edgar, really enjoyed Romance in Durango. Somehow it reminded me of Dylan. Thanks, Texas.
Hope you all see the movie In the Valley of Elah. It opens our eyes to the war in Iraq.
dj, always delightful to see you here, Canada. Didn't realize that The Beautiful South did Dream a Little Dream of me. It was lovely as was Let Love Speak up Itself.
Time for me to say goodnight as I have to be "On the Road Again" but I'm not playing Willie. Instead let's listen to this unusual song.
Bobby Burns was right again. Waiting for my daughter to come before I leave.
R.H., Thanks for the Buddy Holly song. I never hear him that I don't think of Don McLean.
edgar, I'm glad that you enjoyed my goodnight song. Great chord changes in that one, and I thought the video was unusual. Roy Orbison was great as well.
Hey, big island man, welcome back. I recall that song but know nothing of
Bobby Fuller. Thanks, honu.
Found out who originally did "Yesterday When I was Young." It was Charles Aznavur, an Armenian Frenchman. Also done by Roy Clark.
Today is a famous trumpet man's birthday. Talk about high notes. This will wake you up in a hurry.
We had as much fun as the people in the video. And just imagine the little Swabian town of Hechingen packed with people wearing cowboy hats and boots
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Sun 4 May, 2008 11:59 am
Audrey Hepburn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Audrey Kathleen Ruston
May 4, 1929(1929-05-04)
Brussels, Belgium
Died January 20, 1993 (aged 63)
Tolochenaz, Switzerland
Other name(s) Edda van Heemstra
Years active 1948-1989
Spouse(s) Mel Ferrer (1954-1968)
Andrea Dotti (1969-1982)
Official website
Awards won
Academy Awards
Best Actress
1953 Roman Holiday
Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award
1993 Outstanding Contributions to Humanitarian Causes
BAFTA Awards
Best Actress
1953 Roman Holiday
1959 The Nun's Story
1964 Charade
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Individual Achievement - Informational Programming
1993 Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1954 Roman Holiday
Cecil B. DeMille Award
1990 Lifetime Achievement
Grammy Awards
Best Spoken Word Album for Children
1994 Audrey Hepburn's Enchanted Tales
Screen Actors Guild Awards
Life Achievement Award
1992 Lifetime Achievement
Tony Awards
Best Actress in a Play
1954 Ondine
Special Tony Award
1968 Lifetime Achievement
Other Awards
NYFCC Award for Best Actress
1953 Roman Holiday
1959 The Nun's Story
Audrey Hepburn (May 4, 1929(1929-05-04) - January 20, 1993) was an Academy Award-, Tony Award-, Grammy Award-, and Emmy Award-winning film and stage actress, fashion icon, and humanitarian. In 1999, she was ranked as the third greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute. She also served as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and was honoured with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work.
Early life
Born Audrey Kathleen van Heemstra Ruston[1] on Rue Keyenveld/Keienveldstraat in Ixelles/Elsene, a municipality in Brussels, Belgium, she was the only child of the Englishman Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston[2] and his second wife, the former Baroness Ella van Heemstra, a Dutch aristocrat, who was a daughter of a former governor of Dutch Guiana.[2]
Her father later prepended the surname of his maternal grandmother, Kathleen Hepburn, to the family's and her surname became Hepburn-Ruston.[2]
She had two half-brothers, Jonkheer Arnoud Robert Alexander "Alex" Quarles van Ufford and Jonkheer Ian Edgar Bruce Quarles van Ufford, by her mother's first marriage to a Dutch nobleman, Jonkheer Hendrik Gustaaf Adolf Quarles van Ufford.[2]
She was a descendant of King Edward III of England[3] and Mary Queen of Scots' consort, James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell,[2] from whom Katharine Hepburn may have also descended.[4] This also made her related to the other notable distant cousins including Humphrey Bogart and Prince Rainier III of Monaco.
Hepburn's father's job with a British insurance company meant the family travelled often between Brussels, England, and The Netherlands. From 1935 to 1938, Hepburn attended a boarding school for girls in Kent.
In 1935, her parents divorced and her father, a Nazi sympathizer,[5] left the family.[6] (Both parents were members of the British Union of Fascists in the mid-1930s according to Unity Mitford, a friend of Ella van Heemstra and a follower of Adolf Hitler.)[7]
She later called her father's abandonment the most traumatic moment of her life. Years later, she located him in Dublin through the Red Cross. Although he remained emotionally detached, she stayed in contact with him and supported him financially until his death.[8]
In 1939, her mother moved her and her two half-brothers to their grandfather's home in Arnhem in the Netherlands. Ella believed the Netherlands would be safe from German attack. Hepburn attended the Arnhem Conservatory from 1939 to 1945, where she trained in ballet along with the standard school curriculum.
In 1940, the Germans invaded the Netherlands. During the Nazi occupation, Hepburn adopted the pseudonym Edda van Heemstra, modifying her mother's documents because an 'English sounding' name was considered dangerous. This was never her legal name. The name Edda was a version of her mother's name Ella[9]
By 1944, Hepburn had become a proficient ballerina. She secretly danced for groups of people to collect money for the Dutch resistance. She later said, "the best audience I ever had made not a single sound at the end of my performance."[10]
After the Allied landing on D-Day, living conditions grew worse. During the Dutch famine over the winter of 1944, the Germans confiscated the Dutch people's limited food and fuel supply for themselves. People starved and froze to death in the streets.
Hepburn and many others resorted to making flour out of tulip bulbs to bake cakes and biscuits.[5][11]
Arnhem was devastated by Allied artillery fire that was part of Operation Market Garden. Hepburn's uncle and her mother's cousin were shot in front of Hepburn for being part of the Resistance.
Hepburn's half-brother Ian van Ufford spent time in a German labour camp. Suffering from malnutrition, Hepburn developed acute anemia, respiratory problems, and oedema.[12]
In 1991, Hepburn said "I have memories. More than once I was at the station seeing trainloads of Jews being transported, seeing all these faces over the top of the wagon. I remember, very sharply, one little boy standing with his parents on the platform, very pale, very blond, wearing a coat that was much too big for him, and he stepped on to the train. I was a child observing a child."
Hepburn also noted the similarities between herself and Anne Frank: "I was exactly the same age as Anne Frank. We were both ten when war broke out and fifteen when the war finished. I was given the book in Dutch, in galley form, in 1946 by a friend. I read it - and it destroyed me. It does this to many people when they first read it but I was not reading it as a book, as printed pages. This was my life. I didn't know what I was going to read. I've never been the same again, it affected me so deeply."
"We saw reprisals. We saw young men put against the wall and shot and they'd close the street and then open it and you could pass by again. If you read the diary, I've marked one place where she says 'five hostages shot today'. That was the day my uncle was shot. And in this child's words I was reading about what was inside me and is still there. It was a catharsis for me. This child who was locked up in four walls had written a full report of everything I'd experienced and felt."
These times were not all bad and she was able to enjoy some of her childhood. Again drawing parallels to Anne Frank's life, Hepburn said "This spirit of survival is so strong in Anne Frank's words. One minute she says 'I'm so depressed'. The next she is longing to ride a bicycle. She is certainly a symbol of the child in very difficult circumstances, which is what I devote all my time to. She transcends her death."
One way in which Audrey Hepburn passed the time was by drawing. Some of her childhood artwork can be seen today.[13]
When the country was liberated, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration trucks followed.[14] Hepburn said in an interview she ate an entire can of condensed milk and then got sick from one of her first relief meals because she put too much sugar in her oatmeal.[15] This experience is what led her to become involved in UNICEF later in life.[5][11]
Early career
In 1945, after the war, Hepburn left the Arnhem Conservatory and moved to Amsterdam, where she took ballet lessons with Sonia Gaskell.[16] In 1948, Hepburn went to London and took dancing lessons with the renowned Marie Rambert.
Hepburn eventually asked Rambert about her future. Rambert assured her that she could continue to work there and have a great career, but the fact she was relatively tall (1.7 m, or 5'7") coupled with her poor nutrition during the war would keep her from becoming a prima ballerina. Hepburn trusted Rambert's assessment and decided to pursue acting, a career in which she at least had a chance to excel.[17]
After Hepburn became a star, Rambert said in an interview, "she was a wonderful learner. If she had wanted to persevere, she might have become an outstanding ballerina."[18]
Hepburn's mother was working menial jobs to support them and Hepburn needed to find a paying job. Since she had trained all her life to be a performer, acting seemed a sensible career. She said "I needed the money; it paid ₤3 more than ballet jobs."[19]
Her acting career started with the educational film Dutch in Seven Lessons. She then played in musical theatre in productions such as High Button Shoes and Sauce Piquante.
Hepburn's first role in a motion picture was in the British film One Wild Oat in which she played a hotel receptionist. She played several more minor roles in Young Wives' Tale, Laughter in Paradise, The Lavender Hill Mob, and Monte Carlo Baby.
During the filming of Monte Carlo Baby Hepburn was chosen to play the lead character in the Broadway play Gigi that opened on 24 November 1951, at the Fulton Theatre and ran for 219 performances.
The writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette upon first seeing Hepburn reportedly said 'voilà! There's our Gigi!'[20] She won a Theatre World Award for her debut performance and it had a successful six month run.
From Hepburn's Roman Holiday screentest which was also used in the promotional trailer for the film.Her first significant film performance was in the 1952 film Secret People, in which she played a prodigy ballerina. Naturally, Hepburn did all of her own dancing scenes.
Hepburn's first starring role and first American film was opposite Gregory Peck in the Hollywood motion picture Roman Holiday. Producers initially wanted Elizabeth Taylor for the role, but director William Wyler was so impressed by Hepburn's screen test (the camera was left on and candid footage of Hepburn relaxing and answering questions, unaware that she was still being filmed, displayed her talents), that he cast her in the lead.
Wyler said, "She had everything I was looking for: charm, innocence and talent. She also was very funny. She was absolutely enchanting, and we said, 'That's the girl!'"[21]
The movie was to have had Gregory Peck's name above the title in large font with "introducing Audrey Hepburn" beneath. After filming had been completed, Peck called his agent and, predicting correctly that Hepburn would win the Oscar for Best Actress, had the billing changed so that her name also appeared before the title in type as large as his.
Hepburn and Peck bonded during filming, and there were rumors that they were romantically involved; both denied it. Hepburn, however, added, "actually, you have to be a little bit in love with your leading man and vice versa. If you're going to portray love, you have to feel it. You can't do it any other way. But you don't carry it beyond the set."[22]
Because of the instant celebrity that came with Roman Holiday, Hepburn's illustration was placed on the September 7, 1953, cover of TIME.
Hepburn's performance received much critical praise. A.H. Weiler noted in The New York Times, "Although she is not precisely a newcomer to films, Audrey Hepburn, the British actress who is being starred for the first time as Princess Ann, is a slender, elfin, and wistful beauty, alternately regal and childlike in her profound appreciation of newly-found, simple pleasures and love. Although she bravely smiles her acknowledgment of the end of that affair, she remains a pitifully lonely figure facing a stuffy future."[23] Hepburn would later call Roman Holiday her dearest movie, because it was the one that made her a star.
After filming Roman Holiday for four months, Hepburn went back to New York and did eight months of Gigi. The play was performed in Los Angeles and San Francisco in its last month.
She was given a seven-picture contract with Paramount with twelve months in between films to allow her time for stage work.[24].
Hollywood stardom
After Roman Holiday, she filmed Billy Wilder's Sabrina with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden. Hepburn was sent to fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy to decide on her wardrobe.
When told that "Miss Hepburn" was coming to see him, Givenchy famously expected to see Katharine. He was not disappointed with Audrey, however, and they formed a lifelong friendship and partnership.
During the filming of Sabrina, Hepburn and the already married Holden became romantically involved and she hoped to marry him and have children. She broke off the relationship when Holden revealed that he had had a vasectomy.[25][26]
In 1954, Audrey went back to the stage to play the water sprite in Ondine in a performance with Mel Ferrer, whom she would wed later that year. During the run of the play, Hepburn was awarded the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actress and the Academy Award, both for Roman Holiday.
Six weeks after receiving the Oscar, Hepburn was awarded the Tony Award for Best Actress for Ondine. Hepburn is one of only three actresses to receive a Best Actress Oscar and Best Actress Tony in the same year (the other two being Shirley Booth and Ellen Burstyn).
By the mid-1950s, Hepburn was not only one of the biggest motion picture stars in Hollywood, but also a major fashion influence. Her gamine and elfin appearance and widely recognized sense of chic were both admired and imitated. In 1955, she was awarded the Golden Globe for World Film Favorite - Female.
Having become one of Hollywood's most popular box-office attractions, Hepburn co-starred with actors such as Humphrey Bogart in Sabrina, Henry Fonda in War and Peace, Fred Astaire in Funny Face, Maurice Chevalier and Gary Cooper in Love in the Afternoon, Anthony Perkins in Green Mansions, Burt Lancaster and Lillian Gish in The Unforgiven, Shirley MacLaine and James Garner in The Children's Hour, George Peppard in Breakfast at Tiffany's, Cary Grant in Charade, Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, Peter O'Toole in How to Steal a Million and Sean Connery in Robin and Marian.
Many of her leading men became very close to her. Rex Harrison called Audrey his favourite leading lady (many accounts indicate that she became great friends with British actress and dancer Kay Kendall, who was Harrison's wife); Cary Grant loved to humor her and once said, "All I want for Christmas is another picture with Audrey Hepburn;"[27] and Gregory Peck became a lifelong friend.
After her death, Peck went on camera and tearfully recited her favorite poem, "Unending Love" by Rabindranath Tagore.[28]
Some believe Bogart and Hepburn did not get along, but this is untrue. Bogart got along better with Hepburn than anyone else on set. She later said, "Sometimes it's the so-called 'tough guys' that are the most tender hearted, as Bogey was with me."[29]
Funny Face in 1957 was one of Hepburn's favorites because she got to dance with Fred Astaire. Then in 1959's The Nun's Story came one of her most daring roles. Films in Review stated: "Her performance will forever silence those who have thought her less an actress than a symbol of the sophisticated child/woman. Her portrayal of Sister Luke is one of the great performances of the screen."[30].
Otto Frank even asked her to play his daughter Anne onscreen counterpart in the 1959 film The Diary of Anne Frank but Hepburn, who was born the same year as Anne, felt too old to play a teenager. The role was eventually given to Millie Perkins.
Hepburn's Holly Golightly in 1961's Breakfast at Tiffany's became an iconic character in American cinema. She called the role "the jazziest of my career".[31]
Asked about the acting challenge of the role, she replied, "I'm an introvert. Playing the extroverted girl was the hardest thing I ever did."[32] She wore trendy clothing in the film designed by her and Givenchy and added blonde streaks to her brown hair, a look that she would keep off-screen as well.
Hepburn had established herself as one of Hollywood's most popular actresses. Marilyn Monroe was not the only one to sing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to President John F Kennedy on his birthday.
For Kennedy's next (and last) birthday on May 29, 1963, Hepburn, the President's favorite actress, sang "Happy Birthday, Dear Jack" to him.[33] She preferred a quiet life with family and nature. She lived in houses, not mansions, and loved to garden.
In 1963, Hepburn starred in Charade, her first and only film with Cary Grant, who had previously withdrawn from the starring roles in Roman Holiday and Sabrina. He was sensitive as to their age difference and requested a script change so that Hepburn's character would aggressively pursue his.
In 1964, Hepburn starred in My Fair Lady which was said to be the most anticipated movie since Gone with the Wind.[34]
Hepburn was cast as Eliza Doolittle instead of then-unknown Julie Andrews, who had originated the role on Broadway. The decision not to cast Andrews was made before Hepburn was chosen. Hepburn initially refused the role and asked Jack Warner to give it to Andrews, but when informed that it would either be her or Elizabeth Taylor, who was also vying for the part, she accepted the role.
According to an article in Soundstage magazine, "Everyone agreed that if Julie Andrews was not to be in the film, Audrey Hepburn was the perfect choice."[34] Julie Andrews had yet to make Mary Poppins, which was released within the same year as My Fair Lady.
Hepburn recorded vocals, but subsequently discovered a professional "singing double" Marni Nixon had overdubbed all of her songs. She walked off the set after being told, but returned early the next day to apologize for her behavior.
Footage of several songs with Hepburn's original vocals still exist and have been included in documentaries and the DVD release of the film, though to date, only Nixon's renditions have been released on LP and CD.
Some of her original vocals remained in the film, such as "Just You Wait" and snippets from "I Could Have Danced All Night". When asked about the dubbing of an actress with such distinctive vocal tones, Hepburn frowned and said, "You could tell, couldn't you? And there was Rex, recording all his songs as he acted...next time-" She bit her lip to keep from saying any more.[32]
Aside from the dubbing, many critics agreed that Hepburn's performance was excellent. Gene Ringgold said, "Audrey Hepburn is magnificent. She is Eliza for the ages."[34]
The controversy over Hepburn's casting reached its height at the 1964-65 Academy Awards season, when Hepburn was not nominated for best actress while Andrews was, for Mary Poppins. The media tried to play up a rivalry between the two actresses as the ceremony approached, even though both women denied any such bad feelings existed and got along well. Andrews won the award.
Two for the Road was a non-linear and innovative movie about divorce. Director Stanley Donen said that Hepburn was more free and happy than he had ever seen her, and he credited that to Albert Finney.[35]
Wait Until Dark in 1967 was a difficult film. It was an edgy thriller in which Hepburn played the part of a blind woman being terrorized. In addition, it was produced by Mel Ferrer and filmed on the brink of their divorce. Hepburn is said to have lost fifteen pounds under the stress. On the bright side, she found co-star Richard Crenna to be very funny, and she had a lot to laugh about with director Terence Young.
They both joked that he had shelled his favorite star 23 years before; he had been a British Army tank commander during the Battle of Arnhem. Hepburn's performance was nominated for an Academy Award.
From 1967 onward, after fifteen highly successful years in film, Hepburn acted only occasionally. After her divorce from Ferrer, she married Italian psychiatrist Dr. Andrea Dotti and had a second son, after a difficult pregnancy that required near-total bed rest.
After her eventual separation from Dotti, she attempted a comeback, co-starring with Sean Connery in the period piece Robin and Marian in 1976, which was moderately successful.
She reportedly turned down the tailor-made role of a world-famous ballerina in The Turning Point. (Anne Bancroft got the part.)
Hepburn finally returned to cinema in 1979, taking the leading role of Elizabeth Roffe in the international production of Bloodline, directed again by Terence Young, sharing top billing with Ben Gazzara -- with whom purportedly she had an affair on-set -- James Mason and Romy Schneider.
Author Sidney Sheldon revised his novel when it was reissued to tie into the film, making her character a much older woman to better match the actress' age. The film, an international intrigue amid the jet-set, was a critical and box office failure.
Hepburn's last starring role in a cinematic film was with Ben Gazzara in the comedy They All Laughed, directed by Peter Bogdanovich. The film was overshadowed by the murder of one of its stars, Bogdanovich's girlfriend, Dorothy Stratten; the film was released after Stratten's death but only in limited runs.
In 1987, she co-starred with Robert Wagner in a tongue-in-cheek made-for-television caper film, Love Among Thieves which borrowed elements from several of Hepburn's films, most notably Charade and How to Steal a Million. The TV film, which also starred Jerry Orbach as a villain, was only a moderate success, with Hepburn being quoted that she appeared in it just for fun.
Hepburn at age fifty-nine in AlwaysHepburn's last role, a cameo appearance, was as an angel in Steven Spielberg's Always, filmed in 1988. This film was only moderately successful. In the final months of her life, Hepburn completed two entertainment-related projects: she hosted a television documentary series entitled Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn, which debuted on PBS the day of her death, and she recorded a spoken word album, Audrey Hepburn's Enchanted Tales featuring readings of classic children's stories, which would win her a posthumous Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children.
Personal life
In 1952 she was engaged to the young James Hanson.[36] She called it "love at first sight"; however, after having her wedding dress fitted and the date set, she decided the marriage would not work, because of the demands of their careers that would keep them apart most of the time.[37]
Hepburn married twice, first to American actor Mel Ferrer, and then to an Italian doctor, Andrea Dotti. She had a son with each - Sean in 1960 by Ferrer, and Luca in 1970 by Dotti. Her elder son's godfather is the novelist A.J. Cronin, who resided near Hepburn in Lucerne.
Hepburn met Mel Ferrer at a party hosted by Gregory Peck. She had seen him in the film Lili and was captivated by his performance.[38] Ferrer later sent Hepburn the script for the play Ondine and Hepburn agreed to play the role. Rehearsals started in January 1954 and Hepburn and Ferrer were married on September 24.[39] Hepburn claimed that they were inseparable and were very happy together, despite the insistence from gossip columns that the marriage would not last. She did, however, admit that he had a bad temper.[40] Ferrer was rumored to be too controlling of Hepburn and was called her Svengali.[41] William Holden was quoted as saying, "I think Audrey allows Mel to think he influences her."
Before having their first child, Hepburn had two miscarriages, the first in March 1955. In 1959, while filming The Unforgiven, she broke her back after falling off a horse onto a rock. She spent weeks in the hospital and later had a miscarriage that was said to have been induced by physical and mental stress. While she was resting at home, Mel Ferrer brought her the fawn from the movie Green Mansions to keep as a pet. They called him Ip, short for Pippin. In 1965, she had another miscarriage. Hepburn was much more careful when she was pregnant with Luca in 1969; she rested for months and passed the time by painting before delivering Luca by caesarean section. Hepburn had her final miscarriage in 1974.[42] Hepburn is famous for the poem "Time Tested Beauty Tips", which she used to recite to her sons. The poem includes verses such as, "For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day", and, "For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry." The poem is popularly attributed to her, but it was in fact written by Sam Levenson.
Hepburn had several pets, including a Yorkshire Terrier named Mr. Famous, who was hit by a car and killed. To cheer her up, Mel Ferrer got her another Yorkshire named Assam of Assam. She also kept Ip; they made a bed for him out of a bathtub. Sean Ferrer had a Cocker Spaniel named Cokey. When Hepburn was older, she had two Jack Russell Terriers.
The marriage to Ferrer lasted 14 years, until 5 December 1968; their son was quoted as saying that Hepburn had stayed in the marriage too long. In the later years of the marriage, Ferrer was rumored to have had a girlfriend on the side, while Hepburn had an affair with her younger, Two for the Road co-star Albert Finney. She denied the rumours, but director Stanley Donen said, "with Albert Finney, she was like a new woman. She and Albie have a wonderful thing together; they are like a couple of kids. When Mel wasn't on set, they sparkled. When Mel was there, it was funny. Audrey and Albie would go rather formal and a little awkward.[43] The couple separated before divorcing. During their separation, Hepburn lost weight.
She met Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti on a cruise and fell in love with him on a trip to some Greek ruins. She believed she would have more children, and possibly stop working. She married him on 18 January 1969. Although Dotti loved Hepburn and was well-liked by Sean, who called him "fun", he began having affairs with younger women. The marriage lasted thirteen years and ended in 1982, when Hepburn felt Luca and Sean were old enough to handle life with a single mother. Though Hepburn broke off all contact with Ferrer (she would only speak to him twice in the remainder of her life; at Sean's graduation and first wedding), she remained in touch with Dotti for the benefit of Luca. Andrea Dotti died in October 2007 from complications of a colonoscopy.
At the time of her death, she was involved with Robert Wolders, a Dutch actor who was the widower of film star Merle Oberon. She had met Wolders through a friend, in the later stage of her marriage to Dotti. After Hepburn's divorce was final, she and Wolders started their lives together, although they never married. In 1989, after nine years with him, she called them the happiest years of her life. "Took me long enough", she said in an interview with Barbara Walters. Walters then asked why they never married. Hepburn replied that they were married, just not formally.
Death
In 1992, when Hepburn returned to Switzerland from her visit to Somalia, she began to feel abdominal pains. She went to specialists and received inconclusive results, so she decided to have it examined while on a trip to Los Angeles in October.
On November 1, doctors performed a laparoscopy and discovered abdominal cancer that had spread from her appendix. It had grown slowly over several years, and metastasized not as a tumor, but as a thin encasing over her small intestine. The doctors performed surgery and then put Hepburn through 5-fluorouracil Leucovorin chemotherapy.
A few days later, she had an obstruction. Medication was not enough to dull the pain, so on December 1, she had a second surgery. After one hour, the surgeon decided that the cancer had spread too far and could not be removed.
Audrey Hepburn died of the cancer on January 20 1993 , in Tolochenaz, Vaud, Switzerland, and was interred there. She was 63 years old.
Work for UNICEF
Soon after Hepburn's final film role, she was appointed a goodwill ambassador to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Grateful for her own good fortune after enduring the German occupation as a child, she dedicated the remainder of her life to helping impoverished children in the poorest nations. Hepburn's travels were made easier by her wide knowledge of languages; she spoke French, Italian, English, Dutch, and Spanish.
Though she had done work for UNICEF in the 1950s, starting in 1954 with radio presentations, this was a much higher level of dedication. Those close to her say that the thoughts of dying, helpless children consumed her for the rest of her life. Her first Field Mission was to Ethiopia in 1988. She visited an orphanage in Mek'ele that housed 500 starving children and had UNICEF send food. Of the trip, she said, "I have a broken heart. I feel desperate. I can't stand the idea that two million people are in imminent danger of starving to death, many of them children, [and] [sic] not because there isn't tons of food sitting in the northern port of Shoa. It can't be distributed. Last spring, Red Cross and UNICEF workers were ordered out of the northern provinces because of two simultaneous civil wars... I went into rebel country and saw mothers and their children who had walked for ten days, even three weeks, looking for food, settling onto the desert floor into makeshift camps where they may die. Horrible. That image is too much for me. The 'Third World' is a term I don't like very much, because we're all one world. I want people to know that the largest part of humanity is suffering."[44]
In August 1988, Hepburn went to Turkey on an immunization campaign. She called Turkey "the loveliest example" of UNICEF's capabilities. Of the trip, she said, "the army gave us their trucks, the fishmongers gave their wagons for the vaccines, and once the date was set, it took ten days to vaccinate the whole country. Not bad."
In October, Hepburn went to South America. In Venezuela and Ecuador, Hepburn told Congress, "I saw tiny mountain communities, slums, and shantytowns receive water systems for the first time by some miracle - and the miracle is UNICEF. I watched boys build their own schoolhouse with bricks and cement provided by UNICEF."
Hepburn toured Central America in February 1989, and met with leaders in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. In April, Hepburn visited Sudan with Wolders as part of a mission called "Operation Lifeline". Because of civil war, food from aid agencies had been cut off. The mission was to ferry food to southern Sudan. Hepburn said, "I saw but one glaring truth: These are not natural disasters but man-made tragedies for which there is only one man-made solution - peace."
In October, Hepburn and Wolders went to Bangladesh. John Isaac, a UN photographer, said, "Often the kids would have flies all over them, but she would just go hug them. I had never seen that. Other people had a certain amount of hesitation, but she would just grab them. Children would just come up to hold her hand, touch her - she was like the Pied Piper."
In October 1990, Hepburn went to Vietnam in an effort to collaborate with the government for national UNICEF-supported immunization and clean water programs.
In September 1992, four months before she died, Hepburn went to Somalia. Hepburn called it "apocalyptic" and said, "I walked into a nightmare. I have seen famine in Ethiopia and Bangladesh, but I have seen nothing like this - so much worse than I could possibly have imagined. I wasn't prepared for this." "The earth is red - an extraordinary sight - that deep terra-cotta red. And you see the villages, displacement camps and compounds, and the earth is all rippled around them like an ocean bed. And those were the graves. There are graves everywhere. Along the road, around the paths that you take, along the riverbeds, near every camp - there are graves everywhere."
Though scarred by what she had seen, Hepburn still had hope. "Taking care of children has nothing to do with politics. I think perhaps with time, instead of there being a politicization of humanitarian aid, there will be a humanization of politics." "Anyone who doesn't believe in miracles is not a realist. I have seen the miracle of water which UNICEF has helped to make a reality. Where for centuries young girls and women had to walk for miles to get water, now they have clean drinking water near their homes. Water is life, and clean water now means health for the children of this village." "People in these places don't know Audrey Hepburn, but they recognize the name UNICEF. When they see UNICEF their faces light up, because they know that something is happening. In the Sudan, for example, they call a water pump UNICEF."
In 1992, President George Bush presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work with UNICEF, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded her The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her contribution to humanity. This was awarded posthumously, with her son accepting on her behalf.
In 2006, the Sustainable Style Foundation inaugurated the Style & Substance Award in Honor of Audrey Hepburn to recognize high profile individuals that work to improve the quality of life for children around the world. The first award was given to Hepburn posthumously and received by the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund.
Enduring popularity
Audrey Hepburn to this day is a beauty and fashion icon. She has often been called one of the most beautiful women of all time.[45][46] Her fashion styles also continue to be popular among women.[47] Contrary to her recent image, although Hepburn did enjoy fashion, she did not place much importance on it. She preferred casual, comfortable clothes.[48] In addition, she never considered herself to be very attractive. She said in a 1959 interview, "you can even say that I hated myself at certain periods. I was too fat, or maybe too tall, or maybe just plain too ugly... you can say my definiteness stems from underlying feelings of insecurity and inferiority. I couldn't conquer these feelings by acting indecisive. I found the only way to get the better of them was by adopting a forceful, concentrated drive."[49]
To date, only one biographical film based upon Audrey Hepburn's life has been attempted. The 2000 American made-for-television film, The Audrey Hepburn Story, starred Jennifer Love Hewitt as the actress. Hewitt also co-produced the film. It received poor reviews due to numerous factual errors and Hewitt's performance. The film concluded with footage of the real Audrey Hepburn, shot during one of her final missions for UNICEF. Several versions of the film exist; it was aired as a mini-series in some countries, and in a truncated version on America's ABC television network, which is also the version released on DVD in North America. Emmy Rossum, in one of her first film roles, portrayed Hepburn as a young teen in the film.
Hepburn's image is still widely used in advertising campaigns across the world. In Japan, a series of commercials used colorized and digitally enhanced clips of Hepburn in Roman Holiday to advertise Kirin black tea. In the US, Hepburn was featured in a Gap commercial which ran from September 7, 2006, to October 5, 2006. It used clips of her dancing from Funny Face, set to AC/DC's "Back in Black", with the tagline "It's Back - The Skinny Black Pant". To celebrate its "Keep it Simple" campaign, the Gap made a sizeable donation to the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund.[50] The commercial was popular, with approximately 200,000 users viewing it on YouTube.
The "little black dress" from Breakfast at Tiffany's, designed by Givenchy, sold at a Christie's auction on December 5, 2006, for £467,200 (approximately $920,000), almost seven times its £70,000 pre-sale estimate. This is the highest price paid for a dress from a film. The proceeds went to the City of Joy Aid charity to aid underprivileged children in India. The head of the charity said, "there are tears in my eyes. I am absolutely dumbfounded to believe that a piece of cloth which belonged to such a magical actress will now enable me to buy bricks and cement to put the most destitute children in the world into schools."[51] The dress auctioned off by Christie's was not the one that Hepburn actually wore in the movie.[52] Of the two dresses that Hepburn did wear, one is held in the Givenchy archives, while the other is displayed in the Museum of Costume in Madrid.[51]
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bobsmythhawk
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Sun 4 May, 2008 12:03 pm
Pia Zadora
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Pia Alfreda Schipani
May 4, 1954 (1954-05-04) (age 54)
Hoboken, New Jersey, U.S.
Awards won
Golden Globe Awards
New Star of the Year in a Motion Picture
1982 Butterfly
Golden Raspberry Awards
Worst Actress
1982 Butterfly
1983 The Lonely Lady
Worst New Star
1982 Butterfly
Worst New Star of the Decade
1990 Butterfly ; The Lonely Lady
Pia Zadora (born Pia Alfreda Schipani, May 4, 1954) is an American actress and singer. After years of work as a child actress on Broadway, in regional theater and in the film Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, she came to national attention when, following her starring role in the critically lambasted[1] Butterfly, she won a Golden Globe Award[2] as New Star of the Year over such acclaimed new talents as Kathleen Turner (Body Heat), Rachel Ward (Sharky's Machine), Craig Wasson (Four Friends) and Elizabeth McGovern and Howard Rollins (both in Ragtime).[3]
When her film career failed to take off, she "reinvented" herself as a singer of popular standards and released several successful albums featuring her solo performance backed by a full symphonic orchestra. Few performers have been more publicly ridiculed than Pia Zadora,[4] due primarily to the perception that her career was solely the result of her marriage to billionaire Meshulam Riklis, whom she met when she was 17 and he was 49, but also to her arguably poor choice in film vehicles (she earned two consecutive Razzie Awards for her first two starring vehicles, Butterfly and The Lonely Lady). Zadora, however, demonstrated a resilient quality and a good-humored sense of self-parody (playing herself in such comedies as Feel the Motion, Troop Beverly Hills, and Naked Gun 33 1/3) that endeared her to many, including the late Frank Sinatra, who toured with her in 1990, and during her years as a singer she earned the respect of many critics who had previously written her off.[5]
Biography
Early life
Zadora was born Pia Alfreda Schipani in Hoboken, New Jersey. Her mother, Saturnina "Nina" (née Zadorowski), was a theatrical wardrobe supervisor who worked for Broadway productions, the Metropolitan Opera, and the New York City Opera, and her father, Alphonse Schipani, was a violinist.[6][7] She is of Polish maternal and Italian paternal descent.[8][9] She adapted part of her mother's maiden name as her stage name. Zadora appeared as a child actress with legendary Broadway star Tallulah Bankhead in Midgie Purvis. She attended elementary and middle school in Forest Hills, New York, at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, the same parochial school as Ray Romano and David Caruso.
Film career
Zadora's first film appearance was in 1964's cult classic Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, as Girmar, a young Martian girl. Her subsequent career made little headway until she met and married Israeli multimillionaire Meshulam Riklis in 1977. Not long thereafter, she made her breakthrough into public awareness as the "Dubonnet Girl", appearing in near-ubiquitous print ads and tv commercials for Dubonnet apéritifs. Not incidentally, her husband was a major shareholder in Dubonnet's American distributor.
Zadora co-starred with Stacy Keach and Orson Welles in the 1982 film Butterfly, with a steamy plotline revolving around father-daughter incest, and featuring Zadora singing "It's Wrong For Me To Love You". She went on to win that year's Golden Globe Award as "Best New Star of the Year", amid charges that her wealthy husband had, in effect, bought the award with a high-profile promotional campaign.[10] Zadora's curvaceous image filled oversize billboards on Sunset Boulevard, and rumors circulated about lavish junkets to Las Vegas for members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which sponsors the Golden Globes. Not all critics were enamored of her performance, however; she was awarded "Razzies" as both "Worst New Star" and "Worst Actress" in the 1982 Golden Raspberry Awards.
Zadora next starred in the 1982 film Fake-Out (aka Nevada Heat), a zany women in prison B-movie co-starring Telly Savalas, and in the 1983 film adaptation of a Harold Robbins novel, The Lonely Lady, playing the role of an aspiring screenwriter who achieves success after surviving a sexual assault with a garden hose nozzle. She was awarded yet another Razzie, as "Worst Actress" of 1983. On the basis of her multiple awards, the Golden Raspberry Awards later named her "Worst New Star of the Decade (1980-1989)".
Zadora garnered both attention and ridicule that year by posing for the press cavorting in a public fountain and wearing a Tanga Maillot swimsuit. This resulted in many photos of her and her shapely "can" (posterior) at the homonymic Cannes Film Festival. In contrast, Newsweek published what it humorously referred to as a "rare head-on" photo of the actress.[11]
In 1988 she played a small role in John Waters' Hairspray as a beatnik. Waters has never been shy about expressing his ardent admiration for Pia Zadora's work, even interviewing her on one occasion.
Music career
She has attained some success as a singer, and has had several hit singles throughout the world. In 1984, she received a nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. Her cover version of the Shirley Ellis hit "The Clapping Song", reached the U.S. Top 40 in 1983, and she had a minor hit with a duet with Jermaine Jackson titled "When the Rain Begins to Fall" in 1984 which she performed with Jackson in the movie Voyage Of the Rock Aliens in which Zadora played a lead role. (In Germany, this song was a #1 hit for four weeks, and in France it also was a major hit.) She released Pia & Phil, an album of standards with the London Philharmonic in 1987. In 1988, she teamed with famed producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and released an album entitled When the Lights Go Out.
Later in 1994, Zadora played a small role in Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult in the final act in a comedy sketch as she sang in the Academy Awards.
An urban legend has frequently been circulated that Zadora once starred in a production of The Diary of Anne Frank, in which her performance was so bad that an audience member yelled "She's in the attic!" when the Nazis showed up. Zadora has, in fact, never acted in a production of The Diary of Anne Frank; the joke is taken from the book "Solomon Gursky Was Here" by the Canadian author Mordechai Richler. The story was also famously repeated by Bea Arthur on her "On Broadway: Just Between Friends" tour and album.[10][12]
Trivia
Listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1981" in John Willis' Screen World, Vol 33.
Auditioned for a role of Christina Crawford in Mommie Dearest (1981).
Her son's godfather is Don King.
Chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world (1990).
Auditioned for the role of Rachael in Blade Runner (1982).
Considered for the role of Evita Peron in Evita (1996).
Personal life
Zadora now lives with her three children (from two former marriages) in wealthy retirement, thanks to ex-husband Meshulam Riklis, to whom she was married from 1977 until 1993. Zadora gained notoriety when she and Riklis bought the Beverly Hills landmark mansion Pickfair in January of 1988 and later demolished it. The mansion, former home of early movie stars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, was one of Beverly Hills' most famous privately owned properties. To show his "love and affection", Riklis had an oil portrait commissioned of Zadora in the nude. Visitors to the Pickfair Mansion were greeted by the portrait.[10]
Zadora is an active contributor to both Republican and Democratic political candidates.[13]
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bobsmythhawk
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Sun 4 May, 2008 12:08 pm
Randy Travis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Background information
Birth name Randy Bruce Traywick
Born May 4, 1959 (1959-05-04) (age 49)
Origin Marshville, North Carolina, USA
Genre(s) Country
Occupation(s) Singer
Instrument(s) Vocals
Rhythm guitar
Years active 1985-present
Label(s) Paula
Warner Bros. Nashville
DreamWorks Nashville
Word/Warner/Curb
Website www.randy-travis.com
Randy Travis (born Randy Bruce Traywick, May 4, 1959 in Marshville, North Carolina[1]) is an American multiple Grammy Award- and Dove Award-winning American country singer. Active since 1985, he has recorded more than a dozen studio albums to date, in addition to charting more than thirty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts.
Considered a pivotal figure in the history of country music,[1] Travis broke through in the mid-1980s with the release of his album Storms of Life on Warner Bros. Records; the album, which sold more than three million copies, made Travis the first country music act in history to achieve multi-platinum status. It also established him as a neotraditionalist country act, and was followed by a string of several more platinum and multi-platinum albums throughout his career. Starting in the mid-1990s, however, Travis saw his chart success. He left Warner Bros. in 1997 for DreamWorks Records; there, he would eventually switch his focus to gospel music, a switch which ?- despite earning him only one more country hit in the Number One "Three Wooden Crosses" ?- earned him several Dove Awards.
Travis, in addition to singing, holds several acting credits, starting with his television special Wind in the Wire in 1992. Since then, he has appeared in several movie and television roles, occasionally as himself.
Biography
Early life
Travis was born in Marshville, North Carolina, the second of six children of Bobbie, a textile factory worker, and Harold Traywick, a horse breeder, turkey farmer, and construction business owner.[2][3] While growing up, Travis was forced to take guitar lessons by his father and began performing at the age of eight with his brother, Ricky. Travis began drinking at the age of 12, and by 14 was a regular marijuana user, who occasionally dabbled in harder drugs. He often fought with his father and soon dropped out of high school.[4] He became a juvenile delinquent and was arrested for various offenses, including auto theft and burglary.
Harold Traywick entered Randy and Ricky in a talent contest at a nightclub called "Country City, USA" in Charlotte, North Carolina. In the meantime, Ricky, who also had brushes with the law, was sentenced to jail and Randy had to complete the contest alone, but he won anyway. The club's manager, Elizabeth "Lib" Hatcher, took an interest in Travis and gave him a job singing at the club.[3] Travis began focusing on music. He first recorded for Paula Records and released two unsuccessful singles ?- "She's My Woman" and "Dreamin'". Travis' legal troubles continued and he was due in court for probation violations. Hatcher pleaded with the judge and Travis was released in her custody with the warning that if the judge ever saw him again "he'd better bring his toothbrush, because he would be going to jail for a very long time."
Travis moved in with Hatcher. This put further strain on her already fragile marriage. She eventually left her husband and, in 1982, she and Travis moved to Nashville, Tennessee. Travis was soon turned down by every record label in town. His early demo tapes were criticized by Nashville record executives as being "too country." Hatcher took a job as manager of a nightclub, "The Nashville Palace" and hired Travis as a cook and singer.[3] It was during this time that an unlikely romance began to form between the two; Travis said "I think we discovered how much we needed each other."[5]
Career
In 1982, Travis recorded an independent album Randy Ray Live and Lib Hatcher used it to secure a deal with Warner Bros. Records. However, the label said they had to keep their romance a secret, so as not to turn away fans, and changed his stage name from Randy Ray to Randy Travis.[5] In 1985, Warner Brothers released Travis' single, "On the Other Hand," which topped out at 67 on the country charts. His next single, "1982", became a Top 10 hit followed by the re-release of "On the Other Hand" in 1986. The re-release became Travis' first number one hit.
His debut album, Storms of Life, went on to sell more than 4 million copies. In the late 1980s, he had a string of hits, including "No Place Like Home" and "Diggin' Up Bones." A song from his second Warner Brothers album "Always and Forever" titled "Forever and Ever, Amen" arguably launched the neo-traditionalist country era, boosting the popularity of country music beyond its traditional fan base. For two years in a row, Travis won the Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance, for the albums Always & Forever in 1988, and for Old 8x10 in 1989. Off the success of his first two albums, Old 8x10 shipped platinum.[3] Always and Forever was number one for 43 weeks.
Travis and Hatcher married in 1991. That year Travis took part in Voices That Care, a multi-artist project that featured other top names in music for a one-off single to raise money for the allied troops in the Gulf War. The project included fellow singers Garth Brooks, Kenny Rogers and Kathy Mattea. By 1992, Travis was no longer charting high, as Brooks, Clint Black and others had taken over Nashville. He took a break from music to concentrate on acting and landed roles in several Western-genre films. He returned to recording with the 1994 album This Is Me and the hit single "Whisper My Name."
In 1997, Travis parted ways with Warner Brothers. He moved to DreamWorks Nashville and recorded You and You Alone, which produced the top 10 hits "Out of My Bones" and "Spirit of a Boy, Wisdom of a Man." These were followed by 2000's albums Inspirational Journey, 2002's Rise and Shine and 2003's Worship and Faith. The single "Three Wooden Crosses" from the Rise and Shine album reached No. 1 and won the CMA song of the year in 2003. That same year, Travis ranked #13 on CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music. Travis continues to act in film and television; he appeared on the series finale of Touched by an Angel.[6] His second most recent album, Passing Through, was released in November of 2004. It combines the country music of his earlier years, with a little gospel mixed in from more recent albums. After the release of "Glory Train" in 2005 and the Christmas album "Songs of the Season" in 2007, Travis released his brand new single "Faith In You" as a free download from his official website. It heralds the projected summer [2008] release of his forthcoming album, "Around the Bend". Along with the release of the free single, RandyTravis.com has also underwent a complete overhaul, with opportunities for fans to create blogs and join an upcoming official fan club. The new sleek look of the website has attracted throngs of fans. Contributor Anthony Maurizio has recently produced the Digging Up Bones blog series on the website, which has increased website traffic and is considered one of the most esteemed country music articles available for reading. [7]
Controversy
In 1991, Lina Accurso, a free-lance writer from New York what, filed with the Federal Election Commission about Travis's song "Point of Light." She charged that the single (released during a United States election year) qualified as political advertising for President George H.W. Bush, since Roger Ailes produced the video and Sig Rogich, a White House publicist at the time, co-wrote the song. The FEC rejected the complaint, ruling that the song and video "neither expressly advocate the election of, nor solicit contributions on behalf of, Mr. Bush."[8]
Personal life
In 1991, a tabloid ran an article with claims that Travis was gay. The incident infuriated him and motivated him and Lib Hatcher to come forward with their relationship; they were married twelve weeks later in a private ceremony.[5]
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bobsmythhawk
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Sun 4 May, 2008 12:09 pm
The vultures are flying
As migration approached, two elderly vultures doubted they could make the trip south, so they decided to go by airplane.
When they checked their baggage, the attendant noticed that they were carrying two dead raccoons. "Do you wish to check the raccoons through as luggage?" she asked.
"No, thanks," replied the vultures. "They're carrion."
Harry Belafonte
This song appeared on the album, Paradise in Gazankulu. Much of the material is concerned with aparthied, but this is a beautiful love song.
Skin to Skin
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edgarblythe
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Sun 4 May, 2008 07:17 pm
Letty ought to be home soon. I could not find a song about a prodigal DJ, but I did find this Prodigal Son song.
Tyrone Power
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Tyrone Edmund Power, Jr.
May 5, 1914(1914-05-05)
Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.
Died November 15, 1958 (aged 44)
Madrid, Spain
Years active 1932 - 1958
Spouse(s) Annabella (1939-1948)
Linda Christian (1949-1956)
Debbie Ann Minardos (1958-1958)
Tyrone Edmund Power, Jr. (May 5, 1914 - November 15, 1958), usually credited simply as Tyrone Power and known sometimes as "Ty Power", was an American film and stage actor who appeared in dozens of films from the 1930s to the 1950s, often as a swashbuckler or romantic lead, in such movies as The Mark of Zorro, The Black Swan, Prince of Foxes, The Black Rose, and Captain from Castile. Though famous for his dark, classically handsome looks that made him a matinee idol from his first film appearance, Power was not just handsome but very versatile. He played a wide range of roles, from a protagonist with a darker side to light romantic comedy. In the 1950s, he began placing limits on the number of movies he would make in order to have time for the stage. He received his biggest accolades as a stage actor in John Brown's Body and Mister Roberts. He died of a heart attack at the age of 44.
Early life
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1914, the only son of the English-born American stage and screen actor Tyrone Power, Sr. and Helen Emma "Patia" Reaume, Power was descended from a long theatrical line going back to his great-grandfather, the Irish born actor and comedian Tyrone Power (1795-1841). He had French blood, being descended from Québécois through his mother's Reaume family, and through his paternal grandmother's Lavenu family.[1] Through his paternal greatgrandmother, Anne Gilbert, Power was related to the late actor Sir Laurence Olivier; through his paternal grandmother, Ethel Lavenu, he was related by marriage to author Evelyn Waugh and through his father's first cousin, Norah Emily Gorman Power, he was related to theatrical director Sir (William) Tyrone Guthrie, founder of Stratford Theatre in Canada and the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[2]
During the first year of Power's life, he lived in Cincinnati. His father was absent for long periods, owing to his stage commitments in New York. Young Power was a sickly child, and his doctor advised his family that the climate in California might be better for his health. The family moved there in 1915, and Power's sister Anne was born there on August 26, 1915. The parents appeared together on stage and, in 1917, their movie, The Planter, was released. Tyrone Power, Sr., as he later became known, found himself away from home more frequently, as his stage career took him to New York. The Powers drifted apart, and they divorced around 1920.
After the divorce, Patia Power worked as a stage actress. In 1921, at the age of 7, young Tyrone appeared with his mother in the mission play, La Golondrina, at San Gabriel, California. A couple of years later the family moved back to Cincinnati, where they lived with the family of Patia's aunt, Helen Schuster Martin, founder of the well known Schuster-Martin School of Drama. Power's mother supported her family as a drama and voice coach at the Schuster-Martin School, and in her spare time, she coached him for several years in voice and dramatics. Tyrone grew up in the Martin household with his two cousins, Roberta and William [Bill], the children of his mother's aunt Helen and her husband, William Martin. Power went to Cincinnati-area Catholic schools and graduated from Purcell High School in 1931. Upon his graduation, he opted to join his father to learn what he could about acting from one of the stage's most respected actors.
Career
1930s
Tyrone Power joined his father for the summer of 1931, after being separated from him for some years due to his parents' divorce. His father suffered a heart attack in December of 1931, dying in his son's arms, while preparing to perform in The Miracle Man. Tyrone Power, Jr., as he was then known, decided to continue his pursuit of an acting career. He went door to door, trying to get work as an actor, and, while many contacts knew his father well, they offered praise for his father but no work for him. He appeared in a bit part in 1932 in Tom Brown of Culver, a movie starring actor Tom Brown. Power's experience in that movie didn't open any other doors, however, and, except for what amounted to little more than a job as an extra in Flirtation Walk, he found himself frozen out of the movies but making some appearances in community theater. Discouraged, he took the advice of friend, Arthur Caesar, to go to New York to get experience as a stage actor.
Along the way, he stopped in Chicago, where his friend, Don Ameche, a radio personality, convinced him to stay a while to work in radio. He wasn't able to get a foothold in radio, however, and he eventually went on to New York. There, he met Katharine Cornell, the great stage actress, who cast him as an understudy for Burgess Meredith, for the play, Flowers of the Forest. A better stage break came, though, when Cornell put him in the role of Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet. During this time, Hollywood scouts saw him and offered him a screen test. Katharine Cornell advised against going to Hollywood, without a little more stage experience, and Tyrone Power took her advice. Cornell gave him a substantial role in her next stage play, St. Joan. Once again, Hollywood scouts saw him and offered him a screen test. Cornell told him that he was ready.
Tyrone Power went to Hollywood in 1936, where he was signed by 20th Century-Fox. He would be their top leading man for years to come. He got a false start at 20th Century-Fox, though, when he was assigned to Sing Baby Sing, at the request of Alice Faye, already a star for the studio.[3] The director, Sidney Lanfield, didn't recognize his potential and removed him from the cast, telling him that he should find another line of work, as he would never become an actor. Faye intervened again on his behalf, and she convinced the studio to give him another chance. He was assigned to a small part in Girls' Dormitory. In this movie, he caught the eye of many fans, among them Hedda Hopper, who stayed for a second showing to find out who the young man was with just a few lines at the end of the movie. Following that, he was cast in a slightly larger part in Ladies in Love, which starred Janet Gaynor, Constance Bennett, and Loretta Young. It looked as though 20th Century-Fox was not going to pick up his option, however, and Tyrone Power then went to the office of director Henry King to ask him to consider him for a role. King was impressed with his looks and poise, and he insisted that Tyrone Power be tested for the lead role in Lloyd's of London, a role thought to already belong to Don Ameche. Despite Darryl F. Zanuck's reservations, he decided to go ahead and give him the lead role in the movie, once Henry King and Fox editor, Barbara McLean, convinced him that Power had a greater screen presence than did Don Ameche. He was 4th billed in the movie, but he had by far the most screen time of any other actor. He walked into the premiere of the movie an unknown, and he walked out a superstar, where he stayed for the remainder of his career.
Tyrone Power racked up hit after hit from 1936 until 1943, when his career was interrupted for military service. In these years, he starred in romantic comedies such as Thin Ice and Day-Time Wife; in dramas such as Suez, Blood and Sand, The Rains Came, and In Old Chicago; in the musicals, Alexander's Ragtime Band, Second Fiddle, and Rose of Washington Square; in the westerns, Jesse James and Brigham Young; in the war films, Yank in the R.A.F. and This Above All; and, of course, the swashbucklers, The Mark of Zorro and The Black Swan. 1939's Jesse James was a very big hit at the boxoffice, but it did receive some criticism for fictionalizing and glamorizing the famous outlaw. The movie was filmed in and around the Pineville, Missouri, area and was Power's first location shoot and was also his first Technicolor movie. Before his career was over, he would have filmed a total of sixteen movies in color, including the movie he was filming when he died. He was loaned out one time, to MGM for 1939's Marie Antoinette. Darryl F. Zanuck did not feel that the movie showed Tyrone Power to best advantage, and he vowed to never again loan him out. Though Power's services were requested for the role of Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind, Paris in King's Row, by Harry Cohn for several films throughout the years, and by Shearer herself for her planned production of The Last Tycoon to play Irving Thalberg, Zanuck stuck by his original decision.
1940s
In 1940 the direction of Tyrone Power's career took a dramatic turn when his movie, The Mark of Zorro, was released. Power played the role of Don Diego Vega, fop by day, and Zorro, bandit hero by night. The role had been made famous by Douglas Fairbanks in the 1920 movie by the same title. Power's performance was excellent, and 20th Century Fox often cast him in swashbucklers in the years that followed. Power was actually an excellent swordsman, and the dueling scene in The Mark of Zorro is considered one of the finest in screen history. The great Hollywood swordsman, Basil Rathbone, who starred with him in The Mark of Zorro, commented, "Power was the most agile man with a sword I've ever faced before a camera. Tyrone could have fenced Errol Flynn into a cocked hat."
Despite being kept busy making movies at 20th Century-Fox, Tyrone Power found time to do radio and stage work. He appeared with his wife, Annabella, in several radio broadcasts, including the plays Blood and Sand, The Rage of Manhattan, and Seventh Heaven. He also appeared with her in the stage play, Liliom, in Country Playhouse, Westport, Connecticut, in 1941. He worked with other big names, in radio. Among those he starred with were Humphrey Bogart, Jeanne Crain, Loretta Young, Alice Faye, and Al Jolson.
Tyrone Power's career was interrupted in 1943 by military service. He reported to the U.S. Marines for training in late 1942, but he was sent back, at the request of 20th Century-Fox, to complete one more film, 1943's Crash Dive, a patriotic war movie. He was credited in the movie as Tyrone Power, U.S.M.C.R., and the movie served as much as anything as a recruiting film. His leading lady, Anne Baxter, would become a favorite leading lady of his, both on the screen and on stage. Other than re-releases of his films, he wasn't seen on screen again until 1946, when he co- starred with Gene Tierney in The Razor's Edge, an adaptation of Somerset Maugham's novel of the same name.
Next up for release was a movie that Tyrone Power had to fight hard to make - the gritty film noir, Nightmare Alley. Darryl F. Zanuck was reluctant to allow Power to make the movie; his handsome appearance and charming manner had been a marketable asset to the studio and Zanuck feared that the dark role may hurt Power's image. Zanuck eventually agreed, giving him A-list production values for what normally would be a B film. The movie was directed by Edmund Goulding, and, though the film died at the box office (Zanuck did not publicize it and removed it from release), Power received some of the best reviews of his career.[4] The film was released on DVD in 2005 after years of legal battles, and Power once again received favorable reviews from 21st century critics.
Power's venture into gritty drama was short lived, as he was next seen in a costume movie, Captain from Castile, directed by Henry King, who directed Tyrone Power in eleven movies. After making a couple of light romantic comedies, That Wonderful Urge (with Gene Tierney, his co-star from The Razor's Edge) and The Luck of the Irish (with Anne Baxter), Power found himself once again in swashbucklers - The Black Rose and Prince of Foxes.
1950s
As the 1950s rolled around, Power was becoming increasingly unhappy with his movie assignments, with such movies as American Guerrilla in the Philippines and Pony Soldier. He asked his studio to grant him permission to seek out his own roles outside 20th Century-Fox. Permission was granted, with the understanding that he would fulfill his fourteen-film commitment to 20th Century-Fox in between his other movie roles. In 1953, he made The Mississippi Gambler for Universal Studios. He worked a deal to get a percentage of the profits, and he ended up making one-million dollars from the movie, a very large sum in those days. His movies had been very profitable for 20th Century-Fox, and the studio tried to get him to sign another contract with the studio when his contract ended. As enticement, they offered him the plum role that eventually went to Richard Burton in The Robe. He turned the role down and, instead, went on a year's tour with the stage play, John Brown's Body.
During the 1950s Power achieved major success on a stage tour and on Broadway, appearing opposite Judith Anderson and Raymond Massey in Charles Laughton's production of John Brown's Body, a play based upon the narrative poem by Stephen Vincent Benet.[5] (Anne Baxter toured in the production in the Judith Anderson role.) The critics applauded his performances. He also performed the title role in Mister Roberts to sellout crowds for six months at the London Coliseum. He performed in The Devil's Disciple in 1956 at The Opera House, Manchester, England and for nineteen weeks at the Winter Garden, London. Additional Broadway credits include The Dark is Light Enough and Back to Methusaleh.
Untamed, Tyrone Power's last movie made under his contract with 20th Century-Fox, was released in 1955. That same year, The Long Gray Line, a hugely successful John Ford film was released by Columbia Pictures. Columbia also released The Eddy Duchin Story, also huge at the boxoffice, the following year. His old boss, Darryl F. Zanuck, pressed him into service for the lead role in 1957's The Sun Also Rises, adapted from the Ernest Hemingway novel. Released that same year were Abandon Ship and John Ford's Rising of the Moon (narrator only). Tyrone Power's last role turned out to be one of his most highly regarded, cast against type as the accused murderer, Leonard Vole, in Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution, directed by Billy Wilder. The critic, Robert Fulford, for The National Post commented on the "superb performance" of Power as "the seedy, stop-at-nothing exploiter of women"[6]which was in sharp contrast to his earlier swashbuckling roles and romantic heroes. The movie was critically acclaimed and a boxoffice success.
In September of 1958, Tyrone Power went to Madrid and Valdespartera, Spain, to film the epic, Solomon and Sheba, to be directed by King Vidor. He had filmed about 75 percent of his scenes when he was stricken with a massive heart attack, as he was filming a dueling scene with his frequent co-star and friend, George Sanders. He died enroute to the hospital. Yul Brynner was brought in to take over the role of Solomon. The filmmakers used some of the long shots that Tyrone Power had filmed, and an observant fan can see him in some of the scenes, particularly in the middle of the duel.
Tyrone Power's last movie, fittingly, was to be in a familiar role, with sword in hand. He is perhaps best remembered as a swashbuckler, and, indeed, he was one of the finest swordsmen in Hollywood. Director Henry King said, "People always seem to remember Ty with sword in hand, although he once told me he wanted to be a character actor. He actually was quite good - among the best swordsmen in films."
Personal life
Tyrone Power was one of Hollywood's most eligible bachelors when he married French actress, Annabella -- birth name Suzanne Georgette Charpentier -- on April 23, 1939.[7] They met on the 20th Century-Fox lot, around the time they starred together in the movie, Suez. Annabella was a big star in France when 20th Century-Fox brought her over to America, and she was given the big buildup as the next great French star for Hollywood pictures. When Darryl F. Zanuck, 20th Century-Fox studio boss, realized the seriousness of the romance between her and his top male star, however, he strongly objected, fearing that Power would lose part of his female fan base if he were married. Zanuck offered to give Annabella plum roles in movies to be filmed abroad, in order to get her out of the country and away from one of Hollywood's biggest heartthrobs. When Power and Annabella went against Zanuck's wishes and married, Annabella's career at 20th Century Fox suffered greatly. After the marriage, Zanuck refused to assign her to movies for the studio, in punishment for their disobedience. After her marriage, she had to wait until after Tyrone Power had left the studio for military service to make another movie. This lack of movie work caused the very talented actress to seek stage work in order to help satisfy her desire to act. In an A&E biography, Annabella said that Zanuck "could not stop Tyrone's love for me, or my love for Tyrone." Their marriage, by all accounts at the time, was a happy one for the first couple years, but it was on rocky ground by the time Tyrone left for the U.S. Marines in 1943.
His extramarital affair with Judy Garland is said to have contributed to the failure of their marriage and resulted in Garland having an abortion. However, those close to the couple say that there were also other reasons for the failed marriage. J. Watson Webb, close friend and an editor at 20th Century Fox, maintained, in the A&E Biography, that one of the reasons the marriage fell apart was the inability of Annabella to give him a child. He said that there was no bitterness between the two. In a March 1947 issue of Photoplay, Power was interviewed and said that he wanted a home and children. Annabella shed some light on the situation in an interview that she did for Movieland magazine in 1948. She said, "Our troubles began because the war started earlier for me, a French-born woman, than it did for Americans." She went on to explain that the war clouds over Europe made her unhappy and irritable and that, to get her mind off her troubles, she began accepting stage work, which often took her away from home, for weeks, or in one case, months at a time. "It is always difficult to put one's finger exactly on the place and time where a marriage starts to break up," she said. "But I think it began then. We were terribly sad about it, both of us, but we knew we were drifting apart. I didn't think then - and I don't think now - that it was his fault, or mine." The couple tried to make their marriage work when Power returned from military service, but they were unable to do so. Annabella claimed that he had changed too much during the war. They were legally separated in the fall of 1946 and divorced a couple of years later. Despite the divorce, they remained close until his death.
Following his separation from Annabella, Power entered into a love affair with Lana Turner that lasted a couple of years.[8] In the fall of 1948, however, he went on a good-will trip to Europe and South Africa. On that trip, he saw and fell in love with Linda Christian, in Rome. Upon his return to the U.S., he broke the news to Lana Turner that their romance was over. In her autobiography, Turner said that MGM, her home studio, and 20th Century Fox, Power's studio, conspired to break up their romance. Each studio feared that they would lose their star to the other studio, if they were to marry. Turner claimed that, when Power made his goodwill trip to Europe and South Africa, the story of her dining out with Frank Sinatra, a friend, was leaked to Power, who became very upset with her "dating" another man, in his absence. Turner also claimed that there was just too much coincidence in Linda Christian's being at the same hotel as Tyrone Power, and she went on to imply that Christian had obtained Power's itinerary from 20th Century Fox.
Power and Christian were married on January 27, 1949, in the Church of Santa Francesca, with an estimated 8,000 - 10,000 screaming fans outside the church. Christian miscarried three times before finally giving birth to a baby girl, Romina Francesca Power, on October 2, 1951. A second daughter, Taryn Stephanie Power, was born September 13, 1953.[9] Around the time of Taryn's birth, the Power marriage was rocky. In her autobiography, Christian blamed her husband's extramarital affairs on the breakup of her marriage. However, she acknowledged that she had an affair with Edmund Purdom, which created great tension between her and her husband. They divorced in 1955.[10]
After his divorce from Christian, Power had a long lasting love affair with Mai Zetterling, whom he met on the set of Abandon Ship. At this point in time, however, he vowed that he would never marry again, because he had been twice burned financially from his previous marriages. In 1958, however, he met Deborah Ann Montgomery Minardos. They were married on May 7, 1958, and she became pregnant soon after. She accompanied her husband to Madrid in September 1958, for the filming of Solomon and Sheba. She was worried about his health and asked him to slow down, but he pushed ahead with the movie. On November 15, 1958, while filming a strenuous dueling scene for the movie, he was stricken with a massive heart attack and died. His wife gave birth to his son, Tyrone Power IV, on January 22, 1959.
Military service
In August 1942, he enlisted in the Marine Corps. He attended boot camp at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego and then attended Officer's Candidate School at Marine Corps Base Quantico, where he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant on June 2, 1943. Because he had already logged 180 solo hours as a pilot prior to enlisting in the Marine Corps, Tyrone Power was able to go though a short, intense flight training program at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas, where he earned his wings and was promoted to First Lieutenant. Power arrived at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina in July, 1944 and was assigned to VMR-352 as an R5C copilot. The squadron moved to Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in California in October 1944. Power was reassigned to VMR-353 and joined them on Kwajalein in February 1945. He flew cargo and wounded Marines during the Battle of Iwo Jima and the Battle of Okinawa. He returned to the United States in November 1945 and he was released from active duty in January 1946. He was promoted to Captain in the reserves on May 8, 1951 but was not recalled for service for the Korean War.[11]
In the June 2001 Marine Air Transporter newsletter, Jerry Taylor, a retired Marine Corps flight instructor, recalls memories of World War II. He speaks of training Tyrone Power as a pilot, saying, "He was an excellent student, never forgot a procedure I showed him or anything I told him." Others who served with him have commented that he was well-respected by those with whom he served.[12]
Honors
Tyrone Power was honored with having his handprints and footprints put in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theater on May 31, 1937. He was honored in a joint ceremony with Loretta Young, on the occasion of the premiere of their movie Cafe Metropole. At the time of the ceremony, Tyrone was just 23 years old and had been a major star for only six months. He signed the cement block, "To Sid - Following in my father's footsteps", which was a tribute to his father, stage and film star, Tyrone Power, Sr..
Tyrone Power's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame can be found at 6747 Hollywood Blvd.
Epilogue
Tyrone Power was buried at Hollywood Cemetery, now known as Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hollywood, California, at noon, on November 21, 1958, in a military service. The memorial service was held at the Chapel of the Psalms, Hollywood Cemetery, with Chaplain Thomas M. Gibson, U.S.N.R. officiating. The active pallbearers were officers of the United States Marine Corps. Honorary pallbears were Charles Laughton, Raymond Massey, Tommy Noonan, Theodore Richmond, Murray Steckler, Cesar Romero, Watson Webb, Milton Bren, James Denton, George Sidney, George Cohen, Lew Schreiber, Lew Wasserman, and Harry Brand. Cesar Romero gave the eulogy, using in it a tribute written by Tyrone Power's good friend and frequent co-star, George Sanders. Sanders had written the tribute on the set of Solomon and Sheba, within the first few hours after Power's death. It read as follows:
"I shall always remember Tyrone as a bountiful man, a man who gave freely of himself. It mattered not to whom he gave. His concern was in the giving. I shall always remember his wonderful smile, a smile that would light up the darkest hour of the day, like a sunburst. I shall always remember Tyrone Power as a man who gave more of himself than it was wise for him to give, until in the end, he gave his life."
Flying over the service was Henry King, who directed him in eleven movies. Almost 20 years before, Tyrone had flown with King, in King's plane, to the set of Jesse James in Missouri. It was then that Tyrone Power got his first experience with flying, which would become such a big part of his life, both in the U.S. Marines and in his private life. In the foreword to Dennis Belafonte's The Films of Tyrone Power, King said, "Knowing his love for flying and feeling that I had started it, I flew over his funeral procession and memorial park during his burial, and felt that he was with me." Tyrone Power was laid to rest, by a small lake, in one of the most beautiful parts of the cemetery. His grave is marked by a unique tombstone, in the form of a marble bench. On the tombstone are the masks of comedy and tragedy, with the transcription, "Good night, sweet prince."
Tyrone Power's will, filed on Dec. 8, 1958, contained an unusual provision. It stated his wish that, upon his death, his eyes would be donated to the Estelle Doheny Eye Foundation, for such purposes as the trustees of the foundation should deem advisable, including transplantation of the cornea to the eyes of a living person.
Post-death rumors
More than 20 years after Tyrone Power's death, Hector Arce cited anonymous sources to support his claim that Power was bisexual.[13] Up until that time, no claims to this effect had been made. In his 1994 autobiography Crying With Laughter, the British comedian and actor Bob Monkhouse claimed that he had rejected advances from Power. The fashion critic Mr. Blackwell, in his 1995 autobiography From Rags to Bitches claimed that he met Power when a young actor for "romantic moments in his dressing room and took long rides speeding down Sunset to Malibu". According to William J. Mann, in his book Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969, Power was involved in homosexual relationships. In his book, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser's: A Gay Life in the 1940s, Ricardo J. Brown confirms that he had heard in New York that there were "a lot of queer people in the theater and the movies", among them Tyrone Power and Tallulah Bankhead. In Oops, I Lost My Sense of Humor, Lois M. Santalo writes that "many stars of the silver screen, dating back to Tyrone Power, had been gay". In Robert Aldrich and Garry Wotherspoon's (both of Sydney University) Who's Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History: From World War II to the Present Day, Power is listed among the "Top box office stars who were gay or bisexual".
However, women with whom Power was married or had relationships have denied any knowledge of homosexual leanings. His second wife, Linda Christian, asserts that she and Power shared an intense love and described his love for other women.[14]Lana Turner, in her 1983 book The Lady The Legend The Truth, and Mai Zetterling, in All Those Tomorrows (1986) describe their two year long affairs with Power. Other women with whom he was involved include Sonja Henie, Judy Garland, Anita Ekberg and Mary Roblee, an editor. People who knew Power as a close friend have refuted the claims of bisexuality: Bob Buck, a pilot who served as Power's co-pilot on a trip to Europe and South Africa in 1947, in his autobiography North Star Over My Shoulder stated (in responding to rumors that he had read) "And while talking of Ty, I want to make this clear, and as loudly as I can: he was not a homosexual..." .[15] When asked about the subject on the Phil Donahue Show in 1982, Lana Turner said, "I can only say this, naturally I only heard about it after his death. I think some terrible person wrote a book, but all the time I knew him there was never a sign of it. Believe me he was all man." While appearing on behalf of Pfizer in 1985, Alice Faye said, "Well, we were all babies. We had a great time working together...I never saw any sign of any such thing." In On Sunset Boulevard by Ed Sikov [describing a trip that Billy Wilder took with Power and Charles Laughton] "Wilder saw no evidence of homosexuality in Power." William Martin, Tyrone's cousin and close boyhood friend, who also lived with Tyrone in Hollywood from 1936 to 1939, always maintained that such rumours were completely preposterous. "If Ty became bisexual, it happened after 1939," Martin said.[16] His daughter Romina states: "Tyrone Power was not gay or bi-sexual. It's too easy to make a fast buck off of someone who is not around anymore to tell the true story. It's interesting to see what people suppose about one's parent. But more interesting yet, is the truth."[17] Further references to Power's heterosexual relationships can be found in the following: Investigation Hollywood by Fred Otash, The Gift Horse by Hildegard Knef, Linda: My Own Story by Linda Christian, Lana: The Lady, the Legend, the Truth by Lana Turner, Whisper magazine, 1954, No More Tomorrows by Mai Zetterling, Debbie: My Life by Debbie Reynolds, People Will Talk by John Kobal and Queen of Ice, Queen of Shadows: The Unsuspected Life of Sonja Henie by Raymond Strait.
Height
There have been conflicting claims as to what his height was. According to military record and television transcripts of What's My Line, he was 6' (1.83m). Other sources cite his height as 5' 10" (1.78m).[18]
Dorothy Kilgallen, whom Power once dated, claimed his height at 6' (as did Power and John Daly) on an episode of What's My Line in 1955. While blindfolds were on, Kilgallen asked, "Are you over 6 feet?" Power answered in his fake voice, "No". When Arlene Francis correctly guessed that it was Power, Kilgallen was upset. "Why didn't you say you were 6 feet when I asked you?" she wanted to know. Both Daly and Power corrected her together, that she had asked if he was over 6 feet.
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bobsmythhawk
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Mon 5 May, 2008 07:49 am
Ann B. Davis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Ann Bradford Davis
May 5, 1926 (1926-05-05) (age 82)
Schenectady, New York
Awards won
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Supporting Actress - Comedy Series
1957 The Bob Cummings Show
1959 The Bob Cummings Show
Ann Bradford Davis (born May 3, 1926)[1] is an Emmy Award-winning American television actress.
Biography
Career
Davis's first success was as Charmaine "Schultzy" Schultz in The Bob Cummings Show, and she won two Emmy Awards out of four nominations for this role. For a period in the 1960s and 1970s, Davis was known for her appearances in television Commercials for the Ford Motor Company, particularly for the mid-sized Ford Fairlane models. Davis played housekeeper Alice Nelson in The Brady Bunch television series, and various Brady Bunch sequel series and TV movies. She also played Alice's grim identical cousin Emma in one episode. She made a cameo role as a truck driver named "Schultzy" (a tribute to her days on The Bob Cummings Show) in 1995s The Brady Bunch Movie. Davis was spokesperson in commercials for Minute Rice, until the mid-1980s.
She never completely retired from acting, and recently appeared in several disposable mop commercials featuring famous TV servants, and has appeared in a number of Brady reunion projects, most recently TV Land's The Brady Bunch 35th Anniversary Reunion Special: Still Brady After All These Years. On April 22, 2007, TV Land awarded The Brady Bunch the TV Land Pop Culture Award on the 5th annual TV Land Awards. Davis and other cast members accepted the award, and she received a standing ovation.
Personal life
Davis was born in Schenectady, New York, the daughter of Marguerite (née Stott) and Cassius Miles Davis.[1]. Davis attended Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, in the early 1990s[citation needed] and is a graduate of the University of Michigan.[citation needed] She lives in a residential neighborhood in Texas.[citation needed]
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bobsmythhawk
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Mon 5 May, 2008 07:54 am
Tammy Wynette
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Background information
Birth name Virginia Wynette Pugh
Born May 5, 1942(1942-05-05)
Origin Itawamba County, Mississippi, USA
Died April 6, 1998 (aged 55)
Genre(s) Country, Nashville Sound
Occupation(s) [Hairdresser prior to singing career [Singer]], Songwriter, Actress
Instrument(s) Vocals, Guitar
Years active 1966 - 1998
Label(s) Epic (1966 - 1998)
MCA (1995)
Associated acts George Jones, David Houston, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Wynonna, Randy Travis
Website Tammy Wynette Official Site
Virginia Wynette Pugh or known profesionally as Tammy Wynette (born May 5, 1942 - April 6, 1998) was an American country music singer-songwriter, who was one of Country music's best-known artists and biggest-selling female vocalists.
She was known as the "First Lady of Country Music" and one of her best-known songs, "Stand by Your Man," was one of the biggest selling hit singles by a woman in the history of the country music genre. Many of Tammy Wynette's hits dealt with classic themes of loneliness, divorce and the difficulties of male-female relationships. Her songs reflected her often-troubled romantic life (she married five times). But her willingness to share her joys and sorrows in song and her passionate, tear-in-every-note delivery endeared her to millions. [1] During the late 1960s and early 1970s, she dominated the country charts, scoring 17 number one hits. Along with Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton, she defined the role of female country vocalists in the 1970s.
Her 1969 marriage to legendary country singer, George Jones (which would end in divorce in 1975) created the first country music couple. They recorded a series of duet albums and singles, which charted throughout the 1970s, concurrent to their respective solo hits.
Early years
Childhood & teen years
Tammy Wynette was born Virginia Wynette Pugh near Tremont, Mississippi, the only child of William Hollice Pugh (died February 13, 1943) and Mildred Faye Russell (1922 - 1991). She was always called Wynette (pronounced Win-net), or Nettie, instead of Virginia.
Her father was a farmer and local musician. He died of a brain tumor when Wynette was nine months of age. Her mother worked in an office, as a substitute school teacher, as well as on the family farm. After the death of Hollice Pugh, she left Wynette in the care of her parents, Thomas Chester and Flora A. Russell, and moved to Memphis to work in a World War II defense plant. In 1946, she married Foy Lee, a farmer from Mississippi.
Wynette was raised on the Itawamba County farm of her maternal grandparents where she was born. The place was partly on the border with Alabama. She often claimed that the state line ran right through their property, joking "my top half came from Alabama and my bottom half came from Mississippi". As a youngster, she worked in the fields picking cotton alongside the hired crews to get in the crop. She grew up with her aunt, Carolyn Russell, who was only five years older than she was. As a child, Wynette taught herself to play a variety of instruments left behind by her father. [2] Wynette also sang Gospel music with her grandmother, and genre Wynette grew to liking, idolizing certain Gospel vocalists like '40s Gospel/Country star, Molly O' Day.
As a child and teenager, she found in country music an escape from her hard life. Wynette grew up idolizing Hank Williams, Skeeter Davis, Patsy Cline, and George Jones, and would play their records over and over on the children's record player she owned, dreaming of one day being a star herself.
Tammy Wynette's 1969 Greatest Hits collection was the first album by a female country artist to sell over one million copies.
Rise to fame
She attended Tremont High School, where she was an all-star basketball player. A month before graduation, she married her first husband, Euple Byrd. He was a construction worker, but had trouble holding down a job, and they moved several times. One of their homes had no running water. She worked as a waitress, receptionist, and a barmaid, and also worked in a shoe factory. In 1963, she attended beauty school in Tupelo, Mississippi, and became a hairdresser; she would renew her cosmetology license every year for the rest of her life, just in case she should have to go back to a daily job. She left her first husband before the birth of their third daughter. He did not support her ambition to become a country singer, and, according to Wynette, told her "Dream on, Baby."
Her baby developed spinal meningitis and Wynette tried to make extra money by performing at night. In 1965, Wynette sang on the Country Boy Eddie Show on WBRC-TV in Birmingham, Alabama, which led to some appearances with Porter Wagoner. In 1966, she moved with her three girls from Birmingham to Nashville, Tennessee, where she attempted to get a recording contract. After being turned down repeatedly by every other record company she'd met with, she auditioned for producer Billy Sherrill. Sherrill, who was originally reluctant to sign her, decided to do so, her after finding himself in need of a singer to cover a song given to him, "Apartment No. 9". When Sherrill heard Wynette sing it, he was impressed and decided to sign her to Epic Records in 1966.
Music career
1966 - 1979: Breakthrough
Once she was signed to Epic, Sherrill suggested she change her name to make more of an impression. According to her 1979 memoir, Stand by Your Man, during their meeting, Wynette was wearing her long, blonde hair in a ponytail, and Sherill noted that she reminded him of Debbie Reynolds in the film "Tammy and the Bachelor," and suggested "Tammy" as a possible name; thus she became Tammy Wynette.
Her first single, "Apartment No. 9" (written by Bobby Austin and Johnny Paycheck), was released in December 1966, and just missed the Top 40 on the Country charts, peaking at No. 44. It was followed by "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad," which became a big hit, peaking at number three. The song launched a string of Top Ten hits that ran through the end of the '70s, interrupted only by three singles that didn't crack the Top Ten. After "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad" was a success, "My Elusive Dreams", a duet with David Houston, became her first number one in the summer of 1967, followed by "I Don't Wanna Play House" later that year. [3] "I Don't Wanna Play House" won Wynette a Grammy award in 1967 for Best Female Country Vocal Performance, one of two wins for Wynette in that category.
During 1968 and 1969, Wynette had five number one hits ?- "Take Me to Your World," "D-I-V-O-R-C-E," "Stand by Your Man" (all 1968), "Singing My Song," and "The Ways to Love a Man" (both 1969). [4] "Stand by Your Man", which was reportedley written in the Epic studio in just fifteen minutes by Billy Sherrill and Wynette herself, the song was released at a time when the women's rights movement was beginning to stir in the U.S. The message in the song that said a woman should stick to the side of her man, despite his faults of being weak and adulterous, stirred up controversy and was originally criticized in the beginning, and became a lightning rod for feminists. However, the song became very successful, reaching the top spot on the Country charts, and was also a Top 20 pop hit, peaking at No. 19 on the Billboard pop charts in 1968, Wynette's only Top 40 pop hit as a solo artist on the pop charts. In 1969, Wynette won the Grammy award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for "Stand by Your Man", and has now been according to critics, considered a "classic" or Country music "standard" to record.
Wynette earned a Gold record (awarded for albums selling in excess of 500,000 copies) for "Tammy's Greatest Hits" which was certified in 1970 by the RIAA. The album would later be awarded Platinum record status (awarded for albums selling in excess of 1,000,000 copies) in June 1989. In 1970, director Bob Rafelson used a number of her songs in the soundtrack of his 1970 film Five Easy Pieces.
During the early 1970s, Wynette, along with Loretta Lynn (who was equally popular around the same time) ruled the country charts, and was one of the most successful female vocalists of the genre. During the early 1970s, number one singles included "He Loves Me All the Way" "Run Woman, Run" and "The Wonders You Perform" (all from 1970), "Good Lovin' (Makes it Right)", "Bedtime Story" (both 1971) "My Man (Understands)", "'Til I Get it Right" (1972), and "Kids Say the Darndest Things" (1973). Concurrent to her solo success, a number of her duets with Jones reache the top ten on the U.S. country singles charts during this time, including "The Ceremony" (1972), "We're Gonna Hold On" (1973), and "Golden Ring (1975). In 1968, Wynette became the second female vocalist to win the Country Music Association Awards' "Female Vocalist of the Year" award, later winning an additional two other times (1969 and 1970). For nearly two decades, Tammy held the record for most consecutive wins, until 1987 when Reba McEntire won the award for the fourth consecutive time.
Wynette was married to George Jones from 1969 - 75 (she had divorced her second husband earlier in 1969). Even after their 1975 divorce (due largely to Jones' alcoholism), their professional collaboration continued with regularity through 1980; years later in 1995, they made a reunion album entitled One . It was well received, although it didn't achieve their earlier chart success. Jones and Wynette had one daughter together, Tamala Georgette, born in 1970. [5]
In 1976, after having her public divorce from Jones the previous year, Wynette recorded, "'Til I Can Make It on My Own". Often said by music critics to be about her break-up from Jones and moving on with her life, the song reached No. 1 on the U.S. country singles charts, and No. 84 on the pop singles charts, becoming her first single in eight years to enter the pop charts. Often considered to be one of her signature songs, it more or less helped Wynette's career after her divorce, showing she could remain popular. It was recorded two years later as a duet by Kenny Rogers and Dottie West, whose version reached No. 3 on the country singles charts in 1979. In 1976, Wynette had another No. 1 as a solo artist, "You and Me", which became her final No. 1 as a solo artist. Her last No. 1 came as a duet with George Jones in early 1977 titled, "Near You".
Following 1976, Wynette's popularity slightly slowed, however, she continued to reach the Top 10 until the end of the decade, with such hits as "Let's Get Together (One Last Time), "One of a Kind" (both 1977), "Womanhood" (1978) "No One Else in this World" and "They Call It Makin' Love" (both 1979). She had a total of 21 number one hits on the U.S. country singles charts (17 solo, three with Jones, and one with Houston). Along with Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Dottie West, and Lynn Anderson, she helped redefine the role and place of female country singers.
Tammy Wynette's Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad album from 1967. The title song was her first top-ten U.S. country single.
1980 - 1990: Career in the 80s
In 1981, a television movie about Wynette's life was aired on television titled, Stand by Your Man, which was based on her memoir of the same title. Actress Annette O'Toole portrayed Wynette in the film.
Beginning in the early 1980s, however, her chart success began to wane, though, she did continue to have top-20 hits during this period, including, "Starting Over" and "He Was There (When I Needed You)" (both 1980), a cover of the Everly Brothers' hit "Crying in the Rain" (1981), "Another Chance", "You Still Get to Me in My Dreams" (both 1982), and "A Good Night's Love" (1983). A 1985 cover of the '70s Dan Hill hit "Sometimes When We Touch", performed with Mark Grey, reached number 6 in 1985.
In 1982 she recorded a track with The Ray Conniff Singers, a rendition of "Delta Dawn", in order to be included in the Conniff's duets album "The Nashville Connection", but ultimately the track didn't enter. Meanwhile, her medical problems continued, including inflammations of her bile duct. In 1986, she acted on the CBS TV soap opera Capitol. In 1988, she filed for bankruptcy as a result of a bad investment in two Florida shopping centers.
Wynette's 1987 album Higher Ground featured a neotraditional country sound, and was both a critical and relative commercial success. The album featured contributions from Vince Gill, Ricky Van Shelton, Rodney Crowell, Ricky Skaggs, Emmylou Harris, and The O'Kanes. [6]Two of the singles released from the album, "Your Love" and "Talkin' to Myself Again", reached the top-twenty on the U.S. country singles charts; a third single, "Beneath a Painted Sky" (featuring duet vocals from Emmylou Harris) reached number 25 in early 1988 (it would ultimately be Tammy Wynette's final top-40 country single).
Although she was still a name remembered in popular culture (the 1980s game show Press Your Luck had a country-singing Whammy known as "Tammy Whamette").
1990 - 1998: Final career years
She recorded a song with the British electronica group The KLF in late 1991 titled "Justified and Ancient (Stand by the JAMs)," which became a No. 1 hit in eighteen countries the following year, and reached No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States. The song gave Wynette a new following, and was her highest-charting single on the Billboard Pop charts. In the video, scrolling electronic titles said that "Miss Tammy Wynette is the first lady of country music." Wynette appeared in the video seated on a throne.
In 1992, future First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton said during a 60 Minutes interview that she wasn't "some little woman, standing by my man and baking cookies, like Tammy Wynette." The remark set off a firestorm of controversy and Wynette demanded, and received, an apology from Clinton. (Hillary Clinton's remark aside, Wynette was nonetheless a Clinton supporter, and later performed at a Clinton fundraiser.)
In 1990, Heart Over Mind was released and showed that Wynette's popularity on radio was declining. The album yielded no Top 40 Country hits, although numerous singles were released between 1990 and 1991, including a duet with Randy Travis titled, "We're Strangers Again".
The 1993 album Honky Tonk Angels gave her a chance to record with Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn for the first time; though yielding no hit singles (mainstream country radio had long since stopped playing artists approaching or over 50), the album did well on the country charts and even reached number 42 on the Billboard Pop Charts. The one single that was released from the album, a cover of "Silver Threads and Golden Needles" peaked outside the Country Top 40 in 1993. The following year, she released Without Walls, a collection of duets with a number of country, pop and rock and roll performers, including Wynonna Judd, Elton John, Lyle Lovett, Aaron Neville, Smokey Robinson, Sting and a number of others. An album cut titled, "Girl Thang", a duet with Wynonna Judd, reached No. 64 in 1994, but no singles were released from this album.
Wynette also designed and sold her own line of jewelry in the 1990s. In 1995, she and George Jones recorded their first new duet album in fifteen years titled, One, which spawned a single of the same name. The single was the duo's first music video together. They last performed together in 1997 at Concerts in the Country Lanierland, Georgia
Wynette lent her vocals on the UK #1 hit Perfect Day in 1997, which was written by Lou Reed.
Wynette was also the voice for the character Tillie Mae Hill (Hank Hill's mother) on the animated series King Of The Hill.
1998: Death
After years of medical problems, numerous hospitalizations, approximately twenty-six major surgeries and an addiction to large doses of pain medication, Tammy Wynette died, in her sleep, on April 6, 1998 of a pulmonary blood clot. She was 55. Despite her persistent illnesses, she continued to perform until shortly before her death and had other performances scheduled in the offing. Wynette's funeral was held on April 9, 1998 and, at the same time, a public memorial service was under way at Nashville's original Grand Ole Opry building (Ryman Auditorium). Her death solicited commentary such as songwriter Bill Mack's commentary, quoted in the Dallas Morning News , that she was a "class act," and "irreplaceable," and that, "She never knew a flat note." Lee Ann Womack was quoted also; she said of Wynette, whose songs often evoked strength and controlled passion, "You knew she knew what she was singing about. You can put her records on and listen and learn so much." Wynette was survived by her husband George Richey, four daughters and eight grandchildren. [7]
The coroner later declared that she died of a cardiac arrhythmia, one year after her death upon examining her in a post-mortal autopsy. She is interred in Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Nashville.
1998 - present: Legacy
Since her death and even before then Tammy Wynette has been considered by numerous music critics from All Music Guide and Rolling Stone to have been one of the greatest and most influential female Country singers in history. Many other female Country singers have been affected by Wynette's influence including, Sara Evans, Faith Hill, and Lee Ann Womack. In 1998, following Wynette's death she was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, one of the highest honors of Wynette's career. A special CD collection titled, Tammy Wynette: Collector's Edition was released in 1998, that included Wynette's signature "Stand By Your Man", which even charted outside the Top 40 on the Country charts that year.
Wynette's signature song, "Stand by Your Man" has been covered by both men and women alike. Fellow Country singers including, Lynn Anderson, Dottie West, and Loretta Lynn have covered the song, as well as Rock bands, including Me First and the Gimme Gimes. Martina McBride covered Wynette's 1976, "'Til I Can Make It on My Own" for her 2005, Timeless album, which was a cover album of Country music standards. "Stand by Your Man" placed at No. 48 on RIAA's 1997 list of Songs of the Century, which consisted of the 300 of their considered-to-be greatest and best-known songs of the twentieth century.
In 2002, she was ranked No. 2 on CMT's 40 Greatest Women of Country Music. At No. 1 placed, Patsy Cline (one of Wynette's biggest inspirations) and at No. 3 placed fellow Country star, Loretta Lynn. Wynette's former husband, George Jones placed at No. 3 of CMT's special of the 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003.
In 2003, a survey of country music writers, producers and stars listed "Stand By Your Man" as the top country song of all time. Country Music Television broadcast a special for the top 100 songs, with the No. 1 song performed by Martina McBride.
Judson Baptist Church, who neighbors Wynette's house, purchased the house, which belonged to Hank Williams before he died, and the land for a little over a million dollars. The Wynette house is used as a Youth Center as well as a guest house.
Stand By Your Man is sung in The Blues Brothers 1980 motion picture, by both Jake and Elwood Blues, at Bob's Country Bunker.
In April 2008, the CD "Stand By Your Man - The Best of Tammy Wynette", released by Sony BMG to mark the 10th anniversary of her death entered the UK Official Top 75 Album chart at number 23.
Personal life
Marriages
Aside from her music, Wynette's private life was as tumultuous as many of her songs. Over the course of her life, she had five husbands: Euple Byrd (married 1959-divorced 1966); Don Chapel (married 1967-annulled 1968); George Jones (married 1969-divorced 1975); Michael Tomlin (married 1976-annulled 1976); and George Richey (married 1978-her death 1998). Wynette's marriage to George Richey in 1978 was her final marriage and was her longest marriage, stating once that she finally found her "true love" when she met him.
She was also linked romantically with actor Burt Reynolds briefly in 1977, but it was her fifth marriage to singer/songwriter George Richey in 1978 that finally brought happiness and stability to Wynette's private life. [8] Richey, whom Wynette was married to until her death in 1998, was her manager throughout much of the 1980s.
Her fourth marriage, to Michael Tomlin, lasted only six weeks. She finally found lasting love and married noted songwriter/producer George Richey, who became her manager. Wynette, who suffered many tragedies throughout her life, maintained that she had no complaints and that she felt greatly blessed. Her house was burned and severely damaged in 1975, and she was also victimized for some time by a stalker. In Nashville, in 1978, she was mysteriously kidnapped from a shopping center and badly beaten, a story that was never substantiated with hard evidence, leaving questions in the minds of some as to whether it happened. As a result of numerous health ailments and surgeries, she developed a dependency on painkillers in the late 1970s. She became critically ill with a liver infection at the end of 1994. Pamela Lansden of People quoted Wynette's personal spin on life's tribulations as follows: "The sad part about happy endings is there's nothing to write about." [9]
Children
She and Byrd had three children, Gwendolyn Lee ("Gwen") Byrd (born 1961), Jacquelyn Faye ("Jackie") Byrd (born 1962) and Tina Denise Byrd (born 1965), and she and Jones had one child, Tamala Georgette Jones (born 1970). Daughter Tina was featured on one of Jones and Wynette's duet albums, which was titled, George and Tammy and Tina.
Wynette also developed a serious addiction to painkiller medication in the 1980s, which became quite a problem in her life during that time. However, in 1986, she sought help entering the Betty Ford Center for drug treatment that year.
Health problems
Wynette also had a number of serious physical ailments beginning in the 1970s, including operations on her gall bladder, kidney and on the nodules on her throat. In 1994, she suffered an abdominal infection that almost killed her. She was in a coma for six days. She developed a chronic inflammation of the bile ducts and was intermittently hospitalized, from 1970 until her death in 1998. [10] Overall, she had twenty six major surgeries during her lifetime. Although some of these problems were often very serious, Wynette was still able to pursue her singing career and regularly tour to promote her work.
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