Name	National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
Logo
Type	Former broadcast radio network; Broadcast television network
Country	United States
Available	National
Founder	David Sarnoff in 1926
Slogan	more colorful.
Market share	42.3%
Owner	NBC Universal
Key people	Jeff Zucker, CEO Jeff Gaspin, Chairman, NBC Universal Television EntertainmentDick Ebersol, Chairman, NBC SportsSteve Capus, President, NBC News
Launch date	November 15, 1926 (radio)July 1, 1938 (television)
Dissolved	2003 (radio)
Picture format	480i (SD)1080i (HD)
Former names	NBC Red Network
Callsign meaning	National Broadcasting Company
Website	http://www.nbc.com

The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices in Burbank, California and Chicago, Illinois . It is sometimes referred to as the "Peacock Network" due to its stylized peacock logo, created originally for color broadcasts.

Formed in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), NBC was the first major broadcast network in the United States. In 1986, control of NBC passed to General Electric (GE), with GE's $6.4 billion purchase of RCA. GE had previously owned RCA and NBC until 1930, when it had been forced to sell the company as a result of antitrust charges. After the acquisition, the chief executive of NBC was Bob Wright, until he retired, giving his job to Jeff Zucker. The network is currently part of the media company NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric, which, on December 1, 2009, purchased the remaining 20% stake of NBC Universal which it did not already own from Vivendi. On December 3, 2009, Comcast announced it will purchase a 51% stake of NBC Universal.

NBC is available in an estimated 112 million households, 98.6% of those with televisions. NBC has 10 owned-and-operated stations and nearly 200 affiliates in the United States and its territories.

History

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Radio

Earliest stations: WEAF & WJZ

During a period of early broadcast business consolidation, the radio-making Radio Corporation of America (RCA) had acquired New York radio station WEAF from American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T;). An RCA shareholder, Westinghouse, had a competing facility in Newark, New Jersey pioneer station WJZ (no relation to the current WJZ-TV), which also served as the flagship for a loosely structured network. This station was transferred from Westinghouse to RCA in 1923, and moved to New York.

WEAF acted as a laboratory for AT&T;'s manufacturing and supply outlet Western Electric, whose products included transmitters and antennas. The Bell System, AT&T;'s telephone utility, was developing technologies to transmit voice- and music-grade audio over short and long distances, using both wireless and wired methods. The 1922 creation of WEAF offered a research-and-development center for those activities. WEAF had a regular schedule of radio programs, including some of the first commercially sponsored programs, and was an immediate success. In an early example of chain or networking broadcasting, the station linked with the Outlet Company's WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island; and with AT&T;'s station in Washington, D.C., WCAP.

New parent RCA saw an advantage in sharing programming, and after getting a license for station WRC in Washington, D.C., in 1923, attempted to transmit audio between cities via low-quality telegraph lines. AT&T; refused outside companies access to its high-quality phone lines. The early effort fared poorly, since the uninsulated telegraph lines were susceptible to atmospheric and other electrical interference.

In 1925, AT&T; decided WEAF and its embryonic network were incompatible with AT&T;'s primary goal of providing a telephone service. AT&T; offered to sell the station to RCA in a deal that included the right to lease AT&T;'s phone lines for network transmission.

Red & Blue Networks

RCA spent $1 million to buy WEAF and Washington sister station WCAP, shut down the latter station and merged its facilities with surviving station WRC, and announced in late 1926 the creation of a new division known as The National Broadcasting Company. The new division was divided in ownership between RCA (fifty percent), General Electric (thirty percent), and Westinghouse (twenty percent). NBC launched officially on November 15, 1926.

WEAF and WJZ, the flagships of the two earlier networks, operated side-by-side for about a year as part of the new NBC. On January 1, 1927 NBC formally divided their respective marketing strategies: the Red Network offered commercially sponsored entertainment and music programming; the Blue Network mostly carried sustaining or non-sponsored broadcasts, especially news and cultural programs. Various histories of NBC suggest the color designations for the two networks came from the color of the push pins NBC engineers used to designate affiliates of WEAF (red) and WJZ (blue), or from the use of double-ended red and blue colored pencils. A similar two-part/two-color strategy appeared in the recording industry, dividing the market between classical and popular offerings.

On April 5, 1927, NBC reached the West Coast with the launch of the NBC Orange Network, also known as The Pacific Coast Network. This was followed by the debut on October 18, 1931, of the NBC Gold Network, also known as The Pacific Gold Network. The Orange Network carried Red Network programming and the Gold Network carried programming from the Blue Network. Initially the Orange Network recreated Eastern Red Network programming for West Coast stations at KPO in San Francisco, California. In 1936 the Orange Network name was dropped and network affiliate stations became part of the Red Network. At the same time the Gold Network became part of the Blue Network. NBC also developed a network for shortwave radio stations in the 1930s called the NBC White Network.

Prior to occupying its location at Rockefeller Center, NBC had occupied upper floors of a building at 711 Fifth Avenue developed by Floyd Brown, himself an architect. Home of NBC from its construction in 1927,

The chimes

The famous three-note NBC chimes came about after several years of development. The three note sequence G-E'-C' were heard first over Atlanta's WSB. The chimes outline what is known to musicians as a second inversion C Major triad. Someone at NBC in New York heard the WSB version of the notes during the networked broadcast of a Georgia Tech football game and asked permission to use it on the national network. NBC started to use the three notes in 1931, and it was the first audio trademark to be accepted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A variant sequence was also used that went G-E'-C'-G, known as "the fourth chime" and used during wartime (especially in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor), on D-Day, and disasters. The NBC chimes were mechanized in 1932 by Richard H. Ranger of the Rangertone company; their purpose was to send a low level signal of constant amplitude that would be heard by the various switching stations manned by NBC and AT&T; engineers, and thus used as a system cue for switching different stations between the Red and Blue network feeds. Contrary to popular legend, the three musical notes, G-E'-C', did not originally stand for NBC's current parent corporation, the General Electric Company; although GE's radio station in Schenectady, New York, WGY, was an early NBC affiliate, and GE was an early shareholder in NBC's founding parent RCA. General Electric did not own NBC outright until 1986. G-E'-C' is still used on NBC-TV. A variant with two preceding notes is used on the MSNBC cable television network. NBC's radio branch no longer exists.

New beginnings: The Blue Network becomes ABC

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had, since its creation in 1934, investigated the monopolistic effects of network broadcasting. The FCC found that NBC's two networks and its owned-and-operated stations dominated audiences, affiliates and advertising in American radio. In 1939 the FCC ordered RCA to divest itself of one of the two networks. RCA fought the divestiture order, but in 1940 divided NBC into two companies in case an appeal was lost. The Blue Network became NBC Blue Network, Inc. and NBC Red became NBC Red Network, Inc. Both networks formally divorced operations on January 8, 1942, and the Blue Network was referred to on the air as either Blue or Blue Network, with official corporate name Blue Network Company, Inc. NBC Red, on the air, became known simply as NBC.

After losing its final appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court in May 1943, RCA sold Blue Network Company, Inc., for $8 million to Life Savers magnate Edward J. Noble, completing the sale on October 12, 1943. Noble got the network name, leases on land-lines and the New York studios; two-and-a half stations (WJZ in Newark/New York; KGO in San Francisco, and WENR in Chicago, which shared a frequency with Prairie Farmer station WLS); and about 60 affiliates. Noble wanted a better name for the network and in 1944 acquired the rights to the name American Broadcasting Company from George Storer. The Blue Network became ABC officially on June 15, 1945, after the sale was completed.

Defining radio’s golden age

In the golden days of network broadcasting, 1930 to 1950, NBC was at the pinnacle of American radio. NBC broadcast radio's earliest mass hit, Amos 'n' Andy, beginning in 1926–27 in its original fifteen-minute serial format. The show set a standard for nearly all serialized programming in the original radio era, both comedies and soap operas. The appeal of the two struggling title characters landed a broad audience, especially during the Great Depression.

NBC became home to many of the most popular performers and programs on the air. Al Jolson, Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, Bob Hope, Fred Allen, and Burns and Allen called NBC home, as did Arturo Toscanini's NBC Symphony Orchestra, which the network helped him create. Other programs were Vic and Sade, Fibber McGee and Molly, The Great Gildersleeve (arguably broadcasting's first spin-off program, from Fibber McGee), One Man's Family, Ma Perkins, and Death Valley Days. NBC stations were often the most powerful, and some occupied unique clear-channel national frequencies, reaching many hundreds or thousands of miles at night.

In the late 1940s, rival Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) gained ground by allowing radio stars to use their own production companies, which was profitable for them. In early radio years, stars and programs commonly hopped between networks when their short-term contracts expired. In 1948–49, beginning with the nation's top radio star, Jack Benny, many NBC performers jumped to CBS.

In addition, NBC stars began moving toward television, including comedian Milton Berle, whose Texaco Star Theater on NBC became television's first major hit. Conductor Arturo Toscanini conducted ten television concerts on NBC between 1948 and 1952. The concerts were simulcast on both TV and radio, perhaps the first such instance in which this was done. Two of them were historic firsts - the first complete telecast of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, and the first complete telecast of Verdi's Aida, performed in concert rather than with scenery and costumes. The Aida telecast starred Herva Nelli and Richard Tucker.

Aiming to keep classic radio alive as television matured, and to challenge CBS's Sunday night radio lineup, much of which had jumped from NBC with Jack Benny, NBC launched The Big Show in November 1950. This 90-minute variety show updated radio's earliest musical variety style with sophisticated comedy and dramatic presentations. Featuring stage legend Tallulah Bankhead as hostess, it lured prestigious entertainers, including Fred Allen, Groucho Marx, Lauritz Melchior, Ethel Barrymore, Louis Armstrong, Ethel Merman, Bob Hope, Danny Thomas, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Ella Fitzgerald. But The Big Show's initial success didn't last despite critical praise, as most of its potential listeners were increasingly becoming television viewers. The show endured two years, with NBC losing perhaps a million dollars on the project (they were only able to sell advertising time during the middle half-hour every week).

NBC's last major radio programming push, beginning June 12, 1955, was Monitor, a creation of NBC President Sylvester "Pat" Weaver, who also created the innovative NBC television programs Today Show, Tonight Show, and Home. Monitor was a continuous all-weekend mixture of music, news, interviews and features, with a variety of hosts including well-known television personalities Dave Garroway, Hugh Downs, Ed McMahon, Joe Garagiola and Gene Rayburn. The potpourri show tried to keep vintage radio alive by featuring segments from Jim and Marian Jordan (in character as Fibber McGee and Molly); Peg Lynch's dialog comedy Ethel and Albert (with Alan Bunce); and iconoclastic satirist Henry Morgan. Monitor was a success for a number of years, but after the mid-1960s, local stations, especially in larger markets, were reluctant to break from their established formats to run non-conforming network programming. After Monitor went off the air January 26, 1975, little remained of NBC network radio beyond hourly newscasts and news features, and The Eternal Light on Sunday mornings.

The last years of NBC Radio

Beginning on June 18, 1975, NBC launched the NBC News and Information Service (NIS), which provided up to 55 minutes of news per hour around the clock to local stations that wanted to adopt an all-news format. NIS attracted several dozen subscribing stations, largely in smaller markets, but not enough for NBC to expect profitability, and NBC discontinued it May 29, 1977. In 1979, NBC started The Source, a modestly successful secondary network providing news and short features to FM rock stations.

The NBC Radio Network also pioneered personal advice call-in national talk radio with a satellite-distributed talk show in the evening entitled TalkNet, featuring Bruce Williams (personal financial advice) and Sally Jesse Raphael (personal / romantic advice). While never much of a ratings success, TalkNet nonetheless helped further the national talk radio format. For affiliates, many of them struggling AM stations, TalkNet helped fill the evenings with free programming, allowing the stations to sell local advertising in a dynamic format without the cost associated with producing local programming. Some in the industry feared this trend would lead to ever-more control of radio content by networks and syndicators.

GE acquired RCA in 1986, and with it NBC, signaling the beginning of the end of NBC Radio. There were three factors that led to its demise. First, GE decided that radio did not fit its strategy. Second, the radio division had not been profitable for many years. Finally, FCC rules at the time prevented a new owner from owning both a radio and TV division. In the summer of 1987, GE sold NBC Radio's network operations to Westwood One, and sold off the NBC-owned stations to different buyers. By 1990, the NBC Radio Network as an independent programming service was pretty much gone, becoming a brand name for content produced by Westwood One, and ultimately by, ironically, CBS Radio. The Mutual Broadcasting System, which Westwood One had acquired two years earlier, met the same fate, and essentially merged with NBC Radio.

It should be noted that GE's divestiture of NBC's entire radio division was the first cannon shot of what would play out in the national broadcast media, as each of the Big 3 broadcast networks were soon acquired by other corporate entities. The NBC case was particularly noteworthy in that it was the first to be bought—and was bought by a corporate behemoth outside the broadcast industry as GE is a manufacturer. Prior to the acquisition by GE, NBC operated its radio division partly out of tradition, and partly to meet its then-FCC-mandated requirement to distribute programming for the public good (the now-defunct "Fairness Doctrine"). Syndicators such as Westwood One were not subject to such rules as they owned no stations. Thus did GE's divestiture of NBC Radio – "America's First Network" – in many ways mark the "beginning of the end" of the old broadcasting era and the ushering in of the new, largely unregulated industry that we see today.

By the late 1990s, Westwood One was producing NBC Radio-branded newscasts, on weekday mornings only. In 1999, these were discontinued, and the few remaining NBC Radio Network affiliates began to receive CNN Radio-branded newscasts around the clock. But in 2003, Westwood One began distributing a new service called NBC News Radio, consisting of one-minute news updates read by television anchors and reporters from NBC News and MSNBC. The content, however, is written by employees of Westwood One - not NBC News.

Television

For many years NBC was closely identified with David Sarnoff, who used it as a vehicle to sell consumer electronics. It was Sarnoff who ruthlessly stole innovative ideas from competitors, using RCA's muscle to prevail in the courts. RCA and Sarnoff had dictated the broadcasting standards put in place by the FCC in 1938, and captured the spotlight by introducing all-electronic television to the public at the 1939–40 New York World's Fair, simultaneously initiating a regular schedule of programs on the NBC-RCA television station in New York City. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared at the fair, before the NBC cameras, becoming the first U.S. president to appear on television on April 30, 1939. The David Sarnoff Library has available an actual, off-the-monitor photograph of the FDR telecast. The broadcast was transmitted by NBC's New York television station W2XBS Channel 1 (now WNBC-TV channel 4) and was seen by about one thousand viewers within the station's roughly coverage area from their Empire State Building transmitter location.

The next day, May 1, four models of RCA television sets went on sale to the general public in various New York City department stores, promoted in a series of splashy newspaper ads. It is to be noted that DuMont (and others) actually offered the first home sets in 1938 in anticipation of NBC's announced April 1939 start-up. Later in 1939, NBC took its cameras to professional football and baseball games in the New York City area, establishing many "firsts" in the history of television.

Actual NBC "network" broadcasts (more than one station) began about this time with occasional special events — such as the British King and Queen's visit to the New York World's Fair — being seen in Philadelphia (over the station which would become WPTZ, now KYW) and in Schenectady (over the station which would become WRGB), two pioneer stations in their own right. The most ambitious NBC television "network" program of this pre-war era was the telecasting of the Republican National Convention in 1940 from Philadelphia, which was fed live to New York and Schenectady. However, despite major promotion by RCA, television set sales in New York in the 1939-1940 period were disappointing, primarily due to the high cost of the sets, and the lack of compelling regular programming. Most sets were sold to bars, hotels and other public places, where the general public viewed special sporting and news events.

Television's experimental period ended, and the FCC allowed full commercial telecasting to begin on July 1, 1941. NBC's New York station W2XBS received the first commercial license, adopting the call letters WNBT (it is now WNBC-TV). The first official, paid television commercial on that day broadcast by any station in the United States was for Bulova Watches, seen just before the start of a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball telecast on NBC's WNBT, New York. A test pattern, featuring the newly assigned WNBT call letters, was modified to look like a clock, complete with functioning hands. The Bulova logo, with the phrase "Bulova Watch Time", was shown in the lower right-hand quadrant of the test pattern. A photograph of the NBC camera telecasting the test pattern-advertisement for that first official TV commercial can be seen at this page. Among programming on the opening weekend of WNBT's programming was amateur boxing at Jamaica Arena, the Eastern Clay Courts tennis championships, programming from the USO, a spelling bee-type game show called "Words on the Wing," a few feature films, and the television debut of the game show Truth or Consequences.

Limited programming continued until the U.S. entered World War II. Telecasts were curtailed in the early years of the war, then expanded as NBC began to prepare for full service upon the war's end. On V-E Day, May 8, 1945, WNBT broadcast hours of news coverage, and remotes from around New York City. This event was pre-promoted by NBC with a direct-mail card sent to television set owners in the New York area. At one point, a WNBT camera placed atop the marquee of the Hotel Astor panned the crowd below celebrating the end of the war in Europe. The vivid coverage was a prelude to television's rapid growth after the war ended.

The NBC television network grew from its initial post-war lineup of four stations. The 1947 World Series featured two New York teams (Yankees and Dodgers), and local TV sales boomed, since the games were telecast in New York. More stations along the East Coast and in the Midwest were connected by coaxial cable through the late 1940s, and in September 1951 the first transcontinental telecasts took place.

The early 1950s brought success for NBC in the new medium. Television's first big star, Milton Berle, drew large audiences to NBC with his antics on Texaco Star Theater. Under its innovative president, Sylvester "Pat" Weaver, the network launched Today and The Tonight Show, which would bookend the broadcast day for over fifty years, and which still lead their competitors. Weaver, who also launched the genre of periodic 90-minute network "spectaculars," network-produced motion pictures, and the live 90-minute Sunday afternoon series Wide Wide World, left the network in 1955 in a dispute with its chairman David Sarnoff, who subsequently named his son Robert Sarnoff as president.

In 1951, NBC commissioned Italian-American composer Gian Carlo Menotti to compose the first opera ever written for television; Menotti came up with Amahl and the Night Visitors, a forty-five minute work for which he wrote both music and libretto, about a disabled shepherd boy who meets the Three Wise Men and is miraculously cured when he offers his crutch to the newborn Christ Child. It was such a stunning success that it was repeated every year on NBC from 1951 to 1966, when a quarrel between Menotti and NBC ended the broadcasts. However, by 1978, Menotti and NBC had patched things up, and an all-new production of the work, filmed partly on location in the Holy Land, was telecast that year.

Color television

While rivals CBS and DuMont also offered color broadcasting plans, RCA convinced a waffling FCC to approve its color system in December 1953. NBC was ready with color programming within days of the FCC's decision. NBC began with some shows in 1954, and that summer broadcast its first program to air all episodes in color, The Marriage.

In 1955, on the television anthology Producers' Showcase, NBC broadcast a live production in color of Peter Pan, a new Broadway musical adaptation of J. M. Barrie's beloved play, with the musical's entire original cast, the first such telecast of its kind. Mary Martin starred as Peter and Cyril Ritchard played the dual role of Mr. Darling and Captain Hook. The broadcast drew the highest ratings for a television program up to then. It was so successful that NBC restaged it live a mere ten months later, and in 1960, long after Producers' Showcase had ended its run, Peter Pan, with most of the 1955 cast, was restaged again, this time as a TV special on its own, and videotaped so that it would no longer have to be done live on television.

In 1956 during a National Association meeting in Chicago, NBC announced that its Chicago TV station WNBQ (now WMAQ-TV) was the first color TV station in the nation (at least six hours of color broadcasts a day).

The television edition of the radio program The Bell Telephone Hour premiered in color on NBC in 1959, where it continued for nine more years.

In September 1961, the Walt Disney anthology television series moved from ABC to NBC, where the show continued its very long run, this time in color. As many of the Disney programs shown in black-and-white on ABC had actually been filmed in color, they could easily be repeated on the NBC edition of the program.

The 1962 Rose Bowl was the first color television broadcast of a college football game.

By 1963, much of NBC's prime time schedule was in color, although some popular programs like The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which premiered in late 1964, had their entire first season in black-and-white. In the fall of 1965, NBC achieved 95% color programming in prime time (the exceptions were I Dream of Jeannie and Convoy), and began billing itself as "The Full Color Network". Without television sets to sell, rival networks followed more slowly, finally committing to 100% prime-time color programming in the 1966–67 season. Days of our Lives was the first soap opera to premiere in color.

In 1967, NBC acquired MGM's classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz after CBS, which had televised the film beginning in 1956, refused to meet MGM's increased price for more television showings. Oz had been, up to then, one of the few programs that CBS had telecast in color, but by 1967, color was the norm on TV, and the film became another in the list of color specials telecast by NBC. The network showed the film annually for eight years, beginning in 1968, after which CBS, realizing that they may have committed a colossal blunder by letting this then-huge ratings success go to another network, now agreed to pay MGM more money so that the rights to show the film could revert back to them.

Two distinctive features of the film's showings on NBC were: # the film was shown for the first time without a host to introduce it as had always been previously done, # the film was slightly cut to make room for more commercials. Despite the cuts, however, it continued to score excellent television ratings in those pre-VCR days, as audiences were generally unable to see the film any other way at that time.

1970s doldrums

The 1970s started strongly for the network thanks to hits like Adam-12, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Emergency!, The Dean Martin Show, and The Flip Wilson Show, but this did not last. In spite of the success of such new shows as the NBC Mystery Movie, Sanford and Son, Chico and the Man, Little House on the Prairie, The Rockford Files, Police Woman and Quincy, M.E., as well as continued success from veterans like The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and The Wonderful World of Disney, the network entered a slump in the middle of the decade. Disney, in particular, saw its ratings nosedive once CBS put 60 Minutes up against it in the 1975-1976 season. In 1974 under new president Herb Schlosser, the network tried to go after younger viewers with a series of costly movies, miniseries and specials. This failed to attract the desirable 18-34 demographic, and alienated older viewers. None of the new prime-time shows NBC introduced in the fall of 1975 earned a second season, all failing in the face of established competition. The network's lone breakout success that season was the groundbreaking late-night comedy/variety show, NBC's Saturday Night -- which would soon become Saturday Night Live, in a time slot previously held by reruns of The Tonight Show.

In 1978, Schlosser was promoted to executive vice presidency at RCA, and a desperate NBC lured Fred Silverman away from number-one ABC to turn the network's fortunes around. With the notable exceptions of Diff'rent Strokes, Real People, The Facts of Life, and the mini-series Shogun, he couldn't find a hit. Failures accumulated rapidly under his watch (such as Hello, Larry, Supertrain, Pink Lady and Jeff, and The Waverly Wonders). Ironically many of them were beaten in the ratings by shows Silverman had greenlighted at CBS and ABC.

Also during this time, NBC suffered the defections of several longtime affiliates in markets such as: Atlanta (WSB-TV), Baltimore (WBAL-TV), Baton Rouge (WBRZ-TV), Charlotte (WSOC-TV), Dayton (WDTN), Indianapolis (WRTV), Jacksonville (WTLV), Minneapolis-St. Paul (KSTP-TV), and San Diego (KGTV). Most were wooed away by ABC, which was the number-one network during the late 1970s and early 1980s, while WBAL-TV went to CBS. In the case of WSB-TV and WSOC-TV, both were (and remain) under common ownership with Cox Communications, with its other NBC affiliate at the time, WIIC-TV in Pittsburgh (which would become WPXI the following year and also remains owned by Cox), only remaining with the network because WIIC-TV itself was in a distant third to then-CBS affiliate and Group W powerhouse KDKA-TV & pre-existing ABC affiliate WTAE-TV. (KDKA-TV, which is now owned by CBS, infamously passed up affiliating with NBC after Westinghouse Electric bought the station from DuMont in 1954, leading to an acrimonious relationship between NBC and Westinghouse for years afterward.) In markets such as San Diego, Charlotte, and Jacksonville, NBC was forced to replace the lost stations with new affiliates broadcasting on the UHF band, with the San Diego station (KNSD) eventually becoming an NBC O&O;. Other smaller television markets like Yuma, Arizona waited many years to get another local NBC affiliate (see TV stations KIVA and KYMA). The stations in Baltimore, Dayton and Jacksonville, however, have since rejoined the network.

When U.S. President Jimmy Carter pulled the American team out of the 1980 Summer Olympics, NBC canceled a planned 150 hours of coverage (which had cost $87 million), and the network's future was in doubt. It had been counting on $170 million in advertising revenues and on the broadcasts to help promote fall shows.

The press was merciless towards Silverman, but the two most savage attacks on his leadership came from within. The company that composed NBC's on-air Proud as a Peacock promo music created a spoof of the ad campaign called "Loud as a Peacock." Radio host Don Imus at WNBC in New York played the parody on-air. This angered Silverman and he ordered all remaining copies of the parody destroyed, though some copies remain. On Saturday Night Live, series writer and occasional performer Al Franken satirized Silverman in an SNL sketch titled "Limo for a Lame-O." As a result, Silverman admitted he "never liked Al Franken to begin with", and the sketch ruined Franken's chance of succeeding Lorne Michaels as executive producer of SNL.

Tartikoff's turnaround

In the summer of 1981, Fred Silverman resigned. Grant Tinker became president of the network and Brandon Tartikoff became chief of programming. Tartikoff inherited a schedule full of aging dramas and very few sitcoms, but showed patience with promising programs. One such show was the critically acclaimed Hill Street Blues, which rated poorly in its first season. Instead of canceling it, he moved the Emmy Award-winning police drama to Thursday night where its ratings improved dramatically. He used the same tactics with St. Elsewhere and Cheers. Shows like these were able to get the same ad revenue as their higher-rated, mass-audience competition because of their desirable demographics, upscale, 18-34 year-old viewers. While the network claimed moderate successes with Gimme a Break!, Silver Spoons, Knight Rider and Remington Steele, its biggest hit in this period was The A-Team, which, at tenth place, was the network's only top-20 rated show of the 1982–1983 season, and it reached third place the next year. These shows helped NBC through the disastrous 1983-84 season, in which none of its new fall shows gained a second year. It was the only time that a network's entire line of new fall series had failed to be renewed since the network's 1975 lineup.

In 1982, NBC canceled Tom Snyder's The Tomorrow Show and gave the time slot to 34-year-old comedian David Letterman. Though Letterman had an unsuccessful daytime series in 1980, Late Night with David Letterman proved much more successful.

In 1984, the huge success of The Cosby Show led to a renewed interest in sitcoms, while Family Ties and Cheers, both of which premiered in 1982 to mediocre ratings, saw their viewership increase from having Cosby as a lead-in. The network moved from third place to second place that season. It reached first place in the Nielsen rankings in the 1985-86 season, with hits The Golden Girls, Miami Vice, 227, Night Court, Highway to Heaven, and Hunter. The network's upswing continued through the decade with ALF, Amen, Matlock, L.A. Law, The Hogan Family, A Different World, Empty Nest, and In the Heat of the Night. In the 1988-1989 season, NBC, which was home to an astonishing 18 of the 30 highest-rated programs, won every week in the ratings for more than 12 months, an achievement that has not been duplicated before or since.

NBC aired the first of seven consecutive Summer Olympic Games broadcasts when it covered the 1988 Games in Seoul, South Korea. In 2002, the network would add the Winter Olympics, giving NBC the rights to every Olympics through the 2012 London Games.

"Must See TV"

In 1991, Tartikoff left NBC to take a position at Paramount Pictures. In one decade he had taken control of a network with no shows in the Nielsen Top 10 and left it with five. Warren Littlefield took his place. His start was shaky due to the end of most of the Tartikoff-era hits. Some blamed him for losing David Letterman to CBS after giving The Tonight Show to Jay Leno, following Johnny Carson's 1992 retirement. Things turned around with hit series Friends, Mad About You, Frasier, ER, and Will & Grace. One of Tartikoff's late acquisitions, Seinfeld, initially struggled, but became one of NBC's top-rated shows after it was moved into the timeslot following Cheers. The Must See TV tag line was applied to Thursday night's strong lineup. After popular show Seinfeld ended its run in 1998, Friends became the most popular sitcom on NBC. It dominated the ratings, never leaving the top 5 watched shows of the year in its second through tenth season and landing on the number 1 spot in season eight (2001-2002 season). Frasier was also popular and, despite not being as highly rated as Friends, still landed in the top 40 and won numerous Emmy Awards.

By the mid-1990s, NBC's sports division, headed by Dick Ebersol, had rights to three of the four major professional sports organizations (NFL, Major League Baseball and NBA), the Olympics, and the national powerhouse Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team. The NBA on NBC enjoyed great success in the 90s due in large part to the Chicago Bulls' run of six championships with superstar Michael Jordan. NBC Sports would suffer a major blow in 1998, however, when it lost the NFL to CBS, which itself had lost rights to FOX four years earlier.

NBC's Must See TV declined after Friends and Frasier ended their runs in 2004. Friends spin-off Joey (despite a relatively good start) started to fail during its second season.

New century, new problems

At the start of the 2000s, NBC's fortunes took a rapid turn for the worse. In 2001, CBS chose its hit reality series Survivor to anchor its Thursday night line-up. Its success was taken as a suggestion that NBC's nearly two decades of Thursday night dominance could be broken. With the loss of Friends and Frasier in 2004, NBC was left with several moderately rated shows and few true hits. By then, its major sports offerings had been reduced to the Olympics, PGA Tour golf and a floundering Notre Dame football program. NBC's ratings fell to fourth place. CBS led for most of the decade, followed by a resurgent ABC, and Fox (which would eventually become the most watched network for the 2007-08 season). During this time, all of the networks faced shrinking audiences due to increased competition from cable, home video, videogames and the internet, with NBC being the hardest hit.

With the beginning of the 2004-2005 season, NBC became the first major network to produce its programming in widescreen, hoping to attract new viewers; however, the network saw only a slight boost.

In December 2005, NBC began its first week-long primetime game show event, Deal or No Deal, garnering high ratings, and returning multi-weekly in March 2006. On sustained success, Deal or No Deal returned in the fall of 2006. Otherwise, the 2005-06 season was one of the worst for NBC in three decades, with only one fall series, the sitcom My Name Is Earl, surviving for a second season. The 2006-07 season was a mixed bag, with Heroes becoming a surprise hit on Monday nights, while the highly touted Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, from the creator of NBC's hit drama The West Wing, lost a third of its premiere-night viewers by week six and was eventually canceled. Sunday Night NFL football returned to NBC after eight years, Deal or No Deal stayed strong, and its comedies The Office and 30 Rock won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series for four consecutive years. However, NBC has remained in a very distant fourth place, barely ahead of The CW. No new primetime hits emerged in the 2008-2009 season (despite NBC's rare good fortune to have both the Super Bowl and the Beijing Olympic Games in which to promote their new offerings), while Heroes and Deal or No Deal both collapsed in the ratings, and both have since been cancelled. NBC Universal President/CEO Jeff Zucker had previously said that NBC no longer believed that they could be #1 in prime time.

In March 2007, NBC announced that it would offer full-length prime-time television shows like The Office and Heroes on-demand to play on mobile phones. This was a first for the United States, as the market shifts away from traditional television.

NBC aired the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, generating 21% higher ratings than its previous broadcast of the 2006 games in Torino. NBC was criticized for repeatedly showing footage of the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili. This led NBC News president Steve Capus to order the footage not to be shown without his permission and announcer Bob Costas to promise that the video wouldn't be shown again during the Games. NBC Universal is on track to pull in at least $250 million less from advertisers than the $820 million paid for the US rights to air the Games. Even so, with its continuing position in fourth place (although it virtually tied with ABC in many categories due to the sporting events), the 2009-2010 season ended with only two scripted shows - Community and Parenthood, as well as three unscripted shows - The Marriage Ref, Who Do You Think You Are?, and Minute to Win It - to be renewed for second terms, while others such as Heroes and Law & Order were canceled, the latter of which after 20 seasons, tying it with Gunsmoke for the record for longest-running scripted drama.

Jeff Zucker announced on September 24, 2010 that he would step down as CEO of NBC Universal once Comcast's purchase of NBC is completed at the end of the year.

2010 Tonight Show controversy

When Conan O'Brien replaced Jay Leno as host of The Tonight Show in 2009, the network gave Leno a new talk show, committing to air it every weeknight at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT (9:00 p.m. CT/MT), as an inexpensive comedic alternative to the procedurals and other one-hour dramas that typically air during that time slot. In doing so, NBC became the first large United States network in decades, or possibly ever, to broadcast the same show every weekday during prime time hours. Its executives called the decision "a transformational moment in the history of broadcasting" and "in effect, launching five shows." In January 2010, however, NBC would end up announcing that Leno's 10 p.m. show would be canceled, citing complaints from many affiliates, whose local newscasts significantly dropped in the ratings as a result of the change. Zucker attempted to move and shorten The Jay Leno Show to the 11:35pm–12:05am time slot and move the existing shows, including The Tonight Show, back 30 minutes. This, however, caused considerable backlash, as O'Brien had not been given any choice or prior notification of the move. Furthermore, his contract guaranteed him a minimum of three years as host and the majority of his staff had moved with him from New York to California less than a year before the show started. O'Brien refused to be a part of the moves if they went through, gaining tremendous public and professional support, and leading to a host and timeslot conflict, with Leno, Zucker and NBC as a whole having seen significant negative backlash against them for their involvement. Leno would end up returning as host of The Tonight Show effective March 1, 2010, while O'Brien accepted a buyout from NBC. O'Brien went on to host a new show, Conan, on cable network TBS starting in November 2010.

Despite the removal of The Jay Leno Show in prime time, the change had almost no impact on the network's ratings. The increases NBC noticed in the 2010 season compared to 2009 were almost entirely attributable to increased ratings for NBC Sunday Night Football.

NBC News

News presentation has long been an important part of NBC's operations and public image, dating to the network's radio days. Notable NBC News productions have included:

Dateline NBC

Early Today

Meet the Press

NBC Nightly News

Today

The expansion of the news division to cable has seen the launch of the channels CNBC for business news, MSNBC for general news, with a political orientation, and the acquisition of The Weather Channel.

NBC Nightly News has been the nation's most-watched newscast since 1997.

Programming

NBC presently operates on an 87-hour regular network programming schedule. It provides 22 hours of prime time programming to affiliated stations: 8-11pm (ET/PT)/7:00-10:00 pm (CT, MT, AT)/6-9 pm (HT) Monday through Saturday and 7-11 pm on Sundays. Programming is also provided 7-11 am weekdays in the form of Today, which also has a two-hour Saturday and one-hour Sunday edition; the one-hour weekday drama Days of our Lives; nightly editions of NBC Nightly News; the Sunday political talk show Meet the Press; weekday early-morning news program Early Today; late night talk shows The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Last Call with Carson Daly; sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live; Late-late-night poker series Poker After Dark and weeknight week-delay rebroadcasts of Late Night under the banner NBC All Night; and a three-hour Saturday morning animation block under the name qubo. In addition, sports programming is also provided weekend afternoons any time from 12-6 pm. ET, or tape-delayed PT.

Daytime programs

NBC is currently the home of only one daytime soap opera, Days of our Lives, which has been broadcast on the network since 1965.

Long-running NBC Daytime dramas of the past include The Doctors (1963–1982), Another World (1964–1999), Santa Barbara (1984–1993), and Passions (1999–2007). NBC also aired the final four and a half years of Search for Tomorrow (1982–1986) after that series was dropped by CBS, although many NBC affiliates did not air the show during that time. NBC has also aired numerous short-lived soaps, including Generations (1989–1991), Sunset Beach (1997–1999), and the two Another World spin-offs, Somerset (1970–1976) and Texas (1980–1982).

Notable daytime game shows that once aired on NBC include The Price Is Right (1956–1963), Concentration (1958–1973 and 1987–1991), The Match Game (1962–1969), Let's Make a Deal (1963–1968, 1990–1991, and a short-lived 2002 primetime revival), Jeopardy! (1964–1975 and 1978–1979), The Hollywood Squares (1966–1980), Wheel of Fortune (1975–1989 and 1991), Password Plus/Super Password (1979–1982 and 1984–1989), Sale of the Century (1969–1973 and 1983–1989) and Scrabble (1984–1990 and 1993). The final game show to air on NBC's daytime schedule was the short-lived Caesars Challenge, which ended in January 1994.

Children's programming

Children's programming has played a part in NBC's programming since its initial roots in television. In 1947, NBC's first major children's series was Howdy Doody, one of the era's first breakthrough television shows. The series, which ran for 13 years, featured a frecklefaced marionette and a myriad of other characters and hosted by "Buffalo" Bob Smith. Howdy Doody spent most of its run on weekday afternoons.

In 1956, NBC abandoned the children's programming lineup on weekday afternoons, relegating the lineup to Saturdays only with Howdy Doody as their marquee franchise for the series' remaining four years. From the mid-1960s until 1992, the bulk of NBC's children's programming were derived from theatrical shorts like The Pink Panther Show and Looney Tunes, reruns of popular television series like The Flintstones and The Jetsons, foreign acquisitions like Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion, original animated series (most notably The Smurfs and Alvin and the Chipmunks in the 1980s), cartoon adaptations of Gary Coleman, Mr. T, Punky Brewster, ALF and Star Trek, and original live-action series including The Banana Splits, The Bugaloos, and H.R. Pufnstuf.

From 1984 to 1989, One to Grow On PSAs were shown after the end credits of every show or every other children's show.

In 1989, NBC premiered Saved by the Bell, which originated at the Disney Channel as Good Morning, Miss Bliss. Saved by the Bell, despite bad reviews from TV critics, would become one of the most popular teen series in television history as well as the number one series on Saturday mornings, dethroning The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show in its first season.

NBC abandoned the animated series in August 1992 in favor of a Saturday edition of Today and more live-action series under the name TNBC (Teen NBC). Most of the series on the TNBC lineup were series produced by Peter Engel such as City Guys, Hang Time, California Dreams, One World and the Saved by the Bell spinoff, . NBA Inside Stuff was also a part of the TNBC lineup during the duration of the NBA season.

In 2002, NBC began a deal with Discovery Communications' Discovery Kids channel to air their original FCC-mandated educational programming under the banner Discovery Kids on NBC. Qubo will include blocks to air on NBC, Telemundo (the Spanish-language network owned by NBC Universal), and Ion Media Networks's Ion Television, as well as a 24/7 digital broadcast kids channel, video on demand services and a branded website.

The "Discovery Kids on NBC" block aired for the final time on September 2, 2006. On Saturday, September 9, 2006, NBC started airing the following qubo programs: VeggieTales, Dragon, VeggieTales Presents: 3-2-1 Penguins!, Babar, Jane and the Dragon, and Jacob Two-Two, and Postman Pat.

NBCi

:'NBCi' redirects here. In April 2000, NBC purchased a company that specialized with search engines that learned from the users' searches for $32 million, called GlobalBrain.

In 1999, NBC briefly changed its web address to "NBCi.com", in a heavily advertised attempt to launch an Internet portal and homepage. This move saw NBC teaming up with XOOM.com, e-mail.com, AllBusiness.com, and Snap.com (eventually acquiring all four of them), launching a multi-faceted internet portal with e-mail, webhosting, community, chat, personalization and news capabilities. This experiment lasted roughly one season, failed, and NBCi was folded back into NBC. The NBC-TV portion of the website reverted to NBC.com. However, the NBCi web site continued as a portal for NBC-branded content (NBCi.com redirected to NBCi.msnbc.com), using a co-branded version of InfoSpace to deliver minimal portal content. In mid 2007, NBCi.com began to mirror NBC.com.

Evolution of the NBC logo

NBC has used a number of logos throughout its history; early logos were similar to the logo of its then parent company, RCA, but later logos included stylized peacock images.

International broadcasts

Canada

NBC broadcasts from the United States can be received throughout most of Canada, primarily through cable television and satellite television providers, but also over the air in areas close to the Canada – United States border. Aside from simultaneous substitution, the programming and broadcasting are the same as in the United States.

Europe, Latin America and the Middle East

NBC Nightly News, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien are shown on CNBC Europe. NBC is no longer shown outside the Americas on a channel in its own right. However, both NBC News and MSNBC are shown for a few hours a day on Orbit News in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. MSNBC is also shown occasionally on sister network CNBC Europe during breaking news. Border cities in the Mexico – United States border region can easily receive NBC on-the-air, as well as cable and satellite subscribers across Mexico, especially in the Mexico City area.

NBC Super Channel becomes NBC Europe

In 1993, the Pan-European cable network Super Channel was taken over by General Electric, the parent of NBC, and became NBC Super Channel. In 1996, the channel was renamed NBC Europe, but was, from then on, almost always referred to as simply "NBC" on the air.

Most of NBC Europe's prime time programming was produced in Europe due to rights restriction associated with US primetime shows, but after 11 p.m. Central European Time on weekday evenings, the channel aired The Tonight Show, Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Later, hence its slogan "Where the Stars Come Out at Night." Many NBC News programs were broadcast on NBC Europe, including Dateline NBC, Meet the Press and NBC Nightly News, which was aired live. The Today Show was also initially shown live in the afternoons, but was later broadcast the following morning instead, by which time it was more than half a day old.

In 1999, NBC Europe stopped broadcasting to most of Europe. At the same time the network was relaunched as a German language computer channel, targeting a young demographic. The main show on the new NBC Europe was called NBC GIGA. In 2005, the channel was relaunched once again, this time as a free-to-air movie channel under the name "Das Vierte". GIGA started an own digital channel then, which can be received via satellite and many cable networks in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The Tonight Show and NBC Nightly News continue to be broadcast on CNBC Europe.

Canal de Noticias

In 1993, NBC began production of Canal de Noticias NBC. This service was beamed to Latin America from the NBC Newschannel headquarters located in Charlotte, North Carolina. Over 50 journalists were brought to produce, write, anchor and technically produce a 24 hour news service based on the popular "wheel" conceived at CNN. The service folded in 1997 as sales departments were not able to generate any revenue. After Mexican Noticias ECO, Canal de Noticias NBC holds the distinction of being the first 24 hour news service to be seen in Latin America. Telenoticias, at one point owned by CBS, came later followed by CNN en Español.

Caribbean

In the Caribbean, many cable television and satellite television providers air local NBC affiliates, or the main network feed from WNBC New York City or WTVJ in Miami. A few locally owned NBC affiliates do exist, in Puerto Rico. The island and the nearby U.S. Virgin Islands are the main receivers of NBC programs available in English and Spanish via the SAP option.

Bermuda

NBC's full program lineup is carried by local affiliate VSB-TV, received from the network's East Coast satellite feed.

Netherlands Antilles

In Aruba, the network programming is carried on station PJA-TV (ATV) 15, cable 8.

Asia Pacific

Guam

KUAM-TV is an NBC affiliate in Guam and carries the full NBC program lineup via satellite.

American Samoa

KKHJ-LP is the NBC affiliate for Pago Pago; it signed onto the network in 2005.

NBC Asia and CNBC Asia

In 1995, NBC launched a channel in Asia called NBC Asia available in Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. Like NBC Europe, NBC Asia featured most of NBC's news programs as well as the Tonight Show and Late Night. Like its European counterpart, it couldn't broadcast US-produced primetime shows due to rights restrictions. It also had NBC Super Sports for the latest action in selected sporting events. During weekday evenings, NBC Asia had a regional evening news program. It occasionally simulcast some programs from CNBC Asia and MSNBC. In July 1998, NBC Asia was replaced by the National Geographic Channel. As is the case with NBC Europe, however, selected Tonight Show and Late Night episodes and Meet the Press can still be seen on CNBC Asia during weekends. CNBC Asia shows NFL games and also brands them as Sunday Night Football.

Regional partners

Through regional partners, NBC-produced programs are seen in some countries in the region. In the Philippines, Solar Entertainment's Jack TV airs The Tonight Show and Late Night, Will & Grace and Saturday Night Live, while 2nd Avenue airs NBC News programs like Today Show, Early Today, Weekend Today and Dateline while Solar TV airs NBC Nightly News and the Jay Leno Show. In Hong Kong, TVB Pearl, the English free-to-air channel operated by Television Broadcasts Limited, airs NBC Nightly News live, as well as selected NBC programming.

Australia

The Seven Network in Australia has close ties with NBC and has used many of its slogans (including Let's All Be There). Seven News has featured The Mission as its news theme since the mid 1980s. Local newscasts were named Seven Nightly News from the mid 1980s until around 2000. Seven rebroadcasts some of NBC's news and current affairs programming, including:

Today

Weekend Today

Dateline NBC

Meet the Press with David Gregory

In 2009, NBC and Seven Network used Guy Sebastian's #1 Aria selling song Like it Like That for their summer station promo.

Affiliate world broadcasters of NBC

laSexta and Antena 3 (Spain)

UCV Television and TVN (Chile)

Televisa and TV Azteca (Mexico)

Rede Record (Brazil)

RCTV and Venevision (Venezuela)

Steel and Class News (Italy)

CNBC-e and e2 and ntvmsnbc (Turkey)

Library

Through the years, NBC has produced many shows in-house, in addition to airing content from other producers such as Revue Studios and its successor Universal Television.

Notable in-house productions of NBC included Get Smart, Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie, Las Vegas and Crossing Jordan. NBC sold the rights to its pre-1973 shows to National Telefilm Associates in 1973. Today, those rights are owned by CBS Television Distribution.

NBC continues to own its post-1973 productions, through sister company NBC Universal Television Group, the successor to Universal TV. As a result, NBC in a way now owns several other series aired on the network prior to 1973, such as Wagon Train.

See also

List of NBC personalities

List of NBC slogans

List of NBC television affiliates (by U.S. state)

List of NBC television affiliates (table), arranged by market

List of programs broadcast by NBC

List of programs previously broadcast by NBC

Must See TV

NBC chimes

NBC Daytime

NBC News

NBC pages

NBC Sports

NBC Studios

The Weather Channel

XHGC-TV

Telemundo Puerto Rico

References

External links

Museum of Broadcast Communications - NBC History

Category:American television networks Category:Companies based in New York City Category:Companies established in 1926 Category:NBC Universal Category:NBC television network Category:Rockefeller Center

Name	Tina Fey
Caption	Tina Fey at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International promoting Megamind.
Birth name	Elizabeth Stamatina Fey
Birth date	May 18, 1970
Birth place	Upper Darby Township, Pennsylvania,United States
Occupation	Actress, comedian, writer, producer
Years active	1994–present
Spouse	Jeff Richmond (2001–present; 1 child)

Elizabeth Stamatina "Tina" Fey (; born May 18, 1970) is an American actress, comedian, writer and producer. She has received seven Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, and four Writers Guild of America Awards. She was singled out as the performer who had the greatest impact on culture and entertainment in 2008 by the Associated Press, which gave her its AP Entertainer of the Year award.

Early life

Fey was born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, a township just outside of Philadelphia. She is the daughter of Zenovia "Jeanne" (née Xenakes) – a brokerage employee of Greek descent – and Donald Fey, a university grant proposal-writer of German and Scottish descent. She has a brother, who is eight years older, named Peter.

Fey was exposed to comedy early. She recalls:

She also grew up watching Second City Television (SCTV) and cites Catherine O'Hara as a role model.

Fey attended Cardington Elementary School and Beverly Hills Middle School in Upper Darby. By middle school, she knew she was interested in comedy, even doing an independent-study project on the subject in eighth grade. She also anonymously wrote the newspaper's satirical column, The Acorn. Following her graduation in 1988, Fey enrolled at the University of Virginia, where she studied playwriting and acting. She graduated in 1992 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in drama.

Career

Early career

After graduating, Fey originally had plans to do graduate work in drama at DePaul University in Chicago, but "I just got this feeling like it wasn't going to work out ... [that] they were going to take my money and then cut me from the program." She moved to Chicago anyway, knowing about the improvisational comedy troupe, The Second City. She took night classes at Second City, and had a day job working at the front desk of a YMCA facility in Evanston to pay for her classes. Once her Second City training began, she immersed herself in the "cult of improvisation", where she performed alongside Scott Adsit, Kevin Dorff, Rachel Dratch, Jenna Jolovitz, and Jim Zulevic. Improvisation became an important influence on her initial understanding of what it means to be an actress, as she noted in an interview for The Believer in November 2003: She also performed at the ImprovOlympic theater.

Saturday Night Live (1997–2006)

While performing shows with the Second City in 1997, Fey submitted several scripts to NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live (SNL), at the request of its head writer Adam McKay, a former performer at Second City. for SNL following a meeting with SNL creator Lorne Michaels, and moved to New York. Fey told The New Yorker, "I’d had my eye on the show forever, the way other kids have their eye on Derek Jeter." She co-wrote the "Sully and Denise" sketches with Rachel Dratch, and after watching herself, decided to diet and lost 30 pounds. She told The New York Times, "I was a completely normal weight. But I was here in New York City, I had money and I couldn't buy any clothes. After I lost weight, there was interest in putting me on camera." In 1999, McKay stepped down as head writer, which led Michaels to approach Fey for the position.

In 2000, Fey began performing in sketches, Fey said she did not ask to audition, but that Michaels approached her. Michaels explained that there was "chemistry" between Fey and Fallon. Her role in Weekend Update was well received by critics. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly wrote: "...Fey delivers such blow darts – poison filled jokes written in long, precisely parsed sentences unprecedented in Update history – with such a bright, sunny countenance makes her all the more devilishly delightful." Dennis Miller, a former cast member of SNL and anchor of Weekend Update, was pleased with Fey as one of the anchors for the segment: "...Fey might be the best Weekend Update anchor who ever did it. She writes the funniest jokes". Robert Bianco of USA Today, however, commented that he was "not enamored" with the pairing.

In 2001, Fey and the writing staff won a Writers Guild of America Award for SNL's 25th anniversary special.

The pairing of Fey and Fallon ended in May 2004 when Fallon last appeared as a cast member. He was replaced by Amy Poehler. It was the first time that two women co-anchored Weekend Update. Fey revealed that she "hired" Poehler as her co-host for the segment. The reception to the teaming of Fey and Poehler was positive, with Rachel Sklar of the Chicago Tribune noting that the pairing "has been a hilarious, pitch-perfect success as they play off each other with quick one-liners and deadpan delivery".

30 Rock (2006–present)

in October 2007.]]

In 2002, Fey suggested a pilot episode for a situation comedy about a cable news network to NBC, who rejected it. The pilot was reworked to revolve around an SNL style series, and was accepted by NBC. She signed a contract with NBC in May 2003, which allowed her to remain in her SNL head writer position at least through the 2004–2005 television season. As part of the contract, Fey was to develop a primetime project to be produced by Broadway Video and NBC Universal. She began developing the pilot project under the working title Untitled Tina Fey Project. The pilot, directed by Adam Bernstein, centered on the head writer of a variety show and how she managed her relationships with the show's volatile star and its executive producer. In October 2006, the pilot aired on NBC as 30 Rock. Although the episode received generally favorable reviews, it finished third in its timeslot.

The network renewed the series for a second season, which began in October 2007. The show's third season premiered on October 30, 2008. The premiere episode set records for the highest ratings of the series. In January 2009, NBC renewed 30 Rock for the 2009–2010 season.

In 2007, Fey received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series. The show itself won the 2007 Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series. In 2008, she won the Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, and Emmy awards all in the category for Best Actress in a Comedy Series. The following year, Fey again won the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award in the same categories, and was nominated for an Emmy Award. In early 2010, Fey received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, and won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Lead Actress. 30 Rock was renewed for the 2010–2011 season in March 2010.

Sarah Palin

In September and October 2008 Fey made a guest appearance on SNL to perform a series of parodies of Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. On the 34th season premiere episode, aired September 13, 2008, Fey imitated Palin in a sketch, alongside Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton. Their repartee included Clinton needling Palin about her "Tina Fey glasses". The sketch quickly became NBC.com's most-watched viral video ever, with 5.7 million views by the following Wednesday. Fey reprised this role on the October 4 show, and on the October 18 show where she was joined by the real Sarah Palin. The October 18 show had the best ratings of any SNL show since 1994. The following year Fey won an Emmy in the category of Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her impersonation of Palin. Fey returned to SNL in April 2010, and reprised her impression of Palin in one sketch titled "Sarah Palin Network".

In December 2009, Entertainment Weekly put her impersonation on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, writing, "Fey's freakishly spot-on SNL impersonation of the wannabe VP (and her ability to strike a balance between comedy and cruelty) made for truly transcendent television."

Other work

In 2000, Fey partnered with fellow SNL cast member Rachel Dratch in the Off Broadway two-woman show Dratch & Fey at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York City. The production was well received by critics. Tim Townsend of The Wall Street Journal in review of Dratch & Fey, wrote that the fun part of watching them perform was "seeing how comfortable they are with each other". She appeared as a guest judge on the November 25, 2007 episode of the Food Network program Iron Chef America. Fey has appeared in Disney's campaign "Year of a Million Dreams" as Tinker Bell, along with Mikhail Baryshnikov as Peter Pan and Gisele Bündchen as Wendy Darling. She has also done commercials for American Express credit card.

On February 23, 2008, Fey hosted the first episode of SNL after the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike. For this appearance, she was nominated for an Emmy in the category of Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program. Fey hosted SNL for a second time on April 10, 2010, and for her appearance she received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.

Feature films

In 2002, Fey appeared in the surreal comedy Martin & Orloff. She made her debut as writer and co-star of the 2004 teen comedy Mean Girls. Characters and behaviors in the movie are based on Fey's high school life at Upper Darby High School and on the non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman. The cast includes other past cast members of SNL including Tim Meadows, Ana Gasteyer, and Amy Poehler. The film received favorable reviews, and was a box office success, grossing $129 million worldwide.

at the premiere of Baby Mama in New York.]]

In a 2004 interview, Fey expressed that she would like to write and direct movies in which she has small parts. In 2007, she was cast in the animated comedy film Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters as the teens' mother, a giant burrito.

Fey and former SNL castmate Amy Poehler starred in the 2008 comedy Baby Mama. The movie was written and directed by Michael McCullers. The plot concerns Kate (Fey), a business woman, who wants a child but, discovering she has only a million-to-one chance of getting pregnant, decides to find a surrogate: Angie (Poehler), a white-trash schemer. Baby Mama received mixed reviews, but many critics enjoyed Fey's performance. Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote: "Fey is a delight to watch throughout. Able to convey Kate's intentions and feelings through the simple looks and inflections, she never melodramatizes her situation; nor does her efficient, perfectionist side become overbearing." The movie grossed over $64 million at the box office.

Fey's projects after 2008 include her lending her voice to the character Lisa in the English language version of the Japanese animated film Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (titled Ponyo for its U.S. release). In 2009, she appeared in The Invention of Lying, alongside Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, and Christopher Guest. Her next film role was in Shawn Levy's 2010 comedy Date Night, a feature that focuses on a married couple, played by Fey and Steve Carell, who go on a date; however, the night goes awry for the two. Also in the same year, she voiced Roxanne Ritchie, a television reporter, in the DreamWorks animated film Megamind (2010).

In July 2010 it was announced that Fey will star in an upcoming comedy entitled Mommy & Me alongside Meryl Streep, who will play her mother. The film will be directed by Stanley Tucci.

In the media

Fey was ranked in the Hot 100 List at number 80 on Maxim magazine in 2002. and one of People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful People in 2007, 2008, and 2009. In 2007, she was included in People's 100 Most Beautiful issue. Also in 2007, Fey placed seventh on the Hot 100 List on AfterEllen.com. She repeated the appearance the following year, however, being voted as number one on the list.

In 2001, Entertainment Weekly named Fey as one of their Entertainers of the Year for her work on Weekend Update. She again was named one of the magazine's Entertainers of the Year in 2007, and placed number two in 2008. In 2009, Fey was named as Entertainment Weekly's fifth individual in their 15 Entertainers of the 2000s list. The newspaper editors and broadcast producers of the Associated Press voted Fey the AP Entertainer of the Year as the performer who had the greatest impact on culture and entertainment in 2008, citing her impression of Sarah Palin on SNL. She has appeared on Forbes' annual Celebrity 100 list of the 100 most powerful celebrities in 2008, 2009, and 2010, at No. 99, No. 86, and No. 90 respectively.

In 2007, the New York Post included Fey in New York's 50 Most Powerful Women, ranking her at number 33. Fey was among the Time 100, a list of the 100 most influential people in the world, in 2007 and 2009, as selected annually by Time magazine. Fey's featured article for the 2009 list was written by 30 Rock co-star, Alec Baldwin.

Personal life

in April 2010]]

Fey is married to Jeff Richmond, composer on 30 Rock. They met at Chicago's Second City and dated for seven years before marrying in a Greek Orthodox ceremony on June 3, 2001. They have a daughter—Alice Zenobia Richmond—who was born on September 10, 2005, during Fey's tenure at SNL. Fey returned to the show on October 22, saying "I had to get back to work. NBC has me under contract; the baby and I have only a verbal agreement." In April 2009, Fey and Richmond purchased a $3.4 million apartment in the Upper West Side in New York City.

Fey has a scar a few inches long on the left side of her chin and cheek. Responding to questions about its origin, Fey was quoted in the November 25, 2001, New York Times article as saying: "It's a childhood injury that was kind of grim. And it kind of bums my parents out for me to talk about it". She has said she was reluctant to discuss the incident in part because "It's impossible to talk about it without somehow seemingly exploiting it." Fey favors the right (non-scar) side of her face when acting as her character Liz Lemon. At the 64th Golden Globe Awards, Fey wore a blue puzzle piece to raise awareness for the organization. In April 2008, she participated in Night of Too Many Stars, a comedy show benefit for autism education.

Fey is also a supporter of Mercy Corps, a global relief and development organization, in their campaign to end world hunger. Fey narrated a video for Mercy Corps's Action Center in New York City, describing hunger as a symptom of many wider world problems. She also supports the Love Our Children USA organization, which fights violence against children, who named her among their Mothers Who Make a Difference in 2009. She is the 2009 national spokesperson for the Light The Night Walk, which benefits the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

In June 2010, it was announced she would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2011.

Detailed works

{| class="wikitable sortable" |+ As a writer |- ! style="width:10%;"| Year/s ! style="width:20%;"| Title ! style="width:5%;"| Medium ! style="width:65%;"| Notes |- | 1997–2006 | Saturday Night Live | TV | Head writer 1999–2006 |- | 2004 | Mean Girls | Film | Screenplay adapted from Queen Bees and Wannabes |- | 2006–present | 30 Rock | TV | Episodes written:Season 1: (8/21) "Pilot", "The Aftermath", "Tracy Does Conan", "The Head and the Hair"^‡, "Black Tie"^‡, "Up All Night", "The C Word", "Hiatus"Season 2: (4/15) "SeinfeldVision", "Somebody to Love"^‡, "MILF Island"^‡, "Cooter"Season 3: (5) "Do-Over", "Christmas Special"^‡, "St. Valentine's Day"^‡, "The Bubble", "The Natural Order"^‡Season 4: (4) "Season 4", "Secret Santa, "Lee Marvin vs. Derek Jeter"^‡, "I Do Do"‡denotes episode co-written. |}

{| class="wikitable sortable" |+ As an actress |- ! style="width:10%;"| Year/s ! style="width:20%;"| Title ! style="width:5%;"| Medium ! style="width:15%;"| Role/s ! style="width:50%;"| Notes |- | 1998–2006, 2008, 2010 | Saturday Night Live | TV | Multiple | Includes being a cast member from 1998 to 2006, host of Weekend Update (2000–2006), guest in 2008 and 2010, and made five appearances impersonating Sarah Palin. |- | 1999 | Upright Citizens Brigade | TV | Kerri Downey | One episode |- | 2002 | Martin & Orloff | Film | Southern Woman | |- | 2004 | Mean Girls | Film | Ms. Norbury | |- | 2006 | Artie Lange's Beer League | Film | Gym Secretary | |- | 2006 | Man of the Year | Film | Herself | Saturday Night Lives Weekend Update with Fey and Amy Poehler was featured in the movie |- | 2006–present | 30 Rock | TV | Liz Lemon | Main role | |- | 2008 | Baby Mama | Film | Kate Holbrook | |- | 2009 | Ponyo | Film | Lisa | Voice (English version) |- | 2009 | | Film | Shelley | |- | 2009 | SpongeBob's Truth or Square | TV | Herself | |- | 2010 | Date Night | Film | Claire Foster | |- | 2010 | Megamind | Film | Roxanne Ritchi | Voice |}

Awards and nominations

The following awards are categorized under the year they were announced (and not necessarily the year covered by the award ceremony).

{| class="wikitable sortable" |- ! Year ! Award ! Category ! Work ! Result |- | 2001 | Emmy Award | Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program | Saturday Night Live | Nominated |- | 2001 | WGA Award | Comedy/Variety series | Saturday Night Live | Nominated |- | 2001 | WGA Award | Comedy/Variety special | Saturday Night Live: 25th Anniversary Special | Won |- | 2002 | Emmy Award | Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program | Saturday Night Live | Won |- | 2002 | WGA Award | Comedy/Variety series | Saturday Night Live | Nominated |- | 2003 | Emmy Award | Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program | Saturday Night Live | Nominated |- | 2003 | WGA Award | Comedy/Variety Series | Saturday Night Live | Nominated |- | 2003 | WGA Award | Comedy/Variety Special | Saturday Night Live: NBC 75th Anniversary Special | Nominated |- | 2004 | Teen Choice Award | Choice TV Actress: Comedy | Saturday Night Live | Nominated |- | 2005 | People's Choice Awards | Favorite Funny Female Star | | Nominated |- | 2005 | Teen Choice Award | Choice Comedian | | Nominated |- | 2005 | WGA Award | Best Adapted Screenplay | Mean Girls | Nominated |- | 2007 | Emmy Award | Comedy Series | 30 Rock | Won |- | 2007 | Emmy Award | Lead Actress in a Comedy Series | 30 Rock | Nominated |- | 2007 | Emmy Award | Writing for a Comedy Series | "Tracy Does Conan" for 30 Rock | Nominated |- | 2007 | WGA Award | Comedy Series | 30 Rock | Nominated |- | 2007 | WGA Award | New Series | 30 Rock | Nominated |- | 2007 | WGA Award | Comedy/Variety Special | Saturday Night Live | Won |- | 2008 | Emmy Award | Comedy Series | 30 Rock | Won |- | 2008 | Emmy Award | Lead Actress in a Comedy Series | 30 Rock | Won |- | 2008 | Emmy Award | Writing for a Comedy Series | "Cooter" for 30 Rock | Won |- | 2008 | Emmy Award | Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program | Saturday Night Live | Nominated |- | 2008 | Golden Globe Award | Actress in a Television Series — Musical or Comedy | 30 Rock | Won |- | 2008 | Golden Globe Award | Best Television Series — Musical or Comedy | 30 Rock | Nominated |- | 2008 | Screen Actors Guild Awards | Female Actor in a Comedy Series | 30 Rock | Won |- | 2008 | Screen Actors Guild Awards | Ensemble in a Comedy Series | 30 Rock | Nominated |- | 2008 | WGA Award | Comedy Series | 30 Rock | Won |- | 2009 | Golden Globe Award | Actress in a Television Series — Musical or Comedy | 30 Rock | Won |- | 2009 | Golden Globe Award | Best Television Series — Musical or Comedy | 30 Rock | Won |- | 2009 | Screen Actors Guild Awards | Female Actor in a Comedy Series | 30 Rock | Won |- | 2009 | Screen Actors Guild Awards | Ensemble in a Comedy Series | 30 Rock | Won |- | 2009 | WGA Award | Comedy Series | 30 Rock | Won |- | 2009 | WGA Award | Episodic Comedy | "Cooter" for 30 Rock | Nominated |- | 2009 | Emmy Award | Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series | Portrayal of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live | Won |- | 2009 | Emmy Award | Comedy Series | 30 Rock | Won |- | 2009 | Emmy Award | Lead Actress in a Comedy Series | 30 Rock | Nominated |- | 2010 | Golden Globe Award | Actress in a Television Series — Musical or Comedy | 30 Rock | Nominated |- | 2010 | Golden Globe Award | Best Television Series — Musical or Comedy | 30 Rock | Nominated |- | 2010 | Screen Actors Guild Awards | Female Actor in a Comedy Series | 30 Rock | Won |- | 2010 | Screen Actors Guild Awards | Ensemble in a Comedy Series | 30 Rock | Nominated |- | 2010 | Emmy Award | Comedy Series | 30 Rock | Nominated |- | 2010 | Emmy Award | Lead Actress in a Comedy Series | 30 Rock | Nominated |- | 2010 | Emmy Award | Writing for a Comedy Series | "Lee Marvin vs. Derek Jeter" for 30 Rock | Nominated |- | 2010 | Emmy Award | Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program | Saturday Night Live | Nominated |- | 2010 | Teen Choice Award | Choice Movie Actress: Comedy | Date Night | Won |- | 2010 | Mark Twain Prize for American Humor | American Humor | | Won |}

References

Further reading

Baldwin, Kristen. "'Update' With Destiny." Entertainment Weekly. May 2, 2002. Accessed July 14, 2009.

Smith, Kyle. "Leap of Fey." People Magazine. May 3, 2004. Accessed July 14, 2009.

Schwartz, Missy. "The Smartest Girl in The Class." Entertainment Weekly. May 7, 2004. Accessed July 14, 2009.

Ryder, Caroline. "A Conversation with Tina Fey." Women's Health Magazine. March 2007. Accessed July 14, 2009.

Rys, Richard. "Exit Interview: Tina Fey." Philadelphia Magazine. April 3, 2008. Accessed July 15, 2009.

Baldwin, Kristen. "Tina Fey: One Hot 'Mama'." Entertainment Weekly. April 9, 2008. Accessed July 14, 2009.

Jacobs, A.J. "Tina Fey, Make Us Laugh." Esquire Magazine. May 1, 2008. Accessed July 15, 2009.

Carnwath, Ally. "Queen of the jokers." The Guardian. May 4, 2008. Accessed July 14, 2009.

Goodwin, Christopher. "And funny with it." The Guardian. May 11, 2008. Accessed July 14, 2009.

Moran, Caitlin. "Tina Fey and Sarah Silverman: the new queens of comedy." The Times October 3, 2008. Accessed July 14, 2009.

Carter, Bill. "It’s Easy to Find Tina Fey on TV, but Not Her Show." The New York Times. October 13, 2008. Accessed July 14, 2009.

Brown, Laura. "Tina Fey Rocks." Harper's Bazaar. November 2009. Accessed October 7, 2009.

Pringle, Gill. "Tina Fey — From spoofer to movie stardom." The Independent. March 19, 2010. Accessed March 19, 2010.

Walker-Mitchell, Donna. "Witty woman." The Sydney Morning Herald. March 28, 2010. Accessed March 28, 2010.

External links

Interview on Fresh Air, aired November 3, 2008

Category:1970 births Category:Actors from Pennsylvania Category:American actors of German descent Category:American actors of Greek descent Category:American actors of Scottish descent Category:American Christians Category:American comedy writers Category:American film actors Category:American people of German descent Category:American people of Greek descent Category:American people of Scottish descent Category:American television actors Category:American television producers Category:American television writers Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actress Golden Globe (television) winners Category:Greek Orthodox Christians Category:Eastern Orthodox Christians from the United States Category:Emmy Award winners Category:ImprovOlympics Category:Living people Category:Mark Twain Prize recipients Category:Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:Parodies of Sarah Palin Category:People from New York City Category:People from Delaware County, Pennsylvania Category:Second City alumni Category:University of Virginia alumni Category:Writers from Pennsylvania Category:Writers from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Category:Writers Guild of America Award winners Category:Women comedians Category:Women television writers

Name	Ted Williams
Position	Left fielder
Bats	Left
Throws	Right
Birthdate	August 30, 1918
Birthplace	San Diego, California
Deathdate	July 05, 2002
Deathplace	Inverness, Florida
Debutdate	April 20
Debutyear	1939
Debutteam	Boston Red Sox
Finaldate	September 28
Finalyear	1960
Finalteam	Boston Red Sox
Stat1label	Batting average
Stat1value	.344
Stat2label	Home runs
Stat2value	521
Stat3label	Hits
Stat3value	2,654
Stat4label	Runs batted in
Stat4value	1,839
Teams
Highlights
Hofdate
Hofvote	93.38% (first ballot)

Theodore Samuel Williams (August 30, 1918 – July 5, 2002), nicknamed "The Kid", "The Splendid Splinter", "Teddy Ballgame", and "The Thumper" because of his hitting prowess, was an American Major League Baseball left fielder. He played his entire 21-year baseball career for the Boston Red Sox (1939-1942 and 1946-1960). Williams' career was twice interrupted by military service as a Marine Corps pilot.

Williams was a two-time American League Most Valuable Player (MVP) winner, led the league in batting six times, and won the Triple Crown twice. He had a career batting average of .344, with 521 home runs, and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966. He is the last player in Major League Baseball to bat over .400 in a single season (.406 in 1941). Williams holds the highest career batting average of anyone with 500 or more home runs. His career year was 1941, when he hit .406 with 37 HR, 120 RBI, and 135 runs scored. His .551 on base percentage set a record that stood for 61 years. An avid sport fisherman, he hosted a television show about fishing and was inducted into the IGFA Fishing Hall of Fame.

Early life

Ted Williams was born in San Diego as Teddy Samuel Williams, named after his father, Samuel Stuart Williams, and Teddy Roosevelt. At some point, the name on his birth certificate was changed to Theodore, but his mother and his closest friends always called him "Teddy". He attended Hoover High School in San Diego—where the baseball field is named in his honor. His father was a soldier, sheriff, and photographer from New York and greatly admired the former president. His mother, May Venzor, was a Salvation Army worker from El Paso, Texas.

His paternal ancestors were a mix of Welsh and Irish and his maternal ancestors were of Mexican descent. The Mexican side of Williams' family was quite diverse, having Spanish (Basque), Russian, and Indian, namely mestizo, roots. Through his Mexican side, he is also distantly related to Mexican Revolutionary General Pascual Orozco, who in turn shares descent from the Habsburg family of Europe, and related to Maximilian I of Mexico. Of his Mexican ancestry he wrote: "If I had had my mother's name, there is no doubt I would have run into problems in those days, (considering) the prejudices people had in Southern California".

Williams lived in San Diego's North Park neighborhood (4121 Utah Street) and graduated from Herbert Hoover High School in San Diego, where he played baseball. Though he soon had offers from the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Yankees, his mother thought he was too young to leave home so he signed with the local minor league club, the San Diego Padres, while still in high school. He also had a minor league stint with the Minneapolis Millers.

He had a younger brother Danny who was wayward. When Ted started making some money in 1941, he had the house on Utah Street enlarged and completely renovated. Danny promptly backed a truck up to the house, moved out all the new furniture, including a washing machine and a sewing machine, and sold these items. May, who had been able to get Danny out of his previous scrapes, gave up this time and had him arrested. He spent some time in jail.

Early in his career, Ted stated that he wished to be known as "The greatest hitter who ever lived," an honor that he achieved in the eyes of many by the end of his career. Williams once stated his goal was to have a father walk down the street with his son, point to Williams and remark, "Son, there goes the greatest hitter who ever lived." Carl Yastrzemski said of Williams, "He studied hitting the way a broker studies the stock market."

Major league career

Williams moved up to the major league Red Sox in 1939, immediately making an impact by leading the American League in RBI and finishing 4th in MVP balloting. Williams quickly became known as one of the most potent left-handed hitters in MLB. A myth developed that his eyes were the best in history, being able to read the words on a 78 RPM record label while it was spinning. Williams disavowed that claim, but his eyesight was unusually keen; military ophthalmologists judged Williams' vision as "a one-in-100,000 proposition."

At the time, Williams' achievement was overshadowed by Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak in the same season. Their rivalry was played up by the press; Williams always felt himself slightly better as a hitter, but acknowledged that DiMaggio was the better all-around player. The writers apparently concurred, voting DiMaggio the American League MVP award over Williams.

Williams also set a major-league record in 1941 for on-base percentage in a season at .551. That record would last until surpassed by Barry Bonds in . In 1949, Williams reached base in 84 consecutive games, the most ever. In addition, Williams holds the third longest such streak of 69, in 1941. In 1957, Williams reached base in 16 consecutive plate appearances, also a major league record.

Ted Williams pitched once during his career, on August 24, 1940. He pitched the last two innings in a 12-1 loss to Detroit; Williams allowed one earned run on three hits, while striking out one batter, Rudy York.

Williams said that his greatest thrill as a player was winning the 1941 All-Star Game with a two-out, three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. Another memorable All-Star Game accomplishment came in 1946 in Fenway Park, a 12-0 blowout for the American League. Williams' 4-for-4, 5 RBI day was highlighted by a home run off Rip Sewell's notorious eephus pitch.

Among the few blemishes on Williams' playing record was his performance in his lone postseason appearance, the 1946 World Series. Williams managed just 5 singles in 25 at-bats, with just 1 RBI, as the Red Sox lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games. Much of Williams' lack of production was due to his stubborn insistence on hitting into the Cardinals' defensive shift, which frequently involved five or six of the Cardinals' fielders positioned to the right of second base. This shift was a version of the Boudreau Shift, popularized by Cleveland Indians manager Lou Boudreau in an attempt to reduce Williams's effectiveness. Williams was also playing with a sore wrist from being hit by a pitch during a pre-World Series exhibition game against a team gathered from other American League squads, while the Cardinals and Brooklyn Dodgers were playing a best-of-three series to determine the National League champion. However, Williams never cited the injury as an excuse for his subpar play.

Williams was almost traded for DiMaggio in . In late April, Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey and Yankees owner Dan Topping agreed to swap the players, but a day later canceled the deal when Yawkey requested that Yogi Berra come with DiMaggio. It was argued, then and now, that Yankee Stadium, which favored left-handed power, would be a better venue for the southpaw Williams, with the reverse true for the righty DiMaggio in Fenway Park.

A broken collarbone and his famed plate patience cost Williams the 1954 batting title. He had the league's highest average, .345, but walked 136 times en route to just 386 at-bats. 478 at-bats were required to be eligible for the batting title, and thus Williams lost it to Cleveland’s Bobby Avila, who hit .341 in 555 at-bats.

In 1957, he hit .388 to lead the league and remarkably in 1958 at age 40, he led the league with a .328 batting average.

When Pumpsie Green became the first black player on the Boston Red Sox in 1959—the last major league team to integrate its roster—Williams openly welcomed him.

Williams ended his career dramatically, hitting a home run in his very last at-bat on September 28, . The classic John Updike essay "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu" chronicles this event and is often mentioned among the greatest pieces of sports writing in American journalism.

Playing style

Williams was an obsessive student of hitting. He famously used a lighter bat than most sluggers, because it generated a faster swing. David Halberstam's Summer of '49 recalls him warning teammates not to leave their bats on the ground as they would absorb moisture and become heavier. His devotion allowed him to hit for power and average while maintaining extraordinary plate discipline. In 1970 he wrote a book on the subject, The Science of Hitting (revised 1986), which is still read by many baseball players. Williams was known to discuss hitting with active players enthusiastically until very late in his life; a conversation with Tony Gwynn was filmed for television.

Williams lacked foot speed, as attested by his 19-year career total of only one inside-the-park home run, one occasion of hitting for the cycle, and just 24 stolen bases. (Interestingly, despite his slowness on the basepaths, he is one of only four players in history - along with noted speedsters Tim Raines, Rickey Henderson and Omar Vizquel - to have stolen a base in four different decades.) Williams always felt that had he had more speed, he could have raised his average considerably and hit .400 in at least one additional season. Williams was considered an indifferent outfielder with a good throwing arm; he often spent time in left field practicing "shadow swings" for his next at-bat. Williams occasionally expressed regret that he had not worked harder on his defense.

Military service

Name	Theodore Samuel "Ted" Williams
Born	August 30, 1918
Died	July 5, 2002
Placeofburial	Scottsdale, Arizona
Placeofburial label	Place of burial
Caption	Williams being sworn into the military on May 22, 1942.
Allegiance	United States of America
Branch	United States NavyUnited States Marine Corps
Serviceyears	1942-1946, 1952-53
Rank	Captain
Battles	World War IIKorean War
Laterwork	Baseball player

World War II

Williams served as a pilot during World War II and the Korean War. He had been classified 3-A by Selective Service prior to the war, a dependency deferment because he was his mother's sole support. When his classification was changed to 1-A following U.S. entry into the war, Williams appealed to his draft board. The board agreed that his status should not have been changed. He made a public statement that once he had built up his mother's trust fund, he intended to enlist. Even so, criticism in the media, including withdrawal of an endorsement contract by Quaker Oats, resulted in his enlistment in the Navy on May 22, 1942.

Williams could have received an easy assignment and played baseball for the Navy. Instead, he joined the V-5 program to become a Naval aviator. Williams was first sent to the Navy's Preliminary Ground School at Amherst College for six months of academic instruction in various subjects including math and navigation, where he achieved a 3.85 grade point average.

Fellow Red Sox player Johnny Pesky, who went into the same training program, said about Ted "He mastered intricate problems in fifteen minutes which took the average cadet an hour, and half of the other cadets there were college grads."

Pesky again described Williams' acumen in the advance training for which Pesky personally did not qualify: “I heard Ted literally tore the `sleeve target' to shreds with his angle dives. He'd shoot from wingovers, zooms, and barrel rolls, and after a few passes the sleeve was ribbons. At any rate, I know he broke the all-time record for hits." Ted went to Jacksonville for a course in air gunnery, the combat pilot's payoff test, and broke all the records in reflexes, coordination, and visual-reaction time. "From what I heard. Ted could make a plane and its six 'pianos' (machine guns) play like a symphony orchestra," Pesky says. "From what they said, his reflexes, coordination, and visual reaction made him a built-in part of the machine."

Williams received preflight training at Athens, Georgia; primary training at NAS Bunker Hill, Indiana; and advanced flight training at NAS Pensacola. He received his wings and commission in the U.S. Marine Corps on May 2, 1944.

He served as a flight instructor at Naval Air Station Pensacola teaching young pilots to fly the F4U Corsair. He was in Pearl Harbor awaiting orders to join the China fleet when the war ended. He finished the war in Hawaii and was released from active duty in January 1946; however he did remain in the reserves.

Korean War

On May 1, 1952, at the age of 34, he was recalled to active duty for service in the Korean War. He hadn't flown for some eight years but turned away all offers to sit out the war in comfort as a member of a service baseball team. Nevertheless Williams was resentful of being called up, which he admitted years later, particularly of the Navy's policy to call up Inactive Reservists rather than members of the Active Reserve.

After eight weeks of refresher flight training and qualification in the F9F Panther jet at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina, he was assigned to VMF-311, Marine Aircraft Group 33 (MAG-33), based at K-3 airfield in Pohang, Korea. During the war he also served in the same unit as John Glenn and in the last half of his missions, he was serving as Glenn's wingman. While these absences, which took almost five years out of the heart of a great career, significantly limited his career totals, he never publicly complained about the time devoted to military service. Biographer Leigh Montville argues that Williams was not happy about being pressed into service in Korea, but he did what he felt was his patriotic duty.

Williams had a strong respect for General Douglas MacArthur, referring to him as his "idol". For Williams' fortieth birthday, MacArthur sent him an oil painting of himself with the inscription "To Ted Williams - not only America's greatest baseball player, but a great American who served his country. Your friend, Douglas MacArthur. General U.S. Army."

Summary of career

Williams's two MVP Awards and two Triple Crowns came in four different years. Williams, Lou Gehrig, and Chuck Klein are the only players since the establishment of the MVP award to win the Triple Crown and not be named league MVP in that season.

Ted Williams won the Triple Crown in 1942, and again in 1947 after missing three years to WWII. In 1949, Williams led the league in home runs (with 43) and RBI (with 159, tied with Red Sox shortstop Vern Stephens), but lost the batting race to Detroit third-baseman George Kell. Kell had 179 hits in 522 at-bats, for a batting average of .3429, while Williams went 194-566, for an average of .3428. A single hit either way would have changed the outcome. Williams is also one of three players in Major-League Baseball history (along with Rickey Henderson and Tim Raines) to steal a base in four different decades.

Because Williams's hitting was so feared, and it was known that he was a dead pull hitter, opponents frequently employed the radical, defensive "Williams Shift" against him, leaving only one fielder on the third-base half of the field. Rather than bunting the ball into the open space, the proud Williams batted as usual against the defense. The defensive tactic was later used against left-handed sluggers such as Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds, and is still used to this day against players such as Ryan Howard, Carlos Delgado, and David Ortiz who are also considered dead-pull hitters, and is appropriately called the infield shift.

Ted Williams retired from the game in 1960 and hit a home run in his final at-bat, on September 28, 1960, in front of only 10,454 fans at Fenway Park. This home run, a solo shot hit off Baltimore pitcher Jack Fisher in the 8th inning that reduced the Orioles' lead to 4-3—was immortalized in The New Yorker essay "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu", by John Updike.

Renowned NBC sportscaster Bob Costas, reflecting on Williams's unparalleled success as ball player, wingman, and fisherman, once asked Williams if he realized he was in real life the type of American hero John Wayne sought to portray in his movies. Replied Williams, "Yeah, I know."

Relationship with Boston media and fans

Ted Williams was on uncomfortable terms with the Boston newspapers for nearly twenty years, as he felt they liked to discuss his personal life as much as his baseball performance. He maintained a career-long feud with SPORT magazine due to a 1948 feature article in which the SPORT reporter included a quote from Williams' mother. Insecure about his upbringing, and stubborn because of immense confidence in his own talent, Williams made up his mind that the "knights of the typewriter" were against him. Some seemingly were. After having hit for the league's Triple Crown in 1947, Williams narrowly lost the MVP award in a vote where one midwestern newspaper writer left Williams entirely off his ten-player ballot.

He treated most of the press accordingly, as he described in his memoir, My Turn at Bat. Williams also had an uneasy relationship with the Boston fans, though he could be very cordial one-on-one. He felt at times a good deal of gratitude for their passion and their knowledge of the game. On the other hand, Williams was temperamental, high-strung, and at times tactless. He gave generously to those in need, and demanded loyalty from those around him. He could not forgive the fickle nature of the fans—booing a player for booting a ground ball, then turning around and roaring approval of the same player for hitting a home run. Despite the cheers and adulation of most of his fans, the occasional boos directed at him in Fenway Park led Williams to stop tipping his cap in acknowledgement after a home run.

Williams maintained this policy up to and including his swan song in 1960. After hitting a home run in his last career at-bat in Fenway Park, Williams characteristically refused either to tip his cap as he circled the bases or to respond to prolonged cheers of "We want Ted!" from the crowd by making an appearance from the dugout. Boston manager Pinky Higgins sent Williams to his fielding position in left field to start the ninth inning, then immediately recalled him for backup Carroll Hardy, thus allowing Williams to receive one last ovation as he jogged on and off the field. But he did so without reacting to the crowd. Williams's aloof attitude led writer John Updike to wryly observe that "Gods do not answer letters."

Williams's final home run did not take place during the final game of the 1960 season, but rather the Red Sox's last home game that year. The Red Sox played three more games, but they were on the road in New York and Williams did not appear in any of them, as it became clear that Williams's final home at-bat would be the last of his career.

In 1991 on Ted Williams Day at Fenway Park, Williams pulled a Red Sox cap from out of his jacket and tipped it to the crowd; it was the first time he had done so since his earliest days as a player.

A Red Smith profile from 1956 describes one Boston writer trying to convince Ted Williams that first cheering and then booing a ballplayer was no different from a moviegoer applauding a "western" movie actor one day and saying the next "He stinks! Whatever gave me the idea he could act?" But Williams rejected this; when he liked a western actor like Hoot Gibson, he liked him in every picture, and would not think of booing him.

He once had a friendship with Ty Cobb, with whom he often had discussions about baseball. He often touted Rogers Hornsby as being the greatest right-handed hitter of all time. This assertion actually led to a split in the relationship between Ty Cobb and Ted Williams. Once during one of their yearly debate sessions on the greatest hitters of all-time Williams asserted that Hornsby was one of the greatest of all-time. Cobb apparently had strong feelings about Rogers and threw a fit, expelling Williams from his hotel room. Their friendship effectively terminated after this altercation.

Hall of Fame induction speech

In his induction speech in 1966, Williams included a statement calling for the recognition of the great Negro Leagues players: "I've been a very lucky guy to have worn a baseball uniform, and I hope some day the names of Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson in some way can be added as a symbol of the great Negro players who are not here only because they weren't given a chance." (Montville, p. 262).

Williams was referring to two of the most famous names in the Negro Leagues, who were not given the opportunity to play in the Major Leagues before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. Gibson died early in 1947 and thus never played in the majors; and Paige's brief major league stint came long past his prime as a player. This powerful and unprecedented statement from the Hall of Fame podium was "a first crack in the door that ultimately would open and include Paige and Gibson and other Negro League stars in the shrine." (Montville, p. 262) Paige was the first inducted, in 1971. Gibson and others followed, starting in 1972 and continuing off and on into the 21st Century.

In 1954, Williams was also inducted by the San Diego Hall of Champions into the Breitbard Hall of Fame honoring San Diego's finest athletes both on and off the playing surface.

Career ranking

At the time of his retirement, Williams ranked third all-time in home runs (behind Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx), seventh in RBIs (after Ruth, Cap Anson, Lou Gehrig, Ty Cobb, Foxx, and Mel Ott; Stan Musial would pass Williams in 1962), and seventh in batting average (behind Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Lefty O'Doul, Ed Delahanty and Tris Speaker). His career batting average is the highest of any player who played his entire career in the post-1920 live-ball era.

Williams was also second to Ruth in career slugging percentage, where he remains today, and first in on-base percentage. He was also second to Ruth in career walks, but has since dropped to fourth place behind Barry Bonds and Rickey Henderson. Williams remains the career leader in walks per plate appearance.

Most modern statistical analyses place Williams, along with Ruth and Bonds, among the three most potent hitters to have played the game. Williams' 1941 season is often considered favorably with the greatest seasons of Ruth and Bonds in terms of various offensive statistical measures such as slugging, on-base and "offensive winning percentage." As a further indication, of the ten best seasons for OPS, short for On-Base Plus Slugging Percentage, a popular modern measure of offensive productivity, four each were achieved by Ruth and Bonds, and two by Williams.

In 1999, Williams was ranked as Number 8 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, where he was the highest-ranking left fielder.

Family life

On May 4, 1944, Williams married Doris Soule, daughter of his hunting guide. Their daughter, Barbara Joyce ("Bobbi Jo"), was born on January 28, 1948, while Williams was fishing in Florida. They divorced in 1954. He married socialite model Lee Howard on September 10, 1961; they divorced in 1967.

Williams married Dolores Wettach, a former Miss Vermont and Vogue model, in 1968. Their son John-Henry was followed by daughter Claudia (born October 8, 1971). They divorced in 1972.

Williams lived with Louise Kaufman for twenty years until her death in 1993. In his book, Cramer called her the love of Williams' life. After his death, her sons filed suit to recover her furniture from Williams's condominium as well as a half-interest in the condominium they claimed he gave her.

Both John-Henry and Williams' brother Danny died from leukemia.

Retirement

After retirement from play, Williams helped new left fielder Carl Yastrzemski in hitting. He then served as manager of the Washington Senators, from 1969–1971, then continued with the team when they became the Texas Rangers after the 1971 season. Williams's best season as a manager was 1969 when he led the expansion Senators to an 86–76 record in their only winning season in Washington. He was chosen "Manager of the Year" after that season. Like many great players, Williams became impatient with ordinary athletes' abilities and attitudes, particularly those of pitchers, whom he admitted he never respected, and his managerial career was short and largely unsuccessful. Before and after leaving Texas (which would be his only manager job), he occasionally appeared at Red Sox spring training as a guest hitting instructor. Williams would also go into a partnership with friend Al Cassidy to form the Ted Williams Baseball Camp in Lakeville, Massachusetts. It was not uncommon to find Williams fishing in the pond at the camp. The area now is owned by the town and a few of the buildings still stand. In the main lodge one can still see memorabilia from Williams' playing days.

On the subject of pitchers, in Ted's autobiography written with John Underwood, Ted opines regarding Bob Lemon (a sinker-ball specialist) pitching for Cleveland Indians around 1951: "I have to rate Lemon as one of the very best pitchers I ever faced. His ball was always moving, hard, sinking, fast-breaking. You could never really uhmmmph with Lemon."

Then there was Ray Scarborough with the Washington Senators, who always seemed to do well against Boston. "He was a right-handed pitcher and he was nothing if not smart and crafty. Not only did he give the Boston right-handers a difficult time, but he was poison to their best left-handed hitter Ted Williams. Scarborough could decoy Williams better than any other pitcher in the league.

It was not just a matter of his selection of pitches, it was his motion as well. He would show fastball and then at the last minute go to his curve. Forty years later Williams paid Scarborough the ultimate accolade: He said that he probably chased more balls out of the strike zone with Ray Scarborough than with any other pitcher in the American League

Around 1950 largely at the urging of Williams, it was said, the Red Sox traded for Ray Scarborough, by then thirty-five. But it was too late for him, and too late for them. He lasted a little more than one season before moving on"

He was much more successful in fishing. An avid and expert fly fisherman and deep-sea fisherman, he spent many summers after baseball fishing the Miramichi River, in Miramichi, New Brunswick, Canada. Williams was named to the International Game Fish Association Hall of Fame in 2000. Shortly after Williams's death, conservative pundit Steve Sailer wrote:

(scroll down to near bottom of page)}}

Williams reached an extensive deal with Sears, lending his name and talent toward marketing, developing, and endorsing a line of in-house sports equipment - specifically fishing, hunting and baseball equipment. He was also extensively involved in the Jimmy Fund, later losing a brother to leukemia, and spent much of his spare time, effort, and money in support of the cancer organization.

In his later years, Williams became a fixture at autograph shows and card shows after his son (by his third wife), John Henry Williams, took control of his career, becoming his de facto manager. The younger Williams provided structure to his father's business affairs, exposed forgeries that were flooding the memorabilia market, and rationed his father's public appearances and memorabilia signings to maximize their earnings.

On November 18, 1991, he was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George H. W. Bush.

One of Ted Williams's final, and most memorable, public appearances was at the 1999 All-Star Game in Boston. Able to walk only a short distance, Williams was brought to the pitcher's mound in a golf cart. He proudly waved his cap to the crowd—a gesture he had never done as a player. Fans responded with a standing ovation that lasted several minutes. At the pitcher's mound he was surrounded by players from both teams, including fellow Red Sox Nomar Garciaparra and Tony Gwynn. Later in the year, he was among the members of the Major League Baseball All-Century Team introduced to the crowd at Turner Field in Atlanta prior to Game 2 of the World Series.

The Ted Williams Tunnel in Boston (December 1995), and Ted Williams Parkway in San Diego (1992) were named in his honor while he was still alive.

Death

In his last years, Williams suffered from numerous cardiac problems. He had a pacemaker installed in November 2000 and underwent open-heart surgery in January 2001. After suffering a series of strokes and congestive heart failure, he died of cardiac arrest at the age of 83 in Citrus Hills, Florida, on July 5, 2002.

Though his will stated his desire to be cremated and his ashes scattered in the Florida Keys, John-Henry and Claudia chose to have him frozen.

Ted's eldest daughter, Bobby-Jo Ferrell, brought suit to have her father's wishes recognized. John-Henry's lawyer then produced an informal "family pact" signed by Ted, John-Henry, and Ted's daughter Claudia, in which they agreed "to be put into biostasis after we die" to "be able to be together in the future, even if it is only a chance." Bobby-Jo and her attorney, Richard S. "Spike" Fitzpatrick (former attorney of Ted Williams), contended that the family pact, which was scribbled on an ink-stained napkin, was forged by John-Henry and/or Claudia. Fitzpatrick and Ferrell believed that the signature was not obtained legally. Laboratory analysis proved that the signature was genuine.

Though the family pact upset some friends, family and fans, a public plea for financial support of the lawsuit by Ferrell produced little result. Ted's two 24-hour private caregivers who were with him the entire period the note was said to be created also stated in sworn affidavits that John-Henry and Claudia were never present at any time for that note to be produced.

Following John-Henry's unexpected illness and death from acute myelogenous leukemia on March 6, 2004, John-Henry's body was also transported to Alcor, in fulfillment of the family agreement.

According to the book "Frozen", co-authored by Larry Johnson (who is a former executive from Alcor), Williams' head was damaged by a worker when Alcor employees were handling the head. Although Johnson didn't work at Alcor when Ted was initially preserved, he claimed witness of the handling of the frozen head during a transfer to its final container (though numerous other Alcor employees refute this claim).

The Tampa Bay Rays home field, Tropicana Field, has installed the Ted Williams Museum (formerly in Hernando, Florida) behind the right field fence. From the Tampa Bay Rays website: "The Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame brings a special element to the Tropicana Field. Fans can view an array of different artifacts and pictures of the 'Greatest hitter that ever lived.' These memorable displays range from Ted Williams' days in the military through his professional playing career. This museum is dedicated to some of the greatest players to ever 'lace 'em up,' including Willie Mays, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris."

Quotations on Ted Williams

"One of my best friends on earth and the greatest hitter I ever faced. And I faced a lot of guys, including Lou Gehrig. He was also a great friend to my wife Anne and me. He was a great American." - Bob Feller

"The way those clubs shift against Ted Williams, I can't understand how he can be so stupid not to accept the challenge to him and hit to left field." - Ty Cobb

"They can talk about Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby and Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio and Stan Musial and all the rest, but I'm sure not one of them could hold cards and spades to (Ted) Williams in his sheer knowledge of hitting. He studied hitting the way a broker studies the stock market, and could spot at a glance mistakes that others couldn't see in a week." - Carl Yastrzemski

"Ted Williams was the greatest hitter of our era. He won six batting titles and served his country for five years, so he would have won more. He loved talking about hitting and was a great student of hitting and pitchers." - Stan Musial

"He wanted fame, and wanted it with a pure, hot eagerness that would have been embarrassing in a smaller man. But he could not stand celebrity. This is a bitch of a line to draw in America's dust." - Richard Ben Cramer

"If he'd just tip his cap once, he could be elected Mayor of Boston in five minutes." - Eddie Collins

“Our father was not a religious man. The faith that many people place in god, we place in science and other human endeavors.” — Children of baseball legend Ted Williams, Reuters, July 25, 2002

Quotations by Ted Williams

"No one could throw a fastball past me. God could come down from Heaven and he couldn't throw it past me."

"Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer."

"Baseball's future? Bigger and bigger, better and better! No question about it, it's the greatest game there is!"

"I hope somebody hits .400 soon. Then people can start pestering that guy with questions about the last guy to hit .400."

"If there was ever a man born to be a hitter it was me."

"Hitting is fifty percent above the shoulders."

"If I was being paid thirty-thousand dollars a year, the very least I could do was hit .400."

"A man has to have goals—for a day, for a lifetime—and that was mine, to have people say, 'There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived."

"They give you a round ball and a round bat and tell you to hit it square." (Pete Rose and Willie Stargell have also been credited with similar versions of this quote.)

"The greatest team I played for was the Marine Corps."

Career batting statistics

See also

Red Sox Hall of Fame

List of Major League Baseball Home Run Records

500 home run club

DHL Hometown Heroes

List of MLB individual streaks

List of top 500 Major League Baseball home run hitters

List of major league players with 2,000 hits

List of Major League Baseball players with 400 doubles

List of Major League Baseball players with 1000 runs

List of Major League Baseball players with 1000 RBIs

Hitting for the cycle

Triple Crown

List of Major League Baseball RBI champions

List of Major League Baseball batting champions

List of Major League Baseball home run champions

List of Major League Baseball runs scored champions

List of Major League Baseball doubles champions

Major League Baseball titles leaders

Hispanics in the United States Marine Corps

Notes

References

George Bush Presidential Library & Museum

Further reading

Baldasarro, Lawrence (ed.). The Ted Williams Reader. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. ISBN 0-671-73536-5.

Halberstam, David. The Teammates. New York: Hyperion, 2003. ISBN 1-4013-0057-X.

Montville, Leigh. Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero. New York: Doubleday, 2004. ISBN 0-385-50748-8.

Updike, John. Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu: John Updike on Ted Williams. New York: Library of America, 2010. ISBN 978-1-59853-071-1

Williams, Ted, and John Underwood. Ted Williams' Fishing the Big Three: Tarpon, Bonefish, Atlantic Salmon. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982. ISBN 0-671-24400-0.

Williams, Ted, and John Underwood. My Turn at Bat: My Story of My Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1969.

Williams, Ted, and John Underwood. The Science of Hitting. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970.

Williams, Ted, and David Pietrusza. Ted Williams: My Life in Pictures (also published as Teddy Ballgame). Kingston, N.Y.: Total/Sports Illustrated, 2002. ISBN 1-930844-07-7.

Williams, Ted, and Jim Prime. Ted Williams' Hit List: The Best of the Best Ranks the Best of the Rest. Indianapolis: Masters Press, 1996. ISBN 1-57028-078-9.

Linn, Ed. Hitter: The Life And Turmoils of Ted Williams. Harcourt Brace and Company, 1993 then as a Harvest paperback 1994. ISBN 0-15-600091-1.

Cramer, Richard Ben. "What Do You Think Of Ted Williams Now? - A Remembrance". Simon & Schuster, 2002. ISBN 0-7432-4648-9.

External links

Baseball Library

Ted Williams: A life remembered - article at Boston Globe

Ted Williams Tribute - article at Sports Illustrated

Videos of Ted Williams Cryonics Debate

Ted Williams Museum

Photo of Ted Williams with Joe and Dom DiMaggio

Ted Williams: Hitter - slideshow by Life magazine

Retrieved on 2008-07-11

{| class="toccolours collapsible collapsed" width=100% align="center" |- ! style="background:#ccccff"| Accomplishments |- | |}

Category:500 home run club Category:American League Most Valuable Player Award winners Category:American League All-Stars Category:American League batting champions Category:American League home run champions Category:American League RBI champions Category:American League Triple Crown winners Category:American military personnel of the Korean War Category:Boston Red Sox players Category:Cardiovascular disease deaths in Florida Category:Cryonically preserved people Category:Major League Baseball left fielders Category:Baseball players from California Category:Major League Baseball players with retired numbers Category:American baseball players of Mexican descent Category:National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees Category:People from Boston, Massachusetts Category:People from San Diego, California Category:Recipients of the Air Medal Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:San Diego Padres (minor league) players Category:American sportspeople of Scotch-Irish descent Category:American sportspeople of Russian descent Category:Texas Rangers managers Category:United States Marine Corps pilots of World War II Category:United States Marine Corps officers Category:Washington Senators (1961–1971) managers Category:American sportspeople of Welsh descent Category:American people of Mexican descent Category:1918 births Category:2002 deaths Category:American people of Basque descent Category:American people of Spanish descent

Name	John McCain
Jr/sr	Senior Senator
State	Arizona
Term start	January 3, 1987
Term end
Alongside	Jon Kyl
Predecessor	Barry Goldwater
State2	Arizona
District2	1st
Term start2	January 3, 1983
Term end2	January 3, 1987
Predecessor2	John Jacob Rhodes Jr.
Successor2	John Jacob Rhodes III
Order5	Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
Term start5	January 3, 1995
Term end5	January 3, 1997January 3, 2005 January 3, 2007
Predecessor5	Daniel Inouye (1995)Ben Nighthorse Campbell (2005)
Successor5	Ben Nighthorse Campbell (1997)Byron Dorgan (2007)
Order6	Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
Term start6	January 3, 1997
Term end6	June 6, 2001January 3, 2005 January 3, 2007
Predecessor6	Larry Pressler (1997)Ernest Hollings (2003)
Successor6	Ernest Hollings (1997)Ted Stevens (2005)
Birth date	August 29, 1936
Birth place	Coco Solo Naval Air Station, Panama Canal Zone
Birthname	John Sidney McCain III
Nationality	American
Party	Republican
Spouse	Carol Shepp (m. 1965, div. 1980)Cindy Lou Hensley (m. 1980)
Children	Douglas (b. 1959, adopted 1966),Andrew (b. 1962, adopted 1966),Sidney (b. 1966),Meghan (b. 1984),John Sidney IV "Jack" (b. 1986),James "Jimmy" (b. 1988),Bridget (b. 1991, adopted 1993)
Residence	Phoenix, Arizona
Alma mater	U.S. Naval Academy (B.S.)
Profession	Naval AviatorPolitician
Religion	Baptist congregant(Brought up Episcopalian)
Net worth	$40.4 million (USD)
Signature	John mccain signature2.svg
Website	U.S. Senator John McCain: Arizona
Footnotes	This article is part of the series At that time, the Panama Canal was under U.S. control.
Before	John Jacob Rhodes
State	Arizona
District	1
Years	1983–1987
After	John Jacob Rhodes III}}

* Category:2008 Republican National Convention Category:American memoirists Category:American military personnel of the Vietnam War Category:American military writers Category:American motivational writers Category:American people of English descent Category:American people of Scotch-Irish descent Category:American political writers Category:American prisoners of war Category:American torture victims Category:Arizona Republicans Category:Baptists from the United States Category:English-language writers Category:International Republican Institute Category:Jeopardy! contestants Category:Living people Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from Arizona Category:Military brats Category:Politicians with physical disabilities Category:Recipients of the Air Medal Category:Recipients of the Bronze Star Medal Category:Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States) Category:Recipients of the Legion of Merit Category:Recipients of the Order of the Three Stars, 2nd Class Category:Recipients of the Prisoner of War Medal Category:Recipients of the Purple Heart medal Category:Recipients of the Silver Star Category:Republican Party (United States) presidential nominees Category:Shot-down aviators Category:Skin cancer survivors Category:Sons of the American Revolution Category:United States Naval Academy graduates Category:United States naval aviators Category:United States Navy officers Category:United States presidential candidates, 2000 Category:United States presidential candidates, 2008 Category:United States Senators from Arizona Category:Vietnam War prisoners of war Category:Writers from Arizona Category:Zonians Category:1936 births Category:Republican Party United States Senators

Name	Gurbaksh Singh Chahal
Caption	Gurbaksh Singh Chahal
Birth date	July 17, 1982
Birth place	Tarn Taran Sahib, Punjab
Occupation	Entrepreneur
Networth	US$100 million+
Religion	Sikhism
Url	www.chahal.com

Gurbaksh Singh Chahal (born July 17, 1982) is an American entrepreneur and author. By the age of 25, he founded two advertising companies worth $340 million, and more recently appeared on several TV shows and published a memoir.

Early life

Chahal was born in City Tarn Taran Sahib in Punjab, India to Avtar Singh and Arjinder Chahal. In 1982, his parents received a visa for America through the Diversity Visa (DV) program, also known as the Green Card Lottery, and the following year, when he was four, the family settled in San Jose, California.

Business ventures

On December 15, 1998, aged 16, Gurbaksh Chahal dropped out of high school to work full time at his first venture, ClickAgents. ClickAgents was an advertising network focused on performance-based advertising. Two years later, on November 1, 2000, ValueClick announced it agreed to buy ClickAgents in a $40 million all-stock merger. Chahal had a three year non-compete agreement with ValueClick.

On January 12, 2004, Chahal formed BlueLithium. BlueLithium specialized in behavioural targeting of banner advertising (a process that tracks web users habits online in order to show ads they are most likely to respond to). The advertising network which was recognized as an innovator in the online advertising space in a Business 2.0 article. In 2006, under Chahal's leadership, BlueLithium was named Top Innovator by AlwaysOn.

On October 15, 2007, Yahoo! bought Blue Lithium for $300 million in cash. Chahal remained CEO of the company through the transition period.

In September 2009, Chahal started his third venture, gWallet, a virtual currency platform for social media. He remains the Chairman & CEO of the Company. On December 1, 2009, gWallet raised its first institutional round of financing totaling $12.5 million from Adam Street Partners, Trinity Ventures, Stanford University and various others. On October 18, 2010, a few days after Chahal's non-compete expired, the Company re-branded itself as RadiumOne, and launched an ad network focused on overlaying social and intent data together.

Television appearances

On October 23, 2008, Chahal appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss his life and business journey. In his interview, Oprah introduced him as "one of the youngest and also the wealthiest entrepreneurs on the planet Earth".

Chahal appeared on an episode of the Fox TV reality show Secret Millionaire, where he went undercover in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco to give away at least $90,000 of his own money.

On January 8, 2009, he was featured on Extra TV as America's Most Eligible Bachelor.

Personal life

Chahal currently lives in San Francisco, California.

On April 29, 2010, Chahal was awarded the Leaders In Management Award and an Honorary Doctorate degree in Commercial Science from Pace University for his career achievements as an entrepreneur.

Publications

The Dream, Palgrave Macmillan (October 23, 2008) ISBN 0-23-061095-1

Awards

2006: AlwaysOn Top Innovator of the Year 2010: Anokhi Awards, Excellence in Digital Entrepreneurship 2010: BusinessWeek, Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs 2010: Pace University, Leaders in Management Award 2010: Darpan, Extraordinary Awards - International Sensation 2011: Most Influential CEO - Under30CEO

References

External links

Chahal's official website

Category:1982 births Category:American memoirists Category:American Sikhs Category:Indian immigrants to the United States Category:Businesspeople in software Category:American chief executives Category:Child businesspeople Category:Dot-com people Category:Innovators Category:Living people Category:People from the San Francisco Bay Area Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:Silicon Valley people Category:American Internet personalities Category:Punjabi people

Name	DeMarco Morgan
Birth date
Birth place	Tulsa, Oklahoma
Education	Jackson State UniversityColumbia University
Occupation	News reporterNews anchor
Ethnicity	African American
Nationality	United States
Years active

DeMarco Morgan is a news anchor and reporter for WNBC, in New York City. He joined the station in December 2008 after leaving WTVJ in Miami.

}}

External links

WNBC-TV Bio: Demarco Morgan

Category:Living people Category:American television reporters and correspondents Category:African American journalists

Name	Charlie Sheen
Caption	Sheen in March 2009
Birth name	Carlos Irwin Estevez
Birth date	September 03, 1965
Birth place	New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1974–present
Spouse	Donna Peele (1995–1996)Denise Richards (2002–2006)Brooke Mueller (2008–December 2009, Separated)

Carlos Irwin Estevez (born September 3, 1965), known professionally as Charlie Sheen, is an American actor.

His character roles in films have included Chris Taylor in the 1986 Vietnam War drama Platoon, Jake Kesey in the 1986 film The Wraith, and Bud Fox in 1987 film Wall Street.

His career also included more comedic films, such as Major League, the Hot Shots! films, and Scary Movie 3 and 4. On television, Sheen is known for his roles on two sitcoms: as Charlie Crawford on Spin City, and as Charlie Harper on Two and a Half Men.

Early life

Sheen was born Carlos Irwin Estevez in New York City in 1965, the youngest son and third of four children born to actor Martin Sheen and artist Janet Templeton. Martin adopted his stage name in honor of the Catholic archbishop and theologian, Fulton J. Sheen, with Charlie also taking this as his stage name. His parents moved to Malibu, California, after Martin Sheen's Broadway turn in The Subject Was Roses. Sheen has two brothers and one sister, all of whom are actors: Emilio Estevez, Ramon Estevez, and Renée Estevez. Sheen attended Santa Monica High School in Santa Monica, California, where he was a star pitcher and shortstop for the baseball team. He also showed an early interest in acting, making several Super-8 films with his brother Emilio, schoolmates Rob and Chad Lowe, and early friend Chris Penn. Just a few weeks before graduation, Sheen was expelled from the school for poor grades and bad attendance.

Career

Sheen started acting in 1973 at the age of eight, appearing in a small role alongside his father in the television movie The Execution of Private Slovik. Sheen's film career began in 1984 with a role in the Cold War teen drama Red Dawn with Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, and Jennifer Grey. Sheen and Grey reunited in a small scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986). He also appeared in an episode of the anthology series Amazing Stories. Sheen had his first major role in the Vietnam War drama Platoon (1986). In 1987, he starred with his father in Wall Street. Both Wall Street and Platoon were directed by Oliver Stone; however, in 1988, Stone approached Sheen about starring in his new film Born on the Fourth of July (1989), only to later re-cast Tom Cruise in place of Sheen. Sheen was never notified by Stone, and only found out when he heard the news from his brother Emilio. Sheen did not take a lead role in Stone's subsequent films, although he does have a cameo role in Stone's sequel to Wall Street.

In 1987, Sheen was cast to portray Ron in the unreleased , the sequel to the 1976 low budget horror movie Grizzly. In 1988, he starred in the baseball film Eight Men Out as outfielder Happy Felsch. Also in 1988, he appeared opposite his brother Emilio Estevez in Young Guns and again in 1990 in Men at Work. Also in 1990, he starred alongside his father Martin Sheen in Cadence as a rebellious inmate in a military stockade and Clint Eastwood in the buddy cop action film The Rookie.

Sheen appeared in several comedy roles, including the Major League films, Money Talks, and the spoof Hot Shots! films. In 1999, Sheen appeared in a pilot for A&E; Network, called Sugar Hill, which wasn't picked up. In 1999, Sheen played himself in Being John Malkovich. He also appeared in the spoof series Scary Movie 3 and follow up Scary Movie 4. In 2000, he was cast to replace Michael J. Fox on the sitcom Spin City; the series ended in 2002. In 2003, Sheen was cast as Charlie Harper in the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men, which followed the popular Monday night time slot of Everybody Loves Raymond. Sheen's role on Two and a Half Men was loosely based on Sheen's bad boy image. Sheen appears as Dex Dogtective in the unreleased Lionsgate animated comedy Foodfight. In addition to his financial support, he has volunteered to act as a celebrity judge for several years for their annual fundraiser, Best In Drag Show, which raises around one-quarter of a million dollars He has brought other celebrities to support the event, including his father, actor Martin Sheen. Sheen's interest in AIDS was first reported in 1987 with his support of Ryan White—an Indiana teenager who became a national spokesperson for AIDS awareness after being infected with AIDS through a blood transfusion for his hemophilia.

Sheen also launched a clothing line for kids, called Sheen Kidz, in 2006.

September 11 attacks

On March 20, 2006, Sheen stated that he questions the US government's account of the September 11 attacks. Sheen said during the interview that the collapse of the World Trade Center towers looked like a controlled demolition. He urged critics not to attack him personally, but to challenge him on the facts.

Charlie Sheen has since become a prominent advocate of the 9/11 Truth movement. On September 8, 2009, Sheen appealed to US President Barack Obama to set up a new investigation into the attacks. Presenting his views as a transcript of a fictional encounter with Obama, he was characterized by the press as believing the 9/11 commission was a whitewash and that the administration of former US President George W. Bush may have been responsible for the attacks.

Personal life

Sheen and his then girlfriend, Paula Profit, had a daughter, Cassandra Jade Estevez (born December 12, 1984). In 1990, Sheen accidentally shot his then-fiancee, Kelly Preston, In 1995, Sheen married Donna Peele. He was named as one of many clients who visited brothels owned by Heidi Fleiss in her court case in 1995. Sheen's long-term relationship with former pornographic actress Ginger Lynn in the late 1990s garnered much media attention. He was also involved for a time with former pornographic actress Heather Hunter.

On June 15, 2002, he married actress Denise Richards, two years after meeting her on the set of Good Advice. They have two daughters, Sam J. Sheen (born March 9, 2004) and Lola Rose Sheen (born June 1, 2005). In March 2005, while she was still pregnant with their daughter Lola, Richards filed for divorce from Sheen, accusing Sheen of abusing drugs and alcohol and threatening Richards with violence. Sheen and Richards' divorce was made official on November 30, 2006. Sheen and Richards were engaged in an acrimonious custody dispute over their two daughters, but have since made peace with each other, with Sheen stating in April 2009 that "we had to do what's best for the girls."

On May 30, 2008, Sheen married Brooke Mueller, a real estate investor. This was the third marriage for Sheen and the first for Mueller. The couple's twins, Bob and Max, were born on March 14, 2009.

Sheen was arrested on charges of domestic violence, including second-degree assault and menacing, against Mueller on December 25, 2009 and the couple has not been seen together in public since this altercation. He was released from jail after posting an $8,500 bond. In a court appearance on February 8, 2010, Sheen was formally charged with felony menacing, and third-degree assault and criminal mischief, both misdemeanors. On August 2, 2010, Charlie Sheen plead guilty to misdemeanor assault as part of a plea bargain where the other charges against him were dismissed, and according to a story written by Associated Press reporter Solomon Banda he was "sentenced to 30 days in a rehabilitation center, 30 days of probation, and 36 hours of anger management." As this conviction stemmed from a domestic violence charge made by his wife, Brooke Mueller, Sheen will fall under the Lautenberg Amendment, which means that he will be barred from possessing guns for the rest of his life.

In February 2010, Sheen announced that he would take a break from Two and a Half Men to voluntarily enter a rehab facility. CBS expressed support. The decision to check himself into the facility for treatment followed his wife's treatment in a different rehab facility. Sheen's rehabilitation was considered "preventive." In March, Sheen's press representatives announced that he was preparing to leave rehab and return to work on the popular sitcom. On May 18, 2010, Sheen signed an agreement to return to the sitcom for another two years for a reported $1.88 million per episode.

During the early morning of October 26, 2010, Sheen was removed from his hotel room at the Plaza Hotel after Sheen caused damaged to the room and admitted to having been drinking and taking cocaine. According to NYPD sources he caused more than $7,000 in damages to his room. There was also a woman locked in the bathroom of the room. He was taken to a hospital for observation and released.

On November 1, 2010, Sheen filed for divorce from his third wife, Brooke.

Awards and honors

In 1989, Sheen, along with John Fusco, Christopher Cain, Lou Diamond Phillips, Emilio Estevez, and Kiefer Sutherland, was honored with a Bronze Wrangler for their work on the film Young Guns. In 1994, Sheen was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard. For his work on the political sitcom Spin City, Sheen gained two ALMA Award nominations and won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series - Musical Or Comedy. Sheen also won an ALMA Award, gained three Emmy Award nominations, and two Golden Globe award nominations for his role in the sitcom Two and a Half Men.

Filmography

Films

{|class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" border="2" cellpadding="4" background: #f9f9f9; |- align="center" ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Year ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Film ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Role ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Notes |- | 1974 | The Execution of Private Slovik | Kid at Wedding | NBC TV-movie; uncredited part. |- | 1979 | Apocalypse Now | Extra | |- |rowspan="2"| 1984 | Red Dawn | Matt Eckert | |- | Silence of the Heart | Ken Cruze | CBS TV-movie |- |rowspan="3"| 1985 | The Fourth Wise Man | Captain (Herod's Soldiers) | TV-movie |- | Out of the Darkness | Man Shaving | CBS TV-movie |- | The Boys Next Door | Bo Richards | |- |rowspan="5"| 1986 | Lucas | Cappie | |- | Ferris Bueller's Day Off | Garth Volbeck-Boy in Police Station | Cameo |- | Platoon | Private Chris Taylor | |- | The Wraith | Jake Kesey | |- | Wisdom | Hamburger Restaurant Manager | Cameo |- |rowspan="4"| 1987 | Wall Street | Bud Fox | |- | No Man's Land | Ted Varrick | |- | Three for the Road | Paul | |- | | Ron | Unreleasedfilmed in 1983 |- |rowspan="3"| 1988 | Never on Tuesday | Thief | Uncredited Cameo |- | Eight Men Out | Oscar 'Happy' Felsch | |- | Young Guns | Richard "Dick" Brewer | Bronze Wrangler Award |- |rowspan="3"| 1989 | Tale of Two Sisters | Narrator | also writer (poems) |- | Major League | Ricky 'Wild Thing' Vaughn | |- | Catchfire | Bob | Cameo |- |rowspan="5"| 1990 | Cadence | Pfc. Franklin Fairchild Bean | |- | Courage Mountain | Peter | |- | Men at Work | Carl Taylor | |- | Navy SEALs | Lt. (j.g.) Dale Hawkins | |- | The Rookie | David Ackerman | |- | 1991 | Hot Shots! | Lt. Sean Topper Harley | |- |rowspan="2"| 1992 | Beyond the Law | William Patrick Steaner/Daniel "Dan" Saxon/Sid | |- | Oliver Stone: Inside Out | Himself | Documentary |- |rowspan="4"| 1993 | National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1 | Gern, Parking Valet | Cameo |- | Deadfall | Morgan "Fats" Gripp | Cameo |- | Hot Shots! Part Deux | Lt. Sean Topper Harley | |- | The Three Musketeers | Aramis | |- |rowspan="4"| 1994 | Charlie Sheen's Stunt Spectacular | Himself | TV-movie |- | Terminal Velocity | Richard 'Ditch' Brodie | |- | The Chase | Jackson Davis "Jack" Hammond | also executive producer |- | Major League II | Ricky 'Wild Thing' Vaughn | |- |rowspan="4"| 1996 | Loose Women | Barbie Loving Bartender | Cameo appearance |- | Frame by Frame | | |- | All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 | Charles B. "Charlie" Barkin | (only voice) |- | The Arrival || Zane Zaminsky || |- |rowspan="3"| 1997 || Money Talks || James Russell || |- | Shadow Conspiracy || Bobby Bishop || |- | Bad Day on the Block || Lyle Wilder || also known as Under Pressure |- |rowspan="5"| 1998 || Postmortem || James McGregor || |- | A Letter from Death Row || Cop #1 || Cameo |- | No Code of Conduct || Jacob "Jake" Peterson || also executive producer and writer |- | Free Money || Bud Dyerson || |- | Junket Whore || Himself || Documentary |- |rowspan="3"| 1999 || Lisa Picard is Famous || Himself || |- | Five Aces|| Chris Martin || |- | Being John Malkovich || Himself || Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Nominated - Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast |- | 2000 || Rated X || Artie Jay "Art" Mitchell || Showtime TV-movie |- |rowspan="2"| 2001 || Good Advice || Ryan Edward Turner || |- | Last Party 2000 || Himself || Documentary, uncredited |- | 2002 || The Making of Bret Michaels || Himself || Documentary |- | 2003 || Scary Movie 3 || Tom Logan || |- |rowspan="2"| 2004 || The Big Bounce || Bob Rogers Jr. || |- | Pauly Shore Is Dead || Himself || Cameo |- | 2005 || Guilty Hearts || Charlie Sheen || segment "Spelling Bee" |- | 2006 || Scary Movie 4 || Tom Logan || Uncredited Cameo |- |rowspan="2"| 2010 || || Bud Fox || Uncredited Cameo |- | Due Date || Charlie Harper || Cameo |}

Short films

{|class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" border="2" cellpadding="4" background: #f9f9f9; |- align="center" ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Year ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Film ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Role ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Notes |- | 1986 || A Life in the Day || || |- | 1989 || Comicits || Himself || also producer |- | 2003 || Deeper Than Deep || Charles "Chuck" E. Traynor || |- | 2004 || Spelling Bee || Himself || from Guilty Hearts |- |}

Television

{|class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" border="2" cellpadding="4" background: #f9f9f9; |- align="center" ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Year ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Title ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Role ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Notes |- | 1986 || Amazing Stories: Book Three || Casey || Episode: "No Day at the Beach" |- | 1996 || Friends || Ryan || Episode: "The One with the Chicken Pox" |- | 1999 || Sugar Hill || Matt || unsold pilot |- | 2000–2002 || Spin City || Charlie Crawford || Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy (2002) Nominated - ALMA Award for Outstanding Actor in a Television Series (2001) Nominated - ALMA Award for Outstanding Actor in a Television Series (2002) |- | 2003–present || Two and a Half Men || Charlie Harper || Golden Icon Award for Best Actor - Comedy Series (2006) ALMA Award for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Television Series (2008) Nominated - Kids Choice Awards for Favorite Television Actor (2002) Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series (2005) Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy (2005) Nominated - Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (2006) Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy (2006) Nominated - Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Actor: Comedy (2008) Nominated - Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (2008) Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series (2009) $1.78 million per episode. |- | 2006 || Overhaulin' || Himself || Episode: "LeMama's Boy" |- | 2008 || The Big Bang Theory || Himself || Episode: "The Griffin Equivalency" |- | 2009 || The Tonight Show with Jay Leno || Himself || |- | 2009 || Lopez Tonight || Himself || |- | 2010 || Family Guy || Himself || Episode: "Brian Griffin's House of Payne" |- |}

References

External links

Charlie Sheen biography at CBS.com - Two and a Half Men

Category:1965 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century actors Category:21st-century actors Category:Actors from California Category:Actors from New York City Category:American activists Category:American child actors Category:American film actors Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American people of Spanish descent Category:American television actors Category:American voice actors Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (television) winners Category:California Democrats

Category:Estevez family Category:Galician people Category:Hispanic and Latino American actors Category:People from Santa Monica, California Category:People from Staten Island