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- Duration: 26:43
- Updated: 04 May 2013
- published: 29 May 2008
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The time was 1955 a meal was 40 cents
A Cadillac was the car to drive and Ike was president
Revivals set whole towns ablaze while mom, the dad and kids
Were Holy Ghost electrified by wild evangelists
But nothing could compare
Or none took you quite as high
As being at the tent and hearing people testify
(they'd say)
I want to give honor unto God, bishops, pastors, elders, praise God I'm in my right mind too
I woke up determined to go 100% with Jesus 'cause 99 1/2 just won't do
I ask the saints please pray I'll be the one God's callin' for in these last and evil days
He's been better to me than I've been to myself and I give God all the praise!
Once all this had ended up to the microphone
Stepped the man of God himself, strong, alone and prone
With a furnace in his eyes and no time left to play
This human locomotive right there began to say
CHORUS
I believe in a God that sets the captives free
I believe in the blood that flows from Calvary
Does anyone love Jesus, does anyone hate sin?
Does anyone believe that Christ is coming back again?
But what God wants me to ask you, what He needs to know most
Are you saved, sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost?
I'm so glad that the Lord saved me
I'm so glad that the Lord saved me
Oral Roberts, William Branham, Jack Coe and Billy Graham
Healed body, soul and spirit as they thundered 'cross the land
While Howdy Doody held the nation captive on TV
The power of God was on these men to set those captives free.
But nothing could compare
Or none took you quite as high
As being at the tent and hearing people testify
(and they'd say)
I want to give honor unto God, mothers, missionaries, saints, and all my friends
I thank the Lord I've been saved all day livin' free and separated from sin
I've got life, health, strength, wouldn't take nothin' for my journey pray the Lord keep me strong
Woke up with my mind stayed on Jesus and I've been praising Him all day long
Once all this had ended up to the microphone
Stepped the man of God himself, strong, alone and prone
With a furnace in his eyes, and no time left to play,
This human locomotive right there began to say
CHORUS
I'm so glad that the Lord saved me
I'm so glad that the Lord saved me
If it had not been for Jesus,
Where would I be?
I'm so glad that the Lord saved me.
I'm so glad that the Lord saved me
I'm so glad that the Lord saved me
Well, if it had not been for Jesus,
Where would I be?
I'm so glad that the Lord saved me
He saved me, He saved me, He saved me, He saved me
Well, if it had not been for Jesus,
Where would I be?
Millennium: | 2nd millennium |
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Centuries: | 19th century – 20th century – 21st century |
Decades: | 1920s 1930s 1940s – 1950s – 1960s 1970s 1980s |
Years: | 1952 1953 1954 – 1955 – 1956 1957 1958 |
1955 by topic: |
Subject |
By country |
Leaders |
Birth and death categories |
Establishments and disestablishments categories |
Works and introductions categories |
Gregorian calendar | 1955 MCMLV |
Ab urbe condita | 2708 |
Armenian calendar | 1404 ԹՎ ՌՆԴ |
Assyrian calendar | 6705 |
Bahá'í calendar | 111–112 |
Bengali calendar | 1362 |
Berber calendar | 2905 |
British Regnal year | 3 Eliz. 2 – 4 Eliz. 2 |
Buddhist calendar | 2499 |
Burmese calendar | 1317 |
Byzantine calendar | 7463–7464 |
Chinese calendar | 甲午年十二月初八日 (4591/4651-12-8) — to —
乙未年十一月十八日(4592/4652-11-18) |
Coptic calendar | 1671–1672 |
Ethiopian calendar | 1947–1948 |
Hebrew calendar | 5715–5716 |
Hindu calendars | |
- Vikram Samvat | 2011–2012 |
- Shaka Samvat | 1877–1878 |
- Kali Yuga | 5056–5057 |
Holocene calendar | 11955 |
Iranian calendar | 1333–1334 |
Islamic calendar | 1374–1375 |
Japanese calendar | Shōwa 30 (昭和30年) |
Julian calendar | Gregorian minus 13 days |
Korean calendar | 4288 |
Minguo calendar | ROC 44 民國44年 |
Thai solar calendar | 2498 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: 1955 |
Year 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.
Chuck Berry | |
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Berry in Örebro, Sweden, on July 18, 2007 |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Charles Edward Anderson Berry |
Born | St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. |
October 18, 1926
Genres | Rock and roll, blues, rhythm and blues |
Occupations | Musician, songwriter |
Instruments | Guitar, vocals |
Years active | 1955–present |
Labels | Chess, Mercury, Atco |
Website | www.chuckberry.com |
Notable instruments | |
Gibson ES-355 |
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry (born October 18, 1926) is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), Chuck Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, with lyrics focusing on teen life and consumerism and utilizing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.[1]
Born into a middle class family in St. Louis, Missouri, Berry had an interest in music from an early age and gave his first public performance at Sumner High School. While still a high school student he served a prison sentence for armed robbery between 1944 and 1947. On his release, Berry settled into married life and worked at an automobile assembly plant. By early 1953, influenced by the guitar riffs and showmanship techniques of blues player T-Bone Walker, he was performing in the evenings with the Johnnie Johnson Trio.[2] His break came when he traveled to Chicago in May 1955, and met Muddy Waters, who suggested he contact Leonard Chess of Chess Records. With Chess he recorded "Maybellene"—Berry's adaptation of the country song "Ida Red"—which sold over a million copies, reaching No. 1 on Billboard's Rhythm and Blues chart. By the end of the 1950s, Berry was an established star with several hit records and film appearances to his name as well as a lucrative touring career. He had also established his own St. Louis-based nightclub, called Berry's Club Bandstand. But in January 1962, Berry was sentenced to three years in prison for offenses under the Mann Act—he had transported a 14-year-old girl across state lines.[2][3][4]
After his release in 1963, Berry had several more hits, including "No Particular Place to Go", "You Never Can Tell", and "Nadine", but these did not achieve the same success, or lasting impact, of his 1950s songs, and by the 1970s he was more in demand as a nostalgic live performer, playing his past hits with local backup bands of variable quality.[2] His insistence on being paid cash led to a jail sentence in 1979—four months and community service for tax evasion.
Berry was among the first musicians to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on its opening in 1986, with the comment that he "laid the groundwork for not only a rock and roll sound but a rock and roll stance."[5] Berry is included in several Rolling Stone "Greatest of All Time" lists, including being ranked fifth on their 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[6] The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll included three of Chuck Berry's songs: "Johnny B. Goode", "Maybellene", and "Rock and Roll Music".[7] Today – at the age of 85 – Berry continues to play live.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri,[8] Berry was the fourth child in a family of six. He grew up in the north St. Louis neighborhood known as "The Ville," an area where many middle class St. Louis people lived at the time. His father, Henry, was a contractor and deacon of a nearby Baptist church, his mother Martha a certified public school principal. His middle class upbringing allowed him to pursue his interest in music from an early age and he gave his first public performance in 1941 while still at Sumner High School.[9] Just three years later, in 1944, while still at Sumner High School, he was arrested and convicted of armed robbery after robbing three shops in Kansas City and then stealing a car at gunpoint with some friends.[10][11] Berry's own account in his autobiography is that his car broke down and he then flagged down a passing car and stole it at gunpoint with a non-functional pistol.[12][13] Berry was sent to the Intermediate Reformatory for Young Men at Algoa, near Jefferson City, Missouri,[8] where he formed a singing quartet and did some boxing.[10]
After his release from prison on his 21st birthday in 1947, Berry married Themetta "Toddy" Suggs on October 28, 1948, who gave birth to Darlin Ingrid Berry on October 3, 1950.[14] Berry supported his family doing a number of jobs in St. Louis: working briefly as a factory worker at two automobile assembly plants, as well as being janitor for the apartment building where he and his wife lived. Afterwards he trained as a beautician at the Poro College of Cosmetology, founded by Annie Turnbo Malone.[15] He was doing well enough by 1950 to buy a "small three room brick cottage with a bath" in Whittier Street,[16] which is now listed as the Chuck Berry House on the National Register of Historic Places.[17]
By the early 1950s, Berry was working with local bands in the clubs of St. Louis as an extra source of income.[16] He had been playing the blues since his teens, and he borrowed both guitar riffs and showmanship techniques from blues player T-Bone Walker,[18] as well as taking guitar lessons from his friend Ira Harris that laid the foundation for his guitar style.[19] By early 1953 Berry was performing with Johnnie Johnson's trio, starting a long-time collaboration with the pianist.[20] Although the band played mostly blues and ballads, the most popular music among whites in the area was country. Berry wrote, "Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of our country stuff on our predominantly black audience and some of our black audience began whispering 'who is that black hillbilly at the Cosmo?' After they laughed at me a few times they began requesting the hillbilly stuff and enjoyed dancing to it."[8]
Berry's calculated showmanship, along with mixing country tunes with R&B tunes, and singing in the style of Nat "King" Cole to the music of Muddy Waters, brought in a wider audience, particularly affluent white people.[2][21]
In May 1955, Berry traveled to Chicago where he met Waters, who suggested he contact Leonard Chess of Chess Records. Berry thought his blues material would be of most interest to Chess, but to his surprise it was an old country and western recording by Bob Wills, entitled "Ida Red" that got Chess's attention. Chess had seen the rhythm and blues market shrink and was looking to move beyond it, and he thought Berry might be the artist for that purpose. So on May 21, 1955 Berry recorded an adaptation of "Ida Red"—"Maybellene"—which featured Johnnie Johnson on piano, Jerome Green (from Bo Diddley's band) on the maracas, Jasper Thomas on the drums and Willie Dixon on the bass. "Maybellene" sold over a million copies, reaching No. 1 on Billboard's Rhythm and Blues chart and No. 5 on the September 10, 1955 Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart.[8][22]
At the end of June 1956, his song "Roll Over Beethoven" reached No. 29 on the Billboard Top 100 chart, and Berry toured as one of the "Top Acts of '56". He and Carl Perkins became friends. Perkins said that "I knew when I first heard Chuck that he'd been affected by country music. I respected his writing; his records were very, very great." As they toured, Perkins discovered that Berry not only liked country music, but knew about as many songs as he did. Jimmie Rodgers was one of his favorites. "Chuck knew every Blue Yodel and most of Bill Monroe's songs as well," Perkins remembered. "He told me about how he was raised very poor, very tough. He had a hard life. He was a good guy. I really liked him."[23]
In late 1957, Berry took part in Alan Freed's "Biggest Show of Stars for 1957" United States tour with the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, and others.[24] He also guest starred on ABC's The Guy Mitchell Show, having sung his hit song "Rock 'n' Roll Music". The hits continued from 1957 to 1959, with Berry scoring over a dozen chart singles during this period, including the top 10 US hits "School Days", "Rock and Roll Music", "Sweet Little Sixteen", and "Johnny B. Goode". He appeared in two early rock and roll movies. The first was Rock Rock Rock, released in 1956. He is shown singing "You Can't Catch Me." He had a speaking role as himself in the 1959 film Go, Johnny, Go! along with Alan Freed, and was also shown performing his songs "Johnny B. Goode," "Memphis, Tennessee," and "Little Queenie." His performance of "Sweet Little Sixteen" at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 is captured in the motion picture Jazz on a Summer's Day.[25]
By the end of the 1950s, Berry was an established star with several hit records and film appearances to his name, as well as a lucrative touring career. He had established a racially integrated St. Louis-based nightclub, called Berry's Club Bandstand, and was investing in real estate.[26] But in December 1959, Berry was arrested under the Mann Act after an allegation that he had sex with a 14-year-old Apache waitress whom he had transported over state lines to work as a hat check girl at his club.[27] After an initial two-week trial in March 1960, Berry was convicted, fined $5,000, and sentenced to five years in prison.[28] Berry's appeal that the judge's comments and attitude were racist and prejudiced the jury against him was upheld,[3][29] and a second trial was heard in May and June 1961,[30] which resulted in Berry being given a three-year prison sentence.[12] After another appeal failed, Berry served one and one half years in prison from February 1962 to October 1963.[12] Berry had continued recording and performing during the trials, though his output had slowed down as his popularity declined; his final single released before being imprisoned was "Come On".[31]
When Berry was released from prison in 1963, he was able to return to recording and performing due to the British invasion acts of the 1960s—most notably The Beatles and The Rolling Stones—having kept up an interest in his music by releasing cover versions of his songs;[32][33] along with other bands reworking his songs, such as the Beach Boys basing their 1963 hit "Surfin' USA" on Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen".[34] In 1964–65 Berry released eight singles, including three, "No Particular Place to Go" (a reworking of "School Day"),[35] "You Never Can Tell", and "Nadine,"[36] which achieved commercial success, reaching the top 20 of the Billboard 100. Between 1966 and 1969 Berry released five albums on the Mercury label, including his first live album Live at Fillmore Auditorium in which he was backed by the Steve Miller Band.[37][38]
While this was not a successful period for studio work,[39] Berry was still a top concert draw. In May 1964, he did a successful tour of the UK,[35] though when he returned in January 1965 his behavior was erratic and moody, and his touring style of using unrehearsed local backing bands and a strict non-negotiable contract was earning him a reputation as a difficult yet unexciting performer.[40] He also played at large events in North America, such as the Schaefer Music Festival in New York City's Central Park in July 1969, and the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival in October.[41]
Berry helped give life to a subculture... Even "My Ding-a-Ling", a fourth-grade wee-wee joke that used to mortify true believers at college concerts, permitted a lot of twelve-year-olds new insight into the moribund concept of "dirty" when it hit the airwaves...
Berry returned to Chess from 1970 to 1973. There were no hit singles from the 1970 album Back Home, then in 1972 Chess released a live recording of "My Ding-a-Ling", a novelty song which Berry had recorded in a different version on his 1968 LP From St. Louie to Frisco as "My Tambourine".[43] The track became Berry's only No. 1 single. A live recording of "Reelin' And Rockin'" was also issued as a follow-up single that same year and would prove to be Berry's final top-40 hit in both the US and the UK. Both singles were featured on the part-live/part-studio album The London Chuck Berry Sessions which was one of a series of London Sessions albums which included other Chess mainstay artists Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. Berry's second tenure with Chess ended with the 1975 album Chuck Berry, after which he did not make a studio record until 1979's Rock It for Atco Records, his last studio album to date.[44]
In the 1970s Berry toured on the basis of his earlier successes. He was on the road for many years, carrying only his Gibson guitar, confident that he could hire a band that already knew his music no matter where he went. Allmusic has said that in this period his "live performances became increasingly erratic, [...] working with terrible backup bands and turning in sloppy, out-of-tune performances" which "tarnished his reputation with younger fans and oldtimers" alike.[45] Among the many bandleaders performing a backup role with Chuck Berry were Bruce Springsteen and Steve Miller when each was just starting his career. Springsteen related in the video Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll that Berry did not even give the band a set list and just expected the musicians to follow his lead after each guitar intro. Berry neither spoke to nor thanked the band after the show. Nevertheless, Springsteen backed Berry again when he appeared at the concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. At the request of Jimmy Carter, Chuck Berry performed at the White House on June 1, 1979.[38]
Berry's type of touring style, traveling the "oldies" circuit in the 1970s (where he was often paid in cash by local promoters) added ammunition to the Internal Revenue Service's accusations that Berry was a chronic income tax evader. Facing criminal sanction for the third time, Berry pleaded guilty to tax evasion and was sentenced to four months in prison and 1,000 hours of community service—doing benefit concerts—in 1979.[46]
Berry continued to play 70 to 100 one-nighters per year in the 1980s, still traveling solo and requiring a local band to back him at each stop. In 1986, Taylor Hackford made a documentary film, Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, of a celebration concert for Berry's sixtieth birthday, organised by Keith Richards, in which Berry reveals his bitterness at the fame and financial success that Richards achieved on the back of Berry's songs.[47] Eric Clapton, Etta James, Julian Lennon, Robert Cray and Linda Ronstadt, among others, appeared with Berry on stage and film. During the concert, Berry played a Gibson ES-355, the luxury version of the ES-335 that he favored on his 1970s tours. Richards played a black Fender Telecaster Custom, Cray a Fender Stratocaster and Clapton a Gibson ES 350T, the same guitar Berry used on his early recordings.[48]
In the late 1980s, Berry bought a restaurant in Wentzville, Missouri, called The Southern Air,[49] and in 1990 he was sued by several women who claimed that he had installed a video camera in the ladies' bathroom. Berry claimed that he had the camera installed to catch red-handed a worker who was suspected of stealing from the restaurant. Though his guilt was never proven in court, Berry opted for a class action settlement with 59 women. Berry's biographer, Bruce Pegg, estimated that it cost Berry over $1.2 million plus legal fees.[50] It was during this time that he began using Wayne T. Schoeneberg as his legal counsel. Reportedly, a police raid on his house did find videotapes of women using the restroom, and one of the women was a minor. Also found in the raid were 62 grams of marijuana. Felony drug and child-abuse charges were filed. In order to avoid the child-abuse charges, Berry agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor possession of marijuana. He was given a six-month suspended jail sentence, two years' unsupervised probation, and ordered to donate $5,000 to a local hospital.[51]
In November 2000, Berry again faced legal charges when he was sued by his former pianist Johnnie Johnson, who claimed that he co-wrote over 50 songs, including "No Particular Place to Go", "Sweet Little Sixteen" and "Roll Over Beethoven", that credit Berry alone. The case was dismissed when the judge ruled that too much time had passed since the songs were written.[52]
Currently, Berry usually performs one Wednesday each month at Blueberry Hill, a restaurant and bar located in the Delmar Loop neighborhood in St. Louis. In 2008, Berry toured Europe, with stops in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, Poland, and Spain. In mid-2008, he played at Virgin Festival in Baltimore, MD.[53] He presently lives in Ladue, Missouri, approximately 10 miles west of St. Louis.[54] During a New Year's Day 2011 concert in Chicago, Berry, suffering from exhaustion, passed out and had to be helped off stage.[55]
While no individual can be said to have invented rock and roll, Chuck Berry comes the closest of any single figure to being the one who put all the essential pieces together. It was his particular genius to graft country & western guitar licks onto a rhythm & blues chassis in his very first single, "Maybellene."
A pioneer of rock music, Berry was a significant influence on the development of both the music and the attitude associated with the rock music lifestyle. With songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), Chuck Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, with lyrics successfully aimed to appeal to the early teenage market by using graphic and humorous descriptions of teen dances, fast cars, high-school life, and consumer culture,[2] and utilizing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.[1] His records are a rich storehouse of the essential lyrical, showmanship and musical components of rock and roll; and, in addition to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, a large number of significant popular-music performers have recorded Berry's songs.[2] Though not technically accomplished, his guitar style is distinctive – he incorporated electronic effects to mimic the sound of bottleneck blues guitarists, and drew on the influence of guitar players such as Charlie Christian and T-Bone Walker[2] to produce a clear and exciting sound that many later guitar musicians would acknowledge as a major influence in their own style.[51] In the film Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll Eric Clapton states 'If you wanna play rock and roll – or any upbeat number – and you wanted to take a guitar ride you would end up playing like Chuck...because there is very little other choice. There's not a lot of other ways to play rock and roll other than the way Chuck plays it; he's really laid the law down..." In 1992 Keith Richards told Best of Guitar Player "Chuck was my man. He was the one who made me say 'I want to play guitar, Jesus Christ!'...Suddenly I knew what I wanted to do." Berry's showmanship has been influential on other rock guitar players,[57] particularly his one-legged hop routine,[58] and the "duck walk",[59] which he first used as a child when he walked "stooping with full-bended knees, but with my back and head vertical" under a table to retrieve a ball and his family found it entertaining; he used it when "performing in New York for the first time and some journalist branded it the duck walk."[60][61]
The rock critic Robert Christgau considers him "the greatest of the rock and rollers,"[62] while John Lennon said that "if you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'."[63] Ted Nugent said "If you don't know every Chuck Berry lick, you can't play rock guitar."[64] Among the honors he has received, have been the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984,[65] the Kennedy Center Honors in 2000,[66] and being named seventh on Time magazine's 2009 list of the 10 best electric guitar players of all-time.[67] On May 14, 2002, Chuck Berry was honored as one of the first BMI Icons at the 50th annual BMI Pop Awards. He was presented the award along with BMI affiliates Bo Diddley and Little Richard.[68]
Berry is included in several Rolling Stone "Greatest of All Time" lists. In September 2003, the magazine named him number 6 in their list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".[69] This was followed in November of the same year by his compilation album The Great Twenty-Eight being ranked 21st in the Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[70] The following year, in March 2004, Berry was ranked fifth out of "The Immortals – The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time".[6] In December 2004, six of his songs were included in the "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", namely "Johnny B. Goode" (# 7), "Maybellene" (# 18), "Roll Over Beethoven" (# 97), "Rock and Roll Music" (#128), "Sweet Little Sixteen" (# 272) and "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" (# 374).[71] In June 2008, his song "Johnny B. Goode" ranked first place in the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time".[72]
A statue 8 feet (2.4 m) tall of Berry, funded by donations, has been erected along the St. Louis Walk of Fame. The dedication ceremony attended by Berry was held on July 29, 2011.[73]
Book: Chuck Berry | |
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print. |
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Martin Seamus "Marty" McFly[1] | |
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Back to the Future character | |
File:Marty 1985.JPG Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly |
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Portrayed by | Michael J. Fox |
Voiced by |
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Appeared in | Part I, Part II, Part III, The Animated Series, The Game |
Information | |
Occupation | Student |
Original time | 1985 |
Time traveler | Yes |
Years visited | 1885, 1955, 1985A, 2015 |
Martin Seamus "Marty" McFly, Sr. is the protagonist in the Back to the Future film trilogy, and is portrayed by actor Michael J. Fox. Marty was also the protagonist in the animated series where he was voiced by David Kaufman. In the videogame by Telltale Games, he is voiced by AJ LoCascio.[2]
Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly, but after five weeks of shooting scenes for the first film, director Robert Zemeckis and executive producer Steven Spielberg chose to re-cast the role to Fox.
Contents |
Marty was born in Hill Valley, California in 1968[3] to a family of Irish descent. Little is known about Marty's life prior to the first Back to the Future film, except for the fact that he accidentally set his parents' living room rug on fire when he was 8 (which we know from a statement of Marty's to his future parents).[3]
In 1985, Marty plays lead guitar with his group The Pinheads[3] and likes listening to Huey Lewis and the News, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and Van Halen. He is also a talented skateboarder and proven to be an excellent shot with a gun, honed by endlessly playing shooting games such as Wild Gunman at his local 7-Eleven.[4][5]
Although Marty is often accident prone and sometimes thought to lack critical thinking skills, he is nevertheless brave in the face of danger and can be very resourceful and clever. He has shown some good and basic street fighting skills in the movies. He often throws punches in hand-to-hand confrontations. His major character flaw is his pride, which causes him to take unnecessary risks to show others that he is not chicken, as demonstrated throughout various points throughout the trilogy.[5] However, in the third film, when his ancestor Seamus McFly points out that Seamus's brother, Martin, was killed in an argument where someone questioned his bravery, Marty began to re-think his stance on what other people thought of him. This was highlighted when Marty refused to race Needles, despite Needles goading him into a race, thus avoiding the "automobile accident" involving the Rolls Royce, therefore changing his future for the better.
Marty is the youngest of three children from George and Lorraine McFly. He has a brother Dave and a sister Linda. His secondary entourage consists of girlfriend Jennifer Parker and best friend Emmett Brown, a scientist whom Marty and Jennifer call "Doc." There is an impression that Marty is embarrassed by his family and does not spend much time at home, preferring to hang out with Doc, Jennifer, or the guys in his band, The Pinheads.[3]
How exactly Marty and Doc met has never been explained, although a draft script for the first film states that, in 1983, Doc turned up at Marty's garage one day and offered him $50 a week, plus free beer and use of his record collection, to clean his garage.[6] This explanation is not accepted by most fans, as it contradicts the characterizations of Marty and Doc as seen in the finished film. Writers Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale say they once considered expanding on their relationship, but decided against it, reasoning that children and adolescents are often drawn to eccentric or mysterious neighbors.
By 2015, Marty has married his girlfriend Jennifer and they had twins, Martin "Marty" Jr. and Marlene, who were born on April 28, 1998 (both played by Michael J. Fox).[4] However, the events at the end of Back To The Future Part III, where Marty avoided the race with Needles, may affect the outcome of events as seen in Part II.
Marty has had many false names through the Back to the Future series. Some of which include; Calvin Klein, Darth Vader of the Planet Vulcan (Back to the Future),[3] Clint Eastwood (Back to the Future Part III),[5] and Sonny Crockett/Harry Callahan/Michael Corleone (2011 video game only). Including these aliases, Marty has also posed as his son, Martin McFly Jr.[4]
In the animated series, Marty and Jennifer study at Hill Valley College after graduating from Hill Valley High School. Marty spends a lot of time visiting the Brown house where Doc, Clara, and their sons now live. He continues to travel through time alongside Jennifer, Doc, and the rest of the Brown family on many of their adventures, in the process learning a lot about his family's ancestry and future.
The animated series says that Marty has not completely overcome his "chicken" problem established in the films. For instance, in the episode "Roman Holiday", Bifficus Antanneny taunts Marty into a chariot race by calling him "pullus," the Latin word for "chicken."
An episode set in 2091 ("Solar Sailors") establishes that Marty's music becomes famous to Elvis-like proportions, as there are Marty impersonators mimicking his act on stage. His great-granddaughter Marta remarks, "If only my great-grandfather was still alive to see that his music continues on..."
In 2008, Marty McFly was selected by Empire magazine as the 39th greatest movie character of all time.[7]
The British band McFly was named after Marty McFly because the vocalist Tom Fletcher is a fan of the Back to the Future trilogy.[8]
Relient K wrote a song about Marty McFly called "Hello McFly" on their eponymous first album.
New Found Glory did a song based on Marty McFly called "Back To The Future" under their side-project International Superheroes of Hardcore[9]
Canadian skate punk band "Darryl's Grocery Bag" wrote a song about the character entitled "Marty", which was released on the 1998 compilation "Wet Feet", put out by the independent Canadian label "Meter Records". [10] The song starts out with a voice snippet of Biff Tannen from the first "Back To The Future" movie.
In an episode of Fringe, a billboard in a parallel universe in 1985 displays the title "Back to the Future" though it also lists Eric Stoltz in the lead role as Marty McFly.
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Glenn Herbert Gould[fn 1][fn 2] (September 25, 1932 – October 4, 1982) was a Canadian pianist who became one of the best-known and most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. He was particularly renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach. His playing was distinguished by remarkable technical proficiency and capacity to articulate the polyphonic texture of Bach’s music.
Gould rejected most of the standard Romantic piano literature and, after his adolescence, avoided Liszt, Schumann, and Chopin. Although his recordings were dominated by Bach, Gould's oeuvre was diverse, including works by Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Brahms, pre-Baroque composers such as Jan Sweelinck, and such 20th-century composers as Paul Hindemith and Arnold Schoenberg. Gould was well known for various eccentricities, from his unorthodox musical interpretations and mannerisms at the keyboard to aspects of his lifestyle and personal behavior. He stopped giving concerts at the age of 31 to concentrate on studio recording and other projects.
Gould was also known as a writer, composer, conductor, and broadcaster. He was a prolific contributor to musical journals, in which he discussed music theory and outlined his musical philosophy. His career as a composer was less distinguished. His output was minimal and many projects were left unfinished. There is evidence that, had he lived beyond 50, he intended to abandon the piano and devote the remainder of his career to conducting and other projects. As a broadcaster, Gould was prolific. His output ranged from television and radio broadcasts of studio performances to musique concrète radio documentaries about life in the Canadian wilderness.
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Glenn Herbert Gould was born at home in Toronto on September 25, 1932, to Russell Herbert ("Bert") Gold and Florence ("Flora") Emma Gold (née Grieg),[1] Presbyterians of Scottish and English ancestry.[2] His maternal grandfather was a cousin of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.[3][4] The family's surname was changed to Gould informally around 1939 in order to avoid being mistaken for Jewish, given the prevailing anti-Semitism of prewar Toronto and the Gold surname's Jewish association.[fn 3] Gould had no Jewish ancestry,[fn 4] though he sometimes made jokes on the subject, like "When people ask me if I'm Jewish, I always tell them that I was Jewish during the war."[5] Gould grew up in a home at 32 Southwood Drive, Toronto. His childhood home has been named a historic site by the City of Toronto.[6]
Gould's interest in music and his talent as a pianist became evident very early. Both his parents were musical, and his mother, especially, encouraged the infant Gould's early musical development. Before his birth, his mother planned for him to become a successful musician, and thus exposed him to music during her pregnancy.[9] As a baby, he reportedly hummed instead of crying and wiggled his fingers as if playing chords, leading his doctor to predict that he would "be either a physician or a pianist".[10] By the age of three, Gould's perfect pitch was noticed. He learned to read music before he could read words.[3][11][12] When presented with a piano, the young Gould was reported to strike single notes and listen to their long decay, a practice his father Bert noted was different from typical children.[11] Gould's interest in the piano proceeded side by side with an interest in composition. He would play his own little pieces for family, friends, and sometimes large gatherings, including, in 1938, a performance at the Emmanuel Presbyterian Church (a few blocks from the Gould house) of one of his own compositions.[13] At the age of six, he was taken for the first time to hear a live musical performance by a celebrated soloist. This left a tremendous impression. He later described the experience:
It was Hofmann. It was, I think, his last performance in Toronto, and it was a staggering impression. The only thing I can really remember is that, when I was being brought home in a car, I was in that wonderful state of half-awakeness in which you hear all sorts of incredible sounds going through your mind. They were all orchestral sounds, but I was playing them all, and suddenly I was Hofmann. I was enchanted.[3][14]
As a young child, Gould was taught piano by his mother. At the age of 10, he began attending The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. He studied music theory with Leo Smith, the organ with Frederick C. Silvester, and piano with Alberto Guerrero.[15] Around the same time, he injured his back as a result of a fall from a boat ramp on the shore of Lake Simcoe.[fn 5] This incident is almost certainly related to the adjustable-height chair his father made shortly thereafter. Gould's mother would urge the young Gould to sit up straight at the keyboard.[16] He used this chair for the rest of his life and took it with him almost everywhere.[3] This famous chair was designed so that Gould could sit very low at the keyboard. The chair allowed him to pull down on the keys rather than striking them from above, a central technical idea of his teacher at the Conservatory, Alberto Guerrero.[17]
Gould developed a technique that enabled him to choose a very fast tempo while retaining the separateness and clarity of each note.[18] His extremely low position at the instrument arguably permitted more control over the keyboard. Gould showed considerable technical skill in performing and recording a wide repertoire including virtuosic and romantic works, such as his own arrangement of Ravel's La valse and Liszt's transcriptions of Beethoven's fifth and sixth symphonies. Gould worked from a young age with his teacher Alberto Guerrero on a technique known as finger-tapping: a method of training the fingers to act more independently from the arm.[19]
Gould passed his final Conservatory examination in piano at the age of 12 (achieving the "highest marks of any candidate"), thus attaining "professional standing as a pianist" at that age.[20] One year later he passed the written theory exams, qualifying for an ATCM diploma.[fn 6][20]
Gould claimed he almost never practiced on the piano, preferring to study music by reading it rather than playing it,[fn 7] another technique he had learned from Guerrero. His manual practicing focused on articulation, rather than basic facility. He may have spoken ironically about his practicing, but there is evidence that on occasion, he did practice quite hard, sometimes using his own drills and techniques.[fn 8]
He stated that he didn't understand the requirement of other pianists to continuously reinforce their relationship with the instrument by practicing many hours a day.[21] It seems that Gould was able to practice mentally without access to an instrument, and even took this so far as to prepare for a recording of Brahms piano works without ever playing them until a few weeks before the recording sessions. This is all the more staggering considering the absolute accuracy and phenomenal dexterity exhibited in his playing. Gould's large repertoire also demonstrated this natural mnemonic gift.
The piano, Gould said, "is not an instrument for which I have any great love as such... [but] I have played it all my life, and it is the best vehicle I have to express my ideas." In the case of Bach, Gould admitted, "[I] fixed the action in some of the instruments I play on—and the piano I use for all recordings is now so fixed—so that it is a shallower and more responsive action than the standard. It tends to have a mechanism which is rather like an automobile without power steering: you are in control and not it; it doesn't drive you, you drive it. This is the secret of doing Bach on the piano at all. You must have that immediacy of response, that control over fine definitions of things."[22]
Of significant influence upon the teenage Gould were Artur Schnabel,[fn 9] Rosalyn Tureck's recordings of Bach ("upright, with a sense of repose and positiveness"), and Leopold Stokowski.[23]
Gould was known for having a vivid imagination. Listeners regarded his interpretations as ranging from brilliantly creative to outright eccentric.[18] His piano playing had great clarity and erudition, particularly in contrapuntal passages,[18] and extraordinary control. He was a child prodigy[24] and in adulthood described as a musical phenomenon.[fn 10] As he played, he often swayed his torso in a clockwise motion.
Gould had a pronounced aversion to what he termed a "hedonistic" approach to the piano repertoire, performance, and music generally. For Gould, "hedonism" in this sense denoted a superficial theatricality, something to which he felt Mozart, for example, became increasingly susceptible later in his career.[25] He associated this drift towards hedonism with the emergence of a cult of showmanship and gratuitous virtuosity on the concert platform in the 19th century and later. The institution of the public concert, he felt, degenerated into the "blood sport" with which he struggled, and which he ultimately rejected.[26]
In 1945, he gave his first public performance, playing the organ,[27] and the following year he made his first appearance with an orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, in a performance of the first movement of Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto.[28] His first solo recital followed in 1947,[29] and his first recital on radio was with the CBC in 1950.[30] This was the beginning of his long association with radio and recording. He founded the Festival Trio chamber group in 1953 with the cellist Isaac Mamott and the violinist Albert Pratz.
In 1957, Gould embarked on a tour of the Soviet Union, becoming the first North American to play there since World War II.[31] His concerts featured Bach, Beethoven, and the serial music of Schoenberg and Berg, which had been suppressed in the Soviet Union during the era of Socialist Realism. Gould made his Boston debut in 1958, playing for the Peabody Mason Concert Series.[32]
Gould was convinced that the institution of the public concert was not only an anachronism, but also a "force of evil", leading to his retirement from concert performance. He argued that public performance devolved into a sort of competition, with a non-empathetic audience (musically and otherwise) mostly attendant to the possibility of the performer erring or not meeting critical expectation. This doctrine he set forth, only half in jest, in "GPAADAK", the Gould Plan for the Abolition of Applause and Demonstrations of All Kinds.[33]
On April 10, 1964, Gould gave his last public performance, playing in Los Angeles, at the Wilshire Ebell Theater.[34] Among the pieces he performed that night were Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 30, selections from Bach's The Art of Fugue, and Paul Hindemith's Piano Sonata No. 3.[fn 11] Gould performed fewer than 200 concerts over the course of his career, of which fewer than 40 were overseas. For pianists such as Van Cliburn, 200 concerts would have amounted to about two years' touring.[35]
One of Gould's reasons for abandoning live performance was his aesthetic preference for the recording studio, where, in his words, he developed a "love affair with the microphone".[fn 12] There, he could control every aspect of the final musical "product" by selecting parts of various takes. He felt that he could realize a musical score more fully this way. Thus, the act of musical composition, to Gould, did not entirely end with the original score. The performer had to make creative choices. Gould felt strongly that there was little point in re-recording centuries-old pieces if the performer had no new perspective to bring to the work. For the rest of his life, Gould eschewed live performance, focusing instead on recording, writing, and broadcasting.
The issue of "authenticity" in relation to an approach like Gould's has been a topic of great debate, although diminished by the end of the 20th century—a development that Gould seems to have anticipated. It asks whether a recording is less authentic or "direct" for having been highly refined by technical means in the studio. Gould likened his process to that of a film director—one does not perceive that a two-hour film was made in two hours—and implicitly asks why the act of listening to music should be any different. He went so far as to conduct an "experiment" with musicians, sound engineers, and laypeople in which they were to listen to a recording and determine where the splices occurred. Each group chose different points based on their relationship to music, but none successfully. While the conclusion was hardly scientific, Gould remarked, "The tape does lie, and nearly always gets away with it".[36]
In a lecture and essay titled "Forgery and Imitation in the Creative Process", one of Gould's most significant texts,[37] he makes explicit his views on authenticity and creativity. Gould asks why the epoch in which a work is received influences its reception as "art", postulating a sonata he composes that sounds so much like Haydn that it is received as such. If, instead, the same sonata had been attributed to a somewhat earlier or later composer, it becomes more or less interesting as a piece of music. Yet it is not the work that has changed but its relation within the accepted narrative of music history. Similarly, Gould notes the "pathetic duplicity" in the reception of high-quality forgeries by Hans van Meegeren of new paintings attributed to Dutch Golden Age master Vermeer, before and after the forgery was known.
Gould, therefore, prefers an ahistorical, or at least pre-Renaissance, view of art, minimizing the identity of the artist and the attendant historical context in evaluating the artwork: "What gives us the right to assume that in the work of art we must receive a direct communication with the historical attitudes of another period? ... moreover, what makes us assume that the situation of the man who wrote it accurately or faithfully reflects the situation of his time? ... What if the composer, as historian, is faulty?"[38]
Gould said that if he had not been a musician, he would have been a writer. He expounded his criticism and philosophy of music and art in lectures, convocation speeches, periodicals, and radio and television documentaries for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Gould participated in many interviews, and had a predilection for scripting them to the extent that they may be seen as much as "works" as off-the-cuff discussions. His writing style was highly articulate but sometimes florid, indulgent, or rhetorical. This is especially evident in those works in which he attempts humour or irony, which he did often.[fn 13]
In these he praised certain composers and rejected what he deemed banal in music composition and its consumption by the public, and also gave insightful analyses of the music of Richard Strauss, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Despite a certain affection for Dixieland jazz, Gould was mostly averse to popular music. He enjoyed a jazz concert with his friends as a youth, mentioned jazz in his writings, and once criticized The Beatles for "bad voice leading"[fn 14]—while praising Petula Clark and Barbra Streisand. He shared a mutual admiration with jazz pianist Bill Evans, who made his seminal record Conversations with Myself using Gould's celebrated Steinway CD 318 piano. Gould believed that "the piano is a contrapuntal instrument," and his whole approach to music was, in fact, centered in the Baroque. Much of the homophony that followed he felt belongs to a less serious and less spiritual period of art.
A 1962 quote is often used to summarize Gould's perspective on art: "The justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity."[39]
Gould referred to himself repeatedly as "the last puritan", a reference to philosopher George Santayana's novel of the same name. Weighing this statement against Gould's highly individualistic lifestyle and artistic vision leads to an apparent contradiction. He was progressive in many ways, promulgating the controversial atonal composers, and anticipating, through his deep involvement with the recording process, the vast changes that technology would have on the production and distribution of music. Mark Kingwell summarizes the paradox, never resolved by Gould nor his biographers:
He was progressive and anti-progressive at once, and likewise at once both a critic of the Zeitgeist and its most interesting expression. He was, in effect, stranded on a beachhead of his own thinking between past and future. That he was not able, by himself, to fashion a bridge between them is neither surprising, nor, in the end, disappointing. We should see this failure, rather, as an aspect of his genius. He both was and was not a man of his time.[40]
Gould was widely known for his unusual habits. He usually hummed while he played the piano, and his recording engineers had mixed results in how successfully they were able to exclude his voice from recordings. Gould claimed that his singing was subconscious and increased proportionately with the inability of the piano in question to realize the music as he intended. It is likely that this habit originated in Gould's having been taught by his mother to "sing everything that he played", as Kevin Bazzana puts it. This became "an unbreakable (and notorious) habit".[41] Some of Gould's recordings were severely criticised because of the background "vocalise". For example, a reviewer of his 1981 re-recording of the Goldberg Variations opined that many listeners would "find the groans and croons intolerable".[42] Gould was renowned for his peculiar body movements while playing and for his insistence on absolute control over every aspect of his playing environment. The temperature of the recording studio had to be exactly regulated. He invariably insisted that it be extremely warm. According to Friedrich, the air conditioning engineer had to work just as hard as the recording engineers.[43] The piano had to be set at a certain height and would be raised on wooden blocks if necessary.[44] A small rug would sometimes be required for his feet underneath the piano.[45] He had to sit fourteen inches above the floor and would play concerts only while sitting on the old chair his father had made. He continued to use this chair even when the seat was completely worn through.[46] His chair is so closely identified with him that it is shown in a place of honour in a glass case at the National Library of Canada.
Conductors responded diversely to Gould and his playing habits. George Szell, who led Gould in 1957 with the Cleveland Orchestra, remarked to his assistant, "That nut's a genius."[47] Leonard Bernstein said, "There is nobody quite like him, and I just love playing with him."[47] Ironically, Bernstein created a stir at the April 6, 1962 concert when, just before the New York Philharmonic was to perform the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor with Gould as soloist, he informed the audience that he was assuming no responsibility for what they were about to hear. He asked the audience: "In a concerto, who is the boss – the soloist or the conductor? (audience laughter). The answer is, of course, sometimes the one and sometimes the other, depending on the people involved."[48] Specifically, he was referring to their rehearsals with Gould's insistence that the entire first movement be played at half the indicated tempo. The speech was interpreted by Harold C. Schonberg, music critic for The New York Times, as an abdication of responsibility and an attack on Gould.[49] Plans for a studio recording of the performance came to nothing. The live radio broadcast (along with Bernstein's disclaimer) was subsequently released on CD.
Gould was averse to cold, and wore heavy clothing (including gloves), even in warm places. He was once arrested, presumably mistaken for a vagrant, while sitting on a park bench in Sarasota, Florida, dressed in his standard all-climate attire of coat(s), warm hat, and mittens.[50] He also disliked social functions. He hated being touched, and in later life he limited personal contact, relying on the telephone and letters for communication. On one visit to Steinway Hall in New York City in 1959, the chief piano technician at the time, William Hupfer, greeted Gould by giving him a slap on the back. Gould was shocked by this, and complained of aching, lack of coordination, and fatigue because of the incident. He went on to explore the possibility of litigation against Steinway & Sons if his apparent injuries were permanent.[51] He was known for cancelling performances at the last minute, which is why Bernstein's above-mentioned public disclaimer opens with, "Don't be frightened, Mr. Gould is here... will appear in a moment."
In his liner notes and broadcasts, Gould created more than two dozen alter egos for satirical, humorous, or didactic purposes, permitting him to write hostile reviews or incomprehensible commentaries on his own performances. Probably the best-known are the German musicologist "Karlheinz Klopweisser", the English conductor "Sir Nigel Twitt-Thornwaite", and the American critic "Theodore Slutz".[52] These facets of Gould, whether interpreted as neurosis or "play",[53] have provided ample material for psychobiography.
Fran's Restaurant in Toronto was a regular haunt of Gould's. A CBC profile noted, "sometime between two and three every morning, Gould would go to Fran's, a 24-hour diner a block away from his Toronto apartment, sit in the same booth, and order the same meal of scrambled eggs."[54]
It has been debated whether or not Gould was autistic, or, more accurately, if his mind fell within the autism spectrum.[6] The diagnosis was first suggested by psychiatrist Peter Ostwald, a friend of Gould's, in the 1997 book, Glenn Gould: The Ecstasy and Tragedy of Genius.[55] It has been disputed by, among others, Kevin Bazzana.[citation needed]
Gould lived a private life: Bruno Monsaingeon said of him, "No supreme pianist has ever given of his heart and mind so overwhelmingly while showing himself so sparingly."[56]
When Gould was in Los Angeles in 1956, he met Cornelia Foss and husband Lukas. Foss was an art instructor who had studied sculpture at the American Academy in Rome. Her husband worked for both the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Brooklyn Philharmonic. After several years, Gould and Foss became lovers.[57] Foss left her husband in 1967 for Gould, taking her two children with her to Toronto. She purchased a house near Gould's 110 St. Clair Avenue West apartment. In 2007, Cornelia Foss finally admitted that she and Gould had had a love affair lasting several years.[57] According to Foss, "There were a lot of misconceptions about Glenn, and it was partly because he was so very private. But I assure you, he was an extremely heterosexual man. Our relationship was, among other things, quite sexual." Their affair lasted until 1972, when she returned to her husband. As early as two weeks after leaving her husband, Foss noticed disturbing signs in Gould. She describes a serious paranoid episode:
"It lasted several hours, and then I knew he was not just neurotic – there was more to it. I thought to myself, 'Good grief, am I going to bring up my children in this environment?' But I stayed four and a half years." Foss did not discuss details, but others close to Gould said he was convinced someone was trying to poison him and that others were spying on him.[57]
Gould suffered many pains and ailments, though he was something of a hypochondriac[58][fn 15] (admitting it himself on at least one occasion), and his autopsy revealed few underlying problems in areas that often troubled him.[fn 16] Early in his life, Gould suffered a spine injury. His physicians prescribed, usually independently, an assortment of analgesics, anxiolytics, and other drugs. Some speculate that his extensive use of prescription medications throughout his career had a deleterious effect on his health.
He was highly concerned about his health throughout his life, worrying about everything from high blood pressure (which in his later years he recorded in diary form) to the safety of his hands. Gould rarely shook hands with anyone and usually wore gloves.[fn 17][fn 18]
On September 27, 1982, after experiencing a severe headache, Gould suffered a stroke that paralyzed the left side of his body. He was admitted to Toronto General Hospital and his condition rapidly deteriorated. By October 4, there was evidence of brain damage, and Gould's father decided that his son should be taken off life support.[59] He is buried next to his parents in Toronto's Mount Pleasant Cemetery (section 38, Row 1088, Plot 1050). The first few measures of the Goldberg Variations are carved on his marker. According to the Glenn Gould Foundation, the cemetery staff often handle requests to locate his gravesite.[60]
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The C major prelude from the first book of the WTC.
Compare the 1970 version from the "Complete Piano Sonatas" set (played first) and the 1958 interpretation (second).
The only organ recordings Gould made were the first nine parts of Bach's The Art of Fugue.
Gould recorded several Handel suites and a few pieces from J.S. Bach's WTC on a Wittmayer harpsichord. The somewhat muffled sound of this 20th-century instrument is very different from modern recordings that are made using copies of old harpsichords.
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In creating music, Gould much preferred the control and intimacy provided by the recording studio. He disliked the concert hall, which he compared to a competitive sporting arena. After his final public performance in 1964, he devoted his career solely to the studio, recording albums and several radio documentaries. He was attracted to the technical aspects of recording, and considered the manipulation of tape to be another part of the creative process. Although Gould's recording studio producers have testified that 'he needed splicing, less than most performers',[61] Gould used the process to give him total artistic control over the recording process. He recounted his recording of the A minor fugue from Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier and how it was spliced together from two takes, with the fugue's expositions from one take and its episodes from another.[62]
Following his first recording (of Berg's Piano sonata, Op. 1, on the Canadian Hallmark label, c. 1952), the pianist's first breakthrough success, Bach: The Goldberg Variations, was recorded in 1955, at Columbia Records 30th Street Studios in New York City. Although there was initially some controversy at CBS as to whether this was the most appropriate piece to record, the finished product received phenomenal praise and was among the best-selling classical music albums of its time.[63] Gould became closely associated with the piece, playing it in full or in part at many of his recitals. Another version of the Goldberg Variations, recorded in 1981, would be among his last recordings, and one of only a few pieces he recorded twice in the studio. The 1981 recording was one of CBS Masterworks' first digital recordings. The first recording is highly energetic and often frenetic. The second, slower and more deliberate.[64][65] In the latter, Gould treats the aria and its 30 variations as one cohesive piece.[fn 19]
Gould revered Bach: "[he was] first and last an architect, a constructor of sound, and what makes him so inestimably valuable to us is that he was beyond a doubt the greatest architect of sound who ever lived".[66] He recorded most of Bach's other keyboard works, including the complete The Well-Tempered Clavier, Partitas, French Suites, English Suites, and keyboard concertos. For his only recording at the organ, he recorded about half of The Art of Fugue. He also recorded all five of Beethoven's piano concertos and 23 of the 32 piano sonatas.
Gould also recorded works by Brahms, Mozart, and many other prominent piano composers, though he was outspoken in his criticism of some of them. He was extremely critical of Frédéric Chopin. In a radio interview, when asked if he didn't find himself wanting to play Chopin, he replied: "No, I don't. I play it in a weak moment – maybe once a year or twice a year for myself. But it doesn't convince me." Although Gould recorded all of Mozart's sonatas and admitted enjoying the "actual playing" of them,[67] he claimed to dislike Mozart's later works, to the extent of arguing (perhaps facetiously) that Mozart died too late rather than too early.[68] He was fond of many lesser-known composers, such as Orlando Gibbons, whose Anthems he had heard as a teenager,[69] and for whose music he felt a "spiritual attachment".[70] He recorded a number of Gibbons's keyboard works and called him his favourite composer,[71][72] despite his better-known admiration for the technical mastery of Bach.[fn 20] He made recordings of piano music by Jean Sibelius (the Sonatines and Kyllikki), Georges Bizet (the Variations Chromatiques de Concert and the Premier nocturne), Richard Strauss (the Piano Sonata, the Five Pieces, and Enoch Arden with Claude Rains), and Paul Hindemith (the three piano sonatas and the sonatas for brass and piano). He also made recordings of the complete piano works Lieder by Arnold Schoenberg. The last thing Gould recorded as a session musician was Strauss: Piano Sonata, Op. 5. It was recorded between September 1 – 3, 1982[73] in New York City.
The success of Gould's collaborations with other artists was to a degree dependent upon their receptiveness to his sometimes unconventional readings of the music. His television collaboration with Yehudi Menuhin in 1965, recording works by Bach, Beethoven and Schoenberg,Stegemann (1993b) was deemed a success because "... Menuhin was ready to embrace the new perspectives opened up by an unorthodox view ...".[74] In 1966, his collaboration with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, however, recording Richard Strauss's Ophelia Lieder, Op. 67, was deemed an "outright fiasco".[74] Schwarzkopf believed in "total fidelity" to the score, but she also objected to the thermal conditions in the recording studio: "The studio was incredibly overheated, which may be good for a pianist but not for a singer: a dry throat is the end as far as singing is concerned. But we persevered nonetheless. It wasn't easy for me. Gould began by improvising something Straussian—we thought he was simply warming up, but no, he continued to play like that throughout the actual recordings, as though Strauss's notes were just a pretext that allowed him to improvise freely...."[75]
As the result of Gould's association with CBC Records, he made numerous television and radio programs for CBC Television and CBC Radio. Notable productions include his music-concrète Solitude Trilogy, which consists of The Idea of North, a meditation on Northern Canada and its people, The Latecomers about Newfoundland, and The Quiet in the Land, about Mennonites in Manitoba. All three use a radiophonic electronic-music technique that Gould called contrapuntal radio, in which several people are heard speaking at once—much like the voices in a fugue—manipulated through the use of tape. Gould's experience of driving across northern Ontario while listening to Top 40 radio in 1967 provided the inspiration for one of his most unusual CBC radio pieces, The Search for Petula Clark, a witty and eloquent dissertation on the recordings of the renowned British pop singer, who was then at the peak of her international success[76]
Gould was not only a composer, but also a prolific arranger of orchestral repertoire for piano. His arrangements include his recorded Wagner and Ravel transcriptions, as well as the operas of Richard Strauss and the symphonies of Schubert and Bruckner,[3] which he played privately for pleasure.[fn 21]
As a teenager, Gould wrote chamber music and piano works in the style of the Second Viennese school of composition. His only significant work was the String Quartet, Op. 1, which he finished when he was in his 20s, and perhaps his cadenzas to Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. Later works include the Lieberson Madrigal (SATB and piano), and So You Want to Write a Fugue? (SATB with piano or string quartet accompaniment). The majority of his work is published by Schott Music. The recording Glenn Gould: The Composer contains his original works.
The String Quartet Op. 1 (published in 1956 and recorded in 1960) had a mixed reception from critics. For example, the notices from the Christian Science Monitor and The Saturday Review were quite laudatory, while the response from the Montreal Star was less so.[77] There is little critical commentary on Gould's compositional work for the simple reason that there are few compositions. He did not proceed beyond Opus 1. Gould left many compositions unfinished.[78] He attributed his failure as a composer to his lack of a "personal voice".[79] See List of compositions by Glenn Gould for a complete list of works.
Towards the end of his life, Gould began conducting. He had earlier directed Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 and the cantata Widerstehe doch der Sünde from the harpsipiano (a piano with metal hammers to simulate a harpsichord's sound), and Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 (the Urlicht section) in the 1960s. His last recording was as a conductor of Wagner's Siegfried Idyll in its original chamber music scoring. He intended to give up the piano at the age of 50, spending later years conducting, writing about music, and composing.[80]
Gould is one of the most acclaimed 20th-century classical musicians. His unique pianistic method, insight into the architecture of compositions, and relatively free interpretation of scores created performances and recordings that were revelatory to many listeners while highly objectionable to others. Philosopher Mark Kingwell writes that "his influence is made inescapable. No performer after him can avoid the example he sets... Now, everyone must perform through him: he can be emulated or rejected, but he cannot be ignored."[81]
Gould left an extensive body of work beyond the keyboard. After his retirement from concert performance, he was increasingly interested in other media, including audio and film documentary and writing, through which he mused on aesthetics, composition, music history, and the effect of the electronic age on the consumption of media. (Gould grew up in Toronto at the same time that Canadian theorists Marshall McLuhan, Northrop Frye, and Harold Innis were making their mark on communications studies.)[82][83] Anthologies of his writing and letters have been published.[fn 22] Library and Archives Canada retains a significant portion of Gould's work called the The Glenn Gould Archive.
One of Gould's performances of the Prelude and Fugue in C major from Book II of The Well-Tempered Clavier was chosen for inclusion on the NASA Voyager Golden Record by a committee headed by Carl Sagan. The disc of recordings was placed on the spacecraft Voyager 1, which is now approaching interstellar space and is the farthest human-made object from Earth.[84]
Gould is a popular subject of biography and even critical analysis. Philosophers such as Giorgio Agamben and Mark Kingwell have interpreted Gould's life and ideas.[85] References to Gould and his work are plentiful in poetry, fiction, and the visual arts.[86] For example, François Girard's Genie Award winning 1993 film, Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould.
The Glenn Gould Studio at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre in Toronto was named after him.
In Toronto in 1983, The Glenn Gould Foundation was established to honour Gould and preserve his memory. The Foundation's mission "is to extend awareness of the legacy of Glenn Gould as an extraordinary musician, communicator, and Canadian, and to advance his visionary and innovative ideas into the future." Among other activities, the foundation awards the Glenn Gould Prize every three years[87] to "an individual who has earned international recognition as the result of a highly exceptional contribution to music and its communication, through the use of any communications technologies." The prize consists of $50,000 for an original work by a Canadian artist.
The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto decided to adopt the name The Glenn Gould School in 1997, after its most famous alumnus.[88]
To commemorate what would have been Gould's 75th birthday, the Canadian Museum of Civilization held an exhibition titled Glenn Gould: The Sounds of Genius. The multimedia exhibit was held in conjunction with Library and Archives Canada.[89] The exhibition opened September 28, 2007[90] and looked at five aspects of Gould: "The person," "The musician," "The broadcast personality and producer," "The writer and theorist, composer and conductor," and "The Sounds of Genius".[91] Curator Sam Cronk said "The primary purpose of the exhibition is to remind Canadians of the many facets of Gould’s musical genius."[90] John F. Burns of the The New York Times reported, in an interview with Herbert Kallmann, that the exhibit will omit many of Gould's eccentricities in favour of highlighting Gould’s talent. Of the numerous documents, there are essays, scripts, and music scores. The scores on display were used for some of his most important recordings, marked only for breaks between takes.[58] Peter Goddard of the Toronto Star says that the exhibit will give patrons a feeling of what it was like at Gould's home: "The cramped space conveys a sense of what his St. Clair Ave. apartment might have felt like, with his piano at the very centre of things, along with his low piano chair made by his father."[92]
Glenn Gould received many honours before and after his death, although he personally claimed to despise competition in music.
The Juno Awards are presented annually by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Gould won three awards out of his six nominations. However he only personally received one Juno. In 1983, he was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.[93]
Year | Award | Nominated artist and work | Result |
---|---|---|---|
1979 | Best Classical Album of the Year | Himself and Roxolana Roslak for Hindemith: Das Marienleben | Won |
1981 | Best Classical Album of the Year | Himself for Bach Toccatas, Vol. 2 | Nominated |
1982 | Best Classical Album of the Year | Himself for Bach: Preludes. Fughettas & Fugues | Nominated |
1983 | Best Classical Album of the Year | Himself for Haydn: The Six Last Sonatas | Nominated |
Himself for Bach: The Goldberg Variations | Won | ||
1984 | Best Classical Album of the Year | Himself for Brahms: Ballades Op. 10, Rhapsodies Op. 79 | Won |
The Grammys are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Gould won four awards but personally only received one.[94] In 1983, he was honoured posthumously, being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for his 1955 recording (released in 1956) Bach: The Goldberg Variations.[95]
Year | Award | Nominated artist and work | Result |
---|---|---|---|
1973 | Best Album Notes – Classical | Himself for Hindemith: Sonatas for Piano (Complete) |
Won |
1982 | Best Classical Album | Himself and Samuel H. Carter (producer) for Bach: The Goldberg Variations |
Won |
Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra) |
Himself for Bach: The Goldberg Variations |
Won | |
1983 | Best Classical Performance – Instrumental Soloist or Soloists (without orchestra) |
Himself for Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 12 & 13 |
Won |
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Glenn Gould |
Judy Garland | |
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c. 1940 |
|
Born | Frances Ethel Gumm June 10, 1922 Grand Rapids, Minnesota |
Died | June 22, 1969 Chelsea, London, England |
(aged 47)
Cause of death | Barbiturate overdose |
Resting place | Ferncliff Cemetery, Hartsdale, New York |
Nationality | American |
Other names | Judy Garland |
Occupation | Singer, actress, vaudevillian |
Years active | 1924-1969 as a singer 1929-1967 as an actress |
Spouse | David Rose (m. 1941-1944; divorced) Vincente Minnelli (m. 1945-1951; divorced) Sidney Luft (m. 1952-1965; divorced) Mark Herron (m. 1965-1967; divorced) Mickey Deans (m. 1969, her death) |
Children |
|
Awards | List of awards and honours |
Judy Garland (June 10, 1922 – June 22, 1969) was an American actress, singer and vaudevillian. Renowned for her contralto voice, she attained international stardom through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage.[1] Respected for her versatility, she received a Juvenile Academy Award and won a Golden Globe Award, as well as Grammy Awards and a Special Tony Award. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the remake of A Star is Born and for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1961 film, Judgment at Nuremberg. At 39 years of age, she remains the youngest recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in the motion picture industry.
After appearing in vaudeville with her two older sisters, Garland was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. There she made more than two dozen films, including nine with Mickey Rooney and the 1939 film with which she would be most identified, The Wizard of Oz. After 15 years, she was released from the studio but gained renewed success through record-breaking concert appearances, including a return to acting beginning with critically acclaimed performances.
Despite her professional triumphs, Garland battled personal problems throughout her life. Insecure about her appearance, her feelings were compounded by film executives who told her she was unattractive and manipulated her on-screen physical appearance. She was plagued by financial instability, often owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. She married five times, with her first four marriages ending in divorce. She had a long struggle with alcohol and drug use during most of her career, dying of an accidental drug overdose at the age of 47, leaving children Liza Minnelli, Lorna Luft, and Joey Luft.
In 1997, Garland was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Several of her recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 1999, the American Film Institute placed her among the ten greatest female stars in the history of American cinema.[2]
Contents |
Born Frances Ethel Gumm in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Garland was the youngest child of Ethel Marion (née Milne; November 17, 1893–January 5, 1953) and Francis Avent "Frank" Gumm (March 20, 1886–November 17, 1935). Her parents were vaudevillians who settled in Grand Rapids to run a movie theatre that featured vaudeville acts.
Garland's ancestry on both sides of her family can be traced back to the early colonial days of the United States. Her father was descended from the Marable family of Virginia, her grandfather from a Milne ancestry from Aberdeen, Scotland[3] and her maternal grandmother from a Patrick Fitzpatrick, who emigrated to America in the 1770s from Smithtown, County Meath, Ireland.[4]
Named after both her parents and baptized at a local Episcopal church, "Baby" (as she was called by her parents and sisters) shared her family's flair for song and dance. Her first appearance came at the age of two-and-a-half when she joined her two older sisters, Mary Jane "Suzy/Suzanne" Gumm (1915–1964) and Dorothy Virginia "Jimmie" Gumm (1917–1977), on the stage of her father's movie theater during a Christmas show and sang a chorus of "Jingle Bells".[5] Accompanied by their mother on piano, The Gumm Sisters performed there for the next few years.
Following rumors that Frank Gumm had made sexual advances toward male ushers, the family relocated to Lancaster, California in June 1926.[6] Frank purchased and operated another theater in Lancaster, and Ethel, acting as their manager, began working to get her daughters into motion pictures.
In 1928, The Gumm Sisters enrolled in a dance school run by Ethel Meglin, proprietress of the Meglin Kiddies dance troupe. They appeared with the troupe at its annual Christmas show.[7] It was through the Meglin Kiddies that they made their film debut, in a 1929 short subject called The Big Revue. This was followed by appearances in two Vitaphone shorts the following year, A Holiday in Storyland (featuring Garland's first on-screen solo) and The Wedding of Jack and Jill. They next appeared together in Bubbles. Their final on-screen appearance came in 1935, in another short entitled La Fiesta de Santa Barbara.[8]
In 1934, the trio, who by then had been touring the vaudeville circuit as "The Gumm Sisters" for many years, performed in Chicago at the Oriental Theater with George Jessel. He encouraged the group to choose a more appealing name after "Gumm" was met with laughter from the audience. According to theatrical legend, their act was once erroneously billed at a Chicago theater as "The Glum Sisters".[9]
Several stories persist regarding the origin of the name "Garland". One is that it was originated by Jessel after Carole Lombard's character Lily Garland in the film Twentieth Century which was then playing at the Oriental; another is that the girls chose the surname after drama critic Robert Garland.[10] Garland's daughter, Lorna Luft, stated that her mother selected the name when Jessel announced that the trio "looked prettier than a garland of flowers".[11] Another variation surfaced when he was a guest on Garland's television show in 1963. He claimed that he had sent actress Judith Anderson a telegram containing the word "garland," and it stuck in his mind.[12]
By late 1934 the Gumm Sisters had changed their name to the Garland Sisters.[13] Frances changed her name to "Judy" soon after, inspired by a popular Hoagy Carmichael song.[14] By August 1935 they were broken up when Suzanne Garland flew to Reno, Nevada and married musician Lee Kahn, a member of the Jimmy Davis orchestra playing at Cal-Neva Lodge, Lake Tahoe.[15]
In 1935, Garland was signed to a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, supposedly without a screen test, though she had made a test for the studio several months earlier. It did not know what to do with her, as at age 13 she was older than the traditional child star but too young for adult roles. Her physical appearance created a dilemma for MGM. At only 4 feet 11.5 inches (151.1 cm), her "nice" or "girl next door" looks did not exemplify the more glamorous persona required of leading ladies of the time. She was self-conscious and anxious about her appearance. "'Judy went to school at Metro with Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Elizabeth Taylor, real beauties,' said Charles Walters, who directed her in a number of films. 'Judy was the big money-maker at the time, a big success, but she was the ugly duckling ...I think it had a very damaging effect on her emotionally for a long time. I think it lasted forever, really.'"[16] Her insecurity was exacerbated by the attitude of studio chief Louis B. Mayer, who referred to her as his "little hunchback".[17] During her early years at the studio, she was photographed and dressed in plain garments or frilly juvenile gowns and costumes to match the "girl next door" image that was created for her. She was made to wear removable caps on her teeth and rubberized disks to reshape her nose.[18]
She performed at various studio functions and was eventually cast opposite Deanna Durbin in the musical short Every Sunday. The film contrasted her alto vocal range[19] and swing style with Durbin's operatic soprano and served as an extended screen test for the pair, as studio executives were questioning the wisdom of having two girl singers on the roster.[20] Mayer finally decided to keep both actresses, but by that time Durbin's option had lapsed and she was signed by Universal Studios.
On November 16, 1935, in the midst of preparing for a radio performance on the Shell Chateau Hour, Garland learned that her father, who had been hospitalized with meningitis, had taken a turn for the worse. Frank Gumm died the following morning, on November 17, leaving her devastated. Her song for the Shell Chateau Hour was her first professional rendition of "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart", a song which would become a standard in many of her concerts.[21]
Garland next came to the attention of studio executives by singing a special arrangement of "You Made Me Love You" to Clark Gable at a birthday party held by the studio for the actor; her rendition was so well regarded that she performed the song in the all-star extravaganza Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937), singing to a photograph of him.[22]
MGM hit on a winning formula when it paired Garland with Mickey Rooney in a string of "backyard musicals".[23] The duo first appeared together in the 1937 B movie Thoroughbreds Don't Cry. They became a sensation and teamed up again in Love Finds Andy Hardy. She would eventually star with him in nine films.
To keep up with the frantic pace of making one film after another, Garland, Rooney, and other young performers were constantly given amphetamines, as well as barbiturates to take before going to bed.[24] For Garland, this regular dose of drugs led to addiction and a lifelong struggle and contributed to her eventual demise. She later resented the hectic schedule and felt that her youth had been stolen from her by MGM. Despite successful film and recording careers, awards, critical praise and her ability to fill concert halls worldwide, she was plagued throughout her life with self-doubt and required constant reassurance that she was talented and attractive.[25]
In 1938, aged 16, she was cast as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939), a film based on the children's book by L. Frank Baum. In this film, she sang the song for which she would forever be identified, "Over the Rainbow". She was initially outfitted in a blonde wig for the part, but Freed and LeRoy decided against it shortly into filming. Her blue gingham dress was chosen for its blurring effect on her figure.[26]
Shooting commenced on October 13, 1938,[27] and was completed on March 16, 1939,[28] with a final cost of more than US$2 million.[29] With the conclusion of filming, MGM kept Garland busy with promotional tours and the shooting of Babes in Arms. She and Rooney were sent on a cross-country promotional tour, culminating in the August 17 New York City premiere at the Capitol Theater, which included a five-show-a-day appearance schedule for the two stars.[30]
The Wizard of Oz was a tremendous critical success, though its high budget and promotions costs of an estimated $4 million coupled with the lower revenue generated by children's tickets meant that the film did not make a profit until it was re-released in the 1940s.[31] At the 1940 Academy Awards ceremony, Garland received an Academy Juvenile Award for her performances in 1939, including The Wizard of Oz and Babes in Arms.[32] Following this recognition, she became one of MGM's most bankable stars.
In 1940, she starred in three films: Andy Hardy Meets Debutante, Strike Up the Band, and Little Nellie Kelly. In the latter, she played her first adult role, a dual role of both mother and daughter. Little Nellie Kelly was purchased from George M. Cohan as a vehicle for her to display both her audience appeal and her physical appearance. The role was a challenge for her, requiring the use of an accent, her first adult kiss, and the only death scene of her career.[33] The success of these three films, and a further three films in 1941, secured her position at MGM as a major property.
During this time Garland experienced her first serious adult romances. The first was with the band leader Artie Shaw. She was deeply devoted to him and was devastated in early 1940 when he eloped with Lana Turner.[34] Garland began a relationship with musician David Rose, and, on her 18th birthday, he gave her an engagement ring. The studio intervened because he was still married at the time to the actress and singer Martha Raye. They agreed to wait a year to allow for his divorce from her to become final, and were wed on July 27, 1941.[35] Garland, who had aborted her pregnancy by him in 1942, agreed to a trial separation in January 1943, and they divorced in 1944.[36] She was noticeably thinner in her next film, For Me and My Gal, alongside Gene Kelly in his first screen appearance. She was top billed over the credits for the first time and effectively made the transition from teenage star to adult actress.
At the age of 21, she was given the "glamour treatment" in Presenting Lily Mars, in which she was dressed in "grown-up" gowns. Her lightened hair was also pulled up in a stylish fashion. However, no matter how glamorous or beautiful she appeared on screen or in photographs, she was never confident in her appearance and never escaped the "girl next door" image that had been created for her.[37]
One of Garland's most successful films for MGM was Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), in which she introduced three standards: "The Trolley Song", "The Boy Next Door", and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". Vincente Minnelli was assigned to direct and he requested that makeup artist Dorothy Ponedel be assigned to Garland. Ponedel refined her appearance in several ways, including extending and reshaping her eyebrows, changing her hairline, modifying her lip line and removing her nose discs. She appreciated the results so much that Ponedel was written into her contract for all her remaining pictures at MGM.
During the filming of Meet Me in St. Louis, after some initial conflict between them, Garland and Minnelli entered a relationship. They were married June 15, 1945,[38] and on March 12, 1946, daughter Liza was born.[39] In 1951, they divorced.[40]
The Clock (1945) was her first straight dramatic film, opposite Robert Walker. Though the film was critically praised and earned a profit, most movie fans expected her to sing. It would be many years before she acted again in a non-singing dramatic role. Garland's other famous films of the 1940s include The Harvey Girls (1946), in which she introduced the Academy Award-winning song "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe", and The Pirate (1948).
During filming for The Pirate in April 1947, Garland suffered a nervous breakdown and was placed in a private sanitarium.[41] She was able to complete filming, but in July she undertook her first suicide attempt, making minor cuts to her wrist with a broken glass.[42] During this period, she spent two weeks in treatment at the Austen Riggs Center, a psychiatric hospital in Stockbridge, Massachusetts[43] Following her work on The Pirate, she completed three more films for MGM: Easter Parade (in which she danced with Fred Astaire), In the Good Old Summertime, and her final film with MGM, Summer Stock.
Because of her mental condition, Garland was unable to complete a series of films. During the filming of The Barkleys of Broadway, she was taking prescription sleeping medication along with illicitly obtained pills containing morphine. It was around this time she also developed a serious problem with alcohol. These, in combination with migraine headaches, led her to miss several shooting days in a row. After being advised by her doctor that she would only be able to work in four-to-five-day increments with extended rest periods between, MGM executive Arthur Freed made the decision to suspend her on July 18, 1948. She was replaced by Ginger Rogers.[44]
Garland was cast in the film adaptation of Annie Get Your Gun in the title role of Annie Oakley. She was nervous at the prospect of taking on a role strongly identified with Ethel Merman, anxious about appearing in an unglamorous part after breaking from juvenile parts for several years and disturbed by her treatment at the hands of director Busby Berkeley. She began arriving late to the set and sometimes failed to appear. She was suspended from the picture on May 10, 1949, and was replaced by Betty Hutton.[45]
Garland was next cast in the film Royal Wedding with Fred Astaire after June Allyson became pregnant in 1950. She again failed to report to the set on multiple occasions and the studio suspended her contract on June 17, 1950. She was replaced by Jane Powell.[46] Reputable biographies following her death stated that after this latest dismissal, she slightly grazed her neck with a broken water glass, requiring only a Band-Aid, but at the time, the public was informed that a despondent Garland had slashed her throat.[47] "All I could see ahead was more confusion," Garland later said of this suicide attempt. "I wanted to black out the future as well as the past. I wanted to hurt myself and everyone who had hurt me."[48]
In October 1951, Garland opened in a vaudeville-style, two-a-day engagement at Broadway's newly refurbished Palace Theatre. Her 19-week engagement exceeded all previous records for the theater, and was described as "one of the greatest personal triumphs in show business history".[49] Garland was honored for her contribution to the revival of vaudeville with a Special Tony Award.[50]
In May 1952, at the height of Garland's comeback, her mother Ethel was featured in a Los Angeles Mirror story in which she revealed that while Garland was making a small fortune at the Palace, Ethel was working a desk job at Douglas Aircraft Company for $61 a week.[51] They had been estranged for years, with Garland characterizing her mother as "no good for anything except to create chaos and fear" and accusing her of mismanaging and misappropriating her salary from the earliest days of her career.[52] Garland's sister Virginia denied this, stating "Mama never took a dime from Judy."[53] On January 5, 1953, Ethel Gumm was found dead in the Douglas Aircraft parking lot. She was 59 years old.[54]
In 1954, Garland filmed a musical remake of the 1937 film A Star is Born for Warner Bros. She and her third husband, Sid Luft (whom she had married in 1952) produced the film through their production company, Transcona Enterprises, while Warner Bros. supplied the funds, production facilities, and crew.[55] Directed by George Cukor and costarring James Mason, it was a large undertaking to which she initially fully dedicated herself.
As shooting progressed, however, she began making the same pleas of illness which she had so often made during her final films at MGM. Production delays led to cost overruns and angry confrontations with Warner Bros. head Jack Warner. Principal photography wrapped on March 17, 1954. At Luft's suggestion, the "Born in a Trunk" medley was filmed as a showcase for her and inserted over director Cukor's objections, who feared the additional length would lead to cuts in other areas. It was completed on July 29.[56]
Upon its September 29, 1954 world premiere, the film was met with tremendous critical and popular acclaim. Before release, it was edited at the instruction of Jack Warner; theater operators, concerned that they were losing money because they were only able to run the film for three or four shows per day instead of five or six, pressured the studio to make additional reductions. About 30 minutes of footage was cut, sparking outrage among critics and filmgoers. A Star is Born ended up losing money, and the secure financial position Garland had expected from the profits did not materialize.[57] Transcona made no more films with Warner.[58]
Garland was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and, in the run-up to the 27th Academy Awards, was generally expected to win. She could not attend the ceremony because she had just given birth to her son, Joseph Luft, so a television crew was in her hospital room with cameras and wires to televise her anticipated acceptance speech. The Oscar was won, however, by Grace Kelly for The Country Girl (1954). The camera crew was packing up before Kelly could even reach the stage. Groucho Marx sent her a telegram after the awards ceremony, declaring her loss "the biggest robbery since Brinks". TIME magazine labeled her performance as "just about the greatest one-woman show in modern movie history".[59] Garland won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical for the role.[60]
Garland's films after A Star Is Born included Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) (for which she was Oscar- and Golden Globe-nominated for Best Supporting Actress), the animated feature Gay Purr-ee (1962), and A Child Is Waiting (1963) with Burt Lancaster. Her final film was I Could Go On Singing (1963), costarring Dirk Bogarde.
Garland engaged Sid Luft as her manager the same year she divorced Minnelli.[61] He arranged a four-month concert tour of the United Kingdom, where she played to sold-out audiences throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland.[62] It included her first appearances at the renowned London Palladium, for a four-week stand in April.[63] Although some in the British press chided her before her opening for being "too plump",[64] she received rave reviews and the ovation was described by the Palladium manager as the loudest he had ever heard.[65]
Garland and Luft were married on June 8, 1952, in Hollister, California.[66] Garland gave birth to Lorna Luft, herself a future actress and singer, on November 21, 1952, and to Joey Luft on March 29, 1955.[67]
Beginning in 1955, Garland appeared in a number of television specials. The first, the 1955 debut episode of Ford Star Jubilee, was the first full-scale color broadcast ever on CBS and was a ratings triumph, scoring a 34.8 Nielsen rating. She signed a three-year, $300,000 contract with the network. Only one additional special, a live concert edition of General Electric Theater, was broadcast in 1956 before the relationship between the Lufts and CBS broke down in a dispute over the planned format of upcoming specials.[68] In 1956, Garland performed four weeks at the New Frontier Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip for a salary of $55,000 per week, making her the highest-paid entertainer to work in Las Vegas.[69] Despite a brief bout of laryngitis, her performances there were so successful that her run was extended an extra week.[70] Later that year she returned to the Palace Theatre, site of her two-a-day triumph. She opened in September, once again to rave reviews and popular acclaim.[71]
In November 1959 Garland was hospitalized, diagnosed with acute hepatitis.[72] Over the next few weeks several quarts of fluid were drained from her body until, still weak, she was released from the hospital in January 1960. She was told by doctors that she likely had five years or less to live, and that even if she did survive she would be a semi-invalid and would never sing again.[73] She initially felt "greatly relieved" at the diagnosis. "The pressure was off me for the first time in my life."[47] However, she recovered over the next several months and, in August of that year, returned to the stage of the Palladium. She felt so warmly embraced by the British that she announced her intention to move permanently to England.[74]
Her concert appearance at Carnegie Hall on April 23, 1961, was a considerable highlight, called by many "the greatest night in show business history".[75] The two-record Judy at Carnegie Hall was certified gold, charting for 95 weeks on Billboard, including 13 weeks at number one. The album won four Grammy Awards including Album of the Year and Best Female Vocal of the Year.[76] The album has never been out of print.
In 1961, Garland and CBS settled their contract disputes with the help of her new agent, Freddie Fields, and negotiated a new round of specials. The first, entitled The Judy Garland Show, aired in 1962 and featured guests Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.[77] Following this success, CBS made a $24 million offer to her for a weekly television series of her own, also to be called The Judy Garland Show, which was deemed at the time in the press to be "the biggest talent deal in TV history". Although she had said as early as 1955 that she would never do a weekly television series,[78] in the early 1960s she was in a financially precarious situation. She was several hundred thousand dollars in debt to the Internal Revenue Service, having failed to pay taxes in 1951 and 1952, and the failure of A Star is Born meant that she received nothing from that investment.[79] A successful run on television was intended to secure her financial future.
Following a third special, Judy Garland and Her Guests Phil Silvers and Robert Goulet, Garland's weekly series debuted September 29, 1963.[80] The Judy Garland Show was critically praised,[81][82] but for a variety of reasons (including being placed in the time slot opposite Bonanza on NBC) the show lasted only one season and was canceled in 1964 after 26 episodes. Despite its short run, the series was nominated for four Emmy Awards.[83] The demise of the series was personally and financially devastating for Garland.
Garland sued Luft for divorce in 1963, claiming "cruelty" as the grounds. She also asserted that he had repeatedly struck her while he was drinking and that he had attempted to take their children from her by force.[84] She had filed for divorce from Luft more than once previously, including as early as 1956, but had reconciled.[85]
With the demise of her television series, Garland returned to the stage. Most notably, she performed at the London Palladium with her then 18-year-old daughter Liza Minnelli in November 1964. The concert, which was also filmed for British television network ITV, was one of her final appearances at the venue. She made guest appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show, The Hollywood Palace, and The Merv Griffin Show, on which she guest-hosted an episode.[86]
Garland was a lifelong Democrat and was active in both the Hollywood Democratic Committee and attended many of the Democratic National Conventions. In 1960 she was in attendance at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles with John F. Kennedy, Adlai Stevenson, and Lyndon B. Johnson.[87][88][89]
A 1964 tour of Australia was largely disastrous. Garland's first concert in Sydney, held in the Sydney Stadium because no concert hall could accommodate the crowds who wanted to see her, went well and received positive reviews. Her second performance, in Melbourne, started an hour late. The crowd of 7,000, angered by her tardiness and believing her to be drunk, booed and heckled her, and she fled the stage after just 45 minutes.[90] She later characterized the Melbourne crowd as "brutish".[52] A second concert in Sydney was uneventful but the Melbourne appearance garnered her significant bad press.[91] Some of that bad press was deflected by the announcement of a near fatal episode of pleurisy.
Garland's tour promoter Mark Herron announced that they had married aboard a freighter off the coast of Hong Kong; however, she was not legally divorced from Luft at the time the ceremony was performed.[92] It became final on May 19, 1965,[84] but she and Herron did not legally marry until November 14, 1965 and then separated six months later.[93]
In February 1967, Garland was cast as Helen Lawson in Valley of the Dolls for 20th Century Fox.[94] During the filming, she missed rehearsals and was fired in April, replaced by Susan Hayward.[95] Her prerecording of the song "I'll Plant My Own Tree" survived, along with her wardrobe tests.
Returning to the stage, Garland made her last appearances at New York's Palace Theatre in July, a 16-show tour, performing with her children Lorna and Joey Luft. She wore a sequined pantsuit on stage for this tour, which was part of the original wardrobe for her character in Valley of the Dolls.[96]
By early 1969, Garland's health had deteriorated. She performed in London at the Talk of the Town nightclub for a five-week run[97] and made her last concert appearance in Copenhagen during March 1969.[98] She married her fifth and final husband, musician Mickey Deans, at Chelsea Register Office, London, on March 15, 1969,[99] her divorce from Herron having been finalized on February 11.[100]
On June 22, 1969, Garland was found dead by Deans in the bathroom of their rented house in Chelsea, London. At the subsequent inquest, coroner Gavin Thursdon stated that the cause of death was "an incautious self-overdosage" of barbiturates; her blood contained the equivalent of ten 1.5-grain (97 mg) Seconal capsules.[101] Thursdon stressed that the overdose had been unintentional and that there was no evidence to suggest she had committed suicide. Her autopsy showed that there was no inflammation of her stomach lining and no drug residue there, which indicated that the drug had been ingested over a long period of time, rather than in one dose. Her death certificate stated that her death had been "accidental".[102] Even so, a British specialist who had attended her said she had been living on borrowed time due to cirrhosis of the liver.[103] She had turned 47 just twelve days prior to her death. Her Wizard of Oz costar Ray Bolger commented at her funeral, "She just plain wore out."
On June 26, Deans took Garland's remains to New York City, where an estimated 20,000 people lined up for hours at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel in Manhattan to pay their respects. On June 27, James Mason gave a eulogy at the funeral, an Episcopal service led by the Rev. Peter A. Delaney of Marylebone Church, London, who had officiated at her marriage to Deans.[104] The public and press were barred. She was interred in a crypt in the community mausoleum at Ferncliff Cemetery, in Hartsdale, New York.[105]
Garland's legacy as a performer and a personality has endured long after her death. The American Film Institute named her eighth among the Greatest Female Stars of All Time.[106] She has been the subject of over two dozen biographies since her death, including the well-received Me and My Shadows: A Family Memoir by her daughter, Lorna Luft, whose memoir was later adapted into the television miniseries Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows, which won Emmy Awards for the two actresses portraying her (Tammy Blanchard and Judy Davis).[107]
Garland was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.[108] Several of her recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[109] These include "Over the Rainbow", which was ranked as the number one movie song of all time in the American Film Institute's "100 Years...100 Songs" list. Four more Garland songs are featured on the list: "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (#76), "Get Happy" (#61), "The Trolley Song" (#26), and "The Man That Got Away" (#11).[110] She has twice been honored on U.S. postage stamps, in 1989 (as Dorothy)[111] and again in 2006 (as Vicki Lester from A Star Is Born).[112]
Garland always had a large base of fans in the gay community and has become a gay icon.[113] Reasons often given for her standing, especially among gay men, are admiration of her ability as a performer, the way her personal struggles mirrored those of gay men in America during the height of her fame and her value as a camp figure.[114] When asked about how she felt about having a large gay following, she responded, "I couldn't care less. I sing to people."[115]
Some have also suggested a connection between the date of Garland's death and funeral on June 27, 1969 and the Stonewall riots, the flashpoint of the modern Gay Liberation movement,[116][117] which started in the early hours of June 28.[116] However, in a 2009 interview gay historian David Carter stated that this connection is untrue, and based on a mocking reference to the riot by an anti-gay writer in the Village Voice the next day.[118]
Garland has been portrayed on television by Andrea McArdle in Rainbow (1978), Tammy Blanchard (young Judy) and Judy Davis (older Judy) in Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001) and Elizabeth Karsell in James Dean (2001). Anne Hathaway is set to play Garland in a biopic titled Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland which is in production and is set to be released in either 2012 or 2013.
On stage, Garland is a character in the musical The Boy from Oz (1998), portrayed by Chrissy Amphlett in the original Australian production and by Isabel Keating on Broadway in 2003. End of the Rainbow (2005) featured Caroline O'Connor as Garland and Michael Cumpsty as Garland's pianist. Adrienne Barbeau played Garland in The Property Known as Garland (2006) and The Judy Monologues (2010) featured Kimberly Roberts as Garland. Garland was briefly mentioned in the biopic film Introducing Dorothy Dandridge for the 1954 Academy Awards for A Star Is Born.
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Awards and achievements | ||
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Preceded by Ella Fitzgerald for Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife |
Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance 1962 for Judy at Carnegie Hall |
Succeeded by Ella Fitzgerald for Ella Swings Brightly with Nelson |
Preceded by Dave Brubeck, Marvin Gaye, Georg Solti, Stevie Wonder |
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award 1997 |
Succeeded by Bo Diddley, Mills Brothers, Roy Orbison, Paul Robeson |
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