I love that rendition of "One Day More" from the Les Miserables PBS special.
Georgio Tozzi's not bad either.
Wishing a Happy 78th to Clint Eastwood; 70th to Peter Yarrow (Peter, Paul and Mary); 59th to Tom Berenger and 43rd to Brooke Shields.
and a Good Day to all.
0 Replies
edgarblythe
1
Reply
Sat 31 May, 2008 08:17 am
Neat. Peter Paul and Mary get three birthdays per year. The music this morning s mostly really good. I shall return with something in a few minutes. Y'all don't go nowhere, hear?
I never cared for The Righteous Brothers' approach to Unchained Melody. Perhaps I was predjudiced by my listening to the Belafonte and Al Hibbler versions, made long before they did it. But, I do like these guys.
Wow, edgar. That was fabulous. I recognized John Wayne, Alan Ladd, Clint Eastwood and Roy Rogers, but I will have to go through that one again, Texas.
I recall my friend Bob, who was in WWII, telling me about Buck Rogers, so I went searching and found this. Didn't someone make a movie of him, folks? Perhaps Bruce Willis.
Walt Whitman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born May 31, 1819(1819-05-31)
West Hills, Town of Huntington, Long Island, New York
Died March 26, 1892 (aged 72)
Camden, New Jersey
Walter Whitman (May 31, 1819 - March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse.[1] His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality.
Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War in addition to publishing his poetry. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842). Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey where his health further declined. He died at age 72 and his funeral became a public spectacle.[2][3]
Whitman's sexuality is often discussed alongside his poetry. Though he is usually labeled as either homosexual or bisexual,[4] it is unclear if Whitman ever had a sexual relationship with another man.[5] Whitman was concerned with politics throughout his life. He supported the Wilmot Proviso and opposed the extension of slavery generally, but did not believe in the abolitionist movement.
Life and work
Early life
Walter Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, Town of Huntington, Long Island, to Quaker parents, Walter and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman. He was the second of nine children[6] and was immediately nicknamed "Walt" to distinguish him from his father.[7] Walter Whitman Sr. named three of his seven sons after American leaders: Andrew Jackson, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson. The oldest was named Jesse and another boy died unnamed at the age of six months. The couple's sixth son, the youngest, was named Edward.[7] At age four, Whitman moved with his family from West Hills to Brooklyn, living in a series of homes in part due to bad investments.[8] Whitman looked back on his childhood as generally restless and unhappy due to his family's difficult economic status.[9] One happy moment that he later recalled was when he was lifted in the air and kissed on the cheek by Marquis de Lafayette during a celebration in Brooklyn on July 4, 1825.[10]
At age eleven Whitman concluded formal schooling.[11] He then sought employment, due to his family's financial situation, originally as an office boy for two lawyers and later as an apprentice and printer's devil for the weekly Long Island newspaper the Patriot, edited by Samuel E. Clements.[12] There, Whitman learned about the printing press and typesetting.[13] He may have written "sentimental bits" of filler material for occasional issues.[14] Clements aroused controversy when he and two friends attempted to dig up the corpse of Elias Hicks to create a plaster mold of his head.[15] Clements left the Patriot shortly after, possibly as a result of the controversy.[16]
Early career
The following summer Whitman worked for another printer, Erastus Worthington, in Brooklyn.[17] His family moved back to West Hills in the spring, but Whitman remained and took a job at the shop of Alden Spooner, editor of the leading Whig weekly newspaper the Long-Island Star.[17] While at the Star, Whitman became a regular patron of the local library, joined a town debating society, began attending theater performances,[18] and anonymously published some of his earliest poetry in the New York Mirror.[19] At age 16 in May 1835, Whitman left the Star and Brooklyn.[20] He moved to New York City to work as a compositor[21] though, in later years, Whitman could not remember where.[22] He attempted to find further work but had difficulty in part due to a severe fire in the printing and publishing district[22] and in part due to a general collapse in the economy leading up to the Panic of 1837.[23] In May 1836, he rejoined his family, now living in Hempstead, Long Island.[24] Whitman taught intermittently at various schools until the spring of 1838, though he was not satisfied as a teacher.[25]
After his teaching attempts, Whitman went back to Huntington, New York to found his own newspaper, the Long-Islander. Whitman served as publisher, editor, pressman, and distributor and even provided home delivery. After ten months, he sold the publication to E. O. Crowell, whose first issue appeared on July 12, 1839.[26] No copies of the Long-Islander published under Whitman survive.[27] By the summer of 1839, he found a job as a typesetter in Jamaica, Queens with the Long Island Democrat, edited by James J. Brenton.[26] He left shortly thereafter, and made another attempt at teaching from the winter of 1840 to the spring of 1841, then moved to New York City in May.[28] There, he initially worked a low-level job at the New World, working under Park Benjamin, Sr. and Rufus Wilmot Griswold.[29] He continued working for short periods of time for various newspapers, particularly as editor of the Brooklyn Eagle for two years, as well as contributing freelance fiction and poetry throughout the 1840s.[30]
Leaves of Grass
Whitman claimed that after years of competing for "the usual rewards", he determined to become a poet.[31] He first experimented with a variety of popular literary genres which appealed to the cultural tastes of the period.[32] As early as 1850, he began writing what would become Leaves of Grass,[33] a collection of poetry which he would continue editing and revising until his death.[34] Whitman intended to write a distinctly American epic[35] and used free verse with a cadence based on the Bible.[36] At the end of June 1855, Whitman surprised his brothers with the already-printed first edition of Leaves of Grass. George "didn't think it worth reading".[37]
Whitman paid for the publication of the first edition of Leaves of Grass himself[37] and had it printed at a local print shop during their breaks from commercial jobs.[38] 795 copies were printed,[39] though the author's name was not given. Instead, facing the title page was an engraved portrait done by Samuel Hollyer.[40] The book received its strongest praise from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote a flattering five page letter to Whitman and spoke highly of the book to friends.[41] The first edition of Leaves of Grass was widely distributed and stirred up significant interest,[42] in part due to Emerson's approval,[43] but was occasionally criticized for the seemingly "obscene" nature of the poetry.[44] Geologist John Peter Lesley wrote to Emerson, calling the book "trashy, profane & obscene" and the author "a pretentious ass".[45] On July 11, 1855, a few days after Leaves of Grass was published, Whitman's father died at the age of 65.[46]
In the months following the first edition of Leaves of Grass, critical responses began focusing more on the potentially offensive sexual themes. Though the second edition was already printed and bound, the publisher almost did not release it.[47] In the end, the edition went to retail, with 20 additional poems,[48] in August 1856.[49] Leaves of Grass was revised and re-released in 1860[50] again in 1867, and several more times throughout the remainder of Whitman's life. Several well-known writers admired the work enough to visit Whitman, including Bronson Alcott and Henry David Thoreau.[51]
Amidst the first publications of Leaves of Grass, Whitman had financial difficulty and was forced to work as a journalist again, specifically with the Brooklyn's Daily Times starting in May 1857.[52] As an editor, he oversaw the paper's contents, contributed book reviews, and wrote editorials.[53] He left the job in 1859, though it is unclear if he was fired or chose to leave.[54] Whitman, who typically kept detailed notebooks and journals, left very little information about himself in the late 1850s.[55]
Civil War years
As the American Civil War was beginning, Whitman published his poem "Beat! Beat! Drums!" as a patriotic rally call for the North.[56] Whitman's brother George had joined the Union army and began sending Whitman several vividly detailed letters of the battle front.[57] On December 16, 1862, a listing of fallen and wounded soldiers in the New York Tribune included "First Lieutenant G. W. Whitmore", which Whitman worried was a reference to his brother George.[58] He made his way south immediately to find him, though his wallet was stolen on the way.[59] "Walking all day and night, unable to ride, trying to get information, trying to get access to big people", Whitman later wrote,[60] he eventually found George alive, with only a superficial wound on his cheek.[58] Whitman, profoundly affected by seeing the wounded soldiers and the heaps of their amputated limbs, left for Washington on December 28, 1862 with the intention of never returning to New York.[59]
In Washington, D.C., Whitman's friend Charley Eldridge helped him obtain part-time work in the army paymaster's office, leaving time for Whitman to volunteer as a nurse in the army hospitals.[61] He would write of this experience in "The Great Army of the Sick", published in a New York newspaper in 1863[62] and, 12 years later, in a book called Memoranda During the War.[63] He then contacted Emerson, this time to ask for help in obtaining a government post.[59] Another friend, John Trowbridge, passed on a letter of recommendation from Emerson to Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, hoping he would grant Whitman a position in that department. Chase, however, did not want to hire the author of a disreputable book, referring to Leaves of Grass.[64]
The Whitman family had a difficult end to 1864. On September 30, 1864, Whitman's brother George was captured by Confederates in Virginia,[65] another brother, Andrew Jackson, died of tuberculosis compounded by alcoholism on December 3.[66] That month, Whitman committed his brother Jesse to the Kings County Lunatic Asylum.[67] Whitman's spirits were raised, however, when he finally got a better-paying government post - a low grade clerk in the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior - thanks to his friend William Douglas O'Connor. O'Connor, a poet, daguerreotypist and an editor at the Saturday Evening Post, had written to William Tod Otto, Assistant Secretary of the Interior, on Whitman's behalf.[68] Whitman began the new appointment on January 24, 1865, with a yearly salary of $1,200.[69] A month later, on February 24, 1865, George was released from capture and granted a furlough because of his poor health.[68] By May 1, Whitman received a promotion to a slightly higher clerkship[69] and published Drum-Taps.[70]
Effective June 30, 1865, however, Whitman was fired from his job.[70] His dismissal came from the new Secretary of the Interior, former Iowa Senator James Harlan.[69] Though Harlan dismissed several clerks who "were seldom at their respective desks", he may have fired Whitman on moral grounds after finding an 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass.[71] O'Connor protested until J. Hubley Ashton had Whitman transferred to the Attorney General's office on July 1.[72] O'Connor, though, was still upset and vindicated Whitman by publishing a biased and exaggerated biographical study, The Good Gray Poet, in January 1866. The fifty-cent pamphlet defended Whitman as a wholesome patriot, established the poet's nickname and increased his popularity.[73] Also aiding in his popularity was the publication of "O Captain! My Captain!", a relatively conventional poem to Abraham Lincoln, the only poem to be anthologized during Whitman's lifetime.[74]
Part of Whitman's role in the Attorney General's office was interviewing former Confederate soldiers for Presidential pardons. "There are real characters among them", he later wrote, "and you know I have a fancy for anything out of the ordinary."[75] In August 1866, he took a month off in order to prepare a new edition of Leaves of Grass which would not be published until 1867 after difficulty in finding a publisher.[76] He hoped it would be its last edition.[77] In February 1868 Poems of Walt Whitman was published in England thanks to the influence of William Michael Rossetti,[78] with minor changes which Whitman reluctantly approved.[79] The edition became popular in England, especially with endorsements from the highly respected Anne Gilchrist.[80] Another edition of Leaves of Grass was issued in 1871, the same year it was mistakenly reported that its author died in a railroad accident.[81] As Whitman's international fame increased, he remained working in the attorney general's office until January 1872.[82] He spent much of 1872 caring for his mother who was now nearly eighty and struggling with arthritis.[83] He also traveled and was invited to Dartmouth College to give the commencement address on June 26, 1872.[84]
Health decline and death
Early in 1873, Whitman suffered a paralytic stroke; his mother died in May the same year. Both events were difficult for Whitman and left him depressed.[85] He moved to Camden, New Jersey to live with his brother George, paying room and board until he bought his own house on Mickle St. in 1884.[86] Around this time, he began socializing with Mary Oakes Davis, the widow of a sea captain, who lived nearby.[87] She moved in with Whitman on February 24, 1885 to serve as his housekeeper in exchange for free rent. She brought with her a cat, a dog, two turtledoves, a canary, and other assorted animals.[88] During this time, Whitman produced further editions of Leaves of Grass in 1876, 1881, and 1889.
As the end of 1891 approached, he prepared a final edition of Leaves of Grass, an edition which has been nicknamed the "Deathbed Edition". He wrote, "L. of G. at last complete?-after 33 y'rs of hackling at it, all times & moods of my life, fair weather & foul, all parts of the land, and peace & war, young & old".[89] Preparing for death, Whitman commissioned a granite mausoleum shaped like a house for $4,000[90] and visited it often during construction.[91] In the last week of his life, he was too weak to lift a knife or fork and wrote: "I suffer all the time: I have no relief, no escape: it is monotony ?- monotony ?- monotony ?- in pain."[92]
Whitman died on March 26, 1892.[93] An autopsy revealed his lungs had diminished to one-eighth their normal breathing capacity, a result of bronchial pneumonia,[90] and that an egg-sized abscess on his chest had eroded one of his ribs. The cause of death was officially listed as "pleurisy of the left side, consumption of the right lung, general miliary tuberculosis and parenchymatous nephritis."[94] A public viewing of his body was held at his Camden home; over one thousand people visited in three hours[2] and Whitman's oak coffin was barely visible because of all the flowers and wreaths left for him.[95] He was buried in his tomb at Harleigh Cemetery in Camden four days after his death.[2] Another public ceremony was held at the cemetery, with friends giving speeches, live music, and refreshments.[3] Later, the remains of Whitman's parents and two of his brothers and their families were moved to the mausoleum.[96]
Lifestyle and beliefs
Alcohol
Whitman was a vocal proponent of temperance and rarely drank alcohol. He once claimed he did not taste "strong liquor" until he was thirty[97] and occasionally argued for prohibition.[98] One of his earliest long fiction works, the novel Franklin Evans; or, The Inebriate, first published November 23, 1842, is a temperance novel.[99] Whitman wrote the novel at the height of popularity of the Washingtonian movement though the movement itself was plagued with contradictions, as was Franklin Evans.[100] Years later Whitman claimed he was embarrassed by the book[101] and called it a "damned rot".[102] He dismissed it by saying he wrote the novel in three days solely for money while he was under the influence of alcohol himself.[103] Even so, he wrote other pieces recommending temperance, including The Madman and a short story "Reuben's Last Wish".[104]
Poetic theory
Whitman wrote in the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, "The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it." He believed there was a vital, symbiotic relationship between the poet and society.[105] This connection was emphasized especially in "Song of Myself" by using an all-powerful first-person narration.[106] As an American epic, it deviated from the historic use of an elevated hero and instead assumed the identity of the common people.[107] Leaves of Grass also responded to the impact that recent urbanization in the United States had on the masses.[108]
Religion
Whitman was deeply influenced by deism. He denied any one faith was more important than another, and embraced all religions equally.[109] In "Song of Myself", he gave an inventory of major religions and indicated he respected and accepted all of them - a sentiment he further emphasized in his poem "With Antecedents", affirming: "I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god, / I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without exception".[109] In 1874, he was invited to write a poem about the Spiritualism movement, to which he responded, "It seems to me nearly altogether a poor, cheap, crude humbug."[110] Whitman was a religious skeptic: though he accepted all churches, he believed in none.[109]
Sexuality
Whitman and Peter Doyle, one of the men with whom Whitman was believed to have had an intimate relationshipWhitman's sexuality is sometimes disputed, although often assumed to be bisexual based on his poetry.[4] The concept of heterosexual and homosexual personalities was invented in 1868, and it was not widely promoted until Whitman was an old man. Whitman's poetry depicts love and sexuality in a more earthy, individualistic way common in American culture before the medicalization of sexuality in the late 1800s.[111] Though Leaves of Grass was often labeled pornographic or obscene, only one critic remarked on its author's presumed sexual activity: in a November 1855 review, Rufus Wilmot Griswold suggested Whitman was guilty of "that horrible sin not to be mentioned among Christians".[112] Whitman had intense friendships with many men throughout his life. Some biographers have claimed that he may not have actually engaged in sexual relationships with men,[5] while others cite letters, journal entries and other sources which they claim as proof of the sexual nature of some of his relationships. [113]
Biographer David S. Reynolds described a man named Peter Doyle as being the most likely candidate for the love of Whitman's life.[114] Doyle was a bus conductor whom he met around 1866. They were inseparable for several years. Interviewed in 1895, Doyle said: "We were familiar at once ?- I put my hand on his knee ?- we understood. He did not get out at the end of the trip ?- in fact went all the way back with me."[115] A more direct second-hand account comes from Oscar Wilde. Wilde met Whitman in America in 1882, and wrote to the homosexual rights activist George Cecil Ives that there was "no doubt" about the great American poet's sexual orientation ?- "I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips," he boasted.[116] The only explicit description of Whitman's sexual activities is second hand. In 1924 Edward Carpenter, then an old man, described an erotic encounter he had had in his youth with Whitman to Gavin Arthur, who recorded it in detail in his journal.[117] Late in his life, when Whitman was asked outright if his series of "Calamus" poems were homosexual, he chose not to respond.[118]
There is also some evidence that Whitman may have had sexual relationships with women. He had a romantic friendship with a New York actress named Ellen Grey in the spring of 1862, but it is not known whether or not it was also sexual. He still had a photo of her decades later when he moved to Camden and referred to her as "an old sweetheart of mine".[119] In a letter dated August 21, 1890 he claimed, "I have had six children - two are dead". This claim has never been corroborated.[120] Toward the end of his life, he often told stories of previous girlfriends and sweethearts and denied an allegation from the New York Herald that he had "never had a love affair".[121]
Shakespeare authorship
Whitman was a proponent of the Shakespeare authorship question, refusing to believe in the historic attribution of the works to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon. Whitman comments in his November Boughs (1888) regarding Shakespeare's historical plays:
"Conceiv'd out of the fullest heat and pulse of European feudalism -personifying ill unparalleled ways the medieval aristocracy, its towering spirit of ruthless and gigantic caste, with its own peculiar air and arrogance (no mere imitation) -only one of the "wolfish earls" so plenteous in the plays themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem to be the true author of those amazing works -works in some respects greater than anything else in recorded literature."[122]
Slavery
Whitman opposed the extension of slavery in the United States and supported the Wilmot Proviso.[123] However, he was not an abolitionist and believed the movement did more harm than good. He once wrote that the abolitionists had, in fact, slowed the advancement of their cause by their "ultraism and officiousness".[124] His main concern was that their methods disrupted the democratic process, as did the refusal of the Southern states to put the interests of the nation as a whole above their own.[123] Whitman also subscribed to the widespread opinion that even free African-Americans should not vote[125] and was concerned at the increasing number of African-Americans in the legislature.[126]
Legacy and influence
Walt Whitman has been claimed as America's first "poet of democracy", a title meant to reflect his ability to write in a singularly American character. A British friend of Walt Whitman, Mary Smith Whitall Costelloe, wrote: "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him."[127] Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet... He is America."[128] Andrew Carnegie called him "the great poet of America so far".[129] Edward Hopper, who knew Whitman's poetry well, was, like the poet, "a brilliant impresario of the archetype." Hopper's pictures of naked women by their windows were (says the critic, Walter Wells) most likely influenced by Whitman, most notably the poet's controversial "A Woman Waits for Me." [130]
The literary critic, Harold Bloom wrote, as the introduction for the 150th anniversary of Leaves of Grass that, "If you are American, then Walt Whitman is your imaginative father and mother, even if, like myself, you have never composed a line of verse. You can nominate a fair number of literary works as candidates for the secular Scripture of the United States. They might include Melville's Moby-Dick, Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Emerson's two series of Essays and The Conduct of Life. None of those, not even Emerson's, are as central as the first edition of Leaves of Grass."[131]
Whitman considered himself a messiah-like figure in poetry.[132] Others agreed: one of his admirers, William Sloane Kennedy, speculated that "people will be celebrating the birth of Walt Whitman as they are now the birth of Christ".[133] Whitman's work breaks the boundaries of poetic form and is generally prose-like.[1] He also used unusual images and symbols in his poetry, including rotting leaves, tufts of straw, and debris.[134] He also openly wrote about death and sexuality, including prostitution.[135] He is often labeled as the father of free verse, though he did not invent it.[1]
Whitman's vagabond lifestyle was adopted by the Beat movement and its leaders such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac in the 1950s and 1960s as well as anti-war poets like Adrienne Rich and Gary Snyder.[136] Whitman also influenced Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, and was the model for the character of Dracula. Stoker said in his notes that Dracula represented the quintessential male which, to Stoker, was Whitman, with whom he corresponded until Whitman's death.[137]
0 Replies
bobsmythhawk
1
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Sat 31 May, 2008 01:50 pm
Don Ameche
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Dominic Felix Amici [1]
May 31, 1908(1908-05-31)
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Died December 6, 1993 (aged 85)
Scottsdale, Arizona
Spouse(s) Honore Prendergast
1932-1986)
Awards won
Academy Awards
Best Supporting Actor
1985 Cocoon
Dominic Felix Ameche (May 31, 1908 - December 6, 1993) was an Academy Award-winning American actor and director.
Family
Ameche was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin to Felix Ameche, an immigrant from Italy whose original surname was "Amici", and Barbara, who was of Irish and German descent. He had two brothers, Burt and Jim, and two sisters, Anne and Mary Jane.[2]
Vaudeville and films
Ameche began his career in vaudeville with Texas Guinan until Guinan dropped him from the act, dismissing him as "too stiff".[3] He made his film debut in 1935 and by the late 1930s, he had established himself as a leading actor in Hollywood. He appeared in such films as Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), as the title character in The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939), It led to the use of the word "ameche" as slang for telephone in common catchphrases, as noted by Mike Kilen in the Iowa City Gazette (December 8, 1993): "The film prompted a generation to call people to the telephone with the phrase: 'You're wanted on the Ameche.'"[4] Another highlight was co-starring with Gene Tierney in Ernest Lubitch's Heaven Can Wait which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Radio and television
Ameche was a major radio star, heard on such shows as Empire Builders, The First Nighter Program, Family Theater and the Betty and Bob soap opera. Following his appearances as announcer and sketch participant on The Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy Show, he achieved memorable success during the late 1940s playing opposite Frances Langford in The Bickersons, the Philip Rapp radio comedy series about a combative married couple. It began on NBC in 1946, moving to CBS the following year.
Ameche also enjoyed a substantial Broadway career, with roles in Silk Stockings, Goldilocks, Holiday for Lovers, Henry, Sweet Henry and Our Town.
Between 1961 and 1965, Ameche sat in the grandstand of a different European resident circus each week to serve as host/commentator on International Showtime on NBC television. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ameche directed the NBC television drama series Julia, starring Diahann Carroll.
Jack Haley (left), Alice Faye (center), Don Ameche and Tyrone Power (right) in a trailer for the 1938 film Alexander's Ragtime BandAfter the release of two 1970 comedies, The Boatniks and Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came?, Ameche was absent from theatrical films for the next 13 years. His only appearance in cinema during that time was in F For Fake, Orson Welles' documentary on hoaxes, when 20th Century-Fox mistakenly sent Welles newsreel footage of Ameche misidentified as footage of Howard Hughes.
Ameche and fellow veteran actor Ralph Bellamy were eventually cast in John Landis' Trading Places in 1983, playing rich brothers intent on ruining an innocent man for the sake of a one-dollar bet. In an interview some years later on Larry King Live, co-star Jamie Lee Curtis said that Ameche, a proper old-school actor, went to everyone on the set ahead of time to apologize when he was called to say the "f-word" in the film. The film's success and their comedic performances brought them both back into the Hollywood limelight. Ameche's next role, in Cocoon (1985), won him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He continued working for the rest of his life, including in the sequel, Cocoon: The Return. His last films were Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993) and Corrina, Corrina (1994), completed only days before his death.
For his contribution to radio, Ameche received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6313 Hollywood Boulevard and a second star at 6101 Hollywood Boulevard for his television work.
Personal life
Ameche was married to Honore Prendergast from 1932 until her death in 1986. They had six children. One, Ron Ameche, owned the restaurant "Ameche's Pumpernickel" in Coralville, Iowa. Ameche's younger brother Jim Ameche, was also an actor in radio and films.
Ameche died on December 6, 1993, of prostate cancer. He was buried at Resurrection Catholic Cemetery, also known as St. Philomena's Cemetery, in Asbury, Iowa.
0 Replies
bobsmythhawk
1
Reply
Sat 31 May, 2008 01:57 pm
Clint Eastwood
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Clinton Eastwood, Jr.
May 31, 1930 (1930-05-31) (age 78)
San Francisco, California
Years active 1955 - present
Spouse(s) Maggie Johnson (1953-1978)
Dina Ruiz (1996-)
Awards won
Academy Awards
Best Director
1992 Unforgiven
2004 Million Dollar Baby
Best Picture
1992 Unforgiven
2004 Million Dollar Baby
Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award
1995 Lifetime Achievement
BAFTA Awards
Britannia Award
2006 Lifetime Archievement
César Awards
Honorary César
1998 Lifetime Achievement
Best Foreign Film
2004 Mystic River
2006 Million Dollar Baby
Golden Globe Awards
Cecil B. DeMille Award
1988 Lifetime Achievement
Best Director - Motion Picture
1989 Bird
1993 Unforgiven
2005 Million Dollar Baby
Best Foreign Language Film
2007 Letters from Iwo Jima
Henrietta Award
1971 World Film Favorite - Male
Screen Actors Guild Awards
Life Archievement Award
2003 Lifetime Archievement
Other Awards
AFI Life Achievement Award
1996 Lifetime Achievement
NYFCC Award for Best Director
2004 Million Dollar Baby
Special American Movie Award Marquee
1980 Lifetime Archievement
Art Directors Guild Contribution to Cinematic Imagery Award
2001 Lifetime Archievement
Blue Ribbon Award for Best Foreign Language Film
1996 The Bridges of Madison County
2005 Mystic River
2006 Million Dollar Baby
Bodil Award for Best American Film
2008 Letters from Iwo Jima
Critics' Choice Lifetime Archievement Award
2004 Lifetime Archievement
Golden Coach (Cannes Film Festival)
2003 Mystic River
CFCA Award for Best Director
2004 Million Dollar Baby
David di Donatello for Best Foreign Film
2004 Million Dollar Baby
Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Achievement in Feature Film
1993 Unforgiven
2004 Million Dollar Baby
Directors Guild of America Lifetime Archievement Award
2006 Lifetime Archievement
FCCA Award for Best Foreign Language Film
2005 Million Dollar Baby
Film Society of Lincoln Center Gala Tribute
1996 Lifetime Archievement
Golden Boot Award
1993 Lifetime Archievement
Hasty Pudding Theatricals Man of the Year
1991 Lifetime Archievement
Clinton Eastwood, Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American film director, film actor, producer, and composer. He has won the Academy Award five times - twice each as Best Director and as producer of the Best Picture and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1995.
While his work as a director, on recent films like Letters from Iwo Jima and Million Dollar Baby, and also earlier films like High Plains Drifter and The Outlaw Josey Wales, have received a high degree of critical acclaim, Eastwood is best known for his tough guy, anti-hero acting roles in western films, particularly in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s. These include the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's "Dollars trilogy" of Spaghetti Westerns, and as Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry movies, both of which have become film icons.
Early life
Eastwood was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Margaret Ruth (née Runner), a factory worker, and Clinton Eastwood, Sr., a steelworker and migratory worker.[1][2] Eastwood has Scottish, English, Dutch and Irish ancestry.[3] He was raised in a "middle class Protestant home"[4] and moved often as a child as his father worked a variety of jobs along the West Coast.[5] The family settled in Piedmont, California during his teens, and he graduated from Oakland Technical High School in 1949. After high school Eastwood worked as a gas station attendant, a firefighter, and played ragtime piano at a bar in Oakland.[6] He was drafted in 1950 but his plane crashed in the Pacific north of San Francisco. He escaped serious injury, but had to remain behind to testify at a hearing investigating the cause of the crash. This prevented him from being shipped to Korea like some of his unit.[7] During his Army days Clint became friends with fellow soldiers Martin Milner and David Janssen.
Film career
Eastwood began work as an actor, making brief appearances in B-films such as Revenge of the Creature, Tarantula and Francis in the Navy. In 1958, he got his first starring role in a feature film, Ambush at Cimarron Pass, which he has dismissed as "probably the lousiest Western ever made."[citation needed] In 1959, he fistfought James Garner in the "Duel at Sundown" episode of Maverick. Eastwood then got a huge break when he was cast as the second lead in the long-running television series, Rawhide. As Rowdy Yates (whom Eastwood described as "the idiot of the plains" in private[8]), he became a household name across the country.
1960s
Eastwood as the Man With No Name in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)." I like Clint Eastwood because he has only two facial expressions: one with the hat, and one without it
(Sergio Leone)[9] "
The tall ( 195 cm ) Eastwood found lead roles as the mysterious Man With No Name in Sergio Leone's loose trilogy of westerns: A Fistful of Dollars / Per un pugno di dollari (1964), For a Few Dollars More / Per qualche dollaro in più (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly / Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966). Although the first of these was evidently a tribute to Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, Leone used his innovative style to depict a wilder, more lawless and desolate world than traditional westerns. All three films were hits, particularly the third, and Eastwood became a star, redefining the traditional image of the American cowboy, though his character was actually a gunslinger and bounty hunter rather than a traditional hero.
Stardom brought more roles in the "tough guy" mold. In 1968's Where Eagles Dare, he had second billing to Richard Burton, but was paid $800,000. In the same year, he starred in Don Siegel's Coogan's Bluff, in which he played a lonely deputy sheriff who came to the big city of New York to enforce the law in his own way. The film was controversial for its straightforward portrayal of violence, but it launched a more than ten-year collaboration between Eastwood and Siegel, and set the prototype for the macho cop hero that Eastwood would play in the Dirty Harry films.
In 1969, Eastwood began to branch out. Paint Your Wagon was a musical starring Eastwood and top-billing fellow non-singer Lee Marvin.
1970s
In 1970, Eastwood appeared in the war movie, Kelly's Heroes, and in the Siegel-directed western, Two Mules for Sister Sara, co-starring Shirley MacLaine. Both movies combined tough-guy action with offbeat humor. In The Beguiled, another movie directed by Siegel, Eastwood played a cad - as close to an outright villain as he has played.
1971 proved to be a professional turning point in Eastwood's career. His own production company, Malpaso, gave Eastwood the artistic control that he desired, allowing him to direct and star in the thriller, Play Misty for Me. But it was his portrayal of the hard-edged police inspector Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry that propelled Siegel's most successful movie at the box-office. Dirty Harry is arguably Eastwood's most memorable character. The film has been credited with inventing the "loose-cannon cop genre" that is imitated to this day. Eastwood's tough, no-nonsense cop touched a cultural nerve with many who were fed up with crime in the streets. Dirty Harry led to four sequels: Magnum Force (1973), The Enforcer (1976), Sudden Impact (1983), and The Dead Pool (1988).
Eastwood directed two allegorical westerns during the 1970s: High Plains Drifter (1973) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976).
Breezy (1973) was the first film directed by Eastwood in which he did not also appear. It starred William Holden.
In 1974, Eastwood teamed with a young Jeff Bridges in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. The movie was written and directed by Michael Cimino, who had previously written the Dirty Harry sequel Magnum Force.
In 1975, Eastwood brought another talent to the screen: rock climbing. In The Eiger Sanction, which he directed and in which he starred, Eastwood ?- a 5.9 climber ?- performed his own rock climbing stunts.[citation needed] This film has become a cult classic among rock-climbers.[citation needed] This film was done before the advent of CGI, so no digital manipulation was used in the film.[citation needed]
In 1977, Eastwood starred in The Gauntlet, in which he played a down and out cop assigned to escort a prostitute from Las Vegas to Phoenix to testify against the mob. This would be the first of 5 movies to co-star his then girlfriend, Sondra Locke. ( She did have a small role in the 1976 The Outlaw Josey Wales.)
In 1978, he starred in Every Which Way But Loose in an uncharacteristic and offbeat comedy role. Eastwood played Philo Beddoe, a trucker and brawler who roamed the American West, searching for a lost love, while accompanying his best friend/manager Orville and his pet orangutan, Clyde. Arguably, Clyde stole the show. Panned by critics, the movie was a box office success, and it spawned the 1980 sequel, Any Which Way You Can. Between these two flicks, he played the main attraction in a traveling circus show in Bronco Billy, which sparked collaboration between country music star Merle Haggard and Eastwood on the song "Bar Room Buddies." The song became a hit on country music stations. (Haggard also appeared in the movie).
In 1979, Eastwood played yet another memorable role as the prison escapee Frank Morris in the fact-based movie Escape from Alcatraz, which was also his last collaboration with Don Siegel. Morris was an escape artist who was sent to Alcatraz in 1960, which was, at the time, one of the toughest prisons in America. Morris devised a meticulous plan to escape from "The Rock" and, in 1962, he and two other prisoners broke out of the prison and entered San Francisco Bay. They were never seen again, and although the FBI believes that the escapees drowned, to this day their actual fate is unknown.
1980s
In 1982 Eastwood directed, produced, and starred in Firefox which thrived off the USSR Vs USA Cold War. The fourth Dirty Harry film Sudden Impact (1983) made Eastwood a viable star for the 1980s.[citation needed] President Ronald Reagan referenced his famous "Go ahead, make my day." line in one of his speeches. In Tightrope (1984) Eastwood starred as Capt. Wes Block set in New Orleans.
Eastwood revisited the western genre directing and starring in Pale Rider (1985), a homage to the western film classic Shane, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. His fifth and final Dirty Harry film, The Dead Pool (1988), was a success overall, but it lacked the box office punch his previous films had achieved. Eastwood alternated between more mainstream comedic films (if not particularly successful), such as Pink Cadillac and The Rookie (1990), and more personal projects, such as directing Bird (1988), a biopic of Charlie "Bird" Parker which gave him the nomination for the Golden Palm in the Cannes Film Festival. He also directed and starred, as an ersatz John Huston, in White Hunter, Black Heart (1990), an uneven adaptation of Peter Viertel's roman à clef about the making of the classic The African Queen. The film received some critical acclaim, although Katharine Hepburn contested the veracity of much of the material.
1990s
Eastwood rose to prominence yet again in the early 1990s. He revisited the western genre one final time in the self-directed 1992 film, Unforgiven, taking on the role of an aging ex-gunfighter long past his prime. The film, also starring such esteemed actors as Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, and Richard Harris, laid the groundwork for such later westerns as Deadwood by re-envisioning established genre conventions in a more ambiguous and unromantic light. A great success both in terms of box office and critical acclaim, it was nominated for nine Oscars, including Best Actor for Eastwood and Best Original Screenplay for David Webb Peoples. It won four, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood.
The following year, Eastwood played a guilt-ridden Secret Service agent in the thriller In the Line of Fire (1993) directed by Wolfgang Petersen. This film was a blockbuster and among the top 10 box-office performers in that year. Eastwood directed and starred with Kevin Costner in A Perfect World the same year. He continued to expand his repertoire by playing opposite Meryl Streep in the love story The Bridges of Madison County (1995). Based on a best-selling novel, it was also a hit at the box-office. Afterward, Eastwood turned to more directing work ?- much of it well received ?- including Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997). He directed and starred in Absolute Power (1997), a political thriller co-starring Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, and Dennis Haysbert.
2000s
In 2002, Eastwood played an ex-FBI agent on the track of a sadistic killer in Blood Work, which was derived from a book by Michael Connelly. In 2003 he directed Mystic River for which he garnered a Best Director nomination. In Space Cowboys, which also starred Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, James Garner, and James Cromwell, he plays Frank Corvin, a retired NASA engineer called upon to save a dying Russian Mir satellite. He found critical acclaim with Million Dollar Baby in 2004, winning 4 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and Eastwood was nominated for Best Actor (the award went to Jamie Foxx). In 2006, he directed two movies about the battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. The first one, Flags of Our Fathers, focused on the men who raised the American Flag on top of Mount Suribachi. The second one, Letters from Iwo Jima, dealt with the tactics of the Japanese soldiers on the island and the letters they wrote to family members. Both films were highly praised by critics and garnered several Oscar Nominations, including Best Director and Picture for Letters from Iwo Jima. Eastwood will return to the screen for his film Gran Torino in which he will play the lead role of Walt Kowalski, who tries to change the ways of his teenager neighbor after noticing he tried to steal his prize winning 1972 Gran Torino. The film has been scheduled for a December 2008 release.
Eastwood has his own Warner Bros. Records-distributed imprint, Malpaso Records, as part of his deal with Warner Bros. This deal was unchanged when Warner Music Group was sold by Time Warner to private investors. Malpaso has released all of the scores of Eastwood's films from The Bridges of Madison County onward. It also released the album of a 1996 jazz concert he hosted, titled Eastwood after Hours ?- Live at Carnegie Hall.
Directing
Eastwood has redefined himself as a director and has generally received greater critical acclaim for his directing than he ever did for his acting. His directorial debut occurred with Play Misty For Me in 1971. He had tried for some time to direct an episode of Rawhide, even being promised at one point the possibility of doing so. However, because of differences between the president of the studio and show producers, Eastwood's opportunity fell through.[citation needed] Eastwood has become known for directing high-quality but bleak dramas such as Unforgiven, A Perfect World, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers, and Letters from Iwo Jima. However, he has chosen a wide variety of films to direct, some clearly commercial, others highly personal. Articles about Eastwood often neglect to mention that he has directed 27 films (as of 2006). Many actors direct occasionally, but Eastwood has established himself as a director of quality. (See Awards.)
Eastwood produces many of his movies, and is well known in the industry for his efficient, low-cost approach to making films. Over the years, he has developed relationships with many other filmmakers, working over and over with the same crew, production designers, cinematographers, editors and other technical people. Similarly, he has a long-term relationship with the Warner Bros. studio, which finances and releases most of his films. However, in a 2004 interview appearing in The New York Times, Eastwood noted that he still sometimes has difficulty convincing the studio to back his films. In more recent years, Eastwood also has begun composing music for some of his films.[citation needed]
Awards and nominations
Eastwood has had a total of eight nominations for the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture, winning in both categories for Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby. His other nominations were for Mystic River and Letters from Iwo Jima. He was also unsuccessfully nominated twice for Best Actor (Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby). He is one of two people to have been twice nominated for Best Actor and Best Director for the same film (Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby) the other being Warren Beatty (Heaven Can Wait and Reds).
He is one of only three living directors (along with Milo Forman and Francis Ford Coppola) to have directed two Best Picture winners. At age 74, he was the oldest director to achieve this distinction. He directed two actors, Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, in Academy Award winning roles as Best Supporting Actor in consecutive years. Robbins won in 2003 for Mystic River while Freeman won in 2004 for his role in Million Dollar Baby. He also directed Sean Penn in his Academy Award winning role as Best Actor in Mystic River, as well as Hilary Swank in her second win for Best Actress in Million Dollar Baby and Gene Hackman in Unforgiven.
Eastwood has received numerous other awards, including an America Now TV Award as well as one of the 2000 Kennedy Center Honors. He received an honorary degree from University of the Pacific in 2006, and an honorary degree from University of Southern California in 2007. In 1995 he received the honorary Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for lifetime achievement in film producing.[10] In 2006, he received a nomination for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Score Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media for Million Dollar Baby. In 2007, Eastwood was the first recipient of the Jack Valenti Humanitarian Award, an annual award presented by the MPAA to individuals in the motion picture industry whose work has reached out positively and respectfully to the world. He received the award for his work on the 2006 films Flags of Our Fathers and the Academy Award-Winning Letters from Iwo Jima.[11]
On December 6, 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Clint Eastwood into the California Hall of Fame located at The California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts.
In early 2007, Eastwood was presented with the highest civilian distinction in France, Légion d'honneur, at a ceremony in Paris. French President Jacques Chirac told Eastwood that he embodied "the best of Hollywood".[12]
On September 22, 2007, Clint Eastwood was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree from the Berklee College of Music at the Monterey Jazz Festival, on which he serves as an active board member. Upon receiving the award he gave a speech, claiming, "It's one of the great honors I'll cherish in this lifetime." [13] He was also honored with the "Cinema for Peace Award 2007 for Most Valuable Movie of the Year" for "Flags of our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima".
Current projects
Eastwood completed in December 2007 directing Universal Pictures' Changeling, a period thriller from noted writer J. Michael Straczynski and producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. Angelina Jolie is starring in the film, with a fall 2008 release date.[14]
He is rumored to be directing the Nelson Mandela bio-pic The Human Factor, with Morgan Freeman playing Mandela.[citation needed] No confirmation has been released to date. Eastwood and Warner Bros. have purchased the movie rights to James Hansen's First Man, the authorized biography of astronaut Neil Armstrong. No production date has been announced. Eastwood recently announced that he has all but retired from acting, although maintains that "if a good western script turns up, you never know..."[citation needed]
Clint Eastwood has been announced as director and star of the upcoming Warner Brothers film, "Gran Torino".[15]
In early 2007, Eastwood announced that he will produce a Bruce Ricker documentary about jazz legend Dave Brubeck. The film is tentatively titled Dave Brubeck - In His Own Sweet Way. It will trace the development of Brubeck's latest composition, the Cannery Row Suite. This work was commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival and premiered at the 2006 festival. Eastwood's film crews captured early rehearsals, sound checks and the final performance. Ricker and Eastwood are currently working on a documentary about Tony Bennett, as well, titled The Music Never Ends.[16]
Political life
Take Pride in America Spokesman Eastwood in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California on May 24, 2005Eastwood made one successful foray into elected politics, becoming the Mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California (usually abbreviated to Carmel; population 4,000), a wealthy small town and artist community on the Monterey Peninsula, for one term. Frustrated with what he perceived to be the bureaucracy in Carmel's politics, he ran a last-minute, small-scale campaign emphasizing better relations between the business and residential communities. On election day, April 8, 1986, with double the usual voter turnout, Eastwood obtained 72.5% of the vote and was elected to a position that paid $200 per month. During his tenure, he tried to weigh the rights of preservationists against development of the town for local business. Eastwood decided not to run for a second term owing to the number of trivial decisions required of the mayor in such a small town. During his tenure, he completed Heartbreak Ridge and Bird.[17]
Although Eastwood has been registered as a Republican since 1951 and supported Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign, he describes himself as a libertarian. He says his philosophy is "Everyone leaves everyone else alone".[18] He voted for Arnold Schwarzenegger as Governor of California in the 2003 recall election, and again in 2006.
In 2001 he was appointed to the California State Park and Recreation Commission, by Gray Davis.[19] He was reappointed in 2004 by Schwarzenegger.[20]
Eastwood, the vice chairman of the commission, and commission chairman, Bobby Shriver, Schwarzenegger's brother-in-law, led a California State Park and Recreation Commission panel in its unanimous opposition in 2005 to a six-lane, 16-mile, toll road that would cut through San Onofre State Beach, north of San Diego, and one of Southern California's most cherished surfing beaches. Eastwood and Shriver also supported a 2006 lawsuit to block the toll road and urged the California Coastal Commission to reject the project, which it did in February of 2008.[21]
In March of 2008 Eastwood and Shriver, whose terms had expired, were not reappointed.[21] The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) ask for a legislative investigation into the decision to not re-appoint Eastwood and Shriver, citing their opposition to the toll road extension.[22] According to the NRDC and The New Republic, Eastwood and Shriver were not reappointed again in 2008 because both Eastwood and Shriver opposed the freeway extension of California State Route 241, that would cut through the San Onofre State Beach.[23][24] An extension that Governor Schwarzenegger supports.[23][24] Governor Schwarzenegger press release appointing Alice Huffman and Lindy DeKoven to replace Eastwood and Shriver makes no mention of a reason for the commission change.[25][26]
Governor Schwarzenegger appointed Eastwood (along with actor and director Danny DeVito, actor and director Bill Duke, producer Tom Werner and producer and director Lili Zanuck) to the California Film Commission in April of 2004.[27]
Personal life
Eastwood, who has been married twice, has five daughters and two sons by five different women: Kimber (born 1964), with Roxanne Tunis; Kyle (born in 1968) and Alison (born on May 22, 1972), with ex-wife Maggie Johnson; Scott (born March 21, 1986) and Kathryn (born February 2, 1988), with airline hostess Jacelyn Reeves; Francesca Ruth (born August 7, 1993), with Frances Fisher, his co-star in Unforgiven; and Morgan (born December 12, 1996), with current wife Dina Ruiz. He lived with actress Sondra Locke from 1976 to 1988. The relationship produced no children.
Eastwood remains a popular sex symbol. He once said, "I like to joke that since my children weren't giving me any grandchildren, I had two of my own. It's a terrific feeling being a dad again at my age. I am very fortunate. I realise how unfair a thing it is that men can have children at a much older age than women."[28]He now has two grandchildren, Clinton (born 1984) and Graylen (born 1994) of Kimber and Kyle, respectively.
Eastwood owns the exclusive Tehàma Golf Club, located in Carmel within Monterey County. The invitation-only club reportedly has around 300 members and a joining price of $500,000. He is a co-owner of the world famous Pebble Beach Golf Club[29]. Eastwood is also the owner of the Mission Ranch Hotel and Restaurant, located in Carmel. He is an experienced pilot and sometimes flies his own helicopter to the studio to avoid traffic.
Eastwood is an audiophile, known for his love of jazz. He owns an extensive collection of LPs which he plays on a Rockport turntable. His interest in music was passed on to his son Kyle, now a jazz musician. Eastwood co-wrote "Why should I care" with Linda Thompson and Carole Bayer Sager which was recorded by Diana Krall.[30] A physical fitness fanatic, he has never smoked, except in some of his movies.[citation needed] He is a longtime animal rights activist and maintains a vegan diet "heavy on fruit, vegetables, tofu, and other soy products."[31] People who have had an opportunity to meet or deal with Eastwood generally say that he is a genuinely nice person, usually reserved and quiet. He loves to golf and donates his time every year to charitable causes at major tournaments.
Eastwood in popular culture
Clint Eastwood is the name used by Marty McFly in Back to the Future Part III (1990), which parodies a western, though the other characters do not find it intimidating. Their reactions range from quizzical to insulting ("What kind of a stupid name is that?"). Marty also used a piece of metal as a bulletproof vest in a duel with Buford Tannen (as foreshadowed in Part II when Biff is watching A Fistful of Dollars in his hot tub).
Stephen King stated in interviews, as well as in forewords and afterwords for the respective books, that one of the inspirations for Roland Deschain, a.k.a. Roland of Gilead, the Gunslinger in his popular The Dark Tower opus, is Clint Eastwood. He said that Roland is meant to embody a gritty, melancholy persona, like that of Eastwood's "The Man With No Name" in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Reggae/dub musician Lee Perry recorded a song entitled "Clint Eastwood" in 1969 Virtual band. There is a reggae/mc called Clint Eastwood who made an album with General Saint called Two Bad Dj in 1981. Gorillaz recorded songs called "Clint Eastwood" and "Dirty Harry". Gorillaz' frontman Damon Albarn released an album called The Good, the Bad and the Queen with the help of Paul Simonon, Simon Tong, Tony Allen, and Dangermouse. Rock band "The Transplants" make reference to Hang 'Em High and A Few Dollars More in some of their songs. The theme song to the television show The Fall Guy, "The Unknown Stuntman", references Eastwood with the line "I'm the unknown stuntman that makes Eastwood look so fine."
Van Halen's song, "Hang 'Em High", from their 1982 release Diver Down, is inspired by Eastwood.
Def Leppard used the famous speech from Dirty Harry, as an introduction to their concerts on several tours.
Beastie Boys - High Plains Drifter-Release date: 1989
Eastwood, in cybernetic form, is the main character/driver in the game Nitro for the Commodore Amiga and Atari-ST computers, by Psygnosis (1990).
Eastwood's portrayal of the Man With No Name is also credited as an inspiration for the character Master Chief in the popular Halo series.
A Swedish metal band from the 1980s was named after him: The Clint Eastwood Experience. The band featured members of Dismember and Entombed. In the computer game Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge, one of the characters in the second allied mission (which is set in Hollywood) is named Flint Westwood. The character is also named for the game's produced, Westwood Studios.
Eastwood appears as an audio-animatronic in the Disney's Hollywood Studios Theme Park at Walt Disney World on one of the park's most iconic attractions, The Great Movie Ride, along with other classic actors. In the computer game Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, there is a mention of the "East Clintwood Institute, named after the famous movie star". The final boss in the computer game Fallout 2 is called Frank Horrigan, a reference to Clint Eastwood's character in the movie In the Line of Fire. There are several references to Eastwood the Polish post-apocalyptic role-playing game Neuroshima.
Eastwood is the name used by popular Reggae musician and D.J. Robert Brammer. Adam and the Ants chant Clint Eastwood's name as part of the chorus of "Los Rancheros", which appeared on their 1980 album titled Kings of the Wild Frontier. Big Audio Dynamite inserted several audio samples from Eastwood's spaghetti western movies into their song "Medicine Show", which appears on This is Big Audio Dynamite, released in 1985.
Something Awful featured a four part article titled "Four Days in Winter", focused on a mercenary hired to protect teenagers on an MTV series. There are overt references to Eastwood, such as the main character carrying a .44 Magnum and yelling "Do you feel lucky?". An MTV cast member also says to him "We hear you have a famous grandfather". At the conclusion he reveals his identity saying "My name is Eastwood" before being gunned down.
Two Japanese people in the film Crocodile Dundee II mistook the main character, Mick Dundee, as Clint Eastwood.
One persistent rumor has it that Eastwood is the son (legitimate or otherwise) of British comic actor Stan Laurel. This is untrue, although a passing facial resemblance to the comedian (plus the fact that Eastwood was born on the same day as one of Laurel's children) has ensured that the legend often resurfaces.[32]
Eastwood is set to voice Harry Callahan for the Dirty Harry video game. The game was cancelled in 2007, but it is intended that it will be produced in the future.
Actor Jeremy Bulloch has stated that he based his portrayal of the Star Wars bounty hunter Boba Fett on Eastwood. As he put it:
"I think the secret to playing Boba Fett -- if you can say I played (him) -- is the less you do, the better. There is no point in Boba Fett waving his gun around and saying, 'Look at me.' He was very cool, and he didn't move much. I always thought of Boba Fett as Clint Eastwood in a suit of armor."
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bobsmythhawk
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Sat 31 May, 2008 02:00 pm
Johnny Paycheck
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Birth name Donald Eugene Lytle
Also known as Johnny Paycheck
Born May 31, 1938(1938-05-31)
Origin Greenfield, Ohio, USA
Died February 19, 2003 (aged 64)
Genre(s) Country Music
Outlaw Country
Honky tonk
Occupation(s) Singer and songwriter
Instrument(s) Electric Guitar
Acoustic Guitar
Years active 1953 - 2003
Website www.johnnypaycheckmusic.com
Notable instrument(s)
Electric Guitar
Acoustic Guitar
Johnny Paycheck (May 31, 1938 - February 19, 2003) was a country music singer. He is most famous for recording the David Allan Coe song "Take This Job and Shove It".
Early life and recordings
Born Donald Eugene Lytle in Greenfield, Ohio, United States, he began playing guitar by age six and made his first record at age 15.[citation needed] After a time served in the United States Navy (which included a court-martial for assault)[1], he began performing under the name Donny Young. The singer took a job with country music star George Jones, for whom he played bass and steel guitar. He later co-wrote Jones' hit song "Once You've Had the Best." Paycheck was a tenor harmony singer for numerous hard country acts of the late 1950s and early 1960s including Ray Price. Paycheck along with Willie Nelson worked in Price's band the Cherokee Cowboys. He is featured as a tenor singer on recordings by Faron Young, Roger Miller, and Skeets McDonald.[citation needed] All of these recordings are recognizable by their honky tonk purism. The recordings shun vocal choruses and strings, in favor of steel guitar, twin fiddles, shuffle beats, high harmony, and self-consciously miserable lyrics. As George Jones' tenor singer, Paycheck has been credited with the development of Jones' unique vocal phrasing.[citation needed]
Career success
By the 1960s, he had changed his name to Johnny Paycheck. Lytle reportedly re-named himself after the boxer, Johnny Paychek, who fought Joe Louis in 1940.[citation needed] Paycheck had his first hit with a minor Buck Owens' hit, "A-11". This recording set a pattern for the rest of his 1960's work. Paycheck also co-owned his own record company, Little Darlin' Records, with his producer, Aubrey Mayhew. Paycheck's Little Darlin' recordings featured the shrieking pedal steel guitar work of Lloyd Green. By the end of the 1960's, Paycheck had descended into alcoholism and drug abuse, and Little Darlin' Records folded. In the late 1990s, after taking them for granted for years, country music historians began to recognize the distinctive and sharp-edged sound of the Little Darlin' recordings as unique in their time, Paycheck's in particular.[citation needed]
In the early 1970s, Paycheck was revived by producer Billy Sherrill, who significantly changed Paycheck's sound and image. Some of Johnny's biggest hits from this era were "She's All I Got" (a cover of an R&B single by Freddie North), "Someone To Give My Love To," and "For a Minute There." With the popularity of Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings in the mid 70's, Paycheck changed his image to that of outlaw, where he was to have his largest financial success. It was ironic that Sherrill was best known for carefully choreographing his records and infusing them with considerable pop feel. The Paycheck records were clearly based on Sherrill's take on the bands backing Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson on records.
A member of the Grand Ole Opry, Paycheck is best remembered for his 1977 hit single, "Take This Job and Shove It." (The song was written by David Allan Coe). "Take This Job and Shove It" sold over 2 million copies and inspired a motion picture of the same name. "Colorado Kool-Aid," "Me and the IRS," "Friend, Lover, Wife," "Slide Off of Your Satin Sheets," and "The Only Hell my Mama Ever Raised" were hits for Paycheck during this period.
In his career, Paycheck recorded eleven songs that made it into country music's top ten chart. Additionally, he co-wrote several successful songs for other country singers, including "Apartment #9," Tammy Wynette's first hit.
Misfortunes
In 1985, Paycheck was convicted of shooting a man in Hillsboro, Ohio (after the man asked Paycheck to visit his home and try his deer meat and turtle soup).[citation needed] Paycheck reportedly responded, "Do you see me as some kind of hick?...I don't like you," and later fired a .22 pistol -- grazing the man's head with a bullet. Paycheck claimed the act was self-defense. He spent 22 months in prison.[citation needed]
Paycheck also spent a number of years in prison after he was convicted of statutory rape.[citation needed] At a concert in Mississippi, Paycheck was approached by a young girl who told him that she was a student at University of Mississippi. Paycheck allegedly engaged in sexual relations with the girl. The girl's family filed charges against Paycheck, and the musician learned that she was only fourteen years old, instead of nineteen, which is what she allegedly told Paycheck.[citation needed]
In 1990, Paycheck filed for bankruptcy after tax problems with the IRS.[citation needed]
Paycheck suffered from drug and alcohol addiction during his career, although he was said to have "put his life in order" [2] after his prison stay. Suffering from emphysema and asthma after a lengthy illness, Johnny Paycheck died at Nashville's Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Country icon and longtime friend, George Jones, purchased Paycheck's burial plot and headstone when he learned that his family couldn't cover the interment costs.[citation needed] He was buried in Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Nashville.
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bobsmythhawk
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Sat 31 May, 2008 02:03 pm
Peter Yarrow
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born May 31, 1938 (1938-05-31) (age 70)
Genre(s) Folk
Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter,
guitarist,
record producer
Instrument(s) Vocals
Guitar
Years active 1960 - Present
Associated acts Peter, Paul and Mary
Peter Yarrow (born May 31, 1938) is an American singer who found fame with the 1960s folk music trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Yarrow co-wrote (with Leonard Lipton) the group's most famous song, "Puff, the Magic Dragon." He has also long done work for social change.
Biography
Music
Yarrow began singing with Mary Travers in December 1960; when Noel "Paul" Stookey joined them, they chose the name "Peter, Paul and Mary" for their folk trio. Yarrow's songwriting helped create some of Peter, Paul & Mary's most famous songs, including "Puff the Magic Dragon", "Day is Done," "Light One Candle", and "The Great Mandala". As a member of that folk music trio, he earned a 1996 Emmy nomination for the Great Performances special "LifeLines Live", a highly acclaimed celebration of folk music, with their musical mentors, contemporaries, and a new generation of singer/songwriters.
Yarrow was instrumental in founding the New Folks Concert series at both the Newport Folk Festival and the Kerrville Folk Festival.[1] His work at Kerrville has been called his "most important achievement in this arena."[2]
Yarrow and his daughter Bethany Yarrow, who is also a musician, often perform together.
Social activism
Yarrow has long been an activist for social and political causes. He produced and coordinated many events as a part of the anti-Vietnam War movement, including festivals for peace at Madison Square Garden and Shea Stadium. These efforts culminated in his co-organization work for the 1969 anti-war March on Washington, a.k.a. "The National Mobilization to End the War", in which some half-million people participated.
While campaigning for 1968 presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, Yarrow met McCarthy's niece, Mary Beth McCarthy.[3] They were married in October 1969.[4]
Yarrow's involvement in politics continued throughout the decades. He also had a variety of contacts with politicians; he performed at John Kerry's wedding.[5]
Yarrow received the Allard K. Lowenstein Award in 1982, for his "remarkable efforts in advancing the causes of human rights, peace and freedom."[6] In 1995, the Miami Jewish Federation recognized Yarrow's continual efforts by awarding him its Tikkun Olam Award for his part in helping to "repair the world".[6][7]
Yarrow serves on the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Hospice.[2][8]
In an effort to combat school violence, Yarrow started Operation Respect, which brings children in schools and camps a curriculum of tolerance and respect for each other's differences.[4]
In 2003, a resolution in Congress recognized the achievements of Peter Yarrow and Operation Respect.[4]
In March, 2008, Yarrow told Reuters
"Operation Respect has been my main and all-consuming work for the past 10 years. My perception is that the kind of bullying, humiliation that goes on in children's schools leads to high rates of depression that was virtually unknown when I was young and the high suicide rate of teenagers which we know is almost inevitably caused by bullying or mean-spiritedness. It is a reflection of the role models that young people observe on TV shows like a lot of the reality shows. It is also part and parcel of the characteristics in the adult world of America."[9]
Personal life
Peter Yarrow's parents were Jewish, born in the Ukraine; the family name was changed from Yaroshevitz to Yarrow after immigrating to Providence, Rhode Island.[4] Yarrow has cited Judaism as one of the roots of his liberal views.[4]
Yarrow received a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Cornell University in 1959.
In 1970, Yarrow was convicted of taking "improper liberties" with a 14-year-old fan and served three months in prison.[10][11][12] Yarrow regretted the incident, and said: "In that time, it was common practice, unfortunately -- the whole groupie thing."[13]
He was later granted clemency by President Carter for the incident.[14]
In December 2000, Yarrow's Larrivee acoustic guitar was stolen while on an airplane flight. In early 2005, the guitar was spotted by fans of Yarrow on eBay. The guitar was recovered in Sunrise, Florida, by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and returned to Yarrow. Yarrow did not press charges.[15]
On April 14, 2007, Peter Yarrow declined to appear at a previously scheduled Operation Respect event at Bexley High School after several Bexley parents contacted district officials regarding Yarrow's 1970 guilty plea. His daughter Bethany Yarrow performed instead.[16]
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Sat 31 May, 2008 02:05 pm
Sharon Gless
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Sharon Marguerite Gless
May 31, 1943 (1943-05-31) (age 65)
Los Angeles, California, USA
Years active 1973-present
Awards won
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
1986 Cagney & Lacey
1987 Cagney & Lacey
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actress - Drama Series
1986 Cagney & Lacey
1990 The Trials of Rosie O'Neill
Sharon Marguerite Gless (born May 31, 1943) is an Emmy Award winning American actress, who is best known for her role as Sgt. Christine Cagney in the 1980s police procedural drama series Cagney & Lacey (1982-1988).
Biography
Early life and career
A fifth-generation Californian, Gless was born in Los Angeles, California. She worked as a secretary for the advertising agencies Grey Advertising and Young & Rubicam, and then for the independent movie production companies Sassafras Films and General Film Corporation. After deciding to switch to acting, Gless took classes and in 1974 signed a 10-year contract with Universal Studios. She has described herself as the "last of the studio contract players ?- a salaried, Old Hollywood apprentice system which Universal was the last to employ". Gless went on to appear in numerous television series and TV movies, such as Revenge of the Stepford Wives, and the CBS private detective/con artist series Switch (1975-1978), where she played the young classy secretary, Maggie Philbin, opposite Eddie Albert and Robert Wagner.
From her starring role in "Faraday & Company" in 1973, Sharon Gless has brought her own brand of humor, intelligence and dramatic flair to each of her roles. She is best known for her portrayal of New York Police Detective Christine Cagney on the hit series "Cagney & Lacey" a role that garnered her two Emmys®, a Golden Globe, and six Emmy® nominations. Following "Cagney & Lacey," Gless re-teamed with the show's executive producer, Barney Rosenzweig, on "The Trials of Rosie O'Neill" for which she was awarded her second Golden Globe and two more Emmy® nominations. Gless married Rosenzweig in 1991.
In 1994 and 1995, Gless and her television partner, Tyne Daly, joined together to recreate their title roles in a quartet of critically acclaimed and popular "Cagney & Lacey" television movies which they fondly call "The Menopause Years". Other television series in which she starred include "Switch," "House Calls," and the short-lived, but critically lauded Steven Bochco half-hour, "Turnabout." Gless has received much acclaim for dramatic roles in such television movies as "Separated By Murder," "Hard Hat and Legs," "Honor Thy Mother," "Hobson's Choice," "Letting Go," among others, as well as the mini-series, "The Immigrants," "The Last Convertible," "Centennial," and Garson Kanin's "Moviola: The Scarlett O'Hara Wars, in which she played Carole Lombard.
Gless' theatrical film credits include a featured role in the suspenseful and thought-provoking film, "The Star Chamber," which starred Michael Douglas. She has recorded several 'Books on Tape' and starred in numerous radio plays, one of which, "'Night, Mother," for the BBC, garnered her the International Sony Award. She has starred twice on stage in London's famed "West End," the first time in 1993 with Bill Paterson, where she created the role of Annie Wilkes in Stephen King's "Misery" at the Criterion Theater, and four years later, opposite Tom Conti, in Neil Simon's "Chapter 2," at the Gielgud Theater.
She recently starred at Chicago's Tony Award-winning playhouse, The Victory Gardens Theater, in Claudia Allen's "Cahoots," as well as several stints, including an evening at Madison Square Garden with the National Company of Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues." Gless made her stage debut in Lillian Hellman's "Watch on the Rhine" at Stage West in Springfield, Mass.
Later life and career
Beginning with the series' seventh episode Gless replaced actress Meg Foster in the role of NYPD police detective Christine Cagney on Cagney & Lacey. In 1991 she married the series' executive producer Barney Rosenzweig who during their courtship had been married to fellow executive producer and co-creator Barbara Corday. Rosenzweig created the 1990-1992 CBS drama series The Trials of Rosie O'Neill for Gless and uncredited played the only partially seen psychiatrist to whom attorney O'Neill confided at the beginning of each episode. Gless, who had garnered five Emmy nominations - including two wins and a Golden Globe win for her role as Cagney - earned two additional Emmy nominations for this subsequent series.
In 1998, Gless narrated a documentary about Ayn Rand, A Sense of Life (by filmmaker Michael Paxton). It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature.
Between 2000 and 2005, Gless appeared as Hal Sparks's supportive and somewhat overbearing mother, Debbie Novotny, in the acclaimed Showtime cable television series Queer as Folk.
In 2005, Gless was one of the mourners at Eddie Albert's funeral, along with ex-Switch co-stars Robert Wagner and Charlie Callas, after his death in May of that year aged 99.
In 2006, Gless starred in the BBC television series The State Within. The following year she co-starred in the USA Network cable television series Burn Notice, playing Michael Westen's (Jeffrey Donovan) mother, Madeline Westen. Gless is currently guest starring on the FX Network cable television series Nip/Tuck as an agent named Colleen Rose.
Theatre
Gless has extensive stage experience including two appearances in London's West End, first in 1993 with Bill Paterson, when she created the role of Annie Wilkes in the stage version of Stephen King's Misery at the Criterion Theatre, and then in 1996, where she appeared opposite Tom Conti in Neil Simon's Chapter 2, at the Gielgud Theatre.
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Sat 31 May, 2008 02:07 pm
Tom Berenger
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Thomas Michael Moore
May 31, 1949 (1949-05-31) (age 58)
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Spouse(s) Patricia Alvaran (1998 - present)
Lisa Williams (1986 - 1997; divorced)
Barbara Wilson (1976 - 1984; divorced)
Awards won
Academy Awards
Nominated: Best Supporting Actor
1987 Platoon
Golden Globe Awards
Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture
1987 Platoon
Tom Berenger (born May 31, 1949) is an Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning American actor known mainly for his roles in action films.
Biography
Berenger was born Thomas Michael Moore in Chicago, Illinois. He studied journalism at the University of Missouri, but decided to seek an acting career following his graduation. He worked first in regional theatre and moved to New York City in the 1970s. He worked in soap operas and had a starring role on One Life to Live.
Berenger's feature film debut was the lead in Rush It (1976), an independent film now mostly forgotten except for those of its cast members who went on to greater renown. In 1977, Berenger had a small but noticeable role as a murderer in Looking for Mr. Goodbar. In 1978, he had a starring role in In Praise of Older Women for Avco-Embassy Pictures. In 1979, he had the role of Butch Cassidy in Butch and Sundance: The Early Days, a role he got in part because of his resemblance to Paul Newman[citation needed], who played the character in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). These early roles highlight Berenger's ability to play both villains and heroes.
Berenger's film career peaked in the 1980s with notable films like The Big Chill (1983), Someone to Watch Over Me (1987), and Major League (1989). In 1986, he received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of the sociopathic Sgt. Barnes in Platoon. In the mid-1990s he was most recognizable in his role from the movie Sniper, and its later sequels. Other notable films from that period include Shattered (1991), Sliver (1993) and Chasers (1994).
It has been recorded that Berenger himself has said that his favorite movie of those he had starred in was the 1993 hit Gettysburg, where he played the role of General James Longstreet. He has said he has seen Gettysburg more than any other of his starring movies.
In more recent years, Berenger has continued to have an active acting career in film and television, although often at a supporting level. His most notable television appearance was on Cheers in its last season as Rebecca Howe's blue collar-plumber love interest. He also began a career as a producer in the 1990s. In a 2002 interview Berenger was quoted as saying, "Since the 1970s I've seen myself as a poet. Sometimes I express that poetry through acting, sometimes through cooking, and sometimes just having a good chat, you know, one of them chats you have when you're stoned and the hour is getting late. I don't know what's gonna come my way, but I think Berenger's gonna be big these next couple years."
Berenger starred in the mini-series version of Stephen King's Nightmares & Dreamscapes, as a celebrated author who realizes the warped painting he recently purchased, is alive with illustrations of impending doom for him in "The Road Virus Heads North".
Family life
Berenger has been married three times and has one son and five daughters. He resides in Vancouver, Canada and South Carolina.
Berenger has two children by his first wife, Barbara Wilson, to whom he was married between 1976 and 1984: Allison (born in 1977) and Patrick (born in 1979). He has three daughters by second wife Lisa Williams (to whom he was married between 1986 and 1997): Chelsea (born 1986), Chloe (born 1988) and Shiloh (b.1995), and one daughter, Scout (born 1998), by current wife Patricia Alvaran to whom he's been married since 1998.
Brief Scientology period
Tom Berenger had a brief period from 1987-1989 when he discovered The Church of Scientology. Star, Sun, and other tabloids devoted significant coverage to Berenger, Tom Cruise and other notable "Toms" of Scientology.
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Sat 31 May, 2008 02:12 pm
Lea Thompson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Lea Katherine Thompson
May 31, 1961 (1961-05-31) (age 47)
Rochester, Minnesota
Spouse(s) Howard Deutch (1989-present)
Awards won
Other Awards
Best Supporting Actress
1988 Some Kind of Wonderful (1987 film)
Favorite Movie Actress
1990 Back to the Future Part II (1989 Film)
Lea Katherine Thompson (born May 31, 1961, in Rochester, Minnesota) is an American actress and television director.
Early life
Thompson was born in Rochester, Minnesota May 31, 1961. She studied dance as a girl and would practice three to four hours every day. She was dancing professionally by the age of 14. Lea then won scholarships to several ballet schools, including the American Ballet Theatre and the San Francisco Ballet. She danced with the Minnesota Dance Theatre, the Pennsylvania Ballet Company and the Ballet Repertory.
She was informed by Baryshnikov that she was "too stocky." Due to this (as well as some small nagging injuries) she decided to give up dancing in favor of an acting career. She moved to New York at 20 and performed in a number of Burger King ads in the 1980s along with Elisabeth Shue, her eventual co-star in the Back to the Future movies.
Career
Thompson's first significant film role came in All the Right Moves (1983) with Tom Cruise. That was followed by Red Dawn (1984) and The Wild Life (1984). Her most famous role was that of Lorraine Baines McFly in the Back to the Future trilogy; her character is mother of the time traveler played by Michael J. Fox.
She also starred in SpaceCamp (1986) and Howard the Duck (1986), both commercial flops. (For the latter film, Thompson sang several songs on the soundtrack in character as musician Beverley Switzer, aka "Cherry Bomb," and these recordings appeared on both the soundtrack album and on singles.) She did more movies: Casual Sex?, Going Undercover, The Wizard of Loneliness and a TV film, Montana. She is also known for playing Alice Mitchell in the film version of Dennis the Menace (1993) and a phony French teacher in The Beverly Hillbillies (1993).
The actress was nominated for a Cable ACE award for her work in Nightbreaker. She also has been a winner of the People's Choice award. She received critical acclaim for her work with Farrah Fawcett in The Substitute Wife. She went on to star in several more TV movies: The Unspoken Truth (1995), The Right To Remain Silent (1996), The Little Rascals (1994), and the mini-series A Will of their Own (1998).
Thompson found moderate critical and popular success as the star of the NBC sitcom Caroline in the City from 1995-1999.
After a break from acting, she went on to star in Broadway plays. She later starred in another TV series For the People. It only lasted one season. Then came a TV movie, Stealing Christmas (2003), starring Tony Danza and Betty White. Thompson also appeared in several episodes of the dramedy series Ed.
In 2005, Thompson began a series of made-for-TV movies for the Hallmark Channel in which she plays "Jane Doe," an ex-secret agent turned housewife who helps the government solve mysteries. In a guest role on a 2004 episode of NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, she played a woman whose embryos were stolen.
Thompson was a featured singer on Celebrity Duets and the second contestant eliminated in 2006. Over the next two years, more of her Jane Doe films were released, two of which Thompson directed: The Harder they Fall and Eye of the Beholder.
In April 2007, another TV movie, A Life Interrupted, premiered on Lifetime. It concerns a rape survivor who overcomes her debilitating fear by working to get funding to process the terrible backlog of rape kits processed, so that other women will not have to suffer for years as she did.
Other movies Thompson has worked on awaiting release include Exit Speed, Doubting Thomas, and another TV film, Final Approach, scheduled to be aired May 24, 2008, on the Hallmark Channel. She is in development of another film project, Balancing the Books. In January 2008, she guest-starred on the show Head Case.
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Sat 31 May, 2008 02:15 pm
Brooke Shields
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Brooke Christa Camille Shields
May 31, 1965 (1965-05-31) (age 43)
New York City, New York, USA
Years active 1974 ─ present
Spouse(s) Andre Agassi (1997-1999)
Chris Henchy (2001-present)
Awards won
Golden Raspberry Awards
Worst Actress
1980 The Blue Lagoon
Other Awards
People's Choice Awards
Favorite Young Performer
1981, 1982, 1983, 1984
Favorite Female Performer in a New Television Series
1997
Brooke Christa Camille Shields[1] (born May 31, 1965)[2] is an American actress and supermodel.
Biography
Career
Modeling career
Shields' career as a model began in the mid 1960s as an infant. Her first job was for Ivory soap shot by Francesco Scavullo. She continued as a successful child model, with model agent Eileen Ford, in her Lifetime Network biography, stating that she started her children's division just for Brooke. In early 1980 (at age 14), Shields was the youngest fashion model to ever appear on the cover of the top fashion publication Vogue magazine. Later that same year, Shields appeared in controversial print and TV ads for Calvin Klein jeans[3]. The TV ad included her saying the famous tagline, "You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing."
By the age of 16, Shields had become one of the most recognizable faces in the world because of her dual career as a provocative fashion model and controversial child actress. TIME magazine reported, in its February 9, 1981 cover story, that her day rate as a model was $10,000. In 1983 Shields appeared on the cover of the September issue of Paris Vogue, the October and November issues of American Vogue and the December edition of Italian Vogue.
Film career
Shields' first major film role was her 1978 appearance in Louis Malle's Pretty Baby, a movie in which she played a child living in a brothel (and in which there were numerous nude scenes). Because she was only 12 when the film was released, and possibly 11 when it was filmed, questions were raised about child pornography.[citation needed] This was followed by a slightly less controversial, but also less notable film, Wanda Nevada (1979).
After two decades of movies, her best-known films are still arguably The Blue Lagoon (1980), which included a number of nude scenes between teenage cousins on a deserted island (Shields later testified before a U.S. Congressional inquiry that older body doubles were used in some of them), and Endless Love (1981). She won the People's Choice Award in the category of Favorite Young Performer in four consecutive years from 1981 to 1984.
Career stalling
Shields put her film career on hold to attend Princeton University from 1983 to 1987, graduating with a degree in French literature. Her senior thesis was titled "The Initiation: From Innocence to Experience: The Pre-Adolescent/Adolescent Journey in the Films of Louis Malle, Pretty Baby and Lacombe Lucien." It was here at Princeton where she spoke openly about her sexuality and virginity. During her tenure at Princeton, Shields was a member of the Princeton Triangle Club and the Cap and Gown Club.
Shields' career stalled at various times, and she has told interviewers that her height (6'0") prevented her from getting roles opposite shorter male actors.
Television appearances
Shields has appeared in a number of television shows, the most successful being the NBC sitcom Suddenly Susan, in which she starred from 1996 until 2000 and which earned her a People's Choice Award in the category of Favorite Female Performer in a New Television Series in 1997 and two Golden Globe nominations.
Shields made a couple of guest appearances on That '70s Show. She played Pam Burkhart, Jackie's (Mila Kunis) mother, who later was briefly involved with Donna's (Laura Prepon) father (played by Don Stark). Shields left That '70s Show when her character was written out. She also appeared in one episode of the popular comedy sitcom Friends playing Joey's stalker. Shields recorded the narration for the Sony/BMG recording of The Runaway Bunny, a Concerto for Violin, Orchestra, and Reader by Glen Roven. It was performed by the Royal Philharmonic and Ittai Shapira. Earlier in 1980, Shields was the youngest guest star to ever appear on The Muppet Show, in which she and the Muppets put on their own version of Alice In Wonderland.
On-stage productions
Shields has appeared in many on-stage productions, mostly musical revivals, including Grease, Cabaret, Wonderful Town and Chicago on Broadway; she also performed in Chicago in London's West End.
Personal life
Shields was born in New York City[4] into a well-known American society family with links to Italian nobility.[5] Her father was Francis Alexander Shields, and her mother was Teri Shields (née Maria Theresia Schmonin). Shields adopted her middle name, Camille, for her Confirmation at age 10. Shields' parents divorced when she was a child, and her father later married Diana Lippert Auchincloss, the former wife of Thomas Gore Auchincloss (a half-brother of Gore Vidal and a stepsister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis). The actress has three half-sisters: Marina (who married Thomas William Purcell), Olympia, and Christiana Shields. She also has two stepsiblings, Diana Luise Auchincloss and Thomas Gore Auchincloss Jr. She attended the all-girl Lenox School[6]. She graduated from Dwight-Englewood School in Englewood, New Jersey.
Her paternal grandparents were Francis Xavier Shields, a tennis star of Irish descent, and his second wife, the Italian princess Donna Marina Torlonia di Civitella-Cesi, a half-Italian, half-American socialite who was a sister of Don Alessandro Torlonia, 5th Prince di Civitella-Cesi, the husband of Infanta Beatriz of Spain (an aunt of King Juan Carlos I of Spain). Shields is a second cousin once removed of the actress Glenn Close. Shields's great-grandmother Mary Elsie Moore (wife of Don Marino Torlonia, 4th Prince di Civitella-Cesi) was Close's great-aunt, a sister of Close's maternal grandfather, Charles Arthur Moore.
Into the mid-1980s, Shields was a resident of Haworth, New Jersey.[7]
During the 1980s and 1990s, Shields' romantic relationships were the subject of many tabloid articles. Among the celebrities she dated were Ted McGinley (her high school prom escort), Dean Cain (her Princeton roommate)[1], John F. Kennedy Jr., Michael Bolton, Prince Albert II of Monaco, and Michael Jackson (his date to the 1984 Grammy Awards).
Shields was married from April 19, 1997, to April 9, 1999, to professional tennis player Andre Agassi; their marriage was annulled. Since April 4, 2001, she has been married to television writer Chris Henchy. They have two daughters: Rowan Frances (b. May 15, 2003) and Grier Hammond (b. April 18, 2006).
Honorary Ambassador of Peace for the Harvey Ball Foundation along with Jackie Chan, A. V. T. Shankardass, Jerry Lewis, Prince Albert of Monaco, Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman, Phil Collins, Jimmy Buffett, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Darrell Waltrip, Heather Mills, Yoko Ono, Patch Adams, Sergei Khrushchev and Winnie Mandela.
[edit] Postpartum depression
In the spring of 2005, Shields spoke to magazines (such as Guideposts) and appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to publicize her battle with postpartum depression, an experience that included depression, thoughts of suicide, an inability to respond to her baby's needs, and delayed maternal bonding. The illness may have been triggered by a traumatic childbirth, the death of her father three weeks earlier, stress from in vitro fertilization, a miscarriage, and a family history of depression, as well as the hormones and life changes brought on by childbirth. Her book, Down Came the Rain, discusses her experience.[8]
In May 2005, Tom Cruise, a Scientologist whose beliefs frowns upon psychiatry, condemned Shields both personally and professionally, particularly for both using and speaking in favor of the antidepressant drug Paxil. As Cruise said, "Here is a woman, and I care about Brooke Shields because I think she is an incredibly talented woman, you look at [and think], where has her career gone?" Shields responded that Cruise's statements about anti-depressants were "irresponsible" and "dangerous." She said he should "stick to fighting aliens", (a reference to Cruise's starring role in War of the Worlds as well as some of the more exotic aspects of Scientology doctrine and teachings), "and let mothers decide the best way to treat postpartum depression." The actress responded to a further attack by Cruise in an essay War of Words published in The New York Times on July 1, 2005, in which she made an individual case for the medication and said, "In a strange way, it was comforting to me when my obstetrician told me that my feelings of extreme despair and my suicidal thoughts were directly tied to a biochemical shift in my body. Once we admit that postpartum is a serious medical condition, then the treatment becomes more available and socially acceptable. With a doctor's care, I have since tapered off the medication, but without it, I wouldn't have become the loving parent I am today."[9] On August 31, 2006, according to USAToday.com,[10] Cruise privately apologized to Shields for the incident, and Shields accepted, saying it was "heartfelt." Three months later, she and her husband attended the wedding of Cruise and Katie Holmes in November 2006.
Since writing her book, Shields has guest-starred on shows like FX's Nip/Tuck and CBS' Two and a Half Men. In 2007, she made a guest appearance on Disney's Hannah Montana playing Susan Stewart, Miley and Jackson's mother. In 2008, she returned in the primetime drama Lipstick Jungle.
