Up Against It is an unproduced script by Joe Orton, written in 1967 for The Beatles at the height of their fame.

Orton's screenplay was a revised version of a 1966 script called "Shades of a Personality", by Owen Holder, which producer Walter Shenson wanted Orton to "punch-up", in his words; Orton incorporated portions of this prior draft, but used, as the opening of the story, a concept he and his lover Kenneth Halliwell had explored in a now-lost novel from 1957, The Silver Bucket. The story's skeleton also borrowed liberally from Orton's final novel, written in 1959, called The Vision of Gombold Provol (posthumously published as Head to Toe).

After a proper contract had been drawn up, allowing Orton to buy back the rights to his script should it be refused, Orton submitted the script to the Beatles's manager, Brian Epstein; after a long period without hearing from either Epstein or the Beatles on the subject, his screenplay was returned to him without comment.

Orton further revised Up Against It after this event, paring down the four leads to three (mainly by combining the George and Ringo parts). Producer Oscar Lewenstein accepted the script, considering Mick Jagger and Ian McKellen for two of the leeds. Lewenstein and Orton together planned a meeting with director Richard Lester at Twickenham Film Studios to discuss filming options on the script; unfortunately, the morning a chauffeur arrived to take Orton to the meeting, he discovered Orton and his lover Halliwell dead inside their home. Halliwell had bludgeoned Orton to death with nine hammer blows to the head, and then committed suicide with an overdose of 22 Nembutal tablets washed down with the juice from canned grapefruit.

Todd Harry Rundgren (born June 22, 1948) is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and record producer. Hailed in the early stage of his career as a new pop-wunderkind, supported by the certified gold solo double LP Something/Anything? in 1972, Todd Rundgren's career has produced a diverse range of recordings as solo artist, and during the seventies and eighties with the band Utopia. He has also been prolific as a producer and engineer on the recorded work of other musicians.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Rundgren engineered and/or produced many notable albums for other acts, including Straight Up by Badfinger, Stage Fright by The Band, We're an American Band by Grand Funk Railroad, Bat Out of Hell by Meat Loaf, and Skylarking by XTC. In the 1980s and 1990s his interest in video and computers led to Rundgren's "Time Heals" being the eighth video played on MTV, and "Change Myself" was animated by Rundgren on commercially available Amiga Computers.

His best-known songs include "Hello It's Me" and "I Saw the Light" which have heavy rotation on classic rock radio stations, and "Bang the Drum All Day" featured in many sports arenas, commercials, and movie trailers. Although lesser known, "Couldn't I Just Tell You" has had a major influence on artists in the power pop musical genre.

Jerry Jeff Walker (born Ronald Clyde Crosby on March 16, 1942 in Oneonta, New York.) is an American country music singer and songwriter. He is most famous for writing the song "Mr. Bojangles".

His maternal grandparents played for square dances in the area, with his grandmother, Jessie Conroe, playing piano, and her husband playing fiddle. During the late-1950s, Crosby was a member of a local Oneonta teen band called The Tones. The band traveled to Philadelphia to audition for Dick Clark's American Bandstand, but were turned down. Members of the band found Dick Clark's house and were able to get a recommendation to audition at New York City's Baton Records through the company's lead producer Sol Rabinowitz. The band was given a recording contract, but the studio wanted a quintet backed by studio musicians, which left Crosby and another member (Jerry Russell) out of their recordings.

John Kingsley ("Joe") Orton (1 January 1933 – 9 August 1967), an English playwright and author. His public career was short but prolific, lasting from 1964 until his death. During this brief period he shocked, outraged, and amused audiences with his scandalous black comedies. The adjective Ortonesque is sometimes used to refer to work characterised by a similarly dark yet farcical cynicism.

Orton was born at Causeway Lane Maternity Hospital, Leicester, to William and Elsie Orton. William worked for Leicester County Borough Council as a gardener and Elsie worked in the local footwear industry until tuberculosis cost her a lung. When he was two years old, they moved from 261 Avenue Road Extension in Clarendon Park, Leicester, to the Saffron Lane council estate. Joe soon had a younger brother, Douglas, and two younger sisters, Marilyn and Leonie.

Orton attended Marriot Road Primary School, but failed the eleven-plus exam after extended bouts of asthma, and so took a secretarial course at Clark's College in Leicester from 1945 to 1947. He then began working as a junior clerk on £3 a week.

LeBron Raymone James (/ləˈbrɒn/; born December 30, 1984) is an American professional basketball player for the Miami Heat of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "King James", he was a three-time "Mr. Basketball" of Ohio in high school, and was highly promoted in the national media as a future NBA superstar while a sophomore at St. Vincent – St. Mary High School. He was selected with the number one pick in the 2003 NBA Draft by the Cleveland Cavaliers. Listed as a small forward, James has set numerous youngest player records since joining the league. He was named the NBA Rookie of the Year in 2003–04, was named the NBA Most Valuable Player in 2009, 2010, and 2012 and has been both an All-NBA selection and an All-Star every season since 2005. In 2010, a much-publicized free agency process ended with James signing with the Miami Heat.

James led the Cleveland Cavaliers to consecutive playoff appearances from 2006 through 2010. In 2007, the Cavaliers advanced to the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history, but lost to the San Antonio Spurs. In 2011, James and the Miami Heat advanced to the NBA Finals but lost to the Dallas Mavericks. James has been a member of the USA national team, winning a bronze medal at the 2004 Olympics and gold at the 2008 Olympics.