Plot
Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick, a 19th-century Englishman afflicted with a disfiguring congenital disease. With the help of kindly Dr. Frederick Treves, Merrick attempts to regain the dignity he lost after years spent as a side-show freak.
Keywords: 1800s, 1880s, 19th-century, 23rd-psalm, actor-shares-first-name-with-character, actress, animal-in-title, artist, avant-garde, based-on-book
I am not an animal! I am a human being! I...am...a man!
Mrs. Kendal: Why, Mr. Merrick, you're not an elephant man at all.::John Merrick: Oh no?::Mrs. Kendal: Oh no... no... you're a Romeo.
Dr. Frederick Treves: Am I a good man? Or a bad man?
John Merrick: I am not an elephant! I am not an animal! I am a human being! I am a man!
Carr Gomm: Can you imagine the kind of life he must have had?::Dr. Frederick Treves: Yes, I think I can.::Carr Gomm: I don't think so. No one could possibly imagine it! I don't believe any of us can!
Mothershead: Sir! I don't quite... I don't quite understand why it is you allow that sort of people in there.::Dr. Frederick Treves: Why? Because he enjoys it, and I think it's very good for him.::Mothershead: Yes, but, sir, you saw the expression on their faces. They didn't hide their disgust. They don't care anything about John! They only want to impress their friends!::Dr. Frederick Treves: I think you're being rather harsh on them, don't you, Mrs. Mothershead?::Mothershead: I beg your pardon!::Dr. Frederick Treves: You yourself hardly showed him much loving kindness when he first arrived, did you?::Mothershead: I bathed him, I fed him, and I cleaned up after him, didn't I? And I see that my nurses do the same. And if loving kindness can be called care and practical concern, then I did show him loving kindness, and I am not ashamed to admit it!
John Merrick: There's something I've been meaning to ask you for some time now.::Dr. Frederick Treves: What's that?::John Merrick: Can you cure me?::Dr. Frederick Treves: No. We can care for you, but we can't cure you.::John Merrick: [matter-of-factly] No. I thought not.
John Merrick: People are frightened by what they don't understand.
Bytes: Life!... is full of surprises. Consider the fate of this creature's poor mother, struck down in the fourth month of her maternal condition by an elephant, a wild elephant. Struck down!... on an uncharted African isle. The result is plain to see... Ladies and gentlemen... The terrible... Elephant... Man...
Dr. Fox: Have you ever mentioned his mental state?::Dr. Frederick Treves: Oh, he's an imbecile, probably from birth. Man's a complete idiot... Pray to God he's an idiot.
Plumed Dwarf: Luck, my friend, luck. Who needs it more than we?
In pantomime, a principal boy role is the young male protagonist of the play, traditionally played by a young actress in boy's clothes.
The tradition grew out of laws restricting the use of child actors in London theatre, and the responsibility carried by such lead roles. A Breeches role was also a rare opportunity for an early 20th Century actress to wear a revealing costume, potentially increasing the size of the audience The practice of having a female play the principal boy was becoming less common in the late 20th century, as further outlets were sought for the talents of young male pop stars and actors.[citation needed]
Although not written as a pantomime, Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up is often produced as one with the tradition of a female principal boy continuing.
Jamie Principle is a house music artist and producer born in Chicago, Illinois. He is one of the early pioneers of house music when the genre first began in Chicago during the early 1980s. Principle later began having entries on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in the early 1990s, including "Cold World", a #22 dance hit that is a collaboration with Steve "Silk" Hurley, the classic "You're All I Waited For" on the Smash Records label, or with CeCe Peniston's song "I'm Not Over You" (No.2 in US Dance, No.10 in US R&B) that he would co-write.
Principle's 1984 song "Your Love" is recognised as one of the first house songs. The lyrics of the song come from a poem that Jamie Principle wrote for his girlfriend at the time, Lisa Harris. Jamie added the music and recorded the song at home on his four track recorder. A friend of his, Jose Gomez decided to record the song onto tape and give a copy to a DJ that he knew named Frankie Knuckles. Knuckles liked the song and played it regularly at a Chicago dance club called The Power Plant. It continued to be a sensation in the city's underground clubs for over a year before finally being released on Persona records as a 12" single. Its success before an official release was entirely due to the song being played in Chicago house music clubs, then copied onto tape by fans, and eventually circulating throughout the underground scene.
Boy George (born George Alan O'Dowd on 14 June 1961) is an English singer-songwriter, who was part of the English New Romanticism movement which emerged in the early 1980s. His music is often classified as blue-eyed soul, which is influenced by rhythm and blues and reggae. His 1990s and 2000s-era solo music has glam influences such as David Bowie and Iggy Pop. He also founded and was lead singer of Jesus Loves You during the period 1989–1992. Being involved in many activities (among them songwriting, DJing, writing books, designing clothes and photography), he has released fewer music recordings in the last decade.
Boy George was born George Alan O'Dowd at Barnehurst Hospital in Bexley, Kent on 14 June 1961, to Jeremiah and Dinah O'Dowd (née Glynn), who were originally from Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland. He attended Eltham Green School in Eltham. He is one of six children. His siblings are Richard, Kevin, David, Gerald, and Siobhan.
He was a follower of the New Romantic movement which was popular in Britain in the early 1980s. George frequently lived at the infamous Warren Street Squat in Central London. George and his friend Marilyn were regulars at The Blitz, a trendy London nightclub run by Steve Strange of the group Visage. George and Marilyn also worked at the nightclub as cloakroom attendants.[citation needed]
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III ( /ˈlɪmbɔː/; born January 12, 1951) is an American radio talk show host and political commentator. Since he was 16 Limbaugh has worked a series of disc jockey jobs. His talk show began in 1984 at Sacramento radio station KFBK, featuring his ongoing format of political commentary and listener calls. In 1988 Limbaugh began broadcasting his show nationally from radio station WABC in New York, New York. He currently lives in West Palm Beach, Florida, from where he broadcasts the The Rush Limbaugh Show, the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United States.
In the 1990s Limbaugh's books The Way Things Ought to Be (1992) and See, I Told You So (1993) made The New York Times Best Seller list. Limbaugh frequently criticizes, in his books and on his show, what he regards as liberal policies and politicians, as well as what he perceives as a pervasive liberal bias in major U.S. media.
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III was born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, the son of Mildred Carolyn "Millie" (née Armstrong) and Rush Hudson Limbaugh, Jr. His father was a lawyer and a U.S. fighter pilot who served in the China Burma India Theater of World War II. His mother was a native of Searcy, Arkansas. The name "Rush" was originally chosen for his grandfather to honor the maiden name of family member Edna Rush.
Tarja Soile Susanna Turunen Cabuli (born August 17, 1977) is a Finnish singer-songwriter and composer. She is a full lyric soprano and has a vocal range of three octaves.
Turunen studied singing at Sibelius Academy and Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe. She is well known as a professional classical lied singer but best known as the former lead vocalist of the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish, which she founded with Tuomas Holopainen and Erno Vuorinen in 1996. Their combination of hard and fast guitar riffs with Turunen's classical lead vocals quickly achieved critical and commercial popularity. Their symphonic metal style, soon dubbed "opera metal", inspired many other metal bands and singers.
Turunen was dismissed from the band on October 21, 2005 for personal reasons. She started her solo career in 2006 with the release of a Christmas album called Henkäys Ikuisuudesta. In 2007, Turunen released My Winter Storm, an album featuring various styles, including alternative rock and symphonic metal and started the Storm World Tour. Turunen released her third album, What Lies Beneath, in 2010. She performed several concerts in Europe, playing in metal festivals including the Graspop Metal Meeting and the Wacken Open Air, before starting the What Lies Beneath World Tour, scheduled to last until April 2012.