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Howard is a popular English language occupational given name of Old English origin, meaning "noble watchman". A diminutive is "Howie" and its shortened form is "Ward" (most common in the 19th century). Between 1900-1960, Howard ranked in the U.S. Top 200; between 1960–1990, it ranked in the U.S. Top 400; between 1990–2004, it ranked in the U.S. Top 600.^[1] People with the given name Howard or its variants include:

Howard, given name[link]

• Howard Duane Allman (1946-1971), American guitar virtuoso
• Howard Burnett (born 1961), Jamaican track and field athlete
• Howard Carter (1874–1939), King Tut Tomb discoverer
• Howard Cosell (1918–1995), sports broadcaster
• Howard Dean (born 1948), American politician
• Howard Donald (born 1968), English singer with Take That
• Howard Devoto (born Howard Trafford, 1952), English rock and roll singer/songwriter
• Howard Duff (1913–1990), American actor
• Howard Goodall (born 1958), British musician, musicologist and TV presenter
• Howard Grant (born 1966), Jamaican-Canadian boxer
• Howard Hawks (1896–1977), American producer
• Howard Hesseman (born 1940), American actor
• Howard Hughes (1905–1976), American aviation pioneer and film mogul
• Howard Johnson, name of several people
• Howard Jones (musician) (born 1955), English
• Howard Judd (1935–2007), American physician and medical researcher
• Howard Kendall, English football player and manager
• Howard Lederer (born 1964), professional poker player
• H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), American writer
• Howard McNear (1905–1969), American radio and television actor
• Howard Marks (born 1945), former teacher, drug smuggler and author
• Howard Payne (athlete) (1931–1992), English hammer thrower
• Howard Shore (born 1946) Canadian film-score composer
• Howard Stern (born 1954), American talk-radio host
• Howard K. Stern (born 1968), attorney for Anna Nicole Smith
• Howard Unruh (1921–2009), American spree killer
• Howard Wilkinson, English football manager
• Howard Zinn, (1922-2010), an American historian, academic, author, playwright, and social activist.

Howie, nickname[link]

• Howie B (born 1963), Scottish musician and producer
• Howie Carr (born 1952), American journalist
• Howie Day (born 1981), American singer-songwriter
• Howie Dorough (born 1973), American musician with Backstreet Boys
• Howie Epstein (1955–2003), American musician
• Howie Gordon (born 1971), Big Brother contestant
• Howie Gordon (later known as Richard Pacheco), American pornographic actor
• Howie Hawkins, American politician and activist
• Howie Long (born 1960), American football player
• Howie Mandel (born 1955), Canadian comedian and actor, Deal or no Deal- TV Show
• Howie Meeker (born 1924), Canadian hockey player, TV sports announcer, Member of Parliament
• Howie Morenz (1902–1937), Canadian ice hockey player
• Howie Nave (born 1956), American comedian, radio personality, writer, promoter and movie critic
• Howie Rose (born 1954), American sportscaster
• Howie Winter (born 1929), American mobster

Ward, shortened form[link]

• Ward Bond (1903–1960), American actor
• Ward Christensen, American computer programmer and creator of the Xmodem and the first BBS
• Ward Churchill (born 1947), American controversial writer and political activist
• Ward Cunningham (born 1949), American founder of WikiWikiWeb
• Ward Weaver III (born 1963), American convicted felon

Fictional characters[link]

• Howard Roark, protagonist of Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead
• Howard the Duck, a comic book character
• Howard Wolowitz, a fictional character on the CBS television series The Big Bang Theory, portrayed by actor Simon Helberg.
• Ward Cleaver, character in the television sitcom, Leave It to Beaver
• Ward Zabac, character in Final Fantasy VIII
• Wardes, character from Zero no Tsukaima
• Howard Hunter, fictional character played by James B. Sikking on Hill Street Blues

Howard, stage name[link]

• Howard Keel, (born Harold, 1917 or 1919–2004), singer and actor

Other[link]

• Howard University, a historically black university in Washington, D.C
• Howard Theatre, Washington, D.C.
• Howard Park Wines, a winery in Western Australia
• Howard Aircraft Corporation, a defunct American aircraft manufacturer
• Castle Howard, a stately home in Malton, England

References[link]

This page or section lists people that share the same given name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change that link to point directly to the intended article.

Howard Homan Buffett (August 13, 1903 – April 30, 1964) was an Omaha, Nebraska businessman, investor, and four-term Republican United States Representative. Buffett was the father of Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor.

Early life[link]

Howard Buffett was born in Omaha, Nebraska to Henrietta Duvall Buffett and Ernest P. Buffett, owners of a grocery business. The Buffetts were of Huguenot ancestry. Howard Buffett attended public schools and graduated from the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1925. While a student, Buffett was a brother of the Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity. Buffett married Leila Stahl on December 27, 1925. The Buffetts were active members of Dundee Presbyterian Church.^[1] After failing to secure a job in the family grocery business, Howard Buffett started a small stock brokerage.^[2]

Career[link]

Entering the investment business, Buffett also served on the Omaha board of education from 1939 to 1942. In 1942 he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in the Nebraska district in which Omaha was located. In that election, Buffett was seen as "a Republican sacrificial lamb in Nebraska’s second district when FDR was a popular wartime leader."^[3] Nevertheless, he went on to win the Republican nomination in the primary and then the subsequent general election.

He was reelected twice. In 1948 he again was the Republican nominee for another term, but was defeated for reelection; however, he was the Republican nominee for the office again in 1950 and won the office back. In 1952 Buffett decided against seeking another term and returned to his investment business in Omaha, Buffett-Falk & Co., in which he worked until shortly before his death.^[4] He also served as the campaign manager for conservative Senator Robert Taft in Taft's 1952 presidential campaign.^[5]

According to Warren Buffett biographer Roger Lowenstein:

Political philosophy[link]

Howard Buffett is remembered for his highly libertarian Old Right stance, having maintained a friendship with Murray Rothbard for a number of years.^[6] He "would invariably draw 'zero' ratings from the Americans for Democratic Action and other leftist groups."^[7]

Buffett was a vocal critic of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan.^[3] Of the Truman Doctrine, he said: "Our Christian ideals cannot be exported to other lands by dollars and guns."^[8] Buffett was also "one of the major voices in Congress opposed to the Korean adventure,"^[7] and "was convinced that the United States was largely responsible for the eruption of conflict in Korea; for the rest of his life he tried unsuccessfully to get the Senate Armed Services Committee to declassify the testimony of CIA head Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, which Buffett told [Rothbard] established American responsibility for the Korean outbreak."^[9]

Speaking on the floor of Congress, he said of military interventionism that,

In the summer of 1962, he wrote "an impassioned plea... for the abolition of the draft" in the National Review.^[5] Buffett wrote:

In addition to non-interventionism overseas, Howard Buffett strongly supported the gold standard because he believed it would limit the ability of government to inflate the money supply and spend beyond its means.^[11] His son Warren Buffett is not an advocate of the gold standard.^[12][13]

Family[link]

He married Leila Stahl Buffett; they had three children:

• Warren Buffett (son): investor, and philanthropist, Chairman & CEO, Berkshire Hathaway
  • Peter Buffett (grandson): musician, composer, and producer
  • Howard Graham Buffett (grandson): following in his father's footsteps, is on the corporate board of Berkshire Hathaway
  • Susan Alice Buffett (granddaughter)
• Doris Buffett Bryant (daughter)
• Roberta Buffett Bialek (daughter)

Publications[link]

• Buffett, Howard Homan. Human Freedom Rests on Gold Redeemable Money, Financial Chronicle 5/6/48
• Buffett, Howard Homan. The Evil Men in the Kremlin Must Be Chortling as Militarism Runs Wild in America. Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1952.^[14]

References[link]

External links[link]

• "Howard Homan Buffett: Old Rightist Extraordinaire" by Joseph R. Stromberg
• "Howard Buffett: A Man of the Old Right" by Noah M. Clarke
• Howard Buffett at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

Russell Joseph Howard^{[citation needed]} (born 23 March 1980)^[2] is an English comedian and presenter best known for his TV show Russell Howard's Good News and his appearances on the topical panel TV show Mock The Week. He won "Best Compère" at the 2006 Chortle Awards and was nominated for an if.comedy award for his 2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe show.

Personal life[link]

Howard has two younger siblings, twins, Kerry, an actress, and Daniel,^[3] a systems analyst who suffers from epilepsy,^[4] a fact which Howard often references during his act. Indeed, in April 2010, Howard ran the Virgin London Marathon for the first time with both his brother and sister, to raise money for the National Society for Epilepsy. He completed the 26 mile course in 4 hours and 15 minutes, beating his target time of 5 hours. Sponsorship has raised over £7,000 to date.^[5]

Howard supports Liverpool Football Club and says that he is "deadly serious" about football.^[6] "I still go down the pub and play football with my mates", he commented in 2010.^[6]

In terms of political views, Howard appeared at Friends of the Earth's LIVEstock comedy and music event at the Hammersmith Apollo in support of the green campaign group's Food Chain Campaign for planet-friendly farming, on 12 November 2009.

For Sport Relief 2010 he took part in the BT Sport Relief Million Pound Bike Ride, with David Walliams, Jimmy Carr, Fearne Cotton, Miranda Hart, Patrick Kielty, and Davina McCall. They cycled from John O'Groats in Scotland to Land's End in 4 days trying to raise 1 million pounds.^[7]

Career[link]

TV and radio work[link]

In 2004 he was commissioned by BBC Radio 1 to write, sing and perform on the comedy series The Milk Run. Howard has also appeared on the shows Banter (hosted by Andrew Collins) and Political Animal for BBC Radio 4.^[8]

Until 2010, Howard was a regular panelist on Mock the Week. He has also appeared on 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Would I Lie To You?, Live At The Apollo, The Secret Policeman's Ball 2008, Law of the Playground and Never Mind the Buzzcocks (Series 18, Episode 2 and Series 20, Episode 4).^[9]

He was one of several comedians picked as the best comedy talent from the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe that recorded 10–15-minute spots for the 'Edinburgh and Beyond show' which was aired on Paramount Comedy 1 in the autumn of 2006.^[10] The show was filmed at The Bloomsbury Theatre. From 2009, he took over as compère of this show from Al Murray.^[11]

From November 2006 to July 2008, Russell co-hosted The Russell Howard Show^[12] on BBC 6 Music with fellow comedian Jon Richardson in a Sunday morning slot previously hosted by Russell Brand. The show continued to air, without Howard, until March 2010. He has since explained that his main reason for leaving the show was that he finds radio "really restrictive" and "I gorge off the audience as a performer, but you can't gauge a reaction on the radio."^[13][14]

Russell was commissioned to make a comedy show called Russell Howard's Good News, aimed at under-25s, for BBC Three. The first episode aired on 22 October 2009 and the show ran for seven episodes as well as a "Best Of" show and a Christmas Special. It went on to become BBC Three's highest ever rating entertainment series.^[15][16] In the show, he gave his take on the week's major news stories, as well as giving attention to some of the more light-hearted stories of the week. Two more series of the show were commissioned, with the second series starting on March 25, 2010.^[17] A fourth series began on 24 March 2011 on BBC Three.

While recording an episode of Good News which aired on 17th November 2011, he broke his wrist when a stunt went wrong, being that Russell tried to do push ups on a collapsible stool which inevitably collapsed. He then revealed on the following show some of the texts sent by his friends and family following the accident.

He made his United States television début on the August 3, 2011 episode of Conan.

Live comedy[link]

A show from his 2007 Adventures tour was released on DVD on 17 November 2008,^[18] under the title "Russell Howard Live". The show on the DVD was recorded at The Bloomsbury Theatre.^[19]

Howard started touring his show Dingledodies in September 2008 and played various dates through to December. Due to overwhelming demand he further extended the tour twice into 2009. It sold in excess of 125,000 tickets,^[20] including three sell-out shows at the Hammersmith Apollo as well as several large arenas such as Wembley Arena and Manchester's MEN Arena. The DVD of this tour was released on 9 November 2009^[21] and features a recording of the show from the Brighton Dome.^[20]

He was named "Best Theatre Show" at the 2009 Chortle Comedy Awards.^[22]

Howard performed 10 UK dates between 11 and 20 December 2009 for his "Big Rooms and Belly Laughs" tour.^[23]

In 2011 the far right English Defence League threatened to picket outside one of his live gigs in retaliation at material poking fun at them in one of his TV performances.^[24]

He performed his latest arena tour in 2011, titled Right Here Right Now. The tour sold out in days and was extended twice, with new dates in December 2011 announced on 3 May 2011.

It was reported in The Independent that Howard earned £4 million in 2009 alone,^[25] which he denies.^[26]

Credits[link]

Television[link]

• Never Mind the Buzzcocks BBC 2 (2006)
• Mock The Week BBC 2 (2006–2010)
• Never Mind the Buzzcocks BBC 2 (2007)
• Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive BBC Three (2007)
• Would I Lie To You? BBC 1 (2007)
• Live at the Apollo BBC 1 (2007)
• Law of the Playground Channel 4 (2008)
• The Secret Policeman's Ball 2008 Channel 4 (2008)
• 8 out of 10 Cats Channel 4 (2008)
• Live at the Apollo BBC 1 (2009)
• Russell Howard's Good News BBC Three (2009–)
• Conan (2011)
• Children in Need 2011 (2011)

Radio[link]

• The Milk Run BBC Radio 1 (2004)
• Political Animal BBC Radio 4 (2004)
• Banter BBC Radio 4 (2005)
• The Russell Howard Show BBC 6 Music (2006–2008)

Writing[link]

• The Milk Run BBC Radio 1 (2004)

Stand-Up DVDs[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Russell Howard Official Website

This article describes a work or element of fiction in a primarily in-universe style. Please help rewrite it to explain the fiction more clearly and provide non-fictional perspective. (March 2010)

Howard Joel Wolowitz,^[1] M.Eng is a fictional character on the CBS television series The Big Bang Theory, portrayed by actor Simon Helberg. Among the main male characters in the show, Howard is distinguished for lacking a doctoral degree, for still living with his mother, and for believing himself to be a "ladies' man". Simon Helberg's character is named after a computer programmer known by the show's co-creator Bill Prady.^[2]

Biography[link]

Howard is a Jewish Aerospace Engineer at Caltech's Department of Applied Physics who often hangs out at Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon Cooper's (Jim Parsons) apartment. He is best friends with Rajesh Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar). He was born in 1981 as specified in season one's episode "The Pancake Batter Anomaly".

Howard sports a bowl-style haircut and tends to wear loud, vintage, 1960-era outfits, a V-neck or t-shirt over a turtleneck or dickey which sport a variety of pins, and always has skinny jeans and an alien pin. He is also fond of unusual belt buckles, which have included a Nintendo controller, a silver Batman logo, a 45 RPM record insert, a Klingon communicator, and a buckle containing the superhero the Flash.

Personality[link]

Like his friends, Howard is a big fan of comic books and superheroes. It is also quite clear that his current and preferred personal transportation is via his Vespa motor scooter.

Besides English, Howard can speak several languages including French, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic, Persian and the constructed language Klingon from the Star Trek franchise. Although in the show, Howard has been mentioned to speak these languages, the writers have not explored his proficiency much. In the season three episode "The Precious Fragmentation", he also has shown he knows some words in Sindarin, one of the two dialects of the fictional Elvish language that J.R.R. Tolkien invented for the Lord of the Rings novels. The episode "The Wiggly Finger Catalyst" also reveals he knows American Sign Language.

Howard fancies himself a "ladies' man" and he provides outrageous pick-up lines whenever there is a female present, resulting in humiliating turn-downs. Howard describes himself as a romantic,^[3] although he usually comes across as overtly sexual and, in the words of Penny, disgusting.^[4] However, Penny's animosity toward Howard has mellowed somewhat since Howard began dating Penny's work colleague Bernadette, to whom he is now married. When Howard found an ALF doll and revealed that it filled a void for him when his father left, Penny felt sympathetic and began to understand why he is how he is.

Howard, much like Penny, dislikes many of Sheldon's antics, but he has grown accustomed to them. One time, Penny asked how Sheldon had gotten friends and Howard simply replied "We liked Leonard".^[5]

Howard is allergic to peanuts, and they pose a life-threatening risk to him. He also mentioned having transient idiopathic arrhythmia. Howard is proud of the fact that he has only 3% body fat, which Raj notes makes him look like a human chicken wing.

Although Jewish, Howard is not very serious about his faith and does not keep kosher. For instance, he eats pork, and when the price of pork went up at the group's favorite Chinese restaurant, he remarked "it's getting tougher and tougher to be a bad Jew".^[6] In another occasion, when Howard tried to date Sheldon's sister, Missy, he said he would kill his rabbi with a pork chop if his religion was an impediment, and one of the reasons he was happy to continue dating Bernadette (who is Catholic) was the chance to really annoy his mom. Despite this, Howard has shown some belief in his faith. When he and Raj posed as goths to pick up women, he wore fake-tattoo sleeves and refused to get real ones (although he attempted to get one but was too scared of the needle). It is noted in "The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis" that he observes Hanukkah. He also apparently attends High Holiday services, as Sheldon once critically noted that he was not available to compete in Halo during those times.^{[citation needed]} In "The Financial Permeability" he made the sign of the Cross—a Christian practice—during an encounter with Kurt, Penny's ex-boyfriend.

As of the episode "The Herb Garden Germination", he is engaged to Bernadette when she said yes to his marriage proposal. They eventually married in "The Countdown Reflection," the Season 5 finale.

Work[link]

Unlike Leonard, Sheldon, and Raj, Howard does not have a Ph.D. and is sometimes mocked about it, especially by Sheldon. He defends himself by pointing out that he has a master's degree from MIT.^[7] Because he does not have a doctorate., Dr. Gablehauser refers to him as "mister" while referring to his friends as doctors, and Sheldon often says that he is the least smart of the four "nerd" characters, as shown in "The Bus Pants Utilization", where the guys develop an iPhone app and Sheldon refers to them as "three geniuses and their friend Howard".

Howard is usually seen working on equipment to be used in NASA missions and the International Space Station, though many times he is careless about it.

In the first episode, Howard mentioned working on the design of a satellite that orbits a moon of Jupiter taking high-resolution photos.^[8]

Having worked on the Mars rover project, he invited his date, Dr. Stephanie Barnett, to drive it at a secret facility. Instead, the rover became stuck in a Martian ditch and he spent the rest of the night with Sheldon and Raj trying to undo the damage. When this proved unsuccessful, he decided to erase the hard drives of the facility to cover up his meddling, only to later find out that the rover had discovered the first clear signs of life on mars.^[9] When he made it onto a new team for the Defense Department laser-equipped surveillance satellite, Howard was not granted security clearance after Sheldon revealed the rover incident to an investigating FBI agent.^[10]

On another occasion, Howard worked on a zero-gravity human-waste disposal system, essentially a "space toilet", that was deployed in the International Space Station. He later realized the equipment had a structural weakness and again sought the help of his friends to correct it. The solution proved unsuccessful and an incident on the station ensued (Raj referred to this as the "zero-gravity human-waste distribution system").^[7]

Being the engineer among his physicist friends, he assumes the role of leader for small hands-on projects. He was the primary force behind "M.O.N.T.E.", a killer robot designed to enter a robot fighting competition. The robot was destroyed by Barry Kripke's own robot, the "Kripke Krippler", in an unofficial match before the start of competition.^[11]

In the season 4 premiere, Howard developed a robotic arm for the International Space Station. Realizing how much it felt like an actual arm, he used the arm to masturbate, only to get the arm stuck on his penis. He called Leonard and Raj, but neither were willing to get too "hands on" and help free him from the arm's grip. He was afraid to use the computer controlling the arm as it thought it was holding a screwdriver and would start twisting. Eventually, Leonard and Raj took Howard to the hospital, where the attending nurse went against Howard's fears and turned off the computer, freeing Howard. The episode's tag scene implied that Howard tried to use the arm to masturbate again and ended up in the same predicament.

Howard likely has the most hands-on and mechanical aptitude of the four as well. It appears he has soldering and electrical/wiring abilities as shown when he built the robot fighter M.O.N.T.E.

Howard will visit the International Space Station as a Payload Specialist on Expedition 31 and has the astronaut nickname "Froot Loops".^[12] At first NASA cancelled his flight to a very relieved Howard, but then the mission is moved up causing Howard and Bernadette to move up their wedding. A very nervous Howard is launched into space.

Family[link]

Howard is noted for still living with his overbearing mother, who is oblivious to his accomplishments as a grown-up and usually treats him like he is still a child, filling the cliché of a Jewish mother.

Mrs. Wolowitz (voiced by Carol Ann Susi) is never seen on-screen, but her voice is heard when he is at their house or when he talks to her on the phone. She only communicates with Howard by yelling to him in an obnoxious manner, which results in awkward long-distance conversations, with Howard frustratedly yelling back at her. Her nosy nature and her barrage of questions make Howard's life tense at home, which prompts him to call her a "crazy old lady". It is revealed in "The Cohabitation Formulation", however, when Howard briefly moves in with Bernadette, that he likes being "mothered" to some extent. In "The Apology Insufficiency", Sheldon observes that Howard seems to have "an unresolved Oedipal complex".^[13]

In "The Precious Fragmentation", Howard reveals that his father left his family when Howard was 11. His mother bought him an ALF doll to help Howard try to get over it. When Howard finds a similar doll at a garage sale, he starts talking to it as if he were 11 again, asking him to find his dad and bring him home. This causes Penny (who usually avoids Howard and is disgusted by him) to be sympathetic. The trauma of his father's desertion and the lack of a father figure throughout adolescence may be the root of much of Howard's behavior. So far Howard is the only character out of the main cast who has never had a family relative appear on-screen. In "The Shiny Trinket Manuever", it is mentioned that the birthday party where he did his magic show was his cousin's party but it is unknown who his cousin was in the group of children that were present.^[14]

Relationships[link]

Howard is consistently depicted as the most sex-crazed of the guys. For example, he develops a mathematical formula for the likelihood of his having sex by applying and modifying the Drake equation to include the "Wolowitz coefficient", which he defines as "neediness times dress size squared". He states, "I'm a horny engineer,... I never joke about math or sex".^[15]

Howard's techniques in approaching women are varied, including magic, card tricks, ventriloquism, and techniques from the Mystery Method, such as peacocking and negging.^[9][16]

Along with Leonard and Raj, Howard also attempts to date Missy, Sheldon's fraternal twin sister. His offer is not accepted.^[17]

Katee Sackhoff appears as herself in "The Vengeance Formulation" where she is fantasized as Howard's dream girl. She appears again in season 4, in the same role.

Since the beginning of the series, Howard shows an interest in Penny, but the interest is primarily sexual and she always turns him down. After yet another approach by Howard, Penny finally confronts him about how he treats women. This greatly affects Howard and he falls into a depression, missing work and staying home. When Penny apologizes, Howard tells her about his past relationships and Penny shows some sympathy for him; after her comforting words, Howard tries to kiss her, but she reacts by punching him in the face. With the situation resolved, Penny believes they have come to an "understanding", but Howard instead thinks he was merely "half-way to pity sex" with her.^[11]

Howard engages in a "friends with benefits" relationship with Leslie Winkle, which brings him a few benefits besides sex.^[18] However, he still becomes depressed when Leslie dumps him some time later. In order to cheer him up, Leonard and Raj take Howard to Las Vegas and manage to hire a prostitute for him.^[19]

When the guys travel by train to a symposium in San Francisco, Howard gets a chance to talk to Summer Glau (portraying herself). His clumsy attempts at impressing the actress fail, despite his being in a confined environment with her for multiple hours.^[20]

During a camping trip with Leonard and Raj, in which they all get stoned by eating cookies laced with a drug (likely marijuana), Howard reveals he lost his virginity to his second cousin Jeanie after his uncle's funeral. This fact prompts incessant teasing from Leonard and Raj.^[21]

Despite the fact that Howard is undeniably obsessed with women, some believe him to be in a homosexual relationship with Raj. The belief is proposed by Dr. Beverly Hofstadter, Leonard's mother. She says she believes them to be in an "ersatz homosexual marriage".^[22] Raj and Howard have several arguments during the series, in which Raj repeatedly accuses Howard of leaving him for everyone who is only slightly better looking, which appears Raj to be assuming the cliché female role in partnership arguments. However, Raj and Howard's relationship is mostly close. Raj often whispers comments to Howard when Penny is in the room, which allows him an avenue of communication, given Raj's chronic inability to speak to women.

In recent seasons, he is in a romantic relationship with Bernadette Rostenkowski (Melissa Rauch). A waitress paying her way through graduate school for microbiology studies, Bernadette is introduced to Howard by Penny. At first she and Howard do not get along, as they appear to have nothing in common. However, when they find out they both have overbearing mothers they immediately feel a connection. They are particularly pleased that it could enrage both Howard's Jewish mother and Bernadette's Catholic mother to find out their kids are dating. They also each note that they lost their virginity in Toyota vehicles. Subsequently, Howard realizes Bernadette represents a real opportunity to develop a lasting relationship and, in an impulsive manner, he proposes to her. Although Bernadette rejects his offer, they remain a couple for a time.^[23]

There is often a running gag between Leonard and Howard mocking Raj for still being single. In The Plimpton Stimulation, Howard briefly mentions that he and Bernadette broke up a couple weeks earlier, but did not mention it since he "was waiting for the right time". It is later revealed that the relationship ended because Bernadette caught Howard having cyber sex with "Glacinda the Troll" on World of Warcraft, who is later revealed to have been played by a male member of the university. By the end of the episode, the two discuss their problems and restart their relationship from the beginning.^[24]

Season 4 introduces Howard's "latent homosexual tendencies" when George Takei appears as himself in an imaginary conversation with Bernadette and Katee Sackhoff over his relationship status with Bernadette, which is a reminder of what Leonard's mother earlier says about the ersatz marriage.

In, "The Herb Garden Germination", Howard once again proposes to Bernadette, this time in front of his friends. To Raj's dismay (he had developed feelings for Bernadette) she accepts. However, during their engagement, Bernadette is awarded her Doctorate degree and reveals that she has gotten a job at a pharmaceutical company which promises a "buttload of money." Although he claims to have supported her new career, Howard's friends mock him for not having a Doctorate, with Penny calling the others doctors then remarking that Howard knows a lot of doctors. The situation reaches its breaking point when he and Bernadette have an argument after she buys him a Rolex. He interprets it as a sign that she will be the main breadwinner.^[25]

The souring of relations grow worse when he learns from Raj that, in addition to having slept with Penny, Raj also was writing love poems and fantasizing about Bernadette, which leads to Howard distrusting Bernadette and believing that she may cheat on him with Raj.^[26]

More recently, Howard accepts that Bernadette may be the main breadwinner in their relationship, since they've agreed that if they have kids, he will stay at home with them while she continues to work. ^[27]

At his bachelor party, a drunk Raj describes Howard losing his virginity to his second cousin, his Las Vegas prostitute experience and their three-some with a pudgy Sailor Moon girl at ComicCon which Wil Wheaton uploads to the Internet. Bernadette picks them up and is furious after seeing the video and is wondering how she can marry a man that she doesn’t seem to know, though she does forgive him after he apologizes.^[28]

Bernadette tells Howard that she wants to be married to him before he is launched into space. After an abortive attempt to be married at city hall before it closed, they agree to be married on the roof of the apartment building. Bernadette is escorted down the aisle by her father and is married by Raj, Leonard, Penny, Sheldon and Amy who all became ministers for the occasion. The ceremony is photographed by an orbiting satellite for the Google Earth website. ^[29]

See also[link]

• List of The Big Bang Theory characters
• List of The Big Bang Theory episodes

References[link]

Christopher Walken
Walken in 2008
Born	Ronald Walken (1943-03-31) March 31, 1943 (age 69) Astoria, Queens, New York City, U.S.
Other names	Ronnie Walken, Chris Walken
Alma mater	Hofstra University
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1953–present
Spouse	Georgianne Walken (m. 1969) «start: (1969)»"Marriage: Georgianne Walken to Christopher Walken" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Christopher_Walken)

Christopher Walken (/ˈwɔːkən/; born March 31, 1943) is an American stage and screen actor.^[1] He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including The Deer Hunter, Annie Hall, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New York, True Romance, Catch Me If You Can, Pulp Fiction, Wedding Crashers, The Rundown, Click, and Hairspray, as well as music videos by recording artists such as Madonna, Journey, Run DMC, The Left Rights and Fatboy Slim.

Walken's films have grossed more than $1.8 billion in the United States.^[2] He has also played the main role in the Shakespeare plays Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Coriolanus. He is also a popular guest-host of Saturday Night Live, having hosted 7 times as of April 2008. His most notable roles on the show include record producer Bruce Dickinson (no relation to the singer with the same name) in the "More Cowbell" sketch and his multiple appearances as The Continental.

Walken debuted as a film director and script writer with the short film Popcorn Shrimp in 2001. He also wrote and acted the main role in a play about Elvis Presley titled Him, in 1995.^[3]

Early life[link]

Named after actor Ronald Colman,^[4] Walken was born Ronald Walken in Astoria, Queens. His mother, Rosalie (née Russell; May 16, 1907 – March 26, 2010), was a Scottish immigrant from Glasgow, and his father, Paul Walken (1903–2001), emigrated from Germany in 1928 with his brothers, Wilhelm and Alois.^[4][5] His father owned and operated Walken's Bakery in Astoria.^[6][7] He was raised a Methodist.^[8]

Influenced by their mother's own dreams of stardom, he and his brothers Kenneth and Glenn were child actors on television in the 1950s.^[7] Walken studied at Hofstra University on Long Island, but did not graduate.^[9] Walken initially trained as a dancer in music theatre at the Washington Dance Studio, before moving on to dramatic roles in theatre and then film.^[9]

Career[link]

Early roles[link]

As a child, Walken appeared on screen as an extra in numerous anthology series and variety shows during the Golden Age of Television.^[9] After appearing in a sketch with Martin and Lewis on The Colgate Comedy Hour, Walken decided to become an actor.^[10] He landed a regular role in the 1953 television show The Wonderful John Acton as the show's narrator. During this time, he was credited as "Ronnie Walken".

Over the next two years, he appeared frequently on television (landing a role in the experimental film Me and My Brother) and had a thriving career in theatre. From 1954 to 1956, Walken and his brother Glenn originated the role of Michael Bauer on the soap opera The Guiding Light. In 1966, Walken played the role of King Philip of France in the Broadway premiere of The Lion in Winter.^[11] In 1969, Walken guest-starred in Hawaii Five-O as Navy SP Walt Kramer.

In 1964, he changed his first name to "Christopher" at the suggestion of a friend who believed the name suited him better than his given name, Ronald.^[12] He prefers to be known informally as "Chris" instead of "Christopher".^[10]

1970s[link]

Walken made his feature film debut with a small role opposite Sean Connery, in Sidney Lumet's The Anderson Tapes. In 1972's The Mind Snatchers A.K.A. The Happiness Cage, Walken played his first starring role.^[13] In this science fiction film, which deals with mind control and normalization, he plays a sociopathic U.S. soldier stationed in Germany.

Paul Mazursky's 1976 film Next Stop, Greenwich Village had Walken, under the name "Chris Walken", playing fictional poet and ladies' man Robert Fulmer.^[14] In Woody Allen's 1977 film Annie Hall, Walken played the suicidal brother of Annie Hall (Diane Keaton).^[15] In 1978, he appeared in Shoot the Sun Down, a western filmed in 1976 that costarred Margot Kidder.^[16] Along with Nick Nolte, Walken was considered by George Lucas for the part of Han Solo in Star Wars;^[17][18] the part ultimately went to Harrison Ford.

Walken won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Michael Cimino's 1978 film The Deer Hunter.^[19] He plays a young Pennsylvania steelworker who is emotionally destroyed by the Vietnam War. To help achieve his character's gaunt appearance before the third act, Walken consumed only bananas, water, and rice for a week.^[20]

1980s[link]

Walken's first film of the 1980s was the controversial Heaven's Gate, helmed by Deer Hunter director Cimino. Walken also starred in the 1981 action adventure The Dogs of War, directed by John Irvin. He surprised^{[citation needed]} many critics and filmgoers with his intricate tap-dancing striptease in Herbert Ross's musical Pennies From Heaven (1981). In 1982, he played a socially awkward, but gifted theater actor in "Who Am I This Time?" Walken then played schoolteacher-turned-psychic Johnny Smith in David Cronenberg's 1983 adaptation of Stephen King's The Dead Zone. That same year, Walken also starred in Brainstorm alongside Natalie Wood and (in a minor role) his wife, Georgianne. Walken was one of the last persons to see Wood alive with her untimely accidental drowning near Santa Catalina Island, California while on a weekend boating trip.^[21] In 2011 Walken hired a Lawyer when authorities re-opened the Wood case, while the LAPD said "Walken is not a suspect". The case has since been closed and remains an accidental death.^[22]

In 1985, Walken played a James Bond villain, Max Zorin, in A View to a Kill. Walken dyed his hair blond to befit Zorin's origins as a Nazi experiment. The character's attempts to kill Bond (played for the last time by Roger Moore) all failed, and he was finally eliminated at the end of the film when memorably falling from the Golden Gate Bridge in a fight with Bond.^[23]

Walken played the role of Federal Agent Kyril Montana in Milagro Beanfield War in 1988. He also played the leading role of Whitley Strieber in 1989's Communion, an autobiographical film written by Strieber that was based on his claims that he and his family were subject to alien abductions.

At Close Range (1986) starred Walken as Brad Whitewood, a rural Pennsylvania crime boss who tries to bring his two sons into his empire, his character mostly based on criminal Bruce Johnston. In Biloxi Blues (1988), Walken played an eccentric drill sergeant, known for his stinging sarcasm and sharp wit.^{[citation needed]} In 1989, he played the lead role of "Puss" in the Cannon theatre group's version of "Puss in Boots".

1990s[link]

The Comfort of Strangers, an art house film directed by Paul Schrader, had the distinction of providing a role for Walken that disturbed even him,^{[citation needed]} however, this is most probably due to the quality of the script as opposed to the content.^{[citation needed]} He plays Robert, a decadent Italian aristocrat with extreme sexual tastes and murderous tendencies who lives with his wife (Helen Mirren) in Venice.

King of New York (1990), directed by Abel Ferrara, stars Walken as ruthless New York City drug dealer Frank White—recently released from prison and set on reclaiming his criminal territory. In 1992, Walken played a villain in Batman Returns, as millionaire industrialist Max Shreck. Also in 1992, Walken appeared in Madonna's controversial coffee table book, SEX, and he played Bobby, Cassandra's manager in Wayne's World 2.

Walken's next major film role was opposite Dennis Hopper in True Romance, scripted by Quentin Tarantino. His so-called Sicilian scene has been hailed by critics as the best scene in the film and is the subject of four commentaries on the DVD.^{[citation needed]} Walken has a supporting role in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction as a Vietnam veteran giving his dead comrade's son the family's prized possession—a gold watch—while explaining in graphic detail how he had hidden it from the Vietcong by smuggling it in his rectum, after the boy's father, in whose rectum the watch had previously been concealed, had died of dysentery.

Later in 1994, Walken starred in A Business Affair, a rare leading role for him in a romantic comedy. Walken manages to once again feature his trademark dancing scene as he performs the tango. In 1995, he appeared in Wild Side, The Prophecy and the modern vampire flick The Addiction, which was his second collaboration with director Abel Ferrara and writer Nicholas St. John. He also appeared in Nick of Time, which also stars Johnny Depp, and an art house film by David Salle, "Search and Destroy."

In the 1996 film Last Man Standing, Walken plays a sadistic gangster. That year, he played a prominent role in the video game Ripper, portraying Detective Vince Magnotta. Ripper made extensive use of real-time recorded scenes and a wide cast of celebrities in an interactive movie. In 1997, Walken starred in the comedy films Touch, Excess Baggage and had a minor role in the film MouseHunt. He also appeared in the drama/thriller film Suicide Kings which also filled with suspense and humor.

In 1998, Walken played an influential gay New York theater critic in John Turturro's film Illuminata.The same year he voiced Colonel Cutter in the computer animated film ANTZ.

In 1999, Walken played Calvin Webber in the romantic comedy Blast from the Past. Webber is a brilliant but eccentric Caltech nuclear physicist whose fears of a nuclear war lead him to build an enormous fallout shelter beneath his suburban home. The same year, he appeared as the Headless Horseman in Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, starring Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci. He also appeared in Kiss Toledo Goodbye with Michael Rapaport and Nancy Allen.

Walken also starred in two music videos in the 1990s. His first video role was as the Angel of Death in Madonna's 1993 "Bad Girl". The second appearance was in Skid Row's "Breakin' Down" video. He showcased his dance skills in the 2001 video for Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice", which earned a Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video.

Walken made a brief cameo appearance in volume 3 of the Japanese manga series Hellsing by Kohta Hirano.

2000s[link]

In 2000, Walken was cast as the lead, along with Blair Brown, in James Joyce's The Dead on Broadway. A "play with music", The Dead featured music by Shaun Davey, conducted by Charles Prince, with music coordination and percussion by Tom Partington. James Joyce's The Dead won a Tony Award that year for Best Book for a Musical.

Walken had a notable music video performance in 2001 with Fatboy Slim's Weapon of Choice. Directed by Spike Jonze, it won six MTV awards in 2001 and—in a list of the top 100 videos of all time compiled from a survey of musicians, directors, and music industry figures conducted by UK music TV channel VH1—won Best Video of All Time in April 2002. In this video, Walken dances and flies around the lobby of the Marriott Hotel in Los Angeles; Walken also helped choreograph the dance. Also in 2001, Walken played a gangster who was in the witness protection program in the David Spade comedy Joe Dirt and an eccentric film director in America's Sweethearts.

Walken played Frank Abagnale, Sr. in Catch Me If You Can. It is inspired by the story of Frank Abagnale, Jr., a con artist who passed himself off as several identities and forged millions of dollars' worth of checks. His portrayal earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.^[19] Walken also had a part in the 2003 action comedy film The Rundown, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Seann William Scott, in which he plays a ruthless despot. He was nominated for a Razzie (Worst Supporting Actor) in 2002's The Country Bears^[24] and in two 2003 movies, Gigli and Kangaroo Jack.^[25] Walken also starred in Barry Levinson's Envy in which he plays J-Man, a crazy guy who helps Ben Stiller's character, and in his starring role in 2004's Around the Bend he again has a dancing scene as he portrays an absentee father who has fled prison to reunite with his father, son, and the grandson he never knew, before dying.

He played the role of Morty, a sympathetic inventor who is more than meets the eye in the comedy/drama Click, and he also appeared in Man of the Year, with Robin Williams and Lewis Black. He costarred in the 2007 film adaptation Hairspray—where he is seen singing and dancing in a romantic duet with John Travolta—and he portrayed the eccentric but cruel crime lord and Ping-Pong enthusiast Feng in the 2007 comedy Balls of Fury, opposite Dan Fogler.

Walken was in the movie Five Dollars a Day, released in 2008, in which he plays a con man proud of living like a king on $5 a day.

The film The Maiden Heist, a comedy co-starring Morgan Freeman and Walken, about security guards in an art museum, debuted at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on June 25, 2009.^[26]

Walken can be found in Universal Studios Florida' "Disaster" attraction (formerly "Earthquake and the Magic of Effects"). Walken portrays the owner of "Disaster Studios" Frank Kincaid, and encourages guests to be extras in his latest film, Mutha Nature. Walken is projected on a clear screen, much like a life-size hologram, and interacts with the live-action talent.

2010s[link]

Walken returned to Broadway in Martin McDonagh's play A Behanding in Spokane in 2010, and received a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play.^[27] He had a small voice role in NBC sitcom 30 Rock, in the "Audition Day" episode.

Popularity and imitators[link]

Walken is imitated for his deadpan affect, sudden off-beat pauses, and strange speech rhythm,^{[citation needed]} in a manner similar to William Shatner, which was subject to parody in a Robot Chicken episode.^[28] He is revered for his quality of danger and menace, but his unpredictable deliveries and expressions make him invaluable in comedy as well.^{[citation needed]}

Walken is noted for refusing movie roles only rarely, having stated in interviews that he will decline a role only if he is simply too busy on other projects to take it. He regards each role as a learning experience.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Appearances on Saturday Night Live

Christopher Walken in 2009

Walken has hosted the comedy sketch and satire TV series Saturday Night Live seven times, and has a standing offer from Lorne Michaels to host the show whenever Walken's schedule permits. One of his more famous SNL performances was a spoof of "Behind the Music", featuring a recording session of Blue Öyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) the Reaper". In the guise of fictitious record producer Bruce Dickinson (not to be confused with Bruce Dickinson, lead singer for Iron Maiden), Walken makes passionate and slightly unhinged speeches to the band and is obsessed with getting "more cowbell" into the song. The phrase "Gotta have more cowbell" has since been adapted to merchandise, e.g. t-shirts, etc. He is also known for his part in one of Will Ferrell and Rachel Dratch's "The Lovers" skits. His character brought a lady friend to meet The Lovers, and she is instead subjected to learning the past history that Walken's character shares with The Lovers. He also divulges private information about his sex life with his girlfriend, much to her horror ("She ventured places no lover had dared go before...specifically, the ear canal").

Walken spoofed his role from The Dead Zone in a sketch titled "Ed Glosser: Trivial Psychic", in which the title character had the ability to accurately predict meaningless, trivial future events ("You're going to get an ice cream headache. It's going to hurt real bad—right here—for eight, nine seconds.").

He spoofed his role from A View to a Kill in a sketch titled "Lease with an Option to Kill", in which he reprised his role as Max Zorin. Zorin, who had taken on some qualities of other notable Bond villains (Blofeld's cat and suit, Emilio Largo's eye patch), was upset that everything was going wrong for him. His lair was still under construction; his henchmen had jump suits that didn't fit; and his shark tank lacked sharks, having a giant sea sponge instead. A captive James Bond, portrayed by Phil Hartman, offered to get Zorin "a good deal" on the abandoned Blofeld volcanic lair if Zorin let him go, to which he reluctantly agreed.

He performed a song and dance rendition of the Irving Berlin standard, "Let's Face the Music and Dance". Finally, there was the "Colonel Angus" sketch, laden with ribald double entendres, in which Walken played a dishonored Confederate officer. Walken's SNL appearances have proved so popular that he is one of the few SNL hosts for whom a Best of... SNL DVD is available (other celebrity hosts who have a Best of... SNL DVD are Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, and Alec Baldwin), an honor usually reserved only for SNL cast members.

Until 2003, Walken had a recurring SNL sketch called "The Continental", in which Walken played a "suave ladies' man" who in reality cannot do anything to keep women from giving him the cold shoulder. Though he is outwardly chivalrous, his more perverted tendencies inevitably drive away his date over his pleading objections. For instance, he invites a woman to wash up in his bathroom; once she is inside, it becomes obvious that the bathroom mirror is a two-way mirror when the "Continental" is seen lighting up a cigarette. What distinguishes "The Continental" is that various ladies are never seen; the camera represents their point of view.

Walken hosted Saturday Night Live on April 5, 2008, which was the first time an episode hosted by Walken did not have a "Continental" sketch or a monologue where he sings and dances. This episode, however, did include one sketch titled "Meet the Family" which spoofs many of Walken's idiosyncrasies. The sketch depicts a fictional Walken Family reunion where all of Christopher's relatives have his mannerisms, speech pattern, and sport his trademark pompadour hairstyle. In order of appearance, the other Walkens are Christopher's cousin Stanley (Bill Hader); Stanley's brother John (Jason Sudeikis); John's son Scott (Andy Samberg) and daughter Maxine (Amy Poehler) (who carries a doll that also has a pompadour); Nathan (Fred Armisen), a gay relative for whom "flamboyance" means dressing all in black and running his finger around the rim of a cosmo glass; Uncle Richard (Darrell Hammond) and Aunt Martha (Kristen Wiig), who think that The Deer Hunter was hilarious, and who are hosts of a Nigerian foreign exchange student named Oleki (Kenan Thompson). When he came to live with them, Oleki—who has absorbed all of the Walken Family traits—could not speak any English. But now (he says) he "talks like a normal teenaged American boy." The biggest laugh of the sketch occurs when Christopher expresses his sympathies for Scott's teenaged attitude: "I appreciate your situation. For a Walken, adolescence is a difficult time. You feel like you're the only normal person in a school full of nutjobs." Scott's response: "Wow! It's like you're lookin' right into my noggin!" (Will Forte also appears as a waiter at the beginning of the sketch, but does not do a Walken impression.)

Presidential candidacy hoax[link]

Walken became the subject of a hoax controversy in 2006 when a fake website started in August of that year by members of internet forum Genmay.com announced that he was running for President of the United States. Some believed it was authentic, until Walken's publicist dismissed the claims.^[29] When asked about the hoax in a September 2006 interview with Conan O'Brien, Walken said he was amused; and when asked to come up with a campaign slogan, he replied, "What the Heck?" and "No More Zoos!"^[29]

Personal life[link]

Walken married Georgianne Walken (née Thon) in 1969; she is a casting director, notably for The Sopranos. They live in Wilton, Connecticut and have no children (Walken has stated in interviews that not having children is one of the reasons he has had such a prolific film career).^[1] They also have a vacation home on Block Island, Rhode Island. In regard to his villainous roles preceding him when meeting new people, Walken said, "When they see me in a movie, they expect me to be something nasty ... That's why it's good to defy expectations sometimes."^[30]

Filmography[link]

Awards[link]

References[link]