Coordinates	°′″N°′″N
Name	Walter Kirn
Birth date	1962
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	United States
Alma mater	Princeton University, Oxford University
Education	English Literature
class	"infobox"
Website	}}

Walter Kirn (born 1962) is an American novelist, literary critic, and essayist. His latest book is the 2009 memoir ''Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever''.

Overview

A 1983 graduate of Princeton University, he has published a collection of short stories and several novels, including ''Thumbsucker'', which was made into a 2005 film featuring Keanu Reeves and Vince Vaughn; ''Up in the Air'', a feature film directed by Jason Reitman; and ''Mission to America''. In 2005, he took over pioneer blogger Andrew Sullivan's shoes for a few weeks while Sullivan was on vacation. He has also written ''The Unbinding'', an Internet-only novel that was published in Slate magazine.

He has also reviewed books for ''New York Magazine'' and has written for ''The New York Times Book Review'' and ''New York Times Sunday Magazine'', and is a contributing editor of ''Time'', where he has received popularity for his entertaining and sometimes humorous first-person essays among other articles of interest. He also served as an American cultural correspondent for the BBC.

In addition to teaching nonfiction writing at the University of Montana, Kirn was the 2008-09 Vare Nonfiction Writer in Residence at the University of Chicago. He received his A.B. in English at Princeton University in 1983, and obtained a second undergraduate degree in English Literature at Oxford University.

Personal life

Kirn's family joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when he was twelve, but Kirn is no longer affiliated with the church. Kirn received the 2009 William Law X-Mormon of the Year award. Kirn married Maggie McGuane, a model and journalist and the daughter of actress Margot Kidder and novelist Thomas McGuane, in 1995. Kirn was 32 at the time; McGuane was 19. The couple had two children, Masie and Charlie, and are now divorced.

Bibliography

''My Hard Bargain: Stories'' (1990)

''She Needed Me'' (1992)

''Thumbsucker'' (1999)

''Up in the Air'' (2001)

''Mission to America'' (2005)

''The Unbinding'' (2006)

''Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever'' (2009)

Filmography

''Thumbsucker'' (2005)

''Up in the Air'' (2009)

References

External links

Larry Weissman, Interview with Walter Kirn, Random House.

Terry Gross, ''Writer Walter Kirn, on a 'Mission to America''', ''Fresh Air'', NPR.

Essay: ''The Autumn of the Multi-Taskers'', ''The Atlantic Monthly'', November 2007.

Article: ''More Than a Numbers Game'', ''The New York Times Magazine'', May 2009.

Essay: ''Lost in the Meritocracy'', ''The Atlantic'', January 2005.

Profile: ''Poison Ivy''''Time Out New York'', May 14-20, 2009.

Q&A; with Walter Kirn, C-SPAN

Walter Kirn on Twitter

Category:1962 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century novelists Category:21st-century novelists Category:Alumni of the University of Oxford Category:American novelists Category:Former Latter Day Saints Category:Latter Day Saint writers Category:Princeton University alumni Category:Time (magazine) people Category:University of Montana faculty Category:Place of birth missing (living people)

Coordinates	°′″N°′″N
name	Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter
image alt	Gerhartsreiter in court on June 3, 2009.
nationality	German
birth name	Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter
birth date	February 21, 1961
birth place	Siegsdorf, Bavaria, West Germany
alias	Clark RockefellerChris C. CroweChris ChichesterCharles SmithChip SmithChristopher Chichester
conviction	Parental kidnapping (March 12, 2009)Assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (March 12, 2009)
conviction penalty	Four to five years in prison for kidnapping and two to three years for assault and battery with dangerous weapon concurrently
spouse	Amy Jersild Duhnke (1981-1992) (divorced)Sandra Boss (1995-2007) (divorced)
parents	Simon and Irmgard Gerhartsreiter
children	Reigh Boss }}

Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter (born February 21, 1961) is a German man who moved to the United States as a teenager to study, and thereafter assumed many aliases. Using the false name Clark Rockefeller, he married a Harvard Business School graduate student named Sandra Boss. The couple had homes in Boston and New Hampshire, and lived a prosperous lifestyle solely on Boss's high income as a business consultant. Boss eventually determined her husband had lied to her extensively, and sought a divorce. After their estrangement, Gerhartsreiter kidnapped their daughter, Reigh Storrow Mills Boss, in July 2008 and was arrested six days later. Investigations determined that Gerhartsreiter had wildly embellished his background to give the impression that he was born into great wealth, as a member of the Rockefeller family. He was later convicted and imprisoned on the kidnapping charge, which is presently under appeal. In 2011, a book about Gerhartsreiter, written by Mark Seal, "The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: the astonishing rise and spectacular fall of a serial imposter" was published.

In March 2011, he was charged with a 1985 murder in Los Angeles County, California, where he had lived at that time.

Early life

Gerhartsreiter reportedly came to the United States as a West German foreign exchange student in 1979. Although his family stated that Christian Gerhartsreiter was born on February 21, 1961, he maintains that he was born on February 29, 1960. Gerhartsreiter also told Boston police that his mother is Ann Carter, an American child actress of the 1940s, which Carter has denied.

Travel to the USA and marriages

Gerhartsreiter first married Amy Jersild Duhnke in 1981 in Madison, Wisconsin, allegedly so he could obtain his green card. Duhnke filed for divorce in 1992 and, according to the divorce papers, claimed that Gerhartsreiter left her the day after the wedding. In 2007, Gerhartsreiter lost custody of his daughter, Reigh, by Sandra Boss, whom he had married in a Quaker ceremony that had no legal status. The child was born as Reigh Storrow Mills Rockefeller, and was nicknamed 'Snooks', but her mother had the child's surname changed after her reported divorce from Gerhartsreiter, in part because he refused to provide proof of his identity. During the case, Boss, a high-earning McKinsey senior executive who had graduated from Stanford University and Harvard Business School, accused him of lying about being a member of the Rockefeller family. Members of the Rockefeller family have also denied any relation to the man. Boss later testified in June 2009 at his trial that Gerhartsreiter agreed to give her custody of their daughter Reigh following the divorce. She testified that he also agreed to supervised visits three times a year with Reigh in return for an $800,000 settlement, two cars, her engagement ring, and a dress that he had given her. Boss moved with Reigh to London following the divorce.

Boss testified that Gerhartsreiter was charming and that she believed the stories he told her at the beginning of their relationship. Later, however, he became emotionally abusive and there was a "lot of anger and yelling" in their household. Although Boss earned all of the family income, she testified that Gerhartsreiter had complete control of the family's finances and other aspects of her day-to-day life.

She hired a private investigator to investigate him in 2006 and discovered that he was not who he claimed to be, though she did not learn his real name at that time. She said he was unpleasant to live with, but did not think he was delusional. Prior to the divorce, Gerhartsreiter had lived in Cornish, New Hampshire with Boss and their child, where he used his supposed family ties to bolster his reputation, telling friends and neighbors that he was a wealthy Yale graduate who owned a business in Canada. Gerhartsreiter, under the name Clark Rockefeller, was also a member of Boston's ultra-exclusive Algonquin Club, where he spent much of his time making additional connections and infiltrating high society. He resigned as one of the Club's Directors in April 2008.

Alleged abduction and apprehension

Authorities allege that on July 27, 2008, Gerhartsreiter abducted his daughter at about 12:45 p.m. in a black sport utility vehicle. Boston police searched the area of the incident without success, and Massachusetts State Police issued an Amber Alert just before 5 p.m. Later that night police issued a warrant for Gerhartsreiter's arrest. He was charged with custodial kidnapping, assault and battery, and assault with a deadly weapon — the sport utility vehicle.

Boston police said the father, daughter, and a social worker were in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood at the intersection of Marlborough and Arlington streets, traveling on foot from the Four Seasons Hotel Boston to the Boston Common when the sport utility vehicle drove up. Gerhartsreiter allegedly grabbed Reigh, pushed the social worker aside, and jumped into the vehicle, which then sped off. The social worker, who police said works for an independent agency, grabbed onto the vehicle and was dragged a short distance before letting go. He was treated for minor injuries at Massachusetts General Hospital and released.

Police searched the immediate area and Logan International Airport that day. The same day police received calls reporting sightings of Reigh in Dedham, Hyde Park, and even New York's Grand Central Station. Police reported they followed up on all leads, but had nothing solid by the end of the day.

Apprehension

On August 3, 2008, Gerhartsreiter was arrested in Baltimore, Maryland on charges of kidnapping and assault and battery after a week-long search. He had recently purchased an apartment there for about $450,000 under the name Charles "Chip" Smith. With the help of the owner of a local marina where Gerhartsreiter had apparently kept a catamaran for the past nine years, FBI agents were able to lure him out of the apartment with a telephone call telling him the boat was taking on water. He was arrested as he left the apartment briefly before Reigh was safely recovered by authorities from inside.

Alexander Gerhartsreiter, who lives in Bergen, identified Rockefeller as his brother, stating that they are the sons of Simon and Irmgard Gerhartsreiter, a painter and homemaker. On August 15, 2008, the FBI, the Massachusetts State Police, the Boston Police Department, and the Suffolk County District Attorney announced confirmation of the true identity of the individual who has used the aliases Clark Rockefeller, Chris C. Crowe, Chris Chichester, Charles Smith, and Chip Smith, among others. According to their report, the individual's true name is Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter. Gerhartsreiter was conclusively identified by means of forensic examinations conducted by the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia. When Gerhartsreiter, using the name Clark Rockefeller, was arrested, his fingerprint impressions were taken by FBI agents in Baltimore and by Boston Police when he was returned to Massachusetts. Those fingerprints were compared to latent fingerprints lifted from a variety of sources. They match a latent print lifted from a wine glass in Boston collected at the time of the search for "Rockefeller" and his daughter earlier in the month. Those fingerprints also match a latent print developed from a document in Gerhartsreiter's immigration file from the early 1980s. Although there were no fingerprint cards or inked impressions in the immigration file, an FBI laboratory was able to develop latent print impressions from a document in that file, which had been provided by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Through fingerprint analysis, the FBI has confirmed his identity. Gerhartsreiter went to great lengths to conceal his true identity from his wife, Sandra Boss. He repeatedly told her she should file her tax return as a single person, and later in their marriage, when his wife's firm required that a certified public accountant do her taxes, he found an accountant for her. After their divorce, Boss learned that he had told their accountant he was her brother so that the accountant would continue filing single tax returns for her.

Prosecution

On October 2, 2008, at a hearing requested by defense attorney Stephen Hrones, bail was revoked. Hrones had requested the hearing in order to seek a reduction from the $50 million cash bail under which the defendant had previously been held. Instead, the judge ordered the defendant to be held without bail.

On September 3, 2008, Gerhartsreiter was charged with furnishing a false name to a law enforcement officer following an arrest. His lawyers later argued that he did not do this for dishonest purposes.

On February 13, 2009, Gerhartsreiter's attorneys filed notice that they intended to use an insanity defense for him.

During the trial, conducted in Boston in May and June 2009, Gerhartsreiter's defense team told jurors that Gerhartsreiter believed his daughter had communicated with him telepathically from London, begging him to rescue her. Two defense experts testified that they have diagnosed Gerhartsreiter with delusional disorder, grandiose type, and narcissistic personality disorder. One of the defense experts, Dr. Keith Ablow, testified that Gerhartsreiter told him that his father had been emotionally abusive during his childhood. Dr. James Chu, a psychiatrist for the prosecution, testified that he had diagnosed Gerhartsreiter with a "'mixed personality disorder', with narcissistic and anti-social traits" but felt that Gerhartsreiter had exaggerated his symptoms of mental illness and was capable of knowing right from wrong, particularly since he allegedly meticulously planned the details of the abduction well in advance. Gerhartsreiter did not take the witness stand. Closing arguments concluded on June 8, 2009, and on June 12, 2009, the jury found Gerhartsreiter guilty of the charges of parental kidnapping and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. He was found not guilty of the charge of assault and battery and of using a false name.

The judge sentenced him to four to five years in state prison on the kidnapping count and a concurrent two to three years on the assault charge.

Charged with murder

Gerhartsreiter was initially identified as a "person of interest" by police in the 1985 disappearance and possible murder of Jonathan Sohus, a California man whose guesthouse he lived in as a tenant in the upscale community of San Marino, California, during the mid-1980s. Bones believed to belong to Sohus were found in 1994 buried in the backyard of the home he had lived in with his wife, Linda, who is also missing. Sohus's family members said the bones match Jonathan Sohus's general description but, since he was adopted, there was no way to compare his DNA against that of biological family members and arrive at a conclusive identity.

Gerhartsreiter, who was then using the alias Christopher Chichester, reportedly told people that Jonathan and Linda Sohus had traveled to Europe. Their family reportedly received a postcard from the couple sent from France after Jonathan and Linda Sohus had disappeared, though its authenticity has been questioned. "Chichester" was pulled over by police in Greenwich, Connecticut, in the late 1980s driving a pickup truck that had belonged to Jonathan Sohus, but he left the area before police could interview him. Police had no proof that Jonathan and Linda Sohus were dead or had not left voluntarily.

News reports indicated that a grand jury was to be convened in the spring of 2009 to examine the evidence in the Sohus case. The Hon. Frank Gaziano, judge in Gerhartsreiter's May/June 2009 parental kidnapping trial in Boston, barred prosecutors from presenting evidence about the Sohus case to avoid prejudicing jurors against Gerhartsreiter.

On March 15, 2011, Los Angeles County prosecutors charged Gerhartsreiter with the murder of Jonathan Sohus.

"Clark Rockefeller" in popular culture

Lifetime premiered the movie, ''Who Is Clark Rockefeller?'' on March 13, 2010 at 9pm EST with Eric McCormack in the title role and Sherry Stringfield as Sandra Boss. The DVD was released on September 14, 2010.

References

External links

Clark Rockefeller Case File at America's Most Wanted

San Marino Mystery at Pasadena Star-News

Review of "Who is Clark Rockefeller?" The New York Times

Category:1961 births Category:Living people Category:People from the District of Traunstein Category:Child abduction in the United States Category:Crime in Massachusetts Category:Impostors Category:German expatriates in the United States Category:German criminals

de:Christian Gerhartsreiter

Coordinates	°′″N°′″N
name	Rich Hall
birth name	Richard Hall
birth date	June 10, 1954
birth place	Alexandria, Virginia, United States
medium	Stand-up, Television
nationality	American
active	1979—present
genre	Observational comedy, Deadpan, Political satire
subject	American culture, British culture, United States politics, British politics
spouse	Karen Hall
notable work	''QI'', ''Saturday Night Live'', ''Fridays'', ''Late Show with David Letterman''
website	}}

Richard "Rich" Hall (born 10 June 1954) is an American stand-up comedian, writer, playwright and occasional musician, notably known as a regular guest on British panel shows. He currently lives in London with his wife Karen and their daughter, Dixie Rae.

Early life and career

Hall was born in Alexandria, Virginia and grew up in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He is part Cherokee Indian. Early in his career, he performed as a street comedian with a suitcase and stand, traveling the college circuit, and performing impromptu skits for gathering crowds.

Hall's first professional work was as a writer and performer on the American sketch comedy TV series ''Fridays'' from 1980 until 1982. After the end of ''Fridays'', Hall co-wrote and starred in the satirical comedy series ''Not Necessarily the News'' from 1983 until 1990 where he coined the term "sniglet" and collected and published several volumes of books of them. Matt Groening has described him as the inspiration for Moe Szyslak from ''The Simpsons''. He was also a regular on ''Saturday Night Live''. In 1986, he had his own Showtime channel special, ''Vanishing America'', which was turned into a book with the same title. He hosted a talk show during The Comedy Channel's 1990—1991 season, titled ''Rich Hall's Onion World''.

In the United States, he has appeared several times on American talk shows such as ''Late Show with David Letterman'' and ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien''

Appearances and work in the United Kingdom

Outside his homeland, Hall has also achieved popularity in the United Kingdom, where he has lived on-and-off for twenty-three years. He spends part of his time during the off-seasons writing plays in the United States where he has a small ranch just outside Livingston, Montana. The rest of the time is spent in London, where he owns a flat. Hall is a guest on popular BBC panel quiz shows, most notably as a regular guest on ''QI'', for which he has received much critical acclaim and is known as the game's most frequently victorious guest panellist with seven victories (only permanent panellist Alan Davies has won more shows), and also with appearances in ''8 Out of 10 Cats'', ''Have I Got News for You'' and ''Never Mind the Buzzcocks''. He has also appeared on the British stand-up comedy series Jack Dee's ''Live at the Apollo''. His appearances achieved some cult status due to his line of jokes on ''Live at the Apollo'' about Tom Cruise, and the perceivable similarities between many of his roles. In 2000, he won the Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe, in the guise of his own grizzled uncle, Otis Lee Crenshaw, the much-convicted country music singer. He has released several albums and a concert movie as this character. In 2004, he published a book of the man's memoirs, entitled ''Otis Lee Crenshaw: I Blame Society'', and in 2007 he finished a screenplay for a film based on the book, written for the director Mel Smith. In 2006, Hall also wrote and acted in the play ''Levelland'' at the Edinburgh Festival.

Hall has had four BBC TV series of his own: ''Rich Hall's Badly Funded Think Tank'', ''Rich Hall's Fishing Show'' in 2003, ''Rich Hall's Cattle Drive'' in 2006, ''Rich Hall's Dirty South'' in 2010, as well as a one off programme about the 2004 American Presidential Elections, ''Rich Hall's Election Special''. He also appeared on the famous BBC Two programme ''Top Gear'', where he successfully managed to make a song about a Rover 25 car, much to the enjoyment of the audience and the host, Jeremy Clarkson. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Hall was entrusted with the task of responding to the tragedy on the first subsequent edition of ''Have I Got News for You''.

In 2007, he returned to the Fringe with his second play, ''Best Western'', which he wrote and directed. In 2008, he returned to television with a 90-minute documentary about Westerns, ''Rich Hall's How the West Was Lost'', broadcast on BBC Four.

In 2008, Hall toured two stand-up shows around the United Kingdom: ''Rich Hall Autumn Tour 2008'' played around 45 dates and he also went on the road as his alter-ego in a show entitled ''Otis Lee Crenshaw and Band'' that listed Rich Hall as a "special guest." He subsequently toured a version of this show throughout the UK and Ireland in 2009, with long time sidekick Myron T Buttram (guitarist and pedal steel player, Rob Childs) and Lonesome Dave (banjoist and guitarist, David Lindsay) appearing at the 2009 Adelaide Fringe festival, the Sydney Opera House, and the 2009 Melbourne Comedy festival. With the band renamed as "The Honky Tonk A**holes" and joined by Horst Furst II (bassist, Nigel Portman Smith) and drummer Mark Hewitt, his autumn 2009 tour included a performance at London's Hammersmith Apollo, which was recorded and released in November 2009 as a live DVD.

In 2009, he performed at the Edinburgh Festival in two shows, his solo stand up and also with long time collaborator Mike Wilmot and Montana-based actor Tim Williams in a new play entitled "Campfire Stories".

On April 5, 2010, Hall appeared as one of the stand up acts on ''Channel 4's Comedy Gala'', a benefit show organised by Channel 4 to raise money for Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital.

Hall is now a regular performer on Channel 4's ''Stand Up for the Week'', which began in June 2010.

Other appearances

Hall also made an Irish TV appearance as a guest on the fifth series of RTÉ's topical news comedy program, ''Don't Feed the Gondolas'', and has appeared at the Kilkenny Cat Laughs comedy festival on 15 occasions. He has also performed at the West Belfast Festival/Feile an Phobail, one of the largest community festivals in Ireland, to a sell-out audience where he received widespread critical acclaim.

He has also achieved some popularity in Australia, regularly appearing at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and the Adelaide Fringe Festival, and also on Australian comedy panel shows, such as ''The Glass House'' and ''Spicks and Specks''.

Rich Hall also made a guest appearance on Top Gear (British TV series) in 2003.

Hall has also appeared in France at the Altitude Comedy Festival 2008 in the ski resort of Meribel. He also appeared — albeit briefly — in the 2006 ''Cheap Seats'' (ESPNCL) episode titled "Steve Garvey Celebrity Skiing". He was also at the Garvey 1989 Celebrity Ski Classic.

List of celebrities impersonated on ''SNL''

Doug Henning

Doug Flutie

Bernhard Goetz

Caspar Weinberger

Paul Harvey

David Byrne

Mark Goodman

Vince McMahon

Musical and literary career

Discography

# ''London Not Tennessee'' (with The Black Liars) (2001) # ''How Do We Do It? Volume!'' (2003)

Bibliography

#1984: ''Sniglets (Snig'Lit: Any Word That Doesn't Appear in the Dictionary, but Should)'', ISBN 0-02-012530-5 #1985: ''More Sniglets: Any Word That Doesn't Appear in the Dictionary, but Should'' #1986: ''Unexplained Sniglets of the Universe'' #1986: ''Rich Hall's Vanishing America'', ISBN 0-02-547480-4 #1987: ''Angry Young Sniglets'' (1987) #1989: ''When Sniglets Ruled the Earth'' (1989) #1994: ''Self Help for the Bleak: Attaboy Therapy'', ISBN 0-8431-3669-3 #2002: ''Things Snowball'', ISBN 0-349-11576-1 #2003: ''Top Gear'', (2003) #2004: ''Otis Lee Crenshaw: I Blame Society'', ISBN 0-349-11818-3 #2009: ''Magnificent Bastards'', ISBN 0-349-11965-1

References

External links

Rich Hall reading from "Magnificent Bastards" at writLOUD, London

Category:1954 births Category:Living people Category:American comedians Category:American expatriates in the United Kingdom Category:American film actors Category:American stand-up comedians Category:American television actors Category:American television writers Category:American people of Cherokee descent Category:American people of Native American descent Category:People from Alexandria, Virginia Category:People from Montana Category:People from Union County, North Carolina Category:Western Carolina University alumni Category:People from London

fr:Rich Hall nl:Rich Hall pl:Rich Hall sv:Rich Hall

Coordinates	°′″N°′″N
birth name	Margaret Ruth Kidder
birth date	October 17, 1948
birth place	Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada
occupation	Actress
yearsactive	1968—Present
spouse	Thomas McGuane (1975–1976) (divorced), 1 childJohn Heard (1979) (divorced)Philippe de Broca (1983–1984) (divorced) }}

Margaret Ruth "Margot" Kidder (born October 17, 1948) is a Canadian actress. She is perhaps best known for playing Lois Lane in the four ''Superman'' movies opposite Christopher Reeve, a role that brought her great fame.

Early life

Kidder, one of five children, was born in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, the daughter of Jill (née Wilson), a history teacher, and Kendall Kidder, an explosives expert and mining engineer. She was born in Yellowknife because of her father's job, which required the family to live in remote locations. She has a sister, Annie, and three brothers, John, Michael and Peter. Kidder's niece, Janet Kidder, is also an actress.

Career

Early Roles

In the late 1960s, Kidder was based in Toronto. She appeared in a number of TV drama series for the CBC, including guest appearances on ''Wojeck'', ''Adventures in Rainbow Country'', and a semi-regular role as a young reporter on ''McQueen''. During the 1971-72 season, she co-starred as barmaid Ruth in ''Nichols'', a James Garner western, which aired 22 episodes on NBC. She appeared in "Such Dust As Dreams Are Made On", which was the first pilot for Harry O and aired in March, 1973. She was also a guest star in a 1972 episode of the George Peppard detective series ''Banacek''. She appeared in a number of low-budget Canadian movies in the late 1960s (''The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kaladar'' being her first feature), and the early 1970s.

The 1970's and ''The Superman film series''

In 1970, Kidder co-starred as Zazel Pierce opposite Gene Wilder in ''Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx''. The Brian DePalma cult classic ''Sisters'' (1973) gained notoriety for both director and leading lady Kidder, who portrayed conjoined twins. She starred in the classic horror film ''Black Christmas'' in 1974 and ''The Great Waldo Pepper'' opposite Robert Redford in 1975. She received positive reviews for ''92 in the Shade'' (1975) with Peter Fonda, famously marrying the films director Thomas McGuane.

A nude pictorial of Kidder, photographed by Douglas Kirkland, was published in the March 1975 issue of ''Playboy''. The accompanying article was written by her as a condition of appearing; she said, "I don't want someone writing, 'Margot Kidder has more curves than the Santa Monica Freeway' under my picture."

Kidder is perhaps best known for her role as Lois Lane in the 1978 film ''Superman: The Movie'' and its sequels. She won the Saturn Award for Best Actress for ''Superman: The Movie''. She publicly disagreed with the decision of producers Alexander Salkind and Ilya Salkind to replace Richard Donner as director of 1980's ''Superman II''. And it was reported that as a result, Kidder's role in 1983's ''Superman III'' consisted of less than five minutes of footage, though the producers have denied this in DVD commentaries. Her role in 1987's ''Superman IV: The Quest for Peace'' was more substantial.

In 2004, Kidder briefly returned to the Superman franchise in two episodes of the television program ''Smallville'', as Dr. Bridgette Crosby, an emissary of Dr. Swann (played by her ''Superman'' co-star, Christopher Reeve). (Many other actors from the Christopher Reeve Superman films have had small roles on ''Smallville''.)

Her turn as Kathy Lutz in the much-anticipated 1979 summer release of ''The Amityville Horror'' further cemented her status as one of Hollywood's leading ladies. In 1979, she hosted season 4, episode 15 of the American sketch comedy TV show ''Saturday Night Live''.

Other film and television roles

Other high profile parts included Paul Mazursky's ''Willie & Phil'', ''Some Kind of Hero'' with ''Superman III'' co-star Richard Pryor and ''The Reincarnation of Peter Proud''. Her performance in 1981's ''Heartaches'' generated critical acclaim and Oscar buzz. As court stenographer-cum-private eye Mickey Raymond, the PG rating that 1983's ''Trenchcoat'' received led Disney to launch Touchstone Pictures. She appeared opposite James Garner in controversial Hollywood crime drama ''The Glitter Dome'' (1984). In 1985, she toplined ''Little Treasure'' for Columbia Tri-Star with co-stars Ted Danson and Burt Lancaster, where she played a distraught stripper looking for her bank robber-father's buried fortune.

Additionally, she has made uncredited cameo appearances in ''Maverick'' (1994) and ''Delirious'' (1991).

In 1979, she hosted season 4, episode 15 of the American sketch comedy TV show ''Saturday Night Live''. A 1982 stage performance of Bus Stop starring Kidder as Cherie and Tim Matheson as Bo, was broadcast on HBO. In 1983, she produced and starred as Eliza Doolittle in a version of ''Pygmalion'' with Peter O'Toole for Showtime. She also produced and starred in the period miniseries ''Louisiana''. ''Body of Evidence'' (1988), a CBS Movie of the Week, cast Margot as nurse who is suspicious that her Medical Pathologist second- husband is a serial killer.

In 2000, Kidder played Eileen Canboro in ''Apocalypse III: Tribulation'', a Christian film dealing with Christian eschatology and the Rapture. Kidder stated afterwards that she didn't realize until she was on the set that the movie was serious.

In 2001, she played a guest role as the abusive mother of a serial killer in "Pique", an episode of ''Law & Order: Special Victims Unit''.

In 2002, she appeared alongside Crispin Glover and Vanessa Redgrave in the film adaptation, ''Crime and Punishment''.

In 2004, Kidder made an appearance on ''Robson Arms'', a Canadian sitcom set in an apartment block in Vancouver's west end. She played a quirky neighbor of the main cast members. She also had a cameo in ''Rich Hall's Election Special'' on BBC Four. In 2006, Kidder played a guest role as Jenny Schecter's mother Sandy Ziskin on ''The L Word''. In 2007, Kidder began appearing on the television series ''Brothers and Sisters'', playing Emily Craft. She also appeared on season four of ''Smallville'', a television show which follows the adventures of Clark Kent during the years before he becomes Superman. Kidder played Dr. Virgil Swann's emissary assistant, Bridgette Crosby. Dr. Swann was played by fellow ''Superman'' co-star, Christopher Reeve. ''Smallville'' was Reeve's final on-air appearance.

She played Barbara Collier, Laurie Strode's therapist, in the sequel to ''Halloween'' (2007) titled, ''Halloween II'', released in 2009. She played Sally Cima, the mother of protagonist Greg Cima, a high school football player, in the film ''Windrunner: A Spirited Journey''. It aired on the Disney Channel. She took a prominent role as an embattled guidance counselor in the 2008 gay-themed mystery film ''On the Other Hand, Death''.

Other appearances

In 1994, Kidder played the bartender at the Broken Skull Tavern in ''Under a Killing Moon'', an IBM PC adventure game.

She has also done extensive stage work, including ''The Vagina Monologues''.

Personal life

In the past, Kidder dated former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau and director Brian De Palma. She has been married and divorced three times: American novelist Thomas McGuane, with whom she had her only child, daughter Maggie (born October 28, 1976); actor John Heard and to French film director Philippe de Broca. None of the marriages lasted longer than a year. Since her divorce from De Broca, she has said that she prefers the companionship of her dogs. She has two grandchildren, Mazie and Charlie Kirn, from her daughter's marriage to the novelist Walter Kirn.

Kidder actively supported Jesse Jackson's bid for the Democratic nomination in 1984.

In the early 1990s, during the first Gulf War, Kidder was criticized for remarks she had made that questioned the war.

As of November 2009, Kidder was the Montana State Coordinator for Progressive Democrats of America. The organization's website carried her article "Ax Max", in which Max Baucus, Montana's moderate Democratic Senator, was the target of criticism.

Kidder was involved in a serious car crash in 1990, after which she was unable to work for two years, causing her serious financial problems.

Kidder has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which led to a widely-publicized manic episode in 1996; she was found cowering naked in undergrowth by Los Angeles police in a distressed state with bashed-in teeth, and was later placed in psychiatric care. Kidder refers to her condition as "my monsters".

In 2007, Kidder said that she had not had a manic episode in 11 years thanks to Abram Hoffer and his Natural Medicine.

On August 23, 2011, Kidder was arrested while protesting the proposed extension of the Keystone Pipeline.

Citizenship

Kidder became a United States citizen on August 17, 2005, in Butte, Montana; she lives in Paradise Valley, near Livingston. She said the reason for her decision to become an American citizen is to participate in the voting process, to continue her protests against US intervention in Iraq, and at the same time to be free of worries about being deported.

References

External links

Article: From paranoid delusions to orthomolecular medicine

Canadian Film Encyclopedia

''The Best Damn Fiddler from Calabogie to Kaladar''

Category:1948 births Category:Actors from Montana Category:Actors from the Northwest Territories Category:American film actors Category:American television actors Category:American voice actors Category:Canadian emigrants to the United States Category:Canadian film actors Category:Canadian television actors Category:Canadian voice actors Category:Genie Award winners for Best Actress Category:Living people Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:People from Yellowknife Category:People with bipolar disorder

de:Margot Kidder es:Margot Kidder eu:Margot Kidder fr:Margot Kidder ko:마곳 키더 it:Margot Kidder nl:Margot Kidder ja:マーゴット・キダー no:Margot Kidder pl:Margot Kidder pt:Margot Kidder ro:Margot Kidder sr:Марго Кидер fi:Margot Kidder sv:Margot Kidder

James "Jim" Harrison (born December 11, 1937) is an American author known for his poetry, fiction, essays, reviews, and writings about food. He has been called "a force of nature," and his work has been compared to that of William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. Harrison's characters tend to be rural by birth and have retained some of the best of an agrarian pioneer ancestry by dint of their intelligence and some formal education. They have attuned themselves to the best of the natural and civilized worlds, surrounded by excesses but determined to live their lives as well as possible.

Biography

Harrison was born in Grayling, Michigan, to Winfield Sprague Harrison, a county agricultural agent, and Norma Olivia (Wahlgren) Harrison, both avid readers.

He has been blind in one eye since childhood ("My left eye is blind and jogs like/a milky sparrow in its socket.") When he was 21 his father and sister died in an automobile accident. He was educated at Michigan State University where he received his B.A. (1960) and M.A. (1964) in comparative literature. He married Linda King in 1959 with whom he has two daughters. After a short stint as assistant professor of English at State University of New York, Stony Brook (1965–66), he became a full-time writer. His awards include National Academy of Arts grants (1967, 68, 69), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1969–70), the Spirit of the West Award from the Mountain & Plains Booksellers Association, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2007).

His work has appeared in many leading publications: ''The New Yorker'', ''Esquire'', ''Sports Illustrated'', ''Rolling Stone'', ''Outside'', ''Playboy'', ''Men's Journal'', and ''The New York Times Book Review''. He has published several collections of novellas, two of which were eventually turned into films: ''Revenge'' (1990) and ''Legends of the Fall'' (1994).

Much of Harrison's writing depicts sparsely populated regions of North America with many stories set in places such as Nebraska's Sand Hills, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Montana's mountains, and along the Arizona-Mexico border.

He currently divides his residence, living in both Patagonia, Arizona, and Livingston, Montana. On August 31, 2009, Harrison was featured in an episode of Anthony Bourdain's television show "No Reservations" that took place in and around Livingston.

Literary works

Though famous for fiction, Harrison considers himself, first and foremost, a poet. In the Introduction to ''The Shape of the Journey'' (Copper Canyon Press, 1998), a collection drawn from his first eight books of poetry, he writes: "This book is the portion of my life that means the most to me....in poetry our motives are utterly similar to those who made cave paintings or petroglyphs, so that studying your own work of the past is to ruminate over artifacts, each one a signal, a remnant of a knot of perceptions that brings back to life who and what you were at that time, the past texture of what has to be termed as your ‘soul life.’" Poetry suffuses everything Harrison writes. "It’s totally uncontrollable," he says. "You don’t have any idea when its going to emerge, and when it’s not going to emerge. I’ve never stopped writing it....You can put off a novel for a while but you can’t not write a poem because that particular muse is not very cooperative." Harrison’s poetry has drawn from traditions as diverse as the Russian modernist Sergei Yesenin (''Letters to Yesenin'', 1973), Zen literary traditions (''After Ikkyu and Other Poems'', 1996), and the American-English traditions of nature-writing (''Saving Daylight'', 2006) leading back through Wordsworth. Whether writing short lyrics (''Returning to Earth'', 1977) or expansive suites (''Locations'', 1968), he has proven to be a master of form and perception. His most recent collection of poetry is ''In Search of Small Gods'' (Copper Canyon Press, 2009). In it he writes of the natural world he knows well. Many of his small gods are dogs, fish and birds, and he looks at them with awe and ironic amusement. Harrison discusses his poetry in an extensive interview in Five Points Magazine.

The impetus for novel-writing followed an accident in which Harrison fell off a cliff while bird hunting. During the ensuing recovery, his friend Thomas McGuane suggested he write a novel. ''Wolf; A False Memoir'' (1971) was the result. It is the story of a man who tells his life story while searching for signs of a wolf in the northern Michigan wilderness. This was followed by '' A Good Day to Die'' (1973), an ecotage novel and statement about the decline of American ecological systems, and ''Farmer'' (1976), a ''Lolita''-like account of a country school teacher and farmer coming to grips with middle age, his mother’s dying, and complications of human sexuality.

Harrison’s first novellas were published in 1979 under the title ''Legends of the Fall''. The title novella is an epic story that spans fifty years and tells the tale of a father and three sons in the vast spaces of the northern Rocky Mountains around the time of World War I. Film rights for all three stories in the book were sold, and Harrison eventually transformed himself into a screen-writer. Films he has scripted or co-written include ''Cold Feet'' (1989) with Keith Carradine, Tom Waits and Rip Torn; ''Revenge'' (1990) starring Kevin Costner; and ''Wolf'' (1994) starring Jack Nicholson. All the while he has continued to publish fiction and poetry. Four more collections of novellas (''The Woman Lit by Fireflies'' (1990), ''Julip'' (1994), ''The Beast God Forgot to Invent'' (2000) and ''The Summer He Didn’t Die'' (2005)) followed.

After publishing ''Warlock'' (1981) and ''Sundog'' (1984), Harrison published what is perhaps his most famous novel ''Dalva'' (1988). It is a complex tale, set in rural Nebraska, of a woman’s search for the son she had given up for adoption and for the boy’s father who also happened to be her half-brother. Throughout the narrative, Dalva invokes the memory of her pioneer great-grandfather John Wesley Northridge, an Andersonville survivor and naturalist whose diaries vividly tell of the destruction of the Plains Indian way of life. Many of these characters once again appear in ''The Road Home'' (1998), a complex work using five narrators including Dalva, her 30 year old son Nelse, and her grandfather John Wesley Northridge II. What Harrison was trying to get at in this sequel to ''Dalva'' was "the soul history of where you live," in this case rural Nebraska in the latter half of the 20th century.

Harrison’s next two novels are set in Michigan’s remote Upper Peninsula. ''True North'' (2004) examines the paralyzing cost to a timber and mining family torn apart by alcoholism and moral recklessness of a war-damaged father. The novel contains two stories: that of the monstrous father and the son’s trying to atone for his father’s evil and, ultimately, reconciling with his family’s history. ''Returning to Earth'' (2007) revisits the setting and characters of ''True North'' (2004) some thirty years later. The story has four narrators: Donald, a mixed-blood Indian, now middle-aged and dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease; Donald’s wife, Cynthia, whom he rescued as a teen from the ruins of her family; Cynthia’s brother David (the central character of ''True North''); and her nephew and Donald’s soul mate K. Ultimately, the extended family helps Donald end his life at the place of his choosing, and then draw on the powers of love and commitment to reconcile loss and heal wounds borne for generations. Harrison’s most recent novel, ''The English Major'' (2008) is a road novel about a sixty year old former high school English teacher and farmer from Michigan who, after a divorce and the sale of his farm, heads westward on a mind-clearing road trip. Along the way he falls into an affair with a former student, reconnects with his big-shot son in San Francisco, confers on questions of life and lust with an old doctor friend, and undertakes his magnum opus of renaming all the states and their state-birds.

In 2009, University of Nebraska Press published ''Jim Harrison: A Comprehensive Bibliography, 1964-2008'', an illustrated guide to Harrison’s published works, edited by Gregg Orr and Beef Torrey, which contains more than 1600 citations of writing by and about Harrison. Many of Harrison’s papers are housed at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Bibliography

Fiction

''Wolf: A False Memoir'' (1971)

''A Good Day to Die'' (1973)

''Farmer'' (1976)

''Legends of the Fall'' (Three novellas: "Revenge" "The Man Who Gave Up His Name" "Legends of the Fall") (1979)

''Warlock'' (1981)

''Sundog: The Story of an American Foreman, Robert Corvus Strang'' (1984)

''Dalva'' (1988)

''The Woman Lit By Fireflies'' (Three novellas: "Brown Dog" "Sunset Limited" "The Woman Lit by Fireflies") (1990)

''Julip'' (Three novellas: "Julip" "The Seven-Ounce Man" "The Beige Dolorosa") (1994)

''The Road Home'' (1998)

''The Beast God Forgot to Invent'' (Three novellas: "The Beast God Forgot to Invent" "Westward Ho" "I Forgot to Go to Spain") (2000)

''True North'' (2004)

''The Summer He Didn't Die'' (Three novellas: "The Summer He Didn't Die" "Republican Wives" "Tracking") (2005)

''Returning To Earth'' (Grove Press - January 2007)

''The English Major'' (2008)

''The Farmer's Daughter'' (2009)

Nonfiction

''Just Before Dark: Collected Nonfiction'' (1991)

'' The Raw and the Cooked'' (1992) Dim Gray Bar Press ltd ed

''The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand'' (2001)

''Off to the Side: A Memoir'' (2002)

Children's literature

''The Boy Who Ran to the Woods'' (Illustrated by Tom Pohrt) (2000)

Poetry

''Plain Song'' (1965)

''Walking'' (1967)

''Locations'' (1968)

''Outlyer and Ghazals'' (1971)

''Letters to Yesenin'' (1973)

''Returning to Earth'' (Court Street Chapbook Series) (1977)

''Selected and New Poems, 1961-1981'' (Drawings by Russell Chatham) (1981)

''Natural World: A Bestiary'' (1982)

''The Theory & Practice of Rivers'' (1986)

''The Theory & Practice of Rivers and New Poems'' (1989)

''After Ikkyu and Other Poems'' (1996)

''The Shape of the Journey: New and Collected Poems'' (Copper Canyon Press, 1998)

''Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry'' (with Ted Kooser) (Copper Canyon Press, 2003)

''Livingston Suite'' (Illustrated by Greg Keeler) (2005)

''Saving Daylight'' (Copper Canyon Press, 2006)

''In Search of Small Gods'' (Copper Canyon Press, 2009)

References

External links

Jim Harrison Papers at Grand Valley State University

Jim Harrison Photos by Mathieu Bourgois

Mary Harrison Dumsch Papers at Grand Valley State University

Robert DeMott Papers at Grand Valley State University

"Pleasures of the Hard-Worn Life" New York Times article by Charles McGrath (includes video)

Category:1937 births Category:Living people Category:American novelists Category:American poets Category:American essayists Category:American food writers Category:Michigan State University alumni Category:Writers from Arizona Category:Writers from Michigan

es:Jim Harrison fr:Jim Harrison