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Variety Obituaries is a 15-volume series with facsimile reprints of the full text of every obituary published by the entertainment trade magazine Variety from 1905 to 1994.

Information for each deceased person can include the following:

• Date, place and cause of death.
• Birthdate and birthplace.
• Birth names, nicknames, aliases and other names used by celebrities.
• Education.
• Military record.
• Film, television and stage appearances.
• Awards.
• Career narrative.

The first eleven volumes were published in 1988 by Garland Publishing, which subsequently became part of Routledge.

Volumes and years covered[link]

Indexes[link]

Volume 11 is the alphabetical index for 1905 to 1986. It contains approximately 120,000 names. There are multiple entries for some people, so 100,000 different people is a realistic estimate.

Each of the four volumes after 1986 has its own index.

Celebrities are indexed under their birth names also. For example, Cary Grant is also indexed as “Leach, Alexander Archibald”. Clara Bow is also indexed by her popular nickname “The It Girl”. The names of living celebrities appear in the index when there are obituaries for their spouses and relatives; for example, Bob Hope died after the reprints were discontinued, but immediately beneath his indexed name are the obituary references of nine of his relatives, as well as his masseur and his business agent.

Non human celebrities also appear is the index, such as Champion (Gene Autry’s horse) and Bonzo the chimpanzee.

Critical evaluation[link]

Excerpt from review in Library Journal by John Smothers

Almost since the periodical's inception, obituaries have been an important feature, and all of them (through 1986) have been gathered together here chronologically in 10 volumes, plus an index volume. The obits vary in length from one sentence to 30 paragraphs and more, with the average entry running about three paragraphs.^[1]

Notes[link]

1. ^ Library Journal review; 1989

External links[link]

The reprints are out of print. Possible sources as follow: Variety Obituaries at Amazon

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (February 2009)

Norodom Sihanouk នរោត្តម សីហនុ
Norodom Sihanouk in 1972 during a visit to the Socialist Republic of Romania
King of Cambodia (Colonial and independent Cambodia) (1st Term)
Reign	25 April 1941 – 2 March 1955
Coronation	September 1941
Predecessor	Sisowath Monivong
Successor	Norodom Suramarit
King of Cambodia (2nd Term)
Reign	24 September 1993 – 7 October 2004
Predecessor	Chea Sim
Successor	Norodom Sihamoni
Spouse	Norodom Monineath Sihanouk (Since 12 April 1952) See list Phat Kanhol Sisowath Pongsanmoni Norodom Thavet Norleak Sisowath Monikessan Mam Manivann Phanivong
Issue
14 children
Full name
Preah Karuna Preah Bat Sâmdech Preah Norodom Sihanouk Preahmâhaviraksat
House	House of Norodom
Father	Norodom Suramarit
Mother	Sisowath Kossamak
Born	(1922-10-31) 31 October 1922 (age 89) Phnom Penh, French Cambodia, Indochinese Union
Signature
Religion	Theravada Buddhism

Norodom Sihanouk (Khmer: នរោត្តម សីហនុ) (born 31 October 1922) was the King of Cambodia from 1941 to 1955 and again from 1993 until his semi-retirement and voluntary abdication on 7 October 2004 in favour of his son, the current King Norodom Sihamoni. Since his abdication, he has been known as The King-Father of Cambodia (Preahmâhaviraksat), a position in which he retains many of his former responsibilities as constitutional monarch.

The son of King Norodom Suramarit and Queen Sisowath Kossamak, Sihanouk has held so many positions since 1941 that the Guinness Book of World Records identifies him as the politician who has served the world's greatest variety of political offices.^[1] These included two terms as King, two as Sovereign Prince, one as president, two as prime minister, and one as Cambodia's non-titled head of state, as well as numerous positions as leader of various governments-in-exile.

Most of these positions were only honorific, including the last position as constitutional King of Cambodia. Sihanouk's actual period of effective rule over Cambodia was from 9 November 1953, when France granted independence to Cambodia, until 18 March 1970, when Lon Nol and the National Assembly deposed Sihanouk.

Early life[link]

Sihanouk received his primary education in a Phnom Penh primary school. He pursued his secondary education in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam at "Lycée Chasseloup Laubat" until his coronation and then later attended Cavalry military school in Saumur, France. When his maternal grandfather, King Sisowath Monivong, died on April 23, 1941, the Crown Council selected Prince Sihanouk as King of Cambodia. At that time, colonial Cambodia was part of French Indochina. His coronation took place in September 1941. In March 1945, the Empire of Japan deposed the French colonial administration and took control of French Indochina. Under pressure from the Japanese, Sihanouk proclaimed Cambodia's independence. Unlike the Vietnamese Emperor Bảo Đại, Sihanouk was careful not to compromise himself too much in collaboration with Japan. The Japanese imposed Son Ngoc Thanh as foreign minister then, in August, as prime minister of Cambodia.^[2] After Japan's surrender, the French gradually retook control of French Indochina: Son Ngoc Thanh was arrested in October 1945, while Sihanouk, considered by the French a valuable ally in the chaotic Indochinese situation, retained his throne.

Leadership turmoil[link]

Prime Minister[link]

After World War II and into the early 1950s, King Sihanouk's aspirations became much more nationalistic and he began demanding independence from the French colonists and their complete departure from Indochina. This echoed the sentiments of the other fledgling nations of French Indochina: the State of Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and the Kingdom of Laos. He went into exile in Thailand in May 1953 because of threats on his life by the French and only returned when independence was granted on 9 November 1953. Whilst independent, Cambodia retained an alliance with the French Union, until the end of the First Indochina War and the subsequent official end of French Indochina. On 2 March 1955, Sihanouk abdicated in favor of his father, established the Sangkum and took the post of Prime Minister a few months later, after having obtained an overwhelming victory in the parliamentary elections on September 1955.

Meeting in Beijing in 1956: from left Mao Zedong, Peng Zhen, Sihanouk, Liu Shaoqi.

On August 31, 1959, Ngo Dinh Nhu, the younger brother and chief adviser of South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem, failed in an attempt to assassinate Sihanouk. He ordered his agents to send parcel bombs to the Cambodian leader. Two suitcases were delivered to the Sihanouk's palace, one addressed to the head of state, and the other to Prince Vakrivan, his head of protocol. The deliveries were labelled as originating from an American engineer who had previously worked in Cambodia and purported to contain gifts from Hong Kong. Sihanouk's package contained a bomb, but the other did not; however, Vakrivan opened both on behalf of the monarch and was killed instantly, as was a servant. The explosion happened adjacent to a room in the palace where Sihanouk's parents were present.^[3][4]

Following his father's death in 1960, Sihanouk won general election as head of state, but received the title of Prince rather than King. In 1963, he made a change in the constitution that made him head of state for life. While he was not officially King, he had created a constitutional office for himself that was exactly equal to that of the former Kingship.

When the Vietnam War raged, Sihanouk promoted policies that he claimed to preserve Cambodia's neutrality and most importantly security. While he in many cases sided with his neighbors, pressures upon his government from all sides in the conflict were immense, and his overriding concern was to prevent Cambodia from being drawn into a wider regional war. In so doing he made difficult choices of alliances in pursuit of the least dangerous course of action, within a political environment where genuine neutrality was likely impossible at the time. In the spring of 1965, he made a pact with the People's Republic of China and North Vietnam to allow the presence of permanent North Vietnamese bases in eastern Cambodia and to allow military supplies from China to reach Vietnam by Cambodian ports. Cambodia and Cambodian individuals were compensated by Chinese purchases of the Cambodian rice crop by China at inflated prices. He also at this time made many speeches calling the triumph of Communism in Southeast Asia inevitable and suggesting Maoist ideas were worthy of emulation. In 1966 and 1967, Sihanouk unleashed a wave of political repression that drove many on the left out of mainstream politics. His policy of friendship with China collapsed due to the extreme attitudes in China at the peak of the Cultural Revolution. The combination of political repression and problems with China made his balancing act impossible to sustain. He had alienated the left, allowed the North Vietnamese to establish bases within Cambodia and staked everything on China's good will. On 11 March 1967, a revolt in Battambang Province led to the Cambodian Civil War.

Deposition, exile, and return[link]

On March 18, 1970, while Sihanouk was out of the country travelling, Prime Minister Lon Nol convened the National Assembly which voted to depose Sihanouk as head of state and gave Lon Nol Emergency powers. Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak, Sihanouk's cousin who had been passed over by the French government in 1941, retained his post as Deputy Prime Minister. The new Khmer Republic was immediately recognized by the United States.

After he was deposed, Sihanouk fled to Beijing, formed the National United Front of Kampuchea (Front Uni National du Kampuchéa - FUNK) and began to support the Khmer Rouge in their struggle to overthrow the Lon Nol government in Phnom Penh. He initiated the Gouvernement Royal d'Union Nationale du Kampuchéa (Royal Government of the National Union of Kampuchea), which included Khmer Rouge leaders. After Sihanouk showed his support for the Khmer Rouge by visiting them in the field, their ranks swelled from 6,000 to 50,000 fighters. Many of the new recruits for the Khmer Rouge were apolitical peasants who fought in support of the King, not for communism, of which they had little understanding. King Sihanouk would later argue (1979) that the monarchy being abolished, he was only fighting for his country's independence, "even if [his] country had to be Communist."^[5] During Lon Nol's regime, Sihanouk mostly lived in exile in North Korea, where a 60-room palatial residence which even had a cinema, was built for him. He would later return to his Pyongyang palace after the 1979 Vietnamese invasion.^[6]

In Khmer Rouge captivity[link]

When the Khmer Republic fell to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975, Prince Sihanouk became the symbolic head of state of the new régime while Pol Pot remained in power. Sihanouk, who had imagined living like a retired country gentleman and perhaps being 'a public relations man for [his] country and have [...] jazz parties and do some filming'^[7] was to spend the next few years virtually as a hostage of the Khmer Rouge. The next year, on April 4, 1976, the Khmer Rouge forced Sihanouk out of office again and into political retirement. During the Vietnamese invasion, he was sent to New York to speak against Vietnam before The United Nations. After his speech, he sought refuge in China and in North Korea.

The Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in December 1978 ousted the Khmer Rouge. While welcoming the ousting of the Khmer Rouge government, he remained firmly opposed to the Vietnamese-installed Heng Samrin government of People's Republic of Kampuchea. Hence, Sihanouk demanded Cambodia's seat in the UN be left vacant, since neither Pol Pot regime nor Heng Samrin represented the Khmer people.^[8] Although claiming to be wary of the Khmer Rouge and demanding that the Khmer Rouge representatives that still held Cambodia's UN seat be expelled,^[9] Sihanouk again joined forces with them in order to provide a united front against the Vietnamese occupation. It has been argued that one of the reasons was the US pressure to work with the Khmer Rouge.^[10] In 1982, he moved completely into opposition of the Vietnam-supported government, becoming President of the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK), which consisted of his own Armée Nationale Sihanoukiste (ANS), Son Sann's Khmer People's National Liberation Front (KPNLF), and the Khmer Rouge. The Vietnamese withdrew in 1989, leaving behind a pro-Vietnamese government under ex-Khmer Rouge cadre Hun Sen to run the People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK).

United States support[link]

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Sihanouk's opposition forces drew limited military and financial support from the United States, which sought to assist his movement as part of the Reagan Doctrine effort to counter Soviet and Vietnamese involvement in Cambodia. One of the Reagan Doctrine's principal architects, the Heritage Foundation's Michael Johns, visited with Sihanouk's forces in Cambodia in 1987, and returned to Washington urging expanded U.S. support for the KPLNF and Sihanouk's resistance forces as a third alternative to both the Vietnamese-installed and supported Cambodian government and the Khmer Rouge, which also was resisting the government.^[11]

Restoration as King[link]

Billboard of King Norodom Sihanouk at Angkor International Airport.

Peace negotiations between the CGDK and the PRK commenced shortly thereafter and continued until 1991 when all sides agreed to a comprehensive settlement which they signed in Paris. Prince Sihanouk returned once more to Cambodia on 14 November 1991 after thirteen years in exile.

In 1993, Sihanouk once again became King of Cambodia. During the restoration, however, he suffered from ill health and traveled repeatedly to Beijing for medical treatment.

Sihanouk's leisure interests include music (he has composed songs in Khmer, French, and English) and film. He has become a prodigious filmmaker over the years, directing many movies and orchestrating musical compositions. He became one of the first heads of state in the region to have a personal website, which has proven a cult hit. It draws more than a thousand visitors a day, which constitutes a substantial portion of his nation's Internet users. Royal statements are posted there daily.

Self-exile and abdication[link]

Sihanouk went into self-imposed exile in January 2004, taking up residence in Pyongyang, North Korea^[12] and later in Beijing, People's Republic of China. Citing reasons of ill health, he announced his abdication of The Throne on October 7, 2004. Sihanouk was diagnosed with B-Cell Lymphoma in his prostate in 1993; the disease recurred in his stomach in 2005, and a new cancer was found in December 2008. Sihanouk also suffers from diabetes and hypertension.^[13]

The constitution of Cambodia has no provision for an abdication. Chea Sim, the President of the Senate, assumed the title of acting Head of State (a title he has held many times before), until the Throne Council met on October 14 and appointed H.R.H. Prince Norodom Sihamoni, one of Sihanouk's sons, as the new King.

Titles and styles[link]

Monarchical styles of King Norodom Sihanouk
Reference style	His Royal Majesty
Spoken style	Your Royal Majesty
Alternative style	Sir

Since his abdication, Sihanouk's official title is "Preah Karuna Preah Bat Sâmdech Preah Norodom Sihanouk Preahmâhaviraksat" (Khmer: ព្រះករុណាព្រះបាទសម្តេចព្រះ នរោត្តម សីហនុ ព្រះមហាវីរក្សត្រ).

The literal translation of the title :

• Preah— "Sacred"
• Karuna— "Compassionate," referring to the Buddhist concept Karuna
• Bat— "Foot," from Sanskrit Pāda.
• Sâmdech— "Lord" or "Excellency"
• Preah— "Sacred"
• Norodom— "Best quality among men," from Sanskrit Uttam ("best in quality") + Nar ("among men")
• Sihanouk— "Jaws of the Lion," from Sanskrit Siha ("lion") + Hanouk ("jaws")
• Preahmâhaviraksat— Preah ("sacred") + Maha ("great") + Vira ("brave or eminent") + Ksat ("warrior or ruler")

Family[link]

Norodom Monineath

Sihanouk reportedly has had several wives and concubines, producing at least fourteen children in a period of eleven years. According to Time (June 30, 1956), however, his only legal wives have been Princess Samdech Norleak (married 1955) and Paule Monique Izzi (married 1955), who is a step-granddaughter of HRH Prince Norodom Duongchak of Cambodia and the younger daughter of Pomme Peang and her second husband, Jean-François Izzi, a banker. A profile of Sihanouk in The New York Times (June 4, 1993, page A8) stated that the King met Monique Izzi in 1951, when he awarded her a prize in a beauty pageant.

1. Neak Moneang Phat Kanhol (1920–1969; married 1942, later divorced)
   • HRH Samdech Preah Ream Bopha Devi (1943-)
   • HRH Samdech Krom Preah Norodom Ranariddh (1944-)
2. HRH Princess Sisowath Pongsanmoni (1929–1974; married 1942, divorced 1951)
   • HRH Samdech Borom Reamea Norodom Yuvaneath (1943-)
   • HRH Samdech Preah Ang Mechas Norodom Ravivong (1944–1973)
   • HRH Samdech Preah Mohesarra Norodom Chakrapong (1945-)
   • HRH Samdech Preah Ang Mechas Norodom Sorya Roeungsay (1947–1976)
   • HRH Samdach Preah Ang Mechas Norodom Kantha Bopha (1948–1952)
   • HRH Samdech Preah Ang Mechas Norodom Khemanourak Sihanouk (1949–1975)
   • HRH Samdech Preah Ang Mechas Norodom Botum Bopha (1951–1976)
3. Neak Ang Mechas Norodom Thavet Norleak (married 1943)
4. HRH Princess Sisowath Monikessan (née HRH Princess Sisowath Naralaksha Munikesara, 1929–1946; married 1944)
   • HRH Samdech Norodom Naradipo (1946– ????) Adopted son, the real Biological Father is Prince Norodom Chantaraingsey
5. HRH Princess Samdech Preah Reach Kanitha Norodom Norleak (née Princess Devisa Naralakshmi, born 1927; married 1946 and "more formally" on March 4, 1955)
6. Mam Manivan Phanivong (née Mam Munivarni Barni Varman, 1934–1975; married 1949)
   • HRH Princess Norodom Socheatha Sujata (1953–1975)
   • HRH Samdech Preah Anoch Norodom Arunrasmy (1955-)
7. HM Queen Norodom Monineath Sihanouk (née Paule Monique Izzi, born June 18, 1936; married April 12, 1952 and "more formally" on March 5, 1955)
   • HM King Norodom Sihamoni (1953-)
   • HRH Samdech Norodom Narindrapong (1954–2003)

Works[link]

• The Cambodian resistance Auckland, Auckland Vietnam Committee, 1973
• Statements by Prince Norodom Sihanouk, 1965-1973 Washington, Embassy of the Khmer Republic, Press Sectin, 1973
• War and hope: the case for Cambodia New York, Pantheon Books 1980
• Prince Sihanouk on Cambodia: interviews and talks with Prince Norodom Sihanouk (with Manola Schier-Oum and Peter Schier) Hamburg: Institut für Asienkunde, 1980
• The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, seen by Norodom Sihanouk Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1980

See also[link]

• Ruler of Cambodia

References[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

• Official site
• Genealogy of the Cambodian Royal Family
• Review of his memoirs
• News release regarding support of gay marriage
• News release regarding his website
• Cambodian politicians biography
• Official Contact with the IPSP
• New York Times
• Norodom Sihanouk at the Internet Movie Database

Bulee "Slim" Gaillard
Slim Gaillard with guitar, at the Queens Hall, Edinburgh, Scotland 1982
Background information
Birth name	Bulee Gaillard
Also known as	"Slim"
Born	(1916-01-04)January 4, 1916
Died	February 26, 1991(1991-02-26) (aged 75) London, England, U.K.
Genres	Jazz, Bebop
Occupations	Singer, Guitarist, Pianist
Instruments	Piano, Guitar
Years active	1930–1970
Labels	Savoy, Dial, Verve
Associated acts	Slim & Slam

Bulee "Slim" Gaillard (January 4, 1916 – February 26, 1991) was an American jazz singer, songwriter, pianist, and guitarist, noted for his vocalese singing and word play in a language he called "Vout". (In addition to speaking 8 other languages, Gaillard wrote a dictionary for his own constructed language.) ^[1]

Early life[link]

Along with Gaillard's date of birth, his family lineage and place of birth are disputed. One account is that he was born in Santa Clara, Cuba of a Greek father and an Afro-Cuban mother;^[2] another is that he was born in Pensacola, Florida to a German father and an African-American mother.^[3] Adding to the confusion, the 1920 U.S. Census lists a 19-month-old boy named "Beuler Gillard" in Pensacola, but born in Alabama.^[4] He grew up in Detroit and moved to New York City in the 1930s.

According to the obituaries in leading newspapers, Gaillard's childhood in Cuba was spent cutting sugar-cane and picking bananas, as well as occasionally going to sea with his father. However, at the age of 12, he accompanied his father on a world voyage and was accidentally left behind on the island of Crete. After working on the island for a while, he made his home in Detroit. In America, Gaillard worked in an abattoir, trained as a mortician and also had been employed at Ford's Motor Works.^{[citation needed]}

Career[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Gaillard first rose to prominence in the late 1930s as part of Slim & Slam, a jazz novelty act he formed with bassist Slam Stewart.^[5] Their hits included "Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy Floy)", "Cement Mixer (Putti Putti)" and the hipster anthem, "The Groove Juice Special (Opera in Vout)". The duo performs in the 1941 movie Hellzapoppin'.

Gaillard's appeal was similar to Cab Calloway and Louis Jordan in that he presented a hip style with broad appeal (for example in his children's song "Down by the Station"). Unlike them, he was a master improviser whose stream of consciousness vocals ranged far afield from the original lyrics along with wild interpolations of nonsense syllables like MacVoutie O-reeney. One such performance is celebrated in the 1957 novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

Gaillard, with Dodo Marmarosa on piano, guested a number of times on "Command Performance", recorded at KNX radio studios in Hollywood in the 1940s and distributed on transcription discs to American troops in WW2.

Gaillard later teamed with bassist Bam Brown; Slim and Bam can be seen in a 1948 motion picture featurette—with the Gaillardese title O'Voutie O'Rooney -- filmed live at one of their nightclub performances.

In the late forties and early fifties, Gaillard frequently opened at Birdland for such greats as Charlie Parker, Flip Phillips, and Coleman Hawkins. His 1945 session with Parker and Dizzy Gillespie is notable, both musically and for its relaxed convivial air. Gaillard could play several instruments, and always managed to turn the performance from hip jazz to comedy: he would play the guitar with his left hand fretting from the top of the neck, or would play credible piano solos with his palms facing up.Gaillard also wrote the theme song introducing the Peter Potter radio show.

Gaillard appeared in several shows in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Marcus Welby, M.D., Charlie's Angels, Mission Impossible, Medical Center, Flip (The Flip Wilson Show), and Along Came Bronson. He also appeared in the 1970s TV series Roots: The Next Generations and reprised some of his old hits on the NBC primetime variety program, The Chuck Barris Rah Rah Show. By the early 1980s he was touring the European jazz festival circuit, playing with such musicians as Arnett Cobb. He also played with George Melly and John Chilton's Feetwarmers, appearing on their BBC television series. He also made a guest appearance on Show 106 of the 1980s music program Night Music, an NBC late night music series hosted by Jools Holland.

He later appeared in the musical film Absolute Beginners (1986) singing "Selling Out".

In 1992, the Belgian group De Nieuwe Snaar released an amusing ode (in Dutch) to Gaillard, on their CD William.

Songs[link]

Gaillard used Yiddish in at least one of his songs, "Dunkin Bagels", where he refers to numerous Jewish ethnic dishes eaten by Ashkenazi Jews.^[6] The song was issued by the Slim Gaillard Quartet in 1945 on the Melodisc label, featuring Gaillard on guitar, Zutty Singleton on drums, "Tiny" Brown on bass and Dodo Marmarosa on piano. It was later included in the 2010 compilation CD BLACK SABBATH: The Secret Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations, issued by the Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation.^[7]

Arabic is sprinkled about Gaillard's songs. The song "Yep-Roc-Heresy" 3:07 - 1945 is a good example. This song is made up almost entirely of Arabic food names. The title of the song is taken from the first two words of the song, which are "yabraq" or in Arabic "يبرق" (pronounced "يبرأ" "yabra'" in the Levant, and mostly in northern parts of today's Syria), which is another name for the Turkish Dolma or stuffed grape leaves. The second word is "[harisseh]," (not to be confused with Tunisian harissa) which is a sweet dessert made from semolina flour - recipe.

Other Arabic words used in the song are: Burghal (burghal), Mahshi (stuffed), kibbeh siniyyeh (kibbe in a tray), anna biddi (I want), Masari bahh (No money), banadoura (tomato), ruzz (rice), eidi maksura (I am broke), Arak (Arabic: عرق [ʕaraq]) (a liquorice liquor), lahame mishwie (grilled meat), basal (onion).

This may be the first jazz song in Arabic. Some say he was reading from a menu of an Arabic restaurant, but this does not explain for his use of phrases such as, "no money" or "I am broke."

In the 1940s, the song was "banned in the radio for being suggestive", for its suspicious lyric references to drugs and crime.

The actual origin of these phrases comes from his time living in Detroit. He was out of money by the time he made it to Detroit and was turned down a job at Ford. An Armenian woman named Rose Malhalab took Slim in, where he lived in the basement of her and her husband's beauty shop on Woodward Avenue. She cooked much Arabic food for him, explaining Slim's entire song.

Personal life[link]

Gaillard's daughter Janis Hunter is the ex-wife of R&B/soul legend Marvin Gaye, and the mother of actress and singer Nona Gaye and Frankie Christian Gaye.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Slim Gaillard Facebook Page
• Slim Gaillard at ubuweb
• Slim Gaillard at the Internet Movie Database

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2010)

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Jesse Donald "Don" Knotts (July 21, 1924 – February 24, 2006) was an American comedic actor best known for his portrayal of Barney Fife on the 1960s television sitcom The Andy Griffith Show, a role which earned him five Emmy Awards. He also played landlord Ralph Furley on the 1970s television sitcom Three's Company.

In 1996, TV Guide ranked him number 27 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.^[1]

Early life[link]

Knotts was born in Morgantown, West Virginia, a son of William Jesse Knotts and his wife, the former Elsie L. Moore. Knotts's paternal ancestors had emigrated from England to America in the 17th century, originally settling in Queen Anne's County, Maryland.^[2] Knotts's father was a farmer, who due to the burden of a fourth child (Don) being born so late (his mother was 40) had a nervous breakdown, becoming a shell of his former self. Afflicted with both schizophrenia and alcoholism, he sometimes terrorized his young son with a knife, causing him to turn inward at an early age. His father would die of pneumonia when Knotts was 13 years old. Knotts and his three brothers were then raised by their mother, who ran a boarding house in Morgantown.^[3][4] Knott's mother Elsie L. Moore-Knotts died in 1969, at age 84. Son William Earl Knotts (1910–1941) preceded her in death in 1941, at age 31. They are buried in the family plot at Beverly Hills Memorial Park, in Morgantown, West Virginia. Knotts is a sixth cousin of Ron Howard, a co-star on the Andy Griffith Show. An urban legend claims that Knotts served in the United States Marine Corps during World War II, serving as a drill instructor at Parris Island. In reality, Knotts enlisted in the United States Army after graduating from Morgantown High School and spent most of his service entertaining troops.^[5]

Career[link]

Early roles[link]

Knotts began his career performing in many venues, including a ventriloquist act with a dummy named Danny "Hooch" Matador. In a TV Guide interview in the 1970s, Knotts spoke about how, when he was in the Army, he was getting tired of playing straight man for a hunk of wood. According to Knotts while on a ship in the South Pacific he took the dummy topside and tossed him overboard swearing he could hear the dummy calling for help as the ship sailed on leaving him bobbing helplessly in the waves.

Knotts got his first major break on television in the soap opera Search for Tomorrow where he appeared from 1953 to 1955. He came to fame in 1956 on Steve Allen's variety show, as part of Allen's repertory company, most notably in Allen's mock "Man in the Street" interviews, always as an extremely nervous man. The laughs grew when Knotts stated his occupation—always one that wouldn’t be appropriate for such a shaky person, such as a surgeon or explosives expert.^{[citation needed]}

In 1958, Knotts appeared in the film No Time for Sergeants alongside Andy Griffith. The film, based on the play and book of the same name, began a professional and personal relationship between Knotts and Griffith that would last for decades.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] The Andy Griffith Show

As Barney Fife, Knotts gets the help of Sheriff Taylor when his gun gets stuck on his finger.

In 1960 when Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline in his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968), Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy—and originally cousin—of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts’s portrayal of the deputy on the popular show would earn him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy, winning each of the five seasons he played the character.^[6]

A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife:

Self-important, romantic, and nearly always wrong, Barney dreamed of the day he could use the one bullet Andy had issued to him although he did fire his gun on a few occasions he always fired his pistol accidentally while still in his holster or in the ceiling of the court house, at which point he would sadly hand his pistol to Andy. This is why Barney kept his one very shiny bullet in his shirt pocket. In episode # 196 Andy did, in fact, give Barney more bullets so he would have a loaded gun to go after a bad guy that Barney helped to escape unintentionally. While Barney was forever frustrated that Mayberry was too small for the delusional ideas he had of himself, viewers got the sense that he couldn't have survived anywhere else. Don Knotts played the comic and pathetic sides of the character with equal aplomb and received three Emmy Awards during the show's first five seasons.^[7]

When the show first aired, Andy Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Don Knotts as his "foil," or straight man, almost similar to their roles in No Time for Sergeants. But, it was quickly found that the show was funnier the other way around. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight."^[8]

Believing earlier remarks made by Griffith, that The Andy Griffith Show would soon be ending after five seasons, Knotts began to look for other work, and signed a five film contract with Universal Studios. He was caught off guard when Griffith announced he would be continuing with the show after all, but Knotts’ hands were tied (in his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed a contract when Griffith made his decision, but had made up his mind believing that he would not get this chance again). Knotts left the series in 1965. Within the series, it was announced that Deputy Fife had finally made the "big time," and had joined the Raleigh, North Carolina police force.^[9]

Post-Mayberry films[link]

On a 1967 Andy Griffith special, Knotts plays the outraged wife of Tennessee Ernie Ford, as Griffith looks on.

Knotts went on to star in a series of film comedies which drew on his high-strung persona from the TV series: he had a cameo appearance in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and starred in The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964), The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), The Love God? (1969) and How to Frame a Figg (1971). Knotts would, however, return to the role of Barney Fife several times in the 1960s: he made five more guest appearances on The Andy Griffith Show (gaining him another two Emmys), and later appeared once more on the spin-off Mayberry RFD, where he was present as best man for the marriage of Andy Taylor and his longtime love, Helen Crump.

After making How to Frame a Figg, Knotts’s 5-film contract with Universal came to an end. He continued to work steadily, though he did not appear as a regular on any successful television series until his appearance on Three's Company in 1979. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Knotts served as the spokesman for Dodge trucks and was featured prominently in a series of print ads and dealer brochures. On television, he went on to host an odd-variety show/sitcom hybrid on NBC, The Don Knotts Show, which aired Tuesdays during the fall of 1970, but the series was low-rated and short-lived. He also made frequent guest appearances on other shows such as The Bill Cosby Show and Here's Lucy. In 1970, he would also make yet another appearance as Barney Fife, in the pilot of The New Andy Griffith Show. In 1972, Knotts would voice an animated version of himself in two memorable episodes of The New Scooby Doo Movies; one being "The Spooky Fog of Juneberry", in which he played a lawman who bore a remarkable resemblance to Barney Fife, and the other being "Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner". He also appeared as Felix Unger in a stage version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple with Art Carney as Oscar Madison.

Beginning in 1975, Knotts was teamed with Tim Conway in a series of slapstick films aimed at children, including the Disney film The Apple Dumpling Gang, and its 1979 sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again. They also did two independent films, a boxing comedy called The Prize Fighter in 1979, and a mystery comedy film in 1981 called The Private Eyes. Knotts co-starred in several other Disney films, including 1976's Gus, 1976's No Deposit, No Return, 1977's Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo and 1978's Hot Lead and Cold Feet.

[edit] Three’s Company

In 1979, Knotts returned to series television in his second most identifiable role, the wacky, but lovable landlord Ralph Furley on Three's Company. The series, which was already an established hit, added Knotts to the cast when the original landlords, a married couple played by Audra Lindley and Norman Fell, left the show to star in a short-lived spin-off series (The Ropers). Though the role of the outlandish, overdressed, nerdy-geeky-buffoon landlord was originally intended to be a minor recurring character, Knotts was so funny and lovable as a character who fantasized that he was an incredibly attractive lothario, that the writers greatly expanded his role. On set, Knotts easily integrated himself to the already-established cast who were, as John Ritter put it, "so scared" of Knotts because of his star status when he joined the cast. When Suzanne Somers left the show after a contract dispute in 1981, the writers started giving the material meant for Somers's Crissy to Knotts's Furley. Knotts remained on the show until it ended in 1984. The Three's Company script supervisor, Carol Summers, went on to be Knotts’s agent—often accompanying him to personal appearances.

Later roles[link]

In 1986, Don Knotts reunited with Andy Griffith in the 1986 made-for-television film Return to Mayberry, where he reprised his role as Barney Fife yet again. In 1988, he joined Griffith in another show, playing a recurring role as pesky neighbor Les Calhoun on Matlock until 1992.

After his appearances on Matlock ended in 1992, Knotts’s roles became sporadic including a cameo in the 1996 film Big Bully as the principal of the high school. In 1998, Knotts had a small but pivotal role as a mysterious TV repairman in Pleasantville with Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon. That year, his home town of Morgantown, West Virginia, changed the name of the street formerly known as South University Avenue (U.S. Route 119) to Don Knotts Boulevard on "Don Knotts Day". Also that day, in a nod to Don's role as Barney Fife, he was also named an honorary deputy sheriff with the Monongalia County Sheriff's Department.

Later years[link]

Knotts was recognized in 2000 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Though he continued to act on stage, much of his film and television work after 2000 was as voice talent. In 2002, he would appear again with Scooby-Doo in the video game Scooby-Doo: Night of 100 Frights (Knotts also sent up his appearances on that show in various promotions for Cartoon Network and in a parody on Robot Chicken, where he was teamed with Phyllis Diller). In 2003, Knotts teamed up with Tim Conway again to provide voices for the direct-to-video children's series, Hermie and Friends which would continue until his death. In 2005, he was the voice of Mayor Turkey Lurkey in Chicken Little (2005), his first Disney movie since 1979.

On September 12, 2003, Knotts was in Kansas City in a stage version of On Golden Pond when he received a call from John Ritter's family telling him that his former Three's Company co-star had died of an aortic dissection that day.^{[citation needed]} Knotts and his co-stars attended the funeral four days later. Knotts had appeared with Ritter one final time in a cameo on 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. It was an episode that paid homage to their earlier TV series. Knotts was the last Three's Company star to work with Ritter.

During this period of time, macular degeneration in both eyes caused the otherwise robust Don Knotts to become virtually blind. His live appearances on television were few. In 2005, Knotts parodied his Ralph Furley character while playing a Paul Young variation in a Desperate Housewives sketch on The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards. He would parody that part one final time, in his last live-action television appearance, an episode of That ’70s Show, ("Stone Cold Crazy"). In the show, Don played Fez and Jackie's new landlord. Knotts's final role was in Air Buddies, the 2006 direct-to-video sequel to Air Bud, voicing the sheriff's deputy dog, Sniffer.

Personal life[link]

Knotts was married three times:^[10] Kathryn Metz from 1947–1964; Loralee Czuchna from 1974–1983; and Frances Yarborough from 2002 until his death. He had a son, Thomas Knotts and daughter, actress Karen Knotts, from his first marriage.

Death[link]

Don Knotts' grave

Don Knotts died on February 24, 2006, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California from pulmonary and respiratory complications to Pneumonia related to lung cancer. He had been undergoing treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the months before his death, but had gone home after he reportedly had been feeling better.^[11] His long-time friend, Andy Griffith, visited Knotts’s bedside just hours before his death. Knotts's wife and daughter stayed with him until he died. He was buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.^[12]

Knotts’s obituaries cited him as a major influence on other entertainers. Musician and fan J. D. Wilkes said of him: "Only a genius like Knotts could make an anxiety-ridden, passive-aggressive Napoleon character like Fife a familiar, welcome friend each week.

His statue stands in Morgantown, West Virginia, in a memorial park on Don Knotts Boulevard.^[13][14]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• The Andy Griffith Show from the Museum of Broadcast Communications
• "Emmy-winning comic actor Don Knotts dies at 81". Reuters. 25 February 2006. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-02-26T014349Z_01_N25352847_RTRUKOC_0_US-KNOTTS.xml. 
• Estrada, Louie (25 February 2006). "Don Knotts, TV's Barney Fife, Dies". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/25/AR2006022501535.html. Retrieved May 1, 2010. 
• "Don Knotts, Actor Known As Shaky Deputy, Dies at 81". The New York Times. February 26, 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/arts/television/26knotts.html?ex=1298610000&en=d30d65e9aa9aabda&ei=5090. 
• Heffernan, Virginia (February 27, 2006). "Don Knotts, Ever Proud to Be a Bumbler". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/arts/television/27knot.html?ex=1298696400&en=4ae313c41e4a0922&ei=5090. Retrieved May 1, 2010. 
• Klin, Richard. "Fife and Drum." Flagpole, 2006.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Don Knotts

Biography portal

• Don Knotts at the Internet Movie Database
• Don Knotts at the Internet Broadway Database
• Don Knotts at the TCM Movie Database
• "Don Knotts". Find a Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=13434987. Retrieved August 30, 2010. 
• The Shrine to Don Knotts
• Full (3-hour) Archive of American Television Interview with Don Knotts in July, 1999
• Urban legend about Knotts serving as a Drill Instructor

Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI^[1] (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work (in particular his 1968 composition Sinfonia for voices and orchestra and his series of numbered solo pieces titled Sequenza) and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.

Biography[link]

Berio was born at Oneglia (now part of Imperia). He was taught the piano by his father and grandfather who were both organists. During World War II he was conscripted into the army, but on his first day he injured his hand while learning how a gun worked, and spent time in a military hospital. Following the war, Berio studied at the Milan Conservatory under Giulio Cesare Paribeni and Giorgio Federico Ghedini. He was unable to continue studying the piano because of his injured hand, so instead concentrated on composition. In 1947 came the first public performance of one of his works, a suite for piano. Berio made a living at this time accompanying singing classes, and it was in doing this that he met American mezzo-soprano Cathy Berberian, whom he married shortly after graduating (they divorced in 1964). Berio would write many pieces aimed at exploiting her very distinctive voice.

In 1951, Berio went to the United States to study with Luigi Dallapiccola at Tanglewood, from whom he gained an interest in serialism. He later attended the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik at Darmstadt, meeting Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, György Ligeti and Mauricio Kagel there. He became interested in electronic music, co-founding the Studio di Fonologia, an electronic music studio in Milan, with Bruno Maderna in 1955. He invited a number of significant composers to work there, among them Henri Pousseur and John Cage. He also produced an electronic music periodical, Incontri Musicali.

In 1960, Berio returned to Tanglewood, this time as Composer in Residence, and in 1962, on an invitation from Darius Milhaud, took a teaching post at Mills College in Oakland, California. From 1960 to 1962 Berio also taught at the Dartington International Summer School. In 1965 he began to teach at the Juilliard School, and there he founded the Juilliard Ensemble, a group dedicated to performances of contemporary music. In 1966, he again married, this time to the noted philosopher of science Susan Oyama (they divorced in 1972). His students included Louis Andriessen, Steven Gellman, Steve Reich, Luca Francesconi, Giulio Castagnoli, Flavio Emilio Scogna and Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead.

All this time Berio had been steadily composing and building a reputation, winning the Italian Prize in 1966 for Laborintus II. His reputation was cemented when his Sinfonia was premiered in 1968. In 1972, Berio returned to Italy. From 1974–80 he acted as director of the electro-acoustic division of IRCAM in Paris, and in 1977 he married for the third time with musicologist Talia Pecker. In 1987 he opened Tempo Reale, a centre for musical research and production based in Florence. In 1988 he was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, London.^[2] In 1989 he received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994.^[3] The same year, he became Distinguished Composer in Residence at Harvard University, remaining there until 2000. He was also active as a conductor and continued to compose to the end of his life. In 2000, he became Presidente and Sovrintendente at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Luciano Berio died in 2003 in a hospital in Rome.

Work[link]

See also: List of compositions by Luciano Berio

Berio's electronic work dates for the most part from his time at Milan's Studio di Fonologia. One of the most influential works he produced there was Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) (1958), based on Cathy Berberian reading from James Joyce's Ulysses, which can be considered as the first electro-acoustic composition in the history of western music made with voice and elaboration of it by technological means.^[4] A later work, Visage (1961) sees Berio creating a wordless emotional language by cutting up and rearranging a recording of Cathy Berberian's voice; therefore the composition is based on the symbolic and representative charge of gestures and voice inflections, “from inarticulate sounds to syllables, from laughter to tears and singing, from aphasia to inflection patterns from specific languages: English and Italian, Hebrew and the Neapolitan dialect." ^{[5] [6]}

In 1968, Berio completed O King a work which exists in two versions: one for voice, flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano, the other for eight voices and orchestra. The piece is in memory of Martin Luther King, who had been assassinated shortly before its composition. In it, the voice(s) intones first the vowels, and then the consonants which make up his name, only stringing them together to give his name in full in the final bars.

The orchestral version of O King was, shortly after its completion, integrated into what is perhaps Berio's most famous work, Sinfonia (1967–69), for orchestra and eight amplified voices. The voices are not used in a traditional classical way; they frequently do not sing at all, but speak, whisper and shout. The third movement is a collage of literary and musical quotations. A-Ronne (1974) is similarly collaged, but with the focus more squarely on the voice. It was originally written as a radio program for five actors, and reworked in 1975 for eight vocalists and an optional keyboard part. The work is one of a number of collaborations with the poet Edoardo Sanguineti, who for this piece provided a text full of quotations from sources including the Bible, T. S. Eliot and Karl Marx.

Another example of the influence of Sanguineti is the large work Coro (premiered 1977), scored for orchestra, solo voices, and a large choir, whose members are paired with instruments of the orchestra. The work extends over roughly an hour, and explores a number of themes within a framework of folk music from a variety of regions: Chile, North America, Africa. Recurrent themes are the expression of love and passion; the pain of being parted from loved ones; death of a wife or husband. A line repeated often is "come and see the blood on the streets", a reference to a poem by Pablo Neruda, written in the context of savage events in Latin America under various military regimes.

In the last period of his production Berio was also interested in the use of live electronics, applied in some compositions as Ofanìm (1988-1997) and Altra voce (1999): the electronic music and technical part of such pieces was always performed by the musicians of Tempo Reale.

eSACHERe[link]

Together with another 11 composer-friends (C. Beck, L. Berio, P. Boulez, B. Britten, H. Dutilleux, W. Fortner, A. Ginastera, C. Halffter, H. W. Henze, H. Holliger, K. Huber and W. Lutoslawski) of Paul Sacher, he was asked by Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich on Sacher's 70th birthday to write composition for cello solo with use of notes creating his name (eS, A, C, H, E, Re). Berio composed piece Les mots sont alles. Compositions were partially presented in Zurich on 2nd May 1976. The whole "eSACHERe" project was (for the first time in complete performance by one cellist) performed by Czech Cellist František Brikcius in 2011 in Prague.

Sequenza[link]

Berio also produced work which does not quote the work of others at all. Perhaps best known among these is his series of works for solo instruments under the name Sequenza. The first, Sequenza I came in 1958 and is for flute; the last, Sequenza XIV (2002) is for cello. These works explore the fullest possibilities of each instrument, often calling for extended techniques.

The various Sequenze are as follows:

• Sequenza I for flute (1958);
• Sequenza II for harp (1963);
• Sequenza III for woman's voice (1965);
• Sequenza IV for piano (1966);
• Sequenza V for trombone (1965);
• Sequenza VI for viola (1967);
• Sequenza VII for oboe (1969) (rev. by Jacqueline Leclair and renamed "Sequenza VIIa" in 2000);
• Sequenza VIIb for soprano saxophone (adaptation by Claude Delangle in 1993);
• Sequenza VIII for violin (1976);
• Sequenza IXa for clarinet (1980);
• Sequenza IXb for alto saxophone (1981);
• Sequenza IXc for bass clarinet (adaptation by Rocco Parisi in 1998);
• Sequenza X for trumpet in C and piano resonance (1984);
• Sequenza XI for guitar (1987-88);
• Sequenza XII for bassoon (1995);
• Sequenza XIII for accordion "Chanson" (1995);
• Sequenza XIVa for violoncello (2002);
• Sequenza XIVb for double bass (adaptation by Stefano Scodanibbio in 2004).

Stage works[link]

• Opera (1970, revised 1977)
• La vera storia (1981)
• Un re in ascolto (1984)
• Vor, während, nach Zaide (1995; Prelude, interlude and ending for an opera fragment by Mozart)
• Outis (1996)
• Cronaca del luogo (1999)
• Turandot (2001; Ending for the Puccini opera)

Transcriptions and arrangements[link]

Berio is known for adapting and transforming the music of others, but he also adapted his own compositions: the series of Sequenze gave rise to a series of works called Chemins each based on one of the Sequenze. Chemins II (1967), for instance, takes the original Sequenza VI (1967) for viola and adapts it for solo viola and nine other instruments. Chemins II was itself transformed into Chemins III (1968) by the addition of an orchestra, and there also exists Chemins IIb, a version of Chemins II without the solo viola but with a larger ensemble, and Chemins IIc, which is Chemins IIb with an added solo bass clarinet. The Sequenze were also shaped into new works under titles other than Chemins; Corale (1981), for example, is based on Sequenza VIII.

As well as original works, Berio made a number of arrangements of works by other composers, among them Claudio Monteverdi, Henry Purcell, Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler and Kurt Weill. For Berberian he wrote Folk Songs (1964; a set of arrangements of folk songs). He also wrote an ending for Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot (premiered in Las Palmas on 24 January 2002 ^[7] and in the same year in Los Angeles, Amsterdam and Salzburg) and in Rendering (1989) took the few sketches Franz Schubert made for his Symphony No. 10, and completed them by adding music derived from other Schubert works.

Transcription is a vital part of even Berio's "creative" works. In "Two Interviews," Berio mused about what a college course in transcription would look like, looking not only at Franz Liszt, Ferruccio Busoni, Igor Stravinsky, Johann Sebastian Bach, himself, and others, but to what extent composition is always self-transcription.^[8] In this respect, Berio rejected and distanced himself from notions of "collage," preferring instead the position of "transcriber," arguing that "collage" implies a certain arbitrary abandon that runs counter to the careful control of his highly intellectual play, especially within Sinfonia but throughout his "deconstructive" works. Rather, each quotation carefully evokes the context of its original work, creating an open web, but an open web with highly specific referents and a vigorously defined, if self-proliferating, signifier-signified relationship. "I'm not interested in collages, and they amuse me only when I'm doing them with my children: then they become an exercise in relativizing and 'decontextualizing' images, an elementary exercise whose healthy cynicism won't do anyone any harm," Berio told interviewer Rossana Dalmonte.

Perhaps Berio's most notable contribution to the world of post-WWII non-serial experimental music, running throughout most of his works, is his engagement with the broader world of critical theory (epitomized by his life-long friendship with linguist and critical theorist Umberto Eco) through his compositions. Berio's works are often analytic acts: deliberately analyzing myths, stories, the components of words themselves, his own compositions, or preexisting musical works. In other words, it is not only the composition of the "collage" that conveys meaning; it is the particular composition of the component "sound-image" that conveys meaning, even extra-musical meaning. The technique of the "collage," that he is associated with, is, then, less a neutral process than a conscious, Joycean process of analysis-by-composition, a form of analytic transcription of which Sinfonia and The Chemins are the most prominent examples. Berio often offers his compositions as forms of academic or cultural discourse themselves rather than as "mere" fodder for them.

Among Berio's other compositions are Circles (1960), Sequenza III (1966), and Recital I (for Cathy) (1972), all written for Berberian, and a number of stage works, with Un re in ascolto, a collaboration with Italo Calvino, the best known.

Berio's "central instrumental focus", if such a thing exists, is probably with the voice, the piano, the flute, and the strings. He wrote many remarkable pieces for piano which vary from solo pieces to essentially concerto pieces (points on the curve to find, concerto for two pianos, and Coro, which has a strong backbone of harmonic and melodic material entirely based on the piano part).

Lesser known works make use of a very distinguishable polyphony unique to Berio that develops in a variety of ways. This occurs in several works, but most recognizably in compositions for small instrumental combinations. Examples are Différences, for flute, harp, clarinet, cello, violin and electronic sounds, Agnus, for three clarinets and voices, Tempi concertanti for flute and four instrumental groups, Linea, for marimba, Vibraphone, and two pianos, and Chemins IV, for eleven strings and oboe, as well as "Canticum Novissimi Testamenti" for 8 voices, 4 clarinets and saxophone quartet.

Bibliography[link]

• Osmond-Smith, David. 1991. Berio. Oxford studies of composers 24. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
• Francesco Giomi, Damiano Meacci, Kilian Schwoon, "Live Electronics in Luciano Berio’s Music", Computer Music Journal 27 (2), The MIT Press, 2003
• Francesco Giomi and Kilian Schwoon, "Ein Kontinuum der Verwandlungen: Luciano Berios Altra Voce", in Topographien der Kompositionsgeschichte seit 1950 (Tobias Hünermann & Christoph von Blumröder eds.), Cologne, Signale aus Köln/Verlag der apfel, 2011

External links[link]

• Centro Studi Luciano Berio - Luciano Berio's Official Website

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Luciano Berio

• Luciano Berio biography and works on the UE website (publisher)
• Tempo Reale, Florence, centre for music research founded by Berio
• The Living Composers Project, "Luciano Berio" biography and list of works
• "Luciano Berio", AllMusic, by Joseph Stevenson
• Obituary from the Daily Telegraph
• Obituaries: "Luciano Berio, 77, Composer of Mind and Heart, Dies", New York Times, by Paul Griffiths (May 28, 2003)
• New York Philharmonic: "Luciano Berio's Musical Odyssey" (2008)
• CompositionToday, "Luciano Berio" by Gavin Thomas
• "Berio/Dubuffet - a conversation" (compiled by John Fowler, 1996)
• A brief analysis of "Luciano Berio's 'Sinfonia'", Allen B. Ruch (2003)
• "The maestro they love to hate", John Whiting (1996)
• La Folia Online Music Review, "This Represents At Least a Thousand Words I Was Not Counting On" (Berio's Sinfonia), Grant Chu Covell (November 2005)
• (French) Biography, IRCAM (23 November 2007)
• Luciano Berio CV

Listening[link]

• Excerpts from sound archives of Berio's works
• The Complete Works for Solo Piano, New Albion, 1997 (with David Arden, pianist; John Yaffé, producer)

References[link]

1. ^ (Italian) quirinale.it
2. ^ "Luciano Berio, London Sinfonietta". London Sinfonietta. http://www.londonsinfonietta.org.uk/artist/luciano-berio. Retrieved 14 October 2009. 
3. ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B". American Academy of Arts and Sciences. http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterB.pdf. Retrieved 16 June 2011. 
4. ^ Daniele, Romina (2010). Il dialogo con la materia disintegrata e ricomposta, un'analisi di Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) di Luciano Berio. Milan: RDM. ISBN 978-88-904905-1-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=89wbtoXaH20C&dq=romina%20daniele%20poesie&source=gbs_similarbooks. 
5. ^ "Visage di Luciano Berio" (in English) (htm). Temporeale.it (Tempo Reale). http://www.temporeale.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=219:visage&catid=35:produzione&Itemid=62&lang=en. Retrieved 2011-08-28. 
6. ^ Moody, Rick (2010-05-25). "The Tragedy of Consciousness" (in English (text from Temporeale.it on Berio's Visage translated in English)) (html). Articles. TheRumpus.net. http://therumpus.net/2010/05/swinging-modern-sounds-23-the-tragedy-of-consciousness/?full=yes. Retrieved 2011-08-28. 
7. ^ http://www.andante.com/article/article.cfm?id=16426
8. ^ Berio, Luciano (1985). Two Interviews. New York: M. Boyars.