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Look up talk in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Talk may refer to:

• Conversation, interactive communication between two or more people
• Speech, the production of a spoken language
• Interaction, face to face conversations

Software[link]

• Google Talk, a Windows- and web-based instant messaging program
• talk (software), a Unix messaging program
• AppleTalk, an early networking protocol designed by Apple for their Macintosh computers

Music[link]

• Talk (Yes album)
• Talk (Paul Kelly album)
• "Talk" (song), by Coldplay
• "Talk", a song by Tracy Bonham on the album Liverpool Sessions
• Talk Talk, a popular British rock group active from 1981 to 1991
• "Talking", a song by British rock band The Rifles
• "Talk", a song by Redgum from their 1986 album Midnight Sun

Other meanings[link]

• Talk (film)
• Talk (magazine)
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• Talk (play)

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A beach salesman showing necklaces to a tourist in Mexico

A sale is the act of selling a product or service in return for money or other compensation.^[1] It is an act of completion of a commercial activity.

The seller' or salesperson – the provider of the goods or services – completes a sale in response to an acquisition or to an appropriation^{[disambiguation needed ][citation needed]} or to a request. There follows the passing of title (property or ownership) in the item, and the application and due settlement of a price, the obligation for which arises due to the seller's requirement to pass ownership. Ideally, a seller agrees upon a price at which he willingly parts with ownership of or any claim upon the item. The purchaser, though a party to the sale, does not execute the sale, only the seller does that. To be precise the sale completes prior to the payment and gives rise to the obligation of payment. If the seller completes the first two above stages (consent and passing ownership) of the sale prior to settlement of the price, the sale remains valid and gives rise to an obligation to pay.

Sales techniques[link]

A sale can take place through:^[2]

• Direct sales, involving person to person contact
• Pro forma sales
• Agency-based
  • Sales agents (for example in real estate or in manufacturing)
  • Sales outsourcing through direct branded representation
  • Transaction sales
  • Consultative sales
  • Complex sales
  • Consignment
  • Telemarketing or telesales
  • Retail or consumer
• Traveling salesman
  • Door-to-door methods
  • hawking
• Request for proposal – An invitation for suppliers, through a bidding process, to submit a proposal on a specific product or service. An RFP usually represents part of a complex sales process, also known as "enterprise sales".
• Business-to-business – Business-to-business ("B2B") sales are much more relationship-based owing to the lack of emotional attachment^{[citation needed]} to the products in question. Industrial/professional sales involves selling from one business to another
• Electronic
  • Web – Business-to-business ("B2B") and business-to-consumer ("B2C")
  • Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) – A set of standard for structuring information to be electronically exchanged between and within businesses
• Indirect, human-mediated but with indirect contact
  • Mail-order
  • vending machine
• Sales methods:
  • Selling technique
  • Consultative selling
  • Sales enablement
  • Solution selling
  • Conceptual Selling
  • Strategic Selling
  • Transactional Selling
  • Sales Negotiation
  • Reverse Selling
  • Paint-the-Picture
  • The take away
  • Sales Habits
  • Relationship Selling

Sales agents[link]

Agents in the sales process can represent either of two parties in the sales process; for example:

1. Sales broker or Seller agency or seller agent: This is a traditional role where the salesman represents a person or company on the selling end of a deal.
2. Buyers broker or Buyer brokerage: This is where the salesman represents the consumer making the purchase. This is most often applied in large transactions.
3. Disclosed dual agent:This is where the salesman represents both parties in the sale and acts as a mediator for the transaction. The role of the salesman here is to oversee that both parties receive an honest and fair deal, and is responsible to both.
4. Transaction broker: This is where the salesperson represent neither party but handles the transaction only. The seller owes no responsibility to either party getting a fair or honest deal, just that all of the papers are handled properly.
5. Sales outsourcing involves direct branded representation where the sales representatives are recruited, hired, and managed by an external entity but hold quotas, represent themselves as the brand of the client, and report all activities (through their own sales management channels) back to the client. It is akin to a virtual extension of a sales force (see sales outsourcing).
6. Sales managers: qualified and talented^{[peacock term]} sales managers aim to implement various sales strategies and management techniques in order to facilitate improved profits and increased sales volume. They are also responsible for coordinating the sales and marketing department as well as oversight concerning the fair and honest execution of the sales process by their agents.
7. Salesmen: The primary function of professional sales is to generate and close leads, educate prospects, fill needs and satisfy wants of consumers appropriately, and therefore turn prospective customers into actual ones. Questioning – to understand a customer's goal and requirements relevant to the product – and the creation of a valuable solution by communicating the necessary information that encourages a buyer to achieve their goal at an economic cost comprise the functions of the salesperson or of the sales engine (for example, the Internet, a vending machine, etc.). A good salesman should never mis-sell or over-evaluate the customer's requirements.

[edit] Inside sales vs. Outside sales

Since the advent of the telephone, a distinction has been made^{[citation needed]} between "inside sales" and "outside sales" although it is generally agreed that those terms have no hard-and-fast definition.^[3] In the United States, the Fair Labor Standards Act defines outside sales representatives as "employees [who] sell their employer's products, services, or facilities to customers away from their employer's place(s) of business, in general, either at the customer's place of business or by selling door-to-door at the customer's home" while defining those who work "from the employer's location" as inside sales.^[4] Inside sales generally involves attempting to close business primarily over the phone via cold calling or telemarketing, while outside sales (or "field" sales) will usually involve initial phone work to book sales calls at the potential buyer's location to attempt to close the deal in person. Some companies have an inside sales department that works with outside representatives and book their appointments for them. Inside sales sometimes refers to upselling to existing customers.

The relationships between sales and marketing[link]

Marketing and sales differ greatly, but have the same goal. Marketing improves the selling environment and plays a very important role in sales. If the marketing department generates a list of potential customers, that can benefit sales. A marketing department in an organization has the goal increasing the number of interactions between potential customers and the organization. Achieving this goal may involve the sales team using promotional techniques such as advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and public relations, creating new sales channels, or creating new products (new product development), among other things. It can also include bringing the potential customer to visit the organization's website(s) for more information, or to contact the organization for more information, or to interact with the organization via social media such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs.

The relatively new^[when?] field of sales process engineering views "sales" as the output of a larger system, not just as the output of one department. The larger system includes many functional areas within an organization. From this perspective, "sales" and "marketing" (among others, such as "customer service") label for a number of processes whose inputs and outputs supply one another to varying degrees. In this context, improving an "output" (such as sales) involves studying and improving the broader sales process, as in any system, since the component functional areas interact and are interdependent.^[5]

Most large corporations structure their marketing departments in a similar fashion to sales departments^{[citation needed]} and the managers of these teams must coordinate efforts in order to drive profits and business success. For example, an "inbound" focused campaign seeks to drive more customers "through the door", giving the sales department a better chance of selling their product to the consumer. A good marketing program would address any potential downsides as well.

The sales department would aim to improve the interaction between the customer and the sales facility or mechanism (example, web site) and/or salesperson. Sales management would break down the selling process and then increase the effectiveness of the discrete processes as well as the interaction between processes. For example, in many out-bound sales environments, the typical process includes out-bound calling, the sales pitch, handling objections, opportunity identification, and the close. Each step of the process has sales-related issues, skills, and training needs, as well as marketing solutions to improve each discrete step, as well as the whole process.

One further common complication of marketing involves the inability to measure results for a great deal of marketing initiatives. In essence, many marketing and advertising executives often lose sight of the objective of sales/revenue/profit, as they focus on establishing a creative/innovative program, without concern for the top or bottom lines - a fundamental pitfall of marketing for marketing's sake.

Many companies find it challenging to get marketing and sales on the same page.^{[citation needed]} The two departments, although different in nature, handle very similar concepts and have to work together for sales to be successful. Building a good relationship between the two that encourages communication can be the key to success - even in a down economy.^[6]

Marketing potentially negates the need for sales[link]

Some sales authors and consultants contend that an expertly planned and executed marketing strategy may negate the need for outside sales entirely. They suggest that by effectively bringing more customers "through the door" and enticing them into contact, sales organizations can dramatically improve their results, efficiency, profitability, and allow salespeople to provide a drastically higher level of customer service and satisfaction, instead of spending the majority of their working hours searching for someone to sell to.^[7]

Industrial marketing[link]

The idea that marketing can potentially eliminate the need for sales people depends entirely on context. For example, this may be possible in some B2C situations; however, for many B2B transactions (for example, those involving industrial organizations) this is mostly impossible.^{[citation needed]} Another dimension is the value of the goods being sold. Fast-moving consumer-goods (FMCG) require no sales people at the point of sale to get them to jump off the supermarket shelf and into the customer's trolley. However, the purchase of large mining equipment worth millions of dollars will require a sales person to manage the sales process - particularly in the face of competitors.

Sales and marketing alignment and integration[link]

Another area of discussion involves the need for alignment and integration between corporate sales and marketing functions. According to a report from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, only 40 percent of companies have formal programs, systems or processes in place to align and integrate the two critical functions.

Traditionally, these two functions, as referenced above, have operated separately, left in siloed areas of tactical responsibility. Glen Petersen’s book The Profit Maximization Paradox^[8] sees the changes in the competitive landscape between the 1950s and the time of writing as so dramatic that the complexity of choice, price and opportunities for the customer forced this seemingly simple and integrated relationship between sales and marketing to change forever. Petersen goes on to highlight that salespeople spend approximately 40 percent of their time preparing customer-facing deliverables while leveraging less than 50 percent of the materials created by marketing, adding to perceptions that marketing is out of touch with the customer and that sales is resistant to messaging and strategy.

See also[link]

Look up sale in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• buzzword
• Choice architecture
• Customer service
• Demand chain
• Point of sale
• Retailing
• Sales (accounting)
• Sales Effectiveness
• Sales Incentive Plan
• Sales process engineering
• Sales management
• Sales territory
• Sales variance
• Selling
• Trade
• Transaction
• Vendor

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Salesmen

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (November 2007)

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Brian Tracy (born January 5, 1944 in Charlottetown, PEI, Canada) is a self-help author and motivational speaker. He serves as Chairman of Brian Tracy International, a human resource company based in Solana Beach, California, with affiliates throughout the United States and thirty-one other countries.

Early life[link]

After dropping out of high school before graduation, Tracy got a job on a tramp steamer and traveled around the world for eight years, eventually visiting more than eighty countries on five continents.

When he could no longer find a job as a laborer, he went into sales. Struggling at first, he decided to ask other successful salesmen for advice, and then to emulate them. By the end of his first year, he attained the status of top salesman. After his second year, he was made a Vice President in charge of 95 people. At the time he was only 25 years old.^[1]

Professional life[link]

Beginning in 1981, Tracy assembled his "success system", which was initially called "The Phoenix Seminar." Three years later, in 1985, he released an updated version of this seminar as a self-help audio tape entitled "The Psychology of Achievement".

Tracy's book Maximum Achievement was included as one of 50 success, motivation and leadership classics in the book 50 Success Classics^[2] (2004) by Tom Butler-Bowdon.

Tracy is a member of the board of trustees for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington, D.C.-based public policy research institute.^[3]

His body of work is loosely based on a number of other success "gurus" such as Earl Nightingale, Jim Rohn and Denis Waitley. He has recently^[when?] launched Brian Tracy University, an online course of study which is designed to assist entrepreneurs, business owners and sales professionals.

The Brian Tracy College of Business and Entrepreneurship at Andrew Jackson University (a distance learning school based in Hoover, Alabama), is named after him and based on his teachings. At the New York headquarters of ALM Media, a legal publisher, a motivational quote of Tracy's appears on the office wall: “excellence is not a destination; it is a continuous journey that never ends.”

In March 2008, Brian Tracy and some of his business partners created iLearningGlobal, which is another online learning community.^[4]

In January 15, 2009, Forbes.com reported that Tracy's books and seminars make about $25-30 million. He said that the more you read, the more you grow.

Personal life[link]

Brian Tracy's wife is named Barbara, and they have four children (Christina, Michael, David, and Catherine). Brian Tracy has three brothers, Robin, Dalmar, and Paul (Tracy dedicated his book "Million Dollar Habits" to his three brothers).

In April 2010, Tracy officially announced on his blog that he is suffering from throat cancer, which eventually disappeared.^[5]

Quotes[link]

• "Our mind is the most valuable possession that we have. The quality of our lives is, and will be, a reflection of how well we develop, train, and utilize this precious gift."
• "Successful people tend to become more successful because they are always thinking about their successes."
• "If you consistently and persistently do the things that other successful people do, nothing in the world can stop you from being a big success also."
• "You are the architect of your own destiny; you are the master of your own fate; you are behind the steering wheel of your life. There are no limitations to what you can do, have, or be. Except the limitations you place on yourself by your own thinking.^[6]
• "Resolve in advance that you will never give up, no matter what happens."

Books[link]

• Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed (1993) ISBN 0-671-86518-8
• Advanced Selling Strategies: The Proven System of Sales Ideas, Methods, and Techniques Used by Top Salespeople Everywhere (1995) ISBN 0-684-82474-4
• The Psychology of Selling: The Art of Closing Sales (1995) ISBN 978-0-7435-2069-0
• Jones and the Salesman (1999)
• The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success (2000) ISBN 1-57675-126-0
• The 21 Success Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires: How to Achieve Financial Independence Faster and Easier Than You Ever Thought Possible (2001) ISBN 1-58376-205-1
• Eat that Frog: 21 Ways to stop Procrastination and get More Done in Less Time (2001) ISBN 1-58376-202-7
• Get Paid More and Promoted Faster (2001) ISBN 1-58376-207-8
• Focal Point (2001) American Management Association ISBN 0-8144-7278-8
• Victory!: Applying the Proven Principles of Military Strategy to Achieve Success in Your Business and Personal Life (2002) ISBN 0-8144-0750-1
• Be a Sales Superstar: 21 Great Ways to Sell More, Faster, Easier in Tough Markets (2002) ISBN 1-57675-175-9
• Create Your Own Future: How to Master the 12 Critical Factors of Unlimited Success (2002) ISBN 0-471-25107-0
• Goals!: How To Get Everything You Want—Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible (2003) ISBN 978-1-57675-235-7
• Turbostrategy: 21 Powerful Ways to Transform your Business and Boost Your Profits Quickly (2003) ISBN 0-8144-7193-5
• Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life (2003) ISBN 0-471-44858-3
• Getting Rich Your Own Way: Achieve All Your Financial Goals Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible (2004) ISBN 0-471-65264-4
• Time Power: A Proven System for Getting More Done in Less Time Than You Ever Thought Possible (2004) American Management Association ISBN 0-8144-7247-8
• Something for Nothing : The All-Consuming Desire that Turns the American Dream into a Social Nightmare (2005) ISBN 1-59555-038-0
• The Power of Charm: How to Win Anyone over in Any Situation (2006) American Management Association ISBN 0-8144-7357-1
• Crunch Point: The 21 Secrets to Succeeding When It Matters Most (2006) American Management Association ISBN 978-0-8144-7371-9
• Flight Plan: The Real Secret of Success (2008) ISBN 1-57675-497-9
• The Miracle of Self-discipline: The "No-Excuses" Way to Getting Things Done (2010) ISBN 1-908364-04-1

References[link]

External links[link]

• Brian Tracy International Official website
• Brian Tracy's Blog
• The Brian Tracy Executive MBA at Andrew Jackson University
• Works by or about Brian Tracy in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (March 2012)

Grant Cardone (born March 21, 1958) is an American entrepreneur, motivational speaker, author, and host of the National Geographic television show, Turnaround King.^[1]

Biography[link]

Cardone was born on March 21, 1958, in Lake Charles, Louisiana. His father was Curtis Louis Cardone (died February 1968) and his mother was Concetta Neil Cardone (died May 2009). He is the fourth of five children.

Cardone graduated from La Grange High School in Lake Charles in 1976. He then went to McNeese State University from 1976-1981 where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting. Cardone was awarded the McNeese State University Distinguished Alumnus Award 2010.^[2]

In 1987, Cardone moved from Lake Charles to Chicago to work for a sales-training company. Although he lived in Chicago, he traveled all over the United States, living in different cities. Grant briefly returned to Lake Charles before moving to Houston, Texas, where he lived for the next five years. He then spent the next 12 years in La Jolla, California, before finally moving to Los Angeles, where he has resided since 2003. His home was featured on How’d You Get So Rich?, where Joan Rivers toured the home and talked to Cardone about his success story.^[3]

Cardone is married to actress/model Elena Lyons. They had their first child, Sabrina, in May 2009.

Career[link]

Cardone started out working various part time jobs in high school. He was fired from his first job, McDonalds. He worked next as a country club bus boy. Cardone subsequently worked in a coal plant.

Selling as a Career Path[link]

Cardone began his sales career in a clothing store.

Cardone also spent some time as CEO with Freedom Motorsports Group Inc.^[4].

Turnaround King[link]

In late 2010, Cardone worked with Atlas Media Corp. to develop a new reality television series for the National Geographic Channel; that project evolved into Turnaround King. The series follows Cardone as he goes into struggling businesses to “turn [them] around” (i.e., to restore it to profitability and high productivity.)^[5]

Entrepreneur[link]

Cardone owns and operates Cardone Enterprises,^[6] Cardone Training Technologies,^[7] and The Cardone Group.^[8]

Author[link]

Cardone is the author of three books: Sell To Survive (2008), The Closer's Survival Guide (2009), and If You're Not First, You're Last (2010). If You're Not First, You're Last hit The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal's best seller lists and made #1 on Amazon and Barnes and Nobles.^[9]

References[link]

Alec Baldwin
Alec Baldwin with fiance, Hilaria Thomas in 2011.
Born	Alexander Rae Baldwin III (1958-04-03) April 3, 1958 (age 54) Long Island, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1980–present
Spouse	Kim Basinger (m. 1993–2002; divorced)
Partner	Hilaria Thomas (engaged)
Children	1
Website
http://www.alecbaldwin.com/

Alexander Rae "Alec" Baldwin III (born April 3, 1958) is an American actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television.

Baldwin first gained recognition through television for his work, for two seasons (6 and 7), on the soap opera Knots Landing, in the role of Joshua Rush. He has since played both leading and supporting roles in films such as Beetlejuice (1988), The Hunt for Red October (1990), The Marrying Man (1991), The Shadow (1994), Notting Hill (1999), The Aviator (2004) and The Departed (2006). His performance in the 2003 film The Cooler garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Since 2006 he has starred as Jack Donaghy on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, receiving critical acclaim for his performance and winning two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards for his work on the show, making him the male performer with most SAG Awards ever.

He is the eldest of the Baldwin brothers working in Hollywood.

Early life[link]

Baldwin was born on Long Island, New York, the son of Carolyn Newcomb (née Martineau) and Alexander Rae Baldwin, Jr., a high school history/social studies teacher and football coach.^[1] Baldwin was raised in a Roman Catholic family of Irish, English, and French descent.^[2][3] He has three younger brothers, Daniel, William, and Stephen, who also became actors. Baldwin has two sisters, Beth Baldwin Keuchler (born 1955), and Jane Baldwin Sasso (born 1965).^{[citation needed]}

Baldwin attended Alfred G. Berner High School in Massapequa, Long Island, and played football there under Coach Bob Reifsnyder, who is in the College Football Hall of Fame. He worked as a busboy at the famous New York City disco Studio 54. Baldwin attended George Washington University from 1976 to 1979. He then transferred to New York University to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute under Elaine Aiken and Geoffrey Horne.^[4] He returned to NYU in 1994 and graduated with a BFA that year. On May 12, 2010, he gave a commencement address at New York University and was awarded a Doctor of Fine Arts degree, honoris causa.^[5]

Career[link]

Stage[link]

Baldwin made his Broadway debut in 1986, in a revival of Joe Orton's Loot alongside theater veterans Zoë Wanamaker, Željko Ivanek, Joseph Maher and Charles Keating.^[6] This production closed after three months. His other Broadway credits include Caryl Churchill's Serious Money with Kate Nelligan and a highly acclaimed revival of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. His performance as Stanley Kowalski in the latter garnered him a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor. Baldwin also received an Emmy nomination for the 1995 television version of the production, in which both he and Jessica Lange reprised their roles, alongside John Goodman and Diane Lane. In 1998, Baldwin played the title role in Macbeth at the Public theater alongside Angela Bassett and Liev Schreiber in a production directed by George C. Wolfe. In 2004, Baldwin starred in a revival of Twentieth Century with Anne Heche.

On June 9, 2005, he appeared in a concert version of the Rogers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific at Carnegie Hall. He starred as Luther Billis, alongside Reba McEntire as Nellie and Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile. The production was taped and telecast by PBS on April 26, 2006. In 2006, Baldwin made theater news in Roundabout Theatre Company's Off-Broadway revival of Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr. Sloane. In 2010, Baldwin starred opposite Sam Underwood in a critically acclaimed revival of Peter Shaffer's Equus, directed by Tony Walton at Guild Hall in East Hampton, NY.

Television[link]

Baldwin's first major acting role was as Billy Aldrich on the daytime soap opera The Doctors from 1980 to 1982. In fall 1983, he starred in the short-lived television series Cutter to Houston. He then co-starred in the television series Knots Landing from 1984 to 1986. In 1986, Baldwin starred in Dress Gray, a four-hour made-for-television miniseries, as an honest cadet sergeant who tries to solve the mystery of a murdered gay classmate.^[7] The film was adapted by Gore Vidal from the novel by Lucian Truscott IV.

Between 1998 and 2003, Baldwin was the U.S. narrator for the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, narrating all 52 episodes of Series 5 and Series 6. He portrayed Arnold Pagani in a Goosebumps episode, "Bad Hare Day". Baldwin appeared in a celebrity edition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in November 2000, competing against Jon Stewart, Charlie Sheen, Vivica A. Fox and Norm Macdonald. He won $250,000 for PAWS, and used Kim Basinger as one of his "phone-a-friend" partners. He voiced Blue Barron in Teen Titans.

In 2002, Baldwin appeared on two episodes of Friends as Phoebe Buffay's overly enthusiastic love interest, Parker. He also portrayed a recurring character in a number of episodes in seasons 7 and 8 of Will & Grace, in which he played Malcolm – a "top secret agent" and the lover of Karen Walker (Megan Mullally). He also guest-starred in the first live episode of the series. Baldwin wrote an episode of Law & Order entitled "Tabloid", which aired in 1998. He played the role of Dr. Barrett Moore, a retired plastic surgeon, in the series Nip/Tuck.

On July 7, 2007, Baldwin was a host at the American leg of Live Earth, which was broadcast on NBC.^{[citation needed]}

Baldwin stars in the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, which first aired October 2006. Baldwin met his future co-stars Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan while appearing on Saturday Night Live. He has received two Emmy Awards,^[8] two Golden Globe awards and five Screen Actors Guild Awards for his role. Baldwin received his second Emmy nomination for Best Actor in a Television Comedy or Musical as Jack Donaghy in 2008, marking his seventh Primetime Emmy nomination and first win. He won again in 2009. Since season 3, Baldwin has been credited as producer of the show.

Baldwin joined TCM’s The Essentials Robert Osborne as co-host beginning in March 2009.^[9][10]

Baldwin co-hosted the 82nd Academy Awards with Steve Martin in 2010.^[11] He has hosted Saturday Night Live sixteen times, the most recent being the Season 37 premiere on September 24, 2011. He currently holds the record for most times hosting Saturday Night Live, eclipsing Steve Martin.^[12]

Film[link]

Baldwin made his film debut with a minor role in the 1987 film Forever, Lulu. Also in 1988, he appeared in Beetlejuice and Working Girl. He gained further recognition as a leading man with his role as Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October (1990).

Baldwin met his future wife Kim Basinger when they played lovers in the 1991 film The Marrying Man. He appeared with Basinger again in The Getaway, a 1994 remake of the 1972 Steve McQueen film of the same name. Next, in a brief role, Baldwin played a ferocious sales executive in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), a part added to the film version of David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play (including the monologue "Coffee's for closers"). Later that year, he starred in Prelude to a Kiss with Meg Ryan, which was based on the Broadway play. The film received a lukewarm reception by critics and grossed only $22 million worldwide.^[13]

In 1994, Baldwin made a foray into pulp fiction-based movies with the role of the title character in The Shadow. The film made $48 million. In 1996 and 1997, Baldwin continued to work in several thrillers including The Edge, The Juror and Heaven's Prisoners.

Baldwin shifted towards character acting, beginning with Pearl Harbor in 2001. He played Lt. Col. James Doolittle in the film, which, with a worldwide box office of $449,220,945, remains the highest grossing film Baldwin has appeared in his acting career.^[14] Baldwin was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance in the 2003 gambling drama The Cooler.^[4] He appeared in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator (2004) and The Departed (2006).^[4] In 2006, he starred in the film Mini's First Time, alongside Nikki Reed and Luke Wilson. Baldwin performed opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar in the 2007 romantic comedy, Suburban Girl. In 2009, he co-starred in the hit romantic comedy It's Complicated with Meryl Streep and Steve Martin. In 2001, he voiced Butch in Cats & Dogs.

Baldwin directed and starred in an all-star version of The Devil and Daniel Webster with Anthony Hopkins, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Dan Aykroyd in 2001.^[15] The then-unreleased film became an asset in a federal bank fraud trial when investor Jed Barron was convicted of bank fraud while the movie was in production. The film eventually was acquired by The Yari Group without Baldwin's involvement.^[16]

In 2003, he served as the antagonist in the live-action film The Cat in the Hat.

In 2007, the Yari Film Group announced it would give the film, now titled Shortcut to Happiness, a theatrical release in the spring and cable film network Starz! announced they had acquired pay TV rights for the film. Shortcut to Happiness was finally released in 2008. Baldwin, displeased with the way the film had been cut in post-production, demanded that his directorial credit be changed to the pseudonym "Harry Kirkpatrick".^[17]

In 2009, Balwin appeared in a series of commercials for Hulu that premiered during the Super Bowl broadcast.

In 2010, Baldwin made a 5-second cameo appearance with comedian Andy Samberg in a musical video titled "Great Day" featured on the bonus DVD as part of Lonely Island's new album "Turtleneck & Chain". In this video, Samberg plays an enthusiastic, upbeat cocaine addict who believes that Tom Petty (who also co-stars) and Alec Baldwin are his very best friends--only to be quickly rejected by both. After finding out the hard way they are quite the opposite and feeling heartbroken, the addict then briefly sings about losing them.

Baldwin has also worked as voice actor in films such as The Royal Tenenbaums, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Thomas and the Magic Railroad and The Spongebob Squarepants Movie. As of March 2011 Baldwin has signed on to star alongside Tom Cruise, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Julianne Hough, and Mary J. Blige in the film adaptaion of the jukebox hit musical Rock of Ages. Baldwin will play Dennis Dupree, the aging owner of a Sunset Strip rock club, when production begins in May 2011.

Radio[link]

On January 12, 2009, Baldwin became the host of The New York Philharmonic This Week, the nationally broadcast radio series of the New York Philharmonic.^[18] He has recorded two nationally distributed public service radio announcements on behalf of the Save the Manatee Club.^[19]

On October 24, 2011, WNYC public radio released the first episode of Baldwin's new podcast Here's the Thing, a series of interviews with public figures including artists, policy makers and performers. The first two episodes featured actor Michael Douglas and political consultant Ed Rollins.^[20]

Personal life[link]

Baldwin with Kim Basinger at the 1994 César Awards ceremony in Paris.

In 1990, he met his future wife, actress Kim Basinger, when they played lovers in the film The Marrying Man.^[21] They married in 1993^[22] and had a daughter, Ireland, in October 1995.^[23] On January 12, 2001, Basinger filed for divorce,^[24] which was finalized in February^{[citation needed]} 2002.^[25]

Since summer 2011,^[26] Baldwin has been dating Hilaria Thomas, an instructor with Yoga Vida in Manhattan.^[27][28] As of April 2012, Baldwin and Thomas are engaged.^[29] In August 2011, Baldwin moved from the Upper West Side and to SoHo,^[30] where they live together.^[31]

Baldwin is a Catholic.^[32][33]

Runway Incident[link]

In December of 2011, Alec was waiting on an American Airlines flight at LAX, and playing Words with Friends on his phone. When instructed to put away the "electronic device" by the stewardess, he reportedly became belligerent, and was eventually removed from the plane. He later publicly apologized, though only to the passengers so delayed, not the airline or Federal regulators.^[34]

In 2012, a commercial for Capital One credit cards (for which Alec is a spokesman) made a humorous reference to this event: A viking character from the famous ad series asks about the phone Alec is using, and Baldwin replies, in a very facetious way, that it is not to be used on the runway, ending with a very chiding "no!" A commercial for Best Buy, also humorously referenced the event in which the Words With Friends co-creators are on a plane and are interrupted by a stewardess looking down at them, clearing her throat and signaling them to put their phones away while saying, "we created Words With Friends."

Baldwin also made a guest appearance on SNL's Weekend Update posing as the captain of the plane he was removed from in a bit poking fun at the situation.

[edit] A Promise to Ourselves

In 2008 Alec Baldwin and Mark Tabb published their book, A Promise to Ourselves, which chronicles Baldwin's seven-year battle to remain a part of his daughter's life.^[35][36]

Baldwin contends that after their separation in December 2000, his former wife, Kim Basinger, endeavored to deny him access to his daughter by refusing to discuss parenting,^[37] blocking visitation,^[38] not providing telephone access,^[39] not following court orders,^[40] not dropping their daughter off for reasons of it being inconvenient,^[41] and directly lobbying the child.^[42] He contends she spent over $1.5 million in the effort.^[43]

Baldwin called this parental alienation syndrome.^[44] Baldwin has called the attorneys in the case "opportunists" and has characterized Basinger's psychologists as part of the "divorce industry". He has faulted them more than Basinger, and writes, "In fact, I blame my ex-wife least of all for what has transpired. She is a person, like many of us, doing the best she can with what she has. She is a litigant, and therefore, one who walks into a courtroom and is never offered anything other than what is served there. Nothing off the menu, ever."^[45]

Baldwin wrote that he has spent over a million dollars,^[46] has had to put time aside from his career,^[47] has had to travel extensively,^[48] and needed to find a house in California (he lived in New York),^[49] so he could stay in his daughter's life.^[35]

Baldwin contended that after seven years of these issues, he hit a breaking point, and on April 11, 2007, left an angry voicemail message in response to another unanswered arranged call in which Baldwin called his daughter a "rude, thoughtless little pig".^[50] He contends that the tape was sold to TMZ, which released the recording despite laws against publishing media related to a minor without the permission of both parents.^[51] Baldwin admitted he made a mistake, but asked not to be judged as a parent based on a bad moment.^[52] He later admitted to Playboy in June 2009 that he contemplated suicide over the voice mail that leaked to the public. Of the incident, he said "I spoke to a lot of professionals, who helped me. If I committed suicide, [ex-wife Kim Basinger's side] would have considered that a victory. Destroying me was their avowed goal."^[53]

During the autumn of 2008, Baldwin toured in support of the book, speaking about his experiences related in it.^{[54][55][56][57]}

Political views[link]

Baldwin serves on the board of People for the American Way. He is an animal rights activist, and a strong supporter of PETA,^[58][59] for which he has done work that includes narrating the video entitled Meet Your Meat.^[60] Baldwin also lent his support to the Save the Manatee Club by donating his time to record several public service announcements for the group, which had contacted him following his role in "Bonfire of the Manatees", an episode of The Simpsons in which he was the voice of a biologist working to save the endangered mammals.^[61]

During his appearance on the comedy late night show Late Night with Conan O'Brien on December 12, 1998, eight days before President Bill Clinton was to be impeached, Baldwin said, "If we were in another country ... we would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes and kill their wives and their children. We would kill their families, for what they're doing to this country."^[62] Baldwin later apologized for the remarks, and the network explained it was meant as a joke and promised not to rerun it.^[63]

Baldwin said in a 2006 interview with the New York Times that if he did become involved in electoral politics, he would prefer to run for Governor of New York. When asked if he was qualified for the office, Baldwin responded that he considered himself far more qualified than California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.^[64] In June 2011, The Daily reported that Baldwin was mulling a 2013 run for Mayor of New York City, in the wake of a potential early race shakeup after candidate Congressman Anthony Weiner's sexting scandal.^[65] However, on December 21, 2011, Baldwin said he was abandoning plans to run for the office and would instead continue in his role on 30 Rock.^[66]

In February 2009, Baldwin spoke out to encourage state leaders to renew New York's tax break for the film and television industry, stating that if the "tax breaks are not reinstated into the budget, film production in this town is going to collapse and television production is going to collapse and it's all going to go to California".^[67]

During the 2011 Emmy Awards, Baldwin was slated to appear in a taped skit. However, the producers of the show cut a portion of the skit containing a reference to Rupert Murdoch and the News International phone hacking scandal. Baldwin told Access Hollywood Live that he asked them not to air his performance. Producers complied and he was replaced with Leonard Nimoy.^[68]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Baldwin, Alec (2008). A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-36336-9. OCLC 222666774. http://books.google.com/books?id=BdLOJ-S_IIEC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false. 
• Brown, Scott (December 15, 2009). "Stay in the Game: The Fall and Rise of Alec Baldwin". Wired (Condé Nast Publications) (January 2010): 86–87. http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/fail_alec_baldwin/. 

External links[link]

• Official website
• Alec Baldwin at the Internet Movie Database
• Alec Baldwin at the Internet Broadway Database
• Alec Baldwin at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Alec Baldwin at AllRovi
• Political contributions of Alec Baldwin
• Alec Baldwin's Blog at Huffington Post
• Alec Baldwin narrates the PETA's Meet your Meat video
• Alec Baldwin's Charity Work
• Alec Baldwin at Emmys.com