WA2K Radio is now on the air

HEY. Who's accusing me of losing my key?

OK. For today, just the living celebs -( two great composers sharing a birthday, today )

A Happy Birthday to:
Karl Malden (96, receiving the Monte Cristo Award in 2004)for his long stage career from Michael Douglas) ; Stephen Sondheim (78); William Shatner (77); Roger Whittaker (72); Andrew Lloyd Webber (60) and Mathew Modine (49).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6GBgs2F5no

Jose sings "Old Turkey Buzzard."

er, Raggedy, I meant the key of C.

Thanks, PA, for the great sextet, and you can bet your sweet derriere that I won't get Romberg and Sondheim confused again.

edgar, don't think I saw McKenna's gold, but that was Jose? No Way. Love the song, however.

Now, folks, here is a song from Sweeny Todd.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2V0z0uIhfw

Chico Marx
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leonard "Chico" Marx
Born Leonard Marx
March 22, 1887(1887-03-22)
New York, New York
Died October 11, 1961 (aged 74)
Hollywood, California
Occupation Actor, comedian
Years active 1926-1959
Spouse(s) Betty Karp (1917-1940)
Mary De Vithas (1958-1961)
Children Maxine Marx (1918)
Parents Minnie Schoenberg and Sam "Frenchie" Marx

Leonard Marx, known as Chico, (March 22, 1887 - October 11, 1961) was one of the Marx Brothers.[1]

He was originally nicknamed Chicko due to his reputation as a ladies man, or a "chicken chaser" in the popular slang of the day. A typesetter accidentally dropped the "k" in his name and it became Chico. It was still pronounced "Chick-o" although those who were unaware of its origin tended to pronounce it "Cheek-o". Radio recordings from the 1940s exist where announcers and fellow actors mispronounce the nickname, but Chico apparently felt it was unnecessary to correct them. As late as the 1950s, even Groucho used the "wrong" pronunciation for comedic effect. A guest on You Bet Your Life told the quizmaster she came from Chico, California and Groucho responded that he had a brother named "Cheek-oh." (Chico can sometimes be spotted in cutaways to the studio audience, out of character and costume.)

Marx used an Italian accent for his on-stage character; stereotyped ethnic characters were common with Vaudeville comedians, and all the Marx brothers sometimes performed "dialect characters" early in their careers, but Chico was the only one to continue this into their films.

The obvious fact that he was not really Italian was referenced twice on film. In their second feature, Animal Crackers, he recognizes someone he knows to be a shady character, impersonating a respected art collector:

Chico: "How did you get to be Roscoe W. Chandler?"
Chandler: "How did you get to be Italian?"
Chico: "Never mind?-whose confession is this?"

In A Night at the Opera, which begins in Italy, his character, Fiorello, claims to not be Italian, eliciting a surprised look from Groucho:

Driftwood: "Well, things certainly seem to be getting better around the country."
Fiorello: "Well, I wouldn't know about that; I'm a stranger here myself."

Chico was a talented pianist. He originally started playing with only his right hand and fake playing with his left, as his teacher did so herself. Chico eventually got a better teacher and learned to play the piano correctly. As a young boy, he would get jobs playing piano to earn money for the Marx family. Sometimes Chico would even get work playing in two places at the same time. He would acquire the job with his piano-playing skills, work for a few nights, and then substitute Harpo on one of the jobs. (During their boyhood, Chico and Harpo looked so much alike they were often mistaken for each other.)

In the brothers' last film, Love Happy, Chico plays a piano and violin duet with "Mr. Lyons" (Leon Belasco). Lyons plays some ornate riffs on the violin; Chico comments, "Look-a, Mister Lyons, I know you wanna make a good impression, but please?-don't-a play better than me!"

In a record album about the Marx Brothers, narrator Gary Owens stated that "although Chico's technique was limited, his repertoire was not." The opposite was true of Harpo, who reportedly could only play two tunes on the piano, which typically thwarted Chico's scam and resulted in both brothers being fired.

Groucho Marx one time said that Chico never practiced the pieces he played. Before performances he would soak his fingers in hot water before going on instead. He was known for "shooting" the keys of the piano. As part of the act he would play passages with his thumb up and index finger straight ?- like a gun (he appears in the film A Year to Remember (1948) playing an extraordinary "shooting" version of the famous Australian song Waltzing Matilda to a group of Australian soldiers). Another charming example of his keyboard flamboyance is found in A Night at the Opera. He captivates a group of children whose faces light up with his digital acrobatics. The looks of glee on their faces is reminiscent of Alfred Eisenstaedt's "Children at Puppet Theatre", an example of pure childhood pleasure, and suggests that they were not acting.

Chico became manager of the Marx Brothers after their mother, Minnie, died. [1] As manager he cut a deal to get the Marx Brothers a percentage of a film's gross receipts ?- the first of its kind in Hollywood. Furthermore, it was Chico's connection with Irving Thalberg of MGM which led to Thalberg's signing the Brothers when they were in a career slump after Duck Soup (1933), made at Paramount Pictures.

For a while in the 1930s and 1940s Chico led a big band. Singer Mel Tormé began his professional career singing with the Chico Marx Orchestra.

Chico Marx was a compulsive womanizer, and had a lifelong gambling habit. His addiction cost him millions of dollars by his own account. When an interviewer asked him how much money he'd lost from gambling, he answered, "Find out how much money Groucho's got. That's how much I've lost." Gummo Marx, in an interview years after Chico's death, said, "Chico's favorite people were actors who gambled, producers who gambled, and women who screwed." Chico's lifelong gambling addiction compelled him to continue in show business long after his brothers had retired in comfort from their Hollywood income, and in the early 40s he found himself playing in the same small, cheap halls in which he had begun his career 30 years previously.


The Marx Brothers' second-to-last film, A Night in Casablanca was made for Chico's benefit. Because of his gambling, the brothers finally took the money as he earned it and put him on an allowance, on which he stayed until his death.

He had a reputation as a world-class pinochle player. His brother Groucho said Chico would throw away good cards (with the knowledge of spectators) to make the play "more interesting." Chico's last public appearance was in 1960, playing cards on a television show, Celebrity Bridge. He and his partner lost the game, but it did not seem to bother him at all.


Death

Chico died on October 11, 1961 from cardiovascular disease, aged 74. He is entombed in a crypt in the Freedom Mausoleum in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, in Glendale, California. Chico's younger brother, Gummo, is in a crypt across the hall from him.[1]

Karl Malden
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born Mladen George Sekulovich
March 22, 1912 (1912-03-22) (age 96)
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Spouse(s) Mona Greenberg
(1938-present)
[show]Awards won
Academy Awards
Best Supporting Actor
1951 A Streetcar Named Desire
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or a Special
1985 Fatal Vision
Screen Actors Guild Awards
Life Achievement Award (2004)
Other Awards
Hollywood Walk of Fame

Karl Malden (born on March 22, 1912) is an Emmy Award-winning, Oscar-winning and Golden Globe-nominated American actor of Serbian origin, known for his expansive manner. In a career that spanned over seven decades, he was featured in classic films such as A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront and One-Eyed Jacks, with Marlon Brando, and also starred in the blockbuster movie, Patton. Among other notable film roles are Archie Lee Meighan in Baby Doll and Zebulon Prescott in How the West Was Won both starring Carroll Baker. His best-known role was on television as Lt. Mike Stone on the 1970s crime drama, The Streets of San Francisco.




Biography

Early life

The eldest of three brothers, Malden was born Mladen George Sekulovich (from Mladen George Sekulović, Serbian:Младен Ђорђе Секуловић) in Chicago, Illinois on March 22, 1912. He was the child of a Serb father, Petar Sekulovich, and a Czech seamstress mother, Minnie Sekulovich. The family moved from Chicago to the Serbian quarter of Gary, Indiana, in 1917, when Malden was five years old. It was in Gary that his father would work in the steel mills and as a milkman. The Sekulovich family roots trace back to the city of Bileća in Herzegovina. Malden spoke Serbian until he was in kindergarten. Malden's father had a passion for music, as Petar began organizing for the choir. As a teenager, Karl joined the Karageorge Choir. In addition, his father produced Serbian plays at his church. Petar also taught students acting. A young Malden took part in many of these plays, including a version of Jack and the Beanstalk but most centering on the community's Serbian heritage. In high school he was a popular student and the star of the basketball team (according to his autobiography, Malden broke his nose twice while playing basketball, taking elbows to the face and resulting in his trademark bulbous nose). He participated in the drama department, and was narrowly elected senior class president. After graduating from Emerson School for Visual and Performing Arts in 1931 with high marks, he briefly planned to leave Gary for Arkansas, where he hoped to win an athletic scholarship, but college officials did not admit him due to his refusal to play any sport beside basketball. From 1931 until 1934, he worked in the steel mills, as had his father.

From his uncle, he changed his name from Mladen Sekulovich to Karl Malden, when he became an actor at age 22. Malden often finds ways to say "Sekulovich" in films and television shows in which he appears. For example, as General Omar Bradley in "Patton", as his troops slog their way through enemy fire in Sicily, Malden says "Hand me that helmet, Sekulovich" to another soldier. In "Dead Ringer", as a police detective in the squad room, Malden tells another detective: "Sekulovich, gimme my hat." In "Birdman of Alcatraz", as a prison warden touring the cellblock, Malden recites a list of inmates' names, including Sekulovich.

In 1997, Malden published his autobiography, When Do I Start, written with his daughter, Carla Malden.


Education and early stage work

In September, 1934, Malden decided to leave his home in Gary, Indiana, to pursue formal dramatic training at the Goodman School (later part of DePaul University), then associated with the Goodman Theater in Chicago. Although he had worked in the steel mills in Gary for three years, he had helped support his family, and was thus unable to save enough money to pay for his schooling. Making a deal with the director of the program, he gave the institute the little money that he did have, with the director's agreeing that, if Malden did well, he would be rewarded with a full scholarship. He won the scholarship. When Malden performed in the Goodman's children's theater, he wooed the actress Mona Greenberg (stage name: Mona Graham), who married him in 1938. He graduated from the Chicago Art Institute in 1937. Soon after, without work and without money, Malden returned to Gary.


Career

Acting career: circa World War II

His life in his hometown came to an end as he traveled to New York City, and found some more appropriate plays for the city. He first appeared as an actor on Broadway in 1937, then did some radio work, before becoming a movie character actor in 1940, where his first film was They Knew What They Wanted (1940). He also attended the Group Theatre, where he began acting in many plays and was introduced to a young Elia Kazan, who would soon work with him on A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and On the Waterfront (1954). His acting career was interrupted by World War II and Malden served as a noncommissioned officer in the US 8th Air Force. While in the war, he was given a small role in the U.S. Army Air Forces play and film Winged Victory. After the war ended in 1945, he resumed his acting career, receiving yet another small supporting role in the play Truckline Cafe, with a young, unknown actor, Marlon Brando. He also guest-starred in both The Ford Theatre and The Armstrong Circle Theatre. Jobs were getting harder to find for him, as he was in his mid-30s and was about to give up. He received a co-starring role in the play, All My Sons with the help of director Elia Kazan. With that success, he then crossed over into movies.


Film career: 1950s to 1970s

Malden resumed his film acting career in the 1950s, starting with The Gunfighter (1950), which was followed by Halls of Montezuma (1950). The following year, he starred in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), where he played Mitch, Stanley Kowalski's best friend who starts a romance with Blanche DuBois (Vivian Leigh). For this role, he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. When he attended the awards ceremony for this film, he rented a tuxedo. At the ceremony, he sat behind Hollywood legend Humphrey Bogart, and when his name was announced as the winner, he gave his rented suit jacket to Bogart for him to look after. Later, backstage, he sought Bogart for his jacket, but when he couldn't find it he asked Bogart where it had gone. Bogart replied: "Forget about the jacket, kid. You've just won an Oscar!" He later found his jacket and returned it to the store the following day.[citation needed]

Other films during this period included On the Waterfront (1954), where he played a priest who influenced Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) to testify against mobster-union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb). In Baby Doll (1956), he played a power-hungry sexual man who had been frustrated by a teenage wife. Before and after he arrived in Hollywood, he starred in dozens of films of the late 1950s to the early 1970s, such as Fear Strikes Out (1957), Pollyanna (1960), Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), Gypsy (1962), How the West Was Won (1962), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), and Patton (1970), playing General Omar Bradley. After his last film, Summertime Killer (1972), he appeared in the made-for-television film The Hijacking of the Achille Lauro (1989) (as Leon Klinghoffer).


Television work



The Streets of San Francisco

In 1972, Malden was approached by producer Quinn Martin about starring as Lt. Mike Stone in The Streets of San Francisco. Although the concept originated as a made-for-television movie, ABC quickly signed on to carry it as a series. Martin hired Michael Douglas to play Lt. Stone's young partner, Inspector Steve Keller.

On Streets, Malden played a widowed veteran cop with more than 20 years of experience who is paired with a young officer recently graduated from college. During its first season, it was a ratings winner among many other 1970s crime dramas, and served as ABC's answer to such shows as Hawaii Five-O, Ironside, Kojak, McMillan and Wife, Police Woman, The Rockford Files and Switch.

During the second season, production shifted from Los Angeles to San Francisco. For his work as Lt. Stone, Malden was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor - Drama Series four times between 1974 and 1977, but never won. After two episodes in the fifth season, Douglas left the show to act in movies; Douglas had also produced the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1975. On the show, his character left police work for teaching. Lt. Stone's new partner was Inspector Dan Robbins, played by Richard Hatch. The show took a ratings nosedive, and ABC canceled The Streets of San Francisco after five seasons and 119 episodes.


Skag

Skag was an hour-long dramatic television series starring Karl Malden that focused on the life of a foreman at a Pittsburgh steel mill. Malden described his character, Pete Skagska, as a simple man trying to keep his family together. The pilot film for the series had Skag temporarily disabled by a stroke, and explored the effects it had on his family and co-workers. The show was considered very daring for its time in the issues it tackled, like impotence and infidelity. The critics gave Skag very positive reviews and even took out full page ads to save the show. However, it was not highly rated and was cancelled after several episodes. To this day, Malden is proud of the show and wishes it were still on the air.[citation needed]


Other work

American Express

Malden famously delivered the line "Don't leave home without them!" in a series of US television commercials for American Express Travelers Cheques in the 1970s and 1980s.


USPS Committee

He is a member of the United States Postal Service's 16-member Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee, which meets to review recommendations for U.S. commemorative postage stamps.[1]


Personal Quotes

Karl: "People have told me that I came to this industry at its Golden Age. But when I was there, it was just an age." (Source: USIMDB.com)

Karl: "I am thrilled to be honored by the Screen Actors Guild because I've been with it for such a long time. The Screen Actors Guild is sort of a highfalutin name for a union, and this union was always wonderful to work for. For the rank-and-file of the union to honor me is the best compliment I can receive." (Source: USIMDB.com)

Karl on his early days: "My father was a milkman. So, I delivered milk." (Source: USIMDB.com)

Karl on Norman Jewison winning the award: "Norman deserved that award; he's a damn good director, The Cincinnati Kid". (Source: Thinkexist.com)

Karl on his days of working with Norman Jewison: "He could handle longtime stars like Joan Blondell and Edward G. Robinson, and he also could handle Steve McQueen. Norman stepped in at the last moment (Sam Peckinpah had been fired after a week's filming), and that's not an easy thing to do." (Source: Thinkexist.com)


Private life

Malden has been married to Mona Greenberg since December 18, 1938. Their marriage is one of the longest in Hollywood history.

In 1976, his father, Petar Sekulovich, died. To honour the memory of his father, Malden had a role in Twilight Time six years later. It was a private film, not seen by many.

Awards

Karl Malden won the 1951 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for A Streetcar Named Desire and was nominated in 1954 for his supporting role in On the Waterfront. Karl Malden is a past president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In October of 2003, Malden was named the 40th recipient of the Screen Actors' Guild's Life Achievement Award for career achievement and humanitarian accomplishment.

On November 12, 2005, the United States House of Representatives authorized the U.S. Postal Service to rename the Los Angeles Barrington Postal Station as the Karl Malden Postal Station in honour of Malden's achievements. The bill, H.R. 3667, was sponsored by Representatives Henry Waxman and Diane Watson.

In May 2001, Karl Malden received an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, from Valparaiso University.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Karl Malden has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6231 Hollywood Blvd. In 2005, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Marcel Marceau
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born Marcel Mangel
22 March 1923(1923-03-22)
Strasbourg, France
Died 22 September 2007 (aged 84)
Cahors, France
[show]Awards won
Emmy Awards
1956 - Best Specialty Act - Single or Group

Marcel Marceau (born Marcel Mangel) (22 March 1923 - 22 September 2007) was a well-known mime artist, among the most popular representatives of this art form world-wide.





Early life and training

Marcel Marceau was born in Strasbourg, France, the son of Anne(née Werzberg) and Charles Mangel.[1] When he was 4 years of age, his family moved to Lille, but returned to Strasbourg when he was in his early teens.[2] When he was 16, France entered the Second World War, and his Jewish family was forced to flee from Strasbourg, near the German border, to Limoges.[2] His father, a kosher butcher, was arrested by the Gestapo and died in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944.[2]

Marcel and his older brother Alain adopted the last name "Marceau" in order to hide their Jewish origins; as a gesture of defiance, however, the name was chosen as a reference to François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers, a general of the French Revolution.[2] The two brothers joined the French Resistance in Limoges, where they saved numerous Jewish children from concentration camps, and later joined Charles de Gaulle's Free French Forces.[2] Due to Marcel's excellent English, he worked as a liaison officer with General Patton's army. [3],[2]

Marcel was married and divorced three times: the first to Huguette Mallet by whom he had two sons, Michel and Baptiste, the second to Ella Jaroszewicz and the third to Anne Sicco by whom he had two daughters, Camille and Aurélia.[4]

Gifted in gymnastics and acting, and inspired by Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers, Marcel became an actor.[2] After the war, he enrolled in 1946 as a student in Charles Dullin's School of Dramatic Art in the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre in Paris, where he studied with teachers like Joshua Smith and the great master, Étienne Decroux, who had also taught Jean-Louis Barrault. Marceau joined Barrault's company[5] and was soon cast in the role of Arlequin in the pantomime, Baptiste - which Barrault himself had interpreted in the world famous film Les Enfants du Paradis. Marceau's performance won him such acclaim that he was encouraged to present his first "mimodrama", called Praxitele and the Golden Fish, at the Bernhardt Theatre that same year. The acclaim was unanimous and Marceau's career as a mime was firmly established.

Prior to beginning his career as a mime, Marcel Marceau danced with Rina Shaham (née Rosalind Gologorsky); she ended their partnership to pursue a successful career in modern dance in Israel.


Career and signature characters

In 1947, Marceau created "Bip" the clown, who in his striped pullover and battered, beflowered silk opera hat ?- signifying the fragility of life ?- has become his alter ego, even as Chaplin's "Little Tramp" became that star's major personality. Bip's misadventures with everything from butterflies to lions, on ships and trains, in dance-halls or restaurants, were limitless. As a style pantomime, Marceau was acknowledged without peer. His silent exercises, which include such classic works as The Cage, Walking Against the Wind, The Mask Maker, and In The Park, as well as satires on everything from sculptors to matadors, were described as works of genius. Of his summation of the ages of man in the famous Youth, Maturity, Old Age and Death, one critic said: "He accomplishes in less than two minutes what most novelists cannot do in volumes."

In 1949, following his receipt of the renowned Deburau Prize (established as a memorial to the 19th century mime master Jean-Gaspard Deburau) for his second mimodrama, "Death before Dawn", Marceau formed his Compagnie de Mime Marcel Marceau - the only company of pantomime in the world at the time. The ensemble played the leading Paris theaters - Le Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Le Théâtre de la Renaissance, and the Sarah Bernhardt, as well as other playhouses throughout the world. From 1959 to 1960, a retrospective of his mimodramas, including the famous The Overcoat by Gogol, ran for a full year at the Amibigu Theatre in Paris. He has produced 15 other mimodramas, including Pierrot de Montmartre, The 3 Wigs, The Pawn Shop, 14th July, The Wolf of Tsu Ku Mi, Paris Cries?-Paris Laughs and Don Juan (adapted from the Spanish writer Tirso de Molina).


World recognition

Marceau performed all over the world in order to spread the "art of silence" (L'art du silence). He first toured the United States in 1955 and 1956, close on the heels of his North American debut at the Stratford Festival of Canada. After his opening engagement at the Phoenix Theater in New York, which received rave reviews, he moved to the larger Barrymore Theater to accommodate the public demand. This first US tour ended with a record breaking return to standing room only crowds in San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and other major cities. His extensive transcontinental tours included South America, Africa, Australia, China, Japan, South East Asia, Russia, and Europe. His last world tour covered the United States in 2004, and returned to Europe in 2005 and Australia in 2006.

Marceau's art became familiar to millions through his many television appearances. His first television performance as a star performer on the Max Liebman Show of Shows won him the television industry's coveted Emmy Award. He appeared on the BBC as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol in 1973. He was a favorite guest of Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas and Dinah Shore, and he also had his own one-man show entitled "Meet Marcel Marceau". He teamed with Red Skelton in three concerts of pantomimes.

Marceau also showed his versatility in motion pictures such as First Class, in which he played 17 roles, Shanks, where he combined his silent art, playing a deaf and mute puppeteer, and his speaking talent, as a mad scientist; as Professor Ping in Barbarella, and a cameo as himself in Mel Brooks' Silent Movie, in which, with purposeful irony, he is the only actor with an audible speaking part, uttering the single word "Non!" when Brooks asks him (subtitled) if he would participate in the film. He also had a role in a low-budget film roughly based on his life story called Paint It White. The film was never completed because another actor in the movie, a life-long friend with whom he had attended school, died halfway through shooting.

As an author, Marceau published two books for children, the Marcel Marceau Alphabet Book and the Marcel Marceau Counting Book, and poetry and illustrations, including La ballade de Paris et du Monde (The Ballad of Paris and of the World), an art book which he wrote in 1966, and The Story of Bip, written and illustrated by Marceau and published by Harper and Row. In 1982, Le Troisième Œil, (The Third Eye), his collection of ten original lithographs, was published in Paris with an accompanying text by Marceau. Belfond of Paris published Pimporello in 1987. In 2001, a new photo book for children titled Bip in a Book, published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, appeared in the bookstores in the US, France and Australia.

In 1978, Marceau established his own school in Paris: École Internationale de Mimodrame de Paris, Marcel Marceau (International School of Mimodrame of Paris, Marcel Marceau). In 1996, he established the Marceau Foundation to promote mime in the United States.

In 1995, vocalist, dancer, choreographer and mime Michael Jackson and Marceau conceived a concert for HBO, but the project was never completed. In 2000, Marceau brought his full mime company to New York City for presentation of his new mimodrama, The Bowler Hat, previously seen in Paris, London, Tokyo, Taipei, Caracas, Santo Domingo, Valencia (Venezuela) and Munich. From 1999, when Marceau returned with his classic solo show to New York and San Francisco after 15-year absences for critically-acclaimed sold out runs, his career in America enjoyed a remarkable renaissance with strong appeal to a third generation. He latterly appeared to overwhelming acclaim for extended engagements at such legendary American theaters as The Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, demonstrating the timeless appeal of the work and the mastery of this unique artist.

Marceau's new full company production Les Contes Fantastiques (Fantasy Tales) opened to great acclaim at the Théâtre Antoine in Paris.


Acclaim and honors

The French Government conferred upon Marceau its highest honor, making him an "Officier de la Légion d'honneur", and in 1978 he received the Médaille Vermeil de la Ville de Paris. In November 1998, President Chirac named Marceau a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit; and he was an elected member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France. The City of Paris awarded him a grant, which enabled him to reopen his International School, which offered a three-year curriculum.

Marceau held honorary doctorates from Ohio State University, Linfield College, Princeton University and the University of Michigan.

In 1999 New York City declared March 18 to be Marcel Marceau Day.

He became the eleventh recipient of the Raoul Wallenberg Medal on April 30, 2001. The Auditorium was standing-room-only that night. "This year the person chosen to be the Wallenberg Medalist is unlike all previous medalists in that he is famous all over the world," said University of Michigan professor emerita Irene Butter in her introduction. "Yet he is not widely known for his humanitarianism and acts of courage, for which we honor him tonight."

Marceau accepted the honor and responsibilities of serving as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Second World Assembly on Aging, which took place in Madrid, Spain, in April 2002.


Death

Mime Marcel Marceau dies at age 84. Marcel Marceau passed away at his home in Cahors, France, on Yom Kippurim 22 September 2007. His burial ceremony was accompanied by Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21, and the sarabande of Bach's Cello Suite No. 5. Marcel Marceau was laid to rest in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.[6]





Writings

Marceau wrote the preface to the French high wire artist Philippe Petit's 1985 book, On The High Wire. ISBN 039471573X
Marceau wrote the foreword to Stefan Niedzialkowski's and Jonathan Winslow's 1993 book, Beyond the Word -- the World of Mime. ISBN 1-879094-23-1.

Influence

Marceau's Creation of the World, a retelling of the first two chapters of Genesis is, in part, recreated by Axel Jodorowsky in Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1989 film Santa Sangre. Both father and son Jodorowsky had worked with Marceau.
Michael Jackson's "moonwalk" dance was inspired by Marceau's Walking Against the Wind routine.[7]
Japan's Maruse Taro was greatly influenced by Marceau, and his mimer's name is derived from that of Marceau[citation needed].
A mime similar to Marceau appeared in the 1991 Dwight Yoakam video "It Only Hurts When I Cry".
The fluid movements of Liquid Dancing and Popping can be traced to the influence of Marcel Marceau and pantomime theater.
Marcel Marceau and his Walking Against the Wind routine are mentioned in the "Weird" Al Yankovic song, "She Never Told Me She Was a Mime".
Marcel Marceau was much parodied on UK TV most memorably by Kenny Everett as Maurice Mimer but also by Alexei Sayle as Monsieur Obergine.

Stephen Sondheim
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Background information

Birth name Stephen Joshua Sondheim
Born March 22, 1930 (1930-03-22) (age 78)
New York City, NY, U.S.
Genre(s) Musical theatre
Occupation(s) Composer, Lyricist
Years active 1954 - Present

Stephen Joshua Sondheim (b. March 22, 1930) is an American stage musical and film composer and lyricist, winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards (seven, more than any other composer), multiple Grammy Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. He has been described by Frank Rich in the The New York Times as "the greatest and perhaps best-known artist in the American musical theater." [1] His most famous scores include (as composer/lyricist) A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and Assassins, as well as the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy. He was president of the Dramatists Guild from 1973 to 1981. In 1993 The Stephen Sondheim Society was set up to promote, create a greater interest in and provide information about the works of Stephen Sondheim.





Early life

Stephen Sondheim was born to Herbert and Janet ("Foxy") Sondheim, in New York City, New York, and grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and later on a farm in Pennsylvania. Herbert was a dress manufacturer and Foxy designed the dresses. An only child of well-to-do parents living in a high-rise apartment on Central Park West, Sondheim's childhood has been portrayed as isolated and emotionally neglected in Meryle Secrest's biography, Stephen Sondheim: A Life.

Sondheim traces his interest in theater to Very Warm for May, a Broadway musical he saw at the age of nine. "The curtain went up and revealed a piano," Sondheim recalled. "A butler took a duster and brushed it up, tinkling the keys. I thought that was thrilling."[2]

When Stephen was ten years old, his father Herbert, a distant figure in Stephen's life, abandoned him and his mother. Stephen "famously despised" Foxy;[1] he once wrote a thank-you note to close friend Mary Rodgers that read, "Dear Mary and Hank, Thanks for the plate, but where was my mother's head? Love, Steve."[2] When Foxy died on September 15, 1992, Sondheim refused to attend her funeral.


Career

Mentorship under Oscar Hammerstein II

At about the age of ten, around the time of his parents' divorce, Sondheim became friends with Jimmy Hammerstein, son of the well-known lyricist and playwright Oscar Hammerstein II. The elder Hammerstein became a surrogate father to Sondheim, as the young man attempted to stay away from home as much as possible. Hammerstein had a profound influence on the young Sondheim, especially in his development of love for musical theater. Indeed, it was at the opening of Hammerstein's hit show South Pacific that Sondheim met Harold Prince, who would later direct many of Sondheim's most famous shows. During high school, Sondheim attended George School, a private Quaker preparatory school in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He had the chance to write a comic musical based on the goings-on of his school, entitled By George. It was a major success among his peers, and it inflated the young songwriter's ego considerably; he took it to Hammerstein, and asked him to evaluate it as though he had no knowledge of its author. Hammerstein said it was the worst thing he had ever seen. "But if you want to know why it's terrible," Hammerstein consoled the young man, "I'll tell you." The rest of the day was spent going over the musical, and Sondheim would later say that "in that afternoon I learned more about songwriting and the musical theater than most people learn in a lifetime." [3]

Thus began one of the most famous apprenticeships in the musical theatre, as Hammerstein designed a kind of course for Sondheim to take on the construction of a musical. This training centered around four assignments, which Sondheim was to write. These were:

A musical based on a play he admired (which became All That Glitters)
A musical based on a play he thought was flawed (which became High Tor)
A musical based on an existing novel or short story not previously dramatized (which became his unfinished Mary Poppins, not connected to the musical film and stage play scored by the Sherman Brothers.)
An original musical (which became Climb High)
None of these "assignment" musicals was ever produced professionally. High Tor and Mary Poppins have never been produced at all, because the rights holders for the original works refused to grant permission for a musical to be made.

In 1950, Sondheim graduated magna cum laude from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He went on to study composition with the composer Milton Babbitt. Sondheim says that when he asked Babbitt if he could study atonality, Babbitt replied "No, I don't think you've exhausted your tonal resources yet." [4]. Sondheim agreed, and despite frequent dissonance and a highly chromatic style, his music remains resolutely tonal.


Move to Broadway and work as lyricist

"A few painful years of struggle" followed for Sondheim, during which he conditionally auditioned songs and lived in his father's dining room to save money. He also spent some time in Hollywood writing for the television series Topper.[2] Though, to date, Sondheim has only dabbled in movie musicals, he devoured the film of the forties and fifties and has called cinema his "basic language."[1] In the fifties, his knowledge of film got him through The $64,000 Question contestant tryouts. Though his favorite movies include classics like Citizen Kane, The Grapes of Wrath, and Stairway to Heaven, Sondheim says he dislikes movie musicals. He added that "studio directors like Michael Curtiz and Raoul Walsh....were heroes of mine. They went from movie to movie to movie, and every third movie was good and every fifth movie was great. There wasn't any cultural pressure to make art."[5]

In 1954, Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics for Saturday Night, which was never produced on Broadway and was shelved until a 1997 production at London's Bridewell Theatre. In 1998 Saturday Night received a professional recording, followed by an Off-Broadway run at Second Stage Theatre in 2000.

Sondheim's big break came when he wrote the lyrics to West Side Story, accompanying Leonard Bernstein's music and Arthur Laurents's book. The 1957 show, directed by Jerome Robbins, ran for 732 performances. While this may be the best-known show Sondheim ever worked on, he has expressed some dissatisfaction with his lyrics, stating they don't always fit the characters and are sometimes too consciously poetic.

In 1959, he wrote the lyrics for another hit musical, Gypsy. Sondheim would have liked to write the music as well, but Ethel Merman, the star, insisted on a composer with a track record - thus Jule Styne was hired. [6] Sondheim questioned if he should write only the lyrics for yet another show, but his mentor Oscar Hammerstein told him it would be valuable experience to write for a star. Sondheim worked closely with book writer Arthur Laurents to create the show. It ran 702 performances.

Finally, Sondheim participated in a musical for which he wrote both the music and lyrics, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. It opened in 1962 and ran 964 performances. The book, based on the farces of Plautus, was by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart. Sondheim's score was not especially well-received at the time - the show won several Tony Awards, including best musical, but Sondheim did not even receive a nomination. In addition, some critics felt the songs were not properly integrated into the farcical action.

At this point, Sondheim had participated in three straight hits - he'd yet to taste failure on Broadway. His next show ended the streak. Anyone Can Whistle (1964) was a 9-performance flop, although it introduced Angela Lansbury to musical theatre and has developed a cult following.

In 1965 he donned his lyricist-for-hire hat for one last show, Do I Hear a Waltz?, with music by Richard Rodgers - the one project he has since openly regretted working on. [1] In 1966, he semi-anonymously provided the lyric for "The Boy From...", a parody of The Girl from Ipanema that was a highlight of the off-Broadway revue The Mad Show. (The official songwriting credit went to the linguistically-minded pseudonym "Esteban Rio Nido," which translates from the Spanish to "Stephen River Nest." In the show's Playbill, the lyric was credited to "Nom De Plume").


Maturity as composer/lyricist in the 70s

Since then Sondheim has devoted himself to both composing and writing lyrics for a series of varied and adventurous musicals, beginning with the innovative "concept musical" Company in 1970.

Sondheim's work is notable for his use of complex polyphony in the vocal parts, such as the chorus of five minor characters who function as a sort of Greek chorus in 1973's A Little Night Music. He also displays a penchant for angular harmonies and intricate melodies reminiscent of Bach (Sondheim has claimed that he "loves Bach" but his favorite period is Brahms to Stravinsky).[7] To aficionados, Sondheim's musical sophistication is considered to be greater than that of many of his musical theater peers, and his lyrics are likewise renowned for their ambiguity, wit, and urbanity.

Sondheim collaborated with producer/director Harold Prince on six distinctive musicals between 1970 and 1981. Company (1970) was a "concept musical", a show centered around a set of characters and themes rather than a straightforward plot. Follies (1971) was a similarly-structured show filled with pastiche songs echoing styles of composers from earlier decades. A Little Night Music (1973), a more traditionally plotted show based on the film Smiles of a Summer Night by Ingmar Bergman, was one of his greatest successes, with Time magazine calling it "Sondheim's most brilliant accomplishment to date."[8] Notably, the score was mostly composed in waltz time (either ¾ time, or multiples thereof.) Further success was accorded to A Little Night Music when "Send in the Clowns" became a hit for Judy Collins. Although it was Sondheim's only Top 40 hit, his songs are frequently performed and recorded by cabaret artists and theatre singers in their solo careers.

Pacific Overtures (1976) was the most non-traditional of the Sondheim-Prince collaborations, an intellectual exploration of the westernization of Japan. Sweeney Todd (1979), Sondheim's most operatic score (and his only show to find a definite foothold in opera houses), once again explores an unlikely topic, this time murderous revenge and cannibalism. The libretto, by Hugh Wheeler, is based on Christopher Bond's 1973 stage version of the Victorian original.


Later work

Merrily We Roll Along (1981), with a book by George Furth, is one of Sondheim's more "traditional" scores and was thought to hold potential to generate some hit songs (Frank Sinatra and Carly Simon each recorded a different song from the show). Sondheim's music director, Paul Gemignani, said, "Part of Steve's ability is this extraordinary versatility." Merrily, however, was a 16-performance flop. "Merrily did not succeed, but its score endures thanks to subsequent productions and recordings. According to Martin Gottfried, "Sondheim had set out to write traditional songs… But [despite] that there is nothing ordinary about the music." [9] Sondheim and Furth have extensively revised the show since its initial opening.

The failure of Merrily greatly affected Sondheim; he was ready to quit theater and do movies or create video games or write mysteries. He was later quoted as saying, "I wanted to find something to satisfy myself that does not involve Broadway and dealing with all those people who hate me and hate Hal." [10] The collaboration between Sondheim and Prince would largely end after Merrily - until the 2003 production of Bounce, another failure.

However, instead of quitting the theater following the failure of Merrily, Sondheim decided "that there are better places to start a show", and found a new collaborator in the "artsy" James Lapine. Lapine has a taste "for the avant-garde and for visually oriented theater in particular." Sunday in the Park with George (1984), their first collaboration, was very much the avant-garde, but they had blended it together with the professionalism of the commercial theater to make a different kind of musical. Sondheim again was able to show his versatility and his adaptability. His music took on the style of the artist Georges Seurat's painting techniques. In doing so, Sondheim was able to bring his work to another level.

In 1985, he and Lapine won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Sunday in the Park with George. It is one of only seven musicals that have taken this prestigious award. The Sondheim-Lapine collaboration also produced the popular fairy-tale show Into the Woods (1987) and the rhapsodic Passion (1994). 1990 saw the opening of Sondheim's Assassins off-Broadway.

In the late nineties, Sondheim reunited with Hal Prince for Wise Guys, a long-in-the-works musical comedy about Addison and Wilson Mizner. Though a Broadway production starring Nathan Lane and Victor Garber and directed by Sam Mendes was announced for Spring 2000,[11] the New York debut of the musical was delayed. Rechristened Bounce in 2003, the show was mounted at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.. Bounce received disappointing reviews and never reached Broadway. Sondheim has continued to work on Bounce.

Regarding whether he had any interest in writing new work, Sondheim was quoted in a 2006 Time Out: London interview as saying:

" No... It's age. It's a diminution of energy and the worry that there are no new ideas. It's also an increasing lack of confidence. I'm not the only one. I've checked with other people. People expect more of you and you're aware of it and you shouldn't be.[12] "

In December 2007, Sondheim said that, along with continued work on Bounce, he was "nibbling at a couple of things with John Weidman and James Lapine. And writing a book."[13]

In March of 2008, Sondheim and Frank Rich of the New York Times appeared in a few West Coast cities with "A Little Night Conversation with Stephen Sondheim."


Work away from Broadway

Sondheim's mature career has been varied, encompassing much beyond composition of musicals.

An avid fan of games, in 1968 and 1969 Sondheim published a series of word puzzles in New York magazine. (In 1987, Time referred to his love of puzzlemaking as "legendary in theater circles," adding that the central character in Anthony Shaffer's hit play Sleuth was inspired by Sondheim. That the show was given the working title Who's Afraid of Stephen Sondheim? is an urban legend. In a New York Times interview on March 10, 1996 Shaffer denied ever using the title, and Sondheim speculated that it was the invention of producer Morton Gottlieb.)[2] He parlayed this talent into a film script, written with longtime friend Anthony Perkins, called The Last of Sheila. The 1973 film, directed by Herbert Ross, starred Dyan Cannon, Raquel Welch, Richard Benjamin, and others.

He tried his hand at writing one more time - in 1996 he collaborated on a play called Getting Away with Murder. It was not a success, and the Broadway production closed after 29 previews and 17 performances.

His compositional efforts have included a number of film scores, notably a set of songs written for Warren Beatty's 1990 film version of Dick Tracy; one song, "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)" (as performed by Madonna), won Sondheim an Academy Award.


Major works

Unless otherwise noted, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

Saturday Night (1954, though unproduced until 1997) (book by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein)
West Side Story (1957) (music by Leonard Bernstein; book by Arthur Laurents; directed by Jerome Robbins)
Gypsy (1959) (music by Jule Styne; book by Arthur Laurents; directed by Jerome Robbins)
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) (book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart; directed by George Abbott)
Anyone Can Whistle (1964) (book by Arthur Laurents; directed by Arthur Laurents)
Do I Hear a Waltz? (1965) (music by Richard Rodgers; book by Arthur Laurents; directed by John Dexter)
Company (1970) (book by George Furth; directed by Hal Prince)
Follies (1971) (book by James Goldman; directed by Hal Prince)
A Little Night Music (1973) (book by Hugh Wheeler; directed by Hal Prince)
Pacific Overtures (1976) (book by John Weidman; directed by Hal Prince)
Sweeney Todd (1979) (book by Hugh Wheeler; directed by Hal Prince)
Merrily We Roll Along (1981) (book by George Furth; directed by Hal Prince)
Sunday in the Park with George (1984) (book by James Lapine; directed by James Lapine)
Into the Woods (1987) (book by James Lapine; directed by James Lapine)
Assassins (1990) (book by John Weidman; directed by Jerry Zaks)
Passion (1994) (book by James Lapine; directed by James Lapine)
Bounce (2003) (book by John Weidman; directed by Hal Prince)
The Frogs - Second version (2004) (revised book by Nathan Lane, from Burt Shevelove's 1974 book. Contains seven new songs)
Side by Side by Sondheim (1976), Marry Me A Little (1980), You're Gonna Love Tomorrow (1983) and Putting It Together (1993) are anthologies or revues of Sondheim's work as composer and lyricist, featuring both produced songs and songs cut from productions.

The Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts

The Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts opened December 7-9, 2007, located at the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center in Fairfield, Iowa. The Center opened with performances from seven notable Broadway performers, including Len Cariou, Liz Callaway and Richard Kind, all of whom had taken part in the musicals of Sondheim. [14] The center is the first one in the world named after him.

William Shatner
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born March 22, 1931 (1931-03-22) (age 77)
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Other name(s) Bill Shatner
Occupation Actor, Television personality, Spokesperson
Years active 1950-present
Spouse(s) Gloria Rand (1956-1969)
Marcy Lafferty (1973-1994)
Nerine Kidd (1997-1999)
Elizabeth Anderson Martin (2001-)
Children Leslie Carol Shatner (b.1958)
Lisabeth Shatner (b.1961)
Melanie Shatner (b.1964)
Official website
[show]Awards won
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Guest Actor - Drama Series
2004 The Practice
Outstanding Supporting Actor - Drama Series
2005 Boston Legal
Golden Globe Awards
Best Supporting Actor - Miniseries/TV Movie
2005 Boston Legal
Golden Raspberry Awards
Worst Actor
1989 Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Worst Director
1989 Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Other Awards
Saturn Award for Best Actor (film)
1982 Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan

William Alan Shatner (born on March 22, 1931) is a double Emmy-, Golden Globe-, and Saturn Award-winning Canadian actor who gained fame for playing Captain James Tiberius Kirk, captain of the starship USS Enterprise, in the television show Star Trek from 1966 to 1969 and in seven of the subsequent movies. Shatner has written a series of books chronicling his experiences playing James T. Kirk and being a part of Star Trek. He also played the title role as veteran police sergeant T.J. Hooker, from 1982 to 1986. He has since worked as a musician, bestselling author, producer, director, and celebrity pitchman, most notably for Priceline.com. He currently co-stars as attorney Denny Crane on the television drama Boston Legal, for which he has won an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award.




Biography

Early life

Shatner was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to Joseph Shatner, a clothing manufacturer,[1] and Anna Garmaise. All four of Shatner's grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe; his paternal grandfather, Wolf Schattner, shortened the family name to "Shatner". He attended Willingdon Elementary School,[2] in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce in Montreal, Quebec, and earned in 1952 a Bachelor's degree in commerce from Montreal's McGill University, the Student Union building of which was renamed The Shatner Building in 1993 following a referendum by the Student Union. Although used by many students, the name is not officially recognized by the university, which still refers to the building as University Centre.


Early stage, film, and television work

Trained as a classical Shakespearean actor, Shatner performed at the Shakespearean Stratford Festival of Canada in Stratford, Ontario. He played a range of Shakespearean roles at the Stratford Festival in productions that included Shakespeare's Henry V and Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great. Shatner made his Broadway debut in the latter. In 1954, he was cast as Ranger Bill on the Canadian version of the Howdy Doody Show.

Though his official movie debut was in the 1951 Canadian film entitled The Butler's Night Off, Shatner's first feature role came in the 1958 MGM film The Brothers Karamazov with Yul Brynner, in which he starred as the youngest of the Karamazov brothers, Alexei. In 1959, he received decent reviews when he took on the role of Robert Lomax in the Broadway production of The World of Suzie Wong. In 1961, he starred in the Broadway play A Shot in the Dark opposite Julie Harris and directed by Harold Clurman. Walter Matthau and Gene Saks were also featured in this play.

In 1962, he starred in Roger Corman's award-winning movie The Intruder. He also appeared in the Stanley Kramer film Judgment at Nuremberg and two episodes, "Nick of Time" and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", of the acclaimed science fiction anthology series The Twilight Zone. He was also in an episode of The Outer Limits. Shatner guest-starred in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in an episode that also featured Leonard Nimoy, with whom Shatner later would be paired in Star Trek. He also starred in the critically acclaimed drama For the People in 1965 as an assistant district attorney with Jessica Walter which lasted only 13 episodes. Shatner also starred in the 1965 Gothic horror film Incubus, the second feature-length movie ever made with all dialogue spoken in the constructed language Esperanto.


Star Trek career

Shatner was first cast as Captain James T. Kirk for the second pilot of Star Trek, entitled "Where No Man Has Gone Before". He was subsequently contracted to play Kirk for the Star Trek series and held the role from 1966 to 1969. In the episode Operation Annihilate he also played the corpse of the recently killed George Samuel Kirk (the brother of James T. Kirk).

In 1973, Shatner returned to the role of Captain Kirk, albeit only in voice, in the animated Star Trek series. He was slated to reprise the role of Kirk for Star Trek: Phase II, a follow-up series chronicling the second five-year mission of the Enterprise, but Star Trek: Phase II was cancelled in pre-production and expanded into Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Shatner is notable for having participated in the first interracial kiss in a U.S. television drama series between fictional characters, with Nichelle Nichols, in the 1968 Star Trek episode "Plato's Stepchildren". The scene provoked controversy and was seen as groundbreaking, even though the kiss was portrayed as having been forced by telekinesis; it is also frequently misremembered as "the first interracial kiss on US TV" even though it took place after Sammy Davis, Jr., and Nancy Sinatra had openly kissed on the variety program Movin' With Nancy in December 1967. The episode was not telecast in some Southern cities for fear of protest in those states; nevertheless, most viewer reaction was positive. Shatner has claimed in his memoirs that no one on the set felt the kiss to be very important until a network executive raised fears of a Southern boycott and the kiss was almost written out of the script. Gene Roddenberry supposedly made a deal that the scene would be shot both with the kiss and with a cut-away shot which merely implied a kiss, and then a subsequent decision would be made about which scene to televise. The footage of the actual kiss was eventually used. Some cast members have written that this was because Shatner deliberately ruined the take for the implied-kiss footage by looking into the camera and crossing his eyes to force the real kiss to be used.[3]

For years, Shatner was accused of being difficult to work with by some of his Star Trek co-stars, most notably James Doohan and George Takei, who professed that he despised Shatner for being an arrogant, egotistical, line-stealing showboater who tried to keep his co-stars in the background.[4] In the 2004 Star Trek DVD sets, Shatner seemed to have buried the hatchet with Takei, but the gulf between Shatner and Doohan was more difficult. In the 1990s, Shatner made numerous attempts to patch things up with Doohan, but was unsuccessful for some time; however, an Associated Press article published at the time of Doohan's final convention appearance in late August 2004 stated that Doohan had forgiven his fellow Canadian Shatner and they had mended their relationship.[5] It's possible that their renewed friendship was the result of Shatner caring for Doohan, who had fallen ill and died of Alzheimer's on July 20, 2005.

Between 1979 and 1991, William Shatner played Captain Kirk in the first six Star Trek films, and directed the fifth. In 1994, he returned to the role of Captain Kirk in Star Trek Generations - his character's final appearance in the movie series. 1997 marked his final appearance as Captain Kirk in the movie sequences of Starfleet Academy, although he recently reprised this role briefly for a Trek-parody DirecTV advertisement which began airing in late summer 2006.

In the summer of 2004, rumors circulated that the producers of Star Trek: Enterprise were considering bringing William Shatner back into the Trek fold. Reports in the media indicated that the idea was given serious thought, with series producer Manny Coto indicating in Star Trek Communicator magazine's October 2004 issue that he was preparing a three-episode story arc for Shatner. Shortly thereafter, Enterprise was cancelled, likely ending all hope that Shatner would return to Star Trek.

Shatner has not been "offered or suggested" a role in the new film Star Trek, as of October 2007.[6][7] Director J.J. Abrams said in July 2007 that the production was "desperately trying to figure out a way to put him in" but that to "shove him in...would be a disaster."[8] As a result, Shatner had invented his own idea about the beginning of Star Trek with his latest novel, Star Trek: Academy - Collision Course.[9]

In 2008, he joined Star Trek: The Tour in Long Beach, California - an exhibition which is planned to tour 40 cities in the U.S. and Canada. In an interview, he spoke about accepting the dominance of Star Trek in public recollection of his career, and coming to terms with the adoration of fans.[10]


Post-Star Trek career

Shatner was an occasional celebrity guest on The $20,000 Pyramid in the 1970s, once appearing opposite Nimoy in a matchup billed as "Kirk vs. Spock". His appearances became far less frequent after a 1977 appearance, in which, after giving an illegal clue at the top of the pyramid ($200) which deprived the contestant of a big money win, he threw his chair out of the Winner's Circle.[11] He appeared on the Match Game, though he was never a regular on this program.

Shatner had a long dry spell in the decade between the original Star Trek series and the first Trek film, which he believes was due to his being typecast as Captain Kirk, making it difficult to find other work. Moreover, his wife Gloria Rand left him. With very little money and few acting prospects, he lived in a truck bed camper in the San Fernando Valley until acting bit-parts turned into higher paying roles. Shatner refers to this part of his life as "that period", a humbling one in which he would take any odd job, including small party appearances, to support his family. Perhaps the nadir was his role in Big Bad Mama, prized by Shatnerites for his nude scene with Angie Dickinson. He did however land a starring role in the western-themed secret agent series Barbary Coast during 1975 and 1976, as well as a major role in the horror film The Devil's Rain. He also made guest appearances on many 1970s television series such as The Six Million Dollar Man, Columbo, The Rookies, and Mission: Impossible. The dry spell ended for Shatner (and the other Star Trek cast members) when Paramount produced Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979, under pressure from loyal fans of the series. Its success re-established Shatner as an actor, and Captain Kirk - now promoted to Admiral - as a cult icon.

While continuing to film the successful series of Star Trek movies, he returned to television in the 1980s, starring as a police officer in the T.J. Hooker series from 1982 to 1986. He then hosted the popular dramatic reenactment series Rescue 911 from 1989 to 1996. During the 1980s, Shatner also began dabbling in film and television directing, directing numerous episodes of T.J. Hooker and the feature film Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.


As the unwilling central figure of a widespread geek-culture of Trekkies, Shatner is often humorously critical of the sometimes "annoying" fans of Star Trek. He also has found an outlet in spoofing the cavalier, almost superhuman character persona of Captain Kirk, in films such as Airplane II: The Sequel (1982) and National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon (1993). During a guest-host spot on Saturday Night Live, in a skit about a Star Trek convention, he advised a room full of Trekkies to "Get a life", repeating a popular catch-phrase. Shatner also appeared in the film Free Enterprise in 1998, in which he played himself and tried to dispel the Kirk image of himself from the view of the film's two lead characters.

Shatner has enjoyed success with a series of science fiction novels published under his name, though most were written by uncredited co-writers such as Ron Goulart.[citation needed] The first, published in 1990, was TekWar. This popular series of books led to a Marvel Comics series, to a number of television movies, in which Shatner played a role, and to a short-lived television series in which Shatner made several appearances; he also directed some episodes. In 1995, a first-person shooter game named William Shatner's TekWar was released, and was the first game to use the Build engine.

In the 1990s, Shatner appeared in several plays on National Public Radio, written and directed by Norman Corwin. Shatner was cast as "The Big Giant Head", a womanizing party-animal and high-ranking officer from the same alien planet as the show's protagonists in several episodes of the television series 3rd Rock from the Sun. The role earned Shatner a nomination for an Emmy. In 2003, Shatner appeared in Brad Paisley's "Celebrity" country music video along with Little Jimmy Dickens, Jason Alexander, and Trista Rehn.

In 2004, Shatner was cast as the eccentric but highly capable attorney Denny Crane for the final season of the legal drama The Practice, for which he was awarded an Emmy, and then its subsequent spin-off, Boston Legal, for which he won a Golden Globe, an Emmy in 2005 and nominated again in 2006. With the 2005 Emmy win, Shatner became one of the few actors along with co-star James Spader as Alan Shore, to win an Emmy award while playing the same character in two different series. Even rarer, Shatner and Spader each won a second consecutive Emmy while playing the same character in two different series.

Also in 2004, Shatner became a "Celebrity Photographer" for Playboy's Cyber Club.[12]

In 2005, Shatner executive-produced and starred in the Spike TV reality miniseries Invasion Iowa. On October 19, 2005, while working on the set of Boston Legal, Shatner was taken to the emergency room for lower back pain. He eventually passed a kidney stone, but recovered and soon returned to work.

In 2006, Shatner sold his kidney stone for US$75,000 to GoldenPalace.com.[13] In an appearance on The View on May 16, 2006, Shatner said $75,000, with an additional $20,000 raised from the cast and crew of Boston Legal, paid for the building of a house by Habitat for Humanity.

Shatner also plays on the World Poker Tour in the Hollywood Home games. He plays for the Wells Fargo Hollywood Charity Horse Show. Shatner has appeared in Priceline.com commercials both online and on TV, as the "Chief Negotiating Officer". Shatner is also the CEO of the Toronto, Ontario-based C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures, which provided the special effects for the 1996 film Fly Away Home.

On August 20, 2006, Shatner was featured on Comedy Central's Roast of William Shatner. Jason Alexander acted as roastmaster with (in alphabetical order) Andy Dick, Farrah Fawcett, Greg Giraldo, Lisa Lampanelli, Artie Lange, Nichelle Nichols, Patton Oswalt, Kevin Pollak, Jeffrey Ross, George Takei, Betty White, and Fred Willard performing the roasting duties. Special, pre-taped, guest appearances were made by Leonard Nimoy, Sandra Bullock, Ben Stiller, Sarah Silverman, Jimmy Kimmel, and Clint Howard.[14]


Shatner's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.In October 2006, Shatner accepted to host the new ABC game show Show Me the Money, which began in November 2006. The show was cancelled in December 2006 due to low ratings. It was Shatner's first unsuccessful attempt at a series since Barbary Coast in 1976. Shatner continues to co-star on Boston Legal. On March 22, 2007, Shatner was announced as the inductor of legendary professional wrestler/broadcaster Jerry "The King" Lawler at the 2007 WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremony, set to occur on March 31, 2007, at the Fox Theater in Detroit, Michigan. Shatner was chosen because of a memorable 1995 appearance on WWF Monday Night Raw in which Shatner, promoting the TekWar TV series, pushed Lawler to the ring canvas during an interview segment. Shatner later managed fellow Canadian Bret "Hit Man" Hart in a match against Jeff Jarrett, managed by Lawler.[15] Shatner briefly reprised his role as James T. Kirk for a recent 2006 DirecTV advertisement featuring footage from Star Trek VI. Shatner has starred in a series of Kellogg's All-Bran cereal commercials in the UK and Canada.[16]

In January 2007, Shatner launched a series of daily vlogs on his life called ShatnerVision[17] on the LiveUniverse.com website. Along with his daughter Lisabeth; they provide a unique and unparalleled look into Shatner's private life and adventures in life.

Shatner also appeared in the ABC reality television series Fast Cars and Superstars: The Gillette Young Guns Celebrity Race, featuring a dozen celebrities in a stock car racing competition. In the first round of competition, Shatner matched up against former NFL coach Bill Cowher and former volleyball superstar Gabrielle Reece. Shatner was disqualified in the episode for repeatedly crossing a safety line on the track. As of 2007, Shatner is the first Canadian actor to star in three successful TV series on three different networks (NBC, CBS, and ABC).

Shatner has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (for Television work) at 6901 Hollywood Blvd. He also has a star on the Canadian Walk of Fame.

On November 20, 2007, William Shatner was featured as part of the "What's Your Game?" national television commercial series for World of Warcraft along with Mr T. and Verne Troyer.


Family and other ventures

Shatner has been married four times: to Gloria Rand from 1956 to 1969, Marcy Lafferty from 1973 to 1994, Nerine Kidd from 1997 to 1999, and his current wife Elizabeth Martin whom he married in 2001. Shatner has three daughters, Leslie Carol (b. 1958), Lisabeth Mary (b. 1960), and Melanie (b. 1964), from his marriage to Rand. Melanie had a brief career as an actress and is now the proprietor of Dari, an upscale women's clothing boutique. She is married to actor Joel Gretsch, with whom she has two daughters, Kaya and Willow.

On August 9, 1999, Shatner returned home around 10 p.m. to discover the body of his wife Nerine at the bottom of their back yard swimming pool. Alcohol and Valium were detected in an autopsy, and a coroner ruled the death an accidental drowning. The LAPD ruled out foul play and the case has been long closed. Speaking to the press shortly after his wife's death, a clearly shaken and emotional Shatner said that she "meant everything" to him and called her his "beautiful soulmate".[18] Shatner urged the public to support Friendly House, a non-profit organization that helps women re-establish themselves in the community after suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction.[19] He later told Larry King in an interview that "...my wife, whom I loved dearly and who loved me, was suffering with a disease that we don't like to talk about, alcoholism. And she met a tragic ending because of it."[20]

In 2000, a Reuters story reported that Shatner was planning to write and direct The Shiva Club, a dark comedy about the grieving process inspired by his wife's death. The project is still in pre-production.[citation needed] Shatner's 2004 album Has Been produced with Ben Folds included a spoken word piece titled "What Have You Done" which describes his anguish upon discovering his wife's body in the pool.

Shatner is also related to Mordechai Shatner, who was one of the signators of the Israeli declaration of independence.

In his spare time, Shatner enjoys breeding and showing American Saddlebreds and Quarter Horses. Shatner has a 360-acre (1.5 km²) horse farm in Kentucky named Bell Reve, where he raises American Saddlebreds. His champion American Saddlebreds include Call Me Ringo, Revival, and Sultan's Great Day.


Musical tangents

Shatner began a much derided musical career with the spoken word 1968 album The Transformed Man. Delivered with orchestral backings with the odd "psychedelic" flourish, his exaggerated, interpretive recitations of "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" became instant camp classics. Shatner would eventually parody his own musical style several times in the 1990s, including during an episode of Futurama, in which he performed a spoken word version of the rap hit song "The Real Slim Shady".

Shatner performed a reading of the Elton John song "Rocket Man" during the Science Fiction Film Awards, televised in 1978. Dressed in tuxedo ruffles with a hand-rolled cigarette in hand, he spoke with Kirk-like delivery against a synthesizer-laden backdrop of the song. This was spoofed in an episode of Family Guy.

Shatner provided vocals for "In Love" by Ben Folds on his Fear of Pop album. He would later provide vocals for an alternate version of Folds's song "Rockin' the Suburbs", which was contributed to the Over the Hedge soundtrack in 2006.

A creative friendship blossomed that led to Folds producing and co-writing Shatner's well-received second studio album, Has Been, in 2004. The album centers around Shatner's often melancholy and regretful autobiographical ruminations, and features a number of prestigious guest artists such as Aimee Mann, Lemon Jelly, Henry Rollins, Brad Paisley, and Joe Jackson. Notably, Has Been features the single "Common People", a cover version of the song by Pulp.

He appears on the piece "'64 - Go" by Lemon Jelly, featured on their CD entitled '64 - '95, on which he was credited as "the creative genius that is william shatner" and in Brad Paisley's music video for "Celebrity" and "Online." Shatner also appears as a studio producer in the music video for "Landed" by Ben Folds.

In 2007, a ballet called Common People, set to Has Been, was created by Margo Sappington (of Oh! Calcutta! fame) and performed by the Milwaukee Ballet. Shatner attended the premiere and filmed the event. The filmed footage eventually turned into a feature film called Gonzo Ballet, due out in 2008.


Friendship with other actors

Shatner's friendship with Leonard Nimoy began in 1964, when they guest-starred on an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., entitled: The Project Strigas Affair. In addition, they both have a lot of things in common (starting with the fact that Shatner is exactly four days older than Nimoy). They would also co-star together on Star Trek, where they both shared their good and bad times together on and off the set. After Star Trek's demise in 1969, both Shatner and Nimoy would later reunite together on a Star Trek animated series , as well as The $20,000 Pyramid, where Kirk vs. Spock would appear on two different tables. Nimoy would also guest-star on his friend's own series T.J. Hooker, for a few episodes.. The 1999 death of Shatner's third wife, Nerine, created a strong force between Shatner & Nimoy, as Nimoy had mourned over the loss of his best friend's wife. Nimoy would also appear alongside Shatner at the TV Land Awards which was hosted by John Ritter, and was one of the many people to serve as a celebrity "roaster" of Shatner. Nimoy said of his friend of over 40 years, "Bill's energy was good for my performance, cause Spock could be the cool individual, our chemistry was successful, right from the start." Despite their friendship, Leonard said of the feud the two had away from the set of Star Trek, "Very competitive, sibling rivalry up to here. After the show had been on the air a few weeks and they started getting so much mail for Spock, then the dictum came down from NBC: 'Give us more of that guy, they love that guy, you know?' Well, that can be ... that can be a problem for the leading man who was hired as the star of the show; and suddenly, here's this guy with ears --- 'What's this, you know?'" said Nimoy. On an A&E Biography he also said "Bill Shatner hogging the stage? No. Not the Bill Shatner I know."

Shatner began a longtime friendship with a then-unknown star, Heather Locklear, beginning in 1982, when she co-starred with him on T.J. Hooker, as his charming, young partner, Officer Stacy Sheridan. Hooker ended in 1986, and Shatner helped Locklear to become a prolific actress.[citation needed] Nineteen years after the cancellation, she would later guest star on Shatner's Boston Legal. It was mentioned in a 2005 Entertainment Tonight interview that Locklear herself is a huge fan of the show. Also, the 1999 death of wife, Nerine, helped bridged the gap between Shatner & Locklear, as she mourned over the loss of her mentor's soulmate. Locklear said of her longtime colleague about shooting both T.J. Hooker and Dynasty when she was asked if it was extremely difficult of working with both actors on 2 different shows, "No, but I was scared - scared of William Shatner and Joan Collins? So, I'd get really nervous and want to be prepared, but ... well, even though I auditioned and stuff, (my career) was kind of delivered to me. And you better take it when it's there. So, I didn't think of saying anything like, 'No - I think I'll go back to college and be a psychologist.'" Many years ago in another interview, Heather also said as to how much she enjoys her co-stars' recent show, "Well, I'm on Boston Legal, for a couple of episodes. I love the show, it's my favorite show; and I sorta kind of said, 'Shouldn't I be William Shatner's illegitimate daughter or his love interest?'"


Shatner in popular culture

Tim Allen's role as Commander Peter Quincy Taggart/Jason Nesmith in Galaxy Quest was also inspired by Shatner and his relationship with his fellow Star Trek stars. Allen's role is an analogue of James T. Kirk/William Shatner as known by the public at large; Taggart has a reputation for taking off his shirt at the flimsiest excuse, rolling on the ground during combat, and making pithy speeches at the drop of a hat, while Nesmith is an egomaniac who regards himself as the core of Galaxy Quest, and tells fans to "get a life".

Entrepreneur Richard Branson, head of the space tourism company Virgin Galactic, offered William Shatner a free ride into space on the inaugural space launch of the VSS Enterprise scheduled for 2008, saving Shatner $200,000; however, Shatner turned it down, and said, "I do want to go up but I need guarantees I'll definitely come back."[21]

In the Halloween series, Michael Myers wears a William Shatner mask that is painted white.

The character of Zapp Brannigan in the TV series Futurama was conceived as a mixture of both Shatner and Kirk, with Brannigan frequently exhibiting character traits associated with both. On the DVD commentary of Zapp's first appearance, the creators describe him as being "40% Kirk, 60% Shatner", and that the initial premise for the character was "What if the real William Shatner was the captain of the Enterprise instead of Kirk." Shatner himself - along with most of the rest of the surviving Star Trek cast - would appear in an episode during the series' fourth season. In a later episode the character Calculon exclaims "Great Shatner's Ghost!".

On the 1996 MTV Movie Awards, William Shatner reprises his roles as James T. Kirk, T. J. Hooker, and the host of Rescue 911 in a parody of Se7en.

In the 3rd Rock From The Sun episode "Frozen Dick", John Lithgow's character has a panic attack after seeing something on the wing of an aircraft. This is an allusion to a scene played by Lithgow in Twilight Zone: The Movie, which itself is an updated version of an original The Twilight Zone episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", in which the same role was played by William Shatner. In the later 3rd Rock episode "Dick's Big Giant Headache", Shatner, playing the Big Giant Head, mentions to Dick that he saw something on the wing of his plane, and Lithgow exclaims, "The same thing happened to me!".

In the animated series The Critic, which took shots at most of Hollywood, Shatner was a frequent and seemingly favorite target of satire. In one episode the main character denounces an actor as "worse than Shatner".

The "Dream On" episode of Beavis and Butt-Head contains impersonation of Captain Kirk by Butt-Head.

On The Simpsons, Shatner's singing career is a constant subject of ridicule, specifically in the episode "Dude, Where's My Ranch?".

In the movie Fight Club, Edward Norton's character is walking with Brad Pitt's character and they are discussion their ideal celebrity fight partners. The conversation ends when Norton says he'd fight William Shatner.

In the animated television program Family Guy Shatner has been portrayed with a staccato vocal delivery as well as wildly gesticulating body language, both are wild exaggerations of his distinct style.

"Weird Al" Yankovic, in his song "eBay" from Poodle Hat CD mentions bidding on "Shatner's old toupee" in the satirical song about the variety of odd items available on the auction website.

Roger Whittaker
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Roger Whittaker (born March 22, 1936 in Nairobi, Kenya) is a British singer/songwriter and musician with worldwide record sales of more than 55 million. His music can be described as folk or easy listening. In his early career, his trademark was his whistling ability.




Childhood and beginning

Whittaker's parents, Edward and Viola, were originally from Staffordshire, England, where they owned and operated a grocery shop. His father was involved in a motorcycle accident, and the family moved to a farm in Kenya because of the better climate. That Whittaker would eventually become a musician was no surprise, since his grandfather sang in various clubs, and his father played the violin. Roger learned to play the guitar.

Whittaker was drafted into national service, and he spent two years in uniform in the Kenya Regiment [1]. In 1956, he was demobilized and decided that it was time to concentrate on a career in medicine. He enrolled at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

He left the university after 18 months and joined the civil service education department to try teaching.


Recording and performing career

To further his teaching career, Whittaker moved to Britain in September 1959. For the next three years, he studied zoology, biochemistry, and marine biology at the University of Wales, Bangor and received a B.Sc. He was one of the brightest students in his class. He continued to sing in local clubs, and released some of his songs on flexi-discs included with the campus newspaper, the Bangor University Rag. Shortly afterwards, he was signed to Fontana records who released his first professional single, "The Charge of The Light Brigade," in 1962.

In the summer of 1962, he appeared at a professional gig in Portrush, Northern Ireland. He landed his first major breakthrough when he was signed to appear on an Ulster Television show called "This And That." His second single, and the first to break into the UK Top 30 charts, was a Jimmy Dean cover of "Steel Men," released in June 1962.

In the spring of 1964, Roger met Natalie O'Brien, and they were married on August 15 of that year. They have five children, Emily (May 28, 1968), Lauren (June 4, 1970), Jessica (February 14, 1973), Guy (November 15, 1974) and Alexander (April 7, 1978).

In 1968, Whittaker had switched record labels, and in the autumn of 1969 EMI had released "Durham Town (The Leavin')," which became Whittaker's first Top 20 hit in Britain. In the spring of 1970, RCA Victor Records had released the uptempo "New World In The Morning" in the United States, where it became a Top 20 hit in the Easy Listening chart.

In 1971, Whittaker first recorded "The Last Farewell," which would become his biggest hit and a signature song, selling over 11 million copies worldwide. Whittaker also established himself in country music with "I Love You Because" entering into the country chart in late 1983. In 1979, Whittaker wrote the song Call My Name which reached the final of the UK Eurovision selection, A Song For Europe. Whittaker originally planned to perform the song himself, but opted for Eleanor Keenan to sing the song at the final. However, due to a lightning strike by BBC staff, the show was abandoned and the judges placed the song joint 2nd based on audio tapes. Later, an error in the voting was corrected and the song was downgraded to 3rd place. Whittaker himself recorded the track and had a hit in several European countries.

All of Whittaker's chart hits were issued by EMI. However, although they were issued in vinyl, cassette and 8-track versions of albums during this timeframe, no CD version has ever been issued. All recordings currently available have been re-recorded and are credited to Whittaker's 'Tembo' label. Any claims that the recordings are his 'original hits' are incorrect as without exception they have all been re-recorded.

In the 1970s and '80s, Whittaker had a lot of success in Germany, with songs produced by Nick Munro. Whittaker couldn't speak German, but sang the songs phonetically. He appeared on German and Danish TV several times [2], and was on the UK Top Of The Pops show ten times in the early to mid '70s.

In 1986, he published his autobiography, So Far, So Good, co-written with his wife.

In March of 2006, Whittaker announced on his website that a 2007 Germany tour would be his last, and he will limit future performances to "occasional concerts."


Tours

In 1976, Whittaker undertook his first tour of the United States.

In 2003 he again toured Germany. After recovering from heart problems at the end of 2004, he started touring in Germany in 2005, and then in UK from May to July.


Awards

In his career to date, Whittaker has won over 250 silver, gold and platinum albums.

He was part of a successful British team that won the annual Knokke music festival in Belgium and won the Press Prize as the personality of the festival.

Ivor Novello awards (twice) for songwriting in 1971-72 and for The Last Farewell in 1975-76 (?) (unconfirmed - e-mail query pending)
Gold Badge Award, from the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters in 1988 [3]
Golden Tuning Fork (Goldene Stimmgabel in Germany) in 1986, based on record sales and TV viewer votes.

Trivia


A Finnish band called Sleepy Sleepers recorded Kössi ja Roger (Kössi and Roger) as a tribute to Roger Whittaker. The story of the song involves Roger whistling while drinking and it leads to a heavy hangover. It also involves Kössi the Kangaroo and Roger escaping from the Mafia, which is led by Frutti Di Mare.
In the episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Puma Man; the bots Crow and Servo create a bust of Roger Whittaker in an attempt to control him. Whittaker was played by Kevin Murphy in the episode.
He recorded many of his hits in French, e.g. Durham Town became Mon Pays Bleu.
For unknown reasons, the original hit recordings of "The Last Farewell" and "Durham Town" are not available on CD anywhere. All current CD releases contain only re-records.
The Last Farewell's instrumentals are used by WGN-TV, Chicago, as background for station breaks.
"New World in the Morning" is the theme music for Marcus Lush's breakfast show on New Zealand's Radio Live. Lush believes Whittaker has 'a song for every human emotion' and often takes listeners' calls about the singer.
In an episode of the TV series Life on Mars, DCI Gene Hunt sheepishly admits to DI Sam Tyler that he likes Whittaker's music, but not as much as his wife does. At the end of the episode, as Tyler is sleeping, his television suddenly flickers into life to show Whittaker performing "I Don't Believe In If Anymore".
The Swedish football team AIK uses the melody from "The Last Farewell" in its anthem Å vi e AIK. Before every game all the fans sing this anthem together as the team enters the field.
In 1982 Whittaker became the first artist to record Jeff Silbar and Larry Henley's "Wind Beneath My Wings." The song did not become a chart-making hit, however, until Gary Morris recorded it in 1983 for his album Why Lady Why, eventually peaking at #4 on the country charts.
During the last tour of the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal (R09) at the end of the 1970's, the BBC produced a TV documentary of the men and the boat ("Home From The Sea"). The theme tune was of course "The Last Farewell," sung not by Roger but by the ship's crew and accompanied by the Royal Marine Band. It can be found on the album 'Top BBC TV Themes Vol.2'.

Andrew Lloyd Webber
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Background information

Born 22 March 1948 (1948-03-22) (age 60)
Kensington, London, England.
Occupation(s) Composer
Years active 1965 - present

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (born March 22, 1948) is a highly successful British composer of musical theatre, and also the elder brother of cellist Julian Lloyd Webber.

Lloyd Webber has enjoyed great popular success, with several musicals that have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of variations, two film scores, and a Latin Requiem Mass. He has also gained a number of honours, including a knighthood in 1992 followed by a peerage, three Tony Awards, three Grammy Awards, an Oscar, an International Emmy, six Olivier Awards, a Golden Globe, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2006. Several of his songs, notably "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar, "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" from Evita, "Memory" from Cats, and "The Music of the Night" from The Phantom of the Opera have been widely recorded and were hits outside of their parent musicals. His company, the Really Useful Group, is one of the largest theatre operators in London.

Producers in several parts of the UK have staged productions, including national tours, of Lloyd Webber's musicals under licence from the Really Useful Group.




Personal history

Andrew Lloyd Webber was born in South Kensington in London, England, the son of Jean Hermione (Johnstone), a violinist and pianist, and William Lloyd Webber, a composer.[1] His younger brother, Julian Lloyd Webber is a cellist. As a child, he could not bear noises made by others.[citation needed]At the age of three, when brought to his first day of pre-school at a school where his mother worked, he covered his ears when other children produced sounds with musical instruments.[citation needed]Lloyd Webber began writing his own music at a young age. He wrote his first published suite of six pieces at the age of nine.[citation needed]He also put on "productions" with Julian and his Aunt Viola in his toy theatre (which he built at the suggestion of Viola). Later, he would be the owner of a number of West End theatres, including the Palace. His Aunt Viola, an actress, took Lloyd Webber to see many of her shows and through the stage-door into the world of the theatre.

Lloyd Webber was a Queen's Scholar at Westminster School and studied history for a time at Magdalen College, Oxford, although he abandoned the course to pursue his interest in musical theatre.

His first wife was Sarah Hugill. They married on 24 July 1972 and had two children, Imogen (born 31 March 1977) and Nicholas (born 2 July 1979). Lloyd Webber and Hugill were divorced in 1983, and he married singer/dancer Sarah Brightman on 22 March 1984. He cast Brightman as Christine, the lead role in his musical, The Phantom of the Opera. They divorced in 1990 but remained friends.

He married his third wife, Madeleine Gurdon, on 9 February 1991, and they had three more children: Alastair (born 3 May 1992), William (born 24 August 1993), and Isabella (born 30 April 1996). Alastair and William attend the prestigious boarding school Eton College.

Knighted in 1992, he was created a life peer in 1997 as Baron Lloyd-Webber, of Sydmonton in the County of Hampshire (his title is hyphenated but his surname is not). In 2006, Sunday Times Rich List ranked him the 87th richest Briton with an estimated £700 million. His wealth increased to £750 million in 2007, but in the Sunday Times Rich List 2007 he slipped to the 95th richest British person.[2] He also owns much of Watership Down, the down made famous by Richard Adams' novel of the same name. Politically, he has supported the UK's Conservative Party, allowing his song Take That Look Off Your Face to be used on a party promotional film seen by an estimated 1 million people in 80 cinemas before the 2005 UK General Election to accompany pictures of the country's Prime Minister Tony Blair allegedly "smirking", the party said.[1]

Lord Lloyd-Webber is an art collector with a passion for Victorian art. An exhibition of works from his collection was presented at the Royal Academy in 2003 under the title Pre-Raphaelite and Other Masters - The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection. He is also a devoted supporter of Leyton Orient Football Club.


Professional career

Early years

Andrew Lloyd Webber's first major collaboration with lyricist Tim Rice was The Likes of Us, a musical based on the true story of Thomas John Barnardo. It was not performed, however, until as recently as 2005 when a production was staged at Lloyd Webber's Sydmonton Festival. Stylistically, The Likes of Us is fashioned after the Broadway musical of the '40s and '50s; it opens with a traditional overture comprising a medley of tunes from the show, and the score reflects some of Lloyd Webber's early influences, particularly Richard Rodgers, Frederick Loewe, and Lionel Bart. In this respect, it is markedly different from the composer's later work which tends to be either predominantly or wholly through-composed and closer in form to opera than to the Broadway musical.

Around this time, Lloyd Webber and Rice also wrote a number of individual pop songs that were recorded as singles for record labels. Wes Sands, Ross Hannaman, Paul Raven, and Gary Bond are among the many artists to have recorded early Lloyd Webber/Rice tunes. A selection of these early recordings were re-released on the 5-CD compilation, Andrew Lloyd Webber: Now and Forever (2003).

In 1967, Lloyd Webber and Rice wrote a song for the Eurovision Song Contest called "Try It and see", which was unsuccessful. The tune of this song eventually became the tune for "King Herod's Song" in the musical Jesus Christ Superstar.

In 1968, Lloyd Webber and Rice were commissioned to write a piece for Colet Court which resulted in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a retelling of the biblical story of Joseph in which Lloyd Webber and Rice humorously pastiche a number of musical styles such as Calypso and country music. The musical follows the light-hearted, irreverent tone of The Likes of Us but is more modern in style, with a closer affinity to contemporary pop music than its predecessor and reflecting a wider range of musical styles. Andrew Lloyd Webber, who is a devoted admirer of Elvis Presley, based the character of Pharaoh on the singer, who in turn recorded It's Easy for You, one of Lloyd Webber's compositions during his last session on October 29, 1976, and featured as the last track on the Moody Blue album.[3] Joseph began life as a short cantata that gained some recognition on its second staging with a favourable review in The Times. For its subsequent performances, the show underwent a number of revisions by Lloyd Webber and Rice with the inclusion of additional songs that expanded the musical to a more substantial length. This culminated in a two hour long production being staged in the West End on the back of the success of their third musical, Jesus Christ Superstar (1970).

"Jesus Christ Superstar" had been released as a concept album starring Ian Gillan prior to being staged in the West End at the Lyceum Theatre. The musical is based on the last days in the life of Jesus Christ. While Joseph was intended as a light-hearted family show, the music in Jesus Christ Superstar is at times dark and unsettling, particularly in the scenes that deal with the crucifixion, the plotting priests and the conflict between Jesus and Judas. The rock idiom is used as a thematic device in Jesus Christ Superstar and the musical was billed as a Rock Opera in much the same way as Tommy by The Who had been before it. However, some of the music is inherently classical in style, particularly the instrumental passages such as John Nineteen: Forty-One and the more avant-garde music that accompanies the crucifixion scene.

The planned follow up to Jesus Christ Superstar was a musical comedy based on the Jeeves and Wooster novels by P. G. Wodehouse. Tim Rice was uncertain about this venture, partly because of his concern that he might not be able to do justice to the novels that he and Lloyd Webber so admired (Rice, 1999). After doing some initial work on the lyrics, he pulled out of the project and Lloyd Webber subsequently wrote the musical with Alan Ayckbourn who provided the book and lyrics. The musical, Jeeves, failed to make any impact at the box office and closed after a short run of only three weeks. Many years later Lloyd Webber and Ayckbourn revisited this project, producing a thoroughly reworked and more successful version of the musical entitled By Jeeves (1996). Only two of the songs from the original production remained ("Half a Moment" and "Banjo Boy").


Mid-1970s onwards

Lloyd Webber collaborated with Rice once again to write Evita (1976 in London/1979 in U.S.), a musical based on the life of Eva Peron. As with Jesus Christ Superstar, the musical was released first as a concept album and featured Julie Covington singing the part of Eva Peron.

The song "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" became a hit single and the musical was staged at the Prince Edward Theatre in a production directed by Harold Prince and starring Elaine Paige in the title role. Much of the music in Evita is classical in style, the opening featuring a choral piece ("Requiem for Evita") as well as a choral interlude in "Oh What a Circus". There are a number of instrumental passages throughout the musical such as the orchestral version of the "Lament" and the introduction to "Don't Cry for Me Argentina," all of which form an integral part of the framework of the composition. There is, however, quite an eclectic use of styles in Evita, with some gentle ballads such as "High Flying, Adored" and "Another Suitcase in Another Hall", and the rhythmic, Latinate styles prominent in pieces such as "Buenos Aires", "And the Money Kept Rolling in (And Out)" as well as the slower "On This Night of a Thousand Stars". There is some rock music that can be heard briefly in "Oh What a Circus", "Peron's Latest Flame" and "The Lady's Got Potential" (a rock song that was cut from the original production but reinstated for the 1996 film with revised lyrics by Tim Rice). Evita was a highly successful show that ran for ten years in the West End. It transferred to Broadway in 1979. Rice and Lloyd Webber parted ways soon after Evita.

Lloyd Webber then embarked on a solo project, the Variations (album), with his cellist brother Julian Lloyd Webber based on the 24th Caprice by Paganini. It was a massive hit in the United Kingdom reaching number two in the pop album chart (1978). The main theme is still used as the theme tune for London Weekend Television's long-running South Bank Show.


1980s

Andrew Lloyd Webber embarked on his next project without a lyricist, turning instead to the poetry of T. S. Eliot. Cats (1981) is a dance musical based on Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1989), which the composer recalled as having been a childhood favourite. The songs of the musical comprise Eliot's verse set to music by the composer, the principal exception being the most famous song from the musical, "Memory", for which the lyrics were written by Trevor Nunn after an Eliot poem entitled "Rhapsody on a Windy Night". Also, a brief song entitled "The Moments of Happiness" was taken from a passage in Eliot's Four Quartets. An unusual musical in terms of its construction, the overture incorporates a fugue and there are occasions when the music accompanies spoken verse. The set, consisting of an oversized junk yard, remains the same throughout the show without any scene changes. Lloyd Webber's eclecticism is very strong here; musical genres range from classical to pop, music hall, jazz and electroacoustic music as well as hymn-like songs such as "The Addressing of Cats", which Old Deuteronomy sings. Cats was originally intended to be a song cycle but when Valerie Eliot provided some fragments of unpublished poetry by her late husband that included a character named Grizabella who is shunned by the tribe as well as the concept of a rebirth for a chosen Cat at the Jellicle Ball, it was apparent that there might be a story that could provide a possible framework for a musical. It was to become the longest running musical on Broadway, spanning a reign of eighteen years which later would be broken by another Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.

Starlight Express, a musical also directed by Trevor Nunn, is similar in its theatrical concept to Cats in that it also features dancers in costume representing non-human characters. However, unlike Cats, the music is mostly in the realm of disco and pop with one or two pastiche songs such as the Country and Western styled "U.N.C.O.U.P.L.E.D". In some ways this musical could be seen as more of a return to the style of Joseph, although the latter was more varied in its use of musical styles and influences. Starlight Express was a commercial hit but received negative reviews from the critics. It enjoyed a record run in the West End, but ran for less than three years on Broadway.

Lloyd Webber wrote a Requiem Mass which premiered in New York on 25 February 1985, at St. Thomas Church. This composition had been inspired by an article he had read about the plight of Cambodian orphans. It was dedicated to his father, William Lloyd Webber, who had died in 1982. Although this might seem like a surprising shift in direction from the modern musical, church music had been a part of the composer's upbringing and Lloyd Webber had on a number of occasions written sacred music for the annual Sydmonton festival (Snelson, 2004). Lloyd Webber received a Grammy Award in 1986 for Requiem in the category of best classical composition. Perhaps surprisingly given the classical nature of the work, the Pie Jesu from Requiem achieved a high placing on the UK pop charts.

In 1986, Lloyd Webber premiered his next musical, The Phantom of the Opera, inspired by the 1911 Gaston Leroux novel. He wrote the part of Christine for his then wife, Sarah Brightman, who played the role in the original London and Broadway productions alongside Michael Crawford as the Phantom. The production was directed by Harold Prince, who had also earlier directed Evita. Charles Hart wrote the lyrics for the musical with some additional material provided by Richard Stilgoe, and Lloyd Webber co-wrote the musical's book with Stilgoe. Lloyd Webber's score is sometimes operatic in style but he maintains the form and structure of a musical throughout. The fully-fledged operatic writing is reserved principally for the subsidiary characters such as the theatre managers, Andre and Firmin; their Prima Donna, Carlotta; and principal tenor, Piangi. Fittingly, it is also used to provide the content of the fictional "operas" that are taking place within the show itself. Here, Lloyd Webber affectionately pastiches various styles from the grand operas of Meyerbeer through to Mozart and even Gilbert and Sullivan (Coveney, 1999). These pieces are often presented as musical fragments, interrupted by dialogue or action sequences in order to clearly define the musical's "show within a show" format. The musical extracts we hear from the phantom's opera, "Don Juan Triumphant", during the latter stages of the show, are much more dissonant and modern - suggesting, perhaps, that the phantom is ahead of his time artistically (Snelson, 2004). For the characters of Christine, the Phantom, and Raoul, the direct and "natural" style of modern song is used rather than the more decorative aspects of aria; their material provides the musical centre of the piece.

Although the musical received mixed reviews from the critics, it became a phenomenal hit and is still running in both the West End and on Broadway; in January 2006 it overtook Cats as the longest running musical on Broadway.

Aspects of Love followed in 1989, a musical based on the story by David Garnett. The lyrics were by Don Black and Charles Hart and the original production was directed by Trevor Nunn. There was a noticeable shift of emphasis towards a quieter and more intimate theatrical experience; the staging and production values were less elaborate than Phantom of the Opera and Lloyd Webber chose to write for a smaller musical ensemble making the through composed score more akin to a chamber work. The musical had a successful run of four years in London but did not fare nearly as well on Broadway, where it closed after less than a year.


1990s

Lloyd Webber was asked to write a song for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and composed "Amigos Para Siempre ?- Friends for Life" with Don Black providing the lyrics. This song was performed by Sarah Brightman and Jose Carreras.

Lloyd Webber had toyed with the idea of writing a musical based on Billy Wilder's critically acclaimed movie, Sunset Boulevard, since the early 1970s when he saw the film, but the project didn't come to fruition until after the completion of Aspects of Love when the composer finally managed to secure the rights from Paramount Pictures[4] The composer worked with two collaborators, as he had done on Aspects of Love; this time Christopher Hampton and Don Black shared equal credit for the book and lyrics. The show opened at the Adelphi Theatre in London on 12 July 1993, and ran for 1,529 performances. Patti LuPone, who had played the role of Eva Peron in the original Broadway production of Evita, was cast as Norma Desmond, a former silent film star who is shunned by Hollywood in the era of talking pictures. Lloyd Webber wrote for a larger musical ensemble than he had done on Aspects of Love; the sweeping romanticism of the overture and of Norma Desmond's themes echo the grandiose style associated with the golden era of Hollywood, whilst the jazz elements in the score and the restless quality of Joe Gillis's music are used, in contrast, to represent a more modern age. Although Sunset Boulevard is a book musical, the score is predominantly through-composed with much of the dialogue underscored and recitatives used at certain key moments between songs. In spite of the show's popularity and extensive run in London's West End, it lost money due to the sheer expense of the production.

Lloyd Webber's many other musical theatre works include Whistle Down the Wind, Song and Dance, The Beautiful Game and The Woman in White. While some of his works have had enormous commercial success, his career has not been without failures, especially in the United States. Song and Dance, Starlight Express, and Aspects of Love, all successes in London, did not meet the same reception in New York, and all lost money in short, critically panned runs. In 1995, Sunset Boulevard became a very successful Broadway show, opening with the largest advance in Broadway history, and winning seven Tony Awards that year. However, owing to high weekly costs, it became the biggest economic musical failure in history, losing 25 million dollars. His subsequent shows (Whistle Down the Wind and The Beautiful Game) did not make it to Broadway, and his most recent musical The Woman in White closed after a very short run in New York. This closing is largely credited to many absences in the cast for many of the shows; only 39 of the 108 performances had the full cast. Maria Friedman and Michael Ball both missed shows frequently; the former was battling breast cancer and the latter suffered a throat infection.

Somewhat unusually, Lloyd Webber (along with Nigel Wright) was responsible for a 1992 Eurodance single featuring music from the computer game Tetris.[5][6] Released under the name Doctor Spin, Tetris reached #6 on the UK charts,[7] although Lloyd Webber's involvement was not publicised. He was also involved with Bombalurina's 1990 cover of "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" (UK #1).[8][9] The band, whose lead singer was children's TV presenter Timmy Mallett[10] was named after a character in the musical Cats.[11]


2000s to present day

Lloyd Webber is currently producing a staging of The Sound of Music, which debuted November 2006. He made the controversial decision to choose an unknown to play leading lady Maria, who was found through the reality television show How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, in which he was a judge. The winner of the show was Connie Fisher.

There have been a number of film adaptations of Lloyd Webber's musicals: Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) was directed by Norman Jewison, Evita (1996) was directed by Alan Parker, and most recently The Phantom of the Opera was directed by Joel Schumacher (and co-produced by Lloyd Webber). Lloyd Webber produced Bombay Dreams with Indian composer A. R. Rahman in 2002.

It was announced on 25 August 2006, on his personal website that his next project would be The Master and Margarita (however, Lloyd Webber has stated that the project will most likely be an opera rather than a musical).

In September 2006, Lloyd Webber was named to be a recipient of the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors along with Zubin Mehta, Dolly Parton, Steven Spielberg, and Smokey Robinson. He was recognized for his outstanding contribution to American performing arts.[12] He attended the ceremony on December 3, 2006; it aired on December 26, 2006.

On February 11, 2007, Lloyd Webber was featured as a guest judge on the reality television show Grease: You're the One that I Want![2]. The contestants all sang "The Phantom of the Opera". On his website, Lloyd Webber announced that he was planning to write a sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, based on the novel, The Phantom of Manhattan, by Frederick Forsyth, who will collaborate.[13][14] The sequel is to be set in New York, although no further details have been given. In June 2007, parts of the new musical were inadvertently destroyed when Lloyd Webber's cat, Otto, climbed up on his Clavinova digital piano, jumped onto the computer that held the score, and caused the score to be erased.[15]

Between April and June 2007, appeared in BBC One's Any Dream Will Do!, which followed the same format as How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?. Its aim was to find a new Joseph for his revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Lee Mead won the contest after quitting his part in the ensemble - and as understudy in The Phantom of the Opera to compete for he role. Viewers' telephone voting during the series raised more than £500,000 for the BBC's annual Children in Need charity appeal, according to host Graham Noton on air during the final.

Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group on 27 June 2007[3] announced that it would donate all receipts from two special benefit performances of the revived West End production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (starring Lee Mead) to Children in Need. The charity would benefit from ticket sales income from the July 16 booked-out preview and the sold-out performance on 16 November, the night of the annual Children in Need telethon. Cast members, the group said, would not get the usual first night gifts on 17 July - the money would, instead go to the Children in Need. Before the viewers' votes were known, Lloyd Webber told Lee Mead: "You're a fantastic performer...You're phenomenal. You're a great showman. You've got everything there."[4]

On 1 July 2007, Lloyd Webber presented excerpts from his musicals as part of the Concert for Diana organized to celebrate the life of Diana, Princess of Wales. The finale was Any Dream Will Do sung by the movie Joseph, Donny Osmond, 1991's stage Joseph, Jason Donovan, and 2007 Joseph, talent search winner Mead. The concert was seen in full or in highlights shows in 140 countries by between 500 million and 1 billion, according to BBC One anchors Jamie Theakston and Claudia Winkleman on air.

On the November 16, he appeared on BBC's Children in Need, donating a cheque for £166,000.

The BBC's Radio 2 broadcasted a concert of music from Lloyd Webber's shows on August 24, 2007.[16] Denise Van Outen introduced songs from Whistle Down the Wind, The Beautiful Game, Tell Me on a Sunday, The Woman in White, Evita and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat - as well as Rogers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music, which Lloyd Webber revived in 2006 at the London Palladium and 2002's Lloyd Webber-produced Bollywood-style musical Bombay Dreams by A. R. Rahman and Don Black.

Among the artists that appeared were Lee Mead, voted by viewers to take the lead in Joseph in BBC One's 2007 television search for a star Any Dream Will Do; Connie Fisher, who won the lead in The Sound of Music in BBC One's first search for a new West End star, How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?; former Boyzone singer Stephen Gateley, who played Joseph in the 2003 tour of that show; Preeya Kalidas, cast opposite Mead in the 2007 revival of Joseph and the female lead in Bombay Dreams ; Elena Roger, the lead in the 2006 revival of Evita; Dean Collinson, appearing as Pharaoh in 2007's revived Joseph; Aoife Mulholland, the alternate for Connie Fisher as Maria in The Sound of Music; Duncan James, who had just come out of a West End revival of Chicago and The Capital Voices. Mike Dixon conducted the BBC Concert Orchestra.[17] On 28 February 2008, Andrew made a guest star appearance in Hollyoaks when characters O.B. and Summer Shaw found fame by stalking him!

Matthew Modine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born Matthew Avery Modine
March 22, 1959 (1959-03-22) (age 49)
Loma Linda, California, U.S.
Spouse(s) Caridad Rivera (October 31, 1980 - present; 2 children)
Matthew Avery Modine (born March 22, 1959) is an American actor.




Biography

Early life

Modine, the youngest of seven children, was born in Loma Linda, California, the son of Dolores (née Warner), a bookkeeper, and Mark Alexander Modine, who managed drive-in theaters.[1][2] Modine's father was a bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (although later lapsed from the religion), into which Modine was baptized.[3][4][5] Modine spent his formative years growing up in Utah. When he was ten years old, he saw a documentary about the making of the film Oliver!. Inspired by the young actors and their performances, Modine decided to become an actor. He found a dance school in Provo, Utah and began taking tap dancing lessons. He also joined the junior high school Glee Club when his family moved to Midvale, Utah. He attended Marian Catholic High School for two and a half years, then graduated from Mar Vista High School in Imperial Beach, California. Modine moved to New York City to study acting. It was there that he began working with the legendary acting teacher Stella Adler.


Career

His first film role was in John Sayles' Baby It's You. His performance caught the eye of director Harold Becker, who cast him in Vision Quest (Crazy for You) based on the novel by Terry Davis. It was the director Robert Altman that propelled Modine into international stardom with his film adaptation of David Rabe's play Streamers. Modine and his fellow castmates won an unprecedented Best Actor prize from the Venice Film Festival for this tragic story of young American soldiers about to be shipped to Vietnam. Modine played Mel Gibson's brother in Mrs. Soffel and starred with Nicolas Cage in Alan Parker's Birdy. The film was awarded a prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Modine might be best known for his role as "Private Joker," the main character of Stanley Kubrick's 1987 war movie Full Metal Jacket. Afterward, he played the dangerous young criminal, Treat, in Alan Pakula's film version of the hugely successful play Orphans by writer Lyle Kessler and the goofy, earnest Det. Mike Downey, in Jonathan Demme's screwball comedy Married to the Mob opposite Michelle Pfeiffer. Modine was nominated for an Emmy Award for his performances in And the Band Played On and What the Deaf Man Heard.

In 1995, he worked opposite Geena Davis in Cutthroat Island, a movie that is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the biggest box office flop of all time.[6] In 1999, he made his feature directorial debut with If... Dog... Rabbit. This came after the success of three short films that debuted at the Sundance Film Festival: When I was a Boy (co-directed with Todd Field) Smoking written by David Sedaris, and Ecce Pirate.

His most recent films include The Go Go Tales, "Have Dreams, Will Travel", Opa!, and Mary, which won a prize at the Venice Film Festival.


Pop culture references

Canadian girl-pop band, Pony Up!, wrote and recorded a song called "Matthew Modine" on their self-titled debut album. Actor Martin Short's character Jiminy Glick has made repeated references to his twin sons, Matthew and Modine.

In the song, "Babysitting is a Bum Deal," from the comedic album, "Family Guy: Live in Vegas" (2005), one line of the character Stewie's lyrics say: "And I grunted and pooped out a poop that looked something like Matthew Modine!" In 2007, a Baltimore based music blog featured a fictitious movie trailer titled, "Rad II: The Matthew Modine Challenge".[7] The concept stems from an encounter the actors had with Modine in the Spring of 2006 at a restaurant near the Washington Monument. Modine challenged the boys to race to the top of the monument and back in under 15 minutes without vomiting.

"Full Metal Jacket Diary" is a critically acclaimed book written by Modine. The book is a day-to-day account of his experience while working on Full Metal Jacket, a film that many critics consider one of the greatest war films ever made. In addition to the diary, the book is filled with incredible photos Modine shot using a Rolleiflex camera. A website has been created so that owners of the book can register their book using the unique serial number (1-20,000) on the back of each book.

BICYCLE FOR A DAY is an environmental initiative Modine created with Charles Finch. Modine directed the BFAD film for Young Global Leaders and it was presented to an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (2006).

Some actual label instructions




1. On a blanket from Taiwan - NOT TO BE USED AS PROTECTION FROM A TORNADO.

2. On a helmet mounted mirror used by US cyclists - REMEMBER, OBJECTS IN THE MIRROR ARE ACTUALLY BEHIND YOU.

3. On a Taiwanese shampoo - USE REPEATEDLY FOR SEVERE DAMAGE.

4. On the bottle-top of a (UK) flavored milk drink - AFTER OPENING, KEEP UPRIGHT.

5. On a New Zealand insect spray - THIS PRODUCT NOT TESTED ON ANIMALS.

6. In a US guide to setting up a new computer - TO AVOID CONDENSATION FORMING, ALLOW THE BOXES TO WARM UP TO ROOM TEMPERATURE BEFORE OPENING. (Sensible, but the instruction was INSIDE the box.)

7. On an American Airlines packet of nuts INSTRUCTIONS - OPEN PACKET, EAT NUTS.

8. In some countries, on the bottom of Coke bottles - OPEN OTHER END.

9. On a packet of Sunmaid raisins - WHY NOT TRY TOSSING OVER YOUR FAVOURITE BREAKFAST CEREAL?

10. On a Sears hairdryer - DO NOT USE WHILE SLEEPING.

11. On a bag of Fritos - YOU COULD BE A WINNER! NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. DETAILS INSIDE.

12. On a bar of Dial soap - DIRECTIONS - USE LIKE REGULAR SOAP.

13. On Tesco's Tiramisu dessert (printed on bottom of the box) - DO NOT TURN UPSIDE DOWN.

14. On Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding - PRODUCT WILL BE HOT AFTER HEATING.

15. On a Korean kitchen knife - WARNING: KEEP OUT OF CHILDREN.

16. On a string of Chinese-made Christmas lights - FOR INDOOR OR OUTDOOR USE ONLY.

17. On a Japanese food processor - NOT TO BE USED FOR THE OTHER USE. (Now I'm curious.)

18. On Sainsbury's peanuts - WARNING - CONTAINS NUTS. (Really? Peanuts contain nuts?)

19. On Nightly sleep aid: WARNING: MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS. (Duh!)

20. On a Swedish chainsaw - DO NOT ATTEMPT TO STOP CHAIN WITH YOUR HANDS OR GENITALS.

21. On a child's superman costume - WEARING OF THIS GARMENT DOES NOT ENABLE YOU TO FLY.

22. On some frozen dinners: SERVING SUGGESTION: DEFROST.

23. On a hotel provided shower cap in a box: FITS ONE HEAD.

24. On packaging for a Rowenta iron: DO NOT IRON CLOTHES ON BODY.

25. On Boot's "Children's" cough medicine: DO NOT DRIVE CAR OR OPERATE MACHINERY



1. On a blanket from Taiwan - NOT TO BE USED AS PROTECTION FROM A TORNADO.

2. On a helmet mounted mirror used by US cyclists - REMEMBER, OBJECTS IN THE MIRROR ARE ACTUALLY BEHIND YOU.

3. On a Taiwanese shampoo - USE REPEATEDLY FOR SEVERE DAMAGE.

4. On the bottle-top of a (UK) flavored milk drink - AFTER OPENING, KEEP UPRIGHT.

5. On a New Zealand insect spray - THIS PRODUCT NOT TESTED ON ANIMALS.

6. In a US guide to setting up a new computer - TO AVOID CONDENSATION FORMING, ALLOW THE BOXES TO WARM UP TO ROOM TEMPERATURE BEFORE OPENING. (Sensible, but the instruction was INSIDE the box.)

7. On an American Airlines packet of nuts INSTRUCTIONS - OPEN PACKET, EAT NUTS.

8. In some countries, on the bottom of Coke bottles - OPEN OTHER END.

9. On a packet of Sunmaid raisins - WHY NOT TRY TOSSING OVER YOUR FAVOURITE BREAKFAST CEREAL?

10. On a Sears hairdryer - DO NOT USE WHILE SLEEPING.

11. On a bag of Fritos - YOU COULD BE A WINNER! NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. DETAILS INSIDE.

12. On a bar of Dial soap - DIRECTIONS - USE LIKE REGULAR SOAP.

13. On Tesco's Tiramisu dessert (printed on bottom of the box) - DO NOT TURN UPSIDE DOWN.

14. On Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding - PRODUCT WILL BE HOT AFTER HEATING.

15. On a Korean kitchen knife - WARNING: KEEP OUT OF CHILDREN.

16. On a string of Chinese-made Christmas lights - FOR INDOOR OR OUTDOOR USE ONLY.

17. On a Japanese food processor - NOT TO BE USED FOR THE OTHER USE. (Now I'm curious.)

18. On Sainsbury's peanuts - WARNING - CONTAINS NUTS. (Really? Peanuts contain nuts?)

19. On Nightly sleep aid: WARNING: MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS. (Duh!)

20. On a Swedish chainsaw - DO NOT ATTEMPT TO STOP CHAIN WITH YOUR HANDS OR GENITALS.

21. On a child's superman costume - WEARING OF THIS GARMENT DOES NOT ENABLE YOU TO FLY.

22. On some frozen dinners: SERVING SUGGESTION: DEFROST.

23. On a hotel provided shower cap in a box: FITS ONE HEAD.

24. On packaging for a Rowenta iron: DO NOT IRON CLOTHES ON BODY.

25. On Boot's "Children's" cough medicine: DO NOT DRIVE CAR OR OPERATE MACHINERY

Another "oops", Bob? No matter, Boston. I like "after opening keep, upright"

Once, in a land far far away, Bob did Roger Whittaker at his karaoke.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsbvE-Ezwg0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKLvKZ6nIiA

I can't help it. I love this old stuff.

As my friend Crutch once said, "The old songs are the good songs."

I saw that movie, and I remember the theme song. I also remember Clint Eastwood in Rawhide.

That is why I love Diana Krall, edgar.

http://ftp.youtube.com/watch?v=pjAwp5x-NYw&feature=user

I like her way with a song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTiWo_jPhz4

sad, but beautiful

edgar, the Titanic was on again the other night. Yes, I love the Irish whistle. I have a necklace with that same stone, but much smaller.

Time for me to say goodnight, and I think that I shall do it with John Lee Hooker and Santana. I need some healing, methinks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_8kkuekS5A

In the meantime, in between time, ain't we got fun.

From Letty with love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdM5ovvamD8

No music this time. It's a scene from a great movie, with Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6dehBW_U0k

Racing With the Moon