.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.JPG)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
 2 new.jpg)
.jpg)
 cropped.jpg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Vanessa Paradis |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Vanessa Chantal Paradis |
| Landscape | yes |
| Background | solo_singer |
| Born | December 22, 1972 |
| Origin | Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Val-de-Marne, France |
| Instrument | Vocals, guitar |
| Genre | Rock, pop |
| Occupation | Vocalist, actress, model |
| Domestic partner/s | Johnny Depp (1998-present) |
| Years active | 1981–present |
| Label | Barclay Records (from 2000)Polydor (from 1987 to 2000) |
| Url | www.vanessaparadis.fr |
Vanessa Chantal Paradis (born 22 December 1972) is a French singer, model and actress. She became a child star at 14 with the worldwide success of her single "Joe le taxi". Since then, she has accomplished a career in music, movies and modelling.
In 1991, Paradis promoted a fragrance for Chanel, titled Coco. In the advertisement, she was dressed in all black and feathers, portraying a bird swinging in a cage. The advert was shot by Jean-Paul Goude. Paradis spoke of her continued admiration of Chanel in 2010 saying, "The more I know them, the more I love Chanel."
In March 1993, Paradis started her first international tour, the "Natural High Tour"; she performed in France, England and Canada. The tour was canceled before she could perform in Japan and in the United States, for health reasons.
In April 1994, Paradis filmed Élisa, under the direction of Jean Becker."Elisa" was a big success in France, and was released internationally.
In 1996, Paradis played in Un amour de sorcière with Jeanne Moreau and Jean Reno, before filming 1 chance sur 2, with Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo.
In March 1999, La fille sur le Pont, by Patrice Leconte was released. This movie was shot and released in black and white.
In 2004, she promoted Chanel's new handbags called Ligne Cambon. In 2005 she modeled for Chanel again for The New Mademoiselle handbag. In 2008 she modeled for Miu Miu.
On the musical side, she is included in the French children's album and concert Le Soldat Rose in 2006. Paradis released a new album (Divinidylle) in 2007 which was released in the UK on December 11 (September in France). There are three versions (regular, limited edition, and the Christmas edition). She started the Divinidylle Tour in October. Some concerts were filmed and a DVD/CD of the tour was released. Her latest film DVD release is La Clef. Also, Vanessa won two 'Les Victoires de la Musique' awards for this album in February 2008. Some of her later projects include a greatest hits CD (Best of Vanessa Paradis) which includes the commercial jingle "I love Paris in the Springtime"; she will also star in the animated film Un monstre à Paris, due to be released in 2010.
Her latest film in theatres is the romantic comedy Heartbreaker alongside Romain Duris and Andrew Lincoln, which grossed over €30 million in France and has also been performed strongly with critics. It was released in the UK in July 2010.
The Young Victoria director, Jean-Marc Vallée recently cast Paradis in a starring role in his new film, Café de flore. Paradis will play a mother in the 1960s with a down syndrome child. The title is slated for release in 2011.
She is set to release an acoustic album in November entitled Une nuit à Versailles. The album was recorded at L'Opéra of the Palace of Versailles during her Vanessa Paradis Concert Acoustique Tour. She is also releasing a set of DVDs called Anthologie which collects rare live performances and interviews from 1987-2007.
In 2010, she became the face of Chanel's new lipstick, Rouge Coco and also became the face of Chanel's new handbag line. In 2011, Paradis is embarking on an international tour which includes performances in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, Turkey and Israel.
Vanessa Paradis has been in a relationship with American actor Johnny Depp since 1998. They have a daughter, Lily-Rose Melody Depp (born May, 27 1999 ), and a son, John Christopher "Jack" Depp III (born April, 9 2002).
They divide their time among houses in the Hollywood Hills and their farm in Plan-de-la-Tour, South of France, a house in the village of Timsbury, Somerset, and also own apartments in Paris, Manhattan and an island in the Bahamas. Paradis' 2000 album Bliss, another French chart topper, was dedicated to Depp and their daughter.
Paradis has a sister, actress Alysson Paradis, who is younger by 10 years and has starred in many French horror films. The actor and film producer Didier Pain is their uncle.
Category:1972 births Category:Living people Category:People from Saint-Maur-des-Fossés Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:English-language singers Category:French child singers Category:French female models Category:French expatriates in the United States Category:French female singers Category:French film actors Category:French pop singers Category:French voice actors Category:French-language singers Category:Wrasse Records artists
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Ringo Starr |
|---|---|
| Img alt | A man in his sixties wearing sunglasses and a black T-shirt bearing the sequined words "LOVE" and "PEACE". Only his torso is visible, but his left hand appears to be on his hip. His right hand forms a V-shaped peace symbol in reference to his quote "Peace and Love". |
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Richard Starkey |
| Alias | Ringo Starr |
| Born | July 07, 1940Liverpool, England, UK |
| Instrument | Drums, vocals, percussion, and tambourine |
| Genre | Rock, pop, psychedelic rock, world |
| Occupation | Musician, singer-songwriter, actor |
| Years active | 1957–present |
| Label | Parlophone, United Artists, Capitol, Apple, Swan, Vee-Jay, Tollie, Atlantic, RCA, Mercury, Koch, Private Music, Boardwalk, Rykodisc |
| Associated acts | The Beatles, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band, Plastic Ono Band |
| Url | RingoStarr.com |
| Notable instruments | Ludwig Super Classic DrumsetLudwig Black Oyster Pearl Drumset |
Richard Starkey, MBE (born 7 July 1940), better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer-songwriter, and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr belonged to another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in August 1962, taking over from Pete Best. In addition to his contribution as drummer, Starr featured as lead vocals on a number of successful Beatles songs (in particular, "With a Little Help from My Friends", "Yellow Submarine", and The Beatles version of "Act Naturally"), as co-writer with the song "What Goes On" and primary writer with "Don't Pass Me By", and "Octopus's Garden".
As drummer for The Beatles, Starr was musically creative, and his contribution to the band's music has received high praise from notable drummers in more recent times. Starr described himself as "your basic offbeat drummer with funny fills", technically limited by being a left-handed person playing a right-handed kit. His paternal grandfather was born with the surname "Parkin", and later adopted his stepfather's surname, "Starkey". Starr's parents split up when he was three years old, and his mother subsequently married Harry Graves, who encouraged his interest in music. Starr's family moved when he was three years old to a smaller home at 10 Admiral Grove. Starr attended an Evangelical Anglican church during his childhood. He was afflicted by illness for much of his early years. When aged six, he had appendicitis, which developed complications, causing him to fall into a coma. At thirteen, he developed chronic pleurisy and was admitted to a sanatorium for two years. After this extended hospital visit he did not return to school. The periods of hospitalisation left him behind scholastically, and as a result he was ineligible to attend grammar school or even sit its Eleven plus qualifying examination. Earlier, Starr attended St Silas, a Church of England primary school in High Park Street, close to his home in Admiral Grove; singer Billy Fury attended the school at the same time. Later, Starr attended Dingle Vale Secondary Modern School, leaving in 1955. While there, he showed an aptitude for art and drama as well as practical subjects including mechanics.
Like John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, Starr became caught up in Liverpool's skiffle craze. In 1957, he and his friend Eddie Miles formed the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group. In 1959, he joined the Raving Texans, now adopting the stage name "Ringo Starr" because of the rings he wore and because it sounded "cowboyish", and his drum solos were billed as "Starr Time". By October 1960, the band was renamed Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, and while they were performing in Hamburg, Starr met The Beatles. On 16 October 1960 he drummed in Hamburg with Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, recording with them for the first time to back Hurricanes singer Lu Walters.
After returning to the UK, Starr sat in for Pete Best as The Beatles' drummer on 18 August 1961 and 5 February 1962. The Beatles removed Pete Best as their drummer on 16 August 1962, after Best had played in the early recording sessions at EMI Studios.
Starr's first performance as a full Beatle was on 18 August 1962 at a Horticultural Society dance at Port Sunlight. After his appearance at the Cavern Club performance as a full Beatle the following day, Best's fans were upset at his sacking, holding vigils outside Best's house and fighting at the club, shouting 'Pete forever! Ringo never!' George Harrison received a black eye from one of the fans.
When he arrived at EMI Studios for the second time on 11 September, Starr was shocked to find another drummer there, session drummer Andy White who was commissioned by producer George Martin. Using sessions drummers familiar with studio techniques was a normal procedure for studio recordings in those days. Starr's view at the time was that Andy White was brought in because he thought George Martin viewed him as crazy. Of the 4 September rehearsal session, Starr stated, "He [George Martin] thought I was crazy and couldn't play. Because when we were doing 'Please Please Me', I was actually playing the kit and in one hand I had a tambourine and a maracas in the other, because I was trying to play the percussion and the drums at the same time, because we were just a four piece band". Starr also stated, "I thought, 'That’s the end, they’re doing a Pete Best on me.'"
His disgust with the band's tensions and boredom at waiting around to contribute during the sessions for the White Album caused him to quit the group temporarily. He spent two weeks with actor Peter Sellers on the latter's yacht, Amelfis, in Piraeus, where he wrote "Octopus's Garden". He did not return for two weeks, even though the other Beatles urged him to come back: Lennon sent telegrams, and Harrison set up flowers all over the studio for Starr's return saying "Welcome home". Starr's name also appears as a co-writer for the Rubber Soul track "What Goes On" along with Lennon and McCartney, while the songs "Flying" (on the Magical Mystery Tour album) and "Dig It" (on Let It Be) are listed as being written by the entire group. On issued material after the break-up, Starr wrote "Taking a Trip to Carolina" from the second "bonus" CD of Let It Be... Naked, and received joint songwriting credits with the other three Beatles for "12-Bar Original", "Los Paranoias", "Christmas Time (Is Here Again)", "Suzy Parker" (heard in the Let It Be film), "Jessie's Dream" (heard in the Magical Mystery Tour film) and The Beatles' version of "Free as a Bird".
Drummer Steve Smith extolled Starr's qualities beyond the technical, in terms of his musical contribution as drummer: Phil Collins, the drummer for Genesis, who was himself influenced by Starr, said:
In September 1980, John Lennon had this to say about Starr:
Many drummers acknowledge Starr as an influence, including Steve Gorman of The Black Crowes, Dave Grohl of Nirvana, Jen Ledger of Skillet, Max Weinberg of the E Street Band, Danny Carey of Tool, Liberty DeVitto of Billy Joel's band, Nicko McBrain of Iron Maiden, Eric Carr of Kiss, Phil Rudd of AC/DC, Orri Páll Dýrason of Sigur Rós, the former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, Pedro Andreu of Heroes del Silencio and others.
In his extensive survey of The Beatles' recording sessions, Mark Lewisohn confirmed that Starr was both proficient and remarkably reliable and consistent. According to Lewisohn, there were fewer than a dozen occasions in The Beatles' eight-year recording career where session 'breakdowns' were caused by Starr making a mistake, while the vast majority of takes were stopped owing to mistakes by the other three members.
Starr drummed on all but five of the band's released tracks that feature drumming. For the band's second recording session with Starr as a member on 11 September 1962, producer George Martin replaced the studio-inexperienced Starr with session drummer Andy White to record takes for what would be the two sides of The Beatles' first single, "Love Me Do" backed with "P.S. I Love You". Starr played tambourine on "Love Me Do" and maracas on "P.S. I Love You" for this session. McCartney took over the drums on "Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Dear Prudence" from the White Album (1968) after Starr had walked out, and also played the drums on "The Ballad of John and Yoko", recorded on 14 April 1969, since only he and Lennon were immediately available to record the song. Starr commented that he was lucky in being "surrounded by three frustrated drummers" who could only drum in one style.
He participated in The Concert for Bangladesh organised by Harrison in 1971, as well as drumming on Harrison's All Things Must Pass and Living in the Material World, Lennon's John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, and Yoko Ono's early solo work. Starr then made his debut as a film director with the T. Rex documentary Born to Boogie. Starr became firm friends with T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan and during the period of filming the documentary, Starr released the single "Back Off Boogaloo".
In 1971, he started a furniture company with designer Robin Cruikshank. Starr's own avant-garde designs included a flower-shaped table with adjustable petal seats and a donut-shaped fireplace.
The 1973 album Ringo, produced by Richard Perry, with participation by the other three former Beatles on different tracks, was commercially successful. The album Goodnight Vienna followed the next year and was also successful. Hits and notable tracks from these two albums included "Photograph" and "You're Sixteen" both reaching number one on the US charts, "Oh My My" (US #5) and "I'm the Greatest" (written by Lennon) from Ringo, and "Only You (And You Alone)" (US #6) and "No No Song" (US #3) from 1974's Goodnight Vienna. In late 1975, these singles and others were collected for Starr's first greatest hits compilation, Blast from Your Past, which was the last album to be released on Apple Records. During this period he became romantically involved with Lynsey de Paul.
Starr's recording career subsequently diminished in commercial impact, although he continued to record and remained a familiar celebrity presence. Starr signed with Atlantic Records in the mid-1970s, and in 1976 the album Ringo's Rotogravure was released. Although yielding two minor hit singles, "A Dose of Rock 'n' Roll" (US #26) and a cover of "Hey! Baby" (US #74) the album achieved moderate sales but reached a respectable #28. This caused the label to revamp Starr's formula; the results were a curious blend of disco and '70s pop. The album Ringo the 4th (1977) was a commercial disaster, reaching no higher than #162 on the charts. Afterward, Starr soon signed with Portrait Records. His stint with Portrait began on a promising note: 1978 saw the release of Bad Boy, as well as a network TV special. However, neither were very popular, with Bad Boy reaching a disappointing #129 on the US charts. Consequently, Starr did not release another album with Portrait Records.
In 1975, Starr founded his own record label called Ring O'Records, and four albums were released on the label between 1975 and 1978 (Startling Music by David Hentschel, Graham Bonnet by Graham Bonnet, Restless by Rab Noakes and a re-release of an Apple Records album, The Whale by John Tavener) as well as 16 singles by artists such as: Bobby Keys, Carl Grossman, Colonel Doug Bogie, David Hentschel, Graham Bonnet, Suzanne, Johnny Warman, Stormer, Rab Noakes and Dirk & Stig (the last being names of characters from The Beatles' pastiche band "The Rutles", created by Eric Idle and Neil Innes).
After Lennon was murdered in 1980, Starr and his girlfriend Barbara Bach flew to New York City to comfort Lennon's widow Yoko Ono.
In 1984 and 1986, Starr narrated the children's series Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, a Britt Allcroft production, which was first shown on Central Television and subsequently across the ITV network. He was unsure about taking the role at first, having never previously read the books by Reverend Awdry, and at the time he felt that children would be more interested in "dinosaurs with lasers." Nevertheless, he had a change of heart and took the role, narrating the first two series. Starr also portrayed the character Mr. Conductor in the program's American spin-off Shining Time Station, which debuted in 1989 on PBS. Starr left after the first season.
In 1985, he performed, with his son Zak Starkey, as part of Artists United Against Apartheid on the recording Sun City.
In 1987, Starr drummed on the George Harrison song "When We Was Fab" from his album Cloud Nine. The song, co-written by Harrison and Jeff Lynne, charted in the Top 30 in both the UK and the USA. The same year, Starr, Harrison, and Lynne joined Eric Clapton, Elton John, Phil Collins, and Ray Cooper in a performance for the Prince's Trust charity.
In October 1988, Starr and Bach attended a detox clinic in Tucson, Arizona, each receiving a six-week treatment for alcoholism. Starr later complained that it had been difficult to recover with the "press flying overhead" on a constant basis. On July 23, 1989, 'Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band' gave their first performance to an audience of ten thousand in Dallas, Texas. The band consisted of Starr and a varying assortment of musicians who had been successful in their own right with popular songs at different times. The concerts interchanged Starr's singing, including selections of his Beatles and solo songs, with performances of each of the other artists' well-known material, the latter incorporating either Starr or another musician as drummer.
In 1991, he made an animated appearance as himself on The Simpsons episode "Brush with Greatness" and contributed an original song, "You Never Know", to the soundtrack of the John Hughes film Curly Sue.
Starr released his first studio album in nine years, 1992's Time Takes Time. The album was produced by four of the top producers in music: Phil Ramone, Don Was, Jeff Lynne and Peter Asher, and featured guest appearances by various stars including Brian Wilson and Harry Nilsson.
In 1995, Starr appeared with Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, and Peter Tork of the Monkees in a Pizza Hut commercial. In the commercial, he claims he is trying to reunite "the lads." The commercial ends with the three Monkees joining Starr. He looks into the camera and says "wrong lads."
In 1997, Starr guested on drums on two songs on the McCartney album Flaming Pie. McCartney had written a song about Starr's ex-wife Maureen Starkey ("Little Willow") and asked Starr if he'd play on another ("Beautiful Night"). The day after the "Beautiful Night" session, the two recorded a jam session which developed into another Flaming Pie song, "Really Love You", notable for being the first song ever credited to McCartney/Starkey and officially released on an album.
In 1998, he released two albums on the Mercury label. The studio album Vertical Man marked the beginning of a nine-year "partnership" with Mark Hudson, who produced the album and, with his band the Roundheads, formed the core of the backing group for the album. In addition, many "famous guests" joined on various tracks, including Martin, McCartney, and—in his final appearance on a Starr album before his death—Harrison. Most of the songs were written by Starr and the band. The Roundheads and Joe Walsh joined Starr for his appearance on VH1 Storytellers, which was released as an album under the same name. On the show, he performed greatest hits and new songs, and told anecdotes relating to them.
In 2000, he appeared in a television commercial for Charles Schwab Investments. As he sits with a group of young musicians trying to find a word that rhymes with "elation", Ringo suggests such financial terms as "dividend reinvestment participation", "market capitalization" and "asset allocation". As the song "Money" plays in the background, the musicians stare at him in confusion. He finally says, "What? Too many syllables?"
In 2002, Starr was inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame joining an elite group of percussive inductees, which includes Buddy Rich and William F. Ludwig, Sr. and Jr.
On 29 November 2002 (the first anniversary of George Harrison's death) , Starr performed "Photograph" and a cover of Carl Perkins' "Honey Don't" at the Concert for George held in the Royal Albert Hall, London, on the first anniversary of Harrison's death. According to the official Concert for George website, "Ringo Starr caught everyone with a tear in their eye with a rendition of 'Photograph', a composition he wrote with George, which seemed to sum up how everyone felt." The song includes the lines, "Every time I see your face / it reminds me of the places we used to go / But all I've got is a photograph / and I realise you're not coming back anymore".
In 2003, Starr formed Pumkinhead Records with All-Starr Band member Mark Hudson. The label was not prolific, but their first signing was Liam Lynch, who produced a 2003 LP entitled Fake Songs.
for 2003 and 2004 Ringo Starr in his Santa Tracking outfit.]] Starr was an "honorary Santa Tracker" and voice over for the London stop in Santa's annual Christmas Eve journey in 2003 and 2004 as depicted in the annual NORAD tracks Santa program. According to NORAD officials, he was "a Starr in the east" who helped guide North American Aerospace Defense Command's Santa-tracking tradition.
In September 2005, Liverpool City Council decided they would bulldoze 9 Madryn Street, Starr's birthplace, as it had 'no historical significance', despite a previous reprieve back in July. The LCC later announced that the building would be taken apart brick by brick and preserved after all.
In 2006, Starr featured on the Jerry Lee Lewis duet album, Last Man Standing; he performed a cover, with Lewis, of Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen". It was also announced he would be the star in a Pow! Entertainment animated film and comic book produced by comics creator Stan Lee.
In the 24 December 2007 issue of Time (European edition), Starr was profiled in a three-page article focusing on his happiness in life and his music. The article mentioned the Liverpool 8 album, but only briefly. It also stated that Starr and Dave Stewart were collaborating on writing a musical, to be called The Hole in the Fence, and discussed Starr's then-upcoming performance in Liverpool on 11 January 2008.
In January 2008, the studio album Liverpool 8, produced by Dave Stewart, Mark Hudson and Starr himself, was released. Mark Hudson was the initial producer of the record but was replaced by Stewart after a falling out with Starr. (The album's production credits read, "Produced by Ringo Starr and Mark Hudson; Re-Produced by Ringo Starr and David Stewart." All of the songs but one were written with members of the Roundheads, although Stewart also has several co-writing credits.) Starr's attorney Bruce Grakal told journalist Peter Palmiere that the partnership between Hudson and Starr was over and they would never work together again. This happened after Hudson dropped out of the 2006 tour as musical director to do the TV show . According to Palmiere, Hudson now claims that the split was over Starr's insistence on using synthesised sounds, for which Stewart is known, whereas Hudson wanted real guitars, pianos, strings etc.
On 10 October 2008, Starr posted a video on his website stating that he will not be signing autographs after 20 October 2008. He stated that he is too busy and that anything after that date sent to any address will not be signed.
On 4 April 2009, Starr reunited with McCartney at the David Lynch "Change Begins Within" Benefit Concert at Radio City Music Hall. After separate performances from Starr and other artists, McCartney's set came last, and towards the end he announced "Billy Shears", whereupon Starr joined him to perform "With a Little Help from My Friends" and, with all performers, "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Cosmically Conscious". In late May 2009, it was announced that Starr will collaborate with Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney to record some new tracks to record an entire album.
Starr appeared on-stage at Microsoft's 1 June 2009 E3 press conference with Yoko Ono, McCartney and Olivia Harrison to promote video game.
Starr remains the only Beatle not to top the UK singles charts as a solo artist, although he did chart two number one singles in the US. He is also the only Beatle not to top the UK album listings, his highest position being #7, achieved in the UK with both Sentimental Journey and Ringo; the latter reached #2 in the US charts, giving Starr his highest album position there. In the USA, Starr's Apple singles fared rather well. Of all four members of The Beatles- in their respective solo careers- he has the second most consecutive top ten singles in the US with seven in a row: "It Don't Come Easy" (#4), "Back Off Boogaloo" (#9), "Photograph" (#1), "You're Sixteen" (#1), "Oh My My" (#5), "Only You (And You Alone)" (#6) and "No No Song" (#3). McCartney has the most with eight in a row.
In November 2009, Starr once again performed the voice of Thomas the Tank Engine for "The Official BBC Children in Need Medley". This is the first #1 UK hit Starr has been involved in since The Beatles disbanded in 1970 (not counting guest appearances on other singles by other artists).
On 22 January 2010, Starr appeared on as a Celebrity phone operator.
Starr appeared at the 52nd Grammy Awards with Norah Jones to present 'Record Of The Year' to Kings Of Leon on 31 January 2010 .
On 11 April 2010, Starr appeared on Weekend Wogan, a live radio show on BBC 2 Radio presented by Sir Terry Wogan, to promote his album Y Not in the UK and on 12 April 2010 he appeared on Loose Women, a lunchtime chat show on ITV. On 13 April 2010 Starr appeared on CNN's Connect The World on CNN International.
On 7 July 2010, Starr celebrated his 70th birthday at Radio City Music Hall, New York with another All-Starr Band concert, topped with friends and family joining him on stage including Yoko Ono and his son Zak, and Paul McCartney as a surprise guest.
Zak Starkey is also a drummer, who until August 2008 was a semi-official member of Oasis—one of the many bands influenced by The Beatles. Starr arranged for Zak to receive drumming instruction from Zak's idol, The Who's drummer Keith Moon, who was Zak's godfather and a close friend of Starr's. Zak also performs with the Who live (such as during the Super Bowl XLIV Halftime show in 2010) and sometimes in the studio. Zak has performed with his father during some All-Starr Band tours.
Like fellow ex-Beatle McCartney, Starr is a vegetarian. Unlike McCartney, who is vegetarian for ethical reasons, Starr is vegetarian because of stomach problems he had in the past.
The minor planet 4150 Starr, discovered on 31 August 1984 by Brian A. Skiff at the Anderson Mesa Station of the Lowell Observatory, was named in his honour. Starr was nominated for a 1989 Daytime Emmy Award for 'Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series' for his role as Mr. Conductor in the television series Shining Time Station.
All four of The Beatles were elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when the group was inducted in 1988. Since then, Lennon (1994), McCartney (1999), and Harrison (2004) have been inducted for their solo careers as well. Starr remains the only Beatle not to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his solo career. However, it was announced on 5 September 2007 that Starr would be on the ballot for membership in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist. If Starr is inducted, it would be the only time both a rock group, and each of its individuals members, were inducted separately.
During the 50th Grammy Awards, Starr, George Martin and Giles Martin accepted the Best Compilation Soundtrack award for Love.
On 9 November 2008, Starr accepted a Diamond Award on behalf of The Beatles during the 2008 World Music Awards ceremony in Monaco.
On 8 February 2010, Starr was honoured with the 2,401st star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. It is located at 1750 North Vine Street, in front of the Capitol Records building, as are the stars for Lennon and Harrison.
;Studio albums
== All-Starr Band editions ==
: For a detailed list of bands and members, see: Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band
To date, Starr has toured with eleven versions of his All-Starr Band, where "everybody on stage is a star in their own right." The band has consistently toured for over a decade, and, in similar fashion to Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings, rotates its line-up depending on the musicians' projects at a given time.
Category:1960s singers Category:1970s singers Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:The Beatles members Category:Apple Records artists Category:English film actors Category:English rock drummers Category:English baritones Category:Academy Award winners Category:Music from Liverpool Category:E1 Music artists Category:Mercury Records artists Category:British expatriates in the United States Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire Category:English vegetarians Category:Plastic Ono Band members Category:Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends Category:Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners Category:People self-identifying as alcoholics Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Atlantic Records artists Category:Musicians from Liverpool Category:Actors from Liverpool Category:1940 births Category:Living people Category:World Music Awards winners
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Category:1970 births Category:French Quebecers Category:Living people Category:People from Quebec City Category:Quebec film directors Category:Canadian film directors
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Ronald Reagan |
|---|---|
| Order | 40th |
| Office | President of the United States |
| Vicepresident | George H. W. Bush |
| Term start | January 20, 1981 |
| Term end | January 20, 1989 |
| Predecessor | Jimmy Carter |
| Successor | George H. W. Bush |
| Order2 | 33rd |
| Office2 | Governor of California |
| Lieutenant2 | Robert Finch(1967–1969) Ed Reinecke(1969–1974) John Harmer(1974–1975) |
| Term start2 | January 3, 1967 |
| Term end2 | January 6, 1975 |
| Predecessor2 | Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, Sr. |
| Successor2 | Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown, Jr. |
| Birth date | February 06, 1911 |
| Birth place | Tampico, Illinois |
| Death date | June 05, 2004 |
| Death place | Bel Air, Los Angeles, California |
| Resting place | Reagan Presidential Library |
| Spouse | Jane Wyman (1940 - 1948)(2) Nancy Davis (1952 - 2004) |
| Children | Maureen ReaganChristine ReaganMichael Reagan Patti DavisRon Reagan |
| Alma mater | Eureka College |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Religion | Baptized Disciples of Christ, later attended Presbyterian churches. |
| Signature | Ronald Reagan Signature2.svg |
| Signature alt | Cursive signature in ink |
| Party | Republican (1962–2004) Democratic (1932–1962) |
| Branch | United States Army United States Army Air Forces |
| Rank | Captain |
| Serviceyears | 1937–1945 |
Born in Tampico, Illinois, raised in Dixon, Illinois, and educated at Eureka College with a bachelor of arts degree in economics-sociology, Reagan first moved to Iowa as a radio broadcaster and then to Los Angeles, California in 1937. He began a career as an actor, first in films and later television, appearing in over 50 movie productions and gaining enough success to become a famous, publicly recognized figure. Some of his most notable roles are in Knute Rockne, All American and Kings Row. Reagan served as president of the Screen Actors Guild, and later spokesman for General Electric (GE); his start in politics occurred during his work for GE. Originally a member of the Democratic Party, he switched to the Republican Party in 1962. After delivering a rousing speech in support of Barry Goldwater's presidential candidacy in 1964, he was persuaded to seek the California governorship, winning two years later and again in 1970. He was defeated in his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 as well as 1976, but won both the nomination and election in 1980.
As president, Reagan implemented sweeping new political and economic initiatives. His supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics," advocated controlling the money supply to reduce inflation, and spurring economic growth by reducing tax rates, government regulation of the economy, and certain types of government spending. In his first term he survived an assassination attempt, took a hard line against labor unions, and ordered military actions in Grenada. He was reelected in a landslide in 1984, proclaiming it was "Morning in America". His second term was primarily marked by foreign matters, such as the ending of the Cold War, the bombing of Libya, and the revelation of the Iran-Contra affair. Publicly describing the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," he supported anti-Communist movements worldwide and spent his first term forgoing the strategy of détente by ordering a massive military buildup in an arms race with the USSR. Reagan negotiated with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, culminating in the INF Treaty and the decrease of both countries' nuclear arsenals.
Reagan left office in 1989. In 1994, the former president disclosed that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease earlier in the year; he died ten years later at the age of 93. He ranks highly in public opinion polls of U.S. Presidents, and is a conservative icon.
According to Paul Kengor, author of God and Ronald Reagan, Reagan had a particularly strong faith in the goodness of people, which stemmed from the optimistic faith of his mother, Nelle, and the Disciples of Christ faith, For the time, Reagan was unusual in his opposition to racial discrimination, and recalled a time in Dixon when the local inn would not allow black people to stay there. Reagan brought them back to his house, where his mother invited them to stay the night and have breakfast the next morning.
Following the closure of the Pitney Store in late 1920, the Reagans moved to Dixon; the midwestern "small universe" had a lasting impression on Reagan. He attended Dixon High School, where he developed interests in acting, sports, and storytelling. Reagan attended Eureka College, where he became a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and majored in economics and sociology. He developed a reputation as a jack of all trades, excelling in campus politics, sports and theater. He was a member of the football team, captain of the swim team and was elected student body president. As student president, Reagan notably led a student revolt against the college president after he tried to cut back the faculty.
Reagan was ordered to active duty for the first time on April 18, 1942. Due to his nearsightedness, he was classified for limited service only, which excluded him from serving overseas. His first assignment was at the San Francisco Port of Embarkation at Fort Mason, California, as a liaison officer of the Port and Transportation Office. On January 14, 1943 he was promoted to First Lieutenant and was sent to the Provisional Task Force Show Unit of This Is The Army at Burbank, California. He returned to Fort MacArthur, California, where he was separated from active duty on December 9, 1945.
Reagan called Kings Row the film that "made me a star". However, he was unable to capitalize on his success because he was ordered to active duty with the U.S. Army at San Francisco two months after its release, and never regained "star" status in motion pictures.
aboard a boat in California in 1964]] Reagan met actress Nancy Davis (born 1921) in 1949 after she contacted him in his capacity as president of the Screen Actors Guild to help her with issues regarding her name appearing on a communist blacklist in Hollywood (she had been mistaken for another Nancy Davis). She described their meeting by saying, "I don't know if it was exactly love at first sight, but it was pretty close." Actor William Holden served as best man at the ceremony. They had two children: Patti (born 1952) and Ron (born 1958).
Observers described the Reagans' relationship as close, real, and intimate. During his presidency they were reported as frequently displaying their affection for one another; one press secretary said, "They never took each other for granted. They never stopped courting." He once wrote to her, "whatever I treasure and enjoy ... all would be without meaning if I didn’t have you." When he was in the hospital in 1981, she slept with one of his shirts to be comforted by his scent. In a letter to U.S. citizens written in 1994, Reagan wrote "I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer's disease.... I only wish there was some way I could spare Nancy from this painful experience,"
Reagan opposed certain civil rights legislation, saying "If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house, it is his right to do so". He later reversed his opposition to voting rights and fair housing laws. He strongly denied having racist motives. When legislation that would become Medicare was introduced in 1961, Reagan created a recording for the American Medical Association warning that such legislation would mean the end of freedom in America. Reagan said that if his listeners did not write letters to prevent it, "we will awake to find that we have socialism. And if you don't do this, and if I don't do it, one of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free."
Reagan endorsed the campaign of conservative presidential contender Barry Goldwater in 1964. Speaking for Goldwater, Reagan stressed his belief in the importance of smaller government. He revealed his ideological motivation in a famed speech delivered on October 27, 1964: "The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing." This "Time for Choosing" speech raised $1 million for Goldwater's campaign
Shortly after the beginning of his term, Reagan tested the presidential waters in 1968 as part of a "Stop Nixon" movement, hoping to cut into Nixon's Southern support and be a compromise candidate if neither Nixon nor second-place Nelson Rockefeller received enough delegates to win on the first ballot at the Republican convention. However, by the time of the convention Nixon had 692 delegate votes, 25 more than he needed to secure the nomination, followed by Rockefeller with Reagan in third place. Reagan then called out 2,200 state National Guard troops to occupy the city of Berkeley for two weeks in order to crack down on the protesters. When the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped Patty Hearst in Berkeley and demanded the distribution of food to the poor, Reagan joked, "It's just too bad we can't have an epidemic of botulism."
Early in 1967, the national debate on abortion was beginning. Democratic California state senator Anthony Beilenson introduced the "Therapeutic Abortion Act," in an effort to reduce the number of "back-room abortions" performed in California. About two million abortions would be performed as a result, most because of a provision in the bill allowing abortions for the well-being of the mother.
Despite an unsuccessful attempt to recall him in 1968, Reagan was re-elected in 1970, defeating "Big Daddy" Jesse Unruh. He chose not to seek a third term in the following election cycle. One of Reagan's greatest frustrations in office concerned capital punishment, which he strongly supported.
Reagan's terms as governor helped to shape the policies he would pursue in his later political career as president. By campaigning on a platform of sending "the welfare bums back to work," he spoke out against the idea of the welfare state. He also strongly advocated the Republican ideal of less government regulation of the economy, including that of undue federal taxation.
Reagan didn't seek re-election to a third term as governor in 1974 and was succeeded by Democratic California Secretary of State Jerry Brown on January 6, 1975.
Reagan's campaign relied on a strategy crafted by campaign manager John Sears of winning a few primaries early to seriously damage the lift-off of Ford's campaign. Reagan won North Carolina, Texas, and California, but the strategy disintegrated and he ended up losing New Hampshire and Florida. As the party's convention neared, Ford appeared close to victory. Acknowledging his party's moderate wing, Reagan chose moderate Republican Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania as his running mate. Nonetheless, Ford narrowly won with 1,187 delegates to Reagan's 1,070. which Ford had won over Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter. During this time he was granted an honorary membership into Alpha Kappa Psi, Alpha Zeta Chapter.
The Reagan Presidency began in a dramatic manner; as Reagan was giving his inaugural address, 52 U.S. hostages, held by Iran for 444 days were set free.
The bullet was removed and the surgery was deemed a success. It was later determined, however, that the president's life had been in serious danger due to rapid blood loss and severe breathing difficulties. He was able to turn the grave situation into a more light-hearted one, though, for when Nancy Reagan came to see him he told her, "Honey, I forgot to duck" (using Jack Dempsey's quip). becoming the first serving U.S. President to survive being shot in an assassination attempt. The attempt had great influence on Reagan's popularity; polls indicated his approval rating to be around 73%. Reagan believed that God had spared his life so that he might go on to fulfill a greater purpose.
Only a short time into his administration, federal air traffic controllers went on strike, violating a regulation prohibiting government unions from striking. Declaring the situation an emergency as described in the 1947 Taft Hartley Act, Reagan held a press conference in the White House Rose Garden, where he stated that if the air traffic controllers "do not report for work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated." Despite fear from some members of his cabinet over a potential political backlash, on August 5, Reagan fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored his order to return to work, busting the union. According to Charles Craver, a labor law professor at George Washington University Law School, the move gave Americans a new view of Reagan, who "sent a message to the private employer community that it would be all right to go up against the unions". Over those eight years, the unemployment rate declined from 7.1% to 5.5%, hitting annual rate highs of 9.7% (1982) and 9.6% (1983) and averaging 7.5% during Reagan's administration.
Reagan implemented policies based on supply-side economics and advocated a classical liberal and laissez-faire philosophy, seeking to stimulate the economy with large, across-the-board tax cuts. Citing the economic theories of Arthur Laffer, Reagan promoted the proposed tax cuts as potentially stimulating the economy enough to expand the tax base, offsetting the revenue loss due to reduced rates of taxation, a theory that entered political discussion as the Laffer curve. Reaganomics was the subject of debate with supporters pointing to improvements in certain key economic indicators as evidence of success, and critics pointing to large increases in federal budget deficits and the national debt. His policy of "peace through strength" (also described as "firm but fair") resulted in a record peacetime defense buildup including a 40% real increase in defense spending between 1981 and 1985.
During Reagan's presidency, federal income tax rates were lowered significantly with the signing of the bipartisan Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 which lowered the top marginal tax bracket from 70% to 50% and the lowest bracket from 14% to 11%. Then, in 1982 the Job Training Partnership Act of 1982 was signed into law, initiating one of the nation's first public/private partnerships and a major part of the president's job creation program. Reagan's Assistant Secretary of Labor and Chief of Staff, Al Angrisani, was a primary architect of the bill. The Tax Reform Act of 1986, another bipartisan effort championed by Reagan, reduced the top rate further to 28% while raising the bottom bracket from 11% to 15% and reducing the quantity of brackets to 4. Conversely, Congress passed and Reagan signed into law tax increases of some nature in every year from 1981 to 1987 to continue funding such government programs as TEFRA, Social Security, and the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984. Despite the fact that TEFRA was the "largest peacetime tax increase in American history," Reagan is better known for his tax cuts and lower-taxes philosophy. Real gross domestic product (GDP) growth recovered strongly after the early 1980s recession ended in 1982, and grew during his eight years in office at an annual rate of 3.85% per year. Unemployment peaked at 10.8% monthly rate in December 1982—higher than any time since the Great Depression—then dropped during the rest of Reagan's presidency. Sixteen million new jobs were created, while inflation significantly decreased. However, federal Income Tax receipts increased from 1980 to 1989, rising from $308.7Bn to $549.0Bn.
During the Reagan Administration, federal receipts grew at an average rate of 8.2% (2.5% attributed to higher Social Security receipts), and federal outlays grew at an annual rate of 7.1%. Reagan also revised the tax code with the bipartisan Tax Reform Act of 1986.
Reagan's policies proposed that economic growth would occur when marginal tax rates were low enough to spur investment, which would then lead to increased economic growth, higher employment and wages. Critics labeled this "trickle-down economics"—the belief that tax policies that benefit the wealthy will create a "trickle-down" effect to the poor. Questions arose whether Reagan's policies benefited the wealthy more than those living in poverty, programs including Medicaid, food stamps, federal education programs While he protected entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, his administration attempted to purge many people with disabilities from the Social Security disability rolls.
The administration's stance toward the Savings and Loan industry contributed to the Savings and Loan crisis. It is also suggested, by a minority of Reaganomics critics, that the policies partially influenced the stock market crash of 1987, but there is no consensus regarding a single source for the crash. In order to cover newly spawned federal budget deficits, the United States borrowed heavily both domestically and abroad, raising the national debt from $997 billion to $2.85 trillion. Reagan described the new debt as the "greatest disappointment" of his presidency.
He reappointed Paul Volcker as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and in 1987 he appointed monetarist Alan Greenspan to succeed him. Reagan ended the price controls on domestic oil which had contributed to energy crises in the early 1970s. The price of oil subsequently dropped, and the 1980s did not see the fuel shortages that the 1970s had. Reagan also fulfilled a 1980 campaign promise to repeal the Windfall profit tax in 1988, which had previously increased dependence on foreign oil. Some economists, such as Nobel Prize winners Milton Friedman and Robert A. Mundell, argue that Reagan's tax policies invigorated America's economy and contributed to the economic boom of the 1990s.
On October 25, 1983, only two days later, Reagan ordered U.S. forces to invade Grenada, code named Operation Urgent Fury, where a 1979 coup d'état had established an independent non-aligned Marxist-Leninist government. A formal appeal from the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) led to the intervention of U.S. forces; President Reagan also cited an allegedly regional threat posed by a Soviet-Cuban military build-up in the Caribbean and concern for the safety of several hundred American medical students at St. George's University as adequate reasons to invade. Operation Urgent Fury was the first major military operation conducted by U.S. forces since the Vietnam War, several days of fighting commenced, resulting in a U.S. victory, with 19 American fatalities and 116 wounded American soldiers. In mid-December, after a new government was appointed by the Governor-General, U.S. forces withdrew. Reagan ordered a massive buildup of the United States Armed Forces In response to Soviet deployment of the SS-20, Reagan oversaw NATO's deployment of the Pershing II missile in West Germany.
, predicts Marxism-Leninism will be left on the "ash-heap of history".]]
Together with the United Kingdom's prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Reagan denounced the Soviet Union in ideological terms. In a famous address on June 8, 1982 to the British Parliament in the Royal Gallery of the Palace of Westminster, Reagan said, "the forward march of freedom and democracy will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history." On March 3, 1983, he predicted that communism would collapse, stating, "Communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being written." In a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals on March 8, 1983, Reagan called the Soviet Union "an evil empire".
After Soviet fighters downed Korean Air Lines Flight 007 near Moneron Island on September 1, 1983, carrying 269 people including U.S. congressman from Georgia Larry McDonald, Reagan labeled the act a "massacre" and declared that the Soviets had turned "against the world and the moral precepts which guide human relations among people everywhere". The Reagan administration responded to the incident by suspending all Soviet passenger air service to the United States, and dropped several agreements being negotiated with the Soviets, wounding them financially.
Under a policy that came to be known as the Reagan Doctrine, Reagan and his administration also provided overt and covert aid to anti-communist resistance movements in an effort to "rollback" Soviet-backed communist governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Reagan deployed the CIA's Special Activities Division to Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were instrumental in training, equipping and leading Mujaheddin forces against the Soviet Red Army. President Reagan's Covert Action program has been given credit for assisting in ending the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, though the US funded armaments introduced then would later pose a threat to US troops in the 2000s war in Afghanistan.
In March 1983, Reagan introduced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a defense project Reagan believed that this defense shield could make nuclear war impossible, but disbelief that the technology could ever work led opponents to dub SDI "Star Wars" and argue that the technological objective was unattainable. For those reasons, David Gergen, former aide to President Reagan, believes that in retrospect, SDI hastened the end of the Cold War.
Critics labeled Reagan's foreign policies as aggressive, imperialistic, and chided them as "warmongering," though they were supported by leading American conservatives who argued that they were necessary to protect U.S. security interests. A reformer, Mikhail Gorbachev, would later rise to power in the Soviet Union in 1985, implementing new policies for openness and reform that were called glasnost and perestroika.
Reagan accepted the Republican nomination in Dallas, Texas, on a wave of positive feeling. He proclaimed that it was "morning again in America,"
Reagan's opponent in the 1984 presidential election was former Vice President Walter Mondale. With questions about Reagan's age, and a weak performance in the first presidential debate, it was questioned whether he was capable to be president for another term. This confused and forgetful behavior horrified his supporters at that moment, as they always knew him as clever and witty, and it is said that around this time were the early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Reagan rebounded in the second debate, and confronted questions about his age, quipping, "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience," which generated applause and laughter.
That November, Reagan was re-elected, winning 49 of 50 states. and received 58.8% of the popular vote to Mondale's 40.6%.
In 1985, Reagan visited a German military cemetery in Bitburg to lay a wreath with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. It was determined that the cemetery held the graves of 49 members of the Waffen-SS. Reagan issued a statement that called the Nazi soldiers buried in that cemetery "victims," which ignited a stir over whether he had equated the SS men to Holocaust victims; Pat Buchanan, Director of Communications under Reagan, argued that the notion was false. Now strongly urged to cancel the visit, the president responded that it would be wrong to back down on a promise he had made to Chancellor Kohl. He attended the ceremony where two military generals laid a wreath.
The disintegration of the Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986 proved a pivotal moment in Reagan's presidency. All seven astronauts aboard were killed. On the night of the disaster, Reagan delivered a speech written by Peggy Noonan in which he said:
}}
In 1986, Reagan signed a drug enforcement bill that budgeted $1.7 billion to fund the War on Drugs and specified a mandatory minimum penalty for drug offenses. The bill was criticized for promoting significant racial disparities in the prison population Defenders of the effort point to success in reducing rates of adolescent drug use. First Lady Nancy Reagan made the War on Drugs her main priority by founding the "Just Say No" drug awareness campaign, which aimed to discourage children and teenagers from engaging in recreational drug use by offering various ways of saying "no". Mrs. Reagan traveled to 65 cities in 33 states, raising awareness about the dangers of drugs including alcohol.
President Reagan professed ignorance of the plot's existence. He appointed two Republicans and one Democrat (John Tower, Brent Scowcroft and Edmund Muskie, known as the "Tower Commission") to investigate the scandal. The commission could not find direct evidence that Reagan had prior knowledge of the program, but criticized him heavily for his disengagement from managing his staff, making the diversion of funds possible. A separate report by Congress concluded that "If the president did not know what his national security advisers were doing, he should have." The scandal resulted in fourteen indictments within Reagan's staff, and eleven convictions.
Many Central Americans criticize Reagan for his support of the Contras, calling him an anti-communist zealot, blinded to human rights abuses, while others say he "saved Central America". Daniel Ortega, Sandinistan and current president of Nicaragua, said that he hoped God would forgive Reagan for his "dirty war against Nicaragua".
Reagan recognized the change in the direction of the Soviet leadership with Mikhail Gorbachev, and shifted to diplomacy, with a view to encourage the Soviet leader to pursue substantial arms agreements. Gorbachev and Reagan held four summit conferences between 1985 and 1988: the first in Geneva, Switzerland, the second in Reykjavík, Iceland, the third in Washington, D.C., and the fourth in Moscow. Reagan believed that if he could persuade the Soviets to allow for more democracy and free speech, this would lead to reform and the end of Communism.
Speaking at the Berlin Wall on June 12, 1987, Reagan challenged Gorbachev to go further, saying:
at the White House in 1987]] Prior to Gorbachev visiting Washington, D.C., for the third summit in 1987, the Soviet leader announced his intention to pursue significant arms agreements. The timing of the announcement led Western diplomats to contend that Gorbachev was offering major concessions to the U.S. on the levels of conventional forces, nuclear weapons, and policy in Eastern Europe. The two leaders laid the framework for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START I; Reagan insisted that the name of the treaty be changed from Strategic Arms Limitation Talks to Strategic Arms Reduction Talks. At Gorbachev's request, Reagan gave a speech on free markets at the Moscow State University. In his autobiography, An American Life, Reagan expressed his optimism about the new direction that they charted and his warm feelings for Gorbachev. The Berlin Wall was torn down beginning in 1989 and two years later the Soviet Union collapsed.
On July 13, 1985, Reagan underwent surgery at Bethesda Naval Hospital to remove cancerous polyps from his colon. This caused the first-ever invocation of the acting president clause of the 25th Amendment. The surgery lasted just under three hours and was successful. Reagan resumed the powers of the presidency later that day. In August of that year, he underwent an operation to remove skin cancer cells from his nose. In October, additional skin cancer cells were detected on his nose and removed.
In January 1987, Reagan underwent surgery for an enlarged prostate which caused further worries about his health. No cancerous growths were found, however, and he was not sedated during the operation. In July of that year, aged 76, he underwent a third skin cancer operation on his nose.
After his diagnosis, letters of support from well-wishers poured into his California home, but there was also speculation over how long Reagan had demonstrated symptoms of mental degeneration. Former CBS White House correspondent Lesley Stahl recalls an interview when he was president where "a vacant Reagan barely seemed to realize anyone else was in the room," and that before he "reemerged into alertness" she recalls that "I had come that close to reporting that Reagan was senile." However, Dr. Lawrence K. Altman, a physician employed as a reporter for the New York Times, noted that "the line between mere forgetfulness and the beginning of Alzheimer's can be fuzzy" Reagan's doctors, however, note that he only began exhibiting overt symptoms of the illness in late 1992 or 1993, Other staff members, former aides, and friends said they saw no indication of Alzheimer's while he was President.
, May 1996]] Complicating the picture, Reagan suffered an episode of head trauma in July 1989, five years prior to his diagnosis. After being thrown from a horse in Mexico, a subdural hematoma was found and surgically treated later in the year. Nancy Reagan asserts that her husband's 1989 fall hastened the onset of Alzheimer's disease, Reagan's one-time physician Dr. Daniel Ruge has said it is possible, but not certain, that the horse accident affected the course of Reagan's memory.
Reagan suffered a fall at his Bel Air home on January 13, 2001, resulting in a broken hip. The fracture was repaired the following day and the 89 year old Reagan returned home later that week, although he faced difficult physical therapy at home. On February 6, 2001, Reagan reached the age of 90, becoming the third former president to do so (the other two being John Adams and Herbert Hoover, with Gerald Ford later reaching 90). Reagan's public appearances became much less frequent with the progression of the disease, and as a result, his family decided that he would live in quiet isolation. Nancy Reagan told CNN's Larry King in 2001 that very few visitors were allowed to see her husband because she felt that "Ronnie would want people to remember him as he was." Since his diagnosis and death, Mrs. Reagan has become a stem-cell research advocate, urging Congress and President George W. Bush to support federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, something President Bush opposed. Mrs. Reagan has said that she believes that it could lead to a cure for Alzheimer's. President Barack Obama reversed federal opposition to funding embryonic stem cell research in 2009.
On June 9, Reagan's body was flown to Washington, D.C. where he became the tenth United States president to lie in state; in thirty-four hours, 104,684 people filed past the coffin.
On June 11, a state funeral was conducted in the Washington National Cathedral, and presided over by President George W. Bush. Eulogies were given by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and both Presidents Bush. Also in attendance were Mikhail Gorbachev, and many world leaders, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and interim presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, and Ghazi al-Yawer of Iraq.
After the funeral, the Reagan entourage was flown back to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, where another service was held, and President Reagan was interred. At the time of his death, Reagan was the longest-lived president in U.S. history, having lived 93 years and 120 days (2 years, 8 months, and 23 days longer than John Adams, whose record he surpassed). He is now the second longest-lived president, just 45 days fewer than Gerald Ford. He was the first United States president to die in the 21st century, and his was the first state funeral in the United States since that of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1973.
His burial site is inscribed with the words he delivered at the opening of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library: "I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph and that there is purpose and worth to each and every life."
Many conservative and liberal scholars agree that Reagan has been the most influential president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, leaving his imprint on American politics, diplomacy, culture, and economics. "As of this writing, among academic historians, the Reagan revisionists—who view the 1980s as an era of mixed blessings at worst, and of great forward strides in some renditions—hold the field," reports Rossinow (2007).
The first generation of writing about Reagan comprised studies on the right that approached hagiography, and on the left a devil theory, all relying on popular journalism for their facts. A second generation has emerged, based on newly available documents from the archives, that provides a much more sophisticated and complex view. The scholars of the second generation have reached a consensus, as summarized by British historian M. J. Heale, who finds that scholars now concur that Reagan rehabilitated conservatism, turned the nation to the right, practiced a pragmatic conservatism that balanced ideology and the constraints of politics, revived faith in the presidency and in American self respect, and contributed to victory in the Cold War.
President Ronald Reagan (left) and President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev meet in 1985.]] He was notable amongst post-World War II presidents as being convinced that the Soviet Union could be defeated rather than simply negotiated with, Reagan's strong rhetoric toward the nation had mixed effects; Jeffery W. Knopf, Ph.D. observes that being labeled "evil" probably made no difference to the Soviets but gave encouragement to the East-European citizens opposed to communism. and deemed him "a great President." Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, said of Reagan, "he warned that the Soviet Union had an insatiable drive for military power... but he also sensed it was being eaten away by systemic failures impossible to reform." She later said, "Ronald Reagan had a higher claim than any other leader to have won the Cold War for liberty and he did it without a shot being fired." Said Brian Mulroney, former Prime Minister of Canada: "He enters history as a strong and dramatic player [in the Cold War]." Former President Lech Wałęsa of Poland acknowledged, "Reagan was one of the world leaders who made a major contribution to communism's collapse."
As a sitting president, Reagan did not have the highest approval ratings, but his popularity has increased since 1989. Gallup polls in 2001 and 2007 ranked him number one or number two when correspondents were asked for the greatest president in history, and third of post-World War II presidents in a 2007 Rasmussen Reports poll, fifth in an ABC 2000 poll, ninth in another 2007 Rasmussen poll, and eighth in a late 2008 poll by United Kingdom newspaper The Times. In a Siena College survey of over 200 historians, however, Reagan ranked sixteenth out of 42. While the debate about Reagan's legacy is ongoing, the 2009 Annual C-SPAN Survey of Presidential Leaders ranked Reagan the 10th greatest president. The survey of leading historians rated Reagan number 11 in 2000. s (Gallup 1981–89)]]
Reagan's ability to connect with the American people earned him the laudatory moniker "The Great Communicator". Of it, Reagan said, "I won the nickname the great communicator. But I never thought it was my style that made a difference—it was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things." His age and soft-spoken speech gave him a warm grandfatherly image.
Reagan also earned the nickname "the Teflon President," in that public perceptions of him were not tarnished by the controversies that arose during his administration. According to Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, who coined the phrase, and reporter Howard Kurtz, the epithet referred to Reagan's ability to "do almost anything wrong
Public reaction to Reagan was always mixed; the oldest president was supported by young voters, and began an alliance that shifted many of them to the Republican party. Reagan did not fare well with minority groups, especially African-Americans. However, his support of Israel throughout his presidency earned him support from many Jews. He emphasized family values in his campaigns and during his presidency, although he was the first president to have been divorced. The combination of Reagan's speaking style, unabashed patriotism, negotiation skills, as well as his savvy use of the media, played an important role in defining the 1980s and his future legacy.
Reagan was known to gibe frequently during his lifetime, displayed humor throughout his presidency, and was famous for his storytelling. His numerous jokes and one-liners have been labeled "classic quips" and "legendary". Among the most notable of his jokes was one regarding the Cold War. As a sound check prior to his weekly radio address in August 1984, Reagan made the following joke as a way to test the microphone: "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." Former aide David Gergen commented, "It was that humor... that I think endeared people to Reagan."
In 1989, Reagan was created an Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, a British first class knighthood. This entitled him to the use of the post-nominal letters GCB, but did not entitle him to be known as "Sir Ronald Reagan". Only two American presidents have received the honor—Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Reagan was also named an honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford. Japan awarded him the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum in 1989; he was the second American president to receive the award, but the first to have it given to him for personal reasons (Dwight D. Eisenhower received it as a commemoration of U.S.-Japanese relations).
from President George H.W. Bush in 1993]] On January 18, 1993, Reagan's former Vice-President and sitting President George H. W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor that the United States can bestow. Reagan was also awarded the Republican Senatorial Medal of Freedom, the highest honor bestowed by Republican members of the Senate.
On Reagan's 87th birthday, in 1998, Washington National Airport was renamed Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport by a bill signed into law by President Clinton. That year, the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center was dedicated in Washington, D.C. He was among 18 included in Gallup's List of Widely Admired People of the 20th Century, from a poll conducted of the American people in 1999; two years later, USS Ronald Reagan was christened by Nancy Reagan and the United States Navy. It is one of few Navy ships christened in honor of a living person, and the first aircraft carrier to be named in honor of a living former president.
as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection.]]
Congress authorized the creation of the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home National Historic Site in Dixon, Illinois in 2002, pending federal purchase of the property. On May 16 of that year, Nancy Reagan accepted the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by Congress, on behalf of the president and herself.
Following Reagan's death, the United States Postal Service issued a President Ronald Reagan commemorative postage stamp in 2005. Later in the year, CNN, along with the editors of Time magazine, named him the "most fascinating person" of the network's first 25 years; Time listed Reagan one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th century as well. The Discovery Channel asked its viewers to vote for The Greatest American in an unscientific poll on June 26, 2005; Reagan received the honorary title.
In 2006, Reagan was inducted into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts. Every year since 2002, California Governors Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger have proclaimed February 6 "Ronald Reagan Day" in the state of California in honor of their most famous predecessor. In 2010, Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 944, authored by Senator George Runner, to make every February 6 Ronald Reagan Day in California.
In 2007, Polish President Lech Kaczyński posthumously awarded Reagan the highest Polish distinction, the Order of the White Eagle, saying that Reagan inspired the Polish people to work for change and helped to unseat the repressive communist regime; Kaczyński said it "would not have been possible if it was not for the tough-mindedness, determination, and feeling of mission of President Ronald Reagan". Reagan backed the nation of Poland throughout his presidency, supporting the anti-communist Solidarity movement, along with Pope John Paul II.
On June 3, 2009, Nancy Reagan unveiled a statue of her late husband in the United States Capitol rotunda. The statue represents the state of California in the National Statuary Hall Collection. Following Reagan's death, there was a bipartisan agreement to build a statue of Reagan and replace Thomas Starr King. The prior day, President Obama signed the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission Act into law, establishing a commission to plan activities to mark the upcoming 100th anniversary of Reagan's birth.
Category:1911 births Category:2004 deaths Category:20th-century presidents of the United States Category:20th-century actors Category:Actors awarded British knighthoods Category:Actors from California Category:Actors from Illinois Category:American actor-politicians Category:American anti-communists Category:American Disciples of Christ Category:American film actors Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:American politicians of Irish descent Category:American people of English descent Category:American Presbyterians Category:American radio personalities Category:American shooting survivors Category:American television personalities Category:California Republicans Category:Chicago Cubs broadcasters Category:Cold War leaders Category:College football announcers Category:Colorectal cancer survivors Category:Congressional Gold Medal recipients Category:Deaths from Alzheimer's disease Category:Deaths from pneumonia Category:Eureka College Category:First Motion Picture Unit personnel Category:Governors of California Category:History of the United States (1980–1991) Category:Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath Category:Infectious disease deaths in California Category:Iran–Contra affair Category:Major League Baseball announcers Category:New Right (United States) Category:People from Lee County, Illinois Category:People from Whiteside County, Illinois Category:People from the Greater Los Angeles Area Category:People involved in the Soviet war in Afghanistan Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:Presidents of the Screen Actors Guild Category:Presidents of the United States Ronald Category:Recipients of the Order of the White Eagle (Poland) Category:Republican Party (United States) presidential nominees Category:Republican Party Presidents of the United States Category:Skin cancer survivors Category:United States Army Air Forces officers Category:United States Army officers Category:United States presidential candidates, 1968 Category:United States presidential candidates, 1976 Category:United States presidential candidates, 1980 Category:United States presidential candidates, 1984 Category:U.S. Presidents surviving assassination attempts Category:Writers from California Category:Writers from Illinois Category:Time Persons of the Year
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Muhammad Ali |
|---|---|
| Nationality | American |
| Nickname | The GreatestThe ChampThe Louisville Lip |
| Height | |
| Reach | |
| Weight | Heavyweight |
| Birth date | January 17, 1942 |
| Birth place | Louisville, Kentucky, United States |
| Style | Orthodox |
| Total | 61 |
| Wins | 56 |
| Ko | 37 |
| Losses | 5 |
| Draws | 0 |
| No contests | 0 |
Originally known as Cassius Clay, Ali changed his name after joining the Nation of Islam in 1964, subsequently converting to Sunni Islam in 1975 and more recently to Sufism. In 1967, Ali refused to be conscripted into the U.S. military, based on his religious beliefs and opposition to the Vietnam War. He was arrested and found guilty on draft evasion charges, stripped of his boxing title, and his boxing license was suspended. He was not imprisoned, but did not fight again for nearly four years while his appeal worked its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it was successful.
Nicknamed "The Greatest", Ali was involved in several historic boxing matches. Notable among these are three with rival Joe Frazier and one with George Foreman, whom he beat by knockout to win the world heavyweight title for the second time. He suffered only five losses (four decisions and one TKO by retirement from the bout) with no draws in his career, while amassing 56 wins (37 knockouts and 19 decisions). Ali was well known for his unorthodox fighting style, which he described as "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee", and employing techniques such as the rope-a-dope. He was also known for his pre-match hype, where he would "trash talk" opponents on television and in person some time before the match, often with rhymes. These personality quips and idioms, along with an unorthodox fighting technique, made him a cultural icon. In later life, Ali developed Parkinson's disease. In 1999, Ali was crowned "Sportsman of the Century" by Sports Illustrated and "Sports Personality of the Century" by the BBC.
Clay was first directed toward boxing by the white Louisville police officer and boxing coach Joe E. Martin, who encountered the 12-year-old fuming over the theft of his bicycle. However, without Martin's knowledge, Clay also began training with Fred Stoner, an African-American trainer working at the local community center. In this way, Clay could make $4 a week on Tomorrow's Champions, a local, weekly TV show that Martin hosted, while benefiting from the coaching of the more experienced Stoner, who continued working with Clay throughout his amateur career.
Under Stoner's guidance, Cassius Clay won six Kentucky Golden Gloves titles, two national Golden Gloves titles, an Amateur Athletic Union National Title, and the Light Heavyweight gold medal in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. Clay's amateur record was 100 wins with five losses.
Ali states (in his 1975 autobiography) that he threw his Olympic gold medal into the Ohio River after being refused service at a 'whites-only' restaurant, and fighting with a white gang. Whether this is true is still debated, although he was given a replacement medal at a basketball intermission during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, where he lit the torch to start the games.
Standing tall, at 6-ft, 3-in (1.91 m), Clay had a highly unorthodox style for a heavyweight boxer. Rather than the normal style of carrying the hands high to defend the face, he instead relied on foot speed and quickness to avoid punches, and carried his hands low.
From 1960 to 1963, the young fighter amassed a record of 19–0, with 15 knockouts. He defeated boxers such as Tony Esperti, Jim Robinson, Donnie Fleeman, Alonzo Johnson, George Logan, Willi Besmanoff, Lamar Clark (who had won his previous 40 bouts by knockout), Doug Jones and Henry Cooper.
Clay built a reputation by correctly predicting the round in which he would "finish" several opponents, and by boasting before his triumphs. had Clay's colorful persona and nonstop braggadocio as its sole appeal.
Faversham confronted Clay about his association with Malcolm X (who, at the time, was actually under suspension by the Nation as a result of controversial comments made in the wake of President Kennedy's assassination). While stopping short of admitting he was a member of the Nation, Clay protested the suggested cancellation of the fight. As a compromise, Faversham asked the fighter to delay his announcement about his conversion to Islam until after the fight. The incident is described in the 1975 book The Greatest: My Own Story by Ali (with Richard Durham).
During the weigh-in on the day before the bout, the ever-boastful Clay, who frequently taunted Liston during the buildup by dubbing him "the big ugly bear" (among other things), declared that he would "float like a butterfly and sting like a bee," and, summarizing his strategy for avoiding Liston's assaults, said, "Your hands can't hit what your eyes can't see."
At the pre-fight weigh-in, Clay's pulse rate was around 120, more than double his norm of 54. Liston, among others, misread this as nervousness. In the opening rounds, Clay's speed kept him away from Liston's powerful head and body shots, as he used his height advantage to beat Liston to the punch with his own lightning-quick jab. And in relation to inter-racial marriage: "No intelligent black man or black woman in his or her right black mind wants white boys and white girls coming to their homes to marry their black sons and daughters."
Appearing shortly thereafter for his scheduled induction into the U.S. Armed Forces on April 28, 1967 in Houston, he refused three times to step forward at the call of his name. An officer warned him he was committing a felony punishable by five years in prison and a fine of $10,000. Once more, Ali refused to budge when his name was called. As a result, he was arrested and on the same day the New York State Athletic Commission suspended his boxing license and stripped him of his title. Other boxing commissions followed suit.
At the trial on June 20, 1967, after only 21 minutes of deliberation, the jury found Ali guilty.
Ali and Frazier met in the ring on March 8, 1971, at Madison Square Garden. The fight, known as '"The Fight of the Century," was one of the most eagerly anticipated bouts of all time and remains one of the most famous. It featured two skilled, undefeated fighters, both of whom had legitimate claims to the heavyweight crown. Frank Sinatra—unable to acquire a ringside seat—took photos of the match for Life magazine. Legendary boxing announcer Don Dunphy and actor and boxing aficionado Burt Lancaster called the action for the broadcast, which reached millions of people. The fight lived up to the hype, and Frazier punctuated his victory by flooring Ali with a hard, leaping left hook in the 15th and final round. Frazier retained the title on a unanimous decision, dealing Ali his first professional loss.
In 1973, Ali fought Ken Norton, who broke Ali's jaw and won by split decision in 12 rounds. Ali won the rematch, also by split decision, on September 10, 1973, which set up Ali-Frazier II, a nontitle rematch with Joe Frazier, who had already lost his title to George Foreman. The bout was held on January 28, 1974, with Ali winning a unanimous 12-round decision.
Almost no one, not even Ali's long-time supporter Howard Cosell, gave the former champion a chance of winning. Analysts pointed out that Joe Frazier and Ken Norton had given Ali four tough battles in the ring and won two of them, while Foreman had knocked out both of them in the second round. As a matter of fact, so total was the domination that, in their bout, Foreman had knocked down Frazier an incredible six times in only four minutes and 25 seconds.
During the bout, Ali employed an unexpected strategy. Leading up to the fight, he had declared he was going to "dance" and use his speed to keep away from Foreman and outbox him. However, in the first round, Ali headed straight for the champion and began scoring with a right hand lead, clearly surprising Foreman. Ali caught Foreman nine times in the first round with this technique but failed to knock him out. He then decided to take advantage of the young champion's weakness: staying power. Foreman had won 37 of his 40 bouts by knockout, mostly within three rounds. Eight of his previous bouts didn't go past the second round. Ali saw an opportunity to outlast Foreman, and capitalized on it.
In the second round, the challenger retreated to the ropes—inviting Foreman to hit him, while counterpunching and verbally taunting the younger man. Ali's plan was to enrage Foreman and absorb his best blows to exhaust him mentally and physically. While Foreman threw wide shots to Ali's body, Ali countered with stinging straight punches to Foreman's head. Foreman threw hundreds of punches in seven rounds, but with decreasing technique and potency. Ali's tactic of leaning on the ropes, covering up, and absorbing ineffective body shots was later termed "The Rope-A-Dope".
By the end of the seventh round, Foreman was exhausted. In the eighth round, Ali dropped Foreman with a combination at center ring and Foreman failed to make the count. Against the odds, Ali had regained the title.
The "Rumble in the Jungle" was the subject of a 1996 Academy Award winning documentary film, When We Were Kings. The fight and the events leading up to it are extensively depicted in both John Herzfeld's 1997 docudrama and Michael Mann's 2001 docudrama, Ali.
On October 1, 1975, Ali fought Joe Frazier for the third time. Although widely perceived as a publicity stunt, the match against Inoki would have a long-term detrimental affect on Ali's mobility. Inoki spent much of the fight on the ground trying to damage Ali’s legs, while Ali spent most of the fight dodging the kicks or staying on the ropes. At the end of 15 rounds, the bout was called a draw. Ali's legs, however, were bleeding, leading to an infection. He suffered two blood clots in his legs as well.
In 1993, the Associated Press reported that Ali was tied with Babe Ruth as the most recognized athlete, out of over 800 dead or alive athletes, in America. The study, conducted by Nye Lavalle's Sports Marketing Group, found that over 97% of Americans, over 12-years of age, identified both Ali and Ruth.
He was the recipient of the 1997 Arthur Ashe Courage Award.
, alongside Interstate 64 on Louisville's riverfront]]
He appeared at the 1998 AFL (Australian Football League) Grand Final, where Anthony Pratt invited him to watch the game. He also greets runners at the start line of the Los Angeles Marathon every year.
In 1999, the BBC produced a special version of its annual BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award ceremony, and Ali was voted their Sports Personality of the Century, receiving more votes than the other four contenders combined. His daughter Laila Ali also became a boxer in 1999, despite her father's earlier comments against female boxing in 1978: "Women are not made to be hit in the breast, and face like that... the body's not made to be punched right here [patting his chest]. Get hit in the breast... hard... and all that."
On September 13, 1999, Ali was named "Kentucky Athlete of the Century" by the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame in ceremonies at the Galt House East.
on display at the Ali Center]]
In 2001, a biographical film, entitled Ali, was made, directed by Michael Mann, with Will Smith starring as Ali. The film received mixed reviews, with the positives generally attributed to the acting, as Smith and supporting actor Jon Voight earned Academy Award nominations. Prior to making the Ali movie, Will Smith had continually rejected the role of Ali until Muhammad Ali personally requested that he accept the role. According to Smith, the first thing Ali said about the subject to him was: "Man, you're almost pretty enough to play me."
On November 17, 2002, Muhammad Ali went to Afghanistan as "U.N. Messenger of Peace". He was in Kabul for a three-day goodwill mission as a special guest of the United Nations.
On January 8, 2005, Muhammad Ali was presented with the Presidential Citizens Medal by President George W. Bush.
He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony on November 9, 2005, and the "Otto Hahn Peace Medal in Gold" of the United Nations Association of Germany (DGVN) in Berlin for his work with the US civil rights movement and the United Nations (December 17, 2005).
embraces Muhammad Ali after presenting him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 9, 2005, during ceremonies at the White House.]]
On November 19, 2005 (Ali's 19th wedding anniversary), the $60 million non-profit Muhammad Ali Center opened in downtown Louisville. In addition to displaying his boxing memorabilia, the center focuses on core themes of peace, social responsibility, respect, and personal growth.
According to the Ali Center website, "Since he retired from boxing, Ali has devoted himself to humanitarian endeavors around the globe. He is a devout Muslim, and travels the world over, lending his name and presence to hunger and poverty relief, supporting education efforts of all kinds, promoting adoption and encouraging people to respect and better understand one another. It is estimated that he has helped to provide more than 22 million meals to feed the hungry. Ali travels, on average, more than 200 days per year."
At the FedEx Orange Bowl on January 2, 2007, Ali was an honorary captain for the Louisville Cardinals wearing their white jersey, number 19. Ali was accompanied by golf legend Arnold Palmer, who was the honorary captain for the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, and Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade.
A youth club in Ali's hometown and a species of rose (Rosa ali) have also been named after him. On June 5, 2007, he received an honorary doctorate of humanities at Princeton University's 260th graduation ceremony.
Ali lives in Scottsdale, Arizona with his fourth wife, Yolanda "Lonnie" Ali. They own a house in Berrien Springs, Michigan, which is for sale. On January 9, 2007, they purchased a house in eastern Jefferson County, Kentucky for $1,875,000. Lonnie converted to Islam from Catholicism in her late 20s.
On the 17th of August 2009, it was voted unanimously by the town council of Ennis, Co Clare, Ireland to make Ali the first Freeman of Ennis. Ennis was the birthplace of Ali's great grandfather before he emigrated to the U.S. in the 1860s, before eventually settling in Kentucky. On September 1, 2009, Ali visited the town of Ennis and at a civic reception he received the honour of the freedom of the town.
Ali is generally considered to be one of the greatest heavyweights of all time by boxing commentators and historians. Ring Magazine, a prominent boxing magazine, named him number 1 in a 1998 ranking of greatest heavyweights from all eras.
Ali was named the second greatest fighter in boxing history by ESPN.com behind only welterweight and middleweight great Sugar Ray Robinson. In December 2007, ESPN listed Ali second in its choice of the greatest heavyweights of all time, behind Joe Louis.
On August 17, 1967, Ali (aged 25) married 17-year old Belinda Boyd. After the wedding, she converted to Islam and changed her name to Khalilah Ali, though she was still called Belinda by old friends and family. They had four children: Maryum (b. 1968), Jamillah and Liban (b. 1970), and Muhammad Ali Jr. (b. 1972).
In 1975, Ali began an affair with Veronica Porsche, an actress and model. By the summer of 1977, Ali's second marriage was over and he had married Veronica. At the time of their marriage, they had a baby girl, Hana, and Veronica was pregnant with their second child. Their second daughter, Laila, was born in December 1977. By 1986, Ali and Veronica were divorced.
On November 19, 1986, Ali married Yolanda Ali. They had been friends since 1964 in Louisville. They have one adopted son, Asaad Amin, who they adopted when Amin was five.
Ali has two other daughters, Miya and Khaliah, from extramarital relationships.
As a world champion boxer and social activist, Ali has been the subject of numerous books, films and other creative works. In 1963, he released an album of spoken word on Columbia Records titled I am the Greatest! He has appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated on 37 different occasions, second only to Michael Jordan. He appeared in the documentary film Black Rodeo (1972) riding both a horse and a bull. His autobiography The Greatest: My Own Story, written with Richard Durham, was published in 1975. In 1977 the book was adapted into a film called The Greatest, in which Ali played himself and Ernest Borgnine played Angelo Dundee. When We Were Kings, a 1996 documentary about the Rumble in the Jungle, won an Academy Award, and the 2001 biopic Ali garnered an Oscar nomination for Will Smith's portrayal of the lead role.
For contributions to the entertainment industry, Muhammed Ali was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard.
}} }}
}}
}}
}}
}}
Category:1942 births Category:Living people Category:African American boxers Category:American boxers of Irish descent Category:American boxers of English descent Category:American anti-Vietnam War activists Category:Boxers from Kentucky Category:World Heavyweight Champions Category:Heavyweights Category:WBA Champions Category:WBC Champions Category:African American Muslims Category:American conscientious objectors Category:American Sufis Category:Boxers at the 1960 Summer Olympics Category:COINTELPRO targets Category:Converts to Islam from Christianity Category:International Boxing Hall of Fame inductees Category:Kentucky colonels Category:Olympic boxers of the United States Category:Olympic gold medalists for the United States Category:People with Parkinson's disease Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:Presidential Citizens Medal recipients Category:Professional wrestling referees Category:People from Louisville, Kentucky Category:People from Paradise Valley, Arizona Category:Winners of the United States Championship for amateur boxers Category:African American converts to Islam Category:Former Nation of Islam members
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Mike Oldfield |
|---|---|
| Landscape | yes |
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Michael Gordon Oldfield |
| Birth date | May 15, 1953 |
| Birth place | Reading, Berkshire, England |
| Instrument | Guitar, Keyboards, Percussion, Vocals, Bass, Drums, Piano, Organ, Honky-Tonk, Glockenspiel, Mandolin |
| Genre | Ambient, Celtic fusion, classical, Synthpop, experimental, minimalist, Neoclassical, new age, Neofolk, pop, progressive rock, rock and roll, world |
| Occupation | Musician, Songwriter, Producer, Game designer |
| Years active | 1967–present |
| Label | Virgin (1972–1991)Warner Bros. (1992–2003)Mercury (2005–present) |
| Associated acts | Kevin Ayers, David Bedford, Maggie Reilly, Pekka Pohjola |
| Url | www.mikeoldfieldofficial.com |
In 1970 he joined The Whole World - backing group to vocalist Kevin Ayers, formerly of the Soft Machine - playing bass guitar and occasionally lead guitar. The band also included keyboardist and composer David Bedford, who quickly befriended Oldfield, and encouraged him in his composition of an early version of Tubular Bells. Bedford would later arrange and conduct an orchestral version of that album. Oldfield is featured on two Ayers albums, Whatevershebringswesing and Shooting at the Moon.
Having recorded a demo version of Tubular Bells, Oldfield attempted to persuade record labels to take the project on. In 1972 he met the young Richard Branson who was setting up his own record label, Virgin Records, and after playing the demo to engineers Tom Newman and Simon Heyworth, he began recording the 1973 version of the album.
Like Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge is a two-movement instrumental piece, this time evoking scenes from Oldfield's Herefordshire country retreat. It was followed in 1975 by the pioneering world music piece Ommadawn, and 1978's Incantations which introduced more diverse choral performances from Sally Oldfield, Maddy Prior, and the Queen's College Girls Choir. In 1975 Oldfield recorded a version of the Christmas piece "In Dulci Jubilo" which charted at number four in the UK. Oldfield's 1976 rendition of "Portsmouth" remains his highest charting single on the UK Singles Chart, reaching number three.
In 1976 Oldfield and his sister Sally joined his friend and band member Pekka Pohjola to play on his album Mathematician's Air Display, which was released in 1977. The album was recorded and edited at Oldfield's Througham Slad Manor in Gloucestershire by Oldfield and Paul Lindsay.
Around the time of Incantations, Oldfield underwent a controversial self-assertiveness therapy course known as Exegesis. Possibly as a result, the formerly reclusive musician staged a major European tour to promote the album, chronicled in his live album Exposed, much of which was recorded at the National Exhibition Centre near Birmingham, the first-ever concert there.
In 1975, Oldfield received a Grammy award for Best Instrumental Composition in "Tubular Bells – Theme from The Exorcist". In 1979, he recorded a version of the signature tune of the popular British Children's Television programme, Blue Peter, which was used by the show for 10 years.
The early 1980s saw Oldfield make a transition to mainstream pop music, beginning with the inclusion of shorter instrumental tracks and contemporary cover versions on Platinum and QE2 (the latter named after the ocean liner). Soon afterwards he turned to songwriting, with a string of collaborations featuring various lead vocalists alongside his characteristic searing guitar solos. The best known of these is "Moonlight Shadow", his 1983 hit with Maggie Reilly. The most successful Oldfield composition on the US pop charts during this period was actually a cover version — Hall & Oates's remake of Oldfield's "Family Man" for their 1982 album H2O. Released as the album's third single, it hit the Top 10 during the spring of 1983 and was a hugely popular MTV music video.
Oldfield later turned to film and video, writing the score for Roland Joffé's acclaimed film The Killing Fields and producing substantial video footage for his album Islands. Islands continued what Oldfield had been doing on the past couple of albums, with an instrumental piece on one side and rock/pop singles on the other. Of these, "Islands", sung by Bonnie Tyler and "Magic Touch", with vocals by Max Bacon (in the U.S. version) and Glasgow vocalist Southside Jimmy (in other versions), were the major hits. In the U.S., the Virgin America airline promoted the song "Magic Touch" to a large extent, making it a success, reaching the top 10 on the Billboard album rock charts. During the 1980s, Oldfield's then-wife, Norwegian singer Anita Hegerland, contributed vocals to many songs including "Pictures in the Dark".
Earth Moving was released in July 1989, and was a moderate success. The album was the first to exclusively feature rock/pop songs, several of which were released: "Innocent" and "Holy" in Europe, and "Hostage" in the USA for album rock stations. This was, however, a time of much friction with his record label. Virgin Records reportedly insisted that any future instrumental album should be billed as Tubular Bells 2. Oldfield's rebellious response was Amarok, an hour-long work featuring rapidly changing themes (supposedly devised to make cutting a single from the album impossible), unpredictable bursts of noise, and a very cleverly hidden Morse code insult directed at Richard Branson. Although regarded by many fans as his greatest work, it was not a commercial success. His parting shot from the Virgin label was Heaven's Open, which continued the veiled attacks on Branson but was notable for being the first time Oldfield had contributed all the lead vocals himself. It was the only album he released under the name 'Michael Oldfield'.
In 1995 Oldfield further continued to embrace new musical styles by producing a Celtic-themed album, Voyager. In 1992 Oldfield met Luar na Lubre, a Galician Celtic-folk band (from A Coruña, Spain). The band's popularity grew after Oldfield covered their song "O son do ar" ("The sound of the air") on his Voyager album.
In 1998 he produced the third Tubular Bells album (also premiered at a concert, this time in Horse Guards Parade, London), drawing from the dance music scene at his then new home on the island of Ibiza. This album was still inspired by themes from Tubular Bells, but differed in lacking a clear two-part layout.
During 1999 Oldfield released two albums. The first, Guitars, used guitars as the source for all the sounds on the album, including percussion. The second, The Millennium Bell, consisted of pastiches of a number of styles of music that represented various historical periods over the past millennium. The work was performed live in Berlin for the city's millennium celebrations in 1999–2000.
He added to his repertoire the MusicVR project, combining his music with a virtual reality-based computer game. His first work on this project is Tr3s Lunas launched in 2002, a virtual game where the player can interact with a world full of new music. This project appeared as a double CD, one with the music, and the other with the game.
In 2003 he released Tubular Bells 2003, a re-recording of the original Tubular Bells, on CD, and DVD-Audio. This was done to "fix" many "imperfections" in the original due to the recording technologies of the early 1970s and limitations in time that he could spend in the recording studio. It celebrated the 30th anniversary of Tubular Bells, Oldfield's 50th birthday and his marriage to Fanny in the same year. At around the same time Virgin released an SACD version containing both the original stereo album and the 1975 quadraphonic mix by Phil Newell. In the 2003 version, the original voice of the 'Master of Ceremonies' (Viv Stanshall) was replaced by the voice of John Cleese, Stanshall having died in the interim.
His autobiography Changeling was published in May 2007 by Virgin Books. In March 2008 Oldfield released his first classical album, Music of the Spheres; Karl Jenkins assisted with the orchestration. In the first week of release the album topped the UK Classical chart and reached number 9 on the main UK Album Chart. A single, "Spheres", featuring a demo version of pieces from the album was released digitally. The album was nominated for a Classical Brit Award, the NS&I; Best Album of 2009.
In 2008 Oldfield contributed an exclusive song ("Song for Survival") to a charity album called Songs for Survival, in support of the Survival International. Oldfield's daughter, Molly, played a large part in the project.
In 2008 when Oldfield's original 35-year deal with Virgin Records ended, the rights to Tubular Bells and his other Virgin releases were returned to him, and then they were transferred to Mercury Records. Mercury issued a press release on 15 April 2009, noting that Oldfield's Virgin albums would be re-released, starting 8 June 2009. These releases include special features from the archives. On 6 June 2009, an International Bell Ringing day took place, to promote the reissue of his first album, Tubular Bells.
In March 2010 Music Week reported that publishing company Stage Three Music had acquired a 50% stake in the songs of Oldfield's entire recorded output in a seven-figure deal. In 2010 lyricist Don Black said in an interview with Music Week that he had been working with Oldfield.
Mike Oldfield has seven children. In the early 1980s, he had three children with Sally Cooper (Molly, Dougal and Luke). In the late 1980s, he had two children (Greta and Noah) with Norwegian singer Anita Hegerland. In the 2000s, he married Fanny Vandekerckhove (born 1977), whom he met during his time in Ibiza; they have two sons together (Jake and Eugene). During 2010 Fanny has been writing about listening to her husband's music which is available to read on Oldfield's official website.
Oldfield is a motorcycle fan and has five bikes. These include a BMW R1200GS, a Suzuki GSX-R750, a Suzuki GSX-R1000, and a Yamaha R1. He also says that some of his inspiration for composing comes from riding them. Throughout his life Oldfield has also had a passion for aircraft and building model aircraft. and has flown fixed wing aircraft, the first of which was a Beechcraft Sierra and helicopters including the Agusta Bell 47G which featured on the sleeve of his cover version of the ABBA song "Arrival" as a parody of their album artwork. He is also interested in cars and has owned a Ferrari and a Bentley which was a gift from Richard Branson as an incentive for him to give his first live performance of Tubular Bells. He has endorsed the Mercedes-Benz S-Class in the Mercedes UK magazine. Oldfield also considers himself to be a Trekkie (fan of the popular science fiction television series Star Trek). He also noted in an interview in 2008 that he had two boats.
In 2007 Oldfield caused a minor stir in the British press by criticizing Britain for being too controlling and protective, specifically concentrating on the smoking ban which England and Wales had introduced that year. Oldfield then moved from his Gloucestershire home to Palma de Mallorca, Spain. He has lived outside the UK in the past, including living in Los Angeles and Ibiza in the 1990s, and Switzerland in the mid-1980s, for tax reasons. He also currently has a home in Monaco. In 2009 he decided to move to the Bahamas, and put his home in Mallorca up for sale; the asking price is around €3.5 million. As of January 2010 this property is still on the market, but at a reduced price.
Oldfield used a modified Roland GP8 effects processor in conjunction with his PRS Artist to get many of his heavily overdriven guitar sounds from the Earth Moving album onwards. Oldfield has also stated that his playing style originates from his musical roots playing folk music and the bass guitar. For composing classical music Oldfield has been quoted as using the software notation program, Sibelius, He also used the FL Studio DAW on his 2005 double album Light + Shade. Among the mixing consoles Oldfield has owned are an AMS Neve Capricorn 33238, a Harrison Series X, and a Euphonix System 5-MC.
Category:1953 births Category:Living people Category:English songwriters Category:English guitarists Category:English multi-instrumentalists Category:English buskers Category:English New Age musicians Category:English composers Category:British people of Irish descent Category:People from Reading, Berkshire Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Virgin Records artists Category:Mercury Records artists Category:English Roman Catholics Category:Warner Bros. Records artists
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Lindsey Buckingham |
|---|---|
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Lindsey Adams Buckingham |
| Born | October 03, 1949 Palo Alto, California, United States |
| Instrument | Vocals, guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, drums, percussion |
| Voice type | Baritone |
| Genre | Rock, pop, New Wave |
| Occupation | Singer-songwriter, Guitarist, Producer |
| Years active | 1968–present |
| Label | Reprise Polydor Mercury Elektra Asylum |
| Associated acts | Fleetwood Mac, Buckingham Nicks |
| Url | www.lindseybuckingham.com |
| Notable instruments | Rick Turner Model 1 Chet Atkins CEC RS6 |
Lindsey's first forays into guitar playing took place on a toy Mickey Mouse guitar, playing along to his brother Jeff's extensive collection of 45s. Noticing his talent, Buckingham's parents bought their son a $35 Harmony guitar.
Buckingham never took guitar lessons and does not read music. By age 13, he became interested in folk music and, influenced by banjo methods, practiced the fingerpicking styles of The Kingston Trio. At 15 he joined a small folk group, providing vocals and guitar work.
Although money was tight, the hardworking duo caught the attention of many budding musicians, including Warren Zevon, who is rumored to have been a roommate of Nicks and Buckingham in a Fairfax district apartment.
A short tour promoting the Buckingham Nicks album commenced shortly after the joining of Buckingham and Nicks with Fleetwood Mac. Bootlegs of two concerts in Mobile and Tuscaloosa exist and are widely distributed on peer-to-peer networks and fansites. The touring band included drummers Bob Aguirre (from Fritz) and Gary Hodges playing simultaneously and bassist Tom Moncrieff, who later played bass on Stevie Nicks' 1981 album Bella Donna.
To help make ends meet, Buckingham toured with Don Everly's back-up band, singing Phil Everly's parts. Buckingham and Nicks were eventually forced to move in with record producer Keith Olsen, who helped the pair work on several demos for the next Buckingham Nicks album, including "I'm So Afraid", "Monday Morning", and "Rhiannon".
Buckingham Nicks has never been released on CD (a bootleg version does exist), although both Buckingham and Nicks have hinted at a possible remix and re-release on CD in the near future. Buckingham has also suggested a tour in support of the collection could be something the two may be interested in. Moncrieff and Hodges from the original Buckingham Nicks touring band have also expressed interest.
Fleetwood Mac released their eponymously titled album in 1975, which became a hit. However it was the second album of this new line-up, Rumours, that propelled the band to superstar status when it became one of the best-selling albums of all time. Buckingham's "Go Your Own Way" was the lead-off single, soaring into the US Top Ten. After the resounding commercial success of Rumours (during the making of which Buckingham and Nicks famously split), Buckingham was determined to avoid falling into repeating the same musical pattern. The result was Tusk (1979), a double album that Buckingham primarily directed. Once again, Buckingham wrote the lead-off single, the title track that would peak at #8 on Billboard's Hot 100. It was during this time that Buckingham moved in with record company secretary and aspiring model, Carol Ann Harris, with whom he lived until 1984. Though by most standards a hit, Tusk failed to come close to Rumours record sales, and the album would ultimately precede a hiatus in the band's studio recording efforts.
After a large world tour that ended in 1980, Fleetwood Mac took a year-long break before reconvening to record their next album Mirage, a more pop-friendly work that returned the band to the top of the US album chart. However, by this time various members of the band were enjoying success as solo artists (particularly Nicks) and it would be five years before the release of the next Fleetwood Mac album. By the time Tango in the Night was released in 1987, Buckingham had already released two solo albums and had given up much of the material for what would have been his third solo album for the project, including "Big Love", "Tango in the Night", "Family Man", "You and I", and "Caroline". On several of these tracks Buckingham played every instrument . "Big Love", released as the first single from the album, became a top ten hit in the US and the UK.
Propelled by a string of hit singles, Tango in the Night became the band's biggest album since Rumours a decade earlier. However, following its release, Buckingham left Fleetwood Mac largely due to his desire not to tour and the strain he was feeling within the band. Fleetwood Mac continued without him, and Buckingham was replaced by guitarists Rick Vito and Billy Burnette.
In 1981, Buckingham released his first solo album Law and Order, playing nearly every instrument and featuring guest appearances by bandmates Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie. The album pursued the quirky, eclectic, often lo-fi and new-wave-influences of Tusk, and spawned the hit single Trouble which reached #9 on the US Charts and #1 in Australia (for three weeks). Two years later, he wrote and performed the songs "Holiday Road" and "Dancin' Across the U.S.A." for the film National Lampoon's Vacation. "Holiday Road" was released as a single, and reached #82 on the Billboard's Hot 100. He did other soundtrack work, including the song "Time Bomb Town" from Back to the Future (1985).
In 1984, after ending his 7-year relationship with Carol Ann Harris, he released his second solo album, Go Insane. The title track was a modest hit, reaching #23 on the Hot 100. The last track of the album, D.W. Suite, was a tribute to the late Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson. The next year, Buckingham performed on USA for Africa's fundraising single, "We Are the World".
Following his split with Fleetwood Mac in 1987, Buckingham spent much of the next five years in the studio, working on his third solo album, Out of the Cradle, which was released in 1992. Many of the songs seem to deal with the death of his father and the sudden death of his brother Greg in 1990. "Wrong" was a gentle rebuke of former bandmate Mick Fleetwood's tell-all biography. Out of the Cradle received some favorable reviews but did not achieve the sales levels associated with Fleetwood Mac. However, Buckingham toured throughout 1992–93 for the first time as a solo artist; his band included an army of seven other guitarists (Buckingham himself calls them "the crazy band" on his Soundstage DVD), each of whom he individually taught the entire two-and-a-half hours of music from the concert (Lindsey Buckingham: Behind the Music documentary for VH-1, 2001).
A subsequent solo album, entitled Gift of Screws, was recorded between 1995–2001 and presented to Warner Bros./Reprise for release. Executives at the label managed to persuade Buckingham to hold the album back and instead take several tracks from Gift of Screws and re-record them with Fleetwood Mac. Thus, seven songs from Gift of Screws appear on the Fleetwood Mac album Say You Will, in substantially the same form as Buckingham had recorded them for his solo release. Excellent bootleg copies of Gift of Screws—taken from an original CD-R presented to Warner Bros/Reprise—are known to exist, and have been widely distributed among fans through the use of torrent sites and other peer-to-peer networks.
On his 57th birthday, (October 3, 2006) Buckingham's fourth solo album, an acoustic album entitled Under the Skin was released. Under The Skin features Buckingham on almost all instruments, with the exception of two tracks that feature Fleetwood Mac rhythm section John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. The album includes a cover of The Rolling Stones classic "I Am Waiting". Three days after the album's release, Buckingham embarked on a tour in support the album that lasted until the end of June 2007. A live album, Live at the Bass Performance Hall, was released documenting a show from this tour.
In 2008, the Gift of Screws album was finally released, containing three tracks from the originally planned album, as well as seven new recordings. Buckingham then commenced a short tour to promote Gift of Screws in September and October, opening in Saratoga, California and closing in New York, New York.
On November 3, 2010 it was announced on Lindsey's website that he is currently working on an untitled album for release in early 2011.
While assembling material for a planned fourth solo album in the mid 1990s, Buckingham contacted Mick Fleetwood for assistance on a song. Their collaboration lasted much longer than anticipated, and the two eventually decided to call upon Stevie Nicks, John and Christine McVie. The band's old chemistry was clearly still there, and plans for a reunion tour were soon in the works. In 1997, Buckingham and all four of his bandmates from the original Rumours line-up of Fleetwood Mac went on the road for the first time together since 1982 in a reunion tour titled The Dance. The tour was hugely successful and did much to heal the damage that had been done between Buckingham and his bandmates. However, Christine McVie had opted to leave the band in 1998, essentially now making the band a foursome. In 2003, the reformed band released the first studio album involving Buckingham and Nicks in 15 years, Say You Will. Buckingham's song "Peacekeeper" was the first single from the album, and the band went on a world concert tour that would last almost a year and a half.
The band toured in 2009, rehearsals began in January 2009, with the first date of the "UNLEASHED" Tour as March 1, 2009, in Mellon Arena (Pittsburgh, PA). Christine McVie was not involved with this project.
His influences include The Beach Boys and The Kingston Trio.
Albums
Live albums
Category:American male singers Category:American rock guitarists Category:1949 births Category:Living people Category:Fleetwood Mac members Category:People with epilepsy Category:American singer-songwriters Category:Musicians from California Category:People from Palo Alto, California Category:San Jose State University alumni Category:American multi-instrumentalists Category:Lead guitarists
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Jerry Seinfeld |
|---|---|
| Caption | Jerry Seinfeld in 2010. |
| Birth name | Jerome Seinfeld |
| Birth date | April 29, 1954 |
| Birth place | Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Height | 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m) |
| Medium | Television, stand-up, film |
| Nationality | American |
| Active | 1976– |
| Genre | Observational comedy, satire |
| Subject | Human behavior, American culture, gender differences, everyday life |
| Influences | Bill Cosby, George Carlin, Robert Klein, Jean Shepherd |
| Influenced | Carol Leifer, Ricky Gervais, Mitch Hedberg |
| Spouse | Jessica Seinfeld(1999–present),3 children |
| Notable work | Jerry Seinfeld on ''Seinfeld |
| Signature | Seinfeldsignature.svg |
In his first major foray back into the media since the finale of Seinfeld, he co-wrote and co-produced the film Bee Movie, also taking on the lead role of Barry B. Benson. In February 2010, Seinfeld premiered a reality TV series called The Marriage Ref on NBC. Seinfeld is currently directing his friend Colin Quinn in the Broadway show Long Story Short at the Helen Hayes Theater in New York through January 8, 2011.
In the late 1990s, Apple Computer came up with an advertising slogan called "Think different" and produced a 60-second commercial to promote the slogan which showed people who were able to "think differently", like Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and many others. This commercial was later cut short to thirty seconds and ended up paying tribute to Jerry Seinfeld. This commercial aired only once, during the series finale of Seinfeld.
In 2004, Seinfeld also appeared in two commercial webisodes promoting American Express, entitled The Adventures of Seinfeld & Superman, in which he appeared together with an animated rendering of Superman, who was referenced in numerous episodes of Seinfeld as Seinfeld's hero, voiced by Patrick Warburton, who had portrayed David Puddy on Seinfeld. The webisodes were aired in 2004 and directed by Barry Levinson. Seinfeld and "Superman" were also interviewed by Matt Lauer in a specially-recorded interview for the Today show.
On November 18, 2004, Seinfeld appeared at the National Museum of American History to donate the "Puffy Shirt" he wore in the famous Seinfeld episode of the same name. He also gave a speech when presenting the "Puffy Shirt", claiming humorously that "This is the most embarrassing moment of my life."
Seinfeld had a special appearance on May 13, 2006 Saturday Night Live episode as Julia Louis-Dreyfus' assassin. Louis-Dreyfus was the host of that episode and in her opening monologue she mentioned the "Seinfeld Curse". While talking about how ridiculous the "curse" was, a stage light suddenly fell next to her. The camera moved to a catwalk above the stage that Seinfeld was standing on, holding a large pair of bolt cutters. He angrily muttered, "Dammit!", angry that it didn't hit her. Louis-Dreyfus then continued to say that she is indeed not cursed.
On October 4, 2007, Seinfeld made a brief return to NBC, guest-starring in the episode "SeinfeldVision" of 30 Rock as himself.
Amidst his spring 2008 tour Seinfeld made a stop in his hometown of New York City for a one-night-only performance on June 2, 2008 at the Hammerstein Ballroom to benefit Stand Up for a Cure, a charity aiding lung cancer research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
In August 2008, the Associated Press reported that Jerry Seinfeld would be the pitchman for Windows Vista, as part of a $300 million advertising campaign by Microsoft. The adverts, which were intended to create buzz for Windows in support of the subsequent "I'm a PC" adverts, began airing in mid-September 2008 and were cut from television after just 3 installments, Microsoft opting instead to continue with the "I'm a PC" advertisements, and instead continued running the Seinfeld adverts on the Microsoft website as a series of longer advertisements.
Seinfeld appeared on an episode of the Starz original series Head Case. Like many of his previous guest appearances on sitcoms he played himself.
In Australia, Seinfeld appears on a series of advertisements for Greater Building Society, a building society based in New South Wales and south eastern Queensland. His appearance in these adverts were highly publicized and considered a coup for the society, being only the third time Seinfeld had appeared in a television commercial. The adverts were filmed in Cedarhurst, Long Island, with the street designed to emulate Beaumont Street in Hamilton, where the Greater's head offices are located. Seinfeld also wrote the scripts for the fifteen advertisements that were filmed. The adverts largely aired in the Northern New South Wales television market, where the society has most of its branches.
Seinfeld was the first guest of Jay Leno's new talk show, The Jay Leno Show, which premiered on September 14.
In 2002, he wrote a children's book titled Halloween. The book was illustrated by James Bennett. There are also several books about both the sitcom and Seinfeld himself, though many of them are not written by Seinfeld.
Seinfeld wrote the forewords to Ted L. Nancy's Letters from a Nut series of books and Ed Broth's Stories from a Moron. Both authors were rumored to be pseudonyms for Seinfeld or a friend of his. Neither Nancy nor Broth have been seen publicly, although Seinfeld is heavily involved in pitching their books for television.
In promoting Broth's book, Seinfeld hosted a toast in the author's honor. Broth did not attend.
Seinfeld also wrote the foreword to the Peanut Butter & Co. Cookbook, from his favorite sandwich shop in New York City.
Seinfeld and his wife have one daughter and two sons. Daughter Sascha was born on November 7, 2000 in New York City, son Julian Kal on March 1, 2003 in New York City, and Shepherd Kellen was born on August 22, 2005 at New York's Cornell Medical Center. His son Julian's middle name is Kal, which is the first name of Seinfeld's father. Kal is also the first name of Seinfeld's hero Kal-El (Superman). Among Seinfeld's best friends are fellow comedians Larry Miller and Mario Joyner.
In 2000, Jessica Seinfeld launched Baby Buggy, a charity that provides clothing and gear for underprivileged women and children. She is the author of the best-seller Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food, released by HarperCollins in October 2007.
Seinfeld is recorded as having made several political contributions, including George W. Bush and Al Gore's presidential campaigns in 2000 and subsequently to four Democratic primary candidates in 2000 and 2004.
For a time, starting in 1977, Seinfeld was associated with and defended the Church of Scientology, but is now listed by The Globe and Mail as an "ex-member".
A fan of the New York Mets, Seinfeld periodically calls Steve Somers' show on WFAN-AM, a sports talk radio station, as "Jerry from Queens." Seinfeld called four innings of a Mets game on SportsNet New York June 23, 2010, reuniting with analyst Keith Hernandez who appeared in the Seinfeld two part episode The Boyfriend.
A current tally puts Seinfeld at 46 Porsches. Reporter Paul Bannister reports that his collection includes Porsche 911s from various years, 10 Porsche Boxsters each painted a different color and the famous 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder, the same model and pearl-grey color that actor James Dean was driving when he crashed and died. The Discovery Channel television show "Chasing Classic Cars" claims that Seinfeld owns the first and last original Porsche 911s produced. The centerpiece is a $700,000 Porsche 959, one of only 337 ever built. To his initial despair, he was not allowed to drive it as US emission and crash tests were never performed because Porsche refused to donate four Porsche 959s for destruction tests, rendering the car "not street-legal". He imported the car "for exhibition purposes", which stipulates the car may never be driven on American roads. The car was made US street legal in 1999 under the "Show or Display" federal law. In several episodes of Seinfeld, Seinfeld drives a Saab 900 (NG) convertible, but a Porsche-themed painting, depicting a Porsche 904 GTS race car competing in the 1964 Targa Florio race in Italy, is visible on a wall in his apartment, as well as a Porsche racing poster featuring a 550 Spyder depicting the 1958 Targa Florio. In another episode, he is seen hiding behind a red Porsche 911RS parked on the street. In addition, an issue of Excellence, a Porsche-centered publication, is featured prominently on an outdoor magazine rack in one episode and on at least one occasion he is seen reading an issue of Road and Track magazine from circa 1990 with a cover article on the Porsche 964. He also wrote an article for the February 2004 issue of Automobile, reviewing the Porsche Carrera GT. For the story he was awarded Road Pest — Silver at the 2004 International Automotive Media Awards.
Category:American Jews Category:American stand-up comedians Category:American television actors Category:American voice actors Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (television) winners Category:Car collectors Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Jewish actors Category:Jewish comedians Category:American people of Austrian-Jewish descent Category:American people of Syrian-Jewish descent Category:Living people Category:Mizrahi Jews Category:Actors from New York City Category:People from Brooklyn Category:People from Nassau County, New York Category:Queens College, City University of New York alumni Category:People from East Hampton (town), New York Category:State University of New York at Oswego alumni Category:Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:1954 births
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
