Magnificent Obsession is a 1929 novel by Lloyd C. Douglas. It was one of four of his books that were eventually made into blockbuster motion pictures, the other three being The Robe, White Banners and The Big Fisherman.
Robert Merrick is resuscitated by a rescue crew after a boating accident. The crew is thus unable to save the life of Dr. Hudson, a physician renowned for his ability to help people, who was having a heart attack at the same time on the other side of the lake. Merrick then decides to devote his life to making up for the doctor's, and becomes a physician himself.
The book's plot portrays Mrs. Hudson, the widow, moving to Europe after her daughter, Joyce, is married. Merrick progresses in his career, and in the story's climax, gets involved in a railway accident in which Mrs. Hudson suffers serious injury. Merrick is instrumental in her recovery.
The movie differs from the book in that before deciding to become a surgeon, Merrick not only alienates the physician's widow, with whom he has fallen in love, but also causes another tragedy. This makes him totally re-evaluate his life, and at that point, he decides to enter medicine.
Magnificent Obsession is a 1954 Universal-International Technicolor romantic feature film directed by Douglas Sirk; starring Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson. The screenplay was written by Robert Blees and Wells Root, after the 1929 book Magnificent Obsession by Lloyd C. Douglas. The film was produced by Ross Hunter. Sirk sometimes claimed that the story was based distantly on the Greek legend of Alcestis.
In 1935 Universal Studios introduced Magnificent Obsession starring Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor, based on Lloyd C. Douglas' book.
Spoiled playboy Bob Merrick's (Rock Hudson) reckless behavior causes him to lose control of his speed boat. Rescuers send for the nearest resuscitator, located in Dr. Phillips's house across the lake. While the resuscitator is being used to save Merrick, Dr. Phillips suffers a heart attack and dies. Merrick ends up a patient at Dr. Phillips's clinic, where most of the doctors and nurses resent the fact that Merrick inadvertently caused Dr. Phillips's death.
Magnificent Obsession is the second and final studio album from 1980s pop-rock act Cellarful of Noise, a solo project of Mark Avsec of Donnie Iris fame. The album was released in March 1988, with some of the tracks featuring Donnie Iris on vocals.
In the mid-1980s, Donnie Iris and the Cruisers released the album No Muss...No Fuss. By this point the band began to split into different directions. During that same year, in 1985, Mark Avsec released a solo project under the moniker Cellarful of Noise. Even after releasing the eponymous debut album that same year, Avsec and Iris maintained that Donnie Iris and the Cruisers was still their main focus, and that they wanted to continue to release new albums with the band and its new line-up. The band returned to the studio in 1986 and recorded a new album titled Cruise Control; however, a lawsuit with the band's former label MCA resulted in the shelving of that album pending the resolution of the lawsuit. It still remains unreleased. With the HME label going out of business, the band became an unsigned act. Since the band had hit a road block, Avsec began work on the second Cellarful of Noise album, Magnificent Obsession, despite the debut release failing to make any commercial impact. He approached Iris to help on the project, and he provided lead vocals on a selection of tracks, as well as co-writing a couple of tracks. Alan Greene once more contributed guitar parts, like on the debut album, while Avsec's Marty Lee, from the Cruisers, also added some guitar. Released in 1988, the album produced a moderately successful single, "Samantha (What You Gonna Do)", which reached #69 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in April 1988. Afterwards Avsec backed away from the music scene again as a solo act, and has since continued to perform and record with Iris as well as pursue his full-time business as an entertainment lawyer.
We all know love is free
But gets you fried chicken
I hear those people ring
Conversation, listen
A false security
Breezes of the past
Impossibility
Reminds us of what's best
Lost in topography
Each with our possessions
Those difficult days
A butcher of our conscience
A public enemy
That reaches for our guts and heart
A possibility
A magnificent obsession
A possibility