John Aylward (born November 7, 1946) is an American actor.

He is perhaps best known for playing the former DNC chairman Barry Goodwin on the NBC television series The West Wing and for playing Dr. Donald Anspaugh on the NBC television series ER. He also supplied his voice for Dr. Arne Magnusson in Half-Life 2: Episode Two.

Aylward was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. He attended St. Joseph's Grade school and went on to Prep High School, but graduated from Garfield High School in 1965. He graduated from the Professional Actor's Training Program at the University of Washington in 1970. He was one of the founders, in 1973, of Seattle's Empty Space Theatre, and he worked regularly as a company member of the Seattle Repertory Theatre for 15 years until he became a television and film actor in the 1990s. Carol Flynt, co-producer of ER, first offered him an audition after seeing him in a 1996 production of "Psychopathia Sexualis" at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

Filmography[link]

External links[link]

• John Aylward at the Internet Movie Database
• John Aylward at AllRovi
• Hollywood.com, John Aylward
• Industry Central, John Aylward

Peter Bayne (1830-96) was a Scottish author. He was educated in Marischal College, Aberdeen; studied theology at Edinburgh and philosophy under Sir William Hamilton at the latter institution. He wrote criticisms on Alison, De Quincey, Hugh Miller, and others. In 1855 he published The Christian Life, Social and Individual, which was followed in 1859 by Essays, Bibliographical, Critical, etc. He was editor of the Glasgow Commonwealth, Edinburgh Witness, and London Dial, and an associate editor of the Christian World. Among his other works are:

• Testimony of Christ to Christianity (1862)
• The Days of Jezebel: An Historical Drama (1872)
• Life of Luther (1887)

He died in London, February 10, 1896.

• This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.

This article about a writer or poet from the United Kingdom is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Theodore Roethke ( /ˈrɛtki/ RET-kee; May 25, 1908 – August 1, 1963) was an American poet, who published several volumes of poetry characterized by its rhythm, rhyming, and natural imagery. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book, The Waking, and he won the annual National Book Award for Poetry twice, in 1959 for Words for the Wind^[1] and posthumously in 1965 for The Far Field.^[2]

Biography[link]

Roethke was born in Saginaw, Michigan and grew up on the west side of the Saginaw River. His father, Otto, was a German immigrant, a market-gardener who owned a large local greenhouse, along with his brother (Theodore's uncle). Much of Theodore's childhood was spent in this greenhouse, as reflected by the use of natural images in his poetry. The poet's adolescent years were jarred, however, by his uncle's suicide and by the death of his father from cancer, both in early 1923, when Theodore (Ted) was only 15. These deaths shaped Roethke's psyche and creative life.

He attended the University of Michigan, earning A.B. and M.A. degrees. He briefly attended law school before entering Harvard University, where he studied under the poet Robert Hillyer. Abandoning graduate study because of the Great Depression, he taught English at several universities, including Lafayette College, Pennsylvania State University, and Bennington College.^[3]

In 1940, he was expelled from his position at Lafayette and he returned to Michigan. Just prior to his return, he had an affair with established poet and critic Louise Bogan, who later became one of his strongest early supporters.^[4] While teaching at Michigan State University in East Lansing, he began to suffer from manic depression, which fueled his poetic impetus. His last teaching position was at the University of Washington, leading to an association with the poets of the American Northwest.

Some of his best known students included James Wright, Carolyn Kizer, Jack Gilbert, Richard Hugo, and David Wagoner.^[5]

In 1953, Roethke married Beatrice O'Connell, a former student. Like many other American poets of his generation, Roethke was a heavy drinker and susceptible, as mentioned, to bouts of mental illness. He did not inform O'Connell of his repeated episodes of depression, yet she remained dedicated to him and his work. She ensured the posthumous publication of his final volume of poetry, The Far Field, which includes the poem "Meditation at Oyster River."

In 1961, "The Return" was featured on George Abbe's album Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry on Folkways Records. The following year, Roethke released his own album on the label entitled, Words for the Wind: Poems of Theodore Roethke.^[6]

He suffered a heart attack in his friend S. Rasnics' swimming pool in 1963 and died on Bainbridge Island, Washington, aged 55. The pool was later filled in and is now a zen rock garden, which can be viewed by the public at the Bloedel Reserve, a 150-acre (60 hectare) former private estate. There is no sign to indicate that the rock garden was the site of Roethke's death.

There is a sign that commemorates his boyhood home and burial in Saginaw, Michigan. The historical marker notes in part:

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) wrote of his poetry: The greenhouse "is my symbol for the whole of life, a womb, a heaven-on-earth." Roethke drew inspiration from his childhood experiences of working in his family's Saginaw floral company. Beginning is 1941 with Open House, the distinguished poet and teacher published extensively, receiving a Pulitzer Prize for poetry and two National Book Awards among an array of honors. In 1959 Pennsylvania University awarded him the Bollingen Prize. Roethke taught at Michigan State College, (present-day Michigan State University) and at colleges in Pennsylvania and Vermont, before joining the faculty of the University of Washington at Seattle in 1947. Roethke died in Washington in 1963. His remains are interred in Saginaw's Oakwood Cemetery.^[7]

The Friends of Theodore Roethke Foundation maintains his birthplace at 1805 Gratiot in Saginaw as a museum.

In 1995, the Seattle alley between Seventh and Eighth Avenues N.E. running from N.E. 45th Street to N.E. 47th Street was named Roethke Mews in his honor. It adjoins the Blue Moon Tavern, one of Roethke's haunts. ^[8]

Critical responses[link]

The poet Stanley Kunitz said of Roethke, "The poet of my generation who meant most to me, in his person and in his art, was Theodore Roethke."^[9]

W. H. Auden called [Roethke's first book] Open House "completely successful." In another review of the book, Elizabeth Drew felt "his poems have a controlled grace of movement and his images the utmost precision; while in the expression of a kind of gnomic wisdom which is peculiar to him as he attains an austerity of contemplation and a pared, spare strictness of language very unusual in poets of today." Roethke kept both Auden's and Drew's reviews, along with other favorable reactions to his work. As he remained sensitive to how peers and others he respected should view his poetry, so too did he remain sensitive to his introspective drives as the source of his creativity. Understandably, critics picked up on the self as the predominant preoccupation in Roethke's poems.^[10]

Roethke's breakthrough book, The Lost Son, also won him considerable praise. For instance, Michael Harrington felt "Roethke found his own voice and central themes in The Lost Son and Stanley Kunitz saw a "confirmation that he was in full possession of his art and of his vision." ^[11]In Against Oblivion, an examination of forty-five twentieth century poets, the critic Ian Hamilton also praised this book, writing, "In Roethke's second book, The Lost Son, there are several of these greenhouse poems and they are among the best things he wrote; convincing and exact, and rich in loamy detail."^[12]

In addition to the well-known greenhouse poems, the Poetry Foundation notes that Roethke also won praise "for his love poems which first appeared in The Waking and earned their own section in the new book [and] 'were a distinct departure from the painful excavations of the monologues and in some respects a return to the strict stanzaic forms of the earliest work,' [according to the poet] Stanley Kunitz. [The critic] Ralph Mills described 'the amatory verse' as a blend of 'consideration of self with qualities of eroticism and sensuality; but more important, the poems introduce and maintain a fascination with something beyond the self, that is, with the figure of the other, or the beloved woman.'"^[13]

Though not definitive, Roethke: Collected Poems is a major book of poetry. It reveals the full extent of Roethke's achievement: his ability to perceive reality in terms of the tensions between inner and outer worlds, and to find a meaningful system of metaphor with which to communicate this perception.... It also points up his weaknesses: the derivative quality of his less successful verse, the limited areas of concern in even his best poems. The balance, it seems to me, is in Roethke's favor.... He is one of our finest poets, a human poet in a world that threatens to turn man into an object." ^[14]

Bibliography[link]

• Open House (1941)
• The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)
• Praise to the End! (1951)
• The Waking (1953)
• Words For The Wind (1958)
• I Am! Says The Lamb (1961)
• Party at the Zoo" (1963) (A Modern Masters Book for Children, illustrated by Al Swiller)
• The Far Field (1964)
• Dirty Dinky and Other Creatures: Poems for Children (1973)
• On Poetry and Craft: Selected Prose and Craft of Theodore Roethke (Copper Canyon Press, 2001)
• Straw for the Fire: From the Notebooks of Theodore Roethke, 1943-63 (1972; Copper Canyon Press, 2006) (selected and arranged by David Wagoner)

Filmography[link]

• I Remember Theodore Roethke (2005). Produced and edited by Jean Walkinshaw. SCCtv (Seattle Community Colleges Television). 30 min.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Theodore Roethke

• Roethke at NNDB
• Theodore Roethke at Find-a-Grave
• Works by or about Theodore Roethke in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Friends of Roethke page
• The short film In a Dark Time (1964) is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
• Brief biography at Washington State History
• "Theodore Roethke Remembered"
• "Theodore Roethke Michigan's Poet" by Linda Robinson Walker at Michigan Today (Summer 2001)
• Roethke at the Modern American Poetry Site
• "Salvaged Poems of Theodore Roethke: recollected by an old friend" ArtsEditor.com
• Brief profile at PBS
• Roethke Memorial Poetry Readings at University of Washington
• "Roethke's Revisions And The Tone Of 'My Papa's Waltz'"
• Stanley Kunitz on his friend Theodore Roethke

Ewan McGregor
McGregor at the Venice Film Festival in 2009
Born	Ewan Gordon McGregor (1971-03-31) 31 March 1971 (age 41) Perth, Scotland
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1993–present
Spouse	Eve Mavrakis (1995–present)
Children	4

Ewan Gordon McGregor (born 31 March 1971) is a Scottish actor who has had success in mainstream, indie, and art house films. He is perhaps best known for his roles as heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama Trainspotting (1996), Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999–2005), poet Christian in the musical film Moulin Rouge! (2001), and storyteller Edward Bloom in Tim Burton's Big Fish (2003). He has also received critical acclaim for his starring roles in theatre productions of Guys and Dolls (2005–07) and Othello (2007–08). McGregor was ranked No. 36 on Empire magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list in 1997.^[1]

Early life[link]

Born in the Royal Infirmary in Perth, Scotland, McGregor was brought up in the nearby small town of Crieff, where he attended the independent Morrison's Academy. His mother, Carole Diane (née Lawson), is a teacher and school administrator, and his father, James Charles Stewart "Jim" McGregor, is a physical education teacher.^[2][3] He has an older brother, Colin, who is a former Tornado GR4 pilot in the Royal Air Force.^[4][5] He is the nephew of actor Denis Lawson and the late actress Sheila Gish, and the step-cousin of the late actress Lou Gish.^[6] McGregor studied drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.^[6]

Career[link]

Film and television[link]

In 1993, six months prior to his graduation from Guildhall, McGregor won a leading role in Dennis Potter's six-part Channel 4 series Lipstick on Your Collar.^[6] That same year, he starred in the BBC adaptation of Scarlet and Black with a young Rachel Weisz, and made his film debut in Bill Forsyth's Being Human.^[7] In 1994, McGregor earned critical praise for his performance in the thriller Shallow Grave, for which he won an Empire Award,^[8] and which marked his first collaboration with director Danny Boyle.^[6] His international breakthrough followed in 1996 with the role of heroin addict Mark Renton in Boyle's Trainspotting, an adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel of the same name.^[6][7] The film was the first of several times that McGregor would appear nude on screen; he told The Scotsman in 2003 that audiences in the United States are "a bit worried about seeing my old chap", referring to his foreskin and the cultural influence of infant circumcision in the U.S.

McGregor at the premiere of The Men Who Stare at Goats at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2009

McGregor played the male romantic lead in the 1998 British film Little Voice. In 1999, McGregor starred in the blockbuster Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace as the young Obi-Wan Kenobi, a role originally made famous by Sir Alec Guinness in the original Star Wars trilogy.^[6] By appearing in Star Wars, he continued a family tradition of sorts: his uncle, Denis Lawson, had played Wedge Antilles in the original trilogy.^[9] In 2001, he starred in Moulin Rouge! as the young poet Christian, who falls in love with the terminally-ill courtesan Satine, played by Nicole Kidman. McGregor reprised his role of Obi-Wan Kenobi for the subsequent prequel Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones in 2002. In 2003, he starred alongside Renée Zellweger in Down With Love,^[6][10]. He also portrayed the younger Edward Bloom in the critically acclaimed film Big Fish alongside Albert Finney, Jessica Lange, Alison Lohman and Billy Crudup. During that year, he also received critical acclaim for his portrayal of an amoral drifter mixed up with murder in the drama Young Adam, which co-starred Tilda Swinton.^[11][12]

In 2005, McGregor appeared for the final time as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. He took very special care—especially in Revenge of the Sith—to ensure that his portrayal of Obi-Wan's mannerisms, speech timings, and accents closely resembled Alec Guinness' version.^[13] That same year, McGregor lent his voice to two successful animated features; he played the robot Rodney Copperbottom in Robots, which also featured the voices of Halle Berry and Robin Williams,^[14] and he voiced the lead character in Gary Chapman's Valiant, alongside Jim Broadbent, John Cleese and Ricky Gervais.^[15] Also in 2005, McGregor played two roles—one a clone of the other—opposite Scarlett Johansson in Michael Bay's The Island, and he appeared in Marc Forster's Stay, a psychological thriller co-starring Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling.^[16][17]

McGregor was offered the role of James Bond in the 2006 reboot Casino Royale, but he turned it down because he feared becoming typecast.^[18] In 2006, he narrated the Fulldome production Astronaut, created for the National Space Centre.^{[citation needed]} That same year, he also narrated the STV show JetSet, a six-part series following the lives of student pilots and navigators at RAF Lossiemouth as they undergo a gruelling six-month course learning to fly the Tornado GR4, the RAF's primary attack aircraft.^[19] In 2007, McGregor starred opposite Colin Farrell in the Woody Allen film Cassandra's Dream.^[7][20] In 2009, he co-starred with Jim Carrey in I Love You Phillip Morris and appeared in Amelia alongside Hilary Swank. Also in 2009, he portrayed Camerlengo Patrick McKenna in Angels & Demons, the film adaptation of Dan Brown's novel of the same name. McGregor is scheduled to co-star with Daniel Craig in Dan Harris' upcoming film adaptation of Glen Duncan's novel I, Lucifer.^[21]

In 2012, he was named as a member of the Jury for the Main Competition at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.^[22]

Theatre[link]

From November 1998 to March 1999, McGregor starred as Malcolm Scrawdyke in a production of David Halliwell's Little Malcolm and His Struggles Against the Eunuchs, directed by his uncle, Denis Lawson. The play was first staged at the Hampstead Theatre before transferring to the Comedy Theatre in London's West End.^[23] In November 2001, McGregor made a cameo appearance in The Play What I Wrote.^[24]

From June 2005 to April 2007, McGregor starred alongside Jane Krakowski, Douglas Hodge, and Jenna Russell in the original Donmar Warehouse production of Guys and Dolls at the Piccadilly Theatre in London.^[25] He played the leading role of Sky Masterson, made famous by Marlon Brando in the film of the same name. McGregor received the LastMinute.com award for Best Actor for his performance in 2005,^[26] and he was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical in 2007.^[27]

From December 2007 to February 2008, McGregor starred as Iago in Othello at the Donmar Warehouse alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor as Othello and Kelly Reilly as Desdemona.^[28][29] He reprised the role on BBC Radio 3 in May 2008.^[28]

Motorcycle journeys[link]

A keen motorcyclist since his youth, McGregor undertook a marathon international motorcycle trip with his best friend Charley Boorman and cameraman Claudio von Planta in 2004. From mid-April to the end of July, they travelled from London to New York via central Europe, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Siberian Russia, and Canada on BMW R1150GS Adventure motorcycles, for a cumulative distance of 22,345 miles (35,960 km).^[30] The trip formed the basis of a television series and a best-selling book, both called Long Way Round.^[31]

The Long Way Round team reunited in 2007 for another motorcycle trip from John o' Groats in Scotland to Cape Town in South Africa.^[31] The journey, entitled Long Way Down, lasted from 12 May until 5 August 2007.^[31] McGregor's brother Colin joined the motorcycle team during the early stages of the Long Way Down journey,^[4][31] and his father Jim also rode on sections of both Long Way Round and Long Way Down.^[32][33]

In September 2010, Charley Boorman stated that a third installment of the Long Way series was planned for 2011, riding from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska; this has not taken place, however.

McGregor appeared in a two-part BBC documentary in April 2012 entitled Ewan McGregor: Cold Chain Mission in which he travels by motorbike, boat, plane and foot to deliver vaccines to children in remote parts of India, Nepal and the Republic of Congo. The trip was part of his work as a UNICEF Ambassador.

Personal life[link]

McGregor is married to Eve Mavrakis, a French production designer.^[6] They have four daughters, Clara Mathilde McGregor (born February 1996), Esther Rose McGregor (born 7 November 2001), Jamiyan McGregor (born June 2001 in Mongolia; adopted April 2006),^[34] and Anouk McGregor (born January 2011).^[35][36][37] McGregor has a heart and dagger tattoo of the names of his wife and daughters on his right arm.^[10][38] The family currently resides in Los Angeles, California, after moving from London.^[39]

McGregor is involved in charity work, including with UNICEF and GO Campaign. During the Long Way Round journey in 2004, McGregor and his travelling companions took time out to see some of UNICEF's work in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia,^[31] and during the Long Way Down trip in 2007, he and Charley Boorman did work for UNICEF in Africa. McGregor hosted the annual Hollywood gala for GO Campaign in 2009 and 2010. He has also worked with the Children's Hospice Association Scotland, as featured in Long Way Down. In 2012 McGregor travelled with UNICEF immunisation workers to remote parts of India, Nepal and the Republic of Congo for a BBC2 documentary entitled Ewan McGregor: Cold Chain Mission.

In 2007, on an episode of Parkinson, McGregor stated that he had given up alcohol after a period where he was arguably a functioning alcoholic, and that he had not had a drink in seven years.^[40] In 2008, he had a cancerous mole removed from underneath his right eye.^[41]

Filmography[link]

Discography[link]

• "Choose Life" with PF Project, Trainspotting#2: Music from the Motion Picture, Vol. #2, 1997.
• "TV Eye" with Wylde Ratttz, Velvet Goldmine: Music from the Original Motion Picture, 1999.
• "Come What May" with Nicole Kidman, Moulin Rouge! Music from Baz Luhrmann's Film, 2001.
• "Elephant Love Medley" with Nicole Kidman, Moulin Rouge! Music from Baz Luhrmann's Film, 2001.
• "Your Song" with Alessandro Safina, Moulin Rouge! Music from Baz Luhrmann's Film, 2001.
• "Here's To Love" with Renée Zellweger, Down With Love: Music from and Included in the Motion Picture, 2003.
• "The Sweetest Gift", Unexpected Dreams – Songs From the Stars, 2006.
• "El Tango de Roxanne" with Jose Feliciano, Moulin Rouge! Music from Baz Luhrmann's Film, 2001.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Adams, Billy. Ewan McGregor: The Unauthorized Biography. Overlooks Press, 1999. ISBN 0-87951-704-2
• Bassom, David. Ewan McGregor: An Illustrated Story. Hamlyn, 1999. ISBN 0-600-59653-2
• Jones, Veda Boyd. Ewan McGregor. Facts On File Inc., 1999. ISBN 0-7910-5501-9
• Nickson, Chris. Ewan McGregor: An Unauthorized Biography. Macmillan, 1999. ISBN 0-312-96910-4
• Pendreigh, Brian. Ewan McGregor. Thunder's Mouth Press, 1999. ISBN 1-56025-239-1
• Robb, Brian J. Ewan McGregor: From Junkie to Jedi. Plexus, 1999. ISBN 0-85965-276-9

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ewan McGregor

• Ewan McGregor at the Internet Movie Database
• Ewan McGregor at Yahoo! Movies