It was the parent company for Warner Bros. Pictures and Warner Music Group during the 1970s and 1980s. It also owned DC Comics and Mad, as well as a majority stake in Garden State National Bank (an investment it was ultimately required to sell pursuant to requirements under the Bank Holding Company Act). Warner's initial divestiture efforts led by Garden State CEO Charles A. Agemian were blocked by Garden State board member William A. Conway in 1978; a revised transaction was later completed in 1980.
In 1976, Nolan Bushnell sold his Atari company to Warner Communications for an estimated $2–12 millions. Warner made considerable profits (and later losses) with Atari, which it owned from 1976 to 1984. While part of Warner, Atari achieved its greatest success, selling millions of Atari 2600s and computers. At its peak, Atari accounted for a third of Warner's annual income and was the fastest-growing company in the history of the United States at the time.
In 1975, Warner expanded under the guidance of CEO Steve Ross and formed a joint venture with American Express, named Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, which held cable channels including MTV (launched 1981), Nickelodeon (launched 1979) and The Movie Channel. Warner bought out American Express's half in 1984, and sold the venture a year later to Viacom, which renamed it MTV Networks.
In February 1983, Warner expanded their interests to baseball. Under the direction of Caesar P. Kimmel, executive vice president, bought 48 percent of the Pittsburgh Pirates for $10 million. The company then put up its share for sale in November 1984 following losses of $6 million. The team's elderly majority owner, John W. Galbreath, soon followed suit after learning of Warner's actions.
In 1984, due to the video game crash of 1983, Warner sold the consumer division of Atari to Jack Tramiel. It kept the arcade division and renamed it Atari Games. They sold Atari Games to Namco in 1985, and repurchased it in 1994, renaming it Time-Warner Interactive, until it was sold to Midway Games in 1996. In a long-expected deal, Warner Communications announced on May 11, 1988 they were acquiring Lorimar-Telepictures; the acquisition was finalized on January 12, 1989. The merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications was announced on March 4, 1989. During the summer of that same year, Paramount Communications (formerly Gulf+Western) launched a $12.2 billion hostile bid to acquire Time, Inc. in an attempt to end a stock-swap merger deal between Time and Warner Communications. This caused Time to raise its bid for Warner to $14.9 Billion in cash and stock. Paramount responded by filing a lawsuit in a Delaware court to block the Time/Warner merger. The court ruled twice in favor of Time, forcing Paramount to drop both the Time acquisition and the lawsuit, and allowing the formation of Time Warner which was completed on January 10, 1990.
Time Warner had also been owner of the Six Flags Theme Parks chain during the 1990s after near bankruptcy. It sold all Six Flags parks and properties to Oklahoma based Premier Parks on April 1, 1998.
In 2005, Time Warner was among 53 entities that contributed the maximum of $250,000 to the second inauguration of President George W. Bush. On December 27, 2007 newly installed Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes discussed possible plans to spin-off Time Warner Cable and sell-off AOL and Time Inc. This would leave a smaller company made up of Turner Broadcasting, Warner Bros. and HBO. On February 28, 2008 co-chairmen and co-CEOs of New Line Cinema Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne announced their resignations from the 40-year-old movie studio in response to Jeffrey Bewkes's demand for cost-cutting measures at the studio, which he intended to dissolve into Warner Bros.
On May 28, 2009, Time Warner announced that it would spin off AOL as a separate independent company, with the change occurring on December 9, 2009.
On August 25, 2010, Time Warner's Latin American division bought Chilean nationwide terrestrial television station Chilevisión from Chile's current president Sebastián Piñera. Time Warner already operates in the country with CNN Chile.
The network is the result of a merger of The WB Television Network (a Time Warner holding) and UPN (a CBS Corporation holding). CBS Corporation and Time Warner each own 50% of the network. Tribune Broadcasting (previously owned a 25% stake on The WB) and CBS Corporation contributed its stations as new network affiliates, although Time Warner's sole owned TV station (via Turner) Atlanta's WTBS (now WPCH) remains an independent station, competing against CBS-owned CW O&O; WUPA.
For fiscal year 2002 the company reported a $99 billion loss on its income statement because of $100 billion in non-recurring charges, almost all from a writedown of the goodwill (intangible asset) from the merger in 2000. This loss is one of the largest in corporate history. The value of the AOL portion of the company had dropped sharply with the collapse of the Internet boom, in the early 21st century.
On February 4, 2009, Time Warner posted a $16.03 billion loss for the final quarter of 2008, compared with a $1.03 billion profit for the same three months of 2007.
And six executive vice presidents, most with additional, functional titles:
Box office receipts have been rising while the growth rate of DVD sales have recently been declining, which affects Warner Bros.' growth prospects and revenues.
The CW Television Network (The CW)
Category:Companies established in 1990 Category:Entertainment companies of the United States Category:Telecommunications companies of the United States Category:Internet companies of the United States Category:Companies based in New York City Category:Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Time Warner, Inc. Category:Turner Broadcasting System Category:Atlanta Braves owners
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| Name | Robin Williams |
|---|---|
| Caption | At "Stand Up for Heroes", a benefit organized by the Bob Woodruff Family Fund to raise money for injured U.S. servicemen (2007) |
| Birth name | Robin McLaurim Williams |
| Birth date | July 21, 1951 |
| Birth place | Chicago, Illinois, United States |
| Medium | Stand-up, Film, Television |
| Nationality | American |
| Active | 1972–present |
| Genre | Character comedy, Physical comedy, Improvisational comedy, Satire/Political Satire, Observational comedy, Blue Comedy |
| Influences | Richard Pryor, Jonathan Winters |
| Influenced | Conan O'Brien, Frank Caliendo, Dat Phan, Jo Koy |
| Spouse | Valerie Velardi (1978–1988) 1 child Marsha Garces Williams (1989–2008) 2 children |
| Website | RobinWilliams.com |
Robin McLaurim Williams (born July 21, 1951) is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting. He has also won two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globes, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and five Grammy Awards.
Williams has described himself as a quiet child whose first imitation was of his grandmother to his mother. He did not overcome his shyness until he became involved with his high-school drama department.
In 1973, Williams was one of only 20 students accepted into the freshman class at the Juilliard School, and one of only two students to be accepted by John Houseman into the Advanced Program at the school that year, the other being Christopher Reeve. As Mork, Williams improvised much of his dialogue and devised plenty of rapid-fire verbal and physical comedy, speaking in a high, nasal voice. Mork's appearance was so popular with viewers that it led to a spin-off hit television sitcom, Mork and Mindy, which ran from 1978 to 1982. Although playing the same character as in his appearance in Happy Days, the show was set in the present day, in Boulder, Colorado, instead of the late '50s in Milwaukee. Mork was an extremely popular character, featured on posters, coloring books, lunchboxes, and other merchandise.
Starting in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, Williams began to reach a wider audience with his standup comedy, including three HBO comedy specials, Off The Wall (1978), An Evening with Robin Williams (1982), and Robin Williams: Live at the Met (1986). Also in 1986, Williams reached an ever wider audience to exhibit his style at the 58th Academy Awards show.
His stand-up work has been a consistent thread through his career, as is seen by the success of his one-man show (and subsequent DVD) Robin Williams Live on Broadway (2002). He was voted 13th on Comedy Central's list "100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time" in 2004.
After some encouragement from his friend Whoopi Goldberg, he was set to make a guest appearance in the 1991 episode, "A Matter of Time", but he had to cancel due to a scheduling conflict; Matt Frewer took his place as a time-traveling con man, Professor Berlingoff Rasmussen.
Williams also appeared on an episode of the American version of Whose Line Is It Anyway? (Season 3, Episode 9: November 16, 2000). During a game of "Scenes from a Hat", the scene "What Robin Williams is thinking right now" was drawn, and Williams stated "I have a career. What the hell am I doing here?"
On December 4, 2010, he appeared with Robert De Niro on SNL in the sketch What Up with That.
His role as the Genie in the animated film Aladdin (1992) was instrumental in establishing the importance of star power in voice actor casting. Williams also used his voice talents in , as the holographic Dr. Know in the 2001 feature A.I. Artificial Intelligence, the 2005 animated feature Robots, the 2006 Academy Award winning Happy Feet, and an uncredited vocal performance in 2006's Everyone's Hero. Furthermore, he was the voice of The Timekeeper, a former attraction at the Walt Disney World Resort about a time-traveling robot who encounters Jules Verne and brings him to the future.
In 1998, he won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor for his role as a psychologist in Good Will Hunting. although the part of the Joker was played by Heath Ledger, who went on to win, posthumously, the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
He was portrayed by Chris Diamantopoulos in the made-for-TV biopic Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Mork & Mindy (2005), documenting the actor's arrival in Hollywood as a struggling comedian.
Williams and Disney had a bitter falling-out, and as a result Dan Castellaneta voiced the Genie in The Return of Jafar, the Aladdin animated television series, and had recorded his voice for Aladdin and the King of Thieves. When Jeffrey Katzenberg was fired from Disney and replaced by former 20th Century Fox production head Joe Roth (whose last act for Fox was greenlighting Williams' film Mrs. Doubtfire), Roth arranged for a public apology to Williams by Disney. Williams agreed to perform in Hollywood Pictures' Jack, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and even agreed to voice the Genie again for the King Of Thieves sequel (for considerably more than scale), replacing all of Castellaneta's dialogue.
When Williams re-teamed with Doubtfire director Chris Columbus for 1999's Bicentennial Man, Disney asked that the budget be cut by approximately $20 million, and when the film was released on Christmas Day, it flopped at the box office. Williams blamed Disney's marketing and the loss of content the film had suffered due to the budget cuts. As a result, Williams was again on bad terms with Disney, and Castellaneta was once again recruited to replace him as Genie in the Kingdom Hearts video game series and the House of Mouse TV series. The DVD release for Aladdin has no involvement whatsoever from Williams in the bonus materials, although some of his original recording sessions can be seen.
Robin Williams has recently made peace with the Walt Disney Company and in 2009 agreed to be inducted into the Disney hall of fame, designated as a Disney Legend.
After a six-year break, in August 2008 Williams announced a brand new 26-city tour titled "Weapons of Self Destruction". He was quoted as saying that this was his last chance to make cracks at the expense of the current Bush Administration, but by the time the show was staged only a few minutes covered that subject. The tour started at the end of September 2009, finishing in New York on December 3, and was the subject of an HBO special on December 8, 2009.
On April 30, 1989, he married Marsha Garces, his son's nanny who was already several months pregnant with his child. They have two children, Zelda Rae (born July 31, 1989) and Cody Alan (born November 25, 1991). However, in March 2008, Garces filed for divorce from Williams, citing irreconcilable differences.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Williams had an addiction to cocaine; he has since quit. Williams was a close friend and frequent partier alongside John Belushi. He says the death of his friend and the birth of his son prompted him to quit drugs: "Was it a wake-up call? Oh yeah, on a huge level. The grand jury helped too."
On August 9, 2006, Williams checked himself in to a substance-abuse rehabilitation center (located in Newberg, Oregon), later admitting that he was an alcoholic. His publicist delivered the announcement:
"After 20 years of sobriety, Robin Williams found himself drinking again and has decided to take proactive measures to deal with this for his own well-being and the well-being of his family. He asks that you respect his and his family's privacy during this time. He looks forward to returning to work this fall to support his upcoming film releases."
On August 20, 2007, Williams' elder brother, Robert Todd Williams, died of complications from heart surgery performed a month earlier.
Williams is a member of the Episcopal Church. He has described his denomination in a comedy routine as "Catholic Lite — same rituals, half the guilt."
While studying at Juilliard, Williams befriended Christopher Reeve. They had several classes together in which they were the only students, and they remained good friends for the rest of Reeve's life. Williams visited Reeve after the horse riding accident that rendered him a quadriplegic, and cheered him up by pretending to be an eccentric Russian doctor (similar to his role in Nine Months). Williams claimed that he was there to perform a colonoscopy. Reeve stated that he laughed for the first time since the accident and knew that life was going to be okay.
Williams lives in San Francisco.
A fan of professional road cycling, he was a regular on the US Postal and Discovery Channel Pro Cycling team bus and hotels during the years Lance Armstrong dominated the Tour de France. He owns over 50 bicycles.
He also enjoys rugby union and is a big fan of former All Black, Jonah Lomu.
Williams is a supporter of eco-friendly vehicles. He currently drives a Toyota Prius, and is on the waiting list for an Aptera 2 Series electric vehicle. Williams has recently announced that he would love to play the role of "The Riddler" in the next installment to the "Batman" films by director Christopher Nolan, though Nolan has stated "The Riddler" will not be in the next and final installment.
Williams has performed with the USO for U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In response to the 2010 Canterbury Earthquake, Robin Williams donated all proceeds of his "Weapons of Self Destruction" Christchurch performance to helping rebuild the New Zealand city. Half the proceeds were donated to the Red Cross and half to the mayoral building fund with the words "I hope this donation will go some way to helping the extensive rebuilding effort in the city."
Williams appeared in the music video of Bobby McFerrin's hit song "Don't Worry, Be Happy".
Category:1951 births Category:Living people Category:Actors from California Category:Actors from Chicago, Illinois Category:American actors of English descent Category:American people of Welsh descent Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American people of French descent Category:American comedians of Irish descent Category:American Episcopalians Category:American film actors Category:American impressionists (entertainers) Category:American stand-up comedians Category:American television actors Category:American voice actors Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (television) winners Category:Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winners Category:California Democrats Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Juilliard School alumni
Category:Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:People from Marin County, California Category:People self-identifying as alcoholics Category:Comedians
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| Name | Lesley Gore |
|---|---|
| Caption | Lesley Gore in 1964. |
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Lesley Sue Goldstein |
| Born | May 02, 1946 |
| Origin | New York City, New York,United States |
| Instrument | Vocals |
| Genre | Pop |
| Occupation | Singer-songwriter |
| Years active | 1963–present |
| Associated acts | Sue Thompson, Brenda Lee |
| Url | lesleygore.com |
| Voice type | Alto |
In an interview, Lesley said that when Mercury Records dropped her in 1969, they owed her $175,000.00 and she did not see a nickel from them until 1989, by which time Mercury has recouped all of their costs from her royalties.
Some commentators consider the lyric content of some albums, notably Someplace Else Now, to contain implicit references to Gore's sexuality. Her altering of known song lyrics was also thought to have implied her orientation, as in her album The Canvas Can Do Miracles. On that album she covered the song "You're the One That I Want" (from the film Grease), altering the line "'cause I need a man" to "'cause I need a friend".
Gore provided musical aid for the 1996 film Grace of My Heart, which featured a character (played by Bridget Fonda) whose struggles over her sexual orientation were similar to Gore's. The film character is able to express her feelings to her female lover openly by singing a song titled "Secret Love". Gore also sang a song with the same title. Beginning in 2004, Gore could be seen hosting the PBS television series In the Life, which focused on LGBT issues. Gore currently lives with her partner of more than 23 years.
Category:1946 births Category:American child singers Category:American female singers Category:American pop singers Category:Feminist artists Category:Jewish American composers and songwriters Category:Lesbian musicians Category:LGBT Jews Category:LGBT musicians from the United States Category:Living people Category:Mercury Records artists Category:Musicians from New Jersey Category:Musicians from New York City Category:People from Bergen County, New Jersey Category:Sarah Lawrence College alumni
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| Name | Jeffrey Bewkes |
|---|---|
| Birth date | May 25, 1952 |
| Birth place | Paterson, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Occupation | Chairman and CEO of Time Warner |
| Salary | $19.56 million FY 2009 |
| Alma-mater | Yale UniversityStanford Graduate School of Business |
| Website | TimeWarner Bio |
Jeffrey Lawrence Bewkes (born 25 May 1952) is an American media executive. He has served as CEO of Time Warner since January 1, 2008 and as President since December 2005. On January 1, 2009 he became Chairman of the Board in addition to his other duties.
Bewkes oversees Time Inc., HBO, Turner Broadcasting (CNN, TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network), Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema. Bewkes served as chairman of Time Warner’s entertainment and networks group (2002–2005); CEO of HBO (1995–2002); President and COO of HBO (1991–1995); and CFO of HBO (1986–1991). From December 2005 to December 2007, he served as the top subordinate to Time Warner Chairman & CEO Dick Parsons. Bewkes was selected as Parsons' successor as CEO, although Parsons remained Chairman of the Board until 2009.
In January 2006, Bewkes and CBS Corporation head Les Moonves helped broker the deal that joined the CBS-owned UPN with The WB to form the CW Network.
Category:1952 births Category:American media executives Category:Deerfield Academy alumni Category:Living people Category:People from Paterson, New Jersey Category:Yale University alumni Category:Place of birth missing (living people) Owners
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