Name	Robert Mitchum
Caption	in The Sundowners (1960)
Birth name
Birth date	August 06, 1917
Birth place	Bridgeport, Connecticut, U.S.
Death date	July 01, 1997
Death place	Santa Barbara, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, author, composer, singer
Years active	1942–1996
Spouse	Dorothy Spence (1940–1997)

Robert Charles Durman Mitchum (August 6, 1917 – July 1, 1997) was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time. Mitchum is largely remembered for his starring roles in several major works of the film noir style, and is considered a forerunner of the anti-heroes prevalent in film during the 1950s and 1960s.

Early life and career

Mitchum was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut into a Methodist family. His mother, Ann Harriet (née Gunderson), was a Norwegian immigrant and sea captain's daughter, and his father, James Thomas Mitchum, was a shipyard and railroad worker. A sister, Annette, (known as Julie Mitchum during her acting career) was born in 1913. James Mitchum was crushed to death in a railyard accident in Charleston, South Carolina in February 1919, when his son was less than 2 years old. After his death, Ann Mitchum was awarded a government pension, and soon realized she was pregnant. She returned to her family in Connecticut, and married a former British Army major who helped her care for the children. In September 1919 a second son, John, was born. When all of the children were old enough to attend school, Ann found employment as a linotype operator for the Bridgeport Post.

Throughout Mitchum's childhood, he was known as a prankster, often involved in fistfights and mischief. When he was 12, his mother sent Mitchum to live with his grandparents in Felton, Delaware, where he was promptly expelled from his middle school for scuffling with a principal. A year later, in 1930, he moved in with his older sister, in New York's Hell's Kitchen. After being expelled from Haaran High School, he left his sister and traveled throughout the country on railroad cars, taking a number of jobs including as a ditch-digger for the Civilian Conservation Corps and as a professional boxer. He experienced numerous adventures during his years as one of the Depression era's "wild boys of the road." At age 14 in Savannah, Georgia, he was arrested for vagrancy and put on a local chain gang. By Mitchum's own account, he escaped and returned to his family in Delaware. It was during this time, while recovering from injuries that nearly lost him a leg, that he met the woman he would marry, a teenaged Dorothy Spence. He soon went back on the road, eventually riding the rails to California.

Mitchum arrived in Long Beach, California, in 1936, staying again with his sister Julie. Soon the rest of the Mitchum family joined them in Long Beach. During this time he worked as a ghostwriter for astrologer Carroll Righter. It was sister Julie who convinced him to join the local theater guild with her. In his years with the Players Guild of Long Beach, he made a living as a stagehand and occasional bit player in company productions. He also wrote several short pieces which were performed by the guild. According to Lee Server's biography (Robert Mitchum: Baby, I Don't Care), Mitchum put a talent for poetry to work writing song lyrics and monologues for his sister Julie's nightclub performances. In 1940 he returned East to marry Dorothy, taking her back to California. He remained a footloose character until the birth of their first child, Jim, nicknamed Josh (two more children would follow, Christopher and Petrine). Mitchum then got a steady job as a machine operator with the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation.

A nervous breakdown (which resulted in temporary blindness), apparently from job-related stress, led Mitchum to look for work as an actor or extra in movies. An agent he had met got him an interview with the producer of the Hopalong Cassidy series of B-westerns; he was hired to play the villain in several films in the series during 1942 and 1943. He continued to find further work as an extra and supporting actor in numerous productions for various studios. After impressing director Mervyn LeRoy during the making of Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Mitchum signed a seven-year contract with RKO Radio Pictures. He found himself groomed for B Western stardom in a series of Zane Grey adaptations.

Following the moderately successful western Nevada, Mitchum was lent from RKO to United Artists for the William Wellman-helmed The Story of G.I. Joe. In the film, he portrayed war-weary officer Bill Walker (based on Captain Henry T. Waskow), who remains resolute despite the troubles he faces. The film, which followed the life of an ordinary soldier through the eyes of journalist Ernie Pyle (played by Burgess Meredith), became an instant critical and commercial success. Shortly after making the film, Mitchum himself was drafted into the U.S. Army, serving at Fort MacArthur, California. At the 1946 Academy Awards, The Story of G.I. Joe was nominated for four Oscars, including Mitchum's only nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He finished the year off with a western (West of the Pecos) and a story of returning Marine veterans (Till the End of Time), before filming in a genre that came to define Mitchum's career and screen persona: film noir.

Work in film noir

Mitchum was initially known for his work in the film noir genre. His first entry into this world of dark crime stories was the well-regarded B-movie, When Strangers Marry, about a serial killer. One of Mitchum's early film noir outings, Undercurrent, featured him playing against type as a troubled, sensitive man entangled in the affairs of his brother (Robert Taylor) and his brother's suspicious wife (Katharine Hepburn). The ill-received film was director Vincente Minnelli's only film noir.

John Brahm's The Locket (1946) featured Mitchum as a bitter ex-husband to Laraine Day's femme fatale, while the Raoul Walsh directed Pursued (1947) combined the western with film noir, with Mitchum's character trying to remember his past and find those responsible for killing his family. Crossfire (also 1947), featured Mitchum as a member of a group of soldiers, one of whom killed a Jew. It featured themes of anti-Semitism and the failings of military training. The film, directed by Edward Dmytryk, gained five Academy Award nominations.

Following Crossfire, Mitchum starred in Out of the Past (aka Build My Gallows High), directed by Jacques Tourneur and benefiting from the cinematography of Nicholas Musuraca. Mitchum played Jeff Markham, a small-town gas station owner whose unfinished business with gambler Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas) and femme fatale Kathie Moffett (Jane Greer), comes back to haunt him. Though ignored by most critics on its release, the film was a modest box office hit at the time and has received a positive reappraisal. Mitchum was photographed again by Musuraca in the Robert Wise "psychological western" Blood on the Moon the following year.

On September 1, 1948, after a string of successful films for RKO, Mitchum and actress Lila Leeds were arrested for possession of marijuana. The arrest was the result of a sting operation designed to capture other Hollywood partiers as well, but Mitchum and Leeds did not receive the tip-off. After serving a week at the county jail, (he described the experience to a reporter as being "like Palm Springs, but without the riff-raff") Mitchum spent 43 days (February 16 to March 30) at a Castaic, California, prison farm, with Life magazine photographers right there taking photos of him mopping up in his prison uniform. The arrest became the inspiration for the exploitation film She Shoulda Said No! (1949), which starred Leeds. The arrest did little to affect Mitchum's career in the long term, but was seen as an embarrassment by his studio, who ordered Mitchum to clean up his act. The conviction was later overturned by the Los Angeles court and District Attorney's office on January 31, 1951, with the following statement, after it was exposed as a set-up:

Despite troubles with the law and his studio, the films released immediately after his arrest were box-office hits. Rachel and the Stranger (1948) featured Mitchum in a supporting role as a mountain man competing for the hand of Loretta Young, the indentured servant and wife of William Holden, while he appeared in the film adaptation of John Steinbeck's novella The Red Pony (1949) as a trusted cowhand to a ranching family.

Mitchum returned to true film noir in The Big Steal (also 1949), where he again joined Jane Greer in an early Don Siegel film.

Career in the 1950s and 1960s

In Where Danger Lives (1950) he played a doctor who comes between a mentally unbalanced Faith Domergue and cuckolded Claude Rains. The Racket was a noir remake of the early crime drama of the same name and featured Mitchum as a police captain fighting corruption in his precinct. The Josef von Sternberg film Macao (1952) saw Mitchum a victim of mistaken identity at an exotic resort casino, playing opposite Jane Russell. Otto Preminger's Angel Face was the first of three collaborations between Mitchum and British stage actress Jean Simmons. In the film, Simmons plays an insane heiress who plans to use young ambulance driver Mitchum to kill for her.

Mitchum's cynical, mischievous attitude through his career had led him to shrug off fame as a fluke. His expulsion from Blood Alley (1955) is frequently attributed to his pranks, especially one in which he reportedly threw the film's transportation manager into San Francisco Bay. According to Sam O'Steen's memoir, Cut to the Chase, Mitchum showed up on set after a night of drinking and tore apart a studio office when they didn't have a car ready for him. Mitchum walked off the set of the third day of filming Blood Alley, claiming he could not work with the director. Because he was showing up late and behaving erratically, producer John Wayne, after failing to obtain Humphrey Bogart as a replacement, took over the role himself.

Following a series of conventional westerns and films noirs, including the Marilyn Monroe vehicle River of No Return (1954), he appeared in Charles Laughton's only film as director, The Night of the Hunter (1955). Based on a novel by Davis Grubb, the film noir thriller starred Mitchum as a monstrous criminal posing as a preacher to find money hidden by his cellmate in the cellmate's home. His performance as Reverend Harry Powell is considered by many to be one of the best of his career. Stanley Kramer's melodrama Not as a Stranger though, also released in 1955, was a box office hit for Mitchum. The film starred Mitchum against type, as an idealistic young doctor, who marries an older nurse (Olivia de Havilland), only to question his morality many years later. However, the film was not well received, with most critics pointing out that Mitchum, Frank Sinatra and Lee Marvin were all too old for their characters.

Following a succession of average westerns and the poorly received Foreign Intrigue (1956), Mitchum starred in the first of three films with British actress Deborah Kerr. The John Huston war drama Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison starred Mitchum as a marine corporal shipwrecked on a Pacific Island with a nun, Sister Angela (Deborah Kerr), being his sole companion. In this character study they struggle to resist the elements and the invading Japanese army. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, including Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay. For his role, Mitchum was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actor.

Thunder Road (1958) was loosely based on an incident in which a driver transporting moonshine was said to have crashed to his death on Kingston Pike in Knoxville, Tennessee somewhere between Bearden Hill and Morrell Road. According to Metro Pulse writer Jack Renfro, the incident occurred in 1952 and may have been witnessed by James Agee, who passed the story on to Mitchum–who not only starred in the movie, but also produced the film, co-wrote the screenplay, and is rumored to have directed much of the film himself. Mitchum also co-wrote (with Don Raye) the theme song, "The Ballad of Thunder Road."

Mitchum and Kerr reunited for the Fred Zinnemann film, The Sundowners (1960), where they played husband and wife struggling in Depression-era Australia. Opposite Mitchum, Kerr was nominated for yet another Academy Award for Best Actress, while the film was nominated for a total of five Oscars. Robert Mitchum was awarded that year's National Board of Review award for Best Actor for his performance. The award also recognized his superior performance in the Vincente Minnelli western drama Home from the Hill (also 1960). He was teamed with both Kerr and previous leading lady Jean Simmons as well as Cary Grant for the extremely offbeat Stanley Donen ensemble comedy The Grass Is Greener the same year.

Mitchum's performance as the menacing southern rapist Max Cady in Cape Fear (1962) brought him even more attention and furthered his renown as playing cool, predatory characters. The 1960s were marked by a number of lesser films and missed opportunities. Among the films Mitchum passed on during the decade was John Huston's The Misfits, the last film of its stars Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe, the Academy Award–winning Patton, and Dirty Harry. The most notable of his films in the decade included the war epics The Longest Day (1962) and Anzio (1968), the Shirley MacLaine comedy-musical What a Way to Go! (1964), and the Howard Hawks western El Dorado (1966), a remake of Rio Bravo (1959), in which Mitchum took over Dean Martin's role of the drunk who comes to the aid of John Wayne.

Music career

One of the lesser known aspects of Mitchum's career was his forays into music, both as singer and composer

Mitchum's voice was often used instead of that of a professional singer when his characters sang in his films. Notable productions featuring Mitchum's own singing voice included Rachel and the Stranger, River of No Return and The Night of the Hunter. After hearing traditional calypso music and meeting artists such as Mighty Sparrow and Lord Invader while filming Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison in the Caribbean island of Tobago, he recorded Calypso — is like so... in March 1957. On the album, released through Capitol Records, he emulated the calypso sound and style, even adopting the style's unique pronunciations and slang. A year later he recorded a song he had written for the film Thunder Road, titled "The Ballad of Thunder Road". The country-styled song became a modest hit for Mitchum, reaching #69 on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart. The song was included as a bonus track on a successful reissue of Calypso... and helped market the film to a wider audience.

Though Mitchum continued to use his singing voice in his film work, he waited until 1967 to record his follow-up record, That Man, Robert Mitchum, Sings. The album, released by Nashville-based Monument Records, took him further into country music, and featured songs similar to The Ballad of Thunder Road. "Little Old Wine Drinker Me," the first single, was a top ten hit at country radio, reaching #9 there, and crossed over onto mainstream radio, where it peaked at #96. Its follow-up, "You Deserve Each Other," also charted on the Billboard Country Singles Chart.

Mitchum also co-wrote and composed the music for an oratorio which was produced by Orson Welles at the Hollywood Bowl.

Albums

Singles

Later career

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Mitchum made a departure from his typical screen persona with the 1970 David Lean film Ryan's Daughter, in which he starred as Charles Shaughnessy, a mild-mannered schoolmaster in World War I era Ireland. Though the film was nominated for four Academy Awards (winning two) and Mitchum was much publicized as a contender for a Best Actor nomination, he was not nominated. George C. Scott won the award for his performance in Patton, a project which Mitchum had rejected for Ryan's Daughter.

The 1970s featured Mitchum in a number of well-received crime dramas. The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) saw the actor playing an aging Boston hoodlum caught between the Feds and his criminal friends. Sydney Pollack's The Yakuza (1975) transplanted the typical film noir story arc to the Japanese underworld. Mitchum's stint as an aging Philip Marlowe in the Raymond Chandler adaptation Farewell, My Lovely (1975) was well-received by audiences and critics. He also appeared in 1976's Midway about an epic 1942 World War II battle. He reprised the Marlowe role in 1978's The Big Sleep.

In 1982, Mitchum went on location to Scranton, Pennsylvania to play Coach Delaney in the film adaptation of playwright/actor Jason Miller's 1973 Pulitzer Prize winning play That Championship Season. He played a hard-boiled, bigoted coach whose former star players continue to swear allegiance to him, with one exception.

Mitchum expanded into the medium of television with the 1983 miniseries The Winds of War. The big-budget Herman Wouk story aired on ABC and starred Mitchum as naval officer "Pug" Henry, and examined the events leading up to America's involvement in World War II. He followed it in 1988 with War and Remembrance, which followed America through the war, and returned to the big screen for a memorable supporting role in Bill Murray's Scrooged.

In 1987, Mitchum was the guest host on Saturday Night Live where he played private eye Phillip Marlowe for the last time in the parody sketch, "Death Be Not Deadly". The show also ran a short comedy film he made (written and directed by his daughter, Trina) called Out of Gas. This was a mock sequel to his 1947 classic Out of the Past. Jane Greer reprised her role from the original film.

In 1991, he won a lifetime achievement award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures and the Cecil B. DeMille Award from the Golden Globe Awards in 1992.

Though Mitchum continued to appear in films throughout the 1990s, such as Tombstone, Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man, and appeared in contrast to his role as the antagonist in the original, a protagonist police detective in Martin Scorsese's remake of Cape Fear, the actor gradually slowed his workload. His last film appearance was in the television biopic, James Dean: Race with Destiny. His last starring role was in the 1995 Norwegian movie Pakten.

Death

Mitchum died on July 1, 1997, in Santa Barbara, California, due to complications of lung cancer and emphysema. He was survived by his wife of 57 years, Dorothy Mitchum, and actor sons, James Mitchum, Christopher Mitchum, and daughter Petrina (Trina) Mitchum. His grandchildren, Bentley Mitchum and Carrie Mitchum, are also actors, as was his younger brother John Mitchum, who died in 2001. His other grandson, Kian Mitchum, is a successful model.

Legacy

Mitchum is regarded by critics as one of the finest actors of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Roger Ebert called him 'the soul of film noir'. Mitchum himself, however, was self-effacing; in an interview with Barry Norman for the BBC about his contribution to cinema, Mitchum stopped Norman in mid flow and in his typical phlegmatic style said, "Look! I have two kinds of acting. One on a horse and one off a horse. That's it." He had also succeeded in annoying some of his fellow actors by voicing his puzzlement at those who viewed the profession as challenging and hard work, saying that acting was actually very simple and that his job was to "show up on time, know his lines, hit his marks, and go home." What possibly annoyed the opposition was how very easy he made it all seem.

Interviewer Larry King has said on a number of occasions that Mitchum's interview was his most challenging. Mitchum, a man of few words, tended to answer simply "Yes" or "No" to many of King's questions.

He was the voice of the famous American Beef Council commercials that touted "Beef . . . it's what's for dinner", from the early 1980s, until his death.

Filmography

Features

Hoppy Serves a Writ (1943)

The Human Comedy (1943)

Aerial Gunner (1943)

Border Patrol (1943)

Follow the Band (1943)

Leather Burners (1943)

Colt Comrades (1943)

We've Never Been Licked (1943)

Lone Star Trail (1943)

Beyond the Last Frontier (1943)

Corvette K-225 (1943)

Bar 20 (1943)

Doughboys in Ireland (1943)

False Colors (1943)

Minesweeper (1943)

The Dancing Masters (1943)

Cry 'Havoc' (1943) (uncredited)

Riders of the Deadline (1943)

Gung Ho! (1943)

Johnny Doesn't Live Here Any More (1944)

Mr. Winkle Goes to War (1944)

When Strangers Marry (1944)

Girl Rush (1944)

Thirty Seconds over Tokyo (1944)

Nevada (1944)

The Story of G.I. Joe (1945)

West of the Pecos (1945)

Till the End of Time (1946)

Undercurrent (1946)

The Locket (1946)

Pursued (1947)

Crossfire (1947)

Desire Me (1947)

Out of the Past (1947)

Rachel and the Stranger (1948)

Blood on the Moon (1948)

The Red Pony (1949)

The Big Steal (1949)

Holiday Affair (1949)

Where Danger Lives (1950)

My Forbidden Past (1951)

His Kind of Woman (1951)

The Racket (1951)

Macao (1952)

One Minute to Zero (1952)

The Lusty Men (1952)

Angel Face (1952)

White Witch Doctor (1953)

Second Chance (1953)

She Couldn't Say No (1954)

River of No Return (1954)

Track of the Cat (1954)

Not as a Stranger (1955)

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Man with the Gun (1955)

Foreign Intrigue (1956)

Bandido (1956)

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957)

Fire Down Below (1957)

The Enemy Below (1957)

Thunder Road (1958)

The Hunters (1958)

The Angry Hills (1959)

The Wonderful Country (1959)

Home from the Hill (1960)

A Terrible Beauty (1960)

The Sundowners (1960)

The Grass Is Greener (1960)

The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961)

Cape Fear (1962)

The Longest Day (1962)

Two for the Seesaw (1962)

The List of Adrian Messenger (1963)

Rampage (1963 film)

Man in the Middle (1963)

What a Way to Go! (1964)

Mister Moses (1965)

El Dorado (1966)

The Way West (1967)

Villa Rides (1968)

Anzio (1968)

5 Card Stud (1968)

Secret Ceremony (1968)

Young Billy Young (1969)

The Good Guys and the Bad Guys (1969)

Ryan's Daughter (1970)

Going Home (1971)

The Wrath of God (1972)

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

The Yakuza (1974)

Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

Midway (1976)

The Last Tycoon (1976)

The Amsterdam Kill (1977)

The Big Sleep (1978)

Matilda (1978)

Breakthrough (1979)

Agency (1980)

Nightkill (1980)

That Championship Season (1982)

One Shoe Makes It Murder (1982) (TV)

The Ambassador (1984)

''A Killer In the Family (1983) (TV)

The Winds of War TV mini-series (1983)

Maria's Lovers (1984)

Reunion at Fairborough (1985)

Remembering Marilyn (1987) (documentary)

War and Remembrance TV mini-series (1988)

Mr. North (1988)

Scrooged (1988)

Brotherhood of the Rose (1989) TV movie

John Huston: The Man, the Movies, the Maverick (1989) (documentary)

Midnight Ride (1990)

Supposedly Dangerous (1990)

''Cape Fear (1991)

The Seven Deadly Sins (1992)

Woman of Desire (1993)

Tombstone (1993) (narrator)

Backfire! (1995)

Dead Man (1995)

Waiting for Sunset (1995)

Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick (1996) (documentary)

Short subjects

The Magic of Make-up (1942)

Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Goes to Bat (1950)

Waiting for the Wind (1990)

Discography

Albums

Calypso — is like so... (1957, Capitol)

That Man, Robert Mitchum, Sings (1967, Monument) Country: #35

Singles

"The Ballad of Thunder Road" (1958, Capitol) Pop: #62

"Little Old Wine Drinker Me" (1967, Monument) Country: #9 Pop: #96

"You Deserve Each Other" (1967, Monument) Country: #55

Further reading

Mike Tomkies The Robert Mitchum Story, "It Sure Beats Working" Ballantine Books, 1972, ISBN 0-345-23484-7

John Mitchum Them Ornery Mitchum Boys, The Adventures of Robert and John Mitchum, Creatures at Large, 1989, ISBN 0-940064-07-3

TCM Film Guide, "Leading Men: The 50 Most Unforgettable Actors of the Studio Era", Chronicle Books, San Francisco, California, 2006, ISBN 0-8118-5467-1

References

External links

Profile @ Turner Classic Movies

Robert Mitchum's ashes at Find-A-Grave

Photographs and literature

Category:1917 births Category:1997 deaths Category:American Methodists Category:Actors from Connecticut Category:American film actors Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:Cecil B. DeMille Award Golden Globe winners Category:Deaths from emphysema Category:Deaths from lung cancer Category:American actors of Norwegian descent Category:American people of Norwegian descent Category:People from Bridgeport, Connecticut Category:Western (genre) film actors

Name	Julian Cope
Background	solo_singer
Landscape	yes
Birth name	Julian David Cope
Origin	Mid Glamorgan, Wales
Born	October 21, 1957
Genre	Post-punk, Alternative rock
Occupation	Singer/songwriterAuthorAntiquarian
Years active	1978–present
Instrument	Guitar, bass, mellotron
First album	Kilimanjaro
Notable songs	"World Shut Your Mouth", "Reward"
Label	ZooMercuryIslandDef AmericanEchoHead Heritage
Associated acts	Crucial ThreeThe Teardrop ExplodesQueen ElizabethBrain DonorSunn O)))Thighpaulsandra
Notable instruments	Fender Jazz Bass
Url	Head Heritage}}

Julian Cope (born Julian David Cope, on 21 October 1957) is a British rock musician, author, antiquary, musicologist, and poet who came to prominence in 1978 as the singer and songwriter in Liverpool post-punk band The Teardrop Explodes. Since then, he has released many solo albums and is a founding member of both Queen Elizabeth and Brain Donor.

Cope has written four books of non-fiction: Krautrocksampler (1995), The Modern Antiquarian (1998), The Megalithic European (2004) and Japrocksampler (2007), plus two volumes of autobiography: Head-On (1994) and Repossessed (1999).

Biography

Early life

Born in Deri, Mid Glamorgan, Wales, Cope was raised in Tamworth, Staffordshire, in the English Midlands. He attended the City of Liverpool College of Higher Education (COLCHE - linked to Lancaster University) near Prescot - some years later the college became part of Liverpool Polytechnic as CF Mott Campus.

Career

Cope's musical career began in July 1977, as bass player with a Liverpool punk rock band known as Crucial Three, which also featured Ian McCulloch (later guitarist and singer for Echo & the Bunnymen) and guitarist Pete Wylie, who later formed The Mighty Wah. Although the Crucial Three lasted for little more than six weeks, and disbanded without ever playing in public, all three members went on to lead successful post-punk bands. Cope went on to form other short-lived bands UH? and A Shallow Madness with McCulloch, before finally achieving fame and success as the singer, original bassist and primary songwriter of The Teardrop Explodes.

In 1981, Cope compiled , which was released by Bill Drummond's Zoo Records. This sparked renewed interest in the work of the reclusive singer; though years later Cope commented that Walker's "Pale White Intellectual" outlook on life no longer held any fascination for him.

After The Teardrop Explodes disbanded in late 1982 following the completion of three albums, Cope returned to live close to his hometown of Tamworth, settling in the nearby village of Drayton Bassett with his new American wife Dorian Beslity. In 1983 he recorded some introspective works for his first solo album, World Shut Your Mouth, released on Mercury Records in March 1984. This record was followed just six months later by Fried, which featured a sleeve with Cope clad only in a turtle shell. The failure of this record caused Polygram to drop Cope, but he signed a deal with Chris Blackwell's Island Records.

Cope's third solo album was the well-received Saint Julian (produced by Ed Stasium) and released the single "World Shut Your Mouth", which became his biggest solo hit, reaching #19 in the UK in 1986, becoming his only Top 20 single there. The follow-up album My Nation Underground spawned only one Top 40 single in "Charlotte Anne", and Cope fell out with Island Records at this time. Cope found modest American success with "Charlotte Anne" reaching the top of the Modern Rock Tracks. He recorded his next album, the low-fi Skellington, in secret during the course of a single weekend, playing in the same studio used for My Nation Underground. Neither his record company nor management had any desire to release Skellington (Zippo, 1989), and Cope refused to record any other material while he feuded with them to try to get his new work released. This became the first of many feuds with record companies. Cope next released a Texas-only album entitled Droolian (Mofoco, 1990), the profits of which were used to aid of one of his heroes Roky Erickson, who was in jail without legal representation.

When Cope's war with Island Records had abated, he released the double album Peggy Suicide (Island, 1991), which was heralded by critics as his best work thus far. The record was recorded during the anti-Margaret Thatcher Poll Tax Riots, in which Cope took a prominent role, wearing a huge theatrical costume throughout the march. Cope was later featured on the BBC's Poll Tax documentary, a lone protester walking down Whitehall in the costume surrounded by seven lines of mounted police. For his anti-police tirade "Soldier Blue", Cope sampled Lenny Bruce's Berkeley Concert and mixed in samples of the Poll Tax riot itself . The song was later re-mixed by Disposable Heroes of Hiphopricy's Michael Franti, who also provided a rap for the new mix. When Island Records refused to release the record as being too overtly political, another argument ensued. Many of the songs on Peggy Suicide also reflected Cope's hatred of organized religion, and his increasing interest in the occult, animal rights, paganism, women's rights, the goddess and ecology. In 1992, Cope released another double album, the fiercely anti-Christian Jehovahkill. While the lyrics of such songs as "Poet is Priest", "Julian H. Cope", and the single "Fear Loves This Place" were again highly critical of the Church, much of the music on Jehovahkill reflected his teenage fascination for both Detroit hard rock and a more electro-acoustic based Krautrock. However, the contents of Jehovahkill were too much for Island Records, who dropped Cope the same week that his three shows sold out at London's 1800 capacity Town & Country Club. The press mounted an outcry at Island Records' decision, with the New Musical Express (NME) featuring him on their front cover under the headline 'Endangered Species' while Select magazine started a campaign to have Cope re-signed. Cope refused to comment because he was engaged in a tour of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

In the mid-1990s, Cope signed with Rick Rubin's Def American label, releasing Autogeddon (1994) and 20 Mothers (1995), spawning the single "Try, Try, Try", accompanied by two Top of the Pops performances. He was dropped by the label when he refused to visit the USA. In 1996, Cope released the album Interpreter (Echo Records). Cope's ongoing battle with those he referred to as "greedheads" eventually saw him turn his back on the music industry from this point onwards.

Books

In the course of one of his many record company stand-offs, Cope began to write his first autobiographical book, Head-On which covered the years 1976 to 1982, focusing on Cope's time before and during the life of The Teardrop Explodes and ending with the break-up of the band. This was followed a few years later by Repossessed, covering the years 1983 to 1989 and the recording of Cope's first series of solo albums, as well as the writing of Head-On (The books were republished in one volume in 2000, titled Head-On/Repossessed). In addition to his two volumes of autobiography, Cope has written four books of nonfiction. Krautrocksampler, released in 1996 and now out of print, covers the German krautrock musical movement. Reviews at the time were ecstatic, Rolling Stone citing it as "a work of real passion and scholarship". NME agreed: "This is a superb book ... this is an extraordinary book." Mojo went further, writing: "Brilliantly researched, Krautrocksampler abounds with revelations, and Cope's enthusiasm verges on the lethal ... a sort of lysergic Lester Bangs." In the Sunday Times, the reviewer wrote: "German 1970s minimalism is invading the British rock scene ... an Englishman is to blame ... Krautrocksampler is a lively history of a fascinating period, half encyclopedia, half psychedelic detective story." Before the publication of this book the genre itself had all but disappeared off the musical map; both the phrase and the genre are now firmly ingrained and have subsequently been heralded in the likes of Mojo and The Wire. The book was also the subject of fierce controversy due to Cope's outspoken remarks that Can's Bel-Air was a "shambles" (though Can's drummer Jaki Liebezeit concurred with Cope's opinion). In the years to come, Krautrocksampler was also published in German, French and Italian language editions.

1998 saw the release of Cope's long-awaited and widely-acclaimed bestseller The Modern Antiquarian, a large and comprehensive full-colour 448-page work detailing stone circles and other ancient monuments of prehistoric Britain, which sold out of its first edition of 20,000 in its first month of publication and was accompanied by a BBC Two documentary. The Times called the book: "A ripping good read ... it is deeply impressive ... ancient history: the new rock 'n' roll." The Independent said: "A unique blend of information, observation, personal experience and opinion which is as unlike the normal run of archaeology books as you can imagine." The historian Ronald Hutton went further, calling the book: "the best popular guide to Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments for half a century." The Modern Antiquarian was followed in 2004 with an even larger 484-page study of similar monuments across Europe entitled The Megalithic European, the most extensive study of European megalithic sites to date. In addition to his books on prehistoric monuments, Cope hosts a community-based Modern Antiquarian website that invites contributors to add their own knowledge of the ancient sites of the United Kingdom and Ireland. Cope has lectured nationally on the subject of prehistory, and also at the British Museum on the subjects of Avebury and Odin.

In October 2007, Japrocksampler was released, subtitled How the post war Japanese blew their minds on rock and roll. This much larger hard back book (304 pp) was written in a similar style to Krautrocksampler, but was a far more detailed study and took in the years 1951-78. It has been translated into Italian and Japanese.

Recent years

Cope has opted out of the mainstream in recent years, releasing and promoting his music himself, rather than working with a major record label. He continues to record new material both under his own name and with regular collaborators under the band names Brain Donor - his heavy metal power trio, and Queen Elizabeth, an experimental collaboration with Thighpaulsandra of Coil/Spiritualized. Most of his more recent releases are available either primarily or exclusively through Cope's website, Head Heritage. have promoted bands such as Comets on Fire, Sunn O))) (with whom he performed a guest vocal on their White1 album) and several Japanese bands which feature in Japrocksampler. Unsung is another community-based site that invites contributors' reviews, and Cope and the site's numerous contributors have been instrumental in kick-starting the interest in bands like Sir Lord Baltimore, Blue Cheer, Les Rallizes Denudes, Tractor and the Groundhogs. Cope is also considered to be one of the first bloggers; he has been airing his sometimes controversial views since 1998 via his website's "Address Drudion" on the first day of each month.

Cope has continued to perform live in the UK (including an appearance at the Glastonbury Festival in 2003) and other parts of Europe in recent years. Despite travelling to Armenia in 2003 for research, Cope has not toured professionally beyond Europe for several years. In 2005, plans to tour the United States were dropped because their INS refused to grant him a visa.

Julian Cope lives near Avebury, Wiltshire with his wife, Dorian, and their two daughters, Albany (born 10 August 1991) and Avalon (born 29 April 1994).

Julian has been chosen by Belle & Sebastian to perform at their second Bowlie Weekender festival presented by All Tomorrow's Parties in the UK in December 2010.

Discography

Albums

1984 World Shut Your Mouth (UK #40)

1984 Fried (UK #87)

1987 Saint Julian (UK #11)

1988 My Nation Underground (UK #42)

1989 Skellington

1990 Droolian

1991 Peggy Suicide (UK #23)

1991 Peggy Suicide Radio Sessions (Japan)

1992 Jehovahkill (UK #20)

1993 Rite

1993 Ye Skellington Chronicles (an expanded version of Skellington along with the sequel Skellington 2)

1994 Autogeddon (UK #16)

1995 20 Mothers (UK #20)

1996 Interpreter (UK #39)

1997 Rite 2

1999 Odin

2000 An Audience With the Cope 2000/2001

2001 Discover Odin

2002 Rite Now

2003 Rome Wasn't Burned In A Day

2004 Live Japan '91

2005 Citizen Cain'd

2005 Dark Orgasm

2006 Rite Bastard

2006 Jehovahkill: Deluxe Edition, re-released with a disc of extra material

2007 You Gotta Problem With Me

2008 Black Sheep

2009 Julian Cope Presents The Unruly Imagination

Compilations

1992 Floored Genius - The Best Of Julian Cope And The Teardrop Explodes (UK #22)

1993 Floored Genius 2 (compilation of material recorded for BBC Radio sessions)

1997 The Followers Of Saint Julian (rarities compilation)

1997 Leper Skin - An Introduction To Julian Cope ("best of")

2000 Floored Genius 3 - Julian Cope's Oddicon Of Lost Rarities & Versions 1978 - 98 (rarities)

2007 Christ vs Warhol (rarities)

2009 Floored Genius 4

1986 "World Shut Your Mouth" (UK #19, Canada #97, US #84)

1987 "Trampolene" (UK #31)

1987 "Eve's Volcano (Covered in Sin)" (UK #41)

1988 "Charlotte Anne" (UK #35)

1988 "5 O'Clock World" (UK #42)

1988 "China Doll" (UK #53)

1991 "Beautiful Love" (UK #32)

1991 "Safesurfer"

1991 "East Easy Rider" (UK #51)

1991 "Head" (UK #57)

1992 "World Shut Your Mouth" (re-issue) (UK #44)

1992 "Fear Loves This Place" (UK #42)

1994 "Paranormal In The West Country"

1995 "Try, Try, Try" (UK #24)

1996 "I Come From Another Planet Baby" (UK #34)

1996 "I Come From Another Planet, Baby (Ambulence Remix)"

1996 "Planetary Sit-In" (UK #34)

1996 "Radio Sit-In"

1997 "Propheteering" (limited edition 7")

2008 "Preaching Revolution" EP (limited edition 7")

References

External links

Head Heritage - Julian Cope's own site

The Modern Antiquarian - An online community and resource on ancient sites in the UK & Ireland, inspired by Cope's book of the same name

Category:1957 births Category:English bass guitarists Category:English male singers Category:English songwriters Category:Music from Liverpool Category:People from Tamworth Category:Alumni of Liverpool John Moores University Category:Living people Category:Crucial Three members Category:The Teardrop Explodes members Category:English vegetarians Category:Scouse culture of the early 1980s

Name	Jim Jarmusch
Caption	Jim Jarmusch, May 19, 2005. Credit: Alain Zirah.
Birth date	January 22, 1953
Birth name	James R. Jarmusch involved five cab drivers and their passengers on rides in five different world cities, beginning at sundown in Los Angeles and ending at sunrise in Helsinki. He is planning a new music-centered film with Tilda Swinton, Michael Fassbender, Mia Wasikowska, and John Hurt.

References

Ródenas, Gabri (2009), Guía para ver y analizar Noche en la Tierra de Jim Jarmusch, Barcelona / Valencia: Octaedro / Nau Llibres. ISBN 978-84-8063-931-6 / 978-84-7642-776-7

Ródenas, Gabri (2009), “Jarmusch y Carver: Se ha roto el frigorífico” in Fernández, P. (Ed.), Rompiendo moldes: Discursos, género e hibridación en el siglo XXI. Zamora/Sevilla: Editorial Comunicación Social. ISBN 978-84-96082-88-5. Available at Google Books.

Ródenas, Gabri (2009), “Jarmusch Vs Reagan” in Revista Odisea. Almería: University of Almería. December 2009. ISSN 1578-3820.

Ródenas, Gabri (2010), “Jim Jarmusch: Del insomnio americano al insomnio universal”, in Comunicación y sociedad, Navarra: University of Navarra, June 2010. ISSN 0214-0039.

Further reading

External links

Jim Jarmusch at the Senses of Cinema Great Directors critical database

The Jim Jarmusch Resource Page, curated by Jarmusch scholar Ludvig Hertzberg

* Limited Control, Hertzberg's companion blog

It's a sad and beautiful world

Category:1953 births Category:American film directors Category:American screenwriters Category:Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Category:Columbia University alumni Category:American people of Czech descent Category:American people of German descent Category:American people of Irish descent Category:Living people Category:New York University alumni Category:Northwestern University alumni Category:People from Akron, Ohio Category:People from Manhattan

Name	Iggy Pop
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	James Newell Osterberg, Jr.
Born	April 21, 1947Muskegon, Michigan,
|instrument	Vocals, guitar, keyboards, drums
Genre	Protopunk, garage rock, hard rock, glam rock
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, musician, producer, actor
Years active	1967–present
Label	Virgin, RCA, Elektra
Associated acts	The Stooges, The Trolls, The Nymphs, The Iguanas, Slash, David Bowie
Url	Iggy & The Stooges Official Website

Iggy Pop (born James Newell "Jim" Osterberg, Jr.; April 21, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and occasional actor. He is considered an influential innovator of punk rock, hard rock, and other styles of rock music. "China Girl" (co-written with and famously covered by David Bowie) and "The Passenger".

Early life

Iggy Pop was born in Muskegon, Michigan, the son of Louella (née Christensen) and James Newell Osterberg, Sr., a former high school English teacher and baseball coach at Fordson High School in Dearborn, Michigan. Osterberg was raised in a trailer park in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He is of Irish and English descent on his father's side, and of Norwegian and Danish ancestry on his mother's. His father was adopted by a Swedish American family and took on their surname (Österberg). Inspired by Chicago blues as well as bands like The Sonics and The MC5, he formed the Psychedelic Stooges and began calling himself Iggy. The band was composed of Iggy on vocals, Ron Asheton on guitar, Asheton's brother Scott on drums, and Dave Alexander on bass.

The Stooges era: 1968 to 1975

The seeds of Iggy Pop's stage persona were sown when he saw The Doors perform in 1967 at the University of Michigan and was amazed by the stage antics and antagonism displayed by singer Jim Morrison. Pop's career received a boost from his relationship with Bowie when Bowie decided in 1972 to produce an album with Pop in England. With James Williamson signed on as guitarist, the search began for a rhythm section. However, since neither Pop nor Bowie was satisfied with any players in England, they decided to re-unite The Stooges. It would not be a true reunion insofar as Dave Alexander, due to alcoholism, was unable to play on the record (he later died in 1975). Also, Ron Asheton grudgingly moved from guitar to bass to make way for Williamson to play guitar. The recording sessions produced the rock landmark Raw Power. After its release Scott Thurston was added to the band on keyboards/electric piano and Bowie continued his support, but Iggy's drug problem persisted. The Stooges' last show ended in a fight between the band and a group of bikers, documented on the album Metallic K.O. Drug abuse stalled his career again for several years.

Bowie and Berlin: 1976 to 1978

After the second breakup of The Stooges, Iggy Pop made some recordings with James Williamson, but these were not released until 1977 (as Kill City, credited jointly to Iggy Pop and Williamson). Iggy was unable to control his drug use and checked himself into a mental institution, UCLA’s neuropsychiatric institute, to try to clean up. David Bowie was one of his few visitors there, and he continued to support his friend and collaborator. It was also rumored that Bowie would smuggle in cocaine to give to Pop. In 1976, Bowie took him along as his companion on the Station to Station tour. This was Iggy Pop's first exposure to large-scale professional touring and he was impressed, particularly with Bowie's work rate.

Bowie and Iggy Pop relocated to West Berlin to wean themselves off their addictions. Iggy Pop signed with RCA and Bowie helped write and produce The Idiot and Lust for Life during 1977. Pop's two most acclaimed albums as a solo artist, the latter with another team of brothers, Hunt and Tony Sales, sons of comedian Soupy Sales. Among songs they wrote together were "China Girl", "Tonight", and "Sister Midnight", all of which Bowie performed on his own albums later on (the last being recorded with different lyrics as "Red Money" on the album Lodger). Bowie also played keyboards in Pop's live performances, some of which are featured on the album TV Eye in 1978. In return, Pop contributed backing vocals on Bowie's Low.

The Arista albums: 1979 to 1981

Iggy Pop had grown dissatisfied with RCA, later admitting that he had made TV Eye as a quick way of fulfilling his three-album RCA contract. He moved to Arista Records, under whose banner he released New Values in 1979. This album was something of a Stooges reunion, with James Williamson producing and latter-day Stooge Scott Thurston playing guitar and keyboards. Not surprisingly, the album's style harked back to the guitar sound of the Stooges. Although highly regarded by many Iggy fans (some preferring it to the Bowie collaborations), New Values was not a popular success, despite some strong material including "Five Foot One" and "I'm Bored."

The album was moderately successful in Australia and New Zealand, however, and this led to Iggy Pop's first visit there to promote it. While in Melbourne, he made a memorable appearance on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's nationwide pop show Countdown. During his anarchic performance of I'm Bored, Pop made no attempt to conceal the fact that he was lip-synching, and he even tried to grab the teenage girls in the audience. He was also interviewed by host Ian "Molly" Meldrum, an exchange which was frequently punctuated by the singer jumping up and down on his chair and making loud exclamations of "G'day mate" in a mock Australian accent. His Countdown appearance is generally considered one of the highlights of the show's history and it cemented his popularity with Australian punk fans; since then he has often toured there. While visiting New Zealand, Iggy Pop recorded a music video for "I'm Bored", and attended a record company function where he appeared to slap a woman and throw wine over a photographer. While in Australia, Iggy Pop was also the guest on a live late-night commercial TV interview show on the Ten Network. It is not known whether a recording of this interview exists, but the famous Countdown appearance has often been re-screened in Australia.

During the recording of Soldier (1980), Iggy Pop and Williamson quarrelled over production (the latter apparently wanted a big, Phil Spector-type sound) and Williamson was fired. Bowie appeared on the song Play it Safe, performing backing vocals with the group Simple Minds. The album and its follow-up Party (1981) were both commercial failures, and Iggy Pop was dropped from Arista. His drug habit varied in intensity, but persisted.

The 1980s

In 1980, Iggy Pop published his autobiography I NEED MORE, co-written with Anne Weher, an Ann Arbor arts patron. The book, which includes a selection of black and white photographs, features a foreword by Andy Warhol. Warhol says that he met Iggy when he was Jim Osterberg, at the Ann Arbor Film Festival in 1966. "I don't know why he hasn't made it really big," wrote the one Pop artist about the other. "He is so good."

The 1982 album Zombie Birdhouse on Chris Stein's Animal label, with Stein himself producing, was no more commercially successful than his Arista works, but again, in 1983, Iggy Pop's fortunes changed when David Bowie recorded a cover of the song "China Girl". The song had originally appeared on The Idiot, and was a major hit on Bowie's blockbuster Let's Dance album. As co-writer of the song, Pop received substantial royalties. On Tonight in 1984, Bowie recorded two more of their co-written songs, this time from the Lust for Life album, "Tonight" and "Neighborhood Threat", assuring Iggy Pop financial security, at least for the short term. The support from Bowie enabled Pop to resolve problems and permitted him to take a three-year break during which he overcame his heroin addiction, took acting classes, and got married.

Additionally, Iggy Pop contributed the title song to the 1984 film Repo Man (with Steve Jones, previously of the Sex Pistols, on guitar) as well as an instrumental called "Repo Man Theme" that was played during the opening credits.

In 1985, Pop recorded some demos with Jones. He played these demos to Bowie, who was sufficiently impressed to offer to produce an album for Pop: 1986's New Wave-influenced Blah Blah Blah, featuring the single "Real Wild Child", a cover of "The Wild One" originally written and recorded by Australian rock 'n' roll pioneer Johnny O'Keefe in 1958. The single was a Top 10 hit in the UK and was successful around the world, especially in Australia, where for the last twenty years it has been used as the theme music for the ABC's late-night music video show Rage. It remains Pop's solitary brush with major commercial success. Blah Blah Blah was Pop's highest-charting album in the U.S. since The Idiot in 1977, peaking at #75 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart.

Also in 1985, the movie Rock & Rule was released featuring performances by Iggy Pop and Lou Reed for the character Mok. Pop's song in the film was "Pain & Suffering" from the final sequence of the film.

In 1987, Pop appeared (along with Bootsy Collins) on a mostly instrumental album, Neo Geo, by Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. The music video for "Risky", written and directed by Meiert Avis, won the first ever MTV Breakthrough Video Award. The groundbreaking video explores transhumanist philosopher FM-2030's ideas of Nostalgia for the Future in the form of an imagined love affair between a robot and one of Man Ray's models in Paris in the late 1930s. Additional inspiration was drawn from Jean Baudrillard, Edvard Munch's 1894 painting Puberty, and Roland Barthes Death of the Author. The surrealist black-and-white video uses stop motion, light painting, and other retro in-camera effects techniques. Meiert Avis shot Sakamoto while at work on the score for The Last Emperor in London. Sakamoto also appears in the video painting words and messages to an open shutter camera. Iggy Pop, who performs the vocals on "Risky", chose not to appear in the video, allowing his performance space to be occupied by the surrealist era robot.

Pop's follow-up to Blah Blah Blah, Instinct (1988), was a turnaround in musical direction. Its stripped-back, guitar-based sound leaned further towards the sound of the Stooges than any of his solo albums to date. His record label, which had most likely been expecting another Blah Blah Blah, dropped him. Nevertheless, the King Biscuit radio show recording of the Instinct tour (featuring guitarist Andy McCoy and Alvin Gibbs on bass) reaching Boston on July 19, 1988, remains one of punk-rock's most enduring live albums.

The 1990s

In 1990, Pop recorded Brick by Brick, produced by Don Was, with members of Guns N' Roses and The B-52's as guests, as well as backup vocals by many local Hollywood groups, two of whom (Whitey Kirst and Craig Pike) would create his band to tour and perform on his Kiss My Blood video (1991), directed by world-famous director Tim Pope and filmed at the Olympia in Paris. The video attracted much controversy, as it featured much footage of Pop performing with his penis exposed to the audience. The album was his first Gold-certified album in the U.S. (denoting sales of over 500,000 copies) and featured his first Top 40 U.S. hit, "Candy", a duet with B-52's singer Kate Pierson.

Also in 1990, Pop starred in the controversial opera The Manson Family by composer John Moran, released on Point Music/Phillip Classics, where he sang the role of prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi. That year he was also contributed to the Red Hot Organization's AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Blue project, singing a version of "Well Did You Evah!" in a duet with Deborah Harry.

In 1991, Pop and Kirst contributed the song "Why Was I Born (Freddy's Dead)" to the soundtrack of the film . The song also plays over the end credits of the film, with a compilation of clips from the A Nightmare on Elm Street series running alongside the end credits.

In 1992, he collaborated with Goran Bregović on the soundtrack for the movie Arizona Dream by Emir Kusturica. Pop sang four of the songs: In the Deathcar, TV Screen, Get the Money, and This is a Film. Also in 1992, he collaborated with the New York City band White Zombie. He recorded spoken word vocals on the intro and outro of the song "Black Sunshine" as well as playing the character of a writer in the video shot for the song. He is singled out for special thanks in the liner notes of the band's album .

In 1993, Pop released American Caesar, including two successful singles, "Wild America" and "Beside You." The following year Pop contributed to Buckethead's album Giant Robot, including the songs "Buckethead's Toy Store" and "Post Office Buddy". He appears also on the Les Rita Mitsouko album Système D where he sings the duet "My Love is Bad" with Catherine Ringer.

In 1995, Pop again found mainstream fame when his 1977 song "Lust for Life" was featured in the film Trainspotting. A new video was recorded for the song, with clips from the film and studio footage of Iggy dancing with one of its stars, Ewen Bremner. An Iggy Pop concert also served as a plot point in the film. The song has also been used in TV commercials for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (with many music critics denouncing the usage of the song to promote peppy cruises) and as the theme music to The Jim Rome Show, a nationally-syndicated American sports talk show.

Also in 1995, Pop released Naughty Little Doggie, with Whitey Kirst returning on guitar, and the single "I Wanna Live". In 1997, he remixed Raw Power to give it a rougher, more hard-edged sound; fans had complained for years that Bowie's official "rescue effort" mix was muddy and lacking in bass. Pop testified in the reissue's liner notes that on the new mix, "everything's still in the red". He co-produced his 1999 album Avenue B with Don Was, releasing the single "Corruption." Pop produced 2001's Beat 'Em Up, which gave birth to The Trolls, releasing the single "Football" featuring Trolls alumni Whitey Kirst and brother Alex.

In the early to middle 1990s, Pop would make several guest appearances on the Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Pete and Pete. He played James Mecklenberg, Nona Mecklenberg's father.

Recent career

Pop supplied vocals for the 1999 Death in Vegas UK Top-10 single Aisha. The same year he appeared on Hashisheen, The End Of Law, a collaborative effort by Bill Laswell, reading on the tracks The Western Lands and A Quick Trip to Alamut. He also sang on the tracks Rolodex Propaganda and Enfilade by At the Drive-In in 2000.

For New Year's Eve 1997, Iggy was the headliner for the annual Australian three-day concert the Falls Festival. He gave one of the most memorable performances in the history of the festival. A member of the audience got to do the countdown for the new year with Pop as part of a competition to guess Pop's new year's resolution. (It was "To do nothing and make a lot of money!")

Pop's 2003 album Skull Ring featured collaborators Sum 41, Green Day, Peaches, and The Trolls, as well as Ron and Scott Asheton, reuniting the three surviving founding members of The Stooges for the first time since 1974. Pop made a guest appearance on Peaches's song Kick It as well as the video. Also in 2003, his first full-length biography was published. Gimme Danger - The Story of Iggy Pop was written by Joe Ambrose; Pop did not collaborate on the biography or publicly endorse it. Having enjoyed working with the Ashetons on Skull Ring, Pop reformed The Stooges with bassist Mike Watt (formerly of the Minutemen) filling in for Dave Alexander, and Fun House saxophonist Steve Mackay rejoining the lineup. They have toured regularly since 2004. That year, Pop opened Madonna's Reinvention World Tour in Dublin.

2007.|thumb|left]] In 2005 Pop appeared, along with Madonna, Little Richard, Bootsy Collins, and The Roots' Questlove, in an American TV commercial for the Motorola ROKR phone. In early 2006, Iggy and the Stooges played in Australia and New Zealand for the Big Day Out. They also began work on a new album, The Weirdness, which was recorded by Steve Albini and released in March 2007. In August 2006 Iggy and the Stooges performed at the Lowlands pop festival in the Netherlands, Hodokvas in Slovakia and in the Sziget festival in Budapest.

Author Paul Trynka completed a biography of Iggy Pop (with his blessing) called Open Up and Bleed, published in early 2007. More recently, Iggy and the Stooges played at Bam Margera's wedding and Pop appeared on the single "Punkrocker" with the Teddybears in a Cadillac television commercial. Pop was also the voice of Lil' Rummy on the Comedy Central cartoon Lil' Bush and confirmed that he has done voices for American Dad and Grand Theft Auto IV, which also included The Stooges song "I Wanna Be Your Dog" (though the game's manual credited Iggy Pop as the artist). Iggy and The Stooges played the Glastonbury Festival in June 2007. Their set included material from the 2007 album The Weirdness and classics such as "No Fun and "I Wanna Be Your Dog." Pop also caused controversy in June 2007 when he was interviewed on the BBC's coverage of the Glastonbury Festival. He used the phrase "paki shop", prompting three complaints and an apology from the BBC.

Pop guested on Profanation (Preparation for a Coming Darkness), the new album by the Bill Laswell-helmed group Praxis, which was released on January 1, 2008. On March 10, 2008 Pop appeared at Madonna's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Together with The Stooges he sang raucous versions of two Madonna hits "Burning Up" and "Ray of Light." Before leaving the stage he looked directly at Madonna, quoting "You make me feel shiny and new, like a virgin, touched for the very first time.", from Madonna's hit song "Like A Virgin". According to guitarist Ron Asheton, Madonna asked The Stooges to perform in her place, as a protest to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for not inducting The Stooges despite six appearances on the nomination ballot. Pop also sang on the "No Fun" cover by Asian Dub Foundation on their 2008 album Punkara.

He fronts (from January 2009) a £25 million TV ad campaign for Swiftcover, using the strapline "Get a Life".

On January 6, 2009, original Stooges guitarist, and Iggy's self-described best friend Ron Asheton, was found dead from an apparent heart attack. He was 60 years old.

Pop collaborated with Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse on the album "Dark Night of the Soul", singing the track pain.

Pop's new solo album, Préliminaires, was released on June 2, 2009. Inspired by a novel by French author Michel Houellebecq (born Michel Thomas) called La Possibilité d'une île (2005; Trans. as The Possibility of an Island by Gavin Bowd, 2006), Iggy was approached to provide the soundtrack for a documentary film on Michel and his attempts to make a film from his novel. Iggy's favourite character from Michel's novel is a little white dog named Fox. Iggy describes this new release as a "quieter album with some jazz overtones", the first single off the album, "King of the Dogs", bearing a sound strongly influenced by New Orleans jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton. Iggy also admits that it's his response to being "sick of listening to idiot thugs with guitars banging out crappy music". The album is available on legal download sites, CD, and a Deluxe Boxset is available at only 6000 units worldwide. This boxset contains the Préliminaires album, a collector "Les Feuilles Mortes" b/w "King Of The Dogs" 7 inch, the cover of which is Iggy's portrait by Marjane Satrapi, and a 38 page booklet of drawings also by Marjane Satrapi.

Iggy sings one song on Slash named "We're All Gonna Die" , Slash's first solo album which was released in April 2010.

Iggy appeared as a character in the video game Lego Rock Band to sing his song The Passenger and also lent his voice for the in game tutorial.

With reference to the song The Passenger, Iggy Pop has appeared on NZ television advertising phone networks to show how he can get a band to play together by conference call.

On December 15, 2009 it was announced that The Stooges will be inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 15, 2010. Pop had "about two hours of a strong emotional reaction" to the news.

In March 2010 the Stooges and Iggy Pop were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

After a March 2010 stage diving accident, Pop claimed he would no longer stage dive.However, he did so on three occasions at a concert in Madrid, Spain on 30 April 2010. And it was much the same in London at the Hammersmith Apollo on 2 May 2010. On 9 July 2010 he again stage dived in Zottegem, Belgium, causing Iggy to bleed from the face.

In June 2010, Iggy Pop appeared at Yonge and Dundas Square in Toronto with the reformed Stooges on the NXNE main stage. The sheer size of the audience closed a central artery of Yonge Street.

Film career

Pop has had a limited career as an actor. He has appeared in sixteen movies, including Sid and Nancy (a nonspeaking cameo role), The Color of Money, Hardware (voice only), , The Rugrats Movie, Snow Day, Coffee and Cigarettes (opposite Tom Waits, in the third segment of the film, "Somewhere in California"), Cry-Baby, Dead Man, Tank Girl and Atolladero, a Spanish science fiction Western. Pop also sings the main theme for Atolladero, he is the voice of The Beast From Another Dimension in the cult animated film Rock & Rule and also sings its song, "Pain and Suffering".

He has been featured in five television series, including Tales from the Crypt, The Adventures of Pete & Pete, where he played Nona's dad in the second and third season, and , in which he played Yelgrun in "The Magnificent Ferengi" episode. With The Stooges, he was also featured in an episode of MTV's Bam's Unholy Union as the main band performing at Bam's wedding. Additionally, a portion of the music video for Iggy's Butt Town was featured on an episode of Beavis and Butthead.

Pop has been profiled in four rockumentaries and has had songs on eighteen soundtracks, including Crocodile Dundee 2, Trainspotting, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, , Arizona Dream, the main theme of Repo Man and .

In the movie Velvet Goldmine, Ewan McGregor portrays Curt Wilde, a character loosely based on Iggy Pop. McGregor performs Pop's songs "TV Eye" and "Gimme Danger" in the film.

Pop voiced Lil' Rummy on the Comedy Central show Lil' Bush.

Iggy Pop played himself as the DJ of the fictional rock station Liberty Rock Radio 97.7 in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV.

Pop provided the voice for a character in the English language version of the 2007 animated film Persepolis.

Iggy Pop also voiced a cameo in the American Dad! episode American Dream Factory as Jerry, the drummer, in Steve's band.

Iggy makes an appearance in the 2008 feature documentary by Nik Sheehan about Brion Gysin and the Dreamachine entitled 'FLicKeR'.

In 2008, Iggy's music was featured in a movie adaption of Irvine Welsh's best-selling novel .

In January 2009, Iggy was signed up as the face of Swiftcover, the UK-based online insurance company. The advert was then banned by the Advertising Standards Authority on 28 April 2009 for being misleading – it implied that Iggy Pop himself had an insurance policy with Swiftcover when at the time the company did not insure musicians.

Iggy Pop featured along side indie starlet Greta Gerwig (Noah Baumbach's Greenberg, Baghead, Nights and Weekends) in the film "Art House" which will world premiere at the Nashville Film Festival in April 2010.

Iggy Pop also featured as a voice talent in the 2004 ATARI video game DRIV3R, which was produced by Reflections Interactive.

In 2010, the Stooges song "Search and Destroy" was featured in the Lost: Final Chapter episode 04, The Substitute.

Iggy's cover of the Richard Berry song Louie Louie is used during the opening credits of Michael Moore's 2009 film Capitalism: A Love Story

Iggy was also referenced in The Venture Brothers Episode Showdown at Cremation Creek (Part I) and Showdown at Cremation Creek (Part II) alongside Klaus Nomi as the bodyguards to The Sovereign who is in fact David Bowie, Iggy along with Klaus who defect to Phantom Limb who then tries to kill David Bowie with a large glowing ball that he can summon at will to kill people on the command "POP!" He was quoted as saying to him before he kills him, "Too long have I been made to play the idiot, now you're going to be MY DOG!"

In the Super Mario Bros. video game series, the character, Iggy Koopa was named after him.

Future biopic

The Passenger was the putative name for a biopic about Pop's early career with the Stooges. The film was to be directed by Nick Gomez, and Elijah Wood was to play Iggy Pop. , the project appears to be shelved.

Pop liked the script but refused to take part in the film. He said:

The script ain't chopped liver... It was a work of art. But subjectively, I don't want to be involved in any way. A producer and the writer sent me a very decent letter, and asked me to write back if I didn't want them to do it... I don't feel negative about it at all.

He also called Wood "a very poised and talented actor".

Classical scholarship

In 1995, an established journal of classical scholarship, Classics Ireland, published Pop's reflections on the applicability of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to the modern world in a short article, Caesar Lives, (Vol. 2, 1995). Pop also relates how reading Gibbon while on tour in the Southern United States inspired him to a spontaneous soliloquy he called "Caesar".

Discography

Albums

With The Stooges

1969 - The Stooges

1970 - ''Fun House

1973 - Raw Power

2007 - The Weirdness

With James Williamson

1977 - Kill City

Solo

1977 - The Idiot

1977 - Lust for Life

1979 - New Values

1980 - Soldier

1981 - Party

1982 - Zombie Birdhouse

1986 - Blah Blah Blah

1988 - Instinct

1990 - Livin' on the Edge of the Night (EP)

1990 - Brick by Brick

1993 - American Caesar

1996 - Naughty Little Doggie

1999 - Avenue B

2001 - Beat 'Em Up

2003 - Skull Ring

2009 - Préliminaires

Further Reading/Info

References

External links

Iggy & The Stooges Official Website

http://archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/music/clips/2806/ (Iggy Pop's infamous 1977 interview with Peter Gzowski, from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's archive)

Category:1947 births Category:Actors from Michigan Category:American people of Danish descent Category:American musicians of English descent Category:American musicians of Irish descent Category:American musicians of Norwegian descent Category:Kerrang! Awards winners Category:Living people Category:Musicians from Michigan Category:Music of Ann Arbor, Michigan Category:People from Muskegon, Michigan Category:Protopunk musicians Category:The Stooges members Category:University of Michigan alumni

Name	Greer Garson
Caption	from the trailer of That Forsyte Woman (1949)
Birth name	Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson
Birth date	September 29, 1904
Birth place	Manor Park, Essex (now part of Greater London), England, UK
Death date	April 06, 1996
Death place	Dallas, Texas, U.S.
Spouse	Edward Alec Abbot Snelson (1933–1940)Richard Ney (1943–1947)E. E. "Buddy" Fogelson (1949–1987) (his death)
Years active	1937–1982
Occupation	Actress

Greer Garson, CBE (September 29, 1904 – April 6, 1996) was a British-born actress who was very popular during World War II, being listed by the Motion Picture Herald as one of America's top ten box office draws in 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, and 1946. As one of MGM's major stars of the 1940s, Garson received seven Academy Award nominations, winning the Best Actress award for Mrs. Miniver (1942).

Early life

Greer Garson was born Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson in Manor Park, Essex (now Greater London), England in 1904, the only child of George Garson (1865–1906), a clerk born in London, but with Scottish lineage, and his Irish wife, Nina (née Nancy Sophia Greer; died 1958). Her maternal grandfather was David Greer, a RIC sergeant in Castlewellan, County Down, Ireland in the 1880s and who later became a land steward to the Annesley family (wealthy landlords who built the town of Castlewellan). He lived in a large detached house built on the lower part of what was known as Pig Street or known locally as the Back Way near Shilliday's builder's yard. The house was called ‘Claremount’ and today the street is named Claremount Avenue. It was often reported that Garson was born in this house. She was, in fact, born in London, but spent much of her childhood in Castlewellan.

Education

She was educated at King's College London, where she earned degrees in French and 18th century literature, and at the University of Grenoble in France. She had intended to become a teacher, but instead began working with an advertising agency, and appeared in local theatrical productions.

Career

(1940)]] Greer Garson's early professional appearances were on stage, starting at Birmingham Repertory Theatre in January 1932. She appeared on television during its earliest years (the late 1930s), most notably starring in a thirty-minute production of an excerpt of Twelfth Night in May 1937, with Dorothy Black. These live transmissions were part of the BBC's experimental service from Alexandra Palace and this is the first known instance of a Shakespeare play performed on television.

Louis B. Mayer discovered Garson while he was in London looking for new talent. Garson was signed to a contract with MGM in late 1937, but did not begin work on her first film, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, until late 1938. She received her first Oscar nomination for the role, but lost to Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind. She received critical acclaim the next year for her role as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1940 film, Pride and Prejudice.

Garson starred with Joan Crawford in When Ladies Meet in 1941, and that same year became a major box office star with the sentimental Technicolor drama, Blossoms in the Dust, which brought her the first of five consecutive Best Actress Oscar nominations, tying Bette Davis' 1938-1942 record, a record that still stands. Garson won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942 for her role as a strong British wife and mother in the middle of World War II in Mrs. Miniver. (Guinness Book of World Records credits her with the longest Oscar acceptance speech, at five minutes and 30 seconds, after which the Academy Awards instituted a time limit.) She was also nominated for Madame Curie (1943), Mrs. Parkington (1944), and The Valley of Decision (1945). (1942)]]

Garson was partnered with Clark Gable, after his return from war service, in Adventure (1945). The film was advertised with the catch-phrase "Gable's back and Garson's got him!" Gable argued for "He put the Arson in Garson"; she countered "She Put the Able in Gable!"; thereafter, the safer catchphrase was selected. Garson's popularity dropped somewhat in the late 1940s, but she remained a prominent film star until the mid-1950s, as she was known for her gorgeous red hair.

In 1951, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States. She made only a few films after her MGM contract expired in 1954. In 1958, she received a warm reception on Broadway in Auntie Mame, replacing Rosalind Russell, who had gone to Hollywood to make the film version. In 1960, Garson received her seventh and final Oscar nomination for Sunrise at Campobello, in which she played Eleanor Roosevelt, this time losing to Elizabeth Taylor for Butterfield 8.

On October 4, 1956, Garson appeared with Reginald Gardiner as the first two guest stars in the series premiere of NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford.

Garson's last film, in 1967, was Disney's The Happiest Millionaire, although she made infrequent television appearances. In 1968, she narrated the children's television special The Little Drummer Boy, which is now seldom aired.

Personal life

Garson was married three times. Her first marriage, on 28 September 1933, was to Edward Alec Abbot Snelson (1904–1992), later Sir Edward, a British civil servant who became a noted judge and expert in Indian and Pakistani affairs. The actual marriage reportedly lasted only a few weeks, but was not formally dissolved until 1943.

Her second husband, whom she married (at age 39) in 1943, was Richard Ney (1916–2004), the younger actor (27 years old) who played her son in Mrs. Miniver. They divorced in 1947, with Garson claiming that Ney called her a "has-been" and belittled her age, as well as testimony from Garson that he also physically abused her. Ney eventually became a respected stock-market analyst and financial consultant.

That same year, she married a millionaire Texas oilman and horse breeder, E. E. "Buddy" Fogelson (1900–1987), and in 1967, the couple retired to their "Forked Lightning Ranch" in New Mexico. They purchased the U.S. Hall of Fame champion Thoroughbred Ack Ack from the estate of Harry F. Guggenheim in 1971, and were highly successful as breeders. They also maintained a home in Dallas, Texas, where Garson funded the Greer Garson Theater facility at Southern Methodist University.

Garson donated millions for the construction of the Greer Garson Theater at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design and The Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University on three conditions: 1) that the stage be circular, 2) that the premiere production be William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and 3) that it have large ladies' rooms.

Garson was a devout Presbyterian.

Death

Greer Garson died from heart failure in Dallas on 6 April 1996, at the age of 91. She is interred there in the Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery.

Filmography

{|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 |- |rowspan=2|1939 |Goodbye, Mr. Chips |Katherine Chipping |Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress |- |Remember? |Linda Bronson Holland | |- |rowspan=2|1940 |The Miracle of Sound |Herself |colour test for Blossoms in the Dust |- |Pride and Prejudice | Elizabeth Bennet | |- |rowspan=2|1941 |Blossoms in the Dust |Edna Kahly Gladney |Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress |- |When Ladies Meet |Mrs. Claire Woodruff | |- |rowspan=2|1942 |Mrs. Miniver |Mrs. Kay Miniver |Winner - Academy Award for Best Actress |- |Random Harvest |Paula Ridgeway | |- |rowspan=2|1943 |The Youngest Profession |Herself - Guest Star | |- |Madame Curie |Marie Curie |Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress |- |1944 |Mrs. Parkington |Susie "Sparrow" Parkington |Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress |- |rowspan=2|1945 |The Valley of Decision |Mary Rafferty |Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress |- |Adventure |Emily Sears | |- |1947 |Desire Me |Marise Aubert | |- |1948 |Julia Misbehaves |Julia Packett | |- |1949 |That Forsyte Woman |Irene Forsyte | |- |rowspan=2|1950 |Screen Actors |Herself - uncredited |short subject |- |The Miniver Story |Mrs. Kay Miniver | |- |1951 |The Law and the Lady |Jane Hoskins aka Lady Jane Loverly | |- |rowspan=2|1953 |Scandal at Scourie |Mrs. Victoria McChesney | |- |Julius Caesar |Calpurnia | |- |1954 |Her Twelve Men |Jan Stewart | |- |1955 |Strange Lady in Town |Dr. Julia Winslow Garth | |- |rowspan=2|1960 |Sunrise at Campobello |Eleanor Roosevelt |Golden GlobeNominated - Academy Award for Best Actress |- |Pepe |Herself |Cameo appearance |- |1966 |The Singing Nun |Mother Prioress | |- |1967 |The Happiest Millionaire |Mrs. Cordelia Biddle | |- |1968 |The Little Drummer Boy |"Our Story Teller" |as Ms. Greer Garson |- |1978 |Little Women |Aunt Kathryn March | |- |1986 |Directed by William Wyler |Herself |documentary |- |}

References

Notes

10. Greer Garson's mother's maiden name was not Greer, it was McGregor. Greer is a contraction of her mother's maiden name.

Bibliography

Sarvady, Andrea, Leading Ladies: The 50 Most Unforgettable Actresses of the Studio Era (edited by Frank Miller), (TCM Film Guides), San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 2006, ISBN 0-8118-5248-2

Troyan, Michael, A Rose for Mrs. Miniver: The Life of Greer Garson, Lexington, University Press of Kentucky, 1999, ISBN 0-8131-2094-2

External links

Garson's New York Times obituary

Elwy Yost interview with Greer Garson from TVO's Saturday Night at the Movies circa 1985

Greer Garson - Tribute site

Pecos National Historical Park Forked Lightning Page

Everything About Greer Garson - fan website

Category:1904 births Category:1996 deaths Category:American film actors Category:American stage actors Category:American television actors Category:English film actors Category:English stage actors Category:English television actors Category:Actors from London Category:English immigrants to the United States Category:Best Actress Academy Award winners Category:Best Drama Actress Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Alumni of King's College London Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:American Presbyterians Category:People from Manor Park Category:English people of Irish descent Category:English people of Scottish descent Category:20th-century actors