Marty is a 1955 American film directed by Delbert Mann. The screenplay was written by Paddy Chayefsky, expanding upon his 1953 teleplay of the same name. The film stars Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair. The film enjoyed international success, winning the 1955 Academy Award for Best Picture and becoming the second American film to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Marty and The Lost Weekend (1945) are the only two films to win both organizations' grand prizes.

Characters and story[link]

The film stars Borgnine as Marty Piletti, a heavy-set Italian-American butcher who lives in The Bronx, New York City, with his mother (Esther Minciotti). Unmarried at 34, the good-natured but socially awkward man faces constant badgering from family and friends to get married, pointing out that all his brothers and sisters are already married with children. Not averse to marriage but disheartened by his lack of prospects, Marty has reluctantly resigned himself to bachelorhood. In spite of his failed love life, Marty maintains an optimistic outlook on life characterized by his frequent ejaculatory outbursts such as "Perfect!" or "Fantastic!"

After being harassed by his mother into going to the Stardust Ballroom one Saturday night, Marty connects with Clara (Betsy Blair), a plain schoolteacher, who is quietly weeping on the roof after being callously abandoned at the ballroom by her blind date. Spending the evening together dancing, walking the busy streets, and talking in a diner, Clara and Marty discover many affinities that they share. He eagerly spills out his life story and ambitions, and they encourage each other. He brings Clara to his house, and they awkwardly express their mutual attraction, shortly before his mother returns. Marty, delighted with his new-found love, takes her home by bus, promising to call her at two o'clock the next afternoon, after Mass. In an exuberant scene, he punches the bus stop sign and weaves between the cars, looking for a cab, a rare luxury matching his mood.

Meanwhile, his cranky, busybody widowed aunt moves in to live with Marty and his mother. She warns his mother that living alone, when children marry, is a widow's fate. Fearing that Marty's romance could spell her abandonment, his mother belittles Clara. Marty's friends, with an undercurrent of envy, deride Clara for her plainness and try to convince Marty to forget her; and, to remain (with them) unmarried; in their fading youth. Harangued into submission by the pull of his friends, Marty doesn't call Clara.

That night, back in the same lonely rut (among his regular cast of male friends), Marty realizes that he is giving up a chance of love with a woman whom he not only likes, but who makes him happy. Over the objections of his friends, he dashes to a phone booth to call Clara, who is disconsolately watching television with her parents. When his friend asks what he's doing, Marty bursts out saying:

Marty's ending lines are a masterpiece of understatement and social commentary. Marty has distilled the essence of the belief in individual freedom that lies at the core of the American social outlook and system. It is that the measure of the value of social intercourse of the people of a civilization that are committed to individual freedom. Such people are free, to define for themselves, what they value, in the world in which they live. All the other “actors” and factors in the equations of the social intercourse, in Marty and Clara’s life: their parents, friends, society at large, social convention, or the deadweight of history, all fall, before the sovereignty of their freedom and dignity to view themselves, and to act, solely according to their judgments. In the end, it is the American society’s commitment, to accept as the final word, Clara and Marty’s decisions regarding their lives, and their happiness, that gives the hopeful and upbeat tone to this film’s ending.

Marty then closes the phone booth's door and calls Clara. In the last line of the film, he tentatively says "Hello...Hello, Clara?"

Production[link]

For the film, Esther Minciotti, Augusta Ciolli and Joe Mantell reprised their roles from the live television production. The screenplay changed the name of the Waverly Ballroom to the Stardust Ballroom. The film expanded the role of Clara, and subplots about Marty's career and his mother and her sister were added.^[1]

Shooting for the film began on September 7, 1954, in the Bronx, and included many aspects of the borough into the film, such as Grand Concourse, Arthur Avenue, Gun Hill Road, White Plains Road, and several Bronx subway and elevated train lines, including the Concourse, Third Avenue, White Plains Road, and Jerome Avenue lines. On-set filming took place at Samuel Goldwyn Studios on November 1, 1954. Bronx native Jerry Orbach made his film debut in an uncredited role as a ballroom guest. Chayefsky had an uncredited cameo as Leo.

Reception[link]

With an April 11, 1955, premiere (followed by a wide release July 15), the film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. Ronald Holloway of Variety wrote, "If Marty is an example of the type of material that can be gleaned, then studio story editors better spend more time at home looking at television."^[2] Time described the film as "wonderful".^[3] Louella Parsons enjoyed the film, although she felt that it would not likely be nominated for Oscars.^[4] At a budget of $343,000, the film generated revenues of $3,000,000 in the US alone, making it a box office success.^[5]

Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that all 28 sampled critics gave the film positive reviews and that it got an average score of 8 out of 10.^[6]

Accolades[link]

Academy Awards[link]

Cannes Film Festival[link]

Winner Palme d'Or^[8]

Legacy[link]

In 1994, Marty was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

The film's plot was remade in the 1991 comedy film Only the Lonely. The television film Queen of the Stardust Ballroom (1975) has been reviewed as a "gender reversal" of Marty.^[9]

One line of dialogue, "I don't know. What do you want to do tonight, Marty?", was often satirized and became a catchphrase during the 1950s.^[10]

On the TV quiz show Twenty One, the question "Which movie won the Academy Award for Best Picture for 1955?" was given to Herb Stempel. He was pressured to answer it incorrectly even though Marty was one of his favorite films. This milestone moment from the 1950s quiz show scandals was dramatized in the film Quiz Show (1994).

The animated series Rocko's Modern Life featured a parody of the character Marty, and modeled partially on his physical likeness, in the Season 1 episode "Rocko's Happy Sack".

Comedian and Curb Your Enthusiasm star Jeff Garlin is a fan of Marty, and his 2006 film, I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, contains numerous references, including a subplot involving a studio remake starring singer Aaron Carter as the title character and actress Gina Gershon as Marty's mother.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Marty (film)

• Marty at the Internet Movie Database
• Marty at AllRovi
• Marty at the TCM Movie Database
• Marty at Rotten Tomatoes
• Internet Movie Script DataBase

Martin Seamus "Marty" McFly, Sr. is the protagonist in the Back to the Future film trilogy, and is portrayed by actor Michael J. Fox. Marty was also the protagonist in the animated series where he was voiced by David Kaufman. In the videogame by Telltale Games, he is voiced by AJ LoCascio.^[2]

Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly, but after five weeks of shooting scenes for the first film, director Robert Zemeckis and executive producer Steven Spielberg chose to re-cast the role to Fox.

Biography[link]

Marty was born in Hill Valley, California in 1968^[3] to a family of Irish descent. Little is known about Marty's life prior to the first Back to the Future film, except for the fact that he accidentally set his parents' living room rug on fire when he was 8 (which we know from a statement of Marty's to his future parents).^[3]

In 1985, Marty plays lead guitar with his group The Pinheads^[3] and likes listening to Huey Lewis and the News, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and Van Halen. He is also a talented skateboarder and proven to be an excellent shot with a gun, honed by endlessly playing shooting games such as Wild Gunman at his local 7-Eleven.^[4][5]

Although Marty is often accident prone and sometimes thought to lack critical thinking skills, he is nevertheless brave in the face of danger and can be very resourceful and clever. He has shown some good and basic street fighting skills in the movies. He often throws punches in hand-to-hand confrontations. His major character flaw is his pride, which causes him to take unnecessary risks to show others that he is not chicken, as demonstrated throughout various points throughout the trilogy.^[5] However, in the third film, when his ancestor Seamus McFly points out that Seamus's brother, Martin, was killed in an argument where someone questioned his bravery, Marty began to re-think his stance on what other people thought of him. This was highlighted when Marty refused to race Needles, despite Needles goading him into a race, thus avoiding the "automobile accident" involving the Rolls Royce, therefore changing his future for the better.

Family[link]

Marty is the youngest of three children from George and Lorraine McFly. He has a brother Dave and a sister Linda. His secondary entourage consists of girlfriend Jennifer Parker and best friend Emmett Brown, a scientist whom Marty and Jennifer call "Doc." There is an impression that Marty is embarrassed by his family and does not spend much time at home, preferring to hang out with Doc, Jennifer, or the guys in his band, The Pinheads.^[3]

How exactly Marty and Doc met has never been explained, although a draft script for the first film states that, in 1983, Doc turned up at Marty's garage one day and offered him $50 a week, plus free beer and use of his record collection, to clean his garage.^[6] This explanation is not accepted by most fans, as it contradicts the characterizations of Marty and Doc as seen in the finished film. Writers Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale say they once considered expanding on their relationship, but decided against it, reasoning that children and adolescents are often drawn to eccentric or mysterious neighbors.

By 2015, Marty has married his girlfriend Jennifer and they had twins, Martin "Marty" Jr. and Marlene, who were born on April 28, 1998 (both played by Michael J. Fox).^[4] However, the events at the end of Back To The Future Part III, where Marty avoided the race with Needles, may affect the outcome of events as seen in Part II.

Aliases[link]

Marty has had many false names through the Back to the Future series. Some of which include; Calvin Klein, Darth Vader of the Planet Vulcan (Back to the Future),^[3] Clint Eastwood (Back to the Future Part III),^[5] and Sonny Crockett/Harry Callahan/Michael Corleone (2011 video game only). Including these aliases, Marty has also posed as his son, Martin McFly Jr.^[4]

[edit] Back to the Future: The Animated Series

In the animated series, Marty and Jennifer study at Hill Valley College after graduating from Hill Valley High School. Marty spends a lot of time visiting the Brown house where Doc, Clara, and their sons now live. He continues to travel through time alongside Jennifer, Doc, and the rest of the Brown family on many of their adventures, in the process learning a lot about his family's ancestry and future.

The animated series says that Marty has not completely overcome his "chicken" problem established in the films. For instance, in the episode "Roman Holiday", Bifficus Antanneny taunts Marty into a chariot race by calling him "pullus," the Latin word for "chicken."

An episode set in 2091 ("Solar Sailors") establishes that Marty's music becomes famous to Elvis-like proportions, as there are Marty impersonators mimicking his act on stage. His great-granddaughter Marta remarks, "If only my great-grandfather was still alive to see that his music continues on..."

Legacy[link]

In 2008, Marty McFly was selected by Empire magazine as the 39th greatest movie character of all time.^[7]

The British band McFly was named after Marty McFly because the vocalist Tom Fletcher is a fan of the Back to the Future trilogy.^[8]

Relient K wrote a song about Marty McFly called "Hello McFly" on their eponymous first album.

New Found Glory did a song based on Marty McFly called "Back To The Future" under their side-project International Superheroes of Hardcore^[9]

Canadian skate punk band "Darryl's Grocery Bag" wrote a song about the character entitled "Marty", which was released on the 1998 compilation "Wet Feet", put out by the independent Canadian label "Meter Records". ^[10] The song starts out with a voice snippet of Biff Tannen from the first "Back To The Future" movie.

In an episode of Fringe, a billboard in a parallel universe in 1985 displays the title "Back to the Future" though it also lists Eric Stoltz in the lead role as Marty McFly.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Marty McFly at the Internet Movie Database

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2008)

Martin David Robinson (September 26, 1925 – December 8, 1982), known professionally as Marty Robbins, was an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. One of the most popular and successful country and Western singers of his era, for most of his nearly four-decade career, Robbins was rarely far from the country music charts, and several of his songs also became pop hits.

Biography[link]

Robbins was born in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix, in Maricopa County, Arizona. He was reared in a difficult family situation. His father took odd jobs to support the family of ten children. His father's drinking led to divorce in 1937. Among his warmer memories of his childhood, Robbins recalled having listened to stories of the American West told by his maternal grandfather, Texas Bob Heckle. Robbins left the troubled home at the age of 17 to serve in the United States Navy as an LCT coxswain during World War II. He was stationed in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific. To pass the time during the war, he learned to play the guitar, started writing songs, and came to love Hawaiian music.

After his discharge from the military in 1945, he began to play at local venues in Phoenix, then moved on to host his own show on KTYL. He thereafter had his own television show on KPHO-TV in Phoenix. After Little Jimmy Dickens made a guest appearance on Robbins' TV show, Dickens got Robbins a record deal with Columbia Records. Robbins became known for his appearances at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee.

In addition to his recordings and performances, Robbins was an avid race car driver, competing in 35 career NASCAR races with six top 10 finishes,^[2] including the 1973 Firecracker 400.^[3] In 1967, Robbins played himself in the car racing film Hell on Wheels.^[4] Robbins was partial to Dodges, and owned and raced Chargers and then a 1978 Dodge Magnum. His last race was in a Junior Johnson-built 1982 Buick Regal in the Atlanta Journal 500 on November 7, 1982, the month before he died. In 1983, NASCAR honored Robbins by naming the annual race at Nashville the Marty Robbins 420. He was also the driver of the 60th Indianapolis 500 Buick Century pace car in 1976.

He ran many of the big super speedway races including Talladega Superspeedway in 1972, when he stunned the competition by turning laps that were 15 mph faster than his qualifying time. Apparently, in his motel room, Robbins had knocked the NASCAR-mandated restrictors out of his carburetor. After the race, NASCAR tried to give him the Rookie of the Race award, but Robbins would not accept it, admitting he was illegal because he "just wanted to see what it was like to run up front for once."

Robbins was awarded an honorary degree by Northern Arizona University.

On September 27, 1948, Robbins married Marizona Baldwin (September 11, 1930–July 10, 2001) to whom he dedicated his song "My Woman, My Woman, My Wife". They had two children, a son Ronny (born 1949) and daughter Janet (born 1959), who also followed a singing career in Los Angeles, California.

Robbins later portrayed a musician in the 1982 Clint Eastwood film Honkytonk Man. Robbins died a few weeks before the film's release in December 1982 of complications following cardiac surgery. At the time of his death, Robbins lived in Brentwood in Williamson County, outside Nashville. He was interred in Woodlawn Memorial Park in Nashville. The city of El Paso, Texas later honored Robbins by naming a park and a recreational center after him. Marty's twin sister Mamie Ellen Robinson Minotto died on March 14, 2004, when she was part way through writing a book about her brother "Some Memories: Growing up with Marty Robbins" as remembered by Mamie Minotto, as told to Andrew Means. It was published in January 2007.

Music and honors[link]

Robbins' 1957 recording of "A White Sport Coat and a Pink Carnation" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.^[5] His musical accomplishments include the Grammy Award for his 1959 hit and signature song "El Paso", taken from his album Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs. "El Paso" was the first song to hit No. 1 on the pop chart in the 1960s. It was followed up, successfully, by "Don't Worry", which reached No. 3 on the pop chart in 1961, becoming his third, and last, Top 10 pop hit. "El Paso" was followed by two sequels: "Feleena" and "El Paso City", both of which continued the story featured in the original song. Also in 1961, Robbins wrote the words and music and recorded "I Told the Brook," a ballad later recorded by Billy Thorpe.

He won the Grammy Award for the Best Country & Western Recording 1961, for his follow-up album More Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs, and was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 1970, for "My Woman, My Woman, My Wife". Robbins was named Artist of the Decade (1960–69) by the Academy of Country Music, was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1982, and was given a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1998 for his song "El Paso".

Robbins was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1975. For his contribution to the recording industry, Robbins has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6666 Hollywood Blvd.

Robbins has been honored by many bands, including the Grateful Dead who covered "El Paso". The Who's 2006 album Endless Wire includes the song "God Speaks of Marty Robbins". The song's composer, Pete Townshend, explained that the song is about God deciding to create the universe just so he can hear some music, "and most of all, one of his best creations, Marty Robbins."^[6] The Beasts of Bourbon released a song called "The Day Marty Robbins Died" on their 1984 debut album The Axeman's Jazz. Johnny Cash recorded a version of "Big Iron" as part of his American Recordings series, which is included in the Cash Unearthed box set. Both Frankie Laine and Elvis Presley, among others, recorded versions of Robbins' song "You Gave Me a Mountain", with Laine's recording reaching the pop and adult contemporary charts in 1969.

Robbins performed and recorded several songs by longtime songwriter Coleman Harwell, most notably "Thanks But No Thanks" in 1964; Robbins and his producers employed the top sessions musicians and singers including the Jordanaires to record Harwell's songs. Harwell is the nephew of former Nashville Tennessean newspaper editor Coleman Harwell.

When Robbins was recording his 1961 hit "Don't Worry", session guitarist Grady Martin accidentally created the electric guitar "fuzz" effect -- his guitar was run through a faulty channel in a mixing console. Marty decided to keep it in the final version. The song reached No. 1 on the country chart, and No. 3 on the pop chart.

Robbins' song "Big Iron", originally released on his 1959 album Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs, gained renewed popularity following its use in the video game Fallout: New Vegas.

NASCAR[link]

Marty loved NASCAR racing and as he had the funds to do so, he raced occasionally. His cars were built and maintained by Cotton Owens. Marty Robbins ran typically at Talladega Superspeedway, Daytona International Speedway, and many other tracks. In 1983, one year after Robbins' death, NASCAR named the Nashville Fair Grounds race the Marty Robbins 420 in honor of him. Robbins typically ran either #42 or #22. He typically ran Dodge Daytonas or Fords. His final racecar, a 1978 Dodge Magnum, was superbly restored and donated to the Talledega Museum by his family, and was displayed there from 1983 to 2008. The car is now in private hands in Southern California and raced on the Vintage NASCAR club circuit.

Discography[link]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• IMDb Bio Retrieved on 2008-01-25
• Pruett, Barbara J. "Marty Robbins: Fast Cars and Country Music". Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. 2007. ISBN 0-8108-6036-8
• Diekman, Diane "Twentieth Century Drifter: The Life of Marty Robbins" (Music in American Life). 2012.
• "Fallout: New Vegas" Big Iron is used on Radio New Vegas
• Marty Robbins can also be heard in Silent Hill Downpour.

External links[link]

• Official Marty Robbins Web site
• Robbins page at Country Music Hall of Fame
• Robbins page at Western Music Association
• Robbins page at Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame
• Robbins bio by Hank Davis at Allmusic
• Robbins page by Gaylen Duskey at NASCAR
• The short film Country Style USA Recruitment: Episode 8 is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
• The short film Country Style USA Recruitment: Episode 34 is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]

Chuck Berry
Berry in Örebro, Sweden, on July 18, 2007
Background information
Birth name	Charles Edward Anderson Berry
Born	(1926-10-18) October 18, 1926 (age 85) St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
Genres	Rock and roll, blues, rhythm and blues
Occupations	Musician, songwriter
Instruments	Guitar, vocals
Years active	1955–present
Labels	Chess, Mercury, Atco
Website	www.chuckberry.com
Notable instruments
Gibson ES-355

Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry (born October 18, 1926) is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), Chuck Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, with lyrics focusing on teen life and consumerism and utilizing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.^[1]

Born into a middle class family in St. Louis, Missouri, Berry had an interest in music from an early age and gave his first public performance at Sumner High School. While still a high school student he served a prison sentence for armed robbery between 1944 and 1947. On his release, Berry settled into married life and worked at an automobile assembly plant. By early 1953, influenced by the guitar riffs and showmanship techniques of blues player T-Bone Walker, he was performing in the evenings with the Johnnie Johnson Trio.^[2] His break came when he traveled to Chicago in May 1955, and met Muddy Waters, who suggested he contact Leonard Chess of Chess Records. With Chess he recorded "Maybellene"—Berry's adaptation of the country song "Ida Red"—which sold over a million copies, reaching No. 1 on Billboard's Rhythm and Blues chart. By the end of the 1950s, Berry was an established star with several hit records and film appearances to his name as well as a lucrative touring career. He had also established his own St. Louis-based nightclub, called Berry's Club Bandstand. But in January 1962, Berry was sentenced to three years in prison for offenses under the Mann Act—he had transported a 14-year-old girl across state lines.^[2][3][4]

After his release in 1963, Berry had several more hits, including "No Particular Place to Go", "You Never Can Tell", and "Nadine", but these did not achieve the same success, or lasting impact, of his 1950s songs, and by the 1970s he was more in demand as a nostalgic live performer, playing his past hits with local backup bands of variable quality.^[2] His insistence on being paid cash led to a jail sentence in 1979—four months and community service for tax evasion.

Berry was among the first musicians to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on its opening in 1986, with the comment that he "laid the groundwork for not only a rock and roll sound but a rock and roll stance."^[5] Berry is included in several Rolling Stone "Greatest of All Time" lists, including being ranked fifth on their 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.^[6] The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll included three of Chuck Berry's songs: "Johnny B. Goode", "Maybellene", and "Rock and Roll Music".^[7] Today – at the age of 85 – Berry continues to play live.

Early life and apprenticeship with Johnnie Johnson (1926–54)[link]

Born in St. Louis, Missouri,^[8] Berry was the fourth child in a family of six. He grew up in the north St. Louis neighborhood known as "The Ville," an area where many middle class St. Louis people lived at the time. His father, Henry, was a contractor and deacon of a nearby Baptist church, his mother Martha a certified public school principal. His middle class upbringing allowed him to pursue his interest in music from an early age and he gave his first public performance in 1941 while still at Sumner High School.^[9] Just three years later, in 1944, while still at Sumner High School, he was arrested and convicted of armed robbery after robbing three shops in Kansas City and then stealing a car at gunpoint with some friends.^[10][11] Berry's own account in his autobiography is that his car broke down and he then flagged down a passing car and stole it at gunpoint with a non-functional pistol.^[12][13] Berry was sent to the Intermediate Reformatory for Young Men at Algoa, near Jefferson City, Missouri,^[8] where he formed a singing quartet and did some boxing.^[10]

After his release from prison on his 21st birthday in 1947, Berry married Themetta "Toddy" Suggs on October 28, 1948, who gave birth to Darlin Ingrid Berry on October 3, 1950.^[14] Berry supported his family doing a number of jobs in St. Louis: working briefly as a factory worker at two automobile assembly plants, as well as being janitor for the apartment building where he and his wife lived. Afterwards he trained as a beautician at the Poro College of Cosmetology, founded by Annie Turnbo Malone.^[15] He was doing well enough by 1950 to buy a "small three room brick cottage with a bath" in Whittier Street,^[16] which is now listed as the Chuck Berry House on the National Register of Historic Places.^[17]

By the early 1950s, Berry was working with local bands in the clubs of St. Louis as an extra source of income.^[16] He had been playing the blues since his teens, and he borrowed both guitar riffs and showmanship techniques from blues player T-Bone Walker,^[18] as well as taking guitar lessons from his friend Ira Harris that laid the foundation for his guitar style.^[19] By early 1953 Berry was performing with Johnnie Johnson's trio, starting a long-time collaboration with the pianist.^[20] Although the band played mostly blues and ballads, the most popular music among whites in the area was country. Berry wrote, "Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of our country stuff on our predominantly black audience and some of our black audience began whispering 'who is that black hillbilly at the Cosmo?' After they laughed at me a few times they began requesting the hillbilly stuff and enjoyed dancing to it."^[8]

Berry's calculated showmanship, along with mixing country tunes with R&B tunes, and singing in the style of Nat "King" Cole to the music of Muddy Waters, brought in a wider audience, particularly affluent white people.^[2][21]

Signing with Chess: "Maybellene" to "Come On" (1955–62)[link]

In May 1955, Berry traveled to Chicago where he met Waters, who suggested he contact Leonard Chess of Chess Records. Berry thought his blues material would be of most interest to Chess, but to his surprise it was an old country and western recording by Bob Wills, entitled "Ida Red" that got Chess's attention. Chess had seen the rhythm and blues market shrink and was looking to move beyond it, and he thought Berry might be the artist for that purpose. So on May 21, 1955 Berry recorded an adaptation of "Ida Red"—"Maybellene"—which featured Johnnie Johnson on piano, Jerome Green (from Bo Diddley's band) on the maracas, Jasper Thomas on the drums and Willie Dixon on the bass. "Maybellene" sold over a million copies, reaching No. 1 on Billboard's Rhythm and Blues chart and No. 5 on the September 10, 1955 Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart.^[8][22]

At the end of June 1956, his song "Roll Over Beethoven" reached No. 29 on the Billboard Top 100 chart, and Berry toured as one of the "Top Acts of '56". He and Carl Perkins became friends. Perkins said that "I knew when I first heard Chuck that he'd been affected by country music. I respected his writing; his records were very, very great." As they toured, Perkins discovered that Berry not only liked country music, but knew about as many songs as he did. Jimmie Rodgers was one of his favorites. "Chuck knew every Blue Yodel and most of Bill Monroe's songs as well," Perkins remembered. "He told me about how he was raised very poor, very tough. He had a hard life. He was a good guy. I really liked him."^[23]

Berry in The Casino Deauville, France, July 13, 1987

In late 1957, Berry took part in Alan Freed's "Biggest Show of Stars for 1957" United States tour with the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, and others.^[24] He also guest starred on ABC's The Guy Mitchell Show, having sung his hit song "Rock 'n' Roll Music". The hits continued from 1957 to 1959, with Berry scoring over a dozen chart singles during this period, including the top 10 US hits "School Days", "Rock and Roll Music", "Sweet Little Sixteen", and "Johnny B. Goode". He appeared in two early rock and roll movies. The first was Rock Rock Rock, released in 1956. He is shown singing "You Can't Catch Me." He had a speaking role as himself in the 1959 film Go, Johnny, Go! along with Alan Freed, and was also shown performing his songs "Johnny B. Goode," "Memphis, Tennessee," and "Little Queenie." His performance of "Sweet Little Sixteen" at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 is captured in the motion picture Jazz on a Summer's Day.^[25]

By the end of the 1950s, Berry was an established star with several hit records and film appearances to his name, as well as a lucrative touring career. He had established a racially integrated St. Louis-based nightclub, called Berry's Club Bandstand, and was investing in real estate.^[26] But in December 1959, Berry was arrested under the Mann Act after an allegation that he had sex with a 14-year-old Apache waitress whom he had transported over state lines to work as a hat check girl at his club.^[27] After an initial two-week trial in March 1960, Berry was convicted, fined $5,000, and sentenced to five years in prison.^[28] Berry's appeal that the judge's comments and attitude were racist and prejudiced the jury against him was upheld,^[3][29] and a second trial was heard in May and June 1961,^[30] which resulted in Berry being given a three-year prison sentence.^[12] After another appeal failed, Berry served one and one half years in prison from February 1962 to October 1963.^[12] Berry had continued recording and performing during the trials, though his output had slowed down as his popularity declined; his final single released before being imprisoned was "Come On".^[31]

"Nadine" and move to Mercury (1963–69)[link]

When Berry was released from prison in 1963, he was able to return to recording and performing due to the British invasion acts of the 1960s—most notably The Beatles and The Rolling Stones—having kept up an interest in his music by releasing cover versions of his songs;^[32][33] along with other bands reworking his songs, such as the Beach Boys basing their 1963 hit "Surfin' USA" on Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen".^[34] In 1964–65 Berry released eight singles, including three, "No Particular Place to Go" (a reworking of "School Day"),^[35] "You Never Can Tell", and "Nadine,"^[36] which achieved commercial success, reaching the top 20 of the Billboard 100. Between 1966 and 1969 Berry released five albums on the Mercury label, including his first live album Live at Fillmore Auditorium in which he was backed by the Steve Miller Band.^[37][38]

While this was not a successful period for studio work,^[39] Berry was still a top concert draw. In May 1964, he did a successful tour of the UK,^[35] though when he returned in January 1965 his behavior was erratic and moody, and his touring style of using unrehearsed local backing bands and a strict non-negotiable contract was earning him a reputation as a difficult yet unexciting performer.^[40] He also played at large events in North America, such as the Schaefer Music Festival in New York City's Central Park in July 1969, and the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival in October.^[41]

Back to Chess: "My Ding-a-Ling" to White House concert (1970–79)[link]

Berry returned to Chess from 1970 to 1973. There were no hit singles from the 1970 album Back Home, then in 1972 Chess released a live recording of "My Ding-a-Ling", a novelty song which Berry had recorded in a different version on his 1968 LP From St. Louie to Frisco as "My Tambourine".^[43] The track became Berry's only No. 1 single. A live recording of "Reelin' And Rockin'" was also issued as a follow-up single that same year and would prove to be Berry's final top-40 hit in both the US and the UK. Both singles were featured on the part-live/part-studio album The London Chuck Berry Sessions which was one of a series of London Sessions albums which included other Chess mainstay artists Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. Berry's second tenure with Chess ended with the 1975 album Chuck Berry, after which he did not make a studio record until 1979's Rock It for Atco Records, his last studio album to date.^[44]

In the 1970s Berry toured on the basis of his earlier successes. He was on the road for many years, carrying only his Gibson guitar, confident that he could hire a band that already knew his music no matter where he went. Allmusic has said that in this period his "live performances became increasingly erratic, [...] working with terrible backup bands and turning in sloppy, out-of-tune performances" which "tarnished his reputation with younger fans and oldtimers" alike.^[45] Among the many bandleaders performing a backup role with Chuck Berry were Bruce Springsteen and Steve Miller when each was just starting his career. Springsteen related in the video Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll that Berry did not even give the band a set list and just expected the musicians to follow his lead after each guitar intro. Berry neither spoke to nor thanked the band after the show. Nevertheless, Springsteen backed Berry again when he appeared at the concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. At the request of Jimmy Carter, Chuck Berry performed at the White House on June 1, 1979.^[38]

Berry's type of touring style, traveling the "oldies" circuit in the 1970s (where he was often paid in cash by local promoters) added ammunition to the Internal Revenue Service's accusations that Berry was a chronic income tax evader. Facing criminal sanction for the third time, Berry pleaded guilty to tax evasion and was sentenced to four months in prison and 1,000 hours of community service—doing benefit concerts—in 1979.^[46]

Still on the road (1980–present)[link]

Berry performing live in 1997

Berry continued to play 70 to 100 one-nighters per year in the 1980s, still traveling solo and requiring a local band to back him at each stop. In 1986, Taylor Hackford made a documentary film, Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, of a celebration concert for Berry's sixtieth birthday, organised by Keith Richards, in which Berry reveals his bitterness at the fame and financial success that Richards achieved on the back of Berry's songs.^[47] Eric Clapton, Etta James, Julian Lennon, Robert Cray and Linda Ronstadt, among others, appeared with Berry on stage and film. During the concert, Berry played a Gibson ES-355, the luxury version of the ES-335 that he favored on his 1970s tours. Richards played a black Fender Telecaster Custom, Cray a Fender Stratocaster and Clapton a Gibson ES 350T, the same guitar Berry used on his early recordings.^[48]

In the late 1980s, Berry bought a restaurant in Wentzville, Missouri, called The Southern Air,^[49] and in 1990 he was sued by several women who claimed that he had installed a video camera in the ladies' bathroom. Berry claimed that he had the camera installed to catch red-handed a worker who was suspected of stealing from the restaurant. Though his guilt was never proven in court, Berry opted for a class action settlement with 59 women. Berry's biographer, Bruce Pegg, estimated that it cost Berry over $1.2 million plus legal fees.^[50] It was during this time that he began using Wayne T. Schoeneberg as his legal counsel. Reportedly, a police raid on his house did find videotapes of women using the restroom, and one of the women was a minor. Also found in the raid were 62 grams of marijuana. Felony drug and child-abuse charges were filed. In order to avoid the child-abuse charges, Berry agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor possession of marijuana. He was given a six-month suspended jail sentence, two years' unsupervised probation, and ordered to donate $5,000 to a local hospital.^[51]

In November 2000, Berry again faced legal charges when he was sued by his former pianist Johnnie Johnson, who claimed that he co-wrote over 50 songs, including "No Particular Place to Go", "Sweet Little Sixteen" and "Roll Over Beethoven", that credit Berry alone. The case was dismissed when the judge ruled that too much time had passed since the songs were written.^[52]

Currently, Berry usually performs one Wednesday each month at Blueberry Hill, a restaurant and bar located in the Delmar Loop neighborhood in St. Louis. In 2008, Berry toured Europe, with stops in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, Poland, and Spain. In mid-2008, he played at Virgin Festival in Baltimore, MD.^[53] He presently lives in Ladue, Missouri, approximately 10 miles west of St. Louis.^[54] During a New Year's Day 2011 concert in Chicago, Berry, suffering from exhaustion, passed out and had to be helped off stage.^[55]

Legacy[link]

Berry was honored alongside Leonard Cohen as the recipients of the first annual Pen Awards for songwriting excellence at the JFK Presidential Library, Boston, Mass. on February 26, 2012

A pioneer of rock music, Berry was a significant influence on the development of both the music and the attitude associated with the rock music lifestyle. With songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), Chuck Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, with lyrics successfully aimed to appeal to the early teenage market by using graphic and humorous descriptions of teen dances, fast cars, high-school life, and consumer culture,^[2] and utilizing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.^[1] His records are a rich storehouse of the essential lyrical, showmanship and musical components of rock and roll; and, in addition to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, a large number of significant popular-music performers have recorded Berry's songs.^[2] Though not technically accomplished, his guitar style is distinctive – he incorporated electronic effects to mimic the sound of bottleneck blues guitarists, and drew on the influence of guitar players such as Charlie Christian and T-Bone Walker^[2] to produce a clear and exciting sound that many later guitar musicians would acknowledge as a major influence in their own style.^[51] In the film Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll Eric Clapton states 'If you wanna play rock and roll – or any upbeat number – and you wanted to take a guitar ride you would end up playing like Chuck...because there is very little other choice. There's not a lot of other ways to play rock and roll other than the way Chuck plays it; he's really laid the law down..." In 1992 Keith Richards told Best of Guitar Player "Chuck was my man. He was the one who made me say 'I want to play guitar, Jesus Christ!'...Suddenly I knew what I wanted to do." Berry's showmanship has been influential on other rock guitar players,^[57] particularly his one-legged hop routine,^[58] and the "duck walk",^[59] which he first used as a child when he walked "stooping with full-bended knees, but with my back and head vertical" under a table to retrieve a ball and his family found it entertaining; he used it when "performing in New York for the first time and some journalist branded it the duck walk."^[60][61]

The rock critic Robert Christgau considers him "the greatest of the rock and rollers,"^[62] while John Lennon said that "if you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'."^[63] Ted Nugent said "If you don't know every Chuck Berry lick, you can't play rock guitar."^[64] Among the honors he has received, have been the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984,^[65] the Kennedy Center Honors in 2000,^[66] and being named seventh on Time magazine's 2009 list of the 10 best electric guitar players of all-time.^[67] On May 14, 2002, Chuck Berry was honored as one of the first BMI Icons at the 50th annual BMI Pop Awards. He was presented the award along with BMI affiliates Bo Diddley and Little Richard.^[68]

Berry is included in several Rolling Stone "Greatest of All Time" lists. In September 2003, the magazine named him number 6 in their list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".^[69] This was followed in November of the same year by his compilation album The Great Twenty-Eight being ranked 21st in the Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.^[70] The following year, in March 2004, Berry was ranked fifth out of "The Immortals – The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time".^[6] In December 2004, six of his songs were included in the "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", namely "Johnny B. Goode" (# 7), "Maybellene" (# 18), "Roll Over Beethoven" (# 97), "Rock and Roll Music" (#128), "Sweet Little Sixteen" (# 272) and "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" (# 374).^[71] In June 2008, his song "Johnny B. Goode" ranked first place in the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time".^[72]

A statue 8 feet (2.4 m) tall of Berry, funded by donations, has been erected along the St. Louis Walk of Fame. The dedication ceremony attended by Berry was held on July 29, 2011.^[73]

Discography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

	Book: Chuck Berry
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Chuck Berry

• Official website

Karen Steele (March 20, 1931 – March 12, 1988) was an American actress and model with over 60 roles in film and television. Her most famous roles include starring as Virginia in Marty, as Mrs Lane in Ride Lonesome, and as Eve McHuron in the Star Trek episode "Mudd's Women".

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Karen Steele was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Percy Davis Steele, a Bostonian of English descent and a career Marine who in 1956 was named assistant administrator of the Marshall Islands.

Her mother was the former Ruth Covey Merritt, a Californian of French and Danish heritage. Childhood in the Hawaiian Islands brought Steele into contact with the Japanese and Polynesian languages as well as English.^[1]

She attended the University of Hawaii and studied acting at Rollins College in Florida for a year. After that, she found work as a cover girl and model.

Steele earned her first money by spearing baby sharks in the private cove on the estate of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton.^[1]

Career[link]

Steele's first acting job was in a radio play titled Let George Do It. She subsequently appeared in the 1953 films The Clown (in an uncredited role) and Man Crazy (as Marge). The following year she landed the role of Millie Darrow in "So False and So Fair" on the television anthology Studio 57.

Her first critically acclaimed film was Marty (1955). She played Virginia and got the part because the director, Delbert Mann, confused her with an actress from New York who he and writer Paddy Chayevsky had intended to play it.^[1][2]

Her character in "Survival of the Fattest", a 1965 episode of Get Smart, was named Mary 'Jack' Armstrong, said to be "the strongest female enemy agent in the world".^[3] This is a reference to Jack Armstrong, the clean-cut fictional hero of Jack Armstrong the All American Boy, an adventure series broadcast on radio from 1933 to 1951.

Like many actresses, as she got older she turned to TV commercials for income. She also became involved in charitable causes and community service. In early 1970 she went on a handshake tour of service hospitals in the South Pacific. She turned down a series that would have brought her $78,000 in order to make the trip and in the process lost her agent.^[1]

Personal life[link]

In later life she settled in Golden Valley, Arizona, and married Dr. Maurice Boyd Ruland, a psychiatrist at the Mohave Mental Health Clinic. They were married until she died, aged 57, at the Kingman Regional Medical Center in Kingman, Arizona.

Filmography[link]

• The Clown (1953) (uncredited) as Blonde
• Man Crazy (1953) as Marge
• Marty (1955) as Virginia
• Toward the Unknown (1956) (uncredited) as Polly Craven
• The Sharkfighters (1956) as Martha Staves
• Decision at Sundown (1957) as Lucy Summerton
• Bailout at 43,000 (1957) as Carol Peterson
• Ride Lonesome (1959) as Mrs. Lane
• Westbound (1959) as Jeanie Miller (Rod's wife)
• The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1960) as Alice Shiffer
• 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962) as Bambi
• McGhee (1965) (TV) as Ann Dorsey
• Cyborg 2087 (1966) as Dr. Sharon Mason
• Death of a Salesman (1966) (TV) as Letta
• Braddock (1968) (TV) as Louise Tratner
• The Happy Ending (1969) as Divorcee
• A Boy... a Girl (1969) as Elizabeth
• The Trap on Cougar Mountain (1972)

Television credits[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Karen Steele at the Internet Movie Database
• Karen Steele at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• Karen Steele as Eve McHuron
• Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen: Karen Steele
• All-movie Guide: Karen Steele