Francisco in front of thousands the night before the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Caruso was staying at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco when the earthquake struck. His eyewitness account can be seen here.
At a performance of Puccini's La Boheme, the basso on stage lost his voice and Caruso reputedly began to sing his aria "Vecchia zimarra" while the basso mouthed the song. His performance was so appreciated he even went to record it but later asked for it to be destroyed. This recording was recovered and has had several incarnations on LP, including a recital disc published by Club 99 in the 1970s (CL99-60).
Caruso's voice extended to the Tenor C in his prime but this note never came easily to him. Therefore, in his recordings of the tenor's Act I aria of Puccini's La Boheme, the high C is replaced by high B; while in Gounod's Faust he sings the high C of Salut demeure in a stylistically appropriate head (not chest) voice. This contrasts with the performances of these arias by, say, the young Jussi Björling, and others, who had naturally high-lying tenor voices which were less robust and golden-toned than Caruso's.[citation needed].
Since his death, numerous compilation albums of his work have been created.
Caruso also had a repertoire of some 521 songs, ranging from classical to traditional Italian folk songs and popular songs of the day. The most often purchased song by Caruso at itunes is the Neapolitan sailor's song Santa Lucia and the universally famous song 'O Sole Mio.
Recordings
Caruso was one of the first star vocalists to make numerous recordings. He and the disc phonograph did much to promote each other in the first two decades of the 20th century. His 1907 recording of Vesti la giubba from Leoncavallo's Pagliacci was the world's first gramophone record to sell a million copies[citation needed]. Many of Caruso's recordings have remained in print since their original issue a century ago.
His first recordings, made in 1902, were for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company. He began recording exclusively for the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1904. While most of his early recordings were made in typically cramped studios in New York and Camden, New Jersey, Victor began to occasionally record Caruso in the old Trinity Church in Camden, which could accommodate a larger orchestra. His final recordings were made in September 1920 and the last two selections were excerpts from the Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle. Caruso's conductors in his recordings included Walter B. Rogers and Joseph Pasternack.
RCA, which purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1929, later took some of the old discs and over-dubbed them with a modern orchestra. Several previously unreleased Caruso discs continued to appear as late as 1973. In 1950, RCA reissued some of the fuller-sounding recordings on vinyl 78-rpm discs. Then, as LPs became popular, many of the recordings were electronically enhanced for release on LP. Researchers at the University of Utah utilized the first digital reprocessing techniques to reissue most of Caruso's Victor recordings, beginning in 1976. Complete sets of all of Caruso's recordings have been issued on Compact Disc by RCA, Pearl and, most recently, by Naxos, each company using different mastering techniques. RCA has also recently issued three CD albums of Caruso material with newly recorded orchestral accompaniments.
At the time of his death, the tenor was preparing the title role in Verdi's Otello.[3] Though he never performed the role, he recorded two magnificent selections from the opera: Otello's aria, "Ora e per sempre addio," and the duet with Iago, "Sì, pel ciel marmoreo, giuro", where he is partnered by the magnificent baritone Titta Ruffo.
Caruso also had a repertoire of some 521 songs, ranging from classical to traditional Italian folk songs and popular songs of the day. The most often purchased song by Caruso at itunes is the Neapolitan sailor's song Santa Lucia and the universally famous song 'O Sole Mio.
Recordings
Caruso was one of the first star vocalists to make numerous recordings. He and the disc phonograph did much to promote each other in the first two decades of the 20th century. His 1907 recording of Vesti la giubba from Leoncavallo's Pagliacci was the world's first gramophone record to sell a million copies[citation needed]. Many of Caruso's recordings have remained in print since their original issue a century ago.
His first recordings, made in 1902, were for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company. He began recording exclusively for the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1904. While most of his early recordings were made in typically cramped studios in New York and Camden, New Jersey, Victor began to occasionally record Caruso in the old Trinity Church in Camden, which could accommodate a larger orchestra. His final recordings were made in September 1920 and the last two selections were excerpts from the Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle. Caruso's conductors in his recordings included Walter B. Rogers and Joseph Pasternack.
RCA, which purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1929, later took some of the old discs and over-dubbed them with a modern orchestra. Several previously unreleased Caruso discs continued to appear as late as 1973. In 1950, RCA reissued some of the fuller-sounding recordings on vinyl 78-rpm discs. Then, as LPs became popular, many of the recordings were electronically enhanced for release on LP. Researchers at the University of Utah utilized the first digital reprocessing techniques to reissue most of Caruso's Victor recordings, beginning in 1976. Complete sets of all of Caruso's recordings have been issued on Compact Disc by RCA, Pearl and, most recently, by Naxos, each company using different mastering techniques. RCA has also recently issued three CD albums of Caruso material with newly recorded orchestral accompaniments.
Brenda Joyce
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Betty Leabo
February 25, 1912 (1912-02-25) (age 96)
Excelsior Springs, Missouri
Brenda Joyce (b. February 25, 1912) is an American film actress. She was born as Betty Leabo in Excelsior Springs, Missouri.
Although she appeared in many B-movies of the 1940s, she is best-remembered as the seventh actress to play Jane in the Tarzan series of films. She succeeded Maureen O'Sullivan in the series and appeared in the role five times. The first four appearances were opposite Johnny Weissmuller, but her last performance as Jane, in 1949's Tarzan's Magic Fountain, was with Lex Barker as Tarzan. She abandoned her acting career for personal reasons in 1949.
Family
She was married to Owen Ward from 1941 until 1949, when they divorced; they had three children.
Report of death
It was reported in some media that Joyce had died on November 22, 2007, aged 95, but this has been disputed and has not been confirmed.
Gert Fröbe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born February 25, 1913(1913-02-25)
Died September 5, 1988 (aged 75)
Occupation Actor
Years active 1948-1988
Karl Gerhart Fröbe, better known as Gert Fröbe (pronounced [geɐt fʁøbə]) (February 25, 1913 - September 5, 1988), was a German actor who starred in many films, including the James Bond film Goldfinger as Auric Goldfinger and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as Baron Bomburst.
Fröbe made several appearances in big all-star casts in the 1960s, including the films The Longest Day, Is Paris Burning?, and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. Due to his thick German accent, Fröbe was dubbed in some of his classic roles, including by British actor Michael Collins in Goldfinger. He also appeared in $ (film) (1971) with Goldie Hawn and Warren Beatty.
While Fröbe was a member of the Nazi Party before and during World War II, he aided German Jews by hiding them from the Gestapo before 1945. Owing to his connection to the Nazi Party, the film Goldfinger was banned in Israel until he was publicly thanked by a Jewish family.[1]
Fröbe gained early fame in one of the first movies made after WWII, called Berliner Ballade (The Ballad of Berlin, 1948), as a very thin man. That changed rapidly in later movies. In 1958 Fröbe was cast as the villain in the Swiss-German movie Es geschah am hellichten Tag (It Happened in Broad Daylight), which was novelised by Swiss author Friedrich Dürrenmatt. His role as an insane murderer of children drew the attention of the producers of the James Bond movie Goldfinger (1964) and he was finally to play one of the most remarkable and remembered villains of the series, gold tycoon Auric Goldfinger.
Aside from acting, Fröbe also was a prolific reciter of lyric poetry, especially of Christian Morgenstern and Joachim Ringelnatz.
Fröbe died, aged 75, in September 1988 from a heart attack.
Trivia
In the film Joe Dirt, actor Christopher Walken's character, protected by the United States witness protection program, changed his name to Gert B. Frobe. Both Fröbe and Walken have played Bond villains.
Tom Courtenay
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Thomas Daniel Courtenay
February 25, 1937 (1937-02-25) (age 71)
Yorkshire, England
Spouse(s) Cheryl Kennedy (1973-1982)
Isabel Crossley (1988-)
[show] Awards won
BAFTA Awards
Best Newcomer
1962 The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
Best TV Actor
1998 A Rather English Marriage
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
1984 The Dresser
Sir Thomas Daniel Courtenay (pronounced "Courtney"; born 25 February 1937) is an English actor who came to prominence in the early 1960s with a succession of critically-acclaimed films including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), Billy Liar (1963) and Dr. Zhivago (1965). In the latter two films he appeared alongside Julie Christie.
Biography
Early life
Courtenay was born in Hull, the son of Anne Eliza (née Quest) and Thomas Henry Courtenay, a boat painter.[1] He attended Kingston High School there. Courtenay made his stage début in 1960 with the Old Vic company. His Hamlet at the Edinburgh Festival of 1968 marked him out as one of Britain's leading stage actors as well as a film actor.
Career
For his role as the dedicated revolutionary leader Pasha Antipov in Doctor Zhivago (1965), he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor award, being beaten out by Martin Balsam. Despite being catapulted to the verge of stardom by the aforementioned films, Courtenay's star began to wane in the late 1960s, and he reverted primarily to stage work and character roles. He played the title role in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 1970 film. His best known film role after the 1960s is probably in The Dresser (from Ronald Harwood's play of the same name, in which he also appeared) with Albert Finney. He won a nomination for Best Actor in the 1984 Academy Awards for that role, losing to Robert Duvall. He played the father of Derek Bentley (Christopher Eccleston) in the 1991 film Let Him Have It. In 1998, he teamed with Albert Finney again for the acclaimed BBC drama A Rather English Marriage. His television appearances have been relatively few, but have included She Stoops to Conquer on BBC and several Ayckbourn plays. He appeared in I Heard the Owl Call My Name on US television in 1973.
In 2003, he appeared on the West End stage again in the one-man show Pretending To Be Me, as Philip Larkin. Tom Courtenay is the President of Hull City A.F.C.'s Official Supporters Club. In 1999 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Hull University.
He played the title role in The Domino Man, a radio play broadcast (and repeated) on BBC Radio 4. Also for Radio 4, the part of God was played by Courtenay in Ben Steiner's 2003 play "A Brief Interruption".
He was knighted in 2001. He appears in the 2007 films Flood, a disaster epic in which London is overwhelmed by floods, and The Golden Compass, an adaptation of the Philip Pullman's novel, playing the part of Farder Coram.
Personal life
Courtenay was briefly married to actress Cheryl Kennedy. On the set of Dr. Zhivago, Courtenay met and befriended Rod Steiger, the two remaining close friends until the latter's death in 2002.
In 2000 his memoir Dear Tom: Letters From Home was published to critical acclaim. It comprises a selection of the letters exchanged between Courtnenay and his mother, interspersed with his own recollections of life as a young student actor in London in the early 1960s.
Diane Baker
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Diane Carol Baker
February 25, 1938 (1938-02-25) (age 70)
Hollywood, California, USA
Occupation Actress
Diane Carol Baker (born February 25, 1938) is an American actress who has appeared in motion pictures and on television since 1959.
Baker was born and raised in Hollywood, California, the daughter of Dorothy Helen Harrington, who appeared in several early Marx Brothers movies, and Clyde L. Baker.[1] She moved to New York at age 18 to study acting with Charles Conrad and ballet with Nina Fonaroff. Securing a contract with Twentieth Century Fox, she made her film debut when she was chosen by director George Stevens to play "Margot Frank" in the 1959 motion picture The Diary of Anne Frank. In the same year, she starred in Journey to the Center of the Earth with James Mason and in The Best of Everything with Hope Lange and Joan Crawford.
Other Fox films in which Baker appeared include the assassination thriller Nine Hours to Rama, Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man and The 300 Spartans. Her television work in the late 1950s and early 1960s includes appearances on Follow the Sun, Bus Stop, Adventures in Paradise, The Lloyd Bridges Show, The Nurses and Route 66.
Finally out of her contract with Fox after starring in 1960 in the fourth screen version of Grace Miller White's novel Tess of the Storm Country, Baker appeared in Stolen Hours, a 1963 remake of Dark Victory, and, the same year, opposite Paul Newman and Elke Sommer in The Prize.
In 1964, she costarred with Joan Crawford in both the William Castle-directed thriller about an axe murderess, Strait-Jacket, and in an unsold television pilot Royal Bay, released to theaters as Della. Alfred Hitchcock cast her in his film Marnie (1964) as Lil Mainwaring, the sister-in-law of Mark Rutland (Sean Connery). She co-starred with Gregory Peck and Walter Matthau in Mirage (1965), directed by Edward Dmytryk, and in Krakatoa, East of Java (1969) with Maximillian Schell.
In the decades after Mirage, she appeared frequently on television and began producing films, including the 1980 drama film Never, Never Land and the 1985 miniseries A Woman of Substance. She reemerged on the big screen in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) as Sen. Ruth Martin. She also appeared in the films The Joy Luck Club, The Cable Guy, The Net and A Mighty Wind. She guest starred in one episode as the mother of the title character of the hit television series House in 2005.
Since August 2004, Baker has been the Director of Acting at the School of Motion Pictures and Television at Academy of Art University in San Francisco.
