David Livingstone
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born March 19, 1813(1813-03-19)
Blantyre, Scotland
Died May 4, 1873 (aged 60)
near Lake Bangweulu, Zambia
Occupation Missionary and explorer
David Livingstone (19 March 1813 - 1 May 1873) was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and explorer in central Africa. He was the first European to see Mosi-oa-Tunya (Victoria Falls), to which he gave the English name in honor of his monarch, Queen Victoria. He is the subject of the meeting with H. M. Stanley, which gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr Livingstone, I presume?"
Perhaps one of the most popular national heroes of the late-nineteenth century in Victorian Britain, Livingstone's mythic status operated on a number of interconnected levels: that of Protestant missionary martyr, that of working-class "rags to riches" inspirational story, that of scientific investigator and explorer, that of imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader and advocate of commercial empire.
His fame as an explorer helped drive forward the obsession with discovering the sources of the Nile River that formed the culmination of the classic period of European geographical discovery and colonial penetration of the African continent. At the same time his missionary travels, "disappearance" and death in Africa, and subsequent glorification as posthumous national hero in 1874 led to the founding of several major central African Christian missionary initiatives carried forward in the era of the European "Scramble for Africa."[1]
David Livingstone was born on March 19, 1813 in the mill town of Blantyre, Lanarkshire, Scotland,[2] into a Protestant family believed to be descended from the highland Livingstones, a clan that had been previously known as the Clan MacLea. Born to Neil Livingstone (1788-1856) and his wife Agnes (1782-1865), David, along with many of the Livingstones, was employed in the cotton mill of H. Monteith - David and brother John working 12-hour days as "piecers," tying broken cotton threads on the spinning machines.
David Livingstone's father Neil was very religious, a Sunday School teacher and teetotaller who handed out Christian tracts on his travels as a door to door tea salesman, and who read books on theology, travel and missionary enterprises. This rubbed off on the young David, who became an avid reader, but he also loved scouring the countryside for animal, plant and geological specimens in local limestone quarries. Neil Livingstone had a fear of science books as undermining Christianity and attempted to force him to read nothing but theology, but David's deep interest in nature and science led him to investigate the relationship between religion and science.[3] When in 1832 he read Philosophy of a Future State by the science teacher, amateur astronomer and church minister Dr Thomas Dick, he found the rationale he needed to reconcile faith and science, and apart from the Bible this book was perhaps his greatest philosophical influence. [4]
Other significant influences in his early life were Thomas Burke, a Blantyre evangelist and David Hogg, his Sunday School teacher.[4] At age nineteen David and his father left the Church of Scotland for a local Congregational church, influenced by preachers like Ralph Wardlaw who denied predestinatarian limitations on salvation. Influenced by American revivalistic teachings, Livingstone's reading of the missionary Karl Gützlaff's "Appeal to the Churches of Britain and America on behalf of China" enabled him to persuade his father that medical study could advance religious ends. [5]
Livingstone's experience from age ten to twenty-six in H. Montieth's Blantyre cotton mill, first as a piecer, later as a spinner was also important. Necessary to support his impoverished family, this work was monotonous but gave him persistence, endurance, and a natural empathy with all who labour, as expressed by lines he used to hum from the egalitarian Robbie Burns song: "When man to man, the world o'er / Shall brothers be for a' that".[6].
His studies
Livingstone attended Blantyre village school along with the few other mill children with the endurance to do so, but a family with a strong, ongoing commitment to study also reinforced his education. After reading Gutzlaff's appeal for medical missionaries for China in 1834, he began saving money and in 1836 entered Anderson's College in Glasgow, founded to bring science and technology to ordinary folk, and attended Greek and theology lectures at the University of Glasgow.[7] In addition, he attended divinity lectures by Wardlaw, a leader at this time of vigorous anti-slavery campaigning in the city. Shortly after he applied to join the London Missionary Society (LMS) and was accepted subject to missionary training. He continued his medical studies in London while training there and in Essex to be a minister under the supervision of the LMS. [5] Despite his impressive personality, he was a poor preacher and would have been rejected by the LMS had not the Director given him a second chance to pass the course.[4]
Livingstone hoped to go to China as a missionary, but the First Opium War broke out in September 1839 and the LMS suggested the West Indies instead. In 1840, while continuing his medical studies in London, Livingstone met LMS missionary Robert Moffat, on leave from Kuruman, a missionary outpost in South Africa, north of the Orange River. Excited by Moffat's vision of expanding missionary work northwards, and influenced by abolitionist T.F. Buxton's arguments that the African slave trade might be destroyed through the influence of "legitimate trade" and the spread of Christianity; Livingstone focused his ambitions on Southern Africa. [5] He was deeply influenced by Moffat's judgement that he was the right person to go to the vast plains to the north of Bechuanaland, where he had glimpsed "the smoke of a thousand villages, where no missionary had ever been".[4]
Missionary work in southern Africa
Livingstone was assigned to Kuruman by the LMS and sailed in December 1840, arrived at Moffat's mission, now part of South Africa, in July 1841. Upon arrival, Livingstone was disappointed at the unexpectedly small size of the village and an indigenous Christian population, after Moffat's twenty years of work, of only about forty communicants and a congregation of 350. Reasoning that conversions would be more likely if the missionaries were themselves indigenous converts, Livingstone rapidly attached himself to the plans of missionary Rogers Edwards to found a mission farther north in territory increasingly disturbed by traders, hunters, and Afrikaner settlers.[8] Setting up the new mission at Mabotswa among the Kgatla people in 1844, he was mauled by a lion which might have killed him if it had not been distracted by the African teacher Mebalwe, who was also badly injured. Both recovered but Livingstone's arm was partially disabled and caused him pain for the rest of his life.[4]
Robert Moffat arrived in Kuruman with his family in December 1843, and shortly afterward Livingstone married Moffat's eldest daughter Mary on January 2, 1845. She was also Scottish but had lived in Africa since she was four. After falling out with Edwards he moved to an out-station at Chonuane among the Kwena under chief Sechele, and finally moved with the Kwena to Kolobeng in 1847 under pressure of drought. Mary travelled with Livingstone for a brief time at his insistence, despite her pregnancy and the protests of the Moffats.[4] She gave birth to a daughter, Agnes, in May 1847, and at Kolobeng began an infant's school while Livingstone worked on a philological analysis of the Setswana language, in which he had become fluent. The first and only Christian convert of Livingstone's career was made in Kolobeng when Sechele was baptized after renouncing all but his senior wife, although he was later denied communion after he took back one of his previous wives. Livingstone always emphasized the importance of understanding local custom and belief as well as the necessity of encouraging Africans to proselytize, however he always had acute difficulties finding converts he considered suited for training to be missionaries.[5] As he realized, unlike many observers before him, Christianity was a radical threat to African society and unity, particularly when condemnations of civil rituals that bound Africans together were made in the name of "civilization" and when simplistic demands for the abandonment of polygamy were made in the name of morality. Increasingly aware of the complexities of transmitting a culturally constructed faith like Christianity into communities whose language (like Setswana) made no distinction between spiritual and sexual "love," which, he believed, had no term for "the soul," and which had little concept of "sin" in the European sense, Livingstone grew increasingly frustrated with settled missionary strategies and more willing to imagine more unconventional missionary methods.[8] As Livingstone began to plan for new missionary initiatives, he recognized the difficulties presented by his growing family, and in 1849 he sent his family (now including daughter Agnes and sons Robert and Thomas) back to Kuruman as he planned further inland travels.[5] Later Mary and David's family returned to England, but came to Africa again on the Zambezi Expedition.
Exploration of southern and central Africa
After the Kolobeng mission had to be closed due to drought, he explored the African interior to the north, in the period 1852-56, and was the first European to see the Mosi-oa-Tunya ("the smoke that thunders") waterfall (which he renamed Victoria Falls after his monarch, Queen Victoria).
Livingstone was one of the first Westerners to make a transcontinental journey across Africa, Luanda on the Atlantic to Quelimane on the Indian Ocean near the mouth of the Zambezi, in 1854-56.[4] Despite attempts especially by the Portuguese, the great peninsula of central and southern Africa had not been crossed by Europeans at that latitude owing to their susceptibility to malaria, dysentery and sleeping sickness which was prevalent in the interior and which also prevented use of draught animals (oxen and horses), as well as to the opposition of powerful chiefs and tribes, such as the Lozi, and the Lunda of Mwata Kazembe.
The qualities and approaches which gave Livingstone an advantage as an explorer were that he usually travelled lightly, and he had an ability to reassure chiefs that he was not a threat. Other expeditions had dozens of soldiers armed with rifles and scores of porters carrying supplies, and were seen as military incursions or were mistaken for slave-raiding parties. Livingstone on the other hand travelled on most of his journeys with a few servants and porters, bartering for supplies along the way, with a couple of guns for protection. He preached a Christian message but did not force it on unwilling ears; he understood the ways of local chiefs and successfully negotiated passage through their territory, and was often hospitably received and aided, even by Mwata Kazembe.[4]
Livingstone was a proponent of trade and Christian missions to be established in central Africa. His motto, inscribed in the base of the statue to him at Victoria Falls, was "Christianity, Commerce and Civilisation." At this time he believed the key to achieving these goals was the navigation of the Zambezi River as a Christian commercial highway into the interior.[9] He returned to Britain to try to garner support for his ideas, and to publish a book on his travels which brought him fame as one of the leading explorers of the age.
Believing he had a spiritual calling for exploration rather than mission work, and encouraged by the response in Britain to his discoveries and support for future expeditions, in 1857 he resigned from the London Missionary Society.[4]
Zambezi expedition
The British government agreed to fund Livingstone's idea and he returned to Africa as head of the Zambezi Expedition to examine the natural resources of southeastern Africa and open up the River Zambezi. Unfortunately it turned out to be completely unnavigable past the Cabora Bassa rapids, a series of cataracts and rapids that Livingstone had failed to explore on his earlier travels.[9]
The expedition lasted from March 1858 until the middle of 1864. Livingstone was an inexperienced leader and had trouble managing a large-scale project. The artist Thomas Baines was dismissed from the expedition on charges (which he vigorously denied) of theft. Livingstone's wife Mary died on 29 April 1863 of malaria, but Livingstone continued to explore, eventually returning home in 1864 after the government ordered the recall of the Expedition. The Zambezi Expedition was castigated as a failure in many newspapers of the time, and Livingstone experienced great difficulty in raising funds further to explore Africa. Nevertheless, the scientists appointed to work under Livingstone, John Kirk, Charles Meller, and Richard Thornton did contribute large collections of botanic, ecological, geological and ethnographic material to scientific institutions in the UK.
Source of the Nile
In January 1866, Livingstone returned to Africa, this time to Zanzibar, from where he set out to seek the source of the Nile. Richard Francis Burton, John Hanning Speke and Samuel Baker had (although there was still serious debate on the matter) identified either Lake Albert or Lake Victoria as the source (which was partially correct, as the Nile "bubbles from the ground high in the mountains of Burundi halfway between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria" [10]). Finding the Lualaba River, Livingstone decided it was the "real" Nile, but in fact it is the Upper Congo River.
Geographical discoveries
Although Livingstone was wrong about the Nile, he discovered for western science numerous geographical features, such Lake Ngami, Lake Malawi, and Lake Bangweulu in addition to Victoria Falls mentioned above. He filled in details of Lake Tanganyika, Lake Mweru and the course of many rivers, especially the upper Zambezi, and his observations enabled large regions to be mapped which previously had been blank. Even so, the furthest north he reached, the north end of Lake Tanganyika, was still south of the Equator and he did not penetrate the rainforest of the River Congo any further downstream than Ntangwe near Misisi.[11]
Livingstone was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London and was made a fellow of the society, with which he had a strong association for the rest of his life.[4]
Livingstone and slavery
"And if my disclosures regarding the terrible Ujijian slavery should lead to the suppression of the East Coast slave trade, I shall regard that as a greater matter by far than the discovery of all the Nile sources together" - Livingstone in a letter to the editor of the New York Herald.[12]
Livingstone's letters, books and journals [13] did stir up public support for the abolition of slavery.[14] However he became humiliatingly dependent for assistance on the very slave-traders whom he wanted to put out of business. Because he was a poor leader of his peers, he ended up on his last expedition as an individualist explorer with servants and porters but no expert support around him. At the same time he did not use the brutal methods of maverick explorers such as Stanley to keep his retinue of porters in line and his supplies secure. For these reasons from 1867 onwards he accepted help and hospitality from Mohamad Bogharib and Mohamad bin Saleh (also known as Mpamari), traders who kept and traded in slaves, as he recounts in his journals. They in turn benefited from Livingstone's influence with local people, which facilitated Mpamari's release from bondage to Mwata Kazembe.[13]
Livingstone was also furious to discover some of the replacement porters sent at his request from Ujiji were slaves.[13]
Illness, pain and death
Livingstone completely lost contact with the outside world for six years and was ill for most of the last four years of his life. Only one of his 44 letter dispatches made it to Zanzibar. Henry Morton Stanley, who had been sent to find him by the New York Herald newspaper in 1869, found Livingstone in the town of Ujiji on the shores of Lake Tanganyika on November 10, 1871,[15] greeting him with the now famous words "Dr Livingstone, I presume?" These famous words may be a fabrication, as Stanley has torn out the pages of this encounter in his diary.[16] Even Livingstone's account of this encounter doesn't mention these words. However, the phrase appears in a New York Herald editorial dated 10 August, 1872 and the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography both quote it without questioning its validity.
A possibly apocryphal story is included in Presidential Elections by Paul F. Boller, Jr. (1985). The story goes that Stanley told Livingstone what had occurred in Europe and America during his expedition; among othere things he said that the 1872 U. S. presidential election campaign had begun and the Democratic Party had nominated Horace Greeley. Livingstone stopped Stanley there; he said, "You have told me curious things and wonderful, but there is a limit--when you tell me the Democrats have nominated Greeley for President I am hanged if I will believe it."
Some in Burundi claim the famous meeting took place 12 km south of Bujumbura at the spot marked by the Livingstone-Stanley Monument, Mugere, but that marks a visit they made 15 days after their first meeting - see linked article for references - on their joint exploration of the north end of Lake Tanganyika, which ended when Stanley left in March the next year.
Despite Stanley's urgings, Livingstone was determined not to leave Africa until his mission was complete. His illness made him confused and he had judgment difficulties at the end of his life. He explored the Lualaba and failing to find connections to the Nile, returned to Lake Bangweulu and its swamps to explore possible rivers flowing out northwards.[13]
David Livingstone died in that area in Chief Chitambo's village at Ilala southeast of Lake Bangweulu in Zambia, on 1 May 1873 from malaria and internal bleeding caused by dysentery. He took his final breaths while kneeling in prayer at his bedside. (His journal indicates that the date of his death would have been 1 May, but his attendants noted the date as 4 May, which they carved on a tree and later reported; this is the date on his grave.) Livingstone's heart was buried under a Mvula tree near the spot where he died, now the site of the Livingstone Memorial. His body together with his journal was carried over a thousand miles by his loyal attendants Chuma and Susi, and was returned to Britain for burial in Westminster Abbey.[4]
Livingstone's legacy
By the late 1860s Livingstone's reputation in Europe had suffered owing to the failure of the missions he set up, and of the Zambezi Expedition; and his ideas about the source of the Nile were not supported. His expeditions were hardly models of order and organisation.[9]
His reputation was rehabilitated by Stanley and his newspaper,[9] and by the loyalty of Livingstone's servants whose long journey with his body inspired wonder. The publication of his last journal revealed stubborn determination in the face of suffering.[4]
He had made geographical discoveries for European knowledge. He inspired abolitionists of the slave trade, explorers and missionaries. He opened up Central Africa to missionaries who initiated the education and health care for Africans, and trade by the African Lakes Company. He was held in some esteem by many African chiefs and local people and his name facilitated relations between them and the British.[4]
Partly as a result, within fifty years of his death, colonial rule was established in Africa and white settlement was encouraged to extend further into the interior.
On the other hand, within a further fifty years after that, two other aspects of his legacy paradoxically helped end the colonial era in Africa without excessive bloodshed. Livingstone was part of an evangelical and nonconformist movement in Britain which during the 19th century changed the national mindset from the notion of a divine right to rule 'lesser races', to ethical ideas in foreign policy which, with other factors, contributed to the end the British Empire.[17] Secondly, Africans educated in mission schools founded by people inspired by Livingstone were at the forefront of national independence movements in central, eastern and southern Africa.[18]
Family Life
While Livingstone had a great impact on British Imperialism, he did so at a tremendous cost to his family. In his absences, his children grew up fatherless, and his wife Mary (daughter of Mary and Robert Moffat) eventually died of malaria trying to follow him in Africa. He had six children: Robert, Agnes, Thomas, Elizabeth (who died two months after her birth), William (nicknamed Zouga for the river along which he was born) and Anna Mary. His one regret in later life was that he did not spend enough time with his children.[19]
Irving Wallace
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Irving Wallace (March 19, 1916 - June 29, 1990) was an American bestselling author and screenwriter. He was the father of Olympic historian David Wallechinsky and author Amy Wallace.
Irving Wallace was married to Sylvia Wallace, a former magazine writer and editor. Her first novel, The Fountains, was an American best seller and published in twelve foreign editions. Her second novel, Empress, was published in 1980. She also helped produce, along with their two children, The Book of Lists #2. Sylvia Wallace died October 20, 2006 at the age of 89.
Several of Wallace's books have been made into films. Among his best known books are The Chapman Report (1960), The Prize (1962), The Word (1972) and The Fan Club (1974). He also produced some notable non-fiction works, including several editions of The People's Almanac and The Book of Lists.
Wallace was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he attended Kenosha Central High School. [1]
Wallace died of pancreatic cancer in 1990 and was interred in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California.
Ursula Andress
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Ursula Andress
March 19, 1936 (1936-03-19) (age 72)
Ostermundigen, Switzerland
Spouse(s) John Derek (2 February 1957 - 1966 (divorce)
Children Dimitri Alexandre Hamlin May 19, 1980 (1980-05-19) (age 27)
[show]Awards won
Golden Globe Awards
Most Promising Newcomer - Female
1964 Dr. No
Ursula Andress (born 19 March 1936) is a Golden Globe award winning Swiss actress and a major sex symbol of the 1960s. She is best known for her role as Bond girl, Honey Ryder in Dr. No.
Early life
Ursula Andress was born in Ostermundigen, Berne, Switzerland, to a Swiss-German mother and a German father. Her father, Rolf Andress, was a German diplomat. He disappeared during World War II. Andress has four sisters and one brother. She is fluent in English, French, Italian, and German.
Career
Andress started her career as an art model in Rome, which led to her first roles in the Italian movie industry.
She became famous as Honey Ryder, a shell diver and James Bond's object of desire in Dr. No (1962), the first Bond movie (BBC January 2001). The scene made Andress the "quintessential" Bond girl (Thomas 1999), and is now considered iconic (Westcott 2006). "My entrance in the film wearing the bikini on that beautiful beach made me world famous as 'the Bond girl'", she said, and the bikini from this "classic moment in cinema and Bond history" sold for £35,000 at auction in 2001 (BBC February 2001). In 2003, in a UK Survey by Channel 4, her entrance in Dr. No was voted #1 in "the 100 Greatest Sexy Moments" (BBC 2003). In 2007, Australian series 20 to 1 ranked her entrance in Dr. No as the #2 Sexiest Movie Moment.
Andress won a 1964 Golden Globe award for New Star of the Year for her performance in Dr. No. Her voice was provided by Nikki van der Zyl while the famous calypso was sung by Diana Coupland.
She has the singular distinction among Bond girl actresses of having actually appeared in the narrative of a Fleming novel, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, written after Fleming was present during filming of Dr. No. She is pointed out to Bond by Irma Bunt while they are dining at Piz Gloria.
Andress co-starred with the king of rock 'n' roll Elvis Presley in the 1963 film, Fun in Acapulco , with Frank Sinatra in 4 for Texas (1963) and opposite Marcello Mastroianni in The 10th Victim (1965). She also appeared in the Bond satire Casino Royale (1967) as Vesper Lynd, an occasional spy who persuades Evelyn Tremble, as played by Peter Sellers to carry out a mission. Her heavy accent was dubbed over in Dr. No, but she used her own voice in Casino Royale.
In 1965, she posed nude for a picture for Playboy.
In 1981's Clash of the Titans, she starred opposite legendary English actor Laurence Olivier.
In 1995, Ursula Andress was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the "100 Sexiest Stars in film history."
Personal life
She was married in 1957 to actor/director John Derek. The marriage ended in divorce in 1966 due to her well-publicized love affair with French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo. Andress dated many of Hollywood's leading men including co-stars Marlon Brando and James Dean. In 1980, she had a son, Dimitri, with American actor Harry Hamlin, her co-star in the film Clash of the Titans.
On the occasion of the inauguration of the Swiss Consulate General in Scotland on May 18, 2006, Andress celebrated her 70th birthday on board the Royal Yacht Britannia in Edinburgh. Among the guests were her former partner Harry Hamlin, their son Dimitri, Miss Switzerland Lauriane Gilliéron and Swiss model, actress and singer Michelle Hunziker who like Ursula Andress grew up in Ostermundigen. Furthermore The Rt. Hon. George Reid, Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Woodard, former Commander of the Royal Yacht Britannia, and Lesley Hinds, Lord Provost of Edinburgh. Earlier that day Swiss Federal Councillor Pascal Couchepin presented Ursula Andress with a bouquet of flowers and the best wishes for her birthday at the Signet Library in Edinburgh. Ursula Andress arrived at the Royal Yacht Britannia in the original Aston Martin DB5 once driven by her film partner Sean Connery in the James Bond films Goldfinger and Thunderball. The car was bought by a Swiss gentleman at auction in 2006.
Glenn Close
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born March 19, 1947 (1947-03-19) (age 61)
Greenwich, Connecticut, United States
Years active 1975-present
Spouse(s) Cabot Wade (1969-1971)
James Marlas (1984-1987)
David Shaw (2006-)
[show]Awards won
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Lead Actress - Miniseries or a Movie
1995 Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actress - Miniseries/TV Movie
2005 The Lion in Winter
Best Actress in a Television Drama Series
2007 Damages
Screen Actors Guild Awards
Outstanding Actress - Miniseries/TV Movie
2004 The Lion in Winter
Tony Awards
Best Leading Actress in a Play
1984 The Real Thing
2002 Death and the Maiden
Best Leading Actress in a Musical
1995 Sunset Boulevard
Other Awards
NBR Award for Best Supporting Actress
1982 The World According to Garp
Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American film and stage actress and singer, perhaps best known for her role as a deranged stalker in Fatal Attraction (1987). Close has won an Emmy Award, three Tony Awards, and two Golden Globes; she has further been nominated for five Academy Awards, eight Emmys, and nine Golden Globes.
Biography
Early life
Close was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, the daughter of Bettine (née Moore) and William Taliaferro Close,[1] a doctor who operated a clinic in the Belgian Congo and served as a personal physician to President Mobutu Sese Seko.[2] Her parents came from prominent families; her paternal grandfather, Edward Bennett Close, a stockbroker and director of the American Hospital Association,[3] was first married to Post Cereals' heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, making Glenn Close a relative of screenwriter/director Preston Sturges and actress Dina Merrill. Close is also a second cousin once removed of Brooke Shields. Shields's great-grandmother Mary Elsie Moore (wife of Don Marino Torlonia, 4th Prince di Civitella-Cesi) was Close's great-aunt, a sister of Close's maternal grandfather, Charles Arthur Moore.
Close attended Choate Rosemary Hall, a private boarding school in Connecticut, and later the College of William and Mary; there she was elected to membership in the honor society of Phi Beta Kappa.
Career
Close has had a lengthy career as a versatile actress and performer. Close is remembered for her chilling roles as the scheming aristocrat Madame de Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons and as the psychotic book editor Alex in Fatal Attraction. She has been nominated for five Academy Awards, for Best Actress in Dangerous Liaisons and Fatal Attraction, and for Best Supporting Actress in The Natural, The Big Chill, and The World According to Garp. She played the role of Sunny von Bülow in the 1990 film Reversal of Fortune to critical acclaim.
In the 1990s, Close took on challenging roles on television as well. She starred in the highly rated presentation of the 1991 Hallmark Hall of Fame drama Sarah, Plain and Tall (and its two sequels) and also in the made-for-TV movie Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (1995); from these roles she was nominated for 8 Emmys (winning one) and 9 Golden Globes (winning one in 2005 and 2007). She also appeared in the newsroom comedy-drama The Paper (1994), the alien invasion satire Mars Attacks! (1996, as The First Lady), the Disney hit 101 Dalmatians (1996, as the sinister Cruella de Vil) and it sequel 102 Dalmatians (2000) and the blockbuster Air Force One (1997), as the trustworthy vice-president to Harrison Ford's president. In 2001, she starred in an elaborate production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic musical South Pacific. In 2005, Close joined the FX crime series The Shield, in which she played a no-nonsense precinct captain. Her appearance on the cop drama was such a success that she is now starring in a new hit series of her own for 2007, Damages (also on FX) instead of continuing her character on The Shield.
Close has had an extensive career performing in many Broadway musicals. One of her most notable roles on stage was Norma Desmond in the Andrew Lloyd Webber production of Sunset Boulevard, for which Close won a Tony award playing the role on Broadway in 1994. Close was also a guest star, at the Andrew Lloyd Webber fiftieth birthday party celebration, in the Royal Albert Hall in 1998. She appeared as Norma Desmond and performed songs from Sunset Boulevard. Close is being considered to reprise the role of Norma Desmond in the 2008 film Sunset Boulevard, based on the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. The film has not started production.[4] In addition to Sunset Boulevard, Close also won Tony Awards in 1984 for The Real Thing and in 1992 for Death and the Maiden.
Personal life
In February 2006, Close married her longtime boyfriend David Shaw. They reside in Scarborough, Maine. The actress was previously married to Cabot Wade (1969-1971) and James Marlas (1984-1987). She has one child, Annie Maude Starke (born April 26, 1988), from her previous relationship with John Starke that ended in 1991. Annie is currently attending Hamilton College, a liberal arts institution in upstate New York.
She has donated money to election campaigns of many Democratic politicians, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, Howard Dean and John Edwards.[5]
There was a boy who worked in the produce section of the market.
A man came in and asked to buy half a head of lettuce.
The boy told him that they only sold whole heads of lettuce, but the
man replied that he did not need a whole head, but only a half head.
The boy said he would go ask his manager about the matter.
The boy walked into the back room and said, "There's some jerk out
there who wants to buy only a half a head of lettuce." As he was
finishing saying this he turned around to find the man standing right
behind him, so he added, "and this gentleman wants to buy the other half."
The manager okayed the deal and the man went on his way. Later the
manager called on the boy and said, "You almost got yourself in a lot
of trouble earlier, but I must say I was impressed with the way you got
yourself out of it. You think on your feet and we like that around here.
Where are you from son?"
The boy replied, "Canada sir."
"Oh really? Why did you leave Canada?" asked the manager.
The boy replied, "They're all just whores and hockey players up there."
"Really," replied the manager, "My wife is from Canada!"
The boy replied, "No kidding! What team did she play for?
Whoever that kid is, Bob, I will bet he had no trouble finding employment. Thanks for the smile and the background of the celebs. I don't know about the rest of our listeners, but I most certainly can use a smile today. My godchild went to Key West to help a friend in trouble, and ended up in the hospital herself with a ruptured appendix.
Well, Raggedy, it doesn't matter if your timing isn't perfect today as those famous faces shine right through, PA. Thanks for the memorable quintet.
Two tributes in song and video, folks.
Dr. Livingstone I presume? No, Moody Blues <smile>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afFK9CsqTWA
And I suspect that everyone here remembers Wyatt Earp in the movie, Tombstone. (Loved Val Kilmer the best, however)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1vsmpGfB9Q&feature=related
I am lettybee and I approve edgarblythe's song.
Thanks, Texas.
I was thinking of the wind this early evening, and I thought about this poem.
WHO HAS SEEN THE WIND ?
BY: CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling
The wind is passing thro'
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.
"faith in things unseen."
I also skimmed hbg's Valkyrie information, and realized that in all religions, mythological or otherwise, there is a tale of sacrifice of someone who is loved.
An excerpt
farewell to Brünnhilde. In all music for bass voice this scene has no peer. Such tender, mournful beauty has never found expression in music -- and this, whether we regard the vocal part or the orchestral accompaniment in which the lovely Slumber Motive:
[Music excerpt]
As Wotan leads Brünnhilde to the rock, upon which she sinks, closes her helmet, and covers her with her shield, then invokes Loge, and, after gazing fondly upon the slumbering Valkyr, vanishes amid the magic flames, the Slumber Motive, the Magic Fire Motive, and the Siegfried Motive combine to place the music of the scene with the most brilliant and beautiful portion of our heritage from the great master-musician. But here, too, lurks Destiny. Towards the close of this glorious finale we hear again the ominous muttering of the Motive of Fate. Brünnhilde may be saved from ignominy, Siegfried may be born to Sieglinde -- but the crushing weight of Alberich's curse still rests upon the race of the gods.
In the old testament of the bible, Abraham is asked to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Upon further research, it could be that the son was Ishmael.
For hbg.
When I was a child, I got the heebie jeebies from those stories, but not now, Canada.
speaking of the wind ... ... here is ZARAH LEANDER singing in german :
"der wind hat mir ein lied erzaehlt " - "the wind has told me a story" from the 1930's film LA HABANERA .
zahra was swedish born and one of the biggest german film stars in the 30's and 40's .
everyone would rush to the cinema when one of her films came out .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poA22ZiONtU
Quote:Zarah Leander (March 15, 1907 - June 23, 1981) was a Swedish actress and singer. She became particularly famous throughout the German speaking countries and Scandinavia for her powerful singing voice and moody romantic songs
What a passionate lady, hbg, and there was an eau de cologne called Wind Song. She is a marvelous contralto, and the sub titles were helpful. I really would like to go to the beach tonight and hear the song of the wind. Thank you for allowing me to do so in my mind.
It's time for me to say goodnight, folks, and perhaps the dissonance of Stravinsky and his Rite of Spring will remind us of an out of tune wind, allowing us to appreciate that "still small voice of calm."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkuwexpwqO4&feature=related
Tomorrow, my friends
From Letty with love
Good morning, WA2K radio audience.
edgar, I am familiar with Steely Dan, but not that song. Wonder exactly what those lyrics mean? Some melodies are primary; others feature the words, right?
Well, it seems that today is the birthday of Carl Palmer of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. This one tells the seasons and ends up with a crocus, and since today is the first day of spring, it would seem to be appropriate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nUId91rPF4&feature=related
edgar, I loved that song by Janis Ian. The video was superb as well, Texas. Ah, how I love The Phantom of the Opera. Wonderful depiction!
Well, my goodness, folks, there's our dys back with us, but his song sounded an awful lot like Ry Cooder's"Irene Goodnight".
Here's Leadbelly by Odetta.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YRUQb5Cih8
