Name	Dick Cavett
Caption	Cavett attends the Amfar Gala at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City, January 31, 2008
Birth name	Richard Alva Cavett
Birth date	November 19, 1936
Birth place	Gibbon, Nebraska, U.S.
Spouse	Carrie Nye (1964-2006; her death)
Active	1959–present

}}

Richard Alva "Dick" Cavett (born November 19, 1936) is a former American television talk show host known for his conversational style and in-depth discussion of issues. Cavett appeared regularly on nationally broadcast television in the United States in five consecutive decades, the 1960s through the 2000s.

In recent years, Cavett has written a blog for the New York Times, promoted DVDs of his former shows, and hosted replays of his classic TV interviews with Groucho Marx, Katharine Hepburn, and others on Turner Classic Movies channel.

Early life

Dick Cavett was born in Nebraska, but sources differ as to the specific town, locating his birthplace in either Gibbon, where his family lived, or nearby Kearney, the location of the nearest hospital. His mother Erabel "Era" (née Richards) and his father Alva B. Cavett both worked as educators. When asked by Lucille Ball on his own show about his heritage, he said he was "Scottish, Irish, English, and possibly partly French, and, and uh, a dose of German." He also mentioned that one grandfather "came over" from England, and the other from Wales. Cavett's grandparents all lived in Grand Island, Nebraska. His paternal grandparents were Alva A Cavett and Gertrude Pinsch. His paternal grandfather was from Diller, Nebraska and his paternal grandmother was an immigrant from Aachen, Germany. His maternal grandparents were the Rev. R. R. and Etta Mae Richards. Rev. Richards was from Carmarthen, Wales and was a Baptist minister who served parishes across central Nebraska.

Cavett's parents taught in Comstock, Gibbon, and Grand Island, where Cavett started kindergarten at Wasmer Elementary School. Three years later, both of his parents landed teaching positions in Lincoln, Nebraska, where Cavett completed his education at Capitol, Prescott, and Irving schools and Lincoln High School. When Cavett was ten, his mother, then thirty-six, died of cancer. His father subsequently married Dorcas Deland, also an educator, originally from Alliance, Nebraska. On September 24, 1995 Lincoln Public Schools dedicated the new Dorcas C. and Alva B. Cavett Elementary School in their honor.

In eighth grade, Cavett directed a live Saturday-morning radio show sponsored by the Junior League and played the title role in The Winslow Boy. One of his high-school classmates was actress Sandy Dennis. Cavett was elected state president of the student council in high school, and was a gold-medalist at the state gymnastics championship.

Before leaving for college, he worked as a caddy at the Lincoln Country Club. He also began doing magic shows for $35 a night under the tutelage of Gene Gloye. In 1952 Cavett attended the convention of the International Brotherhood of Magicians in St. Louis and won the Best New Performer trophy.

While attending Yale University, Cavett played in and directed dramas on the campus radio station, WYBC, and appeared in Yale Drama productions. In his senior year, he changed his major from English to Drama. He also took advantage of any opportunity to meet stars, routinely going to shows in New York to hang around stage doors or venture backstage. He would go so far as to carry a copy of Variety or an appropriate piece of company stationery in order to look inconspicuous while sneaking backstage or into a TV studio. Cavett took many odd jobs ranging from store detective to label-typist for a Wall Street firm, and as a copy boy at Time Magazine.

Marriage

At Yale School of Drama, Cavett met his future wife, Caroline Nye McGeoy (known professionally as Carrie Nye), a native of Greenwood, Mississippi. After graduation, the two acted in summer theater in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and Cavett worked for two weeks in a local lumberyard in order to buy an engagement ring. On June 4, 1964, they were married in New York. Their marriage was at times tumultuous, but they remained married until Nye's death on July 14, 2006.

The Tonight Show

In 1960, Cavett was living in a three-room, fifth-floor on West 89th Street in Manhattan for $51 a month.

He was cast in a film by the Signal Corps, but further jobs were not forthcoming. He was an extra on The Phil Silvers Show, a TV remake of Body and Soul, and Playhouse 90 ("The Hiding Place"). He briefly revived his magic act while working as a typist and as a mystery shopper in department stores. Meanwhile, Nye landed several Broadway roles.

Cavett was a copyboy (gofer) at Time when he read a newspaper item about Jack Paar, then host of The Tonight Show. The article described Paar's concerns about his opening monologue and constant search for material. Cavett wrote some jokes, put them into a Time envelope, and went to the RCA Building. He ran into Paar in a hallway and handed him the envelope. Cavett appeared on the show in 1961, interpreting Miss Universe of 1961, Marlene Schmidt of Germany.

While at Time, Cavett had written a letter to Stan Laurel. The two later met at Laurel's apartment in Hollywood. Later the same day, Cavett wrote a tribute that Paar read on the show, which Laurel saw and appreciated. Cavett visited Laurel a few more times, up to three weeks before Laurel's death.

In his capacity as talent coordinator for The Tonight Show, Cavett was sent to the Blue Angel nightclub to see Woody Allen's act, and immediately afterward struck up a friendship. The very next day, the funeral of playwright George S. Kaufman was held at the Frank E. Campbell funeral home. Allen could not attend, but Cavett did, where he met Groucho Marx in an anteroom. From the funeral, Cavett followed Marx (who later told Cavett that Kaufman was "his personal god") three blocks up Fifth Avenue to the Plaza Hotel, where Marx invited him to lunch.

Cavett continued with The Tonight Show as a writer after Johnny Carson took over. For Carson he wrote the line, "Having your taste criticized by Dorothy Kilgallen is like having your clothes criticized by Emmett Kelly." He even appeared to do a gymnastics routine on the pommel horse on the show. After quitting The Tonight Show, Cavett wrote for Jerry Lewis's ill-fated talk show, for three times the money. He returned to The Tonight Show, however, when Marx was interim host for Carson in July 1964.

Years later, when he was a guest on The Tonight Show, Carson told Cavett that his favorite joke Cavett wrote for him was the humorous caption to a newspaper photo of Aristotle Onassis looking at the home of Buster Keaton, which he was considering purchasing: "Aristotle Contemplating the Home of Buster."

Stand-up comic

Cavett began a brief career as a stand-up comic in 1964 at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village.}}

In 1965, Cavett did some commercial voiceovers, including a series of mock interviews with Mel Brooks for Ballantine beer. In the next couple of years he appeared on game shows, including What's My Line. He wrote for Merv Griffin and appeared on Griffin's talk show several times, and then on The Ed Sullivan Show.

In 1968, after the premiere of the international film Candy, Cavett went to a party at the Americana Hotel, where those who had just seen the film were being interviewed for TV. The exchange was cut from the broadcast.

After doing The Star and the Story, a rejected television pilot with Van Johnson, Cavett hosted a special, Where It's At, for Bud Yorkin and Norman Lear.

In 1968 Cavett was hired by ABC to host This Morning.

The Dick Cavett Show

Intermittently since 1968, Cavett has been host of his own talk show, in various formats and on various television and radio networks:

ABC (1968–1974)

CBS (1975)

PBS (1977–1982)

USA (1985–1986)

ABC (1986–1987)

CNBC (1989–1996)

Olympia Broadcasting (syndicated radio show, 1986–1990)

Turner Classic Movies (2006–2007)

Cavett has been nominated for at least ten Emmy Awards In 1970, he co-hosted the Emmy Awards Show (from Carnegie Hall in New York) with Bill Cosby (from Century Plaza in Los Angeles). His most popular talk show was his ABC program, which ran from 1969 to 1974. From 1962 to 1992, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was arguably the most popular of late night variety and talk shows. Unlike many contemporary shows, Cavett managed to remain on the air for five years. Although his shows did not attract a wide audience, remaining in third place in the ratings behind Carson and Merv Griffin, he earned a reputation as "the thinking man's talk show host" and received favorable reviews from critics. As a talk show host, Cavett has been noted for his ability to listen to his guests and engage them in intellectual conversation. He is also known for his ability to remain calm and mediate between contentious guests,

His show often focussed on controversial people or subjects, often pairing guests with opposing views on social or political issues, such as George Brown and Lester Maddox.

One particularly controversial show from June 1971 featured a debate between future senator and presidential candidate John Kerry and fellow veteran John O'Neill over the Vietnam War. O'Neill had been approached by the Nixon administration to work through the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace to counter Kerry's influence on the public. The episode so angered President Nixon that he is heard discussing the incident on the Watergate tapes, saying, "Well, is there any way we can screw him [Cavett]? That's what I mean. There must be ways." To which H.R. Haldeman, White House Chief of Staff, answered, "We've been trying to."

Cavett himself, asked during a Question and Answer segment with his audience in the late '60s why he wore long sideburns, replied, "It's a form of mild protest. Sort of like boiling my draft card."

Cavett also hosted many popular musicians, both in interview and performance, such as Sly Stone, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Several of his Emmy Award nominations and one Emmy Award were for Outstanding Musical or Variety Series,

Clips from his TV shows have been used in movies, for example Annie Hall (1977), Forrest Gump (1994), Apollo 13 (1995), and Frequency (2000). He also holds the distinction of being the only famous person to actually interact with the title character of Forrest Gump without the aid of archive footage or computer trickery. Makeup was applied to Cavett to make him appear as his 1971 self, and he was filmed with Tom Hanks on a recreated set (though archive footage of John Lennon from Cavett's show was digitally added).

Cavett was surprised at footage from his TV show appearing in Apollo 13. He said at the time of the film's release, "I'm happily enjoying a movie, and suddenly I'm in it."

Bouts with depression

Cavett has openly discussed his bouts with clinical depression, an illness that first affected him during his freshman year at Yale. According to an interview published in a 1992 issue of People magazine, Cavett contacted Dr. Nathan Kline in 1975 seeking treatment. Kline prescribed antidepressant medication, which according to Cavett was successful in treating his depression.

He was also the subject of a 1993 video produced by the Depression and Related Affective Disorders Association called A Patient's Perspective.

In 1997 Cavett was sued by producer James Moskovitz for breach of contract after failing to show up for a nationally syndicated radio program (also called The Dick Cavett Show). Cavett's lawyer, Melvyn Leventhal, asserted at the time that Cavett left due to a manic-depressive episode. The case was later dropped.

Cavett also hosted a documentary series for HBO in the early 80's entitled Remember When that examined changes in American culture over time.

From November 15, 2000, to January 6, 2002, he played the narrator in a Broadway revival of The Rocky Horror Show.

Dick Cavett is featured in the 2003 documentary about the fire that destroyed his Montauk home and his effort to rebuild it.

Cavett's signature tune has long been a trumpet version of the vocalise "Glitter and Be Gay" from Leonard Bernstein's Candide. The tune was first played at the midpoint of his ABC late-night show, and later became the theme of his PBS show. The tune is also played as he walks on stage during guest appearances on other talk shows.

In 2008 Cavett entered the Iraq war dispute with a New York Times blog entry criticizing General David Petraeus, stating "I can’t look at Petraeus — his uniform ornamented like a Christmas tree with honors, medals and ribbons — without thinking of the great Mort Sahl at the peak of his brilliance." Cavett went on to recall Sahl's expressed contempt of General Westmoreland's display of medals, and criticized Petraeus for not speaking in plain language.

On February 27, 1981, Rick Moranis did a split-screen parody of Cavett interviewing himself on SCTV, in which he recreated and gently poked fun at Cavett's wit, quirks, and mild egotism.

On October 18, 1996, he was mentioned as the "smartest human on Earth" on the cartoon Pinky & the Brain.

In The Charles Bukowski Tapes, Bukowski claims that Cavett's is the only talk show he would ever go on. The rest of them would be "like eating your own vomit."

Bibliography

Cavett by Dick Cavett and Christopher Porterfield, Bantam Books, August 1974. ISBN 0-15-116130-5

Eye on Cavett by Dick Cavett and Christopher Porterfield, Arbor House, 1983. ISBN 0-87795-463-1

Talk Show by Dick Cavett, Times Books, 2010. ISBN 0-8050-9195-5

References

External links

Dick Cavett at TVGuide.com

Dick Cavett talks about his love of magic with Dodd Vickers at MagicNewswire.com

"Talk Show: Dick Cavett Speaks Again" New York Times Blog

"Discussion of Dick Cavett's unique talent on MetaFilter"

Category:1936 births Category:American male artistic gymnasts Category:American comedians Category:American game show hosts Category:American stand-up comedians Category:American television talk show hosts Category:American people of English descent Category:American comedians of Irish descent Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American people of German descent Category:American people of Scottish descent Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Living people Category:Entertainers from Nebraska Category:People from Buffalo County, Nebraska Category:People with bipolar disorder Category:Yale School of Drama alumni

Name	Richard Burton
Caption	Burton in the 1963 film Cleopatra
Birth name	Richard Walter Jenkins
Birth date	November 10, 1925
Birth place	Pontrhydyfen, Wales
Death date	August 05, 1984
Death place	Céligny, Switzerland
Occupation	Actor
Nationality	Welsh
Years active	1944–1984
Spouse	Sybil Williams (1949–1963)Elizabeth Taylor (1964–1974, 1975–1976)Suzy Hunt (1976–1982)Sally Hay (1983–1984)
Children	Kate Burton, born on September 10, 1957Jessica Burton (b.1961)Maria Burton (Mike Todd's daughter,adopted by Burton), born on August 01, 1961
Website	http://www.richardburton.com

Richard Burton, CBE (10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role (without ever winning), and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Burton was at one time the highest-paid actor in Hollywood. He remains closely associated in the public consciousness with his second wife, actress Elizabeth Taylor; the couple's turbulent relationship was rarely out of the news.

Childhood and education

Richard Burton was born Richard Walter Jenkins in the village of Pontrhydyfen, Neath Port Talbot, Wales. He grew up in a working class, Welsh-speaking household, the twelfth of thirteen children. His father, Richard Walter Jenkins, was a short, robust coal miner, a "twelve-pints a-day man" who sometimes went off on drinking and gambling sprees for weeks. Burton later claimed, by family telling, that "He looked very much like me...That is, he was pockmarked, devious, and smiled a great deal when he was in trouble. He was, also, a man of extraordinary eloquence, tremendous passion, great violence."

Burton was less than two years old in 1927 when his mother, Edith Maude (née Thomas), died at the age of 43 after giving birth to her 13th child. His sister Cecilia and her husband Elfed took him into their Presbyterian mining family in nearby Port Talbot (an English-speaking steel town). Burton said later that his sister became "more mother to me than any mother could have ever been... I was immensely proud of her... she felt all tragedies except her own". Burton's father would make occasional appearances at the homes of his grown daughters but was otherwise absent. Also important in young Richard's life was Ifor (Ivor), the brother 19 years his senior. A miner and rugby player, Ifor "ruled the household with the proverbial firm hand".), cricket, and table tennis He later said, "I would rather have played for Wales at Cardiff Arms Park than Hamlet at the Old Vic." Burton early on displayed an excellent speaking and singing voice and won an Eisteddfod prize as a boy soprano. He was replaced by his friend Richard Harris. The final stage performance in which he starred was a critically reviled production of Noël Coward's Private Lives, opposite his ex-wife Elizabeth Taylor, in 1983. Most reviewers dismissed the production as a transparent attempt to capitalize on the couple's celebrity, although they grudgingly praised Burton as having the closest connection to Coward's play of anyone in the cast.

Hollywood career in the 1950s and 1960s

In terms of critical success, Burton's Hollywood roles throughout the 1950s did not live up to the early promise of his debut. Burton returned to Hollywood to star in The Prince of Players, another historical Cinemascope film, this time concerning Edwin Booth, famous American actor and brother of Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth. A weak script undermined a valiant effort by Burton, although the view of director, Philip Dunne, was that "The fire and intensity were there, but that was all. He hadn't yet mastered the tricks of the great movie stars, such as Gary Cooper."

Later career

Burton's career went into decline after that, according to many critics who accused him of accepting roles in inferior projects to collect a quick pay cheque. He starred in the Yugoslav partisan film The Battle of Sutjeska (1973) only because he greatly admired the Communist leader of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito. Films he made during this period included Bluebeard (1972), Hammersmith Is Out (1972), The Klansman (1974), and (1977). He did enjoy one major critical success in the 1970s in the film version of his stage hit Equus, winning the Golden Globe Award as well as an Academy Award nomination. Public sentiment towards his perennial frustration at not winning an Oscar made many pundits consider him the favourite to finally win the award, but on Oscar Night he lost to Richard Dreyfuss in The Goodbye Girl.

Although sometimes overlooked, it should be noted that Burton won in 1976 the 18th Grammy Awards in the category of Best Recording for Children for his narration of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

He found success in 1978, when he narrated Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. His distinctive performance became a necessary part of the concept album – so much so that a hologram of Burton is used to narrate the live stage show (touring in 2006, 2007 and 2009) of the musical.

Burton had an international box office hit with The Wild Geese (1978), an adventure tale about mercenaries in Africa. The film was a success in the UK and Europe but had only limited distribution in the U.S. owing to the collapse of the studio that funded it and the lack of an American star in the movie.

He went back to appearing in critically reviled films like The Medusa Touch (1978), Circle of Two (1980), and Wagner (1983), a role he said he was born to play, after his success in Equus. His last film performance, as O'Brien in Nineteen Eighty-Four, was critically acclaimed.

At the time of his death, Burton was preparing to film Wild Geese II, the sequel to The Wild Geese, which was eventually released in 1985. Burton was to reprise the role of Colonel Faulkner, while his friend Sir Laurence Olivier was cast as Rudolf Hess. After his death, Burton was replaced by Edward Fox, and the character changed to Faulkner's younger brother.

Oscars

He was nominated six times for an Academy Award for Best Actor and once for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor – but he never won. From 1982, he and Becket co-star Peter O'Toole shared the record for the male actor with the most nominations (7) for a competitive acting Oscar without ever winning. In 2007, O'Toole was unsuccessfully nominated for an eighth time, for Venus (however, O'Toole also received an "honorary" Academy Award in 2003). Both Burton and O'Toole were nominated for the film Becket.

Television

Burton rarely appeared on television, although he gave a memorable performance as Caliban in a televised production of The Tempest for The Hallmark Hall of Fame in 1960. Later appearances included the TV movie Divorce His – Divorce Hers (1973) opposite then-wife Elizabeth Taylor (a prophetic title, since their first marriage would be dissolved less than a year later), a remake of the classic film Brief Encounter (1974) that was considered vastly inferior to the 1945 original, and a critically applauded performance as Winston Churchill in The Gathering Storm (1974). A critically panned film he made about the life of Richard Wagner (noted only for having the only onscreen teaming of Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson in the same scene) was shown as a television miniseries in 1983 after failing to achieve a theatrical release in most countries, but Burton enjoyed a personal triumph in the American television miniseries Ellis Island in 1984, receiving a posthumous Emmy Award nomination for his final television performance.

Television played an important part in the fate of his Broadway appearance in Camelot. When the show's run was threatened by disappointing reviews, Burton and co-star Julie Andrews appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show to perform the number What Do The Simple Folk Do?. The television appearance renewed public interest in the production and extended its Broadway run.

Late in his career, he played himself in an episode of the Television Show The Fall Guy, repeating a stunt he made in 1970 when he and then-wife Elizabeth Taylor appeared as themselves on an episode of Here's Lucy as part of his unsuccessful campaign to win the Oscar for his nominated performance in Anne of the Thousand Days.

In 1997, archive footage of Burton was used in the first episode of the television series Conan.

Book

In 1964, Burton wrote a semi-autobiographical book A Christmas Story, which is an endearing tale of a Christmas Eve in a Welsh mining village, during the Depression.

Personal life

Burton was married five times, first to Sybil Williams from 1949 to 1963, with whom he had two children, actress Kate Burton and Jessica Burton. He was married twice, consecutively, to Elizabeth Taylor (15 March 1964 – 26 June 1974 and 10 October 1975 – 29 July 1976). The first marriage took place in Montreal. Their second marriage occurred sixteen months after their divorce, in the Chobe National Park, Botswana. In 1964, the couple adopted a 3-year-old German girl they named Maria. The relationship between them portrayed in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was popularly likened to Burton and Taylor's real-life marriage.

In 1968 Burton's elder brother, Ifor, slipped and fell, breaking his neck, after a lengthy drinking session with Burton at the actor's second home in Céligny, Switzerland. The injury left him paralyzed from the neck down. His younger brother Graham Jenkins opined it may have been guilt over this that caused Burton to start drinking very heavily, particularly after Ifor died in 1973.

In a February 1975 interview with his friend David Lewin he admitted having "tried" homosexuality. He also suggested that perhaps all actors were latent homosexuals, and "we cover it up with drink". In 2000, Ellis Amburn's biography of Elizabeth Taylor suggested that Burton had an affair with Laurence Olivier and tried to seduce Eddie Fisher, although this was strongly denied by Burton's younger brother Graham Jenkins.

. He is buried a few paces away from Alistair MacLean's grave.]]

Burton was notorious for his unrestrained pursuit of women while filming. Joan Collins wrote that when she rejected his on-set advances, he embarked on a series of liaisons with other women including an elderly black maid who, according to Collins, was "almost toothless". Collins playfully told Burton that she believed he would sleep with a snake if he had the chance, to which Burton is alleged to have replied "only if it was wearing a skirt, darling".

He was an insomniac and a notoriously heavy drinker. However, on-going back pain (apparently caused by his excessive alcohol intake crystallizing on his spine) and a dependence upon pain medications have been suggested as the true cause of his misery. He was also a heavy smoker from the time he was just eight years old; and by his own admission in a 1977 interview, Burton was smoking 3–5 packs per day.

His father, also a heavy drinker, refused to acknowledge his son's talents, achievements and acclaim. Burton courted further controversy in 1976 when he wrote a controversial article about his late friend and fellow Welsh thespian Sir Stanley Baker, who had recently died from pneumonia at the age of 48. Burton's fourth marriage was to Suzy Hunt, former wife of Formula 1 Champion James Hunt (maiden name Suzy Millar, whose father was a judge in Kenya), and his fifth was to Sally Hay, a make-up artist who later became a successful novelist.

Health Issues

The biography of Burton by Melvyn Bragg provides a detailed description of the many health issues that plagued Burton throughout his life. In his youth Burton was a star athlete and well known for his athletic abilities and strength. By the age of 41 he had declined so far in health that his arms were by his own admission thin and weak. He suffered from bursitis, possibly aggravated by faulty treatment, arthritis, dermatitis, cirrhosis of the liver and kidneys, as well as displaying, by his mid-forties, signs of advanced senescence such as a pronounced limp. How much of this was due to his intake of alcohol is impossible to ascertain, according to Bragg, because of Burton's reluctance to be treated for alcohol addiction; however, in 1974, Burton spent six weeks in a clinic to recuperate from a period during which he had been drinking three bottles of vodka a day. He was also a regular smoker with intake of between three and five packs a day for most of his adult life. Health issues continued to plague him until his death of a stroke at the age of 58.

Death

Burton died from a brain haemorrhage in 1984 at his home in Céligny, Switzerland, and is buried there. He was 58. Although his death was sudden, his health had been declining for several years and he suffered from a constant and severe pain in the neck. He had been warned that his liver was enlarged as early as March 1970, and had been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver and kidneys in April 1981. Burton was buried in a red suit, a tribute to his Welsh roots, and with a copy of Dylan Thomas's poems.

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards

;Nominations

1952 Best Supporting Actor, My Cousin Rachel (Anthony Quinn)

1953 Best Actor, The Robe (William Holden)

1964 Best Actor, Becket (Rex Harrison)

1965 Best Actor, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (Lee Marvin)

1966 Best Actor, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Paul Scofield)

1969 Best Actor, Anne of the Thousand Days (John Wayne)

1977 Best Actor, Equus (Richard Dreyfuss)

BAFTA Awards

1966 Best Actor, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? / The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

;Nominations

1959 Best Actor, Look Back in Anger

1967 Best Actor, The Taming of the Shrew

Emmy Awards

;Nominations

1985 Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or a Special, Ellis Island

Golden Globe Awards

1953 Most Promising Newcomer – Male, My Cousin Rachel

1978 Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama, Equus

;Nominations

1960 Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama, Look Back in Anger

1965 Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama, Becket

1967 Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

1968 Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical/Comedy, The Taming of the Shrew

1970 Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama, Anne of the Thousand Days

Grammy Award Winner

1974 Best Children's Recording, The Little Prince

Tony Awards

1961 Best Actor – Musical, Camelot

1976 Special Award

;Nominations

1959 Best Actor – Play, Time Remembered

1964 Best Actor – Play, Hamlet

Filmography

Stage productions

Measure for Measure (1944)

Druid's Rest (1944)

Castle Anna (1948)

The Lady's Not for Burning (1949)

The Lady's Not for Burning (1950)

A Phoenix Too Frequent (1950)

The Boy With A Cart (1950)

Legend of Lovers (1951)

The Tempest (1951)

Henry V (1951)

Henry IV (1951)

Montserrat (1952)

The Tempest (1953)

King John (1953)

Hamlet (1953)

Coriolanus (1953)

Hamlet (1953)

Twelfth Night (1953)

Henry V (1955)

Othello (1956)

Sea Wife (1957)

Time Remembered (1957)

Camelot (1960)

Hamlet (1964)

A Poetry Reading (1964)

Doctor Faustus (1966)

Equus (1970)

Camelot (1980)

Private Lives (1983)

War of the Worlds (1978)

Further reading

Shipman, D. The Great Movie Stars: The International Years, Angus & Robertson 1982. ISBN 0-207-14803-1

References

External links

Official Richard Burton Website

Richard Burton's yacht Kalizma

Burton in the pub with his father and brother in Pontrhydyfen

Richard Burton on the Dick Cavett Show, July 1980

|- !colspan="3" style="background:#C1D8FF;"| Husband of Elizabeth Taylor

Category:1925 births Category:1984 deaths Category:Adoptees adopted by relations Category:Alcohol-related deaths in Switzerland Category:Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford Category:American Theatre Hall of Fame inductees Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Best British Actor BAFTA Award winners Category:Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:British expatriates in Switzerland Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:Deaths from cerebral hemorrhage

Category:Grammy Award winners Category:People from Neath Port Talbot Category:People self-identifying as alcoholics Category:Royal Air Force personnel of World War II Category:Shakespearean actors Category:Tony Award winners Category:United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Goodwill Ambassadors Category:Welsh actors Category:Welsh film actors Category:Welsh-speaking people Category:Welsh stage actors

Name	John Lennon
Img alt	A bearded, bespectacled man in his late twenties, with long black hair and wearing a loose-fitting pajama shirt, sings and plays an acoustic guitar. White flowers are visible behind and to the right of him.
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	John Winston Lennon
Born	October 09, 1940Liverpool, England, UK
Died	December 08, 1980New York, New York, US
Instrument	Vocals, guitar, piano, banjo, harmonica, Mellotron, six-string bass, percussion
Genre	Rock, pop
Occupation	Musician, singer-songwriter, record producer, artist, writer
Years active	1957–1975, 1980
Label	Parlophone, Capitol, Apple, EMI, Geffen, Polydor
Associated acts	The Quarrymen, The Beatles, Plastic Ono Band, The Dirty Mac, John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band
Notable instruments	Rickenbacker 325Epiphone CasinoGibson J-160EGibson Les Paul Junior

John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Along with fellow Beatle Paul McCartney, he formed one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of the 20th century.

Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved as a teenager in the skiffle craze; his first band, The Quarrymen, evolved into The Beatles in 1960. As the group disintegrated towards the end of the decade, Lennon embarked on a solo career that produced the critically acclaimed albums John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, and iconic songs such as "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine". Lennon disengaged himself from the music business in 1975 to devote time to his family, but re-emerged in 1980 with a new album, Double Fantasy. He was murdered three weeks after its release.

Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, his writing, his drawings, on film, and in interviews, and he became controversial through his political activism. He moved to New York City in 1971, where his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a lengthy attempt by Richard Nixon's administration to deport him, while his songs were adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement.

As of 2010, Lennon's solo album sales in the United States exceed 14 million units, and as writer, co-writer or performer, he is responsible for 27 number-one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. In 2002, a BBC poll on the 100 Greatest Britons voted him eighth, and in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth-greatest singer of all-time. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

History

1940–57: Early years

Lennon was born in war-time England, on 9 October 1940 at Liverpool Maternity Hospital, to Julia and Alfred Lennon, a merchant seaman who was away at the time of his son's birth. He was named John Winston Lennon after his paternal grandfather, John "Jack" Lennon, and then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill. His father was often away from home but sent regular pay cheques to 9 Newcastle Road, Liverpool, where Lennon lived with his mother, but the cheques stopped when he went absent without leave in February 1944. When he eventually came home six months later, he offered to look after the family, but Julia—by then pregnant with another man's child—rejected the idea. After her sister, Mimi Smith, twice complained to Liverpool's Social Services, Julia handed the care of Lennon over to her. In July 1946, Lennon's father visited Smith and took his son to Blackpool, secretly intending to emigrate to New Zealand with him. Julia followed them—with her partner at the time, 'Bobby' Dykins—and after a heated argument his father forced the five-year-old to choose between them. Lennon twice chose his father, but as his mother walked away, he began to cry and followed her. It would be 20 years before he had contact with his father again.

Throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence, he lived with his aunt and uncle, Mimi and George Smith, who had no children of their own, at Mendips, 251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton. His aunt bought him volumes of short stories, and his uncle, a dairyman at his family's farm, bought him a mouth organ and engaged him in solving crossword puzzles. Julia visited Mendips on a regular basis, and when he was 11 years old he often visited her at 1 Blomfield Road, Liverpool, where she played him Elvis Presley records, and taught him the banjo, playing "Ain't That a Shame" by Fats Domino.

In September 1980 he talked about his family and his rebellious nature: }}

He regularly visited his cousin, Stanley Parkes, who lived in Fleetwood. Seven years Lennon's senior, Parkes took him on trips, and to local cinemas. During the school holidays, Parkes often visited Lennon with Leila Harvey, another cousin, often travelling to Blackpool two or three times a week to watch shows. They would visit the Blackpool Tower Circus and see artists such as Dickie Valentine, Arthur Askey, Max Bygraves and Joe Loss, with Parkes recalling that Lennon particularly liked George Formby. After Parkes's family moved to Scotland, the three cousins often spent their school holidays together there. Parkes recalled, "John, cousin Leila and I were very close. From Edinburgh we would drive up to the family croft at Durness, which was from about the time John was nine years old until he was about 16." He was 14 years old when his uncle George died of a liver haemorrhage on 5 June 1955 (aged 52).

Lennon was raised as an Anglican and attended Dovedale Primary School. From September 1952 to 1957, after passing his Eleven-Plus exam, he attended Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool, and was described by Harvey at the time as, "A happy-go-lucky, good-humoured, easy going, lively lad." He often drew comical cartoons which appeared in his own self-made school magazine called The Daily Howl, but despite his artistic talent, his school reports were damning: "Certainly on the road to failure ... hopeless ... rather a clown in class ... wasting other pupils' time."

His mother bought him his first guitar in 1957, an inexpensive Gallotone Champion acoustic for which she "lent" her son five pounds and ten shillings on the condition that the guitar be delivered to her own house, and not Mimi's, knowing well that her sister was not supportive of her son's musical aspirations. As Mimi was sceptical of his claim that he would be famous one day, she hoped he would grow bored with music, often telling him, "The guitar's all very well, John, but you'll never make a living out of it". On 15 July 1958, when Lennon was 17 years old, his mother, walking home after visiting the Smiths' house, was struck by a car and killed.

Lennon failed all his GCE O-level examinations, and was accepted into the Liverpool College of Art only after his aunt and headmaster intervened. Once at the college, he started wearing Teddy Boy clothes and acquired a reputation for disrupting classes and ridiculing teachers. As a result, he was excluded from the painting class, then the graphic arts course, and was threatened with expulsion for his behaviour, which included sitting on a nude model's lap during a life drawing class. He failed an annual exam, despite help from fellow student and future wife Cynthia Powell, and was "thrown out of the college before his final year."

1957–70: From the Quarrymen to the Beatles

1957–65: Formation, commercial breakout, and touring years

in 1964 at the height of Beatlemania|alt=Monochrome image of John Lennon playing guitar and speaking into a microphone while wearing a grey suit.]] The Beatles evolved from Lennon's first band, the Quarrymen. Named after Quarry Bank High School, the group was established by him in September 1956 when he was 15, and began as a skiffle group. By the summer of 1957 the Quarrymen played a "spirited set of songs" made up of half skiffle, and half rock and roll. Lennon first met Paul McCartney at the Quarrymen's second performance, held in Woolton on 6 July at the St. Peter's Church garden fête, after which McCartney was asked to join the band.

McCartney says that Aunt Mimi: "was very aware that John's friends were lower class", and would often patronise him when he arrived to visit Lennon. According to Paul's brother Mike, McCartney's father was also disapproving, declaring Lennon would get his son "into trouble"; although he later allowed the fledgling band to rehearse in the McCartneys' front room at 20 Forthlin Road. During this time, the 18-year-old Lennon wrote his first song, "Hello Little Girl", a UK top 10 hit for The Fourmost nearly five years later.

George Harrison joined the band as lead guitarist, even though Lennon thought Harrison (at 14 years old) was too young to join the band, so McCartney engineered a second audition on the upper deck of a Liverpool bus, where Harrison played Raunchy for Lennon. Stuart Sutcliffe, Lennon's friend from art school, later joined as bassist. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Sutcliffe became "The Beatles" in early 1960. In August that year The Beatles, engaged for a 48-night residency in Hamburg, Germany, and desperately in need of a drummer, asked Pete Best to join them. Lennon was now 19, and his aunt, horrified when he told her about the trip, pleaded with him to continue his art studies instead. After the first Hamburg residency, the band accepted another in April 1961, and a third in April 1962. Like the other band members, Lennon was introduced to Preludin while in Hamburg, and regularly took the drug, as well as amphetamines, as a stimulant during their long, overnight performances.

Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager from 1962, had no prior experience of artist management, but nevertheless had a strong influence on their early dress code and attitude on stage. Lennon initially resisted his attempts to encourage the band to present a professional appearance, but eventually complied, saying, "I'll wear a bloody balloon if somebody's going to pay me". McCartney took over on bass after Sutcliffe decided to stay in Hamburg, and drummer Ringo Starr replaced Best, completing the four-piece line-up that would endure until the group's break-up in 1970. The band's first single, "Love Me Do", was released in October 1962 and reached #17 on the British charts. They recorded their debut album, Please Please Me, in under 10 hours on 11 February 1963, a day when Lennon was suffering the effects of a cold, which is evident in the vocal on the last song to be recorded that day, Twist and Shout. The Lennon/McCartney songwriting partnership yielded eight of its fourteen tracks. With few exceptions—one being the album title itself—Lennon had yet to bring his love of wordplay to bear on his song lyrics, saying: "We were just writing songs ... pop songs with no more thought of them than that–to create a sound. And the words were almost irrelevant". In a 1987 interview, McCartney said that the other Beatles idolised John: "He was like our own little Elvis ... We all looked up to John. He was older and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the smartest".

The Beatles achieved mainstream success in the UK around the start of 1963. Lennon was on tour when his first son, Julian, was born in April. During their Royal Variety Show performance, attended by the Queen Mother and other British royalty, Lennon poked fun at his audience: "For our next song, I'd like to ask for your help. For the people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands ... and the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewellery." After a year of Beatlemania in the UK, the group's historic February 1964 US debut appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show marked their breakthrough to international stardom. A two-year period of constant touring, moviemaking, and songwriting followed, during which Lennon wrote two books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works. The Beatles received recognition from the British Establishment when they were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours of 1965.

1966–70: Studio years, break-up and solo beginnings

Lennon grew concerned that fans attending Beatles concerts were unable to hear the music above the screaming of fans, and that the band's musicianship was beginning to suffer as a result. Lennon's "Help!" expressed his own feelings in 1965: "I meant it ... It was me singing 'help'". He had put on weight (he would later refer to this as his "Fat Elvis" period), and felt he was subconsciously seeking change. The following January he was unknowingly introduced to LSD when a dentist, hosting a dinner party attended by Lennon, Harrison and their wives, spiked the guests' coffee with the drug. When they wanted to leave, their host revealed what they had taken, and strongly advised them not to leave the house because of the likely effects. Later, in an elevator at a nightclub, they all believed it was on fire: "We were all screaming ... hot and hysterical." A few months later in March, during an interview with Evening Standard reporter Maureen Cleave, Lennon remarked, "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink ... We're more popular than Jesus now—I don't know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity." The comment went virtually unnoticed in England but caused great offence in the US when quoted by a magazine there five months later. The furore that followed—burning of Beatles records, Ku Klux Klan activity, and threats against Lennon—contributed to the band's decision to stop touring.

" with The Beatles in 1967 to 400 million viewers of "Our World".]] Deprived of the routine of live performances after their final commercial concert in 1966, Lennon felt lost and considered leaving the band. Since his involuntary introduction to LSD in January, he had made increasing use of the drug, and was almost constantly under its influence for much of the year." According to biographer Ian MacDonald, Lennon's continuous experience with LSD during the year brought him "close to erasing his identity". 1967 saw the release of "Strawberry Fields Forever", hailed by Time magazine for its "astonishing inventiveness", and the group's landmark album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which revealed Lennon's lyrics contrasting strongly with the simple love songs of the Lennon/McCartney's early years.

In August, after having been introduced to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the group attended a weekend of personal instruction at his Transcendental Meditation seminar in Bangor, Wales, and were informed of Epstein's death during the seminar. "I knew we were in trouble then", Lennon said later. "I didn't have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music, and I was scared". They later travelled to Maharishi's ashram in India for further guidance, where they composed most of the songs for The Beatles and Abbey Road.

The anti-war, black comedy How I Won the War, featuring Lennon's only appearance in a non–Beatles full-length film, was shown in cinemas in October 1967. McCartney organised the group's first post-Epstein project, the self-written, -produced and -directed television film Magical Mystery Tour, released in December that year. While the film itself proved to be their first critical flop, its soundtrack release, featuring Lennon's acclaimed, Carroll-inspired "I am the Walrus", was a success. With Epstein gone, the band members became increasingly involved in business activities, and in February 1968 they formed Apple Corps, a multimedia corporation comprising Apple Records and several other subsidiary companies. Lennon described the venture as an attempt to achieve, "artistic freedom within a business structure", but his increased drug experimentation and growing preoccupation with Yoko Ono, and McCartney's own marriage plans, left Apple in need of professional management. Lennon asked Lord Beeching to take on the role, but he declined, advising Lennon to go back to making records. Lennon approached Allen Klein, who had managed The Rolling Stones and other bands during the British Invasion. Klein was appointed as Apple’s chief executive by Lennon, Harrison and Starr, but McCartney never signed the management contract.

At the end of 1968, Lennon featured in the film The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (not released until 1996) in the role of a Dirty Mac band member. The supergroup, comprising Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell, also backed a vocal performance by Ono in the film. Lennon and Ono were married on 20 March 1969, and soon released a series of 14 lithographs called "Bag One" depicting scenes from their honeymoon, eight of which were deemed indecent and most of which were banned and confiscated. Lennon's creative focus continued to move beyond the Beatles and between 1968 and 1969 he and Ono recorded three albums of experimental music together: (known more for its cover than for its music), and Wedding Album. In 1969 they formed The Plastic Ono Band, releasing Live Peace in Toronto 1969. In protest at Britain's involvement in the Nigerian Civil War, Lennon returned his MBE medal to the Queen, though this had no effect on his MBE status, which could not be renounced. Between 1969 and 1970 Lennon released the singles "Give Peace a Chance" (widely adopted as an anti-Vietnam-War anthem in 1969), "Cold Turkey" (documenting his withdrawal symptoms after he became addicted to heroin) and "Instant Karma!".

Lennon left the Beatles in September 1969. He agreed not to inform the media while the band renegotiated their recording contract, and was outraged that McCartney publicised his own departure on releasing his debut solo album in April 1970. Lennon's reaction was, "Jesus Christ! He gets all the credit for it!" He later wrote, "I started the band. I disbanded it. It's as simple as that." In later interviews with Rolling Stone, he revealed his bitterness towards McCartney, saying, "I was a fool not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record." He spoke too of the hostility he perceived the other members had towards Ono, and of how he, Harrison, and Starr "got fed up with being sidemen for Paul ... After Brian Epstein died we collapsed. Paul took over and supposedly led us. But what is leading us when we went round in circles?"

1970–80: Solo career

1970–72: Initial solo success and activism

Following the Beatles' break-up in 1970, Lennon and Ono went through primal therapy with Dr. Arthur Janov in Los Angeles, California. Designed to release emotional pain from early childhood, the therapy entailed two half-days a week with Janov for four months; he had wanted to treat the couple for longer, but they felt no need to continue and returned to London. Lennon's emotional debut solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970), was received with high praise. Critic Greil Marcus remarked, "John's singing in the last verse of 'God' may be the finest in all of rock." The album featured the songs "Mother", in which Lennon confronted his feelings of childhood rejection, and the Dylanesque "Working Class Hero", a bitter attack against the bourgeois social system which, due to the lyric "you're still fucking peasants", fell foul of broadcasters. The same year, Tariq Ali's revolutionary political views, expressed when he interviewed Lennon, inspired the singer to write "Power to the People". Lennon also became involved with Ali during a protest against Oz magazine's prosecution for alleged obscenity. Lennon denounced the proceedings as "disgusting fascism", and he and Ono (as Elastic Oz Band) released the single "God Save Us/Do the Oz" and joined marches in support of the magazine.

With Lennon's next album, Imagine (1971), critical response was more guarded. Rolling Stone reported that "it contains a substantial portion of good music" but warned of the possibility that "his posturings will soon seem not merely dull but irrelevant". The album's title track would become an anthem for anti-war movements, while another, "How Do You Sleep?", was a musical attack on McCartney in response to lyrics from Ram that Lennon felt, and McCartney later confirmed, were directed at him and Ono. However, Lennon softened his stance in the mid-70s and said he had written "How Do You Sleep?" about himself. He said in 1980: "I used my resentment against Paul ... to create a song ... not a terrible vicious horrible vendetta ... I used my resentment and withdrawing from Paul and the Beatles, and the relationship with Paul, to write 'How Do You Sleep'. I don't really go 'round with those thoughts in my head all the time".

Lennon and Ono moved to New York in August 1971, and in December released "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)". To advertise the single, they paid for billboards in 12 cities around the world which declared, in the national language, "WAR IS OVER—IF YOU WANT IT". The new year saw the Nixon Administration take what it called a "strategic counter-measure" against Lennon's anti-war propaganda, embarking on what would be a four-year attempt to deport him: embroiled in a continuing legal battle, he was denied permanent residency in the US until 1976.

Recorded as a collaboration with Ono and with backing from the New York band Elephant's Memory, Some Time in New York City was released in 1972. Containing songs about women's rights, race relations, Britain's role in Northern Ireland, and Lennon's problems obtaining a green card, the album was poorly received—unlistenable, according to one critic. "Woman Is the Nigger of the World", released as a US single from the album the same year, was televised on 11 May, on The Dick Cavett Show. Many radio stations refused to broadcast the song because of the word "nigger". Lennon and Ono gave two benefit concerts with Elephant's Memory and guests in New York in aid of patients at the Willowbrook State School mental facility. Staged at Madison Square Garden on 30 August 1972, they were his last full-length concert appearances.

1973–75: Lost and found

While Lennon was recording Mind Games (1973), he and Ono decided to separate. The ensuing eighteen-month period apart, which he later called his "lost weekend", was spent in Los Angeles and New York in the company of May Pang. Mind Games, credited to "the Plastic U.F.Ono Band", was released in November 1973. More positively received than its predecessor, the album was critically assessed as "listenable" but "his worst writing yet" and found Lennon to be "helplessly trying to impose his own gargantuan ego upon an audience ... waiting hopefully for him to chart a new course". Its title track, "Mind Games", was a top 20 hit in the US and reached number 26 in the UK. Lennon contributed a revamped version of "I'm the Greatest", a song he wrote two years earlier, to Starr's album Ringo (1973), released the same month. (Lennon's 1971 demo appears on John Lennon Anthology.)

In 1974, Lennon was drinking heavily and his alcohol-fuelled antics with Harry Nilsson soon made the headlines. Two widely publicised incidents occurred at The Troubadour club in March, the first when Lennon placed a menstruation ‘towel’ on his forehead and scuffled with a waitress, and the second, two weeks later, when Lennon and Nilsson were ejected from the same club after heckling the Smothers Brothers. Lennon decided to produce Nilsson's album Pussy Cats and Pang rented an L.A. beach house for all the musicians but after a month of further debauchery, with the recording sessions in chaos, Lennon moved to New York with Pang to finish work on the album. In April, Lennon had produced the Mick Jagger song "Too Many Cooks (Spoil the Soup)" which was, for contractual reasons, to remain unreleased for more than thirty years. Pang supplied the recording for its eventual inclusion on The Very Best of Mick Jagger (2007).

Settled back in New York, Lennon recorded the album Walls and Bridges. Released in October 1974, it yielded his only number-one single in his lifetime, "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night", featuring Elton John on backing vocals and piano. A second single from the album, "#9 Dream", followed before the end of the year. Starr's Goodnight Vienna (1974) again saw assistance from Lennon, who wrote the title track and played piano. On 28 November, Lennon made a surprise guest appearance at Elton John's Thanksgiving concert at Madison Square Garden, in fulfilment of his promise to join the singer in a live show if "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night"—a song whose commercial potential Lennon had doubted—reached number one. Lennon performed the song along with "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "I Saw Her Standing There".

Lennon co-wrote "Fame", David Bowie's first US number one, and provided guitar and backing vocals for the January 1975 recording. He and Ono were reunited shortly afterwards. The same month, Elton John topped the charts with his own cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", featuring Lennon on guitar and back-up vocals. Lennon released Rock 'n' Roll (1975), an album of cover songs, in February. Soon afterwards, "Stand By Me", taken from the album and a US and UK hit, became his last single for five years. He made what would be his final stage appearance in the ATV special A Salute to Lew Grade, recorded on 18 April and televised in June. Playing acoustic guitar, and backed by his eight-piece band BOMF (introduced as "Etcetera"), Lennon performed two songs from Rock 'n' Roll ("Stand By Me", which was not broadcast, and "Slippin' and Slidin'") followed by "Imagine". The band wore masks on the backs of their heads, making them appear two-faced, a dig at Grade, with whom Lennon and McCartney had been in conflict because of his control of the Beatles' publishing company. (Dick James had sold his majority share to Grade in 1969.) During "Imagine", Lennon interjected the line "and no immigration too", a reference to his battle to remain in the United States.

1975–80: Retirement and return

With the birth of his second son Sean on 9 October 1975, Lennon took on the role of househusband, beginning what would be a five-year hiatus from the music industry during which he gave all his attention to his family. Within the month, he fulfilled his contractual obligation to EMI/Capitol for one more album by releasing Shaved Fish, a compilation album of previously recorded tracks. He devoted himself to Sean, rising at 6 am daily to plan and prepare his meals and to spend time with him. He wrote "Cookin' (In the Kitchen of Love)" for Starr's Ringo's Rotogravure (1976), performing on the track in June in what would be his last recording session until 1980. He formally announced his break from music in Tokyo in 1977, saying, "we have basically decided, without any great decision, to be with our baby as much as we can until we feel we can take time off to indulge ourselves in creating things outside of the family." During his career break he created several series of drawings, and drafted a book containing a mix of autobiographical material and what he termed "mad stuff", all of which would be published posthumously.

He emerged from retirement in October 1980 with the single "(Just Like) Starting Over", followed the next month by the album Double Fantasy, which contained songs written during a journey to Bermuda on a 43-foot sailing boat the previous June, that reflected Lennon's fulfillment in his new-found stable family life. Sufficient additional material was recorded for a planned follow-up album Milk and Honey (released posthumously in 1984). Released jointly with Ono, Double Fantasy was not well received, drawing comments such as Melody Maker's "indulgent sterility ... a godawful yawn".

December 1980: Murder

to John Lennon in Central Park, New York]] At around 10:50 pm on 8 December 1980, as Lennon and Ono returned to their New York apartment in The Dakota, Mark David Chapman shot Lennon in the back four times at the entrance to the building. Lennon was taken to the emergency room of nearby Roosevelt Hospital and was pronounced dead on arrival at 11:07 pm. Earlier that evening, Lennon had autographed a copy of Double Fantasy for Chapman.

Ono issued a statement the next day, saying "There is no funeral for John," ending it with the words, "John loved and prayed for the human race. Please pray the same for him." His body was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Ono scattered his ashes in New York's Central Park, where the Strawberry Fields memorial was later created. Chapman pleaded guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to 20 years to life; as of 2010, he remains in prison, having been repeatedly denied parole.

Personal relationships

Cynthia Lennon

Lennon and Cynthia Powell met in 1957 as fellow students at the Liverpool College of Art. Although being scared of Lennon's attitude and appearance, she heard that he was obsessed with French actress Brigitte Bardot, so dyed her hair blonde. Lennon asked her out, but when she said that she was engaged, he replied, "I didn't ask you to fucking marry me, did I?" She often accompanied him to Quarrymen gigs and travelled to Hamburg with McCartney's girlfriend at the time to visit him. Lennon, jealous by nature, eventually grew possessive and often terrified Powell with his anger and physical violence. Lennon later said that until he met Ono, he had never questioned his chauvinistic attitude to women. The Beatles' song "Getting Better", he said, told his own story, "I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically—any woman. I was a hitter. I couldn't express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace".

Recalling his reaction in July 1962 on learning that Cynthia was pregnant, Lennon said, "There's only one thing for it Cyn. We'll have to get married." The couple were married on 23 August at the Mount Pleasant Register Office in Liverpool. His marriage began just as Beatlemania took hold across the UK. He performed on the evening of his wedding day, and would continue to do so almost daily from then on. Epstein, fearing that fans would be alienated by the idea of a married Beatle, asked the Lennons to keep their marriage secret. Julian was born on 8 April 1963; Lennon was on tour at the time and did not see his son until three days later.

Cynthia attributes the start of the marriage breakdown to LSD, and as a result, she felt that he slowly lost interest in her. When the group travelled by train to Bangor, Wales, in 1967, for the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation seminar, a policeman did not recognise her and stopped her from boarding. She later recalled how the incident seemed to symbolize the ending of their marriage. After arriving home at Kenwood, and finding Lennon with Ono, Cynthia left the house to stay with friends. Alexis Mardas later claimed to have slept with her that night, and a few weeks later he informed her that Lennon was seeking a divorce and custody of Julian on grounds of her adultery with him. After negotiations, Lennon capitulated and agreed to her divorcing him on the same grounds. The case was settled out of court, with Lennon giving her £100,000, and custody of Julian.

Brian Epstein

Lennon met Brian Epstein when the Beatles were performing at Liverpool's Cavern Club in 1962. A record store manager, Epstein was homosexual, at a time of strong and widespread social prejudice against homosexuality. According to biographer Philip Norman, one of his reasons for wanting to manage the group was that he was physically attracted to Lennon. Almost as soon as Julian was born, Lennon went on holiday to Spain with Epstein, leading to speculation about their relationship. Questioned about it later, Lennon said, "Well, it was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was never consummated. But it was a pretty intense relationship. It was my first experience with a homosexual that I was conscious was homosexual. We used to sit in a café in Torremolinos looking at all the boys and I'd say, 'Do you like that one? Do you like this one?' I was rather enjoying the experience, thinking like a writer all the time: I am experiencing this." Soon after their return from Spain, at McCartney's twenty-first birthday party in June 1963, Lennon physically attacked Cavern Club MC Bob Wooler for saying "How was your honeymoon, John?" The MC, known for his wordplay and affectionate but cutting remarks, was making a joke, but ten months had passed since Lennon's marriage, and the honeymoon, deferred, was still two months in the future. To Lennon, who was intoxicated with alcohol at the time, the matter was simple: "He called me a queer so I battered his bloody ribs in".

Lennon delighted in mocking Epstein for his homosexuality and for the fact that he was Jewish. When Epstein invited suggestions for the title of his autobiography, Lennon offered Queer Jew; on learning of the eventual title, A Cellarful of Noise, he parodied, "More like A Cellarful of Boys". He demanded of a visitor to Epstein's flat, "Have you come to blackmail him? If not, you're the only bugger in London who hasn't." During the recording of "Baby, You're a Rich Man", he sang altered choruses of "Baby, you're a rich fag Jew".

Julian Lennon

Lennon's first son, Julian, was born as his commitments with the Beatles intensified at the height of Beatlemania during his marriage to Cynthia. Lennon was touring with the Beatles when Julian was born on 8 April 1963. Julian's birth, like his mother Cynthia's marriage to Lennon, was kept secret because Epstein was convinced public knowledge of such things would threaten the Beatles' commercial success. Julian recalls how some four years later, as a small child in Weybridge, "I was trundled home from school and came walking up with one of my watercolour paintings. It was just a bunch of stars and this blonde girl I knew at school. And Dad said, 'What's this?' I said, 'It's Lucy in the sky with diamonds.'" Lennon used it as the title of a Beatles' song, and though it was later reported to have been derived from the initials LSD, Lennon insisted, "It's not an acid song." McCartney corroborated Lennon's explanation that Julian innocently came up with the name. Lennon was distant from Julian, who felt closer to McCartney than to his father. During a car journey to visit Cynthia and Julian during Lennon's divorce, McCartney composed a song, "Hey Jules", to comfort him. It would evolve into the Beatles song "Hey Jude". Lennon later said, "That's his best song. It started off as a song about my son Julian ... he turned it into 'Hey Jude'. I always thought it was about me and Yoko but he said it wasn't."

Lennon's relationship with Julian was already strained, and after Lennon and Ono's 1971 move to New York, Julian would not see his father again until 1973. With Pang's encouragement, it was arranged for him (and his mother) to visit Lennon in Los Angeles, where they went to Disneyland. Julian started to see his father regularly, and Lennon gave him a drumming part on a Walls and Bridges track. He bought Julian a Gibson Les Paul guitar and other instruments, and encouraged his interest in music by demonstrating guitar chord techniques. Julian recalls that he and his father "got on a great deal better" during the time he spent in New York: "We had a lot of fun, laughed a lot and had a great time in general."

In a Playboy interview with David Sheff shortly before his death, Lennon said, "Sean was a planned child, and therein lies the difference. I don't love Julian any less as a child. He's still my son, whether he came from a bottle of whiskey or because they didn't have pills in those days. He's here, he belongs to me, and he always will." He said he was trying to re-establish a connection with the then 17-year-old, and confidently predicted, "Julian and I will have a relationship in the future." After his death it was revealed that he had left Julian very little in his will.

Yoko Ono

Two versions exist of how Lennon met Ono. According to the first, on 9 November 1966 Lennon went to the Indica gallery in London, where Ono was preparing her conceptual art exhibit, and they were introduced by gallery owner John Dunbar. Lennon was intrigued by Ono's "Hammer A Nail": patrons hammered a nail into a wooden board, creating the art piece. Although the exhibition had not yet begun, Lennon wanted to hammer a nail into the clean board, but Ono stopped him. Dunbar asked her, "Don't you know who this is? He's a millionaire! He might buy it." Ono had supposedly not heard of the Beatles, but relented on condition that Lennon pay her five shillings, to which Lennon replied, "I'll give you an imaginary five shillings and hammer an imaginary nail in." The second version, told by McCartney, is that in late 1965, Ono was in London compiling original musical scores for a book John Cage was working on, Notations, but McCartney declined to give her any of his own manuscripts for the book, suggesting that Lennon might oblige. When asked, Lennon gave Ono the original handwritten lyrics to "The Word".

Ono began telephoning and calling at Lennon's home, and when his wife asked for an explanation, he explained that Ono was only trying to obtain money for her "avant-garde bullshit". In May 1968, while his wife was on holiday in Greece, Lennon invited Ono to visit. They spent the night recording what would become the Two Virgins album, after which, he said, they "made love at dawn." When Lennon's wife returned home she found Ono wearing her bathrobe and drinking tea with Lennon who simply said, "Oh, hi." Ono became pregnant in 1968 and miscarried a male child they named John Ono Lennon II on 21 November 1968, a few weeks after Lennon's divorce from Cynthia was granted.

During Lennon's last two years in the Beatles, he and Ono began public protests against the Vietnam War. They were married in Gibraltar on 20 March 1969, and spent their honeymoon in Amsterdam campaigning with a week-long Bed-In for peace. They planned another Bed-In in the United States, but were denied entry, so held one instead at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, where they recorded "Give Peace a Chance". They often combined advocacy with performance art, as in their "Bagism", first introduced during a Vienna press conference. Lennon detailed this period in the Beatles' song "The Ballad of John and Yoko". Lennon changed his name by deed poll on 22 April 1969, adding "Ono" as a middle name. The brief ceremony took place on the roof of the Apple Corps building, made famous three months earlier by the Beatles' Let It Be rooftop concert. Although he used the name John Ono Lennon thereafter, official documents referred to him as John Winston Ono Lennon, since he was not permitted to revoke a name given at birth. After Ono was injured in a car accident, Lennon arranged for a king-sized bed to be brought to the recording studio as he worked on the Beatles' last album, Abbey Road. To escape the acrimony of the band's break-up, Ono suggested they move permanently to New York, which they did on 31 August 1971. They first lived in the St. Regis Hotel on 5th Avenue, East 55th Street, then moved to a street-level flat at 105 Bank Street, Greenwich Village, on 16 October 1971. After a robbery, they relocated to the more secure Dakota at 1 West 72nd Street, in May 1973.

According to author Albert Goldman, Ono was regarded by Lennon as an "almost magical being" who could solve all his problems for him, but this was a "grand illusion", and she openly cheated on him with gigolos. Eventually, writes Goldman, "both he and Yoko were burnt out from years of hard drugs, overwork, emotional breakdowns, quack cures, and bizarre diets, to say nothing of the effects of living constantly in the glare of the mass media." After their separation, "no longer collaborating as a team, they remained in constant communication. ... No longer able to live together, they found that they couldn’t live apart either."

May Pang and the "lost weekend"

ABKCO Industries, formed in 1968 by Allen Klein as an umbrella company to ABKCO Records, recruited May Pang as a receptionist in 1969. Through involvement in a project with ABKCO, Lennon and Ono met her the following year. She became their personal assistant. After she had been working with the couple for three years, Ono confided that she and Lennon were becoming estranged from one another. She went on to suggest that Pang should begin a physical relationship with Lennon, telling her, "He likes you a lot." Pang, 22, astounded by Ono's proposition, eventually agreed to become Lennon's companion. The pair soon moved to California, beginning an eighteen-month period he later called his "lost weekend". In Los Angeles, Pang encouraged Lennon to develop regular contact with Julian, whom he had not seen for two years. He also rekindled friendships with Starr, McCartney, Beatles roadie Mal Evans, and Harry Nilsson. Whilst drinking with Nilsson, after misunderstanding something Pang said, Lennon attempted to strangle her, relenting only when physically restrained by Nilsson.

On moving to New York, they "prepared a spare room" in their newly rented apartment for Julian to visit. Lennon, hitherto inhibited by Ono in this regard, began to reestablish contact with other relatives and friends. By December he and Pang were considering a house purchase, and he was refusing to accept Ono's telephone calls. In January 1975, he agreed to meet Ono—who said she had found a cure for smoking—but after the meeting failed to return home or call Pang. When Pang telephoned the next day, Ono told her Lennon was unavailable, being exhausted after a hypnotherapy session. Two days later, Lennon reappeared at a joint dental appointment, stupefied and confused to such an extent that Pang believed he had been brainwashed. He told her his separation from Ono was now over, though Ono would allow him to continue seeing her as his mistress.

Sean Lennon

When Lennon and Ono were reunited, she became pregnant, but having previously suffered three miscarriages in her attempt to have a child with Lennon, she said she wanted an abortion. She agreed to allow the pregnancy to continue on condition that Lennon adopt the role of househusband; this he agreed to do. Sean was born on 9 October 1975, Lennon's 35th birthday, delivered by Caesarean section. Lennon's subsequent career break would span five years. He had a photographer take pictures of Sean every day of his first year, and created numerous drawings for him, posthumously published as Real Love: The Drawings for Sean. Lennon later proudly declared, "He didn't come out of my belly but, by God, I made his bones, because I've attended to every meal, and to how he sleeps, and to the fact that he swims like a fish."

Former Beatles

Although his friendship with Starr remained consistently warm during the years following the Beatles' break-up in 1970, Lennon's relationship with McCartney and Harrison varied. He was close to Harrison initially, but the two drifted apart after Lennon moved to America. When Harrison was in New York for his December 1974 Dark Horse tour, Lennon agreed to join him on stage, but failed to appear after an argument over Lennon's refusal to sign an agreement that would finally dissolve the Beatles' legal partnership. (Lennon eventually signed the papers while holidaying in Florida with Pang and Julian.) Harrison incensed Lennon in 1980 when he published an autobiography that made little mention of him. Lennon told Playboy, "I was hurt by it. By glaring omission ... my influence on his life is absolutely zilch ... he remembers every two-bit sax player or guitarist he met in subsequent years. I'm not in the book."

Lennon's most intense feelings were reserved for McCartney. In addition to attacking him through the lyrics of "How Do You Sleep?", Lennon argued with him through the press for three years after the group split. The two later began to reestablish something of the close friendship they had once known, and in 1974 even played music together again, before growing apart once more. Lennon said that during McCartney's final visit, in April 1976, they watched the episode of Saturday Night Live in which Lorne Michaels made a $3,000 cash offer to get the Beatles to reunite on the show. The pair considered going to the studio to make a joke appearance, attempting to claim their share of the money, but were too tired. Lennon summarised his feelings towards McCartney in an interview three days before his death: "Throughout my career, I've selected to work with...only two people: Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono....That ain't bad picking."

Along with his estrangement from McCartney, Lennon always felt a musical competitiveness with him and kept an ear on his music. During his five-year career break he was content to sit back so long as McCartney was producing what Lennon saw as mediocre "product". When McCartney released "Coming Up" in 1980, the year Lennon returned to the studio and the last year of his life, he took notice. "It's driving me crackers!" he jokingly complained, because he couldn't get the tune out of his head. Asked the same year whether the group were dreaded enemies or the best of friends, he replied that they were neither, and that he had not seen any of them in a long time. But he also said, "I still love those guys. The Beatles are over, but John, Paul, George and Ringo go on."

Political activism

Anti-war and civil rights activities

at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal]] Lennon and Ono used their honeymoon as what they termed a "Bed-In for Peace" at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel; the March 1969 event attracted worldwide media ridicule and other reaction. At a second Bed-In three months later at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal Lennon wrote and recorded "Give Peace a Chance". Released as a single, it was quickly taken up as an anti-war anthem and sung by a quarter of a million demonstrators against the Vietnam War in Washington, DC, on 15 October, the second Vietnam Moratorium Day.

Later that year, Lennon and Ono supported efforts by the family of James Hanratty, hanged for murder in 1962, to prove his innocence. Those who had condemned Hanratty were, according to Lennon, "the same people who are running guns to South Africa and killing blacks in the streets. ... The same bastards are in control, the same people are running everything, it's the whole bullshit bourgeois scene." In London, Lennon and Ono staged a "Britain Murdered Hanratty" banner march and a "Silent Protest For James Hanratty", and produced a 40-minute documentary on the case. At an appeal hearing years later, Hanratty's conviction was upheld.

Lennon and Ono showed their solidarity with the Clydeside UCS workers' work-in of 1971 by sending a bouquet of red roses and a cheque for £5,000. On moving to New York City in August that year, they befriended two of the Chicago Seven, Yippie peace activists Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. Another peace activist, John Sinclair, poet and co-founder of the White Panther Party, was serving ten years in prison for selling two joints of marijuana after previous convictions for possession of the drug. In December 1971 at Ann Arbor, Michigan, 20,000 people attended the "John Sinclair Freedom Rally", a protest and benefit concert with contributions from Lennon, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger, Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party, and others. Lennon and Ono, backed by David Peel and Rubin, performed an acoustic set of four songs from their forthcoming Some Time in New York City album including "John Sinclair", whose lyrics called for his release. The day before the rally, Michigan State had drastically reduced the penalties for Sinclair’s crimes and three days after the rally, he was released on bail. The performance was recorded and two of the tracks later appeared on John Lennon Anthology (1998).

Following the Bloody Sunday massacre in 1972, in which 27 civil rights protesters were shot by the British Army during a Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association march, Lennon said that given the choice between the army and the IRA he would side with the latter. Lennon and Ono wrote two songs protesting England's actions in the Northern Irish political situation on their Some Time in New York City album: "Luck of the Irish" and "Sunday Bloody Sunday". In 2000, a former member of Britain's domestic security service MI5 suggested that Lennon had given money to the IRA. Biographer Bill Harry records that following Bloody Sunday, Lennon and Ono financially supported the production of the film The Irish Tapes, a political documentary with a pro-IRA slant.

According to FBI surveillance reports (and confirmed by Tariq Ali in 2006) Lennon was sympathetic to the International Marxist Group, a Trotskyist group formed in Britain in 1968. However, the FBI considered Lennon to have limited effectiveness as a revolutionary since he was "constantly under the influence of narcotics".

Deportation attempt

Following the impact of "Give Peace a Chance" and "Happy Xmas (War is Over)", both strongly associated with the anti-Vietnam-War movement, the Nixon administration, hearing rumours of Lennon's involvement in a concert to be held in San Diego at the same time as the Republican National Convention, tried to have him deported. Nixon believed that Lennon's anti-war activities could cost him his re-election; Republican Senator Strom Thurmond suggested in a February 1972 memo that "deportation would be a strategic counter-measure" against Lennon. The next month the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) began deportation proceedings, arguing that his 1968 misdemeanor conviction for cannabis possession in London had made him ineligible for admission to the United States. Lennon spent the next three and a half years in and out of deportation hearings until on 8 October 1975, when a court of appeals barred the deportation attempt, stating " ... the courts will not condone selective deportation based upon secret political grounds." While the legal battle continued, Lennon attended rallies and made television appearances. Lennon and Ono co-hosted the Mike Douglas Show for a week in February 1972, introducing guests such as Jerry Rubin and Bobby Seale to mid-America. In 1972, Bob Dylan wrote a letter to the INS defending Lennon, stating:

John and Yoko add a great voice and drive to the country’s so-called art institution. They inspire and transcend and stimulate and by doing so, only help others to see pure light and in doing that, put an end to this dull taste of petty commercialism which is being passed off as Artist Art by the overpowering mass media. Hurray for John and Yoko. Let them stay and live here and breathe. The country’s got plenty of room and space. Let John and Yoko stay!

On 23 March 1973, Lennon was ordered to leave the US within 60 days. Ono, meanwhile, was granted permanent residence. In response, Lennon and Ono held a press conference on 1 April 1973 at the New York chapter of the American Bar Association, where they announced the formation of the state of Nutopia; a place with "no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people". Waving the white flag of Nutopia (two handkerchiefs), they asked for political asylum in the US. The press conference was filmed, and would later appear in the 2006 documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon. Lennon's Mind Games (1973) included the track "Nutopian International Anthem", which comprised three seconds of silence. Soon after the press conference, Nixon's involvement in a political scandal came to light, and in June the Watergate hearings began in Washington, DC. They led to the president's resignation 14 months later. Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, showed little interest in continuing the battle against Lennon, and the deportation order was overturned in 1975. The following year, his US immigration status finally resolved, Lennon received his "green card" certifying his permanent residency, and when Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as president in January 1977, Lennon and Ono attended the Inaugural Ball.

FBI surveillance and declassified documents

After Lennon's death, historian Jon Wiener filed a Freedom of Information Act request for FBI files documenting the Bureau's role in the deportation attempt. The FBI admitted it had 281 pages of files on Lennon, but refused to release most of them on the grounds that they contained national security information. In 1983, Wiener sued the FBI with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. It took 14 years of litigation to force the FBI to release the withheld pages. The ACLU, representing Wiener, won a favourable decision in their suit against the FBI in the Ninth Circuit in 1991. The Justice Department appealed the decision to the Supreme Court in April 1992, but the court declined to review the case. In 1997, respecting President Bill Clinton's newly instigated rule that documents should be withheld only if releasing them would involve "foreseeable harm", the Justice Department settled most of the outstanding issues outside court by releasing all but 10 of the contested documents. Wiener published the results of his 14-year campaign in January 2000. Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files contained facsimiles of the documents, including "lengthy reports by confidential informants detailing the daily lives of anti-war activists, memos to the White House, transcripts of TV shows on which Lennon appeared, and a proposal that Lennon be arrested by local police on drug charges". The story is told in the documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon. The final 10 documents in Lennon's FBI file, which reported on his ties with London anti-war activists in 1971 and had been withheld as containing "national security information provided by a foreign government under an explicit promise of confidentiality", were released in December 2006. They contained no indication that the British government had regarded Lennon as a serious threat; one example of the released material was a report that two prominent British leftists had hoped Lennon would finance a left-wing bookshop and reading room.

Writing and art

Lennon's biographer Bill Harry writes that Lennon began drawing and writing creatively at an early age with the encouragement of his uncle. He collected his stories, poetry, cartoons, and caricatures in a Quarry Bank High School exercise book that he called the Daily Howl. The drawings were often of crippled people, and the writings satirical, and throughout the book was an abundance of wordplay. According to classmate Bill Turner, Lennon created the Daily Howl to amuse his best friend and later Quarrymen band mate, Pete Shotton, to whom he would show his work before he let anyone else see it. Turner said that Lennon "had an obsession for Wigan Pier. It kept cropping up", and in Lennon's story A Carrot In A Potato Mine, "the mine was at the end of Wigan Pier." Turner described how one of Lennon's cartoons depicted a bus stop sign annotated with the question, "Why?". Above was a flying pancake, and below, "a blind man wearing glasses leading along a blind dog—also wearing glasses".

Lennon's love of wordplay and nonsense with a twist found a wider audience when he was 24. Harry writes that In His Own Write (1964) was published after "Some journalist who was hanging around the Beatles came to me and I ended up showing him the stuff. They said, 'Write a book' and that's how the first one came about". Like the Daily Howl it contained a mix of formats including short stories, poetry, plays and drawings. One story, "Good Dog Nigel", tells the tale of "a happy dog, urinating on a lamp post, barking, wagging his tail—until he suddenly hears a message that he will be killed at three o'clock". The Times Literary Supplement considered the poems and stories "remarkable ... also very funny ... the nonsense runs on, words and images prompting one another in a chain of pure fantasy". Book Week reported, "This is nonsense writing, but one has only to review the literature of nonsense to see how well Lennon has brought it off. While some of his homonyms are gratuitous word play, many others have not only double meaning but a double edge." Lennon was not only surprised by the positive reception, but that the book was reviewed at all, and suggested that readers "took the book more seriously than I did myself. It just began as a laugh for me".

In combination with A Spaniard in the Works (1965), In His Own Write formed the basis of the stage play The John Lennon Play: In His Own Write, co-adapted by Victor Spinetti and Adrienne Kennedy. After negotiations between Lennon, Spinetti and the artistic director of the National Theatre, Sir Laurence Olivier, the play opened at the Old Vic in 1968. Lennon and Ono attended the opening night performance, their second public appearance together to date. After Lennon's death, further works were published, including Skywriting by Word of Mouth (1986); Ai: Japan Through John Lennon's Eyes: A Personal Sketchbook (1992), with Lennon's illustrations of the definitions of Japanese words; and Real Love: The Drawings for Sean (1999). The Beatles Anthology (2000) also presented examples of his writings and drawings.

Musicianship

Instruments played

His playing of a mouth organ during a bus journey to visit his cousin in Scotland caught the driver's ear. Impressed, the driver told Lennon of a harmonica he could have if he came to Edinburgh the following day, where one had been stored in the bus depot since a passenger left it on a bus. The professional instrument quickly replaced Lennon's toy. He would continue to play harmonica, often using the instrument during the Beatles' Hamburg years, and it became a signature sound in the group's early recordings. His mother taught him how to play the banjo, later buying him an acoustic guitar. At 16, he played rhythm guitar with the Quarrymen. As his career progressed, he played a variety of electric guitars, predominantly the Rickenbacker 325, Epiphone Casino and Gibson J-160E, and, from the start of his solo career, the Gibson Les Paul Junior. Occasionally he played a six-string bass guitar, the Fender Bass VI, providing bass on some Beatles numbers that occupied McCartney with another instrument. His other instrument of choice was the piano, on which he composed many songs, including "Imagine", described as his best-known solo work. His jamming on a piano with McCartney in 1963 led to the creation of the Beatles' first US number one, "I Want to Hold Your Hand". In 1964, he became one of the first British musicians to acquire a Mellotron keyboard, though it was not heard on a Beatles recording until "Strawberry Fields Forever" in late 1966.

Vocal style

When Lennon recorded "Twist and Shout", the final track during the mammoth one-day session that captured the band's 1963 debut album Please Please Me, his voice, already compromised by a cold, came close to giving out. Lennon said, "I couldn't sing the damn thing, I was just screaming." In the words of biographer Barry Miles, "Lennon simply shredded his vocal cords in the interests of rock 'n' roll." The Beatles' producer, George Martin, tells how Lennon "had an inborn dislike of his own voice which I could never understand. He was always saying to me: 'DO something with my voice! ... put something on it ... Make it different.'" Martin obliged, often using double-tracking and other techniques. Music critic Robert Christgau says that Lennon's "greatest vocal performance ... from scream to whine, is modulated electronically ... echoed, filtered, and double tracked."

As his Beatles era segued into his solo career, his singing voice found a widening range of expression. Biographer Chris Gregory writes that Lennon was, "tentatively beginning to expose his insecurities in a number of acoustic-led 'confessional' ballads, so beginning the process of 'public therapy' that will eventually culminate in the primal screams of 'Cold Turkey' and the cathartic John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band." David Stuart Ryan notes Lennon's vocal delivery to range from, "extreme vulnerability, sensitivity and even naivety" to a hard "rasping" style. Wiener too describes contrasts, saying the singer's voice can be "at first subdued; soon it almost cracks with despair" Music historian Ben Urish recalls hearing the Beatles' Ed Sullivan Show performance of "This Boy" played on the radio a few days after Lennon's murder: "As Lennon's vocals reached their peak ... it hurt too much to hear him scream with such anguish and emotion. But it was my emotions I heard in his voice. Just like I always had."

Legacy

Music historians Schinder and Schwartz, writing of the transformation in popular music styles that took place between the 1950s and the 1960s, say that the Beatles' influence cannot be overstated: having "revolutionized the sound, style, and attitude of popular music and opened rock and roll's doors to a tidal wave of British rock acts", the group then "spent the rest of the 1960s expanding rock's stylistic frontiers". Liam Gallagher, his group Oasis among the many who acknowledge the band's influence, identifies Lennon as a hero; in 1999 he named his first child Lennon Gallagher in tribute. On National Poetry Day in 1999, after conducting a poll to identify the UK's favourite song lyric, the BBC announced "Imagine" the winner.

In a 2006 Guardian article, Jon Wiener wrote: "For young people in 1972, it was thrilling to see Lennon's courage in standing up to [US President] Nixon. That willingness to take risks with his career, and his life, is one reason why people still admire him today." Whilst for music historians Urish and Bielen, Lennon's most significant effort was "the self-portraits ... in his songs [which] spoke to, for, and about, the human condition."

Lennon continues to be mourned throughout the world and has been the subject of numerous memorials and tributes. In 2010, on what would have been Lennon’s 70th birthday, the John Lennon Peace Monument was unveiled in Chavasse Park, Liverpool, by Cynthia and Julian Lennon. The sculpture entitled ‘Peace & Harmony’ exhibits peace symbols and carries the inscription “Peace on Earth for the Conservation of Life · In Honour of John Lennon 1940–1980”.

Awards and sales

, Havana, Cuba]]

The Lennon/McCartney songwriting partnership is regarded as one of the most influential and successful of the 20th century. As performer, writer or co-writer Lennon has had 27 number one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. His album sales in the US stand at 14 million units. Double Fantasy, released shortly before his death, and his best-selling, post-Beatles studio album at three million shipments in the US, won the 1981 Grammy Award for Album of the Year. The following year, the BRIT Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music went to Lennon. Participants in a 2002 BBC poll voted him eighth of "100 Greatest Britons". Between 2003 and 2008, Rolling Stone recognised Lennon in several reviews of artists and music, ranking him fifth of "100 Greatest Singers of All Time" and 38th of "The Immortals: The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time", and his albums John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, 22nd and 76th respectively of "The RS 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) with the other Beatles in 1965. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

Discography

, Liverpool]]

(with Yoko Ono) (1968)

(with Yoko Ono) (1969)

Wedding Album (with Yoko Ono) (1969)

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)

Imagine (1971)

Some Time in New York City (with Yoko Ono) (1972)

Mind Games (1973)

Walls and Bridges (1974)

Rock 'n' Roll (1975)

Double Fantasy (with Yoko Ono) (1980)

Milk and Honey (with Yoko Ono) (1984)

Menlove Ave. (1986)

Notes

Lennon was responsible for 27 Billboard Hot 100 number one singles as performer, writer or co-writer. Solo (3): "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night", "(Just Like) Starting Over", "Imagine". With David Bowie (1): "Fame". With The Beatles (21): "Can't Buy Me Love", "I Feel Fine", "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "Love Me Do", "She Loves You", "A Hard Day's Night", "Eight Days a Week", "Help!", "Ticket to Ride", "Yesterday", "Paperback Writer", "We Can Work It Out", "All You Need Is Love", "Hello Goodbye", "Penny Lane", "Hey Jude", "Come Together", "Get Back", "For You Blue", "Let It Be", "The Long and Winding Road". As co-writer of releases by other artists (2): "A World Without Love" (Peter and Gordon), "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (Elton John).

Citations

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References

Further reading

Kane, Larry (2005). Lennon Revealed. Running Press. ISBN 0762423641

Pang, May; Edwards, Henry (1983). Loving John: The Untold Story. Warner Books. ISBN 0446379166.

Wiener, Jon. The John Lennon FBI Files

Yorke, Richard (1969). "John Lennon: Ringo’s Right, We Can’t Tour Again", New Musical Express, 7 June 1969, reproduced by Crawdaddy!, 2007.

External links

The Liverpool Lennons

BBC Archive on John Lennon

NPR Archive on John Lennon

John Lennon and Yoko Ono – slideshow by Life magazine

John Lennon hosted by EMI Group Limited

Unveiling of ‘Peace & Harmony’, European Peace Monument – Dedicated to John Lennon

Category:1940 births Category:1980 deaths Category:1960s singers Category:1970s singers Category:1980s singers Category:Apple Records artists Category:Alumni of Quarry Bank High School Category:Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners Category:BRIT Award winners Category:British anti-war activists Category:British people murdered abroad Category:Capitol Records artists Category:COINTELPRO targets Category:Critics of religions or philosophies Category:Deaths by firearm in New York Category:English expatriates in the United States Category:English experimental musicians Category:English film actors Category:English-language singers Category:English male singers Category:English murder victims Category:English pacifists Category:English people of Irish descent Category:English rock guitarists Category:English rock pianists Category:English rock singers Category:English singer-songwriters Category:Feminist artists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire Category:Murdered musicians Category:Musicians from Liverpool Category:Nonviolence advocates Category:People convicted of drug offenses Category:People murdered in New York Category:Plastic Ono Band members Category:Religious skeptics Category:Rhythm guitarists Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees Category:The Beatles members Category:The Dirty Mac Category:The Quarrymen members Category:Yoko Ono

Name	Janis Joplin
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Janis Lyn Joplin
Born	January 19, 1943 Port Arthur, Texas, U.S.
Died	October 04, 1970 Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Instrument	Vocals, guitar
Genre	Blues-rock, hard rock, psychedelic rock, blues
Voice type	Mezzo-soprano
Occupation	Singer, songwriter, arranger
Years active	1962–1970
Label	Columbia
Associated acts	Big Brother & the Holding CompanyKozmic Blues BandFull Tilt Boogie Band
Url	http://www.officialjanis.com/

Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer, songwriter and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist. Rolling Stone magazine ranked Joplin number 46 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time in 2004, and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.

Early life: 1943–1965

Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas, on January 19, 1943, to Dorothy (née East) Joplin (1913–1998), a registrar at a business college, and her husband, Seth Joplin (1910–1987), an engineer at Texaco. She had two younger siblings, Michael and Laura. The family attended the Church of Christ. The Joplins felt that Janis always needed more attention than their other children, with her mother stating, "She was unhappy and unsatisfied without [receiving a lot of attention]. The normal rapport wasn't adequate."

As a teenager, she befriended a group of outcasts, one of whom had albums by African-American blues artists Bessie Smith and Leadbelly, whom Joplin later credited with influencing her decision to become a singer. She began singing in the local choir and expanded her listening to blues singers such as Odetta and Big Mama Thornton.

Primarily a painter while still in school, she first began singing blues and folk music with friends. While at Thomas Jefferson High School, she stated that she was mostly shunned. The campus newspaper ran a profile of her in 1962 headlined "She Dares To Be Different." She left Texas for San Francisco in January 1963, living in North Beach and later Haight-Ashbury. In 1964, Joplin and future Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen recorded a number of blues standards, further accompanied by Margareta Kaukonen on typewriter (as percussion instrument). This session included seven tracks: "Typewriter Talk," "Trouble In Mind," "Kansas City Blues," "Hesitation Blues", "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out", "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy" and "Long Black Train Blues," and was later released as the bootleg album The Typewriter Tape.

Around this time her drug use increased, and she acquired a reputation as a "speed freak" and occasional heroin user. She also used other psychoactive drugs and was a heavy drinker throughout her career; her favorite beverage was Southern Comfort.

In the spring of 1965, Joplin's friends, noticing the physical effects of her amphetamine habit (she was described as "skeletal" Her first public performance with them was at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. Due to persistent persuading by keyboardist and close friend Stephen Ryder, Joplin avoided drug use for several weeks, enjoining bandmate Dave Getz to promise that using needles would not be allowed in their rehearsal space or in the communal apartment where they lived. during a four week engagement in Chicago, the group signed a deal with independent label Mainstream Records.

In early 1967, Joplin met Country Joe McDonald of the group Country Joe and the Fish. The pair lived together as a couple for a few months. the group began its first East Coast tour in Philadelphia, and the following day gave their first performance in New York City at the Anderson Theater.

Cheap Thrills, which gave the band a breakthrough hit single, "Piece of My Heart", reached the number one spot on the Billboard charts eight weeks after its release, remaining for eight (nonconsecutive) weeks.

Full Tilt Boogie Band

In February 1970, Joplin traveled to Brazil, where she stopped her drug and alcohol use. She was accompanied on vacation there by her friend Linda Gravenites, who had designed the singer's stage costumes from 1966 to 1969. Joplin was romanced by an American schoolteacher named David (George) Niehaus, who was traveling around the world. They were photographed by the press at Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. In the August 3, 1970, Cavett broadcast, Joplin referred to her upcoming performance at the Festival for Peace to be held at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York, on August 6, 1970.

Joplin attended the reunion on August 14, accompanied by fellow musician and friend Bob Neuwirth, road manager John Cooke, and her sister Laura, but it reportedly proved to be an unhappy experience for her. Joplin held a press conference in Port Arthur during her reunion visit. Interviewed by Rolling Stone journalist Chet Flippo, she was reported to wear enough jewelry for a "Babylonian whore." Also included was the social commentary of the a cappella "Mercedes Benz", written by Joplin, close friend and song writer Bob Neuwirth and beat poet Michael McClure. In 2003, Pearl was ranked #122 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

During the recording sessions for Pearl, Joplin began seeing Seth Morgan, a 21 year-old Berkeley student, cocaine dealer and future novelist; He saw Joplin's psychedelically painted Porsche still in the parking lot. Upon entering her room, he found her dead on the floor. The official cause of death was an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol. Cooke believes that Joplin had accidentally been given heroin which was much more potent than normal, as several of her dealer's other customers also overdosed that week.

Joplin was cremated in the Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Mortuary in Los Angeles; her ashes were scattered from a plane into the Pacific Ocean and along Stinson Beach. The only funeral service was a private affair held at Pierce Brothers and attended by Joplin's parents and maternal aunt.

Joplin's will funded $2,500 to throw a wake party in the event of her demise. The party, which took place October 26, 1970, at the Lion's Share, located in San Anselmo California, was attended by her sister Laura and Joplin's close friends, that included tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle; Joplin's fiancé Seth Morgan; Bob Gordon; and her road manager, John Cooke. Brownies laced with hashish were unknowingly passed around. Her death at age 27 has caused her to be included in a phenomenon rock historians call the 27 Club.

Legacy

, New York)]]

Joplin's death in October, 1970 at the age of 27 stunned her fans and shocked the music world. Her death was coupled with the fact that another rock icon Jimi Hendrix had died earlier in September. Music historian Tom Moon wrote that Joplin had "a devastatingly original voice." Music columnist Jon Pareles of the New York Times wrote Joplin as an artist was "overpowering and deeply vulnerable." Author Megan Terry claimed the Joplin was the female version of Elvis Presley in the ability to captivate an audience.

Joplin's extraordinary success as a pioneer in a male-dominated rock industry of the late 1960s was unprecedented. Joplin, along with Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane, opened opportunities into the rock music business for future female singers. Stevie Nicks commented that after seeing Joplin perform, "I knew that a little bit of my destiny had changed. I would search to find that connection that I had seen between Janis and her audience. In a blink of an eye she changed my life."

Joplin's body decoration, with a wristlet and a small heart on her left breast, by the San Francisco tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle, is taken as a seminal moment in the tattoo revolution and was an early moment in the popular culture's acceptance of tattoos as art. Another trademark was her flamboyant hair styles, often including colored streaks and accessories such as scarves, beads and feathers.

Leonard Cohen's 1974 song "Chelsea Hotel #2" is about Joplin. Likewise, lyricist Robert Hunter has commented that Jerry Garcia's "Birdsong" from his first solo album, Garcia, is about Joplin and the end of her suffering through death. Mimi Fariña's song "In the Quiet Morning" is about Joplin's death.

The 1979 film The Rose was loosely based on Joplin's life. Originally titled Pearl, after Joplin's nickname, and the title of her last album, it was fictionalized after her family declined to allow the producers the rights to her story. Bette Midler earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.

In 1988, the Janis Joplin Memorial, with an original bronze, multi-image sculpture of Joplin by Douglas Clark, was dedicated in Port Arthur, Texas.

Joplin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and was given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. In November 2009, the Hall of Fame and museum honored her as part of its annual American Music Masters Series. Among the artifacts at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum Exhibition are Joplin's scarf and necklaces, her 1965 Porsche 356 Cabriolet with psychedelically designed painting, and a sheet of LSD blotting paper designed by Robert Crumb, designer of the Cheap Thrills cover. She was the honoree at the Rock Hall's American Music Master concert and lecture series for 2009.

In the late 1990s, the musical play Love, Janis was created with input from Janis's younger sister Laura plus Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, with an aim to take it to Off Broadway. Opening in the summer of 2001 and scheduled for only a few weeks of performances, the show won acclaim and packed houses and was held over several times, the demanding role of the singing Janis attracting rock vocalists from relative unknowns to pop stars Laura Branigan and Beth Hart. A national tour followed.

At the 2009 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Janis, a one-woman show by Nicola Haydn, which imagined the last hour of Joplin's life, gained its first substantial run. It was nominated for 'Best Solo Performance' in The Stage Awards for Acting Excellence. The production tour bus also used a recreation of Joplin's Porsche by Brighton graffiti artist Req — on a VW Polo for budgetary reasons.

There have been many attempts at making a film about Joplin. On June 13, 2010, producer Wyck Godfrey said Amy Adams starred in director Fernando Meirelles' biographical drama, titled Janis Joplin: Get It While You Can.

Discography

; Big Brother and the Holding Company

; Kozmic Blues Band

; Full Tilt Boogie

; Big Brother & the Holding Company / Full Tilt Boogie

; Later collections

References

Further reading

Amburn, Ellis. Pearl: The Obsessions and Passions of Janis Joplin: A Biography. NY: Warner Books, 1992. ISBN 0-446-39506-4.

Caserta, Peggy. Going Down with Janis: Janis Joplin's Intimate Story. Dell: 1974. ASIN: B000NSBNMI.

Dalton, David. Piece of my Heart: A Portrait of Janis Joplin. NY: Da Capo Press, 1991. ISBN 0-306-80446-8.

Echols, Alice. Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin. NY: Henry Holt, 1999. ISBN 0-8050-5394-8.

Friedman, Myra. (1992). Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin. NY: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-517-58650-9.

ISBN 1-878923-08-0

Joplin, Laura. Love, Janis. NY: Villard Books, 1992. ISBN 1-888358-08-4.

Stieven-Taylor, Alison. Rock Chicks. Sydney: Rockpool Publishing, 2007. ISBN 978-1-921295-06-5.

External links

Biography at The Handbook of Texas Online

JohnGilmore.com: Spotlight on Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin's Kozmic Blues - janisjoplin.net

Re-introducing Janis Joplin - slideshow by The New York Times

Half Moon Dick Cavett Show - August 3, 1970

Category:1943 births Category:1970 deaths Category:American blues singers Category:American child singers Category:American female singers Category:American rhythm and blues singers Category:American rock singers Category:American soul musicians Category:Big Brother and the Holding Company members Category:1960s singers Category:1970s singers Category:Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery Category:Deaths by heroin overdose in California Category:Female rock singers Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Musicians from Texas Category:People from Austin, Texas Category:People from Beaumont, Texas Category:People from Port Arthur, Texas Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees‎ Category:University of Texas at Austin alumni

Name	Yoko Ono小野 洋子
Background	solo_singer
Born	February 18, 1933 Tokyo, Japan
Genre	Avant-garde, rock, pop, electronica, Shibuya kei, Fluxus
Occupation	Artist, musician, film director, peace activist
Years active	1961–present
Instrument	Vocals, piano
Label	Apple, Geffen, Polydor, Rykodisc, Astralwerks, Chimera Music
Associated acts	John LennonThe Plastic Ono BandThe Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger

is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon. Ono brought feminism to the forefront through her music which prefigured New Wave music (whether she was a direct influence is still debated). and is known for her philanthropic contributions to the arts, peace and AIDS outreach programs.

Early life

Yoko Ono was born in 1933 to mother Isoko Ono, the great-granddaughter of Zenjiro Yasuda of the Yasuda banking family, and to father Yeisuke Ono, a banker and one-time classical pianist who was a descendant of an Emperor of Japan. Two weeks before she was born, her father was transferred to San Francisco by his employer, the Yokohama Specie Bank.

Education and marriages

Ono's family moved to Scarsdale, New York after the war. She left Japan to rejoin the family and enrolled in nearby Sarah Lawrence College. While her parents approved of her college choice, they were dismayed at her lifestyle, and, according to Ono, chastised her for befriending people they considered to be "beneath" her. In spite of this, Ono loved meeting artists, poets and others who represented the "bohemian" freedom she longed for herself. Visiting galleries and art "happenings" in the city whetted her desire to publicly display her own artistic endeavors. La Monte Young, her first important contact in the New York art world, helped Ono start her career by using her Chambers Street loft in Tribeca as a performance space. At one performance, Ono set a painting on fire; fortunately John Cage had advised her to treat the paper with flame retardant.

In 1956, she married composer Toshi Ichiyanagi. They divorced in 1962 after living apart for several years. On November 28 that same year, Ono married an American named Anthony Cox. Cox was a jazz musician, film producer and art promoter. He had heard of Ono in New York and tracked her down to a mental institution in Japan, where her family had placed her following a suicide attempt. Ono had neglected to finalize her divorce from Ichiyanagi, so their marriage was annulled on March 1, 1963 and Cox and Ono married on June 6. Their daughter, Kyoko Chan Cox, was born two months later on August 3, 1963.

The marriage quickly fell apart but the Coxes stayed together for the sake of their joint career. They performed at Tokyo's Sogetsu Hall with Ono lying atop a piano played by John Cage. Soon the Coxes returned to New York with Kyoko. In the early years of this marriage, Ono left most of Kyoko's parenting to Cox while she pursued her art full-time and Tony managed publicity. After she divorced Cox on February 2, 1969, Ono and Cox engaged in a bitter legal battle for custody of Kyoko, which resulted in Ono being awarded full custody. However, in 1971, Cox disappeared with eight-year-old Kyoko, in violation of the custody order. Cox subsequently became a Christian and raised Kyoko in a Christian group known as the Church of the Living Word (or "the Walk"). Cox left the group with Kyoko in 1977. Living an underground existence, Cox changed the girl's name to Rosemary. Cox and Kyoko sent Ono a sympathy message after Lennon's 1980 murder. Afterwards, the bitterness between the parents lessened slightly and Ono publicly announced in People Magazine that she would no longer seek out the now-adult Kyoko, but still wished to make contact with her. In 1994, Kyoko made contact with Ono and established a relationship.

Artwork

Ono was a sometime member of Fluxus, a loose association of Dada-inspired avant-garde artists that developed in the early 1960s. Fluxus founder George Maciunas, a friend of Ono's during the 1960s, admired her work and promoted it with enthusiasm. One of Ono's well known examples is when she took a fly as her alter ego and was inspired by this for her work. Maciunas invited Ono to join the Fluxus group, but she declined because she wanted to remain an independent artist. John Cage was one of the most important influences on Ono's performance art. It was her relationship to Ichiyanagi Toshi, who was a pupil of John Cage's legendary class of Experimental Composition at the New School, that would introduce her to the unconventional avant-garde, neo-Dadaism of John Cage and his protégés in New York City.

Almost immediately after John Cage finished teaching at the New School for Social Research in the Summer of 1960, Ono was determined to rent a place to present her works along with works of other New York avant-garde artists. She eventually found a cheap loft in downtown Manhattan at 112 Chambers Street that she used as a studio and living space. Composer La Monte Young urged Ono to let him organize concerts in the loft, and Ono acquiesced. but Ono claims to have been eventually pushed into a subsidiary role by Young. The Chambers Street series hosted some of Ono's earliest conceptual artwork including Painting to Be Stepped On, which was a scrap of canvas on the floor that became a completed artwork upon the accrual of footprints. Participants faced a moral dilemma presented by Ono that a work of art no longer needed to be mounted on a wall, inaccessible, but an irregular piece of canvas as low and dirty as to have to be completed by being stepped on.

Ono was an explorer of conceptual art and performance art. An example of her performance art is "Cut Piece" (this instance of performance art is also known as a "happening"), first performed in 1964 at the Sogetsu Art Center in Tokyo. Cut Piece had one destructive verb as its instruction: "Cut." Ono executed the performance in Tokyo by walking on stage and casually kneeling on the floor in a draped garment. Audience members were requested to come on stage and begin cutting until she was naked. Cut Piece was one of Ono’s many opportunities to outwardly communicate her internal suffering through her art. Ono had originally been exposed to Jean-Paul Sartre's theories of existentialism in college, and in order to appease her own human suffering, Ono enlisted her viewers to complete her works of art in order to complete her identity as well. Besides a commentary on identity, Cut Piece was a commentary on the need for social unity and love. It was also a piece that touched on issues of gender and sexism as well as the greater, universal affliction of human suffering and loneliness. Ono performed this piece again in London and other venues, garnering drastically different attention depending on the audience. In Japan, the audience was shy and cautious. In London, the audience participators became zealous to get a piece of her clothing and became violent to the point where she had to be protected by security. An example of her conceptual art includes her book of instructions called Grapefruit. This book, first produced in 1964, includes surreal, Zen-like instructions that are to be completed in the mind of the reader, for example: "Hide and seek Piece: Hide until everybody goes home. Hide until everybody forgets about you. Hide until everybody dies." The book, an example of Heuristic art, was published several times, most widely distributed by Simon and Schuster in 1971, and reprinted by them again in 2000. Many of the scenarios in the book would be enacted as performance pieces throughout Ono's career and have formed the basis for her art exhibitions, including one highly publicized show at the Everson Museum in Syracuse, New York that was nearly closed by a fan riot.

In addition to conceptual art, Ono has also created participatory art, including her 1996 project entitled "Wish Tree" in Japan.

:"Wish Piece by Yoko Ono (1996)

:Make a wish :Write it down on a piece of paper :Fold it and tie it around a branch of a Wish Tree :Ask your friends to do the same :Keep wishing :Until the branches are covered with wishes".

Ono was also an experimental filmmaker who made sixteen films between 1964 and 1972, and gained particular renown for a 1966 Fluxus film called simply No. 4, but often referred to as "Bottoms". The film consists of a series of close-ups of human buttocks as the subject walks on a treadmill. The screen is divided into four almost equal sections by the elements of the gluteal cleft and the horizontal gluteal crease. The soundtrack consists of interviews with those who are being filmed as well as those considering joining the project. In 1996, the watch manufacturing company Swatch produced a limited edition watch that commemorates this film. (Ono also acted in an obscure exploitation film in 1965, Satan's Bed.)

John Lennon once described her as "the world's most famous unknown artist: everybody knows her name, but nobody knows what she does." Her circle of friends in the New York art world has included Kate Millett, Nam June Paik, Dan Richter, Jonas Mekas, Merce Cunningham, Judith Malina, Erica Abeel, Fred DeAsis, Peggy Guggenheim, Betty Rollin, Shusaku Arakawa, Adrian Morris, Stefan Wolpe, Keith Haring, and Andy Warhol, as well as Maciunas and Young.

In 2001, YES YOKO ONO, a forty-year retrospective of Ono's work, received the prestigious International Association of Art Critics USA Award for Best Museum Show Originating in New York City, considered one of the highest accolades in the museum profession. In 2002 Ono was awarded the Skowhegan Medal for work in assorted media. In 2005 she received a lifetime achievement award from the Japan Society of New York.

Ono received an honorary Doctorate of Laws from Liverpool University in 2001. In 2002, she was presented with the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from Bard College.

In 2008, she showed a large retrospective exhibition, Between The Sky And My Head, at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany, and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, UK.

In 2009, she showed a selection of new and old work as part of her show "Anton's Memory" in Venice, Italy. She also received a Golden Lion Award for lifetime achievement from the Venice Biennale in 2009. to Yoko Ono's Wish Tree]] Wish Tree, her installation in the Sculpture Garden - Museum of Modern Art, New York (since July 2010), has become very popular with contributions from all over the world.

Life with John Lennon

Ono first met John Lennon when he visited a preview of an exhibition of Ono's at the Indica Gallery in London on November 9, 1966. Lennon's first personal encounter with Ono involved her passing him a card that read simply "Breathe". However, according to the Japan Society press release for the "Y E S YOKO ONO" retrospective exhibition from 2000, the Ono work which Lennon saw at the Indica Gallery show in 1966 that awakened him to her was "Ceiling Painting," described as follows: "The viewer is invited to climb a white ladder, where at the top a magnifying glass, attached by a chain, hangs from a frame on the ceiling. The viewer uses the reading glass to discover a block letter "instruction" beneath the framed sheet of glass – it says "Y E S." It was through this work that Ono met her third husband and longtime collaborator, John Lennon."

Another work displayed a real apple with a card reading "APPLE." When John was told that the price of the apple was £200 (approximately £2300 or $4600 in 2007 money), he later reported that he thought "This is a joke, this is pretty funny". Another display was a white board with nails in it with a sign inviting visitors to hammer a nail into its surface. Since the show was not beginning until the following day, Ono refused to allow Lennon to hammer in a nail. The gallery owner whisked her away, saying, "Don't you know who that is? He's a millionaire!" Upon returning to John, she said he could hammer in a nail for five shillings. Lennon replied, "I'll give you an imaginary five shillings if you let me hammer in an imaginary nail".

Lennon referred to Ono in many of his songs. While still a Beatle he wrote "The Ballad of John and Yoko", and he alluded to her indirectly in "Julia", a song dedicated to his mother, with the lyrics: "Ocean child calls me, so I sing a song of love" (The kanji 洋子 ("Yoko") means "ocean child").

Ono and Lennon collaborated on many albums, beginning in 1968 when Lennon was still a Beatle, with , an album of experimental and difficult electronic music. That same year, the couple contributed an experimental piece to The White Album called "Revolution 9". Ono also contributed backing vocals (on "Birthday"), and one line of lead vocals (on "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill") to The White Album. Many of the couple's later albums were released under the name the Plastic Ono Band. The couple also appeared together at concerts. When Lennon was invited to play with Frank Zappa at the Fillmore on June 5, 1971, Ono joined in as well.

In 1969, the Plastic Ono Band's first album, Live Peace in Toronto 1969, was recorded during the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival Festival. In addition to Lennon and Ono, this first incarnation of the group consisted of guitarist Eric Clapton, bass player Klaus Voormann, and drummer Alan White. The first half of their performance consisted of rock standards, and during the second half, Ono took the microphone and along with the band performed an avant garde set, ending with music that consisted mainly of feedback, while Ono screamed and sang.

In November 1968, Yoko miscarried a male child which they named John Ono Lennon II. Ono and Lennon married on March 20, 1969 in Gibraltar. ".]] Ono released her first solo album, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band in 1970, as a companion piece to Lennon's better-known John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. The two albums have almost identical covers: Ono's featured a photo of her leaning on Lennon, and Lennon's had a photo of him leaning on Ono. Her album included raw and quite harsh vocals that were possibly influenced by Japanese opera, but bear much in common with sounds in nature (especially those made by animals) and free jazz techniques used by wind and brass players. The performers included Ornette Coleman and other renowned free jazz performers. The personnel was supplemented by John Lennon, Ringo Starr and minor performers. Some songs consisted of wordless vocalizations, in a style that would influence Meredith Monk, and other musical artists who have used screams and vocal noise in lieu of words. The album peaked at #183 on the US charts.

In 1971, Ono released Fly – a double album. On this release Ono explored slightly more conventional psychedelic rock with tracks like "Midsummer New York" and "Mind Train", in addition to a number of Fluxus experiments. She also received minor airplay with the ballad "Mrs. Lennon". Perhaps the most famous track from the album is "Don't Worry, Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow)", an ode to Ono's kidnapped daughter.

In 1971, while studying with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Majorca, Ono's second husband, Anthony Cox, accused Ono of abducting their daughter, Kyoko from his hotel. A large number of accusations were then made by both parents toward each other and the matter of custody. Cox eventually moved to Houston, Texas and converted to Evangelical Christianity with his new wife, who was originally from Houston. At the end of 1971, a custody hearing in Houston went against Cox. In violation of the order, he took Kyoko and disappeared. Ono then launched a search for her daughter with the aid of the police and private investigators. Ono wrote a song about her daughter, "Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow)", which appears on Lennon and Ono's album Live Peace In Toronto 1969 and her album Fly. Both versions feature Eric Clapton on guitar. Kyoko is also referenced on the first line of "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)" when Yoko whispers "Happy Christmas Kyoko" followed by Lennon whispering "Happy Christmas Julian".

Both the press and the public were critical of her. She was blamed for the breakup of The Beatles and repeatedly criticized for her influence over Lennon and his music. Her experimental art was not popularly understood. Following the murder, she went into complete seclusion for an extended period.

Following Lennon's murder, Cox and Kyoko sent a message of sympathy to Ono but did not reveal their location. Ono later printed an open letter to Kyoko saying how she missed her but that she would cease her attempts to find her. Kyoko would later appear on the 1987 title track of American English by the British pop band Wax.

Memorials

Ono funded the construction and maintenance of the Strawberry Fields memorial in New York City's Central Park, across from where they lived and Lennon died. It was officially dedicated on October 9, 1985, what would have been his 45th birthday. In 2000, she founded the John Lennon Museum in Saitama, Saitama, Japan. On October 9, 2007, Ono dedicated a new memorial called the Imagine Peace Tower, located on the island of Viðey, 1 km outside the Skarfabakki harbour in Reykjavík in Iceland. Each year, between October 9 and December 8, it projects a vertical beam of light high into the sky. In 2009, Ono created an exhibit called John Lennon: THE NEW YORK CITY YEARS for the NYC Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex. The exhibit uses music, photographs and personal items to depict Lennon's life in New York. A portion of the cost of each ticket to the exhibition is donated to Spirit Foundation, a charitable foundation set up by Lennon and Ono.

Musical career

Ono collaborated with experimental luminaries such as John Cage and jazz legend Ornette Coleman. In 1961, years before meeting Lennon, she had her first major public performance in a concert at the 258-seat Carnegie Recital Hall (not the larger "Main Hall"). This concert featured radical experimental music and performances. She had a second engagement at the Carnegie Recital Hall in 1965, in which she debuted "Cut Piece."

In early 1980, Lennon heard Lene Lovich and The B-52's' "Rock Lobster" in a nightclub, and it reminded him of Ono's musical sound. He took this as an indication that her sound had reached the mainstream. Indeed, many musicians, particularly those of the new wave movement, have paid tribute to Ono (both as an artist in her own right, and as a muse and iconic figure). For example, Elvis Costello recorded a version of Ono's song "Walking on Thin Ice", the B-52's who drew from her early recordings

Four months after her husband's murder, Ono began a relationship with antiques dealer and interior designer Sam Havadtoy, which lasted until 2001. She had also been linked to art dealer and Greta Garbo confidante Sam Green, who is mentioned in Lennon's will. In 1982, she released It's Alright (I See Rainbows). The cover featured Ono in her famous wrap-around sunglasses, looking towards the sun, while on the back the ghost of Lennon looks over her and their son. The album scored minor chart success and airplay with the singles "My Man" and "Never Say Goodbye".

In 1984, a tribute album titled Every Man Has a Woman was released, featuring a selection of Ono songs performed by artists such as Elvis Costello, Roberta Flack, Eddie Money, Rosanne Cash and Harry Nilsson. It was one of Lennon's projects that he never got to finish. Later that year, Ono and Lennon's final album, Milk and Honey, was released as an unfinished demo.

Ono's final album of the 1980s was Starpeace, a concept album that she intended as an antidote to Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" missile defense system. On the cover, a warm, smiling Ono holds the Earth in the palm of her hand. Starpeace became Ono's most successful non-Lennon effort: the single "Hell in Paradise" was a hit, reaching No. 16 on the US dance charts and #26 on the Billboard Hot 100 as well as major airplay on MTV.

In 1986, Ono set out on a goodwill world tour for Starpeace, mostly visiting Eastern European countries.

Ono went on hiatus until signing with Rykodisc in 1992 to release the comprehensive six-disc box set Onobox. It included remastered highlights from all of Ono's solo albums, as well as unreleased material from the 1974 "lost weekend" sessions. There was also a one-disc "greatest hits" release of highlights from Onobox, simply titled Walking on Thin Ice. That year, she agreed to sit down for an extensive interview with music journalist Mark Kemp for a cover story in the alternative music magazine Option. The story took a revisionist look at Ono's music for a new generation of fans more accepting of her role as a pioneer in the merger of pop and the avant-garde.

In 1994, Ono produced her own musical entitled New York Rock, featuring Broadway renditions of her songs. In 1995, she released Rising, a collaboration with her son Sean and his band, Ima. Rising spawned a world tour that traveled through Europe, Japan and the United States. The following year, she collaborated with various alternative rock musicians for an EP entitled Rising Mixes. Guest remixers of Rising material included Cibo Matto, Ween, Tricky, and Thurston Moore.

In 1997, Rykodisc reissued all her solo albums on CD, from Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band through Starpeace. Ono and her engineer Rob Stevens personally remastered the audio, and various bonus tracks were added including outtakes, demos and live cuts.

2001 saw the release of Ono's feminist concept album Blueprint for a Sunrise. In 2002, Yoko joined The B-52's in New York for their 25th anniversary concerts. She came out for the encore and performed Rock Lobster with the band. Starting in 2002, some DJs remixed other Ono songs for dance clubs. For the remix project, she dropped her first name and became known as simply "ONO", as a response to the "Oh, no!" jokes that dogged her throughout her career. Ono had great success with new versions of "Walking on Thin Ice", remixed by top DJs and dance artists including Pet Shop Boys, Orange Factory, Peter Rauhofer, and Danny Tenaglia. In April 2003, Ono's Walking on Thin Ice (Remixes) was rated No. 1 on Billboard Magazine's "Dance/Club Play Chart", gaining Ono her first number one hit. On the 12" mix of the original 1981 version of "Walking on Thin Ice", Lennon can be heard remarking "I think we've just got your first No.1, Yoko." She returned to No. 1 on the same charts in November 2004 with "Everyman...Everywoman...", a reworking of her song "Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him", in January 2008, with "No No No", and in August 2008, with "Give Peace a Chance." In June 2009, at the age of 76, Ono scored her fifth No. 1 hit on the "Dance/Club Play Chart" with "I'm Not Getting Enough."

Ono released the album Yes, I'm a Witch in 2007, a collection of remixes and covers from her back catalog by various artists including The Flaming Lips, Cat Power, Antony, DJ Spooky, Porcupine Tree and Peaches, released in February 2007, along with a special edition of Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band. Yes I'm a Witch has been critically well-received. A similar compilation of Ono dance remixes entitled Open Your Box was also released in April of that year.

In 2009, Ono recorded Between My Head and the Sky, her first album to be released as "Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band" since 1973's Feeling the Space. The all-new Plastic Ono Band lineup includes Sean Lennon, Cornelius and Yuka Honda amongst others. On February 16, 2010, Sean organized a concert in Brooklyn, New York called "We Are Plastic Ono Band," at which Yoko performed her music with Sean, Clapton, Klaus Voorman and Jim Keltner, for the first time since the 1970s. Guests including Bette Midler, Paul Simon and his son Harper, and principal members of Sonic Youth interpreted her songs in their own styles.

During her career, Ono has collaborated with a diverse group of artists and musicians including John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, Cornelius (Keigo Oyamada, Naoki Shimizu and Yoko Araki), Frank Zappa, Sean Lennon, Yuka Honda, Jim Keltner, Earl Slick, Peaches, John Cage, David Tudor, George Maciunas, Ornette Coleman, Charlotte Moorman, George Brecht, Jackson Mac Low, Jonas Mekas, Fred DeAsis, Yvonne Rainer, La Monte Young, Richard Maxfield, Zbigniew Rybczyński, Yo La Tengo, and Andy Warhol (in 1987 Ono was one of the speakers at Warhol's funeral). As a dance music artist, Ono has worked with re-mixers/producers such as Basement Jaxx, Pet Shop Boys, Cat Power, Bill Kates, Tricky, Thurston Moore, Keiji Haino, Nick Vernier Band, Cibo Matto, Billy Martin, DJ Spooky, Apples In Stereo, Damien Price, The Flaming Lips, DJ Chernobyl, Bimbo Jones, DJ Dan, Craig Armstrong, Jorge Artajo, Shuji Nabara, and Konrad Behr, among others.

2000s

At the Liverpool Biennial in 2004, Yoko flooded the city with banners, bags, stickers, postcards, flyers, posters and badges, with two images: one of a woman's naked breast, the other of the same woman's vulva. The piece, titled "My Mummy Was Beautiful", was dedicated to Lennon's mother, Julia, who had died when Lennon was a teenager. According to Ono, the work was meant to be innocent, not shocking. She was attempting to replicate the experience of a baby looking up at his or her mother's body: the mother's pudendum and breasts are a child's introduction to humanity. It was created in the spirit of, and seems inspired by Gustave Courbet's L'Origine du monde.

, Ono's residence since 1973]]

Ono performed at the opening ceremony for the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy, wearing white, like many of the others who performed during the ceremony, to symbolize the snow that makes the Winter Olympics possible. She read a free verse poem calling for peace in the world. The poem was an intro to a performance of the song "Imagine", Lennon's anthem to world peace.

On December 13, 2006, Ono's bodyguard was arrested after he was taped trying to extort Ono for two million dollars, threatening to release private conversations and photographs.

On June 26, 2007, Ono appeared on Larry King Live along with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and Olivia Harrison. Ono headlined the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago on July 14, 2007, performing a full set that mixed music and performance art. She sang "Mulberry", a song about her time in the countryside after the Japanese collapse in World War II for only the third time in her life, with Thurston Moore. Ono had previously performed the song once with John Lennon and once with Sean Lennon and told the audience of thousands that she will never perform it again.

On October 9, 2007 Ono officially lit the Imagine Peace Tower on Viðey Island in Iceland, dedicated to peace and to Lennon.

Ono returned to Liverpool for the 2008 Liverpool Biennial, where she unveiled "Sky Ladders" in the ruins of Church of St Luke, Liverpool (which was largely destroyed during World War II and now stands roofless as a memorial to those killed in the Liverpool Blitz).

In May 2009, Yoko designed a T-shirt for the second 'Fashion against AIDS' campaign/collection of HIV/AIDS awareness NGO Designers against AIDS and H&M;, with the statement 'Imagine Peace' depicted in 21 different languages.

On March 31, 2009, Yoko Ono went to the inauguration of the exhibition: "Imagine: The Peace Ballad of John & Yoko" to mark the 40th anniversary of Lennon-Ono bed-in at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Canada from May 26 to June 2, 1969.

Ono appeared on-stage at Microsoft's June 1, 2009 E3 press conference with Olivia Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr to promote video game.

Ono appears on the new Basement Jaxx album Scars, featuring on the single "Day of the Sunflowers (We March On)".

2010s

On February 16, 2010, Yoko Ono revived an early Plastic Ono Band line-up with Eric Clapton and special guests including Paul Simon and Bette Midler. (See "Musical career" above.)

On April 1, 2010, Ono was named the first "Global Autism Ambassador" by the Autism Speaks organization. In 2009, she created a piece of artwork called Promise to mark the annual World Autism Awareness Day, which is on April 2.

On July 7, 2010, Ono appeared with Ringo Starr at New York's Radio City Music Hall in celebration of Starr's 70th birthday, performing "With a Little Help from My Friends" and "Give Peace a Chance".

In recent years an image of Ono as a strong, uncompromising survivor has emerged.

On Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2003, on the eve of the Iraqi invasion by the Americans and the British, Ono heard about a romantic couple holding a love-in protest in their tiny bedroom in Addingham, West Yorkshire. She sent the couple, Andrew and Christine Gale, some flowers and wished them the best.

In 2004, Ono remade her song "Everyman... Everywoman..." to support same-sex marriage, releasing remixes that included "Every Man Has a Man Who Loves Him" and "Every Woman Has a Woman Who Loves Her."

Relationship with Paul McCartney

In 2005, Ono said, "People like to picture Paul and me in a boxing ring, feuding all the time, otherwise it's not exciting or interesting for them. People need light-hearted topics like me and Paul fighting to escape all the horror of the world, but it's not true anymore." In 2002, McCartney released another live album, Back in the U.S. Live 2002, and the 19 Beatles' songs included are described as "written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon".

In 1995, after the Beatles released Lennon's "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" with demos provided by Ono, McCartney and his family collaborated with her and Sean Lennon to create the song "Hiroshima Sky is Always Blue", which commemorates the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of that Japanese city. Of Ono, McCartney stated: "I thought she was a cold woman. I think that's wrong ... she's just the opposite ... I think she's just more determined than most people to be herself."

In 1997, Ono compared Lennon to Mozart while McCartney, she said, more closely resembled his less-talented rival Salieri. This remark infuriated Linda McCartney, who was battling breast cancer at the time. When she died less than a year later, McCartney pointedly did not invite Ono to a New York memorial service for her.

Accepting an award at the 2005 Q Awards, Ono mentioned that Lennon had once felt insecure about his songwriting, and asked her why other musicians "always cover Paul's songs, and never mine". Ono had responded, "You're a good songwriter; it's not June with spoon that you write. You're a good singer, and most musicians are probably a little bit nervous about covering your songs". McCartney responded by saying, "I don’t take any notice of her. She’s John’s wife so I have to respect her for that, but I don’t think she’s the brightest of buttons. She’s said some particularly daft things in her time. Her life is dedicated to putting me down but I attempt very strongly not to put her down." Ono later issued a statement claiming she did not mean any offense, as her comment was an attempt to console her husband, not attack McCartney; she went on to insist that she respected McCartney and that it was the press who had taken her comments out of context. "

Film No. Five (Smile) (1968, 51 mins)

Rape (1969, 77 mins), filmed by Nick Rowland. A young woman is relentlessly pursued by a camera crew.

Notes

References

John Lennon: One Day at a Time, by Anthony Fawcett (Grove Press, 1976)

Come Together: John Lennon in His Time, by Jon Wiener (Random House, 1984)

The Ballad of John and Yoko, by the Editors of Rolling Stone (Rolling Stone Press, 1982)

Spitz, Bob. The Beatles. Little, Brown, and Company: New York, 2005.

Kemp, Mark. "She Who Laughs Last: Yoko Ono Reconsidered." (July/Aug, 1992). Option, p. 74–81.

"Ono apologises for comment." (November 6, 2005). New Sunday Times, p. 29.

The Rare Films of Yoko Ono: New York 65–66 Fluxus Films + London 66–67, England 68–69, London 69–71, Around the World 69–71, New York 70 – 71 and Ann Arbor/NYC 71–72 + 2000 at the ICA, London, March 2004.

Further reading

Clayson, Alan et al. Woman: The Incredible Life of Yoko Ono

Goldman, Albert. The Lives of John Lennon

Green, John. Dakota Days

Hendricks, Geoffrey. Fluxus Codex

Hendricks, Geoffrey. Yoko Ono: Arias and Objects

Hopkins, Jerry. Yoko Ono

Millett, Kate. Flying

Pang, May. Loving John

Norman, Philip, John Lennon : the life, 1st ed., New York : Ecco, 2008. ISBN 978-0-06-075401-3.

Norman, Philip, Days in the life : John Lennon remembered, London : Century, 1990. ISBN 0-7126-3922-5

Rumaker, Michael. The Butterfly

Seaman, Frederic. The Last Days of John Lennon

Sheff, David. John Lennon and Yoko Ono: The Playboy Interviews

Walker, John. Yoko Ono in Art and celebrity, London: Pluto Press, (2003).

Wiener, Jon. Come Together: John Lennon in His Time

Wenner, Jann, ed. The Ballad of John and Yoko

Yoon, Jean. The Yoko Ono Project

External links

Official website

Official site of The Plastic Ono Band

Category:1933 births Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:American anti-war activists Category:American dance musicians Category:American experimental musicians Category:American feminists Category:American film directors of Japanese descent Category:American musicians of Japanese descent Category:American pacifists Category:American performance artists Category:American rock singers Category:American women artists Category:Apple Records artists Category:Artists from New York Category:Astralwerks artists Category:COINTELPRO targets Category:Conceptual artists Category:Contemporary artists Category:Female film directors Category:Female rock singers Category:Feminist artists Category:Fluxus Category:Gakushuin University alumni Category:Geffen Records artists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Japanese feminists Category:Japanese film directors Category:Japanese immigrants to the United States Category:Japanese musicians Category:Japanese pacifists Category:Japanese performance artists Category:Japanese women artists Category:John Lennon Category:LGBT rights activists from the United States Category:Living people Category:Multimedia artists Category:Musicians from New York Category:Musicians from Tokyo Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:People associated with The Beatles Category:People from Scarsdale, New York Category:Plastic Ono Band members Category:Polydor Records artists Category:Postmodern artists Category:Rykodisc artists Category:Sarah Lawrence College alumni Category:Singers from New York Category:Sound artists Category:The Dirty Mac

Name	Sly Stone
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Sylvester Stewart
Born	March 15, 1943 Denton, Texas, United States
Instrument	Vocals, organ, guitar, bass guitar, piano, keyboards, harmonica
Genre	Funk, rock, soul, R&B;
Occupation	Singer, songwriter, musician, producer
Years active	1952–present
Label	Epic Records, Warner Bros., Cleopatra
Associated acts	Sly & the Family Stone
Url	www.slystonebook.com

Sly Stone (born Sylvester Stewart, March 15, 1943, Denton, Texas) is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer, most famous for his role as frontman for Sly & the Family Stone, a band which played a critical role in the development of soul, funk and psychedelia in the 1960s and 1970s. Sly & the Family Stone was started in San Francisco, California.

Music career

Early career

The Stewart family was a deeply-religious middle-class household from Denton, Texas. The parents, K.C. and Alpha Stewart, held the family together under the doctrines of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) and encouraged musical expression in the household. Born 15 March 1943, Sylvester Stewart was the second of 5 children raised in Vallejo, in the northern San Francisco Bay Area. After the family moved from Denton, Texas to Vallejo, Sylvester and his brother Freddie and their sisters Rose and Vaetta formed "The Stewart Four" as children, performing gospel music in the Church of God in Christ and even recording a single local release 78 rpm single, "On the Battlefield" b/w "Walking in Jesus' Name", in 1952. The eldest sister, Loretta, was the only Stewart child not to pursue a musical career. All of the other Stewart children would later adopt the surname "Stone" and become members of Sly & the Family Stone.

Sylvester was identified as a musical prodigy from a young age. By the time he was seven Sylvester had already become proficient on the keyboards. By the age of eleven Sylvester had mastered the guitar, bass, and drums as well.

The name Sly was a common nickname for Sylvester throughout his years in grade school. A classmate misspelled his name Slyvester and ever since the nickname followed him. Epic requested more marketable output. The Black Panther Party demanded that Stone make his music more militant and more reflective of the black power movement,

After moving to the Los Angeles area in fall 1969, Stone and his bandmates became heavy users of illegal drugs, primarily cocaine and PCP. As the members became increasingly focused on drug use and partying (Stone carried a violin case filled with illegal drugs wherever he went), recording slowed significantly. Between summer 1969 and fall 1971, the band released only one single, "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" / "Everybody Is a Star", released in December 1969. The former song was one of the first recordings to employ the heavy, funky beats that would be featured in the funk music of the following decade. It showcased bass player Larry Graham's innovative percussive playing technique of bass "slapping". Graham later said that he developed this technique in an earlier band in order to compensate for that band's lack of a drummer.

"Thank You" reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1970. The single also peaked at #5 on the R&B; chart and remained there for five weeks, while also remaining at #1 on the Pop chart for two weeks in the spring of 1970, before selling over a million copies.

In the fall of 1969, Stone moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles with his then girlfriend Deborah King, later Deborah Santana (wife of Carlos Santana from 1973 until filing for divorce in 2007). The band's fifth album, There's a Riot Goin' On (1971), reflected the turmoil. Most of Riot was recorded with overdubbing as opposed to The Family Stone all playing at the same time; Stone played most of the parts himself and performed more of the lead vocals than usual.

The band's cohesion slowly began to erode, and its sales and popularity began to decline as well. Errico withdrew from the group in 1971 and was eventually replaced with Andy Newmark. Larry Graham and Stone were no longer on friendly terms, and Graham was fired in early 1972 and replaced with Rustee Allen. The band's later releases, Fresh (1973) and Small Talk (1974), featured even less of the band and more of Stone.

Live bookings for Sly & the Family Stone had steadily dropped since 1970, because promoters were afraid that Stone or one of the band members might miss the gig, refuse to play, or pass out from drug use. These issues were regular occurrences for the band during the 1970s, and had an adverse effect on their ability to demand money for live bookings. In January 1975, the band booked itself at Radio City Music Hall. The famed music hall was only one-eighth occupied, and Stone and company had to scrape together money to return home. Following the Radio City engagement, the band was dissolved. Andy Newmark became a successful session drummer, playing with Roxy Music, B. B. King, Steve Winwood and others.

Later years

Stone went on to record four more albums as a solo artist (only High on You (1975) was released under just his name; the other three were released under the "Sly & The Family Stone" name). He also collaborated with Funkadelic on The Electric Spanking of War Babies (1981), but was unable to reinvigorate his career.

Stone did do a short tour with Bobby Womack in the summer of 1984, and he continued to make sporadic appearances on compilations and other artists' records. In 1986, Stone was featured on a track from The Time member Jesse Johnson's solo album Shockadelica called "Crazay". The music video featured Stone on keyboards and vocals, and received some airplay on the BET music network.

In 1987, Stone released a single, "Eek-a-Boo Static Automatic", from the Soul Man soundtrack. He also co-wrote and co-produced "Just Like A Teeter-Totter," which appeared on a Bar-Kays album from 1989.

In 1990, he gave an energetic vocal performance on the Earth, Wind and Fire song, "Good Time." In 1991, he appeared on a cover of "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" performed by the Japanese band 13CATS. And he shared lead vocals with Bobby Womack on "When the Weekend Comes" from Womack's 1993 album I Still Love You. His last major public appearance until 2006 was during the 1993 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony where Stone showed up onstage to be entered into the Hall of Fame along with the Family Stone. In 2003, the other six members of the original Family Stone entered the studio to record a new album. Stone was invited to participate, but declined.

Stone reportedly lives near Beverly Hills or Napa Valley with two female assistants, where he records at a home studio and rides his motorcycle. A few home-studio recordings (most likely from the late 1980s) with Stone's voice and keyboards over a drum machine have made their way onto a bootleg. One Stone-penned demo called "Coming Back for More" appears to be autobiographical and includes the verse: "Been so high, I touched the sky and the sky says 'Sly, why you tryin' to get by?' Comin' back for more." His son, Sylvester Jr., told People Magazine in 1997 that his father had composed an album's worth of material, including a tribute to Miles Davis called "Miles and Miles."

On August 15, 2005, Stone drove his younger sister Vet Stone on his motorcycle to Los Angeles' Knitting Factory, where Vet was performing with her Sly & the Family Stone tribute band, the Phunk Phamily Affair. Stone kept his helmet on during the entire performance, and was described by one concertgoer as looking a little like Bootsy Collins. A film crew doing a documentary on Sly & the Family Stone was at the show and apparently captured this rare sighting on film. Stone, according to his web site, is producing and writing material for the group's new album. In addition, Stone renamed the group "Family Stone."

Friends and family say Stone continues to write songs and record in his home studio. Family Stone drummer Greg Errico told Rolling Stone in the March 2006 issue, "Sly's been calling two or three times a day lately, singing over the phone."

A new Stone instrumental can be heard at the artist's Web site. Stone's sister, Vet, said in a recent radio interview that the song will be recorded with vocals.

Lawsuit

Stone filed suit against Jerry Goldstein, the former manager of Sly and the Family Stone for $50 million in January 2010. The suit claims that Goldstein used fraudulent practices to convince him to deliver the rights to his songs to Goldstein. In the suit, he makes the same claim about the Sly and the Family Stone trademark.

Mid 2000s tributes

A Sly & the Family Stone tribute took place at the 2006 Grammy Awards on February 8, 2006, at which Stone gave his first live musical performance since 1987. Sly & the original Family Stone lineup (minus Larry Graham) performed briefly during a tribute to the band, for which the headliners included Steven Tyler, John Legend, Van Hunt, and Robert Randolph. Sporting an enormous blonde mohawk, thick sunglasses, a "Sly" beltbuckle and a silver lamé suit, he joined in on "I Want To Take You Higher." Hunched over the keyboards, he wore a cast on his right hand (the result of a recent motorcycle mishap), and a hunched back caused him to look down through most of the performance. His voice, though strong, was barely audible over the production. Stone walked to the front of the stage toward the end of the performance, sang a verse and then with a wave to the audience, sauntered offstage before the song was over. "He went up the ramp [outside the theater], got on a motorcycle and took off," Ken Ehrlich, executive producer of the Grammy Awards show told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Ehrlich said Stone refused to leave his hotel room until he was given a police escort to the show and then waited in his car until the performance began.

A Sly & The Family Stone tribute album, Different Strokes By Different Folks, was released on July 12, 2005 by Starbucks' Hear Music label, and on February 7, 2006 by Epic Records. The project features both cover versions of the band's songs and songs which sample the original recordings. Among the artists for the set are The Roots ("Star", which samples "Everybody is a Star"), Maroon 5 and Ciara ("Everyday People"), John Legend, Joss Stone & Van Hunt ("Family Affair"), The Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am ("Dance to the Music"), and Steven Tyler, Joe Perry and Robert Randolph ("I Want to Take You Higher"). Epic Records' version of the tribute album, which included two additional covers ("Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey" and "Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin)") was released in January 2006.

Re-emergence

On Sunday, January 14, 2007 Stone made a short guest appearance at a show of The New Family Stone band he supports at the House of Blues.

On April 1, 2007, Stone appeared with the Family Stone at the Flamingo Las Vegas Showroom, after George Wallace's standup act.

On July 7, 2007 Stone made a short appearance with the Family Stone at the San Jose, CA Summerfest. He sang "Sing a Simple Song" and "If You Want Me to Stay," and walked off stage before the end of "Higher." He wore a baseball cap, dark glasses, a white hooded sweatshirt, baggy pants and gold chains. Stone, who took the stage at about 8:45 p.m., cut the set short, in part, because the promoter was told that the show had to end by 9:00. The band began their set over 90 minutes late reportedly because the stage management was poor and the promoter's band played for 30 minutes longer than scheduled. Stone's 15-minute set came only after his sister, Vet, and the rest of the band performed for 35 minutes. As he exited the stage he told the audience near the front of the stage that he would return. He did return, but only to tell the crowd that the police were shutting down the show. While many blamed Stone for this incident, others believed that the promoter was at fault.

The same scenes were repeated at the Montreux Jazz Festival on July 13, 2007 with over half the sold-out venue walking out in disgust even earlier than his stage exit. The same happened again one day later at the Blue Note Records Festival in Ghent, Belgium. Here he left the stage after saying to the audience that "when waking up this morning he realized he was old, and so he needed to take a break now". He did the same again one day later, performing at the North Sea Jazz Festival.

As the tour progressed, however, Stone seemed to be more confident and animated, often dancing and engaging the audience. He performed "Stand", "I Want To Take You Higher", "Sing A Simple Song", "If You Want Me To Stay", and "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)", (which at one point morphed into "Thank you For Talkin' To Me Africa", a track rarely performed in public). But the show was marred by sound problems and the vocals were barely audible through much of the show. On October 17, 2008, Sly played with the Family Stone at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, CA. He played a 22 minute set and ventured offstage, telling the crowd "I gotta go take a piss. I'll be right back." He never returned. On Memorial Day, May 25, 2009, Stone re-emerged once again, granting an hour-long interview with KCRW-FM, a Los Angeles NPR affiliate, to discuss his life and career.

On August 18, 2009, The Guardian reported that a forthcoming documentary, Coming Back for More by Dutch director Willem Alkema, claims Stone was living on welfare and staying in cheap hotels and campervans. The film alleges that Stone's former manager, Jerry Goldstein, cut off his access to royalty payments following a dispute over a 'debt agreement', forcing Stone to depend on welfare payments.

On Labor Day, September 7, 2009, Stone emerged at the 20th annual African Festival of the Arts in Chicago, Ill. He performed a 15 minute set during George Clinton's Performance. He performed his popular hits along with George Clinton's band. He left immediately after his short performance.

On December 6, 2009, Sly signed a new recording contract with the LA based Cleopatra Records. A new album is expected sometime in 2010.

Discography

1967: A Whole New Thing

1968: Dance to the Music

1968: Life

1969: Stand!

1971: There's a Riot Goin' On

1973: Fresh

1974: Small Talk

1975: High on You (credited only to "Sly Stone")

1976: Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back

1979: Back on the Right Track

1982: Ain't but the One Way

2009: The Woodstock Experience

See also

Sly Stone discography

Sly and the Family Stone

Sly and the Family Stone discography

References

Reference works

Lewis, Miles Marshall (2006). There's a Riot Goin' On. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 0-8264-1744-2.

Kamp, David. "Sly Stone's Higher Power." Vanity Fair. Conde Nast, Aug. 2007.

External links

Outsideleft.com: Sly Stone, Live in London review by Joe Ambrose

Dance To The Music, a documentary about Sly & the Family Stone, broadcast 7/12/2008 contains the first TV interview with Sly Stone in years.

Edwin & Arno Konings www.slystonebook.com

Aswad, Jem (Feb 10, 2006). "Who, Exactly, Is Sly Stone? (That Weird Guy With The Mohawk At The Grammys)". MTV.com. Retrieved February 11, 2006.

Coyle, Jake (Feb 8, 2006). "Reclusive Sly Stone Steps Out at Grammys". Yahoonews.com. Retrieved February 11, 2006.

Category:African American musicians Category:African American singers Category:American soul musicians Category:American funk musicians Category:American funk singers Category:American male singers Category:African American rock musicians Category:American rock singers Category:American record producers Category:American singers Category:Songwriters from Texas Category:P-Funk members Category:People from the Dallas – Fort Worth Metroplex Category:Sly & the Family Stone members Category:Musicians from Texas Category:1943 births Category:Living people Category:Members of the Church of God in Christ

Name	Norman Mailer
Caption	Norman Mailer photographed by Carl Van Vechten in 1948
Pseudonym	Andreas Wilson
Birthname	Norman Kingsley Mailer
Birthdate	January 31, 1923
Birthplace	Long Branch, New Jersey, U.S.
Deathdate	November 10, 2007
Deathplace	New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Novelist, essayist, journalist, columnist, poet, playwright
Nationality	American
Genre	Fiction, non-fiction
Influences	John Dos Passos, George Eliot, Leo Tolstoy, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Mann, William Faulkner, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Henry James, Marcel Proust, Henry Miller
Influenced	Don DeLillo, Martin Amis, Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, Lester Bangs, Jim Morrison

Norman Kingsley Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007) was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter and film director.

Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S. Thompson, John McPhee, and Tom Wolfe, Mailer is considered an innovator of narrative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called New Journalism, which superimposes the essay onto the nonfiction novel. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice and the National Book Award once. In 1955, Mailer, together with Ed Fancher and Dan Wolf, first published The Village Voice, which began as an arts and politics oriented weekly newspaper distributed in Greenwich Village. In 2005, he won the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation.

Early life

Norman Kingsley Mailer was born to a well-known Jewish family in Long Branch, New Jersey. His father, Isaac Barnett Mailer, was a South African-born accountant, and his mother, Fanny Schneider, ran a housekeeping and nursing agency. Mailer's sister, Barbara, was born in 1927. Raised in Brooklyn, New York, he graduated from Boys' High School and entered Harvard University in 1939, where he studied aeronautical engineering. At Harvard, he became interested in writing and published his first story at the age of 18, winning Story Magazine's college contest in 1941. As an undergraduate, he was a member of The Signet Society. After graduating in 1943, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. In World War II, he served in the Philippines with the 112th Cavalry. He was not involved in much combat and completed his service as a cook,

Mailer wrote over 40 books. He published 11 novels over a 59-year span.

The New Journalism

From the mid-1950s, Mailer became known for his counter-cultural essays. In 1955, he co-founded The Village Voice for which he wrote a column from January to April 1956. Mailer's famous essay "The White Negro" (1957) "analyzes and partly defends the moral radicalism of the outsider and hipster." It is one of the most anthologized, and controversial, essays of the postwar period.

In 1960, Mailer wrote "Superman Comes to the Supermarket" for Esquire magazine, an account of the emergence of John F. Kennedy during the Democratic party convention. The essay was an important breakthrough for the New Journalism of the nineteen sixties. Mailer's contributions to the New Journalism include major books such as The Armies of the Night (1968—awarded a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award); Miami and the Siege of Chicago (1968); Of a Fire on the Moon (1971); and The Prisoner of Sex (1971). Hallmarks of these works are a highly subjectivized style and a greater application of techniques from fiction-writing than common in journalism.

The Big Screen

In addition to his experimental fiction and nonfiction novels, Mailer produced a play version of The Deer Park (staged at the Theatre De Lys in Greenwich Village in 1967), and in the late 1960s directed a number of improvisational avant-garde films in a Warhol style, including Maidstone (1970), which includes a spontaneous and brutal brawl between Norman T. Kingsley, played by Mailer, and Kingsley's brother, played by Rip Torn. Mailer received a head injury when Torn struck him with a hammer. In 1987, he adapted and directed a film version of his novel Tough Guys Don't Dance, starring Ryan O'Neal and Isabella Rossellini, which has become a minor camp classic.

Political activism

A number of Mailer's nonfiction works, such as The Armies of the Night and The Presidential Papers, are political. He covered the Republican and Democratic National Conventions in 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1992, and 1996, although his account of the 1996 Democratic convention has never been published. In the early 1960s he was fixated on the figure of President John F. Kennedy, whom he regarded as an "existential hero." In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s and 1970s his work mingled autobiography, social commentary, history, fiction, and poetry in a formally original way that influenced the development of New Journalism. In October 1967, he was arrested for his involvement in an anti-Vietnam War demonstration at the Pentagon.

At the December 15, 1971, taping of The Dick Cavett Show, with Janet Flanner and Gore Vidal, Mailer, annoyed with a less-than-stellar review by Vidal of Prisoner of Sex, apparently headbutted Vidal and traded insults with him backstage. As the show began taping, a visibly belligerent Mailer, who admitted he had been drinking, Mailer replied "I'll take the two chairs if you'll all accept finger-bowls." Mailer later said to Cavett "Why don't you look at your question sheet and ask your question?", to which Cavett replied "Why don't you fold it five ways and put it where the moon don't shine?"

A long laugh ensued, after which Mailer asked Cavett if he had come up with that line and Cavett replied "I have to tell you a quote from Tolstoy?".

In 1969, at the suggestion of Gloria Steinem, his friend the political essayist Noel Parmentel and others, he ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic Party primary for Mayor of New York City, allied with columnist Jimmy Breslin (who ran for City Council President), proposing New York City secession and creating a 51st state. Their slogan was "throw the rascals in". He came in fourth in a field of five. From 1980 until his death in 2007, he contributed to Democratic Party candidacies for political office.

In 1980, Mailer spearheaded convicted killer Jack Abbott's successful bid for parole. In 1977, Abbott had read about Mailer's work on The Executioner's Song and wrote to Mailer, offering to enlighten the author about Abbott's time behind bars and the conditions he was experiencing. Mailer, impressed, helped to publish In the Belly of the Beast, a book on life in the prison system consisting of Abbott's letters to Mailer. Once paroled, Abbott committed a murder in New York City six weeks after his release, stabbing to death 22-year-old Richard Adan. Consequently, Mailer was subject to criticism for his role. In a 1992 interview with the Buffalo News, he conceded that his involvement was "another episode in my life in which I can find nothing to cheer about or nothing to take pride in."

In 1989, Mailer joined with a number of other prominent authors in publicly expressing support for colleague Salman Rushdie in the wake of the fatwa calling for Rushdie's assassination issued by Iran's Islamic government for his having authored The Satanic Verses.

In 2003, in a speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, just before the invasion of Iraq, Mailer said: "Fascism is more of a natural state than democracy. To assume blithely that we can export democracy into any country we choose can serve paradoxically to encourage more fascism at home and abroad. Democracy is a state of grace that is attained only by those countries who have a host of individuals not only ready to enjoy freedom but to undergo the heavy labor of maintaining it."

Biographical subjects

His biographical subjects included Pablo Picasso, Muhammad Ali, Gary Gilmore and Lee Harvey Oswald, and Marilyn Monroe.

His 1973 Marilyn was particularly controversial.

In its final chapter he stated that Monroe was murdered by agents of the FBI and CIA who resented her supposed affair with Robert F. Kennedy. Despite its problems, the biography was enormously successful, selling more copies than any of his works except The Naked and the Dead. It stayed in print for decades, but was out of print in the United States.

(Two works he co-wrote presented imagined words and thoughts in Monroe's voice; these were the 1980 book Of Women and Their Elegance and the 1986 play Strawhead, which was produced off Broadway with his daughter, Kate Mailer, starring.)

Personal life

Marriages and children

Norman Mailer was married six times and had 9 children. He had eight biological children by his various wives and he also had informally adopted Norris' son from another marriage, Matthew.

Norman's first marriage was in 1944, to Beatrice Silverman, whom he divorced in 1952. They had one child, Susan.

Mailer married his second wife, Adele Morales, in 1954. They had two daughters, Danielle and Elizabeth. In 1960, Mailer stabbed Adele with a penknife after a party, nearly killing her. He was involuntarily committed to Bellevue Hospital for 17 days; his wife would not press charges, and he later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of assault, and was given a suspended sentence. While in the short term, Morales made a physical recovery, in 1997 she published a memoir of their marriage entitled The Last Party, which outlined her perception of the incident and its aftermath. This incident has been a focal point for feminist critics of Mailer, who point to themes of sexual violence in his work.

His third wife, whom he married in 1962, and divorced in 1963, was the British heiress and journalist Lady Jeanne Campbell (1929–2007), the only daughter of Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll and a granddaughter of the press baron Lord Beaverbrook. The couple had a daughter, Kate Mailer, who is an actress.

His fourth marriage, in 1963, was to Beverly Bentley, a former model turned actress. She was the mother of his producer son Michael Mailer and his actor son Stephen Mailer. They divorced in 1980.

His fifth wife was Carol Stevens, a jazz singer whom he married on November 7, 1980, and divorced in Haiti on November 8, 1980, thereby legitimating their daughter Maggie, born in 1971.

His sixth and last wife, married in 1980, was Norris Church Mailer (née Barbara Davis), an art teacher. They had one son together, John Buffalo Mailer, a writer and actor, and Mailer informally adopted Matthew Norris, her son by her first husband, Larry Norris. Once living in New York with Mailer, Church worked as a model and during their years together, wrote and painted.

Works with children

In 2005, Mailer co-wrote a book with his youngest child, John Buffalo Mailer, entitled The Big Empty.

Mailer appeared in an episode of Gilmore Girls entitled "Norman Mailer, I'm Pregnant!" with his son Stephen Mailer.

Death and legacy

Mailer died of acute renal failure on the morning of November 10, 2007, a month after undergoing lung surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, New York.

The papers of the two time Pulitzer Prize author may be found at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, Austin.

In 2008, Carole Mallory sold seven boxes of documents and photographs to Harvard University, Norman Mailer's Alma Mater. They contain extracts of her letters, books and journals.

Mailer was well known for his famous quotes, e.g. "Culture is worth a little risk" (see link below to "Wikiquotes": Mailer quotes).

Mailer is mentioned in the GWAR song Vlad The Impaler on the album Scumdogs of the Universe, as well as in the 10cc song Somewhere In Hollywood on the album Sheet Music; also the Red Hot Chilli Peppers "Animal Bar" and the Talib Kweli song "Get By." He is also mentioned in the song Faster by the Manic Street Preachers., in the song "Power" featuring Jay-Z by Kanye West.

In the Lloyd Cole and the Commotions song "Are You Ready to be Heartbroken?" the lead singer sings 'if you want to get straight / read Norman Mailer / or get a new tailor".

In the Warren Zevon song "the French Inhaler", the lyrics state: "the french inhaler, he stamped and mailed her, so long Norman", a reference to Norman Mailer.

Mailer is featured in the upcoming documentary .

Selected bibliography

Fiction

Novels

The Naked and the Dead. New York: Rinehart, 1948.

Barbary Shore. New York: Rinehart, 1951.

The Deer Park. New York: Putnam's, 1955.

An American Dream. New York: Dial, 1965.

Why Are We in Vietnam? New York: Putnam's, 1967.

The Executioner's Song Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979.

Of Women and Their Elegance. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1980

Ancient Evenings. Boston: Little, Brown, 1983.

Tough Guys Don't Dance. New York: Random House, 1984.

Harlot's Ghost. New York: Random House, 1991.

The Gospel According to the Son. New York: Random House, 1997.

The Castle in the Forest. New York: Random House, 2007.

Plays

. New York: Dial, 1967.

Short Stories

The Short Fiction of Norman Mailer. New York: Dell, 1967.

Non-fiction

General Non-fiction

The Armies of the Night. New York: New American Library, 1968.

Miami and the Siege of Chicago: An Informal History of the Republican and Democratic Conventions of 1968. New York: New American Library, 1968.

Of a Fire on the Moon. Boston: Little, Brown, 1970.

The Prisoner of Sex. Boston: Little, Brown, 1971.

St. George and The Godfather. New York: Signet Classics, 1972.

The Faith of Graffiti. New York: Praeger, 1974.

The Fight. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1975.

Of a Small and Modest Malignancy, Wicked and Bristling with Dots. Northridge, CA: Lord John Press, 1980.

Why Are We At War?. New York: Random House, 2003 ISBN 978-0812971118

. New York: Random House, 2003.

The Big Empty: Dialogues on Politics, Sex, God, Boxing, Morality, Myth, Poker and Bad Conscience in America. New York: Nation Books, 2006

On God: An Uncommon Conversation. New York: Random House, 2007 ISBN 978-1400067329

Essay Collections

Advertisements for Myself. New York: Putnam's, 1959.

The Presidential Papers.New York: Putnam, 1963.

Cannibals and Christians. New York: Dial, 1966.

Pieces and Pontifications. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1982.

Biographies

Marilyn: A Biography. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1973.

Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man: An Interpretative Biography. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995.

Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery. New York: Random House, 1996 ISBN 978-0679425359

Famous Essays and Articles

"The White Negro". San Francisco: City Lights, 1957.

References

Further reading

Norman Mailer by Michael K. Glenday. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.

Radical Fictions and the Novels of Norman Mailer by Nigel Leigh. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990.

Norman Mailer: Works and Days by J. Michael and Donna P. Lennon. Westport, MA: Sligo Press, 2000. Comprehensive, annotated primary and secondary bibliography with life chronology.

Norman Mailer: The Man and His Work, edited by Robert F. Lucid. Boston: Little, Brown. The first collection of essays on Mailer.

Norman Mailer by Philip Bufithis. New York: Ungar, 1978. Perhaps the most readable and reliable study of Mailer's early work.

Acts of Regeneration: Allegory and Archetype in the Works of Norman Mailer by Robert J. Begiebing. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1980. Fine discussion of Mailer's "heroic consciousness."

The Enduring Vision of Norman Mailer by Barry H. Leeds. Bainbridge, WA: Pleasure Boat Studio, 2002.

Political Fiction and the American Self by John Whalen-Bridge. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998. Subtle examination of Mailer's dual aptitude of representing and resisting American mythologies.

Critical Essays on Norman Mailer, edited by J.Michael Lennon: Boston, G.K.Hall and Co., 1986.

Norman Mailer, by Richard Poirier. New York: Viking,1972. One of the best studies of Mailer's writing, tracking his career through the early Eighties.

Norman Mailer by Richard Jackson Foster. University of Minnesota Press, 1968. Pamphlet.

The Structured Vision of Norman Mailer by Barry H. Leeds, New York University Press,1969.

Norman Mailer Revisited by Robert Merrill. Twayne, 1992. Contains perhaps the best analysis of The Executioner's Song

Mailer: His Life and Times, edited by Peter Manso. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985. Highly readable, but controversial "oral" biography of Mailer created by cross-cutting interviews with friends, enemies, acquaintances, relatives, wives of Mailer and Mailer himself.

Conversations with Norman Mailer, edited by J. Michael Lennon. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1988.

Norman Mailer: A Collection of Critical Essays edited by Leo Braudy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972. Contains useful insights on Miami and the Siege of Chicago.

Existential Battles: The Growth of Norman Mailer by Laura Adams. Athens: University of Ohio Press, 1976. Good discussion of early narrators.

Time to Murder and Create: The Contemporary Novel in Crisis by John W. Aldridge. New York: David McKay, 1966. Contains Aldridge's important essay on An American Dream.

The Portable Beat Reader, edited by Ann Charters, Penguin Books. New York. 1992. ISBN 0-670-83885-3 (hc); ISBN 0-14-015102-8 (pbk). Contains "The White Negro."

The Norman Mailer Review, edited by Phillip Sipiora. New periodical co-sponsored by the University of South Florida and The Norman Mailer Society (www.normanmailersociety.com).

The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture: Francis Irby Gwaltney http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=3034

Van A. Tyson http://www.atkinschronicle.com/vantyson.htm

External links

Transcript of interview with Ramona Koval, Edinburgh International Book Festival, August 2000 broadcast on The Book Show, ABC Radio National, November 12, 2007

The Norman Mailer Society

"Superman Comes to the Supermarket," article by Norman Mailer on John F. Kennedy, Esquire magazine, November 1960

Sunday New York Times review by Lee Siegel of The Castle in the Forest

Norman Mailer on American Masters (PBS Broadcast)

Norman Mailer: The American (Documentary)

Norman Mailer's writing on the Huffington Post

A conversation with Norman Mailer (Minnesota Public Radio)

Norman Mailer and Günter Grass interviewed by Andrew O'Hagan at The New York Public Library, June 2007

Norman Mailer speech at UC Berkeley Vietnam Teach-In, 1965 (RealAudio) (via UC Berkeley Media Resources Center)

Category:Actors Studio alumni Category:American anti-Iraq War activists Category:American anti-Vietnam War activists Category:American biographers Category:American essayists Category:American Jews Category:American journalists Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:American novelists Category:American screenwriters Category:American tax resisters Category:Chicago Seven Category:Deaths from renal failure Category:Harvard University alumni Category:University of Paris alumni Category:Jewish American writers Category:Jewish novelists Category:Légion d'honneur recipients Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Category:New York City mayoral candidates Category:People from Long Branch, New Jersey Category:Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners Category:United States Army soldiers Category:Writers from New Jersey Category:1923 births Category:2007 deaths Category:Jewish American military personnel Category:American technology writers Category:American science writers Category:People from Provincetown, Massachusetts

Name	Muhammad Ali
Nationality	American
Nickname	The GreatestThe ChampThe Louisville Lip
Height
Reach
Weight	Heavyweight
Birth date	January 17, 1942
Birth place	Louisville, Kentucky, United States
Style	Orthodox
Total	61
Wins	56
Ko	37
Losses	5
Draws	0
No contests	0

}} Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.; January 17, 1942) is a former American boxer and three-time World Heavyweight Champion, who is widely considered one of the greatest heavyweight championship boxers. As an amateur, he won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. After turning professional, he went on to become the first boxer to win the lineal heavyweight championship three times.

Originally known as Cassius Clay, Ali changed his name after joining the Nation of Islam in 1964, subsequently converting to Sunni Islam in 1975 and more recently to Sufism. In 1967, Ali refused to be conscripted into the U.S. military, based on his religious beliefs and opposition to the Vietnam War. He was arrested and found guilty on draft evasion charges, stripped of his boxing title, and his boxing license was suspended. He was not imprisoned, but did not fight again for nearly four years while his appeal worked its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it was successful.

Nicknamed "The Greatest", Ali was involved in several historic boxing matches. Notable among these are three with rival Joe Frazier and one with George Foreman, whom he beat by knockout to win the world heavyweight title for the second time. He suffered only five losses (four decisions and one TKO by retirement from the bout) with no draws in his career, while amassing 56 wins (37 knockouts and 19 decisions). Ali was well known for his unorthodox fighting style, which he described as "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee", and employing techniques such as the rope-a-dope. He was also known for his pre-match hype, where he would "trash talk" opponents on television and in person some time before the match, often with rhymes. These personality quips and idioms, along with an unorthodox fighting technique, made him a cultural icon. In later life, Ali developed Parkinson's disease. In 1999, Ali was crowned "Sportsman of the Century" by Sports Illustrated and "Sports Personality of the Century" by the BBC.

Biography

Amateur career and Olympic gold

Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., was born on January 17, 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky. and his mother, Odessa Grady Clay, was a household domestic. Although Cassius Sr. was a Methodist, he allowed Odessa to bring up both Cassius and his elder brother Rudolph "Rudy" Clay (later renamed Rahman Ali) as Baptists. He is a descendant of pre-Civil War era American slaves in the American South, and is predominantly of African-American descent, with some Irish and English ancestry.

Clay was first directed toward boxing by the white Louisville police officer and boxing coach Joe E. Martin, who encountered the 12-year-old fuming over the theft of his bicycle. However, without Martin's knowledge, Clay also began training with Fred Stoner, an African-American trainer working at the local community center. In this way, Clay could make $4 a week on Tomorrow's Champions, a local, weekly TV show that Martin hosted, while benefiting from the coaching of the more experienced Stoner, who continued working with Clay throughout his amateur career.

Under Stoner's guidance, Cassius Clay won six Kentucky Golden Gloves titles, two national Golden Gloves titles, an Amateur Athletic Union National Title, and the Light Heavyweight gold medal in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. Clay's amateur record was 100 wins with five losses.

Ali states (in his 1975 autobiography) that he threw his Olympic gold medal into the Ohio River after being refused service at a 'whites-only' restaurant, and fighting with a white gang. Whether this is true is still debated, although he was given a replacement medal at a basketball intermission during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, where he lit the torch to start the games.

Early professional career

After his Olympic triumph, Clay returned to Louisville to begin his professional career. There, on October 29, 1960, he won his first professional fight, a six-round decision over Tunney Hunsaker, who was the police chief of Fayetteville, West Virginia.

Standing tall, at 6-ft, 3-in (1.91 m), Clay had a highly unorthodox style for a heavyweight boxer. Rather than the normal style of carrying the hands high to defend the face, he instead relied on foot speed and quickness to avoid punches, and carried his hands low.

From 1960 to 1963, the young fighter amassed a record of 19–0, with 15 knockouts. He defeated boxers such as Tony Esperti, Jim Robinson, Donnie Fleeman, Alonzo Johnson, George Logan, Willi Besmanoff, Lamar Clark (who had won his previous 40 bouts by knockout), Doug Jones and Henry Cooper.

Clay built a reputation by correctly predicting the round in which he would "finish" several opponents, and by boasting before his triumphs. had Clay's colorful persona and nonstop braggadocio as its sole appeal.

Faversham confronted Clay about his association with Malcolm X (who, at the time, was actually under suspension by the Nation as a result of controversial comments made in the wake of President Kennedy's assassination). While stopping short of admitting he was a member of the Nation, Clay protested the suggested cancellation of the fight. As a compromise, Faversham asked the fighter to delay his announcement about his conversion to Islam until after the fight. The incident is described in the 1975 book The Greatest: My Own Story by Ali (with Richard Durham).

During the weigh-in on the day before the bout, the ever-boastful Clay, who frequently taunted Liston during the buildup by dubbing him "the big ugly bear" (among other things), declared that he would "float like a butterfly and sting like a bee," and, summarizing his strategy for avoiding Liston's assaults, said, "Your hands can't hit what your eyes can't see."

First title fight and aftermath

At the pre-fight weigh-in, Clay's pulse rate was around 120, more than double his norm of 54. Liston, among others, misread this as nervousness. In the opening rounds, Clay's speed kept him away from Liston's powerful head and body shots, as he used his height advantage to beat Liston to the punch with his own lightning-quick jab. And in relation to inter-racial marriage: "No intelligent black man or black woman in his or her right black mind wants white boys and white girls coming to their homes to marry their black sons and daughters."

Appearing shortly thereafter for his scheduled induction into the U.S. Armed Forces on April 28, 1967 in Houston, he refused three times to step forward at the call of his name. An officer warned him he was committing a felony punishable by five years in prison and a fine of $10,000. Once more, Ali refused to budge when his name was called. As a result, he was arrested and on the same day the New York State Athletic Commission suspended his boxing license and stripped him of his title. Other boxing commissions followed suit.

At the trial on June 20, 1967, after only 21 minutes of deliberation, the jury found Ali guilty.

Quotes about Vietnam war

}}

The Fight of the Century

In 1970, while his case was still on appeal, Ali was allowed to fight again. On August 12, 1970, with the help of Leroy R. Johnson, a Georgia State Senator, he was granted a license to box by the City of Atlanta Athletic Commission. In Atlanta on October 26, 1970, he stopped Jerry Quarry on a cut after three rounds. Shortly after the Quarry fight, the New York State Supreme Court ruled that Ali had been unjustly denied a boxing license. Once again able to fight in New York, he fought Oscar Bonavena at Madison Square Garden in December 1970. After a tough 14 rounds, Ali stopped Bonavena in the 15th, paving the way for a title fight against Joe Frazier, who was himself undefeated.

Ali and Frazier met in the ring on March 8, 1971, at Madison Square Garden. The fight, known as '"The Fight of the Century," was one of the most eagerly anticipated bouts of all time and remains one of the most famous. It featured two skilled, undefeated fighters, both of whom had legitimate claims to the heavyweight crown. Frank Sinatra—unable to acquire a ringside seat—took photos of the match for Life magazine. Legendary boxing announcer Don Dunphy and actor and boxing aficionado Burt Lancaster called the action for the broadcast, which reached millions of people. The fight lived up to the hype, and Frazier punctuated his victory by flooring Ali with a hard, leaping left hook in the 15th and final round. Frazier retained the title on a unanimous decision, dealing Ali his first professional loss.

In 1973, Ali fought Ken Norton, who broke Ali's jaw and won by split decision in 12 rounds. Ali won the rematch, also by split decision, on September 10, 1973, which set up Ali-Frazier II, a nontitle rematch with Joe Frazier, who had already lost his title to George Foreman. The bout was held on January 28, 1974, with Ali winning a unanimous 12-round decision.

The Rumble in the Jungle

In one of the biggest upsets in boxing history, Ali regained his title on October 30, 1974 by defeating champion George Foreman in their bout in Kinshasa, Zaire. Hyped as "The Rumble In The Jungle", the fight was promoted by Don King.

Almost no one, not even Ali's long-time supporter Howard Cosell, gave the former champion a chance of winning. Analysts pointed out that Joe Frazier and Ken Norton had given Ali four tough battles in the ring and won two of them, while Foreman had knocked out both of them in the second round. As a matter of fact, so total was the domination that, in their bout, Foreman had knocked down Frazier an incredible six times in only four minutes and 25 seconds.

During the bout, Ali employed an unexpected strategy. Leading up to the fight, he had declared he was going to "dance" and use his speed to keep away from Foreman and outbox him. However, in the first round, Ali headed straight for the champion and began scoring with a right hand lead, clearly surprising Foreman. Ali caught Foreman nine times in the first round with this technique but failed to knock him out. He then decided to take advantage of the young champion's weakness: staying power. Foreman had won 37 of his 40 bouts by knockout, mostly within three rounds. Eight of his previous bouts didn't go past the second round. Ali saw an opportunity to outlast Foreman, and capitalized on it.

In the second round, the challenger retreated to the ropes—inviting Foreman to hit him, while counterpunching and verbally taunting the younger man. Ali's plan was to enrage Foreman and absorb his best blows to exhaust him mentally and physically. While Foreman threw wide shots to Ali's body, Ali countered with stinging straight punches to Foreman's head. Foreman threw hundreds of punches in seven rounds, but with decreasing technique and potency. Ali's tactic of leaning on the ropes, covering up, and absorbing ineffective body shots was later termed "The Rope-A-Dope".

By the end of the seventh round, Foreman was exhausted. In the eighth round, Ali dropped Foreman with a combination at center ring and Foreman failed to make the count. Against the odds, Ali had regained the title.

The "Rumble in the Jungle" was the subject of a 1996 Academy Award winning documentary film, When We Were Kings. The fight and the events leading up to it are extensively depicted in both John Herzfeld's 1997 docudrama and Michael Mann's 2001 docudrama, Ali.

The Thrilla in Manila

In March 1975, Ali faced Chuck Wepner in a bout that inspired the original Rocky. While it was largely thought that Ali would dominate, Wepner surprised everyone by not only knocking Ali down in the ninth round, but nearly going the distance. Ali eventually stopped Wepner in the fading minutes of the 15th round. Following a title defense with Ron Lyle, in July Ali faced Joe Bugner, winning a 15 round decision.

On October 1, 1975, Ali fought Joe Frazier for the third time. Although widely perceived as a publicity stunt, the match against Inoki would have a long-term detrimental affect on Ali's mobility. Inoki spent much of the fight on the ground trying to damage Ali’s legs, while Ali spent most of the fight dodging the kicks or staying on the ropes. At the end of 15 rounds, the bout was called a draw. Ali's legs, however, were bleeding, leading to an infection. He suffered two blood clots in his legs as well.

In 1993, the Associated Press reported that Ali was tied with Babe Ruth as the most recognized athlete, out of over 800 dead or alive athletes, in America. The study, conducted by Nye Lavalle's Sports Marketing Group, found that over 97% of Americans, over 12-years of age, identified both Ali and Ruth.

He was the recipient of the 1997 Arthur Ashe Courage Award.

In retirement

Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1984, a disease for which those subject to severe head trauma, such as boxers, are many times more susceptible. Despite the disability, he remains a beloved and active public figure. In 1985, he served as a guest referee at the inaugural WrestleMania event. In 1987 he was selected by the California Bicentennial Foundation for the U.S. Constitution to personify the vitality of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights in various high profile activities. Ali rode on a float at the 1988 Tournament of Roses Parade, launching the U.S. Constitution's 200th birthday commemoration. He also published an oral history, by Thomas Hauser, in 1991. That same year Ali traveled to Iraq during the Gulf War and met with Saddam Hussein in an attempt to negotiate the release of American hostages. Ali received a Spirit of America Award calling him the most recognized American in the world. In 1996, he had the honor of lighting the flame at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.

, alongside Interstate 64 on Louisville's riverfront]]

He appeared at the 1998 AFL (Australian Football League) Grand Final, where Anthony Pratt invited him to watch the game. He also greets runners at the start line of the Los Angeles Marathon every year.

In 1999, the BBC produced a special version of its annual BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award ceremony, and Ali was voted their Sports Personality of the Century, receiving more votes than the other four contenders combined. His daughter Laila Ali also became a boxer in 1999, despite her father's earlier comments against female boxing in 1978: "Women are not made to be hit in the breast, and face like that... the body's not made to be punched right here [patting his chest]. Get hit in the breast... hard... and all that."

On September 13, 1999, Ali was named "Kentucky Athlete of the Century" by the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame in ceremonies at the Galt House East.

on display at the Ali Center]]

In 2001, a biographical film, entitled Ali, was made, directed by Michael Mann, with Will Smith starring as Ali. The film received mixed reviews, with the positives generally attributed to the acting, as Smith and supporting actor Jon Voight earned Academy Award nominations. Prior to making the Ali movie, Will Smith had continually rejected the role of Ali until Muhammad Ali personally requested that he accept the role. According to Smith, the first thing Ali said about the subject to him was: "Man, you're almost pretty enough to play me."

On November 17, 2002, Muhammad Ali went to Afghanistan as "U.N. Messenger of Peace". He was in Kabul for a three-day goodwill mission as a special guest of the United Nations.

On January 8, 2005, Muhammad Ali was presented with the Presidential Citizens Medal by President George W. Bush.

He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony on November 9, 2005, and the "Otto Hahn Peace Medal in Gold" of the United Nations Association of Germany (DGVN) in Berlin for his work with the US civil rights movement and the United Nations (December 17, 2005).

embraces Muhammad Ali after presenting him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 9, 2005, during ceremonies at the White House.]]

On November 19, 2005 (Ali's 19th wedding anniversary), the $60 million non-profit Muhammad Ali Center opened in downtown Louisville. In addition to displaying his boxing memorabilia, the center focuses on core themes of peace, social responsibility, respect, and personal growth.

According to the Ali Center website, "Since he retired from boxing, Ali has devoted himself to humanitarian endeavors around the globe. He is a devout Muslim, and travels the world over, lending his name and presence to hunger and poverty relief, supporting education efforts of all kinds, promoting adoption and encouraging people to respect and better understand one another. It is estimated that he has helped to provide more than 22 million meals to feed the hungry. Ali travels, on average, more than 200 days per year."

At the FedEx Orange Bowl on January 2, 2007, Ali was an honorary captain for the Louisville Cardinals wearing their white jersey, number 19. Ali was accompanied by golf legend Arnold Palmer, who was the honorary captain for the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, and Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade.

A youth club in Ali's hometown and a species of rose (Rosa ali) have also been named after him. On June 5, 2007, he received an honorary doctorate of humanities at Princeton University's 260th graduation ceremony.

Ali lives in Scottsdale, Arizona with his fourth wife, Yolanda "Lonnie" Ali. They own a house in Berrien Springs, Michigan, which is for sale. On January 9, 2007, they purchased a house in eastern Jefferson County, Kentucky for $1,875,000. Lonnie converted to Islam from Catholicism in her late 20s.

On the 17th of August 2009, it was voted unanimously by the town council of Ennis, Co Clare, Ireland to make Ali the first Freeman of Ennis. Ennis was the birthplace of Ali's great grandfather before he emigrated to the U.S. in the 1860s, before eventually settling in Kentucky. On September 1, 2009, Ali visited the town of Ennis and at a civic reception he received the honour of the freedom of the town.

Ranking in heavyweight history

are preserved in the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History]]

Ali is generally considered to be one of the greatest heavyweights of all time by boxing commentators and historians. Ring Magazine, a prominent boxing magazine, named him number 1 in a 1998 ranking of greatest heavyweights from all eras.

Ali was named the second greatest fighter in boxing history by ESPN.com behind only welterweight and middleweight great Sugar Ray Robinson. In December 2007, ESPN listed Ali second in its choice of the greatest heavyweights of all time, behind Joe Louis.

Personal life

Muhammad Ali has been married four times and has seven daughters and two sons. Ali met his first wife, cocktail waitress Sonji Roi, approximately one month before they married on August 14, 1964. Roi's objections to certain Muslim customs in regard to dress for women contributed to the breakup of their marriage. They divorced on January 10, 1966.

On August 17, 1967, Ali (aged 25) married 17-year old Belinda Boyd. After the wedding, she converted to Islam and changed her name to Khalilah Ali, though she was still called Belinda by old friends and family. They had four children: Maryum (b. 1968), Jamillah and Liban (b. 1970), and Muhammad Ali Jr. (b. 1972).

In 1975, Ali began an affair with Veronica Porsche, an actress and model. By the summer of 1977, Ali's second marriage was over and he had married Veronica. At the time of their marriage, they had a baby girl, Hana, and Veronica was pregnant with their second child. Their second daughter, Laila, was born in December 1977. By 1986, Ali and Veronica were divorced.

On November 19, 1986, Ali married Yolanda Ali. They had been friends since 1964 in Louisville. They have one adopted son, Asaad Amin, who they adopted when Amin was five.

Ali has two other daughters, Miya and Khaliah, from extramarital relationships.

Ali in the media and popular culture

As a world champion boxer and social activist, Ali has been the subject of numerous books, films and other creative works. In 1963, he released an album of spoken word on Columbia Records titled I am the Greatest! He has appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated on 37 different occasions, second only to Michael Jordan. He appeared in the documentary film Black Rodeo (1972) riding both a horse and a bull. His autobiography The Greatest: My Own Story, written with Richard Durham, was published in 1975. In 1977 the book was adapted into a film called The Greatest, in which Ali played himself and Ernest Borgnine played Angelo Dundee. When We Were Kings, a 1996 documentary about the Rumble in the Jungle, won an Academy Award, and the 2001 biopic Ali garnered an Oscar nomination for Will Smith's portrayal of the lead role.

For contributions to the entertainment industry, Muhammed Ali was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard.

Professional boxing record

|- | style="text-align:center;" colspan="8"|56 Wins (37 knockouts, 19 decisions), 5 Losses (4 decisions, 1 retirement), 0 Draws |- style="text-align:center; background:#e3e3e3; background:#e3e3e3;" | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Res. | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Opponent | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Type | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Rd., Time | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Date | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Location | style="border-style:none none solid solid; "|Notes |- style="text-align:center;" | Loss | Trevor Berbick | Decision | 10 | 1981-12-11 | Align=left| Nassau, Bahamas | |- style="text-align:center;" | Loss | Larry Holmes | TKO | 10 | 1980-10-02 | Align=left| Las Vegas, NV | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Leon Spinks | Decision | 15 | 1978-09-15 | Align=left| New Orleans, LA | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Loss | Leon Spinks | Decision | 15 | 1978-02-15 | Align=left| Las Vegas, NV | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Earnie Shavers | Decision | 15 | 1977-09-29 | Align=left| New York City, NY | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Alfredo Evangelista | Decision | 15 | 1977-05-16 | Align=left| Landover, MD | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Ken Norton | Decision | 15 | 1976-09-28 | Align=left| The Bronx, New York | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Richard Dunn | TKO | 5 | 1976-05-24 | Align=left| Munich, Germany | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Jimmy Young | Decision | 15 | 1976-04-30 | Align=left| Landover, MD | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Jean-Pierre Coopman | KO | 5 | 1976-02-20 | Align=left| San Juan, Puerto Rico | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Joe Frazier | TKO | 14 , 0:59 | 1975-10-01 | Align=left| Quezon City, Philippines | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Joe Bugner | Decision | 15 | 1975-06-30 | Align=left| Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Ron Lyle | TKO | 11 | 1975-05-16 | Align=left| Las Vegas, NV | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Chuck Wepner | TKO | 15 , 2:41 | 1975-03-24 | Align=left| Richfield, OH | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | George Foreman | KO | 8 , 2:58 | 1974-10-30 | Align=left| Kinshasa, Zaire | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Joe Frazier | Decision | 12 | 1974-01-28 | Align=left| New York City, NY | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Rudi Lubbers | Decision | 12 | 1973-10-20 | Align=left| Jakarta, Indonesia | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Ken Norton | Decision | 12 | 1973-09-10 | Align=left| Inglewood, CA | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Loss | Ken Norton | Decision | 12 | 1973-03-31 | Align=left| San Diego, CA | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Joe Bugner | Decision | 12 | 1973-02-14 | Align=left| Las Vegas, NV | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Bob Foster | KO | 7 | 1972-11-21 | Align=left| Stateline, NV | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Floyd Patterson | TKO | 7 | 1972-09-20 | Align=left| New York City, NY | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Alvin Lewis | TKO | 11 , 1:15 | 1972-07-19 | Align=left| Dublin, Ireland | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Jerry Quarry | TKO | 7 , 0:19 | 1972-06-27 | Align=left| Las Vegas, NV | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | George Chuvalo | Decision | 12 | 1972-05-01 | Align=left| Vancouver, Canada | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Mac Foster | Decision | 15 | 1972-04-01 | Align=left| Tokyo, Japan | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Jürgen Blin | KO | 7 , 2:12 | 1971-12-26 | Align=left| Zurich, Switzerland | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Buster Mathis | Decision | 12 | 1971-11-17 | Align=left| Houston, TX | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Jimmy Ellis | TKO | 12 , 2:10 | 1971-07-26 | Align=left| Houston, TX | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Loss | Joe Frazier | Decision | 15 | 1971-03-08 | Align=left| New York City, NY | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Oscar Bonavena | TKO | 15 , 2:03 | 1970-12-07 | Align=left| New York City, NY | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Jerry Quarry | TKO | 3 | 1970-10-26 | Align=left| Atlanta, GA | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Zora Folley | KO | 7 , 1:48 | 1967-03-22 | Align=left| New York City, NY | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Ernie Terrell | Decision | 15 | 1967-02-06 | Align=left| Houston, TX | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Cleveland Williams | TKO | 3 | 1966-11-14 | Align=left| Houston, TX | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Karl Mildenberger | TKO | 12 | 1966-09-10 | Align=left| Frankfurt, Germany | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Brian London | KO | 3 | 1966-08-06 | Align=left| London, England | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Henry Cooper | TKO | 6 , 1:38 | 1966-05-21 | Align=left| London, England | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | George Chuvalo | Decision | 15 | 1966-03-29 | Align=left| Toronto, Canada | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Floyd Patterson | TKO | 12 , 2:18 | 1965-11-22 | Align=left| Las Vegas, NV | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Sonny Liston | KO | 1 , 2:12 | 1965-05-25 | Align=left| Lewiston, ME | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Sonny Liston | TKO | 7 | 1964-02-25 | Align=left| Miami Beach, FL | Align=left| |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Henry Cooper | TKO | 5 , 2:15 | 1963-06-18 | Align=left| London, England | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Doug Jones | Decision | 10 | 1963-03-13 | Align=left| New York City, NY | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Charley Powell | KO | 3, 2:04 | 1963-01-24 | Align=left| Pittsburgh, PA | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Archie Moore | TKO | 4 , 1:35 | 1962-11-15 | Align=left| Los Angeles, CA | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Alejandro Lavorante | KO | 5 , 1:48 | 1962-07-20 | Align=left| Los Angeles, CA | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Billy Daniels | TKO | 7 , 2:21 | 1962-05-19 | Align=left| New York City, NY | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | George Logan | TKO | 4 , 1:34 | 1962-04-23 | Align=left| New York City, NY | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Don Warner | TKO | 4, 0:34 | 1962-03-28 | Align=left| Miami Beach, FL | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Sonny Banks | TKO | 4 , 0:26 | 1962-02-10 | Align=left| New York City, NY | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Willi Besmanoff | TKO | 7 , 1:55 | 1961-11-29 | Align=left| Louisville, KY | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Alex Miteff | TKO | 6 , 1:45 | 1961-10-07 | Align=left| Louisville, KY | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Alonzo Johnson | Decision | 10 | 1961-07-22 | Align=left| Louisville, KY | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Duke Sabedong | Decision | 10 | 1961-06-26 | Align=left| Las Vegas, NV | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | LaMar Clark | KO | 2 , 1:27 | 1961-04-19 | Align=left| Louisville, KY | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Donnie Fleeman | TKO | 7 | 1961-02-21 | Align=left| Miami Beach, FL | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Jimmy Robinson | KO | 1 , 1:34 | 1961-02-07 | Align=left| Miami Beach, FL | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Tony Esperti | TKO | 3 , 1:30 | 1961-01-17 | Align=left| Miami Beach, FL | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Herb Siler | KO | 4 | 1960-12-27 | Align=left| Miami Beach, FL | |- style="text-align:center;" | Win | Tunney Hunsaker | Decision | 6 | 1960-10-29 | Align=left| Louisville, KY |

See also

List of heavyweight boxing champions

List of North American Muslims

List of people from Louisville, Kentucky

List of WBA world champions

List of WBC world champions

Notable boxing families

Conscientious Objector

Notes

References

External links

www.maprc.com Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center (MAPC)

Muhammad Ali: Made in Miami

Cassius Clay: Before He Was Ali - slideshow by Life magazine

Honors and Awards.com - Presidential Citizens Medal

http://boxrec.com/ratings.php?country=&sex;=m&division;=Heavyweight&status;=E&SUBMIT;=Go

http://boxrec.com/ratings.php?country=&sex;=m&division;=P4P&status;=E&SUBMIT;=Go

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Category:1942 births Category:Living people Category:African American boxers Category:American boxers of Irish descent Category:American boxers of English descent Category:American anti-Vietnam War activists Category:Boxers from Kentucky Category:World Heavyweight Champions Category:Heavyweights Category:WBA Champions Category:WBC Champions Category:African American Muslims Category:American conscientious objectors Category:American Sufis Category:Boxers at the 1960 Summer Olympics Category:COINTELPRO targets Category:Converts to Islam from Christianity Category:International Boxing Hall of Fame inductees Category:Kentucky colonels Category:Olympic boxers of the United States Category:Olympic gold medalists for the United States Category:People with Parkinson's disease Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:Presidential Citizens Medal recipients Category:Professional wrestling referees Category:People from Louisville, Kentucky Category:People from Paradise Valley, Arizona Category:Winners of the United States Championship for amateur boxers Category:African American converts to Islam Category:Former Nation of Islam members

Name	Michael Palin
Caption	Palin in Trento, Italy in 2005
Birth name	Michael Edward Palin
Birth date	May 05, 1943
Birth place	Broomhill, Sheffield, England, United Kingdom
Spouse	Helen Gibbins(married 1966 – present)
Known for	Monty Python and Travel documentaries
Occupation	Actor, writer, television presenter, comedian
Years active	1965–present
Website	Palin's Travels
Children	3

Michael Edward Palin, CBE FRGS (born 5 May 1943) is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries. Palin wrote most of his comedic material with Terry Jones. Before Monty Python, they had worked on other shows such as The Ken Dodd Show, The Frost Report and Do Not Adjust Your Set. Palin appeared in some of the most famous Python sketches, including "Argument Clinic", "Dead Parrot", "The Lumberjack Song", "The Spanish Inquisition" and "Spam".

Palin continued to work with Jones after Python, co-writing Ripping Yarns. He has also appeared in several films directed by fellow Python Terry Gilliam and made notable appearances in other films such as A Fish Called Wanda, for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted the 30th favourite by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.

After Python, he began a new career as a travel writer and travel documentarian. His journeys have taken him across the world, including the North and South Poles, the Sahara desert, the Himalayas and, most recently, Eastern Europe. In 2000 Palin was honoured as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to television.

Early life and career

Palin was born in Broomhill, Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, the second child and only son of Mary Rachel Lockhart (née Ovey) and Edward Moreton Palin. His father was an engineer working for a steel firm. He started his education at Birkdale Preparatory School, Sheffield, and later Shrewsbury School. His sister Angela was nine years older than him. Despite the age gap the two had a close relationship until her suicide in 1986.

When he was five years old, Palin had his first acting experience at Birkdale playing Martha Cratchit in a school performance of A Christmas Carol. At the age of 10, Palin, still interested in acting, made a comedy monologue and read a Shakespeare play to his mother while playing all the parts. After his school days in 1962 he went on to read modern history at Brasenose College, Oxford. With fellow student Robert Hewison he performed and wrote, for the first time, comedy material at a university Christmas party. Terry Jones, also a student in Oxford, saw that performance and began writing together with Hewison and Palin. He also performed in the Oxford Revue with Jones.

In 1966 he married Helen Gibbins, whom he first met in 1959 on holiday in Southwold in Suffolk, where he has returned in recent years to live. This meeting was later fictionalised in Palin's play East of Ipswich. The couple have three children and a grandchild. His youngest child, Rachel (b.1975) is a BBC TV director, whose work includes Masterchef: The Professionals, shown on BBC2 throughout October and November 2010. While still a baby, his son William briefly appeared in Monty Python and the Holy Grail as "Sir Not-appearing-in-this-film".

After finishing university in 1965 Palin became a presenter on a comedy pop show called Now! for the television contractor Television Wales and the West. At the same time Palin was contacted by Jones, who had left university a year earlier, for assistance in writing a theatrical documentary about sex through the ages. Although this project was eventually abandoned, it brought Palin and Jones together as a writing duo and led them to write comedy for various BBC programmes, such as The Ken Dodd Show, The Billy Cotton Bandshow, and The Illustrated Weekly Hudd. They collaborated in writing lyrics for an album by Barry Booth called Diversions. They were also in the team of writers working for The Frost Report, whose other members included Frank Muir, Barry Cryer, Marty Feldman, Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett, Dick Vosburgh, and future Monty Python members Graham Chapman, John Cleese and Eric Idle. Although the members of Monty Python had already encountered each other over the years, The Frost Report was the first time all the British members of Monty Python (its sixth member, Terry Gilliam, was at that time an American citizen) worked together. During the run of The Frost Report the Palin/Jones team contributed material to two shows starring John Bird: The Late Show and A series of Bird's. For A series of Bird's the Palin/Jones team had their first experience of writing narrative instead of the short sketches they were accustomed to conceiving.

Following The Frost Report the Palin/Jones team worked both as actors and writers on the show Twice a Fortnight with Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie and Jonathan Lynn, and the successful children's comedy show Do Not Adjust Your Set with Idle and David Jason. The show also featured musical numbers by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, including future Monty Python musical collaborator Neil Innes. The animations for Do Not Adjust Your Set were made by Terry Gilliam, who joined the cast on Cleese's recommendation and began working with the Palin/Jones team for the first time. Eager to work with Palin sans Jones, Cleese later asked him to perform in How to Irritate People together with Chapman and Tim Brooke-Taylor. The Palin/Jones team were reunited for The Complete and Utter History of Britain.

During this period Cleese contacted Palin about doing the show that would ultimately become Monty Python's Flying Circus. On the strength of their work on The Frost Report and other programmes, Cleese and Chapman had been offered a show by the BBC, but Cleese was reluctant to do a two-man show for various reasons, among them Chapman's reputedly difficult personality. At the same time the success of Do Not Adjust Your Set had led Palin, Jones, Idle, and Gilliam to be offered their own series and, while it was still in production, Palin agreed to Cleese's proposal and brought along Idle, Jones, and Gilliam. Thus the formation of the Monty Python troupe has been referred to as a result of Cleese's desire to work with Palin and the chance circumstances that brought the other four members into the fold.

Monty Python

In Monty Python, Palin played various roles, which ranged from manic enthusiasm (such as the lumberjack of the Lumberjack Song, or host of the game show "Blackmail") to unflappable calmness (such as the Dead Parrot vendor, Cheese Shop proprietor, or Postal Clerk). As a straight man he was often a foil to the rising ire of characters portrayed by John Cleese. He also played timid, socially inept characters such as Arthur Putey, the man who sits idly by as a marriage counsellor (Eric Idle) makes love to his wife (Carol Cleveland), and a chartered accountant who wants to become a lion tamer. He also appeared as the "It's" man at the beginning of most episodes.

Palin frequently co-wrote sketches with Terry Jones, including "The Lumberjack Song" and "Spam". Palin also initiated the "Spanish Inquisition sketch", which included the catchphrase "''Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

Other work

After the Monty Python television series ended in 1974, the Palin/Jones team worked on Ripping Yarns, an intermittent television comedy series broadcast over three years from 1976. They had earlier collaborated on the play Secrets from the BBC series Black and Blue in 1973. He starred as Dennis the Peasant in Terry Gilliam's 1977 film Jabberwocky. Palin also appeared in All You Need Is Cash (1978) as Eric Manchester (based on Derek Taylor), the press agent for The Rutles.

In 1980, Palin co-wrote Time Bandits with Terry Gilliam. He also acted in the film.

In 1982, Palin wrote and starred in The Missionary, co-starring Maggie Smith. In it, he plays the Reverend Charles Fortescue, who is recalled from Africa to aid prostitutes.

In 1984, he reunited with Terry Gilliam to appear in Brazil. He appeared in the comedy film A Fish Called Wanda, for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

He also assisted Campaign for Better Transport and others with campaigns on sustainable transport, particularly those relating to urban areas, and has been president of the campaign since 1986.

Palin has also appeared in serious drama. In 1991 Palin worked as producer and actor in the film American Friends based upon a real event in the life of his great grandfather, a fellow at St John's College, Oxford. In that same year he also played the part of a headmaster in Alan Bleasdale's Channel 4 drama series G.B.H..

Palin also had a small cameo role in Australian soap opera Home and Away. He played an English surfer with a fear of sharks, who interrupts a conversation between two main characters to ask whether there were any sharks in the sea. This was filmed while he was in Australia for the Full Circle series, with a segment about the filming of the role featuring in the series.

Television documentaries

Travel

Palin's first travel documentary was part of the 1980 BBC Television series Great Railway Journeys of the World, in which, humorously reminiscing about his childhood hobby of train spotting, he travelled throughout the UK by train, from London to the Kyle of Lochalsh, via Manchester, York, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Edinburgh and Inverness. At the Kyle of Lochalsh, Palin bought the station's long metal platform sign and is seen lugging it back to London with him.

In 1994, Palin travelled through Ireland for the same series, entitled "Derry to Kerry". In a quest for family roots, he attempted to trace his great grandmother — Brita Gallagher — who set sail from Ireland 150 years ago during the Great Famine (1845-1849), bound for a new life in Burlington, New Jersey. The series is a trip along the Palin family line.

Starting in 1989, Palin appeared as presenter in a series of travel programmes made for the BBC. It was after the veteran TV globetrotter Alan Whicker and journalist Miles Kington turned down presenting the first of these, Around the World in 80 Days, that gave Palin the opportunity to present his first and subsequent travel shows. These programmes have been broadcast around the world in syndication, and were also sold on VHS tape and later on DVD:

(Travel 1988; Programme release 1989): travelling as closely as possible the path described in the famous Jules Verne story without using aircraft.

Pole to Pole (Travel 1991; Programme release 1992): travelling from the North Pole to the South Pole, following as closely as possible the 30 degree line of longitude, over as much land as possible, i.e., through Europe and Africa.

Full Circle with Michael Palin (Travel 1996/97; Programme release 1997): in which he circumnavigated the lands around the Pacific Ocean counter-clockwise; a journey of 80,000 kilometres starting on Little Diomede Island in the Bering Strait and taking him through Asia, Oceania and the Americas.

Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure (1999): retracing the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway through the United States, Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean.

Sahara with Michael Palin (Travel 2001/02; Programme release 2002): in which he trekked around and through the world's largest desert.

Himalaya with Michael Palin (Travel 2003/04; Programme release 2004): in which he travels through the Himalaya region.

Michael Palin's New Europe (Travel 2006/07; Programme release 2007): in which he travels through Central and Eastern Europe.

Following each trip, Palin wrote a book about his travels, providing information and insights not included in the TV programme. Each book is illustrated with photographs by Basil Pao, the stills photographer who was on the team. (Exception: the first book, Around the World in 80 Days, contains some pictures by Pao but most are by other photographers.)

All seven of these books were also made available as audio books, and all of them are read by Palin himself. Around the World in 80 Days and Hemingway Adventure are unabridged, while the other four books were made in both abridged and unabridged versions, although the unabridged versions can be very difficult to find.

For four of the trips a photography book was made by Pao, each with an introduction written by Palin. These are large coffee-table style books with pictures printed on glossy paper. The majority of the pictures are of various people encountered on the trip, as informal portraits or showing them engaged in some interesting activity. Some of the landscape photos are displayed as two-page spreads.

Palin's travel programmes are responsible for a phenomenon termed the "Palin effect": areas of the world that he has visited suddenly become popular tourist attractions — for example, the significant increase in the number of tourists interested in Peru after Palin visited Machu Picchu. In a 2006 survey of "15 of the world's top travel writers" by The Observer, Palin named Peru's Pongo de Mainique (canyon below the Machu Picchu) his "favourite place in the world".

Art and history

In recent years, Palin has written and presented occasional documentary programmes on artists that interest him. The first, on Scottish painter Anne Redpath, was Palin on Redpath in 1997. In The Bright Side of Life (2000), Palin continued on a Scottish theme, looking at the work of the Scottish Colourists. Two further programmes followed on European painters; Michael Palin and the Ladies Who Loved Matisse (2004) and Michael Palin and the Mystery of Hammershøi (2005), about the Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi. The DVD Michael Palin on Art contains all these documentaries except for the Matisse programme.

In November 2008, Palin presented a First World War documentary about Armistice Day, 11 November 1918, when thousands of soldiers lost their lives in battle after the war had officially ended. Palin filmed on the battlefields of northern France and Belgium for the programme, called The Last Day of World War One, produced for the BBC's Timewatch series.

Niceness

Michael Palin finds it hard to deal with the 'nicest man in the world' tag. He thinks it is a difficult thing to judge. He says it makes him seem ineffectual. He may have shed his "nice guy" image playing an evil character, Jack Lint in Brazil.

Activism

In July 2010, Palin sent a message of support for the Dongria Kondh tribe of India, who are resisting a mine on their land by the company Vedanta Resources. Palin said, "I’ve been to the Nyamgiri Hills in Orissa and seen the forces of money and power that Vedanta Resources have arrayed against a people who have occupied their land for thousands of years, who husband the forest sustainably and make no great demands on the state or the government. The tribe I visited simply want to carry on living in the villages that they and their ancestors have always lived in".

On 2nd January 2011, Palin became the first person to sign the UK-based Campaign for Better Transport's Fair Fares Now campaign.

Recognition

.]] Each member of Monty Python has an asteroid named after him. Palin's is Asteroid 9621 Michaelpalin.

In honour of his achievements as a traveller, especially rail travel, Palin has two British trains named after him. In 2002, Virgin Trains' new £5m high speed Super Voyager train number 221130 was named "Michael Palin" - it carries his name externally and a plaque is located adjacent to the onboard shop with information on Palin and his many journeys. Also, National Express East Anglia have named a British Rail Class 153 (unit number 153335) after him. In 2008, he received the James Joyce Award of the Literary and Historical Society in Dublin.

Palin was instrumental in setting up the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children in 1993.

In recognition of his services to the promotion of geography, Palin was awarded the Livingstone Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in March 2009, along with a Fellowship to the Society.

In June 2009 Palin was elected for a three-year term as President of the Royal Geographical Society.

Bibliography

Travel books

Around the World in 80 Days (1989) ISBN 0-563-20826-0

Pole to Pole (1992) ISBN 0-563-37065-3

Full Circle (1997) ISBN 0-563-37121-8

Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure (1999) ISBN 0-297-82528-3

Sahara (2002) ISBN 0-297-84303-6

Himalaya (2004) ISBN 0-297-84371-0

New Europe (2007) ISBN 0-297-84449-0

All his travel books can be read at no charge, complete and unabridged, on his website.

Autobiography (contributor)

The Pythons Autobiography by The Pythons (2003) ISBN 0-7528-5293-0

Diaries

. 2006. ISBN 0-297-84436-9

Diaries 1980–1988: Halfway to Hollywood - The Film Years. London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 2009. ISBN 978-0-297-84440-2

Fiction

Hemingway's chair (1995) ISBN 0-7493-1930-5

Bert Fegg's Nasty Book for Boys and Girls w/Terry Jones, illus Martin Honeysett, Frank Bellamy et al. (1974) ISBN 0-413-32740-X

Dr Fegg's Encyclopaedia of all world knowledge (1984) (expanded reprint of the above, with Terry Jones and Martin Honeysett) ISBN 0-8722-6005-4

Children's books

Small Harry and the Toothache Pills (1982) ISBN 0-416-23690-1

Limerics or The Limerick Book (1985) ISBN 0-09-161540-2

Cyril and the House of Commons (1986) ISBN 1-85145-078-5

Cyril and the Dinner Party (1986) ISBN 1-85145-069-6

The Mirrorstone with Alan Lee and Richard Seymour (1986) ISBN 0-224-02408-6

Plays

The Weekend (1994) ISBN 0-413-68940-9

Selected filmography

And Now for Something Completely Different (1971)

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

Three Men in a Boat (1975)

Jabberwocky (1977)

Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)

Time Bandits (1981)

Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982)

The Missionary (1982)

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983)

A Private Function (1984)

Brazil (1985)

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

American Friends (1991)

The Wind in the Willows (1996)

The Willows in Winter (1996)

Fierce Creatures (1997)

Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy) (2010)

Television

Now! (October 1965 – middle 1966)

The Ken Dodd Show

Billy Cotton Bandshow

The Illustrated Weekly Hudd

The Frost Report. (10 March 1966 – 29 June 1967)

The Late Show (15 October 1966 - 1 April 1967)

A Series of Bird's (1967) (3 October 1967 - 21 November 1967 screenwriter (guest stars)

Twice a Fortnight (21 October 1967 - 23 December 1967)

Do Not Adjust Your Set (26 December 1967 - 14 May 1969)

Broaden Your Mind (1968)

How to Irritate People (1968)

Marty (TV series) (1968)

The Complete and Utter History of Britain (1969)

Monty Python's Flying Circus (5 October 1969–5 December 1974)

Saturday Night Live (Hosted January 27, 1979) with Musical Guests The Doobie Brothers

Ripping Yarns (1976–1979)

Great Railway Journeys of the World, episode title "Confessions of a Trainspotter" (1980)

East of Ipswich (1987) writer

(1989)

GBH (1991)

Pole to Pole (1992)

Great Railway Journeys, episode title "Derry to Kerry" (1994)

Full Circle with Michael Palin (1997)

Palin On Redpath (1997)

Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure (1999)

Michael Palin On... The Colourists (2000)

Sahara with Michael Palin (2002)

Life on Air (2002)

Himalaya with Michael Palin (2004)

Michael Palin's New Europe (2007)

Around the World in 20 Years (30 December 2008)

Awards

Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films

1982 Nominated - Saturn Award for Best Writing for Time Bandits (shared with Terry Gilliam)

Evening Standard British Film Awards

1986 Won - "Peter Sellers Award for Comedy"

Writers' Guild of Great Britain

1991 Won - Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award for "Film - Screenplay" for American Friends (shared with Tristram Powell)

DVD Exclusive Awards

2001 Nominated - "Video Premiere Award for Best Audio Commentary" for Monty Python and the Holy Grail (shared with John Cleese and Eric Idle)

British Comedy Awards

2002 Won - British Comedy Award for "Lifetime Achievement"

BAFTA Awards

1984 Nominated - BAFTA Award for "Best Original Song" (the award was discontinued after the 1985 ceremonies) for Every Sperm is Sacred from The Meaning of Life (shared with André Jacquemin, Dave Howman and Terry Jones)

1989 Won - BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for A Fish Called Wanda (as Ken Pile)

1992 Nominated - British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for G.B.H.

2005 Won - BAFTA Special Award

2009 Won - BAFTA Special Award as part of the Monty Python team for outstanding contribution to film and television

References

Further reading

Novick, Jeremy (2001), Life of Michael: an Illustrated Biography of Michael Palin Headline Publishing (a division of Hodder Headline) ISBN 0747235295

Ross, Robert (1997). Monty Python Encyclopedia B.T. Batsford Ltd, London ISBN 1-57500-036-9

Wilmut, Roger (1980). From Fringe to Flying Circus: Celebrating a Unique Generation of Comedy 1960-1980 Eyre Methuen Ltd ISBN 0-413-50770-X

External links

Michael Palin - BBC Guide to Comedy

Michael Palin - Comedy Zone

Palin's Travels - official website for the travel series

Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children

Michael Palin: A Life in Pictures - BAFTA event at Ely Cathedral

Category:1943 births Category:Living people Category:BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor Category:Alumni of Brasenose College, Oxford Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:English comedians Category:English comedy writers Category:English diarists Category:English film actors Category:English screenwriters Category:English television actors Category:English television presenters Category:English television writers Category:English travel writers Category:Honorary Fellows of Brasenose College, Oxford Category:Monty Python members Category:Old Salopians Category:Old Birkdalians Category:People from Sheffield Category:People from Suffolk Category:Sheffield Legends

Name	Lucille Ball
Caption	Pin-up photo from Yank, the Army Weekly
Birthname	Lucille Désirée Ball
Birth date	August 06, 1911
Birth place	Jamestown, New York, U.S.
Death date	April 26, 1989
Death place	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, comedienne, model, film executive
Yearsactive	1932–1989
Spouse	(divorced) 2 children (her death)}}

Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an American comedienne, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy. One of the most popular and influential stars in America during her lifetime, with one of Hollywood's longest careers, especially on television, Ball began acting in the 1930s, becoming both a radio actress and B-movie star in the 1940s, and then a television star during the 1950s. She was still making films in the 1960s and 1970s.

Ball received thirteen Emmy Award nominations and four wins. She was the recipient of the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1979, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Kennedy Center Honors in 1986 and the Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 1989.

In 1929, Ball landed work as a model and later began her performing career on Broadway using the stage name Dianne Belmont. She appeared in many small movie roles in the 1930s as a contract player for RKO Radio Pictures. Ball was labeled as the "Queen of the Bs" (referring to her many roles in B-films). In 1951, Ball was pivotal in the creation of the television series I Love Lucy. The show co-starred her then husband, Desi Arnaz as Ricky Ricardo and Vivian Vance and William Frawley as Ethel and Fred Mertz, the Ricardos' landlords and friends. The show ended in 1957 after 180 Episodes. They then changed the format a little - lengthening the time of the show from 30 minutes to 60 minutes (the first one went 75 mins), adding some characters, altering the storyline somewhat, and renaming the show from "I Love Lucy", to "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour" which ran for three season 1957-1960 and 13 episodes. Ball went on to star in two more successful television series: The Lucy Show, which ran on CBS from 1962 to 1968 (156 Episodes), and Here's Lucy from 1968 to 1974 (144 episodes). Her last attempt at a television series was a 1986 show called Life with Lucy - which failed miserably after 8 episodes aired although 13 were produced.

Ball met and eloped with Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz in 1940. On July 17, 1951, almost 40 years old, Ball gave birth to their first child, Lucie Désirée Arnaz.

Early life and career

Ball was born to Henry Durrell Ball (September 16, 1886 – February 19, 1915) and Desiree "DeeDee" Evelyn Hunt (September 21, 1892 – July 20, 1977) in Jamestown, New York. Although Lucy was born in Jamestown, New York, she told many people that she was born in Butte, Montana. At age 3, her family moved to Anaconda, Montana and then to Wyandotte, Michigan. Her family was Baptist; her father was of Scottish descent, and his mother was Mary Ball. Her mother was of French, Irish and English descent. Her genealogy can be traced back to the earliest settlers in the colonies.

Her father, a telephone lineman for Anaconda Copper, was frequently transferred because of his occupation, and within three years of her birth, Lucille had moved many times, from Jamestown to Anaconda, and then to Trenton. While DeeDee Ball was pregnant with her second child, Frederick, Henry Ball contracted typhoid fever and died in February 1915. Ball recalls little from the day her father died, only fleeting memories. A picture fell, and a bird got trapped in the house. Ever since that day she had an intense bird phobia.

After her father died, Ball and her brother Fred Henry Ball (July 17, 1951 - February 5, 2007) were raised by her mother and grandparents in Celoron, New York a village just west of Jamestown. Her grandfather, Fred Hunt, was an eccentric who also enjoyed the theater. He frequently took the family to vaudeville shows and encouraged young Lucy to take part in both her own and school plays.

In 1927, Ball dated a gangster's son by the name of Johnny DeVita. DeDe was unhappy with the relationship, but did nothing about it. She expected the romance to burn out in a few weeks. When that didn't happen DeDe took advantage of Lucille's desire to be in show business and "allowed" her to go to the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts in New York City. There, Ball attended with fellow actress Bette Davis. Ball went home a few weeks later when drama coaches told her that she "had no future at all as a performer".

Ball was determined to prove her teachers wrong, and returned to New York City in 1929. She landed work as a fashion model. Her career was thriving when she became ill with rheumatoid arthritis and was unable to work for two years. She moved to New York City once again in 1932 to resume her pursuit of a career as an actress, and had some success as a fashion model for designer Hattie Carnegie and as the Chesterfield cigarette girl. She began on Broadway as Dianne Belmont. She was hired—but then quickly fired—by theatre impresario Earl Carroll from his Vanities, and by Florenz Ziegfeld from a touring company of Rio Rita.

She was let go from the Shubert brothers production of Stepping Stones. another Astaire-Rogers film. Ginger Rogers was a distant cousin of Ball's on her mother's side of the family. She and Rogers played aspiring actresses in the hit film Stage Door (1937) co-starring Katharine Hepburn. In 1936 she also landed the role she hoped would lead her to Broadway, in the Bartlett Cormack play Hey Diddle Diddle, a comedy set in a duplex apartment in Hollywood. The play premiered in Princeton, New Jersey on January 21, 1937 with Ball playing the part of Julie Tucker, "one of three roommates coping with neurotic directors, confused executives, and grasping stars who interfere with the girls' ability to get ahead." The play received good reviews, but there were problems, chiefly with its star, Conway Tearle, who was in poor health. Cormack wanted to replace him, but the producer, Anne Nichols, said the fault lay with the character and insisted that the part needed to be reshaped and rewritten. The two were unable to agree on a solution. The play was scheduled to open on Broadway at the Vanderbilt Theatre, but closed after one week in Washington, D.C. when Tearle suddenly became gravely ill. Ball was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the 1940s, but she never achieved major stardom from her appearance in those films.

(1937)]]

She was known in many Hollywood circles as "Queen of the B's"—a title previously held by Fay Wray—starring in a number of B-movies, such as 1939's Five Came Back. Like many budding starlets Ball picked up radio work to earn side income as well as gain exposure. In 1937 she appeared as a regular on The Phil Baker Show. When that completed its run in 1938, Ball joined the cast of The Wonder Show, starring future Wizard of Oz tin man Jack Haley. It was here that she began her fifty year professional relationship with Gale Gordon, who served as the show's announcer. The Wonder Show only lasted one season, with the final episode airing on April 7, 1939.

In 1940, Ball met Cuban-born bandleader Desi Arnaz while filming the film version of the Rodgers and Hart stage hit Too Many Girls. At first, Arnaz was not fond of Lucy. When they met again later that day, the two connected immediately and eloped the same year. Arnaz was drafted to the United States Army in 1942. He ended up being classified for limited service due to a knee injury. As a result, Arnaz stayed in Los Angeles, organizing and performing USO shows for wounded GIs being brought back from the Pacific. That same year, Ball appeared opposite Henry Fonda in The Big Street, in which she plays a paralyzed nightclub singer and Fonda portrays a busboy who idolizes her.

Ball filed for a divorce in 1944. Shortly after Ball obtained an interlocutory decree of divorce, however, she reconciled with Arnaz. Ball and Arnaz were only six years apart in age but apparently believed that it was less socially acceptable for an older woman to marry a younger man, and hence split the difference in their ages, both claiming a 1914 birth date until this was disproved.

I Love Lucy and Desilu

as Ethel on the "Job Switching" episode of I Love Lucy]]

In 1948, Ball was cast as Liz Cugat (later "Cooper"), a wacky wife, in My Favorite Husband, a radio program for CBS Radio. The program was successful, and CBS asked her to develop it for television. She agreed, but insisted on working with Arnaz. CBS executives were reluctant, thinking the public would not accept an All-American redhead and a Cuban as a couple. CBS was initially not impressed with the pilot episode produced by the couple's Desilu Productions company, so the couple toured the road in a vaudeville act with Lucy as the zany housewife wanting to get in Arnaz's show. The tour was a smash, and CBS put I Love Lucy on their lineup. The I Love Lucy show was not only a star vehicle for Lucille Ball, but a way for her to try to salvage her marriage to Desi Arnaz, which had become badly strained, in part by the fact that each had a hectic performing schedule which often kept them apart.

Along the way, she created a television dynasty and reached several "firsts". Ball was the first woman in television to be head of a production company: Desilu, the company that she and Arnaz formed. After their divorce, Ball bought out Arnaz's share of the studio, and she proceeded to function as a very active studio head. Desilu and I Love Lucy pioneered a number of methods still in use in television production today such as filming before a live studio audience with a number of cameras, and distinct sets adjacent to each other.

When the show premiered, most shows were aired live from New York City studios to Eastern and Central Time Zone audiences, and captured by kinescope for broadcast later to the West Coast. The kinescope picture was inferior to film, and as a result the West Coast broadcasts were inferior to those seen elsewhere in the country. Ball and Arnaz wanted to remain in their Los Angeles home, but the time zone logistics made that broadcast norm impossible. Prime time in L.A. was too late at night on the East Coast to air a major network series, meaning the majority of the TV audience would be seeing not only the inferior picture of kinescopes but seeing them at least a day later.

Sponsor Philip Morris did not want to show day-old kinescopes to the major markets on the East Coast, yet neither did they want to pay for the extra cost filming, processing and editing would require, pressuring Ball and Arnaz to relocate to New York City. Ball and Arnaz offered to take a pay cut to finance filming, on the condition that their company, Desilu, would retain the rights to that film once it was aired. CBS relinquished the show rights back to Desilu after initial broadcast, not realizing they were giving away a valuable and durable asset. Desilu made many millions of dollars on I Love Lucy rebroadcasts through syndication and became a textbook example of how a show can be profitable in second-run syndication. In television's infancy, the concept of the rerun hadn't yet formed, and many in the industry wondered who would want to see a program a second time. In fact, while other celebrated shows of the period exist only in incomplete sets of kinescopes mostly too degraded to show to subsequent generations of television viewers, I Love Lucy has virtually never gone out of syndication since it began, seen by hundreds of millions of people around the world over the past half century. The success of Ball and Arnaz's gamble was instrumental in drawing television production from New York to Hollywood for the next several decades.

Desilu hired legendary German cameraman Karl Freund as their director of photography. Freund had worked for F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang, shot part of Metropolis (1927) and had directed a number of Hollywood films himself. Freund used a three-camera setup, which became the standard way of filming situation comedies. Shooting long shots, medium shots, and close-ups on a comedy in front of a live audience demanded discipline, technique, and close choreography. Among other non-standard techniques used in filming the show, cans of paint (in shades ranging from white to medium gray) were kept on set to "paint out" inappropriate shadows and disguise lighting flaws.

I Love Lucy dominated the weekly TV ratings in the United States for most of its run. (There was an attempt to adapt the show for radio; the cast and writers adapted the memorable "Breaking the Lease" episode—in which the Ricardos and Mertzes fall out over an argument, the Ricardos threaten to move, but they're stuck in a firm lease—for a radio audition disc that never aired but has survived.) In the scene where Lucy and Ricky are practicing the tango in the episode "Lucy Does The Tango", the longest recorded studio audience laugh in the history of the show was produced. It was so long, in fact, that the sound editor had to cut that particular part of the soundtrack in half. The strenuous rehearsals and demands of Desilu studio kept the Arnazes too busy to comprehend the show's success. During the show's production breaks they starred together in feature films: Vincente Minnelli's The Long, Long Trailer (1954) and Alexander Hall's Forever, Darling (1956).

Desilu produced several other popular shows, most notably Our Miss Brooks (starring Ball's 1937 Stage Door co-star Eve Arden), The Untouchables, , and . Many other shows, particularly My Three Sons in it's first seven of twelve seasons, Sheldon Leonard-produced series like Make Room for Daddy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Andy Griffith Show, and I Spy, were filmed at Desilu Studios and bear its logo.

Testimony Before the House Committee on Un-American Activities

When Ball registered to vote in 1936, she listed her party affiliation as Communist. (She was registered as a Communist in 1938 as well.) In order to sponsor the Communist Party's 1936 candidate for the California State Assembly's 57th District, Ball signed a certificate stating "I am registered as affiliated with the Communist Party." The same year, she was appointed to the State Central Committee of the Communist Party of California, according to records of the California Secretary of State. In 1937, Hollywood writer Rena Vale, an admitted former Communist, attended a Communist Party new members' class at Ball's home, according to Vale's testimony before the United States House of Representatives' Special Committee on Un-American Activities, on July 22, 1940. Two years later, Vale reaffirmed this testimony in a sworn deposition: On September 4, 1953, Ball met privately with HUAC investigator William A. Wheeler in Hollywood and gave him sealed testimony. She stated that she had registered to vote as a Communist "or intended to vote the Communist Party ticket" in 1936 at her socialist grandfather's insistence. She stated she "at no time intended to vote as a Communist." J. Edgar Hoover, then director of the FBI, named "Lucy and Dezi" [sic] among his "favorites of the entertainment world." Immediately before the filming of episode 68 ("The Girls Go Into Business") of I Love Lucy, Arnaz, instead of his usual audience warm-up, told the audience about Lucy and her grandfather. Arnaz quipped: "The only thing red about Lucy is her hair, and even that's not legitimate." Then, he presented his wife and she received a standing ovation from the audience.

Children and divorce

in 1953.]]

On July 17, 1951, one month before her fortieth birthday and after several miscarriages, Ball gave birth to her first child, Lucie Désirée Arnaz. A year and a half later, Ball gave birth to her second child, Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV, known as Desi Arnaz, Jr. There were several challenges from CBS, insisting that a pregnant woman could not be shown on television, nor could the word "pregnant" be spoken on-air. After approval from several religious figures the network allowed the pregnancy storyline, but insisted that the word "expecting" be used instead of "pregnant". (Arnaz garnered laughs when he deliberately mispronounced it as "'spectin'"). The episode's official title was "Lucy Is Enceinte", borrowing the French word for pregnant; however, episode titles never appeared on the show. The birth made the first cover of TV Guide in January 1953.

Ball's business instincts were often astonishingly sharp, and her love for Arnaz was passionate, but her relationships with her children were sometimes strained. Lucie Arnaz, her daughter, spoke of her mother's "controlling" nature. Ball was outspoken against the relationship that Desi Jr. had with Liza Minnelli. She was quoted as saying, "I miss Liza, but you cannot domesticate Liza." Her close friends in the business included Ginger Rogers, Vivian Vance, Mary Wickes and Carole Cook.

In October 1956, Ball, Vivian Vance, Desi Arnaz, and William Frawley all appeared on a Bob Hope special on NBC, including a spoof of I Love of Lucy, the only time all four stars were together on a color telecast.

By the end of the 1950s, Desilu had become a large company, causing a good deal of stress for both Ball and Arnaz; his increased drinking further compounded matters. On May 4, 1960, just two months after filming the final episode of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, the couple divorced. Until his death in 1986, however, Arnaz and Ball remained friends and often spoke very fondly of each other. Her real-life divorce indirectly found its way into her later television series, as she was always cast as a single woman.

The following year, Ball did a musical on Broadway, Wildcat, co-starring Paula Stewart. It was Stewart who introduced her to second husband Gary Morton, a Borscht Belt stand-up comic who was thirteen years her junior. That marked the beginning of a thirty-year friendship between Lucy and Paula Stewart. Ball immediately installed Morton in her production company, teaching him the television business and eventually promoting him to producer. Morton also played occasional bit parts on Ball's various series.

Later career

The 1960 Broadway musical Wildcat ended its run early when Ball became too ill to continue in the show. The show was the source of the song she made famous, "Hey, Look Me Over", which she performed with Paula Stewart on The Ed Sullivan Show. She made a few more movies including Yours, Mine, and Ours (1968), and the musical Mame (1974), and two more successful long-running sitcoms for CBS: The Lucy Show (1962–68), which costarred Vance and Gale Gordon, and Here's Lucy (1968–74), which also featured Gordon, as well Lucy's real life children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr. Ball appeared on the Dick Cavett show and spoke of her history and life with Arnaz. She revealed how she felt about other actors and actresses as well as her love for Arnaz. She continued by telling Cavett that the success to her life was, "getting rid of what was wrong and replacing it with what is right". (Talking about her divorce from Arnaz and marriage to Morton) Ball revealed in this interview that the strangest thing to ever happen to her was after she had some dental work completed and after placing lead fillings in her teeth, she started hearing radio stations in her head. She explained coming home one night from the studio and as she passed one area, she heard what she thought was morse code or a "tapping". She stated that "As I backed up it got stronger. The next morning, I reported it to the authorities and upon investigation, they found a Japanese radio transmitter that had been buried and was actively transmitting codes back to the Japanese."

Ball was originally considered by Frank Sinatra for the role of Mrs. Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate. Director/producer John Frankenheimer, however, had worked with Angela Lansbury in a mother role in another film and insisted on having her for the part.

in 1989 just four weeks before her death]]

During the mid-1980s, she attempted to resurrect her television career. In 1982, Ball hosted a two-part Three's Company retrospective, showing clips from the show's first five seasons, summarizing memorable plotlines, and commenting on her love of the show. A 1985 dramatic made-for-TV film about an elderly homeless woman, Stone Pillow, received mixed reviews. Her 1986 sitcom comeback Life With Lucy, costarring her longtime foil Gale Gordon and co-produced by Ball, Gary Morton, and prolific producer/former actor Aaron Spelling was canceled less than two months into its run by ABC. The failure of this series was said to have sent Ball into a serious depression, and other than a few miscellaneous awards show appearances, she was absent from the public eye for the last several years of her life. Her last public appearance, just one month before her death, was at the 1989 Academy Awards telecast in which she and fellow presenter, Bob Hope, were given a standing ovation.

Death

On April 18, 1989, Ball was at her home in Beverly Hills when she complained of chest pains. An ambulance was called and she was rushed to the emergency room of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She was diagnosed as having a dissecting aortic aneurysm and underwent heart surgery for nearly eight hours, receiving an aorta from a 27 year old male donor. The surgery was successful, and Ball began recovering, even walking around her room with little assistance. On April 26, shortly after dawn, Ball awoke with severe back pains. Her aorta had ruptured in a second location and Ball quickly lost consciousness. All attempts to revive her proved unsuccessful, and she died at approximately 05:47 PST. She was 77 years old.

Legacy and posthumous recognition

Ball received many prestigious awards throughout her career including some received posthumously such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George H. W. Bush on July 6, 1989, and The Women's International Center's Living Legacy Award.

There is a Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center museum in Lucy's hometown of Jamestown, New York. The Little Theatre was renamed the Lucille Ball Little Theatre in her honor. Ball was among Time magazine's 100 Most Important People of the Century.

On August 6, 2001, on what would have been her ninetieth birthday, the United States Postal Service honored her with a commemorative postage stamp as part of its Legends of Hollywood series. Ball appeared on the cover of TV Guide more than any other person; she appeared on thirty-nine covers, including the very first cover in 1953, with her baby son Desi Arnaz, Jr. TV Guide voted Lucille Ball as the Greatest TV Star of All Time and later it commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of I Love Lucy with eight collector covers celebrating memorable scenes from the show and in another instance they named I Love Lucy the second best television program in American history, after Seinfeld. Because of her liberated mindset and approval of the women's movement, Ball was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Finally, she was awarded the Legacy of Laughter award at the fifth Annual TV Land Awards in 2007. and I Love Lucy was named the Greatest TV Series by Hall of Fame Magazine.

References

Further reading

Lucille The Life of Lucille Ball by Kathleen Brady (2001) ISBN 0-8230-8913-4

Love, Lucy by Lucille Ball (1997). ISBN 0-425-17731-9

The Comic DNA of Lucille Ball: Interpreting the Icon by Michael Karol (2005) ISBN 0-595-37951-6

Lucy A to Z: The Lucille Ball Encyclopedia by Michael Karol (2004) ISBN 0-595-29761-7

The Lucille Ball Quiz Book by Michael Karol (2004) ISBN 0-595-31857-6

Lucy in Print by Michael Karol (2003) ISBN 0-595-29321-2

Desilu: The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz by Coyne Steven Sanders and Tom Gilbert (1993) ISBN 0-688-13514-5

Laughing With Lucy: My Life With America's Leading Lady of Comedy by Madelyn Pugh Davis with Bob Carroll Jr. (2005) ISBN 978-1-57860-247-6

Ball of Fire: the tumultuous life and comic art of Lucille Ball by Stefan Kanfer (2003) ISBN 0-375-41315-4

I Love Lucy: The Complete Picture History of the Most Popular TV Show Ever by Michael McClay (1995) ISBN 0-446-51750-X (hardcover)

External links

Lucille Ball at the Museum of Broadcast Communications

New York Times obituary

Lucille Ball & several other actors participate on Orson Welles Radio Almanac 1944; recordings

Category:1911 births Category:1989 deaths Category:Baptists from the United States Category:20th-century actors Category:American comedians Category:American female models Category:American female singers Category:American film actors Category:American radio actors Category:American television actors Category:American television producers Category:Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills) Category:Cardiovascular disease deaths in California Category:Deaths from aortic aneurysm Category:Emmy Award winners Category:American people of English descent Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American people of Scottish descent Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:People from Chautauqua County, New York Category:People from Jamestown, New York Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:Women comedians

Name	John Cleese
Caption	Cleese in 2008
Birth name	John Marwood Cleese
Birth date	October 27, 1939
Birth place	Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England
Medium	Film, television, radio,stand-up comedy
Genre	Surreal comedy,dark comedy,physical comedy
Active	1961–present
Influences	Stephen Leacock, Spike Milligan, The Goons, William Shakespeare
Spouse	(divorced) (divorced) (divorced)
Domesticpartner	Barbie Orr (2008–2009)Jennifer Wade (2010–present)
Website	TheJohnCleese.com

John Marwood Cleese (born 27 October 1939) is an English actor, comedian, writer and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and as a scriptwriter on The Frost Report. In the late 1960s he became a member of Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show Monty Python's Flying Circus and the four Monty Python films: And Now for Something Completely Different, Holy Grail, Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life.

In the mid 1970s, Cleese and his first wife Connie Booth, co-wrote and starred in the British sitcom Fawlty Towers. Later, he co-starred with Kevin Kline, Jamie Lee Curtis and former Python colleague Michael Palin in A Fish Called Wanda and Fierce Creatures. He also starred in Clockwise, and has appeared in many other films, including two James Bond films, two Harry Potter films, and three Shrek films.

With Yes Minister writer Antony Jay he co-founded the production company Video Arts, responsible for making entertaining training films.

Early life

Cleese was born in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, the only child of Muriel (née Cross), an acrobat, and Reginald Francis Cleese (b. 1894), who worked in insurance sales. His family's surname was previously "Cheese", but his father changed it to "Cleese" in 1915, upon joining the Army.

Cleese was educated at St Peter's Preparatory School where he was a star pupil, receiving a prize for English studies and doing well at sport including cricket and boxing. At 13 he received an exhibition to Clifton College, an English public school in Bristol. He was tall as a child and was well over 6 ft when he arrived there. While at the school he is said to have defaced the school grounds for a prank by painting footprints to suggest that the school's statue of Field Marshal Earl Haig had got down from his plinth and gone to the toilet. Cleese played cricket for the first team, and after initial indifference he did well academically, passing 8 O levels and 3 A-Levels in mathematics, physics and chemistry.

After leaving school, he went back to his prep school to teach science before taking up a place he had won at Downing College, Cambridge, where he studied Law and joined the Cambridge Footlights Revue. There he met his future writing partner Graham Chapman. Cleese wrote extra material for the 1961 Footlights Revue I Thought I Saw It Move, and was Registrar for the Footlights Club during 1962, as well as being one of the cast members for the 1962 Footlights Revue Double Take!

Career

Pre-Python

Cleese was one of the script writers, as well as being a member of the cast, for the 1963 Footlights Revue, A Clump of Plinths, John Cleese and Graham Chapman also wrote episodes for the first series of Doctor in the House (and later Cleese wrote six episodes of Doctor at Large on his own in 1971). These series were successful, and in 1969 Cleese and Chapman were offered their very own series. However, owing to Chapman's alcoholism, Cleese found himself bearing an increasing workload in the partnership, and was therefore unenthusiastic about doing a series with just the two of them. He had found working with Palin on The Frost Report an enjoyable experience, and invited him to join the series. Palin had previously been working on Do Not Adjust Your Set, with Idle and Jones, with Terry Gilliam creating the animations. The four of them had, on the back of the success of Do Not Adjust Your Set, been offered a series for Thames Television, which they were waiting to begin when Cleese's offer arrived. Palin agreed to work with Cleese and Chapman in the meantime, bringing with him Gilliam, Jones and Idle.

Monty Python

Monty Python's Flying Circus ran for four seasons from October 1969 to December 1974 on BBC Television, though with only limited participation of Cleese in the last six shows. Cleese's two primary characterisations were as a sophisticate and a stressed-out loony. He portrayed the former as a series of announcers, TV show hosts, government officials (for example, "The Ministry of Silly Walks"). The latter is perhaps best represented in the "Cheese Shop", and by Cleese's Mr Praline character, the man with a dead Norwegian Blue parrot and a menagerie of other animals all named "Eric". He was also known for his working-class "Sergeant Major" character, who worked as a Police Sergeant, Roman Centurion, etc. he is also seen as the opening announcer, with the now famous line: "And now for something completely different" a phrase that premiered in the sketch, "Man with Three Buttocks".

Partnership with Graham Chapman

Along with Gilliam's animations, Cleese's work with Chapman provided Python with its darkest and angriest moments, and many of his characters display the seething suppressed rage that later characterised his portrayal of Basil Fawlty.

Unlike Palin and Jones, Cleese and Chapman actually wrote together—in the same room; Cleese claims that their writing partnership involved him sitting with pen and paper, doing most of the work, while Chapman sat back, not speaking for long periods, then suddenly coming out with an idea that often elevated the sketch to a different level. A classic example of this is the "Dead Parrot" sketch, envisaged by Cleese as a satire on poor customer service, which was originally to have involved a broken toaster, and later a broken car (this version was actually performed and broadcast, on the pre-Python special How To Irritate People). It was Chapman's suggestion to change the faulty item into a dead parrot, and he also suggested that the parrot be specifically a Norwegian Blue, giving the sketch a surreal air which made it far more memorable.

Their humour often involved ordinary people in ordinary situations behaving absurdly for no obvious reason. Like Chapman, Cleese's poker face, clipped middle-class accent and imposing height allowed him to appear convincing as a variety of authority figures, such as policemen, detectives, Nazi officers, or government officials—which he would then proceed to undermine. Most famously, in the "Ministry of Silly Walks" sketch (actually written by Palin and Jones), Cleese exploits his stature as the crane-legged civil servant performing a grotesquely elaborate walk to his office.

Chapman and Cleese also specialised in sketches where two characters would conduct highly articulate arguments over completely arbitrary subjects, such as in the "cheese shop", the "dead parrot" sketch and "The Argument Sketch", where Cleese plays a stone-faced bureaucrat employed to sit behind a desk and engage people in pointless, trivial bickering. All of these roles were opposite Palin (who Cleese often claims is his favourite Python to work with)—the comic contrast between the towering Cleese's crazed aggression and the shorter Palin's shuffling inoffensiveness is a common feature in the series. Occasionally, the typical Cleese-Palin dynamic is reversed, as in "Fish Licence", wherein Palin plays the bureaucrat with whom Cleese is trying to work.

Though the programme lasted four series, by the start of series 3, Cleese was growing tired of dealing with Chapman's alcoholism. According to Gilliam, Cleese was the "most Cambridge" of the Cambridge-educated members of the group (Cleese, Chapman and Idle), by which Gilliam meant that Cleese was the tallest (6' 5") and most aggressive of the whole group. He felt, too, that the show's scripts had declined in quality. For these reasons, he became restless and decided to move on. Though he stayed for the third series, he officially left the group before the fourth season. Despite this, he remained friendly with the group, and all six began writing Monty Python and the Holy Grail; Cleese received a credit on episodes of the fourth series which used material from these sessions, and even makes a brief appearance in one episode as the voice of a cartoon in the "Hamlet" episode, though he was officially unconnected with the fourth series. Cleese returned to the troupe to co-write and co-star in the Monty Python films Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Monty Python's Life of Brian and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, and participated in various live performances over the years.

Post-Python

From 1970 to 1973 Cleese served as rector of the University of St Andrews. His election proved a milestone for the University, revolutionising and modernising the post. For instance, the Rector was traditionally entitled to appoint an "Assessor", a deputy to sit in his place at important meetings in his absence. Cleese changed this into a position for a student, elected across campus by the student body, resulting in direct access and representation for the student body for the first time in over 500 years. This was one of many changes that Cleese brought in.

Cleese achieved greater prominence in the United Kingdom as the neurotic hotel manager Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, which he co-wrote with his wife Connie Booth. The series won three BAFTA awards when produced and in 2000, it topped the British Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. The series also featured Prunella Scales as Basil's acerbic wife Sybil, Andrew Sachs as the much abused Spanish waiter Manuel ("...he's from Barcelona"), and Booth as waitress Polly, the series' voice of sanity. Cleese based Basil Fawlty on a real person, Donald Sinclair, whom he had encountered in 1970 while the Monty Python team were staying at the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay while filming inserts for their television series. Reportedly, Cleese was inspired by Sinclair's mantra "I could run this hotel just fine, if it weren't for the guests." He later described Sinclair as "the most wonderfully rude man I have ever met," although Sinclair's widow has said her husband was totally misrepresented in the series. During the Pythons' stay, Sinclair allegedly threw Idle's briefcase out of the hotel "in case it contained a bomb," complained about Gilliam's "American" table manners, and threw a bus timetable at another guest after they dared to ask the time of the next bus to town.

The first series was screened from 19 September 1975 on BBC 2, initially to poor reviews, but gained momentum when repeated on BBC 1 the following year. Despite this, a second series did not air until 1979, by which time Cleese's marriage to Booth had ended, but they revived their collaboration for the second series. Fawlty Towers consisted of only twelve episodes; Cleese and Booth both maintain that this was to avoid compromising the quality of the series.

]]

In December 1977, Cleese appeared as a guest star on The Muppet Show. Cleese was a fan of the show, and co-wrote much of the episode. He appears in a "Pigs in Space" segment as a pirate trying to hijack the spaceship Swinetrek, and also helps Gonzo restore his arms to "normal" size after Gonzo's cannonball catching act goes wrong. During the show's closing number, Cleese refuses to sing the famous show tune from Man of La Mancha, "The Impossible Dream". Kermit The Frog apologises and the curtain re-opens with Cleese now costumed as a Viking trying some Wagnerian opera as part of a duet with Sweetums. Once again, Cleese protests to Kermit, and gives the frog one more chance. This time, as pictured opposite this text, he is costumed as a Mexican maraca soloist. He has finally had enough and protests that he is leaving the show, saying "You were supposed to be my host. How can you do this to me? Kermit – I am your guest!". The cast joins in with their parody of "The Impossible Dream", singing "This is your guest, to follow that star...". During the crowd's applause that follows the song, he pretends to strangle Kermit until he realises the crowd loves him and accepts the accolades. During the show's finale, as Kermit thanks him, he shows up with a fictional album, his own new vocal record John Cleese: A Man & His Music, and encourages everyone to buy a copy.

This would not be Cleese's final appearance with The Muppets. In their 1981 movie The Great Muppet Caper, Cleese does a cameo appearance as Neville, a local homeowner. As part of the appearance, Miss Piggy borrows his house as a way to impress Kermit The Frog.

Cleese won the TV Times award for Funniest Man On TV – 1978 / 1979.

1980s and 1990s

During the 1980s and 1990s, Cleese focused on film, though he did work with Peter Cook in his one-off TV special Peter Cook and Co. in 1980. In the same year Cleese played Petruchio, in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew in the BBC Television Shakespeare series. In 1981 he starred with Sean Connery and Michael Palin in the Terry Gilliam-directed Time Bandits as Robin Hood. He also participated in Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982), and starred in The Secret Policeman's Ball for Amnesty International. In 1985, Cleese had a small dramatic role as a sheriff in Silverado, which had an all-star cast that included Kevin Kline, with whom he would star with in A Fish Called Wanda 3 years later. In 1986, he starred in Clockwise as an uptight school headmaster obsessed with punctuality and constantly getting in to trouble during a journey to a headmaster's conference.

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Timed with the 1987 UK elections, he appeared in a video promoting proportional representation.

In 1988, he wrote and starred in A Fish Called Wanda, as the lead, Archie Leach, along with Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and Michael Palin. Wanda was a commercial and critical success, and Cleese was nominated for an Academy Award for his script. Cynthia Cleese starred as Leach's daughter.

Chapman was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1989; Cleese, Michael Palin, Peter Cook and Chapman's partner David Sherlock, witnessed Chapman's passing. Chapman's death occurred one day before the 20th anniversary of the first broadcast of Flying Circus, with Jones commenting, "the worst case of party-pooping in all history." Cleese's eulogy at Chapman's memorial service—in which he "became the first person ever at a British memorial service to say 'fuck'"—has since become legendary.

Cleese would later play a supporting role in Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein alongside Branagh himself and Robert De Niro. He also produced and acted in a number of successful business training films, including Meetings, Bloody Meetings and More Bloody Meetings. These were produced by his company Video Arts.

With Robin Skynner, the group analyst and family therapist, Cleese wrote two books on relationships: Families and How to Survive Them, and Life and How to Survive It. The books are presented as a dialogue between Skynner and Cleese.

In 1996, Cleese declined the British honour of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). The follow-up to A Fish Called Wanda, Fierce Creatures—which again starred Cleese alongside Kevin Kline, Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Palin—was also released that year, but was greeted with mixed reception by critics and audiences. Cleese has since often stated that making the second movie had been a mistake. When asked by his friend, director and restaurant critic Michael Winner, what he would do differently if he could live his life again, Cleese responded, "I wouldn’t have married Alyce Faye Eichelberger and I wouldn’t have made Fierce Creatures."

In 1999, Cleese appeared in the James Bond movie, The World Is Not Enough as Q's assistant, referred to by Bond as "R". In 2002, when Cleese reprised his role in Die Another Day, the character was promoted, making Cleese the new quartermaster (Q) of MI6. In 2004, Cleese was featured as Q in the video game , featuring his likeness and voice. Cleese did not appear in the subsequent Bond films, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.

2000 to present

Cleese is currently Provost's Visiting Professor at Cornell University, after having been Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large from 1999–2006. He makes occasional, well-received appearances on the Cornell campus, but he lives in the town of Montecito, California.

In 2001, Cleese was cast in the comedy Rat Race as the eccentric hotel owner Donald P. Sinclair.

In a 2005 poll of comedians and comedy insiders The Comedian's Comedian, Cleese was voted second only to Peter Cook. Also in 2005, a long-standing piece of Internet humour, "The Revocation of Independence of the United States", was wrongly attributed to Cleese.

In 2006, Cleese hosted a television special of football’s greatest kicks, goals, saves, bloopers, plays and penalties, as well as football’s influence on culture (including the famous Monty Python sketch, “Philosophy Football”), featuring interviews with pop culture icons Dave Stewart, Dennis Hopper and Henry Kissinger, as well as football greats including Pelé, Mia Hamm and Thierry Henry. The Art of Soccer with John Cleese was released in North America on DVD in January 2009 by BFS Entertainment & Multimedia.

Cleese recently lent his voice to the BioWare video game Jade Empire. His role was that of an "outlander" named Sir Roderick Ponce von Fontlebottom the Magnificent Bastard, stranded in the Imperial City of the Jade Empire. His character is essentially a British colonialist stereotype who refers to the people of the Jade Empire as savages in need of enlightenment. His armour has the design of a fork stuck in a piece of cheese.

He also had a cameo appearance in the computer game Starship Titanic as "The Bomb" (credited as "Kim Bread"), designed by Douglas Adams. When the bomb is activated it tells the player that "The ship is now armed and preparing to explode. This will be a fairly large explosion, so you'd best keep back about ". When the player tries to disarm the bomb, it says "Well, you can try that, but it won't work because nobody likes a smart-arse!"

In 2002, Cleese made a cameo appearance in the movie The Adventures of Pluto Nash, where he played "James", a computerised chauffeur of a hover car stolen by the title character (played by Eddie Murphy). The vehicle is subsequently destroyed in a chase, leaving the chauffeur stranded in a remote place on the moon.

In 2003, Cleese also appeared as Lyle Finster on the US sitcom Will & Grace. His character's daughter, Lorraine, was played by Minnie Driver. In the series, Lyle Finster briefly marries Karen Walker (Megan Mullally).

In 2004, Cleese was credited as co-writer of a DC Comics graphic novel entitled . Part of DC's "Elseworlds" line of imaginary stories, True Brit, mostly written by Kim Howard Johnson, suggests what might have happened had Superman's rocket ship landed in Britain, not America.

From 10 November to 9 December 2005, Cleese toured New Zealand with his stage show, John Cleese—His Life, Times and Current Medical Problems. Cleese described it as "a one-man show with several people in it, which pushes the envelope of acceptable behaviour in new and disgusting ways." The show was developed in New York with William Goldman and includes Cleese's daughter Camilla as a writer and actor (the shows were directed by Australian Bille Brown). His assistant of many years, Garry Scott-Irvine, also appeared, and was listed as a co-producer. It then played in universities in California and Arizona from 10 January to 25 March 2006 under the title "Seven Ways to Skin an Ocelot". His voice can be downloaded for directional guidance purposes as a downloadable option on some personal GPS-navigation device models by company TomTom.

In June 2006, while promoting a football (soccer) song in which he was featured, entitled Don't Mention the World Cup, Cleese appears to have claimed that he decided to retire from performing in sitcoms, instead opting to writing a book on the history of comedy and to tutor young comedians. This was an erroneous story, the result of an interview with The Times of London (the piece was not fact checked before printing).

In 2007, Cleese appeared in ads for Titleist as a golf course designer named "Ian MacCallister", who represents "Golf Designers Against Distance".

In 2007, he started filming the sequel to The Pink Panther, titled The Pink Panther 2 with Steve Martin and Aishwarya Rai.

On 27 September 2007, The Podcast Network announced it had signed a deal with Cleese to produce a series of video podcasts called HEADCAST to be published on TPN's website. Cleese released the first episode of this series in April 2008 on his own website, headcast.co.uk

In 2008, Cleese collaborated with Los Angeles Guitar Quartet member William Kanengiser on the text to the performance piece "The Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha". Cleese, as narrator, and the LAGQ premiered the work in Santa Barbara.

According to recent reports, Cleese is currently working on a musical version of A Fish Called Wanda with his daughter Camilla. He also said that he is working on a new film screenplay for the first time since 1996's Fierce Creatures. Cleese collaborates on it with writer Lisa Hogan, under the current working title "A Taxing Time". According to him, it is "about the lengths to which people will go to avoid tax. [...] It's based on what happened to me when I cashed in my UK pension and moved to Santa Barbara."

At the end of March 2009, Cleese published his first article as 'Contributing Editor' to The Spectator: "The real reason I had to join The Spectator".

On 6 May 2009, he appeared on The Paul O'Grady Show. Cleese has also hosted comedy galas at the Montreal Just for Laughs comedy festival in 2006, and again in 2009. He had to cancel the 2009 appearance due to prostatitis, but hosted it a few days later.

Towards the end of 2009 and into 2010, Cleese appeared in a series of television adverts for the Norwegian electric goods shop chain, Elkjøp.

In March 2010 it was announced that John Cleese would be playing Jasper in the video game "Fable III".

In 2009 and 2010, Cleese toured Scandinavia and the US with his Alimony Tour Year One and Year Two. In May 2010, it was announced that this tour would extend to the UK (his first tour in UK), set for May 2011 – The show is dubbed the 'Alimony Tour' in reference to the financial implications of Cleese's recent divorce. The UK tour starts in Cambridge on 3 May visiting Birmingham, Salford, Liverpool, Oxford, Leeds, Edinburgh and finishing in Bristol.

Personal life

1960s to 1980s

Cleese met Connie Booth in the US during the late 1960s and the couple married in 1968.

Cleese remarried in 1981, to American actress Barbara Trentham. Their daughter Camilla, Cleese's second child, was born in 1984. He and Trentham divorced in 1990. It was also during this time that Cleese moved from the United Kingdom to California.

1990s to present

On 28 December 1992, he married American psychotherapist Alyce Faye Eichelberger. In January 2008, the couple announced they had split. The divorce was settled in December 2008. The divorce settlement left Eichelberger with £12 million in finance and assets, including £600,000 a year for seven years. Cleese stated that "What I find so unfair is that if we both died today, her children would get much more than mine".

He had begun to date American comedienne Barbie Orr in November 2008 but they split up in January 2009.

In April 2010, Cleese revealed on The Graham Norton Show on BBC One that he had started a new relationship with a woman 31 years his junior, Jennifer Wade.

He is a vegetarian.

During the disruption caused by the Eyjafjallajökull eruption in 2010 Cleese became stranded in Oslo and decided to take a taxi to Brussels. The 1500 km journey cost £3,300 and was completed with the help of three drivers who took shifts in driving Cleese to his destination where he planned to take a Eurostar passenger train to the UK.

Political views

Currently a member of the Liberal Democrats after previously being a Labour party voter, Cleese switched to the SDP after their formation in 1981, and during the 1987 general election, Cleese recorded a nine minute party political broadcast for the SDP-Liberal Alliance, which spoke about the similarities and failures of the other two parties in a more humorous tone than standard political broadcasts. Cleese has since appeared in broadcasts for the Liberal Democrats, in the 1997 general election and narrating a radio election broadcast for the party during the 2001 general election. In April 2010, Cleese posted a Twitter declaring his support for the Lib Dems after Nick Clegg performed strongly in the first leaders' debate on ITV1, stating: "Well, well, well. First leaders debate, and LibDems do so well. Good luck to them."

Cleese expressed support for Barack Obama's presidential candidacy, donating US$2,300 to his campaign and offering his services as a speech writer. He also criticised Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin—saying that "Michael Palin is no longer the funniest Palin"— and wrote a satirical poem about Fox News commentator Sean Hannity for Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Radio credits

I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (1972–73)

Television credits

Major roles

The Frost Report (1966)

Frost on Sunday

At Last the 1948 Show

How to Irritate People (1968) with Michael Palin, Graham Chapman, Connie Booth and Tim Brooke-Taylor

Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–1974)

Sez Les (1971, 1974)

Fawlty Towers (1975, 1979)

Cheers (episode "Simon Says") (1987), he won an Emmy Award for best actor in a guest starring role

The Taming of the Shrew (1980) as Petruchio

True Stories: Peace in our Time? as Neville Chamberlain

As host

The Human Face

Wine for the Confused

We Are Most Amused: Master of Ceremonies for a stand-up comedy show celebrating Prince Charles's 60th Birthday.

Guest appearances

The Avengers (1968), guest appearance as Marcus Rugman (egg clown-face collector) in the episode Look (Stop Me if You've Heard this One)...

The Goodies (1973), guest cameo appearance as a Genie in the episode The Goodies and the Beanstalk

Ripping Yarns (1979), guest cameo appearance as a 'Spooty Youth' in the episode Golden Gordon

Doctor Who (1979), guest cameo appearance as an Art Lover in the episode City of Death as a favour to writer/script editor Douglas Adams

The Muppet Show (1977)

Cheers (5th Season) as Dr. Simon Finch-Royce, an acquaintance of Kelsey Grammer's character Frasier Crane and fellow psychiatrist, who offers pre-marriage counseling advice to Sam and Diane, much to his later chagrin.

Last of the Summer Wine (1993), guest cameo appearance in the episode Welcome to Earth.

25 Years of Last of the Summer Wine (1997)

3rd Rock from the Sun (1998–2001) as recurring character Dr. Liam Neesam.

Casper & Mandrilaftalen (1999) both as the repairman of the purple Gunrack, and as the Danish soccer coach Bosse Bo Johansson.

(2002) as Red

Will & Grace (2003–2004) as recurring character Lyle Finster.

Numerous commercials, including for supermarket chain Sainsbury's, snack firm Planters and a British government Stop Smoking campaign

Party political broadcasts for the Liberal Democrats and predecessor, the SDP-Liberal Alliance

In November 2009 commercials, in which he appears for Swedish electrical appliance chain "Elgiganten", began broadcasting in Sweden, as well as broadcasting in Denmark in late 2010.

Song "Don't Mention The World Cup"animated video played on ITV, BBC and Channel 4 News June 2006

Batteries Not Included—gadget show on UKTV channel Dave (2008)

Entourage as himself, season 7 finale (2010)

Filmography

{| class="wikitable sortable" |+ Films |- ! Year ! Title ! Role ! class="unsortable" | Notes |- | 1968 | ''Interlude | TV Publicist | |- | 1969 | | Mr. Dougdale (director in Sotheby's) | |- | 1969 | | Jones | Uncredited |- | 1970 | | Pummer | Writer |- | 1971 | And Now for Something Completely Different | Various Roles | Writer |- | 1974 | Romance with a Double Bass | Musician Smychkov | Writer |- | 1975 | Monty Python and the Holy Grail | Various Roles | Writer |- | 1976 | Meetings, Bloody Meetings | Tim | Writer/Executive ProducerDocumentary Short |- | 1977 | | Arthur Sherlock Holmes | |- | 1979 | Monty Python's Life of Brian | Various Roles | Writer |- | 1980 | | Himself-Various Roles | |- | 1981 | | Neville | |- | 1981 | Time Bandits | Gormless Robin Hood | |- | 1982 | Privates on Parade | Major Giles Flack | |- | 1983 | Yellowbeard | Blind Pew | |- | 1983 | Monty Python's The Meaning of Life | Various Roles | Writer |- | 1985 | Silverado | Langston | His first line, as he walks into a bar tobreak up a brawl, is, "What's all this, then?") |- | 1986 | Clockwise | Mr. Stimpson | Evening Standard British Film Awards Peter Sellers Award for Comedy |- | 1988 | | lawyer Archie Leach | Writer/Executive ProducerBAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading RoleNominated—Academy Award For Best Original ScreenplayNominated—BAFTA Award for Best Original ScreenplayNominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy |- | 1989 | ''Erik the Viking | Halfdan the Black | |- | 1990 | Bullseye! | Man on the Beach inBarbados Who Looks Like John Cleese | |- | 1991 | | Cat R. Waul | Voice Only |- | 1992 | Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? | | Narrator |- | 1993 | Splitting Heirs | Raoul P. Shadgrind | |- | 1994 | Mary Shelley's Frankenstein | Professor Waldman | |- | 1994 | | Dr. Julius Plumford | |- | 1994 | | Jean-Bob | |- | 1996 | '' | Mr. Toad's Lawyer | |- | 1996 | Fierce Creatures | Rollo Lee | Writer/Producer |- | 1997 | George of the Jungle | An Ape Named 'Ape' | Voice Only |- | 1998 | In the Wild: Operation Lemur with John Cleese | Host | Narrator |- | 1999 | | Mr. Mersault | |- | 1999 | | R | |- | 2000 | Isn't She Great | Henry Marcus | |- | 2000 | | Albert, The Magic Pudding | Voice Only |- | 2001 | Quantum Project | Alexander Pentcho | |- | 2001 | Here's Looking at You: The Evolution of the Human Face | | Narrator |- | 2001 | Rat Race | Donald P. Sinclair | |- | 2001 | Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone | "Nearly Headless Nick" | |- | 2002 | Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets | "Nearly Headless Nick" | Nominated—Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Ensemble Acting |- | 2002 | ''Roberto Benigni's Pinocchio | The Talking Crickett | Voice Only: English Version |- | 2002 | Die Another Day | Q | Second appearance in a James Bond film,replaces Desmond Llewelyn as Q in the series |- | 2002 | | James | |- | 2003 | | Mr. Munday | |- | 2003 | Scorched | Charles Merchant | |- | 2003 | George of the Jungle 2 | An Ape Named 'Ape' | Voice Only |- | 2004 | Shrek 2 | King Harold | Voice Only |- | 2004 | Around the World in 80 Days | Grizzled Sergeant | |- | 2005 | Valiant | Mercury | Voice Only |- | 2006 | Charlotte's Web | Samuel the Sheep | Voice Only |- | 2006 | Man About Town | Dr. Primkin | |- | 2007 | Shrek the Third | King Harold | Voice Only |- | 2008 | Igor | Dr. Glickenstein | Voice Only |- | 2008 | | Dr. Barnhardt | |- | 2009 | | Inspector Charles Dreyfus | |- | 2009 | Planet 51 | Professor Kipple | Voice Only |

|- |2010 | Spud | The Guv | Awaiting release |- | 2010 | | Ghost | Voice Only |- | 2010 | Shrek Forever After | King Harold | Voice Only |- | 2011 | Happy Feet 2 | Himself | Voice Onlypost-production |- |2011 |Winnie the Pooh |Narrator |Voice Only |- |}

Video game credits

Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time (1994) 7th Level

Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail (1996) 7th Level

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1997) Panasonic

Starship Titanic (1998) Simon & Schuster Interactive (voice of the Bomb) — (Credited as Kim Bread)

007 Racing (2000) Electronic Arts

The World Is Not Enough (2000) Electronic Arts

(2004) Electronic Arts

(2004) Atari

Jade Empire (2005) BioWare (as Sir Roderick Ponce von Fontlebottom the Magnificent Bastard)

Shrek the Third (2007) King Harold, Narrator

Fable III (2010) Jasper

Awards

Academy Awards

* (1988) Nominated—Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay / A Fish Called Wanda (shared with Charles Crichton)

Golden Globe Awards

* (1988) Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy / A Fish Called Wanda

BAFTA Awards

* (1970) Nominated—BAFTA Television Award for "Best Light Entertainment Performance" / Monty Python's Flying Circus

* (1971) Nominated—BAFTA Television Award for "Best Light Entertainment Performance" / Monty Python's Flying Circus

* (1976) Nominated—BAFTA Television Award for "Best Light Entertainment Performance" / Fawlty Towers

* (1980) Won—BAFTA Television Award for "Best Light Entertainment Performance" / Fawlty Towers

* (1989) Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay / A Fish Called Wanda

* (also 1989) Won—BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role''

Primetime Emmy Awards

* (1987) Won—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor - Comedy Series / Cheers (as Dr. Simon Finch-Royce)

* (1998) Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor – Comedy Series / 3rd Rock from the Sun (as Dr. Liam Neesam)

* (2002) Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Nonfiction Special" / The Human Face

* (2004) Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor – Comedy Series / Will & Grace (as Lyle Finster)

Writers Guild of America

* (1989) Nominated—Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay / A Fish Called Wanda (shared with Charles Crichton)

Other credits

In 2003, John Cleese took part in Mike Oldfield's re-recording of the 1973 hit Tubular Bells, Tubular Bells 2003. He took over the "Master of Ceremonies" duties in the ‘Finale’ part, in which he announced the various instruments eccentrically, from the late Vivian Stanshall.

Cleese recorded the voice of God for Spamalot, the musical based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Cleese narrated the audio version of C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters.

In the mid 1980s, Cleese starred in British advertisements for Compaq computers.

In the late-1990s, Cleese appeared in a set of poorly-received commercials for the UK supermarket chain Sainsbury's. Around the same time, his Fawlty Towers co-star, Prunella Scales, appeared in more well-received commercials for rival chain Tesco.

He has enunciated a set of directions for the TomTom in-car navigation system. This allows itself humorous notes at non-critical moments, for instance when asking for a U-turn and when signing off: "I'm not going to carry your baggage—from now on, you're on your own" and "Bear right..Beaver left."

He plays the voice of Samuel the Sheep in the 2006 adaptation of Charlotte's Web. Samuel repeatedly tells the other sheep to be individuals, not sheep. This is a reference to Monty Python's Life of Brian.

He has a speaking part at the end of the Alan Parsons song "Chomolungma" from the album A Valid Path.

In 2008, John Cleese appeared in a humorous TV commercial in Poland advertising a bank loan.

From 2006 to 2008 John Cleese has appeared in humorous TV commercials in Iceland advertising Kaupþing.

Honours and tributes

A species of lemur, Bemaraha Woolly Lemur or the "Avahi cleesei", has been named in his honour. John Cleese has mentioned this in television interviews. Also there is mention of this honour in "New Scientist"—and John Cleese's response to the honour.

An asteroid, 9618 Johncleese, is named in his honour.

Cleese declined a CBE (Commander of The British Empire) in 1996.

There is a municipal rubbish heap of in altitude that has been named Mt Cleese at the Awapuni landfill just outside Palmerston North after he dubbed the city "suicide capital of New Zealand".

"The Universal Language" skit from All in the Timing, a collection of short plays by David Ives, centres around a fictional language (Unamunda) in which the word for the English language is "johncleese".

Bibliography

The Rectorial Address of John Cleese, Epam, 1971, 8 pages

Foreword for Time and the Soul, Jacob Needleman, 2003  ISBN 1-57675-251-8 (paperback)

The Human Face (with Brian Bates) (DK Publishing Inc., 2001, ISBN 978-0-7894-7836-8)

Cleese Encounters: The Unauthorized Biography of Monty Python Veteran John Cleese, Jonathan Margolis, St. Martin's Press, 1992, ISBN 0-312-08162-6

Scripts

The Strange Case of the End of Civilisation As We Know It, w/Jack Hobbs & Joseph McGrath, 1977  ISBN 0-352-30109-0

Fawlty Towers, w/Connie Booth, 1977 (The Builders, The Hotel Inspectors, Gourmet Night)   ISBN 0-86007-598-2

Fawlty Towers: Book 2, w/Connie Booth, 1979 (The Wedding Party, A Touch of Class, The Germans)

The Golden Skits of Wing Commander Muriel Volestrangler FRHS & Bar, 1984  ISBN 0-413-41560-0

The Complete Fawlty Towers, w/Connie Booth, 1988  ISBN 0-413-18390-4 (hardcover), ISBN 0-679-72127-4 (paperback)

A Fish Called Wanda: The Screenplay, w/Charles Crichton, 1988  ISBN 1-55783-033-9

Fawlty's Hotel: Sämtliche Stücke, w/Connie Booth, (The Complete Fawlty Towers in German), Haffmans Verlag AG Zürich, 1995

Dialogues

Families and How to Survive Them, w/A.Robin Skynner, 1983  ISBN 0-413-52640-2 (hardc.), ISBN 0-19-520466-2 (p/back)

Life and How to Survive It, w/A.Robin Skynner 1993  ISBN 0-413-66030-3 (hardcover), ISBN 0-393-31472-3 (paperback)

See also

Declining a British honour

References

External links

Official Podcast

John Cleeseat the Museum of Broadcast Communications

John Cleese at the BBC Guide to Comedy

Podcast to celebrate The Life of Brian (March 2008)

Daily Llama: John Cleese Visits Lemurs at San Francisco Zoo

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