Footlights

Tuesday, 25 December 2012

Merle Haggard- Footlights (George Jones Show)

Merle Haggard & George Jones - Footlights

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ADC Theatre
The ADC Theatre is a theatre in Cambridge, England and also a department of the University of Cambridge. It is located in Park Street, north off Jesus Lane. The theatre is owned by the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club (CUADC), but is currently run as the smallest department of the university, with four permanent staff. It is a producing theatre with the CUADC as its resident company.
The auditorium seats 228 audience members. The auditorium seating was replaced in summer 2008, and the rows are fairly evenly stepped from row A up to row P (with entrances at row A — step-free from the street, via a passenger lift — and row J). The theatre has a bar, which opens 45 minutes before shows, and often stays open until approximately 2am.
When the CUADC was formed in 1855, its performances took place in rented rooms in the Hoop Hotel on Jesus Lane. By 1882, the club members had raised sufficient funds to buy the freehold. This building was subsequently developed into the ADC Theatre over an extended period of time. In 1933, there was a disastrous fire, which gutted the building. The theatre was quickly rebuilt to a design by Harold Tomlinson and W.P. Dyson, reopening in 1935. The building was not changed again substantially until the redevelopment programme that started in 2002.

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Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City. Along with London's West End theatre, Broadway theatre is widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world.
The Broadway theatre district is a popular tourist attraction in New York. According to The Broadway League, Broadway shows sold approximately $1.081 billion worth of tickets in calendar year 2011, compared with $1.037 billion for 2010. Attendance in 2011 was 12.13 million.
New York did not have a significant theatre presence until about 1750, when actor-managers Walter Murray and Thomas Kean established a resident theatre company at the Theatre on Nassau Street, which held about 280 people. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggar's Opera. In 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice and The Anatomist. The company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the year the 2,000-seat Park Theatre was built on Chatham Street (now called Park Row). The Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, and especially so with the arrival of the Virginia Minstrels in the 1840s.

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Cambridge
The city of Cambridge (ⁱ/ˈkeɪmbrɪdʒ/ KAYM-brij) is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia, on the River Cam, about 50 miles (80 km) north of London. According to the United Kingdom Census 2001, its population was 108,863 (including 22,153 students), and was estimated to be 125,717 in mid-2010. There is archaeological evidence of settlement in the area in bronze age and Roman times, and under Viking rule Cambridge became an important trading centre. The first town charters were granted in the 12th century, although city status was not conferred until 1951.
Cambridge is most widely known as the home of the University of Cambridge, founded in 1209 and consistently ranked one of the top five universities in the world. The university includes the renowned Cavendish Laboratory, King's College Chapel, and the Cambridge University Library. The Cambridge skyline is dominated by the last two buildings, along with the chimney of Addenbrooke's Hospital in the far south of the city and St John's College Chapel tower.

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West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. Seeing a West End show is a common tourist activity in London.
Total attendances first surpassed 12 million in 2002 and 13 million in 2007, setting a new record for the West End. Since the late 1990s there has been an increase in the number of famous screen actors on the London stage.
The Theatre in London flourished after the English Reformation. The first permanent public playhouse, known simply as The Theatre, was constructed in 1576 in Shoreditch by James Burbage. It was soon joined by The Curtain. Both are known to have been used by William Shakespeare's company. In 1599, the timber from The Theatre was moved to Southwark, where it was used in building the Globe Theatre in a new theatre district formed, beyond the controls of the City corporation. These theatres were closed in 1642 during the interregnum.

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Adrian Slade
Adrian Carnegie Slade, CBE, born 25 May 1936, is a British Liberal Democrat politician and advertising agency founder.
He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became President of the Footlights, and famously recruited Peter Cook to the society.
He was a Liberal Party parliamentary candidate in the 1960s and 1970s, contesting Putney in 1966,February 1974 and October 1974. He stood as an SDP–Liberal Alliance candidate in Wimbledon in 1987. He scored an upset win in the 1981 elections to the Greater London Council (GLC), winning the Richmond seat from the Conservatives by just 115 votes. He became Leader of the SDP–Liberal Alliance group on the GLC, and remained so until the GLC's dissolution in 1986.
He served as the last ever President of the Liberal Party, from 1987 to 1988, conducting its merger negotiations with the SDP. He was vice-president of the Liberal Democrats 1988-9.
He is also known within Liberal Party circles as a pianist and singer, talents which he shared with his brother Julian Slade. There is a third brother, Sir Christopher Slade (Lord Justice of Appeal, 1982–1991) and a sister.

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Alex Horne
Alex Horne (born 10 September 1978) is a British comedian.
He was educated at Lancing College (Fields House, 1991–1996) and the University of Cambridge, where he was a member of Footlights.
He made his first appearance at the Edinburgh festival in 2000 with his show, "How To Avoid Huge Ships". His 2003 Edinburgh show, "Making Fish Laugh" was nominated for a Perrier newcomer award. In 2004 he won a Chortle Award for Best Breakthrough Act. His latest shows with Tim Key have been "Every Body Talks" and "When In Rome", both of which featured unusually extensive use of Microsoft PowerPoint for a comic act. Horne toured Roman towns of the UK with the "When In Rome" show in early 2006.
More recently^[when?] he has worked alongside fellow comedian Owen Powell, in the attempt to find a person from every nationality living in London. After a year's search, they finally managed to meet people from 189 of the UN's 192 countries whilst satisfactorily proving that there is nobody in the capital from Tuvalu, Palau or the Marshall Islands.^{[citation needed]}

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Ali Smith
Ali Smith (born 1962 in Inverness) is a British writer.
She was born to working-class parents, raised in a council house in Inverness and now lives in Cambridge. She studied at the University of Aberdeen and then at Newnham College, Cambridge, for a PhD that was never finished. She worked as a lecturer at University of Strathclyde until she fell ill with CFS/ME. Following this she became a full-time writer and now writes for The Guardian, The Scotsman, and the Times Literary Supplement. Openly gay, she lives in Cambridge with her partner Sarah Wood.
In 2007 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
In 2009, she donated the short story Last (previously published in the Manchester Review Online) to Oxfam's 'Ox-Tales' project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Her story was published in the 'Fire' collection.

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Andy Parsons
Andy Parsons (born 1967) is an English comedian and writer, who regularly appears on Mock the Week. With comedy partner Henry Naylor, he has written and presented nine seasons of Parsons and Naylor’s Pull-Out Sections for BBC Radio 2.
Parsons was born in Dorset. He attended Parc Eglos Primary School and Helston Comprehensive School (Cornwall), and Churston Ferrers Grammar School, Torbay (Devon) before going to Christ's College, Cambridge to study Law, where he met and former a double act with Henry Naylor which twice toured with the National Student Theatre Company and once with the Footlights. After completing his studies, Parsons got a job working as a legal clerk on a case at the Greenock shipyards, which he describes as "the most tedious thing I'd ever done." With Naylor he established TBA, London's first sketch comedy club.
His first TV writing job was for Spitting Image and he went on to become one of the main writers. He has also appeared as a guest on They Think It's All Over, QI, and BBC Radio 5 Live's Fighting Talk. He has missed only five episodes of Mock the Week and became a regular panellist at the beginning of Series 3. He, like the other regular panellists on Mock the Week, keeps the same seat throughout the series, Parsons being the one to the left of the host Dara Ó Briain.

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Bamber Gascoigne
Bamber Gascoigne, FRSL (born 24 January 1935) is a British television presenter and author, best known for being the original quizmaster on University Challenge.
Gascoigne was born in London and won scholarships to both Eton College and Magdalene College, Cambridge (1955), where he read English literature. While at Magdalene, he wrote a musical, Share My Lettuce, which was produced in London in 1957 by Michael Codron, and performed by Maggie Smith and Kenneth Williams (music by Patrick Gowers and Keith Statham.) He then spent a year as a Commonwealth Fund scholar at Yale University (1958–59). After National Service in the Grenadier Guards he became a theatre critic. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (elected 1976). He has served as a trustee of the National Gallery, a trustee of the Tate Gallery, a member of the council of the National Trust, and as a member of the board of directors of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
He came to fame as the first presenter of the popular television quiz show, University Challenge, first airing in 1962, based on the US series College Bowl. He held the position for 25 years, stepping down in 1987. Although he has written several books, mostly works of history, and presented other television programmes, his name is permanently connected with University Challenge for many viewers of the show.

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Ben Miller
Bennet Evan "Ben" Miller (born 24 February 1966) is an English comedian, actor and director. He is perhaps best known as one half of comedy double act Armstrong and Miller, along with Alexander Armstrong. Together the pair wrote and starred in the Channel 4 sketch show Armstrong and Miller, and the more recent BBC television sketch show The Armstrong and Miller Show. As of 2011, he is starring in the crime drama series Death in Paradise.
Miller was born in London, England, and grew up in Nantwich, Cheshire. His paternal grandfather was a Lithuanian-born tailor who lived in London's East End; his father, Michael Miller, was a lecturer in American Literature at the City of Birmingham Polytechnic; and his Welsh mother, Marion, taught English at South Cheshire College. He has two younger sisters, Leah and Bronwen.
He was educated at Malbank School and Sixth Form College, his local comprehensive school in Nantwich, Cheshire. He then studied natural sciences at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he acted with and dated Rachel Weisz. He remained at Cambridge to study for a Ph.D. in quantum physics, entitled "Novel quantum effects in low-temperature quasi-zero dimensional mesoscopic electron systems".

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Bill Oddie
William "Bill" Edgar Oddie OBE (born 7 July 1941, Rochdale, England) is an English author, actor, comedian, artist, naturalist and musician, who became famous as one of The Goodies.
A birdwatcher since his childhood in Quinton, Birmingham, Oddie has now established a reputation as an ornithologist, conservationist and television presenter on wildlife issues. Some of his books are illustrated with his own paintings and drawings.
Oddie's wildlife programmes for the BBC include: Springwatch/Autumnwatch, How to Watch Wildlife, Wild In Your Garden, Birding with Bill Oddie, Britain Goes Wild with Bill Oddie and Bill Oddie Goes Wild.
After attending Lapal Primary School, Halesowen Grammar School (now The Earls High School, Halesowen) then King Edward's School, Birmingham, Oddie studied English Literature at Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge, where he appeared in several Cambridge University Footlights Club productions.
One of these, a revue called A Clump of Plinths, was so successful at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe that it was renamed Cambridge Circus and transferred to the West End in London, then New Zealand and Broadway in September 1964. Meanwhile, still at Cambridge, Oddie wrote scripts for TV's That Was The Week That Was.

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Blake Ritson
Blake Ritson (born 14 June 1980) is an English actor and director.
Ritson attended the Dolphin School in Reading, Berkshire until 1993, before going to St Paul's School, an independent school for boys in Barnes in West London on an academic scholarship. He then attended the University of Cambridge, where he studied English and Medieval Italian, Dante primarily. While a student he acted on both stage and screen, playing Paul Etheridge in White Chameleon, Fleance in Macbeth, and Augustus in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia (1996) at the National Theatre in productions directed by Richard Eyre and Trevor Nunn.
Ritson is best known in recent years for portraying Mr Elton in the BBC 2009 adaptation of Emma and Edmund Bertram in the 2007 ITV adaptation of Mansfield Park, Giles Vicary in the BBC series Red Cap and for playing sidekick Robert Presley in A Touch of Frost. He also played the part of Justin in The League of Gentlemen, Idek in God on Trial, and the Duke of Kent in Upstairs Downstairs.
Ritson writes and directs with his older brother, Dylan Ritson. The Ritson brothers' latest short film, Love Hate, starring Ben Whishaw and Hayley Atwell was completed in May 2009 and was selected for the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Palm Springs Film Festival, London BFI Film Festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Foyle, Omaha, Encounters, Berkshire International Film Festival, Sofia Film Fest (Bulgaria), Tofifest International Film Festival (Poland), West Hollywood International, LA Shorts Fest, Short Shorts Film Festival (Japan). It was the winner of the Jury Award at Palm Springs International Shortsfest and won the Best International Short award at Cinema St. Louis Film Festival. "Crisply shot and superbly acted, it's also a sly comment on repression and everyday insanity. It will be great to see what the Ritsons do next." (Empire)

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Brian Barder
Sir Brian Leon Barder, KCMG (born 20 June 1934) is a retired British diplomat; and subsequently blogger and civil liberties advocate.
Brian Barder was born in Bristol, the son of Harry and Vivien Barder. He was educated at Sherborne School and St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the Footlights, the Cambridge University Musical Comedy Club, the St Catharine's College Boat Club and the Cambridge University Labour Club (Chairman, 1957).
Brian Barder did his National Service as 2nd Lieutenant, 7th Royal Tank Regiment, in Hong Kong (1952–1954). He joined the Colonial Office in London in 1957 (Private Secretary to the Permanent Under-Secretary, 1960–61). He transferred to the Diplomatic Service in 1965. From 1964-1968 he was First Secretary, UK Mission to the United Nations, dealing with decolonisation. He returned to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London as Assistant Head of West African Department, including dealing with Biafra (1968–71). He became First Secretary and Press Attaché, Moscow (Soviet Union) (1971–73); and Counsellor and Head of Chancery, British High Commission, Canberra (Australia) (1973–77). In 1977-78 he was a course member at the Canadian National Defence College, Kingston, Ontario. In 1978 he returned to London as Head of Central and Southern, later Southern African Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (1978–82). He was British Ambassador to Ethiopia (1982–86); Ambassador to Poland (1986–88); High Commissioner to Nigeria and concurrently Ambassador to Bénin (1988–91) and High Commissioner to Australia (1991–94).

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Cecil Beaton
Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, CBE (14 January 1904 – 18 January 1980) was an English fashion and portrait photographer, diarist, painter, interior designer and an Academy Award-winning stage and costume designer for films and the theatre. He was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1970.
Beaton was born on 14 January 1904 in Hampstead the son of Ernest Walter Hardy Beaton (1867–1936), a prosperous timber merchant, and his wife Etty Sissons (1872–1962). His grandfather, Walter Hardy Beaton (1841–1904), had founded the family business of Beaton Brothers Timber Merchants and Agents, and his father followed into the business. Ernest Beaton was also an amateur actor and had met his wife, Cecil's mother, when playing the lead in a play. She was the daughter of a Cumbrian blacksmith named Oldcorn who had come to London to visit her married sister. It is through this connection that Cecil is related to the Blessed Father Edward Oldcorne who was involved in the Gunpowder Plot. They had four children — in addition to Cecil there were two daughters Nancy (1909–99) and Baba (1912–73), and another son Reggie (1905–33).

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Charles Shaughnessy
Charles George Patrick Shaughnessy, 5th Baron Shaughnessy (born 9 February 1955), simply known as Charles Shaughnessy, is a British peer, and television, theatre and film actor. He is known for his roles on American television, as Shane Donovan on the soap opera Days of our Lives and as Maxwell Sheffield on the sitcom The Nanny. Along with his brother, David Shaughnessy and Ophelia Soumekh, he is a partner in 3S Media Solutions Inc.
Shaughnessy was born on 9 February 1955 in London, the son of Alfred Shaughnessy, a television writer who was the scriptwriter for Upstairs, Downstairs, and the actress Jean Lodge. His brother, David Shaughnessy, is also an actor and a television producer and director. Having been born into a show-business family, he started appearing in plays during primary school. After attending Eton College, he read for a law degree at Magdalene College of University of Cambridge where he wrote a thesis on the House of Lords.
While at Cambridge, he joined the Footlights club. After graduating, he decided to return to acting and enrolled in a London drama school, which led to him touring in a repertory company. He moved to the United States to follow actress Susan Fallender, whom he eventually wed.

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Christopher Booker
Christopher John Penrice Booker (born 7 October 1937) is an English journalist and author. In 1961, he was one of the founders of the magazine Private Eye, and has contributed to it since then. He has been a columnist for The Sunday Telegraph since 1990. He has taken a stance which runs counter to the scientific consensus on a number of issues, including global warming, the link between passive smoking and cancer,, and the dangers posed by asbestos. In 2009, he published The Real Global Warming Disaster, described by The Observer as "the definitive climate sceptics' manual".
Booker was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford, Shrewsbury School^{[citation needed]}, and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he read history. His parents founded the elite girls' school Knighton House.
He was married to the novelist Emma Tennant between 1963 and 1968, and to Christine Verity. In 1979, he married Valerie Patrick, with whom he has two sons; they live in Somerset.
With fellow Salopians Richard Ingrams and Willie Rushton he founded Private Eye in 1961, and was its first editor. He was ousted by Ingrams in 1963. Returning in 1965, he has remained a member of the magazine's collaborative joke-writing team ever since (with Ingrams, Barry Fantoni and current editor Ian Hislop).

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Claude Hulbert
Claude Noel Hulbert (25 December 1900 – 23 January 1964) was a British comic actor. He was the younger brother of Jack Hulbert. Like his brother, he was Cambridge educated and was a member of the Footlights comedy club as an undergraduate.
His subsequent career was less successful than his brother's. He began by supporting the Aldwych farceurs before being handed his first lead in a weak B-film with Renee Houston and Binnie Barnes, Their Night Out (1933). His most successful solo film of the mid-1930s being Hello Sweetheart (1935), like most of Hulbert's starring comedies, however, its ambition was strictly small-scale; it seemed that British studios simply didn't see him as a major star. His flagging career was helped with Wolf's Clothing (1936), which starred him as a dithering diplomat, and Honeymoon-Merry-Go-Round (1940), where he played a bumbling bridegroom who unintentionally becomes an ice-hockey star.
He became a very capable partner for Will Hay after that comedian decided he wanted to do without his famous "stooges", Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt. Hay's two films with Hulbert, The Ghost of St Michael's (1941) and My Learned Friend (1943), were the most successful of his later vehicles. Claude's film appearances, though, became scarcer as the 1940s wore on. His films, however, were, at best, modest and moderate, sadly lacking in budget, ambition and spark.^{[citation needed]}

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Clive Anderson
Clive Anderson (born 10 December 1952) is a British former barrister, best known for being a comedy writer as well as a radio and television presenter in the United Kingdom. Winner of a British Comedy Award in 1991, Anderson began his success during his 15-year law career with stand-up comedy and comedic script writing, before starring in Whose Line Is It Anyway? on BBC Radio 4, then later, Channel 4. He was also successful with a number of radio programmes, television interviews and guest appearances on Have I Got News for You, Mock the Week, QI and The Bubble.
Anderson was educated at Stanburn Primary School and Harrow County School for Boys in London, where his group of friends included Geoffrey Perkins and Michael Portillo. His Scottish father was manager of the Midland Bank's Wembley branch. Anderson attended Selwyn College, Cambridge where, from 1974 to 1975, he was President of Footlights. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1976 and became a practising barrister, specialising in criminal law.

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Clive James
Clive Vivian Leopold James, CBE, AM (born 7 October 1939), born Vivian James, is an Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet and memoirist, best known for his autobiographical series Unreliable Memoirs, for his chat shows and documentaries on British television and for his prolific journalism. He has lived and worked in the United Kingdom since the early 1960s.
James was born in Kogarah, Sydney. He was allowed to change his name as a child because "after Vivien Leigh played Scarlett O'Hara the name became irrevocably a girl's name no matter how you spelled it".
His father was taken prisoner by the Japanese during World War II. Although he survived the POW camp, he died when the plane returning him to Australia crashed in Manila Bay; he was buried in Hong Kong. James, who was an only child, was brought up by his mother in the Sydney suburb of Kogarah.
In Unreliable Memoirs, James says an IQ test taken in childhood put his IQ at 140. He was educated at Sydney Technical High School (despite winning a bursary award to Sydney Boys High School) and the University of Sydney, where he studied Psychology and became associated with the Sydney Push, a libertarian, intellectual subculture. At the university, he edited the student newspaper, Honi Soit, and directed the annual Union Revue. After graduating, James worked for a year as an Assistant Editor for The Sydney Morning Herald.

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Cowards
Cowards are a British four-man comedy act, composed of Tim Key, Stefan Golaszewski, Tom Basden and Lloyd Woolf.
The Cowards met at Cambridge University's Footlights Dramatic Club where they worked together. Basden, Golaszewski, and Woolf performed in a show directed by Key and Mark Watson. It later emerged that Key was not studying at Cambridge University and that he had misled the society when auditioning. This was discovered when he got into the tour show Far Too Happy but the Footlights agreed to "keep up the charade" until the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In Far Too Happy, Key performed alongside Mark Watson and Sophie Winkleman and they were nominated for the Perrier Comedy Award for Best Newcomer. Key later described the period as "life-changing".
Basden, Golaszewski, Key, and Woolf moved to London and started working together as Cowards. Cowards initially involved Rick Edwards, Alex Horne, and Mark Watson but they agreed that the group would not work as they had different styles. Cowards began working as a four-piece group in October 2004, writing and performing new material each month. In 2005 and 2006, they had sell-out runs at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, performing at the Pleasance.

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Dan Mazer
Dan Mazer (born 1971) is a British screenwriter, TV/film producer, and comedian. He is best known as the long-time writing and production partner of Sacha Baron Cohen and has worked with him on such characters as Ali G and Borat. Mazer co-wrote and co-produced the films Ali G Indahouse (2002), Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006) and Brüno (2009).
Mazer attended Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, where he met Baron Cohen. He went on to read Law at Peterhouse, Cambridge University, and graduated in 1994. He was an active member of Cambridge Footlights while at university and was vice president from 1993 to 1994.
His early work includes production roles on The Word, The Big Breakfast and The 11 O'Clock Show.
In 2007, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for co-writing the film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. He shared his nomination with Sacha Baron Cohen, Ant Hines, Peter Baynham, and Todd Phillips. They ended up losing to The Departed. He is currently co-writing Lost for Words with Jamie Curtis.

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Dan Stevens
Daniel Jonathan “Dan” Stevens (born 10 October 1982) is a British actor.
Stevens was adopted at birth and had a rebellious youth. He has a younger brother who was also adopted.
Stevens boarded at Tonbridge School, a public school in Kent, where he became interested in drama after auditioning for the title role in Macbeth with his teacher, novelist Jonathan Smith (father of cricketer Ed Smith). Stevens went on to read English Literature at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and narrowly missed out on a first despite devoting much of his time to theatre during his final year. While at Cambridge he was a member of the Footlights and gained acting experience with the National Youth Theatre. He was first spotted by acclaimed director Sir Peter Hall during a student production.
Stevens has worked extensively in theatre in Britain and the United States, working with Peter Hall many times. He was nominated for an Ian Charleson Award for his portrayal of Orlando in As You Like It for the Peter Hall Company in 2005.

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David Armand
David Armand (born September 1977)^{[citation needed]} is an English comedian, actor and writer who has performed on stage, film, radio and most notably, television, where the shows he has appeared in include Fast and Loose (2011 TV Series), How Not to Live Your Life, Pulling, The Armstrong and Miller Show, Swinging, and Peep Show.
He is one of the writers and stars of the hit CBBC comedy shows Sorry, I've Got No Head, and Pixelface. He has also written for shows such as The Peter Serafinowicz Show and Katy Brand's Big Ass Show.
Born David Whitehead in the Northamptonshire town of Kettering,^{[citation needed]} he was educated at St Catharine's College, Cambridge and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.^{[citation needed]} As a member of the sketch comedy troupe The Hollow Men, he appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe four times between 1999 and 2002, traveled to America as a participant at the 2003 US Comedy Arts Festival in the Colorado mountain resort of Aspen, and to Canada for a performance at Montreal's 2005 Just For Laughs festival. The troupe wrote and starred in their self-titled TV series for the American network Comedy Central as well as two series for BBC Radio 4.

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David Baddiel
David Lionel Baddiel (born 28 May 1964) is an American-born English comedian, novelist and television presenter. He is known for his work alongside Rob Newman in the ground-breaking The Mary Whitehouse Experience and partnership with Frank Skinner. Besides comedy, Baddiel is also a published novelist and has gone into screenwriting as well.
Baddiel was born in New York, and moved to England when he was four months old. His father, Colin Brian Baddiel, was a Welsh research chemist with Unilever before being made redundant in the 1980s, after which he sold Dinky Toys at Grays Antique Market. His mother, Sarah, was a refugee from Nazi Germany. She moved to the UK at five months old with her parents in 1939. Baddiel is the middle of three sons.
Baddiel grew up in Dollis Hill, Willesden, North London. He attended primary school at the North West London Jewish Day School in Brent. After studying at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Elstree, an independent school near Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, he read English at King's College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the Cambridge Footlights, and graduated with a double first. He began studies for a PhD in English at University College London, but did not complete it.

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David Hatch
Sir David Hatch (7 May 1939 – 13 June 2007) was involved in production and management at BBC Radio, where he held many executive positions, including Head of Light Entertainment (Radio), Controller of BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 4 and later Managing Director of BBC Radio.
Born in Barnsley, he attended St John's School, Leatherhead and Queens' College, Cambridge, and joined the Cambridge Footlights Club. He was a member of the cast of the 1963 Footlights revue A Clump of Plinths, which was so successful during its run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe that the revue transferred to the West End of London under the title of Cambridge Circus and later taken on tour to both New Zealand and Broadway in September 1964. Hatch was later a student teacher at Bloxham School, Oxfordshire.
A BBC Radio production of Cambridge Circus, titled I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, launched many of the show's cast, including Hatch, into a radio comedy series of the same name. Meanwhile he was responsible for the radio versions of Doctor in the House, Doctor at Large, Brothers in Law and All Gas and Gaiters. Hatch co-devised the satirical show Week Ending and produced other comedy radio shows such as Just a Minute, Hello, Cheeky!, The Burkiss Way, Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, The Frankie Howerd Show (1974), and I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.

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David Nobbs
David Gordon Nobbs (born 13 March 1935 in Petts Wood, Kent) is an English comedy writer.
Following an education at Marlborough College and Cambridge University, Nobbs wrote for many of Britain's comedy performers over the years, including Kenneth Williams, Frankie Howerd, Les Dawson and The Two Ronnies. He is also the creator of the successful 1970s sitcom The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (adapted from his own Reginald Perrin novels), the 1989 comedy/drama series A Bit of a Do and the highly-acclaimed Henry Pratt series of novels, the fourth of which, Pratt à Manger, was published in 2006. His most recent novel, It Had to be You was published in 2011.
On 15 September 2010, Nobbs, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter published in The Guardian, stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to the UK.

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David Wolstencroft
David Wolstencroft is an American-born Scottish television writer and author. He is best known as creator of the BAFTA award-winning TV spy drama Spooks and its spin-off series, Spooks: Code 9.
Wolstencroft was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1969 and grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland, later going on to read history at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge, he was active in the Footlights where he collaborated with the likes of Mark Evans, Sue Perkins, Andy Parsons, Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller and had served as vice-president and revue director.
Wolstencroft won the Royal Television Society's Network Newcomer award after producing his first drama, Psychos, for Channel 4 in 1999. He then began working on Spooks. The pilot episode went through about 30 different rewrites and plot changes before BBC finally accepted it. The episode met with promising reviews and a series was commissioned. Since then, it has won a slew of BAFTA awards and nominations.
More recently, he wrote the screenplay for the film Shooting Dogs. He is also the author of two novels- Good News, Bad News and Contact Zero. Both are of the espionage/spy genre involving the British intelligence services. He was once in the noted Fairmilehead band "Aeneas Shock" as a keyboard player.

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Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television series, several stage plays, comics, a computer game, and in 2005 a feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame.
Adams also wrote Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), and co-wrote The Meaning of Liff (1983), Last Chance to See (1990), and three stories for the television series Doctor Who. A posthumous collection of his work, including an unfinished novel, was published as The Salmon of Doubt in 2002.
Adams became known as an advocate for environmental and conservation causes, and also as a lover of fast cars, cameras, and the Apple Macintosh. He was a staunch atheist, famously imagining a sentient puddle who wakes up one morning and thinks, "This is an interesting world I find myself in—an interesting hole I find myself in—fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!" Biologist Richard Dawkins dedicated his book, The God Delusion (2006), to Adams, writing on his death that, "Science has lost a friend, literature has lost a luminary, the mountain gorilla and the black rhino have lost a gallant defender."

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Eleanor Bron
Eleanor Bron (born 14 March 1938) is an English stage, film and television actress and author.
Bron was born in 1938 in Stanmore, Middlesex. Before her birth, her father Sidney had legally shortened the surname from Bronstein to Bron as an effort to enhance his newly-founded commercial enterprise, Bron's Orchestral Service. Her brother Gerry explained the change simply: "Bronstein's Orchestral Service was a bit of a mouthful."
She attended North London Collegiate School and Newnham College, Cambridge: the latter she would later characterize as "three years of unparalleled pampering and privilege."
Bron was the longtime partner of noted architect Cedric Price until his death in 2003; they had no children. Her elder brother is record producer Gerry Bron.
Bron began her career in the Cambridge Footlights revue of 1959, entitled The Last Laugh, in which Peter Cook also appeared. The addition of a female performer to the Footlights was a departure, having been until that point all-male, with female characters portrayed in drag.

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Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson (born 15 April 1959) is a British actress, comedian and screenwriter. She first came to prominence in 1987 in two BBC TV series, Tutti Frutti and Fortunes of War. Her first major film role was in the 1989 romantic comedy The Tall Guy. In 1992, Thompson won multiple acting awards, including an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, for her performance in the British drama Howards End. The following year Thompson garnered dual Academy Award nominations, as Best Actress for The Remains of the Day and as Best Supporting Actress for In the Name of the Father.
In 1995, Thompson scripted and starred in Sense and Sensibility, a film adaptation of the Jane Austen novel of the same name, which earned her an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role among other awards. Other notable film and television credits have included the Harry Potter film series, Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Wit (2001), Love Actually (2003), Angels in America (2003), Nanny McPhee (2005), Stranger than Fiction (2006), Last Chance Harvey (2008), An Education (2009) and Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (2010).

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Eric Idle
Eric Idle (born 29 March 1943) is an English comedian, actor, author, singer, writer, and comedic composer. He was a member of the British surreal comedy group Monty Python, a member of the The Rutles on Saturday Night Live, and the author of the Broadway musical Spamalot.
Idle was born in South Shields, County Durham (now Tyne and Wear) in Harton Village, the son of Nora Barron (née Sanderson), a health visitor, and Ernest Idle. His father served in the Royal Air Force and survived World War II, only to be killed in a hitch-hiking accident when Idle was only two years old. His mother had difficulty coping with a full-time job and raising a child, so when Idle was seven, she enrolled him into the Royal Wolverhampton School as a boarder. At this time the school was a charitable foundation dedicated to the education and maintenance of children who had lost one or both parents. Idle is quoted as saying: "It was a physically abusive, bullying, harsh environment for a kid to grow up in. I got used to dealing with groups of boys and getting on with life in unpleasant circumstances and being smart and funny and subversive at the expense of authority. Perfect training for Python."

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Footlights
Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club, commonly referred to simply as the Footlights, is an amateur theatrical club in Cambridge, England, founded in 1883 and run by the students of Cambridge University.
Footlights' inaugural performance took place in June 1883. For some months before the name 'Footlights' was chosen, the group had performed to local audiences in the Cambridge area (once, with a cricket match included, at the 'pauper lunatic asylum'). They wished to go wider than the University Amateur Dramatic Club (ADC), founded in 1885, with its membership drawn largely from Trinity College, and its theatre seating only 100. They were to perform every May Week at the Theatre Royal, the shows soon open to the public. A local paper commended the Club's appeal to the 'general public, the many different classes of which life in Cambridge in made up'.
The club grew in prominence in the 1960s as a hotbed of comedy and satire. Having established a tradition of performing at the annual Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the club entered the mainstream when its members formed half of Beyond the Fringe, the hugely popular stage revue which toured Britain and America in 1960. The 1963 revue then followed in the footsteps of Beyond the Fringe, appearing in Edinburgh and London's West End, before travelling to New Zealand and the United States, where it made appearances on Broadway and The Ed Sullivan Show and received a full-page review in Time Magazine. Over the next decade, Footlights and its members came to dominate British comedy, creating and starring in shows such as I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, At Last the 1948 Show and That Was The Week That Was, forming comedy groups such as Monty Python and The Goodies, and generally fuelling the Satire boom.

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Fry and Laurie
Fry and Laurie were a successful English comedy double act, mostly active in the 1980s and 1990s. The duo consisted of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, who met in 1980 through mutual friend Emma Thompson whilst all attended the University of Cambridge. Fry and Laurie have since collaborated on numerous projects together, including Jeeves and Wooster, in which Laurie portrayed Bertie Wooster and Fry portrayed Wooster's valet Jeeves. They also gained prominence through their own sketch show, A Bit of Fry & Laurie.
Since the conclusion of A Bit of Fry and Laurie, both have gone on to have successful solo careers in television, acting and writing, amongst other things though they still remain friends. More recently, Fry and Laurie have expressed interest in a continued partnership and reunited for a retrospective show in 2010 entitled Fry and Laurie Reunited.
On May 14, 2012, Stephen Fry announced on Twitter that he and Hugh Laurie are working on a new project together.
Fry and Laurie have also appeared together in various television advertisements, interviews, audio books and other projects.

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Garth Marenghi
Garth Marenghi is a fictional horror author and actor, created by English comedians Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade, and played by Holness. To date, the character has appeared in two stage shows, the Perrier Award-nominated Garth Marenghi's Fright Knight and Perrier Award-winning Garth Marenghi's Netherhead, and the Channel 4 TV series Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and Man to Man with Dean Learner.
After winning the Perrier Award, the creators confounded media sources by refusing to speak out of character, or give real names or backgrounds. As such, early reports speak of Garth Marenghi, and his publisher, Dean Learner, in character.
Garth Marenghi is a spoof pulp horror author; his act, and his works are considered a parody of the horror genre. The name "Garth Marenghi" is an anagram of the phrase "argh nightmare."
The character is highly conceited, often describing himself through epithets such as "the dream weaver", "shaman", "titan of terror", "The One Man Fear Factory" and "master of the macabre." In interviews, he compares himself positively with James Joyce, Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci and Jesus.

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Geoffrey McGivern
Geoffrey McGivern (born 1952) is an English actor in film, radio, stage and television.
McGivern was born in South London and grew up in York. There he attended Archbishop Holgate's School, where he became Head Boy. He studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he was involved in the Footlights and the Marlowe Society.
He played Ford Prefect in the radio series (1978–80) and subsequent LP releases of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, and reprised the role for the three new series broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 2004 and 2005. A more recent radio appearance was in The Ape That Got Lucky and has appeared in TV shows such as Press Gang, Chef!, Big Train, Blackadder the Third: Dish and Dishonesty, Chelmsford 123, Jonathan Creek, 15 Storeys High, Armstrong and Miller. and series three of Peep Show.
For the 1998 radio SciFi drama Paradise Lost in Cyberspace (Colin Swash, BBC) McGivern teamed up with old Hitchhiker's colleague Stephen Moore and Lorelei King (member of cast in the 2005 Hitchhiker's radio show sequel). He later played the Supreme Ruler in BBC2's Sci-Fi comedy Hyperdrive (2006–). In 2007 he appeared in the BBC Radio 4 comedy Peacefully in their Sleeps and in 2008 he appeared as Professor John Mycroft in the BBC2 science sitcom Lab Rats. He also appeared in episode 5 of season 3 of the TV series "A Bit of Fry and Laurie."

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Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer (born 29 January 1939) is an Australian writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, and a significant feminist voice of the later 20th century.
Greer's ideas have created controversy ever since her book The Female Eunuch became an international best-seller in 1970, turning her into a household name and bringing her both adulation and opposition. She is also the author of many other books including Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility (1984); The Change: Women, Ageing and the Menopause (1991); Shakespeare's Wife (2007); and The Whole Woman (1999). She is Professor Emerita of English Literature and Comparative Studies at the University of Warwick.
Greer has defined her goal as "women's liberation" as distinct from "equality with men". She asserts that women's liberation meant embracing gender differences in a positive fashion—a struggle for the freedom of women to define their own values, order their own priorities and determine their own fates. In contrast, Greer sees equality as mere assimilation and "settling" to live the lives of "unfree men".

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Graeme Garden
David Graeme Garden OBE (born 18 February 1943) is a Scottish author, actor, comedian, artist and television presenter, who first became known as a member of The Goodies.
Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, he grew up in Preston. Garden was educated at Repton School, and studied medicine at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he joined the prestigious Cambridge University Footlights Club (of which he became President in 1964), and performed with the 1964 Footlights revue, Stuff What Dreams Are Made Of at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Garden qualified in medicine at King's College London, but has never practised. Asked how he justified making jokes rather than saving lives, he answered:
Garden and Bill Oddie co-wrote many episodes of the television comedy series Doctor in the House, including most of the first season episodes of the series and all of the second season episodes, as well as co-writing episodes of the subsequent Doctor at Large and Doctor in Charge series. Later, Garden also wrote for Surgical Spirit (1994). Graeme Garden has also presented three series of the BBC's health magazine Bodymatters.

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Graham Chapman
Graham Arthur Chapman (8 January 1941 – 4 October 1989) was an English comedian, physician, writer, actor and one of the six members of the Monty Python comedy troupe.
Chapman was born at the Stoneygate Nursing Home, Stoneygate, Leicester. He was educated at Melton Mowbray Grammar School and studied medicine at St Bartholomew's Medical College [1] and later at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He was also an avid fan of radio comedy from an early age, becoming especially drawn to that of The Goon Show. In the introduction to Chapman's (2005/2006) posthumous anthology, Jim Yoakum notes that "the radio shows didn't necessarily make him laugh. Only a select few got chuckles from young Chapman including Frankie Howerd, the team of Jimmy Jewel and Ben Warriss, It's That Man Again, Educating Archie, Take It From Here and Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh. 'I especially liked Robert Moreton, although no one else seemed to like him very much. He would do things like tell jokes the wrong way around and switch punch lines. He was obviously a very good comedian and was ahead of his time. The appearance of incompetence was wonderful. He was one of my heroes.' But the show that truly astounded Graham, and was a major influence on his comedy was The Goon Show" (p.xvii). Chapman states "from about the age of seven or eight I used to be an avid listener of a radio programme called The Goon Show. In fact, at that stage I wanted to be a Goon" (p. 23).

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Gregory Snegoff
Gregory Snegoff (born June 22, 1955) is an American voice actor, writer and dialogue director who frequently works on English-language anime-dubs. He is known for providing the voice of Scott Bernard in Robotech, Taki Renzaburo in Wicked City and Master Roshi in Dragon Ball (Harmony Gold-dub). He is also known by the names Greg Snegoff, Gregory Snow, Greg Snow, Cliff Wells, and Clif Wells.
Snegoff was married to fellow voice actor Lisa Michelson until her death in 1991; they worked togethor on various Streamline media. He is the son of voice actor Alexandra Kenworthy and make-up artist Marc Snegoff, and brother of stuntman Tony Snegoff. He is a native to Santa Monica, California.

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Griff Rhys Jones
Griffith "Griff" Rhys Jones (born 16 November 1953) is a Welsh comedian, writer, actor, television presenter and personality. Jones came to national attention in the early 1980s for his work in the BBC television comedy sketch shows Not the Nine O'Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones along with his comedy partner Mel Smith. With Smith, he founded television production company Talkback Productions, now part of RTL Group. He went on to develop a career as a television presenter and writer, as well as continuing with acting work.
Rhys Jones was born in Cardiff, the son of Gwyneth Margaret (née Jones) and Elwyn, a doctor. Moving with his father's work, he attended Conifers Primary School in Midhurst, West Sussex, junior school in Epping, Essex and Brentwood School, also in Essex. While the family was resident in Essex, his father had a boat in West Mersea on Mersea Island, which they would sail around the coast of Suffolk and into The Broads.

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Gus Brown
Gus Brown (b. November 1974, Gravesend, Kent) is an English actor and comedian.
He is half of the double act Laurence & Gus, alongside fellow comedian and writer Laurence Howarth. Together they have made two series of comedy sketch shows for BBC Radio 4 - Laurence & Gus: Untold Stories (2004); Laurence & Gus: Men In Love (2006) and performed in 3 Edinburgh Fringe shows: A History of the World in 5 1/5 sketches in 2003, Men in Love in 2004 and Next in Line in 2006. In 2009, recording has begun for a series called Laurence & Gus: Hearts & Minds^{[dated info]}.
In 2006, he teamed up on stage with comedian Justin Edwards, playing Hilary Cox, pianist and sidekick to Edwards' comedy character Jeremy Lion.
He attended Cambridge University, where he met and performed regularly with Mitchell and Webb. He appears in their BBC sketch show That Mitchell and Webb Look.

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Henry Naylor
Henry Naylor is a British comedy writer and performer, best known for his work with comedy partner Andy Parsons in Parsons and Naylor's Pull-Out Sections.
He was head writer for Spitting Image, and has written for many shows including, Noel's House Party, Dead Ringers and Alistair McGowan's Big Impression. With Parsons, he has performed satirical shows in live venues in Australia and as part of the Edinburgh Fringe. Parsons and Naylor’s Pull-Out Sections broadcast its ninth season on BBC Radio 2 during Spring 2007. A compilation CD was released in 2003.
In 2008, he wrote much of Headcases, a satirical ITV show very similar to Spitting Image, but made with CGI rather than puppets.
His face is also known for playing Rowan Atkinson's sidekick 'Bough' in a series of commercials for Barclaycard. He reprised the role in early publicity for Johnny English, but the role was taken over by Ben Miller.
In 2003 he was in the news for throwing a full English breakfast at David Blaine during his Above the Below stunt on the south bank of the River Thames in London.

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Hugh Dennis
Peter Hugh Dennis (born 13 February 1962) is an English actor, comedian, writer, impressionist and voice-over artist, best known for being one half of Punt and Dennis with comedy partner Steve Punt and their long-running radio satire show The Now Show and his position as a permanent panellist on the TV satirical comedy show Mock The Week. He uses his middle name Hugh as his stage name because Equity already had a Peter Dennis when he first started.
Dennis, the younger of two boys, was born in Kettering, Northamptonshire and grew up in Mill Hill in North London as his father was appointed a parish vicar in London soon after his birth. His father, John Dennis later became the Bishop of Knaresborough and then of Saint Edmundsbury and Ipswich. He was educated at University College School in London. During his time at UCS, he played rugby with Will Self and was head boy in his final year. Subsequently, he was offered an exhibition at St John's College, Cambridge and read Geography. He also joined the Footlights, where he first met Punt and club president Nick Hancock and the trio collaborated on a number of projects besides the annual revue. After graduating with a first, he worked for Unilever for six years in the marketing department while performing comedy with Punt at venues including The Comedy Store on the weekends. He and Punt then formed half of the team of The Mary Whitehouse Experience on BBC Radio 1. When it the BBC commissioned the show to be into a series for BBC Two, he took a sabbatical to as the rehearsal days changed to weekdays and eventually went into comedy full-time.

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Hugh Laurie
James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE (born 11 June 1959), known as Hugh Laurie (/ˈhjuː ˈlɒri/), is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director. He first became known as one half of the Fry and Laurie double act, along with his friend and comedy partner Stephen Fry, whom he joined in the cast of Blackadder and Jeeves and Wooster from 1987 to 1999.
From 2004 to 2012, he played Dr Gregory House, the protagonist of House, for which he received two Golden Globe awards, two Screen Actors Guild awards, and six Emmy nominations. As of August 2010, Laurie is the highest paid actor in a drama series on US television. He has been listed in the 2011 Guinness Book of World Records as the highest paid actor ever in a TV Drama—earning US$ 700,000 per episode in House—and for being the most watched leading man on television.
Laurie was born in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. The youngest of four children, Laurie has an older brother named Charles and two older sisters named Susan and Janet. He had a somewhat strained relationship with his mother, Patricia (née Laidlaw). His father, Ran Laurie, was a medical doctor who also won an Olympic gold medal in the coxless pairs (rowing) at the 1948 London Games.

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Humphrey Barclay
Humphrey Barclay (born 24 March 1941, Dorking, Surrey, England) is a comedy executive and producer.
His first foray into show business was via Cambridge Footlights revues where he appeared alongside Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, David Hatch, Jonathan Lynn, Jo Kendall and Miriam Margolyes. He was offered a job as a BBC radio producer and soon afterwards put together the team who produced the BBC Home Service comedy show I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (four series starting 1964). Moving to television, Barclay oversaw Associated-Rediffusion Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967–1969).
Following the ITV franchise changes of 1968, Barclay moved to London Weekend Television (LWT) for whom he produced the Doctor... series (1969–1977). One episode in that series involved a hotel proprietor and his wife and was written by John Cleese. Barclay said at the time that he thought there might be a series in the characters, but nothing came of it. Later, Cleese created Fawlty Towers for the BBC.

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Jack Hulbert
John Norman "Jack" Hulbert (24 April 1892 - 25 March 1978) was a British actor, specialising primarily in comedy productions.
Born in Ely, Cambridgeshire, he was the elder and more successful brother of Claude. He was educated at Cambridge and appeared in many shows and revues, mainly with the Cambridge Footlights. He was one of the earliest famous alumni of the comedy club. After Cambridge, he earned recognition and fame performing in musicals and light comedies.
He made his film debut in Elstree Calling (1930); appearing opposite his wife and frequent stage and screen co-star Cicely Courtneidge whom he had married in 1916. His career went through a successful period during the 1930s when he appeared in several films, including The Ghost Train (1931), Love on Wheels (1932) and Bulldog Jack (1935), a tongue-in-cheek homage to the popular Bulldog Drummond films in which Jack was supported by his brother Claude. He had a hit record in 1932 The Flies Crawled Up the Window, which originally sung in the film Jack's the Boy.

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James Bachman
James Hamilton Bachman (born 24 February 1972) is an English comedian, actor and writer. He has written for and acted in many BBC television and radio programmes, including That Mitchell and Webb Look, Bleak Expectations and Sorry, I've Got No Head.
Bachman was born in Cuckfield, East Sussex to an American father and English mother. He attended Radley College and studied physics and mathematics at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He joined Footlights, having been a Monty Python and Fry and Laurie fan as a youngster. While in Footlights, he first met David Mitchell and Robert Webb, whom he would collaborate with for their shows, and also future writing partner Mark Evans, became vice-president in 1993 and went on to direct the revue the following year. By the time he finished university he had lost interest in his area of study and chose to go into comedy instead, much to his parents' initial disappointment.
Shortly after graduating, Bachman formed the comedy group Population:3 with university friends Lucy Montgomery and Barunka O'Shaughnessy and they performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

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Jan Ravens
Janet "Jan" Ravens (born 14 May 1958) is an English actress and impressionist, famous for her voices on Spitting Image and Dead Ringers.
She grew up in Hoylake, then in Cheshire, on the west side of the Wirral with her father a local government clerk and her mother a nurse. She attended the West Kirby Grammar School for Girls. She was educated at Homerton College, Cambridge where she studied Education Studies and Drama and was the first female President of Cambridge University Footlights Club in 1979-80.
After Cambridge she became a radio comedy producer. She joined the cast of Jasper Carrott's comedy Carrott's Lib in 1983, and made her name very popular with the BBC. In 1986, she played the heavily pregnant Vanessa Plowright in the Tourists episode of Farrington of the F.O. (broadcast 13 March). In 1994, she spent a year with the RSC. She has done much voice-over work, being the Cadbury's Caramel bunny for several years, and as the seductive voice of a can of apple Tango. She has also appeared on Just A Minute on Radio 4, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Have I Got News for You, Alexei Sayle's Stuff and in Dictionary Corner on Channel 4's Countdown (one of the shows that Dead Ringers parodied). She was producer of the Radio 4 comedy Elephants to Catch Eels.

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Jimmy Edwards
Jimmy Edwards DFC (23 March 1920 – 7 July 1988) was an English comedic script writer and comedy actor on both radio and television, best known as Pa Glum in Take It From Here and as the headmaster 'Professor' James Edwards in Whack-O!
Edwards was born James Keith O'Neill Edwards in Barnes, London, the son of a professor of mathematics. He was educated at St Paul's Cathedral School, at King's College School in Wimbledon, London and later at St John's College, Cambridge.
He served in the Royal Air Force during World War II, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. His Dakota was shot down at Arnhem in 1944, resulting in his sustaining facial injuries requiring plastic surgery — he disguised the traces with the huge handlebar moustache that later became his trademark. He was a member of the Guinea Pig Club.
Edwards was a feature of London theatre in the immediate post-war years, debuting at London's Windmill Theatre in 1946 and on BBC radio the same year. He later did a season with Tony Hancock, having previously performed in the Cambridge Footlights review. He gained wider exposure as a radio performer in Take It From Here, co-starring Dick Bentley, which first paired his writer Frank Muir with Bentley's personal script writer Denis Norden. Also on radio he appeared in My Wildest Dream.

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Jimmy Mulville
James Thomas Mulville (born 5 January 1955) is an English comedian, comedy writer, producer and television presenter. Mulville is best known for co-founding in 1986 the British independent television production company Hat Trick Productions with Denise O'Donoghue and Rory McGrath (who left in 1992). In 2003, Mulville and O'Donoghue, as co-founders of Hat Trick, were listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy.
Brought up in Walton, Liverpool, Mulville went to Alsop High School. He began his career as an actor and writer for the Cambridge Footlights, whilst reading French and Classics at Jesus College. At Cambridge he met Rory McGrath with whom he both performed and wrote. He became president of Cambridge Footlights in 1977 and after graduating, went on to work for BBC Radio comedy for four years, before moving to television in 1984 as script editor and producer of Alas Smith and Jones.
He appeared in and co-wrote the cult TV show Who Dares Wins (1983–88). He was one of the cast of the British comedy series The Steam Video Company (1984). He starred in the ITV sitcom That's Love in the 1980s, along with Diana Hardcastle and Tony Slattery.

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Jo Kendall
Jo Kendall is a British actress.
She played Desdemona in a production of Othello at the A.D.C. Theatre, Cambridge in 1962.
In August 1963 she appeared in the West End in London, New Zealand and Broadway, in the Cambridge University revue Cambridge Circus directed by Humphrey Barclay, alongside Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Bill Oddie, Tim Brooke-Taylor, David Hatch and Chris Stuart-Clark.
Moving to radio comedy she was a regular performer in the BBC's I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (with John Cleese, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie, Graeme Garden and David Hatch), and a member of the panel in the very first edition of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. Kendall was also a regular team member of the popular radio comedy series The Burkiss Way and played Lady Cynthia Fitzmelton in the opening episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In 1978 she appeared in the comedy drama The Unvarnished Truth at London's Phoenix Theatre with Royce Ryton, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden. In 1993 and 1994 she played Aunt Maud opposite Kate Copstick in the BBC children's series Marlene Marlowe Investigates.

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Joe Craig
Joe Craig (born 30 June 1981 in London) is an English writer, children's novelist and musician. He is best known for the Jimmy Coates series of books, which is sometimes compared to the work of Jack Heath (Six of Hearts) or Anthony Horowitz (Alex Rider), and described in several reviews as 'The Bourne Identity for kids'.
Craig was born and grew up in North London, where he attended University College School. He went on to study philosophy at Emmanuel College, Cambridge where he wrote and composed music for the Cambridge Footlights. In his final year at university he was head-hunted by Shell Oil but in the same week was offered a job composing a musical for the London stage. He turned down Shell to pursue a career in music, composing scores for theatre and TV productions.
In 2002 he provided the score for Told You So, a musical adaptation of Aesop's fables, with book and lyrics by John Finnemore, but in 2003 he moved away from the theatre to write pop material and to perform as a singer-songwriter and jazz musician, after having a heart attack from the stress of working with lots of actors at once.

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John Cleese
John Marwood Cleese (/ˈkliːz/; born 27 October 1939) is an English actor, comedian, writer and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report. In the late 1960s he became a member of Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show Monty Python's Flying Circus and the four Monty Python films: And Now for Something Completely Different, The Holy Grail, Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life.
In the mid 1970s, Cleese and his first wife, Connie Booth, co-wrote and starred in the British sitcom Fawlty Towers. Later, he co-starred with Kevin Kline, Jamie Lee Curtis and former Python colleague Michael Palin in A Fish Called Wanda and Fierce Creatures. He also starred in Clockwise, and has appeared in many other films, including two James Bond films as R/Q, two Harry Potter films and three Shrek films.
With Yes Minister writer Antony Jay he co-founded Video Arts, a production company making entertaining training films.

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John Fortune
John Fortune (born John Wood; 30 June 1939) is a British satirist, comedian writer and actor, best known for his work with John Bird and Rory Bremner on the TV series Bremner, Bird and Fortune. He was educated at Bristol Cathedral School and King's College, Cambridge, where he was to meet and form a lasting friendship with John Bird.
Fortune was born in Bristol. His early career included contributions to Peter Cook's Establishment Club team, which included Eleanor Bron and John Bird in 1962. Fortune and Bird also worked together on the TV show A Series of Birds in 1967, and Fortune and Bron wrote and performed a series of sketches for TV in Where Was Spring in 1969. In 1971, with John Wells, he published the comedy classic A Melon for Ecstasy, about a man who consummates his love affair with a tree.
He appeared with Peter Sellers in a Barclays Bank advertisement in 1980 shortly before Sellers' death; the infamous Monty Casino ads.
Along with writing several series for the BBC, in 1982 he appeared in an episode of the BBC situation comedy Yes Minister as an army officer who brings the minister's attention to British-made weapons getting into the hands of terrorists.

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John Grillo
John Grillo (born 29 November 1942, Watford, Hertfordshire) is a British actor and playwright who has appeared in many film, television, radio and stage productions.
He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and while there was actively involved in student theatre. He performed with Footlights in their annual revue. After Cambridge, he was awarded an Arts Council Playwrighting Bursary and his plays were performed at Nottingham, Glasgow, Oxford and Dublin as well as at the ADC Theatre in Cambridge.
He played Mr. Samgrass in the ITV series Brideshead Revisited, and Phillip Marriott QC in Crown Court. He had minor parts in other shows, including Blackadder II ("Bells"), Bergerac, Taggart and Rumpole of the Bailey. He also had a more regular role in Three Up, Two Down, playing the gloomy and pessimistic zoo-keeper Wilf Perkins.
In 1997 he appeared as Mr Carkdale, the English teacher who spoke only in Anglo-Saxon, in two series of Steven Moffat's school-sitcom Chalk. In 2008, he contributed to the audio commentary for the DVD release.

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John Shrapnel
John Shrapnel (born 27 April 1942) is an English actor.
Shrapnel was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, the son of Mary Lillian Myfanwy (née Edwards) and journalist/author Norman Shrapnel.
As a stage actor, he was a member of Laurence Olivier's Royal National Theatre company and the Royal Shakespeare Company and most recently appeared as Sir Oliver Surface in The School for Scandal (directed by Deborah Warner) at the Barbican Centre in 2011.
He has also appeared extensively in film and on television in roles in Elizabeth R, Z-Cars, Edward and Mrs. Simpson, 101 Dalmatians, Space: 1999, Inspector Morse, Coogan's Run, and Foyle's War. He presented an episode of the 1983 BBC television travel series Great Little Railways. He gave performances in three entries in the BBC Television Shakespeare plays and as Creon in the BBC's 1984 productions of the Three Theban plays of Sophocles.
In America, he has starred in supporting roles as Senator Gaius in Gladiator, Nestor in Troy and Pompey in the second episode of Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. He also played the Jail Warden in the 10th Kingdom, an epic fantasy miniseries.

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Jon Canter
Jon Canter is an English television comedy writer for Lenny Henry and other leading comedians. Canter was born and brought up in the Jewish community of Golders Green, North London and studied law at the University of Cambridge where he became President of Footlights.
After a spell in advertising copywriting (and as a housemate of Douglas Adams) he became a freelance comedy writer, setting up home in Aldeburgh with his wife, painter Helen Napper. He became a principal writer for the comedian Lenny Henry, also writing for Dawn French, Angus Deayton, Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones, as well as script editor for Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. He co-wrote the 2003 BBC television satirical comedy Posh Nosh with the co-star Arabella Weir; and the BBC Radio 4 situation comedy Legal, Decent, Honest and Truthful with Guy Jenkin. He wote a Radio 4 Afternoon Play I Love Stephen Fry in 2008. He wrote for the ITV animated cartoon version of Mr. Bean, and the screenplay for the film Full Monty 2.
His first novel, Seeds of Greatness, a comic story inspired by his upbringing, was published in 2006 (ISBN 978-0-224-07773-6), and was abridged by Fiona McAlpine as a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime. His subsequent novels have been A Short Gentleman (2009) and Worth (2011). Since 2008 he has been a regular contributor to The Guardian's comment pages.

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Jon Naismith
Jon Naismith (born 1965) is a producer mainly know for his work on BBC Radio, primarily comedy, including You'll Have Had Your Tea, The Unbelievable Truth and About a Dog.
Since 1991 he has been the producer of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
Jon Naismith attended Horris Hill School in Hampshire from 1973 to 1978.
Naismith was a member of Footlights at the University of Cambridge and Junior Treasurer from 1987-1988. He co-wrote and starred in the 1988 revue Sheep Go Bare alongside Mel Giedroyc, Simon Munnery, Tom Hollander, Dan Gooch and Sarah Dudman.
Naismith has been producer of the long-running radio panel show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue since 1991. The episodes are recorded before a live theatre audience, with two programmes being recorded at each performance and Naismith traditionally performs the duties of "warmup artist". This usually involves testing sound recording levels by means of a "patronising audience participation exercise" and a joke. Naismith also provides the voiceovers for the show - whenever Humphrey Lyttleton (and later guest presenters) talk about something appearing on the laser display board, he is the mystery voice for listeners at home.

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Jonathan Lynn
Jonathan Lynn (born 3 April 1943 in Bath, Somerset, England) is an English actor, comedy writer and director. He is best known for being the co-writer of Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister.
Lynn was educated at Kingswood School, Bath, between 1954 and 1961, after which he studied Law at Pembroke College, Cambridge (where his uncle, Israeli statesman Abba Eban studied also). There he participated in the Cambridge University Footlights Club revue Cambridge Circus (appearing with the revue in 1964 on Broadway and on The Ed Sullivan Show).
In 1967, he played Motel the tailor in the original West End production of Fiddler on the Roof (production recorded by CBS Records).
From the late 1960s, Jonathan Lynn was appearing in and writing television sitcoms, including the television comedy series Twice a Fortnight with Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Tony Buffery.
He also played the Irish medical student Danny Hooley in the second series of the television comedy Doctor in the House in 1970 (Jonathan Lynn returned as Danny Hooley, for one episode of Doctor in Charge, "Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot?", after Hooley had been working as a doctor). He also wrote some episodes for Doctor at Large, Doctor in Charge, Doctor at Sea and Doctor on the Go.

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Jonathan Miller
Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE (born 21 July 1934) is a British theatre and opera director, actor, author, television presenter, humorist and sculptor. Trained as a physician in the late 1950s, he first came to prominence in the early 1960s with his role in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe with fellow writers and performers Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett. Despite having seen few operas and not knowing how to read music, he began stage-directing them in the 1970s and has since become one of the world's leading opera directors with several classic productions to his credit. His best-known production is probably his 1982 "Mafia"-styled Rigoletto set in 1950s Little Italy, Manhattan. In its early days he was an associate director at the Royal National Theatre and later he ran the Old Vic Theatre. He has also become a well-known television personality and familiar public intellectual in Britain and the United States of America.

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Jonny Sweet
Jonny Sweet (born 1985) is a British comedian and winner of the 2009 Edinburgh Comedy Award for best newcomer.
Sweet was born in Nottingham and educated at the local independent school Nottingham High School. He read English at Pembroke College, Cambridge and met writing partner Joe Thomas, who was also a member of the Footlights. Sweet served as vice president to Simon Bird while Thomas was secretary. After graduating, the threesome shared a flat together before their big break into comedy and television. He graduated with a first and was expected to follow his father into the legal profession but joined Endemol UK on an internship instead.
In 2009 Sweet won The Edinburgh Comedy Award for best newcomer for his show 'Mostly About Arthur'. He also starred in Tom Basden's debut play PARTY alongside Tom himself, 2009 Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Tim Key, Anna Crilly, Katy Wix and Nick Mohammed. The play won a Fringe First before travelling to the Sydney Arts Festival and appearing in London's West End.

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Julian Fellowes
Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford, DL (born 17 August 1949), known professionally as Julian Fellowes, is an English actor, novelist, film director and screenwriter, as well as a Conservative peer.
Fellowes was born in Cairo, Egypt, the youngest son of Olwen (née Stuart-Jones) and Peregrine Edward Launcelot Fellowes, a diplomat and Arabist who campaigned to have Haile Selassie restored to his throne during World War II.
His childhood home was in Wetherby Place in South Kensington.
Fellowes was educated at several private schools in Britain: first at Wetherby School (Wetherby Place, South Kensington, London), then at St. Philip's, a Roman Catholic pre-preparatory school, also in Wetherby Place; and finally at the Catholic public school Ampleforth College. He went up to Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, where he was a member of Footlights. He next studied at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art (London).
Fellowes moved to Los Angeles in 1981 and played a number of small TV roles for the next two years. He believed his breakthrough had come when he was considered to replace Hervé Villechaize as the butler on the TV series Fantasy Island, but the role was given to a much older British actor.

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Julian Slade
Julian Penkivil Slade (28 May 1930 – 17 June 2006) was an English writer of musical theatre best known for the show Salad Days, which he wrote in six weeks in 1954 and became the UK's longest-running show of the 1950s with over 2,288 performances.
He was born in London in 1930, and was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge where he was the first Footlights Vice President. After leaving Cambridge he went on to the drama school at the Bristol Old Vic.
During his time at the Old Vic, Slade wrote incidental music for several productions including Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Duenna. In 1954 he was asked to write a musical for the Old Vic Christmas Season. It was then that he came up with Salad Days with Dorothy Reynolds. The show was such a success that it moved to London where it ran for over 2,288 performances - a record at the time. It was here in London that a young Cameron Mackintosh saw the show with his aunt and decided to become a theatrical producer. Slade and Mackintosh stayed close friends throughout his life.

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Kenneth Horne
Kenneth Horne (27 February 1907 – 14 February 1969) was an English comedian and businessman. The son of a clergyman and politician, he combined a successful business career with regular broadcasting for the BBC. His first hit series, Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh, written with his co-star Richard Murdoch, arose out of his wartime service as an officer in the Royal Air Force. Ill health forced him to choose between commerce and show business after 1958, and, choosing the latter, he made two further popular radio series, Beyond Our Ken (1958–1964) and Round the Horne (1965–1968)
Charles Kenneth Horne was the seventh and youngest child of Charles Silvester Horne and his wife, the Hon. Katherine neé Cozens-Hardy. Silvester Horne was a Congregationalist minister, Liberal MP for Ipswich, and powerful orator. His maternal grandfather was Herbert Cozens-Hardy, the Liberal MP for North Norfolk who became both the Master of the Rolls and Baron Cozens-Hardy on 1 July 1914.
Horne was educated at a preparatory school in Shrewsbury, followed by St George's School, Harpenden and the London School of Economics. His tutors at the LSE included Hugh Dalton and Stephen Leacock. Horne was dissatisfied there, and through the generosity of an uncle, Austin Pilkington of the Pilkington glassmaking family of St Helens, he was enabled to go instead to Magdalene College, Cambridge. He represented the university at tennis, partnering Bunny Austin, but was academically undistinguished and so neglectful of his studies that he was sent down in 1927.

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Kevin McCloud
Kevin McCloud (born 8 May 1958) is a British designer, writer and television presenter best known for his work on the Channel 4 series Grand Designs.
He lives in a 15th-century farmhouse in Frome, Somerset, with his wife (childhood sweetheart) Anna-Charlotte McFadyen ("Char", who runs an online interior decoration business) and their two children, Milo (b. 1998) and Elsie (b. 2001), plus Hugo (b. 1988) and Grace (b. 1991) from McCloud's previous relationship.
Born in Bedfordshire, McCloud and his two brothers, Terence and Graham, were raised in a house his parents had built. McCloud attended Dunstable Grammar School, which became Manshead Upper School, and then studied the history of art and architecture at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He is conversant in French and Italian.
After graduating, McCloud trained and worked as a theatre designer, then set up his own lighting design practice and manufacturing business 'McCloud Lighting' - at one point employing 26 people. His work includes the carved and painted rococo-style vegetable ceiling in the food halls at Harrods, many projects in conjunction with J.J. Desmond Interiors and lighting installations at Ely Cathedral, Edinburgh Castle, the Savoy Hotel and the Dorchester Hotel. Today he concentrates on television work, journalism and product design, including work for British manufacturers.

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Laurence Howarth
Laurence Howarth is an English comic actor and writer. He has appeared in one episode each of the TV series After You've Gone (2007), Hyperdrive (2006), Blessed (2005), The Robinsons (2005), My Hero (2005) and Dark Ages (1999). He has also appeared in the radio comedy Bleak Expectations and written for TV to Go, the 2006 TV series of Dead Ringers, and for Alistair McGowan's Big Impression (1996).
He is one half of the double act Laurence & Gus, alongside fellow comedian and writer Gus Brown. Together they have made two series of comedy sketch shows for BBC Radio 4 - Laurence & Gus: Untold Stories (2004); Laurence & Gus: Men In Love (2006). In 2009, recording was completed for a series called Laurence & Gus: Hearts & Minds.
Howarth has also created two black comedies for BBC Radio 4. Rigor Mortis looks at the lives of pathologists working in a hospital mortuary, while Safety Catch is about a man who has drifted into arms-dealing without quite knowing why. Safety Catch is co-written with John Finnemore.

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Lawrence Grossmith
Lawrence Grossmith (29 March 1877 – 21 February 1944) was a British actor, the son of Gilbert and Sullivan performer George Grossmith and the brother of actor George Grossmith, Jr.
Grossmith was born in London, the son of the actor George Grossmith, famous for his roles in the Savoy Operas, and Emmeline Rosa Noyce (d. 1905). His uncle was the actor Weedon Grossmith. Lawrence Grossmith attended the University of Cambridge in the late 1890s, where he was a member of the famous Footlights, and for whom he directed plays.
In his stage appearances, Grossmith usually played the leading man, and often appeared in America, taking major roles in such musicals as The White Chrysanthemum (1905), About Town (1906), Havana (1908), Are You There? (1913), Nobody Home (1915), Flora Bella (1916), Love o' Mike (1917), and The Cat and the Fiddle (1931), as well as in such plays as Too Many Husbands (1919) and Call It a Day (1936). Among others, he appeared in the films The Brass Bottle (1914), Counsel's Opinion (1933), Tiger Bay (1934), The Private Life of Don Juan (1934), Silver Blaze (1937) The Girl in the Taxi (1937), Captain Fury (1939), No Time for Comedy (1940), and Gaslight (1944).

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Lenny Henry
Lenworth George "Lenny" Henry, CBE (born 29 August 1958) is a British actor, writer, comedian and occasional television presenter.
Henry, the son of Jamaican immigrants, was born at Burton Road Hospital in Dudley in 1958. He was a pupil at St John's Primary School and later The Blue Coat School outside Dudley, before completing his school education at W.R. Tuson College (now Preston College).
His first manager was Robert Luff, who signed him in 1975 and gave him the opportunity to perform as part of the Luff-produced touring stage version of The Black and White Minstrel Show. In July 2009, Lenny Henry stated he was contractually obliged to perform and regretted his part in the show.
Shortly before this, on 17 December 1974, the then 16-year-old Henry had been voted Britain's top non-smoker for his declaration aimed at teenagers that smoking was not fashionable.
His earliest television appearance was on the New Faces talent show, which he won in 1975 with an impersonation of Stevie Wonder. The following year he appeared with Norman Beaton in LWT's sitcom The Fosters, Britain's first comedy series with predominantly black performers. His formative years were spent in working men's clubs, where his act was as a young black man impersonating white characters such as the Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em character Frank Spencer (whom he impersonated on New Faces). He also made guest appearances on television programmes including Celebrity Squares, Seaside Special and The Ronnie Corbett Show.

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Leslie Bricusse
Leslie Bricusse (born 29 January 1931) is an English composer, lyricist, and playwright.
Although best known for his partnership with Anthony Newley, Bricusse has worked with many other composers. He was educated at University College School in London and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge University, he was Secretary of Footlights between 1952 and 1953 and Footlights President during the following year. He currently lives in California in the United States, and he is married to the actress Yvonne Romain.
Sammy Davis, Jr. had hits with two of Bricusse's songs - "What Kind of Fool Am I?" (from Stop the World - I Want to Get Off) and the #1 hit "The Candy Man" (from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory). Other recording artists who have had popular success with his songs include Matt Monro and Frank Sinatra ("My Kind of Girl"), Shirley Bassey ("Goldfinger"), Harry Secombe ("If I Ruled the World"), Nancy Sinatra ("You Only Live Twice"), Maureen McGovern ("Can You Read My Mind"), and Diana Krall ("When I Look in Your Eyes"). Bricusse also partnered with George Tipton to write the opening theme of the U.S. television series It's a Living.

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Martin Bergman
Martin Bergman (born 17 June 1957) is a British producer, writer and director notable for working in Hollywood.
After leaving Cambridge University in 1979, where he was president of the Footlights, Bergman produced several live arena shows with his Australian partner Michael Edgley, including the world tour of ice skaters Torvill and Dean. He also produced several comedy shows in Australia, Britain and the USA.
Bergman married the American comedian Rita Rudner in 1988. They have written several films and TV projects together, including Peter's Friends which featured many other Footlights alumni. Bergman has also directed some of the projects they wrote together, and Bergman's company has produced many of his wife's shows. They have a daughter Molly and the three of them divide their time between homes in Las Vegas and Southern California.
Martin Bergman at the Internet Movie Database

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Matt Kirshen
Matt Kirshen (born 1980) is a British comedian. Kirshen has performed around the world, including Singapore, Dubai, Holland, Germany, and France. In 2007, he enjoyed a successful run in NBC's Last Comic Standing. Initially known for jokes poking fun at his young appearance, he has since turned his attention to more general, real world and topical subjects, with a tightly-written style involving multiple "taglines" for every joke. He is an alumnus of Clare College, Cambridge.
Kirshen originates from North London, where he attended Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood. He subsequently studied Mathematics at Clare College, Cambridge. University marked the beginning of his comedy career. At university, Kirshen briefly edited Clareification, a magazine in which students mocked Cambridge traditions, satirized the events of the week, reported on silly student antics and spread college gossip. He also started a comedy club in Clare College cellars and became well known within the Cambridge University comedy scene. He compèred these "Clare Comedy" nights during the latter years of his degree and has continued to return as guest compère, in addition to performing at the Clare May Ball. Since 2001, Kirshen has become a frequent performer at London clubs including The Comedy Store, and has completed several university tours. Kirshen was a finalist in So You Think You're Funny? at the 2003 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and was named Hackney Empire New Act of the Year. In 2007, he was one of the final seven comics in NBC's reality TV show Last Comic Standing. In 2008, he recorded a 30-minute special for Paramount Comedy. Ethnically an Ashkenazi Jew, he is a professed atheist. In 2009, he co-wrote and starred in the BBC Radio 4 sketch comedy series Bigipedia. He also released an album entitled "I Guess We'll Never Know", which ranked in Punchline Magazine's Top 10 comedy albums of 2009. Kirshen also hosts a science based podcast called "Probably Science"

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Matthew Holness
Matthew James Holness (born 1975) is an English comedian and actor.
Born in Whitstable, Kent, Holness attended Chaucer Technology School in Canterbury and read English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. As a member of the Footlights, he was involved with and appeared in a number of shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in the mid nineties. He also served as vice-president when David Mitchell was president and his contemporaries included Robert Webb and Richard Ayoade. He continued his studies at Cambridge and finished a MA, graduating in absentia due to his comedy work.
Before he was on television, he played Bob Fossil and was the first choice for the role, however contract limitations between Channel 4 (Garth Marenghi's Darkplace) and the BBC (Mighty Boosh) saw Rich Fulcher take the role permanently, in The Mighty Boosh stage show. He is currently the only regular cast member (of six) from the TV version of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace who has yet to feature in the TV version of The Mighty Boosh. He is the only main character from Darkplace (of four) not to have appeared in The IT Crowd.

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Maury Yeston
Maury Yeston (born October 23, 1945) is an American composer, lyricist, educator and musicologist.
He is known for writing the music and lyrics to Broadway musicals, including Nine in 1982, and Titanic in 1997, both of which won Tony Awards for best musical and best score. He also won a Drama Desk Award for Nine. Yeston also wrote a significant amount of the music and most of the lyrics to the Tony-nominated musical Grand Hotel in 1989, which was nominated for best score. His musical version of the novel The Phantom of the Opera called Phantom (not to be confused with Andrew Lloyd Webber's version) has enjoyed numerous productions in the U.S. and around the world. He has also written a number of other Off-Broadway musicals, a song cycle, a Cello Concerto, and other pieces.
Yeston serves on the Board of the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He is also President of the Kleban Foundation, serves on the editorial boards of Musical Quarterly and the Kurt Weill Foundation Publication Project and on the advisory board of the Yale University Press Broadway Series. He was the Director of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop in New York City for two decades beginning in 1982.

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Mel and Sue
Mel and Sue are a British comedy duo, consisting of Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins.
The two women met whilst students at the University of Cambridge in England (Giedroyc at Trinity College and Perkins at New Hall) where both were members of the famous comedy club Footlights.
Their television breakthrough came on the French & Saunders television series, and they have often been compared to Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. Together, they hosted a popular lunchtime show on Channel 4 called Light Lunch where celebrity chefs cooked lunch for the duo's celebrity guests, and an early evening version, Late Lunch.
In 1999, they were signed by ITV and hosted a comedy panel game for the network called Casting Couch, in a prime late evening slot, but it fared poorly in the ratings and was not recommissioned.
Mel and Sue appeared together again in Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders Mamma Mia sketch for Comic Relief on 13 March 2009. Perkins later confirmed on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross that the duo would be working together on something new in 2010. Their new show, a competition series called The Great British Bake Off, began on BBC Two on 17 August 2010.

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Mel Giedroyc
Mel Giedroyc ( /ˈɡiːdrɔɪtʃ/ or /ˈɡjɛdrɔɪ̯t͡ɕ/; born Melanie Clare Sophie Giedroyc on 5 June 1968 in Epsom, Surrey) is an English television presenter, actress, and writer.
Giedroyc is best known for presenting comedy items alongside Sue Perkins. The two women met whilst students at Cambridge and both were members of the famous Footlights comedy club.
As Mel and Sue, the duo were short-listed for the Daily Express Best Newcomers Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 1993. After a few years writing for French & Saunders, they hosted a lunchtime show on Channel 4 called Light Lunch (and the early evening version, Late Lunch). They were reunited in 2010 to host the cookery competition The Great British Bake Off, on BBC Two from 16th August 2010. The two returned for the second series on 27th September 2011.
Giedroyc has also been a presenter on Channel 4's RI:SE. She narrated Celebrity Driving School in 2003. Some other ventures include being a contestant on the 2005 series of The Games, co-starring in the 2005 BBC One sitcom Blessed and co-presenting Richard Hammond's 5 O'Clock Show on ITV1. She was in one episode of The Vicar of Dibley.

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Michael Frayn
Michael J. Frayn (born 8 September 1933) is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy. His novels, such as Towards the End of the Morning, Headlong and Spies, have also been critical and commercial successes, making him one of the handful of writers in the English language to succeed in both drama and prose fiction. His works often raise philosophical questions in a humorous context. Frayn's wife is Claire Tomalin, the biographer and literary journalist.
Frayn was born to a deaf asbestos salesman in Mill Hill, a suburb of London, grew up in Ewell, Surrey, and was educated at Kingston Grammar School. Following two years of National Service, during which he learned Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists, Frayn read Moral Sciences (Philosophy) at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, graduating in 1957. He then worked as a reporter and columnist for The Guardian and The Observer, where he established a reputation as a satirist and comic writer, and began publishing his plays and novels.

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Miriam Margolyes
Miriam Margolyes, OBE (born 18 May 1941) is an English actress and voice artist. Her earliest roles were in theatre and after several supporting roles in film and television she won a BAFTA Award for her role in The Age of Innocence (1993).
Margolyes was born in Oxford, England, the daughter of Ruth (née Walters), a property investor, and Joseph Margolyes, a physician from Glasgow. She grew up in a Jewish family, a descendant of immigrants from Belarus. She attended the local Oxford High School, at which she also opened the new buildings in March 2011, and later Newnham College, Cambridge where she read English. There, she began acting in her twenties, and also appeared in productions of the comedy troupe Cambridge Footlights.
With her distinctive voice, Margolyes first gained recognition for her work as a voice artist. She recorded a soft-porn audio called Sexy Sonia: Leaves from my Schoolgirl Notebook. She performed most of the supporting female characters in the dubbed Japanese action TV series, Monkey. She also worked with the theatre company Gay Sweatshop and provided voiceovers in the Japanese TV series The Water Margin.

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Mitchell and Webb
Mitchell and Webb are a British comedy double act, composed of David Mitchell (born 14 July 1974) and Robert Webb (born 29 September 1972). They are best known for starring in the Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show and their award-winning sketch show That Mitchell and Webb Look. The duo first met at the Footlights in 1993 and collaborated for the 1995 Revue whilst studying at Cambridge University.
After graduating from university, the duo did two-man shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and some sketch writing, including a series of Big Train and also for Armstrong and Miller's eponymous show. Their big break came in 2000 when they joined the writing team for the BBC Two sketch show Bruiser. The following year, the short-lived Play UK channel invited them to write their own sketch show, The Mitchell and Webb Situation. Despite the low ratings of the channel, the show was reasonably well-received by viewers. After the success, they wrote and starred in the Radio 4 sketch show, That Mitchell and Webb Sound – which was later adapted for television on BBC Two as That Mitchell and Webb Look. The first series of That Mitchell and Webb Look won the BAFTA for "Best Comedy Programme" in 2007.

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Monty Python
Monty Python (sometimes known as The Pythons) was a British surreal comedy group who created Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series. The Python phenomenon developed from the television series into something larger in scope and impact, spawning touring stage shows, films, numerous albums, several books and a stage musical as well as launching the members to individual stardom. The group's influence on comedy has been compared to The Beatles' influence on music.
The television series, broadcast by the BBC from 1969 to 1974, was conceived, written and performed by members Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. Loosely structured as a sketch show, but with an innovative stream-of-consciousness approach (aided by Gilliam's animation), it pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in style and content. A self-contained comedy team responsible for both writing and performing their work, the Pythons' creative control allowed them to experiment with form and content, discarding rules of television comedy. Their influence on British comedy has been apparent for years, while in North America it has coloured the work of cult performers from the early editions of Saturday Night Live through to more recent absurdist trends in television comedy. "Pythonesque" has entered the English lexicon as a result.

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Morwenna Banks
Morwenna Tamsin Banks (born September 1961 in Flushing, Cornwall) is British comedy actress, writer and producer known for her role in the Channel 4 comedy series Absolutely, where her best-known character was a schoolgirl, with ripped tights, who sat on the edge of a desk, describing everyday things from a child's perspective.
Banks was born in Flushing, a village near Falmouth, Cornwall. She attended Truro High School for Girls and Robinson College, Cambridge and was in the Footlights alongside Tony Slattery, Neil Mullarkey, Steve Punt, Hugh Dennis and Nick Hancock.
She appeared as the Keeper of the Rules (who resides in Limbo) in the episode 'Jenny's Non Dream' of the TV series Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, and played the character of Tess in the BBC comedy series Catterick in 2004 alongside Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer.
Banks made her United States television debut on 8 April 1995, when she became a cast member on Saturday Night Live. Banks is the third castmember on SNL to be born outside of North America. Banks left the show after four episodes, making her one of the shortest-lived cast members on the show.

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Natalie Haynes
Natalie Haynes (born 1974) is a British comedian and writer. She has been performing stand-up comedy since 1994 and was a member of Footlights at Cambridge University where she read Classics at Christ's College. She attended King Edward VI High School for Girls, Birmingham and was made a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association in April 2010.
Haynes has been a panellist on We've Been Here Before, Banter, Quote... Unquote, Personality Test, and Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive on BBC Radio 4. She has contributed to BBC 7 comedy review show, Serious About Comedy and reviews films for Front Row.
Her stand-up featured on Front Row and Loose Ends on BBC Radio 4, on BBC 7's Spanking New. She has also appeared in the BBC Radio 4 Pick of the Fringe in 2004 and 2005. She has also appeared on Radio Five Live's Anita Anand Show, and MacAulay and Co. on BBC Scotland.
In 2005 and 2006 Haynes wrote and presented documentaries on comic writers, for BBC Radio 4; modern female writers including Jessica Mitford and Dorothy Parker, and Aristophanes, Juvenal and Martial.

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Neil Mullarkey

Neil R. Mullarkey (born 1961) is an English actor, writer and comedian.
Mullarkey studied at Robinson College, Cambridge where he was a member of the Footlights and was Junior Treasurer during Tony Slattery's term as president. He became president in 1982 with Nick Hancock, Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis as his contemporaries. Mullarkey formed Hancock & Mullarkey with Hancock, performing their act (which consisted of spoofing television shows' title sequences to that show's accompanying theme music) several times on television. This included Doctor Who, Kojak, and Dad's Army.
He has also been in a double act with Tony Hawks called the Timid Twins.[1]
In the early 1980s, he teamed up with Mike Myers as 'Mullarkey and Myers'. They would perform sketches based on their shared love of cartoons, B-movies and bad TV. They played around the burgeoning London pub circuit, particularly at the George IV in Chiswick, where they often shared the bill with the young Hugh Grant, then plying his trade in the Jockeys Of Norfolk revue. As their fame increased, Mullarkey and Myers toured the UK, ending in a sold-out season at the Edinburgh Festival. The two also appeared as 'The Sound Asleep Club' on TV-am's 'Wide Awake Club', a children's TV show hosted at the time by Tommy Boyd. Mike eventually returned to Toronto, but Mullarkey would briefly join him to revive 'Mullarkey and Myers' in Canada. Later still, he appeared in Myers' début in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, as the Customs Officer who freaks Austin out with his penis enlarger. (He also appeared again in Goldmember and helped Mike Myers do uncredited rewrites of So I Married An Axe Murderer).

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Nicholas Hytner
Sir Nicholas Robert Hytner (born 7 May 1956) is an English film and theatre producer and director. He has been the artistic director of London's National Theatre since 2003.
Hytner was born in Manchester to a Jewish family, the son of barrister, Benet Hytner, QC, and his wife, Joyce. He attended Manchester Grammar School and read English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. In the early 1980s he worked at Exeter University's Northcott Theatre, and in the theatre department. He later became an Associate Director at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre, where he worked between 1985 and 1989. Hytner first found himself working regularly at the National Theatre in London between 1989 and 1997.
Hytner's directorial work for theatre includes The Country Wife, Edward II, Don Carlos, Ghetto, Miss Saigon, Orpheus Descending, a 2-part adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, Alan Bennett's The History Boys, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel (1992), Southwark Fair and The Alchemist, Measure for Measure (1987), The Tempest (1988) and King Lear (1990), The Recruiting Officer by George Farquhar (1992), The Cripple of Inishmaan by Martin McDonagh (1997), The Winter's Tale (2001), Mother Clap's Molly House by Mark Ravenhill (2001), Henry V (play) (2003) and England People Very Nice (2009).

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Nicholas Luard
Nicholas Lamert Luard (26 June 1937 – 25 May 2004) was a writer and politician, but is perhaps best known for his activities in the early 1960s: co-founding The Establishment with Peter Cook and being one of the Lords Gnome of Private Eye.
He was educated at Winchester College and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read English and was taught by F. R. Leavis. He met Peter Cook through Footlights. A very short academic career was replaced by club management on the strength of a legacy. He then went into writing.
With Chris Brasher, Nigel Hawkins and Denis Mollison, he founded the John Muir Trust in 1983. Nick served as Chairman from 1991 to 1997.
Luard stood as a candidate for the Referendum Party in the 1997 general election, against Michael Portillo in Enfield Southgate.

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Nick Hancock
Nick Hancock (born 25 October 1962, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire) is an English actor and television presenter. Probably TV's most well known Stoke City supporter, he hosted the sports quiz They Think It's All Over for 10 years. He also formerly presented Room 101 (1994–1999) on TV, as well as its earlier radio version (1992–1994). He has recently been interviewed by 6 Town Radio about the 40th anniversary of Stoke's 1972 League cup win.
Taking a sabbatical from show business, from 2005 he began working for a friend's mortgage brokerage. He left the position in February 2007, although no reason for his departure was made public.
Hancock grew up with three elder sisters, with father Ken, a builder. He was educated at Yarlet School in Staffordshire and Shrewsbury School and won a place at Homerton College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge, Hancock was a member of the Footlights where he first collaborated with Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt and became president in 1983 with Punt as vice president. He was also a founding member of the Homerton College Blaggards.

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Nick Mohammed
Nick Mohammed (born 4 October 1980) is a British comedian, actor and writer.
Mohammed was educated at Allerton Grange High School. He turned down an offer from Cambridge University and chose Durham University, where he was a member of St Aidan's College and played violin in the university orchestra. He had auditioned for the Durham Revue twice but failed to get in and instead frequented the local comedy circuit. After graduating with a first in geophysics, he commenced doctoral studies in seismology at Magdalene College, Cambridge and had a job for an oil company lined up. His interest in comedy prompted him to audition for the Footlights, which he did successfully. Following a performance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, he was contacted by a BBC producer. He then left Cambridge without finishing his PhD to pursue a career in comedy.
Mohammed has featured in the second series of BBC One’s Reggie Perrin and was a co-presenter in BBC Three comedy series The King Is Dead alongside Simon Bird and Katy Wix. He has made guest appearances in Pete & Dud: The Lost Sketches, Miranda, How Not to Live Your Life and Life's Too Short.

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Nicola Walker
Nicola Walker (born 1970) is an English actress, best known for her starring roles in various British television programmes from the 1990s onwards, particularly as Ruth Evershed in the spy drama Spooks. She has also worked in theatre, radio and film.
Born in Stepney in the East End of London, she has an older brother. Walker attended Forest School, Walthamstow, and undertook acting classes from aged 12 to speak to boys. Walker then attended New Hall, Cambridge, where she started her acting career with the Cambridge Footlights. Her contemporaries included Spooks writer David Wolstencroft and comedienne Sue Perkins, who were all part of the 1990 national tour.
Offered a place at RADA, on graduation from Cambridge she already had some roles and an agent, so decided to pursue her career. Based in London, she shared a flat with Perkins, Sarah Phelps and Emma Kennedy, acting at the Edinburgh Festival and the London Festival Fringe.
Her first major television roles were in 1997, as Gypsy Jones in Channel 4's adaptation of A Dance To The Music Of Time, and as English teacher Suzy Travis in two series of Steven Moffat's school-based sitcom Chalk. She has also appeared in guest roles in episodes of series such as Dalziel and Pascoe, Jonathan Creek, Pie in the Sky and Broken News.

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Norman Hartnell
Sir Norman Bishop Hartnell, KCVO (12 June 1901, London – 8 June 1979, Windsor) was a British fashion designer. Royal Warrant as Dressmaker to HM The Queen 1940, subsequently Royal Warrant as Dressmaker to HM Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. Royal Warrant as Dressmaker to Queen Elizabeth II 1957.
Born to an upwardly mobile family in Streatham, a southwest London suburb, his parents were publicans and owners of the Crown & Sceptre, a large coaching inn at the top of Streatham Hill. Educated at Mill Hill School, Hartnell read Modern Languages at Magdalene College, Cambridge, but left Cambridge without a degree. More interested in performing, and designing productions, for the university Footlights, Hartnell was noticed by the London press as the designer of a Footlights production which transferred to the Dalys Theatre in London. Having unsuccessfully worked for two London designers, including Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon, whom he sued for copying his designs without a credit, he opened his own business at 10 Bruton Street, Mayfair in 1923 with the help of his father and sister Phyllis.

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Olivia Colman
Olivia Colman (born Sarah Caroline Colman; 30 January 1974) is a BAFTA nominated English actress, best known for her supporting roles in various comedy shows, such as Sophie Chapman in Peep Show, Alex Smallbone in Rev. and Harriet Schulenburg in Green Wing. She gave a breakthrough performance in the 2011 film Tyrannosaur for which she received outstanding critical acclaim.
Colman was born in Norfolk and educated at two local independent schools: Norwich High School for Girls and Gresham's School in Holt. She went on to Homerton College, Cambridge and spent a term doing a primary school teacher training course. While at Cambridge she first met future co-stars David Mitchell and Robert Webb and "accidentally" auditioned for the Footlights. Eventually she decided to switch to drama and trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
Colman has appeared in roles in numerous comedy films and other BBC, ITV and Channel 4 television programmes such as Bruiser, People Like Us, Look Around You, Black Books, The Office, The Time Of Your Life and provided the voice-over for Five's poll for Britain’s Funniest Comedy Character. She regularly features in BBC Radio 4 comedies, such as Concrete Cow, Think the Unthinkable, The House of Milton Jones, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. She is also the voice of Minka, the Polish secretary in the Radio 4 comedy Hut 33, set in a fictional codebreaking hut of the real-life Bletchley Park during World War II.

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Oscar Browning
Oscar Browning (17 January 1837 – 6 October 1923) was an English writer, historian, and educational reformer. His greatest achievement was the cofounding, along with Henry Sidgwick, of the Cambridge University Day Training College in 1891. This was one of the earliest institutions in Great Britain to focus on the training of educators, preempted only by the founding of the Cambridge Teaching College for Women by Elizabeth Hughes in 1885.
Browning was born in London, the son of a merchant, William Shipton Browning, and educated at Eton College, where he was a pupil of William Johnson Cory and at King's College, Cambridge, where he became fellow and tutor, graduating fourth in the classical tripos of 1860, and where he was inducted into the exclusive Cambridge Apostles, a debating society for the Cambridge elite.
For fifteen years he was a Master at Eton College, until he was dismissed in the autumn of 1875. His parents' church, St. Andrew's, in Clewer, describes the reasons for his dismissal as "his injudicious talk, his favourites, and his anarchic spirit."

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Paul Shearer
Paul Shearer is a British actor who is best known as a member of the Fast Show team. His best-known roles on that programme are as a newscaster and a variety show host on the European television parody sketch 'Chanel 9'.
He also appeared in adverts for the furniture store SCS as well as doing a large amount of voice-over work for adverts and TV shows.
Educated at Lancing College and St John's College, Cambridge, where he studied Computer science, Shearer was a member of the Cambridge Footlights and in 1981, along with Stephen Fry, Tony Slattery, Emma Thompson, Penny Dwyer and Hugh Laurie, was part of the team that won the inaugural Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

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Penny Dwyer
Penelope Rosemary Dwyer (24 September 1953 - 4 September 2003) was a British comedy writer and performer, noted for being a member of the Cambridge Footlights revue The Cellar Tapes which won the inaugural Perrier Comedy Awards in 1981. The other performers in The Cellar Tapes were Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, Tony Slattery and Paul Shearer.
Dwyer worked as a writer and performer in Cambridge throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, but unlike her fellow Perrier winners chose not to pursue a full-time career in the entertainment business, instead becoming a metallurgist. She had a major role in the construction of the Channel Tunnel.
Dwyer died in Somerset in 2003 aged 49, following a long illness.

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Pete Atkin
Pete Atkin (born 22 August 1945) is a British singer-songwriter and radio producer notable for his 1970s musical collaborations with Clive James and for producing the BBC Radio 4 series This Sceptred Isle.
Born in Cambridge on 22 August 1945, Atkin attended Romsey County Primary School and The Perse School, where he learnt to play the violin. In 1959 he formed a church youth club band called The Chevrons for whom he played piano with four schoolfriends. He studied Classics and English at Cambridge University where he was a member of St John's College. In 1966 he joined Cambridge Footlights, for whom he became the musical director of the revues.
Atkin made his first recording in 1967: a private pressing of 160 copies of While The Music Lasts. Next year he was taken to EMI with Julie Covington to record the most popular number from the 1967 Revue Show: the complex Duet, which had appeared on his first album. At six minutes, it was too long to be a single and has never received commercial release; the tape has since been lost. Atkin released another privately pressed album in 99 copies entitled The Party's Moving On in 1969.

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Peter Bellwood
Peter Bellwood is a Professor of Archaeology at the School of Archaeology and Anthropology of the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. His areas of specialization include prehistory of Southeast Asia and the Pacific from archaeological, linguistic and biological perspectives; origins of agriculture and resulting cultural, linguistic and biological developments (worldwide); interdisciplinary connections between archaeology, linguistics and human biology. He is currently^[update] involved in archaeological fieldwork projects in the Philippines and Vietnam.
Professor Bellwood is the Secretary-General of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association and editor of the Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, a member of the following editorial boards: Asian Perspectives; Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory; Journal of Austronesian Studies; Journal of World Prehistory; Review of Archaeology; Sarawak Museum Journal. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

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Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw is a British writer and film critic. He was educated at Cambridge University, where he was President of Footlights.
Bradshaw is the film critic for The Guardian. Before joining The Guardian, Bradshaw was employed by the Evening Standard for whom he wrote a series of parodic diary entries purporting to written by the Conservative MP and historian Alan Clark which he thought deceptive and were the subject of a court case resolved in January 1998. The court found in Clark's favour, granting an injunction, deciding that Bradshaw's articles were then being published in a form that "a substantial number of readers" would believe they were genuinely being written by Alan Clark. Bradshaw found it "the most bizarre and surreal business of my professional life. I'm very flattered that Mr Clark should go to all this trouble and expense in suing me like this."
Peter Bradshaw has written a novel, Dr Sweet and his Daughter, published in 2004. He also wrote and performed a BBC radio programme titled For One Horrible Moment, recorded 10 October 1998 and first broadcast 20 January 1999. The programme chronicled a young man's coming of age in 1970s Cambridgeshire. He also co-wrote and acted in David Baddiel's sitcom Baddiel's Syndrome.

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Peter Cook
Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English satirist, writer and comedian. An extremely influential figure in modern British comedy, he is regarded as the leading light of the British satire boom of the 1960s. Cook has been described by Stephen Fry as "the funniest man who ever drew breath", although his work was also controversial. Cook was closely associated with anti-establishment comedy which emerged in Britain and the United States in the late 1950s.
Cook was born at his parents' house "Shearbridge", in Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, Devon. He was the only son and eldest of the three children of Alexander Edward (Alec) Cook (1906–1984), a colonial civil servant, and his wife Ethel Catherine Margaret, née Mayo (1908–1994). He was educated at Radley College and Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he studied French and German. As a student, Cook initially intended to become a career diplomat like his father, but Britain "had run out of colonies", as he put it. Although politically largely apathetic, particularly in later life when he displayed a deep distrust of politicians of all hues, he did join the Cambridge University Liberal Club.

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Peter Fincham
Peter Fincham (born 26 July 1956) is a British television producer and executive, currently the Director of Television for the ITV network. He was also formerly the Controller of BBC One, the primary television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation, until his resignation on 5 October 2007, following criticism over the handling of the A Year with the Queen debacle.
Educated at the independent Tonbridge School, Fincham studied at Churchill College, Cambridge. He joined the Cambridge Footlights production team as musical director, alongside a committee which included Griff Rhys Jones, Jimmy Mulville, Rory McGrath and Clive Anderson. After leaving Footlights, Fincham composed songs, none of which were picked up for recording, and then worked on the touring version of Godspell. During a period of increasingly common unemployment, Fincham was walking on Wandsworth Common in the rain and thinking to himself: "Oh my God. What have I done? I have made the wrong decision?" Fincham applied for a job at the BBC in 1984, a position as a researcher on The Late, Late Breakfast Show that had recently been vacated by his friend Helen Fielding — later author of the Bridget Jones novels — when she left to concentrate on her writing career. However, Fincham was unsuccessful in this application.

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Peter Jeffrey
Peter Jeffrey (18 April 1929 – 25 December 1999) was a British actor with many roles in television and film.
Jeffrey was born in Bristol, the son of Florence Alice (née Weight) and Arthur Winfred Gilbert Jeffrey. He was educated at Harrow School and Pembroke College, Cambridge but had no formal training as an actor. After many years on stage with the Bristol Old Vic and the Royal Shakespeare Company, he became a very familiar face to British television viewers. Numerous television roles include his 1978 guest appearance in the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who as Count Grendel in the serial The Androids of Tara and his 1967 appearance as the Colony Pilot in The Macra Terror. It is reputed he had been offered the role of the lead character in the show by Innes Lloyd in 1966, but turned it down; Patrick Troughton was cast instead. In the BBC serial Elizabeth R, he played King Philip II of Spain. He also appeared in Porridge, Quiller, Rising Damp, Nanny, Minder, Yes Minister and many others.

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Peter Shaffer
Sir Peter Levin Shaffer (born 15 May 1926) is an English playwright and screenwriter of numerous award-winning plays, several of which have been filmed.
Shaffer was born to a Jewish family in Blackpool, the son of Reka (née Fredman) and Jack Shaffer, an estate agent. He is the twin brother of fellow playwright, Anthony Shaffer.
He was educated at St Paul's School (London) and subsequently he gained a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, to study history. Shaffer was a Bevin Boy coal miner during WW2 and took a number of jobs including bookstore clerk, and assistant at the New York Public Library, before discovering his dramatic talents.
Shaffer's first play, The Salt Land (1954), was presented on the BBC. Encouraged by this success, Shaffer continued to write and established his reputation as a playwright in 1958 with the production of Five Finger Exercise which opened in London under the direction of John Gielgud and won the Evening Standard Drama Award. When Five Finger Exercise moved to New York in 1959, it was equally well received and landed Shaffer the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Play.

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Punt and Dennis
Punt and Dennis are a comedy double act consisting of Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis. The duo first met at the Footlights while studying at Cambridge University in the early 1980's. Initially they started off as a comic duo performing at various venues in London on the weekends due to Dennis' weekday job commitments and have since branched out into acting and screen writing.
Punt and Dennis' first appeared on television in Jasper Carrott's shows during the late 1980's. They came to public attention as one half of The Mary Whitehouse Experience, a comedy show on BBC Radio 1 which then transferred to television. While the other two stars of the series, Rob Newman and David Baddiel became major celebrities - playing to sell out audiences at Wembley Arena - Punt and Dennis never attained the same level of prominence as a double act. Their own TV series, The Imaginatively Titled Punt and Dennis Show, did not meet the same success as The Mary Whitehouse Experience had though it won larger audiences and was given a higher profile than the other pairing's spin-off project Newman and Baddiel in Pieces.

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Richard Ayoade
Richard Ellef Ayoade ( /aɪ.oʊˈɑːdeɪ/, eye-oh-WA-dee, born 12 June 1977) is a British comedian, actor, writer and director, best known for his role as Maurice Moss in The IT Crowd.
Ayoade was born in Whipps Cross, London, an only child to a Norwegian mother, Dagny (née Baassuik), and a Nigerian father, Layide Ade Laditi Ayoade. Ayoade studied at St. Joseph's College in Ipswich, Suffolk and later studied law at St Catharine's College, Cambridge (1995–1998) where he won the Martin Steele Prize for play production and was president of the Footlights from 1997 to 1998.
While in Footlights, Ayoade acted in and wrote many shows. He and Footlights vice-president John Oliver wrote two pantomimes together: Sleeping Beauty, and Grimm Fairy Tales. Ayoade acted in both Footlights' 1997 and 1998 touring shows: Emotional Baggage and Between a Rock and a Hard Place (directed by Cal McCrystal).
Ayoade co-wrote the stage show Garth Marenghi's Fright Knight with Matthew Holness, whom he also met at the Footlights, appearing in the show at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2000 where it was nominated for a Perrier Award. In 2001 he won the Perrier Comedy Award for co-writing and performing in the sequel to Fright Knight, Garth Marenghi's Netherhead.

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Richard Murdoch
Richard Bernard Murdoch (6 April 1907 – 9 October 1990) was a British comedic radio, film and television performer.
Richard Bernard Murdoch attended Charterhouse School. He then appeared in Footlights whilst a student at Pembroke College, Cambridge. Murdoch had his radio break in the BBC comedy programme Band Waggon (1938–40) as part of a double act with Arthur Askey, acquiring the nickname "Stinker" as a result. He reprised this role in the 1940 film of the same name and after the war appeared in the TV version, Living It Up. During World War II, he served in the RAF.
He married the actress Peggy Rawlings in 1932, and they had three children, Belinda, Jane and Timothy.
He famously composed rather suggestive doggerel about Ella Wheeler Wilcox as lyrics to the opening bars of Alexandre Luigini's Ballet égyptien.
Murdoch appeared with Kenneth Horne in the BBC Radio comedy series Much Binding in the Marsh from 1944-54. He also appeared in The Men from the Ministry from 1962–77, a radio comedy series about two civil service members, with initially Wilfrid Hyde-White, but more famously Deryck Guyler.

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Richard Osman
Richard Thomas Osman (born 28 November 1970) is an English television presenter, producer and director. He is creative director for the television production company, Endemol UK (previously Hat Trick), but is best known on-screen as the co-presenter of the quiz show Pointless.
Osman was born in Billericay, Essex. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge together with Pointless co-presenter Alexander Armstrong.
Since 2009, Osman has worked on the BBC Two quiz show Pointless (later BBC One) as assistant to host Alexander Armstrong, where he is punningly known as Armstrong's "pointless friend". Osman said in a blog that he got the job as co-presenter/assistant when he pitched the idea for the show to a panel of BBC daytime heads, taking the role of the assistant in the demonstration. Bosses were impressed and decided to offer Osman the job. Obscurely, as he revealed on his Twitter account on 9 April 2012, he appeared in the last-ever scene of Drop the Dead Donkey "carrying a table".
Osman has also worked as executive producer on numerous other shows, including Deal or No Deal, Channel 4 comedy panel game 8 out of 10 Cats and satirical comedy 10 O'Clock Live. His other credits include Whose Line Is It Anyway? and Total Wipeout.

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Richard Sisson
Richard Sisson is a pianist and composer. As well as concert works, he has composed extensively for the theatre. He is also part of the cabaret double-act Kit and The Widow alongside Kit Hesketh-Harvey. Richard was educated at King's College, Taunton.

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Richard Stilgoe
}} Richard Henry Simpson Stilgoe OBE (born 28 March 1943) is a British songwriter, lyricist and musician. He is noted for clever wordplay as much as for his music.
Stilgoe was born in Camberley, Surrey but brought up in Liverpool—where as lead singer of a group calling itself 'Tony Snow and the Blizzards' he performed at the Cavern Club. He was educated at Monkton Combe School in Somerset and at Clare College, Cambridge where he was a member of the Cambridge University Footlights.
In 1966 he played the role of Benjamin in the West End musical Jorrocks. He made his name on the BBC television teatime programme Nationwide, followed by Esther Rantzen's That's Life!, a light-hearted consumer affairs programme for which he wrote comic songs satirising various minor domestic misfortunes, often to the tune of Oh! Mr Porter. His ability to write a song from almost any source material and at prodigious speed is part of his cabaret act, which includes such diverse gems as singing the instructions from a Swedish payphone; a pastiche of the King's Singers listing all the kings and queens of England in which he sings all four parts; and composing a song in the interval from a series of words and musical notes called out by the audience. He has also written and presented numerous BBC radio programmes, including Hamburger Weekend, Used Notes, Stilgoe's Around, Maestro and Richard Stilgoe's Traffic Jam Show, on BBC Radio 4.

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Richard Vranch
Richard Leslie Vranch (born 29 June 1959 in Frome, England) is a British comedian, actor and musician.
Vranch improvises comedy on stage with the Comedy Store Players every Wednesday and Sunday at The Comedy Store in London. He has voiced British Airways TV and radio commercials since 2003, and he narrates TV documentaries. He has performed since 1979, and formed a comedy double-act with Tony Slattery in 1981. The duo hosted the Channel 4 quiz The Music Game and over 100 episodes of Cue The Music on ITV. He was the improvising pianist and guitarist on the original British television show Whose Line Is It Anyway? in 1988, but only a small proportion of his overall work is musical. Vranch co-wrote and performed in The Paul Merton Show at the London Palladium in 1994.
Acting work includes Dogman, The Dead Set, and sketch shows touring the world from Mexico to the Palestinian Territories. He has improvised comedy in the Middle East, Far East and India - 30 countries in all. He has written for stage, radio and TV, and made several animated films with artist Lucy Allen. They have had their cartoons published in Maxim, Punch, and The Spectator.

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Richard Wordsworth
Richard Wordsworth (19 January 1915 – 21 November 1993) was an English character actor. He was the great-great-grandson of the poet William Wordsworth.
As a young man he followed in the footsteps of his clergyman father, reading Divinity at Cambridge University. But he quickly found acting more to his taste and, after performing at the Cambridge Footlights, he decided to study drama at the Embassy School of Acting in London.
This proved an excellent choice. He quickly developed a talent for character acting which sustained him and his family through a long and richly varied career. In classical theatre he worked with John Gielgud, Donald Wolfit, Anthony Quayle and Richard Burton. After successful Shakespearian seasons at the Old Vic and Stratford-upon-Avon, he starred in the musical Lock Up Your Daughters which launched the Mermaid Theatre in London. He also found success as Captain Hook in several Christmas productions of Peter Pan. Later he would tour Australia as Fagin in the musical Oliver which he also produced.

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Robert Bathurst
Robert Guy Bathurst (born 22 February 1957) is an English actor. Bathurst was born in the Gold Coast in 1957, where his father was working as a management consultant. His family moved to Dublin, Ireland, in 1959 and Bathurst was enrolled at an Anglican boarding school. In 1966, the family moved to England, and Bathurst transferred to Worth School in Sussex, where he took up amateur dramatics. At the age of 18, he read law at the University of Cambridge and joined the Cambridge Footlights group. After graduating, he took up acting full time.
He made his professional stage debut in 1983, playing Tim Allgood in Michael Frayn's Noises Off, which ran for a year at the Savoy Theatre. To broaden his knowledge of working on stage, he joined the National Theatre. He supplemented his stage roles in the 1980s with television roles, appearing in comedies such as the aborted pilot episode of Blackadder, The Lenny Henry Show, and the first episode of Red Dwarf. In 1991, he won his first major television role playing Mark Taylor in Steven Moffat's semi-autobiographical BBC sitcom Joking Apart. Although only thirteen episodes were made between 1991 and 1995, the role remains Bathurst's favourite of his whole career. After Joking Apart concluded, he was cast as pompous management consultant David Marsden in the ITV comedy drama Cold Feet, which ran for five series from 1998 to 2003.

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Robert Thorogood
Robert Thorogood is an English screenwriter.
He is the creator of BBC1's Death in Paradise. The first series aired in 2011. A second series was commissioned in January, 2012.
He was educated at Uppingham School in Rutland and read History at Cambridge University, where he was president of Footlights.

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Robin French
Robin French (born 1978, Birmingham) is a playwright, film and television writer and songwriter living in London.
French was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham and studied Modern and Medieval Languages at Selwyn College, Cambridge University where he graduated with first-class honours in 2001.
While at Cambridge he was active in the Cambridge Footlights and won two play-writing competitions.
French's first play, Bear Hug, won the Royal Court Theatre Young Writers Programme and was subsequently produced at the theatre. It has since had productions in Italy, Germany, Ireland and Poland. His second play, Gilbert is Dead performed at Hoxton Hall in Shoreditch, London, in November 2009. His play for young people The Red Helicopter was performed at the Almeida theatre, London, in August 2010. The Guardian listed French as one of the UK's "young stars in the ascendant" in 2005.
French has also written for television. He has twice been awarded the title of Hotshot (representing UK writing) by Broadcast Magazine (2006 and 2008). French has written with Evening Standard theatre critic and King Edward's School peer Kieron Quirke.

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Rory McGrath
Patrick Rory McGrath (born 17 March 1956) is an English comedian and writer. He is best known for roles in Who Dares Wins, Chelmsford 123, Three Men in a Boat and its successors. He was also a regular panellist on They Think It's All Over.
McGrath was born in Redruth, Cornwall. He studied at Redruth Grammar School and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, from which he received a lower-second class degree.
McGrath became a member of the Footlights while at Cambridge and met Jimmy Mulville, with whom he wrote and performed. After university, they wrote BBC radio scripts for Frankie Howerd and Windsor Davies. McGrath also co-wrote Black Cinderella Two Goes East with Clive Anderson for BBC Radio 4 in 1978. McGrath and Mulville went on to write for shows such as Not the Nine O'Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones, and they were part of the team of writer/performers behind the Channel 4 comedy sketch series Who Dares Wins.
In 1986, McGrath was co-founder, with Jimmy Mulville and Denise O'Donoghue, of the independent British TV production company Hat Trick Productions. An early production was Chelmsford 123 (1988 and 1990), which McGrath and Mulville wrote and performed. In 1990, McGrath hosted the game show Trivial Pursuit on BBC1.

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Russell Davies
Robert Russell Davies (born 5 April 1946), is a British journalist and broadcaster. He currently presents a Sunday radio programme on BBC Radio 2 which spotlights popular song, as well as Brain of Britain on Radio 4.
Davies was born in Barmouth, North Wales. He attended Manchester Grammar School, according to his own statement on a November 2010 Brain of Britain programme. During his time there (1957-64) he acted in dramatic society productions and was appointed school vice-captain. He gained a scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge and was awarded a first class degree in Modern and Mediaeval Languages in 1967, but soon abandoned his post-graduate studies in German literature, when the opportunity arose to tour with the Cambridge Footlights revue. During his time in Cambridge he contributed topical cartoons to the news pages of Varsity, the undergraduate newspaper, under the pseudonym Dai. As a journalist, Davies worked as a film and television critic for The Observer and The Sunday Times, features writer and sports columnist for The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph, a caricaturist for The Times Literary Supplement and was a deputy editor of Punch. He edited Kenneth Williams's diaries for publication, despite being the target of Williams's acid pen in those same diaries. He regularly appeared on television in the 1980s, presenting Saturday Review for BBC2.

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Sandi Toksvig
Sandra Brigitte "Sandi" Toksvig (born 3 May 1958) is a Danish/British comedienne, author and presenter on British radio and television. She currently presents The News Quiz on BBC Radio 4.
Born in Copenhagen, Toksvig began her comedy career at Girton College, Cambridge University, where she wrote and performed in the first all-woman show at the Footlights. She was there at the same time as fellow members Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Tony Slattery, and Emma Thompson, and wrote additional material for the Perrier award-winning Cambridge Footlights Revue. She was also a member of Cambridge University Light Entertainment Society, and moved via children's television onto the comedy circuit. She performed at the first night of The Comedy Store in London and was once part of The Comedy Store Players, an improvisational comedy team.
When I see comedian — and ‘comedienne’, of course I hate it — I think ‘Oh, really?’ because I think of myself as a writer and broadcaster. Sometimes it’s funny but I’ve just done a piece for Radio 3 all about Mary Wollstonecraft [the 18th-century philosopher and feminist] and there’s not a joke in it.

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Sarah Solemani
Sarah Solemani (born 1982) is an English actress and writer, best known for starring in BBC Three's series Him and Her.
Solemani is the daughter of a mathematician and a social worker and grew up in North London. She was a member of the National Youth Theatre, starring as Elaine in the West End theatre production of The Graduate. After passing her A levels, she took a gap year before studying politics at the University of Cambridge, graduating with an MA Hons in Social and Political Sciences. She was a vice-president of Cambridge Footlights, and starred in their touring production of Beyond a Joke..
Solemani was an attached writer to both the Royal Court Theatre and the Young Vic Theatre. She was awarded third place in the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust/New Statesman Prize for New Political Writing on the subject: "Do women's rights remain the privilege of the developed world?" in 2005. She also contributes to the New Statesman.
Her first major TV role was as "Becky" in BBC Three sitcom Him & Her, which was first broadcast in November 2010. Two series have been filmed and a third has been recommissioned for 2012. In 2011, Solemani filmed a Channel 4 pilot comedy show, Coma Girl, alongside Katy Wix and Katherine Parkinson. Solemani and her comedy partner Olivia Poulet are presently^[when?] writing a sitcom for the BBC, to be produced by Charlie Hanson.

wn.com/Sarah_Solemani
Simon Bird
Simon Antony Bird (born 19 August 1984) is a British actor, and comedian. He is best known for playing Will McKenzie in E4’s BAFTA-winning TV comedy The Inbetweeners.
Bird was born in Guildford, Surrey, England, a son of Heather (née Gage) and Graham Bird, an economics professor at University of Surrey (England). He was educated at Royal Grammar School, Guildford before studying English at Queens' College, Cambridge. Bird was the President of Cambridge University's sketch group, The Footlights. Bird's older brother, Alan, is the current head of sixth form at Brighton College. He is also a well-known Crystal Palace FC fan.. His older sister is a psychiatrist in New York City and his younger brother is attending medical school in the UK.
While completing an MA in Cultural & Critical Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, Bird set up the sketch comedy group 'The House of Windsor' with Joe Thomas (who plays Simon Cooper in The Inbetweeners) and Jonny Sweet.^{[citation needed]} They performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 2007 and in 2008 with a show called The Meeting, described as a site-specific comedy installation set in an actual boardroom, which received national media attention and a clutch of five-star reviews.^{[citation needed]} Bird and Thomas were also regulars on series 1 and 2 of The Weekly Show, a podcast for Channel 4 Radio (2006-7).

wn.com/Simon_Bird
Simon McBurney
Simon Montagu McBurney, OBE (born 25 August 1957) is an English actor, writer and director. He is the founder and artistic director of Théâtre de Complicité in England, now called Complicite.
McBurney was born in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England. His father, Charles McBurney, was an American archaeologist and academic. Charles McBurney was the grandson of the American surgeon Charles McBurney (who was credited with describing McBurney's point). His mother, Anne Francis Edmondstone (née Charles), was a British secretary of English, Scots, and Irish ancestry; his parents were distant cousins who met during World War II. McBurney studied English literature at Peterhouse, Cambridge, graduating in 1980. After his father died, he went to France and trained for the theatre at the Jacques Lecoq Institute in Paris.
McBurney is a founder and artistic director of the UK-based theatre company Complicite, which performs throughout the world. He directed their productions of Street of Crocodiles (1992), The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol (1994), Mnemonic (1999) and The Elephant Vanishes (2003).

wn.com/Simon_McBurney
Simon Munnery
Simon Munnery, also known by his stagenames of Alan Parker: Urban Warrior and The League Against Tedium, is an English comedy writer and experimental standup comedian. He performs mainly to an alternative audience but has pierced the mainstream both with his BBC Radio 1 show in 1997 and his BBC2 television series Attention Scum! in 2001. His stand-up is often satirical and political and almost always surreal, his act also contains harmonica playing.
Munnery's experimental style is reflected in his on-stage appearance: his unfashionable glasses, homemade clothes (or clothes apparently donated to him by comedian Jeff Green), makeshift props, and dramatic facial hair. As 'The League' he often wears a hat crafted from a kettle, and one of his stand-up shows has a character who performs with a metal bucket over his head.
Born in Middlesex (now part of London), Munnery grew up in Bedmond, Hertfordshire and Watford and was educated Watford Grammar School for Boys, where he earned four A Levels. He read natural sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge but soon lost interest in science and joined the Footlights. In 1987, he became vice-president with Peter Bradshaw as president. After graduating with "a very high third", he did various menial jobs before making his big break into comedy.

wn.com/Simon_Munnery
Sophie Winkleman
Sophie Lara Winkleman, The Lady Frederick Windsor (born 5 August 1980) is an English actress and extended member of the British Royal Family. On 14 February 2009, she became engaged to Lord Frederick Windsor, the son of Prince Michael (a grandson of George V) and Princess Michael of Kent. They married in Hampton Court on 12 September 2009. Sophie Winkleman then became officially styled as The Lady Frederick Windsor, but continues to use her maiden name in her professional career.
Sophie Lara Winkleman was born in Primrose Hill in London.
She was educated at the City of London School for Girls and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where she read English literature. She joined the university's famed dramatic society Cambridge Footlights and wrote and performed in the comic revue Far Too Happy. For the first time in twenty years, the Footlights received a Perrier award nomination. Winkleman is also a member of the National Youth Theatre. She is also a soprano.
Winkleman's credits include lead roles in numerous series including Peep Show, Harry and Paul (which she co-wrote), White Teeth, The Trial of Tony Blair, Plus One, Red Dwarf: Back To Earth, Lead Balloon, Keen Eddie, Chasing Alice, Poirot (in the episode, Five Little Pigs), The Palace, Robin Hood, and the upcoming Titanic. She was nominated for Best Newcomer by the BBC for her leading guest role in Waking the Dead. Winkleman also debuted on American television as the star of the short lived NBC sitcom 100 Questions as the main character Charlotte Payne and as recurring star on the hit series Two and a Half Men as Zoey, the love interest of Walden Schmidt (Ashton Kutcher).

wn.com/Sophie_Winkleman
Stefan Golaszewski
Stefan Golaszewski is an English writer, performer, and director. He is part of comedy sketch group Cowards.
Golaszewski was the Cambridge Footlights President from 2002-3.
He wrote, performed in and co-directed a pilot for BBC Three called Things Talk. As a director, he won the if.comedy Best Newcomer Award with Tom Basden for Won't Say Anything in 2007 and again in 2009 with Jonny Sweet for "Mostly About Arthur".
His one-man play Stefan Golaszewski Speaks About A Girl He Once Loved was performed at the Edinburgh Festival, 2008. Directed by Phillip Breen it picked up a host of five-star reviews. This was later performed with another play Stefan Golaszewski is a Widower at the Bush Theatre in London's Shepherd's Bush, again to critical acclaim. The two plays have since been published as "The Stefan Golaszewski Plays" by The Invisible Dot Ltd.
He is a part of comedy sketch group Cowards, which also includes Tim Key, Tom Basden and Lloyd Woolf. They made a TV series for BBC Four and their second Radio 4 series came out in late 2008.

wn.com/Stefan_Golaszewski
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter, film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club.
After a troubled childhood and adolescence, during which he was expelled from a number of schools and eventually spent three months in prison for credit card fraud, he was able to secure a place at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he studied English Literature.
He first came to public attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also included Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, and took the role of Jeeves (with Laurie playing Wooster) in Jeeves and Wooster.
As an actor, Fry played the lead in the film Wilde, was Melchett in the BBC television series Blackadder, starred as the title character Peter Kingdom in the ITV series Kingdom, has a recurring guest role as Dr. Gordon Wyatt on the Fox crime series Bones and appeared as rogue TV host Gordon Deitrich in the dystopian thriller V For Vendetta. He has also written and presented several documentary series including the 2008 television series Stephen Fry in America, which saw him travelling across all 50 US states. Since 2003 he has been the host of the quiz show QI.

wn.com/Stephen_Fry
Steve Punt
Stephen Punt (born September 1962) is a British writer, comedian and actor, best known for being one half of double act Punt and Dennis alongside Hugh Dennis. He is mostly known for his contribution as a writer and programme associate for various panel game shows, most notably Mock the Week and Would I Lie To You?, and has written for comedians such as Rory Bremner, and Jasper Carrott.
Punt was educated at Whitgift School and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he read English. While at Cambridge, he joined the Footlights, where he first met comedy partner Hugh Dennis and was vice-president from 1983 to 1985 with Nick Hancock as president. He was in the writing team for three revues in a row.
While at university Punt began writing for the BBC Radio 4 series Week Ending. Punt and Dennis later became resident guest comedians on shows presented by Jasper Carrott, including Carrott Confidential and Canned Carrott with Punt contributing in the writing team as well. They also toured with Carrott as a live support act.

wn.com/Steve_Punt
Sue Perkins
Susan Elizabeth Perkins (born 22 September 1969, East Dulwich, London) is an English comedian, broadcaster and conductor.
Perkins was educated at Croham Hurst School, an independent school for girls in Croydon in South London, at the same time as the BBC Breakfast News presenter Susanna Reid. She later studied English at New Hall at the University of Cambridge, graduating in 1990. While at Cambridge, she was a member of the Footlights, where she met Mel Giedroyc. She was Footlights president during the academic year 1990/91.
Perkins first came to notice with Mel Giedroyc as Mel and Sue. The duo were short-listed for the Daily Express Best Newcomers Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 1993. After a few years writing for French & Saunders (and occasionally appearing on their BBC series), they hosted a lunchtime show on Channel 4 called Light Lunch, and an early evening version, Late Lunch.
Perkins has been a presenter on Channel 4's RI:SE and appeared in Celebrity Big Brother during 2002 in aid of a number of charities. During the series she had some notable dancing moments with eventual winner Mark Owen of Take That. She has made numerous appearances on BBC TV shows Have I Got News for You, Mock the Week, QI, Room 101, Celebrity Weakest Link, Question Time and Newsnight; she has often joked that the BBC pay her a regular wage for "blabbering on random shows". She made notable appearances as a 'field reporter' for Armando Iannucci vehicle The Saturday Night Armistice.

wn.com/Sue_Perkins
Tanya Seghatchian
Tanya Seghatchian is an award-winning film producer.
Seghatchian attended Cambridge University and was a member of the Footlights. She became joint vice-president in 1989 with Henry Naylor as president.
Seghatchian previously worked for the BBC. She was a co-producer and then executive producer for the first four Harry Potter films, the BAFTA-winning My Summer of Love and the film adaptation of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which was due out in 2007.
She was appointed Head of the Development Fund at the UK Film Council before becoming head of its film fund in 2010. During her tenure, it provided funding for successful films including The King's Speech and Bright Star. She oversaw the merger of the Council with the British Film Institute and briefly served as the newly merged institution's head of film fund before resigning in September 2011 to concentrate on her production work.
Tanya Seghatchian at the Internet Movie Database

wn.com/Tanya_Seghatchian
The Mighty Boosh
The Mighty Boosh is a British comedy troupe featuring comedians Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. Developed from 3 stage shows and a 6-episode radio series, it has since spawned a total of 20 television episodes for BBC Three and 2 live tours of the UK, as well as 2 live shows in the United States.
Fielding first met Barratt after seeing him perform his solo stand-up routine at the Hellfire Comedy Club in the Wycombe Swan Theatre. The pair soon found that they shared comic interests, formed a double act, and "decided to be the new Goodies". After their first performance together at a bar in London in April 1998, Barratt and Fielding developed their zookeeper characters--Howard Moon and Vince Noir, respectively--in a series of sketches for Paramount Comedy’s Unnatural Acts. Here they also met American Rich Fulcher, who became Bob Fossil. Fielding’s friend Dave Brown and Fielding's brother Michael also became regular collaborators. Richard Ayoade was another original cast member, playing adventurer Dixon Bainbridge, but Matt Berry replaced him in the first television series, since Ayoade was under contract with Channel 4. Ayoade returned in the second and third series as a belligerent shaman named Saboo.

wn.com/The_Mighty_Boosh
Thurston Dart
Robert Thurston ("Bob") Dart (3 September 1921 – 6 March 1971), was a British musicologist, conductor and keyboard player. From 1964 he was Professor of Music at King's College London.
He studied keyboard instruments at the Royal College of Music in London from 1938 to 1939, and also studied mathematics at University College, Exeter (B.Sc. 1942). In 1947 he was appointed assistant lecturer in music at the University of Cambridge, subsequently lecturer (1952), and professor (1962). During this time at Cambridge, Dart was the most effective British supporter of the modern early music revival, in part through his influence on those who ultimately formed such groups as the Early Music Consort of London. In 1964 he was appointed King Edward Professor of Music in the University of London (King's College).
As a continuo player he made numerous appearances on the harpsichord, and made many harpsichord, clavichord and organ recordings, especially for the L'Oiseau-Lyre label; he was also a conductor. He served as editor of the Galpin Society Journal from 1947 to 1954 and secretary of Musica Britannica from 1950 to 1965. His book, The Interpretation of Music (London, 1954), was highly influential; he also wrote numerous seminal articles on aspects of musical sources, performance and interpretation.

wn.com/Thurston_Dart
Tim Key
Tim Key (born 2 September 1976 in Cambridgeshire) is an English actor, comedy writer, and performance poet. In 2009, he was the winner of the Edinburgh Comedy Award and was also nominated for the Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality.
Tim Key was educated at Sheffield University, where he studied Russian. Following graduation he returned to his native Cambridge where he eventually joined the Cambridge Footlights. Although Key himself did not attend Cambridge University, his older brother did.
Key was first noticed in the stage production Far Too Happy with the Cambridge Footlights (although not attending Cambridge University itself) which was a sell out at the Edinburgh Fringe and was nominated for a Perrier Award for Best Newcomer. This show also featured comedian Mark Watson and actress Sophie Winkleman.
In 2003, Key returned to Edinburgh directing (with Mark Watson) a sketch show - "Non-Sexual Kissing"; and performing in Alex Horne's "Making Fish Laugh". The latter was nominated for a Perrier Best Newcomer Award.

wn.com/Tim_Key
Timothy Birdsall
Timothy Birdsall (10 May 1936 in Cambridge, England – 10 June 1963) was an English cartoonist.
Birdsall appeared on the BBC’s That Was The Week That Was. He was shown behind a glass panel improvising drawings on it with an ink-marker. While at Cambridge, he illustrated Granta. He also contributed to Private Eye, The Spectator, and The Sunday Times. After he died of leukaemia, aged 27, the BBC made a tribute programme.

wn.com/Timothy_Birdsall
Tom Basden
Tom Basden (b. England, 1980) is a British actor and comedy writer, and a member of the British four man sketch group Cowards. He has written and performed extensively for comedy shows on the BBC and Channel 4 and often collaborates in two-man shows with fellow Cowards member Tim Key.
Basden was educated at King's College School, an independent school for boys in Wimbledon in South West London (in the same year group as actors Khalid Abdalla and Ben Barnes), followed by Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge, where he was Vice President of the Cambridge Footlights.
Basden's one man show at the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe Tom Basden Won't Say Anything won the if.comedy award for Best Newcomer. He also starred with Tim Key in the short film The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island, which won the UK Film Council Kodak Award for Best British Short Film.
Basden replaced Tim Minchin as the resident musician for the second series of Mark Watson Makes the World Substantially Better where he appears along with Tim Key and Mark Watson.

wn.com/Tom_Basden
Tom Hollander
Thomas Anthony "Tom" Hollander (born 25 August 1967) is a British actor who has appeared in films Enigma, Gosford Park, Cambridge Spies, Pride and Prejudice, Pirates of the Caribbean, In the Loop, Valkyrie and Hanna.
Tom Hollander was born in Bristol and raised in Oxford, the son of teachers. His parents are English, though his father is descended from Czech Jews who converted to Catholicism; Hollander was chief chorister at school. He attended the Dragon School and then Abingdon School. As a youngster, he was a member of the National Youth Theatre and the National Youth Music Theatre (then known as the Children's Music Theatre). In 1981, at fourteen years of age, he was awarded the lead role in a BBC dramatization of Leon Garfield's John Diamond. He read English at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He was actively involved in stage productions as a member of the Footlights and president of the Marlowe Society. Friend and fellow student Sam Mendes directed him in several plays while they were at Cambridge, including a critically acclaimed production of Cyrano de Bergerac (which also featured future Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg). After finishing university and failing to secure a place at a drama school, he found work in theatre nevertheless.

wn.com/Tom_Hollander
Tony Buffery
Tony Buffery is a British actor, comedian, and writer – apart from having a career in academic psychology.
Buffery got his start in the Cambridge Footlights, but his place in the London Footlights Revue was taken over by Graham Chapman (later of Monty Python) when Buffery chose an academic career over one in entertainment.
I do remember that in one year – probably 1967 – Clive [James] did a two-man show with Tony Buffery... who had been part of the 1963 Footlights show Cambridge Circus which featured John Cleese, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie, and David Hatch, but who as a committed graduate student had not gone with it on its professional tour to the West End and elsewhere. He was – probably still is – an astonishingly funny man not least physically, and I know that Clive always admired him no end.
— Pete Atkin, 03 Sep 2006
As a member of the Footlights, Buffery contributed to the writing, music, and/or performance of many of the troupe's productions in the 1960s, including:
Buffery also appeared in the 1967 Comedy series Twice a Fortnight along with Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie, and Jonathan Lynn^{[citation needed]}.

wn.com/Tony_Buffery
Tony Hendra
Tony Hendra (born 1941) is an English satirist and writer who has worked mostly in the United States. Educated at St Albans School (where he was a classmate of Stephen Hawking) and Cambridge University, he was a member of the Cambridge University Footlights revue in 1962, alongside John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Tim Brooke-Taylor.
In 1964 Hendra moved to America, where he worked as a comedian, sometimes teamed with comic actor Nick Ullett as "Hendra and Ullett," appearing on the Merv Griffin Show multiple times and six times on the Ed Sullivan Show. He wrote for National Lampoon magazine from its beginning in 1970 and in 1971 became the first editor hired by founders Doug Kenney and Henry Beard. In 1972 Hendra co-created National Lampoon's first album Radio Dinner with Michael O'Donoghue on which he performed a parody of John Lennon entitled Magical Misery Tour. In 1973 he produced, directed and co-wrote (with Sean Kelly), the Lampoon's off-Broadway revue Lemmings in which Hendra cast John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Christopher Guest in their first starring roles. Hendra was an editor of the Lampoon until 1974, and was co-editor-in-chief with Sean Kelly from 1975-1978.

wn.com/Tony_Hendra
Tony Slattery
Anthony Declan James "Tony" Slattery (born 9 November 1959), is an English actor and comedian. He has appeared on British television regularly since the mid 1980s, most notably as a regular on the Channel 4 improvisation show Whose Line Is It Anyway? His serious and comedic film work has included roles in The Crying Game, Peter's Friends, and How to Get Ahead in Advertising.
Slattery was born in Stonebridge, London into a working class background, the fifth and last child of Irish immigrants, Michael and Margaret Slattery. Much younger than his sister Marlene and his triplet brothers, Christopher, Michael and Stephen, he tended to be a "loner." In his youth, he represented England in under-15 judo achieving a black belt before he was 16. Educated at Gunnersbury Boys' Grammar School in West London, he won a scholarship to study Modern and Medieval Languages at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, specializing in French literature and Spanish poetry. At Cambridge he discovered a love of the theatre, taking delight in making people laugh. He met Stephen Fry, who invited him to join the Cambridge Footlights, and his fellow students included Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, Jan Ravens (first female president of the Footlights), Sandi Toksvig, Morwenna Banks and Richard Vranch. In 1981, he and Fry, Laurie, Thompson, Toksvig and director Ravens won the inaugural Perrier Award for their revue The Cellar Tapes. The following year he was made president of the Footlights. During his tenure, the touring annual revue was Premises Premises.

wn.com/Tony_Slattery
Trevor Nunn
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn, CBE (born 14 January 1940) is an English theatre, film and television director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed musicals and dramas for the stage, as well as opera. His well-known musicals are Cats (1981) and Les Misérables (1985). His dramas include Nicholas Nickleby and Macbeth. He has been nominated for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical, the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play, the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director, and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Musical, winning the Tony Award (Musical) for Les Misérables and the Olivier Award for Summerfolk / The Merchant of Venice / Troilus and Cressida; and The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.
Nunn was born in Ipswich, England, to Robert Alexander Nunn, a cabinetmaker, and Dorothy May Piper. He was educated at Northgate Grammar School, Ipswich and Downing College, Cambridge, where he began his stage career. He won a Director's Scholarship, becoming a trainee director at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry in 1962.

wn.com/Trevor_Nunn
Tristram Hunt
Tristram Julian William Hunt FRHistS (born 31 May 1974) is a British Labour Party politician, activist, historian, broadcaster and newspaper columnist, who is currently the Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent Central. He also teaches and lectures on Modern British History at Queen Mary, University of London in Mile End, East London. He has written several books and appeared as broadcaster for history programmes on television. Hunt is a regular writer for The Guardian and The Observer.
Hunt is a member of the Labour Party, and after supporting the party as an activist for several years and working as a member of the party's staff, he entered the political arena professionally, becoming an MP at the 2010 general election.
Hunt is the son of Julian Hunt, a meteorologist and leader of the Labour Group on Cambridge City Council in 1972-3, who was made a Life Peer of the British Labour Party at the request of Tony Blair in 2000. After attending University College School and Westminster School, both in London, Tristram Hunt read History at Trinity College, Cambridge and the University of Chicago, and was for a time an Associate Fellow of the Centre for History and Economics at King's College, Cambridge. His PhD, Civic thought in Britain, c.1820– c.1860, was taken at Cambridge and was awarded in 2000.

wn.com/Tristram_Hunt
Will Sharpe
Will Sharpe (born 22 September 1986) is a British-Japanese actor, writer and director:
Sharpe read Classics at the University of Cambridge, where he was the president of the Footlights Revue. He graduated in 2008 and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company for their 2008/2009 season. Sharpe spent a year at the RSC and appeared in such plays as The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice and The Tragedy of Thomas Hobbes, in which he played a young Isaac Newton. He played the character of Yuki Reid in BBC medical drama Casualty.
In 2009, he directed and co-wrote, along with his friend Tom Kingsley, a short film Cockroach. The pair's first feature-length film, Black Pond, starring Chris Langham, screens at The Prince Charles Cinema from November 2011.
in 2011, he starred in the adverts for LOVEFiLM as the negotiator.

wn.com/Will_Sharpe
William Seaward
William Vincent Seaward is a director and actor. Co-founder and director of The Strolling Theatricals, a theatre company based in the United Kingdom.
Born in London to two barristers, Martin and Siobhan Seaward, he is the eldest of 4 siblings. He attended Francesca Cabrini Primary School until 1993, then Margerate Roper Primary School until his secondary education at selective catholic establishment, The John Fisher School, where he quickly developed an aptitude for the dramatic arts. He continued there for Sixth Form, achieving good grades and narrowly missing out on becoming Head Boy. After taking a gap year to teach English in South America, he went on in 2005 to study a joint degree, English literature and History of Art at the University of York. After a year attempting to break in to professional London Theatre, he returned to academia by beginning post-graduate study in Social Anthropology at Robinson College, Cambridge in 2009, where he made a series of big splashes in the world of Cambridge Drama. This stretched to writing and directing Silent Cannonfire - billed as 'the world's first ever silent pirate play' - which played to success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe after a sell-out run at the ADC Theatre. He also directed the 2010 Footlights Pantomime, The Pied Piper.

wn.com/William_Seaward
William Sutcliffe
William Sutcliffe (born 1971) is a British novelist.
An alumnus of Haberdashers' Aske's School, Sutcliffe started his career with a novel about school life entitled New Boy (1996), which was followed by his best-known work so far, Are You Experienced? (1997), a pre-university gap year novel, in which a group of young Brits travel to India without really knowing what to expect or what to do there. The Love Hexagon (2000) is about six young Londoners who have difficulty committing themselves to a relationship. Sutcliffe's most recent book, Whatever Makes You Happy (2008), is about interfering mothers and men who refuse to grow up.
Sutcliffe's novels could be categorised as humorous. New Boy has much authentic material in it that refers to actual incidents from his life at Haberdashers', although it would be going too far to call it "autobiographical".
In 2009, he donated the short story Sandcastles: A Negotiation to Oxfam's 'Ox-Tales' project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Sutcliffe's story was published in the 'Fire' collection.

wn.com/William_Sutcliffe

Cambridge Footlights Revue 1/5

The Cambridge Footlights Revue or "The Cellar Tapes" (1982) is a televised version of the ...

published: 02 Sep 2008

author: u2fan15

MERLE HAGGARD ( Footlights )

Merle Haggard singing Footlights Live...

published: 18 Dec 2008

author: tlmorgan56

Footlights and friends

...

published: 11 Feb 2011

author: cambridgeunitv

Footlights Smoker

Check out CU-TVs exclusive highlights from the Footlights Smoker at The ADC theatre!...

published: 19 Feb 2011

author: cambridgeunitv

Hank Williams, Jr. - Footlights

...

published: 10 Aug 2011

author: AsthmaticDrifter

Merle Haggard- Footlights (George Jones Show)

Merle Haggard sits with George Jones sings his classic "Tonight I'll kick the Footlights o...

published: 21 Jan 2011

author: KLUNKET

Merle Haggard - Footlights

classic country...

published: 15 Dec 2009

author: MsGlenBill1

Cambridge Footlights Revue 2/5

The Cambridge Footlights Revue or "The Cellar Tapes" (1982) is a televised version of the ...

published: 02 Sep 2008

author: u2fan15

Merle Haggard & George Jones - Footlights

Merle Haggard & George Jones Singing " Footlights " [ Duet ] George Jones & Merle Haggard ...

published: 09 Oct 2010

author: pillerguri

Cambridge Footlights Revue 3/5

The Cambridge Footlights Revue or "The Cellar Tapes" (1982) is a televised version of the ...

published: 02 Sep 2008

author: u2fan15

Cambridge Footlights Revue 4/5

The Cambridge Footlights Revue or "The Cellar Tapes" (1982) is a televised version of the ...

published: 02 Sep 2008

author: u2fan15

Merle Haggard - Footlights

raymondglenn-ewcf.com...

published: 01 Jan 2012

author: NotGeneWatsonSongs

Joe Nichols _ Footlights _ Charleston, WV

Joe Nichols_Merle Haggard's Footlights Charleston Municipal Auditorium Charleston, WV 6-20...

published: 23 Jun 2008

author: NICHOLSFN

Kickin out the Footlights - George Jones and Merle Haggard

Two of the BEST...

published: 26 Dec 2010

author: blizard7500

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photo: AP / Virginie Nguyen Huang

In this Monday, Dec. 17, 2012 photo, a Free Syrian Army fighter takes cover during fighting with the Syrian Army in Azaz, Syria.

Syria's chemical weapons safe for now: Russia

Newstrack India

23 Dec 2012

Tweet. Moscow, Dec 23 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Chemical weapons in Syria are under the control of the government, which has consolidated them in one or two locations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. "As of right now, the (Syrian) government is doing all it can to safeguard those weapons," he said. "We are following all leads concerning chemical weapons," Lavrov said ... "My answer is very simple. Why use us as a postman ... pm/ ... ) .. ). ... . ....(size: 3.2Kb)

photo: Creative Commons / Giorgione

Anbetung der Hirten (Adoration of the Shepherds) (c. 1500–10), by Italian painter Giorgio da Castelfranco. Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary as a fulfillment of the Old Testament's Messianic prophecy.

Liberating Burdensome and Tortuous Beasts (An Animal Liberation Theology)

WorldNews.com

24 Dec 2012

Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. A deadly silence immediately followed after a bullet penetrated the calf's skull. Against my wishes, Vic had decided against either amputating its leg or contacting a veterinarian-something he reasoned would have been too expensive. The unfortunate calf had slid down into a ravine where its hind leg, which was mangled and torn, became wrapped in barbed wire ... But it was more than a bellow ... 9....(size: 6.3Kb)

photo: AP / Musadeq Sadeq

A member of security escorts a U.S. convoy in to the Kabul police headquarters, where a an American advisor was killed in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Dec. 24, 2012.

Afghan policewoman kills US adviser in Kabul

my SA

24 Dec 2012

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan policewoman shot and killed an American adviser outside the police headquarters in Kabul on Monday, the latest in a rising tide of insider attacks by Afghans against their foreign allies, senior Afghan officials said. The woman, identified as Afghan police Sgt ... The woman was taken into Afghan custody shortly after the attack ... As many Afghans, the policewoman uses only one name ... Air Force Lt. Col ... Gen ... ....(size: 4.6Kb)

photo: AP / Altaf Qadri

Indian police officers baton charge protesters near the Presidential Palace in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Dec. 22, 2012.

India govt to probe gang-rape, enhance punishment

Khaleej Times

23 Dec 2012

A commission will be set up to probe the gang-rape and torture of a 23-year-old woman in Delhi and measures to ensure such crimes do not recur while laws will be amended to enhance punishment for rape, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said . He also appealed the thousands of protesters on the capital’s streets, demanding justice for the victim, to withdraw ... “The government is serious on the issue. ...  . . ....(size: 2.4Kb)

photo: AP

Members of Myanmar Fire Brigade team gather near a damaged Air Bagan passenger plane in Heho, Shan State, Myanmar, Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2012.

Two killed and 11 injured in Burma emergency landing

BBC News

25 Dec 2012

Two people, including a young child, have been killed and another 11 injured during an emergency landing in Burma, officials say. The Air Bagan plane was carrying more than 60 passengers, many of whom were foreign nationals ... "The cause of the accident is not clear yet ... ....(size: 1.4Kb)

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Jennifer Lopez, Wisin & Yandel perform in Puerto Rico

Newstrack India

24 Dec 2012

Tweet ... The show began with Jennifer Lopez taking the stage hidden behind a shell of white plumes ... Instead the artist had as a guest before the footlights her ex-husband and the father of her children, Marc Anthony, with whom she did a duet of "No Me Ames" (You Don't Love Me) to more audience applause ... --IANS/EFE. rd. Post comments.. ) .. ).. Comments.. HOME . . . . . . .. . . .. ....(size: 2.6Kb)

Simple staging of the theater producer's home

Philadelphia Daily News

21 Dec 2012

Gallery. Simple staging of the theater producer's home. Sally Friedman, For The Inquirer. Posted. Friday, December 21, 2012, 10.12 AM. Bernard Havard knows all about major productions ... That's not to say that the holiday spirit isn't visible ... "But we got the painting ... That's when Havard became a celebrated child actor who ultimately decided to move from the front of the footlights to the world of theater management and production ... 1. comments ... ....(size: 18.4Kb)

Gil Friesen, Entertainment Executive, Dies at 75

The New York Times

20 Dec 2012

13 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 75. Connect With Us on Twitter. Follow @nytimesarts for arts and entertainment news. Arts Twitter List. Critics, Reporters and Editors ... Go to Event Listings » ... Friesen as one of its first employees ... Mr ... Alpert said.) ... Mr ... Mr ... His last project, aptly enough for someone who worked just beyond the footlights, was a documentary, “Twenty Feet from Stardom,” about backup singers in the music business ... ....(size: 8.8Kb)

Paul Wolfson obituary

The Guardian

17 Dec 2012

While studying medicine at Cambridge in the early 70s, Paul Wolfson became involved with Footlights and wrote and starred in two revues ... While studying medicine at Cambridge in the early 1970s, he become involved with Footlights where, with his co-writer Steve Thorne, he wrote and starred in two successful revues, which played at the Edinburgh festival and the Roundhouse in London ... His father was a dentist who loved amateur dramatics ... ....(size: 3.9Kb)

Get a glimpse of life behind the footlights at 'Trelawny of the Wells'

The Examiner

15 Dec 2012

Rating for Play review "Trelawny of the Wells". 4. In his play “As You Like It,” Shakespeare said that “All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.” Those who relish this saying of the Bard will enjoy seeing “Trelawny of the Wells,” now playing at the F.M Kirby Shakespeare Theatre, as it is about the lives of members of a theater company ... This heroine is Trelawny, a lovely actress from the Wells Theater....(size: 4.2Kb)

Remember your favorite charities during holiday season

Tampabay.com

15 Dec 2012

Barbara L. FredricksenTampa Bay Times In Print. Saturday, December 15, 2012. ADVERTISEMENT. ADVERTISEMENT. Story Tools Print this story Purchase reprints Contact the editor Email Newsletters. To borrow a phrase from England's King George III, "What? What?" Or was it, "What! What!" ... Again, it all adds up ... If the second half is as enjoyable as the first half, you'll be doing someone a real treat, both behind and in front of the footlights....(size: 5.3Kb)

Hansel and Gretel, Cottesloe, NT, London

The Independent

14 Dec 2012

For this adaptation (co-devised with dramatist Lucy Kirkwood), the Cottesloe has been configured in traditional proscenium arch fashion with a red curtain, footlights and three sets of wings that allow the cast to charge back and forth across the stage like figures in a mad silent movie chase ... The ditties, with music by Paul Clark, have throughout a cheerfully dodgy way with rhyme ... To 26 Jan; 0207 452 3000 ....(size: 2.5Kb)

Des' next step: A chat with McAnuff

Signon San Diego

14 Dec 2012

Des McAnuff is sitting in La Jolla Playhouse’s Mandell Weiss Theatre on a Tuesday afternoon, trading gazes with a 15-foot-tall robot that stands idle at the footlights. In less than three hours, that Unit 3000-21 android (or its hulking puppet equivalent, anyway) will be springing to life at the center of “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” the world-premiere musical that concludes its Playhouse run tonight ... But it won’t be his last ... Q ... A....(size: 4.0Kb)

Express editors railed against indecent dancing in 1912 - Almanac Dec. 14, 2012

Lehigh Valley

14 Dec 2012

Today. is the 349th day of 2012. There are 17 days left in the year. On this date ... Today's birthdays. Actress Patty Duke is 66. Pop singer Joyce Vincent-Wilson (Tony Orlando and Dawn) is 66 ... 1912 ... A brazen Amazon behind the footlights or in a restaurant performance may libel the profession to which she pretends to belong by barbaric sensuality, but such examples certainly should not inspire decent persons to imitate the nasty posturing." ... ....(size: 3.0Kb)

Remember your favorite charities during holiday giving

Tampabay.com

14 Dec 2012

Barbara L. FredricksenTampa Bay Times In Print. Saturday, December 15, 2012. ADVERTISEMENT. ADVERTISEMENT. Story Tools Print this story Purchase reprints Contact the editor Email Newsletters. To borrow a phrase from England's King George III, "What? What?" Or was it, "What! What!" ... Again, it all ads up ... If the second half is as enjoyable as the first half, you'll be doing someone a real treat, both behind and in front of the footlights....(size: 5.3Kb)

Performance and classical music listings

Philadelphia Daily News

14 Dec 2012

Posted. Friday, December 14, 2012, 3.01 AM. Theater. Professional/semi-professional. A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens' holiday tale. Closes 12/28. Princeton University - McCarter Theatre, 91 University Pl., Princeton; 609-258-2787. $20-$70. A Christmas Carol An adaptation faithful to the original. Closes 12/24. Hedgerow Theatre, 64 Rose Valley Rd., Media; 610-565-4211 ... Closes 12/30 ... ... Footlighters Theater, 58 Main Ave., Berwyn; Box Office....(size: 38.3Kb)

Clarinetist shines in latest Chamber Music offering

Philadelphia Daily News

13 Dec 2012

Peter Dobrin, Inquirer Classical Music Critic. Posted. Thursday, December 13, 2012, 3.01 AM ... They were more polished than the Juilliard, less revelatory than the Modigliani or Takács ... 33, No ... 51, No. 2) ... But it was a valid argument, and an altogether pleasant one - especially when you know that next week or next month, the conversation continues with another personality ready to confront you from across the footlights ... ... Phil' ... 0....(size: 17.8Kb)

THE MOOD IS UPBEAT MALA FIDE - Malvika Singh It is heartening to sense the ...

The Telegraph India

11 Dec 2012

During the debate in Parliament on the issue of foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail, what came across the footlights was the stuck-in-a-time-warp Opposition that appeared to be the ......(size: 1.0Kb)

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The ADC Theatre is the home of the Footlights.

Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club, commonly referred to simply as the Footlights, is an amateur theatrical club in Cambridge, England, founded in 1883^[1] and run by the students of Cambridge University.

1 History
2 Activities
3 Famous members
4 Presidents
5 See also
6 Sources
7 References
8 External links

History [link]

Footlights' inaugural performance took place in June 1883. For some months before the name 'Footlights' was chosen, the group had performed to local audiences in the Cambridge area (once, with a cricket match included, at the 'pauper lunatic asylum'). They wished to go wider than the University Amateur Dramatic Club (ADC), founded in 1885, with its membership drawn largely from Trinity College, and its theatre seating only 100. They were to perform every May Week at the Theatre Royal, the shows soon open to the public. A local paper commended the Club's appeal to the 'general public, the many different classes of which life in Cambridge in made up'.^[2]

The club grew in prominence in the 1960s as a hotbed of comedy and satire. Having established a tradition of performing at the annual Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the club entered the mainstream when its members formed half of Beyond the Fringe, the hugely popular stage revue which toured Britain and America in 1960. The 1963 revue then followed in the footsteps of Beyond the Fringe, appearing in Edinburgh and London's West End, before travelling to New Zealand and the United States, where it made appearances on Broadway and The Ed Sullivan Show and received a full-page review in Time Magazine. Over the next decade, Footlights and its members came to dominate British comedy, creating and starring in shows such as I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, At Last the 1948 Show and That Was The Week That Was, forming comedy groups such as Monty Python and The Goodies, and generally fuelling the Satire boom.^[3]^[4]^[5]

During the 1980s, Footlights has since reinforced its position at the heart of British comedy. The 1981 revue won the inaugural Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and spawned Fry and Laurie, the first in a long line of popular and successful double acts formed at the club.^[6]^[7]^[8] Many of its former members have gone on to win Oscars, BAFTAs and other awards and enjoy success in the entertainment and media industry.

Today, Footlights is recognised as a finishing school for many of Britain's most well-known comic entertainers.

Activities [link]

During term, Footlights produce the regular and very popular Smokers - an informal mixture of sketches and stand-up - at the ADC Theatre. The club also performs plays, pantomimes and sketch shows and least one revue, usually in the spring. Outside of term, Footlights often go on tour, performing their best new material in the West End and abroad.

For information about individual Footlights revues, see Cambridge Footlights Revue.

Famous members [link]

The careers of many prominent figures in the world of entertainment began in Footlights — while prominent figures in other industries also took part in Footlights. They include:

Name	Birth	Death	Career
Douglas Adams	1952	2001	Comedy writer, known for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Clive Anderson	1952	—	Comedian, television presenter, barrister
David Armand	1977	—	Comedian, actor, member of The Hollow Men
Alexander Armstrong	1970	—	Comedian, television presenter, half of Armstrong and Miller
Pete Atkin	1945	—	Singer-songwriter, radio producer, known for This Sceptred Isle
Richard Ayoade	1977	—	Comedian, actor, director, co-creator of Garth Marenghi
James Bachman	1972	—	Comedian, actor, writer
David Baddiel	1964	—	Comedian, novelist, television presenter, half of Newman and Baddiel
Morwenna Banks	1964	—	Comedian, actor
Humphrey Barclay	1941	—	Comedy executive, producer of I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again
Sir Brian Barder	1934	—	Diplomat, popular blogger
Tom Basden	1981	—	Comedy writer and performer, singer-songwriter, member of Cowards
Robert Bathurst	1957	—	Actor
Sir Cecil Beaton	1904	1980	Photographer, interior designer, stage and costume designer
Peter Bennett-Jones	1956	—	Television producer and agent, co-founder of Tiger Aspect and Comic Relief
Martin Bergman	1957	—	Producer, writer, director
John Bird	1936	—	Comedian, actor, satirist, member of Bremner, Bird and Fortune
Simon Bird	1984	—	Comedian, actor
Timothy Birdsall	1936	1963	Cartoonist
Christopher Booker	1937	—	Journalist, author, founding editor of Private Eye
Leslie Bricusse	1931	—	Lyricist, composer, playwright, known for Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
Eleanor Bron	1938	—	Actress, writer
Tim Brooke-Taylor	1940	—	Comedy writer and performer, member of The Goodies
Gus Brown	1974	—	Comedian, actor, half of Laurence and Gus
Spencer Brown	1978	—	Comedian
Robert Buckman	1948	—	Comedian, writer, television presenter, columnist, physician
Tony Buffery	—	—	Psychologist, actor, comedian, writer, known for Twice a Fortnight
John Cameron	1944	—	Composer, arranger, conductor, musician
Jon Canter	1953	—	Comedy scriptwriter, principal writer for Lenny Henry
Graham Chapman	1941	1989	Comedian, actor, writer, member of Monty Python
John Cleese	1939	—	Comedian, actor, writer, member of Monty Python
Olivia Colman	1974	—	Comedian, actor
Peter Cook	1937	1995	Comedy writer and performer, editor of Private Eye, member of Beyond the Fringe
Joe Craig	1980	—	Novelist, musician, known for the Jimmy Coates series
Thurston Dart	1921	1971	Keyboard player, conductor, musicologist
Russell Davies	1946	—	Journalist, broadcaster, presenter of Brain of Britain
Hugh Dennis	1962	—	Comedian, actor, writer, voice-over artist, half of Punt and Dennis
Penny Dwyer	1953	2003	Comedian, actor, writer, metallurgist
Jimmy Edwards	1920	1988	Comedy actor, writer, star of Take It From Here and Whack-O!
Mark Evans	—	—	Comedian, actor, writer
Julian Fellowes	1949	—	Screenwriter, director, actor, novelist, known for Gosford Park and Downton Abbey
Peter Fincham	1956	—	Television producer and executive, Director of Television at ITV
John Finnemore	1977	—	Comedy writer and performer
John Fortune	1939	—	Comedian, actor, satirist, member of Bremner, Bird and Fortune
Michael Frayn	1933	—	Playwright, novelist, known for Noises Off and Copenhagen
Robin French	1978	—	Playwright, scriptwriter, songwriter
Sir David Frost	1939	—	Television presenter, interviewer, satirist, star of The Frost Report
Stephen Fry	1957	—	Comedian, writer, actor, novelist, half of Fry and Laurie
Graeme Garden	1943	—	Comedy writer and performer, illustrator, member of The Goodies
Bamber Gascoigne	1935	—	Television presenter, author, known for University Challenge
Mel Giedroyc	1968	—	Actor, writer, television presenter, half of Mel and Sue
Stefan Golaszewski	1982	—	Comedian, writer, director, member of Cowards
Matt Green	1979	—	Comedian, writer, actor
Germaine Greer	1939	—	Writer, broadcaster, academic
John Grillo	1942	—	Actor, playwright
Lawrence Grossmith	1877	1944	Actor
Nick Hancock	1962	—	Comedian, actor, television presenter, known for Room 101
Norman Hartnell	1901	1979	Fashion designer
Sir David Hatch	1939	2007	Broadcasting manager, producer of Just a Minute and I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue
Natalie Haynes	1974	—	Comedian, writer
Tony Hendra	1941	—	Satirist, writer, creator of Spitting Image
Kit Hesketh-Harvey	1957	—	Comedy writer and performer, half of Kit and The Widow
Tom Hollander	1967	—	Actor, co-creator and star of Rev.
Matthew Holness	1975	—	Comedian, co-creator of Garth Marenghi
Alex Horne	1978	—	Comedian
Kenneth Horne	1907	1969	Comedian, businessman, star of Round the Horne
Claude Hulbert	1900	1964	Comic actor
Jack Hulbert	1892	1978	Actor
Tristram Hunt	1974	—	Politician, historian, broadcaster, newspaper columnist
Sir Nicholas Hytner	1956	—	Film and theatre producer, Director of the National Theatre
Eric Idle	1943	—	Comedian, actor, writer, songwriter, member of Monty Python
Clive James	1939	—	Writer, poet, critic
Jonathan James-Moore	1946	2005	Comedy producer, theatre manager
Peter Jeffrey	1929	1999	Actor
Simon Jones	1950	—	Actor
Rufus Jones	1976	—	Comedy writer and performer, member of Dutch Elm Conservatoire
Jo Kendall	—	—	Actor
Tim Key	1976	—	Comedian, actor, poet, member of Cowards
Paul King	1978	—	Comedy director, known for The Mighty Boosh
Matt Kirshen	1980	—	Comedian
Ian Lang	1940	—	Politician, business executive
Hugh Latimer	1913	2006	Actor, toymaker
Hugh Laurie	1959	—	Comedian, actor, writer, musician, half of Fry and Laurie
John Lloyd	1951	—	Comedy writer and producer, creator of Have I Got News for You and QI
Nicholas Luard	1937	2004	Satirist, travel writer, owner of Private Eye, co-founder of The Establishment
Jonathan Lynn	1943	—	Comedy writer, actor, director, creator of Yes, Minister
Miriam Margolyes	1941	—	Actor
Dan Mazer	1971	—	Comedian, producer, screenwriter, known for work with Sacha Baron Cohen
Simon McBurney	1957	—	Actor, writer, director, founder of Complicite
Kevin McCloud	1958	—	Writer, designer, television presenter
Geoffrey McGivern	1952	—	Comedy actor
Rory McGrath	1956	—	Comedian, co-founder of Hat Trick Productions
Ben Miller	1966	—	Comedian, director, actor, half of Armstrong and Miller
Sir Jonathan Miller	1934	—	Theatre and opera director, humorist, sculptor, member of Beyond the Fringe
David Mitchell	1974	—	Comedian, actor, writer, half of Mitchell and Webb
Nick Mohammed	1980	—	Comedian, actor, writer
Lucy Montgomery	1975	—	Comedian, actor, writer
Neil Mullarkey	1961	—	Comedian, actor, writer, founding member of The Comedy Store Players
Jimmy Mulville	1955	—	Comedian, writer, television presenter, co-founder of Hat Trick Productions
Simon Munnery	1972	—	Comedian
Richard Murdoch	1907	1990	Comic actor
Jon Naismith	1965	—	Comedy producer, creator of The Unbelievable Truth, producer of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue
Henry Naylor	1968	—	Comedy writer and performer, half of Parsons and Naylor
David Nobbs	1935	—	Comedy writer, creator of the Reggie Perrin series
Sir Trevor Nunn	1940	—	Theatre and film producer, Director of the National Theatre
Des O'Connor	1972	—	Television presenter, burlesque performer, musician, lyricist
Michael O'Donnell	1928	—	Journalist, author, broadcaster, physician
Bill Oddie	1941	—	Comedian, actor, musician, naturalist, television presenter, member of The Goodies
John Oliver	1977	—	Comedian, writer, television personality of Daily Show fame
Richard Osman	1970	—	Producer, Creative Director of Endemol UK, co-presenter of Pointless
Andy Parsons	1967	—	Comedian, comedy writer, half of Parsons and Naylor
Sue Perkins	1969	—	Comedian, actor, writer, television presenter, half of Mel and Sue
Steve Punt	1962	—	Comedian, actor, writer, half of Punt and Dennis
Jan Ravens	1958	—	Actor, impressionist
Griff Rhys Jones	1953	—	Comedian, actor, writer, co-founder of Talkback, half of Alas Smith and Jones
Blake Ritson	1980	—	Actor, director, writer
John-Luke Roberts	1985	—	Comedy writer and performer, known for Spats
William Seaward	1986	—	Actor, director, founder of The Strolling Theatricals
Tanya Seghatchian	1968	—	Film producer, former Head of the Development Fund at the UK Film Council and British Film Institute
Sir Peter Shaffer	1926	—	Playwright, known for Equus and Amadeus
Charles Shaughnessy	1955	—	Actor
Paul Shearer	1960	—	Comedy writer and performer, known for The Fast Show
John Shrapnel	1942	—	Actor
Ben Silburn	1968	—	Comedy writer, television presenter, member of El Moustachios
Richard Sisson	1957	—	Pianist, composer, half of Kit and The Widow
Julian Slade	1930	2006	Musical theatre composer, known for Salad Days
Tony Slattery	1959	—	Comedian, actor
Ali Smith	1962	—	Novelist, short story writer, journalist, known for Hotel World
Michael Marshall Smith	1965	—	Novelist, screenwriter, short story writer
Gregory Snegoff	1955	—	Voice-over artist, writer, director
Sarah Solemani	1986	—	Writer, actress
Dan Stevens	1982	—	Actor
Richard Stilgoe	1943	—	Songwriter, lyricist, musician
William Sutcliffe	1971	—	Novelist
Jonny Sweet	1985	—	Comedian, writer
Edward Taylor	1931	—	Comedy writer, radio producer, creator of The Men from the Ministry
Joe Thomas	1983	—	Comedian, actor, writer
Emma Thompson	1959	—	Comedian, actress, screenwriter
Sandi Toksvig	1958	—	Comedian, writer, presenter of The News Quiz
Richard Vranch	1959	—	Comedian, actor, musician, founding member of The Comedy Store Players
Nicola Walker	1970	—	Actress, known for Spooks
Ian Wallace	1919	2009	Opera singer, actor, broadcaster
Mark Watson	1980	—	Comedian, novelist, radio presenter
Robert Webb	1972	—	Comedian, actor, writer, half of Mitchell and Webb
Mark Wing-Davey	1948	—	Actor, director
Sophie Winkleman	1980	—	Actress
David Wolstencroft	1969	—	Scriptwriter, creator of Spooks
Richard Wordsworth	1915	1993	Character actor
Maury Yeston	1945	—	Film composer, lyricist, musicologist
Martin Young	1947	—	Television reporter, interviewer, co-creator of Rough Justice

Presidents [link]

The elected leader of Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club is known as the president, who is assisted by a vice-president, treasurer, archivist and several other posts to form the committee.

Past presidents have included the following:

Peter Cook (of Pete and Dud)
Tim Brooke-Taylor & Graeme Garden (of The Goodies and I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again)
Eric Idle (of Monty Python)
Tony Slattery (of Whose Line Is It Anyway?)
Hugh Laurie (of Fry and Laurie, Jeeves and Wooster and House)
David Mitchell (of That Mitchell and Webb Look and Peep Show)

The current Footlights President is Phil Wang, and the current Vice President is Pierre Novellie.

List of presidents

1886 - F. W. Mortimer
1887 - J. J. Withers
1888 - W. S. Gilbert
1890 - Oscar Browning
1891 - C. M. Rae
1892 - Oscar Browning
1894 - Oscar Browning
1895 - Oscar Browning
1896 - H. C. Pollitt
1897 - H. C. Pollitt
1898 - M. V. Leveaux
1899 - S. W. Burgess
1900 - O. J. Goedecker
1901 - R. J. White
1902 - E. K. Fordham
1904 - G. S. Heathcote
1905 - G.S. Heathcote
1906 - H. Rottenburg
1907 - H. Rottenburg
1908 - J. S. Murray
1909 - L. B. Tillard
1910 - A. R. Inglis
1911 - A. R. Inglis
1912 - P. D. Ravenscroft
1913 - C. A. A. Douglas Hamilton
1914 - M. Cutherston
1919 - B. D. Nicholson
1920 - B. D. Nicholson
1921 - M. D. Lyon
1922 - M. D. Lyon

1923 - F. E. Powell
1924 - J. A. C. Barradale
1925 - H. J. Warrender
1926 - J. D. Houison Craufurd
1927 - H. C. Martineau
1928 - H. E. R. Mitchell
1929 - J. Fell Clark
1930 - J. C. Byrom
1931 - R. S. Hill
1932 - P. E. Lyon
1933 - J. A. Coates
1934 - Lord Killanin
1935 - Harry Lee
1936 - Peter Crane
1937 - Albert E. P. Robison
1938 - P. B. Meyer
1939 - Sir Robert Ricketts
1947 - D. C. Orders
1948 - D. C. Orders
1949 - Simon Phipps
1950 - Adrian Vale
1951 - Ian Kellie
1952 - Andrew Davidson
1953 - Peter Firth
1954 - Leslie Bricusse
1955 - Brian Marber
1956 - Tim Berington
1957 - Allan Mitchell
1958 - Peter Stroud
1959 - Adrian Slade

1960 - Peter Cook
1961 - Peter Bellwood
1962 - Robert Atkins
1963 - Tim Brooke-Taylor
1964 - Graeme Garden
1965 - Eric Idle
1966 - Andrew Mayer
1967 - Clive James
1968 - Jonathan James-Moore
1969 - Barry Brown
1970 - Adrian Edwards
1971 - Richard MacKenna
1972 - Steve Thorn
1973 - Robert Benton
1974 - Jon Canter
1975 - Clive Anderson
1976 - Chris Keightley
1977 - Jimmy Mulville
1978 - Martin Bergman
1979 - Robert Bathurst
1980 - Jan Ravens
1981 - Hugh Laurie
1982 - Tony Slattery
1983 - Neil Mullarkey
1984 - Nick Hancock
1985 - Kathryn Crew
1986 - Nick Golson
1987 - Tim Scott
1988 - Peter Bradshaw
1989 - Roland Kenyon

1990 - Henry Naylor
1991 - Sue Perkins
1992 - Dan Gaster
1993 - Mark Evans
1994 - Robert Thorogood
1995 - Charlie Hartill
1996 - David Mitchell
1997 - Sarah Moule
1998 - Richard Ayoade
1999 - Kevin Baker
2000 - Matt Green
2001 - James Morris
2002 - Ed Weeks
2003 - Stefan Golaszewski
2004 - Ed Riches
2005 - Raph Shirley
2006 - Simon Bird
2007 - Will Sharpe
2008 - Sam Sword
2009 - Alastair Roberts
2010 - Abi Tedder
2011 - Mark Fiddaman
2012 - Phil Wang
2013 - Harry Michell

Sources [link]

Information about the Footlights Revues during the first one hundred years of the Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club (1883–1983), and the people who appeared in them — with a foreword by Eric Idle.^[9]

References [link]

^ Footlights history
^ Footlights History
^ Footlights!—'A Hundred Years of Cambridge Comedy'—Robert Hewison, Methuen London Ltd, 1983.
^ From Fringe to Flying Circus — 'Celebrating a Unique Generation of Comedy 1960-1980' — Roger Wilmut, Eyre Methuen Ltd, 1980.
^ "Cambridge Circus — Internet Broadway Database
^ "Why Footlights is a breeding ground for double acts". BBC News. 6 December 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11927226.
^ "The South Bank Show: The Cambridge Footlights". cam.ac.uk. 30 January 2009. http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news//dp/2009012904.
^ "The Cambridge Footlights: First steps into comedy". independent.co.uk. 28 January 2009. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/comedy/features/the-cambridge-footlights-first-steps-in-comedy-1517691.html.
^ Hewison, Robert (1983). Footlights! — a hundred years of Cambridge comedy. Methuen London Ltd. ISBN 978-0-413-51150-8.

External links [link]

http://wn.com/Footlights

http://ru.wn.com/Footlights

http://nl.wn.com/Footlights

http://de.wn.com/Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club

http://it.wn.com/Footlights

http://pl.wn.com/Footlights

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

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.

Merle Haggard
Haggard at the White House for the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors
Background information
Birth name	Merle Ronald Haggard
Also known as	The Hag
Born	(1937-04-06) April 6, 1937 (age 75) Oildale, California, United States
Genres	Country
Occupations	Songwriter, musician, guitarist and singer
Years active	1963–present
Labels	Capitol, MCA, Epic, Curb, ANTI, Vanguard
Website	merlehaggard.com
Notable instruments
Merle Haggard Signature Model Telecaster

Merle Ronald Haggard (born April 6, 1937) is an American country music song writer, singer, guitarist, fiddler and instrumentalist. Along with Buck Owens, Haggard and his band The Strangers helped create the Bakersfield sound, which is characterized by the unique twang of Fender Telecaster and the unique mix with the traditional country steel guitar sound, new vocal harmony styles in which the words are minimal, and a rough edge not heard on the more polished Nashville Sound recordings of the same era.

By the 1970s, Haggard was aligned with the growing outlaw country movement, and has continued to release successful albums through the 1990s and into the 2000s. In 1997, Merle Haggard was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame.

1 Early life
2 Country success
3 Influence
4 Comeback
5 Equipment
6 Personal life
- 6.1 Wives and children
- 6.2 Health
7 Legacy
8 Discography
9 38 number one hits
10 Awards
11 Sources
12 References
13 External links

Early life [link]

Merle Haggard was born in Oildale, California, in 1937. His parents, James Francis and Flossie Mae (née Harp) Haggard,^[1] moved from Oklahoma to California during the Great Depression. At that time, much of the population of Bakersfield consisted of migrant workers from Oklahoma and surrounding states. Haggard spent his childhood in Oildale, a hardscrabble suburb of Bakersfield home to many workers in the adjacent Kern River Oil Field. His maternal grandmother, Martha Arizona Belle "Zona" Villines Harp (1881-1971), is the subject of his 1972 hit "Grandma Harp."

Haggard's father died when Merle was nine years old. He soon began committing petty crimes and truancy. Due to shoplifting in 1950 (aged thirteen), Merle was sent to a juvenile detention center.^[2] In 1951, aged 14, Haggard ran away to Texas with a friend, but returned that same year and was arrested for truancy and petty larceny. Again escaping the juvenile detention center, he went to Modesto, California. He worked odd jobs—legal and not—and began performing in a bar. Once he was found again, he was sent to the Preston School of Industry, a high-security installation. He was released fifteen months later, but was sent back after beating a local boy during a burglary attempt. After his fourth release, Haggard saw Lefty Frizzell in concert with his friend, Bob Teague. After hearing Haggard sing along to his first two songs Frizzell allowed Haggard to sing at the concert. The audience enjoyed Haggard and he began working on a full-time music career. After he had earned a local reputation, Haggard's money problems caught up with him. He was arrested for attempting to rob a Bakersfield tavern in 1957^[3] and was sent to the San Quentin state prison for three years.

While in prison, Haggard ran a gambling and brewing racket from his cell. During a time of solitary confinement, he encountered an alcoholic mathematician and death row inmate, Drunk Adam. Haggard had the opportunity to escape with a fellow inmate (nicknamed "Rabbit") but passed. The inmate successfully escaped, only to shoot a police officer and return to San Quentin for execution. Drunk Adam's predicament along with that of "Rabbit" inspired Haggard to turn his life around. Haggard soon earned a high-school equivalence diploma, kept a steady job in the prison's textile plant, and played in the prison's band. Upon his release in 1960, Haggard said it took about four months to get used to being out of the penitentiary and that, at times, he actually wanted to go back in. He said it was the loneliest he had ever felt.^{[citation needed]}

Country success [link]

Haggard performing in June 2009

Upon his release, Haggard started digging ditches and wiring houses for his brother. Soon he was performing again, and later began recording with Tally Records. The Bakersfield Sound was developing in the area as a reaction against the over-produced honky tonk of the Nashville Sound. Haggard's first song was "Skid Row". In 1962, Haggard wound up performing at a Wynn Stewart show in Las Vegas and heard Wynn's "Sing a Sad Song". He asked for permission to record it, and the resulting single was a national hit in 1964. The following year he had his first national top ten record with "(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers", written by Liz Anderson (mother of country singer Lynn Anderson) and his career was off and running. 1966 saw his first number one song "I'm a Lonesome Fugitive", also written by Liz Anderson, which Haggard acknowledges in his autobiography remains his most popular number with audiences.

In 1968, Haggard's first tribute LP Same Train, Different Time: A Tribute to Jimmie Rodgers, was released to acclaim. "Okie From Muskogee", 1969's apparent political statement, was actually written as an abjectly humorous character portrait. Haggard called the song a "documentation of the uneducated that lived in America at the time."^[4] He said later on the Bob Edwards Show that "I wrote it when I recently got out of the joint. I knew what it was like to lose my freedom, and I was getting really mad at these protesters. They didn't know anything more about the war in Vietnam than I did. I thought how my dad, who was from Oklahoma, would have felt. I felt I knew how those boys fighting in Vietnam felt."

Later, Alabama Gov. George Wallace asked Haggard for an endorsement, which Haggard declined. However, Haggard has expressed sympathy with the "parochial" way of life expressed in "Okie" and songs such as "The Fightin' Side of Me". After "Okie" was released, it was a hit.

Regardless of exactly how they were intended, "Okie From Muskogee", "The Fightin' Side of Me", and "I Wonder If They Think of Me" were hailed as anthems of the so-called "Silent Majority" and presaged a trend in patriotic songs that would reappear years later with Charlie Daniels' "In America", Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA", and others. In 1969 the Grateful Dead began performing Haggard's tune "Mama Tried", which appeared on their 1971 eponymous live album. The song became a staple in their repertoire until the band's end in 1995. The Grateful Dead also performed Haggard's "Sing Me Back Home" numerous times between 1971 and 1973. In addition, the Flying Burrito Brothers recorded and performed "White Line Fever" in 1971, and toured with "Sing Me Back Home" and "Hungry Eyes". Singer-activist Joan Baez, whose political leanings couldn't be more different from those expressed in Haggard's above-referenced songs, nonetheless covered "Sing Me Back Home" and "Mama Tried" in 1969. The Everly Brothers also used both songs in their 1968 country-rock album Roots. Haggard's next LP was A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World (or, My Salute to Bob Wills), which helped spark a permanent revival and expanded audience for western swing.

On Tuesday, March 14, 1972, shortly after "Carolyn" became another number one country hit for Haggard, then-California governor Ronald Reagan granted Haggard a full pardon for his past crimes.

During the early to mid 1970s, Haggard's chart domination continued with songs like "Someday We'll Look Back", "Carolyn", "Grandma Harp", "Always Wanting You", and "The Roots of My Raising". He also wrote and performed the theme song to the television series Movin' On, which in 1975 gave him another number one country hit. The 1973 recession anthem "If We Make It Through December" furthered Haggard's status as a champion of the working class. Haggard appeared on the cover of TIME on May 6, 1974.

In 1981, Haggard published an autobiography, Sing Me Back Home. That same year, he alternately spoke and sang the ballad The Man In the Mask. Written by Dean Pitchford (whose other output includes Fame, Footloose, Sing, Solid Gold and the musical Carrie), this was the combined narration/theme from the movie The Legend of the Lone Ranger...which was a box-office flop.

Country star Willie Nelson believed the 1983 Academy Award-winning film Tender Mercies, about the life of fictional singer Mac Sledge, was based on the life of Merle Haggard. Actor Robert Duvall and other filmmakers denied this and claimed the character was based on nobody in particular. Duvall, however, said he was a big fan of Haggard.^[5]

"If We Make It Through December" turned out to be Haggard's last pop hit. Although he won a Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance for 1984's new kind of honky tonk, newer singers had begun to take over country music, and singers like George Strait and Randy Travis had taken over the charts. Haggard's last number one hit was "Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Star" from his smash album Chill Factor in 1988.^{[citation needed]}

Influence [link]

Haggard's guitar playing and voice gives his country a hard-edged, blues-like style in many cuts. Although he has been outspoken in his dislike for modern country music, he has praised George Strait, Toby Keith and Alan Jackson. Keith has singled Haggard as a major influence on his career. The Youngbloods responded to "Okie from Muskogee" with "Hippie from Olema", in which, in one repetition of the chorus, they change the line "We still take in strangers if they're ragged" to "We still take in strangers if they're haggard". Nick Gravenites, of Big Brother and the Holding Company, paid Haggard a tongue-in-cheek tribute with the song, "I'll Change Your Flat Tire, Merle," later covered by other artists including Pure Prairie League. The Dixie Chicks paid tribute by recording Darrell Scott's song "Long Time Gone", which criticizes Nashville trends: "We listen to the radio to hear what's cookin’/But the music ain't got no soul/ Now they sound tired but they don’t sound Haggard," with the following lines mentioning Johnny Cash and Hank Williams in the same vein. Collin Raye paid him tribute with the song "My Kind Of Girl", when he sang "How 'bout some music/She said have you got any Merle/That's when I knew she was my kind of girl." In 2000, Jackson and Strait sang "Murder On Music Row," which criticizes mainstream country trends: "The Hag wouldn't have a chance on today's radio/Because they committed murder down on music row." In 2005, the country rock duo Brooks & Dunn sang "Just Another Neon Night" off their Hillbilly Deluxe album. In the song Ronnie Dunn said "He's got an Eastwood grin and a too early swagger/Hollerin' turn off that rap/And play me some Haggard". Brooks & Dunn also reference Haggard in 1993's "Rock My World (little country girl)" off their Hard Workin' Man Album as they sing "Acts like Madonna but she listens to Merle/Rock my world little country girl."

In 2005, Shooter Jennings mentioned him in the title track of his album Put the "O" Back in Country and later mentioned him in 2007 in his song "Concrete Cowboys." In 2006, Hank Williams III included Haggard as well as other country icons in the song "Country Heroes". Steve Goodman mentioned him, humorously but respectfully, in the song "You Never Even Called Me By My Name" (which he either co-wrote or didn't co-write with John Prine). George Jones recorded two albums with him. Lynyrd Skynyrd's song Railroad Song references Haggard, "Well I'm a ride this train Lord until I find out/What Jimmy Rodgers and the Hag was all about", Nuthin' Fancy Nuthin' Fancy.^{[citation needed]}

In 2006, Haggard was back on the charts in a duet with Gretchen Wilson, "Politically Uncorrect".^[6] He is also featured on "Pledge Allegiance to the Hag" on Eric Church's debut album.

Comeback [link]

Merle Haggard Drive, Oildale, California

In 2000, Haggard made a comeback of sorts, signing with the independent record label Anti and releasing the spare If I Could Only Fly to critical acclaim. He followed it in 2001 with Roots, vol. 1, a collection of Lefty Frizzell, Hank Williams, and Hank Thompson covers, along with three Haggard originals. The album, recorded in Haggard's living room with no overdubs, featured Haggard's longtime bandmates The Strangers as well as Frizzell's original lead guitarist, Norman Stephens. In December 2004, Haggard spoke at length on Larry King Live about his incarceration as a young man and said it was "hell" and "the scariest experience of my life".^{[citation needed]}

Haggard's number one hit single "Mama Tried" is featured in the 2003 film Radio with Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Ed Harris as well as in Bryan Bertino's "The Strangers" with Liv Tyler. In addition, his song "Swingin' Doors" can be heard in the 2004 film Crash and his 1981 hit "Big City" is heard in Joel and Ethan Coen's 1996 film "Fargo" and in the 2008 Larry Bishop film "Hell Ride", executive produced by Quentin Tarantino.^{[citation needed]}

In October 2005, Haggard released his album Chicago Wind to mostly positive reviews. The album contained an anti-Iraq war song titled "America First," in which he laments the nation's economy and faltering infrastructure, applauds its soldiers, and sings, "Let's get out of Iraq, and get back on track." This follows from his 2003 release "Haggard Like Never Before" in which he includes a song, "That's The News". Haggard released a bluegrass album, The Bluegrass Sessions, on October 2, 2007. In 2008, Haggard was going to perform at Riverfest in Little Rock, Arkansas, but the concert was canceled because he was ailing, and three other concerts were canceled as well; however, he was back on the road in June and successfully completed a tour that ended on October 19.^{[citation needed]}

In April 2010, Haggard released a new album, I Am What I Am.^[7] Released to strong reviews, Haggard performed the title song on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno in February 2011.^{[citation needed]}

Equipment [link]

Haggard has endorsed Fender guitars and has a Custom Artist signature model Telecaster. The guitar is a modified Telecaster Thinline with laminated top of figured maple, set neck with deep carved heel, birdseye maple fingerboard with 22 jumbo frets, ivoroid pickguard and binding, gold hardware, abalone Tuff Dog Tele peghead inlay, 2-Colour Sunburst finish and a pair of Fender Texas Special Tele single-coil pickups with custom-wired 4-way pickup switching. He also plays six string acoustic models. In 2001, C.F. Martin & Company introduced a limited edition Merle Haggard Signature Edition 000-28SMH acoustic guitar available with or without factory-installed electronics.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life [link]

Wives and children [link]

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

Haggard was married five times, first to Leona Hobbs from 1956 to 1964. They had four children: Dana, Marty (b. June 18, 1958), Kelli, Noel (b. Sept. 4, 1963). They divorced and in 1965 he married singer Bonnie Owens; they divorced in 1978. Haggard married a third time in 1978 to Leona Williams and they were divorced in 1983. In 1985 Haggard married Debbie Parret, but they divorced in 1991. He married his current wife, Theresa Ann Lane, on September 11, 1993. They have two children, Jenessa and Ben.

Health [link]

Haggard said he had started smoking marijuana when he was 41 years old. He admitted that in 1983 he bought "$2,000 (worth) of cocaine" and partied for five days afterward, when he says he finally realized his condition and quit for good.^[8]

Haggard underwent angioplasty in 1995 to unblock clogged arteries. On November 9, 2008, it was announced that Haggard had been diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer in May of that year and underwent surgery on November 3, during which part of his lung was removed.^[9] Haggard returned home on November 8.^[10] Less than two months after his cancer surgery, Haggard played two shows on January 2 and 3, 2009, in Bakersfield at Buck Owens' Crystal Palace, and continues to tour and record.

Legacy [link]

On December 19, 2006, the Kern County Board of Supervisors approved a citizen-led resolution to rename a portion of 7th Standard Road in Oildale as Merle Haggard Drive, which will stretch from North Chester Avenue west to U.S. Route 99. The first street travelers will turn onto when they leave the new airport terminal will be Merle Haggard Drive.

In 2006, Haggard was honored as a BMI Icon at the 54th annual BMI Pop Awards. During his songwriting career, Haggard has earned 48 BMI Country Awards, nine BMI Pop Awards, a BMI R&B Award, and 16 BMI "Million-Air" awards, all from a catalog of songs that adds up to over 25 million performances.^[11]

Merle Haggard accepted the prestigious award for lifetime achievement and "outstanding contribution to American culture" from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on December 4, 2010.^[12] At a December 5, 2010 gala in Washington, D.C. he was honored with musical performances by Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, Vince Gill, Jamey Johnson, Kid Rock, Miranda Lambert and Brad Paisley. This tribute was featured on the December 28, 2010 CBS telecast of the Kennedy Center Honors.^[13]

Discography [link]

Main article: Merle Haggard discography

Awards [link]

Academy of Country Music

Country Music Association

1970 Album of the Year – "Okie from Muskogee"
1970 Entertainer of the Year
1970 Male Vocalist of the Year
1970 Single of the Year – "Okie from Muskogee"
1983 Vocal Duo of the Year – with Willie Nelson

Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Inducted in 1994

Grammy Awards

1984 Best Country Vocal Performance, Male – "That's The Way Love Goes"
1998 Best Country Collaboration with Vocals with Clint Black, Joe Diffie, Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Patty Loveless, Earl Scruggs, Ricky Skaggs, Marty Stuart, Pam Tillis, Randy Travis, Travis Tritt & Dwight Yoakam for "Same Old Train"
1999 Grammy Hall of Fame Award – "Mama Tried"

Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame

Inducted in 1977

Kennedy Center Honors

Inducted in 2010

Sources [link]

Di Salvatore, Bryan. (1998). "Merle Haggard". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury (ed.), New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 222–24
Di Salvatore, Bryan. "Ornery", The New Yorker, February 12, 1990, pp. 39–77
Fox, Aaron A. "White Trash Alchemies of the Abject Sublime: Country as 'Bad' Music", in Christopher J. Washburne and Maiken Derno (eds.), Bad Music: The Music We Love to Hate, New York: Routledge, 2004 (ISBN 0-415-94366-3)
Haggard, Merle, with Tom Carter. My House of Memories: For the Record. New York: HarperEntertainment, 1999
Haggard, Merle, and Peggy Russell. Sing Me Back Home. New York: Times Books, 1981

References [link]

^ Ancestry of Merle Haggard
^ Haggard's 40 No. 1 Hits CD song book
^ Wallechinsky, David; Amy Wallace (2005). The New Book of Lists. Canongate. p. 301. ISBN 1-84195-719-4.
^ Phipps 2001
^ Robert Duvall (actor), Gary Hertz (director) (April 16, 2002). Miracles & Mercies (Documentary). West Hollywood, California: Blue Underground. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0383509/. Retrieved January 28, 2008.
^ Duet with Gretchen Wilson
^ See, Elena. "First Listen: Merle Haggard, 'I Am What I Am'". www.npr.org. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125636724&sc=fb&cc=fp. Retrieved July 22, 2010.
^ Heath, Chris (November 2005), "The Last Outlaw", Gentleman's Quarterly, http://www.gq.com/images/gq/asme/pdf/TheLastOutlaw.pdf, retrieved July 21, 2010
^ News of cancer diagnosis
^ GACTV.com – cancer diagnosis
^ "Top BMI Writers, Publishers Honored at 54th Annual Country Awards; Merle Haggard Saluted as BMI Icon". bmi.com. http://www.bmi.com/news/entry/335056. Retrieved September 30, 2010.
^ "Merle Haggard to Receive Kennedy Center Honor". http://www.theboot.com/2010/09/09/merle-haggard-kennedy-center-honor-2010/. Retrieved October 28, 2010.
^ "Merle Haggard Featured in The Kennedy Center Honors on Tuesday". http://www.cmt.com/news/news-in-brief/1654950/merle-haggard-featured-in-the-kennedy-center-honors-on-tuesday.jhtml. Retrieved October 28, 2010.

External links [link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Merle Haggard

Merle Haggard

The Strangers: Roy Nichols; Norman Hamlet; Biff Adam; Dennis Hromek; Bobby Wayne

Marcia Nichols

Eddie Burris

George French

Jerry Ward

Studio albums

Strangers
Swinging Doors
I'm a Lonesome Fugitive
Branded Man
Sing Me Back Home
The Legend of Bonnie & Clyde
Mama Tried
Pride in What I Am
Same Train, A Different Time
A Portrait of Merle Haggard
A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World (or, My Salute to Bob Wills)
Hag
Someday We'll Look Back
Let Me Tell You About a Song
It's Not Love (But It's Not Bad)
If We Make It Through December
Merle Haggard Presents His 30th Album
Keep Movin' On
It's All in the Movies
My Love Affair with Trains
The Roots of My Raising
Ramblin' Fever
A Working Man Can't Get Nowhere Today
My Farewell to Elvis
I'm Always on a Mountain When I Fall
Serving 190 Proof
The Way I Am
Back to the Barrooms
Big City
Going Where the Lonely Go
That's the Way Love Goes
It's All in the Game
Kern River
Out Among the Stars
A Friend in California
Chill Factor
5:01 Blues
Blue Jungle
1994
1996
If I Could Only Fly
Roots, Volume 1
The Peer Sessions
Haggard Like Never Before
Unforgettable
Chicago Wind
The Bluegrass Sessions
I Am What I Am
Working in Tennessee

Live albums

Okie from Muskogee
The Fightin' Side of Me
I Love Dixie Blues
Rainbow Stew: Live at Anaheim Stadium
The Epic Collection
Amber Waves of Grain
Motorcycle Cowboy: Live at Billy Bob's Texas
Ol' Country Singer
Live from Austin, TX
Live from Austin, TX '78

Gospel albums

The Land of Many Churches
Songs for the Mama That Tried
Cabin in the Hills
Two Old Friends (with Albert E. Brumley, Jr.)

Holiday albums

Merle Haggard's Christmas Present
Goin' Home for Christmas
Pancho, Lefty and Rudolph (with Willie Nelson)
I Wish I Was Santa Claus

The Strangers albums

Instrumental Sounds of Merle Haggard's Strangers
Introducing My Friends The Strangers
Getting to Know Merle Haggard's Strangers
Honky Tonkin'
Totally Instrumental (With One Exception...)

Singles

1960s	"Sing a Sad Song" "Sam Hill" "(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers" "I'm Gonna Break Every Heart I Can" "Swinging Doors" "The Bottle Let Me Down" "I'm a Lonesome Fugitive" "I Threw Away the Rose" "Branded Man" "Sing Me Back Home" "The Legend of Bonnie & Clyde" "Mama Tried" "I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am" "Hungry Eyes" "Workin' Man Blues" "Okie from Muskogee"

1970s	"The Fightin' Side of Me" "Street Singer" "Jesus, Take a Hold" "I Can't Be Myself" "Soldier's Last Letter" "Someday We'll Look Back" "Daddy Frank (The Guitar Man)" "Carolyn" "Grandma Harp" "It's Not Love (But It's Not Bad)" "I Wonder If They Ever Think of Me" "The Emptiest Arms in the World" "Everybody's Had the Blues" "If We Make It Through December" "Things Aren't Funny Anymore" "Old Man from the Mountain" "Kentucky Gambler" "Always Wanting You" "Movin' On" "It's All in the Movies" "The Roots of My Raising" "Here Comes the Freedom Train" "Cherokee Maiden" "If We're Not Back in Love by Monday" "Ramblin' Fever" "A Working Man Can't Get Nowhere Today" "From Graceland to the Promised Land" "Running Kind" "I'm Always on a Mountain When I Fall" "It's Been a Great Afternoon" "The Way It Was in '51" "Red Bandana" "My Own Kind of Hat"

1980s – 1990s	"The Way I Am" "Misery and Gin" "I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink" "Leonard" "Rainbow Stew" "My Favorite Memory" "Big City" "Dealing with the Devil" "Are the Good Times Really Over (I Wish a Buck Was Still Silver)" "Going Where the Lonely Go" "You Take Me for Granted" "What Am I Gonna Do (With the Rest of My Life)" "It's All in the Game" "That's the Way Love Goes" "Someday When Things Are Good" "Let's Chase Each Other Around the Room" "A Place to Fall Apart" "Make-Up and Faded Blue Jeans" "Kern River" "Amber Waves of Grain" "American Waltz" "I Had a Beautiful Time" "A Friend in California" "Out Among the Stars" "Almost Persuaded" "Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Star" "Chill Factor" "We Never Touch at All" "You Babe" "5:01 Blues" "A Better Love Next Time" "If You Want to Be My Woman" "Broken Friend" "When It Rains It Pours" "In My Next Life"

Collaborations

Albums	Just Between the Two of Us (with Bonnie Owens) A Taste of Yesterday's Wine (with George Jones) Pancho & Lefty (with Willie Nelson) Heart to Heart (with Leona Williams) Walking the Line (with George Jones and Willie Nelson) Seashores of Old Mexico (with Willie Nelson) Kickin' Out the Footlights...Again (with George Jones) Last of the Breed (with Willie Nelson and Ray Price)

Singles	"Just Between the Two of Us" (with Bonnie Owens) "The Bull and the Beaver" with Leona Williams "Bar Room Buddies" (with Clint Eastwood) "Yesterday's Wine" (with George Jones) "C.C. Waterback" (with George Jones) "Reasons to Quit" (with Willie Nelson) "Pancho and Lefty" (with Willie Nelson) "We're Strangers Again" (with Leona Williams) "If I Could Only Fly" (with Willie Nelson) "That's the Way Love Goes" with (Jewel) "Wreck on the Highway" (with Chester Smith)

Guest appearances

"Street Singer" (by The Strangers)
"Willie" (by Hank Cochran)
"Walking the Floor Over You" (by Ernest Tubb)
"I Can't Hold Myself in Line" (by Johnny Paycheck)
"Lefty" (by David Frizzell)
"Same Old Train" (from Tribute to Tradition)
"Politically Uncorrect" (by Gretchen Wilson)

Compilations

The Best of Merle Haggard
Close-Up
The Best of the Best of Merle Haggard
Songs I'll Always Sing
Eleven Winners
The Way It Was in '51
Merle Haggard's Greatest Hits
His Epic Hits: The First 11 (To Be Continued...)
His Best
His Greatest and His Best
The Lonesome Fugitive
Untamed Hawk
Vintage Collections
Down Every Road
Yesterday's Wine 1981-1988
A&E Biography
16 Biggest Hits
For the Record: 43 Legendary Hits
Merle Haggard's Train Whistle Blues
20 Greatest Hits
David Allan Coe Presents
40 #1 Hits
The Essential Merle Haggard: The Epic Years
Hag: The Best of Merle Haggard

Discography

v t e Kennedy Center Honorees (2010s)

2010	Merle Haggard Jerry Herman Bill T. Jones Paul McCartney Oprah Winfrey

2011	Barbara Cook Neil Diamond Yo-Yo Ma Sonny Rollins Meryl Streep

complete list 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s

Persondata
Name	Haggard, Merle
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	April 6, 1937
Place of birth	Oildale, California, US
Date of death
Place of death

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Hank Williams, Jr.
Hank Williams, Jr. performing during a 2006 concert.
Background information
Birth name	Randall Hank Williams
Born	(1949-05-26) May 26, 1949 (age 63) Shreveport, Louisiana, US
Genres	Country, outlaw country, southern rock, country rock
Occupations	Musician, singer-songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, bass guitar, upright bass, steel guitar, banjo, keyboards, harmonica, fiddle, saxophone, dobro, drums, piano^[1]
Years active	1957–present
Labels	MCA, Warner Bros., Curb
Website	www.hankjr.com

Randall Hank Williams (born May 26, 1949), better known as Hank Williams, Jr. and Bocephus, is an American country singer-songwriter and musician. His musical style is often considered a blend of Southern rock, blues, and traditional country. He is the son of country music pioneer Hank Williams and the father of Hank Williams III, Holly Williams, Hilary Williams, Samuel Williams, and Katie Williams.

Williams began his career by following in his famed father's footsteps; singing his father's songs and imitating his father's style. Williams's own style slowly evolved as he struggled to find his own voice and place within the country music industry. This trend was interrupted by a near fatal fall off the side of Ajax Mountain in Montana on August 8, 1975. After an extended recovery he challenged the country music establishment with a blend of country, rock, and blues. Williams enjoyed much success in the 1980s from which he earned considerable recognition and popularity both inside and outside the country music industry.

As a multi-instrumentalist, Williams's repertoire of skills include guitar, bass guitar, upright bass, steel guitar, banjo, Dobro, piano, keyboards, harmonica, fiddle, and drums.^[1]

From 1989 until October 2011,^[2] a version of his song "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" was used as the opening for broadcasts of Monday Night Football.^[3]

1 Biography
2 Notable events
3 Politics
- 3.1 2011 Fox and Friends appearance
4 Discography
5 Awards
6 References
7 External links

Biography [link]

Early life and career [link]

Williams was born on May 26, 1949, in Shreveport, Louisiana. His father nicknamed him Bocephus (after Grand Ole Opry comedian Rod Brasfield's ventriloquist dummy). After his father's untimely death in 1953, he was raised by his mother, Audrey Williams. While he was a child, a vast number of contemporary musicians visited his family, who influenced and taught him various music instruments and styles. Among these figures of influence were Johnny Cash, Fats Domino, Earl Scruggs, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Williams first stepped on the stage and sang his father's songs when he was eight years old. In 1964 he made his recording debut with "Long Gone Lonesome Blues", one of his father's many classic songs.

Williams's early career was guided, and to an extent some observers say outright dominated, by his mother who is widely claimed as having been the driving force that led his late father to musical superstar status during the late 1940s and early 1950s^{[citation needed]}. Audrey, in many ways, promoted young Hank Jr. as a Hank Williams impersonator, even to the extent of having stage clothes designed for him that were identical to his father's, and encouraging vocal styles very similar to those of his father.

A change in appearance and musical direction [link]

Although Williams's recordings earned him numerous country hits throughout the 1960s and early 1970s with his role as a "Hank Williams impersonator", he became disillusioned and severed ties with his mother.

By the mid-1970s, Williams began to pursue a musical direction that would, eventually, make him a superstar. While recording a series of moderately successful songs, Williams began a heavy pattern of both drug and alcohol abuse. Upon moving to Alabama, in an attempt to refocus both his creative energy and his troubled personal life, Williams began playing music with Southern rock musicians, among them Jake Lovendahl, Waylon Jennings, Toy Caldwell, Charlie Daniels, and others. Hank Williams, Jr. and Friends, often considered his watershed album, was the product of these then-groundbreaking collaborations. In 1977, Williams recorded and released One Night Stands, The New South, and worked closely with his old friend Waylon Jennings on the album Once and For All.

On August 8, 1975, Williams was nearly killed in a mountain-climbing accident. While he was climbing Ajax Peak in Montana, the snow beneath Williams collapsed and he fell almost 500 feet onto solid rock. He suffered multiple skull and facial fractures—his face was split vertically from chin to hairline, exposing the frontal lobes of his brain and requiring over two years^[4] of reconstructive surgeries to rebuild his face. To hide the scars and the disfigurement from the accident, Williams grew a beard and began wearing sunglasses and a cowboy hat. The beard, hat, and sunglasses have since become his signature look and he is rarely seen without them.

Acceptance into the country music establishment [link]

This section of a biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (October 2008)

Hank Williams Jr., in concert at the Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez, California, on August 4, 2006.

Williams's career began to hit its peak after the Nashville establishment gradually—and somewhat reluctantly—accepted his new sound. His popularity had risen to levels where he could no longer be overlooked for major industry awards. He was prolific throughout the 1980s, sometimes recording and releasing two albums a year. Family Tradition, Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound, Habits Old and New, Rowdy, The Pressure Is On, High Notes, Strong Stuff, Man of Steel, Major Moves, Five-O, Montana Cafe, and many others resulted in a long string of hits. Between 1979 and 1992, Williams released 21 albums that were all, at least, certified gold by the RIAA. Between 1979 and 1990, Williams enjoyed a string of 30 Top Ten singles on the Billboard Country charts, including 8 #1 singles, for a total of 44 Top Ten singles, including a total of 10 #1 singles, during his career. In 1987 and 1988, Williams was named Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association. In 1987, 1988, and 1989, he won the same award from the Academy of Country Music. The pinnacle album of his acceptance and popularity was Born to Boogie. During the 1980s, Williams became a country music superstar known for catchy anthems and hard-edged rock-influenced country. During the late 1970s and into the early to mid 1980s Hank Jr's songs constantly flew into the number one or number two spot. His songs like "Family Tradition", "Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound", "Old Habits", "Ain't Misbehavin'", "Born to Boogie", and "My Name Is Bocephus".^{[clarification needed]} The 1987 hit single Wild Streak was co-written by Houston native Terri Sharp, for which Williams and Sharp both earned gold records.

In 1988 he released a Southern pride song, "If The South Woulda Won". The reference is to a Southern victory in the Civil War. The song featured modern Southern holidays, honoring Elvis Presley, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Patsy Cline. Hank Williams Jr. would run for president of the South. He would place the capital in Montgomery, Alabama. Honoring his father, Hank Williams Sr., with his image on the $100 bill.

His 1989 hit "There's a Tear in My Beer" was a duet with his father created using electronic merging technology. The song itself was written by his father, and had been previously recorded with Hank Williams playing the guitar as the sole instrument. The music video for the song combined television footage that had existed of Hank Williams performing, onto which electronic merging technology impressed the recordings of Hank Jr., which then made it appear as if he were actually playing with his father. The video was both a critical and commercial success. It was named Video of the Year by both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music. Hank Williams Jr. would go on to win a Grammy Award in 1990 for Best Country Vocal Collaboration.

He is well known for his hit "A Country Boy Can Survive" and as the performer of the theme song for Monday Night Football, based on his 1984 hit "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight". In 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1994, Williams's opening themes for Monday Night Football earned him four Emmy Awards. In 2001 Hank rewrote his classic hit "A Country Boy Can Survive" after 9/11, renaming it "America Can Survive". In 2004, Williams was featured prominently on CMT Outlaws. In 2006 Williams starred at the Summerfest concert.

He has also made a cameo appearance along with Larry the Cable Guy, Kid Rock, and Charlie Daniels in Gretchen Wilson's music video for the song "All Jacked Up". He and Kid Rock also appeared in Wilson's "Redneck Woman" video. Hank is also in a small part of Kid Rock's video "Only God Knows Why". He is also referenced in numerous songs by modern-day country singers, including Kid Rock, Brantley Gilbert, Gretchen Wilson, Alan Jackson, Justin Moore, Trace Adkins, and Aaron Lewis.

In April 2009, Williams released a new single, "Red, White & Pink-Slip Blues", which charted to number 3 on the country charts. The song was the lead-off single to Williams's album 127 Rose Avenue. The album debuted and peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. Also in July 2009, it was announced that 127 Rose Avenue would be his last album for Curb Records.^[5]

Notable events [link]

Williams donated $125,000 to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in Biloxi, Mississippi, on October 14, 2005.^[6]

Williams visited with Randal McCloy Jr., the only survivor of the Sago Mine accident, on Wednesday, January 11, 2006, in Morgantown, West Virginia. Williams traveled to the hospital after learning that McCloy was a fan of his music. "It just hit me like a ton of bricks because I had a big mountain fall in the 1970s, and they said I wouldn't live," Williams told Pittsburgh TV station KDKA-TV. "It really, really affected me, and I said, 'I've just got to go there and meet the family.'"

The Tennessee Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court ruling stating that Williams and half-sister Jett have the sole rights to sell their father's old recordings made for a Nashville radio station in the early 1950s. The court rejected claims made by Polygram Records and Legacy Entertainment in releasing recordings Williams made for the Mother's Best Flour Show, a program that originally aired on WSM-AM. The recordings, which Legacy Entertainment acquired in 1997, include live versions of Williams's hits and his cover version of other songs. Polygram contended that Williams's contract with MGM Records, which Polygram now owns, gave them rights to release the radio recordings.

Williams opened for Super Bowl XL on February 5, 2006 on ABC and was in the stands as a Pittsburgh Steelers fan.

On April 10, 2006, CMT honored Williams with the Johnny Cash Visionary Award, presenting it to him at the 2006 CMT Music Awards.

He sold the majority of his compound outside Missoula, Montana, in 2007. He kept a small plot of land and now stays in his guest house when he is in Montana. He also resides in the small town of Paris, Tennessee, and owns a hunting cabin in rural Pike County, Alabama.

In 2008 Williams performed at the first annual BamaJam Music and Arts Festival in Enterprise, Alabama.^[7] On January 18, 2009, he performed in front of a sold-out crowd at Heinz Field before the 2009 AFC championship game.

On November 11, 2008, Williams was honored as a BMI Icon at the 56th annual BMI Country Awards. The artists and songwriters named BMI Icons have had "a unique and indelible influence on generations of music makers."^[8]

Politics [link]

Williams has been politically involved with the Republican Party. For the 2000 election, he redid his song "We Are Young Country" to "This is Bush–Cheney Country". On October 15, 2008, at a rally in Virginia Beach for Republican presidential nominee John McCain, he performed "McCain–Palin Tradition", a song in support of McCain and his vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.^[9] He has made many contributions to federal election campaigns, mostly to Republicans, including Michele Bachmann's 2012 presidential campaign.^[10]

In November 2008, Williams explored a run for the 2012 Republican nomination as a U.S. Senator from Tennessee for the seat held by Bob Corker, though his publicist said Williams "has talked about it, but no announcement has been made".^[11]

[edit] 2011 Fox and Friends appearance

On October 3, 2011, in a morning interview with Fox News Channel's Fox and Friends, Williams in reference to a June golf game where President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner had teamed against Vice President Joe Biden and Ohio Governor John Kasich, offered the opinion that match was "one of the biggest political mistakes ever".

Asked about why that golf game disturbed him, Williams said, "Come on. That'd be like Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu ... In the country this shape is in ... I mean, in the shape this country is in?" He also stated that the President and Vice President are "the enemy" and compared them to "the Three Stooges". When anchor Gretchen Carlson later said to him, "You used the name of one of the most hated people in all of the world to describe, I think, the president." Williams replied, "Well, that is true. But I'm telling you like it is." As a result of his statements, ESPN dropped Williams' opening musical number from its Monday Night Football broadcast of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers versus the Indianapolis Colts and replaced it with the national anthem.

Later Williams, stated his analogy was "extreme – but it was to make a point", stating that "Some of us have strong opinions and are often misunderstood ... I was simply trying to explain how stupid it seemed to me – how ludicrous that pairing was. They're polar opposites, and it made no sense. They don't see eye-to-eye and never will."

Williams went on to claim he has "always respected the office of the president" despite having called the commander-in-chief "the enemy" and in context continued with, "Every time the media brings up the Tea Party, it's painted as racist and extremists – but there's never a backlash, no outrage to those comparisons ... Working-class people are hurting – and it doesn't seem like anybody cares. When both sides are high-fiving it on the ninth hole when everybody else is without a job – it makes a whole lot of us angry. Something has to change. The policies have to change." ESPN announced later that they were "extremely disappointed" in Williams' comments, and pulled his opening from that night's broadcast.^[12]

Three days later, ESPN released a statement announcing Williams and his song would not return to Monday Night Football, ending the use of the song that had been part of the broadcast on both ABC and ESPN since 1991.^[13] Williams has further expressed defiance and indifference on his website, and said he was the one who made the decision. "After reading hundreds of e-mails, I have made MY decision," he wrote. "By pulling my opening Oct 3rd, You (ESPN) stepped on the Toes of The First Amendment Freedom of Speech, so therefore Me, My Song, and All My Rowdy Friends are OUT OF HERE. It's been a great run."^[14] Williams' son, Hank Williams III, stayed neutral in the debate, telling TMZ.com that most musicians, including his dad, are "not worthy" of a political discussion.^[15]

After his song was pulled from Monday Night Football broadcasts permanently, Williams recorded a song criticizing President Obama, ESPN and Fox & Friends titled "Keep the Change". He released the track on iTunes and via free download at his website.^[16] The song garnered over 180,000 downloads in two days.^[17]

Discography [link]

Main article: Hank Williams, Jr. discography

Awards [link]

Year	Award	Awards
2007	CMT Giants	CMT
2007	Tennessean of the Year	Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame
2006	Johnny Cash Visionary Award	CMT Music Awards
2003	#20 in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music	CMT
1994	Composed Theme	Emmy
1993	Composed Theme	Emmy
1992	Composed Theme	Emmy
1991	Composed Theme	Emmy
1990	Video Of The Year	TNN/Music City News
1990	Vocal Collaboration Of The Year	TNN/Music City News
1989	Video Of The Year	Academy of Country Music
1989	Music Video Of The Year	Country Music Association
1989	Vocal Event Of The Year	Country Music Association
1989	Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals	Grammy
1988	Entertainer Of The Year	Academy of Country Music
1988	Video Of The Year	Academy of Country Music
1988	Album Of The Year	Country Music Association
1988	Entertainer Of The Year	Country Music Association
1987	Entertainer Of The Year	Academy of Country Music
1987	Entertainer Of The Year	Country Music Association
1987	Music Video Of The Year	Country Music Association
1986	Entertainer Of The Year	Academy of Country Music
1985	Music Video Of The Year	Country Music Association
1984	Video Of The Year	Academy of Country Music

References [link]

^ ^a ^b Hank Williams Jr. - Official Website^{[dead link]}
^ "Hank Williams dropped from Monday Night Football - Richard Deitsch - SI.com". Sportsillustrated.cnn.com. 2011-10-06. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/richard_deitsch/10/06/hankwilliamsjr.fired/index.html. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
^ "ESPN pulls Williams from MNF opening". ESPN.com. October 4, 2011. http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7056003/espn-pulls-hank-williams-jr-ready-opening-mnf.
^ "Hank Williams visits W.Va. mine survivor". USA Today. January 11, 2006. http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2006-01-11-williams-miner-visit_x.htm?POE=LIFISVA.
^ Morris, Edward (2009-07-21). "Hank Williams Jr. says new album is his last for Curb Records". Country Music Television. http://www.cmt.com/news/country-music/1616664/hank-williams-jr-says-new-album-is-his-last-for-curb-records.jhtml. Retrieved 2009-07-24.
^ "Hank Williams Jr To Donate $125,000 To Hurricane Relief Efforts In Biloxi @ Top40-Charts.com - 40 Top 20 & Top 40 Music Charts from 25 Countries>". Top40-charts.com. http://top40-charts.com/news.php?nid=17448&string=Lox. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
^ "BamaJam – Artist Line Up". Bamajammusicfestival.com. http://www.bamajammusicfestival.com/artistlineup.html. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
^ "Hank Williams, Jr. to be Honored as Icon at 56th Annual BMI Country Awards". bmi.com. http://www.bmi.com/news/entry/537255. Retrieved 2010-10-05.
^ "McCain–Palin Tradition"^{[dead link]}
^ "NEWSMEAT ▷ Hank Williams, Jr's Federal Campaign Contribution Report". Newsmeat.com. http://www.newsmeat.com/celebrity_political_donations/Hank_Williams_Jr.php. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
^ "Hank Williams Jr. For Senate? - Real Clear Politics – TIME.com". Realclearpolitics.blogs.time.com. 2008-11-25. http://realclearpolitics.blogs.time.com/2008/11/25/hank-williams-jr-for-senate. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
^ "ESPN pulls Hank Williams Jr. intro after singer links Obama with Hitler". Sportsillustrated.cnn.com. 2011-10-03. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/football/nfl/10/03/espn.williams.ap/index.html. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
^ "ESPN, Hank Williams Jr. part ways". ESPN.com. October 6, 2010. http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/7066449/espn-hank-williams-jr-theme-song-return-monday-night-football.
^ "ESPN - Hank Williams Jr. theme song won't return to Monday Night Football - ESPN". Espn.go.com. 2011-10-06. http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/7066449/espn-hank-williams-jr-theme-song-return-monday-night-football. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
^ "Hank Williams Jr.'s Son - My Dad Should NOT Talk Politics". TMZ.com. 2011-11-22. http://www.tmz.com/2011/10/04/hank-williams-jr-monday-night-football-son-politics-obama-hitler-fox-news-channel-jello-biafra-green-party-politics/#.TrhcafSXu7s. Retrieved 2011-11-27.
^ Weir, Tom (October 10, 2011). "Hank Williams Jr. retaliates with song that slams Fox". USA Today. http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2011/10/hank-williams-jr-retaliates-with-song-that-slams-fox/1.
^ "Hank Williams Jr. Thrives With Downloads, Media Coverage Surrounding Controversy". CMT News. October 12, 2011. http://www.cmt.com/news/news-in-brief/1672429/hank-williams-jr-thrives-with-downloads-media-coverage-surrounding-controversy.jhtml.

External links [link]

Persondata
Name	Williams, Hank, Jr.
Alternative names	Williams, Randall Hank
Short description	American country singer-songwriter
Date of birth	May 26, 1949
Place of birth	Shreveport, Louisiana, United States of America
Date of death
Place of death

v t e Hank Williams, Jr.

Studio albums	Stormy The Almeria Club Recordings I'm One of You 127 Rose Avenue

Related articles	Hank Williams, Jr. discography

http://wn.com/Hank_Williams,_Jr.

http://pt.wn.com/Hank Williams, Jr.

http://de.wn.com/Hank Williams Jr.

http://fr.wn.com/Hank Williams, Jr.

http://es.wn.com/Hank Williams Jr.

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

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.

For other people named Hank Williams, see Hank Williams (disambiguation).

Hank Williams
Hank Williams in a 1951 publicity photo for WSM Radio
Background information
Birth name	Hiram King Williams
Also known as	The Lovesick Blues Boy Lovesick Luke the Drifter Hank Williams, Sr. The Hillbilly Shakespeare
Born	(1923-09-17)September 17, 1923 Mount Olive, Butler County, Alabama
Died	January 1, 1953(1953-01-01) (aged 29) Oak Hill, West Virginia
Genres	Country, Western, gospel, blues, honky-tonk, folk
Occupations	Songwriter Musician
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1937–1953
Labels	Sterling, MGM
Associated acts	Drifting Cowboys
Website	www.hankwilliams.com

Hank Williams (/hæŋk wɪljəmz /; September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953), born Hiram King Williams, was an American singer-songwriter and musician regarded as one of the most important country music artists of all time. Williams recorded 35 singles (five released posthumously) that would place in the Top 10 of the Billboard Country & Western Best Sellers chart, including 11 that ranked number one.

Born in Mount Olive, Butler County, Alabama,^[1] Williams moved to Georgiana, where he met Rufus Payne, a black street performer who gave him guitar lessons in exchange for meals. Payne had a major influence on Williams's later musical style. During this time, Williams informally changed his name to Hank, believing it to be a better name for country music. After moving to Montgomery, Williams began his career in 1937 when WSFA radio station producers hired him to perform and host a 15-minute program. He formed as backup the Drifting Cowboys band, which was managed by his mother, and dropped out of school to devote all of his time to his career.

When several of his band members were conscripted to military service during World War II, Williams had trouble with their replacements and started drinking heavily, causing WSFA to dismiss him. Williams eventually married Audrey Sheppard, who became his manager for nearly a decade. After recording "Never Again" and "Honky Tonkin'" with Sterling Records, he signed a contract with MGM Records. In 1948 he released "Move it on Over," which became a hit, and also joined the Louisiana Hayride radio program. In 1949, he released a cover of "Lovesick Blues," which carried him into the mainstream of music. After an initial rejection, Williams joined the Grand Ole Opry. He had 11 number one songs between 1948 and 1953, though he was unable to read or notate music to any significant degree. Among the hits he wrote were "Your Cheatin' Heart," "Hey, Good Lookin'," and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry."

During his last years Williams's consumption of alcohol, morphine and other painkillers severely compromised his professional and personal life. He divorced his wife and was dismissed by the Grand Ole Opry due to frequent drunkenness. Williams died suddenly in the early morning hours of New Years Day in 1953 at the age of 29. Despite his short life, Williams has had a major influence on country music. The songs he wrote and recorded have been covered by numerous artists, many of whom have also had hits with the tunes, in a range of pop, gospel, blues and rock styles.

1 Life and career
2 Legacy
- 2.1 Lawsuits over the estate
  - 2.1.1 WSM's Mother's Best Flour
- 2.2 Tributes
3 Awards
4 Discography
5 References
- 5.1 Cited Texts
  - 5.1.1 Books
  - 5.1.2 Journals
6 Further reading
7 External links

Life and career [link]

Early life [link]

Williams's family house in Georgiana, Alabama

Williams's parents, Elonzo Huble "Lon" Williams and Jessie Lillybelle "Lillie" Skipper married on November 12, 1916. Elonzo Williams worked as an engineer for the railroads of the W.T. Smith lumber company. He was drafted during World War I, serving from July 1918 until June 1919.^[2] He was severely injured after falling from a truck, breaking his collarbone and sustaining a severe hit to the head. After his return, the family's first child, Irene, was born on August 8, 1922. Another son of theirs died shortly after birth. Their third child, Hiram, was born on September 17, 1923, in Mount Olive.^[3] Since Elonzo Williams was a Mason, and his wife was a member of Order of the Eastern Star the child was named after Hiram I of Tyre (one of the three founders of the Masons, according to Masonic legend), but his name was misspelled as "Hiriam" on his birth certificate.^[4]

As a child, he was nicknamed "Harm" by his family and "Herky" or "Skeets" by his friends.^[5] He was born with a mild undiagnosed case of spina bifida occulta, a disorder of the spinal column, which gave him lifelong pain—a factor in his later abuse of alcohol and drugs.^[6] Williams's father was frequently relocated by his lumber company railway line employer, and the family lived in many southern Alabama towns. In 1930, when Williams was seven years old, his father began suffering from facial paralysis. At a Veterans Affairs (VA) clinic in Pensacola, Florida, doctors determined that the cause was a brain aneurysm, and Elonzo was sent to the VA Medical Center in Alexandria, Louisiana. He remained hospitalized for eight years, rendering him mostly absent throughout Hiram's childhood.^[7] From that time on, Lillie Williams assumed responsibility for the family.^[8]

In 1933 Williams moved to Fountain, Alabama, to live with his uncle and aunt, Walter and Alice McNeil.^[8] In the fall of 1934 the Williams family moved to Greenville, Alabama, where Lillie opened a boarding house next to the Butler County courthouse.^[9] In 1935 the Williams family settled in Garland, Alabama, where Lillie Williams opened a new boarding house. After a while they moved with his cousin Opal McNeil to Georgiana, Alabama^[10] where Lillie managed to find several side jobs to support her children, despite the bleak economic climate of the Great Depression. She worked in a cannery and served as a night-shift nurse in the local hospital.^[11]

Hiram and Irene also helped out by selling peanuts, shining shoes, delivering newspapers and doing other simple jobs. Their first house burned and the family lost all of their possessions. They moved to a new house on the other side of town on Rose Street, which Williams's mother soon turned into a boarding house. The house had a small garden, on which they grew diverse crops that Williams and his sister Irene sold around Georgiana.^[12] At a chance meeting in Georgiana, Hank Williams met future U.S. Representative J. Lister Hill while he was campaigning across Alabama. Williams told Hill that his mother was interested to talk with him about his problems and her need to collect Elonzo William's disability pension. With Hill's help, the family began collecting the money.^[13] Despite his medical condition, the family managed fairly well financially throughout the Great Depression.^[14]

	My Bucket's Got a Hole in It The popular song "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It" became a hit for Hank Williams in 1949.
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There are several versions of how Williams got his first guitar. His mother stated that she bought it with money from selling peanuts, but many other prominent residents of the town claimed to have been the one who purchased the guitar for him. While living in Georgiana, Williams met Rufus "Tee-Tot" Payne, a street performer. Payne gave Williams guitar lessons in exchange for meals prepared by Lillie Williams.^[15] Payne's base musical style was blues. He taught Williams chords, chord progressions, bass turns, and the style of accompaniment that he would use in most of his future songwriting. Later on, Williams recorded one of the songs that Payne taught him, "My Bucket's Got a Hole In It."^[16] Williams final style contained influences from Payne along with several other country influences, among them "the Singing Brakeman" Jimmie Rodgers, Moon Mullican, Johnnie Ray and Roy Acuff.^[17] In 1937 Williams got into a fight with his physical education coach about exercises the coach wanted him to do. His mother subsequently demanded that the school board terminate the coach; when they refused, the family moved to Montgomery, Alabama. Payne and Williams lost touch, though eventually, Payne also moved to Montgomery, where he died in poverty in 1939. Williams later credited him as his only teacher.^[18]

Early career [link]

Hank Williams playing guitar in Montgomery, Alabama in 1938

In July 1937 the Williams and McNeil families opened a boarding house on South Perry Street in downtown Montgomery. It was at this time that Williams decided to change his name informally from Hiram to Hank, a name he said was better suited to his desired career in country music. During the same year, he participated of a talent show at the Empire Theater. He won the first prize of $15, singing his first original song "WPA Blues". Williams wrote the lyrics and used the tune of Sonny Boy Williamson II's "Dissatisfied".^[19] He never learned to read music, and for the rest of his career, he based his compositions in storytelling.^[20] After school and on weekends Williams sang and played his Silvertone guitar on the sidewalk in front of the WSFA radio studios.^[21] His recent win at The Empire Theater and the street performances caught the attention of WSFA producers, who occasionally invited him to perform on air.^[19]^[22] So many listeners contacted the radio station asking for more of "the singing kid" that the producers hired him to host his own 15-minute show twice a week for a weekly salary of US$15 (equivalent to US$242.5 in 2012).^[23] In August 1938 Elonzo Williams was temporarily released from the hospital. He showed up unannounced at the family's home in Montgomery. Lillie was unwilling to let him reclaim his position at the head of the household, so he stayed only long enough to celebrate Williams' birthday in September before he returned to the medical center in Louisiana.^[21]

Williams's successful radio show fueled his entry into a music career. His salary was enough for him to start his own band, which he dubbed the Drifting Cowboys. The original members were guitarist Braxton Schuffert, fiddler Freddie Beach, and comedian Smith "Hezzy" Adair. James E. (Jimmy) Porter was the youngest, being only 13 when he started playing steel guitar for Williams. Arthor Whiting was also a guitarist for The Drifting Cowboys.^[24] The band traveled throughout central and southern Alabama performing in clubs and at private parties. James Ellis Garner later played fiddle for him. Lillie Williams became the Drifting Cowboys' manager. Williams dropped out of school in October 1939 so that the Drifting Cowboys could work full time.^[6] Lillie Williams began booking show dates, negotiating prices and driving them to some of their shows. Now free to travel without Williams' schooling taking precedence, the band could tour as far away as western Georgia and the Florida Panhandle. The band started to play in theaters before the start of the movies and later in honky-tonks. Williams' alcohol problem started during the tours, on occasion spending an important part of the show revenues. Meanwhile, between tour schedules, Williams returned to Montgomery to host his radio show.^[25]

1940s [link]

The American entry into World War II in 1941 marked the beginning of hard times for Williams. All his band members were drafted to serve in the military, while he got a 4-F deferment from the military draft after falling from a bull during a rodeo in Texas. Many of their replacements refused to continue playing in the band because of Williams' worsening alcoholism.^[26] He continued to show up for his radio show intoxicated, so in August 1942 WSFA fired him for "habitual drunkenness". During one of his concerts Williams met backstage his idol, Grand Ole Opry star Roy Acuff,^[27] who later warned him of the dangers of alcohol, saying: "You've got a million-dollar voice, son, but a ten-cent brain."^[28]

He worked for the rest of the war in a shipbuilding company in Mobile, Alabama, as well as singing in bars for soldiers. In 1943 Williams met Audrey Sheppard on a medicine show in Banks, Alabama. Williams and Sheppard lived and worked together in Mobile,^[29] Sheppard later told Williams that she wanted to move to Montgomery with him and start a band together and help him regain his radio show. The couple were married in 1944 in a Texaco Station in Andalusia, Alabama, by a justice of the peace. The marriage was declared illegal, since Sheppard's divorce from her previous husband did not comply with the legally required sixty day trial reconciliation.^[30]^[31]

Hank Williams, Audrey Sheppard Williams and the Drifting Cowboys band

In 1945, when he was back in Montgomery, Williams started to perform again for WSFA. He wrote songs weekly to perform during the shows.^[32] As a result of the new variety of his repertoire, Williams published his first song book, Original Songs of Hank Williams.^[27] The book only listed lyrics, since its main purpose was to attract more audience. It included ten songs: "Mother Is Gone", "Won't You Please Come Back", "My Darling Baby Girl" (with Audrey Sheppard), "Grandad's Musket", "I Just Wish I Could Forget", "Let's Turn Back The Years", "Honkey-Tonkey", "I Loved No One But You", "A Tramp On The Street", and "You'll Love Me Again".^[33] Williams became recognized as a songwriter,^[32]^[34] Sheppard became his manager and occasionally accompanied him on duets in some of his live concerts.

On September 14, 1946, Williams auditioned for the Grand Ole Opry but was rejected. After the failure of his audition, Williams and Audrey Sheppard traveled to Nashville, to intend to interest the recently formed label Acuff-Rose. Williams and his wife approached Fred Rose, the president of the company, during one of his habitual ping-pong games at WSM radio studios. Audrey Williams asked Rose if her husband could sing a song for him on that moment,^[34] Rose agreed, and he liked Williams' style.^[35] Rose signed Williams to a six song contract, and leveraged this deal to sign Williams with Sterling Records. On December 11, 1946, in his first recording session, he recorded "Wealth Won't Save Your Soul", "Calling You", "Never Again", and "When God Comes and Gathers His Jewels."^[27] The recordings "Never Again" and "Honky Tonkin'" became successful, and earned Williams the attention of MGM Records.^[36]

	Lovesick Blues noicon A major hit for Hank Williams, "Lovesick Blues" moved him to the mainstream of country music and assured him a position in the Grand Ole Opry.
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Williams signed with MGM Records in 1947 and released "Move It On Over", which became a massive country hit. In 1948 he moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, and he joined Louisiana Hayride, a radio show broadcast that propelled him into living rooms all over the southeast appearing on weekend shows. Williams eventually started to host a show on KWKH and started touring across western Louisiana and eastern Texas, always returning on Saturdays for the weekly broadcast of the Hayride.^[37]^[38] After a few more moderate hits, in 1949 he released his version of the 1922 Clifford Friend & Irving Mills song "Lovesick Blues", made popular by Rex Griffin. Williams' version became a huge country hit, crossing over to mainstream audiences and gaining Williams a place in the Grand Ole Opry.^[39] On June 11, 1949, Williams made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry, where he became the first performer to receive six encores.^[40] He brought together Bob McNett (guitar), Hillous Butrum (bass), Jerry Rivers (fiddle) and Don Helms (steel guitar) to form the most famous version of the Drifting Cowboys, earning an estimated US$1,000 per show (equivalent to US$9,767.8 in 2012).^[23] That year Audrey Williams gave birth to Randall Hank Williams (Hank Williams, Jr.).^[41] 1949 also saw Williams release seven hit songs after "Lovesick Blues," including "Wedding Bells," "Mind Your Own Business," "You're Gonna Change (Or I'm Gonna Leave)," and "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It."^[42]

1950s [link]

	Beyond the Sunset noicon One characteristic of Williams's recordings as Luke the Drifter is the use of narration rather than singing.
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In 1950, Williams began recording as "Luke the Drifter" for his religious-themed recordings, many of which are recitations rather than singing. Fearful that disc jockeys and jukebox operators would hesitate to accept these unusual recordings, Williams used this alias to avoid hurting the marketability of his name.^[43] Despite that the real identity of Luke the Drifter was supposed to be anonymous, Williams often performed part of the material of the recordings on stage. Most of the material was written by Williams, in cases with the help of Fred Rose and his son Wesley.^[44] The songs depicted Luke the Drifter travelling around from place to place, narrating stories from different characters and philosophizing about life.^[45]^[46] Some of the compositions were accompanied by a pipe organ.^[43]

Around this time Williams released more hit songs, such as "My Son Calls Another Man Daddy", "They'll Never Take Her Love from Me", "Why Should We Try Any More?", "Nobody's Lonesome for Me", "Long Gone Lonesome Blues", "Why Don't You Love Me?", "Moanin' the Blues", and "I Just Don't Like This Kind of Livin'".^[47] In 1951 "Dear John" became a hit, but it was the flip side, "Cold, Cold Heart", that became one of his most-recognized songs. A pop cover version by Tony Bennett released the same year stayed on the charts for 27 weeks, peaking at number one.^[48]

Hank Williams in concert in 1951

In 1951, a fall suffered during a hunting trip in Tennessee reactivated his old back pains. Subsequently, he started to consume painkillers, including morphine, and alcohol to ease the pain.^[41] His alcoholism worsened in 1952, in June he divorced Audrey Williams,^[49] and on August 11, 1952, Williams was fired from the Grand Ole Opry for habitual drunkenness. He returned to perform in KWKH and WBAM shows and in the Louisiana Hayride, for which he toured again. His performances were acclaimed when he was sober, but despite the efforts of his work associates to get him to shows sober, his abuse of alcohol resulted in occasions when he did not appear or his performances were poor.^[50] In October 1952 he married Billie Jean Jones.^[51]

In June 1952 Williams recorded "Kaw-Liga," along with "Your Cheatin' Heart" and "Take These Chains from My Heart" during his last session, on September 23, 1952.^[50] Due to Williams's excesses, Fred Rose stopped working with him. Also, the Drifting Cowboys were at the time backing Ray Price, while Williams was backed by local bands. By the end of 1952, Williams had started to suffer heart problems.^[41] He met Horace Raphol "Toby" Marshall in Oklahoma City, who claimed to be a doctor. Marshall had been previously convicted for forgery, and had been paroled and released from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in 1951. Among other fake titles he claimed to be a Doctor of Science. He purchased the DSC title for $35 from the Chicago School of Applied Science, in the diploma, he requested that the DSC was spelled out as "Doctor of Science and Psychology". Under the name of Dr. C. W. Lemon he prescribed Williams with amphetamines, Seconal, chloral hydrate, and morphine.^[52]

Death [link]

Main article: Death of Hank Williams

Entrance marker of the Oakwood Annex Cemetery in Montgomery, Alabama

On December 31, 1952, Williams was scheduled to perform at the Municipal Auditorium in Charleston, West Virginia. Advance ticket sales totaled US$3,500 (equivalent to $30,600 in 2012).^[23] Because of an ice storm in the Nashville area, Williams could not fly, so he hired a college student, Charles Carr, to drive him to the concerts. Carr called the Charleston auditorium from Knoxville to say that Williams would not arrive on time owing to the ice storm and was ordered to drive Williams to Canton, Ohio, for the New Year's Day concert there.^[53]

They arrived at the Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville, Tennessee, where Carr requested a doctor for Williams, as he was feeling the combination of the chloral hydrate and alcohol he had drunk on the way from Montgomery to Knoxville.^[54] Dr. P.H. Cardwell injected Williams with two shots of vitamin B12 that also contained a quarter-grain of morphine. Carr and Williams checked out of the hotel, the porters had to carry Williams to the car, as he was coughing and hiccupping.^[55] At around midnight on January 1, 1953, when they crossed the Tennessee state line and arrived in Bristol, Virginia, Carr stopped at a small all-night restaurant and asked Williams if he wanted to eat. Williams said he did not, and those are believed to be his last words.^[56] Carr later drove on until he stopped for fuel at a gas station in Oak Hill, West Virginia, where he realized that Williams was dead. The filling station's owner called the chief of the local police.^[57] In Williams' Cadillac the police found some empty beer cans and unfinished handwritten lyrics.^[58]

Dr. Ivan Malinin performed the autopsy at the Tyree Funeral House. Malinin found hemorrhages in the heart and neck and pronounced the cause of death as "insufficiency of the right ventricle of the heart."^[59] That evening, when the announcer at Canton announced Williams's death to the gathered crowd, they started laughing, thinking that it was just another excuse. After Hawkshaw Hawkins and other performers started singing "I Saw the Light" as a tribute to Williams, the crowd, now realizing that he was indeed dead, sang along.^[60] Dr. Malinin also wrote that Williams had been severely beaten and kicked in the groin recently. Also local magistrate Virgil F. Lyons ordered an inquest into Williams' death concerning the welt that was visible on his head.^[61] His body was transported to Montgomery, Alabama, on January 2 and placed in a silver coffin that was first shown at his mother's boarding house for two days. His funeral took place on January 4 at the Montgomery Auditorium, with his coffin placed on the flower-covered stage.^[62] An estimated 15,000 to 25,000 people passed by the silver coffin, and the auditorium was filled with 2,750 mourners.^[63] His funeral was said to have been far larger than any ever held for any other citizen of Alabama and the largest event ever held in Montgomery.^[64]^[65]^[66] Williams's remains are interred at the Oakwood Annex in Montgomery. The president of MGM told Billboard magazine that the company got only about five requests for pictures of Williams during the weeks prior to his death, but over three hundred afterwards. The local record shops sold out of all of their records, and customers were asking for all records ever released by Williams.^[63] His final single released during his lifetime was ironically titled "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive." "Your Cheatin' Heart" was written and recorded in 1952 but released in 1953 after Williams's death. The song was number one on the country charts for six weeks. It provided the title for the 1964 biographical film of the same name, which starred George Hamilton.^[67]

Personal life [link]

On December 15, 1944, Williams married Audrey Sheppard. It was her second marriage and his first. Their son, Randall Hank Williams, who would achieve fame in his own right as Hank Williams, Jr., was born on May 26, 1949. The marriage, always turbulent, rapidly disintegrated, and he developed a serious problem with alcohol, morphine and other painkillers prescribed for him to ease the severe back pain caused by his spina bifida.^[6] The couple divorced on May 29, 1952.^[49] In June 1952, Williams moved in with his mother, even as he released numerous hit songs, such as "Half as Much," "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)," "Settin' the Woods on Fire," "You Win Again," and "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive." His drug problems continued to spiral out of control as he moved to Nashville and officially divorced his wife. A relationship with Bobbie Jett during this period resulted in a daughter, Jett, who would be born five days after his death.^[68]

On October 18, 1952, Williams and Billie Jean Jones Eshlimar were married in Minden, Louisiana^[51] by a peace judge.^[60] It was the second marriage for both (both having been divorced with children).^[51] The next day two public ceremonies were also held at the New Orleans Civic Auditorium, where 14,000 seats were sold for each.^[60] After Williams's death, a judge ruled that the wedding was not legal because Jones Eshlimar's divorce had not become final until eleven days after she married Williams. Williams' first wife, Audrey, and his mother, Lillie Williams, were the driving forces behind having the marriage declared invalid and pursued the matter for years. Williams also married Audrey Sheppard before her divorce was final, on the tenth day of a required sixty-day reconciliation period.^[69]

Legacy [link]

Historical marker near Kowaliga Bay on Alabama's Lake Martin, where Williams wrote the song Kaw-Liga

Alabama governor Gordon Persons officially proclaimed September 21 "Hank Williams Day". The first celebration, in 1954 featured the unveiling of a monument at the Cramton Bowl, that was later placed in the grave site of Williams. The ceremony featured Ferlin Husky interpreting "I Saw the Light".^[70]

Williams had 11 number one hits in his career ("Lovesick Blues," "Long Gone Lonesome Blues," "Why Don't You Love Me," "Moanin' the Blues," "Cold, Cold Heart," "Hey, Good Lookin'," "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)," "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive," "Kaw-Liga," "Your Cheatin' Heart," and "Take These Chains from My Heart"), as well as many other top ten hits.^[71]

In 1961, Williams was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame,^[72] and he was inducted in the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1985.^[73] In 1987, he was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame under the category Early Influence.^[74] He was ranked second in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003, behind only Johnny Cash. His son, Hank Jr., was ranked on the same list.^[75] In 2004 Rolling Stone ranked him number 74 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.^[76] The website Acclaimedmusic, which collates recommendations of albums and recording artists, has a year-by-year recommendation for top artists. Hank Williams is ranked first for the decade 1940–1949 for his song "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." Many rock and roll pioneers of the 1950s, such as Elvis Presley,^[77] Bob Dylan, Jerry Lee Lewis, Merle Haggard,^[78] Gene Vincent,^[79] Carl Perkins,^[80] Ricky Nelson,^[81] Jack Scott,^[82] Conway Twitty^[83] recorded Williams songs early in their careers.

Hank Williams and Loretta Lynn rest area in Tennessee

In 2011 Williams's 1949 MGM number one hit, "Lovesick Blues," was inducted into the Recording Academy Grammy Hall Of Fame.^[84] The same year Hank Williams: The Complete Mother’s Best Recordings….Plus! was honored with a Grammy nomination for Best Historical Album.^[85] In 1999, Williams was inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame.^[86] On April 12, 2010, the Pulitzer Prize Board awarded Williams a posthumous special citation that paid tribute to his "craftsmanship as a songwriter who expressed universal feelings with poignant simplicity and played a pivotal role in transforming country music into a major musical and cultural force in American life."^[87] Keeping his legacy, Williams's son, Hank Williams, Jr., daughter Jett Williams, grandson Hank Williams III, and granddaughters Hilary Williams and Holly Williams are also country musicians.^[88]

In 2006, a janitor of Sony/ATV Music Publishing found the unfinished lyrics written by Williams that had been found in his car the night he died in a dumpster belonging to the company. The worker claimed that she sold Williams' notes to a representative of the Honky-Tonk Hall of Fame and the Rock-N-Roll Roadshow. The employee was accused of theft, but the charges were later dropped when a judge determined that the janitor's version of events was true. The unfinished lyrics were later returned to Sony/ATV, that handed them to Bob Dylan in 2008 to complete the songs for an album release. Ultimately, the completion of the songs was also performed by Alan Jackson, Norah Jones, Jack White, Lucinda Williams, Vince Gill, Rodney Crowell, Patty Loveless, Levon Helm, Jakob Dylan, Sheryl Crow and Merle Haggard. The album, named The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams was released on October 4, 2011.^[89]^[90]

Lawsuits over the estate [link]

After Williams's death, Audrey Williams filed a suit in Nashville against MGM Records and Acuff-Rose. The suit demanded that both of the publishing companies continue to pay her half of the royalties from Hank Williams's records. Williams had an agreement giving his first wife half of the royalties, but allegedly there was no clarification that the deal was valid after his death. Because Williams may have left no will, the disposition of the other fifty percent was considered uncertain; those involved included the second Mrs. Williams and her daughter and Hank Williams's mother and sister.^[91] On October 22, 1975, a federal judge in Atlanta, Georgia, finally ruled Jones Eshlimar's marriage was valid and that half of Williams's future royalties belonged to her.^[92]

WSM's Mother's Best Flour [link]

In 1951, Williams hosted a fifteen-minute show for Mother's Best flour in WSM radio. Due to Williams' tour schedules some of the shows were previously recorded to be played in his absence.^[93] The original acetates were in possession of Jett Williams, while existing duplicates were found and intended to be published by a third party. In February 2005, the Tennessee Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling stating that Williams's heirs—son, Hank Williams Jr., and daughter, Jett Williams—have the sole rights to sell his recordings made for a Nashville radio station in 1951. The court rejected claims made by Polygram Records and Legacy Entertainment in releasing recordings Williams made for the Mother's Best Flour Show. The recordings, which Legacy Entertainment acquired in 1997, include live versions of Williams' hits and his cover version of other songs. Polygram contended that Williams's contract with MGM Records, which Polygram now owns, gave them rights to release the radio recordings. A 3-CD selection of the tracks, restored by Joe Palmaccio, was released by Time-Life in October 2008 titled The Unreleased Recordings.^[94]

Tributes [link]

Main article: List of tributes to Hank Williams

Awards [link]

Year	Award	Awards	Notes
1989	Grammy for Best Country Vocal Collaboration ("There's a Tear in My Beer").^[95]	Grammy	with Hank Williams, Jr.
1989	Music Video of the Year	CMA	with Hank Williams, Jr.
1989	Vocal Event of the Year	CMA	with Hank Williams, Jr.
1989	Video of the Year	Academy of Country Music	with Hank Williams, Jr.
1990	Vocal Collaboration of the Year	TNN/Music City News	with Hank Williams, Jr.
1990	Video of the Year	TNN/Music City News	with Hank Williams, Jr.

Discography [link]

Main article: Hank Williams discography

References [link]

^ Hank William Trail
^ Koon, George William; p. 4.
^ Koon, George William; p. 6.
^ Flippo, Chet; p. 12.
^ Williams, Roger M.; p. 7.
^ ^a ^b ^c Koon, George William; p. 10.
^ Williams, Roger M.; p.9
^ ^a ^b Williams, Roger M.; p. 16.
^ Williams, Roger M.; p. 26.
^ Williams, Roger M.; p. 18.
^ Williams, Roger M.; p. 13.
^ Williams, Roger M.; p. 14.
^ Williams, Roger M.; p. 27.
^ Hemphill, Paul; p. 17.
^ Koon, George William; p. 13.
^ Brackett, David; p. 98.
^ Dicaire, David p. 124.
^ "Rufus Payne, 1884–1939". The Alabama Historical Association. The Alabama Historical Association. January 11, 2010. http://www.archives.alabama.gov/aha/markers/montgomery.html. Retrieved March 6, 2011.
^ ^a ^b Koon, George Wiliam; p.16
^ Browne, Ray Broadus; p. 66.
^ ^a ^b Koon, George William; p. 153.
^ Koon, George William; p. 17.
^ ^a ^b ^c Staff. Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–2012. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
^ Koon, George William (1983); p. 11.
^ Hemphill, Paul; p. 34.
^ Hemphill, Paul; p. 39.
^ ^a ^b ^c Cusic, Don p.61
^ Hemphill, Paul; p. 40.
^ Lipsitz, George; p. 27.
^ Lipsitz, George; p. 28.
^ Koon, William George (1983); p. 19.
^ ^a ^b Williams, Roger M.; p. 42.
^ Koon, George William (1983); p. 111.
^ ^a ^b Williams, Roger M.; p. 59.
^ Williams, Roger M.; p. 60.
^ Young, William H.; Young, Nancy K.; p. 234.
^ Williams, Roger M.; p. 70.
^ Williams, Roger M.; p. 71.
^ Browne, Pat; p. 913.
^ "Hank Williams, Sr., makes his Grand Ole Opry debut". History.com. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hank-williams-sr-makes-his-grand-ole-opry-debut. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Hank Williams Biography". AOL Music. AOL. http://music.aol.com/artist/hank-williams/biography. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
^ Young, William H.; Young, Nancy K.. p. 235.
^ ^a ^b Ching, Barbara. p. 55.
^ Williams, Roger M.; p. 127.
^ Bernstein, Cynthia Goldin; Nunnally, Thomas; Sabino, Robin. p. 250.
^ Peppiatt, Francesca. p. 82.
^ "The Year's Top Country and Western Records". Billboard. January 13, 1951. p. 9. http://books.google.com/books?id=XR8EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA19&dq=My%20Son%20Calls%20Another%20Man%20Daddy%22%2C%20%22They'll%20Never%20Take%20Her%20Love%20from%20Me%22%2C%20%22Why%20Should%20We%20Try%20Any%20More%3F%22%2C%20%22Nobody's%20Lonesome%20for%20Me%22%2C%20%22Long%20Gone%20Lonesome%20Blues%22%2C%20%22Why%20Don't%20You%20Love%20Me%3F%22%2C%20%22Moanin'%20the%20Blues%22%20and%20%22I%20Just%20Don't%20Like%20This%20Kind%20of%20Livin'&pg=PA19#v=onepage&q&f=false.
^ Whitburn, Joel. p. 36.
^ ^a ^b Williams, Roger M.; p. 96.
^ ^a ^b Lornell, Kip; Laird, Tracey. p. 82.
^ ^a ^b ^c Koon, George William; p. 70.
^ Koon, George William; p. 74.
^ Lilly, John. "Hank's Lost Charleston Show". West Virginia Division of Culture and History. http://www.wvculture.org/goldenseal/winter02/hankshow.html. Retrieved March 8, 2011.
^ Olson, Ted; p. 296.
^ Olson, Ted p. 298.
^ Olson, Ted; p. 300.
^ Olson, Ted p. 303.
^ Koon, George William; p. 79.
^ Olson, Ted p. 306.
^ ^a ^b ^c Celon, Curtis. p. 80.
^ Escott, Colin p. 243
^ Stanton, Scott. p. 262.
^ ^a ^b Peterson, Richard A.. p. 182.
^ Finch, Jackie Sheckler; p. 72.
^ Finch, Jackie Sheckler; p. 73.
^ Hank Williams Trail Brouchure. Alabama Tourism Department. http://www.alabama.travel/images/page_images/HankTrailBrochure72.pdf. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
^ Koon, George William; p. 161.
^ Koon, George William; p. XII.
^ Williams, Roger M.; p. 46.
^ Windham, Kathryn Tucker; p. 33.
^ George-Warren; Romanowski, Patricia; Romanowski Bashe, Patricia; Pareles, Jon. p. 1066.
^ "Full List of Inductees – Hank Williams". The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Country Music Foundation, Inc.. http://countrymusichalloffame.org/full-list-of-inductees/view/hank-williams. Retrieved October 4, 2011.
^ "1985 Inductee: Lifework Award for Performing Achievement". Alamhof.org. The Alabama Music Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on February 13, 2003. http://web.archive.org/web/20030213003805/http://www.alamhof.org/williamh.htm. Retrieved October 4, 2011.
^ "Hank Williams". Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc.. http://rockhall.com/inductees/hank-williams/. Retrieved March 15, 2011.
^ "CMT 40 Greatest Men of Country Music". CMT. http://www.cmt.com/shows/dyn/greatest_series/76607/episode.jhtml. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
^ "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". Rolling Stone Issue 946. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-artists-of-all-time-19691231/hank-williams-19691231.
^ "Elvis Presley". AllMusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/elvis-presley-p5175. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
^ "Hank Williams". AllMusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/hank-williams-p138231. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
^ "Gene Vincent". AllMusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/gene-vincent-p5764. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
^ "Carl Perkins". AllMusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/carl-perkins-p5129. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
^ "Ricky Nelson". AllMusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/rick-nelson-p109220. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
^ "Jack Scott". AllMusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/jack-scott-p5371. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
^ "Conway Twitty". AllMusic. http://allmusic.com/artist/conway-twitty-p1851. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
^ "Hank Williams receives additional Grammy Recognition as "Lovesick Blues" inducted into Grammy Hall of Fame". Rodeo Attitude official website. Rodeo Attitude, LLC.. http://www.rodeoattitude.com/spur/countrymusic/headlines/hank-williams-grammy-19357.shtml. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
^ "The Beatles' catalogue wins 'Best Historical Album' Grammy". WMMR. Greater Media. February 14, 2011. http://www.wmmr.com/music/news/story.aspx?ID=1363936. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
^ "Hank Williams: Native American group Inducts Him". Herald-Journal. November 9, 1999. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1876&dat=19991109&id=HzgfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0s8EAAAAIBAJ&pg=5279,3472000. Retrieved June 25, 2010.
^ "The 2010 Pulitzer Prize Winners Special Awards and Citations". Official Pulitzer Awards Website (Columbia University). April 12, 2010. Archived from the original on July 24, 2010. http://web.archive.org/web/20100724133014/http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2010-Special-Awards-and-Citations. Retrieved November 10, 2011.
^ "New exhibit explores Hank Williams's family legacy". Associated Press. Yahoo!. April 17, 2008. http://new.music.yahoo.com/hank-williams-jr/news/new-exhibit-explores-hank-williams-family-legacy--59355862. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
^ Flippo, Chet (August 25, 2011). "Nashville Skyline: Hank Williams' Life After Death". Country Music Television (MTV Networks). http://www.cmt.com/news/nashville-skyline/1669697/nashville-skyline-hank-williams-life-after-death.jhtml. Retrieved September 6, 2011.
^ "The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams to be released in October". bobdylan.com. http://www.bobdylan.com/news/lost-notebooks-hank-williams-be-released-october. Retrieved October 4, 2011.
^ Billboard May 23, 1953; p. 15.
^ Koon, George William; p. 247.
^ Hilbourn, Robert (October 28, 2008). "There's Plenty Cookin'". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/28/entertainment/et-backtracking28. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
^ "Mother's Best, Hank's Best: A Conversation With Jett Williams and the Students". The Huffington Post (AOL, Inc.). November 11, 2011. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ragogna/mothers-best-hanks-best-a_b_781999.html.
^ Jan DeKnock (February 16, 1990). "Who'll Win The Grammys? And the Grammy nominees are ...". Chicago Tribune (Tribune Company): p. 37.

Cited Texts [link]

Books [link]

Bernstein, Cynthia Goldin; Nunnally, Thomas; Sabino, Robin (1997). Language variety in the South revisited. University of Alabama Press. ISBN 978-0-8173-0882-7.
Brackett, David (2000). Interpreting popular music. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-22541-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=RSdcP4f24tgC&pg=PA98&dq=Rufe+Payne+bucket#v=onepage&q=Rufe%20Payne%20bucket&f=false. Retrieved March 6, 2011.
Browne, Pat (2001). The guide to United States popular culture. Popular Press. http://books.google.com/books?id=U3rJxPYT32MC&pg=PA913&dq=audrey+williams+hank+williams#v=snippet&q=%22audrey%20williams%22&f=false. Retrieved March 6, 2011.
Celon, Curtis W. (1995). Country music culture: from hard times to Heaven. Univ. Press of Mississippi. http://books.google.com/books?id=P1qyHCmpT7EC&lpg=PA80&dq=Andrew%20Johnson%20Hotel%20hank%20williams&pg=PA80#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved March 8, 2011.
Ching, Barbara (2003). Wrong's What I Do Best: Hard Country Music and Contemporary Culture. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-516942-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=HSXOKxKHU0EC&lpg=PA55&dq=Luke%20the%20drifter&pg=PA55#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
Cusic, Don (2008). Discovering country music. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-313-35245-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=NwQRYo58FpEC&pg=PA61&dq=hank+williams+WSFA#v=onepage&q=hank%20williams%20WSFA&f=false. Retrieved March 6, 2011.
Dicaire, David (2007). The first generation of country music stars: biographies of 50 artists born before 1940. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-3021-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=MYMQl9dsKJEC&pg=PA124&dq=Rufe+Payne#v=onepage&q=Rufe%20Payne&f=false. Retrieved March 6, 2011.
Escott, Colin; Merritt, George; MacEwen, William (1994). Hank Williams: The Biography. Hachette Digital, Inc. p. 307. ISBN 0-316-24986-6. http://books.google.com/books?id=pjref-IXiigC&lpg=PP1&dq=editions%3A1rXjCWxl3aIC&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved November 10, 2011.
Escott, Colin; Florita, Kira; Bragg, Rick (2002). Hank Williams: Snapshots from the Lost Highway. Da Capo Press. p. 208. ISBN 0-306-81176-6. http://books.google.com/books?id=OB6faHaPY8QC&lpg=PP1&dq=Hank%20Williams%3A%20snapshots%20from%20the%20lost%20highway&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved November 10, 2011.
George-Warren, Holly; Romanowski, Patricia; Romanowski Bashe, Patricia; Pareles, Jon (2001). The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia Of Rock & Roll. Fireside. p. 1114. ISBN 978-0-7432-0120-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=9lYYAAAAIAAJ&q=9780743201209&dq=9780743201209&hl=en&ei=KFK8TrXgForV0QH4-M3kBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAA. Retrieved November 10, 2011.
Hefley, James C.. Country Music Comin' Home. http://books.google.com/books?id=V-NtG0iwWDYC&dq=hank+williams+funeral+alabama. Retrieved March 13, 2011.
Flippo, Chet (1985). Your cheatin' heart:a biography of Hank Williams. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-19737-3.
Hemphill, Paul (2005). Lovesick Blues: The Life of Hank Williams. New York: Penguin Group. ISBN 0-670-03414-2.
Koon, George William (2002). Hank Williams, so lonesome. University of Mississippi press. ISBN 978-1-57806-283-6. http://books.google.com/books?id=fPMlrotQFbcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Hank+Williams#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved March 6, 2011.
Larkin, Colin (1998). The Virgin encyclopedia of country music. Virgin. ISBN 978-0-7535-0236-5.
Lipsitz, George (1994). Rainbow at midnight: labor and culture in the 1940s. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-06394-7.
Lornell, Kip; Laird, Tracey (2008). Shreveport sounds in black and white. Univ. Press of Mississippi. http://books.google.com/books?id=PzbYj-kKjXIC&lpg=PA7&dq=louisiana%20hayride&pg=PA82#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
Olson, Ted (2004). Crossroads: A Southern Culture Annual. Mercer University Press. ISBN 978-0-86554-866-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=31hZQKGNscoC&lpg=PA298&dq=Andrew%20Johnson%20Hotel%20hank%20williams&pg=PA296#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved March 8, 2011.
Peppiatt, Francesca (2004). Country Music's Most Wanted: The Top 10 Book of Cheatin' Hearts, Honky-Tonk Tragedies, and Music City Oddities. Brassey's. ISBN 978-1-57488-593-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=fcfrxsHHg_wC&pg=PA147&dq=Luke+the+drifter#v=onepage&q=Luke%20the%20drifter&f=false. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
Peterson, Richard A. (1997). Creating country music: fabricating authenticity. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-66284-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=J3zWpIOLB-MC&lpg=PA182&dq=January%204%2C%201953%20williams%20funeral&pg=PA182#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved March 8, 2011.
Sheckler Finch, Jackie (2011). It Happened in Alabama. Globe Pequot. ISBN 978-0-7627-6113-5.
Stanton, Scott (2003). The tombstone tourist: musicians. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7434-6330-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=53iA5w5sR8wC&lpg=PA262&dq=hank%20williams%20funeral%20boarding%20house%20silver&pg=PA262#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved March 13, 2011.
Tichi, Cecelia (1998). Reading country music: steel guitars, opry stars, and honky-tonk bars. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-2168-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=p_gYzRsNNbEC&lpg=PA341&dq=shotgun%20willie&pg=PA341#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
Tosches, Nick (1996). Country: the twisted roots of rock 'n' roll. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-80713-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=VpeGEPCKsesC&pg=PA215&dq=Luke+the+drifter#v=onepage&q=Luke%20the%20drifter&f=false. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
Williams, Roger M. (1981). Sing a sad song: the life of Hank Williams. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-00861-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=idolYink49IC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Hank+Williams#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved March 6, 2011.
Windham, Kathryn Tucker (2007). Alabama, One Big Front Porch. NewSouth Books. ISBN 978-1-58838-219-1.
Young, William H.; Young, Nancy K. (2010). World War II and the Postwar Years in America: A Historical and Cultural Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-313-35652-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=YjbR9EXABPEC&lpg=PA235&dq=Wedding%20Bells%2C%20Mind%20Your%20Own%20Business%2C%20You're%20Gonna%20Change%20(Or%20I'm%20Gonna%20Leave)%20My%20Bucket's%20Got%20a%20Hole%20in%20It.&pg=PA235#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
Hank Williams Trail Brouchure. Alabama Tourism Department. http://www.alabama.travel/images/page_images/HankTrailBrochure72.pdf. Retrieved March 14, 2011.

Journals [link]

External links [link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hank Williams

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Hank Williams

Hank Williams at the Internet Movie Database
Hank Williams at AllMusic
Listing of all Hank Williams' songs and alternatives
Hank Williams at Find a Grave http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1109

v t e Hank Williams

Discography

Songs	"Move It On Over" "I Saw the Light" "Lovesick Blues" "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" "Why Don't You Love Me" "Cold, Cold Heart" "Hey Good Lookin'" "Honky Tonk Blues" "Half as Much" "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)" "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive" "Kaw-Liga" "Your Cheatin' Heart"

Family	Hank Williams Jr. Jett Williams Hank Williams III Holly Williams

Related Articles	Death of Hank Williams List of tributes to Hank Williams Drifting Cowboys Sterling Records MGM Records Grand Ole Opry The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams

Persondata
Name	Williams, Hank
Alternative names	Williams, Hiram King (birth name)
Short description	Country musician
Date of birth	September 20, 1923
Place of birth	Georgiana, Alabama, United States of America
Date of death	January 1, 1953
Place of death	Oak Hill, West Virginia, United States of America

http://wn.com/Hank_Williams

http://it.wn.com/Hank Williams

http://cs.wn.com/Hank Williams

http://es.wn.com/Hank Williams

http://ru.wn.com/Уильямс, Хэнк

http://nl.wn.com/Hank Williams

http://pt.wn.com/Hank Williams

http://pl.wn.com/Hank Williams

http://fr.wn.com/Hank Williams

http://de.wn.com/Hank Williams

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

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.

For other people named George Jones, see George Jones (disambiguation).

George Jones
Jones performing at Harrah's Metropolis in Metropolis, Illinois in June 2002
Background information
Birth name	George Glenn Jones
Also known as	No Show Jones^[1] The Possum^[1]
Born	(1931-09-12) September 12, 1931 (age 80) Saratoga, Texas, USA
Origin	Vidor, Texas, USA
Genres	Country
Occupations	singer-songwriter
Instruments	acoustic guitar vocals
Years active	1954–present
Labels	Starday Mercury United Artists Musicor Epic MCA Nashville Asylum Bandit
Associated acts	Tammy Wynette, Merle Haggard
Website	www.GeorgeJones.com

George Glenn Jones (born September 12, 1931) is an American country music singer known for his long list of hit records, his distinctive voice and phrasing, and his marriage to Tammy Wynette.

Over the past 20 years, Jones has frequently been referred to as the greatest living country singer.^[2]^[3] Country music scholar Bill C. Malone writes, "For the two or three minutes consumed by a song, Jones immerses himself so completely in its lyrics, and in the mood it conveys, that the listener can scarcely avoid becoming similarly involved."

Throughout his long career, Jones made headlines often as much for tales of his drinking, stormy relationships with women, and violent rages as for his prolific career of making records and touring. His wild lifestyle led to Jones missing many performances, earning him the nickname "No Show Jones."^[1] With the help of his fourth wife, Nancy, he has been sober for over 10 years. Jones has had more than 150 hits during his career, both as a solo artist and in duets with other artists. The shape of his nose and facial features have given Jones the nickname "The Possum." Jones said in an interview that he has chosen to tour only about 60 dates a year.

1 Biography
2 Awards and honors
3 Number one country hits
4 Discography
5 See also
6 References
7 Further reading
8 External links

Biography [link]

Early life [link]

George Glenn Jones was born on September 12, 1931 in Saratoga, Texas, and was raised in Vidor, Texas, with his brother and five sisters.^[4] When he was seven, his parents bought a radio and he heard country music for the first time. Given a guitar when he was nine, Jones was soon busking for money on the streets of Beaumont.

He left home at 16 and went to Jasper, Texas, where he sang and played on the radio station. He married his first wife Dorothy when he was 19, but they divorced within a year. The Korean War was underway, and he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He was stationed in California for his entire service. Not long after his discharge, his music career took off.^[5]

Wild years [link]

Jones's identity was closely tied to his alcoholism. One of the best known stories of Jones' drinking days happened when he was married to his second wife, Shirley Corley. Jones recalled Shirley making it physically impossible for him to travel to Beaumont, located 8 miles away, and buy liquor. Because Jones would not walk that far, she would hide the keys to each of their cars they owned before leaving. She, however, did not hide the keys to the lawn mower. Jones recollects being upset at not being able to find any keys before looking out the window and at a light that shone over their property. He then described his thoughts, saying: "There, gleaming in the glow, was that ten-horsepower rotary engine under a seat. A key glistening in the ignition. I imagine the top speed for that old mower was five miles per hour. It might have taken an hour and a half or more for me to get to the liquor store, but get there I did."^[6]

In her 1979 autobiography, former wife Tammy Wynette recalled waking at 1 AM to find her husband gone: "I got into the car and drove to the nearest bar 10 miles away. When I pulled into the parking lot there sat our rider-mower right by the entrance. He'd driven that mower right down a main highway. He looked up and saw me and said, `Well, fellas, here she is now. My little wife, I told you she'd come after me.'"^[7]

Jones later jokingly sang of the lawn mower incident in his 1996 single "Honky Tonk Song", and parodied his arrest in the music video.

In the 1970s, a manager introduced Jones to cocaine before a show, because he was too tired to perform. His self-destructive behavior brought him close to death and he was in an Alabama psychiatric hospital by the end of the decade. Celebrated by some of his fans as the hard-drinkin', fast-livin' spiritual-son of his idol, Hank Williams, Jones missed so many engagements that he gained the nickname of "No-Show Jones." (The song "No-Show Jones" makes fun of Jones and other country singers.) He was often penniless and admits that Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash came to his financial aid during this time.

Poking fun at his past, three country music videos would feature Jones arriving on a riding lawn mower. The first was Hank Williams, Jr's "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" in 1984 while the second was Vince Gill's "One More Last Chance" in 1993. Gill's song mentioned the mower with the lines "She might have took my car keys, but she forgot about my old John Deere." At the end of Gill's video, he is leaving the golf course on a John Deere tractor and greets Jones with "Hey, possum." Jones, arriving at the golf course driving a John Deere riding lawn mower with a set of golf clubs mounted behind him, replies to Gill "Hey, sweet pea." The third is John Rich's "Country Done Come to Town" and shows George mowing grass on the rooftop on a zero turn mower.

The Jones Boys band [link]

George Jones has had many great musicians over the years, with many finding much success in Nashville as session players and singers. These singers include: Hank Singer, Brittany Allyn, Sonny Curtis, Ron Gaddis, Kent Goodson, Bobby Burkhead, Dan Schafer^[8] and Steve Hinson.

Marriages [link]

Jones was married twice before he was 24. His 1950 marriage to Dorothy Bonvillion lasted a year, but they had a daughter, Susan. In 1954, Jones married Shirley Ann Corley. This marriage lasted until 1968 and produced two sons, Jeffrey and Bryan. He married Tammy Wynette in 1969. They stayed married for six years and had a daughter, Tamala Georgette. As Georgette Jones, she is a country singer and has performed on stage with her father. Jones married his current wife, Nancy Sepulvado, on March 4, 1983 in Woodville, Texas. Nancy became his manager. Jones credits his wife Nancy for rescuing him from drinking and cocaine. They now live in Franklin, Tennessee.

Wives [link]

Dorothy Bonvillion (1950 – 1951) (divorced) 1 daughter
Shirley Ann Corley (September 14, 1954 – June 11, 1968) (divorced) 2 sons
Tammy Wynette (February 16, 1969 – March 13, 1975) (divorced) 1 daughter
Nancy Sepulvado (March 4, 1983 – present)

Awards and honors [link]

For a list of awards and accomplishments, see List of George Jones awards.

Jones has received many honors during his long career, from Most Promising New Country Vocalist in 1956, being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1992, and being named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2008. In 2012 he was presented with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award. At the ceremony his longtime friend Merle Haggard paid tribute to him.^[9]

He served as judge in 2008 for the 8th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.^[10]

Number one country hits [link]

"White Lightning" (1959)
"Tender Years" (1961)
"She Thinks I Still Care" (1962)
"Walk Through This World with Me" (1967)
"We're Gonna Hold On" (with Tammy Wynette) (1973)
"The Grand Tour (song)" (1974)
"The Door (George Jones song)" (1975)
"Golden Ring (song)" (with Tammy Wynette) (1976)
"Near You" (with Tammy Wynette) (1977)
"He Stopped Loving Her Today" (1980)
"I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool" (with Barbara Mandrell) (1981)
"Still Doin' Time" (1981)
"Yesterday's Wine" (with Merle Haggard) (1982)
"I Always Get Lucky with You" (1983)

Discography [link]

Further information: George Jones discography

References [link]

^ ^a ^b ^c "GEORGE JONES MAKES PEACE WITH HIS NICKNAMES". http://www.georgejones.com/news.php/2009/12/21/george-jones-makes-peace-with-his-nickna. Retrieved 10 April 2012.
^ CMT.com : George Jones : Biography
^ "Biography". http://www.allmusic.com/artist/george-jones-p1669. Retrieved 10 April 2012.
^ Jones, George with Tom Carter (1997). I Lived To Tell It All. Dell Publishing. p. 8. ISBN 0-440-22373-3.
^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas (2003). All Music Guide to Country (2nd edition ed.). San Francisco, CA: Backbeat. p. 387. ISBN 0-87930-760-9.
^ Jones, George. (1996). I Lived to Tell It All. New York: Dell Publishing Company
^ Wynette, Tammy; Wynette, Dew and Wynette, Joan, "Stand By Your Man", 1979, New York: Simon and Schuster
^ "Dan Schafer Artist performances". www.DanSchafer.com. http://timashley.tripod.com/schafer_pic.html. Retrieved 2012-02-05.
^ Grammy Awards
^ Independent Music Awards - Past Judges

External links [link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: George Jones (musician)

v t e Kennedy Center Honorees (2000s)

2000	Mikhail Baryshnikov Chuck Berry Plácido Domingo Clint Eastwood Angela Lansbury

2001	Julie Andrews Van Cliburn Quincy Jones Jack Nicholson Luciano Pavarotti

2002	James Earl Jones James Levine Chita Rivera Paul Simon Elizabeth Taylor

2003	James Brown Carol Burnett Loretta Lynn Mike Nichols Itzhak Perlman

2004	Warren Beatty Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee Elton John Joan Sutherland John Williams

2005	Tony Bennett Suzanne Farrell Julie Harris Robert Redford Tina Turner

2006	Zubin Mehta Dolly Parton Smokey Robinson Steven Spielberg Andrew Lloyd Webber

2007	Leon Fleisher Steve Martin Diana Ross Martin Scorsese Brian Wilson

2008	Morgan Freeman George Jones Barbra Streisand Twyla Tharp Pete Townshend & Roger Daltrey

2009	Mel Brooks Dave Brubeck Grace Bumbry Robert De Niro Bruce Springsteen

complete list 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s

Persondata
Name	Jones, George
Alternative names
Short description	United States Marine
Date of birth	September 12, 1931
Place of birth	Saratoga, Texas
Date of death
Place of death

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

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.

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[edit] 2011 Fox and Friends appearance

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