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FRONTLINE | The Choice 2008 (full episode) | PBS
Birth of a Dynasty
Mark Twain Prize | Ellen DeGeneres' Full Acceptance Speech (airs on PBS Oct. 30)
Mark Twain Prize | John Krasinski and Jimmy Kimmel (airs on PBS Oct. 30) | PBS
What's Funny to Ellen DeGeneres? | Mark Twain Prize | (airs on PBS Oct. 30)
Genocide: Worse Than War | Full-length documentary | PBS
Lord of the Ants
CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS - THREE MEN GO TO WAR | Black Saturday | PBS
Old early 80's PBS logo/theme/bumper/ID
Mister Rogers Remixed | Garden of Your Mind | PBS Digital Studios
Arthur's Perfect Present | PBS KIDS GO!

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PBS Documentary : China from the Inside (Power and the People)
  • Order:
  • Duration: 59:32
  • Updated: 01 Nov 2012
*All rights belong to PBS* It isn't easy, running China, with its 1.3 billion people and 56 officially recognized ethnic nationalities. It's a vast mix of languages, living standards, beliefs and customs. Run it successfully, and you have a prosperous, innovative, powerful empire to rival any the world has seen. Make mistakes, and the chaos will be vast and terrible. China is run by the Communist Party, which bases its legitimacy on delivering both stability and the conditions for prosperity. But stability is under threat as economic boom strands millions at the margin. Meanwhile rampant corruption is sapping people's trust in the Party. Officials are increasingly seen not as public servants but as profiteers. This episode films patrols along China's border with Kazakhstan, Party meetings, officials in Tibet trying to impose authority at the grass-roots, a village election, and a corrupt embezzler in prison, reprieved from a death sentence. Chinese people throughout, from farmer to Minister, speak frankly about the problems the country faces and the ways forward. The Party attracts eager young recruits and is trying to re-invigorate its older members. They visit sites of communist achievement, like the Red Flag Canal, hoping to be inspired by the revolutionary zeal of the past. "If all Communist officials today were like those who built this," one Party member exclaims, "the Communist Party would rule forever." Since 1987, village elections have been part of political ...
published: 08 Dec 2011
author: Alkindi90
views: 126298
http://web.archive.org./web/20121103055537/http://wn.com/PBS Documentary : China from the Inside (Power and the People)
FRONTLINE | The Choice 2008 (full episode) | PBS
  • Order:
  • Duration: 1:56:08
  • Updated: 28 Oct 2012
Watch the full-length program at video.pbs.org www.pbs.org Buy the DVD: www.shoppbs.org FRONTLINE's critically acclaimed series "The Choice" returns this election season to examine the rich personal and political biographies of John McCain and Barack Obama in "The Choice 2008." The film draws on in-depth interviews with the advisers, friends and those closest to the candidates, as well as with seasoned observers of American politics, who together tell the definitive story of these men and their ascent to their party's nominations. Watch "The Choice 2008" throughout the election season: •Check local listings for national television rebroadcasts on local PBS stations Sun, Oct 26 and Mon, Nov 3. •Watch on Elections '08 On Demand digital cable VOD channel. Check with your local cable provider for details. •Beginning Oct 15, watch online at www.pbs.org
published: 15 Oct 2008
author: PBS
views: 1160920
http://web.archive.org./web/20121103055537/http://wn.com/FRONTLINE | The Choice 2008 (full episode) | PBS
Birth of a Dynasty
  • Order:
  • Duration: 55:24
  • Updated: 01 Nov 2012
www.pbs.org - Wealthy Florentine banker Cosimo de' Medici's search of Europe for relics of antiquity sparks classical learning and inventive thinking.
published: 30 Mar 2009
author: PBS
views: 402481
http://web.archive.org./web/20121103055537/http://wn.com/Birth of a Dynasty
Mark Twain Prize | Ellen DeGeneres' Full Acceptance Speech (airs on PBS Oct. 30)
  • Order:
  • Duration: 8:53
  • Updated: 03 Nov 2012
Watch the full-length program at video.pbs.org Enjoy the full acceptance speech from Ellen DeGeneres at the 2012 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. The special premieres Tuesday, October 30, 2012, 8/7c on PBS (check your local listings)
published: 24 Oct 2012
author: PBS
views: 47051
http://web.archive.org./web/20121103055537/http://wn.com/Mark Twain Prize | Ellen DeGeneres' Full Acceptance Speech (airs on PBS Oct. 30)
Mark Twain Prize | John Krasinski and Jimmy Kimmel (airs on PBS Oct. 30) | PBS
  • Order:
  • Duration: 3:24
  • Updated: 03 Nov 2012
Watch the full-length program at video.pbs.org John Krasinski and Jimmy Kimmel honor Ellen DeGeneres at the 2012 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. The special premieres Tuesday, October 30, 2012, 8/7c on PBS (check your local listings)
published: 24 Oct 2012
author: PBS
views: 12364
http://web.archive.org./web/20121103055537/http://wn.com/Mark Twain Prize | John Krasinski and Jimmy Kimmel (airs on PBS Oct. 30) | PBS
What's Funny to Ellen DeGeneres? | Mark Twain Prize | (airs on PBS Oct. 30)
  • Order:
  • Duration: 1:00
  • Updated: 02 Nov 2012
Watch the full-length program at video.pbs.org Ellen DeGeneres tells us what she thinks is funny. Watch Ellen win the 2012 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor -- the special premieres Tuesday, October 30, 2012, 8/7c on PBS (check your local listings)
published: 25 Oct 2012
author: PBS
views: 9542
http://web.archive.org./web/20121103055537/http://wn.com/What's Funny to Ellen DeGeneres? | Mark Twain Prize | (airs on PBS Oct. 30)
Genocide: Worse Than War | Full-length documentary | PBS
  • Order:
  • Duration: 1:54:17
  • Updated: 30 Oct 2012
This film is also available at to.pbs.org Watch Daniel Goldhagen's ground-breaking documentary focused on the worldwide phenomenon of genocide, which premiered on PBS on April 14, 2010. To see this and other full-length PBS videos go to video.pbs.org. Please support your local PBS station at http "By the most fundamental measure -- the number of people killed -- the perpetrators of mass murder since the beginning of the twentieth century have taken the lives of more people than have died in military conflict. So genocide is worse than war," reiterates Goldhagen. "This is a little-known fact that should be a central focus of international politics, because once you know it, the world, international politics, and what we need to do all begin to look substantially different from how they are typically conceived." WORSE THAN WAR documents Goldhagen¹s travels, teachings, and interviews in nine countries around the world, bringing viewers on an unprecedented journey of insight and analysis. In a film that is highly cinematic and evocative throughout, he speaks with victims, perpetrators, witnesses, politicians, diplomats, historians, humanitarian aid workers, and journalists, all with the purpose of explaining and understanding the critical features of genocide and how to finally stop it.
published: 04 Jun 2010
author: PBS
views: 557403
http://web.archive.org./web/20121103055537/http://wn.com/Genocide: Worse Than War | Full-length documentary | PBS
Lord of the Ants
  • Order:
  • Duration: 52:53
  • Updated: 02 Nov 2012
See the full episode at video.pbs.org Every so often a giant emerges on the stage of science, someone who transcends the narrow boundaries of a particular line of research and alters our perspective on the world. EO Wilson is such a man. www.pbs.org
published: 18 Mar 2009
author: PBS
views: 842285
http://web.archive.org./web/20121103055537/http://wn.com/Lord of the Ants
CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS - THREE MEN GO TO WAR | Black Saturday | PBS
  • Order:
  • Duration: 2:17
  • Updated: 01 Nov 2012
See the full-length program at video.pbs.org October 27 -- the most dangerous day of the 13 day crisis -- goes down in history as "Black Saturday." As the day begins, a letter from Khrushchev arrives at the White House, and, buried between the lines are hints that he is looking for a way out. Sergei Khrushchev, son of the Soviet premier, says that the letter reflected his father's true feelings, and that he feared the consequences of a nuclear war because he had already been through the devastation of World War II.
published: 19 Oct 2012
author: PBS
views: 1528
http://web.archive.org./web/20121103055537/http://wn.com/CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS - THREE MEN GO TO WAR | Black Saturday | PBS
Old early 80's PBS logo/theme/bumper/ID
  • Order:
  • Duration: 0:12
  • Updated: 20 Oct 2012
This is the old logo and intro from at least the early eighties from the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Gotta love the sound effects and synth music!
published: 20 Oct 2006
author: greekvid
views: 182221
http://web.archive.org./web/20121103055537/http://wn.com/Old early 80's PBS logo/theme/bumper/ID
Mister Rogers Remixed | Garden of Your Mind | PBS Digital Studios
  • Order:
  • Duration: 3:11
  • Updated: 03 Nov 2012
Watch more videos here: www.youtube.com If you like this, support your local PBS station: www.pbs.org Mister Rogers remixed by Symphony of Science's John D. Boswell for PBS Digital Studios. **If you like this video, please support your local PBS station.** www.pbs.org (Headphones highly recommended!) When we discovered video mash-up artist John D. Boswell, aka melodysheep, on YouTube, we immediately wanted to work together. Turns out that he is a huge Mister Rogers Neighborhood fan, and was thrilled at the chance to pay tribute to one of our heroes. Both PBS and the Fred Rogers Company hope you like John's celebration of Fred Rogers' message. This is the first in a series of PBS icons remixed. Many thanks to the folks at the Fred Rogers Company for their support. More from John D. Boswell (melodysheep): www.youtube.com Subscribe to PBS Digital Studios: www.youtube.com On Twitter: @pbsds
published: 07 Jun 2012
views: 7340328
http://web.archive.org./web/20121103055537/http://wn.com/Mister Rogers Remixed | Garden of Your Mind | PBS Digital Studios
Arthur's Perfect Present | PBS KIDS GO!
  • Order:
  • Duration: 2:00
  • Updated: 29 Oct 2012
Arthur daydreams about giving his mom the perfect Christmas present. Watch more Arthur on PBS KIDS GO! at www.pbskidsgo.org
published: 22 Nov 2011
author: PBS
views: 175459
http://web.archive.org./web/20121103055537/http://wn.com/Arthur's Perfect Present | PBS KIDS GO!
PBS KIDS | Curious George | George Makes a Piñata
  • Order:
  • Duration: 1:05
  • Updated: 02 Nov 2012
Marco teaches George how to make a piñata. Don't miss Curious George, weekdays on PBS KIDS (check local listings). For more information, visit pbskids.org
published: 12 Apr 2011
author: PBS
views: 1419361
http://web.archive.org./web/20121103055537/http://wn.com/PBS KIDS | Curious George | George Makes a Piñata
Bob Ross Remixed | Happy Little Clouds | PBS Digital Studios
  • Order:
  • Duration: 3:24
  • Updated: 03 Nov 2012
Watch more videos here: www.youtube.com If you like this, support your local PBS station: www.pbs.org Bob Ross remixed by Symphony of Science's John D. Boswell for PBS Digital Studios. This is the second in a series of PBS icons remixed, subscribe to be the first to know about new remixes. To subscribe to the PBS Digital Studios channel, create a YouTube account and visit youtube.com/pbsdigitalstudios. Click the SUBSCRIBE button in the top left corner of the page. Once you subscribe, you'll receive updates about our icon remixes, original web series and other videos created by PBS specifically for the web. Many thanks to the folks at Bob Ross, Inc and American Public Television for their support. More from John D. Boswell (melodysheep): www.youtube.com Follow on Twitter: @pbsds Watch the Mister Rogers Remix: www.youtube.com
published: 26 Jul 2012
views: 3822722
http://web.archive.org./web/20121103055537/http://wn.com/Bob Ross Remixed | Happy Little Clouds | PBS Digital Studios
  • PBS Documentary : China from the Inside (Power and the People)...59:32
  • FRONTLINE | The Choice 2008 (full episode) | PBS...1:56:08
  • Birth of a Dynasty...55:24
  • Mark Twain Prize | Ellen DeGeneres' Full Acceptance Speech (airs on PBS Oct. 30)...8:53
  • Mark Twain Prize | John Krasinski and Jimmy Kimmel (airs on PBS Oct. 30) | PBS...3:24
  • What's Funny to Ellen DeGeneres? | Mark Twain Prize | (airs on PBS Oct. 30)...1:00
  • Genocide: Worse Than War | Full-length documentary | PBS...1:54:17
  • Lord of the Ants...52:53
  • CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS - THREE MEN GO TO WAR | Black Saturday | PBS...2:17
  • Old early 80's PBS logo/theme/bumper/ID...0:12
  • Mister Rogers Remixed | Garden of Your Mind | PBS Digital Studios...3:11
  • Arthur's Perfect Present | PBS KIDS GO!...2:00
  • PBS KIDS | Curious George | George Makes a Piñata...1:05
  • Bob Ross Remixed | Happy Little Clouds | PBS Digital Studios...3:24
*All rights belong to PBS* It isn't easy, running China, with its 1.3 billion people and 56 officially recognized ethnic nationalities. It's a vast mix of languages, living standards, beliefs and customs. Run it successfully, and you have a prosperous, innovative, powerful empire to rival any the world has seen. Make mistakes, and the chaos will be vast and terrible. China is run by the Communist Party, which bases its legitimacy on delivering both stability and the conditions for prosperity. But stability is under threat as economic boom strands millions at the margin. Meanwhile rampant corruption is sapping people's trust in the Party. Officials are increasingly seen not as public servants but as profiteers. This episode films patrols along China's border with Kazakhstan, Party meetings, officials in Tibet trying to impose authority at the grass-roots, a village election, and a corrupt embezzler in prison, reprieved from a death sentence. Chinese people throughout, from farmer to Minister, speak frankly about the problems the country faces and the ways forward. The Party attracts eager young recruits and is trying to re-invigorate its older members. They visit sites of communist achievement, like the Red Flag Canal, hoping to be inspired by the revolutionary zeal of the past. "If all Communist officials today were like those who built this," one Party member exclaims, "the Communist Party would rule forever." Since 1987, village elections have been part of political ...
published: 08 Dec 2011
author: Alkindi90
views: 126298
59:32
PBS Doc­u­men­tary : China from the In­side (Power and the Peo­ple)
*All rights be­long to PBS* It isn't easy, run­ning China, with its 1.3 bil­lion peo­ple and 5...
pub­lished: 08 Dec 2011
au­thor: Alkindi90
116:08
FRONT­LINE | The Choice 2008 (full episode) | PBS
Watch the full-length pro­gram at video.​pbs.​org www.​pbs.​org Buy the DVD: www.​shoppbs.​org FR...
pub­lished: 15 Oct 2008
au­thor: PBS
55:24
Birth of a Dy­nasty
www.​pbs.​org - Wealthy Flo­ren­tine banker Cosi­mo de' Medi­ci's search of Eu­rope for relics of...
pub­lished: 30 Mar 2009
au­thor: PBS
8:53
Mark Twain Prize | Ellen De­Generes' Full Ac­cep­tance Speech (airs on PBS Oct. 30)
Watch the full-length pro­gram at video.​pbs.​org Enjoy the full ac­cep­tance speech from Ellen...
pub­lished: 24 Oct 2012
au­thor: PBS
3:24
Mark Twain Prize | John Krasin­s­ki and Jimmy Kim­mel (airs on PBS Oct. 30) | PBS
Watch the full-length pro­gram at video.​pbs.​org John Krasin­s­ki and Jimmy Kim­mel honor Ellen...
pub­lished: 24 Oct 2012
au­thor: PBS
1:00
What's Funny to Ellen De­Generes? | Mark Twain Prize | (airs on PBS Oct. 30)
Watch the full-length pro­gram at video.​pbs.​org Ellen De­Generes tells us what she thinks is...
pub­lished: 25 Oct 2012
au­thor: PBS
114:17
Geno­cide: Worse Than War | Full-length doc­u­men­tary | PBS
This film is also avail­able at to.​pbs.​org Watch Daniel Gold­ha­gen's ground-break­ing doc­u­men...
pub­lished: 04 Jun 2010
au­thor: PBS
52:53
Lord of the Ants
See the full episode at video.​pbs.​org Every so often a giant emerges on the stage of scien...
pub­lished: 18 Mar 2009
au­thor: PBS
2:17
CUBAN MIS­SILE CRI­SIS - THREE MEN GO TO WAR | Black Sat­ur­day | PBS
See the full-length pro­gram at video.​pbs.​org Oc­to­ber 27 -- the most dan­ger­ous day of the 1...
pub­lished: 19 Oct 2012
au­thor: PBS
0:12
Old early 80's PBS logo/theme/bumper/ID
This is the old logo and intro from at least the early eight­ies from the Pub­lic Broad­casti...
pub­lished: 20 Oct 2006
au­thor: greekvid
3:11
Mis­ter Rogers Remixed | Gar­den of Your Mind | PBS Dig­i­tal Stu­dios
Watch more videos here: www.​youtube.​com If you like this, sup­port your local PBS sta­tion: ...
pub­lished: 07 Jun 2012
2:00
Arthur's Per­fect Pre­sent | PBS KIDS GO!
Arthur day­dreams about giv­ing his mom the per­fect Christ­mas pre­sent. Watch more Arthur on ...
pub­lished: 22 Nov 2011
au­thor: PBS
1:05
PBS KIDS | Cu­ri­ous George | George Makes a Piñata
Marco teach­es George how to make a piñata. Don't miss Cu­ri­ous George, week­days on PBS KIDS...
pub­lished: 12 Apr 2011
au­thor: PBS
3:24
Bob Ross Remixed | Happy Lit­tle Clouds | PBS Dig­i­tal Stu­dios
Watch more videos here: www.​youtube.​com If you like this, sup­port your local PBS sta­tion: ...
pub­lished: 26 Jul 2012
Youtube results:
55:51
Great Wall Across the Yangtze
www.​pbs.​org - Two mil­lion Chi­nese are dis­placed by the con­struc­tion of the Three Gorges Da...
pub­lished: 27 Mar 2009
au­thor: PBS
53:55
Islam: Em­pire of Faith. Part 1: Prophet Muham­mad and rise of Islam (full; PBS Doc­u­men­tary)
Part 1 of the fa­mous PBS Doc­u­men­tary "Islam: Em­pire of faith" pro­duced in 2000. www.​pbs.​or...
pub­lished: 16 Oct 2009
au­thor: faz­za­min
2:13
The Man Who Saved The World -- Se­crets of The Dead | PBS
See the full-length pro­gram at video.​pbs.​org Set over four hours on Oc­to­ber 27, 1962, the ...
pub­lished: 23 Oct 2012
au­thor: PBS
1:16
We asked the stars: what's your go-to dance move? | Mark Twain Prize 2012 (airs on PBS Oct. 30)
Watch the full-length pro­gram at video.​pbs.​org In honor of Ellen De­Generes, we asked the s...
pub­lished: 27 Oct 2012
au­thor: PBS
Photo: AP / Salisu Rabiu
Suspected members of the radical Islamist sect Boko Haram, are detained by the military, in Bukavu Barracks in Kano state, Nigeria, Wednesday, March 21, 2012.
BBC News
01 Nov 2012
Nigerian security forces have carried out widespread abuses in their campaign against the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, . The rights group says in a report that abuses include extrajudicial...



Photo: USAF / Master Sgt. Mark C. Olsen
Aerial views of the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy to the New Jersey coast taken during a search and rescue mission by 1-150 Assault Helicopter Battalion, New Jersey Army National Guard, Oct. 30, 2012.
CNBC
02 Nov 2012
NEW YORK (Reuters) - From New York City's Staten Island to the popular beach towns of the Jersey Shore, rescuers and officials on Friday faced growing evidence of widespread destruction wrought by...



Photo: AP / Syrian Observatory for Human Rights via AP video
In this frame grab from amateur video taken Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012, and provided by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights via AP video, captured soldiers lie on the ground in Saraqeb, northern Syria. Later in the video, alleged rebels appear to kill the group of captured soldiers, spraying them with bullets as they lie on the ground.
Chicago Tribune
02 Nov 2012
GENEVA (Reuters) - A video that appears to show Syrian rebels killing soldiers who had surrendered probably constitutes a war crime that should be prosecuted, the United Nations human rights office...



Photo: AP / Mike Groll
This aerial photo shows burned-out homes in the Breezy Point section of the Queens borough New York after a fire on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012.
The New York Times
31 Oct 2012
TEHRAN — Iranian rescuers and aid workers are on standby to fly to New York City to provide assistance to those affected by Hurricane Sandy, the head of Iran’s Red Crescent Organization...



Photo: AP / Shaam News Network via AP video
This image taken from video obtained from Shaam News Network, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows smoke rising from the city following heavy bombing from military warplanes, in a suburb of Damascus, Syria, on wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012.
NZ Herald
01 Nov 2012
Syrian warplanes fired missiles at opposition strongholds around Damascus and in the north as Turkey, a key backer of the anti-regime rebels, appeared to distance itself from an earlier call to impose...





Times Union LENOX, Mass.Edith Wharton inspired "Downton Abbey" creator Julian Fellowes to become a serious novelist. "I'd only ever written historical novels for train reading — sort of bodice-rippers; they were nothing," said Fellowes, seated in the library of The Mount, the historic Berkshires...(size: 5.2Kb)
Detroit news Paul W. Smith Comments "Outta' My Mind on a Saturday Moanin'" Funny: "The Million Muppet March" planned for today to defend support for PBS. No word on whether Big Bird will play a big roll in this. Important: Tonight, when you climb into bed, be sure to remember to turn your clocks back one hour....(size: 9.1Kb)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette It's a blessing that we can refresh and revitalize even the oldest tenants of our gardens by occasionally dividing them. Perennial plants are healthiest and most productive when they are young and have room to spread; but like many things in gardening, timing and technique are everything. Most...(size: 4.7Kb)
The Daily Telegraph Australia MELBOURNE defenders Tom McDonald and Daniel Nicholson led the Demons in today’s three kilometre pre-season time trial around Princes Park. Nicholson, who turned 22 yesterday, put in a strong performance just days after being promoted to the senior list. The rebounding...(size: 1.8Kb)
CounterPunch In the United States for anyone who considers him or herself on the Left voting is (and always has been) a misery. One knows that in order to prevent the most miserable and dangerous kind of obscurantism, fundamentalism, and authoritarianism mediated as these are by neo-confederate and neo-fascist...(size: 75.4Kb)
Austin American Statesman The conversation from the backseat of my car went like this: “Mitt Romney doesn’t care about people.” “Yeah, but Barack Obama has done nothing for the economy.” These weren’t the political pundits on Fox News or MSNBC. These were my 9-year-old daughter and her...(size: 4.7Kb)
Kinderporn 02 Nov 2012
IMC Submitted by softlungbalgala1984 on Fri, 2012-11-02 18:22 http://uqgh.one.pl/Dvxf.html Is cough syrup with 5 ml of codeine strong http://65gk5.one.pl/Xpkr.html Turning 50 sayings http://hb1h9ob.one.pl/Rfpm.html How to put in a tampon real video http://qd6ld6.one.pl/Krvt.html Kitty and jenny...(size: 256.0Kb)
my SA The apps that gained the most in popularity among users last week show that users on both platforms prefer free apps over paid. Apple JobMo* (Free): Search for your next dream job and apply for it from your iPad, with résumé guidance and job tips. (Mobilewalla Score: 81/100) PBS (Free):...(size: 1.9Kb)
Richmond Times Dispatch ETTRICK, Va. -- First lady Michelle Obama this evening encouraged students at Virginia State University in Chesterfield County to put off their weekend plans and focus on boosting Tuesday's turnout for the president. "It will all come down to what happens in a few battleground states, like right...(size: 3.4Kb)
The Inquisitr Posted: November 2, 2012 The politics of TV shows study by Engage and BuzzFeed reviewed the viewing habits of American voters to determine how cultural influences will impact the upcoming presidential race. Engage, Washington DC-based digital agency used its Trendsetter app to cross-reference...(size: 7.6Kb)
The Examiner Related topics Frank Sinatra Advertisement This is one of favorite Frank Sinatra fan stories: "Several years ago, Vi Carlson was in her Rockford, Wisconsin, home getting ready to go to Madison. Carlson, 84, was planning to attend the "Antiques Roadshow" event in Madison. "I had a friend who had...(size: 8.6Kb)
The Los Angeles Times When he first purchased a few of Tanya Aguiñiga's furniture pieces several years ago, antiques dealer Joel Chen found himself attracted to the timeless aspect of her work. “You can have a whole rococo room and put one of these in there and it would fit in just right,” he said,...(size: 33.1Kb)
The Hollywood Reporter share Getty Images From "You Didn't Build That" to Big Bird and Binders of Women, this election season has been governed by soundbite memes and internet obsession. Forget policy positions, economic plans or soaring rhetoric; when Americans go to vote on November 6, there's a strong chance their...(size: 8.8Kb)

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Mark Twain

Mark Twain, detail of photo by Mathew Brady, February 7, 1871
Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens
(1835-11-30)November 30, 1835
Florida, Missouri, U.S.
Died April 21, 1910(1910-04-21) (aged 74)
Redding, Connecticut, U.S.
Pen name Mark Twain
Occupation Writer, lecturer
Nationality American
Genres Fiction, historical fiction, children's literature, non-fiction, travel literature, satire, essay, philosophical literature, social commentary, literary criticism
Notable work(s) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Spouse(s) Olivia Langdon Clemens (m. 1870–1904) «start: (1870)–end+1: (1905)»"Marriage: Olivia Langdon Clemens to Mark Twain" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Mark_Twain)
Children Langdon, Susy, Clara, Jean

Signature
Samuel L. Clemens stamp, 1940

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910),[1] better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He is most noted for his novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885),[2] the latter often called "the Great American Novel."

Twain grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which would later provide the setting for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. He apprenticed with a printer. He also worked as a typesetter and contributed articles to his older brother Orion's newspaper. After toiling as a printer in various cities, he became a master riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River, before heading west to join Orion. He was a failure at gold mining, so he next turned to journalism. While a reporter, he wrote a humorous story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", which became very popular and brought nationwide attention. His travelogues were also well-received. Twain had found his calling.

He achieved great success as a writer and public speaker. His wit and satire earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.

He lacked financial acumen, and, though he made a great deal of money from his writings and lectures, he squandered it on various ventures, in particular the Paige Compositor, and was forced to declare bankruptcy. With the help of Henry Huttleston Rogers he eventually overcame his financial troubles. Twain worked hard to ensure that all of his creditors were paid in full, even though his bankruptcy had relieved him of the legal responsibility.

Twain was born during a visit by Halley's Comet, and he predicted that he would "go out with it" as well. He died the day following the comet's subsequent return. He was lauded as the "greatest American humorist of his age,"[3] and William Faulkner called Twain "the father of American literature."[4]

Contents

Early life[link]

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri on November 30, 1835. He was the son of Jane (née Lampton; 1803–1890), a native of Kentucky, and John Marshall Clemens (1798–1847), a Virginian by birth. His parents met when his father moved to Missouri and were married several years later, in 1823.[5][6] He was the sixth of seven children but only three of his siblings survived childhood: his brother Orion (1825–1897), Henry, who died in a riverboat explosion (1838–1858), and Pamela (1827–1904). His sister Margaret (1833–1839) died when he was three, and his brother Benjamin (1832–1842) died three years later. Another brother, Pleasant (1828–1829), died at six months.[7] Twain was born two weeks after the closest approach to Earth of Halley's Comet.

When he was four, Twain's family moved to Hannibal, Missouri,[8] a port town on the Mississippi River that inspired the fictional town of St. Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.[9] Missouri was a slave state and young Twain became familiar with the institution of slavery, a theme he would later explore in his writing. Twain's father was an attorney and judge.[10] The Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad was organized in his office in 1846. The railroad connected the second and third largest cities in the state and was the westernmost United States railroad until the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. It delivered mail to and from the Pony Express.[11]

Samuel Clemens, age 15

In 1847, when Twain was 11, his father died of pneumonia.[12] The next year, he became a printer's apprentice. In 1851, he began working as a typesetter and contributor of articles and humorous sketches for the Hannibal Journal, a newspaper owned by his brother Orion. When he was 18, he left Hannibal and worked as a printer in New York City, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. He joined the newly formed International Typographical Union, the printers union, and educated himself in public libraries in the evenings, finding wider information than at a conventional school.[13] Clemens came from St. Louis on the packet Keokuk in 1854,[14] and lived in Muscatine during part of the summer of 1855. The Muscatine newspaper published eight stories which amounted to almost 6,000 words.[15]

On a voyage to New Orleans down the Mississippi, steamboat pilot Horace E. Bixby inspired Twain to become a pilot himself. As Twain observed in Life on the Mississippi, the pilot surpassed a steamboat's captain in prestige and authority; it was a rewarding occupation with wages set at $250 per month.[16] A steamboat pilot needed to know the ever-changing river to be able to stop at the hundreds of ports and wood-lots. Twain studied 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of the Mississippi for more than two years before he received his steamboat pilot license in 1859. This occupation gave him his pen name, Mark Twain, from "mark twain," the cry for a measured river depth of two fathoms. While training, Samuel convinced his younger brother Henry to work with him. Henry was killed on June 21, 1858, when the steamboat he was working on, the Pennsylvania, exploded. Twain had foreseen this death in a dream a month earlier,[17] which inspired his interest in parapsychology; he was an early member of the Society for Psychical Research.[18] Twain was guilt-stricken and held himself responsible for the rest of his life. He continued to work on the river and was a river pilot until the American Civil War broke out in 1861 and traffic along the Mississippi was curtailed.

During the Civil War, Missouri was considered by many to be part of the South and was represented in both the Confederate and Federal governments. Twain wrote a sketch, "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed," which claimed he and his friends had been Confederate volunteers for two weeks before disbanding their company.[19]

Travels[link]

Library of Twain House, with hand-stenciled paneling, fireplaces from India, embossed wallpapers, and hand-carved mantel purchased in Scotland

Twain joined Orion, who in 1861 became secretary to James W. Nye, the governor of Nevada Territory, and headed west. Twain and his brother traveled more than two weeks on a stagecoach across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains, visiting the Mormon community in Salt Lake City. The experiences inspired Roughing It and provided material for "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". Twain's journey ended in the silver-mining town of Virginia City, Nevada, where he became a miner.[19] Twain failed as a miner and worked at a Virginia City newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise.[20] Here he first used his pen name. On February 3, 1863, he signed a humorous travel account "Letter From Carson – re: Joe Goodman; party at Gov. Johnson's; music" with "Mark Twain."[21]

Twain moved to San Francisco, California in 1864, still as a journalist. He met writers such as Bret Harte, Artemus Ward, and Dan DeQuille. The young poet Ina Coolbrith may have romanced him.[22]

His first success as a writer came when his humorous tall tale, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," was published in a New York weekly, The Saturday Press, on November 18, 1865. It brought him national attention. A year later, he traveled to the Sandwich Islands (present-day Hawaii) as a reporter for the Sacramento Union. His travelogues were popular and became the basis for his first lectures.[23]

In 1867, a local newspaper funded a trip to the Mediterranean. During his tour of Europe and the Middle East, he wrote a popular collection of travel letters, which were later compiled as The Innocents Abroad in 1869. It was on this trip that he met his future brother-in-law, Charles Langdon. Both were passengers aboard the Quaker City on their way to the Holy Land. Langdon showed a picture of his sister Olivia to Twain; Twain claimed to have fallen in love at first sight.

Upon returning to the United States, Twain was offered honorary membership in the secret society Scroll and Key of Yale University in 1868.[24] Its devotion to "fellowship, moral and literary self-improvement, and charity" suited him well.

Marriage and children[link]

Twain in 1867

Throughout 1868, Twain and Olivia Langdon corresponded but she rejected his first marriage proposal. Two months later, they were engaged. In February 1870, Twain and Langdon were married in Elmira, New York,[23] where he had courted her. She came from a "wealthy but liberal family," and through her he met abolitionists, "socialists, principled atheists and activists for women's rights and social equality," including Harriet Beecher Stowe (his next-door neighbor in Hartford, Connecticut), Frederick Douglass, and the writer and utopian socialist William Dean Howells,[25] who became a long-time friend. The couple lived in Buffalo, New York from 1869 to 1871. Twain owned a stake in the Buffalo Express newspaper and worked as an editor and writer. While living in Buffalo, their son Langdon died of diphtheria at 19 months. They had three daughters: Susy (1872–1896), Clara (1874–1962)[26] and Jean (1880–1909). The couple's marriage lasted 34 years, until Olivia's death in 1904. All of the Clemens family are buried in Elmira's Woodlawn Cemetery.

Twain moved his family to Hartford, Connecticut, where starting in 1873, he arranged the building of a home (local admirers saved it from demolition in 1927 and eventually turned it into a museum focused on him). In the 1870s and 1880s, Twain and his family summered at Quarry Farm, the home of Olivia's sister, Susan Crane.[27][28] In 1874,[27] Susan had a study built apart from the main house so that her brother-in-law would have a quiet place in which to write. Also, Twain smoked pipes constantly, and Susan Crane did not wish him to do so in her house. During his seventeen years in Hartford (1874–1891) and over twenty summers at Quarry Farm, Twain wrote many of his classic novels, among them The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Life on the Mississippi (1883), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889).

Twain made a second tour of Europe, described in the 1880 book A Tramp Abroad. His tour included a stay in Heidelberg from May 6 until July 23, 1878, and a visit to London.

Love of science and technology[link]

Twain in the lab of Nikola Tesla, early 1894

Twain was fascinated with science and scientific inquiry. He developed a close and lasting friendship with Nikola Tesla, and the two spent much time together in Tesla's laboratory.

Twain patented three inventions, including an "Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments" (to replace suspenders) and a history trivia game.[29] Most commercially successful was a self-pasting scrapbook; a dried adhesive on the pages only needed to be moistened before use.

His book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court features a time traveler from contemporary America, using his knowledge of science to introduce modern technology to Arthurian England. This type of storyline would later become a common feature of a science fiction sub-genre, alternate history.

In 1909, Thomas Edison visited Twain at his home in Redding, Connecticut and filmed him. Part of the footage was used in The Prince and the Pauper (1909), a two-reel short film.

Financial troubles[link]

Twain made a substantial amount of money through his writing, but he lost a great deal through investments, mostly in new inventions and technology, particularly the Paige typesetting machine. It was a beautifully engineered mechanical marvel that amazed viewers when it worked, but was prone to breakdowns. Twain spent $300,000 (equal to $8,058,462 today[30]) on it between 1880 and 1894,[31] but before it could be perfected, it was made obsolete by the Linotype. He lost not only the bulk of his book profits but also a substantial portion of his wife's inheritance.[32]

Twain also lost money through his publishing house, which enjoyed initial success selling the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, but went broke soon after, losing money on a biography of Pope Leo XIII; fewer than two hundred copies were sold.[32]

Twain's writings and lectures, combined with the help of a new friend, enabled him to recover financially.[33] In 1893, he began a 15-year-long friendship with financier Henry Huttleston Rogers, a principal of Standard Oil. Rogers first made Twain file for bankruptcy. Then Rogers had Twain transfer the copyrights on his written works to his wife, Olivia, to prevent creditors from gaining possession of them. Finally, Rogers took absolute charge of Twain's money until all the creditors were paid.

Twain embarked on a year-long, around-the-world lecture tour in July 1895[34] to pay off his creditors in full, although he was no longer under any legal obligation to do so.[35] It would be a long, arduous journey and he was sick much of the time, mostly from a cold and a carbuncle. The itinerary took him to Hawaii, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, India, Mauritius, South Africa and England. Twain's three months in India became the centerpiece of his 712-page book Following the Equator.

In mid-1900, he was the guest of newspaper proprietor Hugh Gilzean-Reid at Dollis Hill House. Twain wrote of Dollis Hill that he had "never seen any place that was so satisfactorily situated, with its noble trees and stretch of country, and everything that went to make life delightful, and all within a biscuit's throw of the metropolis of the world."[36] He then returned to America in 1900, having earned enough to pay off his debts.

Speaking engagements[link]

Twain was in demand as a featured speaker, performing solo humorous talks similar to what would become stand-up comedy.[37] He gave paid talks to many men's clubs, including the Authors' Club, Beefsteak Club, Vagabonds, White Friars, and Monday Evening Club of Hartford. He was made an honorary member of the Bohemian Club in San Francisco. In the late 1890s, he spoke to the Savage Club in London and was elected honorary member. When told that only three men had been so honored, including the Prince of Wales, he replied "Well, it must make the Prince feel mighty fine."[38] In 1897, Twain spoke to the Concordia Press Club in Vienna as a special guest, following diplomat Charlemagne Tower, Jr.. In German, to the great amusement of the assemblage, Twain delivered the speech "Die Schrecken der deutschen Sprache" ("The Horrors of the German Language").[39] In 1901, Twain was invited to speak at Princeton University's Cliosophic Literary Society, where he was made an honorary member.[40]

Later life and death[link]

Twain passed through a period of deep depression, which began in 1896 when his daughter Susy died of meningitis. Olivia's death in 1904 and Jean's on December 24, 1909, deepened his gloom.[41] On May 20, 1909, his close friend Henry Rogers died suddenly. In 1906, Twain began his autobiography in the North American Review. In April, Twain heard that his friend Ina Coolbrith had lost nearly all she owned in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and he volunteered a few autographed portrait photographs to be sold for her benefit. To further aid Coolbrith, George Wharton James visited Twain in New York and arranged for a new portrait session. Initially resistant, Twain admitted that four of the resulting images were the finest ones ever taken of him.[42]

Twain formed a club in 1906 for girls he viewed as surrogate granddaughters, the Angel Fish and Aquarium Club. The dozen or so members ranged in age from 10 to 16. Twain exchanged letters with his "Angel Fish" girls and invited them to concerts and the theatre and to play games. Twain wrote in 1908 that the club was his "life's chief delight."[43]

Oxford University awarded Twain an honorary doctorate in letters (D.Litt.) in 1907.

Mark Twain headstone in Woodlawn Cemetery.

In 1909, Twain is quoted as saying:[44]

"I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together."

His prediction was accurate – Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, in Redding, Connecticut, one day after the comet's closest approach to Earth.

Upon hearing of Twain's death, President William Howard Taft said:[45][46]

"Mark Twain gave pleasure – real intellectual enjoyment – to millions, and his works will continue to give such pleasure to millions yet to come... His humor was American, but he was nearly as much appreciated by Englishmen and people of other countries as by his own countrymen. He has made an enduring part of American literature."

Twain's funeral was at the "Old Brick" Presbyterian Church in New York.[47] He is buried in his wife's family plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York. His grave is marked by a 12-foot (i.e., two fathoms, or "mark twain") monument, placed there by his surviving daughter, Clara.[48] There is also a smaller headstone. Although he expressed (e.g. in Life on the Mississippi) a preference for cremation, he acknowledged that his surviving family would have the last word.

Writing[link]

Overview[link]

Mark Twain in his gown (scarlet with grey sleeves and facings) for his D.Litt. degree, awarded to him by Oxford University

Twain began his career writing light, humorous verse, but evolved into a chronicler of the vanities, hypocrisies and murderous acts of mankind. At mid-career, with Huckleberry Finn, he combined rich humor, sturdy narrative and social criticism. Twain was a master at rendering colloquial speech and helped to create and popularize a distinctive American literature built on American themes and language. Many of Twain's works have been suppressed at times for various reasons. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been repeatedly restricted in American high schools, not least for its frequent use of the word "nigger," which was in common usage in the pre-Civil War period in which the novel was set.

A complete bibliography of his works is nearly impossible to compile because of the vast number of pieces written by Twain (often in obscure newspapers) and his use of several different pen names. Additionally, a large portion of his speeches and lectures have been lost or were not written down; thus, the collection of Twain's works is an ongoing process. Researchers rediscovered published material by Twain as recently as 1995.[32]

Early journalism and travelogues[link]

Cabin where Twain wrote "Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", Jackass Hill, Tuolumne County. Click on historical marker and interior view.

While writing for the Virginia City newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise in 1863, Clemens met lawyer Tom Fitch, editor of the competing newspaper Virginia Daily Union and known as the "silver-tongued orator of the Pacific."[49]:51 He credited Fitch with giving him his "first really profitable lesson" in writing. In 1866, Clemens presented his lecture on the Sandwich Islands to a crowd in Washoe City, Nevada.[50] Clemens commented that, "When I first began to lecture, and in my earlier writings, my sole idea was to make comic capital out of everything I saw and heard." Fitch told him, "Clemens, your lecture was magnificent. It was eloquent, moving, sincere. Never in my entire life have I listened to such a magnificent piece of descriptive narration. But you committed one unpardonable sin—the unpardonable sin. It is a sin you must never commit again. You closed a most eloquent description, by which you had keyed your audience up to a pitch of the intensest interest, with a piece of atrocious anti-climax which nullified all the really fine effect you had produced."[51] It was in these days that Twain became a writer of the Sagebrush School, and was known later as the most notable within this literary genre.[52]

Twain's first important work, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," was first published in the New York Saturday Press on November 18, 1865. The only reason it was published there was that his story arrived too late to be included in a book Artemus Ward was compiling featuring sketches of the wild American West.

After this burst of popularity, the Sacramento Union commissioned Twain to write letters about his travel experiences. The first journey he took for this job was to ride the steamer Ajax in its maiden voyage to Hawaii, referred to at the time as the Sandwich Islands. These humorous letters proved the genesis to his work with the San Francisco Alta California newspaper, which designated him a traveling correspondent for a trip from San Francisco to New York City via the Panama isthmus. All the while, Twain was writing letters meant for publishing back and forth, chronicling his experiences with his burlesque humor. On June 8, 1867, Twain set sail on the pleasure cruiser Quaker City for five months. This trip resulted in The Innocents Abroad or The New Pilgrims' Progress.

This book is a record of a pleasure trip. If it were a record of a solemn scientific expedition it would have about it the gravity, that profundity, and that impressive incomprehensibility which are so proper to works of that kind, and withal so attractive. Yet not withstanding it is only a record of a picnic, it has a purpose, which is, to suggest to the reader how he would be likely to see Europe and the East if he looked at them with his own eyes instead of the eyes of those who traveled in those countries before him. I make small pretense of showing anyone how he ought to look at objects of interest beyond the sea – other books do that, and therefore, even if I were competent to do it, there is no need.

In 1872, Twain published a second piece of travel literature, Roughing It, as a semi-sequel to Innocents. Roughing It is a semi-autobiographical account of Twain's journey to Nevada and his subsequent life in the American West. The book lampoons American and Western society in the same way that Innocents critiqued the various countries of Europe and the Middle East. Twain's next work kept Roughing It's focus on American society but focused more on the events of the day. Entitled The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, it was not a travel piece, as his previous two books had been, and it was his first attempt at writing a novel. The book is also notable because it is Twain's only collaboration; it was written with his neighbor Charles Dudley Warner.

Twain's next two works drew on his experiences on the Mississippi River. Old Times on the Mississippi, a series of sketches published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1875, featured Twain's disillusionment with Romanticism.[53] Old Times eventually became the starting point for Life on the Mississippi.

[edit] Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn

Twain's next major publication was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which drew on his youth in Hannibal. Tom Sawyer was modeled on Twain as a child, with traces of two schoolmates, John Briggs and Will Bowen. The book also introduced in a supporting role Huckleberry Finn, based on Twain's boyhood friend Tom Blankenship.

The Prince and the Pauper, despite a storyline that is omnipresent in film and literature today, was not as well received. Telling the story of two boys born on the same day who are physically identical, the book acts as a social commentary as the prince and pauper switch places. Pauper was Twain's first attempt at historical fiction, and blame for its shortcomings is usually put on Twain for having not been experienced enough in English society, and also on the fact that it was produced after a massive hit. In between the writing of Pauper, Twain had started Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (which he consistently had problems completing[54]) and started and completed another travel book, A Tramp Abroad, which follows Twain as he traveled through central and southern Europe.

Twain's next major published work, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, solidified him as a noteworthy American writer. Some have called it the first Great American Novel, and the book has become required reading in many schools throughout the United States. Huckleberry Finn was an offshoot from Tom Sawyer and had a more serious tone than its predecessor. The main premise behind Huckleberry Finn is the young boy's belief in the right thing to do though most believed that it was wrong. Four hundred manuscript pages of Huckleberry Finn were written in mid-1876, right after the publication of Tom Sawyer. Some accounts have Twain taking seven years off after his first burst of creativity, eventually finishing the book in 1883. Other accounts have Twain working on Huckleberry Finn in tandem with The Prince and the Pauper and other works in 1880 and other years. The last fifth of Huckleberry Finn is subject to much controversy. Some say that Twain experienced, as critic Leo Marx puts it, a "failure of nerve." Ernest Hemingway once said of Huckleberry Finn:

If you read it, you must stop where the Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating.

Hemingway also wrote in the same essay:

All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.[55]

Near the completion of Huckleberry Finn, Twain wrote Life on the Mississippi, which is said to have heavily influenced the former book.[32] The work recounts Twain's memories and new experiences after a 22-year absence from the Mississippi. In it, he also states that "Mark Twain" was the call made when the boat was in safe water – two fathoms (12 ft/3.7 m).

Later writing[link]

After his great work, Twain began turning to his business endeavors to keep them afloat and to stave off the increasing difficulties he had been having from his writing projects. Twain focused on President Ulysses S. Grant's Memoirs for his fledgling publishing company, finding time in between to write "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed" for The Century Magazine. This piece detailed his two-week stint in a Confederate militia during the Civil War. The name of his publishing company was Charles L. Webster & Company, which he owned with Charles L. Webster, his nephew by marriage.[56]

Twain in his later years

Twain next focused on A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, which featured him making his first big pronouncement of disappointment with politics. Written with the same "historical fiction" style of The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee showed the absurdities of political and social norms by setting them in the court of King Arthur. The book was started in December 1885, then shelved a few months later until the summer of 1887, and eventually finished in the spring of 1889.

Twain had begun to furiously write articles and commentary with diminishing returns to pay the bills and keep his business projects afloat, but it was not enough. He filed for bankruptcy in 1894.

His next large-scale work, Pudd'nhead Wilson, was written rapidly, as Twain was desperately trying to stave off the bankruptcy. From November 12 to December 14, 1893, Twain wrote 60,000 words for the novel.[32] Critics have pointed to this rushed completion as the cause of the novel's rough organization and constant disruption of continuous plot. There were parallels between this work and Twain's financial failings, notably his desire to escape his current constraints and become a different person.

Like The Prince and the Pauper, this novel also contains the tale of two boys born on the same day who switch positions in life. Considering the circumstances of Twain's birth and Halley's Comet, and his strong belief in the paranormal, it is not surprising that these "mystic" connections recur throughout his writing.

The actual title is not clearly established. It was first published serially in Century Magazine, and when it was finally published in book form, Pudd'nhead Wilson appeared as the main title; however, the disputed "subtitles" make the entire title read: The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson and the Comedy of The Extraordinary Twins.[32]

Twain's next venture was a work of straight fiction that he called Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc and dedicated to his wife. Twain had long said that this was the work he was most proud of, despite the criticism he received for it. The book had been a dream of his since childhood. He claimed he had found a manuscript detailing the life of Joan of Arc when he was an adolescent.[32] This was another piece Twain was convinced would save his publishing company. His financial adviser, Henry Huttleston Rogers, quashed that idea and got Twain out of that business altogether, but the book was published nonetheless.

During this time of dire financial straits, Twain published several literary reviews in newspapers to help make ends meet. He famously derided James Fenimore Cooper in his article detailing Cooper's "Literary Offenses." He became an extremely outspoken critic not only of other authors, but also of other critics, suggesting that before praising Cooper's work, Professors Loundsbury, Brander Matthes, and Wilkie Collins "ought to have read some of it."[57]

Other authors to fall under Twain's attack during this time period (beginning around 1890 until his death) were George Eliot, Jane Austen, and Robert Louis Stevenson.[58] In addition to providing a source for the "tooth and claw" style of literary criticism, Twain outlines in several letters and essays what he considers to be "quality writing." He places emphasis on concision, utility of word choice, and realism (he complains that Cooper's Deerslayer purports to be realistic but has several shortcomings). Ironically, several of his works were later criticized for lack of continuity (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) and organization (Pudd'nhead Wilson).

Twain's wife died in 1904 while the couple were staying at the Villa di Quarto in Florence, and after an appropriate time Twain allowed himself to publish some works that his wife, a de facto editor and censor throughout his life, had looked down upon. Of these works, The Mysterious Stranger, depicting various visits of Satan to the Earth, is perhaps the best known. This particular work was not published in Twain's lifetime. There were three versions found in his manuscripts made between 1897 and 1905: the Hannibal, Eseldorf, and Print Shop versions. Confusion between the versions led to an extensive publication of a jumbled version, and only recently have the original versions as Twain wrote them become available.

Twain's last work was his autobiography, which he dictated and thought would be most entertaining if he went off on whims and tangents in non-chronological order. Some archivists and compilers have rearranged the biography into more conventional forms, thereby eliminating some of Twain's humor and the flow of the book. The first volume of autobiography, over 736 pages, was published by the University of California in November 2010, 100 years after his death as Twain wished.[59][60] It soon became an unexpected[61] best seller,[62] making Twain one of very few authors publishing new best-selling volumes in all 3 of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.

Friendship with Henry H. Rogers[link]

A late life friendship for each, Mark Twain and Henry Huttleston Rogers in 1908

While Twain credited Henry H. Rogers, a Standard Oil executive, with saving him from financial ruin, their close friendship in their later years was mutually beneficial. When Twain lost three of his four children and his beloved wife, the Rogers family increasingly became a surrogate family for him. He became a frequent guest at their townhouse in New York City, their 48-room summer home in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, and aboard their steam yacht, the Kanawha.

The two men introduced each other to their acquaintances. Twain was an admirer of the remarkable deafblind girl Helen Keller. He first met Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan at a party in the home of Laurence Hutton in New York City in the winter of 1894. Twain introduced them to Rogers, who, with his wife, paid for Keller's education at Radcliffe College. Twain is credited with labeling Sullivan, Keller's governess and companion, a "miracle worker." His choice of words later became inspiration for the title of William Gibson's play and film adaptation, The Miracle Worker. Twain also introduced Rogers to journalist Ida M. Tarbell, who interviewed him for a muckraking expose that led indirectly to the breakup of the Standard Oil Trust. On cruises aboard the Kanawha, Twain and Rogers were joined at frequent intervals by Booker T. Washington, the famed former slave who had become a leading educator.

While the two famous old men were widely regarded as drinking and poker buddies, they also exchanged letters when apart, and this was often since each traveled a great deal. Unlike Rogers' personal files, which have never become public, these insightful letters were published.[63] The written exchanges between the two men demonstrate Twain's well-known sense of humor and, more surprisingly, Rogers' sense of fun, providing a rare insight into the private side of the robber baron.

In April 1907, Twain and Rogers cruised to the opening of the Jamestown Exposition in Virginia. Twain's public popularity was such that many fans took boats out to the Kanawha at anchor in hopes of getting a glimpse of him. As the gathering of boats around the yacht became a safety hazard, he finally obliged by coming on deck and waving to the crowds.

Because of poor weather conditions, the steam yacht was delayed for several days from venturing into the Atlantic Ocean. Rogers and some of the others in his party returned to New York by rail; Twain disliked train travel and so elected to wait and return on the Kanawha. However, reporters lost track of his whereabouts; when he failed to return to New York City as scheduled, The New York Times speculated that he might have been "lost at sea." Upon arriving safely in New York and learning of this, the humorist wrote a satirical article about the episode, offering to "...make an exhaustive investigation of this report that I have been lost at sea. If there is any foundation for the report, I will at once apprise the anxious public."[64] This bore similarities to an earlier event in 1897 when he made his famous remark "The report of my death was an exaggeration," after a reporter was sent to investigate whether he had died. In fact, it was his cousin who was seriously ill.

Later that year, Twain and Rogers's son, Henry Jr., returned to the Jamestown Exposition aboard the Kanawha. The humorist helped host Robert Fulton Day on September 23, 1907, celebrating the centennial of Fulton's invention of the steamboat. Twain, filling in for ailing former U.S. President Grover Cleveland, introduced Rear Admiral Purnell Harrington. Twain was met with a five-minute standing ovation; members of the audience cheered and waved their hats and umbrellas. Deeply touched, Twain said, "When you appeal to my head, I don't feel it; but when you appeal to my heart, I do feel it."[65]

In April 1909, the two old friends returned to Norfolk, Virginia for the banquet in honor of Rogers and his newly completed Virginian Railway. Twain was the keynote speaker in one of his last public appearances, and was widely quoted in newspapers across the country.[66]

A month later, Twain was en route from Connecticut to visit his friend in New York City when Rogers died suddenly on May 20, 1909. Twain arrived at Grand Central Terminal to be met by his daughter with the news. Stricken with grief, he uncustomarily avoided news reporters who had gathered, saying only "This is terrible...I cannot talk about it." Two days later, he served as an honorary pallbearer at the funeral in New York City. However, he declined to join the funeral party on the train ride for the interment at Fairhaven. He said "I cannot bear to travel with my friend and not converse."

Views[link]

Twain's views became more radical as he grew older. He acknowledged that his views changed and developed over his life, referring to one of his favorite works:

When I finished Carlyle's French Revolution in 1871, I was a Girondin; every time I have read it since, I have read it differently – being influenced and changed, little by little, by life and environment ... and now I lay the book down once more, and recognize that I am a Sansculotte! – And not a pale, characterless Sansculotte, but a Marat.[67]

Anti-imperialist[link]

In the New York Herald, October 15, 1900, he describes his transformation and political awakening, in the context of the Philippine-American War, from being "a red-hot imperialist":

I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific ...Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself? ... I said to myself, Here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American Constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves. But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris [which ended the Spanish-American War], and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.[68]

Before 1899 Twain was an ardent imperialist. In the late 1860s and early 1870s he spoke out strongly in favor of American interests in the Hawaiian Islands.[69] In the mid-1890s he explained later, he was "a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming over the Pacific."[70] He said the war with Spain in 1898 was "the worthiest" war ever fought.[71] In 1899 he reversed course, and from 1901, soon after his return from Europe, until his death in 1910, Twain was vice-president of the American Anti-Imperialist League,[72] which opposed the annexation of the Philippines by the United States and had "tens of thousands of members."[25] He wrote many political pamphlets for the organization. The Incident in the Philippines, posthumously published in 1924, was in response to the Moro Crater Massacre, in which six hundred Moros were killed. Many of his neglected and previously uncollected writings on anti-imperialism appeared for the first time in book form in 1992.[72]

Twain was critical of imperialism in other countries as well. In Following the Equator, Twain expresses "hatred and condemnation of imperialism of all stripes."[25] He was highly critical of European imperialism, notably of Cecil Rhodes, who greatly expanded the British Empire, and of Leopold II, King of the Belgians.[25] King Leopold's Soliloquy is a stinging political satire about his private colony, the Congo Free State. Reports of outrageous exploitation and grotesque abuses led to widespread international protest in the early 1900s, arguably the first large-scale human rights movement. In the soliloquy, the King argues that bringing Christianity to the country outweighs a little starvation. Leopold's rubber gatherers were tortured, maimed and slaughtered, until the movement forced Brussels to call a halt.[73][74]

During the Philippine-American War, Twain wrote a short pacifist story entitled The War Prayer, which makes the point that humanism and Christianity's preaching of love are incompatible with the conduct of war. It was submitted to Harper's Bazaar for publication, but on March 22, 1905 the magazine rejected the story as "not quite suited to a woman's magazine." Eight days later, Twain wrote to his friend Daniel Carter Beard, to whom he had read the story, "I don't think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth." Because he had an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers, Twain could not publish The War Prayer elsewhere; it remained unpublished until 1923. It was republished as campaigning material by Vietnam War protesters.[25]

Twain acknowledged he originally sympathized with the more moderate Girondins of the French Revolution and then shifted his sympathies to the more radical Sansculottes, indeed identifying as "a Marat." Twain supported the revolutionaries in Russia against the reformists, arguing that the Tsar must be got rid of, by violent means, because peaceful ones would not work.[75] He summed up his views of revolutions in the following statement:

I am said to be a revolutionist in my sympathies, by birth, by breeding and by principle. I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolute.[76]

Civil rights[link]

Twain was an adamant supporter of abolition and emancipation, even going so far to say “Lincoln's Proclamation ... not only set the black slaves free, but set the white man free also.”[77] He argued that non-whites did not receive justice in the United States, once saying “I have seen Chinamen abused and maltreated in all the mean, cowardly ways possible to the invention of a degraded nature....but I never saw a Chinaman righted in a court of justice for wrongs thus done to him.”[78] He paid for at least one black person to attend Yale University Law School and for another black person to attend a southern university to become a minister.[79]

Mark Twain was a staunch supporter of women's rights and an active campaigner for women's suffrage. His "Votes for Women" speech, in which he pressed for the granting of voting rights to women, is considered one of the most famous in history.[80]

Helen Keller benefited from Twain's support, as she pursued her college education and publishing, despite her disabilities and financial limitations.

Twain's views on race were not reflected in his early sketches of Native Americans. Of them, Twain wrote in 1870:

His heart is a cesspool of falsehood, of treachery, and of low and devilish instincts. With him, gratitude is an unknown emotion; and when one does him a kindness, it is safest to keep the face toward him, lest the reward be an arrow in the back. To accept of a favor from him is to assume a debt which you can never repay to his satisfaction, though you bankrupt yourself trying. The scum of the earth![81]

As counterpoint, Twain's essay on "The Literary Offenses of Fenimore Cooper" offers a much kinder view of Indians.[57] "No, other Indians would have noticed these things, but Cooper's Indians never notice anything. Cooper thinks they are marvelous creatures for noticing, but he was almost always in error about his Indians. There was seldom a sane one among them."[82] In his later travelogue Following the Equator (1897), Twain observes that in colonized lands all over the world, "savages" have always been wronged by "whites" in the most merciless ways, such as "robbery, humiliation, and slow, slow murder, through poverty and the white man's whiskey"; his conclusion is that "there are many humorous things in this world; among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages."[83]

Labor[link]

Twain wrote glowingly about unions in the riverboating industry in Life on the Mississippi, which was read in union halls decades later.[84] He supported the labor movement, especially one of the most important unions, the Knights of Labor.[25] In a speech to them, he said:

Who are the oppressors? The few: the King, the capitalist, and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who are the oppressed? The many: the nations of the earth; the valuable personages; the workers; they that make the bread that the soft-handed and idle eat.[85]

Vivisection[link]

Twain was opposed to the vivisection practices of his day. His objection was not on a scientific basis but rather an ethical one. He specifically cited the pain caused to the animal as his basis of his opposition.[86]

I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't. ... The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.

Religion[link]

Although Twain was a Presbyterian, he was sometimes critical of organized religion and certain elements of Christianity through his later life. He wrote, for example, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so," and "If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be – a Christian."[87] Nonetheless, as a mature adult he engaged in religious discussions and attended services, his theology developing as he wrestled with the deaths of loved ones and his own mortality.[88] His own experiences and suffering of his family made him particularly critical of "faith healing," such as espoused by Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science. His more inflammatory works on religion require a nuanced understanding of his theological arguments and criticism.[88]

Twain generally avoided publishing his most heretical opinions on religion in his lifetime, and they are known from essays and stories that were published later. In the essay Three Statements of the Eighties in the 1880s, Twain stated that he believed in an almighty God, but not in any messages, revelations, holy scriptures such as the Bible, Providence, or retribution in the afterlife. He did state that "the goodness, the justice, and the mercy of God are manifested in His works," but also that "the universe is governed by strict and immutable laws," which determine "small matters," such as who dies in a pestilence.[89] At other times he wrote or spoke in ways that contradicted a strict deist view, for example, plainly professing a belief in Providence.[90] In some later writings in the 1890s, he was less optimistic about the goodness of God, observing that "if our Maker is all-powerful for good or evil, He is not in His right mind." At other times, he conjectured sardonically that perhaps God had created the world with all its tortures for some purpose of His own, but was otherwise indifferent to humanity, which was too petty and insignificant to deserve His attention anyway.[91]

In 1901 Twain criticized the actions of missionary Dr. William Scott Ament (1851–1909) because Ament and other missionaries had collected indemnities from Chinese subjects in the aftermath of the Boxer Uprising of 1900. Twain's response to hearing of Ament's methods was published in the North American Review in February 1901: To the Person Sitting in Darkness, and deals with examples of imperialism in China, South Africa, and with the U.S. occupation of the Philippines.[92] A subsequent article, "To My Missionary Critics" published in The North American Review in April 1901, unapologetically continues his attack, but with the focus shifted from Ament to his missionary superiors, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.[93]

After his death, Twain's family suppressed some of his work that was especially irreverent toward conventional religion, notably Letters from the Earth, which was not published until his daughter Clara reversed her position in 1962 in response to Soviet propaganda about the withholding.[94] The anti-religious The Mysterious Stranger was published in 1916. Little Bessie, a story ridiculing Christianity, was first published in the 1972 collection Mark Twain's Fables of Man.[95]

Despite these views, he raised money to build a Presbyterian Church in Nevada in 1864, although it has been argued that it was only by his association with his Presbyterian brother that he did that.[96]

Twain created a reverent portrayal of Joan of Arc, a subject over which he had obsessed for forty years, studied for a dozen years and spent two years writing.[97] In 1900 and again in 1908, he stated, "I like Joan of Arc best of all my books, it is the best." [97][98]

Those who knew Twain well late in life recount that he dwelt on the subject of the afterlife, his daughter Clara saying: "Sometimes he believed death ended everything, but most of the time he felt sure of a life beyond."[99]

Mark Twain's frankest views on religion appeared in his final Autobiography, which was published 100 years after his death, in November 2010. In it, he said,[100]

There is one notable thing about our Christianity: bad, bloody, merciless, money-grabbing, and predatory as it is--in our country particularly and in all other Christian countries in a somewhat modified degree--it is still a hundred times better than the Christianity of the Bible, with its prodigious crime--the invention of Hell. Measured by our Christianity of to-day, bad as it is, hypocritical as it is, empty and hollow as it is, neither the Deity nor his Son is a Christian, nor qualified for that moderately high place. Ours is a terrible religion. The fleets of the world could swim in spacious comfort in the innocent blood it has spilled.

Twain was a Freemason.[101][102] He belonged to Polar Star Lodge No. 79 A.F.&A.M., based in St. Louis. He was initiated an Entered Apprentice on May 22, 1861, passed to the degree of Fellow Craft on June 12, and raised to the degree of Master Mason on July 10.

Pen names[link]

Twain used different pen names before deciding on "'Mark Twain". He signed humorous and imaginative sketches as "Josh" until 1863. Additionally, he used the pen name "Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass" for a series of humorous letters.[103]

He maintained that his primary pen name came from his years working on Mississippi riverboats, where two fathoms, a depth indicating safe water for passage of boat, was measured on the sounding line. Twain is an archaic term for "two". The riverboatman's cry was "mark twain" or, more fully, "by the mark twain", meaning "according to the mark [on the line], [the depth is] two [fathoms]," that is, "The water is 12 feet (3.7 m) deep and it is safe to pass."

Twain claimed that his famous pen name was not entirely his invention. In Life on the Mississippi, he wrote:

Captain Isaiah Sellers was not of literary turn or capacity, but he used to jot down brief paragraphs of plain practical information about the river, and sign them "MARK TWAIN," and give them to the New Orleans Picayune. They related to the stage and condition of the river, and were accurate and valuable; ... At the time that the telegraph brought the news of his death, I was on the Pacific coast. I was a fresh new journalist, and needed a nom de guerre; so I confiscated the ancient mariner's discarded one, and have done my best to make it remain what it was in his hands – a sign and symbol and warrant that whatever is found in its company may be gambled on as being the petrified truth; how I have succeeded, it would not be modest in me to say.[104]

Twain's story about his pen name has been questioned by biographer George Williams III,[105] the Territorial Enterprise newspaper,[106] and Purdue University's Paul Fatout.[107] The claim is that "mark twain" refers to a running bar tab that Twain would regularly incur while drinking at John Piper's saloon in Virginia City, Nevada.

Honors[link]

Twain's legacy lives on today as his namesakes continue to multiply. Several schools are named after him, including Mark Twain Elementary School in Houston, Texas, which has a statue of Twain sitting on a bench, and Mark Twain Intermediate School in New York. There are several schools named Mark Twain Middle School in different states, as well as Samuel Clemens High School in Schertz, near San Antonio, Texas. There are also other structures, such as the Mark Twain Memorial Bridge.

Mark Twain Village is a United States Army installation located in the Südstadt district of Heidelberg, Germany. It is one of two American bases in the United States Army Garrison Heidelberg that house American soldiers and their families (the other being Patrick Henry Village).

Awards in his name proliferate. In 1998, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts created the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, awarded annually. The Mark Twain Award is an award given annually to a book for children in grades four through eight by the Missouri Association of School Librarians. Stetson University in DeLand, Florida sponsors the Mark Twain Young Authors' Workshop each summer in collaboration with the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum in Hannibal. The program is open to young authors in grades five through eight.[108] The museum sponsors the Mark Twain Creative Teaching Award.[109]

Mark Twain's house, front view

Buildings associated with Twain, including some of his many homes, have been preserved as museums. His birthplace is preserved in Florida, Missouri. The Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum in Hannibal, Missouri preserves the setting for some of the author's best known work. The home of childhood friend Laura Hawkins, said to be the inspiration for his fictional character Becky Thatcher, is preserved as the "Thatcher House." In May 2007, a painstaking reconstruction of the home of Tom Blankenship, the inspiration for Huckleberry Finn, was opened to the public. The family home he had built in Hartford, Connecticut, where he and his wife raised their three daughters, is preserved and open to visitors as the Mark Twain House.

Asteroid 2362 Mark Twain was named after him.

On December 4, 1985, the United States Postal Service issued a stamped envelope for "Mark Twain and Halley's Comet," noting the connection with Twain's birth, his death, and the comet.[110] On June 25, 2011, the Postal Service released a Forever stamp in his honor.[111]

Depictions[link]

Twain is often depicted wearing a white suit. While there is evidence that suggests that, after Livy's death in 1904, Twain began wearing white suits on the lecture circuit, modern representations suggesting that he wore them throughout his life are unfounded. However, there is evidence of him wearing a white suit before 1904. In 1882, he sent a photograph of himself in a white suit to 18-year-old Edward W. Bok, later publisher of the Ladies Home Journal, with a handwritten dated note on verso. It did eventually become his trademark, as illustrated in anecdotes about this eccentricity (such as the time he wore a white summer suit to a Congressional hearing during the winter).[32] McMasters' The Mark Twain Encyclopedia states that Twain did not wear a white suit in his last three years, except at one banquet speech.[112]

Actor Hal Holbrook created a one-man show called Mark Twain Tonight, which he has performed regularly for about 57 years.[113] The broadcast by CBS in 1967 won him an Emmy Award. Of the three runs on Broadway (1966, 1977, and 2005), the first won him a Tony Award.

Twain was portrayed by Fredric March in the 1944 film The Adventures of Mark Twain.

Bibliography[link]

See also[link]

References[link]

  1. ^ "The Mark Twain House Biography". Archived from the original on 2006-10-16. http://web.archive.org/web/20061016074753/http://www.marktwainhouse.org/theman/bio.shtml. Retrieved 2006-10-24. 
  2. ^ "Mark Twain remembered by Google with a doodle". The Times of India. 30 November 2011. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/internet/Mark-Twain-remembered-by-Google-with-a-doodle/articleshow/10928674.cms. Retrieved 30 November 2011. 
  3. ^ "Obituary (New York Times)". http://marktwainclassics.com/marktwain/obituary-new-york-times/. Retrieved 2009-12-27. 
  4. ^ Jelliffe, Robert A. (1956). Faulkner at Nagano. Tokyo: Kenkyusha, Ltd. 
  5. ^ "Inventing Mark Twain". 1997. New York Times.
  6. ^ Kaplan, Fred (October 2007). "Chapter 1: The Best Boy You Had 1835–1847". The Singular Mark Twain. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-47715-5. . Cited in "Excerpt: The Singular Mark Twain". About.com: Literature: Classic. http://classiclit.about.com/library/weekly/aafpr113003b.htm. Retrieved 2006-10-11. 
  7. ^ "Mark Twain's Family Tree" (PDF). http://marktwainhouse.org/theman/twain_tree.pdf. Retrieved 2007-01-01. 
  8. ^ "Mark Twain, American Author and Humorist". http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95nov/twain.html. Retrieved 2006-10-25. 
  9. ^ Lindborg, Henry J.. "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Archived from the original on 2009-11-01. http://www.webcitation.org/5kx7x1BXR. Retrieved 2006-11-11. 
  10. ^ "Mark Twain quotations – father – John Marshall Clemens". Twainquotes.com. http://www.twainquotes.com/ClemensJM.html. Retrieved 2010-12-30. 
  11. ^ "The Hannibal and Saint Joseph Railroad". Abandoned Rails. 2010-10-08. http://www.abandonedrails.com/Hannibal_and_Saint_Joseph_Railroad. Retrieved 2010-12-30. 
  12. ^ "John Marshall Clemens". State Historical Society of Missouri. http://shs.umsystem.edu/famousmissourians/writers/clemens/jmclemens.html. Retrieved 2007-10-29. 
  13. ^ Philip S. Foner, Mark Twain: Social Critic (New York: International Publishers, 1958), p. 13, cited in Helen Scott's "The Mark Twain they didn't teach us about in school" (2000) in the International Socialist Review 10, Winter 2000, pp. 61–65, at [1]
  14. ^ Clark, Daniel G. (2002-01-14). "Betwixt and be Twain". Muscatinejournal.com. http://muscatinejournal.com/betwixt-and-be-twain/article_f16c1d51-4fa9-5748-bc42-2e94a7ffeb29.html. Retrieved 2012-02-07. 
  15. ^ "Journal editorial: That other famous Muscatine resident". Muscatinejournal.com. 2010-02-25. http://muscatinejournal.com/news/opinion/editorial/columns/journal-editorial-that-other-famous-muscatine-resident/article_7bfb22ae-222d-11df-a6de-001cc4c03286.html. Retrieved 2012-02-07. 
  16. ^ Life on the Mississippi, chapter 15
  17. ^ Autobiography
  18. ^ For a further account of Twain's involvement with parapsychology, see Blum, Deborah, Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death" (Penguin Press, (2006).
  19. ^ a b "Mark Twain Biography". The Hannibal Courier-Post. http://www.marktwainhannibal.com/twain/biography/. Retrieved 2008-11-25. 
  20. ^ Comstock Commotion: The Story of the Territorial Enterprise and Virginia City News, Chapter 2.
  21. ^ "Mark Twain quotations". http://www.twainquotes.com/teindex.html. 
  22. ^ The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco. Samuel Dickson. Isadora Duncan (1878–1927). Retrieved on July 9, 2009.
  23. ^ a b "Samuel Clemens". PBS:The West. http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/clemens.htm. Retrieved 2007-08-25. 
  24. ^ "Mark Twain's Letters: 1867–1868 – Mark Twain, Edgar Marquess Branch, Michael B. Frank, Kenneth M. Sanderson". Books.google.com. http://books.google.com/books?id=EWvU21-vV8EC&pg=PA281&lpg=PA281&dq=mark+twain+scroll+and+key&source=bl&ots=-KVl425k8n&sig=UGa5zncDI3iubIK6GV7nkASZxxw&hl=en&ei=AWJhTYbcHYPGlQfN3Z2hDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=mark%20twain%20scroll%20and%20key&f=false. Retrieved 2011-11-30. 
  25. ^ a b c d e f Scott, Helen (Winter 2000). "The Mark Twain they didn't teach us about in school". International Socialist Review. 10. pp. 61–65 
  26. ^ "Mrs. Jacques Samossoud Dies; Mark Twain's Last Living Child; Released 'Letters From Earth'". New York Times. November 21, 1962, Wednesday. "San Diego, California, Nov. 20 (UPI) Mrs. Clara Langhorne Clemens Samossoud, the last living child of Mark Twain, died last night in Sharp Memorial Hospital. She was 88 years old." 
  27. ^ a b "Twain's Home in Elmira". Elmira College Center for Mark Twain Studies. http://www.elmira.edu/academics/distinctive_programs/twain_center/quarry_farm. Retrieved May 1, 2011. 
  28. ^ Hal Bush (Advent-Christmas 2010). "A Week at Quarry Farm". The Cresset, A review of literature, the arts, and public affairs, Valparaiso University. http://www.valpo.edu/cresset/2010/Advent/Bush_A10.html. Retrieved May 1, 2011. 
  29. ^ J. Niemann, Paul (2004-11). Invention Mysteries (Invention Mysteries Series). Horsefeathers Publishing Company. pp. 53–54. ISBN 0-9748041-0-X. http://books.google.com/?id=TFjBk0tn9A4C&pg=PA52&lpg=PA52&dq=Mark+Twain+inventions&q=Mark%20Twain%20inventions. 
  30. ^ Staff. Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–2012. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  31. ^ "Mark Twain House website – Paige Compositor page". Marktwainhouse.org. http://www.marktwainhouse.org/themuseum/archivist.shtml. Retrieved 2010-12-30. 
  32. ^ a b c d e f g h Kirk, Connie Ann (2004). Mark Twain – A Biography. Connecticut: Greenwood Printing. ISBN 0-313-33025-5 
  33. ^ Lauber, John. The Inventions of Mark Twain: a Biography. New York: Hill and Wang, 1990.
  34. ^ Barbara Schmidt. "Chronology of Known Mark Twain Speeches, Public Readings, and Lectures". marktwainquotes.com. http://www.twainquotes.com/SpeechIndex.html. Retrieved February 7, 2010. 
  35. ^ Cox, James M. Mark Twain: The Fate of Humor. Princeton University Press, 1966.
  36. ^ "History of Dollis Hill House". Dollis Hill House Trust. 2006. http://www.dollishillhouse.co.uk/history.htm. Retrieved 2007-07-03. 
  37. ^ Judith Yaross Lee, "Mark Twain as a Stand-up Comedian," The Mark Twain Annual (2006) #4 pp 3–23
  38. ^ Paine, A. B., Mark Twain: A Biography, Harper, 1912 page 1095
  39. ^ LeMaster J. R., The Mark Twain Encyclopedia, Taylor & Francis, 1993 page 50
  40. ^ http://www.twainquotes.com/19010510.html
  41. ^ "The Mark Twain House". Archived from the original on 2006-10-16. http://web.archive.org/web/20061016074753/http://www.marktwainhouse.org/theman/bio.shtml. Retrieved 2006-11-17. 
  42. ^ TwainQuotes.com The Story Behind the A. F. Bradley Photos, Retrieved on July 10, 2009.
  43. ^ LeMaster J. R., The Mark Twain Encyclopedia, Taylor & Francis, 1993 page 28
  44. ^ Albert Bigelow Paine. "Mark Twain, a Biography". http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/t/twain/mark/paine/. Retrieved 2006-11-01. 
  45. ^ Esther Lombardi, about.com. "Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)". http://classiclit.about.com/cs/profileswriters/p/aa_marktwain.htm. Retrieved 2006-11-01. 
  46. ^ "Mark Twain is Dead at 74. End Comes Peacefully at His New England Home After a Long Illness.". The New York Times. April 22, 1910. "Danbury, Connecticut, April 21, 1910. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, "Mark Twain," died at 22 minutes after 6 to-night. Beside him on the bed lay a beloved book – it was Carlyle's " French Revolution" – and near the book his glasses, pushed away with a weary sigh a few hours before. Too weak to speak clearly, "Give me my glasses," he had written on a piece of paper." 
  47. ^ "Mark Twain's funeral". Twainquotes.com. http://www.twainquotes.com/19100424a.html. Retrieved 2008-12-04. 
  48. ^ "Elmira Travel Information". Go-new-york.com. http://www.go-new-york.com/Elmira. Retrieved 2010-12-30. 
  49. ^ Baskin, R. N. (Robert Newton); Madsen, Brigham D. (2006). Reminiscences of early Utah : with, Reply to certain statements by O. F. Whitne. Salt Lake City: Signature Books. p. 281. ISBN 978-1-56085-193-6. 
  50. ^ Gary Scharnhorst, ed. (November 28, 2010). Twain in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates (first ed.). University Of Iowa Press. p. 290. ISBN 978-1-58729-914-8. 
  51. ^ DeQuille, Dan; Twain, Mark (July 1893). "Reporting With Mark Twain". The Californian Illustrated Magazine. http://www.nevadaobserver.com/Reading%20Room%20Documents/reporting_with_mark_twain_1893.htm. 
  52. ^ "The Sagebrush School Nevada Writers Hall of Fame 2009". University of Nevada, Reno. October 28, 2009. http://knowledgecenter.unr.edu/libraries/support/writers_hof/sagebrushschool.html. Retrieved 26 February 2012. 
  53. ^ Reading the American Novel 1865 – 1914 G. R. Thompson; John Wiley & Sons, Feb 7, 2012; 462 pages; page 29
  54. ^ Powers, Ron (2005). Mark Twain: A Life. New York: Free Press. pp. 471–473. ISBN 978-0-7432-4899-0. 
  55. ^ from Chapter 1 of The Green Hills of Africa
  56. ^ "American Experience – People & Events: Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835–1910". PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/grant/peopleevents/p_twain.html. Retrieved 2007-11-28. 
  57. ^ a b Twain, Mark. Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses. From Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches and Essays, from 1891–1910. Edited by Louis J. Budd. New York: Library of America, 1992.
  58. ^ Feinstien, George W. "Tooth and Claw Criticism: Twain as Forerunner of Tooth-and-Claw Criticism." From Modern Language Notes, Jan. 1948 (p. 49–50).
  59. ^ "After keeping us waiting for a century, Mark Twain will finally reveal all" The Independent 23 May 2010 Retrieved 29 May 2010
  60. ^ "Dead for a Century, He's Ready to Say What He Really Meant" The New York Times 9 July 2010. Retrieved 9 July 2010.
  61. ^ "Mark Twain's Big Book". NY Times. November 26, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/opinion/27sat4.html. Retrieved 2010-11-27. "an enormous hit, apparently much to the surprise of its publisher" 
  62. ^ Schuessler, Jennifer. "Hardcover Nonfiction – List". NY Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/books/bestseller/besthardnonfiction.html. 
  63. ^ see Mark Twain's Correspondence with Henry Huttleston Rogers, 1893–1909
  64. ^ Mark Twain Investigating. The New York Times, May 5, 1907.
  65. ^ A report in Norfolk's Virginian-Pilot newspaper
  66. ^ Mark Twain Delighted the Little Ones. Norfolk Ledge-Dispatch, Monday, April 5, 1909.
  67. ^ Frederick Anderson, ed., A Pen Warmed Up in Hell: Mark Twain in Protest (New York: Harper, 1972), p. 8, cited in Helen Scott's "The Mark Twain they didn't teach us about in school" (2000) in International Socialist Review 10, Winter 2000, pp.61–65
  68. ^ From Andrew Jay Hoffman, Inventing Mark Twain: The Lives of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (New York: William Morrow, 1997), cited in Helen Scott's "The Mark Twain they didn't teach us about in school" (2000) in International Socialist Review 10, Winter 2000, pp.61–65
  69. ^ David Zmijewski, "The Man in Both Corners: Mark Twain the Shadowboxing Imperialist," Hawaiian Journal of History, 2006, Vol. 40, pp 55–73
  70. ^ quoted in Everett Emerson, The Authentic Mark Twain: A Literary Biography of Samuel L. Clemens (1984) p. 234
  71. ^ Paine, ed. Letters 2:663; Ron Powers, Mark Twain: a life (2005) p. 593
  72. ^ a b Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire: Anti-Imperialist Writings on the Philippine-American War. (1992, Jim Zwick, ed.) ISBN 0-8156-0268-5
  73. ^ Adam Hochschild (1998). King Leopold's ghost : a story of greed, terror, and heroism in colonial Africa. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-395-75924-0. OCLC 39042794. 
  74. ^ Jeremy Harding (September 20, 1998). "Into Africa". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/20/books/into-africa.html. 
  75. ^ Maxwell Geismar, ed., Mark Twain and the Three Rs: Race, Religion, Revolution and Related Matters (Indianapolis: Bobs-Merrill, 1973), p.169, cited in Helen Scott's "The Mark Twain they didn't teach us about in school" (2000) in International Socialist Review 10, Winter 2000, pp.61–65
  76. ^ Maxwell Geismar, ed., Mark Twain and the Three Rs: Race, Religion, Revolution and Related Matters (Indianapolis: Bobs-Merrill, 1973), p.159
  77. ^ Philip S. Foner, Mark Twain: Social Critic (New York: International Publishers, 1958), p. 200
  78. ^ Maxwell Geismar, ed., Mark Twain and the Three Rs: Race, Religion, Revolution and Related Matters (Indianapolis: Bobs-Merrill, 1973), p. 98
  79. ^ Paine, A. B., Mark Twain: A Biography, Harper, 1912 page 701
  80. ^ "The Votes for Women Speech by Mark Twain". Famousquotes.me.uk. 2007-05-25. http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/Mark_Twain/. Retrieved 2009-10-16. 
  81. ^ "Mark Twain, Indian Hater". Blue Corn Comics. 2001-05-28. http://www.bluecorncomics.com/twain.htm. Retrieved 2008-07-09. 
  82. ^ Twain, Mark, In defense of Harriet Shelley and Other Essays, Harper & Brothers, 1918. page 68
  83. ^ Twain, Mark. 2008. Following the Equator. p.94–98
  84. ^ Philip S. Foner, Mark Twain: Social Critic (New York: International Publishers, 1958), p.98
  85. ^ Philip S. Foner, Mark Twain: Social Critic (New York: International Publishers, 1958), p. 169, cited in Helen Scott's "The Mark Twain they didn't teach us about in school" (2000) in International Socialist Review 10, Winter 2000, pp.61–65
  86. ^ "Mark Twain Quotations – Vivisection". http://www.twainquotes.com/Vivisection.html. Retrieved 2006-10-24. 
  87. ^ Huberman, Jack (2007). The Quotable Atheist. Nation Books. pp. 303–304. ISBN 978-1-56025-969-5. 
  88. ^ a b Dempsey, Terrell, BOOK REVIEW: Mark Twain's Religion. William E. Phipps 2004 Mark Twain Forum
  89. ^ Twain, Mark, ed. by Paul Baender. 1973. What is man?: and other philosophical writings. P.56
  90. ^ Phipps, William E., Mark Twain's Religion, pp. 263–266, 2003 Mercer Univ. Press
  91. ^ Twain, Mark, ed. by Paul Baender. 1973. What is man?: and other philosophical writings. Pp.10, 486
  92. ^ Mark Twain, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness," The North American Review 182:531 (February 1901):161–176; AntiImperialist.com
  93. ^ Mark Twain, "To My Missionary Critics," The North American Review 172 (April 1901):520–534; AntiImperialist.com
  94. ^ Gelb, Arthur (August 24, 1962). "Anti-Religious Work by Twain, Long Withheld, to Be Published". The New York Times: p. 23. ISSN 1523315. http://www.twainquotes.com/19620824.html. Retrieved 2008-04-22 
  95. ^ Twain, Mark (1972). "Little Bessie". In John S. Tuckey (ed.), Kenneth M. Sanderson (ed.), Bernard L. Stein (ed.), Frederick Anderson (ed.). Mark Twain's Fables of Man. California: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-02039-9. http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/twainbes.htm. 
  96. ^ "Church Aided by Twain Is in a Demolition Dispute". The New York Times. Associated Press. April 2, 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/us/02twain.html?fta=y. Retrieved 2008-10-05. 
  97. ^ a b Paine, Albert Bigelow, The Adventures of Mark Twain, p. 281, Kessinger 2004
  98. ^ Goy-Blanquet, Dominique, Joan of Arc, a saint for all reasons: studies in myth and politics, p. 132, 2003 Ashgate Publishing
  99. ^ Phipps, William E., Mark Twain's Religion, p. 304, 2003 Mercer Univ. Press
  100. ^ PBS NewsHour (July 7, 2010). "Mark Twain's Autobiography Set for Unveiling, a Century After His Death". http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec10/twain_07-07.html. Retrieved July 7, 2010. 
  101. ^ "Grand Master of Missouri Lecture". http://mertsahinoglu.com/research/samuel-langhorne-clemens/. 
  102. ^ "Mark Twain Masonic Awareness Award: About The Award". http://www.msana.com/twainaward/about.html#about_twain. 
  103. ^ Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, (Charles Honce, James Bennet, ed.), Pascal Covici, Chicago, 1928
  104. ^ Life on the Mississippi, chapter 50
  105. ^ Williams, III, George (1999). "Mark Twain Leaves Virginia City for San Francisco". Mark Twain and the Jumping Frog of Calaveras County: How Mark Twain's humorous frog story launched his legendary career. Tree By The River Publishing. ISBN 0-935174-45-1.  Cited in "Excerpt: The Singular Mark Twain". http://www.autographed-books.com/whoisgeorgewilliamsiii.html. Retrieved 2007-06-26. 
  106. ^ "Origin of Twain's Name Revealed". Territorial-enterprise.com. http://www.territorial-enterprise.com/mt_name.htm. Retrieved 2010-12-30. 
  107. ^ Mark Twain's Nom de Plume.” American Literature, v 34, n 1 (March, 1962), pp 1–7. doi:10.2307/2922241.
  108. ^ The First Annual Mark Twain Young Authors Workshop. Stetson University.
  109. ^ The Mark Twain Boyhood Home Museum: Education[dead link]
  110. ^ Scott Specialized Catalog of U.S. Stamps & Covers, various editions, catalogue number UC60, issued in Hannibal MO
  111. ^ Allen Pierleoni (June 26, 2011). "Postal Service unveils a Forever stamp of Mark Twain". The Sacramento Bee. http://www.sacbee.com/2011/06/26/3727695/postal-service-unveils-a-forever.html. 
  112. ^ Lemaster, J. R; Wilson, James Darrell; Hamric, Christie Graves (1993). The Mark Twain encyclopedia. Books.google.com. ISBN 978-0-8240-7212-4. http://books.google.com/?id=zW1k-XS6XLEC&pg=PA390&dq=twain+white+suit. Retrieved 2009-10-16. 
  113. ^ Malia Wollan (January 24, 2011). "Mark Twain. Now a Career for the Mustachioed". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/books/24twain.html. "...has played Twain going on 57 years, longer than Samuel Langhorne Clemens did." 

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

Works by Mark Twain
Academic studies
Life
Other

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Ellen DeGeneres

Ellen DeGeneres, Los Angeles, October 4, 2011
Birth name Ellen Lee DeGeneres
Born (1958-01-26) January 26, 1958 (age 54)
Metairie, Louisiana, United States
Medium Stand-up, television, film, books
Nationality American
Years active 1981 – present
Influences Steve Martin,[1] Woody Allen,[1] Bob Newhart,[1] Johnny Carson
Spouse Portia de Rossi (2008–present)
Domestic partner(s) Anne Heche (1997–2000)
Alexandra Hedison (2001–2004)
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series
1997 Ellen
Outstanding Talk Show
2004 The Ellen DeGeneres Show
2005 The Ellen DeGeneres Show
2006 The Ellen DeGeneres Show
2007 The Ellen DeGeneres Show
Outstanding Talk Show Entertainment
2010 The Ellen Degeneres Show
2011 The Ellen Degeneres Show
Outstanding Special Class Writing
2005 The Ellen DeGeneres Show
2006 The Ellen DeGeneres Show
2007 The Ellen DeGeneres Show
Outstanding Talk Show Host
2005 The Ellen DeGeneres Show
2006 The Ellen DeGeneres Show
2007 The Ellen DeGeneres Show
2008 The Ellen DeGeneres Show
American Comedy Awards
Funniest Female Stand-Up Comic
1991
Funniest Female Performer in a TV Special
1994 46th Primetime Emmy Awards
2000 Ellen DeGeneres: The Beginning
Saturn Award
Best Supporting Actress (film)
2003 Finding Nemo
Teen Choice Awards
Best Comedian
2011

Ellen Lee DeGeneres (play /dɨˈɛnərəs/; born January 26, 1958) is an American stand-up comedian, television host and actress. She hosts the syndicated talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

DeGeneres has hosted both the Academy Awards and the Primetime Emmys. As a film actress, she starred in Mr. Wrong, appeared in EDtv and The Love Letter, and provided the voice of Dory in the Disney-Pixar animated film Finding Nemo, for which she was awarded a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, the first and only time a voice performance won a Saturn Award. She was a judge on American Idol for one year, having joined the show in its ninth season. She also starred in two television sitcoms, Ellen from 1994 to 1998 and The Ellen Show from 2001 to 2002. During the fourth season of Ellen in 1997, DeGeneres came out publicly as a lesbian in an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Shortly afterwards, her character Ellen Morgan also came out to a therapist played by Winfrey, and the series went on to explore various LGBT issues including the coming out process. She has won thirteen Emmys and numerous other awards for her work and charitable efforts.

In November 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named her a Special Envoy for Global AIDS Awareness.[2]

Contents

Early life and education[link]

DeGeneres was raised in Metairie, Louisiana, the daughter of Elizabeth Jane DeGeneres (née Pfeffer), a speech therapist, and Elliott Everett DeGeneres, an insurance agent.[3][4] She has one brother, Vance DeGeneres, who is a producer and musician. She is of French, English, German and Irish descent. DeGeneres was raised as a Christian Scientist until the age of thirteen. In 1973, DeGeneres's parents filed for separation and were divorced the following year. Shortly after, Betty Jane remarried Roy Gruessendorf, who worked as a salesman. Betty Jane and Ellen moved with Gruessendorf from the New Orleans area to Atlanta, Texas. Vance stayed with their birth father.

DeGeneres graduated from Atlanta High School in May 1976, after completing her first years of high school at Grace King High School in Metairie, Louisiana. She moved back to New Orleans to attend the University of New Orleans, where she majored in communication studies. After one semester, she left school to do clerical work in a law firm with her cousin Laura Gillen. She also held a job selling clothes at the chain store the Merry-Go-Round at the Lakeside Shopping Center.[citation needed] Other working experiences included J.C. Penney,[5] being a waitress at TGI Friday's and another restaurant, a house painter, a hostess, and a bartender. She relates much of her childhood and career experiences in her comedic work.

Ancestry[link]

On a February 9, 2011, episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, DeGeneres told her studio audience via a letter from the New England Genealogical Society that she is Kate Middleton's 15th cousin via their shared common ancestor Thomas Fairfax.[6]

Stand-up comedy[link]

DeGeneres started performing stand-up comedy at small clubs and coffee houses. By 1981 she was the emcee at Clyde's Comedy Club in New Orleans. DeGeneres cites Woody Allen and Steve Martin as her main influences at this time.[1] In the early 1980s she began to tour nationally, being named Showtime's Funniest Person in America in 1982.[7] In 1986 she appeared for the first time on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, who likened her to Bob Newhart.[1] When Carson invited her over for an onscreen chat after her performance, she became the first comedienne in the show's history to be treated this way.[7]

Film career[link]

Early screen work[link]

Ellen DeGeneres at the Emmy Awards, 1997

Television and film work in the late 1980s and early 1990s included roles on television in Open House and in the film Coneheads. In 1992, producers Neal Marlens and Carol Black cast DeGeneres in their sitcom Laurie Hill, in the role of Nurse Nancy MacIntyre. The series was canceled after only four episodes, but Marlens and Black were so impressed with DeGeneres' performance that they soon cast her in their next ABC pilot, These Friends of Mine, which they co-created with David S. Rosenthal.

[edit] Ellen's Energy Adventure

DeGeneres starred in a series of films for a show named Ellen's Energy Adventure, which is part of the Universe of Energy attraction and pavilion at Walt Disney World's Epcot. The film also featured Bill Nye, Alex Trebek, Michael Richards, and Jamie Lee Curtis. The show revolved around DeGeneres's falling asleep and finding herself in an energy-themed version of Jeopardy!, playing against an old rival, portrayed by Curtis, and Albert Einstein. The next film had DeGeneres hosting an educational look at energy, co-hosted with Nye. The ride first opened on September 15, 1996, as Ellen's Energy Crisis, but was quickly renamed to the more positive-sounding Ellen's Energy Adventure.

Television career[link]

[edit] Ellen (1994–1998)

At the Governor's Ball after the 46th Annual Emmy Awards telecast, Sept. 1994

DeGeneres's comedy material became the basis of the successful 1994–1998 sitcom Ellen, named These Friends of Mine during its first season. The ABC show was popular in its first few seasons due in part to DeGeneres's style of observational humor; it was often referred to as a "female Seinfeld."[8]

Ellen reached its height of popularity in February 1997, when DeGeneres made her homosexuality public on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Subsequently her character on the sitcom came out of the closet in April to her therapist, played by Oprah Winfrey, revealing that she is gay.[9] The coming-out episode, titled "The Puppy Episode", was one of the highest-rated episodes of the show. Later episodes of the series did not match its popularity, and after declining ratings, the show was canceled. DeGeneres returned to the stand-up comedy circuit, and later re-established herself as a successful talk show host.

[edit] The Ellen Show

DeGeneres returned to series television in 2001 with a new CBS sitcom, The Ellen Show.

[edit] The Ellen DeGeneres Show

DeGeneres launched a daytime television talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show in September 2003. Amid a crop of several celebrity-hosted talk shows surfacing at the beginning of that season, such as those of Sharon Osbourne and Rita Rudner, her show has consistently risen in the Nielsen ratings and received widespread critical praise. It was nominated for 11 Daytime Emmy Awards in its first season, winning four, including Best Talk Show. The show has won 25 Emmy Awards in its first three seasons on the air. DeGeneres is known for her dancing and singing with the audience at the beginning of the show and during commercial breaks. She often gives away free prizes and trips to her studio audience with the help of her sponsors.

DeGeneres celebrated her thirty-year class reunion by flying her graduating class to California to be guests on her show in February 2006. She presented Atlanta High School with a surprise gift of a new electronic LED marquee sign.

In May 2006, DeGeneres made a surprise appearance at the Tulane University commencement in New Orleans. Following George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton to the podium, she came out in a bathrobe and furry slippers. "They told me everyone would be wearing robes," she said. Ellen then went on to make another commencement speech at Tulane in 2009.[10]

The show broadcast for a week from Universal Studios Orlando in March 2007. Skits included DeGeneres going on the Hulk Roller Coaster Ride and the Jaws Boat Ride.

In May 2007, DeGeneres was placed on bed rest due to a torn ligament in her back. She continued hosting her show from a hospital bed, tended to by a nurse, explaining "the show must go on, as they say." Guests sat in hospital beds as well.

On May 1, 2009, DeGeneres celebrated her 1000th episode, featuring celebrity guests such as Oprah, Justin Timberlake, and Paris Hilton, among others.

[edit] American Idol

On September 9, 2009, it was confirmed that DeGeneres would replace Paula Abdul as a judge of the ninth season of American Idol. Her role started after the contestant auditions, at the beginning of "Hollywood Week".[11][12] It is reported that DeGeneres also signed a contract to be a judge on the show for at least five seasons.[13] She made her American Idol debut on February 9, 2010.

On July 29, 2010, DeGeneres and Fox executives announced that the comedienne would be departing from the series after one season. In a statement, DeGeneres said that the series "didn't feel like the right fit for me".[14]

Award shows[link]

2001 Emmy Awards[link]

DeGeneres received wide exposure on November 4, 2001, when she hosted the televised broadcast of the Emmy Awards. Presented after two cancellations due to network concerns that a lavish ceremony following the September 11, 2001 attacks would appear insensitive, the show required a more somber tone that would also allow viewers to temporarily forget the tragedy. DeGeneres received several standing ovations for her performance that evening, which included the line: "What would bug the Taliban more than seeing a gay woman in a suit surrounded by Jews?"

In August 2005, DeGeneres hosted the 2005 Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony held on September 18, 2005. This was three weeks after Hurricane Katrina, making it the second time she hosted the Emmys following a national tragedy. She also hosted the Grammy Awards in 1996 and in 1997.

Ellen DeGeneres in 2004

79th Academy Awards[link]

On September 7, 2006, DeGeneres was selected to host the 79th Academy Awards ceremony, which took place on February 25, 2007.[15] This makes her the first openly gay or lesbian person to have hosted the event. During the Awards show, DeGeneres said, "What a wonderful night, such diversity in the room, in a year when there's been so many negative things said about people's race, religion, and sexual orientation. And I want to put this out there: If there weren't blacks, Jews and gays, there would be no Oscars, or anyone named Oscar, when you think about that."[16] Reviews of her hosting gig were positive, with one saying, "DeGeneres rocked, as she never forgot that she wasn't just there to entertain the Oscar nominees but also to tickle the audience at home."[17] Regis Philbin said in an interview that "the only complaint was there's not enough Ellen."

DeGeneres was nominated for an Emmy Award as host of the Academy Awards broadcast.[18]

2007 Writers Guild strike[link]

DeGeneres, like many actors who are also writers, is a member of both the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA). Thus, although DeGeneres verbally supported the 2007 WGA strike, she did not support it when she crossed the picket line the day after the strike began.[19][20] Her representatives said she was competing with other first-run syndicated shows during the competitive November sweeps period, and that she could not break her contracts or risk her show's losing its time slot. As a show of solidarity with the strikers, DeGeneres omitted her monologue during the strike, typically written by WGA writers.[21] The WGA condemned her while the AFTRA defended her.[22][23][24][25]

Other ventures[link]

Ellen at Tulane University in 2009

Voice acting[link]

DeGeneres lent her voice to the role of Dory, a fish with short-term memory loss, in the summer 2003 hit animated Disney/Pixar film Finding Nemo. The film's director, Andrew Stanton, claimed that he chose Ellen because she "changed the subject five times before one sentence had finished" on her show.[26] For her performance as Dory, DeGeneres won the Saturn Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films for "Best Supporting Actress"; "Favorite Voice from an Animated Movie" from the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards; and the Annie Award from the International Animated Film Association for "Outstanding Voice Acting". She was also nominated for a Chicago Film Critics Association Award in the "Best Supporting Actress" category. She also provided the voice of the dog in the prologue of the Eddie Murphy feature film Dr. Dolittle. Her win of the Saturn Award marked the first and only time the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films has given the acting award for a voice performance.

Commercial spokeswoman[link]

In November 2004, DeGeneres appeared, dancing, in an ad campaign for American Express. Her most recent American Express commercial, a two-minute black-and-white spot in which she works with animals, debuted in November 2006 and was created by Ogilvy and Mather. In 2007, the commercial won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial.

DeGeneres began working with Cover Girl Cosmetics in September 2008, for which she has been criticized, as her animal-friendly values clash with Procter and Gamble's (the maker of Cover Girl Cosmetics) animal testing.[27] Her face is the focus of new Cover Girl advertisements starting in January 2009. The beauty campaign will be DeGeneres's first.[28]

On December 3, 2011, DeGeneres headlined the third annual “Change Begins Within” gala for the David Lynch Foundation held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.[29][30]

In Spring 2012, DeGeneres becomes the spokesperson for J.C. Penney in a tour and advertising campaign.[5]

Eleveneleven[link]

On May 26, 2010, Ellen announced on her show that she was starting her own record label entitled "eleveneleven". Ellen explained her choice of name, claiming that she often sees the number 11:11 when looking at her clocks, that she found Greyson on the 11th, and that the singer's soccer jersey has the number 11.[31] She mentioned that she had been looking for videos of performances on YouTube to start her label. The acts thus far signed to the label are Greyson Chance, Tom Andrews, and Jessica Simpson.[32]

Personal life[link]

DeGeneres with Anne Heche at the 1997 Emmy Awards.

DeGeneres was in a relationship (1997–2000) with actress Anne Heche.[33] From 2001 to 2004, DeGeneres and actress/director/photographer Alexandra Hedison were in a relationship. They appeared on the cover of The Advocate after their separation had already been announced to the media.[34]

Since 2004, DeGeneres has had a relationship with Portia de Rossi. After the overturn of the same-sex marriage ban in California, DeGeneres announced on a May 2008 show that she and de Rossi were engaged,[35][36] and gave de Rossi a three-carat pink diamond ring.[37] They were married on August 16, 2008, at their home, with nineteen guests including their mothers.[37] The passage of Proposition 8 cast doubt on the legal status of their marriage, but a subsequent California Supreme Court judgment validated it because it occurred before November 4, 2008.[38][39]

DeGeneres and de Rossi live in Beverly Hills, with three dogs and four cats,[40] and both are vegan.[41] DeGeneres served as campaign ambassador to Farm Sanctuary's Adopt-A-Turkey Project in 2010, asking people to start "a new tradition by adopting a turkey instead of eating one" at Thanksgiving.[42]

On August 6, 2010, de Rossi filed a petition to legally change her name to Portia Lee James DeGeneres[43] The petition was granted on September 23, 2010.[44]

In her book Love, Ellen, DeGeneres's mother Betty DeGeneres describes being initially shocked when her daughter came out as a lesbian, but has become one of her strongest supporters, an active member of Parents & Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign's Coming Out Project.

In 2007, Forbes estimated DeGeneres's net worth at US$65 million.[45]

She is a fan of the National Football League, and has shown particular support for the New Orleans Saints and the Green Bay Packers.[46] In 2011, she attended a Saints practice dressed as Packers Hall of Famer Don Hutson.[47]

Filmography[link]

Film[link]

Year Film Role Notes
1990 Arduous Moon Herself Short film
1991 Wisecracks Herself Documentary
1993 Coneheads Coach
1994 Trevor Herself Short film
1996 Ellen's Energy Adventure Herself Short film
Mr. Wrong Martha Alston
1998 Goodbye Lover Sgt. Rita Pompano
Dr. Dolittle Prologue Dog Voice
1999 EDtv Cynthia
The Love Letter Janet Hall
2003 Pauly Shore Is Dead Herself
Finding Nemo Dory Voice
Annie Award for Voice Acting in a Feature Production
Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Voice from an Animated Movie
Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance
2004 My Short Film Herself Short film

Television[link]

Year Film Role Notes
1988 Women of the Night Herself Comedy Special
1989 Open House Margo Van Mete Episode: "The Bad Seed"
Episode: "Let's Get Physicals"
1992 Laurie Hill Nancy MacIntyre Episode: "Pilot"
Episode: "The Heart Thing"
Episode: "Walter and Beverly"
1994–1998 Ellen Ellen Morgan 109 episodes
1995 Roseanne Dr. Whitman Episode: "The Blaming of the Shrew"
1998 Mad About You Nancy Bloom Episode: "The Finale"
2000 Ellen DeGeneres: The Beginning Herself Comedy special
If These Walls Could Talk 2 Kal Segment: "2000"
2001 On the Edge Operator Segment: "Reaching Normal"
2001 Will & Grace Sister Louise Episode: "My Uncle The Car"
2001 Saturday Night Live Host Episode: "Ellen Degeneres; No Doubt"
2001–2002 The Ellen Show Ellen Richmond 18 episodes
2003 Ellen DeGeneres: Here and Now Herself Comedy special
MADtv Herself Episode: "9.3"
2003–present The Ellen DeGeneres Show Herself TV show
2004 E! True Hollywood Story Herself
Six Feet Under Herself Episode: "Parallel Play"
2005 Joey Herself Episode: "Joey and the Sex Tape"
2007 Ellen's Really Big Show Herself
Sesame Street Herself Episode: "The Tutu Spell" (uncredited)
Forbes 20 Richest Women in Entertainment Herself
The Bachelorette Herself
2007–2008 American Idol Herself Episode: "Idol Gives Back 2007"
"Idol Gives Back 2008"
2008 Ellen's Even Bigger Really Big Show Herself Comedy special
2009 Ellen's Bigger, Longer & Wider Show Herself Comedy special
So You Think You Can Dance Guest Judge "Week 7 (July 22, 2009)"
2010 American Idol Judge Season 9
2010 The Simpsons Herself Episode: "Judge Me Tender"

Discography[link]

Year Album Notes
1996 Ellen Degeneres: Taste This Stand-up comedy Live CD

Awards and honors[link]

Daytime Emmy Awards
  • Outstanding Talk Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show – 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2011
  • Outstanding Talk Show Host, The Ellen DeGeneres Show – 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
  • Outstanding Special Class Writing, The Ellen DeGeneres Show – 2005, 2006, 2007
Emmy Awards
Mark Twain Prize for American Humor by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
People's Choice Awards
  • Favorite Funny Female Star – 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
  • Favorite Talk Show Host – 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
  • Favorite Yes I Chose This Star – 2008
Kids' Choice Awards
  • Favorite Voice from an Animated Movie – 2004
Tulane University President's Medal
Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards
  • 2000 Lucy Award, actor, If These Walls Could Talk 2, in recognition of her excellence and innovation in her creative works that have enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television.[50]

Bibliography[link]

  • DeGeneres, Ellen (1995). My Point...And I Do Have One. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-09955-8. 
  • DeGeneres, Ellen (2003). The Funny Thing Is.... New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-4761-2. 
  • DeGeneres, Ellen (2011). Seriously...I'm Kidding. New York: Grand Central Publishing. ISBN 0-446-58502-5. 

References[link]

  1. ^ a b c d e Ellen DeGeneres (April 26, 2002). The Comedy Couch. Interview with Guy MacPherson. Vancouver, B.C.. http://www.comedycouch.com/interviews/edegeneres.htm. 
  2. ^ Michaud, Chris (November 9, 2011). "Ellen DeGeneres named global envoy for AIDS awareness". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/09/us-ellendegeneres-idUSTRE7A85O520111109. 
  3. ^ "Ellen DeGeneres Biography (1958–)". Filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/film/61/Ellen-DeGeneres.html. Retrieved 2011-12-27. 
  4. ^ DeGeneres, Betty (2000). Love, Ellen: A Mother/Daughter Journey. HarperCollins Publishers. pp. 22, 27. ISBN 0-688-17688-7. 
  5. ^ a b D'Innocenzio, Anne (2012-02-02). "Penney hopes Ellen DeGeneres can boost its image". Asheville Citizen-Times. Associated Press. http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20120201/BUSINESS/302010084/Penney-hopes-Ellen-DeGeneres-can-boost-its-image. Retrieved 2012-02-03. 
  6. ^ "Ellen's Royal Relationship". YouTube. 2011-02-09. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5qWmXXU0RM. Retrieved 2011-12-27. 
  7. ^ a b "Ellen DeGeneres Bio". The Ellen DeGeneres Show. WarnerBros.com. http://ellen.warnerbros.com/about/bio.php. 
  8. ^ "GLBT History Month – Ellen DeGeneres". http://www.glbthistorymonth.com/glbthistorymonth/bio.cfm?LeaderID=3. Retrieved 2006-11-28. [dead link]
  9. ^ Caryn James (1997-04-13). "A Message That's Diminished by the Buildup". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9901E5DC173CF930A25757C0A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all. Retrieved 2008-03-14. 
  10. ^ "Ellen's Commencement Speech at Tulane, 2009". Youtube.com. 2010-04-28. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e8ToRVOtRo. Retrieved 2011-12-27. 
  11. ^ "Ellen DeGeneres Joins American Idol as Fourth Judge". Americanidol.com. 2009-09-09. http://www.americanidol.com/news/view/pid/1841. Retrieved 2011-12-27. 
  12. ^ "American Idol's Next Guest Judge Revealed". Tvwatch.people.com. 2009-08-27. http://tvwatch.people.com/2009/08/27/american-idols-next-guest-judge-revealed/. Retrieved 2011-12-27. 
  13. ^ "'American Idol': Ellen DeGeneres to replace Paula Abdul as judge". Latimesblogs.latimes.com. 2009-09-09. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2009/09/american-idol-ellen-degeneres-steps-in-as-new-judge-replacing-paula-abdul.html. Retrieved 2011-12-27. 
  14. ^ Collins, Scott (July 30, 2010). "Ellen DeGeneres is out as 'American Idol' judge". Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles Times). http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-ellen-degeneres-american-idol,0,28082.story. Retrieved July 30, 2010. 
  15. ^ "Ellen DeGeneres to Host 79th Academy Awards Presentation". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 2006-09-07. Archived from the original on 2006-09-29. http://web.archive.org/web/20060929132634/http://www.oscars.org/press/pressreleases/2006/06.09.07.html. Retrieved 2006-09-08. 
  16. ^ "Alan Arkin Wins Best Supporting Actor". NewsMax. Associated Press. 2007-02-26. http://newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/2/25/213026.shtml. Retrieved 2008-03-27. 
  17. ^ Susan Young (2007-02-26). "Ellen Probably Most Exciting Thing About 79th Oscars". InsideBayArea. Archived from the original on 2007-02-28. http://web.archive.org/web/20070228134329/http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_5306943. Retrieved 2008-03-29. 
  18. ^ Bob Sassone (2007-07-19). "The Emmys: More thoughts and theories". TV Squad. http://podcasts.tvsquad.com/2007/07/19/the-emmys-more-thoughts-and-theories. Retrieved 2008-05-19. 
  19. ^ Neal Justin (2007-11-16). "Television: Tears, strike aside, Ellen shows go on". Minneapolis St. Paul Star Tribune. http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/tv/11828236.html. Retrieved 2007-12-16. 
  20. ^ World Entertainment News Network (2007-11-09). "DeGeneres Under Fire for Crossing Picket Line". The San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail. Retrieved 2007-12-16. [dead link]
  21. ^ Seth Abramovitch (2007-11-09). "Ellen DeGeneres Speaks Only In Exotic Birdcalls As A Gesture Of Writer Solidarity". Defamer (Gawker Media). http://defamer.com/hollywood/hollywood-strikewatch/ellen-degeneres-speaks-only-in-exotic-birdcalls-as-a-gesture-of-writer-solidarity-321145.php. Retrieved 2007-12-02. 
  22. ^ "Union rebukes Ellen DeGeneres over writers strike". Reuters (reuters.com). 2007-11-10. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0938378920071110. Retrieved 22 July 2010. 
  23. ^ Finke, Nikki (2007-11-09). "WGAE States Ellen "Not Welcome In NY"". Deadline Hollywood Daily. http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/wga-east-says-ellen-not-welcome-in-ny/. Retrieved 2007-12-02. 
  24. ^ Finke, Nikki (2007-11-09). "URGENT! AFTRA Defends Ellen; Rep Says She "Has Done Nothing" To Violate WGA". Deadline Hollywood Daily. http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/advisory-i-have-ellens-response/. Retrieved 2007-12-02. 
  25. ^ Finke, Nikki (2007-11-10). "WGAE Replies To AFTRA About Ellen Mess". Deadline Hollywood Daily. http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/wgae-replies-to-aftra-about-ellen-degeneres. Retrieved 2007-12-02. 
  26. ^ Andrew Stanton states this on the Finding Nemo DVD running commentary.
  27. ^ Roh, Ruh (September 30, 2008). "Ellen DeGeneres Fights Animal Cruelty But Plugs CoverGirl?". Ecorazzi. http://www.ecorazzi.com/2008/09/30/ellen-degeneres-fights-animal-cruelty-but-plugs-covergirl/. 
  28. ^ Easy, breezy, beautiful Ellen: It's Official! Ellen Degeneres is now a Cover Girl! Cover Girl web site. Retrieved 16 September 2008.
  29. ^ Ellen DeGeneres & Russell Brand headline third annual “Change Begins Within” gala Featured Past Events section, DLF web site
  30. ^ Ministry of Gossip - Sightings Los Angeles Times,December 09, 2011
  31. ^ "Ellen Explains Her New eleveneleven Record Label". The Ellen Degeneres Show. WarnerBros.com. May 28, 2010. http://ellen.warnerbros.com/2010/05/ellen_explains_her_new_eleveneleven_record_label_0528.php. 
  32. ^ "Jessica Simpson Signs With ElevenEleven Record Company". luuux.com. November 13, 2010. http://www.luuux.com/entertainment/jessica-simpson-signs-eleveneleven-record-company. 
  33. ^ "Heche: My father sexually abused me". CNN Entertainment. September 5, 2001. http://archives.cnn.com/2001/SHOWBIZ/News/09/04/anne.heche/index.html. 
  34. ^ Lo, Malinda (2004-12-14). "Ellen and Alex Break Up". AfterEllen.com. http://www.afterellen.com/archive/ellen/People/122004/ellenbreakup.html. Retrieved 2008-06-15. 
  35. ^ Alonso Duralde (2008-05-17). "Ellen and Portia to Tie the Knot". The Advocate. http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid54487.asp. Retrieved 2008-05-19. [dead link]
  36. ^ Ellen DeGeneres (2008-05-19) (.SWF). DeGeneres, de Rossi Engaged (Video). Los Angeles: The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Event occurs at 00:00:00 to 00:01:15 (inclusive). http://www.tv.yahoo.com/the-ellen-degeneres-show/show/35584/videos/7848875. Retrieved 2008-05-19. [dead link]
  37. ^ a b Television presenter Ellen DeGeneres marries lesbian lover Portia de Rossi: TV presenter Ellen DeGeneres has tied the knot with lesbian lover Portia de Rossi by Anita Singh, 18 Aug 2008. UK Telegraph
  38. ^ "Election Night Results – CA Secretary of State". California Secretary of State. November 5, 2008. http://vote.sos.ca.gov/props/index.html. Retrieved 2008-11-05. [dead link]
  39. ^ Lisa Leff (2008-10-13). "Gay couples rush to wed ahead of Calif. election". Associated Press. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081013/ap_on_re_us/gay_marriage_wedding_rush/print. Retrieved 2008-11-01. [dead link]
  40. ^ Dhalwala, Shruti (2008-06-21). "Ellen Gives Portia Pink Diamonds for 'Dream Wedding'". People. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20208195,00.html. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 
  41. ^ Setoodeh, Ramin (September 6, 2008). "Ellen’s Big Gay Wedding". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/157556. 
  42. ^ "White House to pardon two turkeys, helping them find better lives this Thanksgiving". USA Today. November 18, 2010. http://yourlife.usatoday.com/mind-soul/doing-good/kindness/post/2010/11/turkeys-find-better-lives-this-thanksgiving-/131607/1. 
  43. ^ TMZ Staff. "Portia to Ellen: I Want to Be a DeGeneres!". TMZ. http://www.tmz.com/2010/08/09/ellen-degeneres-portia-de-rossi-name-change-petition-married-gay-marriage/. Retrieved 11 August 2010. 
  44. ^ "Portia de Rossi takes wife Ellen Degeneres's name". http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100923/ap_en_tv/us_people_portia_de_rossi. [dead link]
  45. ^ Lea Goldman and Kiri Blakeley (2007-01-18). "20 Richest Women in Entertainment". Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/2007/01/17/richest-women-entertainment-tech-media-cz_lg_richwomen07_0118womenstars_lander.html. Retrieved 2008-05-19. 
  46. ^ "Go Green Bay!". The Ellen DeGeneres Show. http://ellen.warnerbros.com/2011/02/go_green_bay_0206.php. Retrieved 2011-09-08. 
  47. ^ "DeGeneres joins Saints at practice". National Football League. http://blogs.nfl.com/2011/08/26/degeneres-joins-saints-practice/. Retrieved 2011-09-08. 
  48. ^ Trescott, Jacqueline, "Ellen DeGeneres named Mark Twain Prize recipient", Washington Post (May 15, 2012)
  49. ^ "Ellen DeGeneres to Headline 'Katrina Class' Commencement". http://www.tulane.edu/news/newwave/021809_ellen.cfm. [dead link]
  50. ^ "Past Recipients - Crystal Award". Women in Film. http://wif.org/past-recipients. 

External links[link]

Preceded by
Garry Shandling
56th Awards
Primetime Emmys host
57th Awards
Succeeded by
Conan O'Brien
58th Awards

http://wn.com/Ellen_DeGeneres

Related pages:

http://it.wn.com/Ellen DeGeneres

http://cs.wn.com/Ellen DeGeneresová

http://id.wn.com/Ellen DeGeneres

http://es.wn.com/Ellen DeGeneres

http://ru.wn.com/Дедженерес, Эллен

http://nl.wn.com/Ellen DeGeneres

http://pl.wn.com/Ellen DeGeneres

http://fr.wn.com/Ellen DeGeneres

http://de.wn.com/Ellen DeGeneres

http://pt.wn.com/Ellen DeGeneres




This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_DeGeneres

This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.


Jimmy Kimmel

Kimmel in May 2007
Birth name James Christian Kimmel
Born (1967-11-13) November 13, 1967 (age 44)
Brooklyn, New York, USA
Medium Radio, Television, Film, Stand up
Nationality American
Years active 1989–present
Genres Observational comedy, Black comedy, Satire, Deadpan
Subject(s) American politics, Celebrities, Everyday life, Sex
Influences David Letterman
Spouse Gina Kimmel (1988–2002; divorced; 2 children)
Domestic partner(s) Sarah Silverman (2002–2007; 2008–2009)
Molly McNearney (2009–present)
Notable works and roles Creator and Host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! (ABC)
Creator and Co-Host of The Man Show
co-host of Win Ben Stein's Money (Comedy Central)
co-host of Crank Yankers
Emmy Awards
Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show Host: 1999 Win Ben Stein's Money

James Christian "Jimmy" Kimmel (born November 13, 1967) is an American comedian, actor, voice artist and television host. He is the host of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, a late-night talk show that airs on ABC. Prior to that, Kimmel was best known as the co-host of Comedy Central's The Man Show and Win Ben Stein's Money. Kimmel is also a television producer, having produced shows such as Crank Yankers, Sports Show with Norm Macdonald, and The Andy Milonakis Show.

Contents

Early life[link]

Kimmel was born in the Mill Basin neighborhood of the New York City borough of Brooklyn,[1] the eldest of three children of Joann (née Iacono), a homemaker, and James Kimmel, an IBM executive.[2][3][4] He is Roman Catholic and, as a child, served as an altar boy.[5][6] Kimmel is of German and Irish descent on his father’s side and Italian descent on his mother’s side.[7] His uncle, Frank Potenza, appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! as a regular from 2003 until his death in 2011.[8]

The family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, when he was nine years old.[2] He graduated from Ed W. Clark High School and then attended University of Nevada, Las Vegas for one year before attending Arizona State University for two years without completing a degree.

Career[link]

Radio career[link]

Kimmel began working in the radio industry while in high school, hosting a Sunday night interview show on UNLV's college station KUNV. While attending Arizona State University, he became a popular caller to the KZZP-FM afternoon show hosted by radio personalities Mike Elliott and Kent Voss in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1989, Kimmel landed his first paying job alongside Voss as morning drive co-host of The Me and Him Show at KZOK-FM in Seattle, Washington. Ten months later, Kimmel and Voss were fired by KZOK (for reasons unknown) and were fired again a year later at WRBQ-FM in Tampa, Florida. Kimmel went from Tampa to host his own show at KCMJ in Palm Springs, California, where Kimmel convinced a young Carson Daly to drop out of college and become his intern. After a morning stint at KRQQ In Tucson, Arizona, Kimmel landed at KROQ-FM in Los Angeles. He spent five years as "Jimmy The Sports Guy" for the Kevin and Bean morning show. During this time he met and befriended a struggling comedian named Adam Carolla.[citation needed]

Comedy Central[link]

Kimmel began his television career as the comedic counterpart to Ben Stein on the game show Win Ben Stein's Money, which began airing on Comedy Central in 1997. His quick wit and loutish everyman personality were counterpoints to Stein's monotone performing style and patrician demeanor. The combination earned the pair an Emmy award for Best Game Show Host.[citation needed]

In 1999, during his time with Win Ben Stein's Money, Kimmel was also co-host with Adam Carolla and co-creator (with Daniel Kellison) of Comedy Central's The Man Show. Kimmel permanently left Win Ben Stein's Money in 2001, replaced by comedian Nancy Pimental, who was eventually replaced by Kimmel's cousin Sal Iacono. The Man Show's success allowed Kimmel, Carolla and Kellison to create and produce, under the banner Jackhole Industries, Crank Yankers for Comedy Central (on which Kimmel plays the characters "Elmer Higgins", "Terrence Catheter", "The Nudge", "Karl Malone" and himself), and later The Andy Milonakis Show for MTV2. Kimmel also produced and co-wrote the feature film Windy City Heat, which won the Comedia Award for Best Film at the Montreal Comedy Festival.[citation needed]

[edit] Jimmy Kimmel Live!

In January 2003, Kimmel permanently left The Man Show to host his own late-night talk show, Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC. Jimmy Kimmel Live was briefly also broadcast on Irish digital TV channel 3e.[9] In the April 2007 issue of Stuffmagazine.com, Kimmel was named the "biggest badass on TV". Kimmel said it was an honor but clearly a mistake.

Since the show's second season, it has not actually been broadcast live. This is due to an incident during the 2004 NBA Finals in Detroit, when Kimmel appeared on ABC's halftime show to make an on-air plug for his show. He suggested that if the Detroit Pistons defeated the Los Angeles Lakers, "they're gonna burn the city of Detroit down ... and it's not worth it." Officials with Detroit's ABC affiliate, WXYZ-TV, immediately announced that night's show would not air on the station. Hours later, ABC officials pulled that night's show from the entire network. Kimmel later apologized.[10] The incident led ABC officials to force Kimmel to tape his show an hour before it airs in most of the country to check for offending content.[11]

Kimmel usually ends his show with, "My apologies to Matt Damon, we ran out of time." When Matt Damon did actually appear on the show to be interviewed, he walked in and sat down only to be told just a few seconds later by Kimmel, "Sorry, but once again we are completely out of time." Damon seemed to become angry.[citation needed]

In February 2008 Kimmel showed a mock music video with a panoply of stars called, "I'm Fucking Ben Affleck",[12] as "revenge" after his then-girlfriend Sarah Silverman and Matt Damon recorded a similar video, "I'm Fucking Matt Damon". Silverman's video originally aired on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and became an "instant YouTube sensation."[13] Kimmel's "revenge" video featured himself, Ben Affleck, and a large lineup of stars, particularly in scenes spoofing the 1985 "We Are the World" video: Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, Cameron Diaz, Robin Williams, Harrison Ford, Dominic Monaghan, Benji Madden and Joel Madden from Good Charlotte, Lance Bass, Macy Gray, Josh Groban, Huey Lewis, Perry Farrell, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Pete Wentz, Meat Loaf, Rebecca Romijn, Christina Applegate, Dom Joly, Mike Shinoda, Lauren Conrad, and Joan Jett, among others. After this Jimmy's sidekick, Guillermo, appeared in a spoof of The Bourne Ultimatum, which starred Damon. He was then chased down by Damon as Matt cursed about Kimmel being behind all this. Guillermo also stopped Damon on the red carpet one time and before he could finish the interview he said, "Sorry we are out of time." The most recent encounter was titled "The Handsome Men's Club" which featured Kimmel, along with the "Handsome Men", who were: Matthew McConaughey, Rob Lowe, Lenny Kravitz, Patrick Dempsey, Sting, Keith Urban, John Krasinski, Ethan Hawke, Josh Hartnett, Tony Romo, Ted Danson, Taye Diggs, Gilles Marini, and Ben Affleck, speaking about being handsome and all the jobs that come with it. At the end of the skit Kimmel has a door slammed in his face by none other than Matt Damon, stating that they had run out of time and then Damon continues with a sinister laugh. Jennifer Garner also makes a surprise appearance.

As a tradition, celebrities voted off Dancing with the Stars appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, causing Kimmel to describe himself as "the three-headed dog the stars must pass on their way to No-Dancing Hell".[14] In the 2008 season of his show, Kimmel started another tradition of ceremonially burning the dancers' shoes after they were voted off DWTS.[citation needed]

Other television work[link]

In Spring 1996, Kimmel appeared as "Jimmy the Fox Guy" in promos on the Fox network.

Kimmel's other television work included being the on-air football prognosticator for Fox NFL Sunday for four years. He has had numerous appearances on other talk shows including, but not limited to, Live with Regis and Kelly, The Howard Stern Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and The Late Show with David Letterman. Kimmel has appeared on The Late Show five times, most recently in 2010. Kimmel served as roastmaster for the New York Friars' Club Roast of Hugh Hefner and Comedy Central Roasts of Pamela Anderson. He has appeared on ABC's Dancing with the Stars, along with his parking lot security guard Guillermo.

In August 2006, ABC announced that Jimmy Kimmel would be the host of their new game show Set for Life.[15] The show debuted on July 20, 2007. On April 6, 2007, Kimmel filled in for Larry King on Larry King Live. That particular show was about the paparazzi and Kimmel reproached Emily Gould, an editor from Gawker.com, about the web site's alleged stalking of celebrities. On July 8, 2007, Kimmel managed the National League in the 2007 Taco Bell All-Star Legends and Celebrity Softball Game in San Francisco. He played in the game in 2004 and 2006 (Houston and Pittsburgh). On July 11, 2007, Kimmel along with basketball player LeBron James, hosted the 2007 ESPY Awards. The show aired on ESPN on July 15, 2007. Kimmel hosted the American Music Awards on ABC four times, in 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2008.

Kimmel guest hosted Live with Regis and Kelly during the week of October 22, 2007 – October 26, 2007, commuting every day between New York and Los Angeles. In the process, he broke the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest distance (22,406 miles (36,059 km)) travelled in one work week.[16]

Kimmel has performed in several animated films, often voicing dogs. His voice appeared in Garfield and Road Trip, and he portrayed Death's Dog in the Family Guy episode "Mr. Saturday Knight"; Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane later presented Kimmel with a figurine of his character on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. Kimmel also did voice work for Robot Chicken. Kimmel's cousin "Sal" (Sal Iacono) has accepted and won a wrestling match with WWE superstar Santino Marella. On January 14, 2010, in the midst of the 2010 Tonight Show host and time slot conflict, Kimmel was the special guest of Jay Leno on The Jay Leno Show's "10 at 10" segment. Kimmel derided Leno in front of a live studio audience for taking back the 11:35 pm time slot from Conan O'Brien, and repeatedly insulted Leno. He ended the segment with a plea that Leno "leave our shows alone," as Kimmel and O'Brien had "kids" while Leno only had "cars".[17]

Kimmel also made a brief appearance in the TV commercial "There's A Soldier In All Of Us" promoting the 2010 video game Call of Duty: Black Ops, along with Kobe Bryant. He is seen taking cover from bullets, then firing an RPG-7 with the words PROUD N00b on it, with the aftershock from the weapon sending him tumbling backwards.

He has been asked to host the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards which will air on September 23, 2012, marking his first time hosting the event.[18]

Kimmel hosted the White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington, D.C. on April 28, 2012.

Personal life[link]

Kimmel and his then girlfriend, Gina, married in June 1988. They have two children, Katie (born 1991) and Kevin (born 1993). The marriage ended in separation in early 2002. Kimmel then dated comedian Sarah Silverman for five years, splitting with her in March 2009.[19] He started dating current girlfriend, Molly McNearney, in October 2009. McNearney is also a co-head writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live.[20]

Kimmel plays the bass clarinet. He got a chance to showcase his talent during a July 20, 2008, concert in Costa Mesa, California, featuring the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, when he took the stage and played bass clarinet on their hit song "The Impression That I Get."[21]

Kimmel has spoken publicly of being a narcoleptic.[22]

Kimmel co-founded the annual LA Feast of San Gennaro,[23] which celebrates Italian culture through entertainment, music and cuisine. The festival also honors outstanding members of the Los Angeles community and raises funds to aid needy children and families in the city. He hosted Los Angeles' eighth annual feast of San Gennaro from September 28 to 30, 2009.[24] Kimmel served as Master of Ceremonies for the National Italian American Foundation's 34th Anniversary Gala in Washington, D.C., on October 24, 2009.

Awards[link]

Awards and achievements
Preceded by
Pat Sajak
Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show Host
1999
with Ben Stein
Succeeded by
Bob Barker and Tom Bergeron

References[link]

  1. ^ "Interview with Chris Rock". Jimmy Kimmel Live. June 24, 2010. ABC. 
  2. ^ a b Lipton, Michael A. (March 17, 2003). "Kimmel Vision – Jimmy Kimmel Live, Jimmy Kimmel". People. http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20139546,00.html. Retrieved July 19, 2010. 
  3. ^ Rhodes, Joe (October 21, 2007). "Distilling the Fun From Dysfunctional". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/arts/television/21rhod.html. Retrieved May 6, 2010. 
  4. ^ "Interview with Matthew Fox". Jimmy Kimmel Live. July 29, 2010. ABC. 
  5. ^ Nielsen (July 15, 2008). "Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman end 5-year romance". Reuters. http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN1447436020080715. Retrieved May 20, 2010. 
  6. ^ "Jimmy Kimmel Biography". Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/jimmy-kimmel/contributor/585360/bio. Retrieved May 20, 2010. "Jimmy Kimmel, was born on Nov. 13, 1967, in Brooklyn, NY to devoutly Catholic parents who made sure that Kimmel served as an altar boy,..." 
  7. ^ "Catherine Bell on Jimmy Kimmel". YouTube. September 9, 2007. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I5Y_lO4M8Q&feature=related. Retrieved July 19, 2010. 
  8. ^ Carter, Bill (August 26, 2011). "Frank Potenza, Foil for Kimmel, Is Dead at 77". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/26/arts/television/frank-potenza-foil-for-nephew-jimmy-kimmel-dies-at-77.html. Retrieved September 1, 2011. 
  9. ^ "Who's News". USAWeekend.com. http://www.usaweekend.com/06_issues/061217/061217whosnews.html. Retrieved September 1, 2007. [dead link]
  10. ^ Susman, Gary (June 11, 2004). "The Ban Show". Entertainment Weekly. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,650146,00.html. Retrieved January 2, 2009. 
  11. ^ Kaplan, Don (June 11, 2004). "ABC Yanks 'Kimmel' Over Detroit Joke". New York Post. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,122433,00.html. Retrieved January 2, 2009. 
  12. ^ Silverman, Stephen M. (February 25, 2008). "So Long, Sarah! Jimmy Kimmel Is, Well, 'Dating' Ben Affleck". People. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20180150,00.html. Retrieved February 25, 2008. 
  13. ^ Jordan, Julie (February 2, 2008). "Behind Matt Damon's Raunchy Payback to Jimmy Kimmel". People. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20175789,00.html. Retrieved February 25, 2008. 
  14. ^ "Jimmy Kimmel with DWTS Adam & Julianne Part 1". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d-0NqLZJl8. Retrieved July 19, 2010. 
  15. ^ "Jimmy Kimmel Named Host For ABC's Newst Game Show, "Set For Life", From Endemol USA". Thefutoncritic.com. September 26, 2006. http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news.aspx?id=20060822abc02. Retrieved July 19, 2010. 
  16. ^ "Inner Tube: Jimmy Kimmel goes distance, sets World Record". New York Daily News. October 29, 2007. http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2007/10/29/2007-10-29_inner_tube_jimmy_kimmel_goes_distance_se.html. Retrieved June 4, 2010. 
  17. ^ "kimmel > leno. again.". What Would Tyler Durden Do?. January 15, 2010. http://www.wwtdd.com/2010/01/jimmy-kimmel-annihilated-jay-leno. Retrieved January 2, 2011. 
  18. ^ "Jimmy Kimmel to host Emmys for the first time". Los Angeles Times. March 26, 2012. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2012/03/jimmy-kimmel-to-host-emmys-for-the-first-time.html. Retrieved March 26, 2012. 
  19. ^ Tan, Michelle (March 7, 2009). "Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel Call It Quits – Again". http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20263895,00.html. Retrieved March 20, 2009. 
  20. ^ Ingrassia, Lisa (October 10, 2009). "Move Over, Ben Affleck! Jimmy Kimmel's Got a New Squeeze – Couples, Jimmy Kimmel". People. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20311576,00.html. Retrieved July 19, 2010. 
  21. ^ Wener, Ben. "Dropkick Murphys, Mighty Mighty Bosstones win one for Boston at Pacific". Ocregister.com. http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_2099524.php. Retrieved July 19, 2010. 
  22. ^ Carter, Bill (November 3, 2003). "In The Land Of The Insomniac The Narcoleptic Wants To Be King". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/03/magazine/in-the-land-of-the-insomniac-the-narcoleptic-wants-to-be-king.html. Retrieved December 11, 2009. 
  23. ^ "Italian Fest of San Gennaro Los Angeles". http://www.feastofla.org/about_us.html. 
  24. ^ "Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Corolla Host the 6th Annual Precious Cheese Feast of San Gennaro". Lastheplace.com. September 21, 2007. http://lastheplace.com/2007/09/21/jimmy-kimmel-and-adam-corolla-host-the-6th-annual-precious-cheese-feast-of-san-gennaro. Retrieved July 19, 2010. 

External links[link]

http://wn.com/Jimmy_Kimmel

Related pages:

http://ru.wn.com/Киммел, Джимми

http://fr.wn.com/Jimmy Kimmel

http://pt.wn.com/Jimmy Kimmel

http://de.wn.com/Jimmy Kimmel

http://it.wn.com/Jimmy Kimmel

http://id.wn.com/Jimmy Kimmel

http://pl.wn.com/Jimmy Kimmel




This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Kimmel

This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.


Fred Rogers
250px
with the miniature set for Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood
Born Fred McFeely Rogers
(1928-03-20)March 20, 1928
Latrobe, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died February 27, 2003(2003-02-27) (aged 74)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Cause of death Stomach cancer
Other names Mister Rogers
Mr. Rogers
Occupation Educator, minister, songwriter, television host
Years active 1951–2002
Religion Presbyterian Church
(ordained in 1963)
Spouse Sara Joanne Byrd (1952–2003)

Fred McFeely Rogers (March 20, 1928 – February 27, 2003) was an American educator, Presbyterian minister, songwriter, author, and television host. Rogers was most famous for creating and hosting Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1968–2001), which featured his gentle, soft-spoken personality and directness to his audiences.[1]

Initially educated to be a minister, Rogers was displeased with the way television addressed children and made an effort to change this when he began to write for and perform on local Pittsburgh-area shows dedicated to youth. The Public Broadcasting Service developed his own nationally-aired show in 1968 and, over the course of three decades on television, he became an indelible American icon of children's entertainment and education, as well as a symbol of compassion, patience, and morality.[2] He was also known for his advocacy of various public causes. His testimony before a lower court in favor of time shifting was cited in a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Betamax case, and he gave now-famous testimony to a U.S. Senate committee, advocating government funding for children's television.[3]

Rogers was honored extensively for his life work in children's education. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor; a Peabody Award for his career; and was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. Two resolutions recognizing his work were unanimously passed by U.S. Congress, one of his trademark sweaters was acquired and is on display at the Smithsonian Institution, and several buildings and works of art in Pennsylvania are dedicated to his memory.

In 1996, Mister Fred Rogers was ranked #35 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.[4]

Contents

Personal life[link]

Fred McFeely Rogers was born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, 40 miles (65 km) southeast of Pittsburgh, to James and Nancy Rogers; he had one sister, Elaine Rogers Crozier.[5] Early in life he spent much of his free time with his maternal grandfather, Fred McFeely, who had an interest in music. He would often sing along as his mother would play the piano and himself began playing at five.[6]

Rogers graduated from Latrobe High School (1946),[7] He studied at Dartmouth College (1946–48),[8] then transferred to Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, where he earned a B.A. in Music Composition in 1951.[9]

At Rollins he met Sara Joanne Byrd, an Oakland, Florida native; they married on June 9, 1952.[10] They had two sons, James (b. 1959) and John (b. 1961).[11] In 1963 Rogers graduated from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and was ordained a minister in the Presbyterian Church.

During the course of his career, he garnered forty honorary degrees.[6] Rogers was red-green color blind,[12] swam every morning, was a vegetarian, and neither smoked nor drank.[13]

Rogers had an apartment in New York City and a summer home on Nantucket island in Massachusetts.[11][14]

Television career[link]

Early work[link]

Fred Rogers on set in the late 1960s

Fred Rogers had a life-changing moment when he first saw television in his parents' home. He entered seminary after college; but, after his first experience as a viewer, he wanted to explore the potential of the medium.[14] In an interview with CNN in his later years, Rogers stated, "I went into television because I hated it so, and I thought there was some way of using this fabulous instrument to be of nurture to those who would watch and listen."[13]

He thus applied for a job at NBC in New York City in 1951 and was hired because of his Music degree. Rogers spent three years working on the production staffs for such music-centered programming as NBC Opera Theater. He also worked on Gabby Hayes' show for children. Ultimately, Rogers decided that commercial television's reliance on advertisement and merchandising undermined its ability to educate or enrich young audiences, so he quit NBC.

In 1954, he began working at WQED, a Pittsburgh public television station, as a puppeteer on a local children's show The Children's Corner. For the next seven years, he worked with host Josie Carey in unscripted live TV, developing many of the puppets, characters, and music used in his later work, such as King Friday XIII, and Curious X the Owl.

Rogers began wearing his famous sneakers when he found them to be quieter than his work shoes as he moved about behind the set. He was also the voices of King Friday XIII and Queen Sara Saturday (named after his wife), rulers of the neighborhood, as well as X the Owl, Henrietta Pussycat, Daniel Striped Tiger, Lady Elaine Fairchild, and Larry Horse. The show won a Sylvania Award[15] for best children's show, and was briefly broadcast nationally on NBC.

During these eight years, he would leave the WQED studios during his lunch breaks to study theology at the nearby Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Rogers, however, was not interested in preaching; and, after his ordination, he was specifically charged to continue his work with Children's Television. He had also done work at the University of Pittsburgh's program in Child Development and Child Care.

In 1963, Rogers moved to Toronto, where he was contracted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) to develop a 15-minute children's television program: Misterogers, [sic][16] which would be his debut in front of the camera. The show was a hit with children but lasted for only three seasons. Many of his famous set pieces—Trolley, Eiffel Tower, the 'tree', and 'castle'—were created by CBC designers. While in Canada, Rogers brought his friend and understudy Ernie Coombs, who would go on to create Mr. Dressup, a very successful and long-running children's show in Canada, and similar in many ways to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Mr. Dressup also used some of the songs that would be featured on Rogers' later program.

In 1966, Rogers acquired the rights to his program from the CBC and moved the show to WQED in Pittsburgh, where he had worked on The Children's Corner. He developed the new show for the Eastern Educational Network. Stations that carried the program were limited but did include educational stations in Boston, Washington, D.C., and New York City.

After returning to Pittsburgh, Rogers attended and participated in activities at the Sixth Presbyterian church in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, a More Light congregation which he attended until his death.[17]

Distribution of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood began on February 19, 1968. The following year, the show moved to PBS (Public Broadcasting Service). In 1971, Rogers formed Family Communications, Inc. (FCI), and the company established offices in the WQED building in Pittsburgh. Initially, the company served solely as the production arm of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, but now develops and produces an array of children's programming and educational materials.

[edit] Mister Rogers' Neighborhood

A sweater worn by Rogers, on display in the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of American History.

Mister Rogers' Neighborhood began airing in 1968 and ran for 895 episodes; the last set of new episodes was taped in December 2000 and began airing in August 2001. At its peak, in 1985, 8% of U.S households tuned in to the show.[6]

  • Each episode began the same way: Mister Rogers is seen coming home, singing his theme song "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", and changing into sneakers and a zippered cardigan sweater.
  • In a typical episode, Rogers might have an earnest conversation with his television audience, interact with live guests, take a field trip to such places as a bakery or a music store, or watch a short film.
  • Typical video subjects included demonstrations of how such inanimate objects as bulldozers and crayons work or are manufactured.
  • Each episode included a trip to Rogers' "Neighborhood of Make-Believe" featuring a trolley with its own chiming theme song, a castle, and the kingdom's citizens, including King Friday XIII. The subjects discussed in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe often allowed further development of themes discussed in Mister Rogers' "real" neighborhood.
  • Mister Rogers often fed his fish during episodes. They were originally named Fennel and Frieda.
  • Typically, each week's episode explored a major theme, such as going to school for the first time.
  • Originally, most episodes ended with a song entitled "Tomorrow", and Friday episodes looked forward to the week ahead with an adapted version of "It's Such a Good Feeling." In later seasons, all episodes ended with "Feeling."

Visually, the presentation of the show was very simple, and it did not feature the animation or fast pace of other children's shows, which Rogers thought of as "bombardment".[3] Rogers also believed in not acting out a different persona on camera compared to how he acted off camera, stating that "One of the greatest gifts you can give anybody is the gift of your honest self. I also believe that kids can spot a phony a mile away."[18] Rogers composed almost all of the music on the program.[note 1] He wanted to teach children to love themselves and others, and he addressed common childhood fears with comforting songs and skits. For example, one of his famous songs explains how a child cannot be pulled down the bathtub drain because he or she will not fit. He even once took a trip to the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh to show children that a hospital is not a place to fear. During the Gulf War (1990–91), he assured his audience that all children in the neighborhood would be well cared for and asked parents to promise to take care of their own children. The message was aired again by PBS during the media storm that preceded the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Other television work[link]

In 1994, Rogers created another one-time special for PBS called Fred Rogers' Heroes which consisted of documentary portraits of four real-life people whose work helped make their communities better. Rogers, uncharacteristically dressed in a suit and tie, hosted in wraparound segments which did not use the "Neighborhood" set.

For a time Rogers produced specials for parents as a precursor to the subject of the week on the Neighborhood called "Mister Rogers Talks To Parents About [topic]". Rogers didn't host those specials though as other people like Joan Lunden, who hosted the Conflict special, and other news announcers played MC duties in front of a gallery of parents while Rogers answered questions from them. These specials were made to prep the parents for any questions the children might ask after watching the episodes on that topic of the week.

The only time Rogers appeared on television as someone other than himself was in 1996, when he played a preacher on one episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.[6]

In the mid-1980s, the Burger King fast-food chain lampooned Rogers' image with an actor called "Mr. Rodney", imitating Rogers' television character.[19] Rogers found the character's pitching fast food as confusing to children, and called a press conference in which he stated that he did not endorse the company's use of his character or likeness (Rogers did no commercial endorsements of any kind throughout his career, though he acted as a pitchman for several non-profit organizations dedicated to learning over the years). The chain publicly apologized for the faux pas, and pulled the ads.[20] By contrast, Fred Rogers found Eddie Murphy's parody of his show on Saturday Night Live, "Mister Robinson's Neighborhood," amusing and affectionate, which was also initially broadcast at a time of night when his own child audience was not likely to see it.[21]

Emmys for programming[link]

Mister Rogers' Neighborhood won four Emmy awards, and Rogers received one for lifetime achievement.

During the 1997 Daytime Emmys, the Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Rogers. The following is an excerpt from Esquire's coverage of the gala, written by Tom Junod:

Mister Rogers went onstage to accept the award — and there, in front of all the soap opera stars and talk show sinceratrons, in front of all the jutting man-tanned jaws and jutting saltwater bosoms, he made his small bow and said into the microphone, "All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are. Ten seconds of silence."

And then he lifted his wrist, looked at the audience, looked at his watch, and said, "I'll watch the time." There was, at first, a small whoop from the crowd, a giddy, strangled hiccup of laughter, as people realized that he wasn't kidding, that Mister Rogers was not some convenient eunuch, but rather a man, an authority figure who actually expected them to do what he asked. And so they did. One second, two seconds, three seconds — and now the jaws clenched, and the bosoms heaved, and the mascara ran, and the tears fell upon the beglittered gathering like rain leaking down a crystal chandelier. And Mister Rogers finally looked up from his watch and said softly "May God be with you," to all his vanquished children.[14][22]

Other works[link]

Rogers wrote many of the songs that were used on his television program, and more than 36 books including:

  • Eight New Experiences titles:
    • Moving
    • Going to the Doctor
    • Going to the Hospital
    • Going to Day Care
    • Going to the Potty
    • Making Friends
    • The New Baby
    • When a Pet Dies (1998)
  • The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember (2003)

Advocacy[link]

Rogers meeting with President George W. Bush in 2002.

PBS funding[link]

In 1969, Rogers appeared before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Communications. His goal was to support funding for PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, in response to significant proposed cuts. In about six minutes of testimony, Rogers spoke of the need for social and emotional education that public television provided. He passionately argued that alternative television programming like his Neighborhood helped encourage children to become happy and productive citizens, sometimes opposing less positive messages in media and in popular culture. He even recited the lyrics to one of his songs.

The chairman of the subcommittee, John O. Pastore, was not previously familiar with Rogers' work, and was sometimes described as impatient. However, he reported that the testimony had given him goosebumps, and declared, "I think it's wonderful. Looks like you just earned the $20 million." The subsequent congressional appropriation, for 1971, increased PBS funding from $9 million to $22 million.[23]

VCR[link]

During the controversy surrounding the introduction of the household VCR, Rogers was involved in supporting the manufacturers of VCRs in court. His 1979 testimony in the case Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. noted that he did not object to home recording of his television programs, for instance, by families in order to watch together at a later time. This testimony contrasted with the views of others in the television industry who objected to home recording or believed that devices to facilitate it should be taxed or regulated.

The Supreme Court considered the testimony of Rogers in its decision that held that the Betamax video recorder did not infringe copyright. The Court stated that his views were a notable piece of evidence "that many [television] producers are willing to allow private time-shifting to continue" and even quoted his testimony in a footnote:

Some public stations, as well as commercial stations, program the "Neighborhood" at hours when some children cannot use it ... I have always felt that with the advent of all of this new technology that allows people to tape the "Neighborhood" off-the-air, and I'm speaking for the "Neighborhood" because that's what I produce, that they then become much more active in the programming of their family's television life. Very frankly, I am opposed to people being programmed by others. My whole approach in broadcasting has always been "You are an important person just the way you are. You can make healthy decisions." Maybe I'm going on too long, but I just feel that anything that allows a person to be more active in the control of his or her life, in a healthy way, is important.[24]

Death, awards, and memorials[link]

File:FredRogersStatueinPittsburghPA.jpg
The Fred Rogers Memorial Statue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Created by Robert Berks, and opened to the public on November 5, 2009.

Rogers was diagnosed with stomach cancer in December 2002, not long after his retirement. He underwent surgery on January 6, 2003, which was unsuccessful.[5][25] A week earlier, he served as grand marshal of the Tournament of Roses Parade, with Art Linkletter and Bill Cosby.[26]

Rogers died on the morning of February 27, 2003 at his home with his wife by his side, less than a month before he would have turned 75.[5] His death was such a significant event in Pittsburgh that the entire front page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published the next day devoted its coverage to him.[27] The Reverend William P. Barker presided over a public memorial in Pittsburgh. More than 2,700 people attended the memorial at Heinz Hall, including former Good Morning America host David Hartman, Teresa Heinz Kerry, philanthropist Elsie Hillman, PBS President Pat Mitchell, Arthur creator Marc Brown, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar author-illustrator Eric Carle.[11] Speakers remembered Rogers' love of children, devotion to his religion, enthusiasm for music, and quirks. Teresa Heinz Kerry said of Rogers, "He never condescended, just invited us into his conversation. He spoke to us as the people we were, not as the people others wished we were."[28] Rogers is interred at Unity Cemetery in Latrobe.

On New Years Day of 2004, Michael Keaton hosted the PBS TV special Fred Rogers: America's Favorite Neighbor. It was released on DVD September 28 that year. Keaton was a former stagehand on the show before he quit to become an actor. To mark what would have been his 80th birthday, Rogers' production company sponsored several events to memorialize him, including "Won't You Wear a Sweater Day", during which fans and neighbors were asked to wear their favorite sweaters in celebration.[29]

The television industry honored Rogers with a George Foster Peabody Award "in recognition of 25 years of beautiful days in the neighborhood" in 1987,[30] the same year he was initiated as an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity, the national fraternity for men of music.[31] Rogers was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.[32] He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1999.[33] One of Rogers' iconic sweaters was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution, which displays it as a "Treasure of American History".[34] In 2002 Rogers received the PNC Commonwealth Award in Mass Communications.[35]

File:InterpretationsOfOaklandByJohnLaidacker.jpg
"Interpretations of Oakland" by John Laidacker

He was furthermore awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002, for his contributions to children's education, justified by President George W. Bush, who said, "Fred Rogers has proven that television can soothe the soul and nurture the spirit and teach the very young". A year later, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed Resolution 16 to commemorate the life of Fred Rogers.[1] It read, in part, "Through his spirituality and placid nature, Mr. Rogers was able to reach out to our nation's children and encourage each of them to understand the important role they play in their communities and as part of their families. More importantly, he did not shy away from dealing with difficult issues of death and divorce but rather encouraged children to express their emotions in a healthy, constructive manner, often providing a simple answer to life's hardships."

Following Rogers' death, the U.S. House of Representatives in 2003 unanimously passed Resolution 111 honoring Rogers for "his legendary service to the improvement of the lives of children, his steadfast commitment to demonstrating the power of compassion, and his dedication to spreading kindness through example."[36]

The same year the U.S. Presbyterian Church approved an overture "to observe a memorial time for the Reverend Fred M. Rogers" at its General Assembly.[37] The rationale for the recognition of Rogers reads, "The Reverend Fred Rogers, a member of the Presbytery of Pittsburgh, as host of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood since 1968, had a profound effect on the lives of millions of people across the country through his ministry to children and families. Mister Rogers promoted and supported Christian values in the public media with his demonstration of unconditional love. His ability to communicate with children and to help them understand and deal with difficult questions in their lives will be greatly missed."[38]

Several buildings, monuments, and works of art are dedicated to Rogers' memory, including a mural sponsored by the Pittsburgh-based Sprout Fund in 2006, "Interpretations of Oakland," by John Laidacker that featured Mr. Rogers.[39] Saint Vincent College in (Latrobe, Pennsylvania) completed construction of The Fred M. Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media in 2008.[40] The Fred Rogers Memorial Statue on the North Shore near Heinz Field in Pittsburgh[41] was created by Robert Berks and dedicated in 2009.[42]

File:MrRogersWQED.jpg
"Fredosaurus Rex Friday XIII" by Karen Howell honoring Fred Rogers. outside WQED studios in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The asteroid 26858 Misterrogers is named after Rogers. This naming, by the International Astronomical Union, was announced on May 2, 2003 by the director of the Henry Buhl Jr. Planetarium & Observatory at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh. The science center worked with Rogers' Family Communications, Inc. to produce a planetarium show for preschoolers called "The Sky Above Mister Rogers' Neighborhood", which plays at planetariums across the United States.[43][44]

False rumors[link]

A false rumor claims that Fred Rogers was once a U.S. Marine sniper in the Vietnam War. The rumor appeared on the Internet in 1994 and re-emerged several times over the next ten years, most notably after his death in 2003.[45][46] However, Rogers never served in any branch of the military. Beginning in 1963, Rogers developed the Misterogers program for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In 1966, he moved back to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the U.S. where he produced Mister Rogers' Neighborhood through the height of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. Related claims that Rogers had a number of military tattoos are also entirely false.[47]

See also[link]

Notes[link]

  1. ^ Bits of incidental music, such as improvisations from members of the orchestra or music from guests to the program, weren't composed by Rogers. The recurring iconic songs, however, were all Rogers' work.

References[link]

  1. ^ a b "Bill Text - 108th Congress (2003-2004) - S.CON.RES.16.ATS". THOMAS. Library of Congress. 5 March 2003. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:S.CON.RES.16.ATS:. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  2. ^ Sostek, Anya (6 November 2009). "Mr. Rogers takes rightful place at riverside tribute". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09310/1011221-53.stm. Retrieved 6 September 2010. 
  3. ^ a b "Mister Rogers defending PBS to the US Senate". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXEuEUQIP3Q. Retrieved 6 September 2010. 
  4. ^ "Special Collectors' Issue: 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time". TV Guide (December 14–20). 1996. 
  5. ^ a b c Owen, Rob; Barbara Vancheri (28 February 2003). "Fred Rogers dies at 74". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/20030228rogersae1p1.asp. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  6. ^ a b c d DeFranceso, Joyce (April 2003). "Remembering Fred Rogers: A Life Well-Lived: A look back at Fred Rogers' life". Pittsburgh Magazine. Archived from the original on 25 December 2004. http://web.archive.org/web/20050103143529/www.wqed.org/mag/0403_remember3.shtml. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  7. ^ Brownawell, Angel (28 February 2003). "Neighborhood mourns Mister Rogers". Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_120982.html. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  8. ^ "'Mister Rogers' to give Dartmouth Commencement Address". Dartmouth News (Dartmouth College Office of Public Affairs). 2 May 2002. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2002/may/050202.html. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  9. ^ Davis, Bobby (Summer 2003). "Fred McFeely Rogers". The Rollins Alumni Record. pp. 20–23. http://asp3.rollins.edu/olin/oldsite/archives/golden/rogers.htm. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  10. ^ "Fred McFeely Rogers". UXL Newsmakers (2005) (FindArticles.com). 2005. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5221/is_2005/ai_n19141599. Retrieved 2007-12-13. 
  11. ^ a b c Vancheri, Barbara; Rob Owen (4 May 2003). "Pittsburgh bids farewell to Fred Rogers with moving public tribute". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. http://www.post-gazette.com/localnews/20030504rogers0504p1.asp. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  12. ^ Roddy, Dennis (March 1, 2003). "Fred Rogers kept it simple, and elegantly so". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. http://www.post-gazette.com/columnists/20030301roddy5.asp. Retrieved 2007-12-12. 
  13. ^ a b Millman, Joyce (10 August 1999). "Salon Brilliant Careers: Fred Rogers". Salon.com. Salon Media Group. http://www.salon.com/people/bc/1999/08/10/rogers/index.html. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  14. ^ a b c Junod, Tom (November 1998). "Can You Say ... 'Hero'?". Esquire. http://www.pittsburghinwords.org/tom_junod.html. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  15. ^ Schultz, Mike. "Sylvania Award". uv201.com. http://uv201.com/TV_Pages/sylvania_award.htm. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  16. ^ Williams, Suzanne. "Fred McFeely Rogers". The Museum of Broadcast Communications. http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=rogersfred. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  17. ^ Rodgers-Melnick, Ann (4 May 2003). "Liberal pastor retires after long run in city". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. http://www.post-gazette.com/localnews/20030504mccall0504p4.asp. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  18. ^ Owen, Rob (12 November 2000). "There goes the Neighborhood: Mister Rogers will make last episodes of show in December". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Magazine. http://www.post-gazette.com/tv/20001112rogers2.asp. Retrieved 20 March 2011. 
  19. ^ Edwards, Joe (1984-05-21). "Burger King ad strategy pushes unit volumes near $1M". Nation's Restaurant News. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3190/is_v18/ai_3275741/. Retrieved 2009-05-16. 
  20. ^ Dougherty, Philip (May 10, 1984). ADVERTISING; ; Thompson Withdraws An Ad for Burger King, The New York Times. Retrieved on January 11, 2011.
  21. ^ Lewis, Daniel (February 28, 2003). Fred Rogers, Host of 'Mister Rogers' Neighborhood,' Dies at 74, The New York Times. Retrieved on January 9, 2011.
  22. ^ "Fred Rogers Acceptance Speech - 1997" Official Emmys channel on YouTube. 26 Mar 2008. Last accessed 10 Mar 2011.
  23. ^ "Video of Mr. Rogers testimony before Congress". 1969. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2883185966575573317. Retrieved 2006-11-17. 
  24. ^ "SONY CORP. OF AMER. v. UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS, INC., 464 U.S. 417 (1984)". Supreme Court of the United States of America. 1984. http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/464_US_417.htm#464us417n27. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  25. ^ Everhart, Karen (10 March 2003). "Fred Rogers, 1928-2003". Current. http://www.current.org/ch/ch0305rogers.html. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  26. ^ "Grand Marshal Slide Show Main". Tournament of Roses. 2004. http://www.tournamentofroses.com/photogallery/GMs/gm2003b.htm. Retrieved 26 February 2010. 
  27. ^ http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=gL9scSG3K_gC&dat=20030228&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
  28. ^ Vancheri, Barbara (May 4, 2003). Pittsburgh bids farewell to Fred Rogers with moving public tribute, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved on January 9, 2011.
  29. ^ "Won't You Wear a Sweater?". Rollins News Center. Rollins College. 21 March 2008. http://news.rollins.edu/08sweaterpics.shtml. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  30. ^ "GEORGE FOSTER PEABODY AWARD WINNERS". University of Georgia, George Foster Peabody Award. http://www.peabody.uga.edu/winners/PeabodyWinnersBook.pdf. 
  31. ^ Faith Spicer, Cheri (May 2004). "Remembering Our Neighbor: His Lessons on Listening and Love". The Sinfonian. sinfonia.org. pp. 19–21. http://www.sinfonia.org/TheSinfonian/issues/2004-05-part2.pdf. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  32. ^ "National Patrons & Patronesses". Delta Omicron. Archived from the original on 9 June 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080317051706/www.delta-omicron.org/national/patrons.html. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  33. ^ "Hall of Fame". Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. http://cdn.emmys.tv/awards/halloffame/hofarchive.php. Retrieved 2008-12-03. 
  34. ^ "NMAH - Treasures of American History - American Television (page 2 of 2)". National Museum of American History. Smithsonian Institution. http://americanhistory.si.edu/exhibitions/small_exhibition.cfm?key=1267&exkey=143&pagekey=266. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  35. ^ PNC Honors Six Achievers Who Enrich The World, PNC Financial Services Group (2002). Retrieved on January 9, 2011.
  36. ^ "Bill Text - 108th Congress (2003-2004) - H.RES.111.EH". THOMAS. Library of Congress. 4 March 2003. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:H.RES.111.EH:. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  37. ^ "Recommendations on Business before the 215th General Assembly". General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). 2003. http://www.mlp.org/news/215GAbus.htm. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  38. ^ "Minutes: 215th General Assembly (2003), Part I", Office of the General Assembly, Proceedings of the 215th General Assembly (2003) of the Presbyterian Church p. 107. Retrieved on January 9, 2011.
  39. ^ "2006 Sprout Public Art Mural Kickoff Event Schedule". thisishappening. http://www.thisishappening.com/EventPage.php?eventid=41923. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  40. ^ "Fred M. Rogers Center". Saint Vincent College. 2010. http://www.stvincent.edu/events/the-conference-center-at-saint-vincent-college2/fred-m.-rogers-center. Retrieved 30 July 2010. 
  41. ^ Sostek, Anya (2009-11-05). "Sculpture of Fred Rogers unveiled on North Side". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09309/1011105-100.stm. Retrieved 2009-11-09. 
  42. ^ Butter, Bob (2009-11-05). "World's First Sculpture of American Icon Fred Rogers Unveiled". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS187313+05-Nov-2009+PRN20091105. Retrieved 2009-11-05. 
  43. ^ 26858 Misterrogers (1993 FR), NASA. Retrieved on January 9, 2011.
  44. ^ Plunkett, Chuck (May 2, 2003). Mister Rogers' star status now reaches heavenly proportions, Pittsburgh Tribune Review. Retrieved on January 9, 2011.
  45. ^ Emery, David (November 26, 2011). "Mr. Rogers Was a Marine Sniper / Navy SEAL?". Urbanlegends.about.com. http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/fredrogers/a/mr_rogers.htm. Retrieved December 22, 2011. 
  46. ^ "Mr. Rogers Was a Sniper In Vietnam-Fiction!". Truthorfiction.com. http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/m/mrrogers.htm. Retrieved December 22, 2011. 
  47. ^ "Won't You Be My Fiend?". snopes.com. August 7, 2007. http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/mrrogers.asp. Retrieved December 22, 2011. 

External links[link]

http://wn.com/Fred_Rogers

Related pages:

http://ru.wn.com/Роджерс, Фред

http://pt.wn.com/Fred Rogers

http://fr.wn.com/Fred Rogers

http://id.wn.com/Fred Rogers




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