Look up Alec in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Alec is the Scottish form of Alex, a given name related to Alexander. Alec may refer to:

People[link]

• Alec Baldwin, American actor
• Alec Bedser (1918–2010), English cricketer
• Alec Berg, American television writer
• Alec Bregonzi (1930–2006), English actor
• Alec Brook-Krasny (born 1958), American politician
• Alec Butler (born 1959), Canadian playwright
• Alec Campbell (1899–2002), Australian soldier
• Alec Clifton-Taylor (1907–1985), English architectural historian
• Alec Coryton (1895–1981), British air force commander
• Alec Dankworth (born 1960), English jazz musician
• Alec Douglas-Home (1903–1995), British politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1963–1964)
• Alec Empire (born 1972), German musician
• Alec Erwin (born 1948), South African politician
• Alec Fong Lim (1931–1990), Australian politician
• Alec B. Francis (1867–1934), English silent-film actor
• Alec Gallup (1928–2009), American pollster
• Alec George Horwood (1914–1944), British soldier
• Alec Guinness (1914–2000), English actor
• Alec Issigonis (1906–1988), Greek-British car designer
• Alec Jeffreys (born 1950), British geneticist
• Alec John Dawson (1872–1951), English author
• Alec John Such (born 1952), American bassist, former member of Bon Jovi
• Alec Jones (1924–1983), British politician
• Alec Kirkbride (1897–1978), British diplomat
• Alec Kirschner (born 1986), American professional ice hockey player
• Alec Lazo, Cuban-American ballroom dancer
• Alec MacKaye, American punk Vocalist
• Alec Mango (1911–1989), English actor
• Alec Mapa (born 1965), Filipino-American actor
• Alec McHoul (born 1952), British-Australian ethnomethodologist
• Alec Năstac (born 1949), Romanian boxer and Olympic medalist
• Alec Neill (born 1950), New Zealand politician
• Alec Newman (born 1974), Scottish actor
• Alec G. Olson (born 1930), American politician
• Alec Peterson (1908–1988), British educator, founder of the International Baccalaureate
• Alec Reeves (1902–1971), British scientist
• Alec Skempton (1914–2001), British civil engineer
• Alec Stewart (born 1963), English cricketer
• Alec Su (born 1973), Taiwanese musician and actor
• Alec Templeton (1909–1963), British composer
• Alec Waugh (1898–1981), British novelist
• Alec Wilder (1907–1980), American composer
• Alec Wilkinson (born 1952), American writer
• Alec Tulett (born 1995), Lacrosse player
• Alec Yates (born 1991), British Soccer Player (Team 'Purple Haze')

Fiction[link]

• Alec the Great, American newspaper comic strip
• Alec Forbes of Howglen, Scottish novel by George MacDonald
• Alec Gilroy, fictional character in Coronation Street
• Alec of Kerry, fictional character in The Nightrunner Series by Lynn Flewelling
• Alec Lightwood, fictional character in The Mortal Instruments trilogy
• Alec McDowell, fictional character in Dark Angel
• Alec Trevelyan, fictional character in GoldenEye
• Alec of the Volturi coven in the Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer
• Alec Ramsay, fictional character in The Black Stallion books and movies.

Organizations[link]

• American Legislative Exchange Council
• Alec Hunter Humanities College, British school

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.

Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers, 2005
13th White House Press Secretary
In office July 8, 1965 – January 1967
President	Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by	George Reedy
Succeeded by	George Christian
Personal details
Born	(1934-06-05) June 5, 1934 (age 78) Hugo, Oklahoma, United States
Political party	Independent
Spouse(s)	Judith Suzanne Moyers (née Davidson)
Children	William Cope, Alice Suzanne, and John Davidson
Residence	New York City, United States
Occupation	Journalist
Religion	United Church of Christ

Bill Moyers (born June 5, 1934) is an American journalist and public commentator. He served as White House Press Secretary in the Johnson administration from 1965 to 1967. He worked as a news commentator on television for ten years. Moyers has had an extensive involvement with public television, producing documentaries and news journal programs. He has won numerous awards and honorary degrees. He has become well known as a trenchant critic of the U.S. media. Since 1990, Moyers has been President of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy. He lives in New York City, United States.

Life and career[link]

Early years and education[link]

President Johnson (right) meets with special assistant Moyers in the White House Oval Office, 1963

Born in Hugo, Oklahoma, to father John Henry Moyers, a laborer, and mother Ruby Moyers (née Johnson), he was raised in Texas.^[1]

He started his journalism career at sixteen as a cub reporter at the Marshall News Messenger in Marshall, Texas. In college, he studied journalism at the North Texas State College in Denton, Texas. In 1954, then U.S. Senator Lyndon B. Johnson employed him as a summer intern and eventually promoted him to manage Johnson's personal mail. Soon after, Moyers transferred to the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, where he wrote for The Daily Texan newspaper. In 1956, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism. While in Austin, Moyers served as assistant news editor for KTBC radio and television stations – owned by Lady Bird Johnson, wife of then U.S. Senator Johnson. During the academic year 1956–1957, he studied issues of church and state at the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom, as a Rotary International Fellow. In 1959, he completed a Master of Divinity degree at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.^[1] Moyers served as Director of Information while attending SWBTS. He was also a Baptist pastor in Weir, Texas.

Moyers was ordained in 1954. Moyers planned to enter a doctor of philosophy program in American Studies at the University of Texas. During Senator Johnson's unsuccessful bid for the 1960 Democratic U.S. presidential nomination, Moyers served as a top aide, and in the general campaign he acted as liaison between Democratic vice-presidential candidate Johnson and the Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy.^[2]

Kennedy and Johnson administrations[link]

Moyers giving a press conference at the White House in 1965

During the Kennedy Administration, Moyers was first appointed as associate director of public affairs for the newly created Peace Corps in 1961. He served as Deputy Director from 1962 to 1963. When Lyndon B. Johnson took office after the Kennedy assassination, Moyers became a special assistant to Johnson, serving from 1963 to 1967. He played a key role in organizing and supervising the 1964 Great Society legislative task forces and was a principal architect of Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign. Moyers acted as the President's informal chief of staff from October 1964 until 1966. From July 1965 to February 1967, he also served as White House press secretary.^[2]

After the resignation of White House Chief of Staff Walter Jenkins because of a sexual misdemeanor in the run up to the 1964 election, President Lyndon B. Johnson, alarmed that the opposition was framing the issue as a security breach,^[3] ordered Moyers to request FBI name checks on 15 members of Goldwater's staff to find "derogatory" material on their personal lives.^[4][5] Goldwater himself only referred to the Jenkins incident off the record.^[6] The Church Committee stated in 1975 that "Moyers has publicly recounted his role in the incident, and his account is confirmed by FBI documents."^[7] In 2005, Laurence Silberman claimed that Moyers denied writing the memo in a 1975 phone call.^[8] Moyers said he had a different recollection of the telephone conversation.^[9]

Moyers also sought information from the FBI on the sexual preferences of White House staff members, most notably Jack Valenti.^[10] Moyers indicated his memory was unclear on why Johnson directed him to request such information, "but that he may have been simply looking for details of allegations first brought to the president by Hoover." ^[11]

Moyers approved (but had nothing to do with the production) of the infamous "Daisy Ad" against Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential campaign.^[12] That ad is regarded to be the starting point of the modern-day harshly negative campaign ad.^[13]

Journalist Morley Safer in 1990 wrote that Moyers and President Johnson met with and "harangued" Safer's boss, CBS president Frank Stanton, about Safer's coverage of the behaviour of U.S. troops in Vietnam (Safer had filmed them burning down a village).^[14] During the meeting, Safer alleges, Johnson threatened to expose Safer's "communist ties". This was a bluff, according to Safer. Safer says that Moyers was "if not a key player, certainly a key bystander" in the incident.^[15] Moyers stated that his hard-hitting coverage of conservative presidents Reagan and Bush were behind Safer's 1990 allegations.^[16]

In The New York Times on April 3, 1966, Moyers offered this insight on his stint as press secretary to President Johnson: "I work for him despite his faults and he lets me work for him despite my deficiencies."^[17][18] On October 17, 1967, he told an audience in Cambridge that Johnson saw the war in Vietnam as his major legacy and, as a result, was insisting on victory at all costs, even in the face of public opposition. Moyers felt such a continuation of the conflict would tear the country apart. "I never thought the situation could arise when I would wish for the defeat of LBJ, and that makes my current state of mind all the more painful to me," he told them. "I would have to say now: It would depend on who his opponent is."^[19]

The full details of his rift with Johnson have not been made public but may be discussed in a forthcoming memoir.^[20]

Journalism[link]

[edit] Newsday

Moyers served as publisher for the Long Island, New York daily newspaper Newsday from 1967 to 1970. The conservative^[21] publication had been unsuccessful,^[21] but Moyers led the paper in a progressive direction,^[22] bringing in leading writers such as Pete Hamill, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Saul Bellow, and adding new features and more investigative reporting and analysis. Circulation increased and the publication won 33 major journalism awards, including two Pulitzer Prizes.^[21][23][24] But the owner of the paper, Harry Guggenheim, a conservative, was disappointed by the liberal drift of the newspaper under Moyers, criticizing the "left-wing" coverage of Vietnam War protests.^[25][26] The two split over the 1968 presidential election, with Guggenheim signing an editorial supporting Richard Nixon, when Moyers supported Hubert Humphrey.^[27] Guggenheim sold his majority share to the then-conservative Times-Mirror Company over the attempt of newspaper employees to block the sale, even though Moyers offered $10 million more than the Times-Mirror purchase price; Moyers resigned a few days later.^{[20][25][28][29]}

[edit] PBS — Bill Moyers' Journal

In 1971 he began working for the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), hosting a news program called Bill Moyers Journal, which ran until 1981 with a hiatus from 1976 to 1977.^[30]

CBS News[link]

In 1976 he moved to CBS, where he worked as editor and chief correspondent for CBS Reports until 1980, then as senior news analyst and commentator for the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather from 1981 to 1986. He was the last regular commentator for the network broadcast.^[31] During his last year at CBS, Moyers made public statements about declining news standards at the network and declined to renew his contract with CBS, citing commitments with PBS.

[edit] The Power of Myth series

In 1986 Moyers and his wife, Judith Davidson Moyers, formed Public Affairs Television. Among their first productions was the popular PBS 1988 documentary series Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, consisting of six one-hour interviews between Moyers and mythologist Joseph Campbell. The documentary covers Campbell's exploration of the monomyth and the hero cycle, or the story of the hero, as it manifests itself in various cultures. Campbell's influence is clearly seen in the work of George Lucas's Star Wars saga. In the first interview, filmed at George Lucas' "Skywalker Ranch",^[32] Moyers and Campbell discuss the relationship between Campbell's theories and Lucas's creative work. Twelve years after the making of The Power of Myth, Moyers and Lucas met again for the 1999 interview, the Mythology of Star Wars with George Lucas & Bill Moyers, to further discuss the impact of Campbell's work on Lucas's films.^[33]

[edit] The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis

In 1987 Moyers produced and hosted a scathing documentary, The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis, covering the infringement on the limitations on government and the executive branch provided by the Constitution. It considered U.S. foreign policy and militarism historically and recently, centering on the Iran–Contra affair. It was harshly rebuked by conservatives and continuing into the 1990s was used by Republicans as a reason to threaten the funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS.

[edit] In Search of the Constitution

Also in 1987 Moyers produced a 11-part mini-series documentary celebrating the bicentennial of the signing of the U.S. Constitution and critically analyzing the state of affairs of the present and the intervening 200 years. Four episodes of In Search of the Constitution were interviews of sitting Supreme Court justices and the remainder contained discussions with prominent scholars.

NBC News[link]

Moyers briefly joined NBC News in 1995 as a senior analyst and commentator, and the following year he became the first host of sister cable network MSNBC's Insight program. He was the last regular commentator on the NBC Nightly News.^[31]

[edit] NOW with Bill Moyers

Moyers hosted the TV news journal NOW with Bill Moyers on PBS for three years, starting in January 2002. He retired from the program on December 17, 2004, but returned to PBS soon after to host Wide Angle in 2005. When he left NOW, he announced that he wished to finish writing a biography of Lyndon B. Johnson.^[34]

[edit] Faith and Reason

In 2006, he presented two public television series. Faith and Reason, a series of conversations with esteemed writers of various faiths and of no faith, explored the question "In a world in which religion is poison to some and salvation to others, how do we live together?"

[edit] Bill Moyers on America

The series, Moyers on America, analyzed in depth the ramifications of three important issues: the Jack Abramoff scandal, evangelical religion and environmentalism (Evangelical environmentalism), and threats to open public access of the Internet.

[edit] Bill Moyers Journal

On April 25, 2007, Moyers returned to PBS with Bill Moyers Journal. In the first episode, "Buying the War", Moyers investigated what he called the general media's shortcomings in the runup to the War in Iraq.^[35]

On November 20, 2009, Moyers announced that he would be retiring from his weekly show on April 30, 2010.^[36]

[edit] Moyers & Company

In August 2011 Moyers announced a new hour-long weekly interview show, Moyers & Company, which premiered in January 2012.^[37] It is produced by WNET and distributed by American Public Television^[38] with funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York^[39]. The new show was heralded as a renewed fulfillment of public media's stated mission to air news and views unrepresented or underrepresented in commercial media.^[40]

Awards[link]

Recipient of the 2006 Lifetime Emmy Award, "Bill Moyers has devoted his lifetime to the exploration of the major issues and ideas of our time and our country, giving television viewers an informed perspective on political and societal concerns," according to the official announcement, which also noted that "the scope of and quality of his broadcasts have been honored time and again. It is fitting that the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences honor him with our highest honor—the Lifetime Achievement Award."^[41] He has received well over thirty Emmys and virtually every other major television journalism prize, including a gold baton from the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, a lifetime Peabody Award, and a George Polk Career Award (his third George Polk Award) for contributions to journalistic integrity and investigative reporting. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has been the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, including a doctorate from the American Film Institute.^[1]

Commentary[link]

Regarding the U.S. media[link]

On the media and class warfare[link]

In a 2003 interview with BuzzFlash.com,^[42] Moyers said, "The corporate right and the political right declared class warfare on working people a quarter of a century ago and they've won." He noted, "The rich are getting richer, which arguably wouldn't matter if the rising tide lifted all boats." Instead, however, "[t]he inequality gap is the widest it's been since 1929; the middle class is besieged and the working poor are barely keeping their heads above water." He added that as "the corporate and governing elites are helping themselves to the spoils of victory," access to political power has become "who gets what and who pays for it."

Meanwhile, the public has failed to react because it is, in his words, "distracted by the media circus and news has been neutered or politicized for partisan purposes." In support of this, he referred to "the paradox of Rush Limbaugh, ensconced in a Palm Beach mansion massaging the resentments across the country of white-knuckled wage earners, who are barely making ends meet in no small part because of the corporate and ideological forces for whom Rush has been a hero.... As Eric Alterman reports in his recent book—a book that I'm proud to have helped make happen—part of the red meat strategy is to attack mainstream media relentlessly, knowing that if the press is effectively intimidated, either by the accusation of liberal bias or by a reporter's own mistaken belief in the charge's validity, the institutions that conservatives revere—corporate America, the military, organized religion, and their own ideological bastions of influence—will be able to escape scrutiny and increase their influence over American public life with relatively no challenge."^[42]

On media bias[link]

When he retired in December 2004, the AP News Service quoted Moyers as saying, "I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee. We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people."^[43]

On Karl Rove and U.S. politics[link]

"The Progressive Story of America" speech

On June 4, 2003, Moyers gave a speech at the "Take Back America" conference. In it, Moyers defined what he considered to be Karl Rove's influence on George W. Bush's administration. Moyers asserted that, from his reading of Rove, the mid-to-late 19th century were to Rove a "cherished period of American history." He further stated, "From his own public comments and my reading of the record, it is apparent that Karl Rove has modeled the Bush presidency on that of William McKinley...and modeled himself on Mark Hanna, the man who virtually manufactured McKinley",^[44][45][46] a man whose primary "passion" was attending to corporate and imperial power.

Furthermore, Moyers indicated that Hanna gathered support for McKinley's presidential campaign from "the corporate interests of the day" and was responsible for Ohio and Washington coming under the rule of "bankers, railroads and public utility corporations." He submitted that political opponents of this transfer of power were "smeared as disturbers of the peace, socialists, anarchists, or worse."^[45][46]

Moyers also referred to what historian Clinton Rossiter called the period of "the great train robbery of American intellectual history," when "conservatives—or better, pro-corporate apologists" began using terms such as "progress", "opportunity", and "individualism" in order to make "the plunder of America sound like divine right." He added that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was also used by conservative politicians, judges, and publicists to justify the idea of a "natural order of things" as well as "the notion that progress resulted from the elimination of the weak and the 'survival of the fittest.'"^[45][46][47]

He concludes, "This 'degenerate and unlovely age', as one historian calls it, exists in the mind of Karl Rove, the reputed brain of George W. Bush, as the seminal age of inspiration for the politics and governance of America today."^[45][46]

Presidential draft initiative[link]

On July 24, 2006, liberal political commentator Molly Ivins published an article entitled Run Bill Moyers for President, Seriously on the progressive website Truthdig.^[48][49][50] Then in October 2006 Ralph Nader wrote an article supporting a Moyers candidacy.^[51] There was no effect from the op-eds, and Moyers did not run.

Allegations of bias[link]

Bush-appointee Corporation for Public Broadcasting chairman Kenneth Tomlinson was a regular critic of Moyers; in 2003, he wrote to Pat Mitchell, the president of PBS, that "[NOW with Bill Moyers] does not contain anything approaching the balance the law requires for public broadcasting."^[52] In 2005, Tomlinson commissioned a study of the show, without informing or getting authorization from the CPB board.^[53] Tomlinson said that the study supported what he characterized as "the image of the left-wing bias of NOW".^[54] George Neumayr, the executive editor of The American Spectator, a conservative magazine, told the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer that "PBS looks like a liberal monopoly to me, and Bill Moyers is Exhibit A of that very strident left-wing bias... [Moyers] uses his show as a platform from which to attack conservatives and Republicans."^[52]

Moyers, who left the show in 2004 before returning in 2007, replied to this by saying that his journalism showed "the actual experience of regular people is the missing link in a nation wired for everything but the truth." Moyers characterized Tomlinson as "an ally of Karl Rove and the right-wing monopoly's point man to keep tabs on public broadcasting." Tomlinson, he said, "found kindred spirits at the right-wing editorial board of The Wall Street Journal where the 'animal spirits of business' are routinely celebrated."^[54] Moyers also responded to these accusations in a speech given to The National Conference for Media Reform, saying that he had repeatedly invited Tomlinson to debate him on the subject but had repeatedly been ignored.^[55]

Personal life[link]

Moyers married Judith Suzanne Davidson (a producer) on December 18, 1954. They have three children and five grandchildren. His son William Cope Moyers (CNN producer, Hazelden Foundation spokesman) struggled to overcome alcoholism as detailed in the book Broken: My Story of Addiction and Redemption. He includes letters from Bill Moyers in his book, which he says are "a testament to a father's love for his son, a father's confusion with his son, and ultimately, a father's satisfaction with his son."^[56] His other son, John Moyers, assisted in the foundation of TomPaine.com, "an online public affairs journal of progressive analysis and commentary."^[57]

He and his wife live in Bernardsville, New Jersey.^[58]

Works[link]

• Listening to America: A Traveler Rediscovers His Country (1971), Harper's Magazine press, ISBN 0-06-126400-8
• The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis : With Excerpts from an Essay on Watergate (1988), coauthor Henry Steele Commager, Seven Locks Press, hardcover: ISBN 0-932020-61-5, 1990 reprint: ISBN 0-932020-85-2, 2000 paperback: ISBN 0-932020-60-7; examines the Iran-Contra affair
• The Power of Myth (1988), host: Bill Moyers, author: Joseph Campbell, Doubleday, ISBN 0-385-24773-7
• A World of Ideas : Conversations With Thoughtful Men and Women About American Life Today and the Ideas Shaping Our Future (1989), Doubleday, hardcover: ISBN 0-385-26278-7, paperback: ISBN 0-385-26346-5
• A World of Ideas II: Public Opinions from Private Citizens (1990), Doubleday, hardcover: ISBN 0-385-41664-4, paperback: ISBN 0-385-41665-2, 1994 Random House values edition: ISBN 0-517-11470-4
• Healing and the Mind (1993), Doubleday hardcover: ISBN 0-385-46870-9, 1995 paperback: ISBN 0-385-47687-6
• The Language of Life (1995), Doubleday hardcover: ISBN 0-385-47917-4, 1996 paperback: ISBN 0-385-48410-0, conversations with 34 poets
• Genesis: A Living Conversation (1996), Doubleday hardcover: ISBN 0-385-48345-7, 1997 paperback: ISBN 0-385-49043-7
• Sister Wendy in Conversation With Bill Moyers: The Complete Conversation (1997), WGBH Educational Foundation, ISBN 1-57807-077-5
• Fooling with Words: A Celebration of Poets and Their Craft (1999), William Morrow, hardcover: ISBN 0-688-17346-2, 2000 Harper paperback: ISBN 0-688-17792-1
• Moyers on America: A Journalist and His Times (2004), New Press, ISBN 1-56584-892-6, 2005 Anchor paperback: ISBN 1-4000-9536-0; twenty selected speeches and commentaries
• Moyers on Democracy (2008), Doubleday, ISBN 978-0-385-52380-6
• Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues (2011), Publisher: New Press

Notes[link]

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (January 2011)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bill Moyers

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bill Moyers

• Bill Moyers at The Internet Movie Database
• Bill Moyers Awarded Lifetime Emmy
• Bill Moyers on Inequality in America
• Moyers's retirement from NOW announced
• The Moral Core of Bill Moyers, by Eve Berliner
• Bill Moyers January 2007 Address to the National Conference for Media, Memphis, Tennessee 'Life on the Plantation'
• Moyers Speech at 2008 National Conference for Media Reform (video)
• Works by or about Bill Moyers in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• After Four Decades In TV News, Bill Moyers Retires – audio report by NPR
• Bill Moyers: "The Radical Right Wing is Very Close to Achieving a Longtime Goal of Undermining the Independence of Public Broadcasting" – interview on Democracy Now!
• Latest PBS programs
• Bill Moyers Howard Zinn Lecture Bill Moyers lecture at Boston University
• Bill Moyers on Charlie Rose

Television productions[link]

• The Secret Government (1987) two Windows Media Video clips from the PBS documentary on the Iran-Contra affair
• The Public Mind (1989) A four part series examining image and reality in America
• Genesis: A Living Conversation (1996)
• Fooling with Words (1999) poetry brought to life
• On Our Own Terms: Moyers on Dying (2000)
• Trade Secrets (2001) about chemical industry pollution
• Earth on Edge (2001)
• America Responds: Moyers in Conversation In the wake of September 11, Moyers interviews with experts from various fields (Sept. 12–20, 2001)
• Becoming American: The Chinese Experience (2003)
• NOW (weekly series, for Moyers programs see Archive, 2002–2004)
• Faith and Reason (2006)
• Moyers On America (2006)
• Moyers & Company (2012)

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Alec Baldwin
Alec Baldwin with fiance, Hilaria Thomas in 2011.
Born	Alexander Rae Baldwin III (1958-04-03) April 3, 1958 (age 54) Long Island, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1980–present
Spouse	Kim Basinger (m. 1993–2002; divorced)
Partner	Hilaria Thomas (engaged)
Children	1
Website
http://www.alecbaldwin.com/

Alexander Rae "Alec" Baldwin III (born April 3, 1958) is an American actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television.

Baldwin first gained recognition through television for his work, for two seasons (6 and 7), on the soap opera Knots Landing, in the role of Joshua Rush. He has since played both leading and supporting roles in films such as Beetlejuice (1988), The Hunt for Red October (1990), The Marrying Man (1991), The Shadow (1994), Notting Hill (1999), The Aviator (2004) and The Departed (2006). His performance in the 2003 film The Cooler garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Since 2006 he has starred as Jack Donaghy on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, receiving critical acclaim for his performance and winning two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards for his work on the show, making him the male performer with most SAG Awards ever.

He is the eldest of the Baldwin brothers working in Hollywood.

Early life[link]

Baldwin was born on Long Island, New York, the son of Carolyn Newcomb (née Martineau) and Alexander Rae Baldwin, Jr., a high school history/social studies teacher and football coach.^[1] Baldwin was raised in a Roman Catholic family of Irish, English, and French descent.^[2][3] He has three younger brothers, Daniel, William, and Stephen, who also became actors. Baldwin has two sisters, Beth Baldwin Keuchler (born 1955), and Jane Baldwin Sasso (born 1965).^{[citation needed]}

Baldwin attended Alfred G. Berner High School in Massapequa, Long Island, and played football there under Coach Bob Reifsnyder, who is in the College Football Hall of Fame. He worked as a busboy at the famous New York City disco Studio 54. Baldwin attended George Washington University from 1976 to 1979. He then transferred to New York University to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute under Elaine Aiken and Geoffrey Horne.^[4] He returned to NYU in 1994 and graduated with a BFA that year. On May 12, 2010, he gave a commencement address at New York University and was awarded a Doctor of Fine Arts degree, honoris causa.^[5]

Career[link]

Stage[link]

Baldwin made his Broadway debut in 1986, in a revival of Joe Orton's Loot alongside theater veterans Zoë Wanamaker, Željko Ivanek, Joseph Maher and Charles Keating.^[6] This production closed after three months. His other Broadway credits include Caryl Churchill's Serious Money with Kate Nelligan and a highly acclaimed revival of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. His performance as Stanley Kowalski in the latter garnered him a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor. Baldwin also received an Emmy nomination for the 1995 television version of the production, in which both he and Jessica Lange reprised their roles, alongside John Goodman and Diane Lane. In 1998, Baldwin played the title role in Macbeth at the Public theater alongside Angela Bassett and Liev Schreiber in a production directed by George C. Wolfe. In 2004, Baldwin starred in a revival of Twentieth Century with Anne Heche.

On June 9, 2005, he appeared in a concert version of the Rogers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific at Carnegie Hall. He starred as Luther Billis, alongside Reba McEntire as Nellie and Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile. The production was taped and telecast by PBS on April 26, 2006. In 2006, Baldwin made theater news in Roundabout Theatre Company's Off-Broadway revival of Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr. Sloane. In 2010, Baldwin starred opposite Sam Underwood in a critically acclaimed revival of Peter Shaffer's Equus, directed by Tony Walton at Guild Hall in East Hampton, NY.

Television[link]

Baldwin's first major acting role was as Billy Aldrich on the daytime soap opera The Doctors from 1980 to 1982. In fall 1983, he starred in the short-lived television series Cutter to Houston. He then co-starred in the television series Knots Landing from 1984 to 1986. In 1986, Baldwin starred in Dress Gray, a four-hour made-for-television miniseries, as an honest cadet sergeant who tries to solve the mystery of a murdered gay classmate.^[7] The film was adapted by Gore Vidal from the novel by Lucian Truscott IV.

Between 1998 and 2003, Baldwin was the U.S. narrator for the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, narrating all 52 episodes of Series 5 and Series 6. He portrayed Arnold Pagani in a Goosebumps episode, "Bad Hare Day". Baldwin appeared in a celebrity edition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in November 2000, competing against Jon Stewart, Charlie Sheen, Vivica A. Fox and Norm Macdonald. He won $250,000 for PAWS, and used Kim Basinger as one of his "phone-a-friend" partners. He voiced Blue Barron in Teen Titans.

In 2002, Baldwin appeared on two episodes of Friends as Phoebe Buffay's overly enthusiastic love interest, Parker. He also portrayed a recurring character in a number of episodes in seasons 7 and 8 of Will & Grace, in which he played Malcolm – a "top secret agent" and the lover of Karen Walker (Megan Mullally). He also guest-starred in the first live episode of the series. Baldwin wrote an episode of Law & Order entitled "Tabloid", which aired in 1998. He played the role of Dr. Barrett Moore, a retired plastic surgeon, in the series Nip/Tuck.

On July 7, 2007, Baldwin was a host at the American leg of Live Earth, which was broadcast on NBC.^{[citation needed]}

Baldwin stars in the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, which first aired October 2006. Baldwin met his future co-stars Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan while appearing on Saturday Night Live. He has received two Emmy Awards,^[8] two Golden Globe awards and five Screen Actors Guild Awards for his role. Baldwin received his second Emmy nomination for Best Actor in a Television Comedy or Musical as Jack Donaghy in 2008, marking his seventh Primetime Emmy nomination and first win. He won again in 2009. Since season 3, Baldwin has been credited as producer of the show.

Baldwin joined TCM’s The Essentials Robert Osborne as co-host beginning in March 2009.^[9][10]

Baldwin co-hosted the 82nd Academy Awards with Steve Martin in 2010.^[11] He has hosted Saturday Night Live sixteen times, the most recent being the Season 37 premiere on September 24, 2011. He currently holds the record for most times hosting Saturday Night Live, eclipsing Steve Martin.^[12]

Film[link]

Baldwin made his film debut with a minor role in the 1987 film Forever, Lulu. Also in 1988, he appeared in Beetlejuice and Working Girl. He gained further recognition as a leading man with his role as Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October (1990).

Baldwin met his future wife Kim Basinger when they played lovers in the 1991 film The Marrying Man. He appeared with Basinger again in The Getaway, a 1994 remake of the 1972 Steve McQueen film of the same name. Next, in a brief role, Baldwin played a ferocious sales executive in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), a part added to the film version of David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play (including the monologue "Coffee's for closers"). Later that year, he starred in Prelude to a Kiss with Meg Ryan, which was based on the Broadway play. The film received a lukewarm reception by critics and grossed only $22 million worldwide.^[13]

In 1994, Baldwin made a foray into pulp fiction-based movies with the role of the title character in The Shadow. The film made $48 million. In 1996 and 1997, Baldwin continued to work in several thrillers including The Edge, The Juror and Heaven's Prisoners.

Baldwin shifted towards character acting, beginning with Pearl Harbor in 2001. He played Lt. Col. James Doolittle in the film, which, with a worldwide box office of $449,220,945, remains the highest grossing film Baldwin has appeared in his acting career.^[14] Baldwin was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance in the 2003 gambling drama The Cooler.^[4] He appeared in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator (2004) and The Departed (2006).^[4] In 2006, he starred in the film Mini's First Time, alongside Nikki Reed and Luke Wilson. Baldwin performed opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar in the 2007 romantic comedy, Suburban Girl. In 2009, he co-starred in the hit romantic comedy It's Complicated with Meryl Streep and Steve Martin. In 2001, he voiced Butch in Cats & Dogs.

Baldwin directed and starred in an all-star version of The Devil and Daniel Webster with Anthony Hopkins, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Dan Aykroyd in 2001.^[15] The then-unreleased film became an asset in a federal bank fraud trial when investor Jed Barron was convicted of bank fraud while the movie was in production. The film eventually was acquired by The Yari Group without Baldwin's involvement.^[16]

In 2003, he served as the antagonist in the live-action film The Cat in the Hat.

In 2007, the Yari Film Group announced it would give the film, now titled Shortcut to Happiness, a theatrical release in the spring and cable film network Starz! announced they had acquired pay TV rights for the film. Shortcut to Happiness was finally released in 2008. Baldwin, displeased with the way the film had been cut in post-production, demanded that his directorial credit be changed to the pseudonym "Harry Kirkpatrick".^[17]

In 2009, Balwin appeared in a series of commercials for Hulu that premiered during the Super Bowl broadcast.

In 2010, Baldwin made a 5-second cameo appearance with comedian Andy Samberg in a musical video titled "Great Day" featured on the bonus DVD as part of Lonely Island's new album "Turtleneck & Chain". In this video, Samberg plays an enthusiastic, upbeat cocaine addict who believes that Tom Petty (who also co-stars) and Alec Baldwin are his very best friends--only to be quickly rejected by both. After finding out the hard way they are quite the opposite and feeling heartbroken, the addict then briefly sings about losing them.

Baldwin has also worked as voice actor in films such as The Royal Tenenbaums, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Thomas and the Magic Railroad and The Spongebob Squarepants Movie. As of March 2011 Baldwin has signed on to star alongside Tom Cruise, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Julianne Hough, and Mary J. Blige in the film adaptaion of the jukebox hit musical Rock of Ages. Baldwin will play Dennis Dupree, the aging owner of a Sunset Strip rock club, when production begins in May 2011.

Radio[link]

On January 12, 2009, Baldwin became the host of The New York Philharmonic This Week, the nationally broadcast radio series of the New York Philharmonic.^[18] He has recorded two nationally distributed public service radio announcements on behalf of the Save the Manatee Club.^[19]

On October 24, 2011, WNYC public radio released the first episode of Baldwin's new podcast Here's the Thing, a series of interviews with public figures including artists, policy makers and performers. The first two episodes featured actor Michael Douglas and political consultant Ed Rollins.^[20]

Personal life[link]

Baldwin with Kim Basinger at the 1994 César Awards ceremony in Paris.

In 1990, he met his future wife, actress Kim Basinger, when they played lovers in the film The Marrying Man.^[21] They married in 1993^[22] and had a daughter, Ireland, in October 1995.^[23] On January 12, 2001, Basinger filed for divorce,^[24] which was finalized in February^{[citation needed]} 2002.^[25]

Since summer 2011,^[26] Baldwin has been dating Hilaria Thomas, an instructor with Yoga Vida in Manhattan.^[27][28] As of April 2012, Baldwin and Thomas are engaged.^[29] In August 2011, Baldwin moved from the Upper West Side and to SoHo,^[30] where they live together.^[31]

Baldwin is a Catholic.^[32][33]

Runway Incident[link]

In December of 2011, Alec was waiting on an American Airlines flight at LAX, and playing Words with Friends on his phone. When instructed to put away the "electronic device" by the stewardess, he reportedly became belligerent, and was eventually removed from the plane. He later publicly apologized, though only to the passengers so delayed, not the airline or Federal regulators.^[34]

In 2012, a commercial for Capital One credit cards (for which Alec is a spokesman) made a humorous reference to this event: A viking character from the famous ad series asks about the phone Alec is using, and Baldwin replies, in a very facetious way, that it is not to be used on the runway, ending with a very chiding "no!" A commercial for Best Buy, also humorously referenced the event in which the Words With Friends co-creators are on a plane and are interrupted by a stewardess looking down at them, clearing her throat and signaling them to put their phones away while saying, "we created Words With Friends."

Baldwin also made a guest appearance on SNL's Weekend Update posing as the captain of the plane he was removed from in a bit poking fun at the situation.

[edit] A Promise to Ourselves

In 2008 Alec Baldwin and Mark Tabb published their book, A Promise to Ourselves, which chronicles Baldwin's seven-year battle to remain a part of his daughter's life.^[35][36]

Baldwin contends that after their separation in December 2000, his former wife, Kim Basinger, endeavored to deny him access to his daughter by refusing to discuss parenting,^[37] blocking visitation,^[38] not providing telephone access,^[39] not following court orders,^[40] not dropping their daughter off for reasons of it being inconvenient,^[41] and directly lobbying the child.^[42] He contends she spent over $1.5 million in the effort.^[43]

Baldwin called this parental alienation syndrome.^[44] Baldwin has called the attorneys in the case "opportunists" and has characterized Basinger's psychologists as part of the "divorce industry". He has faulted them more than Basinger, and writes, "In fact, I blame my ex-wife least of all for what has transpired. She is a person, like many of us, doing the best she can with what she has. She is a litigant, and therefore, one who walks into a courtroom and is never offered anything other than what is served there. Nothing off the menu, ever."^[45]

Baldwin wrote that he has spent over a million dollars,^[46] has had to put time aside from his career,^[47] has had to travel extensively,^[48] and needed to find a house in California (he lived in New York),^[49] so he could stay in his daughter's life.^[35]

Baldwin contended that after seven years of these issues, he hit a breaking point, and on April 11, 2007, left an angry voicemail message in response to another unanswered arranged call in which Baldwin called his daughter a "rude, thoughtless little pig".^[50] He contends that the tape was sold to TMZ, which released the recording despite laws against publishing media related to a minor without the permission of both parents.^[51] Baldwin admitted he made a mistake, but asked not to be judged as a parent based on a bad moment.^[52] He later admitted to Playboy in June 2009 that he contemplated suicide over the voice mail that leaked to the public. Of the incident, he said "I spoke to a lot of professionals, who helped me. If I committed suicide, [ex-wife Kim Basinger's side] would have considered that a victory. Destroying me was their avowed goal."^[53]

During the autumn of 2008, Baldwin toured in support of the book, speaking about his experiences related in it.^{[54][55][56][57]}

Political views[link]

Baldwin serves on the board of People for the American Way. He is an animal rights activist, and a strong supporter of PETA,^[58][59] for which he has done work that includes narrating the video entitled Meet Your Meat.^[60] Baldwin also lent his support to the Save the Manatee Club by donating his time to record several public service announcements for the group, which had contacted him following his role in "Bonfire of the Manatees", an episode of The Simpsons in which he was the voice of a biologist working to save the endangered mammals.^[61]

During his appearance on the comedy late night show Late Night with Conan O'Brien on December 12, 1998, eight days before President Bill Clinton was to be impeached, Baldwin said, "If we were in another country ... we would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes and kill their wives and their children. We would kill their families, for what they're doing to this country."^[62] Baldwin later apologized for the remarks, and the network explained it was meant as a joke and promised not to rerun it.^[63]

Baldwin said in a 2006 interview with the New York Times that if he did become involved in electoral politics, he would prefer to run for Governor of New York. When asked if he was qualified for the office, Baldwin responded that he considered himself far more qualified than California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.^[64] In June 2011, The Daily reported that Baldwin was mulling a 2013 run for Mayor of New York City, in the wake of a potential early race shakeup after candidate Congressman Anthony Weiner's sexting scandal.^[65] However, on December 21, 2011, Baldwin said he was abandoning plans to run for the office and would instead continue in his role on 30 Rock.^[66]

In February 2009, Baldwin spoke out to encourage state leaders to renew New York's tax break for the film and television industry, stating that if the "tax breaks are not reinstated into the budget, film production in this town is going to collapse and television production is going to collapse and it's all going to go to California".^[67]

During the 2011 Emmy Awards, Baldwin was slated to appear in a taped skit. However, the producers of the show cut a portion of the skit containing a reference to Rupert Murdoch and the News International phone hacking scandal. Baldwin told Access Hollywood Live that he asked them not to air his performance. Producers complied and he was replaced with Leonard Nimoy.^[68]

Filmography[link]