Alec Guinness
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Alec Guinness de Cuffe
2 April 1914(1914-04-02)
Paddington, London, England
Died 5 August 2000 (aged 86)
Midhurst, West Sussex, England
Years active 1934-1996
Spouse(s) Merula Salaman (1938-2000)
Awards won
Academy Awards
Best Actor
1957 The Bridge on the River Kwai
Academy Honorary Award
1980 Life Achievement Award
BAFTA Awards
Best Actor
1957 The Bridge on the River Kwai
Best TV Actor
1980 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
1983 Smiley's People
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
1958 The Bridge on the River Kwai
Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE (2 April 1914 - 5 August 2000) was an Academy Award and Tony Award-winning English actor.
Early life
Guinness was born on 2 April 1914 in Paddington, London as Alec Guinness de Cuffe.[1] Under the column for name (where the first names only are usually stated) his birth certificate says 'Alec Guinness'. There is nothing written in the column for name and surname of father. In the column for mother's name is written 'Agnes de Cuffe'. On this basis it has been frequently speculated that the actor's father was a member of the Irish Guinness family. However, his benefactor was a Scottish banker named Andrew Geddes, and the similarity of his name to the name written on the actor's birth certificate ('Alec Guinness') may be a subtle reference to the identity of the actor's father. From 1875, English law required both the presence and consent of the father when the birth of an illegitimate child was registered in order for his name to be put on the certificate. His mother's maiden name was Agnes Cuff (born 8 December 1890), daughter of Edward Cuff and wife Mary Ann Cuff Benfield. She would later marry a shell shocked veteran of the Anglo-Irish War who, according to Guinness, hallucinated that his own closets were filled with Sinn Féin gunmen waiting to kill him.
The man who believed he was Alec Guinness' biological father, Andrew Geddes, paid for the actor's private school education, but the two never met and the identity of his father continues to be debated.[2]
Career and war service
Guinness first worked writing copy for advertising before making his debut at the Albery Theatre in 1936 at the age of 22, playing the role of Osric in John Gielgud's wildly successful production of Hamlet. During this time he worked with many actors and actresses who would become his friends and frequent co-stars in the future, including John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Anthony Quayle, and Jack Hawkins. An early influence from afar was Stan Laurel, whom Guinness admired.[3]
Guinness continued playing Shakespearean roles throughout his career. In 1937 he played the role of Aumerle in Richard II and Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice under the direction of John Gielgud. He starred in a 1938 production of Hamlet which won him acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. He also appeared as Romeo in a production of Romeo and Juliet (1939), Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night and as Exeter in Henry V in 1937, both opposite Laurence Olivier, and Ferdinand in The Tempest, opposite Gielgud as Prospero.
In 1939, he adapted Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations for the stage, playing the part of Herbert Pocket. The play was a success. One of its viewers was a young British film editor named David Lean, who had Guinness reprise his role in the former's 1946 film adaptation of the play.
Guinness served in the Royal Navy throughout World War II, serving first as a seaman in 1941 and being commissioned the following year. He commanded a landing craft taking part in the invasion of Sicily and Elba and later ferried supplies to the Yugoslav partisans.
During the war, he appeared in Terence Rattigan's West End Play for Bomber Command, Flare Path. He returned to the Old Vic in 1946 and stayed through 1948, playing Abel Drugger in Ben Jonson's The Alchemist, the Fool in King Lear opposite Laurence Olivier in the title role, DeGuiche in Cyrano de Bergerac opposite Ralph Richardson in the title role, and finally starring in an Old Vic production himself as Shakespeare's Richard II. After leaving the Old Vic, he had a success as the Uninvited Guest in the Broadway production of T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party (1950, revived at the Edinburgh Festival in 1968), but his second attempt at the title role of Hamlet, this time under his own direction at the New Theatre (1951), proved a major theatrical disaster.
He was initially mainly associated with the Ealing comedies, and particularly for playing eight different characters in Kind Hearts and Coronets. Other films from this period included The Lavender Hill Mob, The Ladykillers, and The Man in the White Suit. In 1952, director Ronald Neame cast Guinness in his first romantic lead role, opposite Petula Clark in The Card.
Invited by his friend Tyrone Guthrie to join in the premier season of the Stratford Festival of Canada, Guinness lived for a brief time in Stratford, Ontario. On July 13, 1953, Guinness spoke the first lines of the first play produced by the festival (Shakespeare's Richard III): "Now is the winter of our discontent/Made glorious summer by this son of York."
Guinness won particular acclaim for his work with director David Lean. After appearing in Lean's Great Expectations and Oliver Twist, he was given a starring role opposite William Holden in Bridge on the River Kwai. For his performance as Colonel Nicholson, the unyielding British POW leader, Guinness won an Academy Award for Best Actor. Despite a difficult and often hostile relationship, Lean, referring to Guinness as "my good luck charm", continued to cast Guinness in character roles in his later films: Arab leader Prince Feisal in Lawrence of Arabia; the title character's half-brother, Bolshevik leader Yevgraf, in Doctor Zhivago; and Indian mystic Godbole in A Passage to India. He was also offered a role in Lean's adaptation of Ryan's Daughter (1970), but declined.
Other famous roles of this time period included The Swan (1956) with Grace Kelly in her last film role, The Horse's Mouth (1958) in which Guinness played the part of drunken painter Gulley Jimson as well as contributing the screenplay, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, Tunes of Glory (1960), Damn the Defiant! (1962), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), The Quiller Memorandum (1966), Scrooge (1970), and the title role in Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973) (which he considered his best film performance).
Guinness turned down roles in many well-received films - most notably The Spy Who Came in From the Cold - for ones that paid him better, although he won a Tony Award for his Broadway triumph as poet Dylan Thomas in Dylan. He followed this success up by playing the title role in Macbeth opposite Simone Signoret at the Royal Court Theatre in 1966, one of the most conspicuous failures of his career.
From the 1970s, Guinness made regular television appearances, including the part of George Smiley in the serializations of two novels by John le Carré: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People. Le Carré was so impressed by Guinness's performance as Smiley that he based his characterization of Smiley in subsequent novels on Guinness. One of his last appearances was in the acclaimed BBC drama Eskimo Day.
Guinness received his fifth Oscar nomination for his performance in Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit in 1989. He received an honorary Oscar in 1980 "for advancing the art of screen acting through a host of memorable and distinguished performances."
Star Wars
Guinness' role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy, beginning in 1977, brought him worldwide recognition by a new generation. Guinness agreed to take the part on the condition that he would not have to do publicity to promote the film. He was also one of the few cast members who believed that the film would be a box office hit and negotiated a deal for two percent of the gross, which made him very wealthy in later life.
Despite that, Guinness was never happy with being identified with the part, and expressed great dismay at the fan following the Star Wars trilogy attracted. In the DVD commentary of Star Wars: A New Hope, director George Lucas says that Guinness was not happy with the script re-write in which Obi-Wan is killed. However, Guinness stated in a 1999 interview that it was actually his idea to kill off Obi Wan, persuading Lucas that it would make him a stronger character. Lucas agreed to the idea, but Guinness confided in the interview, "what I didn't tell [Lucas] was that I just couldn't go on speaking those bloody awful, banal lines. I'd had enough of the mumbo jumbo." He continued by saying that he "shrivelled up" every time Star Wars was mentioned to him[4]. Despite his dislike of the films, fellow cast members Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher (as well as Lucas) have always spoken highly of his courtesy and professionalism on and off the set; he did not let his distaste for the material show to his co-stars. In fact, Lucas credited him with inspiring fellow cast and crew to work harder, saying he was instrumental in helping to complete filming of the movies.
Many have also persistently suggested that he did not dislike Star Wars or the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi, as several of his diary entries would indicate.[attribution needed] What he disliked was that many Star Wars fans were only familiar with his work in those films, despite his distinguished career prior to that.[citation needed]
Guinness has been quoted as saying that the royalties he obtained from working on the films gave him "no complaints; let me leave it by saying I can live for the rest of my life in the reasonably modest way I am now used to, that I have no debts and I can afford to refuse work that doesn't appeal to me". In his autobiography, Blessings In Disguise, Guinness tells an imaginary interviewer "Blessed be Star Wars!", while in the final volume of the book A Positively Final Appearance (1997), he recounts grudgingly giving an autograph to a young fan who claimed to have watched Star Wars over 100 times, on the condition that the fan promised to stop watching the film, because as Guinness put it "this is going to be an ill effect on your life." The fan was stunned at first, but later thanked him. Guinness grew so tired of modern audiences seeming to remember him only for his role of Obi-Wan Kenobi that he would throw away the fan mail he received from Star Wars fans, without reading it.[5]
Personal life
Guinness married the artist, playwright, and actress, Merula Salaman in 1938, and they had a son in 1940, Matthew Guinness, who later became an actor.
Guinness consulted Tarot cards for a time, but came to the conclusion that the symbols of the cards mocked Christianity and Christ. He then burned his cards and shortly afterwards converted to Roman Catholicism.[6]
In his biography Alec Guinness: The Unknown, Garry O'Connor reveals that Guinness was arrested and fined 10 guineas for a homosexual act in a public lavatory in Liverpool in 1946. Guinness avoided publicity by giving his name as Herbert Pocket to both police and court. The name Herbert Pocket was taken from the character in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations that Guinness had played on stage in 1939 and was also about to play in the film adaptation. The incident did not become public knowledge until April 2001, eight months after his death. The authenticity of this incident has been doubted, however, including by Piers Paul Read, Guinness's official biographer, who believes that Guinness was mixed up with John Gielgud, who was infamously arrested for such an act at the same period of time, though Read nonetheless acknowledges Guinness's essential bisexuality [7].
While serving in the Royal Navy, Guinness for a while planned on becoming an Anglican minister. In 1954, however, during the shooting of the film Father Brown, Alec and Merula Guinness were formally received into the Roman Catholic Church. They would remain devout and regular church-goers for the remainder of their lives. Their son Matthew had converted to Catholicism some time earlier.[8][9] Every morning, Guinness recited a verse from Psalm 143, "Cause me to hear your loving kindness in the morning".[10]
Death
Guinness died on August 5, 2000, from liver cancer, at Midhurst in West Sussex.[11] He had been receiving hospital treatment for glaucoma, and had recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer. He was interred in Petersfield, Hampshire, England. Merula Guinness died of cancer two months later [12] and was interred alongside her husband of 62 years.
Encounter with James Dean
On Friday, September 23, 1955, Guinness was at the Villa Capri restaurant in Los Angeles, and found no table available. The actor James Dean, then filming Giant, invited Guinness to sit at his table. During lunch, Dean talked about his new car, a Porsche 550 Spyder. On leaving the restaurant, Dean insisted on showing off the car to Guinness, who said "Please never get in it. If you do, you will be dead within a week." Dean died in a fatal car crash in the Porsche the following Friday, September 30.[13][14]
Awards and honours
Guinness won the Academy Award as Best Actor in 1957 for his role in Bridge on the River Kwai. He was nominated in 1958 for his screenplay adapted from Joyce Cary's novel The Horse's Mouth and for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in 1977. He also received an Academy Honorary Award for lifetime achievement in 1980.
He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1955, and was knighted in 1959. He became a Companion of Honour in 1994 at the age of 80.
He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1559 Vine Street.
Writings
Guinness wrote three volumes of a bestselling autobiography, beginning with Blessings in Disguise in 1985, followed by My Name Escapes Me in 1996, and A Positively Final Appearance in 1999. His authorised biography was written by his close friend, British novelist Piers Paul Read. It was published in 2003.
Jack Webb
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born John Randolph Webb
April 2, 1920(1920-04-02)
Santa Monica, California
Died December 23, 1982 (aged 62)
West Hollywood, California
Other name(s) John Randolph
pen name
Spouse(s) Julie London (divorce); three subsequent marriages
John Randolph "Jack" Webb (April 2, 1920 - December 23, 1982) was an American actor, television producer, director, and writer who is most famous for his role as Sergeant Joe Friday in the radio and television series Dragnet. He was also the founder of his own production company, Mark VII Productions.
Biography
Early life and career
Born in Santa Monica, California, Webb grew up poor in the Bunker Hill slum section of Los Angeles to a Jewish father and a Roman Catholic mother; he was reared Roman Catholic. He was a sickly child and studied art as a young man. One of the tenants in the rooming house run by his mother was an ex-jazzman who imbued Webb with a lifelong interest in jazz when he gave him a recording of Bix Beiderbecke's "At the Jazz Band Ball." He was a graduate of Belmont High School in Los Angeles.
Acting career
After serving in the United States Army Air Forces as a crewmember of a B-26 Marauder in World War II, he starred in a radio show about a waterfront character who operated as an unlicensed private detective, Pat Novak for Hire. Webb's other radio shows included The Jack Webb Show, a comedy-musical sketch program (based in San Francisco), Johnny Modero, Pier 23, Jeff Regan, Investigator, Murder and Mr. Malone and One Out of Seven. Notable in this period were 'One out of Seven' in which Webb did all the voices, usually vigorously attacking race prejudice. 'Pat Novak' is also notable for writing which imitates, almost to parody, the hard-boiled style of such writers as Raymond Chandler. For example: "She drifted into the room like 98 pounds of warm smoke. Her voice was hot and sticky - like a furnace full of marshmallows." Probably his most famous motion picture role was as the combat-hardened drill instructor on Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in the film The D.I., with Don Dubbins as a callow Marine private. Webb's characterization in this role would color most of his later acting.
Dragnet and stardom
Webb had a featured role as a crime lab technician in the 1948 film He Walked by Night based on the real-life murder of a California Highway Patrolman. The film was made in semidocumentary style with technical advice/assistance provided by Detective Sergeant Marty Wynn of the Los Angeles Police Department. It was this film that gave Webb the idea for Dragnet.
After getting much assistance from Sgt. Wynn and legendary LAPD chief William H. Parker, Dragnet hit radio airwaves in 1949 (running until 1954) and then television in 1951 on the NBC network. Webb starred as Sgt. Joe Friday, and Barton Yarborough co-starred as Sgt. Ben Romero.
Webb was a stickler for attention to detail. He believed that viewers wanted "realism" and strove to give it to them. Webb had tremendous respect for the people in law enforcement. He often mentioned in interviews that he was angry about the "ridiculous" amount of abuse to which police were often subjected by the press and the public. He said that he wanted to perform a service for the police by showing them as low-key working class heroes. In 'Dragnet' he moved away from earlier portrayals of the police in shows such as 'Jeff Regan' and 'Pat Novak', which often showed them as brutal and even corrupt.
Despite his reputation for accuracy, he wasn't above bending the rules. According to one Dragnet technical advisor, he (the advisor) pointed out that several circumstances in one episode were extremely unlikely in real life. "You know that, and now I know that. But that little old lady in Kansas will never know the difference," Webb said in response.
In 1950, Webb appeared alongside future Dragnet partner Harry Morgan in the film noir Dark City.
The year 1952 saw Dragnet become a successful television show. Unfortunately, Barton Yarborough died suddenly of a heart attack, and Barney Phillips (Sgt. Ed Jacobs) and Herbert Ellis (Officer Frank Smith) temporarily stepped in as partners. In 1952, veteran radio and film actor Ben Alexander debuted as the second incarnation of jovial, burly Officer Frank Smith. Alexander proved to be a popular addition to the series as Webb's detective partner and remained a cast member until the cancellation in 1959.
Dragnet began with the narration "The story you are about to see is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent." At the end of each show, the results of the trial of the suspect and severity of sentence were announced by Hal Gibney. Webb frequently re-created entire floors of buildings on soundstages, such as the police headquarters at Los Angeles City Hall for Dragnet and a floor of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner Building for the 1954 film.
During the early days of Dragnet, he continued to appear in other movies, notably as the best friend of the main character in the 1950 Billy Wilder film Sunset Boulevard.
Webb's personal life was better defined by his love of jazz than his interest in police work. His life-long interest in the cornet and racially tolerant attitude allowed him to move easily in the jazz culture, where Webb met singer and actress Julie London. They married in 1947 and reared two children. They later divorced, and Webb married three more times.
In 1951, Webb introduced a short-lived radio series, Pete Kelly's Blues, in an attempt to bring the music he loved to a broader audience. That radio series became the basis for a 1955 movie of the same name. However, neither the radio series nor the movie resonated with the audiences of the time.
In 1963, Webb took over from William T. Orr as executive producer of the ABC detective series 77 Sunset Strip. He brought about wholesale changes in the program and retained only Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., in the role of Stuart Bailey. The outcome was a disaster. The ratings sank, and the series was canceled just past midway in its sixth season.
In early 1967 Webb produced and starred in a new color version of Dragnet for NBC. This version co-starred Harry Morgan as Officer Bill Gannon. (Ben Alexander was unavailable, as he was co-starring in Felony Squad on ABC.) The show's pilot, originally produced as a made-for-TV movie in 1966, did not air until 1969. The series itself ran through 1970.
Beginning in 1968, in concert with Robert A. Cinader, Webb produced NBC's popular Adam-12, which focused on LAPD uniform officers Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) and Jim Reed (Kent McCord), which ran until 1975.
In 1968 Webb performed, in Joe Friday character, the classic "Copper Clappers" sketch during an appearance on The Tonight Show where a pokerfaced Webb echoed Johnny Carson's equally-deadpan robbery report where all the details started with "Cl" or least the letter C.
In the early 1970s, Webb produced The DA with Robert Conrad and O'Hara: US Treasury with David Janssen. These were short-lived, but another show, Emergency!, proved to be a huge success, running from 1972 to 1977, with ratings occasionally even topping its timeslot competitor, All in the Family. Webb cast his ex-wife, Julie London, as well as her second husband and Dragnet ensemble player Bobby Troup, as nurse Dixie McCall and Dr. Joe Early. "Emergency!" was so successful, there was a cartoon spinoff, "Emergency+4," as well as two other series, "Sierra" (about the National Park Service in Yosemite National Park), and one pilot show about Los Angeles County animal control officers, which aired as the "Emergency!" episode, "905-Wild."
Late life
Project UFO was another Webb production and depicted Project Blue Book, a U.S. Air Force investigation into unidentified flying objects. This was the last major product of his Mark VII production company. The end credits for the Mark VII productions famously showed a man's hands using a sledge hammer to stamp "VII" into a metal plate. It was later revealed that the hands belonged to Webb himself.
He was working on scripts for another revival of Dragnet in 1983 with Kent McCord as his partner, when he died of a heart attack in 1982 at the age of 62.
He was interred in the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. Webb was given a funeral with full police honors (including Police Chief Darryl Gates announcing that the badge number 714 that Webb used in Dragnet would be retired) although he had never actually served on the force.
Not only did the LAPD use Dragnet episodes as training films for a time, they also named a police academy auditorium after Webb.
Universal has released several of Webb's series on DVD, including Dragnet 1967, Emergency! and Adam-12. In addition a number of episodes of the 1950s Dragnet series are now in the public domain and as such are widely available on non-Universal DVD releases. The Dragnet 1967 and Adam-12 theme songs are available on iTunes for downloading to iPod.
Trivia
In homage to Webb, a photo of him can be seen in the Tom Hanks-Dan Aykroyd film Dragnet (1987), co-starring Harry Morgan.
His rendition of the song "Try a Little Tenderness" was included in the first of Rhino Records' Golden Throats albums.
There are multiple explanations for the use of the number 714 on Friday's badge. Jack Webb was a big Babe Ruth fan, and Ruth hit 714 home runs in his baseball career. The number is also said to be from Jack's mother's birthday (July 14th).
However, Laurie (Dragnet advisor and LAPD Sergeant Dan Cooke's daughter) also writes: "Although plausible, these are not quite right. Sgt. Dan Cooke was closely associated with Jack Webb. He originated some of the script concepts and was the technical director for a number of the Dragnet episodes. Badge 714 was Sgt. Cooke's badge and was retired from the LAPD when Sgt. Cooke arranged for the use of his badge for the series."
http://www.badge714.com/dragfaq.htm
Jack Webb was originally sought after by director John Landis to be cast in the role of Dean Wormer in the movie National Lampoon's Animal House, but Webb was passed over in favor of John Vernon, who got the part because of his work in The Outlaw Josey Wales.
Marvin Gaye
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Background information
Birth name Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr.
Born April 2, 1939(1939-04-02)
Washington, D.C., United States
Died April 1, 1984 (aged 44)
Los Angeles, California, United States
Genre(s) R&B, soul, quiet storm, funk, Motown, pop
Occupation(s) Singer, songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, record producer
Instrument(s) Singing, piano/keyboards, drums, synthesizer, organ, clavinet, percussion
Years active 1957-1961 (groups)
1961-1984 (solo)
Label(s) Motown (Tamla-Motown), Columbia
Associated acts The Moonglows, Martha and the Vandellas, Tammi Terrell, The Originals, Mary Wells, Kim Weston, Diana Ross, Harvey Fuqua
Marvin Gaye (born Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr.) (April 2, 1939 - April 1, 1984) was a two-time Grammy-winning American singer, songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer who gained international fame as an artist on the Motown record label in the 1960s and 1970s.
Beginning his career at Motown in 1961, Gaye quickly became Motown's top solo male artist and scored numerous hits during the 1960s, among them "Stubborn Kind of Fellow", "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)", "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", and several hit duets with Tammi Terrell, including "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "You're All I Need to Get By", before moving on to his own form of musical self-expression. Gaye is notable for fighting the hit-making, but creatively restrictive, Motown record-making process, in which performers and songwriters and record producers were generally kept in separate camps.[1]
Marvin's career has been described as one that "spanned the entire history of rhythm and blues from fifties doo-wop to eighties contemporary soul"[2] With his successful 1971 album What's Going On and subsequent releases including Trouble Man (1972) and Let's Get It On (1973), Gaye, who was a part-time songwriter for Motown artists during his early years with the label, proved that he could write and/or produce his own albums without having to rely on the Motown system.
During the 1970s, Gaye would release several other notable albums, including Let's Get It On and I Want You, and had hits with singles such as "Let's Get It On", "Got to Give It Up", and, in the early 1980s, "Sexual Healing". Before his death, Gaye won a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for the single, Sexual Healing on February 23, 1983 on the Grammy Awards 25th Anniversary. By the time of his death in 1984 at the hands of his clergyman father, Gaye had become one of the most influential artists of the soul music area.
Biography
Early life and career
Gaye was born at Freedman's Hospital in Washington, D.C.. He was the first son and second eldest of four children to minister Rev. Marvin Pentz Gay, Sr. and schoolteacher/domestic maid Alberta Cooper. Sisters Jeanne and Zeola, younger brother Frankie and Marvin lived in the segregated section of Washington, D.C.'s Deanwood neighborhood in the northeastern section of the city. As a teen, he caddied at Columbia Country Club just outside of D.C. in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Gaye's father preached in a Seventh-day Adventist Church sect called the House of God, which went by a strict code of conduct and mixed teachings of Orthodox Judaism and Pentecostalism. As a child growing up in his father's church, Marvin started singing and playing instruments in the choir. During his time in high school, Marvin began listening to doo-wop and joined the DC Tones as a drummer[3]. After dropping out of Cardozo High School, Gaye joined the United States Air Force. After faking mental illness[4], he was discharged because he refused to follow orders.[5]
After dropping out of the Air Forces in 1957, Gaye began his music career in several doo wop groups, settling on The Marquees, a popular D.C. group. With Bo Diddley, The Marquees released a single, "Wyatt Earp", in 1957 on Okeh Records and were then recruited by Harvey Fuqua to become The Moonglows. "Mama Loocie", released in 1959 on Chess Records, was Gaye's first single with the Moonglows and his first recorded lead. After a concert in Detroit, the "new" Moonglows disbanded and Fuqua introduced Gaye to Motown Records president Berry Gordy. He signed Gaye first as a session drummer for acts such as The Miracles, The Contours, Martha and the Vandellas, The Marvelettes and others, most notably playing drums on The Marvelettes' 1961 hit, "Please Mr. Postman" and Little Stevie Wonder's live version of 1963 hit, "Fingertips Pt. 2", both singles reached the number one spot of the pop singles chart.
After starting his recording career at Motown, he changed his name from Marvin Gay to Marvin Gaye, adding the 'e' to separate himself from his father's name, to stop ongoing gossip about his sexuality, and to imitate his idol, Sam Cooke, who also added an 'e' to his last name. [6] Marvin had wanted to record for the label but Motown president Berry Gordy had apprehensions about recording for the singer due to the fact that Marvin was not used to following orders on what the label wanted for him to do. According to a VH-1 documentary, Marvin's then-girlfriend and Berry's sister Anna Gordy, convinced Berry to sign Marvin after Berry agreed to let him record a contemporary pop record of jazz-styled ballads and standards.
Early success
Popular and well-liked around Motown, Gaye already carried himself in a sophisticated, gentlemanly manner and had little need of training from Motown's in-house Artist Development director, Maxine Powell, though the singer did take Powell's advice on not performing with his eyes closed, as if "to appear that he wasn't asleep"[7]. In June of 1961, Gaye issued his first solo recording, The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye, which was the first album issued by the Motown record label besides The Miracles' Hi... We're The Miracles Featuring Broadway standards and jazz-rendered show tunes with few rock/R&B-oriented tunes, the record failed to chart. After arguing over direction of his career with Gordy, Gaye eventually agreed to conform to record the more R&B-rooted sounds of his label mates and contemporaries issuing three singles that were written by Gordy. His first single release, "Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide", built upon a Ray Charles vibe, failed to chart as did the follow-ups, "Sandman" and "A Soldier's Plea", each released in 1962. Ironically, Gaye would find his first success as a co-songwriter on the Marvelettes' 1962 hit, "Beechwood 4-5789". Finally in the fall of 1962, the single, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow", brought Gaye success on the R&B chart. The record, co-written by Gaye and produced by friend William "Mickey" Stevenson, featuring Martha and the Vandellas (then known as The Vells, the group would sing background on Marvin's 1963 album, That Stubborn Kinda Fellow), was an autobiographical jab at Gaye's nonchalant moody behavior, became a top ten hit on the Hot R&B Songs chart.
The single would be followed by his first Top 40 singles "Hitch Hike", "Pride & Joy" and "Can I Get a Witness", all of which were charted successes for Gaye in 1963. The success continued with the 1964 singles "You Are a Wonderful One" (which featured background work by The Supremes), "Try It Baby" (which featured backgrounds from The Temptations), "Baby Don't You Do It" and "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)", which became his signature song. During this early success, Gaye contributed to writing Martha and the Vandellas' 1964 smash, "Dancing in the Street". His work with Smokey Robinson on the 1966 album, Moods of Marvin Gaye, spawned two consecutive top ten singles in "I'll Be Doggone" and "Ain't That Peculiar", both of which became the singer's first Billboard charted number-one hits of his career peaking at the top spot on the R&B singles chart. Marvin's early success granted him teen idol status as he became a favorite on the teen-based shows, American Bandstand, Shindig!, Hullaballoo and The Mike Douglas Show, he also became one of the few Motown artists to perform at the Copacabana. A live album from the Copacabana show wouldn't be issued for three decades.
Tammi Terrell
A number of Gaye's hits for Motown were duets with female artists, such as Kim Weston and Mary Wells; the first Gaye/Wells album, 1964's Together, was Gaye's first charting album. However, it was Marvin's work with Tammi Terrell that became the most popular and memorable. Terrell and Gaye had a good rapport and their first album together, 1967's United, birthed the massive hits "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" (later covered by Diana Ross and more recently, by former Doobie Brothers singer, Michael McDonald) and "Your Precious Love". Real life couple Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson provided the writing and production for the Gaye/Terrell records; while Gaye and Terrell themselves were not lovers (though rumors persist that they may have been), they convincingly portrayed lovers on record; indeed Gaye sometimes claimed that for the durations of the songs he was in love with her. On October 14, 1967, Terrell collapsed into Gaye's arms on stage while they were performing at the Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) homecoming in Hampton, Virginia (located on Virginia's Eastern Shore) (not at Hampden-Sydney College, located in mid-state Virginia). She was later diagnosed with a brain tumor and her health continued to deteriorate.
Motown decided to try and carry on with the Gaye/Terrell recordings, issuing the You're All I Need album in 1968, which featured the hits "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" and "You're All I Need to Get By". By the time of the final Gaye/Terrell album, Easy in 1969, Terrell's vocals were performed mostly by Valerie Simpson. Two tracks on Easy were archived Terrell solo songs with Gaye's vocals overdubbed onto them.
Terrell's illness put Gaye in a depression; when his song "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (sample (help·info)), previously recorded in 1967 by Gladys Knight & The Pips, became his first #1 hit and the biggest selling single in Motown history to that point with four million copies sold, he refused to acknowledge his success, feeling that it was undeserved. His work with producer Norman Whitfield, who produced "Grapevine", resulted in similar success with the singles "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby" and "That's the Way Love Is". Meanwhile, Gaye's marriage with Anna was crumbling and he continued to feel irrelevant, singing endlessly about love while popular music underwent a revolution and began addressing social and political issues. Wanting creative control, Marvin sought to produce singles for Motown session band The Originals, whose Gaye-produced hit singles, "Baby I'm For Real" and "The Bells", brought needed success.
What's Going On
Tammi Terrell died of a brain tumor on March 16, 1970. Devastated by her death, Marvin was so emotional at her funeral that he'd talk to the remains as if she were going to respond. Gaye subsequently went into seclusion, and did not perform in concert for nearly two years. Gaye told friends that he had thought of quitting music, at one point trying out for the Detroit Lions (where he met acquaintances Mel Farr and Lem Barney), but after the success of his productions with the Originals, Gaye was confident to make his own musical statement. As a result, he entered the studio on June 1, 1970 and recorded the songs "What's Going On", "God is Love", and "Sad Tomorrows" - an early version of "Flying High (In the Friendly Sky)".
Gaye wanted to release "What's Going On". Motown head Berry Gordy refused, however, calling the single "uncommercial". Gaye refused to record any more until Gordy gave in and the song became a surprise hit in January 1971. Gordy subsequently requested an entire album of similar tracks from Gaye.
The What's Going On album became one of the highlights of Gaye's career and is today his best-known work. Both in terms of sound (influenced by funk and jazz) and lyrical content (heavily spiritual), it was a major departure from his earlier Motown work. Two more of its singles, "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)" and "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)", became Top 10 pop hits and #1 R&B hits. The album became one of the most memorable soul albums of all time and, based upon its themes, the concept album became the next new frontier for soul music. It has been called "the most important and passionate record to come out of soul music, delivered by one of its finest voices".[8]
Continued success in music
After the success of What's Going On, Motown renegotiated a new contract with Marvin that allowed him creative control, the deal was worth $1 million, making Gaye the highest-earning black artist in music history at the time[9]. Around the same time, Marvin moved from Detroit to Los Angeles in 1972 after being offered a chance to write the score to a blaxploitation film. Writing, arranging and producing for the movie Trouble Man, Marvin issued the soundtrack and "title song" in 1972 and the soundtrack as well as the single became hits with the single peaking at the top ten in early 1973. After going over a difficult period of where to go next in his career, Marvin decided to switch topics from social to sensual with the release of Let's Get It On (sample (help·info)) in 1973. The album was a rare departure for the singer for its blatant sensual appeal inspired by the success of What's Going On and Marvin's need to produce himself in his own way. Yielded by the smash title track and standout tracks such as "Come Get to This", "You Sure Love to Ball" and "Distant Lover", Let's Get It On became Marvin Gaye's biggest selling album during his lifetime, surpassing What's Going On. Also, with the title track, Gaye broke his own record at Motown by surpassing the sales of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine". The album would be later hailed as "a record unparalleled in its sheer sensuality and carnal energy."[10]
Gaye began working on his final duet album, this time for Diana Ross for the Diana & Marvin project, an album of duets that began recording in 1972, while Ross was pregnant with her second child. Gaye refused to sing if he couldn't smoke in the studio, so the duet album was recorded by overdubbing Ross and Gaye at separate studio session dates. Released in the fall of 1973, the album yielded the US Top 20 hit singles "You're a Special Part of Me and "My Mistake (Was to Love You)" as well as the UK versions of The Stylistics's "You Are Everything" at #5 and "Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart)" at #25, respectively.
In 1976, Gaye released the I Want You LP, which yielded the number-one R&B single, "I Want You" and the modest charter, "After the Dance." and produced erotic album tracks such as "Since I Had You" and "Soon I'll Be Loving You Again" with its musical productions gearing Gaye towards more funky material.
"Got to Give It Up" and his final days at Motown
In 1977, Gaye released the seminal funk single, "Got to Give It Up", which went to number-one on the pop, R&B and dance singles charts simultaneously and helped his Live at the London Palladium album sell over two million copies and become one of the top ten best-selling albums of the year. The following year, after divorcing his first wife, Anna, he agreed to remit a portion of his salary and sales of his upcoming album to his ex for alimony. The result was 1978's Here, My Dear, which addressed the sour points of his marriage to Anna and almost led to Anna filing an invasion of privacy against Marvin, though she later reversed that decision. That album tanked on the charts (despite its later critical reevaluation) however, and Gaye struggled to sell a record. By 1979, besieged by tax problems and drug addictions, Gaye filed for bankruptcy and moved to Hawaii where he lived in a bread van. In 1980, he signed with British promoter Jeffrey Kruger to do concerts overseas with the promised highlight of a Royal Command Performance at London's Drury Lane in front of Princess Margaret. Gaye failed to make the stage on time and by the time he came, everyone had left. While in London, Marvin worked on In Our Lifetime?, a complex and deeply personal record. When Motown issued the album in 1981, Gaye was livid: he accused Motown of editing and remixing the album without his consent, releasing an unfinished song ("Far Cry"), altering the album art he requested and removing the question mark from the title (thus muting its intended irony).
Comeback and sudden death
After being offered a chance to clear things out in Ostend, Belgium, he permanently moved there in 1981. Still upset over Motown's hasty decision to release In Our Lifetime, he negotiated a release from the label and signed with Columbia Records in 1982, releasing Midnight Love that year. The album included Marvin's final big hit, "Sexual Healing" (sample (help·info)). The song gave Gaye his first two Grammy Awards (Best R&B Male Vocal Performance, Best R&B Instrumental) in February 1983. The following year, he won a Grammy nomination for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance again, this time for the Midnight Love album itself. In February 1983, Gaye gave an emotional performance of The Star-Spangled Banner at the NBA All-Star Game, held at The Forum in Inglewood, California, accompanied by a drum machine. In March, 1983, he gave his final performance in front of his old mentor and label for Motown 25, performing "What's Going On". He then embarked on a U.S. tour to support his album. The tour, ending in August 1983, was plagued by health problems and Gaye's bouts with depression, and fear over an alleged attempt on his life.
When the tour ended, he isolated himself by moving into his parents' house. He threatened to commit suicide several times after numerous bitter arguments with his father, Marvin, Sr. On the E! True Hollywood Story about Gaye, singer Little Richard revealed that Gaye had premonitions of his murder in his final years of life. On April 1, 1984, one day before his forty-fifth birthday, Gaye's father shot and killed him after an argument that had started after Marvin's parents argued over misplaced business documents. Marvin, Sr. later was sentenced to six years of probation after pleading guilty to manslaughter. Charges of first-degree murder were dropped after doctors discovered Marvin, Sr. had a brain tumor. Spending his final years in a retirement home, he died of pneumonia in 1998. After some posthumous releases cemented his memory in the popular consciousness, Gaye was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. He later was inducted to Hollywood's Rock Walk in 1989 and was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1990.
Personal life
Gaye married twice. His first marriage was to Berry Gordy, Jr.'s sister, Anna Gordy (she was seventeen years his senior), who inspired some of Gaye's earlier hits including "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" and "You Are a Wonderful One"; the marriage produced an adopted son, Marvin Pentz Gaye III (born in November 1965). Troubled from the start, the marriage permanently imploded after Gaye began courting Janis Hunter (who was seventeen years his junior), the seventeen-year-old daughter of hipster jazz icon Slim Gaillard, in 1973 following the release of his Let's Get It On album. Hunter was also an inspiration to Gaye's music, particularly his entire post-What's Going On/Trouble Man period which included Let's Get It On and I Want You. Their relationship produced two children, Nona Marvisa Gaye (b. September 4, 1974) and Frankie Christian Gaye (b. November 16, 1975). Marvin and Janis married after Marvin's divorce from Anna was finalized. Shortly after their October 1977 wedding in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, however, they separated due to growing tensions between them, finally divorcing in February 1981.
In 1982 Gaye became involved with Lady Edith Foxwell, former wife of the British movie director Ivan Foxwell, and spent much time with her at Sherston, her Wiltshire estate. At the time Lady Edith, born into the Irish aristocracy, ran the then highly fashionable Embassy Club and was referred to in the media as "the queen of London cafe society." The story of their affair was told by writer Stan Hey in the April 2004 issue of GQ magazine. The report quoted writer/composer Bernard J. Taylor as saying he was told by Lady Edith that she and Gaye had discussed marriage before he was killed by his father.
After Gaye's death, two of his children followed in his footsteps to show business: eldest son Marvin Pentz Gaye III became a record producer and has control of his estate, while Gaye's only daughter, Nona, became a model, an actress and a singer.
Legacy, tributes and award recognitions
Even before Gaye died, there had already been tributes to the singer. In 1983, the British group Spandau Ballet recorded the single "True" as a partial tribute to both Gaye and the Motown sound he helped establish. A year after his death, The Commodores made reference to Gaye's death in their 1985 song Nightshift as did the Violent Femmes in their 1988 song "See My Ships". Motown alum Diana Ross also paid tribute with her Top 10 pop single "Missing You" (1985), as did Teena Marie, also a former Motown artist, with her album track "My Dear Mr. Gaye". The soul band Maze featuring Frankie Beverly recorded the tribute song, "Silky Soul" (1989), in honor of their late mentor. He was also mentioned in the next-to-last choral verse of George Michael's record, "John & Elvis are Dead", featured on his album, Patience.
In 1992, the Israeli artist Izahr Asdot dedicated to Gaye his song "Eesh Hashokolad" [chocolate man]. In 1995, certain artists including Madonna, Stevie Wonder, Speech of the group Arrested Development and Gaye's own daughter Nona, paid tribute to Gaye with the MTV-assisted tribute album, Inner City Blues: The Music of Marvin Gaye, which also included a documentary of the same name that aired on MTV. In 1999, R&B artists such as D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, Brian McKnight and Will Downing paid their respects to Gaye in a tribute album, Marvin Is 60. In October 2001, an all-star cover of "What's Going On", produced by Jermaine Dupri, was issued as a benefit single, credited to "Artists Against AIDS Worldwide". The single, which was a reaction to the tragedy of the September 11, 2001 attacks[11],[12] as well as to the AIDS crisis, featured contributions from a plethora of stars, including Christina Aguilera, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Mariah Carey, Destiny's Child, Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit, Nelly Furtado, Alicia Keys, Aaron Lewis of the rock group StainD, Nas, Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, P. Diddy, ?uestlove of The Roots, Britney Spears, and Gwen Stefani.[13] The "What's Going On" cover also featured Nona, who sang one of the song's memorable lines, Father, father/we don't need to escalate.
In 1987, Marvin was inducted posthumously to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with Marvin's first wife Anna Gordy and son Marvin III accepting for Marvin. He was later given his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1990. In 1996, he was posthumously awarded with the Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement Award and was honored in song by admirers Annie Lennox and Seal. In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #18 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[14]
Throughout his long career, Gaye scored a total of forty-one Top 40 hit singles on Billboard's Pop Singles chart between 1963 and 2001, sixty top forty R&B singles chart hits from 1962 to 2001, eighteen Top Ten pop singles on the pop chart, thirty-eight Top 10 singles on the R&B chart (according to latest figures from Joel Whitburns Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942-2004, 2004), three number-one pop hits and thirteen number-one R&B hits and tied with Michael Jackson in total as well as the fourth biggest artist of all-time to spend the most weeks at the number-one spot on the R&B singles chart (52 weeks). In all, Gaye produced a total of sixty-seven singles on the Billboard charts in total spanning five decades including five posthumous releases.
The year a remix of Marvin's "Let's Get It On" was released to urban adult contemporary radio, "Let's Get It On" was certified gold by the RIAA for sales in excess of 500,000 units, making it the best-selling single of all time on Motown in the United States. Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" holds the title of the best-selling international Motown single of all time, with high sales explained by a re-release in Europe following a Levi's 501 Jeans commercial in 1986.
In 2005, rock group A Perfect Circle released "What's Going On" as part of an anti-war CD titled eMOTIVe. The next year, it was announced that rock group the Strokes was going to cover Marvin's "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)" on their next album. In October 2005, a discussion was delivered at Marvin's hometown of Washington, D.C.'s City Council to change the name of a park located at Marvin's childhood neighborhood from Watts Branch Park to Marvin Gaye Park and was soon offered so for $5 million to make the name change a reality. The park was renamed on April 2, 2006 on what would've been Marvin's sixty-seventh birthday.
A documentary about Gaye's life and death - What's Going On: The Marvin Gaye Story - was a UK/PBS USA co-production, directed by Jeremy Marre. Gaye is referenced as one of the supernatural acts to appear in the short story and later television version of Stephen King's Nightmares and Dreamscapes in You Know They Got a Hell of a Band.
A Marvin Gaye biopic, titled Marvin - The Marvin Gaye Story, is being set for production in 2008 by Producer Duncan McGillivray (Chairman of Film by Humans Production Co., LLC) with F. Gary Gray, the director of The Italian Job as the director and singer Roberta Flack supervising on the music[15]. It will be a full-scale, $40 million dollar biopic of the entire life story of Gaye with all the key Motown and family members in Marvin's life. Another biopic, which was currently in the works, titled Sexual Healing, is set to start filming in April of this year with Jesse L. Martin playing Gaye, with Sopranos star James Gandolfini playing Marvin's mentor Freddy Couseart. Gandolfini recently announced that he would be producing the film through his Attaboy Films company.
A play co-composed by Gaye's baby sister Zeola about the singer is currently playing. On June 19, 2007, Hip-O Records reissued Marvin's final Motown album, In Our Lifetime as an expanded two-disc edition titled In Our Lifetime?: The Love Man Sessions, bringing back the original title with the question mark intact and included a different mix of the album, which was recorded in London and also including the original songs from the Love Man album, which were in fact songs that were later edited lyrically for the songs that made the In Our Lifetime album. The same label released a deluxe edition of Marvin's Here, My Dear album, which included a re-sequencing of tracks from the album from producers such as Salaam Remi and Bootsy Collins.
Linda Hunt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born April 2, 1945 (1945-04-02) (age 63)
Morristown, New Jersey, USA
Awards won
Academy Awards
Best Supporting Actress
1983 The Year of Living Dangerously
Australian Film Institute Awards
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
1983 The Year of Living Dangerously
Linda Hunt (born April 2, 1945) is an American film, stage and television actress. She is perhaps best known for her Academy Award-winning role in 1983's The Year of Living Dangerously.
Biography
Early life
Hunt was born in Morristown, New Jersey, the daughter of Elsie (née Doying), a piano teacher who taught at the Westport School of Music and accompanied the Saugatuck Congregational Church choir, and Raymond Davy Hunt, the long-time vice president of Harper Fuel Oil in Long Island.[1] She has a sister, Marcia. She was also born with Turner's Syndrome, a chromosonal disease that only women get, closely associated with Down's Syndrome.
Career
Hunt's film debut occurred in 1980 in Robert Altman's musical comedy Popeye. In 1982 she won the Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for her role as the male Chinese-Australian dwarf Billy Kwan in the film The Year of Living Dangerously. She is the only actor to ever win an Oscar for playing a character of the opposite sex.
Hunt is also a well known stage actress, who has received two Obie awards and a Tony Award nomination for her theatre work. She created the role of Aunt Dan in Wallace Shawn's play Aunt Dan and Lemon. Recently, she portrayed Sister Aloysius in the Pasadena Playhouse production of John Patrick Shanley's Tony Award-winning play Doubt. Her television appearances include a recurring role as Judge Zoey Hiller on David E. Kelley's series The Practice.
Beside her acting abilities, Hunt is distinguished by her small stature (she is 4' 9" or 1.45 m), and her rich, resonant voice, which she has used effectively in numerous documentaries, cartoons, and commercials. Hunt is the on-air host for City Arts & Lectures, a radio program recorded by KQED public radio. She was chosen by Walt Disney Feature Animation to lend her enigmatic speaking and singing voice to Grandmother Willow in the film Pocahontas. Her voice work also includes the character of "Management" in the US TV series Carnivàle, and Gaia, who serves as the Narrator in the video games God of War and God of War II. She also narrates the introductory film at the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC.
Always reminds me of Leonard Cohen and his "Suzanne" as well.
