Events

180 – Twelve inhabitants of Scillium in North Africa are executed for being Christians. This is the earliest record of Christianity in that part of the world.

1203 – The Fourth Crusade captures Constantinople by assault. The Byzantine emperor Alexius III Angelus flees from his capital into exile.

1402 – Zhu Di, better known by his era name as the Yongle Emperor, assumes the throne over the Ming Dynasty of China.

1453 – Hundred Years' War: Battle of Castillon: The French under Jean Bureau defeat the English under the Earl of Shrewsbury, who is killed in the battle in Gascony.

1586 – A meeting takes place at Lüneburg between several Protestant powers in order to discuss the formation of an 'evangelical' league of defence, called the 'Confederatio Militiae Evangelicae', against the Catholic League.

1717 – King George I of Great Britain sails down the River Thames with a barge of 50 musicians, where George Frideric Handel's ''Water Music'' is premiered.

1762 – Catherine II becomes tsar of Russia upon the murder of Peter III of Russia.

1771 – Bloody Falls Massacre: Chipewyan chief Matonabbee, travelling as the guide to Samuel Hearne on his Arctic overland journey, massacres a group of unsuspecting Inuit.

1791 – Members of the French National Guard under the command of General Lafayette open fire on a crowd of radical Jacobins at the Champ de Mars, Paris, during the French Revolution, killing as many as 50 people.

1794 – The sixteen Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne are executed 10 days prior to the end of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror.

1856 – The Great Train Wreck of 1856 in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, kills over 60 people.

1867 – Harvard School of Dental Medicine was established in Boston. It was the first dental school in the U.S.

1899 – NEC Corporation is organized as the first Japanese joint venture with foreign capital.

1917 – King George V of the United Kingdom issues a Proclamation stating that the male line descendants of the British royal family will bear the surname Windsor.

1918 – On the orders of the Bolshevik Party carried out by Cheka, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his immediate family and retainers are murdered at the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, Russia.

1918 – The , the ship that rescued the 705 survivors from the , is sunk off Ireland by the German ; 5 lives are lost.

1933 – After successfully crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the Lithuanian research aircraft Lituanica crashes in Europe under mysterious circumstances.

1936 – Spanish Civil War: An Armed Forces rebellion against the recently-elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain starts the civil war.

1938 – Douglas Corrigan takes off from Brooklyn to fly the "wrong way" to Ireland and becomes known as "Wrong Way" Corrigan.

1944 – Port Chicago disaster: Near the San Francisco Bay, two ships laden with ammunition for the war explode in Port Chicago, California, killing 320.

1944 – World War II: Napalm incendiary bombs are dropped for the first time by American P-38 pilots on a fuel depot at Coutances, near St. Lô, France.

1948 – The South Korean constitution is proclaimed.

1955 – Disneyland is dedicated and opened by Walt Disney in Anaheim, California.

1962 – Nuclear weapons testing: The "Small Boy" test shot Little Feller I becomes the last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada Test Site.

1968 – A revolution occurs in Iraq when Abdul Rahman Arif is overthrown and the Ba'ath Party is installed as the governing power in Iraq with Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as the new Iraqi President.

1973 – King Mohammed Zahir Shah of Afghanistan is deposed by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan while in Italy undergoing eye surgery.

1975 – Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock with each other in orbit marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations.

1976 – History of East Timor: East Timor is annexed, and becomes the 27th province of Indonesia.

1976 – The opening of the Summer Olympics in Montreal is marred by 25 African teams boycotting the New Zealand team.

1979 – Nicaraguan president General Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigns and flees to Miami, Florida.

1981 – The opening of the Humber Bridge by HM The Queen in England.

1981 – A structural failure leads to the collapse of a walkway at the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, Missouri killing 114 people and injuring more than 200.

1989 – First flight of the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.

1996 – TWA Flight 800: Off the coast of Long Island, New York, a Paris-bound TWA Boeing 747 explodes, killing all 230 on board.

1998 – Papua New Guinea earthquake: A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea killing an estimated 3,183, leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless.

1998 – A diplomatic conference adopts the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, establishing a permanent international court to prosecute individuals for genocide, crime against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.

2007 – TAM Airlines (TAM Linhas Aéreas) Flight 3054 crashes upon landing during rain in São Paulo. This is Brazil's deadliest aviation accident to date with an estimated 199 deaths.

2009 – Jakarta double bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton Hotels killed 9 people including 4 foreigners.

Births

1487 – Ismail I, Shah of Persia (d. 1524)

1674 – Isaac Watts, English hymnwriter (d. 1748)

1698 – Pierre Louis Maupertuis, French mathematician (d. 1759)

1744 – Elbridge Gerry, 5th Vice President of the United States (d. 1814)

1745 – Petr Alekseevich Pahlen, Russian general (d. 1826)

1763 – John Jacob Astor, American businessman (d. 1848)

1797 – Hippolyte Delaroche, French painter (d. 1856)

1823 – Leander Clark, American businessman, legislator, Indian agent (d. 1910)

1831 – Xianfeng, Emperor of China (d. 1861)

1839 – Ephraim Shay, American inventor (d. 1916)

1853 – Alexius Meinong, Austrian philosopher (d. 1920)

1868 – Henri Nathansen, Danish writer and stage director (d. 1944)

1870 – Charles Davidson Dunbar, British military piper (d. 1939)

1871 – Lyonel Feininger, German-American painter and caricaturist (d. 1956)

1888 – Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Israeli writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1970)

1888 – Milán Füst, Hungarian writer, (d. 1967)

1889 – Erle Stanley Gardner, American lawyer and author (Perry Mason) (d. 1970)

1898 – George Robert Vincent, American sound recording pioneer (d. 1985)

1898 – Osmond Borradaile, Canadian cinematographer (d. 1999)

1898 – Berenice Abbott, American photographer (d. 1991)

1899 – James Cagney, American actor (d. 1986)

1900 – Marcel Dalio, French actor (d. 1983)

1901 – Luigi Chinetti, Italian-American racecar driver and NART team owner (d. 1994)

1901 – Bruno Jasieński, Polish poet (d. 1938)

1902 – Christina Stead, Australian novelist (d. 1983)

1910 – Barbara O'Neil, American actress, d. 1980

1911 – Ted Anderson, English footballer (d. 1979)

1912 – Art Linkletter, Canadian television host (d. 2010)

1912 – Erwin Bauer, German racing driver (d. 1958)

1913 – Bertrand Goldberg, American architect (d. 1997)

1915 – Fred Ball, American movie studio executive, actor, and the brother of comedienne Lucille Ball (d. 2007)

1917 – Phyllis Diller, American comedienne

1917 – Red Sovine, American country music singer (d. 1980)

1917 – Lou Boudreau, Major League baseball player and manager (d. 2001)

1918 – Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio, President of Guatemala (d. 2003)

1920 – Juan Antonio Samaranch, Spanish chairman of the International Olympic Committee (d. 2010)

1920 – Kenneth Wolstenholme, English sports commentator (d. 2002)

1920 – Gordon Gould, inventor of the laser (d. 2005)

1921 – Louis Lachenal, French alpinist, one of the first two mountaineers to climb a summit of more than 8,000 meters.(d. 1955)

1921 – František Zvarík, Slovakian actor (d. 2008)

1923 – John Cooper, English race car designer (d. 2000)

1925 – Jimmy Scott, American jazz singer

1926 – Édouard Carpentier, French-born professional wrestler (d. 2010)

1926 – Charles Champlin, American film critic and writer

1928 – Vince Guaraldi, American musician and composer (d. 1976)

1929 – Sergei K. Godunov, Russian mathematician

1932 – Johnny "Red" Kerr, American basketball player, coach, and longtime Chicago Bulls color commentator (d. 2009)

1932 – Hal Riney, American advertising executive (d. 2008)

1932 – Quino, Argentine cartoonist and comic strip artist (Mafalda)

1933 – Tony Pithey, South African Cricketer (d. 2006)

1935 – Diahann Carroll, American actor

1935 – Peter Schickele, American author, composer and radio host

1935 – Donald Sutherland, Canadian actor

1938 – Hermann Huppen, Belgian comic book artist (Bernard Prince, Comanche, Jeremiah)

1939 – Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran

1939 – Andrée Champagne, French Canadian actress and politician

1939 – Spencer Davis, British singer and guitarist (Spencer Davis Group)

1940 – Tim Brooke-Taylor, English comedian

1941 – Daryle Lamonica, American football player

1941 – Achim Warmbold, German rally driver

1941 – Bob Taylor, English Cricketer

1942 – Gale Garnett, Canadian singer

1942 – Connie Hawkins, American basketball player

1942 – Don Kessinger, American baseball player

1942 – Peter Sissons, British newsreader

1944 – Carlos Alberto, Brazilian football player

1944 – Catherine Schell, Hungarian born British actress

1944 – Mark Burgess, New Zealand Cricketer

1945 – Alexander, Crown Prince of Yugoslavia

1946 – Alun Armstrong, English actor

1947 – Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall

1947 – Wolfgang Flür, German musician (Kraftwerk)

1948 – Ron Asheton, American musician and composer (Iggy Pop & The Stooges) (d. 2009)

1948 – Luc Bondy, Swiss theatre and opera director

1948 – Jan Gangelhoff, American whistleblower (d. 2005)

1949 – Terence "Geezer" Butler, British musician and lyricist (Black Sabbath)

1949 – Charlie Steiner, American sports broadcaster

1950 – Derek de Lint, Dutch actor

1950 – Phoebe Snow, American singer/songwriter (d. 2011)

1950 – P.J. Soles, German-born American actress

1951 – Lucie Arnaz, American actress

1952 – David Hasselhoff, American actor and musician

1952 – Nicolette Larson, American singer (d. 1997)

1954 – Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany

1954 – J. Michael Straczynski, American author

1955 – Paul Stamets, American mycologist and environmentalist

1955 – Christopher Chappell, Canadian Cricketer

1956 – Robert Romanus, American actor

1956 – Bryan Trottier, Canadian ice hockey player

1957 – Fern Britton, British television presenter

1958 – Wong Kar-wai, Chinese film director

1960 – Mark Burnett, English-born television producer

1960 – Nancy Giles, American actress

1960 – Robin Shou, Hong Kong actor

1960 – Jan Wouters, Dutch football player and manager

1960 – Dawn Upshaw, American soprano

1960 – Kim Barnett, English cricketer

1961 – Jonathan Potts, Canadian actor

1961 – Roy Pienaar, South African cricketer

1962 – Bill Sage, American actor

1963 – Matti Nykänen, Finnish ski jumper

1963 – Letsie III, King of Lesotho

1963 – Regina Belle, Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter

1963 – John Ventimiglia, American actor

1965 – Craig Morgan, American singer

1965 – Alex Winter, English film director

1965 – Santiago Segura, Spanish film director and actor

1966 – Sten Tolgfors, Swedish politician

1966 – Lou Barlow, American alternative rock singer and musician (Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh)

1966 – Keith "Guru" Elam, American rapper (Gang Starr) (d. 2010)

1967 – Susan Ashton, Christian singer

1968 – Beth Littleford, American comedian

1968 – Bitty Schram, American actress

1968 – Andre Royo, American actor

1969 – Scott Johnson (cartoonist), American Cartoonist

1969 – F. Gary Gray, American music video and film director

1970 – Mandy Smith, English model and singer

1971 – Calbert Cheaney, American basketball player

1971 – Cory Doctorow, Canadian author and activist

1971 – Nico Mattan, Belgian cyclist

1972 – Donny Marshall, American basketball player

1972 – Jason Rullo, American drummer (Symphony X, Redemption)

1972 – Jaap Stam, Dutch footballer

1972 – Eric Williams, American basketball player

1973 – Eric Moulds, American football player

1973 – Tony Dovolani, Albanian ballroom dancer

1973 – Liam Kyle Sullivan, American comedian and actor

1974 – Laura Macdonald, Scottish jazz musician

1975 – Elena Anaya, Spanish actress

1975 – Cécile de France, Belgian actress

1975 – Paul Hinojos, American guitarist (At the Drive-In, The Mars Volta)

1975 – Konnie Huq, English television presenter

1975 – Terence Tao, Australian-Chinese mathematician

1975 – Andre Adams, New Zealand Cricketer

1975 – Darude, Finnish trance DJ

1976 – Luke Bryan, American musician

1976 – Dagmara Dominczyk, Polish actress

1976 – Eric Winter, American actor

1976 – Matthew Holmes, Australian actor

1976 – Gino D'Acampo, Italian celebrity chef

1977 – Lehmber Hussainpuri, Famous Indian Singer

1977 – Marc Savard, Canadian hockey player

1977 – Tiffany Taylor, American model

1977 – Leif Hoste, Belgian cyclist

1978 – Mike Hettinga, American professional wrestler

1978 – Ricardo Arona, Brazilian mixed martial artist

1978 – Émilie Simon, French singer

1978 – Katharine Towne, American actress

1978 – Noah Lennox, American musician

1979 – Mike Vogel, American actor

1980 – Ryan Miller, American hockey player

1980 – Javier Camuñas, Spanish footballer

1981 – Elpida Romantzi, Greek archer

1981 – Hely Ollarves, Venezuelan track and field athlete

1982 – Natasha Hamilton, British singer (Atomic Kitten)

1982 – Omari Banks, West Indian Cricketer

1983 – Ryan Guettler, professional Australian BMX rider

1983 – Sarah Jones, American actress

1983 – Brooke Kinsella, British actress

1983 – Adam Lind, American baseball player

1983 – Jessi Cruickshank, Canadian television presenter

1984 – Sotiris Leontiou, Greek footballer

1984 – Asami Kimura, Japanese singer (Country Musume)

1985 – Neil McGregor, Scottish footballer

1985 – Tom Fletcher, British singer (McFly)

1986 – Dana, Korean singer and actress (TSZX)

1986 – DeAngelo Smith, American football player

1986 – Lacey Von Erich, Professional wrestler

1987 – Darius Boyd, Australian rugby player

1987 – Jan Charouz, Czech racing driver

1987 – Jeremih Felton, R&B; singer

1988 – Summer Bishil, American actress

1998 – Felipe Juan Froilán de Marichalar y de Borbón, Spanish royal

Deaths

521 – Magnus Felix Ennodius, bishop and Latin poet (b. 474)

656 – Uthman ibn Affan, Third Caliph, assassinated.

924 – King Edward the Elder of England

1070 – Baldwin VI, Count of Flanders (b. 1030)

1453 – Dmitry Shemyaka, Grand Prince of Moscow 1445, 1446-1447, poisoned in Veliky Novgorod by Vasily Tyomny's agents

1453 – John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, English military leader

1531 – Hosokawa Takakuni, Japanese military commander (b. 1484)

1566 – Bartolomé de Las Casas, Spanish priest (b. 1484)

1571 – Georg Fabricius, German poet and historian (b. 1516)

1588 – Mimar Sinan, Ottoman architect (b. 1489)

1645 – Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset, Scottish politician

1704 – Pierre-Charles Le Sueur, French fur trader and explorer

1709 – Robert Bolling, English settler in Virginia (b. 1646)

1790 – Adam Smith, Scottish economist and philosopher (b. 1723)

1791 – Martin Dobrizhoffer, Austrian Jesuit missionary (b. 1717)

1793 – Charlotte Corday, French aristocrat and murderer (b. 1768)

1794 – John Roebuck, British inventor (b. 1718)

1845 – Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1764)

1878 – Aleardo Aleardi, Italian poet (b. 1812)

1879 – Maurycy Gottlieb, Ukrainian painter (b. 1856)

1881 – Jim Bridger, American mountain man, Indian fighter, and explorer (b. 1804)

1883 – Tu Duc, emperor of the Nguyễn Dynasty of Vietnam

1885 – Jean-Charles Chapais, Canadian politician (b. 1811)

1887 – Dorothea Dix, American social activist (b. 1802)

1893 – Frederick A. Johnson, American politician (b. 1833)

1894 – Josef Hyrtl, Austrian anatomist (b. 1810)

1894 – Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle, French poet (b. 1818)

1907 – Hector Malot, French writer (b. 1830)

1912 – Henri Poincaré, French mathematician (b. 1854)

1918 – Family of Emperor Nicholas II Alexandrovich (b. 1868)

:* Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna (b. 1872) :* Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna (b. 1895) :* Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna (b. 1897) :* Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna (b. 1899) :* Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna (b. 1901) :* Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich (b. 1904)

1928 – Giovanni Giolitti, Italian statesman (b. 1842)

1935 – George William Russell, Irish nationalist, poet and artist (b. 1867)

1944 – William James Sidis, gifted mathematician and child prodigy (b. 1898)

1945 – Ernst Busch, German field marshal (b. 1885)

1946 – General Dragoljub Mihailović, commandant of the Yugoslav Royal Army in the Fatherland (b. 1893)

1950 – Evangeline Booth, the 4th General of The Salvation Army (b. 1865)

1959 – Billie Holiday, American singer (b. 1915)

1959 – Eugene Meyer, American businessman and newspaper publisher (b. 1875)

1961 – Ty Cobb, baseball player (b. 1886)

1967 – John Coltrane, American musician (b. 1926)

1974 – Dizzy Dean, Major League baseball pitcher (b. 1910)

1975 – Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, Georgian writer and public benefactor (b. 1893)

1980 – Boris Delaunay, Russian mathematician (b. 1890)

1987 – Yujiro Ishihara, Japanese actor (b. 1934)

1988 – Frank Goodish, professional wrestler (b. 1946)

1989 – Itubwa Amram, Nauruan pastor and politician (b. 1922)

1995 – Juan Manuel Fangio, Argentinian race car driver (b. 1911)

1996 – Chas Chandler, bass guitarist (The Animals), record producer and manager (b. 1938)

2001 – Katharine Graham, American publisher (b. 1917)

2003 – David Kelly, Welsh UN weapons inspector (b. 1944)

2003 – Rosalyn Tureck, American pianist and harpsichordist (b. 1914)

2004 – Pat Roach, British professional wrestler and actor (b. 1937)

2005 – Laurel Aitken, Jamaican singer (b. 1927)

2005 – Geraldine Fitzgerald, Irish-born actress (b. 1913)

2005 – Edward Heath, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1916)

2005 – Gavin Lambert, British-born screenwriter (b. 1924)

2005 – Joe Vialls, Australian writer (b. 1944)

2006 – Sam Myers, American musician and songwriter (b. 1936)

2006 – Mickey Spillane, American author (b. 1918)

2007 – Júlio Redecker, Brazilian politician (b. 1956)

2008 – Larry Haines, American actor (b. 1918)

2009 – Walter Cronkite, American broadcast journalist (b. 1916)

2009 – Leszek Kołakowski, Polish philosopher (b. 1927)

2011 – David Ngoombujarra, Australian actor (b. 1967)

Holidays and observances

Christian Feast Day:

*Alexius of Rome (Western Church)

*Cynehelm

*Cynllo

*Jadwiga of Poland

*Martyrs of Compiègne

*Magnus Felix Ennodius

*Marcellina

*Piatus of Tournai

*Romanov sainthood (Russian Orthodox Church)

*Speratus and companions

*July 17 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

Constitution Day (South Korea)

Independence Day (Slovakia)

King's Birthday (Lesotho)

World Day for International Justice (International)

''Yama-boko Junkō'' of the Gion Matsuri (Kyoto, Japan)

External links

BBC: On This Day

On This Day in Canada

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Category:Days of the year Category:July

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Coordinates	44°25′57″N26°6′14″N
name	Sir Paul McCartneyMBE
birth name	James Paul McCartney
background	solo_singer
alt	Black-and-white image of McCartney, in his sixties, holding an electric bass. He wears a black buttoned-up suit jacket with black pants.
birth name	James Paul McCartney
born	June 18, 1942Liverpool, England
instrument	Vocals,Bass guitar,guitar, piano, organ, mellotron, keyboards, drums, ukulele, mandolin, recorder
genre	Rock, pop, psychedelic rock, experimental rock, rock and roll, hard rock, classical music
occupation	Musician, singer-songwriter, record producer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, film producer, painter, activist, businessman
years active	1957–present
label	Hear Music, Apple, Parlophone, Capitol, Columbia, Concord Music Group, EMI, One Little Indian, Vee-Jay
associated acts	The Quarrymen, The Beatles, Wings, The Fireman, Linda McCartney, John Lennon, Denny Laine
website
notable instruments	Höfner 500/1Rickenbacker 4001SGibson Les PaulEpiphone TexanEpiphone CasinoFender EsquireFender Jazz BassYamaha BB1200 BassWal 5-String BassMartin D-28 }}

Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE (born 18 June 1942) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles (1960–1970) and Wings (1971–1981), McCartney is the most commercially successful songwriter in the history of popular music, according to ''Guinness World Records''.

McCartney gained worldwide fame as a member of The Beatles, alongside John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. McCartney and Lennon formed one of the most influential and successful songwriting partnerships and wrote some of the most popular songs in the history of rock music. After leaving The Beatles, McCartney launched a successful solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda Eastman, and singer-songwriter Denny Laine. McCartney is listed in ''Guinness World Records'' as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100 million singles in the United Kingdom.

BBC News Online readers named McCartney the "greatest composer of the millennium", and BBC News cites his Beatles song "Yesterday" as the most covered song in the history of recorded music—by over 2,200 artists—and since its 1965 release, has been played more than 7,000,000 times on American television and radio according to the BBC. Wings' 1977 single "Mull of Kintyre" became the first single to sell more than two million copies in the UK, and remains the UK's top selling non-charity single. Based on the 93 weeks his compositions have spent at the top spot of the UK chart, and 24 number one singles to his credit, McCartney is the most successful songwriter in UK singles chart history. As a performer or songwriter, McCartney was responsible for 31 number one singles on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart in the United States, and has sold 15.5 million RIAA certified albums in the US alone.

McCartney has composed film scores, classical and electronic music, released a large catalogue of songs as a solo artist, and has taken part in projects to help international charities. He is an advocate for animal rights, for vegetarianism, and for music education; he is active in campaigns against landmines, seal hunting, and Third World debt. He is a keen football fan, supporting both Everton and Liverpool football clubs. His company MPL Communications owns the copyrights to more than 3,000 songs, including all of the songs written by Buddy Holly, along with the publishing rights to such musicals as ''Guys and Dolls'', ''A Chorus Line'', and ''Grease''. McCartney is one of the UK's wealthiest people, with an estimated fortune of £475 million in 2010.

Childhood

McCartney was born in Walton Hospital in Liverpool, England, where his mother, Mary (née Mohan), had worked as a nurse in the maternity ward. He has one brother, Michael, born 7 January 1944. McCartney was baptised Roman Catholic but was raised non-denominationally: his mother was Roman Catholic and his father James, or "Jim" McCartney, was a Protestant turned agnostic.

In 1947, he began attending Stockton Wood Road Primary School. He then attended the Joseph Williams Junior School and passed the 11-plus exam in 1953 with three others out of the 90 examinees, thus gaining admission to the Liverpool Institute. In 1954, while taking the bus from his home in the suburb of Speke to the Institute, he met George Harrison, who lived nearby. Passing the exam meant that McCartney and Harrison could go to a grammar school rather than a secondary modern school, which the majority of pupils attended until they were eligible to work, but as grammar school pupils, they had to find new friends.

In 1955, the McCartney family moved to 20 Forthlin Road in Allerton. Mary McCartney rode a bicycle to houses where she was needed as a midwife, and an early McCartney memory is of her leaving when it was snowing heavily. On 31 October 1956, Mary McCartney died of an embolism after a mastectomy operation to stop the spread of her breast cancer. The early loss of his mother later connected McCartney with John Lennon, whose mother Julia died after being struck by a car when Lennon was 17.

McCartney's father was a trumpet player and pianist who had led Jim Mac's Jazz Band in the 1920s and encouraged his two sons to be musical. Jim had an upright piano in the front room that he had bought from Epstein's North End Music Stores. McCartney's grandfather, Joe McCartney, played an E-flat tuba. Jim McCartney used to point out the different instruments in songs on the radio, and often took McCartney to local brass band concerts. McCartney's father gave him a nickel-plated trumpet, but when skiffle music became popular, McCartney swapped the trumpet for a £15 Framus Zenith (model 17) acoustic guitar. As he was left-handed, McCartney found right-handed guitars difficult to play, but when he saw a poster advertising a Slim Whitman concert, he realised that Whitman played left-handed with his guitar strung the opposite way to a right-handed player. McCartney wrote his first song ("I Lost My Little Girl") on the Zenith, and also played his father's Framus Spanish guitar when writing early songs with Lennon. He later learned to play the piano and wrote his second song, "When I'm Sixty-Four". On his father's advice, he took music lessons, but since he preferred to learn 'by ear' he never paid much attention to them.

McCartney was heavily influenced by American Rhythm and Blues music. He has stated that Little Richard was his idol when he was in school and that the first song he ever sang in public was "Long Tall Sally", at a Butlins holiday camp talent competition.

Musical career

1957–1960

At the age of 15, McCartney met John Lennon and The Quarrymen at the St. Peter's Church Hall fête in Woolton on 6 July 1957. He formed a close working relationship with Lennon and they collaborated writing many songs. Harrison joined the group in early 1958 as lead guitarist, followed in early 1960 by Lennon's art school friend, Stuart Sutcliffe on bass. By May 1960, they had tried several new names, including "Johnny and the Moondogs" and "The Silver Beetles", playing a tour of Scotland under that name with Johnny Gentle. They finally changed the name of the group to "The Beatles" in mid-August 1960 and recruited Pete Best at short-notice to become their drummer for an imminent engagement in Hamburg.

1960–1970: The Beatles

From August 1960, The Beatles were booked by Allan Williams, to perform at a club in Hamburg. During extended stays over the next two years, The Beatles performed as a resident group in a number of Hamburg clubs. On returns to Liverpool they played at the Cavern club. Prior to the end of the residency, Sutcliffe left the band, so McCartney, reluctantly, became The Beatles' bass player. The Beatles recorded their first published musical material in Hamburg, performing as the backing group for Tony Sheridan on the single "My Bonnie". This recording later brought the Beatles to the attention of a key figure in their subsequent development and commercial success, Brian Epstein, who became their next manager. Epstein eventually negotiated a record contract for the group with Parlophone in May 1962. After replacing Best with Ringo Starr on drums, The Beatles became popular in the UK in 1963 and in the US in 1964. In 1965, they were each appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). After performing concerts, plays, and tours almost non-stop for a period of nearly four years, and giving more than one thousand four hundred live performances internationally, The Beatles gave their last commercial concert at the end of their 1966 US tour. They continued to work in the recording studio from 1966 until their break-up in 1970. In the eight years from 1962 to 1970, the group had released twenty-four UK singles and twelve studio albums, often released in different configurations in the USA and other countries (see discography).

Since 1970

After the break-up of The Beatles, McCartney continued his musical career, in solo work as well as in collaborations with other musicians. After releasing his solo album ''McCartney'' in 1970, he worked with Linda McCartney to record the album ''Ram'' in 1971. Later the same year, the pair were joined by guitarist Denny Laine and drummer Denny Seiwell to form the group Wings, which was active between 1971 and 1981 and released numerous successful singles and albums (see discography). McCartney also collaborated with a number of other popular artists including Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Eric Stewart, and Elvis Costello. In 1985, McCartney played "Let It Be" at the Live Aid concert in London, backed by Bob Geldof, Pete Townshend, David Bowie, and Alison Moyet.

In 1989, he joined forces with fellow Merseysiders including Gerry Marsden of Gerry and the Pacemakers and Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood to record a new version of Ferry Cross the Mersey (originally recorded 25 years earlier by Gerry and the Pacemakers) to generate money for the appeal fund of the Hillsborough disaster, which occurred on 15 April that year and in which 96 Liverpool F.C. fans died as a result of their injuries.

The 1990s saw McCartney venture into orchestral music, and in 1991 the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society commissioned a musical piece by McCartney to celebrate its sesquicentennial.

He collaborated with Carl Davis to release ''Liverpool Oratorio''; involving the opera singers Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sally Burgess, Jerry Hadley and Willard White, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the choir of Liverpool Cathedral. The Prince of Wales later honoured McCartney as a Fellow of The Royal College of Music and Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music (2008). Other forays into classical music included ''Standing Stone'' (1997), ''Working Classical'' (1999), and ''Ecce Cor Meum'' (2006). It was announced in the 1997 New Year Honours that McCartney was to be knighted for services to music, becoming Sir Paul McCartney. In 1999, McCartney was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist and in May 2000, he was awarded a Fellowship by the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters. The 1990s also saw McCartney, Harrison, and Starr working together on Apple's ''The Beatles Anthology'' documentary series.

Having witnessed the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks from the JFK airport tarmac, McCartney took a lead role in organising The Concert for New York City. In November 2002, on the first anniversary of George Harrison's death, McCartney performed at the Concert for George. He has also participated in the National Football League's Super Bowl, performing in the pre-game show for Super Bowl XXXVI and headlining the halftime show at Super Bowl XXXIX.

McCartney has continued to work in the realms of popular and classical music, touring the world and performing at a large number of concerts and events; on more than one occasion he has performed again with Ringo Starr. In 2008, he received a BRIT award for Outstanding Contribution to Music and an honorary degree, Doctor of Music, from Yale University. The same year, he performed at a concert in Liverpool to celebrate the city's year as European Capital of Culture. In 2009, he received two nominations for the 51st annual Grammy awards, while in October of the same year he was named songwriter of the year at the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Awards. On 15 July 2009, more than 45 years after The Beatles first appeared on American television on ''The Ed Sullivan Show'', McCartney returned to the Ed Sullivan Theater and performed atop the marquee of ''Late Show with David Letterman''. McCartney was portrayed in the 2009 film ''Nowhere Boy'', about Lennon's teenage years, by Thomas Sangster.

On 2 June 2010, McCartney was honoured by Barack Obama with the Gershwin Prize for his contributions to popular music in a live show for the White House with performances by Stevie Wonder, Lang Lang and many others.

McCartney's enduring popularity has helped him schedule performances in new venues. He played three sold out concerts at newly-built Citi Field in Queens, New York (built to replace the Shea Stadium) in July 2009. On 18 August 2010, McCartney opened the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

McCartney has been touring since 2001 with guitarists Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray, Paul "Wix" Wickens on keyboards and drummer Abe Laboriel, Jr.

There are plans for an upcoming Paul McCartney tribute album with recordings of McCartney songs by Kiss, Garth Brooks, Billy Joel, B.B. King and others.

Creative outlets

During the 1960s, McCartney was often seen at major cultural events, such as the launch party for the ''International Times'' and at The Roundhouse (28 January and 4 February 1967 respectively). He also delved into the visual arts, becoming a close friend of leading art dealers and gallery owners, explored experimental film, and regularly attended movie, theatrical and classical music performances. His first contact with the London avant-garde scene was through John Dunbar, who introduced him to the art dealer Robert Fraser, who in turn introduced McCartney to an array of writers and artists. McCartney later became involved in the renovation and publicising of the Indica Gallery in Mason's Yard, London—John Lennon first met Yoko Ono at the Indica. The Indica Gallery brought McCartney into contact with Barry Miles, whose underground newspaper, the ''International Times'', McCartney helped to start. Miles would become ''de facto'' manager of the Apple's short-lived Zapple Records label, and wrote McCartney's official biography, ''Many Years From Now'' (1997).

While living at the Asher house, McCartney took piano lessons at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, which The Beatles' producer Martin had previously attended. McCartney studied composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Luciano Berio. McCartney later wrote and released several pieces of modern classical music and ambient electronica, besides writing poetry and painting. McCartney is lead patron of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, an arts school in the building formerly occupied by the Liverpool Institute for Boys. The 1837 building, which McCartney attended during his schooldays, had become derelict by the mid-1980s. On 7 June 1996, Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the redeveloped building.

Electronic music

After the recording of "Yesterday" in 1965, McCartney contacted the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in Maida Vale, London, to see if they could record an electronic version of the song, but never followed it up. When visiting John Dunbar's flat in London, McCartney would take along tapes he had compiled at Jane Asher's house. The tapes were mixes of various songs, musical pieces and comments made by McCartney that he had Dick James make into a demo record for him. Heavily influenced by John Cage, he made tape loops by recording voices, guitars, and bongoes on a Brenell tape recorder, and splicing the various loops together. He reversed the tapes, sped them up, and slowed them down to create the effects he wanted, some of which were later used on Beatles' recordings, such as "Tomorrow Never Knows". McCartney referred to the tapes as "electronic symphonies".

In the spring of 1966 McCartney rented a ground floor and basement flat from Ringo Starr at 34 Montagu Square, to be used as a small demo studio for spoken-word recordings by poets, writers (including William S. Burroughs) and avant-garde musicians. The Beatles' Apple Records then launched a sub-label, Zapple with Miles as its manager, ostensibly to release recordings of a similar aesthetic, although few releases would ultimately result as Apple and The Beatles slid into business and personal difficulties.

In 1995, McCartney recorded a radio series called "Oobu Joobu" for the American network Westwood One, which he described as being "wide-screen radio". During the 1990s, McCartney collaborated with Youth of Killing Joke under the name The Fireman, and released two ambient electronic albums: ''Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest'' (1993) and ''Rushes'' (1998). In 2000, he released an album titled ''Liverpool Sound Collage'' with Super Furry Animals and Youth, utilising the sound collage and musique concrète techniques that fascinated him in the mid-1960s. In 2005, he worked on a project with bootleg producer and remixer Freelance Hellraiser, consisting of remixed versions of songs from throughout his solo career which were released under the title ''Twin Freaks''. The Fireman's third album ''Electric Arguments'' was released on 25 November 2008. Unlike the first two Fireman albums, this one was more song-based in its structure. McCartney told ''L.A. Weekly'' in a January 2009, "Fireman is improvisational theatre ... I formalise it a bit to get it into the studio, and when I step up to a microphone, I have a vague idea of what I’m about to do. I usually have a song, and I know the melody and lyrics, and my performance is the only unknown."

Film

McCartney was interested in animated films as a child, and later had the financial resources to ask Geoff Dunbar to direct a short animated film called ''Rupert and the Frog Song'', in 1981. McCartney was the producer, he wrote the music and the script, and also added some of the character voices. McCartney wrote and starred in the 1984 film ''Give My Regards to Broad Street''. The film and soundtrack featured the popular hit "No More Lonely Nights", and the album reached No.1 in the UK, but the film did not do well commercially or critically. Roger Ebert awarded the film a single star and wrote, "You can safely skip the movie and proceed directly to the sound track." Dunbar worked again with McCartney on an animated film about the work of French artist Honoré Daumier, in 1992, which won both of them a Bafta award. They also worked on Tropic Island Hum, in 1997. In 1995, McCartney made a guest appearance in the Lisa the Vegetarian episode of The Simpsons, and directed a short documentary about The Grateful Dead.

In May 2000, McCartney released ''Wingspan: An Intimate Portrait'', a retrospective documentary that features behind-the-scenes films and photographs that Paul and Linda McCartney (who had died in 1998) took of their family and bands. Interspersed throughout the 88 minute film is an interview by Mary McCartney with her father. Mary was the baby photographed inside McCartney's jacket on the back cover of his first solo album, ''McCartney'', and was one of the producers of the documentary.

Painting

In 1966, McCartney met art gallery-owner Robert Fraser, whose flat was visited by many well-known artists. McCartney met Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Peter Blake, and Richard Hamilton there, and learned about art appreciation. McCartney later started buying paintings by Magritte, and used Magritte's painting of an apple for the Apple Records logo. He now owns Magritte's easel and spectacles.

McCartney's love of painting surfaced after watching artist Willem de Kooning paint, in Kooning's Long Island studio. McCartney took up painting in 1983. In 1999, he exhibited his paintings (featuring McCartney's portraits of John Lennon, Andy Warhol, and David Bowie) for the first time in Siegen, Germany, and included photographs by Linda. He chose the gallery because Wolfgang Suttner (local events organiser) was genuinely interested in his art, and the positive reaction led to McCartney showing his work in UK galleries. The first UK exhibition of McCartney's work was opened in Bristol, England with more than 50 paintings on display. McCartney had previously believed that "only people that had been to art school were allowed to paint"—as Lennon had.

In October 2000, Yoko Ono and McCartney presented art exhibitions in New York and London. McCartney said, "I've been offered an exhibition of my paintings at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool where John and I used to spend many a pleasant afternoon. So I'm really excited about it. I didn't tell anybody I painted for 15 years but now I'm out of the closet."

As an artist, Paul McCartney designed a series of six postage stamps issued by the Isle of Man Post on 1 July 2002. According to BBC News, McCartney seems to be the first major rock star in the world who is also known as a stamp designer.

Writing and poetry

When McCartney was young, his mother read him poems and encouraged him to read books. McCartney's father was interested in crosswords and invited the two young McCartneys (Paul and his brother Michael) to solve them with him, so as to increase their "word power". McCartney was later inspired—in his school years—by Alan Durband, who was McCartney's English literature teacher at the Liverpool Institute. Durband was a co-founder and fund-raiser at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, where Willy Russell also worked, and introduced McCartney to Geoffrey Chaucer's works. McCartney later took his A-level exams, but passed only one subject—Art.

In 2001 McCartney published 'Blackbird Singing', a volume of poems, some of which were lyrics to his songs, and gave readings in Liverpool and New York City. Some of them were serious: "Here Today" (about Lennon) and some humorous ("Maxwell's Silver Hammer"). In the foreword of the book, McCartney explained that when he was a teenager, he had "an overwhelming desire" to have a poem of his published in the school magazine. He wrote something "deep and meaningful", but it was rejected, and he feels that he has been trying to get some kind of revenge ever since. His first "real poem" was about the death of his childhood friend, Ivan Vaughan.

In October 2005, McCartney released a children's book called ''High in the Clouds: An Urban Furry Tail''. In a press release publicising the book, McCartney said, "I have loved reading for as long as I can remember", singling out ''Treasure Island'' as a childhood favourite. McCartney collaborated with author Philip Ardagh and animator Geoff Dunbar to write the book.

Contact with fellow ex-Beatles

John Lennon

Although McCartney's post-Beatles relationship with John Lennon was troubled, they became close again briefly in 1974 and even played together for the only time since The Beatles split (see A Toot and a Snore in '74). In later years, the two grew apart again. McCartney would often call Lennon, but was never sure of what sort of reception he would get, such as when McCartney once called Lennon and was told, "You're all pizza and fairytales!" McCartney understood that he could not just phone Lennon and only talk about business, so they often talked about cats, baking bread, or babies. According to May Pang, during Lennon's "Lost Weekend" with her they planned to visit McCartney in New Orleans, where McCartney was recording the ''Venus and Mars'' album, but Lennon went back to Ono the day before the planned visit after Ono said she had a new cure for Lennon's smoking habit.

In a 1980 interview, Lennon said that the last time he had seen McCartney was when they had watched the episode of ''Saturday Night Live'' (May 1976) in which Lorne Michaels had made his $3,000 cash offer to get Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr to reunite on the show. McCartney and Lennon had seriously considered going to the studio, but were too tired. This event was fictionalised in the 2000 television film ''Two of Us''. His last telephone call to Lennon, which was just before Lennon and Ono released ''Double Fantasy'', was friendly. During the call, Lennon said (laughing) to McCartney, "This housewife wants a career!" which referred to Lennon's househusband years, while looking after Sean Lennon. In 1984, McCartney said this about the phone call: "Yes. That is a nice thing, a consoling factor for me, because I do feel it was sad that we never actually sat down and straightened our differences out. But fortunately for me, the last phone conversation I ever had with him was really great, and we didn't have any kind of blow-up." Linda McCartney, speaking in the same 1984 interview stated: "I know that Paul was desperate to write with John again. And I know John was desperate to write. Desperate. People thought, well, he's taking care of Sean, he's a househusband and all that, but he wasn't happy. He couldn't write and it drove him crazy. And Paul could have helped him... easily."

;Reaction to Lennon's murder On the morning of 9 December 1980, McCartney awoke to the news that Lennon had been murdered outside his home in the Dakota building in New York. Lennon's death created a media frenzy around the surviving members of The Beatles. On the evening of 9 December, as McCartney was leaving an Oxford Street recording studio, he was surrounded by reporters and asked for his reaction to Lennon's death. He was later criticised for what appeared, when published, to be an utterly superficial response: "It's a drag". McCartney explained, "When John was killed somebody stuck a microphone at me and said: 'What do you think about it?' I said, 'It's a dra-a-ag' and meant it with every inch of melancholy I could muster. When you put that in print it says, 'McCartney in London today when asked for a comment on his dead friend said, "It's a drag."' It seemed a very flippant comment to make." McCartney was also to recall: }} In 1983, McCartney said: }} In a ''Playboy'' interview in 1984, McCartney said that he went home that night and watched the news on television—while sitting with all his children—and cried all evening.

McCartney carried on recording after the death of Lennon but did not play any live concerts for some time. He explained that this was because he was nervous that he would be "the next" to be murdered. This led to a disagreement with Denny Laine, who wanted to continue touring and subsequently left Wings, which McCartney disbanded in 1981. Also in June 1981, six months after Lennon's death, McCartney sang backup on George Harrison's tribute to Lennon, "All Those Years Ago", which also featured Ringo Starr on drums. McCartney would go on to record "Here Today", a tribute song to Lennon.

George Harrison

In 1977, Harrison had this to say about working with McCartney: "There were a lot of tracks though where I played bass...because what Paul would do, if he's written a song, he'd learn all the parts for Paul and then come in the studio and say, 'Do this.' He'd never give you the opportunity to come out with something. Paul would always help along when you'd done his ten songs—then when he got 'round to doing one of my songs, he would help. It was silly. It was very selfish, actually." While being interviewed circa 1988, Harrison said McCartney had recently mentioned the possibility of the two of them writing together, to which Harrison laughed, "I've only been there about 30 years in Paul's life and it's like now he wants to write with me."

In September 1980, Lennon said of Harrison and McCartney's working relationship: "I remember the day [Harrison] called to ask for help on "Taxman", one of his bigger songs. I threw in a few one-liners to help the song along, because that's what he asked for. He came to me because he could not go to Paul, because Paul would not have helped him at that period." Despite this statement, McCartney did contribute to the song, playing the track's guitar solo.

In late 2001, McCartney learned that Harrison was losing his battle with cancer. Upon Harrison's death on 29 November 2001, McCartney told ''Entertainment Tonight'', ''Access Hollywood'', ''Extra'', ''Good Morning America'', ''The Early Show'', ''MTV'', ''VH1'' and ''Today'' that George was like his "baby brother". Harrison spent his last days in a Hollywood Hills mansion that was once leased by McCartney. On the day Harrison died, McCartney said, "George was a fantastic guy...still laughing and joking...a very brave man...and I love him like...he's my brother." While guesting on ''Larry King Live'' alongside Ringo Starr, McCartney said of the last time he saw Harrison, "We just sat there stroking hands. And this is a guy, and, you know, you don't stroke hands with guys, like that, you know it was just beautiful. We just spent a couple of hours and it was really lovely it was like...a favourite memory of mine." On the first anniversary of Harrison's death, McCartney played Harrison's "Something" on a ukulele at the Concert for George.

Personal relationships

One of McCartney's first girlfriends, in 1959, was called Layla, a name he remembers being unusual in Liverpool at the time. Layla was slightly older than McCartney and used to ask him to baby-sit with her. Julie Arthur, another girlfriend, was Ted Ray's niece.

Dot Rhone

McCartney's first serious girlfriend in Liverpool was Dot Rhone, whom he met at the Casbah club in 1959. McCartney chose clothes and make-up for Rhone, and he paid for her to have her hair styled like Brigitte Bardot's. When McCartney first went to Hamburg with The Beatles, he wrote to Rhone regularly, and she accompanied Cynthia Lennon to Hamburg when The Beatles played there again in 1962. The couple had a three-year relationship, and were due to marry until Rhone's miscarriage.

Jane Asher

McCartney first met the British actress Jane Asher on 18 April 1963, when a photographer asked them to pose together at a Beatles performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The two began a relationship and McCartney took up residence with Asher at her parents' house at 57 Wimpole Street London, where he lived for nearly three years before the couple moved to McCartney's own house in St. John's Wood. McCartney wrote several songs while at the Ashers', including "Yesterday" and several inspired by Asher, among them "And I Love Her", "You Won't See Me", and "I'm Looking Through You". McCartney and Asher had a five-year relationship, and they planned to marry, but Asher broke off the engagement when she discovered McCartney had become involved with another woman, Francie Schwartz. However, Schwartz stated that McCartney and Asher had already broken up before the incident.

Linda McCartney

In 1969, McCartney married American photographer Linda Eastman, whom he described as the woman who gave him "the strength and courage to work again" after the break-up of The Beatles. The pair had met previously at a 1967 Georgie Fame concert at The Bag O'Nails club, during her UK assignment to take photographs of "Swinging Sixties" musicians in London. Paul and Linda were both vegetarian and supported the animal rights organisation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. They had four children—Linda's daughter Heather (who was adopted by Paul), Mary, Stella and James—and remained married until Linda's death from breast cancer in 1998.

Heather Mills

In 2002, McCartney married Heather Mills, a former model and anti-landmines campaigner. The couple had a child, Beatrice, in 2003. They separated in May 2006 and were divorced in May 2008. Widespread animosity towards McCartney's wives was reported in 2004. "They [the British public] didn't like me giving up on Jane Asher", McCartney said. "I married a New York divorcee with a child, and at the time they didn't like that."

Nancy Shevell

McCartney has been dating New Yorker Nancy Shevell since November 2007. She is a member of the board of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority as well as vice president of a family-owned transportation conglomerate which owns New England Motor Freight. On 6 May 2011, it was reported that McCartney would wed Shevell.

Lifestyle

Drugs

McCartney's introduction to drugs started in Hamburg, Germany. The Beatles had to play for hours, and they were often given "Prellies" (Preludin) by German customers or by Astrid Kirchherr (whose mother bought them). McCartney would usually take one, but Lennon would often take four or five.

McCartney remembered getting "very high" and giggling when The Beatles were introduced to cannabis by Bob Dylan in New York, in 1964. McCartney's use of cannabis became regular, and he was quoted as saying that any future Beatles' lyrics containing the words "high", or "grass" were written specifically as a reference to cannabis, as was the phrase "another kind of mind" in "Got to Get You into My Life". John Dunbar's flat at 29 Lennox Gardens, in London, became a regular hang-out for McCartney, where he talked to musicians, writers and artists, and smoked cannabis. In 1965, Barry Miles introduced McCartney to hash brownies by using a recipe for hash fudge he found in the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook. During the filming of ''Help!'', he occasionally smoked a spliff in the car on the way to the studio during filming, which often made him forget his lines. ''Help!'' director Dick Lester said that he overheard "two beautiful women" trying to cajole McCartney into taking heroin, but he refused.

McCartney's attitude about cannabis was made public in the 1960s, when he added his name to an advertisement in ''The Times'', on 24 July 1967, which asked for the legalisation of cannabis, the release of all prisoners imprisoned because of possession, and research into marijuana's medical uses. The advertisement was sponsored by a group called Soma and was signed by 65 people, including The Beatles, Epstein, RD Laing, 15 doctors, and two MPs.

McCartney was introduced to cocaine by Robert Fraser, and it was available during the recording of ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band''. He admitted that he used the drug multiple times for about a year but stopped because of the unpleasant comedown.

In 1967, on a sailing trip to Greece (with the idea of buying an island for the whole group) McCartney said everybody sat around and took LSD, although McCartney had first taken it with Tara Browne, in 1966. He took his second "acid trip" with Lennon on 21 March 1967 after a studio session. McCartney was the first British pop star to openly admit using LSD, in an interview in the now-defunct "Queen" magazine. His admission was followed by a TV interview in the UK on ITN on 19 June 1967, and when McCartney was asked about his admission of LSD use, he said:

McCartney was not arrested by Norman Pilcher's Drug Squad, as had been Donovan, and several members of the Rolling Stones. In 1972, however, police found cannabis plants growing on his Scottish farm.

On 16 January 1980, Wings went to Tokyo for 11 concerts in Japan. As McCartney was going through customs, officials found 7.7 ounces (218.3 g) of cannabis in his luggage. He was arrested and taken to a Tokyo prison while the Japanese government decided what to do. McCartney had been previously denied a visa to Japan (in 1975) because he had been convicted twice in Europe for possession of cannabis. Public figures called for McCartney to be put on trial for drug-smuggling. Had he been convicted, he would have faced up to seven years in prison. The Wings Japanese tour was cancelled and the other members of Wings left Japan. After ten days in jail, McCartney was released and deported. He was told that he would not be welcome in Japan again, although a decade later he played a concert in Tokyo. In 1984, Paul and Linda McCartney were both arrested for possession of cannabis.

In an interview in 2004 he stated the he no longer smoked marijuana, He also admitted to taking Heroin, LSD and Cocaine but said his drug use was never excessive.

Meditation

On 24 August 1967, McCartney met the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the London Hilton, and later went to Bangor, in North Wales, to attend a weekend 'initiation' conference, at which time he and the other Beatles learned Transcendental Meditation (TM). "The whole meditation experience was very good and I still use the mantra. . . I find it soothing and I can imagine that the more you were to get into it, the more interesting it would get." The time McCartney later spent in India at the Maharishi's ashram was highly productive, as practically all of the songs that would later be recorded for ''The White Album'' and ''Abbey Road'' were composed there by McCartney, Lennon, or both together. Although McCartney was told that he was never to repeat the mantra to anyone else, he did tell Linda McCartney, and said he meditated a lot while he was in jail in Japan. In 2009, McCartney, along with Ringo Starr, headlined a benefit concert at Radio City Music Hall, raising three million dollars for the David Lynch Foundation to fund instruction in Transcendental Meditation for at-risk youth.

Activism

Paul and Linda McCartney became outspoken vegetarians and animal-rights activists. They said that their vegetarianism was realised when they happened to see lambs in a field as they ate a meal of lamb. McCartney has also credited the 1942 Disney film ''Bambi''—in which the young deer's mother is shot by a hunter—as the original inspiration for him to take an interest in animal rights. In his first interview after Linda's death, he promised to continue working for animal rights. In 1999, McCartney spent £3,000,000 to make sure Linda McCartney's food range remained free of GM ingredients. In 2002, McCartney gave his support to a campaign against a proposed ban on the sale of certain vitamins, herbs, and mineral products in the European Union. Following his marriage to Heather Mills, McCartney joined with her to campaign against landmines; both McCartney and Mills are patrons of Adopt-A-Minefield. In 2003, he played a personal concert for the wife of a wealthy banker and donated his one million dollar fee to the charity. He also wore an anti-landmines t-shirt on the Back in the World tour.

In 2006, the McCartneys travelled to Prince Edward Island to bring international attention to the seal hunt (their final public appearance together). Their arrival sparked attention in Newfoundland and Labrador where the hunt is of economic significance. The couple also debated with Newfoundland's Premier Danny Williams on the CNN show ''Larry King Live''. They further stated that the fishermen should quit hunting seals and begin a seal watching business. McCartney has also criticised China's fur trade and supports the Make Poverty History campaign.

McCartney has been involved with a number of charity recordings and performances. In 2004, he donated a song to an album to aid the "US Campaign for Burma", in support of Burmese Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, and he had previously been involved in the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea, Ferry Aid, Band Aid, Live Aid, and the recording of "Ferry Cross the Mersey" (released 8 May 1989) following the Hillsborough disaster.

In a December 2008 interview with ''Prospect Magazine'', McCartney mentioned that he tried to convince the Dalai Lama to become a vegetarian. In a letter to the Dalai Lama, McCartney took issue with Buddhism and meat-eating being considered compatible, saying, "Forgive me for pointing this out, but if you eat animals then there is some suffering somewhere along the line." The Dalai Lama replied to McCartney by saying his doctors advised him to eat meat for health reasons. In the interview McCartney said, "I wrote back saying they were wrong."

Football

The Beatles were advised by Epstein to make no comments about the football clubs they supported because it could alienate some fans, though it was well known that McCartney was a supporter of Everton Football Club, and that his father and relatives used to take him to matches. His allegiance later shifted to Liverpool F.C., as on 28 July 1968, The Beatles were photographed in a photographer's studio at 192–212 Gray's Inn Road, with McCartney wearing a Liverpool F.C. rosette. Linda McCartney later said: "We spent last night listening to Liverpool football team on the radio, wanting them to win so badly. Paul supports Liverpool. He was for Everton for a while because of his family — but it's all Liverpool now."

Lennon and McCartney were present to watch the 1966 FA Cup Final at Wembley, between Everton and Sheffield Wednesday, and McCartney attended the 1968 FA Cup Final (18 May 1968) which was played by West Bromwich Albion against Everton. After the end of the match, McCartney shared cigarettes and whisky with other football fans. The ex-Liverpool player, Albert Stubbins, was the only footballer shown on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover. McCartney tried to listen (on a radio) to the Liverpool v Manchester United 1977 FA Cup Final, while sailing in the Caribbean, and the video for McCartney's "Pipes of Peace" (in 1983) recreated the 1915 football game played between German and British troops during World War I, at Christmas.

At the end of the live version of "Coming Up" recorded in Glasgow in 1979 (later to become a US number one single) the crowd begins to sing "Paul McCartney!" until McCartney takes over and changes the chant to "Kenny Dalglish!", referring to the current Liverpool and Scotland striker. At the same concert, Gordon Smith, former football player who played for Rangers and Brighton & Hove Albion, met the McCartneys, and later accepted an invitation to visit their home in East Sussex in 1980. Smith later said that McCartney was "thrilled I knew Kenny Dalglish", to which Linda added: "I like Gordon McQueen of Man United", and Smith replied, "I know him too."

McCartney attended the 1986 FA Cup Final between Liverpool and Everton, and in 1989, he contributed to the Ferry Cross the Mersey charity single that was recorded to aid victims of the Hillsborough Disaster, which happened during a match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. McCartney performed at the Liverpool F.C. Anfield stadium on 1 June 2008, as a part of Liverpool's European Capital of Culture year. Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters sang with McCartney on "Band on the Run", and played drums on "Back in the U.S.S.R.". Ono and Olivia Harrison attended the concert, along with Ken Dodd, and the former Liverpool F.C. football manager Rafael Benítez.

In an interview in 2008, McCartney ended speculation about his allegiance when he said:

"Here's the deal: my father was born in Everton, my family are officially Evertonians, so if it comes down to a derby match or an FA Cup final between the two, I would have to support Everton. But after a concert at Wembley Arena I got a bit of a friendship with Kenny Dalglish, who had been to the gig and I thought 'You know what? I am just going to support them both because it's all Liverpool and I don't have that Catholic-Protestant thing.' So I did have to get special dispensation from the Pope to do this but that's it, too bad. I support them both. They are both great teams, but if it comes to the crunch, I'm Evertonian."

In 2010, there was heavy speculation surrounding McCartney that he was to head up a consortium launching a take-over bid for struggling Charlton Athletic. Links between the club and the famous musician go a long way back with Charlton's famous supporters anthem – Valley, Floyd Road – using the tune and a number of lyrics from the Wings song "Mull of Kintyre".

Business

McCartney is one of Britain's wealthiest musicians, with an estimated fortune of £750 million ($1.2 billion) in 2009, although Justice Bennett, in his judgement on McCartney's divorce case found no evidence that McCartney was worth more than £400 million. In December 1998, he was approached to purchase a stake in Everton Football Club by former school friend Bill Kenwright who wished to put a consortium together but McCartney chose to decline the offer. In addition to his interest in Apple Corps, McCartney's MPL Communications owns a significant music publishing catalogue, with access to over 25,000 copyrights. McCartney earned £40 million in 2003, making him Britain's highest media earner. This rose to £48.5 million by 2005. In the same year he joined the top American talent agency Grabow Associates, who arrange private performances for their richest clients. Northern Songs was established in 1963, by Dick James, to publish the songs of Lennon/McCartney.

The Beatles' partnership was replaced in 1968 by a jointly held company, Apple Corps, which continues to control Apple's commercial interests. Northern Songs was purchased by Associated Television (ATV) in 1969, and was sold in 1985 to Michael Jackson. For many years McCartney was unhappy about Jackson's purchase and handling of Northern Songs.

MPL Communications is an umbrella company for McCartney's business interests, which owns a wide range of copyrights, as well as the publishing rights to musicals. In 2006, the Trademarks Registry reported that MPL had started a process to secure the protections associated with registering the name "Paul McCartney" as a trademark. The 2005 films, ''Brokeback Mountain'' and ''Good Night and Good Luck'', feature MPL copyrights.

In April 2009, it was revealed that McCartney, in common with other wealthy musicians, had seen a significant decline in his net worth over the preceding year. It was estimated that his fortune had fallen by some £60m, from £238m to £175m. The losses were attributed to the ongoing global recession, and the resultant decline in value of property and stock market holdings.

Critique, recognition and achievements

McCartney is listed in ''The Guinness Book Of Records'' as the most successful musician and composer in popular music history with sales of 100 million singles and 60 gold discs, "Sir Paul McCartney became the Most Successful Songwriter who has written/co written 188 charted records, of which 91 reached the Top 10 and 33 made it to No.1 totalling 1,662 weeks on the chart (up to the beginning of 2008)."

In the US, McCartney has achieved thirty-two number-one singles on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, including twenty-one with The Beatles, one as a co-writer on Elton John's cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", nine solo, with Wings or other collaborators, and one as the composer of "A World Without Love", a number one single for Peter and Gordon. In the UK, McCartney has been involved in more number-one singles than any other artist under a variety of credits, although Elvis Presley has achieved more as a solo artist. McCartney has twenty four number-one singles in the UK, including seventeen with the Beatles, one solo, and one each with Wings, Stevie Wonder, Ferry Aid, Band Aid, Band Aid 20 and one with "The Christians et all". McCartney is the only artist to reach the UK number one as a soloist ("Pipes of Peace"), duo ("Ebony and Ivory" with Stevie Wonder), trio ("Mull of Kintyre", Wings), quartet ("She Loves You", The Beatles), quintet ("Get Back", The Beatles with Billy Preston), and as part of a musical ensemble for charity (Ferry Aid).

McCartney was voted the "Greatest Composer of the Millennium" by BBC News Online readers and McCartney's song "Yesterday" is thought to be the most covered song in history with more than 2,200 recorded versions and according to the BBC, "The track is the only one by a UK writer to have been aired more than seven million times on American TV and radio and is third in the all-time list. Sir Paul McCartney's Yesterday is the most played song by a British writer this century in the US." After its 1977 release, the Wings single "Mull of Kintyre" became the highest-selling record in British chart history, and remained so until 1984. (Three charity singles have since surpassed it in sales; the first to do so, in 1984, was Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in which McCartney was a participant.)

On 2 July 2005, he was involved with the fastest-released single in history. His performance of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with U2 at Live 8 was released only 45 minutes after it was performed, before the end of the concert. The single reached number six on the ''Billboard'' charts, just hours after the single's release, and hit number one on numerous online download charts across the world. McCartney played for the largest stadium audience in history when 184,000 people paid to see him perform at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on 21 April 1990.

McCartney's scheduled concert in St Petersburg, Russia was his 3,000th concert and took place in front of 60,000 fans in Russia, on 20 June 2004. Over his career, McCartney has played 2,523 gigs with The Beatles, 140 with Wings, and 325 as a solo artist. Only his second concert in Russia, with the first just the year before on Moscow's Red Square as the former Communist U.S.S.R. had previously banned music from The Beatles as a "corrupting influence", McCartney hired 3 jets, at a reported cost of $36,000 (€29,800) (£28,000), to spray dry ice in the clouds above Saint Petersburg's Winter Palace Square in a successful attempt to prevent rain.

The day McCartney flew into the former Soviet country, he celebrated his 62nd birthday, and after the concert, according to ''RIA Novosti'' news agency, he received a phone call from a fan; then-President Vladimir Putin, who telephoned him after the concert to wish him a happy birthday. In the concert programme for his 1989 world tour, McCartney wrote that Lennon received all the credit for being the avant-garde Beatle, and McCartney was known as "baby-faced", which he disagreed with. People also assumed that Lennon was the "hard-edged one", and McCartney was the "soft-edged" Beatle, although McCartney admitted to "bossing Lennon around." Linda McCartney said that McCartney had a "hard-edge"—and not just on the surface—which she knew about after all the years she had spent living with him. McCartney seemed to confirm this edge when he commented that he sometimes meditates, which he said is better than "sleeping, eating, or shouting at someone".

The minor planet 4148, discovered in 1983, was named "McCartney" in his honour.

On 18 June 2006, McCartney celebrated his 64th birthday, a milestone that was the subject of one of the first songs he ever wrote, at the age of sixteen, The Beatles' song "When I'm Sixty-Four". Paul Vallely noted in ''The Independent'': }}

Discography

Tours

Arms

Notes	Sir Paul McCartney's agent was Hubert Chesshyre, LVO, Clarenceux King of Arms
Crest	On a Wreath of the Colours A Liver Bird calling Sable supporting with the dexter claws a Guitar Or stringed Sable.
Escutcheon	Or between two Flaunches fracted fesswise two Roundels Sable over all six Guitar Strings palewise throughout counterchanged.
Motto	ECCE COR MEUM (Behold my heart)
Previous versions	}}

References

;Footnotes

;Bibliography

External links

Paul McCartney's Official Website

Paul McCartney's Animation Website

Paul McCartney Ecce Cor Meum audio Podcast

Liverpool celebrates Irish ancestry

Paul McCartney: Financial Accounts

Category:1942 births Category:English-language singers Category:English male singers Category:English multi-instrumentalists Category:English pop singers Category:English rock bass guitarists Category:English rock guitarists Category:English rock pianists Category:English rock singers Category:English singer-songwriters Category:English people of Irish descent Category:English vegetarians Category:Backing vocalists Category:20th-century classical composers Category:Apple Records artists Category:Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners Category:BRIT Award winners Category:Capitol Records artists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:Knights Bachelor Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire Category:Music from Liverpool Category:Parlophone artists Category:Mercury Records artists Category:People convicted of drug offenses Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees Category:The Beatles members Category:The Quarrymen members Category:Wings members Category:Musicians from Liverpool Category:Living people Category:Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music Category:Transcendental Meditation practitioners Category:People educated at Liverpool Institute High School for Boys Category:Silver Clef Awards winners Category:Animal rights advocates

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Coordinates	44°25′57″N26°6′14″N
name	David Letterman
pseudonym	Earl Hofert
birth date	April 12, 1947
birth place	Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.
medium	Stand-up, talk show
nationality	American
genre	Observational comedy, surreal humor, deadpan
subject	Self-deprecation, everyday life
influences	Steve Allen, Johnny Carson, Jack Paar, Paul Dixon
influenced
website	CBS.com/latenight/lateshow
active	1974–present
domesticpartner	Regina Lasko (1986-2009)
spouse	Michelle Cook (1969–1977)Regina Lasko (2009–present)
Religion	Lutheran
notable work	Host of ''Late Night with David Letterman'' (NBC)Host of ''Late Show with David Letterman'' (CBS)
signature	David Letterman Autograph.svg

}} David Michael Letterman (born April 12, 1947) is an American television host and comedian. He hosts the late night television talk show, ''Late Show with David Letterman'', broadcast on CBS. Letterman has been a fixture on late night television since the 1982 debut of ''Late Night with David Letterman'' on NBC. Letterman recently surpassed friend and mentor Johnny Carson for having the longest late-night hosting career in the United States.

Letterman is also a television and film producer. His company Worldwide Pants produces his show as well as its network follow-up ''The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson''. Worldwide Pants has also produced several prime-time comedies, the most successful of which was ''Everybody Loves Raymond'', currently in syndication.

In 1996, David Letterman was ranked #45 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.

Early life and career

Letterman was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. His father, Harry Joseph Letterman (April 1915 – February 1973), was a florist of British descent; his mother Dorothy Letterman (''née'' Hofert, now Dorothy Mengering), a Presbyterian church secretary of German descent, is an occasional figure on the show, usually at holidays and birthdays.

Letterman lived on the north side of Indianapolis (Broad Ripple area), not far from Speedway, IN, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and he enjoyed collecting model cars, including racers. In 2000, he told an interviewer for ''Esquire'' that, while growing up, he admired his father's ability to tell jokes and be the life of the party. Harry Joseph Letterman survived a heart attack at age 36, when David was a young boy. The fear of losing his father was constantly with Letterman as he grew up. The elder Letterman died of a second heart attack at age 57.

Letterman attended his hometown's Broad Ripple High School at the same time as Marilyn Tucker Quayle (wife of the former Vice President) and worked as a stock boy at the local Atlas supermarket. According to the ''Ball State Daily News'', he originally had wanted to attend Indiana University, but his grades weren't good enough, so he decided to attend Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana. He is a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity, and he graduated from what was then the Department of Radio and Television, in 1969. A self-described average student, Letterman endowed a scholarship for what he called "C students" at Ball State.

Though he registered for the draft and passed his physical after graduating from college, he was not drafted for service in Vietnam due to receiving a draft lottery number of 352 (out of 365).

Letterman began his broadcasting career as an announcer and newscaster at the college's student-run radio station—WBST—a 10-watt campus station which now is part of Indiana Public Radio. He was fired for treating classical music with irreverence.

Letterman then became involved with the founding of another campus station—WAGO-AM 570 (now WWHI, 91.3).

Letterman credits Paul Dixon—host of the ''Paul Dixon Show'', a Cincinnati-based talk show also shown in Indianapolis while Letterman was growing up—for inspiring his choice of career: :"I was just out of college [in 1969], and I really didn't know what I wanted to do. And then all of a sudden I saw him doing it [on TV]. And I thought: That's really what I want to do!"

Weatherman

Letterman began his career as a radio talk show host on WNTS (AM), and on Indianapolis television station WLWI (now called WTHR) as a local anchor and weatherman. He received some attention for his unpredictable on-air behavior, which included congratulating a tropical storm for being upgraded to a hurricane and predicting hail stones "the size of canned hams." He would also occasionally report the weather and the day's very high and low temps for fictitious cities ("Eight inches of snow in Bingree and surrounding areas.") while on another occasion saying that a state border had been erased. ("From space you can see the border between Indiana and Ohio has been erased. I'm not in favor of this.") He also starred in a local kiddie show, made wisecracks as host of a late night TV show called "Freeze-Dried Movies" (he once acted out a scene from "Godzilla" using plastic dinosaurs), and hosted a talk show that aired early on Saturday mornings called "Clover Power," in which he interviewed 4-H members about their projects.

In 1971, Letterman appeared as a pit road reporter for ABC Sports' tape-delayed coverage of the Indianapolis 500. David is initially introduced as Chris Economaki in his job as a corner reporter. He interviews Mario Andretti who has just crashed out of the race and asks him a question about traffic on the course.

Move to Los Angeles

In 1975, encouraged by his then-wife Michelle and several of his Sigma Chi fraternity brothers, Letterman moved to Los Angeles, California, with hope of becoming a comedy writer. He started off by writing material for comedian Jimmie Walker. He also began performing stand-up comedy at The Comedy Store, a proving ground for unknown comics.

Letterman appeared in the summer of 1977 on the short-lived ''Starland Vocal Band Show''. He has since joked about how fortunate he was that nobody would ever see his performance on the program (due to its low ratings).

Letterman had a stint as a cast member on Mary Tyler Moore's variety show, ''Mary''; a guest appearance on ''Mork & Mindy'' (as a parody of EST leader Werner Erhard); and appearances on game shows such as ''The $20,000 Pyramid'', ''The Gong Show'', ''Password Plus'' and ''Liar's Club''. He also hosted a 1977 pilot for a game show entitled ''The Riddlers'' that was never picked up. He was also screen tested for the lead role in ''Airplane!'', a role that eventually went to Robert Hays.

His dry, sarcastic humor caught the attention of scouts for ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'', and Letterman was soon a regular guest on the show. Letterman became a favorite of Carson's and was a regular guest host for the show beginning in 1978. Letterman credits Carson as the person who influenced his career the most.

NBC

Morning show

On June 23, 1980, Letterman was given his own morning comedy show on NBC, ''The David Letterman Show''. It was originally 90 minutes long, but was shortened to 60 minutes in August 1980. The show was a critical success, winning two Emmy Awards, but was a ratings disappointment and was canceled in October 1980.

''Late Night with David Letterman''

NBC kept Letterman under contract to try him in a different time slot. ''Late Night with David Letterman'' debuted February 1, 1982; the first guest on the first show was Bill Murray. Murray also guested on January 31, 2012 - 30 years later. The show ran Monday through Thursday at 12:30 a.m. Eastern Time, immediately following ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' (a Friday night broadcast was added in June 1987. It was seen as being edgy and unpredictable, and soon developed a cult following (particularly among college students). Letterman's reputation as an acerbic interviewer was borne out in verbal sparring matches with Cher (who even called him an asshole on the show), Shirley MacLaine, Charles Grodin, and Madonna. The show also featured comedy segments and running characters, in a style heavily influenced by the 1950s and '60s programs of Steve Allen. Although Ernie Kovacs is often cited as an influence on the show, Letterman has denied this.

The show often featured quirky, genre-mocking regular features, including "Stupid Pet Tricks", dropping various objects off the roof of a five-story building, demonstrations of unorthodox clothing (such as suits made of Alka-Seltzer, Velcro and suet), a recurring Top 10 list, the Monkey-Cam (and the Audience Cam), and a facetious letter-answering segment. The Top 10 list, several "Film[s] by My Dog Bob" in which a camera was mounted on Letterman's own dog (often with comic results), Stupid Human Tricks, Small Town News, and Stupid Pet Tricks (which had its origins on Letterman's morning show) all eventually moved with Letterman to CBS.

Other memorable moments included Letterman using a bullhorn to interrupt a live interview on ''The Today Show'', announcing that he was the NBC president while not wearing any pants; interrupting Al Roker on WNBC-TV's broadcast of ''Live at Five'' by walking into their studio (which occupied the same floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza as Letterman's studio); and staging "elevator races", complete with commentary by NBC Sports' Bob Costas. In one infamous appearance, in 1982, Andy Kaufman (who was already wearing a neck brace) appeared to be slapped and knocked to the ground by professional wrestler Jerry Lawler (though Lawler and Kaufman's friend Bob Zmuda later revealed that the event was staged.) In another memorable exchange, sex expert Dr. Ruth Westheimer included cucumbers in a list of handy sex objects that women could find at home. The following night, guest Ted Koppel asked Letterman "May I insert something here?" and Dave responded "OK, as long as it's not a cucumber."

''Late Show with David Letterman''

In 1992, Johnny Carson retired, and many fans believed that Letterman would become host of ''The Tonight Show''. When NBC instead gave the job to Jay Leno, Letterman departed NBC to host his own late-night show on CBS, opposite ''The Tonight Show'' at 11:30 p.m., called the ''Late Show with David Letterman''. The new show debuted on August 30, 1993 and was taped at the historic Ed Sullivan Theater, where Ed Sullivan taped his eponymous variety series from 1948 to 1971. For Letterman's arrival, CBS spent $8 million in renovations. In addition to that cost, CBS also signed Letterman to a lucrative three-year, $14 million/year contract, doubling his ''Late Night'' salary. The total cost for everything (renovations, negotiation right paid to NBC, signing Letterman, announcer Bill Wendell, Shaffer, the writers and the band) was over $140 million.

But while the expectation was that Letterman would retain his unique style and sense of humor with the move, ''Late Show'' was not an exact replica of his old NBC program. Recognizing the more formal mood (and wider audience) of his new time slot and studio, Letterman eschewed his trademark blazer with khaki pants and white sneakers wardrobe combination in favor of expensive shoes, tailored suits and light-colored socks. The monologue was lengthened and Paul Shaffer and the "World's Most Dangerous Band" followed Letterman to CBS, but they added a brass section and were rebranded the "CBS Orchestra" as a short monologue and a small band were mandated by Carson while Letterman occupied the 12:30 slot. Additionally, because of intellectual property disagreements, Letterman was unable to import many of his ''Late Night'' segments verbatim, but he sidestepped this problem by simply renaming them (the "Top Ten List" became the "Late Show Top Ten", "Viewer Mail" became the "CBS Mailbag", etc.)

Popularity

The main competitor of ''The Late Show'' is NBC's ''The Tonight Show'', which was hosted by Jay Leno for nearly 16 years, but from June 1, 2009, to January 22, 2010, was hosted by Conan O'Brien. In 1993 and 1994, ''The Late Show'' consistently gained higher ratings than ''Tonight''. But in 1995, ratings dipped and Leno's show consistently beat Letterman's in the ratings from the time that Hugh Grant came on Leno's show after Grant's arrest for soliciting a prostitute. ; Leno typically attracted about 5 million nightly viewers between 1999 and 2009. ''The Late Show'' lost nearly half its audience during its competition with Leno, attracting 7.1 million viewers nightly in its 1993–94 season and about 3.8 million per night as of Leno's departure in 2009. In the final months of his first stint as host of ''The Tonight Show'', Leno beat Letterman in the ratings by a 1.3 million viewer margin (5.2 million to 3.9 million), and ''Nightline'' and ''The Late Show'' were virtually tied. Once O'Brien took over ''Tonight'', however, Letterman closed the gap in the ratings. O'Brien initially drove the median age of ''Tonight Show'' viewers from 55 to 45, with most older viewers opting to watch ''The Late Show'' instead.

Following Leno's return to ''The Tonight Show'', however, Leno has regained his lead.

Letterman's shows have garnered both critical and industry praise, receiving 67 Emmy Award nominations, winning 12 times in his first 20 years in late night television. From 1993–2009, Letterman ranked higher than Leno in the annual Harris Poll of ''Nation's Favorite TV Personality'' 12 times. For example, in 2003 and 2004 Letterman ranked second in that poll, behind only Oprah Winfrey, a year that Leno was ranked fifth. Leno was higher than Letterman on that poll three times during the same period, in 1998, 2007, and 2008.

Hosting the Academy Awards

On March 27, 1995, Letterman acted as the host for the 67th Academy Awards ceremony. Critics blasted Letterman for what they deemed a poor hosting of the Oscars, noting that his irreverent style undermined the traditional importance and glamor of the event. In a joke about their unusual names (inspired by a similar joke by Woody Allen), he started off by introducing Uma Thurman to Oprah Winfrey, and then both of them to Keanu Reeves: "Oprah...Uma. Uma...Oprah," "Have you kids met Keanu?" This and many of his other jokes fell flat. Although Letterman attracted the highest ratings to the annual telecast since 1983, many felt that the bad publicity garnered by Letterman's hosting caused a decline in the ''Late Show'''s ratings.

Letterman recycled the apparent debacle into a long-running gag. On his first show after the Oscars, he joked, "Looking back, I had no idea that thing was being televised." He lampooned his stint two years later, during Billy Crystal's opening Oscar skit, which also parodied the plane-crashing scenes from that year's chief nominated film, ''The English Patient''.

For years afterward, Letterman recounted his hosting the Oscars, although the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences continued to hold Letterman in high regard and they had invited him to host the Oscars again. On September 7, 2010, he made an appearance on the premiere of the 14th season of ''The View'', and confirmed that he had been considered for hosting again.

Heart surgery hiatus

On January 14, 2000, a routine check-up revealed that an artery in Letterman's heart was severely obstructed. He was rushed to emergency surgery for a quintuple bypass.

During the initial weeks of his recovery, reruns of the ''Late Show'' were shown and introduced by friends of Letterman including Drew Barrymore, including Dr. O. Wayne Isom and physician Louis Aronne, who frequently appears on the show. In a show of emotion, Letterman was nearly in tears as he thanked the health care team with the words "These are the people who saved my life!" The episode earned an Emmy nomination. For a number of episodes, Letterman continued to crack jokes about his bypass, including saying, "Bypass surgery: it's when doctors surgically create new blood flow to your heart. A bypass is what happened to me when I didn't get ''The Tonight Show!'' It's a whole different thing." In a later running gag he lobbied his home state of Indiana to rename the freeway circling Indianapolis (I-465) "The David Letterman Bypass." He also featured a montage of faux news coverage of his bypass surgery, which included a clip of Dave's heart for sale on the Home Shopping Network. Letterman became friends with his doctors and nurses. In 2008, a ''Rolling Stone'' interview stated "he hosted a doctor and nurse who'd helped perform the emergency quintuple-bypass heart surgery that saved his life in 2000. 'These are people who were complete strangers when they opened my chest,' he says. 'And now, eight years later, they're among my best friends.' "

Additionally, Letterman invited the band Foo Fighters to play "Everlong", introducing them as "my favorite band, playing my favorite song." During a later Foo Fighters appearance, Letterman said that Foo Fighters had been in the middle of a South American tour which they canceled to come play on his comeback episode.

Letterman again handed over the reins of the show to several guest hosts (including Bill Cosby, Brad Garrett, Elvis Costello, John McEnroe, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, Bonnie Hunt, Luke Wilson and bandleader Paul Shaffer) in February 2003, when he was diagnosed with a severe case of shingles. Later that year, Letterman made regular use of guest hosts—including Tom Arnold and Kelsey Grammer—for new shows broadcast on Fridays. In March 2007, Adam Sandler—who had been scheduled to be the lead guest—served as a guest host while Letterman was ill with a stomach virus.

Re-signing with CBS

In March 2002, as Letterman's contract with CBS neared expiration, ABC offered him the time slot for long-running news program ''Nightline'' with Ted Koppel. Letterman was interested as he believed he could never match Leno's ratings at CBS due to Letterman's complaint of weaker lead-ins from the network's late local news programs, but was reluctant to replace Koppel. Letterman addressed his decision to re-sign on the air, stating that he was content at CBS and that he had great respect for Koppel.

On December 4, 2006, CBS revealed that Letterman signed a new contract to host ''The Late Show with David Letterman'' through the fall of 2010. "I'm thrilled to be continuing on at CBS," said Letterman. "At my age you really don't want to have to learn a new commute." Letterman further joked about the subject by pulling up his right pants leg, revealing a tattoo, presumably temporary, of the ABC logo.

"Thirteen years ago, David Letterman put CBS late night on the map and in the process became one of the defining icons of our network," said Leslie Moonves, president and CEO of CBS Corporation. "His presence on our air is an ongoing source of pride, and the creativity and imagination that the ''Late Show'' puts forth every night is an ongoing display of the highest quality entertainment. We are truly honored that one of the most revered and talented entertainers of our time will continue to call CBS 'home.'"

According to a 2007 article in ''Forbes'' magazine, Letterman earned $40 million a year. A 2009 article in ''The New York Times'', however, said his salary was estimated at $32 million per year. In June 2009, Letterman's Worldwide Pants and CBS reached agreement to continue the ''Late Show'' until at least August 2012. The previous contract had been set to expire in 2010, and the two-year extension is shorter than the typical three-year contract period negotiated in the past. Worldwide Pants agreed to lower its fee for the show, though it had remained a "solid moneymaker for CBS" under the previous contract.

On the February 3, 2011, edition of the ''Late Show'', during an interview with Howard Stern, Letterman said he would continue to do his talk show for "maybe two years, I think."

2007–2008 writers' strike

The Late Show went off air for eight weeks during the months of November and December because of the Writers Guild of America strike. Letterman's production company—Worldwide Pants—was the first company to make an individual agreement with the WGA, thus allowing his show to come back on air on January 2, 2008. On his first episode since being off air, he surprised the viewing audience with his newly grown beard, which signified solidarity with the strike. His beard was shaved off during the show on January 7, 2008.

Letterman and Carson

NBC's decision to select Jay Leno and not Letterman to succeed Johnny Carson as host of ''The Tonight Show'' was an embarrassment to Carson, who had all but promised the succession to Letterman. Letterman maintained a close relationship with Carson through his break with NBC. Three years after he left for CBS, HBO produced a made-for-television movie called ''The Late Shift'', based on a book by ''New York Times'' reporter Bill Carter, chronicling the battle between Letterman and Leno for the coveted ''Tonight Show'' hosting spot. Letterman would mock the film for months afterward, specifically on how the actor playing him, John Michael Higgins, did not resemble him in the least. ("They took a guy who looked nothing like me and with make-up and special camera angles, turned him into a guy who looked nothing like me, with red hair.")

Carson later made a few cameo appearances as a guest on Letterman's show. Carson's final television appearance came May 13, 1994, on a ''Late Show'' episode taped in Los Angeles, when he made a surprise appearance during a 'Top 10 list' segment. The audience went wild as Letterman stood up and proudly invited Carson to sit at his desk. The applause was so protracted that Carson was unable to say anything, and he finally returned backstage as the applause continued (it was later explained that Carson had laryngitis, though Carson can be heard talking to Letterman during his appearance).

In early 2005, it was revealed that Carson still kept up with current events and late-night TV right up to his death that year, and that he occasionally sent jokes to Letterman, who used these jokes in his monologue; according to CBS senior vice president Peter Lassally (a onetime producer for both men), Carson got "a big kick out of it." Letterman would do a characteristic Johnny Carson golf swing after delivering one of Carson's jokes. In a tribute to Carson, all of the opening monologue jokes during the first show following Carson's death were written by Carson.

Lassally also claimed that Carson had always believed Letterman, not Leno, to be his "rightful successor." Letterman also frequently employs some of Carson's trademark bits on his show, including "Carnac the Magnificent" (with Paul Shaffer as Carnac), "Stump the Band" and the "Week in Review."

Letterman and Oprah Winfrey

On September 10, 2007, Letterman made his first appearance on ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'' at Madison Square Garden in New York City. He shared pictures of his son and live-in girlfriend. The so-called feud between Letterman and Winfrey apparently ended in 2005 when Winfrey appeared on CBS's ''Late Show with David Letterman'' on December 2, in an event Letterman jokingly referred to as "the Super Bowl of Love". Winfrey had previously appeared on Letterman's show when he was hosting NBC's ''Late Night'' on May 2, 1989.

Winfrey and Letterman also appeared together in a Late Show promo that aired during CBS's coverage of Super Bowl XLI in February 2007, with the two sitting next to each other on the couch watching the game. Since the game was played between the Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears, the Indianapolis-born Letterman wears a Peyton Manning jersey, while Winfrey—who tapes her show in Chicago—is in a Brian Urlacher jersey. Three years later, during CBS's coverage of Super Bowl XLIV, the two appeared again, this time with Winfrey sitting on a couch between Letterman and Jay Leno. The appearance was Letterman's idea: Leno flew to New York City in an NBC corporate jet, sneaking into the Ed Sullivan Theater during the ''Late Show'''s February 4 taping wearing a disguise, meeting Winfrey and Letterman at a living room set created in the theater's balcony where they taped their promo.

Response to Internet death threat

On August 17, 2011, it was reported that a Muslim militant had posted a death threat against Letterman on a website frequented by Al-Qaeda supporters, calling on American Muslims to kill Letterman for making a joke about the death of an Al-Qaeda leader killed in a drone strike in Pakistan in June 2011. In his show on August 22, Letterman joked about the threat, saying "State Department authorities are looking into this. They're not taking this lightly. They’re looking into it. They're questioning, they're interrogating, there's an electronic trail — but everybody knows it's Leno."

Appearances in other media

Letterman appeared in issue 239 of the Marvel comic book ''The Avengers'', in which the title characters are guests on ''Late Night''. A parody of Letterman, named "David Endochrine," is gassed to death along with his bandleader named "Paul" and their audience in Frank Miller's ''The Dark Knight Returns''.

Letterman appeared in the pilot episode of the short-lived 1986 series "Coach Toast", and he appears with a bag over his head as a guest on Bonnie Hunt's ca. 1993 sitcom ''The Building''. He also appears in The Simpsons, as himself in a couch gag when The Simpsons find themselves (and the couch) in "Late Night with David Letterman." He had a cameo in the feature film ''Cabin Boy'', with Chris Elliott, who worked as a writer on Letterman's show. In this and other appearances, Letterman is listed in the credits as "Earl Hofert", the name of Letterman's maternal grandfather. He also appeared as himself in the Howard Stern biopic Private Parts as well as the 1999 Andy Kaufman biopic ''Man on the Moon'', in a few episodes of Garry Shandling's 1990s TV series ''The Larry Sanders Show'' and in "The Abstinence", a 1996 episode of the sitcom ''Seinfeld''. Letterman also made an uncredited appearance in the first episode of the third season of the sitcom The Nanny.

Letterman provided vocals for the Warren Zevon song "Hit Somebody" from ''My Ride's Here'', and provided the voice for Butt-head's father in the 1996 animated film ''Beavis and Butt-head Do America''.

In 2010, a documentary ''Dying to Do Letterman'' was released directed by Joke Fincioen and Biagio Messina featuring Steve Mazan, a stand up comic, who has cancer and wants to appear on the Letterman Show. The film won Best Documentary and Jury Awards at the Cinequest Film Festival. Steve Mazan published a same-titled book (full title, ''Dying to Do Letterman: Turning Someday into Today'' about his own saga.

Other projects

Worldwide Pants

Letterman started his own production company—Worldwide Pants Incorporated—which produced his show and several others, including ''Everybody Loves Raymond'', ''The Late Late Show'', and several critically acclaimed, but short-lived television series for Bonnie Hunt. Worldwide Pants also produced the dramedy program ''Ed'', which aired on NBC from 2000–2004. It was Letterman's first association with NBC since he left the network in 1993. During ''Ed's'' run, the star, Tom Cavanagh, appeared as a guest on ''The Late Show'' several times.

In 2005, Worldwide Pants produced its first feature film, ''Strangers with Candy'', which was a prequel to the Comedy Central TV series of the same title. In 2007, Worldwide Pants produced the ABC comedy series, ''Knights of Prosperity''.

Worldwide Pants made significant news in December 2007 when it was announced that Letterman's company had independently negotiated its own contract with the Writers Guild of America, East, thus allowing Letterman, Craig Ferguson, and their writers to return to work, while the union continued its strike against production companies, networks and studios who had not reached an agreement.

Record company

In late April 2010, several music industry websites reported that Letterman started a record label named Clear Entertainment/C.E. Music and signed his first artist, Runner Runner. Lucy Walsh announced on her MySpace page that she has been signed by Letterman and Clear Entertainment/C.E. Music and is working on her album.

Rahal Letterman Racing

Rahal Letterman Racing (RLR) is an auto racing team that currently races in the American Le Mans Series, and part-time in the Indy Racing League. It is co-owned by 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Rahal and Letterman himself, and is based in Hilliard, Ohio. The team won the 2004 Indianapolis 500 with driver Buddy Rice. Letterman was a pit reporter for ABC in the 1971 Indianapolis 500.

American Foundation for Courtesy and Grooming

American Foundation for Courtesy and Grooming is Letterman's private foundation. Through it, Letterman has donated millions of dollars to charities and other non-profits in Indiana and Montana, celebrity-affiliated organizations such as Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, universities such as Ball State, and other organizations such as the American Cancer Society, Salvation Army, and Doctors Without Borders.

Personal life

Marriages and long-term relationships

In 1969, Letterman married Michelle Cook; the marriage ended by divorce in 1977. He also had a long-term relationship with former head writer and producer on ''Late Night'', Merrill Markoe. Markoe was the mind behind several ''Late Night'' staples, such as "Stupid Pet/Human Tricks".

Letterman has a son, Harry Joseph Letterman (born on November 3, 2003), with Regina Lasko. Harry is named after Letterman's father. In 2005, police discovered a plot to kidnap Harry Letterman and ransom him for $5 million. Kelly Frank, a house painter who had worked for Letterman, was charged in the conspiracy.

Letterman and Lasko, who had been together since 1986, wed on March 19, 2009, during a quiet courthouse civil ceremony in Choteau, Montana, where he purchased a ranch in 1999. Letterman announced the marriage during the taping of his March 23 show, shortly after congratulating Bruce Willis for getting married the previous week. Letterman told the audience he nearly missed the ceremony because his truck became stuck in mud two miles from their house. The family resides in North Salem, New York, on a estate.

Stalking incidents

Beginning in May 1988, Letterman was stalked by Margaret Mary Ray, a woman suffering from schizophrenia. She once stole his Porsche, repeatedly broke into his house, and camped out on his tennis court. Her exploits drew national attention, and Letterman occasionally joked about her behavior in his show, although never mentioning her name. After she committed suicide in 1998, Letterman told the ''New York Times'' that he had had great compassion for her, and publicly expressed sympathy.

Extortion attempt and revelation of affairs

On his October 1, 2009, show, Letterman announced that he had been the victim of an extortion attempt by someone threatening to reveal that he had had sex with several of his female employees, confirming the relationships. He stated that three weeks earlier (on September 9, 2009) someone had left a package in his car with material he said he would write into a screenplay and a book if Letterman did not pay him $2 million. Letterman said that he contacted the Manhattan District Attorney's office, ultimately cooperating with them to conduct a sting operation involving giving the man a phony check. Subsequently, Robert J. "Joe" Halderman, a producer of the CBS true crime journalism series ''48 Hours'', was arrested after trying to deposit the check. He was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury and pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted grand larceny on October 2, 2009. Eventually, on March 9, 2010, he pleaded guilty to this same felony and served a 6-month jail sentence, followed by probation and community service.

A central figure in the case and one of the women Letterman had had a sexual relationship with was his longtime personal assistant Stephanie Birkitt who often appeared with him in his show. She had also worked for ''48 Hours''. Until a month prior to the revelations she had shared a residence with Halderman, who allegedly had copied her personal diary and used it, along with private emails, in the blackmail package.

On October 3, 2009, a former CBS employee, Holly Hester, announced that she and Letterman had engaged in a year-long "secret" affair in the early 1990s while she was his intern and a student at New York University.

In the days following the initial announcement of the affairs and the arrest, several prominent women, including Kathie Lee Gifford, co-host of NBC's ''Today Show'', and NBC news anchor Ann Curry questioned whether Letterman's affairs with subordinates created an unfair working environment. A spokesman for Worldwide Pants said that the company's sexual harassment policy did not prohibit sexual relationships between managers and employees. According to business news reporter Eve Tahmincioglu, "CBS suppliers are supposed to follow the company's business conduct policies" and the CBS 2008 Business Conduct Statement states that "If a consenting romantic or sexual relationship between a supervisor and a direct or indirect subordinate should develop, CBS requires the supervisor to disclose this information to his or her Company's Human Resources Department..."

On October 5, 2009, Letterman devoted a segment of his show to a public apology to his wife and staff. Three days later, Worldwide Pants announced that Birkitt had been placed on a "paid leave of absence" from the ''Late Show''. On October 15, CBS News announced that the company's Chief Investigative Correspondent, Armen Keteyian, had been assigned to conduct an "in-depth investigation" into Halderman's blackmail of Letterman.

Awards and honors

Awards

In his capacities as either a writer, producer, performer, or as part of a writing team, Letterman is among the most nominated people in Emmy Award history with 52 nominations, winning two Daytime Emmys and five Primetime Emmys since 1981. His nomination record is second only to producer Jac Venza, who holds the record for the most Emmy nominations for an individual (57). Letterman has been nominated every year since 1984, when he first appeared on late night television as the host of ''Late Night with David Letterman.'' Additionally, he has won four American Comedy Awards. Letterman was the first recipient of the Johnny Carson Award for Comedic Excellence at The Comedy Awards in 2011.

David Letterman Communication and Media Building

On September 7, 2007, Letterman visited his alma mater, Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, for the dedication of a communications facility named in his honor for his dedication to the university throughout his career as a comedian. The $21 million, David Letterman Communication and Media Building opened for the 2007 fall semester. It features state-of-the-art recording equipment and facilities. Thousands of Ball State students, faculty, and local residents welcomed Letterman back to Indiana. Letterman's emotional speech touched on his struggles as a college student and his late father, and also included the "top ten good things about having your name on a building", finishing with, "if reasonable people can put my name on a $21 million building, anything is possible."

At the same time, Letterman also received a Sagamore of the Wabash award given by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, which recognizes distinguished service to the state of Indiana.

References

External links

David Letterman's Feb. 24, 1978 appearance on ''90 Minutes Live''

Official ''Late Show'' biography

1999 article on Letterman from Salon.com

Tape of Letterman announcing affairs/extortion attempt on Late Show

Category:1947 births Category:Living people Category:American entertainment industry businesspeople Category:American television talk show hosts Category:Ball State University alumni Category:Daytime Emmy Award winners Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Indianapolis, Indiana television anchors Category:Indy Racing League owners Category:People from Indianapolis, Indiana Category:Weather presenters

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Coordinates	44°25′57″N26°6′14″N
Name	CM Punk
Names	CM Punk
Height
Weight
Birth date	October 26, 1978
Birth place	Chicago, Illinois
Resides	Lockport, Illinois
Billed	Chicago, Illinois
Trainer	Ace SteelDanny DominionKevin QuinnDave TaylorFit FinlayWilliam RegalSteel Dominion Wrestling School
Debut	1999
Website	CMPunk.com

Phillip Jack Brooks (born October 26, 1978), better known by his ring name CM Punk, is an American professional wrestler currently signed to WWE and working on its Raw brand.

In professional wrestling, Punk is a six-time world champion having won the ROH World Championship, ECW Championship, and WWE Championship each once, and the World Heavyweight Championship three times, making him the second wrestler (after Kane) to have held all three of WWE's World titles.

In addition to these championships Punk has also won the World Tag Team Championship (with Kofi Kingston), and the WWE Intercontinental Championship making him the nineteenth WWE Triple Crown Champion. Between WWE and ROH (where he is also a two time tag team champion), Punk has won a total of ten championships. He was also the winner of the 2008 and 2009 Money in the Bank ladder matches, the only Superstar to win the match twice in a row.

Punk initially came to prominence through his career on the professional wrestling independent circuit, primarily as a member of the Ring of Honor (ROH) roster, where he won the ROH Tag Team Championship, ROH World Championship, and was the first head trainer of the ROH wrestling school. In 2005, Punk signed a contract with WWE and was sent to its developmental promotion, Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), where he won every championship available in the promotion.

Throughout his career, Punk has consistently used the gimmick of being straight edge, a lifestyle he follows in his actual day-to-day life. Depending on Punk's alignment as a crowd favorite or villain, he emphasizes different aspects of the culture to encourage the desired audience reaction.

Professional wrestling career

Early career

Punk's first venture into wrestling was a stint in a backyard wrestling federation called the Lunatic Wrestling Federation with his friends and brother Mike Brooks in the mid-late 1990s. He first started using the ring name CM Punk when he was put into a tag team named the Chick Magnets with CM Venom after another performer skipped out on the card. Unlike his friends, Punk genuinely wanted to be a wrestler and saw it as more than simple fun. When the promotion started taking off, doing spot shows out of a warehouse in Mokena, Illinois, Punk found out that his brother Mike had embezzled thousands of dollars from the small company, causing them to become estranged. Mike has not wrestled since.

He soon left the federation and enrolled as a student at the "Steel Dominion" wrestling school in Chicago, where he was trained by Ace Steel, Danny Dominion and Kevin Quinn to become a professional wrestler. As part of the training, he wrestled at Steel Domain Wrestling in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was in the Steel Domain that he met Scott Colton, who soon adopted the stage name Colt Cabana. Punk and Cabana became best friends and spent most of their early career together working in the same independent circuit promotions, as opponents or allies. In the independents, Punk, along with fellow Steel Domain graduates Colt Cabana, Chuckee Smooth, Adam Pearce and manager Dave Prazak, formed an alliance named the Gold Bond Mafia.

Independent Wrestling Association: Mid-South (2000–2005)

Punk's home promotion for his early career is usually considered to be Independent Wrestling Association: Mid-South (IWA:Mid-South). During Punk's time in IWA:Mid-South, he had high profile feuds with Colt Cabana and Chris Hero while also rising to the top of the roster winning the IWA Mid-South Light Heavyweight Championship twice and the IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship on five separate occasions, beating stars like A.J. Styles, Cabana and even Eddie Guerrero for that Championship. Punk's feud with Hero included a 55-minute TLC match, a 93-minute two out of three falls match, and several 60-minute time limit draws.

Punk's matches with Cabana led him to being hired by the Ring of Honor promotion. From February 2003 until May 2004, Punk refused to wrestle for IWA:Mid-South, because he claims that this was in protest to Ian Rotten's mistreatment of Chris Hero in the company. Hero, however, has stated he believes there were other reasons, and Rotten's treatment of him was just an excuse by Punk to stop working for the company. Eventually Punk returned to IWA:Mid-South and continued to perform as a wrestler and commentator for them until 2005 when he was signed to World Wrestling Entertainment. His last appearance in IWA:Mid-South was on July 2, 2005 in which he competed in a 60-minute time limit draw against Delirious.

Ring of Honor and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling

Storylines with Raven (2002–2004)

Initially, Punk joined Ring of Honor (ROH) as a crowd favorite, but quickly became a villain in a feud with Raven that featured numerous variants of no disqualification matches. Their rivalry lasted most of 2003 and was considered one of ROH's top feuds of the year, and was based around Punk's straight-edge lifestyle, with him likening Raven to his alcoholic father. Their rivalry was settled at ''The Conclusion'' in November 2003, where Punk defeated Raven in a Steel Cage match. At the same time, Punk joined the wrestling promotion NWA Total Nonstop Action (TNA), in which he was paired with Julio Dinero as members of Raven's TNA alliance The Gathering. Punk started climbing the ranks of ROH, including coming in second at the ''Second Anniversary Show'' during the tournament to crown the first ROH Pure Champion, losing to A.J. Styles in the finals and winning the ROH Tag Team Championship twice with Colt Cabana as the Second City Saints. Both times Punk and Cabana defeated the Briscoe Brothers to win the championship. Circa October 2003, Punk was hired as the first head trainer of the Ring of Honor wrestling school, having previously been a trainer for the Steel Domain and Primetime Wrestling.

Shortly before a TNA show on February 25, 2004, Punk had a physical scuffle with Teddy Hart outside of a restaurant that was broken up by Sabu. The scuffle reportedly stemmed from an ROH show in which Hart performed three unplanned spots putting several other wrestlers in danger of injury. Around the time of the scuffle, Punk and Dinero stopped appearing on TNA shows, leading to speculation he was fired for the incident. Punk, however, has stated that the scuffle had no bearing on his TNA career. He said the reason he and Dinero stopped appearing on TNA pay-per-views was that TNA officials believed that he and Dinero had not connected with the fans as villains, having recently turned against the popular Raven and instead formed a villainous tag team managed by James Mitchell. The officials decided that as the teams as villains was not working decided to put the storyline on hold indefinitely, and thus had no work for Punk or Dinero. Punk officially quit TNA in March 2004 during the Rob Feinstein controversy, after having a dispute with the TNA offices over his ability to compete in ROH following a TNA order that their contracted wrestlers were to no longer wrestle in ROH.

Pursuit of the World Championship (2004–2005)

In ROH, Punk faced off against ROH World Champion Samoa Joe for the championship in a three match series. The first match, on June 12, 2004 at ''World Title Classic'' in Dayton, Ohio, resulted in a 60-minute time limit draw when neither Punk nor Joe could pin or cause the other to submit in the 60 minutes. The second match between Punk and Joe was planned for December 4, 2004; however, due to Steve Corino being pulled from a match with Joe by Pro Wrestling ZERO-ONE, the second match was hastily rescheduled on October 11, 2004 for October 16 in Punk's hometown of Chicago. At ''Joe vs. Punk II'' on October 16, they wrestled to a second 60-minute draw. In addition to ''Joe vs. Punk II'' becoming Ring of Honor's best-selling DVD at the time, the match received a five-star rating by Dave Meltzer's ''Wrestling Observer Newsletter''. It was the first match in North America to receive a five-star rating in seven years—the last one being the Hell in a Cell match between Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker at Badd Blood: In Your House in 1997. Joe ended the series by defeating Punk in the third and final match on December 4, 2004 at ''All-Star Extravaganza 2'' in which there was a no time limit stipulation. In June 2005, Punk accepted a deal with World Wrestling Entertainment, after a try-out match against Val Venis on its ''Sunday Night Heat'' show. Even though he had accepted the deal, Punk went on to defeat Austin Aries with his Pepsi Plunge move, winning the ROH World Championship on June 18, 2005 at ''Death Before Dishonor III''. Immediately after the match, Punk proceeded to become a villain and started a storyline where he threatened to bring the ROH World Championship to WWE with him. For weeks, Punk teased the ROH locker room and the ROH fans as well as mocking the championship he possessed, going so far as to sign his WWE contract on it. During the storyline, Mick Foley made several ROH appearances, attempting to convince Punk to do the right thing and defend the title on his way out. On August 12, 2005 in Dayton, Ohio, Punk lost the ROH World Championship to James Gibson in a four corner elimination match consisting of himself, Gibson, Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels, who re-debuted after a year-and-half absence. Punk's final scheduled match in Ring of Honor took place at ''Punk: The Final Chapter'' on August 13, 2005 against long-time friend Colt Cabana in a two out of three falls match, which he lost. In his last match, Punk was visibly crying and was showered with streamers when he posed in the middle of the ring.

Punk made a special appearance at the ROH show ''Unscripted II'' on February 11, 2006, when the original card had to be scrapped due to Low Ki leaving ROH the week prior. In addition, most of the ROH roster contracted to TNA were pulled from the show because of a snowstorm that TNA officials thought might prevent performers from reaching a pay-per-view scheduled the next day. In the main event, Punk teamed with Bryan Danielson to wrestle and ultimately defeat Jimmy Rave and Adam Pearce in a tag team match.

World Wrestling Entertainment / WWE

Ohio Valley Wrestling (2005–2006)

In September 2005, Punk was assigned to Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), a WWE developmental territory. He made his debut on September 8, 2005, in a dark match, where he, Nigel McGuinness and Paul Burchill were defeated by Deuce Shade, Elijah Burke and Seth Skyfire. On September 26, 2005 in his OVW television debut, Punk suffered a ruptured eardrum and broken nose after Danny Inferno hit him with an overly stiff right hand. Despite the injury, Punk finished the match and quickly recovered.

On November 9, 2005, Punk became the OVW Television Champion after defeating Ken Doane, which immediately led to a feud between Punk and Brent Albright, who had previously been feuding with Doane for the Television Championship and had lost his chance to wrestle Doane after Punk hit him with a chair so he himself could wrestle Doane. They wrestled in series of matches, including one that ended in overtime with Albright having Punk submit to Albright's finisher, the Crowbar, but Punk was able to keep the championship, as he had not agreed to the extra time. On January 4, 2006, Punk lost the OVW Television Championship during a three way dance among himself, Albright and Doane. Doane was injured halfway through the match and was replaced by Aaron "The Idol" Stevens. Punk submitted to Albright's Crowbar and was eliminated, but he returned later in the match to distract Albright allowing Stevens to pin Albright and become the new OVW Television Champion. The feud continued after a short period in which Albright and Punk were a tag team, but they became opponents again after Albright wanted the respect of Punk, who would never give it to him, and instead proceeded to "punk out" (get the better of) Albright repeatedly. This feud continued for weeks with Punk always getting the better of Albright until a double turn occurred on February 1, 2006 when Albright became a villain during a tag match, allowing the Spirit Squad to beat Punk and, in doing so, making Punk a crowd favorite. During this time, Punk had a minor appearance at WrestleMania 22 on April 2, 2006 as one of the gangsters who rode a 1930s era car to the ring before John Cena's entrance.

After Matt Cappotelli vacated the OVW Heavyweight Championship because of a brain tumor in February 2006, a tournament was held to crown a new champion. The finals were Brent Albright vs CM Punk with Albright defeating Punk to become the new champion. Punk and Albright continued their feud, with Albright becoming more unstable and paranoid about maintaining his championship after several close call matches against Punk, resulting in acts such as threatening Maria. On May 3, 2006, Punk finally defeated Albright in a strap match to win the OVW Heavyweight Championship. As champion, Punk retained the title in matches against opponents such as Shad Gaspard, Ken Kennedy, Johnny Jeter and Mike "The Miz" Mizanin.

On July 28, 2006, Punk and Seth Skyfire defeated Shad Gaspard and the Neighborhoodie to win the OVW Southern Tag Team Championship at a house show. They lost the Tag Team Championship on August 2, 2006 to Deuce Shade and "Domino" Cliff Compton after an injured Skyfire tagged in an already injured Punk. This altercation led to a feud between Punk and Skyfire after a rematch for the Tag Team Championship on August 7, 2006 in which a healthy Punk purposefully tagged in an injured Skyfire to be beaten by Shade and Compton. On August 30, 2006, a match was scheduled to take place between Punk and Skyfire for the OVW Heavyweight Championship. Prior to the match, however, Skyfire was attacked by Charles "The Hammer" Evans, with whom Skyfire had also been feuding, and was replaced in the match by Chet Jablonski (Chet the Jet) who pinned Punk to win the OVW Heavyweight Championship. As Punk no longer possessed the championship, OVW no longer required him. He was removed from the roster and brought up to the WWE roster full-time. He continued to make sporadic appearances for the company, such as at the 400th episode of OVW on television, up until WWE announced it was ending its developmental territory agreement with OVW on February 7, 2008.

ECW (2006–2008)

On June 24, 2006, Punk made his ECW debut during a house show at the former ECW Arena, defeating Stevie Richards. He made his TV debut on the July 4 episode of ''ECW on Sci Fi'', cutting a brief pre-taped promo about his straight edge lifestyle emphasizing the disciplinary aspects of being drug and alcohol free. Although he had retained the straight edge gimmick, he now had a Muay Thai training background. Punk made his TV wrestling debut on August 1, 2006 at the Hammerstein Ballroom, defeating Justin Credible. CM Punk established himself in ECW by going undefeated, defeating opponents such as Christopher W. Anderson, Stevie Richards and Shannon Moore.

Soon after, Punk began feuding with Mike Knox after Knox's girlfriend, Kelly Kelly, was seen to have feelings for Punk. Punk defeated Knox in their first singles match (qualifying for the Elimination Chamber at December to Dismember in the process) as well as the rematch, after which Kelly Kelly celebrated CM Punk's victory over her boyfriend. Punk then teamed with D-Generation X and the Hardy Boyz in their Survivor Series match against Rated-RKO, Knox, Johnny Nitro and Gregory Helms, a match in which all the participants on DX's side survived elimination. At December to Dismember, Punk participated in the Elimination Chamber for the ECW World Championship; however, he was the first person eliminated by Rob Van Dam. Following the pay-per-view, Punk entered into a feud with Hardcore Holly, who ended Punk's six-month unbeaten streak in singles competition on January 9, 2007. Punk went on to feud with Matt Striker, who gave him his second singles loss since being in ECW on January 30. Punk then qualified for the Money in the Bank ladder match at WrestleMania 23 by defeating Johnny Nitro. In the final week leading up to WrestleMania 23, Punk made appearances on both ''Raw'' and ''Friday Night SmackDown!'', defeating Kenny Dykstra and former World Heavyweight Champion King Booker, respectively. At WrestleMania 23, Punk competed in, but did not win, the Money in the Bank ladder match, being knocked off the ladder just seconds before the winner, Mr. Kennedy, claimed the briefcase.

On the April 10, 2007 edition of ''ECW on Sci Fi'', Punk briefly became a villain by officially joining the New Breed alliance, after several weeks in which both the New Breed and the ECW Originals had attempted to recruit him. Two weeks later, however, Punk betrayed the New Breed during a four on four elimination match between the New Breed and ECW Originals by kicking New Breed leader Elijah Burke in the back of the head and costing them the match. After the match, Punk proceeded to deliver his finisher, the Go To Sleep, on Burke and sarcastically apologized before leaving the ring alone, becoming a fan favorite again. WWE.com later confirmed that Punk was no longer a member of the New Breed. At Judgment Day, Punk wrestled and defeated Burke in his first singles match on a pay-per-view. Punk then went on to One Night Stand and teamed up with Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman in a tables match to defeat the New Breed.

When ECW World Champion Bobby Lashley was drafted to Raw and stripped of the ECW World Championship, a mini-tournament was announced to declare a new champion among Punk, Elijah Burke, Marcus Cor Von and the recently drafted Chris Benoit. Punk defeated Marcus Cor Von on the June 19, 2007 edition of ''ECW on Sci Fi''. By doing so, CM Punk was meant to face Chris Benoit at Vengeance: Night of Champions for the vacant ECW World Championship. Benoit, however, was hastily replaced by Johnny Nitro when Benoit no-showed the event due to what was described on-air as "personal reasons". Nitro subsequently defeated Punk at Vengeance for the vacant championship. Punk won another shot at the title at The Great American Bash against Nitro, who had changed his moniker to John Morrison by this point; however, Punk was defeated again by Morrison. The next week, Punk challenged Elijah Burke and Tommy Dreamer in a triple threat match to determine the next competitor in Morrison's 15 Minutes of Fame Challenge, in which Punk came out victorious. A week later, Punk defeated Morrison with the Go To Sleep to earn an ECW Championship title match at SummerSlam. At SummerSlam, however, Punk lost the match when Morrison used the ropes for leverage.

At the September 1, 2007 (aired September 4) ''ECW'' taping, in a "last chance" title match, Punk defeated Morrison for the ECW Championship. Punk then went on to have successful title defenses against the likes of Elijah Burke (at Unforgiven), Big Daddy V via disqualification (at No Mercy) and The Miz (at Cyber Sunday). On the November 6, 2007 edition of ''ECW'', Punk retained the ECW Championship in a match against Morrison following The Miz's interference. At Survivor Series, Punk retained his title in a Triple Threat match, beating The Miz and John Morrison. On the January 22, 2008 edition of ''ECW'', Chavo Guerrero defeated CM Punk in a No Disqualification match to win the ECW Championship after Edge, (acting as a guest commentator at ringside) ran in and speared Punk.

Mr. Money in the Bank (2008–2009)

At WrestleMania XXIV, Punk won the Money in the Bank ladder match, after defeating Chris Jericho, Montel Vontavious Porter, Shelton Benjamin, John Morrison, Mr. Kennedy and Carlito.

On the June 23, 2008 edition of ''Raw'', CM Punk was drafted to the Raw brand during the 2008 WWE Draft. His first night on ''Raw'' came the following week, and he made an immediate impact. After Batista beat down World Heavyweight Champion Edge and left him lying in the ring, Punk and referee Mike Chioda ran to the ring with Punk carrying his Money in the Bank contract. Moments later, as Edge was struggling to get up, Punk hit him with the Go 2 Sleep and pinned him to win the World Heavyweight Championship. Later that night, Punk won his first defense of the title against JBL, who challenged him shortly after his win. His win over Edge would eventually also earn Punk the Slammy Award for the "Oh my God" Moment of the Year. Punk continued to hold and defend the title until Unforgiven on September 7, 2008. Before the Championship Scramble match, Punk was attacked by an early version of The Legacy (Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase with Manu). Orton finished the assault by punting Punk in the head. It was announced that Punk could not participate in the match due to the attack and, as a result, he involuntarily forfeited the title. However, Punk was replaced by Chris Jericho, who went on to win the match and the title. He received a re-match eight days later on the September 15 episode of ''Raw'', where he failed to regain the title in a steel cage match against Jericho.

On the October 27, 2008 episode of ''Raw'', Punk and Kofi Kingston defeated Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase to win the World Tag Team Championship. The duo were members of Team Batista at Survivor Series, where their team lost to Team Orton. Punk was then entered in an Intercontinental Championship Tournament, in which the winner would get to challenge for the championship in the future. He would defeat Snitsky and John Morrison in the first two rounds. Punk and Kingston lost the World Tag Team Championship to John Morrison and The Miz at a live event on December 13, 2008. The next day Punk defeated Rey Mysterio at Armageddon to win the tournament. On the January 5 edition of ''Raw'', Punk received his title match against William Regal, which ended in a disqualification, when Regal grabbed the referee's jersey. Due to this, Stephanie McMahon awarded Punk a rematch the following week, but this time it was himself that was disqualified. McMahon awarded him another rematch, this time a No Disqualification match on January 19 edition of ''Raw'', Punk won the match and the title. With this win, he became the nineteenth Triple Crown Champion. Also, the victory made him the man to accomplish the Triple Crown in the fastest amount of time, shattering Kevin Nash's old record. Punk lost the title on the March 9 edition of Raw to John "Bradshaw" Layfield. At WrestleMania XXV, Punk won the Money in the Bank ladder match and became the first person to win the match twice.

On April 13, 2009 during the 2009 WWE Draft, Punk was drafted from Raw to SmackDown. In the period after the draft, Punk feuded with Umaga over Umaga's repeated surprise attacks while Punk was attempting to cash in his Money in the Bank Contract. This ultimately resulted in a Samoan strap match at Extreme Rules which was won by Punk.

At the end of the pay-per-view, Punk cashed in his Money in the Bank contract to defeat Jeff Hardy for the World Heavyweight Championship. Punk retained his title in a Triple Threat match against both Edge and Hardy eight days later on the June 15 episode of ''Raw''. At The Bash in Sacramento, California, Punk lost to Hardy by disqualification after kicking the referee after being afflicted with a storyline eye injury, claiming he could not see the referee, but because titles do not change hands on a disqualification, Punk retained the championship. Hardy called Punk into question about his eye injury, believing he had been feigning it, leading Punk to turn heel, claiming to be the moral superior of those who support Hardy due to his drug-free lifestyle. At Night of Champions, Punk lost the championship to Hardy. Their feud continued through SummerSlam, where Punk regained the title in a Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match; afterward, Punk was attacked by The Undertaker. On the August 28 edition of ''Friday Night SmackDown'', Punk concluded his program with Hardy and achieved his booked goal of excising him from the WWE, defeating Hardy in a steel cage match wherein the loser agreed to leave the company. This act would earn Punk a second Slammy that December as he was named winner for 2009's "Shocker of the Year".

At Breaking Point Punk defeated The Undertaker in a submission match to retain the World Heavyweight Championship. Undertaker originally won the match with his Hell's Gate submission hold. SmackDown General Manager Theodore Long re-started the match after stating that the ban that former General Manager Vickie Guerrero had placed on the move was still in effect. Punk would win the match with his Anaconda vise when referee Scott Armstrong called for the bell despite Undertaker never submitting (reminiscent to the Montreal Screwjob, which took place in the same venue in 1997). The feud between the two continued and at the Hell in a Cell PPV, Punk lost the World Heavyweight Championship to The Undertaker in a Hell in a Cell match. He lost two subsequent rematches against The Undertaker on Smackdown and in a Fatal Four Way match at Bragging Rights also involving Batista and Rey Mysterio.

Straight Edge Society and New Nexus (2009–2011)

His character took on a more sinister demeanor on the November 27 episode of ''SmackDown'' when he revealed that he had converted Luke Gallows, who had previously been portrayed as the mentally incompetent wrestler Festus, to the straight-edge lifestyle which had rid him of his mental troubles. Continuing to espouse his straight-edge philosophy, Punk began to present himself as a cult-like savior to the crowd, growing the hair on his head, face and chest in an allusion to Jesus. Through January 2010, Punk began to convert planted members of the audience to a straight-edge lifestyle, making them take a pledge of allegiance to him and shaving their head as a sign of renewal and devotion. After converting many people who were not seen again, convert Serena began accompanying Punk and Gallows to form the Straight Edge Society. As well as leading this alliance, Punk was also the mentor of ''WWE NXT'' rookie Darren Young who flirted with the idea of becoming straight-edge before refusing just before his head was to be shaved. Punk continued to show messianic traits, frequently giving sermons including during the annual Royal Rumble match as well as during an Elimination Chamber match at both of the eponymous pay-per-views. In the Chamber match, he was eliminated by Rey Mysterio, whom he had feuding with leading into the PPV. Tensions escalated as Mysterio prevented him from winning a Money in the Bank qualifying match, causing Punk to interrupt Mysterio's celebration of his daughter's ninth birthday. Mysterio challenged Punk to a Street Fight at WrestleMania XXVI but lost to Gallows, meaning Punk picked the stipulation that if Rey lost he would have to join the Society. At WrestleMania, Punk lost to Mysterio sparking a rematch at Extreme Rules where Punk would have to shave his head, like his disciples, if he lost. Punk won this match after interference from a fourth member of the Society who kept his face covered. At Over The Limit, a third and final match was booked with both stipulations reactivated. In the match Punk lost and was subsequently shaved bald.

Embarrassed by being shaved bald as he considered himself always pure, unlike his followers, Punk appeared on the following episode of ''SmackDown'', May 29, wearing a mask to hide his baldness. At Fatal 4 Way, Punk challenged for the World Heavyweight Championship against Mysterio, The Big Show and the champion Jack Swagger, but was unsuccessful when he was attacked by Kane, who was accusing various people of attacking The Undertaker. On July 16's ''SmackDown'', Punk was finally unmasked by Big Show while healing from an arm injury. The following week Show also unmasked the anonymous member of the Straight Edge Society who was revealed to be Joey Mercury. This led to a handicap match at SummerSlam where Show defeated the entire Society after Punk abandoned his teammates. Show also beat Punk in a singles match at Night of Champions. Following this Serena was released from WWE while Mercury became injured, severely thinning the Society. Gallows began showing signs of dissension too, and Punk defeated him on ''SmackDown'', airing September 24, after which Gallows began a short face run before also being released from the WWE, ending the group.

Punk was traded back to the Raw brand on October 11 after being swapped with Edge. He took part in the interbrand tag team match at Bragging Rights after injuring Evan Bourne to win a place, but the team lost. It was reported later that he was suffering with a hip injury that would stop him from competing. To keep a presence on television, he began commentating on ''Raw'' from November 22, having already commentated one episode of ''NXT''. During his commentary, he criticized John Cena for his actions against The Nexus. Sometimes he favoured heel wrestlers over face wrestlers. At the end of December, Punk left the commentary team after assaulting John Cena on ''Raw'' and ''SmackDown'' with a chair. Punk later revealed that his motives for the attacks were that he had joined and assumed control of The Nexus. He would then use the group to attack Randy Orton, blaming him for prematurely ending Punk's first World Heavyweight Championship reign in 2008; this led to a WrestleMania XXVII match and a Last Man Standing match at Extreme Rules both of which Punk lost.

Feud with John Cena and disputed WWE Championship (2011)

In June, after pinning WWE Champion John Cena on ''Raw'', Rey Mysterio at Capitol Punishment and finally Alberto Del Rio again in a contendership match (which included Mysterio) all within one week, Punk revealed his contract would expire at Money in the Bank and vowed to leave the company with the WWE Championship. After making a scathing on-air speech concerning the way in which WWE is run and its owner Vince McMahon, he was given a suspension from televised WWE events but was reinstated the following week on Cena's insistence. Two weeks later at Money in the Bank, CM Punk defeated John Cena to become the WWE Champion on his final night under contract with WWE.

On July 21, CM Punk made an unannounced appearance at a joint WWE/Mattel panel at the San Diego Comic Con to mock new Chief Operating Officer Triple H and offer WWE Championship tournament finalist Rey Mysterio a match for Punk's own WWE Championship, as long as it was in Punk's hometown, Chicago. Punk appeared at July 23's All American Wrestling show, showing respect to Gregory Iron, a wrestler with cerebral palsy. Mysterio won the WWE Championship tournament on the July 25 episode of ''Raw'', only to lose it to Cena later that night. After Cena's victory, Punk made his return to ''Raw'' and upstaged the new WWE Champion's victory celebration while also effectively entering into a title dispute. Triple H would later uphold both Punk and Cena's claims to the WWE Championship as legitimate, and schedule the two to a match at SummerSlam to decide the undisputed WWE Champion. At Summerslam, Punk defeated Cena to become the Undisputed WWE Champion. Punk immediately lost the title after being attacked by Kevin Nash and defeated by Alberto Del Rio who had cashed in his Money in the Bank contract.

Gimmick

Punk has adopted his real-life following of the straight edge movement as his professional wrestling gimmick, but the gimmick uses different elements of Punk's personality and the beliefs of the straight edge movement depending on his alignment. While portraying a crowd favorite, the gimmick tends to be that of Punk's normal personality, largely indifferent to others who drink alcohol, smoke tobacco, partake in recreational drug use or have promiscuous sexual behavior, but emphasizing the social discipline involved with abstinence. Conversely, his villainous personality tends to be that of one who is hardline or militant straight edge, exemplifying the elitist attitudes and superiority complexes—defined by Punk's common mantra during villainous-themed promos that, because he is straight edge, he is "better than you". Punk performs the straight edge symbol of crossing his arms in an X formation while having the letter X written on the back of his hands, usually drawn on his wrist tape.

Originally, the initials CM in his ring name represented the phrase "Chick Magnet", the name of the tag team he was in as a backyard wrestler. Punk, however, later changed CM into an orphan initialism, declaring that it has no meaning, though when asked since he has taken to making up meanings that fit the initials, going so far as to make up long stories to explain the origins that do not match the actual origin story at all. Since beginning this practice, Punk has stated CM stands for "Cookie Monster", "Cookie Master", "Crooked Moonsault", "Chuck Mosley", "Charles Montgomery", "Charles Manson", "Crazy Mariachi", "Chicago Made", "Championship Material" and "Cole Miner" among others.

An integral part of Punk's gimmick are the numerous tattoos that adorn his body, some of which have come to become symbols associated with Punk, as well as mantras and declarations that have been integrated into his gimmick. The tattoos as a whole, due to their large quantity and variety, have also become an attribute identifiable to Punk. The most important of the individual tattoos in Punk's character, whether through association, symbol, or mantra, are: A Pepsi Globe logo on his left shoulder that inspired the names of two of his signature moves. It also became a symbol of Punk himself, who wore the logo on his ring gear in the independent circuit, as well as a slightly modified Pepsi logo being used as part of his TitanTron entrance video. He got the tattoo as a joke, as many fraternity members in his school were getting beer logos tattooed on their bodies. Punk, a keen Pepsi drinker, chose to receive a Pepsi tattoo to emphasize his straight edge beliefs. The tattoo is also a reference to former Minor Threat guitarist Brian Baker, who had a Coca-Cola tattoo and explained this by saying "I like Coca-Cola". When people inquire about Punk's Pepsi tattoo, he often replies "I like Pepsi" in a similar fashion. The words "Straight Edge" are spelled out on Punk's stomach. This is one of his oldest tattoos; he has referred to it as his identity. A sleeve tattoo on his left arm that reads "luck is for losers" and features numerous good luck symbols, including a rabbit's foot, four-leaf clover and a horseshoe. The tattoo also features four ace playing cards as a tribute to trainer Ace Steel. A tattoo on the back of his left hand reading "No gimmicks needed", a tribute to deceased wrestler Chris Candido.

A tattoo on his right shoulder of the Cobra Command logo, G.I. Joe's enemy.

Another GI Joe themed tattoo on his right forearm, mimicking the tattoo Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow have on their forearms.

A tattoo of a rose on his left wrist.

A tattoo across his knuckles with the words "DRUG FREE" ("DRUG" on his right knuckles and "FREE" on his left).

A tattoo behind his left ear of the number 31 with three stars surrounding it.

A tattoo on his chest, the design of which is unknown, but includes a skull and a snake.

A tattoo on the back of his hand with the logo of the now defunct rock band, Rocket from the Crypt.

A tattoo of the Gill-man from The Creature from the Black Lagoon on the inside of his left bicep.

Punk's character and gimmick have been parodied by the wrestling federation Chikara with the mascot character CP Munk, the straight edge chipmunk. The character includes references to Punk, such as X-marked wrist tape, a Pepsi logo on the costume's left shoulder, and a high-pitch version of Punk's best-known independent circuit theme song "Miseria Cantare – The Beginning", by the band AFI. On his website, Punk has said about the character CP Munk, and the people behind it: }}

Personal life

While working for Ring of Honor he was romantically linked to professional wrestlers Shannon Spruill and Tracy Brookshaw. After joining Ohio Valley Wrestling, Brooks began dating Maria Kanellis, who was working in OVW as an interviewer, however they broke up sometime after Brooks was moved to World Wrestling Entertainment and started working on the ECW brand. Brooks was dating Amy Dumas. However, as stated in Matt Hardy's interview in March 2010, Brooks and Dumas are no longer dating.

Other media

Brooks made an appearance on the February 16, 2004 episode of ''Monster Garage'', "Box Truck Wrestling Car", performing a short match with Samoa Joe. On October 31, 2006, Brooks joined The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) to shoot the Sci Fi Channel special ''Ghost Hunters Live'', which was a six-hour show broadcast live Halloween night from the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. Initially skeptical about what he might find, Brooks claimed to have heard children giggling and footsteps when there were not any children booked into the hotel.

In 2008, Brooks appeared as the Sports Grand Marshal of the nationally-televised McDonald's Thanksgiving Parade in downtown Chicago.

In wrestling

World Wrestling Entertainment

*Finishing moves

*''Anaconda Vise'' (Arm trap triangle choke)

*''GTS – Go to Sleep'' (Fireman's carry dropped into a knee strike to the face)

*Signature moves

*Arm wrench followed by stepping a leg over the wrenched arm and performing a mule kick with the leg below the opponent's face

*Bulldog

*Diving crossbody

*Double underhook backbreaker

*Falcon arrow

*Hurricanrana to an opponent seated on the top rope

*Jumping hammerlock twisted into a short-range lariat

*Koji clutch

*Leg lariat

*Repeated elbow strikes to an opponent's chest

*Rope hung arm trap can opener

*Roundhouse kick

*Slingshot somersault senton

*Snap scoop powerslam

*Springboard clothesline

*Step-up enzuigiri

*Step-up high knee to a cornered opponent

*Suicide dive

*Swinging neckbreaker

*Tilt-a-whirl backbreaker

*Nicknames

*"Mr. Money in the Bank"

*"The Second City Saint"

*"The Straight-Edge Savior"

*"The Second City Savior"

**"The Voice of The Voiceless"

*Managers

**The Straight Edge Society (Luke Gallows, Serena and Joey Mercury)

*Wrestlers managed

**Darren Young

**The Straight Edge Society (Luke Gallows, Serena and Joey Mercury)

**New Nexus (Michael McGillicutty, Husky Harris, David Otunga, and Mason Ryan)

*Entrance themes

*"This Fire Burns" by Killswitch Engage (2006–2011)

**"Cult of Personality" by Living Colour (2011–present)

Independent circuit

*Finishing moves

*''Anaconda Vise'' or an arm triangle choke

*''Pepsi Plunge'' (Diving double underhook facebuster)

*Shining wizard

*Signature moves

*Arm wrench followed by stepping a leg over the wrenched arm and performing a mule kick with the leg below the opponent's face

*Corkscrew diving neckbreaker

*''Crooked Moonsault'' (Split-legged moonsault)

*Delayed vertical suplex

*''Devil Lock DDT'' (Hammerlock legsweep DDT)

*Facewash

*Inverted facelock neckbreaker

*Inverted frankensteiner

*''Jackie Chan'' (While sitting in a corner Punk grasps the top rope with one hand on each side of the turnbuckle and when the opponent attempts to pull Punk off the ropes by his legs, Punk performs a back tuck, landing on his feet)

*''Pepsi Twist'' (Jumping hammerlock twisted into a short-range lariat)

*''Punk–Handle Piledriver'' (Pumphandle reverse piledriver)

*Rolling fireman's carry slam

*Slingshot somersault senton

*Springboard corkscrew crossbody

*Suicide dive

*''Welcome to Chicago, Motherfucker'' (Double underhook backbreaker)

*With Julio Dinero

*Double superkick

*''Near Death Experience'' (Diving neckbreaker (Punk) / Powerbomb (Dinero) combination)

*Managers

*Milo Beasley

*Tracy Brooks

*Bobby Heenan

*Alexis Laree / Vicki Adams

*Lucy

*Joshua Masters

*James Mitchell

**Dave Prazak

*Entrance themes

*"South of Heaven" by Slayer

*"A Call for Blood" by Hatebreed

*"Miseria Cantare (The Beginning)" by AFI

*"Cult of Personality" by Living Colour

*"Night Train" by The Bouncing Souls

*"¡Olé!" by The Bouncing Souls

Championships and accomplishments

Independent Wrestling Association Mid-South

IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship (5 times)

IWA Mid-South Light Heavyweight Championship (2 times)

International Wrestling Cartel

IWC Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

Mid-American Wrestling

MAW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

NWA Cyberspace

NWA Cyberspace Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Julio Dinero

NWA Revolution

NWA Revolution Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

Ohio Valley Wrestling

OVW Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

OVW Southern Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Seth Skyfire

OVW Television Championship (1 time)

Pro Wrestling Illustrated

PWI ranked him #3 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2010.

Ring of Honor

ROH Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Colt Cabana

ROH World Championship (1 time)

St. Paul Championship Wrestling

SDW Northern States Television Championship (2 times)

SPCW Northern States Light Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

World Wrestling Entertainment

ECW Championship (1 time)

World Heavyweight Championship (3 times)

*WWE Championship (1 time)

World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Kofi Kingston

WWE Intercontinental Championship (1 time)

Mr. Money in the Bank (2008, 2009)

Slammy Award for "OMG" Moment of the Year (2008)

Slammy Award for Shocker of the Year (2009)

Slammy Award for Despicable Me (2010)

Nineteenth Triple Crown Champion

Wrestling Observer Newsletter

*5 Star Match vs. Samoa Joe at ROH Joe vs. Punk II on October 16, 2004

*5 Star Match vs. John Cena at WWE Money in the Bank on July 17, 2011

Feud of the Year (2009)

Best Gimmick (2009)

Luchas de Apuestas record

CM Punk

style="background:#e3e3e3; width:5%;"	Wager	Winner	Loser	Location	Date	Notes
Hair	Rey Mysterio	|	Detroit, Michigan		Over the Limit (2010)>Over the Limit.

References

External links

Official website

Professional wrestling record for CM Punk from The Internet Wrestling Database

WWE Profile

Verified Twitter

Category:American professional wrestlers Category:People from Chicago, Illinois Category:Professional wrestling announcers Category:Straight edge individuals Category:1978 births Category:Living people

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