Name	Greta Garbo
Caption	Garbo in a publicity still for Susan Lenox (1931)
Birth name	Greta Lovisa Gustafsson
Birth date	September 18, 1905
Birth place	Stockholm, Sweden
Death date	April 15, 1990
Death place	New York City, New York,United States
Years active	1920–1941
Occupation	Actress
Website	http://www.gretagarbo.com/

Greta Lovisa Gustafsson (18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990), later known as Greta Garbo, was a Swedish actress primarily known for her work in the United States during Hollywood's silent film period and part of its subsequent Golden Age. Born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden, she moved to Los Angeles, California in 1925 to develop her film career. She appeared in only 27 movies, yet she remains one of the most popular and recognizable Hollywood stars. The MGM marketing ploy "Garbo talks" became a catch-phrase of the 1930s. Her popularity with the Depression-era audiences allowed her to dictate the terms of her contract in 1932, and she became increasingly choosy about her roles. After 1941, she accepted no more roles, and retired to an apartment in New York City.

Regarded as one of the greatest and most inscrutable movie stars ever produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the Hollywood studio system, Garbo appeared in both the silent and the talkies era of film-making. She was one of the few silent movie actresses to successfully negotiate the transition to sound, which she achieved in Anna Christie (1930), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. She appeared twice as the fabled Anna Karenina, once in silent film, Love (1927), and again with Anna Karenina (1935), for which she received the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. She considered her 1936 performance as the courtesan Marguerite Gautier as her best performance and her role in Camille (1936) earned her a second Academy Award nomination. During the World War II era, MGM attempted to recast the somber and melancholy Garbo into a comic actress with Ninotchka (1939) and Two-Faced Woman (1941), both of which featured her unusually loud, comical, and singing. For Ninotchka, Garbo was again nominated for an Academy Award; Two-Faced Woman did well at the box office, but was a critical failure. Garbo received a 1954 Honorary Academy Award.

In her retirement, during which she became increasingly reclusive, she lived in New York City. A 1986 Sidney Lumet film, Garbo Talks, reflected the continuing popular obsession with the star. Until the end of her life, Garbo-watching became a sport among the paparazzi and the media, but she remained elusive. She died in 1990 at the age of 84 from pneumonia and renal failure.

In 1999, the AFI ranked Greta Garbo 5th on their list of All Time Female Screen Legends, after the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, and Ingrid Bergman.

Biography

1905–1920: Childhood and youth

Garbo was born in Stockholm, Sweden. She was the third and youngest child of Anna Lovisa (née Karlsson) (1872–1944) – a homemaker and later employed at a jam factory – and Karl Alfred Gustafsson (1871–1920), an unskilled worker. Her siblings were Sven Alfred (1898–1967) and Alva Maria (1903–1926). The family lived at Blekingegatan No. 32 in Södermalm, She hated school and did not play much, and typical for a Swedish working-class girl at that time, did not pursue further education; she would later express an inferiority complex about this fact. Some private letters describe her as narcissistic, possessive, and supposedly ashamed of her father, a latrine cleaner, and suggest that Garbo suffered from periods of depression.

Despite living in near poverty, Garbo maintained her moonstruck attitude toward the stage: she played amateur theatre with her friends and frequented the Mosebacke Theater. Additionally, she later admitted to a childhood crush on Carl Brisson and would cite Naima Wifstrand as a role model.

Alva, Garbo's sister, worked in an insurance office as a stenographer, and Sven, Garbo's brother, eventually married and brought his wife and their only child, a daughter who would later be known as Gray. The family of seven continued to remain in a three-bedroom apartment. The mood at home became further strained when Garbo's father, to whom she was extremely close, began missing work — he had worked odd jobs as street cleaner, grocer, factory worker and a butcher's assistant — and when in winter 1919 the Spanish flu had spread throughout Stockholm and Karl Alfred fell ill and lost his job, Garbo stayed at home looking after her father and brought him to the hospital for weekly treatments. In 1920, when she was 14 years old, her father died.

1920–1924: Early career

Her first job was as a soap-lather girl in a barbershop. One day a young man by the name of Kristian Bergström, son of the founder of PUB department store, Paul U. Bergström, entered the barbershop for a shave. He eventually offered her a job as a clerk at PUB. She accepted the offer and started to work for PUB in July 1920, where she also modeled for newspaper advertisements. She appeared in two short film advertisements, Having achieved enormous success as a silent movie star, She and Gilbert starred together for the first time in the classic Flesh and the Devil (1926). Their on-screen erotic intensity soon translated into an off-camera romance, and by the end of production Garbo had moved in with Gilbert. Gilbert allegedly proposed to her three times before she accepted. When a marriage was finally arranged in 1926, she failed to show up at the ceremony.

Garbo was introduced to stage and screen actress Lilyan Tashman at a tennis party in 1927 and allegedly had an affair with her. The two became inseparable companions who went shopping, swimming, and to Tashman's garden cottage.

1930–1939: Queen of MGM

Garbo is among the actors and actresses who successfully made the transition to talkies; publicized with the slogan "Garbo Talks!" her voice was first heard on screen in Anna Christie (1930), a film adaptation of the 1922 play by Eugene O'Neill. The movie was a huge success. In 1931 Garbo made a German version of the movie. Garbo next appeared as the World War I spy Mata Hari (1931); her leading man screen lover Ramon Novarro. She was subsequently part of an all-star cast in Grand Hotel (1932) in which she played a Russian ballerina. in Ninotchka (1939)]]

In 1931, Garbo befriended the writer and socialite Mercedes de Acosta, introduced to her by the author Salka Viertel. According to de Acosta, the pair ultimately began a sporadic and volatile romance, punctuated by long periods during which Garbo ignored her and disregarded her many love letters. After about a year, the relationship ended, but they maintained contact. Following de Acosta's claims about her many trysts with Garbo, in her controversial autobiography Here Lies the Heart in 1960, the pair were permanently estranged.

After a contract dispute with MGM, she eventually signed a new contract with the studio in July 1932, which gave her more control over her parts and her private life. Garbo continued to demonstrate great loyalty to John Gilbert and insisted that he appear with her in 1933's Queen Christina (1933), despite the objection of MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer; Laurence Olivier had originally been chosen for the role. In 1935, David O. Selznick wanted to cast her as the dying heiress in Dark Victory, but she insisted on doing Tolstoy's Anna Karenina instead. Although Anna Karenina was arguably one of her most famous roles, Garbo regarded her role as the doomed courtesan in George Cukor's Camille (1936), opposite Robert Taylor, as her finest performance.

Garbo was nominated four times for an Academy Award for Best Actress; in 1930 for Anna Christie and for Romance, but might have been a victim of MGM's inner politics: she lost out to Irving Thalberg's wife Norma Shearer who won for The Divorcee. In 1937 Garbo was nominated for Camille but lost out to Luise Rainer who won for The Good Earth. Max Breen was among those critics indignant that Greta Garbo's performance in Camille had been overlooked in favor of Rainer. Finally in 1939 Garbo was nominated for Ninotchka but again came away empty-handed: Gone With the Wind swept the major awards, including Best Actress, which went to Vivien Leigh.

The Swedish royal medal, Litteris et Artibus, awarded to people who have made important contributions to culture, especially music, dramatic art or literature, was presented to Garbo in January 1937. She then starred opposite Melvyn Douglas in Ninotchka (1939), directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Ninotchka attempted to lighten Garbo's somber and melancholy image. The comedy, Garbo's first, was marketed with the tagline, "Garbo laughs!", playing off the tagline for Anna Christie, "Garbo talks!"

1940–1948: Last films and retirement

The follow-up film, George Cukor's Two-Faced Woman (1941), attempted to capitalize on Garbo's restyled war-time image by casting Garbo in a romantic comedy, where she played a double role that featured her dancing, and tried to portray her as an ordinary girl. The film, Garbo's last, was a critical, although not a commercial, failure, and Garbo referred to the ill-fated Two-Faced Woman as "my grave". She was offered many roles over the years after that, and showed serious interest in about half a dozen—but in each case either she eventually turned the role down, or the projects failed.

During the 1940's, Garbo maintained a discreet liaison with Swedish industrialist John Hjelme-Lundberg who traveled on at least three occasions to New York to be with her. After his death, found among Hjelme-Lundberg's possessions was a box of silk scarves, evidently a gift from Garbo. Additionally, Hjelme-Lundberg kept an autographed photo of the actress with an inscription in their native Swedish: "Hjelme, with all my love, G" ("Hjelme, med all min älska, G."). According to the memoir written by dancer, model, and silent film actress Louise Brooks, she and Garbo had a brief liaison. Brooks described Garbo as masculine but a "charming and tender lover". In 1948, Garbo signed a contract for $200,000 with producer Walter Wanger, who had produced Queen Christina in 1933, to shoot a picture based on Balzac's La Duchesse de Langeais which Max Ophüls was slated to adapt and direct. as the Russian ballerina Grusinskaya in Grand Hotel (1932):

I want to be alone (...) I just want to be alone

a theme echoed in several of her other roles, e.g. in The Single Standard (1929) where her character Arden Stuart 'spoke' the line: "I am walking alone because I want to be alone" and in Love (1927) where a title card read "I like to be alone". By the early 1930s the phrase was indelibly linked with Garbo's persona, but Garbo later commented:

I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said, 'I want to be let alone.' There is all the difference.

In a surprise interview granted to the press on board the liner Kungsholm in October 1938 in New York after Garbo had returned from her summer vacation in Europe partly spent in Ravello with conductor Leopold Stokowski, she was asked if she had enjoyed her vacation. Sighing huskily, Garbo replied, "You cannot have a vacation without peace and you cannot have peace unless left alone." Garbo neither married nor had children

In his 1995 book Garbo: a biography Barry Paris relates Garbo's relationships—which were often just close friendships—with actor George Brent, conductor Leopold Stokowski, nutritionist Gayelord Hauser, photographer Cecil Beaton, and her manager George Schlee, husband of designer Valentina.

Final years and death

On 9 February 1951, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In 1953, she bought a seven-room apartment in New York City at 450 East 52nd Street, where she lived for the rest of her life. Although she occasionally jet-setted with some of the world's best known personalities—Aristotle Onassis and Cecil Beaton—she elected to live a private life. She was known for taking long walks through the city's streets dressed casually and wearing large sunglasses,

Despite Garbo's obvious wish for privacy, elements of the public remained obsessed with her, and until her death, Garbo sightings were considered sport for paparazzi. In the 1984 film, Garbo Talks, directed by Sidney Lumet, a son (Ron Silver)'s attempt to fulfill his dying mother's (Anne Bancroft) request by arranging for her to meet the Great Garbo reflected popular obsession with the star.

Garbo lived the last years of her life in relative seclusion. On 15 April 1990, aged 84, she died in New York Hospital as a result of pneumonia and renal failure. She had been successfully treated for breast cancer in 1984.

Garbo was cremated, and after a long legal battle, her ashes were finally interred in 1999 at Skogskyrkogården Cemetery just south of her native Stockholm. She invested very wisely, particularly in commercial property along Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. She left her entire estate, estimated at $20,000,000 USD, to her niece, Gray Reisfield.

Legacy

Robert E. Sherwood observed in 1929:

During Garbo's Hollywood career, the animated cartoons frequently caricatured her. These include from Warner Brothers:

I've got to Sing a Torch Song (1933) Porky's Road Race (1937) Speaking of the Weather (1937) Porky's Five and Ten (1938) Malibu Beach Party (1940) Hollywood Steps Out (1941).

Among the Disney cartoons Garbo is caricatured in are:

Mickey's Gala Premiere (1933) Mickey's Polo Team (1936) Mother Goose Goes Hollywood (1938) The Autograph Hound (1939).

For her contributions to cinema, she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Boulevard, in a 1950 Daily Variety opinion poll Garbo was voted Best Actress of the Half Century, and she was once designated as the most beautiful woman who ever lived by the Guinness Book of World Records. Garbo was awarded an Academy Honorary Award "for her unforgettable screen performances" in 1954. Garbo did not show up and the statuette was mailed to her home address.

Garbo received praise from many industry colleagues:

Her instinct, her mastery over the machine, was pure witchcraft. I cannot analyse this woman's acting. I only know that no one else so effectively worked in front of a camera. —Bette Davis

She had a talent that few actresses or actors possess. In close-ups she gave the impression, the illusion of great movement. She would move her head just a little bit and the whole screen would come alive — like a strong breeze that made itself felt. —George Cukor

Italian motion picture director Luchino Visconti had actively been working on a film adaptation of Proust's colossal work Remembrance of Things Past since 1969 with a breathtaking prospective cast including Silvana Mangano, Alain Delon, Helmut Berger, Charlotte Rampling, Laurence Olivier and Garbo in the small part of Maria Sophia, Queen of Naples. Reportedly Garbo went to Rome and did a color screen test for the role in 1971, and Visconti exclaimed:

I am very pleased at the idea that this woman, with her severe and authoritarian presence, should figure in the decadent and rarefied climate of the world described by Proust.

Filmography

{| class="wikitable sortable" |- ! Year !! Film !! Role !! class="unsortable" | Notes |- | 1920 | Mr and Mrs Stockholm Go Shopping | Elder sister | Garbo's segment is often known as How Not to DressSource: The 2005 Kino Video The Saga of Gosta Berling DVD |- | 1921 | The Gay Cavalier | Maidservant | UncreditedThe film is lost |- | 1921 | Our Daily Bread | Companion | Source: The 2005 Kino Video The Saga of Gosta Berling DVD |- | 1921 | A Scarlet Angel | Extra | UncreditedThe film is lost |- | 1922 | Peter the Tramp | Greta | Source: The 2005 Kino Video The Saga of Gosta Berling DVD |- | 1924 | The Saga of Gosta Berling | Elizabeth Dohna | Directed by Mauritz Stiller |- | 1925 | The Joyless Street | Greta Rumfort | |- | 1926 | The Torrent | Leonora Moreno aka La Brunna | First American movie |- | 1926 | The Temptress | Elena | |- | 1926 | Flesh and the Devil | Felicitas | Directed by Clarence Brown |- | 1927 | Love | Anna Karenina | Directed by Edmund Goulding |- | 1928 | The Divine Woman | Marianne | Only a 9 minute reel exists. Source: The Mysterious Lady DVD |- | 1928 | The Mysterious Lady | Tania Fedorova | |- | 1928 | A Woman of Affairs | Diana Merrick Furness | |- | 1929 | Wild Orchids | Lillie Sterling | |- | 1929 | The Single Standard | Arden Stuart Hewlett | |- | 1929 | The Kiss | Irene Guarry | |- | 1930 | Anna Christie | Anna Christie | Garbo's first talkieNominated—Academy Award for Best Actress |- | 1930 | Romance | Madame Rita Cavallini | Nominated—Academy Award for Best Actress |- | 1931 | Anna Christie | Anna Christie | MGM's German version of Anna Christie, released early 1931 |- | 1931 | Inspiration | Yvonne Valbret | |- | 1931 | Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) | Susan Lenox | |- | 1931 | Mata Hari | Mata Hari | |- | 1932 | Grand Hotel | Grusinskaya | |- | 1932 | As You Desire Me | Zara aka Marie | |- | 1933 | Queen Christina | Queen Christina | |- | 1934 | The Painted Veil | Katrin Koerber Fane | |- | 1935 | Anna Karenina | Anna Karenina | New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress |- | 1936 | Camille | Marguerite Gautier | New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressNational Board of Review Best Acting AwardNominated—Academy Award for Best Actress |- | 1937 | Conquest | Countess Marie Walewska | |- | 1939 | Ninotchka | Nina Ivanovna 'Ninotchka' Yakushova | National Board of Review Best Acting AwardNominated—Academy Award for Best ActressNominated—New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress |- | 1941 | Two-Faced Woman | Karin Borg Blake | National Board of Review Best Acting AwardNominated—New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress |}

References

Bibliography

LaSalle, Mick, San Francisco Chronicle. "Interview with John Gilbert's daughter, Leatrice Gilbert Fountain".

External links

Greta Garbo Biography—Yahoo! Movies

Garbo History

Category:1905 births Category:1990 deaths Category:Academy Honorary Award recipients Category:American film actors Category:American Lutherans Category:American silent film actors Category:Breast cancer survivors Category:Deaths from pneumonia Category:Deaths from renal failure Category:Infectious disease deaths in New York Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:People from Stockholm Category:Swedish film actors Category:Swedish immigrants to the United States Category:Swedish Lutherans Category:Swedish silent film actors Category:American actors of Swedish descent Category:American people of Swedish descent

Name	Ramón Novarro
Birth name	José Ramón Gil Samaniego
Birth date	February 06, 1899
Birth place	Durango, Mexico
Death date	October 30, 1968
Death place	North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States
Other names	Ramon SamaniegoRamón SamaniegoRamon Samaniegos
Years active	1917–1968

Ramón Novarro (February 6, 1899 – October 30, 1968) was a Mexican actor of Hollywood who achieved fame as a "Latin lover" in silent films.

Early life and career

Born José Ramón Gil Samaniego in Durango, Mexico, he moved with his family to Los Angeles, California, to escape the Mexican Revolution in 1913. A second cousin of the Mexican actresses Dolores del Río and Andrea Palma, he entered films in 1917 in bit parts; and he supplemented his income by working as a singing waiter. His friends, the actor and director Rex Ingram and his wife, the actress Alice Terry, began to promote him as a rival to Rudolph Valentino, and Ingram suggested he change his name to "Novarro." From 1923, he began to play more prominent roles. His role in Scaramouche (1923) brought him his first major success.

In 1925, he achieved his greatest success in Ben-Hur, his revealing costumes causing a sensation, and was elevated into the Hollywood elite. As with many stars, Novarro engaged Sylvia of Hollywood as a therapist (although in her tell-all book, Sylvia erroneously claimed Novarro slept in a coffin). With Valentino's death in 1926, Novarro became the screen's leading Latin actor, though ranked behind his MGM stablemate, John Gilbert, as a model lover. He was popular as a swashbuckler in action roles and was considered one of the great romantic lead actors of his day. Novarro appeared with Norma Shearer in The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) and with Joan Crawford in Across to Singapore (1928). He made his first talking film, starring as a singing French soldier, in Devil-May-Care (1929). He also starred with the French actress Renée Adorée in The Pagan (1929). Novarro starred with Greta Garbo in Mata Hari (1932) and was a qualified success opposite Myrna Loy in The Barbarian (1933).

Later career

in Laughing Boy (1934)]]

When Novarro's contract with MGM Studios expired in 1935, the studio did not renew it. He continued to act sporadically, appearing in films for Republic Pictures, a Mexican religious drama, and a French comedy. In the 1940s, he had several small roles in American films, including John Huston's We Were Strangers (1949) starring Jennifer Jones and John Garfield. In 1958, he was considered for a role in a television series, The Green Peacock with Howard Duff and Ida Lupino after the demise of their CBS sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve. The project, however, never materialized. A Broadway tryout was aborted in the 1960s; but Novarro kept busy on television, appearing in NBC's The High Chaparral as late as 1968.

At the peak of his success in the late 1920s and early 1930s, he was earning more than US$100,000 per film. He invested some of his income in real estate, and his Hollywood Hills residence is one of the more renowned designs (1927) by architect Lloyd Wright. After his career ended, he was still able to maintain a comfortable lifestyle.

Personal life

Novarro had been troubled all his life as a result of his conflicting views over his Roman Catholic religion and his homosexuality, and his life-long struggle with alcoholism is often traced to these issues. MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer reportedly tried to coerce Novarro into a "lavender marriage", which he refused. He was a friend of adventurer and author Richard Halliburton, also a celebrity in the closet, and was romantically involved with journalist Herbert Howe, who was also his publicist during the late 1920s.

Murder/Death

Novarro was murdered by two brothers, Paul and Tom Ferguson (aged 22 and 17, respectively), whom he had hired from an agency to come to his Laurel Canyon home for sex. According to the prosecution in the murder case, the two young men believed that a large sum of money was hidden in Novarro's house after hearing rumors on the streets. The prosecution accused them of torturing Novarro for several hours to force him to reveal where the nonexistent money was hidden. They left with a mere twenty dollars they took from his bathrobe pocket before fleeing the scene. Novarro allegedly died as a result of asphyxiation, choking to death on his own blood after being brutally beaten. The two brothers were later caught and sentenced to long prison terms but were quickly released on probation. Both were later rearrested for unrelated crimes, for which they served longer terms than for their murder conviction.

Ramón Novarro is buried in Calvary Cemetery, in Los Angeles. Ramón Novarro's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is at 6350 Hollywood Boulevard.

In popular culture

Novarro's murder served as the influence for the short story by Charles Bukowski, The Murder of Ramon Vasquez, and the song by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, "Tango," recorded by Peggy Lee on her Mirrors album.

In late 2005, the Wings Theatre in New York City staged the world premiere of Through a Naked Lens by George Barthel. The play combined fact and fiction to depict Novarro's rise to fame and a relationship with Hollywood journalist Herbert Howe.

Novarro's relationship with Herbert Howe is discussed in two biographies: Allan R. Ellenberger's Ramón Novarro and André Soares's Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramón Novarro. An especially lurid recounting of Novarro's murder can be found in Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon.

Filmography

{|class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" border="2" cellpadding="4" background: #f9f9f9; |- align="center" ! colspan=4 style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Film |- align="center" ! style="background: #CCCCCC;" | Year ! style="background: #CCCCCC;" | Film ! style="background: #CCCCCC;" | Role ! style="background: #CCCCCC;" | Notes |- | 1916 | Joan the Woman | Starving Peasant | Uncredited |- | rowspan=4|1917 | The Jaguar's Claws | Bandit | Uncredited |- | The Little American | Wounded Soldier | Uncredited |- | The Hostage | | Uncredited |- | The Woman God Forgot | Aztec man | Uncredited |- | 1918 | The Goat | | Uncredited |- | rowspan=4|1921 | A Small Town Idol | Dancer | as Ramón Samaniego |- | The Concert | Dancing shepherd | Uncredited |- | The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse | Guest at Ball | Uncredited |- | Man-Woman-Marriage | Dancer | Uncredited |- | rowspan=3|1922 | Mr. Barnes of New York | Antonio | as Ramon Samaniego |- | The Prisoner of Zenda | Rupert of Hentzau | as Ramon Samaniegos |- | Trifling Women | Henri/Ivan de Maupin |- | rowspan=2|1923 | Where the Pavement Ends | Motauri |- | Scaramouche | André-Louis Moreau, Quintin's Godson |- | rowspan=3|1924 | Thy Name Is Woman | Juan Ricardo |- | The Arab | Jamil Abdullah Azam |- | The Red Lily | Jean Leonnec |- | rowspan=3|1925 | A Lover's Oath | Ben Ali |- | The Midshipman | Dick Randall |- | Ben-Hur: A Tale of Christ | Judah Ben-Hur |- | rowspan=3|1927 | Lovers? | José |- | The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg | Crown Prince Karl Heinrich |- | The Road to Romance | José Armando |- | rowspan=3|1928 | Across to Singapore | Joel Shore |- | A Certain Young Man | Lord Gerald Brinsley |- | Forbidden Hours | His Majesty, Michael IV |- | rowspan=3|1929 | The Flying Fleet | Ens./Ltjg Tommy Winslow |- | The Pagan | Henry Shoesmith, Jr. |- | Devil-May-Care | Armand |- | rowspan=5|1930 | Le chanteur de Séville | Juan | French version of Call of the Flesh |- | In Gay Madrid | Ricardo |- | The March of Time | Himself | Unfinished film |- | Call of the Flesh | Juan de Dios |- | Sevilla de mis amores | Juan de Dios Carbajal | Spanish version of Call of the Flesh |- | rowspan=3|1931 | Daybreak | Willi Kasder |- | Son of India | Karim |- | Mata Hari | Lt. Alexis Rosanoff |- | rowspan=2|1932 | Huddle | Antonio 'Tony' Amatto |- | The Son-Daughter | Tom Lee/Prince Chun |- | 1933 | The Barbarian | Jamil El Shehab |- | rowspan=2|1934 | The Cat and the Fiddle | Victor Florescu |- | Laughing Boy | Laughing Boy |- | 1935 | The Night Is Young | Archduke Paul "Gustl" Gustave |- | 1936 | Against the Current | - | Director, writer |- | 1937 | The Sheik Steps Out | Ahmed Ben Nesib |- | 1938 | A Desperate Adventure | André Friezan | Alternative title: It Happened in Paris |- | rowspan=2|1940 | Ecco la felicità | Felice Ciatti | Italian version of La comédie du bonheur |- | La comédie du bonheur | Félix | French film |- | 1942 | The Saint That Forged a Country | Juan Diego | Mexican film |- | rowspan=2|1949 | We Were Strangers | Chief |- | The Big Steal | Inspector General Ortega |- | rowspan=2|1950 | The Outriders | Don Antonio Chaves |- | Crisis | Colonel Adragon |- | 1960 | Heller in Pink Tights | De Leon |- |- align="center" ! colspan=4 style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Television |- align="center" ! style="background: #CCCCCC;" | Year ! style="background: #CCCCCC;" | Title ! style="background: #CCCCCC;" | Role ! style="background: #CCCCCC;" | Notes |- | 1958 | Disney's Wonderful World | Don Esteban Miranda | 2 episode |- | 1962 | Thriller | Maestro Giuliano | 1 episode |- | 1964 | Dr. Kildare | Gaspero Paolini | 3 episodes |- | 1965 | Bonanza | Jose Ortega | 1 episode |- | 1967 | The Wild Wild West | Don Tomas | 1 episode |}

See also

Sex symbols

References

External links

Ramón Novarro Homepage

Ramón Novarro Photo Gallery

Photographs of Ramon Novarro

Category:1899 births Category:1968 deaths Category:Deaths from choking Category:Gay actors Category:LGBT Hispanic and Latino American people Category:LGBT people from Mexico Category:LGBT Christians Category:20th-century actors Category:Mexican actors Category:Mexican film actors Category:American film actors Category:Mexican film directors Category:Mexican film producers Category:Mexican immigrants to the United States Category:Mexican television actors Category:Mexican Roman Catholics Category:Mexican screenwriters Category:Mexican people of Spanish descent Category:Mexican people murdered abroad Category:Murdered entertainers Category:People from Durango, Durango Category:People murdered in California Category:Mexican silent film actors Category:American silent film actors Category:Mexican expatriates in the United States Category:American people of Mexican descent

Name	Peter Cook
Caption	Peter Cook in the 1967 film Bedazzled.
Birth date	November 17, 1937
Birth place	Torquay, Devon, England
Death date	January 09, 1995
Death place	Hampstead, London, England
Birth name	Peter Edward Cook
Occupation	Comedian, satirist, writer
Years active	1958–1994
Spouse	Wendy Snowden (1963-1971) Judy Huxtable (1973-1989) Lin Chong (1989-1995)

Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English satirist, writer and comedian. An influential figure in British comedy, he is regarded as the leading light of the British satire boom of the 1960s. He has been described by Stephen Fry as "the funniest man who ever drew breath". Cook is closely associated with anti-establishment comedy that emerged in Britain and the USA in the late 1950s.

Life

Cook was born at "Shearbridge", Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, Devon, the only son and eldest of the three children of Alexander Edward (Alec) Cook (1906–1984), a colonial civil servant, and his wife Ethel Catherine Margaret, née Mayo (1908–1994). He was educated at Radley College and Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he read French and German. Cook meant to become a career diplomat, but Britain "had run out of colonies", as he put it. Although largely politically apathetic, he did join Cambridge University Liberal Club.

It was at Pembroke that he performed and wrote comedy sketches as a member of the Cambridge Footlights Club, of which he became president in 1960. His hero was fellow Footlights writer and Cambridge magazine writer David Nobbs

While at university, Cook wrote for Kenneth Williams, for whom he created a West End revue called One Over the Eight, before finding prominence in his own right in a four-man group satirical stage show, Beyond the Fringe, with Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett and Dudley Moore.

The show became a success in London after being first performed at the Edinburgh Festival, and included Cook impersonating the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. This was one of the first occasions satirical political mimicry had been attempted in live theatre, and it shocked audiences. During one performance, Macmillan was in the theatre, and Cook departed from his script and attacked him verbally.

1960s

In 1961 he opened The Establishment Club at 18 Greek Street in Soho, presenting fellow comedians in a nightclub setting, including American Lenny Bruce. Cook said it was a satirical venue modelled on "those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War"; as a members-only venue it was outside the censorship restrictions. Cook befriended and supported Australian comedian and actor Barry Humphries, who began his British solo career at the club. Humphries said in his autobiography, My Life As Me, that he found Cook's lack of interest in art and literature off-putting. Cook's chiselled looks and languid manner led Humphries to observe that whereas most people take after their father or mother, Cook reminded one of one's auntie. Dudley Moore's jazz trio played in the basement of the club for many years during the early 1960s.

In 1962, the BBC commissioned a pilot for a television series of satirical sketches based on The Establishment Club, but it was not picked up straight away, and Cook went to New York for a year to perform in Beyond The Fringe on Broadway. When he returned, the pilot had been re-fashioned as That Was The Week That Was and had made a star of David Frost, something Cook resented. The 1960s satire boom was closing and Cook said Britain would "sink into the sea under the weight of its own giggling". He complained that Frost's success was based on copying Cook's own stage persona, and that his only regret in life had been once saving Frost from drowning.

Cook married Wendy Snowden in 1963, with whom he had two daughters, Lucy and Daisy. The marriage ended in 1970.

Cook expanded television comedy with Eleanor Bron, John Bird, and John Fortune. Cook's first regular television spot was on Granada Television's Braden Beat with Bernard Braden, where he featured his most enduring character: the static, dour, and monotonal E.L. Wisty, whom Cook had conceived for Radley College's Marionette Society.

His comedy partnership with Dudley Moore led to Not Only... But Also. This was intended by the BBC for Moore's music, but Moore invited Cook to write sketches and appear with him. Using few props, they created dry and absurd television, which lasted three seasons. Cook played characters such as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling and the pair's Pete and Dud. Other sketches included "Superthunderstingcar", a send-up of the Gerry Anderson marionette TV shows, and Cook's pastiche of 1960s trendy arts documentaries — satirised in a parodic TV segment on Greta Garbo.

In the early 1970s the BBC erased most videotapes of the series. This was common television practice at the time, when agreements with actors' and musicians' unions limited the number of repeats. The policy of wiping recordings ceased in 1978. When Cook learned the series was to be destroyed, he offered to buy the tapes but was refused because of copyright issues. He suggested he purchase new tapes so that the BBC would have no need to erase the originals, but this was also turned down.

Of the original programmes, eight of the twenty-two complete episodes survive complete. These comprise the first series with the exception of the fifth and seventh episodes, the first and last episodes of the second series, and the Christmas special. Of the 1970 third series, only the various film inserts (usually of outdoor scenes) survive. The BBC recovered some shows by approaching overseas television networks and buying back copies. A compilation of six half-hour programmes, The Best of What's Left of Not Only...But Also was shown on in 199x, and released on VHS and DVD.

In 1968, Cook and Moore briefly switched to ATV for four, one-hour programmes entitled Goodbye Again, based on the Pete and Dud characters. They ignored suggestions from the director and cast. Sketches were drawn out to fill the running time. With no interest in the show and a problem with alcohol, Cook relied on cue cards and ended up garbling the script, forcing Moore to ad-lib. The show was not a popular success, owing in part to the publication of the ITV listings magazine, TV Times, being suspended because of a strike. John Cleese was a cast member.

Cook and Moore acted in films together, beginning with The Wrong Box in 1966. Bedazzled (1967), though now regarded as a classic, was not financially successful. Directed by Stanley Donen, the film's story is credited to Cook and Moore, and its screenplay to Cook. A comic parody of Faust, it starred Cook as George Spigott (The Devil) who tempts a frustrated, short-order chef called Stanley Moon (Moore) with the promise of gaining his heart's desire — the unattainable beauty Margaret Spencer (Eleanor Bron) — in exchange for his soul, but repeatedly tricks him. The film features appearances by Barry Humphries ('Envy') and Raquel Welch ('Lust'). Moore's jazz trio backed Cook on the theme, a parodic anti-love song, which Cook delivered in a monotonous, deadpan voice, and included his put-down, "You fill me with inertia."

1970s

In 1970, Cook took over a project initiated by David Frost for a satirical film about an opinion pollster who rises to become President of Great Britain. Under Cook's guidance, the character became modelled on Frost. The film, The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer, was not a success, although the cast contained notable names.

Cook became a favourite of chat shows but his own effort at hosting one in 1971, Where Do I Sit?, was said by the critics to have been a disappointment. He was replaced after two episodes by Michael Parkinson, the start of Parkinson's career as a chat show host. Parkinson later asked Cook what his ambitions were, replying "[...] in fact, my ambition is to shut you up altogether."

Cook provided financial backing for Private Eye, supporting it through difficult periods, particularly in libel trials. Cook invested his own money and solicited investment from his friends. For a time, the magazine was produced from the premises of The Establishment Club. Towards the end of the 1960s, Cook's alcoholism placed a strain on personal and professional relationships. He and Moore fashioned sketches from Not Only....But Also and Goodbye Again with new material into the stage revue Behind the Fridge. This toured Australia in 1972 before transferring to New York in 1973 as Good Evening. Cook frequently appeared worse for drink. Good Evening won Tony and Grammy Awards. When it finished, Moore stayed in the U.S., ending his partnership with Cook. Cook returned to England and in 1973 he married Judy Huxtable.

Later, the more risqué humour of Pete and Dud went further on long-playing records as "Derek and Clive". The first recording was initiated by Cook to alleviate boredom during the Broadway run of Good Evening, and it used material conceived years before for the two characters but considered too outrageous. One of these audio recordings was also filmed, and tensions between the duo are seen to rise. Chris Blackwell circulated bootleg copies to friends. The popularity of the recording convinced Cook to release it commercially, although Moore was reluctant, fearing that his fame as a Hollywood star would be undermined. Two further Derek and Clive albums were released, the last accompanied by a film.

In 1978, Cook appeared on Revolver as manager of a ballroom where emerging punk and new wave acts played. For some groups, these were their first appearances on television. Cook's acerbic commentary was an aspect of the programme.

In 1979, Cook recorded comedy-segments as B-sides to the Sparks 12-inch singles "Number One In Heaven" and "Tryouts For The Human Race". The main songwriter Ron Mael often started off a banal situation in his lyrics, and then went at surreal tangents in the style of Cook and S.J. Perelman. During this time Cook was also involved politically with the Anti-Nazi League, and was a referee at a five-a-side football match organised by the ANL's Tottenham Hotspur branch, Spurs Against The Nazis in 1978.

Amnesty International performances

Cook appeared at the first three fund-raising galas staged by humourists John Cleese and Martin Lewis on behalf of Amnesty International. The benefits were dubbed The Secret Policeman's Balls though it wasn't until the third show in 1979 that the title was used. He performed on all three nights of the first show in April 1976, A Poke in the Eye (with a Sharp Stick), as an individual performer and as a member of the cast of Beyond The Fringe, which reunited for the first time since the 1960s. He also appeared in a Monty Python taking the place of Eric Idle. Cook was on the cast album of the show and in the film, Pleasure At Her Majesty's. He was in the second Amnesty gala in May 1977, An Evening Without Sir Bernard Miles. It was retitled The Mermaid Frolics for the cast album and TV special. Cook performed monologues and skits with Terry Jones.

In June 1979, Cook performed all four nights of The Secret Policeman's Ball - teaming with John Cleese. Cook performed a couple of solo pieces and a skit with Eleanor Bron. He also led the ensemble in the finale - the "End Of The World" sketch from Beyond The Fringe.

In response to a barb in The Daily Telegraphthat the show was recycled material, Cook wrote a satire of the summing-up by Mr Justice Cantley in the trial of former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe — a summary condemned for alleged bias in favour of Thorpe. Cook performed it that same night (Friday 29 June - the third of the four nights) and the following night. The nine-minute opus, "Entirely a Matter for You," is considered by many fans and critics to be one of the finest works of Cook's career. Cook and show producer Martin Lewis brought out an album on Virgin Records entitled Here Comes the Judge: Live of the live performance together with three studio tracks that further lampooned the Thorpe trial.

Although unable to take part in the 1981 gala, Cook supplied the narration over the animated opening title sequence of the 1982 film of the show. With Lewis, he wrote and voiced radio commercials to advertise the film in the UK. He also hosted a spoof film awards ceremony that was part of the world première of the film in London in March 1982.

Following Cook's 1987 stage reunion with Moore for the annual U.S. benefit for the homeless, Comic Relief (not related to the UK Comic Relief benefits), Cook repeated the reunion for a British audience by performing with Moore at the 1989 Amnesty benefit The Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball.

Consequences album

Cook played multiple roles on the 1977 concept album Consequences, written and produced by former 10cc members Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. A mixture of spoken comedy and progressive rock with an environmental subtext, Consequences started as a single that Godley and Creme planned to make to demonstrate their invention, an electric guitar effect called The Gizmo, which they developed in 10cc. The project grew into a triple LP boxed set. The comedy sections were intended to be performed by a cast including Spike Milligan and Peter Ustinov, but Godley and Creme realised he could perform most parts himself.

The storyline centres on the impending divorce of ineffectual Englishman Walter Stapleton (Cook) and his French wife Lulu (Judy Huxtable). While meeting their lawyers — the bibulous Mr Haig and overbearing Mr Pepperman (both played by Cook) — encroaching global catastrophe interrupts proceedings with bizarre and mysterious happenings to Mr Blint (Cook), a musician and composer living in the apartment below Haig's office, connected by a large hole in the floor.

Released as punk was sweeping the UK, the album was a commercial failure and savaged by critics. The script and story appear drawn from Cook's life – his second wife, Judy Huxtable, plays Walter's wife. Cook's problems with alcohol are mirrored in Haig's drinking, and there is a parallel between the fictional divorce of Walter and Lulu and Cook's own divorce from his first wife. The voice and accent Cook used for the character of Stapleton are similar to Cook's Beyond the Fringe colleague, Alan Bennett, and a book on Cook's comedy, How Very Interesting, speculates that the characters Cook plays in Consequences are caricatures of the four Beyond The Fringe cast members – the alcoholic Haig represents Cook, the tremulous Stapleton is Bennett, the parodically Jewish Pepperman is Miller, and the pianist Blint represents Moore.

1980s

In 1980, spurred by Moore's film star status, Cook moved to Hollywood and appeared as an uptight English butler to a wealthy American woman in a short-lived U.S. television sitcom The Two of Us, also making cameo appearances in a couple of undistinguished films. In 1980, Cook starred in the LWT special Peter Cook & Co.. The show included comedy sketches, including a Tales of the Unexpected spoof "Tales Of The Much As We Expected". This involved Cook as Roald Dahl, explaining his name had been Ronald before he dropped the "n". The cast included John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Beryl Reid, Paula Wilcox and Terry Jones. The show has never been repeated.

Cook was Richard III in 1983 in "The Foretelling", the first episode of Blackadder. In 1986 he was sidekick to Joan Rivers on her UK talk show. He appeared as Mr Jolly in 1987 in The Comic Strip Presents' Mr Jolly Lives Next Door, playing an assassin who covers the sound of his murders by playing Tom Jones records. Cook appeared in The Princess Bride that year as the "Impressive Clergyman". Also that year he spent time working with Martin Lewis on a political satire about the 1988 U.S. presidential elections for HBO, but the script went unproduced. Lewis suggested Cook team with Moore for the U.S. "Comic Relief" telethon for the homeless. The duo reunited and performed their "One Leg Too Few" sketch. Moore attended Cook's memorial service in London in May 1995 and he and Lewis presented a two-night memorial for Cook in Los Angeles the following November, to mark Cook's birthday.

In 1988, Cook appeared as a contestant on the improvisation comedy show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?. Cook was declared winner, his prize being to read the credits in the style of a New York cab driver - a character he'd portrayed in Peter Cook & Co.

Cook occasionally called to Clive Bull's night-time phone-in on LBC in London. Using the name "Sven from Swiss Cottage", he mused on love, loneliness and herrings in a mock Norwegian accent. Jokes included Sven's attempts to find his estranged wife, which often saw him claim to telephone the show from all over the world, and his hatred of Norwegian obsession with fish. While Bull was clearly aware that Sven was fictional he did not know Sven's identity until later.

Revival

In late 1989 Cook married the Malaysian-born property developer Chiew Lin Chong in Torbay, Devon. He reduced his drinking and for a time was teetotal. He lived alone in an 18th-century house in Hampstead once owned by H.G. Wells. His third wife lived in another house away.

Cook returned as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in A Life in Pieces. The 12 interviews saw Sir Arthur recount his life based on the Twelve Days of Christmas. Unscripted interviews with Cook as Streeb-Greebling and satirist Chris Morris were recorded in autumn 1993 and broadcast as Why Bother on BBC Radio 3, a year before Cook's death. Morris described them:

On 17 December 1993, Cook appeared on Clive Anderson Talks Back as four characters — biscuit tester and alien abductee Norman House, football manager and motivational speaker Alan Latchley, judge Sir James Beauchamp and rock legend Eric Daley. The following day he appeared on BBC2 performing links for Arena's "Radio Night". He also appeared, on 26 December, in the 1993 Christmas special of One Foot in the Grave (One Foot in the Algarve), playing a muckraking tabloid journalist. Before the end of the next year his mother died, and Cook returned to heavy drinking. His own death, three months later at 57, was from internal haemorrhaging.

Death

Peter Cook died on 9 January, 1995, having suffered a gastrointestinal haemorrhage (a direct result of severe liver damage) in the intensive-care unit of the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, North London. He was 57. Days earlier he had been taken in and announced 'I feel a bit poorly.'

Legacy

Cook is acknowledged as the main influence on comedians who followed him from amateur dramatic clubs of British universities to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and then to the radio and television. Fans include the members of Monty Python and The Goodies. Some critics saw Cook's life as tragic, the brilliance of youth not sustained in later years. Cook said he had no ambitions for sustained success. He assessed happiness by the friendships and enjoyment of life. Eric Idle and Stephen Fry said Cook had not wasted his talent but rather that the newspapers had tried to waste him.

Several friends honoured him with a dedication in the closing credits of Fierce Creatures, a 1997 comedy film written by John Cleese about a zoo in peril of being closed. It starred Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and Michael Palin. The dedication displays photos and the lifespan dates of Peter Cook and of British naturalist/humorist Gerald Durrell.

In 1999 the minor planet 20468 Petercook, in the main asteroid belt, was named after him.

Ten years after his death, Cook was ranked number one in The Comedian's Comedian, a poll of 300 comics, comedy writers, producers and directors throughout the English speaking world. Channel 4 broadcast Not Only But Always, a television movie dramatising the relationship between Cook and Moore, with Rhys Ifans portraying Cook. At the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe a play, written by Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde, examined the relationship from Moore's view, . Tom Goodman-Hill played Cook.

At the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Goodbye - the (after)life of Cook & Moore by Jonathan Hansler and Clive Greenwood was presented at the Gilded Balloon. The play imagined the newly dead Moore meeting the Cook in Limbo, also inhabited by other comic actors with whom they had worked, including Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, Frankie Howerd, and Kenneth Williams. In May 2009 the play was seen again in London's West End at The Leicester Square Theatre (formerly "The Venue" and home to ) with Jonathan Hansler as Cook, Adam Bampton Smith as Moore, and Clive Greenwood as everyone else.

A green plaque was unveiled by Westminster City Council and The Heritage Foundation at the site of The Establishment Club on 15 February 2009.

Further reading

Filmography

The Wrong Box (1966): Morris Finsbury

Alice in Wonderland (1966): Mad Hatter

Bedazzled (1967): George Spiggott/The Devil

A Dandy in Aspic (1968): Prentiss

Monte Carlo Or Bust (released in the US as Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies) (1969): Maj. Digby Dawlish

The Bed-Sitting Room (1969): Inspector

The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970): Michael Rimmer

The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972): Dominic

Find the Lady (1976): Lewenhak

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978): Sherlock Holmes

Derek and Clive Get the Horn (1979): Clive

Yellowbeard (1983): Lord Percy Lambourn

Supergirl (1984): Nigel

Whoops Apocalypse (1986): Sir Mortimer Chris

The Princess Bride (1987): The Impressive Clergyman

Without A Clue (1988): Norman Greenhough

Getting It Right (1989): Mr. Adrian

Great Balls of Fire! (1989): First English Reporter

Black Beauty (1994): Lord Wexmire

Amnesty

Pleasure at Her Majesty's (1976)

The Mermaid Frolics (1977)

The Secret Policeman's Ball

The Secret Policeman's Private Parts (1981)

The Best of Amnesty: Featuring the Stars of Monty Python (1999)

UK chart singles:-

"The Ballad Of Spotty Muldoon" (1965)

"Goodbye-ee" (1965) with Dudley Moore

References

External links

The Establishment

Mr Blint's Attic

Tribute to Peter Cook, with texts and commentary

Good Evening, a Peter Cook Fansite incl. Gallery

The BBC Guide to Comedy: Not Only...But Also

Missing-Episodes.com

One Leg Too Few, script for one of Cook and Moore's most famous and oft-performed sketches.

Category:Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge Category:English comedians Category:English film actors Category:English satirists Category:English television actors Category:English television writers Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Old Radleians Category:People from Torquay Category:Private Eye contributors Category:The Princess Bride Category:1937 births Category:1995 deaths

Name	Mata Hari
Caption	Mata Hari on a 1906 postcard
Birth name	Margaretha Geertruida Zelle
Birth date	August 07, 1876
Birth place	Leeuwarden, Netherlands
Death date	October 15, 1917
Death place	Vincennes, France
Death cause	Execution by firing squad
Nationality	Dutch
Other names	Mata Hari
Spouse	Rudolf John MacLeod (1895–1903)
Children	Norman-John MacLeodJeanne-Louise MacLeod

Mata Hari was the stage name of Margaretha Geertruida "Grietje" Zelle MacLeod (7 August 1876, Leeuwarden – 15 October 1917, Vincennes), a Dutch exotic dancer, courtesan, and accused spy who, although possibly innocent, was executed by firing squad in France for espionage for Germany during World War I.

Early life

Margaretha Geertruida Zelle was born in Leeuwarden, Friesland in the Netherlands, the eldest of four children of Adam Zelle (2 October 1840, Leeuwarden - 13 March 1910, Amsterdam) and first wife (m. Franeker, 4 June 1873) Antje van der Meulen (21 April 1842, Franeker - 9 May 1891, Leeuwarden). She had three brothers. Her father owned a hat store, made successful investments in the oil industry, and became affluent enough to give Margaretha a lavish early childhood. Thus, Margaretha attended only exclusive schools until age 13.

However, Margaretha's father went bankrupt in 1889, her parents divorced soon thereafter, and Margaretha's mother died in 1891. After only a few months, she fled to her uncle's home in The Hague. MacLeod was a violent alcoholic who would take out his frustrations on his wife, who was half his age, and whom he blamed for his lack of promotion. He also openly kept both a native wife and a concubine. The disenchanted Margaretha abandoned him temporarily, moving in with Van Rheedes, another Dutch officer. For months, she studied the Indonesian traditions intensively, joining a local dance company. In 1897, she revealed her artistic name: Mata Hari, Indonesian for "sun" (literally, "eye of the day"), via correspondence to her relatives in Holland. MacLeod later married twice more.

Paris

In 1903, Margaretha moved to Paris, where she performed as a circus horse rider, using the name Lady MacLeod. Struggling to earn a living, she also posed as an artist's model.

By 1905, she began to win fame as an exotic dancer. It was then that she adopted the stage name Mata Hari. She was a contemporary of dancers Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis, leaders in the early modern dance movement, which around the turn of the 20th century looked to Asia and Egypt for artistic inspiration. Critics would later write about this and other such movements within the context of orientalism. Gabriel Astruc became her personal booking agent. She became the long-time mistress of the millionaire Lyon industrialist Emile Etienne Guimet, who had founded the Musée. She posed as a Java princess of priestly Hindu birth, pretending to have been immersed in the art of sacred Indian dance since childhood. She was photographed numerous times during this period, nude or nearly so. Some of these pictures were obtained by MacLeod and strengthened his case in keeping custody of their daughter.

She brought this carefree provocative style to the stage in her act, which garnered wide acclaim. The most celebrated segment of her act was her progressive shedding of clothing until she wore just a jeweled bra and some ornaments upon her arms and head.

Although the claims made by her about her origins were fictitious, the act was spectacularly successful because it elevated exotic dance to a more respectable status, and so broke new ground in a style of entertainment for which Paris was later to become world famous. Her style and her free-willed attitude made her a very popular woman, as did her eagerness to perform in exotic and revealing clothing. She posed for provocative photos and mingled in wealthy circles. At the time, as most Europeans were unfamiliar with the Dutch East Indies and thus thought of Mata Hari as exotic, it was assumed her claims were genuine.

By about 1910, myriad imitators had arisen. Critics began to opine that the success and dazzling features of the popular Mata Hari was due to cheap exhibitionism and lacked artistic merit. Although she continued to schedule important social events throughout Europe, she was held in disdain by serious cultural institutions as a dancer who did not know how to dance.

Trial and execution

On 13 February 1917, Mata Hari was arrested in her room at the Hotel Plaza Athénée in Paris. She was put on trial, accused of spying for Germany and consequently causing the deaths of at least 50,000 soldiers. She was found guilty and was executed by firing squad on 15 October 1917, at the age of 41.

Pat Shipman's biography Femme Fatale argues that Mata Hari was never a double agent, speculating that she was used as a scapegoat by the head of French counter-espionage. Georges Ladoux had been responsible for recruiting Mata Hari as a French spy and later was arrested for being a double agent himself. The facts of the case remain vague, because the official case documents regarding the execution were sealed for 100 years, although, in 1985, biographer Russell Warren Howe managed to convince the French Minister of National Defense to break open the file, about 32 years early. It was revealed that Mata Hari was innocent of her charges of espionage. though another account indicates she wore the same suit, low-cut blouse and tricorn hat ensemble which had been picked out by her accusers for her to wear at trial, and which was still the only full, clean outfit which she had along in prison.

Museum

, Netherlands]]

The Frisian Museum at Leeuwarden, Netherlands, exhibits a 'Mata Hari Room'. Located in Mata Hari's native town, the museum is well-known for research into the life and career of Leeuwarden's world-famous citizen.

Legend and popular culture

, Netherlands]]

The fact that almost immediately after her death questions arose about the justification of her execution, on top of rumours about the way she acted during her execution, set the story. The idea of an exotic dancer working as a lethal double agent, using her powers of seduction to extract military secrets from her many lovers fired the popular imagination, set the legend and made Mata Hari an enduring archetype of the femme fatale.

Much of the popularity is owed to the film titled Mata Hari (1931) and starring Greta Garbo in the leading role. While based on real events in the life of Margaretha Zelle, the plot was largely fictional, appealing to the public appetite for fantasy at the expense of historical fact. Immensely successful as a form of entertainment, the exciting and romantic character in this film inspired subsequent generations of storytellers. Eventually, Mata Hari featured in more films, television series, and in video games -- but increasingly, it is only the use of Margaretha Zelle's famous stage name that bears any resemblance to the real person. Kurt Vonnegut's novel Mother Night is dedicated to her. Many books have been written about Mata Hari, some of them serious historical and biographical accounts, but many of them highly speculative.

Bibliography

Marijke Huisman, Mata Hari (1876–1917): de levende legende. Hilversum, Netherlands: House Verloren. ISBN 90-6550-442-7.

Shipman, Pat (2007). Femme Fatale: A Biography of Mata Hari. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297850-74-1. ISBN 978-0297850748. (USA edition (2007): Femme Fatale: Love, Lies, and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari. William Morrow. ISBN 0-060817-28-3. ISBN 9780060817282.)

References

External links

Biography at Court TV's Crime Library

Multi-language (nl, fr, de, en) website on Mata Hari

Details of the disappearance of the corpse

Mata Hari: Dancer, Stripper, Spy - slideshow by Life magazine

"The Execution of Mata Hari, 1917," EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2005)

Mata-Hari.com: Pictures and Photos of Mata Hari (English + deutsch + español + português + français + italiano)

Category:Women in World War I Category:Dutch people of World War I Category:Dutch dancers Category:World War I spies for Germany Category:World War I spies for France Category:Double agents Category:Frisian people Category:Female wartime spies Category:Executed spies Category:People executed by firing squad Category:1876 births Category:1917 deaths Category:People from Leeuwarden Category:Dutch courtesans Category:Dutch people executed abroad Category:People executed by the French Third Republic Category:Executed Dutch women Category:World War I espionage Category:Malay words and phrases

Name	Dudley Moore
Birth date	April 19, 1935
Birth place	Dagenham, London, UK
Death date	March 27, 2002
Death place	Plainfield, New Jersey, United States
Birth name	Dudley Stuart John Moore
Spouse	Suzy Kendall (1968–72) Tuesday Weld (1975–80) Brogan Lane (1988–91) Nicole Rothschild (1994–98)
Occupation	Actor/Comedian/Musician
Years active	1961–2002

Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE (19 April 1935 – 27 March 2002) was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.

Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s and became famous as half of the popular television double-act he formed with Peter Cook. His fame as a comedic actor was later heightened by his success in Hollywood movies such as 10 with Bo Derek and Arthur in the late 1970s and early 1980s, respectively. He was often known as "Cuddly Dudley" or "The Sex Thimble", a reference to his short stature and reputation as a "ladies' man".

Early life

Moore was born the son of a railway electrician in Charing Cross Hospital, London and brought up in Dagenham. His working class parents showed little affection to their son (as his elder sister publicly revealed). He was notably short: and was born with a club foot that required extensive hospital treatment and which, coupled with his diminutive stature, made him the butt of jokes from other children. Seeking refuge from his problems he became a choirboy at the age of six and took up piano and violin. He rapidly developed into a talented pianist and organist and was playing the pipe organ at church weddings by the age of 14. He attended Dagenham County High School where he received musical tuition from a dedicated teacher, Peter Cork. Cork became a friend and confidant to Moore, corresponding with him until 1994.

Moore's musical talent won him an organ scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford. While studying music and composition there, he also performed with Alan Bennett in the Oxford Revue. Bennett then recommended him to the producer putting together Beyond the Fringe, a comedy revue, where he was to first meet Peter Cook. Beyond the Fringe was at the forefront of the 1960s satire boom and after success in Britain, it transferred to the United States where it was also a hit.

During his university years, Moore took a great interest in jazz and soon became an accomplished jazz pianist and composer. He began working with such leading musicians as John Dankworth and Cleo Laine. In 1960, he left Dankworth's band to work on Beyond the Fringe. During the 1960s he formed the "Dudley Moore Trio" (with drummer Chris Karan and bassists Pete McGurk and later Peter Morgan). Moore's admitted principal musical influences were Oscar Peterson and Errol Garner. In an interview he recalled the day he finally mastered Garner's unique left hand strum and was so excited that he walked around for several days with his left hand constantly playing that cadence. His early recordings included "My Blue Heaven", "Lysie Does It", "Poova Nova", "Take Your Time", "Indiana", "Sooz Blooz", "Baubles, Bangles and Beads", "Sad One for George" and "Autumn Leaves". The trio performed regularly on British television, made numerous recordings and had a long-running residency at Peter Cook's London nightclub, The Establishment.

Moore composed the soundtracks for the films Bedazzled, Inadmissible Evidence, Staircase and Six Weeks among others.

In the early 1970s, he had a brief relationship with British singer-songwriter Lynsey De Paul, whom he met at a party.

Career

Pete and Dud

After following the Establishment to New York City, Moore returned to the UK and was offered his own series on the BBC. Not Only... But Also (1965). It was commissioned as a vehicle for Moore, but when he invited Peter Cook on as a guest, their comedy partnership was so notable that it became a fixture of the series. Cook and Moore are most remembered for their sketches as two working class men, Pete and Dud, in macs and cloth caps, commenting on politics and the arts, but they fashioned a series of one-off characters, usually with Moore in the role of interviewer to one of Cook's upper-class eccentrics. The pair developed an unorthodox method for scripting the material by using a tape recorder to tape an ad libbed routine that they would then have transcribed and edited. This would not leave enough time to fully rehearse the script so they often had a set of cue cards. Moore was famous for "corpsing"—the programmes often went on live, and Cook would deliberately make him laugh in order to get an even bigger reaction from the studio audience. Regrettably, many of the videotapes and film reels of these seminal TV shows were later erased by the BBC (an affliction which wiped out large portions of other British television productions as well, such as Doctor Who), although some of the soundtracks (which were issued on record) have survived. Moore and Cook co-starred in the film Bedazzled (1967) with Eleanor Bron, and also had tours called Behind the Fridge and Good Evening.

In 2009 it came to light that at the time three separate British police forces had wanted them to be prosecuted under obscenity laws for their comedy recordings made during the late 1970s under the pseudonyms Derek and Clive. Shortly following the last of these, Derek and Clive - Ad Nauseam, Moore made a break with Cook, whose alcoholism was affecting his work, to concentrate on his film career. When Moore began to manifest the symptoms of the disease that eventually killed him (progressive supranuclear palsy), it was at first suspected that he too had a drinking problem. Two of Moore's early starring roles were the titular drunken playboy Arthur and the heavy drinker George Webber in 10.

Later career

In the late 1970s, Moore moved to Hollywood, where he appeared in Foul Play (1978) with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. The following year saw his break-out role in Blake Edwards's 10, which he followed up with the movie Wholly Moses! The latter was not a major success. Soon thereafter, Moore appeared in Arthur, an even bigger hit than 10, which also starred Liza Minnelli and Sir John Gielgud (who won an Oscar for his role as Arthur's stern but compassionate manservant) and Geraldine Fitzgerald.

Moore played Watson to Cook's Holmes in 1978's Hound of the Baskervilles. Moore was noteworthy as a comic foil to Sir Henry and played 3 other roles: one in drag and one as a one legged man. Moore also played the piano for the entire score and appears at the start and end of the film as a flamboyant and mischievous pianist. Moore also scored the film.

Moore was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award but lost to Henry Fonda (for On Golden Pond). He did, however, win a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy. In 1984, Moore had another hit, starring in the Blake Edwards directed Micki + Maude, co-starring Amy Irving. This won him another Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy.

His subsequent films, including , a sequel to the original, and an animated adaptation of King Kong, were inconsistent in terms of both critical and commercial reception; Moore eventually disowned the former. In later years, Cook would wind up Moore by claiming he preferred Arthur 2: On the Rocks to Arthur.

In addition to acting, Moore continued to work as a composer and pianist, writing scores for a number of films and giving piano concerts, which were highlighted by his popular parodies of classical favourites. In addition, Moore collaborated with the conductor Sir Georg Solti to create a 1991 television series, Orchestra!, which was designed to introduce audiences to the symphony orchestra. He later worked with the American conductor Michael Tilson Thomas on a similar television series from 1993, Concerto!, likewise designed to introduce audiences to classical music concertos. He also appeared as Ko-Ko in a Jonathan Miller production of The Mikado in Los Angeles in March 1988.

In 1987, he was interviewed for the New York Times by the music critic Rena Fruchter, herself an accomplished pianist. They became close friends. At that time Moore's film career was already on the wane. He was having trouble remembering his lines, a problem he had never previously encountered. He opted to concentrate on the piano, and enlisted Fruchter as an artistic partner. They performed as a duo in the U.S. and Australia. However, his disease soon started to make itself apparent there as well, as his fingers would not always do what he wanted them to do. Symptoms such as slurred speech and loss of balance were misinterpreted by the public and the media as a sign of drunkenness. Moore himself was at a loss to explain this. He moved into Fruchter's family home in New Jersey and stayed there for five years, but this, however, placed a great strain on both her marriage and her friendship with Moore, and she later set him up in the house next door.

Moore was deeply affected by the death of Peter Cook in 1995, and for weeks would regularly telephone Cook's home in London just to get the telephone answering machine and hear his friend's voice. Moore attended Cook's memorial service in London and at the time many people who knew him noted that Moore was behaving strangely and attributed it to grief or drinking. In November 1995, Moore teamed up with friend and humorist Martin Lewis in organising a two-day salute to Cook in Los Angeles which Moore co-hosted with Lewis.

Moore is the main subject of the play , by Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde. Set in a chatshow studio in the 80s, it focuses on Moore's comic and personal relationship with Peter Cook and how their careers took off after the split of the partnership.

Intended roles

He was intended to star in a number of movies that never came into fruition. When his future Santa Claus The Movie producer Ilya Salkind planned his original Superman III in 1982, Dudley was the main choice to play the villainous Mr Mxyzptlk. He was again considered by the Superman producers to play the part of Zaltar in Supergirl, the role subsequently went to Peter O'Toole. When United Artists tried to restart The Pink Panther movie series following the death of Peter Sellers, Moore was offered a lucrative contract to play Inspector Clouseau in Romance of the Pink Panther. The studio brought Blake Edwards back to direct this latest instalment at Moore's request. He eventually decided not to take up the studio offer to play Clouseau when it became apparent that they wanted to sign him to a four picture deal. Over ten years later he was linked to the role of Jacques Gambrelli, Clouseau's son in Son of the Pink Panther, the role eventually went to Roberto Benigni. Frank Sinatra acquired the rights to remake La Cage aux Folles and wanted Moore to play the part of flamboyant transvestite "Frank" in this American movie, however Moore could not see himself in the role and turned down Sinatra's offer. In 1987, Moore agreed at a lunch meeting in London to play Doctor Who in the never made Doctor Who: The Movie from producers Peter Litten and George Dugdale, Moore being the top choice of potential director Richard Lester. The role of Doctor Who would have re-ignited his waning star in the US, and many British tabloids carried front page news of Moore's casting. Before agreeing to make Rhinestone with Dolly Parton, Sylvester Stallone was prepping an action comedy movie at Paramount Pictures called Jitterbugs which would have seen him cast as a New York Cop hired to protect classical musical conductor Moore, who is caught up in a world of espionage, mafia death threats, and computer chip warfare. Richard Donner was in talks to direct. Around 1983-1984 it was widely rumoured Moore and Arnold Schwarzenegger would team up for an Asterix movie to be produced by Dino De Laurentiis, with Moore playing Asterix and Schwarzenegger as his sidekick Obelix. He and Moore shared the same agent, Lou Pitt, and years later it was again rumoured the two would team up for an action/comedy. The character of Gwildor played by Billy Barty in Masters of the Universe was originally intended to be the character of Orko and likewise was intended for Moore. In 1989, the James Bond producers wanted to cast Moore in the role of Q in Licence To Kill. Moore travelled to Mexico to have a costume fitting, but apparently had a last minute change of heart and left the project. Likewise in 1995 he was again linked to the Bond franchise to be playing a character in Goldeneye. It is thought that his agent Lou Pitt lobbied hard for Dudley to get the role of The Penguin in Batman Returns, but Danny Devito was director Tim Burton's number one choice. Films he turned down aside from these include Splash, Beetlejuice, Short Circuit, Turner & Hooch, Trading Places and Empire of the Sun.

Entrepreneur

Moore co-owned a fashionable restaurant in Venice, California [1980s-2000]. The restaurant was named 72 Market Street. Moore played piano in the restaurant whenever he dropped by the premises.

Personal life

Moore was married and divorced four times: to actresses Suzy Kendall, Tuesday Weld (by whom he had a son, Patrick, in 1976), Brogan Lane and Nicole Rothschild (one son, Nicholas, born in 1995).

He maintained good relationships with Kendall particularly, and also Weld and Lane. However, he expressly forbade Rothschild to attend his funeral. At the time his illness became apparent, he was going through a difficult divorce from Rothschild, despite sharing a house in Los Angeles with her and her previous husband.

Moore dated and was a favourite of some of Hollywood's most attractive women, including the statuesque Susan Anton. In 1994, Moore was arrested after Rothschild claimed he had beaten her before that year's Oscars; she later withdrew her charges.

Illness and death

In September 1997 Moore underwent quadruple heart bypass surgery in London, and subsequently suffered four minor strokes.

In June 1998, Nicole Rothschild was reported to have told an American television show that Moore was "waiting to die" due to a serious illness, but these reports were denied by Suzy Kendall.

On 30 September 1999, Moore announced that he was suffering from the terminal degenerative brain disorder progressive supranuclear palsy, some of whose early symptoms were so similar to intoxication that he had been accused of being drunk, and that the illness had been diagnosed earlier in the year.

He died on 27 March 2002, as a result of pneumonia, secondary to immobility caused by the palsy, in Plainfield, New Jersey. Rena Fruchter was holding his hand when he died, and she reported his final words were, "I can hear the music all around me." Moore was interred in Hillside Cemetery in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. A video of his tombstone is on YouTube. Fruchter later wrote a memoir of their relationship (Dudley Moore, Ebury Press, 2004).

In December 2004, the Channel 4 television network in the United Kingdom broadcast Not Only But Always, a television movie dramatising the relationship between Moore and Cook, although the principal focus of the production was on Cook. Around the same time the relationship between the two was also the subject of a stage play called .

Honours and awards

In June 2001, Moore was appointed a Commander of the Order of The British Empire (CBE). Despite his deteriorating condition, he attended the ceremony, mute and wheelchair-bound, at Buckingham Palace to collect his honour.

Filmography

The Wrong Box (1966)

Bedazzled (1967)

The Bed-Sitting Room (1969)

Monte Carlo or Bust (1969)

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978)

Foul Play (1978)

10 (1979)

Skatoony - Gummo

BBC Horizon: "It's About Time" (1979)

Wholly Moses! (1980)

Arthur (1981)

Six Weeks (1982)

Lovesick (1983)

Romantic Comedy (1983)

Unfaithfully Yours (1984)

Micki + Maude (1984)

Best Defense (1984)

(1985)

Like Father Like Son (1987)

(1988)

The Adventures of Milo and Otis (1989)

Crazy People (1990)

Blame It on the Bellboy (1992)

Really Wild Animals (1993)

The Disappearance of Kevin Johnson (1995)

The Mighty Kong (1998)

Discography

UK chart singles

"Goodbye-ee" (1965) Peter Cook and Dudley Moore

"The L.S. Bumble Bee" (1967) Peter Cook and Dudley Moore

"Song for Suzy" (1972) Dudley Moore Trio — upbeat jazz.

Jazz discography

From Beyond The Fringe (Atlantic Standard 2 017, 1966)

The Dudley Moore Trio (Decca Records (LK UK) / London Records (US) PS558) 1969

Dudley Moore plays The Theme From Beyond The Fringe and All That Jazz - Atlantic 1403 (1962)

The World of Dudley Moore - Decca SPA 106

Genuine Dud - Decca LK 4788

The Music of Dudley Moore - EMI Australia (Cube Records)TOOFA.14-1/2

Dudley Down Under - Cube ICS 13

Dudley Moore at the Wavendon Festival - Black Lion Records BLP 12151

Smilin' Through - Cleo Laine & Dudley Moore - - Finesse Records FW 38091

Dudley Dell - Parlophone 45R 4772

Strictly For The Birds - Cleo Laine & Dudley Moore - CBS A 2947

The Theme From "Beyond The Fringe" & All That Jazz - Collectibles COL 6625

Live From an Aircraft Hangar - Martine Avenue Productions MAPI 8486

Songs Without Words - GRP/BMG LC 6713

The First Orchestrations - Dudley Moore & Richard Rodney Bennett - Played by John Bassett and his Band - Harkit Records HRKCD 8054

Jazz Jubilee - Martine Avenue Productions MAPI 1521

References

Further reading

From Fringe to Flying Circus - 'Celebrating a Unique Generation of Comedy 1960-1980' - Roger Wilmut, Eyre Methuen Ltd, 1980

Dudley Moore, Rena Fruchter, Ebury Press, 2004.

Fallen Stars, Julian Upton, Headpress, 2004.

External links

DudMoore.com

Obituary at CNN.com

Radio 4 programme "Affectionately Dudley", 2006

Category:Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:British jazz pianists Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:Deaths from pneumonia Category:Deaths from progressive supranuclear palsy Category:English classical organists Category:English comedians Category:English film actors Category:English jazz musicians Category:English satirists Category:English television actors Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Organ scholars Category:People from Dagenham Category:1935 births Category:2002 deaths Category:English expatriates in the United States