The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of the Alamo in 1836. There are also a number of films about Western-type characters in contemporary settings, such as ''Junior Bonner'' set in the 1970s and ''The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada'' in the 21st century.

Westerns often portray how desolate and hard life was for American frontier families. These families are faced with change that would severely alter their way of life. This may be depicted by showing conflict between natives and settlers or U.S. Cavalry or between cattle ranchers and farmers ("sodbusters"), or by showing ranchers being threatened by the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Despite being tightly associated with a specific time and place in American history, these themes have allowed Westerns to be produced and enjoyed across the world.

Themes[link]

The Western genre sometimes portrays the conquest of the wilderness and the subordination of nature in the name of civilization or the confiscation of the territorial rights of the original inhabitants of the frontier. The Western depicts a society organized around codes of honor and personal, direct or private justice (such as the feud), rather than one organized around rationalistic, abstract law, in which social order is maintained predominately through relatively impersonal institutions. The popular perception of the Western is a story that centers on the life of a semi-nomadic wanderer, usually a cowboy or a gunfighter.

In some ways, such protagonists may be considered the literary descendants of the knight errant which stood at the center of earlier extensive genres such as the Arthurian Romances. Like the cowboy or gunfighter of the Western, the knight errant of the earlier European tales and poetry was wandering from place to place on his horse, fighting villains of various kinds and bound to no fixed social structures but only to his own innate code of honor. And like knights errant, the heroes of Westerns frequently rescue damsels in distress. Similarly, the wandering protagonists of Westerns share many of the characteristics equated with the image of the ronin in modern Japanese culture.

The Western typically takes these elements and uses them to tell simple morality tales, although some notable examples (e.g. the later Westerns of John Ford or Clint Eastwood's ''Unforgiven'') are more morally ambiguous. Westerns often stress the harshness of the wilderness and frequently set the action in an arid, desolate landscape. Specific settings include isolated forts, ranches and homesteads; the Native American village; or the small frontier town with its saloon, general store, livery stable and jailhouse. Apart from the wilderness, it is usually the saloon that emphasizes that this is the "Wild West": it is the place to go for music (raucous piano playing), women (often prostitutes), gambling (draw poker or five card stud), drinking (beer or whiskey), brawling and shooting. In some Westerns, where "civilization" has arrived, the town has a church and a school; in others, where frontier rules still hold sway, it is, as Sergio Leone said, "where life has no value".

Film[link]

Characteristics [link]

The American Film Institute defines western films as those "set in the American West that embod[y] the spirit, the struggle and the demise of the new frontier." The term ''Western'', used to describe a narrative film genre, appears to have originated with a July 1912 article in ''Motion Picture World'' Magazine. Most of the characteristics of Western films were part of 19th century popular Western fiction and were firmly in place before film became a popular art form. Western films commonly feature as their protagonists stock characters such as cowboys, gunslingers, and bounty hunters, often depicted as semi-nomadic wanderers who wear Stetson hats, bandannas, spurs, and buckskins, use revolvers or rifles as everyday tools of survival, and ride between dusty towns and cattle ranches on trusty steeds.

Western films were enormously popular in the silent era although, in common with all films of this period, relatively few of the thousands of silent Westerns made have survived to the present. However, with the advent of sound in 1927-28 the major Hollywood studios rapidly abandoned Westerns, leaving the genre to smaller studios and producers, who churned out countless low-budget features and serials in the 1930s. By the late 1930s the Western film was widely regarded as a 'pulp' genre in Hollywood, but its popularity was dramatically revived in 1939 by the release of John Ford's landmark Western adventure ''Stagecoach'', which became one of the biggest hits of the year and made John Wayne a major screen star.

Western films often depict conflicts with Native Americans. While early Eurocentric Westerns frequently portray the "Injuns" as dishonorable villains, the later and more culturally neutral Westerns (notably those directed by John Ford) gave native Americans a more sympathetic treatment. Other recurring themes of Westerns include Western treks or perilous journeys (e.g. ''Stagecoach'') or groups of bandits terrorising small towns such as in ''The Magnificent Seven''.

Early Westerns were mostly filmed in the studio, just like other early Hollywood films, but when location shooting became more common from the 1930s, producers of Westerns used desolate corners of Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, or Wyoming. Productions were also filmed on location at movie ranches.

Often, the vast landscape becomes more than a vivid backdrop; it becomes a character in the film. After the early 1950s, various wide screen formats such as cinemascope (1953) and VistaVision used the expanded width of the screen to display spectacular Western landscapes. John Ford's use of Monument Valley as an expressive landscape in his films from ''Stagecoach'' (1939) to ''Cheyenne Autumn'' (1965) "present us with a mythic vision of the plains and deserts of the American West, embodied most memorably in Monument Valley, with its buttes and mesas that tower above the men on horseback, whether they be settlers, soldiers, or Native Americans".

Western films, until recent times, had many anachronisms, particularly the firearms. Winchester 1892-model rifles were frequently used in films set in the 1870s. Since the late 1960s, however, films have shown more of the wide variety of period-appropriate arms used during the 1870s. For example, Arthur Hunnicutt carries a revolving rifle during part of ''El Dorado'' (1966) and Lee Van Cleef is equipped with a veritable arsenal of frontier firearms in ''For a Few Dollars More'' (1965).

Subgenres[link]

The Western genre itself has sub-genres, such as the epic Western, the shoot 'em up, singing cowboy Westerns, and a few comedy Westerns. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Western was re-invented with the revisionist Western.

;Classical Westerns thumb|left|125px|

John Wayne The first Western film was the 1903 film ''The Great Train Robbery'', a silent film directed by Edwin S. Porter and starring Broncho Billy Anderson. The film's popularity opened the door for Anderson to become the screen's first cowboy star, making several hundred Western film shorts. So popular was the genre that he soon had competition in the form of William S. Hart. The Golden Age of the Western film is epitomized by the work of two directors: John Ford and Howard Hawks (both of whom often used John Wayne in lead roles).

;Northerns :The Northern genre is a subgenre of Westerns taking place in Western Canada or Alaska. Examples include ''The Far Country'' with James Stewart and ''North to Alaska'' with John Wayne.

;Euro Westerns :This is a colloquial idiom often used to describe Western films made in Western Europe. The term can sometimes, but not necessarily, include the Spaghetti Western subgenre (see below). One example of a Euro Western is the 1961 Anglo-Spanish film ''The Savage Guns''. Several such films were made in Germany, derived from stories by novelist Karl May.

;Spaghetti Westerns :During the 1960s and 1970s, a revival of the Western emerged in Italy with the "Spaghetti Westerns" or "Italo-Westerns". The most famous of them is ''The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly''. Many of these films are low-budget affairs, shot in locations (for example, the Spanish desert region of Almería) chosen for their inexpensive crew and production costs as well as their similarity to landscapes of the Southwestern United States. Spaghetti Westerns were characterized by the presence of more action and violence than the Hollywood Westerns. Also, the protagonists usually acted out of more selfish motives (money or revenge being the most common) than in the classical westerns.

:The films directed by Sergio Leone have a parodic dimension (the strange opening scene of ''Once Upon a Time in the West'' being a reversal of Fred Zinnemann's ''High Noon'' opening scene) which gave them a different tone to the Hollywood Westerns. Charles Bronson, Lee Van Cleef and Clint Eastwood became famous by starring in Spaghetti Westerns, although they were also to provide a showcase for other noted actors such as Jason Robards, James Coburn, Klaus Kinski and Henry Fonda.

;Osterns :Eastern-European-produced Westerns were popular in Communist Eastern European countries, and were a particular favorite of Joseph Stalin. "Red Western" or "Ostern" films usually portrayed the American Indians sympathetically, as oppressed people fighting for their rights, in contrast to American Westerns of the time, which frequently portrayed the Indians as villains. They frequently featured Gypsies or Turkic people in the role of the Indians, due to the shortage of authentic Indians in Eastern Europe.

:Gojko Mitić portrayed righteous, kind hearted and charming Indian chiefs (e.g. in ''Die Söhne der großen Bärin'' directed by Josef Mach). He became honorary chief of the tribe of Sioux when he visited the United States of America in the 1990s and the television crew accompanying him showed the tribe one of his films. American actor and singer Dean Reed, an expatriate who lived in East Germany, also starred in several films.

;Revisionist Western :After the early 1960s, many American film-makers began to question and change many traditional elements of Westerns. One major change was in the increasingly positive representation of Native Americans who had been treated as "savages" in earlier films (''Little Big Man'', ''Dances with Wolves''). Audiences were encouraged to question the simple hero-versus-villain dualism and the morality of using violence to test one's character or to prove oneself right.

:Some recent Westerns give women more powerful roles. One of the earlier films that encompasses all these features was the 1956 adventure film ''The Last Wagon'' in which Richard Widmark played a white man raised by Comanches and persecuted by whites, with Felicia Farr and Susan Kohner playing young women forced into leadership roles. ''Westward the Women'' (1951) starring Robert Taylor is another example.

;Acid Western :Film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum refers to a makeshift 1960s and 1970s genre called the acid Western, associated with Dennis Hopper, Jim McBride, and Rudy Wurlitzer, as well as films like Monte Hellman's ''The Shooting'', Alejandro Jodorowsky's bizarre experimental film ''El Topo (The Mole)'', and Robert Downey Sr.'s ''Greaser's Palace''. The 1970 film ''El Topo'' is an allegorical cult Western and underground film about the eponymous character, a violent black-clad gunfighter, and his quest for enlightenment. The film is filled with bizarre characters and occurrences, use of maimed and dwarf performers, and heavy doses of Christian symbolism and Eastern philosophy. Some spaghettis also crossed over into the acid genre, such as Enzo G. Castellari's mystical ''Keoma'' (released in 1976), a Western reworking of Ingmar Bergman's metaphysical ''The Seventh Seal''.

:More recent films include Alex Cox's ''Walker'', and Jim Jarmusch's ''Dead Man''. Rosenbaum describes the "acid Western" as "formulating a chilling, savage frontier poetry to justify its hallucinated agenda." Ultimately, the "acid Western" expresses a counterculture sensibility to critique and replace capitalism with alternative forms of exchange.

;Contemporary Westerns/Neo-Westerns :Although these films have contemporary American settings, they utilize Old West themes and motifs (a rebellious anti-hero, open plains and desert landscapes, and gunfights). For the most part, they still take place in the American West and reveal the progression of the Old West mentality into the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This sub-genre often features Old West-type characters struggling with displacement in a "civilized" world that rejects their outdated brand of justice.

:Examples include ''Hud'' starring Paul Newman (1963); Sam Peckinpah's ''The Getaway'' (1972) and ''Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia'' (1974); Simon Wincer's ''Quigley Down Under''; Robert Rodríguez's ''El Mariachi'' (1992); John Sayles' ''Lone Star'' (1996); Tommy Lee Jones' ''The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada'' (2005); Ang Lee's ''Brokeback Mountain'' (2005); Wim Wenders' ''Don't Come Knocking'' (2005); and the Coen brothers Academy Award–winning ''No Country For Old Men'' (2007). ''Call of Juarez: The Cartel'' is an example of a Neo-Western video game. The precursor to these was the radio series (1950 - 1952) Tales of the Texas Rangers, a contemporary detective drama set in Texas, featuring many of the characteristics of traditional Westerns.

;Science fiction Western :This subgenre places science fiction elements within a traditional terran Western setting. Examples include ''Wild, Wild West'', ''Westworld'', its sequel ''Futureworld'', ''Cowboys & Aliens'', and the hybrid film ''Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter''. ''Damnation'' is a video game example of the Science fiction Western.

;Space Western :Unlike the science fiction Western, the space Western transposes traditional genre themes onto a space frontier backdrop, updating them with futuristic technologies. Examples include ''Bravestarr'', ''Outland'', and ''Firefly'' (as well as the film ''Serenity'' based on Firefly).

;Curry Western :Westerm films in india was first made in Telugu ''Mosagaalaku Mosagaadu'' in 1970. Following with films ''Ganga'' and ''Jakkamma'' starring Jaishankar in Tamil. But those films were more based on Classic Westerns. Spaghetti Westerns laid the groundwork for ''Sholay'' in 1975 after which it was called as curry western . Followed by Khote Sikkay and Rajinikanth film Thai Meethu Sathiyam in Tamil were some notable films of this Genre

:In modern age Quick Gun Murugun a 2009 Indian comedy film which is a spoof on Indian western movies. The movie.The movie is based on a character created for television promos at the time of the launch of the music network Channel [V] in 1994 which had cult following. In 2010 ''Irumbukkottai Murattu Singam'' "Western adventure comedy film" based on Cowboy movies and paying homages to the John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Jaishankar.

;Horror Western :A developing sub-genre, with roots in films such as ''Billy the Kid vs. Dracula'' (1966), which depicts the legendary outlaw Billy the Kid fighting against the notorious vampire. ''The Ghoul Goes West'' was an unproduced Edward D. Wood, Jr. film to star Bela Lugosi as Dracula in the Old West.

:The 2008 film ''The Burrowers'' is a recent example of the genre: a posse sets out to look for a band of Indians believed to have abducted several white women, only to discover that what they are hunting may not be human and that they in fact may be the prey. The ''Red Dead Redemption'' downloadable content "Undead Nightmare" is an example of a Horror Western video game. The movie Tremors 4: The Legend Begins is also an example.

;Weird Western

:This subgenre blends elements of a classic Western with other elements. ''The Wild Wild West'' and its later film adaptation blends the Western with steampunk and ''Jonah Hex'' blends the Western with superhero elements. This subgenre can encompass others, such as the Horror Western and the Science Fiction Western, e.g. ''Firefly'' (see above).

;Western satire

:This subgenre in its current usage is imitative in its style to mock, comment on, or trivialise the genre's established traits, subjects, auteurs' styles or some other target by means of humorous,satiric or ironic imitation. Such titles include Blazing Saddles, The Hallelujah Trail, The Scalphunters, and Maverick.

Genre studies[link]

In the 1960s academic and critical attention to cinema as a legitimate art form emerged. American Westerns of the mid 20th Century romanticize the ideas of loyalty and virtue. Westerns of the late 20th Century possess a more negative view of the early American frontier. With the increased attention, film theory was developed to attempt to understand the significance of film. From this environment emerged (in conjunction with the literary movement) an enclave of critical studies called genre studies. This was primarily a semantic and structuralist approach to understanding how similar films convey meaning.

One of the results of genre studies is that some have argued that "Westerns" need not take place in the American West or even in the 19th century, as the codes can be found in other types of films. For example, a very typical Western plot is that an eastern lawman heads west, where he matches wits and trades bullets with a gang of outlaws and thugs, and is aided by a local lawman who is well-meaning but largely ineffective until a critical moment when he redeems himself by saving the hero's life. This description can be used to describe any number of Westerns, but also other films such as ''Die Hard'', ''Top Gun'', and Akira Kurosawa's ''Seven Samurai'' which are frequently cited examples of films that do not take place in the American West but have many themes and characteristics common to Westerns. Likewise, films set in the American Old West may not necessarily be considered "Westerns."

Influences[link]

Many Western films after the mid-1950s were influenced by the Japanese samurai films of Akira Kurosawa. For instance ''The Magnificent Seven'' was a remake of Kurosawa's ''Seven Samurai'', and ''A Fistful of Dollars'' was a remake of Kurosawa's ''Yojimbo'', which itself was inspired by ''Red Harvest'', an American detective novel by Dashiell Hammett. Kurosawa was influenced by American Westerns and was a fan of the genre, most especially John Ford.

Despite the Cold War, the Western was a strong influence on Eastern Bloc cinema, which had its own take on the genre, the so called "Red Western" or "Ostern". Generally these took two forms: either straight Westerns shot in the Eastern Bloc, or action films involving the Russian Revolution and civil war and the Basmachi rebellion.

An offshoot of the Western genre is the "post-apocalyptic" Western, in which a future society, struggling to rebuild after a major catastrophe, is portrayed in a manner very similar to the 19th century frontier. Examples include ''The Postman'' and the ''Mad Max'' series, and the computer game series ''Fallout''. Many elements of space travel series and films borrow extensively from the conventions of the Western genre. This is particularly the case in the space Western subgenre of science fiction. Peter Hyams' ''Outland'' transferred the plot of ''High Noon'' to Io, moon of Jupiter. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the ''Star Trek'' series, pitched his show as "''Wagon Train'' to the stars" early on, but admitted later that this was more about getting it produced in a time that loved Western-themed TV series than about its actual content. ''The Book of Eli'' depicts the post apocalypse as a Western with large knives.

More recently, the space opera series ''Firefly'' used an explicitly Western theme for its portrayal of frontier worlds. Anime shows like ''Cowboy Bebop'', ''Trigun'' and ''Outlaw Star'' have been similar mixes of science fiction and Western elements. The science fiction Western can be seen as a subgenre of either Westerns or science fiction. Elements of Western films can be found also in some films belonging essentially to other genres. For example, ''Kelly's Heroes'' is a war film, but action and characters are Western-like. The British film ''Zulu'' set during the Anglo-Zulu War has sometimes been compared to a Western, even though it is set in South Africa.

The character played by Humphrey Bogart in film noir films such as ''Casablanca'', ''To Have and Have Not'' or ''The Treasure of the Sierra Madre''—an individual bound only by his own private code of honor—has a lot in common with the classic Western hero. In turn, the Western, has also explored noir elements, as with the film ''Sugar Creek''.

In many of Robert A. Heinlein's books, the settlement of other planets is depicted in ways explicitly modeled on American settlement of the West. For example, in his ''Tunnel in the Sky'' settlers set out to the planet "New Canaan", via an interstellar teleporter portal across the galaxy, in Conestoga wagons, their captain sporting mustaches and a little goatee and riding a Palomino horse—with Heinlein explaining that the colonists would need to survive on their own for some years, so horses are more practical than machines.

Stephen King's ''The Dark Tower'' is a series of seven books that meshes themes of Westerns, high fantasy, science fiction and horror. The protagonist Roland Deschain is a gunslinger whose image and personality are largely inspired by the "Man with No Name" from Sergio Leone's films. In addition, the superhero fantasy genre has been described as having been derived from the cowboy hero, only powered up to omnipotence in a primarily urban setting. The Western genre has been parodied on a number of occasions, famous examples being ''Support Your Local Sheriff!'', ''Cat Ballou'', Mel Brooks's ''Blazing Saddles'', and ''Rustler's Rhapsody''.

George Lucas's ''Star Wars'' films use many elements of a Western, and Lucas has said he intended for ''Star Wars'' to revitalize cinematic mythology, a part the Western once held. The Jedi, who take their name from Jidaigeki, are modeled after samurai, showing the influence of Kurosawa. The character Han Solo dressed like an archetypal gunslinger, and the Mos Eisley Cantina is much like an Old West saloon.

Meanwhile, films such as ''The Big Lebowski'', which plucked actor Sam Elliott out of the Old West and into a Los Angeles bowling alley, and ''Midnight Cowboy'', about a Southern-boy-turned-gigolo in New York, transplanted Western themes into modern settings for both purposes of parody and homage.

Television[link]

Television Westerns are a sub-genre of the Western. When television became popular in the late 1940s and 1950s, TV Westerns quickly became an audience favorite. Beginning with re-broadcasts of existing films soon a number of movie cowboys had their own TV shows. As the Western became more in demand new stories and stars were introduced. A number of long-running TV Westerns became classics in their own right. Notable TV Westerns include ''Bonanza'', ''Gunsmoke'',''The Rifleman'', ''Have Gun – Will Travel'', ''Maverick'', ''Rawhide'', ''The Virginian'', ''The Big Valley'', and ''Wagon Train''.

The peak year for television Westerns was 1959, with 26 such shows airing during prime-time. Increasing costs of American television production led to most action half hour series vanishing in the early 1960s to be replaced by hour long television shows, increasingly in color. In the 1970s, new elements were incorporated into TV Westerns, such as crime drama and mystery whodunit elements. Western shows from the 1970s included ''McCloud'', ''Hec Ramsey'', ''Little House on the Prairie'', and ''Kung Fu''. In the 1990s and 2000s, hour-long Westerns and slickly packaged made-for-TV movie Westerns were introduced. Examples include ''Lonesome Dove'' and ''Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman''. As well, new elements were once again added to the Western formula, such as the Western-science fiction show ''Firefly'', created by Joss Whedon in 2002. ''Deadwood'' was a critically acclaimed Western series which aired on HBO from 2004 through 2006.

Literature[link]

Western fiction is a genre of literature set in the American Old West and most commonly between the years of 1860 and 1900. The first critically recognized Western was ''The Virginian'' by Owen Wister. Well-known writers of Western fiction include Zane Grey from the early 1900s and Louis L'Amour from the mid 20th century. Many writers better known in other genres like Elmore Leonard, Leigh Brackett, and Larry McMurtry have also written Western novels The genre's popularity peaked in the 1960s, due in part to the end of many pulp magazines, the popularity of televised Westerns, and the rise of the spy novel. Readership began to drop off in the mid- to late 1970s and has reached a new low in the 2000s. Most book stores, outside of a few Western states, only carry a small number of Western novels and short story collections.

Literary forms that share similar themes include stories of the American frontier, the gaucho literature of Argentina and tales of the settlement of the Australian Outback.

Visual art[link]

A number of visual artists focused their work on representations of the American Old West. American West-oriented art is sometimes referred to as "Western Art" by Americans. This relatively new category of art includes paintings, sculptures and sometimes Native American crafts. Initially, subjects included exploration of the Western states and cowboy themes. Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell are two artists who captured the "Wild West" on canvas. Some art museums and art collectors feature American Western Art.

Other media[link]

The Western is popular in comic books, computer and video games, anime, role-playing games, and radio dramas.

Western comics have included serious entries (such as the classic comics of the late 1940s and early 1950s), and cartoon and parody (such as Lucky Luke and Cocco Bill). In the 1990s and 2000s, the Western comic leaned toward the Weird West sub-genre, usually involving supernatural monsters, or Christian iconography as in ''Preacher''. However, more traditional western comics are found throughout this period, from ''Jonah Hex'' to ''Loveless''.

With anime, genre entries tend towards the Science Fiction Western (''Cowboy Bebop'', ''Trigun'', ''Outlaw Star'', etc.) although contemporary Westerns also appear (''El Cazador de la Bruja'', set in modern day Mexico).

Western computer games are often either straight Western or a Western-horror hybrid. Some Western themed-computer games include the 1970s game ''The Oregon Trail'', the 1990s games ''Sunset Riders'', ''Outlaws'', and the 2000s-era ''Gun'', ''Red Dead Revolver'', ''Red Dead Redemption'' and ''Call of Juarez''. Other video games adapt the Science Fiction Western or Weird West subgenres (''Gunman Chronicles'', ''Fallout'', ''Mass Effect'' and ''Darkwatch'').

Western radio dramas were very popular from the 1930s to the 1960s. Some popular shows include ''The Lone Ranger'', ''The Cisco Kid'', ''Doctor Six-Gun'', ''Have Gun–Will Travel'', and ''Gunsmoke''.

See also[link]

American Old West

American West

Native American History

Gunfighter

Cowboy

History of United States continental expansion

List of Western fiction authors

List of Western films

List of genres

History of Movie Ranches

TV Western

Western Writers of America

Dime Western

Golden Boot Awards

Boss of the plains

Sombrero

Native American history of California

Northern (genre)

Owen Wister

Frederic Remington

Charles Russell

Earl W. Bascom

List of Western computer and video games

Science fiction Western

Space Western

List of film genres

5-in-1 Blank Cartridges

References[link]

External links [link]

Most Popular Westerns from IMDb

Western Writers of America website

Yezbick, Daniel. The Western, ''St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture'', 2002

Chodorov, Frank. I Watch Westerns, ''Mises Institute''

Category:Film genres Category:American Old West

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name	Clint Walker
birth name	Norman Eugene Walker
birth date	May 30, 1927
birth place	Hartford, Illinois, United States
website	http://www.clintwalker.com/
years active	1954 - present
spouse	Susan Cavallari (1997-present)Giselle Hennessy (1974-1994) (her death)Verna Garver (1948-1968) (divorced) 1 child
notable role	Cheyenne Bodie in ''Cheyenne'' }}

Norman Eugene Walker, known as Clint Walker (born May 30, 1927), is an American actor best known for his cowboy role as "Cheyenne Bodie" in the TV Western series, ''Cheyenne''.

Life and career[link]

Walker was born in Hartford, Illinois; he was a twin, and is of one-quarter Cherokee descent. He left school to work at a factory and on a river boat, then joined the United States Merchant Marine at the age of seventeen in the last months of World War II. After leaving the Merchant Marine, he labored at odd jobs in Brownwood, Texas, Long Beach, California, and Las Vegas, where he worked as a doorman at the Sands Hotel. He also was employed as a sheet-metal worker and a nightclub bouncer.

In Los Angeles, he was hired by Cecil B. DeMille to appear in ''The Ten Commandments''. A friend in the film industry helped get him a few bit parts that brought him to the attention of Warner Bros., which was developing a western style television series.

Walker's good looks and imposing physique, he stood 6 feet, 6 inches (198 cm) tall with a 48-inch chest and a 32-inch waist, helped him to land an audition where he won the lead role in the TV series ''Cheyenne''. Billed as "Clint" Walker, he was cast as Cheyenne Bodie, a cowboy hero in the post-American Civil War era. While the series regularly capitalized on Walker's rugged frame with frequent bare-chested scenes, it was well-written and acted. It proved hugely popular for eight seasons on the ABC television network. Walker's pleasant baritone singing voice was also occasionally utilized on the series and led Warner Brothers to produce an album of Walker doing traditional songs and ballads.

Walker then played roles in several big-screen films, including a trio of westerns for Gordon Douglas - ''Fort Dobbs'' in 1958, ''Yellowstone Kelly'' in 1959, and ''Gold of the Seven Saints'' in 1961, the comedy ''Send Me No Flowers'' in 1964, the actual leading role despite being billed under Frank Sinatra in the wartime drama ''None But the Brave'' in 1965, ''The Night of the Grizzly'' in 1966, and as the meek convict Samson Posey, in the war drama ''The Dirty Dozen'' in 1967. In 1969, New York Times film critic Howard Thompson, in reviewing Walker's performance in the movie ''More Dead Than Alive'', described the actor as "a big, fine-looking chap and about as live-looking as any man could be. And there is something winning about his taciturn earnestness as an actor, although real emotion seldom breaks through". In 1958, Thompson described the actor, then starring in ''Fort Dobbs'', as "the biggest, finest-looking Western hero ever to sag a horse, with a pair of shoulders rivaling King Kong's".

During the 1970s he returned to television, starring in a number of made-for-TV western films as well as a short-lived series in 1974 called ''Kodiak''. He starred in the made-for-television cult film ''Killdozer!'' the same year. In 1998, he voiced Nick Nitro in the film ''Small Soldiers''. In December 2009, several internet movie websites had indicated that Sylvester Stallone had or was about to make an approach to Walker to come out of retirement to play the father of John Rambo in Stallone's forthcoming film Rambo V.

Literary pursuits[link]

Walker met western author Kirby Jonas through James Drury, a mutual friend. Jonas and Walker subsequently spent two years collaborating on a story idea suggested by Walker involving gold and the Yaqui, a partnership that led to the publication of the 2003 Western novel ''Yaqui Gold'' (ISBN 978-1-891423-08-6).

Honors[link]

Clint Walker has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1505 Vine Street, near its intersection with Sunset Boulevard (approximate coordinates: ).

In 2004, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Personal life[link]

Walker has been married to:

Verna Garver, married 1948, divorced 1968. They had one daughter, Valerie (born 1950).

Giselle Hennessy, married 1974, died 1994.

Susan Cavallari, married 1997.

Walker's twin sister, Neoma L. "Lucy" Westbrook (born May 30, 1927), died November 11, 2000 at her residence in Hartford, Illinois, aged 73.

Walker currently lives in Grass Valley, California.

Filmography [link]

1954 - ''Jungle Gents'' - Tarzan

1955 - ''Cheyenne '' (TV)

1956 - ''The Ten Commandments''

1958 - ''Fort Dobbs''

1959 - ''Yellowstone Kelly''

1961 - ''Gold of the Seven Saints''

1964 - ''Send Me No Flowers''

1965 - ''None But the Brave''

1966 - ''The Night of the Grizzly''

1966 - ''Maya''

1967 - ''The Dirty Dozen''

1969 - ''More Dead Than Alive''

1969 - ''Sam Whiskey''

1969 - ''The Great Bank Robbery''

1971 - ''Yuma'' (TV)

1972 - ''Hardcase'' (TV)

1972 - ''Pancho Villa''

1972 - ''The Bounty Man'' (TV)

1974 - ''Scream of the Wolf'' (TV)

1974 - ''Killdozer!'' (TV)

1977 - ''The White Buffalo''

1977 - ''Deadly Harvest''

1977 - ''Centennial'' (TV mini-series)

1977 - ''Snowbeast'' (TV)

1983 - ''Hysterical''

1983 - ''Love Boat'' - guest star, episode, "Friend of the Family/Affair on Demand/Just Another Pretty Face"

1985 - ''The Serpent Warriors''

1985 - ''All American Cowboy'' (TV)

1991 - ''The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw'' (TV movie) - guest star as Cheyenne Bodie

1993 - ''Tropical Heat'' (TV) - guest star, episode "The Last of the Magnificent"

1995 - ''Kung Fu: The Legend Continues'' (TV) - guest star as Cheyenne Bodie, episode "Gunfighters"

1998 - ''Small Soldiers'' - Voice only - Nick Nitro

See also[link]

Cheyenne (game)

References[link]

;Notes

External links[link]

Official website

"Clint Walker: Top Gun of Warner's TV" by Herb Fagen (1999 interview) @ ''Classic Images'' magazine, issue # 212, p. 12

"Belleville had its share of fame: Nice guy Clint Walker became Hollywood hunk" by Jaime Ingle - ''News-Democrat'' (Wednesday, June 18, 2008)

"Cowboy actor inspires local Western writer" - From the ''Idaho State Journal'' - December 2003

"Actor Clint Walker to be Inducted into National Cowboy Museum's Hall of Great Western Performers" - March 3, 2004 - National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum

Category:1927 births Category:Living people Category:American television actors Category:American film actors Category:Western (genre) film actors Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:American sailors Category:American people of Cherokee descent Category:People from Madison County, Illinois

de:Clint Walker es:Clint Walker fr:Clint Walker pl:Clint Walker simple:Clint Walker fi:Clint Walker

name	Alan Ladd
birth name	Alan Walbridge Ladd
birth date	September 03, 1913
birth place	Hot Springs, Arkansas, U.S.
death date	January 29, 1964
death place	Palm Springs, California, U.S.
occupation	Actor
years active	1932–64
spouse	}}

Alan Walbridge Ladd (September 3, 1913January 29, 1964) was an American film actor.

Early life[link]

Ladd was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was the only child of Ina Raleigh Ladd and Alan Ladd, Sr. He was of English ancestry. His father died when he was four, and his mother relocated to Oklahoma City where she married Jim Beavers, a housepainter. The family then moved again to North Hollywood, California where Ladd became a high-school swimming and diving champion and participated in high school dramatics at North Hollywood High School, graduating on February 1, 1934. He opened his own hamburger and malt shop, which he called Tiny's Patio. He worked briefly as a studio carpenter (as did his stepfather) and for a short time was part of the Universal Pictures studio school for actors. But Universal decided he was too blond and too short and dropped him. Intent on acting, he found work in radio.

Career[link]

Ladd began by appearing in dozens of films in small roles, including ''Citizen Kane'' in which he played one of the "faceless" reporters who are always shown in silhouette. He first gained some recognition with a featured role in the wartime thriller ''Joan of Paris'', 1942. For his next role, his manager, Sue Carol, found a vehicle which made Ladd's career, Graham Greene's ''This Gun for Hire'' in which he played "Raven," a hitman with a conscience. "Once Ladd had acquired an unsmiling hardness, he was transformed from an extra to a phenomenon. Ladd's calm slender ferocity make it clear that he was the first American actor to show the killer as a cold angel." - David Thomson (''A Biographical Dictionary of Film,'' 1975)

Both the film and Ladd's performance played an important role in the development of the "gangster" genre: "That the old fashioned motion picture gangster with his ugly face, gaudy cars, and flashy clothes was replaced by a smoother, better looking, and better dressed bad man was largely the work of Mr. Ladd." - ''New York Times'' obituary (January 30, 1964). Ladd was teamed with actress Veronica Lake in this film, and despite the fact that it was Robert Preston who played the romantic lead, the Ladd-Lake pairing captured the public's imagination, and would continue in another three films. (They appeared in a total of seven films together, but three were only guest shots in all-star musical revues.)

Ladd went on to star in many Paramount Pictures' films, with a brief timeout for military service in the United States Army Air Force's First Motion Picture Unit. He appeared in Dashiell Hammett's story ''The Glass Key'', his second pairing with Lake, and ''Lucky Jordan'', with Helen Walker. His cool, unsmiling persona proved popular with wartime audiences, and he was quickly established as one of the top box office stars of the decade.

In 1946, he starred in a trio of silver screen classics: the big screen adaptation of Richard Henry Dana's maritime classic, ''Two Years Before the Mast'' (for which he also received critical acclaim), the Raymond Chandler original mystery ''The Blue Dahlia'' (his third pairing with Lake), and the World War II espionage thriller, ''O.S.S.''.

He formed his own production companies for film and radio and then starred in his own syndicated series ''Box 13'', which ran from 1948-49. Ladd and Robert Preston starred in the 1948 western film, ''Whispering Smith'', which in 1961 would become a short-lived NBC television series, starring Audie Murphy.

In 1949's version of ''The Great Gatsby'', Ladd had the featured role of Jay Gatsby. Ladd played the title role in the 1953 western ''Shane''. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It was listed at No. 45 on the American Film Institute's 2007 ranking of "100 Years ... 100 Movies."

Ladd made the Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll three times: in 1947, 1953, and 1954. In 1954 exhibitors voted him the most popular star among British film-goers.

When former agent Albert R. Broccoli formed Warwick Films with his partner Irving Allen, they heard Ladd was unhappy with Paramount and was leaving the studio. With his wife and agent Sue Carol, they negotiated for Ladd to appear in the first three of their films made in England and released through Columbia Pictures: ''The Red Beret''/''Paratrooper'' (1953); ''Hell Below Zero'' (1954), based on Hammond Innes's book ''The White South''; and ''The Black Knight'' (1954). All three were co-written by Ladd's regular screenwriter Richard Maibaum. In 1954 Ladd formed a new production company, Jaguar Productions, originally releasing his films through Warner Bros. and then with ''All the Young Men'' through Columbia.

In November 1962, he was found lying unconscious in a pool of blood with a bullet wound near his heart, an unsuccessful suicide attempt. In 1963 Ladd filmed a supporting role in ''The Carpetbaggers''. He would not live to see its release. On January 29, 1964 he was found dead in Palm Springs, California, of an acute overdose of "alcohol and three other drugs", at the age of 50; his death was ruled accidental. He was entombed in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Not until June 28, 1964 did ''Carpetbaggers'' producer Joseph E. Levine hold an elaborate premiere screening in New York City with an afterparty staged by his wife at The Four Seasons Restaurant.

Alan Ladd has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1601 Vine Street. His handprint appears in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater, in Hollywood.

Personal life[link]

He had married a high-school acquaintance, Midge Harrold. Their only child, a son named Alan Ladd, Jr., was born in 1937. Ladd's stepfather died suddenly. Then his mother, who suffered from depression, committed suicide by poison.

In 1942, Ladd married his agent/manager, former movie actress Sue Carol.

Ladd owned properties in Beverly Hills and, in Palm Springs, Alan Ladd Hardware. His son by his first wife Midge Harrold, Alan Ladd, Jr., is a motion picture executive and producer and founder of The Ladd Company. His daughter actress Alana, who co-starred with her father in ''Guns of the Timberland'' and ''Duel of Champions'', is married to the veteran talk radio broadcaster Michael Jackson. Another son, actor David Ladd, who co-starred with Ladd as a child in ''The Proud Rebel'', married ''Charlie's Angels'' star Cheryl Ladd, 1973-1980. Actress Jordan Ladd is his granddaughter.

As with many Hollywood stars, Ladd is sometimes described as either a social adherent to, or member of, the gay subculture. No reliable evidence has been published to substantiate such claims, but they do exist. At least one gay historian has gone so far with speculation as to suggest that Ladd's suicide attempt(s) may have been related to unsubstantiated sexual questioning.

Reports of his height vary from 5'5" to 5'9" (from his military records) (1.65 to 1.75 m), with 5'6" (1.68 m) being the most generally accepted today.

Filmography[link]

Features[link]

''Tom Brown of Culver'' (1932)

''Once in a Lifetime'' (1932)

''Island of Lost Souls'' (1933)

''Saturday's Millions'' (1933)

''Pigskin Parade'' (1936)

''The Last Train from Madrid'' (1937)

''Souls at Sea'' (1937)

''All Over Town'' (1937)

''Hold 'Em Navy'' (1937)

''The Goldwyn Follies'' (1938)

''Come On, Leathernecks!'' (1938)

''Freshman Year'' (1938)

''The Mysterious Miss X'' (1939)

''Hitler, Beast of Berlin'' (1939)

''Rulers of the Sea'' (1939)

''The Green Hornet'' (1940)

''Brother Rat and a Baby'' (1940)

''The Light of Western Stars'' (1940)

''In Old Missouri'' (1940)

''Gangs of Chicago'' (1940)

''Cross-Country Romance'' (1940)

''Those Were the Days!'' (1940)

''Captain Caution'' (1940)

''The Howards of Virginia'' (1940)

''Meet the Missus'' (1940)

''Victory'' (1940)

''Her First Romance'' (1940)

''Petticoat Politics'' (1941)

''Citizen Kane'' (1941)

''The Black Cat'' (1941)

''Paper Bullets'' (1941)

''The Reluctant Dragon'' (1941)

''They Met in Bombay'' (1941)

''Great Guns'' (1941)

''Cadet Girl'' (1941)

''Joan of Paris'' (1942)

''This Gun for Hire'' (1942)

''The Glass Key'' (1942)

''Lucky Jordan'' (1942)

''Star Spangled Rhythm'' (1942)

''China'' (1943)

''And Now Tomorrow'' (1944)

''Salty O'Rourke'' (1945)

''Duffy's Tavern'' (1945)

''Two Years Before the Mast'' (1946)

''The Blue Dahlia'' (1946)

''O.S.S.'' (1946)

''My Favorite Brunette'' (1947)

''Calcutta'' (1947)

''Variety Girl'' (1947)

''Wild Harvest'' (1947)

''Saigon'' (1948)

''Beyond Glory'' (1948)

''Whispering Smith'' (1948)

''The Great Gatsby'' (1949)

''Chicago Deadline'' (1949)

''Captain Carey, U.S.A.'' (1950)

''Branded'' (1950)

''Appointment with Danger'' (1951)

''Red Mountain'' (1951)

''The Iron Mistress'' (1952)

''Thunder in the East'' (1952)

''Botany Bay'' (1953)

''Desert Legion'' (1953)

''Shane'' (1953)

''The Red Beret'' (1953)

''Hell Below Zero'' (1954)

''Saskatchewan'' (1954)

''The Black Knight'' (1954)

''Drum Beat'' (1954)

''The McConnell Story'' (1955)

''Hell on Frisco Bay'' (1955)

''Santiago'' (1956)

''A Cry in the Night'' (1956) (narrator)

''The Big Land'' (1957)

''Boy on a Dolphin'' (1957)

''The Deep Six'' (1958)

''The Proud Rebel'' (1958)

''The Badlanders'' (1958)

''The Man in the Net'' (1959)

''Guns of the Timberland'' (1960)

''All the Young Men'' (1960)

''One Foot in Hell'' (1960)

''Duel of Champions'' (1961)

''13 West Street'' (1962)

''The Carpetbaggers'' (1964)

Short subjects[link]

''Unfinished Rainbows'' (1940)

''Meat and Romance'' (1940)

''Blame It on Love'' (1940)

''American Portrait'' (1940)

''I Look at You'' (1941)

''Training Film No. A-3: Military Training'' (1941)

''Letter from a Friend'' (1943)

''Screen Snapshots: Hollywood in Uniform'' (1943)

''Skirmish on the Home Front'' (1944)

''Hollywood Victory Caravan'' (1945)

''Screen Snapshots: The Skolsky Party'' (1946)

''Eyes of Hollywood'' (1949)

''Grantland Rice Sportlight No. R11-10: A Sporting Oasis'' (1952)

Box Office Ranking[link]

For a number of years, film exhibitors voted him among the top stars at the box office. 1946 - 8th (Britain) 1947 - 7th (Britain) 1949 - 7th (Britain) 1951 - 17th (USA), 8th (Britain) 1952 - 16th (USA) 1953 - 4th (USA) 1954 - 6th (USA), 1st (Britain) 1955 - 17th (USA) 1956 - 25th (USA)

References[link]

External links[link]

Official website

Alan Ladd at Virtual History

Category:1913 births Category:1964 deaths Category:American film actors Category:Western (genre) film actors Category:American people of English descent Category:People from Hot Springs, Arkansas Category:Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale) Category:Alcohol-related deaths in California Category:Drug-related deaths in California Category:United States Army Air Forces soldiers Category:First Motion Picture Unit personnel Category:American military personnel of World War II

ca:Alan Ladd da:Alan Ladd de:Alan Ladd es:Alan Ladd fr:Alan Ladd gl:Alan Ladd id:Alan Ladd it:Alan Ladd nl:Alan Ladd ja:アラン・ラッド no:Alan Ladd pl:Alan Ladd pt:Alan Ladd ru:Лэдд, Алан sh:Alan Ladd fi:Alan Ladd sv:Alan Ladd uk:Алан Ледд

The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful, The Mighty Five, or The Mighty Coterie (, ''Moguchaya kuchka''), refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev (the leader), César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin. The group had the aim of producing a specifically Russian kind of art music, rather than one that imitated older European music or relied on European-style conservatory training. In a sense, they were a branch of the Romantic Nationalist movement in Russia, sharing similar artistic goals with the Abramtsevo Colony and Russian Revival.

History[link]

Name[link]

In May 1867 the critic Vladimir Stasov wrote an article, ''Mr. Balakirev's Slavic Concert'', on a concert given for visiting Slav delegations to the "All-Russian Ethnographical Exhibition" in Moscow. The four Russian composers whose works were played at the concert were Mikhail Glinka, Alexander Dargomyzhsky, Mily Balakirev, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The article ended with the following statement:

The expression "mighty handful" (, ''Moguchaya kuchka'', "Mighty Bunch" or "Group"), was mocked by enemies of Balakirev and Stasov: Aleksandr Serov, academic circles of the conservatory, the Russian Musical Society, and their press supporters. The group responded by defiantly adopting the name. (although today the Russian equivalent "Пятерка" ("Pyatyorka") is occasionally used to refer to this group). In his memoirs, Rimsky-Korsakov routinely refers to the group as "Balakirev's circle", and occasionally uses "The Mighty Handful", usually with an ironic tone. He also makes the following reference to "The Five":

The Russian word ''kuchka'' also spawned the terms "kuchkism" and "kuchkist", which may be applied to artistic aims or works in tune with the sensibilities of The Mighty Handful.

The name of Les Six, an even looser collection of French-speaking composers, emulates that of "The Five".

Formation[link]

The formation of the group began in 1856, with the first meeting of Balakirev and César Cui. Modest Mussorgsky joined them in 1857, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1861, and Alexander Borodin in 1862. All the composers in The Five were young men in 1862. Balakirev was 25, Cui 27, Mussorgsky 23, Borodin the eldest at 28, and Rimsky-Korsakov just 18. They were all self-trained amateurs. Borodin combined composing with a career in chemistry. Rimsky-Korsakov was a naval officer (he wrote his First Symphony on a three-year naval voyage circumnavigating the globe). Mussorgsky had been in the Guards, then in the civil service before taking up music; even at the height of his career in the 1870s he was forced by the expense of his drinking habit to hold down a full-time job in the State Forestry Department.

In contrast to the élite status and court connections of Conservatory composers such as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, The Five were mainly from the minor gentry of the provinces. To some degree their ''esprit de corps'' depended on the myth, which they themselves created, of a movement that was more "authentically Russian," in the sense that it was closer to the native soil, than the classic academy.

Before them, Mikhail Glinka and Alexander Dargomyzhsky had gone some way towards producing a distinctly Russian kind of music, writing operas on Russian subjects, but The Mighty Handful represented the first concentrated attempt to develop such a music, with Stasov as their artistic adviser and Dargomyzhsky as an elder statesman to the group, so to speak. The circle began to fall apart during the 1870s, no doubt partially due to the fact that Balakirev withdrew from musical life early in the decade for a period of time. All of "The Five" are buried in Tikhvin Cemetery in Saint Petersburg.

Musical language[link]

Stylization[link]

The musical language The Five developed set them far apart from the Conservatoire. This self-conscious Russian styling was based on two elements:

They tried to incorporate in their music what they heard in village songs, in Cossack and Caucasian dances, in church chants and the tolling of church bells (to the point where the bell tolling became a cliché). The Five's music became filled with imitative sounds of Russian life. They also tried to reproduce the long-drawn, lyrical and melismatic peasant song, what Glinka had once called "the soul of Russian music." Balakirev made this possible by his study of songs from the Volga in the 1860s. More than any previous anthology, his transcriptions artfully preserved the distinctive aspects of Russian folk music:

*Tonal mutability

:A tune seems to shift naturally from one tonal center to another, often ending up in a different key than the one in which the song began. This can produce a feeling of elusiveness, a lack of definition or of logical progression in the harmony. Even when stylized by The Five, this quality can make Russian music sound very different from the tonal structures of the West.

*Heterophony

:A melody is simultaneously rendered by two or more performers in different variations. This is improvised by the singers until the end, when the song reverts to a single melodic line.

*Parallel fifths, fourths and thirds

:The effect lends Russian music a raw sonority missing entirely from the comparatively polished harmonies of Western music.

The Five also adopted a series of harmonic devices to create a distinct "Russian" style and color different from Western music. This "exotic" styling of "Russia" was not just self-conscious but entirely invented. None of these devices was actually used in Russian folk or church music:

*Whole tone scale

:Although Glinka did not invent this scale, his application of it in the opera ''Ruslan and Lyudmila'' (1842) — most recognizable at the end of the festive overture — provided a characteristic harmonic and melodic device. This scale in "Russian" works often suggests evil or ominous personages or situations. It was used by all the major composers from Tchaikovsky (the appearance of the Countess's ghost in ''The Queen of Spades'') to Rimsky-Korsakov (in all his magic-story operas—''Sadko'', ''Kashchey the Deathless'' and ''The Invisible City of Kitezh''). Claude Debussy also uses this scale in his music, taking this, among many things, from the Russians. Later it became a standard device in horror-movie scores.

The Russian submediant

:Also linked to Glinka's ''Ruslan'', this is a harmonic pattern (in major mode) in which one upper part proceeds from the dominant pitch chromatically to the submediant while the other harmony parts remain constant. The most basic form of this pattern can be shown as follows (beginning with typical tonic): root-position tonic triad --> root-position augmented tonic triad -> 1st inversion submediant minor triad. A famous example of the Russian submediant occurs in the very opening bars of the third movement of Rimsky-Korsakov's ''Scheherezade''.

*Diminished or octatonic scale

:Rimsky-Korsakov first used this in his symphonic poem ''Sadko'' in 1867. This scale became a sort of Russian calling-card — a ''leitmotif'' of magic and menace used not just by Rimsky-Korsakov but all of his followers, above all Alexander Scriabin, Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky and Olivier Messiaen (mode 2).

*Modular rotation in sequences of thirds

:The Five made this device of Franz Liszt their own to base a loose symphonic-poem type of structure. This way, they could avoid the rigid Western laws of modulation in sonata form, allowing the form of a musical composition to be shaped entirely by the "content" of the music (its programmatic statements and visual descriptions) rather than by formal laws of symmetry. This loose structure became especially important for Mussorgsky's ''Pictures at an Exhibition'', a work that may have done more than any other to define the Russian style.

*Pentatonic scale

:This stylistic aspect became used by every Russian nationalist composer. Its distinctive feature is to have only five notes in the octave, rather than the seven of the heptatonic scales (e.g., major and minor). The pentatonic scale is one of the ways of suggesting a "primitive" folk-melodic style as well as the "Eastern" element (Middle East, Asia). A melodic example of the "major-mode" pentatonic scale (C-D-E-G-A) can be heard at the entrance of the chorus at the beginning of Borodin's ''Prince Igor''.

Orientalism[link]

One hallmark of "The Five" was its reliance on orientalism. Many quintessentially "Russian" works were composed in orientalist style, such as Balakirev's ''Islamey'', Borodin's ''Prince Igor'' and Rimsky-Korsakov's ''Scheherazade''. Orientalism, in fact, became widely considered in the West both one of the best-known aspects of Russian music and a trait of Russian national character. As leader of "The Five," Balakirev encouraged the use of eastern themes and harmonies to set their "Russian" music apart from the German symphonism of Anton Rubinstein and other Western-oriented composers. Because Rimsky-Korsakov used Russian folk and oriental melodies in his First Symphony, Stasov and the other nationalists dubbed it the "First Russian Symphony," even though Rubinstein had written his ''Ocean'' Symphony a dozen years before it. These were themes Balakirev had transcribed in the Caucasus. "The symphony is good," Cui wrote to Rimsky-Korsakov in 1863, while the latter was out on naval deployment. "We played it a few days ago at Balakirev's—to the great pleasure of Stassov. It is really Russian. Only a Russian could have composed it, because it lacks the slightest trace of any stagnant Germanness."

Orientalism was not confined to using authentic Eastern melodies. What became more important than the melodies themselves were the musical conventions added to them. These conventions allowed orientalism to become an avenue for writing music on subjects considered unmentionable otherwise, such as political themes and erotic fantasies. It also became a means of expressing Russian supremacy as the empire expanded under Alexander II. This was often reinforced through misogynist symbolism—the rational, active and moral Western man versus the irrational, passive and immoral Eastern woman.

Two major works entirely dominated by orientalism are Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite ''Antar'' and Balakirev's symphonic poem ''Tamara''. ''Antar'', set in Arabia, uses two different styles of music, Western (Russian) and Eastern (Arabian). The first theme, Antar's, is masculine and Russian in character. The second theme, feminine and oriental in melodic contour, belongs to the queen, Gul Nazar. Rimsky-Korsakov was able to soften the implicit misogyny to some extent. However, female sensuality does exert a paralyzing, ultimately destructive influence. With Gul Nazar extinguishing Antar's life in a final embrace, the woman overcomes the man.

Balakirev gives a more overtly misogynistic view of oriental women in ''Tamara''. He had originally planned to write a Caucasan dance called a ''lezginka'', modeled on Glinka, for this work. However, he discovered a poem by Mikhail Lermontov about the beautiful Tamara, who lived in a tower alongside the gorge of Daryal. She lured travelers and allowed them to enjoy a night of sensual delights, only to kill them and throw their bodies into the River Terek. Balakirev uses two specific codes endemic to orientalism in writing ''Tamara''. The first code, based on obsessive rhythms, note repetitions, climactic effects and accelerated tempi, represents Dionysian intoxication. The second code, consisting of unpredictable rhythms, irregular phrasing and based on long passages with many repeat notes, augmented and diminished intervals and extended melismas, depict sensual longing. Not only did Balakirev use these codes extensively, but he also attempted to supercharge them further when he revised the orchestration of ''Tamara'' in 1898.

A direct result of such orientalism was the big influence that this circle left on the formation of classical traditions in other nations of the east and south of Russia. For instance, one of Rimsky-Korsakov's famous students, Alexander Spendiaryan went on to become the founder of Armenian classical music, carrying on the traditions and aesthetics of the Mighty Handful to the Caucasus.

Quotations[link]

Rimsky-Korsakov provides the following picture of "The Mighty Handful" in his memoirs, ''Chronicle of My Musical Life'' (translated by J. A. Joffe):

Tastes[link]

Balakirev[link]

Abilities[link]

Influence[link]

Except perhaps for Cui, the members of this group influenced or taught many of the great Russian composers who were to follow, including Alexander Glazunov, Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky, and Dmitri Shostakovich. They also influenced the two french symbolist composers Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy through their radical tonal language.

Timeline[link]

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See also[link]

List of Russian composers

Tchaikovsky and the Five

Les Six, French composers

Armenian Mighty Handful

Group of Eight (music), Spanish composers

References[link]

External links[link]

Encyclopædia Britannica article about "The Five"

The Article about The Five in "1000 years of Russian Music"

Turgenev and Russian Music: The Mighty Handful (with music samples)

Russian musical influences of The Five on works of Claude Debussy

Category:Articles about multiple people Five Category:Russian composers *

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name	Elmer Bernstein
background	non_performing_personnel
birth date	April 04, 1922
Birth place	New York City, New York, U.S.
death date	August 18, 2004
Death place	Ojai, California, U.S.
genre	Film scores
occupation	Composer, Conductor, Songwriter
years active	1951–2004
website	}}

Elmer Bernstein (April 4, 1922 – August 18, 2004) was an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career which spanned fifty years, he composed music for hundreds of film and television productions. His most popular works include the scores to ''The Magnificent Seven'', ''The Ten Commandments'', ''The Great Escape'', ''To Kill a Mockingbird'', and ''Ghostbusters''.

Bernstein won an Oscar for his score to ''Thoroughly Modern Millie'' (1967) and was nominated for fourteen Oscars in total. He also won two Golden Globes and was nominated for two Grammy Awards.

Early life[link]

Bernstein was born in New York City, the son of Selma (née Feinstein) and Edward Bernstein. He was not related to the celebrated composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, but the two men were friends, and even shared a certain physical similarity. Within the world of professional music, they were distinguished from each other by the use of the nicknames ''Bernstein West'' (Elmer) and ''Bernstein East'' (Leonard).

During his childhood, Bernstein performed professionally as a dancer and an actor, in the latter case playing the part of Caliban in ''The Tempest'' on Broadway, and he also won several prizes for his painting. He gravitated toward music at the age of twelve, at which time he was given a scholarship in piano by Henriette Michelson, a Juilliard teacher who guided him throughout his entire career as a pianist. She took him to play some of his improvisations for composer Aaron Copland, who was encouraging and selected Israel Citkowitz as a teacher for the young boy. Bernstein's music has some stylistic similarities to Copland's music, most notably in his western scores, particularly sections of Big Jake, in the Gregory Peck film ''Amazing Grace and Chuck'', and in his spirited score for the 1958 film adaptation of Erskine Caldwell's novel ''God's Little Acre''.

Throughout his life, Bernstein demonstrated an enthusiasm for an even wider spectrum of the arts than his childhood interests would imply and, in 1959, when he was scoring ''The Story on Page One'', he considered becoming a novelist and asked the film's screenwriter, Clifford Odets, to give him lessons in writing fiction.

Career[link]

Bernstein wrote the theme songs or other music for more than 200 films and TV shows, including ''The Magnificent Seven'', ''The Great Escape'', ''The Ten Commandments'' (1956), ''The Man with the Golden Arm'', ''To Kill a Mockingbird'', ''Robot Monster'', and the fanfare used in the National Geographic television specials. His theme for ''The Magnificent Seven'' is also familiar to television viewers, as it was used in commercials for Marlboro cigarettes. Bernstein also provided the score to many of the short films of Ray and Charles Eames.

Broadway[link]

In addition to his film music, Bernstein wrote the scores for two Broadway musicals, ''How Now, Dow Jones'', with lyricist Carolyn Leigh, in 1967 and ''Merlin'', with lyricist Don Black, in 1983.

Politics[link]

Along with many in Hollywood, Bernstein faced censure during the McCarthy era of the 1950s. He was "gray-listed" (not banned, but kept off major projects) due to sympathy with left-wing causes, and had to work on low-budget science fiction films such as ''Robot Monster'' and ''Cat-Women of the Moon''.

Comedies[link]

John Landis grew up near Bernstein, and befriended him through his children. Years later, he requested Bernstein do the music for ''National Lampoon's Animal House'', over the studio's objections. He explained to Bernstein that he thought that Bernstein's score, playing it straight as if the comedic Delta frat characters were actual heroes, would emphasize the comedy further. The opening theme to the movie is based upon a slight inversion of a secondary theme from Brahms' Academic Festival Overture. Bernstein accepted the job, and it sparked a second wave in his career, where he continued to do high-profile comedies such as ''The Blues Brothers'', ''Ghostbusters'', ''Stripes'', and ''Airplane!'', as well as most of Landis's films for the next 15 years.

''Cape Fear''[link]

When Martin Scorsese announced that he was re-making ''Cape Fear'', Bernstein adapted Bernard Herrmann's original score to the new film. Bernstein leapt at the opportunity to work with Scorsese, and to pay homage to Herrmann. Scorsese and Bernstein subsequently worked together on two more films, 1993's ''The Age of Innocence'' and ''Bringing Out the Dead'' (1999). Bernstein had previously conducted Herrman's original unused score for Alfred Hitchcock's 1966 ''Torn Curtain''.

Classical[link]

Having studied composition under Aaron Copland, Roger Sessions and Stefan Wolpe, Bernstein also performed as a concert pianist between 1939 and 1950 and wrote numerous classical compositions, including three orchestral suites, two song cycles, various compositions for viola and piano and for solo piano, and a string quartet. As president of the Young Musicians Foundation, Bernstein became acquainted with classical guitarist Christopher Parkening and wrote a Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra, which Parkening recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra under Bernstein's baton for the Angel label in 1999. In addition, Bernstein was a professor at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music.

Awards[link]

Over the course of his career, Bernstein won an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. In addition, he was nominated for the Tony Award three times and a Grammy Award five times.

He received 14 Academy Award nominations and was nominated at least once per decade from the 1950s until the 2000s, but his only win was for ''Thoroughly Modern Millie'' for Best Original Music Score. Bernstein was recognized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association with Golden Globes for his scores for ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' and ''Hawaii''. In 1963, he won the Emmy for Excellence in Television for his score of the documentary ''The Making of The President 1960''. He is the recipient of Western Heritage Awards for ''The Magnificent Seven'' (1960) and ''The Hallelujah Trail'' (1965).

He received five Grammy Award nominations from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and garnered two Tony Award nominations for the Broadway musicals ''How Now Dow Jones'' and ''Merlin''.

Additional honors included Lifetime achievement awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), the Society for the Preservation of Film Music, the USA, Woodstock, Santa Barbara, Newport Beach and Flanders International Film Festivals and the Foundation for a Creative America.

In 1996, Bernstein was honored with a star on Hollywood Boulevard. In 1999, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Five Towns College in New York and was honored by the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. Bernstein again was honored by ASCAP with its marquee Founders Award in 2001 and with the NARAS Governors Award in June 2004.

His scores for ''The Magnificent Seven'' and ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' were ranked by the American Film Institute as the eighth and seventeenth greatest American film scores of all time, respectively, on the list of AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores. Bernstein, Bernard Herrmann, Max Steiner, and Jerry Goldsmith are the only composers to have two scores listed, and are therefore in second place for the most scores on the list, behind John Williams, who has three. Other Bernstein scores for the following the films were nominated for the list:

''The Age of Innocence'' (1993)

''Far from Heaven'' (2002)

''The Great Escape'' (1963)

''Hawaii'' (1966)

''The Man with the Golden Arm'' (1955)

''Summer and Smoke'' (1961)

''Sweet Smell of Success'' (1957)

''The Ten Commandments'' (1956)

''Walk on the Wild Side'' (1962)

Death[link]

Bernstein died of cancer in his sleep at his home in Ojai, California, on August 18, 2004.

Filmography[link]

''Sudden Fear'' (1952)

''Cat-Women of the Moon'' (1953)

''Robot Monster'' (1953)

''The Man with the Golden Arm'' (1955) (Academy Award Nomination, Best Original Score)

''Gunsmoke'' (1955) TV series (one episode only, S18: "Hostages!")

''The Ten Commandments'' (1956)

''Men in War'' (1957)

''The Tin Star'' (1957)

''Sweet Smell of Success'' (1957)

''God's Little Acre'' (1958)

''The Buccaneer (1958 film)''

''Kings Go Forth'' (1958)

''The Miracle'' (1959)

''Johnny Staccato'' (1959) (TV)

''Riverboat (TV series)'' (1959) (TV)

''The Magnificent Seven'' (1960) (Academy Award Nomination, Best Original Score)

''The Rat Race'' (1960)

''The Story on Page One'' (1960)

''From The Terrace'' (1960)

''The Comancheros'' (1961)

''By Love Possessed'' (1961)

''The Young Doctors'' (1961)

''Summer and Smoke'' (1961) (Academy Award Nomination, Best Original Score)

''To Kill a Mockingbird'' (1962) (Academy Award Nomination, Best Original Score) (Golden Globe Winner)

''Walk on the Wild Side'' (1962) (Academy Award Nomination, Best Song "Walk on the Wild Side")

''A Girl Named Tamiko'' (1962)

''Birdman of Alcatraz'' (1962)

''Kings of the Sun'' (1963)

''The Caretakers'' (1963)

''The Making of the President, 1960'' (1963) (Emmy Award Winner)

''The Great Escape'' (1963)

''Hud'' (1963)

''The Carpetbaggers'' (1964)

''The World of Henry Orient'' (1964)

''The Sons of Katie Elder'' (1965)

''The Hallelujah Trail'' (1965)

''Baby the Rain Must Fall'' (1965)

''Return of the Seven'' (1966) (Academy Award Nomination, Best Original Score)

''National Geographic Specials|Voyage of the Brigantine Yankee'' (1966) TV series

''Hawaii'' (1966)

''The Silencers'' (1966)

''National Geographic Specials|Yankee Sails Across Europe'' (1967) TV series

''Thoroughly Modern Millie'' (1967) (Academy Award Winner, Best Original Score)

''The Scalphunters'' (1968)

''I Love You, Alice B. Toklas'' (1968)

''Powers of Ten'' (1968) (short documentary, rereleased in 1977)

''The Gypsy Moths'' (1969)

''The Bridge at Remagen'' (1969)

''Guns of the Magnificent Seven'' (1969)

''True Grit'' (1969) (Academy Award Nomination, Best Song "True Grit")

''The Liberation of L.B. Jones'' (1970)

''Cannon for Cordoba'' (1970)

''A Walk in the Spring Rain'' (1970)

''Big Jake'' (1971)

''Doctors' Wives'' (1971)

''See No Evil'' (1971)

''The Rookies'' (1972) (TV)

''The Amazing Mr. Blunden'' (1972)

''The Magnificent Seven Ride!'' (1972)

''Cahill U.S. Marshal'' (1973)

''Gold'' (1974) (Academy Award Nomination, Best Song "Wherever Love Takes Me")

''McQ'' (1974)

''Deadly Honeymoon'' (1974)

''The Trial of Billy Jack'' (1974)

''Ellery Queen'' (1975) TV series

''Mr Quilp'' (1975)

''Report to the Commissioner'' (1975)

''Once an Eagle'' (1976) TV miniseries (theme)

''Captains and the Kings'' (1976) TV miniseries (Emmy Nomination)

''From Noon Till Three'' (1976)

''The Incredible Sarah'' (1976)

''The Shootist'' (1976)

''Slap Shot'' (1977)

''Casey's Shadow'' (rejected) (1978)

''National Lampoon's Animal House'' (1978)

''Billy Jack Goes to Washington'' (1978)

''Bloodbrothers'' (1978)

''Zulu Dawn'' (1979)

''The Great Santini'' (1979)

''Meatballs'' (1979)

''Airplane!'' (1980)

''Trust Me'' (1980)

''The Blues Brothers'' (1980)

''Saturn 3'' (1980)

''Heavy Metal'' (1981)

''Honky Tonk Freeway'' (1981)

''Going Ape'' (1981)

''The Chosen'' (1981)

''An American Werewolf in London'' (1981)

''Stripes'' (1981)

''Genocide'' (1982)

''Five Days One Summer'' (1982)

''Airplane II: The Sequel'' (Themes) (1982)

''Thriller'' (1983) (music video)

''Class'' (1983)

''Trading Places'' (1983) (Academy Award Nomination, Best Original Score)

''Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone'' (1983)

''Prince Jack'' (1984)

''Marie Ward - Zwischen Galgen und Glorie'' (1984)

''Bolero'' (1984)

''Ghostbusters'' (1984)

''The Black Cauldron'' (1985) Disney Animation

''The Journey of Natty Gann'' (rejected) (1985)

''Spies Like Us'' (1985)

''¡Three Amigos!'' (1986)

''Legal Eagles'' (1986)

''Leonard Part 6'' (1987)

''Amazing Grace and Chuck'' (1987)

''Funny Farm'' (1988)

''The Good Mother'' (1988)

''Da'' (1988)

''Stars and Bars'' (rejected) (1988)

''A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon'' (rejected) (1988)

''My Left Foot'' (1989)

''Trust Me'' (rejected) (1989)

''Slipstream'' (1989)

''Murder in Mississippi'' (rejected) (1990)

''The Field'' (1990)

''The Grifters'' (1990)

''Cape Fear'' (adaptation) (1991)

''Rambling Rose'' (1991)

''A Rage in Harlem'' (1991)

''Oscar'' (1991)

''A River Runs Through It'' (rejected) (1992)

''Mad Dog and Glory'' (1993)

''The Age of Innocence'' (1993) (Academy Award Nomination, Best Original Score)

''Lost in Yonkers'' (1993)

''The Cemetery Club'' (1993)

''The Good Son'' (1993)

''I Love Trouble'' (rejected) (1994)

''Devil in a Blue Dress'' (1995)

''Search and Destroy'' (1995)

''Canadian Bacon'' (1995)

''Frankie Starlight'' (1995)

''Bulletproof'' (1996)

''Last Man Standing'' (rejected) (1996)

''The Scarlet Letter'' (rejected) (1997)

''Buddy'' (1997)

''The Rainmaker'' (1997)

''Hoodlum'' (1997)

''Twilight'' (1998)

''Bringing out the Dead'' (1999)

''Wild Wild West'' (1999)

''The Deep End of the Ocean'' (1999)

''Keeping the Faith'' (2000)

''Gangs of New York'' (rejected) (2002)

''Far from Heaven'' (2002) (Academy Award Nomination, Best Original Score)(Golden Globe Nomination, Best Original Score)

Broadway theatre[link]

''Peter Pan'' (1954) - Incidental music composer

''How Now, Dow Jones'' (1967) - Composer - Tony Co-Nomination for Best Musical, Tony Co-Nomination for Best Composer and Lyricist

''Merlin'' (1982) - Composer and Incidental music composer - Tony Co-Nomination for Best Composer and Lyricist

References[link]

External links[link]

SWF movie with soundtracks

Discography at SonyBMG Masterworks

Fan website

BernsteinWest.com

Meatballs Movie Website

Category:1922 births Category:2004 deaths Category:American classical composers Category:American film score composers Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:American musical theatre composers Category:Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:Imperial Records artists Category:Juilliard School alumni Category:People from New York City Category:Thornton School of Music faculty

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