![Fordham University is a private university[3] in the United States, with three campuses located in and around New York City. It was founded by the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York in 1841 as St. John's College, placed in the care of the Society of Jesus shortly thereafter, and has since become an independent institution under a lay Board of Trustees which describes the university as](http://web.archive.org./web/20110510065410im_/http://cdn.wn.com/pd/62/c6/616c52e7eee40c60e849e9a2db69_grande.jpg "Fordham University is a private university[3] in the United States, with three campuses located in and around New York City. It was founded by the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York in 1841 as St. John's College, placed in the care of the Society of Jesus shortly thereafter, and has since become an independent institution under a lay Board of Trustees which describes the university as")
;1961 Julian Symons, The Progress of a Crime
;1962 J. J. Marric, Gideon's Fire
;1963 Ellis Peters, Death and the Joyful Woman
;1964 Eric Ambler, The Light of Day
;1965 John le Carré, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
;1966 Adam Hall, The Quiller Memorandum
;1967 Nicolas Freeling, King of the Rainy Country
;1968 Donald E. Westlake, God Save the Mark
;1969 Jeffery Hudson (Michael Crichton's nom-de-plume), A Case of Need
;1971 Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö, The Laughing Policeman
;1972 Frederick Forsyth, The Day of the Jackal
;1973 Warren Kiefer, The Lingala Code
;1974 Tony Hillerman, Dance Hall of the Dead
;1975 Jon Cleary, Peter's Pence
;1977 Robert B. Parker, Promised Land
;1978 William Hallahan,
;1979 Ken Follett, Eye of the Needle
;1981 Dick Francis, Whip Hand
;1982 William Bayer, Peregrine ;1983 Rick Boyer, Billinsgate Shoal ;1984 Elmore Leonard, LaBrava ;1985 Ross Thomas, Briarpatch ;1986 L. R. Wright, The Suspect ;1987 Barbara Vine, A Dark-Adapted Eye ;1988 Aaron Elkins, Old Bones ;1989 Stuart M. Kaminsky, A Cold Red Sunrise
The Robert L. Fish Memorial Award was presented to ""A Dreadful Day" – Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by Dan Warthman (Dell Magazines).
Category:Mystery and detective fiction awards Category:American literary awards Category:Edgar Allan Poe Category:Awards established in 1954
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| Coordinates | 29°57′53″N90°4′14″N |
|---|---|
| Name | Edgar Wright |
| Caption | Wright at the San Diego Comic-Con International in July 2010. |
| Birthname | Edgar Howard Wright |
| Birth date | April 18, 1974 |
| Birth place | Poole, Dorset, England |
| Years active | 1994–present |
| Occupation | Director/Writer |
Edgar Howard Wright (born 18 April 1974) is an English film and television director and writer. He is most famous for his work with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost on the films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, the TV series Spaced, and for directing the film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. He is also the co-writer of the upcoming Steven Spielberg film .
The pair subsequently planned out a trilogy of British genre-comedies which were connected not by narrative but by their shared traits and motifs. The trilogy was named "The Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy" or "Three Flavors Cornetto" due to a running joke about the British Ice Cream product Cornetto and its effectiveness as a hangover cure.
The second installment was a comedy action thriller entitled Hot Fuzz. Production started in March 2006 and the film was released in February 2007 in the UK and April 2007 in the US. It revolves around Pegg's character, Nicholas Angel, a police officer who is transferred from London to rural Sandford, where grisly events soon take place.
The third installment carries the tentative title of The World's End.
Category:1974 births Category:Living people Category:21st-century writers Category:English film directors Category:English screenwriters Category:English television actors Category:English television directors Category:People from Poole Category:People from Wells
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| Coordinates | 29°57′53″N90°4′14″N |
|---|---|
| Name | Steve McQueen |
| Caption | McQueen's mugshot, taken in Anchorage, Alaska, 1972 |
| Birth name | Terrence Steven McQueen |
| Birth date | March 24, 1930 |
| Birth place | Beech Grove, Indiana, U.S. |
| Death date | November 07, 1980 |
| Death place | Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico |
| Years active | 1953–1980 |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Spouse | Neile Adams (1956–1972; divorced; 2 children)Ali MacGraw (1973–1978; divorced)Barbara Minty (1980–his death) |
Terrence Steven "Steve" McQueen (March 24, 1930 – November 7, 1980) was a popular American movie actor. He was nicknamed "The King of Cool." His "anti-hero" persona, which he developed at the height of the Vietnam counterculture, made him one of the top box-office draws of the 1960s and 1970s. McQueen received an Academy Award nomination for his role in The Sand Pebbles. His other popular films include The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, The Thomas Crown Affair, Bullitt, The Getaway, Papillon, and The Towering Inferno. In 1974, he became the highest-paid movie star in the world. Although McQueen was combative with directors and producers, his popularity put him in high demand and enabled him to command large salaries.
He was an avid racer of both motorcycles and cars. While he studied acting, he supported himself partly by competing in weekend motorcycle races and bought his first motorcycle with his winnings. He is recognized for performing many of his own stunts, especially the majority of the stunt driving during the high-speed chase scene in Bullitt. McQueen also designed and patented a bucket seat and transbrake for race cars.
He had good memories of the time spent on his Great Uncle Claude's farm. In recalling Claude, McQueen stated "He was a very good man, very strong, very fair. I learned a lot from him."
McQueen, who was dyslexic Ultimately, however, McQueen decided to give Boys Republic a fair shot. He became a role model for the other boys when he was elected to the Boys Council, a group who made the rules and regulations governing the boys' lives.
After several roles in productions including Peg o' My Heart, The Member of the Wedding, and Two Fingers of Pride, McQueen landed his first film role in Somebody Up There Likes Me, directed by Robert Wise and starring Paul Newman. He made his Broadway debut in 1955 in the play A Hatful of Rain, starring Ben Gazzara. and decided that B-movies would be a good place for the young actor to make his mark. McQueen was subsequently hired to appear in the films Never Love a Stranger, The Blob (his first leading role), and The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery.
McQueen's first breakout role would not come in film, but on TV. Elkins successfully lobbied Vincent M. Fennelly, producer of the Western series Trackdown, to have McQueen read for the part of a bounty hunter named Josh Randall in an episode for Trackdown. McQueen appeared as the Randall character in the episode, working opposite series lead and old New York motorcycle racing buddy Robert Culp, after which McQueen filmed the pilot episode. The pilot was approved for a series titled on CBS in September 1958.
In the interviews included in the DVD release of "Wanted", Trackdown's star Robert Culp takes credit for first bringing McQueen out to Hollywood and for landing him the part in The Bounty Hunter. He also claims to have taught McQueen the "art of the fast-draw", adding that, on the second day of filming, McQueen beat him. McQueen would become a household name as a result. When Johnny Carson later tried to congratulate McQueen for the jump during a broadcast of The Tonight Show, McQueen said, "It wasn't me. That was Bud Ekins." This film established McQueen's box-office clout and cemented his status as a superstar.
In 1963, McQueen starred with Natalie Wood in Love With The Proper Stranger. He later appeared in a prequel as the titular Nevada Smith, a character from Harold Robbins' The Carpetbaggers who had been portrayed by Alan Ladd two years earlier in a movie version of that novel. McQueen also earned his only Academy Award nomination in 1966 for his role as an engine room sailor in The Sand Pebbles, in which he starred opposite Richard Attenborough and Candice Bergen.
He followed his Oscar nomination with 1968's Bullitt, one of his most famous films, co-starring Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Vaughn. It featured an unprecedented (and endlessly imitated) auto chase through San Francisco. McQueen did all his own stunt driving with the exception of the Chestnut Street flying jumps (with Ekins again doubling McQueen) and the gas-station crash gag (Carey Loftin doubling him for that). He also turned down Ocean's Eleven, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (his attorneys and agents couldn't agree with Paul Newman's attorneys and agents on who got top billing), Apocalypse Now, California Split, Dirty Harry and The French Connection. (McQueen didn't want to do another cop film.) The role eventually went to Richard Dreyfuss.
McQueen expressed interest in starring as the Rambo character in First Blood when David Morrell's novel appeared in 1972, but the producers eventually rejected him because of his age. He was offered the title role in The Bodyguard (with Diana Ross) when it was first proposed in 1976, but the film didn't reach production until years after McQueen's death. Quigley Down Under was in development as early as 1974, and both McQueen and Clint Eastwood were considered for the lead, but by the time production began in 1980, McQueen was too ill and the project was scrapped until a decade later, when Tom Selleck starred. McQueen was offered the lead in Raise the Titanic but felt the script was flat. He was under contract to Irwin Allen after appearing in The Towering Inferno and was offered a part in a sequel in 1980, which he turned down. The film was scrapped and Newman was brought in by Allen to make When Time Ran Out, which turned out to be a huge box office bomb. McQueen died shortly after passing on "The Towering Inferno 2".
Perhaps the most memorable were the car chase in Bullitt and motorcycle chase in The Great Escape. Although the jump over the fence in The Great Escape was actually done by Bud Ekins for insurance purposes, McQueen did have a considerable amount of screen time riding his 650cc Triumph TR6 Trophy motorcycle. According to the commentary track on The Great Escape DVD, it was difficult to find riders as skilled as McQueen. At one point, due to clever editing, McQueen is seen in a German uniform chasing himself on another bike.
Together with John Sturges, McQueen planned to make Day of the Champion, a movie about Formula One racing. He was busy with the delayed The Sand Pebbles, though. They had a contract with the German Nürburgring, and after John Frankenheimer shot scenes there for Grand Prix, the reels had to be turned over to Sturges. Frankenheimer was ahead in schedule anyway, and the McQueen/Sturges project was called off.
McQueen considered becoming a professional race car driver. In the 1970 12 Hours of Sebring race, Peter Revson and McQueen (driving with a cast on his left foot from a motorcycle accident two weeks before) won with a Porsche 908/02 in the 3 litre class and missed winning overall by 23 seconds to Mario Andretti/Ignazio Giunti/Nino Vaccarella in a 5 litre Ferrari 512S. The same Porsche 908 was entered by his production company Solar Productions as a camera car for Le Mans in the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans later that year. McQueen wanted to drive a Porsche 917 with Jackie Stewart in that race, but his film backers threatened to pull their support if he did. Faced with the choice of driving for 24 hours in the race or driving the entire summer making the film, McQueen opted to do the latter. Le Mans is considered by some to be the most historically realistic representation in the history of the race.
McQueen also competed in off-road motorcycle racing. His first off-road motorcycle was a Triumph 500cc that he purchased from friend and stunt man Ekins. McQueen raced in many top off-road races on the West Coast, including the Baja 1000, the Mint 400 and the Elsinore Grand Prix. In 1964, with Ekins on their Triumph TR6 Trophys, he represented the United States in the International Six Days Trial, a form of off-road motorcycling Olympics. He was inducted in the Off-road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1978. In 1971, Solar Productions funded the now-classic motorcycle documentary On Any Sunday, in which McQueen is featured along with racing legends Mert Lawwill and Malcolm Smith. Also in 1971, McQueen was on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine riding a Husqvarna dirt bike.
McQueen collected classic motorcycles. By the time of his death, his collection included over 100 and was valued in the millions of dollars.
In a segment filmed for The Ed Sullivan Show, McQueen drove Sullivan around a desert area in a dune buggy at high speed. All the breathless Sullivan could say was, "That was a helluva ride!"
He owned several exotic sports cars, including:
After Charles Manson incited the murder of five people, including McQueen's friends Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring, at Tate's home on August 9, 1969, it was reported that McQueen was another potential target of the killers. According to his first wife, McQueen then began carrying a handgun at all times in public, including at Sebring's funeral.
McQueen had an unusual reputation for demanding free items in bulk from studios when agreeing to do a film, such as electric razors, jeans and several other products. It was later found out that McQueen requested these things because he was donating them to the Boy's Republic reformatory school for displaced youth, where he had spent time during his teen years. McQueen made occasional visits to the school to spend time with the students, often to play pool and to speak with them about his experiences.
After discovering a mutual interest in racing, McQueen and his Great Escape co-star James Garner became good friends. Garner lived directly down the hill from McQueen and, as McQueen recalled, "I could see that Jim was very neat around his place. Flowers trimmed, no papers in the yard ... grass always cut. So, just to piss him off, I'd start lobbing empty beer cans down the hill into his driveway. He'd have his drive all spic 'n' span when he left the house, then get home to find all these empty cans. Took him a long time to figure out it was me".
McQueen was conservative in his political views and often backed the Republican Party. He did, however, campaign for Democrat Lyndon Johnson in 1964 before voting for Republican Richard Nixon in 1968. He supported the Vietnam War, was one of the few Hollywood stars who refused numerous requests to back Presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy, in 1968, and turned down the chance to participate in the 1963 March on Washington. When McQueen heard a rumor that he had been added to Nixon's Enemies List, he responded by immediately flying a giant American flag outside his house. Reportedly, his wife Ali McGraw responded to the whole affair by saying, "But you're the most patriotic person I know."
McQueen commanded such respect in the United Kingdom that when visiting Chelsea Football Club to watch a match, he was personally introduced to the players in the dressing room during the half-time break.
Barbara Minty McQueen in her book, Steve McQueen: The Last Mile, writes of McQueen becoming an Evangelical Christian toward the end of his life. This was due in part to the influences of his flying instructor, Sammy Mason, and his son Pete, and Barbara. McQueen attended his local church, Ventura Missionary Church, and was visited by evangelist Billy Graham shortly before his death.
McQueen developed a persistent cough in 1978; he gave up smoking and underwent antibiotic treatments without improvement. Shortness of breath became more pronounced and in December 1979, after the filming of The Hunter, a biopsy revealed mesothelioma, a type of cancer associated with asbestos exposure. By February 1980, there was evidence of widespread metastasis. While he tried to keep the condition a secret, the National Enquirer disclosed that he had "terminal cancer" on March 11, 1980. In July, McQueen traveled to Playas de Rosarito, Baja California for unconventional treatment after U.S. doctors advised him that they could do nothing to prolong his life.
Controversy arose over McQueen's Mexican trip, because McQueen sought a very non-traditional treatment that used coffee enemas, frequent shampoos, injection of live cells from cows and sheep, massage and laetrile, a supposedly "natural" anti-cancer drug available in Mexico, but not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. McQueen was treated by William Donald Kelley, whose only medical license had been (until it was revoked in 1976) for orthodontics. Kelley's methods created a sensation in both the traditional and tabloid press when it became known that McQueen was a patient. Despite metastasis of the cancer to much of McQueen's body, Kelley publicly announced that McQueen would be completely cured and return to normal life. However, McQueen's condition worsened and "huge" tumors developed in his abdomen. While McQueen felt that asbestos used in movie soundstage insulation and race-drivers' protective suits and helmets could have been involved, he believed his illness was a direct result of massive exposure while removing asbestos lagging from pipes aboard a troop ship during his time in the Marines.
A memorial service was presided over by Leonard DeWitt of the Ventura Missionary Church.
In November 1999, McQueen was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame. He was credited with contributions including financing the film On Any Sunday, supporting a team of off-road riders, and enhancing the public image of motorcycling overall.
A film based on unfinished storyboards and notes developed by McQueen before his death was announced for production by McG's production company Wonderland Sound and Vision. Yucatan is described as an "epic adventure heist" film, and is scheduled for release in 2011. Team Downey, the production company started by Robert Downey Jr. and his wife Susan Downey, has also expressed an interest in developing Yucatan for the screen.
The Beech Grove Public Library, in Beech Grove, Indiana, formally dedicated the Steve McQueen Birthplace Collection on March 16, 2010 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of McQueen's birth on March 24, 1930.
Ford secured the rights to McQueen's likeness from the actor's estate licensing agent GreenLight for an undisclosed sum.
The Rolex Explorer II 2 Reference 1655, is also now so-called Rolex Steve McQueen in the horology collectors world, but the Rolex Submariner Reference 5512 he was often photographed wearing in private moments sold for $234,000 at auction on June 11, 2009, a world-record price for the reference.
McQueen was a sponsored ambassador for Heuer Watches. In the 1970 movie Le Mans, McQueen famously wore a blue faced Monaco 1133B Caliber 11 Automatic which has led to its cult status with watch collectors. His sold for $87,600 at auction on June 11, 2009.
Category:Actors from California Category:Actors from Indiana Category:Actors from Missouri Category:Actors Studio alumni Category:American film actors Category:American motorcycle racers Category:British Touring Car Championship drivers Category:Cancer deaths in Mexico Category:Deaths from surgical complications Category:Deaths from mesothelioma Category:Enduro riders Category:Motorcycle Hall of Fame inductees Category:Off-road racers Category:People from Indianapolis, Indiana Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:People from Marion County, Indiana Category:People from Saline County, Missouri Category:United States Marines Category:1930 births Category:1980 deaths Category:American Roman Catholics
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| Coordinates | 29°57′53″N90°4′14″N |
|---|---|
| Subject name | Paul Levinson |
| Caption | | |
| Birth date | 1947 |
| Birth place | Bronx, New York |
| Occupation | Professor, Author |
Paul Levinson (born 1947) is an American author and professor of communications and media studies at Fordham University in New York City. Levinson's novels, short fiction, and non-fiction works have been translated into twelve languages.
As a commentator on media, popular culture, and science fiction Levinson has been interviewed more than 500 times on local, national and international television and radio. He is frequently quoted in newspapers and magazines around the world and his op-eds have appeared in such major papers as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, New York's Newsday, and The New York Sun. He was interviewed in a short weekly spot early Sunday mornings on KNX-AM Radio in Los Angeles, from 2006 to 2008 on media-related news events and popular culture. He hosts four podcasts and maintains several blogs. In April 2009, The Chronicle of Higher Education named him one of Twitter's top ten "High Fliers".
In 1985 he co-founded Connected Education, offering online courses for Masters credit. He served as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America from 1998 to 2001.
He has been a Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University since 1998; he was Chair of the department from 2002 to 2008. He previously taught at The New School, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Hofstra University, St. John's University, Polytechnic University of New York, Audrey Cohen College and the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute (WBSI). He has given lectures in classes and conferences at many universities including the London School of Economics, Harvard University, New York University, and the University of Toronto and authored over 100 scholarly articles.
Prior to his academic career, Levinson was a songwriter, singer and record producer in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with recordings by the Vogues, Donna Marie of the Archies and Ellie Greenwich. As a radio producer he worked with Murray the K and Wolfman Jack.
Levinson's work is influenced by Isaac Asimov, Thomas Jefferson, John Stuart Mill, Marshall McLuhan, Karl Popper, Carl Sagan, and Donald T. Campbell.
Category:1947 births Category:Living people Category:American academics Category:American bloggers Category:American podcasters Category:American science fiction writers Category:American short story writers Category:American singer-songwriters Category:American social sciences writers Category:City University of New York alumni Category:Fairleigh Dickinson University faculty Category:Fordham University faculty Category:Jewish American writers Category:Media theorists Category:New York University alumni Category:People from the Bronx Category:Wired (magazine) people
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, he was active in politically edged humor and satire. Krassner was a founder of the Youth International Party (Yippies) in 1967 and a member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, famous for prankster activism. He was a close protégé of the controversial comedian Lenny Bruce, and the editor of Bruce's autobiography, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People.
In 1971, five years after Lenny Bruce's death, Groucho Marx said, "I predict that in time Paul Krassner will wind up as the only live Lenny Bruce." According to Elliot Feldman, "Some members of the mainstream press and other Washington political wonks, including Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame, actually believed this incident to be true." In a 1995 interview for the magazine Adbusters, Krassner commented: "People across the country believed - if only for a moment - that an act of presidential necrophilia had taken place. It worked because Jackie Kennedy had created so much curiosity by censoring the book she authorized - William Manchester's 'The Death Of A President' - because what I wrote was a metaphorical truth about LBJ's personality presented in a literary context, and because the imagery was so shocking, it broke through the notion that the war in Vietnam was being conducted by sane men."
In 1966, he reprinted in The Realist an excerpt from the academic journal the Journal of the American Medical Association, but presenting it as original material. The article dealt with drinking glasses, tennis balls and other foreign bodies found in patients’ rectums. Some accused him of having a perverted mind, and a subscriber wrote "I found the article thoroughly repellent. I trust you know what you can do with your magazine." In 1981 he published the satirical story Tales of Tongue Fu, in which the hilarious misadventures of the Japanese-American man Tongue Fu are mixed with a wicked social commentary. In 1994 he published his autobiography . In July 2009, City Lights Publishers will release Who's to Say What's Obscene?, a collection of satirical essays that explore contemporary comedy and obscenity in politics and culture.
He published three collections of drug stories. The first collection, Pot Stories for the Soul (1999), is from other authors and is about marijuana. Psychedelic Trips for the Mind (2001), is written by Krassner himself and collects stories on LSD. The third, Magic Mushrooms and Other Highs (2004), is by Krassner too, and deals with magic mushrooms, ecstasy, peyote, mescaline, THC, opium, cocaine, ayahuasca, belladonna, ketamine, PCP, STP, "toad slime," and more.
Krassner has also written about the Patty Hearst trial and possible connections between the Symbionese Liberation Army and the FBI.
Category:1932 births Category:Living people Category:American essayists Category:American journalists Category:American satirists Category:American tax resisters Category:People from Fire Island, New York Category:Psychedelic drug advocates Category:New York Press people Category:People from Greenwich Village, New York Category:Yippies Category:Jewish comedians Category:Jewish American writers Category:Kabarettists
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| Coordinates | 29°57′53″N90°4′14″N |
|---|---|
| Name | Dennis Potter |
| Caption | Cover of The Life and Work of Dennis Potter |
| Birthdate | 17 May 1935 |
| Birthplace | Berry Hill, Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England |
| Deathdate | June 07, 1994 |
| Deathplace | Ross-on-Wye, England |
| Occupation | television playwright, director novelist |
| Nationality | British |
| Period | 1960–1994 |
| Genre | Drama |
| Notableworks | Pennies from Heaven (1978)Blue Remembered Hills (1979)The Singing Detective (1986) |
| Influences | William Hazlitt, George Orwell, David Mercer |
| Influenced | Andrew Davies, Steven Bochco, Peter Bowker |
Dennis Christopher George Potter (17 May 1935 – 7 June 1994) was an English dramatist, best known for The Singing Detective. His widely acclaimed television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social. He was particularly fond of using themes and images from popular culture.
Brought up a Protestant he attended the local Salem chapel, and went to Christchurch junior school where, in 1946, he passed the eleven-plus entrance examination to Bell's Grammar School at Coleford. He then went to St. Clement Danes School in London, while the family lived for a time with his maternal grandfather in Hammersmith. During this time, the ten year old Potter was sexually abused by his uncle; it was an experience he would later allude to many times in his writing. Between 1953 and 1955, he did his National Service and learnt Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists, serving with the Intelligence Corps and subsequently at the War Office.
After national service, in 1956, he won a scholarship and went to New College, Oxford to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics, editing the student magazine Isis. He graduated in 1958, after obtaining a second-class degree. A tall, lean young man with red hair, he was described by his economics tutor as a "cross between Jimmy Porter and Keir Hardie". On 10 January 1959 he married Margaret Amy Morgan (1933–1994) at Christchurch parish church. The Potters had a son, Robert and two daughters, Jane and Sarah, who was to achieve prominence in the 1980s as an international cricketer.
After Oxford, Potter joined the BBC, initially as a trainee in radio and then television journalism, during which time he worked on Panorama about the closure of coalpits in the Forest of Dean. He did not take to television journalism and left, joining the left-wing newspaper Daily Herald from August 1961 he became a television critic for that paper and for its successor, The Sun in its pre-Murdoch incarnation. However, he soon returned to television, writing sketches for That Was The Week That Was with David Nathan. He also attempted to become a Labour Member of Parliament (see below). Potter then embarked on his career as a television playwright, largely after watching the 1963 Granada version of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, based on Erwin Piscator's celebrated stage production. Potter had called it "surely the most exciting evening that TV has ever given us".
Potter's Son of Man (The Wednesday Play, 1969), starring the Irish actor Colin Blakely, gave an alternative view of the last days of Jesus, and led to Potter being accused of blasphemy. The same year, Potter contributed Moonlight on the Highway to ITV's Saturday Night Theatre strand. The play centred around a young man who attempts to blot out memories of the sexual abuse he suffered as child in his obsession with the music of Al Bowlly. As well as being an intensely personal play for Potter, it is notable for being his first foray in the use of popular music to heighten the dramatic tension in his work.
Casanova, Potter's first television serial, was broadcast on BBC2 in 1971. Inspired by William R. Trask's 1966 translation of Casanova's memoirs (Histoire de ma vie), Potter recast the Venetian libertine as a man haunted by his dependency on women. The serial was told using a non-linear narrative structure and, as the critic Graham Fuller noted in Potter on Potter, "as chamber-piece and identity quest, Casanova strongly anticipates [later works such as] The Singing Detective." It did, however, prove controversial for its frank depiction of nudity and was criticized for its sexual content. Controversy also dogged another play, Brimstone and Treacle (Play for Today, 1976), the original version was unscreened by the BBC for over a decade owing to the depiction of the rape of a disabled woman by a man who is implied to be the devil incarnate. It was eventually broadcast on BBC2 in 1987, although a 1982 film version had been made, with Sting in the leading role (see below) and a stage version performed in Sheffield at the Crucible Theatre.
Potter continued to make news as well as winning critical acclaim for drama serials with Pennies From Heaven (1978), which featured Bob Hoskins as a sheet music salesman and was Hoskins's first performance to receive wide attention. It demonstrated the dramatic possibilities old recordings of popular songs. Blue Remembered Hills was first shown on the BBC on 30 January 1979; it returned to the British small screen at Christmas 2004, and again in the summer of 2005, showcased as part of the winning decade (1970s) having been voted by BBC Four viewers as the golden era of British television. The adult actors playing the roles of children were Helen Mirren, Janine Duvitski, Michael Elphick, Colin Jeavons, Colin Welland, John Bird, and Robin Ellis. It was directed by Brian Gibson. The moralistic theme was "the child is father of the man". Potter had used the dramatic device of adult actors playing children before, for example in Stand Up, Nigel Barton.
A lucrative deal with LWT, and semi-independence, followed an aborted project to adapt Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time for the BBC. A series of six single plays by Potter for ITV, with a further three written by Jim Allen, was planned. Budget overspends meant only three of the Potter plays were produced: the BAFTA-winning Blade on the Feather, Rain on the Roof and Cream in My Coffee, which won Grand Prize at the Prix Italia.
He also wrote the scripts for the widely praised but seldom seen miniseries of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night (1985) with Mary Steenburgen as Nicole Diver.
The Singing Detective (1986), featuring Michael Gambon, used the dramatist's own battle with the skin disease psoriasis, for him an often debilitating condition, as a means to merge the lead character's imagination with his perception of reality.
Potter's TV serial, Blackeyes (1989, also a novel- see below), a drama about a fashion model was reviewed as self-indulgent by some critics, and accused of contributing to the misogyny Potter claimed he intended to expose. The critical backlash against Potter following Blackeyes led to him being nicknamed 'Dirty Den' by the British tabloid press, after the soap opera character, and resulted in a long period of reclusion from television. In 1990 Mary Whitehouse, a long time critic of Potter, claimed on BBC Radio that Potter had been influenced by witnessing his mother engaged in adulterous sex. Potter's mother won substantial damages from the BBC and The Listener. Potter was actually an admirer of Mrs Whitehouse. The journalist Stanley Reynolds found in 1973 that he "loves the idea of Mrs Whitehouse. He sees her as standing up for all the people with ducks on their walls who have been laughed at and treated like rubbish by the sophistocated metropolitan minority."
In 1992 he directed a film, Secret Friends (from his novel, Ticket to Ride), starring Alan Bates. Secret Friends premiered in New York at the Museum of Modern Art as the gala closing of the Museum of Television & Radio’s week-long Potter retrospective. Potter proposed to write an "intermedia" stage play for Geisler-Roberdeau based on William Hazlitt’s Liber Amoris, or The New Pygmalion, but he died before it could be commenced. Potter's romantic comedy Lipstick on Your Collar (1993) was a return to more conventional themes and the familiar format of six hour-long episodes, but did not become the desired popular success, although it helped launch the career of Ewan McGregor. The project was launched at MGM as an 'anti-musical' with Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters in the lead roles. According to Potter, the studio demanded continual rewrites of the script and made significant cuts to the film after initial test screenings. The film was released in 1981 to mixed critical reaction and was a box office disaster. Potter was, however, nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar that year alongside Harold Pinter for The French Lieutenant's Woman.
Having already adapted Brimstone and Treacle for the stage after the television production was banned by the BBC, Potter set about writing a film version. Directed by Richard Loncraine, who also directed Potter's Blade on the Feather at LWT, the film featured a soundtrack by The Police while Sting played the role of the devil; Denholm Elliot reprised his role from the original television production playing Mr Bates while Joan Plowright took the Patricia Lawrence role as Mrs Bates. Although a British film made by Potter's own production company (Pennies Productions), the casting of Sting piqued the interest of American investors. As a result, references to Mr Bates' membership of the National Front and a scene discussing racial segregation were omitted —as were many of the non-naturalistic flourishes that dominated the television production— although, ironically, the film was much more graphic in its depiction of sexual abuse and rape. The film though was not a success at the box office, but Sting's cover of "Spread a Little Happiness" reached number sixteen in the UK Singles Chart.
Potter's screenplay for Gorky Park (1983) earned him an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America, although it emerged as a shadow of Martin Cruz Smith's original novel. He also wrote the screenplay for Dreamchild (1985), a cinematic adaptation of his earlier Alice script. In her last film role, Coral Browne portrayed the elderly Alice Hargreaves who recalls in flashbacks her childhood when she was the inspiration for Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. In 1987 he adapted his television play Schmoedipus (1975) for the cinema. The ensuing film, Track 29, directed by Nicolas Roeg, was the last project Potter would pursue in Hollywood. Potter did, however, provide uncredited script work on James and the Giant Peach (released 1995) — his chief contribution providing dialogue for the sardonic caterpillar. Potter makes a sly reference to this in Karaoke when the character Daniel Feeld (Albert Finney) is invited to provide dialogue for an "arthritic goat" in a children's film.Potter's reputation within the American film industry following the box office disappointments of Pennies from Heaven and Gorky Park ultimately led to difficulty receiving backing for his projects. Potter is known to have written adaptations of The Phantom of the Opera, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The White Hotel and his own 1976 television play Double Dare: all reaching the preproduction stage before work was suspended. More fortunate was Mesmer (1993), a biographical film of 19th century pseudo-scientist Franz Anton Mesmer.
The last film Potter actively worked on was Midnight Movie (1994), an adaptation of Rosalind Ashe's novel Moths. The film starred Louise Germaine and Brian Dennehy (who had appeared in Lipstick on Your Collar and Gorky Park, respectively) and was directed by Renny Rye. Unable to secure financing from the Arts Council, Potter invested half a million pounds into the production; BBC Films provided the rest of the capital. The film was not given a cinema release due to a lack of interest from distributors and remained unseen until Potter's death. It was finally broadcast on BBC2 in November 1994 as part of their "Screen Two" season alongside a remake of his 1967 play Message for Posterity.
A film version of The Singing Detective, based on Potter's own adapted screenplay, was released in 2003 by Icon Productions. Robert Downey Jr. played the lead alongside Robin Wright-Penn and Mel Gibson. Gibson also acted as producer.
Hide and Seek (1973) was a meta-fictional novel exploring the relationship between reader and author and contains a central protagonist, 'Daniel Miller', who is convinced he is the plaything of an omniscient author. This concept forms the core of Potter's next two novels, and portions of Hide and Seek would reappear in several of his television plays (most notably Follow the Yellow Brick Road and The Singing Detective, respectively).
Ticket to Ride (1986) was written between drafts of The Singing Detective and concerns a herbithologist who is unable to make love to his wife unless he imagines her as a prostitute. This was followed in 1987 by Blackeyes: a study of a model whose abusive uncle, a writer, has stolen details of his niece's experiences in the glamour industry as the basis for his latest potboiler.
To tie-in with the release of the MGM production of Pennies from Heaven in 1981, Potter wrote a novelisation of the screenplay. Potter turned down the option of writing a novelisation for the film version of Brimstone and Treacle, allowing his daughter Sarah to write it instead.
BBC Four marked the tenth anniversary of Potter's death in December 2004 with a major series of documentaries about his life and work, accompanied by showings of Pennies from Heaven and The Singing Detective, as well as several of his single plays — many of which had not been shown since their maiden broadcast. His influence has also extended into popular music: Welsh band Manic Street Preachers used quotes from Potter on the inner sleeves to their single "Kevin Carter" and greatest hits collection, while Scottish art rock band Franz Ferdinand modelled the promotional video for their song "The Dark of the Matinée" after Blue Remembered Hills and The Singing Detective. Guy Garvey, lead singer with Elbow, has said he named his band after the exchange in The Singing Detective where the central character claims that word to be the most beautiful in the English language.
;Footnotes
Category:1935 births Category:1994 deaths Category:Old Danes Category:English television writers Category:English dramatists and playwrights Category:English screenwriters Category:Edgar Award winners Category:Alumni of New College, Oxford Category:People from Forest of Dean (district) Category:Deaths from pancreatic cancer Category:Cancer deaths in England
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| Coordinates | 29°57′53″N90°4′14″N |
|---|---|
| Name | Christopher Hitchens |
| Color | green |
| Caption | Hitchens in 2007 |
| Birthname | Christopher Eric Hitchens |
| Birthdate | April 13, 1949 |
| Birthplace | Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, UK |
| Occupation | Writer and pundit |
| Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford |
| Nationality | American/British |
| Religion | None |
| Genre | Polemicism, journalism, essays, biography, literary criticism |
| Spouse | Carol Blue (1989–present) |
| Children | Alexander, Sophia, Antonia |
| Relatives | Peter Hitchens (brother) |
| Influences | George Orwell, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Joseph Heller, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Salman Rushdie, Vladimir Nabokov, Richard Llewellyn, Aldous Huxley, PG Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Paul Mark Scott, James Fenton, James Joyce, Albert Camus, Oscar Wilde, Conor Cruise O'Brien, Martin Amis, Kingsley Amis, Ian McEwan, Leon Trotsky, Colm Tóibín, Bertrand Russell, Wilfred Owen, Isaiah Berlin He is a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits and in 2005 he was voted the world's fifth top public intellectual in a Prospect/Foreign Policy poll. |
| Name | Hitchens, Christopher Eric |
| Short description | Author, journalist and literary critic |
| Date of birth | 13 April 1949 |
| Place of birth | Portsmouth, England, UK}} |
Category:1949 births Category:Living people Category:Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Category:American atheists Category:American biographers Category:American essayists Category:American journalists Category:American Marxists Category:American media critics Category:American people of Polish descent Category:American people of English descent Category:American political pundits Category:American political writers Category:American humanists Category:Anti-Vietnam War activists Category:Atheism activists Category:British republicans Category:Cancer patients Category:English atheists Category:English biographers Category:English essayists Category:English humanists Category:English journalists Category:English immigrants to the United States Category:English Marxists Category:English people of Polish descent Category:English political writers Category:English socialists Category:Genital integrity activists Category:Marxist journalists Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:Old Leysians Category:People from Portsmouth Category:Slate magazine people Category:Socialist Workers Party (Britain) members Category:The Nation (U.S. periodical) people Category:University Challenge contestants
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| Coordinates | 29°57′53″N90°4′14″N |
|---|---|
| Name | Arianna Huffington |
| Caption | Campaigning for Governor of California, 2003 |
| Birthname | Arianna Stassinopoulos |
| Birthdate | July 15, 1950 |
| Birthplace | Athens, Greece |
| Spouse | Michael Huffington (divorced 1997) |
| Occupation | Columnist |
| Nationality | Greek |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Subject | Politics, spirituality, environment, liberalism |
| Website | http://www.huffingtonpost.com |
Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos () on July 15, 1950, is a Greek-American author and syndicated columnist. She is best known as co-founder of the news website The Huffington Post. A popular conservative commentator in the mid-1990s, she switched to liberalism in the late 1990s. She is the ex-wife of former Republican congressman Michael Huffington.
In 2003, she ran as an independent candidate for Governor in the California recall election.
In 2009, Huffington was named as number 12 in Forbes first-ever list of the Most Influential Women In Media. She has also moved up to number 42 in The Guardians Top 100 in Media List.
After graduation, she moved to London and lived with the journalist and broadcaster Bernard Levin, whom she had met while the two were panelists on the TV show Face the Music. In 1980, she left Levin and moved to the United States, after he refused to marry her. After Levin's death in 2004, she called him "the big love of my life, […] a mentor as a writer, and a role model as a thinker". During these years and around the time of her involvement with John-Roger's religious group, she was involved with Democratic politician and then-governor (now Governor again) of California, Jerry Brown.
She met oil millionaire Michael Huffington, a family friend of the Bushes, at a 1985 party hosted by Anne Geddes in San Francisco. The couple were married in 1986 at a wedding paid for by Geddes, who had declared that she needed to find Arianna a husband. They moved to Washington, D.C., when he was appointed to serve as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy. They later established residency in Santa Barbara, California, in order for him to run in 1992 as a Republican for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, which he won by a significant margin. He was a political conservative on most issues. Arianna campaigned for her husband, courting religious conservatives, arguing for smaller government and a reduction in welfare. In 1994, he narrowly lost the race for the U.S. Senate seat from California to incumbent Dianne Feinstein.
The couple divorced in 1997, and in 1998 Michael Huffington revealed that he was bisexual. The financial terms of their divorce agreement remain undisclosed.
Huffington rose to national prominence during her husband's unsuccessful Senate bid in 1994. She became known as a reliable supporter of conservative causes such as Newt Gingrich's "Republican Revolution" and Bob Dole's 1996 candidacy for president. She teamed up with liberal comedian Al Franken as the conservative half of "Strange Bedfellows" during Comedy Central's coverage of the 1996 U.S. presidential election. For her work, she and the writing team of Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher were nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Variety or Music Program. She has also made a few forays into acting with roles on shows such as Roseanne, The L Word, Help Me Help You, and the film EdTV.
Huffington's politics began to shift back toward the left in the late 1990s. During the Yugoslav Wars, Huffington opposed United States intervention in the crisis. In 2000, she instigated the 'Shadow Conventions', which appeared at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia and the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.
Huffington heads The Detroit Project, a public interest group lobbying automakers to start producing cars running on alternative fuels. The project's 2003 TV ads, which equated driving sport utility vehicles to funding terrorism, proved to be particularly controversial, with some stations refusing to run them.
In a 2004 appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, she announced her endorsement of John Kerry by saying, "When your house is burning down, you don't worry about the remodeling." In recent years, she has been closely associated with the Democratic Party. Huffington was a panel speaker during the 2005 California Democratic Party State Convention, held in Los Angeles. She also spoke at the 2004 College Democrats of America Convention in Boston, which was held in conjunction with the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Huffington is also associated with talk radio with CNN political commentator Mary Matalin called "Both Sides radio."
Despite briefly retaining former U.S. Senator Dean Barkley as a campaign advisor and advertising executive Bill Hillsman as her media director, she dropped out of the race on September 30, 2003. Others attributed her exit to her inability to garner support for her candidacy, noting that polls showed that only about two percent of likely California voters planned to vote for her at the time of her withdrawal. Though she failed to stop the recall, Huffington's name remained on the ballot and she placed 5th, capturing 0.55% of the vote.
Huffington's book The Fourth Instinct is based on the idea that all humans have an inherent spiritual yearning.
Huffington is co-host of the nationally syndicated public radio program Left, Right & Center. In May 2007, she and Mark J. Green began co-hosting a new radio show on Air America Radio, 7 Days in America.
Huffington also has an Internet presence with her website The Huffington Post, which features blogs and commentary from her and from a number of prominent liberal journalists, public officials, and celebrities.
Prior to The Huffington Post, Huffington hosted a website called Ariannaonline.com. Her first foray into the Internet was a website called Resignation.com, which called for the resignation of President Bill Clinton and was a rallying place for conservatives opposing Clinton.
Huffington had a cameo role on The L Word in its second season.
In November 2008, Huffington joined the cast of the Seth MacFarlane animated series on Fox, The Cleveland Show, where she lends her voice to the wife of Tim the Bear, also named Arianna. Huffington also endorsed Barack Obama for President.
On November 17, 2008, Huffington substituted for Rachel Maddow on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show. The online website TV Newser has put forward the idea that she is in the running for a more permanent role as commentator or anchor at MSNBC.
Huffington was spoofed by actress Michaela Watkins on the November 22, 2008, episode of Saturday Night Live.
Huffington was also spoofed on the first series of Tracey Ullman's State of the Union in 2008.
Huffington appeared as herself in the May 10, 2010, episode of CBS's How I Met Your Mother.
Huffington participated in the 24th annual "Distinguished Speaker Series" at the University at Buffalo, NY., on September 16, 2010. She headlined a debate against radio co-host Mary Matalin on current world events, political issues, and the local Buffalo economy. The University at Buffalo "Distinguished Speaker Series" has featured a multitude of world-renowned politicians and celebrities such as; Tony Blair, Bill Nye, Jon Stewart, and the Dalai Lama.
Huffington offered to provide as many buses as necessary to transport those who want to go to Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on October 30, 2010 from the Huffington Post Headquarters in New York City. Ultimately, she paid for 150 buses to ferry almost 10,000 people from Citi Field in Queens to RFK Stadium in DC. The only self-promotion on her part was 'Huffington Post' written on the bracelets needed to get on the bus.
Huffington appeared as herself in the Family Guy episode Brian Writes a Bestseller on November 21, 2010, taking part in a discussion on a mock version of Real Time with Bill Maher about the quality of a book Brian Griffin authored in this episode.
Lydia Gasman, an art history professor at the University of Virginia, claimed that Huffington’s 1988 biography of Pablo Picasso, Picasso: Creator and Destroyer, included themes similar to those in her unpublished four-volume Ph.D. thesis. "What she did was steal twenty years of my work," Gasman told Maureen Orth in 1994. Gasman did not file suit.
Maureen Orth also reported that Huffington "borrowed heavily for her 1993 book, The Gods of Greece."
Category:1950 births Category:American activists Category:American alternative journalists Category:Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge Category:American biographers Category:American bloggers Category:American political pundits Category:American political writers Category:American talk radio hosts Category:California Democrats Category:American politicians of Greek descent Category:Greek immigrants to the United States Category:Living people Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:Online journalists Category:People from Athens Category:Plagiarism controversies Category:Presidents of the Cambridge Union Society Category:Progressivism in the United States Category:Spouses of members of the United States House of Representatives
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![Fordham University is a private university[3] in the United States, with three campuses located in and around New York City. It was founded by the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York in 1841 as St. John's College, placed in the care of the Society of Jesus shortly thereafter, and has since become an independent institution under a lay Board of Trustees which describes the university as](http://web.archive.org./web/20110510065410im_/http://cdn.wn.com/pd/62/c6/616c52e7eee40c60e849e9a2db69_thumb.jpg "Fordham University is a private university[3] in the United States, with three campuses located in and around New York City. It was founded by the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York in 1841 as St. John's College, placed in the care of the Society of Jesus shortly thereafter, and has since become an independent institution under a lay Board of Trustees which describes the university as")
