Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
Name	National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
Logo
Type	Former broadcast radio network; Broadcast television network
Country	United States |available National
Founder	David Sarnoff in 1926
Slogan	''Every Day is Full of Color .'' ''More Colorful.''
Owner	NBCUniversal
Key people	Steve Burke, CEO Robert Greenblatt, Chairman, NBC Universal Television Entertainment Jennifer Salke, President, NBC Universal Television EntertainmentDick Ebersol, Chairman, NBC SportsSteve Capus, President, NBC News
Launch date	November 15, 1926 (radio)July 1, 1938 (television)
Dissolved	2003 (radio)
Picture format	480i (16:9 SDTV)1080i (HDTV)
Former names	NBC Red Network
Callsigns	NBC
Callsign meaning	National Broadcasting Company
Website	nbc.com
Footnotes	}}

The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago. NBC is sometimes referred to as the "Peacock Network," due to its stylized peacock logo, created originally for color broadcasts.

Formed in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), NBC was the first major broadcast network in the United States. In 1986, control of NBC passed to General Electric (GE), with GE's $6.4 billion purchase of RCA. GE had previously owned RCA and NBC until 1930, when it had been forced to sell the company as a result of antitrust charges.

After the 1986 acquisition, the chief executive of NBC was Bob Wright, until he retired, giving his job to Jeff Zucker. The network is currently part of the media company NBCUniversal, a joint venture of Comcast and General Electric. As a result of the merger, Zucker left NBC and was replaced by Comcast executive Steve Burke.

NBC has 10 owned-and-operated stations and nearly 200 affiliates in the United States and its territories.

History

Radio

Earliest stations: WEAF & WJZ

During a period of early broadcast business consolidation, the radio-making Radio Corporation of America (RCA) had acquired New York radio station WEAF from American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T;). An RCA shareholder, Westinghouse, had a competing facility in Newark, New Jersey pioneer station WJZ (no relation to the current WJZ-TV), which also served as the flagship for a loosely structured network. This station was transferred from Westinghouse to RCA in 1923, and moved to New York.

WEAF acted as a laboratory for AT&T;'s manufacturing and supply outlet Western Electric, whose products included transmitters and antennas. The Bell System, AT&T;'s telephone utility, was developing technologies to transmit voice- and music-grade audio over short and long distances, using both wireless and wired methods. The 1922 creation of WEAF offered a research-and-development center for those activities. WEAF had a regular schedule of radio programs, including some of the first commercially sponsored programs, and was an immediate success. In an early example of ''chain'' or ''networking'' broadcasting, the station linked with the Outlet Company's WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island; and with AT&T;'s station in Washington, D.C., WCAP.

New parent RCA saw an advantage in sharing programming, and after getting a license for station WRC in Washington, D.C., in 1923, attempted to transmit audio between cities via low-quality telegraph lines. AT&T; refused outside companies access to its high-quality phone lines. The early effort fared poorly, since the uninsulated telegraph lines were susceptible to atmospheric and other electrical interference.

In 1925, AT&T; decided WEAF and its embryonic network were incompatible with AT&T;'s primary goal of providing a telephone service. AT&T; offered to sell the station to RCA in a deal that included the right to lease AT&T;'s phone lines for network transmission.

Red & Blue Networks

RCA spent $1 million to buy WEAF and Washington sister station WCAP, shut down the latter station and merged its facilities with surviving station WRC, and announced in late 1926 the creation of a new division known as ''The National Broadcasting Company.'' The new division was divided in ownership among RCA (fifty percent), General Electric (thirty percent), and Westinghouse (twenty percent). NBC launched officially on November 15, 1926.

WEAF and WJZ, the flagships of the two earlier networks, operated side-by-side for about a year as part of the new NBC. On January 1, 1927 NBC formally divided their respective marketing strategies: the ''Red Network'' offered commercially sponsored entertainment and music programming; the ''Blue Network'' mostly carried sustaining or non-sponsored broadcasts, especially news and cultural programs. Various histories of NBC suggest the color designations for the two networks came from the color of the push pins NBC engineers used to designate affiliates of WEAF (red) and WJZ (blue), or from the use of double-ended red and blue colored pencils. A similar two-part/two-color strategy appeared in the recording industry, dividing the market between classical and popular offerings. On April 5, 1927, NBC reached the West Coast with the launch of the NBC ''Orange Network'', also known as ''The Pacific Coast Network''. This was followed by the debut on October 18, 1931, of the NBC ''Gold Network'', also known as ''The Pacific Gold Network''. The Orange Network carried Red Network programming and the Gold Network carried programming from the Blue Network. Initially the Orange Network recreated Eastern Red Network programming for West Coast stations at KPO in San Francisco. In 1936 the ''Orange Network'' name was dropped and network affiliate stations became part of the Red Network. At the same time the Gold Network became part of the Blue Network. NBC also developed a network for shortwave radio stations in the 1930s called the ''NBC White Network''.

Prior to occupying its location at Rockefeller Center, NBC had occupied upper floors of a building at 711 Fifth Avenue developed by Floyd Brown, himself an architect. Home of NBC from its construction in 1927, the broadcast company occupied floor designed by Raymond Hood – who designed the tenants multiple studios as "a Gothic church, the Roman forum, a Louis XIV room and, in a space devoted to jazz, something “wildly futuristic, with plenty of color in bizarre designs.” NBC outgrew 711 Fifth Avenue in 1933.

In 1930, General Electric was compelled by antitrust charges to divest itself of RCA, which it had founded. RCA moved its corporate headquarters into the new Rockefeller Center in 1933, signing the leases in 1931. RCA was the lead tenant at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the ''RCA Building'' (now the ''GE Building''). The building housed NBC studios, as well as theaters for RCA-owned RKO Pictures. Rockefeller Center's founder and financier John D. Rockefeller, Jr., arranged the deal with the chairman of GE, Owen D. Young, and the president of RCA, David Sarnoff.

The chimes

The famous three-note NBC chimes came about after several years of development. The three note sequence G-E'-C' were heard first over Atlanta's WSB. The chimes outline what is known to musicians as a second inversion C Major triad. Someone at NBC in New York heard the WSB version of the notes during the networked broadcast of a Georgia Tech football game and asked permission to use it on the national network. NBC started to use the three notes in 1931, and it was the first audio trademark to be accepted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A variant sequence was also used that went G-E'-C'-G, known as "the fourth chime" and used during wartime (especially in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor), on D-Day, and disasters. The NBC chimes were mechanized in 1932 by Richard H. Ranger of the Rangertone company; their purpose was to send a low level signal of constant amplitude that would be heard by the various switching stations manned by NBC and AT&T; engineers, and thus used as a system cue for switching different stations between the Red and Blue network feeds. Contrary to popular legend, the three musical notes, G-E'-C', did not originally stand for NBC's current parent corporation, the General Electric Company; although GE's radio station in Schenectady, New York, WGY, was an early NBC affiliate, and GE was an early shareholder in NBC's founding parent RCA. General Electric did not own NBC outright until 1986. G-E'-C' is still used on NBC-TV. A variant with two preceding notes is used on the MSNBC cable television network. NBC's radio branch no longer exists.

New beginnings: The Blue Network becomes ABC

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had, since its creation in 1934, investigated the monopolistic effects of network broadcasting. The FCC found that NBC's two networks and its owned-and-operated stations dominated audiences, affiliates and advertising in American radio. In 1939 the FCC ordered RCA to divest itself of one of the two networks. RCA fought the divestiture order, but in 1940 divided NBC into two companies in case an appeal was lost. The Blue Network became ''NBC Blue Network, Inc.'' and NBC Red became ''NBC Red Network, Inc.'' Both networks formally divorced operations on January 8, 1942, and the Blue Network was referred to on the air as either ''Blue'' or ''Blue Network'', with official corporate name ''Blue Network Company, Inc.'' NBC Red, on the air, became known simply as ''NBC''.

After losing its final appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court in May 1943, RCA sold Blue Network Company, Inc., for $8 million to Life Savers magnate Edward J. Noble, completing the sale on October 12, 1943. Noble got the network name, leases on land-lines and the New York studios; two-and-a half stations (WJZ in Newark/New York; KGO in San Francisco, and WENR in Chicago, which shared a frequency with ''Prairie Farmer'' station WLS); and about 60 affiliates. Noble wanted a better name for the network and in 1944 acquired the rights to the name ''American Broadcasting Company'' from George Storer. The Blue Network became ABC officially on June 15, 1945, after the sale was completed.

Defining radio’s golden age

In the golden days of network broadcasting, 1930 to 1950, NBC was at the pinnacle of American radio. NBC broadcast radio's earliest mass hit, ''Amos 'n' Andy'', beginning in 1926–27 in its original fifteen-minute serial format. The show set a standard for nearly all serialized programming in the original radio era, both comedies and soap operas. The appeal of the two struggling title characters landed a broad audience, especially during the Great Depression.

NBC became home to many of the most popular performers and programs on the air. Al Jolson, Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, Bob Hope, Fred Allen, and Burns and Allen called NBC home, as did Arturo Toscanini's NBC Symphony Orchestra, which the network helped him create. Other programs were ''Vic and Sade'', ''Fibber McGee and Molly'', ''The Great Gildersleeve'' (arguably broadcasting's first spin-off program, from ''Fibber McGee''), ''One Man's Family'', ''Ma Perkins'', and ''Death Valley Days''. NBC stations were often the most powerful, and some occupied unique clear-channel national frequencies, reaching many hundreds or thousands of miles at night.

In the late 1940s, rival Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) gained ground by allowing radio stars to use their own production companies, which was profitable for them. In early radio years, stars and programs commonly hopped between networks when their short-term contracts expired. In 1948–49, beginning with the nation's top radio star, Jack Benny, many NBC performers (including Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Burns and Allen and Frank Sinatra) jumped to CBS.

In addition, NBC stars began moving toward television, including comedian Milton Berle, whose ''Texaco Star Theater'' on NBC became television's first major hit. Conductor Arturo Toscanini conducted ten television concerts on NBC between 1948 and 1952. The concerts were simulcast on both TV and radio, perhaps the first such instance in which this was done. Two of them were historic firsts – the first complete telecast of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, and the first complete telecast of Verdi's ''Aida'', performed in concert rather than with scenery and costumes. The ''Aida'' telecast starred Herva Nelli and Richard Tucker.

Aiming to keep classic radio alive as television matured, and to challenge CBS's Sunday night radio lineup, much of which had jumped from NBC with Jack Benny, NBC launched ''The Big Show'' in November 1950. This 90-minute variety show updated radio's earliest musical variety style with sophisticated comedy and dramatic presentations. Featuring stage legend Tallulah Bankhead as hostess, it lured prestigious entertainers, including Fred Allen, Groucho Marx, Lauritz Melchior, Ethel Barrymore, Louis Armstrong, Ethel Merman, Bob Hope, Danny Thomas, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Ella Fitzgerald. But ''The Big Show'''s initial success did not last despite critical praise, as most of its potential listeners were increasingly becoming television viewers. The show endured two years, with NBC losing perhaps a million dollars on the project (they were only able to sell advertising time during the middle half-hour every week).

NBC's last major radio programming push, beginning June 12, 1955, was ''Monitor'', a creation of NBC President Sylvester "Pat" Weaver, who also created the innovative NBC television programs ''Today Show, Tonight Show, and Home.'' ''Monitor'' was a continuous all-weekend mixture of music, news, interviews and features, with a variety of hosts including well-known television personalities Dave Garroway, Hugh Downs, Ed McMahon, Joe Garagiola and Gene Rayburn. The potpourri show tried to keep vintage radio alive by featuring segments from Jim and Marian Jordan (in character as Fibber McGee and Molly); Peg Lynch's dialog comedy ''Ethel and Albert'' (with Alan Bunce); and iconoclastic satirist Henry Morgan. ''Monitor'' was a success for a number of years, but after the mid-1960s, local stations, especially in larger markets, were reluctant to break from their established formats to run non-conforming network programming. One exception was ''Toscanini: The Man Behind the Legend'', a weekly series commemorating the great conductor's NBC broadcasts and recordings which began in 1963 and ran for several years. After ''Monitor'' went off the air January 26, 1975, little remained of NBC network radio beyond hourly newscasts and news features, and ''The Eternal Light'' on Sunday mornings.

The last years of NBC Radio

Beginning on June 18, 1975, NBC launched the NBC News and Information Service (NIS), which provided up to 55 minutes of news per hour around the clock to local stations that wanted to adopt an all-news format. NIS attracted several dozen subscribing stations, largely in smaller markets, but not enough for NBC to expect profitability, and NBC discontinued it May 29, 1977. In 1979, NBC started The Source, a modestly successful secondary network providing news and short features to FM rock stations.

The NBC Radio Network also pioneered personal advice call-in national talk radio with a satellite-distributed talk show in the evening entitled TalkNet, featuring Bruce Williams (personal financial advice), Bernard Meltzer (personal/financial advice) and Sally Jesse Raphael (personal / romantic advice). While never much of a ratings success, TalkNet nonetheless helped further the national talk radio format. For affiliates, many of them struggling AM stations, TalkNet helped fill the evenings with free programming, allowing the stations to sell local advertising in a dynamic format without the cost associated with producing local programming. Some in the industry feared this trend would lead to ever-more control of radio content by networks and syndicators.

GE acquired RCA in 1986, and with it NBC, signaling the beginning of the end of NBC Radio. There were three factors that led to its demise. First, GE decided that radio did not fit its strategy. Second, the radio division had not been profitable for many years. Finally, FCC rules at the time prevented a new owner from owning both a radio and TV division. In the summer of 1987, GE sold NBC Radio's network operations to Westwood One, and sold off the NBC-owned stations to different buyers. By 1990, the NBC Radio Network as an independent programming service was pretty much gone, becoming a brand name for content produced by Westwood One, and ultimately by, ironically, CBS Radio. The Mutual Broadcasting System, which Westwood One had acquired two years earlier, met the same fate, and essentially merged with NBC Radio.

It should be noted that GE's divestiture of NBC's entire radio division was the first cannon shot of what would play out in the national broadcast media, as each of the Big 3 broadcast networks were soon acquired by other corporate entities. The NBC case was particularly noteworthy in that it was the first to be bought—and was bought by a corporate behemoth ''outside'' the broadcast industry as GE is a manufacturer. Prior to the acquisition by GE, NBC operated its radio division partly out of tradition, and partly to meet its then-FCC-mandated requirement to distribute programming for the public good. (The broadcast airwaves are owned by the public, that broadcast spectrum is limited, there are only so many broadcast stations to go around which was/is the basis for broadcast regulation requiring certain content for the public good.) Syndicators such as Westwood One were not subject to such rules as they owned no stations. Thus did GE's divestiture of NBC Radio – "America's First Network" – in many ways mark the "beginning of the end" of the old broadcasting era and the ushering in of the new, largely unregulated industry that we see today.

By the late 1990s, Westwood One was producing ''NBC Radio''-branded newscasts, on weekday mornings only. In 1999, these were discontinued, and the few remaining NBC Radio Network affiliates began to receive ''CNN Radio''-branded newscasts around the clock. But in 2003, Westwood One began distributing a new service called ''NBC News Radio'', consisting of one-minute news updates read by television anchors and reporters from NBC News and MSNBC. The content, however, is written by employees of Westwood One – not NBC News.

Television

For many years NBC was closely identified with David Sarnoff, who used it as a vehicle to sell consumer electronics. It was Sarnoff who ruthlessly stole innovative ideas from competitors, using RCA's muscle to prevail in the courts. RCA and Sarnoff had dictated the broadcasting standards put in place by the FCC in 1938, and captured the spotlight by introducing all-electronic television to the public at the 1939–40 New York World's Fair, simultaneously initiating a regular schedule of programs on the NBC-RCA television station in New York City. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared at the fair, before the NBC cameras, becoming the first U.S. president to appear on television on April 30, 1939. The David Sarnoff Library has available an actual, off-the-monitor photograph of the FDR telecast. The broadcast was transmitted by NBC's New York television station W2XBS Channel 1 (now WNBC-TV channel 4) and was seen by about one thousand viewers within the station's roughly coverage area from their Empire State Building transmitter location.

The next day, May 1, four models of RCA television sets went on sale to the general public in various New York City department stores, promoted in a series of splashy newspaper ads. It is to be noted that DuMont (and others) actually offered the first home sets in 1938 in anticipation of NBC's announced April 1939 start-up. Later in 1939, NBC took its cameras to professional football and baseball games in the New York City area, establishing many "firsts" in the history of television.

Actual NBC "network" broadcasts (more than one station) began about this time with occasional special events – such as the British King and Queen's visit to the New York World's Fair – being seen in Philadelphia (over the station which would become WPTZ, now KYW) and in Schenectady (over the station which would become WRGB), two pioneer stations in their own right. The most ambitious NBC television "network" program of this pre-war era was the telecasting of the Republican National Convention in 1940 from Philadelphia, which was fed live to New York and Schenectady. However, despite major promotion by RCA, television set sales in New York in the 1939–1940 period were disappointing, primarily due to the high cost of the sets, and the lack of compelling regular programming. Most sets were sold to bars, hotels and other public places, where the general public viewed special sporting and news events.

Television's experimental period ended, and the FCC allowed full commercial telecasting to begin on July 1, 1941. NBC's New York station W2XBS received the first commercial license, adopting the call letters WNBT (it is now WNBC-TV). The first official, paid television commercial on that day broadcast by any station in the United States was for Bulova Watches, seen just before the start of a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball telecast on NBC's WNBT, New York. A test pattern, featuring the newly assigned WNBT call letters, was modified to look like a clock, complete with functioning hands. The Bulova logo, with the phrase "Bulova Watch Time", was shown in the lower right-hand quadrant of the test pattern. A photograph of the NBC camera telecasting the test pattern-advertisement for that first official TV commercial can be seen at this page. Among programming on the opening weekend of WNBT's programming was amateur boxing at Jamaica Arena, the Eastern Clay Courts tennis championships, programming from the USO, a spelling bee-type game show called "Words on the Wing," a few feature films, and the television debut of the game show ''Truth or Consequences''.

Limited programming continued until the U.S. entered World War II. Telecasts were curtailed in the early years of the war, then expanded as NBC began to prepare for full service upon the war's end. On V-E Day, May 8, 1945, WNBT broadcast hours of news coverage, and remotes from around New York City. This event was pre-promoted by NBC with a direct-mail card sent to television set owners in the New York area. At one point, a WNBT camera placed atop the marquee of the Hotel Astor panned the crowd below celebrating the end of the war in Europe. The vivid coverage was a prelude to television's rapid growth after the war ended.

The NBC television network grew from its initial post-war lineup of four stations. The 1947 World Series featured two New York teams (Yankees and Dodgers), and local TV sales boomed, since the games were telecast in New York. More stations along the East Coast and in the Midwest were connected by coaxial cable through the late 1940s, and in September 1951 the first transcontinental telecasts took place.

The early 1950s brought success for NBC in the new medium. Television's first big star, Milton Berle, drew large audiences to NBC with his antics on ''Texaco Star Theater''. Under its innovative president, Sylvester "Pat" Weaver, the network launched ''Today'' and ''The Tonight Show'', which would bookend the broadcast day for over fifty years, and which still lead their competitors. Weaver, who also launched the genre of periodic 90-minute network "spectaculars," network-produced motion pictures, and the live 90-minute Sunday afternoon series ''Wide Wide World'', left the network in 1955 in a dispute with its chairman David Sarnoff, who subsequently named his son Robert Sarnoff as president.

In 1951, NBC commissioned Italian-American composer Gian Carlo Menotti to compose the first opera ever written for television; Menotti came up with ''Amahl and the Night Visitors'', a forty-five minute work for which he wrote both music and libretto, about a disabled shepherd boy who meets the Three Wise Men and is miraculously cured when he offers his crutch to the newborn Christ Child. It was such a stunning success that it was repeated every year on NBC from 1951 to 1966, when a quarrel between Menotti and NBC ended the broadcasts. However, by 1978, Menotti and NBC had patched things up, and an all-new production of the work, filmed partly on location in the Middle East, was telecast that year.

Color television

While rivals CBS and DuMont also offered color broadcasting plans, RCA convinced a waffling FCC to approve its color system in December 1953. NBC was ready with color programming within days of the FCC's decision. NBC began with some shows in 1954, and that summer broadcast its first program to air all episodes in color, ''The Marriage''.

In 1955, on the television anthology ''Producers' Showcase'', NBC broadcast a live production in color of ''Peter Pan'', a new Broadway musical adaptation of J. M. Barrie's beloved play, with the musical's entire original cast, the first such telecast of its kind. Mary Martin starred as Peter and Cyril Ritchard played the dual role of Mr. Darling and Captain Hook. The broadcast drew the highest ratings for a television program up to then. It was so successful that NBC restaged it live a mere ten months later, and in 1960, long after ''Producers' Showcase'' had ended its run, ''Peter Pan'', with most of the 1955 cast, was restaged again, this time as a TV special on its own, and videotaped so that it would no longer have to be done live on television.

In 1956 during a National Association meeting in Chicago, NBC announced that its Chicago TV station WNBQ (now WMAQ-TV) was the first color TV station in the nation (at least six hours of color broadcasts a day).

The television edition of the radio program ''The Bell Telephone Hour'' premiered in color on NBC in 1959, where it continued for nine more years.

In September 1961, the Walt Disney anthology television series moved from ABC to NBC, where the show continued its very long run, this time in color. As many of the Disney programs shown in black-and-white on ABC had actually been filmed in color, they could easily be repeated on the NBC edition of the program.

The 1962 Rose Bowl was the first color television broadcast of a college football game.

By 1963, much of NBC's prime time schedule was in color, although some popular programs like ''The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'', which premiered in late 1964, had their entire first season in black-and-white. In the fall of 1965, NBC achieved 95% color programming in prime time (the exceptions were ''I Dream of Jeannie'' and ''Convoy''), and began billing itself as "The Full Color Network". Without television sets to sell, rival networks followed more slowly, finally committing to 100% prime-time color programming in the 1966–67 season. ''Days of our Lives'' was the first soap opera to premiere in color.

In 1967, NBC acquired MGM's classic 1939 film ''The Wizard of Oz'' after CBS, which had televised the film beginning in 1956, refused to meet MGM's increased price for more television showings. ''Oz'' had been, up to then, one of the few programs that CBS had telecast in color, but by 1967, color was the norm on TV, and the film became another in the list of color specials telecast by NBC. The network showed the film annually for eight years, beginning in 1968, after which CBS, realizing that they may have committed a colossal blunder by letting this then-huge ratings success go to another network, now agreed to pay MGM more money so that the rights to show the film could revert to them.

Two distinctive features of the film's showings on NBC were: # the film was shown for the first time without a host to introduce it as had always been previously done, # the film was slightly cut to make room for more commercials. Despite the cuts, however, it continued to score excellent television ratings in those pre-VCR days, as audiences were generally unable to see the film any other way at that time.

1970s doldrums

The 1970s started strongly for the network thanks to hits like ''Adam-12'', ''Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In'', ''Emergency!'', ''The Dean Martin Show'', and ''The Flip Wilson Show'', but this did not last. In spite of the success of such new shows as the ''NBC Mystery Movie'', ''Sanford and Son'', ''Chico and the Man'', ''Little House on the Prairie'', ''The Rockford Files'', ''Police Woman'' and ''Quincy, M.E.'', as well as continued success from veterans like ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' and ''The Wonderful World of Disney'', the network entered a slump in the middle of the decade. ''Disney'', in particular, saw its ratings nosedive once CBS put ''60 Minutes'' up against it in the 1975–1976 season. In 1974 under new president Herb Schlosser, the network tried to go after younger viewers with a series of costly movies, miniseries and specials. This failed to attract the desirable 18–34 demographic, and alienated older viewers. None of the new prime-time shows NBC introduced in the fall of 1975 earned a second season, all failing in the face of established competition. The network's lone breakout success that season was the groundbreaking late-night comedy/variety show, ''NBC's Saturday Night'' – which would soon become ''Saturday Night Live'', in a time slot previously held by reruns of ''The Tonight Show''.

In 1978, Schlosser was promoted to executive vice presidency at RCA, and a desperate NBC lured Fred Silverman away from number-one ABC to turn the network's fortunes around. With the notable exceptions of ''Diff'rent Strokes'', ''Real People'', ''The Facts of Life'', and the mini-series ''Shogun'', he could not find a hit. Failures accumulated rapidly under his watch (such as ''Hello, Larry'', ''Supertrain'', ''Pink Lady and Jeff'', and ''The Waverly Wonders''). Ironically many of them were beaten in the ratings by shows Silverman had greenlighted at CBS and ABC.

Also during this time, NBC suffered the defections of several longtime affiliates in markets such as: Atlanta (WSB-TV), Baltimore (WBAL-TV), Baton Rouge (WBRZ-TV), Charlotte (WSOC-TV), Dayton (WDTN), Indianapolis (WRTV), Jacksonville (WTLV), Minneapolis-St. Paul (KSTP-TV), San Diego (KGTV) and Schenectady (WRGB). Most were wooed away by ABC, which was the number-one network during the late 1970s and early 1980s, while WBAL-TV and WRGB-TV went to CBS. In the case of WSB-TV and WSOC-TV, both were (and remain) under common ownership with Cox Communications, with its other NBC affiliate at the time, WIIC-TV in Pittsburgh (which would become WPXI the following year and also remains owned by Cox), only remaining with the network because WIIC-TV itself was in a distant third to then-CBS affiliate and Group W powerhouse KDKA-TV & pre-existing ABC affiliate WTAE-TV. (KDKA-TV, which is now owned by CBS, infamously passed up affiliating with NBC after Westinghouse Electric bought the station from DuMont in 1954, leading to an acrimonious relationship between NBC and Westinghouse for years afterward.) In markets such as San Diego, Charlotte, and Jacksonville, NBC was forced to replace the lost stations with new affiliates broadcasting on the UHF band, with the San Diego station (KNSD) eventually becoming an NBC O&O;. Other smaller television markets like Yuma, Arizona waited many years to get another local NBC affiliate (see TV stations KIVA and KYMA). The stations in Baltimore, Dayton and Jacksonville, however, have since rejoined the network.

When U.S. President Jimmy Carter pulled the American team out of the 1980 Summer Olympics, NBC canceled a planned 150 hours of coverage (which had cost $87 million), and the network's future was in doubt. It had been counting on $170 million in advertising revenues and on the broadcasts to help promote fall shows.

The press was merciless towards Silverman, but the two most savage attacks on his leadership came from within. The company that composed NBC's on-air Proud as a Peacock promo music created a spoof of the ad campaign called "Loud as a Peacock." Radio host Don Imus at WNBC in New York played the parody on-air. This angered Silverman and he ordered all remaining copies of the parody destroyed, though some copies remain. On ''Saturday Night Live'', series writer and occasional performer Al Franken satirized Silverman in an ''SNL'' sketch titled "Limo for a Lame-O." As a result, Silverman admitted he "never liked Al Franken to begin with", and the sketch ruined Franken's chance of succeeding Lorne Michaels as executive producer of ''SNL''.

Tartikoff's turnaround

In the summer of 1981, Fred Silverman resigned. Grant Tinker became president of the network and Brandon Tartikoff became chief of programming. Tartikoff inherited a schedule full of aging dramas and very few sitcoms, but showed patience with promising programs. One such show was the critically acclaimed ''Hill Street Blues'', which rated poorly in its first season. Instead of canceling it, he moved the Emmy Award-winning police drama to Thursday night where its ratings improved dramatically. He used the same tactics with ''St. Elsewhere'' and ''Cheers''. Shows like these were able to get the same ad revenue as their higher-rated, mass-audience competition because of their desirable demographics, upscale, 18–34 year-old viewers. While the network claimed moderate successes with ''Gimme a Break!'', ''Silver Spoons'', ''Knight Rider'' and ''Remington Steele'', its biggest hit in this period was ''The A-Team'', which, at tenth place, was the network's only top-20 rated show of the 1982–1983 season, and it reached third place the next year. These shows helped NBC through the disastrous 1983–84 season, in which none of its new fall shows gained a second year.

In 1982, NBC canceled Tom Snyder's ''The Tomorrow Show'' and gave the time slot to 34-year-old comedian David Letterman. Though Letterman had an unsuccessful daytime series in 1980, ''Late Night with David Letterman'' proved much more successful.

In 1984, the huge success of ''The Cosby Show'' led to a renewed interest in sitcoms, while ''Family Ties'' and ''Cheers'', both of which premiered in 1982 to mediocre ratings, saw their viewership increase from having ''Cosby'' as a lead-in. The network moved from third place to second place that season. It reached first place in the Nielsen rankings in the 1985–86 season, with hits ''The Golden Girls'', ''Miami Vice'', ''227'', ''Night Court'', ''Highway to Heaven'', and ''Hunter''. The network's upswing continued through the decade with ''ALF'', ''Amen'', ''Matlock'', ''L.A. Law'', ''The Hogan Family'', ''A Different World'', ''Empty Nest'', and ''In the Heat of the Night''. In 1986, Bob Wright became chairman of NBC. In the 1988–1989 season, NBC, which was home to an astonishing 18 of the 30 highest-rated programs, won every week in the ratings for more than 12 months, an achievement that has not been duplicated before or since.

NBC aired the first of seven consecutive Summer Olympic Games broadcasts when it covered the 1988 Games in Seoul, South Korea. In 2002, the network would add the Winter Olympics, giving NBC the rights to every Olympics through the 2012 London Games.

"Must See TV"

In 1991, Tartikoff left NBC to take a position at Paramount Pictures. In one decade he had taken control of a network with no shows in the Nielsen Top 10 and left it with five. Warren Littlefield took his place as president of NBC Entertainment. His start was shaky due to the end of most of the Tartikoff-era hits. Some blamed him for losing David Letterman to CBS after giving ''The Tonight Show'' to Jay Leno, following Johnny Carson's 1992 retirement. Things turned around with hit series ''Friends'', ''Mad About You'', ''Frasier'', ''ER'', and ''Will & Grace''. One of Tartikoff's late acquisitions, ''Seinfeld'', initially struggled, but became one of NBC's top-rated shows after it was moved into the timeslot following ''Cheers''. The ''Must See TV'' tag line was applied to Thursday night's strong lineup. After popular show ''Seinfeld'' ended its run in 1998, ''Friends'' became the most popular sitcom on NBC. It dominated the ratings, never leaving the top 5 watched shows of the year in its second through tenth season and landing on the number 1 spot in season eight (2001–2002 season). ''Frasier'' was also popular and, despite not being as highly rated as ''Friends'', still usually landed in the top 20 and won numerous Emmy Awards.

By the mid-1990s, NBC's sports division, headed by Dick Ebersol, had rights to three of the four major professional sports organizations (NFL, Major League Baseball and NBA), the Olympics, and the national powerhouse Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team. The ''NBA on NBC'' enjoyed great success in the 90s due in large part to the Chicago Bulls' run of six championships with superstar Michael Jordan. NBC Sports would suffer a major blow in 1998, however, when it lost the NFL to CBS, which itself had lost rights to FOX four years earlier.

In 1998, Littlefield left NBC. Scott Sassa replaced him as president of NBC Entertainment. Sassa oversaw the development of such shows as ''The West Wing'', ''Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'', and ''Fear Factor''. Sassa then named Garth Ancier as his replacement in 1999. Ancier was responsible for putting ''The West Wing'' on the air. Jeff Zucker replaced Ancier as president of NBC Entertainment in 2000.

NBC's ''Must See TV'' declined after ''Friends'' and ''Frasier'' ended their runs in 2004. ''Friends'' spin-off ''Joey'' (despite a relatively good start) started to fail during its second season.

New century, new problems

At the start of the 2000s, NBC's fortunes took a rapid turn for the worse. In 2001, CBS chose its hit reality series ''Survivor'' to anchor its Thursday night line-up. Its success was taken as a suggestion that NBC's nearly two decades of Thursday night dominance could be broken. With the loss of ''Friends'' and ''Frasier'' in 2004, NBC was left with several moderately rated shows and few true hits. By then, its major sports offerings had been reduced to the Olympics, PGA Tour golf and a floundering Notre Dame football program. NBC's ratings fell to fourth place. CBS led for most of the decade, followed by a resurgent ABC, and Fox (which would eventually become the most watched network for the 2007–08 season). During this time, all of the networks faced shrinking audiences due to increased competition from cable, home video, videogames and the internet, with NBC being the hardest hit.

With the beginning of the 2004–2005 season, NBC became the first major network to produce its programming in widescreen, hoping to attract new viewers; however, the network saw only a slight boost.

In 2004, Zucker was promoted to the newly created position of president of NBC Universal Television Group. Kevin Riley became the new president of NBC Entertainment.

In December 2005, NBC began its first week-long primetime game show event, ''Deal or No Deal'', garnering high ratings, and returning multi-weekly in March 2006. On sustained success, ''Deal or No Deal'' returned in the fall of 2006. Otherwise, the 2005–06 season was one of the worst for NBC in three decades, with only one fall series, the sitcom ''My Name Is Earl'', surviving for a second season. The 2006–07 season was a mixed bag, with ''Heroes'' becoming a surprise hit on Monday nights, while the highly touted ''Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip'', from the creator of NBC's hit drama ''The West Wing'', lost a third of its premiere-night viewers by week six and was eventually canceled. Sunday Night NFL football returned to NBC after eight years, ''Deal or No Deal'' stayed strong, and its comedies ''The Office'' and ''30 Rock'' won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series for four consecutive years. However, NBC has remained in a very distant fourth place, barely ahead of The CW.

However, NBC did gain success in its summer schedule, despite its falling ratings within the regular broadcast season. ''America's Got Talent'', a reality talent show hosted by Regis Philbin, with its world premiere in 2006, gained a 4.6 rating in the 18-49 demographic, which was higher than the original premiere of FOX's ''American Idol'' in 2002. The show would continue to garner unusually high ratings throughout its summer run. However, NBC decided not to place it in the spring season, and instead use it as a platform to promote their upcoming fall shows. The show is now hosted by Nick Cannon, and continues to garner high ratings throughout its summer seasons.

In 2007, Ben Silverman replaced Kevin Riley as president of NBC Entertainment, while Jeff Zucker succeeded Bob Wright as CEO of NBC. No new primetime hits emerged in the 2008–2009 season (despite NBC's rare good fortune to have both the Super Bowl and the Beijing Olympic Games in which to promote their new offerings), while ''Heroes'' and ''Deal or No Deal'' both collapsed in the ratings, and both have since been cancelled. NBC Universal President/CEO Jeff Zucker had previously said that NBC no longer believed that they could be No.1 in prime time.

In March 2007, NBC announced that it would offer full-length prime-time television shows like ''The Office'' and ''Heroes'' on-demand to play on mobile phones. This was a first for the United States, as the market shifts away from traditional television.

In 2009, Jeff Gaspin replaced Ben Silverman as president of NBC Entertainment.

2010 and beyond

NBC aired the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, generating 21% higher ratings than its previous broadcast of the 2006 games in Torino. NBC was criticized for repeatedly showing footage of the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili. This led NBC News president Steve Capus to order the footage not to be shown without his permission and announcer Bob Costas to promise that the video would not be shown again during the Games. NBC Universal is on track to pull in at least $250 million less from advertisers than the $820 million paid for the US rights to air the Games. Even so, with its continuing position in fourth place (although it virtually tied with ABC in many categories due to the sporting events), the 2009–2010 season ended with only two scripted shows – ''Community'' and ''Parenthood'', as well as three unscripted shows – ''The Marriage Ref'', ''Who Do You Think You Are?'', and ''Minute to Win It'' – to be renewed for second terms, while others such as ''Heroes'' and ''Law & Order'' were canceled, the latter of which after 20 seasons, tying it with ''Gunsmoke'' for the record for longest-running scripted drama. The 2010-2011 season was more disastrous, with only two midseason replacements, ''Harry's Law'' and ''The Voice'' being renewed for a second season as of July.

When Conan O'Brien replaced Jay Leno as host of ''The Tonight Show'' in 2009, the network gave Leno a new talk show, committing to air it every weeknight at 10:00 pm ET/PT (9:00 pm CT/MT), as an inexpensive comedic alternative to the procedurals and other one-hour dramas that typically air during that time slot. In doing so, NBC became the first large United States network in decades, or possibly ever, to broadcast the same show every weekday during prime time hours. Its executives called the decision "a transformational moment in the history of broadcasting" and "in effect, launching five shows." Conversely, industry executives criticized the network for abandoning a history of airing quality dramas at that hour, and that it would hurt NBC by undermining a reputation built on successful scripted shows. In January 2010, however, NBC would end up announcing that Leno's 10 pm show would be canceled, citing complaints from many affiliates, whose local newscasts significantly dropped in the ratings as a result of the change. Zucker attempted to move and shorten ''The Jay Leno Show'' to the 11:35 pm–12:05 am time slot and move the existing shows, including ''The Tonight Show'', back 30 minutes. This, however, caused considerable backlash, as O'Brien had not been given any choice or prior notification of the move. Furthermore, his contract guaranteed him a minimum of three years as host and the majority of his staff had moved with him from New York to California less than a year before the show started. O'Brien refused to be a part of the moves if they went through, gaining tremendous public and professional support, and leading to a host and timeslot conflict, with Leno, Zucker and NBC as a whole having seen significant negative backlash against them for their involvement. Leno would end up returning as host of ''The Tonight Show'' effective March 1, 2010, while O'Brien accepted a buyout from NBC. O'Brien went on to host a new show, ''Conan'', on cable network TBS starting in November 2010.

Despite the removal of ''The Jay Leno Show'' in prime time, the change had almost no impact on the network's ratings. The increases NBC noticed in the 2010 season compared to 2009 were almost entirely attributable to increased ratings for ''NBC Sunday Night Football''.

Jeff Zucker announced on September 24, 2010 that he would step down as CEO of NBC Universal once Comcast's purchase of NBC was completed at the end of the year. After the purchase was complete, Steve Burke became the new CEO of NBC Universal and Robert Greenblatt replaced Jeff Gaspin as chairman of NBC Entertainment.

NBC News

News presentation has long been an important part of NBC's operations and public image, dating to the network's radio days. Notable NBC News productions have included:

''Dateline NBC''

''Early Today''

''Meet the Press''

''NBC Nightly News''

''Today''

The expansion of the news division to cable has seen the launch of the channels CNBC for business news, MSNBC for general news, with a political orientation, NBC Sports Network for sports news and events, and the acquisition of The Weather Channel.

''NBC Nightly News'' has been the nation's most watched newscast since 1997.

Programming

NBC presently operates on an 87-hour regular network programming schedule. It provides 22 hours of prime time programming to affiliated stations: 8-11pm (ET/PT)/7:00-10:00 pm (CT, MT, AT)/6-9 pm (HT) Monday through Saturday and 7–11 pm on Sundays. Programming is also provided 7–11 am weekdays in the form of ''Today'', which also has a two-hour Saturday and one-hour Sunday edition; the one-hour weekday drama ''Days of our Lives''; nightly editions of ''NBC Nightly News''; the Sunday political talk show ''Meet the Press''; weekday early-morning news program ''Early Today''; late night talk shows ''The Tonight Show with Jay Leno'', ''Late Night with Jimmy Fallon'' and ''Last Call with Carson Daly''; sketch comedy show ''Saturday Night Live''; Late-late-night poker series ''Poker After Dark'' and weeknight week-delay rebroadcasts of ''Late Night'' under the banner ''NBC All Night''; and a three-hour Saturday morning animation block under the name qubo. In addition, sports programming is also provided weekend afternoons any time from 12–6 pm. ET, or tape-delayed PT.

Daytime programs

NBC is currently the home of only one daytime soap opera, ''Days of our Lives'', which has been broadcast on the network since 1965.

Long-running NBC Daytime dramas of the past include ''The Doctors'' (1963–1982), ''Another World'' (1964–1999), ''Santa Barbara'' (1984–1993), and ''Passions'' (1999–2007). NBC also aired the final four and a half years of ''Search for Tomorrow'' (1982–1986) after that series was dropped by CBS, although many NBC affiliates did not air the show during that time. NBC has also aired numerous short-lived soaps, including ''Generations'' (1989–1991), ''Sunset Beach'' (1997–1999), and the two ''Another World'' spin-offs, ''Somerset'' (1970–1976) and ''Texas'' (1980–1982).

Notable daytime game shows that once aired on NBC include ''The Price Is Right'' (1956–1963), ''Concentration'' (1958–1973 and 1987–1991 as ''Classic Concentration''), ''The Match Game'' (1962–1969), ''Let's Make a Deal'' (1963–1968, 1990–1991, and a short-lived 2002 primetime revival), ''Jeopardy!'' (1964–1975 and 1978–1979), ''The Hollywood Squares'' (1966–1980), ''Wheel of Fortune'' (1975–1989 and 1991), ''Password Plus/Super Password'' (1979–1982 and 1984–1989), ''Sale of the Century'' (1969–1973 and 1983–1989) and ''Scrabble'' (1984–1990 and 1993). The final game show to air on NBC's daytime schedule was the short-lived ''Caesars Challenge'', which ended in January 1994.

Children's programming

Children's programming has played a part in NBC's programming since its initial roots in television. In 1947, NBC's first major children's series was ''Howdy Doody'', one of the era's first breakthrough television shows. The series, which ran for 13 years, featured a frecklefaced marionette and a myriad of other characters and hosted by "Buffalo" Bob Smith. ''Howdy Doody'' spent most of its run on weekday afternoons.

In 1956, NBC abandoned the children's programming lineup on weekday afternoons, relegating the lineup to Saturdays only with ''Howdy Doody'' as their marquee franchise for the series' remaining four years. From the mid-1960s until 1992, the bulk of NBC's children's programming were derived from theatrical shorts like ''The Pink Panther Show'' and ''Looney Tunes'', reruns of popular television series like ''The Flintstones'' and ''The Jetsons'', foreign acquisitions like ''Astro Boy'' and ''Kimba the White Lion'', original animated series (most notably ''The Smurfs'' and ''Alvin and the Chipmunks'' in the 1980s), cartoon adaptations of Gary Coleman, Mr. T, ''Punky Brewster'', ''ALF'' and ''Star Trek'', and original live-action series including ''The Banana Splits'', ''The Bugaloos'', and ''H.R. Pufnstuf''.

From 1984 to 1989, One to Grow On PSAs were shown after the end credits of every show or every other children's show.

In 1989, NBC premiered ''Saved by the Bell'', which originated at the Disney Channel as ''Good Morning, Miss Bliss''. ''Saved by the Bell'', despite bad reviews from TV critics, would become one of the most popular teen series in television history as well as the number one series on Saturday mornings, dethroning ''The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show'' in its first season.

NBC abandoned the animated series in August 1992 in favor of a Saturday edition of ''Today'' and more live-action series under the name TNBC (''Teen NBC''). Most of the series on the TNBC lineup were series produced by Peter Engel such as ''City Guys'', ''Hang Time'', ''California Dreams'', ''One World'' and the ''Saved by the Bell'' spinoff, ''Saved by the Bell: The New Class''. ''NBA Inside Stuff'' was also a part of the TNBC lineup during the duration of the NBA season.

In 2002, NBC began a deal with Discovery Communications' Discovery Kids channel to air their original FCC-mandated educational programming under the banner Discovery Kids on NBC. The schedule originally consisted of only live-action series, including a kid-themed version of ''Trading Spaces'' and J. D. Roth's Emmy-nominated reality game show ''Endurace'', but later expanded to include some animated series such as ''Kenny the Shark'', ''Tutenstein'', and ''Time Warp Trio''.

In May 2006, in order to replace the Discovery Kids Saturday Morning block, NBC announced plans to launch a new children's block on Saturday mornings starting in September 2006 as part of the ''qubo'' endeavor teaming parent company NBC Universal with Ion Media Networks, Scholastic Press, Classic Media and Corus Entertainment's Nelvana. Qubo will include blocks to air on NBC, Telemundo (the Spanish-language network owned by NBC Universal), and Ion Media Networks's Ion Television, as well as a 24/7 digital broadcast kids channel, video on demand services and a branded website.

The "Discovery Kids on NBC" block aired for the final time on September 2, 2006. On Saturday, September 9, 2006, NBC started airing the following qubo programs: ''VeggieTales'', ''Dragon'', ''VeggieTales Presents: 3-2-1 Penguins!'', ''Babar'', ''Jane and the Dragon'', and ''Jacob Two-Two'', and ''Postman Pat''.

NBCi

:'''NBCi' redirects here.'' In April 2000, NBC purchased a company that specialized with search engines that learned from the users' searches for $32 million, called GlobalBrain.

In 1999, NBC briefly changed its web address to "NBCi.com", in a heavily advertised attempt to launch an Internet portal and homepage. This move saw NBC teaming up with XOOM.com, e-mail.com, AllBusiness.com, and Snap.com (eventually acquiring all four of them), launching a multi-faceted internet portal with e-mail, webhosting, community, chat, personalization and news capabilities. This experiment lasted roughly one season, failed, and NBCi was folded back into NBC. The NBC-TV portion of the website reverted to NBC.com. However, the NBCi web site continued as a portal for NBC-branded content (NBCi.com redirected to NBCi.msnbc.com), using a co-branded version of InfoSpace to deliver minimal portal content. In mid 2007, NBCi.com began to mirror NBC.com. Starting in 2010, NBCi.com began to redirect to NBC.com.

Evolution of the NBC logo

NBC has used a number of logos throughout its history; early logos were similar to the logo of its then parent company, RCA, but later logos included stylized peacock images.

International broadcasts

Canada

NBC broadcasts from the United States can be received throughout most of Canada, primarily through cable television and satellite television providers, but also over the air in areas close to the Canada – United States border. Aside from simultaneous substitution, the programming and broadcasting are the same as in the United States.

Europe, Latin America and the Middle East

NBC Nightly News and ''The Tonight Show with Jay Leno'', are shown on CNBC Europe. NBC is no longer shown outside the Americas on a channel in its own right. However, both NBC News and MSNBC are shown for a few hours a day on Orbit News in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. MSNBC is also shown occasionally on sister network CNBC Europe during breaking news. Border cities in the Mexico – United States border region can easily receive NBC on-the-air, as well as cable and satellite subscribers across Mexico, especially in the Mexico City area.

NBC Super Channel becomes NBC Europe

In 1993, the Pan-European cable network Super Channel was taken over by General Electric, the parent of NBC, and became NBC Super Channel. In 1996, the channel was renamed NBC Europe, but was, from then on, almost always referred to as simply "NBC" on the air.

Most of NBC Europe's prime time programming was produced in Europe due to rights restriction associated with US primetime shows, but after 11 pm Central European Time on weekday evenings, the channel aired ''The Tonight Show'', ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' and ''Later'', hence its slogan "Where the Stars Come Out at Night." Many NBC News programs were broadcast on NBC Europe, including ''Dateline NBC'', ''Meet the Press'' and ''NBC Nightly News'', which was aired live. ''The Today Show'' was also initially shown live in the afternoons, but was later broadcast the following morning instead, by which time it was more than half a day old.

In 1999, NBC Europe stopped broadcasting to most of Europe. At the same time the network was relaunched as a German language computer channel, targeting a young demographic. The main show on the new NBC Europe was called NBC GIGA. In 2005, the channel was relaunched once again, this time as a free-to-air movie channel under the name "Das Vierte". GIGA started an own digital channel then, which could be received via satellite and many cable networks in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

''The Tonight Show'' and ''NBC Nightly News'' continue to be broadcast on CNBC Europe.

Canal de Noticias

In 1993, NBC began production of Canal de Noticias NBC. This service was beamed to Latin America from the NBC Newschannel headquarters located in Charlotte, North Carolina. Over 50 journalists were brought to produce, write, anchor and technically produce a 24 hour news service based on the popular "wheel" conceived at CNN. The service folded in 1997 as sales departments were not able to generate any revenue. After Mexican Noticias ECO, Canal de Noticias NBC holds the distinction of being the first 24 hour news service to be seen in Latin America. Telenoticias, at one point owned by CBS, came later followed by CNN en Español.

Caribbean

In the Caribbean, many cable television and satellite television providers air local NBC affiliates, or the main network feed from WNBC New York City or WTVJ in Miami. A few locally owned NBC affiliates do exist, in Puerto Rico. The island and the nearby U.S. Virgin Islands are the main receivers of NBC programs available in English and Spanish via the SAP option.

Bermuda

NBC's full program lineup is carried by local affiliate VSB-TV, received from the network's East Coast satellite feed.

Netherlands Antilles

In Aruba, the network programming is carried on station PJA-TV (ATV) 15, cable 8.

Asia Pacific

Guam

KUAM-TV is an NBC affiliate in Guam and carries the full NBC program lineup via satellite.

American Samoa

KKHJ-LP is the NBC affiliate for Pago Pago; it signed onto the network in 2005.

NBC Asia and CNBC Asia

In 1995, NBC launched a channel in Asia called NBC Asia available in Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines. Like NBC Europe, NBC Asia featured most of NBC's news programs as well as the Tonight Show and Late Night. Like its European counterpart, it could not broadcast US-produced primetime shows due to rights restrictions. It also had NBC Super Sports for the latest action in selected sporting events. During weekday evenings, NBC Asia had a regional evening news program. It occasionally simulcast some programs from CNBC Asia and MSNBC. In July 1998, NBC Asia was replaced by the National Geographic Channel. As is the case with NBC Europe, however, selected Tonight Show and Late Night episodes and Meet the Press can still be seen on CNBC Asia during weekends. CNBC Asia shows NFL games and also brands them as ''Sunday Night Football''.

Regional partners

Through regional partners, NBC-produced programs are seen in some countries in the region. In the Philippines, Solar Entertainment's Jack TV airs ''Will & Grace'' and ''Saturday Night Live'', while TalkTV airs ''The Tonight Show'' and NBC News programs like ''Today Show'', ''Early Today'', ''Weekend Today'', ''Dateline'' and NBC Nightly News. Solar TV used to air The Jay Leno Show. In Hong Kong, TVB Pearl, the English free-to-air channel operated by Television Broadcasts Limited, airs NBC Nightly News live, as well as selected NBC programming.

Australia

The Seven Network in Australia has close ties with NBC and has used a majority of the network's imaging and slogans since the 1970's. ''Seven News'' has featured ''The Mission'' as its news theme since the mid 1980s. Local newscasts were named ''Seven Nightly News'' from the mid 1980s until around 2000. Seven rebroadcasts some of NBC's news and current affairs programming, including:

''Today'' (known as ''NBC Today'' and unrelated to Nine Network's Australian ''Today'' program)

''Weekend Today''

''Dateline NBC''

''Meet the Press with David Gregory''

In 2009, NBC and Seven Network used Guy Sebastian's No.1 Aria selling song ''Like it Like That'' for their summer station promo.

Affiliate world broadcasters of NBC

laSexta and Antena 3 (Spain)

UCV Television and TVN (Chile)

Televisa and TV Azteca (Mexico)

Rede Record and Rede Bandeirantes (Brazil)

RCTV and Venevision (Venezuela)

Steel and Class News (Italy)

CNBC-e and e2 and ntvmsnbc (Turkey)

Library

Through the years, NBC has produced many shows in-house, in addition to airing content from other producers such as Revue Studios and its successor Universal Television.

Notable in-house productions of NBC included ''Get Smart, Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie, Las Vegas'' and ''Crossing Jordan''. NBC sold the rights to its pre-1973 shows to National Telefilm Associates in 1973. Today, those rights are owned by CBS Television Distribution.

NBC continues to own its post-1973 productions, through sister company NBC Universal Television Group, the successor to Universal TV. As a result, NBC in a way now owns several other series aired on the network prior to 1973, such as ''Wagon Train''.

See also

List of NBC personalities

List of NBC television affiliates (by U.S. state)

List of NBC television affiliates (table), arranged by market

List of programs broadcast by NBC

List of programs previously broadcast by NBC

Must See TV

NBC chimes

NBC Daytime

NBC News

NBC pages

NBC Sports

NBC Studios

Telemundo Puerto Rico

The Weather Channel

References

External links

Museum of Broadcast Communications – NBC History

Category:American television networks Category:Companies based in New York City Category:Companies established in 1926 Category:NBC Universal Category:NBC television network Category:Rockefeller Center

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Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
Name	Ted Williams
Position	Left fielder
Bats	Left
Throws	Right
Birth date	August 30, 1918
Birth place	San Diego, California
Death date	July 05, 2002
Death place	Inverness, Florida
Debutdate	April 20
Debutyear	1939
Debutteam	Boston Red Sox
Finaldate	September 28
Finalyear	1960
Finalteam	Boston Red Sox
Stat1label	Batting average
Stat1value	.344
Stat2label	Home runs
Stat2value	521
Stat3label	Hits
Stat3value	2,654
Stat4label	Runs batted in
Stat4value	1,839
Teams	As player Boston Red Sox (–, –) As manager Washington Senators / Texas Rangers (–)
Highlights	19× All-Star (1940, 1941, 1942, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1959², 1960, 1960²) 2× AL MVP (1946, 1949) Boston Red Sox #9 retired Major League Baseball All-Century Team
Hofdate
Hofvote	93.38% (first ballot) }}

Theodore Samuel "Ted" Williams (August 30, 1918 – July 5, 2002), was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played his entire 21-year Major League Baseball career as the left fielder for the Boston Red Sox (1939–1942 and 1946–1960). Williams was a two-time American League Most Valuable Player (MVP) winner, led the league in batting six times, and won the Triple Crown twice. A nineteen-time All-Star, he had a career batting average of .344, with 521 home runs, and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966.

Williams was the last player in Major League Baseball to bat over .400 in a single season (.406 in 1941). Williams holds the highest career batting average of anyone with 500 or more home runs. His career year was 1941, when he hit .406 with 37 HR, 120 RBI, and 135 runs scored. His .551 on base percentage set a record that stood for 61 years. Nicknamed "The Kid", "The Splendid Splinter", "Teddy Ballgame", "The Thumper" and, because of his hitting prowess, "The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived", Williams's career was twice interrupted by service as a U.S. Marine Corps fighter-bomber pilot. An avid sport fisherman, he hosted a television program about fishing, and he was inducted into the IGFA Fishing Hall of Fame.

Early life

Ted Williams was born in San Diego as Teddy Samuel Williams, named after his father, Samuel Stuart Williams, and President Teddy Roosevelt, although Williams claimed that his middle name stemmed from one of his mother's brothers (in truth, her dead brother was Daniel) who had been killed in World War I. At some point, Williams changed the name on his birth certificate to Theodore. The elder of his brother, Danny, his father was a soldier, sheriff, and photographer from New York, while his mother, May Venzor, from El Paso, Texas, was an evangelist and lifelong soldier in the Salvation Army. Williams resented his mother's long hours work in the Salvation Army, and Williams and his brother cringed whenever they were brought by her to the Army's street-corner revivals.

Williams's paternal ancestors were a mix of Welsh and Irish, and his maternal ancestors were of Mexican and French descent. The Mexican side of Williams's family was quite diverse, having Spanish (Basque), Russian, and American Indian roots. Of his Mexican ancestry he said that "If I had had my mother's name, there is no doubt I would have run into problems in those days, [considering] the prejudices people had in Southern California".

Williams lived in San Diego's North Park neighborhood (4121 Utah Street), and was taught how to throw a baseball by his uncle Saul Venzor, a former semi-pro baseball player and one of his mother's four brothers who had previously pitched against Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Joe Gordon in an exhibition game, at the age of eight. As a child, Williams' heroes were Pepper Martin of the St. Louis Cardinals and Bill Terry of the New York Giants. Williams graduated from Herbert Hoover High School in San Diego, where he played baseball as a hitter-pitcher and was the star of the team. Though he had offers from the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Yankees while he was still in high school, his mother thought he was too young to leave home, so he signed up with the local minor league club, the San Diego Padres.

Baseball career

Throughout his career, Williams stated his goal was to have people point to Williams and remark, "There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived."

While in the Pacific Coast League in 1936, Williams met future teammates and friends Dom DiMaggio and Bobby Doerr, who were on the Pacific Coast League's San Francisco Seals. Williams played back-up on the team behind DiMaggio's brother Vince DiMaggio and Ivey Shiver. When Shiver announced he was quitting to become a football coach at the University of Georgia, the job, by default, was open for Williams. Williams posted a .271 batting average on 107 at-bats in 42 games for the Padres in 1936. Unknown to Williams, he had caught the eye of the Boston Red Sox's general manager, Eddie Collins, while Collins was scouting Bobby Doerr and the shortstop George Myatt in August 1936. Collins later explained, "It wasn't hard to find Ted Williams. He stood out like a brown cow in a field of white cows." In the 1937 season, after graduating Hoover High in the winter, Williams finally broke into the line-up on June 22, when he hit an inside-the-park home run to help the Padres win 3 - 2. The Padres ended up winning the PCL title, while Williams ended up hitting .291 with 23 home runs. Meanwhile, Collins kept in touch with Padres general manager Bill Lane, calling him two times throughout the season. In December 1937, during the winter meetings, the deal was made between Lane and Collins, sending Williams to the Boston Red Sox and giving Lane $35,000 and two major leaguers, Dom D'Allessandro and Al Niemiec, and two other minor leaguers.

In 1938, the nineteen-year-old Williams was ten days late to spring training camp in Sarasota, Florida, because of a flood in California blocking the railroads. Williams had to borrow $200 from a bank to make the trip from San Diego to Sarasota. Also during spring training Williams was nicknamed "The Kid" by Red Sox equipment manager Johnny Orlando, who after Williams arrived to Sarasota for the first time, said, "The Kid' has arrived". Orlando still called Williams "The Kid" twenty years later, while the nickname stuck with Williams the rest of his life. Williams remained in major league spring training for about a week. Williams was then sent to the Double-A-league Minneapolis Millers. While in the training camp of the Millers camp for the springtime, Williams met Rogers Hornsby, who had hit over .400 three times, including a .424 average in 1924, who was a coach for the Millers for the spring. Hornsby told Williams useful advice, including to "get a good pitch to hit". Talking with the game's greats would become a pattern for Williams, who talked with Hugh Duffy who hit .438 in 1894, Bill Terry who hit .401 in 1930, and Ty Cobb against whom he would argue that a batter (baseball) should hit up on the ball, opposed to Cobb's view that a batter should hit down on the ball.

While in Minnesota, Williams quickly became the team's star. He collected his first hit on the Millers' first game of the season, and his first and second home runs on his third game. Both were inside-the-park home runs, while the second traveled an estimated five-hundred feet on the fly to a five-hundred and twelve foot center field fence. Williams later had a twenty-two game hitting streak that lasted from Memorial Day to mid-June. While the Millers ended up sixth place in an eight-team race, Williams ended up hitting .366 with 46 home runs and 142 RBIs while receiving the American Association's Triple Crown and finishing second in the voting for Most Valuable Player voting.

1939 - 40

Williams came to spring training three days late in , thanks to Williams driving from California to Florida and respiratory problems, the latter of which would plague Williams for the rest of his career. In the winter, the Red Sox traded right fielder Ben Chapman to the Cleveland Indians to make room for Williams on the roster, with Williams inheriting Chapman's number 9 on his uniform opposed to Williams' number 5 in the previous spring training, even though Chapman had hit .340 in the previous season, which led ''Boston Globe'' sports journalist Gerry Moore to quip, "Not since Joe DiMaggio broke in with the Yankees by "five for five" in St. Petersberg in 1936 has any baseball rookie received the nationwide publicity that has been accorded this spring to Theodore Francis [sic] Williams". Williams made his major league debut against the New York Yankees on April 20, going 1-for-4 against Yankee pitcher Red Ruffing. This was the only game in which featured both Williams and Lou Gehrig playing against one another. In his first series at Fenway Park, Williams batted a double, a home run, and a triple, the first two against Cotton Pippen, who gave Williams his first strikeout as a professional while Williams had been in San Diego. By July, Williams was hitting just .280, but leading the league in RBIs. Johnny Orlando, now Williams' friend, then gave Williams a quick pep talk, telling Williams that he should hit .335 with 35 home runs and he would drive in 150 runs. Williams said he would buy Orlando a Cadillac if this all came true. Williams ended up hitting .327 with 31 home runs and 145 RBIs, leading the league in the latter category, the first rookie to lead the league in runs batted in. and finishing fourth in MVP voting. Even though there was not a Rookie of the Year award yet in 1939, Babe Ruth declared Williams to be the Rookie of the Year, to which Williams later said was "good enough for me".

Williams pay doubled in , going from $5,000 to $10,000. With the addition of a new bullpen in right field of Fenway Park, which reduced the distance from home plate from 400 feet to 380 feet, the bullpen was nicknamed "Williamsburg", because the new addition was "obviously designed for Williams". Williams was then switched from right field to left field, as there would be less sun in his eyes, and it would give Dominic DiMaggio a chance to play. Finally, Williams was flip-flopped in the order with the great slugger Jimmie Foxx, with the idea that Williams would get more pitches to hit. Pitchers, though, were not afraid to walk him to get to the 33-year-old Foxx, and after that the 34-year-old Joe Cronin, the player-manager. Williams also made his first of sixteen All-Star Game appearances in 1940, going 0-for-2. Although Williams hit .344, his power and runs batted in were down from the previous season, with 23 home runs and 113 RBIs. Williams also caused a controversy in mid-August when he called his salary "peanuts", along with saying he hated the city of Boston and reporters, leading reporters to lash back at him, saying that he should be traded. Williams said that the "only real fun" he had in 1940 was being able to pitch once on August 24, when he pitched the last two innings in a 12 - 1 loss to the Detroit Tigers, allowing one earned run on three hits, while striking out one batter, Rudy York.

1941

In the second week of spring training in , Williams broke a bone in his right ankle, limiting him to pinch hitting for the first two weeks of the season. Bobby Doerr later claimed that the injury would be the foundation of Williams's season, as it forced him to put less pressure on his right foot for the rest of the season. Against the Chicago White Sox on May 7, in extra innings, Williams told the Red Sox pitcher, Charlie Wagner, to hold the White Sox, since he was going to hit a home run. In the 11th inning, Williams's prediction came true, as he hit a 600-footer to help the Red Sox win. The home run is still considered to be the longest home run ever hit in the old Comiskey Park, some saying that it went 600 feet (183 meters). Williams's average slowly climbed in the first half of May, and on May 15, he started a 22-game hitting streak. From May 17 to June 1, Williams batted .536, with his season average going above .400 on May 25 and then continuing up to .430. By the All-Star break, Williams was hitting .405 with 62 RBIs and 16 home runs.

In the 1941 All-Star Game, Williams batted fourth behind Joe DiMaggio, who at that time had broken the consecutive hitting streak record and already had a 48 consecutive game hitting streak by the All-Star break. In the fourth inning, Williams doubled to drive in a run, but the National League was winning 5 - 2 in the eighth inning, and Williams struck out in the bottom half of the inning in the middle of a rally by the American League team. In the ninth inning, with the American League trailing 5 - 3, Ken Keltner got an infield single, Joe Gordon singled, and then Cecil Travis walked to fill the bases. After that, Joe DiMaggio grounded to the infield, and in attempting to carry out a double play, Billy Herman was distracted by Travis as Travis slid into second base, and the throw to first base was wide, with Keltner scoring, making the score 5-4. With runners on first base and third base, Williams stepped to the plate. With a two ball and one strike count, Williams swung with his eyes closed and hit a home run, making the American League walk-off to win 7 - 5. Williams later said that the moment "remains to this day the most thrilling hit of my life".

In late August, Williams was hitting .402. Williams said that "just about everybody was rooting for me" to hit .400 in the season, including Yankee fans, who gave pitcher Lefty Gomez a "hell of a boo" after walking Williams with the bases loaded after Williams had gotten three straight hits one game in September. In mid-September, Williams was hitting .413, but dropped a point a game from then on. Before the game on September 28, Williams was batting .39955, which would have been rounded up to a .400 average. Williams, who had the chance to sit out the final, decided to play a doubleheader against the Philadelphia Athletics. Williams explained that he didn't really deserve the .400 average if he did sit out). Williams went 6-for-8 on the day, finishing the baseball season at .406. (The present-day baseball sacrifice fly rule was not in effect in 1941; had it been, Williams would have hit .416.) Portions of the 10,268 people in the crowd ran out on the field to surround Williams after the game, forcing him to grab his hat in fear of its getting stolen, and he was helped into the clubhouse by his teammates. Along with his .406 average, Williams also hit 37 home runs and 120 RBIs. Williams's baseball season of 1941 is often considered to be the best offensive season that a Red Sox player has ever had. The .406 batting average was Williams's first of six batting championships, and it is still the highest single-season batting average in Red Sox history and the highest batting average in the major leagues since 1924. Williams's on-base percentage of .553 and slugging percentage of .735 that season are both also the highest single-season averages in Red Sox history. The .553 OBP stood as a major league record until it was broken by Barry Bonds in 2002 and his .735 slugging percentage was highest mark in the major leagues between 1932 and 1994. His OPS of 1.287 that year, a Red Sox record, was the highest in the major leagues between 1923 and 2001. Williams led the league with 135 runs scored and 37 home runs, and he finished third with 335 total bases, the most home runs, runs scored, and total bases by a Red Sox player since Jimmie Foxx's in 1938. Williams placed second in MVP voting, with Joe DiMaggio winning with 291 votes to 254 votes on the strength of his record-breaking 56-game hitting streak and large number of RBIs.

On December 7, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, forcing the United States into World War II a day later.

1942 and Baseball during the War

In January , Williams was drafted into the military, being put into Class 1-A. A friend of Williams suggested that Williams see the advisor of the Governor's Selective Service Appeal Agent, since Williams was the sole support of his mother, ever since his parents had divorced in 1939. The agent agreed that Williams should not have been placed in Class 1-A, and said Williams should be reclassified to Class 3-A. The attorney took the case to the Appeals Board and the board rejected the case. Angry, the attorney took the case to the Presidential Board. Williams was reclassified to 3-A ten days later. Afterwards, the public reaction was extremely negative, and Quaker Oats stopped sponsoring Williams, and Williams, who had previously had eaten them "all the time", never had "eaten one since".

Despite the trouble with the draft board, Williams had a new salary of $30,000 in 1942. In the season, Williams won the Triple Crown, with a .356 batting average, 36 home runs, and 137 RBIs. On May 21, Williams also hit his 100th career home run. He was the third Red Sox player to hit 100 home runs with the team, following his teammates Jimmie Foxx and Joe Cronin.. Despite winning the Triple Crown, Williams came in second in the MVP voting to Joe Gordon of the Yankees. Williams felt that he should have gotten a "little more consideration" because of him winning the Triple Crown, and he thought that that "the reason I didn't get more consideration was because of the trouble I had with the draft [boards]".

After going into the U.S. Marine Corps as an aviator at the end of 1942, Williams also played on the baseball team in Chapel Hill, North Carolina along with his Red Sox teammate Johnny Pesky in pre-flight training, after eight weeks in Amherst, Massachusetts and the Civilian Pilot Training Course. While Williams played on the baseball team, he was sent back to Fenway Park on July 13, 1943 to play on an All-Star team managed by Babe Ruth. The newspapers reported that Babe Ruth said when finally meeting Williams, "Hiya, kid. You remind me a lot of myself. I love to hit. You're one of the most natural ballplayers I've ever seen. And if my record is broken, I hope you're the one to do it". Williams later said he was "flabbergasted" by the incident, as "after all, it was Babe Ruth". In the game, Williams hit a 425-foot home run to help give the American League All-Stars a 9-8 win.

On August 18, 1945, twelve days after an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Williams was sent overseas to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. While in Pearl Harbor, Williams played baseball in the Army League. Also in that league were Joe DiMaggio, Joe Gordon, and Stan Musial. The Service World Series with the Army versus the Navy attracted crowds of 40,000 for each game. The players said it was even better than the actual World Series being played between the Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs that year. Williams was discharged by the Marine Corps in January 1946, in time to begin preparations for the upcoming pro baseball season.

1946–1947

Joining the Red Sox again in , Williams signed a $37,500 contract. In July, after Williams hit three home runs and eight RBIs in the first game of a doubleheader, Lou Boudreau, inspired by Williams consistent pull hitting to right field, created what would later be known as the Boudreau shift against Williams, having only one player on the left side of second base (the left fielder). Ignoring the shift, Williams walked twice and grounded out to second base. Also during 1946, the All-Star Game was held in Fenway Park. In the game, Williams homered in the fourth inning against Kirby Higbe, singled in a run in the fifth inning, singled in the seventh inning, and hit a three-run home run against Rip Sewell's notorious "eephus pitch" in the eighth inning to help the American League win 12 - 0.

For the 1946 baseball season, Williams hit .342 with 38 home runs and 123 RBIs, helping the Red Sox win the pennant on September 13, hitting the only inside-the-park home run in his Major League career in a 1 - 0 win against Cleveland. Williams ran away as the winner in the MVP voting. During an exhibition game in Fenway Park against an All-Star team during early October, Williams was hit on the elbow by a curveball by the Washington Senators' pitcher Mickey Haefner. Williams was immediately taken out of the game, and X-rays of his arm showed no damage, but his arm was "swelled up like a boiled egg", according to Williams. Williams could not swing a bat again until four days later, one day before the World Series, when he reported the arm as "sore". During the series, Williams batted .200, going 5-for-25 with no home runs and just one RBI. The Red Sox lost in seven games, with Williams going 0-for-4 in the last game. Fifty years later when asked what one thing he would have done different in his life, Williams replied, "I'd have done better in the '46 World Series. God, I would". The 1946 World Series was the only World Series Williams ever appeared in.

In the off-season between the 1946 and season, Williams was offered a three-year, $300,000 dollar contract to play for the Mexican League, which Williams declined. Williams later signed a $70,000 contract in 1947. Williams was also almost traded for Joe DiMaggio in 1947. In late April, Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey and Yankees owner Dan Topping agreed to swap the players, but a day later canceled the deal when Yawkey requested that Yogi Berra come with DiMaggio. In May, Williams was hitting .337. Williams also won the Triple Crown in 1947, but lost the MVP award to Joe DiMaggio, with 201 votes compared to DiMaggio's 202 votes. One writer (whom Williams thought was Mel Webb, who Williams called a "grouchy old guy", although the identity of the writer remains unknown) completely left Williams off his ballot, who would have tied DiMaggio or won if one writer who had voted Williams as second had voted him first.

1948

In , under their new manager Joe McCarthy, Williams hit a league-leading .369 with 25 home runs and 127 RBIs, and was third in MVP voting. On April 29, Williams hit his 200th career home run. He became just the second player to hit 200 home runs in a Red Sox uniform, joining his former teammate Jimmie Foxx. On October 2, against the Yankees, Williams hit his 222nd career home run, tying Foxx for the Red Sox all-time record. In the Red Sox final two games against the Yankees to force a one-game playoff against the Cleveland Indians, Williams got on base eight times out of ten plate appearances. In the playoff, Williams went 1-for-4, with the Red Sox losing 8–3 due to McCarthy's decision to start Denny Galehouse over southpaw Mel Parnell.

1949

In , Williams got a new salary of $100,000. On April 28, Williams hit his 223rd career home run, breaking the record for most home runs in a Red Sox uniform, passing Jimmie Foxx. Williams is still the Red Sox career home leader. However, despite being ahead of the Yankees by one game right before the series, the Red Sox lost both games they had to play against the Yankees. The Yankees won the first of what would be five straight World Series titles in 1949. For the rest of Williams' career, the Yankees won eight pennants and five World Series titles, while the Red Sox never finished better than third place.

1950

In , Williams was playing in his eighth All-Star Game. In the first inning, Williams caught a line drive by Ralph Kiner, slamming into the Comiskey Park scoreboard and breaking his left arm. Williams played the rest of the game, and he even singled in a run to give the American League the lead in the eighth inning, but by that time Williams' arm was a "balloon" and he was in great pain, so he left the game. Both of the doctors who X-rayed Williams held little hope for a full recovery. The doctors operated on Williams for two hours. When Williams took his cast off, he could only extend the arm to within four inches of his right arm. Williams only played 89 games in 1950. After the baseball season, Williams's elbow hurt so much he considered retirement, since he thought he would never be able to hit again. Tom Yawkey, the Red Sox owner, then sent Jack Fadden to Williams's Florida home to talk to Williams. Williams later thanked Fadden for saving his career.

1951

In , Williams "struggled" to hit .318, with his elbow still hurting. Williams also played in 148 games, sixty more than Williams had played the previous season, 30 home runs, two more than he had hit in 1950, and 126 RBIs, twenty-nine more than 1950. Despite his lower-than-usual production at bat, Williams made the All-Star team. On May 15, 1951, Williams became the 11th player in major league history to hit 300 career home runs. On May 21, Williams passed Chuck Klein for 10th place, on May 25 Williams passed Rogers Hornsby for 9th place, and on July 5 Williams passed Al Simmons for 8th place all-time in career home runs. After the season, manager Steve O'Neill was fired, with Lou Boudreau replacing him. Boudreau's first announcement as manager was that all Red Sox players were "expendable", including Williams.

1952 - 55

Williams name was called from a list of inactive reserves to serve in the Korean War on January 9, 1952. Williams, who was livid at his recalling, had a physical scheduled for April 2. Williams passed his physical, and was named a Captain in the Marine Corps after only playing in six games. Right before leaving for Korea, the Red Sox had a "Ted Williams Day" in Fenway Park. Friends of Williams gave him a Cadillac, and the Red Sox gave Williams a memory book that was signed by 400,000 fans. The Governor of Massachusetts and Mayor of Boston were there, along with a Korean veteran in a wheelchair. At the end of the ceremony, everyone in the park held hands and sang "Auld Lang Syne" to Williams, to which he later said that the moment "moved me quite a bit". The Red Sox went on to win 5-3 thanks to a two-run home run by Williams in the seventh inning. Williams, after returning from the Korean War in August , practiced with the Red Sox for ten days before playing in his first game back, garnering a large ovation from the crowd and hitting a home run in the eighth inning. In the season, Williams ended up hitting .407 with 13 home runs and 34 RBIs in 37 games and 110 at bats. On September 6, Williams hit his 332nd career home run, passing Hank Greenberg for seventh all-time.

On the first day of spring training in , Williams broke his collarbone running after a line drive. Williams was out for six weeks, and in April he wrote an article with Joe Reichler of the ''Saturday Evening Post'' saying that he intended to retire at the end of the season. Williams returned to the Red Sox lineup on May 7, and he hit .345 with 386 at bats in 117 games, although Bobby Avila, who had hit .341, won the batting championship. This was because it was required then that a batter needed 400 at bats, despite Lou Boudreau's attempt to bat Williams second in the lineup to get more at-bats. On August 25, Williams passed Johnny Mize for sixth place, and on September 3rd, Williams passed Joe DiMaggio for fifth all-time in career home runs with his 362nd career home run. He finished the season with 366 career home runs. On September 26, Williams "retired" after the Red Sox's final game of the season.

During the off-season of 1954, Williams was offered the chance to be manager of the Red Sox. Williams declined, and he suggested that Pinky Higgins, who had previously played on the 1946 Red Sox team as the third baseman, become the manager of the team. Higgins later was hired as the Red Sox manager in 1955. Williams sat out the first month of the season due to a divorce settlement with his wife, Doris. When Williams returned, he signed a $98,000 contract on May 13. On his first game back, Williams hit a home run, and he batted .356 in 320 at bats on the season, lacking enough at bats to win the batting title over Al Kaline, who batted .340 in 1955, while hitting 28 home runs and driving in 83 runs, while being named the "Comeback Player of the Year".

1956 – 60

On July 17, , Williams became the fifth player ever to hit 400 home runs, following Mel Ott in 1941, Jimmie Foxx in 1938, Lou Gehrig in 1936, and Babe Ruth in 1927. On August 7, , after Williams was booed for dropping a fly ball from Mickey Mantle, Williams spat at one of the fans that was taunting him on the top of the dugout. Williams was fined $5,000 for the incident. The next day against Baltimore, Williams was greeted by a large ovation, and received an even larger ovation when he hit a home run in the sixth inning to break a 2 - 2 tie. In ''The Boston Globe'', the publishers ran a "What Globe Readers Say About Ted" section made out of letters about Williams, which were either the sportswriters or the "loud mouths" in the stands. Williams explained years later, "From '56 on, I realized that people were for me. The writers had written that the fans should show me they didn't want me, and I got the biggest ovation yet". Williams lost the batting title to Mickey Mantle in 1956, batting .345 to Mantle's .353, with Mantle on his way to winning the Triple Crown.

In , Williams batted .388 to lead the Major Leagues, and remarkably at the age of 40 in 1958, he led the American League with a .328 batting average.

When Pumpsie Green became the first black player on the Boston Red Sox in 1959 — the last major league team to integrate its team — Williams openly welcomed Green.

Williams ended his career dramatically, hitting a home run in his very last at-bat on September 28, . The classic John Updike essay "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu" chronicles this event and is often mentioned among the greatest pieces of sports writing in American journalism.

Williams is one of only 29 players in baseball history to date to have appeared in Major League games in four decades.

Playing style

Williams was an obsessive student of hitting. He famously used a lighter bat than most sluggers, because it generated a faster swing. David Halberstam's ''Summer of '49'' recalls him warning teammates not to leave their bats on the ground as they would absorb moisture and become heavier. His biographer Leigh Montville relates the often told story that Hillerich & Bradsby presented Williams with four bats weighing 34 ounces and one weighing 33 1/2 ounces, and challenged him to identify the lighter bat, which he was consistently able to do. His devotion allowed him to hit for power and average while maintaining extraordinary plate discipline. In 1970 he wrote a book on the subject, ''The Science of Hitting'' (revised 1986), which is still read by many baseball players. Williams was known to discuss hitting with active players enthusiastically until very late in his life. A conversation with Tony Gwynn was filmed for television.

Williams nearly always took the first pitch, reasoning that the ability to gauge the pitcher's "stuff" was worth conceding a first strike. He was occasionally criticized for refusing to swing at a borderline pitch to put a ball in play when it might have helped advance a runner or score a run (a recurring theme among sportswriter critics was that "Ted plays for himself."). Yet, Williams argued persuasively about the great advantage that accrues to pitchers when hitters swing at a pitch even one baseball width outside the strike zone. In a graphic from 1968 that accompanied an article in ''Sports Illustrated'' magazine, Williams divided the strike zone into 77 baseballs, with each baseball containing his projected batting average for pitches thrown in that location.

Williams was frequently critical of pitchers and their refusal to bring the related kind of strategic thinking to their pitch selection that he brought to hitting. However, he did show great respect for Red Sox pitcher Bill "Spaceman" Lee, crediting him with that kind of mindset.

Williams lacked foot speed, as attested by his 19-year career total of only one inside-the-park home run, one occasion of hitting for the cycle, and just 24 stolen bases. (Interestingly, despite his slowness on the basepaths, he is one of only four players in history - along with the noted speedsters Tim Raines, Rickey Henderson, and Omar Vizquel - to have stolen a base in four different decades.) Williams always felt that had he had more speed, he could have raised his average considerably and helped him hit .400 in at least one more season. Williams was sometime considered to be an indifferent outfielder with a good throwing arm. He often spent time in left field practicing "shadow swings" for his next at-bat. Williams occasionally expressed regret that he had not worked harder on his defense. However, Williams did become an expert at playing the rebounds of batted balls off of the left-field wall and fences in Fenway Park. Later on, he helped pass this expertise to the left-fielder Carl Yastrzemski of the Red Sox.

Military service

Name	Theodore Samuel "Ted" Williams
Birth date	August 30, 1918
Death date	July 5, 2002
Placeofburial	Scottsdale, Arizona
Placeofburial label	Place of burial
Allegiance	United States of America
Branch	United States NavyUnited States Marine Corps
Serviceyears	1942-1946, 1952-53
Rank	Captain
Battles	World War IIKorean War
Laterwork	Baseball player }}

Ted Williams service to his country.

World War II

Williams served as a naval aviator (a U.S. Marine Corps pilot) during World War II and the Korean War. He had been classified 3-A by Selective Service prior to the war, a dependency deferment because he was his mother's sole means of financial support. When his classification was changed to (1-A) following the American entry into World War II, Williams appealed to his local draft board. The draft board rule that his draft status should not have been changed. He made a public statement that once he had built up his mother's trust fund, he intended to enlist. Even so, criticism in the media, including withdrawal of an endorsement contract by Quaker Oats, resulted in his enlistment in the Marine Corps on May 22, 1942.

Williams could have received an easy assignment and played baseball for the Navy or the Marine Corps. Instead, he decided to defend his country and he joined the V-5 program to become a Naval aviator. Williams was first sent to the Navy's Preliminary Ground School at Amherst College for six months of academic instruction in various subjects including math and navigation, where he achieved a 3.85 grade point average.

Williams's Red Sox teammate, Johnny Pesky, who went into the same aviation training program, said this about Williams: "He mastered intricate problems in fifteen minutes which took the average cadet an hour, and half of the other cadets there were college grads."

Pesky again described Williams's acumen in the advance training for which Pesky personally did not qualify: "I heard Ted literally tore the sleeve target to shreds with his angle dives. He'd shoot from wingovers, zooms, and barrel rolls, and after a few passes the sleeve was ribbons. At any rate, I know he broke the all-time record for hits." Ted went to Jacksonville for a course in aerial gunnery, the combat pilot's payoff test, and broke all the records in reflexes, coordination, and visual-reaction time. "From what I heard. Ted could make a plane and its six 'pianos' (machine guns) play like a symphony orchestra," Pesky says. "From what they said, his reflexes, coordination, and visual reaction made him a built-in part of the machine."

Williams completed pre-flight training in Athens, Georgia, his primary training at NAS Bunker Hill, Indiana, and his advanced flight training at NAS Pensacola. He received his pilot's wings and his commission in the U.S. Marine Corps on May 2, 1944.

Williams served as a flight instructor at the Naval Air Station Pensacola teaching young pilots to fly the complicated F4U Corsair fighter plane. Williams was in Pearl Harbor awaiting orders to join the Fleet in the Western Pacific when the War in the Pacific ended. He finished the war in Hawaii, and then he was released from active duty on January 12, 1946, but he did remain in the Marine Forces Reserves.

Korean War

On May 1, 1952, at the age of 34, Williams was recalled to active duty for service in the Korean War. He had not flown any aircraft for about eight years but he turned down all offers to sit out the war in comfort as a member of a service baseball team. Nevertheless, Williams was somewhat resentful of being called up, which he admitted years later, particularly regarding the Navy's odd policy of calling up Inactive Reservists rather than members of the Active Reserve.

After eight weeks of refresher flight training and qualification in the F9F Panther jet fighter at the Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina, Williams was assigned to VMF-311, Marine Aircraft Group 33 (MAG-33), based at the K-3 airfield in Pohang, South Korea.

On February 16, 1953, Williams was part of a 35-plane air raid against a tank and infantry training school just south of Pyongyang, North Korea. During the mission a piece of flak knocked out his hydraulics and electrical systems, causing Williams to have to "limp" his plane back to K-13, a U.S. Air Force airfield close to the front lines. For his actions of this day he was awarded the Air Medal.

Williams stayed on K-13 for several days while his plane was being repaired. Because he was so popular, GIs and airmen from all around the base came to see him and his plane. After it was repaired, Williams flew his plane back to his Marine Corps airfield.

In Korea, Williams flew 39 combat missions before being being withdrawn from flight status in June 1953 after a hospitalization for pneumonia. This resulted in the discovery of an inner ear infection that disqualified him from flight status. During the Korean War, Williams also served in the same Marine Corps unit with John Glenn, and in the last half of his missions, Williams was flying as Glenn's wingman.

While these absences in the Marine Corps, which took almost five years out of the heart of a great baseball career, significantly limited his career totals, he never publicly complained about the time devoted to service in the Marine Corps. His biographer Leigh Montville argued that Williams was not happy about being pressed into service in South Korea, but he did what he thought was his patriotic duty.

Williams had a strong respect for General Douglas MacArthur, referring to him as his "idol". For Williams' fortieth birthday, MacArthur sent him an oil painting of himself with the inscription "To Ted Williams - not only America's greatest baseball player, but a great American who served his country. Your friend, Douglas MacArthur. General U.S. Army."

Relationship with Boston media and fans

Ted Williams was on uncomfortable terms with the Boston newspapers for nearly twenty years, as he felt they liked to discuss his personal life as much as his baseball performance. He maintained a career-long feud with ''SPORT'' magazine due to a 1948 feature article in which the ''SPORT'' reporter included a quote from Williams' mother. Insecure about his upbringing, and stubborn because of immense confidence in his own talent, Williams made up his mind that the "knights of the typewriter" were against him. Some seemingly were. After having hit for the league's Triple Crown in 1947, Williams narrowly lost the MVP award in a vote where one midwestern newspaper writer left Williams entirely off his ten-player ballot.

He treated most of the press accordingly, as he described in his memoir, ''My Turn at Bat.'' Williams also had an uneasy relationship with the Boston fans, though he could be very cordial one-on-one. He felt at times a good deal of gratitude for their passion and their knowledge of the game. On the other hand, Williams was temperamental, high-strung, and at times tactless. In his biography, Ronald Reis relates how Williams committed two fielding miscues in a doubleheader in 1950 and was roundly booed by Boston fans. He bowed three times to various sections of Fenway Park and made an obscene gesture. When he came to bat he spit in the direction of fans near the dugout. The incident caused an avalanche of negative media reaction, and inspired sportswriter Austen Lake's famous comment that when Williams name was announced the sound was like "autumn wind moaning through an apple orchard."

Another incident occurred in 1958 in a game against the Washington Senators. Williams struck out, and as he stepped from the batters box swung his bat violently in anger. The bat slipped from his hands, was launched into the stands and struck a 60 year-old woman — one who turned out to be the housekeeper of the Red Sox general manager Joe Cronin. While the incident was an accident and Williams apologized to the woman personally, to all appearances it seemed at the time that Williams had hurled the bat in a fit of temper.

One of the paradoxes of Williams life is that he gave generously to those in need. He was especially linked with the Jimmy Fund of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, which provides support for children's cancer research and treatment. Williams used his celebrity to virtually launch the fund, which has raised more that $750 million between 1948 and 2010. Throughout his career, Williams made countless bedside visits to children being treated for cancer, which Williams insisted on going unreported. Often, parents of sick children would learn at check-out time that "Mr. Williams has taken care of your bill." The Fund recently stated that, "Williams would travel everywhere and anywhere, no strings or paychecks attached, to support the cause . . . . His name is synonymous with our battle against all forms of cancer."

Williams demanded loyalty from those around him. He could not forgive the fickle nature of the fans — booing a player for booting a ground ball, then turning around and roaring approval of the same player for hitting a home run. Despite the cheers and adulation of most of his fans, the occasional boos directed at him in Fenway Park led Williams to stop tipping his cap in acknowledgement after a home run.

Williams maintained this policy up to and including his swan song in 1960. After hitting a home run in his last career at-bat in Fenway Park, Williams characteristically refused either to tip his cap as he circled the bases or to respond to prolonged cheers of "We want Ted!" from the crowd by making an appearance from the dugout. The Boston manager Pinky Higgins sent Williams to his fielding position in left field to start the ninth inning, but then immediately recalled him for his back-up Carroll Hardy, thus allowing Williams to receive one last ovation as he jogged on and off the field. But he did so without reacting to the crowd. Williams's aloof attitude led the writer John Updike to wryly observe that "Gods do not answer letters."

Williams's final home run did not take place during the final game of the 1960 season, but rather in the Red Sox's last home game that year. The Red Sox played three more games, but they were on the road in New York City and Williams did not appear in any of them, as it became clear that Williams's final home at-bat would be the last one of his career.

In 1991 on Ted Williams Day at Fenway Park, Williams pulled a Red Sox cap from out of his jacket and tipped it to the crowd. This was the first time that he had done so since his earliest days as a player.

A Red Smith profile from 1956 describes one Boston writer trying to convince Ted Williams that first cheering and then booing a ballplayer was no different from a moviegoer applauding a "western" movie actor one day and saying the next "He stinks! Whatever gave me the idea he could act?" But Williams rejected this; when he liked a western actor like Hoot Gibson, he liked him in every picture, and would not think of booing him.

He once had a friendship with Ty Cobb, with whom he often had discussions about baseball. He often touted Rogers Hornsby as being the greatest right-handed hitter of all time. This assertion actually led to a split in the relationship between Ty Cobb and Ted Williams. Once during one of their yearly debate sessions on the greatest hitters of all-time Williams asserted that Hornsby was one of the greatest of all-time. Cobb apparently had strong feelings about Rogers and he threw a fit, expelling Williams from his hotel room. Their friendship effectively terminated after this altercation.

Hall of Fame induction speech

In his induction speech in 1966, Williams included a statement calling for the recognition of the great Negro Leagues players: "I've been a very lucky guy to have worn a baseball uniform, and I hope some day the names of Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson in some way can be added as a symbol of the great Negro players who are not here only because they weren't given a chance." (Montville, p. 262).

Williams was referring to two of the most famous names in the Negro Leagues, who were not given the opportunity to play in the Major Leagues before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. Gibson died early in 1947 and thus never played in the majors; and Paige's brief major league stint came long past his prime as a player. This powerful and unprecedented statement from the Hall of Fame podium was "a first crack in the door that ultimately would open and include Paige and Gibson and other Negro League stars in the shrine." (Montville, p. 262) Paige was the first inducted, in 1971. Gibson and others followed, starting in 1972 and continuing off and on into the 21st Century.

In 1954, Williams was also inducted by the San Diego Hall of Champions into the Breitbard Hall of Fame honoring San Diego's finest athletes both on and off the playing surface.

Career ranking

At the time of his retirement, Williams ranked third all-time in home runs (behind Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx), seventh in RBIs (after Ruth, Cap Anson, Lou Gehrig, Ty Cobb, Foxx, and Mel Ott; Stan Musial passed Williams in 1962), and seventh in batting average (behind Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Lefty O'Doul, Ed Delahanty and Tris Speaker). His career batting average is the highest of any player who played his entire career in the live-ball era following 1920.

Williams was also second to Ruth in career slugging percentage, where he remains today, and first in on-base percentage. He was also second to Ruth in career walks, but has since dropped to fourth place behind Barry Bonds and Rickey Henderson. Williams remains the career leader in walks per plate appearance.

Most modern statistical analyses place Williams, along with Ruth and Bonds, among the three most potent hitters to have played the game. Williams's baseball season of 1941 is often considered favorably with the greatest seasons of Ruth and Bonds in terms of various offensive statistical measures such as slugging, on-base and "offensive winning percentage." As a further indication, of the ten best seasons for ''OPS'', short for ''On-Base Plus Slugging Percentage'', a popular modern measure of offensive productivity, four each were achieved by Ruth and Bonds, and two by Williams.

Although Williams' career did not overlap with that of Ruth or Bonds, a direct comparison with another great hitter, Hank Aaron, is possible. From 1955 to 1960, Williams maintained an average OPS of 1.092, as compared with .950 for Aaron. Williams' age (37-42) was well past the prime of most hitters, but he still managed to hit .388 at the age of 39. Although Aaron (age 21 - 26) recorded only one of his five best seasons, their averages are not too far from the career averages of the two baseball players.

In 1999, Williams was ranked as number eight on ''The Sporting News''' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, where he was the highest-ranking left fielder.

Family life

On May 4, 1944, Williams married Doris Soule, daughter of his hunting guide. Their daughter, Barbara Joyce ("Bobbi Jo"), was born on January 28, 1948, while Williams was fishing in Florida. They divorced in 1954. Williams married the socialite model Lee Howard on September 10, 1961, but they divorced in 1967.

Williams married Dolores Wettach, a former Miss Vermont and ''Vogue'' model, in 1968. Their son John-Henry was followed by daughter Claudia (born October 8, 1971). They were divorced in 1972.

Williams lived with Louise Kaufman for twenty years until her death in 1993. In his book, Cramer called her the love of Williams's life. After his death, her sons filed suit to recover her furniture from Williams's condominium as well as a half-interest in the condominium they claimed he gave her.

Both John-Henry and Williams's brother Danny died of leukemia.

Retirement

After retirement from play, Williams helped new left fielder Carl Yastrzemski in hitting. He then served as manager of the Washington Senators, from 1969–1971, then continued with the team when they became the Texas Rangers after the 1971 season. Williams's best season as a manager was 1969 when he led the expansion Senators to an 86–76 record in the team's only winning season in Washington. He was chosen "Manager of the Year" after that season. Like many great players, Williams became impatient with ordinary athletes' abilities and attitudes, particularly those of pitchers, whom he admitted he never respected. He occasionally appeared at Red Sox spring training as a guest hitting instructor. Williams would also go into a partnership with friend Al Cassidy to form the Ted Williams Baseball Camp in Lakeville, Massachusetts. It was not uncommon to find Williams fishing in the pond at the camp. The area now is owned by the town and a few of the buildings still stand. In the main lodge one can still see memorabilia from Williams' playing days.

On the subject of pitchers, in Ted's autobiography written with John Underwood, Ted opines regarding Bob Lemon (a sinker-ball specialist) pitching for Cleveland Indians around 1951: "I have to rate Lemon as one of the very best pitchers I ever faced. His ball was always moving, hard, sinking, fast-breaking. You could never really uhmmmph with Lemon."

Willims was much more successful in fishing. An avid and expert fly fisherman and deep-sea fisherman, he spent many summers after baseball fishing the Miramichi River, in Miramichi, New Brunswick, Canada. Williams was named to the International Game Fish Association Hall of Fame in 2000. Thus, he is the only athlete to be inducted into the Halls of Fame of two different sports. Shortly after Williams's death, conservative pundit Steve Sailer wrote:

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Williams reached an extensive deal with Sears, lending his name and talent toward marketing, developing, and endorsing a line of in-house sports equipment - specifically fishing, hunting, and baseball equipment. Williams continued his involvement in the Jimmy Fund, later losing a brother to leukemia, and spending much of his spare time, effort, and money in support of the cancer organization.

In his later years, Williams became a fixture at autograph shows and card shows after his son (by his third wife), John Henry Williams, took control of his career, becoming his de facto manager. The younger Williams provided structure to his father's business affairs, exposed forgeries that were flooding the memorabilia market, and rationed his father's public appearances and memorabilia signings to maximize their earnings.

On November 18, 1991, Ted Williams was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George H. W. Bush.

One of Ted Williams's final, and most memorable, public appearances was at the 1999 All-Star Game in Boston. Able to walk only a short distance, Williams was brought to the pitcher's mound in a golf cart. He proudly waved his cap to the crowd — a gesture he had never done as a player. Fans responded with a standing ovation that lasted several minutes. At the pitcher's mound he was surrounded by players from both teams, including fellow Red Sox player Nomar Garciaparra. Later in the year, he was among the members of the Major League Baseball All-Century Team introduced to the crowd at Turner Field in Atlanta prior to Game two of the World Series.

The Ted Williams Tunnel in Boston (December 1995), and Ted Williams Parkway in San Diego County (1992) were named in his honor while he was still alive.

Death

In his last years, Williams suffered from cardiomyopathy. He had a pacemaker implanted in November 2000 and he underwent open-heart surgery in January 2001. After suffering a series of strokes and congestive heart failure, he died of cardiac arrest at the age of 83 in Citrus Hills, Florida, on July 5, 2002.

Though his will stated his desire to be cremated and his ashes scattered in the Florida Keys, John-Henry and Claudia chose to have his remains frozen cryonically.

Ted's eldest daughter, Bobby-Jo Ferrell, brought suit to have her father's wishes recognized. John-Henry's lawyer then produced an informal "family pact" signed by Ted, John-Henry, and Ted's daughter Claudia, in which they agreed "to be put into biostasis after we die" to "be able to be together in the future, even if it is only a chance." Bobby-Jo and her attorney, Richard S. "Spike" Fitzpatrick (former attorney of Ted Williams), contended that the family pact, which was scribbled on an ink-stained napkin, was forged by John-Henry and/or Claudia. Fitzpatrick and Ferrell believed that the signature was not obtained legally. Laboratory analysis proved that the signature was genuine. John-Henry said that his father was a believer in science and was willing to try cryonics if it held the possibility of reuniting the family.

Though the family pact upset some friends, family and fans, a public plea for financial support of the lawsuit by Ferrell produced little result. Citing financial difficulties, Ferrell dropped her lawsuit in exchange that a $645,000 trust fund left by Williams would immediately pay the sum out equally to the three children. Inquiries to cryonics organizations increased after the publicity from the case.

In ''Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero'', author Leigh Montville claims that the family cryonics pact was a practice Ted Williams autograph on a plain piece of paper, around which the agreement had later been hand written. The pact document was signed "''Ted Williams''", the same as his autographs, whereas he would always sign his legal documents "''Theodore Williams''", according to Montville. However, Claudia testified to the authenticity of the document in a sworn affidavit. Ted's two 24-hour private caregivers who were with him the entire period the note was said to have been created also stated in sworn affidavits that John-Henry and Claudia were never present at any time for that note to be produced.

Following John-Henry's unexpected illness and death from acute myelogenous leukemia on March 6, 2004, John-Henry's body was also transported to Alcor, in fulfillment of the family agreement.

According to the book "Frozen", co-authored by Larry Johnson (who is a former executive from Alcor), Williams' head was damaged by a worker when Alcor employees were handling the head. Although Johnson didn't work at Alcor when Ted was initially preserved, he claimed witness of the handling of the frozen head during a transfer to its final container (though numerous other Alcor employees refute this claim).

The Tampa Bay Rays home field, Tropicana Field, has installed the Ted Williams Museum (formerly in Hernando, Florida) behind the right field fence. From the Tampa Bay Rays website: "The Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame brings a special element to the Tropicana Field. Fans can view an array of different artifacts and pictures of the 'Greatest hitter that ever lived.' These memorable displays range from Ted Williams' days in the military through his professional playing career. This museum is dedicated to some of the greatest players to ever 'lace 'em up,' including Willie Mays, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris."

Career batting statistics

! Career	! G	At bat>AB	Run (baseball)>R	Hit (baseball)>H	Double (baseball)>2B	Triple (baseball)>3B	Home run>HR	Grand slam (baseball)>GS	Run batted in>RBI	Stolen bases>SB	Caught Stealing>CS	Base on balls>BB	Intentional walk>IBB	Strikeout>SO	Sacrifice hit>SH	Sacrifice fly>SF	Hit by pitch>HBP	! GIDP	Batting average>AVG	On base percentage>OBP	Slugging percentage>SLG	On-base plus slugging>OPS	OPS+#Adjusted OPS .28OPS.2B.29>OPS+
19 Years	2,292	7,706	1,798	2,654	525	71	521	17	1,839	24	17	2,021	86	709	5	20	39	197	.344	.482	.634	1.116	190

See also

Red Sox Hall of Fame

List of Major League Baseball Home Run Records

500 home run club

DHL Hometown Heroes

List of MLB individual streaks

List of top 300 Major League Baseball home run hitters

List of major league players with 2,000 hits

List of Major League Baseball players with 400 doubles

List of Major League Baseball players with 1000 runs

List of Major League Baseball players with 1000 RBIs

Hitting for the cycle

Triple Crown

List of Major League Baseball RBI champions

List of Major League Baseball batting champions

List of Major League Baseball home run champions

List of Major League Baseball runs scored champions

List of Major League Baseball doubles champions

Major League Baseball titles leaders

Notes

References

George Bush Presidential Library & Museum

Further reading

Baldasarro, Lawrence (ed.). ''The Ted Williams Reader''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. ISBN 0-671-73536-5.

Halberstam, David. ''The Teammates''. New York: Hyperion, 2003. ISBN 1-4013-0057-X.

Updike, John. ''Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu: John Updike on Ted Williams''. New York: Library of America, 2010. ISBN 978-1-59853-071-1

Williams, Ted, and John Underwood. ''Ted Williams' Fishing the Big Three: Tarpon, Bonefish, Atlantic Salmon''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982. ISBN 0-671-24400-0.

Williams, Ted, and David Pietrusza. ''Ted Williams: My Life in Pictures'' (also published as ''Teddy Ballgame''). Kingston, N.Y.: Total/Sports Illustrated, 2002. ISBN 1-930844-07-7.

Williams, Ted, and Jim Prime. ''Ted Williams' Hit List: The Best of the Best Ranks the Best of the Rest''. Indianapolis: Masters Press, 1996. ISBN 1-57028-078-9.

Cramer, Richard Ben. ''What Do You Think Of Ted Williams Now? - A Remembrance''. Simon & Schuster, 2002. ISBN 0-7432-4648-9.

Cramer, Richard Ben. ''What do you think of Ted Williams now?''. Esquire, June 1986.

External links

Baseball Library

Ted Williams: A life remembered - article at ''Boston Globe''

Ted Williams Tribute - article at ''Sports Illustrated''

Videos of Ted Williams Cryonics Debate

Ted Williams Museum

Photo of Ted Williams with Joe and Dom DiMaggio

Ted Williams: Hitter - slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Retrieved on 2008-07-11

Category:500 home run club Category:American League Most Valuable Player Award winners Category:American League All-Stars Category:American League batting champions Category:American League home run champions Category:American League RBI champions Category:American League Triple Crown winners Category:American military personnel of the Korean War Category:Boston Red Sox players Category:Cardiovascular disease deaths in Florida Category:Cryonically preserved people Category:Major League Baseball left fielders Category:Baseball players from California Category:Major League Baseball players with retired numbers Category:American baseball players of Mexican descent Category:National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees Category:People from Boston, Massachusetts Category:People from San Diego, California Category:Recipients of the Air Medal Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:San Diego Padres (minor league) players Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American people of Russian descent Category:Texas Rangers managers Category:United States Marine Corps pilots of World War II Category:United States Marine Corps officers Category:Washington Senators (1961–1971) managers Category:American people of Welsh descent Category:American people of Mexican descent Category:1918 births Category:2002 deaths Category:American people of Basque descent Category:American people of Spanish descent

cs:Ted Williams da:Ted Williams de:Ted Williams es:Ted Williams fr:Ted Williams ko:테드 윌리엄스 he:טד ויליאמס lv:Teds Viljamss ja:テッド・ウィリアムズ pl:Ted Williams sq:Ted Williams fi:Ted Williams sv:Ted Williams zh:泰德·威廉斯

Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
name	Conan O'Brien
birth name	Conan Christopher O'Brien
alias	Coco
birth date	April 18, 1963
birth place	Brookline, Massachusetts, United States
medium	Television
nationality	American
active	1985–present
genre	Improvisational comedy, sketch comedy, physical comedy, surreal humor, self-deprecation
subjects	Self-deprecation, pop culture
influences	Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Robert Smigel
spouse	Elizabeth Ann Powel (since 2002; 2 children)
notable work	''The Simpsons''(writer, producer, 1991–1993)''Late Night with Conan O'Brien''(host, 1993–2009)''The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien''(host, 2009–2010) ''Conan'' (host, 2010–present)
education	Harvard University
signature	Conan O'Brien Signature.svg

}} Conan Christopher O'Brien (born April 18, 1963) is an American television host, comedian, writer, producer and performer. Since November 2010 he has hosted ''Conan'', a late-night talk show that airs on the American cable television station TBS.

O'Brien was born in Brookline, Massachusetts and raised in an Irish Catholic family. He served as president of the ''Harvard Lampoon'' while attending Harvard University, and was a writer for the sketch comedy series ''Not Necessarily the News''. After writing for several comedy shows in Los Angeles, he joined the writing staff of ''Saturday Night Live'', and later of ''The Simpsons''. He hosted ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' from 1993 to 2009, followed by seven months hosting ''The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien'', the only person to serve as host for both NBC programs.

Early life

O'Brien was born in Brookline, Massachusetts (a suburb of Boston) to Thomas O'Brien, a physician, epidemiologist, and professor of medicine at Harvard, and Ruth O'Brien (née Reardon), an attorney and partner at the Boston firm Ropes & Gray. He is the third of six children. O'Brien's family is Irish Catholic and descends from pre-Civil War era immigrants. In a ''Late Night'' episode, O'Brien paid a visit to County Kerry, Ireland, where his ancestors originated.

O'Brien attended Brookline High School, where he served as the managing editor of the school newspaper. In his senior year, O'Brien won the National Council of Teachers of English writing contest with his short story, "To Bury the Living". After graduating as valedictorian in 1981, he entered Harvard University. At Harvard, O'Brien lived in Holworthy Hall during his freshman year and Mather House during his three upper-class years. He concentrated in history and literature and graduated ''magna cum laude'' in 1985. His senior thesis concerned the use of children as symbols in the works of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. Throughout college, O'Brien was a writer for the ''Harvard Lampoon'' humor magazine. He also briefly served as the drummer in a band called "The Bad Clams". During his sophomore and junior years, he served as the ''Lampoon'''s president. At this time, O'Brien's future boss at NBC, Jeff Zucker, was serving as President of the rival ''The Harvard Crimson''.

Career

''Saturday Night Live'' (1987–1991)

O'Brien moved to Los Angeles after graduation to join the writing staff of HBO's ''Not Necessarily the News''. He was also a writer on the short-lived ''The Wilton North Report''. He spent two years with that show and performed regularly with improvisational groups, including The Groundlings. In January 1988, ''Saturday Night Live'''s executive producer, Lorne Michaels, hired O'Brien as a writer. During his three years on ''Saturday Night Live (SNL)'', he wrote such recurring sketches as "Mr. Short-Term Memory" and "The Girl Watchers"; the latter was first performed by Tom Hanks and Jon Lovitz. O'Brien also co-wrote the sketch, "Nude Beach", with Robert Smigel, in which the word "penis" was said or sung at least 42 times. While on a writers' strike from ''Saturday Night Live'' following the 1987–88 season, O'Brien put on an improvisational comedy revue in Chicago with fellow ''SNL'' writers Bob Odenkirk and Robert Smigel called ''Happy Happy Good Show''. While living in Chicago, O'Brien briefly roomed with Jeff Garlin. In 1989, O'Brien and his fellow ''SNL'' writers received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series.

O'Brien, like many ''SNL'' writers, occasionally appeared as an extra in sketches; his most notable appearance was as a doorman in a sketch in which Tom Hanks was inducted into the SNL "Five-Timers Club" for hosting his fifth episode. O'Brien returned to host the show in 2001 during its 26th season. O'Brien and Robert Smigel wrote the television pilot for ''Lookwell'' starring Adam West, which aired on NBC in 1991. The pilot never went to series, but it became a cult hit. It was later screened at ''The Other Network'', a festival of unaired TV pilots produced by Un-Cabaret; it featured an extended interview with O'Brien and was rerun in 2002 on the Trio network.

''The Simpsons'' (1991–1993)

From 1991 to 1993, O'Brien was a writer and producer for ''The Simpsons'' and was credited as writer or co-writer of four episodes. Of all the episodes he wrote, he considers "Marge vs. the Monorail" to be his favorite. Along with this episode, he has sole writing credits on "New Kid on the Block," "Homer Goes to College," and "Treehouse of Horror IV," on which he wrote the episode wraparounds. He was an active producer during seasons 4 and 5 as well, meaning he would frequently contribute to scripts from those seasons as well as come up with story ideas, plot points, and jokes. The style of the show's comedy during this period was also influenced by his sensibilities, with "Marge vs. the Monorail" being cited by several former writers as the turning point in the show's history where more absurd and visual comedy became acceptable. He also developed a reputation as a "room guy," or a writer who performs comedy bits throughout the day to entertain other writers.

In his speech given at Class Day at Harvard in 2000, O'Brien credited ''The Simpsons'' with saving him, a reference to the career slump he was experiencing prior to his being hired for the show.

During his time at ''The Simpsons'', O'Brien also had a side project working with former writing partner Robert Smigel on the script for a musical film based on the "Hans and Franz" sketch from ''Saturday Night Live''. The film was never produced.

''Late Night'' (1993–2009)

As executive producer, Lorne Michaels invited O'Brien to audition to host the successor show to ''Late Night with David Letterman''. Premiering on September 13, 1993, ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' received generally unfavorable critical reviews during its first few years. The show remained on multiweek renewal cycles while NBC decided its fate. O'Brien later poked fun at the first three years of the show, when on his 10th Anniversary Special Mr. T appeared to give O'Brien a gold necklace with a giant "7" on it. When O'Brien tried to point out that he had actually been on the air for ten years, Mr. T responded, "I know that, fool; but you've only been funny for seven!"

Beginning in 1996, O'Brien and the ''Late Night'' writing team were nominated annually for the Emmy Award for Best Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series, winning the award for the first and only time in 2007. In 1997, 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2004, he and the ''Late Night'' writing staff won the Writers Guild Award for Best Writing in a Comedy/Variety Series. In 2001, he formed his own television production company, Conaco, which subsequently shared in the production credits for ''Late Night''.

A long-running joke, which stems from the recurring segment "Conan O'Brien Hates My Homeland", is that O'Brien resembles the first female president of Finland, Tarja Halonen. After joking about this for several months (which led to his endorsement of her campaign), O'Brien traveled to Finland, appearing on several television shows and meeting President Halonen. The trip was filmed and aired as a special.

O'Brien ad-libbed the fictional website name "hornymanatee.com" on December 4, 2006, after a sketch about the fictional manatee mascot and its inappropriate webcam site. NBC opted to purchase the website domain name for $159, since the website did not previously exist. The network was concerned that the Federal Communications Commission would hold NBC liable for promoting inappropriate content if a third party were to register the domain and post such material. For a period of time, the website hosted material concerning Conan's initial manatee joke and other ''Tonight Show'' references, but today the site just redirects to NBC's main web page.

A popular recurring bit on the show was "Pale Force", a series of animated episodes in which comedian Jim Gaffigan and O'Brien are superheroes who fight crime with their "paleness". As Gaffigan introduced each new episode, O'Brien protested the portrayal of his character as cowardly, weak, and impotent. , ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' had for eleven years consistently attracted an audience averaging about 2.5 million viewers. O'Brien is an avid guitarist and music listener. When Bruce Springsteen and the Sessions Band appeared on the show as musical guests, O'Brien joined the 17-piece band, along with the Max Weinberg 7 and guests Jimmy Fallon and Thomas Haden Church, playing acoustic guitar and contributing backup vocals for the song "Pay Me My Money Down". On the June 13, 2008, episode of ''Late Night'', O'Brien simply walked onto the stage at the start of the show. Instead of his usual upbeat antics and monologue, O'Brien announced that he had just received news about the sudden death of his good friend, fellow NBC employee and frequent ''Late Night'' guest, Tim Russert. O'Brien proceeded to show two clips of his favorite Russert ''Late Night'' moments. On February 20, 2009, NBC aired the last episode of ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien''. The show consisted of a compilation of previous ''Late Night'' clips and included a surprise appearance by former sidekick, Andy Richter. Will Ferrell, John Mayer, and the White Stripes also appeared. O'Brien ended the episode by destroying the set with an axe, handing out the pieces of the set to the audience, and thanking a list of people who helped him get to that point in his career. Among those thanked were Lorne Michaels, David Letterman, Jay Leno, and O'Brien's wife and children.

The Colbert / O'Brien / Stewart mock feud

During the writers' strike in 2008, O'Brien staged a mock feud with Comedy Central's Jon Stewart (of ''The Daily Show'') and Stephen Colbert (of ''The Colbert Report'') over a dispute about which of the three were responsible for giving a "bump" to Mike Huckabee's campaign to become the Republican presidential nominee. This feud crossed over all three shows during the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike.

''The Tonight Show'' (2009–2010)

In 2004, O'Brien negotiated a new contract with NBC. As part of the deal, O'Brien would take over ''The Tonight Show'' from Jay Leno in 2009. O'Brien was a guest on Jay Leno's final episode of ''The Tonight Show''. On June 1, 2009, Will Ferrell became Conan's first ''Tonight Show'' guest on the couch and Pearl Jam appeared as his first musical guest.

During the taping of the Friday, September 25, 2009, episode of ''The Tonight Show'', O'Brien suffered from a mild concussion after he slipped and hit his head while running a race as part of a comedy sketch with guest Teri Hatcher. He was examined at a hospital and released the same day. A rerun was aired that night, but O'Brien returned to work the following Monday and poked fun at the incident.

Departure from ''The Tonight Show''

On Thursday, January 7, 2010, NBC executive Jeff Zucker met with Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien to discuss how to get Leno out of prime time, where his ratings were lackluster, and back into late night. A proposal was made that would see O'Brien remain as host of ''The Tonight Show'', which would be moved to 12:05 am with Leno hosting a 30-minute show at 11:35 pm On January 10, NBC Universal Television Entertainment Chairman Jeff Gaspin confirmed that ''The Jay Leno Show'' would indeed end at the start of the Winter Olympics on February 12, 2010, and be moved to 11:35 pm following the Olympics coverage. Sources familiar with the situation told the ''New York Post'' that O'Brien was unhappy with NBC's plan.

On January 12, O'Brien released this statement: "I sincerely believe that delaying ''The Tonight Show'' into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. ''The Tonight Show'' at 12:05 simply isn’t ''The Tonight Show.''" On January 21, 2010, it was announced that Conan had reached a deal with NBC that would see him exit ''The Tonight Show'' the next day. The deal also granted him $45 million, of which $12 million was designated for distribution to his staff, who had moved with Conan to Los Angeles from New York when he left ''Late Night''.

The final ''Tonight Show'' with Conan aired January 22, 2010, and featured guests Tom Hanks, Steve Carell (who did an exit interview and shredded Conan's ID badge), Neil Young (singing "Long May You Run"), and Will Ferrell. For Ferrell's appearance, Conan played guitar with the band and Ferrell sang "Free Bird" while reprising his ''SNL'' cowbell. Ferrell's wife, Viveca Paulin, together with Ben Harper, Beck, and ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons, also joined the band for this final performance.

Jay Leno returned to ''The Tonight Show'' following NBC's coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Under the $45 million deal with NBC, Conan was allowed to start working for another network as soon as September 2010. Conan's rumored next networks ranged anywhere from Fox to Comedy Central.

After ''Tonight''

On February 8, 2010, it was reported that O'Brien was attempting to sell his Central Park West penthouse in New York with an asking price of $35 million. He purchased the apartment in 2007 for $10 million. Two years earlier, O'Brien had purchased a home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles for over $10.5 million. Some industry insiders have speculated that O'Brien had chosen to stay on the west coast in order to facilitate a return to late night television and because he did not want to put his children through another move.

On February 24, 2010, O'Brien attracted media attention for starting a Twitter account. His tweets, although primarily jokes, amounted to his first public statements since leaving ''The Tonight Show'' one month earlier. After about one hour, O'Brien's subscriber list had rocketed to over 30,000 members and approximately 30 minutes later, he was on the brink of passing 50,000 followers, already 20,000 more than the verified @jayleno account. After 24 hours, O'Brien had well over 300,000 followers. In late May 2010, he surpassed the one million mark for number of Twitter followers, and he has over 3.3 million followers.

O'Brien has been named to the 2010 Time 100, a list compiled by TIME of the 100 most influential people in the world as voted on by readers. After being prohibited from making television appearances of any kind until May, O'Brien spoke about the ''Tonight Show'' conflict on the CBS newsmagazine ''60 Minutes'' on May 2, 2010. During the interview with Steve Kroft, O'Brien said the situation felt "like a marriage breaking up suddenly, violently, quickly. And I was just trying to figure out what happened." He also said he "absolutely" expected NBC to give him more of a chance and that, if in Jay Leno's position, he would not have come back to ''The Tonight Show''. However, Conan said he did not feel he got shafted. "It's crucial to me that anyone seeing this, if they take anything away from this, it's I'm fine. I'm doing great," said O'Brien. "I hope people still find me comedically absurd and ridiculous. And I don't regret anything."

The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour

On March 11, 2010, O'Brien announced via his Twitter account that he would embark on a 30-city live tour beginning April 12, 2010, entitled "The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour". Co-host Andy Richter, along with members of the former Tonight Show Band, joined O'Brien on the tour. Max Weinberg, however, was not able to join, except for a guest appearance at one of Conan's New York City shows. VIP tickets for $695 offered the opportunity to meet O'Brien in person. On the same day, teamcoco.com—an apparently official website—was launched.

On April 12, 2010, O'Brien opened his two-month comedy tour in Eugene, Oregon, with a crowd of 2,500 and no TV cameras. The tour traveled through America's Northwest and Canada before moving on to larger cities, including Los Angeles and New York City, where he performed on the campuses that house both of the NBC-owned studios he formerly occupied. The tour ended in Atlanta on June 14. With ticket prices starting at $40, "The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour" was effectively sold out.

''Conan'' (2010–present)

On April 12, 2010, just hours before the start of his tour in Eugene, Oregon, O'Brien announced that he would host a new show on cable station TBS. The show debuted on November 8, 2010, and airs Monday through Thursday beginning at 11:00 pm ET/10:00 pm CT. O'Brien's addition moved ''Lopez Tonight'' with George Lopez back one hour to midnight ET/11:00 pm CT. Refusing at first to do to Lopez what had happened to him at NBC, O'Brien agreed to join the network after Lopez called to persuade him to come to TBS. In Canada, CTV will air the show and in Turkey, CNBC-e will air the show.

Other networks that were reportedly interested in O'Brien include TBS' sister networks TNT and HBO, Fox, FX, Comedy Central, Showtime, Revision3, and even the NBC Universal-owned USA Network.

On September 1, 2010, O'Brien announced via his Twitter account and Team Coco YouTube page that the title of his new show on TBS would simply be ''Conan''.

Television writer/producer (2002–present)

In 2004, O'Brien apologized to Canadians for engaging in Quebec bashing, something which some felt reflected prejudice against Francophones. On March 7, 2006, NBC announced a new adventure/comedy series entitled ''Andy Barker, P.I.'', starring O'Brien's former sidekick, Andy Richter. O'Brien was executive producer and co-wrote the pilot. After six episodes and low ratings, the show was canceled despite being named by ''Entertainment Weekly'' as one of the Top Ten Shows of 2007. USA Network has handed out a 90-minute, cast-contingent pilot order to the medical-themed ''Operating Instructions'' from O'Brien's production banner. O'Brien will serve as an executive producer through his Conaco label. The script comes from ''Just Shoot Me'' veterans Judd Pillot and John Peaslee who will also executive produce." NBC ordered two pilots from Conaco in January 2010, the one-hour courtroom drama, ''Outlaw'', and a half-hour comedy. ''Outlaw'' was later green-lit to series and premiered on September 15, 2010.

Voice work and guest appearances

O'Brien's first guest appearance after beginning his late-night career was on the show he used to write for, ''The Simpsons''. He played himself in the season five episode "Bart Gets Famous", interviewing Bart Simpson during his rise to fame as a catchphrase comedian. The episode was produced after O'Brien's audition to replace David Letterman, but before he was hired for the show. O'Brien recorded his part after his own show went on the air, though he believed his show would be canceled by the time "Bart Gets Famous" aired. In 2006, he voiced himself in a short ''South Park'' scene as part of the opening of the 2006 Emmy Awards. In 2005, he provided the voice of Robert Todd Lincoln in the audio book version of ''Assassination Vacation'' by Sarah Vowell.

O'Brien has made multiple voice appearances on the Adult Swim series ''Robot Chicken'', including the specials ''Robot Chicken: Star Wars'', and ''Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II'' as the voice of the bounty hunter Zuckuss. On the TV show ''30 Rock'', O'Brien is depicted as an ex-boyfriend of lead character Liz Lemon, who works in the same building. In the episode "Tracy Does Conan," Conan appears as himself, awkwardly reunited with Lemon and coerced by network executive Jack Donaghy into having the character Tracy Jordan on ''Late Night'', despite having been assaulted in Jordan's previous appearance.

O'Brien made an appearance on ''Futurama'' in the second-season episode "Xmas Story". O'Brien plays himself as a head in a jar and still alive in the year 3000. O'Brien performs a stand-up routine at a futuristic ski lodge while being heckled by Bender the robot.

O'Brien also made a cameo appearance on the U.S. version of ''The Office''. In the episode "Valentine's Day", Michael believes that he spots former ''SNL'' cast member, Tina Fey, but has actually mistaken another woman for her. In the meantime, Conan has a quick walk-on and the camera crew informs Michael, when he returns from talking to the Tina Fey lookalike.

In January 2010, O'Brien appeared in ''The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special – In 3-D! On Ice!'' to honor the show he had written for in the early 1990s.

O'Brien created a superhero character with veteran DC Comics animator Bruce Timm during one episode of ''Conan''. Named "The Flaming C", the superhero bears a likeness to O'Brien, with a typically muscular superhero body and costume with chest insignia, but also with idiosyncrasies arbitrarily suggested by O'Brien like an oven mitt, a jai alai glove, marijuana leaf buckle, golf shoes, sock garters and fishnet stockings. O'Brien later aired a clip in which the character appears in ''Young Justice''.

Emmy host

O'Brien hosted the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards on August 27, 2006, to critical acclaim. He had previously hosted the Primetime Emmys in 2002, and co-hosted in 2003.

Commercials and product placements

According to Marketing Evolutions, the company that produces Q Scores measuring the familiarity and appeal of celebrities and brands, almost 74% of U.S. consumers are familiar with O'Brien. In spite of that high score, O'Brien hasn't done many commercials for corporate America; two recent examples are a 2009 appearance in a Super Bowl XLIII commercial for Bud Light, and one for American Express, which debuted on the same day as ''Conan''. He donated his proceeds from the Super Bowl commercial to the Fresh Air Fund, a charity which sends inner-city New York children to the country for vacations. According to ''The Wall Street Journal'', O'Brien was paid more than one million dollars to do the American Express commercial, which required him to spend three days in Jaipur, India filming it.

While O'Brien has done few commercials, he "does do plenty of promoting, weaving product pitches into his show"; he has said "it's increasingly incumbent to help with tie-ins [but] if it can't be funny, I'd rather go hungry."

Comedy and mannerisms

On ''Late Night,'' O'Brien became known for his active and spontaneous hosting style. He started off every show by saying, "We have a great show for you tonight" and ended nearly every show with a quick, quirky "Bye, everybody, bye!" His stage habits included, but were not limited to, mime, self-deprecation, dramatic expressions, various impressions, use of awkward pauses or responses, moving his hair and scalp back and forth and constantly buttoning and unbuttoning his suit jacket. He frequently made fun of and interacted with the audience and commonly made light of his own appearance, including his hairstyle, his pale skin, his clumsiness, and his height. He continued many of these themes into his position as host of ''The Tonight Show''.

One of O'Brien's trademarks is to perform the "string dance." He also does intentionally poor and exaggerated impressions of celebrities that are often reduced to a specific characteristic, phrase, or gesture that represents that person.

Personal life

O'Brien met Elizabeth Ann 'Liza' Powel in 2000 when she appeared on ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' in an advertising skit involving Foote, Cone & Belding, where she worked as senior copywriter. The couple dated for nearly 18 months before their 2002 marriage in Powel's hometown of Seattle. O'Brien and Powel have a daughter, Neve (born in 2003) and a son, Beckett (born in 2005).

O'Brien repeatedly affirms his Irish Catholic heritage on his show. On a 2009 episode of ''Inside the Actors Studio'', he stated that both sides of his family moved to America from Ireland in the 1850s, subsequently marrying only other Irish Catholics, and that his lineage is thus 100% Irish Catholic.

He has been a staunch Democrat since casting his first vote for President in 1984 for Walter Mondale, although he considers himself a moderate on the political spectrum. O'Brien's longtime friend and former roommate at Harvard is Father Paul B. O' Brien, with whom he founded ''Labels Are For Jars'', an antihunger organization based in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and helped open the ''Cor Unum'' meal center in 2006. The two are not related.

In January 2008, after his show was put on hold for two months owing to the strike by the Writers Guild of America, he reemerged on late-night TV sporting a beard, which guest Tom Brokaw described as making him look like "a draft dodger from the Civil War." After leaving ''The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien'' on Jan. 22, 2010, O'Brien again grew a beard, which he kept until May 2, 2011, when it was partially shaved on the set of his TBS talk show, ''Conan'', by Will Ferrell with battery-operated clippers (and completely shaved off-screen by a professional barber). The event was dubbed on the show as "Beardocalypse," and included a contest for fan-submitted artwork.

O'Brien purchased a $10.5-million mansion in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, to prepare for his move there in 2009 from New York City to host ''The Tonight Show'' at Universal Studios Hollywood. As part of a long running gag, he brought his 1992 Ford Taurus SHO with him to California, showcasing it on both the inaugural episodes of ''The Tonight Show'' and ''Conan''.

Victim of stalking

It was reported that since September 2006, O'Brien had allegedly been stalked by Father David Ajemian of the Archdiocese of Boston, who, despite multiple warnings to stop, had been sending O'Brien letters signed as "your priest stalker" and coming in contact with O'Brien's parents. Frustrated that he had been denied a spot in the ''Late Night'' audience, Ajemian sent a letter to O'Brien stating that he flew to New York "in the dimming hope that you might finally acknowledge me." He stated in another letter, "Is this the way you treat your most dangerous fans??? You owe me big time, pal." In another letter, Ajemian seemed to make a death threat, saying, "Remember Frank Costello once dodged a bullet in your building and so can you." Ajemian then tried to forcefully enter a taping of ''Late Night'' but was caught and arrested. He was previously warned by the NBC security team to stay away from the studio. After a psychological evaluation, he was deemed fit to stand trial. He has since been bailed out of jail. He was then reported missing by his father on November 10, 2007. He was found and underwent evaluation at a hospital. It is known that the two had attended Harvard University at the same time. He was found fit to stand trial on April 4, 2008. On April 8, 2008, Ajemian pleaded guilty to stalking, stating that he "never meant to cause anxiety or to upset anyone." He was ordered to pay a $95 US$ court charge and to sign a two-year restraining order barring him from coming near O'Brien. On September 11, 2008, Ajemian checked himself out of his treatment at a hospital against the wishes of his bishop, Seán Patrick O'Malley. Cardinal O'Malley then released a statement saying that because he violated his bishop's wishes, Ajemian could no longer serve as a priest in the Catholic Church. As of late 2010, Ajemian has moved on to stalking Anthony Everett.

Nicknames

Conan acquired the nickname "Coco" after its use in the first "Twitter Tracker" sketch during the second episode of his ''Tonight Show'' run. Guest Tom Hanks used the nickname during his subsequent interview, even getting the audience to chant it. In reaction to the moniker, Conan remarked to Hanks in jest, "If that catches on, I'll sue you."

In a March 23, 2011, interview with WWE Champion The Miz on ''Conan'', The Miz dubbed Conan "The Ginja Ninja", a reference to Conan's red hair and the fact that he came back fighting to get his new late-night talk show. A week later, "Team Ginja Ninja" T-shirts were available on TeamCoco.com.

Filmography

;Appearances on talk shows: Guest appearance on ''The Tonight Show with Jay Leno'' (1993, 2007, 2008, 2009)

Guest appearance on ''Late Night with David Letterman'' (1993)

Guest appearance on ''The Jon Stewart Show'' (1993)

''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' (1993–2009)

Guest appearance on ''Last Call with Carson Daly'' (2002)

Guest appearance on ''The Daily Show with Jon Stewart'' (2007, 2008)

Guest appearance on ''The Colbert Report'' (2007, 2008)

''Late Night with Jimmy Fallon'' (2009)

''The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien'' (2009–2010)

Guest appearance on ''Lopez Tonight'' (2010, 2011)

''Conan'' (November 8, 2010–)

;Other shows:

''Saturday Night Live'' (1991, 2001)

''The Simpsons'' (''as himself'') (1994)

''Space Ghost: Coast to Coast'' (''as himself'') (1999)

''Mr. Show with Bob and David'' (1995)

''The Single Guy'' (1996)

''Arli$$'' (1996)

''Spin City'' (1999)

''Futurama'' (1999)

''Storytelling'' (2001)

''Vanilla Sky'' (2001)

''Sugar & Spice'' (2001) ''(cameo in end credits)''

''Dr. Katz'' (''as himself'') (2002)

''Andy Richter Controls the Universe'' (2003)

''End of the Century'' (2003)

''Bewitched'' (''as himself'') (2005)

''Robot Chicken'' (2005)

''The Denial Twist (The White Stripes music video)'' (2005)

''O'Grady'' (2006)

''The Office'' ''(cameo)'' (2006)

''Queer Duck'' (''as himself'') (2006)

''30 Rock'' (''as himself'') (2007, 2009)

Robot Chicken Star Wars (as ''Zuckuss'') (2007)

''Sesame Street'' (2008)

''Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II'' (as ''Zuckuss'', Star Wars nerd) (2008)

''The Backyardigans'' (2009)

''60 Minutes'' (interview) (2010)

''Eagleheart'' (himself) (2010)

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Work	Category	Result
1989	Emmy Award		Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program
1990	Emmy Award	Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program
1991	Emmy Award	Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program
1996	Emmy Award		Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program
	Emmy Award	Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program
Writers Guild of America Award	Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series
1998	Emmy Award	Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program
	Emmy Award	Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program
Writers Guild of America Award	Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series
	Emmy Award	Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program
Writers Guild of America Award	Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series
	Emmy Award	Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program
Writers Guild of America Award	Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series
	Emmy Award	Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program
Writers Guild of America Award	Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series
	Emmy Award	Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program
Writers Guild of America Award	Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series
	Emmy Award	Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program
Writers Guild of America Award	Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series
	Emmy Award	Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program
People's Choice Award	Favorite Late Night Talk Show Host
Telvis Award	For the color spot of the year	Special Telvis
Writers Guild of America Award		Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series
	Emmy Award	Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program
People's Choice Award	Favorite Late Night Talk Show Host
Writers Guild of America Award	Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series
	Emmy Award	Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program
Writers Guild of America Award	Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series
2008	Emmy Award	Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program
	Emmy Award	Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Variety or Music Program
Writers Guild of America Award	Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series
			Outstanding Comedy, Music or Variety Series
Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Series
Writers Guild of America Award	Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series
	People's Choice Award	rowspan="4"	Favorite TV Talk Show Host
	Outstanding Comedy, Music or Variety Series
Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Series
Outstanding Lighting Design/Lighting Direction for a Variety, Music or Comedy Series
American Express	Outstanding Commercial

References

Further reading

External links

in 2006 in 1998

TMZ page on Conan O'Brien

I'm With Coco Facebook

Category:1963 births Category:Living people Category:American comedians Category:American television talk show hosts Category:American television writers Category:Emmy Award winners Category:The Groundlings Category:Harvard Lampoon people Category:Harvard University alumni Category:American comedians of Irish descent Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American writers of Irish descent Category:Late night television talk show hosts Category:Late Night with Conan O'Brien Category:People from Brookline, Massachusetts Category:Writers from Massachusetts Category:Massachusetts Democrats

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Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
Name	Jay Leno
Birth name	James Douglas Muir Leno
Birth date	April 28, 1950
Height
Birth place	New Rochelle, New York, U.S.
Medium	Television, Film, Stand up
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Emerson College
Active	1973–present
Genre	Observational comedy, Political satire
Subject	American culture, Everyday life
Influences	Johnny Carson, Robert Klein, Alan King, George Carlin, Don Rickles, Bob Newhart, Rodney Dangerfield
Influenced	Dennis Miller
Website	The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
Spouse	Mavis Leno (1980–present)
Signature	Jay Leno Autograph.svg
Notable work	''The Tonight Show with Jay Leno'' (host, 1992–2009, 2010–)''The Jay Leno Show''(host, 2009–2010)

}} James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno (born April 28, 1950) is an American stand-up comedian and television host.

From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's ''The Tonight Show with Jay Leno''. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled ''The Jay Leno Show'', which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. (Eastern Time, UTC-5), also on NBC. After ''The Jay Leno Show'' was canceled in January 2010 amid a host controversy, Leno returned to host ''The Tonight Show with Jay Leno'' on March 1, 2010.

Early life

James "Jay" Leno was born in New Rochelle, New York, in 1950. His mother, Catherine (née Muir; 1911–1993), a homemaker, was born in Greenock, Scotland, and came to the United States at age 11. Her schooling was limited and as a result she prized her children's successes. Leno's father, Angelo (1910–1994), who worked as an insurance salesman, was born in New York to immigrants from Flumeri, Italy. Leno grew up in Andover, Massachusetts, and although his high school guidance counselor recommended that he drop out of school, he later obtained a Bachelor's degree in speech therapy from Emerson College, where he started a comedy club in 1973. Leno's siblings include his late older brother, Patrick, who was a Vietnam veteran and a lawyer.

Career

During the 1970s, Leno appeared in minor roles in several television series and films, first in the 1976 episode "J.J. in Trouble" of ''Good Times'' and the same year in the pilot of ''Holmes & Yo-Yo''. After an uncredited appearance in the 1977 film ''Fun with Dick and Jane'', he played more prominent parts in 1978 in ''American Hot Wax'' and ''Silver Bears''. Other films and television series from that period include ''Almost Heaven'' (1978), "Going Nowhere" (1979) from ''One Day at a Time'', ''Americathon'' (1979), ''Polyester'' (1981), "The Wild One" (1981) from ''Alice'', "Feminine Mistake" (1979) and "Do the Carmine" (1983) from ''Laverne & Shirley''.

''The Tonight Show''

Starting in 1987, Leno was a regular substitute host for Johnny Carson on ''The Tonight Show''. In 1992, he replaced Carson as host amid controversy with David Letterman, who had been hosting ''Late Night with David Letterman'' since 1982 (aired after The Tonight Show), who many had expected to be Carson's successor. The story of this turbulent transition was later turned into a book and a movie. Leno continued to perform as a stand-up comedian throughout his tenure on ''The Tonight Show''.

In 2004, Leno signed a contract extension with NBC which would keep him as host of ''The Tonight Show'' until 2009. Later in 2004, Conan O'Brien signed a contract with NBC under which O'Brien would become the host of ''The Tonight Show'' in 2009, replacing Leno at that time.

During the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike, Leno was accused of violating WGA guidelines by writing his own monologue for ''The Tonight Show''. While NBC and Leno claim there were private meetings with the WGA where there was a secret agreement allowing this, the WGA denied such a meeting. Leno answered questions in front of the Writers Guild of America, West trial committee in February 2009 and June 2009, and when the WGAW published its list of strike-breakers on 11 August 2009, Leno was not on the list.

In 1998, Leno competed in a tag-team match at the WCW's "Road Wild" pay-per-view . In 2001, he voiced The Crimson Chin, a superhero in the Nickelodeon animated series The Fairly OddParents and continues to do so today.

Leno said in 2008 that he was saving all of his income from ''The Tonight Show'' and living solely off his income from stand-up comedy.

On April 23, 2009, Leno checked himself into a hospital with an undisclosed illness. He was released the following day and returned to work on Monday, April 27. The two subsequently cancelled ''Tonight Show'' episodes for April 23 and April 24 were Leno's first in 17 years as host. Initially, the illness that caused the absence was not disclosed, but later Leno told People magazine that the ailment was exhaustion.

Michael Jackson trial

In the 2005 trial of Michael Jackson over allegations of child molestation, Leno appeared as a defense witness (many celebrity defense witnesses had been expected, but Leno was one of the few whose testimony was actually needed). In his testimony regarding a call by the accuser, Leno testified that he never called the police, that no money was asked for, and there was no coaching — but that the calls seemed unusual and scripted.

As a result, Leno was initially not allowed to continue telling jokes about Jackson or the case, which had been a fixture of ''The Tonight Show'''s opening monologue in particular. But he and his show's writers used a legal loophole by having Leno briefly step aside while stand-in comedians took the stage and told jokes about the trial. Stand-ins included Roseanne Barr, Drew Carey, Brad Garrett, and Dennis Miller among others.

Succession by Conan O'Brien and ''The Jay Leno Show''

Because Leno's show continued to lead all late-night programming in the Nielsen ratings, the pending expiration of Leno's contract led to speculation about whether he would become a late-night host for another network after his commitment to NBC expired. Leno left ''The Tonight Show'' on Friday May 29, 2009, and Conan O'Brien took over on June 1, 2009.

On December 8, 2008, it was reported that Leno would remain on NBC and move to a new hour-long show at 10 p.m. Eastern Time (9 p.m. Central Time) five nights a week. This show follows a similar format to ''The Tonight Show'', tapes at the same lot, and retains many of Leno's most popular segments. ''Late Night'' host Conan O'Brien was his successor on ''The Tonight Show''.

Jay Leno's new show, titled ''The Jay Leno Show'', debuted on September 14, 2009. It was announced at the Television Critics Association summer press tour that it would feature one or two celebrities, the occasional musical guest, and keep the popular "Headlines" segments, which would air near the end of the show. First guests included Jerry Seinfeld, Oprah Winfrey (via satellite), and a short sit-down with Kanye West discussing his controversy at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.

Timeslot conflict and return to ''The Tonight Show''

In their new roles, neither O'Brien nor Leno succeeded in delivering the viewing audiences the network anticipated. On January 7, 2010, multiple media outlets reported that beginning March 1, 2010, Jay Leno would move from his 10pm weeknight time slot to 11:35pm, due to a combination of pressure from local affiliates whose newscasts were suffering, and both Leno's and O'Brien's poor ratings. Leno's show would be shortened from an hour to 30 minutes. All NBC late night programming would be preempted by the 2010 Winter Olympics between February 15 and February 26. This would move ''The Tonight Show'' to 12:05am, a post-midnight timeslot for the first time in its history. O'Brien's contract stipulated that NBC could move the show back to 12:05 a.m. without penalty (a clause put in primarily to accommodate sports preemptions).

On January 10, NBC confirmed that they would move Jay Leno out of primetime as of February 12 and intended to move him to late night as soon as possible. TMZ reported that O'Brien was given no advance notice of this change, and that NBC offered him two choices: an hour-long 12:05am time slot, or the option to leave the network. On January 12, O'Brien issued a press release that stated he would not continue with ''Tonight'' if it moved to a 12:05am time slot, saying, "I believe that delaying ''The Tonight Show'' into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. ''The Tonight Show'' at 12:05 simply isn’t ''The Tonight Show.''"

On January 21, it was announced that NBC had struck a deal with O'Brien. It was decided that O'Brien would leave ''The Tonight Show''. The deal was made that O'Brien would receive a $33 million payout and that his staff of almost 200 would receive $12 million in the departure. O'Brien's final episode aired on Friday, January 22. Leno returned as host of ''The Tonight Show'' following the 2010 Winter Olympics on March 1, 2010.

On July 1, 2010, ''Variety'' reported that total viewership for Jay Leno's ''Tonight Show'' had dropped from 5 million to 4 million for the second quarter of 2010, compared to the same period in 2009. Although this represented the lowest second-quarter ratings for the show since 1992, ''Tonight'' was still the most-watched late night program, ahead of ABC's ''Nightline'' (3.7 million) and David Letterman's ''Late Show'' (3.3 million). Ratings over the following summer, when compared to the same period in 2009 with O'Brien hosting ''The Tonight Show'' (including O'Brien's highly rated debut), showed that while total viewership was 12% higher for Leno, viewership in the important "adults aged 18–49" demographic was 23% lower. NBC ratings specialist Tom Bierbaum commented that due to the host being out of late night television for a period of time and the subsequent 2010 Tonight Show conflict, Leno's ratings fall was "not a surprise at all".

Public image

Criticism of Leno

Leno has faced heated criticism and some negative publicity for his perceived role in the 2010 ''Tonight Show'' timeslot conflict. Critics have pointed to a 2004 ''Tonight Show'' clip, wherein Leno claimed he would allow O'Brien to take over without incident. At the time, Leno stated he didn't want O'Brien to leave for a competing network, adding, "I'll be 59 when [the switch occurs], that's five years from now. There's really only one person who could have done this into his 60s, and that was Johnny Carson; I think it's fair to say I'm no Johnny Carson." Leno also described ''The Tonight Show'' as a dynasty, saying "you hold it and hand it off to the next person. And I don't want to see all the fighting..." At the end of the segment, he said, "Conan, it's yours! See you in five years, buddy!"

Actor and comedian Patton Oswalt was among the first celebrities to openly voice disappointment with Leno, saying, "Comedians who don't like Jay Leno now, and I'm one of them, we're not like, 'Jay Leno sucks;' it's that we're so hurt and disappointed that one of the best comedians of our generation... willfully has shut the switch off." Rosie O'Donnell has been among O'Brien's most vocal and vehement supporters, calling Leno a "bully" and his recent actions "classless and kind of career-defining."

Bill Zehme, the co-author of Leno's autobiography ''Leading with My Chin'', told the ''Los Angeles Times'': "The thing Leno should do is walk, period. He's got everything to lose in terms of public popularity by going back. People will look at him differently. He'll be viewed as the bad guy."

Support for Leno

NBC Sports head executive and former ''Saturday Night Live'' producer Dick Ebersol spoke out against all who had recently mocked Leno, calling them "chicken-hearted and gutless."

Jeff Gaspin also defended Leno: "This has definitely crossed the line. Jay Leno is the consummate professional and one of the hardest-working people in television. It's a shame that he's being pulled into this."

Paul Reiser and Jerry Seinfeld are two of the number of celebrities to have voiced support for Leno.

Responding to the mounting criticism, Leno claimed that NBC had assured him that O'Brien was willing to accept the proposed arrangement and then would not let either host out of his contract. Leno also said that the situation was "all business." He appeared on the January 28 episode of ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'' in an attempt to repair some of the damage done to his public image.

Personal life

Leno has been married since 1980 to Mavis Leno; they have no children.

He is known for his prominent jaw, which has been described as mandibular prognathism. In the book ''Leading with My Chin'' he stated that he is aware of surgery that could reset his mandible, but does not wish to endure a prolonged healing period with his jaws wired shut.

Leno is dyslexic. He claims to sleep only four to five hours each night. Leno does not drink or smoke, nor does he gamble. He spends most of his free time visiting car collections or working in his private garage.

Leno reportedly earns $32 million each year; his total net worth is unknown, but has been estimated to be at least $150 million.

Charity

In 2001, along with his wife, he donated $100,000 to the Feminist Majority's campaign to stop gender apartheid in Afghanistan, to educate the public regarding the plight of women in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Mavis Leno is on the board of the Feminist Majority.

In 2009, he donated $100,000 to a scholarship fund at Salem State College in honor of Lennie Sogoloff. Mr. Sogoloff gave Leno his start at his jazz club, Lennie's-on-the-Turnpike.

Love Ride

Since 1985 Jay Leno has been the grand marshal for the Love Ride, a motorcycle charity event which since its founding in 1984 has raised nearly $14 million dollars for charities benefiting muscular dystrophy research and, in 2011, Autism Speaks.

Vehicle collection

Leno owns approximately 100 vehicles, not including about 90 motorcycles. He also has a website called "Jay Leno's Garage," which contains video clips and photos of his automobiles in detail.

He has a regular column in ''Popular Mechanics'' which showcases his car collection and gives advice about various automotive topics, including restoration and unique models, such as his jet-powered motorcycle and solar-powered hybrid. Leno also writes occasional "Motormouth" articles for ''The Sunday Times'', reviewing high-end sports cars and giving his humorous take on automotive matters.

References

External links

Official ''Tonight Show with Jay Leno'' web site

Jay Leno's Car Collection

Jay Leno's Columns at Octane magazine

''The New York Times'' on Leno's affiliation with McPherson College

Live performance videos from the Tonight Show

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Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
alt	A mid-twenties African American man wearing a sequined military jacket and dark sunglasses. He is walking while waving his right hand, which is adorned with a white glove. His left hand is bare.
background	solo_singer
birth name	Michael Joseph Jackson
alias	Michael Joe Jackson, MJ, King of Pop
birth date	August 29, 1958
birth place	Gary, Indiana, U.S.
death date	June 25, 2009
death place	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
instrument	Vocals
genre	R&B;, pop, rock, soul, dance, funk, disco, new jack swing
occupation	Singer-songwriter, musician, composer, dancer, choreographer, record producer, actor, businessman, philanthropist
years active	1964–2009
label	Motown, Epic, Legacy
associated acts	The Jackson 5
relatives	Janet Jackson (sister)
website	}}

Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Often referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His contribution to music, dance, and fashion, along with a much-publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene along with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5, then the Jacksons in 1964, and began his solo career in 1971.

In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music. The music videos for his songs, including those of "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller", were credited with transforming the medium into an art form and a promotional tool, and the popularity of these videos helped to bring the relatively new television channel MTV to fame. Videos such as "Black or White" and "Scream" made him a staple on MTV in the 1990s. Through stage performances and music videos, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His distinctive musical sound and vocal style have influenced numerous hip hop, post-disco, contemporary R&B;, pop and rock artists.

Jackson's 1982 album ''Thriller'' is the best-selling album of all time. His other records, including ''Off the Wall'' (1979), ''Bad'' (1987), ''Dangerous'' (1991), and ''HIStory'' (1995), also rank among the world's best-selling. Jackson is one of the few artists to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. He was also inducted into the Dance Hall of Fame as the first (and currently only) dancer from the world of pop and rock 'n' roll. Some of his other achievements include multiple Guinness World Records; 13 Grammy Awards (as well as the Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award); 26 American Music Awards (more than any other artist, including the "Artist of the Century"); 13 number-one singles in the United States in his solo career (more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era); and the estimated sale of over 750 million records worldwide. Jackson won hundreds of awards, which have made him the most-awarded recording artist in the history of popular music.

Life and career

Early life and The Jackson 5 (1958–1975)

Michael Jackson was born on August 29, 1958, the eighth of ten children in an African American working-class family who lived in a small 3-room house in Gary, Indiana, an industrial city near Chicago. His mother, Katherine Esther Scruse, was a devout Jehovah's Witness, and his father, Joseph Walter "Joe" Jackson, was a steel mill worker who performed with an R&B; band called The Falcons. Jackson had three sisters: Rebbie, La Toya, and Janet, and five brothers: Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, and Randy. A sixth brother, Brandon, died shortly after birth.

Jackson had a troubled relationship with his father, Joe.

The group's sales began declining in 1973, and the band members chafed under Motown's strict refusal to allow them creative control or input. Although they scored several top 40 hits, including the top 5 disco single "Dancing Machine" and the top 20 hit "I Am Love", the Jackson 5 left Motown in 1975.

Move to Epic and ''Off the Wall'' (1975–81)

In June 1975, the Jackson 5 signed with Epic Records, a subsidiary of CBS Records and renamed themselves the Jacksons. Younger brother Randy formally joined the band around this time, while Jermaine left to pursue a solo career. In 1980, Jackson won three awards at the American Music Awards for his solo efforts: Favorite Soul/R&B; Album, Favorite Soul/R&B; Male Artist, and Favorite Soul/R&B; Single for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough". That year, he also won Billboard Year-End for Top Black Artist and Top Black Album and a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B; Vocal Performance, also for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough". Jackson again won at the American Music Awards in 1981 for Favorite Soul/R&B; Album and Favorite Soul/R&B; Male Artist. Despite its commercial success, Jackson felt ''Off the Wall'' should have made a much bigger impact, and was determined to exceed expectations with his next release. In 1980, he secured the highest royalty rate in the music industry: 37 percent of wholesale album profit.

''Thriller'' and ''Motown 25'' (1982–83)

In 1982, Jackson contributed the song "Someone In the Dark" to the storybook for the film ''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial''; the record won a Grammy for Best Recording for Children in 1984. In the same year he won another seven Grammys and eight American Music Awards (including the Award of Merit, the youngest artist to win it), making him the most awarded in one night for both award shows. The album topped the ''Billboard'' 200 chart for 37 weeks and was in the top 10 of the 200 for 80 consecutive weeks. It was the first album to have seven ''Billboard'' Hot 100 top 10 singles, including "Billie Jean", "Beat It," and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'." ''Thriller'' was certified for 29 million shipments by the RIAA, giving it Double Diamond status in the United States. The album won also another Grammy for Best Engineered Recording – Non Classical in 1984, awarding Bruce Swedien for his work. Thanks to the ''Bad'' album, Bruce Swedien and Humberto Gatica won one Grammy in 1988 for Best Engineered Recording – Non Classical and Michael Jackson won one Grammy for Best Music Video, Short Form for "Leave Me Alone" in 1989. ''HIStory'' received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. However, the sales for ''Invincible'' were lower than those of his previous releases, due in part to a lack of promotion, no supporting world tour and the label dispute. The album also came out at a bad time for the music industry in general. Jackson rehearsed in Los Angeles in the weeks leading up to the tour under the direction of choreographer Kenny Ortega. Most of these rehearsals took place at the Staples Center, which was owned by AEG. With ''Thriller'', Christopher Connelly of ''Rolling Stone'' commented that Jackson developed his long association with the subliminal theme of paranoia and darker imagery. Allmusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine noted this is evident on the songs "Billie Jean" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'". In "Billie Jean", Jackson sings about an obsessive fan who alleges he has fathered a child of hers. In "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" he argues against gossip and the media. "Beat It" decried gang violence in an homage to ''West Side Story'', and was Jackson's first successful rock cross-over piece, according to Huey. He also observed that the title track "Thriller" began Jackson's interest with the theme of the supernatural, a topic he revisited in subsequent years. In 1985, Jackson co-wrote the charity anthem "We Are the World"; humanitarian themes later became a recurring theme in his lyrics and public persona. ;Bibliography

George, Nelson (2004). ''Michael Jackson: The Ultimate Collection'' booklet. Sony BMG.

Further reading

External links

Michael Jackson Live: Best Pics – slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Michael Jackson at MTV

FBI file on Michael Jackson

Category:1958 births Category:2009 deaths Category:African American dancers Category:African American male singers Category:African American record producers Category:African American singer-songwriters Category:American beatboxers Category:American businesspeople Category:American child singers Category:American choreographers Category:American dance musicians Category:American dancers Category:American disco musicians Category:American male singers Category:American boogie musicians Category:American pop singers Category:American rhythm and blues singers Category:American rock singers Category:American soul singers Category:American tenors Category:American vegetarians Category:Boy sopranos Category:Brit Award winners Category:Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale) Category:Child pop musicians Category:Drug-related deaths in California Category:English-language singers Category:Epic Records artists Category:Expatriates in Bahrain Category:Former Jehovah's Witnesses Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grammy Legend Award Michael Jackson Category:Manslaughter victims Category:Motown artists Category:Musicians from Indiana Category:People acquitted of sex crimes Category:People from Gary, Indiana Category:People from Santa Barbara County, California Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Songwriters from Indiana Category:Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees Michael Jackson Category:World Music Awards winners Category:Young Artist Award winners

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