:''For devotions see Saint George: Devotions, traditions and prayers''

Name	Saint George of Lydda
Birth date	between ca. AD 256 and 285
Death date	April 23, 303
Feast day	April 23
Venerated in	Roman CatholicismAnglicanismEastern OrthodoxyLutheranismCoptic OrthodoxIslam
Birth place	Lydda, Syria Palaestina, Roman Empire
Death place	Nicomedia, Bithynia, Roman Empire
Titles	Martyr
Attributes	Clothed as a soldier in a suit of armour or chain mail, often bearing a lance tipped by a cross, riding a white horse, often slaying a dragon. In the West he is shown with St George's Cross emblazoned on his armour, or shield or banner.
Patronage	Many ''Patronages of Saint George'' exist around the world
Prayer attrib	}}

Saint George (ca. 275/281 – 23 April 303) was, according to tradition, a Roman soldier from Syria Palaestina and a priest in the Guard of Diocletian, who is venerated as a Christian martyr. In hagiography Saint George is one of the most venerated saints in the Catholic (Western and Eastern Rites), Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, and the Oriental Orthodox churches. He is immortalized in the tale of Saint George and the Dragon and is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. His memorial is celebrated on 23 April, and he is regarded as one of the most prominent military saints.

Many ''Patronages of Saint George'' exist around the world, including: Bulgaria, Aragon, Catalonia, England, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, India, Iraq, Lithuania, Israel, Portugal, Serbia, Ukraine and Russia, as well as the cities of Genoa, Amersfoort, Beirut, Fakiha, Bteghrine, Cáceres, Ferrara, Freiburg, Kumanovo, Ljubljana, Pomorie, Preston, Qormi, Rio de Janeiro, Lod, Lviv, Barcelona, Moscow, Tamworth and the Maltese island of Gozo, as well as a wide range of professions, organizations and disease sufferers.

Life and legend

Historians have debated the exact details of the birth of Saint George for over a century, although the approximate date of his death is subject to little debate. The Catholic Encyclopedia takes the position that there seems to be no ground for doubting the historical existence of Saint George, but that little faith can be placed in some of the fanciful stories about him.

The work of the Bollandists Danile Paperbroch, Jean Bolland and Godfrey Henschen in the 17th century was one of the first pieces of scholarly research to establish the historicity of the saint's existence via their publications in Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca and paved the way for other scholars to dismiss the medieval legends. Pope Gelasius stated that George was among those saints ''whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose actions are known only to God''.

The traditional legends have offered a historicised narration of George's encounter with a dragon: see "St. George and the Dragon" below. The modern legend that follows below is synthesized from early and late hagiographical sources, omitting the more fantastical episodes, to narrate a purely human military career in closer harmony with modern expectations of reality. Chief among the legendary sources about the saint is the Golden Legend, which remains the most familiar version in English owing to William Caxton's 15th-century translation.

It is likely that Saint George was born to a Christian noble family in Lod, Syria Palaestina during the late third century between about 275 AD and 285 AD, and he died in Nicomedia. His father, Gerontius, was a Roman army official from Cappadocia and his mother, Polychronia, was from Palestine. They were both Christians and from noble families of Anici, so by this the child was raised with Christian beliefs. They decided to call him Georgius (Latin) or Geōrgios (Greek), meaning "worker of the land". At the age of 14, George lost his father; a few years later, George's mother, Polychronia, died. Eastern accounts give the names of his parents as Anastasius and Theobaste.

Then George decided to go to Nicomedia, the imperial city of that time, and present himself to Emperor Diocletian to apply for a career as a soldier. Diocletian welcomed him with open arms, as he had known his father, Gerontius — one of his finest soldiers. By his late 20s, George was promoted to the rank of Tribunus and stationed as an imperial guard of the Emperor at Nicomedia.

In the year AD 302, Diocletian (influenced by Galerius) issued an edict that every Christian soldier in the army should be arrested and every other soldier should offer a sacrifice to the Pagan gods. However George objected and with the courage of his faith approached the Emperor and ruler. Diocletian was upset, not wanting to lose his best tribune and the son of his best official, Gerontius. George loudly renounced the Emperor's edict, and in front of his fellow soldiers and Tribunes he claimed himself to be a Christian and declared his worship of Jesus Christ. Diocletian attempted to convert George, even offering gifts of land, money and slaves if he made a sacrifice to the Roman gods. The Emperor made many offers, but George never accepted.

Recognizing the futility of his efforts, Diocletian was left with no choice but to have him executed for his refusal. Before the execution George gave his wealth to the poor and prepared himself. After various torture sessions, including laceration on a wheel of swords in which he was resuscitated three times, George was executed by decapitation before Nicomedia's city wall, on April 23, 303. A witness of his suffering convinced Empress Alexandra and Athanasius, a pagan priest, to become Christians as well, and so they joined George in martyrdom. His body was returned to Lydda in Palestine for burial, where Christians soon came to honour him as a martyr.

Although the above distillation of the legend of George connects him to the conversion of Athanasius, who according to Rufinus was brought up by Christian ecclesiastical authorities from a very early age, Edward Gibbon argued that George, or at least the legend from which the above is distilled, is based on George of Cappadocia, a notorious Arian bishop who was Athanasius' most bitter rival, who in time became Saint George of England. According to Professor Bury, Gibbon's latest editor, "this theory of Gibbon's has nothing to be said for it". He adds that: "the connection of St. George with a dragon-slaying legend does not relegate him to the region of the myth".

In 1856 Ralph Waldo Emerson published a book of essays entitled "English Traits". In it, he wrote a paragraph on the history of Saint George. Emerson compared the legend of Saint George to the legend of Amerigo Vespucci, calling the former "an impostor" and the latter "a thief". The editorial notes appended to the 1904 edition of Emerson's complete works state that Emerson based his account on the work of Gibbon, and that current evidence seems to show that real St. George was not George the Arian of Cappadocia. Merton M. Sealts also quotes Edward Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson's youngest son as stating that he believed his father's account was derived from Gibbon and that the real St. George "was apparently another who died two generations earlier".

Saint George and the dragon

The episode of St George and the Dragon was a legend brought back with the Crusaders and retold with the courtly appurtenances belonging to the genre of Romance. The earliest known depiction of the legend is from early eleventh-century Cappadocia, (in the iconography of the Eastern Orthodox Church, George had been depicted as a soldier since at least the seventh century); the earliest known surviving narrative text is an eleventh-century Georgian text.

In the fully developed Western version, which developed as part of the Golden Legend, a dragon or crocodile makes its nest at the spring that provides water for the city of "Silene" (perhaps modern Cyrene in Libya or the city of Lydda in the Holy Land, depending on the source). Consequently, the citizens have to dislodge the dragon from its nest for a time, to collect water. To do so, each day they offer the dragon at first a sheep, and if no sheep can be found, then a maiden must go instead of the sheep. The victim is chosen by drawing lots. One day, this happens to be the princess. The monarch begs for her life to be spared, but to no avail. She is offered to the dragon, but there appears Saint George on his travels. He faces the dragon, protects himself with the sign of the Cross, slays the dragon, and rescues the princess. The grateful citizens abandon their ancestral paganism and convert to Christianity.

The dragon motif was first combined with the standardised ''Passio Georgii'' in Vincent of Beauvais' encyclopaedic ''Speculum historale'' and then in Jacobus de Voragine, ''Golden Legend'', which guaranteed its popularity in the later Middle Ages as a literary and pictorial subject.

The parallels with Perseus and Andromeda are inescapable. In the allegorical reading, the dragon embodies a suppressed pagan cult. The story has other roots that predate Christianity. Examples such as Sabazios, the sky father, who was usually depicted riding on horseback, and Zeus's defeat of Typhon the Titan in Greek mythology, along with examples from Germanic and Vedic traditions, have led a number of historians, such as Loomis, to suggest that George is a Christianized version of older deities in Indo-European culture.

In the medieval romances, the lance with which St George slew the dragon was called Ascalon, named after the city of Ashkelon in Israel.

Veneration as a martyr

A church built in Lydda during the reign of Constantine I (reigned 306–37), was consecrated to "a man of the highest distinction", according to the church history of Eusebius of Caesarea; the name of the patron was not disclosed, but later he was asserted to have been George.

By the time of the Muslim conquest in the seventh century, a basilica dedicated to the saint in Lydda existed. The church was destroyed in 1010 but was later rebuilt and dedicated to Saint George by the Crusaders. In 1191 and during the conflict known as the Third Crusade (1189–92), the church was again destroyed by the forces of Saladin, Sultan of the Ayyubid dynasty (reigned 1171–93). A new church was erected in 1872 and is still standing.

During the fourth century the veneration of George spread from Palestine through Lebanon to the rest of the Eastern Roman Empire –though the martyr is not mentioned in the Syriac Breviarium– and Georgia. In Georgia the feast day on November 23 is credited to St Nino of Cappadocia, who in Georgian hagiography is a relative of St George, credited with bringing Christianity to the Georgians in the fourth century. By the fifth century, the cult of Saint George had reached the Western Roman Empire as well: in 494, George was canonized as a saint by Pope Gelasius I, among those "whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to [God]."

In England the earliest dedication to George, who was mentioned among the martyrs by Bede, is a church at Fordington, Dorset, that is mentioned in the wars of Alfred the Great. "Saint George and his feast day began to gain more widespread fame among all Europeans, however, from the time of the Crusades." The St. George's flag, a red cross on a white field, was adopted by England and the City of London in 1190 for their ships entering the Mediterranean to benefit from the protection of the Genoese fleet during the Crusades and the English Monarch paid an annual tribute to the Doge of Genoa for this privilege. An apparition of George heartened the Franks at the siege of Antioch, 1098, and made a similar appearance the following year at Jerusalem. Chivalric military Order of St. George were established in Aragon (1201), Genoa, Hungary, and by Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, and in England the Synod of Oxford, 1222 declared St George's Day a feast day in the kingdom of England. Edward III put his Order of the Garter under the banner of St. George, probably in 1348. The chronicler Froissart observed the English invoking St. George as a battle cry on several occasions during the Hundred Years' War. In his rise as a national saint George was aided by the very fact that the saint had no legendary connection with England, and no specifically localized shrine, as of Thomas Becket at Canterbury: "Consequently, numerous shrines were established during the late fifteenth century," Muriel C. McClendon has written, "and his did not become closely identified with a particular occupation or with the cure of a specific malady."

The establishment of George as a popular saint and protective giant in the West that had captured the medieval imagination was codified by the official elevation of his feast to a ''festum duplex'' at a church council in 1415, on the date that had become associated with his martyrdom, 23 April. There was wide latitude from community to community in celebration of the day across late medieval and early modern England, and no uniform "national" celebration elsewhere, a token of the popular and vernacular nature of George's ''cultus'' and its local horizons, supported by a local guild or confraternity under George's protection, or the dedication of a local church. When the Reformation in England severely curtailed the saints' days in the calendar, St. George's Day was among the holidays that continued to be observed.

Sources

According to the ''Catholic Encyclopedia'', the earliest text preserving fragments of George's narrative is in an Acta Sanctorum identified by Hippolyte Delehaye of the scholarly Bollandists to be a palimpsest of the fifth century. However, this ''Acta Sancti Georgii'' was soon banned as heresy by Pope Gelasius I (in 496).

The compiler of this ''Acta'', according to Hippolyte Delehaye "confused the martyr with his namesake, the celebrated George of Cappadocia, the Arian intruder into the see of Alexandria and enemy of St. Athanasius". A critical edition of a Syriac ''Acta'' of Saint George, accompanied by an annotated English translation was published by E.W. Brooks (1863–1955) in 1925. The hagiography was originally written in Greek.

In Sweden, the princess rescued by Saint George is held to represent the kingdom of Sweden, while the dragon represents an invading army. Several sculptures of Saint George battling the dragon can be found in Stockholm, the earliest inside Storkyrkan ("The Great Church") in the Old Town.

The façade of architect Antoni Gaudi's famous Casa Batlló in Barcelona, Spain depicts this allegory.

In Islamic literature

Saint George is also included in early Muslim texts as a saintly figure. One Muslim legend recounts that George lived among a group of believers who had been in direct contact with the last disciples of Jesus. George is said to have been a rich merchant who opposed the erection of a statue of the pagan deity Apollo, by Dadan, the king of Mosul. After confronting the king, George was apparently tortured many times but to no effect and was imprisoned, later being aided by angels. Muslim literature too depicts George as a martyr.

Feast days

In the General Calendar of the Roman Rite the feast of Saint George is on April 23. In the Tridentine Calendar it was given the rank of "Semidouble". In Pope Pius XII's 1955 calendar this rank is reduced to "Simple". In Pope John XXIII's 1960 calendar the celebration to just a "Commemoration". In Pope Paul VI's 1969 calendar it is raised to the level of an optional "Memorial". In some countries, such as England, the rank is higher.

St George is very much honoured by the Eastern Orthodox Church, wherein he is referred to as a "Great Martyr", and in Oriental Orthodoxy overall. His major feast day is on April 23 (Julian Calendar April 23 currently corresponds to Gregorian Calendar May 6). The Russian Orthodox Church also celebrates two additional feasts in honour of St. George: one on November 3 commemorating the consecration of a cathedral dedicated to him in Lydda during the reign Constantine the Great (305–37). When the church was consecrated, the relics of the St. George were transferred there. The other feast on November 26 for a church dedicated to him in Kiev, ca. 1054.

In Egypt the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria refers to St George as the "Prince of Martyrs" and celebrates his martyrdom on the 23rd of Paremhat of the Coptic Calendar equivalent to May 1. The Copts also celebrate the consecration of the first church dedicated to him on June 10.

Patronages

As a highly celebrated saint in both the Western and Eastern Christian churches, a large number of Patronages of Saint George exist throughout the world.

St. George is the patron saint of England; his cross forms the national flag of England, and features within the Union Flag of the United Kingdom. Traces of the cult of Saint George in England pre-date the Norman Conquest in the eleventh century; by the fourteenth century the saint had been declared both the patron saint and the protector of the royal family.

The country of Georgia, where devotions to the saint date back to the fourth century, is not technically named after the saint, but is a well-attested backward derivation of the English name. However, a large number of towns and cities around the world are. Saint George is one of the patron Saints of Georgia; the name Georgia (''Sakartvelo'' in Georgian) is an anglicisation of ''Gurj'', derived from the Persian word for the frightening and heroic people in that territory. However, chronicles describing the land as ''Georgie'' or Georgia in French and English, date from the early Middle Ages "because of their special reverence for Saint George", but these accounts have been seen as folk etymology; compare Land of Prester John.

There are exactly 365 Orthodox churches in Georgia named after Saint George according to the number of days in a year. According to myth, St. George was cut into 365 pieces after he fell in battle and every single piece was spread throughout the entire country. According to another myth, Saint George appeared in person during the Battle of Didgori to support the Georgian victory over the Seldjuk army and the Georgian uprising against Persian rule. Saint George is considered by many Georgians to have special meaning as a symbol of national liberation.

Devotions to Saint George in Portugal date back to the twelfth century, and Saint Constable attributed the victory of the Portuguese in the battle of Aljubarrota in the fourteenth century to Saint George. During the reign of King John I (1357–1433) Saint George became the patron saint of Portugal and the King ordered that the saint's image on the horse be carried in the Corpus Christi procession.

Saint George is also one of the patron saints of the Mediterranean islands of Malta and Gozo. In a battle between the Maltese and the Moors, Saint George was alleged to have been seen with Saint Paul and Saint Agata, protecting the Maltese. Besides being the patron of Victoria where St. George's Basilica, Malta is dedicated to him, St George is the protector of the island Gozo.

Interfaith Shrine

There is a tradition in the Holy Land of Christians and Muslim going to an Eastern Orthodox shrine of St. George at Beith Jala, Jews also attending the site in the belief that the prophet Elijah was buried there. This is testified to by Elizabeth Finn in 1866, where she wrote, "St. George killed the dragon in this country Palestine; and the place is shown close to Beirut (Lebanon). Many churches and convents are named after him. The church at Lydda is dedicated to St. George: so is a convent near Bethlehem, and another small one just opposite the Jaffa gate; and others beside. The Arabs believe that St. George can restore mad people to their senses; and to say a person has been sent to St. George's, is equivalent to saying he has been sent to a madhouse. It is singular that the Moslem Arabs share this veneration for St. George, and send their mad people to be cured by him, as well as the Christians. But they commonly call him El Khudder —The Green—according to their favourite manner of using epithets instead of names. Why he should be called green, however, I cannot tell—unless it is from the colour of his horse. Gray horses are called green in Arabic." A possible explanation for this colour reference is Al Khidr, the erstwhile tutor of Moses, gained his name from having sat in a barren desert, turning it into a lush green paradise.

William Dalrymple reviewing the literature in 1999 tells us that J. E. Hanauer in his 1907 book ''Folklore of the Holy Land: Muslim, Christian and Jewish'' "mentioned a shrine in the village of Beit Jala, beside Bethlehem, which at the time was frequented by all three of Palestine's religious communities. Christians regarded it as the birthplace of St. George, Jews as the burial place of the Prophet Elias. According to Hanauer, in his day the monastery was "a sort of madhouse. Deranged persons of all the three faiths are taken thither and chained in the court of the chapel, where they are kept for forty days on bread and water, the Eastern Orthodox priest at the head of the establishment now and then reading the Gospel over them, or administering a whipping as the case demands.' In the 1920s, according to Taufiq Canaan's ''Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine'', nothing seemed to have changed, and all three communities were still visiting the shrine and praying together."

Dalrymple himself visited the place in 1995. "I asked around in the Christian Quarter in Jerusalem, and discovered that the place was very much alive. With all the greatest shrines in the Christian world to choose from, it seemed that when the local Arab Christians had a problem – an illness, or something more complicated: a husband detained in an Israeli prison camp, for example – they preferred to seek the intercession of St George in his grubby little shrine at Beit Jala rather than praying at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem or the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem." He asked the priest at the shrine "Do you get many Muslims coming here?" The priest replied, "We get hundreds! Almost as many as the Christian pilgrims. Often, when I come in here, I find Muslims all over the floor, in the aisles, up and down."

The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' quotes G.A. Smith in his ''Historic Geography of the Holy Land'' p. 164 saying "The Mahommedans who usually identify St. George with the prophet Elijah, at Lydda confound his legend with one about Christ himself. Their name for Antichrist is Dajjal, and they have a tradition that Jesus will slay Antichrist by the gate of Lydda. The notion sprang from an ancient bas-relief of George and the Dragon on the Lydda church. But Dajjal may be derived, by a very common confusion between n and l, from Dagon, whose name two neighbouring villages bear to this day, while one of the gates of Lydda used to be called the Gate of Dagon."

Colours and flag

The "Colours of Saint George", or St George's Cross are a white flag with a red cross, frequently borne by entities over which he is patron (e.g. the Republic of Genoa and then Liguria, England, Georgia, Catalonia, Aragon, etc.).

Ironically, the cross was originally the personal flag of another saint and key Christian figure, St. Ambrose. Adopted by the city of Milan (of which he was Archbishop) at least as early as the Ninth century, its use spread over Northern Italy including Genoa. Genoa's patron saint was St. George and through the flag's use by the vast Genoese trading fleet, the association was carried throughout Europe.

The same colour scheme was used by Viktor Vasnetsov for the façade of the Tretyakov Gallery, in which some of the most famous St. George icons are exhibited and which displays St. George as the coat of arms of Moscow over its entrance.

Iconography and models

St. George is most commonly depicted in early icons, mosaics and frescos wearing armour contemporary with the depiction, executed in gilding and silver colour, intended to identify him as a Roman soldier. After the Fall of Constantinople and the association of St George with the crusades, he is more often portrayed mounted upon a white horse.

At the same time St George began to be associated with St. Demetrius, another early soldier saint. When the two saints are portrayed together mounted upon horses, they may be likened to earthly manifestations of the archangels Michael and Gabriel. St George is always depicted in Eastern traditions upon a white horse and St. Demetrius on a red horse St George can also be identified in the act of spearing a dragon, unlike St Demetrius, who is sometimes shown spearing a human figure, understood to represent Maximian.

A 2003 Vatican stamp issued on the anniversary of the Saint's death depicts an armoured Saint George atop a white horse, killing the dragon.

During the early second millennium, George came to be seen as the model of chivalry, and during this time was depicted in works of literature, such as the medieval romances.

Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, compiled the ''Legenda Sanctorum'', (''Readings of the Saints'') also known as ''Legenda Aurea'' (the ''Golden Legend'') for its worth among readers. Its 177 chapters (182 in other editions) contain the story of Saint George.

Modern Russians interpret the icon not as a killing but as a struggle, against ourselves and the evil among us. The dragon never dies but the saint persists with his horse (will and support of the people) and his spear (technical means). In Eastern Orthodox Christianity it is possible to find Icons of St.George riding on Black horse, as well, there are various examples in Russian Iconography, like the Icon in British Museum Collection.

See also

Bristol, England, which has a district called Saint George and also a park bearing that name

Diada de Sant Jordi

Dragon Hill, Uffington

Frithjof Schuon

Georgslied, 9th-century Old High German poem about the life of Saint George

Knights of St. George

One Good Knight (a novel) Andres Dealencar.

Paladin

Uastyrdzhi

St George's Church, churches dedicated to St. George

St. George Dragons (sports)

''The Magic Sword'', 1961 film loosely based on the legend of St. George and the Dragon

Patrick Woodroffe, author of several poems about St George collated in a book called ''Hallelujah Anyway''

Gallery

:''For a larger gallery, please see'': Saint George gallery.

Notes

References

Brooks, E.W., 1925. ''Acts of Saint George'' in series ''Analecta Gorgiana'' 8 (Gorgias Press).

Burgoyne, Michael H. 1976. ''A Chronological Index to the Muslim Monuments of Jerusalem''. In ''The Architecture of Islamic Jerusalem''. Jerusalem: The British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem.

Alban Butler, ''Butler's Lives of the Saints'', vol. 2, pp. 148–150. "George, Martyr, Protector of the Kingdom of England" (on-line text)

Gabidzashvili, Enriko. 1991. ''Saint George: In Ancient Georgian Literature''. Armazi – 89: Tbilisi, Georgia.

Good, Jonathan, 2009. ''The Cult of Saint George in Medieval England'' (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press).

Loomis, C. Grant, 1948. ''White Magic, An Introduction to the Folklore of Christian Legend'' (Cambridge: Medieval Society of America)

Natsheh, Yusuf. 2000. "Architectural survey", in ''Ottoman Jerusalem: The Living City 1517–1917''. Edited by Sylvia Auld and Robert Hillenbrand (London: Altajir World of Islam Trust) pp 893–899.

Whatley, E. Gordon, editor, with Anne B. Thompson and Robert K. Upchurch, 2004. ''St. George and the Dragon in the South English Legendary (East Midland Revision, c. 1400)'' Originally published in ''Saints' Lives in Middle English Collections''

(Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications) (On-line Introduction)

Prof. George Menachery, ''Saint Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India''. Vol.II Trichur – 73.

External links

St. George and the Dragon, free illustrated book based on 'The Seven Champions' by Richard Johnson (1596)

Archnet

Saint George and the Dragon links and pictures (more than 125), from Dragons in Art and on the Web

Story of St. George from The Golden Legends

Saint George and the Boy Scouts, including a woodcut of a Scout on horseback slaying a dragon

A prayer for St George's Day

St. George

St. George and the Dragon: An Introduction

Greatmartyr, Victory-bearer and Wonderworker George Orthodox icon and synaxarion for April 23

Dedication of the Church of the Greatmartyr George in Lydia Icon and synaxarion for November 3

Dedication of the Church of the Greatmartyr George at Kiev Icon and synaxarion for November 26

Plášťovce,(Palást) in Slovakia">St. George in the church in Plášťovce,(Palást) in Slovakia

The St George Orthodox Military Association

Famous Georgian Pilgrim Center in India St. George Orthodox Church Puthuppally, Kerala, India

Category:Anglican saints Category:Catalan symbols Category:Eastern Catholic saints Category:Eastern Orthodox saints Category:Fourteen Holy Helpers Category:People from Lod Category:Roman Catholic saints Category:Saints from the Holy Land Category:Saints of the Golden Legend Category:303 deaths Category:3rd-century births Category:3rd-century Romans Category:4th-century Romans Category:4th-century Christian martyr saints

ar:القديس جرجس an:Sant Chorche arc:ܡܪܝ ܓܝܘܪܓܝܣ ܣܗܕܐ be:Георгій Перамоганосец bg:Георги Победоносец ca:Sant Jordi cs:Svatý Jiří da:Sankt Jørgen de:Georg (Heiliger) et:Püha Jüri el:Άγιος Γεώργιος es:Jorge de Capadocia eo:Sankta Georgo eu:Jurgi Kapadoziakoa fa:جرجیس fo:Sankta Jørundur fr:Georges de Lydda ga:Naomh Seoirse gl:Xurxo de Capadocia ko:성 게오르기우스 hr:Sveti Juraj bpy:সাও জোর্গে is:Heilagur Georg it:San Giorgio he:גאורגיוס הקדוש ka:წმინდა გიორგი la:Georgius (sanctus) lv:Svētais Juris lt:Šv. Jurgis li:St. Joris hu:Szent György mk:Свети Георги ml:വിശുദ്ധ ഗീവർഗീസ് nl:Joris (heilige) ja:ゲオルギオス (聖人) no:Sankt Georg nn:Heilage Jørgen nrm:Saint George pl:Święty Jerzy pt:São Jorge ro:Sfântul Gheorghe ru:Георгий Победоносец sco:Saunt George sq:Shën Gjergji scn:San Giorgiu (santu) simple:Saint George sk:Svätý Juraj sl:Sveti Jurij sr:Свети Георгије sh:Sveti Georgije fi:Pyhä Yrjö sv:Sankt Göran th:นักบุญจอร์จ tr:Georgios (Hıristiyan kutsal kişi) uk:Святий Юрій vec:San Zorzi zh-yue:聖佐治 zh:圣乔治

name	Stan Freberg
birth name	Stanley Victor Freberg
birth date	August 07, 1926
birth place	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
occupation	Voice actorPuppeteerAdvertising creative directorComedianAuthorRadio personality
years active	1944–present
spouse	Donna Freberg (1959-2000) (her death)Betty Hunter-Freberg
website	http://www.hunterfrebergltd.com
awards	Winsor McCay Award }}

Stanley Victor "Stan" Freberg (born August 7, 1926) is an American author, recording artist, animation voice actor, comedian, radio personality, puppeteer, and advertising creative director whose career began in 1944. He is still active in the industry in his mid 80s, nearly 70 years after entering it.

Personal life

The son of a Baptist minister, Stan Freberg was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Pasadena, California. His traditional upbringing is reflected both in the gentle sensitivity that underpins his work (despite his liberal use of biting satire and parody) and in his refusal to accept alcohol and tobacco manufacturers as sponsors—an impediment to his radio career when he took over for Jack Benny on CBS radio. As Freberg explained to Rusty Pipes: }} Stan Freberg's first wife, Donna, died in 2000. He has two children from that marriage, Donna Jean and Donavan. He married Betty Hunter in 2001, and she adopted the personal and family names Hunter Freberg.

Animation

Freberg was employed as a voice actor in animation shortly after graduating from Alhambra High School. He began at Warner Brothers in 1944 by getting on a bus and asking the driver to let him off "in Hollywood." As he describes in his autobiography, ''It Only Hurts When I Laugh'', he did this, getting off the bus and finding a sign that said "talent agency." He walked in and the agents there arranged for him to audition for Warner Brothers cartoons where he was promptly hired.

His first cartoon voice work was in a Warner Brothers cartoon called ''For He's a Jolly Good Fala'' which was recorded but never filmed (due to the death of Fala's owner, President Franklin D. Roosevelt), followed by ''Roughly Squeaking'' (1946) as Bertie; and in 1947, he was heard in ''It's a Grand Old Nag'' (Charlie Horse), produced and directed by Bob Clampett for Republic Pictures; ''The Goofy Gophers'' (Tosh), and ''One Meat Brawl'' (Grover Groundhog and Walter Winchell). He often found himself paired off with Mel Blanc while at Warner Brothers, where the two men performed such pairs as the mice Hubie and Bertie and Spike the Bulldog and Chester the Terrier. He was the voice of Pete Puma in the 1952 cartoon ''Rabbit's Kin'', in which he did an impression of an early Frank Fontaine characterization (which later became Fontaine's "Crazy Guggenheim" character).

Freberg is often credited with voicing the character of Junyer Bear in ''Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears'' (1944) but that was actor Kent Rogers. After Rogers was killed during World War II, Freberg assumed the role of Junyer Bear in Chuck Jones's Looney Tunes cartoon ''What's Brewin', Bruin?'' (1948), featuring Jones's version of The Three Bears. He also succeeded Rogers as the voice of Beaky Buzzard.

Freberg was heard in many Warner Brothers cartoons but his only screen credit on one was ''Three Little Bops'' (1957). His work as a voice actor for Walt Disney Productions included the role of Beaver in ''Lady and the Tramp'' (1955). Freberg also provided the voice of Sam, the orange cat paired with Sylvester in the Oscar-winning ''Mouse and Garden'' (1960). He voiced Cage E. Coyote, the father of Wile E. Coyote, in the 2000 short ''Little Go Beep''.

In 2011 Freberg returned as the voice of Chester the Terrior in Cartoon Network's 2011 animated series The Looney Tunes Show.

Films

Freberg was cast to sing the part of the Jabberwock in a song, ''Beware the Jabberwock'' for Disney's ''Alice in Wonderland'', with the Rhythmaires and Daws Butler. The song, written by Don Raye and Gene de Paul, was a musical rendition of the Jabberwocky verse from Lewis Carroll's ''Through the Looking Glass''. The song was not included in the final film, but a demo recording was included in the 2004 and 2010 DVD releases of the movie.

Freberg made his movie debut as an on-screen actor in the comedy ''Callaway Went Thataway'' (1951), a satirical spoof on the marketing of Western stars (apparently inspired by the TV success of Hopalong Cassidy). When Freberg costarred with Mala Powers in ''Geraldine'' (1953) as sobbing singer Billy Weber, the character enabled him to do his satire on vocalist Johnnie Ray. In 1963 Freberg appeared in a non-speaking part as the Deputy Sheriff in the mega-comedy ''It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World''.

Contrary to popular belief, it was Stan Freberg and not Mel Blanc whom George Lucas called upon to audition for the voice of the character C-3PO for the 1977 film Star Wars. After he and many others auditioned for the part, Freberg suggested that Lucas use mime actor Anthony Daniels' own voice in the role.

Capitol Records

Early releases

Freberg began making satirical recordings for Capitol Records, beginning with the February 10, 1951 release of "John and Marsha" (released in both 45-rpm and 78-rpm formats), a soap opera parody that consisted of the title characters (both played by Freberg) repeating each other's names, and "Ragtime Dan". In a 1954 follow-up, he used pedal steel guitarist Speedy West to satirize the 1953 Ferlin Husky country hit, "A Dear John Letter", as "A Dear John and Marsha Letter" (Capitol 2677). A seasonal recording, "The Night Before Christmas/Nuttin' for Christmas", made in 1955, still remains a cult classic.

With Daws Butler and June Foray, he produced his 1951 "Dragnet" parody, "St. George and the Dragonet". The latter recording was a #1 hit for four weeks in October 1953. Also with June Foray, he recorded "The Quest for Bridey Hammerschlaugen", a spoof of "The Search for Bridey Murphy" by Morey Bernstein, a 1956 book on hypnotic regression to a past life. On "Little Blue Riding Hood", the record's B-side, the title character is arrested for smuggling goodies. After "I've Got You Under My Skin" (1952), he followed with more popular musical satires, including "Sh-Boom" (1954), "The Yellow Rose of Texas" (1955), and "The Great Pretender" (1956). He spoofed Elvis Presley in 1956 with his own version of Elvis' first gold record, "Heartbreak Hotel", in which the echo effect goes out of control. In Freberg's spoof, Elvis rips his jeans during his performance, a problem the real Elvis had with jumpsuits when performing in the early 1970s.

Another hit to get the Freberg treatment was Johnnie Ray's weepy "Cry", which Freberg rendered as "Try ('You too can be unhappy … if you try')", exaggerating Ray's histrionic vocal style. Ray was furious until he realized the success of Freberg's 1952 parody was helping sales and airplay of his own record.

Banana Boat Song and The Great Pretender

Freberg's "Banana Boat (Day-O)" satirized Harry Belafonte's popular recording of "Banana Boat Song", in 1957. In Freberg's version, the lead singer is forced to run down the hall and close the door after him to muffle the sound of his "Day-O!" because the beatnik bongo drummer (voiced by Peter Leeds) complains, "It's too shrill, man, it's too piercing!" When he gets to the lyric about "A beautiful buncha ripe banana/Hide the deadly black tarantula," the drummer protests, "I don't dig spiders, man!"

He also used the beatnik musician theme in a parody of "The Great Pretender", the hit by The Platters — who, like Belafonte and Welk (see below), were not pleased. At that time, when it was stll hoped that musical standards might be preserved, it was quite permissible to ridicule the ludicrous, as Freberg had obviously thought when he parodied Presley. The pianist in Freberg's parody is an Erroll Garner and George Shearing devotee who rebels against playing a single-chord accompaniment. He retorts, "I'm not playing that 'pling-pling-pling jazz'!" But Freberg is adamant about the pianist's sticking to The Platters' style: "You play 'that pling-pling-pling jazz' or you don't get paid tonight!" The pianist relents — sort of. The pianist even quotes the first six notes from Shearing's classic piece "Lullaby of Birdland", before getting back to playing "Great Pretender." The parody was itself partly parodied when Mitchel Torok recorded "All Over Again, Again" for Columbia Records in mid-March 1959, but billed it as "The Great Pretender", as a spoof on the recent Sun Records recordings of Johnny Cash. Cash had only recently been signed to Columbia. The annoying pianist on the Freberg record was replaced by an equally annoying banjo player and a showboating guitarist on the Columbia release, a song written by Torok's wife who was then billed as "R. Redd" (Ramona Redd).

Freberg's musical parodies were a byproduct of his collaborations with Billy May and his Capitol Records producer, Ken Nelson. With "Wun'erful, Wun'erful! (Sides uh-one & uh-two)", his 1957 spoof of TV "champagne music" master Lawrence Welk, Freberg found a parody partner in May, a veteran big band musician and jazz arranger. To replicate Welk's sound, May and some of Hollywood's finest studio musicians and vocalists worked to clone Welk's live on-air style, carefully incorporating bad notes and mistimed cues. Billy Liebert, a first-rate accordionist, copied Welk's accordion playing. In the parody, the orchestra is overwhelmed by the malfunctioning bubble machine and eventually floats out to sea. Welk denied he had ever said "Wunnerful, Wunnerful!", though it became the title of Welk's autobiography (Prentice Hall, 1971).

Political satire

Freberg also tackled political issues of the day. On his radio show, an extended sketch paralleled the Cold War brinkmanship between the U.S. and the Soviet Union by portraying an ever-escalating public relations battle between the El Sodom and the Rancho Gomorrah, two casinos in the city of Los Voraces (Spanish for "The Greedy Ones" — a thinly disguised Las Vegas). The sketch ends with the ultimate tourist attraction, the Hydrogen Bomb, which turns Los Voraces into a barren, vast wasteland. Network pressure forced Freberg to remove the reference to the hydrogen bomb and had the two cities being destroyed by an earthquake instead. The version of "Incident at Los Voraces," released later on Capitol Records, contains the original ending.

Freberg had poked fun at McCarthyism in passing in "Little Blue Riding Hood" with the line, "Only the color has been changed to prevent an investigation." Later he blatantly parodied Senator Joseph McCarthy with "Point of Order" (taken from his frequent objection), about which Capitol's legal department was very nervous. Freberg describes being called in for a chat about this and being asked whether he ever belonged to any "disloyal" group. "Well," he replied, "I have been for many years a card-carrying member of ..." — the executive went pale — "... the Mickey Mouse Fan Club." "Dammit, Freberg," the executive angrily retorted, "this isn't a game." A watered-down version of the parody was eventually aired, and Freberg never found himself "in front of a committee."

Controversy

On two occasions, Capitol refused to release Freberg's creations. "That's Right, Arthur" was a barbed parody of controversial 1950s radio/TV personality Arthur Godfrey, who expected his stable of performers — known as "little Godfreys" — to endlessly toady to him. The dialogue included Freberg's "Godfrey" monologue, punctuated by Daws Butler imitating Godfrey announcer Tony Marvin, repeatedly interjecting, "That's right, Arthur!" between Godfrey's comments. Capitol feared Godfrey might take legal action and sent a tape of the sketch to his legal department for permission, which was denied. Capitol also rejected the equally acerbic "Most of the Town", a spoof of Ed Sullivan, under the same circumstances. Both recordings eventually surfaced on a box-set Freberg retrospective issued by Rhino Records.

Freberg continued to skewer the advertising industry after the demise of his show, producing and recording "Green Chri$tma$" in 1958 (again with Butler), a scathing indictment of the over-commercialization of the holiday. Freberg, the son of a church minister and religious himself, made sure to soberly point out "whose birthday we're celebrating" on that record. Released originally on 45-rpm discs, the satire ended abruptly with a rendition of "Jingle Bells" punctuated by cash register sounds when reissued by Capitol on LP and CD. Freberg also revisited the "Dragnet" theme, with "Christmas Dragnet", in which the strait-laced detective convinces a character named "Grudge" that Santa Claus really exists. Daws Butler does several voices on that record.

Oregon! Oregon!

In 1958, the Oregon Centennial Commission, under the sponsorship of Blitz-Weinhard Brewing Company, hired Freberg to create a musical to celebrate Oregon's one-hundredth birthday. The result was ''Oregon! Oregon! A Centennial Fable in Three Acts.'' Recorded at Capitol in Hollywood, it was released during the Oregon Centennial in 1959 as a 12″ vinyl LP album. Side one featured two versions of an introduction by Freberg (billed as "Stan Freberg, Matinee Idol"), with the second version including a few words from the president of Blitz-Weinhard Co. This was followed by the show itself, which runs for 21 minutes. Side two includes separate individual versions of each of the featured songs, including several variations on the title piece, ''Oregon! Oregon!''

Fifty years later, as Oregon approaches its Sesquicentennial, an updated version is being prepared by Freberg and the Portland band Pink Martini as part of a signature series of performances throughout the state. Pink Martini will tour the state and perform four regional performances in the northern, southern, and central areas of Oregon in August and September 2009. This is being made possible by a grant from the Kinsman Foundation for a $40,000 launch of Pink Martini's ''Oregon! Oregon! 2009'' with Stan Freberg.

1960s and since

In 1960, in light of the payola scandal, Freberg made a two-sided single entitled "Old Payola Roll Blues", which had a recording studio promoter, who gets a teenager who cannot sing to record a song called "High School OO OO", as well as the flip side, "I Was on My Way to High School". The promoter then tries to bribe a disc jockey at a jazz station to play the song on the air, which he flatly refuses, suspecting that the promoter was never in the music business in the first place. Afterward, a song in the big band style heralds the end of rock and roll and a resurgence of swing and jazz. Alan Freed, whose career fell prey to charges of payola, was reported to have laughed at Freberg's interpretation of the scandal.

''Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America, Volume One: The Early Years'' (1961) combined dialogue and song in a musical theater format. The original album musical, released on Capitol, parodies the history of the United States from 1492 until the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783. In it, Freberg parodied both large and small aspects of history. For instance, in the Colonial era, it was common to use the long s, which resembles a lowercase f, in the middle of words; thus, as Ben Franklin is reading the Declaration of Independence, he questions the passage, "Life, liberty, and the ''purfuit of happineff?!?''" Most of that particular sketch is a satire of McCarthyism. For example, Franklin remarks, "You...sign a harmless petition, and forget all about it. Ten years later, you get hauled up before a committee."

The album also featured the following exchange, where Freberg's Christopher Columbus is "discovered on beach here" by a Native American played by Marvin Miller. Skeptical of the Natives' diet of corn and "other organically grown vegetables," Columbus wants to open "America's first Italian restaurant" and needs to cash a check to get started:

''Stan Freberg Presents The United States of America, Volume Two'' was planned for release during America's Bicentennial in 1976, but did not emerge until 1996.

Freberg's early parodies revealed his obvious love of jazz. His portrayals of jazz musicians were usually stereotypical "beatnik" types, but jazz was always portrayed as preferable to pop, calypso, and particularly the then-new form of music, rock and roll. He whopped doo-wop in his version of "Sh-Boom" and lampooned Elvis Presley with an echo/reverb rendition of "Heartbreak Hotel". ''The United States of America'' includes a sketch in which the musicians in the painting ''The Spirit of '76'', one terribly hip ("Bix", performed by Walter Tetley), the other impossibly square (Freberg) argue over how Yankee Doodle should be performed.

Radio

The popularity of Freberg's recordings landed him his own program, the situation comedy ''That's Rich''. Freberg portrayed bumbling but cynical Richard E. Wilk, a resident of Hope Springs, where he worked for B.B. Hackett's Consolidated Paper Products Company. Freberg suggested the addition of dream sequences, which made it possible for him to perform his more popular Capitol Records satires before a live studio audience. The CBS series aired from January 8 to September 23, 1954.

''The Stan Freberg Show'' was a 1957 replacement for Jack Benny on CBS radio. The satirical show, which featured elaborate production, included most of the team he used on his Capitol recordings, including June Foray, Peter Leeds, and Daws Butler. Billy May arranged and conducted the music. The Jud Conlon Singers, who had also appeared on Freberg recordings, were regulars, as was singer Peggy Taylor, who had participated in his "Wun'erful, Wun'erful!" record.

The show failed to attract a sponsor after Freberg decided he did not want to be associated with the tobacco companies that had sponsored Benny. In lieu of actual commercials, Freberg mocked advertising by touting such products as "Puffed Grass" ("It's good for Bossie, it's good for me and you!"), "Food" ("Put some food in your tummy-tum-tum!"), and himself ("Stan Freberg—the foaming comedian! Bobba-bobba-bom-bom-bom"), a parody of the well-known Ajax cleanser commercial.

The lack of sponsorship was not the only issue; Freberg frequently complained of radio network interference. Another sketch from the CBS show, "Elderly Man River," anticipated the political correctness movement by decades. Daws Butler plays "Mr. Tweedly," a representative of a fictional citizens' radio review board, who constantly interrupts Freberg with a loud buzzer as Freberg attempts to sing "Old Man River." Tweedly objects first to the word "old," "which some of our more ''elderly'' citizens find distasteful." As a result, the song's lyrics are progressively and painfully distorted as Freberg struggles to turn the classic song into a form that Tweedly will find acceptable "to the tiny tots" listening at home: "He don't, er, ''doesn't'' plant 'taters, er, ''potatoes''… he doesn't plant cotton, er, ''cotting''… and them-these-those that plants them are soon ''forgotting''," a lyric of which Freberg is particularly proud. Even when the censor finds Freberg's machinations acceptable, the constant interruption ultimately brings the song to a grinding halt (just before Freberg would have had to edit the line "You gets a little drunk and you lands in jail"), saying, "Take your finger off the button, Mr. Tweedly—we know when we're licked," furnishing the moral and the punch line of the sketch at once. But all of these factors forced the cancellation of the show after a run of only 15 episodes.

In 1966, he recorded an album, ''Freberg Underground'', in a format similar to his radio show, using the same cast and orchestra. He called it "pay radio," in a parallel to the phrase pay TV (the nickname at the time for subscription-based cable and broadcast television) "…because you have to go into the record store and buy it." This album is notable for giving Dr. Edward Teller the ''Father of the Year'' award for being "father of the hydrogen bomb" ("Use it in good health!"); for a combined satire of the ''Batman'' television series and the 1966 California Governor's race between Edmund G. "Pat" Brown and Ronald Reagan; and probably most famous for a bit in which, through the magic of sound effects, Freberg drained Lake Michigan and refilled it with hot chocolate and a mountain of whipped cream while a giant maraschino cherry was dropped like a bomb by the Royal Canadian Air Force to the cheers of 25,000 extras viewing from the shoreline. Freberg concluded with, "Let's see them do that on television!" That bit became a commercial for advertising on radio.

Television

From 1949 to 1954, he and frequent collaborator Daws Butler provided voices and were the puppeteers for Bob Clampett's puppet series, ''Time for Beany'', a triple Emmy Award winner (1950, 1951, 1953).

Freberg made television guest appearances on ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' and other TV variety shows, usually with Orville the Moon Man, his puppet from outer space. He reached through the bottom of Orville's flying saucer to control the puppet's movements and turned away from the camera when he delivered Orville's lines. Freberg generated much laughter when he made occasional talk show appearances, but his biggest splash on television was his own ABC special: ''Stan Freberg Presents the Chun King Chow Mein Hour: Salute to the Chinese New Year'' (February 4, 1962).

A piece from Stan's show was used frequently on Offshore Radio in the UK in the 60's: "You may not find us on your TV". Other on-screen television roles included ''The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.'' (1967) and ''The Monkees'' (1966). In 1996, he portrayed the continuing character of Mr. Parkin on ''Roseanne'', and both Freberg and his son had roles in the short-lived ''Weird Al Show'' in 1997.

Advertising

When Freberg introduced satire to the field of advertising, he revolutionized the industry, influencing staid ad agencies to imitate Freberg by injecting humor into their previously dead-serious commercials. Freberg's long list of successful ad campaigns includes: Butternut coffee: A six-minute musical, "Omaha!", which actually found success outside advertising as a musical production in the city of Omaha.

Contadina tomato paste: "Who put eight great tomatoes in that little bitty can?"

Jeno's pizza rolls: A parody of the Lark cigarettes commercial that used the William Tell Overture and a pick-up truck with a sign in the bed saying "Show us your Lark pack", here ending with a confrontation between a cigarette smoker, portrayed by Barney Phillips (supposedly representing the Lark commercial's announcer) and Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger over the use of the music. Jay Silverheels also appears as Tonto, filling his possibles bag with pizza rolls, after asking "Have a Pizza Roll, kemo sabe?". It was regarded as one of the most brilliantly conceived and executed TV ads of the period; after one showing on ''The Tonight Show'', Johnny Carson remarked that it was the first commercial he had ever seen to receive spontaneous applause from the studio audience.

Jeno's pizza, in a parody of Scope mouthwash commercials. "You know why nobody likes your parties, Mary? You have bad pizza -- ''bad pizza''!"

Sunsweet pitted prunes: Depicted as the "food of the future" in a futuristic setting, until science fiction icon Ray Bradbury, a friend of Freberg's (shown on a wall-to-wall television screen reminiscent of Fahrenheit 451) butts in: "I never mentioned prunes in any of my stories." "You didn't?" "No, never. I'm sorry to be so candid." "No, they're not candied," (rim shot). Bradbury reportedly refused to consider doing a commercial until Freberg told him, "I'm calling it ''Brave New Prune''," prompting Bradbury to ask, "When do we start?"

Another Sunsweet commercial features Ronald Long as a picky eater: "They're still rather badly wrinkled, you know," and ends with the famous line, "Today, the pits; tomorrow, the wrinkles. Sunsweet marches on!"

Heinz Great American soups: Ann Miller is a housewife who turns her kitchen into a gigantic production number, singing such lyrics as "Let's face the chicken gumbo and dance!" After watching his wife's flashy tap dancing, her husband, played by veteran character actor Dave Willock, asks, "Why do you always have to make such a big production out of everything?" At the time (1970), this was the most expensive commercial ever made—so expensive, in fact, that there was little money left over to buy air time for it.

Jacobsen Mowers: Sheep slowly munch on a front lawn. On camera reporter/announcer (voice of William Woodson): "Jacobsen mowers. Faster... than sheep!"

''Encyclopædia Britannica'': The boy in these commercials is Freberg's son Donavan. Freberg talks to him from off screen.

''Chun King Chinese Food'': Magazine ad, featuring a lineup of nine smiling Chinese men and one frowning Caucasian man, all dressed in scrub suits and white lab coats, with the caption, "Nine out of ten doctors recommend Chun King Chow Mein!" The frowning Caucasian doctor is Freberg.

Today, these advertisements are considered classics by many critics. Though Bob & Ray had pioneered intentionally comic advertisements (stemming from a hugely successful campaign for Piels beer), Stan Freberg is usually credited as being the first person to introduce humor into television advertising with memorable campaigns. Freberg felt a truly funny commercial would cause consumers to request a product, as was the case with his elaborate ad campaign that prompted stores to stock Salada tea. The owner of Jeno's Pizza Rolls had to pay off a bet over the success of a Freberg ad campaign by pulling Freberg in a rickshaw on Hollywood's La Cienega Boulevard. Freberg won 21 Clio awards for his commercials. Many of those spots were included in the Freberg four-CD box set ''Tip of the Freberg''.

Later work

Following his success in comedy records and television, Freberg was often invited to appear as a featured guest at various events. Each time has been memorable, such as his skit at the 1979 Science Fiction Awards, again playing straight man to Orville in his UFO. He innocently asks why there is a hole in the end of the spacecraft, only to be told, "That's where the swamp gas comes out."

Freberg was the narrator for ''The Wuzzles'', a Disney cartoon series that aired on CBS's Saturday morning schedule during the 1985-1986 season.

In his autobiography, ''It Only Hurts When I Laugh'', Freberg recounts much of his life and early career, including his encounters with such show business legends as Milton Berle, Frank Sinatra and Ed Sullivan, and the struggles he endured to get his material on the air.

Freberg had brief sketches on KNX (AM) radio in the early 1990s, beginning each with "Freberg here!" In one sketch Freberg mentioned that the band played "Inhale to the Chief" at Bill Clinton's inauguration.

Freberg was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1995. From 1995 until October 6, 2006, Freberg hosted ''When Radio Was'', a syndicated anthology of vintage radio shows. The release of the 1996 Rhino CD ''The United States of America Volume 1 (the Early Years)'' and ''Volume 2 (the Middle Years)'' suggests a possible third volume. This set includes some parts written but cut because they would not fit on a record album.

Freberg appeared on "Weird Al" Yankovic's ''The Weird Al Show'', playing both the J.B. Toppersmith character and the voice of the puppet Papa Boolie. Yankovic has many times acknowledged Freberg as his greatest influence. Freberg is among the commentators in the special features on the multiple-volume DVD sets of the ''Looney Tunes Golden Collection'' and narrates the documentary "Irreverent Imagination" on Volume 1.

Freberg was the announcer for the boat race in the movie version of ''Stuart Little'', and in 2008 he guest starred as Sherlock Holmes in two episodes of ''The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd''.

Legacy in popular culture

In 1961's ''The Parent Trap,'' the characters during the animated opening title sequence refer to each other as "John" and "Marsha".

In 2007, comedian the great Luke Ski recorded a ten-minute homage called ''MC Freberg'', a parody illustrating what a Freberg-type satire of rap music would have sounded like. Originally recorded for ''The FuMP'', the track also appears on Ski's album ''BACONspiracy''.

On the fourth season premiere of the TV series ''Mad Men'', Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) and Joey Baird (Matt Long) repeatedly call each other "John" and "Marsha".

Freberg's Dragnet parodies are generally credited with the popularizing the catch phrase "Just the facts, ma'am", which Webb's character never actually said on the show.

Warner Brothers cartoons (in which Freberg appeared, uncredited, as a voice artist) often had cameo appearances by couples named "John" and "Marsha". In one case, the woman was an alien, making the couple "John" and "Martian".

Discography

Stan Freberg Discography

References

Listen to

OTR Network Library: ''The Stan Freberg Show'' (15 episodes)

Bob Claster's 1989 interview with Stan Freberg pt.1 pt.2 pt.3 pt.4 pt.5

August 31, 1956 episode of CBS Radio Workshop ''Colloquy #3: An Analysis of Satire'' featuring Stan Freberg

''Oregon! Oregon!'' Intro Overture Act I Interlude Act II Act III

External links

''Mark Thomas Presents: Stan Freberg'' (BBC Radio 4, 2005)

''Time'': "Stan the Man" (July 29, 1957)

Cosmik

''Oregon! Oregon!'' (1959)

Little Go Beep

Category:American comedy musicians Category:American humorists Category:American novelty song performers Category:American radio actors Category:American radio personalities Category:American satirists Category:American voice actors Category:American comedians Category:Copywriters Category:Grammy Award winners Category:National Radio Hall of Fame inductees Category:Parodists Category:1926 births Category:Living people Category:Capitol Records artists Category:Comedy rock

fr:Stan Freberg pt:Stan Freberg fi:Stan Freberg

name	George Church
birth date	August 28, 1954
birth place	MacDill Air Force Base, Florida
residence	Boston, Massachusetts
citizenship	U.S.
nationality	U.S.
field	Genetics
work institution	Harvard, MIT
alma mater	Duke, Harvard
footnotes	}}

George Church (August 28, 1954- ) is an American molecular geneticist. He is currently Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and MIT, and a core faculty member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.

With Walter Gilbert he developed the first direct genomic sequencing method in 1984 and helped initiate the Human Genome Project in 1984 while he was a Research Scientist at newly-formed Biogen Inc. He invented the broadly-applied concepts of molecular multiplexing and tags, homologous recombination methods, and DNA array synthesizers. Technology transfer of automated sequencing & software to Genome Therapeutics Corp. resulted in the first commercial genome sequence, (the human pathogen, ''Helicobacter pylori'') in 1994.

He initiated the Personal Genome Project (PGP) in 2005, and, in 2007, he founded the U.S. personal genomics company Knome (with Jorge Conde and Sundar Subramaniam). He does research on synthetic biology and is director of the U.S. Department of Energy Center on Bioenergy at Harvard & MIT and director of the National Institutes of Health (NHGRI) Center of Excellence in Genomic Science at Harvard.

He has been advisor to 22 companies, co-founding (with Joseph Jacobson, Jay Keasling, and Drew Endy) Codon Devices, a biotech startup dedicated to synthetic biology, which produces DNA sequences to order. With Chris Somerville, Jay Keasling, Noubar Afeyan, and David Berry he founded LS9, which is focused on biofuels or renewable petroleum technologies. He is a senior editor for ''Molecular Systems Biology''.

In September 2010, Dr. Church was honored for his work in Genetics with the Mass High Tech All-Star Award.

According to Forbes, Church suffers from narcolepsy.

References

External links

New Polony DNA Sequencing Methods

Biosketch on Edge.org

Knome homepage

LS9 Inc. homepage

How the Personal Genome Project Could Unlock the Mysteries of Life

Category:1954 births Category:Living people Category:American biochemists Category:American geneticists Category:Duke University alumni Category:Harvard Medical School alumni Category:Harvard Medical School faculty Category:People from Boston, Massachusetts Category:People from Tampa, Florida Category:Phillips Academy alumni Category:Systems biologists Category:American vegans

ko:조지 처치

}} Edward Gal (born March 4, 1970 in Rheden) is a Dutch dressage rider. He and his most recent mount, the stallion Moorlands Totilas (nicknamed "Toto"), were triple gold medalists at the 2010 FEI World Equestrian Games, becoming the first horse-rider partnership ever to sweep the three available dressage gold medals at a single FEI World Games. Going into the 2010 Games, they had amassed multiple world-record scores in international competition, leading one American journalist to call them "rock stars in the horse world".

Career

Gal began his equestrian career as a jumper at age 14, beginning with ponies and graduating to larger horses at age 20. However, when he discovered his horse did not like jumping, he switched to dressage. While enjoying solid success in national and international competition, he did not become a truly dominant rider until he began competing with Totilas in 2008. Gal would later say that he and his team understood that Toto was a special horse after their first Grand Prix competition.

Since then, Gal has replaced his countrywoman Anky van Grunsven as the dominant rider on the world dressage circuit. In July 2009, he and Toto broke van Grunsven's world record score in Grand Prix Freestyle with an 89.50% mark at Hickstead, England, and shortly thereafter followed it up with another record score of 90.75% in the same discipline at that year's European Championships. In December 2009, at the fourth leg of the 2009–10 FEI World Cup Dressage series at Olympia in London, they extended their record in GP Freestyle to 92.30%, more than 10 points above the second-place finisher. While not setting a world record, they easily won that season's FEI World Cup final in GP Freestyle at home in the Netherlands, winning by more than 7 points with a score better than their first world record. The pair also have a world-record score in the Grand Prix Special discipline to their credit, having recorded 86.460% at Aachen in July 2010.

Gal and Totilas were installed as the overwhelming favorites in the 2010 FEI World Games in Lexington, Kentucky, USA, their first competition outside Europe. Klaus Röser, head of the German dressage team that has long dominated the discipline, said about Gal, "That we can beat Edward; I don't think so, I don't believe so. We have to be realistic." Röser's assessment proved correct, with Gal and Toto first leading the Dutch team to gold in the team competition, and then easily winning gold in Grand Prix Special and Grand Prix Freestyle.

In a piece in ''The Courier-Journal'' of Louisville, Kentucky that ran before the 2010 Games, dressage trainer Susan Posner pointed out that Toto was only in his second year in dressage despite being 10 years old, and said that his success illustrated how capable Gal was as a rider.

Personal Life

In his personal life, Gal is in a long-term relationship with teammate Hans Peter Minderhoud. Gal has been interviewed in several Dutch media outlets about his homosexuality and his relationship with Minderhoud.

References

Category:1970 births Category:Living people Category:Dutch equestrians Category:Dressage riders Category:People from Rheden Category:Gay sportspeople

de:Edward Gal nl:Edward Gal