Alex North

Alex North (December 4, 1910 – September 8, 1991) was an American composer best known for his many film scores, including A Streetcar Named Desire (one of the first jazz-based film scores), Viva Zapata!, Spartacus, Cleopatra, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. He was the first composer to receive an Honorary Academy Award.

Early life

North was born Isadore Soifer in Chester, Pennsylvania to Russian Jewish parents.

Career

North managed to integrate his modernism into typical film music leitmotif structure, rich with themes. One of these became the famous song, "Unchained Melody". Nominated for fifteen Oscars but unsuccessful each time, North is one of only two film composers to receive the Lifetime Achievement Academy Award, the other being Ennio Morricone. North's frequent collaborator as orchestrator was the avant-garde composer Henry Brant. He won the 1968 Golden Globe award for his music to The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968).

His best-known film scores include A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, Viva Zapata!, The Rainmaker, Spartacus, The Misfits, Cleopatra, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Dragonslayer and Under the Volcano. His music for The Wonderful Country makes use of Mexican and American motifs.

North

North is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. North is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west.

Etymology

The word north is related to the Old High German nord, both descending from the Proto-Indo-European unit ner-, meaning "down" (or "under"). (Presumably a natural primitive description of its concept is "to the left of the rising sun".)

The Latin word borealis comes from the Greek boreas "north wind, north", which, according to Ovid, was personified as the son of the river-god Strymon, the father of Calais and Zetes. Septentrionalis is from septentriones, "the seven plow oxen", a name of Ursa Maior. The Greek arktikos is named for the same constellation, and is the derivation of the English word "Arctic".

Other languages have sometimes more interesting derivations. For example, in Lezgian, kefer can mean both 'disbelief' and 'north', since to the north of the Muslim Lezgian homeland there are areas formerly inhabited by non-Muslim Caucasian and Turkic peoples. In many languages of Mesoamerica, "north" also means "up". In Hungarian the word for north is észak, which is derived from éjszaka ("night"), since above the Tropic of Cancer, the Sun never shines from the north.

Alex

Alex is a common name used in multiple languages. In English, it is usually a diminutive of the male given name Alexander, or its female equivalent Alexandra or Alexandria. Aleck or Alec is the Scottish form of Alex. The East European male name Alexey (Aleksei, Alexis, Aleksa) is also sometimes shortened to Alex. It is a commonly used nickname in Spanish for Alejandro, Alexandro, Alejandrino and Alexandrino, and related names like Alexa and Alexis.

People whose first name is Alex

Robbie Robertson

Jaime Royal "Robbie" Robertson,OC (born July 5, 1943), is a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist best known for his work as lead guitarist and primary songwriter for the Band. As a songwriter, he is credited for "The Weight", "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", "Up on Cripple Creek", "Broken Arrow", "Somewhere down the Crazy River" and many others. He has been inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and was ranked 59th in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 greatest guitarists.

Biography

Early life

Robertson was born Jaime Royal Robertson. His mother, Rosemarie Myke Chrysler, was Mohawk, born and raised on the Six Nations Reservation. His father was a Jewish professional gambler. Robertson has said that both traditions have influenced his religious outlook. His father died in a hit-and-run accident when Robbie was a young child, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. and his mother later married James Patrick Robertson, who adopted Robbie and whose surname Robbie took. He had his earliest exposure to music at Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation, where he spent summers with his mother's family.

The Bad Seed

The Bad Seed is a 1954 novel by American writer William March, the last of his major works published before his death.

Nominated for the 1955 National Book Award for Fiction, The Bad Seed tells the story of a mother's realization that her young daughter has committed a murder, or two. Its enormous critical and commercial success was largely realized after March's death only one month after publication.

In 1954 the novel was adapted into a successful and long-running Broadway play by Maxwell Anderson, and in 1956 into an Academy Award-nominated film directed by Mervyn LeRoy.

Plot summary

Eight-year-old Rhoda Penmark appears to be what every little girl brought up in a loving home should be. Outwardly, she is charming, polite and intelligent beyond her years. To most adults, she's every parent's dream: obedient, well groomed, unassuming and compliant. She does her homework on time, gets good grades and attends Sunday school each and every week. However, most children who know Rhoda keep their distance from her, sensing that there is something not quite right about her.