On April 16, 1987, a meeting was held between Stern and management of WNYW, the flagship television station of Fox Broadcasting Company. The network was considering Stern as a replacement to The Late Show hosted by Joan Rivers in its 11:00 pm hour. Five one-hour pilots titled The Howard Stern Show were recorded at a cost of about $400,000. They featured rock guitarist Leslie West of Mountain fame as band leader and Steve Rossi as announcer and singer. By early June, air dates were yet to be scheduled; the pilots were instead being tested among focus groups in California. With no formal announcement, the network cancelled the series in July. Paul Noble, the former executive producer for WNYW, was never told of Fox's decision. "By today's standards, they were absolutely tame." He also said, "They were not the kind of thing that a local New York television station was prepared to get involved with at that time. It was more like off-the-wall radio." The Howard Stern Show made its launch on July 14, 1990 with four Saturday night pilots. The program entered national syndication in January 1991 by All American Television. In Los Angeles, the show managed to attract a 34.4% market share at 12:30 am in the males aged 18 to 49 demographic.
In July 1992, The Howard Stern Show came to an end. "We made this business decision, even though the show had high ratings, because the cost exceeded the revenue," a WWOR spokeswoman explained. A total of 69 episodes were broadcast to 65 markets across the country; the last airing on August 8, 1992.
The show, first airing on November 27, 1992, ran for 30 minutes and was produced by Mark Keizer. E! re-aired Stern's interview with Phil Hartman and his wife Brynn after Brynn Hartman murdered her husband and committed suicide later.
Howard Stern was an American late night television show broadcast on E! Entertainment Television that featured filmed condensed segments from The Howard Stern Show during its time on terrestrial radio. The show ran just over eleven years from 1994-2005 before coming to an end, in terms of first-run episodes. The show was a consistent performer in the network's ratings.
E! Entertainment Television announced on May 31, 1994 that Howard Stern confirmed a deal with the entertainment cable channel to bring his popular morning radio show, which was broadcast from WXRK at the time, to television. Six robotic cameras were installed in the small studio at 600 Madison Avenue to film the five-hour radio show. "The best part of all this is that my genius will be seen in so many more homes now" Stern said. "It's a dream come true."
On October 6, 2004, Stern announced that he had signed a five-year contract with SIRIUS XM Radio, a subscription-based satellite radio service, that began from January 2006. The move allowed Stern to broadcast without the content restrictions imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that he faced while broadcasting on terrestrial radio. As a result, the E! show came to an end as Stern announced on August 3, 2005 that he made a deal with iN DEMAND Networks, a Video on Demand digital cable service, to create Howard Stern on Demand. The new, uncensored channel allowed the filming of the radio show at SIRIUS XM in high-definition. The radio show broadcast on July 1, 2005 was the last to be filmed for a "new episode" for airing the following week on July 8. The hour-long special featured members of the E! show staff saying their farewells (although some of the crew continued working for the show at SIRIUS XM) and telling their favourite show moments.
The Howard Stern Radio Show was an American late night television show that ran on Saturday nights on the CBS network from August 1998 to May 2001. The vast majority of CBS affiliates never carried the show, particularly those that covered rural areas. It ran for a total of 3 series including 84 episodes. The show featured filmed highlights of The Howard Stern Show, in a similar format seen in Howard Stern, the half hour show that was broadcast on E! from 1994 to 2005. The Howard Stern Radio Show however, included new segments such as animations of song parodies and exclusive behind the scenes footage.
The show was intended to be a rival for Saturday Night Live on NBC. Though the show often got higher ratings than SNL in New York City, it was routinely in second place, or sometimes third place to MADtv on Fox.
Category:Television in the United States
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Howard Stern |
|---|---|
| Caption | Howard Stern in 1996. |
| Birth name | Howard Allan Stern |
| Birth date | January 12, 1954 |
| Birth place | Jackson Heights, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Radio personality, humorist, television host, author, actor |
| Years active | 1975–present |
| Spouse | Alison Berns (1978–2001; div.)Beth Ostrosky (2008–present) |
| Website | www.howardstern.com |
Howard Allan Stern (born January 12, 1954) is an American radio personality, humorist, television host, author and actor, best known for his long-running radio show, The Howard Stern Show. He gained national recognition in the 1990s when he was labelled a "shock jock" for his outspoken and sometimes controversial style. Stern wished for a radio career since he was five; his father, a recording and radio engineer, being a big influence. While studying at Boston University, Stern worked at its campus station WTBU before making his professional début in 1975 at WNTN.
In 1977, Stern worked at WRNW in Briarcliff Manor, New York performing on-air, production and managerial duties. After his departure in 1979 he began to develop a more open personality working mornings at WCCC in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1980, he moved to WWWW in Detroit, Michigan, where he earned his first Billboard radio award. Stern relocated to WWDC in Washington, D.C. in 1981, where he was paired with current show newscaster and co-host Robin Quivers. He moved to WNBC in New York City to host afternoons until his firing in 1985. Stern returned to the city's airwaves on WXRK for the next 20 years until his move to Sirius XM in December 2005. In this time, The Howard Stern Show would be syndicated to 60 markets while reaching a peak audience of 20 million listeners. The show was the highest-rated morning program from 1994 to 2001 in the New York market. Stern is an eight-time winner of the Billboard Nationally Syndicated Air Personality of the Year award (1994–2002). He is the highest-paid radio figure, including the most fined, after a history with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over alleged indecency resulted in $2.5 million being issued to station owners that carried his show.
Stern describes himself as the "King of All Media" for his work outside radio. Since 1987, he has hosted numerous late night television shows, pay-per-view events and home video releases. His two books, Private Parts (1993) and Miss America (1995), spent 20 and 16 weeks respectively on The New York Times Best Seller list. The former was adapted into Private Parts (1997), a biographical comedy film starring Stern and his radio show staff as themselves, which made a domestic gross of $41.2 million. The film's topped the the Billboard 200 chart.
Stern was born into a Jewish family who resided in Jackson Heights, Queens in New York City. His parents Ben and Ray (née Schiffman) are children of Austro-Hungarian immigrants, and his sister Ellen is four years his senior.
Stern developed an interest in radio at the age of five. While Ray was a homemaker and later an inhalation therapist, Ben was a co-owner of Aura Recording, Inc., a recording studio in Manhattan where cartoons and commercials were produced. When he made visits with his father, Stern saw the likes of Wally Cox, Don Adams and Larry Storch voice his favourite cartoon characters, influencing the young Stern to talk on the air, rather than playing records. Ben was also an engineer at WHOM, a radio station in Manhattan. The family moved to nearby Rockville Centre in June 1969, and Stern was transferred to South Side High School. After his graduation in 1972, he began the first two of four years at Boston University in the College of Basic Studies. In 1973, he worked up the courage to work at WTBU, the campus radio station where he spun records, read the news and hosted interviews. Stern gained admission to the School of Public Communications in 1974. The diploma he earned in July 1975 at the Radio Engineering Institute of Electronics in Fredericksburg, Virginia, allowed him to apply for a first class FCC radio-telephone license. With the certificate, Stern made his professional debut at WNTN in Newton, Massachusetts, performing airshift, newscasting and production duties between August and December. Stern graduated magna cum laude in May 1976 with a Communications degree,
In 1979, Stern spotted an advertisement for a "wild, fun morning guy" at WCCC, a rock station in Hartford, Connecticut. He showcased a more wild audition tape, playing Robert Klein and Cheech and Chong records mixed with flatulence routines and one-liners. Stern was hired with no change in salary, but a busier schedule. After four hours on the air, he voiced and produced commercials for another four. On Saturdays, following a six-hour show, he did production work for the next three. In addition, as the public affairs director, he hosted a Sunday morning talk show, which he favoured. Fred Norris, the overnight disc jockey, became Stern's producer and writer in late 1981. In the summer of the 1979 energy crisis, Stern held a two-day boycott of Shell Oil Company which attracted media attention. Stern left the station in early 1980 after he was declined a $25 weekly pay increase.
Management at rock outlet WWWW in Detroit, Michigan praised Stern's audition tape for a new morning man. Accepting a salary of $30,000, Stern began on April 21, 1980. He learned to become more open on the air. "I decided to cut down the barriers...strip down all the ego...and be totally honest", he later told Newsday. Stern's efforts earned him a Billboard award for "Album-Oriented Rock Personality of the Year For a Major Market" and the Drake-Chenault "Top Five Talent Search" title. The station however, was declining in listenership. A fall in Stern's Arbitron ratings, in addition to tough competition with other rock stations, led to WWWW switch to a country music format on January 18, 1981. Much to his dislike, Stern left the station soon after.
On April 2, 1982, a news report by Douglas Kiker on raunch radio featuring Stern aired on NBC Magazine. The piece stimulated discussion among NBC management to withdraw Stern's contract. When he began his afternoon program in September, management closely monitored Stern, telling him to avoid talk of a sexual and religious nature. In his first month, Stern was suspended for several days for "Virgin Mary Kong", a segment featuring a video game where a group of men pursued the Virgin Mary around a singles bar in Jerusalem. On September 30, Stern and Quivers were fired for what management claimed were "conceptual differences." said program director John Hayes, who Stern nicknamed "The Incubus". In 1992, Stern believed Thornton Bradshaw, chairman of WNBC's owner RCA, heard his "Bestiality Dial-a-Date" segment ten days earlier and ordered his firing.
Stern returned to afternoons on New York City rock station WXRK on November 18, 1985. On February 18, 1986, Stern moved to the morning shift and entered national syndication on August 18 when the show was simulcast on WYSP in Philadelphia. In the New York market, The Howard Stern Show was the highest-rated morning program from 1994 to 2001. In 1994, Billboard magazine added the "Nationally Syndicated Air Personality of the Year" category to its annual radio awards, based on entertainment value, creativity and ratings success. Stern was awarded the title from 1994 to 2002. Stern retained his morning position until December 16, 2005, where he began his contract at Sirius in 2006. In this 20-year period, he would be heard in over 60 markets across the United States and Canada while gaining a peak audience of around 20 million.
In May 1987, Stern recorded five television pilots of The Howard Stern Show for Fox when the network planned to replace The Late Show hosted by Joan Rivers. The series was never picked up; one executive having described the show as "poorly produced", "in poor taste" and "boring". Stern hosted his first pay-per-view event on February 27, 1988, Howard Stern's Negligeé and Underpants Party. On September 7, 1989, over 16,000 fans packed out Nassau Coliseum for Howard Stern's U.S. Open Sores, a live event that featured a tennis match between Stern and his radio show producer, Gary Dell'Abate. In February 1991, Stern released Crucified by the FCC, a collection of censored radio segments following the first fine issued to Infinity by the FCC. Stern released his third video tape, Butt Bongo Fiesta, in October 1992 that sold 260,000 copies.
Stern appeared at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards as Fartman, a fictional superhero that first appeared in the National Lampoon magazine in the mid-1970s. He rejected multiple scripts for a proposed 1993 release of The Adventures of Fartman, until a verbal agreement was reached with New Line Cinema. Screenwriter J. F. Lawton had prepared a script before relations soured over the film's rating, content and merchandising rights. The project was then cancelled.
On March 21, 1994, Stern announced his candidacy for Governor of New York under the Libertarian Party ticket, challenging Mario Cuomo for re-election. He planned to reinstate the death penalty, stagger highway tolls to improve traffic flow, and limiting road work to night hours. At the party's nomination convention in Albany on April 23, Stern won the required two-thirds majority on the first ballot, receiving 287 of the 381 votes cast (75.33%). James Ostrowski finished second with 34 votes (8.92%). To place his name on the November ballot, Stern was obliged to state his home address and to complete a financial disclosure form under the Ethics in Government Act of 1987. Arguing the law violated his right to privacy and freedom of association, Stern was denied an injunction on August 2. He withdrew his candidacy two days later. Cuomo was defeated in the gubernatorial election on November 8 by George Pataki, whom Stern backed. In 1995, Pataki signed "The Howard Stern Bill" which limited construction on state roads to night hours in New York and Long Island.
In June 1994, six robot cameras were installed in Stern's radio show studio to film a condensed half-hour program on the E! network. Howard Stern ran for 11 years, until the last taped episode was broadcast on July 8, 2005. In conjunction with his move to Sirius, Stern launched Howard Stern on Demand, a subscription video-on-demand service, on November 18, 2005. The service was fully launched as Howard TV on March 16, 2006.
Stern signed an advance contract with ReganBooks worth $3 million in 1995 to write his second biographical book, Miss America. Stern wrote about his cybersex experiences on the Prodigy service, a private meeting with Michael Jackson, and his past suffering with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The book sold 33,000 copies at Barnes & Noble stores on November 7, the day of its release, setting a new one-day record. Publishers Weekly reported over 1.39 million hardcover copies were sold by the end of 1995, ranking it the third best-seller of the year. Miss America spent a total of 16 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list. The film premiered at The Theatre at Madison Square Garden on February 27, 1997, where Stern performed "The Great American Nightmare" with Rob Zombie. Private Parts made its general release on March 7, 1997, where it topped the box office in its opening weekend with a gross of $14.6 million, and $41.2 million in total. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 79%. For his performance, Stern won a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for "Favorite Male Newcomer" and nominated for a Golden Satellite Award for "Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture (Comedy)" and a Golden Raspberry Award for "Worst New Star".
On October 8, 1997, Stern filed a $1.5 million lawsuit against Ministry of Film Inc., claiming it recruited him for a film titled Jane starring Melanie Griffith, while knowing it had insufficient funds. Stern, who was unpaid when production ceased, accused the studio of breach of contract, fraud and negligent representation. A settlement was reached in 1999, with Stern receiving $50,000.
In 1994, Stern launched the Howard Stern Production Company for original and joint production and development ventures. He intended to make a film adaptation of Brother Sam, the biography of the late comedian Sam Kinison. In September 1999, UPN announced the production of Doomsday, an animated science-fiction comedy series executively produced by Stern. Originally set for a 2000 release, Stern starred as Orinthal, a family dog. The project was eventually abandoned. From 2000 to 2002, Stern was the executive producer of Son of the Beach, a sitcom which ran for three seasons on FX. In late 2001, Howard Stern Productions was reportedly developing a new sitcom titled Kane. The pilot episode was never filmed. In 2002, Stern acquired the rights to comedy films Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979) and Porky's (1982). Neither has yet been re-made. In March 2003, Stern filed a $100 million lawsuit against ABC and the producers of Are You Hot?, claiming the series was based on a radio show segment known as "The Evaluators". A settlement was reached on August 7.
Stern announced in early 2004 of talks with ABC to host a prime time interview special, which never materialized. In August 2004, cable channel Spike picked up 13 episodes of Howard Stern: The High School Years, a second animated series Stern was to executive produce. On November 14, 2005, Stern announced the completion of episode scripts and 30 seconds of test animations. Stern eventually gave the project up. On September 10, 2007, he explained the episodes could have been produced "on the cheap" at $300,000 each, though the quality he demanded would have instead cost over $1 million. Actor Michael Cera was cast as the lead voice.
On October 6, 2004, Stern announced his contract with Sirius Satellite Radio, a medium free of FCC regulations, starting from January 2006. The move followed a crackdown on perceived indecency in broadcasting that occurred following the controversy surrounding the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show in February. The incident prompted tighter control over content by station owners and managers, leading to Stern feeling "dead inside" creatively. The five-year deal allows Stern to produce up to three channels on Sirius with a $100 million per year budget for all production, staff and programming costs including the construction of a dedicated studio. On January 9, 2006, the day of his first broadcast, Sirius issued 34.3 million shares of stock worth $218 million to Stern and his agent for exceeding a subscriber target set in 2004. A second stock incentive was paid on January 9, 2007, with Stern earning 22 million shares worth $82.9 million. Following his move, Time magazine included Stern in the Time 100 list in May 2006. He also ranked seventh in Forbes' "World's Most Powerful Celebrities" list a month later.
On February 28, 2006, CBS Radio (formerly Infinity Broadcasting) filed a 43-page lawsuit against Stern, his agent and Sirius. The suit claimed Stern had misused CBS broadcast time to promote Sirius for unjust enrichment during his last 14 months on terrestrial airwaves. In a press conference held hours before the suit was filed, Stern said it was nothing more than a "personal vendetta" against him by CBS president Leslie Moonves. A settlement was reached on May 25, with Sirius paying $2 million to CBS for control of Stern's broadcast archives since 1985.
On December 9, 2010, Stern announced the signing of a new five-year contract with Sirius which ends in 2015.
From 1990 to 2004, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has fined owners of radio stations that carried The Howard Stern Show a total of $2.5 million for indecent programming.
While attending Boston University, Stern developed an interest in Transcendental Meditation, which he practices to this day. He credits it with aiding him in quitting smoking and achieving his goals in radio. Stern has interviewed Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of the technique, twice in his career. Stern also plays on the Internet Chess Club, and has taken lessons from Dan Heisman, a chess master from Philadelphia.
{|class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" border="2" cellpadding="4" background: #f9f9f9; |- align="center" ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Year ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Album ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Label ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Notes |- | 1982 | 50 Ways to Rank Your Mother | Wren Records | Re-released as Unclean Beaver (1994) on Ichiban and Citizen X labels |- | 1991 | Crucified By the FCC | Infinity Broadcasting | |- | 1997 | | Warner Brothers | Billboard 200 Number-one album from March 15–21, 1997 |}
Category:1954 births Category:Actors from New York City Category:American actor-politicians Category:American comedians Category:American actors Category:American Jews Category:American libertarians Category:American radio personalities Category:American talk radio hosts Category:American television personalities Category:American television producers Category:American television talk show hosts Category:American writers Category:Free speech activists Category:Boston University alumni Category:Jewish comedians Category:Jewish comedy and humor Category:Living people Category:Obscenity controversies Category:People from Jackson Heights, Queens Category:People from Nassau County, New York Category:People from New York City Category:Radio personalities from New York City Category:Sirius Satellite Radio Category:Transcendental Meditation practitioners
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Artie Lange |
|---|---|
| Caption | Lange in September 2006 |
| Birth name | Arthur Steven Lange, Jr. |
| Birth date | October 11, 1967 |
| Subject | Personal life, self-deprecation, human sexuality, pop culture, Italian American culture, professional sports, recreational drug use, drinking culture |
| Influences | Howard Stern, John Belushi, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Woody Allen, Bill Murray, Jackie Gleason, Peter Sellers, David Letterman, Shitty Comedians, Richard Lewis |
| Website | www.artie-lange.com |
Arthur Steven "Artie" Lange, Jr. (born October 11, 1967) is an American actor, comedian, radio personality, and author. Lange is most notable for replacing Jackie Martling on The Howard Stern Show, and for being an original cast member of the sketch comedy series MADtv. Lange co-wrote a book with Anthony Bozza titled Too Fat to Fish. It was released on November 11, 2008, and debuted at number one on the New York Times best-seller list on November 21, 2008.
Lange excelled in baseball during his high school years, becoming an All County third baseman. He spent his free time working with his father. On October 18, 1985, his father fell from a ladder and broke his back, becoming quadriplegic. Money soon became an issue within his family, and celebrities were contacted to donate items for them to auction. Howard Stern was the only one to respond and sent them an autographed jacket. His father died from an infection on February 1, 1990, four-and-a-half years after the accident.
In August 1985, Lange was arrested for attempted bank robbery. He claimed he was trying to flirt with the teller by passing her a note that said he was armed and demanded $50,000. The teller took it seriously, triggering a silent alarm. He was charged with disorderly conduct and entered community service in March 1986. As part of his probation, Lange attended the Connecticut School of Broadcasting from March to June 1987 as well as Seton Hall University for a short time. From February 1991 to September 1992, he stayed in New Jersey and took up work as a longshoreman at Port Newark to help support his family. He eventually quit his job at the port to focus on his comedy career. While searching for such work, Lange's regular form of employment was driving a taxi in New York City.
In May 1995, Lange flew to Los Angeles to shoot the television pilot for MADtv, a sketch comedy show that was picked up by Fox. Lange, who moved to the west coast in July, landed a role as one of the eight original cast members from 8,000 comics who were screened. Lange attributed his hiring to the fact that he fit the John Belushi mold that was popular in sketch comedy. His most popular recurring character on the show was "That's My White Mama". However, his stint with the show came to an end when cast and crew members attempted to have an intervention for him after a cocaine binge. Lange fled the studio, running through streets and backyards with his co-workers chasing after him. The chase ended in a supermarket, where he was arrested. Lange attempted to punch one of the police officers. He was sentenced to time served and probation. Producers of MADtv persuaded him to enter rehabilitation in March 1997. Lange checked into Honesty House, a rehab center in Stirling, New Jersey, for two months. His contract was not renewed for a third season. Lange made cameo appearances during the fifth and tenth seasons, including the final episode on May 16, 2009. He also appeared on Saturday Night Live, MADtv's rival show, on the same day in a nonspeaking role.
On April 21, 2008, Lange returned to the Howard Stern Show following a scheduled one-week vacation hiatus for the cast members. He apologized and took full responsibility for his behavior. It was revealed that Sirius was allowing him to continue, but that another infraction would end his employment. Additionally, Lange explained that despite their on-air confrontation, he and Teddy will maintain their working relationship.
On November 11, 2008, Lange's first book, Too Fat to Fish, was released. The book is a collection of narrative episodes from Lange's life, from his childhood to his recent USO trip to Afghanistan in July 2008. The foreword is written by Howard Stern. The book debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list under hardcover nonfiction. The softcover edition was released in June 2009 with a change to the back cover from the hardcover edition and includes a bonus chapter.
On November 17, 2009, Lange released his first-ever CD, titled "Jack and Coke," via Shout! Factory. The 80-minute set was recorded live in New York City.
Lange remains very close to his family, which includes his sister Stacey, a successful corporate fashion designer, and his mother, Judy, who retired in March 2007 from a secretarial career. He was raised Catholic; however, he has said that, like Howard Stern, he sincerely doubts the existence of God but is "afraid" to identify himself as an atheist in the event that he is wrong.
Politically, he has said he does not consider himself to be a "liberal," though he is pro-choice, a supporter of gay rights (despite his notorious penchant for gay jokes), and a supporter of unions owing to his former career as a longshoreman. He has called President George W. Bush a "dolt" and supported John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008. He initially supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq but has since changed his mind. When documentarian Michael Moore visited The Howard Stern Show in 2007, Lange told him that he had changed some of his political opinions because of Moore's films.
His favorite book is A Confederacy of Dunces. He considers George Carlin to be the all-time greatest comedian and said, "It's easy to follow the funniest guy ever" when he appeared after Carlin as a guest during his first talk show appearance, on The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn. He has been critical of the "unbelievably positive press" given to comedians such as Jon Stewart and Ricky Gervais, feeling that their acclaim approaches hyperbole, while acknowledging their talents.
On June 15, 2009, Lange made a controversial appearance on HBO's Joe Buck Live. Lange made several obscene and derogatory comments directed towards homosexuals and even to Joe Buck himself. At one point Ross Greenburg, HBO Sports President, said Lange "bordered on bad taste" with his "mean-spirited" tone. However, on the June 16, 2009, Howard Stern Show, Artie claimed Greenburg told him, "If [fellow panelists] Paul Rudd and Jason Sudeikis get boring, you go nuts." His attitude and remarks caused Joe Buck to thank Artie for being on the first and last taping of his show. Lange apologized for his behavior soon after the show aired. HBO also issued a formal apology. Though Buck himself called it a "disaster," he made it clear that he was not as offended as the press originally thought. The incident made TIME's list of "Top 10 Awkward Moments of 2009." Lange made a cameo appearance in the second episode of the show that aired on September 22, 2009.
In May 2004, Las Vegas station KLAS-TV reported him dead. At the time of the announcement, they were on the air doing a live show from Las Vegas, which made the call that much greater as they brought up the TV sound to the live Stern show feed for all who had attended the show that day to hear. The story turned out to be a prank executed by Stern Show regular caller Captain Janks.
The website artielangedeathwatch.com was started to predict when Lange would die if he continues this lifestyle. Before discontinuing updates, the site projected that he would die at age 53. The site resulted in Lange's being turned down for special life insurance when the company came across it. During the Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner in 2006, octogenarian Betty White quipped that she would outlive Lange.
After his break up with Sironi, Lange gained well over ; on March 3, 2008, it was determined on The Howard Stern Show that he had reached . When Artie turned 40 in October 2007, he admitted that he weighed 305 pounds.
Also in September 2007, Lange gave details of his experiences with sleep apnea. Lange claims that he has awoken in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and has fallen asleep while sitting on the toilet.
Lange was tested by Jon Hein for Type-2 diabetes on October 24 on The Howard Stern Show and discovered that his blood sugar was 238. The next day on the show, Lange stated that his mother took him to see a doctor and that he was tested for diabetes. The tests came back negative, and he said his blood pressure was normal. The doctor, however, was very concerned with the speed with which Lange had gained so much weight and suggested that he go on a diet to save his heart. After this incident, Lange began a moderate diet. Staff members commented that he looked "less bloated."
On November 1, 2007, Lange revealed on the air that he had taken a tablet of Subutex and was feeling slightly high. Howard insisted it was because of his new diet. Less than an hour after feeling the effects of Subutex, Lange threw two objects, one of which was a CD case, in a fit of rage at cast member Sal the Stockbroker; the two were not on speaking terms after a heated argument the day before involving Richard Christy. Lange became frustrated after Sal and Richard attempted to amend the situation with an apology he found to be "phony." Lange soon afterwards apologized to Sal, admitting that he overreacted and "crossed a line [he] never thought [he] would," and made up with Sal and Richard one week later, on November 8.
A picture from the previous day of Lange holding a McDonald's bag and drink was revealed on the November 7, 2007, show. Lange called in sick the next day, blaming his "diet" for his illness, but the cast teased him anyway.
On August 6, 2008, Lange claimed to have begun an intensive outpatient rehab program after missing the Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget. On the August 11 airing of the show, Lange admitted to having been back on heroin for the previous seven weeks. He stated that he had gotten drunk playing pool and was offered the heroin by someone at the pool-hall. Comedian Richard Lewis recommended a therapist to Lange.
Lange missed work on December 2 and 3, 2008, owing to self-described "general discomfort" and "painful vomiting," causing concern that he was relapsing in his heroin addiction. On December 4, Lange said his doctor believed the symptoms may have been the manifestation of a bleeding ulcer.
On the December 8, 2008 show, Lange admitted that he lied about intensive outpatient rehab and had only gone to the therapist twice, not even making it through the end of the second session. This resulted in the now familiar fear that he was back in trouble with heroin, pills, and/or alcohol.
On the June 17, 2009, episode of The Adam Carolla Podcast, Lange revealed that he had been sober for two and a half months, had lost 45 pounds, and hoped to lose 45 more.
On the August 10, 2009 broadcast of The Howard Stern Show, Stern noticed Lange's weight loss. Lange then confirmed that his current weight was 230 lb. and that he wished to continue in his endeavor to lose more weight. Lange stated that he stands about 5 feet 8 inches tall.
Lange returned to the comedy stage for the first time on September 27, eight months after his suicide attempt, performing two nights at Comedy Cellar in New York. He mentioned being in a psychiatric ward since the incident.
Category:1967 births Category:Actors from New Jersey Category:Actors who attempted suicide Category:American agnostics Category:American film actors Category:American radio personalities Category:American stand-up comedians Category:American television actors Category:American television personalities Category:American television writers Category:American people of Native American descent Category:Comedians who attempted suicide Category:Former Roman Catholics Category:American actors of Italian descent Category:Living people Category:People from Hudson County, New Jersey Category:People from Union County, New Jersey
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Tracy Morgan |
|---|---|
| Caption | Morgan discussing his book I Am the New Black, New York City 2009 |
| Birth name | Tracy Jamal Morgan |
| Birth date | November 10, 1968 |
| Birth place | Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Medium | Stand-up, Televison, Film, Books |
| Nationality | American |
| Years active | 1990–present |
| Genre | Black comedy, Musical comedy, Observational comedy, Character comedy |
| Subject | African-American culture, race relations, racism, marriage, parenting, self-deprecation, recreational drug use, sex, relationships, current events |
| Spouse | Sabrina Morgan (1985-2009; 3 children) |
| Notable work | Saturday Night LiveTracy Mitchell in The Tracy Morgan ShowTracy Jordan in 30 RockHost of Scare Tactics |
Tracy Jamal Morgan (born November 10, 1968) is an American actor, comedian and author who is best known for his eight seasons as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and currently known for playing the role of Tracy Jordan on the NBC series 30 Rock.
Morgan was also a regular cast member on "Uptown Comedy Club", a sketch comedy show filmed in Harlem which aired for two seasons between 1992 to 1994. He was also on the HBO show Snaps.
Morgan also had a stand-up special entitled "One Mic" that was shown on Comedy Central. He also was the host of the first Spike Guys' Choice Awards, which aired on June 13, 2007. In 2003, he was on an episode of Punk'd in which his car was towed from the valet parking. He can be heard as "Spoonie Luv" on the Comedy Central program Crank Yankers and as Woof in the MTV2 Animated Series Where My Dogs At?.
Morgan acted in commercials for ESPN NFL 2K, ESPN NBA 2K, and ESPN NHL 2K, where he co-starred with Warren Sapp, Ben Wallace and Jeremy Roenick. He appeared in the movie The Longest Yard, starring Adam Sandler, as a transvestite inmate.
Morgan has hosted the VH1 Hip Hop Honors for 2 consecutive years and hosted the third season of Scare Tactics, the Sci Fi Channel's hidden camera show that pranks people by using their worst fears against them.
Morgan voiced Agent Blaster in Disney's G-Force. Morgan will voice a Bulldog in the upcoming Blue Sky Animation Studios film Rio.
Morgan married his high school sweetheart Sabina in 1985. They have three sons together. Morgan filed for divorce at Bronx Supreme Court on August 7, 2009 after 23 years of marriage, although he and his wife had been already separated for eight years. A friend told the New York Daily News, "Basically they were divorced without the paperwork."
In 1996, he was diagnosed with diabetes, but says he never took it seriously, refusing to take medication or change his diet. After running a 104-degree fever on the set of 30 Rock, Morgan decided to finally comply with his doctor's orders. He is now very cautious when it comes to the condition. With his consent, many of Morgan's own troubles have been incorporated within episodes of 30 Rock.
Around December 10, 2010, Tracy Morgan received a kidney transplant. It was announced on December 22, 2010 that he was resting and will miss "at least two episodes" of "30 Rock" in 2011.
Category:1968 births Category:Actors from New York City Category:African American comedians Category:African American film actors Category:African American television actors Category:American comedians Category:Living people Category:Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:People convicted of alcohol-related driving offenses Category:People from the Bronx
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Steven Banks (born November 27) is an American musician, comedian, actor, mime and writer of television, plays, books and cartoons, including SpongeBob SquarePants.
Banks attended Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus clown college. Shortly after that (during his honeymoon), he met fellow clown college alumnus Penn Jillette and began a lifelong friendship with the future magician. Both shared a fascination with punk and classic rock and roll music, yet both men eschewed drugs and alcohol. The two also shared a love for comedy.
| Occupation | Musician, comedian, actor, writer |
|---|
Banks hit it big when he developed (and starred in) a one-man theatrical show titled Home Entertainment Center – a comedic play about an easily-distracted procrastinator trying to meet a work deadline. He gave 440 performances of Home Entertainment Center at venues like the Canon Theater, Pasadena Playhouse, Marines' Memorial Theater, and The One Act in San Francisco (where the show ran for eleven months). For his performances, he was awarded the LA Weekly Theater Award, four Drama-Logue Awards, and three San Francisco Bay Area Critic's Awards. He also performed at the Aspen Comedy festival, the Cast Theater, Callboard Theater, and Las Palmas Theater.
In 1989 Home Entertainment Center achieved national fame when it was filmed and aired on Showtime; the filming was done at the Marines' Memorial Theater. The show featured original songs written and performed by Banks. On 14 May 1989, he appeared (with Penn) on the Dr. Demento radio program (that year's Mother's Day Special) and performed a number of his songs live on-air.
The ensuing fame landed him a tv pilot on Showtime in January 1991 – The Steven Banks Show (sometimes inaccurately referenced as The Steven Brooks Show). The plot of the show was much the same as his one-act play: Banks portrayed Steven Brooks – an underachieving, chronic procrastinator fascinated by trivia and cursed with a penchant for comedic songs.
In the summer of 1991 after Paul "Pee-Wee Herman" Reubens was arrested for allegedly masturbating in an adult movie theater, Banks was among a number of entertainers who protested the decision of CBS to drop Reubens' show from their lineup. Banks can be seen in a crowd of protestors on an LA street in the E! True Hollywood Story episode about Reubens' arrest. Reubens was later offered (and declined) a supporting role on Banks' fledgling TV program.
Showtime aired the pilot for Banks' show, but never ran any other episodes. In 1994, PBS took an interest in his act. They filmed and aired The Steven Banks Show that summer – the first original sitcom ever produced and run by PBS. Brandon Tartikoff produced the show, filmed at WYES in New Orleans. A CD album for the show was also released, consisting of original songs written and performed by Banks. Thirteen shows were shot and the program garnered critical acclaim, but one episode "Miss Janie Regrets" was not aired due to controversy over a PBS-like children's show parody. Banks' show has attained a kind of cult status despite its short run on PBS. On one show, Penn Jillette sang and played guitar, Teller on keyboard, joining Steven Banks. The song was "I wear the clothes of the dead", the setup for which was Penn wearing suits bought at estate sales.
However, that same year, Banks landed a bit role in Beverly Hills Cop III. By the late 1990s, Banks was making guest appearances on various TV shows, including Dharma & Greg, King of the Hill, and Dream On. He also appeared in Caroline in the City.
Steven Banks performed a set of songs at the 2004 B.O.R.E.D. Tour on the RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA.
Banks most recently performed as "Billy the Mime" in the 2005 comedic documentary "The Aristocrats" which was created by Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza.
In 2004 he wrote for Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi – an animated series from the Cartoon Network about the adventures of real life J-pop music stars Ami Onuki and Yumi Yoshimura.
In late 2004 he became story editor for the hit show "SpongeBob SquarePants" and has worked on the show for five seasons and continues as head writer for season eight.
Banks and friend Penn Jillette also collaborated in writing Love Tapes – an unconventional love story for the stage which premiered February 2005 at Sacred Fools Theater in Hollywood.
Banks's novel (King of the Creeps) was published by [Knopf] in 2006.
He wrote the book and additional lyrics for "SpongeBob Squarepants: The Musical!" opening May 2007.
He was nominated for an Emmy in 2008 for the SpongeBob episode he wrote "The Two Faces of Squidward"
In 2009 he collaborated with the dance company Pilobolus creating a full-evening piece "Shadowland" currently touring internationally.
He developed the CGI series for Nickelodeon, Planet Sheen.
His new play, "Looking at Christmas", opened in New York at The Flea Theater November 20, 2010 and was filmed by PBS/Channel 13 to be aired next December.
Banks was profiled in the New York Times Sunday Arts & Leisure Section on November 28, 2010.
Producer: Paul Block
Category:1951 births Category:Living people Category:American comedians Category:American male singers Category:American television actors Category:American television writers
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| Name | Richard Christy |
|---|---|
| Background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
| Birth name | Thomas Richard Christy |
| Birth date | April 01, 1974 |
| Birth place | Fort Scott, Kansas, U.S. |
| Death date | |
| Instrument | Drums |
| Genre | Heavy metal |
| Occupation | Drummer, radio personality, stand-up comedian, electrician |
| Years active | 1995–present |
| Associated acts | Acheron, Death, Control Denied, Burning Inside, Iced Earth, Leash Law, Charred Walls of the Damned |
| Url | www.richardchristy.com |
Thomas Richard Christy (born April 1, 1974) is an American musician and radio personality who currently works on The Howard Stern Show. Christy began to work on the show after winning the "Get John's Job" contest on July 1, 2004. He is known for his prank calls, song parodies, personality, and stunts performed on the radio show. He is also a stand-up comic and an actor, appearing in and directing several independent films.
Christy is a professional drummer, and a former member of metal bands Death and Iced Earth. He is currently working in his own project, Charred Walls of the Damned.
Christy was inspired to play drums after hearing Alex Van Halen's drumming in the Van Halen song "Hot for Teacher". When Christy turned 10 years old, he began to play drums in the Uniontown, Kansas elementary school band. He played snare drum for a year until his parents bought him a 3-piece Gretsch drum set from an antiques dealer in Arcadia, Kansas. After school, Christy would practice to Van Halen, Twisted Sister, Kiss and Quiet Riot records.
While living in Florida, Christy continued to work as an electrician for Phillips Electrical Contracting in Orlando.
In 2004, John Melendez (then known as "Stuttering John") left the radio show to become the announcer for The Tonight Show. Stern announced a "Get John's Job" contest which pitted ten Stern fans and contributors against each other in competition for Melendez's vacated position. Each contestant was given a week to display any talents they could bring to the show, after which the listeners cast votes for their favorite over the Internet. On July 1, Stern announced Christy had won with 30% of the listener vote, with Sal Governale being runner up with 24%; both Christy and Governale joined the show by September.
When Stern moved to SIRIUS XM Radio in January 2006, he gave Christy his own show that would air semi-regularly throughout the year. On May 15, 2006, porn star Hillary Scott was the first guest on Inside the Porn Actors Studio on Howard 101, an hour-long program which parodied the television series Inside the Actors Studio, with Christy filling the role of James Lipton.
Between 2005 and the tour's demise in late 2009, Christy also performed in The Killers of Comedy Tour with fellow Stern castmembers across the United States and Canada.
In 2006, Christy hosted a program on SIRIUS XM channel Hard Attack called "Richard Christy's Heavy Metal Hoedown".
After the 2009 Thanksgiving holiday, Christy returned to the show suffering from swelling and severe pain in his foot. It was later diagnosed as gout, which is extremely rare in someone as young as Christy. The pain and swelling quickly receded after treatment, and he announced on December 17, 2009 that because of his fame and his frank on-air discussions about the disease, a gout awareness organization had requested that he become a spokesperson for the disease, and he had agreed.
On the December 17, 2009 Howard Stern Show, Christy announced that not only had he showered the previous day, but that he also became engaged to his long time girlfriend, known on the show only as "Kristen the Intern".
Among the most frequent victims of Christy's calls are shows on the public access Manhattan Neighborhood Network.
On June 8, 2006, during the Artie Lange roast, Sal Governale and Christy had their temperatures taken rectally by Robin Quivers. Governale and Christy held hands during the "examination" and then chased each other around the studio with their soiled thermometers (which are now rumored to be taped to the door to their office).
On April 6, 2009 It was reported that Richard would perform fellatio on a man if it would mean Seth MacFarlane would come on the show as a guest. Although Richard denied this claim, he reluctantly agreed to Howard's offer that he allow porn star Nick Manning to ejaculate on his back for the chance to meet McFarlane. Later on in the show, Richard asked that Sal be the one to do the stunt instead, to which Howard agreed but Sal did not.
Christy made his directorial debut in 1995 with "Evil Ned 3 - The Return of Evil Ned 2 - Electric Boogaloo". The film was a low budget horror-comedy shot for only $250. His next movie, Leaving Grunion County, is about a small town mechanic who ventures to the big-city to pursue his dream of becoming a country-western singer. Recently, he has completed his latest feature, "Majestic Loincloth", which is set in the time of Vikings.
Along with Governale, Christy starred in, co-wrote, and co-directed the 2006 short film Supertwink. Supertwink premiered on Howard Stern On Demand, and was reviewed by Richard Roeper, who panned it. Christy also appeared in Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay playing the role of a Ku Klux Klansman.
In July 2007, Richard was cast in his first television role. He will play "really creepy guy at end of bar" on Rescue Me. Richard has also announced that he recorded voiceover work for the Adult Swim show Metalocalypse.
Christy has been attached to the movie Body Farm, a Pittsburgh based film by Bridge City Films set to begin production in November 2008.
Christy and Governale are both characters in the 2009 horror novel, Castaways, written by award-winning horror and crime novelist Brian Keene.
In 2009, he appeared as Caleb in the Redneck Slasher Albino Farm and presented his movie at Fangoria Trinity of Terrors.
;With Death
;With Control Denied
;With Burning Inside
;With Iced Earth
;With Leash Law
;With Charred Walls of the Damned
In addition to these bands, Christy has performed live shows with Dream Theater, Tiwanaku, Rick Renstrom, Syzygy, Bung Dizee, Incantation, Public Assassin, Wykked Wytch and Demons and Wizards.
Category:1974 births Category:American heavy metal drummers Category:American radio writers Category:Iced Earth members Category:Death (band) members Category:Musicians from Kansas Category:Living people Category:People from Bourbon County, Kansas Category:Sirius Satellite Radio
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| Caption | Shore in 2008 |
|---|---|
| Name | Pauly Shore |
| Birthdate | February 01, 1968 |
| Birthplace | Hollywood, California, U.S. |
| Birthname | Paul Montgomery Shore |
| Occupation | Actor, comedian |
| Yearsactive | 1989–present |
Paul Montgomery "Pauly" Shore (born February 1, 1968) is an American comedian and actor who starred in several comedy films in the 1990s and hosted a video show on MTV in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Shore is currently performing stand-up comedy.
Category:Living people Category:1968 births Category:American comedians Category:American film actors Category:American film directors Category:American musicians Category:American satirists Category:American screenwriters Category:American stand-up comedians
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| Caption | During the Paris premiere of Public Enemies in July 2009 |
|---|---|
| Birth date | June 09, 1963 |
| Birth place | Owensboro, Kentucky, U.S. |
| Birth name | John Christopher Depp II |
| Spouse | Lori Anne Allison (1983–1986) |
| Partner | Sherilyn Fenn (1985–1988)Winona Ryder (1989–1993)Kate Moss (1994–1998)Vanessa Paradis (1998–present) |
| Years active | 1984–present |
| Occupation | Actor, screenwriter, director, producer, musician |
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II (born June 9, 1963) is an American actor and musician known for his portrayals of offbeat, eccentric characters in a wide variety of dramas and fantasy films. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for major roles in recent films.
Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, quickly becoming a teen idol. Turning to film, he was notable as the title character of Edward Scissorhands (1990), and later found box office success in films such as Sleepy Hollow (1999), (2003), and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005).
He has collaborated with director and close friend Tim Burton in seven films, the most recent of which are (2007) and Alice in Wonderland (2010). Depp has gained acclaim for his portrayals of people such as Edward D. Wood, Jr., in Ed Wood, Joseph D. Pistone in Donnie Brasco, Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and George Jung in Blow. More recently, he portrayed the bank robber John Dillinger in Michael Mann's 2009 film Public Enemies.
Films featuring Depp have grossed over $2.6 billion at the United States box office and over $6 billion worldwide. He has been nominated for top awards numerous times; he won the Best Actor Awards from the Golden Globes for his role in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and from the Screen Actors Guild for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
On December 24, 1983, Depp married Lori Anne Allison, a makeup artist and sister of his band's bass player and singer. During Depp's marriage, his wife worked as a makeup artist while he worked a variety of odd jobs, including a telemarketer for pens. His wife introduced him to actor Nicolas Cage, who advised Depp to pursue an acting career. They divorced in 1985. Depp later dated and was engaged to Sherilyn Fenn (whom he met on the set of the 1985 short film Dummies).
and goatee similar to the style used in .]]
Critics have described Depp's roles as characters who are "iconic loners." Depp has noted this period of his career was full of "studio defined failures" and films that were "box office poison," but he thought the studios never understood the films and did not do a good job of marketing. but the character became popular with the movie-going public. The film's director, Gore Verbinski, has said that Depp's character closely resembles the actor's personality, but Depp said he modelled the character after Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. Depp was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for the role.
In 2004, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, for playing Scottish author J. M. Barrie in the film Finding Neverland. Depp next starred as Willy Wonka in the 2005 film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a major success at the box office and earning him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy.
Depp returned to the role of Jack Sparrow for the sequel , which opened on July 7, 2006 and grossed $135.5 million in the first three days of its U.S. release, breaking a box office record of the highest weekend tally. The next sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean, , was released May 24, 2007. Depp has said that Sparrow is "definitely a big part of me", and he wants to play the role in further sequels. Depp voiced Sparrow in the video game, . Johnny Depp's swashbuckling sword talents as developed for the character of Jack Sparrow, were highlighted in the documentary film Reclaiming the Blade. Within the film, Swordmaster Bob Anderson shared his experiences working with Depp on the choreography for The Curse of the Black Pearl. Anderson who also trained Errol Flynn, another famous Hollywood pirate, described in the film Depp's ability as an actor to pick up the sword to be, "about as good as you can get."
Depp and Gore Verbinski were executive producers of the album Rogues Gallery, Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys. Depp played the title role of Sweeney Todd in Tim Burton's of , for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Depp thanked the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and praised Tim Burton for his "unwavering trust and support." He portrayed the Mad Hatter in Burton's Alice in Wonderland, and will play Tonto in a future Lone Ranger film. Disney Studios announced a of the Pirates series is in development. At the time, the actor was depressed about films and filmmaking. This part gave him a "chance to stretch out and have some fun"; he said working with Landau "rejuvenated my love for acting".
Depp did not work with Burton again until 2005 in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in which he played Willy Wonka. Depp modeled the character's hair on Anna Wintour. The film was a box office success and received positive critical reception. Gene Wilder, who played Willy Wonka in the 1971 film, initially criticized this version. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was released in July, followed by Corpse Bride, for which Depp voiced the character Victor Van Dort, in September.
(2007) followed, bringing Depp his second major award win, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy as well as his third nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Burton first gave him an original cast recording of the in 2000. Although not a fan of the musical genre, Depp grew to like the tale's treatment. He cited Peter Lorre in Mad Love (1935) as his main influence for the role, and practiced the songs his character would perform while filming . Although he had performed in musical groups, Depp was initially unsure that he would be able to sustain Stephen Sondheim's lyrics. Depp recorded demos and worked with Bruce Witkin to shape his vocals without a qualified voice coach. In the DVD Reviews section, Entertainment Weekly's Chris Nashawaty gave the film an A minus, stating, "Depp's soaring voice makes you wonder what other tricks he's been hiding... Watching Depp's barber wield his razors... it's hard not to be reminded of Edward Scissorhands frantically shaping hedges into animal topiaries 18 years ago... and all of the twisted beauty we would've missed out on had [Burton and Depp] never met."
In his introduction to Burton on Burton, a book of interviews with the director, Depp called Burton "...a brother, a friend,...and [a] brave soul". The next Depp-Burton collaboration was Alice in Wonderland (2010). Depp played the Mad Hatter alongside Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway and Alan Rickman.
In 1994, Depp was arrested and questioned by police for allegedly causing serious damage to a New York City hotel suite. Since 1998, following a relationship with British supermodel Kate Moss, Depp has had a relationship with Vanessa Paradis, a French actress and singer whom he met while filming The Ninth Gate. He was arrested again in 1999 for brawling with paparazzi outside a restaurant while dining in London with Paradis.
The couple have two children. Daughter Lily-Rose Melody Depp was born May 27, 1999, and son John "Jack" Christopher Depp III was born April 9, 2002. In 2007, his daughter recovered from a serious illness, an E. coli infection that began to cause her kidneys to shut down and resulted in an extended hospital stay. To thank Great Ormond Street Hospital, Depp visited the hospital in November 2007 dressed in his Captain Jack Sparrow outfit and spent 4 hours reading stories to the children. He later donated £1 million (about $2 million) to the hospital in early 2008.
Although Depp has not remarried, he has stated that having children has given him "real foundation, a real strong place to stand in life, in work, in everything." Depp also acquired a vineyard estate in the Plan-de-la-Tour area in 2007.
Depp has 13 tattoos, many of them signifying important persons or events in his life. They include a Native American in profile and a ribbon reading "Wino Forever" (originally "Winona Forever", altered after his breakup with Winona Ryder) on his right biceps, "Lily-Rose" (his daughter's name) over his heart, "Betty Sue" (his mother's name) on his left biceps, and a sparrow flying over water with the word "Jack" (his son's name; the sparrow is flying towards him rather than away from him as it is in Pirates of the Caribbean) on his right forearm.
In 2003, Depp's comments about the United States appeared in Germany's Stern magazine: "America is dumb, is something like a dumb puppy that has big teeth — that can bite and hurt you, aggressive."
On October 8, 2010, Depp made an unannounced appearance at a London Primary School near where he was filming scenes for the fourth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean film series. He turned up dressed as his character Jack Sparrow after receiving a letter from a pupil asking for his help with a class mutiny.
As a guitar player, Depp has recorded a solo album, played slide guitar on the Oasis song "Fade In-Out" (from Be Here Now, 1997), as well as on "Fade Away (Warchild Version)" (b-side of the "Don't Go Away" single). He also played acoustic guitar in the movie Chocolat and on the soundtrack to Once Upon a Time in Mexico. He is a friend of The Pogues' Shane MacGowan, and performed on MacGowan's first solo album. He was also a member of P, a group featuring Butthole Surfers singer Gibby Haynes and Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea. He has appeared in Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers' music video "Into the Great Wide Open".
Some of the awards that Depp has won include honors from the London Film Critics Circle (1996), Russian Guild of Film Critics (1998), Screen Actors Guild Awards (2004) and a Golden Globe for Best Actor. At the 2008 MTV Movie Awards, he won the award for "Best Villain" for his portrayal of Sweeney Todd and "Best Comedic Performance" for Jack Sparrow. Depp has been nominated for three Academy Awards, in 2004 for , in 2005 for Finding Neverland, and in 2008 for . Depp won his first Golden Globe for his portrayal of Sweeney Todd in 2008.
{| class="wikitable" |+ Producer |- ! Year ! Title ! Notes |- | 2010 | The Rum Diary | post-production |- | 2011 | Hugo Cabret | filming |- | 2004 | King of the Hill | Yogi Victor (voice) | Episode: "Hank's Back" |- | 2009 | SpongeBob SquarePants | Jack Kahuna Laguna (voice) || Episode: "SpongeBob vs. The Big One"
}}
Category:American expatriates in France Category:American film actors Category:American film directors Category:American film producers Category:American people of Cherokee descent Category:American actors of German descent Category:American television actors Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Actors from Kentucky Category:Actors from Florida Category:American people of Irish descent
Category:People from Owensboro, Kentucky Category:1963 births Category:Living people Category:American actors of French descent Category:People of Huguenot descent
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| Name | Jessica Hahn |
|---|---|
| Birth date | July 07, 1959 |
| Birth place | Massapequa, Long Island, New York, USA |
| Yearsactive | 1991–1996 |
| Domesticpartner | Ron Leavitt [1991-2008 (his death)] |
Jessica Hahn (born July 7, 1959) is an American model and actress. She is best known for a sex scandal involving televangelist Jim Bakker while she was employed as a church secretary.
Category:Religious scandals Category:People from Long Island Category:1959 births Category:Living people Category:Assemblies of God people
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| Name | Jesse James |
|---|---|
| Caption | Jesse James c. 1882 |
| Birth name | Jesse Woodson James |
| Birth date | September 05, 1847 |
| Birth place | Clay County, Missouri, USA |
| Death date | April 03, 1882 |
| Death place | St. Joseph, Missouri, USA |
| Known for | Robbery |
| Nationality | American |
| Spouse | Zerelda Mimms |
| Children | Jesse E. James, Mary James Barr |
| Parents | Robert S. James, Zerelda Cole James |
Jesse James (September 5, 1847 – April 3, 1882) was an American outlaw, gang leader, bank robber, train robber, and murderer from the state of Missouri and the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang. Already a celebrity when he was alive, he became a legendary figure of the Wild West after his death. Some recent scholars place him in the context of regional insurgencies of ex-Confederates following the American Civil War rather than a manifestation of frontier lawlessness or alleged economic justice.
Jesse and his brother Frank James were Confederate guerrillas during the Civil War. They were accused of participating in atrocities committed against Union soldiers. After the war, as members of one gang or another, they robbed banks, stagecoaches, and trains. Despite popular portrayals of James as a kind of Robin Hood, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, there is no evidence that he and his gang used their robbery gains for anyone but themselves.
The James brothers were most active with their gang from about 1866 until 1876, when their attempted robbery of a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, resulted in the capture or deaths of several members. They continued in crime for several years, recruiting new members, but were under increasing pressure from law enforcement. On April 3, 1882, Jesse James was killed by Robert Ford, who was a member of the gang living in the James house and who was hoping to collect a state reward on James' head.
His father, Robert S. James, of Welsh ancestry, was a commercial hemp farmer and Baptist minister in Kentucky, who migrated to Bradford, Missouri after marriage and helped found William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri. and died there when Jesse was three years old.
After the death of Robert James, his widow Zerelda remarried twice, first to Benjamin Simms and then in 1855 to Dr. Reuben Samuel, who moved into the James' home. Jesse's mother and Reuben Samuel had four children together: Sarah Louisa, John Thomas, Fannie Quantrell, and Archie Peyton Samuel. Zerelda and Reuben Samuel acquired a total of seven slaves, who served mainly as farmhands in tobacco cultivation in Missouri.
The approach of the American Civil War overshadowed the James-Samuel household. Missouri was a border state, sharing characteristics of both North and South, but 75% of the population was from the South or other border states.
After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, Clay County became the scene of great turmoil, as the question of whether slavery would be expanded into the neighboring Kansas Territory came to dominate public life. Numerous people from Missouri migrated to Kansas to try to influence its future. Much of the tension that led up to the Civil War centered on the violence that erupted in Kansas between pro- and anti-slavery militias.
The James-Samuel family took the Confederate side at the outset of the war. Frank James joined a local company recruited for the secessionist Drew Lobbs Army, and fought at the Battle of Wilson's Creek, though he fell ill and returned home soon afterward. In 1863, he was identified as a member of a guerrilla squad that operated in Clay County. In May of that year, a Union militia company raided the James-Samuel farm, looking for Frank's group. They tortured Reuben Samuel by briefly hanging him from a tree. According to legend, they lashed young Jesse.
Frank James followed Quantrill to Texas over the winter of 1863–4. In the spring he returned in a squad commanded by Fletch Taylor. After they arrived in Clay County, 16-year-old Jesse James joined his brother in Taylor's group. As a result of the James brothers' activities, the Union military authorities made their family leave Clay County. Though ordered to move South beyond Union lines, instead they moved across the nearby state border into Nebraska.
After Anderson was killed in an ambush in October, the James brothers separated. Frank followed Quantrill into Kentucky; Jesse went to Texas under the command of Archie Clement, one of Anderson's lieutenants. He is known to have returned to Missouri in the spring.
Jesse recovered from his chest wound at his uncle's Missouri boardinghouse, where he was tended to by his first cousin, Zerelda "Zee" Mimms, named after Jesse's mother. the robbery of the Clay County Savings Association in the town of Liberty, Missouri, on February 13, 1866. This bank was owned by Republican former militia officers who had recently conducted the first Republican Party rally in Clay County's history. One innocent bystander, a student of William Jewell College (which James's father had helped to found), was shot dead on the street during the gang's escape. It remains unclear whether Jesse and Frank took part. After their later robberies took place and they became legends, there were those who credited them with being the leaders of the Clay County robbery.
This was a time of increasing local violence; Governor Fletcher had recently ordered a company of militia into Johnson County to suppress guerrilla activity. Archie Clement continued his career of crime and harassment of the Republican government, to the extent of occupying the town of Lexington, Missouri, on election day in 1866. Shortly afterward, the state militia shot Clement dead, an event James wrote about with bitterness a decade later. On May 23, 1867, for example, they robbed a bank in Richmond, Missouri, in which they killed the mayor and two others. It remains uncertain whether either of the James brothers took part, although an eyewitness who knew the brothers told a newspaper seven years later "positively and emphatically that he recognized Jesse and Frank James ... among the robbers." In 1868, Frank and Jesse James allegedly joined Cole Younger in robbing a bank at Russellville, Kentucky.
Jesse James did not become famous, however, until December 7, 1869, when he and (most likely) Frank robbed the Daviess County Savings Association in Gallatin, Missouri. The robbery netted little money, but it appears that Jesse shot and killed the cashier, Captain John Sheets, mistakenly believing him to be Samuel P. Cox, the militia officer who had killed "Bloody Bill" Anderson during the Civil War. James's self-proclaimed attempt at revenge, and the daring escape he and Frank made through the middle of a posse shortly afterward, put his name in the newspapers for the first time. An 1882 history of Daviess County said, "The history of Daviess County has no blacker crime in its pages than the murder of John W. Sheets."
The 1869 robbery marked the emergence of Jesse James as the most famous of the former guerrillas turned outlaw. It marked the first time he was publicly labeled an "outlaw," as Missouri Governor Thomas T. Crittenden set a reward for his capture.
Meanwhile, the James brothers joined with Cole Younger and his brothers John, Jim, and Bob as well as Clell Miller and other former Confederates to form what came to be known as the James-Younger Gang. With Jesse James as the public face of the gang (though with operational leadership likely shared among the group), the gang carried out a string of robberies from Iowa to Texas, and from Kansas to West Virginia. They robbed banks, stagecoaches, and a fair in Kansas City, often in front of large crowds, even hamming it up for the bystanders.
On July 21, 1873, they turned to train robbery, derailing the Rock Island train in Adair, Iowa and stealing approximately $3,000 ($51,000 in 2007). For this, they wore Ku Klux Klan masks, deliberately taking on a potent symbol years after the Klan had been suppressed in the South by President Grant's use of the Force Acts. Former rebels attacked the railroads as symbols of threatening centralization. The James' gang's later train robberies had a lighter touch. In fact, in only two train hold-ups did they rob passengers, because James typically limited himself to the express safe in the baggage car. Such techniques reinforced the Robin Hood image that Edwards created in his newspapers, but the James gang never shared any of the robbery money outside their circle.
Allan Pinkerton, the agency's founder and leader, took on the case as a personal vendetta. He began to work with former Unionists who lived near the James family farm. On the night of January 25, 1875, he staged a raid on the homestead. Detectives threw an incendiary device into the house; it exploded, killing James's young half-brother Archie (named for Archie Clement) and blowing off one of the arms of mother Zerelda Samuel. Afterward, Pinkerton denied that the raid's intent was arson. But biographer Ted Yeatman located a letter by Pinkerton in the Library of Congress in which Pinkerton declared his intention to "burn the house down."
The raid on the family home outraged many, and did more than all of Edwards's columns to create sympathy for Jesse James. The Missouri state legislature only narrowly defeated a bill that praised the James and Younger brothers and offered them amnesty. Allowed to vote and hold office again, former Confederates voted to limit reward offers that the governor could make for fugitives. This extended a measure of protection over the James-Younger gang. (Only Frank and Jesse James previously had been singled out for rewards larger than the new limit.)
On September 7, 1876, the James-Younger gang attempted a raid on the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota. After this robbery and a manhunt, only Frank and Jesse James were left alive and uncaptured. Cole and Bob Younger later stated that they selected the bank because they believed it was associated with the Republican politician Adelbert Ames, the governor of Mississippi during Reconstruction, and Union general Benjamin Butler, Ames' father-in-law and the Union commander of occupied New Orleans. Ames was a stockholder in the bank, but Butler had no direct connection to it.
To carry out the robbery, the gang divided into two groups. Three men entered the bank, two guarded the door outside, and three remained near a bridge across an adjacent square. The robbers inside the bank were thwarted when acting cashier Joseph Lee Heywood refused to open the safe, falsely claiming that it was secured by a time lock even as they held a bowie knife to his throat and cracked his skull with a pistol butt. Assistant cashier Alonzo Enos Bunker was wounded in the shoulder as he fled out the back door of the bank. Meanwhile, the citizens of Northfield grew suspicious of the men guarding the door and raised the alarm. The five bandits outside fired in the air to clear the streets, which drove the townspeople to take cover and fire back from protected positions. Two bandits were shot dead and the rest were wounded in the barrage. Inside, the outlaws turned to flee. As they left, one shot the unarmed cashier Heywood in the head. Historians have speculated about the identity of the shooter but have not reached consensus on his identity.
The gang barely escaped Northfield, leaving two dead companions behind. They killed two innocent victims, Heywood, and Nicholas Gustafson, a Swedish immigrant from the Millersburg community west of Northfield. A massive manhunt ensued. The James brothers eventually split from the others and escaped to Missouri. The militia soon discovered the Youngers and one other bandit, Charlie Pitts. In a gunfight, Pitts died and the Youngers were taken prisoner. Except for Frank and Jesse James, the James-Younger Gang was destroyed.
Later in 1876, Jesse and Frank James surfaced in the Nashville, Tennessee area, where they went by the names of Thomas Howard and B. J. Woodson, respectively. Frank seemed to settle down, but Jesse remained restless. He recruited a new gang in 1879 and returned to crime, holding up a train at Glendale, Missouri (now part of Independence, Missouri), on October 8, 1879. The robbery was the first of a spree of crimes, including the holdup of the federal paymaster of a canal project in Killen, Alabama, and two more train robberies. But the new gang did not consist of battle-hardened guerrillas; they soon turned against each other or were captured, while James grew paranoid, killing one gang member and frightening away another.
With authorities growing suspicious, by 1881 the brothers returned to Missouri where they felt safer. In December, Jesse rented a house in Saint Joseph, Missouri, not far from where he had been born and raised. Frank, however, decided to move to safer territory, heading east to Virginia.
With his gang nearly annihilated, James trusted only the Ford brothers, Charley and Robert. Although Charley had been out on raids with James, Bob was an eager new recruit. For protection, James asked the Ford brothers to move in with him and his family. James had often stayed with their sister Martha Bolton and, according to rumor, he was "smitten" with her. James' two previous bullet wounds and partially missing middle finger served to positively identify the body.
The governor's quick pardon suggested that he knew that the brothers intended to kill James rather than capture him. Like many who knew James, the Ford brothers never believed it was practical to try to take him into custody. The implication that the chief executive of Missouri conspired to kill a private citizen startled the public and added to James' notoriety.
After receiving a small portion of the reward, the Fords fled Missouri. Law enforcement officials active in the plan also shared the bounty. Later the Ford brothers starred in a touring stage show in which they reenacted the shooting.
Suffering from tuberculosis (then incurable) and a morphine addiction, Charley Ford committed suicide on May 6, 1884, in Richmond, Missouri. Bob Ford operated a tent saloon in Creede, Colorado. On June 8, 1892, a man named Edward O'Kelley, went to Creede on a personal vendetta with avenging James. He loaded a double barrel shotgun, entered Ford's saloon and said "Hello, Bob" before shooting Bob Ford in the throat, killing him instantly. O'Kelley was sentenced to life in prison. O'Kelley's sentence was subsequently commuted because of a 7,000 signature petition in favor of his release. The governor pardoned him on October 3, 1902.
James' mother Zerelda Samuel wrote the following epitaph for him: In Loving Memory of my Beloved Son, Murdered by a Traitor and Coward Whose Name is not Worthy to Appear Here. This theme resurfaced in a 2009 documentary, Jesse James' Hidden Treasure, which aired on the History Channel. The documentary was dismissed as pseudo-history and pseudo-science by historian Nancy Samuelson in a review she wrote for Winter, 2009-2010 edition of The James-Younger Gang Journal.
One prominent claimant was J. Frank Dalton, who died August 15, 1951, in Granbury, Texas. Dalton was allegedly 101 years old at the time of his first public appearance, in May 1948. His story did not hold up to questioning from James' surviving relatives.
In the 1880s, after James' death, the James Gang became the subject of dime novels that represented the bandits as pre-industrial models of resistance.
Jesse James remains a controversial symbol, one who can always be interpreted in various ways, according to cultural tensions and needs. Although some of the neo-Confederate movement regard him as a hero renewed cultural battles over the place of the Civil War in American history have replaced the long-standing interpretation of James as a Western frontier hero. Some point to his absolute commitment to slavery and his vow after the Civil War to shoot any black in Missouri not fulfilling the role of a slave.
While his "heroic outlaw" image is still commonly portrayed in films, as well as in songs and folklore, recent historians place him as a self-aware vigilante and terrorist who used local tensions to create his own myth among the widespread insurgent guerrillas and vigilantes following the American Civil War. Jesse James Home Museum: The house where Jesse James was killed in south St. Joseph was moved in 1939 to the Belt Highway on St. Joseph's east side to attract tourists. In 1977 it was moved to its current location, near Patee House, which was the headquarters of the Pony Express. The house is now owned and operated by the Pony Express Historical Association. First National Bank of Northfield: The Northfield Historical Society in Northfield, Minnesota, has restored the building that housed the First National Bank, the scene of the 1876 raid.
Jesse James' boyhood home in Kearney, Missouri, is a museum dedicated to the town's most famous resident. Each year a recreational fair, the Jesse James Festival, is held during the third weekend in September.
During the annual Labor Day weekend Victorian Festival at the 1866 Col. William H. Fulkerson estate Hazel Dell in Jersey County, Illinois, Jesse James' history is told in stories and by reenactments of stagecoach holdups. Over the three-day event, thousands of spectators learn of the documented James Gang's stopping point at Hazel Dell and of their connection with ex-Confederate Fulkerson.
Russellville, Kentucky, the site of the robbery of the Southern Bank in 1868, holds the Jesse James International Arts and Film Festival. The JJIAFF completed its second annual event in April 2008 and the third annual is planned for April 25, 2009. The festival has featured a bluegrass band from San Francisco and experimental bands from southern Kentucky as well as painters, sculptors, photographers, and comic artists. Children's activities are a mainstay of the festival. A highlight for adults is the film festival held at the Logan County Public Library in Russellville. Past entrants have included films from Norway and northwestern Kentucky, modern silent film projects, nature studies, and fan films.
In addition, the annual Tobacco and Heritage Festival in Russellville features a reenactment of the James-Younger Gang's robbery of the Southern Bank. Today used as a residence, the historic structure on South Main Street has been preserved by the town and county.
The small town of Oak Grove, Louisiana, also hosts a town-wide annual Jesse James Trade Days, usually in the early to mid fall. This is a reference to a short time James supposedly spent near this area.
In Charles Portis's 1968 novel, True Grit, the U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn describes fighting with Cole Younger and Frank James for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Long after his adventure with Mattie Ross, Cogburn ends his days in a traveling road show with the aged Cole Younger and Frank James.
During his travel to the "Wilde West," Oscar Wilde visited Jesse James' hometown in Missouri. Learning that James had been assassinated by his own gang member, "...an event that sent the town into mourning and scrambling to buy Jesse's artifacts," "romantic appeal of the social outcast" in his mind, Wilde wrote in one of his letters to home that: "Americans are certainly great hero-worshippers, and always take [their] heroes from the criminal classes."
A somewhat different song titled "Jesse James," referring to Jesse's "wife to mourn for his life; three children, they were brave," and calling Robert Ford "the dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard," was also the first track recorded by the "Stewart Years" version of the Kingston Trio at their initial recording session in 1961 (and included on that year's release Close-Up).
Echoing the Confederate hero aspect, Hank Williams, Jr.'s 1983 Southern anthem "Whole Lot Of Hank" has the lyrics "Frank and Jesse James knowed how to rob them trains, they always took it from the rich and gave it to the poor, they might have had a bad name but they sure had a heart of gold."
Rock band James Gang was named after Jesse James's gang. Their final album, released in 1976, was titled Jesse Come Home.
Warren Zevon's 1976 self-titled album Warren Zevon includes the song "Frank and Jesse James," a romantic tribute to the James Gang's exploits, expressing much sympathy with their "cause." Its lyrics encapsulate the many legends that grew up around the life and death of Jesse James. The album contains a second reference to Jesse James in the song "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" with the lyric "Well, I met a girl in West Hollywood, I ain't naming names. She really worked me over good, she was just like Jesse James." Linda Ronstadt covered the song a year later with slightly altered lyrics.
In her album Heart of Stone (1989), Cher included a song titled "Just Like Jesse James," written by Diane Warren. This single, which was released in 1990, achieved high positions in the charts and sold 1,500,000 copies worldwide.
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's album Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy features the song "Jesse James," ostensibly recorded on a wire recorder.
Jon Chandler has also written a song about Jesse and Frank James entitled "He Was No Hero," written from the perspective of Joe Hayward's widow cursing Bob Ford for cheating her out of killing Jesse James.
Around 1980 a concept album titled The Legend of Jesse James was released. It was written by Paul Kennerley and starred Levon Helm (The Band) as Jesse James, Johnny Cash as Frank James, Emmylou Harris as Zee James, Charlie Daniels as Cole Younger, and Albert Lee as Jim Younger. There are also appearances by Rodney Crowell, Jody Payne, and Roseanne Cash. The album highlights Jesse's life from 1863 to his death in 1882. In 1999 a double CD was released containing The Legend Of Jesse James and White Mansions, another concept album by Kennerley about life in the Confederate States of America between 1861-1865.
Category:1847 births Category:1882 deaths Category:1869 crimes Category:1882 crimes Category:People of the American Old West Category:People from Clay County, Missouri Category:American people of Welsh descent Category:American bank robbers Category:American murder victims Category:Outlaws of the American Old West Category:Bushwhackers Category:James-Younger Gang Category:Missouri State Guard Category:People murdered in Missouri Category:Deaths by firearm in Missouri Category:American folklore
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When visiting the Stern show, Van Dam is given material by the show's staff. The nature of the material is often crude, and includes themes of homophobia, murder, pedophilia, racism, and anti-Semitism.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Eazy-E |
|---|---|
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Eric Lynn Wright |
| Born | September 07, 1963Compton, California, U.S. |
| Died | March 26, 1995Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Rapper, CEO, record producer |
| Genre | Gangsta rap, West Coast hip hop, gangsta funk |
| Years active | 1985–1995 |
| Label | Ruthless, Priority, Relativity, Epic, MCA |
| Associated acts | DJ Yella, N.W.A., Rhythum D, Naughty by Nature, Cold 187um, Above the Law, B.G. Knocc Out & Dresta, Kokane, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Brownside, Kid Frost, Compton's Most Wanted, Roger Troutman |
Eazy's main influences include Ice-T, Redd Foxx, King Tee, Bootsy Collins, Run-D.M.C., Richard Pryor, The Egyptian Lover, Schoolly D, Too $hort, Prince, The Sugarhill Gang, and George Clinton. When reviewing Eazy's albums, many critics noted his unique overall style, with Steve Huey of the All Music Guide summing up: "While his technical skills as a rapper were never the greatest, his distinctive delivery (invariably described as a high-pitched whine), over-the-top lyrics, and undeniable charisma made him a star." His father was a postal worker and his mother was a grade school administrator. Wright dropped out of high school in the tenth grade and supported himself by selling drugs. His profit went to invest in Ruthless Records. He was also a member of the Kelly Park Compton Crip during his teen years, and he openly associated himself with other Crips. He later received a high school equivalency diploma. In 1986, at the age of 23, Wright had allegedly earned as much as $250,000 (USD) from dealing drugs. However, he decided that he could make a better living by becoming involved with the Los Angeles hip-hop scene, which was growing rapidly in popularity. He then began recording songs during the mid-1980s in the garage of his parents' home.
Eazy-E's debut album, Eazy-Duz-It, was released on September 16, 1988, and featured twelve tracks. It featured the musical genres West Coast hip hop, Gangsta rap, and Golden age hip hop. It has sold over 2.5 million copies in the United States and reached number forty-one on the Billboard 200. The album was produced by Dr. Dre and DJ Yella and largely written by Ice Cube, with contributions from MC Ren and The D.O.C.. After the release of Straight Outta Compton, Ice Cube left due to internal disputes, and the group had since continued as a four-piece. In March 1991, Eazy-E accepted an invitation to a lunch benefiting the Republican Senatorial Inner Circle, hosted by then-President George H. W. Bush. A spokesman for the rapper claimed that Eazy-E supported Bush for overseeing Operation Desert Storm.
The feud with Dr. Dre continued after a track on Dre's The Chronic contained lyrics that dissed Eazy-E. Eazy responded with the EP It's On (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa, featuring the tracks "Real Muthaphuckkin G's" and "It's On". The album, which was released on October 25, 1993, contains pictures of Dre when he was a member of the Electro-hop World Class Wreckin' Cru, where the pictures show Dre wearing "lacy outfits and makeup." Klein, former Ruthless Records director of business affairs said this provided Ruthless Records with muscle to enter into negotiations with Death Row Records over Dr. Dre's departure. While Suge Knight violently sought an outright release from Ruthless Records for Dr. Dre, the JDL and Ruthless Records management were able to sit down with Death Row and negotiate a release in which the record label would continue to receive money and publishing rights from future Dr. Dre projects. It was under these terms that Dr. Dre left Ruthless Records and formed Death Row with Suge Knight. He died due to "complications from AIDS" one month after his diagnosis, on March 26, 1995, at approximately 6:35 PM (Pacific time). He was 31 years old. During the week of March 20, having already made amends with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, Eazy-E drafted his last message to fans. One week after making that announcement, Wright succumbed to the disease. Eazy was buried at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California. In November 1995, shortly after Eazy-E's death, Str8 off tha Streetz of Muthaphukkin Compton was released.
When reviewing for Str8 off tha Streetz of Muthaphukkin Compton, Stephen Thomas Erlewine noted "…Eazy-E sounds revitalized, but the music simply isn't imaginative. Instead of pushing forward and creating a distinctive style, it treads over familiar gangsta territory, complete with bottomless bass, whining synthesizers, and meaningless boasts." When reviewing Eazy-Duz-It Jason Birchmeier of Allmusic said "In terms of production, Dr. Dre and Yella meld together P-Funk, Def Jam-style hip-hop, and the leftover electro sounds of mid-'80s Los Angeles, creating a dense, funky, and thoroughly unique style of their own." Birchmeier also described Eazy's style as "dense, unique, and funky," and claimed that it sounded "absolutely revolutionary in 1988." Steve Huey of Allmusic said "while his technical skills as a rapper were never the greatest, his distinctive delivery (invariably described as a high-pitched whine), over-the-top lyrics, and undeniable charisma made him a star." In features a song written by Naughty By Nature. The track "Merry Muthaphuckkin' Xmas" features Menajahtwa, Buckwheat, and Atban Klann as guest vocalists, and "Neighborhood Sniper" features Kokane as a guest vocalist. It's On (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa features several guest vocalists, including Gangsta Dresta, B.G. Knocc Out. Kokane, Cold 187um, Rhythum D, and Dirty Red. Str8 off tha Streetz of Muthaphukkin Compton also featured several guest vocalists, including B.G. Knocc Out, Gangsta Dresta, Sylk-E. Fyne, Dirty Red, Menajahtwa, Roger Troutman, and ex-N.W.A members MC Ren and DJ Yella.
;With N.W.A
Category:1963 births Category:1995 deaths Category:1990s rappers Category:African American rappers Category:AIDS-related deaths in California Category:American drug traffickers Category:American music industry executives Category:Crips Category:G-funk Category:N.W.A members Category:People from Compton, California Category:Priority Records artists Category:Rappers from Los Angeles, California Category:Ruthless Records artists
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| Name | David Letterman |
|---|---|
| Caption | Speaking at the opening of the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute (September 2009) |
| Pseudonym | Earl Hofert |
| Birth name | David Michael Letterman |
| Birth date | April 12, 1947 |
| Birth place | Indianapolis, Indiana |
| Notable work | Host of Late Night with David Letterman (NBC)Host of Late Show with David Letterman (CBS) |
| Signature | David Letterman Autograph.svg |
Letterman lived on the north side of Indianapolis (Broad Ripple area), not far from Speedway, IN, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and he enjoyed collecting model cars, including racers. In 2000, he told an interviewer for Esquire that, while growing up, he admired his father's ability to tell jokes and be the life of the party. Harry Joseph Letterman survived a heart attack at age 36, when David was a young boy. The fear of losing his father was constantly with Letterman as he grew up. The elder Letterman died of a second heart attack at age 57.
Letterman attended his hometown's Broad Ripple High School at the same time as Marilyn Tucker Quayle (wife of the former Vice President) who lived nearby, and worked as a stock boy at the local Atlas supermarket. According to the Ball State Daily News, he originally had wanted to attend Indiana University, but his grades weren't good enough, so he decided to attend Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana. He is a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity, and he graduated from what was then the Department of Radio and Television, in 1969. A self-described average student, Letterman endowed a scholarship for what he called "C students" at Ball State.
Though he registered for the draft and passed his physical after graduating from College, he avoided military service in Vietnam due to receiving a draft lottery number of 352 (out of 365).
Letterman began his broadcasting career as an announcer and newscaster at the college's student-run radio station—WBST—a 10-watt campus station which now is part of Indiana public radio. He was fired for treating classical music with irreverence.
Letterman credits Paul Dixon—host of the Paul Dixon Show, a Cincinnati-based talk show also shown in Indianapolis while Letterman was growing up—for inspiring his choice of career: :"I was just out of college [in 1969], and I really didn't know what I wanted to do. And then all the sudden I saw him doing it [on TV]. And I thought: That's really what I want to do!"
In 1971, Letterman appeared as a pit road reporter for ABC Sports' tape-delayed coverage of the Indianapolis 500.
Letterman appeared in the summer of 1977 on the short-lived Starland Vocal Band Show. He has since joked about how fortunate he was that nobody would ever see his performance on the program (due to its low ratings).
Letterman had a stint as a cast member on Mary Tyler Moore's variety show, Mary; a guest appearance on Mork & Mindy (as a parody of EST leader Werner Erhard); and appearances on game shows such as The $20,000 Pyramid, The Gong Show, Password Plus and Liar's Club. He also hosted a 1977 pilot for a game show entitled The Riddlers that was never picked up. His dry, sarcastic humor caught the attention of scouts for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and Letterman was soon a regular guest on the show. Letterman became a favorite of Carson's and was a regular guest host for the show beginning in 1978. Letterman personally credits Carson as the person who influenced his career the most.
Letterman's shows have garnered both critical and industry praise, receiving 67 Emmy Award nominations, winning twelve times in his first 20 years in late night television. From 1993–2009, Letterman ranked higher than Leno in the annual Harris Poll of Nation's Favorite TV Personality twelve times. Leno was higher than Letterman on that poll three times during the same period, in 1998, 2007, and 2008.
Letterman recycled the apparent debacle into a long-running gag. On his first show after the Oscars, he joked, "Looking back, I had no idea that thing was being televised." He lampooned his stint in the following year, during Billy Crystal's opening Oscar skit, which also parodied the plane-crashing scenes from that year's chief nominated film, The English Patient.
For years afterward, Letterman recounted his horrible hosting at the Oscars, although the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences still holds Letterman in high regard and it has been rumored they have asked him to host the Oscars again. On September 7, 2010, he made an appearance on the premier of the 14th season of The View, and confirmed the rumors.
During the initial weeks of his recovery, reruns of the Late Show were shown and introduced by friends of Letterman including Drew Barrymore, including Dr. O. Wayne Isom and physician Louis Aronne, who frequently appears on the show. In a show of emotion, Letterman was nearly in tears as he thanked the health care team with the words "These are the people who saved my life!" The episode earned an Emmy nomination. For a number of episodes, Letterman continued to crack jokes about his bypass, including saying, "Bypass surgery: it's when doctors surgically create new blood flow to your heart. A bypass is what happened to me when I didn't get The Tonight Show! It's a whole different thing." In a later running gag he lobbied his home state of Indiana to rename the freeway circling Indianapolis (I-465) "The David Letterman Bypass." He also featured a montage of faux news coverage of his bypass surgery, which included a clip of Dave's heart for sale on the Home Shopping Network. Letterman became friends with his doctors and nurses. In 2008, a Rolling Stone interview stated "he hosted a doctor and nurse who'd helped perform the emergency quintuple-bypass heart surgery that saved his life in 2000. 'These are people who were complete strangers when they opened my chest,' he says. 'And now, eight years later, they're among my best friends.' "
Additionally, Letterman invited the band Foo Fighters to play "Everlong", introducing them as "my favorite band, playing my favorite song." During a later Foo Fighters appearance, Letterman said that Foo Fighters had been in the middle of a South American tour which they canceled to come play on his comeback episode.
Letterman again handed over the reins of the show to several guest hosts (including Bill Cosby, Brad Garrett, Elvis Costello, John McEnroe, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, Bonnie Hunt, Luke Wilson and bandleader Paul Shaffer) in February 2003, when he was diagnosed with a severe case of shingles. Later that year, Letterman made regular use of guest hosts—including Tom Arnold and Kelsey Grammer—for new shows broadcast on Fridays. In March 2007, Adam Sandler—who had been scheduled to be the lead guest—served as a guest host while Letterman was ill with a stomach virus.
On December 4, 2006, CBS revealed that David Letterman signed a new contract to host The Late Show with David Letterman through the fall of 2010. "I'm thrilled to be continuing on at CBS," said Letterman. "At my age you really don't want to have to learn a new commute." Letterman further joked about the subject by pulling up his right pants leg, revealing a tattoo, presumably temporary, of the ABC logo.
"Thirteen years ago, David Letterman put CBS late night on the map and in the process became one of the defining icons of our network," said Leslie Moonves, president and CEO of CBS Corporation. "His presence on our air is an ongoing source of pride, and the creativity and imagination that the Late Show puts forth every night is an ongoing display of the highest quality entertainment. We are truly honored that one of the most revered and talented entertainers of our time will continue to call CBS 'home.'"
According to a 2007 article in Forbes magazine, Letterman earned $40 million a year. A 2009 article in The New York Times, however, said his salary was estimated at $32 million per year.
In June 2009, Letterman and CBS reached agreement to extend his contract to host The Late Show until August 2012. His previous contract had been set to expire in 2010. thus allowing his show to come back on air on January 2, 2008. On his first episode since being off air, he surprised the viewing audience with his newly grown beard, which signified solidarity with the strike. His beard was shaved off during the show on January 7, 2008.
Carson later made a few cameo appearances as a guest on Letterman's show. Carson's final television appearance came May 13, 1994 on a Late Show episode taped in Los Angeles, when he made a surprise appearance during a 'Top 10 list' segment. The audience went wild as Letterman stood up and proudly invited Carson to sit at his desk. The applause was so protracted that Carson was unable to say anything, and he finally returned backstage as the applause continued (it was later explained that Carson had laryngitis, though Carson can be heard talking to Letterman during his appearance).
In early 2005, it was revealed that Carson still kept up with current events and late-night TV right up to his death that year, and that he occasionally sent jokes to Letterman, who used these jokes in his monologue; according to CBS senior vice president Peter Lassally (a onetime producer for both men), Carson got "a big kick out of it." Letterman would do a characteristic Johnny Carson golf swing after delivering one of Carson's jokes. In a tribute to Carson, all of the opening monologue jokes during the first show following Carson's death were written by Carson.
Lassally also claimed that Carson had always believed Letterman, not Leno, to be his "rightful successor." Letterman also frequently employs some of Carson's trademark bits on his show, including "Carnac the Magnificent" (with Paul Shaffer as Carnac), "Stump the Band" and the "Week in Review."
Winfrey and Letterman also appeared together in a Late Show promo that aired during CBS's coverage of Super Bowl XLI in February 2007, with the two sitting next to each other on the couch watching the game. Since the game was played between the Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears, the Indianapolis-born Letterman wears a Peyton Manning jersey, while Winfrey—who tapes her show in Chicago—is in a Brian Urlacher jersey. Three years later, during CBS's coverage of Super Bowl XLIV, the two appeared again, this time with Winfrey sitting on a couch between Letterman and Jay Leno. The appearance was Letterman's idea: Leno flew to New York City in an NBC corporate jet, sneaking into the Ed Sullivan Theater during the Late Show's February 4 taping wearing a disguise, meeting Winfrey and Letterman at a living room set created in the theater's balcony where they taped their promo.
In 2005, Worldwide Pants produced its first feature film, Strangers with Candy, which was a prequel to the Comedy Central TV series of the same title. In 2007, Worldwide Pants produced the ABC comedy series, Knights of Prosperity.
Worldwide Pants made significant news in December 2007 when it was announced that Letterman's company had independently negotiated its own contract with the Writers Guild of America, East, thus allowing Letterman, Craig Ferguson, and their writers to return to work, while the union continued its strike against production companies, networks and studios who had not reached an agreement.
Letterman received the honor for his dedication to the university throughout his career as a comedian. Letterman finished with, "If reasonable people can put my name on a $21 million building, anything is possible."
Letterman also received a Sagamore of the Wabash from Governor Mitch Daniels.
Letterman provided vocals for the Warren Zevon song "Hit Somebody" from My Ride's Here, and provided the voice for Butt-head's father in the 1996 animated film, Beavis and Butt-head Do America. He also had a cameo in the feature film Cabin Boy, with Chris Elliott, who worked as a writer on Letterman's show. In this and other appearances, Letterman is listed in the credits as "Earl Hofert", the name of Letterman's maternal grandfather. He also appeared as himself in the Howard Stern biopic Private Parts as well as the 1999 Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon, in a few episodes of Garry Shandling's 1990s TV series The Larry Sanders Show and in "The Abstinence", a 1996 episode of the sitcom Seinfeld. Letterman also appeared in the pilot episode of the short-lived 1986 series "Coach Toast".
Letterman has a son, Harry Joseph Letterman (born in 2003), with Regina Lasko. Harry is named after Letterman's father. In 2005, police discovered a plot to kidnap Harry Letterman and ransom him for $5 million. Kelly Frank, a house painter who had worked for Letterman, was charged in the conspiracy.
Letterman and Lasko, who had been together since 1986, wed during a quiet courthouse civil ceremony in Choteau, Montana, on March 19, 2009. Letterman announced the marriage during the taping of his March 23 show, shortly after congratulating Bruce Willis for getting married the previous week. Letterman told the audience he nearly missed the ceremony because his truck became stuck in mud two miles from their house. The family resides in North Salem, New York, on a estate.
Letterman stated that three weeks earlier (on September 9, 2009) someone had left a package in his car with material he said he would write into a screenplay and a book if Letterman did not pay him $2 million. Letterman said that he contacted the Manhattan District Attorney's office, ultimately cooperating with them to conduct a sting operation involving giving the man a phony check. The extortionist, Robert J. "Joe" Halderman, a producer of the CBS true crime journalism series 48 Hours, was subsequently arrested after trying to deposit the check. He was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury and pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted grand larceny on October 2, 2009. Birkitt had until recently lived with Halderman, who is alleged to have copied Birkitt's personal diary and to have used it, along with private emails, in the blackmail package.
On October 3, 2009, a former CBS employee, Holly Hester, announced that she and Letterman had engaged in a year-long "secret" affair in the early 1990s while she was his intern and a student at New York University.
In the days following the initial announcement of the affairs and the arrest, several prominent women, including Kathie Lee Gifford, co-host of NBC's Today Show, and NBC news anchor Ann Curry questioned whether Letterman's affairs with subordinates created an unfair working environment. A spokesman for Worldwide Pants said that the company's sexual harassment policy did not prohibit sexual relationships between managers and employees. According to business news reporter Eve Tahmincioglu, "CBS suppliers are supposed to follow the company's business conduct policies" and the CBS 2008 Business Conduct Statement states that "If a consenting romantic or sexual relationship between a supervisor and a direct or indirect subordinate should develop, CBS requires the supervisor to disclose this information to his or her Company's Human Resources Department..."
On October 5, 2009, Letterman devoted a segment of his show to a public apology to his wife and staff. Three days later, Worldwide Pants announced that Birkitt had been placed on a "paid leave of absence" from the Late Show. On October 15, CBS News announced that the company's Chief Investigative Correspondent, Armen Keteyian, had been assigned to conduct an "in-depth investigation" into Halderman's blackmail of Letterman.
On March 9, 2010, Halderman pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny and served a 6-month jail sentence, followed by probation and community service.
Category:1947 births Category:Living people Category:American people of German descent Category:American television talk show hosts Category:Ball State University alumni Category:Daytime Emmy Award winners Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Indianapolis, Indiana television anchors Category:Indy Racing League owners Category:People from Indianapolis, Indiana Category:Weather presenters
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| Caption | Cox in February 2009 |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Courteney Bass Cox |
| Birth date | June 15, 1964 |
| Birth place | Birmingham, Alabama, U.S. |
| Other names | Courteney Cox Arquette |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1984–present |
| Spouse | David Arquette (1999-2010; separated) 1 child |
Between seasons five and six, Cox married David Arquette and changed her name to Courteney Cox Arquette. An in-joke reference to this is made in the opening credits of the episode "The One After Vegas", where the rest of the cast and executive producers have "Arquette" added to their names. The dedication "For Courteney and David, who did get married"—a reference to Monica and Chandler's decision not to marry in the episode—appears during the fade out to the tag scene. An in-joke reference to her second name of "Cox" was used in the Scrubs episode "My Saving Grace", in which her character Dr. Taylor Maddox described Perry Cox's name as "ridiculous".
Her other films include The Runner, 3000 Miles to Graceland and The Shrink Is In. In late 2003, Cox and Arquette produced one season of the reality television series Mix It Up. The lifestyle show, which aired on the We cable channel, struggled with low ratings and was not renewed for a second season. She also appeared as Wendy Bronson, alongside Adam Sandler in Bedtime Stories.
In 2007, Cox starred as Lucy Spiller, a cynical tabloid editor, in Dirt, a television drama for FX. Cox and her husband David Arquette were the executive producers of the series. According to Cox, the series was canceled after the second season in 2008. In July 2008, Entertainment Weekly announced that Cox had signed on to star in a three-episode arc for the television series Scrubs. In her third episode, she told Dr. Cox that Cox was "a ridiculous name", in reference to her own. In August 2008, it was announced that there will be a fourth film in the Scream series, and that they want the original actors to reprise their roles. On October 30, 2008, TV Guide reported that Cox will be starring in a pilot for a new single-camera comedy series on ABC called Cougar Town from Bill Lawrence. Cox plays a newly single 40-year-old mother on the hunt for new experiences. Her co-stars include actresses Busy Philipps and Christa Miller. She reunites with Scott Foley, 10 years after they did Scream 3 together. Cox filmed the pilot on March 19, 2009. In June 2009, Scream director Wes Craven confirmed that Cox and her husband would both be returning for Scream 4''.
Cox married David Arquette on June 12, 1999. On June 13, 2004, she gave birth to their first child, daughter Coco Riley Arquette. Jennifer Aniston is the baby's godmother. On October 11, 2010, it was announced that the actress and her husband had separated, though they still maintain a close friendship and business relationship. Cox is a brown belt in karate, she studied architecture at Mount Vernon College and can play the piano and drums.
Blockbuster Entertainment Award
Glamour Magazine Women of the Year 2010 Awards
Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards
TV Guide Awards
Category:1964 births Category:Living people Category:Actors from Alabama Category:American Episcopalians Category:American female models Category:American film actors Category:American television actors Category:People from Birmingham, Alabama Category:American voice actors Category:American karateka Category:Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series Screen Actors Guild Award winners
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
