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.

The Tonight Show

The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show broadcast from the Rockefeller Center in New York City and airing on NBC since 1954. It is the world's longest-running talk show, and the longest running, regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States. It is the third-longest-running show on NBC, after only the news-and-talk shows Today and Meet the Press.

Over the course of more than 60 years, The Tonight Show has undergone only minor title changes. It aired under the name Tonight for several of its early years, eventually settling on The Tonight Show after the seating of long-time host Johnny Carson in 1962. In later decades, network programmers, advertisers, and the show's announcers would refer to the show by including the name of the host; for example, it is currently announced as The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. In 1957, the show briefly tried a more news-style format. It has otherwise remained a talk show throughout its run.

The Tonight Show began broadcasting in 1954. It has had six official hosts, beginning with Steve Allen (1954–57), followed by Jack Paar (1957–62), Johnny Carson (1962–92), Jay Leno (1992–2009, 2010–14), Conan O'Brien (2009–10), and Jimmy Fallon (2014–present). It has had several recurring guest hosts, a practice especially common during the Paar and Carson eras.

Jimmy Fallon

James Thomas "Jimmy" Fallon (born September 19, 1974) is an American comedian, television host, actor, singer, writer, and producer. He is known for his work in television as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and as the host of late-night talk show The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. He was born in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and raised in Saugerties, New York. He grew up with an interest in comedy and music, moving to Los Angeles at 21 to pursue stand-up opportunities.

He was commissioned to join NBC's Saturday Night Live as a cast member in 1998, fulfilling a lifelong dream. Fallon remained on SNL for six years between 1998 and 2004, co-hosting the program's Weekend Update segment and becoming a celebrity in the process. He left the program for the film industry, starring in films such as Taxi (2004) and Fever Pitch (2005). Following his film career, Fallon returned to television as the host of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on NBC in 2009, where he became well known for his emphasis on music and games. He transitioned from that program to become the sixth host of the long-running The Tonight Show in 2014.

Jamie Dornan

James "Jamie" Dornan (born 1 May 1982) is a Northern Irish actor, model, and musician. He played Axel von Fersen in Sofia Coppola's film Marie Antoinette (2006), Sheriff Graham Humbert in the ABC series Once Upon a Time, serial killer Paul Spector in the BBC Two crime drama series The Fall, and the eponymous character, Christian Grey, in the film Fifty Shades of Grey (2015).

Early life

Dornan was born in Holywood, County Down, Northern Ireland, and grew up in the suburbs of Belfast. He has two older sisters: Liesa, who works for Disney in London, and Jessica, a fashion designer based in Falmouth, England. His father, Professor Jim Dornan, is an obstetrician and gynaecologist who had also considered becoming an actor. Dornan was 16 when his mother, Lorna, died of cancer. Dornan is a first cousin, twice removed, of actress Greer Garson. His grandparents on both sides of his family were Methodist lay preachers.

He attended and boarded at Methodist College Belfast, where he played rugby and participated in the drama department. He later attended Teesside University but dropped out and moved to London to train as an actor.

September Song

"September Song" is an American pop standard composed by Kurt Weill, with lyric by Maxwell Anderson, introduced by Walter Huston in the 1938 Broadway musical Knickerbocker Holiday. It has since been recorded by numerous singers and instrumentalists. It was also used in the 1950 film September Affair, and for the credits in the television series May to December (a quote from the opening line of the song).

Origins

The song originated from Walter Huston's request that he should have one solo song in Knickerbocker Holiday, if he was going to play the role of the aged dictator Peter Stuyvesant. Anderson and Weill wrote the song specifically for Huston's gruff voice and limited vocal range, in a couple of hours.

Knickerbocker Holiday was roughly based on Washington Irving's "Father Knickerbocker's History of New York," set in New Amsterdam in 1647. It is a political allegory attacking the New Deal through the semi–fascist government of New Amsterdam with a corrupt governor, Peter Stuyvesant, and corrupt councilmen. It also involves a minor love triangle with a young woman forced to marry Stuyvesant while loving another. The musical enjoyed only moderate success and closed in April 1939 after six months. "September Song" was seldom recorded in the 1940s, with recordings by Bing Crosby (1943) and Frank Sinatra (1946) being the most notable. But after Huston's version was used in the 1950 film September Affair, and reached number one on the pop music chart (see below), the song quickly became established as a modern standard, with many subsequent recordings.