Name	Bonnie and Clyde
Caption	Bonnie and Clyde in March 1933, in a photo found by police at the Joplin, Missouri hideout.}}

Name	Clyde Barrow
Birth name	Clyde Chestnut Barrow
Birth date	March 24, 1909
Birth place	Ellis County, Texas
Death date	May 23, 1934
Death place	Bienville Parish, Louisiana}}

Name	Bonnie Parker
Birth name	Bonnie Elizabeth Parker
Birth date	October 01, 1910
Birth place	Rowena, Texas
Death date	May 23, 1934
Death place	Bienville Parish, Louisiana

Bonnie Parker (October 1, 1910 – May 23, 1934) and Clyde Barrow (March 24, 1909 – May 23, 1934) were well-known outlaws, robbers and criminals who traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression. Their exploits captured the attention of the American public during the "public enemy era" between 1931 and 1934. Though known today for his dozen-or-so bank robberies, Barrow in fact preferred to rob small stores or rural gas stations. The gang is believed to have killed at least nine police officers and committed several civilian murders. The couple themselves were eventually ambushed and killed in Louisiana by law officers. Their reputation was cemented in American pop folklore by Arthur Penn's 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde.

Even during their lifetimes, the couple's depiction in the press was at considerable odds with the hardscrabble reality of their life on the road—particularly in the case of Parker. Though she was present at a hundred or more felonies during her two years as Barrow's companion, she was not the machine gun-wielding cartoon killer portrayed in the newspapers, newsreels and pulpy detective magazines of the day. Gang member W. D. Jones was unsure whether he had ever seen her fire at officers. Parker's reputation as a cigar-smoking gun moll grew out of a playful snapshot found by police at an abandoned hideout, released to the press, and published nationwide; while she did chain-smoke Camel cigarettes, she was not a cigar smoker.

Author-historian Jeff Guinn explains that it was the release of these very photos that put the outlaws on the media map and launched their legend: "John Dillinger had matinee-idol good looks and Pretty Boy Floyd had the best possible nickname, but the Joplin photos introduced new criminal superstars with the most titillating trademark of all—illicit sex. Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were young and unmarried. They undoubtedly slept together—after all, the girl smoked cigars.... Without Bonnie, the media outside Texas might have dismissed Clyde as a gun-toting punk, if it ever considered him at all. With her sassy photographs, Bonnie supplied the sex-appeal, the oomph, that allowed the two of them to transcend the small-scale thefts and needless killings that actually comprised their criminal careers."

Beginnings

Bonnie Parker

convertible sedan. Captured Joplin film.]] Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born in Rowena, Texas, the second of three children. Her father, Charles Parker, a bricklayer, died when Bonnie was four. Her mother, Emma Krause, moved with the children to her parents' home in Cement City, an industrial suburb of Dallas, where she found work as a garment sewer. Parker was one of the best students in her high school, winning top prizes in spelling, writing and public speaking. As an adult, her fondness for writing found expression in poems such as "The Story of Suicide Sal" and "The Trail's End" (known since as "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde").

Parker did not date until she was in her second year of high school, but in that year she fell in love with a classmate, Roy Thornton, whose good looks and smart clothes caught her schoolgirl's eye. Their marriage, marked by his frequent absences and brushes with the law, was short-lived, and after January 1929 their paths never crossed again. But they were never divorced, and Parker was wearing Thornton's wedding ring when she died. Thornton was in prison in 1934 when he learned of his wife's ambush; his reaction was, "I'm glad they went out like they did. It's much better than being caught." In the diary she kept briefly early in 1929, she wrote of her desperate loneliness, her impatience with life in provincial Dallas, and her love of a newfangled technology — talking pictures.

Clyde Barrow

Clyde Chestnut Barrow was born in Ellis County, Texas, near Telico, a town just south of Dallas. He was the fifth of seven children, from a desperately poor farming family that emigrated, piecemeal, to Dallas in the early 1920s as part of a wave of resettlement from the impoverished nearby farms to the impoverished urban slum known as West Dallas. It was a place of flimsy shanties and tent cities, piles of garbage and teeming open sewers, swarming insects and rampaging epidemics. The Barrows had neither shanty nor tent: they spent their first months living under their wagon. When father Henry had earned enough money to buy a tent, it was a major step up for the family.

Clyde was first arrested in late 1926, after running when police confronted him over a rental car he had failed to return on time. His second arrest, with brother Marvin "Buck" Barrow, came soon after, this time for possession of stolen goods (turkeys). Despite having legitimate jobs during the period 1927 through 1929, he also cracked safes, robbed stores, and stole cars. After sequential arrests in 1928 and 1929, his luck ran out and he was sent to Eastham Prison Farm in April, 1930. While in prison, he was sexually assaulted repeatedly for over a year by a dominant inmate, whose skull he eventually fractured with a length of pipe. It was Clyde Barrow's first killing.

Paroled in February 1932, Barrow emerged from Eastham a hardened and bitter criminal. His sister Nell remembered a conversation with sister Marie about the new parolee: "There's a new air about him—a funny sort of something I can't put my finger on.... I'm afraid he's not going to go straight." Marie was blunter: "Something awful sure must have happened to him in prison, because he wasn't the same person when he got out." Associate Ralph Fults was there, inside "The Walls" with Barrow, and said he watched him "change from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake."

In his post-Eastham career, he focused on smaller jobs, robbing grocery stores and gas stations, at a rate far outpacing the mere ten to fifteen bank robberies attributed to him and the Barrow Gang. Barrow's favored weapon was the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (called a BAR). According to John Neal Phillips, Barrow's goal in life was not to gain fame or fortune from robbing banks, but to seek revenge against the Texas prison system for the abuses he suffered while serving time.

First meeting

There are a number of versions of the story describing Bonnie and Clyde's first meeting, but the most credible version indicates that Bonnie Parker met Clyde Barrow in January 1930 at a friend's house. Parker was out of work and was staying in West Dallas to assist a girlfriend with a broken arm. Barrow dropped by the girl's house while Parker was supposedly in the kitchen making hot chocolate.

When they met, both were smitten immediately; most historians believe Parker joined Barrow because she was in love. She remained a loyal companion to him as they carried out their crime spree and awaited the violent deaths they viewed as inevitable.

The spree

1932: Early jobs, early murders

After Barrow was released from prison in February 1932, he and Ralph Fults assembled a rotating core group of associates and began a series of small robberies, primarily of stores and gas stations; their goal was to collect enough money and firepower to launch a raid of liberation against Eastham prison. On April 30, Barrow was the wheelman in a robbery in Hillsboro, Texas, during which the store's owner, J. N. Bucher, was shot and killed. When shown mugshots, the victim's wife identified Barrow as one of the shooters, even though he had stayed outside in the car; it was his first murder accusation. Meanwhile, Parker remained in jail until June 17, writing poetry to while away the time. When the Kaufman County grand jury convened, it declined to indict her, and she was released. Within a few weeks, she reunited with Barrow.

On August 5, while Parker was visiting her mother in Dallas, Barrow, Hamilton and Ross Dyer were drinking alcohol at a country dance in Stringtown, Oklahoma, when Sheriff C.G. Maxwell and his deputy, Eugene C. Moore, approached them in the parking lot. Barrow and Hamilton opened fire, killing the deputy and gravely wounding the sheriff; it was the first killing of a lawman by Barrow and his gang, a total eventually amounting to nine officers killed. Another civilian was added to the list on October 11, when storekeeper Howard Hall was killed during a robbery of his store in Sherman, Texas. The take: twenty-eight dollars and some groceries.

W. D. Jones had been a friend of the Barrow family since childhood, and though he was only 16 years old on Christmas Eve 1932, he persuaded Barrow to let him join up with the pair and ride out of Dallas with them that night. The very next day, Jones was initiated into homicide when he and Barrow killed Doyle Johnson, a young family man, in the process of stealing his car in Temple, Texas. Less than two weeks later, on January 6, 1933, Barrow killed Tarrant County Deputy Sheriff Malcolm Davis when he, Parker and Jones wandered into a police trap set for another criminal. The total murdered by the gang since April was now five.

1933: Buck joins the gang

On March 22, 1933, Buck Barrow was granted a full pardon and released from prison. Within days, he and his wife, Blanche, had set up housekeeping with Clyde Barrow, Parker and Jones in a temporary hideout in Joplin, Missouri. According to family sources, Buck and Blanche were there merely to visit, in an attempt to persuade Clyde to surrender to law enforcement. As was common with Bonnie and Clyde, their next brush with the law arose from their generally suspicious—and conspicuous—behavior, not because their identities had been discovered. Beer had just been relegalized after Prohibition, and the group ran loud, hops-fueled card games late into the nights in the quiet neighborhood. "We bought a case of beer a day," Blanche would later recall. The menfolk came and went noisily at all hours, and once, a BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) discharged in the apartment while Clyde was cleaning it; the short burst didn't bring any neighbors directly to the house, but at least one registered suspicions with the town police.

Unaware of what awaited them, local lawmen assembled only a two-car, five-man force on April 13 to confront the suspected bootleggers living in the rented apartment over a garage. Though taken by surprise, Clyde, noted for remaining cool under fire, was gaining far more experience in gun battles than most lawmen. He, Jones and Buck quickly killed one lawman and fatally wounded another before bundling Parker into the car and escaping. They pulled Blanche in off the street, where she was pursuing her fleeing dog, Snow Ball. The surviving officers later testified that their side had fired only fourteen rounds in the conflict, although one of these hit Jones in the side, one struck Clyde and was deflected by his suitcoat button, and one grazed Buck after ricocheting off a wall.

The group escaped the police at Joplin, but left most of their possessions at the rented apartment: Buck and Blanche's marriage license, Buck's parole papers (only three weeks old), a large arsenal—and a handwritten poem and camera with several rolls of exposed film. The film was developed at The Joplin Globe and yielded many now-famous photos of Barrow, Parker and Jones clowning and pointing ordnance at one another. When the poem and the photos, including one featuring the poetess clenching a cigar in her teeth and a pistol in her fist, went out on the newly installed newswire, the obscure fivesome from Dallas became front page news across America as The Barrow Gang, fully illustrated and with the rhyming-couplet "Story of 'Suicide Sal'" as a seeming instant backstory.

For the next three months, they ranged from Texas as far north as Minnesota. In May, they robbed banks in Lucerne, Indiana and Okabena, Minnesota. Previously they had kidnapped Dillard Darby and Sophia Stone at Ruston, Louisiana, in the course of stealing Darby's car; this was one of several incidents between 1932 and 1934 in which they kidnapped lawmen or robbery victims, usually releasing them far from home, sometimes with money to help them return. Stories of these encounters made headlines, but so too did the darker encounters. The Barrow Gang would not hesitate to shoot anyone, lawman or civilian, who got in their way. Other members of the Barrow Gang known or thought to have committed murders included Raymond Hamilton, W.D. Jones, Buck Barrow and Henry Methvin. Eventually, the cold-bloodedness of the killings would not only sour the public perception of the outlaws, but lead directly to their undoing.

While the photos in the papers might have suggested a glamorous lifestyle for the Barrow Gang, in reality they were desperate and discontented, as noted in the account of their life written by Blanche Barrow while she was in jail through the latter 1930s. With their new fame—some would say notoriety—came difficulty in the smallest tasks of everyday living. Restaurants and tourist courts became less and less of an option; cooking and bathing became campfire and cold-stream propositions. The unrelieved, round-the-clock proximity of life among two couples, plus a fifth-wheel, in one car gave rise to vicious bickering. So unpleasant did it become that W.D. Jones, who was the actual wheelman in the theft of Dillard Darby's car in late April, used that car to get himself separated from the others—and managed to stay separated throughout May and up until June 8.

On June 10, while driving with Jones and Parker near Wellington, Texas, Clyde Barrow missed some construction signs and flipped their car into a ravine. The burn was so severe, the muscles contracted and caused the leg to "draw up"; near the end of her life, Parker could hardly walk and would either hop on her good leg or be carried by Clyde. After getting help from a nearby farm family and kidnapping two local lawmen, the three outlaws rendezvoused with Blanche and Buck Barrow again and they hid out in a tourist court near Ft. Smith, Arkansas, nursing Parker's grievous burns. Then Buck and Jones bungled a local robbery and killed Town Marshal Henry D. Humphrey in Alma, Arkansas. With the renewed pursuit from the law, they had to flee again, despite the grave condition of Bonnie Parker.

1933: Platte City and Dexfield Park

On July 18, 1933, the gang checked into the Red Crown Tourist Court south of Platte City, Missouri (now within the city limits of Kansas City, Missouri across I-29 from Kansas City International Airport). The Red Crown Court was just two brick cabins joined by garages and the gang rented both. owner Neal Houser became interested in the group immediately when Blanche Barrow registered the party as three guests, and Houser, out his rear window, could see five people exiting their car—which the driver backed into the garage, "gangster style," for a quick getaway. Blanche paid the lodging tab with coins rather than paper money, and did the same thing again later when she purchased five dinners and five beers for, presumably, three guests. The next day, Houser noticed that his guests had taped newspapers over the windows of their cabin, and Blanche once again paid in silver for five meals. Even Blanche's outfit—saucy, tight jodhpurs riding breeches—attracted undue attention: they were just not the kind of thing the upright women of Platte City would ever wear, and were the first thing mentioned by eyewitnesses reminiscing even forty years later. to purchase bandages, crackers, cheese, and atropine sulfate to treat Bonnie's leg, the druggist contacted Sheriff Holt Coffey, who put the cabins under watch. Coffey had been alerted by Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas to be on the lookout for strangers seeking such supplies. The sheriff contacted Captain Baxter, who called for reinforcements from Kansas City including an armored car. But in a pitched gunfight at considerable distances, the submachine guns proved no match for Clyde Barrow's preferred Browning Automatic Rifles, stolen July 7 from the National Guard armory at Enid, Oklahoma. The Barrows laid down withering fire and made their escape when a bullet short-circuited the horn on the armored car and the lawmen mistook it for a cease-fire signal. They did not pursue the retreating Barrow automobile. Their prospects for holding out against the ensuing manhunt dwindled.

Five days later, on July 24, the Barrow Gang was camped at Dexfield Park, an abandoned amusement park near Dexter, Iowa. So plainly mortal was Buck's head wound that Clyde and Jones dug a grave for him. After their bloody bandages were noticed by local citizens, it was determined that the campers were the Barrow gang. Surrounded by local lawmen and approximately one hundred spectators, the Barrows once again found themselves under fire. They restocked their arsenal when Barrow and Jones burglarized an armory at Plattville, Illinois on August 20 and scored three BARs, handguns and lots of ammunition.

By early September, they risked a run back in to Dallas to see their families for the first time in four months, and Jones parted company with them, continuing on to Houston, where his mother had moved. Through the autumn, Barrow executed a series of small-time robberies with a series of small-time local accomplices while his family, and Parker's, attended to her considerable medical needs.

On November 22, 1933, they again narrowly evaded arrest—but not bullets—while attempting to hook up with family members near Sowers, Texas. This time, it was their hometown Sheriff, Dallas's Smoot Schmid and his squad, lying in wait nearby. As Barrow drove up, he sensed a trap and drove right past his family's car, at which point Schmid and his deputies stood up and opened fire with machine guns and a BAR. The family members in the crossfire were not hit, but not so the outlaws: a single BAR slug penetrated the car—and the legs of both Parker and Barrow. The couple made their getaway that night, but the attempted ambush would prove to be a dry run for deputies Ted Hinton and Bob Alcorn, who would get another shot at the pair six months hence in Louisiana.

Bonnie Parker crossed an ominous personal threshold the following week when on November 28, a Dallas grand jury delivered a murder indictment on her and Barrow for the January 1933 killing of Tarrant County Deputy Malcolm Davis; it was the first murder warrant issued for Parker.

1934: Final run

On January 16, 1934, Barrow finally made his long-contemplated move against the Texas Department of Corrections as he orchestrated the escape of Raymond Hamilton, Henry Methvin and several others in the infamous "Eastham Breakout" of 1934.

breakout.]]

During the jailbreak, escapee Joe Palmer shot prison officer Major Joe Crowson and this act would eventually bring the full power of the Texas and federal governments to bear on the manhunt for Barrow and Parker. As Crowson struggled for life, prison chief Lee Simmons reportedly promised him that all persons involved in the breakout would be hunted down and killed, He accepted the assignment as a Texas Highway Patrol officer, secondarily assigned to the prison system as a special investigator, and given the specific task of hunting down Bonnie, Clyde and the Barrow Gang.

Frank Hamer was that rara avis, a true legend in his own time. Tall, burly, cryptic and taciturn, unimpressed by authority, driven by an "inflexible adherence to right, or what he thinks is right," for twenty years Hamer had been feared and admired throughout the Lone Star State as "the walking embodiment of the 'One Riot, One Ranger' ethos." In accomplishing the aims of Texas law enforcement he "had acquired a formidable reputation as a result of several spectacular captures and the shooting of a number of Texas criminals." He was officially credited with fifty-three kills (and seventeen wounds to himself). Although prison boss Simmons always said publicly that Hamer had been his first choice for the Barrow hunt, there's evidence he approached two other Rangers first, both of whom had been queasy about shooting a woman and declined; Hamer apparently had no such qualms. Starting February 10, he became the constant shadow of Barrow and Parker, living out of his car, just a town or two behind the bandits. Three of Hamer's brothers were also Texas Rangers, and while brother Harrison was the best shot of the four, Frank was considered the most tenacious.

On April 1, 1934, Easter Sunday, Barrow and Henry Methvin killed two young highway patrolmen, H. D. Murphy and Edward Bryant Wheeler, in an area of Grapevine, Texas now known as Southlake. A contemporary eyewitness account stated that Barrow and Parker fired the fatal shots and this story got widespread coverage in the press before it was discredited. Henry Methvin later admitted he fired the first shot, after assuming Barrow wanted the officers killed; he also admitted that Parker approached the dying officers intending to help them, not to administer the cold-blooded point-blank coup de grâce the discredited eyewitness had described. Having little choice once Methvin had shot Wheeler, Barrow then joined in, firing at Patrolman Murphy. Most likely, Parker was asleep in the back seat when Methvin started shooting and took no part in the assault. The stories even claimed that police found a cigar butt "with tiny teeth marks" that could only be attributed to the diminutive Parker. Things got worse several days later when Murphy's intended bride walked into his funeral wearing her wedding gown and sparked another round of photo-supported coverage in the papers. The eyewitness's ever-changing story was soon discredited, but not in time for Barrow and Parker: the massive negative publicity, against Parker in particular, accelerated the public clamor for the extermination of the remaining elements of the Barrow Gang.

It was more than just bad press, though—the outcry galvanized the authorities into taking more concrete legal actions. Highway Patrol boss L.G. Phares immediately offered a $1,000 reward for "the dead bodies of the Grapevine slayers"—not their capture, just the bodies. Texas governor Ma Ferguson was as outraged as the voting public, and she added another $500 reward for each of the two alleged killers, which "meant for the first time there was a specific price on Bonnie's head, since she was so widely believed to have shot H.D. Murphy."

Public hostility only increased when, just five days later, Barrow and Methvin killed 60 year-old Constable William "Cal" Campbell, a widower single father, near Commerce, Oklahoma. They kidnapped Commerce police chief Percy Boyd, drove around with him, crossing the state line into Kansas, and then let him out with a clean shirt, a few dollars and a request from Parker to tell the world she didn't smoke cigars. The outlaws didn't realize at their upbeat parting that Boyd would identify both Barrow and Parker to authorities—he never learned the name of the sullen youth who was with them—and when the resultant arrest warrant was issued for the Campbell murder, it specified "Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker and John Doe." Historian Knight writes: "For the first time, Bonnie was seen as a killer, actually pulling the trigger—just like Clyde. Whatever chance she had for clemency had just been reduced."

Death

Barrow and Parker were ambushed and killed on May 23, 1934 on a rural road in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.

The posse was led by Hamer, who had begun tracking the pair on February 10, 1934. He studied the gang's movements and found they swung in a circle skirting the edges of five midwest states, exploiting the "state line" rule that prevented officers from one jurisdiction from pursuing a fugitive into another. Barrow was a master of that pre-FBI rule, but he was consistent in his movements, so an experienced manhunter like Hamer could chart his path and predict where he would go. The gang's itinerary centered on family visits, and they were due to see Henry Methvin's family in Louisiana, which explained Hamer's meeting with them over the course of the hunt. Hamer obtained a quantity of civilian Browning Automatic Rifles (manufactured by Colt as the "Monitor") and 20 round magazines with armor piercing rounds.

On May 21, 1934, the four posse members from Texas were in Shreveport, Louisiana, when they learned that Barrow and Parker were to go to Bienville Parish that evening with Methvin. Barrow had designated the residence of Methvin's parents as a rendezvous in case they were later separated and indeed Methvin did get separated from the pair in Shreveport. The full posse, consisting of Captain Hamer, Dallas County Sheriff's Deputies Bob Alcorn and Ted Hinton (both of whom knew Barrow and Parker by sight), former Texas Ranger B.M. "Manny" Gault, Bienville Parish Sheriff Henderson Jordan, and his deputy Prentiss Oakley, set up an ambush at the rendezvous point along Louisiana State Highway 154 south of Gibsland toward Sailes. Hinton's account has the group in place by 9:00 p.m. on the 21st and waiting through the whole next day (May 22) with no sign of the outlaw couple, but other accounts have them setting up on the evening of the 22nd.

At approximately 9:15 a.m. on May 23, the posse, concealed in the bushes and almost ready to concede defeat, heard Barrow's stolen Ford V8 approaching at a high rate of speed. The posse's official report had Barrow stopping to speak with Henry Methvin's father, planted there with his truck that morning to distract him and force him into the lane closer to the posse. The lawmen then opened fire, killing Barrow and Parker while shooting a combined total of approximately 130 rounds. All accounts of the ambush, including his own, agree that Oakley fired first, and probably before any order was given to do so. Barrow was killed instantly by Oakley's initial head shot, but Parker had a moment to reflect; Hinton reported hearing her scream as she realized Barrow was dead before the shooting at her began in earnest. According to statements made by Ted Hinton and Bob Alcorn:

"Each of us six officers had a shotgun and an automatic rifle and pistols. We opened fire with the automatic rifles. They were emptied before the car got even with us. Then we used shotguns ... There was smoke coming from the car, and it looked like it was on fire. After shooting the shotguns, we emptied the pistols at the car, which had passed us and ran into a ditch about 50 yards on down the road. It almost turned over. We kept shooting at the car even after it stopped. We weren't taking any chances."

Some today say Bonnie and Clyde were shot more than 50 times, Officially, the tally in Parish coroner Dr. J. L. Wade's 1934 report listed seventeen separate entrance wounds on Barrow's body and twenty-six on Parker's, including several headshots on each, and one that had snapped Barrow's spinal column. So numerous were the bullet holes that undertaker C. F. "Boots" Bailey would have difficulty embalming the bodies because they wouldn't contain the embalming fluid.

Amidst the lingering gunsmoke at the ambush site, the temporarily deafened officers inspected the vehicle and discovered an arsenal of weapons including stolen automatic rifles, sawed-off semi-automatic shotguns, assorted handguns and several thousand rounds of ammunition, along with fifteen sets of license plates from various states. The coroner enlisted Hamer for help in controlling the "circus-like atmosphere," and only then did people move away from the car. After identifying his son's body, an emotional Henry Barrow sat in a rocking chair in the furniture part of the Conger establishment and wept. in Ruston and released near Waldo, Arkansas. Parker reportedly had laughed when she asked Darby his profession and discovered he was an undertaker. She remarked that maybe someday he would be working on her. Over 20,000 people turned out for Bonnie Parker's funeral, making it difficult for her family to reach the grave site. then located on Forest Avenue in Dallas, to conduct her funeral. Hubert "Buster" Parker accompanied his sister’s body back to Dallas in the McKamy-Campbell ambulance. Her services were held Saturday, May 26, at 2 p.m. in the funeral home, directed by Allen D. Campbell. Soloists at the funeral included Dudley M. Hughes Sr., who later became the prominent operator of four large Dallas funeral homes. Initially, Parker was buried in the Fishtrap Cemetery, but in 1945 was moved to the new Crown Hill Cemetery in Dallas. The next year services for Raymond Hamilton, a member of the Barrow Gang who was executed May 10, 1935 by the State of Texas, were also held at the McKamy-Campbell Funeral Home. He was buried in Western Heights Cemetery in Dallas, next to his brother, Marvin. They share a single granite marker with their names on it and a four-word epitaph previously selected by Clyde: “Gone but not forgotten.”

The life insurance policies for both Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were paid in full by American National of Galveston. Since then, the policy of pay-outs has changed to exclude pay-outs in cases of deaths caused by any criminal act by the insured.

In addition to the memorabilia collected by the posse, the six men were each to receive a one-sixth share of the reward money. Dallas Sheriff Schmid had promised Ted Hinton this would total some $26,000, but most of the state, county and other organizations that had pledged reward funds reneged on their pledges; by the time the six checks were issued to the possemen, each had earned just $200.23 for his efforts.

The ambush of Barrow and Parker proved to be the beginning of the end of the "public enemy era" of the 1930s. New federal statutes that made bank robbery and kidnapping federal offenses, the growing coordination of local jurisdictions by the FBI—plus the installation of two-way radios in police cars—combined to make the free-ranging outlaw bandit lifestyle much more difficult in the summer of 1934 than it had been just a few months before. Two months after Gibsland, John Dillinger was ambushed and killed on the street in Chicago; three months after that, Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd took 14 FBI bullets in the back in Ohio; and one month after that, Lester "Baby Face Nelson" Gillis shot it out, and lost, in Illinois. Thereafter, the Public Enemies would no longer operate on thin ribbons of gray macadam across America, but only on silver screens throughout the world.

Controversies

Questions following the ambush were helped along by the tripartite composition of the posse itself: Hamer and Gault were both former Texas Rangers now working for the Texas Department of Corrections, Hinton and Alcorn were employees of the Dallas Sheriff's office, and Jordan and Oakley were Sheriff and Deputy of Bienville Parish. The three duos distrusted each other, kept to themselves, and indeed did not even much like each other. They each carried differing agendas into the operation and brought differing narratives out of it. Historian Guinn puts it this way: Hamer's, Simmons's, Jordan's and Hinton's "various testimonies

:combine into one of the most dazzling displays of deliberate obfuscation in modern history. Such widely varied accounts can't be dismissed as different people honestly recalling the same events different ways. Motive becomes an issue, and they all had reason to lie. Hamer was fanatical about protecting sources. Simmons was interested in resurrecting his own public image.... Jordan wanted to present himself as the critical dealmaker. Nobody can account for Ted Hinton's improbable reminiscences...."

Because their self-serving accounts vary so widely, and because all six men are long deceased, the exact details of the ambush are unknown and unknowable.

As a result, the questions have lingered, including whether fair warning was given the fugitives before the firing commenced, the status of Parker as a shoot-on-sight candidate, and the 1970s-era accusations of Deputy Hinton.

Calling a "Halt!"

The efficacy of calling out a warning to Clyde Barrow before an ambush was demonstrated by Dallas Sheriff Schmid at Sowers, Texas in November 1933: at his call of "Halt!" there was a smattering of gunfire from the outlaw car, a sweeping U-turn, and then rapidly vanishing taillights: Ambush over. Hinton later called it "the most futile gesture of the week." So when the two Louisiana officers on the posse assumed that a "Halt!" would be the prelude to the ambush, the four Texans "vetoed the idea," hurrying to inform them It is unlikely that Hamer planned to give any warning at all to Barrow and Parker, but the matter became moot when Deputy Oakley stood up without any order issued and opened fire; after a beat, the startled possemen joined him in the fusillade. Alcorn said Hamer called out, and Hinton claimed Alcorn did, These conflicting claims most likely were collegial attempts to divert the focus from their gun-jumping associate Oakley, who admitted many times over the years that he fired prematurely.

Warrants on Parker

Different and disparate sources have cited five occasions when Bonnie Parker fired—or maybe didn't fire—shots during crises faced by the gang. It is unimportant whether it was five times, or zero times; her shots, if any, never hit anyone, and she certainly never killed anyone with her own hand. She was, however, an accomplice to a hundred or more felony criminal actions during her two-year career in crime, including eight murders, seven kidnappings, half-a-dozen bank robberies, scores of felony armed robberies, countless automobile thefts and one major jailbreak—this at a time when being a "habitual criminal" was a capital offense in Texas. Because of their far-flung, rural base of operations and will o' the wisp modus operandi, Parker was able to stay a step ahead of the tide of legal paperwork that inevitably follows a crime spree the scope of hers and Barrow's.

This began to change for Parker after Joplin: the Joplin P.D. issued a Wanted for Murder poster in April 1933 that featured her name and photo first, before Barrow's, though the text concentrated on him. In June, another Wanted for Murder poster emerged, this one out of Crawford County, Arkansas, again with Parker's name and photo getting first billing. There was now a $250 cash bounty attached for either of the "Barrow Brothers" (Clyde and "Melvin")—and the admonition to "inquire of your doctors if they have been called to treat a woman that has been burned in a car wreck."

By November 1933, W.D. Jones was in custody and supplying details of the gang's 1933 activities—details which led to the empanelment of a grand jury in Dallas. On November 28, the grand jury indicted Parker, Barrow and Jones for the murder of Deputy Malcolm Davis in January; Judge Nolan G. Williams of Criminal District Court No. 2 issued arrest warrants for Parker and Barrow for murder. Just five days later, Barrow and Henry Methvin killed Constable Campbell in Commerce, Oklahoma, and the murder warrant issued there named "Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker and John Doe" as his killers.

Hinton's accusations

In 1979, Ted Hinton's account of the ambush was published posthumously as Ambush, and it attempted to change the complexion of the Methvin family's involvement in the planning and execution of the ambush. According to Hinton, the posse had tied Henry Methvin's father, Ivy, to a tree the previous night, to keep him from possibly warning the outlaws off. Hinton's odd memoir also propounds the tale that the offending stogie in the famous "cigar photo" of Bonnie had in fact been a rose in her mouth that was retouched into a cigar by darkroom personnel at the Joplin Globe while they were preparing the photo for publication. Guinn says that "some people who knew [Hinton] suspect he became delusional late in life."

Aftermath

The smoke from the fusillade had not even cleared before the posse began sifting through the items in the Barrow death car. Hamer appropriated the "considerable" arsenal of stolen guns and ammunition, plus a box of fishing tackle, under the terms of his compensation package with the Texas DOC. In July, Clyde's mother Cumie wrote to Hamer asking for the guns' return: "You don't never want to forget my boy was never tried in no court for murder and no one is guilty until proven guilty by some court so I hope you will answer this letter and also return the guns I am asking for." No record exists of any response.

Alcorn claimed Barrow's saxophone from the car, but feeling guilty, later returned it to the Barrow family. Other personal items such as Parker's clothing were also taken, and when the Parker family asked for them back, they were refused. These items were later sold as souvenirs. A rumored suitcase full of cash was said by the Barrow family to have been kept by Sheriff Jordan, "who soon after the ambush purchased an auction barn and land in Arcadia." after considerable legal sparring and a court order, Jordan relented and Mrs. Warren got her car back in August 1934, still covered with blood and tissue, and with an $85 towing and storage bill.

In February 1935, Dallas and federal authorities conducted a "harboring trial" in which twenty family members and friends of the outlaw couple were arrested and jailed for the aid and abetment of Barrow and Parker. All twenty either pleaded or were found guilty. The two mothers were jailed for 30 days; other sentences ranged from two years' imprisonment for Raymond Hamilton's brother Floyd to one hour in custody for teenager Marie Barrow, Clyde's sister. Other defendants included Blanche Barrow, W. D. Jones, Henry Methvin and Bonnie's sister Billie.

Blanche Barrow's injuries left her permanently blinded in her left eye. After the 1933 shootout at Dexfield Park, she was taken into custody on the charge of "Assault With Intent to Kill." She was sentenced to ten years in prison but was paroled in 1939 for good behavior. She returned to Dallas, leaving her life of crime in the past, and lived with her invalid father as his caregiver. She married Eddie Frasure in 1940, worked as a taxi cab dispatcher and a beautician, and completed the terms of her parole one year later. She lived in peace with her husband until he died of cancer in 1969. Warren Beatty approached her to purchase the rights to her name for use in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde. While she agreed to the original script, she objected to her characterization in the final film, describing Estelle Parsons's Academy Award-winning portrayal of her as "a screaming horse's ass." Despite this, she maintained a firm friendship with Beatty. She died from cancer at the age of 77 on December 24, 1988, and was buried in Dallas's Grove Hill Memorial Park under the name "Blanche B. Frasure".

Barrow colleagues Raymond Hamilton and Joe Palmer, both Eastham escapees in January 1934, both recaptured, and both subsequently convicted of murder, shared one more thing in common: they were both executed in the electric chair, "Old Sparky," at Huntsville, Texas, and both on the same day: May 10, 1935. Barrow protégé W. D. Jones had split from his mentors six weeks after the three slipped the noose at Dexfield Park in July 1933. He found his way to Houston and got a job picking cotton. He was discovered and captured in short order though, and was returned to Dallas, where he dictated a "confession" in which he claimed to have been kept a prisoner by Barrow and Parker. Some of the more lurid embellishments he made concerned the gang's sex lives, and it was this testimony that gave rise to many of the stories about Barrow's ambiguous sexuality. Jones was convicted of the murder of Doyle Johnson and served a lenient sentence of fifteen years. He struggled for years with substance abuse problems, gave an interview to Playboy during the heyday of excitement surrounding the 1967 movie, and was killed on August 4, 1974 in a misunderstanding by the jealous boyfriend of a woman he was trying to help out.

Substitute protégé Henry Methvin's ambush-earned Texas pardon didn't help him in Oklahoma, where he was convicted of the 1934 murder of Constable Campbell at Commerce. He was paroled in 1942 and killed by a train in 1948; it was said he fell asleep, drunk, on the tracks, but there were rumors he had been pushed by parties seeking revenge for his betrayal of Clyde Barrow. His father Ivy had been killed in 1946 by a hit-and-run driver, and here too there was talk of foul play. Bonnie Parker's husband Roy Thornton was sentenced to five years in prison for burglary in March 1933. He was killed by guards on October 3, 1937, during an escape attempt from Eastham Farm prison.

In the years after the ambush, Prentiss Oakley, who all six possemen agree fired the first shots, was reported to have been troubled by his actions. He often admitted to his friends that he had fired prematurely because many people felt he had not given Barrow and Parker a fair chance to surrender. He made headlines again in 1948 when he and Governor Coke Stevenson unsuccessfully challenged Lyndon Johnson's vote totals during the election for the U.S. Senate. He died in 1955 at age 71 after several years of poor health. His possemate Bob Alcorn died on May 23, 1964—exactly thirty years to the day after the Gibsland ambush.

The Bonnie and Clyde Festival

Every year near the anniversary of the ambush, a "Bonnie and Clyde Festival" is hosted in the town of Gibsland, off Interstate 20 in Bienville Parish. The ambush location, still comparatively isolated on Louisiana Highway 154, south of Gibsland, is commemorated by a stone marker that has been defaced to near illegibility by souvenir hunters and gunshot. A small metal version was added to accompany the stone monument. It was stolen, as was its replacement.

In the media

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were among the first celebrity criminals of the modern era. They had little choice in the matter: after they fled the Joplin hideout in April 1933 with nothing but the clothes they were wearing, the police discovered several rolls of undeveloped film and some scrawled doggerel poetry left behind. It was instant legend: the photos showed the couple and W. D. Jones in playful, snapshot-type poses, except they were wielding pistols, rifles and BARs. In one gag shot, Parker had plucked a cigar from Barrow and popped it in her mouth, branding her as "Clyde's cigar-smoking moll." The poem "Suicide Sal," peppered with quotation marks and colorful underworld vernacular, mirrored the tone of the popular detective magazines of the time. Two days after the raid, the photos and poem went out on the wire and were running in newspapers all over the country. Before Joplin, the Barrows' notoriety had been confined strictly to the Dallas area; afterwards, they became notorious across America.

The high public profile was a mixed blessing. It certainly made life on the run more dangerous and therefore more difficult. There were more nights sleeping in the car and fewer sleeping in motor courts; picking up laundry at cleaning stores was particularly harrowing. As the noose tightened, Parker composed the fatalistic poem she titled "The Trail's End," known since as "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde." She gave the handwritten ode to her mother upon their final meeting two weeks before her death and Emma Parker gave it to the press thereafter.

Six weeks before the couple was ambushed, a letter purportedly written by Barrow arrived at the office of Henry Ford praising his "dandy car." Although the handwriting does not match known samples of Clyde's penmanship, and despite the fact the letter was signed by "Clyde Champion Barrow" while Barrow's middle name was Chestnut, the unauthenticated letter is on display in the Ford Museum. It was never used in any form in Ford advertising, nor was a similar letter Ford received around the same time from someone claiming to be John Dillinger, himself ambushed just two months after Barrow.

In popular culture

Film

Hollywood has treated the pair's story several times, most notably: Dorothy Provine starred in the 1958 movie The Bonnie Parker Story, directed by William Witney. In 1967, Arthur Penn directed the best-known version of the tale, Bonnie and Clyde, which starred Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.

Music

In 1955, Hermes Nye recorded the a musical rendition of Bonnie Parker's poem "The Trail's End" which he called "Bonnie and Clyde" on his Texas Folk Songs LP.

In 1967, Serge Gainsbourg recorded his song "Bonnie and Clyde" as a duet with Brigitte Bardot. The French lyrics are based on Bonnie Parker's poem "The Trail's End". This song would be covered in the 1990s by the bands Stereolab, Luna and MC Solaar, as well as by the musician Mick Harvey.

2006, pop singer Belinda Carlisle recorded a cover with Fiachna O'Braonain on her 2007 Voila CD. In 1967, Georgie Fame released a single called "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde" (UK #1), whose lyrics tell of Bonnie's and Clyde's exploits.

In 1968, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs released their album, The Story of Bonnie and Clyde. The album is Columbia Records catalog number CS-9649.

Musical theater

On November 20, 2009, La Jolla Playhouse presented the world premiere of the musical Bonnie & Clyde. The production was adapted from the book by Ivan Menchell with music written by Frank Wildhorn and lyrics by Don Black. The cast was led by Laura Osnes as Bonnie and Stark Sands as Clyde.

Historical perspective

Through the decades, many cultural historians have analyzed Bonnie's and Clyde's enduring appeal to the public imagination. E.R. Milner, an historian, writer, and expert on Bonnie and Clyde and their era, put the duo's enduring appeal to the public, both during the Depression and continuing on through the decades, into historical and cultural perspective. To those people who, as Milner says, "consider themselves outsiders, or oppose the existing system," Bonnie and Clyde represent the ultimate outsiders, revolting against an uncaring system. "The country’s money simply declined by 38 percent", explains Milner, author of The Lives and Times of Bonnie and Clyde. "Gaunt, dazed men roamed the city streets seeking jobs... Breadlines and soup kitchens became jammed. (In rural areas) foreclosures forced more than 38 percent of farmers from their lands (while simultaneously) a catastrophic drought struck the Great Plains... By the time Bonnie and Clyde became well known, many had felt the capitalistic system had been abused by big business and government officials... Now here were Bonnie and Clyde striking back."

See also

1910 US Census with Clyde Barrow in Ellis County, Texas

Hybristophilia, also known as "Bonnie and Clyde syndrome"

List of Depression-era outlaws

References

;Notes

;Bibliography

Barrow, Blanche Caldwell and John Neal Phillips. My Life with Bonnie and Clyde. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004.) ISBN 978-0-8061-3715-5.

Burrough, Bryan. Public Enemies. (New York: The Penguin Press, 2004.) ISBN 1-59420-021-1.

Guinn, Jeff. Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009.) ISBN 1-4165-5706-7.

Knight, James R. and Jonathan Davis. Bonnie and Clyde: A Twenty-First-Century Update. (Austin, TX: Eakin Press, 2003.) ISBN 1-57168-794-7.

Milner, E.R. The Lives and Times of Bonnie and Clyde (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996.) ISBN 0-8093-2552-7.

Parker, Emma Krause, Nell Barrow Cowan and Jan I. Fortune. The True Story of Bonnie and Clyde. (New York: New American Library, 1968.) ISBN 0-8488-2154-8. Originally published in 1934 as Fugitives.

Phillips, John Neal. Running with Bonnie and Clyde, the Ten Fast Years of Ralph Fults. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996, 2002) ISBN 0-8061-3429-1.

Ramsey, Winston G., ed. On The Trail of Bonnie and Clyde. (London: After The Battle Books, 2003). ISBN 1-870067-51-7.

Steele, Phillip, and Marie Barrow Scoma. The Family Story of Bonnie and Clyde. (Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, 2000.) ISBN 1-56554-756-X.

Treherne, John. The Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde. (New York: Stein and Day, 1984.) ISBN 0-8154-1106-5.

Webb, Walter Prescott. The Texas Rangers: A Century of Frontier Defense. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1935.) ISBN 0-292-78110-5.

External links

"Alva Trummel Kidnapped by Bandits." 'The Western Star', September 8, 1933.

"Bill Brock relates Story of Highway Robbery at Meade Park" 'The Fowler News', September 7, 1933.

"Bonnie Parker Worked in Dodge, Barrow in Hugoton" 'The Dodge City Globe', September 19, 1934.

Two Crooks for the Road, 'The Wall St. Journal', March 10, 2009

The Poems of Bonnie Parker

Barrow, Clyde Bonnie, Parker Category:1934 deaths Category:Duos Category:People from Ellis County, Texas Category:People from Bienville Parish, Louisiana Category:Depression-era gangsters Category:People from Joplin, Missouri Category:Articles containing video clips Category:American outlaws Category:Deaths by firearm in Louisiana Category:American bank robbers Category:People shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States Category:Articles about multiple people

Name	Serge Gainsbourg
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Lucien Ginsburg
Alias	Julien GrixGainsbarre
Born	April 02, 1928
Died	March 02, 1991
Origin	Paris, France
Instrument	Piano, guitar, bass, accordion, harmonica
Genre	Adult contemporary, jazz, reggae, French rock, French pop, electronic, New Wave, yé-yé
Occupation	poetsinger-songwriteractordirector
Years active	1957–1991
Label	Mercury/Universal Records
Url	Serge Gainsbourg

Serge Gainsbourg, born Lucien Ginsburg (; 2 April 1928 – 2 March 1991) was a French singer-songwriter, actor and director. Gainsbourg's extremely varied musical style and individuality make him difficult to categorize. His legacy has been firmly established, and he is often regarded as one of the world's most influential popular musicians.

Biography

Personal life

He was born Lucien Ginsburg in Paris, France, the son of Russian Jewish parents, Joseph Ginsburg (1896 — 22 April 1971) and Olga Bessman (1894 — 16 March 1985), who fled to France after the 1917 Russian Revolution. He had a twin sister, Liliane. His childhood was profoundly affected by the occupation of France by Nazi Germany, during which he and his family, as Jews, were forced to wear the yellow star and eventually flee Paris. Before he was 30 years old, Gainsbourg was a disillusioned painter, but earned his living as a piano player in bars.

He first married Elisabeth "Lize" Levitsky on 3 November 1951, and divorced her in 1957. He married a second time on 7 January 1964, to Françoise-Antoinette "Béatrice" Pancrazzi (b. 28 July 1931), with whom he had two children: a daughter named Natacha (b. 8 August 1964) and a son, Paul (born in spring 1968, after Serge had got back together with Béatrice). They divorced in February 1966.

In late-1967, he had a short but ardent love affair with Brigitte Bardot to whom he dedicated the song and album Initials BB.

In mid-1968, Gainsbourg fell in love with the much younger English singer and actress Jane Birkin, whom he met during the shooting of the film Slogan. They married some time afterwards. In 1971 they had a daughter, the actress and singer Charlotte. Birkin left him in 1980.

His last partner was Bambou (Caroline Paulus, grandchild of General Friedrich Paulus). In 1986 they had a son, Lucien (best known as Lulu).

Early work

His early songs were influenced by Boris Vian and were largely in the vein of old-fashioned chanson. Very early, however, Gainsbourg began to move beyond this and experiment with a succession of different musical styles: jazz early on, pop in the 1960s, rock and reggae in the 1970s, and electronica in the 1980s.

In 1975, he released the album Rock Around the Bunker, a rock album written entirely on the subject of the Nazis. Gainsbourg used black comedy, as he and his family suffered during World War II. While a child in Paris, Gainsbourg had worn the yellow badge as the mark of a Jew. Rock Around the Bunker belonged in the mid-1970s "retro" trend.

The next year saw the release of another major work, L'Homme à tête de chou (Cabbage-Head Man), featuring the new character Marilou and sumptuous orchestral themes. Cabbage-Head Man is one of his nicknames, as it refers to his ears. Musically, L'homme à tête de chou turned out to be Gainsbourg's last LP in the English rock style he had favoured since the late 1960s. He would go on to produce two reggae albums recorded in Jamaica (1979 and 1981) and two electronic funk albums recorded in New York (1984 and 1987).

In Jamaica in 1978 he recorded "Aux Armes et cetera", a reggae version of the French national anthem "La Marseillaise", with Robbie Shakespeare, Sly Dunbar, and Rita Marley. This song earned him death threats from right-wing veterans of the Algerian War of Independence who were opposed to certain lyrics. Bob Marley was furious when he discovered Gainsbourg made his wife Rita Marley sing erotic lyrics. In the 1980s, near the end of his life, Gainsbourg became a regular figure on French TV. His appearances seemed devoted to his controversial sense of humour and provocation. In March 1984, while this was illegal (article 132 of the "Code Penal"), he burned a 500 French franc bill on television to protest against heavy taxation. He would show up drunk and unshaven on stage: in April 1986, in Michel Drucker's live Saturday evening show with the American singer Whitney Houston, he exclaimed to the host (in French, and when this was not translated, in English), "I want to fuck her". The same year, in another talk show interview, he appeared alongside Catherine Ringer, a well known singer who had appeared in pornographic films. Gainsbourg shouted, "You're nothing but a filthy whore, a filthy, fucking whore". Ringer scolded back, "Look at you, you're just a bitter old alcoholic. I used to admire you but these days you've become a disgusting old parasite".

By December, 1988, while a judge at a film festival in Val d'Isère, he appeared raging drunk at a local theatre where he was to do a presentation. While on stage he began to tell an obscene story about Brigitte Bardot and a champagne bottle, only to stagger offstage and collapse in a nearby seat. This translates as "Inceste de citron", a wordplay on "un zeste de citron" (a tang of lemon). The title demonstrates Gainsbourg's love for puns - another example of which is Beau oui comme Bowie, a song he gave to Isabelle Adjani.

Film work

In 1960 Gainsbourg co-starred with Rhonda Fleming in the Italian film, La Rivolta Degli Schiavi "The Revolt of The Slaves" as Corvino, the Roman Emperor Massimiano's evil henchman.

During his career, he wrote the soundtracks for more than 40 films. In 1996, he received a posthumous César Award for Best Music Written for a Film for Élisa, along with Zbigniew Preisner and Michel Colombier.

He directed four movies: Je t'aime... moi non plus, Équateur, Charlotte For Ever and Stan The Flasher.

He made an brief appearance with Jane Birkin in 1980 in Egon Schiele Exzess und Bestrafung, a film by Herbert Vesely, and also starred at "Les Chemins de Katmandou", with Jane Birkin.

Writing

Gainsbourg wrote a novel entitled Evguénie Sokolov.

Death and legacy

Gainsbourg died on March 2, 1991 of a heart attack. He was buried in the Jewish lot of the Montparnasse Cemetery, in Paris. His funeral brought Paris to a standstill, and French President François Mitterrand said of him, "He was our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire... He elevated the song to the level of art." His home at the well-known address rue de Verneuil is still covered in graffiti and poems.

Since his death, Gainsbourg's music has reached legendary stature in France. His lyrical brilliance in French has left an extraordinary legacy. His music, always progressive, covered many styles: jazz, ballads, mambo, lounge, reggae, pop (including adult contemporary pop, kitsch pop, yé-yé pop, '80s pop, pop-art pop, prog pop, space-age pop, psychedelic pop, and erotic pop), disco, calypso, Africana, bossa nova, and rock and roll. He has gained a following in the English-speaking world with many non-mainstream artists finding his arrangements highly influential.

One of the most frequent interpreters of Gainsbourg's songs was British singer Petula Clark, whose success in France was propelled by her recordings of his tunes. In 2003, she wrote and recorded La Chanson de Gainsbourg as a tribute to the composer of some of her biggest hits.

His lyrics are collected in the volume Dernières nouvelles des étoiles.

In 2005, the album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited was released by Virgin Records. The album consisted of specially-recorded English-language cover versions of Gainsbourg's songs, recorded by artists as diverse as Franz Ferdinand, Portishead, Placebo, Marc Almond and Michael Stipe.

Film adaptation

A feature film titled Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque) was released in France in January 2010, which is based on the graphic novel by the writer-director of the film, Joann Sfar. Gainsbourg is portrayed by Eric Elmosnino and Kacey Mottet Klein.

Covers and tributes

In 1964, Gainsbourg himself did covers of Babatunde Olatunji's drum-heavy tunes "Kiyakiya (Why Do You Run Away?)", "Akiwowo (Chant to the Trainman)" and "Jin-go-lo-ba" which are featured on Olatunji's acclaimed Drums of Passion LP (1959). They appeared, with new French lyrics but otherwise identical in rhythm, melody and overall sound, as "Joanna", "New York - U.S.A." and "Marabout", respectively, on the "Gainsbourg Percussions" album - without any credit given to Olatunji.

One of the celebrating events of the Year of France in Brazil was a concert in September 2009 called "Gainsbourg Imperial", an event celebrating the music of Serge Gainsbourg. It was performed by Brazilian Samba Big Band Orquestra Imperial, having French maestro Jean-Claude Vannier, English singer Jane Birkin and Brazilian musician and singer Caetano Veloso as special guests.

Belinda Carlisle covered "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Contact" on her 2007 French language album Voila.

Giddle & Boyd (Giddle Partridge and Boyd Rice) covered "Bonnie and Clyde" on their 2008 EP Going Steady with Peggy Moffitt.

The first English-language version of a Gainsbourg song was Dionne Warwick's 1965 version of "Mamadou".

Australian rock musician Mick Harvey released two CDs of Gainsbourg's songs translated into English. Of particular note is "To All the Lucky Kids (Aux Enfants De La Chance)" on Pink Elephants.

Placebo did a cover of Gainsbourg's "The Ballad of Melody Nelson".

Gainsbourg's song "Bonnie and Clyde" is featured in the burlesque show scene of Rush Hour 3 and in the romantic film Laurel Canyon starring Christian Bale and Kate Beckinsale.

American indie rock band Luna included a cover of "Bonnie and Clyde" as a hidden track on their 1995 album Penthouse.

Swedish band Sambassadeur covers "La Chanson de Prevert" in French.

Okkervil River covers "Je suis venu te dire que je m'en vais" in English ("I Came Here to Say I'm Going Away").

Jarvis Cocker has also covered the above mentioned song, but named it "I Just Came To Tell You That I'm Going" instead.

Arcade Fire covered "Poupée de cire, poupée de Son" and also released it as a split 7" single with LCD Soundsystem.

Beirut often covers "La Javanaise" in their live sets and it is included in the live album Live at the Music Hall of Williamsburg (2009).

Australian pop singer-songwriter Kylie Minogue extensively sampled his duet with Brigitte Bardot "Bonnie and Clyde" on the song "Sensitized" off her 2007 album X. In 2003, she sampled "Je t'aime... moi non plus" in a modified version of her song "Breathe" (which originally did not contain any samples) for a special one-off live performance at the Hammersmith Apollo in promotion of her album Body Language.

French rapper MC Solaar sampled "Bonnie and Clyde" in his song "Nouveau Western" on his 1994 album Prose Combat

Irish musician David Holmes covered "Cargo Culte" in his song "Don't Die Just Yet" on his 1997 album Let's Get Killed.

American emcee Princess Superstar sampled the melody of the songs "Melody" and "Cargo Culte" in the song "You Get Mad At Napster" on her album Princess Superstar Is.

The Welsh comedy-rap band Goldie Lookin Chain extensively sampled the title track of Gainsbourg's Cannabis film soundtrack for their single "Your Missus Is a Nutter".

In 1997 Tzadik records released a in their Great Jewish Composers series. The album includes covers by John Zorn, Medeski, Martin and Wood, Mike Patton, Fred Frith, Ikue Mori, Marc Ribot and Cyro Baptista.

On the HBO show Flight of the Conchords, the sequence for the song "A Kiss is Not a Contract" is a tribute to Gainsbourg's video for "Ballade de Melody Nelson".

The track "Serge" on The Herbaliser's album Take London is about a chance encounter with Gainsbourg 3 days before his death.

Black Grape's "A Big Day in the North" is based on a sample taken from Initials B.B. and also features samples from "Ford Mustang".

In the film High Fidelity, when a pair of punks steals from Rob Gordon's record store, one of the things they stole was a Serge Gainsbourg record.

American hip hop duo The Beatnuts sampled "Melody" on their track "Superbad" off their album The Beatnuts LP.

Discography

Albums

1958: Du chant à la une

1959: N° 2

1961: L'Étonnant Serge Gainsbourg

1962: N° 4

1963: Confidentiel

1964: Percussions

1967: Anna

1968: Serge Gainsbourg - Brigitte Bardot: Bonnie & Clyde (compilation)

1968: Initials B.B. (compilation)

1969: Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg

1970: Cannabis (instrumental)

1971: Histoire de Melody Nelson

1973: Vu de l'extérieur

1975: Rock around the bunker

1976: Je t'aime... moi non plus - Ballade de Johnny-Jane (instrumental)

1976: L'Homme à la tête de chou

1977: Madame Claude

1977: Goodbye Emmanuelle (instrumental)

1979: Aux armes et cætera

1980: Je vous aime (only 3 pieces sung by Gainsbourg)

1980: Enregistrement public au Théâtre Le Palace (live)

1981: Mauvaises nouvelles des étoiles

1984: Love On The Beat

1986: Live (Casino de Paris)

1986: Putain de film ! - B.O.F. Tenue de soirée

1987: You're Under Arrest

1988: Le Zénith de Gainsbourg (live)

1994: De Gainsbourg à Gainsbarre (11 CD box set)

Tribute albums and posthumous releases

1997: (tribute album)

1997: Comic Strip

2001: Gainsbourg Forever (integral box set)

2001: Le Cinéma de Gainsbourg (box set)

2001: I Love Serge: Electronicagainsbourg (remix album)

2005: Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited (tribute album)

2008: Classé X (compilation)

Singles

"Black Trombone" (1962)

"La Javanaise" (1963)

"Couleur Café" (1964)

"New York U.S.A." (1964)

"Les Sucettes" (1966)

"Hold Up" (1967)

"Initials B.B." (1967)

"Bonnie and Clyde" (1968) (Brigitte Bardot et Serge Gainsbourg)

"Je t'aime... moi non plus" (1969) (Jane Birkin avec Serge Gainsbourg)

"La Décadanse" (1971) (Jane Birkin et Serge Gainsbourg)

"Je suis venu te dire que je m'en vais" (1973)

"L'Homme à Tête de Chou" (1976)

"Marilou" (1976)

"Sea, Sex and Sun" (1978)

"Aux armes et caetera" (1979)

"Lola Rastaquouère" (1979)

"Dieu fumeur de havanes" (1980) (Catherine Deneuve & Serge Gainsbourg)

"Sorry Angel" (1984)

"Lemon Incest" (1985) (Charlotte & Gainsbourg)

"You're Under Arrest" (1987)

"Mon légionnaire" (1987)

"Requiem pour un con" (1991)

"Élisa" (1995)

"La Noyée"

;Singles written for other artists

"Les Incorruptibles" (1965) - Petula Clark

"Poupée de cire, poupée de son" (1965) - France Gall

"Baby Pop" (1966) - France Gall

"Comment te dire adieu?" (1968) - Françoise Hardy

"Dis-lui toi que je t'aime" (1990) - Vanessa Paradis

"White and Black Blues" (1990) - Joëlle Ursull (lyrics by Gainsbourg)

"La Gadoue" (1995) - Jane Birkin

Notes

References

Serge Gainsbourg: View From The Exterior by Alan Clayson (1998). Sanctuary. ISBN 9781860742224

Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes by Sylvie Simmons (2002). Da Capo Press. ISBN 9780306811838

External links

Serge Gainsbourg official site A tribute website to Serge Gainsbourg

Serge Gainsbourg - A Wolf in the Sheep Pen by Alex Chabot

Translation of some of Gainsbourg's lyrics to English

Category:Cabaret singers Category:French agnostics Category:French-language singers Category:French male singers Category:French poets Category:French singer-songwriters Category:People from Paris Category:French people of Russian descent Category:French Jews Category:Jewish poets Category:Mercury Records artists Category:Jewish songwriters Category:Jewish singers Category:Twin people from France Category:1928 births Category:1991 deaths Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery

Name	Laura Osnes
Caption	Laura Osnes, February 2007 in Los Angeles.Photography by Nathan Johnson
Birthdate	November 19, 1985
Birthplace	Burnsville, Minnesota
Spouse	Nathan Johnson (May 11, 2007-present)

Laura Ann Osnes (born November 19, 1985) is an American stage actress, and the winner of the role of "Sandy" on the televised competition. She played Sandy in the 2007 Broadway run of Grease, which opened August 19, 2007, starring alongside the other winner, Max Crumm, who played the role of Danny.

Biography

Osnes was born November 19, 1985 in Burnsville, Minnesota, and raised in Eagan, Minnesota, a suburb of St. Paul. She is the daughter of Russell Osnes and Jane Raduechel Osnes Clark. Laura's stepfather is Donald Clark. Her first acting performance was in the second grade, where she played a munchkin in The Wizard of Oz. She attended Eagan High School, and then the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point for one year where she majored in Musical Theatre and appeared in Fiddler on the Roof and Seussical the Musical.

Laura also participated in productions at the Children's Theatre Company the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts and the Guthrie Theatre before she graduated from Eagan High School

In 2005–2006 she returned to Minneapolis to be a performing apprentice at the Children's Theatre Company, performing in Working, Aladdin Jr., Prom, and Pippi Longstocking. In 2006, she choreographed and starred in Peter Pan in Eagan community theatre. She also played the lead of Sandy in Chanhassen Dinner Theatres' production of Grease, but her run was cut short when she was chosen to compete in the nationally televised Broadway talent competition .

Osnes was engaged to Nathan Johnson (showing in the March 18, 2007 episode of ), whom she met when both were understudies on Aladdin. They were originally planning to marry on March 24 and honeymoon in Aruba, but postponed the wedding so that she could participate in the competition. Because the schedule conflicted with March 25, 2007 episode, they rescheduled the wedding to May 11, 2007, and are now married and reside in New York City.

Laura Osnes flew home to Minnesota from New York to make an appearance at the Minnesota Ivey awards on September 24, 2007. She sang Hopelessly Devoted To You, from Grease.

On June 15, 2008 Laura Osnes, Max Crumm, and the remaining Grease cast made an appearance at the Tony Awards singing, Grease, and We Go Together.

Grease: You're the One that I Want!

Laura Osnes was nicknamed "Small Town Sandy" in the show, even though Eagan is a large suburb of St. Paul, and a major city. She was a favorite to win during the entire course of the show, never showing up in the "sing-off" bottom two during the show's run. She was named the winner on March 25, 2007, which meant she would perform the lead character of Sandy opposite Max Crumm, the show's male competitor who won the role of "Danny." In April 2008, Osnes announced via her Myspace blog that she did not plan to continue with Grease when it was to begin its national tour in late 2008. Osnes and Crumm played their final performances as Sandy and Danny on July 20, 2008 and they were succeeded by Ashley Spencer and Derek Keeling, two of the runners-up of Grease You're the One that I Want.

Post Grease

Osnes starred in the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts' Broadway: Three Generations, a three-act evening featuring condensed versions of Girl Crazy, Bye Bye Birdie, and Side Show. The show was presented at the Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theater October 2–5, 2008. She then played Elizabeth (Lizzy) Bennet for the concert version of the new Broadway-aimed musical Pride & Prejudice that was presented October 21, 2008 at the Eastman Theatre in Rochester, New York. In early December Osnes returned home to Minnesota and performed in a local Christmas pageant. On January 11, 2009 she took part in the Rock Tenor Showcase, a showcase of a new concert experience that melds classical and Broadway music with rock-n-roll songs, at the Florence Gould Hall in Manhattan, and then sang at Dreamlight Theatre Company's "Bright Lights" concert series on the evening of January 26 entitled A Night with The Ladies.

On March 10, 2009 Osnes took over the role of Ensign Nellie Forbush from Tony Award nominee Kelli O'Hara, who went on maternity leave, in the Lincoln Center Theater Broadway revival of South Pacific. She stayed with the show till October 4, 2009.

She starred as Bonnie Parker in the world premiere of the new musical, after taking part in the reading. The musical played at the La Jolla Playhouse from Nov. 10-Dec. 20, 2009.

On December 20, 2009 Osnes performed in a Christmas special with the band at Living Word Christian Center in Brooklyn Park, MN.

Osnes returned to the role of Nellie Forbush in the Broadway production of South Pacific on January 5, 2010. She played her final performance on August 8, 2010. O'Hara once again returned to the production two days later.

Laura is currently staring as Bonnie Parker in the new musical Bonnie & Clyde. (November 12 through the December 19th at the Aslo Repertory Theater in Sarasota Florida).

Osnes will star as Hope Harcourt, alongside Sutton Foster and Joel Grey, in the Broadway revival of Anything Goes, which will open in spring 2011.

Discography

What I Wanna Be When I Grow Up by Scott Alan, singing the song Easy (2010)

Awards

"Outstanding Youth Performer of the Year", 2003, Minneapolis Star Tribune. For the role of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, with the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis.

, 2007, winner of the role of Sandy

"2009 Broadway.com Audience Award for Favorite Replacement (Female)" in South Pacific. "2009 San Diego Theatre Critics Circle Award for Lead Performance in a Musical, Female in Bonnie & Clyde.

References

External links

Interview about her role in SOUTH PACIFIC

NBC profile

Chanhassen Dinner Theatres

"Could the next Sandy be from Burnsville? NBC will find out", January 19, 2007, Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Mpls.-St. Paul Magazine Article

Laura singing the National Anthem at the Minnesota Twins Game

Category:People from Dakota County, Minnesota Category:Living people Category:American actors Category:1985 births Category:American musical theatre actors Category:Participants in American reality television series Category:Reality show winners

Name	Jeremy Jordan
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Donald Henson
Born	September 19, 1973Hammond, Indiana
Occupation	Actor, Singer
Genre	New Jack Swing, R&B;, Alternative Rock
Years active	1993–present
Label	Giant Records

Jeremy Jordan (born September 19, 1973 in Hammond, Indiana) is an American actor and singer.

Biography

In 1993, Jordan released Try My Love on Giant Records. The album yielded the international hit singles, "The Right Kind Of Love" (#5 Billboard Hot 100 Airplay, #14 Billboard Hot 100 Singles, #4 Billboard Top 40 Mainstream, #22 Billboard Rhythmic Top 40), and "Wannagirl"(#11 Billboard Top 40 Mainstream, #24 Billboard Rhythmic Top 40, #28 Billboard Hot 100). "The Right Kind of Love" was certified platinum selling over a million copies and peaked just inside the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100. Jordan's debut album and Wannagirl were certified gold.

Additionally, "My Love Is Good Enough" and "Try My Love" were featured in the film Airborne. "The Right Kind Of Love" music video was featured during the end credits of Beverly Hills, 90210 and was also on the television series' soundtrack. His popularity, music wise, peaked with concerts around the globe.

A remix album, Jeremy The Remix, was released to overseas markets in late 1993.

Since 1994, Jordan transitioned into acting and has appeared in a number of films including Never Been Kissed with Drew Barrymore, as well as independent films Leaving Las Vegas with Nicolas Cage, Julian Po with Christian Slater, and Nowhere directed by Gregg Araki.

In 2009, Jordan released a new song entitled "Forgotten People." The song and video are about homeless people.

Actor

2010: The Absent

2010: Raspberry & Lavender: Diaries of a Lavender Girl

1999: Never Been Kissed

1999: Storm of the Century

1999: Dreamers

1998: Falling Sky

1997: Julian Po

1997:

1997: Nowhere

1997: Gun

1997: Skeletons

1996: Twisted Desire

1996: Bio-Dome

1996: Poolboy

1995: Live Nude Girls

1995: Leaving Las Vegas

1994: ABC Afterschool Specials

Discography

Albums

1993: Try My Love (April 13, 1993)

Tracks #Interlude (Jeremy Jordan) - 1:26 #My Love Is Good Enough (Robbie Nevil; Steve Dubin) - 4:56 #Wannagirl (Keith Thomas; Tony Haynes) - 4:29 #The Right Kind Of Love (Lotti Golden; Robbie Nevil; Tommy Faragher) - 4:33 #Try My Love (Nick Mundy) - 4:55 #Do It To The Music (Al B. Sure!; Kyle West) - 4:35 #A Different Man (Dave Simmons; Emanuel Officer; John Howcott) - 4:54 #Lovin' On Hold (Donald Parks; Emanuel Officer; John Howcott) 4:31 #I Wanna Be With You (Darcy Touré; Donald Parks; Emanuel Officer; John Howcott) - 4:36 #Girl You Got It Goin' On (B. Wild; Rhett Lawrence; Tony Haynes) - 3:38 #Show Me Where It Hurts (Laythan Armor; Robbie Nevil) - 4:28 #My Name Is J.J. (Al B. Sure!) - 4:32 #It's Alright (This Love Is For Real) (Lotti Golden; Robbie Nevil; Tommy Faragher) - 3:50

1993: Jeremy The Remix (1993)

Tracks #The Right Kind Of Love [Main Mix No Rap] - 4:09 #The Right Kind Of Love [Sex Mix] - 4:31 #The Right Kind Of Love [Rock Solo] #The Right Kind Of Love [Quiet Storm Mix] - 5:45 #Wannagirl [Preferredgirl Pop Mix] #Wannagirl [A Cappella Mix] #Wannagirl [Streetgirl Instrumental] #Try My Love [Radio Version] #Try My Love [Vocal Breakdown]

Singles Release Dates

The Right Kind Of Love - November 5, 1992

Wannagirl - July 1, 1993

My Love Is Good Enough - May 12, 1994

Singles

References

External links

Jeremy Jordan Acting Reel

[ Jeremy Jordan] at Allmusic

Jeremy Jordan at Discogs

Category:1973 births Category:American film actors Category:American male singers Category:English-language singers Category:Living people Category:People from Hammond, Indiana

Name	Brigitte Bardot
Caption	Bardot in 1968
Birth name	Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot
Birth date	September 28, 1934
Birth place	Paris, France
Other names	BB
Occupation	Actress, model, singer, animal rights activist
Years active	1952–1973
Spouse

Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot (, ; born 28 September 1934) is a French former fashion model, actress and singer, and animal rights activist.

In her early life, Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer. She started her acting career in 1952 and, after appearing in 16 films, became world-famous due to her role in her then-husband Roger Vadim's controversial film And God Created Woman. She later starred in Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 cult film, Contempt. She was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress for her role in Louis Malle's 1965 film, Viva Maria!.

She caught the attention of French intellectuals. She was the subject of Simone de Beauvoir's 1959 essay, The Lolita Syndrome, which described Bardot as a "locomotive of women's history" and built upon existentialist themes to declare her the first and most liberated woman of post-war France.

After her retirement, Bardot established herself as an animal rights activist. During the 1990s, she became controversial due to her criticism of immigration, race-mixing, some aspects of homosexuality and Islam in France, and has been fined five times for "inciting racial hatred".

Early life

Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris to Anne-Marie 'Toty' Mucel (1912–1978) and Louis 'Pilou' Bardot (1896–1975). Her father had an engineering degree and worked with his own father in the family business. Toty was sixteen years younger and they married in 1933. She grew up in a middle-class Roman Catholic family. Brigitte's mother enrolled her and her younger sister Marie-Jean ('Mijanou', born 5 May 1938) in dance. Mijanou eventually gave up dancing lessons to complete her education, whereas Brigitte decided to concentrate on a ballet career. In 1947, Bardot was accepted to The National Superior Conservatory of Paris for Music and Dance and for three years attended the ballet classes of Russian choreographer Boris Knyazev. (One of her classmates was Leslie Caron). By the invitation of her mother's acquaintance, she modeled in a fashion show in 1949. In the same year, she modeled for a fashion magazine "Jardin des Modes" managed by another friend of her mother, journalist Hélène Lazareff. She appeared on an 8 March 1950 cover of ELLE and was noticed by a young film director, Roger Vadim, while babysitting for a friend. He was so taken with the picture that he showed an issue of the magazine to director and screenwriter Marc Allégret who offered Bardot the opportunity to audition for "Les lauriers sont coupés" thereafter. Although Bardot got the role, the shooting of the film was cancelled but it made her consider becoming an actress. Moreover, her acquaintance with Vadim, who attended the audition, influenced her further life and career.

Soon afterwards, Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France where she had bought the house La Madrague in Saint-Tropez in May 1958.

In 1963, she starred in Jean-Luc Godard's critically acclaimed film Contempt.

Brigitte Bardot was featured in many other films along with notable actors such as Alain Delon (Famous Love Affairs, Spirits of the Dead), Jean Gabin (In Case of Adversity), Sean Connery (Shalako), Jean Marais (Royal Affairs in Versailles, School for Love), Lino Ventura (Rum Runners), Annie Girardot (The Novices), Claudia Cardinale (The Legend of Frenchie King), Jeanne Moreau (Viva Maria!), Jane Birkin (Don Juan, or If Don Juan Were a Woman).

In 1973, Bardot announced that she was retiring from acting at the age of 39 as "a way to get out elegantly".

She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including "Harley Davidson", "Je Me Donne A Qui Me Plait", "Bubble gum", "Contact", "Je Reviendrais Toujours Vers Toi", "L'Appareil A Sous", "La Madrague", "On Demenage", "Sidonie", "Tu Veux, Ou Tu Veux Pas?", "Le Soleil De Ma Vie" (the cover of Stevie Wonder's "You Are the Sunshine of My Life") and the notorious "Je t'aime... moi non plus". Bardot pleaded with Gainsbourg not to release this duet and he complied with her wishes; the following year he re-recorded a version with British-born model and actress Jane Birkin, which became a massive hit all over Europe. The version with Bardot was issued in 1986 and became a popular download hit in 2006 when Universal Records made their back catalogue available to purchase online, with this version of the song ranking as the third most popular download.

Personal life

On 21 December 1952, at the age of 18, Bardot was married to director Roger Vadim. In order to receive permission from Bardot's parents to marry her, Vadim, originally an Orthodox Christian, was urged to convert to Catholicism. They divorced five years later, but remained friends and collaborated in later work. Bardot had an affair with her co-star in And God Created Woman, Jean-Louis Trintignant (married at the time to French actress Stephane Audran), followed by her divorce from Vadim. The two lived together for about two years. Their relationship was complicated by Trintignant's frequent absence due to military service and Bardot's affair with musician Gilbert Bécaud, and they eventually separated.

On 18 June 1959, she married actor Jacques Charrier, by whom she had her only child, a son, Nicolas-Jacques Charrier (born 11 January 1960). After she and Charrier divorced in 1962, Nicolas was raised in the Charrier family and did not maintain close contact with Bardot until his adulthood. She became a vegetarian and raised three million French francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewelry and many personal belongings. She sought to discuss the issue with Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, though her request for a meeting was denied.

She once had a neighbor's donkey castrated while looking after it, on the grounds of its "sexual harassment" of her own donkey and mare, for which she was taken to court by the donkey's owner in 1989. In 1999, Bardot wrote a letter to Chinese President Jiang Zemin, published in French magazine VSD, in which she accused the Chinese of "torturing bears and killing the world's last tigers and rhinos to make aphrodisiacs".

She has donated more than $140,000 over two years for a mass sterilization and adoption program for Bucharest's stray dogs, estimated to number 300,000. She is planning to house many of these stray animals in a new animal rescue facility that she is having built on her property.

In August 2010, she addressed a letter to the Danish Queen, Margrethe II of Denmark appealing for the sovereign to halt the killing of dolphins in the Faroe Islands. In the letter, Bardot describes the activity as a "macabre spectacle" that "is a shame for Denmark and the Faroe Islands." She continued: "This is not a hunt but a mass slaughter" and also described it as an "outmoded tradition that has no acceptable justification in today's world".

Politics and legal issues

Bardot expressed support for President Charles de Gaulle in the 1960s. Despite this association, Bardot has never joined the party and is not a known sympathiser.

In a book she wrote in 1999, called "Le Carré de Pluton" (Pluto's Square), Bardot criticizes the procedure used in the ritual slaughter of sheep during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. Additionally, in a section in the book entitled, Open Letter to My Lost France, Bardot writes: "...my country, France, my homeland, my land is again invaded by an overpopulation of foreigners, especially Muslims.". For this comment, a French court fined her 30,000 francs in June 2000. She had previously been fined in 1997 for the original publication of this open letter in Le Figaro and again 1998 for making similar remarks.

In her 2003 book, Un cri dans le silence ("A Scream in the Silence"), she warned of an “Islamicization of France”, and said of Muslim immigration: }} In May 2003, the Movement Against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples (MRAP) announced they were going to sue Bardot for the comments. The "Ligue des droits de l'homme" (Human Rights League) announced they were considering similar legal proceedings. In her own defence, Bardot wrote in a letter to a French gay magazine, saying, "Apart from my husband—who maybe will cross over one day as well—I am entirely surrounded by homos. For years, they have been my support, my friends, my adopted children, my confidants." Bardot's book was also against "the mixing of genes"; made attacks on modern art, which Bardot equated with "shit"; drew similarities between French politicians and weather vanes; and compared her own beliefs with previous generations who had "given their lives to push out invaders".

On 10 June 2004, Bardot was again convicted by a French court for "inciting racial hatred" and fined €5,000, the fourth such conviction/fine the French courts gave her. Bardot denied the racial hatred charge and apologized in court, saying: "I never knowingly wanted to hurt anybody. It is not in my character."

In 2008, she was once more convicted of inciting racial/religious hatred in relation to a letter she wrote, a copy of which she sent to Nicolas Sarkozy when he was Interior Minister of France. The letter stated her objections to Muslims in France ritually slaughtering sheep by slitting their throats without anesthetizing them first but also expressed that she was "fed up with being under the thumb of this population which is destroying us, destroying our country and imposing its habits" in reference to Muslims. The trial concluded on 3 June 2008, with a conviction and fine of 15,000 Euros, the largest of her fines to date. The prosecutor stated that she was tired of charging Bardot with offences related to racial hatred.

On August 13, 2010, she lashed out at director Kyle Newman regarding his plans on making a biographical film on her life. Her response was, "Wait until I'm dead before you make a movie about my life!". Bardot even warned Newman that if the project progresses "sparks will fly."

Influence

, Brazil]] In fashion the Bardot neckline (a wide open neck that exposes both shoulders) is named after her. Bardot popularized this style which is especially used for knitted sweaters or jumpers although it is also used for other tops and dresses.

Bardot is recognized for popularizing bikini swimwear in early films such as Manina (Woman without a Veil, 1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots.

Bardot also brought into fashion the choucroute ("Sauerkraut") hairstyle (a sort of beehive hair style) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier. She was the subject for an Andy Warhol painting.

In addition to popularizing the bikini swimming suit, Bardot has also been credited with popularizing the city of St. Tropez and the town of Buzios, Brazil, which she visited in 1964 with her boyfriend at the time, Brazilian musician Bob Zagury. A statue by Christina Motta honours Brigitte Bardot in Buzios, Brazil.

Bardot was idolized by young John Lennon and Paul McCartney. They made plans to shoot a film featuring The Beatles and Bardot, similar to A Hard Day's Night, but the plans were never fulfilled.

According to the liner notes of his first (self-titled) album, musician Bob Dylan dedicated the first song he ever wrote to Bardot. He also mentioned her by name in "I Shall Be Free", which appeared on his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

She dabbled in pop music and played the role of a glamour model. In 1965, she appeared as herself in the Hollywood production Dear Brigitte (1965) starring James Stewart.

In 1970, the sculptor Alain Gourdon used Bardot as the model for a bust of Marianne, the French national emblem.

In 2007, she was named among Empire magazine's 100 Sexiest Film Stars.

The first-ever official exhibition looking at Bardot's influence and legacy opened in Paris on 29 September 2009 - a day after her 75th birthday.

Filmography

Discography

Bardot released several albums during the 1950s and 1960s

And God Created Women (1957, Decca)

Behind Brigitte Bardot (1960, Warner Bros)

Brigitte Bardot Sings (1963, Philips)

B.B. (1964, Philips)

Brigitte Bardot Show 67 (1967, Mercury)

Brigitte Bardot Show (1968, Mercury)

[Burlington Cameo Brings You] Special Bardot (1968. RCA)

Single Duet with Serge Gainsbourg "Bonnie and Clyde"

References

Literature

Brigitte Tast, Hans-Jürgen Tast (Hrsg.) Brigitte Bardot. Filme 1953-1961. Anfänge des Mythos B.B. (Hildesheim 1982) ISBN 3-88842-109-8.

Singer, Barnett Brigitte Bardot: A Biography (McFarland & Company, 2006) ISBN 0-7864-2515-6, ISBN 978-0-7864-2515-0

External links

Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the welfare and protection of animals

Category:1934 births Category:Actors who attempted suicide Category:Animal rights advocates Category:Breast cancer survivors Category:French activists Category:French female models Category:French female singers Category:French film actors Category:French-language singers Category:French vegetarians Category:Légion d'honneur refusals Category:Living people Category:MGM Records artists Category:Opposition against Islam in Europe Category:People from Paris